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Here’s what you need to know
Sam Bankman-Fried has been detained in the Bahamas. The arrest was made at the request of the US government, a day before the disgraced crypto entrepreneur was due to testify before the House of Representatives (see more below).
Twitter’s Trust and Safety Council no longer exists. An email signed as “Twitter,” sent to members of the body, said the company didn’t deem the council to be “the best structure” to provide external advice.
The FBI recorded a decrease in hate crimes in 2021. But rather than crime falling, it’s the reports from police forces that have decreased.
Amgen is buying Horizon Therapeutics. The US pharmaceutical giant will purchase Ireland-based Horizon for $27.8 billion in one of the biggest healthcare buyouts this year.
Supporters of Brazil’s outgoing president Jair Bolsonaro stormed police headquarters. The attack took place in Brasilia, the country’s capital, on the day officials certified Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s election victory.
Japan and the Netherlands will join US chip sanctions against China. The two countries have agreed to limit the export of advanced semiconductor machinery to China, Bloomberg reports.
What to watch for
Today (Dec. 13), the US House Committee on Financial Services had intended to hear Sam Bankman-Fried’s testimony on the collapse of FTX, the crypto exchange he founded. But his arrest has thrown a wrench into those plans.
For weeks, SBF’s participation in the hearing had been in doubt—he even missed the deadline to RSVP. He finally confirmed his attendance on Friday (Dec. 9), but anticipated that a lack of access to personal and professional data would limit what he’d be able to say.
SBF’s was not the only testimony the committee was expecting to hear. FTX’s new CEO, John Jay Ray III, was also listed as a panelist. Ray, tasked with a complex restructuring, has described the FTX debacle as one of the worst he’s seen in his career as he seeks to recover some money for customers and investors. No doubt he’d have liked to level a few questions at SBF himself.
Twitter keeps squawking up the Apple tree
As Twitter Blue plans its relaunch, Elon Musk is making Apple users pay for his fight with the tech giant. iOS users will have to dole out $11 per month for the controversial subscription service, while web and Android users can get it for $8 per month.
Although Twitter didn’t specify why Apple users are being treated differently, it’s not hard to guess. Elon Musk has been waging a war against the 30% fee Apple charges developers for in-app purchases, and the upcharge is basically a 30% price increase.
Apple spent a whopping $48 million on Twitter ads in the first quarter of 2022, accounting for more than 4% of total revenue for the period. That made Apple a top advertiser on Twitter that Musk can’t really afford to lose. At the end of November, Musk claimed Apple had “mostly stopped” its Twitter ads but on Dec. 4, the self-appointed chief twit said the iPhone-maker had “fully resumed” advertising on Twitter.
A breakthrough in nuclear fusion energy
Scientists in California may have reached a turning point when it comes to creating energy from nuclear fusion. In a recent experiment using this method, 2.1 megajoules of input produced 2.5 megajoules of output, accounting for a 120% net energy gain.
The shift from net-negative energy generation to net-positive is a result that has eluded scientists for decades. While the excess energy generated isn’t much—underscoring that it could take decades more before nuclear fusion begins to fuel power plants—it comes at the convergence of the climate and fuel crises, and offers hope for an alternative, clean energy source.
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