‘I am NOT taking drugs!’ Musk denies damning report
Elon Musk on Saturday denied a report that he used ketamine and other drugs extensively last year on the 2024 campaign trail.The New York Times reported Friday that the billionaire adviser to President Donald Trump used so much ketamine, a powerful anesthetic, that he developed bladder problems.The newspaper said the world’s richest person also took ecstasy and mushrooms and traveled with a pill box last year, adding that it was not known whether Musk also took drugs while heading the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) after Trump took power in January.In a post Saturday on X, Musk said: “To be clear, I am NOT taking drugs! The New York Times was lying their ass off.”He added: “I tried ‘prescription’ ketamine a few years ago and said so on X, so this not even news. It helps for getting out of dark mental holes, but haven’t taken it since then.”Musk first dodged a question about his drug use at a bizarre farewell appearance Friday with Trump in the Oval Office in which the Tesla and SpaceX boss sported a noticeable black eye as he formally ended his role as Trump’s main cost-cutter at DOGE, which fired tens of thousands of civil servants.News of the injury drew substantial attention as it came right after the Times report on his alleged drug use. The daily recalled erratic behavior such as Musk giving an enthusiastic Nazi-style salute in January of this year at a rally celebrating Trump’s inauguration.Musk said he got the injury while horsing around with his young son, named X, when he told the child to hit him in the face.”And he did. Turns out even a five-year-old punching you in the face actually is…” he added, before tailing off.Later Friday, when a reporter asked Trump if he was aware of Musk’s “regular drug use,” Trump responded: “I wasn’t.” “I think Elon is a fantastic guy,” he added. Musk has previously admitted to taking ketamine, saying he was prescribed it to treat a “negative frame of mind” and suggesting his use of drugs benefited his work.
‘Moving forward’: the Gen-Z farmer growing Fukushima kiwis
A short drive from the Fukushima nuclear disaster site, novice farmer Takuya Haraguchi tends to his kiwi saplings under the spring sunshine, bringing life back to a former no-go zone.Haraguchi was 11 years old when Japan’s strongest earthquake on record struck in March 2011, unleashing a tsunami that left 18,500 people dead or missing.The wall of water crashed into the Fukushima nuclear plant on the northeast coast, causing a devastating meltdown.At the time the bookish young Haraguchi, who grew up far away in Osaka, feared that radiation would make the whole country uninhabitable.But now, aged 25, the new resident of the rural town of Okuma says he believes in the future of Fukushima region.”Everyone knows about the nuclear accident. But not many people know about this area, and how it’s moving forward,” Haraguchi, tanned from working on his farm, told AFP.”By growing kiwis here, I want people to take an interest in and learn about what Fukushima is really like these days.”The region of Fukushima is renowned for its delicious fruit, from pears to peaches, but the nuclear disaster led many people in Japan to shun produce grown there.Just over 14 years later, following extensive decontamination work including stripping an entire layer of soil from farmland, authorities say food from Fukushima is safe, having been rigorously screened for radiation.Last year Fukushima peaches were sold at London’s Harrods department store, while in Japan some consumers now choose to buy the region’s produce to support struggling farmers.”The safety has been proven,” said Haraguchi, who often sports a kiwi-print bucket hat. “I think it’s important that we do it here.”- Starting from ‘zero’ -Haraguchi studied software engineering at university but dreamed of becoming a fruit farmer.He first visited Okuma in 2021 for an event targeted at students, and met residents trying to bring back kiwi farming in an effort to rebuild their community.He also met a veteran farmer, who moved away after the disaster and whose kiwis’ rich flavour left him stunned.Inspired, Haraguchi returned many times for research before starting his venture, called ReFruits, with a business partner who recently graduated from university in Tokyo.They manage 2.5 hectares (six acres) of land, and hope to harvest their first kiwis next year.Haraguchi regards the destruction seen by the Fukushima region not as a blight, but an opportunity.”Because it went to zero once, we can try and test all sorts of challenging new ideas,” he said.After the disaster, nuclear fallout forced all of Okuma’s 11,000 residents to flee their homes.Overall across Fukushima region, around 80,000 people were ordered to evacuate for their safety, while the same number again left voluntarily, authorities say.Since then the stricken plant’s reactors have been stabilised, although decommissioning work is expected to take decades.Sections of Okuma, previously a no-go zone, were declared safe for residents to start to return in 2019.Only a fraction of its previous population has come back — but young outsiders like Haraguchi are moving there, taking advantage of government subsidies for things like housing and business assistance.Now, of around 1,500 people living in Okuma, more than 1,000 are newcomers, including hundreds who work on the plant but also agriculture and even tech start-ups.- Radiation tests -Today dozens of sensors monitor radiation levels in Okuma, which are within officially set safety limits, but still higher than in areas far from the nuclear plant.Some parts, such as unused hillsides, remain off-limits.On Haraguchi’s farm, soil tests show a slightly elevated level of radiation that meets an internationally accepted food standard.Tests on fruit from Fukushima have also shown that the radiation levels are low enough for consumption, the government says.Kaori Suzuki, who leads the non-profit citizen science group “Mothers’ Radiation Lab Fukushima – TARACHINE”, warns however that risks could remain now and in the future.Among other activities, her group conducts its own radiation tests on Fukushima’s soil and food to help residents who are choosing local products to consume.Although “it’s up to individuals to decide what to eat… it’s better to be cautious, because people have become more relaxed”, she said.Haraguchi, who is travelling internationally to share his story and that of the region, hopes his work could eventually ease concerns about Fukushima’s fruit.”We don’t need to force our products on people who are uneasy about this place and its crops,” he said, adding that he was committed to transparency.”We need to sell our products to people who understand.”
La Pologne tient une présidentielle critique pour son rôle dans l’UE
Les Polonais participent dimanche à une élection présidentielle qui s’annonce extrêmement serrée et dont le résultat aura des implications majeures pour la place de leur pays en Europe, mais aussi pour le droit à l’avortement et les personnes LGBT+.Rafal Trzaskowski, 53 ans, maire pro-UE de Varsovie et allié du gouvernement centriste, affronte au second tour l’historien nationaliste Karol Nawrocki, 42 ans, soutenu par le parti Droit et Justice (PiS) du président conservateur sortant Andrzej Duda.Les sondages prévoient une élection particulièrement serrée. M. Nawrocki bénéficie de 50,1% et M. Trzaskowski de 49,9% des intentions de vote, une différence infime qui se situe dans la marge d’erreur. Les bureaux de vote seront ouverts de 05h00 à 19h00 GMT dans ce pays membre de l’UE et de l’Otan, qui borde l’Ukraine et reste un fervent soutien de son voisin qui se défend contre la Russie. Un sondage à la sortie des urnes est attendu dès la fermeture des bureaux de vote, mais le résultat final ne devrait être connu que lundi. Une victoire de M. Trzaskowski donnerait un grand coup de pouce pour l’agenda progressiste du gouvernement dirigé par le Premier ministre Donald Tusk, ancien président du Conseil européen. Cela pourrait entraîner des changements sociaux significatifs tels que l’introduction de partenariats civils pour les couples de même sexe et un assouplissement de la législation sur l’avortement, aujourd’hui quasiment interdit. Le président en Pologne, pays de 38 millions d’habitants, a le droit de veto sur les lois, et est également le chef des forces armées. Une victoire de Karol Nawrocki renforcerait le parti populiste Droit et Justice qui a gouverné la Pologne entre 2015 et 2023, et pourrait entraîner de nouvelles élections parlementaires. De nombreux partisans de Karol Nawrocki veulent des restrictions plus strictes sur l’immigration et une plus large souveraineté de leur pays au sein de l’Union européenne. “Nous ne devrions pas céder aux pressions européennes”, a dit Agnieszka Prokopiuk, 40 ans, femme au foyer, avant le vote. “Nous devons suivre notre propre voie… et ne pas succomber aux tendances venant de l’Ouest”, a-t-elle ajouté, dans la ville de Biala Podlaska, près de la frontière avec le Bélarus. Selon Tomasz Czublun, mécanicien de 48 ans, “l’Union européenne est importante mais la souveraineté de notre pays est beaucoup plus importante”.- Ukraine -Anna Materska-Sosnowska, experte politique, a qualifié l’élection de “véritable choc de civilisations” en raison des importantes divergences de politiques entre les candidats. De nombreux électeurs de Rafal Trzaskowski soutiennent une plus grande intégration au sein de l’UE et une accélération des réformes sociales dans ce pays dont l’économie est en forte croissance. Pour Malgorzata Wojciechowska, quinquagénaire, guide touristique et enseignante, “malheureusement, les femmes polonaises n’ont pas les mêmes droits que leurs amies européennes”. “J’espère que Rafal Trzaskowski relancera le débat sur l’avortement afin que nous puissions enfin vivre dans un pays libre où nous pouvons avoir notre propre opinion”, confie-t-elle à l’AFP. L’élection est également suivie de près en Ukraine, pays voisin qui cherche à renforcer le soutien diplomatique international pour ses négociations difficiles avec la Russie. Karol Nawrocki, admirateur du président américain Donald Trump, s’oppose à l’adhésion de Kiev à l’Otan et a appelé à des restrictions sur les avantages dont bénéficient environ un million de réfugiés ukrainiens en Pologne. Aux dernières heures de sa campagne, vendredi, il est allé fleurir un monument dédié aux Polonais tués par des nationalistes ukrainiens pendant la Seconde Guerre mondiale. “C’était un génocide contre le peuple polonais”, a-t-il déclaré. Le résultat final de l’élection devrait dépendre de la capacité de Rafal Trzaskowski à mobiliser suffisamment de supporters, et de la volonté des électeurs d’extrême droite de reporter leur vote sur M. Nawrocki. Les candidats d’extrême droite ont obtenu au total plus de 21% des voix au premier tour, que M. Trzaskowski a remporté de justesse avec 31% des voix, contre 30% pour M. Nawrocki.
La Pologne tient une présidentielle critique pour son rôle dans l’UE
Les Polonais participent dimanche à une élection présidentielle qui s’annonce extrêmement serrée et dont le résultat aura des implications majeures pour la place de leur pays en Europe, mais aussi pour le droit à l’avortement et les personnes LGBT+.Rafal Trzaskowski, 53 ans, maire pro-UE de Varsovie et allié du gouvernement centriste, affronte au second tour l’historien nationaliste Karol Nawrocki, 42 ans, soutenu par le parti Droit et Justice (PiS) du président conservateur sortant Andrzej Duda.Les sondages prévoient une élection particulièrement serrée. M. Nawrocki bénéficie de 50,1% et M. Trzaskowski de 49,9% des intentions de vote, une différence infime qui se situe dans la marge d’erreur. Les bureaux de vote seront ouverts de 05h00 à 19h00 GMT dans ce pays membre de l’UE et de l’Otan, qui borde l’Ukraine et reste un fervent soutien de son voisin qui se défend contre la Russie. Un sondage à la sortie des urnes est attendu dès la fermeture des bureaux de vote, mais le résultat final ne devrait être connu que lundi. Une victoire de M. Trzaskowski donnerait un grand coup de pouce pour l’agenda progressiste du gouvernement dirigé par le Premier ministre Donald Tusk, ancien président du Conseil européen. Cela pourrait entraîner des changements sociaux significatifs tels que l’introduction de partenariats civils pour les couples de même sexe et un assouplissement de la législation sur l’avortement, aujourd’hui quasiment interdit. Le président en Pologne, pays de 38 millions d’habitants, a le droit de veto sur les lois, et est également le chef des forces armées. Une victoire de Karol Nawrocki renforcerait le parti populiste Droit et Justice qui a gouverné la Pologne entre 2015 et 2023, et pourrait entraîner de nouvelles élections parlementaires. De nombreux partisans de Karol Nawrocki veulent des restrictions plus strictes sur l’immigration et une plus large souveraineté de leur pays au sein de l’Union européenne. “Nous ne devrions pas céder aux pressions européennes”, a dit Agnieszka Prokopiuk, 40 ans, femme au foyer, avant le vote. “Nous devons suivre notre propre voie… et ne pas succomber aux tendances venant de l’Ouest”, a-t-elle ajouté, dans la ville de Biala Podlaska, près de la frontière avec le Bélarus. Selon Tomasz Czublun, mécanicien de 48 ans, “l’Union européenne est importante mais la souveraineté de notre pays est beaucoup plus importante”.- Ukraine -Anna Materska-Sosnowska, experte politique, a qualifié l’élection de “véritable choc de civilisations” en raison des importantes divergences de politiques entre les candidats. De nombreux électeurs de Rafal Trzaskowski soutiennent une plus grande intégration au sein de l’UE et une accélération des réformes sociales dans ce pays dont l’économie est en forte croissance. Pour Malgorzata Wojciechowska, quinquagénaire, guide touristique et enseignante, “malheureusement, les femmes polonaises n’ont pas les mêmes droits que leurs amies européennes”. “J’espère que Rafal Trzaskowski relancera le débat sur l’avortement afin que nous puissions enfin vivre dans un pays libre où nous pouvons avoir notre propre opinion”, confie-t-elle à l’AFP. L’élection est également suivie de près en Ukraine, pays voisin qui cherche à renforcer le soutien diplomatique international pour ses négociations difficiles avec la Russie. Karol Nawrocki, admirateur du président américain Donald Trump, s’oppose à l’adhésion de Kiev à l’Otan et a appelé à des restrictions sur les avantages dont bénéficient environ un million de réfugiés ukrainiens en Pologne. Aux dernières heures de sa campagne, vendredi, il est allé fleurir un monument dédié aux Polonais tués par des nationalistes ukrainiens pendant la Seconde Guerre mondiale. “C’était un génocide contre le peuple polonais”, a-t-il déclaré. Le résultat final de l’élection devrait dépendre de la capacité de Rafal Trzaskowski à mobiliser suffisamment de supporters, et de la volonté des électeurs d’extrême droite de reporter leur vote sur M. Nawrocki. Les candidats d’extrême droite ont obtenu au total plus de 21% des voix au premier tour, que M. Trzaskowski a remporté de justesse avec 31% des voix, contre 30% pour M. Nawrocki.
‘The Matrix is everywhere’: cinema bets on immersion
In a Los Angeles theater, a trench coat-wearing Neo bends backwards to dodge bullets that spiral over the viewer’s head, as the sound of gunfire erupts from everywhere.This new immersive experience is designed to be a red pill moment that will get film fans off their couches at a time when the movie industry is desperate to bring back audiences. Cosm, which has venues in Los Angeles and Dallas, is launching its dome-style screen and 3D sets in June with a “shared reality” version of “The Matrix,” the cult 1999 film starring Keanu Reeves as a man who suddenly learns his world is a fiction.”We believe the future will be more immersive and more experiential,” said Cosm president Jeb Terry at a recent preview screening.”It’s trying to create an additive, a new experience, ideally non-cannibalistic, so that the industry can continue to thrive across all formats.”Cinema audiences were already dwindling when the Covid-19 pandemic broke out, shuttering theaters at a time when streaming was exploding.With ever bigger and better TVs available for the home, the challenge for theater owners is to offer something that movie buffs cannot get in their living room.Prestige projects like Tom Cruise’s “Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning” or Christopher Nolan’s Oscar-winning “Oppenheimer” increasingly opt for the huge screens and superior film quality of IMAX.But Cosm and other projects like it want to go one step further, collaborating with designers who have worked with Cirque du Soleil to create an environment in which the viewer feels like they are inside the film.For filmmakers, it’s all about how you place the cameras and where you capture the sound, said Jay Rinsky, founder of Little Cinema, a creative studio specializing in immersive experiences.”We create sets like the Parisian opera, let the movie be the singer, follow the tone, highlight the emotions… through light, through production design, through 3D environments,” he said.The approach, he said, felt particularly well suited to “The Matrix,” which he called “a masterpiece of cinema, but done as a rectangle.”For the uninitiated: Reeves’s Neo is a computer hacker who starts poking around in a life that doesn’t quite seem to fit.A mysterious Laurence Fishburne offers him a blue pill that will leave him where he is, or a red pill that will show him he is a slave whose body is being farmed by AI machines while his conscious lives in a computer simulation.There follows much gunfire, lots of martial arts and some mysticism, along with a romance between Neo and Trinity, played by the leather-clad Carrie-Anne Moss.”The Matrix” in shared reality kicks off with a choice of cocktails — blue or red, of course — which are consumed as the audience sits surrounded by high-definition screens.Shifting perspectives place the viewer inside Neo’s office cubicle, or seemingly in peril.”They’re sometimes inside the character’s head,” said Rinsky. “The world changes as you look up and down for trucks coming at you.”The result impressed those who were at the preview screening.”It just did feel like an experience,” influencer Vince Rossi told AFP. “It felt like you’re at a theme park for a movie almost.”
Silicon Valley VCs navigate uncertain AI future
For Silicon Valley venture capitalists, the world has split into two camps: those with deep enough pockets to invest in artificial intelligence behemoths, and everyone else waiting to see where the AI revolution leads.The generative AI frenzy unleashed by ChatGPT in 2022 has propelled a handful of venture-backed companies to eye-watering valuations. Leading the pack is OpenAI, which raised $40 billion in its latest funding round at a $300 billion valuation — unprecedented largesse in Silicon Valley’s history.Other AI giants are following suit. Anthropic now commands a $61.5 billion valuation, while Elon Musk’s xAI is reportedly in talks to raise $20 billion at a $120 billion price tag.The stakes have grown so high that even major venture capital firms — the same ones that helped birth the internet revolution — can no longer compete. Mostly, only the deepest pockets remain in the game: big tech companies, Japan’s SoftBank, and Middle Eastern investment funds betting big on a post-fossil fuel future.”There’s a really clear split between the haves and the have-nots,” says Emily Zheng, senior analyst at PitchBook, told AFP at the Web Summit in Vancouver. “Even though the top-line figures are very high, it’s not necessarily representative of venture overall, because there’s just a few elite startups and a lot of them happen to be AI.”Given Silicon Valley’s confidence that AI represents an era-defining shift, venture capitalists face a crucial challenge: finding viable opportunities in an excruciatingly expensive market that is rife with disruption.Simon Wu of Cathay Innovation sees clear customer demand for AI improvements, even if most spending flows to the biggest players. “AI across the board, if you’re selling a product that makes you more efficient, that’s flying off the shelves,” Wu explained. “People will find money to spend on OpenAI” and the big players.The real challenge, according to Andy McLoughlin, managing partner at San Francisco-based Uncork Capital, is determining “where the opportunities are against the mega platforms.” “If you’re OpenAI or Anthropic, the amount that you can do is huge. So where are the places that those companies cannot play?”Finding that answer isn’t easy. In an industry where large language models behind ChatGPT, Claude and Google’s Gemini seem to have limitless potential, everything moves at breakneck speed.AI giants including Google, Microsoft, and Amazon are releasing tools and products at a furious pace. ChatGPT and its rivals now handle search, translation, and coding all within one chatbot — raising doubts among investors about what new ideas could possibly survive the competition.Generative AI has also democratized software development, allowing non-professionals to code new applications from simple prompts. This completely disrupts traditional startup organization models.”Every day I think, what am I going to wake up to today in terms of something that has changed or (was) announced geopolitically or within our world as tech investors,” reflected Christine Tsai, founding partner and CEO at 500 Global.- The ‘moat’ problem -In Silicon Valley parlance, companies are struggling to find a “moat” — that unique feature or breakthrough like Microsoft Windows in the 1990s or Google Search in the 2000s that’s so successful it takes competitors years to catch up, if ever.When it comes to business software, AI is “shaking up the topology of what makes sense and what’s investable,” noted Brett Gibson, managing partner at Initialized Capital.The risks seem particularly acute given that generative AI’s economics remain unproven. Even the biggest players see a very uncertain path to profitability given the massive sums involved.The huge valuations for OpenAI and others are causing “a lot of squinting of the eyes, with people wondering ‘is this really going to replace labor costs'” at the levels needed to justify the investments, Wu observed. Despite AI’s importance, “I think everyone’s starting to see how this might fall short of the magical” even if its early days, he added.Still, only the rare contrarians believe generative AI isn’t here to stay.In five years, “we won’t be talking about AI the same way we’re talking about it now, the same way we don’t talk about mobile or cloud,” predicted McLoughlin. “It’ll become a fabric of how everything gets built.”But who will be building remains an open question.