Flagship

Biden-Trump rematch officially on

U.S. President Joe Biden and Donald Trump secured the votes to clinch their parties’ nominations for the 2024 election. The news is not unexpected — Trump has dominated the Republican campaign from the start, while sitting presidents rarely face serious challengers. But their latest primary victories make their nominations mathematically certain. Both used their speeches to focus on the other: Biden said “the threat Trump poses is greater than ever,” while Trump promised to “get to work to beat Joe Biden.” It’s the first presidential rematch since Eisenhower vs. Stevenson in 1956, and a Trump win would make him the second president, after Grover Cleveland in 1884 and 1892, to serve two non-consecutive terms.

Haiti leaders chart path forward

Haitian leaders met to discuss the formation of a transitional government following Prime Minister Ariel Henry’s resignation. Henry — who was unelected, having assumed power after the assassination of the country’s leader — was pressured into stepping down by gangs that now largely dominate Haiti. The country’s descent into anarchy has paralyzed the economy, raising the risk of widespread hunger: According to the U.N.’s food agency, at least a million people are on the verge of famine in Haiti, which imports 50% of its food. Meanwhile a plan to deploy 1,000 Kenyan police officers to pacify the country was halted until a new government has been formed, a process some believe could drag on for weeks.

Nigeria looting over economic crisis

Violent unrest and looting spread in parts of Nigeria as millions struggle to get enough food amid soaring prices. In response, the government has deployed troops to protect food warehouses, some of which have been emptied of grain. Inflation has soared since President Bola Tinubu scrapped a fuel subsidy on which the country relied. Insecurity in the north — including the abductions of hundreds in recent weeks — has also hurt the economy and caused prices to jump. Some experts worry the situation could spiral further: “People are rebelling against a perceived break in the social contract,” an analyst at an Abuja-based think tank told the Financial Times. “This could descend into uncontrolled chaos if not carefully managed.”

US warned over AI ‘extinction’ threat

The U.S. must move “quickly and decisively” to avoid security risks from artificial intelligence, up to and including an “extinction-level threat” to humanity, a government-commissioned report said. It found that workers at frontier AI companies are worried that the “default trajectory” of their organizations could have “catastrophic outcomes,” one of the report’s authors told TIME. Many researchers think that artificial general intelligence, capable of doing most tasks as well or better than humans, could arrive within five years, “behave adversarially to humans by default,” and prove hard to control. The report recommended that open-source sharing of AI weights should be banned, and that training AIs above a certain level of capability should require government permission.

Putin again threatens nuclear use

Russian President Vladimir Putin again raised the specter of Moscow using nuclear weapons, putting the onus on the West to avoid threatening Russia’s sovereignty. The remarks, in an interview with Russian state television, largely reiterated comments Putin has repeatedly made since his full-scale invasion of Ukraine. But the public nature and cadence of these warnings breaks with the “extreme caution” exercised by the president’s predecessors, Reuters noted. Though Washington has insisted it sees no change to Moscow’s nuclear posture, The New York Times reported that in Oct. 2022, the White House was worried the Kremlin might actually use nuclear weapons in Ukraine, with the CIA saying the likelihood of their use may have been above 50%.

Gaza aid vessel en route

A Spanish ship carrying 200 tonnes of humanitarian aid for Palestinians was due in Gaza after it set sail from Cyprus along a newly opened maritime corridor. The vessel is part of efforts to ferry much-needed goods by air or sea to the enclave, which has been hit by a desperate shortage of food, medical supplies, and other humanitarian relief as ground-based aid transfers have been curbed by Israeli restrictions. The U.S. also plans to build a temporary port for Gaza, but that is unlikely to be ready for several weeks. The push for humanitarian assistance comes with little sign of the war abating: Qatari mediators said Israel and Hamas were not close to a ceasefire deal.

Piano, sports lessons decline in China

Chinese families are reining in spending on extracurricular activities. Parents are withdrawing their children from soccer classes, and many swimming schools and sports clubs have closed, Reuters reported. Partly, the thriftiness is a result of China’s economic woes, but it’s also an unintended consequence of Beijing’s crackdown on private-sector tutoring: Schools have been ordered to stay open late, meaning working parents who opted for after-school lessons to keep children occupied can now simply leave them at school. Whatever the cause, ThinkChina reported last month that piano sales are down: One piano manufacturer’s profits fell 90%, and 30% of piano schools have closed.

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Olympic boost for French wood

Paris has focused on sustainability for this summer’s Olympics, with 95% of venues either being existing facilities or made to be taken apart and reused. Every Olympic city has used the arrival of the games for a grand projet: London 2012 redeveloped a huge derelict tract into its Olympic park. But Paris wants the games to drive “a green transformation of France’s construction industry,” Bloomberg reported, using more wood in their manufacture — the 5,000-seater aquatic center, for example, will be mainly timber. It was also prefabricated off-site in Lego-like chunks and can be easily disassembled. France is deliberately turning to wood construction, which can be carbon-neutral, backing the $5 billion industry with $218 million in subsidies.

Giant redwoods thrive in UK

There are now six times as many giant sequoia redwoods in Britain as in their native California. Sequoiadendron giganteum specimens were introduced to the U.K. around 160 years ago, and have thrived in Britain’s cool, wet weather, not unlike that of northern California’s forests. A new study found around 500,000 in the country, compared to 80,000 in California itself. The largest British one is a mere 180 feet tall, compared to more than 300 feet for the tallest Californian trees, but sequoia can live for 2,000 years, so there’s “plenty of time for the U.K.’s trees to catch up,” the BBC reported.

UK CO2 emissions at Victorian levels

The U.K.’s greenhouse gas emissions fell to their lowest levels since 1879, when Queen Victoria still had 22 years left to reign and Benjamin Disraeli was prime minister. Emissions fell to the equivalent of just 383 million tonnes of carbon dioxide last year, and coal use dropped to its lowest level since the 1730s, with just one coal station still in operation. The year-on-year drop of 5.7% is somewhat exaggerated because 2022 emissions were unusually high thanks to outages in the French nuclear fleet, which supplies some U.K. power. But the overall story remains the same — U.K. emissions are now 53% below 1990 levels, while the economy has grown 82%, Carbon Brief analysis found.

Sen. Michael Bennet; Sen. Ron Wyden; John Waldron, President & COO, Goldman Sachs; Tom Lue, General Counsel, Google DeepMind; Nicolas Kazadi, Finance Minister, DR Congo; and Jeetu Patel, EVP and General Manager, Security & Collaboration, Cisco have joined the world class line-up of global economic leaders for the 2024 World Economy Summit, taking place in Washington, D.C. on April 17-18. See all speakers and sessions, and RSVP here.

• The European Parliament is set to adopt the Artificial Intelligence Act.
• The U.S. House of Representatives will vote on a bill that could ban TikTok.
• Thailand celebrates its annual National Elephant Day.

Anna Jane Joyner, founder & CEO of Good Energy Stories, a consulting firm that advises Hollywood filmmakers on climate change, chatted with Semafor’s Climate & Energy Editor Tim McDonnell. Subscribe to Tim’s newsletter on the energy transition, Net Zero. Sign up here.

An ancient Chinese dish associated with the military is being revived. Zhacai — a type of pickled mustard green — is “enjoying something of a renaissance,” Nikkei reported, as entrepreneurs market the preserved vegetable to young people on social media, some touting new lychee and mango flavors. The food is thought to have gained popularity in Sichuan province in A.D. 213 as a nutritious ration supply for soldiers. Worried the dish will lose out to other global cuisines, a district known for growing zhacai is now courting influencers to promote the pickles through livestream sales and video-sharing platforms.

• How Africans have become the solution to the UK’s elderly care crisis.
• TikTok fights for its life on Capitol Hill. Will it be enough?
• What a rise in US inflation rates will mean for the elections and interest rates.