Akunna Cook’s Next Narrative Africa Fund has spent the past year making the case that African storytelling is a serious global market that the entertainment industry has consistently underestimated. Now the organization has some numbers to back up its pitch.
NNAF released a new report Thursday, produced in partnership with Parrot Analytics, finding that global demand for African and diasporan film and television has outpaced supply over the past five years — and that the imbalance is especially pronounced in non-English-language titles and several of the commercial genres that drive streaming demand.
Titled “From Influence to Investible: Quantifying Global Demand, Travelability & Investment Opportunity,” the study measures digitally expressed demand for African and diasporan content from 2020 through 2025. Its core takeaway is that African storytelling is not simply a cultural niche or an opportunity to boost representation, but a structurally underexploited growth category for the global entertainment sector.
The researchers found that non-English-language African stories account for 28 percent of audience demand within the cohort tracked by the study, but just 16 percent of available supply — “a clear structural gap within the global streaming ecosystem,” according to the authors.
The report also pushes back on the common industry assumption that African screen stories seldom travel far beyond their home markets. The United States is the single largest market for African and diasporan content, accounting for 8.5 percent of global demand, but the top consuming territories span four continents and include Great Britain, South Africa, Canada, France, Brazil and China. Belgium and Portugal emerge as especially strong over-indexing markets, which the study attributes to the role of African diaspora communities as early discovery engines. In the Caribbean, Eastern Africa and Southern Africa, meanwhile, African and diasporan stories account for more than 60 percent of demand relative to the other major global import cohorts tracked in the report.
The study also explores how African content crosses over. It identifies Black American women as the “bridge audience” for Black-led storytelling, consuming such content at roughly six times the rate of the U.S. general population — making them, in the report’s framing, the single most predictive audience segment for crossover success. Black American men, meanwhile, are described as playing a complementary role as early adopters of non-English-language African content, helping titles move beyond the diaspora.
Cook, a former U.S. Foreign Service officer who served in China, South Africa and Baghdad before working on Africa policy in the Biden administration, launched NNAF in 2024 as a $50 million hybrid vehicle combining $40 million in commercial equity with a $10 million nonprofit venture studio. The fund’s first slate was unveiled in March, drawn from more than 2,000 submissions across 80 countries.
In a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Cook argued that Hollywood’s top decision-makers — “the Neons and A24s and the Disneys and the Lionsgates” — should already be thinking seriously about their Africa strategy, given the continent’s cultural influence and enviable demographic profile, with more than 60 percent of Africans under 25.
The report’s authors acknowledge that digitally expressed demand is not the same thing as box office returns, licensing fees or audited financial performance. But Cook’s broader pitch to content investors and studios is clear enough: a global audience for African content already exists, cultural momentum around African music and storytelling continues to build, and the industry’s current output falls far short of demand.
Houston Rockets star Kevin Durant lamented that the Los Angeles Lakers sent double teams his way from the first possession of Game 2.
He wasn’t wrong. On his first offensive touch 65 seconds into the first quarter, the Lakers made sure Luke Kennard and Deandre Ayton defended Durant.
It was like that for much of the game. The Lakers either wanted Durant to take a shot with two defenders on him or force the ball out of his hands with a pass.
“They feel confident in that scheme,” Durant said.
Though Durant scored 20 points in the first half, he had just three in the third and fourth quarters as the fourth-seeded Lakers defeated fifth-seeded Houston 101-94 Tuesday for a 2-0 lead in their first-round Western Conference playoff series.
Durant took just 12 shots – nearly six below his season average – and just five in the second half while committing a season-high nine turnovers.
“It’s hard to get into our actions,” Durant said. “We’re used to teams playing pick-and-roll or maybe trapping me or playing in the drop. But they’re switching, and then just running a guy at me at the half(-court line) or at the 3-point line, or wherever I’m at, to double.”
Durant, one of the game’s most gifted scorers and the NBA’s fifth all-time leader in points, is not fond of double teams. He prefers operating one-on-one, where he has an advantage against most defenders. The Lakers, who are missing Luka Dončić and Austin Reaves due to injuries, want to eliminate that advantage as much as possible.
“He’s the type of player who can take over a series,” Lakers coach JJ Redick said.
In three meetings this season, the Lakers won twice in Houston, and Durant averaged 20.3 ppg and shot 56.1%.
Durant missed Game 1 with a bruised right knee and was a game-time decision ahead of the second game.
How will Durant handle double teams in Game 3 on Friday (8 p.m. ET, Prime Video)? Durant indicated that he planned to take more shots and do a better job passing out of those double teams. Of those nine turnovers, five came when the Lakers had at least two defenders surrounding him. Four turnovers were in the fourth quarter.
“When two, three people are on me and I shoot, we can get an offensive rebound. … I’ve got to shoot more of those and put my teammates in better position,” he said, adding, “I’ve just got to be more aggressive and look to score no matter where the double team is coming.”
It would help Durant’s cause if the Rockets were better offensively. They have scored fewer than 100 points in both games, shooting 39% from the field and 29% on 3-pointers.
“We’re just not making shots to be honest,” Durant said. “We’re not shooting the ball well. We’re missing a lot of layups. I just think that’s the difference in the game. They’re making shots.
“We’ve played this team before, and they know the way for them to stay in the game is to play this type of defense. We’ve got to make them pay.”
If the Rockets shoot better, that would force the Lakers to make decisions. But until then, expect a steady stream of double teams on Durant.
An economist at USDC issuer Circle proposed an emergency overhaul of Aave’s lending mechanics, advocating for a 50% maximum borrowing rate.
Making Aave an “irresistible destination” for capital should alleviate a liquidity crisis that has left stablecoins trapped in the DeFi giant for the past five days, he said.
Meanwhile, liquid staking protocol Lido fielded a proposal that would divert funds to a dedicated relief vehicle for Aave users.
An economist at USDC issuer Circle proposed an emergency overhaul of Aave’s lending mechanics on Wednesday, calling for a massive interest rate hike to break a liquidity crunch that has left users’ funds trapped on the lending protocol for the past five days.
After users borrowed massive amounts of stablecoins to escape fallout associated with Kelp DAO’s recent $291 million exploit, quadrupling the maximum interest rate on Aave should shock the system back into balance, according to Circle Chief Economist and Head of Research Gordon Liao.
Under the proposal, the maximum borrowing rate for USDC on Aave could rise as high as 50%, incentivizing users to repay debt and making the lending protocol an “irresistible destination” for capital that would enable depositors to have a better chance of withdrawing funds, he wrote.
With borrowing costs currently capped at a rate of 14%, Liao indicated the cost of capital remains low enough that users are opting to keep positions open instead of repaying their debt. The so-called utilization rate for USDC has meanwhile been pinned around 100% since Sunday, signaling that liquidity for lenders has effectively dried up, according to Aavescan.
Liao’s proposal reflects widespread and ongoing efforts to address the liquidity crunch that has shaken confidence in decentralized finance and prompted users to yank $12 billion in digital assets from the sector’s most battle-tested protocol in a handful of days. As of Thursday, Aave’s protocol held around $15.47 billion in total assets.
Beyond letting rates rise, Liao’s proposal seeks to lower the “optimal” utilization rate for USDC on Aave to 85% from 92%. The lower mark would reduce the threshold at which borrowing costs steepen for users, a move aimed at creating a sustainable cash buffer for withdrawals.
Liao noted that his proposal only reflects his personal views, yet the suggestion was amplified by Circle co-founder and CEO Jeremy Allaire in an X post on Thursday.
Many users who borrowed stablecoins on Aave did so because they were unable to withdraw Ethereum from the platform. That is because the attackers that plundered $292 million in crypto from Kelp DAO used the stolen funds to borrow assets from the lending platform.
Allowing borrowing rates to quadruple for USDC might alleviate the crisis, but some members of Aave’s governance forum pushed back against the proposal, fearingchanges could stoke liquidations among those affected as positions become prohibitively expensive.
Earlier this week, the security council overseeing Arbitrum effectively froze 30,766 Ethereum valued at $71 million, which attackers had moved to the layer-2 scaling network, reducing the haircut that Aave users could face if losses from the Kelp DAO exploit are socialized.
DeFi projects like Lido are also in a position to support Aave. On Thursday, the liquid staking protocol, which allows users to earn rewards without locking their tokens up, received a proposal that floated a one-time contribution of up to 2,500 stETH to a dedicated relief vehicle.
“The proposal is designed to reduce broader ecosystem spillover and support an orderly resolution for affected users,” Lido said in an X post.
On Saturday, attackers drained 116,000 rsETH from a cross-chain bridge that allows users to move the token, which is backed by staked Ethereum, from one network to another. Issued by Kelp DAO, rsETH functions as a tradeable “receipt” for the DeFi protocol’s depositors.
The bridge was built on infrastructure from interoperability protocol LayerZero, which subsequently blamed Kelp DAO for relying on what has been described as a single point of failure. Kelp DAO pointed the finger back at LayerZero, arguing that only LayerZero’s systems were impacted by the attack, which has since been linked to North Korea’s Lazarus Group.
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Space and Time launched Dreamspace after 34,000 apps were created in beta.
The AI tool generates, audits, and deploys smart contracts and front ends.
Dreamspace is built for Ethereum-compatible blockchains, with Base as the default.
The Microsoft-backed blockchain network Space and Time on Thursday launched Dreamspace, an AI-powered app builder designed to let users create and deploy on-chain applications and smart contracts without writing code.
The platform has been in beta since August 2025, according to Space and Time co-founder Scott Dykstra, and the company said more than 34,000 apps were created before Thursday’s public release.
“It’s about making it really easy to deploy an app that has a smart contract, where that smart contract is audited and you, as the creator, actually own it, sign it, and deploy it to an [Ethereum-based] chain,” Dykstra told Decrypt.
Dykstra compared Dreamspace to Lovable, an AI coding platform that lets users create apps from plain-language prompts, but said Dreamspace is specifically designed to generate, audit, and deploy smart contracts alongside the front-end applications that interact with them.
“Anybody can use a tool like Lovable to build a website or a little app that has a back end, but we’re talking about actually generating smart contracts, auditing them, and deploying them with a front end that understands the smart contract,” Dykstra said.
According to Space and Time, Dreamspace was built using Microsoft’s Azure AI Foundry and Azure OpenAI, with front ends hosted on Azure and smart contracts deployable to any Ethereum Virtual Machine-compatible blockchain.
Founded in 2022, Space and Time provides blockchain-based data infrastructure for on-chain finance and has increasingly pushed into AI, including through last year’s partnership with Bless Network to support AI agents.
Dreamspace has already onboarded about 140,000 students, Dykstra said, while the company said schools in Indonesia have created AI labs and curriculum centered around the platform.
The platform defaults to Base, Coinbase’s Ethereum layer-2 network, because Base supported the product during beta testing and user growth, Dykstra said. Space and Time also said Base enables transactions costing less than one cent and speeds of under one second.
“We’re building Base as an open stack for the global economy, and that means making it possible for anyone to participate as a builder, not just a user, and especially using cutting-edge tools like AI,” Head of AI Developer Relations at Base, Eric Brown, said in a statement. “This exciting new project makes starting an onchain business as simple as having an idea worth building.”
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United States President Donald Trump has claimed Iran is “collapsing financially” and said the country is losing millions of dollars a day due to Washington’s naval blockade of Iranian ports.
In a post on his Truth Social platform on Tuesday night, Trump wrote: “Iran is collapsing financially! They want the Strait of Hormuz opened immediately – Starving for cash! Losing 500 Million Dollars a day. Military and Police complaining that they are not getting paid. SOS!!!”
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The US blockade of Iranian ports began at 14:00 GMT on April 13. Since then, the US has fired on and seized an Iranian-flagged tanker near the Strait of Hormuz, and redirected ships in the open seas carrying cargo to or from Iran. Iran’s armed forces have called this “an illegal act” that “amounts to piracy”.
In response to the US naval blockade, Iran has closed the Strait of Hormuz to all foreign shipping and has captured several foreign-flagged ships. Previously, it had allowed some ships deemed “friendly” to Iran to pass.
On April 19, Iran’s First Vice President Mohammad Reza Aref said the “security of the Strait of Hormuz is not free”.
“One cannot restrict Iran’s oil exports while expecting free security for others,” he wrote in a post on X.
“The choice is clear: either a free oil market for all, or the risk of significant costs for everyone,” he added. “Stability in global fuel prices depends on a guaranteed and lasting end to the economic and military pressure against Iran and its allies.”
In a statement on social media on Thursday, Iran’s parliamentary speaker and lead negotiator in the ceasefire talks, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, said a full ceasefire could only work if the US naval blockade is lifted.
Analysts say the blockade is hurting Iran but believe the country has the economic and political will to sustain it.
How long can Iran survive the naval blockade?
Here’s what we know:
How is the naval blockade hurting Iran?
Iran exports oil, gas and other goods including petrochemicals, plastics and agricultural products by sea. Analysts say the US naval blockade of its ports, including in the Strait of Hormuz, could therefore affect this trade.
Soon after the start of the US-Israel war on Iran on February 28, authorities in Tehran implemented the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, the only waterway out of the Gulf, through which 20 percent of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG) supplies were shipped from Gulf producers in peacetime.
The near-shutdown of the vital chokepoint sent global oil and gas prices soaring, and since then, Iran has controlled the strait. However, it has continued to export its own energy products through the waterway.
Iran’s oil exports through the Strait of Hormuz account for about 80 percent of its total oil exports. According to Kpler, a trade intelligence firm, Iran exported 1.84 million barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil in March and has shipped 1.71 million bpd so far in April, compared with an average of 1.68 million bpd in 2025.
From March 15 to April 14, it exported 55.22 million barrels of oil. The price per barrel of Iranian oil – across its three major variants, known as Iranian light, Iranian heavy and Forozan blend – has not fallen below $90 per barrel over the past month. On many days, the price has surpassed $100 a barrel.
Even at the conservative estimate of $90 a barrel, Iran has earned at least $4.97bn over the past month from its ongoing oil exports.
By contrast, in early February before the war started, Iran was earning about $115m a day from its crude oil exports, or $3.45bn in a month.
Simply put, Iran has earned 40 percent more from oil exports in the past month than it did before the war.
Stopping this is a key motivation behind the US naval blockade of Iranian ports.
In an interview with Al Jazeera on April 14, Frederic Schneider, a nonresident senior fellow at the Middle East Council on Global Affairs, told Al Jazeera that the previous six weeks had been a boon for Iran in terms of oil revenues, but with the US blockade, that will change.
“Iran has some buffer in the form of crude oil reserves in floating tanks – basically parked tankers – which was estimated at about 127 million barrels in February. But that doesn’t mean that the blockade wouldn’t hurt Iran,” he said.
On Friday, Schneider told Al Jazeera that Iran, however, seems to be “playing the longer game” and has anticipated and prepared for this sort of conflict to some degree.
“The naval blockade has added economic strain, as several civilian ships have been captured in international waters. But it remains unclear how tight the blockade is, how many ships manage to pass given the considerable amount of floating Iranian oil, and how long Trump can maintain the blockade,” he said.
(Al Jazeera)
Can the US keep the blockade going for long?
Schneider noted that Trump will face a legislative challenge by May 1, when the 60 days he can maintain a foreign offensive without congressional approval come to an end.
Dire conditions have been reported on the ships that are upholding the blockade, he said, and it remains to be seen how China will react to the continuing seizure of ships that carry any of its cargo.
“China has already said it sees the blockade of Chinese trade with Iran as unacceptable. Further, the closure of Hormuz by Iran in retaliation is hurting, if not the US itself that much, American allies in the region and globally, raising the pressure on Trump,” he said.
“If we can glean anything from the behaviour of the two sides, it is Iran that is signalling patience and Trump showing impatience,” he added.
Adam Ereli, a former US ambassador to Bahrain, told Al Jazeera’s This is America programme that while the US blockade of Iranian ports and seizure of vessels transporting Iranian oil “makes sense” as a policy, it may not work as intended due to domestic political considerations in the US.
“The Iranians have prepared for this, for this eventuality. They have their own plans. They’ve got alternative means of storing their oil or selling their oil,” Ereli told Al Jazeera.
“Even if they ran out of oil, they have ways to survive a very tough blockade and sanctions regime that, frankly, I think will outlast Trump’s patience and the patience of the American people,” he said.
“Remember, this isn’t just about moving soldiers and ships and planes around on a map. There’s politics involved here in the United States,” he added.
“Trump is nothing if not attuned to the political winds. And for that reason, I think that you’ve got this Iran strategy on the one hand that runs up against an electoral strategy on another hand, and therefore, the question is, which one is going to give?”
Can Iran store the oil the US is blockading in the meantime?
Iran’s domestic refineries have a capacity of 2.6 million bpd, according to consultancy FGE Energy. Its oil and gas production facilities are concentrated in southwestern provinces: Khuzestan for oil and Bushehr for gas and condensate from the South Pars gasfield.
Iran is also the third-largest oil producer in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and exports 90 percent of its crude oil via Kharg Island for shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.
The US naval blockade has begun affecting the country’s storage capacity, according to TankerTrackers, the maritime intelligence agency. The blockade means Iran has to store more oil, and space could become tight.
TankerTrackers said that on Kharg Island, to prepare for the possibility of running out of oil storage space, Iran has brought an old tanker named NASHA (9079107) out of retirement.
“She’s a 30yo [year old] VLCC [Very Large Crude Carrier] that’s been anchored empty for the past few years; currently spending 4 days on a trip that should take 1.5-2 days,” TankerTrackers said in a post on X, suggesting that the tanker is being used to store oil. It is unclear if the ship has a heading or course.
Can Iran continue to earn revenues from oil?
Yes, analysts say that for a few months, Iran can continue to earn revenue from oil which is already in transit at sea.
Kenneth Katzman, former Iran analyst at the Congressional Research Service in Washington, DC, said Iran is not exporting new oil amid the US blockade of Iranian ports, but Tehran has between 160 million and 170 million barrels of oil “afloat” on ships around the world currently.
Those supplies, which transited the Strait of Hormuz before the US blockade was imposed, are on board hundreds of tankers and “waiting to be delivered”, Katzman told Al Jazeera.
Katzman said he had been informed by an Iranian professor that, based on those supplies, Tehran could have revenue flows that can last until August despite the US naval blockade.
“Which is a long time. Does President Trump have until August? Probably not,” he said.
“He’s probably going to have to look at kinetic escalation if he wants to bring this to the conclusion that he wants, or he’s going to have to accept less than the deal he ideally wants,” he said.
Iranian ships will still have to avoid US naval ships on the open ocean, as the US Navy has also recently intercepted ships carrying Iranian cargoes.
On Wednesday this week, for example, the US military intercepted at least three Iranian-flagged tankers in Asian waters, Reuters reported, and was said to be redirecting them away from their positions near India, Malaysia and Sri Lanka.
How else can Iran earn revenue?
Besides oil revenue, Iran is also currently receiving revenue from a “toll booth” system that the country imposed on the Strait of Hormuz in March.
On Thursday, Iran’s deputy parliament speaker Hamidreza Haji-Babaei said Tehran’s central bank had received the first revenues from tolls imposed since the start of the war, according to the semiofficial Tasnim news agency. It is unclear how much that toll revenue is.
Iranian politician Alaeddin Boroujerdi told the United Kingdom-based, Farsi-language satellite TV channel Iran International in March that the country has been charging some vessels as much as $2m each to pass through the strait.
According to Lloyd’s List, the shipping news outlet, at least two vessels that have transited the strait so far have paid fees in yuan, China’s currency. Lloyd’s List reported that one “transit was brokered by a Chinese maritime services company acting as an intermediary, which also handled the payment to Iranian authorities”. It is, however, not clear how much the vessels paid.
How resilient is Iran’s leadership?
In recent days, while pressuring Iran to negotiate a ceasefire deal, US President Donald Trump has claimed that Iranians are “having a very hard time figuring out who their leader is”, alleging that there is “crazy” infighting between “moderates” and “hardliners” in Tehran.
But the country’s officials have insisted that Iran’s government is united.
Mohammad Reza Aref, Iran’s first vice president, said on Thursday: “Our political diversity is our democracy, yet in times of peril, we are a ‘Single Hand’ under one flag. To protect our soil and dignity, we transcend all labels. We are one soul, one nation.”
Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi also dismissed allegations that the Iranian military may be at odds with the political leadership.
“The failure of Israel’s terrorist killings is reflected in how Iran’s state institutions continue to act with unity, purpose, and discipline,” he wrote on X, referring to the assassinations of Iranian political and military figures Israel has carried out in recent weeks.
“The battlefield and diplomacy are fully coordinated fronts in the same war. Iranians are all united, more than ever before.”
One of the strongest messages of unity came from Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian.
“In Iran, there are no radicals or moderates,” he said on X.
“We are all Iranians and revolutionaries. With ironclad unity of nation and state and obedience to the Supreme Leader, we will make the aggressor regret.”
How strong is Iran militarily?
Iran has demonstrated considerable military resilience in the face of weeks of US-Israeli strikes through its use of asymmetric warfare.
This includes the use of guerrilla tactics, cyberattacks, arming and supporting proxy armed groups and other indirect tools.
During its war with the US and Israel, Iran has targeted energy infrastructure in Israel and across the Gulf, threatened to target banking institutions and targeted US data centres of technology companies such as Amazon in the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.
Iran has also blocked the Strait of Hormuz and reportedly placed mines in the strait to disrupt shipping, sending global oil prices soaring.
Since the US began its naval blockade of Iranian ports in mid-April, Iranian officials have repeatedly promised that their country will defend itself and respond to any US attack.
Earlier this week, after the US military said it had seized an Iranian vessel and ordered dozens of others to turn around, Iran also retaliated by capturing foreign commercial vessels around the Hormuz Strait, which it said violated naval regulations.
Ereli, the former US ambassador, told Al Jazeera that Iran and the IRGC have “revolutionary fervour”, which means they can “survive”. “They can tolerate pain for a lot longer than I think most American decision makers and planners calculate,” Ereli said.
Ereli said it was unknown how long Tehran could last under “siege conditions” imposed by the US, but probably a lot longer than the US anticipates.
“I think they can go a lot longer, especially than most people imagine, and especially when it comes to kneeling to the Americans,” Ereli said.
“There’s a level of pride and survival. They’re at war with us, and for them it’s a war of necessity. They’ve got to survive,” he added.
South by Southwest London, which runs June 1-6, has unveiled its full music program, with special guests added to the lineup including K-Pop idol Yunjin, Italian pop superstar Gaia, Dallas rap collective Cure for Paranoia, and spoken-word and hip-hop fusion musician BrokenPen.
Other additions include Afrobeats rising star Oxlade, London-based grime artist Jords, reggae-inspired singer-songwriter Iyamah, genre-bending artist Finn Askew, folk-pop singer Oscar Blue and Finnish metal band Rabbit Cult.
Previously announced artists set to appear at the event include Nigerian Afrobeats artist Tiwa Savage, American rapper Earl Sweatshirt, Nigerian rapper and singer Odumodublvck, American sibling rock band Infinity Song and British singer-songwriter Rachel Chinouriri.
Also confirmed to perform at SXSW London were Amaria BB, Sega Bodega, Shame, Circa Waves and producer Fraser T. Smith.
Adem Holness, head of music at SXSW London, said: “I’ve always loved artists, collectives and platforms building new scenes on their own terms, shaping sounds, spaces and audiences around them. At a time when algorithms can flatten culture into sameness, stepping into real, physical music communities matters more than ever.
“We’re taking over grassroots venues across East London, bringing those distinct global scenes into the same space, not as trends but as movements shaped by the people inside them. If you want to understand where music is heading next, it starts in these rooms, with the people creating it.”
The week opens with a launch event at Brick Lane Yard before moving into a packed multi-day schedule of curated showcases. Highlights include a special program with Notion at Shoreditch Town Hall featuring Earl Sweatshirt alongside rising voices such as Cure for Paranoia, Gramn. and Harry Edohoukwa.
Across the week, a wide range of global scenes are represented through collaborations with leading curators and platforms. Crack Magazine brings boundary-pushing electronic artist Sega Bodega to Christ Church Spitalfields, while Seoul Community Radio and ScreaM Records spotlight cutting-edge sounds from South Korea at XOYO. Latino Life delivers a showcase of Latin talent at Unlocked, and Island Wave presents a high-energy bill including Oxlade and DJ Puffy.
Wednesday’s program has Mahogany hosting artists including Rachel Chinouriri and Infinity Song at Shoreditch Town Hall, while BBC Asian Network takes over Rich Mix. The Brit School and TLD Records also spotlight the U.K.’s emerging talent pipeline at Colours.
Thursday expands the sonic palette further, from South Asian House and Afro Folk Rising showcases to a major R&B-led lineup curated by DJ Ace, featuring Tiwa Savage. The day also sees performances from Amaria BB, Samory I and Zion Marley, alongside a gospel showcase led by House Gospel Choir.
The program continues into Friday with a mix of cutting-edge and alternative voices, including post-punk outfit Shame, as well as showcases from Focus Wales, Reprezent Radio and emerging artist collectives supporting the next generation of U.K. talent.
Variety parent company Penske Media acquired a majority stake in SXSW in 2023.
Although it’s one of the more inoffensive topics on Polymarket, this news typifies the Wild West of prediction markets and betting sites. A hairdryer was allegedly used to rig Polymarket bets on temperatures at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris, according to a report by The Telegraph. French authorities noted that the official temperature readings at the airport spiked twice in the past month. On both occasions, gamblers betting on those temperature fluctuations on Polymarket appear to have walked away with thousands upon thousands of dollars.
There is no indication that Polymarket forced anyone to return winnings, but the temperature sensor has been moved to a new location. The site is also still running bets on the daily temperature in and around Paris.
In a more serious development, a US soldier was arrested for allegedly making over $400,000 on Polymarket using information he had about the plans to capture the former Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro.
Gannon Ken Van Dyke was arrested and charged with using classified military information to place bets on the prediction marketplace Polymarket. Van Dyke created a Polymarket account around December 26, 2025, and made 13 bets related to Maduro from December 27 to January 2.
The soldier has also been charged with one count of wire fraud, carrying a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison, and one count of unlawful monetary transaction, carrying a maximum sentence of 10 years. It’s a lot heavier than hairdryer shenanigans.
— Mat Smith
The other big stories (and deals) this morning
High-quality aerial video at its most affordable.
Engadget
DJI is taking another stab at the budget drone market with the new Lito series. The Lito 1 and Lito X1 are both under $400 and weigh less than 249 grams — they’re ideal for beginners. Both replace DJI’s Mini series, but they offer things those models lacked, like LiDAR and 360-degree obstacle avoidance. After testing both models, I believe they offer unbeatable value and performance at these prices, by a long shot. However, due to DJI’s standing in the US, you might not see either.
But new Call of Duty games will no longer hit the service at launch.
Activision
As suggested by recent comments by the new boss of Xbox, Microsoft’s gaming arm is cutting the prices of both Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass, effective immediately, but there’s one big caveat. New Call of Duty games will no longer be available on Game Pass Ultimate or PC Game Pass on day one. They’ll eventually hit those tiers about a year later, during the following holiday season.
Anker, of battery-pack and cable fame, has announced its own AI chip that it will integrate into its future headphones and other devices. The company is planning to debut the chip, called Thus, on a new model of headphones to be unveiled at its Anker Day event in May.
Anker’s Thus chip integrates computing power directly into NOR flash memory cells, which offer faster read speeds than NAND. Anker says headphones are a particularly challenging environment to demonstrate what a new chip can do because “hardly any other device places higher demands on an AI chip.” Anker announced one particular feature to showcase its silicon. Clear Calls will cancel noise “with a large neural network running entirely on the device, supported by eight MEMS microphones and two bone conduction sensors.”
Shiba Inu lead ambassador Shytoshi Kusama continues to stay active on X after ending a nearly two-week silence.
In one of the changes, Kusama updated his X location to “wiring features,” which previously read “Ready to reveal what’s next.”
As reported, the Shiba Inu lead ambassador resumed activity on X after 13 days of silence. He also changed his X bio and location to “Ready to reveal what’s next.” As it stands, his bio remains unchanged while his X location shows the new change.
In an earlier tweet, Kusama hinted at Saturday as a new date for his discussion with the community. The discussion (from his prior indications) will delve into spiritual mysteries and share insights on tech.
With the recent update in his X location to “wiring features,” the Shiba Inu community remains on the lookout, as Kusama has in the past given subtle hints about upcoming developments through his X location and bio.
Kusama previously indicated his period of silence meant he was busy working on something and revealed work on a new AI application focused on relationships.
The location change to “wiring features” sparks speculation about technical updates or incoming developments, but the specific context remains unknown.
$SHIB price action
The broader crypto market saw profit-taking after yesterday’s rise, which weighed on Shiba Inu’s ability to sustain gains.
$SHIB moved higher on Wednesday, marking four straight days of increases, before seeing mild profit-taking. At the time of writing, $SHIB was still retaining some of its gains, up 1.5% in the last 24 hours to $0.000006144.
Shiba Inu tested the $0.00000629 level on April 22 before slipping back toward $0.0000061. The move failed to sustain above the said resistance, with selling pressure increasing toward the day’s close.
A sustained break of the $0.00000629 level will be watched for $SHIB to maintain positive momentum. This positive outlook will hold if Shiba Inu continues to stay above the daily MA 50 at $0.0000059. In this case, Shiba Inu might eye $0.0000076 next, ahead of $0.000008, or consolidate a little while longer.
Bitcoin (BTC) has experienced significant declines in recent months, falling as low as $60,000 in February.
These declines also negatively impacted US spot ETFs, resulting in significant outflows.
However, the positive momentum seen in Bitcoin and the market has also been reflected in inflows into ETFs.
At this point, BNY Mellon, one of the oldest banks in the US, noted that spot Bitcoin ETFs are experiencing a buy-and-hold trend.
Speaking to The Block, Ben Slavin, head of BNY Mellon’s ETF division, stated that spot Bitcoin ETFs have seen net inflows this year and are generally back in positive territory.
Salavin said that spot Bitcoin ETFs have seen net inflows year-to-date due to the ‘buy and hold’ trend.
A BNY Mellon official noted that as of April 23, total daily inflows for the 12 spot Bitcoin ETFs exceeded $335 million, while monthly inflows surpassed $2.1 billion.
“Despite significant outflows earlier in the year, spot Bitcoin ETFs have shown a net inflow of $1.8 billion in the three-month period since the start of the year.”
Slavin explained that those who invest in Bitcoin ETFs show a stronger tendency to hold onto their assets during price declines compared to those who invest in other risky assets.
He also added that ETF investors are implementing portfolio allocation and “Buy and Hold” strategies instead of short-term trading.
Bloomberg Senior ETF Analyst Eric Balchunas’s post regarding ETFs also supports this view. According to Balchunas, all flow metrics are trending positively for the first time in months, and Bitcoin ETFs are on the rise again.
In a post on Balchunas X, he said, “Every period we’ve been tracking is now positive, we haven’t seen this in months.”
Currently, the total assets under management (AUM) of the 12 Bitcoin spot ETFs is approximately $125 billion. This figure reached an all-time high of $162 billion in October 2025.
Cable and broadband giant Charter Communications narrowed its losses of pay TV customers as it reported its first-quarter results Friday.
The company, led by president and CEO Chris Winfrey, shed 51,000 residential video subscribers during the first quarter, compared to a loss of 167,000 residential video customers during the same period last year. Charter had posted a rare gain of 44,000 pay TV subs during the fourth quarter of 2025 amid continued cord-cutting across the industry.
The company earlier added programmers’ streaming applications in Spectrum’s expanded basic packages to lower churn and had a slight bump in signups when Disney channels were unavailable for YouTube TV subscribers during a recent carriage dispute. Charter had 12.5 million pay-TV customers at the end of the first quarter, down 1.3 percent from a year-earlier 12.7 million.
The company also shed 120,000 internet customers during the latest quarter, compared to a 59,000 customer decline in the first quarter of 2025. That was offset by Charter adding 368,000 total mobile phone lines, against growth of 507,000 Spectrum Mobile lines in the year-ago period.
Net income attributable to Charter shareholders fell 4.4 percent to $1.2 billion, while first-quarter revenue of $13.6 billion dropped 1 percent from a year-earlier $13.7 billion.
Overall, Charter had 29.4 million residential customers taking its Internet, mobile phone, video and other products at the end of the first quarter, down 1.5 percent from a year-earlier 29.9 million overall subscribers.
“We remain confident about our ability to win in the marketplace and grow over the longer term. That confidence is founded on our advanced network, our core operating strategy of delivering great products at great prices and our focus on increasing customer satisfaction,” Winfrey said in a statement ahead of a morning analyst call to discuss the first quarter financial results.
