The University of Alabama at Birmingham health system, which includes the state’s largest hospital, announced today that it would pause in vitro fertilization treatments after the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos in test tubes should be considered children.
While it evaluates the legal ramifications, the health system said that it would continue performing egg retrievals from women seeking fertility treatment, but that it would not undertake the next steps in the process: combining the eggs with sperm in a lab for fertilization.
The State Supreme Court ruled on Friday that an 1872 statute allowing parents to sue over the wrongful death of a minor child applies to “unborn children.” The decision was criticized by the White House, reproductive medicine scientists and some legal experts who warned that the ruling could have profound effects beyond Alabama.
The U.S. warned of a Russian space weapon this year
U.S. intelligence agencies have told their closest European allies that if Russia is going to launch a nuclear weapon into orbit, it will probably do so this year.
That warning came as U.S. officials conducted a series of rushed, classified briefings for their NATO and Asian allies, as details of the U.S. assessment began to leak out last week. U.S. intelligence agencies are sharply divided in their opinion about what Vladimir Putin is planning. Some officials believe that Putin might instead launch a harmless “dummy” warhead into orbit to leave the West guessing about the country’s capabilities.
Putin insisted yesterday that he was not planning on launching any weapons into space. But the threat posed by a space weapon could be enormous: While it wouldn’t be designed to attack anything on Earth, it could be capable of destroying satellites, including those from Starlink, which has played a critical role for Ukraine’s war effort.
In related news, a Russian military blogger died after exposing the scale of Russia’s military losses.
Biden canceled $1.2 billion in student loan debt
The Biden administration sent out emails today to more than 150,000 people announcing that at least some of their student loan debt will be forgiven. The move, which canceled $1.2 billion in debt, was his latest effort at student debt relief after the Supreme Court blocked a more sprawling plan last year.
In total, President Biden has canceled $138 billion of student debt for almost 3.9 million borrowers, according to the White House. The action comes as some Democrats have pleaded for Biden to highlight his success in relieving debt to galvanize crucial constituencies, including young voters and Black borrowers who disproportionately shoulder student loan debt.
China lags behind the U.S. in generative A.I.
In 2017, Chinese policymakers set out an ambitious plan to make the country the world’s premier artificial intelligence innovator by 2030, and the government pledged billions to researchers and companies focused on A.I. But when OpenAI released ChatGPT in 2022, China was caught flat-footed, and its tech firms were hamstrung by a regulatory crackdown.
Even as the country races to build generative A.I., China’s leading A.I. tools are built on top of open-source U.S. technology. Industry insiders say that China lags behind the U.S. in generative A.I. by at least a year and may be falling further behind.
In related news, top U.S. venture capital firms, under intensifying scrutiny from lawmakers, have pulled back from investing in Chinese start-ups.
What to see on Broadway this season
Broadway is gearing up for an especially crowded spring, with 18 new shows opening in March or April. There will be pop musicals (Alicia Keys’s “Hell’s Kitchen”), book adaptations (“The Notebook”) and celebrities aplenty (Steve Carell in “Uncle Vanya” and Jessica Lange and Jim Parsons in “Mother Play”). Which one is for you? Our theater reporter has answers.
Brighten your garden
Want to create a living fence? Or perhaps you’d like to simply enliven a landscape during winter? There’s a willow for that.
Willows, if properly pruned and the right variety, can produce bark with vibrant colors, including yellow, green, deep red and violet. Our gardening columnist Margaret Roach explained how it works.
It’s never too late to be a style influencer
Lyn Slater was in her 60s and working as a social worker when a professor in a class on how to open a vintage clothing store suggested she start a fashion blog. Slater always had a flair for style, and was interested in pursuing something creative, so she thought, “Why not?” Within a few years, she became a style sensation, with nearly a million online followers.
Slater, who is now 70, has since taken a step back from the hubbub of social media. But the process reaffirmed her belief in reinvention: “The key to life,” Slater said, “is flinging yourself into life without a plan and being open to living that way.”
Have a life-changing evening.
Thanks for reading. I’ll be back tomorrow. — Matthew
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