Flagship

Russian confidence up, West worries

Ukrainian and Western leaders voiced worry of growing Russian confidence and capability in its war on Ukraine. Moscow is amassing forces near Kyiv’s northeastern border and plans a renewed offensive, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned, and is producing artillery shells three times faster than Ukraine and its allies, according to Sky News. In response, Kyiv and its backers are nearing a deal to free up $50 billion from frozen Russian assets for Ukraine’s military, Zelenskyy’s government has begun freeing prisoners if they join the armed forces, and Poland’s foreign minister told The Guardian Kyiv should be free to strike deeper inside Russia and be supported with a 5,000-strong European Union mechanized brigade.

Israel pounds Gaza

Israeli forces bombed southern Gaza in what they said was an attack on Hamas, but which Palestinians said hit tent camp housing and killed dozens. The strikes demonstrated that despite growing international pressure on Israel over its offensive in the enclave — the International Court of Justice on Friday ordered it to cease — and with US, Egyptian, and Qatari diplomats reportedly finalizing a new set of ceasefire proposals, Israel’s war on Hamas shows no signs of letting up. On the ground in Rafah, where Israel is focusing its operations, humanitarian officials warned that the risks of famine are mounting and that even if aid was plentiful immediately, many will still die, The New York Times reported.

PNG landslide leaves 2,000 buried

A landslide in Papua New Guinea has left more than 2,000 people buried alive, the government said. The disaster was caused by weeks of heavy rain and poor weather conditions in the area, the BBC said, with aid workers warning of difficulties reaching the site of the collapse because of its remote location, a lack of stable telecommunications infrastructure, and persistent clashes between tribes in the area. A senior UN official said the situation could yet worsen because water was seeping under the debris, increasing the risk of another landslide. Papua New Guinea was already among the world’s most vulnerable places to such disasters, but the World Bank has noted that climate change could increase their frequency and magnitude.

Musk AI startup raises $6B

Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence startup raised $6 billion from big-name investors, intensifying a race with former OpenAI colleagues. The funds will be used to build infrastructure, drive research and development, and bring products to market, the company said. Also part of Musk’s plans for xAI: a new supercomputer to power the next version of its chatbot, according to The Information. The new funding is part of a fast-growing competition within Big Tech to define the future of AI, with Microsoft, Google, and others all regularly announcing new products and investments. While xAI is a relative newcomer, it has made major hires and Musk himself was among the founders of OpenAI — though he has since had a fractious relationship with it.

China’s economic challenges

China’s slowing economic growth is driving an array of secondary issues for the country’s leaders, analysts said — chief among them a widening gulf between regions, and the challenges of presiding over a post-boom society. China’s growing wealth has largely benefitted coastal provinces, leaving resource-rich inland areas behind, and the gap is increasing, leading to concerns over security and stability, The Economist noted. Economic growth of around 5% — a far cry from the heady days of double-digit expansion in prior years — also leaves Chinese leader Xi Jinping with “a challenge none of his predecessors faced,” Bloomberg said: ensuring support for the Communist Party absent breakneck wealth creation. “China doesn’t have elections,” the outlet noted, “but it does have politics.”

Venezuela gas shortfall

Venezuela has run out of gasoline, forcing swaths of the country’s economy to shutter. Despite having the world’s largest oil reserves, poor maintenance of infrastructure and the years-long erosion of expertise at state oil company PDVSA have led to oil production cratering. Meanwhile the reimposition of US sanctions on the country’s oil industry has rolled back some of the increased output PDVSA had managed in recent months. The shortage will further weaken the ruling party’s position ahead of July’s general election. “Many foreign oil companies want to invest … but they all know not much will change as long as [President] Nicolás Maduro remains in power,” a Caracas-based oil expert told El País.

Burkinabe junta extends rule

Burkina Faso’s military junta said it would extend its rule, despite having promised elections in July. The country’s ruler, Ibrahim Traoré, will also be allowed to contest polls now planned for 2029, raising the specter of years more of autocratic rule. Strongman leaders throughout the Sahel have been able to exploit the region’s security crisis — as well as rising anti-French sentiment in former colonies — to win the support of a large share of their countries’ populations. Yet “the masses can be fickle and the momentary popularity of the men in uniform cannot be sustained” unless military rulers deliver on security and development, an expert wrote for the Brookings Institution think tank.

Introducing Mixed Signals, a new podcast from Semafor Media presented by Think with Google. Co-hosted by Semafor’s own Ben Smith, and renowned podcaster and journalist Nayeema Raza, every Friday, Mixed Signals pulls back the curtain on the week’s key stories around media, revealing how money, access, culture, and politics shape everything you read, watch, and hear.

Whether you’re a media insider or simply curious about what drives today’s headlines, Mixed Signals is the perfect addition to your media diet. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

Changing shark movements

Beachgoers in New England in the US are being encouraged to report any sightings of great white sharks. Scientists at a Boston aquarium said ahead of the country’s Memorial Day holiday today that marine mammals with shark bites have been reported. Sharks have not yet been spotted but “we know they’re here,” one told the Associated Press. The northwest Atlantic white shark population is growing, sightings have increased in recent years, and researchers are keen to better track their movements: The public can report sightings via the Sharktivity app. A researcher urged holiday makers to be “shark smart” and avoid swimming when seals or schools of fish are visible.

‘France’s most famous scooter’ sold

The scooter used by former French President Francois Hollande to sneak away from the Elysee Palace to conduct an affair was auctioned for €20,500 ($22,250). Dubbed “France’s most famous scooter” by Le Monde, the three-wheeler played a central role in a 2014 scandal when the glossy magazine Closer reported that Hollande — who became France’s president two years prior — used it for trysts with an actress in Paris. The controversy raised questions over Hollande’s security and sparked rumors that a presidential bodyguard was dispatched to bring a bag of fresh croissants in the mornings, though the truth was far more anodyne: Hollande was always escorted by police officers, and the bag contained documents, not pastries.

What elite chefs cook

Even elite chefs prize comfort food: That’s the takeaway from interviews conducted with 18 of them by the Financial Times. Asked by the FT to name a cookbook recipe they return to frequently, chefs’ responses included chickpea and pasta soup, gumbo, a “green puree,” salad nicoise, goulash, and sambar (a southern Indian daal). The three-Michelin-starred chef-patron of The Connaught recommended orange cake, saying, “I know I will make everyone happy with this simple recipe.” The FT’s conclusion was straightforward. “For the most part, even the very accomplished are just like the rest of us: They want to cook things that are easy, comforting and that work well at a dinner party.”

• EU foreign ministers begin a two-day meeting in Brussels.
• China, Japan, and South Korea conclude their first trilateral summit meeting in more than four years in Seoul.
• Indian politicians pay tribute to Jawaharlal Nehru, the country’s first prime minister after independence, on his 60th death anniversary.

The write stuff

The best writers in the world are a class to themselves, grappling with the most complex ideas, the frailty of the human condition, the fine line between life and death. Right? Yes, perhaps, but also, the prize-winning author Elif Shafak spilled a pot of tea on her laptop. What resulted was “pure chaos, tears, and a lot of swearing” as she sought to repair her device with a cloth, a hair dryer, and leaving it in the sun, resorting eventually to waiting for the tea to simply evaporate.

“The reason I wanted to share this with you is … to fully acknowledge the fact that this, too, is part and parcel of a writer’s life,” Shafak wrote in her Unmapped Storylands newsletter. “If a novelist for even a fleeting moment appears cool and composed, wise and perspicacious, do not believe it. The truth is, we are socially inept, physically clumsy, psychologically fragmented, eternally perplexed, existentially confused and hopelessly introverted, awkward creatures. This is how we write…”

The coming singularities

A recent study suggested that business school professors were among the jobs which overlap most with artificial intelligence, suggesting they are at risk of soon becoming obsolete. Not quite so, argues Ethan Mollick (who is, umm, a business school professor): “Overlap doesn’t necessarily mean replacement, it means disruption and change.” Mollick makes the case that academia is about to undergo huge change in four key ways.

In his view, AI will likely hugely accelerate the pace of writing and reviewing research, and refashion how academics conduct research itself, both of which are beginning to be understood as likely shifts. He also makes the case that AI can be used to bridge the gap between the ivory tower and the general public by better explaining the meaning of often-dense academic papers and, perhaps most significantly, ultimately affect what is researched because of the huge, poorly understood impact of AI itself.

A digital divide

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is likely to win his country’s general election, but one of the most profound modern changes to Indian society predates his leadership: the introduction of the Aadhar digital ID system. The 12-digit number allotted to each citizen allows them easier access to many government services, and also underpins many digital services. One major way it is transforming the country is by making it easier for women to access finance, James Balzer and Saurabh Gaidhani write in the interweave newsletter.

The “India Stack” — a unified software platform built in part off Aadhar — “has revolutionized the operational landscape for female entrepreneurs,” by allowing women who struggle to receive credit from the formal banking system to access loans through the digital community, and then market their wares. The challenges remain huge: 0.3% of venture-capital funding went to startups led by women in 2021 in India. But the country can yet “drive financial empowerment and prosperity for all its people, including those who have been traditionally left behind.”

Accordion Eulogies, a memoir about music, migration, and Mexico, is published this week. Author Noé Álvarez buys an accordion early in the story, tying his journey to learn how to play the instrument with an exploration of the musician grandfather he never knew. Growing up listening to the accordion’s “staticky reed melodies” on the radio in Washington state, he has “nostalgic and emotional bonds to the sound,” The Seattle Times reported. “But the sight of it is also bittersweet,” the 38-year-old wrote in his book. “It will always remind me that at the instrument’s core are the struggles of my family’s past.”

• Semafor is launching a media podcast.
• Africa’s high fashion bets on a global retail presence.
• Nigerian novelist Chigozie Obioma on writing historical trauma.