Bitcoin Mining Braces For A Shakeout As Halving Nears

 Bitcoin Mining Braces For A Shakeout As Halving Nears

The approaching bitcoin halving is sending some bitcoin mining companies running for cover.

Others, meanwhile, are rushing out to score good deals.

"We're really paying attention to the full spectrum right now of assets and companies that might be more on that marginal cost curve so that we can ensure we're prepared for any types of opportunities that may arise," Adam Sullivan, CEO of bitcoin mining company Core Scientific (CORZ), told Investor's Business Daily.

Most industry watchers expect the reduced reward for bitcoin mining to push some out of the business. That, in turn, could lead to a glut of specialized mining hardware. "As those marginally profitable miners start to experience cash-flow issues, it can be a great opportunity for Core Scientific to buy machines at discounted prices," said Sullivan.

Sullivan says the halving will kick off a massive equipment buying frenzy in the bitcoin mining sector, driven by a need for modernized, efficient mining hardware as the reward drops. "You're going to see an acceleration on ASIC demand, people rotating into newer generation machines," said Sullivan.

The Big Bitcoin Mining Rig Demand Blowup

ASICs, or Application-Specific Integrated Circuit processors, are the type of chips powering the most modern and specialized mining rigs. The first mining-specific ASIC rigs appeared in 2013, according to CoinDesk, and are solely designed to handle the cryptographic math needed to "mine" bitcoin. ASICs soon supplanted GPUs from Nvidia (NVDA) and AMD (AMD), which had themselves replaced microprocessors in ordinary, at-home computers. But with every new wave of technology, efficiency remained the goal: more crypto calculations with less energy.

Some of the currently top-rated mining chips and computers come from China-based players, including Bitmain, MicroBT and Cannan (CAN).

The influx of new mining hardware permits miners some flexibility in dealing with their energy costs. Industrial bitcoin mining also considers the cost of electricity in different locations throughout the U.S. "We're taking the most efficient machines and putting them to our highest uptime locations," said Sullivan. "We're then taking our least efficient machines and allocating them to our facilities where we can be much more selective about the power costs." Core Scientific says it currently operates facilities in Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina, North Dakota and Texas.

Prior bitcoin halvings occurred in 2012, 2016 and 2020. Bitcoin's next halving appears set to occur later this month.

Bitcoin's halving is a function built into the cryptocurrency from the onset, laid out by reputed creator Satoshi Nakamoto in the original 2008 bitcoin white paper. Bitcoin is "mined" by verifying transactions across the bitcoin network, creating a block that's added to the chain of previous transactions. (This creates the so-called blockchain.) When other bitcoin miners agree that the block is valid, the block becomes a bitcoin that goes to the first miner. Meanwhile, the block is itself used to hash new transactions.

Estimates call for April's halving to reduce mining rewards to 3.125 bitcoin per block, down from 6.25 per block. Because bitcoin mining occurs at a steady rate, halvings tend to occur roughly every four years.

"Mining companies are going to be making very large purchases to ensure the long-term stability of their business and to make sure they can survive through these difficult times of the year," said Sullivan.

Weathering Difficult Times In Bitcoin Mining

Core Scientific is no stranger to lean times in crypto. The Austin, Texas-based bitcoin miner filed for bankruptcy during the 2022 drop in crypto prices popularly called the "crypto winter." Core Scientific continued its mining operations through the bankruptcy, and emerged in January, reclaiming the ticker CORZ.

Core Scientific currently has a market cap of $555.9 million, well below its $4.3 billion market debut via special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, in 2021. The mining company's stock saw its shares spike to a year-to-date high of 4.29 in March before reversing to a low of 2.95 after the company reported its first post-bankruptcy earnings. Core Scientific is unranked in its Computer Software group, although it does hold a Composite Rating of 84, according to IBD Research.

The top publicly traded miners include Riot Platforms (RIOT) and Marathon Digital (MARA).

Core Scientific remains optimistic it can weather the halving and keep its spot as one of the largest bitcoin miners. "We know we'll have an opportunity to refresh our machines post-halving, putting us in a really strong position to continue to grow to 2025," said Sullivan. "We know what it takes from a capital allocation perspective and we know what it means to put cash on the balance sheet to be able to take advantage of bear markets versus being concerned about profitability."

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The Vatican’s new statement on trans rights undercuts its attempts at inclusion

 The Vatican’s new statement on trans rights undercuts its attempts at inclusion

Pope Francis greets bishops during the weekly general audience at St. Peter’s Square in Vatican City on April 10, 2024. Massimo Valicchia/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Li Zhou is a politics reporter at Vox, where she covers Congress and elections. Previously, she was a tech policy reporter at Politico and an editorial fellow at the Atlantic.

A new Vatican document released April 8 details how the Catholic Church approaches human dignity, but it has raised concern among LGBTQ parishioners and their allies about how it describes gender-affirming surgery.

The document, entitled “Dignitas Infinita” (“Infinite Dignity”), was five years in the making and lays out the ways the Vatican believes the inherent dignity that each person possesses can be honored and protected. Though largely in line with positions the Catholic Church has expressed in the past, it’s notable for elevating some of the church’s most conservative views into doctrine — essentially, official church teachings — during a period in which the current pope has been seen as trying to steer the organization in a more progressive, inclusive direction.

Broadly, the document highlights “grave violations” of human dignity, including war, poverty, mistreatment of migrants, and abuse of women. It also lists other perceived threats, including abortion and what the Vatican describes as “gender theory” and “sex change.” In these provisions, the document criticizes gender-affirming procedures and stresses that the Vatican views gender as a clear binary between men and women.

“While Pope Francis has made greater strides in affirming LGBTQ+ Catholics than any of his predecessors, his endorsement of ‘Dignitas Infinita’ will be seen as turning the clock back by transgender individuals, both within and outside the church,” R. Andrew Chesnut, the Bishop Sullivan Chair in Catholic Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University, told Vox.

The release of “Dignitas Infinita” comes amid a larger political, cultural, and social discourse about trans rights and medical care, including a recent UK report on the subject. LGBTQ Catholics and advocates fear, too, that it will worsen a climate in which some governments have enacted laws that attack trans people — including numerous GOP bans on gender-affirming care for children in the US — and be used to fuel more discrimination.

“The document should not be dismissed as simply an abstract theological conversation with few human consequences,” Francis DeBernardo, the executive director of New Way Ministries, an LGBTQ Catholic group, said in a statement. “Rather, the Vatican is again supporting and propagating ideas that lead to real physical harm to transgender, nonbinary, and other LGBTQ+ people.”

The Vatican document challenges attempts at inclusion

Under Pope Francis, the Vatican has sought to lead a more inclusive Catholic Church, including approving blessings for same-sex couples and allowing women to vote in a major bishops’ meeting for the first time.

Francis has also personally made overtures to the trans community, approving the baptizing of trans parishioners and welcoming a group of trans women to a weekly gathering. However, as “Dignitas Infinita” exemplifies, such progress toward inclusivity has been halting, with the church still declining to permit marriage for same-sex couples and barring women from becoming priests.

The document’s treatment of trans people continues this pattern by emphasizing the need to acknowledge every person’s human dignity while offering “limited dignity” to trans people, DeBernardo said.

In particular, it argues that gender-affirming procedures threaten the dignity that a person is born with at conception, claiming that such medical care interferes with “the need to respect the natural order of the human person.” The document also broadly denounces “gender theory,” which includes “argu[ing] that a person’s gender can be different from the sex that person was assigned at birth,” NPR’s Jason DeRose explains.

“That ‘Dignitas Infinita’ rebukes gender transition interventions as a rejection of God’s plan of human life implies that those individuals who have elected to transition ... have violated divine will,” said Chesnut.

Jason Steidl, a professor of religious studies at St. Johns University who specializes in Catholicism, put it more bluntly. “This is the Newsmax version of Catholic theology,” he said.

The Vatican’s statements have been widely lambasted by trans members of the Catholic Church who view them as undermining their experiences and their place in the church. “Transgender people are beloved, intentional creations of God the same as cisgender men and women are,” Michael Sennett, a trans man and practicing Catholic in Massachusetts, told the Associated Press.

Steidl and others, however, see the doctrine as satisfying a more conservative arm of the Catholic Church.

The pope’s announcement in late 2023, for example, that the Vatican would support priests blessing same-sex couples in certain contexts drew ire from numerous clergymen globally. Those opposed to Francis’s more progressive actions included some in Africa, one of the places where the Catholic Church has seen high growth in recent years, who called it “contrary to the will of God.”

According to Steidl, who is also the author of LGBTQ Catholic Ministry, the provisions going after trans people in the Vatican’s document were likely an attempt to appease this segment of the church. “Cardinal Fernandez, the head of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of Faith, had essentially said that they were going to be throwing traditionalists a bone,” Steidl told Vox.

The church doctrine adds to policies attacking trans people

LGBTQ advocates worry the Vatican’s document will only be further ammunition for conservatives in the political and social spheres as they advance discriminatory policies, particularly as political attacks on trans people have surged in recent years.

At least 19 GOP-led state legislatures in the US have passed laws either restricting or outright banning access to gender-affirming care, even though major physician organizations have deemed such care medically necessary. As the number of anti-trans laws has spiked, a report from the National Center for Transgender Equality has documented an increase in homicides of transgender people in the US between November 2022 and November 2023.

European countries are also taking a more restrictive approach to health care for trans people — particularly for minors. Recently, a report commissioned by the United Kingdom’s National Health Service questioned current transition practices in pediatrics and reiterated recommendations to reduce the use of puberty blockers, a treatment the NHS has already stopped offering for minors with gender dysphoria.

LGBTQ advocates are concerned that the Vatican’s document will just add to rhetoric globally that has sought to curtail trans rights.

“This document … tells trans people that they are a threat to the world, that they are a threat to order, to the systems that God has set up,” Steidl told Vox. “Unfortunately, the Vatican is contributing to these movements that seek to hurt trans people, that seek to eliminate them.”

Back Indian Railways to run Summer Special Vande Bharat Express trains in April. Check out routes, timings, and stops

Back

Indian Railways to run Summer Special Vande Bharat Express trains in April. Check out routes, timings, and stops

Indian Railway has announced the schedule and stops of summer special Vande Bharat Express trains in April 2024 it will operate for the convenience of passengers planning to visit their hometowns or tourist destinations.

A special Vande Bharat train will run from Chennai Egmore to Nagercoil on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays of this month for the convenience of passengers

Indian Railway has announced that it will run several summer special Vande Bharat Express trains in April 2024 for the convenience of passengers planning to go to their hometowns or tourist destinations. 

Releasing the schedule, the Indian Railways said the summer special Vande Bharat Express trains will be operated from Chennai Egmore to Nagercoil and on the return direction on 5, 6, 7, 12, 13, 14, 19, 20, 21, 26, 27 and 28th of April. 

To cater to the increased demand during the festive season, Indian Railways operate the fully reservation-based special Vande Bharat Express trains every year. In 2023, the Indian Railways announced 283 festival special trains for Diwali and Chhath Puja, and made approximately 4,480 trips during the festival season.

To cater to the increased demand during the festive season, Indian Railways operate the fully reservation-based special Vande Bharat Express trains every year. In 2023, the Indian Railways announced 283 festival special trains for Diwali and Chhath Puja, and made approximately 4,480 trips during the festival season.

Festival special trains are operated for Diwali and Chhath Puja as well as Onam, Christmas, and New Year. There was a special Vande Bharat Express train for the convenience of passengers to and from Kerala during the Onam festival, and several Vande Bharat trains were operated during Christmas and New Year.

April 2024 Summer Special Vande Bharat Route

The Indian Railways said in a release a special train will run from Chennai Egmore to Nagercoil on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays of this month. 

Train number 06057, will depart from Chennai Egmore at 5:15 am and reach Nagercoil at 2:10 pm. In the return journey, train number 06058 will depart from Nagercoil at 2:50 pm and reach Chennai Egmore at 11:45 pm, it added.

These Vande Bharat summer special trains from Chennai Egmore to Nagercoil will have stops at Tambaram, Villupuram, Tiruchi, Dindigul, Madurai, Virudhunagar and Tirunelveli. Though it has been planned only for April as of now, the service may be extended, based on passenger demand, the statement said. 

Indian Railway has also advised the passengers to book the ticket in advance and check the official website for the updated schedule and stops of the April 2024 summer special Vande Bharat Express Trains.

 

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TSMC Will Receive $6.6 Billion to Bolster U.S. Chip Manufacturing

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company plans to build an additional factory and upgrade another planned facility in Phoenix with the federal grants.

A new Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company plant under construction in Phoenix, Ariz., in December 2022.Credit...T.J. Kirkpatrick for The New York Times

The Biden administration will award up to $6.6 billion in grants to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, the leading maker of the most advanced microchips, in a bid to bring some of the most cutting-edge semiconductor technology to the United States.

The funds, which come from the bipartisan CHIPS and Science Act, will help support the construction of TSMC’s first major U.S. hub, in Phoenix. The company has already committed to building two plants at the site and will use some of the grant money to build a third factory in Phoenix, U.S. officials said on Sunday. TSMC will also increase its total investments in the United States to more than $65 billion, up from $40 billion.

Bringing the world’s most sophisticated chip manufacturing to the United States has been a major goal for the Biden administration. TSMC announced that it would now produce two-nanometer chips at the hub, a significant step forward given that the United States currently produces none of the most advanced semiconductors.

Federal officials view the investment as vital for building up a reliable domestic supply of semiconductors, the small chips that power everything from phones and supercomputers to cars and fighter jets. Although semiconductors were invented in the United States, production has largely shifted overseas in recent decades. Only about 10 percent of the world’s chips are made in the United.

The award is the second largest by the federal government under a program intended to re-establish the United States as a leader in semiconductor manufacturing. It was unveiled a few weeks after President Biden announced that Intel, another major chipmaker, would receive $8.5 billion in grants and up to $11 billion in loans during a tour of battleground states meant to sell his economic agenda.

The CHIPS Act, which lawmakers passed in 2022, gave the Commerce Department $39 billion to distribute as subsidies to encourage companies to build and expand chip plants across the United States. The program is a major pillar of Mr. Biden’s economic policy agenda, which is centered on strengthening American manufacturing.

The Global Race for Computer Chips

🔸Making an American Microchip: Even as the Biden administration invests in bringing more of the supply chain back home, chip manufacturing will remain decidedly global. The international journey of a chip made by a U.S. manufacturer illustrates that.

A Grant for Intel: President Biden awarded $8.5 billion to the company, a major investment to bolster semiconductor production in the United States. The grant was announced as the president championed his economic policies during a tour of the Southwest.

🔸A Geopolitical Shift: As U.S. and European tech companies look to Southeast Asia to diversify from China, Malaysia is rising as a crucial link in the semiconductor supply chain.

🔸Expansion Obstacles: U.S. chip factories are facing delays, just as the Biden administration begins dispensing money to stoke production. While companies producing advanced semiconductors have requested over $70 billion in federal subsidies, twice the available funding amount.

TSMC’s award will bring the total announced grants to more than $16 billion. Three smaller companies, GlobalFoundries, Microchip Technology and BAE Systems, received the first awards.

In addition to the grants, the federal government will provide up to $5 billion in loans to TSMC. The company is also expected to claim federal tax credits that could cover 25 percent of the cost of building and outfitting factories with production equipment. About $50 million of the grants will be set aside to train and develop the company’s work force, federal officials said.

Gina Raimondo, the commerce secretary, said the investment would help the United States start manufacturing the most advanced semiconductors, which are used in artificial intelligence, smartphones and the most sensitive military hardware.

“It’s a national security problem that we don’t manufacture any of the world’s most sophisticated chips in the United States,” Ms. Raimondo said on Sunday. “Now, because of this announcement, these chips will be made in the United States.”

Earlier this year, Ms. Raimondo said new investments in semiconductor companies would put the United States on track to produce roughly 20 percent of the world’s most advanced logic chips by the end of the decade.

TSMC’s investment is expected to create about 6,000 direct manufacturing jobs and more than 20,000 construction jobs, federal officials said. TSMC will have to meet certain construction and production milestones before payments are made.

The company has been counting on federal aid for years. Talks about a partly subsidized expansion in the United States began in 2019, during the Trump administration, according to company officials. TSMC first announced that it would build a new facility in Phoenix in May 2020, a project that company officials said would eventually require government subsidies to help address the higher cost of building and operating chip plants in the United States.

In December 2022, several months after the passage of the CHIPS Act, TSMC announced that it would build a second factory at the site, increasing its total investment to $40 billion from $12 billion.

But since TSMC started construction in 2021, various stumbling blocks have delayed the start of production. Last summer, TSMC pushed back initial production at its first factory to 2025 from this year, saying local workers lacked expertise in installing some sophisticated equipment. In January, the company said the second plant would not meet its original schedule of beginning manufacturing in 2026.

Production at the second facility is expected to begin in 2028, and production at the third factory is expected to start by the end of the decade, according to the Biden administration officials.

TSMC’s expansion in the United States could have an outsize impact on the global supply chain for semiconductors, the vulnerabilities of which were laid bare by crippling chip shortages during the pandemic.

TSMC, which pioneered the idea of manufacturing chips to order for others that design them, operates massive factories in Taiwan that churn out the vast majority of the small components that supply processing power to computers, phones, networking gear, appliances and military gear. America’s reliance on the company’s factories, on an island that China does not recognize as independent and claims is part of its territory, has long worried U.S. officials.

New generations of production technology are often described in terms of nanometers, or billionths of a meter, a measure of key dimensions of microscopic circuitry. In December 2022, TSMC said it would produce three-nanometer chips at its second Arizona factory. It will now also introduce the next generation of technology, at two nanometers, in the second plant, Biden administration officials announced.

Such advances determine how many transistors can be packed on each small slice of silicon, which allow chips to perform calculations more quickly and store more data. In the past decade, TSMC supplanted Intel in delivering the most sophisticated production technology, producing components that Apple designs for its latest smartphones and Nvidia develops to power artificial intelligence applications like ChatGPT.

Though the planned addition of two-nanometer technology represents a substantial advance, that does not necessarily mean that TSMC’s U.S. factories will offer the latest technology at the same time as its factories in Taiwan. The company carries out research on new technologies on the island, and adapting those processes to high-volume manufacturing is typically done first in nearby buildings to speed the transition and reduce travel time for engineers.

It remains possible that Intel, which is racing to regain its lead in manufacturing technology, will offer the most advanced production technology in the industry by 2028 at U.S. factories. The company carries out its manufacturing technology research in Oregon.

Biden administration officials are expected to award more grants in the coming months to other big chipmakers that have invested in new or expanded domestic facilities in recent years, including Micron Technology and Samsung.

‘Outrage against international law’: Mexico breaks diplomatic ties with Ecuador over embassy raid

 ‘Outrage against international law’: Mexico breaks diplomatic ties with Ecuador over embassy raid

Mexico is breaking diplomatic ties with Ecuador after police raided its embassy in Quito to arrest former Ecuadorian Vice President Jorge Glas, who had been seeking asylum there.

Confirming the move in a statement to CNNE, a foreign ministry spokesperson said all Mexican diplomatic staff would leave Ecuador immediately.

Mexico decried the raid as “an outrage against international law.”

Video from the scene showed police officers massing around the embassy, some armed. Embassies are generally considered protected spaces under diplomatic norms.

Glas has since been transferred to a maximum-security prison in Guayaquil known as La Roca, the national prisons agency SNAI announced Saturday.

A rift between the two Latin American countries had been growing for several days, culminating Friday in Mexico’s decision to grant political asylum to Glas, who served as vice president under leftist ex-President Rafael Correa between 2013 and 2017.

Convicted twice on corruption charges, Glas says he is the subject of political persecution and had been sheltering inside the embassy.

He had most recently been accused by Ecuadorian authorities of embezzling government funds meant to help rebuild after a devastating 2016 earthquake.

But on Friday, Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador, on his official X account, said he had been informed that “police from Ecuador forcibly entered” the Mexican embassy and took Glas – who “was a refugee and processing asylum because of the persecution and harassment he faces.”

A statement released by Ecuador’s government on X also confirmed the arrest.

Glas was “sentenced to imprisonment by the Ecuadorian justice system,” the statement from Ecuador’s government read, and was “arrested tonight and placed under the orders of the competent authorities.” He had been granted diplomatic asylum “contrary to the conventional legal framework,” the government said.

“What you have just seen is an outrage against international law and the inviolability of the Mexican embassy in Ecuador,” Roberto Canseco, head of chancellery and policy affairs of the Mexican embassy, told a reporter from CNNE, calling Glas’s arrest “totally unacceptable.”

“It is barbarism,” Canseco added. “It is impossible for them to violate the diplomatic premises as they have done.”

At a news conference Saturday, Ecuadorian Foreign Minister Gabriela Sommerfeld said the decision to raid the Mexican embassy to arrest Glas was made “in the face of a real risk of imminent escape.”

Sommerfeld also accused Mexico of violating the principle of non-intervention by letting Glas stay in the embassy and evade an order to appear before authorities in a corruption probe.

“The Mexican embassy, by receiving Mr. Glas Espinel, contributed to the failure to comply with the obligation to appear weekly before the judicial authority, thus affecting the democratic institutions of Ecuador, clearly contravening the fundamental principle of non-intervention in the internal affairs of other states,” she said.

Sommerfeld dismissed Mexico’s claim that Glas was being politically prosecuted, saying, “For Ecuador, no criminal can be considered a politically persecuted person when he has been convicted with an enforceable sentence and with an arrest warrant issued by the judicial authorities.”

Mexico plans to lodge a complaint with the International Court of Justice to denounce the Ecuadorian police’s actions, the spokesperson for Mexico’s foreign secretary added.

Secretary of Foreign Affairs Alicia Bárcena said there had been no prior contact with Ecuador’s foreign ministry about the arrest and Canseco was physically attacked during the arrest. Video shows Canseco scuffling with police outside the embassy and being dragged to the ground.

Adding to current tensions was López Obrador’s apparent criticism of Ecuador’s recent elections, saying the 2023 run-off vote took place in a “very strange” manner and suggesting presidential candidates had used the media, presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio’s assassination and overall violence in their favor while campaigning.

After that comment, Ecuador declared Mexico’s ambassador to the country “persona non grata,” meaning they would have to leave the country in short order.

The dramatic rupture in relations sent shock waves through the region, with Latin American leaders swiftly condemning Ecuador’s raid on the embassy.

In a statement, Colombian President Gustavo Petro said Glas’s right to asylum had been “barbarically violated” and called for an urgent examination of the “breach of the Vienna convention by a member state” conducted by international bodies, including the Organization of American States.

 

Gaza: Israel urged to publish full report on aid worker deaths

Seven aid workers were killed in three drone strikes on a convoy of vehicles

Food charity World Central Kitchen (WCK) has called for an independent investigation into the killing of seven of its staff by Israeli drone strikes in Gaza.

It comes after the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said "grave mistakes" led to the fatal targeting of the workers.

An Israeli military inquiry led to two senior officers being dismissed.

However, the CEO of the aid group said the Israeli military "cannot credibly investigate its own failure in Gaza".

In a statement, Erin Gore continued: "[The IDF's] apologies for the outrageous killing of our colleagues represent cold comfort. It's cold comfort for the victims' families and WCK's global family."

She said Israel must take "concrete steps" to ensure the safety of aid workers operating on the ground in Gaza, where several organisations have suspended operations in light of the deaths.

Israel is under pressure from key Western partners to publish the full findings of its investigation, which have not been made public.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he had received the Israeli report and was "reviewing it very carefully". He said the US will be "looking to see not just what steps are being taken, but the results that follow from them".

The Biden administration is facing mounting pressure from some Democrats over its military support to Israel. On Friday, more than three dozen members of Congress, including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, signed a letter urging the US president and Mr Blinken to "reconsider" the authorisation of an arms package transfer to Israel.

The letter called for the US to withhold further arms transfers pending an investigation into the airstrike that killed the aid workers, or if Israel "fails to sufficiently mitigate harm to innocent civilians in Gaza."

In the space of four minutes on 1 April, the seven aid workers were killed when three missiles destroyed their cars one by one as they engaged in humanitarian work.

The charity's team had been authorised by the Israeli military to help transfer aid supplies from the coast to a warehouse, but a series of mistakes and miscommunications on the part of the IDF resulted in them being mistaken for Hamas operatives and targeted.

The IDF said a "number of armed gunmen" were in the vicinity of the convoy, but drone operators wrongly tracked cars carrying aid workers.

The army apologised after admitting its soldiers did not follow protocols and were not given crucial information about the pre-approved aid mission.

The IDF said information about the aid workers' movements was not passed on to drone operators

As well as the dismissal of a colonel and a major, three IDF commanders have been formally reprimanded and the drone unit responsible has been suspended.

UK Foreign Secretary Lord David Cameron said British officials were "carefully reviewing the initial findings" and called the dismissal of two officers a "first step".

In a post on X, formerly Twitter, he said: "These findings must be published in full and followed up with a wholly independent review to ensure utmost transparency and accountability."

Additional material from the IDF investigation - including video footage purporting to show a Hamas gunman on top of an aid lorry - was shown to journalists in a private briefing ahead of the IDF's public apology, but only a summary of the findings has been made publicly available.

The Israeli investigation was carried out via a pre-existing disciplinary procedure which deals with allegations of military misconduct, and was overseen by a reservist major general.

IDF spokesman Rear Adm Daniel Hagari described the report as being carried out by a "professional, independent body that is outside of the chain of command".

Google AI content under premium now? Search engine says it's 'not considering ad-free experience'

 Google AI content under premium now? Search engine says it's 'not considering ad-free experience'

The potential move suggests the Alphabet Inc unit still hasn’t figured out how to incorporate the new, fast-growing technology without threatening its essential advertising business.

Google logo and AI Artificial Intelligence words are seen in this illustration

Google is considering charging for new “premium" features run by artificial intelligence, the Financial Times reported, marking the first time it would put any of its core product behind a paywall.

The tech giant is mulling options such as adding certain AI search features to its premium subscription services, the FT reported, citing three unnamed people familiar with the plans. Engineers are developing the technology to roll out the service but executives haven’t decided whether or when to launch it, according to the report. Google’s ubiquitous search engine would continue to be free and ads would appear alongside search results even to subscribers, the FT said.

“We’re continuing to rapidly improve the product to serve new user needs," a spokesperson said. “We’re not working on or considering an ad-free search experience. As we’ve done many times before, we’ll continue to build new premium capabilities and services to enhance our subscription offerings across Google."

The potential move suggests the Alphabet Inc. unit still hasn’t figured out how to incorporate the new, fast-growing technology without threatening its essential advertising business. The shares were down less than 1% in premarket trading Thursday.

Ever since OpenAI launched ChatGPT in late 2022, Google has found itself on the defensive in the face of the wildly popular chatbot. ChatGPT’s ability to give answers to queries in a narrative voice has forced Google to rethink its traditional list of blue links to websites and the lucrative ads that appear alongside them. Meanwhile, in recent years, a new crop of search startups has emerged. Some have tried to persuade users to sign up for paid subscriptions to access generative AI search features, or for better privacy protections.

Last year, Google began testing its own AI-powered search service that combines the personalized, detailed narrative in addition to links to websites and advertising. But it has been slow to incorporate features from its experimental “search generative experience" to the main search engine.

In February, Google added a new paid tier to its consumer subscription service that gives people access to its latest AI model, Gemini. Users who pay for that subscription, called Google One AI Premium, are able to use its advanced Gemini chatbot and access the generative AI model in popular services such as Gmail and Google Docs.

Using generative AI technology to power search queries is “eye-wateringly" expensive, said one former Google employee, who worked on the company’s search products. Teams regularly ran benchmark tests on random queries internally to measure how quickly Google’s search engine could deliver results — but they didn’t run the same tests for Google’s AI-powered search product in part because it was so costly, the former staffer said.

In the wake of ChatGPT’s appearance, Google has reoriented its search teams to deploy more people to work on the experimental AI-powered experience, according to another former Google employee. While early feedback was positive, the high cost likely factored into the decision not to roll it out more widely, the person said. A Google spokesperson said the company has been focused on improving issues such as latency and adding new features, and that cost hasn’t influenced the company’s decisions about how fast to incorporate more AI into search.

For Google, charging for certain AI search aspects could help the company shake loose some additional revenue, without cannibalizing its core search ad business, said Mandeep Singh, an analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence.

“Given OpenAI has reached a subscription run-rate of $2 billion with consumer subscriptions, we believe Alphabet could see a similar boost to its $15 billion subscription sales," he wrote in an email.

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Two 100-foot asteroids set to pass Earth today; NASA reveals how close these scary space rocks will come

NASA tracks as many as 4 approaching asteroids, including two 100-foot space rocks. These two asteroids will approach Earth today.

The US space agency, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, better known through its abbreviation NASA, has revealed that as many as four asteroids are silently making their way towards Earth. Each one varies in size. While asteroids are definitely something to be scared of as they have impacted Earth on many occasions in its long history leading to global scale destruction, none of these have any chance of impacting our planet. The reason behind it is that NASA’s scientists are constantly tracking their movements and this has revealed they will get very close to Earth, but they pose no danger. Their close encounter with Earth is imminent though and as many as two asteroids are 100-foot monsters and they will approach today.

NASA keeps watch as four asteroids, including two 100-foot space rocks, approach Earth today. (Representative image)(Getty Images/iStockphoto)

The first is Asteroid 2024 FR3. It is approximately the size of an airplane. This is a 78-foot asteroid and despite its large size, it is set to maintain a safe distance of 824,000 miles from Earth.

The second is the plane-sized Asteroid 2024 FG3. This is a 100-foot asteroid and it will pass Earth at a safe distance of 1,940,000 miles.

The third is Asteroid 2024 FN3 and it too will pass Earth today. This is also a 100-foot asteroid that is well on its way to Earth in its long journey. This asteroid will get as close as 4,220,000 miles to Earth.

The fourth is Asteroid 2024 FL3. It too is a 100-foot monster in size, but it will make its closest approach on April 3, 2024. Traveling at a distance of 2,030,000 miles from Earth, it marks the end of this series of encounters.

The important thing to note here is that the Universe is huge and many of these space rocks, which tumble out of the asteroid belt due to some reason or the other, get extremely close to Earth. NASA and other global space agencies track these asteroids to ensure that none of them are heading for a potential calamitous crash against the Earth.

While none of these asteroids posed an immediate threat, their close brushes are a scary reminder of the dangers ever-present in space that have to be closely monitored because of the potential dangers.

Byju's layoffs: Company starts job cuts via calls, lets go staff without notice period

 Byju's layoffs: Company starts job cuts via calls, lets go staff without notice period

Byju's layoffs: The company is also not asking employees to serve a notice period, the report claimed.

Byju's layoffs: Edtech company Byju's initiated layoffs on phone calls and is letting go employees without putting them on a performance improvement plan (PIP), Moneycontrol reported citing people in the know. The company is also not asking employees to serve a notice period, the report claimed.

Byju's layoffs: How many employees could be affected?

Byju's layoffs: The company is also not asking employees to serve a notice period, the report claimed.

Byju's new round of layoffs may impact anywhere between 100 to 500 employees, the report claimed. The sector most affected could be the sales function of the company.

In the past two years, Byju's has sacked at least over 10,000 employees as the company grapples with dwindling funds and legal showdowns with investors and stakeholders. Currently, nearly 14,000 employees are on the payroll of Byju's India entity.

Byju's spokesperson told Moneycontrol, “We are in the final stages of a business restructuring exercise announced in October 2023 to simplify operating structures, reduce the cost base, and better cash flow management. We are going through an extraordinary situation in the company because of the ongoing litigation, where every employee and the ecosystem itself is going through tremendous stress given the present circumstances.”

In the current wave of layoffs, Byju's is following phone calls with emails that read, “This is to confirm that your last working day with Think and Learn Pvt Ltd will be March 31, 2024. Your full and final settlement will be done as per the exit policy. Please hand over all the assets and proprietary information of the Company that are in your possession to enable processing your full and final settlement. In case of any queries on exit formalities, please contact separations@byjus.com.