Good morning! Just hours after major news agencies withdrew a contested photo of Kate Middleton and her children, the months-MIA Princess of Wales issued an apology for “editing” the picture. Today we're exploring:
Pumping profits
Saudi Aramco reported a 25% drop in profits yesterday, as lower oil prices filtered through to a shrunken bottom line for the state-controlled oil giant, which is 95% owned by Saudi Arabia. However, after Aramco's record-breaking $161bn profit last year — the largest ever for a public company — even a 25% decline leaves an eye-watering sum of $122bn, more than triple what US oil giant ExxonMobil managed.
The bottom LINE
Aramco is set to distribute some $98bn of that profit as dividends this year, enriching the Saudi state’s already overflowing coffers. In addition to high profile investments in soccer, golf, tennis, and other global sports, the country is also investing in wildly ambitious development projects as part of the Vision 2030 plan, which seeks to diversify the country's economy away from fossil fuels.
Most notable of these projects is THE LINE: Saudi’s ongoing construction of a 110-mile-long futuristic (or dystopian, depending on your point of view) city. The bill for that ambitious build is thought to be anywhere from $100-200bn, but some experts have pegged it as high as $1 trillion. And THE LINE is just 1 of many developments that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is planning in Neom. There are also plans for a town centered around a golf course, a wellness retreat, a beach club, and many more designs that wouldn’t look out of place in an Avatar 3 teaser trailer.
To make these dreamlike structures a reality, though, Aramco needs to keep the oil profits flowing.
Web of lies
Today, so much of our lives are online that perhaps it's no surprise that criminals are increasingly targeting us in the digital world as well as the physical. Indeed, in the FBI’s latest annual Internet Crime Report, it was estimated that American consumers and businesses lost a record $12.5bn to internet crimes last year, a 22% jump from 2022, with losses related to investment scams in particular rising, up 38% in 2023.
Big phish
While total monetary losses related to cybercrimes have roughly tripled since 2020, rising by some $8.3bn, the number of associated complaints has remained relatively similar, rising by only 11% in 2023, suggesting that scammers are managing to steal more per attack. This may in part be explained by the shift away from more personal targeted scams towards finance- and tech-related schemes — with cryptocurrency losses alone growing by 53% in the past year.
But, even if you manage to avoid getting your email, phone, or bank account hacked, you may end up being part of a mass breach which — given the proliferation of data into everything from spending habits to genetics — can have varied consequences, with highly publicized recent attacks like those on 23andMe affecting millions of people.
Anatomy of a haul
Christopher Nolan’s explosive epic Oppenheimer cleaned up at the 96th annual Academy Awards last night, taking home 7 statues, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor, in the joint-most successful Oscars haul since Slumdog Millionaire won 8 in 2009.
While Nolan’s movie dominated proceedings, Poor Things scooped a not-inconsiderable 4 gongs, among them another Best Actress award for Emma Stone, while Greta Gerwig’s Barbie picked up just 1 Oscar: Best Original Song for Billie Eilish’s emotional ballad “What Was I Made For?”.
Expensive things
The sweeping nature of Oppenheimer’s Oscars success this year wasn’t the only impressive aspect of the movie’s awards-storming performance either — it also became the highest-grossing film to take home Best Picture since the final installment in the Lord of the Rings trilogy swept the awards show 20 years ago.
Indeed, the 2023 biopic grossed just shy of $961 million worldwide, in a clear sign that — despite recent years suggesting otherwise — the eyes of the Academy can still be drawn by unapologetically barnstorming blockbusters, and not just low-budget or independent arthouse pictures.
Big selluloid: Barbenheimer accounted for some 88% of the 10 Best Picture nominees’ collective domestic haul.
• Despite the endless avocado toast discourse, millennials could become the richest generation in history, with boomers expected to pass down $90 trillion of assets over the next 2 decades.
• Australia will streamline more than $5.6 billion of trade by scrapping nearly 500 “nuisance” tariffs on everything from toothbrushes to toasters.
• It wasn’t a great night for streamers at the Oscars last night, with Netflix picking up just 1 statue and Apple taking nothing, despite being nominated for 32 awards between them.
• Hi-Fis and home fries: the UK is adding vinyl records and air fryers to the basket of goods used to track prices and measure inflation.
• Another great piece from our friends at The Pudding, exploring what it takes to be considered one of the greatest albums of all time in the eyes of Rolling Stone.
