WHAT’S THIS? The Stringer publishes a roundup of news items that you may have missed—with a global bent.
Liz Truss earned the dubious honor of becoming the U.K.’s shortest-ever-serving prime minister.
Sensing opportunity, Boris Johnson quickly cut his vacation short to stand for the seat he just left in disgrace. But Johnson—despite some support from conservative MPs—quickly bowed out. It wouldn’t be, he’s said, the “right thing to do.”
All this notwithstanding, the U.K.’s economy is still in the dirt.
In Other News
POLITICS and WORLD
ARMAGEDDON 2.0: With the proliferation of nuclear weapons, the threat of annihilation began looming eerily in the background of global politics. At the moment, thanks to geopolitical posturing, its shadow is inescapable.
‘ONE CHINA’: China’s consolidation continues after President Xi Jinping secured support for another five years in power. The CCP says it’s “closer than ever in history” to recollecting Taiwan. While good for expansion, keeping Jinping in the country’s top slot did, however, lead foreign investors to jettison Chinese stock—a fact that was elided in China’s newspapers.
LOCK HIM UP: Steve Bannon—the schlubby ex-chief “strategist” for former U.S. President Donald Trump—was sentenced to four months in the slammer for “contempt of Congress.” Thankfully, you don’t get that for feeling disdain for Congress; I looked it up.
WE NEVER TALK: Progressives in Washington sent a letter calling on the Biden Administration to tête-à-tête with Vladimir Putin over the whole invasion of Ukraine thing. Once they realized it was unpopular on social media, they rescinded the letter. Backbone.
Slightly older but still notable
PAY UP: Alex Jones must pay the victims of his “Sandy Hook is a hoax” lies $965 million, a jury found. And that’s not fake news.
EXECUTIVE PRIVILEGE: The president’s discomposed son, Hunter Biden, might cop charges for falsifying federal taxes and lying about being on narcotics when buying a gun. The U.S. Delaware District Attorney David Weiss, appointed under the last president, will decide if charges should be brought, but it’s slow-moving (Original Washington Post reporting paywalled; summarized in CNBC).
NO VACANCIES: DACA was unlawful, according to a federal appeals court’s ruling. The Obama-era program was rigged up for short-term relief—to prevent the deportation of the more than 600,000 people, called “the Dreamers,” who crossed the border when they were children. Newer rulings endorsed a lower court’s decision that blocks new applicants to the program. But also allowed the program to continue temporarily (without new applications).
TOKE UP: President Joe Biden pardoned federal offenses for possession of marijuana and called on states to do the same. Though, the pardon doesn’t cover convictions for selling. So it seems the problem here wasn’t the drug use, but entrepreneurship. Actually, reporting has pointed out, the mass pardon might not lead to the release of a single person.
TECH
FOOTING THE BILL: Elon Musk may be about to purchase Twitter, after all. I doubt it’ll save that social media hellscape, though.
ANTITRUST: The U.S. Federal Trade Commission decided to put out the diet version of filings against Meta’s virtual reality merger. However, at the very end of September, the sexily named Merger Filing Fee Modernization Act sailed through the House. Antitrust experts like Matt Stoller say that it shows that, when cut, corporate power bleeds.
SCIENCE
PLANET DEFENSE: NASA’s DART mission—which crashed a craft into a moonlet asteroid in the Didymos double asteroid system as a test of planetary defense—worked. It successfully altered the astroid’s orbit, NASA says. The planet can rest easy. From asteroids, anyway. Humans are another matter.
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