Mar 29, 2024 3 min read

Jeers: The collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore is, as that city’s mayor called it, “an unspeakable tragedy,” particularly for the families of the six workers who were on the bridge when a cargo ship smashed into it early Tuesday morning and are now presumed dead. Preliminary reports indicate the ship lost power beforehand, but determining the precise cause of the mishap will undoubtedly require months of careful investigation. That hasn’t stopped internet sleuthsters and conspiracy-mongers from jumping into the fray, particularly those who claim with scant evidence that the accident was caused by diversity, equity and inclusion policies put in place by the shipping company that owns the vessel. A Republican candidate for governor in Utah has already pointed to DEI programs as a reason for the crash. DEI programs and their value are, of course, open to debate or criticism. But claiming that efforts to build a more diverse workforce are the reason for a power failure on a ship seems like quite a stretch. Joe Berkowitz, a columnist for the Fast Company website, explained, “It’s just the latest symptom of an alarming trend, where DEI serves as an all-purpose scapegoat for anything that goes wrong in America.”

Cheers: When the Century III mall opened in West Mifflin in 1979, it was the third-largest mall in the world – not in the country, the world – had an array of anchor stores like Montgomery Ward and Sears and was a magnet for shoppers throughout the Pittsburgh region. But it, like other malls, started a long decline a couple of decades ago thanks to competition from nearby shopping centers, changes in consumer habits and the growth of online retail. Since Century III finally shuttered for good in 2019, it has become a mecca for vandals and trespassers who get their kicks breaking windows, strolling around in ruins and getting in trouble. West Mifflin officials have long hoped the mall would be demolished, and that whole process finally got underway this week. Once it’s done, everyone in the region should hope the site is remade for a useful purpose.

Cheers: When Donald Trump lost his bid for reelection in 2020, he received 74 million votes across the country, and many of those votes came from people who were new or infrequent voters. This being the case, it would make sense for Trump and his Republican allies to support making voting easier. Instead, they have persisted with baseless claims that our elections are riddled with fraud and have tried to implement ever tighter restrictions on voting. It comes as a relief then that a federal judge dismissed a suit filed by 24 state-level GOP lawmakers seeking to do away with automatic voter registration that was instituted in Pennsylvania by Gov. Josh Shapiro last year. The suit also targeted an executive order issued by President Biden in 2021 that directed federal agencies to explore ways access to the ballot box can be expanded, and an order when Tom Wolf was governor that would not allow a county to reject a voter’s registration application if Social Security or driver’s license numbers on it did not match what is in a government database. U.S. District Judge Jennifer Wilson called the suit “a vague, generalized allegation that elections, generally, will be undermined, is not the type of case or controversy that this court can rule under.”