The Full Belmonte, 10/10/2023
Parts of the world face a future with heat that threatens even young and healthy people, study says
Research published Monday shows that heat and humidity could surpass a survivability threshold for weeks if not months out of the year later this century in places such as Pakistan and Yemen. The research is the latest to build upon the idea that there is a limit to how much heat and humidity the human body can withstand, that it is likely lower than once thought, and that exposure to it will increase dramatically in the coming decades.
Read more at Washington Post
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to Run for President as Independent, Leaving Democratic Primary
The political scion told supporters he would end his campaign as a Democratic candidate and run as an independent, potentially upsetting the dynamics of the 2024 election.
“In a move that could alter the dynamics of the 2024 election, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said on Monday that he would continue his presidential run as an independent candidate, ending his long-shot pursuit of the Democratic nomination against an incumbent president.
Speaking to a crowd of supporters outside the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, Mr. Kennedy, a leading vaccine skeptic and purveyor of conspiracy theories, said he represented ‘a populist movement that defies left-right division.’
‘The Democrats are frightened that I’m going to spoil the election for President Biden, and the Republicans are frightened that I’m going to spoil it for Trump,’ he said. ‘The truth is, they’re both right. My intention is to spoil it for both of them.’
Since announcing his candidacy in April, Mr. Kennedy, 69, has been a sharp critic of Democratic leadership, which he has accused of ‘hijacking the party machinery’ to stifle his challenge to Mr. Biden. He has also said, in interviews and in public appearances, that the party has abandoned its principles and become corrupted.
Running as an independent will entail an expensive, uphill battle to get on the ballot in all 50 states. Last week, Cornel West, a liberal academic and presidential candidate, said he would run as an independent, abandoning his efforts to secure the Green Party’s nomination.
In a 45-minute speech on Monday, Mr. Kennedy described encounters across America with people he called the ‘ranks of the dispossessed,’ interspersed with angry barbs about ‘the surveillance state’ and the ‘tyranny of corruption.’ He quoted the Old Testament, John Adams, Martin Luther King Jr., Tennyson and his own father.
But Mr. Kennedy, the scion of a liberal political dynasty, has alienated his own family members and many Democrats with his promotion of conspiracy theories, his rejection of scientific orthodoxies and his embrace of far-right political figures.
‘Bobby might share the same name as our father, but he does not share the same values, vision or judgment,’ four of Mr. Kennedy’s siblings — Rory Kennedy, Kerry Kennedy, Joseph P. Kennedy II and Kathleen Kennedy Townsend — said in a statement on Monday. ‘We denounce his candidacy and believe it to be perilous for our country.’
Mr. Kennedy, an environmental lawyer, has been lionized by a movement that has expanded beyond anti-vaccine sentiments, including opposition to the mandatory vaccination of children, to push back more broadly against state public health measures. In recent years, his open suspicions about the government’s handling of the coronavirus and his criticism of lockdowns and vaccine policies gave him a new platform and earned him popularity among many Americans who had wearied of the pandemic….” Read more at New York Times
Special Counsel Interviewed Biden About Classified Documents
Robert Hur, the special counsel appointed to investigate how sensitive material ended up at the home and office of President Biden, met with the president over the past two days.
“President Biden met over the past two days with Robert K. Hur, the special counsel investigating how classified documents improperly ended up at Mr. Biden’s home and an office he used after leaving the vice presidency, the White House disclosed on Monday.
‘The voluntary interview was conducted at the White House over two days, Sunday and Monday, and concluded Monday,’ Ian Sams, a White House spokesman, said in a statement.
The interview played out amid the dramatic events in the Middle East, as Hamas militants carried out a major attack on Israel and Mr. Biden met with his national security team and consulted with foreign leaders. The interview’s timing had been arranged several weeks ago, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Wyn Hornbuckle, a spokesman for Mr. Hur, declined to comment.
The interview raises the possibility that Mr. Hur is nearing the end of his investigation, which the Justice Department began after Mr. Biden’s lawyers reported that they had found several classified documents mixed in with other papers in a storage closet while packing up an office at a Washington think tank, the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement….” Read more at New York Times
Retaliatory Strikes
Palestinians search for survivors after an Israeli airstrike hits buildings in the refugee camp of Jabalia in the Gaza Strip on Oct. 9. Mohammed Abed/AFP via Getty Images
“Israeli forces ordered a ‘complete siege’ of Gaza on Monday in response to Hamas’s ongoing assault on Israel. The siege follows Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s declaration of war on Saturday and will block all electricity, food, water, and fuel deliveries into the Gaza Strip. The territory, which Hamas controls, has already been under a strict blockade for 16 years.
The death toll continues to rise on both sides as Israel launches hundreds of counterstrikes against alleged Hamas-linked targets in the Gaza Strip and Israeli forces battle Hamas fighters in Israeli towns near the Gaza border. At least 900 Israelis and more than 680 Palestinians have been killed, including roughly 109 Israelis attending a music festival, and thousands more Israelis and Palestinians have been wounded. An estimated 150 Israelis along with numerous U.S. citizens are also being held hostage by Gazan militants. According to the U.S. State Department on Monday, at least nine Americans were killed by Hamas’s missile strikes.
At least three members of Hezbollah were also killed during an Israeli bombardment along the Israel-Lebanon border on Monday. The Israel Defense Forces have mobilized 300,000 reservists to the front lines. More than 20,000 Palestinians have fled their homes to seek safety at United Nations-protected schools deeper inside Gazan territory.
Around the world, major leaders have been quick to denounce the violence on both sides. India and Pakistan expressed sadness over the conflict and urged restraint. China called for an immediate cease-fire and reiterated its support for a two-state solution. And the European Union halted all funding for the Palestinian Authority on Monday as well as bolstered protections against antisemitism in Europe. The EU originally pledged $1.9 billion in aid to the PA between 2021 and 2024.
On Sunday, the United States said it would send U.S. Navy warships, an aircraft carrier, combat aircraft, and additional munitions to Israel. These include F-35s, F-15s, F-16s, and A-10 attack jets. But Washington’s priority remains keeping the violence contained to Gaza rather than it potentially spreading to the West Bank, one senior Biden administration official told Time magazine.” [Foreign Policy]
The World This Week
“Tuesday, Oct. 10: Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani meet.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visits Romania.
EU foreign ministers host an emergency meeting on the Israel-Hamas war.
Liberia holds general elections.
Wednesday, Oct. 11: Arab League foreign ministers hold an emergency meeting on the Israel-Hamas war.
Thursday, Oct. 12: French President Emmanuel Macron holds talks with Mongolian President Ukhnaagiin Khurelsukh.
Gibraltar holds parliamentary elections.
NATO’s Joint Warrior military exercises conclude.
Thursday, Oct. 12, to Saturday, Oct. 14: EU foreign-policy chief Josep Borrell visits China.
Saturday, Oct. 14: New Zealand holds general elections.
Sunday, Oct. 15: Poland holds parliamentary elections.
Ecuador holds a presidential runoff election.” [Foreign Policy]
“Earthquake devastation. Search and rescue operations in Afghanistan remain underway two days after a 6.3-magnitude earthquake hit Herat province. At least 2,400 people were killed, the Taliban announced on Monday, making it one of this year’s deadliest quakes following similar disasters in Turkey and Syria.
Survivors remain in urgent need of food, water, and medical supplies, but restrictions by some countries against giving money and other assistance directly to the Taliban government have made providing foreign aid more difficult. Prior to the earthquake, Afghanistan was already suffering severe economic and humanitarian crises under Taliban rule.” [Foreign Policy]
“Refugees in limbo. The U.K. Supreme Court convened on Monday to debate the legality of a British law that deports asylum-seekers to Rwanda. First drafted in April 2022, the law says those who enter the U.K. via ‘illegal, dangerous or unnecessary methods,’ such as crossing the English Channel, would have their asylum requests processed in Rwanda. In exchange, the U.K. would invest millions of dollars into Kigali.
In June, a Court of Appeal ruled that the policy was unlawful, marking a major win for rights groups, but the U.K. government hoped that this week’s appeal might reverse that decision. Arguments will continue through Wednesday before the Supreme Court announces its decision.” [Foreign Policy]
“The world’s financial Super Bowl. International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank leaders gathered in Morocco on Monday for weeklong annual meetings. This is the first time in half a century that an African nation has hosted the yearly summit, highlighting the growing importance of the global south to international financial institutions.
Among the top agenda items this week, IMF and World Bank officials will discuss adding a permanent Africa seat to the board of directors, the rise in global debt, surging oil costs, and U.S.-China tensions.” [Foreign Policy]
Good morning. We’re covering the global context of the Hamas-Israel war — as well as the hottest summer on record, Maui and Halloween decorations.
In Ashkelon, Israel. Tamir Kalifa for The New York Times
The new world order
Russia has started the largest war in Europe since World War II.
China has become more bellicose toward Taiwan.
India has embraced a virulent nationalism.
Israel has formed the most extreme government in its history.
And on Saturday morning, Hamas brazenly attacked Israel, launching thousands of missiles and publicly kidnapping and killing civilians.
All these developments are signs that the world may have fallen into a new period of disarray. Countries — and political groups like Hamas — are willing to take big risks, rather than fearing that the consequences would be too dire.
The simplest explanation is that the world is in the midst of a transition to a new order that experts describe with the word multipolar. The United States is no longer the dominant power it once was, and no replacement has emerged. As a result, political leaders in many places feel emboldened to assert their own interests, believing the benefits of aggressive action may outweigh the costs. These leaders believe that they have more sway over their own region than the U.S. does.
‘A fully multipolar world has emerged, and people are belatedly realizing that multipolarity involves quite a bit of chaos,’ Noah Smith wrote in his Substack newsletter on Saturday.
Zheng Yongnian, a Chinese political scientist with ties to the country’s leaders, has similarly described the ‘old order’ as disintegrating. ‘Countries are brimming with ambition, like tigers eyeing their prey, keen to find every opportunity among the ruins of the old order,’ Zheng wrote last year.
A weaker U.S. …
Why has American power receded? Some of the change is unavoidable. Dominant countries don’t remain dominant forever. But the U.S. has also made strategic mistakes that are accelerating the arrival of a multipolar world.
Among those mistakes: Presidents of both parties naïvely believed that a richer China would inevitably be a friendlier China — and failed to recognize that the U.S. was building up its own rival through lenient trade policies, as the political scientist John Mearsheimer has argued. In Afghanistan and Iraq, the U.S. spent much of the early 21st century fighting costly wars. The Iraq war was especially damaging because it was an unprovoked war that George W. Bush chose to start. And the humiliating retreat from Afghanistan, overseen by President Biden, made the U.S. look weaker still.
Perhaps the biggest damage to American prestige has come from Donald Trump, who has rejected the very idea that the U.S. should lead the world. Trump withdrew from international agreements and disdained successful alliances like NATO. He has signaled that, if he reclaims the presidency in 2025, he may abandon Ukraine.
In the case of Israel, Trump encouraged Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, to show little concern for Palestinian interests and instead seek a maximal Israeli victory. Netanyahu, of course, did not start this new war. Hamas did, potentially with support from Iran, the group’s longtime backer, and Hamas committed shocking human rights violations this past weekend, captured on video.
But Netanyahu’s extremism has contributed to the turmoil between Israel and Palestinian groups like Hamas. An editorial in Haaretz, an Israeli newspaper, yesterday argued, ‘The prime minister, who has prided himself on his vast political experience and irreplaceable wisdom in security matters, completely failed to identify the dangers he was consciously leading Israel into when establishing a government of annexation and dispossession.’ Netanyahu, Haaretz added, adopted ‘a foreign policy that openly ignored the existence and rights of Palestinians.’
A Palestinian mother cries next to the body of her son.Samar Abu Elouf for The New York Times
… but still powerful
Even with the rise of multipolarity, the U.S. remains the world’s most powerful country, with a unique ability to forge alliances and peace. In the Middle East, the Trump administration persuaded Israel and four other countries — the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco — to sign unprecedented diplomatic agreements, known as the Abraham Accords. In recent months, the Biden administration has made progress toward an even more ambitious deal, between Israel and Saudi Arabia.
Hamas attacked Israel in part to undermine an Israeli-Saudi deal, many experts believe. Such a deal could isolate Iran, Hamas’s patron, and could lead to an infusion of Saudi money for the Palestinian Authority, a more moderate group than Hamas (as Thomas Friedman explains in this column). But if the recent Hamas attacks lead Israel to reduce the Gaza Strip to rubble in response, Saudi Arabia will have a hard time agreeing to any treaty.
‘This will slow considerably if not kill the Saudi Abraham Accords deal,’ Mara Rudman, a former U.S. diplomat, told The Times.
In these ways, you can think of Hamas’s attacks as an attempt to prevent a reassertion of American power — and instead to continue pushing the world toward multipolarity.
I understand that some readers may question whether the long era of American power that’s now fading was worth celebrating. Without question, it included some terrible injustices, be they in Vietnam, Iran, Guatemala or elsewhere. But it also made possible the most peaceful era in recorded history, with a sharp decline in deaths from violence, as Steven Pinker noted in his 2011 book, “The Better Angels of Our Nature.” And the number of people living in a democracy surged.
Smith concluded his Substack newsletter on the new Middle Eastern war this way:
Over the past two decades it had become fashionable to lambast American hegemony, to speak derisively of “American exceptionalism,” to ridicule America’s self-arrogated function of “world police” and to yearn for a multipolar world. Well, congratulations, now we have that world. See if you like it better.” - New York Times
Wildlife
In Montana.John Stember for The New York Times
“People in Montana and surrounding states are buying bear spray and guard dogs after a series of grizzly bear attacks.” [New York Times]
“Nearly 1,000 birds died in a single night after crashing into the windowsof a Chicago building.” [New York Times]
Baseball's shorter games
Data: Baseball Reference. Chart: Thomas Oide/Axios
“Major League Baseball bet that a series of rule changes this season would bring down the length of games and make the sport more exciting.
It paid off.
The average time of a nine-inning game fell to just under 2:40 — 24 minutes less than last season and the shortest since 1985.
The changes drove a spike in batting average and the most stolen bases in nearly 40 years, AP reports.” [Axios]
Chef and TV personality Michael Chiarello dies at 61 after being treated for allergic reaction
“NEW YORK (AP) — Michael Chiarello, a chef known for his Italian-inspired Californian restaurants who won an Emmy Award for best host for “Easy Entertaining With Michael Chiarello” and appeared on Bravo’s “Top Chef” and “Top Chef Masters,” has died. He was 61.
Chiarello died Friday at Queen of the Valley Medical Center in Napa due to an allergic reaction that resulted in anaphylactic shock, according to Chiarello’s restaurant group Gruppo Chiarello. He had been at the hospital receiving treatment for the allergic reaction over the past week. Details on how he developed the allergic reaction were not immediately available….” Read more at AP News
Powerball jackpot up to $1.73 billion as lottery losing streak continues
“DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — The Powerball jackpot climbed to an estimated $1.73 billion after no one matched the game’s six numbers Monday and won the giant prize.
The winning numbers announced were: 16, 34, 46, 55, 67 and the Powerball 14.
There has been no winner for 35 consecutive drawings, since the last time someone won the top prize on July 19. That streak trails the record of 41 draws set in 2021 and 2022. The largest jackpot ever was a $2.04 billion Powerball prize hit by a player in California in November 2022….” Read more at AP News