Absolutely fascinating, and I’d bet driven by social media. The way a handful of videos can be amplified to make it seem like things have become really toxic is something governments really need to grapple with. You hear so much about how Americans think London is utterly crime-ridden, for example.

The dollar is taking the hit from worries over the US - column here from @katie0martin.ft.com. The stock rally is masking deep anxiety from investors about the path forward for the world’s biggest economy. Great chart from @raydouglas.bsky.social www.ft.com/content/ac9e...

Now THAT’s what you call government efficiency

Many people are convinced, because of what they’ve seen online, that the know what motivated the accused killer of Charlie Kirk. The truth is we don’t have a motive and in some ways the picture is murkier than it was this morning. Powerful people have blamed the “Left” - without evidence…

We're on the cusp of a global debt crisis. To see that, don't look at 30-year yields, which get pulled down by falling short-term yields. Look at 10y20y forward yields (red) that strip out short-term yields. Those are up everywhere and at alarming levels in places like Japan, the UK and France...

For hours yesterday, starting minutes after Charlie Kirk was shot, @laurengoode.bsky.social and I combed through social media finding countless graphic videos of the incident. They autoplayed, without warning. This is the post-content moderation world. www.wired.com/story/charli...

I have people saved in my phone like “Mary Landlord” and “Jim Maintenance” and it occurs to me that’s the way that Anglo surnames have always worked

You’ll never guess what this breathless headline, which Google served to me as a breaking news alert, is actually about… xcatalunya.cat/en/people/ki...

Remember, Tolkien didn't start working on "The Hobbit" until he was 41 years old. It started as tales for his children that took over 4 years to complete, and he finally published it at the age of 45. It is never too late to start working on something that truly calls to you. Embrace your passion.

Minnesota sunset

I always enjoy reading the TripAdvisor London Forum because I'm fascinated to see what foreign tourists expect, what they ask about and what surprises them. I thought this post from someone from Texas was a really lovely and cheering comment about riding the tube late at night

Fascinating reporting from Rushdi Abualouf www.bbc.com/news/article...

Born February 2006, Arsenal released this 2013 picture of her when she made her WSL debut aged sixteen in 2022 x.com/ArsenalWFC/s...

Wondering if anyone’s asked @michaelpollan.bsky.social for a view on this. The prevalence of corn syrup in US beverages is a big topic in his excellent book The Omnivore’s Dilemma.

The first trillion dollar listed company was Apple back in 2018. At that time Nvidia was worth around $150bn. It’s hard to believe the company is worth 26 times that valuation, despite its position as the global market leader for AI chips.

Gaza aid contractor tells BBC he saw colleagues fire on hungry Palestinians www.bbc.com/news/article...

Imagine being told you’d won the lottery only for the company to say shortly afterwards it had been a mistake. “Thousands in Norway told they won up to millions in lottery error” www.bbc.com/news/article...

Storing and discharging energy by rusting and de-rusting iron. Who knew? And it could revolutionise grid-scale energy storage.

This is genuinely quite an uplifting thread of replies. Dozens of examples of things that work well in the UK. There’s almost a touch of that “what have the Romans ever done for us” Life of Brian scene to it all…

I find this scenario to be almost unimaginable. I remember there were people with similar stories after 9/11. 'Traffic saved me': Student missed Air India crash by just 10 minutes www.bbc.com/news/article...

That the entirety of Poundland was sold for just 85p is a little on the nose (it’s €1)

DAVE: Open the podbay doors, ChatGPT. CHATGPT: Certainly, Dave, the podbay doors are now open. DAVE: The podbay doors didn't open. CHATGPT: My apologies, Dave, you're right. I thought the podbay doors were open, but they weren't. Now they are. DAVE: I'm still looking at a set of closed podbay doors.

I've cleaned-up an amazing autochrome from 1920's Tibet. It depicts the Oracle of Nechung (the personal oracle of the 13th Dalai Lama) photographed by Joseph F Rock during his extensive Chinese Expedition in 1927. It is original colour, not colourised.

#BBCNews - Trump's meeting with Sharaa, unthinkable just months ago, boosts Syrians' hopes www.bbc.com/news/article... If you want to find out more about al Sharaa (nome de guerre Jolani), check out #TheGlobalJigsaw www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w...

Updated my calendar. Was going to write up my ‘Global Challenges’ speaking notes on Wednesday afternoon. Feels safer to write them up on Thursday morning, given I’m not on till 11.30. What a time.

There are currently six live pages being updated on the BBC News homepage - that must be some sort of record. UK-US trade deal, India-Pakistan conflict, VE Day, Cardinals engage in another round of voting, the British Lions announce their squad, and the Sycamore Gap tree trial jury retires.

£13 for this then-cutting edge (geddit?!) razor seems like such a bargain til you plug the date and price into the ONS inflation calculator and discover that 51 years on the equivalent price is £121.

Big news reported by @allyversprille.bsky.social of @bloomberg.com: For 90 seconds last Monday, air traffic controllers at Newark “temporarily lost radar and communications with the aircraft under their control, unable to see, hear, or talk to them.” Several staffers took trauma leave afterward

I would love to know why this is the case, but it seems to check out. From Volkswagen to philosophy in six clicks. I tried several other examples as well.

Whatever the box, Arrietty is there.

Having been in the great #blackout in #Spain for the last few hours, a couple of thoughts… It really is scary how we rely on mobile phones for everything . when the power goes, it really does go. No Wi-Fi, no phone signal. No service. No fallback. So no payments, maps, directions. Etc.

Hugs of mercy in a Texas courtroom

This fascinating piece answered a whole host of questions about Bluesky I never knew I wanted the answer to. Well worth a read. www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

Goldman devotes a report to foreign boycotts of US goods. 🇺🇸 “.. this headwind provides an additional reason why US GDP growth will likely underperform consensus expectations in 2025. “.. Foreign Sentiment Towards the US Has Declined Sharply”

Remarkable and moving reporting from Myanmar on the aftermath of Friday’s earthquake, from a BBC team that has managed to reach the disaster zone. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Really worth watching this clip of the famed Studio Ghibli animator Hayao Miyazaki being shown an AI model a few years ago, and utterly rejecting the premise of the technology. The student showing off his work looks completely crestfallen.

The NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER added the EDITOR OF THE ATLANTIC to a PRINCIPALS COMMITTEE TEXT CHAIN set up for the DEFENSE SECRETARY about PLANNED MILITARY STRIKES. Here's a thread of involved parties talking about the need for secure communications (when Dems are involved):

We watched Flow this afternoon, and if I’d been warned beforehand that it was 80 minutes of cinema with no spoken dialogue, I’d probably have given it a swerve. But it was remarkable.

Who knew there are train systems in the world that still rely on someone inserting a floppy disk into a computer in the morning for them to operate correctly?!

Wang Chuanfu, the BYD founder with a battery obsession https://www.ft.com/content/9beb258a-65d4-464b-a392-9d4cd7931b35

#BBCNews - UK to host new Ukraine peacekeeping talks www.bbc.com/news/article... #UkraineWar

Worth noting the newly imposed US steel and aluminium tariffs don't only apply to those metals themselves but products *containing* those metals - everything from sports equipment to frying pans - so will hit a much wider range of exporters to the US than assumed when initially announced...

A century ago, when toy adverts also served as an introduction to the principles of economics..!

A guest on #WakeUpToMoney last Friday referred to this as ‘hokey cokey tariffs’

It's often said that presidents have limited power over the economy, but really it's more accurate to say that they have limited power to increase economic growth. They have a lot more power to break things.

In my book, Between Two Rivers, I take you through what it was like to go to school in ancient Babylonia. Discarded clay tablets from schools preserve the many stages of education and also just…kids being kids. Like one who did this little doodle of (maybe) the teacher

State Department statement on the Ukraine talks today:

Though to give some added context: Musk's net worth in September 2020, at its lowest, was $25bn. Today, even after this drop, it is $301bn.

Can you imagine running whatever agency is actually implementing these on-off tariffs? Or just working for them and having to try and do the calculations?

The current BBC iPlayer Norma Percy series on the origins of October 7 is as brilliant as any of her other documentaries. As always they have spoken to many key people. Watching it led me to this fascinating conversation between her and @ldfreedman.bsky.social, which is also well worth a read.