Charts that matter

CSA raises alert on surge in online scams ahead of Easter festivities

Ghana’s Cyber Security Authority (CSA) issued an urgent alert about a sharp rise in online fraud as Easter approaches, underpinned by official case data. The CSA reported 720 online fraud incidents from January to March 2026, a 113% increase over the 338 cases recorded in the first quarter of 2025. Criminals are exploiting increased festive-season commerce using tactics such as fake online shops that impersonate real businesses, counterfeit e‑commerce sites offering steep discounts with upfront payments, and fraudulent business listings on Google Maps designed to divert customers to scammers’ mobile money numbers. Phishing and malware campaigns are also targeting users with unsolicited messages posing as romantic partners or well‑known brands. The CSA urged the public to verify vendors via official websites, avoid deals that appear too good to be true, pay only after inspecting goods, and never share Ghana Card, bank, or card details with unverified contacts. It advised sending mobile money only to wallets registered in the business’s official name and publicized its 24‑hour incident reporting contacts (short code 292, WhatsApp 0501603111, and an email address) for suspected cybercrime. The alert is framed around primary CSA incident statistics and operational contact data.

Kobina Baidoo Baduyfmghana.com2 min read

Viagra Ingredient Sildenafil Shows Hope For Fatal Childhood Disease

A small pilot trial of six patients with Leigh syndrome, backed by extensive lab work on over 5,500 screened compounds, found that sildenafil—the active ingredient in Viagra—improved muscle function, reduced seizures and metabolic crises, and has now received EU orphan drug status for this rare mitochondrial disease affecting about 1 in 36,000 children.

www.ndtv.com2m

The feds are investing heavily in wearable health trackers that could put your private data at risk

In March, the US Department of Health and Human Services’ ARPA‑H launched the Delphi program to fund advanced biowearable sensors for continuous cytokine and hormone monitoring, even as most consumer wearables sit outside FDA medical-device rules and HIPAA, leaving biometric data legally accessible to data brokers and law enforcement unless new bills like the Smartwatch Data Act advance.

r/Libertarian2m

Methodology check

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Human-induced climate change intensifies spatially compounding fire weather extremes across European countries

The article details a multi-stage methodology to assess spatially compounding fire weather extremes across 37 European Civil Protection Mechanism countries from 1950–2024. Researchers: (1) use ERA5 climate reanalysis to compute daily Fire Weather Index (FWI) values for May–October, decomposed into their meteorological drivers (temperature, relative humidity, wind, precipitation); (2) combine daily FWI with GFEDv4.1 burned-area (BA) observations for 2001–2015 to empirically test how the continental total BA distribution shifts as a function of the percentage of European land experiencing FWI ≥ 50, validating that this operational EFFIS threshold strongly aligns with large-BA days; (3) construct a spatially shuffled FWI dataset by randomly permuting fields across countries while preserving local statistics to isolate the role of cross-country spatial correlations and then compare the distribution of area under FWI ≥ 50 with the real data; (4) use an event-based approach, selecting the 10 days with the largest annual maxima in spatial FWI extent (FWI ≥ 50), then calculate standardized anomalies of FWI and its meteorological inputs over 80 days prior and 5 days after, showing that extremes emerge from a 1–2 month build-up of hot, dry anomalies with late intensification in temperature and minimum relative humidity and less systematic but event-day-elevated winds; and (5) quantify long-term trends in FWI and decompose contributions of individual drivers using both ERA5 trends and CMIP6 climate model output to isolate the human-induced climate change signal. Limitations include: reliance on reanalysis (ERA5) rather than direct observations for weather fields; focus on fire danger (FWI) rather than actual ignition, fuel, and suppression processes, which they stress breaks any strict gridpoint FWI–BA causality; the burned-area linkage is examined at continental scale and only for 2001–2015; and the study does not provide public code or data links within the text, though it references detailed sensitivity tests and threshold justification in Methods and Supplementary figures. The authors explicitly caution against interpreting FWI ≥ 50 as a local fire-occurrence predictor while supporting robust aggregate claims about continental-scale BA likelihood and resource-strain potential under spatially compound meteorological extremes.

GeraldKutneyr/climate2 min read

University of Glasgow - University news - First detection of Usutu virus in Scotland

UK surveillance report describes the first detection of Usutu virus in Scottish blackbirds, based on passive wild-bird surveillance coupled with targeted mosquito field investigations, and stresses the need for expanded, systematic vector and avian monitoring.

www.gla.ac.uk2m

How China’s ‘teapot’ refineries are cushioning it from Iran war oil crisis  - St. Kitts Gazette – Daily News

Explainer uses quantitative import, reserve and price data plus expert commentary to show how China’s ‘teapot’ refineries, shadow fleet logistics and stockpiling strategies are cushioning—though not fully insulating—the country from the Strait of Hormuz closure during the US–Israel war on Iran.

stkittsgazette.com3m

Iran sets $1 a barrel Hormuz oil passage toll payable in yuan or stablecoins

r/CryptoCurrency

US Rig Count Rises For First Time in Three Weeks

Oil Price

Motor claims, simplified — faster processing across 186 cities with assured delivery program

www.hindustantimes.com

What the data does not say

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Education Ministry denies ‘decline’ claims of JNU NIRF rankings

The Education Ministry explicitly critiques a widely circulated claim that Jawaharlal Nehru University has dropped from rank 2 to 9 in India’s NIRF rankings. It argues the conclusion is based on an invalid comparison across categories: the “University” category, where JNU has held rank 2 for five consecutive years (2021–2025), versus the “Overall” category, where JNU actually moved up from rank 10 to rank 9 between 2024 and 2025. By conflating these distinct metrics, commentators infer a negative trajectory that the underlying data do not support. The ministry frames this as a substantive misinterpretation of the ranking design rather than a trivial error, warning that such categorical confusion can distort public understanding of institutional performance and undermine informed debate about higher-education quality.

Education Deskindianexpress.com1 min read

UVic alumnus’ work on wildfire research lands her on National Geographic list

Coverage of Kira Hoffman’s wildfire work links increased BC wildfire risk to climate change but relies on a program description and narrative reconstruction without presenting underlying data or controls, leaving possible confounders—like past fire suppression or land‑use change—untreated.

Ladysmith Chronicle1m

Asked two AI’s(both rooted in ChatGPT) For The Full Text From Iran’s President’s Open Letter, Both Searches Said They Couldn’t Do It.

A short news item reports that some AI chatbots declined to return the full text of Iran’s president’s open letter, and the user infers possible censorship or red‑line data issues, but there is no systematic evidence about model behavior or training data, so any conclusion about information suppression is highly speculative.

r/ArtificialInteligence2m

PSA: Anyone with a link can view your Granola notes by default

theverge.com

Cramer’s week ahead: Two key economic reports and earnings from Levi's, Delta

cnbc.com

Indonesia finalises market reforms after rout in January

www.freemalaysiatoday.com

Competing analyses

I have always seen myself as ‘progressive’ – but with AI it’s time to hit the brakes | Peter Lewis

The article is an opinion piece by Peter Lewis reflecting on whether embracing rapid AI deployment is compatible with a progressive political identity. It is anchored in the visit of Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei to Canberra, where he signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on ‘frontier AI safety’ and data‑centre principles with the Australian government. The author notes Amodei’s relatively positive reputation (ex‑OpenAI, critical of surveillance and autonomous weapons, involved in US authors’ lawsuit settlement), but argues that even a “good” AI oligarch represents a technology that is structurally both beneficial and harmful. Evidence‑based concerns raised: - AI systems require “huge amounts of energy” and are trained on “the stolen work of creators,” as reflected in a $1.5 billion US authors’ claim that Anthropic settled. - Amodei himself has predicted that up to half of white‑collar entry‑level jobs could be destroyed by AI, yet he continues to build these systems. - The Australian government, while historically aligned with unions, artists and parents, appears “all in on AI” based on industry‑sponsored productivity modelling, treating AI as a fast track to growth despite clear distributional and social risks. Interpretation 1 – AI acceleration as a betrayal of progressive commitments (assumes progressivism must prioritise labour, equity, and democratic stability over growth metrics): - The author frames AI as the latest stage of a longer arc: de‑industrialisation, financial crisis bailouts, then the rise of big tech and data‑extraction business models that have concentrated wealth and undermined trust. - Under this model, AI compounds these trends by centralising power in a handful of US‑based firms, replacing human cognition with machine outputs, and being built on extractive practices (surveillance, unremunerated use of creative work). - The MoU with Anthropic is therefore seen as politically convenient “manna from heaven” for a government seeking to look modern and “pro‑innovation” while sidelining unions’ and artists’ concerns. The risk is that if AI delivers large‑scale job losses, cultural degradation, and new tools for disinformation—as the author anticipates—populist parties can weaponise this as proof that the system has abandoned ordinary people. - On this view, genuine progressivism now requires ‘hitting the brakes’—supporting measures like Sanders and AOC’s proposed moratorium on new datacentres, building guardrails, and establishing red lines before further scaling. Interpretation 2 – Managed AI progress as potentially compatible with social democracy (assumes strong regulatory capacity and redistributive policy can bend AI toward public good): - A more optimistic reading of the same facts would treat Amodei’s engagement with government and explicit safety commitments as evidence that some firms are willing to accept constraints; MoUs on tracking frontier AI and supporting a “domestic ecosystem” could, in principle, give states leverage. - From this angle, the problem is less AI per se and more the broader neoliberal turn that weakened unions, embraced globalisation without adequate redistribution, and allowed tech monopolies to emerge largely unregulated. AI then becomes one more domain requiring muscular democratic governance: strong labour protections for workers displaced by automation, fair‑use or licensing regimes to compensate creators, carbon pricing or energy standards for datacentres, and robust content moderation and electoral‑integrity rules. - This interpretation would view calls for an absolute pause as politically difficult and potentially counterproductive (e.g., ceding leadership to less regulated jurisdictions), and instead prioritise “progress with conditions”—rapid deployment under stringent social and environmental constraints. Methodologically, the article grounds both interpretations in historical analogies (Hegel’s ‘arc toward justice,’ post‑Cold War “End of History,” deindustrialisation and the 2007–08 bailouts) and in current policy moves (the Anthropic MoU; Sanders and AOC’s proposed datacentre pause; US AI safety debates). It does not present new empirical data on AI’s impacts but synthesises existing concerns into a normative argument: either progressives redefine progress to include resistance to unfettered tech acceleration, as the 19th‑century Luddites did, or they risk fuelling the very populist backlash that threatens liberal democracy.

GothicPrayerr/technology4 min read

Mackey: We’ll reduce our reliance on resident doctors in response to strikes

NHS England chief executive Sir Jim Mackey says the health service will deliberately redesign clinical models to be less reliant on resident doctors in response to ongoing strikes. This signals a structural workforce shift rather than a purely pay‑and‑conditions dispute, with potential long‑term implications for medical training, staffing mix and patient care models.

r/ukpolitics3m

AI tools to increase IVF success rate and reduce patient costs

A Delhi IVF clinic has introduced two AI tools—SiD for sperm selection and ERICA for embryo ranking—claiming they can improve first‑cycle IVF success rates by 5–7% and reduce overall patient costs by shortening time to pregnancy. The tools analyse millions of parameters from static images and are trained in part on Indian genomic data, but a full clinical evidence base is not presented.

www.thehindu.com3m