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The wheels on the bus aren’t going round and round. The US is facing such a dire shortage of school bus drivers that some districts are paying parents to drive their kids to school.
Popeyes has big dreams for China. Tims China, the local operator of the restaurant chain, plans to open 1,700 Popeyes stores across the country over the next decade.
The G20 pledged to end fossil fuel subsidies in 2021... and then quadrupled them in 2022, to nearly $1 trillion, in a bid to offset the energy fallout of Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Arm’s IPO filing is riddled with China anxiety. SoftBank’s UK-based chip designer made it clear that any instability in China—a country that accounts for 24% of Arm’s sales—would majorly affect its bottom line.
Activision conceded its cloud streaming service to get the $69 billion Microsoft deal across the finish line. The move, which gives French video game maker Ubisoft exclusive streaming rights to all new Activision games, is meant to appease British regulators.
SpaceX, this is the FAA. Couple things…
SpaceX’s massive Starship rocket has been grounded ever since it, you know, blasted apart its Texas launch pad, hurtling sand into communities six miles away during a failed test flight.
That was back in April, and Elon Musk—SpaceX owner, general disliker of being told what to do—has since blown past his predictions for a second attempt. It’s August, and a countdown has not begun.
That, as Tim Fernholz explains, is because SpaceX is stuck in regulatory quicksand. Musk built his own spaceport to shed pesky US Air Force oversight, but it put him under the eye of the Federal Aviation Administration instead. The path forward might take time, with several safety issues to be addressed, and Musk isn’t known for coming to a consensus easily.
Quotable: The challenges outside and inside hip-hop culture
“Sometimes you use your inside voice and sometimes you use your outside voice, and there are some conversations that are inside-voice conversations that were being exported to outside voices. When outsiders pick up on insider language, the question is, ‘Can I participate in that or is that not for me?’” —Emmett Price III, inaugural dean of Africana Studies at Berklee College of Music in Boston
Hip-hop, so the legend goes, was born at a party that took place 50 years ago this month, in the Bronx, New York City. Clive Campbell, known as DJ Kool Herc, was in charge of the music, while his sister, Cindy Campbell, worked the door.
Hip-hop started as a grassroots form of Black expression, but has since become a global, multibillion-dollar industry. Quartz’s Julia Malleck spoke with Emmett Price III about the business, origins, and evolution of hip-hop as part of the Hip Hop: ‘73 Till Infinity series.
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Surprising discoveries
Being inflamed makes you inflammatory on social media. Increased inflammation in your body makes you more likely to engage with social media posts—likes, comments—not just kicking back and consuming content.
Neptune’s seeing nothing but blue skies. Its clouds have been disappearing since 2019, but we think it’s OK.
Hawaii has the prettiest American license plates. And, blessedly, the fewest specialized ones.
Everyone’s asking for higher wages, but men are asking for higher ones than women. Wait, sorry, this section is called “surprising discoveries.”
The official best new library in the world has been chosen. And it’s in Barcelona.
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