Flagship

NY police storm uni building

New York police officers clad in riot gear arrested dozens of pro-Palestinian protesters who occupied a Columbia University building, showcasing the increasingly tough official response to the student demonstrations. Police were also called in to quell clashes between rival protest groups at the University of California, Los Angeles, while more than 1,000 demonstrators have been arrested at college campuses nationwide. The demonstrations — and the response to them — have huge consequences, dividing President Joe Biden’s Democratic Party in the runup to November’s presidential election, and sparking worries that a draconian response by authorities will, as the Princeton professor Zeynep Tufekci wrote, “result in entrenching the very tools that will be unleashed against everything else as well.”

Trump given jail warning

Donald Trump was held in contempt for repeatedly violating a gag order in his hush money trial. The judge warned the former US president that he could face jail if he continued to post on social media about the case, in which he is accused of falsifying business records to hide payments to an adult film star. Despite his increasing legal woes, though, a CNN poll found that Trump maintained a 49% to 43% lead over President Joe Biden among registered voters. In an interview with Time magazine, Trump outlined what his second term might look like: The interviewer characterized it as “an imperial presidency that would reshape America and its role in the world.”

US to weaken marijuana laws

The US will see the largest shakeup to federal marijuana policy since the drug was criminalized over 50 years ago. Weed is currently a Schedule I drug, the same category as heroin and intended for drugs with no medical use and high potential for abuse. Under the new plans, it will be downgraded to Schedule III, meaning it has a “moderate to low” risk of dependence. States are ahead of Washington — 24 have legalized recreational use, and another 14 have authorized medical use — and a majority of voters, especially younger ones, back liberalization. USA Today’s elections columnist noted that support for legalization is strong in seven anticipated swing states in this year’s election, which may drive President Joe Biden’s repeated phrase that “no one should be jailed for using or possessing marijuana.”

China finally readies economic talks

Chinese authorities finally set a date for a long-delayed economic policy meeting as Beijing grapples with flagging growth. Uncertainty about the plenary session of the Chinese Communist Party’s top officials, now scheduled for July, had fueled worries over whether Beijing was prepared to make the changes needed to bolster growth, which has largely disappointed since the country emerged from COVID-19 restrictions. Officials are grappling with a flailing property sector, mammoth levels of government debt, an impending demographic debacle, and growing frustration in the US and Europe over China’s manufacturing overcapacity. One solution would be to unleash domestic consumption, but Chinese leader Xi Jinping has instead prioritized security and sought to retain state control over the economy, the Financial Times noted.

Cuba turns to private enterprise

Long outlawed by Cuba’s communist government, private businesses on the island are flourishing, boosting the economy after its worst-ever crisis. Cuba’s brutal recession — aggravated by the COVID-19 pandemic and the reimposition of US sanctions — has forced hundreds of thousands to flee, and pushed Havana to request assistance from the UN’s World Food Programme for the first time and to liberalize private enterprise. Critics claim the move is merely a temporary measure, with authoritarian statism to be reimposed once the economy recuperates. Some say, however, that the economy can no longer do without entrepreneurs: “Cuba is falling apart faster than it is being rebuilt,” a US official in Havana told The New York Times. “There is no turning back.’’

The year of AI plumbing

As use of artificial intelligence grows, the tech industry is pivoting to providing the infrastructure that supports it. Amazon’s cloud-computing services posted strong sales growth, while it, Microsoft, and Meta said they had spent $32 billion in the first quarter of this year on data centers and other capital expenses to handle AI demand. Meta’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the spending would continue, while chip companies Samsung and Nvidia have both posted huge profits recently. “If 2023 was the tech industry’s year of the AI chatbot,” a New York Times tech correspondent wrote, “2024 is turning out to be the year of AI plumbing.”

Microsoft strikes renewables deal

Microsoft said it would back $10 billion’s worth of renewable energy projects, demonstrating the huge demand for electricity to power data centers worldwide. The deal with Canada-based Brookfield Asset Management would drive the building of 10.5 gigawatts of solar and wind farms through 2030. Data centers are consuming ever more power: The International Energy Agency estimates that by 2026, they will suck up as much as Japan. That demand is driving financial firms to strike deals to develop much-needed electricity sources. Semafor’s Net Zero newsletter reported that the private equity firm Carlyle is courting data centers as anchor customers for solar-power farms, while rival KKR predicts such facilities could represent a fifth of all global energy consumption in the coming years.

Climate change hits home buying

Homes in flood-risk regions are increasingly difficult to insure or mortgage. A major UK lender said it would no longer offer loans on “a limited number” of very high-risk properties, while in the southern US — which has seen double the global average rate of sea level rise since 2010 — insurance companies are raising rates or refusing coverage in areas that are most vulnerable. In general, climate-change-related risk could wipe $25 trillion from the value of the world’s housing by 2050, The Economist reported, as tornadoes, floods, storms, and other natural disasters put them at risk, although it is only recently that financial services have started to pay attention, and the change “looks destined to trigger an almighty fight over who should pay up.”

UN peacekeepers to exit DRC

UN peacekeepers ended their operations in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, as they prepare to leave the country this year on the government’s request. Conflict in eastern DRC intensified in 2021 after Rwanda ramped up arms shipments to the M23 militia, driving clashes that have killed thousands of people and displaced millions more, many of whom are beyond the reach of aid. Rwanda has also been accused of leveraging the instability to pilfer the DRC’s valuable deposits of tin ore and coltan, essential minerals for mobile phone production. “We’ve probably never really been as close to the potential for real war between Rwanda and the DRC as we are now,” an expert told Bloomberg.

Self-degrading plastic invented

Researchers developed a biodegradable form of plastic that includes bacterial spores which will break it down when it is discarded. Most plastics are not easily biodegradable, and remain in the ecosystem indefinitely. But it is difficult to make them biodegradable without having them rot while you’re using them. The researchers took a bacterial species already found to break down one form of plastic, often used in cables among other things, and laced that plastic with the bacterium’s spores. The spores should remain in suspended animation until the plastic is disposed of somewhere they can thrive, such as a landfill, and hopefully not the carpet behind your workstation. The bacteria will only work on one kind of plastic, but, Ars Technica reported, the method may be replicable.

• Foreign and defense ministers from Australia and South Korea meet in Melbourne.
• The Arizona state Senate is expected to grant final passage to a bill that would repeal an 1864 law that bans nearly all abortions.
• People around the world mark International Workers’ Day — also called Labour Day and May Day — to celebrate, and demand better, labor rights.

The yearly cost to Brazil’s GDP from dengue. The mosquito-borne disease has spread rapidly across Latin America this year as climate change and El Niño, a warm-weather pattern, have created the hot and humid conditions in which the mosquitoes thrive. In just the first 10 weeks of the year, the region recorded more cases of dengue than any year previously. Although countries such as Singapore have managed to stem the spread of the disease through prevention campaigns, there is little evidence that authorities in Latin America “have the tools to ease the current outbreak, or to nip future ones in the bud,” The Economist reported.

A new Indian drama about an elite house of courtesans during British colonial rule was released on Netflix. Heeramandi: The Diamond Bazaar transports viewers into the “larger-than-life world” of acclaimed Bollywood director Sanjay Leela Bhansali, reported The Indian Express. Bhansali, known for his sweeping period movies, is making his streaming platform debut with this eagerly anticipated series packed with a star-studded cast. “This is a story of love, power, freedom, and extraordinary women, their desires, and struggles. It marks a new milestone in my journey,” Bhansali said.

• How Musk’s Tesla layoffs could hurt EVs everywhere.
• The US and China are in a race to develop AI in Africa.
• Why a top Chinese COVID-19 scientist is protesting lab eviction.