| | | Afghan authorities secure the area near Monday's Taliban attack. Source: Getty |
| | IMPORTANT | | 01 | At least 45 people were killed yesterday during a raid on an Afghan military base southwest of Kabul — though some sources put the death toll over 100. The brazen assault comes a day after Taliban militants killed eight security forces in a neighboring province, and a week after an attack in Kabul left five dead and dozens injured.
What’s behind the increase in violence? Some experts say the uptick is part of a Taliban ploy to secure the upper hand in peace talks with the United States.
Don’t miss this OZY feature about how Afghanistan’s building a sustainable future for refugees. | |
| | 02 | After suggesting Sunday that President Donald Trump and ex-lawyer Michael Cohen pursued a real estate project in the Russian capital deep into the 2016 presidential campaign, Giuliani now claims his remarks were “hypothetical.” He added they “did not represent the actual timing or circumstances of any such discussions.” It’s the second time in a week Giuliani’s walked back comments.
Why does it matter? Because each time Giuliani misspeaks, it raises more legal questions as special counsel Robert Mueller digs deeper into the Trump campaign’s potential collusion with Russia. | |
| | 03 | Following Prime Minister Theresa May’s address to Parliament yesterday — during which she offered few meaningful tweaks to her unpopular plan for departing the European Union — lawmakers suggested their own amendments to break the political stalemate. One option floated by the opposition Labour Party even includes holding another public referendum.
What’s May’s strategy? Some experts believe she’s trying to drag out negotiations to force reluctant lawmakers to support her at the last minute.
Read this OZY opinion piece asking whether Brexit will leave Germany as Europe’s sole powerhouse. | |
| | 04 | A Tokyo court again rejected the former Nissan chairman’s bail request — keeping him behind bars until at least March. The 64-year-old, who’s been jailed since his November arrest for underreporting his salary, had offered to wear an electronic tag, relinquish his Nissan shares as collateral and hand over all three passports in exchange for his release.
What’s next for Ghosn? As the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi alliance he helped build continues to reel from his arrest, the French automaker is expected to finally oust Ghosn as its CEO and chairman.
Don’t miss OZY’s profile of the comic superhero-turned-international villain. | |
| | 05 | China has demanded that the U.S. withdraw its request that Canada extradite embattled Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou. Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa has cut short a working visit to Europe after the outbreak of violent protests at home. And soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo accepted a $23 million fine for tax evasion in a Spanish court today.
#OZYfact: It would take a woman working at an Indonesian shrimp processing plant about 4,442 years to make the average annual salary of a top executive at a U.S. supermarket. Read more on OZY.
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| | | | INTRIGUING | | 01 | Between January and November 2018, German authorities sent 8,658 asylum-seekers to other European Union member states — a significant bump from the 7,102 deported in the previous year. Nearly one-third were returned to Italy under the EU’s Dublin III rule, which requires asylum requests to be processed by a migrant’s first European country of arrival.
Will the trend continue? It might: Germany’s Interior Ministry is seeking to boost deportations of unsuccessful asylum-seekers to bolster security and improve the government’s ability to track migrants. | |
| | 02 | In the internet giant’s first punishment under the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation, the company was penalized yesterday for failing to gain users’ consent for personalized ad targeting on its Android platform. Whatever data consent information Google does include, French regulators say, is “diluted in several documents.”
Will Google change its data policy? A spokesperson only said the company was “studying the decision” — though numerous recent GDPR-based complaints by consumer and non-governmental groups could increase the pressure to act.
Don’t miss OZY’s Special Briefing on Europe’s new privacy regime. | |
| | 03 | According to a new study in Nature Medicine, researchers have found a blood-based protein that could serve as a biomarker to monitor Alzheimer’s disease more than a decade before symptoms appear. The protein, neurofilament light, is released into the bloodstream following cerebral damage. Rising levels were shown to correlate with the onset of Alzheimer’s symptoms.
When will this test be available? Plenty of follow-up is needed, but it’s a promising prospect for dementia patients — whose numbers are expected to more than double by 2050 to 14 million in the U.S. alone. | |
| | 04 | Sympathetic citizens rushed to help Maryann Rolle via GoFundMe after the Bahamian restaurant owner, featured in Netflix’s documentary Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened, said she lost her life savings when she was stiffed by the doomed music festival. With more than $158,000 raised by Tuesday morning, the campaign has far exceeded its $123,000 goal.
Who else is paying for the Fyre flop? While festival co-founder Billy McFarland is serving six years in prison for defrauding investors, a $100 million class-action lawsuit — which also names rapper and co-organizer Ja Rule — is ongoing.
Check out this OZY Flashback on the worst music festival in history. | |
| | 05 | After the World Cup tour and the Winter X Games brought back the women’s big air competition, tricks once pulled off only by male riders are being increasingly performed by a new crop of female shredders, OZY reports. At the Dew Tour last month, for example, spectators were treated to back-to-back double cork 1080s, a cab double 900 — and a preview of the future of women’s snowboarding.
How high will they go? Experts say Austrian Anna Gasser’s historic landing of a triple cork last year could set a new standard for female snowboarders. | |
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| | Caught Up? Now Vault Ahead ... | | To get more fresh stories and bold ideas in your inbox, check out The Daily Dose. | | | Rising Stars Getting a blood transfusion used to take about a week — now, thanks to Melissa Bime, the wait is one hour. READ NOW | |
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