Rise of Robots: Machines Are Learning Daily Human Tasks [Full News Memo]

Vatican Addresses Gender Ideology, Arizona Restores 1864 Abortion Law, The Woman That Walked Around the World

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P.S. In this week’s memo:

• Arizona Restores 1864 Abortion Law

• Rise of Robots: Machines Are Learning Daily Human Tasks

• Elon Musk, X in Free Speech Battle with Brazil

• GetSmart: 🌎 The Woman That Walked Around the World 

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Newsbites

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Dominican Republic Builds Border Wall: Amid the growing gang control of Haiti, the neighboring country, the Dominican Republic (DR), has sped up its building of a 250-mile concrete wall to physically separate the two countries. DR President Luis Abinader has staked much of his election campaign on border security, a top concern for citizens of the country. If he wins in May 2024, he promises to complete the $120M wall. Haiti is in chaos after controlling gangs attacked police stations and released more than 4,000 prison inmates in March. 

Insightful: We found this video of Drew Blinksy, a popular YouTuber who traveled to Haiti recently and shows first hand what Haitians have been living. (video)

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Vatican Addresses Gender Ideology: After five years in the making, the Vatican released a document titled, “Infinite Dignity”. The writing denounces gender affirming surgery and gender ideology saying, “It follows that any sex-change intervention, as a rule, risks threatening the unique dignity the person has received from the moment of conception.” The document also states that “[gender theory] intends to deny the greatest possible difference that exists between living beings: sexual difference. This foundational difference is not only the greatest imaginable difference but is also the most beautiful and most powerful of them.” 

More: Infinite Dignity also addresses poverty, abortion, digital violence and other topics. (read here)

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Student Loan Forgiveness: The Biden Administration will attempt to forgive 30M Americans of their student loans in a new proposal. It’s not the first time Biden has sought large-scale student loan relief. His proposal to cut $20,000 of student debt for those making less than $125,000 was rejected by the Supreme Court last year. The new plan, which aims to have more solid legal footing, would cancel $20,000 of interest for those who have been paying their undergraduate loans for 20+ years and graduate students for 25 years. The news comes seven months away from a presidential election in which Biden trails Trump in the polls and may be seeking more support from a younger voter base strapped with student debt.

More: The White House has not said how much the program would cost. The last rejected proposal was expected to cost $430B.

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The Inflation Train: The consumer price index (CPI) rose 3.5% in March compared to the year prior, higher than what economists had forecasted. After consecutive declines in the last two years, inflation has now remained flat or increased since June of 2023. While the Federal Reserve has said it plans to lower interest rates this year (which affects mortgage and car loan rates), the stickiness of inflation is now putting those rate cuts in doubt.

More: The areas showing the biggest price increases were housing (rent, home repairs), transportation services (vehicle insurance increased 22%), electricity, and food at restaurants.

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Main Stories

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Arizona Restores 1864 Abortion Law

"Physicians are now on notice that all abortions, except those necessary to save a woman's life, are illegal."

What’s going on?
The Arizona Supreme Court resumed a 1864 law that bans all abortions except when the life of the Mother is at stake. The law also carries a 2-5 year prison sentence for physicians or anyone who aids in the process of an abortion, including pills, which are the most common form of abortion today. 

The ruling will be enforced in two weeks. Democrat State Attorney General Kris Mayes said she will not prosecute anyone on abortion-related crimes while she is in office. But local pro-life groups think some prosecutors could charge doctors.

A quick rundown of how it happened
Arizona has had the law on the books since it was passed in 1864, before Arizona was added to the Union in 1912. When Roe v. Wade was passed in 1973, the 1864 law was irrelevant for 50 years. But after Roe was overturned, the law could technically be resumed.

Republicans passed a 15 week ban on abortion in 2022, but gave a provision that further abortion restrictions could be implemented in the future. On Tuesday, the state Supreme Court ruled the 15 week abortion ban legislation did not override the 1864 law.

The ban could be repealed by the state legislature, but for now, it will become the law of the land in Arizona. The Court, which voted 4-2 on the issue, said, "policy matters of this gravity must ultimately be resolved by our citizens through the legislature or the initiative process."

Highlights from the ruling (official AZ Supreme Court ruling)

• “In light of this Opinion, physicians are now on notice that all abortions, except those necessary to save a woman’s life, are illegal.”

• “A person who provides, supplies or administers to a pregnant woman, or procures such woman to take any medicine, drugs or substance, or uses or employs any instrument or other means whatever, with intent thereby to procure the miscarriage of such woman, unless it is necessary to save her life.”

• "Policy matters of this gravity must ultimately be resolved by our citizens through the legislature or the initiative process."
  

Some context
When Roe v. Wade was overturned in June 2022, the Supreme Court gave individual state legislatures the authority to enact abortion laws. Since then, numerous states have placed bans on abortion. Some, such as Texas, have banned the procedure outright, with no exceptions for rape and incest, while others like Nebraska banned abortion after 12 weeks of pregnancy.

On the contrary, more liberal states such as California have expanded abortion access through executive orders that provide easy access for women from states without abortion. (full list of states laws)

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Rise of Robots: Machines Are Learning Daily Human Tasks

Robots are advancing in their ability to perform a variety of tasks, everything from cleaning bathrooms, to folding clothes, to self-driving cars, to processing meat. Development will likely accelerate in the coming years as companies seek to automate jobs amid a shrinking labor force and wage inflation, along with advancements in artificial intelligence that will make robots more agile and precise. 

Below are some examples of robots already being utilized, along with those still in development:

• Bathroom Janitor Robot: getSOMATIC is developing a janitor robot that can clean bathrooms unassisted in a multi-story building. (video)

• Tesla Optimus, a general humanoid robot, is able to fold clothes and sort colored cubes into correct bins.