Your April 16-17 news briefing
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Stay up to date on the world's Headlines and Human Stories. It's fun, it's factual, it's fluff-free.
Elon’s bid to buy Twitter
Elon Musk became Twitter’s largest shareholder last week, owning around 9% of the company. He was then going to join the board, which meant he couldn’t own over 14.9% of the company. But then, he pulled out of that role. Now, in another turn of events, on Thursday, the man, who’s worth around US$260 billion, has offered to buy the company for US$43 billion at US$54.20 per share, calling it his “best and final” offer. The company’s shares increased by 18% in response.
Hong Kong COVID rules
With the fifth wave seemingly over, Hong Kong is now seeing below 1,300 daily COVID infections. Along with the recently boosted testing and isolation capacity, the government will also ease its COVID rules next week. Here’s a quick summary of the changes:
- Restaurant dining hours are extended until 10 p.m. with four people per table
- Sporting venues, like fitness centers and gyms, will re-open
- Religious venues, museums, cinemas, spas, massage parlors, libraries and playgrounds will re-open
- Public gathering restrictions will extend from two people to four
- Private gatherings can include more than two households
But, some things will stay closed, including bars and party rooms, public beaches, pools and barbeque sites.
It was a good and a bad day for Russia
Thursday was both sort of a good and bad day for Russia.
The good part happened when Indonesia, which is currently holding the presidency for the G20, said it wasn’t going to exclude Russia from a meeting of G-20 finance chiefs taking place next week. But on the flip side, Russia lost a major warship at sea. Russia said it was because of rough weather, but if you ask Ukraine, they destroyed it.
Meanwhile, the country threatened to strengthen its nuclear power in the Baltic if Finland and Sweden decided to go ahead and join NATO.
Are things looking up for China’s real estate sector?
It’s no lie that China’s property sector is struggling with generating cash to pay off its debts in an overdeveloped industry. The developer at the forefront of these problems is Evergrande. But, a property management subsidiary of China’s Longfor Intelligent Living has gotten approval to become Hong Kong’s biggest listing in seven months, according to an anonymous source.
Whether the company decides to go public or not has yet to be determined, but this does inject a bit of confidence and optimism into China’s real estate sector, which has mostly been dominated by doom and gloom news.
10 years later, and still no drone deliveries
Have you ever been so impatient that you wished your package would just teleport to your house at that given moment? Jeff Bezos had a similar (not so instant) vision – delivery drones that could bring parcels to customers’ homes in just 30 minutes. But it’s been 10 years since he first mentioned this, and we may have to wait a little longer before it becomes a reality.
Regulators in the US have raised public safety concerns after a serious drone crash sparked a massive fire at the company’s testing site in Oregon. But with rivals advancing their own drone programs, Amazon is definitely feeling the heat.
In other news…
🇸🇬Expats are moving to Singapore despite the high costs of living, which are currently not any better with inflation at a nine-year high in February.
💼There’s a battle for talent around the world, but it’s probably most obvious on Wall St. where interns are making over US$16,000 a month.
🗣Singapore Finance Minister Lawrence Wong is set to succeed Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.
💰Since Elon’s bid to takeover Twitter, a digital magazine called New Scientist has come out to say that Musk slid into their DMs in 2019 to ask them how much it would cost to buy them.
Written and put together by Jake Shropshire, Julianna Barcela, Christine Dulion and Krystal Lai
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