At a truck stop in Ridgefield, New Jersey, driver Paul Richards reviews a notebook where he tracks miles driven and what he is hauling.
His paycheck is down about 25 percent from the same period a year ago, and his weekly miles have dropped as well.
Source: Truck drivers see orders, miles fall in latest U.S. slowdown signal – Reuters
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China plans to gamble on the bulk deployment of its untested “Hualong One” nuclear reactor, squeezing out foreign designs, as it resumes a long-delayed nuclear program aimed at meeting its clean energy goals, government and industry officials said.
China, the world’s biggest energy consumer, was once seen as a “shop window” for big nuclear developers to show off new technologies, with Beijing embarking on a program to build plants based on designs from France, the United States, Russia and Canada.
Source: China goes all-in on home grown tech in push for nuclear dominance – Reuters
Microsoft Corp recently rejected a California law enforcement agency’s request to install facial recognition technology in officers’ cars and body cameras due to human rights concerns, company President Brad Smith said on Tuesday.
Microsoft concluded it would lead to innocent women and minorities being disproportionately held for questioning because the artificial intelligence has been trained on mostly white and male pictures.
Source: Microsoft turned down facial-recognition sales on human rights concerns – Reuters
An array of U.S. companies have told the Trump administration that a citizenship question on the 2020 Census would harm business if it leads to an undercount of immigrants, undermining the data they use to place stores, plan inventory and plot ad campaigns.
Source: Companies warn Trump: Census citizenship question could be costly – Reuters
U.S. Army leaders revealed Tuesday that they are briefing top military commanders about new weapons being built specifically for “high-intensity conflict” against China and Russia, in a new effort to assure that they could provide vital firepower for those potential battlefields of the future.
Army Secretary Mark Esper said he wants to shift some money away from vehicles and aircraft more suited for conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq and into “what I need to penetrate Russian or Chinese air defenses.”
Among the new weapons and technologies he said are critical: long-range artillery, attack and reconnaissance aircraft, air and missile defenses, and command-and-control networks.
Source: Army Secretary Reveals Weapons Wishlist for War with China & Russia – Defense One
Bottom line: Huawei leads the world in the ability to rapidly produce cheap telecom hardware (as well as the underlying software.) Recent reports, including one from NATO, state it plainly. It’s one reason why European countries, including U.S. allies like Germany and the U.K., have been reluctant to ban tech from Huawei outright, even in the face of heavy U.S. pressure.
But — quietly — many European countries like the U.K. and France actually are banning Huawei’s 5G tech in part by effectively quarantining it away from vital parts of infrastructure, or military and intelligence activities, according to James Lewis, senior vice president at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
“They don’t let Huawei near their sensitive intelligence facilities, their sensitive military facilities,” said Lewis.
Source: A New Consensus Is Emerging On How to Handle The Risk from China’s 5G – Defense One
Sadaf Khadem beat a French boxer, Anne Chauvin, in the bout, which took place in western France on Saturday.
Her representative, Clara Dallay, told Reuters that authorities had issued arrest warrants against her and fight organizer Mahyar Monshipour.
Monshipour, an Iranian-born former boxing world champion who is now a French citizen, set up the bout after Iran opened the door to allowing women to box.
Source: Boxing: Iranian female fighter cancels return home after arrest warrant issued – Reuters
Indonesians voted in the world’s biggest single-day election across the sprawling equatorial archipelago on Wednesday following a six-month campaign to choose a new president and parliament.
Early results showed President Joko Widodo, a former furniture salesman who launched his political career as a small-city mayor, with a comfortable lead, in line with opinion polls that had predicted the low-key reformist was heading for a second five-year term.
Source: Indonesia’s election: what you need to know – Reuters
Global value chains break up production processes so different steps—for building your smartphone, your TV, or your car—can be carried out in different countries.
More than two-thirds of world trade today takes place within value chains that cross at least one border during production, and often many borders.
Global value chains have been a boon to developing countries because they make it easier for those countries to diversify away from primary products to manufactures and services.
In the past, a country had to master the production of a whole manufactured product in order to export it.
With value chains, a country can specialize in one or several activities in which it has comparative advantage.
Source: How global value chains open opportunities for developing countries
.. In light of the national discourse, it is important to critically assess the arguments both for and against school choice proposals, and the rigorous evidence behind them.
In a recent, randomized controlled trial study, we assessed a common critique of school choice—that when given the option, schools discriminate against students who are perceived as harder to educate, therefore restricting certain students to lower-quality schools and consequently exacerbating educational disparities.
To minimize the extent to which schools can cherry-pick top students, many school choice districts must use a lottery system or a common application to determine who is admitted. Despite these safeguards, schools can employ subtle practices to recruit the students they would prefer, for example by encouraging or discouraging applications from certain types of students.