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

Liberians head to polls as President Weah seeks second term

Summary: Liberian President Weah is running for reelection following six years in office defined, in part, by allegations of corruption and widespread economic issues; his primary competitor, amongst a crowd of 19 candidates, is the former vice president Joseph Boakai, who Weah defeated once before in 2017, and who has said that the country needs to be rescued from Weah’s mismanagement; votes were cast yesterday, and about 2.4 million people registered to vote.

Context: Liberia is Africa’s oldest independent republic, but the country was torn apart by a civil war that ended two decades ago, and the scars of that conflict still inform policy, as many citizens want to see the establishment of a war crimes court that hasn’t yet been seriously addressed by Weah’s government, which was the first to be elected after 70 years without democratic change; Liberia’s economy grew by 5% last year, but about 52% of the population lives in poverty; 60% of Liberia’s population is under the age of 25, and many of the people who voted in this election were voting for the first time.

—Reuters

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Team Trump readies attacks on RFK Jr. as spoiler anxiety grows

Summary: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced, yesterday, that he would be ending his campaign to run for US President as a Democrat, and would instead be running as an independent, raising concerns from both sides of the aisle that he could serve as a spoiler, pulling votes from Democrat and Republican candidates, alike.

Context: RFK Jr. has been floating the possibility of running for a while, now, and his opinions about all sorts of things—including his support for widely debunked conspiracy theories about microchips in vaccines, antidepressants causing autism and school shootings, and that the COVID-19 pandemic was engineered to spare Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people—has enlivened some portion of the electorate, while worrying pretty much everyone else, including his own family, who have denounced his presidential bid as “dangerous,” though other politicians seem mostly concerned that he could swipe some portion of their voter-base, with Democrats initially concerned because of his family name and support for some party positions, though recent surveys have shown that he is more likely to take voters from candidate Trump, if Trump does indeed become the Republican candidate, so Republican strategists have been going on the offensive and are in the process of deploying anti-RFK messaging across their communication channels.

—Semafor

Auto workers begin strike at GM plants in Canada, as talks continue

Summary: Workers at three General Motors facilities in Canada walked off the job yesterday morning, following failed attempts to reach a new contract agreement with their employer.

Context: Union representatives have said that progress was made, but that there is still a wide gulf between what they want and what the company higher-ups are willing to offer, so the more than 4,200 workers they represent are going into strike-mode; this follows a recent successful contractual negotiation with Ford last month, and is part of a larger trend of union-organized strikes throughout the automotive and other industries around the world right now.

—The Associated Press

As anticipated (and worried), the Chinese property giant Country Garden has announced that it will be unable to make an international debt payment, which means they’ll likely default, which in turn means the country’s real estate sector (in which the majority of Chinese citizens have invested their money) will continue to contract; the company was able to just barely avoid defaulting on a dollar bond payment last month, but it would seem that they won’t be able to manage the same, this time.

—The Wall Street Journal

300,000

Number of military reservists the Israeli government has drafted following an historic sneak-attack by Hamas last weekend.

That’s a staggering number of soldiers (more than have ever been called up in Israel before) considering the population of Israel and relatively small size of the area (the Gaza Strip) that will be (by all indications) invaded and held by the Israeli military.

—Reuters

Trust Click

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