| An interview with Keir Starmer | |
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| Welcome to the weekend! This week, the companies behind many of China’s most popular AI chatbots disabled some of their services prior to an annual event in which millions of Chinese citizens take part. What was it? Find out with this week’s Pointed quiz. What works with or without access to AI chatbots? Our audio playlist, available in the Bloomberg app. We’ve got six great stories on everything from the future of orange juice to pro athletes’ obsession with Chess.com. Take a listen. Don’t miss Sunday’s Forecast, where we look at what’s next for Israel-Iran and why US protests don’t impact markets. For unlimited access to Bloomberg, subscribe! | |
Questioning the Status Quo | |
| Friday morning turned out to be quite a moment to sit down with the UK’s prime minister for the Weekend Interview. Israel had attacked Iran a few hours earlier, and Keir Starmer slotted his conversation with Mishal Husain in between calls with the leaders of France, Germany and Israel. The conflict is only the latest challenge for Starmer, who is also negotiating the UK’s role in a post-war Ukraine, and working to parlay his rapport with Donald Trump into a US-UK trade deal. As the prime minister heads into next week’s G-7, he is trying his utmost to emphasize alliances and shared objectives — even as the evidence highlights their limitations. | |
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| Shared objectives don’t necessarily make for shared views on how to achieve them. In Djenné, Mali, generations of mud-brick masons have restored iconic structures made from a mix of mud and rice bran plaster, which were designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1988. But as climate changes drives more flooding and pushes up the cost of rice bran, some locals say the duty of preservation is untenable. “If I were to get enough money tomorrow,” one mason told Diakaridia Dembele and Yinka Ibukun, “I’d destroy my houses and rebuild them in concrete.” | |
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| The stress of being a mud-brick mason is unique — they must pat down every inch of Djenné’s fragile buildings — but the stress of a high-pressure job is universal. Some 4,000 miles away in New York, physical therapists are reporting an influx of male patients reporting groin pain, difficulty achieving erections and the frequent urge to urinate. Many of them are dealing with pelvic floor dysfunction, Madison Darbyshire writes, a condition exacerbated by stress. Now some men are speaking out about their symptoms in the hopes of keeping others from suffering in silence. | |
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| If there’s a lesson in pelvic-floor problems, it might be that what feels wrong often is. That’s a mindset Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky embraced when his company swapped out its minimalist black-and-white icons for colorful, dimensional alternatives. The redesign is part of tech’s broader move away from flat design and toward animation and skeuomorphism. “People are looking for things that are deeply human,” Chesky told Austin Carr. “Anything that references life and humanism is going to attract people at a time where they yearn for more of that.” | |
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| New York
As the sun rose over New York City on Wednesday, workers began to gather at a Home Depot on Gun Hill Road in the Bronx. Among the earliest to arrive was a 53-year-old Ecuadorian man who has been living in the US for 22 years as an undocumented immigrant. Few other major US retailers are as enmeshed in immigration issues as Home Depot, which has long been seen as a fixture in the off-the-books market for day laborers, the vast majority of whom are undocumented.  Photographer: Oscar Castillo/Bloomberg Florida
When the US government was searching for solutions to get Vitamin C to soldiers during World War II, orange juice concentrate was born — and with it the flavor and fragrances that juice companies add back after the concentration process strips juice of its natural oils. Almost a century later, the flavor industry is on deck again, as a bacterial disease depletes orange crops and reduces the fruits’ sweetness. Bottled orange juice of the future is likely to contain less real orange than ever.  Photographer: Chandan Khanna/AFP | |
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| America will find out how much it needs immigrants. A reduction in the US migrant population seems like a fait accompli as deportations deter new arrivals. Thus an economic experiment lies ahead, John Authers writes for Bloomberg Opinion: Do the benefits of immigration outweigh the costs? Reagan wasn’t the conservative he’s made out to be. The real interloper in the conservative tradition was not Trump but Ronald Reagan, Adrian Wooldridge writes for Bloomberg Opinion. Beneath his cowboy hat, Reagan smuggled the seeds of both neoliberalism and neoconservativism into the heart of Republican policymaking. | |
To Whom It May Concern | | “It is both amazing and appalling that not one leading person of this area has spoken out against the doctrine he is preaching.” | | Phil Spiegel | | Back in January 1963, a letter to the Scranton Tribune denouncing a local ultraconservative named Frank Gaydosh was published under the headline “He’s Appalled.” The writer was Phil Spiegel — veteran, pacifist, and the grandfather of Bloomberg Weekend editor Jennifer Sondag. Rediscovering the letter sent Sondag down a rabbit hole on Gaydosh, who illustrates how America has long contended with divisions over right-wing rhetoric. | | |
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| What we’re watching: long bonds. Governments from the US to Japan are paying the highest rates in decades to borrow over 30 years, as investors demand more compensation amid sticky inflation, swelling deficits and skittish central banks. What we’re reconsidering: Ring cameras. The UK’s national statistics office used to compile labor market data by door-knocking. Now doorbell cameras, caller ID and the decline of landlines are destroying its understanding of the jobs picture. What we’re telling Trump: HAPPY BIRTHDAY. Later today, tanks and other infantry fighting vehicles will parade down Constitution Avenue alongside 6,600 soldiers for the US Army’s 250th anniversary, which coincides with the president’s 79th birthday. What we’re also telling Trump: Play nice? He’s returning to the G-7 summit with a tariff regime that’s forecast to make the global economy $1 trillion smaller by 2030 than it would have been if the US stayed in the Trans-Pacific Partnership. What we keep saying: We’re gonna need a bigger marina. As boats grow in size and complexity, more than 30 investment firms are betting they can roll up increasingly scarce marina properties, make improvements and increase rents. | |
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