This week in the news | 25 May 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
U.S. officials warn that undersea cables are vulnerable to espionage from Chinese repair ships, highlighting a significant security risk for internet traffic across the Pacific Ocean (WSJ🔒) 📊.
North America
Families of the Uvalde victims have reached a $2 million settlement with the city, reflecting ongoing efforts for justice and accountability in the aftermath of the tragic mass shooting (BBC). Despite bans on facial recognition tech in certain cities, police departments have found ways to access these tools through neighboring agencies, raising privacy and legal concerns (WP🔒) 📊.
Latin America
Following the footsteps of the US and Europe, Latin American nations are imposing prohibitive tariffs on Chinese imports, particularly in the steel industry, to protect local markets from being overwhelmed by cheaper foreign products (Bloomberg🔒) 📊. Haiti’s main international airport has reopened after nearly three months of closure due to gang violence, which had severely disrupted the country’s infrastructure and access to essential supplies (AP) 📊. Meanwhile, the strength and influence of Haitian gangs continue to grow, posing a significant challenge to the incoming Kenyan-led multinational police force (NYT🔒).
Europe
The UK is preparing to issue a report on the biggest NHS disaster, where over 30,000 people were infected with HIV and hepatitis C from contaminated blood products (BBC). Russia has introduced “turtle tanks” in Ukraine, featuring metal cages for extra protection, though their effectiveness remains questionable (Economist🔒) 📊. Despite suffering heavy losses, Russia has managed to rebuild its military forces, surprising Western analysts (Defense News). France has issued scratch-and-sniff baguette stamps to showcase its cultural heritage ahead of the Summer Olympics (NYT🔒).
Middle East
Maps show where Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi’s helicopter was found after the crash (WP🔒) 📊. Mohammad Mokhber has been appointed as the acting president, tasked with ensuring the election of a new president within 50 days (WP🔒). Raisi’s death has intensified speculation about the succession of Iran’s top leadership positions (WSJ🔒). Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has condemned the ICC’s bid to arrest him over alleged war crimes in Gaza, asserting the legitimacy of Israel's actions against Hamas (BBC).
Africa
The U.S. military will pull all its troops out of Niger by mid-September, following negotiations with the country's military junta (The Hill). U.S. and Kenya have announced new deals and investments aimed at boosting green energy, education, and health manufacturing in East Africa (Reuters).
Oceania
Australia and New Zealand have begun evacuations from New Caledonia following unrest, with military planes assisting stranded travelers (BBC).
Space
A comet fragment exploded over Spain and Portugal, creating a spectacular fireball in the sky (NYT🔒)📊. Russia has launched a counterspace weapon into the same orbit as a U.S. satellite, increasing tensions between the two nations in space (Air & Space Forces). SpaceX's fourth Starship test flight aims to demonstrate the vehicle's ability to survive reentry, marking a crucial step in its development (Ars Technica).
Defense
Many armies are struggling to attract recruits, but in Sweden, the military is turning away applicants due to high demand, demonstrating a unique approach to conscription (WSJ🔒) 📊.
Economy
Earnings reports from Walmart, Home Depot, and LVMH highlight significant shifts in consumer spending patterns (Forbes🔒). Pandemic-era college graduates are facing a tough job market with fewer opportunities (Bloomberg🔒). Computer science majors are also finding it difficult to land jobs in an increasingly competitive field (WSJ)🔒 📊. Utilities stocks have become an unlikely winner in the stock market, driven by the AI boom (WSJ🔒) 📊.
Business
Pandemic darlings like Zoom and Peloton have seen their fortunes wane, reflecting the volatility of their business models (Sherwood News) 📊. Despite Western efforts, China is still winning the minerals war (WSJ🔒) 📊. Disneyland character workers have voted to unionize, marking a shift in labor relations (NYT🔒). Smartphone companies are aggressively pursuing the African market, aiming to bridge the digital divide (VOA News).
Energy
The Biden administration is releasing 1 million barrels of gasoline from the Northeast reserve in a bid to lower prices at the pump this summer (VOA News).
Technology
Elon Musk’s Neuralink has received FDA approval for its second patient implant, marking a significant milestone (WSJ🔒). The internet's first search engine, Archie, has been rescued and is running again (Ars Technica).
Cyber
Efforts to reduce the sexual solicitation of teens on Instagram are being highlighted by former Facebook executives, who emphasize the need for better safety measures (After Babel). It remains dangerously easy to hack the world’s phones, raising serious security concerns (Economist🔒). Cyberattacks against water supplies are rising, with utilities urged to do more to prevent breaches (AP). ASML and TSMC have contingency plans to disable chip machines if China invades Taiwan (Bloomberg🔒).
Artificial Intelligence
Nvidia's earnings report highlights a 600% profit explosion amid the AI boom (Forbes🔒). Scarlett Johansson’s battle with OpenAI over her voice likeness underscores the challenges of AI in creative industries (WSJ🔒). Significant advances in understanding the inner workings of AI models are being reported, potentially making AI models safer (Anthropic). Gartner advises on when not to use generative AI, emphasizing its limitations (Gartner) 📊.
Health
The U.S. Surgeon General has raised alarms about the devastating impact of the epidemic of loneliness and isolation (HHS). South Carolina has banned gender transition care for minors, reflecting a growing trend of legislative action across the states (NYT🔒). Hims has launched $199 weight-loss shots, significantly undercutting competitors like Wegovy (Bloomberg🔒). China has approved Eli Lilly’s weight-loss drug for diabetes treatment, intensifying competition in the market (Bloomberg🔒).
Food & Drink
Latin America is leading the way in labeling ultra-processed foods, a move that could influence global standards (The Guardian). In 18th century England, drinking tea likely saved lives by reducing waterborne diseases (Phys.org) 📊.
Travel
One person died and dozens were injured when a Singapore Airlines flight hit severe turbulence (WSJ🔒) 📊. Budget airlines like Frontier and Spirit are dropping notorious fees, marking a shift in their business strategies (WP🔒). Southwest Airlines is now part of Google Flights, offering a more comprehensive view of airfares (WP🔒).
Entertainment
The Justice Department has sued to break up Live Nation-Ticketmaster, potentially redistributing power in the live-events business (WSJ🔒). Apple has unveiled a list of the 100 best albums ever made, emphasizing human judgment over algorithms (WSJ🔒) 📊. TV networks are embracing their aging audience, focusing on the mass-market reach of TV (WSJ🔒) 📊.
Sports
The NCAA has agreed to share revenue with athletes in a landmark $2.8 billion settlement, marking a significant shift in college sports (WSJ🔒). Manchester City has made history with its fourth successive Premier League title, solidifying its dominance (BBC).
THE SLOW BREW ☕
A more relaxed approach to the summaries.
World
U.S. Fears Undersea Cables Are Vulnerable to Espionage From Chinese Repair Ships (WSJ🔒) 📊
U.S. officials are privately delivering an unusual warning to telecommunications companies: Undersea cables that ferry internet traffic across the Pacific Ocean could be vulnerable to tampering by Chinese repair ships. State Department officials said a state-controlled Chinese company that helps repair international cables, S.B. Submarine Systems, appeared to be hiding its vessels’ locations from radio and satellite tracking services, which the officials and others said defied easy explanation. The warnings highlight an overlooked security risk to undersea fiber-optic cables, according to these officials: Silicon Valley giants, such as Google and Meta Platforms, partially own many cables and are investing in more. But they rely on specialized construction and repair companies, including some with foreign ownership that U.S. officials fear could endanger the security of commercial and military data.
North America
Families of Uvalde victims reach $2m settlement with city (BBC)
Families of children killed and injured in the 2022 Uvalde, Texas mass shooting have announced a $2m (£1.57m) settlement with the city, days before the anniversary of the massacre. Nineteen children and two teachers were shot when an 18-year-old gunman opened fire at Robb Elementary School, with police taking more than an hour to stop him. Multiple lawsuits were filed against Uvalde's police and local officials over what the Justice Department has described as a chaotic and disorganised response. The $2m going to families of the 17 children killed and two who survived "demonstrates compassion and respect" without plunging the small city of Uvalde into bankruptcy, their attorney, Josh Koskoff, said. The settlement also includes additional training and "fitness for duty" standards for Uvalde police officers, mental health services for the community, and creation of a committee to coordinate a permanent memorial. Additionally, the families announced that they will be taking new legal action against 92 individual officers from the state's Department of Public Safety for "shocking and extensive failures" during the shooting response.
These cities bar facial recognition tech. Police still found ways to access it. (WP🔒) 📊
As cities and states push to restrict the use of facial recognition technologies, some police departments have quietly found a way to keep using the controversial tools: asking for help from other law enforcement agencies that still have access. Officers in Austin and San Francisco — two of the largest cities where police are banned from using the technology — have repeatedly asked police in neighboring towns to run photos of criminal suspects through their facial recognition programs, according to a Washington Post review of police documents. In all, 21 cities and Vermont voted to prohibit the use of facial recognition tools by law enforcement, according to the Security Industry Association, a Maryland-based trade group.
Latin America
China’s $8.5 Billion in Steel Spurs Latin America Toward Tariffs (Bloomberg🔒) 📊
One after another, Latin American nations are following in the footsteps of the US and Europe by imposing prohibitive tariffs on Chinese imports — a strain in what’s been an otherwise cozy relationship. Mexico, Chile and Brazil have hiked — and in some cases more than doubled — duties on steel products from China over the past several weeks. Colombia may be about to follow suit. The levies may seem out of turn, given how the Asian superpower has entrenched itself in Latin America in recent years. China has become the biggest buyer of raw materials from the region and a major investor. At the same time, Latin America has given China another market to sell its goods as it faces stiff US and European tariffs. It’s sending nearly 10 million tons of steel a year, valued at $8.5 billion, to Latin America — a huge jump from a mere 80,500 tons in 2000, according to regional steel association Alacero. Now, that relationship is being tested by a global turn toward protectionism, and a flood of Chinese imports that threatens to put Latin American steel producers out of business and risk a combined 1.4 million jobs.
Haiti’s main airport reopens nearly 3 months after gang violence forced it closed (AP) 📊
Haiti’s main international airport reopened Monday for the first time in nearly three months after relentless gang violence forced authorities to close it. The reopening of the Toussaint-Louverture airport in the capital of Port-au-Prince is expected to help ease a critical shortage of medications and other basic supplies. The country’s main seaport remains paralyzed. Gangs control 80% of the capital. The attacks began on Feb. 29, with gunmen seizing control of police stations, opening fire on the Port-au-Prince airport and storming Haiti’s two biggest prisons, freeing more than 4,000 inmates. Gangs since then have directed their attacks on previously peaceful communities, leaving thousands homeless. More than 2,500 people have been killed or injured in Haiti from January to March, a more than 50% increase compared to the same period last year, according to the United Nations.
Haiti’s Gangs Grow Stronger as Kenyan-Led Force Prepares to Deploy (NYT🔒)
They have a stranglehold on the country’s infrastructure, from police stations to seaports. They have chased hundreds of thousands of people from the capital. And they are suspected of having ties to the 2021 assassination of Haiti’s president. Western diplomats and officials say the influence and capability of many Haitian gangs are evolving, making them ever more threatening to the Kenyan-led multinational police force soon deploying to Haiti as well as the fragile transitional council trying to set a path for elections. With their arrival just days away, the 2,500 police officers will confront a better equipped, funded, trained and unified gang force than any mission previously deployed to the Caribbean nation, security experts say.
Europe
Victims await report into biggest ever NHS disaster (BBC)
More than 30,000 people were infected with HIV and hepatitis C from 1970 to 1991 by contaminated blood products and transfusions. About 3,000 of them have since died - many haemophiliacs given infected blood products as part of their treatment. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is expected to issue an apology on Monday. Chairman Sir Brian Langstaff will deliver his findings after the Infected Blood Inquiry took evidence between 2019 and 2023.
What are the Russian “turtle tanks” seen in Ukraine? (Economist🔒) 📊
IN LATE 2021 Russia began welding metal cages over the turrets of its tanks, in an attempt to protect them from attack. The cages proved ineffective—some Western analysts jokingly dubbed them “emotional-support armour”. Now Russia has introduced an even more intensive retrofit, using metal sheeting to totally enclose some of its tanks. The new armour has earned the vehicles the nickname “turtle tanks”. Will kitting them out in this way really help? As crude as retrofitted sheet metal may seem, it has proved effective in the past. Spaced armour—adding a sheet a short distance from the primary layer of protection—dates back to the first world war, when it was used on ships. When a shell hits the first layer of metal it is blunted and knocked off course, making it less effective when it reaches the main armour. Spaced armour was used on tanks during the second world war, to protect them from “shaped-charge” warheads carried by new weapons such as the bazooka and rocket-propelled grenade. When detonated, these warheads produce a jet of superheated metal which punches through armour. But the jet only retains its shape over a short distance. Sheet metal causes it to detonate further from the target, reducing its effectiveness. But using sheet armour has big downsides. The shell is heavy, and thus slows the tank. It also prevents the vehicle from rotating its turret, limiting its ability to fire on attackers, and severely restricts visibility. At least one turtle tank has wandered off course during an assault. And for all that, it does not seem to make vehicles invulnerable, or even close to it—in one recent assault, only one of four turtle tanks used reportedly made it back to base.
‘They’ve grown back’: How Russia surprised the West and rebuilt its force (Defense News)
The Pentagon in March put a price tag on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Speaking in the officer’s club at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin read a list of costs the Kremlin had tallied over two years: More than 315,000 troops killed or wounded. Over $211 billion spent. Some 20 medium or large ships damaged or sunk in the Black Sea. “Russia has paid a staggering cost for [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s imperial dreams,” Austin said, speaking before a meeting of countries that gather each month in support of Ukraine. By April, though, Austin’s tone had changed. At a news conference, Austin and Gen. CQ Brown, America’s top military officer, again detailed Russia’s losses. But they added another trend: Russia’s recovery. “Russia has ramped up its production,” Austin said. “All of their defense industry really answers directly to the state, so it’s easier for them to do that a bit quicker.”
France Issues Scratch-and-Sniff Baguette Postage Stamps (NYT🔒)
The latest showcasing of French cultural heritage as Paris prepares to host millions of visitors for the Summer Olympics and Paralympics, the new stamp features a cartoon image of a baguette wrapped in a tricolor ribbon. It was unveiled by France’s postal service on Thursday — May 16, the feast day of Saint Honoré, the patron saint of bakers. “The baguette, the bread of our daily lives, the symbol of our gastronomy, the jewel of our culture,” the usually not-flashy postal service raved in its description of its new offering. The stamp, which is intended to be used for international letters of up to 20 grams, or about 0.7 ounces, was released for sale at post offices and kiosks throughout the republic on Friday, with an initial print run of 594,000 and a price tag of 1.96 euros, or $2.14, each. Thanks to scratch-and-sniff technology, it will also transport “bakery fragrances” to those lucky enough to receive a letter from France.
Middle East
Iran declares five days of mourning for president (BBC)
Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has announced five days of mourning following the death of the country's President, Ebrahim Raisi. Mr Raisi was killed in a helicopter crash in a mountainous area of north-western Iran, along with Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian. State media confirmed they were killed after the helicopter they were travelling in came down on Sunday. Ayatollah Khamenei said he offered his condolences "to the dear people of Iran". Mr Raisi, 63, had been tipped as a potential successor to the supreme leader. Mr Raisi, 63, was a hard-line cleric and his election as president in 2021 consolidated the control of conservatives over every part of the Islamic Republic. In a statement following his death, the Iranian government said it would continue to operate "without disruption".
Maps show where Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi’s helicopter was found (WP🔒) 📊
The helicopter carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi along with other officials crashed in Iran’s East Azerbaijan province in the mountainous northwest, state media reported. Raisi was returning from an appearance with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev to inaugurate the joint Qiz Qalasi Dam project when the helicopter went down. The dam that Raisi visited before the crash is approximately 30 miles away. The aircraft is a widely used civilian version of the Vietnam-era Huey military helicopter, operated by armed forces and businesses around the globe.
Who is Mohammad Mokhber? Iran taps acting president after Raisi’s death. (WP🔒)
Mohammad Mokhber, Iran’s first vice president, was appointed acting president Monday after the death of Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash. Iran’s constitution specifies that, if approved by the supreme leader, the first vice president will assume acting presidential powers if the president dies. Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, tapped Mokhber on Monday to ensure the election of a new president within 50 days, state media reported.
After Raisi’s Death, Iran Wrestles With Two Succession Challenges (WSJ🔒)
Raisi’s death has heightened speculation about possible candidates for the nation’s two top jobs. Among the people viewed as contenders are Khamenei’s son, Mojtaba Khamenei, 54, and Alireza Arafi, 67, a member of the Assembly of Experts, the group responsible for selecting a new supreme leader. The ascendance of Mojtaba would go against the views of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic, who likened dynastic rule to the illegitimate monarchy he had helped topple in the 1979 revolution. Khamenei himself last year said a hereditary government was un-Islamic. The Iranian leadership never discusses potential successors in public, leaving the question of who will run the country after Khamenei dies a matter of speculation. The country has only once before selected a new supreme leader, when Khamenei replaced Khomeini in 1989. Khamenei was selected by a close group of people who had been trusted by Khomeini and his appointment was only announced publicly afterward. The Iranian president is the country’s second-in-command. Previous presidents have to some extent been able to pursue personal agendas and the interests of their constituencies, but the supreme leader has final say on all important decisions.
Netanyahu denounces bid to arrest him over Gaza war (BBC)
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has angrily condemned the International Criminal Court's prosecutor for seeking arrest warrants for him alongside Hamas's leaders over alleged war crimes in the Gaza conflict. Mr Netanyahu said he rejected with disgust that "democratic Israel" had been compared with what he called "mass murderers". Mr Netanyahu's comments have been echoed by US President Joe Biden, who said there was no equivalence between Israel and Hamas. The chief ICC prosecutor, Karim Khan, said there were reasonable grounds to believe that Mr Netanyahu and his Defence Minister Yoav Gallant bore criminal responsibility for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza. Israel and the US, its key ally, are not members of the ICC, which was set up in 2002.
Africa
US to pull troops out of Niger by mid-September: Pentagon (The Hill)
The U.S. military will pull all of its assets out of Niger by mid-September, the Pentagon announced Sunday, after days of talks with the country’s military junta finalized a timeline. A group of military leaders executed a coup in Niger last year, forming a military junta government that has geopolitically aligned with Russia. Talks of leaving Niger have lasted weeks, with the timeline finalized Sunday after four days of high-intensity negotiations. About 1,000 U.S. troops have been stationed in the country for counter-terrorism operations against the Islamic State and al-Qaeda affiliated groups. The withdrawal plan is for most equipment to be airlifted from the country before September, with everything out by mid-way through the month. Military infrastructure and some items too large to transport will be left to the Nigerien military. The Pentagon said talks to withdraw the about 100 U.S. troops in neighboring Chad are also continuing, though talks on revising an agreement allowing the Americans to stay are expected next month.
US, Kenya deals and investments announced as Ruto meets Biden (Reuters)
U.S. President Joe Biden and Kenyan President William Ruto on Thursday announced investments in green energy, education and health manufacturing in the East African nation and a plan to reduce its debt burden. Ruto arrived in Washington on Wednesday as part of a three-day state visit that includes bilateral talks with Biden on Thursday, followed by a state dinner in the evening. Ruto's trip is the sixth state visit hosted by the Biden administration and the first for an African president since 2008.
Oceania
Australia and NZ begin New Caledonia evacuations (BBC)
An Australian military transport plane has departed from New Caledonia, carrying travellers stranded after unrest shut down the island's international airport. It is the first of two Australian aircraft arriving to rescue 300 citizens who have registered for assistance in the French Pacific territory. A New Zealand Air Force plane has also arrived, according to Flightradar24, and is among a series of proposed flights which will bring about 50 people home. The unrest began last week after lawmakers in Paris voted through changes that will allow more French residents to vote in local elections, a move indigenous leaders say will dilute the political influence of native people. "The situation in New Caledonia remains dynamic, and New Zealand officials are continuing to work with French counterparts and other partners especially Australia to understand what is needed to ensure the safety of our people there," New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters said.
Space
Comet Fragment Explodes in Dark Skies Over Spain and Portugal (NYT🔒)
On Saturday, revelers across Spain and Portugal ventured into the temperate springtime evening, hoping for a memorable night. None were expecting a visitor from outer space exploding above their heads. At 11:46 p.m. in Portugal, a fireball streaked across the sky, leaving a smoldering trail of incandescent graffiti in its wake. Footage shared on social media shows jaws dropping as the dark night briefly turns into day, blazing in shades of snowy white, otherworldly green and arctic blue. Rocky asteroids cause sky-high streaks as they self-destruct in Earth’s atmosphere with some frequency. But over the weekend, the projectile was plunging toward Earth at a remarkable speed — around 100,000 miles per hour, more than twice that expected by a typical asteroid. Experts say it had a strange trajectory, not matching the sort normally taken by nearby space rocks. That’s because the interloper wasn’t an asteroid. It was a fragment of a comet — an icy object that may have formed at the dawn of the solar system — that lost its battle with our planet’s atmosphere 37 miles above the Atlantic Ocean. None of the object is likely to have made it to the ground, the European Space Agency said.
Russia’s New Counterspace Weapon Is in the Same Orbit as a US Satellite (Air & Space Forces)
Russia launched a counterspace weapon into the same orbit as a U.S. government satellite on May 16, U.S. officials said, further increasing tensions between the two countries in space. “On May 16, Russia launched a satellite into low Earth orbit that the United States assesses is likely a counterspace weapon presumably capable of attacking other satellites in low Earth orbit,” said U.S. Ambassador Robert Wood in a May 20 speech at the United Nations. “Russia deployed this new counterspace weapon into the same orbit as a U.S. government satellite.” Pentagon press secretary Maj. Gen. Patrick S. Ryder said May 21 that “assessments further indicate characteristics resembling previously deployed counterspace payloads from 2019 and 2022.” Ryder declined to discuss what U.S. intelligence agencies know about the satellite’s payload.
Surviving reentry is the key goal for SpaceX’s fourth Starship test flight (Ars Technica)
After three test flights, SpaceX has shown that the world's most powerful rocket can reach space. Now, engineers must demonstrate the company's next-generation Starship vehicle can get back home. This will be the central objective for the fourth Starship test flight, which could happen as soon as early June, according to Elon Musk, SpaceX's founder and CEO. "Starship Flight 4 in about 2 weeks," Musk posted on X, his social media platform, following a Starship countdown rehearsal Monday at the Starship launch site in South Texas. "Primary goal is getting through max reentry heating."
Defense
Many Armies Struggle for Recruits. In Sweden They Turn Them Away. (WSJ🔒) 📊
To confront and deter an expansionist Moscow, the U.S. and many of Russia’s near neighbors are struggling to attract enough recruits to reinforce their militaries. Not so in Sweden, where each year the armed forces turn thousands of young men and women away. As the newest member of NATO, Sweden is betting that the best way to bolster its defenses against Russian aggression is to stack its military with the country’s top performers. Conscription under the Swedish model now functions as a filter, not a dragnet. All young men and women in Sweden must enlist, but rigorous testing sorts the best from the rest. That has created a virtuous recruitment circle where military service, lasting up to 15 months depending on the role, is regarded as prestigious and conscripts compete for spots. Afterward, they join the country’s reservists for 10 years, or until they turn 47. The system has proved so successful at nurturing talent that former conscripts are headhunted by the civil service and prized by tech companies. It could provide a model for the U.S., which in 2022 had its toughest recruitment year in almost five decades, dragging on America’s military might. As a proportion of its population, Sweden’s annual armed-forces recruitment rate now tops that in the U.S. Since 2017, about 100,000 Swedes each year must fill out an online questionnaire for the armed forces from which about 20% are selected to undergo psychological and physical testing. Around one-third of them are picked as conscripts.
NOTE: Um, wow!
Economy
Walmart, Home Depot And LVMH Earnings Highlight Consumer Spending Shifts (Forbes🔒)
Several large retailers have reported earnings for Q1 of 2024, and the numbers and management comments provide valuable insight into the health of the U.S. consumer. With roughly 70% of the economy driven by consumer spending, changes in these patterns significantly impact growth and employment. Results have been mixed, but there are clear signs of spending fatigue. Walmart's earnings suggest that overall consumer spending is steady, but consumers with less disposable income are struggling and continue to look for value in their shopping habits. Target reports its earnings on May 22 and will provide an outlook on activity from its customer base. Target generates a higher percentage of revenue from discretionary products than Walmart. So, investors will closely watch its results for confirmation of any weakness. Home Depot, the nation's largest home improvement retailer, reported a decline is sales for the third consecutive quarter as customers wrestled with higher mortgage rates and inflation.
Pandemic-Era College Kids Face Job Market That Doesn’t Want Them (Bloomberg🔒)
Tainted by the pandemic, this outgoing class of seniors had anything but a typical college experience. Most are ready to enter the “real world.” Yet the class is — again — needing to adjust their expectations. Even the best of students are facing an endless web of job applications, ambiguous timelines and countless rejections. On the surface, the US job market is strong. Unemployment is low, and there’s been significant job growth in certain areas including health care. However, getting on a path to a well-paid job in finance, consulting and technology — top destinations for ambitious students — is getting more difficult with greater competition for fewer entry-level positions. US employers are hiring at the slowest pace in nearly a decade, excluding a brief dip during the early pandemic, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Fewer workers are leaving their positions after layoffs at companies such as Google Inc., Microsoft Corp., Morgan Stanley and Citigroup Inc. And confidence among entry-level workers is the lowest in Glassdoor data going back to 2016. It all adds up to another challenging moment in the lives of the Class of 2024. Many are finding it difficult to get a foot in the door, even if their internships and work experience weren’t obviously disrupted by the pandemic. Strains in the entry-level job market have been building for at least a year. Unemployment for recent college graduates ticked up again in March — even as the rate held steady for all college graduates. But it was only a couple years ago graduating seniors were able to leverage multiple job offers and negotiate higher compensation.
Computer-Science Majors Graduate Into a World of Fewer Opportunities (WSJ🔒) 📊
Computer science is hotter than ever at U.S. universities. But students graduating this month are discovering their degrees are no longer a surefire ticket to tech-industry riches. In fact, many are finding it harder than they ever thought it would be to land a job. Tech giants that were expanding aggressively just a few years ago now have less need for entry-level hires—or are shedding jobs. They are also, increasingly, turning their focus to artificial intelligence, a technology many fear could reduce the need for coders. Postings on jobs website Indeed for software-development roles, a proxy for computer science, have dropped 30% from prepandemic levels. At the same time, companies have a burgeoning supply of new grads to choose from. The number of students in the U.S. majoring in computer and information science has jumped 40% in five years, to more than 600,000 as of 2023. The number of bachelor’s degrees conferred in those majors topped 100,000 in 2021, according to the Department of Education, a 140% rise from 10 years earlier.
The Unlikely Stocks That Became a Hot Bet on AI (WSJ🔒) 📊
An unlikely stock-market winner this spring stands out even in a year full of Wall Street surprises. Utilities—yes, utilities—are outpacing the competition. The climb in shares of power companies is in part a rebound from a bleak 2023. But their move upward also reflects the growing belief that the U.S. economy can power through higher interest rates and turn the hype around artificial intelligence into reality. Data in recent weeks has shown job growth cooling and inflation resuming its gradual slowdown, without any alarming deterioration in economic conditions. That has turned power generators, which are set to supply a wave of increasingly energy-hungry data centers needed for AI, into a bank-shot bet on the projected tech boom.
Business
The pandemic darlings: where are they now? (Sherwood News) 📊
With Zoom, DocuSign, and Peloton all making headlines in the last week, you’d be forgiven for thinking that it was 2020 and the pandemic was still raging. However, unlike the days of COVID, most of the headlines are negative: Zoom has seen revenue growth slow to a glacial 3% year-on-year — and even called workers back to the office in 2023 — DocuSign has been the rumored target of private equity bidders, and at-home fitness provider Peloton announced a refinancing as it looks to avoid a “cash crunch”.
China Is Winning the Minerals War (WSJ🔒) 📊
For the past few years, the West has been trying to break China’s grip on minerals that are critical for defense and green technologies. Despite their efforts, Chinese companies are becoming more dominant, not less. They are expanding operations, supercharging supply and causing prices to drop. Their challengers can’t compete. “China is not just standing still waiting for us to catch up,” said Morgan Bazilian, director of the Payne Institute at the Colorado School of Mines. “They are making investments on top of their already massive investments in all aspects of the critical-minerals supply chain.”
Disneyland Character Workers at California Park Vote to Unionize (NYT🔒)
A majority of Disneyland cast members who perform as characters such as Mickey and Minnie Mouse and dance in parades at the amusement park, in California, voted to unionize with the Actors’ Equity Association on Saturday, the union said. The Actors’ Equity Association, the national labor union that represents more than 51,000 professional actors and stage managers, said it had exceeded the threshold it needed in a vote overseen by the National Labor Relations Board, winning a 79 percent majority with 953 yes votes and 258 no votes, according to a statement.
Smartphone companies pursue the African market (VOA Africa)
Internet-enabled phones have transformed many lives, but they can play a unique role in sub-Saharan Africa, where infrastructure and public services are among the world's least developed, said Jenny Aker, a professor who studies the issue at Tufts University. At times, technology in Africa has leapfrogged gaps, including providing access to mobile money for people without bank accounts. Despite growing mobile internet coverage on the continent of 1.3 billion people, just 25% of adults in sub-Saharan Africa have access to it, according to Claire Sibthorpe, head of digital inclusion at the U.K.-based mobile phone lobbying group GSMA. Expense is the main barrier. The cheapest smartphone costs up to 95% of the monthly salary for the poorest 20% of the region's population, Sibthorpe said.
Energy
Biden releasing 1 million barrels of gasoline from Northeast reserve in bid to lower prices at pump (VOA News)
The Biden administration said Tuesday that it is releasing 1 million barrels of gasoline from a Northeast reserve established after Superstorm Sandy in a bid to lower prices at the pump this summer. The sale, from storage sites in New Jersey and Maine, will be allocated in increments of 100,000 barrels at a time. The approach will create a competitive bidding process that ensures gasoline can flow into local retailers ahead of the July 4 holiday and sold at competitive prices, the Energy Department said. The move is intended to help "lower costs for American families and consumers," the department said in a statement. Gas prices average about $3.60 per gallon nationwide as of Tuesday, up 6 cents from a year ago, according to AAA (American Automobile Association). Tapping gasoline reserves is one of the few actions a president can take by himself to try to control inflation, an election year liability for the party in control of the White House.
Real Estate
The Hidden Driver of Soaring Home Insurance Costs (WSJ🔒) 📊
One leading, but little-discussed, cause of this coverage crunch: a big increase in the cost of reinsurance policies. Now all eyes are on a round of reinsurance renewals currently under way in Florida and elsewhere that will help determine whether more premium increases are in store for homeowners. Insurers buy reinsurance policies to limit their risks. After suffering a sharp drop in profits, reinsurers raised rates and cut coverage at the start of last year. That hit home insurers, making it harder to manage their losses from storms and other extreme-weather events. Many of them passed on the higher costs and reduced coverage to their customers.
Technology
Elon Musk’s Neuralink Gets FDA Green Light for Second Patient, as First Describes His Emotional Journey (WSJ🔒)
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration gave a green light to Elon Musk’s Neuralink to implant its brain chip in a second person, signing off on the company’s proposed fixes for a problem that occurred in the first test participant. The fixes include embedding some of the device’s ultrathin wires deeper into the brain, according to a person familiar with the company and a document viewed by The Wall Street Journal. As Neuralink prepares for its second test participant, the first, Noland Arbaugh, is opening up about the impact of the device on his life and the emotional roller coaster he experienced before, during and after the device lost part of its functionality. With the FDA’s blessing, Neuralink now hopes to implant a second participant sometime in June, according to the person familiar with the company, who said that more than 1,000 quadriplegics have signed up for its patient registry, though fewer than 100 qualify for the study.
Archie, the Internet’s first search engine, is rescued and running (Ars Technica)
It's amazing, and a little sad, to think that something created in 1989 that changed how people used and viewed the then-nascent Internet had nearly vanished by 2024. Nearly, that is, because the dogged researchers and enthusiasts at The Serial Port channel on YouTube have found what is likely the last existing copy of Archie. Archie, first crafted by Alan Emtage while a student at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, allowed for the searching of various "anonymous" FTP servers around what was then a very small web of universities, researchers, and government and military nodes. It was groundbreaking; it was the first echo of the "anything, anywhere" Internet to come. And when The Serial Port went looking, it very much did not exist.
NOTE: the video -
Cyber
How To Reduce the Sexual Solicitation of Teens on Instagram (After Babel)
From 2009 to 2015, I was the senior engineering and product leader at Facebook, responsible for its efforts to keep users safe and supported. I led the Protect & Care group, focusing on three main areas: “Site Integrity,” where we combated attacks and malicious behavior; “Security Infrastructure,” dedicated to building resilient systems and ensuring compliance; and the “Care” team, which created tools for Facebook users and for internal customer support. Additionally, I managed the development of child safety tools. What I found was extremely disturbing. I discovered that the issues my daughter encountered were happening at an unprecedented scale all over the world. Here’s just one shocking example: Within the space of a typical week, 1 in 8 adolescents aged 13 to 15 years old experience an unwanted sexual advance on Instagram.1 When you multiply that out by the hundreds of millions of teens who use Instagram globally, it means that Instagram hosts the largest-scale sexual harassment of teens to have ever happened. Social media companies, and Meta in particular, manage their businesses based on a close and ongoing analysis of data. Nothing gets changed unless it is measured. Once Meta establishes metrics for anything, employees are given concrete incentives to drive those metrics in the direction the company deems useful and valuable. Metrics determine, for example, how many people work in a given department. Most of all, metrics establish the companies’ priorities. This is why it is critical that Meta and other social media companies establish metrics and gather data on people’s actual experiences of receiving unwanted contact and distressing content. If you’re the parent of a teenager, it is important for you to know that there is a high likelihood that your child receives unwanted contact and content, at least occasionally. The stories you see in the news of teens committing suicide because of experiencing bullying, sextortion, or other cruelties––those things happened to the children of diligent parents. The most important thing you can do for your child is to make it easy and safe for them to talk with you about whatever they are experiencing or whenever they feel they have made a mistake. Ask your teen about content they saw online that they did not want to see. Ask them about whether they have received messages that made them uncomfortable. If possible, talk with them about unwanted contact online, requests for nudes, or requests for sex. Most teens can readily describe bad things that have happened to them online.
It is dangerously easy to hack the world’s phones (Economist🔒)
FOR YEARS security experts have warned that a technology at the heart of global communications is dangerously insecure. Now there is proof that it has been used to snoop on people in America. Kevin Briggs, an official at America’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, told the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), a regulator, earlier this year that there had been “numerous incidents of successful, unauthorised attempts” not only to steal location data and monitor voice and text messages in America, but also to deliver spyware (software that can take over a phone) and influence American voters from abroad via text messages. Kevin Briggs, an official at America’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, told the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), a regulator, earlier this year that there had been “numerous incidents of successful, unauthorised attempts” not only to steal location data and monitor voice and text messages in America, but also to deliver spyware (software that can take over a phone) and influence American voters from abroad via text messages. The comments were first reported recently by 404 Media, a website that covers technology. The hacks were related to an obscure protocol known as Signalling System 7 (SS7). Developed in the 1970s to allow telecom firms to exchange data to set up and manage calls, nowadays SS7 has more users than the internet. Security was not a big issue when SS7 was first introduced because only a few fixed-line operators could get access to the system. That changed in the mobile age. SS7 and a newer protocol, Diameter, became crucial for a wide range of tasks, including roaming. According to the US Department of Homeland Security, SS7 is a particular risk because there are “tens of thousands of entry points worldwide, many of which are controlled by states that support terrorism or espionage”. Phone users can protect themselves against SS7-based eavesdropping (but not location tracking) by using end-to-end encrypted apps such as WhatsApp, Signal or iMessage. But these, too, can be circumvented by spyware that takes over a device, recording keystrokes and the screen. In April Apple warned users in 92 countries that they had been targeted by a “mercenary spyware attack”. On May 1st Amnesty International published a report showing how “a murky ecosystem of surveillance suppliers, brokers and resellers” from Israel, Greece, Singapore and Malaysia had put powerful spyware into the hands of multiple state agencies in Indonesia. That, too, is the tip of the iceberg.
US says cyberattacks against water supplies are rising, and utilities need to do more to stop them (AP)
Cyberattacks against water utilities across the country are becoming more frequent and more severe, the Environmental Protection Agency warned Monday as it issued an enforcement alert urging water systems to take immediate actions to protect the nation’s drinking water. About 70% of utilities inspected by federal officials over the last year violated standards meant to prevent breaches or other intrusions, the agency said. Officials urged even small water systems to improve protections against hacks. Recent cyberattacks by groups affiliated with Russia and Iran have targeted smaller communities. Some water systems are falling short in basic ways, the alert said, including failure to change default passwords or cut off system access to former employees. Because water utilities often rely on computer software to operate treatment plants and distribution systems, protecting information technology and process controls is crucial, the EPA said. Possible impacts of cyberattacks include interruptions to water treatment and storage; damage to pumps and valves; and alteration of chemical levels to hazardous amounts, the agency said.
ASML and TSMC Can Disable Chip Machines If China Invades Taiwan (Bloomberg🔒)
ASML Holding NV and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. have ways to disable the world’s most sophisticated chipmaking machines in the event that China invades Taiwan, according to people familiar with the matter. Officials from the US government have privately expressed concerns to both their Dutch and Taiwanese counterparts about what happens if Chinese aggression escalates into an attack on the island responsible for producing the vast majority of the world’s advanced semiconductors, two of the people said, speaking on condition of anonymity. ASML reassured officials about its ability to remotely disable the machines when the Dutch government met with the company on the threat, two others said. The Netherlands has run simulations on a possible invasion in order to better assess the risks, they added.
Artificial Intelligence
Mapping the Mind of a Large Language Model (Anthropic)
Today we report a significant advance in understanding the inner workings of AI models. We have identified how millions of concepts are represented inside Claude Sonnet, one of our deployed large language models. This is the first ever detailed look inside a modern, production-grade large language model. This interpretability discovery could, in future, help us make AI models safer. We mostly treat AI models as a black box: something goes in and a response comes out, and it's not clear why the model gave that particular response instead of another. This makes it hard to trust that these models are safe: if we don't know how they work, how do we know they won't give harmful, biased, untruthful, or otherwise dangerous responses? How can we trust that they’ll be safe and reliable? Opening the black box doesn't necessarily help: the internal state of the model—what the model is "thinking" before writing its response—consists of a long list of numbers ("neuron activations") without a clear meaning. From interacting with a model like Claude, it's clear that it’s able to understand and wield a wide range of concepts—but we can't discern them from looking directly at neurons. It turns out that each concept is represented across many neurons, and each neuron is involved in representing many concepts.
When Not to Use Generative AI (Gartner) 📊
Generative AI (GenAI) adoption has exploded over the past year, and it has rapidly become one of the most deployed AI techniques across business units and organizations, according to Gartner surveys. There’s a good reason: GenAI offers the promise of both everyday and game-changing business improvements. But GenAI is not a silver bullet. Start by figuring out whether the use case is value-driving for the business and feasible to execute on, regardless of the AI technique. This is important because some use cases are not a good fit for AI and do not merit further consideration. Map your use case against the relevant use case family. GenAI is: Highly useful: Content generation, conversational user interfaces, knowledge discovery; Somewhat useful: Segmentation/classification, recommendation systems, perception, intelligent automation, anomaly detection/monitoring; Hardly useful: Prediction/forecasting, planning, decision intelligence, autonomous systems. GenAI may also be a poor fit for your use case if the risks that come with it are unacceptable and cannot be effectively mitigated. These include unreliable outputs, data privacy, intellectual property, liability, cybersecurity and regulatory compliance, either alone or in combination with one another.
Nvidia Earnings: Stock Rallies As AI Giant Reports 600% Profit Explosion, 10-For-1 Stock Split (Forbes🔒)
Nvidia again shattered Wall Street forecasts in its anxiously awaited earnings report Wednesday afternoon, sending shares of the chip designer and artificial intelligence top dog toward a record high.
Behind the Scenes of Scarlett Johansson’s Battle With OpenAI (WSJ🔒)
The emergence of AI as a rapidly advancing and perhaps unstoppable force has sparked deep anxiety in creative industries that for decades have been governed by strict rules of how creators are compensated for their work. The reason is that the language models that power generative AI chat tools are typically made using text, images, music and videos hoovered up from across the internet. That can include material that is copyrighted, valuable and often paywalled—like Scarlett Johansson’s voice. Johansson—who just three years ago waged a blistering and public legal campaign against Disney—hired a legal team to demand answers from Altman and OpenAI and issued an excoriating statement. OpenAI, however, said Sky was never intended to resemble Johansson, and that the company had hired a voice actor who recorded the part before any outreach to Johansson. People close to Altman say he wanted Johansson to be involved in the voice project, potentially as an additional voice or to promote the product. OpenAI paused use of the Sky voice on Sunday after receiving legal letters from Johansson’s team of representatives. Altman said Monday evening in a statement that he apologized for failing to communicate better.
Life
Europe’s Aging Population Is a Money Magnet for Some Investors (Bloomberg🔒) 📊
Europe’s shrinking population has long raised concerns about its economic prospects. Governments are seriously worried about it. Elon Musk has raised alarm about the trend. But for some, it’s turning into big business. Private-equity-funded Funecap Idf SAS has spent around €1 billion ($1.1 billion) to buy more than 300 crematoriums and funeral centers mainly in Europe, home to 17 of the top 20 countries with the highest death rates. The French firm, backed by British financial investor Charterhouse Capital Partners LLP and France’s Latour Capital, is cashing in on the high cemetery costs, mobility needs and religious secularization that have raised the need for incinerations and alternatives to traditional church-driven services.
Education
Former College President Explains Funding Strategies Behind Universities (WSJ🔒) 📊
Some donors threatened to pull support from universities over mounting pro-Palestinian protests. But private gifts are just one way schools are funded. Former Northwestern President Morton Schapiro breaks down the complex financials of higher education. Photo illustration: Kaitlyn Wang
NOTE: Two other important charts:
Due in part to this:
Is This the End of Reading? (The Chronicle)
Academics across the country are talking about the reading problems they are seeing among traditional-age students. Many, they say, don’t see the point in doing much work outside of class. Some struggle with reading endurance and weak vocabulary. A lack of faith in their own academic abilities leads some students to freeze and avoid doing the work altogether. And a significant number of those who do the work seem unable to analyze complex or lengthy texts. Their limited experience with reading also means they don’t have the context to understand certain arguments or points of view. These struggles are not limited to a particular type of student or college. This is a cohort, after all, that has had smartphones in their pockets since middle school, survived pandemic high school, and faces a future that appears, to many of them, fractured and hopeless.
NOTE: A must read…pardon the pun. Many fascinating lines in this article—here are a few that stood out to me:
Sophia Sarafova, an associate professor of biology at Davidson College, notes that at the start of her teaching career, 18 years ago, new students were able to synthesize and summarize information from multiple lectures on a topic to extract general principles they could apply in new situations. “Not anymore,” she says. “We spend a lot of time learning in class and during recitation how to identify categories of information in the text, how to organize them in a table, and how to shift perspective such that we can observe a pattern.” That difficulty in processing information seeps into other functions as well, Sarafova says. “Note-taking now requires specific instruction on what to write down and how to organize it. Also, a lot of students are unable to rephrase a statement without changing the meaning, often in drastic ways that clearly contradict the core of the statement.”
Young people are reading less for pleasure, too. In 2020, only 17 percent of 13-year-olds surveyed said they read for fun almost every day. That figure was 27 percent in 2012 and 35 percent when data collection began in 1984, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress.
The ubiquity of smartphones and social media have also affected literacy across the board. Children and adults alike are reading in fundamentally different ways. For one, phones have been shown — to no one’s surprise — to interfere with our ability to focus. And apps such as TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram have shifted our reading habits toward short and often fragmentary text.
MacPhail praises foundational courses designed to teach students how to read critically and write a college-level analytical paper. They are immensely valuable, she says, but they are typically taught by non-tenure-track instructors who are under a lot of stress.
Rich, the Stevens student, has been energized by something called the Leadership Lab, which is taught through her ROTC program. For two hours every Friday morning, she is put into situations that an officer would be expected to handle. Students learn expeditionary skills or how to handle an unexploded ordnance. She thinks it would be great if all first-year students could experience something like that, “where you’re put into situations and forced to make choices rather than when you listen to someone talk.”
NOTE: And here’s one professor’s take on the issue:
If we ask what has caused this change, there are some obvious culprits. The first is the same thing that has taken away almost everyone’s ability to focus—the ubiquitous smartphone. The second go-to explanation is the massive disruption of school closures during COVID-19. Less discussed than these broader cultural trends over which educators have little control are the major changes in reading pedagogy that have occurred in recent decades—some motivated by the ever-increasing demand to “teach to the test” and some by fads coming out of schools of education.
We can’t go back in time and do the pandemic differently at this point, nor is there any realistic path to putting the smartphone genie back in the bottle. (Though I will note that we as a society do at least attempt to keep other addictive products out of the hands of children.) But I have to think that we can, at the very least, stop actively preventing young people from developing the ability to follow extended narratives and arguments in the classroom. Regardless of their profession or ultimate educational level, they will need those skills. The world is a complicated place. People—their histories and identities, their institutions and work processes, their fears and desires—are simply too complex to be captured in a worksheet with a paragraph and some reading comprehension questions. Large-scale prose writing is the best medium we have for capturing that complexity, and the education system should not be in the business of keeping students from learning how to engage effectively with it.
This is a matter not of snobbery, but of basic justice. I recognize that not everyone centers their lives on books as much as a humanities professor does. I think they’re missing out, but they’re adults and they can choose how to spend their time. What’s happening with the current generation is not that they are simply choosing TikTok over Jane Austen. They are being deprived of the ability to choose—for no real reason or benefit. We can and must stop perpetrating this crime on our young people.
Health
New Surgeon General Advisory Raises Alarm about the Devastating Impact of the Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation in the United States (HHS)
United States Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy released a new Surgeon General Advisory calling attention to the public health crisis of loneliness, isolation, and lack of connection in our country. Even before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, approximately half of U.S. adults reported experiencing measurable levels of loneliness. Disconnection fundamentally affects our mental, physical, and societal health. In fact, loneliness and isolation increase the risk for individuals to develop mental health challenges in their lives, and lacking connection can increase the risk for premature death to levels comparable to smoking daily. The Surgeon General’s Advisory on Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation - PDF lays out a framework for a National Strategy to Advance Social Connection, which has never been implemented before in the United States. It details recommendations that individuals, governments, workplaces, health systems, and community organizations can take to increase connection in their lives, communities, and across the country and improve their health.
NOTE: The report: https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/surgeon-general-social-connection-advisory.pdf
South Carolina Bans Gender Transition Care for Minors (NYT🔒)
South Carolina’s Republican governor, Henry McMaster, signed a bill on Tuesday that bars health professionals from performing gender-transition surgeries, prescribing puberty blocking drugs and overseeing hormone treatments for patients under 18. The state now joins about two dozen others that have passed laws restricting or banning what doctors call gender-affirming care for minors. The law, which goes into effect immediately, also requires principals, teachers and other school staff members to tell parents when their children want to use a name other than their legal one, or pronouns that do not match their sex assigned at birth.
Hims Debuts $199 Weight-Loss Shots at 85% Discount to Wegovy (Bloomberg🔒)
In just a few years, Hims & Hers Health Inc. reached almost $1 billion in sales by making it easy to buy cheap, generic versions of popular drugs such as Viagra. Now it’s using that playbook to jump into the hottest part of health-care: weight-loss shots. And in typical fashion, a big part of the company’s pitch is the discount. Wegovy, made by Novo Nordisk A/S, costs roughly $1,350 for a month of injections without insurance, and Eli Lilly & Co.’s Zepbound is similarly priced. Hims said it’s offering a treatment with the same active ingredient as Wegovy for $199 a month. That undercuts big pharma by as much as 85%. Hims can offer the prescription weight-loss drugs because US regulators have rules that allow pharmacies to make copycat versions of drugs in shortage, a practice that’s known as “compounding.” This exists to make drugs available when manufacturers can’t produce enough to meet demand or when a pharmacist needs to tweak a drug’s recipe to remove an ingredient that might cause an allergic reaction in some people, for example. Compounding of weight-loss drugs has exploded as Lilly and Novo have failed to keep up with demand for the new drugs.
China Clears Eli Lilly’s Weight-Loss Drug, Only for Diabetes Now (Bloomberg🔒)
China gave the greenlight to Eli Lilly & Co.’s blockbuster drug tirzepatide for use in treating diabetes, a move that will intensify the drugmaker’s rivalry with Novo Nordisk A/S over weight-loss drugs in the world’s second-largest market. Tirzepatide won approval from Chinese regulators for treating adults with type 2 diabetes, the US company announced in a statement Tuesday. Its use for chronic weight management is still under review, it said.
Food & Drink
Latin America labels ultra-processed foods. Will the US follow? (The Guardian)
Latin America is leading the world in a movement to print nutritional warning labels on the fronts of food packages. Currently, the labels warn when a food product exceeds a consumer’s daily recommended value of any “nutrient of concern” – namely, sugar, salt or saturated fat (some countries have added trans fats, artificial sweeteners and caffeine). But research led by scientists across the continent is increasingly pointing towards another factor consumers may want to consider: how processed a food is. Ultra-processed foods make up an increasingly large share of the average Latin American consumer’s diet. These industrially formulated products, which are often high in fats, starches, sugars and additives (like flavorings, colorings and preservatives), were first named and studied by Brazilian researchers in the early 2000s. Today, many Latin Americans get 20% to 30% of their daily calories from ultra-processed products (in the United States, the average is even higher – upwards of 60%). As the continent leads global research into the health impacts of ultra-processed foods, countries there are also taking steps to ensure labels end up on all ultra-processed products, warning consumers of these harms.
Q&A: How tea may have saved lives in 18th century England (Phys.org) 📊
Drinking tea can have several health benefits. There is seemingly a brew for everything from sleep to inflammation to digestion. In 18th century England, however, drinking tea may have saved a person's life, and it likely had very little to do with leaves and herbs. For CU Boulder economics professor Francisca Antman, it's all about the water. Specifically, boiling the water and eliminating bacteria that could cause illnesses like dysentery, more commonly known during the Industrial Revolution as "bloody flux." In areas where you expect water quality should have been inherently worse, you see a bigger decline in mortality when tea comes in. It's not like the water itself is pure or up to the standards of drinking water that we have today. But what you see is those areas that should have benefited more do benefit more as they begin to boil water for tea consumption.
Travel
One Dead, Dozens Injured as Singapore Airlines Flight Hits Severe Turbulence (WSJ🔒) 📊
One person died and at least 30 others were injured aboard a Singapore Airlines flight that encountered “sudden extreme turbulence” while en route from London to Singapore, the airline said Tuesday. The jet, a Boeing 777-300ER that departed from London’s Heathrow Airport on Monday evening, was diverted to Bangkok and landed Tuesday afternoon, Singapore Airlines said. It had 211 passengers and 18 crew members on board. The deceased was a 73-year-old British national who had a history of heart problems and likely died from cardiac arrest, said the general manager of Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport, Kittipong Kittikachorn. Seven of the injured were in critical condition, he said. The airline said 18 people had been hospitalized.
Budget airlines are dropping notorious fees. What changed? (WP)
Budget airlines have become infamous for setting low fares and charging passengers for everything from picking a seat to ordering a soft drink. But two leaders of that model, Frontier and Spirit, have launched a different tactic: eliminating flight-change and cancellation fees for some or all customers. The change of heart is all rooted in business, industry experts say.
At long last, Southwest is now part of Google Flights (WP)
At last, there’s more to “luv” with Google Flights: Southwest Airlines is now part of the search engine. While Google’s flight search engine is one of the most powerful tools to shop for airfare, historically, it has been hampered by a lack of Southwest flights. This prevented users from having complete view of airfares to their desired destination. But don’t blame Google for that. The Dallas-based carrier has long held out on displaying or selling fares through online travel agencies and search aggregators. (One exception has been Southwest’s relationship with Chase, allowing select credit cardholders to book flights through the Chase Travel portal.) However, Southwest is now making a major digital pivot with far-reaching implications across the airline industry. As of May 22, the airline’s fares display on Google Flights search results, just like all the other major U.S. carriers.
Entertainment
Justice Department Sues to Break Up Live Nation-Ticketmaster (WSJ🔒)
The Justice Department’s suit against Live Nation tees up a legal battle more than a decade in the making, one with the potential to redistribute power in the live-events business and change how consumers buy tickets to concerts and sporting events. The lawsuit, joined by more than two dozen states and filed in a New York federal court, alleges that Live Nation used its power to squelch competition and retaliate against promoters and venues that threatened its dominance. The company chokes off competition in key pillars of the concert system, driving prices and fees higher for fans, the department said. “It is time to break up Live Nation,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said.
TV Networks Embrace Their Aging Audience With a New Mantra: Age Doesn’t Matter (WSJ🔒) 📊
For years, media executives built their pitches to advertisers around the idea that they could reach younger audiences, with viewers 18 to 49 years old drawing a big premium and those 25 to 54 offering the greatest appeal to news advertisers. But there is a hard reality these days: Most people watching TV are older than those groups. Among cable channels, the median age for TNT and Bravo viewers is 56, for HGTV it is 66, and even the once-youthful MTV’s median-age viewer is 51, according to Nielsen data. The cable news audience is even older, with MSNBC’s median age at 70, Fox News’s at 69 and CNN’s, 67. Among broadcasters, CBS’s median age is 64 and ABC’s is 66. Now media executives are embracing a new sell. They are focusing more on the mass-market reach of TV, and playing down the importance of age for advertisers. What really matters, they say, is whether your ad is reaching people who are likely to buy your product, whether they are 37 or 67. Disney says advertisers can hit different audiences on different platforms. If an advertiser wants to buy ABC’s “Grey’s Anatomy,” they will reach older audiences on traditional TV and younger viewers on Disney’s Hulu, where the show also airs. “The average age of a viewer on our streaming platforms is in their 30s,” Ferro said. The median age of an “Abbott Elementary” viewer is 61 on ABC and 36 on streaming services, according to Nielsen data. For “The Bachelor,” the median age of a viewer is 60 on traditional TV and 32 on streaming.
Apple Says These Are the 100 Best Albums. Even If You Think Different (WSJ🔒) 📊
For the past year, a team inside one of the world’s most valuable companies worked on a secret project. It wasn’t a phone, a tablet or a computer. It wasn’t a mixed-reality headset, either. In fact, it wasn’t a device of any kind. Apple staked its reputation on developing something else that seemed almost impossibly daunting. A list of music. This week, Apple Music unveiled a provocative ranking of the 100 best albums ever made, as determined not by streaming data, record sales or the algorithms that rule our lives, but by a metric of quality that sounds almost radical these days: human judgment.
Sports
NCAA Agrees to Share Revenue With Athletes in Landmark $2.8 Billion Settlement (WSJ🔒)
The National Collegiate Athletic Association and the five most prominent athletic conferences agreed to a $2.77 billion settlement of a class-action lawsuit on Thursday, ushering in a new era of college sports in which schools can pay athletes directly. The move marks a dramatic shift for the NCAA, breaking with its century-old stance that college athletes are amateurs and therefore cannot share in any of the money they generate for their universities. The settlement will resolve a case that began in 2020 and was seeking back pay for athletes who were barred from earning compensation from endorsements, as well as a cut of future broadcast revenues. It also marks the latest rule the NCAA has been forced to change amid an onslaught of legal challenges in recent years. The settlement doesn’t solve all of the NCAA’s most pressing problems, however. The association faces other antitrust cases, and still has three legal challenges looming over whether athletes should be classed as employees. There are also ongoing questions about the NCAA’s ability to maintain competitive balance, as it is regularly sued over its rules, and state laws in about half the country have overridden it on athletes’ ability to profit from their name, image and likeness. According to people familiar with the matter, there are two components to the tentative agreement. First, the NCAA has agreed to pay $2.77 billion in damages over a 10-year period. It is not clear how this sum will be distributed, though most is expected to go to football and men’s basketball players from the top five conferences. Second, the NCAA will allow schools to pay athletes a portion of the revenue they help generate. Among the schools that compete in the most deep-pocketed conferences, there exists large variance in total athletics revenue. At the top end, schools like Ohio State and Texas pull in north of $250 million per year; on the flip side, Washington State generates roughly $80 million, according to Education Department data.
Guardiola's 'winning machine' have 'put ourselves in history books' (BBC)
Midfielder Phil Foden said "we've put ourselves in the history books" after Manchester City won a record fourth successive Premier League title. Foden scored twice as Pep Guardiola's side beat West Ham 3-1 on the final day to extend their unbeaten home run to 44 games in all competitions. It means they end the campaign two points above Arsenal, with the Gunners beating Everton 2-1 on the final day. Guardiola said he thought it could not get any better after last season's Treble-winning campaign, and he is not the only one in awe of his team as the records keep tumbling. He joins the list of managers to have won six English top-flight titles - Sir Alex Ferguson (13), George Ramsay and Bob Paisley (both six). "Pep Guardiola has designed a style of football that is being copied not just around this country, but all around Europe," former Manchester United and England defender Gary Neville told Sky Sports.
Pep in Ted Lasso:
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.