First Thing: Two bodies recovered after Baltimore bridge collapse
Good morning.
The bodies of two men trapped in their vehicle have been recovered from the Patapsco River beneath the Francis Scott Key Bridge, which collapsed early on Tuesday when a container ship crashed into it.
Authorities identified the men as Alejandro Hernandez Fuentes, 35, originally from Mexico who was living in Baltimore, and Dorlian Ronial Castillo Cabrera, 26, who was from Guatemala and was living in Dundalk. Four other construction workers who had been on the bridge remain missing and are presumed dead.
“Tragically, six people did lose their lives and a seventh was badly injured. These were workers who went out to work on a night shift, repairing the road service while most of us slept,” said the US transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg.
What will be the economic impact of the crash? Buttigieg warned of “major and protracted impact to supply chains” after the closure of the Port of Baltimore for the foreseeable future. Baltimore is the ninth busiest port in the US, and the busiest for car shipments, handling at least 750,000 vehicles in 2023. “The economic impact that’s going to be felt by Baltimore and the state of Maryland is incomprehensible,” said Mary Kane, the president and CEO of the Maryland Chamber of Commerce.
Is there more information about the ship, the Dali? On Wednesday, investigators began collecting evidence from the Singaporean-flagged container ship, which had been heading for Sri Lanka. The ship was carrying 56 containers of hazardous materials including corrosives, flammables and lithium ion batteries, and some containers were breached in the crash, leaving a sheen on the water, but authorities deemed the ship stable and to pose no safety risk.
What are lawmakers doing? Lawmakers in Maryland have drafted an emergency bill to cover the salaries of workers who have been affected by the shutdown of the port. Meanwhile, Buttigieg has called for bipartisan support for federal funding to rebuild the bridge and reopen the port.
Joe Lieberman, former US senator and vice-presidential nominee, dies at 82
The former US senator Joe Lieberman has died at 82. Lieberman ran as the Democratic nominee for vice-president in the 2000 election alongside the presidential candidate Al Gore, becoming the first Jewish candidate on a major-party ticket for the White House. He died from complications from a fall, his family said in a statement.
In a tribute, Gore described the former lawmaker as a “truly gifted leader, whose affable personality and strong will made him a force to be reckoned with”.
In other news …
Hunter Biden has asked a US judge in Los Angeles to toss out the criminal case accusing him of evading $1.4m in taxes, arguing that prosecutors bowed to political pressure from Republican lawmakers investigating his father, Joe Biden.
A judge has recommended that the conservative attorney John Eastman lose his California law licence over his efforts to keep Donald Trump in power after the 2020 presidential election.
India has summoned a top US diplomat after Washington called for fair legal process for the opposition figure Arvind Kejriwal amid claims that challengers to Narendra Modi are being targeted prior to national elections.
A suspect is in police custody after four people were killed and seven were hurt in stabbings in northern Illinois on Wednesday.
A Utah children’s book author accused of killing her husband and then publishing a children’s book on grief has been hit with a further charge – for allegedly previously attempting to poison him with a sandwich.
Stat of the day: 3.8 billion people – half the world’s population – were exposed to extreme heat for at least one day last year
Two of the world’s biggest aid agencies are hosting an inaugural global summit on extreme heat on Thursday to warn that the climate crisis is dramatically increasing the probability of a mass-fatality heat disaster. In the US, extreme heat accounts for more deaths than all other climate impacts put together, but this often goes unreported because the scale of fatalities can take months or years to calculate.
Don’t miss this: child labor in India
Lovely natural sandstone tiles adorn countless driveways and gardens across the US, North America, the UK and Europe. Much of that tile is coming from Rajasthan, a mineral-rich state in the north-west of India that attracts mining companies from all over the country. But here, a significant proportion of the mining industry is unregulated – meaning exploitation in this industry remains endemic, with children often doing dangerous work for low pay.
… or this: Nick Cave on love, art and the loss of his sons
The musician and artist Nick Cave spoke to the Guardian about mercy, forgiveness, making and meaning ahead of his new ceramics exhibition in which his grief over the loss of his two sons is deeply present.
“These losses are just incorporated into the artistic flow and they move in a direction that is beyond your capacity to rein in,” Cave said. “They’re just sitting at the end of everything you do. In the end, the ceramics are a story about a man’s culpability in the loss of his child, and addressing that in a way I wasn’t really able to do with music. That’s what happened without any intention.”
Climate check: a surge of new oil and gas activity
The world’s fossil fuel producers are on track to nearly quadruple the amount of extracted oil and gas from newly approved projects by the end of this decade, despite warnings that there can be no new oil and gas infrastructure if the planet is to avoid careering past 1.5C (2.7F) of global heating – a warming threshold agreed to by governments in the Paris climate. The US is leading the way in a surge of activity.
“Despite the constant and clear warnings that no new oil and gas fields are compatible with 1.5C, the industry continues to discover and sanction new projects,” said Scott Zimmerman, a project manager for the global oil and gas extraction tracker at Global Energy Monitor. “It’s disappointing. It shows a lack of supply-side commitment to climate goals.”
Last Thing: the rising cost of a burrito
La Vaca Birria in San Francisco recently upped the prices of its burritos to $22, a move that rankled with some customers, with one posting a scathing review that expressed disbelief at how the burrito’s price had doubled from $11 just two years ago. The Guardian worked with the restaurant’s owner, Ricardo Lopez to break down the rising costs of ingredients – driven by geopolitical events from droughts in the midwest and Texas to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – behind the price hike.
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