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Protests over Erdoğan rival’s arrest

Protests in Turkey escalated Thursday over the arrest of one of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s top rivals. Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoğlu was detained in a sweeping operation along with 100 others just days before he was set to be named as a presidential candidate, a move that cemented Erdoğan’s grip on Turkey’s political landscape, Al-Monitor wrote. Erdoğan may have been emboldened by US President Donald Trump, one Turkey analyst said: “Trump has created such chaos that foreign autocrats [sense] they can do whatever they want.” The political turbulence is likely to further dent investor confidence in Turkey. The lira hit a record low against the dollar as investors warned of capital flight.

Tesla challenges mount

Tesla is facing mounting challenges despite the Trump administration’s efforts to boost support for the EV giant run by White House adviser Elon Musk. The company’s shares fell further Thursday even as the US commerce secretary urged Americans to buy its stock, and nearly all of Tesla’s Cybertrucks were recalled over a faulty panel. Adding to the headwinds: Tesla’s Chinese rival BYD is outpacing it in tech innovations, while anti-Tesla protests over Musk’s politics intensify in the US. Tesla is undergoing a “vibe shift,” Bloomberg wrote, arguing that Musk’s ideological rebrand has alienated customers. One Tesla investor warned that Musk is neglecting his EV business, and should either appoint a new CEO or scale back his White House work.

India faces US tech pushback

US tech companies are pushing back against India’s stringent approach to online speech. Elon Musk’s social media platform X sued the Indian government Thursday over what it described as a rash of takedown orders that equated to censorship, while the organization that runs Wikipedia asked a court to nullify a ruling that ordered the removal of a page about an ongoing legal dispute. American companies have generally pu​​t up minimal resistance to New Delhi’s oversight of tech platforms despite growing tensions in recent years. The X challenge comes at a geopolitically precarious time for both Musk — whose other businesses are looking to make inroads in India — and for India’s relationship with the US, as the countries explore a trade deal.

Europe economy vibe shift

Policy shifts in Brussels and Berlin are prompting investors to rethink their assumptions about Europe’s economy, analysts said. Despite the continent’s lackluster growth in recent years and as it braces for US President Donald Trump’s tariffs, financiers are now more upbeat about Europe’s growth prospects, owing to new defense spending plans from Germany and the bloc. That shift in sentiment is reflected in surging European stocks, while Wall Street flounders amid tariff-fueled inflation fears. “The moods across the Atlantic have switched places,” The Wall Street Journal’s Greg Ip wrote. The EU on Thursday delayed planned retaliatory tariffs against the US in hopes of averting an all-out trade war, as the European Central Bank’s head warned that countries with isolationist policies will “lose.”

US, UAE deepening tech ties

The United Arab Emirates plans to deepen its artificial intelligence investments in the US after US President Donald Trump hosted the Gulf nation’s national security adviser. Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed’s visit to Washington this week signaled that the UAE’s growing focus on AI is taking diplomatic priority over geopolitical issues like the war in Gaza, Middle East Eye wrote. Sheikh Tahnoon runs two sovereign wealth funds, one of which announced a $25 billion US energy venture to power AI, possibly allowing him to deploy more capital than any other single AI investor globally. The UAE is seeking access to the most advanced AI chips, betting on US technology over China and moving closer to Washington’s sphere of influence, analysts say.

US has gotten less happy

Finland was once again named the world’s happiest country, as the US slumped to its lowest position in the World Happiness report. Thanks in part to an erosion in social trust, the US fell to 24th place in the annual rankings that are powered by Gallup data, one spot lower than last year. The report noted that unhappy people in the US and Western Europe are more attracted to political extremes, with low-trust voters gravitating toward the far right and overly trusting individuals swinging to the left. While Americans’ trust in others has dropped to its lowest level in 50 years, Finland’s welfare society has ensured that trust there remains high “even during these difficult times globally,” the country’s US ambassador told Semafor.

China’s infrastructure push gets greener

China’s global infrastructure push is increasingly driven by renewable energy, reflecting the country’s changing industrial landscape. Foreign energy projects under China’s Belt and Road Initiative were once dominated by coal and gas, but last year clean tech initiatives eclipsed fossil fuels. While China’s dominance in renewables gives it an advantage over the US, the reasons behind the shift are more prosaic, Xiaoying You wrote in Semafor Net Zero: Solar panels, batteries, and electric vehicles have become a domestic growth engine, and therefore “also received the most attention under the BRI.” Some experts, however, argue China should make clean tech a smaller part of its BRI narrative in democratic countries, since the technologies could become associated with “China influence.”

Europe’s wolf population booms

Europe’s wolf population grew 58% in a decade. The European Union’s rules around protecting the predators since 1982 appear to be working: In 2012, there were 12,000 wolves across 34 countries; in 2022, there were 21,500, according to new research, bucking a global trend of decline among large carnivores. Conservation has been so successful that the EU downgraded the animal’s status this month, allowing some hunting. Wolves kill approximately 0.02% of EU livestock each year, costing around $17 million in compensation for farmers, but they also reduce deer overpopulation and improve forest health. A wolf killed the European Commission president’s pony in 2022, which may partly explain why she campaigned to reduce their protection.

Dark energy may not be constant

Distant galaxies’ rate of acceleration might be changing, and if so, it could fundamentally rewrite our understanding of the cosmos. Scientists used to assume that the universe’s expansion would be slowing, as gravity pulled galaxies back together. But in 1998 they realized it was in fact accelerating: The unknown force driving it was labeled “dark energy,” and theorists suggested it could have to do with subatomic particles popping in and out of existence. Physicists assume dark energy is constant, but recent observations hint that it might be changing. If so, it could be the anomaly that unites the two main theories in physics — relativity and quantum mechanics — which both make incredibly accurate predictions, but which are fundamentally incompatible.

Airlines scramble to chase high-end fliers

Legacy airlines are chasing affluent tourists with fancier first class cabins. Air France this week unveiled “La Première,” with a round-trip ticket from Paris to New York starting at €10,000 ($11,000): Passengers who are escorted through the airport to their seat without ever rubbing shoulders with hoi polloi will be served champagne and caviar on leather and wool seats. The WiFi might even work. Meanwhile, Lufthansa’s new first class cabins have “ceiling-high walls” and a personal wardrobe. With the ongoing pandemic-induced decline in business customers, airlines are seeing success in targeting wealthy “leisure” travelers with taste, Le Monde reported.

March 21:

• Germany and Japan release inflation figures.
• Namibia’s first female president Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah is sworn into office.
• The live-action remake of Disney’s Snow White opens in US theaters

An ongoing exhibition at New York’s Museum at FIT explores fantastical cabinets of curiosities seen through the lens of fashion. Known in German as wunderkammern, these “chambers of wonder” were precursors to the modern museum, often containing clothing. The exhibit showcases nearly 200 garments and accessories, wittily arranged with rare and beautiful objects found in the cabinets of European royals and scholars from the 16th to 18th centuries: A 1970s denim hostess dress by Serendipity featuring an appliqué serpent is paired with an engraving of snakes from the mid-1700s collection of Albertus Seba, the zoologist and renowned “collector of curiosities.” With such pairings, The Wall Street Journal wrote, “The eye is excited, the id stirs, the ego organizes.”

Republicans are putting Trump’s court fights on the ballot in a pivotal Wisconsin court race, Semafor’s David Weigel reported.

“A liberal judge … wants to overrule the will of the President of the United States and the people who put him there,” Donald Trump Jr. said, tying the election to the president’s recent setbacks in court — a typically nonpartisan, low-turnout race, Wisconsin is testing each party’s theory of the case, and possibly providing a formula for future wins.