This week in the news | 25 Nov 23

News from the past week, and a few other things.

Nov 25, 2023

👋 Hello Reader, I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving! 🦃 🏈 🍁

Before we jump in, I’d like to say a few personal words of thanks on this Thanksgiving weekend.

First, I’m thankful for you, the readers of this newsletter. You might think I’m thankful that you subscribe and find (at least some) value in these newsletter, which I am, but I’m even more thankful that you were given life and that our lives connect, if only digitally. Life without others just isn’t enjoyable. We need people.

Second, I am incredibly grateful to my family, especially my wife, for putting up with my many ideas and adventures and “keeping the home fires burning” during my travels. It is not easy being married to me—my wife tells me this, but I also know it to be a fact. I am prone to pursuing crazy ideas and don’t offer much when it comes to promising predictability in life. My children, too, know this to be true; they put up with it, but they also have their own lives to live and aren’t committed to me like my wife. She is a tremendous blessing.

I also recognize that my extended family has had a role in supporting me and our family. They have served as a “home base” and support network, and have put up with my shenanigans and absences as well. I owe a tremendous debt to them.

Lastly, I’m incredibly grateful to God. I am in awe of the fact that I was given life, and that life began in the United States of America. During my years in the military, and even now in post-military employment, I’ve had the opportunity to travel the world, live in different countries, and see people of many different cultures. There are many good countries out there—each with a different way of living life and method of government themselves, and each have their pros and cons. Among them all, I can’t think of a better country to have been born in than the US. Sure, America has its faults, but its’ strengths far outweigh them.

Quite frankly, I am in awe that I was born and that I have been blessed with so much—I have not deserved any of it. Praise God.

Below are the items that stood out to me in the news this week.

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THE QUICK SHOT 🚀

A lock icon (🔒) indicates articles behind a paywall, and a chart icon (📊) indicates an informative chart/graphic in “Slow Brew.”

North America

Energy

Auto

Biden’s Electric-Vehicle Push Hits a Speed Bump (WSJ🔒) 📊

Real Estate

Mortgage Rates Continue to Slide Down (Freddie Mac) 📊
Housing Starts and Permits Rise in October (Realtor) 📊
Home Sales Fell to a New 13-Year Low in October (WSJ🔒) 📊

Cyber

United Airlines Weighs Using Passenger Data to Sell Targeted Ads (WSJ🔒)

Artificial Intelligence

Five Days of Chaos at OpenAI: and What Started It (Pragmatic Engineer)
Bring Old Photos of Mom to Life With These Apps (WSJ🔒) 📊
These look like prizewinning photos. They’re AI fakes. (WP🔒) 📊

Life

Do you know where your kids go every day? (Substack)
Smells Like Teen Solitude (The Dispatch) 📊

Education

Food & Drink

Break Out The Good Stuff: $2.7 Million Bottle Of Scotch Whisky Sets Record At Auction (Forbes🔒)

Nature

Travel

Senate panel investigates US airline baggage, seat selection fees (Reuters)
Everything You Must Know About Traveling To Socotra (GloboTreks)
Coober Pedy, Australia (Atlas Obscura)

Entertainment

Siskel, Ebert, and the Secret of Criticism (The New Yorker)
First-ever World of Frozen opens at Hong Kong Disneyland (CNN)
‘Tis The Season: When Does America Start Listening to Festive Music? (Chartr) 📊

Sports

Derailed Train of Thought

A new section that details my path into an internet black hole.

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THE SLOW BREW ☕

A more relaxed approach to news summaries.

North America

Fiery Rainbow Bridge car crash at US-Canada border kills 2; terrorism ruled out (Reuters)

A speeding car crashed in flames on the bridge linking New York state and Ontario at Niagara Falls on Wednesday, killing two people in the vehicle and sparking a security scare that closed four U.S.-Canadian border crossings. Hours later, federal and state authorities said investigators had found no evidence of an act of terrorism, though circumstances surrounding the crash on the Rainbow Bridge remained murky, leaving it to be determined whether it was accidental or intentional.

34 pro-Palestinian protesters arrested for disrupting Macy’s parade, police say (WP🔒)

Dozens of pro-Palestinian protesters were arrested Thursday after they briefly disrupted the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York by gluing themselves to the pavement of the Manhattan parade route, according to police. The New York Police Department arrested 34 people who interrupted the celebration during various points of the parade, including some who spray-painted the words “Free Palestine” on the pillars of the New York Public Library’s main branch near Bryant Park, a police spokesperson told The Washington Post.

It always annoys me when writers use the word “dozens.” I think it’s a way of getting around using the word “tens,” while also making it seem like a really large number. In this case, 34 is technically two dozen (24) plus 10, but still, let’s stop with this practice. Better yet, use the actual number (like you did in the title).

Biden celebrates his 81st birthday with jokes as the White House stresses his experience and stamina (AP)

President Joe Biden celebrated his 81st birthday on Monday by joking repeatedly about his advanced age, even as the White House strongly defended his stamina and batted away polling — and one prominent Democrat — suggesting that the issue could cost him votes in next year’s election.

Rosalynn Carter, outspoken former first lady, dies at 96 (AP)

Former first lady Rosalynn Carter, the closest adviser to Jimmy Carter during his one term as U.S. president and their four decades thereafter as global humanitarians, has died at the age of 96.

Two Years With America’s Elite Firefighters (NYT🔒)

Early this summer, while many Americans were gathering for Fourth of July barbecues, the Tallac Hotshots were in triple-digit heat in Arizona, fighting a wildfire for 14 straight days and sleeping on the ground next to their trucks. The federal firefighting crew had only three days off before darting to a fire raging in a thickly wooded evergreen forest in Oregon. They then decamped to the Klamath National Forest across the border in California, working overnight in dense and steep terrain filled with poison oak. After a few days of rest, they were dropped by helicopter in early September into some of the most remote wilderness in Northern California to battle a fire blazing despite near-freezing temperatures. As always, there was no leisurely summer vacation — no real vacation at all — for the crew.

A fun read.

Latin America

Argentine libertarian Milei pledges new political era after election win (Reuters)

Argentina elected right-wing libertarian Javier Milei as its new president on Sunday, rolling the dice on an outsider with radical views to fix an economy battered by triple-digit inflation, a looming recession and rising poverty. Milei, who rode a wave of voter anger with the political mainstream, won by a wider-than-expected margin. He landed some 56% of the vote versus just over 44% for his rival, Peronist Economy Minister Sergio Massa, who conceded. "The model of decadence has come to an end, there's no going back," Milei said in a defiant speech after the result, while also acknowledging the challenges that face him. "We have monumental problems ahead: inflation, lack of work, and poverty," he said. "The situation is critical and there is no place for tepid half-measures." Milei is pledging economic shock therapy. His plans include shutting the central bank, ditching the peso, and slashing spending, potentially painful reforms that resonated with voters angry at the economic malaise.

China warns Argentina severing ties would be 'serious mistake' (Reuters)

China said on Tuesday it would be a "serious mistake" if Argentina were to cut ties, after the weekend presidential election victory in the South American country of a right-wing libertarian who has said he will not deal with communists. Argentinian president-elect Javier Milei has criticised China as well as Brazil, which are among his country's most important trading partners. A few months ago, Milei even likened the Chinese government to an "assassin" and said the people of China were "not free".

Uruguay upgrades China ties to match big South American neighbours (Reuters)

China and Uruguay upgraded their bilateral ties on Wednesday, setting the stage for further trade and investment and elevating the ambitious South American country's relations with Beijing to those of fellow Mercosur members Brazil and Argentina. Uruguay is seeking to strike deals abroad that it hopes will be more beneficial to it than a local trade bloc, while China has for years sought closer ties with South America, in large part to secure access to raw materials such as grains and oils.

A growing global footprint for China’s space program worries Pentagon (WP🔒)

On a plateau 13,000 feet above sea level in the Bolivian Andes, llama herders and Indigenous farmers share the sparse landscape with an unusual neighbor: a towering cluster of Chinese-built satellite dishes. The Amachuma Ground Station exchanges data 24 hours a day with Bolivia’s only state-owned satellite, Tupac Katari I, which orbits some 22,300 miles above Latin America. The remote ground station has another, largely invisible, use: It allows Beijing to surveil skies 10,000 miles from China, according to officials from the Bolivian space agency and Chinese scientists and company officials familiar with the program. The Pentagon is increasingly concerned that China’s growing network of facilities in Latin America and Antarctica for its civilian space and satellite programs has defense capabilities. U.S. officials say the ground stations — which allow countries to maintain uninterrupted communication with satellites and other space vehicles — have the potential to expand Beijing’s global military surveillance network in the southern hemisphere and areas close to the United States. Beijing’s expanding space presence in Latin America has been carved along diplomatic lines, finding success in countries where relations with the United States and its allies have faltered.

Colombia’s Total Peace May Be Unraveling (Insight Crime)

While talks with the ELN and the EMC are the largest roadblocks to Total Peace, other negotiations such as those in cities like Buenaventura and Medellín, also face significant challenges. In Buenaventura, rival gangs, the Shottas and Espartanos, have tried to maintain ceasefires while talks progress. However, Colombia’s Congress has not approved the legal framework needed to allow negotiations with such criminal groups. In early October, members of Congress presented a bill aimed at amending the Justicia y Paz law, which facilitated the demobilization of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia – AUC) in 2006 to include newer gangs. Unfortunately, this move also faces stiff opposition in Congress, where the president’s party needs majorities. The delay in establishing a legal framework also has significant implications for the potential resumption of negotiations with one of Colombia’s largest armed groups, the AGC. Peace talks with the AGC unraveled in March when the government accused the group of orchestrating an armed strike by miners in the Bajo Cauca region in northwestern Colombia.

Is Mexico City’s plummeting murder rate too good to be true? (The Guardian)

Mexico’s national murder rate in 2022 was 25.2 per 100,000 people – with more than 30,000 murders for the fifth year in a row – but in Mexico City the rate has fallen to 8 per 100,000, similar to US cities like Los Angeles and Phoenix. This has coincided with a boom in remote working from Mexico City, as digital nomads flock from the US and Europe to live somewhere much cheaper – and apparently just as safe as their home countries. But one data point complicates the picture: the ever-growing number of disappeared people in the capital. Each year hundreds, sometimes more than a thousand, go missing. This has spurred investigators to take a closer look at the city’s success story. “I think it’s quite probable that lots of the people who disappeared have in reality been murdered,” said Elena Azaola, an academic and member of the citizen council for the Search Commission in Mexico City. “And these homicides are not being counted.” Azaola’s research underlines that the official data on homicides and disappearances is so fragmented and inconsistent that it is hard to draw any conclusions with confidence.

Europe

US defence chief Austin visits Kyiv, announces more military aid (Reuters)

U.S. Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin announced $100 million in new military aid to Ukraine during an unannounced visit to Kyiv on Monday, pledging long-term American support amid growing concerns about the sustainability of vital U.S. assistance. Austin announced the aid package after a day of meetings with Ukrainian officials, with the latest tranche including arms such as anti-tank weapons, air-defence interceptors and an additional High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS).

Violent protests in Dublin after woman and children injured in knife attack (The Guardian)

Buses and trams have been torched and a shop looted during riots in Dublin city centre after a stabbing attack outside a school left three children injured. Police and politicians called for calm amid warnings against misinformation as violence escalated from a demonstration that began on Thursday afternoon at the scene of the incident. There were clashes with riot police as some demonstrators let off flares and fireworks, while others grabbed chairs and stools from outside bars and restaurants.

Long a Bastion of Liberalism, the Netherlands Takes a Sharp Right Turn (NYT🔒)

The Netherlands, long regarded as one of Europe’s most socially liberal countries, woke up to a drastically changed political landscape on Thursday after a far-right party swept national elections in a result that has reverberated throughout Europe. Geert Wilders’s Party for Freedom, which advocates banning the Quran, closing Islamic schools and entirely halting the acceptance of asylum seekers, won 37 seats in the 150-seat House of Representatives, making it by far the biggest party, in a clear rebuke of the country’s political establishment. While people across the political spectrum expressed surprise at the election outcome, and the Dutch reputation of liberalism persists, experts say that Mr. Wilders succeeded by tapping into a discontent with government that dates back at least two decades.

UK net migration in 2022 revised up to record 745,000 (BBC🔒)

Net migration into the UK was a record 745,000 last year, figures show - far higher than originally thought. Office for National Statistics data published on Thursday show that experts have revised up previous estimates. In May, it said net migration - the difference between the number of people coming to live in the UK and those leaving - for 2022 had been 606,000, 139,000 lower than the true figure. No 10 said migration was "far too high" but it was taking action. PM Rishi Sunak's spokesman said migration was putting "unsustainable pressure on communities and councils" and it was clamping down on dependents of students arriving in the UK. "We believe there is more to do," he added.

Middle East

Israel, Hamas Reach Deal to Release 50 Hostages (WSJ🔒)

Israel and Hamas agreed to free 50 civilian hostages held by militants in Gaza in return for the release of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails and a four-day pause in fighting. The Israeli cabinet approved the deal after a long deliberation that started Tuesday and went into the early morning hours of Wednesday in Jerusalem. It capped weeks of painstaking negotiations brokered by Qatar, Egypt and the U.S., marking the first major diplomatic breakthrough since the war began on Oct. 7. Hamas confirmed the deal in a statement.

Hamas releases 24 hostages on first day of Gaza truce (Reuters)

Hamas fighters released 24 hostages on Friday during the first day of the war's first truce, the Red Cross said, including Israeli women and children and Thai farm workers. Nine hours after guns fell silent for the first time in seven weeks, the International Red Cross said it had begun an operation to facilitate the transfer of hostages in Gaza to Israel in return for Palestinians held in Israeli jails. It later said 24 hostages had been freed in Gaza.

The secret negotiations that led to the Gaza hostages deal (Reuters)

Shortly after Hamas militants took hostages during their deadly assault on southern Israel on Oct. 7, the government of Qatar contacted the White House with a request: Form a small team of advisers to help work to get the captives freed. That work, begun in the days after the hostages were taken, finally bore fruit with the announcement of a prisoner swap deal mediated by Qatar and Egypt and agreed by Israel, Hamas and the United States.

Yemen’s Houthi Rebels Seize Cargo Ship in Red Sea (VOA)

Yemen’s Houthis, an Iran-backed rebel group, seized a cargo ship in the southern Red Sea and say they have taken it to a Yemeni port. "We are treating the ship's crew in accordance with Islamic principles and values," a spokesperson of the group's military said in a statement. The group said the ship was an Israeli vessel. The Israeli military said Sunday that the cargo ship was hijacked in the southern Red Sea as it was sailing from Turkey to India, raising the alarm that regional tensions over the Israel-Hamas war are spilling over onto the maritime front. In a social media post, the Israeli military called the hijacking "a very grave incident on a global level" but said the vessel is not Israeli-owned. The ship is British-owned and Japanese-operated, carrying 25 crew members of various nationalities but not Israelis, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said.

US fires back after ballistic missile attack on Iraq base (Military Times)

An AC-130 gunship fired on an Iran-backed militia vehicle in Iraq on Monday night after the occupants fired a missile at a base housing U.S. troops, the Pentagon confirmed on Tuesday. The aircraft was already overhead when the close-range ballistic missile hit al Asad airbase, Defense Department spokeswoman Sabrina Singh confirmed during a press briefing, adding that in addition to planned strikes on Iran-backed militia facilities over the past month, U.S. forces in the Middle East have immediately returned fire after some of the dozens of attacks on bases housing U.S. troops since mid-October. “This self-defense strike resulted in some hostile fatalities,” Singh said. The attack on al Asad brought the total since Oct. 17 to 66, including 32 in Iraq and 34 in Syria. It was the first attack by a ballistic missile, Singh confirmed, as drones and rockets had been the go-to weapons previously.

Africa

Chinese loans to Africa plummet to near two-decade low – study (Reuters)

Chinese sovereign lending to Africa fell below $1 billion last year - the lowest level in nearly two decades - underscoring Beijing's shift away from a decades-long big ticket infrastructure spree on the continent, data showed on Tuesday. The drop in lending reflected in data from Boston University's Global China Initiative comes as several African nations struggle with debt crises and China's own economy faces headwinds.

Somalia floods: UN warns of 'once-in-a-century event' (BBC)

More than 1.6 million people in Somalia could be affected by the recent unusually heavy seasonal rains, the United Nations has warned. The UN has released $25m (£20.5m) in aid, describing the floods as a "once-in-a-century event." Authorities say at least 29 people have been killed and more than 300,000 displaced, with more rain to come. Somalia and neighbouring countries in East Africa have been hit by heavy rains since early October.

Asia-Pacific

China ties on the line as Taiwan opposition splits in dramatic feud (Reuters)

Taiwan's opposition parties, which seek closer China ties, registered separate presidential candidates on Friday after a dramatic split, potentially easing the way for the ruling party, which has defied Beijing's pressure, to stay in power. The opposition Kuomintang (KMT) and much smaller Taiwan People's Party (TPP), both campaigning to forge better ties with China, had agreed to work together against the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) but made no progress on plans for a united presidential ticket. China, which has framed the election as a choice between "peace and war", believes the DPP and its presidential candidates are dangerous separatists and has rebuffed offers of talks. Late Thursday, the KMT walked out of last-ditch talks with the TPP held in front of reporters in a hotel conference room and shown live on television, after failing to reach agreement.

China grapples with respiratory illness spike; WHO says no unusual pathogen found (The Straits Times)

China called for vigilance on Nov 24, as a surge of respiratory illness hit its schools and hospitals. The country is grappling with a spike in respiratory illnesses as it enters its first full winter season since it lifted strict Covid-19 restrictions in December, with cases among children appearing especially high in northern areas like Beijing and Liaoning province, where hospitals are warning of long waiting times. The State Council said influenza would peak this winter and spring, and Mycoplasma pneumoniae infection would continue to be high in some areas in future. It also warned of the risk of a rebound in Covid-19 infections. The situation came into the spotlight this week when the World Health Organisation (WHO) asked China for more information, citing a report by the Programme for Monitoring Emerging Diseases (ProMed) on clusters of undiagnosed pneumonia in children. Both China and the WHO have faced questions about the transparency of reporting on the earliest Covid-19 cases that emerged in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in late 2019.

Collapsed Indian tunnel had no safety exit, was built through geological fault - panel member (Reuters)

A tunnel which collapsed, trapping 41 workers in the Indian Himalayas this month, did not have an emergency exit and was built through a geological fault, a member of a panel of experts investigating the disaster said on Friday. Rescuers are still struggling to reach the construction workers 12 days after the 4.5-km (3-mile) tunnel caved in. The men, from some of India's poorest states, have been getting food, water and medicine through a pipe.

Space

Elon Musk's Starship rocket goes further and higher - but is then lost (BBC)

US company SpaceX says it has made significant progress in the development of its mammoth new rocket, Starship, after a second test flight from Texas. The 120m-tall (395ft) vehicle made an explosive debut in April, but went further and higher on its latest outing. The rocket's flight was again cut short because of technical issues, but it was clear previous problems had been fixed. The company was congratulated on its efforts by the American space agency. Nasa chief Bill Nelson tweeted: "Spaceflight is a bold adventure demanding a can-do spirit and daring innovation. Today's test is an opportunity to learn - then fly again." The agency wants to use a version of Starship to land humans on the Moon later this decade. The goal was to get the top segment - a 50m-tall (165ft) uncrewed stage called simply "the Ship" - to make one near-complete revolution of the Earth, ending in a splashdown near Hawaii. It didn't make it that far: Onboard computers terminated the mission with explosive charges about eight minutes after lift-off, for a reason that's not yet clear. But the mere fact that the flight lasted that long will be regarded as a big step forward by SpaceX and its CEO, the entrepreneur Elon Musk.

North Korea Claims Satellite Win After Two Failures This Year (Bloomberg🔒)

North Korea claimed it successfully put a spy satellite into orbit after two attempts earlier this year ended in failure, as leader Kim Jong Un pledged to place more in the sky to keep an eye on US forces in the region.

South Korea boosts surveillance after North launches spy satellite (Reuters)

South Korea on Wednesday suspended part of a 2018 military agreement with North Korea after it defied warnings from the United States and launched a spy satellite. The suspension of a clause in the agreement will see South Korea step up military surveillance along the heavily fortified border with the North.

Economy

US Inflation Broadly Slows, Erasing Bets on More Fed Rate Hikes (Bloomberg🔒)

US inflation broadly slowed in October, which markets cheered as a strong indication that the Federal Reserve is done hiking interest rates. The so-called core consumer price index, which excludes food and energy costs, increased 0.2% from September, according to government figures. Economists favor the core gauge as a better indicator of underlying inflation than the overall CPI. That measure was little changed, restrained by cheaper gasoline.

Rising US debt stokes calls in Congress for special fiscal commission (Reuters)

The U.S. Congress is facing growing calls to find a way to stem rising budget deficits and debt following this month's warning by Moody's that political dysfunction could lead it to lower the federal government's credit rating. There is no rocket science to the three basic choices for grappling with a national debt that has doubled in just the last decade and stands at $33.7 trillion, around 124% of GDP: raise taxes, cut spending or do a combination of the two. That has led some lawmakers to call for a commission to do the heavy lifting of coming up with realistic approaches to addressing the ballooning debt, a growing concern now that interest rates have risen, producing a jaw-dropping $659 billion in payments just on the national debt in fiscal year 2023, according to the Treasury Department.

Jobs with Higher Income and Fewer Hours (FlowingData)

About 15% of working Americans make at least $100,000 of income per year as of the 2021 American Community Survey. As you’d expect, many who fall in that 15% spent more years in school and spend more hours at work. But you can also earn a six-figure income without working all the time. What about those people? What do they do?

How will America’s economy fare in 2024? Don’t ask a forecaster (Economist🔒)

November brings with it the beginning of the end of the year. The first frost signals winter has arrived. Thanksgiving marks the start of the holiday season. And from the hallowed halls of every large investment bank come pages and pages of “outlook” research. Their arrival means this year’s economic story is mostly written. Next year is what matters now. Often an investor thumbing through all these will experience a sense of déjà vu. With all the vanity of small differences, researchers will elaborate on why their forecast for growth or inflation deviates by perhaps 30 or 40 hundredths of a percentage point from the “consensus” of their peers. (Your correspondent once penned such outlooks herself.) Yet this year’s crop did not deliver soporific sameness. Goldman Sachs expects growth in America to be robust, at 2.1%, around double the level that economists at ubs foresee. Some banks see inflation falling by half in 2024. Others think it will remain sticky, only dropping to around 3%, still well above the Federal Reserve’s target. Expectations for what the Fed will end up doing with interest rates range, accordingly, from basically nothing to 2.75 percentage points of rate cuts.

Business

Wall Street’s ESG Craze Is Fading (WSJ🔒)

Wall Street rushed to embrace sustainable investing just a few years ago. Now it is quietly closing funds or scrubbing their names after disappointing returns that have investors cashing out billions. The about-face comes after tightened regulatory oversight, higher interest rates that have slammed clean-energy stocks and a backlash that has made environmental, social and corporate-governance investing a political target. The retreat comes after investors withdrew more than $14 billion from sustainable funds this year, leaving them with $299 billion, according to Morningstar. Conventional funds also lost money, but the pain was more acute for climate and other thematic products hit by high interest rates and other factors.

Nvidia Earnings: Record Quarterly Revenue, Profits For Second Straight Quarter (Forbes🔒)

Nvidia reported another period of blockbuster results Tuesday afternoon, as the Silicon Valley chip titan’s exponential growth continues amid the artificial intelligence explosion. Nvidia brought in $18.1 billion in revenue for the three-month period ending Oct. 29, shattering last quarter’s record sales of $16.2 billion and coming in 206% above the same period last year. Profits also boomed, as Nvidia raked in $4.02 earnings per share and $9.2 billion in net income, similarly shattering the record $2.48 earnings per share and $6.2 billion profit set during the second quarter. Average analyst forecasts for earnings per share and sales were $3.37 and $16.2 billion, according to FactSet.

Crypto

Binance's Zhao pleads guilty, steps down to settle US illicit finance probe (Reuters)

Binance chief Changpeng Zhao stepped down and pleaded guilty to breaking U.S. anti-money laundering laws as part of a $4.3 billion settlement resolving a years-long probe into the world's largest crypto exchange, prosecutors said on Tuesday. The deal, which will see Zhao personally pay $50 million, was described by prosecutors as one of the largest corporate penalties in U.S. history. It is another blow to the crypto industry that has been beset by investigations and comes on the heels of the recent fraud conviction of FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried. But several legal experts said it was a good outcome for Zhao, leaving his vast wealth intact and allowing him to retain his stake in Binance, the exchange he founded in 2017. Binance broke U.S. anti-money laundering and sanctions laws and failed to report more than 100,000 suspicious transactions with organizations the U.S. described as terrorist groups including Hamas, al Qaeda and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, authorities said.

Energy

Explainer: OPEC+ oil policies: what cuts are already in place and what could change (Reuters)

Saudi Arabia, Russia and other members of OPEC are scheduled to meet in Vienna on Sunday and could make further changes to an agreement that already limits supply into 2024, according to analysts and OPEC+ sources, to support the market. Saudi Arabia, Russia and other members of the OPEC+ group of oil-producing countries have already pledged oil output cuts of about 5 million barrels per day (bpd), or about 5% of daily global demand, in a series of steps that started in late 2022. This figure includes a 1 million bpd voluntary reduction by Saudi Arabia and a 300,000 bpd cut in Russian oil exports, both of which last until the end of 2023.

White House stalls ethanol expansion in Midwest amid price concerns (Reuters)

The White House is stalling action on requests by Farm Belt states to allow regional sales of gasoline blended with higher volumes of ethanol after oil industry warnings that the move could cause regional supply disruptions and price spikes, according to two sources familiar with the matter. The decision underscores concerns within President Joe Biden's administration over fuel prices, as opinion polls show inflation and the economy as key vulnerabilities for his 2024 re-election bid. In an NBC News poll released on Sunday, just 38% of respondents approved of Biden's handling of the economy. Governors from eight Midwestern states - Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wisconsin - petitioned the Environmental Protection Agency last year to let them sell gasoline blended with 15% ethanol, or E15, all year, arguing it would help them lower pump prices that soared following Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Auto

Biden’s Electric-Vehicle Push Hits a Speed Bump (WSJ🔒)

America’s transition to electric vehicles is running into an unexpected snarl. A surprising crash in prices for lithium, cobalt and other metals used in EV batteries is hitting mining companies, which are suspending or delaying new projects and expansions. The disruptions are threatening to deepen shortages of those materials in coming years and hit the brakes on the Biden administration’s timeline for weaning the country off gas-powered cars. Battery-grade lithium prices are down more than 60% this year, while nickel, graphite and cobalt have lost about 30%, according to Benchmark Mineral Intelligence. A big factor behind the declines: a weaker-than-expected economic recovery after Covid-19 lockdowns in China, the world’s largest consumer of metals. The sliding prices mark a turnaround from when carmakers rolled out ambitious plans to switch their fleets to EVs and metal prices rocketed higher in what many analysts believed would be a yearslong supercycle.

Real Estate

Mortgage Rates Continue to Slide Down (Freddie Mac)

Mortgage rates continued to decrease heading into the Thanksgiving holiday. In recent weeks, rates have dropped by half a percent, but potential homebuyers continue to hold out for lower rates and more inventory. This dynamic is reflected in the latest data showing that existing home sales have fallen to a thirteen-year low.

Housing Starts and Permits Rise in October (Realtor)

New residential construction activity ticked up in October, rising to an annual rate of 1,372,000 starts, up 1.9% from September’s upwardly revised level (1,346,000) but 4.4% below the previous year. Both single and multi-family starts increased month-over-month, and while multi-family starts were lower than one year prior, single-family starts were higher. Single family starts rose to a 970,000 home pace in October, 0.2% higher than September and 13.1% higher than the previous year. High density multi-family starts (in buildings of 5+ units) increased 4.9% month-over-month to a 382,000 unit pace, but remained 31.8% below last year’s levels. The steadiness in housing starts is impressive in light of lackluster sentiment among builders.

Home Sales Fell to a New 13-Year Low in October (WSJ🔒)

Home sales fell in October to a fresh 13-year low as high interest rates and home prices continued to pummel the housing market. Home-buying affordability sits near its lowest level in decades, pushing many buyers out of the market. Existing-home sales for the full year in 2023 are on track to be the lowest since at least 2011, according to economist forecasts. Existing-home sales, which make up most of the housing market, decreased 4.1% in October from the prior month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 3.79 million, the lowest rate since August 2010, the National Association of Realtors said Tuesday. October sales fell 14.6% from a year earlier. Sales have been near 2010 levels in recent months.

Cyber

United Airlines Weighs Using Passenger Data to Sell Targeted Ads (WSJ🔒)

United Airlines is considering using its passenger information to help brands serve targeted ads to its customers, joining a growing number of companies trying to tap their troves of user data for advertising purposes. Some of these targeted ads could appear on its in-flight entertainment system or on the app that people use to book tickets and check-in, people familiar with the matter said. United hasn’t made a decision yet and may choose not to launch a targeted-advertising business, some of the people said. Airlines have long taken advantage of the captive nature of their customer base to show them plenty of ads, including commercials on seatback screens, glossy spreads inside in-flight shopping catalogs or, for some, advertisements adorning cabin walls. Offering personalized advertising would greatly expand United’s advertising business, some of the people said.

Artificial Intelligence

Five Days of Chaos at OpenAI: and What Started It (Pragmatic Engineer)

It’s been five incredibly turbulent days at the leading AI tech company, with the exit and then return of CEO Sam Altman. Tensions likely started years ago, when their non-profit charter changed.

Bring Old Photos of Mom to Life With These Apps (WSJ🔒)

Faded baby photos. Cracked wedding pictures. Water-damaged graduation shots. Old family photos don’t always survive the test of time. AI can help revive them. In the past, photo restoration was complicated and costly, often requiring an artist to fix the images by hand. Adobe Photoshop and other advanced graphic-design tools shifted the work to computers, but such programs can be too complicated for the average person. The prevalence of new artificial-intelligence services has made this all easier. They can fix minor flaws, animate stills, add color to black-and-white images and repair photos with significant damage. Some are free, but most charge for more advanced features. We tested out a handful of tools for some of the most common photo-restoration issues. Some worked, some didn’t. The ones we have below are the ones that did, and you’ll see photos of us and our families to demonstrate the results. The results can seem like magic. But remember: AI isn’t perfect. The generated color and facial features can be off, and AI sometimes guesses what should be in the image, altering reality.

Below is an example.

These look like prizewinning photos. They’re AI fakes. (WP🔒)

At a glance, they could pass as iconic works of photojournalism. But not one of them is real. They’re the product of artificial intelligence software, and they were part of a vast and growing library of photorealistic fakes for sale on one of the web’s largest stock image sites until it announced a policy change this week. Responding to questions about its policies from The Washington Post, the stock image site Adobe Stock said Tuesday it would crack down on AI-generated images that seem to depict real, newsworthy events and take new steps to prevent its images from being used in misleading ways.

Below is an example

LIFE

Two thought-provoking articles about Gen Z:

Do you know where your kids go every day? (Substack)

People often ask me to explain their kids to them. They are baffled by the children that they raised and yet somehow do not know. It sounds impossible and yet makes sense—considering that the hours their kids spent under the same roof were also spent in a maze of digital crevices. Parents always expected that their sons and daughters would soon return from the dark side of the dreaded adolescent years, but more and more seem afraid that their children will never come back from wherever it is they’re going. These are strangers in their own home.

Smells Like Teen Solitude (The Dispatch)

Gen Zers experience major life milestones much later in life. In previous generations, dating and relationships were quintessential parts of the teen experience. Less so for Gen Z. Fifty-six percent of Gen Z adults say they had a boyfriend or girlfriend as a teenager, compared to 76 percent of Generation X and 78 percent of baby boomers. Young adults today are also less likely to have worked as teens. Eighty-two percent of baby boomers report that they worked a part-time job during their teenage years, compared to only 58 percent of Gen Z. Only 42 percent of Gen Z men say they participated in outdoor activities like hunting, scouting, and camping as teens—a remarkable 25-point gap between them and their baby boomer counterparts. Involvement in teen sports is also lower among Gen Z men, though Gen Z women report greater participation in youth athletics than women from previous generations. And the list goes on. Religious participation is down, continuing a decadeslong decline. Drug and alcohol use are significantly lower as well. (While religious involvement is negatively related to drug and alcohol use for older generations, for Gen Z these two activities are not connected.) Most concerningly, loneliness and disconnection are more common features of teen life. Sixty-one percent of Gen Z adults say they felt lonely often during at least some part of their teen years, compared to only 36 percent of baby boomers. Teen therapy is up too.

Education

OPINION: The Startling Evidence on Learning Loss Is In (NYT🔒)

In the thick of the Covid-19 pandemic, Congress sent $190 billion in aid to schools, stipulating that 20 percent of the funds had to be used for reversing learning setbacks. At the time, educators knew that the impact on how children learn would be significant, but the extent was not yet known. The evidence is now in, and it is startling. The school closures that took 50 million children out of classrooms at the start of the pandemic may prove to be the most damaging disruption in the history of American education. It also set student progress in math and reading back by two decades and widened the achievement gap that separates poor and wealthy children. These learning losses will remain unaddressed when the federal money runs out in 2024. Economists are predicting that this generation, with such a significant educational gap, will experience diminished lifetime earnings and become a significant drag on the economy. But education administrators and elected officials who should be mobilizing the country against this threat are not. It will take a multidisciplinary approach, and at this point, all the solutions that will be needed long term can’t be known; the work of getting kids back on solid ground is just beginning. But that doesn’t mean there shouldn’t be immediate action.

Article referenced: Millions of kids are missing weeks of school as attendance tanks across the US

We Now Need College Courses to Teach Young Adults How to Make Small Talk (WSJ🔒)

Everybody seems to have a theory about why many young adults have trouble with so-called soft skills, which include the art of persuasion and civil conversation. Blame smartphone addiction, Covid cocooning or helicopter parenting. Regardless of cause, a growing number of college professors in various disciplines around the U.S. are trying to keep professional chitchat from becoming a lost language. Employers see it, even if students don’t. When college seniors were asked to rate their communication, nearly 80% responded “very/extremely proficient.” Only 54% of employers agreed, according to 2022 surveys by the National Association of Colleges and Employers.

Apprenticeship programs are growing as the public sector faces workforce shortages (GovExec)

While public sector apprenticeships have long flourished in other countries like Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Switzerland and Australia, the vast majority of U.S. cities, counties and states have done little in the past to promote this kind of formal job training approach for their own employees. But registered apprenticeships are finally beginning to gain traction in state and local governments. There have been dramatic increases in funding and in appreciation that apprenticeships are a powerful means for providing experience and mastery of needed skills. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, the number of apprentices in both the public and private sectors rose 64% between 2012 and 2021, with continued growth likely due to workplace shortages and massive training needs.

This is a great thing in my opinion. Apprenticeships have been the backbone of trades for thousands of years. With increased college expenses, this is a great way to build an educated, skilled workforce.

Food & Drink

Break Out The Good Stuff: $2.7 Million Bottle Of Scotch Whisky Sets Record At Auction (Forbes🔒)

The world’s “most sought-after” bottle of Scotch whisky sold for a record $2.7 million on Saturday, breaking a record previously set by another bottle from the same cask, according to Sotheby’s—the latest spirit to receive bids exceeding millions of dollars in recent years. Only 40 bottles of the Macallan 1926 were bottled in 1986 after being aged in sherry casks for 60 years, according to Sotheby’s, and 12—including the bottle sold Saturday—featured labels designed by the Italian painter Valerio Adami.

Darn, I guess I’ll have to put something else on my Christmas list now…

Nature

A Hiker and a Terrier Climbed a Peak. The Dog Came Home 72 Days Later. (Outside)

On August 19, Holby’s husband, Richard Moore, and Finney vanished while hiking on Blackhead Peak, 12,500-foot mountain located 35 miles east of town. Their disappearance prompted a massive search and rescue mission, and for 16 days more than 100 volunteers scoured the mountain, to no avail. The search generated plenty of buzz in Pagosa Springs, where Moore and Holby are members of the local San Juan Outdoor Club hiking group. Volunteers hung up photos of Rich and Finney around town, and hikers continued to ascend Blackhead Peak in hopes of finding them. On October 30, a hunter on horseback discovered Moore’s body. Standing nearby was a small white dog—it was Finney, and she was alive. When news trickled through the community that Finney had survived 72 days in the backcountry, she became an overnight superstar.

A23a: World's biggest iceberg on the move after 30 years (BBC)

The world's biggest iceberg is on the move after more than 30 years being stuck to the ocean floor. The iceberg, called A23a, split from the Antarctic coastline in 1986. But it swiftly grounded in the Weddell Sea, becoming, essentially, an ice island. At almost 4,000 sq km (1,500 sq miles) in area, it's more than twice the size of Greater London. The past year has seen it drifting at speed, and the berg is now about to spill beyond Antarctic waters.

Travel

Senate panel investigates US airline baggage, seat selection fees (Reuters)

A U.S. Senate panel on Monday announced an investigation into airline fees for baggage, seat selection, ticket changes and other services, demanding justifications from the CEOs of five major carriers for these charges that generate billions of dollars in annual revenue for them. Between 2018 and 2022, total revenue across major U.S. airlines from baggage fees increased from $4.9 billion to $6.8 billion, the senator said. Blumenthal also cited a report by a travel consultancy that found that eight leading U.S. airlines last year collected an estimated $4.2 billion in fees for seat selection.

Here are a couple of interesting places I learned about this week:
Everything You Must Know About Traveling To Socotra - A Yemeni island with incredible trees and topography.
Coober Pedy, Australia - An opal mining town in the middle of Australia where people live, worship, and shop underground.

Entertainment

Siskel, Ebert, and the Secret of Criticism (The New Yorker)

Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel, who went on the air together for the first time in 1975, have been off the air for a long time now. Siskel died in 1999, and Ebert bowed out in 2011, two years before his death. But, for many people, they remain the very exemplars of film criticism. Fellow-critics still admire their vigorous, wide-ranging discussions while, for the public at large, their thumbs-up/thumbs-down gimmick, which they came up with in 1982, has proved indelible. The story of their rise to fame is told in enticing detail by Matt Singer in a joint biography titled—what else?—“Opposable Thumbs.” For Singer, the critic at ScreenCrush and the current chairperson of the New York Film Critics Circle, the book is clearly a labor of love. He writes that his own aspiration to be a critic was sparked by their show, which he began watching obsessively as a middle schooler, in the early nineteen-nineties.

First-ever World of Frozen opens at Hong Kong Disneyland (CNN)

Elsa, Anna, Olaf and Sven have a new home on a subtropical island in Asia. World of Frozen, Disney’s first-ever themed land dedicated to the “Frozen” media franchise, opened at Hong Kong Disneyland on November 20. The new land at the park on Hong Kong’s Lantau Island brings the fictional kingdom of Arendelle to life, including several elements from key scenes in the hit movies such as the North Mountain, Elsa’s Ice Palace, the snowflake-topped ice fountain and the clock tower where Anna and Prince Hans sing “Love is An Open Door” in the first “Frozen” movie.

‘Tis The Season: When Does America Start Listening to Festive Music? (Chartr)

On a more upbeat note, as Christmas music starts ramping up on store and home speakers, here’s a fun chart for you:

Sports

Australia wins record-extending sixth Cricket World Cup as host India falters under nationwide pressure (CNN)

Australia won a record-extending sixth men’s Cricket World Cup on Sunday, defying the odds and a partisan home crowd in Ahmedabad, to defeat host nation India by six wickets.

Phil Taylor: 16-time world [dart] champion to retire at the end of 2024 (BBC)

Phil Taylor, winner of a record 16 World Championships, will retire from competitive darts next year. Taylor, 63, stepped away from the sport after reaching the World Championship final in 2018 but returned in 2022. Considered the greatest darts player of all time, he has spent the past two years on the Senior Darts Tour and will retire at the end of the 2024 season. Taylor won a record 85 major titles, was world number one for 13 years in total and was nominated for BBC Sports Personality of the Year twice.

Derailed Train of Thought

I know all of you do it—you’re on the internet reading about something, then you click on the link of a related item, and then do it again for some other related item. After about 30 minutes, or maybe even an hour, you look up from your computer screen wondering how you ended up on a web page about sustainable farming when all you really wanted to know was when the next season of your favorite show is coming out.

So, this week, I’m introducing a new section that tries to retrace the times I’ve done this, and the topics I’ve hit on. I thought it appropriate to start with one that involved a literal train derailment.

This week I found myself reading up on the CSX 8888 incident, otherwise known as the “Crazy Eights Incident,” where, in 2001, a runaway train in Ohio pulled 47 cars for 66 miles without a conductor at the helm.

The incident itself was interesting, but after reading it, I pushed back from my desk pondering how I got sucked into an internet hole that led to this topic, and the death of a record producer. So, I retraced my steps and this is how I ended getting there:

I read in the news this week that Daryl Hall is suing John Oats and realize that it’s been a while since I’ve listened to a song by Hall & Oats
- Side note: for the longest time, I thought the band name was “Hauling Oats”
I listen to a few of their songs, and then they start singing, “You lost that lovin’ feeling,” which was in the original Top Gun movie
I can’t remember who sang the song in that movie, so I google it
I see this article: Tony Scott: The ’80s SAAB Commercial That Got Him The ‘Top Gun’ Gig
I read the article and then google Tony Scott and read up on him
- I see that he directed Top Gun, Beverly Hills Cop II, Days of Thunder, The Last Boy Scout, Crimson Tide, Enemy of the State, Man on Fire, Déjà vu, Unstoppable
- I note how many of his movies have Denzel Washington in them
- I see he is the brother of (Sir) Ridley Scott, who directed Alien, Blade Runner, Legend, Black Rain, Thelma & Louise, and the list goes on…
- In 2012, Tony Scott committed suicide by jumping off a bridge in L.A.; there is a tribute to him at the end of Top Gun: Maverick
- I see that he directed Man on Fire, which, interestingly, I just happen to watch last week.
- I see a reference to the movie “Unstoppable,” starring Denzel Washington and Chris Pine. I think I’ve seen it, but can’t remember for sure, and can’t remember what it was about, so I click on link to the “Unstoppable” Wikipedia article and read that.
This leads me to the CSX 888 Wikipedia article
Then I remember to look up the song “You lost that lovin’ feeling”
- Ah yes, it was the Righteous Brothers who sang it (along with Maverick & Goose in the movie)
- It held the distinction of being the most-played song for 22 years until 2019, when it was overtaken by "Every Breath You Take"
- Phil Spector (along with Barry Mann and Cynthia Well) wrote the song
- “Phil Spector, that name sounds familiar,” I think, so I click on link for “Phil Spector”
Phil Spector
- He produced the Beatles’ “Let it Be,” worked with Ike & Tina Turner, and others, and was even in the movie, Easy Rider.
- He won a Grammy and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
- I see he died in 2021 at the age of 81, and also that he divorced in 2018, and I think, “that’s a little odd to divorce at that age”
- I scroll down and then I see that he was convicted murdering actress Lana Clarkson in 2009 and served out the rest of his life behind bars, where he died.
On that depressing note, I close my browser.

Have a great weekend!

The Curator

Share Curated Compositions

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.