Bloomberg News

Across much of the US, spring brings high winds and warmer weather -- and that often means wildfires. Already, blazes are raging near Miami and Houston. A fire in San Jacinto County’s Sam Houston National Forest has consumed about 2,375 acres, while a?brush fire in southeast Miami-Dade County has burned about 24,000 acres. Along with Texas and Florida, red-flag fire warnings have been posted in parts of Nebraska, Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas and New Mexico. The blazes in Texas and Florida come after wildfires in Los Angele killed 29 people and decimated entire neighborhoods earlier this year. Climate change is setting the stage for deadlier fires by worsening the drought conditions that dry out vegetation, creating fuel for blazes. It’s also contributing to?cascading extreme weather events that have unleashed billions of dollars in damages.?Read more from my Bloomberg News colleague Brian Sullivan. https://lnkd.in/eacnzFw6

Did you know that almost 40% of US students reported non-consensual intimate imagery was shared in their school community in the past year, with 15% saying the images were created using artificial intelligence? (Figures from a Center for Democracy and Technology survey of thousands of high school students.) In a new podcast, my colleague Olivia Carville and I unravel a twisting non-consensual deepfake pornography tale in Levittown, New York. It’s been dubbed America’s *first* suburb. But in 2023, it became known for hosting America’s *first* deepfake porn related conviction. The story began back in 2020, when Kayla’s dad walked into her room to show her an image on his phone. He often Googled his 20-year-old daughter’s name, but never expected to see her appear on an adult website. Turns out Kayla was one of dozens of girls in Levittown who would go on to be harassed by strangers on the internet at the hands of an anonymous poster –someone who they all seemed to have in common. As more pictures and personal information appeared online, the girls and their parents took matters into their own hands with some impressive digital sleuthing. They had no idea that investigators on the other side of the world were looking into the website and asking similar questions... Levittown wasn’t the place we expected to find a cautionary tale from the bleeding edge of technology. But as Olivia and I learned, something that seemed unfathomable just two years ago is now cropping up in numerous schools and communities across the country as “nudifying” apps – which remove clothing from pictures screenshot from social media – soar. Our first episode is out today. Listen to understand how side-effects of some of the most cutting-edge technologies are having a huge impact on young people, and join us on a wild journey around the shadowy corners of the internet. With a dream team Jeffrey Grocott, Caitlin Kenney, Gilda Di Carli, Julia Nutter, Kate Osborn, Dara Look-Potts, Neda Toloui-Semnani, Steve Bone, Samantha Stewart and more at Bloomberg News and Kaleidoscope

London’s Heathrow is providing a real-life lesson of what happens when Murphy’s Law collides with a single point of failure, says Javier Blas: utter chaos. A fire erupted at a major electrical substation on Thursday night, triggering a loss of power across a large area. By Friday morning, the airport — Europe’s busiest, and the world’s fourth most active travel hub — had shut down completely for the day, the UK’s worst air travel disruption in years. The closure suggests not paying for adequate back-up systems is a false #economy. Read the full column, no paywall: https://lnkd.in/e_M8ZzfD

London’s Heathrow airport suffered its worst disruption in two decades after a nearby fire cut power and brought travel to a standstill. Travelers are warned to expect days of disruption, as Alex Morgan explains https://trib.al/4Tu7Cjs

Magnets are all around us, powering everything from consumer tech to electric cars. Caroline Hyde explains why magnets are so important to the green energy revolution. Find out more on Bloomberg Primer?https://lnkd.in/eeXZUqd9

REACTION COLUMN: Heathrow provides a real-life lesson of what happens when Murphy’s Law collides with a single point of failure. Plus another lesson on the risk of not investing nearly enough in the final 10-miles or so of the electricity grid. "The crisis offers several lessons. For years, countries have cut corners in critical infrastructure, carrying cost-benefit analysis that time after time put too much emphasis on savings and too little on resilience. Meanwhile, as energy consumption shifts toward electricity, we need to invest far more into?the least sexy part of power system: The final 10 miles or so of the grid, where high-voltage current from overhead cables is transformed into medium-voltage for distribution to business and homes. It’s that network of super-transformers, substations and underground cables that requires massive spending. "Sadly, the current focus concentrates only on big projects on the green or fossil-fuel sides of the spectrum. Politicians love either wind and solar farms, or coal- and gas-fired power plants, and are willing to fight for them. Even the major overhead cable grid receives some attention. That last 10 miles of cables and equipment are largely forgotten. The chaos in Heathrow should be a wake-up call everyone — not just in the UK, but elsewhere." Bloomberg Opinion #Heathrow

Elon Musk sought to reassure Tesla employees that despite “rocky moments,” they should “hang onto” their stock, in an unannounced all-hands meeting in Austin.

At the Qatar Economic Forum, go beyond our plenary programming and dive deeper into curated breakout sessions developed by the Bloomberg Live Editorial team. https://bloom.bg/41aeO59 #QatarEconomicForum #?????_???_?????????

China’s BYD has unveiled a new lineup of electric cars that can charge almost as fast as it takes to refuel a regular car. Read about how the breakthrough could put an end to “charge anxiety” and impact the Chinese automaker’s biggest rivals, including Tesla. Danny Lee 李嘉洪 reports https://lnkd.in/e8PVR2JC

Investors are dismissing the risks that a full-fledged trade war would pose to stocks as “monster” flows of capital keep pouring into global equity markets, Bank of America’s Michael Hartnett says.