1. That was probably the summit
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Ukrainian President Zelensky (left) with heads of state and government at the NATO summit in Vilnius
Photograph:
Nicolas Maeterlinck / Belga / IMAGO
Well, who said it? "I am confident that Ukraine will be in NATO after the war." Sounds suspiciously like Olaf Scholz in his soporific approxicity, do you think? But no, the sentence was uttered this afternoon during a press conference at the end of the NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania. And it was Volodymyr Zelensky's words. Exactly, the Ukrainian president, who yesterday tweeted angrily that it was "absurd" that there was still no timetable for his country's accession: "Indecisiveness is a weakness."
What has happened since then? Weapons. Among other things, anyway. This is what my colleagues Christoph Hickmann and Matthias Gebauer, who followed the summit for us, suspect: "In the tripartite 'Joint Declaration of Support', the most important industrialized nations assure Kiev that they will support Ukraine with weapons over the coming years, regardless of the course of the war," the two write. No real security guarantee, as for NATO members. But for now, a face-saving solution for everyone involved: In the photos from the press conference, you can see Zelensky shaking hands with Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock. They both laugh.
By the way, neither the heads of state nor the journalists traveling with them saw much of Vilnius itself. The city is cordoned off, after all, the Belarusian border is only 30 kilometers away: three combat squadrons of the Bundeswehr, French self-propelled howitzers and Danish fighter jets secure the area. "As a journalist, you're much further away from the powerful most of the time than you might imagine from the outside, you spend a lot of time sitting in press centres or being driven around in buses," says Christoph. »A summit like this is a world of its own.«
Read the full story here: Narrowly missing the scandal
News and background information on the war in Ukraine:
"The fact is that it was a targeted attack on us": A group of volunteers from Bavaria travels to Ukraine in mid-June to help with the flood disaster in Kherson. In the process, they are being fired upon from the Russian side. Now one of the helpers reports what he has experienced.
Fitter for the front: Because of the Ukraine war, the IOC wants to exclude Russian and Belarusian army athletes – as if competition and military could be separated. From the very beginning, the sport had the goal of preparing athletes for war.
Leopard tanks from Ukraine are not repaired in Poland: For months, Berlin and Warsaw have been struggling to find a joint repair center for the Leopard tanks delivered to Ukraine. Since an agreement was not reached, Defense Minister Pistorius has now drawn consequences.
Here you will find all the latest developments on the war in Ukraine: The news update
2. The ruble is slipping
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Russian President Vladimir Putin
Photograph:
Gavriil Grigorov / AP
McDonalds no longer exists in Russia. The alternative is called "Wkusno & totschka" (delicious and ready) and customers complain about sloppy fries. Coca Cola does not slosh in the cup there. No Pepsi either. In general, the offer in Moscow, St. Petersburg or Novosibirsk has become manageable: Neither Nike sneakers nor the variants of Adidas or Puma, no Lego or Playmobil in the toy stores. And interested oligarchs can no longer buy a Porsche. At least officially. The global sanctions are at least partially effective, it seems. And now the national currency is also weakening: for just one euro, the Russians have to pay 100 rubles. Record for the year. Sounds like it's only a matter of days before Putin's war economy collapses. Or?
"Unfortunately, there is no clear connection," my colleague Benjamin Bidder explains to me. He has been reporting from Moscow as a correspondent for many years and has examined the Russian economy in his current analysis. His conclusion is sobering for all those who are betting on the Kremlin's economic apocalypse: "The weaker ruble exchange rate is even helping Moscow to reduce its government deficit," says Benjamin. Russia could continue in this way for years to come. With the war. And with Putin.
Read more here: »Russia can endure this for years to come«
3. The obesity paradox
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Live longer thanks to a few kilos too much? To this day, the obesity paradox is controversial (symbolic image).
Photograph:
Getty Images
Do you know who invented BMI? Sounds like a question on "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?", so think of it as training. Answer: a Belgian. As early as 1832, his name was Adolphe Quetelet, astronomer and statistician. He had the chest circumference of 6000 Scottish soldiers measured. And so he came up with the formula of the later body mass index: weight divided by height squared – done. If the result is between 18.5 and 24.9, then everything is fine. For example, if you are 1.80 m tall and weigh 80 kilograms, calculate 80 by 3.24 (1.8 to the power of 2). Results: 24.6. View of the table: normal weight. Satisfied?
No. Because the BMI is a myth, writes my colleague Jörg Blech from our science department. People who are supposedly too fat can be healthy – and thin people can be sick. Excuse me? "The body mass index can easily mislead you because it is only a very rough measure of body mass and does not distinguish between muscle mass and fat percentage," Jörg explains to me. For example, there are quite athletic people who train a lot. Sure, they weigh a little more, but they're more likely to have built muscle than fat. Even a BMI of up to 30 is no problem: they are usually healthy. On the other hand, some thin people have often accumulated astonishingly large masses of fat on their organs. According to the BMI, they would be of normal weight. In fact, they are often sick.
Incidentally, the forerunner of the BMI was never intended as an individual guard measure. Mathematician Quetelet only wanted to develop a value with which he could roughly compare different population groups with each other. He died in 1874. A statue of him stands in Brussels, made of solid stone. BMI (estimated): 125.
Read the full story here: Why fat people can be healthy and thin people can be sick
What else is important today
Schleswig-Holstein's ex-Prime Minister Heide Simonis is dead: She was the first head of a state government - at the age of 80, the SPD politician died.
East CDU members want more East Germans in the party leadership: With the departure of CDU General Secretary Mario Czaja, the CDU leadership has lost a man from the East. Voices are coming from the relevant state associations calling for replacements.
Federal Court of Justice strengthens consumers in the event of violations of the rent brake: Consumers are given more time to check violations of the rent brake. The Federal Court of Justice has significantly expanded the requirements for deadlines.
Proportion of cyclists in traffic fatalities almost doubled: Eight people die on Germany's roads every day: the number of traffic fatalities rose again in 2022. The proportion of victims who were on the road by bicycle is striking.
My favorite story today: Now we're talking about money
70,000 euros a year for 35 hours of work a week, as a data analyst. Is that a lot? Timo Schneider thinks: Yes. Even too much. The piquant thing about it is that Schneider talks about his own job. And his own salary. My colleague Florian Gontek interviewed him for our new series »Payslips«: People talk about what they earn and what they spend the money on. Timo Schneider, for example, has already been able to invest a few tens of thousands of euros in shares at the age of 29. "I know a lot of details about vacation planning, the last divorce or itchy skin rash, but I don't know what my colleagues earn," says Florian. "This is the only way we could ensure justice. And hopefully also soften the many pay gaps a little.« Hence the new series. If you are now wondering: What does Florian actually earn? I asked him. We're going to eat soon. It's not yet clear who pays.
Read the full story here: 70,000 euros as a data analyst: "I'm certainly overpaid"
You also want to talk about money – anonymous or non-anonymous? Here you go: Feel free to send an e-mail to: florian.gontek@spiegel.de .
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Which is not so important today. Or maybe maybe
Enlarge imagePhoto:
stylebender / Instagram
»Zucks« chest hair: Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg, 39, posted a photo on Instagram posing with boxer and professional cage fighter Israel Adesanya, 33. And bare-chested. Is this a greeting to Elon Musk, 52, who challenged Zuckerberg to a cage fight at the end of June? Not unlikely. Within a few hours, Zuckerberg's posting to his training partners on Instagram garnered more than a million likes. »No fugazi with Mark. This is serious business," commented Israel Adesanya, which in this context should mean something like: This is not just a show, but serious training.
Mini concave mirror
Here you will find the whole concave mirror.
Cartoon of the Day
And tonight?
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AI-generated Heidi: Something's wrong here
At second 17, the Alm-Öhi then gives the cow a French kiss. Immediately afterwards, a bull poses in front of a baby-blue alpine sky, grotesquely inflated, as if it were about to take off as a helium balloon. And a horde of greyhounds sits in the cinema chewing popcorn. Sounds at least as strange as it looks: If you have 1:14 minutes tonight, watch the "Heidi" movie trailer created by an AI. The fever dream in Technicolor is just one example of many, there are a lot of cinema trailers circulating on the net, made by AI. There's one for »Lord of the Rings«, »The Matrix« or »Pulp Fiction«. Is this art now? My colleague Arno Frank has seen them all and judges them in his story: "The films are more of a visual poisoning". Still, I think it's worth taking a look. The first examples may be rather disturbing. But being able to create moving images from mere text awakens (at least) the play instinct: see a joke here, for example. As a video. Created by AI. Admittedly, the punch line is guessable: In the demo version, only 200 characters are allowed, which is just enough for a one-liner. But we are already working on the feature-length cinema version: »Nuschel – der Film«. Will the AI also be able to do Til Schweiger?
Enjoy the evening,
Yours, Jens Radü, Chief of Staff