Happy Monday… A new study found that the average Californian would surrender five years of their life in order to keep eating fast food. Well, they DO have In-n-Out so we kinda understand their position.
🇨🇳 China issued its first national drought emergency as extreme temps soar past 104 degrees in dozens of cities. This heat wave has now been going for 70 days straight in the country. Can we still call that a wave?
🚨 According to a new NPR/Ipsos poll, more than half the people in the U.S. think there is an “invasion” of immigrants happening at the southern border. What about the northern border?
📱 Update your Apple products now! Apple says iPhones, iPads, and Macs have a major security flaw that could let hackers take complete control. The way to do this is on your iOS device is to go to your settings menu then tap general and then at the top you'll see software update. If you're on a Mac you'll go to system preferences and click on software upate. Do this now!
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*stock data as of market close, cryptocurrency data as of 5:00 am ET.
While other central banks across the world are raising interest rates to fight rampant inflation, Turkey broke out the scissors Thursday to cut the country’s benchmark interest rate from 14% to 13%.
To be clear, Turkey has a whole lot of rampant inflation to fight. The country’s rate is one of the world’s highest, with government figures putting it at almost 80%. (Economists think it could be a lot higher than that.)
So why the rate cut?
Turkey’s central bank is glued pretty tightly to President Erdogan, who has called interest rates the “mother of all evil.” Erdogan seems laser-focused on growth, despite the consequences.
According to CNBC, “Erdogan instructed the country’s central bank, which analysts say has no independence from him, to consistently slash borrowing rates in 2020 and 2021, even as inflation continued to rise. Central bank heads who expressed opposition were fired; by the spring of 2021, Turkey’s central bank had seen four different governors in two years.”
The Turkish lira lost over half its value after Erdogan/the central bank cut interest rates four times last year. It dropped further on this news, putting the currency near historic lows.
Grocery Store Prices Just Got Worse
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Both China’s President Xi Jinping and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin are planning to head to Bali in November for the Group of 20 summit, host country Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo told Bloomberg. This will be the first G20 meeting since Russia invaded Ukraine/the latest increase in U.S.-China tensions.
Calls from the U.S. and other western countries to disinvite Russia/remove the country from the G20 were ignored, but Jokowi (as Indonesia’s president is known) did listen to another suggestion: he has invited Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky to the meeting. Zelensky is planning to attend.
“Indonesia wants to be friends with everyone,” Jokowi said. “We don’t have problems with any country. Each country will have their own approach. Each leader has their own approach. But what’s needed by Indonesia is investment, technology that will change our society.”
Ok, but Biden+Xi+Putin+Zelensky = one cage match I do not want to see. Is anything actually going to get done at this summit?
34.8%. That is how much time people in the U.S. spent streaming TV in July, up 23% from a year earlier. This is the first time streaming has beat cable TV viewing in history.
500,000+ tons. That is how many crops Ukraine exported in the first half of August from the newly reopened Black Sea ports. That's well below the norm, but it's definitely better than nothing.
$650.5 million. That is how much a federal judge in Ohio ordered Walmart, CVS, Walgreens to pay for selling opioid prescriptions without proper monitoring.
The U.S. postal service recently got a windfall, courtesy the Inflation Reduction Act: $1.29 billion for zero-emission delivery trucks and $1.71 billion for related infrastructure (like chargers).
Great news, right? Well, the USPS announced earlier this year that it would buy 165,000 new trucks, 90% fueled by gas. That prompted rage and lawsuits, so the agency recently scaled that back to 60% gas/40% electric.
And now?
The lawsuits are still happening, because the postal service hasn’t said much of anything about anything.
“We have been monitoring the interest of Congress in funding electrification and should funding be enacted we will assess the impact on our plans,” Kim Frum, senior public relations representative at USPS, told Mother Jones.
Is 100% electric-fueled mail coming to the U.S.? The answer is unclear.
The U.S. National Basketball Association is getting out the vote. For the first time ever, the NBA is taking election day off.
November 7 (election day eve) will be what the NBA is calling a "civil engagement night." All 30 teams will play/hype up the vote that day, which the NBA also hopes they will do in the weeks leading up to the big day.
"The scheduling decision came out of the NBA family's focus on promoting nonpartisan civic engagement and encouraging fans to make a plan to vote during midterm elections," the league said.
Here's a question why is the U.S. still doing elections on Tuesdays? Something to ponder as most of the world does them on weekends when people don't have to take off work. The U.S. ranks dead last in voter turnout amongst the G7 nations, thanks mainly to weekday voting.
What's Trending?
credit: ap
Gary Busey is trending. The U.S. actor was charged with alleged criminal sexual acts committed during New Jersey's annual Monster Mania Convention.
#houseofthedragon is trending because Game of Thrones prequel House of the Dragon premiered Sunday.
What a POS is trending because everyone hates everyone right now.
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