10 items from the week | 13 Oct 24
News from the past week, and a few other things.
👋 Hello Reader, I hope you had a great week.
Of the things that crossed my desk this week, below are 10 items that stood out (plus a few others). Also, on the web version of Substack, you’ll see some dashes on the left of your screen, if you click on that “measuring tape,” you can navigate directly to specific sections of this newsletter.
The top 10
1. A Crackdown
For much of the Biden administration’s first three years in office, migration surged at the Mexican border. Administration officials frequently argued that the problem was beyond their control — a reflection not of U.S. policy but of global forces pushing people toward the border. Then, starting in December, when the issue threatened President Biden’s re-election, he began a crackdown. The traffic of people crossing the border plummeted. Today, it remains near the lowest point since 2020 and not so different from levels during parts of the Trump and Obama administrations. This week, the Biden administration imposed tough new rules to keep it that way. Border crossings reached record levels this past winter, with almost 250,000 migrant arrests in December alone. At one point, U.S. officials shut down rail crossings and one port of entry, frightening businesses that ship goods between the countries. Just 32 percent of Americans thought Biden was handling immigration wisely. Two efforts this year by the Biden administration made a big difference. First, it pushed Mexico to clamp down on the number of migrants headed to the southern border. Mexico had run out of money to deport those people to their home countries. At the same time, Democrats in Congress were trying to pass an immigration bill to slow the number of arrivals and save Biden’s candidacy. Although Republicans had largely backed those objectives, they voted against the measure for political reasons, and it failed. After that, Biden made a second major decision. He issued an executive order that barred migrants from asylum if they crossed illegally, even if they were fleeing oppression back home — a measure similar to one part of the failed bill. It changed the way people could ask for asylum. Before, when migrants got to the border, U.S. officials asked if they feared returning home. Government officials believed many were saying yes regardless of whether it was true — and also that smugglers were coaching them how to answer. Now, to qualify for asylum, a migrant had to volunteer his or her worries unprompted. Officials say many fewer did so.
2. The Israel-Iran standoff in maps
FOR MORE than a year, fighting between Israel and Iran’s network of allied militias has brought the two countries dangerously close to direct war. Recent escalations make such a confrontation more likely. Last week Iran fired around 200 missiles at Israel. Israel is now preparing its response. What comes next could draw in Gulf states and America.
NOTE: Article contains many maps.
3. Starship’s Fifth Flight Test
Starship’s fifth flight test lifted off on October 13, 2024, with our most ambitious test objectives yet as we work to demonstrate techniques fundamental to Starship and Super Heavy’s fully and rapidly reusable design. And on our first try, Mechazilla caught the booster. Following a successful liftoff, ascent, stage separation, boostback burn, and coast, the Super Heavy booster performed its landing burn and was caught by the chopstick arms of the launch and catch tower at Starbase. Thousands of distinct vehicle and pad criteria had to be met prior to the catch attempt, and thanks to the tireless work of SpaceX engineers, we succeeded with catch on our first attempt.
4. Americans Are More Reliant Than Ever on Government Aid
Americans’ reliance on government support is soaring, driven by programs such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. That support is especially critical in economically stressed communities throughout the U.S., many of which lean Republican and are concentrated in swing states crucial in deciding the presidential election. Neither party has much incentive to dial back the spending.
NOTE: Quote on the map below reads, “By 2022, 53%--more than half of all U.S. counties—drew at least a quarter of their income from government aid.”
5. Google’s Grip on Search Slips as TikTok and AI Startup Mount Challenge
Google’s grip on the nearly $300 billion search advertising business is loosening. For years, the tech giant has seemed invincible in this corner of the ad market, which is the foundation of its business. Now, rivals are beginning to eat into its lead, and new offerings—fueled by the rise of artificial intelligence and social video—threaten to reshape the landscape. TikTok, the wildly popular short-form video platform, has recently started allowing brands to target ads based on users’ search queries—a direct challenge to Google’s core business. Perplexity, an AI search startup backed by Jeff Bezos, plans to introduce ads later this month under its AI-generated answers. Until now, it has made revenue mostly from a $20-a-month subscription offering that grants access to more-powerful AI technology. The new initiatives add to the pressure on Google from the rise of Amazon.com, which has taken a chunk of search ad spending. Many consumers begin product searches on the e-commerce platform. Google’s share of the U.S. search ad market is expected to drop below 50% next year for the first time in over a decade, according to the research firm eMarketer.
6. U.S. Wiretap Systems Targeted in China-Linked Hack
A cyberattack tied to the Chinese government penetrated the networks of a swath of U.S. broadband providers, potentially accessing information from systems the federal government uses for court-authorized network wiretapping requests. For months or longer, the hackers might have held access to network infrastructure used to cooperate with lawful U.S. requests for communications data, according to people familiar with the matter, which amounts to a major national security risk. The attackers also had access to other tranches of more generic internet traffic, they said. Verizon Communications, AT&T and Lumen Technologies are among the companies whose networks were breached by the recently discovered intrusion, the people said. The widespread compromise is considered a potentially catastrophic security breach and was carried out by a sophisticated Chinese hacking group dubbed Salt Typhoon. It appeared to be geared toward intelligence collection, the people said.
7. AI bots now beat 100% of those traffic-image CAPTCHAs
Anyone who has been surfing the web for a while is probably used to clicking through a CAPTCHA grid of street images, identifying everyday objects to prove that they're a human and not an automated bot. Now, though, new research claims that locally run bots using specially trained image-recognition models can match human-level performance in this style of CAPTCHA, achieving a 100 percent success rate despite being decidedly not human.
8. The Elite College Students Who Can’t Read Books
In 1976, about 40 percent of high-school seniors said they had read at least six books for fun in the previous year, compared with 11.5 percent who hadn’t read any. By 2022, those percentages had flipped. But middle- and high-school kids appear to be encountering fewer and fewer books in the classroom as well. For more than two decades, new educational initiatives such as No Child Left Behind and Common Core emphasized informational texts and standardized tests. Teachers at many schools shifted from books to short informational passages, followed by questions about the author’s main idea—mimicking the format of standardized reading-comprehension tests. Whether through atrophy or apathy, a generation of students is reading fewer books. They might read more as they age—older adults are the most voracious readers—but the data are not encouraging. The American Time Use Survey shows that the overall pool of people who read books for pleasure has shrunk over the past two decades. A couple of professors told me that their students see reading books as akin to listening to vinyl records—something that a small subculture may still enjoy, but that’s mostly a relic of an earlier time. The economic survival of the publishing industry requires an audience willing and able to spend time with an extended piece of writing. But as readers of a literary magazine will surely appreciate, more than a venerable industry is at stake. Books can cultivate a sophisticated form of empathy, transporting a reader into the mind of someone who lived hundreds of years ago, or a person who lives in a radically different context from the reader’s own. “A lot of contemporary ideas of empathy are built on identification, identity politics,” Kahn, the Berkeley professor, said. “Reading is more complicated than that, so it enlarges your sympathies.” Yet such benefits require staying with a character through their journey; they cannot be approximated by reading a five- or even 30-page excerpt. According to the neuroscientist Maryanne Wolf, so-called deep reading—sustained immersion in a text—stimulates a number of valuable mental habits, including critical thinking and self-reflection, in ways that skimming or reading in short bursts does not. Over and over, the professors I spoke with painted a grim picture of young people’s reading habits. (The historian Adrian Johns was one dissenter, but allowed, “My experience is a bit unusual because the University of Chicago is, like, the last bastion of people who do read things.”) For years, Dames has asked his first-years about their favorite book. In the past, they cited books such as Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre. Now, he says, almost half of them cite young-adult books. Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson series seems to be a particular favorite.
9. Her Face Was Unrecognizable After an Explosion. A Placenta Restored It.
Marcella Townsend remembers looking around the kitchen in shock. In the silence just after the explosion, before the pain kicked in, she found herself almost in awe of the crushed stove and the caved-in cabinets. “It was like Bigfoot had walked across the counters,” she said. In the aftermath of a propane explosion at her mother’s house in Savannah, Ga., in 2021, Ms. Townsend spent more than six weeks in an induced coma in a burn trauma unit. She had second- and third-degree burns over most of her body, and her face had become unrecognizable. Searching for a way to help her, surgeons turned to a rarely utilized tool: human placenta. They carefully applied a thin layer of the donated organ to her face, which Ms. Townsend said was “the best thing they could have done, ever.” She still has scars from grafts elsewhere on her body, but the 47-year-old’s face, she said, “looks exactly like it did before.” Research has found placenta-derived grafts can reduce pain and inflammation, heal burns, prevent the formation of scar tissue and adhesions around surgical sites and even restore vision. They’re also gaining popularity as a treatment for the widespread issue of chronic wounds. Because the placenta protects the fetus from the maternal immune system, its tissue is considered immunologically privileged: Even though it’s technically foreign tissue, placental grafts have been found not to prompt an immune response in transplant recipients. That means, unlike skin grafts from animals or cadavers, placental grafts are basically not rejectable. The placenta’s tissue also contains proteins and sugars that spur patients’ cells to multiply quickly, and the grafts have been shown to encourage rapid skin and tissue regrowth. In one case, doctors essentially regrew the tip of someone’s nose.
10. This photo on the National Mall captivated the country decades ago. The real story behind it remained a mystery—until now.
The table was set. The pastries arranged. A white tablecloth dangled placidly in the early morning mist, surrounded by 12 golden-hued high-backed chairs. Five decades ago, a dozen friends gathered here, on the National Mall, for breakfast. They wore morning coats and floor-length dresses, dined on oysters, drank champagne and danced together as a string quartet played in the shadow of the Lincoln Memorial. The extravagant scene on July 19, 1974, drew in a Washington Post photographer, who captured the moment in an image that would ricochet around the country in newspaper reprints.
NOTE: Classic!
…and other articles of interest
North America
Northern lights erupt all over D.C. area in rare and stunning spectacle (WP🔒)
In an extraordinary spectacle, the northern lights were seen all around the D.C. area Thursday night. The lights, which very seldom reach this far south, first appeared just as it was getting dark around 7:10 p.m. and lingered for hours. Incredibly, they were visible at times with the naked eye inside the District and on the National Mall, where light pollution often obscures views of the night sky. The geomagnetic storm that spurred the lights was created by an explosion of particles and energy on the sun, called a coronal mass ejection, which temporarily disturbed Earth’s protective magnetic bubble. The ejection hit Earth at nearly 1.5 million mph.
The Social-Media Influencers Reshaping How Young Americans Get Their Political News (WSJ🔒)
News influencers bring fresh perspectives and engage younger audiences with news in a way traditional outlets often struggle to match, media and disinformation researchers say. But their rise raises questions about how they adhere to journalistic ethics and standards. It also comes as American trust in mass media is at a record low, according to Gallup. It is the informality and break from tradition, however, that are among the keys to news influencers’ increasing prominence. People want “someone that they relate to and trust” to interpret and curate their news, said Laura Manley, the executive director of Harvard Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy.
US considers breakup of Google in landmark search case (VOA)
The U.S. said on Tuesday it may ask a judge to force Alphabet's Google to divest parts of its business, such as its Chrome browser and Android operating system, that it says are used to maintain an illegal monopoly in online search. In a landmark case, a judge in August found that Google, which processes 90% of U.S. internet searches, had built an illegal monopoly. The Justice Department's proposed remedies have the potential to reshape how Americans find information on the internet while shrinking Google's revenues and giving its competitors more room to grow. The proposed fixes will also aim to keep Google's past dominance from extending to the burgeoning business of artificial intelligence, prosecutors said. The Justice Department might also ask the court to end Google's payments to have its search engine pre-installed or set as the default on new devices.
Las Vegas blows a kiss goodbye — literally — to the Tropicana with a flashy casino implosion (AP)
Sin City blew a kiss goodbye to the Tropicana before first light Wednesday in an elaborate implosion that reduced to rubble the last true mob building on the Las Vegas Strip. The Tropicana’s hotel towers tumbled in a celebration that included a fireworks display. It was the first implosion in nearly a decade for a city that loves fresh starts and that has made casino implosions as much a part of its identity as gambling itself. Former casino mogul Steve Wynn changed the way Las Vegas blows up casinos in 1993 with the implosion of the Dunes to make room for the Bellagio. Wynn thought not only to televise the event but created a fantastical story for the implosion that made it look like pirate ships at his other casino across the street were firing at the Dunes. The city hasn’t blown up a Strip casino since 2016, when the final tower of the Riviera was leveled for a convention center expansion. This time, the implosion cleared land for a $1.5 billion baseball stadium for the relocating Oakland Athletics, part of the city’s latest rebrand into a sports hub. The Tropicana, the third-oldest casino on the Strip, closed in April after welcoming guests for 67 years. Once known as the “Tiffany of the Strip” for its opulence, it was a frequent haunt of the legendary Rat Pack, while its past under the mob has long cemented its place in Las Vegas lore.
Latin America
Mexico takes the US side in potential trade battles with China and seeks to boost local content (AP)
Mexico’s top economic official has suggested his country will actively take the U.S. side in looming trade battles with China. “There is a dispute between China and the United States, stronger now than it was a few years ago,” Economy Secretary Marcelo Ebrard said at a business forum on Tuesday. “And we now have a plan for a route to follow.” “What will be the main idea, the main design of that route?” Ebrard said. “To mobilize all legitimate interests in favor of North America.” For example, he said it will be in Mexico’s own interest to welcome nearshoring, which tends to move production from plants in Asia to Mexico.
Europe
EU to impose tariffs up to 45% on Chinese electric vehicles (Bloomberg🔒)
The European Union voted on [Oct 4] to impose tariffs as high as 45% on electric vehicles from China, threatening a broader trade conflict with Beijing which has already vowed to protect its companies. Shares in European automakers rose after the vote. The European Commission, the bloc’s executive arm, can now proceed with implementing the duties, which would last for five years. Ten member states voted in favor of the measure, while Germany and four others voted against and 12 abstained, according to people familiar with the results. The EU and China will continue negotiations to find an alternative to the tariffs. The two sides are exploring whether an agreement can be reached on a mechanism to control prices and volumes of exports in place of the duties.
Middle East
Iran’s secret warning to U.S. allies: don’t help Israel, or you’re next (WSJ🔒)
Tehran is threatening in secret diplomatic backchannels to target the oil-rich Arab Gulf states and other American allies in the Middle East if their territories or airspace are used for an attack on Iran, said Arab officials. Israel has threatened Tehran with a severe reprisal after Iran fired about 180 ballistic missiles at Israel earlier this month, with some Israeli officials and commentators pushing for damaging strikes on Tehran’s nuclear facilities or oil infrastructure. In that event, Iran has warned it would respond with devastating hits on Israel’s civilian infrastructure, and would retaliate against any Arab state that facilitated the attack, the officials said. The Arab officials said the countries that Iran has threatened include Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, all of which host U.S. troops. These states have told the Biden administration that they don’t want their military infrastructure or airspace to be used by the U.S. or Israel for any offensive operations against Iran, the officials said.
Central Asia
Spy mania sows fear among Russia’s scientists (WSJ🔒)
Think of Russia’s most dangerous jobs and the role of research scientist doesn’t immediately spring to mind. Coal miner, maybe. Or a deep-sea diver on the Barents Sea oil rigs. The same kinds of jobs that are dangerous anywhere. But over the past six years, at least a dozen scientists, many of whom conducted research in the field of high-speed aerodynamics or hypersonics, have been arrested. Some of the arrests were on suspicion of handing over scientific data to Moscow’s rivals. The latest was sentenced to 15 years in prison. Several had been detained after participating in research with other countries, with the approval of the Russian state. Some had been working on projects related to the defense sector. Others were involved with basic scientific studies. The fear in the Russian scientific community now is that anyone who worked on the technology that could be used in hypersonic weapons could be picked up and held for years before facing a treason trial. For some, the idea of pursuing related research is too risky now—potentially stunting Moscow’s progress just as it gains an edge over the West.
China’s housing glut collides with its shrinking population (WSJ🔒)
China’s real-estate bust left behind tens of millions of empty housing units. Now that historic glut of unoccupied property is colliding with China’s shrinking population, leaving cities stuck with homes they might never be able to fill. The country could have as many as 90 million empty housing units, according to a tally of economists’ estimates. Assuming three people per household, that’s enough for the entire population of Brazil.
Defense
Can creative writing help America win wars? (Economist🔒)
Thirteen air-force officers – 11 men and two women – were sitting at tables arranged in a horseshoe in a chilly conference room in Montgomery, Alabama. The officers were trim and muscular and dressed in military-industrial casual: sporty polos tucked into trousers, aviator sunglasses. These officers were students at Air University, an institution that runs educational programmes for employees of the American air and space forces. This particular course – Blue Horizons – encourages students to think creatively about how to improve the US Air Force (USAF). One unlikely method of getting the cogs whirring is through writing speculative fiction. For the past six years, Blue Horizons has invited Peter Singer and August Cole, founders of a company called Useful Fiction, to turn air-force officers into sci-fi authors. Singer and Cole think that decision-makers are more likely to sit up and listen if future threats, and the methods to combat them, are presented in a gripping story rather than in a plodding report. “We sneak fruit and veggies into a smoothie,” was how Singer described it. During the course the officers had heard from a range of speakers, including sci-fi novelists, a scriptwriter who had worked on “Billions”, a TV series, and a retired-general-turned-author. They had discussed the mechanics of writing and workshopped ideas they wanted to explore.
Economy
Federal Deficit Hit $1.8 Trillion for 2024, CBO Says (WSJ🔒)
The U.S. budget deficit topped $1.8 trillion in the latest fiscal year, driven by higher spending on interest and programs for older Americans, as the government faces a persistent gap between federal outlays and tax collections. The new data comes as Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and Democratic pick Kamala Harris are both proposing new tax and spending plans that are estimated to add trillions more to the deficit over the next decade. Whoever wins the election will face immediate decisions next year about agencies’ spending levels, the federal debt limit and expiring tax cuts. That debate will be pulled one way by a future filled with projections of red ink and pulled the other by Americans who enjoy federal benefits and lower taxes.
Inflation Continues Its Bumpy Decline With Mixed September Reading (WSJ🔒)
The consumer-price index rose 2.4% from a year earlier in September, the Labor Department said Thursday, after rising 2.5% in August. That was higher than the 2.3% rise that economists polled by The Wall Street Journal had expected. Core prices, which exclude volatile food and energy items, climbed 3.3% over the previous 12 months, slightly hotter than the 3.2% rise in August. That was also above expectations.
US Hiring Tops All Estimates, While Jobless Rate Falls to 4.1% (Bloomberg🔒)
US job growth last month topped all estimates, the unemployment rate unexpectedly declined and wage growth accelerated, reducing the odds the Federal Reserve will opt for another big interest-rate cut in November.
Social Security Benefits Will Increase 2.5% In 2025 (Forbes🔒)
Social Security benefits and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits will increase by 2.5% in 2025 for more than 72.5 million Americans. On average, Social Security retirement benefits will increase by about $50 per month starting in January.
Business
Amazon Kids Gift Book
NOTE: Yes, we’ve hit that magical time of the year when stores start displaying Christmas items—just in time for Halloween and Thanksgiving. The only event that seems to be longer is election season, which, thankfully, we’ll be done with in a month. In the mail this last week, we received the Amazon Kids Gift Book. Somehow I missed this in past years; perhaps Amazon knew we didn’t have kids in the house anymore…but, this of course, begs the question of why we got it this year. (Honey, anything I should know?) This is apparently the 6th year Amazon has done this, going back to 2019, and I’m actually excited to see it. First, it hearkens back to my days as a kid getting the Sears Wish Book, and secondly, it’s a physical object for kids to leaf through, instead of a digital device to scroll through. We’ll ignore the commercialism of it all, I’m just glad kids still have something non-digital to look at. Parents should note that the catalog does not include prices; for that, you will have to go online.
Bankruptcy Took Down the Redbox Machine. If Only Someone Could Take Them Away. (WSJ🔒)
Redbox’s parent filed for bankruptcy in the summer, saying it lacked the cash to buy the rights to many new releases, and the kiosk operator subsequently went out of business. It left 24,000 movie vending machines still in the field. Some of the nation’s biggest retailers were stuck holding the logistical bag. Pharmacy chains CVS and Walgreens, discounters Walmart and Dollar General, and grocers Albertsons and Kroger are among those getting bankruptcy-court approval to dispose of abandoned Redbox kiosks, which on average hold more than 600 films. They’re not just taking up store space. Retailers say the machines interfere with remodeling plans and expose them to potential safety hazards and liabilities. Some kiosks are hardwired into stores’ electrical systems. Outdoor machines are bolted into the concrete foundations and contain a coolant that is supposed to be disposed of in an environmentally safe manner.
Energy
Britain Shuts Down Last Coal Plant, ‘Turning Its Back on Coal Forever’ (NYT🔒)
Britain, the nation that launched a global addiction to coal 150 years ago, is shutting down its last coal-burning power station on [Sep 31, 2024].
Real Estate
Biden announces new rule to remove all US lead pipes in a decade (Reuters)
The White House has made removing every lead pipe within 10 years in the United States a centerpiece of its plan to address racial disparities and environmental issues in the wake of water contamination crises in recent years from Newark, New Jersey to Flint, Michigan.
Mortgage Rates Surge (Freddie Mac)
Following the release of a stronger-than-expected September jobs report, the 30-year fixed rate mortgage saw the largest one-week increase since April. However, the rise in rates is largely due to shifts in expectations and not the underlying economy, which has been strong for most of the year. Although higher rates make affordability more challenging, it shows the economic strength that should continue to support the recovery of the housing market.
The Wealthy Are Paying Big Money to Pump Oxygen Into Their Mountain Homes (WSJ🔒)
At 8,000 feet, most lowlanders are affected by the reduced oxygen at high elevations, says Dr. Peter Hackett, a professor at the Altitude Research Center at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus. At 9,000 feet, they are getting 30% less oxygen than at sea level—enough to cause shortness of breath, headaches, nausea and, most commonly, poor sleep. More oxygen in the bedroom means more sleep and, as a result, more strength to acclimate, says Hackett, who has climbed Mount Everest using supplemental oxygen. Altitude Control Technology, a home-oxygenation company in Edwards, Colo., has oxygenated primary bedrooms that cost $150,000 and $200,000, according to Bill Sinclair, president and chief executive. Most cost between $35,000 and $45,000 and get installed in the primary bedroom and one or two guest rooms. He recommends adding the pipes to deliver oxygen during construction, so new homeowners don’t have to reopen walls when altitude sickness strikes. Laying those pipes cost between $1,500 and $3,500 per room. “It’s so inexpensive to do it during that stage,” says Sinclair. “Compared to the cost of the house, it’s nothing.”
Technology
Wimbledon tennis tournament replaces line judges with technology in break with tradition (AP)
Wimbledon is replacing line judges with electronic line-calling, the latest step into the modern age by the oldest Grand Slam tennis tournament. The All England Club announced Wednesday that technology will be used to give the “out” and “fault” calls at the championships from 2025, eliminating the need for human officials to make them. Wimbledon organizers said the decision to adopt live electronic line calling was made following extensive testing at the 2024 tournament and “builds on the existing ball-tracking and line-calling technology that has been in place for many years.”
Cyber
This Teenage Hacker Became a Legend Attacking Companies. Then His Rivals Attacked Him. (WSJ🔒)
Arion Kurtaj, now 19 years old, is the most notorious name that has emerged from a sprawling set of online communities called the Com. They are gamers and hackers and online con artists who are native English speakers, able to talk their way into sensitive networks—social engineers in cybersecurity parlance. They have become one of the top cybersecurity threats in the world, and they are mostly boys and young men. Their youthful inventiveness and tenacity, as well as their status as minors that make prosecution more complicated, have made the Com especially dangerous, according to law-enforcement officials and cybersecurity investigators. Some kids, they say, are recruited from popular online spaces like Minecraft or Roblox. “Across the country we’re seeing increasingly sophisticated cybercrime being conducted by people who are younger and younger and younger,” said William McKeen, a supervisory special agent with the FBI’s Cyber Division, at a security conference in San Francisco in May. “It is terrifying.” He said the average age of anyone arrested for a crime in the U.S. is 37, while the average age of someone arrested for cybercrime is 19.
Artificial Intelligence
OpenAI is worth more than Snap, Domino’s, Zillow, The NYTimes, Levi’s, and 7 other companies combined (Sherwood News)
Earlier this week, OpenAI, the tech startup behind gen-AI chatbot ChatGPT, closed its latest funding round. The deal — one of the largest funding rounds ever for a private company, counting investors such as Thrive Capital, Microsoft, and Nvidia — added $6.6 billion to the company’s coffers, and values the world’s hottest AI startup at $157 billion. That makes OpenAI worth roughly the same as Goldman Sachs (~$153 billion), despite being some 146 years younger than the investment bank. It makes it more valuable than Nike or Starbucks. In fact, OpenAI’s market cap is bigger than the valuation of 12 of America’s best-known multi-billion-dollar companies, including Zoom (~$21 billion) and Warner Music Group (~$16 billion), combined. Pretty remarkable for any young company, let alone one expecting to rack up a loss of $5 billion this year.
Life
America’s Young Men Are Falling Even Further Behind (WSJ🔒)
The life trajectories of America’s sons and daughters are diverging. Presented with a more-equal playing field, young women are seizing the opportunities in front of them, while young men are floundering. The phenomenon has developed over the past decade, but was supercharged by the pandemic, which derailed careers, schooling and isolated friends and families. The result has big implications for the economy. More women ages 25 to 34 have entered the workforce in recent years than ever. The share of young men in the labor market, meanwhile, hasn’t grown in a decade. While women now expect to have more and better opportunities than their mothers and grandmothers, men are in some ways bracing for the opposite. Researchers say that has created a crisis of purpose, especially for men at the entrance to adulthood. One of the first clues popped up a few years ago, when educators began sounding the alarm on high-school boys’ plummeting college-attendance rates. Now that this cohort is in their 20s, their feelings of aimlessness are spilling into the social and professional realms.
Health
Healthcare Premiums Are Soaring Even as Inflation Eases, in Charts (WSJ🔒)
Inflation is easing across much of the economy. For healthcare? Not yet. The cost of employer health insurance rose 7% for a second straight year, maintaining a growth rate not seen in more than a decade, according to an annual survey by the healthcare nonprofit KFF. The back-to-back years of rapid increases have added more than $3,000 to the average family premium, which reached roughly $25,500 this year. Businesses absorbed this year’s higher premium costs—one of several signals in recent years that employers are sensitive to the limits of what workers can afford, said Matthew Rae, associate director of the KFF healthcare marketplace program and an author of the survey. Employers spent about $1,880 more this year, bringing their average cost for family premiums to $19,276. Workers’ share of the average family premium dropped by roughly $280 from last year, to $6,296.
1 in 8 Americans feels lonely a lot of the time (Sherwood News)
The latest version of the US Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey — a broad gauge of the economic and social issues affecting American households — found some not-so-surprising news: Americans are lonely. The survey conducted between August 20 and September 16 reported that 1 in 8 people (12.6%) was feeling lonely either “always” or “usually,” including nearly a quarter (23.3%) of the younger population (those aged 18 to 29). Since the Household Pulse Survey at the start of the year, slightly more people are now feeling lonely a lot of the time. 40% of people reported feeling lonely at least sometimes.
Home
Why Landlords and Even Tenants Are Picking Up After Other People’s Pooches (WSJ🔒)
The pandemic puppy boom created a bonanza for dog-food suppliers, groomers and other businesses catering to canines. It also exacerbated the age-old problem of deserted dog droppings. Unable to cut the crap with security cameras or signs warning of penalties, landlords are turning to DNA technology. PooPrints, a service that matches a canine’s biological makeup with its feces, has tripled its user base of mostly apartment complexes to more than 9,000 since 2019. BioPet Laboratories, the closely held company behind it, says this year the service is on track to process about 180,000 DNA and waste samples combined. The company says its canine DNA database, set up in 2011, contains more than one million genetic profiles. The way it works is when a specimen is found, just a sliver needs to be shipped to BioPet’s 21,000-square-foot lab in Knoxville, Tenn., to be analyzed by staff scientists. Within one to two weeks, results can reveal which resident’s pooch it came from with up to 99% accuracy, the company says. Landlords typically charge residents a fine for a positive match of a few hundred dollars, sometimes more for a second or third violation. Beyond that, a dog may face eviction, though such an outcome is rare.
Food & Drink
Fried bear. Snake over rice. Everything’s fair game at the Roadkill Cook-Off. (WP🔒)
The rules are simple. Prepare a meal featuring an animal normally found dead on the side of a highway. For example: snake, armadillo, groundhog, possum or squirrel. Your dish has to be at least a quarter meat. It should be hunted or farmed — flecks of roadside gravel would be disqualifying — and it must be cooked on-site. Six teams are competing in the 33rd annual Roadkill Cook-Off. There were going to be seven, but the crew planning to cook groundhog dropped out. On the last weekend in September, vendors line the streets, selling everything from turkey calls and Mothman T-shirts to hatchets and pepperoni rolls. A barbecue stand by the river sells gator and rice, smoked frog legs and buffalo and boar sausage. Third-party gubernatorial candidates hawk small-town values, making vague claims about “bringing West Virginia back to West Virginia.” Townspeople square-dance, with a 95-year-old man calling out the moves, and crown a 20-year-old nursing student as festival queen. The Roadkill Cook-Off is Marlinton’s Coachella. Its Mardi Gras or Super Bowl. And Marlinton tries to have its snake and eat it, too: by leaning in to West Virginia’s stereotypes while trying to show there’s something more to the state than hillbilly caricature.
Entertainment
Taylor Swift surpasses fellow pop star to become richest female musician (USA Today)
It's like a billion little stars are spelling out her name. Taylor Swift is now the richest female musician with an estimated net worth of $1.6 billion. According to Forbes magazine, the "Untouchable" singer has passed Rihanna (worth $1.4 billion). Swift's unstoppable Eras Tour (worth an estimated $600 million in royalties and touring), music catalog (worth north of $600 million) and real estate (worth an estimated $125 million) are part of the reason. Last year, the bejeweled businesswoman became the first-ever billionaire solely on songwriting and performing. Her financial portfolio was only bolstered in the past year as Swift brought her three-hour show to 21 cities across Asia, Australia and Europe. Every stop got an economic boost. Swift's four night in Tokyo pumped an estimated $228 million into the country. In Sydney, Australia, Swift made an estimated $43.3 in merchandise alone.
For Fun
Mystery Solved As Treasure Hunter Finds Golden Owl Hidden for Decades (Newsweek)
A decades-long treasure hunt for a golden owl statuette in France finally came to an end after 31 years on Thursday. The treasure—a replica of the original golden owl statuette, which is made of gold, silver and diamonds—was buried somewhere in France back in 1993 by Régis Hauser, the author of the treasure hunt book On The Trail Of The Golden Owl. Written under the pseudonym Max Valentin, the book contains 11 riddles that solved the mystery of the treasure's location. The finder of the buried replica will be awarded with the original statuette, which is estimated to be worth around €150,000 (around $165,000), according to a documentary on the treasure hunt by French broadcaster Canal+.
NOTE: Reminds me of Forrest Fenn’s treasure that was found in 2020.
Have a great weekend!
The Curator
Two resources to help you be a more discerning reader:
AllSides - https://www.allsides.com/unbiased-balanced-news
Media Bias Chart - https://www.adfontesmedia.com/
Caveat: Even these resources/charts are biased. Who says that the system they use to describe news sources is accurate? Still, hopefully you find them useful as a basic guide or for comparison.