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UK vote spotlights Gaza fallout

A U.K. parliamentary vote expected later today highlights the growing fallout in Western politics over the Israel-Hamas war. Britain’s opposition Labour Party has been split over a motion calling for an “immediate ceasefire” in Gaza with ministers earlier quitting to vote in favor. On Wednesday the party, which is expected to win the next general election, shifted its stance, saying for the first time that there should be an immediate humanitarian ceasefire. The vote will take place as thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters demonstrate outside the Houses of Westminster, underscoring the electoral stakes for Labour. The longer-term consequences will resonate beyond any single country, an Islam scholar wrote in Foreign Policy: “There is an unprecedented level of outrage against the United States and its Western allies, which may have long-lasting consequences.”

Biden witness met Russian spies

A key witness in the U.S. Republican Party’s impeachment case against President Joe Biden was in contact with Russian intelligence, court documents said. Alexander Smirnov, a former FBI informant, was arrested last week for allegedly lying in court about Biden and his son Hunter taking $5 million in bribes from a Ukrainian company. Prosecutors revealed documents stating that Smirnov said Russian intelligence officials passed him a story. It is a blow to the already struggling impeachment process, which has failed to show that Biden was involved in his son’s business dealings, especially since Republican officials repeatedly praised Smirnov’s testimony as “credible” and then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy described him a “trusted” informant.

Haley persists in longshot campaign

Big-ticket donors are still contributing to Nikki Haley’s longshot campaign against Donald Trump for the Republican U.S. presidential nomination. Though the former South Carolina governor is badly lagging the ex-president in the polls, and looks almost certain to lose this weekend’s primary in her home state, her campaign and an allied political action committee drew more than $16 million last month, The Wall Street Journal said. Haley is still targeting Trump in attack ads, Semafor’s Principals newsletter reports today, while Trump is showing some signs of financial stress: The Financial Times reported that he entered the year with 200,000 fewer donors than at the same point four years ago, and his campaign spent more than it brought in last month.

Rivals join forces against China

South Korean rivals LG and Samsung are joining forces to build displays, the latest effort by longtime competitors to fend off growing threats from Chinese businesses. The pair have long dominated the field for high-end screens in TVs, monitors, and smartphones, but Chinese companies have made inroads in the sector in recent years, forcing Samsung to close its last factory in China and rely instead on an LG facility to produce panels. Theirs is not the only industry upended by high-quality Chinese competition: European carmakers Stellantis, Volkswagen, and Renault are considering banding together to face down the threat of Chinese electric vehicles. Europe’s automotive industry faces a “bloodbath” otherwise, Stellantis’ chief executive told Bloomberg.

Neruda murder inquiry reopened

Chile reopened an investigation into the death of Nobel laureate Pablo Neruda. A court in Santiago said previous inquiries into the poet’s death, days after Chile’s 1973 military coup, had not been sufficiently “exhaustive.” For decades, the official cause of his death has been registered as cancer. However some forensic experts have suggested that Neruda — who was a member of Chile’s Communist Party when hard-right dictator Augusto Pinochet seized power — was murdered. Neruda’s then-driver claimed in a 2011 interview that the poet was “killed by the military junta” through an injection while he was being treated in a Santiago hospital.

Satellite self-immolates

A nearly three-decade-old satellite will end its life today in a fiery descent into the Earth’s atmosphere. ERS-2, a then cutting-edge planetary observatory, was launched in 1995 by the European Space Agency to monitor ice-sheet changes, surface temperatures, and earthquakes. Space debris rules have changed since its launch: It was considered acceptable for defunct spacecraft to orbit for 25 years, but that is dangerous with so many satellites in orbit. So when it was retired in 2011, ERS-2 used the last of its fuel to decelerate, so the drag from the upper atmosphere would bring it down. The satellite should burn up in the atmosphere, and what remains will likely fall in the sea.

Cattle ship stinks out Cape Town

A docked ship holding 19,000 cows that has enveloped Cape Town with a putrid smell is expected to leave South African waters today. The “unimaginable” odor is indicative of “the awful conditions the animals endure” after spending weeks crammed into holding pens riddled with feces and ammonia, a South African animal rights group told The New York Times. Although it’s apparently the first time such a ship has moored in Cape Town, live cattle shipping remains common across the world despite attempts to curb it: Demand remains high partly because in some countries “there is a traditional belief … that fresh meat is in some way tastier, healthier” than frozen meat, the chief policy adviser at Compassion in World Farming told the BBC.

EVs could prevent lung disease

An all-electric car fleet could prevent around 4.5 million cases of childhood lung conditions in the U.S. alone, according to a report for the American Lung Association. The switch to electric vehicles’ climate benefits are well documented, but EVs’ lack of tailpipe emissions will also mean cleaner air in cities, where most cars drive. The report said that if all new cars sold in the U.S. are electric by 2035, as the Biden administration’s Net Zero plans demand, then 2.67 million cases of upper respiratory symptoms and 1.87 million cases of lower respiratory symptoms — and 500 cases of child mortality — could be prevented.

Brain implants shine light on our minds

Brain-computer interfaces, intended to help restore function to people with paralysis, are helping scientists understand the brain in greater detail than ever before. Electrodes embedded in the brain capture neural activity and translate it into commands: They have variously helped people move prosthetic arms, write, speak, and even walk. Elon Musk’s Neuralink announced yesterday that a patient could control a mouse cursor using their thoughts. And Nature reported that the growth of BCIs is revealing new facts about the brain. The electrodes give information at the level of single neurons, showing that brain regions’ roles are much less well-defined than thought — one area thought to be involved in speech production seems not to be, for instance — and that the brain’s ability to grow new connections is more complicated than believed.

Four-day week trials reveal little

Despite dozens of trials into four-day working weeks, there is still little evidence about their impact. In 2022, 61 U.K. businesses experimented with giving employees an extra day off each week. Of those, 54 continued the pattern after the trial ended. But a policy researcher told the Financial Times that, despite apparent benefits for wellbeing and staff retention, few conclusions could be drawn, because the trial was poorly designed: The companies were self-selecting rather than randomized, and there was no control group to see what would have happened without the change. Trials of policy rarely include what scientists would consider very basic experimental design standards, but without them the evidence for or against a policy will always be weak.

• Guyana, the world’s fastest growing oil producer, hosts industry officials from Qatar, Brazil, Nigeria, Suriname, and the U.S. at a conference in its capital.
• A European Union court is expected to issue a judgment on the protected status of halloumi cheese.
• The docuseries Messi’s World Cup: Rise of a Legend is released on Apple TV+.

Age of Vice by Deepti Kapoor charts three protagonists — the scion of a mafia-esque family, his closest footsoldier, and an aspiring but conflicted investigative journalist — involved in a car crash in early 2000s New Delhi, exploring the grim intersection of criminality, politics, and hope. The book is the first in a planned trilogy, and is due to be turned into a TV series, so there’s plenty more to come, but it’s worth digging in now. Buy it from your local bookstore.

A Tokyo neighborhood is launching a tour of its redesigned public toilets. Japan has long been renowned for its cleanliness, including that of its well-maintained and often high-tech restrooms. Now an initiative called The Tokyo Toilet is showing off 17 facilities in Shibuya district that were recently renovated by top architects through a tour for “restroom enthusiasts.” All 17 — referred to as symbols of Japan’s world-renowned hospitality culture — can be visited on a four-hour shuttle trip. Among the highlights, noted the design blog Spoon & Tamago, is a facility in a park where the glass walls, transparent when unoccupied, turn opaque when locked.

Semafor’s 2024 World Economy Summit, on April 17-18, will feature conversations with global policymakers and power brokers in Washington, against the backdrop of the IMF and World Bank meetings.

Chaired by former U.S. Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker and Carlyle Group co-founder David Rubenstein, and in partnership with BCG, the summit will feature 150 speakers across two days and three different stages, including the Gallup Great Hall. Join Semafor for conversations with the people shaping the global economy.

• Ghana eyes iron ore processing to boost its economy.
• Heritage recruits an army to build a Trump presidency playbook.
• Global Election Hot List: Indonesia, Poland, Kenya.