ITK Daily | March 7
Ex-Googler, Jason Palmer, NASA, Speed Dating, Woke, plus 1,000 more actionable insights.
ITK Daily is geopolitical business news + intelligence for comms pros.
Always Be Communicating.
Happy Wednesday.
Here’s today’s ITK Daily:
*** Globalization + Geopolitics ***
AP: A suspected attack by Yemen’s Houthi rebels damages a ship in the Gulf of Aden
BBC: Three killed in Houthi missile attack on cargo ship - US military
Europe kicked out Vladimir Putin’s spies. Now they’re back: Game of ‘cat and mouse’ returns to cold war levels, say intelligence officers. FT
Xi Jinping’s hunger for power is hurting China’s economy: A new economic plan won’t end deflation, even as he sidelines his prime minister. Economist
Reuters: More Chinese women choosing singledom as economy stutters
Why you shouldn’t trust China’s growth data: Anomalies in China’s official statistics suggest GDP grew less last year than Beijing claims. Greg Ip
Bloomberg: Ex-Google engineer charged with AI tech theft for Chinese firms
+ US DOJ charges Chinese national with stealing trade secrets
+ Linwei Ding didn’t tell Google of China connection, US says
Google engineer charged with stealing AI secrets while working for Chinese groups: FT reports prosecutors say man had access to the ‘building blocks’ of company’s cutting-edge technology.
Ex-Google engineer charged with stealing AI secrets for Chinese firm: Linwei Ding, a Chinese national, was arrested in California and accused of uploading hundreds of files to the cloud. NYT
Bloomberg: US urges allies to further squeeze China on chip technology
+ Washington wants to control key chemical, more machinery parts
+ US pushes Seoul, Berlin to jointly contain China’s tech rise
Reuters: China steps up grey-zone warfare to exhaust Taiwan, defence report says
Bloomberg: Australia, Vietnam upgrade ties amid US-China rivalry
+ US upgraded relations with Vietnam in September visit by Biden
+ Australia hosted ASEAN leaders in Melbourne for summit
Bloomberg: Netherlands seeks to prevent ASML expansion abroad, report says
+ Government has set up the ‘Beethoven’ task force to keep ASML
+ The Netherlands has lost Shell, Unilever to relocations
UK votes: Labour continues its dominant lead over the Tories, polling 44 percent to the government’s 27 percent in the latest Savanta voting intention.
AFP: Argentina's 'troll' president: Milei takes aim at rivals online
US, Caribbean nations press Haiti leader to hasten transfer of power: WSJ reports pressure is mounting on Haiti’s Prime Minister Ariel Henry to step down and call for elections as warlords threaten to take over the Western Hemisphere’s poorest nation.
Miami Herald: US fears Haiti could fall ‘at any time’ as doubts grow over Biden’s backup Kenya plan
From China to New York, by way of the southern border: Thousands of Chinese migrants have made their way to Queens, Brooklyn, and Chinatown after first passing through Central and South America. NYT
*** US Politics + Elections ***
House passes bipartisan $460 billion spending bill to avert a partial shutdown: NYT reports staring down yet another deadline, Speaker Mike Johnson again relied on Democratic votes to push through a package to fund about half the government through the fall.
AP: Third-party group No Labels is expected to move forward with a 2024 campaign
AP: Who is Jason Palmer? A previously unknown Democrat beats Biden in American Samoa’s Democratic caucus
Biden promised calm, but the world has not cooperated: NYT reports inflation, an explosion of migration and wars overseas have created a sense of instability that has eroded President Biden’s support, polls show.
Today: SOTU
Biden’s State of the Union address is seriously high stakes: The president will be judged not just on the words he utters but on how he utters them. Politico
Biden’s plan for Trump: Bury him with campaign cash: Politico reports a massive avalanche of spending is about to come the former president’s way.
Bernie Sanders’s private warning to Biden about the 2024 campaign: WP reports the Vermont senator and onetime presidential hopeful has urged the White House to articulate a clearer contrast with the GOP.
Nikki Haley exits the Republican presidential race.
Here comes the general election: Long, negative and consequential: In an unpredictable year, the usual presidential campaign metrics will be more difficult to count on. Dan Balz
Bloomberg: Trump dares Biden to debate after jilting Republican rivals
Donald Trump, seeking cash infusion, meets with Elon Musk: NYT reports it’s not clear whether Mr. Musk will spend any of his billions on the former president’s behalf. If he does, he could erase Mr. Trump’s financial disadvantage in the 2024 race.
Reuters: After Trump meet, Musk says he won't donate to either US presidential candidate
Trump’s Super Tuesday victory speech: grim visions of an American apocalypse: Guardian reports rather than bask in his Republican primary victories, the ex-president asserted that the state of the union is bleak.
Super Trump and his mighty MAGA machine: After his Super Tuesday wins, Donald Trump moves swiftly to dominate the national Republican Party. Economist
CA Senate: Adam Schiff and Steve Garvey advance as Katie Porter fades: Politico reports Porter’s message of promising to shake up the Senate and crusade against corporations was drowned out.
The government lab keeping AI safe is fighting mold, floods and pests: Funding challenges at the National Institute of Standards and Technology could jeopardize the Biden administration AI work. WP
Let AI remake the whole US government (oh, and save the country) Josh Tyrangiel
+ Josh Tyrangiel is a Washington Post columnist covering artificial intelligence
Release: Gallagher, bipartisan coalition introduce legislation to protect Americans from foreign adversary controlled applications, including TikTok Web
+ TikTok, which is headquartered in Singapore and backed by Chinese investors, has been in the crosshairs of Congress for more than a year.
+ The Biden White House is backing a bipartisan bill that could lead to a ban on the hugely popular social media app TikTok in the United States.
+ Previous congressional efforts to ban TikTok didn’t have White House backing
+ The legislation was authored by Reps. Michael Gallagher (R-WI) and Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL), the chair and ranking member of the China Select Committee.
States target AI’s hidden hand in Americans’ lives AP
WP: TSA unveils first self-screening security line at Las Vegas airport
SFC: Voters make it clear: San Francisco can no longer be called a progressive city
*** Disruption + Innovation ***
How the bromance between Elon Musk and Sam Altman turned toxic: A legal battle between OpenAI’s co-founders is the latest twist in a volatile partnership that launched the artificial-intelligence boom. WSJ
Elon Musk is right about OpenAI but for the wrong reasons: The world’s second-richest man accuses Sam Altman of putting profits over the good of humankind. Max Chafkin
+ Max Chafkin is a Bloomberg Businessweek columnist
+ "If you truly believed you were making a weapon of mass destruction, a rational response might be to shut it down, instead of sticking it into hundreds of millions of copies of Microsoft Excel."
OpenAI’s legal battles are not putting off customers—yet: Elon Musk, the New York Times and trustbusters all want a piece of the startup. Economist
Apple is right not to rush headlong into generative AI: One day the Vision Pro could exploit the technology to the full. Economist
How Apple sank about $1 billion a year into a car it never built: Tim Cook shut down plans to acquire Tesla before cycling through a junkyard’s worth of self-driving designs over the past decade. The inside story is a case study in indecision. Bloomberg
Apple’s 10 biggest challenges, from AI to China Bloomberg
Temu’s push into America pays off big time for Meta and Google: WSJ reports the e-commerce discounter founded in China was the top advertiser by revenue at Meta Platforms last year, and was among the five top-spending advertisers at Google.
FT: Stellantis joins global carmakers in Brazil push with $6bn investment
AFP: First Arab woman to graduate NASA training shoots for the Moon
AFP: SpaceX eyes March 14 for next Starship test launch
Space burial firm creates a dust-up by sending ashes to the Moon: Navajo Nation sees the moon as sacred, while a company counters that it is serving clients who loved Star Trek or have other ties to the final frontier. WSJ
*** Culture ***
BBC: Hannah Gutierrez-Reed: Rust armourer guilty of Halyna Hutchins' death
Dating apps have gotten so bad that speed dating is in again: WP reports fed up with apps that yield fewer matches and conversations that go nowhere, singles are reviving the analog practice of showing up and talking to strangers.
*** Sport ***
Paris Olympics: Row over 'woke' map as Paris gears up for games: BBC reports the designer of the official poster for this summer's Paris Olympics has responded to criticism that his art erases symbols of French identity and Christianity.
Enjoy the ride + plan accordingly.
-Marc
ITK Daily | March 7
