Weds: Musk Continues to Muck Up Everything

Are They Selling Postcards of the Hanging?

Singapore has hanged 46-year-old Tangaraju Suppiah who was found guilty in 2018 of trafficking more than 1kg (2.2 pounds) of cannabis, despite last-minute appeals for clemency from his family and activists.

His family said they had been given Tangaraju’s death certificate, anti-death penalty campaigner Kirsten Han wrote on Twitter.

Tangaraju Suppiah was sentenced to death in 2018 for abetting the attempted trafficking of just more than 1kg of cannabis. A judge found he was using a phone number that was communicating with traffickers attempting to smuggle the drugs into Singapore.

Tangaraju’s family and activists had argued the 46-year-old was not provided with adequate legal counsel and that he was denied access to a Tamil interpreter while being questioned by the police.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) Deputy Asia Director Phil Robertson deplored the execution and said the evidence against Tangaraju was “far from clear cut – since he never actually touched the marijuana in question, was questioned by police without a lawyer, and denied access to a Tamil interpreter when he asked for one”.

Amnesty International described the execution as “unlawful” and said that proceedings “violated international law and standards”.

Musk Continues to Muck Up Everything

Tesla shares have plummeted 22% in under a month, dropping from over $207 on March 31 to the $160.67 level they traded at when markets closed Tuesday.

That means the stock is significantly lagging the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite index, which slipped just 2% in April, and the benchmark S&P 500, which has traded roughly level over the same period.

The EV maker's stock plunge has wiped out about $143 billion in value for investors, with its total market capitalization plunging to $513 billion from $657 billion at the end of last month.

Tesla has slashed car prices six times in 2023 – meaning that the entry-level Model 3 now costs less than $40,000, down from $62,990 at the start of the year, while the Model S and Model X are also 20% cheaper than they were on January 1. Musk is shaving almost a third of the cost off its top-selling model in the US. The strategy has no precedent—nor is there consensus as to whether it heralds more industry disruption or signals Musk’s desperation.

Meanwhile, Most Folks Are Flipping the Bird at Twitter





My Alma Mater Flipos Him the Bird, Too.


What About Generalissimo Francisco Franco?

News from the East Coast --- Of Antarctica

The US Navy, the Coast Guard, and NOAA's United States National Ice Center have confirmed a significant break in the glacial stream of Vanderford Glacier in the Wilkes Land region (Australia Antarctic Division) of East Antarctica which fronts the Indian Ocean. The calved iceberg measures seven by four miles and was large enough to become known as Iceberg C40.

East Antarctica was always considered a stable region of the polar regions since the latter stages of the Last Interglacial Period (LIP) over 116,000 years ago when Earth was slightly warmer than it is today and seas were stable similar to today's levels.

Wilkes Land has a paleo-climatological record of melting, thinning, and retreating. This a worrisome finding since humanity's fossil fuel emissions have activated the tipping point for the eastern Antarctic. West Antarctica has already passed the milestone.

The Doctor is Out --- Or Leaving

A crisis of care is quickly unfolding in Idaho. There are two abortion bans currently in place: a six-week ban that allows private citizens to sue people who violate the law, and a near-total ban, also known as the trigger ban, that carries criminal penalties and automatically went into effect after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Between them, the two abortion bans allow for few exceptions and carry a slew of punishments for physicians. The penalties range from civil suits with fines starting at $20,000 to the permanent suspension of a medical license and the threat of felony charges that carry a maximum of five years in prison.

The near-total ban was especially insidious in its first six months because it included an affirmative defense law that essentially asserted any doctor who provided an abortion was guilty until proven innocent. (“Scary is an understatement,” Cooper said of the statute.) A bill amending the trigger ban, which strikes the affirmative defense statute and clarifies that removing a nonviable fetus or an ectopic pregnancy does not qualify as an abortion, passed this legislative session. Many medical professionals were critical of the amendment, noting that the law still includes felony punishment and there continues to be no true exceptions for the life and health of the pregnant person.

The feelings of helplessness and the threat of prison time for simply doing their jobs are forcing some providers to leave Idaho. Nearly 50% of maternal health doctors in Idaho are considering leaving the state in the next year, according to a survey conducted by the Idaho Coalition for Safe Reproductive Health Care. An additional 27% responded they are “maybe” considering leaving the state.

“Providers are leaving and the bottom line is that women and families cannot access quality pregnancy care if there are no qualified providers to care for them,” Cooper said. “We are already seeing the ripple effects from the abortion bans.”

But This Only Hurts Women and Children. It Doesn't Hurt Old White Men, So the QOP Doesn't Care

This is the Wrong Kind of Rock and Roll.

Three suspects have been arrested for allegedly throwing large landscaping rocks toward at least seven cars on Colorado roads last week, authorities said. The last of the seven incidents claimed the life of 20-year-old driver Alexa Bartell.

The suspects, all 18-year-old high school seniors, were taken into custody at their parents' homes in Arvada overnight and are all facing charges of first-degree murder, with extreme indifference, the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office announced Wednesday morning. Additional charges are expected, authorities said.

It's not clear which suspect or suspects -- identified as Joseph Koenig, Nicholas "Mitch" Karol-Chik and Zachary Kwak -- were driving during the spree, but all three are suspected of throwing rocks, authorities said. It appears they threw the rocks while driving, authorities said.

Around 10:45 p.m. on April 19, Bartell was driving when someone threw a large rock through her windshield, hitting and killing her, the sheriff's office said.

In the hour before Bartell was killed, six other cars in the area had rocks thrown at them, according to the sheriff's office. In two of those incidents, the drivers suffered minor injuries.

The sheriff's office said phone forensics and information from the public helped lead to the arrests.

Is a SPAC Really a SCAM?

The SPAC boom took hundreds of risky companies to the stock market. The next stop for many is bankruptcy court.

Dozens of companies that merged with SPACs are running out of cash, joining at least 12 that have already gone bankrupt after combining with special-purpose acquisition companies.

More than 100 companies, including electric-scooter firm Bird Global Inc., smart-sock baby-monitor maker Owlet Inc. and electric-car startup Faraday Future Intelligent Electric Inc. are running out of cash, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of the companies’ cash and cash flow from operations data disclosed in regulatory filings.

Shares of many of these companies trade under $1, more than 90% below where they did when they went public, and are in danger of being delisted. Those that have raised cash typically have done it on onerous terms. Bird extended its runway by merging with its Canadian partner.

Many of these businesses were worth billions when they hit the market and drew in small investors excited at the prospects of space tourism, cryptocurrencies and electric cars. Companies that went public this way have since collectively lost more than $100 billion in market value.

Richard Branson’s Virgin Orbit Holdings Inc. is the latest big name to go bankrupt. The satellite-launch startup was valued above $3 billion and backed by investors including Boeing Co. when it went public at the end of 2021.

SPAC deals were supposed to provide a big lift for young companies, giving them cash and a stock-market listing. Instead, they put them under pressure to deliver and left them vulnerable to rising interest rates and the vagaries of public markets.

“That lifeline pulling them up was actually a hand on the neck to further their death,” said Julian Klymochko, who manages a SPAC-focused fund at Accelerate Financial Technologies.

First-quarter earnings reports coming in the next few weeks could be a tipping point for many companies. The reports are expected to show declining cash and little chance of turning profits quickly enough to avoid a bust. Many companies have already cut spending and are trying to raise cash.

Using figures from data providers SPAC Research and FactSet, the Journal analyzed 342 companies that did SPAC deals between 2016 and 2022 and filed a quarterly or annual report in the past three quarters with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Some 101 companies could run out of cash within a year based on how much they reported spending on operating activities, the Journal’s analysis shows. On average, they have enough cash and short-term investments to cover spending for about five months.

More than 90 companies in the analysis had positive cash flows from operations during their most recent reporting period, meaning they were likely accumulating cash.

Bird was once valued at $2 billion by venture capitalists shortly after its creation in 2017 and reached that mark again in its 2021 SPAC deal. The company has been hit hard by rising costs and warned in November that it could soon file for bankruptcy.

In early January, it raised about $30 million in convertible notes and money from top executives by merging with its Canadian partner. A spokeswoman said the recent funding should help Bird build a self-sustaining business.

Many of the companies can raise cash only by giving up some control, raising expensive debt or pledging their most valuable assets, bankers and advisers say. “The financings that are available to these failing companies are just going to accelerate their demise,” said Adam Epstein of Third Creek Advisors LLC, who works with startups.