英语咖啡馆：2023年2月23日英语新闻

President Joe Biden gave a pugnacious (and relatively short) speech in Warsaw reaffirming continued support of America and NATO for Ukraine after nearly a year of fighting against Russia’s invading forces. Mr Biden said that “Ukraine will never be a victory for Russia” as he promised more sanctions against Vladimir Putin’s regime. Earlier Mr Putin gave a long, rambling state-of-the-nation address to his country’s parliament. He announced that Russia would suspend its participation in New START, its last remaining nuclear-arms-reduction treaty with America.

The S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average each suffered their worst day since mid-December, dropping by 2%. Home Depot’s share price shed 7% after the home-improvement retailer forecast flat sales this year, owing to a housing-market slowdown. Indeed, sales of existing homes fell by 0.7% in January from the previous month, and by 37% from a year ago. Asian stockmarkets also wobbled on Wednesday.

Bloomberg reported that McKinsey is planning to lay off 2,000 staff, in one of its biggest-ever culls. Despite recent accusations of scandalous behaviour—including over its alleged role in aiding state capture in South Africa—business at the world’s foremost management consultancy has been booming. (The firm denies wrongdoing.) But McKinsey wants to cut its headcount to preserve the compensation pool of its partners, says Bloomberg.

South Korea broke its own record for the world’s lowest fertility rate. Last year the number of babies a woman can expect to have during her lifetime dropped to 0.78 from 0.81. The rate required for the population to remain stable is 2.1. By 2100 the country’s population is expected to fall by 53% to 24m. It is the fastest-shrinking population among rich economies. 

Mexico’s former security minister was convicted in a New York court of accepting huge bribes from cartels to traffic drugs. Genaro García Luna, who denies the allegations, was a central player in President Felipe Calderón’s “war on drugs” and is the country’s most senior official to be tried in America. His sentencing, which could put him in jail for life, is set for June. 

The Biden administration proposed making migrants ineligible for asylum if they cross the border illegally without having first sought protection in another country along the way. The rule could enter into force in May and last two years. President Joe Biden is keen to avoid a surge of asylum-seekers when Title 42, a different rule allowing for migrants’ rapid expulsion from America, expires in May.

Clarkesworld, a science-fiction publisher, stopped accepting new submissions for stories after a wave of AI-generated pitches overwhelmed its editors. Neil Clarke, the founding editor, said he typically rejects ten or so submissions every month for plagiarism. But that figure has soared following the launch last year of ChatGPT, an artificially intelligent chatbot. In February so far, the magazine has received 500 spam submissions. 

Fact of the day: 20,000, the approximate number of Russians arrested for protesting against the war in Ukraine.

TODAY’S AGENDA

Can Nvidia ride the AI wave again?

Nvidia, an American chip designer, is the quintessential seller of shovels in a gold rush. Its share price ran up in 2016 as interest in Bitcoin and artificial intelligence created new demand for its products: chips that were originally designed to draw graphics on video-gamers’ screens. But its shares are down 35% from the heady days of late 2021. Its latest earnings, released on Wednesday, are expected to be dire, with revenue and income hit by plummeting demand from cryptocurrency miners. 

Still, analysts will be looking for hints that Nvidia can benefit from another AI boom brought about by the launch of tools like ChatGPT, an eerily perceptive chatbot. In truth, Nvidia has its work cut out. The boom is highly centralised around tech giants such as Google and Microsoft. Their focus on developing in-house technologies will curb demand for Nvidia’s products—and leave less room for the company to ride the wave again. 

Lloyds Bank reports earnings

Britain’s biggest mortgage lender, Lloyds Bank, should have several reasons to be cheerful as it publishes its financial results for 2022 on Wednesday. Last year’s interest-rate rises widened the gap between what it must pay on deposits and what it can charge on loans, boosting profits. Meanwhile, Britain’s economic outlook has improved. A few months ago the country was widely believed to be in a recession. That now seems to have been (perhaps temporarily) staved off. This should limit the provisions the bank must set aside against bad loans.

Yet Barclays and NatWest, two of Lloyds’ competitors on the British high street, saw sharp falls in their share prices after they reported last week. Analysts were unimpressed by the profits they had made from rising rates. Politicians are chivvying banks to pay depositors more. And Britain’s economy is still set to shrink this year, says the IMF. The country’s bankers are not out of the woods yet.

An immersive David Hockney experience

When art lovers see masterpieces they can look tiny and remote, especially if they’re in a large gallery. Not so at Lightroom, a new space for immersive exhibitions in London. The commercial venture opens on Wednesday with “Bigger & Closer (not smaller & further away)”, which celebrates the work of David Hockney. The show uses 27 multi-focus cameras to project images onto walls 11 metres high. Visitors see the world through the British artist’s eyes—and hear his drily humorous commentary.

The spectacle, with a score by Nico Muhly, an American composer, lasts around 50 minutes. At one moment the 85-year-old artist is capturing the arrival of spring with a few gestures on his iPad, at another he’s drawing inspiration from the grandeur of a drive through the San Gabriel mountains in California. The effect is both majestic and intimate. “Bigger & Closer” is an artistic experience tailor-made for the Instagram age.