Negotiations over a future Prime Minister, wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, business life, the stock market… All the news for Saturday, August 31, 2024.
> The main news of the day
09:12 – An attack blamed by Moscow on Ukraine left 5 dead and 46 injured in Belgorod
Five people were killed and 46 injured in an attack blamed on the Ukrainian military on the southwestern Russian city of Belgorod late Friday. Vyacheslav Gladkov, the local governor, said 37 of the wounded, including seven children, had been taken to hospital.
08:33 – Social network X begins to be blocked in Brazil
A Brazilian Supreme Court judge yesterday ordered the suspension of the social network X in Brazil within 24 hours due to legal violations. This decision has angered tycoon Elon Musk. “Freedom of expression is the foundation of democracy and in Brazil, an unelected pseudo-judge is destroying it for political reasons,” the platform owner thundered on X.
This Saturday at dawn, the X outage began at some internet service providers and should be completely completed during the day, according to the local press. Affected users encounter a message asking them to refresh their browser when they enter the portal, without ever succeeding in connecting.
08:31 – US military says it killed 15 ISIS fighters in raid in Iraq
The American and Iraqi armies carried out a raid on Thursday against the jihadist group Islamic State (IS) in western Iraq and killed 15 of its fighters, announced yesterday evening the American military Command for the Middle East (Centcom), reporting seven wounded in the American ranks.
08:28 – SpaceX Falcon 9 rockets reauthorized for takeoff
SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rockets, the most widely used by billionaire Elon Musk’s company, were reauthorized for takeoff yesterday by the American regulator. The FAA had decided to ground the craft on Wednesday after a rare incident occurred when the rocket’s first stage was being returned to a barge. The American regulator says it is continuing its investigation.
08:21 – Football: a lively transfer window in Europe but few crazy sums
Like the “free” arrival of Kylian Mbappé at Real Madrid, the European transfer window was lively but few crazy sums were spent. Chelsea once again won the prize for the most expensive market with more than 200 million pounds sterling (around 240 million euros) to attract a dozen players, including Pedro Neto and Joao Félix, while perhaps waiting for the arrival of Jadon Sancho from Manchester United.
In a Ligue 1 with dry bread after the drop in TV broadcasting rights, Marseille has multiplied its signings with the English striker Mason Greenwood, the Argentinian goalkeeper Geronimo Rulli, the Danish midfielder Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg or the French Elye Wahi and Neal Maupay. To put all this into music, OM recruited the Italian Roberto De Zerbi with a flattering reputation as a follower of the beautiful game.
08:17 – Record broken in the Panama Canal for the ship with the greatest transport capacity
A Liberian-flagged merchant ship with a capacity of 17,640 containers yesterday broke the record for the ship with the largest cargo capacity to transit the Panama Canal in its 110 years of operation, the canal authority announced.
The container ship MSC Marie, 366 meters long and 51 meters wide, crossed the canal from the Mexican port of Manzanillo in the Pacific to a port in the Panamanian Caribbean. For its passage, it paid a toll of more than 1.3 million dollars.
08:11 – Explosive Trump biopic to hit US theaters before election
A controversial biopic about Donald Trump, “The Apprentice,” will be released in theaters in October in the United States, a month before the American presidential election. According to the Los Angeles Times, the studio Briarcliff Entertainment plans to release “The Apprentice” on October 11. Questioned by AFP, the studio has not yet reacted.
“The Apprentice” depicts the billionaire’s early years. Initially portrayed as a somewhat naive social climber, Donald Trump (played by Sebastian Stan, known for his role in “Captain America”) drifts away from his principles as he discovers the ropes of power alongside his mentor, lawyer Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong of “Succession”), who is closely associated with McCarthyism and the New York mafia.
08:02 – Wall Street ends the month with a bang
The New York Stock Exchange had a volatile session yesterday, typical of the end of the month, with an opening in the green, a shift into the red and a recovery in the last minutes. The Dow Jones (+0.55%) took advantage of this to set a new record, the fourth this week, while the Nasdaq index and the broader S&P 500 index gained 1.13% and 1.01% respectively.
European stock markets ended without direction, digesting a series of inflation indicators in the United States and Europe. The Paris Stock Exchange ended the session slightly down 0.13%, while London ended stable (-0.04%) and Frankfurt reached a new historical high during the session at 18,970.71 points before finally giving up ground and ending close to equilibrium (-0.03%).
