🐤 Border business

🏦 Markets: Friday marked a strong close to the week on Wall Street, particularly for the Nasdaq Composite, which hit its all-time high after a 1.14% single-day boost. Both the Nasdaq and S&P 500 also ticked higher by about four-fifths and one-quarter of a percent, respectively.

Harris Financial Group managing partner Jamie Cox warned against the tech stock boom, though, advising that “there’s so much emphasis on AI and this big sort-of redux of the late ‘90s.”

🐳 “Hump”back sighting: Catching massive underwater mammals, ahem, in the act is rare indeed. In fact, no human had ever spotted humpback whales in flagrante delicto until 2022. A recent study confirmed that the sighting of two amorous beasts was legit, citing telltale details from the photograph taken off the coast of Hawaii. The whales were reportedly going at it just a few feet below the surface of the water near a boat sailing west of Maui — and adding another twist to the story is the fact that both of the whales were male.

⚡️ Power trip: The pursuit of sustainable, cleaner forms of energy has been a priority for lawmakers on both sides of the aisle for generations. While solar and wind power have clear benefits, there’s another option that seems to have escaped its controversial past. A growing number of advocates across the ideological spectrum are now pushing for a renewed look at nuclear power, given the security and safety upgrades that the industry has experienced. House members voted 365-36 this week in favor of the Atomic Energy Advancement Act.

🚲 Vicious cycle: While e-bikes provide a convenient mode of transportation for delivery drivers, particularly in densely populated urban areas, related fires left 18 people dead and 150 injured last year in New York City alone. That’s why the Big Apple has announced a new pilot program that will provide a number of free charging stations around the city as part of its effort to “support safe e-bike use and prevent deadly lithium-ion battery fires.”

💼 OpenAI lawsuit: Billionaire Elon Musk is taking one of the most influential artificial intelligence companies to court over claims that it violated a pledge to develop the technology responsibly and provide it as a service to the public. Instead, Musk’s lawsuit asserts that “OpenAI has been transformed into a closed-source de facto subsidiary of the largest technology company, Microsoft.” A lucrative partnership between OpenAI and Microsoft is at the center of the brewing court battle.

The U.S.-Mexico border has received a lot of attention from American news media in recent years, but often lost in that coverage are the struggles of those living on the Mexican side of that national divide.

For one architect based in Mexico City, however, the plight of these poor and often forgotten citizens has fueled a life-changing personal mission.

How it started

It was at the height of the pandemic when Fernanda Canales received word from federal officials that she had been invited to participate in a robust program aimed at increasing the quality and scope of civic facilities across Mexico.

After some discussion, she was faced with a choice: Either help create new opportunities in and around her community in the nation’s capital or take her skills about 1,200 miles north, where she could help provide a new vision for the locals in Agua Prieta and Naco, a pair of towns with high rates of poverty and crime.

The decision didn’t come easy, but after significant deliberation she opted for the latter.

A tough job

Agua Prieta has been inundated with violent crime at the hands of Mexican cartels, and it was where infamous drug smuggler “El Chapo” dug a tunnel that allowed his criminal enterprise access to the U.S.

Then there’s Naco, a much smaller community where paved roads are outnumbered by unpaved ones. Oh, and it’s also got more than its share of drugs and violent crime.

So Canales clearly had her work cut out for her, but she arrived with a plan — and her hard work (along with the support of various organizations) has paid off.

Agua Prieta now boasts a new sports complex and a library while Naco has a town plaza pavilion, gymnasium, senior center, daycare, cultural center, and market.

Sequels remain big business in Hollywood these days, but there’s a particularly high level of interest surrounding the follow-up to the 2021 film “Dune.”

But if you’re not familiar with the movie (or the ‘60s science-fiction novels that inspired it), you might not understand what the hype is about.

A complex storyline

Vox editor Patrick Reis seems to have a grasp on all the important details about the franchise and sat down for an informative interview with a colleague who knew nothing about it.

It all starts with Timothee Chalamet’s character Paul Atreides, whose family is forced to leave their home planet and move to Dune (aka Arrakis) to supervise spice production.

The sequel picks up where the first one left off, Reis explained, with Paul “hidden away with the Arrakis-native Fremen and allied with them against the House Harkonnen — the despots who once again rule Arrakis after murdering Paul’s father and almost everyone he loved.”

This is when Paul meets his love interest Chani, a Fremen portrayed by Zendaya.

A complicated hero

Paul is portrayed, at least within the limited scope of “Dune: Two,” as a heroic figure, but the larger story also includes situations in which his “messianic” representation vis-a-vis the Fremen becomes somewhat problematic.

Reis described the story as “a pretty clear allegory to the Middle East,” complete with “some of the most simplistic stereotypes about Arabs.”

But the movie, he concluded, “makes some steps in the right direction” by giving the Fremen (particularly Chani) “much more agency” than they had in the original material.

There’s an even more convoluted backstory about pseudo-nuns who had been working on technology to create superhumans … but you’re going to have to watch the first movie, and maybe read the books, to figure out what the heck is going on.

The body positive movement notwithstanding, there are some objective health risks associated with carrying around excessive body weight — and all the evidence shows that the obesity rate is only increasing across America and around much of the world.

Tracking the trends

The Imperial College School of Public Health took on a behemoth of a task, analyzing obesity worldwide over the course of more than three decades.

Results from the study were recently published in the venerable medical journal The Lancet, and the report paints a stark portrait of global health:

• About 1 in 8 people living on Earth today are obese
• The total number of obese kids and adults is believed to exceed 1 billion
• In most countries, obesity is the most common form of malnutrition
• Since 1990, the obesity rate in children has quadrupled
• The rate has tripled among men and doubled among women during that period

As a result of their findings, researchers are calling for robust programs in nations around the world to address the crisis by promoting prevention and treatment plans as well as supporting the availability of nutrition and affordable food.

A generational concern

The staggering spike in the number of obese minors is of particular concern to experts like Professor Majid Ezzati, a senior author of the new study.

He noted that an “epidemic of obesity” was identified among adults more than 30 years ago, but now it is being “mirrored in school-aged children and adolescents.”

Of course, he stressed that experts must not ignore the less prevalent but all-too-serious threat of undernutrition, particularly in developing nations.

“To successfully tackle both forms of malnutrition, it is vital we significantly improve the availability and affordability of healthy, nutritious foods,” Ezzati concluded.