Flagship

US stocks slide on economic concerns

A US tech stock rout deepened Wednesday, fueled by intensifying economic tensions with China and the Federal Reserve chair’s warnings of uncertainty over tariffs. The tech-heavy Nasdaq index tumbled 3%, with Nvidia’s stock especially hit after the chipmaker said it would record a $5.5 billion charge following the US government’s move to limit sales of more of its chips to China — the “strongest sign so far that Nvidia’s historic growth could be slowed by increased export restrictions,” CNBC wrote. Stocks slid further after the Fed’s Jerome Powell suggested the central bank was in uncharted territory over President Donald Trump’s tariffs, saying the economy is “moving away” from the central bank’s goals of stable prices and strong employment.

China wants respect before US trade talks

The US and China appear to have diverging playbooks for tariff negotiations with each other, as their escalating trade war threatens to upend the global economy. Beijing indicated it was open to talks with Washington, but wants President Donald Trump to first show “respect” and address China’s concerns around US sanctions and Taiwan, Bloomberg reported. Trump, meanwhile, plans to use tariff negotiations to pressure US trading partners to isolate China’s economy, The Wall Street Journal reported: Trump met Japanese trade officials Wednesday, as he aims to quickly seal a slate of agreements. But it could prove difficult to ask “the same trading partners we pissed off to help us triangulate a common foe,” Fox Business’ Charlie Gasparino said.

US judges push back against White House

A US federal judge on Wednesday threatened to open a contempt of court inquiry over the Trump administration’s deportation flights to El Salvador, signaling the judiciary’s pushback to the White House’s apparent defiance of court orders. The threat came a day after another judge opened an inquiry into the government’s response to a Supreme Court order in a separate immigration case. The decisions “represented a remarkable attempt by jurists to hold the White House accountable for its apparent willingness to flout court orders,” The New York Times wrote. The administration is “daring the federal courts to take much more aggressive steps to block its immigration policies,” a legal expert wrote in The Atlantic.

Economic concerns over Harvard clash

US President Donald Trump’s confrontation with Harvard University could have economic ramifications beyond Cambridge, experts said. Higher education institutions have long been considered the safest borrowers in the US corporate bond market, but Trump’s assault on elite schools — freezing their federal funds and threatening their tax-exempt status to force them to comply with his policy changes — is challenging that assumption and making investors more cautious, Bloomberg reported. “There are risks seemingly lurking around every corner in the higher ed space,” one strategist said. But universities also face a problem of their own making: Much of their money is tied up in investments they can’t cash out, like real estate, Semafor’s Rohan Goswami and Liz Hoffman wrote.

Gandhis targeted in India probe

Indian authorities accused two top opposition figures of money laundering, paving the way for criminal charges against Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s most prominent opponents. Authorities alleged that the Congress Party’s leader Rahul Gandhi and his mother Sonia, the former party president, formed a shell company to illegally buy assets belonging to a newspaper publisher. They have denied wrongdoing, and a Congress spokesperson accused Modi of employing “the politics of vendetta and intimidation.” Modi has been previously accused of cracking down on opponents: His political nemesis in Delhi was arrested last year on corruption charges. Rahul Gandhi, a member of India’s most dominant political dynasty, wasn’t seen as a threat to Modi until an unexpected comeback in last year’s national elections.

UK ruling on trans women

The UK’s highest court on Wednesday ruled that transgender women cannot be legally defined as women, in a case that could have widespread ramifications for equality protections. All UK organizations will now have legal backing to restrict single-sex areas like bathrooms and changing rooms. A trans woman and former UK judge warned the ruling could be “a kicking-off point” for more “overt restrictions” on trans rights, while a columnist for the conservative Spectator hailed the decision as “a victory for women.” The judgment was the culmination of a contentious culture war debate that has divided the UK, as well as the US, where President Donald Trump has signed a slate of executive orders targeting trans people.

First global pandemic treaty

Countries approved a landmark global pandemic treaty after three years of talks, and without the US’ participation. Despite the “growing sense of urgency” over how to respond to pandemics five years after the COVID-19 outbreak killed millions and devastated the global economy, nations stumbled over negotiations about technology sharing: During COVID, rich nations were accused of hoarding vaccines and tests to the detriment of poorer ones. Experts said that while the treaty wasn’t perfect, it was still “a definitive moment in the history of global health.” However, concerns remain over the US’ decision to impose tariffs on pharmaceuticals and reduce global health funding.

Alex Chriss, President and CEO, PayPal; Jenny Johnson, President and CEO, Franklin Templeton; Rich Lesser, Global Chair, BCG; Nandan Nilekani, Co-Founder and Chairman, Infosys; Penny Pritzker, Founder, PSP Partners, former US Commerce Secretary; Harvey Schwartz, CEO, Carlyle Group, and more will join The Next Era of Global Growth session at the 2025 World Economy Summit. Amid tectonic shifts to longtime regional trending blocks and friendshoring, this session will explore how businesses and policymakers are recalibrating their visions of growth.

April 24, 2025 | Washington, DC | Learn More

What 4chan revealed about the internet

The notorious internet messageboard 4chan was taken down this week — apparently by a more racist platform. 4chan — whose moderators were also personally targeted in the hack — effectively “invented the concept of the internet meme and was one of the last truly anonymous spaces left on the web,” Garbage Day’s Ryan Broderick wrote. But that anonymity also meant the forum was a breeding ground for extremism, misogyny, conspiracy theories, and hate speech. The world is almost certainly better without it, Broderick argued, but “it’s also possible we look back one day and wish the internet still felt as messy and, more importantly, human as it did when 4chan ruled the world.”

Breakthrough in lab-grown meat

Scientists created bite-sized chunks of lab-grown chicken meat by introducing an artificial circulation system. Proponents hope cultivated meat can produce cruelty-free, low-carbon alternatives to animal flesh, but it generally has to be grown in thin layers in order to allow oxygen and other nutrients to reach it all. The new research uses semipermeable hollow fibers to act like blood vessels, delivering essential materials throughout and allowing a nugget-size lump to be grown in one go. The researchers also say the fibers improve the texture. A scientist told the Science Media Centre that it was an “exciting advance” and would likely open up further research and investment in the cultured meat sector.

Baby colossal squid spotted

A colossal squid was filmed in its natural habitat for the first time. Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni is less well-known than its cousin the giant squid. It is shorter, but heavier, and lives in deep Antarctic waters. A specimen was first found in the stomach of a sperm whale in 1925. Since then, it has only been seen at the surface. A robot submarine spotted the not-that-colossal creature — a juvenile, just a foot long, compared to the 20-foot adults — 2,000 feet beneath the South Atlantic: A scientist on the expedition told Scientific American that it was a reminder of how little we know of the deep ocean, even though “it makes up 95 percent of the living space on Earth.”

April 17:

• Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani visits Russia’s President Vladimir Putin in Moscow.
• TSMC, Netflix, and American Express report first-quarter earnings.
• Neil Young: Coastal, a documentary about the Canadian folk musician directed by his wife, Daryl Hannah, opens in theaters.

A rare letter recently sold by a UK collector reveals Bram Stoker’s contemporaneous impressions of Dracula, his gothic horror masterpiece about a Transylvanian count with a taste for blood. “Lord forgive me. I am quite shameless,” Stoker wrote to a recipient identified as “Williams” in 1897, just weeks after publishing the vampire legend. The letter is “essentially one in a billion,” the seller told The Guardian; it reveals Stoker’s playful side, and perhaps a hint of pride in his book’s “dark theatricality.” Few of Stoker’s letters have been preserved, and those directly referencing Dracula are “rarer than seeing a vampire in daylight.”

Trump officials are optimistic about avoiding another deadline extension for TikTok’s Beijing-based owners to divest, even as the shape of a plan remains out of sight, Semafor’s Shelby Talcott and Morgan Chalfant reported.

“The ball is in China’s court,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt read from a new Trump statement Tuesday. “China needs to make a deal with us. We don’t have to make a deal with them.” But tariffs have thrown a wrench into negotiations, and the legality of further delays to a Congressionally-imposed ban remains unclear.

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