Stanley Colaço
Staff Writer
National
Twitter sold to Elon Musk in $44 billion deal
After more than a month of discussions and changes in shares, ownership and corporate
structure, Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla Motors, bought Twitter for $44 billion at a rate of $54.20 a share. Twitter walked back on its initial rejection of the $43 billion bid from Musk for the entire company. Twitter stock has been far more volatile than before Musk entered the picture, with investors heavily backing up a successful Musk bid. Musk said his main goal is to make the company profitable, which it has been only twice since it first went public in 2013. Musk also plans on integrating better user interfaces as well as freeing up the platform, which has now become infamous for censorship. “Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated,” Musk said when announcing the deal. “Twitter has tremendous potential — I look forward to working with the company and the community of users to unlock it.”
CNN+ to shut down only three weeks after $350 million launch
Despite being active for less than a month, the more than $350 million streaming platform CNN+ has decided to shut down operations. Warner Media, the owner of CNN, had announced
more than $1 billion in funding for the platform over the course of the next four years. All this takes place while CNN and Discovery are merging; Discovery executives have been extremely
skeptical of the streaming platform, going as far as threatening to call off the merger months ago.
Disney to lose special district privileges in Florida
Disney executives, workers and supporters exploded on Florida Governor Ron DeSantis
and other Florida Republicans over the “Parental Rights in Education Bill,” which banned
classroom discussion of LGBTQ+ topics for students ranging from kindergarten to the third grade. The bill comes after months of parental control discussions that have impacted parents across the country. Florida isn’t the first state to pass this type of legislation, with Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas having bills in place as early as 2018. Disney responded to the bill’s passing by announcing it would start actively funding organizations fighting against the bill. Walt Disney’s heir Charlee Corree also came out as transgender. The legislation to take away special district privileges was signed Friday but will only go into effect next August, costing Disney millions more in taxes.
International
Europe to keep masking on planes
After American transportation companies Uber, Lyft, Amtrak and most major airlines have lifted their mask mandates, most of Europe chooses to keep theirs in place. Flights from the UK are the least restrictive now, requiring masks only when flying to a location that has their own
mandates, the same policy as American airlines. European giants for the most part have kept
their mandates in place, with Europe’s largest carrier, RyanAir, choosing to require masks
indefinitely.
Israeli airstrike hits Gaza
On Tuesday, April 19, Israeli officials fired airstrikes into Gaza territory throughout the day. According to Israeli intelligence, a weapons factory was the focus of the strikes, in retaliation to a Gaza airstrike that was sent towards Israel earlier. Tensions have been rising between Jerusalem and the West Bank, both of which are Israeli controlled over the last few months. One year ago, tensions between Israel and the terrorist group Hamas, which controls and governs Gaza, led to an 11-day war, which ended in close to 300 deaths. In the end, both Hamas and Israel claimed to be victorious.
Russia changes strategy in Ukraine conflict
After first focusing its attacks on the entire country of Ukraine, with the stated intention of liberation for Russian speaking people and the destruction of reported Nazism in Ukraine’s military, Russia has substantially scaled backed their land claims. Russia claims to now only want the Southern and Eastern borders of the Eastern European nation. The purpose of the new focus is to access a corridor to Crimea, a peninsula in Southern Ukraine that Russia has controlled since 2014. A second claim by Russia is focused on Moldova, a Russian speaking country to the east of Ukraine that Russia has expressed interest in “liberating.”