Josh Spero
@joshspero.ft.com
Wealth editor, Financial Times. I like swimming, classical music and cryptic crosswords. Working on a memoir about my earlier life at a magazine for the very rich. he/him 🏳️🌈 josh.spero@ft.com
This is a spectacular list of people tags for a story I'm editing
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Bombshell new report out from my investigators this morning spanning our four year investigation into Jeffrey Epstein’s financial records. This report shows exactly how Wall Street protected Epstein and enabled his sex trafficking for decades. Mega thread following with some key points:
Deutsche Bank, JPMorgan, BofA Enabled Epstein, Wyden Report Says
Democrat Ron Wyden cited nonpublic documents held by the US Treasury in a report that says banks delayed reporting suspicious financial transactions and calls for tougher anti-money-laundering rules, ...
bloomberg.com
weather in London currently so disgusting I have to believe that it must be breaking the laws of physics and chemistry in some way, somehow I feel so warm and claustrophobic inside my own skin but it doesn't even feel that hot outside, how is this possible, how have things got worse
“Any Democrat associated with Aipac — a dwindling band — has a vanishing chance of becoming their party’s 2028 nominee.” Me on how Israel is splitting Dems. www.ft.com/content/07ae...
The Democrats’ civil war over Israel is getting worse
While the party fractures over Middle East policy, it is ignoring the threat posed by AI and social media
ft.com
Evidence of the great benefits of AI: it used to take a huge amount of time and effort to make yourself look this stupid; now AI allows you to humiliate yourself almost instantly.
The State Department said it takes "full responsibility" for "hastily" altering and then presenting a map of Africa at a global AIDS conference that mislabeled every single country it highlighted. An analysis by Reuters found a watermark in the map image that suggests it was made with OpenAI.
right, ok, enough self-pity, I need to turn my shit pub around. it's in Stratford, it's got a (small) stage, there has to be someone who has something cool they want a space for queer-run, extremely diverse venue (we even let mumbling old white geezers in) what I'd call 'mostly accessible'
this was a total surprise to me. twitter is a sort of dumpster in which evidently increasingly mainstream media rummages for the flotsam & jetsam of pseudo-news. quoting people instead of inviting them to write a serious, thoughtful prose piece & paying them a modest fee has become common.
I love that @theguardian.com put the whole @joycecaroloates.bsky.social vs. Wilson thing in the main news section of Friday’s paper.
Ukrainian rescuers are now in France, helping to contain the devastating wildfires.
A Ukrainian drone hit a crowded beach near Gelendzhik in southern Russia, killing 6 people, 3 of them children. About 40 more were hurt, 17 of them hospitalized. Footage shows the drone flying into beachgoers, OSINT analysts say the trajectory suggests it lost control after being damaged or jammed.
Работа ПВО могла привести к падению дрона на пляж под Геленджиком и гибели ребенка и трех взрослых • «Агентство»
В результате падения беспилотника на пляж в селе Архипо-Осиповка — пригороде Геленджика — погибли по меньшей мере четверо человек, включая ребенка, и более 10 были ранены. Украинский мониторинговый те...
agents.media
Related: guess where Thames Water pipes are laid and leaking drinkable water under this park in North Oxford!
Great Photo (Source: www.theguardian.com/news/gallery...)
My initial view of German trains is they aren't just bad, but utterly catastrophic, sweeping cancellations far in excess of any reasonable system, and everyone just shrugging that this is normal. As a symbol of a fading economic giant it is perfect.
Robinhood now makes more money from prediction markets than it does from stock trades or crypto. This adds weight to my theory that Bitcoin and crypto has crashed due to competition from Polymarket and Kalshi for the online gambler demographic.
"At first you think you might die of boredom. Then you fear that you might not." as.ft.com/r/dee29232-a...
AI slop claims its latest victim: Wagner’s Ring
‘Siegfried’ and ‘Götterdämmerung’ bring Bayreuth’s newest staging to a close – and it can’t come soon enough
as.ft.com
ICYMI - great read in the FT feat. @dncampbell.bsky.social and @foxglovelegal.bsky.social's work on data centres. The big question: how can we shape this market so new compute doesn't suck up so much of the power and water we need to live? With the homes we must build? www.ft.com/content/67db...
Data centres vs housing: how London became a central battleground
The city has become the largest hub for AI power centres across Europe, competing with homes for energy, space and water. Its priorities are being called into question
ft.com
I don't think people are ready for this kind of joke yet.
Banks, asset managers and exchanges are spending hundreds of millions of dollars on blockchain, this time for real Today's FT Big Read - as.ft.com/r/23bbd917-c...
Wall Street learns to love blockchain
Financial companies hope to modernise markets with the technology but systemic risks remain
giftarticle.ft.com
Nigel Farage just took a question from a 'journalist' at his press conference, who turned out to be his former chief adviser Raheem Kassam, who asks him why the media are being so unfair to him
Interesting piece from @felixsalmon.com on the "great art transfer", the billions of dollars of (unwanted?) art boomers will leave to their kids www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...
Boomers Are Leaving Behind More Art Than Anyone Wants
Nearly $1 trillion of art is expected to change hands in the coming decade. There won’t be enough buyers or museums to absorb it all.
bloomberg.com
Sometimes when I’m feeling low I watch the video of the great Leontyne Price—still with us today at 99—taking in the THUNDEROUS applause for her big aria at her farewell performance of Aida at the Met in 1985. Incredible. (Skip to 7:00 if you just want that part.) youtu.be/L_56dQteAIY?...
Leontyne Price Opera Farewell "O patria mia" Aida
YouTube video by Onegin65
youtu.be
I guess what I hate most about this is that no one does anything. No one goes to the cinema, a theatre, a concert, a gallery, a show of any sort. There's only one mention in the whole thing of a restaurant. Why bother?
‘£5,800 on a watch?!’ What happened when five couples kept separate money diaries – then revealed all to their partners?
Diane Abbott here speaking at a Stop Some Wars rally, calling Putin's continuing brutal war against Ukraine "the NATO campaign against Russia". FFS. youtu.be/SMBjoiMskxA?...
Diane Abbott MP
YouTube video by StoptheWarCoalition
youtu.be