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The World
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un arrived in Russia for a rare summit with President Vladimir Putin, during which Washington expects the two leaders to discuss an arms deal. Kim appeared to have crossed into Russia early Tuesday aboard his private train, South Korea’s Defense Ministry said in a statement. Washington has accused Moscow of seeking North Korean weapons. “We remain concerned that North Korea is contemplating providing any type of ammunition or materiel support to Russia, in support of their war against Ukraine,” Air Force Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder, the Pentagon press secretary, told reporters Monday. (Washington Post)
Kim and Putin will discuss trade and economic issues, the Kremlin says. Kim Jong-un arrived in Russia on Tuesday, the Kremlin confirmed, traveling aboard his slow-moving armored train to a meeting with President Vladimir V. Putin that could see the two nations increasing military cooperation. The North’s official Korean Central News Agency published photographs on Tuesday of Mr. Kim and other officials on the train, which is his preferred method of travel during his rare trips out of the country. The Kremlin spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, confirmed Mr. Kim’s arrival in Russia later on Tuesday. Russian state media shared video that purported to show Mr. Kim disembarking his train in Primorsky Krai, in Russia’s Far East, on Tuesday. He was greeted by Russia’s natural resources and environment minister, Alexander Kozlov, at a station in Khasan, the Russian state news agency Tass reported. Khasan is just across North Korea’s northeastern border. (New York Times)
Thousands of people were killed and at least 10,000 were missing in Libya in floods caused by a huge Mediterranean storm that burst dams, swept away buildings and wiped out as much as a quarter of the eastern coastal city of Derna. A senior medic in Derna told Reuters that more than 2,000 people were dead, while eastern Libya officials cited by local television were estimating a toll above 5,000. Storm Daniel barrelled across the Mediterranean into a country divided and crumbling after more than a decade of conflict. (Reuters)
Riding India's G20 wave, Modi's party sets up for elections: The weekend G20 summit was India's big moment on the world stage, giving the country an opportunity to work on global issues and providing Prime Minister Narendra Modi a chance to present his credentials as a global statesman. Although some analysts said the meeting showed few concrete results, his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is now cashing in on Modi's enhanced image ahead of a series of state elections and national elections due by May 2024. (Reuters)
The food industry has tried to stack a key nutrition policy panel with its preferred experts, documents show. The food industry has worked hard to get friendly researchers into a key panel of nutrition policy experts, newly obtained documents show. There’s a panel of 20 nutrition experts that has outsized influence on the American diet — and the food industry has worked hard to get friendly researchers into the group, new documents obtained by STAT show. The National Potato Council, for example, nominated one of the researchers behind an industry-funded study showing eating french fries each day doesn’t result in more weight gain than eating a comparable amount of almonds. The National Coffee Association put forth an academic who said coffee consumption is tied to lower risk of certain cancers. The soy industry nominated a prominent vegan. The International Bottled Water Association? They like three researchers who study the benefits of — you guessed it — water. The normally secret nominations, which were obtained by STAT via a Freedom of Information Act request, demonstrate the food industry’s persistent efforts to influence the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Department of Health and Human Services, and other bodies that regulate nutrition and health in the United States. The panel in question, chosen by the USDA and HHS, deliberates the latest nutrition science for the better part of two years and then submits a report to regulators, who then decide on any ultimate tweaks to the national dietary guidelines. (STAT News)
Decongestant in Cold Medicines Found Ineffective: Your favorite cold medicine for a stuffy nose may soon be unavailable. An advisory panel to the Food and Drug Administration declared Tuesday that an ingredient in widely used oral decongestants doesn’t work, setting the stage for dozens of products to be removed from U.S. store shelves. At issue is phenylephrine, an almost-century-old ingredient in versions of Benadryl, Mucinex, Tylenol and other over-the-counter pills, syrups and liquids to clear up congested noses. Phenylephrine, first permitted for use in 1938, didn’t go through the rigorous clinical trials that regulators require today for medications, and more recent studies found the ingredient to be ineffective at relieving congestion. The latest research prompted pharmacists and physicians to call for ending the sales of the drugs. (Wall Street Journal)
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy directed House committees to open an impeachment inquiry into President Biden, a unilateral decision that appeared designed to appease hard-right lawmakers eager to intensify investigations of the president amid his reelection campaign. The inquiry will center on whether Biden benefited from his son Hunter Biden’s business dealings, among other issues, McCarthy (R-Calif.) said. House Republicans have not put forth evidence directly showing that Biden benefited from his son’s business dealings in Ukraine and elsewhere. They have aired allegations that the Justice Department stymied an investigation into Hunter Biden’s financial dealings along with testimony about his penchant for touting the family brand to attract clients. (Washington Post)
Economy
U.S. Incomes Fall for Third Straight Year: Surging inflation gobbled up household income gains last year, making 2022 the third straight year in which Americans saw their living standards eroded by rising prices and pandemic disruptions. Americans’ inflation-adjusted median household income fell to $74,580 in 2022, declining 2.3% from the 2021 estimate of $76,330, the Census Bureau said Tuesday. The amount has dropped 4.7% since its peak in 2019. The figures add to the picture of the economic challenges facing households since Covid-19 hit in early 2020. Inflation hit a four decade high last summer as the pandemic upended supply chains and the Ukraine war drove up energy prices. (Wall Street Journal)
Goldman Sachs chief executive David Solomon said the chances of the US economy avoiding a recession are “materially higher” than 12 months ago, but cautioned that inflation may remain stubbornly high. “I actually think the economy has been more resilient over the course of the last 12 months than we expected . . . I think the chances of a soft landing now are materially higher,” Solomon said. (Financial Times)
Behind closed doors, Wall Street and Washington are at odds over China. Rep. Mike Gallagher, the chair of the U.S. House committee on competition with China, said he might widen the panel’s investigation into Wall Street’s ties to China’s military sector and its human-rights abuses, which has so far focused on BlackRock and index provider MSCI. His comments to Semafor on Tuesday came after two days of mostly private meetings in New York with Wall Street executives wary of drastic limits on U.S. investments in China. The visit included a tabletop exercise on the financial impacts of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan and a hearing on risks of investing in China. “I don’t know if we changed anybody’s mind,” said Gallagher, whose committee has put one industry after another under scrutiny from fast fashion to semiconductors to finance. “But I think those we met with left with a sense that this is an issue they can’t ignore.” Josh Wolfe of Lux Capital, a venture firm that invests in defense technology and scientific endeavors, organized closed-door sessions meant to help lawmakers and financiers understand each other’s interests “without being knee jerk or reflexive,” he told Semafor. Few attendees supported a complete decoupling from China, said Wolfe, who cautioned against economic jingoism. “Using a hammer or a bludgeon would be a terrible idea,” he said. (Semafor)
Chinese property woes trigger ‘dramatic shift’ into US stocks: The Chinese property sector has emerged as the biggest threat to the stability of the global economy, fuelling a “dramatic shift” out of emerging market stocks and into the US, according to a closely watched investor survey. A third of fund managers named Chinese commercial real estate as the most likely source of a “systemic credit event” in the September instalment of Bank of America’s monthly poll, with the proportion more than doubling since last month to eclipse concerns over US commercial property. (Financial Times)
TSMC, which is making an unprecedented push into chip manufacturing overseas, is taking an increasingly optimistic view of Japan as a production base, two industry sources said, as problems persist at its new factory in Arizona. TSMC, the world's largest contract chipmaker, is frustrated in Arizona, the sources said, where it has struggled to recruit workers for the gruelling chipmaking trade and faced pushback from unions on efforts to bring in workers from Taiwan. (Reuters)
Partnerships key to U.S. semiconductor chip industry development. (Axios)
Putin projects economic calm after rouble slump, warns of inflation risks. Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday praised the central bank for keeping a lid on inflation with double-digit interest rates and said there were no insurmountable challenges when it came to limiting the rouble's volatility. Putin used his speech at Russia's Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok to project a mood of financial calm, just weeks after the rouble's slump past 100 to the dollar led to Kremlin criticism of the bank's monetary policy and, ultimately, a 350-basis-point emergency rate hike to 12%. Annual inflation quickened to 5.15% in August, above the 4% target, and most analysts polled by Reuters expect the Bank of Russia to raise rates again on Friday, as Moscow balances its desire for lower rates and quicker economic growth with the need to limit price rises. Putin, whose economic aide Maxim Oreshkin appeared to have spurred the central bank into action last month, said the bank had reacted "correctly" and in a "timely manner" to the rouble's plunge and its impact on inflation. (Reuters)
Technology
Apple iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max announced with titanium bodies and an Action Button. They are apparently the strongest, fastest, and Pro-est iPhones ever. And that USB-C port might change the way people think about their smartphone camera. Apple just announced its new high-end iPhones: the iPhone 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max. They’re made of titanium, they have Action Buttons, and Apple promises they’re the most powerful smartphones Apple has ever made. The 15 Pro starts at $999 with 128GB of storage, and the Pro Max at $1,199 with 256GB of storage. Both will be available for preorder this Friday and on sale September 22nd. This year’s Pro has a 6.1-inch screen, and the Pro Max has a 6.7-inch display — same as the new iPhone 15 and 15 Plus. Both are powered by the A17 Pro chip, which Apple says has the fastest performance in any smartphone and can even challenge some high-end PCs. Along with a redesigned GPU, Apple seems to think these devices could be poised to level up the kinds of games you can play on your phone. (Of course, Apple likes to talk a lot about high-end gaming, and the results... don’t always keep up.) Both phones, of course, have a USB-C port on the bottom rather than the old Lightning port. But in the Pro’s case, it could be for more than charging: Apple says the 15 Pro is the first phone with 10Gbps transfer speeds, which will make getting photos and videos (or large files of any kind) off your phone vastly easier. (The Verge)
Apple launches Roadside Assistance via satellite in the US, allowing iPhone 15 and iPhone 14 users to text AAA for assistance in areas without cell signal. (TechCrunch)
Apple says the iPhone 15 Pro will be able to use its ultra-wide and main cameras together to capture 3D “spatial videos” for viewing on the Apple Vision Pro. (TechCrunch)
Apple unveils the $799 Apple Watch Ultra 2, with an S9 chip, a second-gen UWB chip, up to 3,000 nits brightness, 36-hour battery, and a Modular Ultra watch face. (9to5Mac)
Apple plans to stop using leather for accessories, announces a recycled FineWoven material for Watch bands, and plans to phase out all plastic packaging by 2025. (AppleInsider)
Watch the Apple Event. (YouTube)
US prosecutors alleged Google pays more than $10bn annually for agreements that ensure it is the default search engine on mobile phones and computers, as the most significant antitrust monopoly trial in 25 years started in Washington. “This case is about the future of the internet and whether Google’s search engine will ever face meaningful competition,” Kenneth Dintzer said during the Department of Justice’s opening statements in a case accusing Google of dominating internet search via anti-competitive agreements. Dintzer said the tech group in 2010 began to “illegally maintain” the monopoly it had established. It currently represented about 89 per cent of the internet search market, he added. (Financial Times)
Elon Musk’s Lessons From Hell: Five Commandments for Business. That experience through hell, the book says, also helped Musk shape five commandments for how he wants problems solved by his workers across his companies, from rocket maker SpaceX to social-media platform X. Musk, in the book, calls the framework for problem solving “the algorithm.” In short, Musk urges his employees to: 1) Question every requirement; 2) Delete any part or process you can; 3) Simplify and optimize; 4) Accelerate cycle time; 5) Automate. “His executives sometimes move their lips and mouth the words, like they would chant the liturgy along with their priest,” Isaacson wrote of Musk’s mantra. “The algorithm is a five-step process for not only making good products and designing good products, but manufacturing them,” Isaacson said in an interview Monday. (Wall Street Journal)
The Economist plans to introduce Economist Podcasts+, a tier that in mid-October will offer exclusive access to all of the Economist's podcasts for $4.90/month. (Axios)
Arm CEO Rene Haas pitches a pivot toward complex design work on specific products, a “purpose-built approach” to address clients' urgent needs. (Bloomberg)
Smart Links
CDC recommends updated Covid vaccines for everyone 6 months and older. (STAT News)
The Art of Getting Work Done on a Plane (Or Not, and Feeling Fine About It). (Wall Street Journal)
Colleges are ditching the SAT. The high school transcript should be next. (Higher Ed Dive)
100-metre-tall watchtower to survey ocean in East China Sea and help protect Beijing’s ‘maritime rights’. (South China Morning Post)
Nvidia-Backed AI Chip Networking Startup Enfabrica Lands $125M Series B. (Crunchbase)
Biden administration, tech industry draft a long-term plan to secure open source software. (Axios)