ITK Daily | August 15

Happy Monday.

To be ITK, know this:

Today: India celebrates 75 years of independence

Read this: India's 75th anniversary — from snake charmers to a global superpower: India is an increasingly important player on the world stage. But domestically, it's facing socioeconomic divisions driven by caste and religion — even 75 years after its independence. Isha Bhatia Sanan

+ More than half of India's population is below the age of 25

VOA: Confusion in Kenya as Ruto declared winner of presidential vote despite unclear tally

Saudi prince made $500mn Russia bet as Ukraine war started: FT reports Kingdom Holding pumped investment into Gazprom, Rosneft, and Lukoil as west pushed for sanctions.

Interesting…

Read this: 47 of the world’s biggest 200 companies still haven’t left Russia. Now the Kremlin is preparing ‘expropriation blackmail,’ an expert says Fortune

Read this: The ‘writing is on the wall’ for ‘Chimerica’ on US stock exchanges as $318 billion of Chinese equity flees Wall Street Fortune

+ On Friday, five of China’s biggest US-listed, state-owned giants, valued at a collective $318 billion, announced they would exit Wall Street

AFP: US congressional delegation arrives in Taiwan on heels of Pelosi visit

+ Five-member delegation, led by Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA), will meet President Tsai Ing-wen

+ The other members of the delegation are Republican Rep. Aumua Amata Coleman Radewagen (R-AS), John Garamendi (D-CA0, Alan Lowenthal (D-CA), and Don Beyer (D-VA)

Afghanistan withdrawal, now one year later.

+ @RichardWike: In our @pewglobal cross-national survey earlier this year, most said the US withdrawal from Afghanistan was the right decision, although most also said the withdrawal was handled badly

Global Great Lakes...The future of the global economy is the Great Lakes.

+ Biden will head to Ohio to attend the groundbreaking of the new Intel mega plant outside Columbus, a facility made possible by the enactment of the recent “Chips and Science” semiconductor bill

Bloomberg: Apple finds its next big business: Showing ads on your iPhone

Q: World's most valuable property?

A: The first screen on an iPhone

Read this: A €1 dream scheme sparks a wider homebuying trend in Sicily FT

+ Selling abandoned houses at low cost helps draw buyers from northern Italy and abroad to the island’s south

+ “South working” is the new buzzphrase to describe the movement of people from Italy’s northern cities to marginalized areas of the south

+ Case a 1 Euro (One Euro Houses) initiative

+ Most discounted-house buyers are foreigners who see the romance in the endeavor. “[The] Italians’ view is: ‘Why would I want to live in a place where my grandfather lived 40 years ago?’ ”

Talk turkey: On this episode of Brigadoon Radio, Gerald Ashley and I discuss the weather in Europe, Turkish foreign policy, living in a linear world, Dominic Cummings, ludic fallacy, Amazon + Roomba, finding good tacos east of the Mississippi River, and what we are reading and watching. Brigadoon Radio

Read this: CHIPS Act will help boost semiconductor investment in Mexico: official Nikkei

+ Intel and Texas Instruments 'express interest' in possible expansion

+ Mexico, with its proximity and trade links to the US, sees America's bid to decouple its chip supply chain from Asia as an opportunity to attract nearshoring investment

For knowledge workers, Thursday is now the start of the weekend.

+ Just 13% of workers are going into the office on a Friday, a survey found. The average worker goes in 1.5 days a week.

Read this: How science is getting closer to a world without animal testing FT

+ New technology involving miniature human organs built in a lab is a step towards better treatments and ending a contentious practice

+ Industry insiders predict it could take a couple of decades or more to ditch the mouse

+ "Convincing physicians that you can start a clinical trial on your patients . . . based on data that came from a chip, we won’t be able to do that overnight."

Read this: Could the EV boom run out of juice before it really gets going? Economist

+ Battery-powered cars could zoom from less than 10% of global vehicle sales in 2021 to 40% by 2030, according to Bloombergnef

Wall Street bets on both green energy and fossil fuels: WSJ reports many investors have continued backing oil-and-gas companies, predicting they will make money for years to come and will control emerging energy technologies.

Read this: Pop’s material girls, rich with influence NYT

+ Questions about borrowing, authorship, and inspiration — from the underground to the mainstream and vice versa — connect new releases from Beyoncé, Madonna, and Saucy Santana.

+ Conversations about who has the right to borrow from whom — and whether it is acceptable — are heightened when the person doing the borrowing is among the most powerful figures in pop music

Embrace competition.

+ "If we want to be better, we need to choose better competition." -- @davetrott

When 1 billion plays don't mean anything:? Anton “Zedd” Zaslavski is a Grammy-winning EDM producer and DJ. Two of his songs on Spotify have more than 1 billion plays.

I have never heard of him.

Wild.

AP: Alabama at No. 1 in preseason AP Top 25

Top 10:

1. Alabama

2. Ohio State

3. Georgia

4. Clemson

5. Notre Dame

6. Texas A&M

7. Utah

8. MICHIGAN

9. Oklahoma?

10. Baylor

The greatest and most pointless streak in sports is 21 straight NFL preseason wins: WSJ reports the Baltimore Ravens have won 21 straight exhibition games, dating back to 2016—even as the preseason seems to mean less and less.

The Athletic: Manchester United are a mess. It’s not new, but it is deeply shocking

+ Brentford had not beaten Manchester United since 1938

+ United has now lost seven consecutive matches on the road

LIV v PGA: The best way to make money as a golfer in 2022, be the best golfer in 2012.

+ According to Esports Charts, the most viewed esports event of 2021 in terms of peak viewers is the Free Fire World Series 2021 Singapore. The mobile title garnered a peak viewership of 5.41m and an average viewership of 2.08m across its short none, hour airtime.

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