Three news stories summarized & contextualized by analytic journalist Colin Wright.

Naira plunges 31%, brings currency closer to Nigeria street rate

Summary: Nigeria’s currency, the naira, has dropped to a record-low value against the US dollar after a change in the way exchange rates are determined went into effect.

Context: This is the second devaluation of the naira in just seven months, and it lowers the currency’s value by nearly a third, down to just over 1,400 naira to a dollar; this change brings the naira’s official value closer to its street value of around 1,450 to a dollar, and the idea is to reduce volatility related to low dollar liquidity in the country while at the same time controlling exchange market fluctuations and increasing transparency to ease some of the damage caused to local and global perception of the naira.

—Bloomberg

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House panel approves impeachment charges against Mayorkas

Summary: The Republican majority of the House Homeland Security Committee has voted, along party lines and without evidence, to recommend that the House impeach the US homeland security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas for his handling of security at the border between the US and Mexico.

Context: This is generally being seen as a means by which House Republicans can paint Biden’s administration as being soft on border security at a moment in which the White House has indicated it supports a new set of Republican-proposed immigration policies that would give Biden the power to shut the border down when the number of people trying to cross it grows to unmanageable levels; former President Trump has been pressuring Congressional Republicans not to support these policies, despite their having called for them, so he can continue to use the issue of immigration during the run-up to November’s election, and though this proposed impeachment is unlikely to make it past the Democrat-controlled Senate, it could still represent a symbolic victory for Republicans during that same election lead-up.

—The New York Times

Alaska is short on gravel and long on development projects

Summary: Though rich in other natural resources, the US state of Alaska lacks sufficient stores of gravel, which is necessary for all sorts of construction projects.

Context: Gravel has always been in relatively short supply in Alaska, especially in far-flung, remote parts of the state, but the need for this fundamental construction material has been increasing as climate change has tweaked the nature of some of these regions, their infrastructure needing to be stabilized as frozen ground melts and seawalls needing to be erected to protect coastal areas from erosion; the cost of importing gravel to where it’s most necessary, though, is also growing—a cubic yard of aggregate gravel, which is the kind used for construction projects, can go for upwards of $800 in some rural regions, while the same sells for a mere $15 in well-connected cities like Anchorage.

—High Country News

The US economy is doing just incredibly well compared to its economic peer countries, growing faster than other wealthy nations and tamping down inflation more effectively, as well.

—Axios

8 billion

Number of plays the New York Times’ puzzles and games tallied in 2023, led by the popular Wordle which unto itself netted 4.8 billion plays.

Games have become an increasingly important component of the NYT’s subscription offerings as other news entities (even big ones) have seen numbers and revenues drop at a moment in which technology and changes to the ad market have made income streams precarious.

—Axios

Trust Click

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