India’s Budget, Cocaine Sharks, The Arctic…Did We Say “Cocaine Sharks”?

July 24, 2024

Hello, readers – happy Wednesday! Today, we’ll be talking about India’s budget, the Arctic, violence against women, Ugandan protests, pushing back on the Chevron ruling, Delta being investigated, and cocaine sharks.

Here’s some good news: Mattel has launched the first-ever blind Barbie as part of its ongoing attempt to make the doll more inclusive. Also (you know we’re always on the lookout for feel-good AI stories), artificial intelligence that scans doctors’ records to find hidden patterns has helped doctors detect significantly more cancer cases.

“I have great respect for the past. If you don’t know where you’ve come from, you don’t know where you’re going. I have respect for the past, but I’m a person of the moment. I’m here, and I do my best to be completely centered at the place I’m at, then I go forward to the next place.” – Maya Angelou

BJP’s Ambitious Budgeting

(Modi by Sanjeev Verma via Getty Images)

After a relatively lackluster performance in India’s general elections earlier this year, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) are looking to bolster their country’s economy. The government, which the BJP and its coalition partners rule with an absolute majority, is pushing a growth-oriented series of economic reforms. Those moves include setting aside $56 billion for job creation (while also lowering taxes for foreign investors), slashing tariffs on gold and silver, and fully removing taxes on startup investments.

The country’s new $576 billion budget includes $32 billion for rural growth programs, $24 billion over five years dedicated to job creation initiatives, and more than $5 billion for spending in two states ruled by BJP’s coalition partners. The spending plan’s largest tax increase was focused on pulling some profit from India’s growing stock market – the government will now tax equity investments held for less than a year at a rate of 20% (up from 15%) and will also tax investments held for over a year at 12.5% (from 10%). India’s stock market is growing faster than China’s at this point, with the country’s market capitalization-to-GDP ratio reaching 124% as of this month.

Santa’s Home Isn’t Sacred

As global warming opens up more waters in the Arctic (you know, the icy part of the Earth to the north), China and Russia are looking to expand their influence in the region. Russia has looked to reopen and modernize Soviet-era bases in the area, while China has invested large sums of money in researching polar mineral extraction and opening up new shipping lanes.

The two countries are even collaborating, which has the U.S. unsurprisingly concerned, even though “significant areas of disagreement between the PRC and Russia remain.” The Arctic is mainly an area of concern for the sparsely-populated U.S. state of Alaska and its NATO allies like Canada and Norway, but the world’s policeman is ever-vigilant to state enemies making any moves.

Both Beijing and Moscow responded to the Pentagon’s report yesterday, with Chinese foreign spokeswoman Mao Ning saying, “The United States distorts China’s Arctic policy and makes thoughtless remarks on China’s normal Arctic activities (which are) in accordance with international law.” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Russia “does its part to ensure that the Arctic does not become a territory of discord and tension,” adding that Russia-China cooperation “contributes to an atmosphere of stability and predictability” in the Arctic.

Uganda Knows You Gotta Fight For Your Rights

(Uganda protests by Badru Katumba via Getty Images)

Last month, Kenyans staged mass protests against a government spending plan that would raise taxes across the board. Those demonstrations have now morphed into full-on anti-government protests calling for Kenyan President William Ruto to step down despite his decisions to roll back the tax bill and replace the majority of his Cabinet.
Now, the revolutionary wave has spread to neighboring Uganda. Dozens of anti-corruption protesters were arrested yesterday in the country’s capital of Kampala for attempting to walk into the nation’s parliament building. The demonstrations took place the day after police arrested multiple members of Uganda’s main opposition party. Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has ruled the nation for almost four decades, and the country is currently ranked 142 out of the 180 countries covered in Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index.

Epidemics Are Bad, But This Is Worse

According to U.K. police, violence against women and girls (VAWG) in the country has reached “epidemic levels.” The problem has become so bad that police say they should devote the same amount of resources to VAWG as they do to terrorism and organized crime. The issue was highlighted in a 70-page police report released on Tuesday, which also found that 1 in 12 U.K. women will be a victim of VAWG at least once in their lives.
VAWG offenses have increased by a whopping 37% over the past five years, meaning the problem is expected to affect over 2 million victims annually. Newly-elected Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer has promised that his government will publish a plan to address the massive issue, which he says will reduce VAWG by 50%.

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Warren Declares War On The Court

Senator Elizabeth Warren introduced a bill yesterday to overturn a Supreme Court ruling that imposed new limits on federal agencies when they issue regulations. Under the previous standard, federal agencies were given some freedom to interpret the law when they issued regulations under statutes that weren’t super clear, but that was overturned last month.
Conservatives and businesses had long complained about the original rule, and with a Republican-controlled House, it’s unlikely that Warren’s bill will make it very far. The legislation, she said, would “bring transparency and efficiency to the federal rule-making process” and “make sure corporate interest groups can’t substitute their preferences for the judgment of Congress and the expert agencies.”

Delta Airlines Stays Grounded

On Monday, we recapped that whole technology meltdown that took place over the weekend. While most places seem to have recovered from the issues, Delta Air Lines has not bounced back. In fact, they’ve not bounced back so hard that U.S. regulators are investigating what the heck is going on.
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said they want to “ensure the airline is following the law and taking care of its passengers during continued widespread disruptions.” Yesterday, the airline canceled about 500 flights by midday alone, having canceled more than 6,600 flights since the outage started.

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It’s Snowing Underwater

You’ve probably heard of Cocaine Bear, a movie about a bear ingesting several kilograms of coke before going on a drug-fueled rampage. Well, imagine Cocaine Bear and Sharknado had a baby. Tests conducted on sharpnose sharks off the coast of Rio de Janeiro reveal that the aptly named, sharp-nosed marine predators have been playing with their noses a little too much, with high levels of cocaine and cocaine-related molecules present in their livers and muscles.
The research was conducted by scientists from various universities in Brazil, who made the genius PR decision to name their study “Cocaine Shark.” All 13 of the sharks captured by scientists had high concentrations of cocaine and benzoylecgonine (the primary molecule in cocaine) in their bodies, with female sharks carrying more of the drug in their systems than males.
Researchers say that the coke likely worked its way into their bodies through the ocean waters, though how exactly all that booger sugar got dissolved in local waterways is a bit of a mystery. Some ideas include runoff from illegal coke labs, the excrement of drug users, or that the sharks simply ate a package of cocaine dumped into the ocean. More research into how cocaine affects local wildlife is apparently on the way, so you can expect more sequels to this saga – do we think we can expect to see Tara Reid in the film version of this?

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