News in Review: March 17, 2023
What does the news landscape look like?
Silicon Valley Bank has been the top story all week, followed by the 2024 GOP presidential race. The US-Russia drone incident is in third.
This is how the top stories were covered on each side of the media yesterday:
Silicon Valley Bank (4% more on the right)
Trump / DeSantis / 2024 (106% more on the left)
US-Russia drone incident (22% more on the right)
Media bias ratings are from AllSides.
This is how articles from liberal and conservative outlets were distributed over the past five days among the top stories.
Liberal outlets used these words more than conservative outlets:
cohen (4.1x)
decades (2.9x)
palestinians (2.6x)
Conservative outlets used these words more than liberal outlets:
committee (3.7x)
walker (3.5x)
hunter (3.3x)
What is happening in the top stories?
Now for a deep dive into our top three stories, starting with…
Silicon Valley Bank
Key people: Janet Yellen, Jerome Powell, Jamie Dimon
Latest developments:
A deal to deposit $30 billion into First Republic Bank was put together by top power brokers from the U.S. Treasury, Federal Reserve, and banks including JPMorgan Chase & Co after a steep decline in First Republic’s shares.
Large U.S. banks injected $30 billion in deposits into First Republic Bank on Thursday, swooping in to rescue the lender caught up in a widening crisis triggered by the collapse of two other mid-size U.S. lenders over the past week.
Banking stocks globally have been battered since Silicon Valley Bank collapsed last week due to bond-related losses that piled up when interest rates surged last year, raising questions about what else might be lurking in the wider banking system.
The Biden administration is pushing back hard on the idea that this was a bailout. “No losses associated with the resolution of Silicon Valley Bank will be borne by the taxpayer,” says the official statement from Treasury, the Fed, and the Federal Deposit Insurancporation.
Trump / DeSantis / 2024
Key people: Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis, Mike Pence, Alvin Bragg, Michael Cohen
Latest developments:
Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign blasts Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s investigation into him as a “witch hunt” ahead of a possible indictment
An indictment of Trump for allegedly violating New York State election law is imminent and could come as soon as Friday, according to sources familiar with the matter
Cohen believes an indictment of Trump is “imminent”
Mike Pence says Trump should decide for himself whether to drop out of the 2024 presidential race if he is indicted for charges
Trump attacked Stormy Daniels on his social media platform Truth Social, claiming he did nothing wrong
US-Russia drone incident
Key people: U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin; Russian counterpart, Sergei Shoigu; Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder of the Wagner Group; Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy
Background:
Russia and the United States are in a confrontational rhetoric over a U.S. surveillance drone that encountered Russian warplanes and crashed near Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula.
A Russian fighter jet struck the propeller of a U.S. surveillance drone over the Black Sea, causing American forces to bring down the unmanned aerial vehicle.
In Ukraine, Russia’s advance seems to have stalled in Moscow’s campaign to capture the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut.
A Russian missile struck an apartment building in the center of Kramatorsk, killing at least one person and wounding seven others.
The war has brought heavy civilian casualties, with Russian troops striking residential buildings, schools, and hospitals.
Latest developments:
The release of video showing a Russian fighter jet dumping fuel on a U.S. drone before it went down over the Black Sea undercut Russia’s version of events.
Ukraine has issued a warning over Russia’s “atypical activity” in the Black Sea, with Russia deploying 20 ships, including missile carriers, and a large number of units of auxiliary fleet ships in the area.
Russian naval forces are attempting to “cover the naval operations in the Black Sea as much as possible and are trying to hide their actions” from Ukraine.
