This week in the news | 27 Apr 24

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

Apr 27, 2024

👋 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

Opinion | The Second Cold War is Escalating Faster than the First (Bloomberg🔒) 📊

North America

Latin America

Argentina’s Javier Milei announces nation's first budget surplus in 16 years (Strait Times)
A Country Awash in Violence Backs Its Leader’s Hard-Line Stance (NYT🔒)

Europe

Horses Run Loose Through Central London in Surreal Spectacle (NYT🔒)

Middle East

Israeli Military Intelligence Chief Resigns Over Oct. 7 Failure (Bloomberg🔒)
US Confirms First Attack on American Troops in Months as Drones Shot Down in Iraq (Air and Space Forces)
Hamas Explores Moving Political Headquarters Out of Qatar (WSJ🔒)

Defense

Want to Be a Warrant Officer? Air Force Opens Up Applications Until May 31 (Air and Space Forces)

Economy

America’s Economy Is No. 1. That Means Trouble. (WSJ🔒) 📊
Mix of Slowing Growth, Firm Inflation Worries Investors (WSJ🔒)

Business

Energy

Rooftop solar panels are flooding California’s grid. That’s a problem. (WP🔒) 📊

Auto

He Loves Speed, Hates Bureaucracy and Told Ferrari: Go Faster (WSJ🔒) 📊

Personal Finance

'Pay Later' Lenders Have an Issue With Credit Bureaus (NYT🔒)

Cyber

Artificial Intelligence

Life

After Dobbs, Americans are turning to permanent contraception (Economist🔒) 📊
U.S. Fertility Rate Falls to Record Low (WSJ🔒) 📊

Education

Schools Want to Ban Phones. Parents Say No. (WSJ🔒)

Food & Drink

A Brewery Worker’s Drunken Driving Defense: His Stomach Made the Alcohol (NYT🔒)

Travel

Airlines will now be required to give automatic cash refunds for canceled and delayed flights (AP)

Sports

How Nike Won the Battle for Caitlin Clark (WSJ🔒)
Smaller, Faster, Lighter: The Changing Shape of NFL Quarterbacks (WSJ🔒) 📊

For Fun

Northernmost Point in the Contiguous United States (Google Maps) 📊

THE SLOW BREW ☕

A more relaxed approach to the summaries.

World

Opinion | The Second Cold War is Escalating Faster than the First (Bloomberg🔒) 📊

Potentially, the most dangerous scenario would be a grand coalition of China, Russia, and perhaps Iran, an “antihegemonic” coalition united not by ideology but by complementary grievances. It would be reminiscent in scale and scope of the challenge once posed by the Sino-Soviet bloc, though this time China would likely be the leader and Russia the follower. So what are the biggest differences between Cold War I and Cold War II? First, China is a much bigger economic contender than the Soviet Union ever was. Second, the West is economically entangled with China, through a vast web of supply chains, in a way we never were with the USSR. Third, we are much weaker in terms of manufacturing capacity. With China flooding the world with cheap “green” stuff, the West has no option but to revive protectionism and industrial policy, turning the economic strategy clock back to the 1970s, too. Climate adviser John Podesta made that clear last week at Bloomberg’s BNEF Summit. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen complained last month that Chinese “excess capacity … in ‘new’ industries like solar, EVs, and lithium-ion batteries” was “hurt[ing] American firms and workers, as well as firms and workers around the world.” Fourth, US fiscal policy is on a completely unsustainable path. To run a 7% deficit at a time of full employment is, to put it mildly, not what the macroeconomics textbooks recommend. More importantly, as the Congressional Budget Office has just pointed out, the relentless growth of the federal debt in public hands relative to gross domestic product — from 99% this year to a projected 166% by 2054 — will inevitably constrain future administrations, for the simple reason that an inexorably rising share of revenues will have to go on servicing the debt. My sole contribution to the statute book of historiography — what I call Ferguson’s Law — states that any great power that spends more on debt service (interest payments on the national debt) than on defense will not stay great for very long. Fifth, our alliances may prove to be weaker than they were in Cold War I. In Europe, Germany is even more ambivalent about US leadership of the Atlantic alliance than it was in the days of Ostpolitik. In Asia, the US may think the “Quad” has turned India into an Asian ally, but I very much doubt India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, would pick up the phone if Washington called for assistance in a Taiwan crisis.

NOTE: This week I ran across the two graphs below and was surprised to see that, as of 2020, the amount the US spends on Education as a percent of GDP (5.44%), is more than it spends on Defense (3.7%).

North America

Watch: The Free Press Debate on Immigration (The Free Press)

Poll after poll indicates that immigration is the top issue for voters in the 2024 election—more important than inflation or the economy. Americans left and right agree that our system is broken. But how do we fix it? That is the subject of the first installment of our America Debates series. We convened Ann Coulter, Nick Gillespie, Sohrab Ahmari, and Cenk Uygur in Dallas for a deeper discussion about immigration.

NOTE: Watching the video will require a paid subscription to The Free Press, but I think it’s worth it—both for the video, but even more so for The Free Press articles. I can’t tell you how refreshing it was to watch a civil debate on a critical topic. Wow. My brain was in a very happy place digesting (mostly) well-reasoned arguments and hearing civil discourse. We need much more of this in our society.
Along those lines, The University of Texas (UT) and the University of Austin (UATX) recently held a series of dialogues exploring the following questions: Is liberalism doomed? Was 1619 or 1776 the true founding of America? Is the traditional university broken beyond repair? Has antiracism gone too far, or not far enough, on university campuses? You can find them here.

Senate Passes $95 Billion Package to Help Ukraine and Israel (WSJ🔒) 📊

The Senate passed a long-delayed $95.3 billion foreign-aid package sending much-needed ammunition and military equipment to beleaguered Ukrainian soldiers and fortifying Israel’s missile defense systems, while also forcing the sale of Chinese-controlled TikTok in the U.S. The measure contains money for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, as well as humanitarian aid for Gaza—largely matching an earlier Senate bill—plus additions made by the House, such as sanctions on Russia and Iran and the TikTok provision. Leaders in the GOP-controlled House also changed roughly $9.5 billion in economic aid to Ukraine into forgivable loans rather than grants, to make it more politically palatable to Republicans.

The Growing Pro-Palestinian Protest Movement, Visualized (WSJ🔒) 📊

Protests over Israel’s military invasion of Gaza are becoming even more intense on college and university campuses almost seven months after the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas. Clusters of student encampments have spread in recent days at schools including Columbia University. Police have made dozens of arrests after being called in by administrators. The events of the past week are the latest crescendo in a movement that has seen more than 8,000 pro-Palestine protests in over 850 cities and towns across the U.S., according to data compiled by researchers at the Harvard Kennedy School and the University of Connecticut. Organizers, law-enforcement officials and political leaders are now girding for a summer of protests, potentially culminating with July’s GOP convention in Milwaukee and August’s Democratic convention in Chicago, the same city marred by violence during anti-Vietnam War activism in 1968.

NOTE: Article contains many informative maps.

Mass arrests made as US campus protests over Gaza spread (BBC)

Protests over the war in Gaza have taken hold at a handful of elite US universities as officials scramble to defuse demonstrations. Police moved to break up an encampment at New York University (NYU) on Monday night, making a number of arrests. Dozens of students were arrested at Yale earlier in the day, while Columbia University cancelled in-person classes. The wave of demos has been marred by alleged antisemitic incidents, which have been condemned by the White House. When asked about the rallies on Monday, President Joe Biden said he condemned both "the antisemitic protests" as well as "those who don't understand what's going on with the Palestinians".

Protesters Are Demanding Colleges Divest From Israel. Here’s Why That’s Not Happening. (WSJ🔒)

The pro-Palestinian student protesters roiling college campuses across the country have a common demand: that their universities divest from companies doing business with Israel. Schools including Columbia University, New York University and Yale University have responded with a resounding “No,” suggesting scant odds of a speedy resolution to demonstrations that have divided students and triggered mass arrests. Calls for divestment have been a feature of student protests for years, most notably during antiapartheid demonstrations in the 1970s and 1980s, when activists had success in forcing higher education institutions to cut their exposure to South Africa, then under all-white rule. More recently, many colleges have heeded demands to dump holdings in fossil-fuel companies. Those calling for divestment from Israel say they are motivated by what they see as a moral argument: that Israel is committing genocide and forcing Palestinians to live under a form of apartheid. No major schools have expressed support for that viewpoint to date, and several have indicated that they are moving away from taking positions on hot-button issues. Israel has strongly denied allegations of genocide, and says its Gaza operations are justified by its right of self-defense under international law following the attacks of Oct. 7, when Hamas militants killed more than 1,200 people, mostly civilians, according to Israeli authorities, and took more than 240 hostage. Even if universities were to concur with activists’ arguments, endowment chiefs said divesting would set a questionable precedent at institutions meant to encourage intellectual inquiry and debate, in addition to posing practical challenges and fiduciary risks.

Behind the mask: Why the new US campus protestors cover their faces (Semafor)

Nearly one year after the official end of the federal COVID-19 emergency declaration, the regular use of face masks for non-immunocompromised people has faded from American life. Outdoor masking, mandated in many states during the peak of the pandemic, became even rarer after a 2022 CDC advisory scaled it back. But that gradual return to barefaced life never reached left-leaning protests, where face masks are widely used and encouraged. Part of the reason, say organizers, remains an attempt to make a point about exposure to COVID-19 and other health risks, which some in the left-wing protest movements believe remain dire. And part is the threat of a different kind of exposure — from being captured by facial recognition technology or becoming doxxed (their personal information being shared online) by counter-protesters. Before the pandemic, this level of masking wasn’t common — or legal. For more than 150 years, New York prohibited masks in public places; other states adopted similar laws, which made it easier to break up Ku Klux Klan gatherings and aided prosecutors as they built cases. Thirteen years ago, when the NYPD broke up Occupy Wall Street protests, some of the activists there were charged under the anti-mask law. At the start of the Trump presidency, face masks at protests were identified with “black bloc” tactics that anonymized anarchists; in 2017, some left-wing counter-protesters of the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville faced felony charges for violating anti-mask laws. Anti-mask laws complicated that response, but many were felled by the pandemic, which also saw millions of Americans become engaged in public protests against police brutality. In May 2020, after New York began mandating face coverings in public places, Attorney Gen. Letitia James convinced the state legislature to repeal it. First Amendment activists took note and began encouraging protesters to use face covering as a defensive measure against unwanted attention, helping to spread the practice beyond the fringes of the left.

Google fires more workers after CEO says workplace isn’t for politics (WP🔒)

Google fired about 20 more workers whom it said participated in protests denouncing the company’s cloud computing deal with the Israeli government, bringing the total number of workers fired in the past week over the issue to more than 50, according to the activist group representing the workers. The firings come several days after chief executive Sundar Pichai told employees in a companywide memo that they should not use the company as a “personal platform” or “fight over disruptive issues or debate politics.”

How Chinese firms are using Mexico as a backdoor to the US (BBC)

The reclining armchairs and plush leather sofas coming off the production line at Man Wah Furniture's factory in Monterrey are 100% "Made in Mexico". They're destined for large retailers in the US, like Costco and Walmart. But the company is from China, its Mexican manufacturing plant built with Chinese capital. The triangular relationship between the US, China and Mexico is behind the buzzword in Mexican business: nearshoring. Man Wah is one of scores of Chinese companies to relocate to industrial parks in northern Mexico in recent years, to bring production closer to the US market. As well as saving on shipping, their final product is considered completely Mexican - meaning Chinese firms can avoid the US tariffs and sanctions imposed on Chinese goods amid the continuing trade war between the two countries.

Centuries-old bottles of cherries unearthed at George Washington’s home (WP🔒)

Experts at Mount Vernon said last week that Beard and other archaeologists have now discovered two intact bottles that still had, along with liquid, some of the cherries they contained when they were buried about 250 years ago. The area of the discovery was believed to have once been a storeroom, Beard said. The cherries were probably picked at Mount Vernon in the 1770s, perhaps before the Revolutionary War, and stored for the future. The bottles, imported from England, dated to the mid-1700s and were probably buried between 1758 and 1776, Boroughs said.

Meet the 12 New Yorkers Who Will Decide Donald Trump’s Fate in Hush-Money Trial (WSJ🔒)

A jury of five women and seven men has been selected to hear the first criminal trial of Donald Trump, who faces 34 felonies related to paying hush money to a porn star. The jurors, all of whom live in Manhattan, must be unanimous to either acquit or convict the former president. During the jury selection process, the judge, Trump’s lawyers and prosecutors asked a series of questions to determine whether potential jurors could be fair, including their opinion of Trump. Finding jurors who felt they could be impartial was a struggle at times; the judge excused two jurors after they had been selected. The selection process had a remarkable rebound and completed as expected. Here’s what we learned about the jurors during the selection process.

US Supreme Court to decide if Trump has immunity in election interference case (BBC)

A historic case, one that could affect both Donald Trump's legal and political fates and define the scope of presidential power, lands before the nine justices of the US Supreme Court on Thursday. Lawyers for Mr Trump and Special Counsel Jack Smith will square off in a hearing on whether former presidents have immunity from criminal prosecution for actions they take while in office. Mr Smith charged the former president last year with allegedly attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 election. But Mr Trump said he could not be indicted under the US Constitution. The trial has been on hold while the dispute made its way up to the top court in the country. The case is already historic - Mr Trump is the first former president to have been charged with federal crimes. And the Supreme Court decision, which may not come until June, will be also.

Latin America

Argentina’s Javier Milei announces nation's first budget surplus in 16 years (Strait Times)

Argentina’s spending-slashing new President Javier Milei has hailed his country’s first quarterly budget surplus since 2008 as an “historic achievement.” In the first quarter of 2024, the South American country recorded a budget surplus of about 275 billion pesos (some S$400 million at the official rate), he told national TV late on April 22. This amounted to a surplus of 0.2 per cent of GDP. “If the state does not spend more than it collects and does not issue (money), there is no inflation. This is not magic,” the self-described “anarcho-capitalist” said. To that end, he has instituted an austerity programme that has seen the government slash subsidies for transport fuel and energy even as annual inflation stands at 290 per cent year-on-year, poverty levels have reached 60 per cent and wage-earners have lost a fifth of their purchasing power. Thousands of public servants have lost their jobs. “Don’t expect a way out through public spending,” Mr Milei warned on April 22.

A Country Awash in Violence Backs Its Leader’s Hard-Line Stance (NYT🔒)

Ecuadoreans voted on Sunday to give their new president more powers to combat the country’s plague of drug-related gang violence, officials said, supporting his hard-line stance on security and offering an early glimpse of how he might fare in his bid for re-election next year. President Daniel Noboa, the 36-year-old heir to a banana empire, took office in November after an election season focused on the violence, which has surged to levels not seen in decades. In January, he declared an “internal armed conflict” and ordered the military to “neutralize” the country’s gangs. The move allowed soldiers to patrol the streets and Ecuador’s prisons, many of which have come under gang control.

Europe

Horses Run Loose Through Central London in Surreal Spectacle (NYT🔒)

Several runaway military horses galloped through the streets of London on Wednesday morning, alarming pedestrians, sideswiping cars and buses, and turning an ordinary rush hour into a frightening, almost surreal spectacle. Four people were treated for injuries, including a soldier who was thrown from one of the horses, according to the London Ambulance Service. The horses, which belong to the Household Cavalry Mounted Regiment, a unit that parades in royal pageants, are normally well-trained symbols of London’s regal past. The drama began shortly after 8 a.m. when the horses, apparently spooked by the noise from a nearby construction site, threw off the military riders who were taking them out for routine exercises.

Middle East

Israeli Military Intelligence Chief Resigns Over Oct. 7 Failure (Bloomberg🔒)

The Israeli military said the head of its intelligence division quit over the failure to prevent the Oct. 7 invasion by Hamas, an attack that left about 1,200 dead and triggered the ongoing war in Gaza. Aharon Haliva, head of military intelligence, handed in his resignation after 2 1/2 years in the role, the Israel Defense Forces said in a statement Monday. He’s the first senior Israeli official to step down over the assault by Hamas, an Iran-backed group designated a terrorist organization by the US and European Union. In the aftermath of Oct. 7, Haliva accepted the blame for failing to prevent the incursion, in which hundreds of armed Hamas fighters swarmed over Gaza’s heavily-fortified border with southern Israel and overran communities and military bases.

US Confirms First Attack on American Troops in Months as Drones Shot Down in Iraq (Air and Space Forces)

The U.S. thwarted a drone attack on American forces at Al Asad air base in western Iraq on April 22, marking the first time that American troops have been targeted since February, U.S. officials said.

Hamas Explores Moving Political Headquarters Out of Qatar (WSJ🔒)

Hamas’s political leadership is looking to move from its current base in Qatar, as U.S. legislators build pressure on the Gulf state to deliver on cease-fire negotiations that look likely to fail. If Hamas left Qatar, the move could upend delicate talks to free dozens of Israeli hostages held captive in Gaza and likely make it more difficult for Israel and the U.S. to pass messages to a group designated by Washington as a terrorist organization. Hamas leaders have lived in Doha, the Qatari capital, since 2012 in an arrangement supported by the U.S. Arab officials said that in recent days the group has contacted at least two countries in the region asking if they would be open to the idea of its political leaders relocating to their capitals. Oman is one of the countries that was contacted, one Arab official said. Omani officials didn’t respond to a request for comment. Arab officials said Hamas believes the slow-moving hostage negotiations could last for months, putting the group’s close ties to Qatar and its presence in Doha at risk.

Defense

Want to Be a Warrant Officer? Air Force Opens Up Applications Until May 31 (Air and Space Forces)

Airmen can apply to become warrant officers in cybersecurity or information technology starting today, April 25, through May 31, the Air Force announced. From June 24-28, a selection board will pick up to 60 candidates for the eight-week Warrant Officer Training School (WOTS) at Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala. Selectees will be notified in late July, with an initial class scheduled to start in the fall of 2024 and a second class in early 2025. The graduates will be the first batch of new Air Force warrant officers since 1958, when the service dissolved those ranks in favor of creating senior master sergeants and chief master sergeants. The Air Force and Space Force are the only military services currently without warrant officers, who fill technical rather than leadership functions in the other military branches. Now the Air Force wants to bring them back to maintain expertise in fast-moving technical fields such as IT and cybersecurity. “With perishable skills, like cyber, like IT, where the technology is moving so rapidly, folks who are experts in that can’t afford to be sent off to a leadership course for eight or nine months,” Alex Wagner, assistant secretary of the Air Force for manpower and reserve affairs, said April 9. Time spent in mandatory leadership roles can also hurt retention; Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said in February that about 100 Airmen joined other branches in recent years so that they could become warrant officers in IT and cyber. Airmen have been enthusiastic about the new program since it was announced in February.

Economy

America’s Economy Is No. 1. That Means Trouble. (WSJ🔒) 📊

If you want a single number to capture America’s economic stature, here it is: This year, the U.S. will account for 26.3% of the global gross domestic product, the highest in almost two decades. That’s based on the latest projections from the International Monetary Fund. According to the IMF, Europe’s share of world GDP has dropped 1.4 percentage points since 2018, and Japan’s by 2.1 points. The U.S. share, by contrast, is up 2.3 points. China’s share is up since 2018, too. But instead of overtaking the U.S. as the world’s largest economy, the Chinese economy has slipped in size to 64% of the U.S.’s from 67% in 2018. This isn’t to suggest Americans should somehow be content with stagnant real wages or high inflation just because people elsewhere are even more miserable. Still, it’s worth studying the reasons the U.S. is outperforming. In a nutshell, there’s an encouraging reason and a worrisome one. The encouraging reason is that structurally, the U.S. continues to innovate and reap the rewards, judging by big-tech stocks and artificial intelligence adoption. The U.S. has done better at boosting productivity (output per worker). The second, more worrisome, reason for stronger U.S. growth is government borrowing—including former President Donald Trump’s 2018 tax cut, bipartisan Covid-19 relief in 2020 and President Biden’s 2021 stimulus.

Mix of Slowing Growth, Firm Inflation Worries Investors (WSJ🔒)

The latest snapshot of the U.S. economy rattled stock and bond markets with two bits of potentially disappointing data: slower economic growth and still-firm inflation. Gross domestic product expanded at a 1.6% seasonally- and inflation-adjusted annual rate in the first quarter, the Commerce Department said Thursday, a pullback from last year’s quick pace. That lagged behind the 2.4% projected by economists polled by The Wall Street Journal. Thursday’s report also suggests inflation, using the Fed’s preferred gauge, was likely firmer than expected in March. That gives investors another reason to give up on the idea that the Federal Reserve could begin cutting interest rates in the coming months.

Business

Business Groups Race to Block FTC’s Ban on Noncompete Agreements (WSJ🔒)

Top business groups and a national tax-services firm filed lawsuits Wednesday challenging a new Federal Trade Commission ban on noncompete agreements, cases that will test the agency’s power to broadly prohibit practices it says are anticompetitive. The rule, issued by the FTC on Tuesday, prohibits companies from enforcing existing noncompete agreements on anyone other than senior executives. The FTC says one in five Americans is subject to noncompete agreements. The FTC argues that noncompete clauses, which typically prevent workers from taking a new job or starting a business for a certain time period after leaving an employer, hamper competition for labor and result in lower pay and benefits for workers.

More Than 4 Million More Workers Will Start Getting Paid Overtime Under Controversial New Rule (Forbes🔒)

More than 4 million additional salaried workers will be required to receive overtime pay after the Department of Labor announced new eligibility rules Tuesday—a change that was met with cheers from labor groups but has already raised the specter of legal challenges from critics. Under current law, salaried workers making more than $35,568 annually are exempt from mandated overtime pay unless their jobs don’t include “executive, administrative, or professional” duties—but the Department of Labor’s long-expected final rule will increase that salary threshold to nearly $43,888 on July 1, and then again to $58,656 on Jan. 1. The new rule will also increase the threshold for an exemption for so-called highly compensated employees—generally automatically considered exempt from mandatory overtime requirements regardless of job duties—from $107,532 to $151,164. The expanded thresholds would make an estimated 4.3 million more salaried employees eligible for mandatory overtime by Jan. 1, and the rule would be reevaluated every three years, according to the Department of Labor.

Energy

Rooftop solar panels are flooding California’s grid. That’s a problem. (Washington Post🔒) 📊

In sunny California, solar panels are everywhere. They sit in dry, desert landscapes in the Central Valley and are scattered over rooftops in Los Angeles’s urban center. By last count, the state had nearly 47 gigawatts of solar power installed — enough to power 13.9 million homes and provide over a quarter of the Golden State’s electricity. But now, the state and its grid operator are grappling with a strange reality: There is so much solar on the grid that, on sunny spring days when there’s not as much demand, electricity prices go negative. Gigawatts of solar are “curtailed” — essentially, thrown away. In response, California has cut back incentives for rooftop solar and slowed the pace of installing panels. But the diminishing economic returns may slow the development of solar in a state that has tried to move to renewable energy. And as other states build more and more solar plants of their own, they may soon face the same problems.

Auto

He Loves Speed, Hates Bureaucracy and Told Ferrari: Go Faster (WSJ🔒) 📊

When he took the wheel of the world’s most iconic luxury carmaker, Benedetto Vigna quickly decided that something was wrong with the organizational culture. Ferrari was too slow. For a company originally built to race cars, this was something close to sacrilege. The problem, he discovered, was that Ferrari was being weighed down by its “bureaucratic mass index,” his name for the excess layers of an organization. The only solution was one that would make Ferrari leaner and faster. “When the environmental condition is changing at high speed,” Vigna says, “you need to have a team that is able to adapt at high speed.” Since his first day on the job in 2021, Ferrari’s stock price has nearly doubled, and the company has outperformed the rest of the world’s biggest automakers. It’s now worth more than Ford Motor or General Motors.

Personal Finance

'Pay Later' Lenders Have an Issue With Credit Bureaus (NYT🔒)

Shoppers in recent years have embraced “buy now, pay later” loans as an easy, interest-free way to purchase everything from sweaters to concert tickets. The loans typically are not reported on consumers’ credit reports, however, or reflected in their credit scores. That has stoked concerns that users might be taking on an outsize amount of debt that is invisible to both lenders and financial regulators. “Buy now, pay later” loans allow consumers to pay for purchases over time, often in four installments over six weeks, interest free. They surged in popularity during the pandemic, when they helped fuel an online-shopping boom. The rapid growth has continued: The retail industry attributed its record-setting holiday sales in part to the popularity of pay-later products. But economists at Wells Fargo warned last year that “phantom debt” from pay-later loans “could create substantial problems for the consumer and the broader economy.” The lenders and the credit agencies agree that pay-later loans are unlikely to remain outside the credit scoring system forever. But it is unclear what will break the logjam. Ultimately, industry experts said, it will probably boil down to one of two things: Either regulators will force pay-later firms to start reporting or market forces will.

Cyber

Social Media Has Overwhelmed America’s Main Nonprofit Fighting Child Exploitation (WSJ🔒)

Every few days, a pile of thumb drives and compact discs filled with videos and pictures of sex crimes against children arrives at a nondescript office building here via the U.S. mail. The evidence goes into a secure room full of red folders where it is manually uploaded into a database that acts as the nation’s central system for detecting child sexual exploitation online. The use of snail mail for this patchwork system—maintained by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, or NCMEC—means that a fraction of the images seized by U.S. law-enforcement agencies is processed. Because of the impediments, many agencies simply don’t bother submitting evidence vital to identifying victims, according to the Justice Department. The center tried to update this process for the internet age by creating a secure evidence-transfer system for local law enforcement. The experiment ended in 2018 when the company hosting the transfers shut the system down, citing legal prohibitions against transmitting child pornography. For good measure, the company’s lawyers reported NCMEC to itself. “We were stuck,” said John Shehan, a senior vice president who oversees the nonprofit’s work on child exploitation. The U.S. has long had laws designed to make it criminal for people to keep or share images of child sexual exploitation. Because such strictures apply broadly, they also create one of many hurdles for the center, a nonprofit that serves as the sole interface between major American tech platforms and law enforcement worldwide. As the 40-year-old organization seeks to limit the spread of abuse imagery on dozens of platforms, identify predators and aid victims seeking restitution, it also is contending—like many agencies and nonprofits—with a limited budget. And it has a legal mandate that hasn’t been updated since the days of AOL chat rooms.

Biden signs bill reauthorizing contentious FISA surveillance program (CBS)

President Biden on Saturday signed legislation reauthorizing a key U.S. surveillance law after divisions over whether the FBI should be restricted from using the program to search for Americans' data nearly forced the statute to lapse. U.S. officials have said the surveillance tool, first authorized in 2008 and renewed several times since then, is crucial in disrupting terrorist attacks, cyber intrusions, and foreign espionage, and has also produced intelligence that the U.S. has relied on for specific operations, such as the 2022 killing of al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahri. Section 702 permits the U.S. government to collect, without a warrant, the communications of non-Americans located outside the country to gather foreign intelligence. The reauthorization faced a long and bumpy road to final passage Friday after months of clashes between privacy advocates and national security hawks pushed consideration of the legislation to the brink of expiration. But despite the Biden administration's urging and classified briefings to senators this week on the crucial role they say the spy program plays in protecting national security, a group of progressive and conservative lawmakers who were agitating for further changes had refused to accept the version of the bill the House sent over last week. The lawmakers had demanded that Schumer allow votes on amendments to the legislation that would seek to address what they see as civil liberty loopholes in the bill. In the end, Schumer was able to cut a deal that would allow critics to receive floor votes on their amendments in exchange for speeding up the process for passage. The six amendments ultimately failed to garner the necessary support on the floor to be included in the final passage.

President Biden signs law to ban TikTok nationwide unless it is sold (NPR)

President Biden on Wednesday signed a law that would ban Chinese-owned TikTok unless it is sold within a year. It is the most serious threat yet to the video-streaming app's future in the U.S., intensifying America's tech war with China. Still, the law is not expected to cause any immediate disruption to TikTok, as a forthcoming legal challenge, and various hurdles to selling the app, will most likely cause months of delay. The measure was tucked into a bill providing foreign aid for Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan. The law stipulates that ByteDance must sell its stake in TikTok in 12 months under the threat of being shut down.

NOTE: I ran across the graph below showing how certain subjects are not shown on TikTok as much as they are on Instagram.

Artificial Intelligence

Meta AI Declares War On OpenAI, Google With Standalone Chatbot — What To Know About ‘Llama 3’ Model (Forbes🔒)

Meta — the parent company of Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp — has thrown down the gauntlet on artificial intelligence this week with the release of a standalone AI chatbot and a powerful open source model, Llama 3, positioning itself as a major competitor to bots from the likes of Google and ChatGPT as companies race to develop ever more powerful systems. Since ChatGPT ignited a firestorm of interest in the AI assistant space, the tech industry has been racing to build, develop and release ever more powerful AI models. The models, such as Meta’s Llama, OpenAI’s GPT and Google’s Gemini, are the underlying architecture powering tools like chatbots, image generators and video generators. Besides Meta, multiple firms — including Google, OpenAI and Mistral — have all released new versions of their leading systems within the past month. The decision to make Llama 3 open source marks a notable shift from other market leaders like OpenAI and Google, which tend to keep their technology closed. Open source tech can be used, scrutinized and shared more readily within the industry — though open source licenses can still come with conditions for use — and it often forms a scaffold upon which others build an array of apps and tools. The release of a powerful open source AI model like Llama 3 could fuel such a flurry of innovation designed around Meta’s model. It is not without cost, however, and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has previously said the company is spending billions to develop its AI systems.

An AI took on a human pilot in a DARPA-sponsored dogfight (Defense One)

A self-driving fighter jet powered by artificial intelligence took on a human pilot in a dogfight for the first time last year over California, a major development in the Pentagon’s effort to safely load AI onto its platforms. Who came out on top? Officials wouldn’t say. But the AI agents “performed well” in a variety of scenarios throughout the tests, said Lt. Col. Ryan Hefron, the program manager for DARPA’s Air Combat Evolution program, called ACE. “We had lots of test objectives that we were trying to achieve in that first round of tests. So asking the question of, I'll say, who won? It doesn't necessarily capture the nuance of the testing that we accomplished. But what I will say is that the purpose of the test was really to establish a pathway to demonstrate that we can safely test these AI agents in a safety critical air combat environment,” Hefron told reporters Friday. DARPA revealed this week that an X-62A VISTA aircraft, which is an F-16 fighter jet modified to test and train AI software, engaged in a dogfight against a human pilot in another F-16 during a September test at Edwards Air Force Base.

Deepfakes of Bollywood stars spark worries of AI meddling in India election (Reuters)

In fake videos that have gone viral online, two of India's A-lister Bollywood actors are seen criticizing Prime Minister Narendra Modi and asking people to vote for the opposition Congress party in the country's ongoing general election. In a 30-second video that shows Aamir Khan and another 41-second clip of Ranveer Singh, the two Bollywood actors purportedly say Modi failed to keep campaign promises and failed to address critical economic issues during his two terms as prime minister. Both AI-generated videos end with the Congress election symbol and slogan: "Vote for Justice, Vote for Congress". The two videos have been viewed on social media more than half a million times since last week, a Reuters review shows. Their spread underlines the potential role such AI (artificial intelligence)-generated content can play in the mammoth Indian election that started on Friday and will continue until June. AI and AI-generated fakes, or deepfakes, are being increasingly used in elections elsewhere in the world, including in the U.S., Pakistan and Indonesia.

Life

After Dobbs, Americans are turning to permanent contraception (Economist🔒) 📊

ON JUNE 24TH 2022 America’s Supreme Court ruled, in Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organisation, to let states set their own laws on abortion. Since then 14 have banned abortion completely, with exceptions for extreme circumstances. The consequences of overturning Roe v Wade are becoming clearer. A stark one is the sharp rise in permanent contraceptive procedures among both men, through vasectomies, and women, through tubal ligations.

U.S. Fertility Rate Falls to Record Low (WSJ🔒) 📊

American women are giving birth at record-low rates. The total fertility rate fell to 1.62 births per woman in 2023, a 2% decline from a year earlier, federal data released Thursday showed. It is the lowest rate recorded since the government began tracking it in the 1930s. The decline reflects a continuing trend as American women navigate economic and social challenges that have prompted some to forgo or delay having children. A confluence of factors are at play. American women are having fewer children, later in life. Women are establishing fulfilling careers and have more access to contraception. At the same time, young people are also more uncertain about their futures and spending more of their income on homeownership, student debt and child care. Some women who wait to have children might have fewer than they would have otherwise for reasons including declining fertility.

Education

Schools Want to Ban Phones. Parents Say No. (WSJ🔒)

Teachers and administrators say gadget bans are the only way to regain student focus and tamp down on misbehavior. Parents complain that they need to be able to reach their kids at all times, both for emergencies and routine scheduling issues. Parents are turning out to be unexpected but forceful opponents of schools’ attempts to keep kids off their smartphones. Administrators say they are trying to do what’s best for students. Experts often blame smartphones for fueling the youth mental-health crisis, through social media and its most angst-amplifying features. Teachers say they spend too much time policing phone use. And even school systems that are so far reluctant to ban phones know the fights are just beginning.

NOTE: My personal thoughts on this issue—yes, phones should be banned in school. The more I read about the negative impacts of smart phones (and their associated apps) on youth, the more I’m convinced that there should be limited access, both by age and location—in this case, school.

Food & Drink

A Brewery Worker’s Drunken Driving Defense: His Stomach Made the Alcohol (NYT🔒)

One man was charged with drunken driving after crashing his truck and spilling 11,000 salmon onto a highway in Oregon. Another was secretly recorded by his wife, who was convinced he was a closet alcoholic. And in Belgium, a brewery worker was recently pulled over and given a breathalyzer test, which said that his blood alcohol level was more than four times the legal limit for drivers. The problem? None of those men had been drinking. Instead, they all were diagnosed with a rare condition known as auto-brewery syndrome, in which a person’s gut ferments carbohydrates into ethanol, effectively brewing alcohol inside the body. Perhaps most confounding is that the disorder can cause blood-alcohol levels in people that would be lethal if achieved conventionally. One woman, who was pulled over in New York and breathalyzed after having a flat tire, measured 0.40, a level that is considered to be potentially fatal. While many people with the condition do exhibit the more traditional effects of alcohol consumption, others have been known to behave mostly sober, even when tests show they clearly are not.

Travel

Airlines will now be required to give automatic cash refunds for canceled and delayed flights (AP News)

The Biden administration issued final rules Wednesday to require airlines to automatically issue cash refunds for things like delayed flights and to better disclose fees for baggage or canceling a reservation. The Transportation Department said airlines will be required to provide automatic cash refunds within a few days for canceled flights and “significant” delays. Under current regulations, airlines decide how long a delay must last before triggering refunds. The administration is removing that wiggle room by defining a significant delay as lasting at least three hours for domestic flights and six hours for international ones. Airlines still will be allowed to offer another flight or a travel credit instead, but consumers can reject the offer. The rule will also apply to refunds of checked-bag fees if the bag isn’t delivered within 12 hours for domestic flights or 15 to 30 hours for international flights. And it will apply to fees for things such as seat selection or an internet connection if the airline fails to provide the service.

Sports

How Nike Won the Battle for Caitlin Clark (WSJ🔒)

It was NBA All-Star weekend in Indianapolis and executives from the world’s leading shoe companies descended on hotel lobbies in the city to make their pitch to the biggest stars in basketball. But the prize they were all after wasn’t anyone shooting out the lights in the NBA. In fact, the player they all wanted hadn’t even turned pro yet. She was a 6-foot senior at the University of Iowa who was in the midst of rewriting the record books. Everyone was asking the same question: Which shoe company would land Caitlin Clark? Two months later, it turns out the answer is Nike. The biggest name in women’s basketball is set to sign an eight-year deal worth up to $28 million with the biggest name in sportswear, according to people familiar with the situation. If that outcome seems inevitable, the reality is that Clark striking a deal with Nike was far from a slam dunk. In fact, the race to tie her to a shoe contract ranked as the most competitive in the history of women’s basketball, playing out against the backdrop of Clark lifting her sport to new heights and unprecedented TV ratings as she became a household name across America.

Smaller, Faster, Lighter: The Changing Shape of NFL Quarterbacks (WSJ🔒) 📊

Among quarterbacks in 2023, weighted by playing time, the average 40-yard dash time was 4.71 seconds—or .14 seconds faster than it was in 2011, according to research by Bliss. Over the same period, the average height, 6-foot-2, dropped by an inch while weight fell by nearly 8 pounds to 219.

For Fun

Northernmost Point in the Contiguous United States (Google Maps) 📊

NOTE: Most people know that the southernmost point in the continental US is near Key West, Florida. I say “near,” because the iconic landmark where tourists get their photo is not actually the most southern point—that honor belongs to Ballast Key, Florida, which is 10 miles away and privately owned. But, do you know where the northernmost point in the continental US is located?
That would be the Northwest Angle in Minnesota. I ran across this little geography quirk this week—the Northwest Angle and Elm Point—are two “six non-island locations in the 48 contiguous states that are practical exclaves of the US.” The other four locations include: parts of Alaska; Point Roberts, Washington; and Alburgh Tongue and Province Point, Vermont.

There’s not much in the Northwest Angle, and getting there isn’t easy, but there is a resort with some cabins you can stay at. There’s also a landmark, similar to the one in Key West, where you can snap a photo.
Keen readers might note that I have used two different words above—contiguous and continental. You’ll also notice in the pictures that the landmarks use different language as well. The word "continental" refers to any state on the North American continent, whereas the word "contiguous" refers to all of the states that touch one another without another country or a body of water coming between them. Thus, since Alaska is on the North American continent, Barrow, Alaska is the northernmost point in the continental U.S.

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.

Curated Compositions

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