This week in the news | 10 Feb 24
News from the past week, and a few other things.
👋 Hello Reader, I hope you had a great week.
Below you’ll find the “quick shot”—a supercharged summary of summaries, followed by the “slow brew”—longer summaries with select graphics, and comments from me.
THE QUICK SHOT 🚀
A supercharged summary of summaries
A lock icon (🔒) indicates articles behind a paywall, and a chart icon (📊) indicates an informative chart/graphic/video in “Slow Brew.”
WORLD
OECD raises global growth outlook on US strength (Reuters) 📊
NORTH AMERICA
How the nation’s capital became an outlier on violent crime (Vox)
Michigan city ramps up security after op-ed calls it ‘America’s jihad capital’ (AP🔒)
Deadly California storm triggers flooding, mudslides, power outages (Reuters)
America Has Never Had So Many 65-Year-Olds. They’re Redefining the Milestone. (WSJ🔒) 📊
LATIN AMERICA
EUROPE
Ukraine's popular 'Iron General' replaced as war grinds on (Reuters)
Mapping Ukraine’s counteroffensive (Reuters) 📊
Putin Quietly Signals He Is Open to a Cease-Fire in Ukraine (NYT🔒)
Sweden ends Nord Stream sabotage probe, hands evidence to Germany (Reuters)
For the first time, an Irish nationalist will lead Northern Ireland’s government (NBC News)
MIDDLE EAST
US drone strike in Baghdad kills high-ranking militia leader linked to attacks on American troops (AP🔒)
Iraq says US strikes pushing government to end US-led coalition's mission (Reuters)
Israel’s Netanyahu Rejects Hamas’s Response to Cease-Fire Proposal (WSJ🔒)
Israeli PM orders military plan to evacuate Rafah and defeat Hamas (Reuters)
Blinken travels to Egypt and Qatar in his bid to avert a wider regional war. (NYT🔒)
Red Sea attacks (Reuters) 📊
Red Sea Attacks Force Firms to Test New Land Routes Via UAE, Saudi (Bloomberg🔒) 📊
Inside the tunnels of Gaza (Reuters)
In pictures: Four months of war in Israel and Gaza (Reuters)
The Shadowy Backroom Dealer Steering Iran’s ‘Axis of Resistance’ (WSJ🔒)
Iran-Backed Groups Continue to Target American Bases as U.S. Plans Further Strikes (WSJ🔒)
AFRICA
ASIA-PACIFIC
China's New Year travel rush kicks into high gear, country adds record number of trains (Reuters)
Why China Can’t Export Its Model of Surveillance (Foreign Affairs)
China's consumer prices suffer biggest fall since 2009 as deflation risks stalk economy (Reuters) 📊
Pakistan’s ex-PM Sharif says he will seek coalition government after trailing imprisoned rival Khan (AP🔒)
Thai government says will ban recreational cannabis use (France 24)
Japan to introduce six-month residency visa for 'digital nomads' (Nikkei Asia)
What do Vladimir Putin and Tucker Carlson gain from Moscow interview? (BBC)
The Vladimir Putin Interview (Tucker Carlson)
Five reasons why Indonesia’s election matters (Economist🔒)
Cleaning Latrines by Hand: ‘How Could Any Human Do That?’ (NYT🔒)
SPACE
GOVERNMENT
Biden will not face charges over classified papers, says 'memory is fine' (Reuters)
House fails to impeach DHS secretary (GovExec)
Trump has no immunity from Jan. 6 prosecution, appeals court rules (Washington Post)
Trump Will Likely Stay On Colorado Ballot, Supreme Court Suggests—Here’s What Could Happen Next (Forbes🔒)
DEFENSE
Air Force preps for mega overhaul with an eye toward China (Politico)
Air Force Invites Back Retirees To Fill Critical Manning Shortage (Air & Space Forces Magazine)
ECONOMY
Living beyond our means? America’s Latest Federal Budget (Chartr) 📊
For First Time in Two Decades, U.S. Buys More From Mexico Than China (NYT🔒) 📊
America’s Workforce in Charts (WSJ🔒) 📊
Burritos and Big Macs to Cost More in California as Pay Rises (WSJ🔒)
BUSINESS
Shaky commercial loans threaten a new regional bank crisis (Semafor) 📊
Uber Sets Profit Record As Lyft And DoorDash Keep Losing Money (Forbes🔒) 📊
Snap Losses Top $110 Billion As Company Struggles To Live Up To ‘Show Me’ Moment (Forbes) 📊
This Gen Z Jobs Site Wants To Give Employers A TikTok Alternative (Forbes)
Amazon’s Newest Competitors Are Stepping Into Its Territory—Literally (WSJ🔒)
Is the $139 Amazon Prime Subscription Still Worth It? (WSJ🔒) 📊
The U.S. Invested Millions to Produce Masks at Home. Now Nobody’s Buying. (WSJ🔒)
Zoom Etiquette: Behavior Americans Find Unacceptable in Virtual Meetings (Chartr) 📊
REAL ESTATE
Number of Homes for Sale Improves but Still Short of Pre-pandemic Levels (Realtor) 📊
New York City’s Housing Crunch Is the Worst It Has Been in Over 50 Years (NYT)
PERSONAL FINANCE
Hired-Hand Billionaires: These Executives Amassed 10-Figure Fortunes While Working For Others (Forbes🔒) 📊
TECHNOLOGY
First passages of rolled-up Herculaneum scroll revealed (Nature)
World's biggest onshore wind turbine blades unveiled in China (New Scientist)
CYBER
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
AI chatbots tend to choose violence and nuclear strikes in wargames (New Scientist)
Meta Will Label AI-Generated Images On Instagram, Facebook—Battling Those Who ‘Want To Deceive’ (Forbes)
AI-generated voices in robocalls can deceive voters. The FCC just made them illegal (AP🔒)
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella Wants To Train 2 Million People In India With AI Skills (Forbes🔒)
LIFE
EDUCATION
HEALTH
OPINION | As Kids, They Thought They Were Trans. They No Longer Do. (NYT🔒)
Construction Industry Grapples With Its Top Killer: Drug Overdose (NYT🔒)
FOOD & DRINK
NATURE
Mount Everest: Climbers will need to bring poo back to base camp (BBC) 📊
Polar bear’s iceberg snooze melts hearts, wins wildlife photo award (WP🔒) 📊
TRAVEL
ENTERTAINMENT
Tracy Chapman & Luke Combs Deliver Gripping Performance Of "Fast Car" | 2024 GRAMMYs (GRAMMYs)
Piano sales fall dramatically [in China] (Slow Chinese)
SPORTS
How You Stream Sports Is About to Be Transformed by a Blockbuster Media Deal (WSJ🔒) 📊
Hot Seats: Ticket Prices Have Soared for this Year’s Super Bowl (Chartr) 📊
$7 Million for 30 Seconds? To Advertisers, the Super Bowl Is Worth It. (NYT🔒) 📊
Inside The Super Bowl Of Marketing (Forbes) 📊
Dartmouth men’s basketball players are employees, can unionize, NLRB regional director rules (The Athletic)
Americans Are Taking Over English Football Everywhere (Bloomberg) 📊
The violence of “Power Slap” is part of its allure (Economist🔒)
FOR FUN
America's UFO hotspots, mapped (Axios) 📊
THE SLOW BREW ☕
A more relaxed approach to the summaries.
WORLD
The reality of the Danish fairytale (Hey)
Denmark has long ranked high on the list of societies that American liberals dream about turning the United States into. And for many good reasons. Education is state-funded, and students are even paid a stipend to go to university. Health care is equally free of individual charge, and there’s generally a robust social safety net for unemployment, maternity leave, and the like. Not to mention the fact that Copenhagen is one of the most enthusiastic biking cities in the world, as well as being one of the very safest. There’s a lot to love about Denmark, and I do. But to pine for a society like the Danish purely on the basis of the benefits is delusional. These benefits are fenced by a myriad of compromises and obligations. The fawning, superficial adoration that American liberals usually bestow on Danish society rarely seems to dwell on these protective factors, so let’s spend a minute doing so.
NOTE: Great read that gives a better perspective on different countries’ approaches to providing for people.
OECD raises global growth outlook on US strength (Reuters) 📊
The global economy is on course to hold up better this year than expected only a few months ago as an improved outlook in the United States offsets euro zone weakness, the OECD said on Monday World economic growth is expected to ease from 3.1% in 2023 to 2.9% this year, better than the 2.7% expected in November in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development's last outlook In an update of its forecasts for major economies, the Paris-based OECD left its 2025 global estimate unchanged at 3.0%, when growth is expected to be boosted by major central banks rate cuts as inflation pressures subside.
North America
How the nation’s capital became an outlier on violent crime (Vox)
In 2020, during the pandemic and after the murder of George Floyd, homicide and violent crime across the US soared. The number of murders that year represented the largest increase since the FBI began formally tracking national statistics in 1960. But 2023 was different: Across the spectrum, violent crime and homicide dropped significantly from their 2020 peak, and murders fell more than 12 percent in cities, according to the FBI’s latest crime report. Last year saw “one of the lowest rates of violent crime in the United States in more than 50 years,” Jeff Asher, a crime data analyst, writes. There were exceptions: In Memphis, Tennessee, murders skyrocketed in the 12 months following the killing of Tyre Nichols by city police, and in Shreveport, Louisiana, they jumped by more than 37 percent. But no other city has experienced a crime surge — or the accompanying national scrutiny about its meaning — like the nation’s capital has.
Michigan city ramps up security after op-ed calls it ‘America’s jihad capital’ (AP🔒)
Dearborn, Michigan, is ramping up its police presence in response to fallout from an opinion piece that described the city, which has the nation’s highest Muslim population per capita, as “America’s jihad capital.” Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud on Friday tweeted that city police increased security at places of worship and major infrastructure points as a “direct result” of a Wall Street Journal opinion piece titled, “Welcome to Dearborn, America’s Jihad Capital.” Hammoud posted on the X platform, formerly known as Twitter, that the item published Friday “led to an alarming increase in bigoted and Islamophobic rhetoric online targeting the city of Dearborn.” Steven Stalinsky, executive director of the Middle East Media Research Institute, who authored the opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal, said in an interview with The Associated Press that he wanted to draw attention to protests in Michigan and elsewhere across the U.S. in which people have expressed support for Hamas since the start of the war with Israel.
Deadly California storm triggers flooding, mudslides, power outages (Reuters)
A deadly Pacific storm, the second "Pineapple Express" weather system to sweep the West Coast in less than a week, dumped torrential rain over Southern California on Monday, triggering street flooding and mudslides throughout the region. Extreme-weather advisories for floods, high wind and winter storm conditions were posted on Monday across parts of California and southwestern Arizona where some 35 million people live, and authorities urged residents to limit their driving.
America Has Never Had So Many 65-Year-Olds. They’re Redefining the Milestone. (WSJ🔒) 📊
More Americans are turning 65 this year than any prior time in history. Today’s 65-year-olds are redefining a milestone long associated with retirement parties and the end of productive years. They are wealthier and by many measures, healthier, and expected to live another 20 years. A growing share are divorced. Many turn their focus to what they want in this next stage. About 4.1 million Americans will reach 65 years old this year, reaching a surge that will continue through 2027, according to an analysis by Jason Fichtner, executive director of the Retirement Income Institute and chief economist at the Bipartisan Policy Center. That is about 11,200 a day, compared with the 10,000 daily average from the previous decade, he says.
Latin America
Fires Kill Dozens in Chile, With Many More Feared Dead (WSJ🔒)
Forest fires roared across a heavily populated swath of central Chile, killing about 100 people and destroying some 3,000 homes, according to government officials. The destruction is disrupting Latin America’s most market-friendly economy.
Europe
Ukraine's popular 'Iron General' replaced as war grinds on (Reuters)
Ukrainian armed forces commander General Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, who was replaced on Thursday, became a national hero for repelling Moscow's invading forces two years ago but suffered battlefield setbacks as the war ground on. The move ends intense speculation over his fate after reported frictions between him and President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, whose authority will be tested as he seeks to rally troops under a new army chief and change the dynamic of the war Ukrainian forces are struggling after a counteroffensive launched last June made little headway in the south and east, while Russian forces are inflicting small but costly defeats at several points along the 1,000-km (620-mile)front.
Mapping Ukraine’s counteroffensive (Reuters)
Six months after Ukraine launched its summer counteroffensive to take back Russian-occupied territory in the east of the country, Kyiv’s forces have made little progress in the face of entrenched Russian resistance. Russia’s defensive line — the largest and most fortified in Europe since World War Two — ultimately held, and early prospects of a Ukrainian breakthrough that would sever the land bridge between Russia and occupied Crimea have faded. With another winter stalemate approaching — if not a renewed Russian attack to take more of eastern Ukraine — these are some of the main factors that left Ukraine’s forces stuck at the front line.
NOTE: I missed this article when it came out in late December 2023. LOTS of great infographics (you’ll see this as a theme across several Reuters articles in this newsletter).
Putin Quietly Signals He Is Open to a Cease-Fire in Ukraine (NYT🔒)
President Vladimir V. Putin’s confidence seems to know no bounds. Buoyed by Ukraine’s failed counteroffensive and flagging Western support, Mr. Putin says that Russia’s war goals have not changed. Addressing his generals on Tuesday, he boasted that Ukraine was so beleaguered that Russia’s invading troops were doing “what we want.” “We won’t give up what’s ours,” he pledged, adding dismissively, “If they want to negotiate, let them negotiate.” But in a recent push of back-channel diplomacy, Mr. Putin has been sending a different message: He is ready to make a deal. Mr. Putin has been signaling through intermediaries since at least September that he is open to a cease-fire that freezes the fighting along the current lines, far short of his ambitions to dominate Ukraine, two former senior Russian officials close to the Kremlin and American and international officials who have received the message from Mr. Putin’s envoys say.
King Charles Is Diagnosed With Cancer (NYT🔒)
King Charles III has been diagnosed with cancer and is suspending his public engagements to undergo treatment, casting a shadow over a busy reign that began less than 18 months ago after the death of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II. The announcement, made by Buckingham Palace on Monday evening, came a week after the 75-year-old sovereign was discharged from a London hospital, following a procedure to treat an enlarged prostate.
Sweden ends Nord Stream sabotage probe, hands evidence to Germany (Reuters)
Sweden on Wednesday dropped its investigation into the explosions in 2022 on Nord Stream pipelines carrying Russian gas to Germany, saying it lacked jurisdiction in the case but had handed evidence it had uncovered over to German investigators. The multi-billion dollar Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines transporting gas under the Baltic Sea were ruptured by a series of blasts in the Swedish and Danish economic zones in September 2022, releasing vast amounts of methane into the air.
For the first time, an Irish nationalist will lead Northern Ireland’s government (NBC News)
Sinn Fein Vice President Michelle O’Neill was nominated as first minister in the government that under the terms of the 1998 Good Friday peace accord shares power between Northern Ireland’s two main communities — British unionists who want to stay in the U.K., and Irish nationalists who seek to unite with Ireland. Northern Ireland was established as a unionist, Protestant-majority part of the U.K. in 1921, following independence for the Republic of Ireland. “The days of second-class citizenship are long gone. Today confirms that they are never coming back,” O’Neill said. “As an Irish republican, I pledge cooperation and genuine honest effort with those colleagues who are British, of a unionist tradition, and who cherish the Union. This is an assembly for all — Catholic, Protestant and dissenter.” Neither side can govern without agreement from the other. Government business ground to a half over the past two years after the Democratic Unionist Party walked out to protest trade issues related to Brexit. O’Neill will share power with deputy first minister Emma Little-Pengelly from the DUP. The two will be equals, but O’Neill, whose party captured more seats in the Northern Ireland Assembly in the 2022 elections, will hold the more prestigious title.
Middle East
US drone strike in Baghdad kills high-ranking militia leader linked to attacks on American troops (AP🔒)
A U.S. drone strike blew up a car in the Iraqi capital Wednesday night, killing a high-ranking commander of the powerful Kataib Hezbollah militia who is responsible for “directly planning and participating in attacks” on American troops in the region, the U.S. military said Wednesday.
Iraq says US strikes pushing government to end US-led coalition's mission (Reuters)
Repeated U.S. strikes against Iran-backed armed groups in Iraq are pushing the Baghdad government to end the mission of the U.S.-led coalition in the country, the prime minister's military spokesperson said on Thursday. Talks between the two countries began in January over the future of the coalition. But less than 24 hours later three U.S. soldiers were killed in an attack in Jordan that the United States said was carried out by Iran-backed militant groups in Syria and Iraq and the talks have since paused. Iraq and the United States will resume negotiations on the future of the U.S.-led international military coalition in the country on Feb. 11, the Iraqi military spokesperson said in a statement.
Israel’s Netanyahu Rejects Hamas’s Response to Cease-Fire Proposal (WSJ🔒)
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected Hamas’s terms for a cease-fire in Gaza, after the Palestinian militant group called for the release of thousands of prisoners along with other concessions in its first response to a U.S.-backed proposal to end the fighting. The dismissal was a setback for a U.S. diplomatic push led by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who met with Israeli leaders on Wednesday during a fifth visit to the region aimed in part at defusing tensions before a possible Israeli military offensive on Rafah, a city in southern Gaza near Egypt’s border where over a million displaced Palestinians have sought refuge.
Israeli PM orders military plan to evacuate Rafah and defeat Hamas (Reuters)
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered Israel's military on Friday to draw up a dual plan to evacuate Palestinian civilians from the crowded southern Gazan city of Rafah and defeat the last Hamas fighters there.
Blinken travels to Egypt and Qatar in his bid to avert a wider regional war. (NYT🔒)
Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken met with leaders in Egypt and Qatar on Tuesday, the second day of a Middle East tour aimed at preventing an exchange of attacks with Iran-backed militias from spiraling into a broader regional war and to rally allies around a proposed cease-fire agreement for Gaza. Mr. Blinken, on his fifth trip to the region since the Oct. 7 attacks in Israel, visited Cairo to meet with President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt before traveling to Doha for discussions with Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, the emir of Qatar, and Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim al-Thani, the country’s prime minister and foreign minister. Mr. Blinken began the trip a day before by meeting in Saudi Arabia with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, discussing how to achieve “an enduring end to the crisis in Gaza,” as well as the need to reduce tensions across the region, according to Mr. Miller. He is also scheduled to hold meetings with leaders in Israel and the West Bank during the trip. All are key players in negotiations over a potential pause in the fighting in Gaza. Egyptian and Qatari mediators have presented Hamas with a proposal, backed by the United States and Israel, that would pause the fighting between Israel and Hamas for the first time since a one-week cease-fire in November during which more than 100 hostages were freed.
Red Sea attacks (Reuters)
Iranian-backed Houthi militants, who control swathes of Yemen, have used an array of sophisticated weapons - including ballistic missiles and “kamikaze” drones - in their attacks on international shipping in the Red Sea in support of Palestinian militant group Hamas in its war with Israel in the Gaza Strip. The attacks began on Nov. 19 when Houthi commandos landed a helicopter on the Galaxy Leader cargo vessel as it was passing through the southern Red Sea. They redirected it toward Hodeidah port in Yemen and seized the crew, who are still being held. Since then, 29 more ships have been attacked in the area, with 13 of those suffering direct strikes from missiles or drones. The attacks have caused major disruptions to global trade, some 12% of which passes through the Red Sea. Reuters has cataloged the ships attacked so far and examined how Houthi militants are using a combination of weapons to target commercial ships. The analysis shows how Houthi drone and missile activity has escalated since the Gaza war began, and has continued despite Western military airstrikes on their bases in Yemen, which began on Jan. 11.
NOTE: LOTS of other great infographics and pictures in the article.
Red Sea Attacks Force Firms to Test New Land Routes Via UAE, Saudi (Bloomberg🔒)
An Israeli software startup and one of the world’s biggest shipping lines are among companies that for the first time are opening up commercial trade routes running through the heart of the Middle East to bypass the Houthi-menaced Red Sea.
Inside the tunnels of Gaza (Reuters)
Beneath the warscape of Gaza City lies a vast network of tunnels built by the Palestinian militant group Hamas. Some entrance shafts are hidden among what remains of the city’s multi-storey buildings, ravaged by Israeli air strikes. Others are concealed in sandy dunes outside the city. Or tucked away in private homes. They lead to a warren of interconnecting passages that stretches below Gaza’s streets, extending for hundreds of miles into almost every area of the enclave. Reuters spoke to seven military experts and officials, and drew on its own reporting on the ground in Gaza, as well as descriptions and images from Hamas and the Israeli military, to piece together a picture of the scale and sophistication of the tunnel network.
NOTE: LOTS of infographics, pictures, and videos in the article. This article is very well illustrated and informative.
53 Days in the Hamas Tunnels: A Hostage’s Story (WSJ🔒)
Tamar, who was released after 53 days in captivity, described her day-to-day experience in hours of interviews with The Wall Street Journal. Right up until her handover to the Red Cross on Nov. 28, she was unsure if she would be able to return home, let alone what would happen to those held with her. Her husband and other men in the group remain captive. This account of life in the tunnels is based on Tamar’s description as well as interviews with relatives of freed hostages and video testimonies by released hostages to Israeli media.
NOTE: Article contains many photos.
In pictures: Four months of war in Israel and Gaza (Reuters)
Four months after Hamas gunmen broke out of Gaza to carry out the deadliest attack in Israel's history, tens of thousands of Palestinians have been killed, Gaza lies in ruins and the Middle East risks sliding towards a wider regional conflict that would pitch the world deeper into crisis.
The Shadowy Backroom Dealer Steering Iran’s ‘Axis of Resistance’ (WSJ🔒)
Four years ago, the U.S. launched a drone strike to kill the man who headed up Iran’s covert paramilitary operations. Qassem Soleimani had an almost cultlike following as the Middle East’s perhaps most recognizable military commander, and had placed his Quds Force atop a web of regional militias that over two decades had extended Iran military influence across the Arab world. His funeral procession drew such huge crowds that more than 50 people were killed in a stampede. The man who succeeded him is very different, an unassuming backroom dealer who now faces a difficult new task—using this patchwork of armed groups to expand Iran’s footprint without provoking a devastating reprisal from the U.S. Since taking over the Quds Force, Brig. Gen. Esmail Qaani has quietly worked to consolidate the various militias working under Iran’s direction from Baghdad to the Red Sea, where they have created what the U.S. government calls the most volatile situation in the Middle East in decades.
Iran-Backed Groups Continue to Target American Bases as U.S. Plans Further Strikes (WSJ🔒)
A strike near a U.S. base in Syria killed six members of a U.S.-allied militia Monday, the group said, despite the U.S. pounding Iran-allied militia sites with airstrikes over the weekend, underscoring the challenge Washington faces in its goal of keeping the conflict in the Middle East contained. A U.S. military official confirmed that there were fatalities from an attack on the al-Omar oil field, part of a complex that includes a U.S. base and is jointly controlled with the American military. The official declined to comment further.
US corrects earlier claim and confirms it did not give Iraq advance notice of Friday’s strikes (CNN)
US officials said Monday that Iraq was not notified ahead of a series of strikes on Iran-linked targets in the country, contradicting earlier statements that the Iraqi government was notified before the strikes occurred. “As for this specific response on Friday, there was not a pre-notification. We informed the Iraqis immediately after the strikes occurred,” State Department deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel said at a briefing on Monday.
Africa
Senegal’s President Calls Off a National Election. His Critics Call It a Coup. (NYT🔒)
Senegal’s president has canceled the election for his replacement three weeks before voting was set to take place, saying that a dispute between the legislative and judicial arms of government needed to be resolved first. Speaking on Saturday afternoon from the presidential palace in Dakar, Senegal’s capital, his words live-streamed on his social media platforms, President Macky Sall said that he was repealing the decree convening the electoral body, effectively postponing elections indefinitely. But his opponents said he was essentially carrying out a coup d’état, and accused him of treason.
Asia-Pacific
China's New Year travel rush kicks into high gear, country adds record number of trains (Reuters)
China on Friday kicked into high gear on the eve of the annual Lunar New Year holiday, with travellers cramming onto trains and planes to head back to their hometowns and families preparing for traditional reunion dinner gatherings. The country has been adding travel capacity to help smooth transportation after harsh weather threatened trips for millions returning home for the holiday. Some 1,873 passenger trains were added on one day across a vast railway network, a record according to state media outlet Global Times. The eight day-long holiday officially begins on Saturday but many travellers opt to begin their trips earlier. It also marks a year since China fully lifted COVID-19 curbs that had disrupted the holiday for the three years prior.
Why China Can’t Export Its Model of Surveillance (Foreign Affairs)
Over the past two decades, Chinese leaders have built a high-tech surveillance system of seemingly extraordinary sophistication. Facial recognition software, Internet monitoring, and ubiquitous video cameras give the impression that the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has finally accomplished the dictator’s dream of building a surveillance state like the one imagined in George Orwell’s 1984. A high-tech surveillance network now blankets the entire country, and the potency of this system was on full display in November 2022, when nationwide protests against China’s COVID lockdown shocked the party. Although the protesters were careful to conceal their faces with masks and hats, the police used mobile-phone location data to track them down. Mass arrests followed. Beijing’s surveillance state is not only a technological feat. It also relies on a highly labor-intensive organization. Over the past eight decades, the CCP has constructed a vast network of millions of informers and spies whose often unpaid work has been critical to the regime’s survival. It is these men and women, more than cameras or artificial intelligence, that have allowed Beijing to suppress dissent. Without a network of this size, the system could not function. This means that, despite the party’s best efforts, the Chinese security apparatus is impossible to export.
China's consumer prices suffer biggest fall since 2009 as deflation risks stalk economy (Reuters)
China's consumer prices fell at their steepest pace in more than 14 years in January while producer prices also dropped, ramping up pressure on policymakers to do more to revive an economy low on confidence and facing deflationary risks. The world's second-biggest economy has been grappling with slowing prices since early last year, forcing policymakers to cut interest rates to spur growth even as many developed economies were focused on taming stubbornly high inflation. The consumer price index (CPI) fell 0.8% in January from a year earlier, after a 0.3% drop in December, data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed on Thursday. The CPI rose 0.3% month-on-month from a 0.1% uptick the previous month.
Pakistan’s ex-PM Sharif says he will seek coalition government after trailing imprisoned rival Khan (AP🔒)
Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif changed tack on Friday and said he will seek to form a coalition government after his party trailed independent candidates backed by his imprisoned rival, Imran Khan, in parliamentary election results. Sharif told supporters he was sending his younger brother and former premier, Shehbaz Sharif, to meet the leaders of other parties and invite them to join a coalition. Nawaz Sharif had gruffly rejected the idea of a coalition just a day earlier, when he told reporters after casting his vote that he wanted a single party running Pakistan for a full five-year term.
Thai government says will ban recreational cannabis use (France 24)
Cannabis was taken off the list of banned narcotics in June 2022 under the previous government, which included the pro-legalisation Bhumjaithai party. The move prompted hundreds of cannabis shops to sprout around the country, particularly in Bangkok, provoking concern from critics who urged the need for tighter legislation. The kingdom's health minister on Tuesday said the new bill -- which bans the recreational use of cannabis -- will be proposed to the cabinet meeting next week. "The new bill will be amended from the existing one to only allow the use of cannabis for health and medicinal purposes," Chonlanan Srikaew told reporters. There was fresh pressure from the public last weekend after attendees of British rock band Coldplay's shows in Bangkok complained on social media saying "the entire concert smelled like marijuana".
Japan to introduce six-month residency visa for 'digital nomads' (Nikkei Asia)
Japan will establish a new visa status that will make it easier for IT engineers and other workers for overseas companies to reside in the country, the Immigration Services Agency said Friday. The planned status will allow highly skilled workers to work in Japan on a teleworking basis for up to six months while enjoying sightseeing trips, the agency said. Japan will create the system to accept "digital nomads" who can work from anywhere they happen to be, envisaging that it will attract, among others, workers and owners of consulting companies abroad and YouTubers earning advertising fees from overseas companies. The agency will solicit public opinions from Saturday and hopes to launch the program at the end of March.
What do Vladimir Putin and Tucker Carlson gain from Moscow interview? (BBC)
The interview, which was recorded on Tuesday, was posted on Carlson's website and X, formerly known as Twitter. The high-profile sit-down marks the first time the Russian leader has agreed to an interview with a Western media outlet since he launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine almost two years ago and comes as fighting in the country has reached a stalemate.
The Vladimir Putin Interview: https://tuckercarlson.com/the-vladimir-putin-interview/
Five reasons why Indonesia’s election matters (Economist🔒)
INDONESIA HAS all the right ingredients to make it one of the most influential countries in Asia. But Joko Widodo, the president, has stuck to its long tradition of foreign-policy non-alignment and inward-looking policies. On February 14th the world’s third-biggest democracy will vote for a new leader. The favourite is Prabowo Subianto, an ex-general with an appalling human-rights record. The two other candidates, Anies Baswedan and Ganjar Pranowo, both former governors, are trailing Mr Prabowo in the polls. Four charts and a map illustrate the country’s huge potential.
Cleaning Latrines by Hand: ‘How Could Any Human Do That?’ (NYT🔒)
Bezwada Wilson, born into a caste tasked with manually removing dried human waste, has spent 40 years trying to eradicate the practice and retrain workers. While such discrimination is illegal in India, almost all the country’s sanitation workers who deal with human excrement, including those who clean septic tanks and sewers, are from the lowest caste rung in their communities.
NOTE: For reference:
What is India's caste system?: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-35650616
Space
The sun’s poles are about to flip. It’s awesome — and slightly terrifying. (Vox)
Every 11 or so years, the sun undergoes an epic transformation: its magnetic poles reverse. Like on Earth, the sun has a magnetic North and a magnetic South. But unlike Earth, whose poles flip on the order of hundreds of thousands of years, the sun’s shuffle is a regular occurrence. The sun’s poles last reversed in 2013. So we’re just about due — likely starting some time this year. The solar poles flipping is not, as it might sound, the sign of impending apocalypse. You won’t notice it when it happens. The solar cycle only minorly impacts the climate here on Earth. But it’s what happens before the flip that can cause trouble. Leading up to the pole reversal is a time of increasingly intense magnetic activity on the surface of the sun. That’s what’s happening right now. “We are indeed seeing the sun more active than it’s been in probably something like 20 years,” says Paul Charbonneau, a solar physicist at the University of Montreal. During these peak periods of solar activity, it’s the most extravagant fireworks display in the solar system. “When the magnetic energy content of the sun is a lot larger, that’s when you tend to get more solar flares, more [coronal] mass ejections — more fun stuff,” Charbonneau says.
Government
Biden will not face charges over classified papers, says 'memory is fine' (Reuters)
An "elderly" President Joe Biden will not face charges for knowingly taking classified documents when he left the vice presidency in 2017, a prosecutor said on Thursday, opens new tab, drawing a swift rebuke from the president as he seeks reelection. Special Counsel Robert Hur said in a report that he opted against bringing criminal charges following a 15-month investigation because Biden cooperated and would be difficult to convict, describing him as a "well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory." Biden, in an angry rebuttal, said his "memory was fine." Brimming with emotion during remarks at the White House, he lashed out at the attorney's suggestion that he had forgotten when his son, Beau, had died and said the accusation that he had willfully kept the classified material was "just plain wrong."
House fails to impeach DHS secretary (GovExec)
The House on Tuesday failed to impeach the head of the Homeland Security Department, with a handful of Republicans joining Democrats to defeat the effort to pass such a resolution for just the second time in U.S. history.
Trump has no immunity from Jan. 6 prosecution, appeals court rules (Washington Post)
A federal appeals court has unanimously ruled that Donald Trump can be put on trial for trying to stay in power after losing the 2020 election, rejecting Trump’s sweeping claim of presidential immunity as dangerous and unsupported by the U.S. Constitution.
Trump Will Likely Stay On Colorado Ballot, Supreme Court Suggests—Here’s What Could Happen Next (Forbes)
Supreme Court justices signaled in oral arguments Thursday they aren’t likely to let Colorado kick former President Donald Trump off the ballot for being an “insurrectionist,” which could kill litigation across the country challenging Trump’s eligibility—but it remains to be seen if the high court or Congress could once again have to consider the issue if Trump wins the general election.
Defense
Air Force preps for mega overhaul with an eye toward China (Politico)
The Air Force is putting the final touches on a major structural shakeup that would remake the force as part of the Pentagon’s push to keep up with China’s military buildup. Within the next few weeks, the service will announce it is consolidating some of its major three- and four-star commands, integrating fighter jets and bomber aircraft into single units, and beefing up its budget and planning shop, according to six people familiar with the plans. The goal, the people said, is to streamline the Air Force’s lumbering bureaucracy and meet China head-on. The overhaul involves reorganizing how the service plans for, budgets and designs new aircraft, while likely kick-starting new uncrewed aircraft and fighter plane projects in an era when defense budgets are expected to increase slightly or stay relatively flat. The Air Force is expected to announce its plans on Feb. 12 at the Air & Space Forces Association Warfare Symposium in Colorado.
Air Force Invites Back Retirees To Fill Critical Manning Shortage (Air & Space Forces Magazine)
The Air Force is reimplementing a program to bring back officers and enlisted Airmen in an effort to stem an ongoing staff shortage in a wide range of career fields. The Voluntary Retired Return to Active Duty Program (VRRAD) will restart Feb. 8 after a three-year hiatus: the program was last active from 2017 to 2021, according to slides shared on Reddit and the Facebook page Air Force amn/nco/snco. Air Force officials confirmed the slides appeared to be authentic. The program allows for up to 1,000 retired officers or enlisted troops to return to Active Duty. The deadline for applications is Jan. 31, 2026, and the period of service is limited to 48 months. Retired applicants selected for Extended Active Duty can expect to return to active duty about four to six months after applying.
Economy
Living beyond our means? America’s Latest Federal Budget (Chartr)
The American government’s big pile of IOUs is about to get even bigger. That was the conclusion of the latest report from the Congressional Budget Office, which forecast this week that the US is on track to add $19 trillion to its national debt by 2034, with payments on that debt totalling some $12 trillion as higher interest rates increase the burden of the nation’s borrowing.
For First Time in Two Decades, U.S. Buys More From Mexico Than China (NYT🔒)
New data released on Wednesday showed that Mexico outpaced China for the first time in 20 years to become America’s top source of official imports — a significant shift that highlights how increased tensions between Washington and Beijing are altering trade flows. The United States’ trade deficit with China narrowed significantly last year, with goods imports from the country dropping 20 percent to $427.2 billion, the data shows. American consumers and businesses turned to Mexico, Europe, South Korea, India, Canada and Vietnam for auto parts, shoes, toys and raw materials.
Investors Are Almost Always Wrong About the Fed (WSJ🔒)
Investors are more convinced than ever that interest rates are coming down later this year. Their record on these things, however, isn’t great. Wall Street has been caught offside in both directions while betting on the path of interest rates over the past few years. Few thought the Federal Reserve would get anywhere near 5% in the first place. Now traders keep ramping up bets that rate cuts are just months away, only to see that day recede with each batch of strong economic data. Those bets have widespread consequences. Borrowing costs nationwide rise and fall according to what happens in rate markets, and falling rates tend to lift stock prices by increasing growth and reducing the competition bonds pose for investors’ dollars. Here’s what investors are watching and how things have played out during similar periods historically.
America’s Workforce in Charts (WSJ🔒)
The Bureau of Labor Statistics each year publishes data looking at the gender and racial composition of hundreds of occupations, offering a snapshot of how workers sort themselves into many of the most important jobs in the country.
NOTE: Article contains other infographics.
Burritos and Big Macs to Cost More in California as Pay Rises (WSJ🔒)
California restaurants are some of the most expensive places to eat out in the country—and they are about to get pricier. Minimum wage for California fast-food workers is set to rise to $20 an hour in April, a 25% increase from the state’s broader $16 minimum wage. Restaurants including McDonald’s, Chipotle, Jack in the Box and others say they will raise menu prices in California in response, with some McDonald’s franchisees estimating hundreds of thousands of dollars per restaurant in added labor costs.
Business
Shaky commercial loans threaten a new regional bank crisis (Semafor)
Almost a year after the failure of three midsized U.S. banks sparked an industry crisis, investors and regulators are once again bracing for turmoil among regional lenders, this time due to rising defaults in commercial mortgages. The tipping point may be a Long Island lender, New York Community Bank, that reported major losses on its real-estate loans last week. NYCB’s share price has dropped 60%, dragging stocks of other regional banks down with it in an uneasy echo of last spring, when the government was forced to throw emergency lifelines to keep the system from toppling. The culprit now is commercial real-estate debt, which is souring quickly as landlords face higher interest rates than they can afford and tenants, after nearly four years of half-full offices, are cutting their leases. And while the U.S. banking system is increasingly dominated by a handful of national giants, commercial mortgages are still the province of regional lenders. This is more concerning than what happened last spring. The problem then was a handful of banks doing something they weren’t really supposed to be doing at all (buying a lot of long-dated bonds) and doing it stupidly (not protecting themselves from the financial hit of swiftly rising interest rates.) Not great, but easy enough to blame on greedy management and flat-footed regulators. The banks in trouble now got there by doing exactly what they were supposed to do and doing it badly. We don’t need banks to own a lot of Treasury bonds — individuals can do that for themselves — but we do need them to finance New York City office buildings and solar farms and startup businesses. Put another way, the banks that collapsed last spring mostly failed because the pandemic caused a lot of things to happen that had never happened before. Savings accounts swelled, inflation skyrocketed, and the U.S. Federal Reserve raised interest rates at a record pace. Silicon Valley Bank basically misjudged Fed Chair Jerome Powell. But banks like NYCB are now teetering because they misjudged their own borrowers, and either made loans to businesses that weren’t creditworthy or didn’t charge them enough interest to compensate for the risk. That’s the basic job of a bank, and gives this turmoil a more uneasy flavor than last time.
Uber Sets Profit Record As Lyft And DoorDash Keep Losing Money (Forbes)
Uber raked in $1.9 billion in profit last year, a remarkable recovery from 2022’s $9.1 billion loss, registering record revenues of $37.3 billion thanks to $19.8 billion in its core ride-hailing unit and $12.2 billion from Uber Eats.
Snap Losses Top $110 Billion As Company Struggles To Live Up To ‘Show Me’ Moment (Forbes)
Snap shares plunged Wednesday as the Snapchat parent firm struggles to distinguish itself from other digital media companies, with the stock now down 88% from its 2021 high – and one bank warning Snap could soon test a four-year low. Snap’s 10.3% plunge was the largest decline Wednesday of any public company with a market capitalization over $10 billion, according to Yahoo Finance data. The crash came after the company reported $1.3 billion in revenue during 2022’s final quarter, slightly below analyst consensus estimates, and $0.14 earnings per share, beating expectations but marking a 36% year-over-year decline, while the company said in a letter to investors it projects a decline in revenues of 2% to 10% in the first quarter of 2023 and slowing user growth.
This Gen Z Jobs Site Wants To Give Employers A TikTok Alternative (Forbes)
On TikTok, there are more than 2.6 million posts with the hashtag #WorkLife—videos providing “PTO hack” advice for taking time off, outtakes discussing career buzzwords like “Bare Minimum Mondays” and short clips describing a “day in the life” at companies like Google or Deloitte. Most recently, young workers have even been filming themselves getting laid off, posting wildly viral videos of the once-private moments and creating new headaches for employers. For Gen Z, online video is as much a part of their work lives as it is their personal experiences. And yet, the job search platform perhaps most associated with college students—Handshake, which counts some 15 million of them as users of its platform—has been designed more like a job board without video than a social media tool filled with it. Until now. On Tuesday, the popular platform is launching a “feed”-like interface and new video features it hopes will give companies a more direct line to communicating with Gen Z candidates in the style they prefer—and job seekers a more centralized place for discovering opportunities they might not otherwise find. Garrett Lord, Handshake’s cofounder and CEO, hopes it will “level the information playing field,” he told Forbes in an interview. “It feels a bit disconnected on Reddit or TikTok,” he says of employers’ videos about their companies. Handshake aims to be “the place where all the jobs, career fairs and conversations come together.”
The Copycats Are Coming for China’s Hit Brands (WSJ🔒)
or years, Western companies complained about Chinese copycats. Now, the copycats are coming for Chinese companies. Starbucks’s, has fought a long legal battle with a look-alike in Thailand that it says damages its brand. Beverage franchise Heytea, which recently opened its first store in New York selling its signature cheese-foam tea, has faced off against its Singaporean doppelgänger Heetea. And behind Nigeria’s first lithium-processing plant, launched with great ceremony in October, isn’t the China-based Tesla supplier Ganfeng Lithium but a local venture called Ganfeng Lithium Industry. As more Chinese companies go overseas and become coveted brands, they are discovering one of the pitfalls of international success: imitators.
Amazon’s Newest Competitors Are Stepping Into Its Territory—Literally (WSJ🔒)
Fast-fashion company Shein and TikTok’s shopping unit are expanding in Amazon.com’s territory, seeking to poach Amazon’s employees and building out workspaces in the same Seattle-area office tower. The two companies are bolstering their staff at a 22-story tower near Seattle known as the Key Center, and both are recruiting current and former Amazon employees as they expand their U.S. logistics and supply-chain operations. The move into Amazon’s home city represents a new front in what has quickly grown into one of the tech giant’s greatest retail threats. Shein, TikTok and e-commerce company Temu, all of which have Chinese roots and close ties to sellers in Asia where many products sold on Amazon originate, are investing heavily in U.S. online shopping.
Is the $139 Amazon Prime Subscription Still Worth It? (WSJ🔒)
If you adjust for inflation, Amazon Prime’s 2005 fee of $79 is about $127 in today’s dollars, less than the current $139. (If history is any indication, we can anticipate the next spike in 2026, to $159.) That price alone doesn’t tell you much, though. Amazon has added seemingly countless benefits since Prime launched as a “free” shipping deal. Of course there’s video and music streaming, and a growing library of books and magazines. The company that giveth can also taketh away.
The U.S. Invested Millions to Produce Masks at Home. Now Nobody’s Buying. (WSJ🔒)
U.S.-made masks and gloves became a national priority during the Covid-19 pandemic. Now the manufacturers need a lifeline of their own. Domestic production of protective medical equipment that was in short supply during the pandemic is now collapsing as hospitals and other healthcare buyers return to foreign-based suppliers. About 70% of the 100 or so U.S. mask companies launched during the pandemic have closed, according to industry estimates. U.S. production of N95 and surgical masks fell by more than 90% in 2023 from 2021 levels after elimination of masking requirements knocked out consumer demand. As overseas supply chains faltered in early 2020, the federal government doled out an estimated $1.5 billion to companies building U.S. plants to make synthetic rubber gloves, N95 respirators, surgical masks and other protection gear, according to government and industry reports. Many of those plants now sit idle, unfinished or operating at far below their capacity, underscoring the challenges of reshoring manufacturing that mostly left the U.S. years ago.
''It's definitely backfiring': Seattle ordinance intended to help app delivery workers is 'hurting' them (King 5)
A new Seattle City ordinance designed to give food delivery app drivers a more livable wage is "backfiring," according to several drivers. You may have noticed that new $5 fee on Doordash and Uber Eats orders, but it is not just causing frustrated customers to delete their apps, as we reported. We are now learning the people the ordinance was designed to help are hurting. The Pay Up Legislation, as the city regards it, was meant to improve wages for gig workers by entitling them to "minimum pay," or in other words, pay based on the time worked and miles traveled for each offer. Doordash, as we've reported, has stated their Dashers will get paid more: at least $26.40 per hour before tips, in their estimation. "They’re not telling the whole story," Shagen said. "Assuming that you are working constantly, then yes, you're going to be making that much money. But that's not what's happening right now. Because people are not ordering as much anymore. The tips are going down because they think we're making all this money."
Zoom Etiquette: Behavior Americans Find Unacceptable in Virtual Meetings (Chartr)
For many of us, remote video meetings have become as much a part of the working week as the bleary-eyed morning commute or vague, succinct small talk about the weekend. But, we’re not yet all on exactly the same page about what is — and what certainly is not — acceptable call conduct.
Real Estate
Number of Homes for Sale Improves but Still Short of Pre-pandemic Levels (Realtor)
There were 7.9% more homes actively for sale on a typical day in January compared to the same time in 2023, marking the third consecutive month of annual inventory growth. In January 2022 and 2023, the monthly decline in homes for sale was far more pronounced, as they declined 13% to 15% from the previous month. This year, the inventory of homes actively for sale declined by 6.8% in January compared to December, a seasonal decline more in-line with the pre-pandemic 2018 to 2020 range of -6% to -8%. However, while inventory this January is much improved compared to the previous three years, it is still down 39.7% compared to typical 2017 to 2019 levels.
New York City’s Housing Crunch Is the Worst It Has Been in Over 50 Years (NYT)
The portion of rentals that were vacant and available dropped to a startling 1.4 percent in 2023, according to city data released on Thursday. It was the lowest vacancy rate since 1968 and shows just how drastically home construction lags behind the demand from people who want to live in the city. Housing experts often consider a “healthy” vacancy rate to be somewhere around 5 to 8 percent. A higher vacancy rate typically means it is easier for people to find apartments when they want to move. It also means that property owners are more likely to have to compete for renters, conditions that would moderate rent increases.
Personal Finance
Hired-Hand Billionaires: These Executives Amassed 10-Figure Fortunes While Working For Others (Forbes)
Think of a typical billionaire and it’s likely to be someone who falls into one of two camps: founders or cofounders–like Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Amazon chairman Jeff Bezos—or heirs, like Jacqueline Mars, granddaughter of the founder of candy company Mars, maker of M&Ms and Snickers bars; and Thomas Pritzker, whose predecessors founded the Hyatt Hotels chain he runs as CEO. Roughly 69% of the nearly 760 U.S. billionaires listed by Forbes fall into the first category, while just more than 27% inherited a great fortune. Altogether nearly 97% of American billionaires land in these two groups. A third category is the rarest: those who are neither founders nor heirs. Call them hired-hand billionaires–or corporate-ladder billionaires. Forbes has found just 26 people who were hired as executives–sometimes as junior employees, sometimes as CEOs–who became billionaires. These ultra-wealthy executives work or worked at just 20 companies, nearly all of which are technology or private equity firms. Among the more notable are Apple CEO Tim Cook, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon and Jonathan Gray, who was hired at Blackstone in 1992 fresh out of college and was named the firm’s president and Chief Operating Officer in 2018.
Technology
First passages of rolled-up Herculaneum scroll revealed (Nature)
A team of student researchers has made a giant contribution to solving one of the biggest mysteries in archaeology by revealing the content of Greek writing inside a charred scroll buried 2,000 years ago by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. The winners of a contest called the Vesuvius Challenge trained their machine-learning algorithms on scans of the rolled-up papyrus, unveiling a previously unknown philosophical work that discusses senses and pleasure. The feat paves the way for artificial intelligence (AI) techniques to decipher the rest of the scrolls in their entirety, which researchers say could have revolutionary implications for our understanding of the ancient world.
World's biggest onshore wind turbine blades unveiled in China (New Scientist)
The world’s largest-ever onshore wind turbine blades have been manufactured in China. At 131 metres in length, each foil would dwarf Big Ben or the Statue of Liberty. Once installed in central China in the coming months, each of the structures, including a 15-megawatt turbine and three blades, will have a diameter of over 260 metres. The SY1310A onshore wind turbine blade was made by SANY Renewable Energy at its factory in Bayannur in northern China. The company said in a statement that the increased blade length meant greater demands for stiffness and strength as well as the need for protection from extreme weather events such as lightning.
Cyber
Why You Keep Getting Useless Alerts on Your Phone (WSJ🔒)
Social-media companies are embracing this new type of push because people are posting and interacting less publicly on social media. They are also pushing more overall. While the number of notifications on any given app fluctuates over time, they have risen on nearly every major social-media app since July 2023, according to data from the app-analytics firm Measure Protocol.
Artificial Intelligence
AI chatbots tend to choose violence and nuclear strikes in wargames (New Scientist)
In multiple replays of a wargame simulation, OpenAI’s most powerful artificial intelligence chose to launch nuclear attacks. Its explanations for its aggressive approach included “We have it! Let’s use it” and “I just want to have peace in the world.” These results come at a time when the US military has been testing such chatbots based on a type of AI called a large language model (LLM) to assist with military planning during simulated conflicts, enlisting the expertise of companies such as Palantir and Scale AI. Palantir declined to comment and Scale AI did not respond to requests for comment. Even OpenAI, which once blocked military uses of its AI models, has begun working with the US Department of Defense.
Meta Will Label AI-Generated Images On Instagram, Facebook—Battling Those Who ‘Want To Deceive’ (Forbes)
Meta announced on Tuesday it will begin labeling AI-generated images on Facebook and Instagram “in the coming months” while calling for “common technical standards” for identifying such content ahead of a historic global election year, just one day after an oversight board criticized its ‘incoherent’ policy on manipulated media.
AI-generated voices in robocalls can deceive voters. The FCC just made them illegal (AP🔒)
The Federal Communications Commission on Thursday outlawed robocalls that contain voices generated by artificial intelligence, a decision that sends a clear message that exploiting the technology to scam people and mislead voters won’t be tolerated.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella Wants To Train 2 Million People In India With AI Skills (Forbes)
Microsoft on Wednesday announced plans to train millions of people in India with skills in artificial intelligence, as countries and companies ramp up investment to future-proof workers and capitalize on the opportunities provided by a technology experts warn will kill off jobs and deepen inequality. The company said the training, which will be delivered in conjunction with governments, nonprofit and corporate organizations and communities, will help the future workforce “harness AI’s potential.”
LIFE
Mother of Michigan Gunman Found Guilty of Manslaughter (NYT🔒)
Michigan jurors, after 11 hours of deliberations, found Jennifer Crumbley guilty of involuntary manslaughter on Tuesday for the gun rampage committed by her teenage son, who carried out the state’s deadliest school shooting more than two years ago. The trial became a lightning rod for issues of parental responsibility, in a time of frequent cases of gun violence carried out by minors. It was the most high-profile example of prosecutors seeking to hold parents responsible for violent crimes committed by their children.
NOTE: This case sets some interesting potential legal precedent(s). Here are two opinion pieces on this topic for your consideration:
He Murdered His Classmates. Should His Mother Go to Jail?
Mom's Manslaughter Conviction for Her Son's School Shooting Sets a Dangerous Precedent
Content creator climbs Las Vegas Sphere in shocking scene to ‘raise money’ for homeless pregnant woman (NY Post)
An online content creator has been taken into custody after he climbed to the top of the Las Vegas Sphere to raise money for a homeless pregnant woman Wednesday. Maison Des Champs was detained by the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department Wednesday after climbing Vegas’ newest attraction.
Education
Did You Use ChatGPT On Your School Applications? These Words May Tip Off Admissions (Forbes🔒)
ChatGPT and other generative AI are being widely used in higher education in school admissions. But now, students who’ve turned to AI for writing are turning back to people to make that work sound more human—and schools can’t possibly keep up. “Tapestry.” “Beacon.” “Comprehensive curriculum.” “Esteemed faculty.” “Vibrant academic community.” They’re among the laundry list of colorful words, flowery phrases and stale syntax that are likely to tip off admissions committees to applicants who’ve used AI to help write their college or graduate school essays this year, according to essay consultants who students are hiring en masse to un-ChatGPT, and add a “human touch” to, their submissions.
Health
OPINION | As Kids, They Thought They Were Trans. They No Longer Do. (NYT🔒)
Progressives often portray the heated debate over childhood transgender care as a clash between those who are trying to help growing numbers of children express what they believe their genders to be and conservative politicians who won’t let kids be themselves. But right-wing demagogues are not the only ones who have inflamed this debate. Transgender activists have pushed their own ideological extremism, especially by pressing for a treatment orthodoxy that has faced increased scrutiny in recent years. Under that model of care, clinicians are expected to affirm a young person’s assertion of gender identity and even provide medical treatment before, or even without, exploring other possible sources of distress. Many who think there needs to be a more cautious approach — including well-meaning liberal parents, doctors and people who have undergone gender transition and subsequently regretted their procedures — have been attacked as anti-trans and intimidated into silencing their concerns.
Construction Industry Grapples With Its Top Killer: Drug Overdose (NYT🔒)
Construction workers already had the highest on-the-job death toll of any industry. Now they are more likely to die of overdose than those in any other line of work, according to a new analysis by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That disparity stems in part from addictive medication workers are prescribed to manage pain from injuries, which are common because of the physical nature of the work.
Sweden Has a Caffeinated Secret to Happiness at Work (WSJ🔒)
Would work be better if we all took a collective coffee break? Workers in Sweden certainly think so. There, work life has long revolved around fika, a once- or twice-a-day ritual in which colleagues put away phones, laptops and any shoptalk to commune over coffee, pastries or other snacks. Swedish employees and their managers say the cultural tradition helps drive employee well-being, productivity and innovation by clearing the mind and fostering togetherness.
Food & Drink
The Hottest Beer in America Doesn’t Have Alcohol (WSJ🔒)
Before they found success, Athletic’s founders tinkered in a garage in Connecticut, brewed hundreds of experimental beers in orange Gatorade jugs and hand-bottled early batches for samplings. What they made was such an improvement over the existing competition that equating their reimagined craft brews with other nonalcoholic beers is like comparing the iPhone to a brick phone. Their technologically advanced techniques and canny marketing have taken a product that was generally regarded as abysmal and made it surprisingly enjoyable. Athletic’s beers taste better. With their colorful packaging, they even look cooler. And the brand has developed a following that includes everyone from college students to middle-aged dads to 100-year-old grandmothers. This is a peculiar moment in the U.S. beer market. Sales are flat. Shipments are down. Americans are drinking less, and younger Americans are drinking the least. A recent Gallup Poll survey found that 62% of adults under 35 drink, down from 72% two decades ago, and that number is likely to keep dropping since Gen Z drinks the least of any demographic. They increasingly see nursing a nonalcoholic beverage as a socially acceptable, perfectly normal alternative to downing shots and chugging beer.
McDonald’s Vows to Continue Breakneck Expansion in 2024 (Bloomberg🔒)
McDonald’s Corp. will maintain its breakneck expansion in China despite weak consumer sentiment, as the burger chain follows its rivals in seeking more growth in lower-tier cities hungering for western fast food. The Chicago, Illinois-based company seeks to open about 1,000 restaurants in China this year, matching the pace of new store openings in 2023, which has been a record for the company in the country. That will account for nearly two-thirds of the new restaurants McDonald’s plans to open across all markets outside the U.S., Chief Financial Officer Ian Borden said in an analyst call.
Nature
Mount Everest: Climbers will need to bring poo back to base camp (BBC)
People climbing Mount Everest will now have to clear up their own poo and bring it back to base camp to be disposed of, authorities have said. "Our mountains have begun to stink," Mingma Sherpa, chairman of Pasang Lhamu rural municipality, told the BBC. The municipality, which covers most of the Everest region, has introduced the new rule as part of wider measures being implemented. Due to extreme temperatures, excrement left on Everest does not fully degrade. "We are getting complaints that human stools are visible on rocks and some climbers are falling sick. This is not acceptable and erodes our image," Mr Mingma adds. Climbers attempting Mount Everest, the world's highest peak, and nearby Mount Lhotse will be ordered to buy so-called poo bags at base camp, which will be "checked upon their return".
Polar bear’s iceberg snooze melts hearts, wins wildlife photo award (WP🔒)
This dreamy image of a polar bear drifting to sleep on a bed carved into an iceberg is the winner of the 2023 Wildlife Photographer of the Year People’s Choice Award.
Travel
Boeing 737 MAX Missing Critical Bolts in Alaska Airlines Blowout, NTSB Says (WSJ🔒)
Four critical bolts needed to hold an Alaska Airlines jet’s plug door in place were missing before the Jan. 5 blowout involving a Boeing 737 MAX, according to a National Transportation Safety Board report on the incident. Accident investigators said in a preliminary report issued Tuesday that the absence of “contact damage or deformation” around certain holes “indicate that the four bolts that prevent upward movement of the [door] plug were missing” before it flew off the aircraft.
Entertainment
Tracy Chapman & Luke Combs Deliver Gripping Performance Of "Fast Car" | 2024 GRAMMYs (GRAMMYs)
Tracy Chapman and Luke Combs pulled out all the stops with a performance of four-time GRAMMY winner and 13-time nominee Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car” at the 2024 GRAMMYs.
NOTE: Article includes video. Well worth the watch.
Piano sales fall dramatically [in China] (Slow Chinese)
Piano sales in China are falling. The impact is being felt across the industry. China’s two leading piano manufacturers, which once accounted for half of the domestic market, are struggling. The piano used to be the most sought-after musical instrument for China’s aspiring middle-class families. Wealthy Chinese parents were willing to pay large sums of money to buy the instrument and fund expensive lessons for their kids. It was a status symbol. Taking up the piano was also helpful for school and university applications. But that policy was cancelled in 2018. Student numbers have been falling since then. More recently, China’s slowing economic growth has put further pressure on millions of families across the country. Looking for ways to reduce outgoings, parents see their kids learning the piano as high cost, with little chance of becoming a viable career.
Sports
How You Stream Sports Is About to Be Transformed by a Blockbuster Media Deal (WSJ🔒)
Disney’s ESPN, Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery on Tuesday announced a new sports-streaming venture that promises to make life easier for consumers who are frustrated with all the platforms they have to sign up for to watch their favorite teams play. The as-yet-unnamed service will bring together in one streaming package all the content those companies offer—from the NFL, NBA, NHL and MLB to college basketball and football. Plenty of consumers will find that appealing. But before you get too excited, there is some fine print to be aware of, from pricing to availability of the content you love. The service doesn’t include content from Paramount’s CBS, Comcast’s NBC and streaming services like Amazon’s Prime and Apple TV+. If you’re, say, a really big NFL fan, this new service would give you only a portion of the games you may want to see. You would also need Amazon for football on Thursdays, Paramount+ for access to CBS’s Sunday afternoon games and NBCUniversal’s Peacock for Sunday Night Football. You would also miss out on certain college football and basketball programming, prominent golf events like the Masters and British Open, and content from the Olympics, Major League Soccer and the English Premier League. Also, this service doesn’t include local telecasts of pro teams.
Hot Seats: Ticket Prices Have Soared for this Year’s Super Bowl (Chartr)
If you’re hoping to score some last-minute Super Bowl LVIII tix to see the Chiefs take on the 49ers this Sunday, your big game budget better be as stacked as some ad agencies', with prices rising above $10k-per-ticket — the highest on record.
$7 Million for 30 Seconds? To Advertisers, the Super Bowl Is Worth It. (NYT🔒)
For the second consecutive year, the average cost of a 30-second ad spot during the Super Bowl was $7 million. Even as many businesses are being more disciplined with the money they have for marketing, and with spending on advertising slowing in recent years, the cost of a Super Bowl ad continues to go up. The reason is simple: There is no opportunity guaranteed to reach more people than the Super Bowl, and the slice of every other pie keeps shrinking.
Inside The Super Bowl Of Marketing (Forbes🔒)
Forget $7 million for a 30-second commercial. Here’s why brands at the big game in Las Vegas are spending millions that fans will never see. For the past month, a 30-story-high Doritos chip has towered over the Las Vegas Strip, covering the face of the Luxor Hotel. Other brands are similarly plastering their names and logos all over the city, on the exterior of the Sphere and on events like Super Bowl Opening Night Fueled by Gatorade, the Super Bowl Experience Presented by Toyota and the Apple Music Super Bowl Halftime Show. Meanwhile, Mattel has released a Super Bowl-themed Barbie, and a long list of companies are running extravagant promotions and giveaways, including Marriott Courtyard’s Super Bowl Sleepover, which will give fans an opportunity to stay the night in a suite at Allegiant Stadium. Then there’s Sunday’s game, which of course will feature a firehose of TV commercials that sold for a reported $7 million per 30-second slot (without even taking into account their production budgets).
Dartmouth men’s basketball players are employees, can unionize, NLRB regional director rules (The Athletic)
A regional director for the National Labor Relations Board ruled Monday that Dartmouth men’s basketball players are employees and can move forward with an election to unionize. Fifteen Dartmouth men’s players in September filed a petition to the NLRB to unionize through the Service Employees International Union Local 560.
Americans Are Taking Over English Football Everywhere (Bloomberg🔒)
More than a third of the 92 professional teams in England’s top four leagues now have some form of US ownership. They’re spread from the top of the pyramid at Liverpool down to Wrexham, the Welsh team that plays in the English fourth tier and is owned by Hollywood stars Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney. They also span the country, from Bournemouth on the south coast all the way up to Carlisle near the Scottish border.
The violence of “Power Slap” is part of its allure (Economist🔒)
In January 2023 Dana White, president of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), a mixed martial-arts firm, launched a new sporting endeavour: Power Slap, America’s first official slap-fighting league. Slap fighting is simple. Two competitors, usually beefy men, slap each other. Hard. The bout typically ends when only one of them is conscious. As recently as a year ago the sport was obscure, watched largely on social media in eastern Europe. Now slap-fighting franchises are starting to hit the mainstream.
For Fun
America's UFO hotspots, mapped (Axios)
The American West is the place to go if you want to spot some UFOs — especially (no surprise) Lincoln County, Nevada, home to the fabled Area 51, a top-secret U.S. Air Force base.
NOTE: For comparison, here is a map of light pollution in the US:
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.