🌏 Murky supply chains

Good morning, Quartz readers!

Here’s what you need to know

Microsoft’s “year of the AI PC” is becoming real. Ahead of the company’s annual developer conference today, it announced new products and features, including laptops with built-in AI hardware.

A cryptocurrency lender once tied to FTX was ordered to repay users $2 billion. The settlement inked with Genesis is the largest against a crypto company in New York’s history.

America’s largest state pension fund is opposing Exxon’s entire board of directors slate. CalPers said yesterday that it will also reject the re-nomination of the company’s CEO at its annual meeting next week because of an ongoing climate change dispute.

A new test can predict how well Ozempic will work for patients. Researchers have linked a genetic profile to those most likely to lose weight after taking the treatment.

And there’s a new place to get the drug. Hims & Hers is now selling Ozempic-like weight loss drugs for $199.

Chinese forced labor parts keep showing up in the U.S.

German auto giant BMW is still linked to a supplier that is using forced Uyghur labor in China — and those parts are making their way into cars sold in the United States, a new report from the country’s Senate alleged yesterday.

Western governments have accused Beijing of committing human rights violations against the Uyghur ethnic minority in China’s Xinjiang region, which Chinese officials have denied. The U.S. has blocked imports from Xinjiang unless it can be proven that the products were not made with forced labor.

But the report found that BMW, as well as Volkswagen and Jaguar Land Rover, aren’t doing everything they can to shore up links in their supply chains. Key digits from the report include:

8,000: Mini Coopers with parts made by a banned Chinese supplier that were sold in the U.S.

2021: Year the U.S. passed the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act to prevent the import of goods from the Xinjiang region

1: Primary Chinese supplier named in the report, Sichuan Jingweida Technology Group (JWD)

Quartz reporter Will Gavin pulled some more key takeaways from the report.

Quotable: Tax the rich (just not all of them at the same rate)

“We believe in progressive taxation. But the notion of some common global arrangement for taxing billionaires with proceeds redistributed in some way — we’re not supportive of a process to try to achieve that. That’s something we can’t sign on to.” — Ahead of a meeting with leaders from the Group of 7 countries in Italy next week, U.S. treasury secretary Janet Yellen is shooting down the idea of a global tax on the world’s richest people

Read more about the proposal, and exactly why Yellen opposes it, in the latest from Quartz’s Rocio Fabbro.

More from Quartz

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👟 Skechers is the first company to buy Super Bowl ad space for next year

🥇 Gold prices can’t be tamed

🚘 An investigation into Tesla’s vehicles over seat belt issues has been closed

🤖 JPMorgan Chase is training every new hire on AI

Surprising discoveries

No one is naming their child Alexa anymore. Amazon released its voice assistant in 2014, and its popularity has fallen dramatically ever since.

A Kyle gathering in Kyle, Texas, didn’t have enough Kyles. The 706 people that showed up didn’t even come close to the 2,325 Ivans that got together in Bosnia in 2017 to set the Guinness World Record.

New Zealand keeps getting further and further away from its peak sheep-to-human ratio. 2023 brought with it yet another fall.

The grocery store scanner is over the hill. The technology is now 50 years old, and it all started with a pack of chewing gum and a checkout line in Ohio.

Google’s AI search is telling car drivers to consider changing their blinker fluid. It’s the joke that just keeps on giving.

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Our best wishes for a productive day. Send any news, comments, more Alexas, and more Kyles to talk@qz.com. Today’s Daily Brief was brought to you by Morgan Haefner.