Crypto News: ‘Capitulation camouflaged as peace’

Welcome to the weekend!

Hasbro on Tuesday reported 14% revenue growth for 2025, due in part to Avatar: The Last Airbender and Final Fantasy tie-ins to a certain game in which players spend mana to cast spells. What game is it? Find out with this week's Pointed quiz.

Tune in to the latest episode of The Mishal Husain Show for our conversation with Ukrainian author Andrey Kurkov. Train your brain with today's Alphadots puzzle, and don't miss tomorrow's Forecast on hopeless America. For unlimited access to Bloomberg.com, subscribe!

Holding the Line

This month marks four years since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, an anniversary arriving in a brutal winter of strikes on energy infrastructure that have left millions without heat. But Ukrainian writer Andrey Kurkov worries less about the cold than about a country pressed to make a deal with Russia. Four years ago, "there was much more solidarity among Ukrainians," he tells Mishal Husain. "Now, we have Ukraine fragmented." Kurkov fears that fraying unity will cost the country crucial leverage — allowing the US to pressure President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to "accept capitulation camouflaged as some kind of peace deal."

Weekend Interview

'I Feel Like I Spent Half of My Life in This War'

Ukraine's most famous writer reflects on life under bombardment.

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Marco Rubio knows a thing or two about waning solidarity. If Donald Trump was the wildcard insurgent of 2016, Rubio was the last hope for the neoconservative movement. When Trump won, that hope collapsed: Foreign policy aides learned his instincts could not be steered into familiar orthodoxy, and by 2026 the neoconservative project was widely considered dead. Into that vacuum stepped Rubio as secretary of state. In his first year, he has emerged as one of Trump's most influential advisers and shaped a doctrine that recasts interventionism in MAGA terms, Chris Kennedy of Bloomberg Economics writes.

Weekend Essay

Marco Rubio Is Rebooting the Neocons for the MAGA Era

The secretary of state is crafting a new flavor of foreign policy.

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Rubio learned from Trump's first term: To maintain influence with the president, you get on board. It's a familiar lesson in Hong Kong, a vibrant financial hub where civic freedoms have been sharply curtailed since the 2020 national security law. That dichotomy was on display this week in the sentencing of media baron Jimmy Lai to 20 years in prison. Yet while his case underscores Beijing's determination to quash dissent, civic life has not vanished, write Mary Hui and Richard Frost. Prominent figures continue to test the boundaries of what is permissible — and fear it's resignation, not repression, that could sap the city's vitality.

Weekend Essay

After Jimmy Lai, Hong Kong Probes the Limits of Civic Life

Residents are exploring the remaining space for debate and expression.

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Dispatches

India
Each November, a familiar rhythm settles over New Delhi. Temperatures drop, skies darken and a haze descends. For months, 30 million people endure sore throats, headaches and respiratory illness caused by some of the world's most toxic air — pollution that also raises risks of cancer and heart disease. As Prime Minister Narendra Modi pledges to make India a "developed nation" by 2047, the contradiction is stark: No developed country has air pollution levels remotely close to India's.

Photographer: Hindustan Times/Hindustan Times

Vietnam
The karaoke assault begins after dinner. Off-key singing, beer-fueled chants and rumbling bass from cafes echo through Ho Chi Minh City, sometimes until 3 a.m. In the metropolis of 10 million, motorbike horns, revving engines and high-decibel sound systems create a near-constant din. But after years of complaints, officials are now banning excessive noise, with fines of up to 160 million dong ($6,100). The crackdown reflects a broader shift: As affluence rises, once-tolerated urban rituals are increasingly seen as intrusions.

Photographer: Wilfried Strang/Alamy

Conversation Starters

Sanae Takaichi's victory is a bet on economic nationalism. Long the world's avatar of easy money, Japan is poised to become a test case for a more assertive strategy: picking winners and building national champions.

Cleverness is still our most dangerous vice. Rudyard Kipling's 1919 warning was prescient: By worshipping market efficiency, tech salvation and cultural self-critique, elites have sidelined older truths about pride, roots and restraint.

Dating apps are training us to want the wrong people. Most of the "rules" and folk wisdom around dating are based on what people say they want versus what they actually chose. Dating apps take that faulty conceit and run with it.

Brain Drain

"The war was the straw that broke the camel's back."

Shiri

Tech designer, left Israel in 2024

Worn down by political division, corruption, rising religiosity and the shock of Oct. 7 and the war in Gaza, tens of thousands of Israelis have left in recent years, many of them skilled tech workers and doctors. Returnees and new arrivals are not filling the gap, official data show, and economists warn of a potentially irreversible brain drain.

Is It Worth It?

Selling your silver heirlooms: Maybe! Coin and jewelry shops are seeing a rush of customers seeking to sell collectibles, silverware and family treasures after a surge in silver prices.

$70,000 NYC private school tuition: If you can swing it. At least seven schools now have fees exceeding that threshold, though tuition can include supplies, meals and extracurriculars.

A $660 night at the Rosewood São Paulo: Only if you're into maximalist spectacle. It's pricey, but you're paying for the ayahuasca-fever-dream design, Soho House access and wow factor.

A $3,000 tax accountant: Probably! Cheap preparers make money on volume, which means they're going to rush your return. Missed deductions can cost more than a higher upfront fee.

$110-a-month Armra Colostrum: Nah. Celebrity endorsements have helped drive a 3,000% sales surge for the supplement, but studies showing broad benefits are thin.