Advance Notice for April 2–8

Migrant crisis, Wisconsin primary, Brazil politics, SpaceX

Welcome to the first issue of Advance Notice! Here’s a look ahead at next week’s stories with guidance from the Breaking News editorial team. (To receive Advance Notice in your email every week, sign up here).

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European migration crisis: The United Nations’ refugee agency warned today of worsening conditions in Greece, and particularly “hotspots” on its islands, ahead of Monday’s target date to begin deporting some migrants and refugees to Turkey. European Union member nations’ reactions to the Brussels attacks have added new worry as to whether key hurdles will be cleared in the 1:1 resettlement deal.

• We’re watching for flare-ups after rioting resulted in three stabbings overnight on the Greek island Samos. We’re also watching the disorder on Chios, where about 300 migrants broke out of a holding camp.
• There are also continued concerns about Turkey’s participation in the deal, including a new report stating that since January, Ankara has “illegally” sent about 100 refugees per day back to Syria. The European Commission says its migration policy chief will be in Ankara Sunday to help coordinate the returns.
• Mike Hills of BBC News has a Twitter list focused on coverage of the crisis, featuring journalists, aid groups and officials.

April snow for the U.S. Midwest, Northeast: Two rounds of snow are possible for these regions over the weekend and into the week, Weather.com reports. The first will start in the Great Lakes tonight into Saturday and then move toward New England. The second system is more uncertain, but could bring accumulating snow to the areas Monday into Tuesday.

Democracy March: What’s being billed by organizers as the “largest civil disobedience action of the century” kicks off with a 10-day march on Saturday from the Philadelphia Liberty Bell to Washington, D.C. The campaign aims to eliminate the role of “big money” in U.S. elections, and once marchers arrive in the capital, a sit-in and civil disobedience is promised to continue until Congress acts. We’ll be tracking the planned march route for news and turnout numbers.

MLB Opening Day: Baseball returns this weekend and, as it has it past years, it’s a bit of a stutter step. Traditionally, Monday is thought of as Opening Day, when all teams start equal. However, since the mid-1990s, Major League Baseball has scheduled a few Sunday games as well.

• This year those games start with the St. Louis Cardinals at the Pittsburgh Pirates, followed by three other Sunday evening pre-Opening Day games. For what it’s worth, Advance Notice prefers the traditional Monday start.

Nigerian schoolgirls kidnapped: The two-year anniversary of the kidnapping of 276 schoolgirls by Boko Haram militants in Chibok, Nigeria, comes on Monday as the group finds itself on the defensive amid speculation it is nearing surrender.

• Efforts to locate the 219 remaining girls continue to gain attention, including news this week that a would-be suicide bomber in Cameroon claimed to be one of the abducted.
• Meanwhile, a new report from Human Rights Watch calls on the Nigerian government to find a group of roughly 400 women and children taken from Damasak, Borno State, about six months after the Chibok kidnappings, saying, “The authorities need to wake up.”

NCAA basketball championship games: The men’s tournament ends Monday in Houston, and the women’s championship game is Tuesday in Indianapolis.

Brazil political crisis: Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff continues to stare down the possibility of being booted out of office as a committee of lawmakers considers a request for her impeachment. Rousseff’s support was significantly weakened after the PMDB, the country’s largest political party, voted to bolt from her governing coalition this week.

• The move puts Rousseff in the difficult position of gathering enough votes in the National Congress to fight the proceedings. We’re watching to see whether she pulls it off, or is, indeed, “The Richard Nixon of Brazil.”
• Also next week, Brazil’s Supreme Court is expected to decide whether to allow Rousseff’s appointment of ex-President Lula Da Silva as her chief of staff to go ahead. Lula, who is under federal investigation for corruption linked to the state oil firm Petrobras, would largely be protected from prosecution if he is able to take the position.

Vanderbilt rape case: One of four former Vanderbilt University football players charged with raping a woman in 2013 will stand trial alone on Monday, The Tennessean reports. Cory Batey was expected to face a retrial with former teammate Brandon Vandenburg, but the decision for separate trials was announced Tuesday. Both men were found guilty last year and a mistrial was later declared in June.

U.S. and NATO: President Obama will meet with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg in Washington on Monday to discuss a range of security matters, likely focusing on Islamic State, Russia’s deployment in Syria, and ongoing tension in Eastern Europe and Ukraine.

• The meeting follows an announcement from the Pentagon that it will deploy an armored brigade in Eastern Europe to deter Russian aggression and shore up NATO’s eastern frontier. It would be the first such deployment since the Cold War.
• The White House says Obama will stress unity in wake of the attacks in Brussels, where NATO is based. The two will also lay groundwork for the July NATO summit in Poland.

Wisconsin primary: On Tuesday, Wisconsinites head to the polls for their presidential primaries. And while the state doesn’t hold much of a bounty in terms of delegates — 42 for the GOP and 96 for Democrats — the Republican race could hand a new loss to Donald Trump.

• According to the latest Marquette University poll, Trump is trailing Ted Cruz by 10 points. A win won’t boost Cruz ahead of Trump in the race for the GOP nomination just yet, but it would indicate that the “anti-Trump” movement is making progress in heading toward a contested convention.
• Bernie Sanders currently leads Hillary Clinton by 4 points in the same Marquette poll, and a win would be a further boost after last weekend’s Western sweep. Still, a recent analysis indicates the “Bernie-miracle path” toward earning enough delegates to secure the nomination is a steep one.

World Health Day: The World Health Organization’s annual anniversary event Thursday will focus on diabetes, with a goal of prevention, improved care and increased surveillance. The group will launch its first global report on the chronic illness, which ties into its Global Action Plan to reduce early deaths from noncommunicable diseases by one-third by 2030.

Masters Golf: Hard on the heels of baseball’s Opening Day is the Masters Tournament in Augusta, Ga., which begins Thursday and runs four days.

• As of this late day, it remains uncertain whether Tiger Woods, who has won the event four times, will play. Golf’s superstar is recovering from a back procedure and has not announced if and when he’ll return to the tour. In any event, Jason Day, Jordan Spieth and Rory McIlroy are the new young favorites.

“Wizarding World’ comes to Hollywood: The popular “The Wizarding World of Harry Potter” at Universal Studios in Orlando has expanded to the Los Angeles location and opens Thursday. The NBCUniversal-owned parks saw a revenue increase in the last year, which was credited to the Orlando attraction. We’re watching the hashtag to monitor opening-day photos. Full disclosure: Breaking News is also owned by NBCUniversal.

• In other “Potter” news, the humble chair author J.K. Rowling sat on while writing the first two books of the series is up for auction on Wednesday.

Hotel mega-merger: Shareholders will meet Friday to decide on the proposed merger of Marriott International and Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide into what would be the world’s largest lodging company. Marriott had been in a bidding war with China’s Anbang Insurance Group for Starwood, but Anbang dropped out Thursday due to what an investor described as “price discipline.”

• The merger would help Marriott expand its business into Cuba, as Starwood has already received approval from the U.S. Treasury to operate hotels on the island nation. The possible merger also being watched as a major offensive against changes in the industry via services such as Airbnb.

SpaceX returns to ISS: NASA is scheduled to launch its next cargo run to the International Space Station on Friday at Cape Canaveral, Fla. This will be the first time SpaceX resupplies the station since its failed launch last June, during which the Falcon 9 rocket exploded shortly after takeoff.

• SpaceX’s Dragon capsule will dock at the space station for a couple of days, attaching an inflatable space habitat to essentially create a new room.

Get a jump on the news by following these stories in the Breaking News app.

Extended outlook:

April 11: Clinton Presidential Library deadline to release Donald Trump-related documents

April 12: Trial in fatal San Bruno, Calif., pipeline explosion begins

April 14: Ex-NYPD officer Peter Liang sentenced in fatal shooting of unarmed man

April 16: NBA playoffs begin

April 18: Oscar Pistorius sentencing for upgraded murder conviction

April 18: U.S. Supreme Court hears oral arguments in challenge to President Obama’s executive actions on immigration

April 21: Olympic torch lighting in Olympia, Greece

April 27: U.S. Supreme Court hears ex-Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell’s appeal of conviction on corruption charges

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