The Full Belmonte, 10/17/2022
Biden's stock shock
Data: Yahoo Finance. Chart: Axios Visuals
“The S&P 500 has sagged over President Biden's term — a political drag compared with booming markets Presidents Obama and Trump enjoyed ahead of their first midterms, Axios Pro Rata author Dan Primack writes.
A New York Times/Siena College poll out this morning gives the GOP ‘a narrow but distinctive advantage’ for winning control of Congress ‘as the economy and inflation have surged as the dominant concerns.’
By the numbers: The S&P 500 is down 5.6% between the last market close before Biden's inauguration and last Friday.
The Dow Jones industrials are off 4.19% over the same period, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq has shed 21.4%.
Data: Bureau of Labor Statistics. Chart: Simran Parwani/Axios
Consumer prices continued to soar in September, Axios' Courtenay Brown writes from data released last week.
Compared to a year ago, prices are up 8.2%.
Between the lines: Stock market performance isn't necessarily an avatar for broader economic health.
But it can drive Americans' perceptions of the economy — particularly when they see retirement accounts rise or fall.” ” Read more at Axios
“For the first time, adults in the US will be able to buy over-the-counter hearing aids beginning today instead of getting a prescription and having to wait for a custom fitting. According to the FDA, adults with mild to moderate hearing loss can now buy hearing aids directly from a store or online -- and for a lower price. The high cost of hearing aids has long been a barrier for many people who have hearing problems. Traditional prescription hearing aids cost on average $2,000 per ear, and many people need two of them. While those who are under 18 or who have severe hearing loss will still need a prescription, experts are calling the move a ‘game changer.’ Tens of millions of peoplehave hearing loss, but only about 16% of them use a hearing aid, according to the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders.” Read more at CNN
January 6
“President Joe Biden said on Saturday the video and testimony shared at last week's January 6 hearing was ‘devastating’ and said the committee overall has made an ‘overwhelming’ case. The final hearing ahead of the midterms from the House select committee investigating the attack on the US Capitol revealed new evidence and testimony that then-President Donald Trump knew he had lost his bid for reelection even as he continued efforts to overturn the results. In a significant move, the January 6 committee also voted last week to subpoena Trump, but it's not expected that he will comply. A member of the committee also told CNN on Sunday the panel will ask former Secret Service Assistant Director Tony Ornato to testify again. The committee believes Ornato was a central figure who could provide valuable information about Trump's movements and intentions leading up to and during the riot.” Read more at CNN
“With the arrival of migrant buses showing no sign of slowing, officials in New York City have constructed large emergency tents that will soon house hundreds of people traveling from the southern border. This comes after NYC Mayor Eric Adams declared a state of emergency last week, warning that the growing number of new arrivals was overwhelming homeless shelters, straining resources and could end up costing the city $1 billion. Meanwhile, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said he has no plans to stop sending the buses, arguing that he's exposed liberal leaders who are buckling under pressure that's a fraction of what border states like his deal with daily. According to the latest tally from New York this weekend, more than 19,400 asylum seekers had entered the city's shelter system in recent months.” Read more at CNN
New Generation of Combat Vets, Eyeing House, Strike From the Right
A class of political newcomers with remarkable military records are challenging old ideas about interventionism — and the assumption that electing veterans is a way to bring back bipartisanship.
Marjorie Taylor Greene’s success demonstrates Trumpism’s hold over the Republican Party.
Marjorie Taylor Greene in Michigan this month.Brittany Greeson for The New York Times
A political revival
“In February 2021, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia was dealt what would typically be considered a knockout blow in Washington politics: She lost her seats on House committees, where Congress does much of its work, because she had supported the QAnon conspiracy theory and spread other dangerous misinformation on social media.
But instead of being consigned to political oblivion, Greene has gained clout over the past two years, as my colleague Robert Draper explained in a New York Times Magazine profile of her that published online this morning.
Last month, Greene sat directly behind the House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, as he unveiled his agenda for the midterm elections. Republican candidates often ask Greene to campaign for them. She has become a major fund-raiser within the party. And Greene told Robert she had talked with Donald Trump about being his running mate if he were to run for president in 2024.
‘This is not at all what I expected when I began reporting on Greene,’ Robert told me.
So how did Greene, who was a political pariah a few years ago, place herself at the center of Republican politics today?
Trumpism’s torchbearer
Greene’s rise did not come about because she apologized and abandoned her extreme views. Instead, her core supporters rallied around her because they agreed with at least some of her beliefs and liked that she stood her ground — a narrative that echoes Trump’s ascent.
Greene herself is a big supporter of Trump and his policies and falsely claims that the 2020 presidential election was rigged against him. ‘She’s a perfect reminder that Trumpism will not go away even if he does,’ Robert said.
One telling moment: Early last year, House Republicans met to discuss whether to remove Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming from a leadership position after she voted to impeach Trump over the Jan. 6 attack. (They eventually did.) In that meeting, Greene justified her support for QAnon and other conspiracy theories — and about a third of the conference stood up and applauded her.
‘The headline tonight is that we tried to kick out Liz Cheney, and we gave a standing ovation to Marjorie Taylor Greene,’ Representative Nancy Mace of South Carolina warned at the time.
Since then, McCarthy, who would likely be speaker should Republicans regain control of the House in the midterms, has reportedly offered Greene prized committee assignments if she supports his run for the post — giving her back what she once lost, and then some.
Not every Republican is on board. Some worry that Greene’s style could hurt them in next month’s elections. And she often criticizes members of her party; last month, she said that ‘21 Republican senators just voted with the woke climate agenda’ after they voted for an international climate agreement.
‘She’s far more willing to offend than to accommodate,’ Robert said. That could ultimately limit her rise.” Read more at New York Times
“Kanye West is buying Parler, a social media platform that claims to be a ‘free speech’ alternative to Twitter, The Verge reports.” Read more at New York Times
Peter Thiel’s midterm bet: the billionaire seeking to disrupt America’s democracy
Re-energized this election cycle, the tech entrepreneur joins other mega-donors apparently out to undercut the political system
“Peter Thiel is far from the first billionaire who has wielded his fortune to try to influence the course of American politics. But in an election year when democracy itself is said to be on the ballot, he stands out for assailing a longstanding governing system that he has described as “deranged” and in urgent need of “course correction”.
The German-born investor and tech entrepreneur, a Silicon Valley “disrupter” who helped found PayPal alongside Elon Musk and made his fortune as one of the earliest investors in Facebook, has catapulted himself into the top ranks of the mega-donor class by pouring close to $30m into this year’s midterm elections.
He’s not merely favoring one party over another, but is supporting candidates who deny the legitimacy of Joe Biden’s election as president and have, in their different ways, called for the pillars of the American establishment to be toppled entirely.
Thiel’s priorities this midterm cycle have partly aligned with those of Donald Trump, with whom he has had an on-again, off-again relationship since writing him a $1.25m check during the 2016 presidential campaign.
Thiel, like Trump, has made it his business to end the careers of what he calls ‘the traitorous 10’, Republican House members who voted to impeach Trump in the wake of the January 6 insurrection. Four of these members opted not to run for re-election at all, and four more, including Liz Cheney, the vice-chair of the House committee investigating January 6, went down in the primaries.
But there are also signs that Thiel is thinking around and beyond the former president. The lion’s share of his largesse – $28m and counting – has been directed towards two business proteges who, with his help, have established themselves as gadfly rightwing darlings: JD Vance, the best-selling author of the blue-collar memoir Hillbilly Elegy, who is running for Senate in Ohio, and Blake Masters, a self-styled ‘anti-progressive’ and anti-globalist who is running for Senate in Arizona.
Over the past decade, ever since the supreme court dramatically loosened the rules of political campaign giving in its Citizens United decision, Thiel has placed sizable bets on candidates who are not only conservative but have sought to challenge longstanding institutional traditions and break the Republican party’s own norms: Senator Ted Cruz in Texas and Senator Josh Hawley in Missouri as well as Trump himself.
Masters, who has campaigned on the notion that ‘psychopaths are running the country right now’ and spoken approvingly of the anti-establishment philosophy of the 1990s Unabomber, and Vance, a frequent speaker on the university circuit during his book tour days who now says ‘universities are the enemy’, fit the same mould. They and Thiel all have ties to a branch of the New Right known as NatCon, whose adherents believe, broadly, that the establishment needs to be torn down, much as Thiel and his fellow Silicon Valley disrupters believed two decades ago that the future lay in destroying longstanding business models and practices.
Thiel himself opined as far back as 2009 that he no longer believed democracy to be compatible with freedom and expressed ‘little hope that voting will make things better’. While a member of Trump’s presidential transition team in 2016, he flashed his institution-busting instincts by proposing that a leading climate change skeptic, William Happer, be appointed as White House science adviser. He also pushed for a libertarian bitcoin entrepreneur who did not believe in drug trials to head up the Food and Drug Administration.
Such proposals were too much even by Trump’s iconoclastic standards. Steve Bannon, Trump’s ultra-right campaign manager and political strategist, told a Thiel biographer: ‘Peter’s idea of disrupting government is out there.’
Thiel did not respond to a request for an interview, and his representatives did not respond to multiple invitations to comment.
Masters and Vance also did not respond to inquiries.
Democracy under attack: the mega-donors
Thiel sat out the 2020 election but appears to have been re-energized by the Covid-19 pandemic, Trump’s claims of a stolen presidential election and the January 6 insurrection. Addressing a NatCon convention this time last year, he denounced the “incredible derangement of various forms of thought, political life, scientific life and the sense-making machinery generally in this country”.
Liberal democracy, in his view, had turned the United States government into a dissent-squashing Ministry of Truth working toward a “homogenizing, brain-dead, one-world state” – a problem to which only rightwing nationalism could provide an “all-important corrective”.
“We’re close to a Toto moment, a little dog pulling aside the curtain on the holy of holies only to find there’s nobody there,” he told the crowd. “We always think of democracy as a good thing. But … where do you shift from the wisdom of crowds to the madness of crowds? When does it become a mob, a racket, a totalitarian lie?”
Such views might be easy to write off as the eccentricities of a wealthy man but for the money that Thiel has spent buying influence and supporting like-minded candidates – thanks in large part to a campaign financing system that, while still capping contributions to individual campaigns, allows unlimited funding of nominally outside groups and political action committees.
‘It does seem to be getting worse,’ said Chisun Lee, an expert on campaign finance who directs the Brennan Center’s Elections and Government program at New York University. ‘Outside spending in this federal midterm cycle is more than double the last midterm cycle. Since Citizens United, just 12 mega-donors, eight of them billionaires, have paid one dollar out of every 13 spent in federal elections. And now we’re seeing a troubling new trend … that some mega-donors are sponsoring campaigns that attack the fundamentals of democracy itself.’
Thiel’s spending has been dwarfed this year by at least three other mega-donors – Soros ($128m to the Democrats), shipping products tycoon Richard Uihlein ($53m to Republicans) and hedge fund manager Kenneth Griffin ($50m to Republicans). And Thiel has some way to go to match the consistent giving, cycle after cycle, of the Koch brothers or Sheldon Adelson, the late Las Vegas casino magnate.
Many experts also believe the attack on democracy began long before it became as explicit as Thiel has made it, because the whole point of funneling large amounts of money into the political system is to sway policy away from the will of the majority to the narrow interests of the donors and their friends.
This ability to control the policy agenda drives spending even more than the desire to see specific candidates win, says the Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig, whose 2011 book Republic, Lost offers an enduringly devastating analysis of the relationship between money and political influence. And the spending is likely only to increase.
‘You’re going to see much, much bigger individual contributions and an acceleration of contributions to Super Pacs [like the ones established to support Vance and Masters],’ Lessig said. ‘The candidates and the Super Pacs can’t coordinate on spending, but that doesn’t mean they can’t coordinate on the fundraising. Since the Super Pacs are outspending candidates by orders of magnitude, it’s all a dance to flush money into Super Pacs … They basically call the shots, and politicians can’t get anything through that they oppose.’
Less than a month from election day, both Vance and Masters are trailing their Democratic opponents in the polls (Vance by less than Masters). But, Lessig says, it would be wrong to conclude Thiel – or any of the other mega-donors – are wasting their money.
‘If you’re a candidate and you know $10m is going to come in against you on a particular issue,’ he said, ‘you are going to bend to avoid the effect of that money, whether or not it’s going to decide the race … If you’re someone who would otherwise be a strong climate activist, but you know that if you mention a carbon tax, a million dollars will drop from some anti-carbon tax Super Pac, you won’t talk about it.’
Thiel’s bid to overthrow the system, in other words, goes well beyond his ability to determine which party controls the Senate next year. The money will solidify the notion that the country is being run by psychopaths, at least among a hard core of Republican voters, analysts warn, and will further harden the ideological battle lines that have split the country in two and made common ground ever harder to find. It also brings the extreme opinions of NatCon further into the mainstream, making it easier for radical Republican candidates to run and win in future races, they say.
‘We are at a crisis point here, not so much because the ideas are hard to defeat but we don’t have a context in which to defeat them,’ Lessig said. ‘The fact that the same number of people believe the election was stolen as believed it on 6 January is a profound indictment of the information ecology in America.’
The Brennan Center believes there are ways of improving the system, at least at the state and local level, and points to efforts in both red and blue states to close certain loopholes and introduce public financing models to rein in the influence of the mega-donors. Lee said she would also like to see federal legislation to build a meaningful firewall between campaign funds and Super Pacs.
‘The legislation exists,’ she said, ‘and it would be a constitutional improvement even under [the] Citizens United [ruling]. All we need is the political will to act.’” Read more at The Guardian
New super PAC forms as Jim Banks eyes House GOP leadership
Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) speaks next to House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy outside the Capitol last year. Photo: Rod Lamkey/CNP via Reuters
“A new, well-funded super PAC is supporting the political priorities and policy agenda of Rep. Jim Banks of Indiana, an ambitious GOP House member expected to compete for the House majority whip role if his party wins power, Axios' Jonathan Swan reports.
Why it matters: A Banks-blessed super PAC — which plans to help his colleagues in this final stretch before the midterms — could aid his leadership ambitions.
The group, American Leadership PAC, was formed last month. Within weeks, it raised $2 million to spend before the Nov. 8 elections, according to a source with direct knowledge of the fundraising.
Banks, 43, already chairs the largest bloc of House conservatives. He told Axios he is ‘excited about the effort’ and is ‘doing my part and everything I can to help win back the House majority.’
The super PAC plans to spend on direct mail, text messages and digital advertising in around a dozen competitive House races.
The group is being overseen by GOP strategists Andy Surabian and James Blair. Surabian will be the super PAC's chief strategist.
Surabian told Axios that Banks ‘truly gets how President Trump remade the Republican Party for the better,’ and that the super PAC will help elect Republicans who share Banks' vision of the GOP as ‘working-class’ conservatives defending values against an ‘authoritarian left.’
The intrigue: The super PAC may help Banks persuade his colleagues that he would be an able fundraiser for the GOP conference should he become the House majority whip.
Fundraising is viewed as a weak spot for Banks in the whip race, given he is expected to run against the chair of the House Republicans' campaign arm, Rep. Tom Emmer (R-Minn.).
Banks has told allies he is "100% committed" to winning the whip race, a source said. Some of his colleagues believe he has longer-term aspirations to run for the Senate.” Read more at Axios
The Rent Revolution Is Coming
For the 44 million households who rent a home or apartment in the U.S., inflation keeps pushing costs higher and higher. Anger is rising too. It could be a breaking point.
“Here’s a list of places you might imagine seeing an argument over housing policy. A city council meeting. A late-night zoning hearing. Maybe a ribbon-cutting to christen a new affordable housing complex.
Instead, there was Quinton Lucas, the mayor of Kansas City, Mo., on a stage dressed as the pope with a half-dozen hecklers in yellow T-shirts berating his new housing plan from the audience in front of him. Mr. Lucas had arrived at the outdoor Starlight Theater on a warm August evening for a cameo appearance in a local production of ‘Sister Act.’ Just before he walked onto the stage, the demonstrators, who belonged to a group called KC Tenants, unfurled a banner that read ‘Mayor Lucas: Developing Displacement.’
A pack of uniformed security guards promptly smothered the scene. During the slow procession to the exit gates that followed, members of KC Tenants chanted, ‘The rent is too damn high!’ while the audience tried to focus on the mayor/pope and the dancing nuns.
Such is the state of housing in America, where rising costs are flaring into pockets of resistance and rage. Take two-plus years of pandemic-fueled eviction anxiety and spiking home prices, add a growing inflation problem that is being increasingly driven by rising rents, and throw in a long-run affordable housing shortagethat cities seem powerless to solve. Add it up and the 44 million U.S. households who rent a home or apartment have many reasons to be unhappy.
China’s Xi calls for military growth as party congress opens
By JOE McDONALD
“BEIJING (AP) — Chinese leader Xi Jinping on Sunday called for faster military development and announced no change in policies that have strained relations with Washington and tightened the ruling Communist Party’s control over society and the economy.
China’s most influential figure in decades spoke as the party opened a congress that was closely watched by companies, governments and the public for signs of official direction. It comes amid a painful slump in the world’s second-largest economy and tension with Washington and Asian neighbors over trade, technology and security.
Party plans call for creating a prosperous society by mid-century and restoring China to its historic role as a political, economic and cultural leader. Beijing has expanded its presence abroad including a multibillion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative to build ports and other infrastructure across Asia and Africa, but economists warn reversing market-style reform could hamper growth.
The congress will install leaders for the next five years. Xi, 69, is expected to break with tradition and award himself a third five-year term as general secretary and promote allies who share his enthusiasm for party dominance.
The party’s military wing, the People’s Liberation Army, needs to “safeguard China’s dignity and core interests,” Xi said, referring to a list of territorial claims and other issues over which Beijing says it is ready to go to war.
China, with the world’s second-largest military budget after the United States, is trying to extend its reach by developing ballistic missiles, aircraft carriers and overseas outposts.
‘We will work faster to modernize military theory, personnel and weapons,’ Xi said. ‘We will enhance the military’s strategic capabilities.’
Xi cited his government’s severe ‘zero-COVID’ strategy, which has shut down major cities and disrupted travel and business, as a success. He gave no indication of a possible change despite public frustration with its rising cost.
The congress will name a Standing Committee, the ruling inner circle of power. The lineup will indicate who is likely to succeed Premier Li Keqiang as the top economic official and take other posts when China’s ceremonial legislature meets next year.
Analysts are watching whether a slump that saw economic growth fall to below half of the official 5.5% annual target might force Xi to compromise and include supporters of market-style reform and entrepreneurs who generate wealth and jobs.
Xi gave no indication when he might step down.
During his decade in power, Xi’s government has pursued an increasingly assertive foreign policy while tightening control at home on information and dissent.
Beijing is feuding with Japan, India and Southeast Asian governments over conflicting claims to the South China and East China Seas and a section of the Himalayas. The United States, Japan, Australia and India have formed a strategic group dubbed the Quad in response.
The party has increased the dominance of state-owned industry and poured money into strategic initiatives aimed at nurturing Chinese creators of renewable energy, electric car, computer chip, aerospace and other technologies.
Its tactics have prompted complaints that Beijing improperly protects and subsidizes its fledgling creators and led then-President Donald Trump to hike tariffs on Chinese imports in 2019, setting off a trade war that jolted the global economy. Trump’s successor, Joe Biden, has kept those penalties in place and this month increased restrictions on Chinese access to U.S. chip technology.
The party has tightened control over private sector leaders including e-commerce giant Alibaba Group by launching anti-monopoly, data security and other crackdowns. Under political pressure, they are diverting billions of dollars into chip development and other party initiatives. Their share prices on foreign exchanges have plunged due to uncertainty about their future.
The party has stepped up censorship of media and the internet, increased public surveillance and tightened control over private life through its ‘social credit’ initiative that tracks individuals and punishes infractions ranging from fraud to littering.
Last week, banners criticizing Xi and ‘zero COVID’ were hung from an elevated roadway over a major Beijing thoroughfare in a rare protest. Photos of the event were deleted from social media, and the popular WeChat messaging app shut down accounts that forwarded them.
Xi said the party would build ‘self-reliance and strength’ in technology by improving China’s education system and attracting foreign experts.
The president appeared to double down on technology self-reliance and ‘zero COVID’ at a time when other countries are easing travel restrictions and rely on more free-flowing supply chains, said Willy Lam, a politics specialist at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Xi was joined on stage by party leaders including his predecessor as party leader, Hu Jintao, former Premier Wen Jiabao and Song Ping, a 105-year-old party veteran who sponsored Xi’s early career. There was no sign of 96-year-old former President Jiang Zemin, who was party leader until 2002.
The presence of previous leaders shows Xi faces no serious opposition, said Lam.
‘Xi is making it very clear he intends to hold onto power for as long as his health allows him to,’ he said.
Xi made no mention of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which Beijing refuses to criticize. He defended a crackdown on a pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong, saying the party helped the former British colony ‘enter a new stage in which it has restored order and is set to thrive.’
Xi’s government also faces criticism over mass detentions and other abuses against mostly Muslim ethnic groups and the jailing of government critics.
Amnesty International warned that extending Xi’s time in power will be a ‘disaster for human rights.’ In addition to conditions within China, it pointed to Beijing’s efforts to ‘redefine the very meaning of human rights’ at the United Nations.
Xi said Beijing refuses to renounce the possible use of force against Taiwan, the self-ruled island democracy the Communist Party claims as its territory. The two sides split in 1949 after a civil war.
Beijing has stepped up efforts to intimidate Taiwanese by flying fighter jets and bombers toward the island. That campaign intensified further after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in August became the highest-ranked U.S. official to visit Taiwan in a quarter-century.
‘We will continue to strive for peaceful reunification,’ Xi said. ‘But we will never promise to renounce the use of force. And we reserve the option of taking all measures necessary.’
Taiwan’s government responded that its 23 million people had the right to determine their own future and would not accept Beijing’s demands. A government statement called on China to ‘abandon the imposition of a political framework and the use of military force and coercion.’
The Communist Party leadership agreed in the 1990s to limit the general secretary to two five-year terms in an effort to prevent a repeat of power struggles from earlier decades. That leader also becomes chairman of the commission that controls the military and holds the ceremonial title of national president.
Xi made his intentions clear in 2018 when he had a two-term limit on the presidency removed from China’s Constitution. Officials said that allowed Xi to stay if needed to carry out reforms.
The party is expected to amend its charter this week to raise Xi’s status as leader after adding his personal ideology, Xi Jinping Thought, at the previous congress in 2017.
The spokesperson for the congress, Sun Yeli, said Saturday the changes would ‘meet new requirements for advancing the party’s development’ but gave no details.” Read more at AP News
China after 10 years of Xi
Data: World Bank. Chart: Tory Lysik/Axios
“Over his 10-year tenure, Xi has turned the world's second-largest economy into a tool to project geopolitical power, reports Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian, author of Axios China.
Why it matters: Some Western observers believed global trade would help spread liberal democratic values to China. But Xi's rise shows authoritarianism can also spread through economic ties.
What's happening: Xi has made foreign access to the massive Chinese economy contingent upon toeing Chinese Communist Party lines.
That has pressured companies and governments around the world to support Beijing's goals — while the Chinese government continues to commit human rights abuses.
By the numbers: Since Xi first assumed power in late 2012, China's economy has more than doubled, from $8.5 trillion to $17.7 trillion in 2021.
Data: China National Bureau of Statistics. Chart: Tory Lysik/Axios
The number of births in China now only slightly outpaces the number of deaths: Births fell from about 16 million in 2012 to 10.6 million in 2021.
Why it matters: China's low birth rate will mean a shrinking working-age population to grow the economy and support the elderly.”
Reproduced from CSIS ChinaPower. Chart: Axios Visuals
China is rapidly modernizing its military by investing in high-tech weaponry, shrinking its army and improving combat readiness.
Why it matters: Xi has committed to building ‘world-class forces’ for a country that is already considered a "pacing threat" to the U.S., according to the Pentagon.
Reproduced from Pew Research Center. Chart: Axios Visuals
People in many advanced economies have increasingly viewed China in an unfavorable light over the last decade, according to a recent report from Pew Research Center.
Why it matters: China has long touted its ‘peaceful rise’ policy. But the rise of aggressive diplomacy, the growth of global media influence, and the impacts of its opaque overseas lending practices have cast doubts about China's stated approach to becoming a superpower.
Human rights in China have continued to deteriorate, as Xi ‘doubled down’ on repression.” Read more at Axios
A drone attack in Kyiv today.Yasuyoshi Chiba/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
“Air raid sirens rang out in Ukraine today as Russia attacked Kyiv with ‘kamikaze’ drones, according to Ukrainian officials, who repeated their calls for Western allies to supply Ukraine with more advanced air defense systems. Kamikaze drones, or suicide drones, are small, portable aerial weapon systems that are hard to detect and can be fired at a distance. They can be easily launched and are designed to hit behind enemy lines and be destroyed in the attack. The Ukrainian military and US intelligence say Russia is using Iranian-made drones, but Iran denies supplying Russia with such weapons. The attacks come after Moscow fired hundreds of missiles at civilian targets in deadly strikes across Ukraine last week.” Read more at CNN
New U.K. Finance Minister Pulls Back Further on Fiscal Plan
Jeremy Hunt, the new chancellor of the Exchequer, announced a sweeping reversal in an effort to steady the markets and reduce the pressure on Prime Minister Liz Truss.
By Mark Landler and Stephen Castle
Oct. 17, 2022
“LONDON — Britain’s new chancellor of the Exchequer, Jeremy Hunt, said on Monday that he would reverse virtually all the government’s planned tax cuts, sweeping away Prime Minister Liz Truss’s free-market economic plan in a desperate bid to steady the financial markets and stabilize her government.
Mr. Hunt also announced that the government would end its massive state intervention to cap energy prices next April, replacing it with a still-undefined program that he said would promote energy efficiency, but that could increase uncertainty for households facing rising gas and electricity bills.
Ms. Truss’s Conservative government had planned to announce the tax and spending details of its fiscal plan on Oct. 31, but with the markets still gyrating, Mr. Hunt rushed forward the schedule. His announcement constituted one of the most dramatic reversals in modern British political history.
‘A central duty for any government is to do what’s necessary for economic stability,’ Mr. Hunt said in a televised statement. ‘No government can control markets but every government can give certainty about the sustainability of public finances.’” Read more at New York Times
“Russia’s faltering war effort. Russian authorities are pulling men from homeless shelters, cafes, and even straight from the streets to fight in Ukraine, leaving many racing to hide and escape, the Washington Post reported. Out of the 300,000 people required for partial mobilization, 222,000 have already been conscripted, President Vladimir Putin announced last Friday.” Read more at Foreign Policy
“More than 600 people have been killed in the worst flooding Nigeria has seenin a decade, the country's humanitarian affairs ministry said in a statement on Sunday. According to the ministry, more than 2 million people have been affected by flooding that has spread across parts of the country's south after a particularly wet rainy season. More than 200,000 homes have been destroyed or partially damaged, the ministry added. Earlier this month, Nigeria's National Emergency Management Agency warned of catastrophic flooding for various states, noting that three of Nigeria's overfilled reservoirs were expected to overflow.” Read more at CNN
“Tunisia’s IMF deal. Tunisia and the International Monetary Fund have agreed to an initial deal for a $1.9 billion loan as the country struggles under surging inflation and food shortages. Once ratified, it will be the two parties’ third such deal in nearly a decade.” Read more at Foreign Policy
BTS: K-pop stars to take time out for military service
Image caption, BTS have been the world's best-selling artists in recent years
“The world's biggest boy band BTS will be abandoning their fandom ‘army’ to join the South Korean military for national service, their agents say.
The confirmation ends years of debate over whether the K-pop stars might be exempted from military duties.
In South Korea, all able-bodied men aged 18-28 must serve about two years.
The seven BTS members had been allowed to put off starting their military service until they turned 30. The oldest, Jin, is currently 29.
He will begin preparations next month, the band's management revealed on Monday. All seven members of the group - the youngest of whom is 24 - also plan on following through with their service, it said.
South Korea retains compulsory military service mainly because the country is still technically at war with its nuclear-armed neighbour, North Korea.
The band had previously won a deferral - when in 2020, South Korea's parliament passed a bill allowing the biggest K-pop stars to delay their duties until the age of 30.
The announcement by BTS comes just months after the band announced they would be taking a break, with some members pursuing individual projects.” Read more at BBC
AP Top 25 Takeaways: Vols, Frogs, Wolverines make statements
By RALPH D. RUSSO
“October reveals the truth about a college football season.
A Saturday that featured six games matching ranked teams, including three battles of unbeatens, promised to set the tone for the second half and sort contenders from pretenders.
No. 5 Michigan stepped forward emphatically in the Big Ten. No. 13 TCU made an improbable rally to become the Big 12 favorite. In the Pac-12, No. 20 Utah showed its not ready to give up its crown.
And No. 6 Tennessee put the Southeastern Conference on tilt.
Hendon Hooker and the Volunteers played the game of the day, and maybe the season, beating No. 3 Alabama for the first time since 2006 with a walk-off field goal.
‘This is college football at its absolute best,’ Vols coach Josh Heupel said.
No doubt about it.
For those who spend their Saturdays in front of multiple screens, there was about a 30-minute period when Alabama and Tennessee were trading haymakers and TCU was erasing a 14-point deficit against No. 8 Oklahoma State.
As great as Max Duggan, Quinten Johnston and the Horned Frogs were in taking one away that the Cowboys seemed to have in control, the Vols were the headliners.
The storyline of this season — or so we thought — was three elite teams, Alabama, Georgia and Ohio State, with the rest of the country playing catchup.
Alabama hasn’t lived up to the billing.
Heisman Trophy winner Bryce Young and the Tide started No. 1, then barely escaped Texas in Week 2. OK, it happens.
Then Young injured his shoulder against Arkansas and had to sit out last week’s game against Texas A&M. The Tide were a mess of turnovers and missed field goals and again barely escaped.
Surely, things would be different with Young.
Well, he was typically magical against Tennessee, but Alabama couldn’t cover Jalin Hyatt (five touchdowns), couldn’t stop committing penalties (17 for 130) and botched the last minute of the game when a potential winning kick was in sight.
‘We did too many things to help them,’ Tide coach Nick Saban said.
Saban and the Tide have plenty to lament, but having a first down at the Tennessee 32 with 34 seconds left and ending up with a 50-yard field goal sailing wide with 15 seconds left for the Vols turned out to be a disaster.
Tennessee still has to play at No. 1 Georgia on Nov. 5. Alabama has plenty of work left to do to win another SEC West title, including a trip to unbeaten No. 9 Mississippi.
But the Vols blew away the idea of the two SEC titans marching unimpeded toward another championship showdown in Atlanta.
Now they’re CFP contenders and Hooker is the Heisman frontrunner.
Earlier in the day, Michigan officially put No. 2 Ohio State on notice.
The Wolverines beat the Buckeyes last year to end its long drought in the rivalry on the way to a Big Ten title and playoff berth.
The Wolverines have lived in the top-five for weeks this season, but with some skepticism after starting against the weakest nonconference schedule in the country and no ranked Big Ten teams.
Against No. 10 Penn State, Michigan looked like a real threat to the Buckeyes again.
Only a couple of long plays by the Nittany Lions and some stalled red zone trips in the first half kept the game respectable. Running back don’t win the Heisman Trophy anymore, but Blake Corum is Michigan’s man in that conversation.
‘The offensive line knows that if they give Blake and Donovan (Edwards) space, any kind of crack, they’re going to make the most of it,’ coach Jim Harbaugh said.
Last year he was the lightning to Hassan Haskins’ thunder for Michigan. Corum is a workhorse now. He came into the game seventh in the nation in rushing at 122.5 yards per game and then went for 166 on 28 carries with two touchdowns against Penn State.
And to cap off a wild day, Utah knocked No. 6 Southern California from the ranks of the unbeaten.
A generous defense finally caught up to the Trojans, who also lost star receiver Jordan Addison to a leg injury that looked worrisome.
The Utes relinquished Pac-12 favorite and playoff contender status last week at UCLA, but on a night they honored two fallen teammates they played inspired and coach Kyle Whittingham made the smart call with a late 2-point conversion.
“It’s indescribable,” said Utah tight end Dalton Kincaid, who caught 16 passes for 234 yards.
Like the Tennessee fans, Utah’s stormed field — though they didn’t make off with the Rice-Eccles’ goal posts.
The ones at Neyland Stadium, at least one upright, ended up in the Tennessee River.
AROUND THE COUNTRY
Next week’s battle of unbeatens is in the Atlantic Coast Conference with No. 4 Clemson, which had its hands full with Florida State, and surprising No. 18 Syracuse meeting in Death Valley. The Orange are 6-0 for the first time since 1987. ... Marshall and Stanford are 2-0 against Notre Dame and 0-7 against other FBS teams. The Cardinal broke an 11-game losing streak against FBS opponents by handing the Fighting Irish their third loss. ... There are no undefeated Group of Five teams left after two Sun Belt upsets. No. 25 James Madison lost at Georgia Southern and Coastal Carolina was smoked at home on Old Dominion ... There are also no more winless teams in FBS. Colorado beat Cal in overtime to win the first game under interim coach Mike Sanford, with one of the craziest pass breakups you’ll ever see. ... Miami and Oklahoma both snapped three-game losing streaks for their first-year coaches. The Sooners got QB Dillon Gabriel back from injury and it fixed their offense as they handed No. 19 Kansas a second straight loss. Coach Brent Venables’ defense is still a problem, but the Sooners could still be an issue in the Big 12. The Hurricanes held on at Virginia Tech, getting quarterback Tyler Van Dyke on track for what they hope will be redeeming stretch run for coach Mario Cristobal ... No. 22 Texas snapped a three-game losing streak to Iowa State and handed the Cyclones a fourth straight one-possession loss. Iowa State is 0-4 in the Big 12 by a combined margin of 14 points. ... No. 24 Illinois has already banked victories against Iowa, Wisconsin and Minnesota and is in great shape to win the Big Ten West in Bret Bielema’s second season. Illini star Chase Brown became the first 1,000-yard rusher in the country this season against the Gophers. Circle Nov. 12 when Purdue travels tp Champaign, Illinois, in a game that could decide a trip to the Big Ten title game — just as we all expected.” Read more at AP News
18-inning, 6-hour game
Photo: Daniel Shirey/MLB Photos via Getty Images
“Scoreless inning after scoreless inning, day turned into night in front of a frenzied crowd in Seattle:
The Astros' Jeremy Peña homered in the 18th, beating the Mariners 1-0 for a three-game sweep of their AL Division Series — and putting Houston in the AL Championship Series for the sixth straight year,
The 18 innings matched the most innings in playoff history, per AP.
The game — which lasted 6 hours, 22 minutes — clocked in as the third-longest playoff game.” Read more at Axios
“Yankees survive: The Bronx will be buzzing tonight for a deciding Game 5 of the A.L. Divisional Series after New York edged Cleveland on the road last night. Gerrit Cole was excellent.” Read more at New York Times
“Eagles stay steady: Philadelphia remains undefeated after a 26-17 win yesterday over its division rival Dallas. It was impressive considering the surprises Week 6 had in store for the rest of the N.F.L.” Read more at New York Times
Jordan Poole’s strange two weeks: The Warriors guard inked a four-year contract extension yesterday that guarantees him $123 million, days after a video was leaked of teammate Draymond Green punching Poole in the face at practice. Poole says the pair will be ‘professional.’” Read more at New York Times
1 fun thing: Pan Solo
Photo: Chris Riley/(Vallejo, Calif.) Times-Herald via AP
“A Bay Area bakery made a 6-foot bread sculpture of Han Solo, as the ‘Star Wars’ character appeared after being frozen in carbonite in ‘The Empire Strikes Back.’
Hanalee Pervan and her mother, Catherine Pervan (above), co-owners of One House Bakery in Benicia, Calif., spent weeks molding, baking and assembling the life-sized sculpture, AP reports.
The two used wood and two types of dough — including a yeastless dough with a higher sugar content, so it lasts longer.
They worked at night, lovingly crafting the details: Solo's anguished face, and his hands straining to reach out.
What's next: The dough will be composted, not eaten.” Read more at Axios