🐤 Atlas Flexed

💥 Ukraine aid: The appetite for continued foreign assistance to Ukraine has waned considerably among U.S. lawmakers in recent months, but a bipartisan deal reached in the House over the weekend advances the latest military aid package worth roughly $61 billion. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy celebrated the news, describing it as proof that his country would not become “a second Afghanistan,” referencing the chaotic troop withdrawal of 2021. He went on to urge senators to approve the package without any unnecessary delays.

🎤 Swift ascent: By now, it shouldn’t surprise anyone to hear that pop icon Taylor Swift’s latest release quickly made it to the top of the charts. But when “The Tortured Poets Department,” her latest album, debuted on Friday, it did so with an impressive bang — even by her own standards. According to Spotify, Swift’s album (the 11th of her career) broke multiple records on the music streaming platform. It racked up the most single-day album streams, made Swift the most streamed artist in a single day, and was the first to top 300 million streams in a day.

♟️ Charitable chess: Anyone who’s gone down the rabbit trail of Guinness World Records can attest that humans are capable of some truly remarkable feats. But sometimes the motivation for breaking a record goes deeper than just earning a spot in the book. For 29-year-old Nigerian chess champion Tunde Onakoya, for example, kicking off a marathon game last week with a goal of shattering the previous record of 56 hours, 9 minutes, 37 seconds was part of a larger effort to raise $1 million to fund educational programs across Africa.

🍽️ Pub takeover: Though “squatting” is nothing new, the act — establishing residence in someone else’s property and refusing to leave — has gained increased attention in the U.S. and other countries over the past several months. One of the most brazen examples occurred in London, where a group of squatters occupied the upscale York & Albany gastro pub owned by celebrity chef Gordon Ramsey. The group announced plans to turn it into a “community space,” but reportedly reached a deal with Ramsey after he obtained a court order.

🏦 Markets: Wondering when and if inflation will hit the 2% annual rate favored by the Federal Reserve? So are Wall Street investors … and we’ll get our latest glimpse into consumer prices when the personal consumption expenditures report drops on Friday.

Markets will also be impacted this week by earnings reports from tech firms including Alphabet, Meta, and Microsoft, embattled jet maker Boeing, and others.

When prognosticators in generations past sought to predict the future, robots have been among the most common denominators. From friendly helpers like Rosie on “The Jetsons” to complex public servants like “RoboCop,” we’ve seen a range of possibilities in pop culture regarding how robots might help future humans.

And we won’t get into the many books, shows, and movies that depict robots in a much more villainous light.

But here we are in 2024, and the age of robots is clearly dawning … with one company, Boston Dynamics, at the forefront of the evolution.

Where we’ve been

Though a wide array of tech companies have been experimenting with robotics for years, Boston Dynamics has been able to reach full production with a couple of models that have already proven their ability to accomplish some impressive feats.

Spot, the company’s dog-like robot, is more than a computer-powered pet. It can maneuver through a host of challenges that are either too dangerous or too complicated for living creatures to trek.

Then there’s Stretch, a robot that has revolutionized warehouse efficiency as more and more consumers are ordering goods to be delivered to their homes.

Where we’re going

But the latest addition to the lineup might be the most intriguing thus far. Not only does Atlas move an awfully lot like a human, but it’s now available in an electric-powered version.

Boston Dynamics has already teamed up with Hyundai to hone in on some of the most obvious applications that this new, more powerful platform can serve. And earlier tests show that it is stronger and more agile than its predecessors.

It’ll be a while before Atlas is unleashed far and wide — but when it is, it could help us automate some of the chores none of us really want to do.

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From Mortal Kombat to Mario, video games have long served as the inspiration for small- and big-screen adaptations. But generally speaking, the goal has been to turn fans of the game into viewers of the Hollywood spin-offs.

Amazon Prime seems to be turning that trend on its head with “Fallout,” a series based on the popular video game franchise, now greenlighted for a second season.

A brief overview

Fallout started as a role-playing series set in a post-apocalyptic wasteland and attracted a large fanbase on its own, but the new show has introduced the title to a new wave of players.

Fallout 4, which was released nearly a decade ago, became a top-selling game this month, and several other titles in the series landed in the top 10.

Some say existing fans were largely responsible for the spike, scooping up copies in hopes of recapturing the excitement of playing them when they were new. Others say Bethesda, the game’s publisher, primed the pump by reducing the cost of certain Fallout titles and even temporarily making one of them free.

Cause and effect

Even if you want to credit nostalgia and price cuts for some of the recent sales, gaming insider James Batchelor said Amazon Prime clearly deserves some of the credit.

“It’s got to be new people as well,” he said. “New people wanting to try out these games themselves.”

Batchelor described the streaming platform “has a much broader audience than the console market” and is capable of reaching a more mainstream audience than video games.

“And the fact that Fallout is based on a video game, people are going to be intrigued to see the source material,” he concluded. “It’s the modern equivalent of going to see the film and then deciding to read the book.”

It's a tale of against-the-odds survival that has been told in any number of feel-good Hollywood movies. But let’s not get too sentimental … we’re talking about an inanimate object here.

The Eriskay discovery

Just 143 people inhabit the island where a navigation buoy recently washed ashore, prompting an investigation that traced back to the East Coast of the United States.

Specifically, the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary received a message from an Eriskay resident that the object appeared to have originated with the organization.

Here are some of the details that have surfaced in recent days:

• The buoy didn’t contain GPS or any internal tracking devices
• It only had stickers identifying it as property of the U.S. government
• The journey across the Atlantic spanned a whopping 4,000 miles

Sanctuary spokesperson Scott Atwell said the agency didn’t even know the buoy was missing until receiving word from across the ocean.

“Sometimes they just disappear or wash up somewhere on the coast of Florida,” he said. “A couple of times I’ve personally been to the West Palm Beach area to pick them up. It just depends on the wind and the tides where they end up.”

Highlighting history

As the story of the buoy’s journey began to spread on social media, so did interest in the island’s historical claims to fame.

Nearly 300 years ago, Charles Edward Stuart, the grandson of deposed British King James II led the so-called “Jacobite Rebellion,” which ultimately failed but involved landing on Eriskay. About two centuries later, a cargo ship carrying whiskey and Jamaican banknotes ran aground there, inspiring a book and film both titled “Whisky Galore.”

As Atwell concluded: “I can understand the fascination with our buoy. It’s just a more modern way to tell the Whisky Galore story, right?”