Flagship

US voters believe there’s a recession

Roughly three in five American voters believe the US economy is in a recession, a new poll found, despite GDP growth that shows otherwise. That perception will challenge Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign as voters blame President Joe Biden for the inflation surge post-pandemic, despite the country’s relatively strong economic standing. One Republican strategist predicted that Harris will pick up “all of Biden’s economic negatives,” The New York Times reported, while some Democrats hope she will bring a “fresh voice” to sell the positives of Biden’s signature economic agenda. “We don’t say ‘Harris-flation,’” one progressive analyst told the Times. “It’s ‘Bidenflation.’”

Tesla profit drops second time this year

Tesla’s second quarter profits fell 45% from last year, the company said Tuesday, thanks to weak electric vehicle sales. The lower-than-expected profit shows that founder Elon Musk’s bets on the company’s AI-powered taxi and robot businesses could take years to pay off, The New York Times reported. EV customers in the US are turning to Ford and GM — which are seeing a growth in sales — and some are also turned off by Musk’s politics. Ahead of his conference call Tuesday, one Tesla investor asked whether Musk believed Donald Trump, who he recently endorsed, would support Tesla and EVs, while another questioned how he could back Republicans who have denied climate change.

EV makers signal problems

European electric car makers have warned of problems ahead. Porsche cut its 2024 revenue forecast, citing a shortage of aluminum, shortly after watering down its ambition of 80% of its sales being electric by 2030. Mercedes-Benz similarly backed off its 2030 goals in May. EVs are cheaper than ever, The Wall Street Journal reported — in some cases cheaper than gas-powered equivalents — thanks to state subsidies, the growth of budget options, and an industry price war. But the discounts have not yet brought back the rapid growth of a few years ago: EV sales rose 6.8% in the first half of the year, way down from a near 50% rise in 2023.

Meta releases its most powerful AI yet

Meta released a new version of its artificial intelligence model Llama, designed to rival those from OpenAI and Google. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Llama 3.1 is a “state of the art” AI capable of some math, generating images from text, and digesting entire books in one go. Meta has taken an open source approach to its AI, where it allows developers to use its offerings for free, unlike OpenAI or Google. Meta’s bet is that Llama could become as important as the open-source Linux operating system, which saw initial commercial competition but is core to most cloud computing now. But it’s also possible that users could modify the model to remove guardrails, Wired reported, potentially enabling it to do harm.

Philippines slams Marcos deepfake

Philippine officials slammed a “malicious” AI-generated video manipulated to show President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. doing drugs. Analysts warned that the video, shared among supporters of former President Rodrigo Duterte, is the latest high-profile instance of AI content threatening to destabilize the country’s political landscape: A previous audio deepfake clip featured Marcos’ voice directing his military to “take action” against China. In US politics, AI-generated deepfakes “have yet to become the huge truth catastrophe” that experts warned about, Axios argued, thanks to faster detection and debunking by media and tech companies. But the Philippines is “still catching up” on AI detection infrastructure, one Filipino researcher told the South China Morning Post.

Google will not remove cookies

Google killed a long-delayed plan to remove third-party cookies on its Chrome web browser, bringing relief to the ad world. Cookies are tiny packets of code that track internet users and help advertisers better personalize ads, Google’s biggest source of income. The tech giant’s 2020 announcement that it would eliminate cookies by early 2022 rattled digital marketers and ramped up regulatory scrutiny over Google’s ad dominance. But its now-empty threat eventually succeeded in forcing advertisers to become less reliant on cookies, Axios argued, by developing privacy conscious ad-tracking solutions. Ultimately though, what Google does makes almost no difference,” one tech expert said, given that “40% of [Chrome users] have already disabled cookies.”

China’s richest man loses $13 billion

China’s richest man risks losing his title as his bottled water company struggles against competition and nationalism. Zhong Shanshan, chairman of Nongfu Spring, has already lost $13 billion this year, and his net worth on Tuesday was just a “whisker” above that of the founder of the online shopping platform PDD Holdings, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Nongfu’s share price has declined almost 20% since February, partly due to a price war with competitors. Chinese customers have also accused Zhong of not being patriotic enough, citing Japanese imagery on Nongfu’s bottles and his son holding a US passport. CEOs in China need to be considered “saints” by the public for their companies to succeed, argued one Chinese commentator.

House prices soar in Russia

Russian President Vladimir Putin has created a housing bubble. Mortgages were rare in the Soviet period, seen as capitalist “debt slavery,” and even after the end of communism most Russians saved to buy homes outright. Putin introduced mortgage subsidies, and boosted them during the pandemic: Homebuyers could borrow below the market rate and the state would make up the difference. Millions took up the option after Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine limited their investment opportunities thanks to sanctions. It left the Kremlin with a hefty bill and drove house prices up, The Economist reported. In big cities, the cost of buying a home leapt 172% between 2020 and 2023.

Japan uses music to fight climate change

Japan is turning to both modern and ancient practices to battle the effects of climate change. As global warming disrupts rice supplies, making sake production more expensive, one Tokyo brewery is using modified machinery that relies on gravity and music to stimulate fermentation in an effort to keep energy costs down, Reuters reported. Some villages, meanwhile, are turning to centuries-old dance rituals and prayers that were used to offer solace during Japan’s frequent natural disasters, the Japan Times reported. 2023 was Japan’s hottest year on record, and residents are enduring extreme heat as well as heavy downpours. “We dance in the hope that disasters involving rain will end soon for people in other regions as well,” one ritual performer said.

Deep-sea oxygen gives clue to life

The discovery that lumps of metal deep in the ocean produce oxygen in darkness may provide insight into the origin of life. “Polymetallic nodules” rich in cobalt, nickel, copper, and manganese litter the Pacific Ocean floor. Scientists noticed that oxygen levels rose when they were placed in water tanks, likely because they were acting as natural batteries and splitting the water by electrolysis. The only other major natural source of oxygen is photosynthesis, and so it was believed that the first oxygen in Earth’s atmosphere must have come from life. Now, this discovery raises the possibility that there was free oxygen in the deep ocean. Conservationists told CNBC that the revelation emphasized the need for a moratorium on mining concessions for the nodules.

July 24:

• US President Joe Biden makes his first public speech since ending his reelection campaign.
• An exhibition celebrating Taylor Swift’s career opens at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum.
• Lawmakers question FBI Director Christopher Wray about the investigation into Donald Trump’s attempted assassination.

Of the more than 3,500 shows at the world’s largest performance arts festival, two are based on Gywneth Paltrow’s infamous trial over a ski collision. This year’s Edinburgh Fringe, showcasing comedy stars like Hannah Gadsby, will also feature two musicals about “one of the most memorable, and ridiculous” celebrity court cases of all time: The Hollywood star was sued by a retired optometrist who accused her of crashing into him on a ski slope, and countersued for $1. Gwyneth Goes Skiing and I Wish You Well will go head-to-head at The Fringe next month. Unlike their real-life protagonists, however, the performers believe there’s enough room for both: “I’ll go and see their show,” one of the actors told The Sunday Post. “I just think, spread the joy.”

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