Curated Compositions-29 Apr 23
Brian Rendell
Leadership | Education | Business | Logistics | Talent Acquisition & Development
AFRICA
U.S. Conducts Emergency Evacuation of Embassy Personnel in Sudan
https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-conducts-emergency-evacuation-of-embassy-personnel-in-sudan-1a43ff4
The U.S. military conducted an emergency evacuation of dozens of American government personnel from the capital in Sudan after the security situation in Khartoum grew too?dangerous for the U.S. to maintain a presence there, White House officials said late Saturday. Several U.S. military aircraft, flying in the early morning hours local time, were?used to take American personnel from Khartoum to Camp Lemonnier in the East African nation of Djibouti. About 100 U.S. Special Forces took part in the mission to evacuate nearly 100 embassy personnel, American officials said. The U.S. also had concerns the fighting in Sudan might spread, and draw in neighboring countries. Rival generals, battling for control of Sudan, had already drawn support from regional powers, including a powerful Libyan militia leader and the Egyptian military, according to people familiar with the matter.
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Sudan Truce Extended, But Strikes Continue
Sudanese fighter jets pounded paramilitary positions in Khartoum on Thursday while deadly fighting and looting flared in Darfur, despite the army and a rival force agreeing to extend a ceasefire deal. In the final hours of a repeatedly broken three-day cease-fire, due to end at midnight (2200 GMT), the army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) announced a 72-hour extension following pressure from Saudi Arabia and the United States. There have been multiple truce efforts since fighting broke out on April 15 between Sudan's army led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the paramilitary RSF commanded by his deputy-turned-rival, Mohamed Hamdan Daglo. All have failed.
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Why Sudan’s conflict matters to the rest of the world
Fighting in Sudan between forces loyal to two top generals has put that nation at risk of collapse and could have consequences far beyond its borders. Both sides have tens of thousands of fighters, foreign backers, mineral riches and other resources that could insulate them from sanctions. It’s a recipe for the kind of prolonged conflict that has devastated other countries in the Middle East and Africa, from Lebanon and Syria to Libya and Ethiopia.
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Italy rescues around 1,600 migrants in Mediterranean in last two days
Italy has rescued 47 boats carrying around 1,600 migrants in the central Mediterranean sea in the last two days and brought them ashore to the island of Lampedusa. Italy's coastguard said in a statement late on Monday that it had taken to safety around 1,200 migrants but that at least 23 people were missing and one body was recovered at sea following three shipwrecks. Another 12 boats with around 400 migrants were rescued on Tuesday, according to news agency ANSA. The past months have seen a sharp increase in migrant boats trying to reach the Italian coast from Tunisia, which has become a more accessible departure point after crackdowns on human trafficking in Libya in recent months.
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Wagner Group surges in Africa as U.S. influence fades, leak reveals
The Wagner Group is moving aggressively to establish a “confederation” of anti-Western states in Africa as the Russian mercenaries foment instability while using their paramilitary and disinformation capabilities to bolster Moscow’s allies, according to leaked secret U.S. intelligence documents. The rapid expansion of Russia’s influence in Africa has been a source of growing alarm to U.S. intelligence and military officials, prompting a push over the past year to find ways to hit Wagner’s network of bases and business fronts with strikes, sanctions and cyber operations, according to the documents. At a time when Wagner leader Yevgeniy Prigozhin has been preoccupied with Kremlin infighting over the paramilitary group’s deepening involvement in the war in Ukraine, U.S. officials depict Wagner’s expanding global footprint as a potential vulnerability.
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ASIA
Foreign companies in China face growing scrutiny, pressure
Foreign companies are under growing pressure in China from anti-corruption, security and other investigations as President Xi Jinping’s government tightens control over business, clashing with efforts to lure back investors after the pandemic. This week, Bain & Co. said police questioned staff in its Shanghai office. The consulting company gave no details of what investigators were looking for. Last month, the corporate due diligence firm Mintz Group said its Beijing office was raided by police who detained five employees. Also last month, an employee of a Japanese drug maker was detained on spying charges and the government announced a security review of memory chip maker Micron Inc.
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India’s Population Surpasses China’s, Shifting the World’s ‘Center of Gravity’
China’s population has reigned as the largest in the world for more than two centuries. Now India is taking its place, heralding a major shift in the global order. The United Nations has said India’s population is projected to surpass China’s sometime this year. Many demographers estimate it could happen this month, if it hasn’t already. India’s population is expected to reach 1.429 billion by the end of the year, according to the U.N. China will fall to second place, with 1.426 billion people. Both dwarf the U.S. at a projected 340 million. In many ways, India looks like China did 30 years ago. It has a rapidly expanding working-age population, with 610 million people under age 25, and relatively few older people to care for. It will be the only nation with a big enough labor force to approach China as the world’s factory floor, though poor infrastructure and byzantine investment rules could stand in the way. China’s fertility rate, the number of children a woman has over her lifetime, was 1.18 last year—four decades after the country instituted its one-child policy. That’s well below the replacement rate of 2.1 needed to help keep the population stable. India’s is slightly lower than the replacement rate, at 2.0, but a large pool of women of childbearing age mean the population will keep growing for decades.?
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China's economy gathers speed, global risks raise challenges to outlook
China's economy grew at a faster-than-expected pace in the first quarter, as the end of strict COVID curbs lifted businesses and consumers out of crippling pandemic disruptions, although headwinds from a global slowdown point to a bumpy ride ahead. More than a year-long sweeping streak of global monetary policy tightening to rein in red-hot inflation has dented world economic growth, leaving many countries including China reliant on domestic demand to spur momentum and raising the challenge for policymakers looking for post-COVID stability. Gross domestic product grew 4.5% year-on-year in the first three months of the year, data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed on Tuesday, faster than the 2.9% in the previous quarter. It beat analyst forecasts for a 4.0% expansion and marked the strongest growth in a year.
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China’s Consumers Give Economy a Post-Covid Boost
For years, economists have warned that China’s economy suffered from an imbalance that made its rapid growth unsustainable. The country was too reliant on investments and didn’t have enough consumer spending. On Tuesday, China reported numbers that showed consumer spending was playing a stronger-than-expected role in driving its recovery after the country lifted its stringent zero-Covid measures. The big question is whether it will last. Beijing’s National Bureau of Statistics said Tuesday that the economy grew by 4.5% in the first three months of the year when compared with a year earlier, the fastest such rate of growth since the first quarter of 2022, and a marked improvement from the 2.9% rate in the last three months of last year.
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China’s Massive Fleet Of Radar Planes And The Strategy Behind It
While the rapid pace of developments across China’s military aerospace domain has been widely reported, the focus has typically been weighted toward fighter jets and, to a lesser extent, bombers. But with China having increasingly embraced the tenets of modern airpower, airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) platforms now play a critical and remarkably expansive role within its air force and navy. A sometimes-complex development path has led to a range of different in-service solutions for this mission. The fact that China's AEW&C fleet dwarfs that of the U.S. and is far younger in age is also a major factor to consider and underlines China's unique strategic mindset. With all that in mind, an in-depth survey of the Chinese military’s AEW&C capabilities is long-overdue.
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U.S., South Korea Pledge Cooperation on Potential Use of Nuclear Arms
The U.S. has agreed to give Seoul a greater voice in consultations on a potential American nuclear response to a North Korean attack in return for swearing off developing its own nuclear weapons, U.S. officials said. The accord would grant South Korea’s leadership a long-sought place at the table on the use of U.S. nuclear forces to defend the country, though the U.S. would still retain control over targeting and the execution of nuclear operations. Seoul, in return, would restate its commitment not to develop its own nuclear arsenal.
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EUROPE
Dominic Raab quits as UK deputy PM over bullying inquiry
British Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab resigned from the government on Friday after an independent report found he had bullied officials, the latest scandal to force out one of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's top ministers. The loss of a third senior minister over their personal conduct in six months will damage Sunak's bid to revive his Conservative Party's fortunes before local elections in May, and is an embarrassment as Sunak promised a government of integrity when he entered Downing Street in October.
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Ukraine’s Spring Offensive Comes With Immense Stakes for Future of the War
Ukraine is preparing to launch a counteroffensive against Russian forces as early as next month, American officials say, in the face of immense risks: Without a decisive victory, Western support for Ukraine could weaken, and Kyiv could come under increasing pressure to enter serious negotiations to end or freeze the conflict. Although Ukraine shares few details of its operational plan with American officials, the operation is likely to unfold in the country’s south, including along Ukraine’s coastline on the Sea of Azov, near the Russian-annexed Crimea. “Everything hinges on this counteroffensive,” said Alexander Vershbow, a former U.S. ambassador to Russia and senior NATO official. “Everybody’s hopeful, maybe over-optimistic. But it will determine whether there is going to be a decent outcome for the Ukrainians, in terms of recovering territory on the battlefield and creating much more significant leverage to get some kind of negotiated settlement.”
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Ukraine’s Counteroffensive: Will It Retake Crimea?
For any government interested in the outcome of Ukraine’s coming counteroffensive, few issues loom as large as Crimea. Kyiv’s leaders say they are determined to regain all territory lost in last year’s Russian invasion, as well as those areas—like Crimea itself—that were seized by Moscow’s “little green men” in 2014. Washington policymakers routinely insist that Ukraine’s war aims are for Ukraine alone to decide, yet they suspect that such grand aims exceed the country’s military capacity. They worry too that Russian President Vladimir Putin might even be ready to use nuclear weapons to hold on to the Black Sea peninsula—his single biggest foreign policy trophy.?How Crimea fits into the next round of warfare will depend on how the main players read the broader military, political, diplomatic, and even demographic landscape.?
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Russia digs in as Ukraine prepares to attack
The anti-tank ditches near Ukraine's occupied southeastern town of Polohy stretch for 30 km (19 miles). Behind are rows of concrete "dragon's teeth" barricades. Further back are defensive trenches where Russia's troops will be positioned. The defences visible in satellite imagery taken by Capella Space are part of a vast network of Russian fortifications sweeping down from western Russia through eastern Ukraine and on to Crimea built in readiness for a major Ukrainian attack.
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Ukraine vows 'iron fist' counterattack; Russian strikes kill 25
Ukraine said on Friday it was nearly ready to launch a huge ground assault to retake occupied land, after Russia hurled missiles at cities as people slept overnight, killing at least 25 civilians in its first large-scale air strikes in nearly two months. The war is coming to a crucial juncture after a months-long Russian winter offensive that gained little ground despite the bloodiest fighting so far. Kyiv is preparing a counteroffensive using hundreds of tanks and armoured vehicles sent by the West. It wants to drive Russia out of the nearly one fifth of Ukraine that it occupies and claims to have annexed.
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China’s Xi speaks with Zelensky for first time since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine
Chinese leader Xi Jinping and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky spoke by phone Wednesday, in their first known conversation since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, as Beijing ramps up efforts to position itself as a potential peacemaker in the grinding conflict. Zelensky, who has long expressed interest in speaking with Xi, said he had “a long and meaningful phone call” with the Chinese leader that lasted for an hour. “We discussed a full range of topical issues of bilateral relations. Particular attention was paid to the ways of possible cooperation to establish a just and sustainable peace for Ukraine,” Zelensky said in a statement. “There can be no peace at the expense of territorial compromises,” said Zelensky.
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Highest Military Spending in Europe Since Cold War: Study
Europe's military spending grew at a record pace in 2022, reaching a level unseen since the Cold War following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, global security researchers said Monday. The rise in Europe helped global military expenditures reach an eighth straight record at $2.24 trillion, or 2.2% of the world's gross domestic product, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). "It's driven by the war in Ukraine, (which is) driving European budget spending upwards, but also the unresolved and worsening tensions in East Asia between the US and China," researcher Nan Tian, one of the study's co-authors, told AFP.
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Ukraine, Poland, Agree on Deal to Restart Transit of Grain
Polish and Ukrainian officials say convoys of Ukrainian grain transiting Poland for export abroad will be sealed, guarded and monitored to ensure the produce stops flooding the Polish market and playing havoc with prices. Tuesday's announcement came after two days of intensive talks following protests by Polish farmers, who said much of the Ukrainian grain was staying in Poland and creating a glut that caused them huge losses. The deal will also end a temporary prohibition issued by Poland on Saturday to address the protests on the entry of grain from Ukraine. Hungary and Slovakia, which are also affected by the transit of Ukrainian farm produce, later took similar measures. These moves drew the anger of the European Union's executive branch, the European Commission, which manages trade for the 27 member countries.
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Charting Ukraine’s soaring exports to the EU
SINCE THE Russian invasion in February 2022, Ukraine has depended on the generosity of its neighbours. More than a year later, the country is realising that such generosity has its limits. On April 15th, following months of protests, the Polish government banned imports of Ukrainian agricultural goods, saying that an influx of produce from its south-eastern neighbour was pushing down local prices and threatening the livelihoods of local farmers. Hungary quickly announced its own embargo, followed by Slovakia and Bulgaria. Romania, which also has struggling farmers, contemplated its own ban. The European Union is trying to sort out the mess, but that is unlikely to happen. The trade spat stems from a well-intentioned policy implemented in the early months of the war. After Russia blockaded Ukraine’s Black Sea ports following its invasion last year, the EU lifted tariffs on the country’s agricultural exports and created trade routes for the transport of such goods through Bulgaria, Poland and Romania. But these “solidarity lanes” have not worked as planned. Due to logistical bottlenecks, much of the produce destined for Africa and the Middle East has piled up in eastern Europe, leading to a glut of maize, wheat and sunflower seeds. This has pushed down local prices.
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MIDDLE EAST
Dozens killed in stampede in Yemen’s capital during charity event
Dozens of people were killed and many injured during a stampede in the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, where they had gathered Wednesday night to receive charity donations from local merchants ahead of an Islamic holiday, according to officials from the ruling Houthi movement. At least 78 people were killed and many others were taken to hospitals with injuries, 13 of them with critical wounds, according to officials. A spokesman for the Interior Ministry, Brig. Gen. Abdul-Khaleq Al-Ajri, said two merchants had been detained after a crush he blamed on the “haphazard” distribution of donations during the final days of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, according to a statement provided to the Al-Masirah TV network.
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Taliban Kill Head of ISIS Cell That Bombed Kabul Airport
The Taliban have killed the leader of the Islamic State cell responsible for the suicide bombing at the international airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, in August 2021 that killed 13 U.S. troops and as many as 170 civilians, the White House said on Tuesday. Four senior American officials said that U.S. intelligence analysts became aware in early April that the mastermind of the attack, whom they declined to identify, had died in a Taliban operation in Afghanistan. It was unclear whether the Taliban were specifically targeting the insurgent or he was killed in one of the increasing number of attacks between Taliban and Islamic State fighters, the officials said.
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As Assad returns to Arab fold, Syrians watch with hope, fear
Syrians living on opposite sides of the largely frozen battle lines dividing their country are watching the accelerating normalization of ties between the government of Bashar Assad and Syria’s neighbors through starkly different lenses. In government-held Syria, residents struggling with ballooning inflation, fuel and electricity shortages hope the rapprochement will bring more trade and investment and ease a crippling economic crisis. Meanwhile, in the remaining opposition-held areas of the north, Syrians who once saw Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries as allies in their fight against Assad’s rule feel increasingly isolated and abandoned.
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Buildup resumed at suspected Chinese military site in UAE, leak says
American spy services detected construction at a suspected Chinese military facility in the United Arab Emirates in December — one year after Washington’s oil-rich ally announced it was halting the project because of U.S. concerns, according to top-secret intelligence documents obtained by The Washington Post. Activities at a port near Abu Dhabi are among several developments in the UAE involving the Chinese military that U.S. intelligence is monitoring out of concern that the Emiratis — a longtime U.S. security partner — are developing closer security ties to China at the expense of U.S. interests, according to the documents and related interviews with senior Biden administration officials. Sightings of Chinese military personnel around other sensitive construction sites have also disturbed U.S. officials. Beijing’s efforts in the UAE are part of an ambitious campaign by China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to build a global military network that includes at least five overseas bases and 10 logistical support sites by 2030, says one of the documents, which features a map of other planned facilities in the Middle East and Southeast Asia and throughout Africa.
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NORTH AMERICA
Joe Biden announces he is running for president again, setting up possible Trump rematch
President Joe Biden said Tuesday he will seek a second term in office, confirming a reelection bid he has long previewed -- as he faces a possible rematch with Donald Trump.
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Determined to Flee China, Thousands Take a Long, Dangerous Route to the Southern U.S. Border
The Chinese migrants making dangerous treks through Latin America are a subset of the larger outflow of Chinese of all wealth levels. Under Mr. Xi, the private sector has been squeezed, forcing layoffs and driving away entrepreneurs. Others worry political repression will only get more suffocating as Mr. Xi embarks on his third term in power.?The United Nations refugee agency counted 116,868 Chinese seeking asylum around the world at a point measured in mid-2022, up from 15,362 at the end of 2012, the year Mr. Xi took power. The U.N. numbers don’t include Chinese who enter other countries using work, tourist or other types of visas—often people with more assets and education—which have also increased in the past decade. China has a population of around 1.4 billion. In the first three months of this year, 3,855 Chinese migrants crossed the Darién Gap, the 60 miles or so of treacherous terrain connecting South and Central America. That compares with 2,005 for the full year in 2022, and just 376 Chinese total in the years from 2010 to 2021, according to Panama migration data. Chinese nationals were the fourth-largest group making the Darién crossing from Colombia in the three months, the data showed.
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NYC Experiments with 'Microhubs' to Ease Street Congestion
Trucks delivering packages from online purchases have made the traffic-choked streets of New York City even more crowded. Now the city is launching an experiment to help those trucks make fewer stops by setting up “microhubs” that let workers with cargo bikes, hand carts and other smaller devices take care of the last few blocks of the delivery. Currently, close to 90% of deliveries in the city are moved by truck, the New York Department of Transportation explained in a recent press release. “This overreliance on trucks exacerbates traffic congestion, contributes to public safety challenges on our roadways, pollutes our air, stresses our aging infrastructure, and negatively impacts quality of life,” the agency wrote. “Local delivery hubs offer promising potential to reduce the number of large trucks on local streets by providing safe spaces for truck operators to transfer deliveries onto more sustainable modes of transportation.”
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Preserving culture: Rappers keep the Maya language alive
Growing up in the southern Mexican state of Quintana Roo, Mr. del Rosario says he wasn’t interested in learning Maya, the only language his grandmother speaks and which his mother grew up speaking. Spanish is what was useful for him at school and among friends. But today he is part of a growing trend among young people – here and across the Americas, from Canada to Chile – who are rapping in Indigenous languages. It’s strengthened his connection to the language his mother raised him speaking (and to which he grew up responding in Spanish) and to his family’s traditions.?
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CARIBBEAN
Why the Situation in Cuba Is Deteriorating
Cuba’s communist regime is at its weakest point in decades. The island’s economic woes, brain drain, regime persecution of dissidents, and decaying state institutions are all exacting a high toll, but given authorities’ repressive hold on society, it’s unlikely that change is on the horizon.
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SOUTH AMERICA
Argentina to pay for Chinese imports in yuan rather than dollars
Argentina will start to pay for Chinese imports in yuan rather than dollars, the government announced Wednesday, a measure that aims to relieve the country's dwindling dollar reserves. In April, it aims to pay around $1 billion of Chinese imports in yuan instead of dollars and thereafter around $790 million of monthly imports will be paid in yuan, a government statement said. The decision aims to ease the outflow of dollars, Argentina's Economy minister Sergio Massa said during an event following a meeting with the Chinese ambassador, Zou Xiaoli, as well as with companies from various sectors. The decision comes as the South American nation battles critical levels in its dollar reserves amid a sharp drop in agricultural exports caused by a historic drought, as well as political uncertainty ahead of elections this year.
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Bolivia is on the brink of an economic crisis
For the past few weeks, Bolivians have desperately been trying to buy dollars. In February the central bank stopped publishing data on its foreign-currency reserves. In March it took the unusual step of selling greenbacks directly to the public after exchange houses started to run out. When the queue got too long the bank made Bolivians book appointments online. The next available one is in July. Investors are spooked. Government bonds maturing in 2028 have lost a third of their value since January. The dollar shortage is partly a result of tighter global financial markets. When the Federal Reserve started raising interest rates last year it became harder for Bolivia to take on foreign debt. Then came the war in Ukraine, and the annual cost of importing fuel doubled to more than $4bn (or 10% of GDP). The government began dipping into its reserves to prop up the currency, which has been pegged at 6.96 bolivianos to the US dollar since 2011, and to subsidise fuel. Yet although the country’s dollar shortage was exacerbated by short-term problems, it has been long in the making. Bolivia’s economic model is bust.
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DEFENSE
U.S. Weapons Pledge to Ukraine Exposes Cracks in Defense Supply Chain
U.S. defense contractors’ inability to quickly replenish weaponry such as missiles and munitions for Ukraine has led Pentagon officials to argue that industry consolidation has gone too far and raised questions about how prepared America is for conflict.?
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The U.S. Military Relies on One Louisiana Factory. It Blew Up.
Nearly two years ago, an errant spark inside a mill caused an explosion so big it destroyed all the building’s equipment and blew a corrugated fiberglass wall 100 feet.?It also shut down the sole domestic source of an explosive the Department of Defense relies on to produce bullets, mortar shells, artillery rounds and Tomahawk missiles.?Military suppliers consolidated at the Cold War’s end, under pressure to reduce defense costs and streamline the nation’s industrial base. Over the past three decades, the number of fixed wing aircraft suppliers in the U.S. has declined from eight to three. During the same period, major surface ship producers fell from eight to two, and today, only three American companies supply over 90% of the Pentagon’s missile stockpile. Lower-tier defense firms are often the sole maker of vital parts—such as black powder—and a single crisis can bring production to a standstill. Today that’s emerging as a gnawing problem for the U.S., whether in supplying weapons and ammunition to Ukraine or in restocking reserves to prepare for a potential confrontation with China in the new era of great-power competition, according to U.S. military officials, defense experts and congressional staffers.?After months of supplying Ukraine with Stingers, howitzers, anti-armor systems and artillery ammunition, stocks are low in both the U.S. and its NATO allies, especially in 155mm howitzer shells, an ammunition that has been crucial to pushing back Russian forces.?“Can you imagine what would happen to these supply chains if the U.S. were in an actual state of active war, or NATO was?” said Jeff Rhoads, executive director of the Purdue Institute for National Security, a defense-research institute at Purdue University. “They could be in trouble very quickly.”
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World military spending reaches all-time high of $2.24 trillion
World military spending reached an all-time high of $2.24 trillion in 2022, as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine fuelled a sharp jump in military spending across Europe, according to a leading defence think tank. Global spending rose for the eighth consecutive year, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said on Monday in its annual report on global military expenditure. The United States remained the world’s largest military spender — up 0.7 percent to $877bn in 2022 — which was 39 percent of total global military spending. The increase was largely driven by “the unprecedented level of financial military aid it provided to Ukraine,” SIPRI’s Nan Tian said.?China remained the world’s second-largest military spender, allocating an estimated $292bn in 2022. This was 4.2 percent more than in 2021 and represents the 28th consecutive annual increase. Meanwhile, Japan spent $46bn on the military in 2022, a rise of 5.9 percent from the previous year. SIPRI said it was the highest level of Japanese military spending since 1960.
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CENTCOM Hires AI Guru from Google
U.S. Central Command is hiring an AI advisor from Google to accelerate the adoption of emerging technologies across U.S. military services in the Middle East, Defense One has learned.?Andrew Moore? has served as general manager and VP for the AI division of Google Cloud, where he was responsible for products such as Vertex AI platform, Contact Center AI, Anti Money Laundering AI, Vertex AI Computer Vision suite and AI applications in logistics, according to a press release viewed by Defense One.?Moore left Google in January to find projects and missions where he could have a big impact, he said in an exclusive interview. That led him to the Defense Department and CENTCOM, where he discussed the role that emerging technology could play with CENTCOM commander Gen. Michael Kurilla.
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SPACE
After SpaceX’s Starship Rocket Explosion—Debris, Data and Analysis
SpaceX on Friday is taking stock after the company’s Starship rocket exploded a few minutes after lifting off the day before in southern Texas.?So are several local officials, regulatory and environmental agencies. Regulators said they were analyzing what the launch meant for nearby natural areas and public safety. Environmental groups and some local residents have raised concerns about the impact of SpaceX’s activities on and around its base. For SpaceX, the uncrewed test flight that flew about 24 miles into the sky crossed multiple key thresholds. The rocket made it through the period of flight where it experienced the most amount of stress. Simply blasting off the enormous vehicle was also a milestone, company officials said. “If we lift off and clear the pad, we’re calling that a win,” SpaceX engineer Kate Tice said on the company’s live stream Thursday. Throngs of onlookers watched the launch from beaches and parks a few miles from the company’s launchpad. The test, years in the making, was among a number of steps needed before SpaceX can try to take people to the moon and eventually Mars as the company one day hopes to do. SpaceX wants to demonstrate that Starship’s Super Heavy booster can propel its large spacecraft into orbit, and safely land both vehicles for re-use.
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Japanese Company’s Spacecraft Likely Crashed During Moon Landing Attempt
A Japanese company has lost contact with a small robotic spacecraft it was sending to the moon. Analysis of data from the vehicle suggests it ran out of propellant during its final approach and instead of landing softly crashed into the lunar surface. After firing its main engine, the Hakuto-R Mission 1 lander built by Ispace of Japan dropped out of lunar orbit. About an hour later, at 12:40 p.m. Eastern time on Tuesday, the lander, about 7.5 feet tall, was expected to land in Atlas Crater, a 54-mile-wide feature in the northeast quadrant of the near side of the moon. But after the time of touchdown, no signal was received from the spacecraft.
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A Giant Telescope Grows in Chile
The Atacama, on a plateau high in the Chilean Andes, is one of the driest and darkest places in the world. During the day one can see to Bolivia, far to the east, where clouds billow into thunderstorms that will never moisten this region. At night, calm, unruffled winds off the Pacific Ocean produce some of the most exquisite stargazing conditions on Earth. One evening in late January the sky was so thick with stars that the bones of the constellations blurred into the background. The Milky Way, our home galaxy, was rolling straight overhead, and the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, satellite galaxies of our own, floated alongside like ghosts. The Southern Cross, that icon of adventure and romance, loomed unmistakably above the southern horizon. In the last half-century, astronomers from around the world have flocked to Chile and its silky skies, and now many of the largest telescopes on Earth have taken root along a sort of observatory alley that runs north-south for some 800 miles along the edge of the Atacama.
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UAE spacecraft takes close-up photos of Mars’ little moon
A spacecraft around Mars has sent back the most detailed photos yet of the red planet’s little moon. The United Arab Emirates’ Amal spacecraft flew within 62 miles (100 kilometers) of Deimos last month and the close-up shots were released Monday. Amal — Arabic for Hope — got a two-for-one when Mars photobombed some of the images. It was the closest a spacecraft has been to Deimos in almost a half-century.
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Space race! Meteorites hit Maine, museum offers $25K reward
Somewhere in a remote stretch of forest near Maine’s border with Canada, rocks from space crashed to Earth and may be scattered across the ground — just waiting to be picked up. If you’re the first person to find a big one, a museum says it’ll pay out a $25,000 reward.
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ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
35 Ways Real People Are Using A.I. Right Now
The public release of ChatGPT last fall kicked off a wave of interest in artificial intelligence. A.I. models have since snaked their way into many people’s everyday lives. Despite their flaws, ChatGPT and other A.I. tools are helping people to save time at work, to code without knowing how to code, to make daily life easier or just to have fun. It goes beyond everyday fiddling: In the last few years, companies and scholars have started to use A.I. to supercharge work they could never have imagined, designing new molecules with the help of an algorithm or building alien-like spaceship parts. Here’s how 35 real people are using A.I. for work, life, play and procrastination.
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Deepfake porn could be a growing problem amid AI race
Artificial intelligence imaging can be used to create art, try on clothes in virtual fitting rooms or help design advertising campaigns. But experts fear the darker side of the easily accessible tools could worsen something that primarily harms women: nonconsensual deepfake pornography. Deepfakes are videos and images that have been digitally created or altered with artificial intelligence or machine learning. Porn created using the technology first began spreading across the internet several years ago when a Reddit user shared clips that placed the faces of female celebrities on the shoulders of porn actors.
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ECONOMY
GDP Report Shows Economic Growth Slowed in First Quarter
U.S. economic growth slipped in the first quarter in the midst of?still-high inflation?and rising interest rates, adding to worries about a possible recession later this year.?U.S. gross domestic product, a measure of the value of all the goods and services produced in the country, rose at an inflation- and seasonally-adjusted 1.1% annual rate from January to March, a significant slowdown from 2.6% growth in the fourth quarter, the Commerce Department said Thursday. Consumption, the main driver of the economy, was a?bright spot. Fueled by an ability to spend from higher incomes and built-up savings, consumers propped up growth with a surge of buying early in the year that has since abated.
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America’s Debt-Ceiling Disaster
Ever since the Republican Party won control of the House of Representatives, in November 2022, the United States has been trapped in a standoff that could spark a major economic crisis. Republicans have refused to increase the U.S. debt ceiling—a legislative limit on the amount of money Washington can borrow to pay its bills—unless U.S. President Joe Biden consents to large spending cuts that he has so far rejected. The showdown is becoming increasingly urgent. The United States technically hit its debt cap in January this year, and the tools the U.S. Treasury Department is using to keep Washington within its limits cannot work much longer. If Republicans and Democrats do not reach a deal by the end of June, the country will default for the first time in history.
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Yuan overtakes dollar to become most-used currency in China's cross-border transactions
The yuan became the most widely-used currency for cross-border transactions in China in March, overtaking the dollar for the first time, official data showed, reflecting efforts by Beijing to internationalise use of the yuan. Cross-border payments and receipts in yuan rose to a record $549.9 billion in March from $434.5 billion a month earlier, according to Reuters calculation based on data from the State Administration of Foreign Exchange. The yuan was used in 48.4% of all cross-border transactions, Reuters calculated, while the dollar's share declined to 46.7% from 48.6% a month earlier.
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Sliding Diesel Prices Signal Warning for U.S. Economy
A nationwide freight slowdown has helped cut U.S. diesel prices by half from last year’s record, raising concerns that parts of the world’s largest economy have begun to slow.?Wholesale diesel recently fell to $2.65 a gallon in New York Harbor, down from $5.34 last May, after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sent commodity markets haywire and turned prices advertised at gas stations into street-level reminders of inflation’s 40-year highs. Record diesel costs made it more expensive to operate excavators at construction sites, run machinery on farms, and haul goods from ports, rail yards or factory floors.?Prices began falling months ago, when a warm winter cut demand for heating fuel and a reshuffling of global oil trade alongside Russia’s war left a glut of diesel supplies on the market. Now—with the Federal Reserve trying to cool business activity by raising interest rates—waning manufacturing output and trade have also dented U.S. appetite for the fuel.?The darkening industrial outlook, which contrasts with low unemployment and a robust service sector, pulled benchmark diesel futures Tuesday to $2.45 a gallon, a 15-month low. Federal record-keepers peg the year-over-year hit to domestic demand at 8.4%.
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REAL ESTATE
Home Prices in March Posted Biggest Annual Decline in 11 Years
Home sales fell across the U.S. in March, a sluggish start to the crucial spring selling season as higher mortgage rates squashed momentum from the previous month. U.S. existing-home sales decreased 2.4% in March from the prior month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.44 million, the National Association of Realtors said Thursday. March sales fell 22% from a year earlier. March marked the 13th time in the previous 14 months that sales have slowed. The housing market had a surprisingly strong February, when sales rose a revised 13.75% from the previous month. But after mortgage rates ticked higher, March sales resumed the extended period of declines.
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Commercial Real-Estate Woes Run Deeper Than in Past Downturns
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Commercial real estate has experienced its share of busts in recent decades. This one is different. Landlords are contending simultaneously with a cyclical market downturn and with secular changes in the way people work, live and shop. The sudden surge in interest rates caused property values to fall, while the rise of remote work and e-commerce are reducing demand for office and retail space.?Investors and economists say these two forces haven’t come together on this scale since the 1970s, when a recession followed surging oil prices and a stock-market rout while new technologies enabled jobs to move out of major cities. This time, the pandemic is largely responsible for accelerating the commercial property upheaval.?The U.S. office vacancy rate reached a milestone in the first quarter when it rose to 12.9%, exceeding the peak vacancy rate during the 2008 financial crisis. Despite low unemployment, that figure marked the highest vacancy rate since data firm CoStar Group Inc. began tracking it in 2000.
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A Bleak Outlook for Manhattan’s Office Space May Signal a Bigger Problem
Rapidly rising interest rates have intensified concerns that the New York City office market, the largest in the country and a pillar of the city’s economy, could be at grave risk. That one-two punch could be worse than anything corporate landlords have experienced before, experts on the sector say, leading major banks and real estate analysts in recent weeks to warn that languishing properties along with falling property values and higher borrowing costs could increase the odds of a recession nationally and a budget crisis for the city. More than two-thirds of all commercial real estate loans are held by small- and medium-size banks, prompting concern that regional banks might be unable to withstand a wave of defaults if landlords cannot pay off loans. Some analysts have forecast a dim future for city centers, likening the crisis to the slow death of many American shopping malls.
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The age at which people give up on homeownership, and more!
In America, most people don’t become homeowners until age 35. By the time we hit our 70s, about 80 percent of households own their own home, according to our analysis of the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey. Homeownership remains steady throughout most of our 70s, dropping only as we near 80.??
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PERSONAL FINANCE
State Street, Schwab See Deposits Drop
Banks of all sizes had grown to rely on customers’ deposits as a cheap source of funding they in turn can put to work by making loans and buying bonds and other securities. But as the Federal Reserve moved starting last year to raise rates, bank customers began to shift their cash into higher-yielding investments, such as money-market funds. And banks are now paying a higher rate on the deposits that remain. Banks earn interest income on the spread between the rates they pay depositors and what their assets yield. State Street’s net interest income fell 3% from the December quarter, surprising investors who had heard State Street executives predict in early March that interest income would be little changed in the first quarter.
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Banks Are Finally Facing Pressure to Pay Depositors More
Depositors fled to the perceived safety of the titans of finance following a pair of bank failures last month. A raft of earnings this week will show just how costly the run was for everyone else.?Small and midsize U.S. banks lost hundreds of billions of dollars in recent weeks to their bigger peers and to money-market funds offering higher yields. That is likely to force many of them to increase the interest rates they are paying to avoid losing more customers.
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Apple Launches Savings Accounts With 4.15% Interest Rate
Apple Inc. joined the competition for bank deposits on Monday with the launch of a high-yield savings account that pays an annual percentage yield of 4.15%. The high-yield savings accounts, available in conjunction with Apple’s credit card, are one of the tech company’s latest steps into the financial-services space, which also include an option to allow customers to “buy now, pay later” on certain of its hardware products. The company partnered with Goldman Sachs to offer consumers those options, part of Apple’s effort to transform the iPhone into a digital wallet that can help keep consumers linked to the software ecosystem behind its devices. The savings accounts require no minimum deposit and are protected by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. There is a maximum balance of $250,000.
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More US consumers are falling behind on payments
Consumers are starting to fall behind on their credit card and loan payments as the economy softens, according to executives at the biggest U.S. banks, although they said delinquency levels were still modest.
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BUSINESS
3M announces mass layoffs as manufacturing slows
3M announced significant layoffs Tuesday as part of yet another major restructuring plan as the manufacturing sector prepares for a possible recession and slumping demand for goods. The manufacturing behemoth behind some consumer brands, including Post-It Notes and Scotch Tape, said it would lay off 6,000 staff around the world. Those cuts are in addition to the 2,500 manufacturing roles 3M eliminated in January. 3M also announced several mass layoffs in 2019 and 2020, but total headcount has been up and down over the past several years.
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Britain shoots down Microsoft’s $69bn Activision deal
On April 26th Britain’s antitrust regulator, the Competition and Markets Authority (cma), blocked Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard, a publisher of games such as “Call of Duty”, arguing that the combined firm could gain too much clout and reduce choice for consumers. The surprise decision has probably killed the deal worldwide.
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McKinsey, Bain Delay Some M.B.A. Start Dates to 2024
Consulting giants McKinsey & Co. and Bain & Co. are delaying start dates for new M.B.A. hires, or in some cases paying them thousands of dollars to put off starting their jobs. Consulting firms are among the biggest recruiters of business-school talent. Delaying the start dates for so many fresh grads is causing anxiety on campuses and suggests these businesses may have wider concerns about the economy. Bain told M.B.A.s with offer letters that if they waited to start until April 2024, the firm would pay them $40,000 to work for a nonprofit or $30,000 to learn a new language or participate in an educational program, in one communication that suggested hires could also become yoga instructors or go on safari for $20,000.
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This Couple Built an Obscure Corner of Sports Betting Into a Billion-Dollar Business
A husband-and-wife team founded a tech company here that is quietly policing the multibillion-dollar online-gambling industry in the U.S. GeoComply scrutinizes nearly every online bet on sports to determine whether the wager is happening in a state where it’s legal. Over the past five years, the company has signed on DraftKings, FanDuel, BetMGM, Caesars and other betting operators as customers as online gambling rapidly expanded across the U.S.?The company blocks bets from gamblers in the wrong states and bettors spoofing their locations to skirt the law, and monitors dark-web fraudsters pursuing the big promotional sign-on bonuses offered by betting companies. Geolocation is a necessary check—using Wi-Fi signals, GPS, cell-tower signals and other data—before a wager can be accepted. Anna Sainsbury and her husband David Briggs founded the company about a dozen years ago while working in the gambling industry, after they predicted the need for geolocation and placed their own bet with their money and careers. These days, almost no online gambling in the U.S. can happen without them.
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Eyeing frugal shoppers, Ikea bets on massive U.S. expansion
Ikea is planning a $2.2 billion U.S. expansion that will add eight full stores and shore up the furniture chain’s logistics network, a move that will be the retailer’s largest U.S. expansion since the first store opened near Philadelphia 38 years ago. Along with the new stores, the investment will establish nine “plan and order” points — smaller stores focused on customer service and furniture delivery — as well as 900 new pickup locations, according to a news release Thursday. The new stores come on top of recently announced openings in Arlington, Va., and San Francisco. Staffing the new locations will add 2,000 jobs across the United States. Analysts likened Ikea’s expansion to the awakening of a sleeping giant. Ikea already has around 50 U.S. stores, but it lags far behind Walmart and Wayfair in terms of retail market share.
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Struggling Bed Bath & Beyond files for bankruptcy protection
Bed Bath & Beyond — one of the original big box retailers known for its seemingly endless offerings of sheets, towels and kitchen gadgets — filed for bankruptcy protection, following years of dismal sales and losses and numerous failed turnaround plans. The beleaguered home goods chain made the filing Sunday in U.S. District Court in New Jersey and said it will start an orderly wind down of its operations, while seeking a buyer for all or some of its businesses. In the bankruptcy filing, the retailer said it anticipates closing all of its stores by June 30.
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Amazon will charge customers a fee for some UPS returns
Amazon is attempting new measures to get customers to return fewer of their online orders, including charging a fee to return items to UPS stores. For decades, Amazon built its business by creating shopping that was fast, ridiculously easy and, seemingly, error-proof. You don’t like it, just return it. But not anymore: so many customers have buyers’ regret, or simply bigger feet than they thought they had, that handling returns has become an expensive problem for the company. Amazon will start charging customers a $1 fee if they return items to a UPS store when there is a Whole Foods, Amazon Fresh grocery store or Kohl’s closer to their delivery address. (Amazon owns Whole Foods and Fresh, and has a partnership deal with Kohl’s.)
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New rules ban subscription traps and fake reviews
The UK government's new Digital Markets, Competition and Consumer Bill aims to help consumers and increase competition between big tech firms. The bill is being introduced on Tuesday and bans people receiving money or free goods for writing glowing reviews. Firms will also have to remind people when free subscription trials end. And the bill also seeks to end the tech giants' current market dominance.
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Apple Inc bets big on India as it opens first flagship store
Apple Inc. opened its first flagship store in India in a much-anticipated launch Tuesday that highlights the company’s growing aspirations to expand in the country it also hopes to turn into a potential manufacturing hub.
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TECHNOLOGY
Tech Billionaires Bet on Fusion as Holy Grail for Business
Sam Altman became a tech sensation this year as the CEO of OpenAI, the artificial-intelligence startup that seems pulled from science fiction.?But Mr. Altman, who has been among Silicon Valley’s most prominent investors for more than a decade, has placed one of the biggest bets of his career on a company that might be even more futuristic: a nuclear-fusion startup called Helion Energy Inc.?He is one of a number of tech founders and billionaires who hope to harness the process that powers the sun and stars to deliver almost limitless energy. Jeff Bezos, Peter Thiel, Bill Gates and Marc Benioff are among those betting that the decadeslong goal of building fusion reactors is now within years of being reality. Nuclear fusion occurs when two light atomic nuclei merge to form a single heavier one. That process releases huge amounts of energy, no carbon emissions and limited radioactivity, but companies would have to sustain fusion reactions and engineer a way to turn that energy into net power.
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The Unexpected Reason Apple Is Dominating the U.S. Smartphone Market
In the past few years, the market for smartphones has become a lot more like the one for used cars. Whereas many of us once upgraded our phones every two or three years, and treated old ones almost as if they were disposable, more than ever these phones are sticking around, and having a long afterlife. That could affect everything from who wins the smartphone wars (hint: Apple) to how the dominant players in this industry make most of their profits (spoiler: not from selling hardware). What’s enabled this new channel for not-so-new smartphones is that iPhones in particular are lasting longer, and new models often are nearly indistinguishable from previous ones. Phones are, in other words, rather like vehicles: expensive and durable—and for most people, older models are more than good enough. The iPhone’s staying power is linked in no small part to Apple supporting software upgrades for devices that came out as early as 2017. As a result, these phones have a considerable afterlife, cycling through second and even third owners before being cast aside. And with network carriers offering discounts on new phones when people trade in an old one, another parallel with the auto market, there are ample devices available for bargain hunters. The impact of this is huge, and making a big winner out of Apple. It now seems likely that the overwhelming majority of smartphones in use in the U.S. will eventually be iPhones—the result of a steady climb in its share of the U.S. market.
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Chile plans to nationalize its vast lithium industry
Chile's President Gabriel Boric said on Thursday he would nationalize the country's lithium industry, the world's second largest producer of the metal essential in electric vehicle batteries, to boost its economy and protect its environment. The shock move in the country with the world's largest lithium reserves would in time transfer control of Chile's vast lithium operations from industry giants SQM (SQMA.SN) and Albemarle (ALB.N) to a separate state-owned company. It poses a fresh challenge to electric vehicle (EV) manufacturers scrambling to secure battery materials, as more countries look to protect their natural resources. Mexico nationalized its lithium deposits last year, and Indonesia banned exports of nickel ore, a key battery material, in 2020.
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Why crashing lithium prices will not make electric cars cheaper
Among the commodities that are key to decarbonisation, lithium is in the driving seat. Dubbed “white gold”, the metal is needed to produce nearly all types of batteries powering electric vehicles (evs). A single pack typically includes ten kilograms of the stuff. In the past two years turbocharged ev sales worldwide helped boost prices twelve-fold, prodding miners to invest, carmakers to sign supply deals and governments to label it a strategic material. Most commodity prices stalled this winter, but lithium continued to ride high. The rally has since gone into reverse. Prices for Chinese lithium carbonate, one of the two main forms of refined lithium, have more than halved this year (see chart). One reason is slowing demand for evs in China, the biggest market for them. Another is that carmakers such as Ford and Volkswagen, eager to enter a race dominated by Tesla and Chinese rivals, signed battery-supply deals at high prices last year. They are now reviewing the terms, further dampening appetite. Global supply of mined lithium is rising fast, meanwhile. After growing by 1% in 2022, to 575,000 tonnes, it could jump by nearly a fifth this year as big mines come online in Australia and Chile, says Tom Price of Liberum, an investment bank. And there are signs demand will revive. In April the chief of the China Passenger Car Association said he expected sales of evs in the country to rise by 30% this year. JPMorgan Chase, a bank, reckons a rebound will tip the lithium market into a deficit in 2023 and 2024. ev sales elsewhere remain healthy. The price of lithium hydroxide, a refined form of lithium used in more expensive, longer-range batteries, which are preferred outside China, has held up better than that of carbonate. It will help that hydroxide cannot be stored for ever. In the longer run rising demand for lithium for energy storage, supported by green policies in America, Europe and China, could make the market even tighter.
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ENERGY
Exclusive: Pakistan makes its first purchase of discounted Russian oil
Pakistan has placed its first order for discounted Russian crude oil under a deal struck between Islamabad and Moscow, the country's petroleum minister said, with one cargo to dock at the port of Karachi in May.Pakistan's purchase gives Russia a new outlet, adding to Moscow's growing sales to India and China, as it redirects oil from western markets because of the Ukraine conflict.
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Rising flow of Russian oil products to China, India and the Middle East
Similar to what has already happened with Russian crude oil, there are signs that the country's refined fuels are finding new buyers outside Europe, with Asia and the Middle East the leading new customers. Russia has largely managed to work around the European ban on buying its crude oil, diverting flows mainly to India and China, albeit at prices well below the prevailing global crude benchmarks such as Brent, West Texas Intermediate and Oman/Dubai.?
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Saudi Arabia, U.A.E. Scoop Up Russian Oil Products at Steep Discounts
As Russia scours the globe for buyers of its energy products, it is finding eager trade partners in an unlikely place: The oil-rich petrostates of the Persian Gulf. Since Western sanctions over the war in Ukraine cut off Russia from many of its established trading partners, state companies from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have stepped in to take advantage of discounted prices for Russian products, according to oil executives and industry analysts.?Despite U.S. objections, the Gulf countries are using the discounted Russian products internally, including for consumption and refining purposes, and exporting their own barrels at market rates, boosting their profits.
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AUTO
To Get the EV Tax Credit, You Will Now Have to Buy an American Brand
Car buyers looking to get a tax break on a new electric vehicle will now confront an even narrower set of options and have to buy from a U.S. brand. The U.S. Treasury Department released its latest list Monday, detailing which plug-in models qualify for a federal tax credit that has been popular with consumers under new and much stricter requirements adopted by the Inflation Reduction Act. The latest changes, which set new criteria for the battery components and are intended to coax auto makers to build more domestically, apply to vehicles delivered to customers starting Tuesday. Only 16 models are now eligible for a full or partial tax credit, based on new thresholds that require a certain percentage of the battery parts and minerals to come from a qualifying country.
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Thefts prompt 17 states to urge recall of Kia, Hyundai cars
Attorneys general in 17 states on Thursday urged the federal government to recall millions of Kia and Hyundai cars because they are too easy to steal, a response to a sharp increase in thefts fueled by a viral social media challenge. Some Kia and Hyundai cars sold in the United States over the last decade do not have engine immobilizers, a standard feature on most cars that prevents the engine from starting unless the key is present. Videos circulating on social media have shown how people can start Kia and Hyundai models by using only a screwdriver and a USB cable. In Los Angeles, thefts of Hyundai and Kia cars increased by about 85% in 2022, now accounting for 20% of all car thefts in the city, according to the California attorney general’s office.
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EDUCATION
In America, school test results are still lagging behind pre-covid levels?
WALKING THE hallways of a typical American school, the covid-19 pandemic seems a distant memory. Most students have returned to the classroom. Data from the National Centre for Education Statistics, a federal body, showed that 98% of public schools were teaching all lessons in-person by June 2022. But covid has left its mark on children’s education. In 2021, pass rates in standardised tests for English and maths plummeted by six and 12 percentage points respectively, representing a 12% and 25% decline when compared with results from 2019.
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Families Tap New Tools to Negotiate Lower College Tuition
More families around the country are taking the once-unheard-of step of negotiating financial aid with colleges before the May 1 deadline, when most schools expect students to commit. Colleges have long held most of the information, and therefore the leverage, in these negotiations, but that may be changing. Pandemic-era declines in both enrollment and faith in higher education mean many middle-market colleges have weaker hands to play. Entrepreneurs and savvy parents are creating websites that post information to help other prospective students understand the opaque world of a college’s finances. The best-case scenario for families is to leverage that information to start a bidding war between schools for their tuition dollars. Mark Salisbury, the former dean of academic affairs and director of institutional research and assessment at Augustana College in Rock Island, Ill., created a crowdsourced website called TuitionFit that allows students to enter their grade-point average, ACT or SAT score and family’s financial status to see merit-aid offers given to comparable students in real-time. To date the site has collected about 30,000 prices in its data set from about 10,000 students, he said. “It’s like a Kelley Blue Book of college prices,” says Mr. Salisbury. “The idea is to give every family the knowledge and the leverage to advocate for a fair price and the best price.”?
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The Stealth Campaign That’s Getting Your Kids Hooked on Chess
Since early November, the number of daily active users to Chess.com, a website and app where visitors can get chess news, learn the game and play against one another and computer opponents, has jumped from 5.4 million to more than 11 million, rising sharply after the beginning of the year. (In December Chess.com also purchased the Play Magnus Group, a company started by chess world champion Magnus Carlsen that includes a mobile chess app.) The biggest growth has come from players who are 13 to 17 years old — 549,000 visited Chess.com in January and February, more than twice as many as in the two months prior, according to a company estimate of traffic. The second-fastest age group in the same period was 18- to 24-year-olds. Casual observers, as well as newly avid chess players, may attribute the trend to pandemic lockdown and boredom, or perhaps to the popularity of the 2020 Netflix mini-series “The Queen’s Gambit.” But quietly a grandmaster plan was also unfolding, carefully crafted by Chess.com to broaden the appeal of the game and turn millennials and Gen Z into chess-playing pawns. Were they playing chess, or was chess playing them?
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TRAVEL
‘It’s disgusting’: Bali locals are fed up with bad tourists
The image many outsiders have of Bali — the one depicted in the 2010 Julia Roberts blockbuster “Eat Pray Love” — still exists. Bali remains covered with deep green rice paddies and golden sand stretching into turquoise water. Warm locals still banter with beach-bar-loving foreigners. But it’s not as tranquil these days. In a little over a year since Bali reopened for international travel, an uptick in unruly behavior from tourists has removed some of the magic from paradise, pushing national and local officials to think up new ways to address offenders. Bali is part of a growing number of popular travel destinations fed up with overtourism. Hawaii is considering a bill to dissolve its government-sponsored tourism marketing agency. Amsterdam has been trying to reduce rowdy tourist behavior in its Red Light District, rolling out a ban on pot-smoking on the streets there, reducing hours for restaurants and brothels, and tightening some alcohol restrictions. Italian authorities have been fining tourists in Rome, Florence and Venice for littering, camping, vandalism and traffic violations.?
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LIFE
How Men Make Friends: Hammering Pieces of Wood Together, Plus Power Tools
The Hopkins shed is one of 27 Men’s Sheds in the U.S., where men, and sometimes women, gather to build park benches, desks, and bird feeders, or learn to cook and sew. At David’s Memorial Men’s Shed in Girard, Pa., a 5,000-square-foot pole barn, members work on cars or learn to weld. Shedders, as they are called in Ruston, La., construct bunk beds for shelters in a former warehouse. Elsewhere, shedders repair bikes for police youth leagues and clean parks. All share the motto “Shoulder to Shoulder,” the premise being that men bond while working side by side, as opposed to women, who form friendships “Face to Face,” by talking to each other. The Men’s Shed movement started in Australia in the 1990s, to combat loneliness among retired men, and has grown to more than 2,500 sheds in a dozen countries, each with projects based on local interests. Estonia has two sheds, whose members help each other with chores, such as stacking logs and transporting stones. The concept has been slower to catch on in the U.S. “As Americans, we are distracted a lot,” says Mark Winston, a founder and director of the U.S. Men’s Shed Association, who estimates there are about 1,350 members. “There are a million things competing for our attention. In Ireland, when a shed opens, everyone knows about it.”?That is changing, he says, because more people recognize the importance of community in fighting isolation, which can lead to depression. Sheds bring them together.?
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How — and why — you should increase your social network as you age
What can older adults who have lost their closest friends and family members do as they contemplate the future without them? If, as research has found, good relationships are essential to health and well-being in later life, what happens when connections forged over the years end? It would be foolish to suggest these relationships can be easily replaced: They cannot. There’s no substitute for people who’ve known you a long time, who understand you deeply. Still, opportunities to create bonds with other people exist. “It’s never too late to develop meaningful relationships,” said Robert Waldinger, a clinical professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development. That study, now in its 85th year, has shown that people with strong connections to family, friends and their communities are “happier, physically healthier, and live longer than people who are less well connected,” according to “The Good Life: Lessons From the World’s Longest Scientific Study of Happiness,” a new book describing its findings, co-written by Waldinger and Marc Schulz, the Harvard study’s associate director. Research confirms that virtual connections have benefits as well as drawbacks. On one hand, older adults who routinely connect with other people via cellphones and computers are less likely to be socially isolated than those who don’t, several studies suggest. But when face-to-face contact with other people diminishes significantly — or disappears altogether, as was true for millions of older adults in the past three years — seniors are more likely to be lonely and depressed, other studies have found.?
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They’re the Happiest People in America. We Called Them to Ask Why.
America’s happiest people have a few traits in common: They value community and close personal relationships. They tend to believe in God. And they generally are older, often in their retirement years. Those are conclusions from the latest Wall Street Journal-NORC poll, which found that a small group of Americans—12%—describe themselves as not just happy, but “very happy.” Americans aren’t a particularly happy bunch. The 12% was the smallest share of “very happy” people ever recorded in NORC’s General Social Survey, dating to 1972. Among all 1,019 adults in the survey, large majorities said they felt pessimistic about the economy and prospects for the next generation. Some 30% rated themselves at the lowest level of happiness, saying they were “not too happy.” A majority, some 56%, said they were “pretty happy.” All this makes the slice of “very happy” people stand out. What do they know that the rest of Americans don’t? Overwhelmingly, the very happy value strong relationships. Some 67% say marriage is very important to them, regardless of their own marital status, compared with 43% of respondents overall.?Community involvement rates as more important among the very happy than among those who report lower levels of happiness. And while many of the very happy are satisfied with their personal finances, as a group they don’t attach high importance to money. In interviews, many said that they felt their happiness was partly built into their personalities, partly controlled by choices they make in their daily lives. One common interest: fitness.
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HOME
The ‘no mow’ movement could transform our lawns
Mowing grass too short can cut the tops off flowering plants, creating lawns that are inhospitable for pollinators seeking habitats in which to feed, rest and nest, experts say. Keeping your lawn neat and trim not only is resource-intensive but can also affect its overall health. To help pollinators, a good first step is to stop treating your yard with chemicals, Carpenter says. Ideally, grass should be allowed to grow to around six inches before it’s cut to roughly four inches. Experts widely recommend mowing on the highest setting.?Transforming a traditional turf lawn into a more pollinator-friendly area is probably easier than most people might think — and it doesn’t have to look wild, says Melinda Whicher, a supervisory horticulturalist at the Smithsonian Gardens. “There are plenty of very low-growing flowers where you can still mow and the flowers will still be there.”?“At the end of the day, what we really need is to change the American mind-set about having a perfect lawn,” Whicher says, “and that’s tough to do.”
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NATURE
She spent 500 days alone in an underground cave — and didn’t want to leave
A Spanish woman finally emerged from a cave Friday, following a solo challenge lasting more than 500 days. Beatriz Flamini left the surface to live 230 feet underground in November 2021, as part of a project that also gave scientists and psychologists the chance to investigate the impact of living alone, underground, for a long time, including the effect on her circadian rhythm. With no human contact, or internet access, during this time, Flamini remained completely unaware of major news events, including Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the death of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II.?
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Mysterious spiral over Alaska probably a result of SpaceX launch
Todd Salat was photographing the northern lights last Saturday at Donnelly Dome near Delta Junction, Alaska, when a strange intense glow appeared in the distance on the northern horizon. At first he thought it was a jet airliner, but the bright light formed a spiral shape and quickly grew bigger. Against the backdrop of the dancing green northern lights, the baby-blue spiral looked like a portal to another dimension, fit for a sci-fi movie. The culprit? The launch of a Falcon 9 vehicle by SpaceX three hours earlier from California. Researchers say such patterns have become increasingly common in recent years with more commercial satellite launches.?
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Those Seaweed Blobs Headed for Florida? See How Big They Are.
Scientists say they spotted more than 13 million tons of Sargassum, a yellowish-brown seaweed, drifting in the Atlantic Ocean last month — a record for the month of March. Tangles of the goopy, leafy seaweed have already begun to wash ashore beaches in southern Florida and Mexico. In the coming months, they could start emitting a rotting stench as they decay, potentially posing health risks to beachgoers.?
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These 4 free apps can help you identify every flower, plant and tree around you
There are more than a dozen apps promising to help you identify the natural world, many of them paid. Don’t bother. Four apps, designed and managed by scientists with world-class data, meet all your ID needs free of charge. And every observation will advance our scientific understanding of the natural world.?The easiest to use is Seek. The only drawback? The app doesn’t include deeper context about the species it identifies. For that, there’s iNaturalist and Pl@ntNet. Both offer sophisticated, if slightly less user-friendly, apps that upload and analyze photographs of flora. Finally, there’s Merlin Bird ID, a project of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Merlin feels like magic. The app uses a phone’s sensitive microphone to identify bird vocalizations in the sonic landscape around you, painting a visual representation or sonogram analogous to a musical score.
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ART & MUSIC
AI-Generated Music Is About to Flood Streaming Platforms
It starts with a familiar intro, unmistakably the Weeknd’s 2017 hit “Die for You.” But as the first verse of the song begins, a different vocalist is heard: Michael Jackson. Or, at least, a machine simulation of the late pop star’s voice.?It’s just one example of how artificial intelligence is seeping into the music industry. Surf YouTube or TikTok and you'll find many convincing AI-made covers. The software covers.ai has a waiting list for new users. But there are also tools that can generate instrumentals from text, give people a starting beat or inspiration, and help them to edit tunes.
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Stolen or Original? Hear Songs From 7 Landmark Copyright Cases.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/27/arts/music/music-copyright-lawsuits-ed-sheeran-blurred-lines.html
Ed Sheeran is on trial, accused of borrowing from Marvin Gaye. Listen to the tracks at stake in lawsuits involving George Harrison, 2 Live Crew, Led Zeppelin and Katy Perry that may shape his case.
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On TikTok, everyone is living out a Wes Anderson movie
The cinema of Wes Anderson is synonymous with a specific set of visual characteristics. A true aesthete, the filmmaker's onscreen landscapes are just as crucial as the narratives themselves. In each Anderson creation, French Baroque architecture comes caked in pastel hues; ornate train carriages are bathed in patterned reds; actors are dressed in sublime outfits that reflect the modernist walls and antique sofas. And each shot is taken with perfect symmetry, gazing straight at the audience. Enter TikTok, where #wesanderson(opens in a new tab) has 554.7 million views and counting. Lately, creatives have found inspiration in the Anderson aesthetic while being the star of their own film, posting self-shot videos mimicking the director's instantly recognisable visual style, long made iconic with the help of cinematographer Robert D. Yeoman.?
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ENTERTAINMENT
Wahoo! ‘The Super Mario Bros. Movie’ is No. 1 for third week
“The Super Mario Bros. Movie” continued to rack up coins at the box office, leading ticket sales for the third straight weekend, as the animation hit neared $1 billion after just 18 days in theaters.?
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‘The Phantom of the Opera’ closes on Broadway after 35 years
The final curtain came down Sunday on New York’s production of “The Phantom of the Opera,” ending Broadway’s longest-running show with thunderous standing ovations, champagne toasts and gold and silver confetti bursting from its famous chandelier. It was show No. 13,981 at the Majestic Theatre and it ended with a reprise of “The Music of the Night” performed by the current cast, previous actors in the show — including original star Sarah Brightman — and crew members in street clothes. Andrew Lloyd Webber took to the stage last in a black suit and black tie and dedicated the final show to his son, Nick, who died last month after a protracted battle with gastric cancer and pneumonia. He was 43.
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SPORTS
‘Welcome to Wrexham’ Has Its Championship Moment. Now What?
Wrexham’s story is hardly a secret by now: a proud Welsh soccer team acquired by the actors Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney, who brought in Hollywood money and Hollywood storytelling and cast the club, a fixture of English soccer’s lower leagues, as the hero of its own FX documentary, “Welcome to Wrexham.” The journey that the actors, their team and their city have been on for two years reached its apex Saturday night, when a Wrexham victory on its home field clinched the National League championship and promotion to the next tier of England’s soccer pyramid.
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Oakland A’s purchase land for new stadium in Las Vegas
The Oakland Athletics have signed a binding agreement to purchase land for a new retractable roof ballpark in Las Vegas after being unable to build a new venue in the Bay Area. Team president Dave Kaval said Wednesday night the team finalized a deal last week to buy the 49-acre site where the A’s plan to build the stadium close to the Las Vegas Strip with a seating capacity of 30,000 to 35,000.
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Sources: Packers trade Aaron Rodgers to Jets for multiple picks
https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/36282465/sources-packers-trade-aaron-rodgers-jets-multiple-picks
F?or the second time in 15 years, the Green Bay Packers are trading an aging icon to the New York Jets. The Packers agreed Monday to deal quarterback Aaron Rodgers and their 2023 first-round pick (No. 15) and a 2023 fifth-round pick (No. 170) to the Jets for New York's 2023 first-round pick (No. 13), a 2023 second-round pick (No. 42), a 2023 sixth-round pick (No. 207) and a conditional 2024 second-round pick that becomes a first if Rodgers plays 65% of the plays this season, sources told ESPN's Adam Schefter on Monday.
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Have a great weekend,
The Curator
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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.
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