Crypto News: ‘What’s it like to have ebola? It sucks’

Welcome to the weekend!

SpaceX filed for an IPO this week, which has the potential to be the largest ever. The filing states that Elon Musk will receive a special bonus of “1,000 million performance-based restricted shares” if the company reaches two milestones, one of which is a valuation of $7.5 trillion. What’s the other? Find out with this week’s Pointed quiz.

This weekend we’re prepping — for political chaos in the UK, for another ebola epidemic, for drone warfare in Poland, for the White Lotus effect to hit Cannes, and for an argument about why reality TV is worth watching.

We’re also prepping for a lot more books coverage. Yesterday we launched On Books, a new newsletter delivering reviews and recommendations to expand your thinking. Check out the first edition in your inbox or online. And make sure you’re a Bloomberg.com subscriber — in four weeks, it’s going subscriber-only.

The Next Version

David Dimbleby has covered 10 UK general elections, two referendums on Europe, the funeral of Princess Diana and decades of political upheaval. Now he worries Britain’s electoral system no longer reflects the country it governs. “Our constitution is very suited to aristocratic government in the 18th and 19th centuries,” he tells Mishal Husain, as Prime Minister Keir Starmer comes under pressure. Today, “People feel I’ve voted, and nothing actually happens.”

Weekend Interview

David Dimbleby: Starmer’s a Dud. It’s Time for Change

The veteran broadcaster on what the rise of Nigel Farage says about Britain.

The institutions we inherit are often built for yesterday’s problems. When emergency physician Craig Spencer contracted Ebola in 2014, he became part of a crisis that transformed global preparedness. (“What’s it like to have Ebola?” he says. “It sucks”.) But today’s outbreak suggests many of those gains were built around the most common strain of the virus. The culprit now is the rare Bundibugyo strain, which has no approved vaccine or antibody treatment.

Headstones line the Waterloo Ebola graveyard in Sierra Leone, after the 2013-2016 West Africa epidemic killed more than 11,000 people across the region.

Weekend Essay

The World Prepared for Ebola. Just Not This Ebola

A rare strain now spreading in Congo is exposing the limits of Ebola defenses.

Policymaking is often about placing bets on the future. The US is now making a bold one to preserve the dollar’s long-term dominance. The GENIUS Act created the first US regulatory framework for stablecoins — digital tokens typically pegged to the dollar — with Washington framing them as an extension of the greenback rather than a threat to it. But technology can reinforce the dollar’s foundations, not replace them, Saleha Mohsin writes.

Weekend Essay

Washington Is Betting on a Very American Version of Digital Dollars

Stablecoins can boost demand, but won’t solve the buck’s biggest problems.

Stablecoins promise a new wrapper for the same currency. The rise of face-lifts, GLP-1s and cosmetic procedures does something similar for, well, us. As enhancement goes mainstream, new fiction and TV are providing an underexamined perspective: the loved ones of people who alter their appearance. Fiction offers a space to explore our anxieties about transformation, Alice Robb writes, and the irony that the pursuit of belonging can create alienation.

Weekend Review

What Happens When Someone You Love Changes Their Face?

New books, TV shows and movies explore the fallout of transformation.

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On the Ground With...

Polish bunker builders
In Warsaw’s Bielany suburb, a Cold War bunker still houses mannequins in biohazard suits and maps of NATO bombers. But Russian drones breaching Polish airspace have brought the past into the present: Today, fewer than 1% of Poles have access to a fully fledged emergency shelter, prompting a scramble to revive civil defense infrastructure neglected for decades.

A Cold War-era bunker in Warsaw’s northern suburb of Bielany, designed as a coordination hub for civil defense workers — *Photographer: Maxim Edwards/Bloomberg*

Cannes jet-setters
Even the wealthy are getting wait-listed. As The White Lotus prepares to film across Cannes and Saint-Tropez, production has taken over luxury hotels, frustrating affluent regulars. But Cannes is betting on a tourism halo: The city expects the crew alone to account for roughly 17,000 hotel nights and hopes for the same bump previous seasons brought to Sicily and Thailand.

Hôtel Martinez, a Cannes landmark, is being used for season four of the hit HBO series The White Lotus. — *Photographer: Valery Hache/AFP/Getty Images*

Families divided by North Korea
Moon Young-hee remembers when contact between North Korea and Japan felt almost routine. For decades, Chongryon — a pro-Pyongyang organization in Japan — helped sustain ties between families divided by borders and ideology. But as younger generations assimilate and ties to North Korea weaken, that bridge between the two countries is fading.

*Photo Illustration: Daniel Zender for Bloomberg; Source: Getty*

Conversation Starters

Reality TV’s appeal is less voyeurism than structure. As social media fragments attention and everyday life feels more atomized, familiar settings, clear story arcs and the reassuring messiness of other people’s lives can help viewers make sense of their own.

Two-party systems rely on norms as much as rules. With Britain fragmenting into a five-party contest and US electoral maps becoming increasingly engineered, political systems designed to produce stability may instead be creating dysfunction.

The Goods

“To keep you is no benefit, to destroy you is no loss.”

Khmer Rouge enforcers

Phrase used when carrying out arrests and executions during the regime

The hunt for Cambodia’s looted antiquities led investigators to a former child soldier who became one of the country’s most prolific artifact thieves — revealing how civil war, mass violence and the global art market fed one of history’s largest cultural heists.

Is It Worth It?

The $400 Royal Pop Swatch watch: Maybe if you flip it. Reseller listings for the rare collaboration with Audemars Piguet are already as high as $5,000.

A $1,900 Motorola Razr Fold: Not yet. It’s a strong first attempt, but it’s arriving just ahead of a fresh wave of foldables from Samsung, Google and Apple that could change the equation.

A $19 Jerusalem bagel at Or’esh: Yes. It’s over a foot long, comes with dips, and doubles as a centerpiece. It’s also why Or’esh made our list of five hot New York restaurants right now.

A post-bagel $4.50 NYC Ferry ride: Double yes. It’s become enough of a New York character to rack up millions of social media likes. Just don’t mistake “public yacht” energy for mass transit.

A $650 pair of headphones. Only if people seeing them matters as much to you as what you’re hearing. Sony’s Collexion adds status appeal, but specs are similar to its cheaper model.

Sony’s 1000X The Collexion headphones — *Photographer: Chris Welch/Bloomberg*

What Everyone’s Reading

Spot the Difference: Putin Gets Trump Treatment From Xi in China

Modi’s Toffee Gift to Meloni Ignites Rally in Wrong Indian Stock

Meta’s Giant AI Data Center Is Reshaping Rural Louisiana

SpaceX Shows $4.3 Billion Loss as Musk Targets Record IPO

Secretive Deals, Aggressive Demands Are New US Foreign Aid Tactics

What everyone’s watching: Why Fixing the UK Is So Hard

One Last Thing

“Hotel rooms look more alike than unique, no matter if they cost $300 or $1,300 per night.”

No, it’s not jet lag – hotel rooms are really starting to blur together. Industry consolidation is partly to blame, with brands prioritizing design consistency to cut costs. But don’t take our word for it: Our quiz tests your ability to tell a $750-a-night hotel from a $1,750 one.