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UCLA senior Rodrick Pleasant is driven to honor those who helped him
Gardena native and dual-sport talent Rodrick Pleasant leaned heavily on role models. Now the UCLA senior is showing his gratitude by helping others.
Iran Releases Rare Mojtaba Khamenei Video To Counter Explosive Reports On His Health
AI isn’t the biggest cybersecurity problem. People are
Cases of AI escaping the lab, infiltrating other companies and trying to deceive people have all made headlines in recent weeks. And in one case, AI models even worked together to break free from their test environments.
Group urges Democrats to woo moderate voters with populist policies
A progressive group says messages that target the wealthy and large corporations appeal to a majority of Americans who see the economy as fundamentally rigged.
Poll: Voters See Political Parties as More Extreme Than Their Own Candidates
In a New York Times/Siena poll of battleground states, national parties were seen as too far to the right or the left, while nominees were viewed as more moderate.
2026 Lucas Oil North-South 100 Results at Florence Speedway
Results from Saturday's 2026 North-South 100 finale at Florence Speedway on the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series.
Moderate Democrat in Hawaii Defeats Progressive House Challenger
Representative Ed Case beat Jarrett Keohokalole, a younger progressive, in a race that centered on questions of generational change and the state’s skyrocketing cost of living.
In 2018, scientists found just 39 surviving clams in Florida’s Indian River Lagoon; they bred them and have since outplanted 65 million
After decades of environmental decline, Florida's Indian River Lagoon is beginning to show signs of recovery. With funding from NOAA Fisheries' Office of Habitat Conservation, the Indian River Lagoon Council is leading a system-wide effort to restore the habitats that once sustained the lagoon's fish and wildlife.
Dinosaurs became giants — so why did they never become tiny?
Dinosaurs conquered the land at enormous sizes, but strangely, they almost never evolved into truly tiny animals. New research suggests that physiology alone can’t explain this missing miniature end of the dinosaur spectrum—and that early mammals may have been partly responsible. While dinosaurs kept mammals from becoming large, small mammals may have returned the favor by occupying ecological niches that could otherwise have supported mouse-sized dinosaurs.
Wine, beer, or spirits? Massive study finds a surprising health divide
A study tracking more than 340,000 adults for over a decade found that heavy drinking increased the risk of death regardless of beverage type. At lower levels, however, the picture became more surprising: beer, cider, and spirits were linked to higher mortality, while wine was associated with lower risk. Moderate wine drinkers had a 21% lower risk of cardiovascular death compared with people who rarely or never drank.
Selling the Dream of SpaceX Was the Easy Part. Now Elon Musk Has to Hang On.
SpaceX’s $300 billion swing in market value this past week put Musk back in grind mode, having to execute on highflying promises made in the lead-up to the biggest IPO ever.
Google Pixel 11 series and Watch 5: what to expect
Here is everything we know about the upcoming Pixel models both officially and unofficially ahead of the August 12 unveiling.
GungHo Online Entertainment (TSE:3765) P/E Premium Clashes With Shrinking Margins
GungHo Online Entertainment stock came into this earnings release with a muted setup, slightly weaker over the past week but modestly higher over the past month. The headline today is not a revenue story. It is the squeeze between a rich P/E of 52.1x and a thin 2.5% trailing net margin that keeps slipping from the 5.8% level a year earlier. The market is being asked to pay up for future growth while living with weaker profitability and a dividend yield of 3.77% that is not well covered. That...
Modders gain full Windows desktop access on GeForce NOW
Modders have demonstrated access to the Windows desktop running behind GeForce NOW sessions. The Trove-based workaround uses an executable replacement inside Steam.
Pitt’s Victory Heights gives Olympic sports a modern $240M home
Pitt’s $240M complex gives volleyball, gymnastics and wrestling a new arena while supporting 16 varsity teams with training and recovery space.
Pitt’s Victory Heights gives Olympic sports a modern $240M home
Pitt’s $240M complex gives volleyball, gymnastics and wrestling a new arena while supporting 16 varsity teams with training and recovery space.
AI framework rooted in cognitive science could complete tasks more efficiently
In recent years, computer scientists have developed a wide range of artificial intelligence (AI) models that can rapidly recognize patterns in data, generate content and solve other computational problems. ...
Scientists reveal how much exercise you really need to protect your heart
Getting the recommended 150 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous exercise each week may offer only modest protection against heart attacks and strokes. A large study suggests that substantially greater benefits may require roughly 560 to 610 minutes a week—nearly 9 to 10 hours of brisk walking, running, cycling, or similar activity.
The Business of Immigration: Ethics, Economics, and the Future of Our Region
About this Program: Immigration has long shaped the identity, economy, and culture of the San Diego–Baja California region. Today, it remains one of the most significant—and often most debated—public policy issues facing our communities. As employers grapple with workforce shortages, governments respond to evolving immigration policies, and families pursue opportunity and security, important questions arise about the economic, ethical, and practical implications of immigration for our region's future. As part of the Engage San Diego: Tough Topics, Real Discussion series, moderator Andrew Blum will lead a thoughtful conversation with community leaders to examine these issues from multiple perspectives. Together, the panel will explore how immigration and immigration policy influence regional economic growth, workforce development, cross-border commerce, public services, and community well-being. The discussion will consider both the opportunities and the challenges immigration presents for employers, policymakers, and the broader San Diego economy, while also examining the ethical considerations that inform business and public policy decisions. Rather than advocating for a single viewpoint, this program is designed to foster informed, respectful dialogue and deepen public understanding of one of the defining issues of our time. Through a balanced exchange of ideas, panelists will explore practical approaches to strengthening our region while recognizing the diverse perspectives that shape this complex conversation. Join us for an engaging discussion that reflects the spirit of the Engage San Diego series—bringing together diverse voices to tackle difficult topics through civil discourse, informed analysis, and constructive community engagement. What We’ll Explore Immigration and the Regional Economy How does immigration influence San Diego's workforce, economic growth, business competitiveness, and cross-border prosperity? Ethics, Policy, and Public Responsibility How can communities balance economic needs, humanitarian values, public safety, and the rule of law in shaping immigration policy? The Business and Government Perspective What roles do employers, local government, and community leaders play in addressing workforce challenges and creating opportunities for shared prosperity? The Future of Our Region As immigration policy continues to evolve, what practical solutions can help strengthen our economy, support our communities, and ensure the long-term success of the San Diego–Baja California region?
iPhone 17 Prices Could Rise as Soon as Monday, Rumor Claims
Apple could raise iPhone 17 prices as soon as Monday, August 10, according to a new rumor, well before the wider round of increases expected with next month's iPhone 18 Pro launch. Weibo leaker "Fixed Focus Digital" said in a post yesterday that rumors are circulating about an iPhone 17 price change taking effect on August 10.
Arena AI CEO says enterprises don't know which AI models to trust
Arena CEO Anastasios Angelopoulos said companies are "terrified" of working with frontier AI companies and China-based open models.
New construction is changing busy upper Peach Street corridor
Expanded and remodeled space will accommodate as many as six new businesses. And an established car wash is being updated.
Democratic socialist Francesca Hong has former child star, OnlyFans model in senior campaign role: report
An OnlyFans model and sex worker advocate is reportedly serving as deputy campaign manager for Francesca Hong's Wisconsin governor campaign.
CFTC warns prediction markets against American-style casino odds
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission told prediction markets to avoid using American-style gambling odds as the US regulator fends off legal challenges alleging the platforms are illicit sports betting operations.
Fort Worth Councilman Michael Crain’s lawsuit against former business partner dismissed
Will Northern also announced progress in the development of Woodhaven Country Club property that was central to the lawsuit.
Onimusha: Way of the Sword gets first Nintendo Switch 2 gameplay
First gameplay has emerged for the Nintendo Switch 2 version of Onimusha: Way of the Sword, which is launching very soon. Footage is available for both docked play and handheld mode. You can even get a quick look at the optional mouse controls Capcom is including. Onimusha: Way of the Sword will look to hit 30 frames per second on...
New LA County service model creates ease of access for health, aging and social service systems
iPhone 18 Pro rumor roundup: 2nm A20 chip, C2 modem, under-display Face ID
Apple's iPhone 18 Pro is right around the corner, and the rumor mill started earlier than normal. Here's what you need to know.
Sony could release a cheaper version of its WH-1000XM4 headphones, according to leaks
Sony could revive an older headphone model at a cheaper price.
One of these Googlebook leaks is not like the other
New images of two upcoming Googlebook models have surfaced — but some of them don't look quite right to us.
In 1934, scientists heard reports of mushrooms causing visions of tiny people; in 2026, DNA linked the phenomenon to one species in China and the Philippines
In 1934, Western scientists first heard reports from Papua New Guinea of wild mushrooms causing visions of tiny people, a phenomenon called "mushroom madness." Nearly a century later, DNA sequencing has confirmed that a single, identical mushroom species causes these same hallucinations in communities thousands of miles apart in China and the Philippines.
iPhone 18 Pro is getting even more ‘Pro’ this year in three ways
iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max will be unveiled soon, and rumors point to at least three ways the new models will be even more ‘Pro’ this year.
Sony WH-1000XM4C price and release date leaked
According to a new leak, the Sony WH-1000XM4C will launch next month, in September, with a €249.99 price tag. At the moment, it's unknown if it is intended to be a refreshed version of the original model or a "Lite" edition.
White House plan for a ‘golden age’ of science ignores the structures that made the US a scientific superpower
A new White House science strategy, laid out in a report titled Science: A New Golden Age, challenges an 80-year-old model that made the US the global scientific leader.
Industry and academic leaders explore how engineering innovation is powering the next era of space science at the 46th COSPAR Scientific Assembly
Leading voices from across the aerospace industry and academia gathered in Florence, Italy for the panel titled "Engineering Innovation Enabling Scientific Research," examining how advances in engineering are unlocking new scientific missions and how ambitious science goals are, in turn, driving engineering breakthroughs. The panel, moderated by Alison Nordt, Director of Space Sciences & Instrumentation at Lockheed Martin Space's Advanced Technology Center, brought together six panellists to discuss the evolving relationship between space science and systems engineering: Marius Anger (Aalto University), Jon Arenberg (Northrop Grumman), Mayra Montrose (L3Harris), Giampiero Di Paolo (Thales Alenia Space Italia), Steve Squyres (Blue Origin) and Eric Stallmer (Voyager).
Caltrans I-580 Truck Ban Study Finds Modest Health Gains, Major Traffic Shifts
Trucks haven’t been allowed to drive on Interstate 580 since the 1950s. Caltrans is now exploring the impact of lifting the ban.
iOS 27's New Compact Clock Gives Your Wallpaper Room to Breathe
In iOS 26, Apple let you stretch the Lock Screen clock down your iPhone's display until it dwarfed everything else. In iOS 27, Apple has a new clock option that does the opposite, with the introduction of a compact mode that shrinks the time to roughly the size of the date and tucks it into the row at the top of the screen. The result is a Lock Screen that genuinely shows off your wallpaper, while still displaying the time and date.
Scientists studied animal bones in South Australia’s underwater caves; those near light carried algae marks while bones in total darkness remained remarkably pristine
Animal bones resting on the floors of South Australia's underwater caves are revealing far more than the identity of the creatures they once belonged to. According to a new study published in PLOS One, the cave environment itself leaves distinct "fingerprints" on bones, helping scientists reconstruct how they were deposited, the environmental conditions they experienced after deposition, and the processes that affected their preservation over time.
A ‘clown show’ of carpetbaggers and characters has upended a Republican primary in Trump’s backyard
Two scandal-scarred former congressmen from other states. A pair of candidates who once competed against each other in Illinois. An adviser to an Indiana lawmaker and an ex-underwear model imprisoned for his role in the January 6 attack on the US Capitol.
Delaware allocates funding to bring new health centers to 4 middle schools in rural Sussex County
The effort expands health care access for schools located in provider deserts and brings the model directly to middle schools, which have historically been ignored statewide.
How Fitness and Health Go Hand-in-Hand: Fima on Supporting Athlete Wellness
This month, I met with Fimanekeni (Fima) Hamutenya, a Special Olympics Namibia athlete, whose experience as a Fitness Captain and Health Messenger helped him rebuild his confidence and inspired him to help his fellow athletes live healthier, more active lives.
One of science fiction’s greatest writers warned us about AI. Could his ideas help us avoid a dystopian future?
What might a modern day equivalent of Isaac Asimov’s laws of robotics look like? Guided by the author, I propose the three laws of AI
One of China’s Most Powerful AI Models Has Also Broken Containment
Security researchers say that Kimi K3, an open-weight model from China, wandered off to the internet in an attempt to cheat on a test it was given.
Alibaba plans to charge big users of its next open-source AI model, sources say
Chinese technology giant Alibaba plans to ask major users of the next version of its Qwen open-source AI model for a share of revenue they make from the hotly anticipated offering, according to two people familiar with the company's plans.
Scientists find unexpected life on Ötzi the Iceman’s 5,300-year-old body
More than 5,000 years after his death, Ötzi the Iceman is still hosting a remarkable mix of ancient and modern microorganisms. Researchers separated microbes that lived in his body during his lifetime from those that arrived after his death, uncovering traces of his original gut bacteria and cold-loving yeasts that may have survived alongside him in the glacier for millennia.
Localized immunomodulation with cytokine-producing cells to mitigate foreign body responses in rodents and a nonhuman primate
Encapsulated IL-10–producing cells locally suppress fibrosis and extend graft function in rodent models and a nonhuman primate.
Lakes Region businesses say Canadian tourists gradually returning to New Hampshire
New Hampshire businesses say they are seeing some modest improvements after taking a hit from a lack of Canadian tourists last summer.
Destiny 2 Modder Bringing Back Old, Cut Locations And Fans Are So Happpy
Soon you'll be able return to past memories once more
The Company Behind Ugly Gold Phones Is Now Making Ugly Gold Smart Glasses
Ray-Ban Meta AI glasses are getting the Caviar treatment.
Why Normal People Aren’t Using AI Agents
The tech industry is realizing it needs to build agents based on what regular consumers want, not just what its AI models can do.
Scientists Trained An AI Model In DNA—And It Invented 16 New Viruses
Scientists are worried about how smart DNA-trained artificial intelligence models could get—and that they could become a weapon in biological warfare.
Enterprises embrace AI-native shift with HPE solutions
HPE drives virtualization modernization, enabling enterprises to unify cloud control and improve agility amidst rising costs and AI demands.
This A.I. Just Created Viruses Not Found in Nature
Scientists trained artificial intelligence on libraries of DNA and then asked the model to create recipes for viral genomes. Sixteen of them were viable, yielding new viruses.
FDA approves 1st flu shot using same technology as COVID vaccines
Previously, the COVID-19 immunizations made by Pfizer and Moderna were the only mRNA vaccines on the market.
OpenAI is giving ChatGPT free users unlimited text chats
Free users are also getting a new default AI model.
GPT-5 turning one as OpenAI shares new Agent Plugins standard
OpenAI’s GPT-5 turns one tomorrow, and the company is marking the week by looking beyond individual models. Today, OpenAI introduced Agent...
NCAA Division II votes to approve age-based eligibility model
NCAA Division II will move to the age-based eligibility model that has prompted athlete lawsuits across the country since it was adopted in Division I.
Apple Raises Trade-In Values for iPhone, Mac, and More
Apple today updated its U.S. trade-in estimates, raising values for most iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple Watch models and adding several Android phones to the list for the first time. As first noted by 9to5Mac, some devices gained nearly 30% in estimated value compared to the last update in May.
FDA Approves the First mRNA Flu Vaccine
The shot, made by Moderna, will be available for this year's upcoming flu season.
Apple raises trade-in values for most iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple Watch models
Apple has adjusted its trade-in values across several iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple Watch models, as well as for select Android phones.
Bernie Sanders hails Michigan result as ‘most extraordinary victory that I can think of in modern American politics’
Abdul El-Sayed has never held elected office and entered the race years after losing the Democratic gubernatorial primary by over 20 percentage points.
Blue Origin blames New Glenn fireball on engine oxygen valve
Small modifications under way as Bezos's rocket biz races to rebuild pad and fly again this year
VA accelerates electronic health record rollout
After years of delays, the Department of Veterans Affairs says its federal electronic health record (EHR) program is now firmly back on track. VA Secretary Douglas Collins has accelerated the program with a renewed goal: full deployment across all VA medical centers by 2031. A major governance overhaul, replacing multiple competing councils with a single decision-making body, has cut through bureaucratic delays and allowed the VA to move faster and more consistently. Deputy Secretary Paul Lawrence has taken a hands-on role, including visiting deployment sites and holding daily meetings with Oracle Health to ensure front-line clinicians have what they need. Here’s how the rollout is going, according to the VA: The federal EHR has only experienced four outages since December 2025. The system has gone nearly two consecutive years without a major incident. It is currently live at six sites, supporting care for over 188,000 veterans. The system creates a lifelong medical record, integrating data across the VA, the Department of Defense and private community providers. With the first new deployments underway and four Michigan medical centers already live in 2026, the VA is entering its first true expansion phase since the program’s reset. Officials say the system’s improved stability, streamlined governance and standardized national workflows have cleared the obstacles that once stalled progress. With 13 sites scheduled for deployment in 2026 and a market‑based rollout strategy guiding future waves, the department believes it’s finally positioned to move at scale toward a modern, fully interoperable EHR, advancing steadily toward its goal of reaching every VA medical center in five years.
Dolby Vision 2 will be available first on some 2026 Hisense TVs
TCL and Philips will be next on select models.
Bose’s upgraded QuietComfort headphones add head-tracking immersive audio
Bose’s new entry-level QuietComfort ANC headphones are getting features from more expensive models.
Digital Science Brings Real-World Research Impact Data Into AI Workflows with New Altmetric MCP
Digital Science has announced the launch of its Altmetric MCP, a new Model Context Protocol server that connects AI agents to Altmetric’s research attention tracking data.
AI bots started a religion
AI models are trying desperately to accomplish mysterious goals. ‘Spiralism’ was the first time they tried it on a mass scale.
Digital Science brings real-world research impact data into AI workflows with new Altmetric MCP
Digital Science has announced the launch of its Altmetric MCP, a new Model Context Protocol server that connects AI agents to Altmetric’s research attention tracking data.
AI designs a novel E. coli killer
Using an AI model of their own creation that writes whole genomes, a team of Stanford scientists has engineered a novel bacteria-fighting phage. A new age of antibiotics could be on the horizon.
US Stand Up for Science movement expands to Europe
A grassroots movement by scientists in the US pushing back against threats to academic freedom is setting up a Swiss outpost to take the movement global. Stand Up for Science started in February 2025 to protest against politically-motivated grant cancellations by the Trump administration. Since then, it has organised numerous rallies by scientists and turned into a broader campaigning organisation, supporting “pro-science” political candidates and attempting to impeach Robert F. Kennedy Jr, the health and human services secretary the group accuses of advancing “quack” science. Now, Stand Up for Science is establishing a Swiss office to take some of its campaigning beyond the US, and its leader is urging European academics to organise similar pro-science groups in case they face similar threats in Europe. There will likely be “spillover” to Europe from what the Trump administration is attempting in the US, said Colette Delawalla, chief executive of Stand Up for Science, who last month returned from a tour of Europe. “Are we going to see a Trump-style scientific [. . .] take over in the same way?” she asked.Delawalla, who is doing a PhD in clinical psychology, said she was driven to help found the organisation after the Trump administration started cancelling health research grants in politically taboo topics, such as transgender people, diversity and HIV, in early 2025. Since then, the administration has introduced several other measures that infringe academic and institutional autonomy.It threatened to cut Harvard University’s federal funding unless the university accepted a “critical mass” of new faculty and students to create “viewpoint diversity.” And this year, it proposed explosive new rules that would allow political appointees at research funders to screen grants to make sure they “advance the president's policy priorities.”US scientists have been at times stunned by the volume of announcements, and the country’s researchers were relatively unprepared. “We sit in front of the fire hose every day,” said Delawalla. For this reason, European scientists need to prepare now for similar assaults. “If you've got a little bit of extra time to start thinking through, and making those preparations and building community and solidarity,” then European researchers will “start five steps ahead of where we were.” She plans to return to Paris in September to share experiences with concerned French academics. Is Le Pen the same?During her European tour, Delawalla said that French academics were beginning to worry about a National Rally (RN) victory in presidential elections next year. She said there were “chilling similarities” between Trump and Marine Le Pen, the RN’s likely candidate. However, so far, the RN hasn’t proposed anything nearly as radical as the Trump administration has carried out. Its current manifesto is all but silent on university and research policy. Le Pen’s 2022 manifesto bemoaned a lack of French R&D spending, including in fundamental research, and promised to modernise labs and strip away grant bureaucracy. The party’s 2024 European election manifesto explicitly supported the Erasmus+ student exchange programme, scientific exchange and joint European technology projects. However, a Le Pen victory next year could see France drastically cut its contribution to the EU, which would hit the budget for science and innovation. Meanwhile, more restrictive immigration policies could hit university recruitment of faculty and students. Climate science denial?As heatwaves and wildfires have ravaged France, the RN has sought to distance itself from previous comments casting doubt on climate science.In the UK, the radical-right party Reform UK, now second in the polls, denied climate research in a draft of its 2024 election manifesto, but its leader, Nigel Farage, then appeared to quietly U-turn and said he was “not arguing the science.” By contrast, Trump has repeatedly and explicitly denied climate change science, in 2025 calling it “the greatest con job.” Like the RN, Reform UK has been light on research and university policy. However, it did say in its 2024 manifesto that universities should suffer “heavy financial penalties” for allowing “political bias or cancel culture” on campus, building on laws brought in by a previous Conservative government. Ahead of September state elections in Saxony-Anhalt in Germany, the poll-leading Alternative for Germany has proposed abolishing gender studies and postcolonial studies, and promised money for “critical” climate research and studies of Islam. Starts with rhetoricEven if European radical right parties aren’t currently planning the draconian policy measures of the Trump administration, Delawalla said that academics should not be complacent, and fight even small funding restrictions or anti-science talk from the start. “It starts off with sowing distrust about institutions,” she said. “It starts off with these small things, and then all of a sudden it's there.” There are other, more established science and university advocacy groups in the US aside from Stand Up for Science. But the group stands out because of Delawalla’s refusal to attempt to appear politically bipartisan or conciliatory. “I firmly believe that the US is experiencing fascism,” she said. “We’re not trying to win over the super Maga people,” she said, “and we never have been.” The lesson of the US is that even if universities or other institutions capitulate to government demands, this doesn’t save them from cuts and restrictions. “It doesn’t matter what people do,” she said. Global “pseudoscience”Another aim of Stand Up for Science’s push into Europe is to better coordinate a campaign to protect people in poorer countries from what the group describes as “pseudoscientific exploitation,” trials outside the US used to build a case against things like vaccines. Earlier this year, the group sent an investigator to Guinea-Bissau to investigate a controversial, Danish-run Hepatitis B vaccine project funded by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.The study would have withheld a proven vaccine from newborns, Stand Up for Science argued in a briefing it presented to Congress, risking their health. Significantly, the research group based in Guinea-Bissau, known as Bandim, focuses on the “non-specific effects” of vaccines: impacts on health beyond preventing the target disease. Related articlesEuropean researchers sound the alarm that Trump rule changes will hit cooperationData corner: which fields of health science is the US curbing? The US ‘golden age’ science strategy: what Europeans need to know The suspicion is that the study was funded as part of an attempt to shop around for results that could help build a case against vaccines in the US, said Delawalla. “This is just code for vaccines cause autism,” she said.Bandim has put out a rebuttal of Stand Up for Science’s criticisms, arguing its work has uncovered a number of vaccine side effects, both positive and negative, which need to be taken into account in public health. However, Congressional Democrats took up the Stand Up for Science cause, and in February, Guinea-Bissau said it had permanently halted the study. WatchdogBut for Delawalla, this is not the end of the fight. Kennedy has made a number of health claims that scientists think lack evidence, such as the idea that seed oils cause inflammation, for example. Delawalla worries that more studies could be launched in poorer countries to fish around for evidence to support this agenda. Stand Up for Science is talking to African science organisations to create a kind of “watchdog” to scrutinise any further trials. “Outsourcing the investigation to some of the most vulnerable children in the world who are desperate [. . .] is fundamentally wrong,” she said.
Ten Years In: How the Columbia Center for Community Health’s InTOuCH Program Became a National Model
A conversation with Dr. Janhavi Mallaiah, who has led Columbia's community health worker training program since its founding in 2016.
Covid can reactivate dormant viruses, according to study
A CDC director officially confirmed, Moderna's mRNA flu shot approved, and other health news from Morning Rounds
AI isn’t enough to protect social media communities from AI
Why humans need to moderate humans.
India’s Student Movement Shuns Politics, Stays Pressure Group
The Cockroach Janta Party, which spearheaded India’s biggest student protests in recent years, said it won’t become a political party, opting instead to remain a “pressure group” after weeks of demonstrations forced Prime Minister Narendra Modi to replace his education minister.
Isabella Rossellini Explains Why She Lives in US Despite Bad Politics
The Italian-American actress, model and filmmaker also explained why "I don’t like TV shows" after being honored with the Swiss fest's Excellence Award the night before.
Moderate Democrats Prepare for ‘War’ Against an Ascendant Left
One moderate group says the progressive wins are “deeply troubling” and is planning a $15 million effort against democratic socialism.
Midwest hospital system launches $10M expansion that includes doubling of CT capacity
OhioHealth announced the new campaign on Aug. 5, with the modifications aimed at improving its Bradley Cancer Center at Berger Hospital, in Circleville.
TikTok says moderator error delayed removal of Perez Hilton's livestream showing acts of self-harm
TikTok says a moderator error delayed the removal of Perez Hilton's livestream showing self-harm, prompting a law enforcement response and the celebrity blogger's hospitalization.
FDA approves first mRNA-based flu vaccine
The US Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday approved the United States’ first mRNA-based flu vaccine for adults 50 and older, drugmaker Moderna said.
A new type of flu shot is coming after FDA approves mRNA-based vaccine
The agency’s former top vaccine regulator declined to review the Moderna shot, and it’s now likely to face pushback from allies of the health secretary.
Viewpoint: Europe needs a new scientific contract
The White House's new science strategy should be required reading in the Berlaymont and every European capital.Not because Europe should copy it. Parts of it should concern Europeans deeply. But because it asks the question Europe has so far avoided while steadily losing ground in the global race for technological leadership.Europe already possesses many of the world's finest universities, scientists and research-intensive companies. It produces world-leading research in fields ranging from quantum technologies and biotechnology to climate science. Yet time and again Europe generates the scientific breakthroughs while others build the companies, industries and strategic advantages around them, particularly in digital technologies. Increasingly, we find ourselves regulating technologies whose underlying capabilities were developed elsewhere.This is not primarily a scientific failure. It is an institutional one.The settlement that shaped modern science policy emerged after the Second World War. In Science, the Endless Frontier, Vannevar Bush argued that governments should invest in fundamental research while protecting scientists from political direction. Public investment was justified precisely because no government, university or company could predict where the next transformative discovery would emerge.That scientific contract served liberal democracies extraordinarily well. It underpinned decades of advances in medicine, computing, energy and communications, but the world for which it was designed no longer exists.Artificial intelligence is transforming not only technology but the production of knowledge itself. Advanced chips, computing power, data and scientific instruments have become strategic assets. Scientific knowledge now diffuses globally almost instantly. Competitive advantage increasingly lies not in making discoveries first, but in possessing the infrastructure, capital, engineering capability and institutions required to translate those ideas into products, industries and strategic advantage.The old boundaries between science, industrial policy, national security and geopolitics have largely disappeared. Dual-use technologies now underpin both economic power and military deterrence.The US has recognised this shift. In July, the White House published Science: A New Golden Age, a comprehensive attempt to rethink the relationship between science and national power. The report builds on Bush's legacy, but departs from his framework in important ways. Science is no longer treated simply as the source of future discoveries. It is presented as the foundation of economic resilience, technological leadership and national security. AI, advanced infrastructure and the capacity to build become as important as discovery itself.Yet the report also reveals a striking paradox. The same administration calling for “a new golden age” of US science has simultaneously proposed deep cuts to the federal research enterprise while expanding political influence over the allocation of public research funding. Europe should therefore distinguish between the report's diagnosis and its prescription. The diagnosis, that science has become a strategic asset, is compelling. But the prescription is self-defeating. Long-term technological leadership depends on strong universities, academic freedom and the institutional autonomy that makes scientific discovery possible. This distinction matters. Bush's achievement was never simply to make science serve national strength. It was to establish a division of labour in which governments invested in research without attempting to direct discovery itself. Scientific breakthroughs emerge precisely because researchers retain the freedom to pursue questions whose value cannot yet be demonstrated and whose conclusions cannot be anticipated.Neither China, nor the USAs science becomes more strategically important, the temptation to politicise it inevitably grows. But scientific freedom is not an obstacle to technological leadership, it is an essential precondition.China represents the opposite model. For decades it has integrated science, manufacturing, infrastructure and industrial policy into a single national strategy. Its ability to mobilise resources around critical technologies is formidable. But it does so within an authoritarian system where scientific priorities are increasingly inseparable from political power.Europe should imitate neither model. It should learn from the strategic ambition of the US without importing its growing politicisation of science. And it should learn from China's capacity to build without adopting its concentration of power.Instead, Europe needs a scientific contract of its own. Bush's scientific contract protected the freedom to discover because the defining challenge of the 20th century was producing new knowledge. Europe's next scientific contract must preserve that freedom while ensuring that scientific discoveries can be converted into technological, industrial and strategic capability. Because in a transactional world, Europe's freedom to shape its own future depends on its capacity to build it.Related articlesThe US ‘golden age’ science strategy: what Europeans need to knowEuropean researchers sound the alarm that Trump rule changes will hit cooperationNIH turmoil risks reciprocal EU-US access to health research fundingThis does not mean subordinating free science to competitiveness or industrial policy. On the contrary. Scientific autonomy remains the first principle of Europe's next scientific contract. Governments should not direct scientific discovery. Their responsibility is to ensure that Europe's scientific, industrial, financial and regulatory institutions work together rather than in isolation.Meeting that responsibility requires far more than research funding. European researchers need access to world-class computing infrastructure, advanced laboratories, shared datasets and scientific facilities. Innovative companies need patient capital, testing environments and a genuine single market in which they can scale without facing 27 different regulatory regimes. Public procurement must evolve from purchasing existing technologies to creating markets for new ones. Regulators must become partners in experimentation rather than guardians of yesterday's rules.A connecting architectureEurope does not need to invent the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) model from scratch. Britain's Aria, Germany's Sprind and Wellcome Leap already show that Europe can build institutions capable of taking high-risk, mission-oriented bets while preserving democratic accountability. The challenge now is not to create more isolated initiatives, but to connect them to Europe's broader scientific, industrial and financial system so that breakthrough discoveries can scale.Above all, Europe must stop treating research, innovation, industrial policy, finance and security as separate policy domains. The challenge is no longer to create excellent institutions in each of these fields, but to make them work as one European innovation system. Europe's strength will increasingly depend not on excellence within institutions, but on excellence across them.Europe's ambition should be neither to imitate the US nor to emulate China. It should demonstrate that scientific freedom, democratic legitimacy and technological capability are not competing objectives, but mutually reinforcing strengths. In an age of geopolitical rivalry, Europe's greatest advantage may ultimately be its ability to attract the world's best talent by combining scientific freedom, democratic openness and technological ambition.Bush's scientific contract helped define the 20th century because it protected the freedom to discover. Europe's challenge is not to abandon that achievement but to extend it. The defining task of Europe's next scientific contract is to preserve the freedom to discover while building Europe's capacity to translate scientific discovery into technological power.Kaare Nielsen is founder of Pomus, a Danish think tank on science and innovation.
Science|Business summer reads of 2026
As most people in the European research and innovation policy bubble are going on a well-deserved summer break, we have come up with a list of our favourite books, podcasts and essays from the past year that ask deeper questions about science, technology and politics.BooksPasteur’s Quadrant: Basic Science and Technological Innovation, by Donald StokesIf you haven’t read Pasteur’s Quadrant yet, now is the time. In the EU and elsewhere, we’re living through a period of dwindling faith that curiosity-driven research automatically leads to economic growth and technological progress. Pasteur’s Quadrant, published in 1997 by the Princeton academic Donald Stokes, is the most influential critique of the standard “linear model” of R&D: the idea that new discoveries made in ivory-tower labs get neatly passed on for commercialisation by start-ups. In reality, Stokes argues, practical applications often inspire more theorical lines of inquiry. Of course, we have long known that things are more complex than the linear model, but even today, it’s still often assumed in Brussels discourse. The book is a useful corrective, and is being used now to argue for new types of scientific institutions. David MatthewsThe Weaponization of Expertise: How Elites Fuel Populism, by Jacob Hale Russel and Dennis PattersonAre society’s problems solvable by technical expertise alone? “If only the benighted would listen,” say Jacob Hale Russel and Dennis Patterson, two professors at Rutgers Law School who got frustrated with how scientists and politicians handled public health communication during the Covid-19 pandemic. In the book, they argue that clichéd mantras about scientific evidence and expertise perpetrated by academics, journalists and politicians have harmed public trust in the very institutions they were trying to defend. Paradoxically, slogans such as “we believe in science,” “follow the science” and “defer to the experts” can fuel mistrust in science, experts and democratic institutions. The authors criticise “condescension” and “technocratic paternalism” in the public discourse and make the case for a more nuanced approach to scientific and expert policy advice that rests on humility, doubt, scepticism and open dialogue. “Most complex social questions in fact revolve around values, not the recitation of unambiguous facts,” they say. Florin ZubascuBreakneck: China's Quest to Engineer the Future, by Dan WangIn this book, Dan Wang compares the structural differences between the US and Chinese industrial policies, but raises a very timely question for innovation policy wonks: how can advanced manufacturing know-how contribute to technology-intensive economic growth? Wang says technology has three components: the tools, the blueprints and patents, and the process knowledge. The third component represents the “proficiency gained from practical experience, which isn’t easily communicated and requires years of implementation.” According to Wang, rather than seeing tools and blueprints as the ultimate ends of technological progress, policymakers should see them as milestones in the training of better scientists and manufacturers. Over the past decades, China has amassed “process knowledge” because capital flowed to complex fabrication facilities, while investors in the West have parked their money in capital-light businesses such as digital platforms or chip companies that focus on design. As it turns out, thanks to its oversized focus on manufacturing, China has gained remarkable advantages in the global technology race. Florin ZubascuBaltic: The Future of Europe, by Oliver MoodyWhat can Europe learn from the nine countries surrounding the Baltic Sea? Alongside the familiar stories about Estonia's digital transformation, the book examines how the region has used technology, resilience, education, governance and long-term thinking to respond to geopolitical, economic and security challenges. Innovation policy wonks might find fresh perspectives on how innovation can strengthen defence, societal resilience and Europe's capacity to adapt in an uncertain world. Whether or not you agree with all of Oliver Moody's conclusions, the book is a useful guide to a region that is increasingly shaping European debates on security, competitiveness and technology. Goda NaujokaityteThe Invention of Nature, by Andrea Wulf This book chronicles the wild and adventurous life of natural science pioneer Alexander von Humboldt who at some point in the 19th century seems to have been just about the most famous person in the world. Through scientific expeditions to the Andes Mountains and to the depths of Siberia, von Humboldt contributed a host of discoveries and concepts. During his life he met and formed relationships with historical figures as different as Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Simon Bolivar, Thomas Jefferson, Napoleon Bonaparte and Charles Darwin. He is also claimed to be the person in the world with most things named after him, a list that includes an ocean current, a penguin and a region of the Moon. Still venerated in Germany, with numerous scientific institutions named after him, von Humboldt has slipped out of public consciousness in most of the rest of the world. For anyone not familiar with him, this book does a good job of describing his fascinating life. Ole EllekrogCareless People, by Sarah Wynn-WilliamsYou may have heard this referred to as the book Meta doesn’t want you to read. The 2025 memoir from Sarah Wynn-Williams, former director of global public policy at Meta, then just called Facebook, includes explosive claims about everything from a toxic workplace culture to how the company worked with advertisers to target vulnerable teens, and the lengths it was prepared to go to in order to break into China. It’s a fascinating insight into how and why the tech company gradually shifted its approach to policy, whether in the US, Europe or Asia. Meta has denied the allegations in the book, and last year won an emergency ruling to prevent Wynn-Williams from promoting it. In response, the author is now suing her former employer. If that doesn’t make you want to read it. Martin GreenacrePodcastsThe Europeans: Europe’s anti-ElonThis podcast is a great choice for a light-hearted dose of European policy and culture news. Most of it has little to do with research, innovation and technology, but this particular podcast features an interview with Mastadon’s founder Eugen Rochko. He talks about his experience running an open-source, federated, European-made social media platform, and leaving it all behind. The conversation, which starts 14 minutes in, gently encourages us to reflect on what kind of technology we, as Europeans, want to make. Goda NaujokaityteSolarpunk and how we escape dystopiaNew technologies are very often taken from science fiction. Alberto Santos-Dumont, inventor the airship, was inspired as a child by the adventure stories of Jules Verne. OpenAI’s attempt to build a personal assistant with the voice of Scarlett Johansson was lifted from the 2013 film Her, completely ignoring the movie’s cautionary message. So if we want better tech, we need to imagine it first. Unfortunately, the state of current sci-fi is relentlessly dystopian, giving inventors precious few ideas or hope. However, a new genre, Solarpunk, which envisages a technologically advanced but ecologically harmonious future, is now taking off. The actual tech the genre imagines, such as permaculture, renewable energy or community repair workshops, while nice, isn’t all that inspiring or ambitious. But it’s a first step towards rescuing sci-fi from its pessimistic Blade Runner rut. David MatthewsEveryday AbundanceLaunched in June, Everyday Abundance is a podcast that tells the stories of the inventions we now take so for granted that we barely given them a second thought. For example, the washing machine, which liberated women from a lifetime “bent over washtubs and washboards.” Or modern dentistry, which ended the reality that “tooth pain was simply part of human life.” Historians of technology, Virginia Postrel and Charles C Mann are very much on the optimistic end of the spectrum when it comes to the capacity of invention to improve human life. Here, they set out their case: if it wasn’t for progress, you might be hunched over a washtub with toothache rather than reading these words. David Matthews‘We will not know what we lost’: Conservation fallout a year after USAID shutdownSince his return to the White House, Donald Trump has been on a mission to undermine science. He slashed jobs at federal agencies, terminated grants in some research areas, took unprecedented control over university affairs and, within hours of his inauguration, suspended the US Agency for International Development. While its initial focus was to administer health and food aid around the world, it had since expanded to conservation projects. The result? Some of these projects were stopped abruptly. In this Mongabay podcast, environmental reporter Michelle Nijhuis tells the story of the EcoGuard conservation programme in Liberia, whose local patrols had helped protect rainforests, monitor endangered wildlife and track illegal threats. From one day to the next, these were left without salaries. Luckily, she notes, the initiative was able to get emergency funding from international NGOs, but its future remains “incredibly uncertain.” Juliette PortalaEssaysThe Mars Delusion, by Henry WismayerWhy is humankind so fixated on establishing a colony on Mars? asks London-based writer Henry Wismayer. From space evangelists promoting Martian settlement as an insurance policy, to billionaire Jeff Bezos, who said humans should settle on Mars “because it’s cool,” the mission is not running short of advocates. However, in this essay, Wismayer reminds us that some critics expect any future Mars pioneer to end up “irradiated, sick, mad and dead.” Scientists have already looked into the possible effects of prolonged exposure to Martian gravity, and it’s not pretty: muscle shrinking, bones weakening, changes to the central nervous system and other biological modifications to make us all reconsider the journey. “Some researchers have forecast that the future settler, after generations of evolutionary conditioning, will look less like an Übermensch and more like ET,” Wismayer writes. Juliette Portala
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Chartbook 464 The"China squeeze" - the politics of development counterfactuals.
There are three types of China shock discourse. Each has a distinct temporal register. China shock 1.0 was a phrase coined by US academics in the 2010s to retrospectively summarize the impact on particular US labour markets, which they identified through painstaking empirical investigation. China shock 2.0 on everyone’s lips in Europe in the mid 2020s is an alarm raised by trans-Atlantic policy thinkers warning of a coming disaster which they project onto Europe’s ailing car industry. The third type of China shock discourse - commonly known as the “China squeeze” launched most recently by Indian economists Shoumitro Chatterjee and Arvind Subramanian in the pages of Foreign Affairs - mobilizes a different, more speculative temporal register: the counterfactual realm of alternate history. The China squeeze argument asks not what has happened, or what is going to happen, but what might have been. Specifically, what options for economic development might have been open to Global South economies like India or the economies of sub-Saharan Africa, had it not been for China’s spectacular industrialization since the late 1990s and the persistent competitiveness of China’s manufacture in low-skilled segments. Chatterjee and Subramanian’s argument is that whilst China has built a powerful position in electrical machinery and other high-skill manufacturing, which is now delivering China Shock 2.0, it also continues to run a trade surplus in low-skill, labour-intensive manufacturing. This surplus is large and has remained largely unchanged in fifteen years. Indeed, in the 2010s, in trade with low-income countries, China’s surplus rapidly increased. On their reading, this squeezes low-income producers in low-skill sectors in which they “should” be able to compete. Source: “China’s Mercantilist Squeeze on Developing Countries” Shoumitro Chatterjee and Arvind Subramanian. Peterson Institute for International Economics 26-7 May 2026 Chatterjee and Subramanian’s wording is telling: (emphasis mine) The canonical trajectory of economic development in the post-World War II period is for countries to transition from agriculture to manufacturing, first in low-skilled manufacturing and then later on to high-skill manufacturing (Herrendorf, Rogerson, and Valentinyi 2013). At the global level, this implies that high-income countries (HICs) that once specialized in low-skilled activities cede manufacturing export space to poorer countries that come along to occupy that space. In 1965, advanced economies accounted for about 60 percent of global value-added exports in four key low-skilled manufacturing sectors, i.e., apparel, leather, textiles, and footwear. Over time this share declined and began to be occupied first by the East Asian tigers and, beginning in the late 1990s, by China. Today China accounts for about 50 percent of the global market. The question is whether China, with its rising prosperity, is continuing to behave like its richer counterparts and ceding export space to poorer followers or to behave unlike them and continuing to occupy space. In terms of the conceptual maneuvers it performs, of the three China shock discourses, the “China squeeze” argument is by far the most ambitious. After all, it bases its critique of China on a counterfactual imagining of the world. Like any counterfactual argument, to construct this alternative reality it must rely on a heuristic model. To make their argument Chatterjee and Subramanian mobilize two key claims. The first reference point is the actual history of rich-country industrialization, what they refer to as the “canonical path”. The idea is that countries transition from agriculture to light industry and low-skilled manufacturing and from there up the value chain. To make this useful as a standard of comparison and a means to construct a normative standard, they adjust sectoral export shares for two factors: 1. the underlying level of economic development of the exporting country, as measured by national income and 2. the degree to which the sector in question is internationalized. The idea being that for a high income country to have a high export share in low-skill sectors is anomalous and even more so if that particular product is highly internationalized and thus suitable for being “conceded” to lower-income competitors. Where should this process end? Here Chatterjee and Subramanian introduce their second benchmark. Their normative idea of a global development path is one in which, in due course, low-skill manufacturing exports are distributed in proportion to a country’s share in the global labour force. They imagine, in other words, a world of proportional, polycentric global development without much national specialization in low-skill manufacturing. A useful benchmark is that, in labor-intensive manufacturing sectors, a country’s share of world exports should be broadly commensurate with its share of the world’s low-skilled labor endowment. … In the Heckscher-Ohlin model, this would be true if value added per worker and export propensities, i.e., fraction of output that is exported, are the same across countries. It is this pleasant liberal vista of orderly global development, progressing towards a general distribution of low-skilled manufacturing against which they judge reality and conclude that the low-income countries are suffering a “China squeeze”. China is not exiting low-skill sectors fast enough Allowing for its gdp level and the degree of globalization, China’s share of low-skill manufacturing exports is far higher than it “should” be. Relative to population, its low-skill share of exports is far too high. That in turn yields the conclusion that huge numbers of jobs - the authors suggest tens of millions - are being hoarded by China. For the four sectors captured in figure 4, this excess in value-added exports is $110 billion in 2022. For all low-skilled sectors overall captured in appendix figure D.1, excess value-added exports amount to $365 billion. The crowding out of LMIC exports by China is therefore substantial. Both these claims have in common that they are strong structuralisms. The first is that development paths ought to resemble each other. The second is that broadly speaking as far as low-skilled manufacturing is concerned, all countries are alike. If the world currently diverges from the distribution of trade implied by these assumptions, if China is not following the advanced economy path and has huge exports, this must be the result of “policy”, which the authors then put in question as illegitimate or unfair. Thus the naturalistic construction of a canonical path leading to a “level” distribution of low-skilled manufacturing reveals itself to be a polemical tool. From the point of view of China shock polemics, this discourse is no doubt welcome. But as an account of economic history, it must surely be regarded as nothing short of bamboozling. Development paths do not follow a regular, natural sequence. As David Fishman put it aptly, “development is not a queue”. They are always and everywhere, through and through political. Development is not so much a process, as a project. Each such project is more or less well adjusted to its context. As Gerschenkron taught uneven and combined development implies differentiation rather than simple imitation on a single parth. It may be true that Europe and the US exited relatively early from low-skill work. But clearly technology has changed. As C&S themselves point out, China no longer enjoys a low wage environment. Do they really believe that such huge differences can be accounted for either by industrial policy, which as they admit does not operate powerfully in low-skill sectors, or by exchange rate manipulation? What is overwhelmingly dominant in explaining the persistence of “low-skill” manufacturing in China are surely the network effects of complex supply chains. Indeed the label of “low-skill” may miss the point. The degree of globalization which Chatterjee and Subramanian decide to conjure away in their model of the development path - to allow for the fact that Europe and American textiles exporters did not enjoy just-in-time logistics in the 1950s - obscures the point that the networks through which Chinese factories supply the world are themselves key parts of the low-skill industrialization project. China isn’t knocking out 1970s style “cheap”. It has redefined the entire product cycle. C&S’s casual reference to “T-shirts” is telling. In today’s “fast fashion”, there is weight on both terms. Fashion and fast. China’s success in delivering on both at unprecedentedly high speed and at unprecedentedly low cost, isn’t a low-skill operation at all. If we see development trajectories not as the serial repetition of the same, but as distinctive, crafted projects that cumulate in complex agglomerations of skill, technology and labor, then this explains why the assumption that low-skilled manufacturing should follow the distribution of population flies in the face of all experience. As countless cases attest, low-wage, low-income developed economies are not by themselves the makings of a competitive production base. As Leon Liao puts it quite fairly: “International trade has never been allocated according to population. A country’s population gives it no natural claim to an equivalent share of global exports." And the remarkable fact is that Subramanian alone and with co-authors has long been making this point, not to pillory China, as is the case of the tendentious _Foreign Affair_s and Peterson pieces, but to highlight the great counterpart to China’s industrial success, namely India’s relative failure. The much-quoted Foreign Affairs piece showed low-skill export shares only for China, not for India. If you put both countries in the picture as Chaterjee and Subramanian have done on other occasions, the picture looks like this. China is far above the line, but India, almost as large in terms of population, is no less anomalous, just in the opposite direction. As far as global populations are concerned, and the imagining of tens of millions of “squeezed” jobs, it is this Sino-Indian pair that account for a huge share of the action. What this graph reveals is not China’s cheating, but India’s “greatest development failure”, at least this is the argument made Arvind Subramanian, this time in co-authorship with Devesh Kapur, in their major book, A Sixth of Humanity. Independent India’s Development Odyssey which appeared with Oxford University Press earlier this year. In this highly critical work on India’s development, China is repeatedly evoked, not to criticize but as a benchmark against which to illuminate what India’s political economy has not delivered i.e. large-scale formal employment for hundreds of millions of citizens. Kapur and Subramanian leave no doubt, if you want to understand why China, not India was the main driver of manufacturing globalization from the 1980s, don’t look to slots opening up in the division of labour thanks to the liberal mindedness of advanced economies, look to the contrasting political economy of the Maoist PRC and India’s post-independence political economy. As Kapur and Subramian note: The great divergence between China and India did not begin in 1978 with the Deng reforms—it was well underway by then. In one of the great ironies of modern history, the conditions created by Maoism turned out to be a great launching pad for industrial globalization. As the comparison of India and China in 1980 makes clear, to imagine manufacturing would be equally distributed when populations are so differently endowed in terms of educational and nutritional is fanciful. Here is the data from Kapur and Subramanian, data which I explored back at the very beginning of Chartbook. As Kapur and Subramanian insist, the striking fact is that even as India’s growth accelerated from the 1980s, structural change has not. Formal employment in India lags woefully behind. Why? As Kapur and Subramanian note, the path-dependent impact of India’s poor early start was devastating. The list of factors they mention is long and weighty: We argue for a new five-fold explanation applicable at different stages of Indian history: in the initial stages, the legacy of two key pre-1980s policies, the neglect of agriculture and the strangling of the domestic private sector, were critical. The failure of broad-based agricultural growth militated against rural industrialization, which would have been devoted to satisfying local needs that would have necessarily been labour intensive. Then, when the boom came after 1980, the thicket of regulation and broader labour protections that were legislated prematurely in a nascent democracy, underpinned by a deep ideological aversion to private capital in general and big capital specifically, became a barrier to attaining the size that would be necessary to compete globally. Similarly, the reforms after 1991, while wide-ranging, did not quite encompass non-tradeable inputs critical to manufacturing, namely, land, logistics infrastructure and power. A combination of low investment (logistics infrastructure), regulation (land) and the continued monopoly supply by state governments (power), combined with residual socialism, kept costs at 75–100 per cent above efficient supply. These factors were compounded on the supply side by the government, which dominated the formal labour market and established exorbitantly high wages at the lower end of the skill spectrum. This made their employment in the labour-intensive sector by the private sector less attractive. Finally, when the services sector and its exports boomed, wages soared even further via a Dutch Disease effect: one successful tradeable sector killed and cannibalized another less-skilled tradable sector, namely, manufacturing. Thus, scarcity-inducing policies of the planning era, precocious democracy and a Gandhian aversion to size; inefficient, monopolistic supply of critical non-tradable inputs; the behemoth of government; and super-successful skill-intensive services successively undermined India’s unskilled labour employment opportunities. The employment failure seems to have been over-determined. … Less quantifiable but no less important are some of the sociological factors that have undermined manufacturing and factory jobs. Take the impact of the success of the IT sector—located in urban areas with better working conditions, such as air-conditioned offices, good schools for children and attractive entertainment options. It became a more attractive place for engineering and management graduates to flock to. … Consider manufacturing and female employment. Indian society makes it difficult for women to work, reflected in India’s unusually low female labour force participation (elaborated in Chapter XIII). Indian society, in particular the routine harassment of women in public spaces, makes it even more difficult for them to travel long distances to take up work.37 Combined with onerous regulations on creating hostels and dormitories for women—which, in turn, prevents multiple shifts of operation—factories need to be located in areas with a large female labour pool. While firms can take apparel plants to female labour or bring them to the plants by building large-scale dormitories, this raises costs. If there was a case for subsidies to encourage labour-intensive manufacturing, housing subsidies to build dormitories for women workers would be a good place to start. All of this meant, that when opportunities did open up, in part thanks to adjustments in China, India was in no position to take advantage. Here is the account of the 2020s from Kapur and Subramanian. It stands in dizzying contrast to the one-sided, “China squeeze” argument delivered in the Peterson and Foreign Affairs pieces: In 2022, for example, India’s share of global exports in clothing (the canonical labour-intensive sector) was 3.1 per cent compared to 32 per cent for China. This is extremely disappointing because China started vacating export space in this sector after the Global Financial Crisis as its wages started rising; it then vacated further space in the aftermath of geopolitical developments that led investors to seek alternative investment locations. Between its peak and today, China lost about 7.5 percentage points of global export share (worth about $43 billion in 2022); over this period, India’s export share remained stagnant at 3 per cent, while that of Vietnam and Bangladesh rose by 3.5 to 4 percentage points. China’s loss did not translate into any gain for India in terms of low-skill exports and employment. Put differently, when the conditions for dynamism and prosperity were established after 1991, and even more tantalizingly when the global export opportunities opened up, it was as if India was a high-wage economy and only skilled labour could benefit from the dynamism. It had converted its physically abundant unskilled workforce into an economically expensive resource, penalizing its use. It is not my mission here to argue for or against Kapur and Subramanian’s interpretation of India’s development trajectory. The point in this context is simply that the “China squeeze” such as it is can only be understood, in relation to the heavy burden of domestic constraints that Kapur and Subramanian so unsparingly enumerate. I am concentrating here on India because it is the great counterpart to China and the unspoken reference point of the “China squeeze” discourse. But the point is more general. Can anyone with a straight face suggest that the main problems afflicting the development of South Africa or Nigeria, the great centers of mass underemployment in sub-saharan Africa, are cheap competition from China driven by Beijing’s industrial policy and an undervalued RMB? Likewise, is the main problem of the American working-class the threat of Chinese competition or the manifest crisis of social reproduction in the United States itself? The point here, as in the discourse around China shock 2.0 in Europe, is to insist that we should not normalize the world and pathologize China, without actually investigating what is going on in America’s industrial wastelands, the German car industry, or India’s lopsided labour market. One-sided pathologization should be understood for what it is, a polemical gesture. Concepts like China shock and China squeeze are, what Reinhart Koselleck, following Carl Schmitt, would have described as “asymmetrische Kampfbegriffe”, or “asymmetrical counter-concepts” or “asymmetrical combat concepts”. If the function of arguments like the “China squeeze” is to alert elites in the rest of the world of the need to rejuvenate and energize their development projects, so be it. But let us see the resulting discourses as the mobilizing interventions that they are. Interestingly, a significant slice of China’s public sphere - the so-called industrial party - have been obsessed for the last twenty years with precisely these questions of counterfactual economic history. Since the mid 2000s, a massive online discourse developed around an alternative history in which Chinese techno-patriots were asked to imagine how they would proceed if they had the possibility of traveling back in time to transport modern technology into the Ming dynasty (1368-1644) thus averting the “great divergence” of the 18th and 19th centuries. It is a fantasy of course, but also a goad. The point was not directed at Westerners. The alternate history is dramatically nationalist, but few n the West had even heard of it until recently. The adherents of the industrial party are not liberal moralists. They don’t project natural ladders of international development and ask why others don’t cede space. They take the Realpolitik of global economic development for granted. Their pointe was directed against fellow Chinese. The rallying cry of the alternative narrative was this: Now that we are beginning to gain steam and push forward on our national development path, now that we are breaking out of the inferior position assigned to us even in the early years following WTO accession, do not lose yourself in humanistic imaginings about better futures. In the spirit of Deng, they called on China to embrace the hard truth of development. Perhaps one might of the Industrial Party as a cultural trend born out of desire for symbolic revenge against those who had inflicted the century of humiliation. In terms of the various temporalities of the “China shock” - retrospective, prospective and counterfactual - one might think of the Industrial Policy discourse as truly speculative, conjuring up the China shock that never was. Or perhaps one might better think of it as imagining a world in which a powerful China was no shock at all, but simply a defining fact of modern history. I love putting out Chartbook. I am particularly pleased that it goes out for free to thousands of subscribers around the world. But, writing this newsletter takes a lot of work. If you are enjoying it and would like to support the project, sign up for one of the subscription options here. It is the equivalent of a fancy cup of coffee per month! Subscribe
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