WHAT’S THIS? The Stringer publishes a news roundup—with a global bent.
What ‘red wave’?
It looked like the Democrats were primed for a precipitous fall in the U.S. midterm elections. Historically, midterms have been rough for incumbents. They were a bucket of cold water for the Barack Obama and George W. Bush presidencies. And this led pundits to predict a “red wave” in which the Republicans would set themselves up to make life miserable for President Joe Biden and his party.
That wave didn’t come, probably thanks to the rollback of federal abortion protections.
While nobody is shocked that political pundits don’t know what’s going on, the results are significant: Despite an economy on the edge of recession, the Democrats picked up a seat in the Senate, which means they can block legislation from the House and remold the judicial branch.
POLITICS and WORLD
COLD WAR CHIC: There’s “no new Cold War,” U.S. President Joe Biden swore after a meeting with his CCP counterpart, Xi Jinping. The closed-door meeting was meant to wind down tensions between the two countries. But one hookup does not a relationship make.
TWO ‘TIL MIDNIGHT: There’s no “nuclear safety zone” in the Russia-Ukraine war. It’s why more than a dozen explosions near the biggest nuclear plant in Europe—Zaporizhzhia, along the Dnieper River—are causing anxiety for the International Atomic Energy Agency.
PLAYING OPTICS: Egypt decided to use this year’s United Nations climate change meeting, COP27, to build up its image. They held the meetings in a fancy resort town, Sharm el-Sheikh. They also set up a pen to cloister protesters in, and also spied on and detained foreign politicians. If they thought that would spiff up their image, they should have thought better. Maybe the World Cup will go their way.
DOUBLE OR NOTHING: On his back foot from the disappointing performance of his acolytes in the midterm elections, former U.S. President Donald Trump announced his 2024 presidential run early. It’s made challengers reluctant to step up, but Trump is weak and some Republicans seem to be pondering a moderation of their message.
ECONOMY and BUSINESS
DECLINE AND FALL: Crypto now has its own “Lehman moment.” The digital currency exchange FTX, one of the biggest names in the space, withered unexpectedly in a couple of days due to “unprecedented” mismanagement, costing investors billions. The company itself, once valued at $32 billion, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and owes more than $3 billion to its creditors. Nationally, the calls for more rigid controls on crypto investing have turned up in volume.
TO PROFIT OR NONPROFIT? The FTX collapse was bad for nonprofits in general, due to the charitable organizations of the company’s (now former) CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, as well as his connection to “effective altruism”—a movement that seeks to use data to understand the efficacy of charitable donations. Bankman-Fried’s downfall has left charities scurrying to replace the donations he promised. It’s also been uncomfortable for the movement—which is now asking if it buoyed Bankman-Fried’s reputation.
DECENTRALIZED SOCIAL MEDIA: With billionaire Elon Musk’s takeover of the social network Twitter, users critical of his politics are eyeing the exits. In place of Twitter, many are turning to the decentralized social media service Mastodon. I doubt it’ll take off, though, because it requires some work to get set up.
GUESS WHO’S BACK: Relatedly, Elon Musk reinstated former President Donald Trump’s—but not Alex Jones’—Twitter account. It’s a bit mixed for Musk’s alleged (and often conflicting) goals of discouraging misinformation and protecting free speech.
IN THE JAILHOUSE NOW: Elizabeth Holmes—who suckered investors for billions with her ominously-named company Theranos, Inc.—was sentenced to more than eleven years for fraud. Crime does pay, it just also costs sometimes.
EDUCATION
DIGITAL PIRACY: The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation shut down Z-Library, a massive “digital repository” for pirated books and academic papers. While illegal, the site was critical for accessing knowledge, especially in places where there might not be public libraries, as shown by Slate’s article about Giir Joseph Henry, a medical student in South Sudan.
ANTI-PRESTIGE: Yale, Harvard and UC Berkeley Law Schools dropped out of the U.S. News Rankings system. The system is a large part of the law profession’s—and higher ed’s—addiction to prestige.
ENVIRONMENT
COP27: If COP27 wasn’t good for Egypt, it also wasn't particularly good for the environment. The meeting’s attendees did agree to a new fund to direct resources to developing countries suffering from climate change. But the deal that was struck, the Sharm el-Sheikh Implementation Plan, was “weak and vague.” Meanwhile, carbon dioxide emissions continue to rise. Perhaps next year’s meeting in Dubai will bear more fruit.
GAS VEHICLES: California—which has both the most people and the largest economy in the U.S.—banned the sale of gas vehicles after 2035. Included on the state’s ballots this November was a provision, Proposition 30, that would have funded the infrastructure to actually pull that off, by taxing income over $2 million. But the provision failed, in part because Governor Gavin Newsom lied about the proposition in ads.
ONE BIG FAMILY: The world’s population exceeded 8 billion. Is it me or is it getting crowded in here?
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