One Sentence News

Three news stories summarized & contextualized by analytic journalist Colin Wright.Note: As I mentioned in yesterday's OSN, this will be the last edition of the email and podcast for the foreseeable future, as I'll be reinvesting the (substantial amount of) time and effort required to produce it each day in other things (including a new, news-related project called “Some Thoughts About”).If you're a paying OSN subscriber, the balance of your payment will be refunded, and the OSN archive will be opened up, all paywalls removed.Thank you so much for supporting this project, and for caring enough to spend some of your time, each day, learning about what's happening in the world around you.(And if you want to fill the news-shaped hole in your heart with another pod and/or email, I run a news analysis podcast called Let's Know Things, and a weekly email of curated links to news-related things called Notes On the News.)Gay sex ban in Namibia ruled unconstitutionalSummary: A Namibian court has ruled that same-sex acts between consenting men are no longer illegal in the country, and that laws which declared them to be illegal are themselves unconstitutional.Context: These laws only ever declared same-sex acts between men illegal, not women, and it's still illegal to marry someone of the same sex in the country, but this is considered to be a big deal because these laws made gay relationships taboo and fueled a lot of discrimination toward anyone who was, or seemed to be, gay—a social stance that also made it more difficult to provide health services, like HIV vaccines and treatments, to folks in a region in which infection rates are very high.—BBC NewsOne Sentence News is a reader-supported publication. To support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.On day of fatal BP refinery blast, 3,712 safety alarms and one unsent emailSummary: An explosion at a BP oil refinery in Ohio in 2022 was preceded by thousands of safety alarms and a breakdown in communication between daytime and evening shift workers, according to a new report from federal investigators who spent two years looking into the blast, which killed two refinery workers.Context: Among other things, the report indicates that BP neglected to shut down production at the refinery when warning signs indicated they should, and they didn't fix obvious issues with equipment, despite having been told over and over about these issues by employees, and these issues eventually culminated with a series of malfunctions, 3,712 alarms in a 12-hour period, and an explosion that led to even more warnings, confusion, and delayed responses; the refinery has since been sold to a Canadian company, which says it restarted production at the facility last year, and that it's working with regulators to make improvements and upgrade safety measures.—The Wall Street JournalIndonesia is trying to block LGBTQIA content from the internetSummary: A new Indonesian bill, which is based on an earlier proposed bill that was shelved following widespread public backlash, would restrict content in the country that portrays “LGBTQIA behavior,” and anything that shows lifestyles or actions that might be imitated by the public, allowing the government to shut down or censor social platforms, TV networks, and other broadcast mediums, alongside the people using them to share content, using fines and license cancellations; the bill also places limits on investigative journalism in the country. Context: That earlier, shelved bill would have forced LGBTQIA Indonesian people into conversion therapy programs, and this new one approaches the same topic from a different angle, its terms vague enough that it would apparently—according to criticisms from legal experts and opponents in the country—allow the government to shut down and silence any publication, journalist, influencer, or network it doesn't like, which would extend its existing censorship powers, which it justifies by claiming it needs to tackle so-called fake news; international human rights groups have noted a significant rightward-shift in Indonesia's government in recent years, and this new proposed bill is likely to be passed before the current president leaves office later this year.—Rest of WorldPart of what's informing the rate of electrification (and the deployment of renewable energy sources) in various countries is the cost of electricity versus competitive fuel types (like gas); in China, electricity is cheaper than gas, which makes deploying more clean sources of electricity an easier bet, though they're also at that point, in part, because of previous investments in the same (at a time in which other sources were more competitive).—Sustainability By Numbers1011Number of drones the US has approved for sale to Taiwan for about $360 million.That figure includes 720 Switchblade missiles (and its accompanying fire-control systems), and up to 291 Altius 600M loitering munitions (and supporting components).Despite never having controlled it, China claims Taiwan as its own, and has threatened to take the island nation by force, if necessary; this sale was approved in the midst of a more-intense-than-usual pressure campaign from China to keep Taiwan isolated from outside influences, and pull it into its sphere of influence.—CNNTrust Click Get full access to One Sentence News at onesentencenews.substack.com/subscribe

Three news stories summarized & contextualized by analytic journalist Colin Wright.Note: This is a difficult note to write, because I love OSN and I know there are a lot of people who read and listen to it, and who rely on it to help them maintain a situational awareness about the world.But I recently made the decision to put OSN on pause, indefinitely, so I can reallocate the (significant) time and energy required to produce it each day to other things, for the foreseeable future. I'm truly sorry to those who will be disappointed by this decision, but thank you very much for your support, attention, and for caring about what happens in the world.So! Tomorrow's (Friday) edition of the email will be the last one, for now.If you're a paying OSN subscriber, you'll be refunded whatever balance is left on your subscription—I'll leave the OSN archive online, but I'm removing the option to pay for it, as while I may come back to it at some point, I don't know when that might be and I don't want to tie up your money for the duration.(I'm still running my news analysis podcast, Let's Know Things, and I curate a weekly selection of news-related links in my Notes On the News email, if you're interested.)Thanks again, and I'll see you one more time, tomorrow :)Kenyan protesters promise more rallies after at least 23 die in clashesSummary: Protestors in Kenya, demonstrating against new tax hikes in the country, fought with police outside parliament earlier this week, eventually breaking into the parliamentary compound just minutes after the body voted in favor of these hikes; 23 people were killed during these protests across the country, and protest leaders are encouraging people to keep hitting the streets, and to occupy the State House, the president's office and residence, and the local offices for the World Bank and IMF later this week; President Ruto now says he won't sign the bill into law in response to these protests.Context: This is being seen as the most serious crisis Ruto has faced since he stepped into office two years ago, and the government has deployed the army to help keep the peace during what it's calling a “security emergency”; lawmakers have said the tax hikes are necessary to avoid a budget gap, though they removed a few of the more contentious ones in the final version of the bill in order to avoid creating any more turmoil; protestors are now demanding, online, in addition to the whole of the bill being voided, that Ruto resign from office.—ReutersOne Sentence News is a reader-supported publication. To support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Biden pardons thousands of US veterans convicted under law banning gay sexSummary: US President Biden has announced that he will pardon thousands of veterans who were convicted, over the past six decades, under a law that banned gay sex in the military, which in many cases resulted in dishonorable discharges, and a consequent loss of benefits, alongside all the other social and legal consequences of being discharged in that way.Context: The US government has a long history of witch-hunts, including a big one in the 1950s that became known as the “lavender scare,” which aimed to weed out anyone who would today be considered LGBTQ+ from government employment, including in the military; a policy of “don't ask, don't tell” under former President Bill Clinton allowed such people to serve in the military as long as they weren't open about their sexuality, and that was repealed in 2010, but throughout that period, service-members were still persecuted for their sexuality if they were at all public about it.—The GuardianIsraeli military must draft ultra-Orthodox Jews, Supreme Court rulesSummary: Israel's Supreme Court has ruled that the country's military must draft ultra-Orthodox Jewish men who are religious students, despite a long-time exemption this group has enjoyed.Context: Netanyahu's far-right allies in government, those that are keeping him in office, are themselves made up of and supported by ultra-Orthodox organizations, and that's part of why they've been able to avoid the draft for this long, despite the military being spread somewhat thin during its invasion of the Gaza Strip, and new rumblings that it might also enter a more formal conflict with Lebanon-based Hezbollah, as well; this decision could make life more difficult for Netanyahu, who will likely be pressured by his allies to do something about this ruling, though it could temper some of the protests that have been erupting on a regular basis across the country, some of which have been focused on this—in the minds of many, unfair—draft exclusion.—The New York TimesAfter a long period in which few NATO members met the recommended military spending threshold of 2% of their GDP, Russia's invasion of Ukraine has nudged that number up, with only 7 countries hitting that goal in 2022, but (an estimated) 23 managing it in 2024.—Sherwood$50.7 trillionAnticipated size of the US national debt by 2034, according to a new projection from the Congressional Budget Office.That's up from the Office's previous projection just four months ago, which came in at $48.3 trillion.—The Washington PostTrust Click Get full access to One Sentence News at onesentencenews.substack.com/subscribe

Three news stories summarized & contextualized by analytic journalist Colin Wright.WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange will plead guilty in deal with US and be freed from prisonSummary: Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks who published a trove of classified US military documents in 2010 and has been on the run from the US Justice Department ever since—initially spending years living in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, before being locked up in a UK prison—has reportedly made a deal that will see him plead guilty to one of the 18 charges on which he was indicted in 2019, which will allow him to return to his home country of Australia with a time-served sentence.Context: Assange was at the center of several major scandals in the early 20-teens, most of them linked to allegations of hacking, divulging state secrets, and embarrassing the US military, because many of the classified documents that were leaked by WikiLeaks were related to US activities in Afghanistan and Iraq, and diplomatic cables from around that same time, and several of them showed human rights violations or contained transcriptions of US officials insulting their international peers; Assange has long struggled against extradition to the US, fearing he would face the death penalty if sent there, and this agreement, if it's approved by a judge, would seem to end his long-time exile, allowing him to return home to his family without any additional prison time.—The Associated PressOne Sentence News is a reader-supported publication. To support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Music industry giants allege mass copyright violation by AI firmsSummary: A group of music industry entities, including Universal Music Group, Sony Music, and Warner Records, have sued Udio and Suno—a pair of AI-oriented music-generation companies—for allegedly ripping off songs owned by these labels to train their AI systems.Context: These companies are just two of many that have popped up over the past year or two, and which allow their customers to generate ostensibly original music just by describing what they want to make, and that's possible because the AI systems they use are trained on gobs of existing music, much of which is allegedly owned by these record labels, and which, according to these lawsuits, were incorporated into the training data illegally; this is similar to other lawsuits that are working their way through global court systems right now, related to books, photos, films, journalism and other sorts of human-made work that are being collected and aggregated by AI companies to train their models, and there's little in the way of existing legal precedent on this sort of thing, so it's difficult to say, at this point, how these sorts of cases will pan out in different legal jurisdictions.—Ars TechnicaChina becomes first country to retrieve rocks from the Moon's far sideSummary: The Chinese space program successfully returned lunar soil samples from the far side of the Moon, yesterday, marking yet another accomplishment for the burgeoning program, and a new first-ever achievement for humanity.Context: The Chang'e-6 mission was a follow-up to previous Chinese missions that demonstrated the country's growing capacity in space, initially allowing them to photograph and map the Moon's surface, then land on and deploy a rover on the side facing Earth, then deploying a rover on the far side of the Moon—a first for any space agency—in 2019; the agency's previous Moon mission brought about four pounds of Earth-side Moon regolith home (something that's only been previously accomplished by the US and Soviet Union), and this most recent achievement is thus far unique to China, which means it's a big deal in terms of their in-space credibility, but also for human knowledge, as those far-side lunar materials could teach us a lot about how that half differs from the side we continuously see, and about the Moon's origins.—The New York TimesUsed EVs have become less expensive in the US, on average, than their gas-consuming competition according to a recent report from iSeeCars; this price difference is being attributed to a perceptual value-drop in EVs, due to infrastructural limitations (especially a dearth of charging stations in some regions).—Business Insider$10.75 billionSum Amazon will invest on cloud and logistics infrastructure in Germany, most of it by 2026, according to a recent announcement by the company.That's in addition to a previously announced investment by Amazon in Germany, which (including the new sum) adds up to a total of just over $19 billion, this fresh investment alone creating something like 4,000 jobs in the country. —ReutersTrust Click Get full access to One Sentence News at onesentencenews.substack.com/subscribe

Three news stories summarized & contextualized by analytic journalist Colin Wright.Somalia asks peacekeepers to slow withdrawal, fears Islamist resurgenceSummary: Somalia's government has asked the African Union Transition Mission in Somalia, which is a peacekeeping force of about 4,000 troops, to slow their withdrawal from the country, which is currently expected to be completed on December 31 of this year; around half that force is scheduled to be withdrawn by June, and the government is asking them to wait until September.Context: The ATMIS is an African Union force, is largely funded by the EU and US, and is in Somalia to help the government fend-off extremist militants in the region, especially those aligned with al Shabaab; the government is concerned their own forces won't be ready to fill in the gaps left by the ATMIS when they pull out, basically, and that could leave a power vacuum al Shabaab or another group could rush to fill; the head of the ATMIS has said there's no definitive timeline for concluding negotiations regarding the withdrawal, and that everyone involved has committed to achieving sustainable peace and security in the area.—ReutersOne Sentence News is a reader-supported publication. To support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Greece introduces the six-day work weekSummary: A new law that comes into effect in Greece on July 1 will allow business owners in some sectors to assign their employees hours up to six days a week, if they deem it necessary, adding a 40% supplement to the employee's daily wage if they are called in for a sixth day of labor.Context: This is a contentious piece of legislation, as while it could help boost the wages of some hospitality, agricultural, and retail workers in particular, it's generally not meant to increase the number of hours they work, but rather than number of total hours businesses are producing goods and services, and Greek workers already work more hours than those in any other European country, tallying an average of 41 hours per week (the pay they receive per hour is low by European standards, however); collective agreements have been frozen in the country for years, as the government has had to ask for three economic rescue packages, and has suffered through 15 years of recession and austerity measures, so this is generally being seen as another effort to shore things up at a moment of relative calm in that regard, making up for a lack of skilled workers by putting those who are available to work a little more, each week.—Deutsche WelleGunmen kill 15 police officers and several civilians in Russia's southern Dagestan regionSummary: Attacks by gunmen on two Orthodox churches, a synagogue, and a police post in two cities in the southern Russian republic of Dagestan on Sunday have left more than 15 people dead, according to local officials.Context: These attacks occurred near-simultaneously, and the country's Anti-Terrorist Committee has said the five confirmed gunmen have been killed, while the governor of the republic said six “bandits” were “liquidated”; no one immediately claimed responsibility for the attacks, though there was a report that a local official was detained because of his son's possible involvement; another recent attack on a concert hall in Moscow, during which 139 people were killed, was initially (and without evidence) blamed on Ukraine, before the government admitted it was an Islamic State-linked group, and some reports suggest officials may try to link this new attack to Ukraine, as well, though there doesn't seem to be any evidence that's the case.—The Associated PressThe 2024 US election is looking to feature the most “double-hater” voters on record, with around 25% of surveyed Americans saying they don't particularly like either major candidate.—Axios$91.4 billionSum spent by the nine nuclear-armed countries on nuclear weapons in 2023, according to a new report by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons.That's about $3,000 per second, and is around $10.7 billion more than was spent in 2022.—VOA NewsTrust Click Get full access to One Sentence News at onesentencenews.substack.com/subscribe

Three news stories summarized & contextualized by analytic journalist Colin Wright.Chad joins other countries in eliminating sleeping sicknessSummary: Chad has become the 51st country to officially eliminate sleeping sickness from within their borders, marking the halfway point to a goal set by the World Health Organization in 2021 to eliminate it in 100 countries by 2030.Context: Sleeping sickness is a parasitic infection caused by the tsetse fly, and it's only found in Subsaharan Africa, mostly in poorer regions; this infection initially manifests with flu-like symptoms, but eventually also leads to behavior changes, difficulty sleeping, and confusion, and can ultimately result in a coma or death; early detection and treatment of sleeping sickness has helped substantially improve health outcomes in those afflicted, and most of the countries that have eliminated it, thus far, have invested in reducing infection reservoirs, which in this case often means applying insecticide to, and treating afflicted cattle to keep tsetse flies from acquiring the disease from animals, in the first place.—AfricanewsOne Sentence News is a reader-supported publication. To support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Internet Archive forced to remove 500,000 books after publishers' court winSummary: The Internet Archive, which lost a court case brought against it by book publishers in March of last year, recently pulled around half-a-million books from its online open library.Context: This is the result of a years-long struggle between publishers and the Internet Archive, but in essence, the IA is a nonprofit that aims to preserve and make available all sorts of digitized materials, including things like websites, games, and apps, but also print materials that have been scanned, and which are difficult or impossible to find anywhere else; during the height of the pandemic, the IA made all of its books available to anyone who wants them, removing its typical one-person-at-a-time approach that mimicked more conventional libraries, as a sort of emergency, everyone is being forced to stay at home gesture, and that sparked additional legal efforts on the part of book publishers, who were already opposed to the IA's actions, saying they amounted to piracy; this takedown of hundreds of thousands of books published by the lawsuit-bringing publishers is being appealed, and on one side of this debate are book-readers and open information activists who say this could portend bad things for the future of libraries of all kinds, and on the other are publishers and some authors who say, basically, if these folks make our work available for free, online, how will we be able to keep publishing books?—Ars TechnicaGilead says its HIV prevention shot was 100% effective in a clinical trialSummary: Drug-maker Gilead has announced that its twice-yearly injectable HIV drug, lenacapavir has demonstrated 100% efficacy in a late-stage clinical trial.Context: This double-blind, phase 3 trial involved 5,300 women in South Africa and Uganda, and none of the women in the group that got the drug were infected with HIV during the trial period, while 39 women in the group that didn't receive it did develop HIV; these results were considered to be so good by an independent data monitoring group that the trial was ended early so all of the women could be offered the drug; results for a second trial that involved men who have sex with men, instead of women, are set to be announced in late-2024 or early-2025, and Gilead's stock price rose more than 9% following this announcement.—QuartzA recent survey from YouGov found that younger Americans like wearing suits more than older Americans, but that a sizable chunk of the population—despite owning a suit—never wear it; a big change from the previous professional paradigm, and a number that's possibly being influenced by the pandemic-era shift to remote work.—YouGov20%Increase in the number of passengers riding Amtrak trains the first seven months of the company's most recent budget year (which began in October of 2023), according to Amtrak's CEO.He also said the company is on track to exceed its all-time record high number of passengers served in a single year (32.3 million), which was set in 2019.Amtrak has seen a recent surge in new government funding to help it refurbish popular routes and stations, and introduce new ones to serve currently unserved areas, and this increase was tallied despite the company currently suffering from several diminished routes and issues with some of its tracks.—ReutersTrust Click Get full access to One Sentence News at onesentencenews.substack.com/subscribe

Three news stories summarized & contextualized by analytic journalist Colin Wright.Thailand passes landmark bill legalizing same-sex marriageSummary: The Thai Senate has voted, 130 to 4, to allow any two people, whatever their gender, to get engaged or legally married, putting the country on track to become the first in Southeast Asia to allow same-sex marriages.Context: This bill was approved by the country's House of Representatives in March, and still has to be approved by the Thai King, but that final step is considered to be a formality, and the law will go into effect 120 days after that sign-off; same-sex couplings have been generally socially accepted in Thailand for a long time, with around 60% of the adult population supporting it, but the law hasn't traditionally backed that social approval; three-dozen countries have thus far legalized same-sex marriage, and Taiwan was the first to do so in Asia, back in 2019.—The Washington PostOne Sentence News is a reader-supported publication. To support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Fisker is out of cash, not making cars, and filing for bankruptcySummary: Electric vehicle-maker Fisker, which was started by well-known BMW and Aston Martin car designer Henrik Fisker, has filed for bankruptcy following months of safety probes, cash shortages, and pauses in manufacturing.Context: In 2023, Fisker—which at one point was considered to be EV-maker Tesla's main US rival—reported $273 million in sales, but $1 billion in debt, and its stock was dropped by the New York Stock Exchange in March of that year; in some ways Fisker's situation reflects the EV market in general, which has knocked out many previously high-flying, promising companies, because a lot of cash has to be burned in the run-up to profitability, very few companies making it through that initial gauntlet to relative stability on the other side; the global EV market is also being upended by inexpensive, high-quality offerings from China and Vietnam, which is making life difficult for Western competitors that took longer to spin-up their manufacturing capacity and R&D, and which typically haven't benefitted from as much government backing.—Ars TechnicaBoeing hid questionable parts from regulators that may have been installed in 737 Max planes, new whistleblower allegesSummary: An employee at Boeing has publicly alleged that the company attempted to conceal broken and out-of-specification plane parts from regulators, those parts possibly making their way into the company's much-maligned 737 Max.Context: The past several years have been difficult for Boeing, which seems to have refocused on upping its stock market valuation over investing in the quality of its products a few decades ago, which in turn led to the firing of many of its most knowledgable employees, and the subsequent, very public failure of several of its planes, and even more recently, helium leaks in its Starliner space vehicle, which seems to have stranded a pair of astronauts at the International Space Station; the company, which has close, military-manufacturing ties with the US government, in addition to making something like half the passenger aircraft in use, globally, has been targeted by a US Senate subcommittee investigation into why it seems to be fumbling so much and so badly, of late, and this new whistleblower revelation came out as part of that investigation; the company's CEO was questioned about all these issues, and the corporate culture that seems to have caused them, by Congress on Tuesday.—CNNChip-maker Nvidia became the most valuable publicly traded US company earlier this week, its market value surpassing previous holders-of-that-title, Microsoft and Apple on the strength of demand for its powerful AI-optimized chips.—Axios~2,000Number of children who die each day, globally, from air pollution, according to a new study from the Health Effects Institute.Air pollution has become the second biggest killer of people of all ages (surpassing tobacco use), following only high blood pressure as a risk factor for all-causes death amongst the general population, and it's second only to malnutrition as the greatest mortality risk for children under 5.—The GuardianTrust Click Get full access to One Sentence News at onesentencenews.substack.com/subscribe

Three news stories summarized & contextualized by analytic journalist Colin Wright.Nvidia eclipses Microsoft as world's most valuable companySummary: Just a few days after passing Apple, chip-maker Nvidia also surpassed Microsoft's market valuation, attaining a value of more than $3.3 trillion and becoming the most valuable publicly traded US company.Context: Microsoft recently passed Apple as the most valuable publicly traded US company on the strength of its partnership with ChatGPT-maker OpenAI and it's deployment of all sorts of AI-oriented tools across its product portfolio, but Nvidia has been on a tear this past year, surging in value from just over $1 trillion in July of 2023 to its current most-valuable status; Nvidia makes chips that were previously oriented toward gamers and other consumers that needed to do high-end graphics work, then by crypto-companies that wanted to mine Bitcoin and other such assets, but the same products turned out to be ideal for training AI systems, as well, hence this staggering valuation explosion as pretty much every tech company scrambles to get their own AI models trained and deployed.—ReutersOne Sentence News is a reader-supported publication. To support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Putin and Kim sign pact pledging mutual support against ‘aggression'Summary: Russian President Putin has visited North Korea for the first time in decades, meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un and solidifying the two countries' relationship at a moment in which both nations are heavily sanctioned, globally.Context: This visit served as an opportunity for the two countries to formalize a defense pledge, basically saying if the West, led by Europe and the US, messes with either of us, we'll come to each others' aid in various ways, while also demonstrating that they'll continue to support each other in a general sense, North Korea providing ammunition, missiles, and other wartime necessities to Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, and Russia providing staples like food and medical supplies, which are often in short supply in North Korea; many Western governments are concerned that Russia is helping the North develop their weapons systems, including their nuclear and orbital capabilities, as part of this arrangement, though the true nature of this agreement is unknown, as the details haven't been publicly divulged, and even the aforementioned swap of ammo and food and such is based on external intelligence reports, not announcements from those directly involved—so lots of unknowns remain.—The New York TimesWhite House cancels meeting and scolds Netanyahu in protest over videoSummary: Following the release of a video by the Israeli government in which Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu criticizes the US for withholding military aid, the US government has cancelled a high-level meeting with Israel related to Iran.Context: The only military aid on its way to Israel from the US that has been withheld, as far as is publicly known, at least, has been a shipment of a type of bomb that would be devastating to civilians if used in Rafah, so this criticism, shared publicly in this way, is being seen as a slap in the face by a US administration that has continued to give Israel everything it has asked for, and then some, despite very public and potentially damaging criticisms from other world leaders, and its own constituents, at home; some White House officials have expressed bafflement about the withholding comment, saying they don't know what Netanyahu is talking about, and while some have said the Iran meeting was cancelled to express anger at the comment, others have said the meeting was postponed due to a scheduling conflict; so there's some fog of war related to this exchange, at the moment, but it does seem like the tension between Netanyahu and US President Biden is continuing to grow.—AxiosMost Americans get the majority of their news from social media, these days, and the lion's share of “news” content they're shown by the algorithms on these platforms are commentary and funny posts related to current events, not actual journalism.—Pew Research1.8 millionNumber of people living in El Fasher, the capital city of the Darfur region in Sudan.This city is under threat from a paramilitary forces called the Rapid Support Forces, which has been fighting a civil war with the country's military, each side of the conflict controlled by generals who toppled the previous government in a coup, then turned on each other in the aftermath.El Fasher is encircled by the RSF, and international human rights organizations are warning that a massacre of the city's residents could be impending.—The New York TimesTrust Click Get full access to One Sentence News at onesentencenews.substack.com/subscribe

Three news stories summarized & contextualized by analytic journalist Colin Wright.US sues Adobe for ‘deceiving' subscriptions that are too hard to cancelSummary: Software company Adobe, which sells digital tools like Photoshop and Illustrator, has been sued by the US Justice Department for allegedly harming consumers by engaging in manipulative practices, like making it difficult and costly to end subscriptions, and enrolling customers in more expensive plans than they wanted.Context: One of Adobe's more overtly anti-consumer practices, according to the FTC, is a hefty cancellation fee that makes the company's purported “monthly” plan anything but, charging folks for cancelling their memberships before a year has passed, but they're also being accused of making the cancellation process unnecessarily arduous, and engaging in other sorts of manipulative behaviors meant to keep people paying, and paying more than anticipated; this is just one of many such lawsuits by US agencies against companies doing these sorts of things to consumers right now, and this one targets a pair of Adobe executives, as well—all of which is meant to serve as a warning to other companies doing similar things, alongside Adobe itself.—The VergeOne Sentence News is a reader-supported publication. To support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Russia overtook US as gas supplier to Europe in MaySummary: For the first time in nearly two years, Europe imported more gas from Russia than the US in May, partly due to temporary issues with a major US liquid natural gas (LNG) export facility, and a big surge in Russian gas exports through Turkey, leading up to a maintenance period this month.Context: Following Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February of 2022, it began to cut off gas flows to Europe, where many countries Russia hoped to convince not to get involved were heavily reliant on the fuel, and the US scrambled to build export capacity for its liquified gas product, which it could send via ship, but which would then need to be processed on the other end to make it usable across Europe's grid; the upside of all this is that the US is now typically the biggest supplier of gas to Europe, Russia still provides gas to the bloc, but a lot less than before, and via a more circuitous route, and a five-year transit agreement between Russia and Ukraine, which makes the majority of those remaining shipments to Europe possible, via pipes running through Ukraine, ends this year, which—though Ukraine earns some money by allowing that gas to pass through its territory—seems unlikely to be re-upped, at this point.—Financial TimesThree of Vietnam's five undersea internet cables are downSummary: Late last week, three of the five undersea cables that serve internet connectivity to Vietnam failed, and they remain down as of mid-this-week; local internet service providers have not announced estimates as to when they think these cables will be back online.Context: This is notable in part because, while sabotage is being seen as unlikely in this case, there have been a slew of what look to be seabed cable-cuttings in recent years, and it's been speculated that China and Russia, separately, have been experimenting with these sorts of cuts using non-military vessels—though, again, that's quite speculative right now, and there haven't been any formal allegations on the matter; these cables, though increasingly vital to global communication, are also just really vulnerable to all sorts of degradation and damage from the passage of ships (especially their anchors), though, and some nations, due to the nature of their governance, the businesses tasked with managing the cables, and their local weather conditions, seabed setups, and so on, are also just a lot more likely to experience damaged cables, and notably, all five of Vietnam's undersea internet cables went down last year, though the country remained connected to the internet via land-based connections, and it's in the process of attempting to add 2-4 new undersea cables by 2025, which would almost double the country's current maritime bandwidth.—ReutersThe TSA reported the highest-ever number of passengers passing through US airport security on the Friday before Memorial Day this year (2.95 million) and Airlines for America have forecast that 271 million passengers will do the same this summer, between June 1 and August 31 (which would be an increase of 6% over the summer of 2023).—Sherwood News

Three news stories summarized & contextualized by analytic journalist Colin Wright.Netanyahu disbands his inner war cabinetSummary: Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has disbanded his multi-party war cabinet, following the departure of two of its six members last week.Context: This cabinet advised Netanyahu on the invasion of the Gaza Strip, and was meant to serve as a symbol of solidarity in the country following Hamas' sneak-attack on Israel—an attack that sparked the aforementioned invasion; Netanyahu has come under fire from enemies and allies both within and beyond Israel's borders for his seeming desire to keep the invasion going, no matter what, and this has strained his relationships with long-time allies, but also raised questions about his political future, as opposition parties have called for new elections and large protests criticizing his actions have become the norm across the country.—ReutersOne Sentence News is a reader-supported publication. To support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Fire used as 'weapon of war' in Sudan as entire towns and villages burned to the groundSummary: More than 50 settlements across war-torn Sudan have been repeatedly burned, and more than 235 seemingly intentionally set fires in towns and villages have been tracked since April 2023, when the war began, supporting suspicions that arson is being used as a weapon of war in order to displace civilians, long-term.Context: A flurry of new data and satellite images has allowed reporters to confirm previous reporting on this aspect of the conflict in Sudan, and while the majority of the violence and settlement destruction has been occurring in the country's westernmost Darfur region, the capital of its North Darfur region is also under threat, along with the 1.5 million people who live there; this conflict is between Sudan's military and a paramilitary group called the Rapid Support Forces, which are led by the military's commander and the de facto ruler of the country, and his former deputy, respectively—in 2021 they agreed to rule the country together after launching a successful coup, but that alliance crumbled due to disagreements about how to rule, and who should control what.—NBC NewsAt least 14 Hajj pilgrims die in intense heatSummary: At least 14 people have been confirmed killed, and another 17 people have been reported missing while making their pilgrimage to the Hajj in Saudi Arabia from their home country of Jordan.Context: Jordan's foreign ministry has said that the 14 people who died suffered sun stroke due to an extreme heat wave afflicting the region, which has brought temperatures exceeding 46 degrees C, which is about 114.8 degrees F—which has made the outdoor, on-foot portion of the rituals performed at the Muslim holy site dangerous, especially for older people, and those suffering from other conditions; last year at least 240 people died from similar ailments at the Hajj.—BBC NewsIntense and dangerous heat is forecast across the US this week, with many high-temperature records at risk and local officials scrambling to remind locals about the dangers of heat stroke and related ailments.—The New York Times175,000Number of marijuana convictions Maryland Governor Wes Moore has said he will pardon.Those convictions (all of which are low-level possession charges) apply to around 100,000 people in the state, and this marks one of the largest mass-pardons related to this drug in the US so far, though other states have recently seen similar, broad-scale efforts.—The Washington PostTrust Click Get full access to One Sentence News at onesentencenews.substack.com/subscribe

Three news stories summarized & contextualized by analytic journalist Colin Wright.Panel says lawmakers colluded with foreign powers but won't name namesSummary: A new report about foreign interference in Canada's government, which was recently made public by a committee of Canadian lawmakers, claims that several unnamed Canadian politicians “knowingly or through willful blindness” took money from foreign entities in exchange for interfering with government processes in such a way that said foreign entities would benefit.Context: In other words, some currently unnamed Canadian politicians accepted bribes to put their thumbs on the scale in favor of the governments that bribed them, and some of them allegedly shared private government information with those foreign entities, as well; this is considered to be a pretty big deal, and follows other recent allegations about Canadian politicians spying for and sharing information with China, and this document indicates India, Pakistan, and Iran, among other nations, have likewise been meddling in Canadian governance; some Canadian politicians have said they want their intelligence community to name names, and it's likely these revelations, though not entirely surprising, as rumors of such behaviors have been swirling around the ether for years, will impact the country's next election, which is likely to take place in 2025.—The Washington PostOne Sentence News is a reader-supported publication. To support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Huge telehealth fraud indictment may wreak havoc for Adderall users, CDC warnsSummary: The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned, late last week, that a recent federal indictment of a telehealth company that has allegedly been illegally distributing Adderall and other stimulants, online, could result in disruptions in the availability of these drugs.Context: Adderall and other commonly prescribed ADHD medications are controlled substances, and a bunch of online-only companies have popped up over the past handful of years, focused on getting their customers prescriptions for these drugs, and the drugs themselves—a business model that has made illegal distribution a lot more common; one of the big names in that space, Done Global, has been taken down by the US Justice Department, two people connected to it arrested by federal agents, and the concern is that folks with legitimate prescriptions will have trouble filling those prescriptions because other companies will be more hesitant to issue scripts and fulfill orders; there's also a separate, ongoing shortage of these sorts of drugs in the US, and folks who use such stimulants regularly, even for doctor-advised purposes, can have a lot of trouble if that supply is suddenly cut off, hence the CDC's concern.—Ars TechnicaUK polls point to 'electoral extinction' for Prime Minister Sunak's ConservativesSummary: A trio of recent opinion polls in the lead-up to the UK's July 4th election suggest the currently governing Conservative party might not just lose its majority, but experience a truly brutal loss.Context: One of the polls found that chief rival Labour's lead has risen 2% since the last poll, five days earlier, to 46%, while support for Conservatives dropped by 4 points to 21%, and another suggested that Conservatives could see their representation in the 650-seat House of Commons drops to just 72 seats, with Labour scooping up 456; this is partly the consequence of what's generally considered to be a series of blunders and bad policies by the Conservatives, leading to a larger-than-usual desire for a changing of the guard by voters, but the Reform UK party, which is politically further-right than the Conservatives, seems to have also grabbed about 12% of support in one of these polls, suggesting that while some voters who would have supported the Conservatives may sit this one out, many have instead decided to throw in their lot with the chief supporter of Brexit, Nigel Farage, who is leading Reform UK.—ReutersThe US economy continues to flash mixed signals, many of them broadly indicating a resilient set of economy variables, but some pointing at future tumult, reinforcing a sense that the Fed will probably lower interest rates soon (a move that typically stokes economic activity), but not so much that the amount or pace of interest rate drops is currently predictable.—USA Today>80%Portion of pregnancy-related deaths in the US that are preventable.About 22 maternal deaths (the mother dying) were tracked for every 100,000 live births in the US in 2022, but that number was as high as 49.5% maternal deaths per 100,000 live births for Black people—pointing at a huge disparity in outcomes between different groups of people, but also further emphasizing that gap between “available, lifesaving treatments” and “treatments that are being applied in different areas for different people.”—The Washington PostTrust Click Get full access to One Sentence News at onesentencenews.substack.com/subscribe

Three news stories summarized & contextualized by analytic journalist Colin Wright.Officials overseeing Indonesia capital city project resign, raising questionsSummary: Two of the people in charge of making Indonesia's under-construction new capital, Nusantara, a reality have resigned and been temporarily replaced by the public works and housing minister, and the deputy agrarian minister, according to the Indonesian government.Context: This project, which is expected to cost something like $32 billion, is meant to move the mechanisms of state from the country's current capital, Jakarta, because Jakarta is overcrowded, plagued by immense traffic jams and ever-present pollution, is sinking, and regularly floods; the idea, then, is to move the government to Nusantara to help the state function, but also ease some of those issues in Jakarta; the two people who left were the head and deputy head of the project, though, and while the relocation of the first batch of 12,000 civil servants from Jakarta to Nusantara was planned for this September, they've apparently had trouble building enough infrastructure for even that many people, and the project has already been delayed twice amid concerns about a lack of private funding for the venture—so we'll see on that.—ReutersOne Sentence News is a reader-supported publication. To support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Georgia's divisive ‘foreign agents' bill signed into lawSummary: Georgia's legislature, which is controlled by the Georgian Dream party, voted to dismiss a veto by the country's president earlier this week, officially signing the vetoed bill into law, despite widespread protests against it.Context: The law in question is similar to a law in Russia that essentially allows the government to spy on and harass and even imprison anyone they like, as long as they say that person is a foreign agent, though on the surface it merely allows the government to look more closely at who backs nonprofits operating within their borders; a major concern for the protestors is that this law may make it more difficult for Georgia to someday join the EU, which is something the majority of the country hopes to do, and there are concerns that its passage might have been pushed by politicians under Russia's sway in order to keep them from becoming more friendly with the West.—France 24Massive melon-size hail could be a Texas recordSummary: A piece of hail the size of a cantaloupe was recovered in Texas last weekend, measuring at least six inches in diameter and possibly setting a new all-time record for the state.Context: This is notable in part because hail has been getting bigger and becoming more frequent across portions of the US, and that's meant a lot more damage from storms that otherwise might roll through with little long-term economic impact; a recent wave of storms in Texas, though, resulted in what's been called DVD-sized hail, which is a new casual unit of measurement for such things, and a week later, they got hit by melon-sized hail; none of which is great for the safety of people and animals on the ground, but it's also pretty terrible for the burgeoning fields of solar panels across the state, and the cars, homes, and other pieces of shatterable and destroyable infrastructure in the impacted areas.—The Washington PostThe world's biggest social networks are scrambling to find new audiences to attract, as their valuations are partly based on their capacity for future growth, and some of the larger ones seem to have reached the ceiling of global potential customers for their current offerings.—Sherwood News$25,000Announced prices for upcoming electric vehicles by Tesla, Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis.That's substantially lower than current average EV prices (which tend to be closer to $48,000) and closer to today's used EV prices, and that of those sold overseas (China has multiple models for around that price and cheaper—though their EV industry, and connected industries like EV batteries, is heavily subsidized by the government).—The New York TimesTrust Click Get full access to One Sentence News at onesentencenews.substack.com/subscribe

Three news stories summarized & contextualized by analytic journalist Colin Wright.Modi claims victory in India's election but drop in support forces him to rely on coalition partnersSummary: India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi has won a third term in office following an election that was expected to be a landslide for his BJP party, but which ended up being a relatively close victory that will necessitate he rely upon allied parties to maintain a majority.Context: The BJP's National Democratic Alliance, which is a right-wing coalition of parties led by Modi and the BJP, won a total of 294 seats—which is more than the 272 required to lock-in a majority—but this is the first time the BJP wasn't able to achieve that many seats itself since 2014 when it originally swept into power; it only attained 240 seats on its own, compared to the 370 Modi predicted they would receive while on the campaign trail, which means his party may have to cater to the priorities of its allies more than was anticipated.—The Associated PressOne Sentence News is a reader-supported publication. To support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.In shift, Biden issues order allowing temporary border closure to migrantsSummary: On Tuesday, US President Biden issued a new executive order that prevents migrants who enter the country illegally from seeking asylum when illegal crossing numbers are high, allowing border officers to return those who enter the country to Mexico, or to their home countries.Context: This rule, which the ACLU has said it will challenge in court, activates after the seven-day average for illegal crossings hits 2,500 migrants, which is fairly common at this point; the border then reopens after the number of such crossings drops back down to 1,500 people for a continuous seven days, and then remains at that point or lower for two weeks; this is very similar to policies that former President Trump enacted and attempted while in office, and it's similar to a piece of legislation that almost made it through Congress earlier this year, before being blocked by Republicans in February, apparently at the behest of Trump, who reportedly told supporters that allowing Biden to take action at the border would hurt Republicans in the upcoming election.—The New York TimesNew Texas stock exchange takes aim at New York's dominanceSummary: A new stock exchange that plans to file with the SEC later this year is being set up in Texas, and has raised around $120 million from some major players in the investment world.Context: The Texas Stock Exchange is meant to complete with the Nasdaq and NYSE by doing away with some of the regulations that apply to businesses trading on those exchanges, like those related to board diversity and compliance costs; the TXSE is planned to be entirely electronic, with a symbolic physical presence in downtown Dallas; other exchanges have popped up around the US over the years, likewise attempting to compete with New York's duopoly, but all of them have faltered and plateaud, so far, though the folks backing this Texas-based entrant, including Blackrock and Citadel, suggest this one might have a little more prestige and weight behind it than those that have come before.—The Wall Street JournalDespite tariffs that are being deployed or discussed throughout the Western world, Chinese EVs—which are generally considered to be high-quality, and are almost always cheaper (sometimes substantially so) than their competitors—have seen a large number of new registrations across Europe, jumping a quarter this year so far, alone.—Financial Times$2 billionValue of the US audiobook market in 2023, according to new data from the Audio Publishers Association.That's up about 9% from the previous year, this growth attributed to an increase in the popularity of the format amongst US adults, about 52% of whom have listened to an audiobook, and 38% of whom have listened to an audiobook in the past year.—Publishers WeeklyTrust Click Get full access to One Sentence News at onesentencenews.substack.com/subscribe

Three news stories summarized & contextualized by analytic journalist Colin Wright.Power cut across Nigeria as workers go on strikeSummary: Millions of Nigerians remain without electricity after a general strike over the cost of living in the country led to the shut-down of electricity substations by union workers.Context: Unions in the country are demanding a significant increase to the local minimum wage of 30,000 naira per month, which is about $22, saying they can't survive on that pay, and the government has offered to double that wage, though workers have contended that even double wouldn't cover the cost of enough rice to feed the average person's family for a month, much less other food, shelter, and expenses; the government has said raising pay beyond what they've offered would lead to the collapse of the economy and closure of many businesses that wouldn't be able to afford to stay in operation, and this is the fourth general strike since President Tinubu stepped into office last year—Tinubu deciding to remove a fuel subsidy and overseeing a substantial drop in the value of the naira after unpegging its value from the US dollar, both decisions having contributed to the country's current economic crisis, though the government says these are necessary measures for the long-term success of the economy.—BBC NewsOne Sentence News is a reader-supported publication. To support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Russia-China gas pipeline deal stalls over Beijing's price demandsSummary: A major gas pipeline deal between Russia and China has reportedly stalled as the Chinese government has demanded lower prices on the gas that would flow through the new Power of Siberia 2 pipeline between the countries, and the Russian government has balked at this new demand, though may have to accept it, due to Russia's increasing economic reliance on China.Context: Russia's state gas monopoly, Gazprom, has been shambling along at a reduced level since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, which led to an almost complete decoupling of Russia from its at the time primary customers in Europe, and it suffered a loss of nearly $7 billion last year, alone, due to the difficulty it has faced replacing those customers, due to sanctions on its activities; China has been happily buying discounted energy products from Russia during this time, and now it's saying, in essence, we'll keep buying your gas and helping you survive this shortfall, but we want close to the same price you charge domestically, which is heavily subsidized; China would also only commit to buying a small portion of what the new pipeline could carry annually, which would leave Russia prone to further, probably China-favoring negotiations, down the line.—Financial TimesIn blow to PM, Brexit champion Nigel Farage to stand in UK electionSummary: In a somewhat surprising move, the politician-turned-TV host who served as one of the most vocal proponents of the UK's “Brexit” departure from the EU, Nigel Farage, has announced that he'll be a candidate in next month's election, leading the right-wing Reform Party.Context: The currently governing Conservative party already faced a pretty bleak outlook in the coming election, as polls show they'll likely be stomped by Labour in particular, but Farage continues to enjoy a significant following in further-right political circles, and he's likely to claim some portion of the votes that would have otherwise gone to the Conservatives, possibly further worsening their impending political fortunes.—ReutersA combination of persistent bad weather and the spread of disease in Brazil, which is the world's largest exporter of orange juice, has caused a surge in futures prices for the product, other markets (like Florida) unable to pick up the slack because of their own combination of weather and economic issues.—Sherwood News$1 billionInitial sum Melinda French Gates has committed to spending over the next two years on people and organizations focused on women, families, and reproductive rights.The announcement of this new wave of donations came alongside an announcement that Gates would be leaving the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to do her own thing, contributing to different sorts of projects and using different metrics of success for those projects than her ex-husband, Bill Gates, who also spends most of his time on philanthropic efforts, these days.—The New York TimesTrust Click Get full access to One Sentence News at onesentencenews.substack.com/subscribe

Three news stories summarized & contextualized by analytic journalist Colin Wright.Claudia Sheinbaum claims sweeping mandate to become Mexico's first female presidentSummary: Nobel Prize-winning climate scientist and former mayor of Mexico City Claudia Sheinbaum has become Mexico's first female president, pulling in somewhere between 58.3% and 60.7% of the vote.Context: Sheinbaum was supported in her campaign by her mentor, the outgoing President Obrador, and while this election is being seen as a milestone moment for a country that's historically been very keen on traditional, Catholic church-encouraged, gender roles—Sheinbaum's main opponent was also a woman—it was also marred by a record number of assassinations, 37 candidates having been murdered by cartels leading up to the vote.—ReutersOne Sentence News is a reader-supported publication. To support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.China lands a spacecraft on the moon's far side to collect rocks for studySummary: China's Chang'e-6 spacecraft has successfully deposited a lander on the far side of the Moon, that lander tasked with using a drill to gather up to 4.4 pounds, or about 2 kilograms of material from the surface, which will then be returned to the orbiting craft, which will shoot the materials back to Earth, that package scheduled for arrival sometime around June 25.Context: This is just one more Moon-related success in a series of such successes for China's space program, which has picked up the pace in recent years to compete with the US, both nations scrambling to juice their Moon programs in order to establish infrastructure that will help them lay claim, or prevent the other from laying claim, to what may be relatively scarce water resources that will be necessary for long-term inhabitation of the Moon.—The Associated PressThird human case of bird flu from cows—this one with respiratory symptomsSummary: A third person in the US, a Michigan dairy farmer, has been infected with a confirmed case of avian influenza virus, often called bird flu or H5N1, after coming into close contact with an infected dairy cow.Context: This infection is suspected to be another case of cow-to-human transmission, but the infected person also has respiratory symptoms, which is a first, and which is alarming to some experts, as that could provide the virus a means of mutating into a human-to-human transmissible form; no other workers on that dairy farm have reported symptoms, and the infected worker is reportedly recovering, but disease experts are continuing to watch the spread of this virus in cows and other mammals as bird flu is incredibly deadly, killing more than half of the humans it has infected since 2003, and because this tends to be the path these sorts of zoonotic diseases take before achieving a human-optimized form.—Ars TechnicaRussian forces have recently made a significant and sustained push into Ukrainian territory near the nation's second-largest city, Kharkiv, forcing thousands of civilians to flee and worrying military experts that this may be a feint meant to pull troops away from another, even more substantial target.—The New York Times3 millionNumber of followers former President Trump attained on social short video platform TikTok after about a day on the network.That compares to an account run by President Biden's campaign, which has a little more than 340,000 followers on TikTok.Biden recent signed a bill that could ban TikTok in the US if the China-based company that owns it doesn't divest itself of the company, and Trump unsuccessfully attempted to ban it on national security grounds when he was president.—ReutersTrust Click Get full access to One Sentence News at onesentencenews.substack.com/subscribe

Three news stories summarized & contextualized by analytic journalist Colin Wright.Trump guilty on all counts in hush-money caseSummary: Former President (and current Presidential Candidate) Trump was convicted of all 34 felony counts that he was charged with in a New York case that centered around falsifying business documents to conceal hush-money payments made in 2016, when he was initially running for President.Context: This is big news in part because this is the first time in US history that a former president has been convicted of a felony, and in part because this is the only case against Trump, out of four total ongoing cases, that is likely to culminate before the November election, and this outcome—depending on who you listen to—will either rally Trump's supporters to his side, or cause vital independent votes to drift away in favor of Biden, or in favor of simply not voting for anyone, in either case influencing the outcome of that contest in a potentially significant way.(More on this case and its significance in tomorrow's Let's Know Things episode.)—The New York TimesOne Sentence News is a reader-supported publication. To support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.South Africa's ANC facing coalition as election ends decades of dominanceSummary: For the first time since the end of apartheid in the country, South Africa's African National Congress, or ANC party has not won a majority of the vote, which will force it to build a coalition government with another party or parties.Context: In 2019, the ANC claimed 57.5% of the vote, and this time around it looks like it'll have around 40%, so this represents a significant drop in support, and that drop is being attributed, in part, to the party's seeming inability to rein-in corruption and crime, and keep the lights on, the nation long suffering regular power outages; markets have been responding to this outcome cautiously, as depending on which smaller party or parties the ANC decides to form a government with, South Africa could become more or substantially less business-friendly. —ReutersUS dismantles 911 S5 botnet used for cyberattacks and arrests adminSummary: The US Justice Department has announced that it, in collaboration with law enforcement entities from around the world, have taken down what seems to be the world's biggest botnet, the 911 S5 botnet, and arrested its administrator in Singapore.Context: This botnet, which was formed by installing malware on victims' computers, usually via malicious VPN software, allowed its controller to create a network of more than 19 million compromised devices, access to which was sold to clients for all sorts of criminal behaviors including fraud, harassment, bomb threats, and child exploitation; the botnet's administrator faces a maximum penalty of 65 years in prison if convicted on all counts.—Bleeping ComputerThough many DTC (direct-to-consumer) businesses have flagged (after a period of relative success in the early 2000s) in recent years, pet supply company Chewy has been consistently killing it, increasing sales to 153-times their 2013 levels in 2023.—Sherwood News$135 millionValue of aid pledged to Eastern European nation, Moldova, to help bolster its energy security and capacity to deal with disinformation efforts that are attempting to keep it from turning further Westward, following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.Russia has been supporting local separatists, similar to how they supported such groups in Crimea leading up to their initial incursion into Ukraine in 2014, and there are concerns that Kremlin higher-ups might be eyeballing Moldova as a next-step means of weakening the alliance European nations have been building against Russia's expansionism. —The Associated PressTrust Click Get full access to One Sentence News at onesentencenews.substack.com/subscribe

Three news stories summarized & contextualized by analytic journalist Colin Wright.Iran further increases its stockpile of uranium enriched to near weapons-grade levels, watchdog saysSummary: The United Nation's nuclear watchdog agency released a report on Monday indicating that Iran's nuclear program has upped its stockpile of uranium enriched up to 60%, which is just a small, relatively simple step from 90%, which is weapons-grade, by around 45.4 pounds (which is about 20.6 kilograms) since February.Context: The generally accepted volume of 60%-enriched uranium necessary to produce a nuclear weapon is around 92.5 pounds, or 42 kilograms, if that uranium is then further enriched to 90%, and Iran's total stockpile of enriched uranium is thought to weigh in at around 1,360 pounds (more than 6,000 kilograms), which means they've grown their overall stockpile by nearly 1,500 pounds (675 kilograms) since February; Iran has consistently said that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only, but much of the international community doesn't believe that to be true, and the country has been operating under severe sanctions of all kinds, including nuclear-related sanctions, for a long time as a consequence—and a 2015 deal that allowed them to enrich uranium to up to 3.67% purity and to maintain a small stockpile has long since lapsed, and Iran's government hasn't allowed the UN's nuclear watchdog to reinstall monitoring equipment that Iran removed in 2022.—The Associated PressOne Sentence News is a reader-supported publication. To support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.China is pouring almost $50 billion into its chipmaking efforts despite US sanctionsSummary: Despite efforts by the US government to hobble China's semiconductor and artificial intelligence development, the Chinese government has set up a fund worth around $47.5 billion that will be invested in its local semiconductor industry.Context: This is the third investment the Chinese government has made in its local chip-making capacity, responding in large part to the US's attempts to keep it from accessing the most advanced chips on the market, which has a lot of loopholes, but has made it tricky enough for them to get such chips that China has seemingly decided to ensure they're capable of making them in the future, not being able to rely on the global market for such things; now, their stated goal is to up their internal semiconductor capacity so that it matches the standards of the international community by the end of the decade.—QuartzConocoPhillips to acquire Marathon Oil in $17.1 billion all-stock dealSummary: Fossil fuel giant ConocoPhillips has made a deal to acquire fossil fuel giant Marathon Oil for just over $17 billion in stock, which—if the deal passes regulatory scrutiny—would merge two of the US's largest oil companies.Context: The global oil industry is in the midst of a huge shake-up, many of the largest entities gobbling each other and their smaller rivals up in order to consolidate, grow, and claim a portion of a sector that's currently booming, but which is also expected to peak soon, as renewables claim more and more of the global energy market.—The Wall Street JournalChipmaker Nvidia's market cap is booming, approaching $3 trillion, which is within spitting distance of Apple's, and which puts it far ahead of even the biggest companies in other growth industries, like China's solar panel market.—Bloomberg27,000Approximate number of government-made apps currently operating in Indonesia—a figure that's prompted the country's president to demand his government's various agencies stop making new ones.The government is now saying this overabundance of custom apps for various, specific purposes needs to be whittled down to reduce bloat and bureaucracy, and to make life easier for citizens.—CybernewsTrust Click Get full access to One Sentence News at onesentencenews.substack.com/subscribe

Three news stories summarized & contextualized by analytic journalist Colin Wright.Louisiana governor signs bill making two abortion drugs controlled dangerous substancesSummary: Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry has signed a bill that will classify two drugs commonly used to induce abortions, mifepristone and misoprostol, as dangerous, controlled substances in the state; this new classification will go into effect on October 1.Context: This move is being criticized by the medical community, as, first, these drugs are generally considered to be safe, and the bill was promoted as a safety measure to protect women, and second because in addition to being one of the safer ways to induce abortions, they're also commonly used for other types of care, and this reclassification will likely make such care more difficult in the state; these two drugs already require a prescription in Louisiana, and it's already a crime to use them for abortion-purposes in most cases in the state, but this bill would make it a lot more difficult to acquire them, and would make the punishments for their misuse, under the dictates of the law, more severe; this is especially notable as abortion laws are being seen as a significant lever for Democrats leading up to November's election, as every time abortion laws have been put to a vote at the state level, even in deeply conservative areas, voters have favored more abortion rights, not fewer.—The Associated PressOne Sentence News is a reader-supported publication. To support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.China switches on first large-scale sodium-ion batterySummary: A 10 MWh sodium-ion battery, the first of its kind in the country, has been built and put into use in southwestern China, completing the first phase of what's intended to be a 100 MHw global project.Context: This is notable because grid-scale batteries are becoming increasingly common and vital in areas that are deploying intermittent wind and solar power, as it allows for the generation of electricity during the day or when the wind is blowing, and the use of that electricity at night or when the winds have stopped, and sodium-ion batteries are especially relevant to this use-case as they can be charged rapidly—to around 90% capacity in just 12 minutes—and are made of materials that are a lot more stable, common, and cheap than lithium-ion batteries, while also performing better at low temperatures, which is expected to reduce the cost of construction and installation for grid-scale arrays by something like 20-30%.—PV MagazineIsrael denies strike on camp near Rafah that Gaza officials say killed 21 peopleSummary: Following the death of at least 21 people in a tent camp just west of Rafah earlier this week, which itself followed an apparent airstrike on another tent camp, which resulted in the deaths of at least 45 Palestinians, the Israeli government has denied that it attacked this second camp, saying that it is operating in the Rafah area, but reports that four tanks shells hit this second encampment are incorrect.Context: This is just one component of a flurry of recent news items out of Rafah, which include accusations that Israel is plowing tanks through the center of the city, and that it's bombing and shooting at civilians who are attempting to flee, and who are living, often in tents, in areas that have been designated as safe zones by the Israeli military; the international community has been pushing the Israeli government to end its assault on Rafah, which is packed full of Palestinians who have fled from other parts of the Gaza Strip, many of which have since been leveled, but those calls, and others for a ceasefire, have been countered by claims from the Israeli government that they need to hunt down the last of Hamas' leadership in the area, or the whole invasion will have been for naught, and they'll continue to suffer periodic attacks by Hamas, like the one they suffered on October 7 of last year which triggered the invasion.—ReutersWomen's sports in the US are experiencing a sort of renaissance, and investors and sponsors are taking notice, injecting more money into these teams and leagues, which is further amplifying their reach and prominence, which is in turn further contributing to overall engagement in this burgeoning slice of the US sports industry.—Axios4,096Number of electrodes a company called Precision Neuroscience has successfully placed along a human brain with one of its brain-computer interface devices, breaking the previous record of 2,048 (which was set last year).These sorts of devices are surgically installed along the brain in order to restore capabilities patients/customers may have lost due to strokes or spiral cord injuries, the electrodes allowing them to doing things like control cursors on screens and type out responses to questions, and more electrodes tends to mean more and better control.—Ars TechnicaTrust Click Get full access to One Sentence News at onesentencenews.substack.com/subscribe

Three news stories summarized & contextualized by analytic journalist Colin Wright.Egyptian soldier killed in Israel border incidentSummary: An Egyptian soldier stationed near the country's border with Rafah was shot and killed during a cross-border exchange of fire between Egyptian and Israeli soldiers; both countries' militaries are investigating what happened.Context: This is notable in part because it's occurring at a moment in which much of the international community is turning on Israel due to the nature of their invasion of the Gaza Strip, and because Egypt was the first Arab country to sign a peace deal with Israel 45 years ago; on the day of the shooting, just hours previous, Israel's military launched a strike on Rafah that they say killed two senior Hamas officials, but which also killed at least 45 people when it set a tent camp ablaze.—BBC NewsOne Sentence News is a reader-supported publication. To support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Brazil floods produce hundreds of thousands of climate refugeesSummary: More than 160 people have been confirmed killed, and hundreds of thousands of people have been forced to flee their homes, many of them permanently, following significant floods that surged through cities in the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul last month.Context: Entire cities are still submerged even a month later, and the few areas that didn't flood, or only flooded briefly, are now struggling to house tens or hundreds of thousands of people who have been displaced by rising waters; climate migration is becoming increasingly common and a bigger and bigger strain on regional resources, and many people who would have previously left temporarily are deciding to permanently evacuate flood-prone areas, because those floods are becoming more common and more devastating as average global temperatures increase; the past few years have seen several substantial floods that have resulted in large numbers of climate refugees, including floods in Pakistan in 2022, which displaced around 8 million people, and floods in Ethiopia and Kenya in 2023 and earlier this year, respectively, each of which resulted in hundreds of thousands of newly homeless, displaced people.—The Washington PostPakistan temperatures cross 52 C in heatwaveSummary: Pakistan's southern province, Sindh, recorded nearly historic temperatures for the region over the past month, this week hitting 52.2 degrees Celsius, which is about 126 Fahrenheit—and the heatwave is still ongoing.Context: The area that's seeing the highest temperatures in Pakistan right now is known for extremely hot summers, but this year's heatwave is hitting the economy especially hard, as people are staying indoors and avoiding going outside as much as possible, and the heat feels worse than usual because of local weather conditions conditions made more prominent by human-amplified climate change.—ReutersAfter decades of decline, summer teen labor-market participation is seeing an upswing, in part because the jobs available to teens are increasing pay proportionally more than other sorts of jobs, and in part to help their families cover the costs of price-inflated goods.—Axios56Number of new warships the Indian Navy will add to its fleet in the next ten years, according to the Chief of Naval Staff.That number includes six submarines and an aircraft carrier.The Indian fleet currently claims 132 vessels, alongside 32 that are being built or under contract to be built.—The PrintTrust Click Get full access to One Sentence News at onesentencenews.substack.com/subscribe

Three news stories summarized & contextualized by analytic journalist Colin Wright.Saudi Arabia appoints first ambassador to Syria since 2012Summary: Over the weekend, the Saudi government announced that it has appointed its first ambassador to Syria since it broke diplomatic ties with the country about 12 years ago.Context: This is of a kind with other efforts by the Saudi government to rebuild fraying relations with its regional neighbors, and follows a decision by the Arab League to readmit Syria into its membership a little more than a year ago; Syria has been embroiled in a civil war since 2010, about half a million people confirmed killed and half the country's pre-war population of about 23 million people displaced since then; Syria, along with Turkey, was hit by a massive and deadly earthquake in early 2023, and the regional response to that led to a re-warming of relations between Syrian President Assad and leaders of other, till that moment geopolitically estranged, Middle Eastern countries.—The Associated PressOne Sentence News is a reader-supported publication. To support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Storms kill 19 in US Southern Plains as severe weather moves eastSummary: A wave of powerful storms tore through Texas, Kentucky, Oklahoma, and Arkansas over the weekend, leading to at least 19 deaths and leaving hundreds of thousands of people without electricity.Context: Hundreds of homes and other structures were leveled by extremely powerful winds, and some of the damage is suspected to have been caused by yet-to-be-confirmed tornadoes; nearly half a million people throughout the Southern Plains region were still without power as of Monday afternoon, and this is just one of several recent, powerful storms to plow through the area in recent weeks—which is normal for this time of year, but the strength of these storms, especially the winds they bring with them, is abnormal and being attributed to at times record-setting heat in the afflicted areas.—The New York TimesBurkina Faso extends military rule by five yearsSummary: The military junta that has governed Burkina Faso following a successful coup nearly two years ago has said that its plan to restore civilian government by July 1 of this year have been postponed for up to another 60 months.Context: This isn't entirely unexpected, as the military governments in this region, most of which came to power in just the past several years by launching coups against their previously democratically elected governments, have grown increasingly confident as they've unified, in some regards at least, against the democratic government-led nations that surround them, and which have pushed them to transition back to civilian governance; most of these coups were justified by claims that the previous governments were failing to combat violent Islamic extremist groups that operate in the region, and that's the justification for this extension, as well, the current junta leader saying that elections are not a priority until these groups are pushed out of territory they're holding—something they say will probably take just two to three months, which would then allow them to restore civilian rule within 21 months.—BBC NewsConversation about inflation in the US is complicated by the difference between how economists use the term (referring to a year-over-year change in prices) and how everyday people use it (referring to higher prices, in general); inflation in the US (according to the official definition for the concept) has been dropping over the past year or so, but perception of inflation amongst many groups has remained steady or increased over that same period.—Axios

Three news stories summarized & contextualized by analytic journalist Colin Wright.More than 670 feared dead in Papua New Guinea landslideSummary: Estimates from the UN's International Organization for Migration indicate that more than 670 people have probably died in a massive landslide in Papua New Guinea that buried more than 150 houses last Friday—the true number is still in question, as unstable conditions in the afflicted region have made rescue efforts difficult.Context: Around 4,000 people live in the area impacted by this landslide, more than a quarter of whom have now been displaced, fleeing homes adjacent to the landslide, which is ongoing and still putting those who remain at risk; the afflicted area has served as a refuge for people fleeing nearby conflicts, so there's a chance the death count will be even higher than anticipated, and the landslide also blocked a regional highway, cutting off multiple towns and villages, alongside an economically important gold mine.—ReutersOne Sentence News is a reader-supported publication. To support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Russia steps up a covert sabotage campaign aimed at EuropeSummary: American and European security officials have announced that Russian operatives across Europe have been engaging in minor acts of sabotage, especially arson, as part of a larger effort to slow the transfer of military supplies to Ukraine and to make it look like there's local opposition to that support.Context: Russia's GRU, the successor intelligence organization to the Soviet Union's KGB, is reportedly orchestrating this campaign, and targets so far have included a paint factory in Poland, a warehouse in England, and an IKEA in Lithuania; alleged Russian operatives are reportedly also planning to attack weapons manufacturers and energy infrastructure in Norway, military bases operated by the US, and have carried out beatings in Poland—all of which is purportedly meant to sow chaos, disrupt support for Ukraine in the EU and NATO, and potentially create justification for other sorts of regional aggression in the future.—The New York TimesThe US built a $320 million pier to get aid to Gazans, but little of it has reached themSummary: The Pentagon invested about $320 million to build a floating pier, operated by around 1,000 sailors and soldiers, to create a new corridor through which international aid could enter the Gaza Strip, bypassing a blockade by Israeli forces that has hampered such efforts since Israel's invasion of the Strip; only 820 tons of aid arrived via the pier in its first week of operation, though, only two-thirds of which successfully reached distribution points.Context: That means only about 15% of the minimum aid necessary to sustain Gaza's population of more than two million people was successfully deployed via this pier, and over the weekend one of the supports for the pier broke amidst choppy waters, which could further truncate the flow of aid, though the US military says the pier is still operational and safe to use despite that damage; restrictions placed on the flow of aid by the Israeli government has made speeding up the import of aid difficult, and some aid trucks have been commandeered by desperate Gazans on one hand, and Israeli fundamentalists trying to prevent said aid from getting to Gazan Palestinians, on the other; the total amount of aid coming in via all available corridors remains far below what international humanitarian organizations say is necessary to sustain Gazan citizens in the midst of Israel's ongoing invasion of the Strip, which it says is necessary to kill or capture the remaining vestiges of Hamas' leadership, who are still operating in the region.—The Wall Street JournalAccording to a new study, daily marijuana use has surpassed daily alcohol use in the US for the first time, purportedly because of a broad-based shift in behavior amongst Americans, though the change is especially prevalent in young people (and overall growth in marijuana use has surged as more states have moved to legalize the drug, and as the federal government has started the process of reclassifying it).—Axios262%Increase in revenue for chip-maker Nvidia, which has been booming ever since the release of OpenAI's ChatGPT and the subsequent surge in investment for AI-everything: a category of computation for which Nvidia's chips are optimized.—Yahoo FinanceTrust Click Get full access to One Sentence News at onesentencenews.substack.com/subscribe

Three news stories summarized & contextualized by analytic journalist Colin Wright.China's youth unemployment eased in AprilSummary: New data from the Chinese National Bureau of Statistics indicate that the jobless rate amongst the country's 16-to-24-year-old demographic (excluding those enrolled in school) dropped to 14.7% in April, which is down from 15.3% in March.Context: Youth unemployment has been a persistent problem in China for years, and it's being seen as both a consequence of and contributor to the county's relatively woeful economic figures, which lopsidedly improved a little bit last month, overall; the country's government stopped publicly providing youth unemployment figures in June of last year after reporting 21.3% that month, but it started divulging these numbers again in January after changing their formula to exclude folks in that age-demo who were still in school—which is different from how many other wealthy nations do things, but seems to have lowered this figure enough that they feel comfortable reporting it, again.—The Wall Street JournalOne Sentence News is a reader-supported publication. To support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.The first crew launch of Boeing's Starliner capsule is on hold indefinitelySummary: A helium leak in the propulsion system of Boeing's Starliner spacecraft has led to another delay in the craft's launch, it's most recent intended launch day, this upcoming Saturday, nixed, its launch now put on indefinite hold until they can find and fix the problem.Context: There's a chance the Starliner craft could launch as soon as next week, if they're able to quickly and convincingly solve this new problem, which is just the most recent of several high-profile issues that have scrapped launches since 2019; if they can't sort it out soon, there's a chance the launch will be delayed until sometime in late summer; Boeing products, including several models of their airliners, have seen a slew of very public and embarrassing failures, of late, and the company has come under new scrutiny, and become the target of much criticism, for its alleged focus on market valuation and leadership compensation, rather than safety and innovation.—Ars TechnicaMicroplastics found in every human testicle in studySummary: A new study that looked at the composition of 23 testicles from the bodies of men who died between the ages of 16 and 88, those bodies preserved in 2016, and 47 testicles from neutered pet dogs, found microplastics in all the tested testes, and that the human testicles contained nearly three-times as much plastic as the dog testes.Context: The most common microplastic found in these testicles was polyethylene, which is most commonly found in disposable plastic products like bags and water bottles, followed by PVC, which is found in pipes, credit cards, and cable insulation, among many other use-cases; this follows another, smaller 2023 study in China that found microplastics in human testes and semen samples, and recent research indicates that mice that were exposed to microplastics suffered reduced sperm count, abnormal sperm quality, and hormone disruptions, which supports—though doesn't confirm—concerns that microplastics may be contributing to the notable decrease in human sperm count over the past several decades, that decrease correlated with a decrease in fertility numbers, and linked to other chemical products, like pesticides, as well.—The GuardianThere's a notable age-gap in which Americans are more likely to support Israel and which are more likely to support Palestinians, with young people more likely to favor the latter, and older folks (especially those 50-and-up) a lot more likely to support the former.—Axios51Median age of MTV, a station that was previously (and famously) youth-focused, but which in recent decades has pivoted—like much of non-streaming television—to serve its predominantly older audiences.—The Wall Street JournalTrust Click Get full access to One Sentence News at onesentencenews.substack.com/subscribe

Three news stories summarized & contextualized by analytic journalist Colin Wright.Spain, Norway and Ireland recognize a Palestinian stateSummary: On Wednesday, Spain, Norway, and Ireland announced that they would formally recognize Palestine as an independent state—a move that's being seen as a statement against Israel's actions in the Gaza Strip.Context: Dozens of countries have long recognized Palestine as a sovereign nation, and this new wave of recognition, like those that came before, is mostly symbolic, but because few Western European nations have thus far recognized Palestine and because Israel's invasion of Gaza has brought renewed attention to the matter of Palestinian statehood—and for context, Gaza, like the West Bank, is currently an occupied territory of Israel—and because there are burgeoning concerns that Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu is aiming for some kind of military government in the region, which would do away with the possibility of a near-future two-state solution, the issue of statehood is being seen as newly relevant.—The New York TimesOne Sentence News is a reader-supported publication. To support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Severe turbulence during Singapore Airlines flight leaves several people badly injured and one deadSummary: A Singapore Airlines flight between London and Singapore that was carrying 211 passengers and 18 crew members experienced significant turbulence over the Indian Ocean on Tuesday, leaving dozens of people injured, a half-dozen severely, and one person—a 73-year-old British man—dead.Context: The plane descended around 6,000 feet, which is about 1,800 meters, in about three minutes, and the turbulence was so bad that people were slamming into the overhead bins, in some cases—according to reports from people aboard—denting the bins, or breaking through the portions of the ceiling containing the lights and masks; the flight diverted to Bangkok in the wake of this tumult, and while turbulence can arise anywhere at any time, extreme cases of it are becoming more common along popular airline routes. —The Associated PressThe International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea rules carbon dioxide is an ocean pollutantSummary: The International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, a court created by the United Nations to rule on maritime-related matters, has found that greenhouse gases count, for legal purposes, as marine pollution, and that global governments thus have a responsibility to mitigate their effects on oceans.Context: The United Nations Convention on the Laws of the Sea was established in May of 2023 and has 168 signatory nations, and this treaty basically says that those nations have to prevent oceanic pollution that harms marine life, and this ruling has added greenhouse gas emissions to the list of marine-life-harming pollutants, because of their impact on the climate, which in turn negatively impacts marine life; this court's rulings are non-binding, so the degree to which this outcome will matter is in question—all of those nations can interpret the results however they like—but it does add heft to the argument that greenhouse gas emissions are contributing to the deterioration of marine ecosystems, which could help spur more such cases in other courts, and impact the decisions to which those courts ultimately arrive, as this marks the first time such a legal body has linked what's happening in the atmosphere with what's happening in the ocean in this way.—ABC NewsDespite booming profits and a slew of mergers and acquisitions in recent years, the International Energy Agency still believes that global oil demand will peak this decade, based mostly on structural changes and a significant shift toward renewables in many parts of the world (including major oil consumers, like China).—Axios53%Portion of the human population that's unable to speak freely (as of 2023), according to a new report from free speech advocate group Article 19.That's up from 34% in 2022, a large portion of that change attributable to speech freedom-backsliding in India under Prime Minister Modi, who has clamped down on speech (formally and practically) throughout the country in recent years.—The GuardianTrust Click Get full access to One Sentence News at onesentencenews.substack.com/subscribe

Three news stories summarized & contextualized by analytic journalist Colin Wright.Hims & Hers is now selling Ozempic-like weight loss drugs for $199Summary: Hims & Hers Health, a telehealth company that specializes in providing everything from hair-loss to erectile dysfunction to skin-care products, online, announced on Monday that it is now offering a compounded version of semaglutide, which is the active ingredient in weight loss drugs like Ozempic and diabetes drugs like Mounjaro.Context: Semaglutide-based drugs, though rife with side effects, some of them substantial, have surprised the medical community by proving incredibly effective for helping folks who have traditionally had trouble losing weight, lose substantial amounts of it, and new studies have shown that it can reduce the risk of major cardiovascular events and the risk of severe liver disease, as well, alongside other benefits; compounded drugs, like the one Hims & Hers is offering, are basically mixed versions of a more standardized, FDA-approved drug, and they are not reviewed by the FDA, and are generally frowned-upon if a standardized, reviewed version—like Ozempic—is available, because of that lack of oversight; the branded versions of these drugs have been in very short supply since they began to boom in popularity and use, though, and this custom version costs a fraction of the price of Ozempic (about $199 per month compared to around $1,000), which is why Hims & Hers' stock boomed following the announcement of this new offering, and why we'll likely see more compounded versions of this drug from other companies in the coming months.—QuartzOne Sentence News is a reader-supported publication. To support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Ex-South African leader Zuma, now a ruling party critic, is disqualified from next week's electionSummary: The former President of South Africa, Jacob Zuma, is not qualified to run for Parliament in next week's election because of an earlier criminal conviction, according to a ruling by the country's Constitutional Court. Context: This will almost certainly complicate the election, in part because the ruling was handed down so last-minute, but also because Zuma—who was sentenced to 15 months in prison in 2021 for refusing to testify during an inquiry into governmental corruption, and who was forced out of power in 2018 under a tidal wave of corruption allegations—has become a prominent force in local politics, having started a new party last year and having become a critic of his former party and the person who replaced him in office, current President Cyril Ramaphosa; the country's governing party, the ANC, is facing its most significant challenge since it took power decades ago, and some analysts are expecting it'll have to form a coalition government for the first time if it wants to hold onto its majority.—The Associated PressScarlett Johansson says OpenAI chatbot voice 'eerily similar' to hersSummary: Scarlett Johansson, an actress who, among many other prominent roles, provided her voice to an artificial intelligence in the movie Her, has accused OpenAI of creating a voice for its ChatGPT tool that sounds a lot like her, despite her not having approved her voice for that use.Context: The voice in question was pulled from OpenAI's offerings following the actresses' accusations, and while OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has said no effort was made to create a copy of Johansson's voice for their product, he's previously said that Her is his favorite movie, posted the word “her,” without context, on the social platform X two days before the new voice options were announced, and apparently asked Johansson to license her voice for ChatGPT purposes in September, and then again a few days before the release, which she declined; though OpenAI contends that they hired a different voice actress without considering how similar she sounds to Johansson, this is being seen as the most recent instance of what many creatives are worrying about right now, namely their work or likenesses being used by AI systems without their permission and without any kind of compensation, which arguably puts their livelihoods at risk.—ReutersMany US homeowners are feeling trapped by the “golden handcuffs” of low mortgage rates they locked-in before the Fed started hiking interest rates, which in turn dramatically increased mortgage rates; current mortgage rates are not historically high, but the gap between what many homeowners enjoy and what's available on the mortgage market is historically significant.—The New York Times$15.7 millionMedian pay of CEOs in 2023 in a WSJ analysis of executives for S&P 500 companies.That's up from a median of $14.5 million in 2022, and the highest-earning CEO in this survey is the CEO of Broadcom, who earns $162 million a year.—The Wall Street JournalTrust Click Get full access to One Sentence News at onesentencenews.substack.com/subscribe

Three news stories summarized & contextualized by analytic journalist Colin Wright.Iranian President and Foreign Minister killed in helicopter crashSummary: Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, the country's Foreign Minister, and seven other people have died in a helicopter crash in a remote and mountainous part of the country, seemingly due to bad weather conditions.Context: Raisi was sometimes called the “Butcher of Tehran” for involvement in the execution of thousands of Iranian political prisoners in the late 1980s, and he was a reliable ally of the country's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, in the country's non-religious political structure; many of Iran's allies and neighbors have expressed condolences and declared periods of mourning, and new presidential elections will take place within 50 days, Iran's vice president stepping into the role of president in the meantime.—The Wall Street JournalOne Sentence News is a reader-supported publication. To support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.International Criminal Court prosecutor requests warrants for Netanyahu and Hamas leadersSummary: Karim Khan, the prosecutor for the International Criminal Court, has announced that he's requested arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, Israel's defense minister, and three Hamas leaders for war crimes and crimes against humanity, related to the attack on Israel on October 7, and the subsequent attacks on Gaza by Israel.Context: This request still has to be approved by judges before those warrants are issued, and Israel doesn't recognize the ICC's jurisdiction, nor is Hamas likely to care overmuch about what the Court has to say, but this is still embarrassing for Netanyahu in particular, and could complicate travel for those who are being targeted by these warrants, if they're issued, as it means they could be arrested if they travel to one of the 124 countries that are members of the Court, which doesn't include the US, but does include most European nations.—The New York TimesNew Taiwanese president calls on China to stop its threatsSummary: In his inauguration speech, the new president of Taiwan, Lai Ching-te, said that peace was the only choice in the region, and asked China to stop making military and political threats against the island, which China claims as its own, but which operates independently.Context: Lai's accession to the presidency has been a cause for concern amongst some of Taiwan's allies, as he's been a proponent for formal, overt independence for the island, which China has signaled could trigger some kind of attack; Taiwan currently operates in a sort of superposition enabled by a lack of clarity about its status, most of its allies assuming it to be independent, but seldom saying it outright, to avoid triggering a response from China, while China says it belongs to them, but doesn't do much beyond posturing to show that this is the case; there are concerns that Chinese leader Xi could be planning to more formally claim Taiwan sometime this decade, and that too much talk about independence, especially from Taiwan's government, could provide justification for such an attack.—ReutersNew research shows that around 38% of all webpages that existed in 2013 were no longer accessible in 2023, and that this has led to a lot of dead links and missing references and research across journalistic and government websites, among others.—Pew Research$73 millionSum laundered (“at least”) from defrauded victims by two Chinese nationals who were charged by US authorities last Friday.These fraudsters were arrested at the Atlanta airport in April and allegedly engaged in a type of crypto scam called “pig butchering,” which involves manipulating targets into depositing money into accounts set up for the purpose before laundering it into bank accounts in the Bahamas.—ReutersTrust Click Get full access to One Sentence News at onesentencenews.substack.com/subscribe

Three news stories summarized & contextualized by analytic journalist Colin Wright.Israel's wartime government frays as frustration with Netanyahu growsSummary: A politically centrist member of Israel's war cabinet, Benny Gantz, announced over the weekend that he would leave the government if Prime Minister Netanyahu doesn't present a plan for the future of the war in Gaza by June 8.Context: This ultimatum is being seen as an indication that the temporary alliance of necessity between political parties in Israel following Hamas' attack on the country on October 7 is beginning to fray, and that Netanyahu's seeming lack of a plan for what happens after Israeli forces root out the last of Hamas' leadership in the Gaza Strip is a broad cause for consternation; the country's defense minister recently demanded that Netanyahu make a pledge to not establish a military government in Gaza, which he worries is where things are headed, and which is a situation he says would be untenable for many reasons; Netanyahu, in response, has accused Gantz of supporting Israel's defeat in the conflict against Hamas.—The New York TimesOne Sentence News is a reader-supported publication. To support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.UN urges US to stop forced returns to Haiti after latest deportation flightSummary: The UN refugee agency has asked the US government to stop forcibly returning Haitian refugees to Haiti, as doing so puts those refugees at life-threatening risk due to widespread gang violence.Context: This call for a change in policy came after the US's most recent deportation flight last week, and the concern is that Haiti is basically under the control of a slew of gangs, which unified against the government in recent months; the UN estimates that 362,000 people, about half of them children, are internally displaced in Haiti right now, and the UN's refugee agency is asking the US to redesignate Haiti for a temporary protective status which grants Haitian refugees temporary permission to stay and work in the US—this status is currently set to expire in early August.—Al JazeeraFrance mobilises police to regain control of New Caledonia airport roadSummary: In the wake of several days of at times violent and destructive riots, French police have cleared barricades from the main road leading to the airport in the New Caledonian capital city, Noumea, though officials say it will still be a few days before all the debris has been cleared.Context: The French territory's main airport is still closed because of unrest, and these protests, which sparked the rioting, were catalyzed by a constitutional amendment that would allegedly dilute the vote of indigenous people by allowing French people who had lived in New Caledonia for ten years to vote in provincial elections—something pro-independence (from France) indigenous groups say is an attempt to prevent their movement from ever resulting in a decoupling from European governance.—ReutersAccording to a new survey, Americans are reporting being more stressed on average, and the number for women is substantially higher than for men across four major age-groups, though young women in particular are reporting the highest levels of stress across all age and gender demographics.—Gallup40,000Milestone (in points) that the Dow Jones Industrial Average reached late last week for the first time.The surge in money flooding into Dow-listed companies is being attributed to new data that showed annual inflation in the US has eased a bit, following three months of less-than-ideal inflation news—suggesting the Fed could still lower their interest rate sometime this year.—NPR NewsTrust Click Get full access to One Sentence News at onesentencenews.substack.com/subscribe

Three news stories summarized & contextualized by analytic journalist Colin Wright.Former Kazakh minister gets 24 years in prison for murdering wifeSummary: The former economy minister of Kazakhstan has been sentenced to 24 years in prison for murdering his wife, following a trial that was broadcast live over the past seven weeks, and which has stoked discussions and outcries about women's rights in the country.Context: Kuandyk Bishimbayev was found guilty of torturing and then murdering his wife, and there was CCTV footage of him assaulting her in the lead-up to all of that, alongside videos from his phone in which he abused her in various ways; the President of Kazakhstan has said he wants to improve rights for women in the country, and this case led to new demands for a law that criminalizes domestic violence, which passed last month; government data shows that one in six women in Kazakhstan have experienced some form of violence from their partner.—ReutersOne Sentence News is a reader-supported publication. To support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Biden signs Russian uranium banSummary: US President Biden has signed a bill that bans the import of Russian enriched uranium, but which allows some companies to continue importing it until 2028. Context: This was a bipartisan bill that's meant to keep the $1 billion or so that the US sends to Russia for uranium, each year, from enriching Russia's coffers; this uranium is used to fuel nuclear power plants, and it's part of a larger effort to disentangle the US economy from Russian fuel exports, which included a ban on oil, gas, and coal soon after Russia invaded Ukraine in February of 2022; Russia currently supplies about 20% of the enriched uranium US energy companies use for this purpose, and that allowance to keep importing until 2028 is meant to give said companies some leeway as they find new sources from US companies, or those located in less antagonistic nations.—AxiosFires used as weapon of war in Sudan destroyed or damaged 72 villages last month, study saysSummary: A new study by UK-based Sudan Witness indicates that fires were used as a weapon of war in Sudan in at least 72 instances last month, alone, and that fire has been used in this way at least 201 times since fighting originally broke out between the Sudanese military and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces in mid-April of 2023.Context: The RFS has been especially enthusiastic in its use of arson in this conflict, in many cases setting entire villages on fire in order to kill, punish, and force people to flee; hundreds of thousands of people have been internally displaced as a result, and more than 14,000 people have been confirmed killed, so far; the capital city of North Darfur, el-Fasher, reportedly faces imminent attack from the RFS, raising concerns that those numbers, both of people killed and displaced, will rise still further in the near-future.—The Associated PressNearly 10% of TV-viewing time in the US in April of this year was spent watching YouTube's smart-TV app, according to new data from Nielsen, marking a transition (for many, at least) for the platform from “place to watch quick videos in between doing other things” to “something like a channel where one might watch a bunch of stuff over long periods.”—The Wall Street Journal20%Percent by which heart attack, stroke, or death due to cardiovascular disease was reduced in participants of a study that tested the impact semaglutide had on these conditions.Semaglutide is best known as the active ingredient in diabetes and weight-loss medications like Wegovy and Ozempic, but new studies are increasingly showing its efficacy in treating or preventing other diseases and conditions, as well.—The GuardianTrust Click Get full access to One Sentence News at onesentencenews.substack.com/subscribe

Three news stories summarized & contextualized by analytic journalist Colin Wright.US consumer prices increased 3.4% in April from year earlierSummary: For the first time in six months, core CPI inflation numbers have cooled, marking an increase of 3.4% in April of 2024 compared to April of 2023, which is the smallest increase since April of 2021.Context: This is being seen as an overall good sign, as it suggests that stubborn inflation numbers over the past half-year or so may be slowly tempering, and the US Fed might still implement its first key interest rate reduction in September, which had, until this announcement, been in question.—The Wall Street JournalOne Sentence News is a reader-supported publication. To support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Climeworks opens world's largest plant to extract CO2 from air in IcelandSummary: The world's largest direct air capture plant, with the capacity to pull 36,000 metric tons of CO2 from the air each year, has officially started operating in Iceland.Context: This is Climateworks' second direct air capture facility in Iceland, the first, which was previously the world's largest, has a capacity of just 4,000 tons a year, and both were built in Iceland in part because of the country's abundant geothermal energy, which allows these facilities' enormous fans, which suck up air and then filter CO2 from it, to operate without generating new emissions; Climeworks hopes to build a plant capable of pulling a million tons of CO2 from the atmosphere each year in the US, next, though to put this all in context, most estimates say we need to be pulling something like 10 billion tons of CO2 from the air each year to reach our climate goals by 2050, and around 20 billion tons each year to cancel out our emissions—so these are still very early efforts, and not everyone is convinced they're the way to go in terms of addressing these issues.—ReutersUS gives Saudis green light to try to revive peace deal with HouthisSummary: The US government has reportedly given the Saudi government an informal go-ahead to revive peace deal negotiations with the Houthis who have been fighting a long-term civil war with the government of Yemen, and recently have been attacking commercial vessels passing through the Red Sea.Context: Yemen has been embroiled in a civil war since 2014, the Houthis backed by Iran, the country's government backed by Saudi Arabia, and though that conflict has been stuck in a practical stalemate most of that time, the Houthis were able to grab global attention beginning last November by launching attacks on cargo ships headed to and from the Suez Canal, severely disrupting global trade as a consequence; the Saudi government, with the backing of the US and the UN, have decided to push ahead with a peace talks roadmap that could result in a bunch of money being handed over to the Houthis, and their leadership being granted a permanent spot in Yemen's unity government, but that's apparently being seen as a sacrifice worth making, at this point, as the Saudi government is keen to refocus on other irons it has in the regional fire, like what's happening in Gaza, and getting things settled in neighboring Yemen would help it do that.—The GuardianChinese fishing boats, often accompanied by light naval vessels, have increasingly swept in to claim and “claim” portions of the South China Sea (and surrounding area) that contain valuable resources, denying those resources to their neighbors (who also claim them) and reinforcing the country's practical hold on the area.—Bloomberg$1.66 billionValue of loan guarantees conditionally committed to hydrogen producer Plug Power by the US government.These loan guarantees are earmarked for the construction of up to six facilities that would allow the company to upscale its hydrogen-producing efforts, and this is being seen as a bit of a lifeline, as the company has been short on cash for about a year, which has made further scaling difficult.Hydrogen is seen by some as a vital component of shifting away from fossil fuels, as it can be subbed-in for some of those fuels, can be manufactured using clean power, and is currently more practical for some use-cases than battery-stored electricity.—BloombergTrust Click Get full access to One Sentence News at onesentencenews.substack.com/subscribe

Three news stories summarized & contextualized by analytic journalist Colin Wright.Georgia students walk out, PM passes 'foreign agent' billSummary: Hundreds of university students in the Georgian capital city, Tblisi, walked out of classes in solidarity with the thousands of protestors who have been taking to the streets almost every night for a month in opposition to a bill that will ostensibly allow the government to clamp down on foreign NGOs, while also making eventual accession to the European Union more difficult or impossible; despite that opposition, Georgia's parliament voted the law through yesterday.Context: The governing Georgian Dream party has argued that they need to know who's behind NGOs operating in the country, and that this legislation would give them a better idea of who's funding what, which in turn would help them flag potential interference by Western powers; opponents of this law have argued that it's a clone of a Russian law that allows them to basically label anyone they don't like a foreign operative, which in turn allows the ruling party to jail their political opponents and anyone else who makes trouble for them; the Georgian Dream party has thus been accused to attempting to stall or prevent Georgia's joining the EU in favor of better relations with Russia, while the vast majority of the country supports more alignment with Europe; Georgia's president is expected to veto the law, though parliament can override that veto with another vote.—ReutersOne Sentence News is a reader-supported publication. To support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.US energy panel approves rule to expand transmission of renewable powerSummary: After two years of development, US federal energy regulators approved a rule that's meant to help boost the country's power grid by streamlining aspects of the infrastructure deployment and upgrade progress, while also changing how costs are divvied-out to involved states.Context: This is a big rule—about 1,300 pages long—so there are a lot of specifics and niche situations addressed, but in essence it's meant to simplify existing rules and folkways in the energy infrastructure space that have incentivized energy companies to not expand and invest in new poles, cables, and the like, while also leaving a lot of existing power infrastructure un-upgraded, despite the huge amount of new power generation that's been coming online, and which is scheduled to come online in the next decade; this is generally being seen as a big deal, but there's still ample room for it to be challenged in court, most likely by energy companies that don't want to make these investments or risk losing their regional monopolies, and state legislators who oppose the deployment of new renewable energy power production.—The Associated PressChina to start $138 billion bond sale to boost economySummary: Beginning this Friday, China's government will begin selling 1 trillion yuan, which is about $138 billion US dollars, in long-term bonds as part of an ongoing effort to boost its economy at a tricky moment.Context: China's economy has faced several years of less-than-impressive numbers, in part because of how regional governments have been spending and how much debt they've been taking on, in part because of normal ebbs in productivity and population figures, and in part because of how dependent the economy had become on real estate, an industry that in recent years has suffered from all sorts of collapses and scandals; this debt is ultra-long-term, with more than half of it maturing in 30 years, about a third of it in 20 years, and around a tenth in 50 years, according to a report by Bloomberg, which hasn't been confirmed by the Chinese government; word of this sale has been well received by investors, in part because it's thought the People's Bank of China will loosen regulations on banks alongside this bond sale, and some analysts believe this sale could add as much as a full percent to China's GDP.—BloombergA recent survey by Generation Lab supports the assertion that, though Gaza-related protests at universities around the US have been dominating headlines, Israel's invasion of Gaza is a priority of relatively few students, and the majority are more concerned about healthcare and economic issues.—Axios$1 billionAmount of reelection campaign contributions former President (and now candidate) Trump asked for at a fundraising dinner with top oil executives last month.In exchange, he offered to allow for more oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and in the Alaskan Arctic, to reduce car pollution regulations, and to pause natural gas export permits that have limited oil companies' ability to export as much gas overseas as they would prefer—alongside a general promise to do a complete U-turn on climate-related policies and legislation passed by the Biden administration.—The GuardianTrust Click Get full access to One Sentence News at onesentencenews.substack.com/subscribe

Three news stories summarized & contextualized by analytic journalist Colin Wright.Putin replaces Shoigu as Russia's defense minister as he starts his 5th termSummary: Over the weekend, Russian President Putin, fresh into his fifth term running the country, announced the replacement of his long-time Defense Minister, Sergei Shoigu, replacing him with a close ally Andrei Belousov.Context: Belousov's appointment will need to be approved by Russia's upper parliamentary house, though the Russian government mostly rubber-stamps Putin's decisions, so that's not expected to hold up this ascension, and his appointment as defense minister is interesting in part because it comes shortly after a successful attack by Ukrainian forces on Russia's border city, Belgorod, and because Belousov has generally held economics-focused positions in the government, though he was made first deputy prime minister in 2020; upon stepping down from his position as defense minister, Shoigu was appointed as a secretary of Russia's Security Council.—The Associated PressOne Sentence News is a reader-supported publication. To support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Venezuela loses its last glacier as it shrinks down to an ice fieldSummary: Venezuela's last remaining glacier, the Humboldt Glacier, has been reclassified as an ice field, after having shrunk a lot more than anticipated.Context: Venezuela is now thought to be the first country to have lost all of its glaciers in the modern era, and it was previously home to six of them, though five had already disappeared by 2011; there's no globally accepted size criterion for a glacier, but one commonly used minimum is about 10 hectares, and the Humboldt Glacier shrank to less than two hectares over the course of just a few years—a rate of depletion that's considered to be quite rapid for a large body of ice.—The GuardianBiden to quadruple tariffs on Chinese EVsSummary: Today, the Biden administration is expected to announce a significant hike in the tariffs applied to Chinese electric vehicles sold in the States, increasing the existing 25% levy to around 100%, alongside an existing 2.5% duty on all vehicles imported into the country.Context: This is considered to be a pretty big deal, as protective tariffs of this kind are meant to safeguard local businesses from international competition, and China has become the clear dominant player in the EV and connected technologies space, boasting by far the largest output, and by many metrics the best and cheapest products, as well; US automakers have complained that it's an uneven playing field, as the Chinese government often puts its thumb on the scale, supporting Chinese companies in vital industries in various ways, and while some analysts see these sorts of protectionist measures as vital to ensure a competitive landscape, disallowing Chinese companies from killing off all their competition before they can really get started on their own EV portfolios, others see it as a wasted opportunity to take advantage of cheap, abundant EVs that could help more people transition to electric vehicles, and in turn help reduce the US's greenhouse gas emissions, faster.—The Wall Street JournalNew data released by the US National Insurance Crime Bureau indicate that Kia and Hyundai cars (brands owned by the same umbrella-company) were by far the most-stolen in the US in 2023, in part because of easy-to-abuse security vulnerabilities, and in part because they have some highly popular (and thus, highly visible and available) models on the market.—Axios2.1-2.2Number of babies being born per woman in 2023, globally, according to a new estimate by an economist who specializes in demographics.If accurate, that would put global birthrates below the commonly accepted “replacement rate” of about 2.2 for the first time, potentially heralding peak population levels (though per-country birthrates still vary substantially, from around 0.72 in South Korea to about 6.6 in Niger—though this sort of data is also collected in a variety of different ways by different organizations, and isn't always accurate or directly comparable, country to country).—The Wall Street JournalTrust Click Get full access to One Sentence News at onesentencenews.substack.com/subscribe

Three news stories summarized & contextualized by analytic journalist Colin Wright.Pioneering gene therapy restores UK girl's hearingSummary: A British girl who was born deaf underwent a new gene-therapy treatment just before her first birthday, and now—six months after that treatment—can hear as if she was never deaf, and is beginning to talk.Context: This treatment uses a virus that is modified to be harmless, but which carries a working copy of a gene into the relevant portion of the patient's ear; that gene, when inoperable, is what causes this type of deafness, and the therapy basically replaces that gene, which in turn repairs hair cells in a part of the ear called the cochlea, which is what allows the ear to capture sound; more than half of hearing-loss cases in children are genetic and thus potentially targetable by this sort of therapy, and researchers are hoping that, with time, this same general approach will allow them to address other sorts of hearing loss, as well.—BBC NewsOne Sentence News is a reader-supported publication. To support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Israel pushes back into northern Gaza and ups military pressure on RafahSummary: Following a night of heavily bombing the area, Israeli forces moved into eastern Jabalia in the northern part of the Gaza Strip, and where the Strip's largest historic refugee camp, which currently houses more than 100,000 people, is located. Context: The Israeli military said it needed to clamp-down on Jabalia because Hamas operatives were beginning to reestablish themselves there now that Israel has turned most of its attention toward the southern portion of the Strip, and civilians in Jabalia are being told to move south just as civilians in the southern city Rafah are being told to flee north, as Israeli forces down there continue to bombard and make small incursions into the city, preparing for what's expected to be a larger invasion sometime soon.—ReutersGoogle DeepMind's new AI can model DNA, RNA, and ‘all life's molecules'Summary: In the wake of the release of AlphaFold 2 a few years ago—which is an AI model that's capable of predicting the final shapes of every known protein, a few hundred million of them, with usable accuracy most of the time—Google's DeepMind team has announced a new version of the model, AlphaFold 3, which boasts a 50% improvement in accuracy and the capacity to model other sorts of molecules as well, according to the company.Context: There's a big difference between being able to explain what goes into a molecule and how that molecule will look in real life—a bit like the difference between having a written recipe and knowing what the final dish you're preparing will look like, in detail; the “protein folding problem” pointed at this difficulty, and though about 170,000 proteins were 3D-modeled in their folded state over the past 60 years or so, doing such modeling is expensive and tedious, so AlphaFold's capacity to model these proteins, taking what amounts to just the ingredients list and doing so with sufficient accuracy that researchers could work from the resulting prediction, was a big deal; this new model will purportedly allow researchers to do the same with DNA, RNA, and other sorts of molecules (and the interactions between them), which ostensibly will allow for all sorts of new research that wasn't previously possible, including the modeling of new drugs, faster and cheaper; like previous iterations of AlphaFold, this third iteration is being made available free for academic and noncommercial uses, and is free for some commercial partners, as well.—The VergePalestinian civilians who fled to Rafah on the Israeli military's orders are now being told to leave the city and head north to a point just south of another Israeli military mustering point aimed at previously invaded portions of the Strip where Hamas is allegedly retaking control.—The Wall Street Journal>$100 millionSum former President (and current candidate for President) Trump may have to pay in back-taxes, according to an IRS inquiry that was recently uncovered by the Times and ProPublica.This payment would be the result of an alleged double-dipping maneuver that allowed Trump to write off Great Recession-era losses, twice, his second write-off attempt triggering alarms that led to a legal review during his presidency, which in turn led to an ongoing audit (the results of which he will likely appeal, if it doesn't go his way).—The New York TimesTrust Click Get full access to One Sentence News at onesentencenews.substack.com/subscribe

Three news stories summarized & contextualized by analytic journalist Colin Wright.'Malign actor' hacked UK defence ministry payroll, Sunak says after China reportsSummary: Following a wave of reports from the BBC and other news entities, British Prime Minister Sunak has said that a “malign actor” has likely compromised the payment systems used to pay British military personnel, and that personal information was likely accessed by the hackers.Context: Those reports indicate that China was behind this cyberattack, though Sunak didn't name China, and Chinese officials have said they would never do such a thing, and that this is a political smear job; Sunak said that the Ministry of Defence has taken actions to secure the relevant databases, and that folks whose information was accessed would be provided support; this is the third high-profile hack against the UK of which China has been accused in recent years, and these attacks have seemingly hobbled efforts by the UK government to build closer economic ties with China.—ReutersOne Sentence News is a reader-supported publication. To support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.TikTok sues to block US banSummary: As expected, social video app company TikTok has filed a lawsuit to block the implementation of a recently passed law that would ban the app in the US if the Chinese company behind it, ByteDance, doesn't divest itself of its US assets within up to a year of the law's passage.Context: The lawsuit compares the ban to China's Great Firewall, which serves to keep foreign influences out of the country and applies strict censorship on pretty much everything, country-wide, and it claims the law is illegal on First Amendment grounds; ByteDance has said it cannot and will not sell its US operations within the allowed time period, so if this lawsuit doesn't work, it will almost certainly no longer be legal in the States by next January.—The Wall Street JournalFTX customers poised to recover all funds lost in collapseSummary: Folks who lost money when cryptocurrency exchange FTX collapsed in 2022 may receive their money back, plus interest, following efforts by bankruptcy lawyers to recover said money from the defunct company's other assets.Context: According to the bankruptcy plan, essentially everyone who invested in the exchange and lost their assets when FTX collapsed, including individual people and companies, would receive cash payments equivalent to the value of what they held at the time, plus 18% interest on top of that; the downside would be that they'd receive payments and interest equal to the value of these assets in 2022, which in many cases is substantially less than those assets would have been worth had they owned and held onto them until today; this plan still has to be approved by the court before it can be implemented.—The New York TimesGrid-scale batteries in California are rapidly increasing the state's renewable energy usage, and dropping electricity prices in the state, in large part because they can shift the use of energy generated by solar during the day to peak-demand periods just after sundown.—The New York Times$40,000Annual price of a new longevity-oriented program being offered by gym chain Equinox.That membership fee nets members blood tests, a smart ring (which tracks some vital signs all day) and a gym membership, alongside coaching, personal training, and meetings with a sleep coach, nutritionist, and massage therapist.—The New York TimesTrust Click Get full access to One Sentence News at onesentencenews.substack.com/subscribe

Three news stories summarized & contextualized by analytic journalist Colin Wright.Judge postpones start of Trump documents trial without new dateSummary: As anticipated, the judge in former President Trump's classified document trial has indefinitely postponed the start of the trial, citing unresolved issues that need to be figured out before things could get started.Context: The judge in the case, Aileen Cannon, who was appointment by Trump in his final days in office, has been accused of dragging her feet in this case, and it was expected that she would further delay things when she failed to expeditiously act on some of the fundamental issues that need to be resolved in a classified documents case, like what information a jury can hear and what needs to be held back, while also seeming to slow-walk some otherwise fairly standard issues that typically would move quickly in this sort of case; the main concern for prosecutors, now, is that the case will almost certainly be scheduled for sometime after the November election, at which point—if Trump wins—it will likely be moot, as he may be able to either pardon himself, or get someone in his administration to do away with the charges.—The New York TimesOne Sentence News is a reader-supported publication. To support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Whooping cough epidemic sweeps Europe, health agency saysSummary: A surge in whooping cough cases have been reported across Europe, beginning in 2023 and into the first quarter of 2024, according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, with ten-times as many confirmed cases compared to the same period in recent years.Context: Whooping cough is a lung- and airways-based bacterial infection that is especially dangerous for babies and older people, and even in countries with high vaccination rates, we tend to see outbreaks every 3 to 5 years—though this year's outbreak is historically high, with as many confirmed cases in the first quarter of 2024 as are typically tallied in an average year. —ReutersUS paused bomb shipment to Israel to signal concerns over Rafah invasion, official saysSummary: The US has paused a shipment of bombs to Israel due to concerns that the Israeli military is planning to launch a full-scale invasion of Rafah, which the US has warned against.Context: Israel told Gazan citizens to flee to Rafah, where they would be safe, but it now says they need to invade the city in order to weed-out the last remnants of Hamas' leadership in the region; the US government has been criticized for providing weapons to the Israeli military, which they've then used to kill Gazan citizens, and the pause on this shipment was reportedly meant to send a signal that the US is reconsidering what sorts of weapons and support it sends to Israel, due to concerns about how they'll be used, but also because these bombs in particular would be devastating if dropped in a densely populated city like Rafah; a recent ceasefire proposal that Hamas agreed to was dismissed by Israel as not aligning with their demands, though Israel's government has said it will engage in further ceasefire talks, and that they'll continue to prepare for their assault on Rafah in the meantime.—The Associated PressRebels in Myanmar continue to rack up victories over the military government, now controlling about half of the country's territory, including some important bases, towns, and trade-related choke-points.—The New York Times~40%Portion of all the plastic produced, globally, that's used to make disposable foodware and packaging.That's a lot of “made to throw away almost immediately” production, and a big part of why many governments are trying out regulations that either reduce the impact of such waste, or introduce reusable options meant to replace some of it.—GristTrust Click Get full access to One Sentence News at onesentencenews.substack.com/subscribe

Three news stories summarized & contextualized by analytic journalist Colin Wright.Russian finance flows slump after US targets Vladimir Putin's war machineSummary: A fresh round of US sanctions and bans have prompted many lenders to avoid working with anyone or anything even tangentially connected to Russia, which has triggered a slump in trade volumes between Russia and some of its largest trade partners.Context: The US, EU, and other primarily western nations have been slapping sanctions on Russia and Russia-related things since Russian President Putin decided to full-scale invade Ukraine a few years ago, and while some of those initial bans and threats worked decently well, Russia's economy continued to do okay as its government figured out ways around some of the most significant limitations; more recent efforts have been aimed at the financial service backing for such trades, essentially cutting off the flow of resources required to buy and sell goods at an international level, and while this isn't foolproof or loophole-less, dodging these restrictions now requires a lot of middlemen and a fair bit of risk for anyone dealing with Russia, which means they have to work harder and spend more to get what was previously cheaper and more easily accessed.—Financial TimesOne Sentence News is a reader-supported publication. To support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.UK's Lib Dems to submit motion of no-confidence in Rishi Sunak's governmentSummary: The UK Liberal Democratic party said on Monday that it will submit a motion of no-confidence in Prime Minister Sunak's government in order to force a general election in June—earlier than the election Sunak has previously said he plans to hold in the second half of 2024.Context: Sunak's Conservative party lost 474 local council seats in last week's elections, while Labour and the Lib Dems gained 186 and 104 seats, respectively; the Conservatives are expected to handedly lose the next wave of Parliamentary elections, though Sunak has said that he believes the eventual outcome will be closer than polls currently predict; the last time such an election was forced by a no-confidence motion in the UK was in 1979.—ReutersEV makers get two-year reprieve on tax-credit restrictionsSummary: The US Treasury Department has announced that electric vehicles containing graphite from China will still be eligible for EV tax credits through 2026.Context: This is a pivot from the department's previous stance, which would only provide these credits for vehicles that were built almost entirely using US-oriented supply chains; China currently dominates the global EV market, including the materials required to build these vehicles and their batteries, and the US government is hoping to flesh-out and bulwark its own version of the same by providing monetary incentives and resources for car companies to refocus appropriately—but under current conditions, few, if any cars would be eligible for a completely US-made EV tax-credit, and this wiggle-room is meant to help address that supply chain shortfall in the interim, giving them a few more years to get their non-Chinese graphite supplies locked-in.—The Wall Street JournalRecent data indicate that the Panama Canal's water shortage, which has led to dramatically lower ship-passage numbers than is typical (even during the region's rainfall low-season) is primarily attributable to the now-waning El Niño phenomenon, rather than climate change; water levels have since stabilized a bit, the regional drought subsiding, and traffic is picking back up as a consequence.—Financial Times1.6 millionEstimated number of people who attended a free concert put on by Madonna on Copacabana beach in Brazil last weekend.This performance capped her retrospective Celebration Tour, and far surpasses her previous largest audience size of around 130,000 back in 1987, in Paris.—The Associated PressTrust Click Get full access to One Sentence News at onesentencenews.substack.com/subscribe

Three news stories summarized & contextualized by analytic journalist Colin Wright.South and Southeast Asian countries cope with a weekslong heat waveSummary: Portions of Southeast and Southern Asia have been enshrouded in a heat wave for weeks, charting record-high temperatures and disrupting everyday life throughout the region.Context: Cambodia saw the hottest temperatures in 170 years, clocking 43 degrees Celsius, which is about 109 degrees Fahrenheit, Myanmar hit 48.2 C (118.8 F), and Thailand reached 40 C (104 F)—though the heat index in these countries were all higher, taking into account heavy humidity levels, so in that latter case, the Thai capital Bangkok actually surpassed 50 C (122 F); some of this heat wave is being attributed to the waning effects of El Niño on normal seasonal temperature changes, while the rest is being attributed to human-amplified climate change.—The Associated PressOne Sentence News is a reader-supported publication. To support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Three arrested and charged over Sikh activist's killing in CanadaSummary: Three Indian citizens have been arrested in Canada and charged with the assassination of a Canadian Sikh separatist leader on Canadian soil last June.Context: The Sikh leader, Hardeep Singh Nijjar, was shot by masked gunmen in Vancouver, and Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau publicly alleged that the Indian government may have been involved in the killing based on intelligence they'd received, but the Indian government said they had nothing to do with it, and counter-accused Canada of sheltering someone they consider to be a terrorist, because Nijjar called for the formation of a breakaway Sikh nation in what's currently Indian territory; diplomatic relations between Canada and India remain strained in the wake of these accusations and arrests.—BBC NewsIsraeli cabinet votes to shut down Al Jazeera's operations in the countrySummary: Following the passage of a law that allowed the temporary closing of foreign media outlets in the country last month, the Israeli government has ordered Qatar-based Al Jazeera to shut down its local operations, and has seized some of its equipment.Context: Al Jazeera is one of the most popular and well-regarded sources of news in the Arab world, and it's based in Qatar, where Hamas' leadership resides; Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has accused Al Jazeera of highlighting the suffering of Gazans, which he has said incites violence against Israeli forces operating in the Strip, though evidence of this claim has not been made public.—The New York TimesThe number of publicly traded companies in the US has dropped substantially since the mid-1990s, and one of the primary theories as to why is that new regulations that tamp down on fraud has made going public too costly—they can't afford to dot all those i's and cross all those t's, so they remain private companies—though it may also be the result of venture capital's rise, as VCs tend to fund private companies, giving them a longer (still private) runway before they have to go public (which is another, more conventional means of achieving investment cashflow).—Sherwood News>750,000Number of robots Amazon has deployed to work alongside its 1.5 million employees.That's up from 520,000 robots in 2022, and around 200,000 in 2019.Notably, its human workforce is down from 1.6 million in 2021, in part because it's been able to replace some of them with robots.—Yahoo FinanceTrust Click Get full access to One Sentence News at onesentencenews.substack.com/subscribe

Three news stories summarized & contextualized by analytic journalist Colin Wright.US lawmaker Cuellar hit with bribery charges tied to Azerbaijan and Mexican bankSummary: A Democratic US House Representative from Texas, Henry Cuellar and his wife have been indicted for allegedly accepting bribes to use his position and influence for the benefit of an energy company in Azerbaijan and a bank in Mexico.Context: According to the indictment, the Cuellars received bribes totaling around $600,000 via fake consulting contracts funneled into shell companies owned by Mrs. Cuellar between 2014 and 2021; Representative Cuellar has issued a statement denying the allegations, though he will step down from his position as the ranking member of the Homeland Security Appropriations subcommittee while the case is ongoing.—ReutersOne Sentence News is a reader-supported publication. To support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Netanyahu says Israel cannot accept Hamas demandsSummary: Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has said that he can't accept a demand made by Hamas to begin the process of ending the invasion of Gaza, because doing so would allow Hamas to retain control in the region, which would represent a permanent threat to Israel.Context: This demand was made during peace talks in Cairo that were reportedly going well, but while Hamas indicated they liked the overall deal on the table, which would involve the release of all hostages in exchange for a 40-day ceasefire, an additional demand that this ceasefire lead to a permanent halt in the fighting and a full withdrawal by Israeli forces from Gaza was apparently a bridge too far for Netanyahu; Netanyahu has been accused of keeping the invasion going for political and personal reasons, as further-right members of his government are keeping him in office, and a corruption case against him has been delayed because of the conflict, and protestors have been taking to the streets across Israel demanding that the government refocus their attention on freeing the hostages, rather than fixating on an internally and internationally unpopular invasion of the densely populated Gazan city, Rafah, where Netanyahu alleges the remnants of Hamas' local leadership are hiding out.—BBC NewsDeath toll from rains in southern Brazil rises to 57 as 69,000 people displacedSummary: Floods across Brazil's southernmost state, Rio Grande do Sul, have killed at least 57 people and displaced more than 69,000, with 67 people still missing.Context: Roads and bridges have been destroyed, landslides have been triggered, and the dam at a hydroelectric plant has partially collapsed, while another such dam is on the brink of collapsing; all flights from the region's international airport have been suspended indefinitely, and rains are expected to continue for another day or two, though the volume of rainfall is on the decline; as is the case in many other parts of the world right now, heavy rains are common in this part of Brazil, but the intensity of those rains, and the on-the-ground consequences of that intensity, are being amplified by a shift in the planet's climate and its associated tweaks to the global water cycle.—The GuardianAvian flu is showing up in mammals all over the place, raising concerns that it could make the leap to humans (which it already has in very limited, close-contact-with-infected-animals circumstances, but not in an “actively spreading between humans” way).—Axios$995 millionApproximate sum paid out in in claims by the space insurance industry in 2023, marking a new record.These payouts are mostly the result of an increasingly crowded Low Earth Orbit zone, and the Geosynchronous range is beginning to face the same issues.As of early 2024, there were 12,597 spacecraft in orbit, 2877 of which were deployed in 2023, which is up 14.6% from the previous year.—The RegisterTrust Click Get full access to One Sentence News at onesentencenews.substack.com/subscribe

Three news stories summarized & contextualized by analytic journalist Colin Wright.Office-loan defaults near historic levels with billions on the lineSummary: More than $38 billion-worth of US office buildings are on the brink of defaulting or being foreclosed, marking the highest level of such debt-related distress in this real estate sector since 2012.Context: Commercial property owners typically borrow half (or more) of the money they invest in a building, so the current high interest rates in the country are making life difficult for those buyers, and the reduction in demand for office buildings has made affording those increased payments tricky, as post-COVID-19 workplace realities have collapsed entire chunks of the market, and tenants are now paying closer attention to their landlords' financial health, which—for the aforementioned reasons—is tending to be less good than it would have been several years ago, compounding this issue for some property owners.—The Wall Street JournalOne Sentence News is a reader-supported publication. To support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Tesla to lay off everyone working on Superchargers and new vehiclesSummary: Following a wave of layoffs that saw more than 10% of the company's employees fired in mid-April, EV company Tesla's leadership has announced that two key executives—those responsible for new vehicle development and the company's Supercharger network—have been laid off, along with most of their teams.Context: This new batch of firings will effect around 500 employees on those two teams, plus the company's public policy team, and this is being seen as a puzzling move, as Tesla CEO Elon Musk has recently said that he's doubling-down on efforts to create autonomous robo-taxi networks, which would seem to require more public policy efforts, not fewer; the company's Supercharger network is also considered to be something of a crown jewel, as it has more fast EV chargers installed around the US than every other company combined, and a recent decision to open those chargers to non-Tesla vehicles has meant more revenue for the company at a moment in which it's seemingly hemorrhaging money due to heightened competition and the at times bizarre and highly political antics of Musk, himself.—Ars TechnicaOpenAI inks strategic tie-up with UK's Financial Times, including content useSummary: The Financial Times, a longstanding London-based news entity, has signed a deal with ChatGPT-maker OpenAI to license their archive for AI-training and information-gleaning purposes.Context: This deal is being framed as a strategic partnership, and in essence it means that the Financial Times will be paid by OpenAI to allow the latter to use the former's work to train their AI systems, while also allowing those systems to provide information from the FT to users, when relevant; OpenAI has recently made similar deals with the Associated Press, Axel Springer, and Le Monde, among others, and other AI companies are doing the same, all of them seemingly trying to get ahead of a jumble of legal actions by all sorts of publishing entities aimed at AI companies that are scraping up this sort of work without providing compensation to the owners of said work.—TechCrunchWhile word of TikTok's potential near-future ban in the US might play a role in Snapchat's growth in the West, the app has been seeing a huge surge in growth elsewhere around the world for years, with 90% of their new daily active users living outside the US and Canada (two of its biggest markets).—Sherwood News52%Portion of the US public that uses some kind of ad-blocker on the web, according to a new survey conducted by Censuswide.That's up from 34% in 2022, and the number is even higher for more experienced web-users like programmers and cybersecurity experts: 72% and 76% of folks working in those trades, respectively, use ad-blockers.—The RegisterTrust Click Get full access to One Sentence News at onesentencenews.substack.com/subscribe

Three news stories summarized & contextualized by analytic journalist Colin Wright.Flash floods and landslide kill at least 45 in central KenyaSummary: Flash floods that were initially blamed on a burst dam, but which were later confirmed to have been caused by a river tunnel becoming blocked by debris, and a landslide have killed at least 45 people and injured more than 100 others in central Kenya. Context: This new wave of flooding brings the total death toll attributable to heavy rains and flooding in Kenya to more than 140 people since last month, and more than 185,000 have been displaced by those floods over the same period; flooding isn't unusual in this part of the world during its annual rainy season, but flooding has become more irregular and powerful in recent years due to shifts in the climate.—ReutersOne Sentence News is a reader-supported publication. To support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.US poised to ease restrictions on marijuana in historic shift, but it'll remain a controlled substanceSummary: The US Drug Enforcement Agency will reclassify marijuana as a Schedule III drug, according to sources familiar with the government's plans.Context: Marijuana is currently a Schedule I drug, alongside substances like LSD and heroin, and this reclassification would put it in the same category as some types of anabolic steroid and ketamine—substances that are often used for various sorts of therapies, but which are still controlled and require a prescription; this change in classification could have a dramatic impact on marijuana's status at the state level, as it would reduce the penalties for possession and could make it easier for marijuana-oriented businesses to work within the banking system; recent polls found that 70% of US adults support legalizing marijuana, up from just 30% in 2000.—The Associated PressFlorida's six-week abortion ban is now law, with political implicationsSummary: A ban on abortions after six weeks of pregnancy came into effect in Florida on Wednesday, marking a major policy shift in the state.Context: This new ban dramatically reduces a woman's options when it comes to abortions, as most women don't know they're pregnant at six months, and most neighboring states also have abortion bans on the books, which means traveling to get one performed might require a significant and expensive trip; this ban could complicate things for the Republican lawmakers who passed it in November, as while abortion restrictions and bans remain a key focus for some components of the party, public opinion polls in Florida indicate broad, bipartisan opposition to strict abortion bans, and every time abortion bans have been on the ballot following the overturning of Roe v. Wade by the Supreme Court, folks have voted against them, even in deeply conservative parts of the country.—The New York TimesNew data show that the Consumer Price Index (one measure of inflation) rose 3.5% in the US in March, compared to the previous year, but auto insurance in the country was up 22.2% during the same period, marking the largest increase since the 1970s (and representing a big headache for car owners).—Reuters2035Year by which the G7 group of wealthy industrialized countries has committed to have completely phased-out coal, with a little bit of leeway left for Japan, which is highly reliant on the fuel.That's a big commitment, but still falls short of the target recommended by the IPCC which would require coal is phased-out by 2030 and their economies are completely decarbonized by 2035.—The Associated PressTrust Click Get full access to One Sentence News at onesentencenews.substack.com/subscribe

Three news stories summarized & contextualized by analytic journalist Colin Wright.China ready to launch lunar far side sample return missionSummary: China's space agency has prepared a rocket for its Chang'e 6 mission which will attempt to land on the far side of the Moon and collect lunar material, which it will then attempt to return to Earth; the launch is currently expected on May 3.Context: This mission is the first of its kind, as while China previously landed a lander craft and rover on the far side of the Moon, which is never visible from Earth, and still has a relay satellite that transmits data from over there back to China, no material has been recovered and returned to Earth, thus far; this is a robotic mission, so no humans will be on board, and it will set a lander down on the Moon's surface, which will collect samples that will then be launched into orbit on a smaller ascent vehicle, that vehicle collected by an in-orbit service module that will haul it back to Earth, which it will deliver to the surface in a reentry capsule, if all goes according to plan.—Space NewsOne Sentence News is a reader-supported publication. To support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.FCC fines big three carriers $196 million for selling users' real-time location dataSummary: The US Federal Communications Commission has announced a $196 million fine levied against wireless carriers T-Mobile, AT&T, and Verizon for illegally sharing their customers' real-time location data without their customers' informed consent, and without taking measures to ensure that data isn't used inappropriately.Context: These carriers have said they will appeal the fines and that they've long-since discontinued the programs through which they were collecting and sharing the relevant data, but in essence it looks like these carriers were collecting this information for legit purposes, then selling it, in less legit ways, to data aggregators, which then sold data-packets to a variety of customers, ranging from bail-bond companies to bounty hunters to law enforcement entities, some of which used this data inappropriately, resulting in these fines; these programs were originally reported upon in 2018, after which the companies started to back away from them.—Ars TechnicaGeorgia's ruling party stages mass rally to counter anti-government protestsSummary: Following weeks of large and widespread anti-government protests targeting a law that critics say will allow the government to silence dissent, the Georgian government has bussed supporters in from across the country to hold large rallies in an effort to show that this law does have support, despite those protests.Context: The proposed law in question is directed at so-called “foreign agents” in the country, and protestors have compared it to a Russian law that allows the Russian government to jail or otherwise harass and threaten anyone they like, as long as they can somehow connect them, with real or fabricated evidence, to an anti-Russian scheme supposedly concocted by outsiders intent on harming the Russian state; the governing Georgian Dream party allegedly forced government employees to attend the rally, and has said that this law would help them force transparency upon currently non-transparent, foreign-funded NGOs that operate in the country, but opponents of the law contend it will make their ambitions to join NATO and the EU (bids supported by 80% of the population) all but impossible.—France 24As NATO ramps-up its efforts to increase funding levels and deploy more troops along its border with Russia, the alliance is having to tangle with its own internal disputes and ensure they don't become larger issues that might prevent it from serving as a deterrent in Europe.—The Wall Street Journal3.8 millionNumber of people who die per year, globally, with invasive fungal infections, about 2.5 million of whom die with the fungus serving as their primary cause of death, according to a new paper published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases.That means fungal infections are already responsible for about 5% of all deaths, and experts expect climate change to increase the number of such infections in the coming years; this is also about twice as many deaths as previous estimates suggested.—Financial TimesTrust Click Get full access to One Sentence News at onesentencenews.substack.com/subscribe

Three news stories summarized & contextualized by analytic journalist Colin Wright.Note: my new book, How To Turn 39: Thoughts About Aging for People of All Ages is now available as an ebook, paperback, and audiobook! If you find value in my work, consider picking up a copy—it's written for people of all ages who want to figure out what it means to grow older, better :)G7 to target sixfold expansion of electricity storageSummary: Representatives from the G7 countries, which includes Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK, and the US, have “agreed in principle” to a new goal that would expand global electrical storage capacity to 1,500 gigawatts by 2030.Context: That's up from about 230 gigawatts in 2022, and would represent a huge expansion in the deployment of battery storage, but also the use of other storage methods like pumped hydro, underground compressed air, and possibly even long-term heat storage and hydrogen conversion technologies; this is just one of several clean energy-related topics being discussed by these representatives at the moment, but widespread, reliable storage for the electricity produced by often intermittent renewable sources like solar and wind is vital if these sources are to replace existing, greenhouse gas-emitting fuels like coal, petroleum, and natural gas.—Financial TimesOne Sentence News is a reader-supported publication. To support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Spain's Sanchez says he will stay on as PM despite wife's graft probeSummary: The Prime Minister of Spain, Pedro Sanchez, has said that he will remain in office after several days of uncertainty following an announcement in which he said he might resign due to harassment he said his wife is facing from far-right opposition members and their followers.Context: This post and the followup confirmation that Sanchez would not be resigning come in the wake of a preliminary probe into the prime minister's wife for alleged influence peddling and corruption; this probe is the result of a complaint by a far-right political organization that has sparked a series of similar, and thus far unsuccessful legal moves against politicians they don't like, and there's reportedly no evidence of the PM's wife's alleged corruption, other than media reports that also offer no evidence; Sanchez's Socialist party oversees a minority government that relies on far-left and separatist parties to get anything done, and some of the laws his government has passed to appease those further-left parties have consistently riled conservatives in the country, including a proposed amnesty for Catalan separatists.—France 24Philippines closes schools as heat soars to ‘danger' levelSummary: Public schools across the Philippines were closed yesterday and remain closed today, classes moved online for the duration, due to incredibly high temperatures that have coincided with a nationwide strike by jeepney drivers.Context: These high temperatures, which hit 45 degrees Celsius (which is about 113 degrees Fahrenheit) in Manila, follow a week of also high levels of heat, which have topped 40 C (100 F) in some parts of the country, the heat index even higher in most areas; jeepneys are open-air vehicles that make up the lion's share of public transit across most of the Philippines, and the drivers of these vehicles are protesting a government plan that will see their rides replaced with expensive new minibuses, which would be more energy-efficient, comfortable, and safe, but also a big investment for the drivers—many of whom say they can't afford to make the upgrade.—The New York TimesThe words we use to talk about our beliefs and politics matter, and a recent survey from Ipsos shows that “MAGA” and the “2nd Amendment” are among the most divisive terms in the American political lexicon, at the moment, while “National Parks” and “Honesty” are more likely to refer to shared, cross-spectrum values.—Axios3.6 millionNumber of babies born in the US in 2023 according to the CDC.That represents a decrease of 2% from 2022, and may mark the end of a small bump in the nationwide birthrate we saw from 2020 to 2022.—The Washington PostTrust Click Get full access to One Sentence News at onesentencenews.substack.com/subscribe

Three news stories summarized & contextualized by analytic journalist Colin Wright.China EV price war to worsen as market share takes priority over profit, hastening demise of smaller playersSummary: A wave of discounts on popular electric vehicles in China has resulted in price-drops of an average of 10% on 50 models over the past three months as carmakers compete to grab market-share in the hottest EV market on the planet.Context: Only a few Chinese EV-makers are profitable right now, and some—including BYD—are investing heavily in expanding to foreign markets, which is causing all sorts of disruptions in those markets, as local competitors can't come close to these Chinese brands' prices; this price war is also raising alarm bells within companies like Tesla, which has traditionally been a dominant player in this space, but which is being elbowed-out as these new, cheaper, increasingly high-quality players establish a global toehold.—South China Morning PostOne Sentence News is a reader-supported publication. To support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Student protesters seek amnesty to keep arrests and suspensions from trailing themSummary: Hundreds of student and faculty protestors have been arrested for protesting what they consider to be their institutions' and governments' role in Israel's invasion of the Gaza Strip, and negotiations between protestors and the folks running the universities where the protests are centered are partially focused on amnesty for those who have been arrested or otherwise punished.Context: A lot of ink has been spilled reporting on the day-to-day of these protests, in part because of their relevance to various political culture wars that are playing out in the US right now, but alongside these arrests and the in some cases violent crackdowns on protestors by police who have been called in by those running these universities, protesting faculty and students have been punished from within the school system, booted from their jobs or expelled—and those latter concerns are now included in negotiations, alongside demands that the universities divest from weapons companies and Israel-associated entities, even as the culture war-style commentary continues to dominate most of the conversations and headlines about these protests and those involved with them.—The Associated PressEPA severely limits pollution from coal-burning power plantsSummary: Last week, the Environmental Protection Agency announced a new regulation that will require coal plants in the US reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 90% by 2039—a year earlier than originally planned.Context: The EPA also said coal plants will face stricter limitations on their mercury emissions, will need to better control toxic ash seepage into water supplies, and will have to constrain their wastewater discharge; all of which is being seen as a practical cap on the lifespan of coal plants in the US, as these regulations can only be met at great expense, and analysts are generally assuming the folks running these plants will run the numbers and find that it makes more sense to shut them down than to upgrade them in such a way that they can continue to legally operate.—The New York TimesView of Athens from the Tourkovounia hills last week, as a cloud of dust blew north from the Sahara desert, cloaking the Greek city in an orange haze; this is a semi-regular occurrence, but the dust clouds of recent years have been more concentrated than usual, which makes it hazardous for locals' respiratory health and impacts normal, everyday behavior in all sorts of ways.—The New York Times7Number of years the Canadian federal government and Alaskan state government have banned fishing of chinook salmon on the Yukon River, in order to allow the species to recover from years of overfishing that has depleted its population.Seven years is about the length of a salmon's total lifecycle.—CBC NewsTrust Click Get full access to One Sentence News at onesentencenews.substack.com/subscribe

Three news stories summarized & contextualized by analytic journalist Colin Wright.Note: My new book about aging and growing older with intention, How To Turn 39 (howtoturn39.com), is available for pre-sale :)US Air Force confirms first successful AI dogfightSummary: The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, confirmed earlier this month that it has successfully tested an artificial intelligence controlled aircraft in dogfight conditions, as part of its Air Combat Evolution, or ACE program.Context: The purported goal of this program is to integrate autonomous systems into the US's military operations, including but not limited to allowing fighter jets to be controlled by machine-assisted humans, and in some cases, just machines; in this test-run, there were human pilots aboard the AI-controlled aircraft as it operated, ready to take control if necessary, but the AI system reportedly functioned properly and completed the test as they had hoped; this is a big deal in part because of how fundamental drones and other such autonomous-capable systems are becoming to warfare, and in part because of concerns related to using AI and other autonomous systems in combat and in other situations in which they might intentionally or accidentally harm or kill humans.—The VergeOne Sentence News is a reader-supported publication. To support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Biden unveils $7 billion for rooftop solar in Earth Day messageSummary: On Monday, US President Biden announced $7 billion in grants for residential solar projects, and that applications are now open for the American Climate Corps.Context: These grants are meant to support projects that will power about a million low-income American households, and the American Climate Corps is a program that will help train young people to work in clean energy-related fields, paying them as they learn these skills and work on relevant projects around the country.—ReutersRocket Lab launches new NASA solar sail tech to orbitSummary: Earlier this week, a rocket carrying NASA's Advanced Composite Solar Sail System was launched into orbit from New Zealand—the first project of its kind to be deployed by NASA.Context: Solar sails are lightweight materials that work like a kite or a sail, but which capture photons from the sun instead of wind, allowing them to slowly speed up over time using no fuel, which could mean they're ideal for carrying probes and other payloads vast distances, including other star systems that are out of reach using other, currently available technologies; other solar sail projects have been flown by Japan's space program and by the Planetary Society, but this most recent effort uses a new composite for the sail—which measures about 30 feet or 9 meters per side—and it's meant to help the agency test the utility of this propulsion method for future programs.—Space.comAfter years of encouraging news organizations to invest in growing their social platform subscriber numbers, Facebook- and Instagram-owner Meta has been pulling away from political and news coverage, biasing their algorithms against such content in order to nudge conversation away from hot-button issues.—The Washington Post6Number of new billionaires resulting from China's “bubble tea boom” over the past few years, which has seen several new bubble tea (or “boba tea”) chains raise hundreds of millions of dollars to expand their brands in-country and internationally.—BloombergTrust Click Get full access to One Sentence News at onesentencenews.substack.com/subscribe

Three news stories summarized & contextualized by analytic journalist Colin Wright.Note: My new book about aging and growing older with intention, How To Turn 39 (howtoturn39.com), is available for pre-sale :)Four killed in Guangdong floods, sparking concerns over extreme weather defensesSummary: Heavy weekend rains triggered floods in the heavily populated Pearl River Delta in China, leading to four confirmed deaths, the evacuation of around 110,000 people, and 25,800 people in emergency shelters earlier this week.Context: Officials in Guangzhou said they've tallied the highest cumulative rainfall figures since 1959 this April, and that flash flood and other storm-related warnings are still in effect for many of the region's cities, including the tech-hub megacity, Shenzhen; this part of China is prone to seasonal flooding, but as is the case in many parts of the world right now, floods have become less predictable and on average more potent, and as a result local infrastructure meant to protect locals from the impacts of flooding are proving to be less effective. —The GuardianOne Sentence News is a reader-supported publication. To support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.FTC issues ban on worker noncompete clausesSummary: The US Federal Trade Commission announced on Tuesday that employers, except in rare cases, can no longer prevent their employees from going to work at rival companies after quitting or being fired using a type of contract called a noncompete.Context: Noncompetes allow employers to say, for instance, that once you've left our company, you can't work for another company in the same industry for a given number of years, which helps protect said company at the expense of the employee's career options; the FTC decided that this was bad for the economy and for workers, and that it is often coercive, as employers tend to have enough leverage to force people to sign these contracts if they want to work in their industry of choice; this decision will almost certainly see court challenges by businesses and the US Chamber of Commerce, which argue noncompetes help them protect their intellectual property and trade secrets from rivals.—The New York TimesSenate sends sweeping foreign aid package to Biden's deskSummary: As predicted, the US Senate voted on Tuesday, 79 to 18, to pass a foreign aid package that was recently passed by the House; yesterday, the President signed the bill into law.Context: This package contains about $61 billion in assistance for Ukraine, $26 billion for Israel and Palestinians, and $8.12 billion for Taiwan and other Indo-Pacific interests; it also includes a provision that will require Chinese company ByteDance divest itself of its US assets, like TikTok, or face a ban in the country.—AxiosUS energy markets (and consequently, the energy markets of many US allies) have largely (though not entirely) defied expectations of disruption over the past few years, despite several land wars and burgeoning conflicts in the Middle East that previously—before the US became the biggest oil producer in the world on the strength of its shale oil fracking efforts—would have caused a whole lot of tumult and economic discomfort.—Financial Times34,183Number of confirmed people killed in Gaza following Israel's invasion of the Strip, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health.That's alongside 77,084 people who have been wounded, the around 7,000 people who are missing, and the 1.1 million people who are facing a “catastrophic” lack of food, which is the IPC's (a global hunger watchdog organization) worst hunger rating, at which point people are actively starving to death.—Al JazeeraTrust Click Get full access to One Sentence News at onesentencenews.substack.com/subscribe

Three news stories summarized & contextualized by analytic journalist Colin Wright.Note: My new book about aging and growing older with intention, How To Turn 39 (howtoturn39.com), is available for pre-sale :)UK Parliament approves Rwanda deportation bill, ending weeks of legislative stalemateSummary: Following months of unsuccessful attempts by British Prime Minister Sunak to kick off a program that would allow the government to send some migrants to the UK to Rwanda, the House of Lords dropped its proposed amendments to the policy and recognized the House of Commons' primacy in the matter, which has allowed the bill to move forward.Context: This deal has been in the works, in some form, for about two years, and would allow the British government to deport some migrants who enter the country illegally to Rwanda as a means of deterring future illegal entrants; this new legislation was formulated in response to a Supreme Court ruling on an earlier iteration of the bill, which said it's illegal to deport migrants in this way because the government can't guarantee the safety of people shipped off to Rwanda; a new treaty with the Rwandan government would seem to address these concerns, and now that the House of Lords has removed itself as a barrier, lawsuits brought by migrants are the last remaining threat to this policy.—The Associated PressOne Sentence News is a reader-supported publication. To support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.H5N1 strain of Bird Flu found in milkSummary: The World Health Organization has announced that very high concentrations of the H5N1 bird flu virus strain have been detected in raw milk in the US, but that pasteurization kills the virus, so the vast majority of milk sold in stores, even from dairies that have been impacted by bird flu in recent months, is safe to drink.Context: This announcement arrives shortly after news that all sorts of mammals in the US have been confirmed infected by H5N1, and that a dairy farm worker in Texas caught the disease after being exposed to infected cattle; there's no evidence so far that H5N1 is transmissible between humans, but any new vector for spreading this sort of disease, which is incredibly deadly in its bird and mammalian hosts, is concerning, and the relevant agencies are on high alert regarding this pathogen, right now.—Barron'sNYPD arrests Gaza war protesters at NYU in fresh US campus flashpointSummary: Multiple people have been arrested by police following protests at NYU's campus Monday night, which follows similar protests and arrests at campuses across the US, including Yale and Columbia University.Context: Most of these protests are focused on Israel's ongoing invasion of the Gaza Strip, and protestors are generally demanding that their schools divest from weapons manufacturers and Israel-based entities that might be funding or otherwise supporting this invasion; there have been accusations of anti-Semitic language and attacks at and around some of these protests, there have also been concerns that non-students have mixed in with student protestors to co-opt these events and in some cases tilt them toward extreme language or small acts of violence, and many teachers and students have criticized the folks running these universities for calling the police to break up these protests, in some cases punishing students for protesting, even to the point of booting them from the university—all of which has created a firestorm of accusations and anger, and the emergence of more protests, at these and other educational institutions.—AxiosArgentina's economic activity is looking like to have dropped 5.9% in February compared to the same month in 2023, which (if confirmed) will mark the fourth straight month of declines during a period of intense austerity implemented by the country's new president, who ran on a platform of dramatically cutting spending and curtailing the nation's substantial inflation levels.—Reuters$2.4 trillionValue of global military spending in 2023—the highest it's been in 35 years.This uptick (of about 6.8% from 2022 levels) is primarily being attributed to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and all the spending that has resulted (within Ukraine and Russia, but also across Europe).—The New York TimesTrust Click Get full access to One Sentence News at onesentencenews.substack.com/subscribe

Three news stories summarized & contextualized by analytic journalist Colin Wright.Note: My new book about aging and growing older with intention, How To Turn 39 (howtoturn39.com), is available for pre-sale :)China military's biggest shakeup in 9 years adds info, cyber, and space unitsSummary: The Chinese Defense Ministry announced a reorganization of the country's military, the People's Liberation Army, or PLA, late last week—a move that seems to give more direct control to Chinese President Xi and loyalists within his government.Context: The PLA now consists of ground, navy, air, and rocket branches, alongside information, aerospace, cyber, and joint logistics support arms, and while some analysts discussing this move have said that it seems likely the reorganization was sparked in part by seeing which aspects of Russia's military setup has failed them during their invasion of Ukraine, others have contended that this is primarily a means of ousting military leaders who were responsible for a series of flubs, embarrassments, and corruption schemes over the past decade or so, and of further consolidating military power under Xi's direct control.—Nikkei AsiaOne Sentence News is a reader-supported publication. To support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Unions take aim at South after UAW winSummary: The United Auto Workers' Union has won its first victory in the US South, despite opposition from governors in the region who fought to keep them out of the Chattanooga, Tennessee Volkswagen plant where they won 75% of cast worker ballots.Context: This comes in the wake of other recent UAW victories across the US, including a major pay raise for union workers that was negotiated after launching a significant strike against the Big Three automakers in 2023; this is considered to be a vital moment for automakers and autoworkers in the US, as the shift toward plug-in hybrids and electric vehicles is resulting in a lot of turnover, but also a surge of investment in new infrastructure, and these workers and the unions that represent them are trying to ensure their demands are worked into the math of the new auto industry that's emerging.—The Wall Street JournalTwo Mexican mayoral contenders found dead on same daySummary: Two mayoral candidates were found dead on a single day in Mexico last week, bringing the total number of assassinations of candidates running in the upcoming presidential, congressional, and local elections to 17.Context: Assassinations of candidates, especially those that run on a platform of opposing powerful cartels and clamping down on crime, in general, is not uncommon in Mexico, and the killings are often quite brutal, images of the slain person's body shared on social media by those who murdered them as a warning to others who might oppose them, and in some cases cartels even run their own candidates and threaten or kill anyone who runs against them; the Mexican government is now providing bodyguards for around 250 candidates, but those who are running for local positions—the ones that are most commonly targeted by cartels with local interests—are typically last on the list for such protections.—Al JazeeraWith government support and encouragement, the Chinese economy has rapidly scaled its battery production capacity, and this has resulted in a dramatic overshoot over not just local demand for such batteries, but international demand—a problem that's shrinking price tags on batteries in many markets, but also increasing tensions with Chinese trade partners, which are accusing these companies of attempting to kill competing battery entities with unsustainably low prices.—Bloomberg>$76 millionAmount of political donations the Trump campaign has spent on the former President's legal fees since January 2023.That's about 26% of all donations the campaign has raised, and these expenditures are widening the gap between the money his campaign has available for election purposes and what his opponent's campaign has available to spend.—Financial TimesTrust Click Get full access to One Sentence News at onesentencenews.substack.com/subscribe

Three news stories summarized & contextualized by analytic journalist Colin Wright.Note: My new book about aging and growing older with intention, How To Turn 39 (howtoturn39.com), is available for pre-sale :)House approves $95 billion aid bill for Ukraine, Israel, and TaiwanSummary: After months of delay and uncertainty, a large, bipartisan majority of US House representatives voted to approved $95 billion in foreign aid for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan, alongside a bill that will require the Chinese company behind TikTok to divest its US assets or be banned in the country.Context: This approval will result in about $60 billion for Ukraine, $26 billion for Israel, including humanitarian aid for civilians in the region, and $8 billion for Indo-Pacific priorities like Taiwan, alongside a measure that could lead to a sell-off of frozen Russian assets to generate more money for Ukraine, and another that will apply further sanctions to Iran; there was a lot of politicking behind this vote, and House Speaker Johnson, a Republican, could be targeted by far-right members of his own party for an ouster because he worked with Democrats to make it happen, though Democrats have signaled that they would possibly protect him from said ouster if he brought a vote on aid for Ukraine to the floor, which he did; the Senate is expected to pass this legislation as early as Tuesday, and President Biden will likely sign it shortly thereafter.—The New York TimesOne Sentence News is a reader-supported publication. To support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Floods kill 58 in Tanzania with heavy rains persistingSummary: At least 58 people have been confirmed killed and more than 126,000 have been affected by floods in Tanzania triggered by heavy and persistent rainfall the first two weeks of April.Context: The Tanzanian government has said it will construct 14 new dams to help prevent flooding in the impacted areas in the future, as the country was hit by similarly destructive floods four months ago, those ones killing at least 63 people; April is the peak of Tanzania's rainy season, but this year's rainfall throughout the region has been especially intense, amplified by the now-waning El Niño phenomenon.—Al JazeeraIsrael's Iran attack carefully calibrated after internal splits and US pressureSummary: An apparent attack on Iran by Israel late last week is being seen as a measured response to Iran's, by many estimates also fairly measured, attack on Israel the previous week. Context: Many governments are worried that the long-lived shadow conflict between Israel and Iran, both governments hitting each other covertly and through proxies in order to avoid a direct, full-on war, might be pushed into the open by Israel's recent strike on an Iranian embassy in Syria, which, according to international law, is tantamount to a strike on Iran itself; Iran countered with a wave of rockets and drones, most of which were intercepted by Israel and its allies, so little damage was caused to mostly military infrastructure, and Israel then struck back with its own moderate, military infrastructure-targeting drone and missile strikes; all of which seems calibrated to avoid escalation, and even though Israel was encouraged to not strike back following Iran's attack, Iran's government seems to be playing down that most recent strike internally, and Israel's government seems to have done what it did in order to appease political factions that wanted a more significant, potentially war-starting attack; so relatively chilled-out tit-for-tatting all around, despite the indisputable significance and potential implications of these two nations launching attacks on each other, directly.—ReutersMore than 50,000 Russian soldiers have died in Ukraine, according to new numbers from BBC Russian, Mediazona, and a group of volunteers that have been keep track of such deaths since February 2022; Russia has been making more territorial gains this year, but they've reportedly suffered almost 25% more deaths as a result of that effort.—BBC News215.1 billionValue, in yuan, of direct foreign investment in China for the first two months of 2024—equivalent to about $29.88 billion.That's down 19.9% from the previous year, though it's still the third-highest haul of the past decade.—The Wall Street JournalTrust Click Get full access to One Sentence News at onesentencenews.substack.com/subscribe

Three news stories summarized & contextualized by analytic journalist Colin Wright.Note: My new book about aging and growing older with intention, How To Turn 39 (https://books2read.com/htt39), is available for pre-sale :)Historic Copenhagen stock exchange in Denmark goes up in flamesSummary: One of Copenhagen's oldest buildings, a stock exchange that was built in 1625, caught fire earlier this week, the cause of the fire currently unknown, about half of the building burning to the ground.Context: The director of the Danish chamber of commerce, which is housed in the old stock exchange, has said it would be rebuilt, as the building has similar symbolic meaning to the country as Notre-Dame (which burned down about five years ago) does to Paris; members of the public joined emergency services in hauling giant works of art out of the building as it burned, and the fire department chief said that it will take time to assess the full extent of the damage, as the fire was extensive and the building is covered by scaffoldings due to an extensive renovation it was undergoing.—BBC NewsOne Sentence News is a reader-supported publication. To support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Nigeria inflation climbs to 28-year high in MarchSummary: New data from the Nigerian National Bureau of Statistics show that the country experienced its 15th straight month of increasing consumer inflation, that figure reaching 31.7% in February and 33.2% in March, marking a 28-year high.Context: The Bureau said that food and non-alcoholic beverage prices were the most prominent contributors to these inflationary effects, though the President's decision to end the country's petrol subsidy, which was costing the government a fortune but saving citizens a lot of money on energy costs, and two devaluations of the naira currency are also playing a major role.—ReutersUS to help Armenia modernize its militarySummary: In the wake of a major defeat at the hands of its chief rival and neighbor, Azerbaijan, which swept into the contested Nagorno-Karabakh region last September, taking control of the area and causing a wave of Armenians to flee from it into Armenia proper, the EU and US have offered Armenia more than $350 million in military assistance, alongside military cooperation with US forces.Context: This is being seen as a huge pivot for Armenia, which has traditionally been in Russia's military orbit, but which saw Russia's failure to act on their behalf when Azerbaijan invaded as a signal that it was being left in the lurch, and could no longer rely upon its long-time protector and patron; the US has not indicated that Armenia needs to sever its remaining ties with Russia as part of this deal, and many components of this cooperation have yet to be finalized, so the nature and strength of this newfound friendliness with the West aren't yet written in stone.—EurasianetWhile most of the world is weaning itself off of coal, for the fourth year in a row China has increased its construction of new coal energy infrastructure, apparently deviating from plans to retire a significant portion of its coal power plants in favor of cleaner versions of the same.—CarbonBrief2%Portion of total available electricity consumed by data centers powering AI chatbots, according to the chief marketing officer of British semiconductor company, Arm.Some analysts have said that use could double by 2026, and that same executive said that a quarter of all electricity in the US could be consumed by these AI-focused data centers by 2030 if the way we use energy doesn't change, soon.—QuartzTrust Click Get full access to One Sentence News at onesentencenews.substack.com/subscribe

Three news stories summarized & contextualized by analytic journalist Colin Wright.Note: My new book about aging and growing older with intention, How To Turn 39 (https://books2read.com/htt39), is available for pre-sale :)Heavy floods hit Dubai airport as Oman toll rises to 18Summary: At least 18 people have been confirmed killed in Oman, and parts of the UAE, including Dubai's airport and several major shopping centers, were shut down due to torrential rains and widespread flooding the first half of this week.Context: Portions of Dubai remained closed yesterday as more storms were forecast, but some parts of the region already received more rain in a single day than they receive in a whole year, and because this is a desert climate zone, infrastructure for handling these sorts of storms and this volume of rainfall is lacking; other countries in the region, like Bahrain, also received record-high levels of rainfall, but haven't yet reported any fatalities or major shutdowns.—Al-MonitorOne Sentence News is a reader-supported publication. To support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Venezuela and Honduras announce actions to protest Ecuador's embassy raidSummary: Following Ecuador's raid on Mexico's embassy in its capitol city, Quito, earlier this month, the governments of Venezuela and Honduras have said that they would be closing their consulates and embassy in Ecuador, and recalling their primary Ecuador-based diplomat, respectively.Context: These are being framed as protest actions by the governments in question, and they're just the latest of many similar actions taken by Latin American governments following what is generally considered to be a major breach of international law on the part of the Ecuadorian government, as another nation's embassy is legally treated as that nation's sovereign territory, making this raid akin to Ecuador sending police forces into Mexico; the Ecuadorian government maintains that it launched the raid in order to arrest former Ecuadorian Vice President Glas, who has been charged, twice, for corruption, and who had sought shelter in the Mexican embassy in order to avoid being arrested.—Al JazeeraTensions rise in Australia after a bishop and priest are wounded in a knife attack in a churchSummary: A 16-year-old boy has been accused of stabbing a Christian bishop and priest during a livestreamed church service in Sydney on Monday, marking the second high-profile knife attack in the city over the course of just a few days.Context: This is being treated as a hate crime by police, the teenage assailant's comments apparently pointing at a religious motivation for his attack, and after he was taken into custody, some police officers were wounded by a mob of parishioners who were prevented from seeking retribution against the attacker; police have since declared this attack to be an act of terrorism, and have stood guard around major mosques in the area to deter potential retaliations against the local Muslim community; another knife attack, which left five women and a male security guard dead at a Sydney shopping mall over the weekend is not being treated as terrorism, as the 40-year-old assailant, who was shot dead by police following his rampage, was apparently suffering from a mental illness that's assumed to be the trigger for his actions.—The Associated PressThere's been a boom in AI-oriented jobs across the US, but some hubs for these sorts of positions are beginning to develop, especially in areas with existing tech industry infrastructure and a cluster of related companies.—Axios250%Increase in the visa fee foreign musicians wanting to tour in the US have to pay as of April 1 of this year.In practice, that means if you're a musician wanting to enter the US to perform, the cost of filing your visa paperwork to do so is now somewhere between $1,615 and $1,655, up from just $460 before this price hike (and that fee applies to every performer and member of a performer's staff wanting to enter the country, and no money is refunded if a visa application is denied).The relevant agencies are saying these price increases are the result of higher levels of scrutiny that are being applied to visa requests, and a long delay in increases—the price not having changed since 2016.—The Associated PressTrust Click Get full access to One Sentence News at onesentencenews.substack.com/subscribe

Three news stories summarized & contextualized by analytic journalist Colin Wright.Note: My new book about aging and growing older with intention, How To Turn 39 (https://books2read.com/htt39), is available for pre-sale :)Fourth global mass coral bleaching episode underwaySummary: Recent record-high ocean temperatures are causing coral around the world to turn white, indicating that these creatures and the ecosystems they support are deteriorating.Context: This new wave of widespread coral bleaching and subsequent die-offs is the fourth that has been tracked in recent years, and it was initially flagged last year in the Caribbean, but has since been confirmed in Australia's Great Barrier Reef, in the Red Sea and Persian Gulf, and along coastlines in Tanzania, Mauritius, Brazil, and several Pacific Islands; recent record-high oceanic temperatures are partially the consequence of the El Niño phenomenon, which is in the process of retreating over the next few months, and human-amplified climate change, which by all indications is still growing in potency and impact.—BBC NewsOne Sentence News is a reader-supported publication. To support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Microsoft's new AI play is a $1.5 billion investment in an Abu Dhabi firm with China tiesSummary: Microsoft has announced a $1.5 billion investment in a UAE-based AI company, Group 42 Holdings, or G42, in order to provide enterprise-grade AI services to customers in the Middle East, Central Asia, and Africa.Context: This is interesting in part because it's a large investment by Microsoft in a non-Western business, which has been rare in the AI investment race, so far, but it's also notable because G42 has connections to China's military, and blacklisted Chinese businesses like Huawei and Beijing Genomics Institute, which has raised concerns in the US House that advanced AI technologies developed by and in partnership with Microsoft could end up in the hands of entities the US government isn't a big fan of; G42 has denied these China-related allegations, saying they've partnered with Chinese companies, but don't have any deeper ties to China, and Microsoft has said that both they and G42 have developed their working agreement in close consultation with the US and UAE governments.—QuartzGreece invests over €2 billion to fight climate change effectsSummary: Greece's government has announced that it will invest €2.1 billion in the Aegis program, which will provide new and better equipment for wildfire-fighting, including detection and monitoring drones and systems, but also new vehicles and aircraft.Context: This is the first program of its kind in Greece, and wildfires have become a significant issue for the country over the past few years, burning about 1.3% of its total land area in 2023, alone; Greece's fire season is also arriving earlier and earlier, historically beginning in May and ending in October, but this year kicking off in late March.—BloombergWe're broadly expected to be headed out of an especially strong El Niño period and into a La Niña phase within the next few months, which will impact weather patterns globally, and will provide more data about how (and to what degree) these phenomena impact climate models.—Axios0.7%Increase in US retail sales in March, which is more than was expected.This is being seen as one more data point supporting the assertion that the US economy is surprisingly strong, despite an array of what would typically be downward pressures, and all sorts of concerns related to the upcoming election, geopolitics, and a potential AI investment bubble.—ReutersTrust Click Get full access to One Sentence News at onesentencenews.substack.com/subscribe

Three news stories summarized & contextualized by analytic journalist Colin Wright.Note: It's my 39th birthday today!It's also the day my new book, fittingly called How To Turn 39 (https://books2read.com/htt39), goes on pre-sale (it officially launches in paperback, ebook, and audiobook form in a month, on May 16).This is a book about aging in general, not just for elder millennials like myself—so for folks who are older, younger, or around the same age and are thinking about what it means to get older and how we might do it better.If you're finding some value in what I'm doing here, consider pre-ordering yourself a copy (and thanks in advance if you do).Colombia's capital starts rationing water after reservoirs hit historically low levelsSummary: Last week, for the first time in four decades, the government of Bogotá, the capitol of Colombia, started rationing water due to historically low reservoir levels caused by an ongoing regional drought.Context: The city implemented water rationing in 1997, but that was due to a technical failure in the city's water system—the last time it suffered a drought that led to rationing was 1984; these new rationing rules are fairly lightweight at this point, requiring that neighborhoods reduce their water use for 24-hour periods three times per month, and officials will review the impacts of these measures every 15 days to determine when and whether they should be increased or halted.—The Associated PressOne Sentence News is a reader-supported publication. To support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.US drug shortages reach record high with 323 meds now in short supplySummary: New data collected by the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists indicate that there are 323 ongoing shortages of drugs in the US right now, including chemotherapy drugs, Adderall, and emergency crash cart injectables used at hospitals.Context: This surpasses the previous widest-spanning drug shortage in the country, back in 2014 when 320 drugs were in short supply, and the primary cause, of multiple causes, is money-related, many generic drugs earning their producers little or no profit, and the razor-thin margins on these products disincentivizing competitors from stepping in to fill the gap.—Ars TechnicaTesla to lay off more than 10% of workforce, Musk tells staff in emailSummary: After reporting its first year-over-year decline in quarterly deliveries since 2020, Tesla owner Elon Musk told Tesla's staff, in an email, that the company needs to reduce costs and will thus be laying off more than 10% of employees.Context: That decline in deliveries was only one bad piece of news for Tesla in recent years, as the company has been struggling to keep up with heightened competition in the West, and incredibly aggressive and government-backed EV makers in China, which have been moving quickly to export their ever-higher-quality, ever-lower-price offerings internationally; Musk says that the company's rapid expansion has also led to a duplication of roles and responsibilities across Tesla's more than 140,000-strong global workforce, and this wave of layoffs aims to reduce those growth-related redundancies.—The Wall Street JournalThe counterattack by Iran against Israel, following the latter's attack on the former's embassy in Syria, was dramatic and pulled in a collection of international players, including launches of missiles and drones from Yemen and Syria, and interception support from the US and Jordan.—The Wall Street Journal20Number of times a Falcon 9 rocket first stage has been used, setting a new record for SpaceX (and the space launch industry, in general) which has been reducing the cost of space launches, in part, by recapturing, refurbishing, and reusing rocket components.—Space.comTrust Click Get full access to One Sentence News at onesentencenews.substack.com/subscribe

Three news stories summarized & contextualized by analytic journalist Colin Wright.Iran warns Israel against retaliation, global powers urge restraintSummary: A long-predicted counterattack by Iran against Israel—following the latter's attack on the former's consulate in Syria earlier this month—finally arrived over the weekend, Iran launching hundreds of drones and missiles against targets in Israel on Saturday, the Israeli military saying they managed to intercept 99% of them.Context: This is a rapidly developing story, and the big question, currently, is whether Israel's government will accept that this was Iran's response to their attack on Iran's consulate and leave it at that, little damage done, or if they'll escalate things, responding in kind or with a heightened attack of their own, which could then lead to a spiral of tit-for-tat strikes that many other nations worry could lead to a full-blown, Middle East-wide conflict; there are a lot of moving parts here, but Iran's statements on the matter seem to indicate they're willing to leave things as they are, having made their point, though a lot of the commentary on this attack is focusing on how this strike crossed a previously uncrossed line, Iran attacking Israel directly from its own soil, which ostensibly increases the risk of that worried-about wider conflict emerging, though again, the way Iran did this strongly hints that they needed to save face, so they lobbed a bunch of easy-to-intercept weapons at military targets in Israel in order to do that, and now they're willing to leave things where they are, no more attacks from their end, if Israel is willing to do the same.—ReutersOne Sentence News is a reader-supported publication. To support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Trump tried everything to avoid a criminal trial, but the day has arrivedSummary: Former President Donald Trump will sit for the first day of his criminal trial in a New York court, today, making him the first former president to do so, and kicking off what's expected to be six to eight weeks of legal processes.Context: Trump will have to sit in court four days a week for the duration of this trial, which will significantly impact his electioneering schedule, and though this case has the lowest overt stakes of all the legal cases he faces right now—it's related to alleged hush-money payments he made through his lawyer to cover up an affair in the early days of his running for president, years ago—it could still result in jail time, though that's considered to be unlikely in this case, unless the former president is untruthful or disruptive in some way that the judge finds to be untoward; more likely, according to most analysts right now, is some kind of probation, if he loses the case.—The Wall Street JournalBiden administration sets first-ever limits on ‘forever chemicals' in drinking waterSummary: Last week, the US government announced new, stricter limitations on PFAS—also called “forever chemicals,” because of how strong their bonds are, and thus, how long they stick around in the environment and our bodies after use—that will require water utilities dramatically reduce their levels in drinking water.Context: This follows a wave of new research that indicates PFAS are associated with all sorts of health issues, including low birth weight, liver disease, and certain cancers; it's expected that this will cost utilities about $1.5 billion to implement each year, but it's also expected to prevent a lot of deaths and serious illnesses; PFAS are found all over the place, especially in waterproofing and nonstick pans, and while some of the nearly 15,000 in-use PFAS chemicals have already been phased-out in the US due to similar health concerns, these new limits only target PFAS that have been thus far confirmed toxic to humans, and they provide a few years of runway for water utilities to test for these chemicals in their systems, and to install the necessary equipment for filtering them out.—The Associated PressThe push for electric vehicles in India is growing stronger, as the government is keen to reduce pollution levels at the local scale, and reduce its emissions numbers at a national level, but the country already has a flourishing three-wheeled electric vehicle industry, though many people don't realize this, as auto-rickshaws are so common as to blend into the background in many Indian cities, and brand-recall is nearly non-existent in this facet of transportation (a huge contrast to the Tatas and Teslas operating in the four-wheeled EV space).—Rest of World4,240Number of books targeted for bans in US schools and libraries in 2023, according to the American Library Association.That's a 65% increase from 2022, and the books are largely being targeted by conservative parent groups, and are primarily written by people of color and LGBTQ authors.—The Wall Street JournalTrust Click Get full access to One Sentence News at onesentencenews.substack.com/subscribe

Three news stories summarized & contextualized by analytic journalist Colin Wright.Ethnic guerrillas in Myanmar look set to seize an important town on the Thai border from militarySummary: Earlier this week, the Karen National Liberation Army in Myanmar claimed to have almost taken control of a major trading hub called Myawaddy, which is located along the country's border with Thailand.Context: This marks just one of many recent defeats for the Myanmar military government, which launched a coup and took control of the country from the elected government in February of 2021, suppressing nonviolent protests in the aftermath of that coup, which seems to have sown the seeds for the array of guerrilla efforts plaguing them across the country, today; in October of last year, three different rebel groups formed an alliance and kicked off a significant offensive in the northeastern portion of Myanmar, and that snowballed into the sequence of defeats and retreats that have dogged the military government leading up to today.—The Associated PressOne Sentence News is a reader-supported publication. To support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Google says it will destroy browsing data collected from Chrome's Incognito modeSummary: As part of a settlement for a lawsuit filed against the company in 2020, Google has said it will destroy what it calls “billions of data points” that it collected from users of its Chrome browsers while those users had Incognito mode activated, and that it will also update its disclosures about what sorts of data it collects when that feature in is use.Context: The crux of this lawsuit is that everything about Chrome's Incognito mode, from its icon to its name, implies that folks using it won't be tracked, and that they can thus safely and privately engage in whatever online behavior they choose, but that's not the case—Google still monitors Incognito activities, and passes on some of that data to the sites they visit; the lawsuit initially asked for up to $5 billion in damages, citing federal wiretapping and California privacy laws, and while some individuals are now filing separate cases aiming to get payouts for these alleged privacy violations, the court didn't approve financial damages in this case, provided the company delete the data they collected from these users, and that they make more clear how this function works, moving forward.—EngadgetArizona reinstates 160-year-old abortion banSummary: On Tuesday, Arizona's Supreme Court upheld a law from 1864 that bans all abortions, except to save a woman's life, though the court put the ruling on hold while a lower court sorts out whether or not it's constitutional.Context: This ruling is notable in part because of how harsh it is, not making any exceptions in cases of rape or incest, and in allowing for the prosecution and imprisonment of doctors who perform abortions in the state, and it's also notable because the issue of abortion is looking to be a key factor in the upcoming US elections, to the point that Republican candidates—those in Arizona but also former President and once-more Presidential Candidate Trump—are backtracking on previous, anti-abortion positions, softening their language on the matter in an attempt to give Democratic competitors less ammunition to use against them in the run-up to that vote; the state's attorney general, who's a Democrat, has said she wouldn't enforce this law if it does end up sticking.—The New York TimesFor the first time, the NCAA women's basketball final attracted more viewers than the men's championship game, pulling in just shy of 18.9 million views versus 14.8 million for the men's game.—Axios1.76%Percent of Canada's GDP the country intends spend on its military by 2030, following a new pledge by the government to boost its defense budget.That's still short of the 2% target NATO nations are supposed to aim for, but it's up from the current 1.4%.—ReutersTrust Click Get full access to One Sentence News at onesentencenews.substack.com/subscribe