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The World
The Pentagon is tracking what it described as a Chinese surveillance balloon passing over sensitive sites in the US, defense officials said. “The United States government has detected and is tracking a high altitude surveillance balloon that is over the continental United States right now,” Pentagon press secretary Brigadier General Pat Ryder said. A senior US defense official said Washington was “confident that this high altitude surveillance balloon belongs to the PRC”, using an abbreviation for China. Officials said the balloon was attempting to monitor strategically important areas, including in Montana, where the US houses siloed nuclear weapons. It was spotted over Billings, Montana, on Wednesday. “The current flight path does carry it over a number of sensitive sites,” the senior defense official said. Fighter jets were mobilized but military leaders advised President Joe Biden against shooting the balloon out of the sky for fear debris could pose a safety threat, advice Biden accepted, U.S. officials said. (Financial Times)
McCarthy calls for intel briefing on Chinese spy balloon over Montana; lawmakers also demand "full and accurate accounting" of what happened. (Politico)
The number of Russian troops killed and wounded in Ukraine is approaching 200,000, a stark symbol of just how badly President Vladimir V. Putin’s invasion has gone, according to American and other Western officials. While the officials caution that casualties are notoriously difficult to estimate, particularly because Moscow is believed to routinely undercount its war dead and injured, they say the slaughter from fighting in and around the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut and the town of Soledar has ballooned what was already a heavy toll. (New York Times)
An ailing Navalny describes a prison move that will extend his isolation. “Even maniacs and serial killers serving life sentences have the right to receive a visit, but I don’t,” the Russian opposition leader wrote on Twitter. (New York Times)
Just over half of American voters think Ukraine is winning the war against Russia and nearly two-thirds want to keep helping them in their fight, according to a new Fox News survey. (Political Wire)
The U.S. supports blocking Russian and Belarusian athletes from the 2024 Olympics unless it is “absolutely clear” that they are not representing their respective countries, the White House announced on Thursday. (Politico)
Israel says peace deal with Sudan to be signed by year’s end. (Times of Israel)
Mainland China will fully reopen its borders with Hong Kong and Macau from Monday with all Covid-19 restrictions dropped and no quotas imposed on arrivals from either side, Beijing’s top office overseeing city affairs has announced. (South China Morning Post)
Sunak marks 100 days as UK prime minister as problems mount: U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has angry unions to the left of him, anxious Conservative Party lawmakers to the right and, in the middle, millions of voters he must win over to avert electoral defeat. It’s a daunting situation for Sunak, who on Thursday marked 100 days in office, more than twice the number of his ill-fated predecessor, Liz Truss. (Associated Press)
STEM who? The humanities mount a comeback. The pro-STEM movement has gutted high school and college humanities programs — but there's some evidence of a post-pandemic revival afoot. When the University of California, Berkeley, reported an uptick in humanities majors this academic year, there was elation — and shock — at the prospect of a trend reversal. The number of first-year Berkeley students declaring majors in the arts and humanities — which includes English, history, languages, philosophy and media studies — was up 121% over last year. The number of high schoolers applying to Berkeley with the intention of studying humanities was up 43.2% from five years ago, and up 73% vs. 10 years ago. (Axios)
And yet… The STEM workforce is projected to grow faster than all occupations in the next decade. (Axios)
The Northeast Braces for the Worst Wind Chill in Decades and New England braces for ‘epic, generational arctic outbreak’: Forecasters say “a once-in-a-generation cold” could grip parts of the region on Friday and into Saturday. Wind chills in northern Maine could approach minus-60, the lowest in decades. The worst of the cold is expected Friday night. On the summit of New Hampshire’s Mount Washington at 6,288 feet, the wind chill is forecast to fall to minus-100 degrees Friday night as the air temperature tanks to minus-42 degrees amid wind speeds around 85 mph. Its record wind chill of minus-102.6 degrees could be challenged. (New York Times, Washington Post)
Economy
The Bosses Are Back in Charge: CEOs are reasserting their authority now that workers are starting to worry more about job security amid rising layoffs. “This whole concept of working from anywhere went too far.” America’s bosses are starting to feel bossy again. Many executives say that they are no longer scrambling to retain workers, after several years of doing whatever it took to keep people on staff. Pay increases are slowing. For some jobs, hiring is getting easier. Executives are seizing on this moment to streamline operations or cut projects, shedding staff that until recently they couldn’t afford to lose. Inside many organizations, there is a shift in sentiment, executives and their advisers say. Employers who felt they had less leverage in the tight labor market of the past couple of years say they have more power in negotiations with employees. Many feel less pressure to hire quickly to avoid losing a top candidate. Others are enforcing in-office attendance mandates that previously were ignored by some staffers. (Wall Street Journal)
Squeezed by higher prices and short on cash, more Americans are tapping their 401(k)s for financial emergencies. A record 2.8% of the five million people in 401(k) plans run by Vanguard Group tapped their retirement savings in 2022 to cope with hardships such as medical bills, eviction or foreclosure, the company said. That is up from 2.1% in 2021 and a prepandemic average of about 2%. This increase in the number of people taking hardship withdrawals is partly driven by several government moves since 2018 that have loosened the rules for taking such distributions from retirement accounts. (Wall Street Journal)
Adani’s $108 Billion Crisis Shakes Investors’ Faith in India: A short seller attack on the conglomerate raises bigger, darker questions about India’s credibility as a destination for global investors. Just 10 days ago, Gautam Adani and his sprawling energy-to-ports empire looked invincible. Now, a damning short-seller attack has left the billionaire battling the worst crisis of his corporate life — and is raising bigger, darker questions about India’s credibility as a global growth engine and a destination for international investors. The Adani Group has shed $108 billion in market value since Hindenburg Research accused it of stock manipulation and accounting fraud in a Jan. 24 report. But it was only when the tycoon scrapped a $2.4 billion share sale this week that the potential for lasting impact became clear. Adani’s rebuttal had failed to reassure investors. Once ranked No. 2 among the world’s wealthiest, he has tumbled to No. 21 on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. (Bloomberg)
Tokyo’s inflation rate hits 41-year high: Japanese consumers faced another round of food price increases starting February 1, 2023, as more than 5,400 products will become costlier. Japanese officials said core consumer prices in Tokyo rose 4.3 per cent in January year on year, marking the fastest annual increase in inflation in 41 years. (South China Morning Post)
Technology
Apple posted a decline in quarterly revenues for the first time in three-and-a-half years after “significant” supply chain disruptions in China delayed deliveries of iPhones during the important holiday period. The worse than expected performance highlighted Apple’s dependence on China for manufacturing and came after shipments of its high-end iPhones were hit by an outbreak of Covid-19 at an assembly hub run by partner Foxconn in Zhengzhou. Tim Cook, chief executive, signaled that revenues in the first three months of this year would also miss the prior year’s, even though iPhone sales were expected to “accelerate”, meaning sales of Apple’s other products would be hard hit by lower demand. (Financial Times)
Tim Cook says iPhone revenue would have grown without supply constraints, currency fluctuations were a challenge, and layoffs are a “last resort kind of thing.” (Wall Street Journal)
Google CEO promises new AI features are coming to search ‘very soon’ amid competition from ChatGPT. Sundar Pichai told investors Thursday that it is planning to roll out its LaMDA language model with search components “very soon,” suggesting pressure from Microsoft-backed ChatGPT. (CNBC)
Amazon’s advertising business grew 19%, while Google and Meta both deal with slowdowns. Amazon’s online advertising business continues to grow fast, increasingly challenging digital ad titans like Meta and Google. The e-commerce giant’s advertising unit is still a small fraction of the overall $149.2 billion it recorded in sales for the fourth quarter. Amazon now holds 7.3% of the overall online ad market, trailing Alphabet’s Google, and Meta-owned Facebook and Instagram. (CNBC)
Earnings:
Zuckerberg Gains Record $12.5 Billion in a Day as Meta Rebounds. (Bloomberg)
Alphabet disappoints on sales as ad business slips after pandemic run-up. (Reuters)
Google Workers Stage Rallies Against Job Cuts, Low Wages. (Bloomberg)
Sony lifts outlook closer to record level, raises PS5 sales target. (Reuters)
Amazon has paused expansion of its line of Amazon Fresh grocery stores as it evaluates how to make the chain stand out to shoppers, CEO Andy Jassy said. Amazon has owned Whole Foods Market since 2017, but in recent years much of its energy has been devoted to Amazon Fresh, a line of mainstream grocery stores that now number in the dozens after a rapid expansion during the pandemic. The effort to crack the grocery market has long been one of Amazon’s biggest bets — and struggles. (Bloomberg)
Amazon’s No-Fly Zone: Drone Delivery Largely Grounded Despite Splashy Launch: Amazon in December announced with great fanfare that, after nearly a decade of work, it had finally launched drone delivery in the U.S., in two towns in California and Texas. But by mid-January, Amazon Prime Air had made deliveries to fewer than 10 houses, according to people who worked on the project. Despite what Amazon has said publicly about regulatory approvals for the drone effort, the FAA is blocking Amazon’s drones from flying over roads or people without case-by-case permission, according to federal records. That has severely limited the number of homes they can reach in the two towns, Lockeford, Calif., and College Station, Texas. (The Information)
Smart Links
Survey: A majority of Americans support banning all tobacco products. (STAT News)
Shell profits more than double to record $40bn. (Financial Times)
63% of educators consider leaving profession. (K-12 Dive)
Jet-fuel prices are climbing, propelled by diminished supplies and swelling demand, and they threaten to push airfares higher. (Wall Street Journal)
How CRISPR could help save crops from devastation caused by pests. (MIT Technology Review)
STEM who? The humanities mount a comeback. (Axios)
The STEM workforce is projected to grow faster than all occupations in the next decade. (Axios)