Marketplace All-in-One

A bidding war may be taking off in the airline industry. In February, Spirit Airlines and Frontier announced a merger – two budget carriers becoming one. JetBlue has stepped in, saying it wants to buy Spirit instead and has the superior offer. A law that requires diversity on corporate boards has been coming under more scrutiny. 

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is now jumping with both feet into social media: He has acquired a 9.2% stake in Twitter and will join the company’s board of directors. As one of Twitter’s superusers, Musk has also been vocal on free speech and other issues. What can Twitter expect with his arrival on the board? President Biden is expected to extend the moratorium on student loan payments. We take a look at the war in Ukraine from the perspective of a Ukrainian gift shop in Chicago.

From the BBC World Service: As European Union leaders discuss a fifth round of sanctions against Russia, they’re under mounting pressure to take a hard look at their oil and gas imports. Plus: It’s not just governments taking action, companies have shut down their operations across Russia. Now French luxury brand Chanel is clamping down on who buys its goods. And, with the cost of living crisis continuing to worsen as a result of the war in Ukraine, new data show reliance on food banks in the U.K. is at an all-time high.

Folded among the big-ticket programs in President Joe Biden’s latest budget proposal is a small sliver — $88 million — to study and track space junk. That includes everything from defunct satellites to the debris caused from explosions in space. The president wants the Office of Space Commerce to ramp up its ability to track this stuff in real time. Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino speaks with Moriba Jah, chief scientist and co-founder of the space debris tracking company Privateer. Jah says scientists are currently tracking about 50,000 pieces of space debris, down to the size of a cellphone, and that there’s much, much more out there.

It’s been more than six months since Texas’ anti-abortion law went into effect. SB8 lets private citizens sue anyone who helped a pregnant person get an abortion after the six-week ban, which could come with a $10,000 payout.

Idaho just passed similar legislation, and other states are considering copycat laws, too. Some experts refer to these kinds of measures as “bounty hunter” bills, and they say there are aspects of them that are similar to the Fugitive Slave laws that required civilians help capture enslaved people and led to the Civil War.

“It’s not unconstitutional to create ways in which private citizens can enforce the law. What does start to offend the Constitution is when you are encouraging people to act as bounty hunters when other folks are exercising a constitutional right. That’s going to be a problem for us,” said Kim Mutcherson, co-dean and professor at Rutgers Law School in Camden, New Jersey.

Mutcherson said these laws allow private citizens to line their pockets while undermining constitutional rights, which is outside the mainstream of lawmaking in this country.

On the show today: the parallels between Fugitive Slave laws and civilian enforcement laws of today.

Later, we’ll talk about the cost of owning a home versus renting, and a revealing study about racial disparities and COVID-19.

Then we’ll hear from listeners about long COVID-19 and a twisted answer to the Make Me Smart question.

Here’s everything we talked about today:

The value of the ruble tanked under international sanctions after Russia invaded Ukraine. It’s since recovered, at least on paper. Today, we look into how the Kremlin manipulated supply and demand for its currency to keep it stable. Plus: The European Union proposes a Russian coal ban, the war in Ukraine boosts beer prices and the Great Resignation may actually be kinda normal.

The U.S. is ratcheting up the economic pressure on Russia by targeting its ability to make bond payments. So far, Russia has managed to avoid a default on sovereign debt. But, the Treasury Department has now started blocking Russia’s ability to access assets held at U.S. banks. Shipping costs rose to major heights during the pandemic, but they actually went down in March.

The term “disconnected youth” covers people from the age of 16 to 24 who are neither working nor in school. The U.S. actually had a declining youth disconnection rate over at least 10 years, but that all changed when the pandemic hit, according to a study from Measure of America of the Social Science Research Council. We spoke to Kristen Lewis, Measure of America’s director, about the study’s findings. We look into what another round of sanctions against Russia could look like after news of possible human rights violations surfaced. President Biden is looking to close a loophole in the Affordable Care Act.

From the BBC World Service: Four rounds of sanctions measures have already been approved against Russia since the start of the war in Ukraine. Plus, Sri Lanka’s newly appointed finance minister has resigned after less than 24 hours in the job. Protesters are increasing their calls for the country’s president to go amid the worst economic crisis in decades.

Microsoft and Hewlett Packard Enterprise announced Monday that they’ve partnered up with NASA to bring artificial intelligence to the International Space Station. The AI will be used to check astronaut gloves for damage. These gloves help maintain pressure and protect astronauts working at the station from extreme temperatures; a damaged glove is a big deal. Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino speaks with Stephen Kitay, senior director of Azure Space at Microsoft, who says this space tech is just the beginning.