10 Items from the week | 16 Mar 25
News from the past week, and a few other things.
👋 Hello Reader, I hope you had a great week.
Here are 10 items that stood out to me this week, plus a few more.
1. Here’s Where to Look for Early Signs of a Recession (WSJ)
White House officials have cautioned that the economy might need, as Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent put it, “a detox period.” At the same time, some of President Trump’s promised changes, such as less regulation and a big tax cut, are pleasing to many businesses, and could stir them to invest and hire more. Major economic data hasn’t yet begun to fully capture Trump’s time in office. The Wall Street Journal is looking at a host of other indicators to try to figure out whether the U.S. might skirt a recession, or fall into one. Here are some to watch, with a focus on companies, consumers and workers.
NOTE: Last week, I wrote an article titled “It’ll get worse before it gets better” that describes my thoughts on the economy. If you haven’t read it yet, you can do so here.
2. For more and more US adults in the current economy, it seems like one job is just no longer enough. (Sherwood)
According to Friday’s job report, the number of multiple jobholders in the US surged to a record 8.9 million in February, the highest since data tracking began in 1994. That’s 5.4% of all employed workers — a level last seen in April 2009. What’s driving the surge? For starters, a single paycheck isn’t cutting it anymore: inflation has driven up the cost of everything, from groceries to rent to credit card bills, pushing more Americans to seek extra income. In addition, college degrees (even MBAs) no longer provide a straightforward route to an almost guaranteed steady job and salary, resulting in an increasing number of grads taking on multiple positions to get by. Per the St. Louis Fed, college graduates now make up about half of the multi-job workforce in the US, up from ~31% at the start of 1994.
3. Dollar General warns low-income Americans’ finances are getting worse (CNN)
Low-income Americans’ financial condition has gotten worse over the last year and more shoppers are going without basic necessities. That’s the worrying message coming from Dollar General, which sells inexpensive items and is thus considered a bellwether for low and middle-income shoppers’ health. Dollar General’s “core customers” earn under $40,000 a year, and the chain has more than 20,000 stores, primarily in rural areas. “Our customers continue to report that their financial situation has worsened over the last year as they have been negatively impacted by ongoing inflation,” Dollar General CEO Todd Vasos said on an earnings call Thursday. “Many of our customers report they only have enough money for basic essentials, with some noting that they have had to sacrifice even on the necessities.”
4. Treasury Secretary Bessent says the American dream is not about ‘access to cheap goods’ (CNBC)
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Thursday offered a full-throated defense of the White House’s position on tariffs, insisting that trade policy has to be about more than just getting low-priced items from other countries. “Access to cheap goods is not the essence of the American dream,” Bessent said during a speech to the Economic Club of New York. “The American Dream is rooted in the concept that any citizen can achieve prosperity, upward mobility, and economic security. For too long, the designers of multilateral trade deals have lost sight of this.”
NOTE: He’s not wrong about the American Dream…if it’s about buying stuff, then we’re off target.
5. A Thousand Snipers in the Sky: The New War in Ukraine (NYT)
Drones, not the big, heavy artillery that the war was once known for, inflict about 70 percent of all Russian and Ukrainian casualties, said Roman Kostenko, the chairman of the defense and intelligence committee in Ukraine’s Parliament. In some battles, they cause even more — up to 80 percent of deaths and injuries, commanders say. When President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia sent troops storming into Ukraine three years ago, setting off the biggest ground war in Europe since World War II, the West rushed billions of dollars in conventional weapons into Ukraine, hoping to keep Russia at bay. The insatiable battlefield demands nearly emptied NATO nations’ stockpiles. The war has killed and wounded more than a million soldiers in all, according to Ukrainian and Western estimates. But drones now kill more soldiers and destroy more armored vehicles in Ukraine than all traditional weapons of war combined, including sniper rifles, tanks, howitzers and mortars, Ukrainian commanders and officials say. Until recently, the clanging, metallic explosions from incoming artillery, ringing out around the clock, epitomized the war. Ukrainian soldiers raced at high speed in armored personnel carriers or pickup trucks, screeching to a stop and spilling out to run for cover in bunkers. The artillery gave soldiers a sense of impersonal danger — the dread that you could die any moment from the bad luck of a direct hit.
6. A horrific killing spree shakes Syria (Economist)
Syria is in the throes of its worst bloodshed since the fall of Bashar al-Assad three months ago. Since March 6th Sunni fighters have rampaged through heartlands of the Alawites, the ethnic group which the Assads, and many regime loyalists, came from. The fighters have torched homes and killed indiscriminately: in villages near the city of Latakia, they filmed themselves wearing masks and climbing on the backs of men, making them bark like dogs before shooting them dead. Eyewitnesses describe streets strewn with bodies and rows of burnt-out homes. Hundreds of thousands have fled to the hills and woods along the coast. One Alawite in the city of Jableh says he and others hid in petrified silence as Sunni jihadists went door to door looking for people to execute.
7. The Bone Hunters of Siberia (NYT)
In Russia’s Yakutia region, mammoths and other ice-age creatures once roamed the land. Now, tens of thousands of years later, divers are searching beneath the ice for their bones.
8. The Last Decision by the World’s Leading Thinker on Decisions (WSJ)
Kahneman was one of the world’s most influential thinkers—a psychologist at Princeton University, winner of the Nobel Prize in economics and author of the international blockbuster “Thinking, Fast and Slow,” first published in 2011. He had spent his long career studying the imperfections and inconsistencies of human decision-making. By most accounts—although not his own—Kahneman was still in reasonably good physical and mental health when he chose to die. Kahneman was widely mourned nearly a year ago when his death was announced. Only close friends and family knew, though, that it transpired at an assisted-suicide facility in Switzerland. His death raises profound questions: How did the world’s leading authority on decision-making make the ultimate decision? How closely did he follow his own precepts on how to make good choices? How does his decision fit into the growing debate over the downsides of extreme longevity? How much control do we, and should we, have over our own death?
NOTE: I’ve referenced Kahneman’s book, “Thinking, Fast and Slow,” in my classes for its groundbreaking work on decision-making. This article is a fascinating read that unfortunately provides few answers to the question of why he chose to end his own life.
9. Have humans passed peak brain power? (Financial Times)
Data across countries and ages reveal a growing struggle to concentrate, and declining verbal and numerical reasoning. When the latest round of analysis from PISA, the OECD’s international benchmarking test for performance by 15-year-olds in reading, mathematics and science tests, was released, the focus understandably fell on the role of the Covid pandemic in disrupting education. But this masked a longer-term and broader deterioration. Longer-term in the sense that scores for all three subjects tended to peak around 2012. In many cases, they fell further between 2012 and 2018 than they did during the pandemic-affected years. And broader in that this decline in measures of reasoning and problem-solving is not confined to teenagers. Adults show a similar pattern, with declines visible across all age groups in last year’s update of the OECD’s flagship assessment of trends in adult skills. Given its importance, there has been remarkably little consistent long-running research on human attention or mental capacity. But there is a rare exception: every year since the 1980s, the Monitoring the Future study has been asking 18-year-olds whether they have difficulty thinking, concentrating or learning new things. The share of final year high school students who report difficulties was stable throughout the 1990s and 2000s, but began a rapid upward climb in the mid-2010s. Part of what we’re looking at here is likely to be a result of the ongoing transition away from text and towards visual media — the shift towards a “post-literate” society spent obsessively on our screens. The decline of reading is certainly real — in 2022 the share of Americans who reported reading a book in the past year fell below half. Particularly striking however is that we see this alongside decreasing performance in the application of numeracy and other forms of problem-solving in most countries. Most discussion about the societal impacts of digital media focuses on the rise of smartphones and social media. But the change in human capacity for focused thought coincides with something more fundamental: a shift in our relationship with information. We have moved from finite web pages to infinite, constantly refreshed feeds and a constant barrage of notifications. We no longer spend as much time actively browsing the web and interacting with people we know but instead are presented with a torrent of content. This represents a move from self-directed behaviour to passive consumption and constant context-switching. Research finds that active, intentional use of digital technologies is often benign or even beneficial. Whereas the behaviours that have taken off in recent years have been shown to affect everything from our ability to process verbal information, to attention, working memory and self-regulation. The good news is that underlying human intellectual capacity is surely undimmed. But outcomes are a function of both potential and execution. For too many of us the digital environment is hampering the latter.
NOTE: Well, that’s scary, it’s not just kids getting stupider, it’s adults too. Time to put down the phone and pick up a book, or go outside…
10. Raising Screen-Free Boys (After Babel)
If you have ever wondered what it is like to raise a bunch of boys without video games, TV, tablets, or smartphones, I have plenty of firsthand experience to share! My three sons, now aged 15, 13, and 9, have grown up with minimal screens in our home. Drawing from my observations over the past fifteen years, insights from parenting experts, conversations with other parents raising boys, and research compiled in my 2023 book, Childhood Unplugged: Practical Advice to Get Kids Off Screens and Find Balance, I’ll offer some reflections and advice. Years ago, I made a choice to restrict screen time for two reasons that are complementary: I was raised without TV and Internet and have fond memories of a play-filled childhood, whereas my husband was raised on excessive TV and video games and feels he missed out on childhood. We opted not to start down that path with our kids, aware that it is harder to claw back technology than avoid introducing it in the first place. The biggest difference between our house and those with abundant screen-based entertainment options is the noise level. It’s always loud in our house. It started when the boys were small, shrieking with glee as they jumped off the couch into heaps of cushions, racing their Plasma cars from one end of the house to the other, and knocking over towers of wooden blocks. It stayed loud as they grew. Now, they stampede up and down the stairs. They talk loudly, argue fiercely, blast music. They yell while playing basketball and doing backflips on the trampoline. They drop weights in the garage. They laugh uproariously at jokes. They are big, boisterous, bubbling with energy. Sometimes it feels like I’m living with three baby elephants, but I’ve grown to love the chaos. By contrast, I have visited homes that are eerily silent, where motionless little boys are tucked into corners with iPads on their knees, headphones over their ears, and older boys are invisible, playing video games in their rooms. Parents lament that they themselves are exhausted and busy, that screens are useful babysitters, that online is “where all their friends are.” This is a very real dilemma that I’ve grappled with. My sons’ friends log onto Roblox and Fortnite after school and ask them to “meet” there, but I say no. It’s not easy, and it adds to my already overfull plate, but I feel I need to close off the online world in order for them to have higher-quality offline experiences. Introducing screens to my kids’ lives could tame the uproar somewhat, but I don’t want to do that. It would feel like an artificial suppression of energy that needs to be released. Plus, there is growing evidence of boys’ decline in real-world engagement, much of which appears to be induced by screens. Jonathan Haidt describes it in The Anxious Generation as a “push-pull” effect, with many boys and young men feeling “pushed” out of an inhospitable society that makes them feel useless, purposeless, and adrift, while simultaneously “pulling” them into a tantalizing virtual world that offers the agency-building activities they crave, like competing, exploring, mastering skills, and playing at war. Video games and pornography offer a temporary escape, but are often insufficient replacements for in-person social interaction and friendships. This recommendation comes from Dr. Mariana Brussoni, head of the Outside Play Lab at the University of British Columbia. I love how logical and succinct it is. Seventeen seconds sits right in that sweet spot between not too short and not too long; you’ll be on hyperalert, watching, poised to jump in if needed, but also aware that your child can, most likely, get figure things out on their own.
NOTE: Along these lines, I’ll squeeze in an 11th article into this section:
Seventeen Seconds - That is how long you should wait before deciding whether to intervene in children’s play. If they are doing something that makes you nervous or makes them express hesitation, take a mental step back, count to seventeen, and see what happens. Often, the child will manage to resolve their issue within that time frame and your help won’t be needed at all.
And a few more…
World
The Financial Realities of the US Trade Deficit that Tariffs Can't Change
It's been repeated time and again: The US trade deficit stems from a persistent savings-investment gap. Without closing that gap, the deficit won’t shrink. Tariffs may reduce the bilateral trade deficit with one country, but they increase the trade deficits with others—like pressing on one part of a balloon only to see another part expand. Crucially, narrowing the overall US trade deficit (reducing the investment-savings gap) may not be achieved through US policies alone; the international capital markets play a decisive role. Here is how it works, with the data to back it up.
NOTE: Hat tip to a reader of Curated Compositions for sharing this article with me.
Point Nemo, the Most Remote Place on Earth
It’s called the “longest-swim problem”: If you had to drop someone at the place in the ocean farthest from any speck of land—the remotest spot on Earth—where would that place be? The answer, proposed only a few decades ago, is a location in the South Pacific with the coordinates 48°52.5291ʹS 123°23.5116ʹW: the “oceanic point of inaccessibility,” to use the formal name. It doesn’t get many visitors. If you are on a boat at Point Nemo, the closest human beings will likely be the astronauts aboard the International Space Station.
Chinese tariffs on U.S. farm products take effect as trade tensions mount
Chinese tariffs on a wide array of U.S. agricultural products took effect Monday as Beijing remains defiant in the face of U.S. pressure — while urging Washington to come to the negotiating table. China’s decision to impose tariffs of up to 15 percent on products including corn, soybeans and beef starting Monday targets some of the United States’ most important exports to the world’s second-largest economy. The retaliation against President Donald Trump’s move to raise tariffs on all Chinese goods to at least 20 percent marks another escalation in a mounting trade battle that has no end in sight. The problem for Beijing is that, under its highly centralized political system, only Chinese leader Xi Jinping can secure a deal to end the tensions. But — unlike the leaders of Canada and Mexico — Xi has not had a conversation with Trump in his second term. That might be because Xi is unlikely to risk direct negotiations until he is certain of results, Chinese experts said — and Trump’s unpredictability makes that difficult.
North America
Mark Carney, crisis-fighting central banker, to lead Canada through US trade war
Mark Carney, soon to become Canada's new prime minister, is a two-time central banker and crisis fighter about to face his biggest challenge of all: steering Canada through Donald Trump's tariffs. The Liberals announced Carney as Justin Trudeau's successor on Sunday after party members voted in a nominating contest. Trudeau resigned in January, facing low approval ratings after nearly a decade in office. The 59-year-old Carney is a political outsider who has never held office, which would in normal times have killed his candidacy in Canada. But distance from Trudeau and a high-profile banking career played to his advantage, and Carney argues he is the only person prepared to handle Trump.
South Carolina Executes Inmate by Firing Squad
The state of South Carolina executed a convicted murderer by firing squad on Friday night in the first such execution in the United States since 2010. The inmate, Brad Sigmon, 67, was declared dead at 6:08 p.m. after a firing squad shot three bullets at the target placed over his heart, the State Department of Corrections said. A judge had ordered Mr. Sigmon, who was convicted of beating his ex-girlfriend’s parents to death with a baseball bat in 2001, to choose from three methods of execution: lethal injection, electrocution or firing squad. His lawyer, Gerald King, said that Mr. Sigmon had chosen to be shot because he had concerns about South Carolina’s lethal injection process. According to three reporters who witnessed the execution, Mr. Sigmon took several deep breaths before the shots were fired. After he was shot, his chest rose and fell about two times and his arms stiffened, according to the reporters, who were from The Associated Press, The Post and Courier and WYFF, a local TV station.
Jeff Bezos direction to WaPo on their Opinion section
I shared this note with the Washington Post team this morning: I’m writing to let you know about a change coming to our opinion pages. We are going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets. We’ll cover other topics too of course, but viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others. There was a time when a newspaper, especially one that was a local monopoly, might have seen it as a service to bring to the reader’s doorstep every morning a broad-based opinion section that sought to cover all views. Today, the internet does that job. I am of America and for America, and proud to be so. Our country did not get here by being typical. And a big part of America’s success has been freedom in the economic realm and everywhere else. Freedom is ethical — it minimizes coercion — and practical — it drives creativity, invention, and prosperity. I offered David Shipley, whom I greatly admire, the opportunity to lead this new chapter. I suggested to him that if the answer wasn’t “hell yes,” then it had to be “no.” After careful consideration, David decided to step away. This is a significant shift, it won’t be easy, and it will require 100% commitment — I respect his decision. We’ll be searching for a new Opinion Editor to own this new direction. I’m confident that free markets and personal liberties are right for America. I also believe these viewpoints are underserved in the current market of ideas and news opinion. I’m excited for us together to fill that void. Jeff
NOTE: I’m a little late in posting this, it came on Feb 26.
Latin America
BlackRock Strikes Deal for Panama Ports After U.S. Pressure
A consortium of investors led by BlackRock agreed to buy majority stakes in ports on either end of the Panama Canal, putting U.S. firms in control of two ports that President Trump raised as a security concern because of their connection to China. The deal with Hong Kong-based CK Hutchison is worth $22.8 billion and also includes dozens of other ports around the world, the companies said [Mar 4].
Amazon forest felled to build road for climate summit
A new four-lane highway cutting through tens of thousands of acres of protected Amazon rainforest is being built for the COP30 climate summit in the Brazilian city of Belém. It aims to ease traffic to the city, which will host more than 50,000 people - including world leaders - at the conference in November. The state government touts the highway's "sustainable" credentials, but some locals and conservationists are outraged at the environmental impact.
Europe
U.S. resumes military aid as Ukraine backs plan for 30-day ceasefire
Ukraine "expressed readiness to accept" a U.S. proposal for an immediate 30-day ceasefire with Russia, the two countries said in a joint statement after a key meeting between U.S. and Ukrainian officials in Saudi Arabia.
Putin agrees in principle with proposal for Ukraine ceasefire and says more discussions are needed
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that he agrees in principle with a U.S. proposal for a 30-day ceasefire in Ukraine, but he emphasized that the terms are yet to be worked out and added that any truce should pave the way to lasting peace. “The idea itself is correct, and we certainly support it,” Putin told a news conference in Moscow. “But there are issues that we need to discuss, and I think that we need to talk about it with our American colleagues and partners and, perhaps, have a call with President Trump and discuss it with him.”
UK police arrest captain of cargo ship on suspicion of manslaughter over North Sea collision
British police on Tuesday arrested the captain of a cargo ship on suspicion of manslaughter as they searched for answers about why it hit a tanker transporting jet fuel for the U.S. military off eastern England, setting both vessels ablaze. One sailor was presumed dead in the collision, which sparked fears of significant environmental damage. Humberside Police said the 59-year-old was detained “on suspicion of gross negligence manslaughter in connection with the collision.” He wasn’t named by the police and has not been charged.
Middle East
Trump orders strikes on Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen and issues new warning
President Donald Trump said he ordered a series of airstrikes on the Houthi-held areas in Yemen on Saturday, promising to use “overwhelming lethal force” until Iranian-backed Houthi rebels cease their attacks on shipping along a vital maritime corridor. The Houthis said 13 civilians were killed in the capital, Sanaa.
East Asia
How South Korea’s President Planned a Military Takeover, Then Blew It
Few saw it coming, and Mr. Yoon and his allies came close to achieving the unthinkable. Soldiers swiftly took over the election commission, while elite troops and police officers laid siege to the Assembly. But when they met a wall of ordinary South Koreans who had raced there to block them, the soldiers relented. Rather than dragging people away or preparing for combat, they left their weapons unloaded. Some bowed in apology and even hugged angry citizens. Mr. Yoon’s plan collapsed and he was forced to back down. To piece together how the dramatic events came about and fell apart, The New York Times pored through courtroom and parliamentary testimonies by those involved in Mr. Yoon’s imposition of martial law, reports by prosecutors, and interviewed a dozen lawmakers and aides. The picture that emerged shows that Mr. Yoon began nurturing a military takeover much earlier than commonly believed, and hatching emotionally driven plans to hamstring his political opponents. But it also shows that, for all his preparation, he made a series of major miscalculations.
NOTE: Long but fascinating read.
North Korea Is Open. Who’s Going?
The first Western tourists are trickling back into the totalitarian Kim Jong Un regime. They’re goal-oriented globetrotters, North Korea nerds and YouTubers willing to drop everything to visit one of the world’s most recalcitrant—and potentially dangerous—places. The vacationers saw North Korean singing schoolchildren tout Kim as the “very best in the world” as a large screen showed animated missiles rain from the skies. Itineraries included demonstrations of traditional bean cake making, visits to a beer brewery and dining on cold buckwheat noodles, kimchi and even flaming snails. Before the pandemic, North Korea welcomed around 350,000 foreign travelers in 2019—some 90% of them Chinese, according to some independent estimates. A year ago, North Korea began accepting Russian tourist groups. But access didn’t widen until February. The State Department since 2017 has banned U.S. citizens from entering North Korea. But dual-passport holders aren’t blocked from traveling there. North Korea, for now, has only opened Rason to non-Russian travelers. That excludes Pyongyang, the capital city and the country’s most-popular tourist destination. The tour operators that recently brought in the Westerners—Koryo Tours and Young Pioneer Tours—say demand remains robust. “We don’t cold call anyone. People reach out to us,” says Rowan Beard, a co-founder of Young Pioneer Tours. The Western travelers paid around $725 for the tour, which covered lodging and meals though not initial travel into China. North Korean guides followed them wherever they went. Visitors were told to use Chinese yuan. They splurged on propaganda art and “7.27” cigarettes—allegedly Kim Jong Un’s favorite brand and named after the date when the Korean War armistice was signed, July 27, 1953.
China Is Waging a ‘Gray Zone’ Campaign to Cement Power. Here’s How It Looks.
From the choppy waters of the South China Sea and Taiwan Strait to the frozen ridges of the Himalayas, China is pursuing a relentless campaign of expansion, operating in the hazy zone between war and peace to extend its power across Asia. Beijing carefully calibrates each move with the aim of staying below the threshold of action that could trigger outright conflict. But, step by incremental step, it has pushed deeper into contested areas, exhausting opponents and eroding their strength with a thousand cuts. Whether it is probes by war planes, maneuvers by coast guard ships or the creeping construction of new civilian settlements, China is constantly pushing boundaries in what security strategists call the “gray zone.” It tests the limits of what its opponents consider tolerable behavior, escalating a bit with every new action. The Wall Street Journal reviewed years of ship-movement data, satellite images, flight-tracking information and other measures of Chinese activity. Taken together, it shows a clear intensification of tactics meant to intimidate rivals and deepen China’s control.
NOTE: Article contains far more graphics and info than I can provide here.
Oceania
Why New Zealanders are emigrating in record numbers
New Zealand, though a settler country, is also shaped by emigration. Its small economy and relative lack of opportunity have long driven young New Zealanders towards what they call the “overseas experience”, fanning fears of brain drain. Proportionate to its population of 5.3m, it has one of the largest diasporas in the OECD, a club of mostly rich countries. Emigration ebbs and flows: the last spike occurred in 2012, near the end of the financial crisis. As the pandemic raged, many expats returned to hunker behind closed borders, but the outflow quickly resumed. Recently, New Zealand has been in a rut. The economy is in recession and unemployment has risen. Outgoing Kiwis grumble about costly housing and a crime surge.
Government
Education Department cuts half its staff as Trump vows to wind the agency down
The Education Department plans to lay off more than 1,300 of its employees as part of an effort to halve the organization’s staff -- a prelude to President Donald Trump’s plan to dismantle the agency. Department officials announced the cuts Tuesday, raising questions about the agency’s ability to continue usual operations.
A breakdown of major EPA deregulatory moves around water, air, climate
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin on Wednesday announced nearly three dozen deregulatory moves that he said would spur the U.S. economy by rolling back rules that have unfairly burdened industry. Many of the moves would affect landmark regulations aimed at protecting clean air and water. Here’s a look at some of the 31 regulatory changes Zeldin announced.
Economy
Inflation Cooled to 2.8% in February, Lower Than Expected
Inflation cooled last month, but the latest data may offer less comfort to U.S. businesses, consumers, and Federal Reserve policymakers than it otherwise would because tariffs are threatening to raise some prices in the months ahead. Consumer prices were up 2.8% in February from a year earlier, the Labor Department reported Wednesday, versus a January gain of 3%. Economists polled by The Wall Street Journal had expected a 2.9% gain. Prices excluding food and energy categories—the so-called core measure that economists watch in an effort to better capture inflation’s underlying trend—rose 3.1%. That was the lowest year-over-year reading since 2021.
Consumers Keep Bailing Out the Economy. Now They Might Be Maxed Out.
American consumers and their credit cards have helped the U.S. economy weather many rough moments. Now, as recession fears resurface, the worry is that they might be maxed out.
Didn’t Get That Promotion? How to Turn ‘No’ Into Opportunity
You got turned down for a promotion, and you’d love nothing more than to bolt for a better opportunity at another firm. Trouble is, hiring is slowing, starting salaries are stagnant or shrinking, and companies are hollowing out middle management. Job openings are down 8.6%, year over year, according to federal data published Tuesday. The number of people quitting their jobs—a proxy for workers’ ability to find greener pastures—has fallen 2.6% during the same period. So you might be stuck making the best of your current situation. That might not be such a bad thing. Staying put with a strategy for advancement can actually help your career, according to people who have turned rejections into future promotions. The key is recognizing you have leverage as a runner-up, even though you might feel undervalued in the moment.
Business
Lego is stacking more sales than ever, but profit margins are under pressure
Lego Group, the Danish toy giant behind everyone’s favorite modular plaything (and least favorite thing to accidentally step on), reported results for 2024 this week — and, as with much of its recent earnings, the main takeaway for Lego was that everything is awesome… at least in terms of sales. Indeed, the Lego Group’s annual revenues rose 13% year over year to a record 74.3 billion Danish krone (~$11 billion), significantly outpacing the toy industry at large — with major competitors Mattel and Hasbro both seeing sales decline in 2024, according to Bloomberg — furthering its lead as the world’s biggest toymaker.
Technology
Why the U.S. Keeps Losing to China in the Battle Over Critical Minerals
The U.S.’s desperate need for critical minerals—which include resources such as nickel, lithium and cobalt in addition to graphite—has been underscored by the Trump administration’s aggressive push for greater access in Ukraine and Greenland, rattling allies. In December, Beijing said it would ban certain mineral exports to the U.S. and conduct stricter reviews of graphite sales, in response to U.S. restrictions on semiconductor exports to China. Yet with its thumb on many of the best resources, China can dictate prices. Washington’s policy flip-flops keep blowing up miners’ plans. And many Western mining companies struggle to navigate higher-risk countries where critical minerals—all needed for green technologies and national defense—are prevalent, leaving them flat-footed when unrest erupts. There is considerable debate in mining circles over whether China is intentionally overproducing to put Western companies out of business. It is also possible Chinese companies are just trying to maximize production and earnings, since they can be profitable at lower prices than Western competitors.
Cyber
Feds Suspect LastPass Hackers Stole $150 Million In Crypto From One Person
Three years after password manager LastPass was breached, twice, we’re finally beginning to see the repercussions, and they are sizable. According to just-unsealed court records, one victim of the hack lost cryptocurrency that today would be worth three-quarters of a billion dollars. Federal investigators with the U.S. Secret Service believe the victim lost 283,326,127 in XRP cryptocurrency to those same LastPass hackers. A seizure warrant reviewed by Forbes notes that the XRP was worth $150 million when the theft occurred in January 2024. Now, thanks to a massive spike in cryptocurrency values following the election of President Trump, the stolen funds are now worth some $716 million. Since the start of the investigation last year, the Secret Service has been tracing the funds through myriad exchanges around the world, while hackers work to launder the crypto at speed. “The scale of the theft and rapid dissipation of funds would have required the efforts of multiple malicious actors, and was consistent with the online password manager breaches and attacks on other victims whose cryptocurrency was stolen,” the investigators wrote. “For these reasons, law enforcement agents believe the cryptocurrency stolen from Victim 1 was committed by the same attackers who conducted the attack on the online password manager, and cryptocurrency thefts from other similarly situated victims.”
Artificial Intelligence
From chatbots to intelligent toys: How AI is booming in China
China is embracing AI in its bid to become a tech superpower by 2030. DeepSeek, the breakthrough Chinese chatbot that caught the world's attention in January, was just the first hint of that ambition. Money is pouring into AI businesses seeking more capital, fuelling domestic competition. There are more than 4,500 firms developing and selling AI, schools in the capital Beijing are introducing AI courses for primary and secondary students later this year, and universities have increased the number of places available for students studying AI. "This is an inevitable trend. We will co-exist with AI," said Timmy's mum, Yan Xue. "Children should get to know it as early as possible. We should not reject it." She is keen for her son to learn both chess and the strategy board game Go – the robot does both, which persuaded her that its $800 price tag was a good investment. Its creators are already planning to add a language tutoring programme. Perhaps this was what the Chinese Communist Party hoped for when it declared in 2017 that AI would be "the main driving force" of the country's progress. President Xi Jinping is now betting big on it, as a slowing Chinese economy grapples with the blow of tariffs from its biggest trading partner, the United States. Beijing plans to invest 10tn Chinese yuan ($1.4tn; £1tn) in the next 15 years as it competes with Washington to gain the edge in advanced tech. AI funding got yet another boost at the government's annual political gathering, which is currently under way. This comes on the heels of a 60 billion yuan-AI investment fund created in January, just days after the US further tightened export controls for advanced chips and placed more Chinese firms on a trade blacklist. But DeepSeek has shown that Chinese companies can overcome these barriers. And that's what has stunned Silicon Valley and industry experts – they did not expect China to catch up so soon.
How the AI Talent Race Is Reshaping the Tech Job Market
Nearly 1 in 4 U.S. tech jobs posted so far this year are seeking employees with artificial-intelligence skills, job-listings data show, as companies in nearly every corner of the economy adjust their recruiting pipelines to embrace the technology. In the information sector, which includes many of the tech giants investing heavily in AI development and deployment, a leading 36% of IT jobs posted in January were AI-related. Companies in finance and professional-services industries, such as banks and consulting firms, also are looking for technology staff who know how to use or build AI algorithms and models.
Health
Generation Xanax: The Dark Side of America’s Wonder Drug
Over the past six decades, hundreds of millions of people have taken Xanax (the brand name for alprazolam) or one of its cousins in the benzodiazepine family—Klonopin (clonazepam); Ativan (lorazepam); and Valium (diazepam)—to lull them to sleep or deliver instant calm in an age of abiding anxiety. Psychiatrists and primary-care doctors regularly prescribe the drugs for everything from mild anxiety to insomnia, making benzodiazepines some of the most commonly prescribed psychiatric medications in America. The pills’ omnipresence has left a mark on pop culture, turning up in Lil Wayne songs and HBO’s “The White Lotus” as bearers of chemical tranquility. But as concerns increase about potential adverse effects of these drugs, some patients who try to quit are suffering what amounts to a hangover they can’t escape. The problems are far from universal, but a subset of patients are finding it is almost impossible to taper off without suffering through anxiety that is far worse than before, including cycles of agitation that make it impossible to sit still, memory loss, nausea and more. Doctors describe the unique impact of benzodiazepine withdrawal for them as something akin to a neurological disorder. Estimates of the size of the problem are all over the map. In a presentation late last year citing older studies, Ritvo said that between 15% and 44% of chronic benzodiazepine users experience moderate to severe withdrawal symptoms. A smaller group—10% to 15%—suffer from protracted symptoms that can last for months and continue long after these patients taper off the drugs. The pain is so bad for some that they take their own lives.
Food & Drink
4 New Brewing Techniques Behind The Rise Of Non-Alcoholic Beer
American Craft Beer was quick to dismiss the staying power of the growing Non-Alcoholic Beer sector and we couldn’t have been more wrong… The rise of non-alcoholic (NA) beer has taken the beverage industry by storm, with more breweries than ever crafting high-quality options for consumers. Once considered a niche product, NA beer has thankfully evolved from bland, unconvincing alternatives to complex, full-bodied brews that rival their alcoholic counterparts. So what’s behind this explosion? The answer lies in innovative brewing techniques that have revolutionized the industry.
Kennedy Rattles Food Companies With Vow to Rid Food of Artificial Dyes
In his first meeting with top executives from PepsiCo, W.K. Kellogg, General Mills and other large companies, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health secretary, bluntly told them that a top priority would be eliminating artificial dyes from the nation’s food supply. In addition, he warned the companies that they should anticipate significant change as a result of his quest for “getting the worst ingredients out” of food, according to a letter from the Consumer Brands Association, a trade group. The Times reviewed a copy that was sent to the group’s members after the meeting. And while Mr. Kennedy said in the meeting that he wanted to work with the industry, he also “made clear his intention to take action unless the industry is willing to be proactive with solutions,” the association wrote.
Can MAHA Beat the Junk Food Lobby?
RFK Jr., America’s stopped clock, is wrong much of the time—witness his disparagement of the measles vaccine, a position that looks even worse amid an outbreak of the disease in Texas and New Mexico. One thing he’s not wrong about, though, is that federal subsidies support the production and consumption of unhealthful foods. On using SNAP benefits for sugary food, candy, and drinks, RFK Jr.’s position is hyperbolically stated but correct: “We shouldn’t be subsidizing people to eat poison,” he said last month. There’s a lot of money in play. Based on the best available data, roughly one-fifth of the $93.8 billion that 42 million low-income SNAP beneficiaries spent in 2024—$18.8 billion—went toward sugary drinks, snack foods, and the like. A quarter of that was spent at Walmart, based on a study of SNAP beneficiaries’ shopping patterns by Numerator, a market research firm.
Travel
Southwest Airlines will charge to check bags for the first time, launch basic economy tickets
It’s happening: Southwest Airlines will start charging passengers to check bags for the first time. It’s a stunning reversal that shows the low-cost pioneer is willing to part with a customer perk executives have said set it apart from rivals in more than half a century of flying in hopes of increasing revenue. Southwest’s changes come after months of pressure from activist Elliott Investment Management. The firm took a stake in the airline last year and won five board seats as it pushed for quick changes at the company, which held on for decades — until now — to perks such as free checked bags, changeable tickets and open seating. For tickets purchased on or after May 28, Southwest customers in all but the top tier-fare class will have to pay to check bags, though there will be exceptions. Elite frequent flyers who hold “A-List Preferred” status will still get two bags and A-List level members will get one free checked bag. Southwest credit card holders will also get one free checked bag.
Sports
Do Fans Impact Sports Outcomes? A COVID-19 Natural Experiment
Home teams generally outperform away teams in a wide variety of sports. This stylized fact is well-established and known as home field advantage. Over the course of the 2008–2009 through 2018–2019 season in four top European leagues, home teams outperformed away teams in goal difference by 0.38 goals and win percentage by 17 percentage points. This advantage is driven by various factors that are typically broken down into three main channels: travel fatigue, venue familiarity, and crowd support.
Have a great week!
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.