Flagship

US, UK blame China for cyber attacks

The U.S., U.K., and New Zealand all blamed China for state-sponsored cyberattacks, with Washington and London unveiling sanctions against Beijing. The U.S. attorney general said the campaign went back over a decade and targeted critics of China, as well as businesses and politicians, while Britain said its election commission suffered a major hack in which the information of tens of millions of voters may have been obtained. New Zealand — which, like the U.S. and U.K., is a member of the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing alliance — raised concerns with Beijing over alleged official involvement in a cyberattack on the country’s Parliament. China dismissed the accusations.

Binance exec flees Nigeria crackdown

An executive of Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, escaped from custody in Nigeria, where he faced a criminal investigation. The company’s regional manager in Africa, a British-Kenyan dual national, had traveled to Abuja to discuss a recent crackdown on Binance over allegations that the firm had avoided paying taxes and operated despite being unregulated. Binance has surged in popularity in the country with Nigerians increasingly turning to cryptocurrencies as the naira has plunged in value after officials abandoned a years-long currency peg that kept its value artificially high. It reached a record low last month, contributing to the worst economic crisis in a generation.

US proposes Ukraine war bonds

The U.S. proposed a $50 billion bond program backed by frozen Russian assets to fund Ukraine’s war effort, Bloomberg reported. The $280 billion immobilized by G-7 countries earns billions in interest a year, two-thirds of it in the European Union. Western allies are struggling to boost support for Ukraine, and selling so-called “freedom bonds” would allow investors to loan Kyiv cash safely and at good interest rates. War bonds are an old idea: 85 million Americans bought them during World War II, raising $185 billion, and the very first government bond ever was issued by the Bank of England in 1694 to support one of the country’s frequent wars against France.

Israel-US on/off talks

Israel’s defense minister was to hold talks with senior U.S. officials in Washington even as the country’s leader canceled separate meetings with the White House, a sign of the allies’ strained yet intertwined ties. The Biden administration has been increasingly public in its criticism of Israel’s offensive in Gaza, culminating in a U.N. Security Council resolution yesterday calling for an immediate ceasefire, which Washington chose not to veto. Though the U.S. has played down that decision and its impact on bilateral relations, The Times of Israel’s founding editor said the abstention “manifestly constitutes a significant further deterioration … but with consequences for the entire nation.” On the ground, Al Jazeera reported there was “no let-up” in Israel’s attacks.

The rise of identity geopolitics

Gaza and Ukraine attract world headlines, while other crises — especially in Africa — are largely ignored as a result of “identity geopolitics,” the Financial Times’ foreign affairs columnist argued. Gideon Rachman noted that millions are displaced and children are starving in Sudan’s civil war, just as in Gaza, but go unnoticed: A $2.7 billion U.N. aid appeal has raised $131 million. While diplomats race to free Israeli hostages, kidnapped Nigerian children are forgotten. Western populations identify with those suffering in Gaza, Israel, and Ukraine, Rachman wrote, but less so those in Sudan, creating a self-reinforcing cycle: News organizations note their audiences are less interested in African conflicts, meaning they cover them less and there is then less information to trigger concern.

Venezuela bans opposition candidate

An 80-year-old academic promoted by Venezuela’s opposition as their candidate for July presidential elections was barred from registering, the latest in a series of restrictions indicating the polls will heavily favor President Nicolás Maduro. The opposition named the philosophy professor as their candidate after Maria Corina Machado — a long-time challenger who experts say would trounce Maduro in free elections — was disqualified. Washington has warned that it will reimpose sanctions on Venezuela’s oil industry if Caracas doesn’t allow free and fair elections. The easing of sanctions played a key role in Venezuela’s economy growing last year for the first time in decades other than a pandemic bounceback.

Deadly Baltimore bridge collapse

Several people are feared dead after a cargo ship hit a bridge in Baltimore, causing it to collapse. The Francis Scott Key Bridge, spanning the Patapsco River, is part of the busy 695 highway around the city. Shocking footage shows the whole length of the bridge falling almost instantly into the water, with cars visible on its carriageway. U.S. road infrastructure is aging: Just 58% of interstate bridges were rated in “fair” condition in a 2020 Congress-commissioned report, and bridge collapses are not uncommon, with others reported in 2007 and 2013. In 2022, a bridge collapsed in Pittsburgh hours before U.S. President Joe Biden was due to visit the city.

Ohtani denies sports gambling

The baseball superstar Shohei Ohtani denied having bet on any sports after his former interpreter was fired over reports he stole money from the Japanese athlete to cover gambling debts. The scandal, which comes in the run-up to the baseball season, highlights worries over increasingly close ties between gambling outfits and U.S. professional sports leagues. Gambling sites and companies have long sponsored football teams in Europe, where pundits have raised concerns over gambling addiction. The U.S. had until recently been stricter in separating gambling from sports, but that has changed, with sports betting more easily available and advertising for it far more visible, leading two U.S. lawmakers to introduce bills aimed at introducing limits.

Pop declines in US

Pop’s domination of the U.S. music charts has waned, an artificial intelligence-powered analysis found. The genre accounted for 54% of songs on the Billboard Radio Songs top 100 in 2022, but dropped to 37% last year, while hip-hop and country both gained share. Pop was also the joint most-streamed genre alongside hip-hop, with 27% of the Streaming Songs top 100. The analysis also reported that radio hits have become dancier, with two-thirds of songs in the top 100 being of “moderate danceability,” such as Taylor Swift’s Anti-Hero, while songs of “low danceability” declined.

Mystery of Britain’s naked giant

The mystery of the Cerne Abbas Giant, surely Britain’s most eye-catching landmark, is a little closer to being solved. The 180-foot figure in southwest England, carved into the grass revealing the chalk below, depicts a nude — very noticeably nude, given his 26-foot penis — man wielding a club. Scientists have long debated whether it is truly ancient, pre-Roman, like other British chalk figures such as Oxfordshire’s White Horse, or a 17th-century joke. The figure’s identity, whether Hercules or some particularly virile medieval saint, has also been at issue. New research suggests it was made between 700 and 1100 A.D., and used as a mustering-point for Saxon armies. The period saw a resurgence of interest in Greek mythology, boosting support for the Hercules hypothesis.

Registration has opened for Semafor’s 2024 World Economy Summit: Hear from the chief executives of Accenture, Bank of America, Intel, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, as well as senior officials from the White House Council of Economic Advisors, the White House National Economic Council, and the European Commission.

• The U.K. High Court is expected to rule on whether WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange can appeal his extradition to the United States.
• Farmers protest in Brussels during a meeting of EU agriculture ministers aimed at addressing regional unrest over environmental standards and foreign imports.
• A 50th anniversary edition of Carrie, Stephen King’s first published novel, is released — with a special introduction by Margaret Atwood.

The number of trees felled during the construction of the Maya Train in southern Mexico. Despite repeated vows from President Andrés Manuel López Obrador that “not a single tree” would be cut down during the construction of what’s become his government’s signature infrastructure project, officials confirmed that millions were felled to make way for the tourist train. The project, intended to kick-start economic activity in one of Mexico’s poorest regions, has long been criticized for its environmental impact including the destruction of cenotes, the freshwater sinkholes that were sacred to the ancient Maya, Animal Político reported.

A new true-crime podcast investigates why a Brazilian dam collapsed and how that disaster led to the U.K.’s biggest ever class-action lawsuit. Dead River takes listeners into the communities still bearing the consequences of what is considered Brazil’s worst environmental disaster. Residents describe the toxic waste that flooded their villages when an iron ore mine’s dam burst in 2015, releasing sludge that could be seen from space. They also explain how they, together with activists and lawyers, are trying to hold those responsible to account. It is a story of heroes fighting for what is just, the podcast host told The Guardian, going beyond Brazil to become “a story about all of us.”

• NATO may take over some US responsibilities for Ukraine aid.
• Hydrogen’s biggest problem: No one wants to buy it.
• Big Tech companies are relying on old playbooks to expand their AI empires.