Kim Jong Un, Coffee Cancer Warning, Backcountry, General Hospital, Dave Asprey, SoulCycle *** Marc Ross Daily

Kim Jong Un, Coffee Cancer Warning, Backcountry, General Hospital, Dave Asprey, SoulCycle

Marc Ross Daily
March 30, 2018
Curation and commentary from Marc A. Ross

Reporting from Alexandria, Virginia

Marc Ross Daily  = Global Business News at the Intersection of Politics + Policy + Profits

Subscribe here: https://goo.gl/bSQKwA

TOP FIVE

✔️ Xi gave Kim Jong Un the Trump treatment

✔️ What really went on at Russia’s Seattle consulate?

✔️ Starbucks coffee in California needs cancer warning

✔️ Backcountry launches its own gear line

✔️ General Hospital is celebrating its 55th anniversary

GEOECONOMICS

538: How to win a trade war. Trump says it’s easy. Try it for yourself.
https://goo.gl/KW54HB

Trade conflict fears to keep markets on edge for weeks: Reuters reports, a full-scale global trade war has not broken out yet - but that hasn't stopped the market from fretting about one or analysts from warning about the potential cost.

How China’s Xi gave Kim Jong Un the Trump treatment: Bloomberg reports, it may have been billed as an unofficial trip, but China's President Xi Jinping pulled out all the stops during a four-day visit to Beijing by North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un, his wife and a train load of dignitaries. Trump's visit was billed as a “state-visit plus” and included a precedent-breaking tour of the Forbidden City. But when you consider the honors heaped on Kim — and the clandestine nature of his visit — should Trump's nose be out of joint? https://goo.gl/YxDBWD

Trump and Kim Jong Un have a lot in common. Is that a good thing?
WP - David Ignatius

Nikkei: Is China's Belt and Road working? A progress report from eight countries https://goo.gl/EQKL4w

Russian ambassador pleads for help in securing Washington meetings: Politico reports, Anatoly Antonov has been rebuffed by U.S. government officials who are reluctant to be seen as friendly toward the Kremlin.

What really went on at Russia’s Seattle consulate? Politico reports, the closure of the facility could limit military and tech-industry espionage—and leaves Russia with no diplomatic presence on the West Coast.

"Russia will now lack a diplomatic facility west of Houston, or any diplomatic presence on the West Coast for the first time since 1971. Russian intelligence officers—at least those under diplomatic cover—will no longer operate in easy proximity to America’s two great tech capitals." 

200 billion: Estimates of Vladimir Putin’s personal wealth range from $50 billion to $200 billion. 

Starbucks stop showcases MBS’s charm offensive: FT reports, US visit by Saudi crown prince aims to reshape how world views oil-rich kingdom.

Leftist looms large as Mexico presidential race opens: AFP reports, the campaign for Mexico's July 1 presidential election officially opens Friday, with Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, a veteran leftist promising a sharp break with the past, positioned as the man to beat.

Bitcoin hit a low of $6,915.55 late Thursday afternoon, its lowest since Feb. 6.

UK immigration: The Home Office has lost track of more than 600,000 foreigners who should have left the UK, according to a report that lays bare Britain's "shambolic" border checks.

"I don't like to worry you but Theresa May is going on a walking holiday in Wales this Easter. The prime minister has confirmed that she will retrace the steps she took a year ago when she had the bright idea to call an election. It is a gamble the notoriously risk-averse PM will not look to repeat." -- Matt Chorley

AMERICAN POLITICS

Reuters: Mueller probing Russia contacts at Republican convention: sources

@TheOnion: Mark Zuckerberg prepares for Congressional testimony by poring over lawmakers’ personal data https://trib.al/IpsGM44 

WSJ: California judge rules coffee must carry cancer warning

Gov. Jerry Brown appoints ‘deputy first dog’: Cali the Bordoodle: KTLA reports, Gov. Jerry Brown has added a new member to his staff: “Deputy First Dog” Cali Brown. The poodle, border collie mix, or bordoodle, joined the Brown family this month from a ranch in Herald, California. Cali is a “Doggocrat.”

ENTERPRISE

WSJ: Walmart in early talks to buy Humana

Can Amazon disrupt the $16-billion housekeeping industry?LAT reports, Three years ago, Amazon.com Inc. launched a marketplace to connect its customers with handymen, landscapers and housekeepers in their neighborhoods, a direct challenge to the likes of Angie's List and Yelp. The offering embraced the independent contractor model, using Amazon's web store to create a new service from scratch without hiring a single person or buying any lawnmowers, hammers or mops. Now Amazon is quietly hiring house cleaners in Seattle as direct employees. 

SCMP: 2.3 million – the number of jobs that could be lost to artificial intelligence in China’s financial sectors by 2027

Snapchat is cutting another 100 employees, with layoffs focused on its advertising side.

Inside Yiwu, China, the Easter trinket capital of the world: LAT reports, Yang Wei, 30, maintains a child's bedroom-sized world of Easter wonders. She sits amid shelves overflowing with stuffed rabbits, plastic eggs with glued-on bunny ears, and countless fuzzy chicks, like nonedible marshmallow Peeps. Most of it is bound for the US, delivered by the crate-load. "We have toy designers who go to the US or Europe to do research," said Yang, manager of the Jiangsu Taizhou City Wenhao Handicraft Product Factory. "Then they come back and come up with toys that will suit the market."

DC woes aside, Huawei is determined to lead on 5G: WSJ reports, far from Washington, where the government has called Huawei a national-security threat, the world’s largest maker of cellular-tower equipment is trying to dominate discussions on the design of 5G, the next generation of mobile networks.

Breach of Under Armour app affects 150 million users: WSJ reports, emails, usernames and passwords on the MyFitnessPal app were exposed in February.

Starbucks coffee in California needs cancer warning: judge: Reuters reports, Starbucks and other coffee sellers must put a cancer warning on coffee sold in California, a Los Angeles judge has ruled, possibly exposing the companies to millions of dollars in fines.

The New York Stock Exchange is in talks to buy the tiny Chicago Stock Exchange, after the recent collapse of a two-year acquisition effort by a Chinese-led investor group.

How SoulCycle scales community: On the #BoFVOICES stage, chief executive Melanie Whelan told CNN’s Derek Blasberg that people are the key to maintaining the cult-like indoor cycling company’s special culture as it grows. https://goo.gl/5yqmhq

Dave Asprey wants to make the gym bulletproof: Outside reports, the entrepreneur believes that biohacking can rocket your body and mind to peak performance. His Bulletproof diet zoomed into the mainstream, his Bulletproof coffee has everyone quaffing butter, and his Bulletproof books fly off the shelves. Now Bulletproof Labs is out to hack, well, everything. https://goo.gl/6jA9ER

Backcountry launches its own gear line.

TRENDS

40 years into the war on clutter, and we’re still overwhelmed by stuff. What’s going on? It’s hard to put a start date on America’s War on Clutter, but you could trace it to 1978, when the first Container Store opened in a 1,600-square-foot space in Dallas, or to 1985, when a few professional organizers from California saw gold in people’s junk and started a trade association that today counts about 3,400 members. But despite an industry that’s grown so massive it’s become its own form of clutter — with books, and experts, and storage containers, and apps, and YouTube videos — we’ve made so little progress that even the professional organizers aren’t pretending the problem has been solved — or even that it’s solvable. https://goo.gl/32jgJE

These salad vending machines have become one of Chicago’s hot lunch spots: Founded in 2013, Farmer’s Fridge’s fresh salad machines, with salads starting at $7, are now in place across Milwaukee and Chicago–and the company is looking to expand. https://goo.gl/im2MB5

Hollywood's first blockchain movie: an end to piracy? AFP reports, Hollywood is turning to the technology behind cryptocurrency bitcoin to distribute movies in a development hailed as the beginning of the end for piracy."No Postage Necessary," a romantic indie comedy about a luckless hacker that is being distributed via peer-to-peer video network app Vevue, running on Qtum, the most advanced blockchain in the world.

CULTURE

General Hospital is celebrating its 55th anniversary.

When the road's your office, this is the gear you need https://goo.gl/M13YVq

SOTD

The Tragically Hip - Fifty-Mission Cap https://goo.gl/Fofd4R

SPORT

The origins of all 30 MLB team names https://goo.gl/jrJaAm

Venezuela, Brexit, Taiwan, Blue Wave, Social Media, Play Ball, H&M, Anthony Bourdain *** Marc Ross Daily

Venezuela, Brexit, Taiwan, Blue Wave, Social Media, Play Ball, H&M, Anthony Bourdain

Marc Ross Daily
March 29, 2018
Curation and commentary from Marc A. Ross

Reporting from Alexandria, Virginia

Marc Ross Daily  = Global Business News at the Intersection of Politics + Policy + Profits

Subscribe here: https://goo.gl/bSQKwA

TOP FIVE

✔️ 68 dead in Venezuela police station fire

✔️ One year to Brexit

✔️ Taiwan to call businesses home from China

✔️ Blue Wave 2018?

✔️ Can social media be saved?

ROSS RANT

Enter techman

As Beijing emphasizes the need to wean China off foreign technology, and as China moves up the technology ladder to become a “cyber power” in its own right - expect more friction.

Some experts even go so far to describe the current state of US-China commercial relations as a Cold War.

Recent tit-for-tat trade actions will deepen what has become a global contest for technological dominance between the United States and China.

Plus, the Trump administration is expecting lots more investment by Beijing in semiconductors and acquisitions of international technology companies by Chinese companies.

State capitalism vs. market capitialism.

How do you power a nation's economy? Do you build it? Do you borrow it? Do you buy it?

Sleep with one eye open. We're off to a new never-never-land.

There is a silver lining to all this. 

We are witnessing national economic development in real-time and will have the answer within a generation.

GEOECONOMICS

USA Today: At least 68 dead in Venezuela police station fire as angry relatives demand answers

CNN: Families demand answers after deadly Venezuela jail fire

Star wars: Air Chief Marshal Sir Stephen Hillier, the head of the Royal Air Force, has warned that Britain's armed forces must be ready to fight states such as Russia in space.

Poland officially signs deal to buy Patriot from US: Defense News reports, Poland has officially signed a letter of offer and acceptance for Patriot air and missile defense systems after years of negotiations. 

NATO moves toward readying more troops to confront Russian threat: WSJ reports, Europe has more than a million troops in its armies, but military planners fear those ready for rapid deployment in a conflict with Russia would only be counted in the thousands. NATO, at U.S. urging, is working to change that.

Salisbury attack: ex-spy poisoned by nerve agent on his front door: Reuters reports, Russian former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter were poisoned with a nerve toxin that had been left on the front door of their home in England, British counter-terrorism police said.

One year to Brexit: The UK is set to leave the European Union a year from today.

AFP: British PM aims for national unity, one year from Brexit

Kim’s lack of diplomatic experience ‘may have prompted China visit’: SCMP reports, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s lack of experience in summit diplomacy may have been an important motive for his visit to China, according to a former South Korean foreign minister.

Bloomberg: Two Koreas set April 27 for Kim Jong Un’s historic walk south

Taiwan to call businesses home from China, says economic minister: Nikkei reports, the island braces for trade friction between Washington and Beijing.

SCMP: After Trump’s move, taxes cut for Chinese firms from factories to farms: China will reduce taxes – worth 240 billion yuan (US$38.15 billion) a year – for factories, transport firms, builders, telecom operators and farmers from May 1, as it comes under pressure from tax cuts made by US President Donald Trump.

Will DJT take credit on The Twitter? 

Or will DTJ realize China is cutting taxes for the industries Trump wants to punish, thus limiting the potential impact of tariffs on their bottom lines?

Treasury to use national security laws to shield US tech from China: WSJ reports, blocking Chinese firms from acquiring advanced US technology on the basis of national security is part of a Trump administration initiative to thwart what it sees as Beijing’s efforts to give itself an economic and military edge.

Bloomberg: US weighs use of emergency law to curb Chinese takeovers

FT: Who will fare worse in a China-US trade war? White House actions to date have offered little reason to believe that Mr Trump and his advisers understand how to play to their own advantage. “In principle, trade war is something that deficit countries with diversified economies should win and surplus countries always lose. So it’s not really an even battle,” says Michael Pettis, finance professor at Peking University’s Guanghua School of Management. https://goo.gl/ZDG9pf

Trade deals take years. Trump wants them in months: FT reports, the White House has taken a contentious approach to negotiations, but it remains to be seen whether the global trading system can sustain the chaos.

CARACAL CLASSROOM

US-China commercial relations for the C-Suite: This 90-minute, small group session will cover the best strategy and necessary tactics to communicate trade and globalization with the media, stakeholders, and elected officials. Participants will receive communication checklists, partnership ideas, opinion editorial tools, and media mapping systems. More info and dates here: http://www.caracal.global/events/

AMERICAN POLITICS

NYT: Trump lawyer broached idea of pardons for 2 top ex-aides

"The episode raises questions about whether the president’s lawyer was trying to influence the advisers and their cooperation with the special counsel."

Trump’s lawyer raised possibility of pardons for Manafort, Flynn last summer: WP reports, John Dowd, who served as the president’s lead lawyer for the Russia probe, insists that he did not raise the idea of pardons with lawyers for Paul Manafort and Michael Flynn. Legal experts said prosecutors could view the dangle of a pardon as a criminal effort to obstruct justice.

NYT: Trump aide spoke in ’16 to person tied to Russia intelligence

VA: Trump announced that he will replace David J. Shulkin with his White House physician, Dr. Ronny L. Jackson.

Blue Wave 2018? So far, 59 Capitol Hill lawmakers have announced their departures, the most since 1994, which was a tsunami of a midterm election.

The Hill: GOP donors fret about Dem wave

The Record: Bob Menendez, free of charges, will seek another Senate term

Retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens called for the repeal of the 2nd Amendment on Tuesday to allow for significant gun control legislation. 

At $75,560, housing a prisoner in California now costs more than a year at Harvard.

Trump hates Amazon, not Facebook: Axios reports, Capitol Hill wants Facebook’s blood, but President Trump isn’t interested. Instead, the tech behemoth Trump wants to go after is Amazon, according to five sources who’ve discussed it with him. “He’s obsessed with Amazon,” a source said. “Obsessed.” Trump has talked about changing Amazon’s tax treatment because he’s worried about mom-and-pop retailers being put out of business.

Watch out, Zuckerberg — Congress is a trap: Politico reports, here’s how Facebook’s CEO can avoid the pitfalls that tripped up auto, tobacco and oil executives in their big Hill moments. https://goo.gl/uQmvBd

ENTERPRISE

Renault + Nissan talks: Renault SA and Nissan Motor Co. are in talks to merge and create a new single automaker.

Toyota, Suzuki team up in India: WSJ reports, Toyota and Suzuki Motor are swapping car models in India to help each other boost sales in the rapidly growing market.

USA Today: Walmart to remove Cosmopolitan magazine from checkout lines amid Me Too movement

H&M has a problem: $4.3 billion of unsold clothes: NYT reports, the company outlined the inventory buildup in its latest quarterly report, prompting questions of whether it can adapt to fierce competition and changing consumer tastes.

Tariff spat could chill China-US travel even without a trade war: Skift reports, travel companies were spared the first round of the US-China trade war. But outbound travel to the U.S. and U.S. hospitality companies could become collateral damage without too much provocation.

WSJ: CME group seals deal to buy UK’s NEX for $5.4 billion

Apple seeks to take advantage of Facebook’s woes: FT reports, Cook promotes conservative approach to using customer data amid online privacy uproar.

CNBC: Tim Cook on Facebook's data-leak scandal: 'I wouldn't be in this situation'

Tim vs. Mark

USA Today: Dunkin' Donut, Saucony pair up to create doughnut-themed running shoes

Limited edition running show created for the Boston Marathon.

Genius on many levels.

TRENDS

Smart: Lacoste unveiled a line of shirts last month that featured the embroidered motifs of endangered species, instead of its traditional crocodile logo.

Big Tech enters an era of uncertainty: Even insiders are no longer confident about predicting advances and their implications.
Bloomberg - Mohamed A. El-Erian

Can social media be saved? They exploit our data and make us unhappy. They spread misinformation and undermine democracy. Our columnist asks if salvation is possible for social networks.
NYT - Kevin Rose

CULTURE

Anthony Bourdain’s globalist mission: With Parts Unknown, now in its 11th season, Bourdain continues a restless odyssey to understand our global community through food. https://goo.gl/8vYnEP

Deadline: Roseanne revival’s huge debut stuns Hollywood, prompts soul-searching

Fast Company: This common word makes you sound more negative than you want to: This tiny word is nearly unavoidable but frequently overused. Everything that follows it tends to make you sound like a downer. The language you use shapes others’ impressions of you, but there’s a chance that some of your most common words don’t put you in the best light. In fact, I’ve already typed one of them that can do that. It’s the word “but”–a simple conjunction that’s nearly impossible to avoid yet potentially damaging to your brand and reputation, even if in subtle ways. https://goo.gl/isa1Gy

LAT: Ready Player One blends old-school Spielberg with trendy technology to create an excellent adventurehttps://goo.gl/QnLb4Z

Can NBC and USA make the Beverly Hills Dog Show an Easter viewing tradition? 

SOTD

Jamie xx - Loud Places (ft Romy) https://goo.gl/eXtHG7

SPORT

Today: Opening day for the Major League Baseball 2018 season.

Go Tigers!

Global MLB baseball: MLB plans to open the season in Asia next year and in 2020. Also, New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox are near an agreement to play two games at London Stadium next year.

The Carolina Panthers could fetch a record sale price of about $2.5 billion.

AFP: Tearful Smith takes 'full responsibility' for cricket ball-tampering scandal

Final Four odds:

Loyola - Chicago +5.5 vs. Michigan
Kansas +5 vs. Villanova

Go Blue! 

Cedric Villani, Kim Jong Un, Made in China 2025, Mark Zuckerberg, Virgil Abloh *** Marc Ross Daily

Cedric Villani, Kim Jong Un, Made in China 2025, Mark Zuckerberg, Virgil Abloh

Marc Ross Daily
March 28, 2018
Curation and commentary from Marc A. Ross

Reporting from Alexandria, Virginia

Marc Ross Daily  = Global Business News at the Intersection of Politics + Policy + Profits

Subscribe here: https://goo.gl/bSQKwA

TOP FIVE

✔️ Math whiz has become a crucial political figure in France

✔️ Kim-Xi meeting

✔️ Trump gets SK concessions in first trade deal

✔️ Facebook goes on hiring spree for Washington lobbyists

✔️ Fosun to invest 100 billion yuan in AI

ROSS RANT

"From what we've seen, the Trump administration can be very unpredictable."

California's agriculture sector worried: California's vintners and growers are concerned they are on the frontlines of a US-China trade fight. 

There is growing prospect that wine, nuts, fruit, and other California farm exports are going to be negatively impacted by the increasing trade battle between President Trump and China. 

This $47-billion industry in the state of California and many of the workers in this sector voted for Trump in the 2016 election. 

The California wine industry, which has made significant inroads to the Chinese market in recent years, sold about $197 million of its product there last year, according to the Wine Institute, a California advocacy organization. US wine exports to China and Hong Kong have more than quadrupled in the previous decade and rose 10% last year, according to the institute.

Many working in the sector fear many of these California agriculture sectors stands to lose momentum in a worldwide competition for a share of the rapidly expanding Chinese middle-class consumer market.

GEOECONOMICS

A math whiz has become a crucial political figure in France: To hear Cedric Villani tell it, the French are better than everyone else at love, wine -- and math. A winner of the Fields Medal -- the Nobel Prize equivalent for mathematics -- Villani has in less than a year risen to become a key political figure in France with the ear of the tech-savvy President Emmanuel Macron. On Thursday, Villani takes center-stage when he unveils the country’s Artificial Intelligence strategy, aimed at putting his claim of France’s mathematical superiority to work in the global battle for emerging disruptive technologies. https://goo.gl/8c5Yw4

Brexit countdown: With just over a year to go to the UK’s exit from the European Union, PM Theresa May said the post-Brexit transition phase may end up being longer than currently planned due to the difficulties in establishing a new customs regime and avoiding a hard border with Ireland. 

Bloomberg: Portrait of Brexit Britain: A divided nation makes a journey into the unknown https://goo.gl/q2aDfi

WSJ: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un visited Beijing

Bloomberg: Trump urges pressure against North Korea after Kim’s China trip

CNBC: China claims Kim Jong Un has agreed to denuclearize Korean Peninsula

WP: Kim-Xi meeting presents a new challenge for Trump on North Korea

Trump’s early trade gains could come at future cost: WP reports, the Trump administration bills its success in reworking a South Korean trade deal as vindication for the “America First” approach the president promised on trade policy, including a robust carrot-and-stick diplomatic style. In the business community, meanwhile, there is skepticism that Trump’s latest tariff threats will force China to change over intellectual property practices. “It’s still not clear to me how that gets China to move on the issue of intellectual property and technology transfer,” said Erin Ennis, senior vice president at the US-China Business Council.

Nikkei - Editorial: Trump's flawed trade policy threatens the global economy: International effort needed to convince Washington to rethink its approach.

The trade issue that most divides US and China isn’t tariffs: NYT reports, China has struck a hard stance on the issue at the root of the looming trade fight between Beijing and Washington: China’s government-led drive, which Washington describes as breaking international rules, to build the cutting-edge industries of the future. Chinese officials in recent days have been defending the government’s ambitious plan, known as Made in China 2025, to create globally competitive players in industries like advanced microchips, driverless cars and robotics. While Beijing has signaled a willingness to compromise on other matters, the intractable standoff over its core industrial policy could prolong a trade fight that has already shaken markets and led to concerns about a full-blown trade war.

Made in China 2025 = How does a nation develop an economy? Buy, borrow, or build? Competition or protectionism?

US-China trade-war crossfire threatens Asia: WSJ reports, Japan, Australia and other economies fear impact of disruption of global supply chain.

LAT: Trump closes his first trade deal, a modest step with South Korea

Politico: Trump gets South Korean concessions in first trade deal

FCC joins push to limit China’s telecom reach: NYT reports, the Federal Communications Commission is joining the Trump administration, Congress and other government agencies that have targeted Huawei, China’s giant telecommunications equipment maker, as a national security risk. Ajit Pai, chairman of the commission, on Monday, proposed a rule to tighten restrictions on companies building internet infrastructure in the United States. Part of the rule’s impact may be to further crimp Huawei’s meager sales in America by potentially affecting some deals with small and rural carriers, analysts said.

Chinese investments in US real estate have plummeted since Beijing enacted tighter regulations on outbound investments in August.

6 = Since 1979, only six cabinet-level US officials, and no sitting presidents, have visited Taiwan, out of respect for Beijing’s “One China” policy. 

CARACAL CLASSROOM

How to communicate trade + globalization: This 90-minute, small group session will cover the best strategy and necessary tactics to communicate trade and globalization with the media, stakeholders, and elected officials. Participants will receive communication checklists, social media ideas, opinion editorial tools, and coalition mapping systems.

More information and dates here: http://www.caracal.global/events/

AMERICAN POLITICS

NYT: To reclaim the House, Democrats need to flip 24 GOP seats. 25 are in Clinton territory. https://goo.gl/DefiSb

Bloomberg: Senate Judiciary Committee invites Zuckerberg to testify on Facebook privacy

Facebook has signaled that CEO Mark Zuckerberg will testify before Congress on April 12.

Facebook goes on hiring spree for Washington lobbyists: Bloomberg reports, as a chorus of calls mounts for answers about its data practices, Facebook is looking to hire at least 11 people for policy-related positions in Washington, according to its website. The company started hiring new lobbyists last fall after revelations Russians exploited its platform to help elect President Donald Trump.

"The reality is that Facebook is threatening global democracy. It's a threat to liberal democracy on a global scale," David Kirkpatrick, author of The Facebook Effect.

NBC Universal CEO Steve Burke opened the company's fourth annual Innovation Day berating Facebook after the Cambridge Analytica scandal: "They have a very serious problem."

ENTERPRISE

CNBC: Calm meditation app is now worth $250 million and has Trump-related stress to thank

Apple tried to put the Chromebook genie back in the bottle with a new education product push. 

EU may try to forcebreak-up of Google: The Times reports, the EU holds “grave suspicions” about Google’s dominance and may yet force it to break up, Margrethe Vestager, the competition commissioner, said. Vestager said that officials had lost trust in the company and that the threat to dismantle it must be “kept open and on the agenda”.

The Verge: The shady data-gathering tactics used by Cambridge Analytica were an open secret to online marketers. I know, because I was one https://goo.gl/yVtWmg

Yesterday, the tech stocks that have led the market up—Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, and Google parent Alphabet—took a beating, with Apple down 2.6%, Alphabet down 4.5%, and Facebook down 4.9%. Tesla was clobbered—down 8.2%.

SoftBank has signed a non-binding agreement with Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund to build "by far the biggest solar project ever." 

Reuters: In China payment war, Walmart places bet on Tencent

Fosun to invest 100 billion yuan in AI, biotech over next decade: SCMP reports, the company was named Apple's app of the year last year and is ranked 50th among top grossing iOS apps.

Baby, you can drive my car:  Alibaba and Ford have unveiled an unstaffed Super Test-Drive Center in China's southern city Guangzhou, allowing buyers to have a three-day test drive for free as long as they have a great credit score. 

GM Korea will file for bankruptcy if its union does not agree to cut labor costs by April 20.

Waymo is buying up to 20,000 Jaguars and plans to rev up its driverless ride-hailing service.

Nestle says it has cut the sugar in a chocolate bar by 30% by spraying it into warm air while mixed with milk and water. The “structured sugar” dissolves faster in the mouth, says the confectionery company.

What Trump’s trade war means for fashion: BOF reports, as fears of a trade war begin to ebb, the tension felt by supply chain leaders appears to be lifting. But given president Trump’s characteristic unpredictability, the fashion industry is not out of the woods yet. https://goo.gl/k41hJk

TRENDS

BBC accused of dominating podcast market: The Times reports, the BBC has appointed its first commissioning editor for podcasts, fuelling concerns that the corporation’s UK dominance of the increasingly popular audio format could undermine commercial podcast providers.

Fast Company: The future of parking garages doesn’t involve cars at all: In London, a disused garage is being partially converted into studios, restaurants, and more. https://goo.gl/1rL3kz

This is old news - This was discussed at Brigadoon Sundance 2018!

Cryptocurrencies explained by John Oliver: Digital currencies are generating a lot of excitement. John Oliver enlists Keegan-Michael Key to get potential investors equally excited about the concept of caution. https://goo.gl/bWqqNF

Blockchain will prevent fraud, boost transparency: Implementing blockchain solutions in digital advertising could reduce fraud through keeping better records of transactions and better optimizing overall digital ad supply chains, writes Nicole Perrin. "A fully transparent and trustworthy ledger would mean that, for the first time, brands could see where all their digital media dollars end up," Perrin writes. https://goo.gl/5Cb7MN

McDonald's says it will phase out the use of plastic straws in its U.K. restaurants.

CULTURE

Virgil Abloh, founder of streetwear label Off-White and longtime Kanye West collaborator, is the new artistic designer of menswear at Louis Vuitton.

Things that fund managers don’t say enoughhttps://goo.gl/DQbN3K

SPORT

How Loyola used information and skill — not luck — to reach the Final Four https://goo.gl/f5RBgH