Global Newsbriefs From The Economist

Enlarge / Electric power has not robbed the G-Wagon of its off-road skills. If anything, it has enhanced them. (credit: Mercedes-Benz) Mercedes-Benz provided flights from San Francisco to Los Angeles and accommodation so Ars could attend the G-Wagon event. Ars does not accept paid editorial content. The Mercedes G-Wagon, a very capable off-roader typically purchased by people who never intend to take it anywhere near dirt, is getting an electric upgrade. Unveiled in Beverly Hills—the most fitting of locations—the 2025 G 580 with EQ Technology spun its way onto the scene.

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images) Cyber attackers are experimenting with their latest ransomware on businesses in Africa, Asia, and South America before targeting richer countries that have more sophisticated security methods. Hackers have adopted a “strategy” of infiltrating systems in the developing world before moving to higher-value targets such as in North America and Europe, according to a report published on Wednesday by cyber security firm Performanta. “Adversaries are using developing countries as a platform where they can test their malicious programs before the more resourceful countries are targeted,” the company told Banking Risk and Regulation, a service from FT Specialist.

Enlarge / Tesla shares rose by almost 11 percent in premarket trading despite the disastrous financial results. (credit: CFOTO/Future Publishing via Getty Images) Tesla had a terrible first quarter of 2024, according to its financial results, posted yesterday. We already knew that it was a bad three months in terms of delivering cars—the automaker built tens of thousands of cars it couldn't sell as deliveries dropped by 8.5 percent, year on year.

Apartment rents and vacancy rates in metro Denver stayed mostly flat as the market absorbed an unexpectedly large number of new units in the first quarter. Developers delivered 5,144 apartments in the first three months. And despite reports from the U. S. Census Bureau of slowing migration to Colorado, tenants absorbed 5,034 of those units, according to the 2024 First Quarter Vacancy & Rent Report for Metro Denver from the Apartment Association of Metro Denver. The Denver market has delivered 27,000 apartments in the past two years, outstripping the historical average of 10,000 deliveries over two years. Over the last four years, one of the most robust stretches on record, developers have delivered 2,900 units a quarter. Even by recent standards, the first quarter was robust. “It was a really good quarter,” said Cary Bruteig, founder of Apartment Insights and author of the report. The absorption of so many units in what typically isn’t a busy season for leasing had Bruteig complimenting landlords on their marketing efforts and questioning the accuracy of reports that fewer people are relocating to the region. Some of that new supply reflects conversions of old hotel rooms in Denver into studio apartments to house people experiencing homelessness.

New rules imposed by Denver and Colorado that require large buildings to reduce pollution will be too expensive and are at odds with federal regulations, groups representing owners and developers of office towers, hotels and apartment complexes allege in a lawsuit filed this week. The Colorado Apartment Association, the Apartment Association of Metro Denver, the Colorado Hotel and Lodging Association and NAIOP — an association representing commercial real estate developers — said the green-energy rules preempt a federal regulation that governs the quality and performance of new heating and cooling systems and other appliances in large apartment complexes, hotels and commercial office and retail buildings. The groups, in their lawsuit filed Monday in U.

Enlarge (credit: Qualcomm) Signs point to Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite processors showing up in actual, real-world, human-purchasable computers in the next couple of months after years of speculation and another year or so of hype. For those who haven’t been following along, this will allegedly be Qualcomm’s first Arm processor for Windows PCs that does for PCs what Apple’s M-series chips did for Macs, promising both better battery life and better performance than equivalent Intel chips.