Flagship

Israel sets deadline for Rafah assault

Israel set a March 10 deadline for the return of all hostages held by Hamas, warning it would otherwise push into Rafah, where half of Gaza’s population is sheltering. Israel is planning for its assault on Gaza to last at least another six to eight weeks, officials told Reuters, while a war cabinet member said “the fighting will continue everywhere” if the deadline — which falls on the first day of Ramadan — is not met. The country has rejected growing international concerns about a Rafah invasion deepening Gaza’s humanitarian crisis, saying the town is a Hamas stronghold. The new timeline puts increased pressure on negotiations over a ceasefire, and comes as the United Nations’ top court heard arguments urging it to declare that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land is illegal.

Navalny’s widow to continue fight

The widow of deceased Russian dissident Alexei Navalny declared she would carry on her husband’s fight against President Vladimir Putin. “I want to live in a free Russia. I want to build a free Russia,” said Yulia Navalnaya, accusing Putin of murdering her husband at an Arctic penal colony. Navalnaya’s declarations were heralded internationally, but her success as an opposition leader in Russia will depend on whether she can present herself as a “self-accomplished entity” with her own political style, Russian political analyst Tatiana Stanovaya argued. U.S. Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump, meanwhile, broke his silence about what he called Navalny’s “sudden death,” making no mention of Putin and instead lamenting his own perceived political persecution.

Von der Leyen seeks reelection

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced she is seeking a second term, vowing to prioritize defense as Russian aggression and the prospect of Donald Trump’s return to the White House force the continent to rethink its security strategies. Von der Leyen, one of Europe’s most powerful politicians, said Monday she also wants the European Union to curb undocumented immigration. The bloc faces surging far-right and populist forces, a heightened rivalry with China, and little prospect of the war in Ukraine ending anytime soon. “The EU is at a turning point,” Bloomberg wrote recently, suggesting that von der Leyen’s second term could be even more complicated than her first.

Biden faces chip delays

U.S. President Joe Biden’s effort to boost domestic computer chip manufacturing and reduce reliance on East Asia is running into obstacles as sales slump and manufacturers extend their construction timelines. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company said it would start producing chips at its new $40 billion Arizona plant in 2025 instead of this year, saying local workers lacked the expertise needed to install some high-tech equipment. Intel, Microchip Technology, and others have adjusted their production schedules as well, The New York Times reported. The delays raise questions about the future success of Biden’s $39 billion chips initiative and his wider infrastructure policy agenda, which are expected to be a major part of his reelection pitch.

Reddit sells its data for $60M

Reddit reportedly signed a deal allowing an artificial intelligence company to train models on the social media site’s data. The unnamed AI firm agreed to pay $60 million annually to Reddit — once dubbed “the front page of the internet” — for the site’s archive going back nearly 20 years, Bloomberg reported. The contract represents a new revenue stream for social media sites and news publishers; OpenAI signed similar agreements with the Associated Press and German publisher Axel Springer last year. Reddit is expected to go public next month at a valuation of at least $5 billion, and its AI efforts could help drive up that figure.

Taiwan gives kids mental health days

High schoolers in Taiwan will be able to take up to three days off per semester for mental health purposes under new guidelines aimed at addressing student wellbeing. Several Taiwanese universities embraced mental health leave policies starting in 2022, and during the previous academic year, students at 11 colleges took more than 29,000 mental health days, the Taipei Times reported. Young people globally are reporting higher levels of emotional distress, a pattern partly attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic. Governments have increasingly turned to additional days off as a partial solution: More than 10 states in the U.S. now allow children to take an excused absence if they feel depressed or anxious, or just need to recharge.

Myanmar flocks to Chinese EVs

Chinese electric vehicles are becoming increasingly popular in Myanmar after the military regime banned the import of gasoline-powered cars. The number of EVs in the country increased sixfold over the last year, a trend fueled by high gas prices and the scrapping of import tariffs. Myanmar’s largest city Yangon is now dotted with EV showrooms displaying models from Chinese manufacturers like BYD, Neta, and Leapmotor, Nikkei reported. Their offerings are often economical: Purchasing a new Leapmotor EV in Myanmar is now about $7,000 cheaper than a used, locally manufactured Suzuki, and it costs roughly 80% less to drive an EV than a gas-powered car over the same distance.

NASA seeks Mars volunteers

NASA is recruiting volunteers for a — and this is important — simulated year-long mission to Mars at a site in Houston, Texas. The Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog (CHAPEA 2) will house four people in a 1,700-square-foot sealed habitat intended to mimic life on the red planet. It will be the second of three missions; the first crew is about halfway through its 378-day assignment. NASA plans to send astronauts to Mars “as early as the 2030s,” and the CHAPEA simulations will help determine how humans will fare during the long journey. Applicants must be English-speaking U.S. citizens aged 30 to 55 with a STEM master’s degree and two years of work experience.

Startup using AI to lay bricks

A Dutch startup is using artificial intelligence to lay bricks, potentially disrupting the lucrative construction industry, which is worth about $2 trillion in the U.S. alone. Construction often involves repetitive and sometimes dangerous work, making it “ripe for automation-fueled disruption,” TechCrunch reported. Bricklaying robots already exist, but they’re mainly used for larger concrete masonry blocks — Amsterdam-based Monumental specializes in “the more familiar red clay variety.” The company launched several pilot projects, including building the exterior of an office building, and it has partnered with 25 contractors.

Wild boars wreck Canadian crops

Descendants of Canadian pigs that mated with British boars are wreaking havoc on Canada’s prairies, and could pose a long-term problem to North American agriculture. The hybrids were created in the 1980s when Canadian pig farmers turned to wild boars to fortify their animals’ gene pool, The Economist reported. Many were released into the wild when the meat market crashed, and about 62,000 now roam Canada, with farmers living in fear that their crops will be torn up by a herd. The Southern U.S. is also facing a surge in wild hogs, but the hybrids are better-suited to cold weather, and Canada’s wildlife management officials only took out 300 of them last year. “They’re turbocharged superpigs,” a Saskatchewan professor said.

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Feb. 20:

• COP28 President Sultan al-Jaber addresses U.S. special climate envoy John Kerry and other environmental leaders at a roundtable hosted by the International Energy Agency.
• A U.K. court hears what could be WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s final legal attempt to avoid being extradited to the U.S. on espionage charges.
• The ITTF World Table Tennis Championships Finals take place in Busan, South Korea.

Ivo H. Daalder is CEO of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and former U.S. ambassador to NATO. He messaged after attending the Munich Security Conference last week.

A new fantasy-infused documentary charts the return of artifacts stolen from present-day Benin by France over a century ago. Dahomey, which premiered at the Berlin Film Festival on Sunday and is named for the former West African kingdom, goes behind the scenes at the Musée du Quai Branly in Paris as 26 items were packed up in 2021. Filmmaker Mati Diop said she originally envisioned the film as fiction, and the final product includes scripted commentary from a former Dahomey king. The voiceovers “flavor the whole film with mysterious unease,” Variety wrote. “Every straightforwardly celebratory impulse is complicated by a far greater ambivalence about whether actual redress can ever be made.”

• Can AI count hate crimes? We tried to find out.
• Kenya is being sued over a controversial ad deal.
• Pro-Israel groups targeted a Washington Post reporter.