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"Starfield” is Microsoft’s blockbuster Xbox game for 2022
“Starfield,” the next big game from the makers of “Fallout” and “The Elder Scrolls” will be released on Nov. 11, 2022 for Xbox consoles and PC — and not for PlayStation, according to a new trailer.
Why it matters: “Starfield” is about as big as it gets in terms of upcoming blockbuster games and will likely be ace for Microsoft commercially.
- The science fiction role-playing game was first teased by development studio Bethesda in 2018 and has been greatly anticipated ever since.
- It served as Microsoft's first big announcement during itsE3 showcase Sunday.
Between the lines: Bethesda used to be a third-party publisher, meaning its games tended to be released for PC, PlayStation, and Xbox (plus on Nintendo platforms, at times).
- Microsoft purchased Bethesda for $7.5 billion last year, with the intent to use the company’s line-up to boost its growing all-you-can-play Game Pass subscription service.
- That led to speculation as to whether future Bethesda games would be exclusive to Xbox or at least, crucially, exclude PlayStation.
- Today’s trailer revealed “Starfield”'s exclusivity.
What they’re saying: “It’s a next-generation role-playing game where you’ll be who you want, go where you want, experience our stories and forge your own,” Bethesda lead game developer Todd Howard said in a behind-the-scenes video that was accidentally published early by the Washington Post.
- “More than that, 'Starfield' is about hope, our shared humanity and searching for the answers to life’s greatest mystery," he added.
What’s next: Somewhat vague teasers being what they are, we still don’t know much about what “Starfield” is and how it plays, but will no doubt find out more in the year and a half until it launches.
The pandemic created boomerang-worker tech hubs — and they're not going away
"Boomerang workers" — those who've returned to their home towns to do remote work — rose with the pandemic, but the phenomenon shows signs of sticking around beyond it.
The big picture: Workers typically have to move to where the jobs are, centralizing top talent in big coastal cities. But as COVID drove rapid adoption of remote work, many people who were able to opted to return to their roots to be closer to family, raise kids in familiar settings or simply escape big city life.
What's happening: The boomerang effect isn't limited to any one industry. But tech workers in particular are choosing to leave big tech hubs like San Francisco, Seattle, and New York and moving back to previous stops, or to their own hometown or a spouse’s. That’s jumpstarting tech communities in some mid-sized cities.
For example, a large number of Tampa Bay natives have returned to the area after stints in bigger cities, bringing their contact lists and industry expertise with them.
- Allie Felix grew up in Tarpon Springs but left for venture capital jobs in San Francisco and New York. She moved back to join Embarc Collective, a startup and entrepreneur support hub in Tampa that launched in 2018.
- Whitney Holtzman, a Tampa native, honed her sports marketing skill in New York before returning to start her own business helping athletes grow their social media influence and reach.
Of course, plenty of people moved back home for a variety of reasons well before the pandemic hit — but they often had to leave their jobs behind when they did.
- Now that more companies are allowing remote work, employees often have the freedom to take their jobs with them when they high-tail it home. Or they are starting their own businesses.
“It’s very appealing for people to feel like they’re coming in on the ground floor” of a city’s tech scene, Lakshmi Shenoy, CEO of Embarc Collective. “They get to help build and shape it.”
Yes, but: The remote work option alone isn’t always enough. Shenoy said the biggest question people ask when thinking about moving back to the Tampa Bay Area are:
- Are there job opportunities in case the remote version of their current job doesn’t work out?
- Are there opportunities for their spouses?
- Are the schools good?
Between the lines: Part of the boomerang was driven by newly remote workers moving back to be closer to their parents for help with child care. But even among those who saw it as a temporary move, many are opting to stay. And those who can't work remotely are simply looking for local jobs.
- "A lot of people moved toward their parents for child care, and a lot of that will stick. Family relationships changed during the pandemic," said Betsey Stevenson, a University of Michigan economist.
In Tulsa, Okla., a program called Tulsa Remote offers people $10,000 to move to the city to work remotely.
- About 30% of those who've accepted the offer have lived in Tulsa or have a family connection to the city, said Ben Stewart, executive director of Tulsa Remote.
The other side: There’s no guarantee for how much of the boomerang will last as cities and offices re-open.
- The number of people working from home is already on the decline, per data from Indeed, although the level is still several times higher than pre-pandemic levels.
The rise of the anti-"woke" Democrat
A growing number of Democrats are ringing the alarm that their party sounds — and acts — too judgmental, too sensitive, too "woke" to large swaths of America.
Why it matters: These Democrats warn that by jamming politically correct terms or new norms down the throats of voters, they risk exacerbating the cultural wars — and inadvertently helping Trumpian candidates.
Top Democrats confide that they're very aware of the danger. Already, we've seen a widespread pullback in the "defund the police" rhetoric.
- Former NYPD captain Eric Adams, who this week won New York City's Democratic mayoral primary, showed his party the power of a message that supports police while including justice and reform.
- "If we are for SAFETY — we NEED the NYPD!" Adams says on his campaign site. "At the same time," he acknowledges, "we face a crisis of confidence in our police."
Democratic strategist James Carville has been warning his party about this for months, telling Vox in an April interview:
- "You ever get the sense that people in faculty lounges in fancy colleges use a different language than ordinary people? ... This is not how voters talk."
Conservative columnist Peggy Noonanwrote this week in the Wall Street Journalthat she believes the left is misreading its position and "overplaying its hand."
- She cited a new essay by Kevin Drum, formerly of Washington Monthly and Mother Jones, who wrote: "[T]he truth is that the Democratic Party has been pulled far enough left that even lots of non-crazy people find us just plain scary — something that Fox News takes vigorous advantage of."
On the flip side, "How to Be an Antiracist" author Ibram X. Kendi, who directs Boston University's Center for Antiracist Research, wrote in The Atlantic on Friday that Republican operatives "have conjured an imagined monster to scare the American people and project themselves as the nation’s defenders from that fictional monster."
What we're hearing: Moderate and swing-district lawmakers and aides tell Axios' Margaret Talev and Alayna Treene that the party could suffer massive losses in next year's midterms if Democrats run like Sen. Elizabeth Warren is president.
- One former Senate aide said it's "bye-bye majority" if Democrats run on "extreme wokeness."
Between the lines: The big question is how different the midterms will be from 2020. People voted for Democrats in November when the same talking points and ideas were being discussed. The presidency was at stake, but the other cultural or social issues were the same.
What to watch: This tension is a huge test for President Biden. He knows that the rising left in his party, while great for fundraising and media coverage, could be electorally disastrous.
Axios' Kim Hart and Alayna Treene contributed reporting.
"No more lies": What drove Cubans to protest
Sara Naranjo, 88, took to Cuba's streets this past week because she is "done with being hungry, unemployed, without water, without power." Naranjo is one of thousands of Cubans to take part in what activists said were the largest anti-government protests on the island in decades.
What's happening: People like Naranjo, who remembers Cuba before the revolution, joined thousands of younger Cubans, who have only known Communism, in the massive street protests despite their fear of the government’s harsh response.
Why it matters: Sunday’s seemingly spontaneous mobilizations across the island were something unseen in 60 years of castrista rule.
- Anti-government protests even erupted in the southeast province of Santiago de Cuba, Fidel Castro’s stronghold during the revolution and where he is buried.
- “So much hunger ate away at our fear,” one demonstrator, Wendy Guerra, told the independent Cuban news site 14yMedio.
The big picture: The pandemic deepened Cubans’ frustrations with lack of food and resources that had simmered for decades.
- Tourism, mostly from Canada and Europe, dried up along with the hard currency it provided.
- Mismanagement of the island’s state-run economy, already under a U.S. embargo since 1962, sent Cuba’s GDP crashing by 11% last year, its worst showing since the former Soviet Union stopped subsidies in the early 1990s.
- Chronic power cuts and shortages of food and medicines have been more acute, while the nearly quarter-million people who have had coronavirus have had to seek treatment from a healthcare system on the verge of collapse.
- Vaccinations have been scarce since the government decided not to participate in the COVAX sharing program for developing nations and to develop its own shots.
Between the lines: Pockets of overt dissidence had been growing even before Raúl Castro, Fidel Castro’s younger brother and his deputy during the revolution, stepped down in June as head of the Communist Party.
- Movimiento San Isidro, a young coalition of artists, journalists and academics formed in 2019, urged more Cubans to make their dissatisfaction public.
- Musicians and San Isidro members, Maykel Osorbo and El Funky, were joined by Yotuel, Gente De Zona, and Descemer Bueno to release the song “Patria y Vida” (Homeland and Life), which became an anthem for this week’s protesters.
- Its lyrics demand “no more lies” and “no more doctrine,” telling those who cling to the revolution that their time is past.
The growing availability of the internet, though also controlled by a state-run company, has allowed like-minded Cubans to share their frustrations more easily, like they did on Sunday.
- The protests erupted days after #SOSCuba began to trend on social media, with Cubans demanding humanitarian assistance to address the island’s many crises.
Where it stands: At least one person — 36-year-old Diubis Laurencio Tejeda, who was from an especially impoverished part of Havana — has died during the protests, according to local reports.
- The government shutdown the internet and phone lines after the first protest on Sunday.
- Reliable information regarding arrests is hard to come by with estimates ranging between 200 and 5,000 people.
In Washington,the Biden administration has said the protests are “remarkable,” but has not yet indicated whether further policy changes were coming.
- The U.S. has warned Cubans who might attempt to emigrate across the Florida Straits that they would be turned back.
In Havana, meanwhile, President Miguel Díaz-Canel has pointed to the U.S. embargo as the cause of his country’s economic woes and accused U.S. authorities of financing and promoting “non-conventional warfare.”
- On Wednesday, the Cuban government announced that tariffs on the private import of food, medicine and personal care products would be lifted at least until December.
By the numbers: 3.5% of all Latinos in the U.S. are of Cuban ancestry or Cuban immigrants, the fifth largest Latino or Hispanic cultural group.
- Most of live in Florida. The state’s weight in the Electoral College means Cuban-Americans have outsized political influence.