The Full Belmonte, 3/15/2023
An onlooker checks on damage brought on by heavy rains and flooding in Springville, California.
Extreme weather
“A significant portion of the Northeast, from New York through New England, is being hit with heavy snow from the nor'easter impacting the region. The wintery conditions are creating messy commutes and widespread flight interruptions, with more than 1,000 flights canceled in the US on Tuesday and thousands more delayed today. New York's LaGuardia International Airport and Boston Logan International Airport were most impacted with about 300 cancellations each on Tuesday. Meanwhile, in flood-ravaged California, the latest atmospheric river event is bringing hurricane-force wind gusts that are so strong it reportedly sent glass falling from a San Francisco high-rise building. The combination of strong winds and heavy rain also left nearly 200,000 homes and businesses without power across the state this morning, many of them in Santa Clara County.” [CNN]
President Biden signs new executive action expanding gun background checks
“President Joe Biden took executive action Tuesday that seeks to increase the number of background checks conducted during gun sales as the White House reverts to unilateral ways to tackle gun control amid bleak prospects in Congress. The order stops short of requiring universal background checks, which the president has asked Congress to pass through legislation. ‘It's just common sense to check whether someone is a felon, a domestic abuser before they buy a gun,’ Biden said at a Boys & Girls Club in Monterey Park, California, where he grieved with family members of 11 people killed in a mass shooting there in January.” Read more at USA Today
Brandon Tsay stands and waves as President Joe Biden speaks at The Boys & Girls Club of West San Gabriel Valley, Tuesday, March 14, 2023, in Monterey Park, California.
Evan Vucci, AP
Advocacy groups, lawmakers highlight law they say led to SVB collapse
“Experts and lawmakers says Congress must repeal a Donald Trump-era law that has been blamed by advocacy groups for the failure of two banks over the weekend. The law includes a provision that reduces the number of banks that were subject to the stringent 2010 Dodd-Frank Act instituted to prevent the excessive risk-taking that led to the financial crisis. Proponents of the bill, including Republican lawmakers and the banking industry, saw the sweeping scope and regulatory costs imposed by the Dodd-Frank Act on smaller banks as ‘overregulation.’” Read more at USA Today
Senate Banking Committee chairman Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) speaks at the U.S. Capitol March 14, 2023 in Washington, DC.
Drew Angerer, Getty Images
Young, unaffiliated Latino voters surge
Election-night party at LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes in L.A. in 2016. Photo: Patrick T. Fallon/Bloomberg via Getty Images
“First-time Latino voters are outpacing first-time non-Latino voters in Arizona, California, Florida, Nevada, New York and Texas, Axios' Russell Contreras writes from a new TelevisaUnivision/L2 report.
Why it matters: Nonpartisan and unaffiliated Latino voters are on the verge of becoming one of the biggest swing voter groups in the U.S. — raising the stakes for early and regular engagement from both parties.
In November's midterms, the percentage of early Latino voters ages 18-34 jumped in Arizona, Nevada, New York, and Texas, the report found.
Unaffiliated Latino voters now represent the largest percentage of Latino voters in Florida.
Nonpartisan Hispanic registered voters represent a larger percentage than non-partisan non-Hispanic voters in states like Arizona and Nevada.
State of play: The number of Latinos, which includes people of any race, was 62.1 million in 2020 — up 23% in a decade, according to census figures.
Exit polls for U.S. House races in 2022 showed 60% of Latinos backed Democrats. 39% voted for Republicans.
Reality check: A preliminary analysis by the research firm Equis suggests Democrats in 2022 kept just enough Latino voter support to win critical state and federal races in Arizona, Nevada, and Texas — while faltering in Florida.
But Democrats didn't lose as much ground with Latino voters as some predicted — at least for now — staving off significant GOP wins in Texas while holding ground in Arizona and Nevada.” [Axios]
Sweden Admits Finland Could Join NATO First
“Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson admitted on Tuesday at a news conference that, due to Turkish opposition to Sweden’s bid to join NATO, Finland, its neighbor, is likely to join the alliance before Sweden does.
Although the two countries vowed to join ‘hand in hand’ last year, Kristersson acknowledged Tuesday, ‘it’s not out of the question that Sweden and Finland will be ratified in different stages.’
Every existing NATO member must approve of a new member, and Turkey, under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, up for reelection this May, claims that Sweden is too lenient on groups and individuals that Turkey deems to be a threat, notably including Kurdish groups.
There is a Kurdish diaspora of roughly 100,000 in Sweden (Finland’s Kurdish population is closer to 15,000).
‘Basically, this is not about whether Sweden becomes a NATO member,’ Kristersson said, ‘but about when Sweden becomes a NATO member.’” [Foreign Policy]
“Russian jet forces down U.S. drone. The U.S. military said that a Russian fighter jet forced down a U.S. drone over the Black Sea after damaging its propeller.
In a call with reporters today, National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said, ‘This is not an uncommon occurrence. There have been, even in just recent weeks, there have been other intercepts. But this one obviously is noteworthy because of how unsafe and unprofessional it was, indeed reckless that it was, in causing the downing of one of our aircraft, so it’s unique in that regard.’
‘This MQ9 [drone] was operating in international airspace over international waters, and posed a threat to nobody. It was an unsafe and unprofessional intercept. It is not the first time, certainly in recent weeks, that there have been intercepts. It is the first time that an intercept resulted in the ‘splashing’ of one of our drones,’ said Kirby.
He reiterated that the U.S. would not be deterred from operating in international airspace over the Black Sea. ‘We are going to continue to fly and operate in international airspace over international waters. The Black Sea belongs to no one nation.’
Kirby noted the U.S. has been flying over that airspace since before the war began, and consistently since the war started.” [Foreign Policy]
“Crackdown on LGBTQ groups in Uganda. LGBTQ people in Uganda have been subjected to an increase in attacks this year. Over 110 people reported incidents, some of which include sexual violence, to Sexual Minorities Uganda, or SMUG, in February alone. Frank Mugisha, SMUG’s director, told the Guardian, ‘We haven’t seen anything like this in years.’ Just days ago, Ugandan MPs reintroduced legislation that would punish gay sex as well as ‘promotion’ of same sex ‘activities.’” [Foreign Policy]
“Popular radical | Argentina faces presidential elections in October with neither of the established blocs, populist or pro-market, having been able to fix an economy lurching deeper into the abyss. As Patrick Gillespie and Ignacio Olivera Doll report, the resulting voter disaffection with the government and the main opposition may open the door to a libertarian candidate known for his rage-filled rhetoric to pull off an upset victory.
Argentina recorded one of the world’s fastest rates of annual inflationlast month, with consumer prices rising 102.5% from a year prior.” [Bloomberg]
Javier Milei during a campaign rally in Buenos Aires on Nov. 6, 2021. Photographer: Anita Pouchard Serra/Bloomberg
“China slams AUKUS submarine deal. After the latest announcement of a deal regarding nuclear-powered submarines from the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia—the three participants in the AUKUS defense pact—China accused the three of heading down a path of ‘error and danger.’
The deal equips Australia with nuclear-powered submarines to counter an ascendant China in the Indo-Pacific. Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said, ‘The latest joint statement from the US, UK and Australia demonstrates that the three countries, for the sake of their own geopolitical interests, completely disregard the concerns of the international communities.’” [Foreign Policy]
“China to reopen borders to foreign tourists. After three years of restrictions, China is fully reopening its borders to foreign tourists and other visitors. The announcement comes as China looks to boost its economy, and a month after declaring a ‘major and decisive victory’ against the pandemic. Holders of multi-year visas from before March 2020, when borders closed as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic that began in Wuhan, will still be able to use them so long as they have not expired.” [Foreign Policy]
“Waste piles up in Paris. Waste collectors in Paris have been on strike for a week, and trash is piling up. They are protesting the French government’s proposed pension reform change, under which workers would have to retire at 64 instead of 62. Other cities, including Nantes and Rennes, have also been impacted. Additionally, three waste treatment sites have been blockaded, while a fourth is partially closed.” [Foreign Policy]
When ‘scary good’ AI gets even better
Photo: Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images
“With yesterday's release of OpenAI's new GPT-4, generative AI got a lot more powerful, Axios chief tech correspondent Ina Fried reports.
Why it matters: The new version can accept and generate longer entries — up to 25,000 words. It can generate captions and other information using an image as a starting point.
ChatGPT could score in the 10th percentile on a bar exam. OpenAI says GPT-4 can score in the 90th percentile.
GPT-4 can pass most Advanced Placement exams, OpenAI says.
On the safety side, OpenAI says GPT-4 is 82% less likely than GPT-3.5 to respond when asked for content its rules don't allow — and 40% more likely to produce factual responses.
Reality check: The amazing computer systems that can now ace standardized tests — and maybe even do your taxes — are still disturbingly prone to errors, bias and hallucinations.
GPT-4, like its predecessor, is only trained on information that was publicly available as of September 2021.
How you can use it: Microsoft confirmed that GPT-4 has been powering its new Bing search chatbot. That may be your easiest route to using it right now, since OpenAI is limiting some access.
OpenAI said GPT-4 is available in a limited capacity to paid ChatGPT Plus subscribers via chat.openai.com. There's a waitlist for businesses and developers looking to incorporate GPT-4 via an API.
The technology is still far from perfect, OpenAI president Greg Brockman told Axios on Tuesday.
But it's already at a stage where it can help a lot of people, he said, noting its potential to expand access to education, as well as legal and medical information: ‘I'm just excited to see what people build.’
The big picture: OpenAI isn't alone in debuting advances in the field. It wasn't even the only AI outfit making news yesterday.
Anthropic, an OpenAI rival, formally announced Claude, its chatbot which is being used by a range of companies including DuckDuckGo, Notion and Quora, among others.
Google outlined ways generative AI engines can help businesses, including tools to pore through data. AI tools being added to Workspace can summarize email, draw up marketing campaigns and rewrite documents.
What's next: Microsoft has scheduled an event tomorrow to talk about how it will build generative AI into its business products, including Office apps — Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook.” [Axios]
Men's NCAA Tournament begins
“In a thrilling game filled with runs, Mississippi State fell 60-59 against Pittsburgh in the First Four while Texas A&M-Corpus Christi held off Southeast Missouri State 75-71 on Tuesday night to earn the first NCAA Tournament win in program history.” USA Today
Pittsburgh's Jamarius Burton reacts after hitting the game-winning shot.
Darron Cummings, AP
Death of a star
Photo: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Webb ERO Production Team via AP
“The Webb Space Telescope has captured the rare and fleeting phase of a star on the cusp of death, seen above in a photo NASA released yesterday at the South by Southwest (SXSW) conference in Austin.
Shimmering in purple like a cherry blossom, the cast-off material once comprised the star's outer layer, AP's Marcia Dunn writes.
‘We've never seen it like that before. It's really exciting,’ said Macarena Garcia Marin, a European Space Agency scientist who is part of the project.” [Axios]
“Lives Lived: The novelist John Jakes wrote generational family sagas of the American Revolution and the Civil War that became best sellers. He died at 90.” [New York Times]