Also, if you haven’t had a chance to read it yet, I recommend taking a look at my mid-week post, which provides an easy way to remember distances around the world—it’s the first in a series of posts I’ll be doing about geography. On this topic, I just finished the book, Prisoners of Geography by Tim Marshall, and found it a very informative read; I discuss it in the "Bookshelf” section below.
The Group of 20 major economies reached a hard-fought compromise over the war in Ukraine and papered over other key differences in a summit declaration at the weekend, presenting few concrete achievements in its core remit of responses to global financial issues. Diplomats and analysts said the surprise consensus in the summit statement on the Russia-Ukraine conflict avoided a split in the group, and the inclusion of the African Union as a new member represented a victory for host India and for developing economies, but the rest was disappointing. The summit declaration avoided condemning Russia for the war in Ukraine but highlighted the human suffering the conflict had caused and called on all states not to use force to grab territory.
When $6 billion of unfrozen Iranian funds are wired to banks in Qatar as early as next week, it will trigger a carefully choreographed sequence that will see as many as five detained U.S. dual nationals leave Iran and a similar number of Iranian prisoners held in the U.S. fly home, according to eight Iranian and other sources familiar with the negotiations who spoke to Reuters. As a first step, Iran on Aug. 10 released four U.S. citizens from Tehran’s Evin prison into house arrest, where they joined a fifth, who was already under house arrest.
Escaped prisoner Danelo Cavalcante, who eluded Pennsylvania authorities for two weeks, was captured Wednesday following an intense search by hundreds of officers through the Philadelphia suburbs, the Pennsylvania State Police said.
Colombian cocaine output surged to a record last year, with the drug flooding into new markets and fueling violence across the planet. Satellite photos show the amount of land planted with coca, the raw material for making the drug, rose to 230,000 hectares (570,000 acres), in 2022, up 13% from the previous year. That’s enough to produce 1,700 tons of refined cocaine, the most ever, according to a report published Monday by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime. The supply glut has led to rising purity in Europe and the US, and a surge in seizures everywhere from Africa, to Asia to Eastern Europe. And it has turned once-peaceful Ecuador into one of the most violent countries in the world, as cartels fight for control of ports and routes.
Author Walter Isaacson took to social media to try to “clarify” an excerpt from his upcoming book, “Elon Musk.” The excerpt received swift backlash after it described how Musk thwarted a Ukrainian attack on Russian warships. Isaacson’s book claims that Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, ordered engineers to shut off Starlink’s satellite network over Crimea last year in order to disrupt a Ukrainian military initiative. Musk’s Starlink terminals arrived in the early days of Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine as Western governments worked to supply Kyiv with artillery and air defense systems. Musk eventually soured on the arrangement and said “Starlink was not meant to be involved in wars,” according to the book. The tech billionaire told Isaacson he was worried the Ukrainian attack on Russian vessels would provoke the Kremlin into launching a nuclear war. But in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, late Friday, Isaacson shared new details. “To clarify on the Starlink issue: the Ukrainians THOUGHT coverage was enabled all the way to Crimea, but it was not,” Isaacson wrote. “They asked Musk to enable it for their drone sub attack on the Russian fleet. Musk did not enable it, because he thought, probably correctly, that would cause a major war.”
An Israeli delegation attended a UNESCO meeting in Riyadh on Monday, marking the country's first publicly announced visit to Saudi Arabia as speculation grows about a potential normalisation of ties. The five-member delegation arrived on Sunday, an Israeli official told AFP, for the meeting to update UNESCO's world heritage list of cultural and historic sites.
Coping with the human tragedy of a Sept. 8 tremor that killed more than 2,900 people is everyone's immediate concern, but for a region that relied on tourists trekking along stunning valleys and mountain passes, buying local handicrafts or visiting now devastated sites, the economic future looks bleak. "No tourists, no job, no income," said Mohamed Aznag, a waiter in a café in the shattered village of Tasa Ouirgane who lost his daughter in the earthquake and now fears for his livelihood that supported the rest of his family.
The death toll in Libya’s coastal city of Derna has soared to 11,300 as search efforts continue following a massive flood fed by the breaching of two dams in heavy rains, the Libyan Red Crescent said Thursday. Marie el-Drese, the aid group’s secretary-general, told The Associated Press by phone that a further 10,100 people are reported missing in the Mediterranean city. Health authorities previously put the death toll in Derna at 5,500. The storm also killed about 170 people elsewhere in the country. The flooding swept away entire families in Derna on Sunday night and exposed vulnerabilities in the oil-rich country that has been mired in conflict since a 2011 uprising that toppled long-ruling dictator Moammar Gadhafi.
Egypt has voiced anger after Ethiopia announced it had filled the reservoir at a highly controversial hydroelectric dam on the Blue Nile river. Ethiopia has been in dispute with Egypt and Sudan over the megaproject since its launch in 2011. Egypt relies on the Nile for nearly all its water needs. Egypt's foreign ministry said Ethiopia was disregarding the interests of the downstream countries.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un peered into the cockpit of Russia’s most advanced fighter jet as he toured an aircraft factory Friday on an extended trip that has raised concerns about banned weapons transfer deals between the increasingly isolated countries. Since entering Russia aboard his armored train on Tuesday, Kim has met President Vladimir Putin and visited weapons and technology sites, underscoring deepening ties between the two nations locked in separate confrontations with the West. Foreign governments and experts speculate Kim will likely supply ammunition to Russia for its war efforts in Ukraine in exchange for receiving advanced weapons or technology from Russia.
Chinese Defense Minister Li Shangfu was taken away last week by authorities for questioning, according to a person close to decision making in Beijing, while U.S. officials say he is being removed from his post. Li hasn’t made a public appearance since late August. The U.S. officials cited unspecified intelligence as the basis for their assessment that he has been relieved of his duties.
China launched large-scale military drills in the Western Pacific this week, deploying an aircraft carrier and dozens of naval ships and warplanes in a major show of force aimed at pushing back at U.S. pressure. The joint exercises come after the United States conducted a series of military drills across the region in recent weeks with allies like Japan, Australia and the Philippines. On Saturday, the American and Canadian navies sailed ships through the Taiwan Strait.
The U.S. plans to redirect some of its foreign military financing allocated for Egypt to Taiwan over what it says is Egypt’s failure to make progress on human rights and other issues, according to U.S. officials. The Biden administration has notified Congress that it would withhold $85 million in aid conditioned on the release of political prisoners, officials said, and some lawmakers are pushing to withhold another $235 million in conditional assistance that goes to Egypt, amid growing calls by Democrats to penalize Cairo for its human-rights record. The conditional aid tied to Egypt’s human-rights record represents a fraction of the overall $1.3 billion in U.S. military aid each year, but the move comes at a time of strained relations between Washington and Cairo over human rights and support for Ukraine, as well as shifting U.S. security priorities in other parts of the world.
China's factory output and retail sales grew at a faster pace in August, but tumbling investment in the crisis-hit property sector threatens to undercut a flurry of support steps that are showing signs of stabilising parts of the wobbly economy. Chinese policymakers face a daunting task in trying to revive growth after a brief post-COVID bounce in the wake of persistent weakness in the crucial property industry, a faltering currency and weak global demand for its manufactured goods.
Inflation in the West has passed its peak. But in Russia, price rises have gained a second wind, bedeviled authorities and brought the consequences of Moscow’s war in Ukraine closer to home. The increase in prices for food and other basic goods has accelerated and some Russians have abandoned vacations abroad. At the start of the new school year, parents faced a huge jump in the cost of uniforms, with some clothes factories reoriented toward the military. More than half of Russian smokers, meanwhile, have looked to switch to cheaper counterfeit products, according to Russian pollster Romir. To stifle the rising prices, the Russian central bank on Friday lifted its key interest rate to 13% from 12%. It follows a big rate increase in August to stem a sharp selloff in the ruble. The central bank said that it could consider further increases as “significant proinflationary risks have crystallized” in the economy.
The Taliban have waged a systematic assault on the freedom of Afghanistan’s people, including women and girls experiencing “immeasurably cruel” oppression, the U.N.'s human rights chief said Tuesday. United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said that human rights are in a state of collapse in Afghanistan more than two years after the Taliban returned to power and stripped back institutional protections at all levels. He urged U.N. member states to help fill the void.
Nine years after Modi was elected, the world’s most populous democracy leads the world in internet shutdowns, according to tallies by digital-rights groups. Last year’s 84 cutoffs in various parts of the country exceeded the combined total for all other nations, including Iran, Libya and Sudan, New York-based digital rights group Access Now says. Since 2016, when the group began collecting data, India has accounted for more than half of all internet shutdowns globally. The outages have disrupted the lives of tens of millions of people in a country where inexpensive mobile data and government efforts to facilitate mobile payments have catapulted vast numbers of consumers into the digital age in recent years. About half of India’s 1.4 billion people are now online, increasingly dependent on connectivity to communicate with friends and family, shop online, pay utility bills and more.
Mexican journalist José Jaime Maussan presented two boxes with supposed mummies found in Peru, which he and others consider “non-human beings that are not part of our terrestrial evolution.” The shriveled bodies with shrunken, warped heads left those in the chamber aghast and quickly kicked up a social media fervor. On Wednesday, Julieta Fierro, researcher at the Institute of Astronomy at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, was among those to express skepticism, saying that many details about the figures “made no sense.”
As far back as our collective memory extends, we've been mesmerised by the dance of the planets across our skies. Even now, despite all our knowledge and technology, their basic movements can still surprise and captivate us. The waltz between Earth and Venus around the Sun has been doing just that, for centuries - and it certainly does make a stunning pattern.
The 2023-2024 election cycle will total $10.2 billion across broadcast, cable, radio, satellite, digital and CTV—with half of that spending, $5.1 billion, going to local TV stations, AdImpact said. This year is pacing well ahead of previous off-years with $652 million already spent on political ads in the first eight months of the year. About $2.7 billion of that political ad spending will be spent on the presidential race, the firm said, adding that the contested Republican primary and focus on battleground states is likely to increase spending.
We estimate that fraud accounted for 11-15% of the total amount of unemployment insurance benefits paid during the pandemic. In that time frame, the Department of Labor provided funding to states to help prevent, detect, and investigate fraud and recover fraudulent payments. States reported finding about $55.8 billion in total overpayments—$5.3 billion of which were fraudulent. States reported recovering about $6.8 billion total, including $1.2 billion in fraudulent payments. Since 2018, we've made 26 related recommendations to DOL. Of those, 16 haven't yet been fully implemented. The unemployment insurance system is on our High Risk List.
Pentagon military planners will no longer be holding back when it comes to deploying forces and capabilities to defend the United States and its allies in cyberspace. The Defense Department Tuesday unveiled an unclassified version of its updated cybersecurity strategy, calling for the nation's cyber forces to persistently seek out and engage adversaries including China and Russia, as well as terrorist organizations and transnational criminal groups, to minimize threats to the U.S. It also emphasized the need to work with a variety of partners, across the U.S. government and even with the private sector, to make sure U.S. cyber efforts do not go to waste.
The Department of Defense on Tuesday awarded $20.6 million to developers of the proposed Talon nickel mine in Minnesota under a program to strengthen domestic supply chains for critical minerals. The defense funds will support prospecting work in Michigan and Minnesota, and follow a $114 million grant by the Department of Energy last year to help build Talon Metals’ ore processing plant in North Dakota. The federal support stands in contrast to the Biden administration's efforts to block two other copper-nickel mining projects in Minnesota.
Hotter-than-expected inflation likely ensures the Federal Reserve keeps its options open to raise interest rates again in November or December following an expected pause this month. The so-called core consumer price index, which excludes food and energy costs, advanced 0.3% from July, the first acceleration in six months, Bureau of Labor Statistics data showed Wednesday. From a year ago, it increased 4.3%, still well above the Fed’s goal even as it was the smallest advance in nearly two years.
Consumer prices rose in August at the fastest pace in more than a year due to a jump in energy costs, illustrating the potential obstacles to wringing inflation out of the economy without a sharper slowdown. The consumer-price index, a closely watched inflation gauge, rose 0.6% in August from the prior month, the Labor Department reported Wednesday. More than half of the increase was due to higher gasoline prices. So-called core prices, which exclude volatile food and energy items, rose by a relatively mild 0.3% last month after even lower readings in June and July. The August increase reflected higher costs for items such as airfares and vehicle insurance. The monthly core reading likely keeps Federal Reserve officials on course to hold interest rates steady at their meeting next week without resolving a bigger debate over whether they will need to raise them again this year to slow the economy and maintain recent progress on inflation.
US inflation-adjusted household income fell in 2022 by the most in over a decade, highlighting the toll of a higher cost of living and the expiration of pandemic-era programs. The median income last year was $74,580 compared with $76,330 in 2021, according to the Census Bureau’s annual reports on income, poverty and health insurance coverage. The 2.3% drop in incomes — which was the most since 2010 — marked the third-straight annual decline, which has been a feature of past recessions like the global financial crisis, the dotcom bubble and the downturn in the early 1990s. Last year, American families faced the the largest annual increase in the cost-of-living adjustment in over four decades.
Just as both parties agree that Social Security and Medicare, the two biggest federal spending programs, must not be touched, they also agree that income taxes on the overwhelming majority of Americans can go down but never up. That tacit, politically popular consensus keeps tax revenue as a share of the economy flat or declining in the long run while spending’s share rises. It also locks in a permanent budget imbalance that both parties bemoan but neither seems eager to change.
The pandemic-driven hiring frenzy is ending. For months after the end of Covid-19 restrictions, employers faced widespread labor shortages as the economy quickly rebounded. Businesses tried to lure workers with bigger wages and signing bonuses. Help-wanted signs lined main streets. Now, companies are hiring more slowly and reducing job postings as higher interest rates weigh on economic demand. More workers, including women, immigrants and Americans with disabilities, are flowing into the labor force, helping businesses fill open roles.
About 13,000 U.S. auto workers stopped making vehicles and went on strike Friday after their leaders couldn’t bridge a giant gap between union demands in contract talks and what Detroit’s three automakers are willing to pay. Members of the United Auto Workers union began picketing at a General Motors assembly plant in Wentzville, Missouri; a Ford factory in Wayne, Michigan, near Detroit; and a Stellantis Jeep plant in Toledo, Ohio. It was the first time in the union’s 88-year history that it walked out on all three companies simultaneously as four-year contracts expired at 11:59 p.m. Thursday.
Google has exploited its dominance of the internet search market to lock out competitors and smother innovation, the Department of Justice charged Tuesday at the opening of the biggest U.S. antitrust trial in a quarter century. Over the next 10 weeks, federal lawyers and state attorneys general will try to prove Google rigged the market in its favor by locking its search engine in as the default choice in a plethora of places and devices. U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta likely won’t issue a ruling until early next year. If he decides Google broke the law, another trial will decide what steps should be taken to rein in the Mountain View, California-based company.
TikTok wooed marketers from companies like Madewell, H&M and Gucci last Wednesday as part of New York Fashion Week, transforming the stylish East Village restaurant Cathédrale with a video wall showcasing fashion trends like “little luxuries” and tall mannequins wearing TikTok-inspired styles. TikTok has cemented itself as an essential advertising venue for brands aiming to reach its young users. But at the party, the marketers were abuzz about TikTok’s efforts to sell products from the app itself. The reason: After nearly a year of testing, speculation and some internal upheaval, TikTok this week is rolling out TikTok Shop for all users in the United States. The company will expand the rollout of a Shop button on the app’s home screen, which sends people to a marketplace, and drive traffic to videos that contain Shop buttons for specific products. Both enable users to buy products in a few clicks without leaving the app.
Labor groups and fast-food companies in California reached an agreement over the weekend that will pave the way for workers in the industry to receive a minimum wage of $20 per hour. The deal, which will result in changes to Assembly Bill 1228, was announced by the Service Employees International Union on Monday, and will mean an increase to the minimum wage for California fast-food workers by April. In exchange, labor groups and their allies in the Legislature will agree to the fast-food industry’s demands to remove a provision from the bill that could have made restaurant companies liable for workplace violations committed by their franchisees.
Simply put: Elon Musk can be a real jerk. And that has probably helped and hurt him in business, according to a new biography by Walter Isaacson. In “Elon Musk,” out Tuesday, Isaacson puts forth the idea of “demon mode” to explain the temperamental impulses behind some of the tycoon’s successes—and setbacks. But it isn’t just demon mode that has fueled his rise. Isaacson details other teachable ways the billionaire’s methods have helped make him the world’s richest man. Musk, in the book, calls the framework for problem solving “the algorithm.” In short, Musk urges his employees to: 1) Question every requirement, 2) Delete any part or process you can, 3) Simplify and optimize, 4) Accelerate cycle time, 5) Automate
Nvidia this year became the world's most valuable semiconductor company with a value of over $1 trillion. The company earns more money than Intel and other tech giants, and yet Jensen Huang's management style is quite unconventional, as it turns out, with no long-term planning and 40 direct reports, among other interesting tidbits. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang outlined his management philosophy in an interview with Joel Hellermark conducted earlier this year (and recently noticed by analyst Dan Hockenmaier), giving a unique insight into the radically different way that Huang manages his company.
The film tells the story about the stock market frenzy over the video game retailer GameStop. It was financed and produced by the son of a Wall Street superpower.
Electric cars are smashing all kinds of records in the US. Their share of new cars exceeded 7% for the first half of the year, speeding past a critical tipping point for mass adoption. In the last few months, all-time sales topped 3 million. But perhaps the most impressive of all is reaching a record-hot pace of almost 1 million new EVs per year.
Diesel, jet and marine fuel prices are soaring, pressuring the construction companies, transportation businesses and farmers that are the biggest users. Behind the rise: production cuts made by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies, which have propelled crude prices to 10-month highs and boosted the premiums refiners can charge for making the heavy fuels that power trucks, planes and ships. A growing global thirst for fuel, fading fears of a U.S. recession and last week’s extension of Saudi and Russian cuts have propelled Brent crude above $90 a barrel. Higher gasoline prices accounted for more than half of August’s 0.6% increase in U.S. goods and services prices from July, according to Labor Department data released Wednesday.
There are millions of outstanding mortgages with a 3% interest rate. A new startup says it can help today’s home buyers get their hands on them. Mortgage rates are now above 7%, leaps and bounds above the 3% they grazed two years ago. Buyers and sellers alike are giving up, sucking demand and supply out of the housing market. And things are expected to stay that way, with the Federal Reserve signaling plans to keep rates high for the foreseeable future. Roam, a real-estate company set to launch Wednesday, is betting that it can popularize an obscure workaround. “Assumable loans” allow sellers to transfer their own mortgage loans to the buyer alongside the house. But Roam’s vision faces an uphill battle. Loan assumptions haven’t gained much traction recently, even though rates are up. Many lenders are cool to the idea because for them it would mean more work for less money. Some 22% of active mortgages are part of the government programs that have assumption features, according to the mortgage-data and technology company Black Knight. That includes loans extended through the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Federal Housing Administration programs. Few consumers know about the option, and fewer still follow through with it. The FHA has processed 3,349 assumptions in the fiscal year that ends Sept. 30, up from 2,566 in the year prior.
Rural America is booming, but the population growth that’s boosting local economies is also putting a strain on everything from schools to housing and roads. The influx — which started during the pandemic — has continued even as Covid restrictions have lifted. The latest government data released just last month points to a second year of increases in 2022 after years of declines. The trend is sparking resentment as house prices in the top 10 rural counties that have seen the biggest population increases surged more than 40% over the past three years. Schools are overloaded and the shift is even impacting farmland prices. The number of people living in non-metro areas outgrew the urban population for the first time in three decades in 2021, and the rural population expanded again last year. But growth wasn’t evenly distributed, with the top 10 counties with the largest population gains growing by an average 5%, according to Census data. That’s more than the national average of 0.4%.
ATTOM, a leading curator of land, property, and real estate data, today released its August 2023 U.S. Foreclosure Market Report, which shows there were a total of 33,952 U.S. properties with foreclosure filings — default notices, scheduled auctions or bank repossessions — up 7 percent from a month ago but down 2 percent from a year ago. States that saw the greatest monthly increases and had 100 or more foreclosure starts in August 2023 included: Louisiana (up 40 percent); California (up 32 percent); Tennessee (up 32 percent); Alabama (up 30 percent); and Florida (up 28 percent). Those major metropolitan areas with a population greater than 1 million that saw the greatest monthly increases and had 50 or more foreclosure starts in August 2023 included: Austin, TX, (up 79 percent); Nashville, TN (up 77 percent); Raleigh, NC (up 73 percent); Riverside, CA (up 68 percent); and Miami, FL (up 63 percent).
Mortgage rates inched back up this week and remain anchored north of seven percent. The reacceleration of inflation and strength in the economy is keeping mortgage rates elevated. However, potential homebuyers can still benefit during these times of high mortgage rates by shopping around for the best rate quote. Freddie Mac research suggests homebuyers can potentially save $600-$1,200 annually by applying for mortgages from multiple lenders.
Wealthy families loaded up on bonds and private equity investments in the first half of the year while slashing their stock exposure, according to a survey by Citigroup's (C.N) private bank. More than half of the 268 family offices polled, accounting for a combined net worth of $565 billion, increased their allocations in fixed income, while 38% boosted their private equity holdings. By contrast, 38% reduced their allocation in stocks.
What difference does a nanosecond make? If you’re using your phone’s GPS to find the nearest Starbucks, not much. But for satellites zipping along in low orbit at five miles per second, radio waves moving at the speed of light, or AI chips doing billions of calculations per second, being off by one billionth of a second actually matters. That’s why the US military wants to move beyond the GPS timing signal — which is accurate to less than 30 nanoseconds, and which enemies can jam — to compact “quantum clocks,” small enough to fit in a missile warhead or small drone and accurate to the picosecond (one thousandth of a nanosecond) or beyond.
The iPhone 15 Pro Max will cost $100 more than the previous top-end iPhone, at $1,199, and both new pro iPhones add a titanium frame in white, gray, black and blue, enhanced cameras and a new 3-nanometer A17 Pro chip. The iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus get a new frosted glass back, the Dynamic Island, last year’s A16 chip and a 48-megapixel back camera. The Apple Watch Series 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2 are small updates, adding new wireless chips, sensors and S9 chips for improved performance. The Ultra 2 gets a new watch face with a focus on extreme sports, while a new double-tap gesture for conducting actions is a helpful addition, but probably not worth the upgrade. Apple is pushing its sustainability initiatives further by making the new aluminum Apple Watches its first carbon-neutral devices. The company also dropping leather from all iPhone and Apple Watch accessories. Apple is now all-in on USB-C, touting the connector as compatible with the latest iPads and Macs. The Pro models get faster data transfer speeds.
France has ordered Apple to stop selling the iPhone 12 for emitting too much electromagnetic radiation. On Tuesday, the French watchdog which governs radio frequencies also told the tech giant to fix existing phones. The ANFR has advised Apple that if it cannot resolve the issue via a software update, it must recall every iPhone 12 ever sold in the country.
On Thursday, Caesars Entertainment revealed in an SEC filing what had been reported Wednesday by Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal: that the company had been the victim of “a social engineering attack on an outsourced IT support vendor used by the company.” Notably, the attack on Caesars happened weeks prior to the attack on MGM Resorts that has, since Sunday evening, wreaked havoc on MGM’s operations, forcing guests to wait hours to check in and crippling electronic payments, digital key cards, slot machines, ATMs and paid parking systems. The company’s website and mobile app have been offline for nearly four days. Both companies are now statistics in a worldwide trend. Cyberattacks were up globally 156% in the second quarter of 2023 compared to the first three months of the year, according to a report from the World Economic Forum.
Irish authorities fined TikTok $367.2 million, saying it breached the country’s data-protection laws, including what it said was the misuse of children’s information. The Irish Data Protection Commission said the platform violated children’s data protection after finding accounts of child users were set to a default setting that allowed anyone—on or off TikTok—to see their content.
Tech titans including Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Tesla CEO Elon Musk and former Microsoft CEO Bill Gates met with lawmakers Wednesday for a closed-door AI forum where the executives pitched broad regulatory frameworks for AI and warned of the existential dangers that could come with the uncontrolled advancement of the booming technology.
When wildfires swept across Maui last month with destructive fury, China’s increasingly resourceful information warriors pounced. The disaster was not natural, they said in a flurry of false posts that spread across the internet, but was the result of a secret “weather weapon” being tested by the United States. To bolster the plausibility, the posts carried photographs that appeared to have been generated by artificial intelligence programs, making them among the first to use these new tools to bolster the aura of authenticity of a disinformation campaign. For China — which largely stood on the sidelines of the 2016 and 2020 U.S. presidential elections while Russia ran hacking operations and disinformation campaigns — the effort to cast the wildfires as a deliberate act by American intelligence agencies and the military was a rapid change of tactics. China was not the only country to make political use of the Maui fires. Russia did as well, spreading posts that emphasized how much money the United States was spending on the war in Ukraine and that suggested the cash would be better spent at home for disaster relief. The researchers suggested that China was building a network of accounts that could be put to use in future information operations, including the next U.S. presidential election. That is the pattern that Russia set in the year or so leading up to the 2016 election.
This report is based on interviews with more than 20 former American and Australian military officers and security officials, reviews of AI research papers and Chinese military publications, as well as information from defense equipment exhibitions. An intensifying military-technology arms race is heightening the sense of urgency. On one side are the United States and its allies, who want to preserve a world order long shaped by America’s economic and military dominance. On the other is China, which rankles at U.S. ascendancy in the region and is challenging America’s military dominance in the Asia-Pacific. Ukraine’s innovative use of technologies to resist Russia’s invasion is heating up this competition.
With generative-AI platforms such as Midjourney and Dall-E, anyone can render uncannily lifelike models with a mere text prompt. Easy to make and customizable, AI-generated models offer brands and retailers a fast, cost-effective alternative to traditional, resource-intensive photo shoots. Those usually require at least one model, a photographer, a makeup artist, a hairstylist, a fashion stylist and a crew—all of whom need to get paid.
The Dyson Institute in Malmesbury, one of a clutch of universities that have opened in recent years, saw its first cohort of students graduate in 2021. In the past it was almost impossible for such outfits to hand out degrees unless they first formed a partnership with an existing institution. Now upstarts may apply to operate independently from day one—a consequence of big rule changes that the Conservative government introduced in 2017. Having lifted caps that limited how many people could attend university, the government hoped that new providers would keep incumbents on their toes and encourage innovation in higher education. The result, so far, is a handful of energetic new institutions.
While college visits done right are still a valuable way to determine whether an institution is the right fit, taking an official tour of Princeton, Yale, Stanford, or Harvard won’t earn you any points with the admissions office. Yes, many colleges do still consider what is called “demonstrated interest”—how eager a given applicant appears to be to attend the school—in their admissions decisions. And historically, taking the tour was a good way to show interest. But today, no members of the Ivy League and none of the top 15 schools on Forbes’ 2023 America’s Top Colleges even consider applicants’ interest as a factor in admissions. Looking at the top 100 on the new Forbes list, only 48% of private schools and 23% of public schools take demonstrated interest into account, according to the latest information they’ve provided to what’s known as the Common Data Set.
Sooner or later, every parent asks Christopher Rim the same question: What will it take to get my kid into Harvard or Yale? His answer: $750,000. That’s Rim’s going rate for advice on landing a coveted spot in the Ivy League for students who want to start college prep in the 7th grade. The price is more than twice what it can cost to actually attend one of those eight elite schools. Forget dog-eared SAT books and parent-proofread essays. These days, people of means can outsource years of college prep to consultants and their build-an-Ivy-Leaguer programs. A big challenge: How to stand out in today’s overflowing pool of highly credentialed, slickly marketed applicants? Rim said Command Education helped one high-schooler patent technology for sneakers that charge batteries. It helped another link up with a major sporting goods company to provide tennis gear and refurbish courts in underserved communities. AtomicMind assigns every student-client a head adviser for “executive-function coaching.” Together, they stay on top of applications, while some 150 tutors — ranging from debate coaches to research specialists — help burnish academic and extracurricular records. The going rate is $500 an hour, but it jumps to $3,000 if you want to work directly with Strogov. Demanding clients could spend as much as $85,000 a month.
The researchers from the University of Southern California and University of Arizona examined a set of data that followed 49,841 older adults in the U.K. who wore devices on their wrists that measured movement for 24 hours a day for one week. Six years after wearing the devices, 414 of the adults had developed dementia, 250 of whom spent more than 9.27 waking hours a day sedentary and 154 spent more than 10.43 waking hours a day sedentary, the researchers found. This means, the researchers concluded, that spending around 10 or more hours of the day sedentary is “significantly associated” with higher rates of dementia. Furthermore, the Alzheimer’s Society found 11 studies that, when examined together, showed regular exercise can reduce a person’s risk of developing dementia by approximately 30% and for Alzheimer’s specifically, it reduces the risk by 45%. While most available evidence points to exercise being the leading way to reduce dementia risk, other things can also help. A July study by researchers from Australia, Chicago and Minneapolis found completing puzzles, doing card games, playing chess, taking adult education classes and other challenging cognitive activities reduced the risk of developing dementia after the age of 70 by as much as 11%.
The food, beverage and dietary supplement industries are paying dozens of registered dietitians that collectively have millions of social media followers to help sell products and deliver industry-friendly messages on Instagram and TikTok, according to an analysis by The Washington Post and The Examination, a new nonprofit newsroom specializing in global public health reporting. The analysis of thousands of posts found that companies and industry groups paid dietitians for content that encouraged viewers to eat candy and ice cream, downplayed the health risks of highly processed foods and pushed unproven supplements — messages that run counter to decades of scientific evidence about healthy eating. The review found that among 68 dietitians with 10,000 or more social media followers on TikTok or Instagram, about half had promoted food, beverages or supplements to their combined 11 million followers within the last year. While some dietitians noted in their social media posts that they were part of paid partnerships, their relationships with the food industry were in many cases not made explicit to viewers, the analysis found. The Federal Trade Commission advises all social media influencers to be clear about who is paying them for promotions.
The wine flowed freely in one Portuguese town over the weekend. Two tanks holding nearly 600,000 gallons (about 2.2 million liters) of wine at a distillery collapsed on Sunday, sending a torrent of red wine down the streets of the small town of Levira. One tank, open at the top, collapsed because of a “structural failure,” said Pedro Carvalho, the chief executive of the distillery, Destilaria Levira, in the Portuguese municipality of Anadia, about 140 miles north of Lisbon. The sheer force of the wine knocked over another tank, causing the wine from both tanks to flow out of the distillery and into the streets.
The days of the self-serve soda fountain are numbered at McDonald’s. The fast-food giant plans to phase out the do-it-yourself stations, eliminating them entirely over the next decade as franchise owners cite hygiene, theft, and consumer eating habits, according to The State Journal-Register of Illinois. But McDonald’s franchise owners want to put customers’ minds at ease — insisting that refills will continue to be free even after the machines are phased out by 2032.
A US citizen trapped in Turkey's third deepest cave for more than a week has been pulled to safety, rescuers say. More than 150 people were involved in efforts to save caver Mark Dickey after he developed stomach problems in the Morca Cave on 2 September. Organisers say it was one of the largest and most complicated underground rescues ever mounted. The lowest point of the Morca Cave, in a remote part of the south, reaches nearly 1.3km (0.8 miles) below ground. Mr Dickey had been co-leading a team to map a new passage in the cave when he began to suffer from gastrointestinal bleeding.
Whether playing tricks, mimicking speech, or holding “funerals,” crows and ravens (collectively known as corvids) have captured the public’s attention due to their unexpected intelligence. Thanks to results from a new Current Biology study, our understanding of their capabilities only continues to grow, as researchers from the University of Tübingen found for the first time that crows can perform statistical reasoning. These results can help scientists better understand the evolution of intelligence (and may give us a better appreciation of what’s going on in our backyard).
If, through some scientific malfunction, you found yourself transported 70 million years into the past, you might be safer from certain hungry reptiles than you think.
Fliers trying to zip through long airport lines after international trips are finding it harder to score a well-known shortcut. The U.S. government’s Global Entry program is experiencing extended application delays. Global Entry offers travelers faster processing through customs and immigration when they arrive from international destinations, as well as speedier trips through security lines at U.S. airports. New applications typically take an average of four to six months and as long as 11 months for U.S. Customs and Border Protection to process, the CBP says. Customers say that applications have taken a year or longer to process.
he ten-day blackout of Disney channels on Spectrum cable service ended Monday after Spectrum operator Charter reached a new carriage deal with the entertainment giant, Disney announced in a statement, crucially reaching an armistice ahead of the first Monday Night Football broadcast on Disney-owned ESPN. Included in the deal is a clause allowing subscribers to Spectrum's TV Select service free access to Disney+'s ad-supported tier, as well as ESPN+ subscriptions for subscribers to Spectrum’s TV Select Plus tier at no additional fee.
A decade ago, high school football seemed doomed. Stories of retired NFL players haunted by head injuries filled the news. Participation dwindled as parents feared putting their kids in the sport. Then the pandemic further dimmed Friday night lights across the country and threatened to speed football’s decline. But the sport has staged a surprising comeback. Turnout of boys for high school football rose 5.6% last year, according to recently released data by the National Federation of State High School Associations. While participation remains well below the sport’s peak about 15 years ago, its gains last year surpassed the post-Covid rebound of popular fall sports including boys soccer (3.2%) and girls’ volleyball (3.6%). Football also bested the 3% average increase across all high school sports from 2021 to 2022.
An informative book that discusses how geography plays a role in the politics of Russia, China, the United States, Europe, the Arab World, South Asia (India and Pakistan), Africa, Japan and Korea, Latin America, and the Arctic Ocean. Simply looking at a map with geological features can really open your eyes to cross-border interactions. I also recommend the book, The Power of Geography by Marshall.
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.
