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"I think, frankly, the bill could be substantially improved," Senator Mitt Romney told Newsweek. "[But] that's not going to happen."
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- The Republican-controlled House passed a bill to raise the debt ceiling by a 314-117 vote. The measure heads to the Senate for its approval and then sent to President Joe Biden's desk before June 5 to avoid a default.
- Federal prosecutors have obtained an audio recording from a July 2021 meeting in which Donald Trump acknowledges he retained classified Pentagon documents after leaving the White House.
- Former Vice President Mike Pence is expected to officially join the race for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination while in Iowa next week, according to multiple media reports.
- Tens of thousands of people will head to Florida this weekend to attend Gay Day festivities despite travel warnings that the Sunshine State may not be safe for the LGBTQ+ community.
- That '70s Show actor Danny Masterson has been found guilty of two counts of rape. The next hearing is set for August 4. The actor faces up to 30 years in prison.
- The Biden Administration is preparing to expand the processing of asylum-seekers along the U.S.-Mexico border crossings to nearly 40,000 every month, up from over 20,000 each month.
- In the ongoing war in Ukraine, fresh Russian overnight strikes on Kyiv killed three people, including two children, and injured several others.
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TL/DR: Despite President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy urging lawmakers' support, both leaders have faced pushback on their negotiated debt ceiling legislation.
Legislation to raise the debt ceiling cleared its first hurdle after the House Rules Committee voted 7-6 to advance the bill to the full House, where it faces a critical test of drumming up enough support to win approval. Hard-line conservatives are promising to try to halt its passage, saying it falls short of the cuts they wanted, leaving House Speaker Kevin McCarthy desperate for the needed votes amid looming threats to his speakership.
The Congressional Budget Office said the package would cut the deficit by $1.5 trillion over a decade, but increase spending by $2.1 billion on food stamps — the exact opposite of what Republicans demanded when they made tightening work requirements for older Americans (ages 50-54) a priority. The situation calls for an urgent need for Democrats to pass the bill in the GOP-controlled House. Biden is working relentlessly, making over 100 private calls to fellow Democrats ahead of the vote.
What happens now? Jitters over the debt limit saga have kept investors on the edge; Markets in Asia and Europe traded mostly lower today. The House is expected to debate and vote on the bill today. About 218 votes are needed for the measure to pass. The legislation will then advance to the Senate. Some Republicans from the far right are warning of trying to oust McCarthy over the negotiated concessions. “There’s going to be a reckoning,” Texas Representative Chip Roy said. However, if the bill makes it through both the chambers and then to President Joe Biden's desk before the Treasury Department's June 5 deadline, it would prevent an unprecedented default. But a failure would trigger economic chaos in the U.S. and global economies.
TL/DR: "With this drone footage, Ukraine is capable of showing that we can defend,” Ukrainian Constantine Kalynovskyi told Newsweek.
Battlefield and recruitment videos released by Ukraine and Russia in the ongoing war bear hallmarks of video propaganda pushed by ISIS after its rapid ascent nearly 10 years ago. These combat videos disseminated on social media have been vital in keeping attention focused on the war and proving that the West's financial and military support for Kyiv hasn't been, and won't be, in vain.
Ukrainian battalions such as the White Wolves are filming footage from a bird's-eye view that verges on the gamification of real-life combat. Surveillance drones have "changed absolutely everything on the battlefield," Constantine Kalynovskyi, who served with the Ukrainian Armed Forces in 2014, said. Some of the techniques, appear inspired by ISIS, which pushed sophisticated and sometimes graphically violent videos as part of a wider recruitment campaign to prey on a target's weak sense of identity. Ukraine's footage has played a vital role in preventing Russia from seizing territory in the full-scale invasion, he said.
What happens now? It’s unclear when Ukraine will launch its next offensive, which was initially expected to begin in early or mid-May. In the meantime, experts say Ukraine’s combat videos are part of a strategy to keep military equipment investments from Western nations rolling in as Ukraine demonstrates how effectively its troops are using the equipment they have received so far.
TL/DR: “In meetings and one-on-ones with colleagues, there’s so much uncertainty and lack of clarity from leadership,” one Amazon worker told The Washington Post. “It’s an unsettling time to work at Amazon.”
Amazon workers plan to stage a walkout today following a dispute with the retail giant over recent layoffs, a controversial return-to-office mandate, and the company's poor environmental record. More than 1,800 employees pledged to walk out around the world, including about 870 at the company's headquarters in Seattle. And, 20,000 workers signed a petition urging the company to allow remote work.
Rumors of a walkout started in February, when Amazon told its staff that it believed they would be "more engaged, observant, and attuned to what's happening" when they attended work in person, ending the work-from-home option for employees. After an annual statement to investors saw Amazon pledge to reach net-zero carbon by 2040, walkout organizers hit back, insisting the company must instead commit to zero emissions by 2030. Finally, organizers are protesting the company's elimination of jobs, with 27,000 having been cut in 2023 already.
What happens now? “We respect our employees' rights to express their opinions,” was the terse response from Amazon regarding the walkout, and it looks like the company may simply wait for the storm to blow over. One spokesperson told Fortune that “as it pertains to the specific topics this group of employees is raising, we’ve explained our thinking in different forums over the past few months and will continue to do so.” Amazon is one of many tech companies that took on large numbers of employees during the pandemic to meet the online demand from people stuck in their houses, but with the pandemic easing and demand slipping, the company has been left struggling to cut costs.
TL/DR: "We've got a war in Sudan, we're coming out of a war in Ethiopia, there's Somalia, the Central African Republic, there's Libya… it's a hugely precarious and fragile setting, and South Sudan sits in the middle," the head of the U.N. Mission in South Sudan told Newsweek.
Clashes subsided in Sudan, but fighting continues in parts of the country as the Armed Forces and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) agreed to extend a ceasefire to allow delivery of aid to civilians. The conflict has dragged on for six weeks, prompting a major humanitarian crisis. At least 1,000 people have died. The situation has the potential to deteriorate further and spread beyond the borders, bringing guns, drugs, and militants across continents, U.N. Under Secretary General for Peace Operations, Jean-Pierre Lacroix, told Newsweek.
The risk of compounding crises is severe in Africa, where the ISIS militant group is more active than anywhere else. Nearly 1.4 million people have been displaced, with some entering the oil-rich territory of Abyei and some others fleeing to South Sudan. Nicholas Haysom, head of the U.N. Mission in South Sudan, said the strain is being felt in the form of supply chain disruptions, soaring prices, and ethnic conflicts erupting.
What happens now? Sudan's crisis has sparked a response as far away as the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Given the interconnectivity between African nations that extends to culture, economies, and crises, Special Rep. to the U.N. Secretary-General Bintou Keita is calling for “further integration” of U.N. efforts across the continent beyond the mandates of individual missions. She argued the success of these efforts is in the interest of the international community. For those wondering from abroad why instability in the region should matter, Keita said that her message is to convey "how their daily lives are impacted and affected by what is going on 10,000 kilometers away from them."
TL/DR: "Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war,” the Center for AI Safety read.
Some of the biggest names in tech have sounded the dystopian alarm: artificial intelligence (AI) could lead to the extinction of humanity. Weeks after distancing himself from a call to halt the development of AI, OpenAI/ChatGPT CEO Sam Altman, along with other senior tech leaders, cosigned the single-sentence statement. The "AI takeover" is nothing new (see: most sci-fi films in the last 50 years), but as the technology becomes more "real," so do the risks.
There are several disastrous possibilities, according to the Center for AI Safety: AI could be weaponized; AI misinformation could eventually destabilize society; powerful people could limit access to AI, giving extreme advantages to those with access; or enfeeblement, similar to the scenes played out in Wall-E when people do nothing because there's nothing they "have" to do. Despite the warning, many experts are less convinced. "Most AI researchers think the notion of AI ending human civilization is baloney," Pedro Domingos, of the University of Washington, said.
What happens now? Experts broadly agree that we’re at the starting line of this technology, with ChatGPT not technically being full AI, with Oxford computer science Professor Michael Wooldridge calling it a “very sophisticated form of auto-complete.” The next step is a focus on the regulators trying to make laws and manage risk when those actually developing the technology aren’t sure what the ingredients are to a very complicated AI recipe.
TL/DR: “There is no doubt that if there is a great American driver, this would be another great boost for the American market,” F1 President and CEO Stefano Domenicali told Newsweek.
Formula 1 (F1) is capturing the imagination of a new generation of American fans through clever marketing, the Netflix series Drive to Survive, and youth-friendly "woke" ideology to ruffle the feathers of the Miami Grand Prix's host, Gov. Ron DeSantis. What's more? The celeb-filled international jet set vibe and the buckets of cash that come with it. F1 saw record U.S. viewership last year, with an average of 1.2 million viewers a race. Some 400,000 fans headed to Austin for the 2022 U.S. Grand Prix— the most of any race on the F1 calendar.
Over the past four years, F1 said it had been the fastest-growing global sports league in terms of social media followers. It's now a gender-diverse group, too: Around 40% of fans are female, up from 8% when Liberty Media bought it in 2017. This has helped F1 earn $2.6 billion in 2022 revenue, while the value of the business soared to nearly $17 billion.
What happens now? Despite the success, F1’s Domenicali spoke to Newsweek about F1’s drive to grow the championship even further in America and beyond, including plans to improve diversity, get more women involved in the sport, and how technology will play a crucial role for F1 to achieve carbon-neutrality pledge by 2030. He hopes a new film starring Brad Pitt and produced by champion driver Lewis Hamilton will capture all of the glitz, glamour, and thrills of the open-wheel racing series. F1 heads back to Europe, where the bulk of the summer races will be held, including the Spanish Grand Prix in Barcelona on June 4. Ford is set to supply engines to the Red Bull team starting in 2026, while Andretti Global is teaming up with Cadillac to join the championship in 2025, pending F1 approval.
Many of Galaxy's Planets Could Be in 'Goldilocks Zone'
A large proportion of the most common type of planet in the galaxy could be situated in the habitable "Goldilocks Zone" of their solar system, research has found.
Astronomers from the University of Florida have found that of the billions of planets orbiting stars smaller and cooler than our own sun—named M-dwarf stars—around one-third of the planets may be orbiting at the right distance and shape that allows for the formation of liquid water on the planet's surface, also known as the "Goldilocks Zone."
According to the paper, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, this makes these planets a candidate for the existence of life.
The Full STORY- "One in 10 older Americans have dementia, a condition that affects overall mental health. We recognize, as she did more than half a century ago, that stigma is often a barrier that keeps individuals and their families from seeking and getting much-needed support. We hope sharing our family's news will increase important conversations at kitchen tables and in doctor's offices around the country," The Carter Center said following an announcement about former first lady Rosalynn Carter's battle with dementia.
- "We've known for too long that prohibiting the use of cannabis hasn't worked. By legalizing adult-use cannabis, we're expanding our economy, creating jobs, and regulating the industry to keep Minnesotans safe," Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said of his decision to sign a bill that makes cannabis use legal for adults in his state starting in August.
- "I recognize yesterday I made a post that was hurtful to the Pride community, which includes friends of mine and close family members of mine. I am truly sorry for that. I just spoke with my teammates and shared with them my actions yesterday. I apologized with them, and as of right now, I am using the Blue Jays' resources to better educate myself to make better decisions moving forward. The ballpark is for everybody. We include all fans at the ballpark. We want to welcome everybody," Toronto Blue Jays pitcher Anthony Bass, apologizing for sharing an anti-LGBTQ post on social media.
- Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis begins his first full-day presidential campaign in Iowa, making multiple appearances in an attempt to connect with voters and portray himself as a credible contender to take on Donald Trump. His visit comes as Trump will also be in the state for two days to meet with supporters and elected officials.
- Markets will watch for two jobs reports today — ADP employment and JOLTS job openings — which could give clues on the health of the labor market ahead of Friday's nonfarm payrolls data, from 8:15 a.m. ET. Economists expect ADP's employment report to show that private employers hired 180,000 workers in May, far lower than the 296,000 hired in April. The Federal Reserve's beige book is due at 2 p.m.
- Salesforce, NetApp, and Advance Auto Parts are among the major companies scheduled to report their quarterly results.
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