Flagship

China stocks have best day in 16 years

Chinese stocks rose sharply — their biggest gain since 2008 — on Monday, as investors cheered Beijing’s massive stimulus package. Indian stocks, which have benefited from the anxiety around China’s economy, dropped, while Wall Street had an unusually muted reaction. US traders’ lack of excitement underscored Beijing’s “limited role as an engine for America’s economy” and the sense among analysts that deeper fiscal stimulus is needed to sustain a larger turnaround, Bloomberg noted. Monday’s rally in China, which saw stocks worth about $143 billion trade hands in a 35-minute span, preceded the country’s “golden week” holiday. While local governments will begin distributing vouchers to boost spending, tourism during the typically busy travel period is still expected to be sluggish this year.

Russia set to hike military spending

Russia will drastically increase its military spending in 2025, according to draft budget documents. The planned 23% budget increase to $145 billion will exceed the country’s combined expenditure on education, healthcare, and social policies. The hike confirms that Moscow has switched to a “war footing,” independent Russian outlet The Bell wrote, and that the Kremlin will make the military a top funding priority regardless of when the war in Ukraine ends. President Vladimir Putin recently ordered the army to add 180,000 troops and bring its total active force to 1.5 million, which would make Russia’s military the world’s second largest, after China’s. The budget increase could help pay for those recruits while also avoiding the need for another unpopular conscription push.

Bibi popular at home after Hezbollah strikes

Israel launched what it described as limited raids against Hezbollah in Lebanon on Monday, ahead of a ground invasion that some expect to take place this week. US officials have urged Israel to find a diplomatic solution, even as Israel’s defense minister said the “next phase of the war against Hezbollah will begin soon.” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, meanwhile, is seeing a turnaround in support at home over the country’s successful attacks on Hezbollah. Nearly a year after he was blamed for Israel’s massive security and intelligence failures surrounding Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, “Prime Minister Netanyahu is winning,” Eurasia Group’s Ian Bremmer noted in an analysis. Polls show that if elections were held today, his right-wing party would finish first.

Japan’s new PM takes power

Japan’s new prime minister will be sworn in Tuesday, with plans to call an Oct. 27 snap election, one year earlier than required. Analysts say the unusual move by Shigeru Ishiba, who won a close party leadership race to replace the unpopular Fumio Kishida, is aimed at swiftly uniting his polarized party and giving the opposition less time to prepare. As Ishiba campaigns to win a public mandate in the general election, he’ll face immediate internal and external challenges, especially on the economy. Stocks in Japan tumbled ahead of his swearing-in in what economists described as the “Ishiba shock,” but the yen strengthened, since he is seen as a monetary policy hawk, a Japan politics expert wrote in the Asia Sentinel newsletter.

NKorea smartphone market expands

North Korea’s smartphone market is expanding. At least 10 companies are now selling the devices, with the variety of smartphones more than doubling in the past two years, according to a new report. As the phones have grown in popularity, they’re also increasingly used for mobile payments, following a global trend away from cash. But users are blocked from accessing the internet or making international calls or texts due to software that surveils and restricts the phones’ use, 38 North reported. None of the hardware, however, is made in North Korea: The local smartphone market is dependent on Chinese imports, which jumped after Pyongyang reopened its borders for non-essential imports last year.

US backs lithium production

The US government is backing the domestic lithium industry in order to establish an independent supply. Lithium, a soft, highly reactive metal, is a vital component in batteries, and critical to the energy transition. The US relies on imports, and its domestic lithium industry has been in decline, but major reserves have been discovered, notably in Arkansas, Nevada, and California. Several producers, including ExxonMobil and Albemarle, plan to start producing lithium in the next couple of years, and the Department of Energy has pledged $2 billion to support a Nevada project that aims to produce an initial 40,000 metric tonnes of battery-quality lithium a year, enough to power 800,000 electric vehicles, OilPrice reported.

River raises Everest’s peak

Mount Everest is at least 15 meters (49 feet) taller than it would otherwise be, and is still growing, thanks to a nearby river eroding the ground. Everest is anomalously high, around 750 feet taller than the second-tallest Himalayan mountain. Research showed that the loss of earth and soil from the river gorge has reduced the mass of the Earth’s crust around Everest, causing it to float higher on the semi-liquid mantle below. The process leads the mountain to rise about 2mm (roughly 1/16th of an inch) a year — enough, over the 89,000 years that the river has flowed that way, to raise the mountain by several meters.

No new UK cars have CD players

New cars being made in the UK no longer include a CD player, according to a report that sparked anxiety among music industry groups. CD sales have plummeted compared with their 2000 peak, but increased last year in the US and UK — in part because of the discs’ popularity as merchandise and keepsakes. The British music retailers’ association called on carmakers to add CD players back, citing the recent rebound as evidence that the industry should “never write off a music format.” The industry group invoked Taylor Swift, who has been something of a savior for physical albums thanks to her record-breaking CD and vinyl sales: “Car manufacturers should listen to the Swifties and give the CD another chance.”

Booming pumpkin spice industry

The pumpkin spice latte is now a $1 billion global industry. The coffee with a spice blend of cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and cloves was introduced by Starbucks in 2003 as a seasonal fall special, and instantly became a must-have for the sort of person who wears a sweater over a plaid shirt and waxes lyrical about autumnal colors. Since then, the combination has been used in “candles, beer, lip balms and even dog treats,” the BBC reported, and the market is projected to surpass $2.4 billion by 2031. One manufacturer in Wales said her “Latte Sbies Pwmpen” (Welsh for pumpkin spice latte) candle that she introduced as “a laugh” in 2020 is now a bestseller.

The world’s ‘real tennis’ champion

The “real tennis” champion of the world may not be a household name like Rafael Nadal or Roger Federer, but would likely beat them in a match. Robert Fahey, a 57-year-old British Australian, is among the estimated 10,000 people worldwide who play the ancient version of tennis that originated in France about 800 years ago, The Wall Street Journal wrote. Americans saw the game as a “sport of kings” before it was sidelined by its modern avatar in the 1870s. Today, there are only 10 real tennis courts in the US, and the sport’s rules and equipment bear little resemblance to its successor’s. “The rules are perfect — they’ve been tested over time,” one player said. “But they’re really confusing.”

Oct. 1:

• Democrat Tim Walz and Republican JD Vance face off in the US vice presidential debate.
• Claudia Sheinbaum is sworn in as Mexico’s president.
• The final match of the Japan Open Tennis Championships takes place in Tokyo.

Playwright Ayad Akhtar wants to challenge the notion that artificial intelligence threatens human creativity, even deploying large language models to help write his latest work. McNeal, currently running at the Lincoln Center Theater in New York, marks Robert Downey Jr.’s return to the stage after 40 years, in a role that explores a celebrated novelist’s problematic fascination with the technology that promises to change everything. Asked whether the rapid advance of machine learning represents a creative apocalypse, the play’s director told The Atlantic that to make art is “to participate in something uniquely human” — yet added: “Soon we’ll be having conversations about whether Claude is a better artist than ChatGPT.”

• InfoWars’ victims and enemies consider buying it.
• The Gulf watches Israel shape a new Middle East order.
• Harris stays quiet as California voters threaten to roll back sentencing reforms.