This week in the news | 27 July 24
News from the past week, and a few other things.
👋 Hello Reader, I hope you had a great week.
Below you’ll find the “quick shot”—a supercharged summary of summaries, followed by the “slow brew”—longer summaries with select graphics, and comments from me.
THE QUICK SHOT 🚀
A supercharged summary of summaries
A lock icon (🔒) indicates articles behind a paywall, and a chart icon (📊) indicates an informative chart/graphic in “Slow Brew.”
World
Singapore reclaimed the title of having the world’s most powerful passport, offering visa-free entry to 195 global destinations, surpassing several European countries (Bloomberg 🔒). China has invested $2.5 trillion globally since 2005, with major construction investments in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, highlighting a shift in its international strategy (AEI).
North America
Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle resigned following the agency's failure to prevent an assassination attempt on former President Trump (WSJ 🔒). Texas Governor Greg Abbott has significantly influenced U.S. migration patterns by busing over 119,000 migrants to Democrat-led cities, impacting the national immigration debate (NYT 🔒) 📊. Governor Gavin Newsom ordered California state agencies to clear homeless encampments following a Supreme Court ruling, aiming to address the state's significant homelessness issue (AP). NORAD intercepted Russian and Chinese bombers near Alaska, marking the first joint operation of its kind by the two countries (CNN).
Latin America
Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada, leader of Mexico's Sinaloa cartel, was arrested in Texas after being tricked into boarding a plane during a months-long operation by U.S. authorities (BBC). Cuba acknowledged a massive emigration wave, with over a million people leaving the island in two years due to economic and political crises (Miami Herald). Researchers found high levels of cocaine in sharks off the Brazilian coast, indicating significant drug pollution in the ocean (Sky News).
Europe
France has implemented extensive security measures, deploying tens of thousands of personnel to protect the Paris Olympics amid various threats (WSJ 🔒). Widespread arson attacks paralyzed France’s high-speed rail network just before the Olympics' opening ceremony, prompting a national investigation (AP). President Macron rejected the French left's prime ministerial candidate following snap elections, deciding to delay the formation of a new government until after the Olympics (NYT 🔒).
Middle East
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defended the Gaza war in a speech to the U.S. Congress, drawing protests from pro-Palestinian groups (BBC). President Biden and Prime Minister Netanyahu met to negotiate a Gaza cease-fire deal amid ongoing conflicts (WSJ 🔒). Israel faces challenges defending against drone attacks, which have increased in frequency and sophistication from groups like Hezbollah (WSJ 🔒).
Africa
A severe hunger crisis is unfolding in Ethiopia's Tigray region due to drought and the aftermath of war, putting over two million people at risk of starvation (BBC).
East Asia
Japan’s population declined for the 15th consecutive year, despite a record number of foreign residents in the country (NHK).
South Asia
India is closing in on China’s position as the largest country in a key emerging market index, driven by strong economic growth and investor interest (FT).
Space
The DRACO project aims to build nuclear-powered spacecraft, with Lockheed Martin designing a craft that offers significant improvements over current chemical space engines (Ars Technica). Olympus Mons on Mars, the largest volcano in the solar system, is enormous. (Space.com).
Government
President Biden ended his re-election campaign and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, who aims to unify and lead the Democratic party to victory (NYT 🔒). Kamala Harris has gained significant ground in polls, nearly tying with Donald Trump, showing increased support among nonwhite voters and Democrats (WSJ 🔒). Senator Bob Menendez announced his resignation following a corruption conviction, ending his long political career (Politico).
Economy
The robust U.S. job market has cooled, with rising unemployment and fewer job openings compared to the pandemic boom period (WSJ 🔒). The U.S. federal deficit is growing due to demographic and healthcare costs, sparking debate over spending and tax policies (Bloomberg 🔒). Economic growth in the U.S. accelerated in the second quarter, driven by increased consumer spending and business investments (WSJ 🔒). Rising borrowing costs are straining American households, with increased interest rates on mortgages and consumer debt (WSJ 🔒). The share of overdue credit card balances in the U.S. reached the highest level since 2012, indicating economic stress among consumers (Bloomberg). Police departments are aggressively recruiting with offers of high salaries to address a workforce shortage exacerbated by the pandemic (WSJ 🔒).
Business
Amazon's Alexa-enabled devices, while popular, have not generated significant revenue as expected, being used mostly for free applications (WSJ 🔒). Workers on the World of Warcraft team voted to unionize, expanding organized labor within Microsoft's gaming division (Bloomberg 🔒). Companies are shifting from traditional DEI efforts to a focus on merit, excellence, and intelligence in hiring practices, reflecting a new corporate trend (WSJ 🔒).
Personal Finance
Black millennials are experiencing better economic mobility compared to previous generations, narrowing the income gap with their white counterparts (NYT 🔒). Employment improvements in a community can significantly boost the economic prospects of children from that area, regardless of their parents' employment status (WSJ🔒).
Cyber
TikTok is accused by the U.S. government of collecting sensitive data on users' views on topics like gun control, abortion, and religion, raising national security concerns (WSJ 🔒). Roblox faces significant issues with predators exploiting the platform to target children, highlighting the dangers inherent in its child-centric model (Bloomberg). Google has decided to retain cookies in its Chrome browser after facing opposition to its plan to eliminate them (WSJ 🔒). Google’s acquisition talks with cybersecurity startup Wiz fell apart, impacting its expansion plans in the security sector (WSJ 🔒).
Artificial Intelligence
AI-generated country music artists are achieving significant streaming success on Spotify with cover songs, raising questions about authenticity and revenue generation in the music industry (Whiskey Riff).
Life
Americans are increasingly opting for childlessness, contributing to the country’s record-low birthrate as personal and professional ambitions take precedence over family life (WSJ 🔒). A persistent lifeguard shortage across the U.S. has led to increased drowning incidents and limited access to public swimming facilities (USA Today).
Health
Hospitals are recovering from pandemic-related staffing shortages, enabling them to reopen services and meet growing patient demand (WSJ 🔒). The rapid growth of nurse practitioners in the U.S. healthcare system is raising concerns about training quality and patient safety (Bloomberg).
Food & Drink
Coffee prices are set to rise further due to supply disruptions and increasing demand, impacting consumers globally (Bloomberg 🔒). Cracker Barrel plans to modernize its restaurants and menus to attract younger customers while maintaining its traditional appeal (NY Post).
Travel
Southwest Airlines is moving away from open seating to assigned seats with some offering extra legroom, aiming to enhance passenger experience and boost revenue (WSJ 🔒).
Entertainment
The podcast industry is dominated by a few blockbuster shows that command most of the revenue and audience, overshadowing smaller, independent podcasts (WSJ 🔒). An analysis explores how popular music has changed throughout the years and the impact of various technologies (Stat Significant). The Beatles’ “A Hard Day’s Night” this week, a fun comedy from 1964 featuring the Beatles and their grandfather, full of catchy songs and clever quips (IMDB). The YouTube show “Skibidi Toilet,” about toilets with human heads, is becoming one of the most valuable franchises in Hollywood, with plans for product lines and potential TV and movie adaptations (Washington Post). Disney+, Hulu, and Max launched a bundle deal, allowing subscribers to save up to 38% on the price of subscribing to each service individually, marking a significant shift in the video streaming landscape (NPR).
Sports
Athletes at the Paris 2024 Olympics are sleeping on cardboard beds, designed to be sturdy and recyclable, as part of the event’s sustainability efforts (Wired). For forty years, the Olympics awarded medals to artists in competitions alongside athletic events, integrating arts into the games until 1952 (Honest Broker). The extinct Olympic sport of distance plunge, which involved a standing dive and floating motionless, was labeled the dullest of all time for its lack of action and excitement (BBC). In minor league baseball, luxury suites are becoming popular, offering an upscale experience at a fraction of the cost of major league suites, attracting groups willing to splurge on high-end experiences (WSJ 🔒).
For Fun
Dude Perfect, with the help of the U.S. Air Force, dropped 1000 basketballs from a C17 to see if they could make one, marking their biggest stunt ever (YouTube).
THE SLOW BREW ☕
A more relaxed approach to the summaries.
World
Singapore has world’s most powerful passport after unseating Europeans (Bloomberg🔒) 📊
Singapore edged past France, Germany, Italy and Spain to reclaim bragging rights as having the world’s most powerful passport. Having a Singapore passport means getting visa-free entry to a record 195 global destinations, putting the city state at the top on the Henley Passport Index. The four European countries, which held the No. 1 spot earlier in the year, are now in second place along with Japan. The US dropped one spot to eighth place, extending its decade-long slide down the index. The former passport powerhouse held a joint first place with the UK a decade ago. The UK now ranks fourth. Afghanistan’s travel document, which allows visa-free entry to 26 destinations, remains the world’s weakest.
NOTE: Surprisingly, a North Korean passport gets you into 41 destinations visa-free:
China’s global activity: Building grabs the spotlight from owning (AEI) 📊
Since 2005, China has invested nearly $2.5 trillion globally in investments and construction. While China’s documented global investments saw a modest decline in 2024, AEI’s Derek Scissors warns that America is still not taking the necessary steps to properly compete with Beijing on the international stage. China has heavily invested in Europe, West Asia, and East Asia. Saudi Arabia and Pakistan have received the most Chinese construction investment, totaling $53.9 billion and $52.6 billion, respectively. [The author] notes that the US will face severe risks if it doesn’t better protect itself economically and reassess some of its investments. America's investment portfolio in China reached $910 billion at the end of 2022, and policymakers have failed to assess the risks to US supply chains and technology.
North America
Secret Service Director resigns amid anger over Trump shooting (WSJ🔒)
Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle resigned Tuesday amid bipartisan outrage over her agency’s failure to stop a 20-year-old gunman from opening fire on former President Donald Trump during a campaign rally. Cheatle’s departure came after a blistering congressional hearing in which she offered minimal new information about the July 13 assassination attempt in western Pennsylvania, which marked the Secret Service’s most stunning failure since President Ronald Reagan was shot in 1981.
Bus by bus, Texas’ Governor changed migration across the U.S. (NYT🔒) 📊
In two years, Texas has bused more than 119,000 people to Democrat-led cities, shifting both migration patterns and the debate over immigration. The list of cities keeps expanding. A New York Times analysis of state records, immigration data collected by Syracuse University and records from the destination cities, as well as interviews with dozens of migrants, city officials and immigration organization leaders, show that the Texas program is continuing to expand its reach — new target cities include Boston, Detroit and Albuquerque — and helping to reshape migration across the United States. “I took the border to them,” Mr. Abbott told a cheering crowd at the Republican National Convention, where drastically curbing migration, a centerpiece of former President Donald J. Trump’s campaign, has been a frequent theme. “Those buses will continue to roll until we finally secure our border.” In doing so, he appears to have succeeded in his stated aim: to shift the conversation around immigration in the United States, forcing Democrats to demand better border security and President Biden to reverse many of his pledges for a more welcoming immigration policy. “If one of his goals was drawing attention to what happens at the border in a way that many interior cities don’t feel on a regular basis, then yes, that was successful,” said Camille Joseph Varlack, the chief of staff to Mayor Eric Adams of New York.
Newsom orders California state agencies to start clearing homeless encampments (AP)
California Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered state agencies Thursday to start removing homeless encampments on state land in his boldest action yet following a Supreme Court ruling allowing cities to enforce bans on sleeping outside in public spaces. This executive order directs state agencies “to move urgently to address dangerous encampments while supporting and assisting the individuals living in them.” It also provides guidance for cities and counties to do the same, which applies pressure on them, though they are not legally bound to the order. California is home to roughly one-third of the nation’s population of homeless people, a problem that has dogged Newsom since he took office. There are thousands of tents and makeshift shelters across the state that line freeways, and fill parking lots and public parks.
NORAD intercepts Russian and Chinese bombers operating together near Alaska in first such flight (CNN)
The North American Aerospace Defense Command intercepted two Russian and two Chinese bombers flying near Alaska Wednesday in what a US defense official said was the first time the two countries have been intercepted while operating together. The bombers remained in international airspace in Alaska’s Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) and were “not seen as a threat,” according to a statement from NORAD. The US and Canada, which together comprise NORAD, intercepted the Russian TU-95 Bear and Chinese H-6 bombers. The aircraft did not enter US or Canadian sovereign airspace, NORAD said. It also marks the first time H-6 bombers, which are a derivative of older Soviet bombers, have entered the Alaska ADIZ, the defense official said. The intercept was carried out by US F-16 and F-35 fighter jets, as well as Canadian CF-18 fighter jets, according to the defense official.
Latin America
Leader of Mexico's Sinaloa drug cartel arrested in Texas (BBC)
One of the world's most powerful drug lords, Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada, leader of Mexico's Sinaloa cartel, has been arrested by US federal agents in El Paso, Texas. Zambada, 76, founded the criminal organisation with Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, who is currently jailed in the US. Arrested with Zambada on Thursday was Guzman's son, Joaquin Guzman Lopez, said the US justice department. In February, Zambada was charged by US prosecutors with a conspiracy to make and distribute fentanyl, a drug more powerful than heroin that has been blamed for the US opioid crisis. Citing Mexican and US officials, the Wall Street Journal reports that Zambada was tricked into boarding the plane by a high-ranking Sinaloa member following a months-long operation by Homeland Security Investigations and the FBI. Believing that he was going to inspect clandestine airstrips in southern Mexico, Zambada was instead flown to a private airfield outside El Paso, Texas. Believing that he was going to inspect clandestine airstrips in southern Mexico, Zambada was instead flown to a private airfield outside El Paso, Texas.
Cuba admits to massive emigration wave: a million people left in two years amid crisis (Miami Herald)
A stunning 10% of Cuba’s population — more than a million people — left the island between 2022 and 2023, the head of the country’s national statistics office said during a National Assembly session Friday, the largest migration wave in Cuban history. The data confirmed reporting by the Miami Herald and Cuban independent media that sounded the alarm over the mass migration of Cubans amid a severe economic downturn and a government crackdown on dissent in recent years.
Sharks off Brazil coast test positive for cocaine (Sky News)
Researchers have long suggested that sea life could be impacted by drugs dumped into the water by smugglers, with tonnes of cocaine found around Florida, South and Central America. A study from the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation in Brazil has now found evidence sharks are in fact being affected by drugs polluting the ocean. The scientists dissected 13 wild Brazilian sharpnose sharks that were bought from small fishing vessels, as the species spend their entire lives in coastal waters and were therefore most likely to be affected by pollution. All 13 sharks were positive for the drug, with a concentration as much as 100 times higher than previously reported for other aquatic creatures, the scientists found.
NOTE: Ain’t nothin’ worse than a shark…high on cocaine. We definitely need more lifeguards (see Life section).
Europe
Threats to Olympics turn Paris into an open-air fortress (WSJ🔒)
France is transforming its capital city into an open-air fortress, rolling out the largest peacetime security operation in the country’s history to protect athletes, residents and more than 10 million visitors during the Olympic Games. Officials say as many as 45,000 police, 10,000 soldiers and 22,000 private security guards will keep watch at the Paris Olympics, which began Wednesday and spans the heart of the city—on streets, at landmarks and in the waters of the Seine River. Authorities are preparing for potential attacks by Islamist militants, as well as state-sponsored sabotage originating in Russia or Iran, French officials said. Wars in Ukraine and Gaza have magnified those threats, according to Western officials and security experts. France is mobilizing nearly three times as many security personnel as the number deployed for the London Olympics, the last one held in Europe.
Arson attacks paralyze French high-speed rail network hours before start of Olympics (AP)
France’s high-speed rail network was hit Friday with widespread and “criminal” acts of vandalism including arson attacks, paralyzing travel to Paris from across the rest of France and Europe only hours before the grand opening ceremony of the Olympics. French officials condemned the attacks as “criminal actions,” though they said there was no sign of a direct link to the Games, and prosecutors in Paris opened a national investigation saying the crimes could carry sentences of 15 to 20 years. As Paris authorities geared up for a spectacular parade on and along the Seine River, three fires were reported near the tracks on the high-speed lines of Atlantique, Nord and Est, causing disruptions that affected hundreds of thousands of travelers. French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal wrote on the social media platform X that France’s intelligence services have been mobilized to find the perpetrators.
Macron rejects French left’s pick for Prime Minister (NYT🔒)
A coalition of France’s left-wing parties on Tuesday tapped a little-known civil servant to be prime minister, unexpectedly ending weeks of bickering after snap parliamentary elections plunged the country into political gridlock. But President Emmanuel Macron immediately rejected the coalition’s pick, Lucie Castets. In his first interview since the elections, Mr. Macron said that he would not appoint a new government until mid-August at the earliest, and that his current cabinet would remain in a caretaker capacity for the duration of the Paris Summer Olympics, which start this week. The French president alone has the power to appoint the prime minister and the cabinet. His choice must, theoretically, reflect the political balance in Parliament, but there is no constitutionally mandated deadline for him to choose.
Middle East
Netanyahu defends Gaza war as protesters rally outside US Congress (BBC)
Israel's PM Benjamin Netanyahu told US lawmakers "our enemies are your enemies" in a landmark speech to Congress intended to rally support for the war against Hamas in Gaza, but marked by pro-Palestinian protests inside and outside the Capitol. "When we fight Iran, we're fighting the most radical and murderous enemy of the United States of America," Mr Netanyahu said. "Our fight is your fight, and our victory will be your victory," he added. The Israeli leader received a raucous reception from mostly Republican politicians as he delivered a speech to a joint session of Congress, his fourth. In contrast, Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat and the former Speaker of the US House of Representatives, criticised the address in a post on X. Ms Pelosi did not attend the address, instead meeting with Israelis affected by the 7 October Hamas attack, according to a statement from her office.
Biden, Netanyahu meet amid push for Gaza cease-fire (WSJ🔒)
President Biden met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House on Thursday, aiming to close the remaining gaps in a Gaza cease-fire deal after months of fruitless negotiations. The Biden administration believes the gap between Israel and Hamas is narrow enough to be closed if those issues can be worked out, a senior administration official said. “It’s time to move to close that agreement,” the official told reporters Wednesday. The mood darkened as negotiations bogged down in debates over new demands that Israeli security officials and Arab negotiators say Netanyahu has raised late in the process. Arab negotiators say a number of issues remain in contention, including the number of live hostages to be released, control of the border between Gaza and Egypt, whether Israel will have a veto over which Palestinian prisoners can be released under the deal, and whether Israel will be able to resume fighting after the initial cease-fire.
‘A Rubik’s Cube in the sky’: Israel struggles to defend against drones (WSJ🔒)
Israel has a problem with drones. They can be small and hard to detect, and they don’t move on predictable trajectories or emit the intense heat of rocket engines that make missiles easier to track and destroy. They are also cheap and plentiful, and are being deployed by the country’s adversaries in increasing numbers and sophistication. Hezbollah has demonstrated the ability to strike Israel with drones in the near daily exchanges of fire since the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attack in which Israeli authorities say 1,200 people were killed and some 250 were taken hostage, prompting Israel’s invasion of the Gaza Strip. The group often sends several at once—at least one for reconnaissance and another rigged with explosives—and has hit border towns and military bases, killing and injuring civilians and soldiers. It also has hit sensitive military equipment—including a radar surveillance balloon called Sky Dew in May and a multimillion-dollar antidrone system called Drone Dome in June.
Africa
Satellite images and doctor testimony reveal Tigray hunger crisis (BBC) 📊
A humanitarian crisis is unfolding in the north of Ethiopia, driven by drought, crop failure and continued insecurity in the aftermath of a brutal war. With local officials warning that more than two million people are now at risk of starvation, the BBC has gained exclusive access to some of the worst affected areas in Tigray province, and analysed satellite imagery to reveal the full scale of the emergency the region now faces. The month of July is a critical period for food security, when farmers need to plant crops to take advantage of the seasonal rains. The satellite images we have identified show that reservoirs, and the farmlands they help irrigate, have dried up because the rains failed last year. They now need to be replenished by seasonal rains if farmers are to stand any hope of a successful season later in the year.
East Asia
Japan's population declines for 15th consecutive year (NHK World) 📊
Japan's population has dropped for the 15th consecutive year, while the number of foreign residents in the country has hit a record high. The Internal Affairs Ministry says the number of people living in Japan as of January 1 this year was just over 124.885 million, a decline of about 531,700, or 0.42 percent, from a year ago.
South Asia
India closes in on China as largest emerging market (Financial Times) 📊
India is catching up on China’s spot as the largest country in a benchmark emerging-market index, underlining a quandary for global investors who are becoming increasingly exposed to its ebullient but expensive stock market. Soaring share prices, stock sales and earnings growth by Indian companies have pushed India to just under a fifth of the MSCI emerging markets index while China has fallen to a quarter, from more than 40 per cent in 2020. An MSCI index review scheduled for next month could elevate India to above 20 per cent, eclipsing Taiwan and putting India’s weighting directly behind China’s, investors say. The narrowing gap has become one of the biggest issues for investors in emerging markets this year, as they debate whether to put capital into an already red-hot Indian market, or into Chinese stocks that are relatively cheap, but are being hit by an economic slowdown. “The two consensus trades in emerging markets today are ‘long India, short China’,” said Varun Laijawalla, emerging markets portfolio manager at NinetyOne, the asset manager. “The valuation spread between these two markets is as wide as it’s ever been,” he added. Indian stocks are trading at 24 times their expected earnings next year, while China is at just 10 times.
Space
We’re building nuclear spaceships again—this time for real (Ars Technica)
DRACO will be a medium-sized spacecraft, under 15 meters long with a diameter below 5.4 meters—dimensions dictated by the size of the standard payload fairing of the Vulcan Centaur rocket on which it will probably be launched. “We are familiar with liquid hydrogen, spacecraft systems engineering, and integration. We have the right skillset and the right people to build this thing,” said Shireman. DRACO will work like NERVA-type rockets, with hydrogen tanks located at the head of the propulsion compartment, turbomachinery feeding this hydrogen through the core (fitted right behind them), but separated from the core by a radiation shield. The HALEU reactor will be surrounded by control drums and sit in front of an exhaust nozzle. Based on DARPA requirements, DRACO will have at least 700 seconds of specific impulse, which is over 300 seconds better than the RL-10, the best-performing chemical space engine we have. “The main technical challenge here is working with liquid hydrogen stored at 20 K—very, very cold and really slippery molecules that like to slip out of wherever you put them,” Shireman said. For DRACO, Lockheed went for passive hydrogen cooling. The tanks will be thermally isolated to keep the Sun from heating them up. This way, the hydrogen should stay at 20 K for long enough to complete all tests. For longer missions, nuclear spaceships would need to rely on active cooling.
Olympus Mons: The largest volcano in the solar system (Space.com) 📊
NOTE: I went down a bit of a wormhole this past week learning about Olympus Mons, a volcano on Mars—the largest volcano in our solar system, and one of the largest mountains in our solar system. The outer edge of the mountain is mainly a five-mile-high cliff, which is roughly the height of Mt Everest. Said another way, you’d have to vertically scale the height of Mt Everest just to get to a point where you could hike the sloped portion of Olympus Mons. Here’s a picture for scale:
The mountain is roughly 370 miles wide--the width of France, or Poland, or Colorado. This is all even more remarkable considering the size difference between the Earth and Mars, as you can see in the image below.
In terms of area, Olympus Mons comprises 0.78% of the surface of Mars, which may not seem like a lot, until you consider that same percent on earth would be 3.9M sq km--larger than area of India, and about size of the western half of the US. That’s a big volcano.
Government
Biden drops out of presidential race and endorses Harris (NYT🔒)
After intense pressure from within his own party, President Biden said he was ending his campaign and backing Vice President Kamala Harris to run in his place. Ms. Harris said she would seek the nomination, adding: “Together, we will fight. And together, we will win.”
Harris erases Trump’s lead, WSJ poll finds (WSJ🔒) 📊
The presidential race between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump is essentially tied, according to a new Wall Street Journal poll that shows heightened support for her among nonwhite voters and dramatically increased enthusiasm about the campaign among Democrats. The former president leads the current vice president 49% to 47% in a two-person matchup, but that is within the margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points. Trump held a six-point lead earlier this month over President Biden before he exited the race and backed Harris.
Sen. Bob Menendez to resign next month following corruption conviction (Politico)
Sen. Bob Menendez — who was found guilty earlier this month on all 16 counts in his corruption trial — said Tuesday he will resign from office effective Aug. 20, ending a 50-year career in politics that reached the heights of power on the world stage.dddd
Economy
The hottest job market in a generation is over (WSJ🔒) 📊
Americans’ once-in-a-generation job market has come to an end. The red-hot hiring and rock-bottom unemployment that helped millions of workers find new gigs, boost their wages and reinvent their careers are giving way to more prosaic times. While the market is still healthy by many measures, signs of difficulty are creeping in. The unemployment rate ticked up to 4.1% last month—the first time it has crossed above 4% since 2021. That’s still low by historical measures, but it’s up from 3.4% early last year. Workers have stopped quitting jobs at a frenzied pace, and college grads are having a hard time breaking into the market at all. The number of open positions for every unemployed person is back to the prepandemic level of 1.2, down from over 2 in 2022. And while the risk of getting laid off is still low, hiring has fallen beneath its pre-Covid level. Many economists see a job market that has come back into balance, though some worry that conditions could continue worsening. Economists say the historically unusual dynamics that caused the boom—an economy that shut down and then roared back to life during a pandemic—were always going to be fleeting.
Why is the US deficit so big? Depends on who you ask (Bloomberg🔒) 📊
The US is on track to run its largest federal deficit outside of crisis times such as the Covid-19 pandemic, the global financial meltdown and World War II. The extra-large shortfall is more fuel for the election year blame game in Washington, with Republicans decrying out-of-control Democratic spending and Democrats retorting that the culprit is Republican tax cuts that have shriveled revenue. But a closer look shows a more complicated picture. The trouble isn’t coming from outlays the White House and Congress must agree on each year for everything including defense, education, national parks and nutritional assistance. At 6.4% of GDP, discretionary spending in the current budget is projected to be below the 40-year average of 7.5%. Instead, the increased deficit stems from “factors that are external to the budgeting process,” says Shai Akabas, executive director of the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Economic Policy Program. “It’s largely being driven by demographics and health-care costs.” Broadly speaking, there are two culprits: the mandatory programmatic spending, or so-called entitlements, to which Akabas alludes, and the interest costs on the national debt. Mandatory outlays have grown steadily over the years and are set to reach 14.6% of GDP this fiscal year, a full 3 percentage points above the 40-year average. That growth is driven largely by Social Security and health-care programs that have expanded with the rapid climb in the number of Americans age 65 and over. The Social Security Administration estimates there will be more than 67 million people receiving benefits in 2024, an increase of more than 8 million since 2015. At the same time, payments on the $27.8 trillion debt held by the public have surged because of higher interest rates. Since the Federal Reserve began raising rates to combat inflation in March 2022, the average rate the government pays on Treasuries has more than doubled, to 3.3%.
Economic growth quickens, rising at 2.8% rate in second quarter (WSJ🔒) 📊
The U.S. economy accelerated in the second quarter as consumers increased their spending, businesses invested more in equipment and stocked inventories, and inflation cooled. Gross domestic product—the value of all goods and services produced in the U.S., adjusted for inflation and seasonality—rose at an annual rate of 2.8% for April through June to $22.9 trillion, the Commerce Department said Thursday. That was faster than the 1.4% pace in the first quarter, and well above the 2.1% rate economists had expected. Household spending, the main driver of the U.S. economy, increased at a quicker pace as Americans’ incomes continued to rise.
American borrowers are on shakier ground. These charts show why. (WSJ🔒) 📊
The American economy has held up well against higher inflation and interest rates. Many individual borrowers haven’t. Predictions for a recession this year have largely faded. Employers have added jobs at a healthy clip month after month. Households have continued to spend. Many locked in ultralow mortgage rates before the Federal Reserve began its campaign to curb inflation in 2022. But Americans who need to borrow now stand on shakier ground. The costs to borrow for a home, a car or on a credit card are at the highest levels in decades, after the Fed raised rates nearly a dozen times in the past two years. The total amount of interest consumers paid on mortgages in 2023 rose 14% from a year earlier, according to Bureau of Economic Analysis data. It jumped 50% for other types of consumer debt, such as credit cards and auto loans. This is in many ways the desired effect, since higher rates are meant to cool the economy. The central bank has penciled in just one rate cut this year, though more investors are betting on multiple cuts after promising inflation data. Inflation has eased significantly since the pandemic, but years of faster-than-usual price increases have added up. Many households have spent down the glut of cash they saved in the pandemic. The top 10% of households by income, or those earning $245,000 or more a year, hold more than three-quarters of excess savings, according to Moody’s Analytics.
Share of US credit cards past due climbs to highest since 2012 (Bloomberg🔒) 📊
The share of credit card balances past due reached a series high in Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia data back to 2012, adding to a variety of figures indicating emerging fissures in the US economy. Some 2.6% of credit card balances were 60 days past due in the first quarter, according to data published Wednesday. That’s up from a low of 1.1% reached in 2021, when consumers were bolstered by pandemic-era support programs.
Come make $100,000, the billboard says: Police departments are hustling for recruits (WSJ🔒)
Policing, like teaching and nursing, has struggled to get and keep workers since the pandemic. Burned-out employees have resigned or retired. There were nearly 19,000 fewer officers in 2023 than 2019, a 3% drop, according to Labor Department data. Hiring can be especially hard for departments in or around big cities. Usually, officers tended to progress from police departments in small and medium-size cities to large ones, said Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, a nonprofit based in Washington, D.C. Now, many want the opposite, especially in the years since a police officer killed George Floyd in Minneapolis in 2020. Small and medium agencies have more sworn officers than they did before the pandemic, according to the nonprofit’s survey last year of more than 200 police departments. Big agencies have fewer officers than they used to.
Business
Alexa is in millions of households—and Amazon is losing billions (WSJ🔒)
When Amazon launched the Echo smart home devices with its Alexa voice assistant in 2014, it pulled a page from shaving giant Gillette’s classic playbook: sell the razors for a pittance in the hope of making heaps of money on purchases of the refill blades. A decade later, the payoff for Echo hasn’t arrived. While hundreds of millions of customers have Alexa-enabled devices, the idea that people would spend meaningful amounts of money to buy goods on Amazon by talking to the iconic voice assistant on the underpriced speakers didn’t take off. Customers actually used Echo mostly for free apps such as setting alarms and checking the weather. “We worried we’ve hired 10,000 people and we’ve built a smart timer,” said a former senior employee.
Microsoft’s ‘World of Warcraft’ gaming staff votes to unionize (Bloomberg🔒)
World of Warcraft workers have voted to unionize the popular video-game franchise, expanding organized labor’s new foothold at Microsoft Corp. by around 500 employees. An arbitrator overseeing an election at the company determined that a majority of the Warcraft team’s employees have supported the Communications Workers of America, the union said. Their organizing effort, which brings the number of unionized US gaming employees at Microsoft to around 1,750, was buoyed by the company’s unusually union-friendly stance. The new bargaining unit, which includes artists, designers, engineers, producers and quality assurance testers, could help spur more organizing at the company.
Merit, excellence and intelligence: An anti-DEI approach catches on (WSJ🔒)
From tech to tractors, companies are dialing back diversity, equity and inclusion efforts. Instead, a DEI alternative endorsed by Elon Musk could alter the fate of your next job application. It’s known as MEI, short for merit, excellence and intelligence. As described by Scale AI Chief Executive Alexandr Wang, who helped popularize the term, MEI means hiring the best candidates for open roles without considering demographics. The embrace of MEI by some prominent business leaders—including Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong and Sequoia Capital partner Shaun Maguire—reflects frustration with corporate diversity initiatives. Human-resources professionals who have led DEI programs say efforts like unconscious bias training, or recruiting from historically Black colleges and universities are intended to make personnel decisions more meritocratic by ensuring people’s identities don’t hold them back. Yet even champions of DEI policies say plans to diversify companies are sometimes articulated poorly or carried out in ways that appear to go beyond leveling the playing field, such as when businesses pledge to hire more people of one race. Hodges says some DEI programs have been set up to fail. Companies may underinvest in them or appoint inexperienced diversity chiefs not trained to withstand the inevitable pushback. SHRM, the country’s leading human-resources lobby, dropped “equity” from the name of its diversity program this month, saying the shortcomings of some corporate approaches had triggered “societal backlash.”
Personal Finance
Who can achieve the American dream? Race matters less than it used to. (NYT🔒) 📊
The researchers found that Black millennials born to low-income parents had an easier time rising than the previous Black generation did. At the same time, white millennials born to poor parents had a harder time than their white Gen X counterparts. Black people still, on average, make less money than white people, and the overall income gap remains large. But it has narrowed for Black and white Americans born poor — by about 30 percent. The community you come from has a huge effect on your economic mobility. For centuries, this meant a tremendous advantage for white Americans, even those born into low-income families. But in a surprising shift, the study suggests that advantage is not as large as it once was. In some ways, the research might prove politically controversial. Conservatives have long argued that white working-class Americans fell behind, while liberals have emphasized helping minority groups through policies like affirmative action. The left points out that Black and brown people remain far behind their white counterparts and therefore need more help from social programs. The right believes that’s outdated thinking, if it was ever correct. The study provides fodder for both sides.
What gives poor kids a shot at better lives? Economists find an unexpected answer (WSJ🔒) 📊
Analyzing data covering a near universe of Americans born from 1978 to 1992, the researchers found that when employment among the poor parents of children in a community improves, those children are better off economically as adults. It is a dynamic that some researchers have suspected, but that has never been shown systematically. Importantly, it doesn’t rely on whether a child’s own parents are employed: Outcomes also improve for children who simply grow up in a neighborhood where more parents have jobs. In other words, their own parents might be unemployed, but if their schoolmates’ parents work, their outcomes will be better. The dynamic works in reverse too: In places where parental employment deteriorates, the opposite happens—children do worse as adults. For poor white children born in 1978, vast swaths of the U.S. were a land of opportunity. Apart from some areas, such as Appalachia and Rust Belt areas of Michigan and Ohio, these children overall had a good chance of making it to a higher rung on the income ladder than their parents. For poor white children born in 1992, the map was more constrained. While some parts of America, such as the upper Midwest, remained bastions of opportunity, much of the U.S. did worse. Children with parents at the 25th percentile who grew up in Milwaukee had lower income when they turned 27 in 2019—an inflation-adjusted $30,619—than their older counterparts had.
Cyber
TikTok collected U.S. users’ views on gun control, abortion and religion, U.S. says (WSJ🔒)
TikTok collected data about its users’ views on sensitive topics and censored content at the direction of its China-based parent company, the Justice Department said Friday, making its most forceful case to date that the video-sharing app poses a national-security threat. The sensitive topics TikTok tracked included the views of its U.S.-based users on gun control, abortion and religion, the Justice Department said. The Justice Department made the details public in court filings late Friday in response to a federal lawsuit TikTok filed in May arguing that a new law requiring a sale or ban of the popular social-media app violates the free-speech rights of millions of Americans under the banner of national security. The measure bans Chinese-backed TikTok in the U.S. unless its parent company, ByteDance, divests itself of the platform by mid-January.
Roblox’s pedophile problem (Bloomberg🔒)
Unlike other mass-market social media apps, which bar kids under 13 or shunt them into sanitized versions, Roblox was made for children. More than 40% of its users are preteens, and with that market come special hazards. Since 2018, police in the US have arrested at least two dozen people accused of abducting or abusing victims they’d met or groomed using Roblox, according to data compiled by Bloomberg Businessweek. Some were already on sex offender registries or had been accused of abusing minors; there were also a sheriff’s deputy, a third-grade teacher and a nurse. In just the past 13 months there have been seven arrests, including those of a man in Florida accused of trying to kidnap a teen he played with on Roblox; a man charged with abducting an 11-year-old New Jersey girl he met on the platform; and a California man who allegedly abused a kid he, too, had met on Roblox. These predators weren’t just lurking outside the world’s biggest virtual playground. They were hanging from the jungle gym, using Robux to lure kids into sending photographs or developing relationships with them that moved to other online platforms and, eventually, offline.
Google is keeping cookies in Chrome after all (WSJ🔒)
In a major reversal, Google is ending a plan to eliminate cookies in its Chrome browser after four years of efforts, delays and disagreements with the advertising industry. The decision to keep the pervasive tracking technology known as “cookies” in Chrome comes after a series of setbacks, as both digital-advertising companies and regulators objected to the plan and to Google’s proposed replacement technologies. Chrome users can already choose to block cookies in the browser’s settings. Now, instead of eliminating them, Google will present users with a prompt to decide whether to turn cookies on or off, said the U.K. competition regulator, which has been overseeing Google’s plan to block cookies.
Google talks to acquire cybersecurity startup Wiz fall apart (WSJ🔒)
Alphabet unit Google’s talks to acquire the cybersecurity startup Wiz for a planned $23 billion have fallen apart, according to a person with knowledge of the discussions.
Artificial Intelligence
AI country artists like “Terry & The Dustriders” are racking up millions of streams with fake cover albums on Spotify (Whiskey Riff)
Anybody listened to that new Terry and the Dustriders album lately? Now, chances are you have no idea who that is. But they’ve managed to rack up millions of streams on Spotify with their album of country cover songs, featuring their versions of songs like “Wagon Wheel” from Darius Rucker and Carrie Underwood’s “Before He Cheats.” And their cover of Lady A’s “Need You Now” has more than 4 million streams since being released on their EP Dreamin’ of the Heartland last year. They’re also not real. Terry and the Dustriders are just one of many seemingly-AI “artists” posting music to Spotify and landing themselves on playlists that allow them to rack up major streaming numbers. The AI tracks are clearly meant to resemble the originals, because the guys singing Dan + Shay’s “10,000 Hours” sound nothing like the singer for “Wagon Wheel.” And then they must have found a female lead singer to cover Carrie Underwood’s track. How convenient. But when you look at their bio, the group claims to be “a duo from a small coal mining town in West Virginia.” (They also claim that the nearest Walmart is 75 miles away, and as somebody who is ACTUALLY from a small coal mining town in southern West Virginia, I can guarantee that there’s nowhere in the state where the nearest Walmart is 75 miles away). But Terry and the Dustriders are far from the only AI country artist who’s releasing music on Spotify and using it to make real money through fake covers that are added to playlists. Take a look at some of these other artists, like “Waterfront Wranglers,” “Highway Outlaws,” and “Saltwater Saddles.”
Life
Why Americans aren’t having babies (WSJ🔒) 📊
Americans aren’t just waiting longer to have kids and having fewer once they start—they’re less likely to have any at all. The shift means that childlessness may be emerging as the main driver of the country’s record-low birthrate. Women without children, rather than those having fewer, are responsible for most of the decline in average births among 35- to 44-year-olds during their lifetimes so far, according to an analysis of the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey data by University of Texas demographer Dean Spears for The Wall Street Journal. Childlessness accounted for over two-thirds of the 6.5% drop in average births between 2012 to 2022. But unlike their parents and grandparents, the authors say, younger Americans view kids as one of many elements that can create a meaningful life. Weighed against other personal and professional ambitions, the investments of child-rearing don’t always land in children’s favor. With less pressure to have kids, economists say, more people feel they need to be in the ideal financial, emotional and social position to begin a family.
Lifeguard shortage grips US as drownings surge, heat rages (USA Today)
A lifeguard shortage plaguing communities across the U.S. since the start of the pandemic has yet to relent. As heat rages on across the U.S., access to desperately needed pools in some cities is curtailed or shut down. And from Wells, Maine, to Anchorage, Alaska, while beaches are open to the public, too few are being watched by lifeguards. People are advised to swim at their own risk. About one-third of the nation’s public pools have been affected, causing reduced hours or closures, according to American Lifeguard Association estimates. Drowning deaths have been on the rise, especially among young children. Local news reports are rife with concerns and deadly consequences. An outcry followed the deaths last week in New York City of two sisters who drowned at Coney Island Beach two hours after lifeguards ended their shifts. Lifeguards are so critical in Florida that earlier this month, they made 21 water rescues in a single day off Panama City beaches, some of the deadliest in the U.S. because of rip currents. Six tourists died there last month, four within 48 hours – three taking a dip before evening shopping, the fourth a seminarian in training in town to shadow a student pastor.
Health
Hospitals make comeback after facing labor issues for years (WSJ🔒)
Hospitals are finally emerging from the pandemic’s lasting disruption to labor markets, adding nurses and other critical workers who left the market or job hopped for higher pay. HCA Healthcare and Tenet Healthcare, two of the nation’s largest hospital and surgery-center companies, reported this week their hospitals are busy and are expected to stay that way through the year. Hiring has opened up services they had closed because of the pandemic and a tight labor market, company executives say. Hospitals in recent years have struggled to recruit and keep staff, forcing some to scale back services or close units. Now, employment gains are opening up much needed capacity to meet demand where aging and growing populations have created long waits for treatment and backlogs in emergency rooms.
The miseducation of America’s nurse practitioners (Bloomberg🔒) 📊
There are already more than 300,000 nurse practitioners, and that figure is rising far faster than the number of doctors. In 2014 there was 1 NP for every 5 physicians and surgeons in the US, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Last year the ratio was 1 to 2.75. The gap is going to shrink further still: Nurse practitioner is the fastest-growing profession in the country, and the ranks are expected to climb 45% by 2032. After getting an advanced degree—typically a master’s or doctorate in nursing—and an additional license, nurse practitioners are allowed to treat patients in many of the same ways medical doctors do, including diagnosing ailments and prescribing medications. The shift has many benefits. For patients, more clinicians means getting care sooner. But this ongoing change also involves risks. Poorly trained NPs can pose serious dangers. In the worst cases, patients die. Dozens of nursing students and professors who talked to Bloomberg Businessweek say the problems result from the surging number of programs, which graduate thousands of NPs a year without adequately preparing some of them to care for patients. The former director of the largest NP program in the country says she can’t recall denying acceptance to a single student. More than 600 US schools graduated students with advanced nursing degrees in 2022, according to US Department of Education data. That’s triple the number of medical schools training physicians. More than 39,000 NPs graduated in the 2022 class, according to the AANP, up 50% from 2017. Unlike the training program for physicians, education for NPs isn’t standardized.
Food & Drink
Your cup of coffee is already expensive. It’s about to get even worse (Bloomberg🔒) 📊
Global coffee drinkers who’d hoped the price of their daily fix would soon stop rising are due for a bitter wake-up call: it’s about to get even worse. Both the high-end arabica beans favored by coffee chains like Starbucks Corp. and the more budget-friendly robusta variety have spiked in price, thanks to major supply disruptions from Vietnam to Brazil. Up and down the supply chain, sellers have been raising prices and scrapping discounts to protect their margins, and many warn of more increases ahead. It’s not just weather, though, that’s driving up prices. Emerging demand in markets like China promises to keep supplies tight. There’s also a growing recognition that coffee traders and roasters have long been underpaying farmers, a trend some buyers are trying to reverse to make the industry more sustainable. Higher profits incentivize producers to keep planting coffee instead of other crops and allow them to reinvest in making their trees more resilient to disease and climate risks. If coffee prices don’t go up for growers, there won’t be any reason for them to maintain long-term production. That’s what happened in the cocoa market, which jumped to never-before-seen prices this spring as production plummeted following decades of underinvestment. Some cash-strapped commodities traders were even forced to exit their coffee positions amid pressure from rallying cocoa futures. Exacerbating everything is the fact that roasters importing coffee into Europe will soon have to prove the beans weren’t grown on recently deforested land. Few countries are fully prepared to comply with the European Union Deforestation Regulation requirements, meaning supplies will be tight.
Cracker Barrel CEO reveals turnaround plan — after admitting chain ‘not as relevant’ (New York Post)
Cracker Barrel CEO Julie Felss Masino rolled out a new three-year plan to revive the struggling Southern-themed chain after she admitted the brand was “just not as relevant.” The down-home chain, featuring dishes like country fried steak along with the kitschy Old Country Store, plans to remodel its restaurants, offer new menu options, and improve technology for its loyalty program and to-go business. The massive revamp comes after the CEO admitted in May that the chain is “just not as relevant” as it used to be after slashing its yearly dividend from $1.30 per share to 25 cents a share. The challenge is to attract a new, younger consumer base without distancing its traditional senior customers. The 54-year-old biscuits-and-gravy chain has been struggling since seniors – a large chunk of their consumer base – fled dining locations during the pandemic and haven’t fully returned. About 10% of seniors overall have not returned to their pre-pandemic eating out habits, Truist analyst Jake Bartlett previously told The Post.
Travel
Southwest Airlines is ditching open seating on flights (WSJ🔒)
Southwest Airlines will soon assign seats on flights and sell some with extra legroom, making sweeping changes in a bid to broaden its appeal to passengers and boost revenue. The plans, announced Thursday, also come as Southwest fends off an activist investor pushing for an overhaul of the airline’s leadership and operating strategy. Open seating has been a hallmark of Southwest flights since the airline got its start more than 50 years ago. It was part of a business model that produced decades of uninterrupted profits and democratized flying in the process. But Southwest executives said the company needs to adapt to what today’s customers want, marking what might be its biggest-ever shift.
Entertainment
A few blockbuster podcasts are making all the money (WSJ🔒) 📊
The podcast industry was initially a way for a crowd of voices from culture watchers to true-crime nerds to talk about everything from murders to science and sex. All you needed was a decent microphone. Now, podcasting is turning into an industry of megastars who command the most money and the biggest audiences. There are still nearly 450,000 active shows that have published recent episodes, according to Podcast Industry Insights. But the top 25 podcasts reach nearly half of U.S. weekly listeners, according to Edison Research. The top talents have tours, merchandise and multiyear deals in the nine figures. Big advertisers want in.
How has music changed since the 1950s? A statistical analysis (StatSignificant) 📊
Since the time of printed compositions, music publishing has seen numerous mediums come and go: live performance, radio, vinyl, cassette tapes, music videos, CDs, Napster, Limewire, iTunes, Pandora, Spotify, Youtube, Apple Music, and TikTok. With each change in distribution, artists adapt their acts to reflect shifting consumer preferences. So, how has popular music changed throughout the years? And how have various technologies impacted the content produced by musicians?
NOTE: Lots of great analysis and fun charts.
A Hard Day’s Night (IMDb)
NOTE: I watched the Beatles’ “A Hard Day’s Night” this week. It’s rated a 7.4 on IMDB (which is higher than the current Twisters movie). Admittedly, it’s a fun romp with the Beatles (and one of their grandfathers). Made in 1964, it’s a fun comedy that’ll have you tapping your foot to their songs and chuckling at the puns and clever quips. One of my favorites—Ringo: “Yeah ... funny really, 'cos I'd never thought of it but being middle-aged and old takes up most of your time, doesn't it?” Yes Ringo, it does. This is the second of Time Magazine’s Top 10 Concert Movies that I’ve watched. The other was Stop Making Sense featuring Talking Heads—which I highly recommend!
How ‘Skibidi Toilet’ became one of the most valuable franchises in Hollywood (Washington Post)
While big-budget movies vie for the top spot at the box office this summer, billions of people are clamoring to watch a YouTube show about toilets with human heads that is fast becoming one of the most valuable franchises in Hollywood. Alexey Gerasimov, the creator behind “Skibidi Toilet,” is working with leading independent Hollywood entertainment studio Invisible Narratives to expand the YouTube Shorts series into myriad product lines and a potential television and movie franchise similar to the Marvel universe or Transformers, executives involved with the project told The Washington Post. “I’ve always been a director that believes in taking risks,” filmmaker Michael Bay, who is working on the project with Invisible Narratives as chief creative adviser, told The Post. “Audiences yearn for fresh, new ideas. With ‘Skibidi,’ it’s a new world of what the younger generation is watching, and I’m taking it very seriously.” “Skibidi Toilet” is the first narrative series to be told entirely through short-form video and has already amassed over 65 billion views on YouTube last year alone, becoming among the most viewed content on the platform. It tells the story of toilets with human heads engaged in a war with people who have CCTV cameras, speakers and televisions for heads amid a dark and dystopian landscape. They battle one another across an expanding industrial world, with Skibidi Toilets acting on behest of their leader, G-Man, to destroy humanity and transform more people into Skibidi Toilets.
NOTE: I remember hearing about “Skibidi Toilet” last December and couldn’t believe it was a thing. Now I’m even more surprised that it’s taken so seriously…by Michael Bay nonetheless.
The streaming wars bring a new discounted bundle: Disney+, Hulu and Max (NPR)
Disney+, Hulu and Max launched a bundle deal Thursday, which can save subscribers up to 38% on the price of subscribing to each service individually. The collaboration between Disney Entertainment and Warner Bros. Discovery was first announced in May, and is now available to purchase on all of the three streaming services. While Disney has offered a bundle deal with its services Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+ since 2019, this is the first bundle offered with a competing streaming service. In a statement, Disney said the “new partnership puts subscribers first,” highlighting the wide variety of entertainment brands that will be included with the deal — from Family Guy to Game of Thrones. The bundle is the latest in a flurry of deals that are quickly changing the video streaming landscape. On Wednesday, the NBA signed an 11-year media rights deal with Disney, NBC and Amazon Prime Video. In May, Comcast announced a new streaming bundle with Peacock, Netflix and Apple TV+.
Sports
Why Paris 2024 Olympic athletes are sleeping on cardboard beds (Wired)
Yes, the athletes' beds at the Paris 2024 Olympics are indeed made of cardboard. The paper-based berth news, which has aroused curiosity and some skepticism after some videos of athletes circulated online, was confirmed by the organizers of the French Olympic Games, who let it be known that Airweave, the Japanese company that had managed the athletes' rest in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, has been dubbed the "official bedding supporter of the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games." These cardboard beds can be transported unassembled in relatively small containers, and then, once their function is over, they can be recycled. Yet despite the paper construction, the beds themselves, once put together properly, have been designed to be surprisingly sturdy—and for good reason.
When the Olympics gave medals to artists (Honest Broker)
...arts were part of the Olympics for forty years, from 1912 to 1952. Although the idea of artists competing for gold medals may seem bizarre, the practice actually goes back to the ancient Olympics. Sports competitions in ancient Greece always involved music. Sometimes it was integrated into the athletic competitions. But the local organizers of the early modern Olympics were not convinced. So there were no arts competitions in Athens (1896), Paris (1900), or St. Louis (1904). Finally, a plan for integrating the arts into the games was approved for the 1908 Olympics, originally planned for Rome; but when the event moved to London because of financial troubles due to the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius, the arts were again put on hold. The Baron did not abandon his plan, and pushed for arts competitions at the 1912 Stockholm games. The Swedes initially resisted, but finally agreed—although insisting that the artistic works submitted had to have some thematic connection to sports. Only a few artists participated, but medals were awarded in five categories. The gold medal in music went to Italian Riccardo Barthelemy—whose day gig was accompanying famous opera singer Enrico Caruso—for his “Olympic Triumphal March.” The high point of the Olympics art competition happened in Los Angeles in 1932. An exhibition of submitted works took place at the Los Angeles Museum of History, Science and Art, and drew almost 400,000 visitors. That’s far more people than can fit into the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum (which, in 2028, will become the first stadium to host three different Olympics).
The extinct Olympic sport that was the 'dullest' of all time (BBC) 📊
The distance plunge, as it was also known, defied the usual conventions of athletics. It didn't require superhuman strength, endurance, agility, speed, or even creative flair – in fact, apart from an initial dive, any form of exertion was strictly prohibited. But most of all, it was also, according to many contemporaries, eye-glazingly dull to watch, and holds the dubious distinction of having been labelled the lamest, weirdest and most boring Olympic sport of all time. But was it really that easy? And does it deserve its wearisome reputation? The rules of the plunge for distance were as particular as those for any sport. The competitor began with a regular standing dive, of the kind you might attempt into the hotel swimming pool on holiday – casual, and not particularly ambitious. This was the "plunge", and it was done from a height of 18 inches (46cm), without a diving board. Once the competitor had hit the water, they had to keep their body perfectly still – they could not move a muscle or propel themselves in any way. There were two ways of assessing performance: the winner was either the person who travelled the furthest before they were forced to raise their face to breathe, or the competitor who achieved the longest distance within one minute.
The hottest ballpark suite has AC, beef sliders and won’t break the bank (WSJ🔒)
For most people, luxury suites at major-league ballparks are well out of reach, typically the realm of C-suite executives and corporate expense accounts. They can cost upward of $20,000. Not so in the minor leagues, where suites are selling out across the country, attracting consumers who crave a luxury experience and can afford to splurge. While Americans are bitter about the past few years of rising inflation, many are still going all-out to pay for high-end experiences in travel and entertainment. Minor-league baseball, which has earned a reputation as good, cheap fun, is cashing in on the upsell. Minor-league teams say they are seeing friend and family groups split the costs for a night. For instance, in Buffalo, N.Y., suites for the Buffalo Bisons start at $600 for 12 people, which works out to $50 a person.
For Fun
We dropped 1000 basketballs from an airplane (Dude Perfect & the USAF) (YouTube)
Our BIGGEST stunt ever!? With the help of the U. S. Air Force we drop 1000 basketballs from a C17 to see if we can make one! Huge thanks to all the men and women of the Air Force that helped make this happen.
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.