This week in the news | 20 April 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 in “Slow Brew.”
World
World Bank 'ringing alarm bells' as income gap between riches and poorest countries widens (Fox News)📊
North America
Behind the Curtain: America's reality distortion machine (Axios) 📊
NPR Editor Resigns After Publicly Criticizing Coverage, Calls New CEO ‘Divisive’ (WSJ🔒)
Hudson Yards ‘Vessel’ Sculpture Will Reopen With Netting After Suicides (NYT🔒) 📊
Hikers kept climbing Hawaii’s ‘Stairway to Heaven.’ Now it’ll be removed. (WP🔒)
Europe
Russia's meat grinder soldiers - 50,000 confirmed dead (BBC)📊
Greek economy surges after decade of pain (Reuters)📊
Middle East
Israel Strikes Iran in Narrow Attack Amid Escalation Fears (WSJ🔒) 📊
Mapping the wide-scale Iranian drone and missile attacks (WP🔒) 📊
US forces help Israel repel Iranian drone, missile attack (Military Times)
US tells Israel it won't join any retaliatory strikes on Iran (BBC)
US vetoes widely supported resolution backing full UN membership for Palestine (AP)
Dubai faces massive clean up after deluge swamps glitzy desert city (Reuters)
Africa
Drought Pushes Millions Into ‘Acute Hunger’ in Southern Africa (NYT🔒)
How Two Feuding Generals Drove Sudan to the Brink of Starvation (WSJ🔒) 📊
By 2100 half the world’s children will be born in sub-Saharan Africa (Economist🔒) 📊
Asia-Pacific
Russia to grow faster than all advanced economies says IMF (BBC)
Exclusive: Russia and China trade new copper disguised as scrap to skirt taxes, sanctions (Reuters) 📊
For First Time Since 2022, Austin Talks to China’s Defense Minister (Air and Space Forces)
China's economy grew faster than expected in the March quarter (Reuters) 📊
China Tells Telecom Carriers to Phase Out Foreign Chips in Blow to Intel, AMD (WSJ🔒) 📊
A short history of India in eight maps (Economist🔒) 📊
Over 150 [Korean] elementary schools have no 1st graders: ministry (Korea Herald) 📊
Space
Defense
The Dangerous Economics of Drone Warfare (Bloomberg🔒)
Economy
Business
The Threat in Disney’s Backyard (WSJ🔒) 📊
A Day in the Life of a Walmart Manager Who Makes $240,000 a Year (WSJ🔒)
Google fires 28 employees involved in sit-in protest over $1.2B Israel contract (NY Post)
Crypto
Auto
Real Estate
Mortgage Rates Exceed 7 Percent for the First Time this Year (Freddie Mac) 📊
Boomers Bought Up the Big Homes. Now They’re Not Budging. (WSJ🔒) 📊
Big Tech Is Downsizing Workspace in Another Blow to Office Real Estate (WSJ🔒) 📊
Personal Finance
Pension Funds Are Pulling Hundreds of Billions From Stocks (WSJ🔒) 📊
Generation Z is unprecedentedly rich (Economist🔒) 📊
Technology
AI Chip Trims Energy Budget Back by 99+ Percent (IEEE Spectrum)
Samsung Electronics Gets $6.4 Billion for Texas Chip Plants (WSJ🔒)
Cyber
House Votes to Extend—and Expand—a Major US Spy Program (Wired)
When Facebook blocks news, studies show the political risks that follow (Reuters)
Religion
Nature
Sports
The Bookshelf
THE SLOW BREW ☕
A more relaxed approach to the summaries.
World
World Bank 'ringing alarm bells' as income gap between riches and poorest countries widens (Fox News)📊
Half of the world's 75 poorest countries are experiencing a widening income gap with the wealthiest economies for the first time this century in a historical reversal of development, the World Bank said in a report on Monday. The differential between per capita income growth in the poorest countries and the richest has widened over the past five years, according to the report. "For the first time, we see there is no convergence. They're getting poorer," Ayhan Kose, deputy chief economist for the World Bank and one of the report's authors, told Reuters.
North America
Behind the Curtain: America's reality distortion machine (Axios) 📊
Here's a wild thought experiment: What if we've been deceived into thinking we're more divided, more dysfunctional and more defeated than we actually are? Why it matters: Well, there's compelling evidence we've been trapped in a reality distortion bubble — social media, cable TV and tribal political wars — long enough to warp our view of the reality around us. The big picture: Yes, deep divisions exist on some topics. But on almost every topic of monthly outrage, it's a fringe view — or example — amplified by the loudest voices on social media and politicians driving it. This new poll by the AP and the NORC Center for Public Affairs Research shows a striking amount of agreement on some very big topics. Roughly 90% or more of Americans — Republicans and Democrats — agree the following rights and freedoms are extremely or very important to a functioning America: Right to vote. Right to equal protection under the law. Right to freedom of religion. Right to freedom of speech. Right to privacy. Hell, almost 80% think the right to own a gun is important to protect. "If you get a bunch of normal people at random and put them in a room together and chat about issues, there's a lot more convergence than you might imagine," Michael Albertus, a political science professor at the University of Chicago, told AP. That's been our experience as we travel the country and dig deeper into how people are getting and sharing "news."
Homicides Are Plummeting in American Cities (WSJ🔒) 📊
Homicides in American cities are falling at the fastest pace in decades, bringing them close to levels they were at before a pandemic-era jump. Nationwide, homicides dropped around 20% in 133 cities from the beginning of the year through the end of March compared with the same period in 2023, according to crime-data analyst Jeff Asher, who tabulated statistics from police departments across the country. If the trend continues, the U.S. could be on pace for a year like 2014, which saw the lowest homicide rate since the 1960s. But police officials and researchers cautioned that crime trends aren’t always consistent and future homicide rates are difficult to predict.
NPR Editor Resigns After Publicly Criticizing Coverage, Calls New CEO ‘Divisive’ (WSJ🔒)
National Public Radio prohibits staff from publishing work for other media outlets without permission. Senior editor Uri Berliner broke that rule when he published a searing, 3,000-word critique of his own storied news organization in the Free Press, a media upstart. His actions led to a five-day suspension without pay. Then on Wednesday, he posted his resignation letter on X, in which he accused the public radio network’s new chief executive of having divisive views that “confirm the very problems” he cited in his Free Press piece. A spokeswoman for NPR declined to comment on personnel matters.
Hudson Yards ‘Vessel’ Sculpture Will Reopen With Netting After Suicides (NYT🔒) 📊
Nearly three years after a series of suicides shut down the Vessel, the 150-foot-tall centerpiece of the Hudson Yards complex in Manhattan, the project’s developer said on Friday that it would reopen this year with new safety measures. The beehive-shaped sculpture, with a labyrinth of about 2,500 steps and 80 landings, opened in 2019, along with much of the rest of Hudson Yards, a gleaming development in Midtown West. Not long after, in February 2020, a 19-year-old, Peter DeSalvo III, died by suicide there. Over the next year and a half, three others died by suicide there as well, including a 14-year-old boy in 2021, prompting the developers to close off access to the stairs.
Hikers kept climbing Hawaii’s ‘Stairway to Heaven.’ Now it’ll be removed. (WP🔒)
Honolulu’s famous Ha‘ikū Stairs have been closed to the public for decades — but that hasn’t stopped some hikers from trespassing through private properties or skirting security guards to make the illegal trek up the metal stairway. Now, the treacherous path, known as the “Stairway to Heaven,” is being removed more than 80 years after the U.S. Navy built it during World War II. The 3,922 stairs that weave up a steep mountainside have drawn tourists who attempt early-morning hikes, hoping to catch a sunrise from the ridge of the Ko‘olau range, more than 2,800 feet above sea level. Last week, construction workers began the removal process, which is expected to take at least six months. Honolulu Mayor Rick Blangiardi called the project “long overdue.”
Europe
Russia's meat grinder soldiers - 50,000 confirmed dead (BBC)📊
Russia's military death toll in Ukraine has now passed the 50,000 mark, the BBC can confirm. In the second 12 months on the front line - as Moscow pushed its so-called meat grinder strategy - we found the body count was nearly 25% higher than in the first year. BBC Russian, independent media group Mediazona and volunteers have been counting deaths since February 2022. More than 27,300 Russian soldiers died in the second year of combat - according to our findings - a reflection of how territorial gains have come at a huge human cost. The term meat grinder has been used to describe the way Moscow sends waves of soldiers forward relentlessly to try to wear down Ukrainian forces and expose their locations to Russian artillery. The overall death toll - of more than 50,000 - is eight times higher than the only official public acknowledgement of fatality numbers ever given by Moscow in September 2022. The actual number of Russian deaths is likely to be much higher.
Greek economy surges after decade of pain (Reuters)📊
A decade ago, Greece was in the throes of a devastating debt crisis marked by years of austerity, hardship and unrest. Now, officials and investors say 2024 could be the year its rebound is finally complete. The Greek economy is forecast to grow nearly 3% this year, approaching its pre-crisis size of 2009 and far outpacing the euro zone average of 0.8%.
Middle East
NOTE: A quick recap on the situation: Israel attacked an Iranian site in Syria earlier this month, in response, Iran fired around 300 drones and missiles at Israel last Saturday (most of which did not make it through Israeli defenses). This week, Israel then attacked Iran in response to Iran’s attack on Israel.
Israel Strikes Iran in Narrow Attack Amid Escalation Fears (WSJ🔒) 📊
Israel retaliated overnight against Iran’s massive drone and missile attack on its territory, people familiar with the matter said—with what appeared to be a limited strike aimed at avoiding an escalatory cycle that could push the countries closer toward war. The attack was a targeted strike in the area around Isfahan in central Iran, one of the people said. Iranian media and social media reported explosions near the city, where Iran has nuclear facilities and an air base, and the activation of air-defense systems in provinces across the country after suspicious flying objects were detected. The narrow Israeli attack and Iran’s soft rhetoric in response appeared to be an attempt by both sides to calm tensions after more than a week of concerns that Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza would metastasize into a bigger regional conflict, though fears remain of a miscalculation. Israel has been under pressure from the U.S. and Europe to moderate its response and faced the challenge of delivering a blow that would punish Iran for the attack without provoking a response.
Mapping the wide-scale Iranian drone and missile attacks (WP🔒) 📊
Iran launched waves of drones and missiles toward Israel on [13 Apr] in retaliation for Israel’s attack on an Iranian site in Damascus, Syria, this month. A spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces said Iran fired over 300 ballistic missiles, UAVs, suicide drones and cruise missiles. The vast majority were intercepted outside of Israeli territory, according to the IDF. No UAVs managed to infiltrate Israel. Of 30 Iranian cruise missiles launched, zero entered Israeli airspace, 25 were downed by the Israeli Air Force outside of Israeli airspace, and 120 ballistic missiles were downed by Israeli aerial defense systems, the IDF said. Iranian missile and drone attacks were launched at Israel from positions in Iran, Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen, according to the Iranian state-run Tasnim News Agency. In a statement, the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah said it targeted Israeli barracks in the Golan Heights, an Israeli-occupied strip along the border with Syria, with a barrage of rockets after midnight local time.
US forces help Israel repel Iranian drone, missile attack (Military Times)
The U.S. military shot down dozens of missiles and drones Saturday that were fired at Israel from Iran and its proxy forces in Iraq, Syria and Yemen. Iran launched its first-ever direct assault on Israel Saturday, less than two weeks after a suspected Israeli strike in Syria killed two Iranian generals in an Iranian consular building. An Israeli military spokesman said Sunday that Iran and its proxies had fired more than 300 ballistic missiles, drones and cruise missiles at Israel, but that 99 percent of them were intercepted. “At my direction, to support the defense of Israel, the U.S. military moved aircraft and ballistic missile defense destroyers to the region over the course of the past week,” President Joe Biden said in a statement late Saturday. “Thanks to these deployments and the extraordinary skill of our servicemembers, we helped Israel take down nearly all of the incoming drones and missiles.” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in a statement said the U.S. took out dozens of the attacks but did not provide details on ships or aircraft involved in the operation that commanders had been preparing for over the past two weeks.
US tells Israel it won't join any retaliatory strikes on Iran (BBC)
The White House has warned Israel that the US will not participate in any retaliatory strikes on Iran, senior administration officials have said. Over 300 drones and missiles were fired at Israel overnight, which Iran said was in response to an 1 April strike on its consulate in Syria. Almost all weapons were shot down by Israeli, US and allied forces before they reached their targets. Officials said Joe Biden urged Israel to consider its response "carefully". Speaking to reporters on Sunday, a senior administration official said that Mr Biden told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to "think very carefully and strategically" about how his forces replied to the unprecedented action, the first direct attack by Iran on the country.
Power by Proxy: How Iran Shapes the Mideast (NYT🔒) 📊
Altogether, Iran now supports more than 20 groups in the Middle East, directly or indirectly, with a combination of arms, training and financial aid. The United States has designated them as foreign terrorist organizations, and many of their leaders have been hit by sanctions, as has Tehran. While they are often lumped together, and they do in fact share many of Iran’s goals, these groups also have some purely local interests. And, with a few exceptions, Iran does not completely control them. Here is a look at the most prominent of the armed groups backed by Iran.
NOTE: Article provides a great overview of each proxy force.
US vetoes widely supported resolution backing full UN membership for Palestine (AP)
The United States vetoed a widely backed U.N. resolution Thursday that would have paved the way for full United Nations membership for Palestine, a goal the Palestinians have long sought and Israel has worked to prevent. The vote in the 15-member Security Council was 12 in favor, the United States opposed and two abstentions, from the United Kingdom and Switzerland. U.S. allies France, Japan and South Korea supported the resolution. The strong support the Palestinians received reflects not only the growing number of countries recognizing their statehood but almost certainly the global support for Palestinians facing a humanitarian crisis caused by the war in Gaza, now in its seventh month. The resolution would have recommended that the 193-member U.N. General Assembly, where there are no vetoes, approve Palestine becoming the 194th member of the United Nations.
Dubai faces massive clean up after deluge swamps glitzy desert city (Reuters)
Dubai, a city in the desert proud of its modern gloss, faced the towering task on Thursday of clearing its waterclogged roads and drying out flooded homes two days after a record storm saw a year's rain fall in a day. The rains were the heaviest experienced by the United Arab Emirates in the 75 years that records have been kept. They brought much of the country to a standstill and caused significant damage.
Africa
Drought Pushes Millions Into ‘Acute Hunger’ in Southern Africa (NYT🔒)
An estimated 20 million people in southern Africa are facing what the United Nations calls “acute hunger” as one of the worst droughts in more than four decades shrivels crops, decimates livestock and, after years of rising food prices brought on by pandemic and war, spikes the price of corn, the region’s staple crop. Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe have all declared national emergencies.
How Two Feuding Generals Drove Sudan to the Brink of Starvation (WSJ🔒) 📊
One year into a deadly war for power between Sudan’s top two generals, the country of 47 million people is in the midst of one of the worst humanitarian disasters in recent history. Tens of thousands have died in the fighting between Sudan’s military, commanded by the country’s de facto president, Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, which are led by Burhan’s former deputy, Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo. More than 8.5 million Sudanese have been driven from their homes—including 2 million who have fled to neighboring countries—and many now live in displacement camps that receive little to no outside help. Medical charity Doctors Without Borders said in February that in just one camp in the province of North Darfur, a child is dying from the effects of malnutrition and unsafe drinking water every two hours. United Nations agencies warn that in the coming weeks and months, more than 220,000 Sudanese children could die of starvation. By the end of the year, that number could rise to 700,000, a toll that could rival that of the Ethiopian famine of the 1980s.
By 2100 half the world’s children will be born in sub-Saharan Africa (Economist🔒) 📊
UGANDA’S PRESIDENT, Yoweri Museveni, used to tell young women to produce more children. He said a large population would attract more investors. But since 2012 Mr Museveni has advised Ugandan women against many pregnancies, warning them that they will weaken their bodies and struggle to bring up several children. In recent decades rapidly improving health care has driven a baby boom in sub-Saharan Africa, putting pressure on schools and health services. Fertility rates are tumbling elsewhere, including in China and India, which account for more than a third of the global population. By the turn of the century, the share of the world’s babies born in sub-Saharan Africa is forecast to reach 55%, from 30% in 2021. And people will be living longer. The continent’s population is thus set to double by 2050. But the gap between sub-Saharan Africa and other regions is closing (see chart 2). By 2075 the region’s [Total Fertility Rate] is expected to drop below 2.1. By the end of the century, it will be 1.82, approaching current levels in Ireland and Denmark.
Asia-Pacific
Russia to grow faster than all advanced economies says IMF (BBC)
An influential global body has forecast Russia's economy will grow faster than all of the world's advanced economies, including the US, this year. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) expects Russia to grow 3.2% this year, significantly more than the UK, France and Germany. Oil exports have "held steady" and government spending has "remained high" contributing to growth, the IMF said. Overall, it said the world economy had been "remarkably resilient" "Despite many gloomy predictions, the world avoided a recession, the banking system proved largely resilient, and major emerging market economies did not suffer sudden stops," the IMF said. Away from Russia, the IMF downgraded its forecasts across Europe and for the UK this year, predicting 0.5% growth this year, making the UK the second weakest performer across the G7 group of advanced economies, behind Germany. The G7 also includes France, Italy, Japan, Canada and the US.
Exclusive: Russia and China trade new copper disguised as scrap to skirt taxes, sanctions (Reuters) 📊
Russian copper producer RCC and Chinese firms have avoided taxes and skirted the impact of Western sanctions by trading in new copper wire rod disguised as scrap, three sources familiar with the matter told Reuters. Copper wire rod was shredded in China's remote Xinjiang Uyghur region by an intermediary to make it difficult to distinguish from scrap, the sources said, allowing both exporters and importers to profit from differences in tariffs applied to scrap and new metal, the sources said. Russia's export duty on copper rod was 7% in December, lower than the 10% levy on scrap. Imports of copper rod into China are taxed at 4%, but there is no duty on Russian scrap imports. There are no legal obstacles preventing China from buying metal from Russian firms under Western sanctions. But manufacturers are worried about losing export business to customers - including those in the U.S. and UK - if they are known to be doing business with Russian firms.
For First Time Since 2022, Austin Talks to China’s Defense Minister (Air and Space Forces)
Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III conducted virtual talks on April 16 with his Chinese counterpart, Adm. Dong Jun, Beijing’s Minister of Defense, marking the first direct talk between defense chiefs of the two nations in close to two years. In a readout, the Pentagon said Austin stressed freedom of navigation in the air and at sea, as Chinese warplanes and ships have intercepted U.S. and allied aircraft, continuously harassed Philippine vessels, and nearly collided with a U.S. destroyer in the past year. The call signals more open military communication channels between the two nations, an imperative stemming from talks between Chinese leader Xi Jinping and President Joe Biden in November. The Austin-Dong conversation follows a phone call between Biden and Xi earlier this month. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. talked to his counterpart in December. The teleconference represents Austin’s first conversation with Dong, who assumed the role of China’s defense minister in December. Austin last talked to a Chinese defense minister in 2022, a post then held by Wei Fenghe.
China's economy grew faster than expected in the March quarter (Reuters) 📊
China's economy grew faster than expected in the first quarter, data showed on Tuesday, offering some relief to officials as they try to shore up growth in the face of protracted weakness in the property sector and mounting local government debt. However, several March indicators released alongside the gross domestic product data - including property investment, retail sales and industrial output - showed that demand at home remains frail, weighing on overall momentum. The world's second-largest economy grew 5.3% in January-March from the year earlier, official data showed, comfortably above a 4.6% analysts' forecast in a Reuters poll and up from the 5.2% expansion in the previous quarter. On a quarterly basis growth picked up to 1.6% from 1.4% in the previous three months.
China Tells Telecom Carriers to Phase Out Foreign Chips in Blow to Intel, AMD (WSJ🔒) 📊
China’s push to replace foreign technology is now focused on cutting American chip makers out of the country’s telecommunications systems. Officials earlier this year directed the nation’s largest telecom carriers to phase out foreign processors that are core to their networks by 2027, a move that would hit American chip giants Intel and Advanced Micro Devices, people familiar with the matter said. The deadline given by China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology aims to accelerate efforts by Beijing to halt the use of such core chips in its telecom infrastructure. The regulator ordered state-owned mobile operators to inspect their networks for the prevalence of non-Chinese semiconductors and draft timelines to replace them, the people said.
A short history of India in eight maps (Economist🔒) 📊
IN HIS DECADE in power Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister, has centralised the state to an unprecedented extent. Yet his ruling Bharatiya Janata Party has failed to attract many voters in the more prosperous south. The regional divergence is not unique to the BJP. Throughout India’s long history, rulers have tried and failed to unite the subcontinent under central authority. The chief reason is India’s diversity, summed up in clichés about dozens of cuisines, hundreds of languages and thousands of gods. The clichés may be trite, but they are also useful. A whirlwind tour through 2,500 years of Indian history helps explain why.
NOTE: Good, concise article with informative maps.
Over 150 [Korean] elementary schools have no 1st graders: ministry (Korea Herald) 📊
A total of 157 elementary schools across South Korea do not have any first graders set to enroll in March, the Ministry of Education said Monday, as a record-low number of new students is expected for the upcoming school year. According to the ministry, nearly every provincial and metropolitan area across South Korea had at least one elementary school that was not expecting new students, except Seoul, Gwangju, Daejeon, Ulsan and Sejong. North Jeolla Province led all regions with 34 schools with no new entering students. It will mark the lowest number of new first graders since the government started keeping tally in 1970, the first time the figure fell below 400,000. South Korea's total fertility rate -- the average number of children a woman will have throughout her life -- recorded an all-time low of 0.72 for last year and is expected to fall further to 0.68 this year, and to 0.65 next year.
NOTE: A replacement fertility rate of 2.1 is generally required in developed countries for each generation to replace itself. Here’s a map of where countries currently stand:
Space
Musk’s Starlink Cracks Down on Growing Black Market (WSJ🔒)
Elon Musk’s SpaceX has begun a crackdown on users who are connecting to its Starlink high-speed internet service from countries where it hasn’t been authorized—taking steps to close an expanding black market for the company’s satellite kits highlighted by a recent Wall Street Journal investigation. Starlink customers in Sudan, Zimbabwe and South Africa have received email notifications from the company in recent days, warning that their access to the service would be terminated by the end of the month. The emails, viewed by the Journal, noted that using Starlink in areas where it hasn’t been approved by local regulators was against the company’s terms of service. The notifications were sent just days after the Journal published an investigation into the growing black market that has allowed users—including Russian military units fighting in Ukraine and a brutal militia in Sudan—to bypass local regulatory restrictions on Starlink.
Comet Pons-Brooks Is Having Its Last Hurrah (NYT🔒)
Time is running out for you to spot Pons-Brooks, the devil-horned comet that swoops into view once every 71 years. Last visible to people on Earth in the 1950s, the comet is prone to outbursts, or unexpected flares in brightness. “It’s an exceptional comet,” said Eliot Herman, a retired biotechnologist at the University of Arizona and an astrophotographer who has been tracking Pons-Brooks for several months. “Not only does it get brighter as it comes closer to the sun, but also the comet is changing drastically day to day,” he said. The comet, a green ball of ice, caught the attention of the public last July, when it looked as if it had sprouted horns after an outburst through its dusty atmosphere. Some likened the comet’s shape to the Millennium Falcon spacecraft that Han Solo and Chewbacca use in the Star Wars franchise.
Defense
The Dangerous Economics of Drone Warfare (Bloomberg🔒)
Israel and the US along with the UK, France and Jordan almost completely disrupted last weekend’s massive airborne attack by Iran. The volley of 300 drones and missiles fired at Israel—retaliation for a deadly April 1 strike on the Iranian diplomatic compound in Syria—was telegraphed by Tehran in the days beforehand, leaving Israel and its allies time to prepare. Still, the attack’s unprecedented scale illustrated how inexpensive drone technology has changed the nature of modern warfare. The strategic benefit of small drones has already been made plain during two years of war in Ukraine, a bloody conflict in which Chinese and Iranian drones have been central players. In How Drones Are Revolutionizing the Economics of War, Bloomberg Originals shows how the relatively inexpensive but accurate technology has changed the dynamics of battle, allowing smaller powers to pack a bigger punch. Andreas Krieg, a senior lecturer at King’s College London, points to this leveling effect when he calls drones the “the AK-47 of 21st century warfare.” For big powers such as the US, the advent of drone swarms like that seen over the Middle East a few days ago raises critical economic issues when it comes to battlefield munitions. Using multimillion-dollar missiles to take down $20,000 drones is increasingly problematic when hundreds of “lawnmowers with wings” are inbound. Indeed, Krieg estimated that while Iran likely spent around $3 million on the drones it launched toward Israel last week, the US, Israel and its allies probably paid closer to $1.5 billion on the weapons used to destroy them.
Economy
Rents Are the Fed’s ‘Biggest Stumbling Block’ in Taming US Inflation (Bloomberg🔒) 📊
When inflation peaked above 7% in 2022, it was relatively broad-based across goods and services. In 2024, with inflation back below 3%, that’s no longer the case: What’s left of the problem now is mainly about housing. Rent dominates the inflation indexes on which the Federal Reserve bases its interest-rate decisions. Hotter-than-expected readings for the category in the first few months of the year are a big reason the central bank is hesitant to cut rates. “Housing is the biggest stumbling block,” says Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee. “We thought we basically understood the mechanical, short-run model of how much housing inflation should be coming down. And it hasn’t come down as fast as we thought it was going to have come down at this point.” Even the rental inflation problem itself isn’t particularly broad-based anymore, geographically: There’s a big difference between the situation in the Northeast and Midwest, where high inflation is lingering, and the West and South, where it’s moderating rapidly. The difference seems to be all about supply. “There’s really strong overlap right now between the markets that are seeing the biggest rent declines and the ones where there’s been the most construction,” says Chris Salviati, a housing economist at the online rental marketplace Apartment List.
Business
The Threat in Disney’s Backyard (WSJ🔒) 📊
When the Universal Epic Universe theme park opens next year, it will add 750 acres populated by Harry Potter, Donkey Kong and dragons to the company’s Central Florida resort. It will also be an epic shot across Walt Disney’s bow. Just 10 miles down Interstate 4 is Walt Disney World, the biggest part of Disney’s most important profit engine, and the stuff of dreams for tens of millions of visitors a year. To understand the stakes for both companies, consider this: A common vacation itinerary includes three or four days at Disney World and one or two days at Universal. If Universal can now persuade families to spend one more day at its parks instead of at Disney, it could nab hundreds of millions of dollars in annual revenue.
A Day in the Life of a Walmart Manager Who Makes $240,000 a Year (WSJ🔒)
Hart is one of Walmart’s 4,700 U.S. store managers, an increasingly important linchpin in the retailing giant’s strategy. Walmart is changing how its stores are run by leaning on managers to use staff to fulfill online orders and technology to automate some work. Plus there are the classic retail responsibilities of managing hundreds of employees, keeping shelves stocked and customers happy, all while increasing sales and profits. While the demand for hourly retail workers has cooled since the pandemic, finding a store manager that can run a big-box retailer is a challenge. Walmart is offering higher pay, bonuses and more stock options this year to retain and attract more. Some can now make more than $400,000 a year. Hart became the photo-lab department manager, then ran the apparel section. She was promoted to run a store in 2018 before she took over the Bellmead one in 2021. Now, like many Walmart Supercenter managers, she oversees hundreds of workers and more than $100 million in annual sales. Last year, she was paid a $119,000 salary and a roughly $120,000 bonus. Hart doesn’t find the job overwhelming because she likes to stay busy and enjoys people. “The hardest thing is the uncertainty,” she says. “You don’t know what you are going to walk into.”
Google fires 28 employees involved in sit-in protest over $1.2B Israel contract (NY Post)
Google has fired 28 employees over their participation in a 10-hour sit-in at the search giant’s offices in New York and Sunnyvale, California, to protest the company’s business ties with the Israel government, The Post has learned. The pro-Palestinian staffers — who wore traditional Arab headscarves as they stormed and occupied the office of a top executive in California on Tuesday — were terminated late Wednesday after an internal investigation, Google vice president of global security Chris Rackow said in a companywide memo. “They took over office spaces, defaced our property, and physically impeded the work of other Googlers,” Rackow wrote in the memo obtained by The Post. “Their behavior was unacceptable, extremely disruptive, and made co-workers feel threatened.” In New York, protesters had occupied the 10th floor of Google’s offices in the Chelsea section of Manhattan as part of a protest that also extended to the company’s offices in Seattle for what it called “No Tech for Genocide Day of Action.” “Behavior like this has no place in our workplace and we will not tolerate it,” Rackow wrote. “It clearly violates multiple policies that all employees must adhere to — including our code of conduct and policy on harassment, discrimination, retaliation, standards of conduct, and workplace concerns.”
Crypto
Bitcoin Halving: Here’s Why Some Expect Prices To Soar (Forbes🔒)
Set to occur on Saturday is the highly anticipated bitcoin halving event, a somewhat mysterious phenomenon that occurs every four years, which should theoretically provide a major tailwind to bitcoin prices flatlining in recent weeks. The halving event refers to the 50% reduction in the new bitcoins available daily to digital miners who unlock tokens on the blockchain via a complex, energy-intensive process." Halving previously occurred in 2012, 2016 and 2020, and is programmed directly into the bitcoin ecosystem to occur every four years, with the fourth instance widely expected to come Saturday, or within a few days, cutting the amount of bitcoins available for mining each day from 900 to 450. Between 19 million and 20 million bitcoins now exist, with only 21 million tokens ever programmed to exist, and halvings are designed to keep the supply of bitcoin limited, and maintaining the decentralized currency’s storage of value. By lowering the supply, some expect the 2024 halving will drive demand for bitcoin, and therefore its price, which happened in the immediate aftermath of the three other events. Bitcoin rose 8,069% in the 12 months after the 2012 halving, 284% following the 2016 halving and 559% after the 2020 halving.“It’s pretty much Economics 101” that bitcoin prices go up after halving, according to Sevens Report analyst Tom Essaye, who explained that so long as demand doesn’t decrease and new supply goes down, the “only thing left to move is price.”
Auto
Hybrids Extend Lead Over EVs in Green Vehicle Race (WSJ🔒) 📊
Electric-vehicle sales further decelerated in the first quarter, as purchases of gas-electric hybrids remained strong, accentuating a trend that started last year. Industry figures released earlier this month showed that hybrid sales rose 43% in the January-to-March period, while EV sales flattened, up only 2.7% in the quarter. Contributing to the sluggish EV sales were weak numbers from Tesla, which accounts for about half of the U.S. electric market, according to data from research firm Motor Intelligence. Following years of strong sales gains, EVs have cooled in recent months. Consumers are leery of charging availability and hassles, and prices remain too high for many buyers, according to dealers and survey data.
Real Estate
Mortgage Rates Exceed 7 Percent for the First Time this Year (Freddie Mac) 📊
The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage surpassed 7 percent for the first time this year, jumping from 6.88 percent to 7.10 percent this week. As rates trend higher, potential homebuyers are deciding whether to buy before rates rise even more or hold off in hopes of decreases later in the year. Last week, purchase applications rose modestly, but it remains unclear how many homebuyers can withstand increasing rates in the future.
Boomers Bought Up the Big Homes. Now They’re Not Budging. (WSJ🔒) 📊
Baby boomers bought up many of the big homes across the U.S. when they were raising their families. Now they’re staying put, even though their kids are all grown up. Boomers are on top in a housing market where tight inventory, higher interest rates and steep prices are making homeownership less affordable for the average family. Many of these older homeowners paid off their mortgages on properties that have appreciated tremendously in value. Some are happy with their big houses. Others would like to downsize, but are deterred by the same high costs that are restraining other prospective buyers on lower rungs of the housing economy. Many are working longer or planning on an active retirement, and are in no rush to move to a retirement community. About 28% of all U.S. homes with three or more bedrooms are owned by people between the ages of 60 and 78 living by themselves or with another adult, according to a Redfin analysis of 2022 census data. Millennials living with children own just 14% of these bigger homes. A recent Fannie Mae survey found that most Americans 60 and older don’t intend to ever move.
Big Tech Is Downsizing Workspace in Another Blow to Office Real Estate (WSJ🔒) 📊
Big technology companies are cutting back on office space across major coastal cities, leaving some exposed landlords with empty buildings and steep losses. The pullback marks a sharp reversal after years when companies such as Amazon.com, Meta Platforms’ Facebook and Google parent Alphabet had been bolstering their office footprints by adding millions of square feet of space.
Personal Finance
Pension Funds Are Pulling Hundreds of Billions From Stocks (WSJ🔒) 📊
Stock portfolios at large pension funds had a blockbuster run. Now, managers are cashing out. Corporate pension funds are shifting money into bonds. State and local government funds are swapping stocks for alternative investments. The nation’s largest public pension, the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, is planning to move close to $25 billion out of equities and into private equity and private debt. Like investors of all kinds, the funds are slowly adapting to a world of yield, where they can get sizable returns on risk-free assets. That is rippling throughout markets, as investors assess how much risk they want to take on. Moving out of stocks could mean surrendering some potential gains. Hold too much, for too long, and prices might fall. For pension funds, which target specific investment returns to fund future obligations, this is a welcome change: It means they can take less risk and stay on track toward those goals. They can sell stocks, lock in price gains and move the money into bonds without sacrificing too much return. Or they can continue to push for higher returns without taking on much more risk.
Generation Z is unprecedentedly rich (Economist🔒) 📊
Generation Z is taking over. In the rich world there are at least 250m people born between 1997 and 2012. About half are now in a job. In the average American workplace, the number of Gen Z-ers (sometimes also known as “Zoomers”) working full-time is about to surpass the number of full-time baby-boomers, those born from 1945 to 1964, whose careers are winding down (see chart 1). America now has more than 6,000 Zoomer chief executives and 1,000 Zoomer politicians. As the generation becomes more influential, companies, governments and investors need to understand it. In financial terms, Gen Z is doing extraordinarily well. This, in turn, is changing its relationship with work. Some Gen Z-ers protest, claiming that higher incomes are a mirage because they do not account for the exploding cost of college and housing. After all, global house prices are near all-time highs, and graduates have more debt than before. In reality, though, Gen Z-ers are coping because they earn so much. In 2022 Americans under 25 spent 43% of their post-tax income on housing and education, including interest on debt from college—slightly below the average for under-25s from 1989 to 2019. Bolstered by high incomes, American Zoomers’ home-ownership rates are higher than millennials’ at the same age (even if they are lower than previous generations’).
Technology
AI Chip Trims Energy Budget Back by 99+ Percent (IEEE Spectrum)
As neural networks grow in size and power, they are becoming more energy hungry when run on conventional electronics. For instance, to train its state-of-the-art neural network GPT-3, a 2022 Nature study suggested OpenAI spent US $4.6 million to run 9,200 GPUs for two weeks. The drawbacks of electronic computing have led some researchers to investigate optical computing as a promising foundation for next-generation AI. This photonic approach uses light to perform computations more quickly and with less power than an electronic counterpart. Now scientists at Tsinghua University in Beijing and the Beijing National Research Center for Information Science and Technology have developed Taichi, a photonic microchip that can perform as well as electronic devices on advanced AI tasks while proving far more energy efficient.
Samsung Electronics Gets $6.4 Billion for Texas Chip Plants (WSJ🔒)
The U.S. government is granting Samsung Electronics up to $6.4 billion to build chip-making facilities in Texas, the latest in a string of major subsidy awards from the Biden administration aimed at reviving semiconductor manufacturing in the U.S. Samsung is using the grant money to help hike its investment in Taylor, Texas, just outside Austin, to roughly $45 billion, adding a second chip-making factory, an advanced chip-packaging facility and research-and-development capabilities, the Commerce Department said. It more than doubles Samsung’s commitment made in 2021 to build a chip-making plant in Taylor.
Cyber
House Votes to Extend—and Expand—a Major US Spy Program (Wired)
A controversial US wiretap program days from expiration cleared a major hurdle on its way to being reauthorized. After months of delays, false starts, and interventions by lawmakers working to preserve and expand the US intelligence community’s spy powers, the House of Representatives voted on Friday to extend Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) for two years. Legislation extending the program—controversial for being abused by the government—passed in the House in a 273–147 vote. The Senate has yet to pass its own bill. Section 702 permits the US government to wiretap communications between Americans and foreigners overseas. Hundreds of millions of calls, texts, and emails are intercepted by government spies each with the “compelled assistance” of US communications providers.
China Orders Apple to Remove Popular Messaging Apps (WSJ🔒)
China ordered Apple to remove some of the world’s most popular chat messaging apps from its app store in the country, the latest example of censorship demands on the iPhone seller in the company’s second-biggest market. Meta Platforms’ WhatsApp and Threads as well as messaging platforms Signal and Telegram were taken off the Chinese App Store Friday. Apple said it was told to remove certain apps because of national security concerns, without specifying which. These messaging apps, which allow users to exchange messages and share files individually and in large groups, combined have around three billion users globally. They can only be accessed in China through virtual private networks that take users outside China’s Great Firewall, but are still commonly used. Beijing has often viewed such platforms with caution, concerned that these apps could be used by its citizens to spread negative content and cause social unrest. Much of the news China censors at home often makes it beyond the Great Firewall through such channels.
When Facebook blocks news, studies show the political risks that follow (Reuters)
Canada has become ground zero for Facebook's battle with governments that have enacted or are considering laws that force internet giants - primarily the social media platform's owner Meta and Alphabet's Google - to pay media companies for links to news published on their platforms. Facebook has blocked news sharing in Canada rather than pay, saying news holds no economic value to its business. It is seen as likely to take a similar step in Australia should Canberra try to enforce its 2021 content licencing law after Facebook said it would not extend the deals it has with news publishers there. Facebook briefly blocked news in Australia ahead of the law. The blocking of news links has led to profound and disturbing changes in the way Canadian Facebook users engage with information about politics, two unpublished studies shared with Reuters found. "The news being talked about in political groups is being replaced by memes," said Taylor Owen, founding director of McGill University's Centre for Media, Technology and Democracy, who worked on one of the studies.
Religion
The Mental-Health Benefits Linked to Going to Church (WSJ🔒)
Active religious practice, such as going to churches, synagogues and mosques, is linked to mental well-being, according to a growing body of research. One possible explanation for the link, researchers and clergy say, is that places of worship can provide community and belonging, which are big drivers in mental well-being, and help counter isolation and loneliness. The findings come at a time of declining regular attendance at services across nearly all faith denominations and rising rates of depression and anxiety. Young people in particular have low rates of church attendance and report often feeling lonely and anxious.
Nature
Massive Mt. Ruang eruption sends plumes nearly 70,000 feet high (WP🔒) 📊
Indonesia’s Mount Ruang has erupted at least three times this week, forcing the evacuation of hundreds of people. On Wednesday evening local time, the volcano’s eruption shot ash nearly 70,000 feet high, possibly spewing aerosols into the stratosphere, the atmosphere’s second layer.
Sports
Chinese runner’s win invites suspicion after rivals appear to step aside (CNN)
Chinese runner He Jie’s victory Sunday in the Beijing Half Marathon is facing a probe after his win was called into question by Chinese internet users because a trio of African runners appeared to deliberately slow down to let him win. A video clip of the finish to the race shows Kenya’s Willy Mnangat turn toward He and gesture him to move ahead as the four men run neck and neck just meters from the finish line. Former 5km world record-holder Robert Keter, also of Kenya, then appears to wave at He to overtake the pack while signaling for his compatriot and Ethiopia’s Dejene Hailu to hang back. The Chinese runner crossed the finish line in 1:03:44 to claim the $5,500 first prize, with the African trio just one second behind in joint-second place.
The video:
The Bookshelf
Publishers are scouring the world of fan fiction to find the next hit author (Sherwood News) 📊
As book sales skyrocketed during the pandemic, online fan communities emerged more starkly as proving grounds for potential best-selling writers, a place for agents and editors to identify new talent to meet demand for recreational book spending. As a result, the science fiction, fantasy, and romance markets are increasingly relying on the successes of fan fiction authors, which speaks to the growing power of fans in determining who makes it big outside the fan-fiction sphere.
Have a great weekend!
The Curator
Two resources to help you be a more discerning reader:
AllSides - https://www.allsides.com/unbiased-balanced-news
Media Bias Chart - https://www.adfontesmedia.com/
Caveat: Even these resources/charts are biased. Who says that the system they use to describe news sources is accurate? Still, hopefully you find them useful as a basic guide or for comparison.