Three news stories summarized & contextualized by analytic journalist Colin Wright.

Office-loan defaults near historic levels with billions on the line

Summary: More than $38 billion-worth of US office buildings are on the brink of defaulting or being foreclosed, marking the highest level of such debt-related distress in this real estate sector since 2012.

Context: Commercial property owners typically borrow half (or more) of the money they invest in a building, so the current high interest rates in the country are making life difficult for those buyers, and the reduction in demand for office buildings has made affording those increased payments tricky, as post-COVID-19 workplace realities have collapsed entire chunks of the market, and tenants are now paying closer attention to their landlords’ financial health, which—for the aforementioned reasons—is tending to be less good than it would have been several years ago, compounding this issue for some property owners.

—The Wall Street Journal

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Tesla to lay off everyone working on Superchargers and new vehicles

Summary: Following a wave of layoffs that saw more than 10% of the company’s employees fired in mid-April, EV company Tesla’s leadership has announced that two key executives—those responsible for new vehicle development and the company’s Supercharger network—have been laid off, along with most of their teams.

Context: This new batch of firings will effect around 500 employees on those two teams, plus the company’s public policy team, and this is being seen as a puzzling move, as Tesla CEO Elon Musk has recently said that he’s doubling-down on efforts to create autonomous robo-taxi networks, which would seem to require more public policy efforts, not fewer; the company’s Supercharger network is also considered to be something of a crown jewel, as it has more fast EV chargers installed around the US than every other company combined, and a recent decision to open those chargers to non-Tesla vehicles has meant more revenue for the company at a moment in which it’s seemingly hemorrhaging money due to heightened competition and the at times bizarre and highly political antics of Musk, himself.

—Ars Technica

OpenAI inks strategic tie-up with UK’s Financial Times, including content use

Summary: The Financial Times, a longstanding London-based news entity, has signed a deal with ChatGPT-maker OpenAI to license their archive for AI-training and information-gleaning purposes.

Context: This deal is being framed as a strategic partnership, and in essence it means that the Financial Times will be paid by OpenAI to allow the latter to use the former’s work to train their AI systems, while also allowing those systems to provide information from the FT to users, when relevant; OpenAI has recently made similar deals with the Associated Press, Axel Springer, and Le Monde, among others, and other AI companies are doing the same, all of them seemingly trying to get ahead of a jumble of legal actions by all sorts of publishing entities aimed at AI companies that are scraping up this sort of work without providing compensation to the owners of said work.

—TechCrunch

While word of TikTok’s potential near-future ban in the US might play a role in Snapchat’s growth in the West, the app has been seeing a huge surge in growth elsewhere around the world for years, with 90% of their new daily active users living outside the US and Canada (two of its biggest markets).

—Sherwood News

52%

Portion of the US public that uses some kind of ad-blocker on the web, according to a new survey conducted by Censuswide.

That’s up from 34% in 2022, and the number is even higher for more experienced web-users like programmers and cybersecurity experts: 72% and 76% of folks working in those trades, respectively, use ad-blockers.

—The Register

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Three news stories summarized & contextualized by analytic journalist Colin Wright.

Flash floods and landslide kill at least 45 in central Kenya

Summary: Flash floods that were initially blamed on a burst dam, but which were later confirmed to have been caused by a river tunnel becoming blocked by debris, and a landslide have killed at least 45 people and injured more than 100 others in central Kenya.

Context: This new wave of flooding brings the total death toll attributable to heavy rains and flooding in Kenya to more than 140 people since last month, and more than 185,000 have been displaced by those floods over the same period; flooding isn’t unusual in this part of the world during its annual rainy season, but flooding has become more irregular and powerful in recent years due to shifts in the climate.

—Reuters

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US poised to ease restrictions on marijuana in historic shift, but it’ll remain a controlled substance

Summary: The US Drug Enforcement Agency will reclassify marijuana as a Schedule III drug, according to sources familiar with the government’s plans.

Context: Marijuana is currently a Schedule I drug, alongside substances like LSD and heroin, and this reclassification would put it in the same category as some types of anabolic steroid and ketamine—substances that are often used for various sorts of therapies, but which are still controlled and require a prescription; this change in classification could have a dramatic impact on marijuana’s status at the state level, as it would reduce the penalties for possession and could make it easier for marijuana-oriented businesses to work within the banking system; recent polls found that 70% of US adults support legalizing marijuana, up from just 30% in 2000.

—The Associated Press

Florida’s six-week abortion ban is now law, with political implications

Summary: A ban on abortions after six weeks of pregnancy came into effect in Florida on Wednesday, marking a major policy shift in the state.

Context: This new ban dramatically reduces a woman’s options when it comes to abortions, as most women don’t know they’re pregnant at six months, and most neighboring states also have abortion bans on the books, which means traveling to get one performed might require a significant and expensive trip; this ban could complicate things for the Republican lawmakers who passed it in November, as while abortion restrictions and bans remain a key focus for some components of the party, public opinion polls in Florida indicate broad, bipartisan opposition to strict abortion bans, and every time abortion bans have been on the ballot following the overturning of Roe v. Wade by the Supreme Court, folks have voted against them, even in deeply conservative parts of the country.

—The New York Times

New data show that the Consumer Price Index (one measure of inflation) rose 3.5% in the US in March, compared to the previous year, but auto insurance in the country was up 22.2% during the same period, marking the largest increase since the 1970s (and representing a big headache for car owners).

—Reuters

2035

Year by which the G7 group of wealthy industrialized countries has committed to have completely phased-out coal, with a little bit of leeway left for Japan, which is highly reliant on the fuel.

That’s a big commitment, but still falls short of the target recommended by the IPCC which would require coal is phased-out by 2030 and their economies are completely decarbonized by 2035.

—The Associated Press

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