Flagship

Ceasefire calls for Israel, Hezbollah

The US, Western allies, and several Arab nations called for a three-week ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, hoping to avert a wider war. The move came shortly after Israel’s defense minister suggested a ground invasion of southern Lebanon was possible. Experts fear that an escalation could devastate the already hard-pressed country, which is enduring its worst economic crisis in decades. A third of Lebanon’s residents have already fled their homes at least once, many of them refugees from Syria, with recent Israeli strikes forcing tens of thousands to leave. “This society will break,” the head of an aid agency told the BBC.

Biden’s partial backing for Kyiv

US President Joe Biden announced new military support for Ukraine. The package includes $2.4 billion in air defenses, but stops short of allowing Kyiv to use US-made missiles to strike deeper into Russia, a key part of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s “victory plan.” The stakes are high, Politico said: Russia is making battlefield gains, and former President Donald Trump — who could soon be president again — criticized Zelenskyy for “refus[ing] to make a deal” to end the war. Russian President Vladimir Putin meanwhile threatened to use nuclear weapons should US missiles donated to Ukraine land in Russia, suggesting attacks by non-nuclear states backed by nuclear-armed ones would be worthy of retaliation.

NYC mayor faces corruption charges

New York Mayor Eric Adams will be prosecuted for corruption, reports said, leading fellow Democrats to call for him to step down. The indictment remains sealed, so the specific charges are unknown, but a two-year federal investigation has focused on possible illegal donations from the Turkish government in exchange for concessions. Adams, who promised to rein in crime in the US’ biggest city when he was elected three years ago, will be the first sitting NYC mayor to face federal charges. He denied all wrongdoing, saying, “I have been facing these lies for months,” but major Democratic figures including Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said he should resign.

Xi announces major stimulus

China’s leaders vowed to steady the country’s stumbling housing market with new financial support and controls. Much of ordinary Chinese people’s investment is tied up in property but a protracted real-estate crisis has reduced household wealth by $18 trillion, leading to a spending collapse and worries of deflation. Chinese leader Xi Jinping and top officials did not give specifics on the size of the fiscal stimulus, but an index of property developers’ stocks went up 9.6% on the news. The move comes two days after China’s central bank announced a wide-ranging package of its own. However, “threats to the economy remain,” Bloomberg reported, with households feeling the pinch and trade restrictions with the West reducing exports.

Mexico’s military gains clout

Mexican lawmakers approved outgoing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s plan to militarize the National Guard. During his presidency, AMLO has redirected vast resources to the military, which are now involved in sectors beyond security, such as operating a commercial airline and running the country’s ports. One estimate showed the military is responsible for 246 more tasks than 15 years earlier, El Economista reported. Claudia Sheinbaum, who will next week succeed AMLO, has backed the military’s increased clout. “For now, Mexico’s generals show no open interest in taking over the country,” The Washington Post’s editorial board wrote earlier this year. “Yet these things have a way of happening incrementally.”

Cuba’s growing crime problem

Gang violence is on the rise in Cuba, which was once hailed by Fidel Castro as “the safest country in the world.” Cuba did have a very low crime rate, admittedly one “achieved through intimidation” and oppression. But the rise of a new drug, químico, and associated gangs, has apparently changed that. Official statistics still say violent crime is rare, but the public does not believe it: “So many young people have been killed this year,” the sister of one murdered youth said. Unusually, Communist Party officials have acknowledged difficulties on state television, although they blame the rise in crime on the US’ economic embargo and imported synthetic opioids.

Exploitation in Kenya’s flower trade

Kenya’s booming flower industry is rife with exploitative labor, a new investigation found. According to the BBC, the country’s $1 billion flower sector — which provides more than 40% of Europe’s flower market — employs 150,000 people across the country, mostly women who toil for six days a week in exchange for $100 a month, a salary that has barely changed in years. The paltry earnings mean that many workers often go hungry or into crippling debt to survive. However, few other job opportunities exist for many of the employees. “If God helps me, I will move on,” one told the BBC.

From David Rubenstein, co-founder and co-chairman of the Carlyle Group and New York Times bestselling author of The American Story and How to Lead, comes The Highest Calling. Rubenstein sits down with the few who have held one of the most important positions in the world: the American presidency. Featuring interviews with and about Joe Biden, Barack Obama, and George W. Bush, as well as acclaimed historians and journalists like Maggie Haberman and Ron Chernow, The Highest Calling offers a rare behind-the-scenes look at the men and moments that have shaped our nation’s highest office. Find a copy today.

A gender equality paradox

Sex differences in academic strengths are greater in more gender-equal countries, new research suggested. Data from 2.5 million young people in 85 countries showed that girls tended to be best at reading, while boys’ greatest strengths were math and science. Counterintuitively, the study found that differences in reading and science were more pronounced in countries such as Finland, which have greater gender equality, than in nations with more traditional gender roles. One researcher said that more liberal countries allow greater freedom of choice, under which “men and women make different decisions.” Another said the research suggested raising the number of women in STEM would need “more than just boosting girls’ math and science skills or advancing gender equality.”

Sahara turning green

Parts of the Sahara Desert are turning green following torrential rainfall across northwestern Africa. Half a year’s worth of rain fell in just a few days in early September, driven by record water temperatures in the Atlantic, causing floods in Chad, Nigeria, Mali, and Niger that killed more than 1,000 people. The Sahara, which usually only sees a few inches of rain a year, saw half a foot in two days, ABC reported, filling lakes that typically are empty. Satellite images showed “pockets of plant life cropping up all over the Sahara,” including shrubs and trees, which normally lie dormant until the arrival of rain.

Where did Mars’ atmosphere go?

Mars’ missing atmosphere may be tied up in its red dust. The red planet’s atmosphere is only about 2% as dense as Earth’s, but evidence of flowing water billions of years ago proves that it must once have been thicker, to keep enough warmth to stop the water from freezing. New research suggests that the surface water trickled down through rocks and set off chemical reactions. Those reactions trapped carbon dioxide in iron-rich minerals, in an oxidation reaction — rust — that created Mars’ distinctive color. To trap all the atmospheric carbon, the red dust layer would have to be nearly a mile deep. The trapped carbon could be “used as an energy source” should Mars be colonized, one researcher said.

• US President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris will hold separate meetings with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
• The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, the latest in the long-running Nintendo video game series, is released on Switch.
• British rock band The Cure release their first new song in 16 years.

The last year in which the US city of Oakland didn’t have a major sports team. The Oakland A’s will today play their last baseball game at the city’s crumbling Coliseum after the team was unable to agree to a deal for a new ballpark with the city’s authorities. From next year, the storied franchise will play in Sacramento, before likely making a move to Las Vegas, where they would join the NFL’s Raiders, also formerly from Oakland. Those moves, as well as the Golden State Warriors’ jump across the bay to San Francisco in 2019, leaves fans in the former pro sports capital of the US heartbroken and dismayed, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Elizabeth Catlett: A Black Revolutionary Artist and All That It Implies at the Brooklyn Museum. Artnet says the new retrospective into the late US great, featuring 200 works from the 1930s to the 2000s, “demonstrates not only this artist’s remarkable versatility, but also how her lifelong devotion to issues much bigger than herself prevented her from quite seeing it.”

• Biden wanted an FDR-sized presidency. Harris is after something else.
• The shifting foundations of Gulf-US ties.
• The data center boom is giving clean energy a jolt.