🐂 Dubious

Markets

Stocks saw an upward trend yesterday, but there is anticipation of potential market turbulence due to the ongoing conflict in Israel. The news triggered a surge in oil prices as worries about the conflict's potential to disrupt the supply led to a rally. Leading defense corporations, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman, experienced their most successful non-earnings days since 2020.

Biden Walks Fine Line in Israel Conflict

President Biden, who has been a long-time supporter of Israel for the past five decades, is now facing a complex foreign policy dilemma in the wake of Hamas's devastating attacks. His challenge is to figure out how to back the United States' closest ally in the Middle East without getting the U.S. entangled in a perilous regional conflict.

The Israeli conflict poses a set of intricate foreign policy issues for Biden and his administration. They must work to dissuade regional powers like Hezbollah, based in Lebanon, from entering the conflict from the north while also considering their course of action regarding the more than 100 hostages held by the Hamas militant group.

Biden's decision to withdraw troops from Afghanistan in 2021 and reduce U.S. military presence in various parts of the world, including the Middle East, signaled a new approach in which he pledged to move away from "endless wars" and prioritize diplomacy and competition, particularly with China, which his administration has identified as the United States' top strategic rival.

In Ukraine, he has had to tread carefully by offering military assistance to Ukraine without provoking a direct confrontation with Russia. Now, the question is whether he can provide strong support to Israel without becoming embroiled in a regional conflict that could potentially lead to a U.S. confrontation with Iran.

Tech

X is full of misinformation about the war in Israel

The Israel-Hamas war has been shrouded in uncertainty, and X has been behaving like a substantial source of confusion.

Researchers and professional fact-checkers are expressing their concern that this social platform, once a reliable source for real-time news updates, has now become a breeding ground for misinformation and disinformation. Although some misleading content is being labeled as such, numerous videos falsely attributed to the ongoing conflict have been widely circulated without any disclaimers.

For instance, a video depicting an urban area illuminated by red flashes, claimed to be an Israeli bombardment of Gaza, was actually footage of fireworks in Algeria. Another video with hundreds of thousands of views, purportedly showing an Israeli helicopter being shot down by Hamas, was, in fact, a clip from the hyperrealistic video game Arma 3.

Adding to the issue, X's owner, Elon Musk, has not been particularly helpful in guiding users toward credible sources. In a now-deleted post from this weekend, he recommended two accounts "for following the war in real-time." Both profiles have a history of spreading disinformation (such as false reports of an explosion near the White House) and one has previously made antisemitic comments.

Why did X become so questionable?

Experts suggest that the platform's transformation under Musk's influence has made it easier for unverified information to spread. Paying users now receive the coveted blue checkmark that was previously reserved for news organizations and verified individuals, and their content gets amplified. This might explain how a now-suspended account impersonating the Jerusalem Post managed to attract over 700,000 views for its false claim that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was hospitalized.

Others are not surprised that misinformation has proliferated, given that X laid off most of the employees responsible for curbing it.

If you seek fact-checked developments on the Israel-Hamas conflict, trustworthy media organizations like the BBC, the Associated Press, and the Israeli newspaper Haaretz provide verified updates. In addition, respected journalists like Trey Yingst, Nic Robertson, and Rushdi Abualouf are reporting from Israel and Gaza.

World

The latest updates on the Israel-Hamas war

As the conflict advances into its fourth day, President Biden has confirmed that at least 11 U.S. citizens lost their lives, and an unspecified number are still unaccounted for after the terrorist organization Hamas initiated an unexpected assault on Israel and took numerous Israelis as hostages back to Gaza. Recently, the armed branch of Hamas issued a threat, stating that they would execute an Israeli hostage for every Israeli airstrike on Palestinian civilians in Gaza without prior notice.

Travelers find themselves in a state of uncertainty as most major airlines have halted flights to and from Tel Aviv, with Delta extending its flight cancellations through the end of this month. In anticipation of a potential ground operation in Gaza, Israel has called up 300,000 reservists, marking its largest mobilization in history.

Medicine

Walgreens pharmacists take a walk

Pharmacy workers at Walgreens locations nationwide staged a walkout yesterday, highlighting the challenging work environment caused by understaffing. They found it difficult to safely process prescriptions while coping with the demands of a busy vaccination season. This three-day strike was entirely coordinated through social media, as the group lacks a centralized labor union, such as the WGA and UAW. According to CNN, at least 500 stores have expressed interest in participating, and confirmed pharmacy closures have been reported in Arizona, Washington, Massachusetts, and Oregon. This walkout mirrors the actions of CVS employees in Kansas City, who protested similar conditions by walking off the job for a two-day period last month.

Sports

Soccer goalies and their spider senses

That friend of yours who plays as a goalkeeper and constantly boasts about being "different" might actually have a point.

A research team in Ireland, which includes a former professional goalkeeper currently pursuing a degree in neuroscience, has uncovered that the guardians of the soccer goal possess a remarkable ability to process audiovisual information that sets them apart from the rest of us.

To reach this conclusion, they conducted experiments involving professional goalkeepers, field players, and individuals without soccer experience of similar age. They tested their responses to quick beeps and flashes of light, which simulate the sensory stimuli experienced in a real soccer game. The results showed that:

1. When a sound occurred closely in time to a single flash of light, non-players and field players were more likely to report seeing two flashes of light, indicating that their brains were mixing up signals from sight and sound.

2. The time gap between the flash and the beep had to be three times shorter for goalkeepers compared to everyone else to disrupt their performance.

As for whether this superior sensory skill in goalkeepers is a result of nature or nurture, the researchers have yet to determine if individuals who become goalkeepers are born with naturally enhanced sensory abilities or if they develop these skills through years of training.

Labor

Gender gap research won Nobel Prize

For just the third time in 54 years, a woman has been awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics. Claudia Goldin, an economics professor at Harvard University, received this prestigious accolade for her research into the factors contributing to the gender pay gap and her contributions to the understanding of women's labor market outcomes, as acknowledged by the prize committee.

What sets this recognition apart is that Goldin is the first woman to receive the award independently, without sharing it with male colleagues. Her groundbreaking research has shown that the gender pay gap is largely linked to the birth of a woman's first child. Her 15-year study of MBA students at the University of Chicago revealed that the pay gap starts to widen within the first two years after a woman becomes a mother, primarily due to women taking on the majority of childcare responsibilities, leaving them with less time for work. Goldin emphasized the need for "couple equity" to achieve true gender equality in an interview with the New York Times following her Nobel Prize win.

Coincidentally, Goldin's Nobel Prize came shortly after she published her latest paper, "Why Women Won," which delves into the women's movements of the 1970s and explores why progress has slowed since then.