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An explosion killed hundreds at a Gaza City hospital, according to Hamas-run health officials. Israel blamed a rocket misfire by Palestinian militants, while Hamas blamed an Israeli strike.
India’s Supreme Court passed the buck on same-sex marriage. In a 3-2 ruling, the court determined it was a legislative issue, neither helping nor hindering civil rights for queer Indians.
The US made its next move in the chip war with China. The Commerce Department expanded on last year’s export controls in an attempt to further prevent China from getting its hands on what it needs to produce advanced semiconductors.
General Motors is putting the brakes on electric pickups, and Stellantis canceled its January CES appearance. The former blames slowing US demand, not the UAW strike, but the latter says its news is definitely because of the UAW strike.
Goldman Sachs reported a 33% drop in profit in the third quarter. The US bank was feeling the loss from selling off pieces of its consumer lending business, but its traditional money-makers held steady.
If you build it, will they come… to the Moon?
The US, Europe, and China are spending billions on plans to return humans to Earth’s favorite satellite. But this time, according to NASA, people will be there to stay for long-term exploration. And who’s going to give those government agencies and private companies—a lot more private companies than in the era of Apollo—the goods and services they need and want?
At Quartz, we’ve long been focused on the global economy. Now it’s time to stop thinking so small; the Moon rush has begun.
Quartz’s Tim Fernholz spoke to Michael Nayak, a planetary scientist and former Air Force test pilot who is now working as a program manager at DARPA, the US military’s advanced research agency. DARPA has a mandate to pull the future forward by backing novel technology development—as it did with the tech that became the internet and autonomous vehicles. Nayak and his team are working on a framework for a new lunar economy, but first, they have to start with the basics.
Wildfires cost the US more than it spends on national defense
A new report by Joint Economic Committee Democrats estimates that wildfires have a price tag between $394 billion and $893 billion each year, thanks to both the impact on people and mitigation effects of wildfire smoke, as well as other factors scarily charted below.
This year, thanks to El Niño, wildfires were especially bad, with the US blanketed in smoke from fires in Canada. To help put numbers in context, Clarisa Diaz has pointed out other big expenditures on the US economy: National defense costs roughly $766 billion per year and education and social services cost $677 billion. The combined wildfire management budgets of the US Department of Interior and the US Forest Service—while growing—are less than $3 billion.
Doing some Biden hydrogen program accounting
US president Joe Biden just announced an ambitious $7 billion program to grow the domestic market for hydrogen, a relatively clean energy source. But environmentalists argue that the whole program, billed as a magnet for private investment, just gives more handouts to companies that contribute to global warming.
Let’s take look by the numbers:
7: Regional hydrogen hubs the program would fund
3 million metric tons: Amount of hydrogen the hubs would produce
25 million metric tons: Annual carbon emissions eliminated by these hubs as a result, roughly the same as the pollution from…
5.5 million: Gas-powered cars
The problem is, the process for producing hydrogen itself throws off a lot of carbon dioxide. Grete Suarez gets into the catch-22 of it all, including the very important difference between green and blue hydrogen.
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Surprising discoveries
You can judge a romance novel by its cover. The level of emotional vs. physical intimacy can often be deduced by the level of skin showing on the cover—though much has changed over the years.
Ozempic and Wegovy are driving up the value of the Danish krone. The popularity of the diabetes and weight loss drugs have made Novo Nordisk Europe’s most valuable company, which is having a big impact on Denmark’s economy.
And Halloween is helping out the US dollar. Americans simply do not care about a shaky economy when it comes to spook—their Samhain spending is expected to hit a record $12.2 billion this year.
Consider leaving a giant tip at random. Get a club together. Eat some breakfast. Deliver the good news.
Brutalism is back. Raw concrete, dark steel, bronze with a nice patina—we’re not ready to give up maximalism yet, but if Cold War-era Berlin is your thing, go for it.
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