Three news stories summarized & contextualized by analytic journalist Colin Wright.
Baltimore bridge rescue efforts shift to recovery of 6 missing workers
Summary: The Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore collapsed after being struck by a large cargo ship at around 1:30am Tuesday morning; the ship seems to have lost power shortly before the collision, and six people who were working on the bridge when it collapsed are presumed dead.
Context: This is a developing story, as officials are still piecing together what happened, who was on the bridge when it fell, and the degree to which local and global economies will be impacted by this significant disruption to one of the US’s most active shipping ports, but at the moment it looks like this was an accident, that workers on the bridge managed to block traffic minutes before the collision, potentially saving a lot of lives, and that those who were on the bridge when it fell were likely killed, a rescue mission focused on saving them having pivoted to a recovery mission, aiming to find their bodies and those of anyone else who might have been on the bridge at that time.
—The New York Times
Senegal’s president-elect pledges to fight corruption after a stunning victory for the 44-year-old
Summary: A 44-year-old former tax inspector and political outsider named Bassirou Diomaye Faye has been elected president of Senegal, just two weeks after having been released from prison.
Context: Faye will be the youngest-ever president of the West African nation, and his ascension to the position has come as a surprise to pretty much everyone, as the main opposition leader, Ousmane Sonko pushed him into the limelight after himself being barred from office; Faye was in prison, alongside Sonko, for what were reportedly political reasons, and they were released as part of an amnesty effort by the incumbent president who was attempting to justify delaying the election until December and running for a third term in office, despite constitutional term limits; Faye ultimately won on a platform of fighting widespread corruption and reforming the economy, and that message seems to have resonated with young people in particular, about a third of whom are chronically unemployed.
—The Associated Press
Trump Media climbs 16% to $7.9 billion post-SPAC deal valuation
Summary: The holding company for Truth Social, a Twitter-clone partially owned by former President Trump, has successfully gone public via a special-purpose acquisition company, and the value of its stock has risen from its initial price.
Context: The resulting company, the Trump Media & Technology Group, which trades under a stock ticker using the former President’s initials, DJT, is being treated as a meme stock, as the business itself has never made a profit and has consistently burned through money, but now has a market value of nearly $8 billion, and Trump’s 60% stake in the business could increase his net-worth substantially; there’s a chance this could help the former president with a money crunch he’s facing related to court fines and expenses, though it’ll be tricky for him to sell or borrow money against stocks in any volume for months, based on current rules related to his trading activities.
—Bloomberg
The increase in average cargo ship size has proven to be an issue for a lot of now-antique infrastructure, globally, from canals to docks to bridges, and the collision of a cargo ship with a vital bridge in Baltimore is just the most recent (and dramatic) example of that ongoing problem.
—Yahoo News
$30 billion
Sum Visa and Mastercard (and the banks that issue cards with them) have agreed to pay (over the next five years) to settle a multi-decade case related to antitrust issues and their swipe fees.
The original lawsuit was filed in 2005, and the settlement deal still needs to be approved by the relevant district court (and there’s still an opportunity for appeals).
If this deal goes through as currently written, though, it’ll result in a small decrease in the fees merchants pay these companies every time a customer swipes their card to pay for something, alongside that fine.
—CNN
One Sentence News / March 28, 2024