European bank hikes interest rates as Iran war hits prices
The European Central Bank became the first G7 central bank today to raise interest rates to counter the economic fallout from inflation induced by the war in Iran. In its first rate hike since 2023, the central bank raised interest rates by a quarter point to 2.25%. Higher prices are pushing up inflation worldwide, and they’re unlikely to subside any time soon. Even if the Strait of Hormuz does reopen soon – which seems unlikely given the renewed strikes this week between the US and Iran, as well as US President Donald Trump’s escalating threats – experts say price pressures will persist through to 2027. With the Bank of Japan expected to follow the ECB’s lead by raising rates this month, questions arise as to whether the US Federal Reserve will feel the pressure as well.
Who wants to be a trillionaire?
Elon Musk’s SpaceX is set to go public tomorrow in what is expected to be the largest initial public offering in history. The tech and space firm has said its shares should trade at $135 each, which would value the firm at $1.77 trillion – enough to make Musk the first trillionaire. The numbers are astonishing, and out of sync with other share prices: its price-to-earnings ratio is 93.7, whereas the average for the S&P 500 is below 30. And yet, demand for SpaceX shares appears high, as investors are bullish on both artificial intelligence and Musk himself. We won’t be the only ones watching closely when it goes public tomorrow: Anthropic and OpenAI, two other AI leaders who also recently filed to go public, will have their eyes peeled.
A dead pastor, a cracked coffin, a strange fire: the hunt for Ebola patient zero.
How did the current Ebola outbreak in central Africa, one of the deadliest in recent memory, begin? Epidemiologists are zeroing in on the funeral of a Congolese pastor who died in February. After his coffin cracked under the weight of relatives sitting atop it during the journey to the burial, his body was transferred to another casket. Within days of the funeral, dozens of attendees fell fatally ill with the disease. Complicating matters: his body was never tested for Ebola, and the original coffin was mysteriously set ablaze amid fears that it was cursed. Investigators are rushing to find the origin of this Ebola strain, which kills up to 50% of those it infects and has no cure. Experts say it’s unlikely a vaccine would be ready before the end of the year.
