Researched by: Aarthi Ramnath, Anannya Parekh & Aakriti Anand
Our experiments with YouTube: A new format!
We’ve been playing with different formats for our YouTube show. We recently tried a daily news wrap—which didn’t quite work with the platform—where discovery happens days later. So we’ve switched to a twice-weekly version—that’s more like a newsmagazine.
It’s a great option when you don’t have time to read us every day. You get a video version of our best stories twice a week. Do check it out and—most importantly—share it with your friends, fam, colleagues and more. It’s a great cost-free way to introduce someone to splainer—especially if they are text-averse. The Tuesday edition is below.
War on Gaza: The latest update
One: The IDF continues to terrorise Rafah—and has circled back to camps in North Gaza—where they struck hospitals with missiles. FYI: Israel previously claimed to have ‘cleared’ these camps of Hamas. Oops—clearly not. (Reuters)
Two: Israel got a rude shock when three of its European allies—France, Belgium and Slovenia—lent their support to an arrest warrant for its PM and Foreign Minister. Reminder: The International Criminal Court prosecutor has requested warrants for them—and four Hamas leaders—for crimes against humanity. (The Hindu)
Three: Salman Rushdie called out pro-Palestine campus protests in the US for ignoring Hamas:
The fact is that I think any human being right now has to be distressed by what is happening in Gaza because of the quantity of innocent death. I would just like some of the protests to mention Hamas. Because that’s where this started, and Hamas is a terrorist organisation. It’s very strange for young, progressive student politics to kind of support a fascist terrorist group.
Four: New York Times has a piece on other victims of the conflict—prisoners in Guantánamo Bay. The White House was ready to send about a dozen detainees to Oman for resettlement last year. Then Hamas attacked Israel—Democrats got antsy. As a result, they are still stuck in Guantánamo—behind bars without evidence or a trial.
The tragic bit: “None of the Yemeni prisoners had ever been charged with crimes, and all of them had been cleared for transfer by national security review panels. A military plane was already on the runway, ready to airlift them.” (New York Times)
Lethal turbulence on Singapore Airlines
‘Extreme turbulence’ killed one person and injured 71 others on a flight from London to Singapore. The plane dropped 6,000 feet (around 1,800 metres) within three minutes—during meal service when many were not wearing a seatbelt. But the sole fatality—a 73-year-old British man—died of a suspected heart attack. The flight was rerouted to Bangkok after the incident. You can see a nerve-wracking clip of the turbulence below.
We personally are impressed with the calm of this blood-stained air hostess:
Point to note: Turbulence has been rising due to climate change—which causes higher carbon dioxide levels. The Hindu explains why. (Associated Press)
Speaking of tragic flights: At least 40 flamingos were killed when an Emirates flight from Dubai collided with them while landing at the Mumbai airport. Officials are investigating why the birds flew into the plane. A possible reason: they may be disoriented by new power lines running through the Thane Creek Wildlife Sanctuary. (Mint)
KKR is on an IPL roll
The Kolkata Knight Riders destroyed the Sunrisers Hyderabad in the first qualifier—thanks to a fabulous opening spell (4-0-34-3) from Mitchell Starc. KKR paid Rs 247.5 million (24.75 crore) for him at the auction—and he proved to be worth every paisa last night. Hyderabad could only manage 159 runs—setting up an easy win for Kolkata. The Hindu has the match report. See one of Starc’s impressive deliveries below.
Non-shocker: Meta approved hate ads in India
Civil rights groups tested Meta’s safety features on its ad platform during the elections. They submitted 22 ads that contained “real hate speech and disinformation prevalent in India” in five different languages. Meta outright approved 14 of them—and three were greenlit after small tweaks—not related to their messaging.
Here’s a taste of what got past Meta’s ‘safety net’:
Facebook approved adverts containing known slurs towards Muslims in India, such as “let’s burn this vermin” and “Hindu blood is spilling, these invaders must be burned”, as well as Hindu supremacist language and disinformation about political leaders. Another approved advert called for the execution of an opposition leader they falsely claimed wanted to “erase Hindus from India”, next to a picture of a Pakistan flag.
It also failed to detect AI-manipulated images in the ads—that violated Meta’s own policies. The company offered no response other than to underline its ‘authorisation processes’—which clearly don’t work.
Why India matters: Here’s what Meta said before the elections:
Nick Clegg, Meta’s president of global affairs, recently described India’s election as “a huge, huge test for us” and said the company had done “months and months and months of preparation in India”. Meta said it had expanded its network of local and third-party factcheckers across all platforms, and was working across 20 Indian languages.
The Guardian has this must-read exclusive.
Scarlett Johansson is mad at OpenAI
The context: Last week, OpenAI rolled out a conversational version of its chatbot GPT-4o—which sounded like a nearly human and super-smart Siri. The strange bit: The voice on the demos sounds uncannily like Scarlett Johansson—playing an AI assistant in the movie ‘Her’.
What happened now: ScarJo says she is “shocked, angered and in disbelief” that the voice sounds “so eerily similar.” Especially since she specifically turned down OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s request to be the voice of a new chatbot (named ‘Sky’ btw). And yet OpenAI went ahead with its plans. Altman denies Johannson’s claim–and has now pulled Sky:
The voice of Sky is not Scarlett Johansson’s, and it was never intended to resemble hers. We cast the voice actor behind Sky’s voice before any outreach to Ms. Johansson. Out of respect for Ms. Johansson, we have paused using Sky’s voice in our products. We are sorry to Ms. Johansson that we didn’t communicate better.
You can read Johansson’s damning statement here. (Washington Post, paywall, Quartz)
In surprising news about chatbots: New research shows that they are as good or better at a human trait called ‘theory of mind’—the ability to put yourself in another person’s shoes: It’s what helps you decide what to say in a tense situation, guess what drivers in other cars are about to do, and empathise with a character in a movie.” The next gen of Sky may be even more like the fictional ScarJo—which is very cool—and alarming. IEEE Spectrum has nerdy details about the study—which is controversial.
Trolling of a Dalit Journo
Manisha Mondal, a senior photojournalist at ThePrint, wrote a personal essay revealing her experiences on dating apps like Bumble and Hinge. In sum, upper caste men would ice her out the moment they realised she was Dalit. Unsurprisingly, upper caste men were also angry at her for calling them out. The result: vicious casteist abuse, body shaming etc. It was so bad that The Print warned:
ThePrint takes note of the vile, casteist comments targeted at our photojournalist Manisha Mondal. They are sexist, objectionable, often bordering on criminality. Their attacks also put our reporter at risk. We are making a record of this. If the behaviour continues, we will report the handles.
NewsMinute has more details on this unhappy case—that sums up what happens when you commit the unforgivable sin of being a woman, journalist, and Dalit.
Two things to see
One: A rare well-preserved feather of the extinct huia bird was sold at auction for $28,365—making it the most expensive feather ever. Since the feather weighs roughly nine grams, its price per gram is $5,169, making it way more valuable than gold ($127 per gram). Let’s review: We drive species to extinction—and then pay obscene amounts of money for their remains? And yeah, the feather doesn’t look like much.
But the bird—as you can see—was irreplaceably beautiful. (The Guardian)
Two: Scientists have concluded that a fossil found in the 1980s is a remnant of an ancient spider-like creature—called Douglassarachne acanthopoda. It’s roughly 308 million years old . What makes it special: “remarkably robust and spiny legs—such that it is quite unlike any other arachnid known, living or extinct.” Excellent—spiny spiders, exactly what we don’t need! The fossil looks brilliant though! (Interesting Engineering)
