Weekly News Roundup - 3/15/24
The EU leads the way on regulating artificial intelligence; "Gorilla hail" & amputations from frostbite at that crazy cold Chiefs game in January
Welcome to the tenth weekly news roundup of 2024. The archive for all weekly news roundups is here. If you notice stories or issues you’d like to see mentioned in these roundups, let me know. In 2024, the Border Stalkers Substack is featuring one news update a week, and one book a month, with weekly posts on each book. The book of the month schedule is here.
Some very wise advice from Chris Stirewalt at The Dispatch
Two hundred and forty-one days is a long time to do anything. Even something you like.
... I am arguing against interest here as a political analyst, but I would encourage Americans to moderate their political news intake for an election so long and predictably tedious and vapid.
It wouldn’t be good to tune out altogether, but we should at least be able to enjoy the silver lining of the first general election rematch since 1956. If the parties can’t be bothered to be interesting, we shouldn’t feel so obliged to give them our rapt attention. Two of the most famous people in the world are going to spend eight months fighting over the same narrow patch of earth. We can let them rage without being trampled underfoot.
This is exactly why I'm doing these weekly news roundups. I've said it before. We don't need to tune out. But we don't need to obsess. Let's manage our attention and our time judiciously and save it for what really matters and where we can use it with the most positive impact.
I also wanted to feature a short selection from an essay on the difference between childhood before smartphones and after:
Since the early 2010s, there has been a rapid growth in adverse mental health outcomes—such as anxiety, depression, and self-harm—among young people. Haidt suggests that this mental health crisis stems from two primary trends:
The decline of play-based childhoods that began in the 1980s
The rise of phone-based childhoods that began in the early 2010s
The play-based childhood features small groups that are in-person and synchronous. They are rooted in deep communities that are hard to join or leave. These communities are founded on play-based learning. They reward cooperation and pro-social behavior.
The phone-based childhood is the opposite, with large groups (sometimes the entire internet) that are mostly disembodied and asynchronous. These communities are often shallow and allow easy entrance and exit with fewer true connections. They generally thrive by fueling outrage and anxiety to keep people “engaged,” something particularly damaging to children.
That essay is focused on the forthcoming book, The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness, by Jonathan Haidt. I'm considering adding this one to my list of books for the year. But I could also do it early next year, since I'm trying to take an approach to my book a month idea that is less about urgency and newness and more about quality and depth. However, this issue of phone addiction, mental health, et al, is pretty urgent.
Big Stories This Week
The European Union passes a law to regulate artificial intelligence. It's the first of its kind in the world, and will take effect in a few months. "The riskier an AI application, the more scrutiny it faces," the Associated Press reports. "The vast majority of AI systems are expected to be low risk, such as content recommendation systems or spam filters. Companies can choose to follow voluntary requirements and codes of conduct. High-risk uses of AI, such as in medical devices or critical infrastructure like water or electrical networks, face tougher requirements like using high-quality data and providing clear information to users. Some AI uses are banned because they’re deemed to pose an unacceptable risk, like social scoring systems that govern how people behave, some types of predictive policing and emotion recognition systems in school and workplaces."
Discussion of a third-party or independent candidate for U.S. president ticks back up again, after President Biden and Donald Trump both formally clinch their party nominations. But those alternatives seem to have more to do with choosing who will lose than who will win, since No Labels has yet to attract a serious candidate and even if it did, many Americans would be afraid of voting for a third candidate for fear of handing victory to the candidate they fear most. Meanwhile Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is discussing picking an NFL quarterback with no qualifications for vice president as his running mate.
One half of Congress passed a bill to ban Tik Tok from the U.S. if the Chinese parent company doesn't sell it. Lawmakers say the social media app is a national security threat. President Biden has said he'll sign the bill but it's not clear yet whether the proposal will be approved by the Senate.
Special Counsel Robert Hur testified on Capitol Hill, defending his report on President Biden's handling of classified material and irritating both Republicans and Democrats.
Week in Review
Friday, March 8
The U.S. Senate passes a $460 billion spending package to avoid a partial government shutdown, with hours to spare.
Donald Trump hosts Viktor Orban, the authoritarian leader of Hungary, for a meeting at his home in Florida. You can read more on who Orban here.
Open AI announces that Sam Altman will return to its board, after he was removed last year. Former board members who opposed Altman cite "deception, manipulation and resistance to oversight" as among their concerns.
President Biden holds a campaign rally in Philadelphia, a day after his State of the Union address.
A Missouri hospital says that a handful of people who attended the Kansas City Chiefs football game in January amid near record cold temperatures had to undergo amputations, mostly of fingers and toes, after suffering frostbite.
Saturday, March 9
President Biden warns that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is “hurting Israel more than helping Israel” because of his disregard for civilian lives in Gaza, in an interview.
Biden and Trump hold competing rallies in Georgia.
Conan O'Brien's new travel show is finally given an air date on Max, and will premiere April 18.
Sunday, March 10
Ukrainian officials criticize Pope Francis for comments made by the pontiff suggesting that the country's leaders, under assault from Russia's invasion, should have the "courage" to negotiate an end to the conflict.
The U.S. military flies in extra forces to the embassy in Haiti amid escalating gang violence.
"Oppenheimer" sweeps the Academy Awards, taking home 7 awards including "Best Picture."
Monday, March 11
Florida education officials and civil rights attorneys reach a settlement giving public school teachers latitude to discuss sexuality and gender identity, following negotiations over a law passed by the state legislature that prohibited any discussion of those topics.
The Indian government says it will implement a citizenship law in the Hindu-majority country that excludes Muslims.
Muslims celebrate the beginning of Ramadan, a month of fasting, prayer, reflection and community, commemorating Muhammad’s first revelation.
Tuesday, March 12
President Biden and Donald Trump both officially clinch the majority of delegates in their respective party primaries, winning a handful of state contests that put their delegate counts over the top.
Special counsel Robert Hur testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee about his report on President Biden's handling of classified documents, and the president's memory.
A disappointing inflation report
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. says he is considering naming Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers as his running mate.
Wednesday, March 13
The Republican-controlled House passes a bill that would ban social media company Tik Tok if it not divested from a Chinese parent company, Bytedance, that has connections to the Chinese government. The bill must pass the Senate as well to become law, and President Biden has said he would sign it. But the proposal's prospects in the upper chamber of Congress remain uncertain.
The European Union gives final approval to its first law regulating artificial intelligence, setting the new rules on track to take effect in May or June.
Vice President Kamala Harris visits a Planned Parenthood facility in St. Paul, Minnesota. She criticizes restrictions on abortion in states controlled by Republican legislatures in the wake of the Supreme Court's overturning of the Roe v. Wade decision. Harris' office says its the first time a vice president has toured a facility that performs abortions.
Hail storms with ice balls as large as a baseball hits Kansas and Missouri, and is dubbed "gorilla hail."
The death of a non-binary teen after a school fight in Oklahoma is found to be a suicide by the medical examiner.
Ongoing conflict in Congo over natural resources has displaced about 250,000 people in the last month alone, a United Nations official tells the Associated Press. Around 7 million people have been displaced during the conflict overall. The U.N. is in the process of leaving its bases in the country, amid frustration that its presence has not proteced civilians from violence.
Thursday, March 14
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-NY, calls for new elections in Israel, becoming the most senior U.S. politician to publicly oppose Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
James Crumbley, 47, the father of a then-15-year old school shooter, is found guilty on four charges of involuntary manslaughter in a Michigan court. A jury decided that Crumbley and his wife should have done more to prevent their son from using their gun to commit a mass shooting in 2021 that killed four students and injured seven others. Jennifer Crumbley, 45, was also found guilty on four counts of involuntary manslaughter in February. The duo are the first parents to be criminally convicted for failing to stop a child or family member from committing a crime like this. They face a minimum of 10 years in jail and will be sentenced April 9.
Peter Navarro becomes the first former Trump White House adviser ordered to report to prison, after an appeals court denies his request to remain free during his appeal process. Navarro, who promoted Trump's lies about the 2020 election and aided the former president's attempt to overturn the result, was convted on contempt of Congress charges.
House Republicans launch a reinvestigation of the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters, aimed at shifting blame away from the former president.
Prospects for an interest rate cut in the U.S. ticked down a bit again ahead of the Federal Reserve's meeting next week.
Friday, March 15
A Georgia judge rejects a motion to disqualify Georgia prosecutor Fani Willis from the case against Donald Trump, but says she must remove the special prosecutor on her team with whom she has had a romantic relationship, or she will have to step aside. The judge's ruling finds that their relationship did not constitute a conflict of interest but did create an "appearance of impropriety."
Interesting Reads
Fine, Call It a Comeback, by Ezra Klein for The New York Times
Inside Trump's TikTok flip-flop by Sophia Cai for Axios
The Mystery Social Media Account Schooling Congress on How to Do Its Job by Gabe Fleisher for Politico Magazine
Why the AP retracted the first official photo of the Princess of Wales since her abdominal surgery by Brian Melley for The Associated Press
End the Phone-Based Childhood Now, by Jonathan Haidt for The Atlantic
Va. Senate Majority Leader pushes Gov. Youngkin to ‘compromise’ if he wants Alexandria sports arena built by Jessica Kronzer for WTOP
Katie Britt used decades-old example of rapes in Mexico as Republican attack on Biden border policy by Emily Wagster Pettus for The Associated Press