Numlock News: April 22, 2026 • QVC, Bieber, Hurricanes

Apr 22, 2026

By Walt Hickey

QVC

Shopping television network owner QVC Corp has been undone by the retail version of nine-minute abs, as new technology platforms have emerged beyond cable, letting viewers watch others model and sell items from the comfort of the viewer’s own couch. The network owner — which owns both HSN and QVC — has filed for bankruptcy protection to try to reduce $5 billion of debt. New competitors have been relentless: TikTok shop, which is fueled by the same kind of direct-to-camera appeals from relatable semi-stars, made $15 billion in revenue in the United States in 2025, double the 2024 figure. The live selling platform Whatnot has grown to an $11.5 billion valuation after moving $8 billion in inventory in 2025.

Amanda Mull, Bloomberg

Battery

Chinese battery titan CATL has revealed their third-generation Shenxing battery, an iron phosphate battery that is the answer to a rival offering from BYD, and the Shenxing battery is posting seriously impressive specs when it came to charging. According to a report, charging the battery from 10 percent to 98 percent took just 6 minutes and 27 seconds, with the standard 10-to-80 benchmark taking just 3 minutes and 44 seconds. The battery also did great in the cold: At -30 degrees Celsius (-22 degrees Fahrenheit), the Shenxing charged from 10 percent to 98 percent in just nine minutes.

Jonathan M. Gitlin, Ars Technica

Breezy

The global wind industry is facing serious headwinds. By which I mean, things are going great actually; headwinds are good when you’re talking turbines, those are specifically what you want, and last year was a bona fide bonanza for wind power installations. Globally, the wind industry installed 165 gigawatts of new capacity, up 40 percent from 2024, mostly driven by onshore wind (installations were up 42 percent to 155.3 GW) rather than offshore (up 18 percent to nine GW). Despite the best efforts of the government to stymie wind in the U.S., seven GW of onshore wind were added last year. Globally, the cumulative wind capacity is now up to 1.3 terawatts.

Reuters

Generation Lead

Lead paint, the chemical scourge responsible for historical fiascoes such as “Gen X,” is still very common outside of the United States despite domestic bans of the carcinogen and lead-poisoning hazard, lead chromate. A new study published in the Annals of Work Exposures and Health found 55 percent of consumer paints in Mexico contain lead pigments, some of which have levels up to 29 percent lead. Thing is, it’s often American companies internationally exporting paint that they can’t legally sell stateside: While the chemical manufacturer BASF phased out production of lead chromate as far back as 2012 and the global paint company AkzoNobel cut lead additives in 2011, Sherwin Williams continues to sell lead paint in Mexico.

Perry Gottesfeld, Occupational Knowledge International

Beliebers

Justin Bieber is enjoying a surge in popularity after a widely-watched Coachella set, with the artist’s catalog accumulating 160.2 million official U.S. streams in the April 10-16 tracking week, up 172 percent week over week. Generally, the Bieber oeuvre pulled in between 55 million and 59 million streams a week in the previous several weeks. Still, Bieber managed to get four songs on the Hot 100 chart and fully 17 tracks on the Global 200 with the Coachella performance.

Xander Zellner, Billboard

Storms

The middle class is getting squeezed from all sides, at least among hurricanes. In 2025 there was just one named storm, Hurricane Imelda, that came in as a “moderate” hurricane or around a Category 1, 2 or 3 storm, with eight storms maxing out as tropical storms and only four events scaling all the way up to major hurricanes. This appears to be part of a trend: Over the 30-year period from 1970 to 1999, about 45 percent of named storms were moderate intensity hurricanes. From 2000 to 2025, just 33 percent of storms ended up as Category 1, 2 or 3 hurricanes, with both the weakest and the strongest storms gaining share. Given that hurricanes are fueled by ocean heat and fed by certain atmospheric conditions to facilitate intensification, concerns are that the conditions supporting a “moderate” hurricane are becoming more uncommon, meaning those storms will either be supercharged or dispelled.

Scott St. George and James Done, Carrier Management

Bumpback Salmon

A new study looked at the impact of drugs and drug breakdown products in salmon, attempting to figure out what happens to fish who consume the drugs that make their way into waterways. One group of 35 fish got an implant containing cocaine, another got implants with benzoylecgonine which is a breakdown product of coke and a third group got a control implant. After two months, the control fish had settled 20 kilometers away from their release site, the cocaine-exposed fish were dispersed further and the benzoylecgonine-exposed fish made it 32 kilometers away from their release point. In addition to being pushed beyond their typical range, future studies may look into whether the fish developed incredibly intense opinions about rather boring stuff and then talked about the stuff constantly.

Erik Stokstad, Science

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