Curated Compositions--5 Aug 23
Brian Rendell
Leadership | Education | Business | Logistics | Talent Acquisition & Development
Hello Reader,
This week in the news:
- Donald Trump pleads not guilty to election charges in latest arraignment (North America)
- Ukrainian air drones hit buildings in Moscow and sea drones hit a Russian warship; and, peace talks are happening in Saudi Arabia (Europe)
- ISIS says its leader was killed by militants in Syria and names successor (Middle East)
- US orders partial evacuation of embassy in Niger following military takeover, while US troops will stay (Africa)
- Chinese technology shares fell after the country's cyberspace regulator recommended limiting smartphone usage of children under 18 (Asia)
- Biden says Space Command will stay in Colorado (Space)
- A rundown on who’s running for president and who has made it to the first Republican debate so far (Government)
- Quite a few articles on the US military (Defense)
- The US credit rating gets downgraded (Economy)
- The US’s new nuclear reactor is finally online, while the US crude stocks fall by the most in two years (Energy)?
- Interest rates for a 30 year fixed mortgage hover a hair below 7% (Real Estate)
- ChatGPT is getting dumber at math (Artificial Intelligence)
- More people are avoiding the new (Life)
- More Americans than ever report a disability (Health)
- More than 90K Hyundai and Kia cars are being recalled (Home & Auto)
- Chick-fil-A testing drive-thru restaurant where orders arrive in a chute (Food & Drink)
- People in China are wearing “facekinis” (For Fun)
- You can hire a D-list celebrity to record a personalized video for your friend…or foe (Entertainment)
- Some thoughts on using your phone at movies and concerts (Entertainment)
- And Tiger Woods joins the PGA board (Sports)
…among many other news items.
NORTH AMERICA
Donald Trump pleads not guilty to election charges in latest arraignment
Former US President Donald Trump has pleaded not guilty in a Washington DC court to conspiring to overturn his 2020 election defeat. During a short arraignment, he spoke softly to confirm his not-guilty plea, name and age, and that he was not under the influence of any substances. His not-guilty plea covered the four charges in this latest indictment: conspiracy to defraud the US, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding,?obstruction of an official proceeding, conspiracy against the rights of citizens.
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The Pentagon is pulling 1,100 troops from the US-Mexico border mission
The Pentagon is pulling 1,100 active duty troops from the U.S.-Mexico border it deployed earlier this year as the government prepared for the end of asylum restrictions linked to the pandemic. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin approved the deployment of a total of 1,500 active duty troops for a temporary 90-day military presence surge at the border in May. At the time, illegal border crossings were swiftly escalating with concerns they’d go even higher after the restrictions ended but instead the numbers have fallen. The 1,100 troops will conclude their 90-day mission by Aug. 8; the remaining 400 will be extended through August 31, a defense official said on the condition of anonymity to discuss details ahead of an announcement.
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More Republican Governors Deploy National Guard Troops to Texas Border
The Republican governors of Oklahoma, West Virginia and Nebraska this week joined a growing list of those deploying National Guardsmen to the U.S.-Mexico border to bolster the ranks of the Texas National Guard's scandal-scarred mission. The roster now includes at least 13 Republican governors who collectively made pledges to send roughly 1,300 Guardsmen to the border to support Texas Gov. Greg Abbott's Operation Lone Star, which is well into its second year and has cost at least $4.5 billion in an effort to combat illegal immigration and smuggling. The Texas National Guard makes up the lion's share of the mission. At its peak, Operation Lone Star had some 10,000 National Guardsmen, but the Texas Guard did not have the personnel to sustain that mission for a long period of time, thus prompting Abbott to ask other states for their troops in May.
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As work begins on the largest US dam removal project, tribes look to a future of growth
The largest dam removal project in United States history is underway along the California-Oregon border — a process that won’t conclude until the end of next year with the help of heavy machinery and explosives. But in some ways, removing the dams is the easy part. The hard part will come over the next decade as workers, partnering with Native American tribes, plant and monitor nearly 17 billion seeds as they try to restore the Klamath River and the surrounding land to what it looked like before the dams started to go up more than a century ago. The demolition is part of a national movement to return the natural flow of the nation’s rivers and restore habitat for fish and the ecosystems that sustain other wildlife. More than 2,000 dams have been removed in the U.S. as of February, with the bulk of those having come down within the last 25 years, according to the advocacy group American Rivers.
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LATIN AMERICA
El Salvador sends 8,000 troops, police to rural province in gang crackdown
Thousands of Salvadoran soldiers and police officers on Tuesday surrounded the central agricultural region of Cabanas – home to some 150,000 people – as part of President Nayib Bukele’s crackdown on gang activity. Bukele imposed a state of emergency in March 2022 that has seen tens of thousands of alleged gang members rounded up, raising alarms from rights groups. Tuesday’s action was the fifth such mass raid since the crackdown started. In May, the government sent 5,000 soldiers and police to the northern township of Nueva Concepcion after a police officer was killed there.
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Colombia begins a six-month cease-fire with its last remaining rebel group in hopes of forging peace
Colombia and the National Liberation Army, or ELN, formally began a six-month cease-fire Thursday as part of a process to forge a permanent peace between the government and the country’s last remaining rebel group. The cease-fire agreement, announced June 9 during talks in Havana, comes amid skepticism among some Colombians that the peace process can fully end an insurgency dating back to the 1960s or halt the alleged involvement of the group’s estimated 5,000 remaining members in drug trafficking. The ELN leadership denies involvement in the drug trade.
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Parts of Colombia are now awash with cocaine
The WORLD’S demand for cocaine appears insatiable. According to the latest data from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), although the number of consumers of the illegal drug in the United States has remained broadly stable for the past two decades, the number of users in Australia, Europe and Asia has kept increasing (see chart 1). Last month in Sydney, the biggest city in Australia, five people were shot in the space of five days because of gang-related turf wars sparked by a booming market for blow in that city. Yet in some parts of Colombia—the country that produces about 60% of the world’s supply of cocaine—white chunks of coca paste are piling up and prices are plummeting.
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EUROPE
In Saudi Arabia’s Ukraine Peace Talks, How to Measure Success?
Senior officials from up to 30 countries will meet in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, this weekend to talk about peace in Ukraine—but this won’t be a typical peace conference. Russia won’t be there. The idea isn’t to come up with prescriptive terms for what a future peace deal between Ukraine and Russia should look like. And the Saudi hosts aren’t expected to do much in the way of communicating outcomes. As of Thursday, they hadn’t even publicly confirmed that the event is happening. Nonetheless, the meeting is part of a potentially important process that Ukraine and its Western backers hope can lead to the crafting of a shared set of principles with important developing countries for framing future peace talks to Kyiv’s advantage. Many of those developing countries, such as Brazil, India and South Africa, have been largely neutral on the war. The meeting will be seen as a major success if it produces a declaration at the end with a specific set of shared principles for framing peace talks and sets a date for the peace summit that Ukraine hopes to host this year. People involved in the process had talked down the likelihood of either of those happening, but a senior European diplomat said on Thursday that these goals aren’t impossible.
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Drone attacks in Moscow’s glittering business district leave residents on edge
The glittering towers of the Moscow City business district dominate the skyline of the Russian capital. The sleek glass-and-steel buildings -- designed to attract investment amid an economic boom in the early 2000s – are a dramatic, modern contrast to the rest of the more than 800-year-old city. Now they are a sign of its vulnerability, following a series of drone attacks that rattled some Muscovites and brought the war in Ukraine home to the seat of Russian power. The attacks on Sunday and Tuesday aren’t the first to hit Moscow — a drone even struck the Kremlin harmlessly in May. But these latest blasts, which caused no casualties but blew out part of a section of windows on a high-rise building and sent glass cascading to the streets, seemed particularly unsettling.
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Russian Warship Damaged in Ukrainian Drone Attack
A Ukrainian maritime drone slammed into a naval ship at a major Russian port on the Black Sea on Friday, an audacious early morning attack that damaged the vessel and dealt another blow to the Kremlin’s military and economic infrastructure far from the front lines of the war. The strike on the Russian ship in the port of Novorossiysk, a key naval and shipping hub hundreds of miles from Ukrainian-controlled territory, demonstrated the expanding ability of Ukraine’s fleet of air and sea drones to pierce even well defended Russian targets. It came hours after a separate attack by aerial drones on a Russian port in occupied Crimea.
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Exclusive: Russia doubles 2023 defence spending plan as war costs soar
Russia has doubled its 2023 defence spending target to more than $100 billion - a third of all public expenditure - a government document reviewed by Reuters showed, as the costs of the war in Ukraine spiral and place growing strain on Moscow's finances. The figures shed light on Russia's spending on the conflict at a time when sector-specific budget expenditure data is no longer published. They show that in the first half of 2023 alone, Russia spent 12%, or 600 billion roubles, more on defence than the 4.98 trillion roubles ($54 billion) it had originally targeted for 2023. Defence spending in the first six months of 2023 amounted to 5.59 trillion roubles, 37.3% of a total 14.97 trillion roubles spent in the period, the document showed. Russia's budget plan envisages 17.1% of total funds spent on "National Defence".
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Ukraine’s latest weapons in its war with Russia: 3D-printed bombs
Hand grenades are designed to be thrown, so they are light. But when they are dropped from drones, this can be a drawback. With a typical weight of just 300 grams, grenades are short on “killing power”, says a man nicknamed “Lyosha”, who is an amateur weapons-maker based in Kyiv. After one goes off, he says, targeted Russian soldiers “often just keep running”. Three months ago Lyosha and a group of friends, working in their homes, designed an alternative: an 800-gram anti-personnel bomb called the “Zaychyk”, or “Rabbit”. The group uses 3D printing to produce the bomb’s casing, before sending it to be filled with C4, an explosive, and pieces of steel shrapnel. In tests, Lyosha says, this shrapnel cuts into wooden planks “like butter”. Lyosha’s team prints the plastic shells of around 1,000 “candy bombs,” as these improvised explosive devices have come to be known, every week. But the Ukrainian officer who acts as the team’s military contact wants 1,500 a day, says “ADV”, the nom de guerre of a second member of the group. Another set of amateurs, the Druk (“Print”) Army, has churned out more than 30,000 candy bombs in the past four months. “Swat”, their leader, says that the production rate is growing. And still more come from beyond Ukraine’s borders. Janis Ozols is the founder of the Latvia chapter of the Wild Bees, a group of volunteer weaponsmiths from outside Ukraine. He reckons at least 65,000 bomb shells have been shipped from Europe since November 2022. (Ukrainian customs officials have turned a blind eye, classing such shipments as children’s toys or candle-holders.)
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In Ukraine, Amputations Already Evoke Scale of World War I
In February, Ruslana Danilkina, a 19-year-old Ukrainian soldier, came under fire near the front line around Zaporizhzhia in southeastern Ukraine. Shrapnel tore her left leg off above the knee. She clutched her severed thigh bone and watched medics place her severed leg into the vehicle that took her to a hospital. Danilkina is one of between 20,000 and 50,000 Ukrainians who have lost one or more limbs since the start of the war, according to previously undisclosed estimates by prosthetics firms, doctors and charities. The actual figure could be higher because it takes time to register patients after they undergo the procedure. Some are only amputated weeks or months after being wounded. And with Kyiv’s counteroffensive under way, the war may be entering a more brutal phase. By comparison, some 67,000 Germans and 41,000 Britons had to have amputations during the course of World War I, when the procedure was often the only one available to prevent death. Fewer than 2,000 U.S. veterans of the Afghanistan and Iraq invasions had amputations.
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Ukraine war causes birth rate to slump
The war in Ukraine has caused the country's birth rate to fall by 28%, official statistics indicate. In the first six months of 2023, 96,755 children were born there, compared with 135,079 in the first half of 2021. Although the number of new-born babies has been in decline for the past decade, this is the biggest fall since Ukraine gained independence in 1991. Ukraine's population was more than 43 million before the war, but nearly six million have since fled, the UN says.
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Poland Sends Troops to Belarus Border After Airspace Breach
Poland will send more troops to protect its border with Belarus and has summoned the country’s envoy in Warsaw to protest what it described as the violation of its airspace by two Belarusian helicopters on Tuesday. The Foreign Ministry called on Belarus to “immediately and in detail” explain the incident, which it said was an element of the escalation of border tensions between the two countries. “Poland expects Belarus to refrain from such activities,” according to a statement. Separately, the Defense Ministry said it has notified NATO about the incident. Poland’s additional military deployment will include combat helicopters. Belarus’s Defense Ministry denied any violation of the airspace by Mi-24 and Mi-8 helicopters, according to the state-owned Belta news agency.
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Italy minister: joining China's Belt and Road was 'atrocious' decision
Italy made an "improvised and atrocious" decision when it joined China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) four years ago as it did little to boost exports, Italian Defence Minister Guido Crosetto said in an interview published on Sunday. Italy signed up to the BRI under a previous government, becoming the only major Western country to have taken such a step. Crosetto is part of an administration that is considering how to break free of the agreement. The BRI scheme envisions rebuilding the old Silk Road to connect China with Asia, Europe and beyond with large infrastructure spending. Critics see it as a tool for China to spread its geopolitical and economic influence. "The decision to join the (new) Silk Road was an improvised and atrocious act" that multiplied China's exports to Italy but did not have the same effect on Italian exports to China, Crosetto told the Corriere della Sera newspaper.
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Bank of England raises borrowing costs to 15-year peak, signals rates to stay high
The Bank of England raised its key interest rate by a quarter of a percentage point to a 15-year peak of 5.25% on Thursday, and gave a new warning that borrowing costs were likely to stay high for some time. Unlike the U.S. Federal Reserve or the European Central Bank - which also both raised rates by a quarter-point last week - the BoE's Monetary Policy Committee gave little suggestion that rate hikes were about to end as it battles high inflation.
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MIDDLE EAST
ISIS says its leader was killed by militants in Syria and names successor
The Islamic State group announced on Thursday the death in Syria of its little-known leader, Abu al-Hussein al-Husseini al-Qurayshi, who headed the extremist organization since November, and named his successor. The group did not say when al-Qurayshi was killed but added that he died in fighting with an al-Qaeda-linked group. ISIS spokesman Abu Huthaifa al-Ansari said that Abu Hafs al-Hashemi al-Qurayshi was named as the group’s new leader.
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AFRICA
US orders partial evacuation of embassy in Niger following military takeover
The U.S. Department of State Wednesday ordered a temporary partial evacuation of the U.S. embassy in Niamey following the military takeover of Niger’s government last week. ?The State Department said all non-emergency U.S. government personnel and eligible family members were ordered to depart from the embassy on Wednesday, noting the commercial flights are limited.
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Niger: President Mohamed Bazoum calls on US for help after coup
Niger's ousted leader has urged the US and "entire international community" to help "restore... constitutional order" after last week's coup. In an opinion piece in the Washington Post, President Mohamed Bazoum said he was writing "as a hostage". He also warned that the region could fall further under Russian influence, via the Wagner Group which already operates in neighbouring countries. Niger's West African neighbours have threatened military intervention.On Thursday, the coup leaders announced they were withdrawing the country's ambassadors from France, the US, Nigeria and Togo.
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Pentagon Keeps Troops in Niger Despite Putsch, Maintains Contact with Some Military Leaders
The Pentagon said Tuesday it has suspended security cooperation with Niger due to the political unrest in the West African nation, but U.S. troops are not being evacuated, and some are still even continuing to engage with members of the country's military.
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ASIA
Death toll from IS bombing at a pro-Taliban cleric’s rally in Pakistan earlier this week rises to 63
The death toll from an Islamic State group’s suicide bombing at a campaign rally over the weekend of a pro-Taliban Pakistani cleric’s party rose to 63 on Wednesday, after eight people died in hospital. Sunday’s massive attack — one of the country’s worst attacks in recent years — left nearly 200 wounded, several critically. The bomber struck an election campaign rally of supporters of pro-Taliban cleric Fazlur Rehman in the northwestern district of Bajur, near the border with Afghanistan and a region where the Pakistani military spent years fighting the Pakistani Taliban before declaring the district clear of militants in 2016.
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Xi Jinping replaces leaders of China's elite nuclear force
China replaced two leaders of an elite unit managing its nuclear arsenal, triggering speculation of a purge. General Li Yuchao who headed the People's Liberation Army's (PLA) Rocket Force unit and his deputy had "disappeared" for months. Former deputy navy chief Wang Houbin and party central committee member Xu Xisheng were named as replacements. This is the biggest unplanned shake-up in Beijing's military leadership in almost a decade.
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While Everyone Else Fights Inflation, China Deflation Fears Deepen
Signs of deflation are becoming more prevalent across China, heaping extra pressure on Beijing to reignite growth or risk falling into an economic trap it could find hard to escape. ?While the rest of the world tussles with inflation, China is at risk of experiencing a prolonged spell of falling prices that—if it takes root—could eat into corporate profits, sap consumer spending and push more people out of work. Its effects would ripple across the globe, easing prices for some products that countries like the U.S. buy from China, but would also deprive the world of important Chinese demand for raw materials and consumer goods, while also creating other problems. Prices charged by Chinese factories that make products ranging from steel to cement to chemicals have been falling for months. Consumer prices, meanwhile, have gone flat, with prices for certain goods—including sugar, eggs, clothes and household appliances—now falling on a month-over-month basis amid weak demand. Most economists think China will probably avoid a deep and lasting period of deflation. Its economy is growing, albeit sluggishly, and the government has unveiled a variety of small stimulus measures that could help more. Earlier in July, Liu Guoqiang, a Chinese central bank official, dismissed concerns that China is slipping toward deflation. But some economists see alarming parallels between China’s current predicament and the experience of Japan, which struggled for years with deflation and stagnant growth.
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Tech shares fall as China mulls child smartphone limits
Chinese technology shares fell after the country's cyberspace regulator recommended limiting smartphone usage of children under 18. Shares of firms like Alibaba and video-sharing site Bilibili fell on Wednesday and saw more losses early on Thursday. The proposed law would see children being only allowed to use their phones for a maximum of two hours a day. It comes four years after children in the world's second-largest economy were subject to gaming restrictions. The rules proposed by the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC), will also see children banned from accessing the internet on mobile devices from 22:00 to 06:00 local time.?While children between the ages of 16 to 18 will be allowed two hours of screen time a day, those under the age of eight will only be allotted eight minutes.
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China intensifies flood rescue efforts south of Beijing after historic rains
China on Wednesday dispatched thousands of rescue workers to Zhuozhou, a flooded city of over 600,000 residents southwest of Beijing, as the remnants of Typhoon Doksuri continued to wreak havoc on swathes of the city twice the size of Paris. Zhuozhou is in Hebei province, which has borne the brunt of the worst storms to hit northern China in over a decade, killing least 20 people. The city also borders Beijing, which was inundated with the most rainfall in 140 years between Saturday and early Wednesday, official data showed.
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Defense Dept. confirms North Korea responded to outreach about Travis King
North Korea has responded to outreach about Private Travis King, who crossed into the DPRK in July, according to the Pentagon, marking what appears to be the U.S.' first public acknowledgment of Pyongyang's response to King's situation. ?The U.S. communicated through established channels after King crossed from South Korea into North Korea but had been waiting for a response from the North for weeks.
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South Korea to send more medics to global scout event for heatwave
South Korea is sending dozens of military doctors and nurses to help out at the camp site of a global scout event on Thursday after hundreds of teenage participants fell ill from the heatwave gripping the country. At least 600 participants at the World Scout Jamboree, which kicked off in southwestern Buan on Tuesday, have so far been treated for heat-related ailments, officials said. The event coincides with the most severe heat warning by the government in four years, as temperatures in some parts of the country exceed 38 degrees Celsius (100.4 Fahrenheit) this week.
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Myanmar junta grants partial pardon to democracy champion Suu Kyi
Myanmar's ruling military pardoned on Tuesday jailed former leader Aung San Suu Kyi on five of the 19 offences for which she was convicted but she will remain under house arrest, state media and informed sources said. The pardons mean six years will be shaved off Suu Kyi's 33-year jail term, junta spokesperson Zaw Min Tun told the Eleven Media Group, adding that it was part of an amnesty under which more than 7,000 prisoners were freed across the strife-torn country. Myanmar has been in the throes of bloody turmoil since early 2021, when the military overthrew Suu Kyi's elected government and unleashed a crackdown on opponents of military rule that saw thousands jailed or killed. On Monday, the junta postponed an election promised by August this year and extended a state of emergency for another six months, which critics say would prolong the crisis.
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OCEANA
New Zealand to Boost Defense Capabilities Amid Pacific Tensions
New Zealand said Friday it plans to boost its defense capabilities as tensions rise in the Pacific, due in part to a military buildup by China. Defense Minister Andrew Little said current defense spending amounted to about 1% of the nation's economy, a proportion he expected would need to increase, although not as high as 2%. He said replacing aging navy frigates and patrol vessels is among the most pressing needs under consideration. He said the country is also facing an increase in domestic threats such as misinformation, cyberattacks and terrorism. The new defense policy paper released by Little contained no specifics about increases in spending, equipment or troops, with those details expected to be finalized in a later plan.
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SPACE
Biden Says Space Command will Stay in Colorado
President Joe Biden has selected Colorado as the permanent headquarters for U.S. Space Command, reversing a previous decision by his predecessor to move the combatant command to Alabama, the administration announced July 31.
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Voyager 2: Nasa picks up 'heartbeat' signal after sending wrong command
Nasa has picked up a "heartbeat" signal from its Voyager 2 probe after it lost contact with it billions of miles away from Earth, the space agency said. Last month, the spacecraft - exploring the universe since 1977 - tilted its antenna to point two degrees away from Earth after a wrong command was sent. As a result, the probe stopped receiving commands or sending data. But on Tuesday, Nasa said a signal from Voyager 2 was picked up during a regular scan of the sky. Voyager 2 is more than 12.3 billion miles (19.9 billion km) from Earth, where it is hurtling at an estimated 34,390mph (55,346km/h) through interstellar space - the space between the stars. Voyager 2 is the only spacecraft ever to fly by Neptune and Uranus, while Voyager 1 is now nearly 15 billion miles away from Earth, making it humanity's most distant spacecraft.
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NOTE: Anytime I hear about a Voyager probe I can’t help but be reminded of the movie Star Trek: The Motion Picture.
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GOVERNMENT
Who’s running for president? See a rundown of the 2024 candidates
With roughly a year and a half until the 2024 presidential contest, the field of candidates is largely set. Former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis have dominated the early Republican race as the other candidates look for an opening to take them on. President Joe Biden faces a couple of Democratic challengers but is expected to secure his party’s nomination. Here’s a look at the candidates competing for the Republican and Democratic nominations.
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Who Has Made It to the First Republican Debate So Far?
The latest polling and fund-raising data show that the playing field is narrowing for the Republican presidential debate scheduled for later this month. Although former President Donald J. Trump is the clear front-runner in polling, the debate stage in Milwaukee could be an opportunity for other candidates to make an impression. To participate, each candidate must first satisfy fund-raising and polling criteria set by the Republican National Committee. Financially, they each need 40,000 campaign donors, including at least 200 donors from 20 states. And they need support from 1 percent of Republican voters in three national polls, or in two national polls and two polls in the early primary states. These polls must meet R.N.C. standards, which have substantially limited the number of surveys that could count toward this number. The R.N.C. did not respond to questions about the polling criteria.
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IRS to eliminate ‘oceans’ of paper by digitizing all new tax returns by 2025
The IRS is dipping into its multi-year modernization funds to digitally process all the tax returns it receives by 2025 — a major shift for an agency that still relies heavily on paper forms. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said that by the 2025 filing season, the IRS will digitally process all the tax returns it receives, as well as half of all paper-based correspondence, non-tax forms and notice responses. The IRS will also start to digitize more than a billion historical documents, which will give taxpayers greater access to their records, and will save the agency about $40 million in annual storage costs. More immediately, taxpayers will have the option to go paperless with their IRS correspondence by next year’s filing season.
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DEFENSE
Exclusive: Pentagon Investigates ‘Critical Compromise’ Of Air Force Communications Systems
The Pentagon is investigating what it has called a “critical compromise” of communications across 17 Air Force facilities by one of its engineers, according to a search warrant obtained by Forbes. The document also details evidence of a possible breach of FBI communications by the same employee, who worked at the Arnold Air Force Base in Tennessee. The government had been tipped off by a base contractor that the 48-year-old engineer had taken government radio technologies home, effectively stealing them for his own use, according to the warrant, which alleged the amount of pilfered equipment was worth nearly $90,000. When law enforcement raided his home, they found he had “unauthorized administrator access” to radio communications tech used by the Air Education and Training Command (AETC), “affecting 17 DoD installations,” according to the warrant. The AETC is one of nine “major commands,” defined by the Pentagon as “interrelated and complementary, providing offensive, defensive, and support elements” to Air Force HQ.
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Two US Navy sailors arrested on charges of sharing secrets with China
Two U.S. Navy sailors have been arrested on charges of handing over sensitive national security material to China, U.S. officials said Thursday. Petty Officer Wenheng Zhao, 26, was charged with conspiracy and bribetaking in connection with taking nearly $15,000 in exchange for photographs and videos of sensitive U.S. military information, the officials said. U.S. Navy sailor, Jinchao Wei, whose age was not disclosed, was charged with conspiring to send national defense information to China in exchange for thousands of dollars.
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America’s Military Trails Russia and China in Race for the Melting Arctic
Once a lonely and largely impassable maritime expanse where countries worked together to extract natural resources, the Arctic is increasingly contested territory. As sea ice melts and traffic increases on the southern edges of the Arctic Ocean, governments are maneuvering in ways that mirror the great-power rivalries seen in lower latitudes. In recent months, Russian bombers have increased their patrols over the Arctic and have probed further south. Norway’s intelligence service said that with Russia’s conventional forces weakened by the war in Ukraine, its strategic weapons are taking on greater importance, among them the nuclear-armed submarines of Russia’s Northern Fleet. More Russian-flagged commercial and government vessels are active in Arctic waters. While U.S. military officials and analysts don’t expect Beijing to deploy broad military forces in the Arctic, they said China is sharing satellite and electronic intelligence from the region with Moscow. In response, the U.S. is beefing up its presence in the Arctic by adding to its polar icebreakers—the ships vital to a consistent presence in the icy seas. The U.S. has just one icebreaker in the region for only part of the year, compared with three dozen owned by Russia. It’s also tracking movements of Russia and China via satellites, drones and unmanned seacraft, analysts and military officers said.
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USAF Will Retire the U-2 in 2026. Until Then, Expect ‘Unique, Innovative’ Uses
The Air Force plans to retire its U-2 Dragon Lady fleet in fiscal 2026—but until then, officials say they’re hard at work to keep the iconic high-altitude surveillance planes flying and testing out technology that may be used on future aircraft. ?The plan to divest the U-2 was first reported by Aviation Week and Air Force Times, citing a line tucked into Air Force budget documents that “expectations are for protective NDAA language to be waived … allowing the USAF to move forward with U-2 divestment in FY 2026.”?
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Defense Department Updates Its Law of War Manual
Today [31 Jul 23], the Department of Defense (DoD) released an important update to its Law of War Manual. The Manual provides authoritative legal guidance for DoD personnel in implementing the law of war and executing military operations. It reflects America's long and deep tradition of respect for the rule of law and the law of war. This is the third update to the Manual since it was first issued in June 2015. The updated Manual substantially enhances the discussion of what the law of war requires when determining whether a person or object is a lawful target in planning and conducting attacks. It describes the legal duty to presume that persons or objects are protected from being targeted for attack unless the available information indicates that they are military objectives. The Manual also includes a new section discussing the obligation to take feasible precautions to verify that potential targets are military objectives, including providing examples of common precautionary measures. The update affirms that the law of war does not prevent commanders and other personnel from making decisions and acting at the speed of relevance, including in high-intensity conflicts, based on the
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Poll says confidence in US military lowest in 25 years
American confidence in the United States military recently reached its lowest point in 25 years, according to a new poll. The latest numbers from the June 1-22 Gallup poll, used to measure faith in public institutions, follow a persistent dip in public confidence in the military over the last five years. “At 60%, confidence in the military was last this low in 1997,” according to Gallup. The all-time low came in 1981, on the heels of the Iran hostage crisis. While the military remains near the top of the list of American institutions that have earned a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of societal confidence, public perception of the armed forces has dramatically fluctuated over the last few decades.
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NOTE: Full poll results below…
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Historically Low Faith in U.S. Institutions Continues
Americans’ faith in major societal institutions hasn’t improved over the past year following a slump in public confidence in 2022. Last year, Gallup recorded significant declines in public confidence in 11 of the 16 institutions it tracks annually, with the presidency and Supreme Court suffering the most. The share of Americans expressing a great deal or fair amount of confidence in these fell 15 and 11 percentage points, respectively.
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ECONOMY
Fitch cuts US credit rating to AA+; Treasury calls it 'arbitrary'
Rating agency Fitch on Tuesday downgraded the U.S. government's top credit rating, a move that drew an angry response from the White House and surprised investors, coming despite the resolution of the debt ceiling crisis two months ago. Traders' immediate response was to embark on a safe-haven push out of stocks and into government bonds and the dollar. Fitch downgraded the United States to AA+ from AAA, citing fiscal deterioration over the next three years and repeated down-the-wire debt ceiling negotiations that threaten the government’s ability to pay its bills.
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Slower Hiring This Summer Could Take Heat Off the Fed
Employers slowed their hiring this summer, adding to signs the economy is gradually cooling and easing pressure for the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates at its next meeting. The U.S. economy added 187,000 jobs in July, a still solid increase nearly matching June’s downwardly revised 185,000 gain, the Labor Department said Friday. Those figures are down significantly from a year earlier and below last year’s average employment growth of about 400,000 a month.
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Stocks Have Had a Great Year. Cue the September Effect.
September is traditionally the weakest month for U.S. stocks. This year, investors say the turning of the calendar should be especially worrying. Stocks have risen sharply after last year’s selloff, defying any number of risks along the way. The S&P 500 is up 17% so far this year, including a 3.1% increase in July that reflected gains across all 11 sectors. Wall Street’s so-called fear gauge, the Cboe Volatility Index, is sitting well below historical averages. If history is any guide, investors’ optimism will soon be put to the test. The S&P 500 has lost an average of 1.1% in September dating back to 1928, making it the worst month for stocks’ performance. It isn’t just a few bad years dragging down returns: The broad index has risen less than 45% of the time over that period, also the worst month by that measure, according to Dow Jones Market Data.??There is no clear reason for what is known as the “September effect.” But it is typically a month without the type of news that can push stocks higher, such as major corporate earnings, said Jay Hatfield, chief executive officer of Infrastructure Capital Advisors.
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BUSINESS
Small-Business Lending Is About to Change, With Simpler Requirements
The federal program for small-business lending is undergoing its biggest makeover in decades. The Small Business Administration is simplifying loan requirements, automating more of the process and expanding the pool of nonbank lenders licensed to issue SBA loans. The moves, many of which take effect Aug. 1, will make it easier for financial-technology firms to participate. ?SBA officials say they want to boost credit to small businesses that have struggled to get financing as banks favored bigger commercial borrowers. But the changes—and the decision to couple relaxed requirements with new lenders—have drawn criticism from the industry and members of Congress, who say the revisions could jeopardize the program by increasing loan defaults.
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Salesforce Cuts More Jobs After 10% Reduction Earlier This Year
Salesforce Inc. has eliminated more workers beyond a previously announced 10% reduction in a renewed focus on profitability. Sales and customer success employees were let go in Ireland Wednesday, “as part of an ongoing effort to ensure we always have the right resources in place,” a spokesperson said. The cuts are separate from the companywide reduction announced in January, the spokesperson said. About 50 roles were impacted. Salesforce’s plans for reducing headcount by about 8,000 people by the end of fiscal 2024 are the company’s largest ever. The spokesperson declined to comment on whether any other countries or divisions will see additional headcount reductions.
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Overstock is now Bed Bath & Beyond. Here’s what you need to know.
Bed Bath & Beyond is back … kind of. As of Tuesday, Overstock officially swapped its name out for the now-defunct housewares chain. Customers searching for either retailer online will wind up on the same landing page, where both companies’ logos will be displayed for the next few months. Overstock — once an online repository for closeout furniture, home decor and more — acquired Bed Bath & Beyond’s intellectual property for $21.5 million in June, about two months after the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The rebranding is expected to build on both companies’ strengths, said chief executive Jonathan Johnson.
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Apple, Samsung Halt India Laptop Imports After Sudden Curbs
Apple Inc., Samsung Electronics Co. and HP Inc. are among the biggest names freezing new imports of laptops and tablets to India after the South Asian country abruptly banned inbound shipments without a license. Regulators on Thursday surprised the world’s biggest PC makers when they made licenses mandatory for import of electronics from small tablets to all-in-one PCs. Laptop makers had been bracing for some government measures aimed at reducing reliance on imports and boosting local production, but the sudden licensing imposition caught the industry off-guard, people familiar with the matter said, declining to be named due to the sensitivity of the issue.
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ENERGY
The US’s new nuclear reactor is finally online
A new nuclear reactor providing energy to 500,000 homes in the southern U.S. has come online. The Plant Vogtle reactor in Georgia became commercially operational this week, and is the first new nuclear project to be built from scratch in three decades, following several years of construction delays and running $17 billion over budget.
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Atlantic’s Biggest Offshore Wind Turbine to Rise Next Week in US
About 15 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, a massive structure emerges from the Atlantic Ocean. Nearby it will have the biggest turbines in the Atlantic, as tall as the Washington Monument with the Statue of Liberty stacked on top. It’s the first offshore power substation in the US and in October it is expected to start delivering electricity from Vineyard Wind, the nation’s first commercial-scale offshore wind farm. By 2024, the project is expected to generate enough electricity to power 400,000 homes.
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Oil inventory drops set stage for higher prices
Oil inventories are beginning to fall in some regions as demand outpaces supply constrained by deep production cuts from OPEC leader Saudi Arabia, providing support for prices which are expected to rise in coming months. Crude stocks at the Cushing storage hub in Oklahoma fell by 2.9 million barrels in the week to July 14, the steepest draw in more than a year and a half according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), and shed a further 2.6 million barrels the following week, leaving them well below their five-year average.?Big crude builds in China and Japan have so far offset a drop in the Mideast Gulf, meaning there is no sign yet of an overall global onshore crude inventory drawdown, according to satellite analytics firm Kayrros. In fact, data from the firm shows that crude inventories in the week to July 20 reached a two-year high, with the world adding 200 million barrels into storage since Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. This amounts to roughly 400,000 bpd over that time period, the daily oil consumption of Portugal. Crude stocks in the Mideast Gulf and North Africa region have declined by 5 million barrels overall so far this year, according to estimates by Macquarie, although OPEC members in the region have drawn 10 million barrels.
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It’s Official: Stores Can No Longer Sell Most Incandescent Lights
It’s the end of an era. In America, the incandescent light is no more (with a few exceptions). Under new energy efficiency rules that took effect Tuesday, shoppers in the United States will no longer be able to purchase most incandescent bulbs, marking the demise of a technology patented by Thomas Edison in the late 1800s. Taking their place are LED lights, which — love them or hate them — have already transformed America’s energy landscape.
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REAL ESTATE
A 5% US Mortgage Rate Is Seen as Tipping Point to Unlock Supply
US homeowners are nearly twice as willing to sell if their mortgage rate is 5% or higher, but just one in five mortgaged homes meet that criteria. For those who have a mortgage rate of at least 5%, 38% said they’re planning on selling their homes, according to a quarterly survey by Zillow. Just 21% of holders with rates below that dividing line said the same.
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Mortgage Rates
The combination of upbeat economic data and the U.S. government credit rating downgrade caused mortgage rates to rise this week. Despite higher rates and lower purchase demand, home prices have increased due to very low unsold inventory.
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Lots of US Homeowners Want to Move. They Just Have Nowhere to Go
It’s never been more challenging to find an affordable home to buy in the US. High prices, a critical shortage of listings and mortgage rates that have more than doubled from the record lows of just a couple years ago are forcing countless Americans to put their next moves and other major life decisions on hold. Gridlock is gripping the housing market in part because buyers and homeowners took advantage of historically low rates to purchase homes or refinance mortgages and lock in lower borrowing costs. More than nine of every 10 US homeowners with mortgages — or 46.1 million people — have a rate below 6%, according to a June report from Redfin Corp. Those low rates have been an economic gift for many homeowners, a benefit that few want to give up. Builders are rushing to step up production, but that alone can’t close the supply-and-demand gap. Largely absent is the one group that historically has kept the market moving: homeowners who are willing to sell.
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Foreign Purchases of U.S. Homes Slump to All-Time Low
Foreign buying of U.S. homes fell for a sixth straight year, sinking to the lowest level on record, though some signs of turnaround are starting to emerge. ?International buyers purchased 84,600 U.S. homes in the year ended in March, down 14% from the prior year, according to a report released Tuesday by the National Association of Realtors. The dollar volume of residential real estate purchased by these buyers fell 9.6% to $53.3 billion, also a record low since NAR began collecting the data in 2011. Foreign buyers pulled back for some of the same reasons that Americans did, including housing prices that have been close to record highs and limited inventory for sale. Foreigners also were deterred by the stronger dollar. Still, the decline in international purchases was less than the 23% decline that U.S. existing-home sales posted over the same period. Foreign buyers are more likely to pay with cash, making them less responsive to steeper mortgage rates compared with domestic buyers.
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Miami Sees Its First Population Drop in Decades
Miami, a global hot spot with ambitions to be a business and financial hub, is driving away more residents than it is attracting. Surging housing costs and a fickle labor market, which by one measure still hasn’t recovered from the pandemic, are sending many locals packing. Miami-Dade lost 79,535 people through net migration to other parts of Florida or other states between 2020 and 2022, according to an analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data by the Brookings Institution. Although foreign immigration offset some of the loss and helped the county’s population rise slightly last year, Miami-Dade County’s population still shrank between 2019 and 2022—its first population loss over a multiyear period since at least 1970, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
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Local Malls, Stuck in ‘Death Spiral,’ Plunge in Value
Older, low-end malls are worth at least 50% and in some cases more than 70% less than they were when mall valuations peaked in late 2016, said Vince Tibone, head of U.S. retail and industrial research for real-estate research firm Green Street. Now, as more than $14 billion of loans backed by these properties comes due in the next 12 months, according to Moody’s Analytics, struggling malls are defaulting on their debt. With mortgage rates up sharply, refinancing that debt will be more challenging and expensive. About a fifth of all malls financed through commercial mortgage-backed securities are underwater, meaning the properties are worth less than the loans they back, said Kevin Fagan, head of commercial real-estate economic analysis for Moody’s.?Widespread department-store closures beginning in 2018 hastened malls’ decline. Large mall anchors like Macy’s, Bon-Ton, JCPenney and Sears closed about 875 department stores between 2018 and the end of 2020, according to Green Street, compared with a combined 175 in 2016 and 2017.
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PERSONAL FINANCE
US Workers Say They Need $1.8 Million for Retirement
Workers are finding it harder to save for retirement, even as the amount they need keeps rising. The average savings target in the US is now $1.8 million, according to a nationwide Charles Schwab survey released Wednesday. That’s up from $1.7 million a year ago. Nearly 80% of the 1,000 401(k) plan participants surveyed said inflation and market volatility were getting into the way of saving more this year, and 36% of those respondents said they’d retire later than planned as a result. The year-over-year overall retirement target in the Schwab survey isn’t a huge change, at about 6%, but the percentage of workers who think it’s “very likely” they’ll reach that goal fell to 37% from 47% a year ago, and from 53% in 2021.
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The Benefit of Owning Stocks Over Bonds Keeps Shrinking
The extra reward for holding stocks instead of bonds has fallen to its lowest level in 20 years, threatening a recent hot streak for major indexes. ?One method for gauging the value of stocks is to compare their earnings yield—calculated by dividing a company’s expected earnings over the next year by its stock price—to the yield on government bonds, considered the closest thing to a risk-free return. The difference, sometimes called the equity-risk premium, shows how much investors are being compensated for the additional risk of owning stocks. ?And right now, that isn’t much. The gap between the earnings yield of the S&P 500 and the yield on the 10-year U.S. government bond dropped to around 1.1 percentage point last week, its narrowest since 2002. The spread to the yield on the 10-year Treasury inflation-protected security, seen by some analysts as the better benchmark because corporate earnings tend to adjust with inflation, has similarly fallen to its lowest level since 2003, at around 3.5 percentage points. Looking back at history, analysts say risk premiums revert to average over time—typically because prospects for corporate earnings dim, not because investors get frightened by valuations on their own. Investors have another source of hope: Risk premiums could normalize because bond yields fall rather than stock prices.
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TECHNOLOGY
UK's first drone mail service begins in Orkney
Orkney has become the first location in the UK to have mail delivered by drone. The Orkney I-Port operation has been launched by Royal Mail and drone firm Skyports to distribute letters and parcels between the islands. In partnership with the council's harbour authority and Loganair, mail will be transported from Royal Mail's Kirkwall delivery office to Stromness. From there, drones will carry items to Graemsay and Hoy where postal staff will complete their delivery routes.
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CYBER
Microsoft says Russia-linked hackers behind dozens of Teams phishing attacks
A Russian government-linked hacking group took aim at dozens of global organizations with a campaign to steal login credentials by engaging users in Microsoft Teams chats pretending to be from technical support, Microsoft researchers said on Wednesday. These "highly targeted" social engineering attacks have affected "fewer than 40 unique global organizations" since late May, Microsoft researchers said in a blog, adding that the company was investigating. The Russian embassy in Washington didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. The hackers set up domains and accounts that looked like technical support and tried to engage Teams users in chats and get them to approve multifactor authentication (MFA) prompts, the researchers said.
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ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
Why ChatGPT Is Getting Dumber at Basic Math
Since becoming widely available to the public last year, artificial-intelligence chatbots have dazzled people who experimented with them, kicked off a global development race and even contributed to the strike in Hollywood over their impact on writers and actors. AI tools have also generated fear that they will inexorably improve and threaten humanity. OpenAI’s ChatGPT debuted to the public in November, sparking the current frenzy, followed by Chat GPT-4 in March, meant to be more powerful than its predecessor. But new research released this week reveals a fundamental challenge of developing artificial intelligence: ChatGPT has become worse at performing certain basic math operations. The researchers at Stanford University and the University of California, Berkeley said the deterioration is an example of a phenomenon known to AI developers as drift, where attempts to improve one part of the enormously complex AI models make other parts of the models perform worse.
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Outcry Against AI Companies Grows Over Who Controls Internet’s Content
A collective cry is breaking out as authors, artists and internet publishers realize that the generative-AI phenomenon sweeping the globe is built partly on the back of their work. The emerging awareness has set up a war between the forces behind the inputs and the outputs of these new artificial-intelligence tools, over whether and how content originators should be compensated. The disputes threaten to throw sand into the gears of the AI boom just as it seems poised to revolutionize the global economy. Artificial-intelligence companies including OpenAI, its backer, and Google built generative-AI systems such as ChatGPT by scraping oceans of information from the internet and feeding it into training algorithms that teach the systems to imitate human speech. The companies generally say their data use without compensation is permitted, but they have left the door open to discussing the issue with content creators.
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LIFE
Pulled out to sea by current, swimmer is rescued after treading water for 5 hours
A swimmer who got swept out to sea by a powerful current was rescued off New York’s Long Island after treading water for five hours, police said. Dan Ho, 63, went swimming at a beach in Babylon at around 5 a.m. Monday and was pulled out by the current, Suffolk County police said in a news release. After treading water with no flotation device for five hours, Ho found a broken fishing pole and tied his shirt to it to try to flag down a passing boat, police said. Two men in a fishing boat spotted Ho about 2 1/2 miles (4 kilometers) south of where he had entered the water, police said.
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Do you avoid the news? You’re in growing company.
The troublesome trend is spelled out in research by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. For years, the Oxford-based think tank has been asking people around the world about their news-consumption habits. In its latest survey, 38 percent of U.S. respondents say they sometimes or often avoid news, including 41 percent of women and 34 percent of men. At the same time, the proportion of people who are “extremely” or “very interested” in the news continued to sink. In the United States, this group was in the minority (49 percent) for the first time in the survey’s short history, down from 67 percent in 2015. The institute’s data also suggest a sharper percentage-point drop abroad (including 27 points in the United Kingdom). Researchers say “news avoidance” could be a response to an age of hyper-information, when updates from the outside world flow not just from every TV set and printing press but also out of our own pockets via smartphones. Digital media has made news ubiquitous and instantly available from thousands of sources representing every ideology, geography and language. And much of it, people say, drives feelings of depression, anger, anxiety or helplessness. Web traffic to a variety of news websites has been trending down since peaking around the 2020 election and the Capitol insurrection in January 2021. The New York Times was down 20 percent last month compared with a year earlier, while The Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal saw drops of 15 and 14 percent, respectively, according to the digital tracking firm ComScore.
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NOTE: Hopefully you find this newsletter compelling, informative, worthwhile reading, and not depressing.?I don’t purposefully avoid depressing news, but I do try to find articles that are balanced in their language and viewpoints.?I think it’s important to know what’s going on in the world around us, while also accepting I have very little control over it.
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RELIGION
Why Middle-Aged Americans Aren’t Going Back to Church
Church attendance for Gen Xers has dropped off more dramatically than other age groups. Americans in their 40s and 50s often identify with a religion, but they’re also in the thick of raising kids, caring for aging parents and juggling demanding jobs that spill into the weekend. During the pandemic, many got out of the habit of going regularly to religious services and didn’t resume. Some had been drifting away before or became disillusioned by church scandals or positions on social issues in recent years. The percentage of people ages 39 to 57 who attended a worship service during the week, either in person or online, fell to 28% in 2023, down from 41% in 2020, according to a survey this year. This was the largest percentage-point drop of all age groups examined in the survey of 2,000 adults conducted by the Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University. Some people who study religion liken the drop-off in attendance and involvement to the workplace phenomenon called quiet quitting. ?While average attendance, including online, has rebounded from the pandemic in many congregations, deeper participation is still lagging, says David Brubaker, a professor at Eastern Mennonite University and organizational consultant. Volunteering fell to about 20% of church membership in March 2022 from about 40% in early 2020, according to the Hartford Institute for Religion Research. People remain on membership rolls, but stop volunteering, says Packard. In many cases, they continue making donations until their credit card expires. If asked, they continue to describe themselves as Protestant, Jewish or another denomination.
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HEALTH
More Americans than ever report a disability
NOTHING SEEMS to be able to dent America’s labour market these days. A new analysis finds that the number of American adults reporting that they have a disability has risen sharply since the pandemic—but has not made them less likely to work. The number-crunching, by Andrew Hunter of Capital Economics, a consultancy, draws on data from the Current Population Survey (CPS), a monthly household survey conducted by the Census Bureau for the Bureau of Labour Statistics. Although the survey tends to focus on labour-force conditions, including employment and earnings, it also asks questions about disabilities. And the share of Americans reporting that they have “serious difficulty” in certain daily tasks has risen sharply since the pandemic, to nearly 8% for those aged 16 to 64, and 13% for those aged 16 and over—a record high (see chart).
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Chance discovery helps fight against malaria
Scientists have found a naturally occurring strain of bacteria which can help stop the transmission of malaria from mosquitoes to humans. They found it by chance, after a colony of mosquitoes in one experiment did not develop the malaria parasite. The researchers say the bacteria could be a new tool for fighting one of the world's oldest diseases, which kills 600,000 people every year. Trials assessing its safety in the real world are now taking place.
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HOME & AUTO
Hyundai, Kia recall 91,000 US vehicles over fire risks, urge owners to park outside
Hyundai Motor (005380.KS) and Kia (000270.KS) said on Thursday they are recalling more than 91,000 newer vehicles in the United States because of fire risks and urged owners to park outside and away from structures pending repairs. The recall covers Hyundai 2023-2024 Palisade, 2023 Tucson, Sonata, Elantra, and Kona vehicles and 2023-2024 Seltos and 2023 Kia Soul, Sportage vehicles. The Korean automakers said electronic controllers for the Idle Stop & Go oil pump assembly may contain damaged electrical components that can cause the pump to overheat. Owners will be notified in late September and dealers will inspect and replace the electric oil pump controller as needed.
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Hyundai Recall Link:
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Kia Recall Link:
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How Russia Helped Turn China Into the World’s Biggest Car Exporter
China is now the world’s largest auto exporter with Russia becoming its biggest buyer this year. WSJ explains how Chinese car brands profited from Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine and Western sanctions.
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FOOD & DRINK
Chick-fil-A testing drive-thru restaurant where orders arrive in a chute
Chick-Fil-A will test two new restaurant concepts prioritizing digital-focused, to-go orders in a bid to offer customers a speedier ordering experience. ?The fast-food chain will open a walk-up restaurant in New York City and a drive-thru restaurant in the Atlanta metropolitan area with features aimed at "cutting down wait-time[s]," Chick-fil-A Executive Director Khalilah Cooper said in a statement on Thursday. Digital orders have eclipsed traditional in-store orders in some of the company's markets, where they make up more than half of all orders. Both restaurants will open in 2024.
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NATURE
Gravity varies around the world. Here’s where it changes the most.
Newton found that gravity is partly dependent on mass; objects with more mass experience a stronger gravitational pull. On Earth, that generally means the strength of gravity’s pull on an object may be stronger or weaker at different locations, depending on Earth’s inner structure and topography. Places with more mass, such as mountains, have stronger gravitational forces. Places with less mass underground, such as valleys and deep ocean trenches, have weaker gravitational forces. “Mass creates gravity,” said John Ries, a senior research scientist at the University of Texas at Austin. “If you see a change in gravity, you see a change in mass.” You can also think of the gravity changes in terms of acceleration. On average, the acceleration of an object falling to Earth due to gravity is around 9.8 meters per second squared. But in places with more or less gravity, that acceleration may be slightly different. Ries said people aren’t able to notice these very minor variations, but advanced scientific instruments can measure the small abnormalities. He and his colleagues work with a NASA satellite mission known as Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE), which provides global snapshots of Earth’s gravity field. Scientists can use this information to track mass changes in polar ice and water reservoirs and help make sense of how the processes below Earth’s surface affect those above ground.
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US snake hunters fight pythons big enough to devour gators
In the decade since Florida launched its first public contest to kill Burmese pythons, thousands of people from all over the US and around the world have staked their hopes on killing as many of the massive serpents as they can. The Florida Python Challenge draws in hundreds of participants each year from as far away as Canada, Belgium and Latvia who are charmed by the prospect of fame and fortune, including up to $30,000 (￡23,600) in prize money. Recent Python Challenge winners include a deaf science teacher who bagged a nearly 16ft snake with his bare hands, a father-and-son duo who rapidly despatched 41 snakes and a 19-year-old who said he would use his $10,000 prize to buy better snake-spotting lights for his truck.
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Ancient whale from Peru may be most massive animal ever on Earth
https://www.reuters.com/science/ancient-whale-peru-may-be-most-massive-animal-ever-earth-2023-08-02/
Move over, blue whale. There is a new contender for the most massive animal in Earth's history. Scientists on Wednesday described fossils of an early whale unearthed in Peru called Perucetus colossus that lived about 38-40 million years ago during the Eocene epoch - a creature built somewhat like a manatee that may have topped the mass of the blue whale, long considered the heftiest animal on record. The researchers estimated that Perucetus (pronounced per-oo-SEE-tus) was about 66 feet (20 meters) long and weighed up to 340 metric tons, a mass that would exceed any other known animal including today's blue whale and the largest dinosaurs. Its scientific name means "colossal Peruvian whale." The partial skeleton of Perucetus was excavated in a coastal desert of southern Peru - a region rich with whale fossils - with 13 vertebrae, four ribs and one hip bone. The bones, unusually voluminous, were extremely dense and compact. This characteristic, called pachyosteosclerosis, is absent in living cetaceans - the group including whales, dolphins and porpoises - but present in sirenians, another marine mammal group including manatees and dugongs. Its skeletal mass alone was estimated at between 5 and 8 tons, at least twice that of the blue whale.
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FOR FUN
'Facekinis' becoming popular in China amid scorching heat wave
Amid a record-breaking heat wave in China, people are finding new ways to protect themselves from the sun, including the 'facekini,' a full-face mask made of UV-resistant fabric.
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The World’s Largest Airshow As Seen From Space
A great migration happens every Summer in July. Thousands of birds make their way across the U.S., and some from much farther away, to the Cheese State. They descend in ordered chaos to a single plot of land that sits beside Lake Winnebago — Wittman Regional Airport. This is the site Experimental Aircraft Association's AirVenture. An absolutely massive gathering for all things aviation. Nowhere on this blue marble do more aircraft of all types — including many of the rarest flying machines in existence — congregate in one place. While it's a bewildering event and heaven for any aviator or aviation aficionado alike, as viewed from space, the sheer concentration of aircraft is truly stunning to behold. We tasked one of Planet Labs' satellites to capture a high-resolution view of AirVenture 2023, and the resulting imagery is fascinating.
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'This is messed up': Las Vegas sphere displays massive eyeball
The Las Vegas sphere is the city's newest attraction. The world's largest LED is made up of approximately 1.2 million LED pucks. Each puck contains 48 individual LED diodes, with each diode capable of displaying 256 million different colours.
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TRAVEL
Airlines Slash Prices to Convince Americans to Vacation Closer to Home
JetBlue Airways Corp., Alaska Air Group Inc. and other US carriers expected the post-pandemic travel boom to send ticket prices soaring this summer. Instead, they’re getting battered. Travelers are showing an unusually strong preference for international trips, forcing domestic-focused carriers to discount prices. At the same time, many of them are facing higher costs from new labor contracts, flight disruptions and inflation. As a result, JetBlue has slashed its yearly outlook. Southwest Airlines Co. and others have signaled they’re under pressure — a reversal from a few months ago when industry leaders promised high demand would endure. While domestic ticket sales may pick up again in a few months, with holidays encouraging people to take trips closer to home, it’s still been a tough reality check and a sign the end-of-lockdown travel frenzy is cooling for some.
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Greece plans hourly caps on visitors to ancient Acropolis and will let in up to 20,000 daily
Visits to the Acropolis of Athens, Greece’s most popular archaeological site, will be capped starting next month at a maximum 20,000 daily and subject to varying hourly entry limits, the Greek government said Wednesday. Culture Minister Lina Mendoni said the controls are needed to prevent bottlenecks and overcrowding at the UNESCO World Heritage site. As many as 23,000 people a day have been squeezing into the monument complex, mostly large groups visiting before noon. The new entry limits will be implemented on a trial basis from Sept. 4, and will come permanently into effect from April 1 2024, the minister said.
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NOTE: Last month I spent some time in Athens. It was indeed busy with tourists, and hot…not an ideal combination.?I think this is a smart move.?
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Man who visited every country without flying has finally returned home
On October 10, 2013, Torbj?rn “Thor” Pedersen left his job, girlfriend, and family behind in Denmark to embark on an epic journey. His goal? To visit every country in the world without flying. Pedersen set a couple of rules for himself. He’d spend at least 24 hours in each nation and resist returning home until he finished. He’d also do his best to keep costs low and live off a budget of roughly US$20 a day. On May 24, that day finally came. After nearly ten years of travel, Pedersen successfully visited his 203rd and final country, the Maldives, and began his long-awaited voyage back to Denmark.
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How the World’s Biggest Cruise Ship Is Docked, Explained by a Captain
A Royal Caribbean captain explains how he docks a 1,188-foot cruise ship at Port Canaveral, Fla., and how environmental conditions pose the biggest challenge.
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ART & MUSIC
Felix Klieser: The problem-solving French horn player of the BBC Proms
Look at the BBC Proms poster this year and you'll spot some classical big-hitters - the conductor Sir Simon Rattle and cello superstar Sheku Kanneh Mason. But look closer still and you'll clock a suave French horn player…and his toes. Felix Klieser has been described as a virtuoso and has performed all over the world, but born without arms he plays the instrument with his left foot.
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ENTERTAINMENT
People Are Hiring D-List Celebrities to Deliver Their Bad News
In an era when it’s now possible to outsource our most sensitive communications, such as using ChatGPT to write wedding vows, all sorts of topics are being transmitted via Cameo videos, including job resignations, breakup talks and apologies. Cameo users can select from a grab bag of celebrities, such as musician Kenny G, singer LeAnn Rimes or “Succession” star Brian Cox; Melissa Etheridge has been an option. Others are a few paces from the limelight, including former White House press secretary Sean Spicer. The talent set their own prices, which range from a dollar to as much as $2,000. Launched in 2017, Cameo was valued at more than $1 billion in 2021—though more recently a downturn has led to significant layoffs. It draws celebrities and social-media personalities, who turned to nontraditional ways to boost their incomes in the pandemic. Competitors include the U.K.-based Thrillz, which offers personalized messages, and California-based Vidsig, which specializes in live video chats between experts, entertainers and fans.
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Movie-Theater Behavior Has Gone Off the Reels
“Barbenheimer” might be good for theaters, but it’s bringing out some bad behavior in theatergoers. Many attendees are forgetting the cardinal rule: Never take out a phone during the film. Instead, people are picking out selfies to post, scrolling during dull moments, even taking pictures of the screen—with the flash on. TikTok is inspiring a new generation of theatergoers to act out and even post their antics on social media. Etiquette at public events has become harder to control and manage after the pandemic. At concerts, fans are rowdier than ever, shrieking at artists, blocking people’s views with signs, even throwing items at artists. At Broadway shows, Playbill inserts now remind people to turn off their phones and let the actors do the singing. And now, some movie venues are posting videos to teach people how to behave.
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It’s time to reconsider the concert video
Look, I understand where you’re coming from. You paid good money to be here at the Eras Tour or whatever. You waited in line for two hours. You were up all night selecting your outfit. You sat in ridiculous traffic. You fought a relentless battle against Ticketmaster, and dagnabbit, you won. You’re here, you persevered, and you want the world to know it.
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SPORTS
Tiger Woods Joins PGA Tour Board in Concession to Player Demands
Infuriated after being blindsided by the PGA Tour’s pact with Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, a band of leading golfers has won a series of concessions from the beleaguered circuit’s commissioner — including the elevation of Tiger Woods to the tour’s board — in a star-driven rebuke of the tour. The tour announced the changes on Tuesday, one day after dozens of top players wrote to Jay Monahan, the tour’s commissioner, and insisted on significant overhauls. The demands detailed in the Monday letter amounted to a dramatic effort to reclaim power over a circuit that got its modern start after a player rebellion in the late 1960s. The players, including Woods, Patrick Cantlay, Rickie Fowler, Rory McIlroy, Jon Rahm and Scottie Scheffler, said that the secret negotiations toward a tentative deal with the Saudi wealth fund had defied the principle that the tour should be committed to players and run by them. The addition of Woods to the board, one of several changes agreed to by Monahan with a signed acknowledgment, would allow the players to outnumber six to five the independent board members, who come from the worlds of business and law.
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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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