Hello, readers – happy Friday! Today, we’re talking about Haiti’s government, solar panels, Macron’s plans for France, Venice protests, a fix for concert tickets, the U.S. birth rate, and China’s astronauts.
Here’s some good news to hold you over through the weekend: the EPA released updated power plant standards yesterday, which will require (among other things) all coal-fired power plants that plan to run in the long term, and all new natural-gas-fired plants, to control 90% of their carbon pollution. Also this week, the Department of Transportation announced a new plan to crack down on junk fees from airlines. One rule will require airlines to show the full price of travel before passengers pay, and the other will require airlines to refund people if their flights are canceled or significantly delayed.
“I have seen many storms in my life. Most storms have caught me by surprise, so I had to learn very quickly to look further and understand that I am not capable of controlling the weather, to exercise the art of patience and to respect the fury of nature.” – Paulo Coelho
An Important Handoff In Haiti
(Interim Haiti government by Guerinault Louis via Getty Images)
Change is headed to Haiti as Prime Minister Ariel Henry has officially resigned from his position, handing power over to a nine-person “transitional council.” The transition of power took place during a secret ceremony at Haiti’s presidential palace, though Henry was unable to attend given that he’s been locked out of his own country for months. The meeting was kept secret under threat of violence from Haiti’s armed gangs, and Henry attended the ceremony via a written letter.
“Each day is a new day and this is a new day for Haiti,” said the recently-appointed U.S. ambassador to Haiti, adding, “We won’t be the solution but hopefully we’ll be part of helping those finding the solution.” He also acknowledged the U.S.’s contribution to Haiti’s gang violence, saying, “The fact that many of the arms that come here come from the United States I think is indisputable and that has a direct impact,” but he added that the White House was working to combat the problem.
The new council includes representatives from Haiti’s main political parties, religious groups, and civil society organizations, and hopes to regain control of the country’s capital city of Port-au-Prince, 80% of which is controlled by armed gangs.
California Flies Too Close To The Sun
Sunny California has a serious solar power problem. The state has encouraged people to build solar panels to the extent that it’s dealing with a unique problem – on sunny days, there is so much solar power going around the grid that the price of electricity actually turns negative, meaning entire gigawatts of electricity are just thrown away.
Right now, California is home to about 47 gigawatts of solar power thanks to its robust incentive program – equivalent to over 25% of the state’s electricity demands. The problem is that solar power generates energy when the sun is out, and grid operators are sometimes forced to “throw away” electricity, driving up the price of electricity during the hours when the sun isn’t out. This has also lessened the value of solar installations.
To combat this issue, California implemented a new program named “net-metering,” which only gives money to new solar panel owners based on how much their power is worth to the grid when it goes in. The new regulation has already had a marked effect on the solar market – one energy research firm expects new residential solar installations to drop by 40% this year. Meanwhile, California has been selling some of the surplus energy to nearby states and encouraging people to install batteries to preserve some electricity.
You’re On Your Own, Europe
(Emmanuel Macron by Gonzalo Fuentes via Getty Images)
On Thursday, French President Emmanuel Macron said the quiet part out loud. In a two-hour speech at the Sorbonne in Paris, Macron told his audience that Europe should avoid becoming a “vassal of the United States,” instead making the case for a more independent European Union with an increased ability to defend its own interests.
“Our Europe, today, is mortal, and it can die,” he said in the speech. “It can die, and this depends only on our choices … The United States has two priorities: the United States first and the China question second. The European question is not a geopolitical priority.” Europe, he said, needs to make itself its own priority, giving recent examples of some pro-European developments, including the bloc’s collaboration on Covid-19 and its ability to divorce itself from Russian oil during Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
“How can we build our sovereignty, our autonomy, if we don’t assume the responsibility of developing our own European defense industry?” he asked. “We must produce more, we must produce faster, and we must produce as Europeans.”
That’s Not Very Ve-Nice Of You
April 25 (or in European style, 25 April) is an important day in Italy, marking Italian Liberation Day – when the Italian resistance movement won against Nazi Germany. The Italian island of Venice decided to use the day to liberate itself from tourists, declaring a new policy of charging a fee for any tourists who want to visit the island on a day trip.
The new program, developed by the mayor’s office and city council, would charge day visitors a 5 euro ($5.40) charge to get into the city between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. People staying in the city overnight would not have to pay the fee, and locals are also exempt. A protest of over 1,000 locals took place near the main road entrance to Venice, with demonstrators saying that the new plan would turn the city into a museum or theme park.
“We rose up against the mayor’s idea of a closed city, a museum city,” one of the protest’s organizers told CNN. “A ticket does nothing. It doesn’t stop the monoculture of tourism. It doesn’t ease the pressure on Venice. It’s a medieval tax and it’s against freedom of movement.”
Yesterday, around 300 musical artists signed a letter urging lawmakers to fix the concert ticketing system. “We are joining together to say that the current system is broken: predatory resellers and secondary platforms engage in deceptive ticketing practices to inflate ticket prices and deprive fans of the chance to see their favorite artists at a fair price,” the letter reads.
The artists are asking senators to support the Fans First Act, which was introduced by a bipartisan group last December. The act would require sellers and resellers to disclose more information about ticket costs and seat location, refund customers when events are canceled, and create a website for fans to file complaints. Among the list of signatories are Billie Eilish, Green Day, Fall Out Boy, and Cyndi Lauper.
The Covid Baby Bubble Pops
Before the Covid-19 pandemic hit, the U.S. birth rate was decreasing by about 2% every year. The pandemic brought a surge in births, but this year, we’re back to those pre-Covid numbers, according to an analysis of 2023 birth certificate data published yesterday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
At least 3,591,328 babies were born in the U.S. in 2023, down 2% from the 3,667,758 born in 2022. There were slightly fewer babies born in 2022 compared to 2021, but agency officials said it wasn’t a big enough decrease to be considered a statistically significant drop.
On Thursday night, China sent three astronauts into space. The astronauts, known as taikonauts (the Chinese word for “space” is tài kōng), will spend the next six months aboard China’s space station conducting crucial experiments that will contribute to the country’s planned trip to the moon.
The human taikonauts were accompanied by a few other living beings on their flight to China’s Tiangong space station. Their fellow passengers included several zebrafish, which will be used in some of the 90 experiments that the taikonauts will perform at the space station over the next half-year. Those experiments include an attempt to develop a closed aquatic ecosystem using the tiny fish and a type of algae.
“We hope that through this research we can understand the interaction between these plants and animals in space, so that in the future when we understand it we can establish a large-scale ecosystem with animals, plants and microorganisms … and create a systematic loop and possibly a closed system so that people can live in space for long periods,” said one professor at the Center for Space Utilization at the Chinese Academy of Science.
