The Full Belmonte, 2/24/2024
“It’s been two years since Russia invaded Ukraine, with tens of thousands having perished in a war that’s ushered in the most geopolitically dangerous era in decades. More violence has erupted, including the disastrous conflict between Israel and Hamas. Tensions everywhere seem to be rising. The Kremlin could deploy a nuclear weapon into space as early as this year, the US told allies, just before the Biden administration unveiled a far-reaching sanctions package against Russia. US President Joe Biden, in the aftermath of Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny’s death, blamed Vladimir Putin and called him a ‘crazy SOB.’ Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva meanwhile compared the destruction of Gaza to the Holocaust. The once-unthinkable comment made an already strained meeting of the G-20’s top diplomats this week, under Brazil’s s presidency, even more uncomfortable for the attendees.
Rafah after an Israeli airstrike this month. The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry says at least 29,000 Palestinians have died in the war since the militant group’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel, in which it killed 1,200 Israelis. Photographer: Ahmad Hasaballah/Getty Images Europe
Israel says it’s still planning to attack the southern Gaza city of Rafah despite having no precise plan for the one million war refugees there. Fears are growing that many could be pushed into Egypt, something which Cairo has said would jeopardize the 45-year old peace accord that helped bring stability to the Middle East. But the US and European Union say they are working to use the war to create a fairer deal for Palestinians, and possibly their own state. Diplomatically, the US could find common ground with China against nuclear weapons in space, Andreas Kluth writes in Bloomberg Opinion. ‘Putin’s assault on decency, order, humanity and indeed sanity has gone far enough,’ Kluth writes. ‘It’s now up to the US and China together to ensure that Putin won’t go astral.’” [Bloomberg]
What you’ll want to read this weekend
“Plentiful jobs, confident consumers, sustained wage gains and resilient spending have marked the US economy’s recovery from its pandemic-pummeling. While forecasters largely expect the economy to lose some steam after a blockbuster 2023, economists have largely avoided any recession forecasts given two years of incorrect downturn predictions. Expectations a firm job market and consumer spending will support strong growth in the near-term is the consensus. But with global stocks reaching record highs, analysts are eyeing possible pitfalls—including sticky inflation, a fraught US presidential election, China’s slowing growth and potential policy missteps by the Federal Reserve. Another thing to watch: The US is in danger of a fiscal crisis erupting after a ballooning in deficits under Biden, and before him Donald Trump, according to Olivier Blanchard, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.” [Bloomberg]
“Nikki Haley faces an uphill battle against Trump when it comes to the GOP nomination, including the Republican primary in her home state of South Carolina on Saturday, but she says she’s staying in. She’s stepped up her attacks on the twice-impeached Trump, who polls show is up by 25 percentage points or more despite facing four felony prosecutions in the coming months. Haley says primary voters will see her as a viable alternative as Trump, who also faces hundreds of millions of dollars in civil penalties tied to his business and a defamation case, becomes increasingly mired in court cases. But Haley risked her appeal to moderate women voters as she sided with the Alabama Supreme Court by saying she too considers frozen embryos created through in-vitro fertilization ‘babies.’” [Bloomberg]
“An American-made lunar lander touched down on the moon for the first time since the Apollo era, ending a string of failures and making the Intuitive Machines’s Odysseus spacecraft the first private craft to ever reach the lunar surface intact. Vaccines that protect against severe illness, death and lingering long-Covid symptoms were linked to small increases in neurological, blood and heart-related conditions in the largest global vaccine safety study to date. Chronic fatigue syndrome—now affecting scores of long Covid sufferers—may begin with an infection that never goes away.” [Bloomberg]
The private Nova-C lander named Odysseus. It’s carrying NASA and commercial science payloads. Source: Intuitive Machines
“Nvidia delivered another eye-popping sales forecast, thanks to insatiable demand for its artificial intelligence accelerators—highly prized chips that crunch data for AI models. The technology has helped power a proliferation of chatbots and other generative AI services, which can create text and graphics based on simple prompts. Alphabet’s Google said it will pause the image generation of people for Gemini, a powerful artificial intelligence model, after criticism about how it was handling race. Disney chose three companies working on AI to be among the five picked for its annual business incubator program.” [Bloomberg]
Dark Trump: ‘Biden's fast track to hell’
Trump supporters at CPAC in Oxon Hill, Md., on Thursday. Photo: Amanda Andrade-Rhoades/Reuters
“Former President Trump, in a speech to conservatives this afternoon, will paint a dark, distorted picture of an America ravaged by crime, violence, bloodshed, chaos and tyranny, according to excerpts shared exclusively with Axios AM.
Trump presents himself as the only brake on ‘Biden's fast track to hell.’
Why it matters: On the closing day of the annual CPAC conference in Oxon Hill, Md., Trump will sermonize a vision of himself as The One, the savior.
Senior campaign officials tell us Trump will lay out his general-election case against Biden in the 1 p.m. speech — flipping the ‘four more years’ argument to a series of dire warnings about Biden's re-election.
‘Four years ago,’ Trump says in prepared remarks, ‘I told you that if Crooked Joe Biden got to the White House, our borders would be abolished, our middle class would be decimated, and our communities would be plagued by bloodshed, chaos and violent crime. As the saying goes: Trump was right about everything.’
‘Crooked Joe and his henchmen have you trapped on an express train barreling toward ruin and servitude,’ Trump continues. ‘A vote for Trump is your ticket back to freedom. It's your passport out of tyranny. And it's your only escape from Joe Biden's fast track to hell.’
Trump will ask listeners at CPAC — which bills itself as the ‘largest and most influential gathering of conservatives in the world’ — to imagine inflation and immigration after four more years of Biden, and how out of control the Justice Department would be. He'll argue the world would be more chaotic, and streets and college campuses more dangerous.
‘The unprecedented success of the United States of America will be my ultimate and absolute revenge,’ Trump plans to say, in a reprise of a line he recently introduced.
If Biden wins, Trump's script says, ‘the worst is yet to come.’
Trump — who's under indictment for fighting the outcome of his first election against Biden — will call himself a ‘freedom fighter’ against a corrupt political system.
Reality check: Violent crime has decreased under Biden, according to FBI figures. Attorney General Merrick Garland has said he'd resign if Biden asked him to take action against Trump.
Trump said last month to ‘blame it on me’ if a border bill failed. Axios' Neil Irwin has written that the U.S. economy grew faster than any rival last year, by a wide margin, and is on track to do so again this year.
The big picture: Trump will speak while polls are open in South Carolina's Republican primary, where he's a heavy favorite against Nikki Haley, the state's former governor.
Trump officials vow this is the last day they'll devote any time to Haley — moving decisively into general-election mode even before the former president officially clinches the Republican nomination.” [Axios]
U.S. fears Gaza ‘is turning into Mogadishu’
Palestinian civilians launch search and rescue operations during an Israeli army attack on a Palestinian police vehicle in Rafah, Gaza on Feb. 6. Photo: Ahmed Zaqout via Getty Images
“The Biden administration asked Israel to stop targeting members of the Hamas-run civilian police force who escort aid trucks in Gaza, warning of famine and a ‘total breakdown of law and order,’ Axios' Barak Ravid reports.
Why it matters: U.S. officials say they're increasingly concerned that ‘Gaza is turning into Mogadishu.’ A security vacuum — and desperation — have opened the door for armed gangs to attack and loot aid trucks.
It's a concern the Biden administration has been warning Israel about for several months — and why the U.S. urged the Israeli government to plan for post-war Gaza.
Mogadishu — the capital of Somalia, in the Horn of Africa — was once considered the most lawless and dangerous city in the world.
There's been a significant decrease in the number of aid trucks entering Gaza in recent weeks, according to the UN humanitarian aid office (OCHA).
At least 11 members of the police force in Rafah have been killed in Israeli air strikes in recent weeks, according to U.S. officials. This opened the way for armed gangs to take control of the aid, the officials said.
U.S. envoy for humanitarian affairs David Satterfield said at an event last week that the civilian police force in Gaza "certainly include Hamas elements" — but ‘also include individuals who don't have a direct affiliation with Hamas who are there as part of the Palestinian Authority's remnant presence and security.’
Many of the trucks that have recently entered Gaza have been overrun by criminal gangs, said James McGoldrick, UN humanitarian coordinator for the Palestinian Territory.” [Axios]
Trump's GOP extreme week
Photo illustration: Shoshana Gordon/Axios. Photos: Mandel Ngan/AFP, Andrea Ronchini/NurPhoto via Getty Images
“If former President Trump and his fellow Republicans lose in November, weeks like this might be to blame.
Why it matters: The far-right stamp Trump has put on the GOP will complicate the party's push for swing voters in November.
Over the course of the week, Trump's GOP was tied to calling frozen embryos children, appeals to kill democracy, and giving Vladimir Putin a pass on targeting his enemies, Axios managing editor David Lindsey writes.
A conservative Alabama court's ruling that frozen embryos are children has prompted fertility clinics in the Republican-led state to shut down out of fear of being prosecuted.
Now Trump and Republicans in Congress are scrambling to denounce the decision, which stemmed from a Trump-orchestrated ruling they loved — the Supreme Court's rejection of abortion rights under Roe v. Wade.
Trump yesterday called on Alabama's legislature to protect in vitro fertilization (IVF), the procedure the clinics performed.” [Axios]
Haley tests Trump's suburban strength
Haley speaks during a campaign event in Mt Pleasant, S.C., yesterday. Photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
“MONCKS CORNER, S.C. — Nikki Haley hopes suburban voters — Republicans who haven't fallen in line with Donald Trump's MAGA movement — will give her a boost in today's primary in South Carolina, her home state.
Reality check: Haley's confronting a voter base that has changed since she left the governor's office in 2017. The state — including its suburbs — seems increasingly aligned with Trump, Axios' Sophia Cai reports.
The big picture: Trump's improvement among suburban voters since 2020 has been a low-key storyline in the GOP contests so far.
He dominated all three contests, and in New Hampshire he won the large suburban counties that Haley needed to win to have any chance of an upset.
There are signs that could be the case in South Carolina, where polls suggest Trump leads by 30+ points.
During the past two weeks, Haley has campaigned aggressively in the suburbs of Charleston, Charlotte and Columbia. But many of those voters are newcomers who don't recall her time as governor.” [Axios]
Former NRA head Wayne LaPierre ordered to pay more than $4M in corruption case
BY FILIP TIMOTIJA
“Former National Rifle Association (NRA) head Wayne LaPierre was ordered to pay more than $4 million for mismanaging charitable funds to the organization he led for over three decades.
The Manhattan jury found that LaPierre, along with other leaders of the prominent gun rights group, diverted millions of dollars for lavish personal trips and other questionable expenses, according to the Associated Press.”
Read the full story here at The Hill
Google pauses AI tool
Illustration: Lazaro Gamio/Axios
“Google has stopped allowing users to generate images of humans with its Gemini AI tool after people complained that it produced pictures of Black founding fathers, a female pope, and gay couples when you asked it to create images of straight couples.
Why it matters: Google and other AI providers aim to avoid bias in the output of their generative AI tools, but removing stereotypes keeps tripping them up, Axios' Megan Morrone writes.
Between the lines: Today's AI tools aren't smart enough to understand that you might want them to provide diverse results for generic queries (‘show me a judge’) but not to tamper with history (‘show me a judge from the 18th century’).
And AI creators' efforts to avoid stereotypes have been shaped by at least a decade of missteps, in which AI image generators provided all-white-male CEO portraits and Google Photos' AI sorting algorithm classified Black people as gorillas. [Axios]
Moon lander topples
At a news conference in Houston yesterday, Steve Altemus, CEO and co-founder of Intuitive Machines, shows how the company's Odysseus apparently toppled on the moon. Photo: NASA via AP
“The moon lander Odysseus is stranded on its side, after its white-knuckle touchdown as the first private spacecraft ever to reach the lunar surface.
Houston-based Intuitive Machines said that although Odysseus made it to the surface intact, the six-legged craft apparently tripped over its own feet, Reuters reports.” [Axios]
How whales sing
A humpback whale calf in the waters of Moorea. Photo: Karim Iliya
“The songs of humpback, blue and other baleen whales are generated by the unusual anatomy of their larynx, Axios managing editor Alison Snyder writes from a new paper in Nature.
Why it matters: A whale's song helps it find other animals in the vast ocean and plays a large role in its behavior, study co-author Coen Elemans, a professor at the University of Southern Denmark, told PopSci.
When the land mammals that were ancestors of today's whales returned to the sea, they needed to be able to inhale and exhale large volumes of air when they surfaced to breathe, and to hold that air in when they sang underwater.
Scientists concluded that baleen whales have ‘unique laryngeal structures .... [that] allow some of the largest animals that ever lived to efficiently produce frequency-modulated, low-frequency calls.’” [Axios]
Bobi, once named the world’s oldest dog, stripped of title after review
“On Feb. 2, 2023, Guinness World Records publicly crowned Bobi the oldest dog ever at the age of 30 years and 267 days. Announcing his death in October, the premier keeper of world records put Bobi’s final tally at 31 years and 165 days.
On Thursday, just over a year later, Guinness posthumously stripped Bobi of the honor, saying that it ‘no longer has the evidence it needs to support Bobi’s claim as the record holder.’
‘Without any conclusive evidence available to us right now, we simply can’t retain Bobi as the record holder and honestly claim to maintain the high standards we set ourselves,’ Mark McKinley, Guinness’s records director, said in the statement, a little more than a month after the organization opened ‘a formal review’ into Bobi’s age.
Bobi, having lived his whole life in Leiria, Portugal, was a Rafeiro do Alentejo, a breed that typically guards livestock and lives between 12 and 14 years. The previous Guinness record holder for oldest dog was Bluey, an Australian cattle dog that lived 29 years and five months before dying in 1939. The new record prompted news stories around the world….” Read more at Washington Post
Uniform jeers
L.A. Dodgers designated hitter Shohei Ohtani (left) and starting pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto at spring-training picture day on Wednesday in Phoenix. Photo: Ashley Landis/AP
“MLB's uniform reveal hasn't gone very well. Players are blasting the new pants, which are somewhat see-through.
MLB officials say the new uniforms improve mobility by providing 25% more stretch and also will dry 28% faster, AP reports.” [Axios]