This Startup Wants To Sell Sunlight & How Gamers Are Fixing The Airline Industry

Hi readers, happy Tuesday! Today, we’re covering a problem with private credit, a 7.4 earthquake in Colombia, the U.S.’s Iran struggles, Netanyahu’s Gaza gambit, new U.S. vaccine recommendations, how the U.S. is fixing its air traffic controller problems, and a startup that wants to sell you sunlight.

“Nothing great in the world was accomplished without passion.” ― Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Private Credit’s Very Public Problems

According to a report from the Wall Street Journal, private credit – a type of debt where non-bank entities (think investment funds or insurance companies) offer high-interest loans to heavily indebted companies – is struggling. Global private credit markets contain roughly $3 trillion worth of assets, meaning a private credit collapse would cause damage to other parts of the economy, as well. 

Under ideal circumstances, private credit loans help give struggling businesses financial lifelines, granting them time to dig themselves out of whatever holes they might be stuck in while providing strong financial returns to investors. But when those struggling companies end up defaulting on their loans, investors are stuck with no way to get their money back. That’s what the Wall Street Journal claims is happening at a concerning rate right now, citing quarterly reports from a handful of the industry’s biggest publicly-traded players.

“Recent quarterly reports from funds overseen by the industry’s big players showed that loan health and investor returns are worsening,” the Journal wrote yesterday after reviewing information from Ares Management, Blackstone, Blue Owl Capital, and Golub Capital. Loan defaults, the publication added, have reached their highest levels since 2021. If the numbers continue to get worse for those private-credit funds, the outside funding they require to actually provide loans will dry up. In turn, that decline would make it harder for some companies that need private credit to access money, could expose larger financial institutions to losses, and could also affect people’s 401(k)s and pensions, which are invested in private credit funds to a surprising degree.

Catastrophe Hits Colombia

A 7.4 magnitude earthquake hit the western reaches of Colombia yesterday, causing widespread destruction. The quake affected major cities including Bogotá, Cali, and Medellín, killed at least 132 people, and led to more than 570 injuries across the nation. Hundreds of buildings were brought down by the earthquake and its multiple aftershocks, leaving hundreds of people buried under the rubble as rescue efforts spin up.

Yesterday’s earthquake is the strongest to hit Colombia this century, and came just a few days after the country swore in Abelardo De La Espriella as president. “The ‌national government has all of its capabilities deployed to protect lives, assist affected communities and deliver aid wherever it is needed,” Espriella said in an official statement yesterday, stating an official death toll of 111 at the time. “The first priority is rescuing the people trapped under the rubble.” 

At least four hospitals in Cali, Colombia’s third largest city, were rendered useless by the earthquake, and multiple roads and airports in western Colombia are also currently inoperable. The U.S., Brazil, and Venezuela have all promised to send aid to Colombia as recovery efforts continue.

We’re Going To Win So Much, You May Even Get Tired Of Winning

• On Sunday, Trump signalled that the U.S. is likely to tone down its military operations against Iran. “We are low-keying it,” Trump said during an interview with Axios. “We are only semi-negotiating with them. We are just watching Iran with its huge inflation and the fact they have no money,” he added, hinting that the U.S. could up its economic pressure campaign against Tehran.

• Actually winning the war isn’t the only thing the White House has given up on – it appears that Trump also plans to give up some of his demands in peace negotiations. On Sunday, the Wall Street Journal reported that the president has floated the idea of ending the war without securing a nuclear deal with Iran as long as the country agrees to fully reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Securing a nuclear deal that would prevent Tehran from developing nuclear weapons was one of the U.S.’s main goals in launching its offensive against Iran; another goal was shutting down the country’s ballistic missile capabilities, but Iran used those missiles to attack U.S. bases in Jordan just two weeks ago.

Bibi Makes A Bold Play

• What’s on the menu today? How about another serving of “never-ending conflict in the Middle East”? On Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu formally rejected Trump’s 15-point Gaza peace plan. Netanyahu stated that the IDF has no plans to leave Gaza until Hamas undergoes “genuine disarmament, not fictitious disarmament,” which the prime minister defined as handing over “all weaponry” (whatever that means). 

• The about face came soon after the Trump White House made the agreement public on July 31. Under that plan, Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza and Hamas’ disarmament would be handled in phases, with the Palestinian militant group handing over more weapons as the IDF ceded more territory in Gaza. The Trump administration hasn’t yet responded to Netanyahu’s statement. That’s likely because the rejection is a bit of political grandstanding by the prime minister as Israel’s elections approach in October.

Additional World News

• The North Sea is full of robots (Politico)

• England set to eliminate hepatitis C (BBC) 

• Russian attacks on Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia, Kyiv kill five, officials say (Reuters)

• Flood death toll in India's Assam reaches 100 as thousands lose their homes (NPR)

• Trump Said to Have Secretly Used Military Jet to Leave Turkey Amid Threats (NYT, $)

• Porter Airlines flight in Canada canceled after child refuses to sit down and buckle up (AP) 

Trump Takes A Swing At Jabs

• Yesterday, President Trump signed another executive order aimed at changing vaccine regulations across the country. The order – which is likely to be challenged by a series of lawsuits very, very soon – cuts the number of federally-recommended vaccines for children from 17 to 11. In addition, the number of vaccines routinely recommended for all children will drop from 17 to 6, mirroring a policy pushed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in January, which was struck down by a judge in March.

• The order also states that “to the maximum extent feasible, all childhood immunizations should be administered at separate medical visits,” which health experts claim will place more strain on families and healthcare providers by forcing them to make multiple visits to the doctor. “Today we’re proud to officially announce the United States of America’s gold standard childhood vaccination recommendations. That has to do with many subjects including autism in particular,” Trump said as he signed the order. “I’ve seen proof of it, where they have a vaccination where it looks like the size of a bottle of soda, poured into a little child’s body and bad things happen in too many cases,” he went on.

From Controllers To Control Towers

• Gamers are taking control – of something other than a video game controller. In April, the U.S. government announced a new initiative aimed at getting video game players to start working as air traffic controllers. On Sunday, Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy delivered a public update on that program: the department has already reached 94% of its air traffic controller hiring goal for 2026, with over 2,000 gamers hired to work as air traffic controllers just 8 months into the year.

• “In April, we launched a NEW CAMPAIGN to recruit video gamers as air traffic controllers — and supercharged the entire hiring process to get the BEST & BRIGHTEST in faster. The results are HISTORIC,” he wrote via X, noting that the process had led to the U.S. bringing“2,000+ “best & brightest” candidates in the pipeline — reaching the Academy quicker than any class before them, thanks to the most streamlined hiring process.”

• Over the past few years, the U.S. has been struggling with a chronic shortage of air traffic controllers due to a lack of funding and issues with the FAA’s training academy. While that problem has been getting worse, the U.S. has also faced a series of plane crashes and other incidents, bringing increased scrutiny to nationwide aviation safety. The hope is that the new hiring plan will shore up the staffing shortages at ATC towers across the country, relieving stress on overworked controllers and reducing the number of crashes nationwide.

Additional USA News

• Trump Media reports $238m loss as crypto falls (BBC) 

• Lauren Boebert’s son charged with sexual exploitation (Colorado Sun)

• Judge’s Ruling on Second-Home Tax Deals Temporary Setback to Mamdani  (NYT, $)

• Voters are sick of the 2-party system. A new poll shows they're open to big changes (NPR) 

• Will Wisconsin Voters Think Francesca Hong Is Too Radical? Here’s Where She Stands.  (NYT, $)

• More Than Half the Homes in East Omaha Have Unsafe Lead Levels. That Doesn’t Mean the EPA Will Clean Them Up. (ProPublica) 

The Future Looks A Little Too Bright

• The future holds infinite possibilities. That means we might cure cancer someday, but it also means that you might need to pay a fee to access sunlight at some point down the line. Last month, the FCC approved the launch of a new test satellite that could be the prototype for a sunlight-on-demand service. The satellite, named Eärendil-1, is owned by a startup named Reflect Orbital, and features an 18-square-meter mirror that can redirect the sun’s rays to send a 5-kilometer-wide beam of light roughly four times the brightness of the Moon down to Earth. In theory, that light could be used to generate energy in solar farms, give crops more sunlight, or help search and rescue operations.

• Reflect Orbital wants to launch a fleet of more than 50,000 satellites into orbit to provide those beams of light across the globe. Experts have already expressed concerns that the technology could add to light pollution by making the night sky four times brighter than it is. They also say the satellites pose a risk to the eyesight of amateur astronomers: Reflect Orbital has already acknowledged that observing one of its satellites using a 12-inch telescope could cause permanent damage, meaning people could lose their sight just by looking at the night sky at the wrong time and place. 

• “What’s sad to me is that probably most people have not ever seen the Milky Way in the night sky, or seen a truly starry sky,” said one representative from the American Astronomical Society. “That, to me, was one of the best experiences of my life, being able to go out to a dark sky site and see the Milky Way. And so I think without having seen that, being in cities where light pollution is just so common, it’s hard to know what we are losing and what we are missing.”

Additional Reads

• The one thing Ozempic still can’t fix (Vox)

• When Your Brain Is in Your Arm (Wired, $) 

• This Classic Cookbook Chefs Swear By Is 50 Years Old (NYT, $)

• Safety fears as scientists make first viruses designed by AI (Guardian)

• Four takeaways from Mark Zuckerberg’s massive AI manifesto (Verge)

• We're getting mealtimes wrong - here's the best time to have dinner (BBC) 

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Peanut For Your Thoughts

What is the longest amount of time you’d spend watching a movie? This question was brought on by watching the Odyssey and thinking I still would’ve watched it if it was 15 or 20 minutes longer.

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