Flagship

Ukraine strikes Russia with US missiles

Ukraine used US-made long-range missiles to strike Russia for the first time Tuesday, as Moscow lowered its threshold to deploy nuclear weapons. Russian President Vladimir Putin has for months warned that the use of such weapons would effectively put the US and NATO at war with Russia, and the development “offers Putin a significant temptation to escalate,” wrote one expert — though he could hold back in anticipation of US President-elect Donald Trump’s proposed peace initiatives. The increase in hostilities spooked investors who rushed to buy safe-haven currencies, according to Reuters: The Japanese yen and Swiss franc were up 0.8% and 0.3% against the euro respectively, while the Russian ruble fell to a 13-month low against the dollar.

Trump picks banker as commerce sec

US President-elect Donald Trump named Wall Street executive Howard Lutnick as his commerce secretary. If confirmed by the Senate, the billionaire CEO of brokerage Cantor Fitzgerald will be critical in shaping Trump’s protectionist trade policies — particularly those targeting China — and will wield “considerable influence” over the US economy for the next four years, The Washington Post wrote. It’s a “consolation role” for Lutnick, a longtime Trump ally and megadonor, who was fighting for the more high-profile job of treasury secretary, Semafor’s Liz Hoffman wrote. Lutnick, the co-chair of Trump’s transition team, recently told The Wall Street Journal that his experience in hiring Cantor employees after losing more than 600 in the 9/11 attacks qualified him for the transition job.

China’s big cities push housing tax breaks

Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen announced tax breaks in the hope of boosting home sales, as China’s property sector continues to weigh on the country’s economic growth. The “pretty sizeable” reductions in deed tax rates could spur more listings and sales, an analyst told the South China Morning Post, and other Chinese cities are likely to follow suit. The measures come on the heels of Beijing’s biggest ever package to boost its property market, which included cutting outstanding mortgage rates and easing downpayment requirements. Still, “the scale of support has been insufficient,” Goldman Sachs analysts warned: Property sales rose for the first time this year in October, but prices aren’t expected to stabilize until the second half of 2025, and sales are unlikely to steady until 2027.

Delhi pollution sparks outrage

India is taking heat over failures to protect citizens from record-breaking air pollution levels. The toxic smog shrouding New Delhi this week was so bad that the capital’s chief minister declared a “medical emergency.” The Indian government appears “powerless” in the face of the public health catastrophe, The New York Times wrote, with citizens complaining that measures such as halting construction work and blocking some vehicle use ignore the economic realities of lower and middle class citizens who can’t work from home. Doctors are blaming the government for ignoring data on the pollution’s impact on public health, The Wire India reported: “The situation is going from bad to worse,” one physician said. “Now is the time to ask questions from administrators rather than doctors.”

New Zealanders march for Māori rights

Tens of thousands marched through New Zealand’s capital Tuesday, protesting a bill to reshape the country’s founding treaty that critics say would jeopardize Māori sovereignty. While the bill is largely unpopular and unlikely to pass, the protests have evolved into “a celebration of a resurging Indigenous language and identity that colonization had once almost destroyed,” the Associated Press wrote, and the demonstrations reflect a growing solidarity over Indigenous rights from non-Māori residents. Today’s New Zealanders are “more culturally aware, they love their kids learning the Māori language and embracing diversity,” a Māori politician wrote for the New Zealand Herald.

China, Japan block shark fin ban

China and Japan blocked a 16-year multilateral effort to strengthen a ban on shark finning in the Atlantic Ocean. The practice of slicing off a shark’s fin — prized in parts of the world as food or medicine — before throwing the fish back into the ocean is banned in dozens of countries. A US-led, EU-backed measure put before an international fishery organization this week sought to strengthen a ban by requiring that sharks be landed with their fins still attached. But China and Japan, two of the biggest consumers and exporters of shark fin, vetoed the proposal, Politico reported. “We are exasperated that a strong, enforceable shark finning ban has once again been blocked by essentially two countries, despite clear scientific advice,” one conservationist said.

Athlete stripped of medal in 2012 race

An athlete was stripped of her London 2012 silver medal in the 1,500m, becoming the fifth runner to be disqualified from what is considered one of the “dirtiest races in Olympic history.” Russian athlete Tatyana Tomashova originally finished fourth but later took silver after the original winners were disqualified for doping. The London Games have seen a record number of doping disqualifications. For one runner though, her rivals’ disqualifications have been bittersweet: American Shannon Rowbury, who recently received a bronze medal 12 years after she ran the same ill-fated race, said she missed out on endorsement deals she would have otherwise earned at the time. But her competitors’ doping allegations were “the most heartbreaking part,” she told CNN.

The Donald Trump team is building its list of candidates to run financial regulatory agencies who are expected to roll back consumer protections and capital regulations for big banks, Semafor’s Liz Hoffman and Rachel Witkowski scooped. Getting the two mortgage giants, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, “out of government conservatorship… and back into shareholders’ hands has been a long-time goal of conservatives,” they wrote.

Number of untreated diabetics rises

Diabetes rates have doubled worldwide in the last 30 years. New research found that diabetes diagnoses went up from 7% globally in 1990 to 14% in 2022, driven by a surge in the developing world: India had more than a quarter of the 828 million diabetics. The spread suggests that people are living longer, as the disease is associated with too much food rather than too little. But nearly 60% of diabetics over 30 — nearly 450 million people — lack access to medication, the Financial Times reported, despite the availability of cheap off-patent generic drugs. Supply chain issues and the patchiness of pharmaceutical companies’ access schemes leave many countries unable to obtain them. “We’re facing a global diabetes crisis,” one campaigner said.

Americans move to the exurbs

The rise of remote working in the US has driven a mass movement to the “exurbs,” the far outer margins of cities. More people moved to Polk County, Florida — a sparsely populated citrus-growing region between Tampa and Orlando — than any other US county in 2023. Counties beyond the suburbs of other major metropolitan areas, especially in the South, also had some of the fastest-growing populations, the Associated Press reported. It’s an aftereffect of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the Census Bureau, as more people work from home at least part of the week and housing costs rendered inner-city living unaffordable for many.

Methane mystery on Mars

The amount of methane in the Martian atmosphere changes with the seasons, and no one knows why. Hints of a methane anomaly were first noticed by the Mariner missions in the 1970s, and confirmed by the Curiosity rover in 2013. Methane is highly reactive so some chemical process must make it anew each time. It could, the astrophysicist Paul Sutter wrote on Universe Today, be something inorganic, such as water oxidizing certain rocks, but that would mean there is liquid water flowing underground. The exciting prospect, of course, is life: Many Earth microbes produce methane, although it would still imply liquid water. “The only way to answer this is to keep sending missions back to Mars,” said Sutter, “and start digging.”

Nov. 20:

• ASEAN defense talks kick off in Laos.
• Nvidia releases its third-quarter results.
• A documentary about how brands trick customers into constant consumption, Buy Now: The Shopping Conspiracy, premieres on Netflix.

A popular Facebook group dedicated to dangerous staircases captures a fascination with the perilous geometry of descent. The more than 800,000 members of Death Stairs regularly share photos of stairs made from pipe fittings, glass, or slippery cement, with bonus points for hazards such as dark basements or rusting barbed wire: “The more peril in the surrounding space, the better,” The New York Times wrote. Some lurk inside private homes, while others form part of tourist destinations such as a New Zealand cliff face and a Mexican pyramid. Stairs — and their allure — date back to prehistoric times, one expert wrote: “The staircase can be a treacherous as well as a beautiful siren, with many facets to its complex overt nature.”