One Sentence News / March 26, 2024

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

UN demands cease-fire in Gaza during Muslim holy month of Ramadan, its 1st demand to halt fighting

Summary: For the first time, the United Nations Security Council has passed a vote to demand an immediate cease-fire in the Gaza Strip for the duration of the holy month of Ramadan.

Context: Previous votes on very similar measures were not unanimous, and were thus not passed, but this one passed with 14 votes in favor, the US abstaining rather than voting against it; resolutions passed by the Security Council are considered to be legally binding international law, and the body and its members can punish the Israeli government in various ways for defying their decision, but it’s still possible Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu will decide against a cease-fire, as he’s made pretty clear that he intends to follow through with plans to invade the city of Rafah (despite additional risks to Palestinian citizens who have been forced to relocate there) due to what he says is a lingering Hamas presence in the area.

—The Associated Press

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Gene-edited pig kidney transplanted into first living human patient

Summary: For the first time, doctors have successfully transplanted a genetically modified pig kidney into a human patient, who is reportedly doing well weeks after the installation.

Context: The medical industry suffers from a persistent shortage of transplantable human organs, and though pig organs can often be used, instead, they’re laden with pig-specific retroviruses that typically lead to rejection by the recipient’s immune system; gene-edited pig organs have long seemed promising as they would do away with that rejection potential, but previous experiments in this direction have been uncertain, the recipients, both of them brain-dead patients, having died a few months after surgery; this new milestone is meaningful because it’s the first time a conscious, living patient has received a gene-edited pig kidney, saving his life and apparently functioning as well as a human kidney, thus far.

—New Atlas

Monopoly case pits Justice Department against Apple’s antitrust winning streak

Summary: The US Justice Department has accused tech-company Apple of engaging in monopolistic behavior, alleging that its tight control of its app ecosystem in particular gives it unassailable advantages over possible competitors.

Context: Apple has fended off similar cases over the years, including from the Justice Department, thus far successfully contending that its “walled garden” approach to software and its app store allow it to provide superior services and products to its customers, and that these efforts are not meant to prevent competition, but rather to help it compete against other approaches in a way that benefits its customers; this represents one more headache for Apple’s legal department, which has been fighting lawsuits from various competitors and agencies over the past handful of years, most of them focusing on similar themes.

—The Wall Street Journal

Japanese citizens, some of whom have never lived in an inflationary economy (and who thus tended to save rather than investing) are having to figure out to earn interest on their money, beyond what’s provided by their savings accounts.

—Bloomberg

4.7 million

Number of animals (it’s actually “more than 4.7 million”) that have died due to extreme freezing conditions in Mongolia this winter.

These “dzud” conditions include shockingly low temperatures (as low as -22 F/-30 C), alongside deep snow and ice that impenetrably cover grazing grounds and starve livestock, threatening the livelihoods of many people in the country (in addition to dramatically reducing animal populations in the afflicted areas).

Conditions are expected to worsen before the end of the winter, and dzud winters are becoming more common and regular (disallowing rebuilding and grazing time in between severe conditions) as the climate changes.

—CNN

Trust Click

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