Apple's Rumored iPhone 'Ultra' Plan, Bill Gates' Dig At Elon Musk, Turkey's Massive Earthquake And More: 5 Key Stories You May Have Missed From The Weekend

It was hardly a slow-news weekend as the U.S. took some coercive action on the Chinese spy balloon hovering in its airspace, and Turkey and Syria suffered a horrendous earthquake that claimed hundreds of lives. On the business side of things, Apple Inc. AAPL looks like it's coming up with a bigger and better iPhone next year and Larry Summers expressed cautious optimism over the economic scenario. Bill Gates and Elon Musk also feature in our top five stories from the weekend.

Take a look:

1) Apple iPhone’s “Ultra” Model: Apple is apparently planning to add a new higher-end iPhone model to the top both the Pro and Pro Max levels and could introduce it alongside its 2024 release. Apple plans to use the term “the Ultra” for the new iPhone model, Bloomberg columnist Mark Gurman said in his weekly “Power On” newsletter.

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2) Turkey Earthquake Kills Hundreds, Musk Offers Help: More than 300 people were killed after a massive 7.8-magnitude earthquake hit Turkey and sent tremors across the region, collapsing buildings and sending residents running into the streets. Many people were also trapped under debris. The tremors were felt in Cyprus, Lebanon and Syria, reported Reuters. SpaceX CEO Musk offered help to Turkey as the earthquake caused communication shortages. Musk, while replying to a tweet asking for help, wrote, “Starlink is not approved by Turkish government yet. SpaceX can send as soon as approved.”

3) Gates’ Dig At Musk: Microsoft co-founder Gates took a dig at Musk by claiming that he would rather spend his money on life-saving vaccines than travel to Mars. In a BBC interview, Gates was asked if he thought Musk would ever follow in the footsteps of philanthropists like the Microsoft co-founder himself, Warren Buffett or Jeff Bezos. Gates said that Musk will someday “be a great philanthropist.” But other than “going to Mars a few times,” Gates said, “I don't think he'll spend it on himself.”

4) US Military Takes Out Chinese Spy Balloon: A suspected Chinese spy balloon was shot down by U.S. military fighter jets on Feb. 4 off the coast of South Carolina. U.S. President Joe Biden ordered the balloon to be taken down, but the Pentagon advised waiting until it could be done in open water, according to a Reuters report. Military sources claimed that on Jan. 28, the balloon entered a U.S. identification zone before floating into Canadian territory. Then the balloon again returned to U.S. airspace on Jan. 31. Responding to the incident, China said that the “airship” had accidentally drifted into the U.S. airspace.

5) Larry Summers Says Soft Landing ‘Looks More Possible:’ Though the Fed can pull off a soft landing, former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers cautions that it would be a “big mistake” to believe that the economy is “out of the woods.” Summers stated that it seems more likely that “we'll have a soft landing than it did a few months ago,” during a CNN interview. Summers expressed concern about the inflation indicators, noting that “they're still unimaginably high from the perspective of two or three years ago” and getting the rest of the way back to target inflation may still prove to be extremely difficult.

What Else: Apple has dropped the role of industrial design chief after the company struggled to find a long-term replacement for Jony Ive, who left in 2019. For now, Cupertino has decided that the tech giant’s senior industrial designers will report to Jeff Williams, the chief operating officer, according to Bloomberg columnist Mark Gurman's monthly “Power On” newsletter.

Jerome Powell marked his five-year anniversary as the chairman of the Federal Reserve on Sunday. His tenure began on Feb. 5, 2018. So far, during his term the S&P 500 gained 56%, Nasdaq Composite has risen 72%, and Dow Industrial Average is up 39%. Powell also led the Fed through some of the most volatile economic events including COVID-19.

Musk said on Sunday that the fully-reusable super heavy-lift Starship could launch in March but sounded less than optimistic about the chances of success. While replying to a tweet on Starship's status, Musk wrote, “If [the] remaining tests go well, we will attempt a Starship launch next month.” He, however, added that "success is far from certain, but excitement is guaranteed.

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