Good morning. It's Tuesday, Feb. 10, and we're covering a tech giant's rare bond sale, how a video game could defend against dementia, and much more. First time reading? Join over 4.6 million insatiably curious readers. Sign up here.
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A Hong Kong court sentenced 78-year-old media mogul Jimmy Lai yesterday to 20 years in prison. The sentence is the longest to date under Hong Kong’s five-year-old national security law that critics say effectively criminalizes political dissent.
Lai founded Apple Daily, a since-shuttered prodemocracy newspaper that reached more than 3.8 million registered web users, about half of Hong Kong’s population. At its height, Lai had a reported net worth of $1.2B. In 2020, however, local authorities arrested him under a then-new national security law following antigovernment protests the year before. Lai was accused of conspiring with foreign governments and printing and distributing seditious articles. He has spent more than five years in jail, including stretches in solitary confinement.
President Donald Trump yesterday said he would speak to Chinese President Xi Jinping to encourage leniency for Lai, who has multiple chronic conditions; Trump is planning to meet with Xi in April, when they will also discuss trade issues, the war in Ukraine, and Taiwan. |
Alphabet is planning to sell a rare 100-year bond as part of a broader push into global debt markets to fund its expanding investments in artificial intelligence, marking the first such offering from a tech firm since Motorola in 1997.
The Google parent raised $20B in US bonds and, for the first time, will sell debt in the UK and Switzerland, as it is expected to spend up to $185B this year on data centers and AI infrastructure. Bonds are loans that governments, corporations, or institutions issue to raise money without drawing from their cash reserves. Investors buy bonds in exchange for regular interest payments. Century-long corporate bonds are unusual due to acquisition risk and shifting business models.
Alphabet's sale reflects a broader trend of tech giants, including Oracle, turning to bond markets to fund AI infrastructure. Collectively, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, and Microsoft forecast roughly $650B in AI spending in 2026.
Learn about the history of bonds and how they work with our favorite resources. |
Playing a brain-training video game could protect against dementia for up to 20 years, according to a long-term study published yesterday. Researchers say the findings, based on tracking nearly 3,000 individuals ages 65 and older, offer the strongest evidence yet that cognitive training can have lasting benefits on the brain.
Participants who completed up to 23 hours of "speed training" over three years had a 25% lower risk of developing Alzheimer's disease (see 101) and other forms of dementia over a 20-year follow-up period, compared to a control group. The training required participants to quickly identify and respond to objects on a screen—an activity likened to noticing peripheral objects while driving. By contrast, other subsets of participants who learned memorization strategies or practiced pattern-based problem-solving saw no reduction in dementia risk.
Researchers say the speed-training game’s outsized benefits may stem from its reliance on implicit learning (w/interactive) and from its gradual increase in difficulty as participants improved. |
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In partnership with Forkful |
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Sports, Entertainment, & Culture |
> US women's ice hockey faces rival Canada at 2:10 pm ET today after beating Switzerland 5-0 yesterday (More) | The US advances to curling mixed doubles final for first time since event was introduced to the Olympics in 2018 (More) |
> Bad Bunny secures top six spots on Spotify's Top 50 US chart following Super Bowl LX performance (More) | Turning Point USA's alternative halftime show with Kid Rock peaked at 6.1 million concurrent viewers on YouTube; early reports suggest Bad Bunny's show exceeded 135 million viewers (More) |
> Ferrari releases images of the interior of its first all-electric sports car; images of exterior expected in May (More, w/images) | Cadillac's first F1 race car begins preseason testing in Bahrain tomorrow, following car reveal during Super Bowl (More) |
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> New Mexico trial begins in case accusing Meta of failing to protect kids from sexual exploitation on social media apps; opening arguments begin in Los Angeles trial against Meta and Google for allegedly addicting kids to social media (More) |
> Researchers link understudied gut bacteria group to better health, finding it more prevalent in healthy people than in those with conditions like obesity and inflammatory bowel disease (More) | Explore our 101 on the gut microbiome (1440 Topics) |
> James Webb telescope data reveals massive gaseous planets form in a similar manner to smaller ones like Jupiter, challenging long-held theories about how big planets can be (More) | Learn more about the space telescope (1440 Topics) |
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In partnership with EnergyX |
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You're Already Too Late for SpaceX’s IPO |
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> US stock markets close up (S&P 500 +0.5%, Dow +0.0%, Nasdaq +1.0%) (More) | Hims & Hers shares fall 16% after Novo Nordisk sues over copycat versions of Wegovy drugs (More) |
> American YouTuber MrBeast announces Beast Industries is buying Gen Z-focused fintech app Step, which has raised roughly $500M in funding and has over 7 million users (More) | Databricks raises $5B in funding, valuing data firm at $134B (More) |
> Retail operator of outdoor sportswear brand Eddie Bauer files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, eyes winddown of stores unless a buyer is found (More) |
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> Convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell reportedly invokes Fifth Amendment in closed virtual House Oversight deposition; committee is investigating Maxwell's late co-conspirator Jeffrey Epstein (More) |
> Roughly 6,000 public teachers go on strike in San Francisco, the city's first walkout over wages and benefits since 1979 (More) | New York City nurses reach tentative deal to end walkout at two hospitals, negotiations with a third remain ongoing (More) |
> The US seizes Panamanian-flagged oil tanker in the Indian Ocean after it departed the Caribbean; vessel is tied to transportation of Russian oil, per US sanctions (More) |
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> Teaching AI Morals
WSJ | Berber Jin and Ellen Gamerman. Amanda Askell is the resident philosopher for Anthropic, where she works to imbue the AI system Claude with a sense of right and wrong. It's an effort she equates to raising a child. (Read) |
> A Linguistic Analysis of K-Pop
Storied | Staff. K-pop artists are moving fluidly between English and Korean lyrics. Language intermixing makes the genre more accessible—and is fueling an uptick in demand for Korean language classes. (Watch) |
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In partnership with Forkful |
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January Is Done … Are Your Resolutions? |
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Historybook: French and Indian War ends (1763); “Roots” author Alex Haley dies (1992); American playwright Arthur Miller dies (2005); Hollywood legend and diplomat Shirley Temple dies (2014). |
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"Why am I trying to become what I don’t want to be … when all I want is out there, waiting for me the minute I say I know who I am." |
- Arthur Miller, in "Death of a Salesman" |
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