| | | Indian protesters burn Pakistani flags Friday after a suicide attack on Indian security forces in the disputed Kashmir region. Source: Getty |
| | IMPORTANT | | 01 | Although he pledged to sign a bipartisan spending bill approved by Congress yesterday to avert another federal shutdown, President Donald Trump appears poised to spark a constitutional battle over the federal purse and the limits of presidential authority. If he follows up on his promise to build his $5.7 billion border wall by invoking an emergency, Trump will almost certainly face immediate legal challenges.
Where will the cash come from? Disaster relief and military construction funds seem to be the most likely sources of the $8 billion the White House claims to have freed up.
Don’t miss OZY’s take on a more modest proposal for building Trump’s wall. | |
| | 02 | They couldn’t deliver. Progressive politicians — including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — are claiming victory after the retail giant abandoned its plan for a $2.5 billion second headquarters in Long Island City. Citing strong opposition to the $3 billion in tax breaks it was set to receive, Amazon said it’ll instead focus on plans for locations in northern Virginia and Nashville.
Has Amazon lost face? Not exactly: As OZY reports, the online retailer ranked the second-most trusted of 20 institutions in a recent poll, suggesting prompt delivery to shoppers’ doorsteps counts for a lot. | |
| | 03 | Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has promised a tough response to a suicide attack yesterday that left at least 46 soldiers dead in the disputed Kashmir region. His government will reportedly isolate Pakistan, claiming the country shelters the terrorist group responsible for the attack. It was the deadliest in decades in the protracted conflict between India and Kashmir separatists.
What will punishment look like? New Delhi has already stripped Pakistan of special trading privileges, while analysts predict a strong military response — and a fundamental shift in relations.
Check out OZY’s profile of the good local boy-turned-Kashmir nationalist. | |
| | 04 | The beleaguered British prime minister suffered another blow from Parliament yesterday as lawmakers voted 303-258 against her government’s negotiating strategy for withdrawing from the European Union. While the vote isn’t legally binding, it reveals how tenuous May’s authority remains — even within her own Conservative Party — just weeks ahead of the scheduled March 29 divorce.
What’s the EU thinking? After Thursday’s vote, officials are increasingly doubting May’s ability to ensure an orderly Brexit, with one diplomat commenting, “No one can take any good from this.” | |
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| | | | INTRIGUING | | 01 | OpenAI, a research institute co-founded by tech titan Elon Musk, has developed an advanced language processing algorithm that has researchers worried. The machine learning system was trained on 8 million web pages to create coherent written text that “looks pretty darn real,” with nuance and even humor. It only works about half the time, though, sometimes producing bizarre and nonsensical results.
Why the worry? Researchers fear their creation could be misused to produce high-quality fake news — which is why they’re not releasing it to the public.
Don’t miss this OZY profile of the GOP’s artificial intelligence guru. | |
| | 02 | Investigative site Bellingcat has named Denis Sergeev as the third suspect in the nerve agent poisoning of Russian ex-spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in the U.K. last March. It also linked Sergeev — a high-ranking Russian intelligence officer sometimes known as Sergey Fedotov — to the 2015 poisoning of a Bulgarian arms trader and his son.
What are authorities doing? British and Bulgarian officials are conducting a joint probe into the matter, though it may prove challenging: One investigator says Sergeev is the trickiest spy they’ve ever followed. | |
| | 03 | Reports have shored up. The climate phenomenon triggered by warmer waters in the Pacific was made official by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration yesterday. El Niños usually bring wet weather across the southern U.S. and drier conditions in the Midwest, and this event may be to blame for recent West Coast storms, which are expected to last through spring.
What calamities await? This oceanic cycle isn’t expected to have a significant impact on global weather — though a weak El Niño, while suppressing storms in the Atlantic, could boost tornadoes in the Midwest and hurricanes in the Pacific. | |
| | 04 | Attorney Michael Avenatti announced yesterday that “new critical video evidence” implicates the singer in the sexual assault of an underage girl. The tape reportedly features a girl and a man resembling Kelly both referencing the fact that she’s 14 years old. Avenatti says his whistle-blower client, who worked for Kelly, can positively identify the girl on the video, which is now in police possession.
What happens next? One senior law enforcement official in Illinois — where Kelly was acquitted of similar charges — suggests prosecutors are prepping fresh charges against him.
Read this OZY feature about how Sweden’s putting a new twist on #MeToo. | |
| | 05 | The racing behemoth may have found a way to attract a long-elusive younger audience, OZY reports. By focusing on its fantasy products, NASCAR could pull in some of the 59.3 million online sports gamers in the U.S. and Canada. Fantasy players — whose average age is 32 — are 64 percent more likely to also watch live sports. NASCAR’s plan might even inspire other overlooked fantasy sports, such as golf, MMA and tennis.
Are they betting on it? Naturally: NASCAR’s already considering how sports gambling, legalized on a state-by-state basis, could further drive their fantasy products. | |
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