Eye of the Needle
Roundup: Skip the news. Read the biweekly curation.
WHAT’S THIS?: The Stringer publishes every other week with a roundup of news items that you may have missed—with a global bent.
The assassination of former Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinzo grabbed international headlines since the last news roundup a couple of weeks ago. It was Shinzo’s family affiliations with Unification Church, apparently, that was his undoing.
It’s served as a reminder of how skillful Japan’s “faith industry” is at extracting cash, writes Leo Lewis, the Asia Business Editor at The Financial Times. For religious extremes that occasionally explode into fantastic bouts of violence, Japan is tops.
A few news items that may have gone unnoticed:
POLITICS and WORLD
COURT: Protests have continued against the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to undo the federal abortion protections offered by Roe v. Wade. Seventeen congresspersons were among those arrested for protesting about a week ago, according to U.S. Capitol Police.
WATCHING THE WATCHERS: Responding to criticism over e-cigarettes and the baby formula shortage, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration launched reviews of its tobacco and food programs.
BUSINESS
WHO INVITED RECESSION?: The U.S. Federal Reserve upped interest rates by 0.75 percent—again. They’re insisting the economy isn’t in a recession, but the market seems less sure about that than they are.
KILL SWITCH: Uber’s executives blocked police from six countries from getting into their data through a “kill switch,” leaked documents show.
TOUGH GUY: The Federal Trade Commission filed to prevent Meta—though, let’s be honest, it’ll always be Facebook—from buying up a VR company. It’s the first suit of this kind aimed at Big Tech from Lina Khan’s FTC, which has been looking to toughen up against shady corporate practices.
F*CK YOU, PAY ME: The federal minimum wage is becoming worth less and less, partly because the mechanisms for increasing it are so slow and uneven. Now, says the Economic Policy Institute, a D.C.-based think tank, the purchasing power of the minimum wage has hit a 66-year low. It’s less money, more problems.
IN THE ROUGH: Traditionally, in the U.S., golf courses have been a source of social struggle, though at the moment they’re largely viewed as wasteful and unfriendly to the environment. The PGA—itself viewed as a prosaic institution—is facing competition from Saudi Arabia’s new LIV Tour. The PGA’s attempts to keep its crown have triggered an antitrust investigation. Golf may cause droopy eyelids when on TV, but its business practices aren’t so boring, it seems.
SCIENCE
A POX’S HOUSE: Named for the black pustules that formed on its victims’ bodies, the bubonic plague—known dis-affectionately as the “Black Death”—devastated the medieval world. The source of “the pandemic”—and if anything could lay claim to that title, then surely, it’s the Black Death—has finally been traced back to central Eurasia in the 14th century, according to a study in Nature.
STAR-GAZING: NASA published the first photos from the James Webb telescope, the next generation after the Hubble Telescope. Researchers hope that its infrared cameras will allow them to peer further into the past, nearer to the Big Bang, illuminating the origins of the universe.
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