The US stock market hits a high note: But families with minimum wage still live below the poverty line.

Horse meat goes from travesty to trendy in 60 seconds: "Paris chefs kick-start a horsemeat gastro-trend... 'There's definitely something going on - a kind of buzz,' says Dorian Nieto, food blogger, horse-meat aficionado, and author of La boucherie chevaline etait ouverte le lundi (The horse-butcher was open on Mondays), a celebration of horse-eating."

Seattle's port commission gets a new member: Will it be former governor Gregoire's daughter? Former House of Reps candidate Stephanie Bowman? Or...?

Sequestration: Maybe this public thought experiment isn't so bad after all—suddenly, people seem to give a shit about public spending on basic services.

Sequestration II: Another silver lining—maybe it'll ground the Blue Angels for awhile.

Sequestration III, or why it doesn't hurt yet: "The real deadline investors are watching is March 27, when current funding for government operations runs out. If Congress does nothing to authorize further funding, the government will shut down... Some investing firms have been telling their clients that any dip in the stock market triggered by political battles in Washington might be a good buying opportunity because a falling stock market might be the very thing that breaks the logjam in Washington and triggers action."

The narco-mayhem keeps on rolling: "Ten agricultural workers were slain in a melon patch in the state of Guerrero... In the border state of Chihuahua, gunmen killed the editor of an online newspaper Sunday in Ojinaga. And in Sinaloa state, local media reported that seven people, including four police officers, were slain at dawn Monday... Separately, authorities in rural Jalisco state reported finding two Bengal tigers and several deer at a suspected drug lab last week"

In Spain, squatting goes mainstream: "'Now, at the age of 65, I have suddenly become an activist.' She is sitting in a typical Spanish living room... with its crisp, geometric lines, sliding French doors and private balconies, the exterior of her building looks much like any other newly built urban apartment block. Look a little closer, though, and a different story is told. The afternoon sun shines down on concrete walls adorned with spraypainted banners and stencilled slogans, the most revealing of which reads: 'Ni gente sin casa, ni casas sin gente' (No people without houses, no houses without people)."

The Longshore Union is still trying to block that arena: "The International Longshore and Warehouse Union called a news conference Tuesday to announce it intends to appeal a judge's ruling that threw out their lawsuit."

What's in a sinkhole? "In the language of geologists, the process that causes sinkholes is 'the creation of a void which migrates towards the surface.'"

The pains of economic "development": "Incidents of land confiscation in Eastern Myanmar have increased by over 50 percent in the last year... The report also details numerous incidents of forced resettlement due to development, development projects without local support, and environmental damage caused by large-scale development projects."

Your French practice for today—a reggae cover of Plastic Bertrand: