Flagship

Drones strike Moscow

Russia blamed Ukraine for attempted drone attacks on Moscow early Tuesday. The rare assault — which injured at least two people and damaged several buildings — marks the latest strike to land deep within Russia. Kyiv did not claim responsibility for the incident, though the U.S. reportedly believes Ukrainians were behind an earlier drone explosion over the Kremlin. The attacks came after a third successive day of Russian bombardments against Kyiv, and represent “a new reality we will have to recognize,” a pro-Putin politician said on Telegram. “This latest strike shows how the Ukrainians have adapted and extended their operational and strategic strike capabilities” since Russia launched its full-scale invasion last year, a military analyst and ex-Australian general wrote.

Beijing rejects US talks request

China rebuffed a U.S. request for a meeting between the two countries’ defense chiefs, but business and trade ties between Beijing and Washington appeared unaffected. The talks would ostensibly have been held on the sidelines of an upcoming conference in Singapore. But Beijing questioned Washington’s “sincerity,” pointing to ongoing U.S. sanctions against the Chinese defense minister over his prior role which involved buying military equipment from Russia. China has not shut itself off entirely from the U.S., however: Beijing’s commerce minister met his counterpart in Washington this month, and China hosts two U.S. business titans — JPMorgan chief executive Jamie Dimon, and Tesla, Twitter, and SpaceX head Elon Musk — this week.

China sends civilian to space

China sent its first civilian into space, the latest expansion of the country’s growing extra-terrestrial ambitions. The professor of aeronautics, Gui Haichao, will spend five months on China’s Tiangong space station with two members of the People’s Liberation Army, including a space veteran who was part of Beijing’s first team of astronauts in 1988 — when Gui was just two years old. China has been ramping up its space ambitions in recent years. Tiangong was completed last year, but Beijing plans to expand its structure and capabilities, saying it wants to host astronauts from other countries. And this week, a senior government official confirmed China aims to land a person on the moon by 2030.

Clean energy growth slows

Clean-energy installations in the U.S. fell in 2022 for the first time in five years, the result of supply-chain bottlenecks and long-running permitting and interconnection issues. Renewables were still the country’s dominant source of new power, but the 25.5 gigawatts of added capacity were lower than both of the prior two years, according to American Clean Power. The U.S. was long a climate laggard, but has sharply increased its investment in the energy transition — most clearly in the Inflation Reduction Act, a huge green-energy boost that other countries and regions have both criticized and copied.

New rules threaten Amazon

Brazilian activists voiced alarm after the country’s Congress announced plans to disempower ministries responsible for protecting the Amazon. The legislation could strip Indigenous communities of their land titles and make exploitation of the Amazon for commercial purposes easier. “They are fleecing the environment ministry,” the country’s environment minister told O Globo. The proposal came as a shock to activists who hoped that years of neglect of the Amazon and its communities under President Jair Bolsonaro would be reverted by his leftist successor, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. The conservative-dominated Congress is expected to vote on the new rules in the coming days.

Uganda passes anti-gay law

Ugandan authorities adopted one of the world’s harshest anti-LGBTQ+ laws, triggering international condemnation. Same-sex relations were already illegal in the country, but the new legislation threatens the death penalty for “aggravated homosexuality” and punishes people for “promoting” homosexuality with up to 20 years in prison. Washington threatened to bar some Ugandan officials from obtaining visas, and Republican U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz called it “horrific and wrong.” Though homophobia has long been present in Africa, campaigns to restrict rights for LGBTQ+ communities also have “deep links to white evangelical Christianity” and are “an export of a made-in-the-USA movement,” the Nigerian journalist Caleb Okereke wrote in Foreign Policy.

Russia issues warrant for US senator

U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham trumpeted an arrest warrant issued against him by Russian authorities. The Republican lawmaker said last week that “Russians are dying” and that Washington’s assistance to Kyiv was “the best money we’ve ever spent.” The remarks were made separately during a conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy but were spliced together by Kyiv, triggering fury in Russia. The head of the Russian state broadcaster RT appeared to call for Graham’s assassination, saying, “It’s not even hard. We have his address.” Moscow last year banned 200 U.S. lawmakers from visiting Russia, including Graham. “I don’t like my chances of getting a fair trial,” Graham tweeted.

Nvidia announces AI supercomputer

The head of the world’s most valuable semiconductor company introduced a new artificial-intelligence-focused supercomputer. Nvidia’s DGX GH200 closes “the digital divide,” the firm’s co-founder Jensen Huang said, allowing a wider group of people to write code. In another speech last week, Huang urged companies and individuals to focus on how they could work with artificial intelligence, or “perish.” He used Nvidia’s story to illustrate his point: Years ago it bet on a losing chip design strategy, faced heavy shareholder pressure over a costly programming model, and walked away from the lucrative smartphone semiconductor market. “Either you’re running for food or you are running from becoming food,” he said. “And oftentimes you can’t tell which.”

Ketamine effective for depression

A study found ketamine was as effective as electroconvulsive therapy for treatment-resistant depression. It also caused less memory loss. ECT has a bad reputation: In early forms, it involved high voltages and no anesthesia. The modern version is targeted and humane, and can work when other treatments do not, even in patients whose depression is so severe they stop eating. But it has side effects — notably memory loss — and is not effective in all cases. The new study found intravenous ketamine, prescribed under clinical supervision, was as effective as ECT, and scientists suggested that ECT clinics should consider using both options.

Scorsese announces Jesus movie

Renowned director Martin Scorsese announced plans for a film about Jesus Christ. Fresh off the success of his latest movie at the Cannes Film Festival, Scorsese traveled to Rome for a meeting with the Pope where the project was discussed. “I have responded to the Pope’s appeal to artists in the only way I know how, by imagining and writing a screenplay for a film about Jesus,” Scorsese said. Christianity has been a frequent topic in Scorsese’s work. His adaptation of Nikos Kazantzakis’ The Last Temptation of Christ earned him an Oscar nomination for best director, while Silence, a film about Jesuit missionaries in 17th century Japan, was praised by critics despite being a commercial flop.

• A U.S. House of Representatives committee takes up the debt ceiling deal, a crucial step before the entire chamber votes on it. It will then need to be cleared by the Senate, with a June deadline looming for when the country may default on its debt.
• Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes begins serving her prison sentence in Texas for defrauding investors in the failed blood-testing startup.
• The World Surfing Games begin in El Salvador, where the top-finishing surfers will qualify for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.

Jim Clifton is the chairman of the research firm Gallup, and the co-author of Culture Shock, out today. Read his full exchange with Semafor’s Prashant Rao.

A historical novel about a legendary Chinese pirate queen was published today. Deep as the Sky, Red as the Sea is based on the life of Shek Yeung (also known as Ching Shih) — who has been described as the most successful pirate in history. Born to poverty in the city of Guangzhou, Shek Yeung went on to command over 1,800 pirate ships and an estimated 80,000 men in the early nineteenth century. “In comparison, the famed Blackbeard commanded four ships and 300 pirates,” Atlas Obscura wrote. Author Rita Chang-Eppig fictionalizes Shek Yeung’s life in this debut novel. Her publisher described it as “an unmissable portrait of a woman who leads with the courage and ruthlessness of our darkest and most beloved heroes.”

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