Marketplace All-in-One Marketplace

Maersk is forecasting industry-wide capacity reduction of up to 20% for cargo shipping between Asia and Europe; Global growth in gasoline consumption is likely to slow, consulting group says; EU clears Nippon Steel’s buyout of U.S. Steel; Berkshire Hathaway trims stock holdings.

The Biden administration announces new initiatives to ease the transition to EVs — particularly in swing states like Michigan. Plus, Sweden sees growing economic inequality, and markets guess at the timeline for interest rate cuts.

A growing number of Americans are worried they won’t have enough money to live on once they reach retirement. Plus, a $79 million fine for selling “phantom flights” at Qantas, succession plans at Berkshire Hathaway, new health care access for DACA recipients, and Boeing preps for a spacecraft launch.

From the BBC World Service: China’s President Xi Jinping visits Europe for the first time in five years, and trade tensions look likely to be high on the agenda. Has Sweden become a paradise for the superrich? It’s had a reputation for championing social equality, but there’s been a rapid boom in the number of Swedish multimillionaires and billionaires in recent years. The actor Will Ferrell is the latest Hollywood megastar to invest in English soccer club Leeds United — following in the footsteps of Russell Crowe.

The following content may be disturbing to some listeners.

For years, child sexual abuse material was mostly distributed by mail. Authorities used investigative techniques to stem its spread. That got a lot harder when the internet came along. And AI has supercharged the problem.

“Those 750,000 predators that are online at any given time looking to connect with minor[s] … they just need to find a picture of a child and use the AI to generate child sexual abuse materials and superimpose these faces on something that is inappropriate,” says child safety advocate and TikTokker Tiana Sharifi.

The nonprofit Thorn has created new design principles aimed at fighting child sexual abuse. Rebecca Portnoff, the organization’s vice president of data science, says tech companies need to develop better technology to detect AI-generated images and commit not to use this material to train AI models.

Southern European economies, including Greece, are growing faster than some of Europe’s longtime powerhouses, like Germany. We’ll get into how Greece pulled off an economic turnaround after the devastating 2012 financial crisis. And, Halle Berry’s shouts from the steps of the Capitol are calling attention to the need for more menopause research. Plus, we’ll play a round of Half Full / Half Empty!



Here’s everything we talked about today:







“Europe’s Economic Laggards Have Become Its Leaders” from The New York Times








“Halle Berry shouts from the Capitol, ‘I’m in menopause’ as she seeks to end a stigma and win funding” from AP News








“Dave & Buster’s to let adult customers bet on arcade games” from Marketplace








“As work communication migrates to mobile devices, desk phones hang up for good” from Marketplace








“Pop-up coworking events are uniting lonely workers” from Marketplace








“The conspiracy theory behind Florida’s lab-grown meat ban” from The Verge








“Unfrosted Review: Jerry Seinfeld’s Pop-Tarts Comedy Is Painfully Stale” from IndieWire







Want more “Make Me Smart” in your life? Sign up for our newsletter at marketplace.org/smarter.