The world's deadliest residential fire in more than four decades was still burning up a block of Hong Kong apartment buildings when pundits settled on a culprit: bamboo. Surely, the bamboo scaffolding that had surrounded the Wang Fuk Court towers explained how the flames tore through the complex so quickly. 'There can be only one outcome,' the Independent declared. 'The bamboo has to go.' But the disaster, which killed at least 160 people, reflects problems much more profound than the choice of scaffolding. These problems first took root as China prepared to assume control of Hong Kong from Britain, in 1997. Concerned that the transition would scare off foreign investors, Chinese leaders tried to woo real-estate tycoons and other business elites by giving them key roles overseeing the city's future governance. Beijing then propped up this new ruling class as a bulwark against efforts to further democratize the territory. The nexus between Hong Kong's government and Big Business gave rise to a real-estate market that served a select few elites rather than most residents. Limited supply and soaring costs precipitated a decades-long housing crisis, consigning roughly 220,000 Hong Kongers to subdivided apartments sometimes called 'coffin homes,' which can be smaller than a parking space. Meanwhile, the market delivered increasing returns to the city's elite. Of the 16 Hong Kongers listed in the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, seven owe their family fortune to real estate....

Before each episode of America First With Nicholas J. Fuentes begins, a surreal mix of images and video clips runs, like a screen saver, for an unpredictable and seemingly eternal amount of time. Gentle plains of swaying grass, trickling streams, and the show's logo flash across the screen. EDM kicks in. Psychedelic depictions of Christian imagery, including Jesus's crucifixion, come and go. So do snippets of Fuentes talking about, among other things, borders, drag queens, and his faith. 'We want this century to be the most Christian century in the history of planet Earth,' he says. I've become intimately familiar with these clips. Recently, I spent five days as a regular Fuentes viewer. Across five episodes of the nightly broadcast, I watched the 27-year-old white-supremacist influencer speak into a microphone for just shy of 12 hours total. The show is scheduled to air live on Rumble at 9 p.m. central time, but it rarely begins on time. Throughout the week, the opening scenes played for at least two hours every night, bouncing from clip to clip at random, before Fuentes finally got started. I watched episodes the next morning, and the first time I tuned in, I endured the intro sequence for 30 minutes before fast-forwarding. Since Fuentes appeared on Tucker Carlson's podcast at the end of October, Republican leaders have started to ask themselves just how much sway he has over the party. Fuentes has built an army of fans, who call themselves 'Groypers,' and his style of bigoted trolling has become the lingua franca of the young, ascendant right. Each episode I watched garnered at least 1 million views on Rumble. Fuentes has attracted attention for years, but as he's quick to remind his audience, he's operated from the fringes, pounding on the doors of mainstream conservatism and meeting fierce condemnation. Now Fuentes has momentum'and based on what I saw, he's laying the groundwork to go even bigger....

President Tharman Shanmugaratnam of the Republic of Singapore visited MIT on Tuesday, meeting campus leaders while receiving the Miriam Pozen Prize and delivering a lecture on fiscal policy at the MIT Sloan School of Management. 'We really have to re-orient fiscal policy and develop new fiscal compacts,' said Tharman in his remarks, referring to the budget policy challenges countries face at a time of expanding government debt. His talk, 'The Compacts We Need: Fiscal Choices and Risk-sharing for Sustained Prosperity,' was delivered before a capacity audience of students, faculty, administrators, and staff at MIT's Samberg Center. Tharman is a trained economist who for many years ran Singapore's central bank and has become a notable presence in global policymaking circles. Presenting a crisp summary of global trends, he observed that debt levels in major economies are at or beyond levels once regarded as unsustainable. 'There is no realistic solution to putting government debts back on a sustainable path other than having to make major adjustments to taxes and spending,' he said. However, he emphasized that his remarks were distinctly not 'a call for austerity.' Instead, as he outlined, well-considered public investment can reduce the need for additional spending and thus be fiscally sound over time....

Artificial intelligence can enhance decision-making and enable action with reduced risk and greater precision, making it a critical tool for national security. A new program offered jointly by the MIT departments of Mechanical Engineering (Course 2, MechE) and Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (Course 6, EECS) will provide breadth and depth in technical studies for naval officers, as well as a path for non-naval officers studying at MIT, to grow in their understanding of applied AI for naval and military applications. 'The potential for artificial intelligence is just starting to be fully realized. It's a tool that dramatically improves speed, efficiency, and decision-making with countless applications,' says Commander Christopher MacLean, MIT associate professor of the practice in mechanical engineering, naval construction, and engineering. 'AI is a force multiplier that can be used for data processing, decision support, unmanned and autonomous systems, cyber defense, logistics and supply chains, energy management, and many other fields.'...