Curated Compositions-13 May 23
Brian Rendell
Leadership | Education | Business | Logistics | Talent Acquisition & Development
AFRICA
Thousands still missing as Congo flood survivors search for relatives
The death toll from flooding in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo crept higher on Tuesday as aid workers found more bodies among the muddy devastation and wounded residents succumbed to their injuries in an underequipped local clinic. The floods, in a remote, mountainous area of South Kivu province, ripped through the riverside villages of Nyamukubi and Bushushu five days ago, razing houses, destroying crops and killing more than 400 people. It was the deadliest natural disaster in recent Congo history.
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ASIA
China’s new “Top Gun†normalises war with America
Chinese censors routinely silence online nationalists demanding attacks on Taiwan, for the masses have no right to dictate to Mr Xi when or how that island should be conquered. Chinese public opinion has not, to date, been readied to sacrifice decades of growing prosperity on the altars of war. A new film about China’s air force tests that record of restraint. “Born to Flyâ€, made in close collaboration with the PLA, has topped the domestic box office during the May Day holidays. It depicts test pilots risking (and losing) their lives to perfect a new stealth fighter. The plane is needed for combat against a foreign power that, though unnamed, speaks American-accented English. “Born to Fly†is the highest-profile flick of this type to normalise the notion that the present-day PLA’s mission is to fight and kill Americans.
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China's shrinking imports, slower exports growth darken economic outlook
China's imports contracted sharply in April, while exports rose at a slower pace, reinforcing signs of feeble domestic demand despite the lifting of COVID curbs and heaping pressure on an economy already struggling in the face of cooling global growth. China's economy grew faster than expected in the first quarter thanks to robust services consumption, but factory output has lagged and the latest trade numbers point to a long road to regaining the pre-pandemic momentum at home.
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China's slow consumer inflation, deepening factory gate deflation to test policy
China's consumer prices rose at the slowest pace in more than two years in April, while factory gate deflation deepened, data showed on Thursday, suggesting more stimulus may be needed to boost a patchy post-COVID economic recovery. The weak consumer price rise reinforces the signals from this week's trade data suggesting domestic demand remains lacklustre, while the deflationary impulse in producer prices underlines the strains on factories - a double-whammy for the world's second-biggest economy as it tries to shake off the COVID-induced damage.
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Former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan arrested by paramilitary police
Former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan was arrested on Tuesday by paramilitary troops who smashed their way into a courthouse in Islamabad to detain him on multiple corruption charges. The dramatic and sudden arrest of the former cricket star turned leader is the latest chapter in months of ongoing political turmoil in the nuclear armed nation after Khan was ousted last year. According to court documents seen by CNN, Khan was arrested in Islamabad on charges brought by the National Accountability Bureau, the country’s anti-corruption agency. He was submitting his biometric data for a court appearance when paramilitary forces broke down a window to get to him before apprehending him, as seen in a video provided to CNN by his party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI).
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South Korean president opens children’s park on site that belonged to Yongsan Garrison
A repurposed section of Yongsan Garrison, once the U.S. military’s primary headquarters in South Korea, opened to the public as a park on Thursday during a ceremony convened by South Korean President Yoon.Over 200 kids and parents attended the grand opening of the Yongsan Children's Garden, a newly developed 74-acre park in Seoul, according to a news release from the presidential office.
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India: What the smartphone market tells us about its economy
Even as Apple touts India as its next big growth area, clouds are gathering over the country's smartphone market. Industry figures show that handset sales in the country have fallen to the lowest level since 2019. It comes even as the technology giant's boss says India is at a "tipping point" with its expanding middle class. While Apple, which last month opened its first two stores in India, grew its market share - cheaper rivals are struggling to sell their phones. According to research firm the International Data Corporation (IDC), 31m smartphones were shipped in India during the first three months of this year. That was 16% lower than in the same period of 2022 and the lowest first-quarter shipments in four years. IDC highlighted that the sluggish demand came amid an uncertain economic outlook and as stockpiles of handsets remain high. It also said that India's overall smartphone market will be flat this year after three quarters in a row of falling sales.
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EUROPE
Ukraine Downs Dozens of Drones Over Kyiv in Russian Air Assault
Ukraine said Monday that it shot down more than two dozen drones above Kyiv overnight, as Russia intensifies strikes that seek to degrade its rival’s air defenses ahead of an expected offensive by Kyiv. The strikes come after a recent spate of attacks on Russian soil culminating in a drone attack on the Kremlin last week that Moscow blamed on Kyiv. Ukraine has denied involvement.
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Ukraine downs Russian hypersonic missile with US Patriot
Ukraine’s air force claimed Saturday to have downed a Russian hypersonic missile over Kyiv using newly acquired American Patriot defense systems, the first known time the country has been able to intercept one of Moscow’s most modern missiles. Air Force commander Mykola Oleshchuk said in a Telegram post that the Kinzhal-type ballistic missile had been intercepted in an overnight attack on the Ukrainian capital earlier in the week. It was also the first time Ukraine is known to have used the Patriot defense systems.
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Russia marks Victory Day with new strikes on Ukraine, but pared-back parade
Russia fired cruise missiles at Kyiv on Tuesday and paraded troops across Moscow's Red Square for its annual celebration of victory in World War Two, pared back amid shortages of manpower and arms at the front after a failed winter campaign in Ukraine. In a fiery 10-minute speech in front of the Kremlin, President Vladimir Putin thundered against "Western global elites" and said civilisation was at "a decisive turning point". "A real war has been unleashed against our homeland," said the Russian leader, who last year ordered what the West calls an unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, destroying cities and killing thousands of civilians. The holiday commemorating the Soviet victory in World War Two is the most important day in the calendar in Russia under Putin, who casts his invasion of Ukraine as analogous to Russia's fight against the Nazis. Ukraine, which suffered proportionally greater losses than Russia in World War Two, calls that an abuse of shared history to justify aggression.
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Biden Administration Announces Additional Security Assistance for Ukraine
[On May 9th], the Department of Defense (DoD) announced a new security assistance package to reaffirm the steadfast U.S. support for Ukraine, including to bolster its air defenses and sustain its artillery ammunition needs. This package, which totals up to $1.2 billion, is being provided under the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI).
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Wagner Leader Reverses Course on Plan to Withdraw From Bakhmut
https://www.wsj.com/articles/wagner-leader-reverses-course-on-plan-to-withdraw-from-bakhmut-2450727a
The leader of Russian paramilitary group Wagner said he has reversed his decision to fully withdraw from the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut after pledges from Russian military officials to provide more ammunition and operational freedom to Wagner units that he said had sustained tens of thousands of casualties. The statement on Sunday by Yevgeny Prigozhin, Wagner’s founder and an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, came the day after he reiterated his plan to withdraw all Wagner troops from the front lines by May 10, saying that “after seven months of the Bakhmut meat-grinder the Wagner Group has lost its combat potential.â€
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Explainer: Why the EU is restricting grain imports from Ukraine
The European Commission has announced restrictions on the imports of Ukrainian wheat, maize, rapeseed and sunflower seed in Poland, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia and Bulgaria until June 5. The move led to Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and Bulgaria lifting unilateral import bans they had imposed citing the need to protect their farmers. Romania had not banned imports.
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Kremlin Calls Polish Decision to Rename Kaliningrad 'Hostile Act'
The Kremlin said on Wednesday that Poland's decision to rename the Russian city of Kaliningrad in its official documents was a "hostile act," as ties continue to fray over the war in Ukraine. Kaliningrad, which sits in an exclave that is sandwiched between Lithuania and Poland on the Baltic coast, was known by the German name of Koenigsberg until after World War II, when it was annexed by the Soviet Union and renamed to honor politician Mikhail Kalinin. Warsaw says Kalinin's connection to the 1940 Katyn massacre — when thousands of Polish officers were executed by Soviet forces — had negative connotations and that the city should now be referred to as Krolewiec, its name when it was ruled by the Kingdom of Poland in the 15th and 16th centuries. "The current Russian name of this city is an artificial baptism unrelated to either the city or the region," Poland's committee on geographical standardization said on Tuesday.
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MIDDLE EAST
Yes, Erdogan’s Rule Might Actually End This Weekend
Can elections remove an autocrat like Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan from power? If you pose this question to Turkey watchers in Western capitals to get their take on the country’s upcoming election, you will get a resounding “no†from a significant number of them. Some will say Erdogan is still very popular—or at least adept at mobilizing his followers. Others will argue that elections do not matter in the entrenched autocracy he has built; one way or another, he will find a way to stay in power. Take the Western conventional wisdom about this Sunday’s election with a grain of salt, and here’s why.
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White House national security adviser meets Saudi prince
U.S. President Joe Biden’s top national security aide met Sunday night with Saudi Arabia’s crown prince amid long-standing tensions between the White House and the kingdom. The state-run Saudi Press Agency said the meeting between Jake Sullivan and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman took place in Jeddah, the Red Sea port city now at the heart of seaborne evacuations from the fighting in Sudan. The state news report said only that the men reviewed “strategic relations†in a meeting that included other American officials. Later, Sullivan took part in a meeting with the crown prince and Indian national security adviser Ajit Doval and Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the national security adviser of the neighboring United Arab Emirates. A White House statement acknowledged the meetings, saying they aimed to “to advance their shared vision of a more secure and prosperous Middle East region interconnected with India and the world.†It did not elaborate. Saudi state media did not immediately publish either video or photographs of the meetings.
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Saudi Arabia is reconciling with regimes it once tried to topple
Diplomats rarely admit failure, but that is precisely what the Saudi foreign minister did on February 18th at the Munich Security Conference, an annual security gabfest. The kingdom has sought to keep Bashar al-Assad, Syria’s blood-soaked dictator, a pariah. Asked about rumours that his country may change course, though, Prince Faisal bin Farhan hinted that Mr Assad’s isolation was nearing an end. “There is a consensus growing that the status quo is not workable,†he said. Over the past decade, Saudi Arabia has spent tens of billions of dollars working to overthrow two unfriendly regimes: Mr Assad’s, and that of the Houthis, a Shia rebel group that controls much of Yemen. In the coming months it will probably admit that both efforts have failed. This is not because the Saudis have developed an affinity for their foes. Rather it is another sign of how the kingdom, like some of its Gulf neighbours, increasingly sees the rest of the Arab world as a tiresome nuisance.
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Israel-Palestine live: Dozens killed in Gaza bombings
Israel continued its air attacks on Gaza killing at least 27 Palestinians, including several leaders of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement. More than 70 people have been injured as the Israeli military offensive enters its third day. The Palestinian Islamic Jihad announced the death of Ali Ghali, commander of the group’s rocket launch unit, in a pre-dawn strike carried out by Israeli forces in Khan Younis. Palestinian resistance groups have fired more than 400 rockets towards Israel, with the majority intercepted by Israeli missile defences. The Palestinian groups have demanded Israel end the territory’s 16-year-old air, land and sea blockade.
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Arab League Agrees to Readmit Syria With Conditions
https://www.voanews.com/a/arab-league-readmits-syria-as-relations-with-assad-normalize-/7082309.html
Arab League foreign ministers, meeting in Cairo Sunday, have agreed to restore Syria's membership in the League after a suspension of over 10 years due to the country's civil war. The ministers also agreed to support the U.S.-Saudi peace initiative to resolve the conflict in Sudan. The Arab League Foreign Minister's decision to restore Syria's membership in the body was reportedly not unanimous but was made in a majority vote taken during a closed session. The move comes days before a scheduled Arab League summit in the Saudi capital, Riyadh. An Arab League statement noted that the "resolution of the Syria conflict is a step-by-step matter," and that the first step was the resumption of Syrian participation in Arab League meetings. The group supports the "territorial integrity of Syria," and the "withdrawal of all foreign forces" from the country.
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Taliban Diplomat Defends Policies, Insists Afghan Women Education Ban Not 'Permanent'
The chief diplomat of Afghanistan's ruling Taliban insisted Monday that his government had not banned girls' education "permanently,†while women continue to work in different sectors across the country. Taliban Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi addressed a seminar in Pakistan's capital, Islamabad, to wrap up a four-day official visit to the neighboring country, where he also attended a trilateral dialogue with his Chinese and Pakistani counterparts. "We have 10 million students currently attending primary-level and university-level education [in Afghanistan]. Nine million can access all forms of education. They include girls up to grade six. Around 300,000 teachers, including 92,000 females, teach in these institutions," he said. The Taliban have rejected international demands to remove restrictions on women as interference in Afghanistan's internal affairs.
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NORTH AMERICA
Uncertainty clouds U.S. transition at Mexico border as new rules take effect
The Biden administration began implementing a sweeping policy shift at the U.S.-Mexico border on Friday as a COVID-era order that had allowed the swift expulsion of many migrants expired and new asylum restrictions took effect amid confusion and uncertainty. Several last-minute court actions added to questions about how President Joe Biden's reworked border strategy will play out, with advocates filing a legal challenge to the new asylum regulation as it was enacted.
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Who Gets In? A Guide to America’s Chaotic Border Rules.
New restrictions on asylum will lead many migrants to be deported — but others will still get into the United States. Here’s what the process will look like.
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Biden Deploys Thousands to the Border, and Some of the New Assignments Aren't Optional
The Biden administration is moving around thousands of employees to support federal personnel ahead of an expected significant increase in migrants arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border in hopes the additional assistance will help mitigate the chaos as a key policy expires. About 1,400 Homeland Security Department employees will join the 1,500 Defense Department personnel going to the border as Title 42 ends Thursday, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said. The pandemic-era policy allowed border personnel to quickly turn away most migrants without adjudicating potential asylum claims, but the Biden administration ended its use by court order. Officials have estimated the change could at least double the number of migrant encounters per day at the southwest border.
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Title 42 order nears end: Abbott sends Guard's Texas Tactical Border Force to El Paso
With the grinding roar of four idling Air Force C-130 cargo jets nearly drowning out his message, Gov. Greg Abbott early Monday announced that he was deploying a specially trained elite unit of the National Guard that he called the Texas Tactical Border Force to El Paso and other hot spots along the Rio Grande as a record jump in unlawful immigration is expected.
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Annual Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community
This annual report of worldwide threats to the national security of the United States responds to Section 617 of the FY21 Intelligence Authorization Act (Pub. L. No. 116-260). This report reflects the collective insights of the Intelligence Community (IC), which is committed every day to providing the nuanced, independent, and unvarnished intelligence that policymakers, warfighters, and domestic law enforcement personnel need to protect American lives and America’s interests anywhere in the world. This assessment focuses on the most direct, serious threats to the United States during the next year. The order of the topics presented in this assessment does not necessarily indicate their relative importance or the magnitude of the threats in the view of the IC. All require a robust intelligence response, including those where a near-term focus may help head off greater threats in the future.
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A new design for homeland defense is in the works at NORTHCOM
A “vastly different†design for homeland defense is in the works at U.S. Northern Command, its leader said during a May 9 hearing before the Senate Strategic Forces Subcommittee. Air Force Gen. Glen VanHerck noted he’d already recommended to the Pentagon a plan to change overall policy for homeland defense. But in addition to that, “I’m also in the middle of developing what I call ‘Homeland Defense Design 2035,’ †he said, “which gets after … a new way of defending the homeland, and that’s vastly different than the way we do it today with fighters, tankers, [airborne warning and control systems aircraft], those kinds of things.â€
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America is less dominant in defence spending than you might think
IN DOLLAR TERMS, America spends more on its armed forces than the next ten countries combined. But when comparing military budgets, nominal values can only say so much. Defence spending is about bang for the buck—and a dollar (or a few hundred billion of them) goes further in some places than in others. To get around this, The Economist has adjusted estimates on military spending by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), a think-tank, for military purchasing-power parity (PPP), with help from Peter Robertson, a researcher. The results show that America’s dominance in defence spending has slipped over the past decade, and its share of the world total is now back to levels last seen in the early 2000s. Meanwhile, its adversaries are gaining in prominence (see chart).
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How El Chapo’s sons built a fentanyl empire poisoning America
In January 2017, days after Mexico extradited the notorious drug trafficker JoaquÃn “El Chapo†Guzmán to the United States, local cops in his home state of Sinaloa fell under attack. Some were shot dead in broad daylight. Others vanished and were never found. In all, 13 police officers died or disappeared in the months that followed. That spree was the start of a shift in tactics within Guzmán’s Sinaloa Cartel, according to four intelligence and security officials, one that signaled the arrival of a new force inside one of Mexico’s most powerful drug syndicates: the kingpin’s four sons.
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SPACE
Virgin Galactic Aims for Space Tourism Launch After Years of Delays
In July 2021, to much fanfare, Virgin Galactic Holdings flew founder Richard Branson and three other crew members to the edge of space. The company’s next flight—a test operation—occurred last month, nearly two years later. Over that time, challenges have mounted for the company. Its stock has lost more than 90% of its value since just before Mr. Branson’s flight, and analysts expect more than $575 million in losses this year. Both Mr. Branson and Virgin Galactic are defending against a shareholder lawsuit. The entrepreneur has sold nearly 75% of his stake in the company in recent years, according to regulatory filings. Virgin Galactic is nearly two decades old and has yet to show that it can regularly fly paying customers. The company struggled over the years with technical challenges and an accident that slowed its work. Between 2018 and last year, it generated a total of $12.5 million in revenue while reporting about $1.5 billion in operating losses, according to financial statements. Virgin Galactic is scheduled to report quarterly results on Tuesday.
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How the Space Force will manage surging launch demand
The rise of proliferated satellite constellations creates a need for more rockets, and in the last few years, a number of new entrants have ventured into the launch scene — including Firefly Aerospace, Relativity Space and ABL Space Systems — and more established companies like SpaceX, United Launch Alliance, Blue Origin and Northrop Grumman have revealed plans to upgrade or build new launch vehicles. Underpinning the swell of commercial and military activity in orbit and the demand for rockets to support it is a launch range infrastructure that is largely managed by the Space Force.
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Astronaut Buzz Aldrin named honorary brigadier general, member of Space Force
Former astronaut Buzz Aldrin was named an honorary brigadier general in the U.S. Air Force and made an honorary member of the U.S. Space Force on Friday, more than 50 years after he first set foot on the moon. “Without the courage and dedication of Aldrin, we may never have been afforded the luxury of leading the lifestyle we enjoy today,†Lt. Gen. Michael A. Guetlein said at the promotion ceremony in El Segundo, Calif., according to a Space Force press release. “Over the past 54 years since stepping foot on the moon’s surface, he has been an inspiration to a nation, and tireless advocate for space exploration,†Geutlein added. Aldrin was also given the chance to be an honorary Space Force Guardian — the term for Space Force members coined first by former Vice President Mike Pence.
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CYBER
Justice Department Announces Court-Authorized Disruption of Snake Malware Network Controlled by Russia’s Federal Security Service
The Justice Department today announced the completion of a court-authorized operation, code-named MEDUSA, to disrupt a global peer-to-peer network of computers compromised by sophisticated malware, called “Snakeâ€, that the U.S. Government attributes to a unit within Center 16 of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (FSB). For nearly 20 years, this unit, referred to in court documents as “Turla,†has used versions of the Snake malware to steal sensitive documents from hundreds of computer systems in at least 50 countries, which have belonged to North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) member governments, journalists, and other targets of interest to the Russian Federation. After stealing these documents, Turla exfiltrated them through a covert network of unwitting Snake-compromised computers in the United States and around the world.Operation MEDUSA disabled Turla’s Snake malware on compromised computers through the use of an FBI-created tool named PERSEUS, which issued commands that caused the Snake malware to overwrite its own vital components. Within the United States, the operation was executed by the FBI pursuant to a search warrant issued by U.S. Magistrate Judge Cheryl L. Pollak for the Eastern District of New York, which authorized remote access to the compromised computers. This morning, the court unsealed redacted versions of the affidavit submitted in support of the application for the search warrant, and of the search warrant issued by the court. For victims outside the United States, the FBI is engaging with local authorities to provide both notice of Snake infections within those authorities’ countries and remediation guidance.
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ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
Opinion | Type in your job to see how much AI will affect it
Is AI coming for your job? If so, when? Unfortunately, there are no clear-cut answers to these questions. Technology develops in unpredictable ways. But a paper published last month by three scholars — Princeton’s Edward W. Felten, Manav Raj of the University of Pennsylvania and Robert Seamans of New York University — offered some helpful insight, at least in terms of artificial intelligence as we now know it. The team looked into two types of AI: One capable of generating and analyzing speech (think ChatGPT) and the other with the same capacity for images (think Midjourney). It examined dozens of skills that humans use to perform their jobs, from writing to reasoning to lifting heavy things, for the potential for artificial intelligence to enhance those skills or to supplant humans entirely.
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Google I/O 2023: Search king adds AI to respond to Microsoft challenge
Alphabet Inc's (GOOGL.O) Google is rolling out more artificial intelligence for its core search product, hoping to create some of the same consumer excitement generated by Microsoft Corp's (MSFT.O) update to rival search engine Bing in recent months. At its annual I/O conference in Mountain View, California, on Wednesday, Google offered a new version of its namesake engine. Called the Search Generative Experience, the revamped Google can craft responses to open-ended queries while retaining its recognizable list of links to the Web. We are reimagining all of our core products, including search," Sundar Pichai, Alphabet's CEO, said after he took the stage at the event. He said Google is integrating generative AI into search as well as products such as Gmail, which can create draft messages, and Google Photos, which can make changes to images like centering figures and coloring in empty space.
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My Experiences with ChatGPT
NOTE: ChatGPT came out in November 2022, and since then it and other AI chatbots have been taking the world by storm. Hopefully by now you’ve tried ChatGPT out—if not, I highly recommend you do. I’ve been using it for a few months now. At first, I wasn’t sure what to use it for, but now I ask myself, “What can’t I use it for?â€Â To the degree that the internet changed how we do life and business, AI is going to do the same.Â
You’re glad you learned how to use the internet, aren’t you? Likewise, I encourage you to get used to using ChatGPT (or its other equivalents). What I like most about it is the ability to have one consolidated answer instead of multiple links to different answers (like you get from a search engine)…but, buyer beware, therein also lies the problem—it’s one answer, so you definitely need to review the results it provides—they are not perfect.
I now have it has a constant open tab on my browser. Below is a list of just some the things I’ve been able to accomplish.
Here’s what I’ve used it for:
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As you use ChatGPT, here are some thoughts on how to get the most out of it:
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I’ve also downloaded ChatGPT add-ins for Excel and other programs, but haven’t yet mastered those. This is the next phase—not going to ChatGPT, but having ChatGPT or other AI programs embedded in the programs where you need it, when you need it.Â
Lastly, I know there are other AI interfaces that are competing with ChatGPT, I just don’t have much experience with them.Â
If you have used ChatGPT or any other AI chatbot, I’d love to hear about what clever ways you’re using them.
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ECONOMY
Economy Showed Signs of Cooling Last Month
The U.S. economy showed fresh signs of cooling, with a reading of supplier inflation moderating and applications for unemployment benefits rising. The producer-price index, which generally reflects supply conditions across the economy, increased 2.3% in April from a year earlier, the Labor Department said Thursday. That marked the slowest pace since January 2021 and an easing from March’s 2.7% rise. Worker filings for unemployment benefits rose by 22,000 to a seasonally adjusted 264,000 last week, the highest level since October 2021, according to a separate Labor Department report. Jobless claims totals are above prepandemic levels, but still historically low. Claims have trended upward this year, indicating layoffs are rising. Large companies in industries such as technology, real estate and finance have announced cuts in recent months. Still, the labor market remains strong. Employers added 253,000 jobs in April, the best gain since January and the unemployment rate fell to match the lowest reading since 1969.
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Inflation Slowed in April, Marking 10th Month of Moderation
Inflation slowed for a 10th straight month in April, a closely watched report on Wednesday showed, good news for American families struggling under the burden of higher costs and for policymakers in Washington as they try to wrangle rapid price increases. The Consumer Price Index climbed 4.9 percent in April from a year earlier, less than the 5 percent that economists in a Bloomberg survey had expected. Inflation has come down notably from a peak just above 9 percent last summer, though it has remained far higher than the 2 percent annual gains that were normal before the pandemic. Cheaper prices for airline tickets, new cars and groceries including eggs and produce helped to pull inflation lower last month even as gas prices and rents climbed briskly.
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Inflation Eased in April but Remains Stubbornly High
Inflation edged slightly lower in April, likely keeping the Federal Reserve on course to pause interest-rate increases at its next meeting. The consumer-price index rose 4.9% in April from a year earlier, the Labor Department said Wednesday, down from March’s 5% increase. The inflation reading has declined from a recent peak of 9.1% in June 2022, but remains historically high. On a monthly basis, consumer prices rose a seasonally adjusted 0.4% in April, versus a 0.1% gain in March. April’s increase was driven by housing costs, which economists expect to cool in the coming months. Gasoline and used-car prices also rose last month. Wednesday’s report makes it easier for the Fed to pause rate increases because it showed price pressures aren’t worsening and might soon be slowing. The Fed has aggressively raised rates for more than a year to try to tame inflation by slowing economic activity. The central bank is looking to see signs of inflation declining toward its 2% target.
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Why the April Inflation Report Reinforces the Fed’s Plans to Pause
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Federal Reserve officials were already leaning toward taking a summer vacation from interest rate increases to see if they have done enough to slow the economy and inflation. Wednesday’s inflation report makes that easier because it showed price pressures aren’t worsening and might soon be slowing as muted growth in rental-housing costs feed through to official inflation gauges. More important, Fed officials have focused more on the impact of recent banking-system strains, which will take time to slow economic activity, including hiring and inflation. To be sure, inflation isn’t showing the kind of convincing slowdown that would quell central bankers’ anxieties about it running at more than double their 2% target. But Fed Chair Jerome Powell said six months ago that, on their way to raising rates rapidly to a 16-year high, officials didn’t necessarily view a string of slower inflation readings as a prerequisite for a pause.
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REAL ESTATE
Home Prices Fell in Third of the U.S. During First Quarter
Home prices fell in more parts of the U.S. than they have in over a decade during the first quarter, when nearly a third of metro areas posted annual price declines, the National Association of Realtors said Tuesday. During the peak of the housing boom, home prices surged in practically every corner of the U.S. Now, the housing market is split down the middle of the country, with prices still rising in many parts of the Midwest, South and Northeast while sliding in Western states. The hardest-hit housing markets were concentrated in California and the Mountain West. San Francisco posted a 14.5% median single-family existing-home sale-price decline compared with a year earlier, and San Jose median prices fell 13.7%. Pandemic boomtowns Austin, Texas, and Boise, Idaho, also posted price declines of more than 10%. Home sales have fallen nationwide over the past year because higher mortgage rates have weighed on home-buying demand and supply has been limited. The effect on home prices has been mixed, but the number of places where prices are falling has risen. Prices declined on an annual basis in 31% of the 221 metro areas tracked by NAR, the highest percentage in 11 years.
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The Home Buyer’s Quandary: Nobody’s Selling
Many Americans who want to move are trapped in their homes—locked in by low interest rates they can’t afford to give up. These “golden handcuffs†are keeping the supply of homes for sale unusually low and making the market more competitive and pricey than some forecasters expected.  The reluctance of homeowners to sell differentiates the current housing market from past downturns and could keep home prices from falling significantly on a national basis, economists say. This could dull the Federal Reserve’s efforts to slow inflation by cooling the economy. As of March 31, nearly two-thirds of primary mortgages had an interest rate below 4%, according to mortgage-data firm Black Knight. About 73% of primary mortgages have fixed rates for 30 years, Black Knight data show. The average rate for a new 30-year fixed mortgage was 6.39% in the week ended May 4, according to Freddie Mac. A healthy housing market has between four and six months of supply at current sales rates, economists say. The existing-home market, which makes up most of the housing market, hit a record low 1.6 months’ supply in January 2022 and stood at 2.6 months’ supply in March of this year, according to NAR. The smaller new-home market is more amply supplied, at a seasonally adjusted 7.6 months in March, according to the Commerce Department. The shortage of supply in the housing market has been a growing issue for years. Following the subprime-mortgage crisis, many builders went out of business and others sharply cut back on spending and new construction.
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PERSONAL FINANCE
Investors Flock to Safety Plays, but Stock ‘FOMO’ Lingers
Investors are trying to play offense and defense at the same time. Money managers are shying away from risk, turning to defensive stocks and Treasurys in their hunt for safe places to invest their cash. Yet they appear equally worried about missing out on a potential stock-market rally. Institutional investors’ allocations to equities remain above the long-term trend, and their cash holdings aren’t out of line with historical averages either, State Street data show. Investors are betting that Wednesday’s quarter-point interest-rate increase from the Federal Reserve was its last—and that the central bank will pivot to cutting rates before the year is over. Although lower interest rates would likely be a boon for stocks, there is a growing conviction on Wall Street that a recession is looming. The panic in the regional banking sector threatens to take down additional banks and slow the economy as well.
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What Investors Should Know About Money-Market Funds and CDs
Investors are rushing into cash, fearful of a recession later in the year. In addition to having emergency cash on hand, individual investors are pouring billions of dollars into cash-equivalent investments such as money-market funds and certificates of deposit that are yielding 5% or more—far more than a traditional low-yielding bank savings account. Some analysts say concerns about stability in the banking sector after the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank, and most recently First Republic Bank, could help propel the trend in the weeks to come. “Investing in these vehicles is a short-term hedge. It’s a way for investors to capture some low-risk returns without having to worry about the wild swings in the stock and bond markets,†says Bryan Cannon, CEO and chief portfolio strategist at Cannon Advisors in Charlotte, N.C. For investors, however, the key question is whether they have a cash strategy beyond fear. How much one should allocate to cash or cash equivalents, for instance, depends on an individual’s financial goals, risk tolerance and anticipated expenses, financial advisers say.
NOTE: Last year around this time, I was sharing articles about how the I-Bond rate was 9.62%; since that time, the rate (starting in May ’23) is now down to 4.3%...still, not bad, but it looks like these other products are providing better returns.
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TurboTax payments for $141 million settlement to begin next week. Here’s who qualifies
If you’re one of the millions of taxpayers who paid for TurboTax when the filing software should have been free, you may soon receive a settlement check, New York Attorney General Letitia James announced on Thursday. TurboTax owner Intuit in May 2022 agreed to pay $141 million to lower-income Americans who were “unfairly charged,†according to James, for free tax-filing software as part of a multi-state agreement. Roughly 4.4 million consumers were affected.
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BUSINESS
Big US banks to pay billions to replenish failure fund
Large U.S. lenders will bear most of the cost of replenishing a deposit insurance fund that was drained of $16 billion by the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and two other lenders, although mid-sized banks will also be on the hook, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) said on Thursday. The bank regulator will apply a "special assessment" fee of 0.125% to uninsured deposits of lenders in excess of $5 billion, based on the amount of uninsured deposits a bank held at the end of 2022, the FDIC proposed at a board meeting. While the fee applies to all banks, in practice lenders with more than $50 billion in assets would cover over 95% of the cost, the agency said. Banks with less than $5 billion in assets would not pay any fee. Around 113 banks are expected to pay the fee. The top 14 U.S. lenders will need to fork out an estimated $5.8 billion a year, which could erode their earnings per share by a median 3%, Credit Suisse analyst Susan Roth Katzke wrote in a report.
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China Finally Has a Rival as the World’s Factory Floor
Western companies are desperately looking for a backup to China as the world’s factory floor, a strategy widely termed “China plus one.†India is making a concerted push to be the plus one. Only India has a labor force and an internal market comparable in size to China’s; India’s population may be the world’s largest, according to the United Nations. Western governments see democratic India as a natural partner, and the Indian government has pushed to make the business environment more friendly than in the past. It scored a coup with the decision by Apple to significantly expand iPhone production in India, including expediting the manufacturing of its most advanced model. China still towers over every other country in global manufacturing, a position it cemented when multinationals flooded in after it joined the World Trade Organization in 2001. But a growing list of factors has prompted companies to search for a backup. First, there were rising labor costs in China and pressure from the Chinese government to transfer technology to Chinese competitors. Then there were President Donald Trump’s tariffs on Chinese imports in 2018, Covid lockdowns from 2020 through last year, and now a push by Western governments to decouple their economies from China.  Many countries are competing to be the “plus one,†with Vietnam, Mexico, Thailand and Malaysia in particular contention. India must still overcome entrenched problems that have kept it a bit player in global supply chains. Its labor force remains mostly poor and unskilled, infrastructure is underdeveloped and the business climate, including regulations, can be burdensome. Manufacturing remains small relative to the size of India’s economy. Nonetheless, after decades of disappointment, it is making progress. Its manufactured exports were barely a tenth of China’s in 2021, but they exceeded all other emerging markets except Mexico’s and Vietnam’s, according to World Bank data.
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America’s Factory Boom Drives Sales Surge for Excavators, Steel and Trucks
Manufacturers of construction equipment, trucks, building supplies and industrial software are still ringing up sales, despite slowdowns in other parts of the U.S. economy. A backlog of orders stemming from supply-chain bottlenecks during the pandemic and higher demand from new factories under construction have boosted manufacturing companies, helping offset the effects of rising interest rates and weakening U.S. economic growth. “We feel good about the market conditions,†Caterpillar CAT -1.47%decrease; red down pointing triangle
Chief Executive Jim Umpleby said late last month after the construction-equipment maker’s quarterly sales rose by 17% from the same period last year and profit increased by 26%. “Our first-quarter results lead us to expect that 2023 will be even better than we previously anticipated.â€
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LinkedIn cuts over 700 jobs, phases out China app as demand wavers
LinkedIn, the social media network owned by Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) that focuses on business professionals, said on Monday it would cut 716 jobs as demand wavers, while also shutting down its China-focused job application. LinkedIn, which has 20,000 employees, has grown revenue each quarter during the last year, but it joins other major technology companies including its parent in laying off workers amid a weakening global economic outlook. LinkedIn also said it was eliminating the slimmed down jobs app that it offers in China after it decided in 2021 to mostly withdraw from the country, citing a "challenging" environment. The remaining China app, called InCareers, will be phased out by Aug. 9, LinkedIn said.
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Tipping at Self-Checkout Has Customers Crying ‘Emotional Blackmail’
Zero interaction with employees during a transaction no longer guarantees freedom from the moral quandary of how much to tip. Prompts to leave 20% at self-checkout machines at airports, stadiums, cookie shops and cafes across the country are rankling consumers already inundated by the proliferation of tip screens. Business owners say the automated cues can significantly increase gratuities and boost staff pay. But the unmanned prompts are leading more customers to question what, exactly, the tips are for. Â
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Workers Are Happier Than They’ve Been in Decades
Job satisfaction hit a 36-year high in 2022, reflecting two effects of the tight pandemic labor market: The quality of jobs improved as wages and work flexibility increased, and workers moved into positions that were a better fit. Last year, 62.3% of U.S. workers said they were satisfied with their jobs, according to new data from the Conference Board, up from 60.2% in 2021 and 56.8% in 2020. The business-research organization polled workers on 26 aspects of work, and found that people were most content with their commutes, their co-workers, the physical environment of their workplace and job security. Among the happiest workers: people who voluntarily switched jobs during the pandemic and individuals working in hybrid roles with a mix of in-person and remote work. Men’s satisfaction was higher than women’s in every component, especially in areas such as leave policies, bonus plans, promotions, communication and organizational culture. The survey of 1,680 workers was conducted in November, before a spate of layoffs at high-profile companies and rising worries about a potential recession. While unemployment remains low, a recent decline in job openings suggests that workers have fewer options and might be feeling more anxious about their job security, said Selcuk Eren, a senior economist at the Conference Board.
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Tyson Foods shares plunge after surprise loss, revenue forecast cut
Tyson Foods Inc (TSN.N) shares plunged 16% to a three-year low on Monday as the U.S. meatpacker posted a surprise second-quarter loss and cut its full-year revenue forecast amid slowing consumer demand. The weaker-than-expected results indicate cash-strapped shoppers are cutting back on meat spending in a high-inflation environment while a shrinking cattle herd forces Tyson to pay more for livestock, eroding margins. Tyson also continues to struggle with increased expenses for staples like animal feed.
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Jenny Craig, the Once-Highflying Weight-Loss Brand, Is Going Out of Business After 40 Years
Jenny Craig, the weight-loss brand that once touted celebrity endorsements from stars like Queen Latifah, Mariah Carey and Jason Alexander, is shutting down after four decades in business. The Carlsbad, Calif.-based company, which offered coaching sessions and personalized meal plans, said Thursday it was canceling all online food orders and merchandise sales in corporate centers. It also stopped its coaching sessions, the company said. “It’s with a heavy heart, we’re announcing the close of our business,†a message on the company’s website said. “The last 40 years would not have been possible without you.â€
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ENERGY
Big Oil Has $150 Billion in Cash and Investors Want a Share
Oil-and-gas companies have built up a mountain of cash with few precedents in recent history. Wall Street has a few ideas on how to spend it—and new drilling isn’t near the top of the list. Many companies are cutting costs and raining cash on stock pickers like Berkshire Hathaway’s Warren Buffett, who believe the world’s thirst for oil will continue for years, if not decades, to come. The promise of money returned to shareholders helped turn energy shares into some of the few bright spots in a dark moment for markets last year, fueled by commodity prices that skyrocketed after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Even as an uncertain economic outlook has weighed on crude in 2023, making the energy sector the S&P 500’s worst performer, cash has continued flowing. Companies that previously chased growth and funneled money into speculative drilling investments, weighing down their stocks, have instead tried to appease Wall Street by boosting dividends and repurchasing shares.
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The Most Valuable U.S. Power Company Is Making a Huge Bet on Hydrogen
NextEra Energy grew into a clean-energy powerhouse by investing early in wind and solar farms. Now, it is staking its growth on hydrogen, a much-hyped energy source whose economics are unproven. The new strategy is a huge bet for the Florida-based business, which has become the most valuable power company in the U.S., in part because it outperformed its financial targets: Its 2022 profit was up roughly 70% from a decade ago. Over the past two decades, NextEra’s market capitalization has soared to more than $150 billion from roughly $11 billion. NextEra now says it sees the potential to invest more than $20 billion in so-called green hydrogen after the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, which provides significant tax credits for such projects. There is a limited market for green hydrogen currently, and NextEra is hoping the new law, coupled with an increasing push to cut carbon emissions, will simultaneously create supply and demand.
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IBM to pause hiring in plan to replace 7,800 jobs with AI, Bloomberg reports
International Business Machines Corp (IBM.N) expects to pause hiring for roles as roughly 7,800 jobs could be replaced by Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the coming years, CEO Arvind Krishna told Bloomberg News on Monday. Hiring specifically in back-office functions such as human resources will be suspended or slowed, Krishna said, adding that 30% of non-customer-facing roles could be replaced by AI and automations in five years. His comment comes at a time when AI has caught the imagination of people around the world after the launch of Microsoft Corp-backed (MSFT.O) OpenAI's viral chatbot, ChatGPT, in November last year.
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AUTO
The Executive Keeping Tesla Rolling Isn’t Elon Musk
Tesla had been bleeding money for more than a decade when Zach Kirkhorn became finance chief. At the end of a quarterly analysts’ call four years ago, Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk said his new CFO would be “Zach,†without giving his last name. Some on the call had never heard of him. Mr. Kirkhorn hasn’t done much to raise his profile since, despite having helped make the electric carmaker into a profit machine. While Mr. Musk, who also runs SpaceX and Twitter, blasts his pronouncements to more than 137 million Twitter followers, Mr. Kirkhorn keeps his account, with 63 followers, locked from public view. Mr. Musk is now leaning on Mr. Kirkhorn as he tries to transform Tesla into the world’s largest carmaker. Tesla is aiming to sell 20 million electric vehicles a year by 2030, which would amount to about a quarter of all new auto sales worldwide. Last year, the company delivered 1.3 million EVs. Among the roadblocks ahead are a cooling car market and more competitors. Tesla, valued at around $50 billion when Mr. Kirkhorn took over the CFO job, is now valued at more than $500 billion. He is credited for pushing manufacturing efficiencies that have helped the company deliver 15 consecutive profitable quarters and amass a $22 billion war chest. The company generated a 16.8% operating margin last year, far ahead of its Detroit rivals. Tesla margins have slipped of late in a price war intended to expand market share.
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Elon Musk and Tesla Break Ground on Massive Texas Lithium Refinery
Tesla Inc on Monday broke ground on a Texas lithium refinery that CEO Elon Musk said should produce enough of the battery metal to build about 1 million electric vehicles (EVs) by 2025, making it the largest North American processor of the material. The facility will push Tesla outside its core focus of building automobiles and into the complex area of lithium refining and processing, a step Musk said was necessary if the auto giant was to meet its ambitious EV sales targets.
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Lithium mining: How new production technologies could fuel the global EV revolution
Lithium is the driving force behind electric vehicles, but will supply keep pace with demand? New technologies and sources of supply can fill the gap.
NOTE: A year-old article, but nonetheless informative.
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Battle for China's electric SUV market heats up at home and abroad
China is ground zero for the price war in electric vehicles and the battleground is shifting to SUV-styled EVs, the largest segment of the market, dominated by Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) and BYD (002594.SZ), . The market, crowded with more than 90 models, is about to get even tighter with at least 20 new models of both Chinese and foreign brands launched in April, squeezing pricing and margins at home and driving exports, analysts and executives said. EV makers in China have followed Tesla's bold price cuts by lowering prices for their own electric SUVs, cannibalizing sales of internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles as the price gap between the technologies narrows, analysts said. The trend will spread abroad with growing exports of China-made electric SUVs.
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EDUCATION
Chinese Company Now Owns Tutoring Firm Contracted by Military and Schools in U.S.
Princeton Review and Tutor.com say a Chinese private-equity firm has received regulatory approval to buy the test-prep company and online tutoring platform, more than 15 months after the acquisition closed. Primavera Capital Group, based in Hong Kong, quietly purchased the well-known brands from Korean education company ST Unitas in January 2022, at a time of increased scrutiny of Chinese investment in the U.S.
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Governors pushing pay increases, other perks, in effort to allay teacher shortages
As schools across the country struggle to find teachers to hire, more governors are pushing for pay increases, bonuses and other perks for the beleaguered profession — with some vowing to beat out other states competing for educators. Already in 2023, governors in Georgia and Arkansas have pushed through teacher pay increases. Ahead of Monday’s start of national Teacher Appreciation Week, others — both Republican and Democratic — have proposed doing the same to attract and retain educators. More than half of the states’ governors over the past year — 26 so far — have proposed boosting teacher compensation, according to groups that track it. The nonprofit Teacher Salary Project said it is the most it has seen in nearly two decades of tracking.
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LIFE
1980’s Nostalgia
NOTE: From what I’m seeing in media and elsewhere, I think the era of 1980’s nostalgia is coming to a close and we’re entering a phase of 1990’s nostalgia. The 80’s were a defining decade for music and movies, more so, in my opinion, than the 90’s. I’m not sure what we have to look forward to in this next phase. Grunge music? (don’t get me wrong, I love Nirvana, No Doubt, Pearl Jam, and Foo Fighters), 90’s country music? (dare I say that it was still “country†music then). Even the list of top 90’s movies are all over the place…they don’t fit into an easily definable category. But, perhaps it’s just me who thinks this and there some who have a greater affinity for the 90’s than the 80’s.
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Newspapers.com
NOTE 1: I ran across this jewel of a site called Newspapers.com. It’s owned by the same people who own Ancestry.com, and it has many newspapers from across the nation, going back decades, scanned in…which they did with Optical Character Recognition (OCR). What that means is that you can do a search for any text or text string, and it will search all newspapers for that text. Or, if you want to find a specific paper from a specific day, you can do that to. I did notice that some papers are not scanned in or available (for instance I couldn’t find WSJ or NYT), but I did find many others. The website charges you for access, but the first week is free (so consolidate your requests and get them all in up front).
NOTE 2: After finding Newspapers.com, I wanted to download an entire newspaper for a specific day; unfortunately, I couldn’t find a way to do that all at once, but instead had to download one page at a time, then click “next pageâ€, then click save, and so on…total monkey work. Given my experience with ChatGPT, I wondered if there was a way to automate my mouse movements so I could go do other things…and sure enough, there is. I use a Mac, and the Mac comes loaded with a program called “Automatorâ€, which, like the name suggests, allows you to automate functions via a very user-friendly interface. Recording mouse movements is just one of many things you can automate. Another related Mac app is “Shortcuts.â€
With Automator I recorded the mouse movements to click on the web page buttons, adjusted the timing (to account for a new webpage to load each time), set it on “loop,†and then sat back and watched it go to work while I binged the last of the 80’s movies I could find on TV. Ahh, the beauty of automation.
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HEALTH
Peloton recalls 2 million bikes over injury risk
Peloton is recalling more than two million exercise bikes over concerns that the seat assembly could break during use and injure customers. Owners have been advised to immediately stop using the bikes and contact Peloton for a free repair. The company has received numerous reports of injuries including "a fractured wrist and lacerations" after the bike's seat detached during use. The recall applies to bikes sold in the US from January 2018 through May 2023.
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HOME
Living in a Frank Lloyd Wright House: 7 Homeowners Share Their Honest Experience
The iconic architect designed hundreds of residential properties in his career—AD spoke with seven homeowners about the ways Wright’s work impacts their lives
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FOOD & DRINK
Why Americans Are Smuggling Fruit Roll-Ups Into Israel
Cocaine. Foreign currencies. Firearms. All contraband that customs agents are trained to catch. But hundreds of pounds of Fruit Roll-Ups? Welcome to the age of TikTok-influenced smuggling. Because of a recipe that spread widely on the social media platform, Fruit Roll-Ups — the American-made fruit leather snack that has been passed out to children at baseball games and slumber parties since the 1980s — have become an obsession in Israel, where a shortage means smuggling in the snacks can be highly profitable. But the Israeli government is cracking down. The Israeli Tax Authority exposed the scheme in a statement on social media last week, saying that inspectors and an undercover unit at Ben Gurion Airport had caught several people, including Americans, trying to bring excessive amounts of the snacks into the country. The agency has confiscated hundreds of pounds of Fruit Roll-Ups, it said — 661 pounds in one week alone. Given that one Roll-Up weighs in at 0.5 of an ounce, that makes for tens of thousands of individual packets. The reason for it all? People want their ice cream to crunch, and they’re willing to pay. The trend began earlier this year when Golnar Ghavami, an influencer who goes by @golisdream on TikTok, posted a video of herself wrapping a scoop of mango ice cream in a Fruit Roll-Up, thinking she was just sharing her “guilty pleasure.†She showed that the Fruit Roll-Up froze instantly around the ice cream and made a hands-friendly dessert that offers a surprising and satisfying crunch. Ms. Ghavami’s original video now has over 14 million views, and TikTok has been flooded with videos of people trying it out — including some from the official Fruit Roll-Ups account, whose social media managers appeared to be basking in the overnight success.
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ENTERTAINMENT
‘It’s Going to Be a While’: No End in Sight for Hollywood Strike
It’s not just posturing: As screenwriters continue their strike against Hollywood companies, the two sides remain a galaxy apart, portending a potentially long and destructive standoff. “Any hope that this would be fast has faded,†said Tara Kole, a founding partner of JSSK, an entertainment law firm that counts Emma Stone, Adam McKay and Halle Berry as clients. “I hate to say it, but it’s going to be a while.†The Writers Guild of America, which represents 11,500 screenwriters, went on strike on Tuesday after contract negotiations with studios, streaming services and networks failed. By the end of the week, as companies punched back at union in the news media, and striking writers celebrated the disruption of shows filming from finished scripts, Doug Creutz, an analyst at TD Cowen, told clients that a “protracted affair seems likely.†He defined protracted as more than three months — perhaps long enough to affect the Emmy Awards, scheduled for Sept. 18, and delay the fall TV season.
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SPORTS
Mage’s Victory Caps an Unpredictable Kentucky Derby
The best thing you can say about the 149th running of the Kentucky Derby is that the 18 horses who made it to the starting gate on Saturday survived. That came as a relief after at least seven horses died at Churchill Downs in the past week, two of them on Saturday in races leading up to America’s most famous race. By the time the horses edged into the starting gate for what is an annual thoroughbred celebration on the first Saturday in May, all anyone who loves the sport was thinking — no, praying — was that these ethereal creatures and their riders get around the mile and a quarter race safely.
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For Many Big Cities, It’s Their First Rodeo. ‘You Don’t Do That In Cowboy World’
For those who follow the burgeoning sport of bull riding, the stars are naturally the riders themselves—who train for years to master the art of staying atop a 1,700-pound bucking bull for a full eight seconds, while maintaining a certain control, if not graceful authority. Then there’s Randy Spraggins, who’s charged with getting 750 tons of dirt–or 35 dump-truck loads—into New York City’s Madison Square Garden. These days, he has his work cut out for him. The PBR has not only added different types of events, it has also increased the number of cities in its mix, including to some areas known more for congestion than cowboys. Newcomers and recent returnees to the coast-to-coast circuit include Milwaukee, Manchester, N.H., Albany, N.Y., and Ocean City, Md. Rodeo organizers sometimes have to adjust their routines in locales that are not exactly home, home on the range. When bull riders make their way to Madison Square Garden, as they did earlier this year, it’s never an easy lift for Mr. Spraggins–or the dozens of other behind-the-scenes employees and contractors. In Mr. Spraggins’s case, there’s the sheer challenge of bringing the dirt into traffic-filled Midtown Manhattan. His solution: He does his trucking in the stealth of night, one load at a time.
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FOR FUN
River rafters say big California snowmelt means epic season
Triple Threat. Deadman’s Drop. Satan’s Cesspool. After years of drought, the rapids along California’s American River are truly living up to their names. As a historic snowpack starts to melt, the spring runoff is fueling conditions for some of the best whitewater in years on the American River and its forks, which course through the Sierra Nevada northeast of Sacramento. “This is an epic whitewater rafting season,†said Deric Rothe, who owns Sierra Whitewater Inc. and has been rafting for decades. “The conditions are awesome. If you compare the rafting to a rollercoaster, it’s bigger, faster, more fun and more exciting. So, we’re loving it.â€
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ON THE BOOKSHELF
What scares master of suspense Dean Koontz? Plenty.
Few American writers sell as many books, live better or worry more than Dean Koontz. “There are days that you think, ‘I can’t do this anymore,’†says Koontz, 77, author of more than 110 books that have sold over 500 million copies in 38 languages. “Of all the writers I’ve ever known, I have more self-doubt. I’m eaten by it all the time.†Koontz is billed as the “international best-selling master of suspense,†though he eschews labels and writes in multiple genres — supernatural, science fiction, young adult, manga, dog. Frequently, his books fuse several and are dusted with humor. “You can’t tie him down,†his friend and fellow best-selling author Jonathan Kellerman says. “He just works all the time. He has a lot of anxiety but manages to channel it into fiction.†Ten hours a day, six days a week — more nearing the end of each book, “when momentum carries me like a leaf on a flood.†He revises constantly, an average of 20 times before he proceeds to the next page.
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The Power of Geography: Ten Maps that Reveal the Future of Our World by Tim Marshall
NOTE: I’ll just state it up-front: maps are awesome. Be them political, population, topographic, or other, they give us great insight into how things are and how they came to be. In this book, Marshall looks at ten regions and how their geography shaped politics; the regions are: Australia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the UK, Greece, Turkey, the Sahel, Ethiopia, Spain, and Space.
Here are a few things I learned from this book:
I also learned about the tenuous relationship between Turkey and Greece, as seen through:
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I recently had the opportunity to travel around Turkey--visiting Istanbul, the central region, and the southwestern coast. Turkey is a beautiful country with a rich history and a varied geography. Some facts:
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In my conversations with locals and observations of the country, there were a few things that stood out to me:
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Next on my reading list is Marshall’s prequel to this book – the Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Explain Everything About the World.
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Have a great weekend—and Happy Mother’s Day to all you mothers out there!
The Curator
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Two resources to help you be a more discerning reader:Â
AllSides - https://www.allsides.com/unbiased-balanced-news Â
Media Bias Chart - https://www.adfontesmedia.com/ Â
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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