Paris 2024 Medal Count

1 BREAKING Reports of massive prisoner exchange with Russia, including jailed WSJ reporter Evan Gershkovich
2 Harris expected to be unopposed at Democratic National Convention, receive nomination Aug 5
3 Trump makes controversial comments about Harris’ heritage
4 Federal Reserve may cut interest rates in September
5 Middle East on the brink: Iran vows retaliation, Israel claims top Hamas leaders death
8/1/1981 MTV launches

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Paris 2024 Medal Count

1 BREAKING Reports of massive prisoner exchange with Russia, including jailed WSJ reporter Evan Gershkovich

Signs of a major prisoner exchange between Russia and Belarus on one side and the United States, Germany and Slovenia on the other, multiplied on Thursday but there was no official confirmation of what may be the biggest swap since the Cold War. Fox News reported that jailed Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich was set to return to the United States as part of a prisoner exchange, possibly later on Thursday. Reuters could not confirm that and Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, when asked about reports of a looming major prisoner exchange, said: "I'm still not making any comments on this." Paul Whelan, a former U.S. marine, and Vladimir Kara-Murza, a Russian-British dissident, both jailed in Russia, have suddenly disappeared from view, their lawyers said a day earlier, after at least seven Russian dissidents were unexpectedly moved from their prisons in recent days.

Article Source: Reuters

2 Harris expected to be unopposed at Democratic National Convention, receive nomination Aug 5

The Democratic National Committee confirmed that Kamala Harris will be the only candidate appearing on the roll call of delegates that will select the Democratic Party’s candidate for president. Three other candidates registered but did not get enough signatures to qualify. The virtual ballot will run from August 1st to 5th, prior to the opening of the party’s convention on August 19th.

Article Source: Economist

3 Trump makes controversial comments about Harris’ heritage

Former United States President Donald Trump has questioned whether his Democratic rival Kamala Harris is “Indian or Black”, as the 2024 Republican presidential nominee made a contentious appearance at a Black journalists’ convention. Speaking on Wednesday at the annual gathering of the National Association of Black Journalists, Trump said he had “indirectly” known the US vice president for a long time. “She was always of Indian heritage and she was only promoting Indian heritage. I didn’t know she was Black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn Black and now she wants to be known as Black,” he said. “So, I don’t know, is she Indian or Black?” Trump continued. “I respect either one but she obviously doesn’t.”

Article Source: Al Jazeera

4 Federal Reserve may cut interest rates in September

Federal Reserve officials left interest rates unchanged at their July meeting, but the head of the central bank made it clear that recent progress in lowering inflation could enable policymakers to cut interest rates as soon as their next meeting in September. “If we do get the data that we hope, then a reduction in our policy rate could be on the table at the September meeting,” Jerome H. Powell, the Fed chair, said during a news conference on Wednesday. Mr. Powell also suggested that the Fed could make a string of reductions before the end of the year, depending on inflation and job market data.
NYT

By opening the door wider to an interest-rate cut in September, the Federal Reserve is on a crash course with the presidential election. For a central bank that judiciously aspires to stay above the fray of partisan politics, confronting a potential policy shift around election time amounts to a lose-lose. Delivering a rate cut ahead of the election could rile up Republicans and former President Donald Trump, but withholding a needed reduction could undermine the economy and upset Democrats. The awkward optics give extra incentive for central bank officials in the coming weeks to set expectations for and explain the reasoning behind any sequence of rate reductions they could initiate at the Fed’s next meeting, in mid-September.
WSJ

Article Source: NYT, WSJ

5 Middle East on the brink: Iran vows retaliation, Israel claims top Hamas leaders death

For months, diplomats and analysts in foreign capitals have worried that prolonged political upheaval in the United States could invite aggression abroad, whether in Russia’s waging of war in Ukraine, North Korea’s rogue nuclear ambitions or China’s expansionist designs in the South China Sea. Now, less than 100 days before Americans elect a new president, that broader geopolitical crisis has erupted in the familiar theater of the Middle East. The targeted killings of Hezbollah and Hamas leaders in Beirut and Tehran have deepened fears of a regionwide conflict — one that the United States, caught up in its own political drama at home, may have little capacity to avert or even contain.
NYT

Iran has accused Israel of assassinating Hamas’s political leader Ismail Haniyeh in a strike in Tehran and vowed to avenge his death as the attack dramatically raised the risk of a further escalation of regional hostilities. Haniyeh was killed in a strike on his residence in Tehran in the early hours of Wednesday morning, Hamas and Iranian officials said. The attack came hours after Israel said it had killed senior Hizbollah commander Fuad Shukr in an air strike on Beirut, the Lebanese capital, heightening fears that the region was sliding towards a full-blown war.
FT

Israel has determined that it killed top Hamas military commander Mohammed Deif in a July airstrike, the country’s military said Thursday, eliminating a planner of the Oct. 7 attacks and a militant it had tried to kill for decades.
Deif is the most senior military leader of the U.S.-designated terrorist group whom Israel says it has killed in more than nine months of fighting in the Gaza Strip and the third high-ranking enemy of the country to be declared dead in 48 hours. 
WSJ

Israel has sent Diplomatic Back-Channel Messages to both Iran and Lebanon, stating that they are willing to go to Full-Scale War if Iran, Hezbollah, and other Iranian-Backed Groups conduct a Retaliatory Response which causes Significant Damage and Casualties in Israel.
@sentdefender

Article Source: NYT, FT, WSJ, X

8/1/1981 MTV launches

Sources

1. https://www.reuters.com/world/lawyer-ex-us-marine-whelan-jailed-russia-says-she-cannot-confirm-his-whereabouts-2024-07-31/

2. email

3. https://aje.io/17v99v

4. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/31/business/economy/fed-meeting-interest-rates.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare; https://www.wsj.com/economy/central-banking/fed-interest-rate-cut-inflation-politics-a6e527de?st=z97lb1rf70bz82p&reflink=article_copyURL_share

5. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/01/world/middleeast/middle-east-israel-iran-hezbollah.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare; https://on.ft.com/3WtYh8f; https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/israel-declares-it-killed-hamas-military-chief-in-july-airstrike-58535a27?st=qtecrfniolafgy0&reflink=article_copyURL_share; https://x.com/sentdefender/status/1818769873176346933?s=46&t=nVb-5uC_WM3Cp0R0dGiqHQ

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Paris 2024 Medal Count

1 Bipartisan report concludes US may lose a war with China
2 US debt exceeds $35 trillion
3 US girls gymnastics team wins gold
4 Middle Eastern tensions rise as Israel strikes urban Beirut, top Hamas leader assassinated in Iran
5 Venezuelan unrest grows as opposition claimed to have proof of election fraud
7/31/1975 Labor leader Jimmy Hoffa goes missing

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Paris 2024 Medal Count

1 Bipartisan report concludes US may lose a war with China

The U.S. military “lacks both the capabilities and the capacity required to be confident it can deter and prevail in combat”. A Congressional panel advocateed for massive defense buildup, saying the US is unprepared for war.  A bipartisan panel reviewing U.S. defense strategy has reported that the nation’s odds of fighting a major war are the highest in 80 years, and yet the military is not prepared. For more than a year, the former lawmakers, military leaders, and policy experts on the Commission on the National Defense Strategy have studied how well the U.S. military is executing the 2022 national defense strategy.

“Unclassified public wargames suggest that, in a conflict with China, the United States would largely exhaust its munitions inventories in as few as three to four weeks, with some important munitions (e.g., anti-ship missiles) lasting only a few days. Once expended, replacing these munitions would take years,” the report states.

The group released their report on Monday and will present its findings to the Senate Armed Services committee on Tuesday. The nearly 100-page report criticizes the Pentagon for being too slow, Congress for being too partisan, and past administrations for complacency in addressing dangers from China, Russia, and Middle Eastern countries. The report suggests that Washington faces more international threat actors, with competitors more willing to go to war, and argues that the country has failed to grow stronger in response. Issues include small budgets, delayed spending bills, reliance on outdated weapons, and a lack of public awareness. The National Defense Strategy’s call for “integrated deterrence” was found to be unclear and uncoordinated. The panel, comprising equal numbers of Republicans and Democrats, agreed on these conclusions.

Of the commission’s many recommendations, most are similar to efforts the Pentagon is already undertaking, including reaching out more aggressively to the private sector, particularly new information-technology focused startups, to establish a new industrial base, and reevaluating counterproductive regulatory impediments to buying and selling defense technology. 

Other recommendations for change include reassessing the Pentagon’s acquisition and innovation systems, changing buying practices to work more with innovative companies, and immediately passing a supplemental defense bill. The panel also suggests politically unpopular measures to fund these changes, such as higher taxes and reforming entitlement programs. The goal is a military capable of fighting in multiple theaters simultaneously.

Sources: Defense One, Cipher Brief

2 US debt exceeds $35 trillion

America’s gross national debt topped $35 trillion for the first time on Monday, a reminder of the nation’s grim fiscal predicament as legislative fights over taxes and spending initiatives loom in Washington. The Treasury Department noted the milestone in its daily report detailing the nation’s balance sheet. The red ink is mounting in the United States more quickly than many economists had predicted as the costs of federal programs enacted in recent years have exceeded initial projections. The leading presidential candidates, Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald J. Trump, have said little about the nation’s deficits on the campaign trail, suggesting that the economic problem will only worsen in the coming years. Deep differences between Republicans and Democrats on policy priorities and resistance within both parties to enacting cuts to the biggest drivers of the national debt — Social Security and Medicare — have made it difficult to reduce America’s borrowing.

Article Source: NYT

3 US girls gymnastics team wins gold

At the very end of Tuesday’s team final at the Paris Games, even before Simone Biles had finished her dangerously difficult floor routine and the crowd roared in appreciation of the most decorated U.S. Olympic gymnast in history, the U.S. team knew that it had accomplished what it came here for. And that was to reclaim the title of Olympic champion. Led by Biles and the defending all-around champion, Sunisa Lee, the United States won the gold medal with a dominant performance of 171.296 points, finishing ahead of second-place Italy by almost 6 points. Brazil won the bronze. Three years ago in Tokyo, the U.S. team won silver, behind the Russian team, after Biles withdrew from the event because of a mental block that made her disoriented in the air. It was the first time that the Americans didn’t finish in first place since 2008, when they won silver at the Beijing Games.

Article Source: NYT

4 Middle Eastern tensions rise as Israel strikes urban Beirut, top Hamas leader assassinated in Iran

Israel launched a deadly strike in a densely populated Beirut suburb on Tuesday in retaliation for a rocket attack in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights that it blamed Hezbollah for and that killed 12 children and teenagers on a soccer field. The target of the Israeli strike in a southern suburb of Lebanon’s capital was Fuad Shukr, a senior official who serves as a close adviser to Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, according to three Israeli security officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive details.

***

The assassination of Ismail Haniyeh, one of Hamas’s most senior leaders, in Iran’s capital threatens to ratchet up tensions in the Middle East and could further imperil any prospect of a breakthrough in the already stalled negotiations to stop the war in Gaza. Mr. Haniyeh was killed while he was in Tehran with other senior members of Iran’s “axis of resistance” — which includes Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen — to attend the inauguration of Iran’s newly elected president. Hamas and Iranian state media on Wednesday blamed Israel for the death of Mr. Haniyeh, the militant group’s political leader, who was central to its high-stakes negotiations and diplomacy. Israel’s military has not commented on the assassination.

Ed note: these two events, coming less than 24 hours apart, are significant escalations and could foreshadow a wider regional war

Article Source: NYT

5 Venezuelan unrest grows as opposition claimed to have proof of election fraud

Venezuela’s opposition can prove that Edmundo González won Sunday’s election, according to María Corina Machado, who led the campaign against President Nicolás Maduro. She told supporters at her party’s campaign headquarters on Monday evening that the opposition has enough of the “actas,” or voting tabulations to prove they won the election. Sunday night, they had access to about 40% of them, now they say they have over 70%. The figures show a categoric and “irreversible” triumph: 6.2 million votes for González compared to 2.8 million for Maduro.
Bloomberg

Ed note: good background on the fall of Venezuela:

Just 25 years ago, Venezuela had a functioning, if flawed, democracy. Then it elected Hugo Chávez, who helped pioneer a new form of Latin American socialism. His style antagonized Western powers but inspired hope among millions at home — and, at first, he helped many out of poverty. Then things began to change. How did the country fall so far? I’ve been covering the country since 2019, including the mass exodus of frustrated Venezuelans.

In the 1970s, Venezuela prospered from an oil boom. Politics were stable, as two major parties competed in democratic elections. But a decade later, petroleum prices dropped. As the cost of living rose, voters came to see the two-party system as entrenched and self-serving.

In 1998, Chávez, a charismatic former military officer, ran for president as a popular insurgent. He promised his followers a more inclusive democracy, a system that would transfer the levers of power from the political elite to the people. He started building a system of direct democracy. A new Constitution added the referendum as a political tool. He created programs to deliver aid, and encouraged citizens to go directly to him for help. Thousands wrote him letters every year pleading for a home, a job, a scholarship. Chávez answered their pleas on his television program, “Aló Presidente.” Eventually, he began to call his movement a socialist revolution — and it was enormously popular. Oil prices had rebounded by the 2000s, and the country was flush with cash. The state expanded free education and medical care. Poverty declined. His movement won election after election. In 2013, Chávez died. But he left behind a hollowed-out democracy.

Maduro took over after Chávez. But the movement’s luck had run out. The price of petroleum was plummeting, and the economy spiraled. People lost faith.
Rather than allow democracy to run its course, Maduro cracked down. His government jailed dissidents, crushed protests and eventually crafted a parallel legislature that would compete with the opposition-held National Assembly — and implement the laws he wanted. In 2018, he barred major political parties and some opposition figures from running for office. The United States responded by issuing harsh sanctions that strangled what was left of the economy.
NYT

Article Source: Bloomberg, NYT

7/31/1975 Labor leader Jimmy Hoffa goes missing

Sources

1. https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2024/07/us-might-lose-war-china-congressional-commission-says/398418

2. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/29/us/politics/national-debt-35-trillion.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

3. https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/07/30/world/olympics-gymnastics-simone-biles?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&sgrp=c-cb

4. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/30/world/middleeast/israel-hezbollah-lebanon.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare; https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/30/world/middleeast/ismail-haniyeh-hamas-tehran.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

5. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-07-29/venezuela-s-machado-says-opposition-has-enough-proof-of-fraud; https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/31/briefing/venezuela-election-nicolas-maduro-protests.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&sgrp=c-cb

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Paris 2024 Medal Count

1 US consumers show signs of financial stress
2 US home insurers suffer worst loss this century
3 Firms will invest $1.4 trillion in AI by 2027
4 American politics pits boys vs girls
5 After election, unrest spreads in Venezuela
7/30/1965 LBJ signs Medicare into law

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Paris 2024 Medal Count

1 US consumers show signs of financial stress

US consumers are showing signs of flagging after helping to prop up the world’s largest economy since the pandemic, according to a growing number of companies, economists and investors. Last week’s shaky start to the corporate earnings season has fuelled concerns that consumer strength has peaked, despite data on Thursday showing stronger than expected GDP growth in the second quarter, thanks in part to consumption spending. Kathy Bostjancic, chief economist at Nationwide Mutual, said she expected “consumers to rein in their spending as we head through the second half of this year” because “pandemic savings [are] depleted, lower income households increasingly maxed-out on credit and . . . employment growth will continue to cool”. On Friday, a measure of US consumer sentiment fell to its lowest level in eight months as inflation and election uncertainty weakened the economic outlook. The University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment index registered a final reading of 66.4 in July, the lowest since November.

Article Source: FT

2 US home insurers suffer worst loss this century

US home insurers last year suffered their worst underwriting loss this century as a toxic mix of natural disasters, inflation and population growth in at-risk areas put a vital financial market under acute pressure. Insurers providing policies to homeowners suffered a $15.2bn net underwriting loss last year, according to figures from rating agency AM Best, a figure it said was the worst since at least 2000 and more than double the previous year’s losses. The figures lay bare the underwriting conditions that have sparked a pullback by US insurers from disaster-hit areas, either exiting markets or driving up prices, creating an affordability crisis for many homeowners. The report identified rising populations in those regions most susceptible to natural disasters as a significant factor — citing census figures showing that six states prone to severe weather, including California and Texas, accounted for half of the country’s population growth in the 2010s.

Article Source: FT

3 Firms will invest $1.4 trillion in AI by 2027

New Street Research, a firm of analysts, estimates that Alphabet, Amazon, Meta and Microsoft will together splurge $104bn on building ai data centres this year. Add in spending by smaller tech firms and other industries and the total ai data-centre binge between 2023 and 2027 could reach $1.4trn. The scale of this investment, and uncertainty over if and when it will pay off, is giving shareholders the jitters.

Article Source: Economist

4 American politics pits boys vs girls

Collin Mertz, a 23-year-old farmer in North Dakota, believes American men like himself have been targeted by liberals in the push for diversity. “It would seem the white male is the enemy of the left,” said Mertz, who voted for former President Donald Trump in 2020 and plans to do so again in November. Lauren Starrett, a 28-year-old engineer in Cincinnati, feels a personal threat from conservatives seeking to scale back access to abortion and other rights. “It’s kind of terrifying, really,” said Starrett, who backs Vice President Kamala Harris. The forces of American culture and politics are pushing men and women under age 30 into opposing camps, creating a new fault line in the electorate and adding an unexpected wild card into the 2024 presidential election. Voters under 30 have been a pillar of the Democratic coalition since Ronald Reagan left office in 1989. That pillar is showing cracks, with young men defecting from the party.  Young men now favor Republican control of Congress and Trump for president after backing President Biden and Democratic lawmakers in 2020. Women under 30 remain strongly behind Democrats for Congress and the White House. They are also far more likely to call themselves liberal than two decades ago.

Young men backed Trump over Biden by 14 points in the merged Journal polls this year, a substantial swing from 2020. In that election, they supported Biden by 15 points, according to AP VoteCast, a voter survey. Young women in the Journal surveys backed Biden by 30 points and Democratic control of Congress by 34 points, essentially unchanged from 2020. The gender gap extends to opposing views of abortion, student-loan forgiveness and other issues affecting the lives of young adults.

Article Source: WSJ

5 After election, unrest spreads in Venezuela

Protests broke out Monday in Caracas, Venezuela’s capital, with hundreds of young people marching through the streets furious over a presidential election in which the incumbent, Nicolás Maduro, declared victory despite widespread accusations of fraud, officially proclaiming the election decided without releasing the full vote counts. The United States and countries around the world denounced the official results of Sunday’s vote, which did not appear to match statistical estimates based on partial counts and other data that showed the president losing by a wide margin.

The disputed election put renewed attention on the Biden administration’s incentives to Venezuela. United States officials’ negotiations with the authoritarian government and easing of sanctions on the country’s vital oil industry had helped pave the way for Sunday’s voting. For now, the administration said it was not considering revoking any licenses to sell oil.
NYT

The Biden administration said Monday it has serious concerns with the Venezuelan election but stopped short of declaring the narrow victory of President Nicolas Maduro fraudulent or calling for additional sanctions against the South American country. U.S. officials said they were awaiting more detailed results from Sunday’s voting in which unified opposition supporters turned out in large numbers and appeared to have won according to unofficial exit polls.

The disputed results could spark massive nationwide protests and intense government reprisals, which could further destabilize the country . Further chaos could also exacerbate migration pressures in the region. Nearly 8 million Venezuelans have fled their country since 2014, many seeking asylum in the U.S. and settling in Texas and Florida.
Politico

Article Source: NYT, Politico

7/30/1965 LBJ signs Medicare into law

Sources

1. https://on.ft.com/4c18Gyb

2. https://on.ft.com/4fpHrQT

3. https://www.economist.com/business/2024/07/28/what-are-the-threats-to-the-1trn-artificial-intelligence-boom

4. https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/men-women-vote-republican-democrat-election-7f5f726c?mod=hp_lead_pos7?st%3Drlmv1h3c0koprmx&reflink=article_copyURL_share

5. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/29/world/americas/countries-concern-venezuela-election-results.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare; https://www.politico.com/news/2024/07/29/biden-administration-venezuela-election-fallout-00171731

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Paris 2024 Medal Count

1 Harris’ limited national record is extremely liberal

2 US forms new military command in Japan targeting China

3 A starter home is over $1 million in 237 US cities

4 Venezuelan strongman claims victory in tainted election

5 Ukraine update: Russia advances in east

7/29/1958 NASA created

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Paris 2024 Medal Count

1 Harris’ limited national record is extremely liberal

there are signs quickly emerging that Trump and Republicans won’t be content to simply paint Harris as the flip side of the same coin but instead as a unique threat — a politician even more liberal and out of touch with mainstream values than her VP record would suggest. For a taste of that onslaught, check out the video Pennsylvania Senate candidate DAVID McCORMICK posted last night, using a laundry list of positions Harris adopted during her 2019 presidential campaign to slag incumbent BOB CASEY (D-Pa.). They include her support for the Green New Deal, a ban on fracking, the decriminalization of illegal entry by migrants, “starting from scratch” on Immigration and Customs Enforcement, restoring felon voting rights, adopting mandatory buybacks for some guns, eliminating private health insurance and more. These are the views, of course, of a Democrat who joined a rush to the left during a presidential primary that looks incredibly ill-advised in retrospect to many in the party — including Harris, we suspect. Some of her former aides admit she was struggling to find footing in a party that, at the time, appeared to be moving sharply left. But the comments are there, on tape, and she can expect to be pressed on whether she still subscribes to those views.

Article Source: Politico

2 US forms new military command in Japan targeting China

The U.S. will establish a new military command in Japan to bolster security ties here as Washington moves to strengthen its Asia allies in the face of China’s military buildup, top American and Japanese officials said Sunday. The new American command, which will initially be led by a three-star general, will coordinate military operations with the Japanese side, plan joint exercises and participate in the defense of the country if hostilities erupt. In so doing, it will put America’s warfighting capabilities under the command of a headquarters on Japanese territory for the first time and dispense with the need for U.S. forces in the country to wait for instructions from the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, which is located in Hawaii 3,500 miles away. The move is intended to keep pace with Japan’s efforts to build up its military capabilities, including a new joint military command that Japanese authorities are planning to stand up early next year. The push to establish the command is also part of a broader effort to buttress military relations between the two allies and will include Japanese efforts to shore up the West’s industrial base, including expanding production of Patriot antimissile systems in Japan and providing some to the U.S.

Article Source: WSJ

3 A starter home is over $1 million in 237 US cities

The number of cities with 'million-dollar' starter homes has nearly tripled since 2019. The number of cities where a starter home is worth $1 million or more has grown from 84 five years ago to 237 today. Nearly half of these cities with "million-dollar" starter homes are in California. The typical starter home nationwide is worth less than $200,000.

Article Source: Yahoo

4 Venezuelan strongman claims victory in tainted election

Strongman Nicolás Maduro claimed an unlikely victory in Venezuela’s presidential election Sunday, securing a third six-year term in a result that opposition leaders contested, saying the regime had likely falsified the vote count. Just after midnight Monday, six hours after polling stations were supposed to close, the regime-controlled National Electoral Council said that the 61-year-old leader would extend his 11-year rule into the next decade after garnering 5.1 million ballots, taking 51.2% of the vote, to 4.4 million, or 44.2% of the vote, for his opponent Edmundo González. The result of the election came after Maduro had trailed González for weeks by more than 25 percentage points in the polls. Almost immediately, residents around Caracas began banging on pots to protest the result, which was expected to be contested by the opposition with the help of its allies, including the U.S. At the same time, Maduro loyalists gathered outside the Miraflores presidential palace to celebrate the win with a concert. 
WSJ

Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado said Gonzalez had won 70% of the vote and that multiple independent exit polls and quick counts decisively showed his victory. "Venezuela has a new president-elect and it is Edmundo Gonzalez. We won and the whole world knows it," she said in a joint statement with Gonzalez.

Gonzalez said he was not calling for supporters to take to the streets or commit any acts of violence. A poll from Edison Research, known for its polling of U.S. elections, had predicted in an exit poll that Gonzalez would win 65% of the vote, while Maduro would win 31%. Local firm Meganalisis predicted a 65% vote for Gonzalez and just under 14% for Maduro.
Reuters

The result could have profound impacts on migrant flows out of Venezuela and potentially into the US over the coming weeks and months.
POLITICO Playbook

Article Source: WSJ, Reuters, Politico

5 Ukraine update: Russia advances in east

Russian forces have made rapid gains in the eastern Donetsk region over the past week or so, capturing a few villages and closing in on the city of Pokrovsk, one of the main Ukrainian defensive strongholds in the area. Russian forces are now only a dozen miles from Pokrovsk after Moscow’s troops pushed along a railway line and advanced about three miles toward the city, according to open-source maps of the battlefield based on combat footage and satellite imagery. The Russian progress contrasts sharply with the slow but steady gains that Moscow had made so far this year in the Donetsk region, sometimes measured in only a few hundred yards a week. Military analysts say the swift gains reflect Moscow’s improved ability to exploit cracks in Ukrainian defensive lines, which have been thinned by manpower shortages and strained by relentless Russian attacks along a more than 600-mile front.
NYT

Ukrainian forces blunted one of the largest Russian mechanized assaults in Ukraine since October 2023 in western Donetsk Oblast on July 24. Geolocated footage published on July 24 shows that Ukrainian forces stopped a reinforced battalion size Russian mechanized assault near Kostyantynivka (southwest of Donetsk City) after Russian forces advanced up to the southeastern outskirts of the settlement. A Ukrainian brigade operating in the Kurakhove direction reported that Russian forces attacked simultaneously with 11 tanks, 45 armored combat vehicles, a rare "Terminator" armored fighting vehicle (of which Russia has reportedly manufactured only 23 as of December 2023), 12 motorcycles, and roughly 200 personnel from several tactical directions at dawn on July 24. 

Russian forces have not conducted larger mechanized assaults in Ukraine since the first days of Russia's four-month long operation to seize Avdiivka in October 2023
ISW

Article Source: NYT, ISW

7/29/1958 NASA created

Sources

1. https://www.politico.com/newsletters/playbook/2024/07/24/the-2-big-questions-harris-must-answer-00170822

2. https://www.wsj.com/world/asia/u-s-launches-military-command-in-tokyo-to-counter-china-83b2c6fd?st=awsljhhdreehdvi&reflink=article_copyURL_share

3. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/1-million-starter-home-norm-120300606.html

5. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/28/world/europe/ukraine-russia-battle-gains.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare; https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-july-25-2024

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FLASH Paris Olympics opening ceremony tonight
1 Sabotage! Arson attack delays millions of Olympic train passengers in Paris
2 Joint Russian and Chinese bombers intercepted near Alaska
3 US economic growth unexpectedly strong in second quarter
4 Small stocks rally in anticipation of Trump
5 Venezuelan election this weekend likely to cause civil unrest
7/26/1775 U.S. postal system established

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FLASH Paris Olympics opening ceremony tonight

1 Sabotage! Arson attack delays millions of Olympic train passengers in Paris

Coordinated arson attacks disrupted service on three high-speed train lines in France on Friday, causing travel chaos across the nation on the day of the opening ceremony of the Olympics in Paris. Train service is expected to be affected through the weekend, causing travel issues for more than a million people, including French vacationers and Olympic athletes. The attacks were all detected around 4 a.m., according to Patrice Vergriete, France’s transportation minister. The disruptions rippled beyond Paris, with Eurostar, an international rail service, saying it would divert trains from the city. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attacks. French officials suggested that the fires had been set to disrupt the Olympics. The mood was already tense in Paris, where security has been tightening for weeks ahead of Friday night’s opening ceremony. Tens of thousands of police officers, joined by counterterrorism units and the military, have been deployed across the city to guard Olympic venues, tourist sites, train stations and street corners.

Article Source: NYT

2 Joint Russian and Chinese bombers intercepted near Alaska

Russian and Chinese warplanes were intercepted off the coast of Alaska by U.S. and Canadian fighters Wednesday, marking the first time strategic bombers from the two U.S. adversaries have operated together near North America, a U.S. official said. Two Russian TU-95 Bear and two Chinese H-6 bombers flew into the Alaska Air Defense Identification Zone, a buffer zone in international airspace, the North American Aerospace Defense Command said. The flights, which came as close as 200 miles off the Alaskan coast, were the most recent sign of growing military and security cooperation between Moscow and Beijing.

Article Source: WSJ

3 US economic growth unexpectedly strong in second quarter

The U.S. economy accelerated in the second quarter as consumers increased their spending, businesses invested more in equipment and stocked inventories, and inflation cooled. Gross domestic product—the value of all goods and services produced in the U.S., adjusted for inflation and seasonality—rose at an annual rate of 2.8% for April through June to $22.9 trillion, the Commerce Department said Thursday. That was faster than the 1.4% pace in the first quarter, and well above the 2.1% rate economists had expected. Household spending, the main driver of the U.S. economy, increased at a quicker pace as Americans’ incomes continued to rise.

Article Source: WSJ

4 Small stocks rally in anticipation of Trump

Believe it or not, corporate America still makes room for the little guy. Around half of working Americans are employed by a firm with less than 500 workers. Nine in ten banks are community institutions that hold less than $10bn in assets. This rather parochial picture, however, is not reflected in the country’s stockmarket, where the falling number of public companies and extreme concentration of value are a concern. Among America’s 3,000 largest public firms, the biggest 1,000 account for 95% of total value. The next 2,000, which form the Russell 2000 index, are collectively worth less than Apple, the world’s most valuable company. Now the unloved miniatures of America’s stockmarket are having their day in the sun. For most of the year, their shareholders watched the bull market from the stands: the Russell 2000 barely budged, while the s&p 500 index of large American firms rose by almost a fifth. Until the past week, that is, when the Russell 2000 was hurled forward as if by both of the market’s charging horns. The index has jumped by 9%, reaching its highest level since the beginning of 2022. Compared with the s&p 500, which is down slightly over the past week, its outperformance is the largest in history. Analysts are debating whether the move is a freak incident, the beginning of a “small-cap summer” or even a “great rotation” from big stocks to small ones.

Any investor yet to place their “Trump trade” is now scrambling to do so. For every one that sees fiscal indiscipline pushing up companies’ cost of capital and tariffs zapping profits, another predicts that corporate tax cuts and deregulation will boost the stockmarket. Investing in small firms appears to be a reasonable way to prepare for an administration that claims to be pro-business but despises the dominance of the largest technology firms. Indeed, the Russell 2000, with its domestic focus, could be a safe haven from Mr Trump’s blunders abroad, while benefiting from reshoring efforts and lower corporate tax at home. J.D. Vance, whom Mr Trump has selected as the Republican nominee for the vice-presidency, even once helped invest a venture-capital fund called “Rise of the Rest”. Small really could be beautiful for investors.

Article Source: Economist

5 Venezuelan election this weekend likely to cause civil unrest

In advance of Sunday’s presidential election, the Venezuelan government has stepped up arrests and conspiracy claims in the contest between Maduro and retired diplomat, Edmundo González. Pollsters say González could easily win in a fair election. That isn’t expected to happen, according to diplomats and Venezuela experts. They say Maduro and his lieutenants would likely face charges for drug trafficking and extrajudicial killings in Venezuela and abroad, an incentive to hold power. Maduro in a rally last week warned of civil war if he lost—“a blood bath,” he said.

The Biden administration has tried to nudge the regime toward free and fair elections. Maduro responded by jailing more dissidents. Political repression and economic deprivation has driven nearly eight million people from Venezuela in the past decade. They have settled across Latin America, with a growing number arriving in the U.S.

Article Source: WSJ

7/26/1775 U.S. postal system established

Sources

2. https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/world/olympics-paris-attack-opening-ceremony/arson-france-trains-olympics?smid=url-share

3. https://www.wsj.com/world/u-s-intercepts-russian-and-chinese-bombers-on-first-joint-mission-off-alaska-4d3e4927?st=fjecdi2qacevnmz&reflink=article_copyURL_share

4. https://www.wsj.com/economy/us-gdp-economy-second-quarter-2024-485df1dc?st=430t4lmybu313m3&reflink=article_copyURL_share

5. https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2024/07/18/why-investors-have-fallen-in-love-with-small-american-firms

6. https://www.wsj.com/world/americas/venezuela-maduro-elections-f6baa913?mod=Searchresults_pos2&page=1

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1 Israeli leader Bibi Netanyahu addresses joint session of Congress, some Dems, Harris did not attend
2 Biden delivers Oval Office address stating it’s time to “past the torch”
3 OPINION Ignore the hype, Harris-Trump is not fundamentally different than Biden-Trump
4 Reuters buys enough fentanyl precursors online from China to make 3 million pills
5 Israel risks a wider war with Hezbollah
7/25/1978 World’s first “test tube” baby born

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1 Israeli leader Bibi Netanyahu addresses joint session of Congress, some Dems, Harris did not attend

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel on Wednesday turned an address to Congress into a forceful defense of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. He cast it as a battle for survival of the Jewish state while making almost no mention of the tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians killed in its drive to destroy Hamas. The address laid bare deep divisions in Washington over the nine-month war, whose toll on civilians has outraged many Democrats and drawn international condemnation. Dozens of Democrats did not show up, with some openly boycotting the speech. Vice President Kamala Harris, the party’s presumptive presidential nominee who was campaigning in the Midwest, declined to preside in her capacity as president of the Senate alongside Speaker Mike Johnson, a break with tradition. Outside the Capitol, pepper spray filled the air as police officers tried to push back thousands of protesters who had gathered to jeer Mr. Netanyahu. Demonstrators held signs calling him a war criminal, burned an effigy of him and an American flag and vandalized statues with anti-Israel slogans including “Hamas is coming.” In a speech in which he condemned critics of the war as dupes aligning themselves with the world’s most dangerous actors or apologists for terrorists, Mr. Netanyahu portrayed the conflict as a proxy fight with Iran that must be won at all costs to protect both Israel and the United States.“When we fight Iran, we are fighting the most radical and murderous enemy of the United States,” he said. “We’re not only protecting ourselves; we’re protecting you,” he added, emphasizing the alliance that has existed since Israel’s creation. He said nothing about the tensions in the relationship that have flared as Israel has used American weapons in attacks that have led, by the count of Gazan authorities, to 39,000 deaths.

Article Source: NYT

2 Biden delivers Oval Office address stating it’s time to “past the torch”

President Biden laid out why he decided to “pass the torch” to Vice President Kamala Harris and what he hopes to accomplish in his final months in office as he addressed the nation from the Oval Office Wednesday evening, his first formal remarks since his dramatic announcement Sunday that he would end his re-election campaign. The defense of democracy, which is at stake, is more important than any title,” Biden said, casting his decision to leave the race as self-sacrifice to protect the country. Biden added: “I have decided the best way forward is to pass the torch to a new generation. That is the best way to unite our nation.” Biden spoke for just over 10 minutes, reading his address from a teleprompter. The president, who just recovered from a Covid-19 infection, didn’t cough as he spoke but his voice remained hoarse.

Article Source: WSJ

3 OPINION Ignore the hype, Harris-Trump is not fundamentally different than Biden-Trump

…we are swamped by a tsunami of favorable Harris coverage in legacy and other center-left media. Where once her retail political skills were disparaged, we are told that she is now (or always has been) a consummately effective, charismatic retail politician. Polls of course will be scrutinized for signs that the race is shifting in the Democrats’ favor and even small changes will be interpreted as signs that Trump is on the run. But in truth it will take a few weeks for the race to settle out and one should be cautious about interpreting initial results. That said, what we have seen so far does not suggest a fundamentally altered race. Trump was ahead and is still ahead. Democrats still badly trail among working-class voters and have compressed margins among nonwhite and young voters relative to 2020. Of course, that may change in coming weeks but that is what we see now. Looking at the running poll averages, we have the following for Trump-Harris matchups: RCP has Trump over Harris by 1.7 points (2.8 points with the full ballot including Kennedy/West/Stein). New York Times has Trump over Harris by 2 points and DDHQ/The Hill has Trump by 2 points. Pretty consistent

Article Source: The Liberal Patriot, Roy Texeria

4 Reuters buys enough fentanyl precursors online from China to make 3 million pills

At the tap of a buyer’s smartphone, Chinese chemical sellers will air-ship fentanyl ingredients door-to-door to North America. Reuters purchased enough to make 3 million pills. Such deals are astonishingly easy – and reveal how drug traffickers are eluding efforts to halt the deadly trade behind the fentanyl crisis.

A CARDBOARD BOX half the size of a loaf of bread bore a shipping label declaring its contents: “Adapter.” It was delivered in October to a Reuters reporter in Mexico City. There was no adapter inside that package. Instead, sealed in a metallic Mylar bag was a plastic jar containing a kilogram of 1-boc-4-piperidone, a pale powder that’s a core ingredient of fentanyl. It was enough to produce 750,000 tablets of the deadly drug. A Reuters reporter had ordered the chemical six weeks earlier from a seller in China. The sales assistant, “Jenny,” used a photo of a Chinese actress as her screen avatar. The price was $440, payable in Bitcoin, delivery by air freight included.

The core precursors Reuters bought would have yielded enough fentanyl powder to make at least 3 million tablets, with a potential street value of $3 million – a conservative estimate based on prices cited by U.S. law enforcement agencies in published reports over the past six months. The total cost of the chemicals and equipment Reuters purchased, paid mainly in Bitcoin: $3,607.18.

Article Source: Reuters

5 Israel risks a wider war with Hezbollah

More than nine months into its war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Israel now appears closer than ever to a second, even larger war with Hezbollah on its northern border. In June, the Israel Defense Forces announced that plans for a full-scale attack in southern Lebanon had been approved. And in mid-July, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said that the Iranian-backed Shiite group was prepared to broaden its rocket attacks to a wider range of Israeli towns. Although the possibility has received relatively little scrutiny in the international media, a full-scale war between Israel and Hezbollah would have consequences that dwarf the current Gaza conflict. A major Israeli air and ground assault against Hezbollah, the most heavily armed group in the Middle East, would likely cause turmoil across the entire region, and could prove particularly destabilizing as the United States enters a crucial stage of its presidential election season. It is also far from clear that such a war could be ended quickly, or that there is a clear path to a decisive victory. The implications for Israel itself could be stark. Although Israeli air defense systems have been extremely successful thus far against missile attacks from Gaza, Lebanon, Iran, and Yemen, a total war with Hezbollah would be a whole different ballgame. According to Israeli intelligence estimates, Hezbollah’s weapons stockpile is more than seven times as large as Hamas’s and includes far more lethal weapons. Along with hundreds of attack drones, it includes some 130,000–150,000 rockets and missiles, including hundreds of ballistic missiles that could reach targets in Tel Aviv and even further south—indeed, every point in the country. Moreover, as previous wars attest, Lebanon is a treacherous battlefield. Israel’s last war with Hezbollah, in the summer of 2006, was inconclusive, and despite killing several hundred of the group’s fighters, it left the group’s military power largely intact. Hezbollah is also far better armed than it was then. Israel’s home-front command estimates that if a full-scale conflict broke out now, Hezbollah would launch some 3,000 rockets and missiles every day of the war, threatening to overwhelm Israel’s missile defenses. Israel would have to concentrate on defending crucial infrastructure and military bases, tell the civilian population to stay in bomb shelters, and hope for the best. It would be a challenge that far exceeds anything that Israeli leaders have faced before.

Article Source: Foreign Affairs

7/25/1978 World’s first “test tube” baby born

Sources

1. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/24/us/politics/netanyahu-congress.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

2. https://www.wsj.com/politics/elections/joe-biden-oval-office-address-2024-election-35a08085?st=rp4mffv1mvgkb5f&reflink=article_copyURL_share

3. https://open.substack.com/pub/theliberalpatriot/p/forget-the-hype-its-still-a-working?r=d9vo5&utm_medium=ios

4. https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/drugs-fentanyl-supplychain/

5. https://reader.foreignaffairs.com/2024/07/23/israels-next-war/content.html

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FLASH President Joe Biden to address nation at 8 PM est about his withdrawal from the presidential race
1 Public desire to curb immigration up 14% vs last year, at 23y high
2 Secret Service Director resigns in wake of Trump assassination attempt
3 Tesla plans to use humanoid robots by next year
4 At least five workers infected with bird flu in CO
5 Beijing Declaration: China brokers peace deal among Palestinian factions
7/24/2005 Lance Armstrong wins seventh Tour de France

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FLASH President Joe Biden to address nation at 8 PM est about his withdrawal from the presidential race

1 Public desire to curb immigration up 14% vs last year, at 23y high

Article Source: Gallup

2 Secret Service Director resigns in wake of Trump assassination attempt

US Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle is stepping down after taking responsibility for security failures at a campaign rally where former President Donald Trump was shot. A political firestorm engulfed the agency after the July 13 shooting with Republican and Democratic lawmakers calling for Cheatle to resign. The attack, which left Trump wounded and one person dead, marked the closest anyone had come to assassinating a president or presidential candidate since Ronald Reagan was shot in 1981.

The agency and Cheatle herself faced a barrage of criticism from lawmakers, former homeland security officials, and others about why the perimeter of Trump’s rally was left vulnerable to the attack. US officials have said that the assailant fired from the roof of a nearby building.

Article Source: Bloomberg

3 Tesla plans to use humanoid robots by next year

Elon Musk said Tesla will have humanoid robots in production to be used within the company next year. He said Monday morning that Tesla would use the robot for internal use first and then aim to produce it for other companies in 2026. Tesla, an electric-vehicle maker, has been working on the robot for several years as part of its efforts to expand into robotics and artificial intelligence.

Article Source: WSJ

4 At least five workers infected with bird flu in CO

Public health experts who’ve been following the surprising spillover of H5N1 bird flu into America’s dairy cattle herds now have all eyes on Colorado, waiting to see if a cluster of human cases there might balloon into something bigger. On July 14, Colorado officials announced that five workers involved in the culling of 1.8 million chickens at a large H5N1-infected egg farm in Weld County had tested positive for the virus. And the strain infecting the workers appears to be closely related to the virus infecting cows in Colorado and at least 12 other states. On Friday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed a sixth case among the Colorado poultry workers. Almost 70 individuals involved in the “depopulation” operation were tested for H5N1 after showing symptoms of the disease, according to a spokesperson for the Colorado Department of Public Health and the Environment.

Article Source: STAT

5 Beijing Declaration: China brokers peace deal among Palestinian factions

Rival Palestinian factions including Fatah and Hamas have signed an agreement aimed at ending their division and building unity following talks in Beijing, marking a diplomatic win for China. Senior representatives of 14 Palestinian factions reached the agreement – called the Beijing Declaration – after reconciliation talks that began on Sunday. The pact aims to unite Palestinians in their conflict with Israel, which launched a war on militant group Hamas in Gaza in October.
South China Morning Post

…Professor at the China-Arab Reform and Development Research Center… said in an interview with ThePaper that “the East is rising, and the West is declining…I personally feel that China's "proactive role" in Middle East diplomacy is very clear. It is not waiting but actively leading. Such actions are welcomed by Middle Eastern countries…China is actually in a leading role in the Global South. In the future, in any regional or even global major events, there will be China's voice and attitude”. A Global Times reporter posted to weibo that “The fact that this historic event could happen in Beijing shows that China's national strength, credibility, international influence, and image are widely welcomed and trusted in Palestine and the entire Middle East. China has an irreplaceable role in mediating Middle Eastern issues”.
Sinocism

Article Source: South China Morning Post, Sinocism

7/24/2005 Lance Armstrong wins seventh Tour de France

Sources

2. email

3. https://www.bloomberg.com/en/news/thp/2024-07-23/ap-newsalert-secret-service-director-kimberly-cheatle-resigns-after-assassination-attempt-against-former-president-trump-at

4. https://www.wsj.com/business/autos/elon-musk-says-tesla-to-use-humanoid-robots-next-year-f3d8bebf?st=4xpveibmpl80cpk&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

5. http://statnews.com/

6. https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3271553/palestinian-factions-agree-end-division-pact-brokered-china?module=top_story&pgtype=section

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1 Democratic Party machinery backs Harris as presidential nominee
2 Questions swirl around circumstances of Biden’s withdrawal
3 OPINION The real strategy behind nominating Harris: stem Dem losses in House and Senate
4 Secret Service Director testifies, faces bipartisan calls to resign
5 China sets 2029 deadline to train science and tech workforce
7/23/1903 The Ford Motor Company sells its first automobile, the Model A

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1 Democratic Party machinery backs Harris as presidential nominee

Future Forward, the flagship super PAC blessed by President JOE BIDEN, received $150 million in new commitments from major Democratic donors in the 24 hours since the president announced he would step aside from the race, Elena Schneider reports. The fundraising boon — described by a senior Future Forward aide and shared first with POLITICO — gives VP KAMALA HARRIS, Biden’s endorsed successor, an enormous boost as the Democratic Party reorients to a new nominee. Future Forward already had $122 million in cash on hand as of the end of June, according to Federal Elections Commission filings. Before Biden dropped out, several major Democratic donors threatened to withhold their donations after the president’s feeble performance in the June debate. The senior aide described these donors, who had pledged $150 million, as having been stalled but now doubling down.

HARRIS’ RUNWAY IS CLEAR — It’s been less than 24 hours since Biden’s historic announcement that he would step aside as the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate and endorse Harris as his successor. And at this moment, her runway to the nomination is unobstructed. After a flurry of reports that Sen. JOE MANCHIN (I-W.Va.) was on the receiving end of interest from donors eager to see the centrist make a run for the nomination, Manchin told CBS News’ Gayle King that he was “not running for office,” Andrew Howard reports. (Roughly one hour earlier, he told CNN’s Kasie Hunt that “people are pushing in that direction” when asked about a potential campaign.) Almost every major potential Democratic contender has endorsed Harris, including statements today from Illinois Gov. JB PRITZKER, Maryland Gov. WES MOORE and Michigan Gov. GRETCHEN WHITMER.
Politico

Vice President Kamala Harris said Monday she had secured enough verbal commitments from delegates to the Democratic National Convention to clinch the party’s presidential nomination — with her home state of California putting her over the threshold less than two days into her presidential bid.
Politico

Ed note: Harris’s odds of being the Dem nominee have increased to 91% in betting markets, +10% vs yesterday

Article Source: Politico, Polymarket

2 Questions swirl around circumstances of Biden’s withdrawal

If it happened in Belarus, Burundi, or Myanmar, Joe Biden’s blitzkrieg withdrawal from the presidential race would have inspired eye rolls. We jettisoned an incumbent president’s re-election campaign with all the pomp of an NFL practice squad transaction, announcing the move via a blip of a social media post. Only in America is anyone tempted to take such head-scratching events at face value.

The most consequential decision of Joe Biden’s presidency was executed by tweet Sunday, via a screenshot of a letter, posted at 1:46 p.m. There was no press conference, video, or photo commemorating any human being’s participation in the event. The letter wasn’t posted on the White House briefing room site, even as lesser news (including a statement purporting to quote Biden at length on “climate pollution reduction grants”) was posted yesterday. It was furthermore written neither on presidential stationery nor under campaign letterhead and appeared rushed, thanking Vice President Kamala Harris for “being an extraordinary partner,” but not endorsing her.

In a second tweet 27 minutes later, however, @JoeBiden announced, “Today I want to offer my full support and endorsement for Kamala to be the nominee of our party this year.” Papers from The Washington Post to The New York Times reported Biden “wrote in a letter he posted” or “said in a statement” he was dropping out. However, we didn’t hear from any official spokesperson, not even deputy platforms director Andy Volosky (who reportedly runs Biden’s Twitter account), explaining how the announcement came to be. To say a president breaking up with America via digital post-it note is bizarre is a massive understatement. Biden’s letter contained a lot of important information. It said he will “speak to the Nation in more detail later this week about my decision.” However, given defiant protestations by him and his staff about remaining in the race (comments that continued through Saturday night), it will be crucial for someone from Biden’s inner circle, preferably a family member, to make a public statement soon.
Racket

One would think that a letter to the American people from the president announcing his decision to step aside would not be signed using a digital signature and would be accompanied by a photo op and a scheduled conference in the morning that followed.

Instead we have a digitally signed letter released on the president’s
@X account, an account we know that is run by a staffer, no photo, and no live scheduled address to the American people. — @BillAckman

Can anyone find another example of Joe Biden underlining his signature? - @ALX

If this were a hostage situation, that letter would not qualify as proof of life. — @BillAckman

Article Source: Racket Substack, X

3 OPINION The real strategy behind nominating Harris: stem Dem losses in House and Senate

Despite what you read in the media, most real Democrats I’ve talked to aren’t thrilled with Kamala Harris. I believe the strategy to nominate her is based on electoral realism. With Biden on the ticket, down ballot races in the House and Senate were at greater risk for the Democrats. Many of the closest races in the nation are in New York or California. According to the Cook Political Report, 7 of the 22 races rated “toss-up" are in the states of New York in California.

I believe that privately Democratic leaders understand Harris cannot beat Trump. However, they do hope that her presence on the ballot will help them, particularly in New York and California. I believe this strategy is confirmed by the actions of ambitious Democratic politicians like California Governor Gavin Newsom. Publicity, Newsom has thrown his support behind Harris, but privately, he realizes that he cannot beat Trump in the 2024 cycle and will sit out until 2028.  In short, Democrats have conceded the presidency, but are seeking to minimize their losses in the House in Senate.
Ad Astra

Source: Cook Political Report

4 Secret Service Director testifies, faces bipartisan calls to resign

The leaders of the House oversight committee called on the Secret Service director, Kimberly A. Cheatle, to resign after her testimony on Monday in which she repeatedly refused to answer specific questions about the security failures that led to an assassination attempt of former President Donald J. Trump. Representatives James R. Comer, Republican of Kentucky and the chairman of the committee, and Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the panel, joined several members of the committee in demanding Ms. Cheatle’s resignation. Ms. Cheatle, appearing before the committee for more than four hours, called the shooting at the Trump rally in Butler, Pa., her agency’s “most significant operational failure” in decades. But she cited the continuing investigation when declining to answer queries about the would-be assassin’s access to the warehouse roof from which he fired, how he had managed to bring a firearm to the event, why Mr. Trump was allowed to come onstage despite warnings about a suspicious person and many other details.

Article Source: NYT

5 China sets 2029 deadline to train science and tech workforce

China is targeting science education and expertise, embarking on a five-year skills upgrade drive as it seeks to develop the critical technology needed to counter US-led containment efforts. The Communist Party’s Central Committee announced on Thursday that the country had a 2029 deadline to develop a “quality workforce” to help power a country and economy driven by innovation. The commitment was included in an official communique released after a four-day plenum, a gathering of the Central Committee’s more than 350 full and alternate members.

Article Source: South China Morning Post

7/23/1903 The Ford Motor Company sells its first automobile, the Model A

Sources

1. https://www.politico.com/newsletters/playbook-pm/2024/07/22/scoop-harris-big-donor-money-bomb-00132333; https://www.politico.com/news/2024/07/22/kamala-harris-has-enough-verbal-commitments-to-secure-democratic-nomination-00170535; https://polymarket.com/event/democratic-nominee-2024?tid=1721733425821

2. https://open.substack.com/pub/taibbi/p/whos-running-this-country?r=d9vo5&utm_medium=ios

3. https://www.cookpolitical.com/ratings/house-race-ratings

4. https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/07/22/us/secret-service-hearing-trump-cheatle?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&sgrp=c-cb

5. https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3271038/china-sets-2029-deadline-create-science-and-tech-quality-workforce-power-nation

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1 Biden drops out of presidential race, endorses VP Kamala Harris
2 Betting markets heavily favor Harris as new Dem nominee, endorsement list grows
3 Dem Party apparatus moves to support Harris
4 Trump leads Harris by 6 nationally: poll
5 Joe Manchin considers run
7/22/1934 Notorious criminal John Dillinger gunned down

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1 Biden drops out of presidential race, endorses VP Kamala Harris

President Biden said Sunday he was ending his presidential run after failing to quell a Democratic rebellion against his candidacy fueled by a catastrophic June debate performance, capping a five-decade political career and marking one of the most monumental political collapses in American history. “It has been the greatest honor of my life to serve as your president,” Biden wrote in a one-page letter on social media. “And while it has been my intention to seek re-election, I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down and to focus solely on fulfilling my duties as president for the remainder of my term.” Biden endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to replace him at the top of the ticket, and several prominent Democrats backed her candidacy. The president said he would speak to the nation later this week in more detail about his decision.

Article Source: WSJ

2 Betting markets heavily favor Harris as new Dem nominee, endorsement list grows

All 50 state Democratic party chairs endorse Harris

State Democratic party chairs on Sunday threw their weight behind Vice President Kamala Harris to be the party's new presidential nominee to run against Republican nominee and former president, Donald Trump.

The $96M issue

The vice president has the advantage of being able to tap the $96 million already raised for the Biden/Harris campaign. Prominent Democrats including Bill and Hillary Clinton, as well as major donors, came out in support of her.

Article Source: Reuters, WaPo, Bloomberg

3 Dem Party apparatus moves to support Harris

Powerful leaders of the Democratic establishment quickly embraced Vice President Kamala Harris on Sunday after President Biden’s shocking exit from the race, hoping that a seamless succession could end a month of damaging chaos and transform a contest widely believed to be tipping toward Republicans. By Sunday evening, Ms. Harris appeared to have a glide path to the nomination: No other top Democrats announced plans to challenge her, though some stopped short of an endorsement, including the party’s top congressional leaders and former President Barack Obama. With breathtaking speed, she took control of Mr. Biden’s enormous political operation and contacted Democratic leaders in Congress and state houses to ask for their support. The Biden campaign formally renamed itself “Harris for President,” giving her immediate access to an account that had $96 million in cash at the end of June. On an internal call, the Biden campaign’s leaders told staff members that they would now work for Ms. Harris.

Big Media

Article Source: NYT

4 Trump leads Harris by 6 nationally: poll

A series of prominent Democrats were tested in a head-to-head ballot against Donald Trump:
* Vice President Kamala Harris: 49% Trump, 43% Harris, 8% undecided
* Senator Bernie Sanders: 48% Trump, 42% Sanders, 10% undecided
* California Governor Gavin Newsom: 48% Trump, 40% Newsom, 12% undecided
* Former Vice President Al Gore: 47% Trump, 42% Gore, 11% undecided
* Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton: 48% Trump, 41% Clinton, 11% undecided
* Senator Elizabeth Warren: 49% Trump, 39% Warren, 13% undecided
* Secretary of State Pete Buttigieg: 49% Trump, 39% Buttigieg, 12% undecided
* Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro: 46% Trump, 38% Shapiro, 16% undecided
* Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer: 48% Trump, 38% Whitmer, 15% undecided

Article Source: Emerson College

5 Joe Manchin considers run

Ed note: I’m skeptical that any Dem can beat post-assassination attempt Trump, but a moderate Dem from a working-class state like Joe Manchin (WV) or PA Gov Josh Shapiro would seem to a the best shot. Unclear if the more liberal wing of the Dems would back a candidate like that.

Sen. Joe Manchin III (I-W.Va.) is considering re-registering as a Democrat to compete for the party’s presidential nomination in the wake of President Biden’s announcement Sunday that he will exit the campaign, according to a Manchin adviser.

Manchin was the first elected official to signal an openness to challenging Vice President Harris in the wake of Biden’s announcement after the president endorsed Harris, as did some members of the Democratic establishment. Manchin, who will turn 77 next month, left the Democratic Party in May to register as an independent. The then-Democrat from a red state, who irked some of his fellow Democrats by cutting deals with Republicans, announced in the fall that he would not seek reelection to his Senate seat at the end of his term, hampering Democratic hopes of holding on to their Senate majority in 2024.

In another interview on Sunday morning, this time with CNN’s “State of the Union,” Manchin said he favored an “open process” to determine a replacement for Biden, who at that point had not yet made his announcement. Manchin said an open process, rather than handpicking a successor, would be the best way to showcase to voters the deep bench of talent in the Democratic Party. He mentioned two Democratic governors, Kentucky’s Andy Beshear and Pennsylvania’s Josh Shapiro, as strong potential candidates, but did not mention Harris. Both governors, Manchin said, “are operating with legislatures either evenly split or completely opposite their party affiliation. They haven’t divided their state. They haven’t made you pick a side and demonize the other side. They’ve brought people together.” Manchin said Trump’s running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), may appeal to voters in Manchin’s home state who feel left behind by the Democratic Party. “I think he has enough of a flavor there and everything,” Manchin said. “I grew up in another era of Appalachia, but I can see it. I’ve watched my state change like no other state for 80 years.”

Article Source: WaPo

7/22/1934 Notorious criminal John Dillinger gunned down

Sources

1. https://www.wsj.com/politics/elections/biden-drops-out-presidential-race-6b1c74fd?st=pxq22302dw8b4xt&reflink=article_copyURL_share

2. https://polymarket.com/event/democratic-nominee-2024?tid=1721649184234; https://www.reuters.com/world/us/all-50-democratic-party-us-state-chairs-back-harris-sources-2024-07-21/;https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/interactive/2024/kamala-harris-endorsements/; https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2024-07-22/biden-drops-out-plunging-2024-us-election-into-uncharted-territory

3. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/21/us/politics/harris-democrats-campaign-nominee-biden.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

4. https://emersoncollegepolling.com/july-2024-national-poll-trump-46-biden-43/

5. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/07/21/manchin-weighs-options-after-biden-exits-presidential-race/

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1 World faces biggest IT outage in history
2 Biden excepted to withdraw from race this weekend: multiple reports
3 “I’m not supposed to be here”: Trump reflects on assassination attempt in RNC speech, extends lead
4 American WSJ reporter found guilty, sentenced to 16 years in Russian penal colony
5 A new battlefront looms between Israel and Lebanon
7/19/1799 Rosetta Stone found

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1 World faces biggest IT outage in history

One of the biggest-ever IT outages has hit companies across the world, from airlines to financial services and media groups, causing significant disruption. Thousands of workers in cities from Tokyo to London were unable to log on to their computers on Friday, affecting businesses and public services such as transportation and emergency services. The outage has been blamed on a security update from US group CrowdStrike, which caused a problem with Microsoft’s Windows. PCs and servers are affected, suggesting that millions of computers may need to be fixed for the issue to be resolved. “I don’t think it’s too early to call it: this will be the largest IT outage in history,” said Troy Hunt, a prominent security consultant, in a social media post. “This is basically what we were all worried about with Y2K, except it’s actually happened this time.”

Article Source: FT

2 Biden excepted to withdraw from presidential race this weekend: multiple reports

Top Democrats are convinced President Biden is likely to step aside as early as this weekend to make way for another Democratic presidential nominee. If he does, Democrats will be forced to make a swift decision that would determine the fate — and the future — of the party for 2024 and beyond. There's a movement underway among some Democratic officials and operatives to bypass Vice President Harris as Biden's successor — or at least make the nomination a contest rather than a coronation. They're floating names like Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, or California Gov. Gavin Newsom.

The Biden campaign's war chest — $91 million as of the last filing in June — could easily be transferred to Harris but not to any other candidate. The roughly $150 million held by other Biden-aligned entities could hypothetically move to another Democrat, and there may be other ways to repurpose that $91 million. But it's all much simpler if Harris is nominated.
Axios

President Joe Biden’s reelection bid appeared to be nearing the point of collapse on Thursday, amid a cascade of warnings from the Democratic Party’s top leaders that they have lost confidence in his candidacy. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi each told Biden in separate meetings over the last week that he should reconsider his reelection run or risk losing and dragging the rest of the party down with him. Schumer was “pretty harsh” in his conversation with Biden, said one senior Hill Democrat briefed on the discussion. Sen. Jon Tester, the vulnerable incumbent from Montana, became the 22nd congressional Democrat — and only second senator — to publicly call for Biden to step aside. “While I appreciate his commitment to public service and our country, I believe President Biden should not seek re-election to another term,” he said. And House Democrats, party operatives and former administration officials who want Biden to step aside expressed growing optimism that the intensifying pressure campaign would finally crack the shell of defensiveness, denial and unwavering determination constructed around Biden — and that he and his most loyal aides may be starting to listen, said three people familiar with private conversations who were granted anonymity to describe them. Others viewed the leaks of the days-old conversations as a sign the petitioners have grown impatient. “This is an absolute debacle,” said one senior Democratic official who is close to congressional leadership. “Only amateurs see a path. The red is mushrooming all across the map.”
Politico

Article Source: Axios, Politico

3 “I’m not supposed to be here”: Trump reflects on assassination attempt in RNC speech, extends lead

Donald Trump, five days after narrowly escaping an assassin’s bullet and with his Democratic rival’s candidacy in crisis, accepted the GOP’s nomination Thursday in a speech that described in detail the attempt on his life, while painting the nation as deeply troubled and offering himself as the solution. “I stand before you this evening with a message of confidence, strength, and hope,” Trump said as he accepted his party’s nomination for a third consecutive time. “I am running to be president for all of America, not half of America, because there is no victory in winning for half of America.” Trump spoke in gripping, emotional terms about the shooting, and spent the early portion of his speech asking for a divided nation to find common cause.
WSJ

This wasn’t a divided party, it was a party united. It wasn’t only Mr. Trump’s party, it was an explicitly Trumpian party. We saw something epochal: the finalization and ratification of a change in the essential nature of one of the two major political parties of the world’s most powerful nation. It is now a populist, working-class, nationalist party. That is where its sympathies, identification and affiliation lie. There will be shifts, stops and accommodations in the future, no party ever has a clear line, history intervenes, but it is changed, and there will be no going back.
Peggy Noonan, WSJ Opinion

Trump is up five points nationally now, and three across the key battleground states. To put that national lead in context: it's been 20 years since a Republican presidential candidate has won the national popular vote, and over 30 years since a Republican won by more than five. 

CBS

New polling conducted July 15-16 by Emerson College Polling and sponsored by Democrats for Next Generation finds former President Trump leading Biden in seven swing states

Emerson

Article Source: WSJ, CBS, Emerson

4 American WSJ reporter found guilty, sentenced to 16 years in Russian penal colony

Evan Gershkovich, the Wall Street Journal reporter falsely accused by Russian authorities of spying, was sentenced to 16 years in a high-security penal colony, after being wrongfully convicted in a hurried, secret trial that the U.S. government has condemned as a sham. The court’s Friday verdict—after three days of hearings—was widely viewed as a foregone conclusion, since acquittals in Russian espionage trials are exceedingly rare. Gershkovich was afforded few of the protections normally accorded to defendants in the U.S. and other Western countries.

Article Source: WSJ

5 A new battlefront looms between Israel and Lebanon

Israel faces a conundrum to which there is no easily discernible, sustainable solution: how best to counter the growing strategic threat posed by Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Shiite terrorist group that runs Lebanon. On July 4, Hezbollah fired 200 rockets and more than 20 drones into northern Israel—one of its largest attacks to date—after Israel killed yet another of its high-ranking commanders in a drone strike in the Lebanese coastal city of Tyre. Lebanon’s National News Agency said that Muhammad Nimah Nasser, aka Abu Nimah, was killed along with two other passengers in the drone strike on July 3. Nasser, the head of Hezbollah’s Aziz unit, was reportedly responsible for military operations in southwestern Lebanon and for firing hundreds of rockets into Israel.

Hezbollah’s latest rocket and drone barrage—part of a total of some 7,000 rockets and missiles that it has fired into Israel since Oct. 7—has increased concern about a possible escalation of the Israeli-Hamas war in Gaza into a full-scale conflict between the two heavily armed foes. With some 45,000 fighters and an arsenal of more than 150,000 rockets, drones, and missiles, many of them precision-guided, Hezbollah has always posed a far greater strategic threat to Israel than Hamas, which has been significantly degraded since Israel’s offensive in Gaza.

Hezbollah has said it will stop firing rockets and missiles into Israel when there is a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza—a position that has been endorsed by the Biden administration and that now serves as the basis for its diplomatic initiative to broker a cease-fire on the Lebanese front. Still, American and Arab negotiators say that while progress has been made in this latest round of talks, such a deal between Israel and Hamas may not be imminent. Nor is it immediately clear that Hezbollah would stop its tit-for-tat strikes.

Article Source: Tablet, Youtube

7/19/1799 The Rosetta Stone, a tablet with hieroglyphic translations into Greek, is found in Egypt

During Napoleon Bonaparte’s Egyptian campaign, a French soldier discovers a black basalt slab inscribed with ancient writing near the town of Rosetta, about 35 miles east of Alexandria. The irregularly shaped stone contained fragments of passages written in three different scripts: Greek, Egyptian hieroglyphics and Egyptian demotic. The ancient Greek on the Rosetta Stone told archaeologists that it was inscribed by priests honoring the king of Egypt, Ptolemy V, in the second century B.C. More startlingly, the Greek passage announced that the three scripts were all of identical meaning. The artifact thus held the key to solving the riddle of hieroglyphics, a written language that had been “dead” for nearly 2,000 years.

Sources

1. https://on.ft.com/4cYnw9A

2. https://www.axios.com/2024/07/18/biden-drop-out-election-kamala-harris-democrat; https://www.politico.com/news/2024/07/18/biden-in-crisis-00169415

3. https://www.wsj.com/politics/elections/trump-rnc-speech-election-campaign-5ab54db3?st=1wc19k7o8018m72&reflink=article_copyURL_share; https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-trumpian-triumph-in-milwaukee-republican-national-convention-2024-election-0230db27?st=d6rw5t2ofq5pgs9&reflink=article_copyURL_share;https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-poll-biden-national-07-18-2024/; https://emersoncollegepolling.com/july-2024-swing-state-polls/

4. https://www.wsj.com/world/russia/evan-gershkovich-russia-trial-dbabd6e3?st=t84tm6z7i5ajd3u&reflink=article_copyURL_share

5. https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/israel-middle-east/articles/lebanon-war-coming-hezbollah-israel

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FLASH President Biden has Covid
1 2/3 of Dems want Biden to withdraw: poll
2 RNC Watch: Vance accepts GOP VP nomination, Navarro cheered, unions switch sides?
3 House Oversight Committee subpoenas Secret Service director
4 Oil industry booms
5 Al Qaeda and Islamic State reconstituted in Afghanistan
7/18/1969 Senator Ted Kennedy drives car off bridge at Chappaquiddick Islandens

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FLASH President Biden has Covid

1 2/3 of Dems want Biden to withdraw: poll

Nearly two-thirds of Democrats say President Joe Biden should withdraw from the presidential race and let his party nominate a different candidate, according to a new poll, sharply undercutting his post-debate claim that “average Democrats” are still with him even if some “big names” are turning on him. The new survey by the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, conducted as Biden works to salvage his candidacy two weeks after his debate flop, also found that only about 3 in 10 Democrats are extremely or very confident that he has the mental capability to serve effectively as president, down slightly from 40% in an AP-NORC poll in February. The findings underscore the challenges the 81-year-old president faces as he tries to silence calls from within his own party to leave the race and tries to convince Democrats that he’s the best candidate to defeat Donald Trump.

Article Source: AP

2 RNC Watch: Vance accepts GOP VP nomination, Navarro cheered, unions switch sides?

J.D. Vance, a born-again MAGA zealot whom Donald Trump named as his vice-presidential pick on Monday, introduced himself to the world at the Republican National Convention. The Ohio senator, until now a relative unknown, told the crowd of his journey from poverty in Ohio to the RNC stage. He accused Joe Biden of selling out American manufacturing to China and getting only Chinese fentanyl in return, and effusively praised Mr Trump—a man he once described as “cultural heroin”. Peter Navarro, Mr Trump’s former trade adviser, got some of the day’s biggest cheers. It was not his China-bashing views that stirred the crowd, but his four-month stint in prison for contempt of Congress after defying a subpoena from the committee investigating the riots of January 6th 2021. “I went to prison so you won’t have to,” he said from the stage, hours after his release.
Economist

Unions switch sides?

White House officials, congressional Democrats and several labor leaders say they are angry about Teamsters President Sean O’Brien’s prime-time address to the Republican National Convention on Monday night, which marked a striking departure for a powerful union that for decades has supported Democrats. In a speech closely watched by other union officials, O’Brien praised former president Donald Trump — calling him “one tough SOB” after Saturday’s assassination attempt — as well as his running mate, Republican Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio, for “truly [caring] about working people.” Breaking from nearly all other speakers at the Republican convention, O’Brien did not publicly endorse Trump. He also criticized corporate greed and took pains to emphasize that he would work with any lawmaker who would support union priorities, regardless of party affiliation. But his very presence in Milwaukee — among GOP lawmakers and a former president who have pushed a policy agenda sharply at odds with that of the unions — sent shock waves through labor and Democratic circles.
WaPo

Article Source: Economist, WaPo

3 House Oversight Committee subpoenas Secret Service director

The Republican chairman of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee issued a subpoena Wednesday to the Secret Service director compelling her to appear before the committee on Monday for what is scheduled to be the first congressional hearing into the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump. And even before the first hearing Republican calls for Director Kimberly Cheatle to resign intensified Wednesday with top Republican leaders from both the House and the Senate saying she should step down. The director has said she has no intention of resigning. Rep. James Comer said initially that the Secret Service committed to her attendance but that Homeland Security officials appeared to intervene and there has been no “meaningful updates or information” shared with the committee. Comer said the “lack of transparency and failure to cooperate” with the committee called into question Cheatle’s ability to lead the Secret Service and necessitated the subpoena.

Article Source: AP

4 Oil industry booms

For all of the focus on an energy transition, the American oil industry is booming, extracting more crude than ever from the shale rock that runs beneath the ground in West Texas. After years of losing money on horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, the companies that have helped the United States become the leading global oil producer have turned a financial corner and are generating robust profits. The stocks of some oil and gas companies, such as Exxon Mobil and Diamondback Energy, are at or near record levels. The industry’s revival after bruising losses during the Covid-19 pandemic is due largely to market forces, though Russia’s war in Ukraine has helped. U.S. oil prices have averaged around $80 a barrel since early 2021, compared with roughly $53 in the four years before that. That the price and demand for oil have been so strong suggests that the shift to renewable energy and electric vehicles will take longer and be more bumpy than some climate activists and world leaders once hoped.

Article Source: NYT

5 Al Qaeda and Islamic State reconstituted in Afghanistan

Taliban efforts to solidify the group’s control over Afghanistan are bringing a measure of peace and stability to its residents, but intelligence gathered by United Nations member states suggests the reprieve is not likely to last. A report issued late Wednesday by the U.N. sanctions monitoring team warns that Afghanistan will almost certainly remain a source for insecurity with terror groups like al-Qaida and Islamic State either finding safe haven or finding ways to exploit the Taliban’s weaknesses. “The country continues to be perceived as permissive or friendly territory by terrorist groups,” the report warns. “Continued Taliban tolerance of a range of terrorist groups, based across many Afghan provinces, sets the conditions for terrorism to project into neighboring States.”

Article Source: VOA

7/18/1969 Senator Ted Kennedy drives car off bridge at Chappaquiddick Island

Sources

2. https://apnews.com/article/59eebaca6989985c2bfbf4f72bdfa112

3. https://www.economist.com/in-brief/2024/07/18/biden-fights-covid-and-his-own-party; https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/07/17/teamsters-rnc-union-biden/

4. https://apnews.com/article/045449b3e8f3ab7326cb779f416f83fd

5. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/16/business/energy-environment/oil-company-profits.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

6. https://www.voanews.com/a/tenuous-taliban-control-gives-life-to-al-qaida-islamic-state/7693555.html

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1 Trump skeptical of US defending Taiwan
2 US biofuels policy helps foreign farmers, hurts domestic farmers
3 Sen. Bob Menendez (NJ-D) convicted of bribery
4 In a bid to save his candidacy, Biden moves Left
5 China’s economy slows
7/17/1955 Disneyland opens

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Ed note: Trump gave a wide-ranging interview to Bloomberg, released this morning. The most newsworthy section where his comments on Taiwan:

1 Trump skeptical of US defending Taiwan

Trump’s transactional view of foreign policy and his desire to “win” every deal could have ramifications around the globe—and even rupture US alliances. Asked about America’s commitment to defending Taiwan from China, which views the Asian democracy as a breakaway province, Trump makes it clear that, despite recent bipartisan support for Taiwan, he’s at best lukewarm about standing up to Chinese aggression. Part of his skepticism is grounded in economic resentment. “Taiwan took our chip business from us,” he says. “I mean, how stupid are we? They took all of our chip business. They’re immensely wealthy.” What he wants is for Taiwan to pay the US for protection. “I don’t think we’re any different from an insurance policy. Why? Why are we doing this?” he asks. Another factor driving his skepticism is what he regards as the practical difficulty of defending a small island on the other side of the globe. “Taiwan is 9,500 miles away,” he says. “It’s 68 miles away from China.” Abandoning the commitment to Taiwan would represent a dramatic shift in US foreign policy—as significant as halting support for Ukraine. But Trump sounds ready to radically alter the terms of these relationships.

Ed note: Here were some other takeaways from the interview:

The Fed: Trump said he’d allow Chair Jerome Powell to serve out his full term but warned against cutting rates before November.
Tax cuts: He’d like to bring the corporate tax rate down to as low as 15%, from 21% currently.
Jamie Dimon: Trump’s changed his view of the JPMorgan CEO—who he once called a “highly overrated Globalist”—and said he’d consider him for Treasury secretary.

Article Source: Bloomberg

2 US biofuels policy helps foreign farmers, hurts domestic farmers

President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign has had a tough week. Lingering in the background is a boom he touted for American farmers that hasn’t panned out, creating one more thorn in his side as he vies to win favor in crucial swing states. At the heart of the matter is production of biofuels, which can be made from crops like soybeans and corn, or from waste products like used cooking oil. The fuels benefit from government initiatives, regardless of whether the ingredients are produced in the US or overseas, pushing fuelmakers to import raw materials whenever it’s more profitable. A flurry of incentives under Biden’s landmark climate bill, along with a growing number of state programs, are spurring greater demand for fuel ingredients of all types, but especially those made from waste fats and oils, which typically boast a small carbon footprint and in turn are highly valued under policies aimed at fighting climate change. US biofuel producers are increasingly making renewable diesel and sustainable aviation fuel from raw materials that come from Asia and South America. Imports of used cooking oil from China and waste beef fat from Brazil have climbed to a record, eroding demand for US crops. “The US is designing rules to help our competitors and our competing countries’ farmers,” said Gordon Denny, an agricultural consultant and former procurement director at Bunge Global SA. While agriculture isn’t currently capturing the political headlines, the perception that American growers are being left behind has prompted both Republican and Democratic US senators in recent months to push the Biden administration to address the issue. And all this comes at a time when US farm income is poised for the biggest decline since 2006, which means farmer frustration could help boost turnout of rural pro-Republican voters in key battlegrounds states like Michigan and Wisconsin.

Article Source: Bloomberg

3 Sen. Bob Menendez (NJ-D) convicted of bribery

Sen. Bob Menendez was convicted Tuesday of taking bribes from three businessmen who showered him and his wife with cash, gold bars and a Mercedes-Benz, an extravagant bounty for his help securing deals with foreign officials and trying to derail several criminal investigations in New Jersey. The jury in Manhattan federal court found the once powerful New Jersey lawmaker guilty on all 16 felony counts. They include bribery, extortion, wire fraud, conspiracy, obstruction of justice and acting as a foreign agent for Egypt from 2018 to 2022, when Menendez was at the height of his influence in Washington, serving as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee or as the panel’s top Democrat while his party was in the minority.
WaPo

Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy (D) issued swift calls Tuesday for Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) to resign after he was convicted of taking bribes from three business executives who showered him and his wife with cash, gold bars and a Mercedes-Benz.

Further, Murphy said, if Menendez refuses to step down, he will call on the Senate to vote to expel him. Because Democrats hold a thin majority in the Senate, Murphy said he would move quickly to appoint an interim senator who would serve the remainder of Menendez’s term into January. “In the event of a vacancy, I will exercise my duty to make a temporary appointment to ensure the people of New Jersey have the representation they deserve,” Murphy said.
NYT

Article Source: WaPo

4 In a bid to save his candidacy, Biden moves Left

Since his disastrous debate last month, President Biden has embraced a laundry list of left-wing policy proposals, strong-armed the party's nomination process and still tried to limit spontaneous, unscripted moments. It's saved his candidacy — for now. Biden's moves have kept top Democrats from stampeding away from him — even as many remain privately uneasy with the 81-year-old president staying at the top of the ticket and serving another term. Amid worries he could lose and drag down Democratic House and Senate candidates with him, just 20 Democrats in Congress have called on him to step aside. That's partly because of promises that Biden — long a centrist Democrat — has made to his party's progressive wing. Biden said this past week that if he's re-elected, he'd call for legislation to cap landlords' ability to hike rent prices, push for a large-scale elimination of medical debt, and pursue other plans that have been applauded by progressives such as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).

Sanders penned an effusive op-ed in the New York Times for Biden's re-election over the weekend, and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) has been publicly supportive. The influential Congressional Black Caucus also has largely been enthusiastic in its support. That's given Biden a lifeline with lawmakers representing two of the most important parts of the Democratic Party's base.
Axios

President Biden is seriously considering legislative proposals that would dramatically alter the Supreme Court, including imposing term limits and an enforceable code of ethics on the justices, according to a person familiar with the ongoing discussions. Mr. Biden’s proposals to overhaul the court, which could be unveiled in the coming weeks, would need congressional approval, something that is likely to be a long shot given Republican control of the House and the slim Democratic majority in the Senate. The president is also considering calling for a constitutional amendment that could limit the broad presidential immunity that the court’s conservative majority backed at the end of its term this year, the person said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the president’s deliberations have not been made public.
NYT

Article Source: Axios, NYT

5 China’s economy slows

Chinese leader Xi Jinping wants to fashion China into a manufacturing colossus that leads the world in technological innovation. His pursuit of that vision is increasingly weighing on China’s economy. Growth is slowing and becoming more unbalanced, propped up by exports and a gusher of investment into factories, while much of the rest of the economy languishes. Consumers are reining in spending, the housing market is depressed, local governments are swimming in debt and foreign investors are pulling their cash—all at a time when China’s population is rapidly aging.
WSJ

China’s growth unexpectedly slowed to the worst pace in five quarters as faltering consumer spending undermined an export boom, putting pressure on policymakers to step up support at a twice-a-decade economic meeting this week. Gross domestic product expanded 4.7% in the second quarter from the same period a year earlier, weaker than all except one of 28 estimates in a Bloomberg survey of economists. Retail sales rose at the slowest monthly pace since December 2022, showing a flurry of government efforts to juice confidence have done little to reinvigorate the Chinese consumer. President Xi Jinping’s bet on manufacturing and high-tech sectors to propel China’s growth in the post-pandemic era got a boost, as industrial production held up.
Bloomberg

Article Source: WSJ, Bloomberg

7/17/1955 Disneyland opens

Sources

1. https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2024-trump-interview/?cmpid=BBD071724_OUS&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_term=240717&utm_campaign=openamericas

2. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-07-12/biofuel-woes-are-another-thorn-for-biden-as-farmers-grow-tense

3. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2024/07/16/bob-menendez-convicted-trial-bribery/; https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/07/16/menendez-guilty-verdict-reactions-corruption-trial/

4. https://www.axios.com/newsletters/axios-am-92a66c20-43b0-11ef-907d-e96b6db1baa8?chunk=0&utm_campaign=axios_app#story0; https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/16/us/politics/biden-supreme-court-overhaul.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&sgrp=c-cb

5. https://www.wsj.com/world/china/chinas-economy-is-in-trouble-xi-jinping-has-other-priorities-c1933b34?st=fhr4iwsgvl9a8g9&reflink=article_copyURL_share; https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-07-15/china-growth-weakens-more-than-expected-as-outlook-darkens

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FLASH Republican National Convention begins in Milwaukee
1 Trump picks OH Senator JD Vance, 39, as VP running mate
2 Trump’s classified document case dismissed as unconstitutional
3 Musk and other donors pledge $45 million/mo to Trump
4 Big banks warn of stress among lower-income consumers
5 Biden to receive Dem nomination next week, despite widespread misgivings
7/16/1945 The first atomic bomb successfully tested

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FLASH Republican National Convention begins in Milwaukee

1 Trump picks OH Senator JD Vance, 39, as VP running mate

For nearly nine years, Donald J. Trump has been the singular face of Republican politics and the undisputed leader of the Make America Great Again movement. On Monday, the former president came as close as he may ever come to anointing a successor. The choice of J.D. Vance as Mr. Trump’s running mate, a politician nearly 40 years his junior, immediately vaults the first-term senator to the forefront of a G.O.P. future that is not so far away.

Mr. Vance, 39, is the first millennial to make a major presidential ticket, a Marine veteran and a politician who has thoroughly remade himself as a full-throated MAGA enthusiast. In recent months, it was Mr. Vance’s aggressive defense of Trumpism and Mr. Trump, even on mainstream news outlets, that helped him stand out for the former president as a worthy inheritor.

JD Vance authored Hillbilly Elegy about his working-class family struggling in post-industrial America

Hillbilly Elegy is a passionate and personal analysis of a culture in crisis—that of white working-class Americans. The disintegration of this group, a process that has been slowly occurring now for more than forty years, has been reported with growing frequency and alarm, but has never before been written about as searingly from the inside. J. D. Vance tells the true story of what a social, regional, and class decline feels like when you were born with it hung around your neck. The Vance family story begins hopefully in postwar America. J. D.’s grandparents were “dirt poor and in love,” and moved north from Kentucky’s Appalachia region to Ohio in the hopes of escaping the dreadful poverty around them. They raised a middle-class family, and eventually one of their grandchildren would graduate from Yale Law School, a conventional marker of success in achieving generational upward mobility. But as the family saga of Hillbilly Elegy plays out, we learn that J.D.'s grandparents, aunt, uncle, sister, and, most of all, his mother struggled profoundly with the demands of their new middle-class life, never fully escaping the legacy of abuse, alcoholism, poverty, and trauma so characteristic of their part of America. With piercing honesty, Vance shows how he himself still carries around the demons of his chaotic family history. A deeply moving memoir, with its share of humor and vividly colorful figures, Hillbilly Elegy is the story of how upward mobility really feels. And it is an urgent and troubling meditation on the loss of the American dream for a large segment of this country.

Article Source: NYT, Amazon

2 Trump’s classified document case dismissed as unconstitutional

The federal judge overseeing former President Donald J. Trump’s classified documents case threw out all of the charges against him on Monday, ruling that Jack Smith, the special counsel who filed the indictment, had been given his job in violation of the Constitution. In a stunning decision delivered on the first day of the Republican National Convention, the judge, Aileen M. Cannon, found that Mr. Smith’s appointment as special counsel was improper because it was not based on a specific federal statute and because he had not been named to the post by the president or confirmed by the Senate. She also found that Mr. Smith had been improperly funded by the Treasury Department.

Article Source: NYT

3 Musk and other donors pledge $45 million/mo to Trump

Elon Musk has said he plans to commit around $45 million a month to a new super political-action committee backing former President Donald Trump’s presidential run, according to people familiar with the matter. Other backers of the group, called America PAC, include Palantir Technologies co-founder Joe Lonsdale, the Winklevoss twins, former U.S. ambassador to Canada Kelly Craft and her husband, Joe Craft, who is chief executive of coal producer Alliance Resource Partners. Formed in June, America PAC is focused on registering voters and persuading constituents to vote early and request mail-in ballots in swing states, according to one of the people. The coalition assessed that the Democrats have historically had very robust “get out the vote” campaigns and took note of the amounts of money that the Biden camp has dedicated to so-called on-the-ground efforts in swing states. America PAC will try to counter that.

Article Source: WSJ

4 Big banks warn of stress among lower-income consumers

Big US banks have warned that lower-income customers are showing signs of financial stress just a few months ahead of the presidential election. In second-quarter results on Friday, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Wells Fargo and BNY cautioned about consumers grappling with lower savings and higher prices. Government stimulus programmes during the Covid-19 pandemic helped insulate Americans from inflation in recent years, but as households have spent the money, the financial health of the consumer could play a crucial role in the outcome of November’s presidential vote. Consumer sentiment remains “stubbornly subdued” and fell to an eight-month low of 66, according to the latest University of Michigan survey released on Friday. Profits at Citi’s US consumer lending business, which includes credit cards, plunged 74 per cent from a year ago. The bank’s chief financial officer, Mark Mason, said consumer spending was slowing overall, with account balances now lower than they were before Covid. US consumers were more cautious than they had been in a while, he added. “We are not seeing the same growth in consumer spending that we had in prior quarters,” said Mason. “There was less traffic in the retail venues that we partner with.”

Article Source: FT

5 Biden to receive Dem nomination next week, despite widespread misgivings

Leaders of the Democratic National Committee are moving swiftly to confirm President Biden as his party’s presidential nominee by the end of July, according to four people briefed on the matter who insisted on anonymity to discuss the sensitive deliberations. The move would formalize Mr. Biden as the nominee at a moment when Democrats are torn over whether he should run again after his poor debate performance. Since May, he has been set to be confirmed through a virtual roll call, weeks before the Democratic National Convention in August. But as Mr. Biden faces persistent doubts from within his party, some delegates involved with the behind-the-scene bureaucratic process are eager to end the public conversations about his future that are unfolding during a fiercely contested campaign. Not everyone agrees: In a previously unreported move, a group of House Democrats who question whether he should forge ahead is trying to rally support for changing the nominating path to allow for potential challenges at the convention. Donors and prominent strategists have floated ideas that would open the door to other candidates, but party insiders have dismissed those proposals as fanciful. The process will effectively begin when the rules committee of the Democratic National Convention meets on a video call at 11 a.m. on Friday, followed by another party group on Sunday. All of the more than 4,000 delegates are expected to begin casting their ballots as soon as Monday, a process that is likely to take about a week. After that, the committee is expected to quickly hold the roll call, a tradition that typically occurs on the convention floor but is being held virtually this year.

Article Source: NYT

7/16/1945 The first atomic bomb successfully tested

Sources

2. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/15/us/politics/trump-vance-running-mate.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare; https://a.co/d/aBmUqpK

3. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/15/us/politics/trump-document-case-dismissed.html

4. https://www.wsj.com/politics/elections/elon-musk-has-said-he-is-committing-around-45-million-a-month-to-a-new-pro-trump-super-pac-dda53823?st=jupny40k0y94z6r&reflink=article_copyURL_share

5. https://on.ft.com/4bFLvcB

6. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/16/us/politics/dnc-biden-nominee.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&sgrp=c-cb

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1 Trump survives assassination attempt
2 US consumer sentiment falls
3 Massive data breach at AT&T
4 Remote work increases share of women working
5 World population to peak at 10.3b in 2084
Spain wins record fourth European Championship
7/15/2006 Twitter launches

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1 Trump survives assassination attempt

Donald Trump was shot in the ear during a campaign rally Saturday after a major security lapse, an attack that will likely reshape this year’s presidential race and fuel long-standing fears that the campaign could descend into political violence. In the moments after the shooting, Trump was swarmed and covered up by his security agents. He quickly emerged, his face streaked with blood, and pumped his fist in the air, mouthing the words "Fight! Fight! Fight!" The FBI identified 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, as the "subject involved" in what it termed an attempted assassination in a statement early on Sunday. Earlier the Secret Service said in a statement that the shooter was dead, one attendee at the rally was killed and two other spectators were injured. Law enforcement officials told reporters they not yet identified a motive for the attack.

Mr. Trump had heard at least one shot, maybe a few. One grazed his ear. He hit the deck, was lifted up in shock, pale. He should have been swiftly rushed from the stage. But no, this is the great genius of American political theater and the reflex kicked in, the same reflex that kicked in after he had Covid and was returned to the White House from the hospital, and wanted to pose on the White House balcony in a Superman shirt with a big S, and somebody talked him out of it. So too at the rally Saturday—he got to his feet, he didn’t wipe the blood from his face, he wanted you to see and understand the whole picture. He got his look of tough-guy fury, the one he showed for weeks walking into court in New York, the one on the mug shot. He raised that fist, pumped it, shouted “Fight,” as part of the crowd began to chant “U.S.A.! U.S.A.!” It was epic. Whatever you feel about him, whatever your stand, grant him one of the great gangsta moves of American political history.
WSJ Opinion, Peggy Noonan

Article Source: Reuters, WSJ

2 US consumer sentiment falls

US consumer sentiment unexpectedly declined to the lowest level in eight months in early July as high prices continued to weigh on Americans’ views of their finances and the economy. The sentiment index fell to 66 in July from 68.2, according to the preliminary reading from the University of Michigan. The median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of economists called for a slight increase to 68.5. “Despite expecting inflation to ease, consumers remain vociferously frustrated at the persistence of high prices,” Joanne Hsu, director of the survey, said in a statement. “Almost half of consumers spontaneously expressed complaints that high prices are eroding their living standards, matching the all-time high reached two years ago.”

Article Source: Bloomberg

3 Massive data breach at AT&T

AT&T Inc. said on Friday that hackers stole a cache of six months worth of mobile-phone customer data, disclosing for the first time a massive cybersecurity breach that threatens national security. The breach at the telecommunications giant included calls and text information for nearly all of its cellular customers from May 1, 2022 to Oct. 31 of that year, and it included the numbers they were calling and a smaller subset of location data. The trove represents a potential minefield of potential privacy and national security issues, for intelligence agents, police officers, stalking victims, journalists, therapists, an endless list of disturbing possibilities. AT&T has almost 115 million customers. The Federal Communications Commission said it was investigating the breach, and federal law enforcement authorities said they worked with AT&T to delay announcing it amid potential risks to national security or public safety. AT&T said in a statement to Bloomberg that as part of its effort to cooperate with law enforcement in their ongoing investigation into the hack, it delayed the announcement to avoid undermining law enforcement’s work. The company said it believes at least one person has been apprehended in connection with the incident.

Article Source: Bloomberg

4 Remote work increases share of women working

More women than ever have entered the American workforce.  Heady demand for employees combined with more opportunities for remote work and a surge in female entrepreneurs are sending a flood of women into the labor market. Women now hold a record 79 million jobs, and the share of women in their prime working years who are employed or seeking work now stands at 77.9%, up from 75.8% five years ago. But it’s not time for a victory lap just yet. The same work-from-home opportunities that have enabled many moms in particular to enter or rejoin the workforce are also shackling them with fresh responsibilities. Many say they are effectively working two full-time jobs: managing their households and their careers.

Article Source: WSJ

5 World population to peak at 10.3b in 2084

The world’s population is growing more slowly and will peak at a lower level than previously projected, new estimates from the United Nations show. The Earth will top out at around 10.29 billion people in 2084, before declining to 10.18 billion by 2100, the U.N. said in biennial population estimates released Thursday. That compares with the Earth’s population in July 2023 of 8.09 billion. Across much of Europe—and in longtime population leader China—population levels have already peaked and are declining. Notably, this population reversal means that India has now surpassed China as the world’s most populous country, with 1.44 billion people last year, compared with China’s 1.42 billion. India’s population won’t peak until 2061, the U.N. projects. The U.S. population, estimated at 343.5 million in 2023, is expected to keep climbing through the end of the century, but at a slowing rate. Amid those slowing growth rates, sub-Saharan Africa is expected to make up a larger slice of the world population, climbing to just under a third by 2100. This reflects not just growth in Africa, but also declining Asian populations and flattening population growth in the Americas.

Article Source: WSJ

Spain wins record fourth European Championship over England

Article Source: AP

7/15/2006 Twitter launches

Sources

1. https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-shooting-raises-questions-about-security-lapses-2024-07-14/; https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-shot-rings-out-and-a-warning-to-america-presidential-election-assassination-attempt-22a20aee?st=pnhxllrz31lrtcy&reflink=article_copyURL_share

2. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-07-12/us-consumer-sentiment-falls-to-eight-month-low-inflation-eases?cmpid=BBD071224_CUS&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_term=240712&utm_campaign=closeamericas

3. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-07-12/at-t-says-new-hack-includes-records-of-customer-calls-texts

4. https://www.wsj.com/economy/jobs/more-women-are-working-than-ever-but-theyre-doing-two-jobs-bf93b9bf?st=ma60snw42pn964v&reflink=article_copyURL_share

5. https://www.wsj.com/world/its-official-earths-population-should-peak-before-the-end-of-the-century-81bbd498?mod=us-news_lead_pos1?st%3Dmtazgy7x4agqc70&reflink=article_copyURL_share

6. https://apnews.com/article/dc46b104e6bf3b94b7d6d70e18f8220d

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1 ELECTION 2024 Daily Biden bad news
2 ELECTION 2024 Trump, the strategist
3 Massive copper find in Zambia
4 Gen X has higher cancer risk
5 NATO calls out China
Amazing video of drone “summiting” Mt Everest
7/12/1957 The US surgeon general reports there is link between smoking and lung cancer

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1 ELECTION 2024 Daily Biden bad news

Most Democrats nationwide say that President Biden should end his reelection campaign based on his performance in the presidential debate two weeks ago, according to a Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll. The poll results contradict Biden’s claim that only party elites want him to step aside. He has said that positive interactions with supporters on the campaign trail have helped persuade him to stay in the race after a debate in which he trailed off and occasionally appeared confused. But the poll finds that 56 percent of Democrats say that he should end his candidacy, while 42 percent say he should continue to seek reelection. Overall, 2 in 3 adults say the president should step aside, including more than 7 in 10 independents.

The president spoke for nearly an hour, answering questions off the top of his head, making some minor flubs but mostly seeming like a thoroughly different person than the candidate who appeared at the debate two weeks ago. Yet by the time he took the stage Thursday, it might already have been too late. President Biden’s Thursday evening press conference, hotly awaited as a potential opportunity to once again fall on his face, didn’t offer his doubters that satisfaction. But nor did it seem likely to quiet his party’s growing clamor for him to quit the re-election race that he insisted he remained best-positioned to win.

Article Source: WaPo, WSJ

2 ELECTION 2024 Trump, the strategist

Former President Trump is adjusting his agenda, the GOP platform, his vice-presidential plans — even his debate style — to win over more than a half-dozen persuadable voter groups in seven states, advisers tell us. Starting with the debate, every Trump move — from personally editing the Republican platform to lying low while President Biden's debate debacle sucked up attention — has been designed to nudge double-haters and truly undecided voters. The Trump campaign sees a clearer map emerging, with these swing states being hardest to easiest to win, in this order: Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Georgia, North Carolina, Nevada and Arizona. (You could flip the first two, but the campaign puts Pennsylvania first because it's the biggest swing state, and because Biden desperately needs it.) Job 1 for the V.P. nominee, besides raising money, will be to park in Pennsylvania to try to deny Biden the biggest of his Blue Wall states. The Rust Belt appeal of Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) helped rocket him to one of the finalist slots to be Trump's running mate.

Article Source: Axios

3 Massive copper find in Zambia

Peering into their computer screens in California last year, the data crunchers watched a subterranean fortune come into focus. What they saw transported them 10,000 miles across the world, to Zambia, and then one more mile straight down into the Earth. A rich lode of copper, deep in the bedrock, appeared before them, its contours revealed by a complex A.I.-driven technology they’d been painstakingly building for years. On Thursday, their company, KoBold Metals, informed its business partners that their find is likely the largest copper discovery in more than a decade. According to their estimates, reviewed by The New York Times, the mine would produce at least 300,000 tons of copper a year once fully operational. That corresponds to a value of billions of dollars a year, for decades.

It’s the first confirmed success for a company that hopes to radically transform the way we find metals critical not only to the tech industry but to the fight against climate change. The geopolitical significance is vast. KoBold’s find comes as the United States and China are increasingly clashing over global access to the minerals needed to manufacture clean-energy technologies.

Their products had become the backbone of the United States economy. But their businesses couldn’t grow much further without a gargantuan increase in the mining of a handful of raw materials that make batteries, without which everything from cellphones to electric trucks simply can’t function. They needed far more copper, cobalt, lithium and nickel.

Article Source: NYT

4 Gen X has higher cancer risk

A major new study projects that members of Generation X—people born between 1965 and 1980—have a higher rate of developing cancer than their parents and grandparents. And researchers are struggling to identify the reasons why cases are rising. Could it be related to changing diets or exercise habits? Are cancers themselves evolving to be wilier and more pernicious? The new research offers some possible clues. The model study, published in JAMA Network Open, sifted through cancer surveillance data collected between 1992 and 2018 on 3.8 million people in the U.S. Researchers looked for patterns in invasive cancer cases—those that have spread beyond the original site—within and among Generation X, Baby Boomers (people born in 1946–1964), the Silent Generation (1928–1945) and the Greatest Generation (1908–1927). The findings suggest that medical advances against some cancers—gained by better screening, prevention and treatment—have been overtaken by startling increases in other cancers, including colon, rectal, thyroid, ovarian and prostate cancers. This troubling trend has researchers baffled and scrambling for answers.

Article Source: Scientific American

5 NATO calls out China

The NATO Summit marked a historic shift as the alliance, for the first time, accused China of becoming “a decisive enabler of Russia’s war against Ukraine.” The alliance demanded that Beijing halt the shipment of weapons components to Moscow. The stance represents a departure for NATO, which only began mentioning China as a concern in 2019. Even a year ago, European leaders were hesitant to challenge Beijing. All 32 NATO leaders approved the declaration, which also blames China for “malicious cyber and hybrid activities, including disinformation” aimed at the United States and Europe. This move aligns NATO more closely with Washington’s stance against Beijing, reflecting a new unity among members in addressing global security threats. China on Thursday criticized the draft communique. “On the Ukraine crisis, NATO hyped up China’s responsibility. It makes no sense and comes with malicious intent,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jin told a regular press briefing.

Article Source: Cipher Brief

Amazing video of DJI drone “summiting” Mt Everest

Article Source: DJI

7/12/1957 The U.S. surgeon general, Leroy E. Burney, reports that there is a direct link between smoking and lung cancer

Sources

1. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/07/11/poll-biden-drop-out-election/; https://www.wsj.com/politics/elections/bidens-press-conference-wont-stem-tide-of-defections-c04409ff

2. https://www.axios.com/2024/07/10/trump-undecided-voters-plan-election-2024

3. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/11/climate/kobold-zambia-copper-ai-mining.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&sgrp=c-cb

4. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/gen-x-faces-higher-cancer-rates-than-any-previous-generation/

5. Email

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1 ELECTION 2024 Major Dem lawmakers question Biden candidacy as donors cut off funds
2 ELECTION 2024 Republican Party united behind Trump, split on policy
3 FTC to sue Pharmacy Benefit Managers
4 Youngkin bans phones in schools
5 The Kremlin is rewriting Wikipedia
7/11/1804 Aaron Burr kills Alexander Hamilton in duel

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1 ELECTION 2024 Major Dem lawmakers question Biden candidacy as donors cut off funds

Joe Biden will give what his press team described as a “big boy” press conference as the NATO summit concludes. He hopes to convince Democratic lawmakers, European allies and the American public that he is fit for office. He will also participate in a second primetime television interview, airing on NBC on Monday night—the same day the Republican National Convention begins. Behind the scenes, Mr Biden’s campaign advisers will try to quell the growing rebellion against his candidacy by meeting Democratic senators on Thursday. Three more Democratic lawmakers publicly called on him to leave the presidential race on Wednesday, including Peter Welch, the first senator to join the dissenters. Nancy Pelosi, the former speaker of the House of Representatives, did not back Mr Biden when asked about his re-election bid, saying that he must decide quickly whether he is staying in the race despite the fact that he has repeated many times that he has already made up his mind to stick it out. Ms Pelosi said that she told her colleagues to “just hold off” from public comments until this week’s NATO summit wraps up.
Economist

Democratic donors have warned that funding for the November election effort is “drying up” because of President Joe Biden’s refusal to step aside, threatening to undermine the party’s effort to defeat Donald Trump. Donors have become a crucial constituency in the fight over Biden’s future, with some pushing aggressively for him to withdraw even as the party’s lawmakers on Capitol Hill waver over his candidacy. Their increasing willingness to walk away from the campaign, mentioned in interviews with donors from Wall Street to Hollywood, poses a new existential risk to Biden’s re-election if he stays in a White House race expected to be the most expensive in US history. “As of today, it would be very difficult to raise major donor money for the president,” said one New York-based Democratic donor. “It is so quickly unravelling that it is going to be extraordinarily difficult for him to stay in the race.”
FT

Article Source: Economist, FT

2 ELECTION 2024 Republican Party united behind Trump, split on policy

Republicans will gather for their convention in Milwaukee next week united behind presidential candidate Donald Trump but divided on what the party stands for. There are, of course, widely aired disagreements over abortion and the war in Ukraine. But a potentially more consequential division has opened over economics. On one side is a pro-business libertarian wing that backs low taxes, free trade and international openness. On the other is a growing contingent of conservatives skeptical of big business, ambivalent about tax cuts and vocally supportive of tariffs. While both wings back Trump, who straddles this divide, they have different priorities should Trump win this fall’s election and Republicans retake control of Congress. Which side prevails has huge implications for the economy and business. The new Republican thinking was evident this week at the annual meeting of “national conservatism,” one of many labels attached to the new movement (along with the “new right,” “populist right” and “conservative economics”). Speakers interspersed attacks on the “Marxist” and “radical” left with condemnation of the “corporatist right,” “free marketism” and “globalism.” “Look at the libertarians who helped Ronald Reagan rescue the U.S. economy, then descended into hyperindividualism, materialism and globalism that has rendered them a political irrelevancy,” declared Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation, which has remade itself from a free-market think tank into a bastion of national conservatism.

Article Source: WSJ

3 FTC to sue Pharmacy Benefit Managers

The Federal Trade Commission is preparing to sue the largest three pharmacy-benefit managers over their tactics for negotiating prices for drugs including insulin, after a two-year investigation into whether the companies steer patients away from less-expensive medicines. The agency plans to file lawsuits taking aim at business practices related to rebates brokered with drug manufacturers, people familiar with the matter said. The FTC is also investigating the role that insulin manufacturers play in the negotiations, one of the people said. Pharmacy-benefit managers, or PBMs, manage prescription-drug transactions for insurers and employers. They negotiate discounts with drug manufacturers on behalf of those customers.

Article Source: WSJ

4 Youngkin bans phones in schools

Glenn Youngkin, Virginia’s Republican governor, issued an executive order banning smartphones in the state’s public schools, arguing that it is time “to address the damage of social media and screens”. Last month Gavin Newsom, California’s Democratic governor, said he planned to extend similar restrictions in his state. Although bans may have some bipartisan support, they are generally unpopular among parents.

Article Source: Economist

5 The Kremlin is rewriting Wikipedia

Wikipedia had faced trouble from the Kremlin before, with Russian censors threatening it almost from the start of the Ukraine war in 2014. But it was only in late 2023, with the appearance of glitzy ads across Moscow, that a serious plan to replace it became clear. RuWiki, as the censors’ project is known, is mostly a straightforward copy of Wikipedia. But the most sensitive moments of history have been left out or rewritten. The Kremlin’s ideologues hope that millions of Russians will now embrace these new versions as the truth. The RuWiki project might be called Orwellian, if the author were not himself occasionally censored. The entry on “Nineteen Eighty-Four”, for example, omits the regular site’s description of Winston Smith’s Ministry of Truth, where historical records are “corrected” (though Smith’s job gets a mention elsewhere). RuWiki’s rewriters hack their way through the sensitive zones of Putinist ideology: lgbt rights, oral sex, Soviet history and the war in Ukraine. Russian atrocities in Bucha, near Kyiv, in 2022 are reimagined as a “Ukrainian and Western disinformation campaign”. Kherson, a Ukrainian city being destroyed by Russian bombs, is mentioned without a word about the war. The execution of 22,000 Polish officers at Katyn in 1940 is rewritten to cast doubt on the archive documents proving it was done by Soviet secret services. And all references to Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who was killed in prison in February 2024, are altered to describe him as a mere “blogger”.

Article Source: Economist

7/11/1804 Aaron Burr kills Alexander Hamilton in duel

Sources

1. https://on.ft.com/3zFa1gD

2. https://www.wsj.com/politics/elections/republicans-are-fracturing-on-the-economy-0d76de9e

3. https://www.wsj.com/health/pharma/ftc-to-sue-drug-managers-over-insulin-prices-b46af71f?st=pm2a0ru2jdjyxck&reflink=article_copyURL_share

4. Newsletter

5. https://www.economist.com/europe/2024/07/09/the-kremlin-is-rewriting-wikipedia

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1 ELECTION 2024 Elected Black Democrats rally around Biden
2 Office vacancy rate at all-time high
3 Regulator releases report on Pharmacy Benefit Managers
4 Fascinating startup 3D prints homes
5 BATTLE FOR EURASIA Iran expands missile production for Russia, Houthis
7/10/1962 Patent issued for three-point seatbelt

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1 ELECTION 2024 Elected Black Democrats rally around Biden

As President Biden watches his support among some key Democrats in Congress quietly crumble, one group has emerged as a vocal base of support on Capitol Hill: Black lawmakers, particularly older ones. While most elected Democrats have avoided publicly weighing in on Mr. Biden’s fate and many have privately expressed skepticism that he can remain the party’s candidate after a disastrous debate performance, the leader and senior members of the Congressional Black Caucus have filled the void with full-throated expressions of support. It is reminiscent of how Black Democrats rallied behind Mr. Biden to help propel him to his primary victory in 2020. It also speaks to a broader racial and generational divide in the party that could be consequential in determining how it moves forward from the president’s current crisis. More than a dozen Black Democrats in both the House and Senate have begun to offer a strong defense of him, even as their colleagues whisper in increasingly urgent tones about pushing him aside.

Article Source: NYT

2 Office vacancy rate at all-time high

Talk of the office and its pandemic-powered apocalypse might have died down, but the sector’s troubles haven’t. If anything, four years after the pandemic’s onset, office vacancies are growing. In the second quarter of this year, “the office sector set a record vacancy rate at 20.1%, breaking the 20% barrier for the first time in history,” a Moody’s analysis published last week read. “The slow bleed occurring in the office sector has led to a steady rise in the vacancy rate as permanent shifts in working behavior have outlasted the initial wave of the pandemic four years ago.”

Article Source: Fortune

3 Regulator releases report on Pharmacy Benefit Managers

Drug middlemen, known as pharmacy-benefit managers, have accomplished something rare in Washington: Their business practices have led to a bipartisan consensus of sorts around the need for more regulation. Yet successfully cracking down on the tactics that drive health costs higher won’t be easy. That is because PBMs operate in a highly complex and opaque world where key information is kept from the public. The reaction on Wall Street to a highly anticipated Federal Trade Commission investigation into the largest PBMs spoke volumes. When the FTC launched its investigation two years ago, investors grew concerned that the report’s conclusions could help spur antitrust action against the three largest companies—UnitedHealth Group’s OptumRx, Cigna’s Express Scripts and CVS Health’s Caremark. (All three are integrated within large healthcare insurance conglomerates and they collectively manage roughly 80% of U.S. prescriptions). But when the 73-page interim report dropped on Tuesday, shares of CVS Health, UnitedHealth Group and Cigna actually finished higher for the day. To be fair, the political backdrop might already be somewhat priced into the stocks. But the lack of further pressure on Tuesday attests to the fact that investors were somewhat relieved. While the report highlighted several ways in which the highly consolidated PBM industry contributes to higher healthcare costs, it didn’t exactly deliver a smoking gun or call for immediate antitrust action. “The FTC’s interim findings fall short of any charges against the PBMs or empirical findings on the relationship between increased consolidation in the PBM industry and higher drug prices,” wrote Lisa Gill, an analyst at JPMorgan.

Article Source: WSJ

4 Fascinating startup 3D prints homes

VIDEO

Article Source: CBS

5 BATTLE FOR EURASIA Iran expands missile production for Russia, Houthis

Recent satellite imagery shows major expansions at two key Iranian ballistic missile facilities that two American researchers assessed are for boosting missile production, a conclusion confirmed by three senior Iranian officials. The enlargement of the sites follows an October 2022 deal in which Iran agreed to provide missiles to Russia, which has been seeking them for its war against Ukraine. Tehran also supplies missiles to Yemen's Houthi rebels and the Lebanese militia Hezbollah, both members of the Iran-backed Axis of Resistance against Israel, according to U.S. officials. Images taken by commercial satellite firm Planet Labs of the Modarres military base in March and the Khojir missile production complex in April show more than 30 new buildings at the two sites, both of which are located near Tehran. The images, reviewed by Reuters, show many of the structures are surrounded by large dirt berms. Such earthworks are associated with missile production and are designed to stop a blast in one building from detonating highly combustible materials in nearby structures, said Jeffrey Lewis of the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey.

Article Source: Reuters

7/10/1962 Patent issued for three-point seatbelt

Sources

1. https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/07/09/us/trump-biden-election/black-democrats-biden?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&sgrp=c-cb

2. https://fortune.com/2024/07/02/office-vacancies-all-time-high-moodys/

3. https://www.wsj.com/finance/stocks/how-drug-middlemen-keep-beating-the-system-671a638b

4. https://www.cbs.com/shows/video/t05ZpbLlydacSBHR5d_WCNRCncvggSVK/

5. Exclusive:%20Satellite%20photos%20show%20Iran%20expanding%20missile%20production%20-%20https%3A//www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/satellite-photos-show-iran-expanding-missile-production-sources-say-2024-07-08/

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1 Baby boomers control 70% of US wealth
2 ELECTION 2024 Biden defiant, “fully committed” to staying in race
3 Misdiagnoses add billions to government healthcare costs
4 Noncompete ban in limbo after Supreme Court tosses “Chevron”
5 BATTLE FOR EURASIA Chinese military in Europe, Modi in Moscow
7/9/1942 Anne Frank and her family go into hiding in the attic

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1 Baby boomers control 70% of US wealth

Older Americans are emerging as major drivers of the economy. Their stock portfolios, retirement savings and paid-off homes have swelled in value over decades of growth. Hours once spent raising young children and working can now be devoted to golf, concerts and brunch. Today, Americans 55 and over control nearly 70% of U.S. household wealth, according to the Federal Reserve. In 1989, the first year of available data, they controlled just 50%. Their dollars amount to 45% of U.S. personal spending, according to Moody’s Analytics, up from 29% three decades ago.

Article Source: WSJ

2 ELECTION 2024 Biden defiant, “fully committed” to staying in race

President Biden on Monday dared his critics to “challenge me at the convention” if they want him out of the presidential race, refusing to step aside in a defiant letter to Democratic members of Congress and in fiery remarks on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” program. Declaring himself “frustrated by the elites” who have called for his exit from the race, Mr. Biden engaged in an offensive blitz aimed at saving his candidacy. But it also did little to mollify restless Democratic lawmakers and laid bare the fractures in his party over whether his position as its standard-bearer will help or hurt its fortunes this fall.

Less than an hour before Monday’s interview, Mr. Biden’s campaign released a letter to congressional Democrats in which the president wrote that he was “firmly committed to staying in the race,” a pointed answer to allies on Capitol Hill who have been increasingly going public with calls for him to drop out.

Article Source: NYT

3 Misdiagnoses add billions to government healthcare costs

Private insurers involved in the government’s Medicare Advantage program made hundreds of thousands of questionable diagnoses that triggered extra taxpayer-funded payments from 2018 to 2021, including outright wrong ones like Lee’s, a Wall Street Journal analysis of billions of Medicare records found. The questionable diagnoses included some for potentially deadly illnesses, such as AIDS, for which patients received no subsequent care, and for conditions people couldn’t possibly have, the analysis showed. Often, neither the patients nor their doctors had any idea. Medicare Advantage, the $450-billion-a-year system in which private insurers oversee Medicare benefits, grew out of the idea that the private sector could provide healthcare more economically. It has swelled over the last two decades to cover more than half of the 67 million seniors and disabled people on Medicare. Instead of saving taxpayers money, Medicare Advantage has added tens of billions of dollars in costs, researchers and some government officials have said. One reason is that insurers can add diagnoses to ones that patients’ own doctors submit. Medicare gave insurers that option so they could catch conditions that doctors neglected to record. The Journal’s analysis, however, found many diagnoses were added for which patients received no treatment, or that contradicted their doctors’ views.

Article Source: WSJ

4 Noncompete ban in limbo after Supreme Court tosses “Chevron”

Employers face a summer of uncertainty about the legality of noncompete agreements. A federal judge last week backed a challenge to a nationwide ban on the pacts, which restrict workers’ ability to join rival firms. The ruling came days after the Supreme Court gave judges more latitude to challenge federal agencies’ rule-making authority. The Federal Trade Commission’s ban was set to go into effect in September.

Article Source: WSJ

5 BATTLE FOR EURASIA Chinese military in Europe, Modi in Moscow

Chinese military personnel are to begin joint “anti-terrorist training” with their counterparts in Belarus on Monday, close to the border with Poland. The “Eagle Assault” exercises by the two Russian allies amid the war in Ukraine will be held over 11 days in the border city of Brest, Belarus, and will involve tasks such as hostage rescue and anti-terrorism operations, China’s Ministry of National Defence said. It comes days after Belarus officially joined the Shanghai Cooperation Organization led by China and Russia, deepening their coordination on military, economic and political matters. The Belarusian leader, Alexander Lukashenko has been a key ally of Vladimir Putin since the invasion of Ukraine, holding tactical nuclear drills with Russia last year and agreeing to store tactical nuclear warheads for Moscow on its soil.

Guardian

Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India arrived in Moscow on Monday to meet with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia,  a visit that signals the Indian leader’s determination to stick to his own diplomatic path even as the West continues to isolate Moscow over its war on Ukraine. For Mr. Putin, Mr. Modi’s visit will be a way for Russia to show that the Kremlin continues to have a strong partnership with India, despite India’s deepening relationship with the United States. India’s purchases of discounted Russian petroleum have helped fill Russia’s coffers depleted by international sanctions over the war, and Russia has sought to cast India as a partner in reshaping the Western-dominated global order.

NYT

Article Source: Guardian, NYT

7/9/1942 Anne Frank and her family go into hiding in the attic above her father’s office in an Amsterdam warehouse

Sources

1. https://www.wsj.com/us-news/baby-boomers-drive-economy-d4b72e40?mod=us-news_lead_pos1

2. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/08/us/politics/biden-letter-congress.html?smid=url-share

3. https://www.wsj.com/health/healthcare/medicare-health-insurance-diagnosis-payments-b4d99a5d?mod=hp_lead_pos7

4. https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/the-noncompete-clause-moves-deeper-into-limbo-7916261e?st=dv2izxi2pesvixq&reflink=article_copyURL_share

5. https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jul/08/ukraine-war-briefing-chinese-troops-hold-military-exercises-with-belarus-on-polish-border; https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/08/world/asia/modi-putin-russia-india.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&sgrp=c-cb

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Global elections
1 ELECTION 2024 Senior Dem lawmakers say its time for Biden to quit
2 OPNION Economic malaise underlies American drug epidemic
3 US economic data show cooling labor market
4 California's overnight power demand exposes battery limitations, increases gas reliance
5 Container shipping rates surge on Red Sea crisis
7/8/1879 The first ship to use electric lights departs from San Francisco, California

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Global elections

France
France faced a hung parliament and deep political uncertainty after the three main political groups of the left, center and right emerged from snap legislative elections on Sunday with large shares of the vote but nothing approaching an absolute majority. The preliminary results upended widespread predictions of a clear victory for the National Rally, Marine Le Pen’s anti-immigrant party that dominated the first round of voting a week ago. Instead, the left-wing New Popular Front won 178 seats. The centrist coalition of President Emmanuel Macron, who cast the country into turmoil a month ago by calling the election, was in second place with 150 seats. Trailing it was the National Rally and its allies, which took 142 seats.

Iran
In an election upset in Iran, the reformist candidate who advocated moderate policies at home and improved relations with the West won the presidential runoff against a hard-line rival, according to results released by the interior ministry on Saturday.

Article Source: NYT

1 ELECTION 2024 Senior Dem lawmakers say its time for Biden to quit

President Biden’s base of support among key Democrats on Capitol Hill began to crumble on Sunday as a half-dozen top members of the House privately told colleagues he should withdraw from the presidential race amid growing concerns about his age and ability to win re-election. During a virtual private meeting, the House Democrats — all senior members of powerful committees — discussed how to use their collective influence to convince Mr. Biden he had little chance of defeating former President Donald J. Trump, according to five people familiar with the confidential discussion, including three who were present, all of whom insisted on anonymity to discuss it. The consensus during the session, which was convened by Representative Hakeem Jeffries, Democrat of New York and the minority leader, was that a change at the top of the ticket was needed to preserve the party’s chances of holding the White House and prevailing in the fight for control of Congress, the people said.

Article Source: NYT

2 OPNION Economic malaise underlies American drug epidemic

In 2023, the United States saw 81,000 deaths from opioid overdose. Other forms of drug overdose are climbing faster: Fatal cocaine overdoses rose sixfold in the past decade, to 30,000. Psychostimulant deaths rose 10-fold, to 36,000. All told, the rate of drug overdose deaths in the United States is now similar to the average death rate from alcohol use disorders in Russia during the decade after the Soviet Union’s collapse.

Opioid deaths are more than a terrible tragedy. They are also a telltale sign of national decay and desperation. Wages for the typical worker have stagnated for decades, and research I conducted at American Compass, the think tank where I work, has found that the typical worker no longer earns enough to provide middle-class security for a family. We also found that only around one in five young Americans makes the transition smoothly from high school to college to career, and for young men the figure is lower still. The anti-poverty scholar Scott Winship has shown that for men ages 25 to 29, inflation-adjusted median earnings and compensation were lower in 2020 than they were 50 years earlier. The years leading up to Mr. Trump’s election coincided with the first time on record that Americans ages 18 to 34 were more likely to be living at home with their parents than independently with a significant other. Measured in flat-screen televisions owned, health-care treatments received and calories consumed, Americans have been on an upward trajectory. But while popular media often translates the American dream as being better off than your parents in materialistic terms, polling conducted by American Compass in partnership with YouGov indicates that Americans between 18 and 50 were more than twice as likely to say “earning enough to support a family” is what’s most important. Related, our polling has found that the vast majority of American parents consider “being able to support your family on one parent’s income” to be an important or essential marker of middle-class life. For all the talk of “upward mobility,” more than 90 percent of Americans chose “financial stability” as more important in a 2014 Pew survey. Note the contrast with the small cohort of upper-class Americans with college degrees and the highest incomes, who see the American dream more in terms of going as far as their talents and hard work take them than as either supporting a family or even getting married and raising children. They prefer having both parents work full-time and using paid child care full-time, and regard the chance for their children to pursue postsecondary education that would offer “the best possible career options but was far from home” as more desirable than one that would offer “good career options close to home.” All other groups said they preferred the latter. The same pattern repeats itself on issue after issue. While policy initiatives so often seek to maximize efficiency and growth, move people to opportunity and redistribute from the economy’s winners to the losers, the typical American has an attachment to place, a focus on family, a commitment to making things, and would accept economic trade-offs in pursuit of those priorities.
Oren Cass

Ed note: worth reading in full

Article Source: NYT

3 US economic data show cooling labor market

The US labour market showed signs of cooling, with the unemployment rate rising in June and the pace of jobs growth in recent months shown to have been lower than previously reported. The economy added 206,000 jobs last month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said on Friday. That exceeded the 190,000 roles economists polled by Reuters had forecast, but revisions to April and May data meant employment during those two months was 111,000 lower than initially reported. Friday’s non-farm payrolls report also showed that the US unemployment rate increased to 4.1 per cent from 4 per cent, its highest level since November 2021. Economists had expected no change.

Article Source: FT

4 California's overnight power demand exposes battery limitations, increases natural gas reliance

On Sunday, June 30, 2024, California's power generation relied heavily on renewables and natural gas, with renewables peaking around midday. However, during the overnight hours, battery storage proved insufficient to meet the energy demand, necessitating a greater reliance on natural gas to maintain grid stability.

Article Source: Daily Energy Report, Ad Astra

5 Container shipping rates surge on Red Sea crisis

Volatile weather is a peril of the high seas. Volatile markets are similarly treacherous for the container-ship industry, which carries 80% of the volume of internationally traded goods. A global pandemic, which kept people at home with little else to do but buy, buy, buy, sent container rates sky-high. In 2022 shipping lines’ return on capital exceeded 40%; the biggest earned profits that were three times the total for the previous two decades combined. Rates and returns tumbled as demand waned and shipping companies started to receive the new vessels ordered during the boom. Then attacks by Houthi rebels on ships in the Red Sea all but closed the Suez Canal. The disruption has sent rates back to records surpassed only during the pandemic. How long will the good times last this time?

Article Source: Economist

7/8/1879 The first ship to use electric lights departs from San Francisco, California

Sources

1. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/07/world/europe/france-election-results-left-surges.html?unlocked_article_code=1.5U0.S62p.0f-ihex-SIRW&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&sgrp=c-cb; https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/05/world/middleeast/iran-election-reformist-wins.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&sgrp=c-cb

2. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/07/us/politics/biden-democrats-congress-murphy.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&sgrp=c-cb

3. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/06/opinion/populism-power-elites-politics.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&sgrp=c-cb

4. https://on.ft.com/3RV5xJ6

5. Newsletter

6. https://www.economist.com/business/2024/06/27/boom-times-are-back-for-container-shipping

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Global elections
1 ELECTION 2024 Outlook worsens for Biden, Harris favorite to replace him
2 OPINION Supreme Court not as ideologically conservative as portrayed
3 Fed: US needs to cut deficit
4 US gov to pay Moderna $176m for bird flu vax
5 EU imposes duties on Chinese EVs
7/5/1994 Amazon founded by Jeff Bezos

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Global elections

·       Labor party wins in a landslide in the UK, after 14y out of power

·       Iranians head to polls today to elect new president after prior leaders death in helicopter crash

1 ELECTION 2024 Outlook worsens for Biden, Harris favorite to replace him

Two new polls bleak for Biden

Mr. Trump now leads Mr. Biden 49 percent to 43 percent among likely voters nationally, a three-point swing toward the Republican from just a week earlier, before the debate. It is the largest lead Mr. Trump has recorded in a Times/Siena poll since 2015. Mr. Trump leads by even more among registered voters, 49 percent to 41 percent.
NYT

Donald Trump has opened a 6-point lead over President Biden among voters nationally, with 80% saying that the president is too old to run for a second term, a new Wall Street Journal poll finds.
WSJ

Prediction market give Biden 70% chance of dropping out

Harris neck and neck with Biden for Dem nomination

On her advantages:

If President Biden steps aside, Vice President Harris would be almost impossible to beat for the nomination, thanks to endorsements, money, optics  and 2028 politics, top officials tell us. All Harris needs is Biden's backing. If she gets it, the Obamas and Clintons likely would follow, making any challenge an affront to the sitting president and two former presidents. If she gets Biden's endorsement, the only way a top-tier Democrat could challenge her would be to risk their future by saying "not your turn" to the first woman vice president, first Black American vice president and first South Asian vice president

there's the practicality: If you're eyeing the 2028 nomination, you're thinking about the base. Do you really want to torpedo Harris' chance to become the first woman president of color? What are your real chances of defeating Harris and her formidable apparatus (White House, DNC, Biden-Harris campaign) when you're less well-known nationally than she is — then beating the Trump machine, with its huge head start, in the 75 days between the Democratic convention and Election Day?

Ed note: there’s also the money, if the Dems went with someone other than Harris, they’d forfeit all $$$ raised by Biden-Harris

Article Source: NYT, WSJ, Polymarket, PredictIt, Axios

2 OPINION Supreme Court not as ideologically conservative as portrayed

Chamath: “There’s this prevailing narrative that the Supreme Court is ideologically conservative, but that’s a gross oversimplification. If you look at the recent decisions, you’ll notice that the justices are not adhering strictly to conservative ideology. Instead, they are making rulings that reflect a complex and nuanced interpretation of the law. For instance, in several cases, conservative justices have joined liberal ones and vice versa, showcasing that the Court’s decisions are not driven by a single ideological framework but rather by a diverse set of legal principles.”

From the July 4, 2024 episode of the All-In Podcast where Chamath Palihapitiya discusses the ideological stance of the U.S. Supreme Court

Article Source: All In Podcast

3 Fed: US needs to cut deficit

The head of the Federal Reserve has warned the US economy is too strong to justify running such high deficits and urged Washington to address its fiscal imbalance “sooner rather than later”, in a sign of monetary policymakers’ rising concern about rampant government spending. Jay Powell warned that the Biden administration was taking excessive risks by “running a very large deficit at a time when we are at full employment” and said “you can’t run these levels in good economic times for very long”. The jobless rate in the world’s largest economy has not exceeded its current level of 4 per cent for more than two years, longer than at any time since Powell was “a teenager”, the Fed chair said on Tuesday. Speaking at the European Central Bank’s conference in Sintra, Portugal, Powell said “the level of debt we have is completely sustainable but the path we are on is unsustainable”. His comments came amid intensifying worries about debt levels as both President Joe Biden and Donald Trump are running on campaign pledges that seem unlikely to reduce the deficit whoever wins the November election.

Article Source: FT

4 US gov to pay Moderna $176m for bird flu vax

The US government will pay Moderna $176 million to develop an mRNA vaccine against a pandemic influenza—an award given as the highly pathogenic bird flu virus H5N1 continues to spread widely among US dairy cattle.

Moderna noted that it began a Phase 1/2 trial of a pandemic influenza virus vaccine last year, which included versions targeting H5 and H7 varieties of bird flu viruses. The company said it expects to release the results of that trial this year and that those results will direct the design of a Phase 3 trial, anticipated to begin in 2025.

Article Source: Ars Technica

5 EU imposes duties on Chinese EVs

The European Union will impose tariffs of up to 37.6% from Friday on imports of electric vehicles made in China, EU officials said, ratcheting up tensions with Beijing in Brussels' largest trade case yet.

The European Commission's provisional duties of between 17.4% and 37.6% without backdating are designed to prevent what its president Ursula von der Leyen has said is a threatened flood of cheap EVs built with state subsidies.

Article Source: Reuters

7/5/1994 Amazon founded by Jeff Bezos

Sources

2. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/03/us/politics/poll-debate-biden-trump.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&sgrp=c-cb; https://www.wsj.com/politics/elections/trump-expands-lead-over-biden-after-debate-as-voters-age-worries-grow-wsj-poll-finds-c3a793ab?st=afg9yo32hy8wfa2&reflink=article_copyURL_share; https://polymarket.com/event/will-biden-drop-out-of-presidential-race?tid=1720125226897; https://www.predictit.org/markets/detail/7057/Who-will-win-the-2024-Democratic-presidential-nomination; https://www.axios.com/2024/07/04/kamala-harris-replace-biden-2024-election

4. https://on.ft.com/4bnOYwg

5. https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/07/us-prepares-for-bird-flu-pandemic-with-176m-moderna-vaccine-deal/

6. https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/eu-imposes-duties-china-built-evs-leaving-four-months-talks-2024-07-04/

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