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The World
President Biden spoke with “key allies in Europe as well as the leaders of Canada and Japan” about how to coordinate policy on Ukraine “as it battles Russia in a war now almost 20 months long — a deliberate show of U.S. support at a time when the future of its aid is entangled with a volatile faction of House Republicans who want to cut off money to Kyiv.” All participants “stressed that their backing of Ukraine remains unchanged.” (Associated Press)
Chinese President Xi Jinping is not expected to meet a group of U.S. senators in Beijing next week “because of the low prospects for a concrete outcome from the trip, according to experts.” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Sen. Mike Crapo (R-ID) will lead the first congressional delegation to visit China in four years. (South China Morning Post)
The U.S. Treasury Department has sanctioned a large network of Chinese manufacturers “for producing and distributing illicit drugs — including fentanyl — which the government says is responsible for taking the lives of thousands of Americans each year.” Treasury designated 28 individuals and entities involved in international proliferation efforts, including 12 entities and 13 people based in China. (Semafor)
Armenia’s parliament voted Tuesday to join the International Criminal Court, “a development that is expected to further sour relations with the country's old ally Russia. A chasm has opened up between the two countries, with Yerevan angry with the Kremlin over its perceived inaction in a long-standing confrontation between Armenia and fellow post-Soviet state Azerbaijan.” (DW)
Liberia’s former vice president Joseph Boakai has forged an alliance with a party headed by an ex-warlord as he seeks to unseat President George Weah in next week’s elections. Boakai’s running mate is a member of the Movement for Democracy and Reconstruction, led by Prince Yormie Johnson. Johnson was a rebel leader during Liberia’s 1990 civil war and ordered the torture and killing of deposed president Samuel Doe. (Semafor)
The aviation industry is dealing with a rising threat of criminal gangs recruiting airport workers to assist with smuggling and other offenses. “Baggage handlers have been recruited to shift contraband-filled suitcases from international flights onto domestic carousels, bypassing checks by customs security; runway workers have been tasked with planting narcotics in the panels of aircraft; and customs officials have been paid to wave through bags known to contain illicit items.” (Wall Street Journal)
Former Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s extraordinary ouster that unsettled Washington and left the House in chaos was the culmination of a tumultuous nine months that began in unprecedented fashion in January with 15 roll call votes to claim his gavel and ended in unprecedented fashion with a single one to vacate the speaker’s chair. In between, the gregarious Californian, previously known more as a backslapper and prolific fund-raiser than a legislative wizard, narrowly pulled the country back from the brink of crisis — twice. But he took many other actions, and said many things, that antagonized hard-line Republicans, Democrats and the White House. When the critical moment came, no one was willing to race to his rescue. And he failed to master the art of corralling a deeply divided Republican majority that could never quite bring itself to rally behind him when it came time to choose normalcy over chaos. With the G.O.P. base increasingly hungry for insurgency and confrontation, Mr. McCarthy found himself out of step, a problem that is likely to plague any candidate who tries to succeed him. (New York Times)
“There is a huge and growing gap” between the life expectancy of Americans with degrees and those without. “In 2021, at age 25, Americans who do not have a four-year college degree (about two-thirds of the adult population) were expected to live on average about ten years less than those who do. In 1992 the gap was a third of that.” (Economist)
Economy
The Great Resignation appears to be cooling. “The so-called quits rate — the number of resignations as a share of total employment — was 2.3% in July, down from a 3% peak in April 2022.” There are several reasons for the decline, but one is that the pace of job growth is slowing. Cory Stahle, an economist at Indeed, said, “Job postings were down about 15% from a year earlier in late September.” (Wall Street Journal)
However, job openings “unexpectedly rose in August, another sign the U.S. labor market remains strong despite higher interest rates.” Employers “posted 9.6 million job openings in August, up from 8.9 million in July and the first uptick in three months, the Labor Department said Tuesday.” (Associated Press)
“The job market remains strong despite gradual cooling from pandemic-era highs, according to labor economists — but workers don’t seem to share that outlook. Employee confidence fell last month to its lowest level since 2016, according to Glassdoor data. About 46% of workers reported a positive six-month outlook for their employers, down from 54% from a year ago.” (CNBC)
The South Asian economy “is expected to grow by 5.8% this year, making it the fastest-growing region in the world even as the pace remains below pre-pandemic levels, the World Bank said on Tuesday.” India is “set to remain robust with 6.3% growth in the 2023-24 fiscal year, while others like Maldives and Nepal are also expected to grow thanks to a rebound in tourism.” (Associated Press)
The World Bank “warned that growth in south Asia would not be fast enough to meet regional governments’ targets to reach high-income status within a generation, leaving them facing long-term challenges including poverty and high debt.” (Financial Times)
President Biden announced that the manufacturers “of all of the first 10 prescription drugs selected for Medicare’s first price negotiations have agreed to participate.” The drugs include the blood thinner Eliquis, “which the White House said was used by more than 3.7 million Medicare enrollees from June of last year through this past May and had an average out-of-pocket cost of $608 per enrollee for 2022. Also included is diabetes treatment Jardiance, which was used by nearly 1.6 million Medicare enrollees and had a 2022 out-of-pocket cost per enrollee of $490.” (Associated Press)
The U.S. fell from second to fourth in the second annual Global Financial Inclusion Index, which ranks nations by the degree to which individuals and businesses have “access to useful and affordable financial products.” Singapore led the rankings again this year, while Hong Kong and Switzerland jumped ahead of the U.S. (CNBC)
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau “appears likely to escape a potentially devastating blow from the Supreme Court after several conservative justices expressed doubts about arguments that the agency’s funding stream is unconstitutional.” During oral arguments on Tuesday, “all the court’s liberal justices and at least three members of the conservative majority sounded skeptical” about criticism of the funding system. (Politico)
More than 75,000 Kaiser Permanente employees could go on strike Wednesday morning in what union leaders say “could be the largest strike by health care workers in recent U.S. history.” The strike “would involve support and other staff, including X-ray and lab technicians; sanitation workers who disinfect rooms between patients; and pharmacy workers who help dispense medications.” Doctors and most nurses would not be a part of the three-day job action. (New York Times)
Technology
Amazon’s “Project Nessie” algorithm let the company “test how much it could raise prices in a way that competitors would follow, according to redacted portions of the Federal Trade Commission’s monopoly lawsuit against the company.” The algorithm helped Amazon improve profits, “and because of the power the company has in e-commerce, led competitors to raise their prices and charge customers more, according to people familiar with the allegations in the complaint.” Amazon also allegedly used the algorithm “on what employees saw as a promotional spiral, where Amazon would match a discounted price from a competitor, such as Target[dot]com, and other competitors would follow, lowering their prices.” (Wall Street Journal)
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. “will begin installing equipment at its new chip plant in Japan this month, a sign that the project is proceeding more rapidly than the company's cutting-edge facility” in Arizona. TSMC “has sent hundreds of support staff to the site in Kumamoto, southwestern Japan, and they will soon be joined by hundreds more from TSMC suppliers.” Industry executives say Japan “has better chip industry infrastructure than the U.S. and has been more prompt with government support.” (Nikkei Asia)
Meta will lay off employees in a division focused on creating custom silicon. The silicon unit, called Facebook Agile Silicon Team, has about 600 employees. It is part of the company’s metaverse-oriented Reality Labs department. Meta “has struggled to make chips that can compete with silicon produced by external providers and has turned to chipmaker Qualcomm for devices currently on the market.” (Reuters)
Traffic referrals to leading news sites from Facebook and X has plummeted over the past year, according to data from Similarweb. “Regulatory pressure and free speech concerns have pushed tech giants to abandon efforts to elevate quality information, leaving the public more susceptible to misinformation ahead of the 2024 election.” (Axios)
Meta plans to charge EU users a $14 monthly subscription fee for Instagram unless they let the company use their personal information for targeted ads. Meta “will also charge $17 for Facebook and Instagram together for use on desktop, said two people with direct knowledge of the plans, which are likely to be rolled out in coming weeks.” (Ars Technica)
Smart Links
Mortgage rate races toward 8% after hitting a high not seen since late 2000. (CNBC)
Netflix Plans to Raise Prices After Actors Strike Ends. (WSJ)
Ukraine, Poland, and Lithuania have agreed on a plan to expedite Ukrainian grain exports. (Associated Press)
Google is making it harder to spam Gmail users. (CNBC)
Japan to stress-test banks for risk of Silicon Valley Bank-style crisis (Nikkei Asia)