A Perceptive Plum

Japón tiene un problema enorme: su población es tan vieja que necesitan 570,000 cuidadores que no existen. El trabajo es físicamente brutal, mal pagado, y los hombres jóvenes nunca lo consideraban. Solución de una empresa en Nagoya: contratar culturistas. Les pagan el gimnasio, les subsidian las proteínas, y a cambio usan esa fuerza para mover pacientes, asistir en higiene y cuidar ancianos. Lo que empezó como experimento ya incluye luchadores de MMA y ex-luchadores de sumo. Atletas con carreras cortas y pocas salidas económicas encontrando propósito en residencias de adultos mayores. El dato más brutal: si no se resuelve, para 2030 el problema le costará a Japón 58,900 millones de dólares en productividad perdida. Y el plotw twist que nadie esperaba: la mayoría llega por los músculos y se queda por las personas. Un culturista que cuida a una señora que pinta con la boca porque no puede usar las manos dijo: "Llegué por la musculación. Descubrí que los cuidados son mucho más que eso."

Skyrocketing aviation fuel prices were the final nail in the coffin for Spirit Airlines. Creditors accepted its debt restructuring plan in early 2026, but it was based on aviation fuel at $2.24 a gallon. It's $4.71. The creditors walked away from the Chapter 11 restructuring, forcing the airline's closure. Spirit's corporate HQ was in Florida. This wasn't due to evil liberal state taxes. This wasn't due to overregulation. This wasn't due to unfair corporate taxes. This was due to the US/Israel-Iran War sending aviation fuel prices to the moon. 17,000 employees, full-time and contractors, have lost their jobs. For aircrews, it is also a loss of all seniority at a new airline. For the average American? One fewer airline in an already heavily consolidated industry means get prepared to get bent over even harder at the ticket counter.

Flaming crude oil from Russia’s Tuapse Oil Refinery is spilling into nearby city streets. The refinery, hit by Ukrainian drones overnight, continues to burn out of control.

3 jours après une triple offensive du JNIM et du FLA contre l'armée malienne 🇲🇱 et l'Afrika Corps russe 🇷🇺, le point sur la situation : Le Front de Libération de l'Azawad a levé ce matin son drapeau sur Kidal, marquant une retentissante victoire. 🧵THREAD🧵1/24 ⬇️

@WarMonitor3 Less russian hopefully

What will the world look like in 100 years?

Orban is headed to St. Petersburg...Florida

For the first time since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Eurofighter Typhoons with the British Royal Air Force have engaged and downed Russian one-way attack drones over Ukraine. According to Romania’s Ministry of Defense, the Typhoons, serving under Operation Biloxi 2026, the RAF’s four-month contribution to the NATO Enhanced Air Policing Mission over Romania, were given clearance to engage the drones over Reni in Southern Ukraine earlier this morning, after several were spotted heading towards Romanian Airspace.

When asked whether they have an overall favorable or unfavorable view of Russia, 83% of U.S. adults say the latter.

@WarMonitor3 Is electricity a joke to you? Or air conditioning? Ai is far from the greatest mate.

What is the greatest invention ever? I’m going to say AI…

🦔Schools across the US are reversing years of technology-first classroom policies after studies show laptop and screen use has either decreased test scores or produced no improvement. Maine adopted one-to-one laptop policies in 2002 and showed no improvement after 15 years. Neuroscientist Jared Cooney Horvath told the Senate that frequent in-class computer use correlates with significantly lower math and science scores across both high and middle income countries, and that Gen Z is the first generation in modern history to score lower than their parents on standardized tests. Schools in Kansas, North Carolina, Michigan and elsewhere are restricting laptop use and returning to pen and paper, with some reporting improvements in reading comprehension within months. My Take The data here is hard to argue with. Fifteen years of laptops in Maine classrooms produced no improvement in test scores. Schools that switched back to pen and paper saw reading comprehension improve within months. The technology industry spent billions convincing schools that screens were the future of learning, and the evidence is pointing in the opposite direction. We're pulling laptops out of elementary classrooms in 2026 at the same moment we're deploying AI into hospitals, courtrooms, and financial systems that depend on humans being able to think critically, catch errors, and exercise judgment. The children who spent their formative years navigating text boxes instead of working through problems on paper are the same people who will be asked to oversee those AI systems in ten years. If the screen-first approach genuinely stunted the development of analytical thinking it was supposed to enhance, we have a compounding problem that goes well beyond test scores. Hedgie🤗

Breaking: Japan just passed a significant bill today to establish a National Intelligence Council and a National Intelligence Bureau. This reform is one of the most consequential changes to Japan's security apparatus since 1952. The new National Intelligence Bureau and proposed Anti-Espionage Law specifically target activities often attributed to China’s state actors.

"Putin abducted 20,000 Ukrainian children." Thousands of teddy bears installed in US as a tribute to 20,000 Ukrainian children abducted from their homes. Inscription “BRING KIDS BACK” appeared on 70-meter wall in Washington to draw attention to this massive Russian war crime.

@donaldtusk What about the new president of Bulgaria?

European Council meeting. For the first time in years there are no Russians in the room. Huge relief.

@HedgieMarkets This is the same Deloitte that lied last year to the Australian government about how it created a report that ended up riddled with lies. They had to pay back $440k. So this "market alignment" is just the same company seeing what they can get away with. news.com.au/finance/busine…

🦔Deloitte is cutting parental leave from 16 weeks to 8 weeks, reducing PTO by 5 to 10 days, eliminating $50,000 in IVF and adoption reimbursement, and freezing pension accruals for employees in internal support roles including admin, IT, and finance, effective January 2027. The company employs 181,000 people in the US and posted $35.7 billion in revenue last year, up 8%. A spokesperson described the changes as tailoring benefits to better align with the marketplace. My Take Deloitte charges clients hundreds of thousands of dollars to advise them on workforce strategy while cutting parental leave in half and eliminating IVF coverage for the people keeping its own systems running. The internal support staff losing these benefits aren't junior consultants billing 70-hour weeks on client engagements. They're the IT, finance, and admin employees whose work makes the billable side of the business function. I don't buy the marketplace alignment argument. Deloitte grew revenue 8% last year and posted $35.7 billion. This isn't a company making hard choices under financial pressure. It's a company making easy choices because the job market is weak enough that it can. Cutting parental leave and IVF coverage isn't trimming a perk. It's a decision about whose family planning the company considers worth supporting, and the answer landed on the employees with the least leverage to push back. That lets me know everything about how these companies view the people who aren't directly billable. Hedgie🤗

Russians are complaining about high prices in stores. On social media, users are showing their purchases and recalling how much more they used to be able to buy for the same amount of money. Meanwhile, Rosstat reported 0% inflation as of mid-March and a price increase of just 0.17%. Thomas Nilsson, head of Sweden's Military Intelligence, told the FT that Russia is manipulating data to make Western countries believe that Moscow has withstood the pressure of sanctions and war spending. 📹: Current Time

The inevitable conclusion from the released Putin-Bush transcripts: Putin didn’t invade Ukraine because he opposed NATO enlargement. Putin opposed NATO enlargement because it would have prevented his goal of invading and eliminating Ukraine. The ideas he had a quarter century ago - that Ukraine (and Kazakhstan) are “artificial countries” that have been “given away” by Russia and therefore must return — are the ideas he still holds today.

Ukrainians hacked yesterday's secret meeting of the Russian Ministry of Industry and Trade on drone production in which Russians cited problems in obtaining even basic components, all now being reliant on China. Russians laugh that they now have to even import copper wire and plastic.

@MalcontentmentT Is it a rug pull of we expect it to occur every time now? This admin...

Another rug pull from the Trump administration.

What we often forget about how important Ukraine was/is important to Russia is the militaro-industrial capacities : Losing Ukraine meant losing 25 to 30% of the russian military industry : ▫️Missiles and rockets engineering in Dnipro ▫️Mykolaiv shipyard ▫️Tank factories in Kharkiv ▫️Motor Sich in Zaporizhzhia (all motors for planes) ▫️Antonov production in Kyiv All those factories were part of the soviet production line. If Ukraine is able today to produce massive number of drones, more and more missiles, naval drones and armoured vehicles, it's because it still has the engineers and industries. The 2nd point Russia wants is the civilian industry. You have big industries in Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, Krivi Rih, Kremenchuk, Kamianske... the coal and steel industries are located both in Donbas and Krivi Rih regions. However, Russia obliterated most of the factories they took (Azovstal and Illitch in Mariupol, Coke Plant in Avdiivka, Pokrovsk coal mines...). Since 2022, Russia only managed to capture large rural areas and destroyed the few cities they took. So the 3rd russian objective is obviously the big agricultural sector in Ukraine. With large lands taken in southern Ukraine in 2022. BUT, these lands are now largely unuseful because of the war and there is a critical point with water. Southern Ukraine and Crimea are slowly turning into a desert, since water is not coming from the Dnipro anymore. This will be the same for Donbas as soon as Sloviansk will fall. The war Russia launched could continue for long time because Donbas cannot work without Zaporizhzhia and nearly all the objectives have not been met.

Ukraine says its intelligence directorate carried out two rocket launches into space during wartime, including one reaching 204 kilometers above Earth. Officials also disclosed what they described as Europe’s first launch of a rocket carrier from a transport aircraft at 8,000 meters altitude, marking a rare aerospace development revealed during active combat operations. Read more defence-blog.com/ukraine-confir…