Marc Filippino

Now, emerging markets did get hit at the beginning of the Middle East conflict, but the index has climbed 15% in April so far and is now even outpacing the S&P 500.

Semiconductors are to thank for the bounce back in EM stocks.

Almost half of their gains this month have come from just three chip makers that play a crucial role in the AI boom.

They are the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, as well as Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix in Korea.

But not everyone is psyched.

This run has some investors worried that the Emerging Market Index is just a derivative of AI mania instead of, you know, providing broad exposure across emerging economies.

Imagine what it would be like if you lost Internet access for weeks.

That's what Iranians are experiencing right now.

Tehran's Islamic Republic shut down the Internet after the U.S.

and Israel attacked at the end of February.

Two months later, millions of Iranians are still cut off from the world.

Cyber watchdog NetBlock says this is the longest countrywide shutdown ever.

The FT's Bida Ghaffari has been reporting from Tehran during the blackout.

She says every part of life has been affected.

Now, you might be wondering how I even got a hold of BETA.

But if you're not in one of those professions, chances are it's been hard to access any internet since the end of February.

Iranian authorities say they cut off the internet in the name of national security reasons.

They argue that no online access protects Iranian infrastructure from cyber attacks and digital warfare.

And Iranians?

Well, they're kind of used to this.