🇨🇳 Second day of China's military drills around Taiwan, Congress passes Taylor Swift-inspired law on private plane tracking, human head transplant could soon be a reality

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The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) of China has entered its second day of rigorous military drills around Taiwan, escalating the tension in the region.

The exercises, which began on Thursday, have expanded from initial blockade practices to more advanced operations focused on battlefield control and domain occupation.

These drills, code-named “Joint Sword-2024A,” have raised alarms in Taipei, which is closely monitoring the situation for any signs of live fire, an element not yet observed. For more on this breaking news, check out today’s Must-Read.

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🇨🇳 ‘Seize power’: China continues Taiwan-choking military drills on day 2

The military exercises come in the wake of the inauguration speech by Taiwan’s new president, William Lai Ching-te, which has sparked significant outrage in Beijing.

The PLA’s Eastern Theatre Command issued a statement on Friday, indicating the continuation of the Sword-2024A blockade drills with added focus on occupying important domains.

The PLA Daily, the military’s official newspaper, defended the drills as “completely just and necessary” to punish “Taiwan separatists” and serve as a warning to “external forces.”

🛫 Taylor Swift’s jet emissions row leads to US barring private plane tracking

A new bill approved by US President Joe Biden has made it almost impossible to track the movement of any private aircraft. The recent amendment in the Federal Aviation Administration re-authorization bill empowers private aircraft owners to anonymize their registration details.

So far, it was easy for random people on the internet to monitor the aircraft movement of celebrities and billionaires as the plane owners were bound to register aircraft ownership information with the FAA civil registry.

Jack Sweeney, a Florida college student who previously tracked Elon Musk’s jet, has been frequently tracking Taylor Swift’s plane. Recently, he revealed that the celebrity’s planes emitted 1,200 tons of CO2 in 2023, which is 83x higher than that of an average American.

🤯 World’s 1st robot surgeon concept for head-swap surgery shocks internet

Biomedical engineering and neuroscience startup BrainBridge has unveiled its plans to perform the first human head transplant within the next eight years.

If everything goes according to plan, the entire procedure will be performed autonomously using a combination of sophisticated medical robots and artificial intelligence.

The company has even released a somewhat disturbing computer-generated video of how the procedure might look. This procedure, the company explains, will be used to help patients with untreatable medical conditions like paralysis, cancer, or neurodegenerative conditions.

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IE QUIZ: THE RESULTS

In yesterday’s quiz, we asked, Can you find the missing number?

The answer is: Column 1: ((7×4)+1)-11=18 Column 2:((8×5)+2)-12=30 Column 3: ((9×6)+3)-13=44

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