Transcript

Hello everyone, welcome to ‘Just a Moment News.’ I’m Erika, and today’s date is May 1st, 2024. Let’s dive into some interesting news stories from around the world.

First up, let’s talk about Eskom, South Africa’s public electric utility. Over the past five years, they’ve spent nearly sixty-five billion Rand on diesel to operate their open-cycle gas turbines. This was mainly to ensure grid stability and minimize load-shedding. Interestingly, they used about 3.35 billion liters of diesel in this period, which is enough to fill around 41.9 million eighty-liter Toyota Hilux bakkies. The rising diesel prices in recent years have significantly bumped up Eskom’s expenses, highlighting the challenges they face in maintaining energy supply amid escalating fuel costs.

Moving on to Amazon, the company has recently reported a significant rise in revenue and profit for the first quarter. Sales increased by 13% to a record $143.3 billion, with profits reaching $10.4 billion. A lot of this growth has been fueled by the AI boom, especially in its cloud-computing unit, Amazon Web Services, which saw a 17% increase in sales. Despite facing challenges like increased competition and potential antitrust actions, Amazon’s focus on AI and efficient supply chain management seems to be paying off, reflecting in a 15% increase in their share price this year.

Now, let’s talk about Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson and the troubled production of Amazon MGM’s ‘Red One.’ Scheduled for a Christmas 2024 release, the film has faced significant delays and budget overruns, partly due to labor strikes and partly due to Johnson’s chronic lateness, which escalated the production costs to over $250 million. This situation has strained relationships within the production team and has had ripple effects on other projects involving Johnson.

In another Amazon-related story, a developer named Maciej Pocwierz faced a financial scare when his AWS S3 storage bucket, named too commonly, attracted nearly 100 million unauthorized PUT requests in a single day, leading to a bill of over $1,300. Fortunately, AWS canceled the bill after he appealed, and both the open-source tool and AWS are considering changes to prevent such costly mistakes in the future.

Switching gears to gaming, Apple is making a significant push into triple-A gaming with the upcoming release of Ubisoft’s “Assassin’s Creed Mirage” on the iPhone 15 series and certain iPad models. The game, which promises a return to traditional stealth gameplay, will be available from June 6 and supports cross-progression through Ubisoft Connect.

Lastly, a fascinating discovery in the world of marine science, researchers have identified what could be the world’s deepest blue hole, the Taam Ja’ Blue Hole, located in Chetumal Bay off the Yucatan Peninsula. This underwater abyss extends at least 1,380 feet below sea level, potentially housing unique, undiscovered lifeforms and offering valuable insights into life’s adaptability in extreme conditions.

And in the literary world, a previously unknown poem by C.S. Lewis, penned in 1935, has been published for the first time. The poem, discovered at the University of Leeds, adds a significant piece to Lewis’s literary portfolio, reflecting his connections with the Oxford Inklings and his engagement with medieval literature.

That wraps up today’s news on ‘Just a Moment News.’ I’m Erika, and I hope you found these stories as intriguing as I did. Tune in next time for more updates from around the globe. Have a great day!

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