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The World
The U.S. and its allies “are ratcheting up efforts to prevent the war between Israel and Hamas from engulfing the wider region, acting on concerns that an invasion of the Gaza Strip by Israeli forces could prompt Iran to enter the conflict.” White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said Sunday that the U.S. has warned Iran through backchannels against escalating the war. (Bloomberg)
President Biden may visit Israel this week. A Biden visit “would be both a show of support for Israel amid the war with Hamas and a message to Iran and Hezbollah not to join the fighting.” Israeli officials said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu invited Biden to Israel during their phone call on Saturday. (Axios)
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said Israel “has gone too far in responding to last week’s invasion by Hamas.” Speaking to Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud, Yi said Israel’s actions “have extended beyond self-defense.” (Politico)
“Beijing is trying to use the outbreak of violence between Israel and Hamas to curry favor among Arab states and gain their support for China's global agenda.” The Chinese government “is seeking to legitimize authoritarian practices and erode human rights protections on the international stage.” (Axios)
“Two-thirds of Americans say the United States should publicly support Israel in the war between Israel and Hamas, according to the latest NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll, but there are wide generational and racial divides on the question.” (NPR)
“Poland is on the brink of a political earthquake after exit polls put opposition and left-wing parties on track for victory over the country’s nationalist and populist government.” The conservative Law and Justice (PiS) led with 37% of the vote but without enough seats or allies to form a parliamentary majority. Former Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s Civic Coalition took 32% of the vote “but the results show that he will become prime minister in a grand alliance with the support of two other moderate and left-wing parties.” (Times of London)
The election, “held after a vicious campaign in the highly polarized nation, was closely watched abroad, including in Russia and Ukraine, and viewed by many Poles as the most consequential vote since they rejected communism in the country’s first partly free election in 1989.” (New York Times)
“The EU has withheld €35bn ($37bn) in post-covid recovery aid until PiS rolls back its attempts to take over the country’s judiciary. Should he prove able to form a government, Mr Tusk will try to undo PiS’s efforts to turn the country into a copy of Viktor Orban’s Hungary.” (The Economist)
The House will vote Tuesday at noon on a new speaker. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), the GOP nominee for the gavel, has been far short of the votes needed on the floor but urged a Tuesday election. (Reuters)
“A faction of Republicans that strongly opposes Jim Jordan is vowing he'll have a challenger” during the floor vote. While they “have not yet nailed down a specific name, they believe the person they ultimately land on will not only be able to block Jordan from the speakership, but also give cover to those who want to vote against him.” (Politico)
Democrats are also “beginning to seriously entertain the notion of helping enable Speaker Pro Tempore Patrick McHenry (R-NC) to pass critical legislation, a potential short-term fix as GOP infighting continues to paralyze the House.” (Axios)
China is making a push “to implement President Xi Jinping’s recently released ideology on culture and propaganda.” An institute will be “set up for the study of Xi Jinping Thought on Culture and it is likely to be located within the Ministry of Culture and Tourism.” (South China Morning Post)
Vladimir Putin will meet with Xi Jinping in Beijing this week in a rare trip abroad. (Politico)
Six months of war in Sudan has killed up to 9,000 people and created “one of the worst humanitarian nightmares in recent history,” according to UN Undersecretary-General Martin Griffiths. Sudan “has been engulfed in chaos since mid-April, when simmering tensions between military chief Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan and the commander of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, exploded into open warfare.” (Associated Press)
A fertilizer shortage brought on by supply chain woes is harshly impacting farmers in West Africa. Since February 2022, “the price of fertilizer has more than doubled in Nigeria and 13 other countries.” In Nigeria alone, “nearly 90 million people — roughly two-fifths of the nation — suffer from ‘insufficient food consumption,’ according to data from the World Food Program.” (New York Times)
Economy
U.S. gas prices were down about 12 cents per gallon on average last week “even as oil rose by about $5 to around $90 per barrel.” Prices at the pump declined “because of lower demand from drivers and less expensive blends of winter gasoline coming into the market.” (USA Today)
The auto industry’s electric vehicle push “is running into a cold, hard reality: Buyers’ interest in these models is proving shallower than expected. While EV sales continue to grow — rising 51% this year through September — the rate has slowed from a year earlier and unsold inventory is starting to pile up for some brands.” Companies including Ford and Toyota have started “shifting more resources into hybrids, which have been drawing consumers at a faster clip.” (Wall Street Journal)
Japan stock exchange adopts name and shame regime to boost corporate valuations: Plan to list groups that are meeting guidelines will enhance investor scrutiny of laggards. (Financial Times)
Want a Discount? Pay in Cash. Shoppers once had to fish in their wallets for a coupon to save a few bucks at checkout. These days, a $20 bill often does the trick. Discounts for paying cash are now on the menu at coffee shops, restaurants and other stores as businesses search for ways to skirt rising credit-card transaction fees. The share of all cash purchases that came with a discount climbed 66% between 2015 and 2022, according to research by the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. (Wall Street Journal)
Construction crews are modernizing the Soo Locks, which about 10,000 ships pass through each year “to bring iron ore, grain, limestone and other staples across the Great Lakes and Canada into the Midwest and beyond.” The Biden Administration “is pouring nearly $700 million from the $1 trillion infrastructure law into building a new lock, almost doubling the money dedicated to the project at $1.6 billion,” but that is still only about half of what is needed to complete the project. (Wall Street Journal)
Technology
The Upshot of Microsoft’s Activision Deal: Big Tech Can Get Even Bigger: With the completion of the blockbuster acquisition, the notion that tech giants can grow through “vertical transactions” remains intact. President Biden’s top antitrust officials have used novel arguments over the past few years to stop tech giants and other large companies from making deals, a strategy that has had mixed success. But on Friday, when Microsoft closed its blockbuster $69 billion acquisition of the video game publisher Activision Blizzard after beating back a federal government challenge, the message sent by the merger’s completion was incontrovertible: Big Tech can still get bigger. “Big Tech companies will certainly be reading the tea leaves,” said Daniel Crane, a law professor at the University of Michigan. “Smart money says merge now while the merging is good.” (New York Times)
CEO Bobby Kotick will leave Activision Blizzard on January 1, 2024. (Ars Technica)
TSMC founder Morris Chang says the company expects competition from Intel and others, and Japan and Singapore have the best chance of winning in the chip race. (Nikkei Asia Review)
A victory for the government in its antitrust trial against Google would likely “unleash drastic changes that will undermine the dominance of a search engine that defines the internet for billions of people.” Devices might be required “to display a palette of different search engines during the setup process,” which could threaten Google’s default dominance in search. (Associated Press)
The medicine in Eli Lilly’s diabetes drug Mounjaro “helped people with obesity or who are overweight lose at least a quarter of their body weight, or about 60 pounds on average, when combined with intensive diet and exercise, a new study shows.” A control group “of people who also dieted and exercised, but then received dummy shots, lost weight initially but then regained some.” (Associated Press)
Smart Links
Ecuador elects centre-right business heir Daniel Noboa as president. (Financial Times)
Austin’s office market is exploding. But no one is moving in. (Washington Post)
Goodwill is struggling to navigate the world of e-commerce. (New York Times)
Can the city of Pontiac steer itself to revival like nearby Detroit? (Washington Post)
Rite Aid Files for Bankruptcy as Liabilities Pile Up. (Bloomberg)