◆ Major U.S. stock indexes ended mixed, with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq losing 0.06% and 0.4%, respectively, and the Dow gaining 0.4%. The U.S. bond market was closed for the Columbus Day holiday. A1
◆ Lawsuits are piling up against Dodgers owner Mark Walter, brought by senior citizens who purchased annuities from his insurance companies. B1
◆ A bitcoin-mining business that appeared left for dead after the collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried's crypto empire is being resuscitated to serve the AI build-out. B1
Meta Platforms released an AI model whose utility will be tested by how much it can improve retention and accelerate adoption of the company's Muse agent. B3
◆ Quantum-computing
company IonQ struck an all-
stock deal to buy closely
held Elisity in a transaction
that values the cybersecurity
firm at up to \$1.3 billion. B5
◆ Dating-app company Bumble is in advanced talks to be taken private in a deal that values it at roughly \$1 billion. B4
♦ Volkswagen's deliveries fell in the third quarter as the German automaker continued to suffer from a deteriorating market in China. B3
♦ China failed to report a recovery in auto sales in September, traditionally the start of peak season. B3
◆ In a legal filing, supermarket chain Albertsons is demanding its top rival Kroger pay it at least \$8 billion after their grocery megadeal imploded two years ago. B1
---
期权交易狂热显示看涨投资者对风险的热忱
市场交易量飙升至每日 7000 亿美元——类似于模因股狂热时期
作者：KRYSTAL HUR 和 HANNAH ERIN LANG
如今，个人投资者并不让任何事情影响他们的情绪。
他们的狂热体现在对期权的疯狂交易中。期权是指允许持有者在特定日期前以设定价格买入或卖出股票的合约。据专门从事期权策略的投资经理 Carrick Lane 称，个股相关期权的交易量近期已达到 2021 年模因股狂热时期的水平，名义交易量约为每日 7000 亿美元。赋予买入权利的看涨期权价格已经超过了那个时期的水平。
♦ Iran is fortifying its defenses, rallying loyalists and threatening a wider and harsher response against the U.S. and its Gulf allies as it prepares for potential American attacks after the midterm elections and seeks to deter them. A1
♦ A suspected plot to attack a U.S.-run military air base in England was “almost certainly” directed by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, British Prime Minister Andy Burnham said. A6
♦ NATO's top military commander sought to steady an anxious Europe by outlining the alliance's new plan to thwart a potential Russian assault along its eastern flank. A8
◆ U.S. economists Robert E. Hall and Michael Woodford were awarded the Nobel Prize for Economic Sciences for their work on the role of household and business expectations in providing the foundations of economic stability. A2
◆ Trump said he is considering firing Kimberly Guilfoyle, his ambassador to Greece, after revelations that she asked a donor to cover personal expenses in the lead-up to her confirmation hearing. A3
counted for more than half of the \$300 million that Trump raised for the new White House ballroom and legacy projects around Washington, a filing indicates. A4
◆ British comedian and actor Russell Brand appeared in a London court for the start of his trial on rape and sexual-assault charges. A6
RAID: Homeland Security Investigations officers carry boxes Monday from the Washington residence of Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) during a search described as part of a criminal investigation. Omar's office called it 'an outrageous abuse of power.' A3
Options- Trading Frenzy Shows Bullish Investors' Zeal for Risk
Market's soaring volumes hit \$700 billion a day—akin to meme-stock mania
BY KRYSTAL HUR
AND HANNAH ERIN LANG
Individual investors aren't letting anything get them down these days.
Their fervor is showing up in frenzied trading of options, or contracts that allow holders to buy or sell a stock at a set price, by a certain date. Volumes in options tied to individual stocks have recently reached levels seen during the meme-stock mania of 2021, about \$700 billion of notional volume a day, according to Carrick Lane, an investment manager specializing in options strategies. The prices of call options, which give the right to buy, have eclipsed levels seen during that time.
A new generation of individual investors discovered the markets during the post-Covid rally, and by early 2021 many amateur traders were pushing into more complicated, and often riskier, bets. A boom in stock options and other derivatives was under way.
Those markets are now abuzz with retail activity once again, and Wall Street knows the reason: Individual investors are looking past rising interest rates, \$100 oil prices and war in the Middle East. They are focusing on strong corporate earnings and are as comfortable rolling the dice on volatile markets as they were back when GameStop, Roaring Kitty and AMC Entertainment were the talk of Reddit forums.
Bullishness among individual investors, as measured by the percentage who expect stock prices to rise over the next six months, reached 40.3% for the week ended Oct. 7, according to the latest survey from the American Association of Individual Investors. That is the highest level since mid-July and comparable to levels seen in 2021.
Many, like 41-year-old Ku-nal Berry, are buoyed by the success of the artificial-intelligence trade and optimistic about the technology's poten-Please turn to page A2
◆ Heard on the Street: How to look at a narrow rally..... B10
FICO 受竞争对手崛起打击
FICO 信用评分长期以来在抵押贷款承销决策中发挥着关键作用。现在，监管机构和贷款机构已允许使用竞争对手 VantageScore。这一旨在打破 Fair Isaac 对抵押贷款市场垄断的举措，导致其股价今年下跌了约 60%。B1
📄 Original Section
Iran Preps For More War Amid Trump's Threats
Regime, convinced the U.S. is ready to strike, rallies Iranians, fortifies nuclear sites
BY BENOIT FAUCON
Iran is fortifying its defenses, rallying loyalists and threatening a wider, harsher response against the U.S. and its Gulf allies as it prepares for potential American attacks after the midterms and seeks to deter them.
Iranian officials have warned publicly and in private conversations with regional officials that the Islamic Republic will respond with further escalation across the Middle East if the U.S. launches new strikes.
Satellite images show Iran is strengthening sensitive locations, including nuclear sites and border areas, to make them more resilient to attacks. The government is also preparing Iranians for renewed war, sending paramilitary forces to read war stories to kindergartners, advertising training in firing shoulder-mounted antiaircraft missiles and holding rallies.
Iran has little ability to defend against attacks from advanced U.S. jets, high-altitude bombers or cruise missiles, giving it an incentive to try to deter such attacks with threats. The belligerent tone also serves as a distraction from the deepening economic misery Iranians are experiencing as the U.S. tightens sanctions and pressures airlines not to fly to the country, tightening the blockade.
"The war footing is serving them well for now due to an impasse on many fronts—dip-Please turn to page A6
FICO credit scores have long played a critical role in mortgage-underwriting decisions. Now regulators and lenders have opened the door to using a rival, VantageScore. The move to break Fair Isaac's hold over the mortgage market has sent its stock down about 60% this year. B1
Disability benefit claims surge, but leaders struggle to make cuts
BY MAX COLCHESTER AND DAVID LUHNOW
LIVERPOOL, England—Catherine Wieland got on Britain's welfare rolls in 2021. With a history of emotional trauma, she was too anxious to go outside or carry out simple tasks like washing herself, she told the government.
Soon, she was receiving about £700, or \$1,000, a month in disability benefits. And, it turns out, going outside quite a bit.
Using a taxpayer-subsidized program for those with disabilities, Wieland paid a small deposit for free use of a BMW, which she used to regularly visit the hair salon, dine out, attend a pride parade and visit an amusement park. According to court reports in her fraud conviction, she also flew to Cancún, Mexico.
Wieland's case is an extreme example of a new reality in the U.K.: Disability payouts are no longer just for those most in need; they've become a financial crutch for a swath of the population as wages stagnate and prices rise.
It's blowing up Britain's welfare bill, hamstring its politicians and imperiling its long-term financial stability.
Please turn to page A10
目录
📄 Original Section
First-Class Amenity Kits Are Now Holy Grail Collectibles \* \* \*
Travel enthusiasts accrue free toiletry pouches by the dozens; ‘I love every single one’
BY VICTORIA ALBERT
Like most New Yorkers, Andrew Lim doesn't have much space in his apartment.
The e-commerce specialist shares a tight one-bedroom with his husband in Manhattan. But there will always be room for one prized possession.
sion: His collection of about 200 airline amenity kits, the travel-sized toiletry pouches that come free with first- and business-class seats on long-haul flights. Lim, a travel
Lim, a travel content creator, has spent decades accumulating the kits. After flying more than 3 million miles, his collection includes rare finds like United Airlines' 'Star Wars' collaboration and newer offerings like China Airlines' partnership with Marc Jacobs.
Gold status
He keeps them all tucked away in a closet—out of sight of his husband, who isn't as keen on the enterprise. But sometimes, he can't resist taking them out for a trip down memory lane.
"He thinks I'm crazy," said Lim, 51.
For most fliers, amenity kits are a quick fix for the annoyances of even business-class travel: A sleep mask to darken the cabin; lip balm and lotion to help with dry air; socks to find a little more com-
fort. But for the rare travel enthusiast, they are so much more: a way to memorialize a favorite trip or claim a piece of airline history.
Devotees collect them by the dozens, even hundreds. They show them off alongside Pleaseturn to page 412
Hope Swells in Venezuela For Oil Industry's Revival
PERSONAL JOURNAL
PERSONAL JOURNAL
Is your grown child pulling away? Look for the early signs of estrangement. A11
BUSINESS & FINANCE
Tom Cruise was going after a best actor Oscar. Then 'Digger' flopped. B1
BY KEJAL VYAS
CABIMAS, Venezuela—An oil gusher discovered more than 100 years ago gave birth to Venezuela's energy industry near this once-booming city on the shores of Lake Maracaibo. Today, Cabimas is at the center of the U.S. effort to resurrect the sector.
This city of 350,000 resembles an oil-industry graveyard. Mangled drill towers and collapsing offshore platforms are visible as far as the eye can see. Hardened globs of crude cling to fishing nets pulled from the lake, and natural gas gurgles up from busted underwater pipelines. The lake's shores are black with petroleum.
Nearby, children play baseball between leaky pump jacks that often stop working because of power outages that last up to 12 hours a day.
Many residents here said they can't wait for U.S. investors to arrive and start plowing money into rebuilding the country's dilapidated oil infrastructure. Many remember the boom years when oil workers enjoyed housing provided by international oil companies, along with neighborhoods with swimming pools, sports clubs and golf courses, and a lake with clean water and healthy marine life.
The question they are asking is: Can the U.S. bring the good times back?
“God willing, the foreigners will come back soon and we’ll have a better quality of life,” said José Medina, a fisherman with five children. But he is worried it will take a long time. “It feels like we’re neither moving forward nor backward.”
The decaying industry here reflects two decades of mismanagement under late President Hugo Chávez and his successor Nicolás Maduro, whom the U.S. captured in a raid in January and is prosecuting in New York on drug-trafficking charges, which Maduro denies. Industry executives and experts said residents' fears are well-founded: Reviving Vene-
Please turn to page A10
Military spending share of GDP
CAPITAL ACCOUNT | By Greg Ip
两名美国人获得诺贝尔经济学奖
奖项委员会在斯德哥尔摩宣布诺贝尔经济学奖得主。
JONATHAN NACKSTRAND / 作者：保罗·汉农（PAUL HANNON）
两名美国经济学家罗伯特·霍尔（Robert E. Hall）和迈克尔·伍德福德（Michael Woodford）因在研究家庭和企业预期如何为经济稳定奠定基础方面所做的工作，被授予诺贝尔经济学奖。
诺贝尔委员会重点提到了伍德福德 2003 年的著作《利率与价格：货币政策理论基础》（Interest and Prices: Foundations of a Theory of Monetary Policy），认为这是概述基于他与霍尔研究而建立的新框架的关键著作。“我非常激动，”伍德福德说，“这是一个巨大的荣誉，令人惊喜。”
Projected fiscal deficit or surplus as share of GDP, 2026 $^{†}$
\*Excluding production abroad by Danish companies, growth would be around 2%
†Includes central, state and local governments. Standardized measure, which may differ from national fiscal authorities.
Sources: Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (military spending); National central bank (projected growth); OECD September Outlook (fiscal deficit/surplus)
Sweden's central bank has been worrying about what cashless consumers would do if an emergency such
as a Russian cyberattack took down the electrical or communications grid.
And so as of July, Swedish consumers can buy essential goods using their Mastercard and Visa cards without a network connection. The central bank (the Riksbank) wants to go further by enabling offline purchases with Swish, a local mobile payments system that bypasses the Visa and Mastercard networks altogether.
“What this whole geopolitical situation has brought about is that you need to be redundant in your operations,” the governor of the Riksbank, Erik Thedéen, explained in an interview.
"If we look on our payment system, it happens to be that we have two credit cards that are from the same country, the U.S.," he said. "I think we should keep that in mind."
The initiative, in its own small way, shows how much this corner of the world has changed. Few countries thrived as much from globalization and the end of the Cold War as the Nordics—Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland and Iceland.
That world is gone. Russia threatens their territory, China threatens their markets, and they can no longer count on the U.S. to defend either. A visit to Denmark and Sweden showed me how they are pivoting to this reality: sinking more money and manpower into defense; tackling vulnerabilities in payment systems, supply chains and trade relations; and integrating their economies, defense industries and militaries more tightly with each other and Europe.
Far from paying a price, they seem to be thriving, an encouraging sign for the rest of the world.
Few members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization have responded as energetically to President Trump's demand to shoulder more of their own defense as the Nordics. Last year, Denmark and Norway each spent more than the U.S. on defense as a share of GDP, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. A decade ago they spent a third as much. Sweden and Finland aren't far behind.
As notable has been the political consensus behind the buildup. In elections in Denmark in March and Sweden last month, parties on the left and right, including the far-right anti-immigration parties, supported the military boost.
The reason: Russia looms across the Baltic Sea. The Danish Defense Intelligence Service has concluded that after a ceasefire in Ukraine, Russia would be ready to hit the Baltics within two years, and able to wage large-scale war in Europe within five, assuming NATO is slow to re-arm and the U.S. doesn't help.
“People know that, so they know why [rearmament] is so crucial,” said Flemming Moller Mortensen, a member of parliament with the Social Democratic Party, which leads the governing coalition.
The change in mindset shows in more mundane ways. Just as Sweden has made sure payment cards work if the
grid goes down, Denmark has asked households to keep three days' worth of essentials on hand, including food, water, medicine and a solar or battery-powered radio.
Young adults face the prospect of being drafted. Sweden reinstated conscription in
2018 and will call up 9,000 recruits this year, compared with 3,500 in 2018. It is debating lifting the prohibition on conscripts serving outside Sweden. Denmark has made women eligible and extended conscripts' service to 11 months from four.
Trump's lukewarm commitment to NATO and efforts to annex Danish-ruled Greenland (shelved under an agreement with Denmark last month) woke Danes and Swedes up to their dependence on U.S. technology for security: Patriots for missile defense, Palantir for police and military AI, even Microsoft in desktop software. Like most of Europe, Denmark struggles to compete with Silicon Valley on innovation. Startups such as Zendesk and Unity often move their headquarters to the U.S.
"The ownership of technologies has become a factor in all conflicts," said Martin Lidegaard, Danish minister of business and competitiveness. While the U.S. is still Denmark's most important business partner, "we need to ensure...that we will not be depending on American technologies."
Denmark has taken small steps—such as making drones for Ukraine with Ukrainian expertise—to build a defense base. Lidegaard plans to unveil a more ambitious strategy for stimulating defense production.
While Sweden has a substantial defense industry, it is pushing joint procurement with European allies and Canada to lessen dependence on the U.S. It is buying frigates from France, and France is buying the GlobalEye radar surveillance plane from Sweden's Saab. Canada, which makes GlobalEye's airframe, is weighing a purchase.
The U.S. remains their main market, but incremental growth will increasingly come from elsewhere, helped by free trade pacts the European Union has signed.
“We can trade with Canada today more easily than with the United States,” said Lars Sandahl Sorensen, head of Dansk Industri, Denmark’s main business association. “We have heavy investment into Australia now in the green transition.”
And they are deepening cooperation with each other. Lidegaard and his Nordic counterparts just announced a Nordic Growth Alliance to promote cooperation in sectors such as quantum technology, data centers and space, while reducing red tape.
Elsewhere, the transition to a less open, more dangerous world has been costly. Military spending is contributing to the fiscal crisis now engulfing France. A trade war with the U.S. has laid Canada's economy low. German politics have been convulsed by the rise of a right-wing party.
Denmark and Sweden are coping better in part thanks to lessons learned from the past. In the 1990s Sweden endured bank failures, soaring deficits and unemployment, and interest rates that briefly hit 500%.
“Everything that you see that you think is good in Swedish economic policy, is very much a child of the 1990s crisis,” said the Riksbank’s Thedéen. That includes tough rules on deficits, an independent central bank, and a pension system that indexes retirement to lengthening lifespans. It has made it difficult for politicians to be fiscally profligate, he said.
Denmark recently has run surpluses. Any country afraid of turning into France could do worse than to study Denmark and Sweden.
The prize committee announcing the winners of the Nobel for economics in Stockholm.
JONATHAN NACKSTRAND/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
BY PAUL HANNON
Two U.S. economists, Robert E. Hall and Michael Woodford, have been awarded the Nobel Prize for Economic Sciences for their work on the role of household and business expectations in providing the foundations for economic stability.
Hall is a professor of economics at Stanford University, while Woodford holds the same position at Columbia University. The 12 million Swedish kronor prize, equivalent to roughly \$1.3 million, will be shared equally.
Policies first proposed by John Maynard Keynes in the 1930s to stabilize the economy when it is either running too cold or too hot were effective until the 1970s, when they proved unable to respond to a series of energy shocks.
The Nobel organization said the work of Hall and Woodford helped to provide a framework for understanding why those policies failed, and emphasized the importance for governments and central banks of communicating clearly with households and businesses about their plans and their reasons for intervening.
"The understanding of the people making decisions about spending, their expectations of what policy is likely to be like in the future is crucial to the effects of policy," Woodford told reporters.
The Nobel committee highlighted Woodford's 2003 book "Interest and Prices: Foundations of a Theory of Monetary Policy" as the key work that outlined the new framework founded on his research and that of Hall. "I'm elated," Woodford said. "It's a tremendous honor, it's a surprise."
Hall also described the award as a surprise. “I’ve spent my career trying to understand how the economy works, following interesting questions wherever they led,” he said. “When I thought I had a new idea, the next step was to find out whether it was actually new, whether it was right, and whether it mattered."
One key example of the new approach is the use of forward guidance by central banks, in which they offer businesses and households a clear understanding of how interest rates are likely to change.
Forward guidance was widely adopted by central banks following the global financial crisis, when their key rates had already been lowered to zero and further stimulus was needed to avoid a slide into deflation. By assuring households and businesses that borrowing costs would remain low for a significant period, central banks hoped to stimulate borrowing for investment.
“Making more explicit statements about the likely future path of interest-rate policy was an important part of the response in the years from 2009 onward and I think it did contribute to better stabilization,” Woodford said.
That form of forward guidance, however, has fallen out of favor in the 2020s, where the global economy has been buffeted by supply shocks that make it difficult to make even tentative commitments about the future rate path. Federal Reserve Chairman Kevin Warsh is a critic of the use of forward guidance.
The work of Hall and Woodford also emphasizes the importance of credibility for the success of central bank and government policies. Their work suggests that if they believe central banks will raise their key rates enough to tame inflation, households and businesses are less likely to behave in ways that reinforce the move in prices.
美国观察
讣告
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📄 Original Section
Options Show Zeal For Risk
Continued from Page One
Source: Carrick Lane
Continued from Page One
tial to transform business and
the economy.
Note: Notional volumes
"The growth is there," the Los Angeles based consultant said. Berry has chased gains in megacap tech names including Nvidia, Amazon and SpaceX. "The short-term volatility—you've just got to have the stomach for it," Berry said.
The meme-stock craze might have faded as many of the era's favorite stocks eventually lost their luster. But individual investors' enthusiasm for the markets has only grown stronger over the past five years. This cohort kept "buying the dip" even during
April 2025, when a global trade war rattled pro investors and triggered a deep sell-off. They helped crown a new class of AI darlings and piled into the SpaceX initial public offering. And they are still buying today.
On Monday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.4%, or about 196 points. The S&P 500 fell less than 0.1% and the Nasdaq composite lost 0.4%.
In another sign investors are feeling much as they did in 2021, more traders are comfortable betting on short-term price moves.
More than half of current single-stock options volumes are concentrated in contracts less than two weeks away from expiring, according to John Marshall, partner at Carrick Lane.
One reason behind their persistent optimism is strong corporate profits, which have helped drive stocks to repeated records this year.
\$800 billion
Companies in the S&P 500 are expected to report earnings growth of about 30% for the third quarter from the prior year, according to FactSet. For 2026, profits are expected to jump 33%.
Individual investors have grown a bit more selective in
2026, analysts said, opting to throw their weight behind a few high-conviction names over buying broader market dips. And retail activity slowed during the summer, following an explosive rally in shares of memory stocks and chip makers that peaked in June.
But that summer cooldown historically tends to reverse in October, according to data from Citadel Securities—and DIY traders could be even more plugged in through the rest of the year.
Not everyone is all-in on derivatives, either.
But even more risk-averse investors are choosing to stay in the market.
The top position bought by Charles Schwab clients in September was an exchange-traded fund tracking the Dow Jones U.S. Dividend 100 Index. That is the first time an ETF has taken that spot since Schwab began collecting that data in 2021. Clients also snapped up call options tied to ETFs last month, according to Schwab.
“It’s a little bit more cautious optimism,” said Joe Mazzola, head trading strategist at Charles Schwab. “They’re definitely looking to buy dips.”
---
《绝命毒师》明星 RJ Mitte 逝世，享年 34 岁
当局及其代表表示，《绝命毒师》（Breaking Bad）演员兼残疾权利倡导者 RJ Mitte 周一去世，享年 34 岁。
卡梅伦县治安法官辛迪·希诺霍萨（Cyndi Hinojosa）宣布，患有脑瘫的 Mitte 在其位于德克萨斯州布朗斯维尔的住所（据其认为）去世。她无法提供死因，但将进行尸检。
"Breaking Bad" actor and disability-rights advocate RJ Mitte died Monday at age 34, authorities and his representatives said.
Cameron County Justice of the Peace Cyndi Hinojosa declared Mitte, who had cerebral palsy, dead at what she believed was his home in Brownsville, Texas. She was unable to provide a cause, but an autopsy will be performed.
Actress Selma Blair was taken into custody after a flight from Los Angeles to New York for being physically abusive and injuring two flight attendants, authorities said. Blair, 54, was taken into custody Sunday night at New York's JFK airport. In a statement, a Blair representative said she had a medical emergency that led to the alleged conduct. She was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2018.
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Homeland Security immigration probe is cited; she attacks 'abuse of power'
BY SADIE GURMAN
AND JOHN MCCORMICK
WASHINGTON—Federal agents searched the Washington, D.C., home of Rep. Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.) Monday as part of a criminal investigation, people familiar with the matter said.
Agents from Homeland Security Investigations conducted the search, the people said. Details of the investigation couldn't be determined, but one of the people said it was long-running and immigration-related.
Omar is one of the original members of what is known as the Squad, a group of progressive congresswomen of color known for challenging Democratic leadership and being vocal critics of President Trump.
The Justice Department said the agents executed a court-authorized search in the District of Columbia area but declined to elaborate.
Omar's office issued a statement objecting to the search.
“This raid by Trump’s DHS is an outrageous abuse of power and an unprecedented escalation in the weaponization of federal law enforcement to target political enemies. For a decade, Donald Trump has relentlessly targeted Congresswoman Ilhan Omar with inflammatory rhetoric, repeatedly putting a target on her back. Now, those attacks have escalated to a pointless federal raid,” the statement said.
The search took place just three weeks before November's elections in which Omar is running for a fifth term. The Justice Department traditionally seeks to avoid public investigative steps involving political candidates within 60 days of an election, to avoid the appearance of partisan influence.
Trump said federal officials are looking “very carefully” at Omar.
"I've always found her to be totally crooked," Trump said. "She's a terrible person. Just a complainer. She comes from a country that is a non-country, and then she comes over here and she complains about our Constitution."
Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin told a conservative podcaster in September that there was a continuing federal investigation into Omar, who he said “married her brother to try to bring him into the United States.” She has denied that claim for more than a decade.
Omar, 44 years old, has long been a target for attacks from Trump and conservatives.
Born in Mogadishu, Somalia, in 1982, Omar arrived in the U.S. in the 1990s. Her family moved to Minnesota as she entered high school.
Omar shares her Washington home with her husband, Tim Mynett.
The congresswoman was first elected in 2018 from a heavily Democratic district that includes Minneapolis.
A sliver of meadow and trees on the edge of Yosemite National Park has become an unlikely battleground over whether development is allowed in national parks.
Developer Jeff Pori and the National Park Service signed a preliminary agreement in which he would transfer a piece of California property in exchange for about an acre on the western boundary of Yosemite National Park's nearly 750,000-acre expanse.
The National Park Service recently signed a preliminary agreement for a land swap with a Las Vegas developer. Under the arrangement, the federal government would give about an acre on the western boundary of Yosemite National Park's nearly 750,000-acre expanse, nestled in California's Sierra Nevada.
That would allow developer Jeff Pori to build a short road into the park from his adjacent property. Without it, he said, guests at the rustic resort Pori is planning would have to drive about 45 minutes along winding dirt roads to reach the park's main entrance.
In exchange, Pori agreed to transfer to the National Park Service a similarly valued piece of property located elsewhere in California. He said his project would add needed lodging to the popular park, allowing more people to enjoy it.
"I remember a lot of hiking and a lot of streams and rivers around there," said Pori, who grew up in the Bay Area and camped in Yosemite with friends and family as a child. "It's just like heaven, really."
News of the proposed land exchange set off a fury among conservationists, former Yosemite officials and many members of the public. Cicely Muldoon, a former superintendent of Yosemite, said the swap would set a dangerous precedent by signaling that protected natural spaces can be bartered away to private interests.
“It’s not a piece of land that you use for real-estate transactions,” Muldoon said.
Pori's attorney, Lanny Davis, said he has received so many threatening notes that he hit his iPhone's limit for blocking email addresses.
The blowback shows how fiercely protective Americans are of their national parks—particularly the “crown jewels” such as Yosemite, best known for its waterfalls—and how some consider any move toward private development to be crossing a line.
The Trump administration has a different view. It has been willing to consider opening protected federal land to private developers and businesses.
Last year, the administration formed a task force to identify federal land that could be used to build affordable housing in an effort to address the nation's housing shortage.
Federal agencies are also pursuing proposed land exchanges with private landowners. In Texas, a federal judge recently allowed a proposed land swap between the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Elon Musk's SpaceX to proceed.
In Georgia, the National Park Service has signed preliminary agreements to give federal land to two private landowners on Cumberland Island, a federally protected barrier island wilderness, in exchange for privately owned parcels in ecologically sensitive areas.
Some land exchanges involving national parks have happened over the years, including an agreement with a public utility in the Everglades and a swap that allowed the island of St. John to build a public school on a parcel of the Virgin Islands National Park.
But conservationists say land exchanges have historically been used only to expand the boundaries of federal parkland.
"Now they're using that same authority to break off pieces of the park to benefit a private developer," said Ed Stierli, vice president of government affairs for the nonpartisan advocacy group National Parks Conservation Association.
In 2024, Pori purchased 83 acres just outside the boundary of Yosemite. The property, known as Hazel Green Ranch, is an undeveloped parcel of meadowland.
Pori, through his real-estate firm Kingsbarn Realty Capital, wants to build something similar to what Hazel Green Ranch's former owner had proposed: a 150-room lodge and cabins scattered around the meadow's perimeter.
But for the business to work, he needs to build a 700-foot-long road across federal land connecting his property to the Big Oak Flat Road leading into Yosemite.
Pori knew getting approval would be an uphill battle. He is friends and business partners with Russell Geyser, the son of Hazel Green Ranch's previous owner, Lewis Geyser, who previously lost a five-year legal battle over the issue.
Pori said he first asked Yosemite officials two years ago for an easement that would allow him to build his proposed road and was told “no.” He and Davis then met last year with officials from the Interior Department, who offered a possible solution: a land exchange.
Critics have pointed to Pori's political contributions, which total \$4,700, to Republican campaigns and candidates, including Trump, as evidence that his request may have received special consideration.
The Interior Department's press office said there was no political pressure to reach a predetermined outcome on the exchange, which is still far from finalized. Pori and Davis said they never sought political favors. Even if the land exchange moves forward, Pori faces a long process before he can get approval for his proposed development.
“I bought this with absolutely no guarantee,” he said. “I knew that going in.”
President Trump said he is “looking at” firing Kimberly Guilfoyle and that he “is not happy” with his ambassador to Greece after revelations that she asked a donor to cover personal expenses in the lead-up to her confirmation hearing.
The Wall Street Journal first reported text messages of Guilfoyle asking Trump donor Eric Deters to wire \$100,000 to her American Express account last year. "It won't show up anywhere if you wire money to American Express,"
she wrote on Signal. "Please."
Deters, a former congressional Kentucky candidate, had previously paid Guilfoyle in speaking fees. He made a similar \$200,000 payment to Donald Trump Jr. and \$100,000 to Eric Trump. He refused, however, to pay her credit card bill.
The State Department Office of the Inspector General is now investigating whether Guilfoyle received gifts or favors from private businessmen. The Wall Street Journal later reported on audio of the diplomat boasting that Greek business magnates had paid for her flight to Paris along with luxurious hotel accommodations.
Asked on Monday about the reports of potential misconduct by Guilfoyle and whether he might fire her, Trump said, "Well, we're looking at it. Yeah, we're not happy."
Trump administration officials spent the weekend discussing whether Guilfoyle should continue on as ambassador in light of the allegations. Some floated asking the envoy to voluntarily relinquish her post to save Trump from the embarrassment of having to fire her, according to a senior administration official familiar with the deliberations.
A spokesman for Guilfoyle didn't return requests for comment.
Jesse Binnall, a lawyer for Guilfoyle, previously told The Journal that the ambassador disputed the authenticity of the messages showing her asking Deters to pay her credit-card bill. He said she had been paid to speak at events before her nomination and “was owed a balance for traveling to and supporting these patriotic events.” Deters said he didn’t owe Guilfoyle any balance.
Guilfoyle was previously engaged to Donald Trump Jr., the eldest son of the president.
Rep. Don Beyer (D., Va.) called for Guilfoyle to be fired and “if she broke the law, which seems highly likely, prosecuted.” California Rep. Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the House oversight committee, in a letter to Guilfoyle said the reported conduct “raises serious public corruption and national security concerns” and requested she provide financial records and copies of her communications with certain government officials.
Left, drivers in August; right, Margarita Peñalosa says the cost of driving has doubled since 2017.
FROM LEFT: MIKE BLAKE/REUTERS, MARGARITA PEÑALOSA
BY PAUL KIERNAN
LOS ANGELES—When Margarita Peñalosa began driving for Uber and Lyft in 2017, eight hours a day was enough to cover living expenses and send cash to family in Colombia. Now she said it takes 12-hour days.
"The cost of driving is twice what it was when I started," said Peñalosa, who is 46.
Her frustrations explain why she and more than 50,000 California ride-share drivers recently signed cards to join the newly formed California Gig Workers Union. Organizers have told drivers the union could help them secure more take-home pay in one of the nation's least affordable states, where the country's highest gasoline prices and a growing fleet of driverless taxis undercut gig-work economics.
The union marks the biggest U.S. effort yet to organize a workforce that numbers in the millions nationwide. Ride-share drivers set their own schedules, giving them flexibility to care for children or work other jobs. But since they are classified as independent contractors rather than employees, gig workers lack traditional labor protections in most of the U.S. Those include minimum-wage laws, workers' compensation and collective-bargaining rights.
Instead of an hourly wage,
Uber and Lyft drivers are paid by the ride. To receive trip requests, they must be “online” with the ride-share app. Drivers are offered upfront rates determined by the platforms’ proprietary algorithms and must learn to quickly distinguish worthwhile trips from low-paying ones.
They don't get paid for time spent behind the wheel waiting for trip requests or driving back from a distant drop-off with an empty back seat.
More mostly Democratic cities and states are extending new labor protections for gig workers. Massachusetts certified the nation's first union for ride-share drivers in May, a few months ahead of California. Illinois could soon follow after Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed a law in August that will allow Uber and Lyft drivers to unionize.
California and Massachusetts also guarantee drivers a minimum wage based on the time they spend actively driving passengers, though the rest of their time remains uncompensated.
In Oregon, Portland's city council considered a proposal this year to cap the “take rate,” or share of a passenger's fare that goes to Uber and Lyft, at 20%. New York City, Washington state and Minnesota have adopted rules guaranteeing drivers earn a minimum amount per mile.
Drivers pay vehicle-related expenses, including insurance, repair and maintenance costs that have all outpaced inflation in recent years. And they are hit by gasoline prices that are up more than 50% this year nationwide. California drivers are filling up at about \$6.31 a gallon for regular, the highest average of any state, AAA said.
Lyft declined to comment on driver pay. An Uber spokesman said the company's drivers earn more than \$34 an hour in California "when actively working"—meaning the time between accepting a ride and dropping off a passenger—an increase of 17% since 2019.
After factoring in their operating costs and the time they spend online but not actively serving customers, several ride-share drivers in Los Angeles said their actual hourly earnings often fall below the state's \$16.90 minimum wage. "The gas is killing me," said Artur Gevorkyan, 46, who has been driving for Uber since 2015.
He earned \$1,006 before taxes and expenses for about 22 hours of active driving time in one of his better recent weeks, according to a review of his pay statement. Measured by active driving time, that means he was grossing nearly \$45.50 an hour. But after including 30 additional hours he spent online for Uber, his pretax income for that same week would come out to less than \$19.50 an hour.
His expenses include a \$600 monthly payment on his 2019 Infiniti QX60, nearly \$800 every six months for the insurance and close to \$70 for gasoline on a typical 250-mile day.
Gridwise, an analytics platform used by hundreds of thousands of Uber and Lyft drivers, estimates that average gross pay nationwide was \$24.38 an online hour in the second quarter. That was up 7.3% from a year earlier but down about 10% from 2021.
Uber and Lyft haven't fought the unionization push partly because the California bill that allowed drivers to unionize was part of a legislative bargain that reduced the ride-share companies' insurance costs.
AARON SCHWARTZ/GETTY IMAGES
Top donors to the 'anti-Aipac' super PAC Contributions to candidates and political committees
A felled tree is seen at East Potomac Golf Links on Saturday. As many as 430 trees had been removed despite a court order.
作者：Brian Schwartz, Annie Linskey 和 Theo Francis
这些捐赠者的身份并未包含在国家广场信托基金（Trust for the National Mall）的公开申报文件中。该信托基金是一家历史悠久的非营利组织，白宫此前也利用该组织管理为凯旋门和玫瑰园筹集的资金。每位捐赠者的捐款金额在 1000万美元 和 2500万美元 之间。
Judge Blasts Administration For Felling Golf-Course Trees
BY LOUISE RADNOFSKY
An angry federal judge overseeing litigation challenging President Trump's plan to overhaul a Washington, D.C. public golf course said the administration violated her instructions by cutting down hundreds of trees around East Potomac Golf Links on short notice over the weekend.
U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes, who had previously warned the administration not to take irreversible steps on the project without telling her, on Monday temporarily barred further tree removal, and warned the government that she would initiate contempt proceedings for the slightest violation.
She also demanded to hear from three Interior Department officials under oath about plans the government made for the removals in the days before it told the court about them late Friday. Workers began taking down trees Saturday morning, and Reyes yelled at the suggestion from a Justice Department lawyer that as many as 430 trees had been removed.
“I have given the government every single benefit of the doubt that it would not do what it has done,” the Biden-nominated judge said during the three-hour hearing.
“What has happened has cost the government all of its credibility” in the case, she said.
By the end of the hearing, Reyes questioned “whether or not I’ve been lied to.”
Justice Department lawyer Marissa Piropato said the tree removal was part of a long-standing maintenance plan and was unconnected to any golf course project. “This is not a renovation, your honor,” she said.
The East Potomac facility has been open for more than a century, offering the public affordable green fees in a picturesque setting close to Washington's famous monuments.
Trump has described the facility as run down and talked for months about redeveloping it, with an eye toward creating a course that could host major golf tournaments. He previously said the renovation would begin in September.
In court papers filed over the weekend, the administration said the project “remains at an early and conceptual stage.”
The DC Preservation League sued earlier this year, raising several legal arguments, including that the project raised environmental concerns and exceeded the president's authority. The administration said its actions were legally compliant and argued the lawsuit was premature.
Trump has raced through several projects in the nation's capital, including the building of a White House ballroom. Courts have struggled to keep up.
Reyes in previous hearings expressed concern that the Trump administration could move quickly on the golf course renovation and then tell her it was too late to “stop the trains.”
The judge during those hearings said the government needed to inform her before taking major actions.
Ten megadonors accounted for more than half of the \$300 million that President Trump raised for the new White House ballroom and legacy projects around Washington, according to a new filing from the nonprofit he and his allies are using to take in the money.
The identities of the donors, who contributed between \$10 million and \$25 million apiece, weren't included in the public filing by the Trust for the National Mall, a long-established nonprofit which the White House has also used to manage funds it raised for the triumphal arch and the Rose Garden.
The annual filing shows the trust recorded \$320 million in contributions and grants last year, up from less than \$10 million in 2024. Three contributors gave \$25 million apiece. The trust also racked up \$210 million in expenses last year, the filing shows, most of it going to maintenance and capital improvement projects.
The documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal don't show how much money has gone to each project and they don't name the donors. The White House has previously identified some ballroom donors but hasn't disclosed how much they contributed.
Spokespeople for the Trust for the National Mall and White House didn't respond to requests for comment.
The Journal has reported that Apple cut a check for around \$25 million toward the White House ballroom project, while Microsoft gave around \$10 million, among others. YouTube, a subsidiary of Alphabet, gave \$22 million to the nonprofit for the ballroom as part of a settlement for a 2021 civil lawsuit that Trump brought against the company.
The Laura & Isaac Perlmutter Foundation contributed \$20.3 million to the trust, labeling the sum as “restricted — White House ballroom” in its own tax filing. It was by far the largest contribution during the year reported by the Perlmutter Foundation, created by former Marvel Entertainment chairman Ike Perlmutter and his wife.
Trump has made beautifying Washington a priority in his second term and pushes companies and donors to write checks for tens of millions of dollars to finance these projects, the Journal has reported. His chief fundraiser, Meredith O'Rourke, calls major companies frequently making specific, at times eight-figures asks, the Journal reported.
No laws prohibit presidents from raising unlimited sums of money for nonprofits and public disclosure of donors isn't required. Trump's unprecedented fundraising from companies with business before his administration has raised concerns from congressional Democrats about the potential for conflicts of interest. A spokeswoman for Trump previously said the president is the “most successful fundraiser in modern political history” and “President Trump can't be bought.”
The newly released documents do provide some detail as to how the funds were spent. The trust paid more than \$800,000 to Florida Architectural Precast, a concrete manufacturer, for construction and other project services.
Meet the Donors Who Are Powering the Left's Upstarts
Progressive candidates in the Journal analysis $^{†}$
\*Includes 24 progressive PACs and advocacy groups. Jan. 1, 2025, through Oct. 7, 2026. Another \$4.6 million was spent across 23 other states and D.C., and nothing in 15 states. iCA-11 had two progressive candidates in its primary.
Sources: AdImpact (spending); AP (results, incumbents)
In Michigan this year, a new super PAC vowing to fight pro-Israel money chipped in more than half a million dollars to help progressive Abdul El-Sayed's Senate bid. Its funders: a crew of virtually unknown political donors, many of whom had never given to politics before last year but have since donated up to \$1 million each.
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数据无处不在，但智能并非如此。
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📄 Original Section
By Maggie Severns, Anthony DeBarros and Kara Dapena
In New York, billionaire Alex Soros cut checks directly to progressive politicians, including Reps. Pramila Jayapal of Washington and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota.
Those donations are part of the millions of dollars that Soros and his father, George, plan to give to Democratic causes this year.
And in Philadelphia, nearly a million dollars in TV advertising paid for by outside groups is boosting Democratic U.S. House candidate Chris Rabb, highlighting his endorsement from New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and his willingness to fight for Medicare for All.
The left flank of the Demo-
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作者：George Popstefanov，PMG 创始人兼首席执行官
AI 加速了分析，自动化了任务，并产生了任何组织都无法完全吸收的产出。客户信号实时更新。媒体每小时都在碎片化。商业、文化和技术的演进速度，已经超过了旨在管理它们的运营模式。
随着 AI 重塑工作流，以及内容、媒体和商业之间的界限继续模糊，洞察与行动之间的差距将会扩大。那些在结构上能够弥合这一差距的公司将处于领先地位，而未能做到此点的公司将难以跟上步伐。
数据在倍增，工具在演进。
PMG 是一家为该未来而构建的平台公司。
下一个时代属于那些为行动而设计的公司。
📄 Original Section
The Mamdani Factor
Zohran Mamdani's election as mayor of New York City last fall sparked a new era of politics and a new generation of political donors, many of them critical of the war in the Middle East and frustrated by Aipac spending to support politicians who back Israel.
cratic Party raises and spends only a fraction of what many Republicans and the Democratic establishment do on elections. But as the far left gains momentum, supporters are working to expand their funding.
Even the Democratic Socialists of America, which is funded exclusively by membership dues and relies largely on volunteers, has been experimenting with raising more money.
While introductory dues for DSA members usually start at \$10 a month, the organization's newer option to pay income-based "solidarity dues" set contributions at a much heftier 1% of member's incomes. "Give your 1% for the 99%," the DSA's website advertises.
Another group that focuses on identifying and helping progressive candidates, Justice Democrats, said its goal is to remain competitive in races where opponents can use funding advantages to overwhelm progressives with ads.
“We will never have the amount of money that Aipac or crypto have,” said Usamah Andrabi, a spokesman for the group, referring to the pro-Israel American Israel Public Af-
In the past, donors to progressives were generally older, wealthy hippies or successful Hollywood players.
The new group skews younger, often comprises Americans of South Asian or Middle Eastern heritage, and works in fields such as technology and medicine.
Sathvik Kaliyur, CEO of
■ American Priorities super PAC ■ Other Mamdani donor fairs Committee and a cryptocurrency industry that has spent more than \$90 million during the midterms. (Aipac spokeswoman Deryn Sousa said the group “is a membership organization of individual Americans, not an industry.”)
Sources: Federal Election Commission (contributions); NYC Campaign Finance Board (Mamdani)
Here is how the progressive movement compares with other big-money counterparts:
fundraising firm NWF Strategies, whose clients have included Mamdani and El-Sayed, said his goal is to make it easier for candidates who don't come from money to run.
Many of the biggest checks are going to a super PAC that aims to be an “anti-Aipac” force, called American Priorities, which has used its funds to support progressives who criticize Israel, including more than \$1 million to help elect Claire Valdez and Darializa Avila Chevalier, two DSA-backed candidates who won New York congressional primaries.
The ads didn't mention Israel or the Palestinian territories as an issue: Instead, they stressed affordability and that the two women were “Mamdani-endorsed.”
One of the group's funders, Texas entrepreneur Sam Mahrouq, said he supports efforts that “encourage a balanced American foreign policy and oppose corption, discrimination, endless wars and excessive special-interest influence.”
Who are the big donors?
The biggest donors often wouldn't consider themselves Democratic socialists:
The list includes old-school progressives and donors interested in abortion rights and the environment whose money is helping candidates who share their views on those issues.
Establishment groups are also now backing progressive candidates who won their primaries in tossup districts, including in California's Central Valley.
A super PAC linked to House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and an affiliated group, for example, have spent or booked more than \$9 million in television advertising to help educator Randy Villegas.
Some Democrats running in red districts are receiving unexpected help: A super PAC launched by Democratic Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker.
It has reserved more than \$2 million of television advertising in a Tennessee district that leans heavily Republican to support Justin Pearson, who has been endorsed by Ocasio-Cortez.
Methodology
The Wall Street Journal reviewed Federal Election Commission filings for 52 campaign committees and 19 PACs. Candidates were included based on endorsements by Democratic Socialists of America, Justice Democrats and the Working Families Party as of September. PACs were included based on ad spending in races that included the progressive candidates. To calculate donor totals, the Journal searched records of individual contributions. Because donors often appear in FEC filings with several name spellings, addresses or employers, the Journal combined amounts when it could determine that records represented the same individual.
Top donors to progressives
Contributions to progressive candidates and political committees
Saikat Chakrabarti (Calif., tech and politics) ran for Congress this year in California, gave more than \$11 million to his own committee, which he has since converted to a super PAC.
PROGRESSIVE CONTRIBUTIONS
Democracy PAC (N.Y., finance) run by George and Alex Soros, backs both Democratic establishment causes and the left.
Deborah Simon (Ind., real estate investment scion) is a longtime Democratic megadonor known for her support of Planned Parenthood.
NJ-10 NY-18 NY-19 PA-07
Susan Mandel (Conn., finance) is a major donor to environmental causes. \$2.5 M
NY-18 NY-19 PA-07
Mary Quinn Delaney (Calif., real estate investing) she and her family's trust give to a range of Democratic candidates and causes.
Source: Federal Election Commission (contributions)
AI accelerates analysis, automates tasks, and generates more output than any organization can absorb. Customer signals update in real time. Media fragments by the hour. Commerce, culture, and technology move faster than the operating models built to manage them.
Yet most growth models still operate in silos.
Access to data is not the same as intelligence. And intelligence alone is not an advantage.
The advantage comes when intelligence drives action.
Companies have invested billions in technology designed to create visibility. But visibility without integration has not created better performance. It has created more complexity.
More data has not solved fragmentation. It has exposed it.
The companies outperforming today are not those with more information. They are the ones structurally built to act on it. They operate as integrated systems where strategy, activation, commerce, and measurement align in real time. Intelligence does not sit in reports. It compounds.
In 2010, we set out to build for this moment.
From the beginning, PMG was engineered as a platform company. One system integrating people, technology, and intelligence into accountable growth.
Our proprietary operating system, Alli, connects strategy to execution and execution to measurement, creating continuity between decisions and outcomes. Insights become decisions. Decisions build on each other. Performance compounds.
This is not a services model enhanced by technology.
It is a system built for how modern businesses grow.
As AI reshapes workflows and the lines between content, media, and commerce continue to blur, the gap between insight and action will widen. The companies structured to close that gap will lead. Those that are not will struggle to keep pace.
Data will multiply. Tools will evolve.
PMG is a platform company built for that future.
The next era will belong to those engineered to act.
Note: 2025 figures are estimates. Excludes debt tied to special construction funds and other government-guided funds. Converted at \$1=6.7 yuan.
Source: International Monetary Fund
Chinese leader is presiding over surge strangling economy and spilling abroad
BY BRIAN SPEGELE
Chinese leader Xi Jinping, intent on pouring trillions into making China a technological and military superpower, is presiding over a dangerous spiral of debt that is strangling the domestic economy and damaging trade partners.
Rising debt loads in many countries have spooked investors of late. But few nations have seen a surge more dramatic than China.
Last year, China's credit to the nonfinancial sector—a broad measure of corporate, government and household borrowings—topped $300\%$ of gross domestic product, 60 percentage points higher than at the end of 2019 and now far bigger than in the U.S. It has jumped by more than \$43 trillion since Xi took office in late 2012, according to the Bank for International Settlements.
Much of the money has been wasted, financing factories and apartment blocks for which there isn't enough demand, sparking debilitating price wars, and hurting profits and wages.
Many economists say China likely isn't facing an imminent financial crisis, in part because the debt buildup has largely relied on domestic savings, rather than foreign investors who might be quicker to dump it.
But China's debt deluge is increasingly becoming the world's problem, too. Chinese companies that need to service this enormous debt are churning out more cars, solar panels and electronics than consumers at home want. In response, exporters are pouring these goods onto foreign markets, opening up a trillion-dollar annual trade surplus.
Despite trade tensions with many countries—including ris-
Chinese government debt, by type
ing anger in Europe over a flood of Chinese electric cars and other exports—Beijing appears unwilling to change course.
One challenge for China is the huge amount of debt carried by unprofitable companies, much of which can't easily be repaid as overall growth stagnates. Efforts to cut back on extending fresh credit to such firms could expose Chinese state banks to big losses.
"If you want to change that system, you have to accept a lot of losses, and I think the Chinese government is not ready for that," said Camille Boullemois, associate director at research firm Rhodium Group. "The most likely scenario is that it continues getting worse slowly and there's a sort of slow decay of the financial system that becomes increasingly inefficient at producing growth."
By kicking the debt problem down the road, it also allows Xi to remain focused on investing in new technologies, the military and other strategic priorities. Chinese officials see a window of opportunity now to firmly establish China as a great power alongside the U.S., and consider investment in core technologies such as artificial intelligence, space technology and energy as crucial.
China's government says its debts are under control. Central-government borrowings were only around $30\%$ of GDP in recent years, small compared with federal debts in the U.S.
But that doesn't account for the bulk of China's problem, which sits at the local level.
In particular, financing firms tied to local governments ran up trillions of dollars of new liabilities over the past few years as they tried to drum up enough business to hit economic growth targets and keep people in their cities employed. Many such firms were involved in local real-estate development and have been hit hard by China's yearslong property bust.
A broader gauge of overall Chinese government debt—including official local borrowings as well as the debts of these local government financing vehicles—ballooned to an estimated 127% of GDP last year, according to the International Monetary Fund, up from 98% in 2020.
Even as Chinese officials signal they prefer to stick to the current course, “we are seeing a system running into some of its limits,” said Jacob Gunter, head of the economy and industry program at the Mercator Institute for China Studies, a Berlin-based think tank.
“Local governments are subsidizing loss-making companies to keep them alive,” said Gunter. “But the fact that they are loss-making also means that there are no profits to tax.”
British comedian and actor Russell Brand appeared in a London court on Monday for the start of his trial on rape and sexual-assault charges.
The hearing was adjourned until Tuesday after a morning of jury selection.
Brand, 51 years old, has pleaded not guilty to three counts of rape, three counts of sexual assault and one count of indecent assault. The charges involve six women and alleged offenses between 1999 and 2009.
Prosecutors said at previous hearings that Brand is accused of raping a woman in a hotel room at a Labour Party conference, grabbing a TV staffer's breasts and forcing her into a sex act in a toilet, and kissing and groping a radio-station employee.
—Associated Press
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世界观察
照亮前路：周一，教徒们在巴西的阿帕雷西达国家圣母圣殿庆祝阿帕雷西达圣母瞻礼。
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Pyongyang Tests Ballistic Missiles
North Korea on Monday fired several ballistic missiles toward its eastern waters, South Korea's military said, adding to a recent streak of weapons demonstrations that has heightened tensions during a freeze in diplomacy.
Jang Do-young, spokesperson of South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff, said missiles of various types were fired from an area around the North Korean capital of Pyongyang, where the country's main airport has been a major launch site in recent years.
Jang said one of the missiles flew more than 560 miles before falling into the sea, but he didn't comment on the flight details of the other weapons. The joint chiefs didn't specify how many missiles it detected.
BRITAIN
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A suspected plot to attack a U.S.-run military air base in England was “almost certainly” directed by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, British Prime Minister Andy Burnham said Monday.
He had said there were strong indications Iran was linked to the apparent plan last month to attack the RAF Fairford air base, which has been used by U.S. bombers to strike Iran in the continuing war.
Police have arrested seven men, but all suspects have been released on bail and no one has been charged. Iran has denied involvement.
"I can confirm our assessment that it is highly likely to have been coordinated in Iran, almost certainly directed by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard," Burnham said.
LIGHTING THE WAY: Parishioners celebrated the Feast of Our Lady of Aparecida at the Basilica of the National Shrine of Our Lady of Aparecida in Brazil on Monday.
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lomatically, economically and politically,” said Sanam Vakil, Middle East director at London’s Chatham House think tank. “With a new war, the Islamic Republic could dig itself out of the cul-de-sac it has dug for itself.”
In an attempt to deter a potential attack, some Iranian officials have hinted that their forces could conduct land incursions into neighboring nations, people familiar with the warnings said. The country's top national-security official, Mohsen Rezaei, said on Sunday Tehran could target the United Arab Emirates, which has largely escaped being attacked since late spring, as well as data centers and internet cables across the region.
Tehran has separately warned Arab officials it could strike regional targets, including Saudi oil facilities in the event of a renewed conflict, some of the people said. That would add to the threat Saudi Arabia faces from Iran-backed Houthi militants in Yemen, who attacked its capital's international airport over the weekend.
The U.S. military has itself been gearing up for a possible return to fighting. A third aircraft carrier strike group and another Marine expeditionary unit are steaming toward the Middle East, and the Pentagon is weighing sending additional air-defense equipment and munitions to bases in the region, The Wall Street Journal has reported.
While President Trump last week ruled out an attack before the midterm elections on Nov. 3, he has also publicly mulled hitting Iran's Pickaxe Mountain nuclear site, and U.S. officials have said the military is preparing a range of options for new strikes. Trump, a Republican, said over the weekend that the U.S. was in communication with the Houthis but might join Saudi strikes on the militant group. "What they did was very bad," the president said on Saturday night, referring to the deadly attack on Riyadh's airport.
The efforts by both sides to shore up their fighting capacity underscore how, more than seven months into the war, neither side feels compelled to give up a fight that is largely deadlocked. The U.S. has ramped up its economic-pressure campaign and is guiding tankers through the Strait of Hormuz with increasing success.
Iran has stepped up its strikes on vessels in the Persian Gulf area. At least three commercial vessels were hit over the weekend in and around the strait, according to U.K. Maritime Trade Operations, which is affiliated with the Royal Navy. A drone attack set a fire on Emirati tanker Petro Dolphin near Oman on Sunday, leaving two Indian sailors missing.
Neither side is inclined to give up a fight that is largely deadlocked.
The missile attack by Houthi militants on the Riyadh airport killed at least 13 people and injured hundreds more on Saturday, the single deadliest attack on the U.S. or its Gulf allies in the conflicts related to the Iran war.
The attacks highlighted the vulnerability of major economic targets in the region if Trump decides to resume fighting.
The government has also told mediators it would more aggressively target U.S. personnel, including by trying to sink U.S. warships in the Middle East and kill their crews, some of the people familiar with the warnings said.
Iranian missiles came close to U.S. warships during attacks in September. The Pentagon moved a dozen B-1 bomber aircraft from a U.K. military base last week over concerns Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had planned a drone attack.
Direct fighting between the U.S. and Iran has largely been on hold since Trump called off plans for a major escalation in late July, partly because of concerns about supplies of missile interceptors needed to defend targets across the region, the Journal has reported.
Iran has used the pause to rebuild its missile and drone facilities and replenish its arsenal. Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei praised the work but acknowledged supply-chain struggles in early September comments published by news outlets linked to the Revolutionary Guard.
Iran has also reinforced protection around its nuclear sites and other security-related bunkers. Last month, it built passive defense measures such as makeshift dirt mounds around its Pickaxe Mountain and Natanz nuclear sites to impede any attempted raid by ground forces, according to Vantor satellite images analyzed by the Institute for Science and International Security, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit.
Iranian officials are touting their efforts. The country's airports, seaports and power plants "have prepared for wartime conditions," installing shelters and backup supplies to continue operating in a crisis, Brig. Gen. Gholamreza Jalali, the official in charge of the country's contingency plans, said at the end of September.
State media have also been broadcasting daily pro-regime gatherings. Iranian residents said the crowds have grown bigger and spread to more locations in recent weeks.
Billboards in Tehran now advertise civilian training courses in the use of shoulder-fired antiaircraft missiles and sniper rifles.
Last month, the Revolutionary Guard boasted it had trained its first female commando units in guerrilla tactics, firearms use and drone piloting, according to footage posted by the Fatehin, an elite unit of Iran's Basij volunteer defense forces.
In Sabzevar, a city in north-eastern Iran, a Revolutionary Guard unit visited a kindergarten and told the children stories about the fighting this year and displayed a U.S. Tomahawk missile the unit said it had neutralized, according to the social-media account of the guard's ground forces.
“In both word and deed, the Islamic Republic is actively preparing for the next war,” said Behnam Ben Taleblu, senior director of the Iran program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington think tank.
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Europe defense expenditures as share of GDP in 2025, by country
KYIV, Ukraine—Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russian strikes hit energy infrastructure across his country hours after President Trump declared an energy ceasefire between the warring sides.
The Russian attacks—including on gas infrastructure, a power plant and a substation—come as the U.S. heaps pressure on Ukraine to stop striking Russian oil refineries, and after Trump moved to allow Russia to export diesel to the U.S. in a bid to drive down U.S. prices at the pump.
“Last night, Russian oil refineries were not burning. But at midnight, a Russian jet-powered Shahed struck a gas-production facility in Ukraine,” Zelensky said in an address to the Warsaw Security Forum on Monday. “And there was also a Russian strike on an ordinary gas station, involving several drones.”
Ukraine has long maintained that it would be prepared to halt drone and missile strikes on Russian oil facilities if Moscow stops its bombing campaign against Ukraine's energy infrastructure, which has caused widespread power cuts this fall.
Zelensky reiterated that pledge on Monday, adding that European and other leaders support that approach.
"If Russia wants us to stop our long-range strikes against its oil refineries and oil exports, then Russia must stop its strikes against our energy system and critical infrastructure. And stop killing our people," he said.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on Monday he couldn't share any comments regarding the announced energy ceasefire as contacts continued, Russian state news agency TASS reported.
Overnight into Monday, a Russian jet-powered drone attack damaged equipment at a gas infrastructure facility in the Kharkiv region, said Ukrainian state oil-and-gas company Naftogaz.
Another attack damaged a power substation in the northern region of Zhytomyr, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha told journalists at a European Union foreign ministers meeting in Luxembourg.
“No one should believe Putin’s words. Look at his actions instead,” Sybiha said, reiterating Ukraine’s readiness for a reciprocal energy truce.
In an attempt to draw the attention of U.S. decision makers to what he called Russian violations, Zelensky said an effective energy ceasefire could be “a major step toward ending the war” if the U.S. steps in to ensure Moscow abides by it.
Expressing his frustration with Ukraine's campaign against Russian refineries and the continuing war, Trump has called for Zelensky to be replaced as leader.
"I think it's time for Ukraine to get a new president," Trump told reporters on Saturday, blaming Zelensky for the conflict that Russia started in 2022 and Kyiv's airstrikes for high diesel prices in the U.S. and worldwide.
Before this year's war between the U.S. and Iran, the Middle East was the world's top exporter of diesel, accounting for $19\%$ of global exports last year, according to commodities-tracking service Kpler. North America had a $15\%$ market share and Russia was the third-biggest supplier at $11\%$ .
Disruptions to diesel shipments from Persian Gulf countries, along with attacks by the Houthis on Saudi Arabia's Red Sea refineries, also have contributed to the rise in prices.
A man grieves after a Russian airstrike killed his wife in a residential area of Kharkiv.
EU Imposes Sanctions on Nearly 1,600 Russians, Firms
The European Union imposed sanctions Monday on nearly 1,600 Russians and companies linked to Moscow's arms industry, targeting those suspected of involvement in making parts for drones and missiles.
pied parts of Ukraine.
In the biggest single listing of sanctions since the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, the EU also targeted 77 people accused of organizing, working on, or running in “sham elections” in occu-
Announcing the sanctions, EU foreign-policy chief Kaja Kallas said more than half of them “address the production chain for the ballistic missiles Russia uses to kill Ukrainian civilians every day.
"This is not the time to ease pressure on Moscow but to increase it," she said.
The EU said the companies are on a list established by the Russian government itself “that identifies them as belonging to the Russian military-industrial complex, and they are therefore entitled to receive subsidies.” The EU considers those officials running the companies to be “supporting Russia’s military and industrial complex.” It said the sanctions are aimed at “mid-level suppliers that represent the ‘core’ of the Russian military industry.”
—Associated Press
作者：迈克尔·R·戈登 (Michael R. Gordon)、罗比·格拉默 (Robbie Gramer) 和 丹尼尔·迈克尔斯 (Daniel Michaels)
Starving Ukrainians Risk Death to Escape Front-Line Town
Outside the U.S. Embassy in Warsaw protesters decry the humanitarian crisis in Russian-occupied Oleshky.
BY NIKITA NIKOLAIENKO
AND IAN LOVETT
Nearly two months passed without food deliveries to the Russian-occupied city of Oleshky when Maria Zakhavko decided she and her husband had to leave.
Before setting out, they dropped off the food they gathered for Zakhavko's elderly parents, who were too frail to make the 12-mile trek across mined and corpse-strewn roads to the next town. They had to wait for an evacuation—if one ever came.
“See you soon,” Zakhavko recalled saying, hopefully. On Aug. 17, she and her husband set off on the first leg of what would become a much longer journey to safety, aware that not everyone made the trip safely.
Once a city of 24,000 people on the southern bank of the Dnipro River, Oleshky is now at the center of a humanitarian crisis.
All year, food supplies have dwindled as mines and drones made the road impassable, cutting contact between Oleshky and the outside world. The last volunteers bringing food arrived in May. After that, residents said, several vehicles hit land mines and the volunteers stopped coming.
Roughly 2,000 civilians are effectively trapped in Oleshky, said Ukrainian officials, who maintain contact with residents by phone. The city has been under Russian control since the first days of the 2022 invasion.
The remaining residents live off vegetables they grow, soups of boiled weeds and cans of food they scavenge from abandoned homes. Some periodically make the harrowing 25-mile round-trip journey deeper into Russian territory to Radensk, the nearest town where they can buy supplies. The road is impassable for cars, but can be traversed—at great risk—by foot or bicycle.
Ukrainian troops occasionally deliver food and other supplies by drone from across the river, but Ukrainian officials say Russian forces sometimes intercept the packages, or punish those caught receiving them. Russian troops also move into locals' apartments and eat whatever they find, say residents who have left.
"The Russians are essentially using these civilians as a human shield," said Oleksandr Tolokonnikov, deputy head of Ukraine's Kherson Regional Military Administration. "By remaining behind civilians, it makes it easier for them to shell our side of the river. They don't even feed them—we send food ourselves, and risk losing drones." Each drone used for food deliveries, he said, costs roughly \$22,000.
In an email to The Wall Street Journal, the Kremlin said there were only 200 civilians in Oleshky, and that Ukraine was preventing them from leaving and blocking food and water deliveries. "The Russian army continues to deliver supplies there."
Life in Oleshky, located across the Dnipro River from Kherson, has been difficult for much of the occupation. In 2023, Russians blew a nearby dam, submerging much of the city in water and washing land mines and other munitions into residential areas.
Russian troops moved into the city, and Ukrainian forces shelled it. Electricity, water and gas were cut. Most residents left. Those who stayed, most of them elderly, got used to cooking over open fires in their courtyards and the sound of drones buzzing overhead.
Last winter, food began to run low as fewer volunteers braved the road to deliver supplies. At the small market, prices skyrocketed—\$17 for a dozen eggs, say residents. After the volunteers stopped coming, the search for food grew desperate.
Olena Solovyova, 50 years old, said her father in Oleshky moved in with a neighbor last winter—his house had no wood-burning stove, so he had no way to heat it when the gas was cut.
As food ran low during the summer, she said, he decided to make the journey by bicycle to Radensk. He repaired the bike and set off with a group who knew the way. The trip back took six hours, because he was walking with 70 pounds of food—though there was no meat available to buy.
“He said drones were flying overhead the entire time,” Solovyova said. The road has since been more heavily mined, she said, and several residents who tried to make the trip in September were killed. It is unclear whether Ukrainian or Russian forces are laying the mines.
Since last week, Ukrainian forces delivered roughly 10 tons of food and other supplies by drone.
Tetiana Hasanenko, the head of Oleshky's city military administration, who is based in Ukrainian-held territory, said the missions weren't announced beforehand, but officials messaged some residents privately that the shipments were coming. In the past, Russian forces tried to intercept the drones.
Oleshky's hospital remains open, but is short of medicine and other supplies.
Solovyova said a former teacher of hers, who remains in Oleshky, was injured by shrapnel in September. She was taken to the hospital, but doctors lacked supplies to stop the bleeding and ultimately had to amputate the leg. "The basement is full of bodies," she said of the hospital.
Zakhavko and her husband are among the most recent residents to make it safely out of Oleshky. “I worry about my parents constantly now,” she said. “There are hundreds of people there who simply aren’t capable of leaving.”
NATO Military Chief Lays Out Plan Designed to Thwart Moscow
Reported Russian-linked incidents from March 2021 to September 2026
\- Drone/airspace incursions
Sabotage
Espionage
Cyberattack/electronic warfare
NATO member states
\*Luxembourg's defense expenditure is calculated as a percent of Gross National Income.
Sources: Center for European Policy Analysis (incidents);
EDA defense data portal (expenditures) DANIEL KISS/WSJ
NATO's top military commander sought Monday to steady an anxious Europe, outlining the alliance's new military plan to thwart a potential Russian assault along its eastern flank with a mix of firepower, autonomous systems and sensors that borrows from the lessons of Ukraine.
金特罗在自家砖房旁的一个庭院里，帮国家石油公司——委内瑞拉国家石油公司（Petróleos de Venezuela）维护一台生锈的抽油机。他的鸡群在管道之间觅食。每三个月只有两天的供水服务。在他说话时，身后的抽油机戛然而止——又一次停电。他怀疑自己有生之年是否能看到改善。
“我更多是在为我的孙辈考虑，”金特罗说。
📄 Original Section
By Michael R. Gordon, Robbie Gramer and Daniel Michaels
The speech by Gen. Alexus Grynkewich on the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's "theory of victory" outlined a series of steps to block an initial attack and, if aggression continues, break the adversary's ability to control and support its forces.
The goal would be to stop the invasion in its tracks while minimizing the risk of conventional or nuclear escalation by stopping short of the complete destruction of the enemy.
Speaking onstage after his address at the Warsaw Security Forum, Grynkewich said he presented the strategy both to reassure Europeans made nervous by Russian aggression and to send a message “should someone be foolish enough to try to attack our territory.”
Grynkewich, a U.S. Air Force general who serves as both the head of American forces in Europe and the alliance's top commander, delivered the speech in Poland, a U.S. ally that has been worried about Russian President Vladimir Putin's intentions toward
Europe as the conflict in Ukraine enters its fifth year.
While Grynkewich outlined his veiled warnings to Moscow—which he didn't identify by name in his speech—President Trump's weekend pronouncements left European allies and U.S. lawmakers reeling.
“Outlining military plans is important, but it can’t be divorced from addressing what everyone is worried about: Trump’s outbursts, Russia’s war on Ukraine and threats to Europe, and questions on whether we’re pulling significant U.S. forces out of Europe,” said Kurt Volker, a former U.S. envoy to NATO and later to Ukraine under the first Trump administration.
Some Republican lawmakers have criticized Trump over a deal, which he announced over the weekend, to import Russian diesel fuel, warning it hands Moscow financial assistance without making a significant dent in U.S. energy prices. Shortly after Trump announced the energy ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine, Russian forces attacked a power plant in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv.
That Grynkewich's reassurance was needed at all marks a turnabout for an alliance that once believed it had won the Cold War and harvested a peace dividend. Instead, NATO faces a bellicose Russia that has invaded Ukraine, penetrated Western airspace with drones and is suspected of carrying out sabotage attacks on infrastructure, military equipment and defense companies in Europe.
The “shadow warfare,” as it
was dubbed recently by a senior German intelligence official, has unnerved Western officials, who have struggled to develop an effective strategy to deter Russia's hybrid warfare and who are preparing to defend against the possibility of more substantial attacks against NATO's Baltic members and its eastern frontier.
Grynkewich said a classified version of his plan had been finalized three months ago and it called for investing in “affordable mass,” a reference to the relatively cheap drones Ukraine has used to complement the alliance’s arsenal of more sophisticated weapons.
If Russia attacked, the alliance's first goal would be to block the initial assault and prevent any advances if it continues. In carrying out such a strategy, the NATO commander indicated the alliance would not be seeking to vanquish Russia or undermine its government. "We are not seeking to impose a strategic defeat on our adversary," he said. "Rather, we are only seeking to stop any attack in its tracks."
Grynkewich didn't provide a timetable for stiffening the defenses. The alliance's efforts are taking place against the background of munitions shortages in Europe of American PAC-3 Patriot air defense interceptors and Atacms surface-to-surface missiles, as U.S. munitions have been funneled to the Middle East to contend with Iran.
NATO's “theory of victory” draws on the efforts of retired Gen. Chris Donahue, the former U.S. Army commander in Europe and head of the alliance's Land Command, who was forced out of his post in July when Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth downgraded his post.
Under its strategy, an “autonomous zone” would be established so that drones and ground robots could blunt a Russian attack without extensive allied casualties.
At the same time, long-range missiles would strike Russian command posts and air defenses in the exclave of Kaliningrad, near St. Petersburg and in Belarus. That would puncture Russia's efforts to control the skies and enable the U.S. Army's V Corps and other NATO ground forces to counterattack.
NATO air forces would move to strike Russian reinforcements as they streamed toward the battlefield and to attack other targets in the rear.
Some veteran officials hailed NATO's efforts to update its strategy, but said the test for the alliance would be committing the resources to put it fully in place.
“It is great that NATO is through this adaptation, but they have to hurry. And nations have to come through with the money and the political will to do this,” said Jim Townsend, who served as deputy assistant secretary of defense for Europe and NATO during the Obama administration. “NATO as an institution can do the planning, but it is the members who are going to have to go home, spend the money and train the troops.”
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Continued from Page One zuela's oil sector will be a lengthy undertaking costing hundreds of billions of dollars.
Ten months after Maduro's ouster, little of the investment has flowed in. National oil production has hovered just above a million barrels a day since January, up from 500,000 a day in 2020 after U.S. sanctions began to bite but far below the more than 3.2 million barrels a day produced in the late 1990s.
U.S. officials said change is on the horizon. At a recent packed conference of foreign investors in Venezuela's capital, Caracas, Michael Garcia, deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy, pointed to deals involving Chevron and power-equipment firm GE Vernova as evidence that an alliance with
The conference, another in a string of events marking Venezuela's reopening after years of economic isolation and U.S. sanctions, brought more than 650 executives from international energy companies together.
There was little disagreement over the business potential in a country sitting on some of the world's largest oil and gas reserves. "Venezuela has more crown jewels than the Tower of London," said Hunter Hunt, chief executive of Texas wildcatter Hunt Energy.
Maduro's former deputy, acting President Delcy Rodríguez, was reviving the oil sector and shoring up a shaky national electrical grid. "Real work remains," Garcia said. "But the direction is unmistakable."
Panelists at the three-day conference were asked to keep discussions technical and apolitical, leaving Venezuela's political future unaddressed. Polls show growing discontent with Rodríguez's unelected interim administration, a potential obstacle to long-term investment. Small protests have broken out nationwide in recent weeks, with demonstrators blocking roads to demand elections.
A fallen power transmission tower rests on an inactive oil pumpjack on Lake Maracaibo in Cabimas, Venezuela.
Executives at the conference listed the challenges to ramping up output: power cuts, a small pool of experienced contractors, and the difficulty of securing project financing while navigating a web of U.S. sanctions. Only a third of the 30,000 wells in the country is active after almost eight years of international blacklisting that kept new technologies from entering, said
William Antonio, managing director for Mexico, Central America and Venezuela at SLB, an energy-services firm formerly known as Schlumberger.
The return of U.S. investors to Venezuela has also revived old political grievances. Jorge Giordani, a Marxist and former chief economic planner in Venezuela's government, told a gathering of leftist activists in Caracas that capitalists are trying to steal "the devil's excrement," the enormous oil wealth long seen as a blessing and curse in the country.
“They’re back,” the 86-year-old said. “And they’re only interested in one thing: our hydrocarbons.”
Lucila Nava, a retired secretary whose father had worked for 40 years at Shell and who lives near Lake Maracaibo, said she was frustrated that the U.S. supported Rodríguez and kept Maduro's authoritarian government intact as foreign companies secured lucrative contracts.
“We liked [President] Trump when he took out Maduro,” Nava said. “But you can’t just take away oil like this. We get it, the U.S. is the biggest power in the world. But that doesn’t give you the right to do something like this.”
Executives hope brownfields—as mature fields are called—can be quickly rejuvenated. Several of the 17 oil blocs recently acquired by private Venezuelan firm North American Blue Energy Partners in a venture with the Pentagon are also here.
People try to be resourceful with what is left of the oil industry. In Cabimas, a group of neighbors tap a pump jack for natural gas and pipe it into their kitchens. At times, oil seeps through the rudimentary pipework, sending the black goo into the kitchen.
Security guard Elmo Quintero said he had hoped that after Maduro's overthrow, his three children in Colombia could return home and the decrepit health system would improve. A diabetic, the 65-year-old said he couldn't afford insulin and the local clinic rarely has syringes. He self-medicates with a concoction of herbal tea.
Quintero helps maintain a rusted pump jack for the state oil company, Petróleos de Venezuela, on a patio adjacent to his brick shack. His chickens feed between pipelines. Water service is available for a couple of days every three months. As he spoke, the pump jack ground to a halt behind him—another power failure. He was doubtful he would see an improvement in his lifetime.
“I’m thinking more about my grandchildren,” Quintero said.
Not including healthcare, the country will spend more than £100 billion this year on all types of welfare benefits for the sick and disabled, about a third more than defense spending. The tab has surged by a quarter in just four years and is on course to hit £130 billion in the next four, according to the government's fiscal forecasts.
Some seven million people—more than 10% of the population—now claim at least one or more sickness or disability benefits. The numbers are growing fastest among working-age people who should be powering the economy, surging more than 60% in the past six years to 4.7 million from 2.9 million in 2019.
Continued from Page One
Many of the newer disability claims are for mental-health issues which can be harder for the government to verify.
Total number of Brits granted personal independence payments by select type $^{†}$
U.K. borrowing costs are higher than any country in the Group of Seven, recently hitting their highest level since the 2008 financial crisis. A slow but steady exodus of wealthy Brits has shown there are limits to how much the government can keep raising the tax burden, already at its highest level since World War II.
One benefit, created to help those with disabilities be more mobile, allows people to give up part of their welfare cash handout in return for a new car lease every three years. It now accounts for around one in every seven new car sales in the U.K. Among those who got new cars last year: 40 people whose primary medical condition was tennis elbow, 50 with wheat intolerance and 320 with dyslexia, according to government figures.
The surge in welfare spending is “clearly not sustainable on any level,” says David Coombs, head of multiasset investments at U.K. fund manager Rathbones. “It really is the big issue of the moment.”
Current yields on 10-year government debt for G-7 countries\*\*
Borrowing costs on Britain's 10-year bonds have risen to $5.5\%$ from $4.5\%$ at the start of the year, adding a few extra billion pounds to the country's
U.K. benefit expenditure to support disabled people and people with health conditions, by age group $^{4}$
It's also a litmus test of a pressing question facing the West: Is it possible for political leaders to rein in spending on ever expanding welfare states? So far, the answer seems to be no, increasing the chances that countries like Britain are inching toward a financial reckoning.
Yield on 10-year government debt for U.K.\*\*
The U.K., like its European peers, is caught in a vicious cycle. Its spending is surging thanks to an aging population, greater defense needs, a costly green-energy transition and the swelling bill for welfare and debt interest. But its income is mostly flat, with weak economic growth.
The government has raised taxes and binged on debt, borrowing an extra £1 trillion since the pandemic. That strategy is running out of road.
The scale of the payout has become a scandal. No other western country has seen such a rise in disability claims.
\*In nominal terms; Fiscal years end March 31; £1=\$1.32 †Cumulative data \*Data shows spending on benefits for disabled people, people with health conditions and their carers \*\*As of Friday 5:30 a.m. ET Sources: Department for Work and Pensions (spending, payments, expenditure); Tullett Prebon (yields)
In 2025, then U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced plans to tighten eligibility requirements for sickness and disability welfare in a bid to shave £5 billion a year off government spending by 2030.
The backlash was so sharp Starmer abandoned the cuts. Investors, spooked that a government with a big majority couldn't push through such a reform, sold off government bonds, the pound fell sharply and the Chancellor of the Exchequer cried in Parliament.
Starmer was later ditched by the Labour Party, replaced this summer by the telegenic Andy Burnham, who has also pledged to deal with welfare—but not through what he calls “crude cuts.”
But across Europe, attempts to change the social safety net is proving politically toxic. In France, attempts to trim spending on entitlements led the National Assembly to oust two previous prime ministers. After Germany passed some modest changes to its unemployment and health benefits, furious voters have punished the ruling center-right party.
running costs. The U.K. is paying more for its debt than spendthrift France or historical basket cases like Greece.
The U.K.'s youth inactivity rate used to be middle of the pack in Europe. By last year, only Romania recorded a higher rate of young people not in employment, education or training. "I think there's a lack of understanding about how unskilled some of the most disadvantaged people are in Britain and that actually we would be much better off investing in their skills than just giving welfare," says Alun Francis, the chair of the U.K. Social Mobility Commission, an independent body.
Burnham will unveil his first budget later this month and is widely expected to include fresh tax hikes, which could
Across the European Union, government welfare spending has steadily grown from just 10% of economic output in the early 1960s to an average of 27% today, compared with about 21% in the U.S.
videos," he says.
Government officials are considering ways to tighten eligibility for young people and instead pay for extra training to get them into work. The Department for Work and Pensions says it's spending a further £3.5 billion toward helping those with disabilities get jobs.
Disability and sickness payments in the U.K. show how the system sprawls.
负责利物浦慈善机构圣安德鲁社区网络（St Andrew's Community Network）的托尼·谢泼德（Tony Shepherd）表示，政府建立了一套将人们纳入福利体系的“传送带”，但几乎没有提供帮助他们脱离福利的手段。他指出，像政府资助的心理健康支持这类能帮助人们重返工作的服务，目前存在很长的等待名单。此外，就业机会也匮乏。
Britain's postwar government introduced disability payments to help offset lost wages for, say, a worker who lost a hand in an industrial accident. But over time, the system grew into an alphabet soup of programs. Some are aimed at people who are too sick to work. Others are broader: Personal independence payments are a cash handout for anyone—rich or poor, working or not—who has an illness or disability to help cover higher living costs.
When the benefit's precursor was created in the 1990s, the government thought a few hundred thousand would claim. Today one in every 12 people is getting disability checks. The program now covers people living with a range of physical and mental health issues, including anxiety, ADHD, depression and even acne.
"People aren't working around here because they can get on PIP, so they sit around and do drugs and drink," says Stephen Walker, 65, as he strolls through Walton on a recent day. "It's unfair."
things it was not intended to do," says Paul Johnson, an expert in fiscal issues at the University of Oxford.
In deprived areas, particularly former industrial centers, a significant number of residents depend on welfare. In Walton, a Liverpool suburb, around 1 in 2 households claim welfare, and 1 in 5 working-age residents claim PIP.
He acknowledges some do need the help—including three of his grandchildren. But he says too many use it to top up their income.
“I think people broadly agree the system is now doing meet thanks to subsidized housing and unemployment benefits of about £650 a month.
Charities say the welfare payments are a relief for people who've seen food and heating costs soar. "People don't just come in and go, oh, you know, 'Jackpot. I've got an ADHD diagnosis. Gimme, gimme, gimme.' It doesn't work like that," says Mick Blakeley, head of operational development at Citizens Advice Liverpool.
Eleonore Paxman's three children are all on disability welfare. Noelle, 31, has Type 1 diabetes, retinopathy and ADHD. Coco, 18, has autism and OCD, and Benjamin, 15, has pathological demand avoidance and ADHD.
Paxman, 52, says the money has been a godsend, especially after her husband went deaf and lost his job as a music arranger. She gave up work to home-school her two youngest children, which the couple felt was necessary after Benjamin spiraled when he first went to school in their London suburb.
“Without the help, we’d be in big trouble,” she says.
Recently, Price was classified as suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder after experiencing abuse growing up in foster care. She now gets an extra £300 a month in PIP payments to cover costs related to her condition.
While the system genuinely helps people in need, it is also open to abuse. The claims don't need a doctor's backing; they are based on whether a person can carry out a range of everyday activities.
“You get knocked back and then the only way you can support yourself is by claiming benefits,” she says.
A cottage industry of charities and consultancies have cropped up to help claimants navigate the benefits claim system, which can be both byzantine and, critics say, gamable. On average nearly 1,000 people a day are being put on PIP, according to government figures.
The problem for the British state is that the pool of people who could claim PIP is huge. A government survey published in 2024 found that a quarter of working-age Brits could be technically classed as disabled.
The financial incentives to claim are significant. For example, a young person living outside London can claim around £900 a month on unemploy-
A short drive from Walton, Roy Pearman is reaping the fruits of PIP at the car dealership where he works.
Tony Shepherd, who oversees the Liverpool charity St Andrew's Community Network, says the government has built a conveyor belt for getting people on welfare, with little help to get them off again. There's a long waiting list for things like state-funded mental-health support that could help people get back to work, he says. There's also a lack of jobs.
Customers who get PIP and are classed as having limited mobility can lease a car for no cash upfront—they simply forgo about £320 a month of “enhanced mobility” allowance. Included in the lease that the government pays for are all road taxes, insurance and car servicing. The car can be swapped in for a new vehicle every three years.
It doesn't go well for everyone. Wieland, the Cancun vacationer, pleaded guilty to fraud earlier this year and has to give back some £23,000. Her lawyer told the court Wieland didn't realize that receiving the payments meant she wasn't allowed to actually go outside.
The business that provides the vehicles, Motability, is now the country's biggest car-leasing company. Last year 860,000 people in the country had a Motability car. “The scheme exists because there is a real market failure which we solve,” Motability Operations CEO Andrew Miller says.
At the dealership, some 60% of the Fords and high-end BYD electric cars sold are Motability. “There is nothing like it anywhere else in the world,” Pearman says.
PIP is particularly valuable because it is a gateway to other incapacity payments and can remove a cap on the total amount of unemployment or housing benefits a family can claim.
“It’s a sticking plaster,” he says, using the English term for Band-Aid.
put Britain's finances on firmer footing but will further crimp economic growth.
OMINIC WHISSON FOR WSJ
If the government wants to gain investor trust and lower borrowing costs, it needs to show it can make politically painful spending cuts to areas like welfare, says Andy Haldane, a former chief economist at the Bank of England and ex Burnham adviser. “The market now suspects that this is a traditional tax-and-spend socialist government with better TikTok ment and housing benefits. If they are classified as being too sick to work and also claim PIP, that increases to around £2,000, tax free. If you work 40 hours a week in a minimum-wage job in the U.K., you take home £1,880 a month after tax.
In Walton, a significant number of residents depend on welfare.
Standing on Walton's main street near a fried chicken shop, Morgan Price, 22, is one of a million young Brits who aren't in school, don't have a job and aren't training for one. Price and her boyfriend make ends
Research shows that pullback from parents often begins gradually. Recognizing the stages can help with reconciliation, therapists say.
Rutgers University Professor Kristina Scharp studies estrangement.
ELIZABETH
BERNSTEIN
Tuesday, October 13, 2026
W hen I interview parents who are estranged from their adult children, many say: "My child cut me
off out of the blue. I didn't see it coming."
Yet people who have gone “no contact” with their parents often tell me that this decision was their last resort—and a long time coming.
Why the disconnect?
Estrangement typically occurs on a continuum—and parents don't always recognize the signs, says Kristina Scharp, a communication professor at Rutgers University who studies the issue. Think of a scale from one to 10, where 10 is full contact between parent and child and one is none. In between, there is a slow pullback: fewer calls and visits, less access granted.
“It’s a myth that estrangement is always all or nothing,” Scharp says.
Scharp identified eight characteristics of estrangement, or areas in which adult children who are pulling away from their parents change their behaviors or feelings:
Communication quantity: They reduce the amount of contact. In a less-severe estrangement, they might call from time to time. In a more severe case, there is no contact.
Communication quality: They stop sharing meaningful or personal information. Instead of talking about their job or partner, for example, they might talk about the weather.
move away or stay away. Some might remain in touch. Others move and don't tell their parents where they live.
Presence or absence of emotion: The amount of emotion that they feel for their parent changes. Some are flooded with anger or devastation. Others report feeling numb.
Positive or negative affect: The flavor of emotion changes, often becoming more negative as the child becomes more estranged. For example, someone might go from feeling that their mom is difficult to resenting or even hating her.
Desire for reconciliation: The wish to remain in the family changes. Some decide to cut ties. Others hold out hope that the relationship can be repaired if certain parental behaviors change.
Role reciprocity: They no longer think their parents are behaving the way a mom and dad should.
And they stop behaving as a child might be expected to toward a parent. For instance, they may refuse to visit when a parent is sick or even dying.
Legal action: They formally sever ties with a parent, like changing their name or beneficiaries in their will.
All of these behaviors occur on a spectrum, and not all are at play
Joe Bernstein says he tried different approaches with his father before blocking him.
in every estrangement, Scharp says. People may also fluctuate, moving closer—or away—from a parent at different times.
If parents understand this, they may be able to improve the relationship. “The continuum is where the compromise can exist,” Scharp says.
On Reddit, commenters share strategies on how to pull back from parents: respond to every other call or text; return calls when you know your parents will be busy; request that they stop asking about you; and start “grey rocking,” which is to deliberately make your communication as dull and unresponsive as, well, a grey rock.
ways tell their parents. Even when they do, parents sometimes resist the boundaries their children are trying to set. Meanwhile, parents may mistake the pullback as a natural developmental phase, realizing the scope only in hindsight.
Yet people who are pulling away don't al-
"The final cutoff is the undeniable writing on the wall," says Jennifer Hershon, a family-es-
trangement coach in Sacramento. "But there's room for repair before the pattern is entrenched."
Joe Bernstein, 51 years old, spent decades trying to set boundaries with his dad after what he described as an adverse childhood. First, he tried talking to his father less. Then when he got married and had a child, he stopped sharing news of his family and refused to allow get-togethers. He also tried to actively put his dad out of his mind.
But none of this made him feel better, Bernstein says. He still had flashbacks about incidents in his childhood. He felt consumed by anger. And the more he pulled away, the more his father pushed back, he says.
Then three years ago, Bernstein started therapy, which helped him process his feelings. When his dad later criticized this, Bernstein says he responded by blocking his father.
“This gives me the quantum of solace to step back and sit more peacefully with the situation,” says Bernstein, a higher-education administrator in Chicago. “And it leads to even a sense of compassion for him because he had a rough childhood, too.”
As for a potential reconciliation, Bernstein says he would welcome it if his father was able to treat him with respect and civility. "That would be the better outcome," he says. "Because ending things in darkness isn't good for anyone."
What can estranged parents and children do to bridge the divide?
Not all people who have pulled away or cut off a parent may want to reconnect. If they were abused, for example, it may be safer to stay away.
Yet many estrangements are caused by communication or boundary issues. In these instances, therapists recommend parents and kids who want to repair the relationship meet in a neutral setting, like a restaurant, to talk. The adult child should acknowledge that they are pulling away—and focus on patterns, not individual incidents, when they explain what is wrong.
Parents should have a notebook with them, says Catherine Hickem, a psychotherapist in Atlanta who specializes in parent-adult child relationships. She recommends that parents tell their child: “I realize I have made some mistakes that have hurt you and I want to hear about all of them.”
It is important for parents not to be defensive, try to explain themselves or justify their actions, Hickem says. They should listen. Tell their child that they appreciate the courage it took to tell the truth. And promise to work to change their behavior.
Then the parent should take a few days to reflect on what they heard, call their child back and keep the dialogue going.
“Repair is not this fully cathartic moment,” says Rachel Haack, a licensed marriage and family therapist in Reno, Nev., who works with families dealing with estrangement. “It’s staying connected through the distance.”
The following items first appeared in the weekly Travel newsletter.
You probably have heard about the kerfuffle between Delta and Elon Musk after the airline passed on Starlink service in favor of Amazon. United seized the moment to tout its Starlink service by going after Delta (and American) frequent fliers. It did so with something called a status match.
Not familiar? Here's how it works. If you have status on one airline, you can apply to instantly get the same level at a competing airline, temporarily at least. Airlines often run status-match promotions to get frequent fliers to switch sides or at least try the competition.
Sometimes, they match your status plus one. American Airlines offered such a promotion through our corporate travel department in August. I have A List status on Southwest Airlines so applied by providing proof. Soon after, I was granted Platinum status on American through Dec 16. (Gold is American's
through Dec. 16. (Gold Is American's base level.) The status has already given me free extra-legroom seats, checked bags, priority boarding and bonus miles. No upgrades yet.
Here's the catch: You have to rack up a certain number of loyalty points by the deadline to keep the status. You earn these by flying or spending money with one of the airline's partners and by using one of its credit cards. (I signed up for one of American's low-fee credit cards to help the cause and cash in on a welcome bonus.)
To keep platinum through March 2028, I need to rack up 25,000 loyalty points from the start of the challenge. I've earned 11,255 so far.
That might be out of reach even with two American flights coming up, including a flight in economy to Europe. But I've already reached the threshold for Gold (10,000 loyalty points), so that's a small win. The promotion does have me using American more, a win for the airline.
You don't have to have a corporate agency to be eligible for a status match. The latest United one targets Delta and American fliers, but there's been a promotion running all year. So if you're holding status in an airline and want to play the field, reach out to that airline's frequent-flier program.
Delta and American fliers have until Oct. 15 to match during United's Starlink promotion. Once approved, you have to spend between \$1,500 and \$7,000 and fly within 90 days to keep the status.
Notes from the road
▶ Good news for you Newark fliers: American Express now plans a
Airlines like United lure travelers with temporary status promotions.
30,000-square-foot lounge, its largest, in Terminal A. The original plans called for an 18,000-square-foot lounge. (Those plans also called for it to open this year; the bigger lounge will debut in 2027.) Amex couldn't resist a jab at the other credit-card companies nipping at its lounge heels: It will be the only operator with outlets at the three major New York airports. Amex also announced the addition of a second lounge at London's Heathrow.
▶ American Airlines is promising a lounge glow-up at its Charlotte, N.C., hub with plans for a new 40,000-square-foot Admirals Club. The lounge is due to open in 2028.
Separately, American plans to install Starlink Wi-Fi service on all of its 1,000 mainline jets, up from the 500 it announced earlier this year.
Hate stalking the airline seat map for a better seat ahead of your flight like it's a part-time job? American Airlines will now automatically search for a seat in the same cabin if you opt into a new feature on its app after booking a flight and do so at least 24 hours before departure. It's called automatic seat change. You pick aisle, middle or window and whether you only want to move to seats closer to the front. Don't like bulkhead seats? Don't check that box. Exit row seats are excluded. The airline says passengers are accommodated based on their frequent-flier status and when they signed up for the seat-change option. United Airlines unveiled a similar feature earlier this year.
That's ticket sales for "The Wizard of Oz" at the Sphere in Las Vegas since its debut in August 2025. Some analysts are worried, though, that demand is cooling despite new features including 4D effects.
Cheers and Jeers
Cheers to Southwest Airlines for a new-to-me feature. In the help center on its app, there's a "We'll call you" feature under "Need more assistance?" You just type in your name and phone number and you get a call back. (This is different from calling a company and being offered the option for a call back during long waits.) A Southwest rep called me back almost instantly and was able to quickly clear up a seat-assignment issue.
Big jeers to hotels where front-desk clerks greet you not with a warm hello, but a rote, "ID and credit card, please." No different than those doctors' offices that ask you for your ID and insurance card as soon you approach the counter. In my experience, it happens too often regardless of a hotel's daily rate and sets the wrong mood for the stay.
To subscribe to this newsletter, go to wsj.com/newsletters.
NYU researcher says every homeowner should think about preparing for extreme weather
BY AMY MYERS JAFFE
When it comes to my home, I get obsessive about climate risk. I come by the caution naturally.
For one thing, it is my job, as an energy and sustainability expert at New York University who has studied U.S. climate resilience under a grant from NASA.
But I have also had to deal with many extreme-weather events while living in climate-stressed places. At the end of September, in fact, a powerful nor'easter toppled a huge tree on my property, thankfully missing my house. Meanwhile, just weeks before, the sump pump in my basement was working overtime in the teeth of torrential rains.
It was the latest in a long string of extreme weather events I have lived through. One time in Houston, a hurricane turned so suddenly toward the city that we couldn't evacuate safely in time. Awaiting the landfall, we slept upstairs with a life raft, axes and an emergency weather radio, in case we had to escape through the roof. Luckily, water never got past our front lawn, but we lost electricity for more than five weeks.
In Davis, Calif., the transformer on my block repeatedly blew up during heat waves, leaving us sweltering, sometimes for days. Worse still, we were all constantly sick from breathing in the smoke from nearby wildfires. The blazes never reached Davis itself, but sometimes they kept me from commuting home when I was working in my office in Oakland.
I was also in New Haven, Conn., during the famous Snowmageddon that dropped 108.6 inches of snow on Boston in a single winter. It also brought polar-vortex cold—and my rental house had ridiculously thin window glass and poor
at least some thought to climate issues, especially as a warming planet makes extreme-weather events more likely and potentially more intense.
No matter where you live, chances are climate preparation is worth considering. I was part of a team whose research shows that extreme heat and rainfall have already intensified in many parts of the U.S., and some of the worst future severe weather events are going to come in places that haven't had such an event to date.
Here's what I picked for my current home based on experiences I've lived through:
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艺术评论
电影评论 / 凯尔·史密斯 (KYLE SMITH)
📄 Original Section
Flood and fire risk
In a climate-challenged environment, being close to the nearest food store, pharmacy or emergency room, if possible, is beneficial. So, I selected a property that wouldn't leave me isolated in a crisis. The hill we live on is walkable to town, which means I can get to a grocery store and commuter rail no matter how much snow without using my car.
Living on a hill also makes a difference. My street doesn't have a propensity to flooding and sea-level rise won't affect my real-estate value or insurance rates over time, based on 2050 flood maps—a widely used reference. My driveway also has drains built into it. That matters not only for repeated downpours but for melting snow.
What's more, I nixed anywhere with high wildfire risk, as well as any property that borders forestland. I love to hike in nature preserves, but don't want them as my next-door neighbors.
Then there's the majestic white oak tree that stood as a stately landmark on our property just weeks ago. It looked magical—like something that might talk to small children in a Disney movie—and I truly loved it. But as part of my
disaster planning, I took some steps that were sad at the time, but maybe saved my house.
Early on, I consulted an arborist. We trimmed the canopy—this needs to be done regularly—so it would be less apt to catch the wind, and cut back branches that had the highest risk of falling on the house during a storm.
At the suggestion of the arborist, we had the tree's main limbs secured by industrial wiring that prevented them from swinging too wildly. The strategy worked for countless previous storms but not the latest one. But who knows what kind of damage the now-downed branches might have done otherwise.
Keeping the lights on
The way the climate is going,
backup generators or batteries are
worth having. My house came al-
ready equipped with a full-to-
scale, whole-home generator. I learned the hard way how important one of these can be, when a two-minute cyclone tornado came ashore Long Island Sound a few years ago and hit a major transmission line. Friends and neighbors were in the dark for weeks with no refrigeration or modern conveniences. I hate to brag, but in addition to being able to see at night, we could take a hot shower and prepare a home-cooked meal.
The most reliable fuel for a home-generator backup system varies depending on where a person lives. My general expert opinion is rooftop solar plus battery. But rooftop solar can be expensive to install on an existing home, and not every roof is amenable. My house has gables and skylights, so surface area for solar is limited.
We currently use propane in our generator and, so far, supplies haven't been a problem, regardless
Amy Myers Jaffe stands beside her uprooted tree.
of the weather. Many Houstonians have home diesel generators, but I don't recommend that. Diesel supply chains often get disrupted in extreme weather, and diesel generators can be finicky if they have been sitting dormant.
We also have a way to stay mobile in an emergency: our electric vehicle. I know this sounds counterintuitive, but based on my experience, an EV with a home charger and a backup generator is better than a gasoline car for storm resistance. Remember, gasoline can't be pumped without electricity. In blackouts, EV owners often do better than their friends and neighbors with regular cars for local driving.
Playing defense In today's downpours, you must have an automated sump pump for the basement. Originally, we had ours hooked up to a battery system—then the battery failed during a bad storm. Now we have the pump connected to our home electricity network, which has
proved to be reliable, given our generator. Earlier this month, the pump held up against a deluge of rain that brought about 7 inches over just a couple of hours.
That is also a reminder: In today's changing climate, you can never be too careful about what you stick in your basement. Whatever it might be, it needs to be stored on shelves off the ground. We also have the whole basement and crawl spaces covered in mold-protecting wall covering. That is also a must for post-flooding cleanup, should the worst happen.
To keep our electronics safe, we have a whole-house surge protector, which filters out sudden electrical spikes in the grid that can harm our appliances. I learned my lesson after a heat wave in Davis, Calif.: A power surge from an exploding transformer fried the circuit board of my refrigerator.
window glass and poor insulation.
So maybe it isn't all that surprising that before my husband and I bought my dream home in southern Connecticut, I made sure my place would be as climate-proof as possible.
Most people will find some of the measures I've taken excessive (my family does at times). But I believe every home buyer should give
A tree-removal crew clears the downed oak. Far right, one of the many air-filtration units inside Jaffe's home.
Charming as it is, we don't use the fireplace regularly. (We have blocked off three others for weatherizing purposes.) One of my climate obsessions, post-California, is clean indoor air, which rules out burning wood inside the house.
My current home is also stocked with multistage, HEPA-filter air purifiers that combine carbon absorption and ionizer technology, which came in handy during Covid. We could isolate someone and keep everyone else uninfected. Here in New England, they are also proving useful in combating Canadian wildfire smoke.
Climate tech can be useful, no matter your thinking about global climate trends or the climate risk in your area. Your family might grouse about all these precautions, but in the end, they will be thankful for the results.
airline memorabilia. They tuck them away in storage, waiting for the next flight or a bigger apartment. Some take care to use all the items inside, while others clear them out—wary of what could happen, chemically speaking, to an errant lotion left in a bag for decades.
On the resale market, highly sought-after kits can fetch over \$100. But many collectors say buying online is tantamount to cheating.
Chris Miedl, an airline blogger from Germany, estimates he's accumulated at least 70 from his travels. There's a neon-yellow China Airlines collaboration with the North Face and a square black Singapore Airlines pouch that comes with a Lalique candle and a warning: DO NOT USE IN AIRCRAFT.
“I love every single one,” said Miedl, who stores them in a silver airline service trolley he bought at auction for a few hundred euros. He’s since ordered two more trolleys, one for pajamas and the other for more amenity kits.
To Miedl, 51, the kits are a way for airlines to treat their high-spending passengers like valued guests. And the airlines have tried to outdo each other, inking deals with high-end retailers: Turkish Airlines and Lanvin, Delta and Missoni, Saudia and Elie Saab.
Women who fly Emirates first class are treated to more than \$100 worth of Bulgari's Le Gemme Sahare eau de parfum. There's also a golden pocket mirror. Men get Bulgari perfume, a woody scent "inspired by the vibrant energy of the Blood-red Jasper gemstone."
It wasn't always like this, said
Chris Miedl stores his kits in a silver airline service trolley.
Rhonda Crawford, senior vice president of customer experience design and strategy at American Airlines.
After cutbacks during the pandemic, she said, some airlines wondered if they should keep offering amenity kits at all. (American said it never considered it.) But the post-pandemic boom—and a travel-obsessed generation of young fliers—has reinvigorated the call for high-end products.
"There is just a growing demand for experiences—and, quite honestly, premium experiences," Crawford said. She considers the kits "the sparkle on top of the core offering."
American has dabbled in specialty kits, including a collaboration with
Andrew Lim has collected around 200 amenity kits on his travels.
U.S. Soccer tied to this summer's World Cup that tucked cooling gel into a clear, stadium-friendly bag. Its standard fare—which is also available in premium economy—includes products from celebrity facialist Joanna Vargas.
Ben Nickel-D'Andrea relies on the travel-sized bottles for much of his day-to-day skin care.
The Seattle-based freelance travel journalist takes a more utilitarian approach to his roughly 150-kit collection. Mini toothbrushes and socks go to charity. Beauty products stay until he or his husband, also a travel journalist, need them again. Some bags—like the hard-shell United case he uses for medications—get frequent use.
About 15 are on display in his home office, alongside model planes and other travel paraphernalia. “It wasn’t intentional,” the 41-year-old said. “We just ran out of space in our storage bins.”
Parth Kochhar checks what amenity kits are available before he books a flight—though it doesn't yet influence his final purchases. “I’m not being spoiled with that choice,” he joked.
He's collected around 30. Once the 34-year-old has his hands on a kit, he wouldn't dream of using the high-end beauty products inside—even on a flight. That could disturb the thin slips of paper some kits are wrapped with.
"I just don't feel like opening it," said Kochhar, a consultant from Gurugram, India. "I could slide it and probably see, but I feel like if it doesn't go into the same shape or the same place, it wouldn't seem right."
The kit he's currently coveting is Qatar Airways' collaboration with Diptyque, full of beauty offerings from the French perfumer. If he can't resist sampling it, he'll ask a flight attendant for a second one.
For Lim, the e-commerce specialist, the holy grail is something rarer still: a kit from North Korean carrier Air Koryo.
"I don't know if they give out amenities," he said. "But that would be a good one to have."
标准收藏公司集结这位大师导演的全部电影
他的命令来自肖尼土地与牲畜公司（Shawnee Land and Cattle Co.）。那么，用散弹枪瞄准其总裁，或许可行？不，我们被告知，那位高管只是在试图满足银行的要求。也许去图尔萨枪杀一名银行家？我们得知，“他不过是个经理”，又一个为了维持底线而焦虑的普通人。
朱莉娅·路易斯-德雷弗斯（Julia Louis-Dreyfus）、艾德·哈里斯（Ed Harris）和艾莉森·珍妮（Allison Janney）主演这部由乔恩·罗宾·拜茨（Jon Robin Baitz）创作的2012年普利策奖入围作品的百老汇复排剧。由约翰·本杰明·希基（John Benjamin Hickey）执导，讲述了一个关系网广泛的家庭，在女儿写了一本揭秘回忆录回家后，其地位陷入危机的故事。
n John Ford's greatest masterpiece, his adaptation of John Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath" (1940), a family of Oklahomans ruined by the 1930s Dust Bowl disaster sets
about stopping the bulldozer driver sent to flatten the home they no longer own. But why blame this beleaguered fellow? He's doing it because he needs a job.
华尔街日报每日纵横字谜 / 编辑：Mike Shenk
横向
1 心跳可能会跳过的东西
6 事实与数据
10 音响工程师面临的问题
14 1929年股市事件
15 惊叹之人的声音
16 泰国的邻国
17 游戏之夜的严格规定
19 创作歌手 Tori
20 复仇者联盟中的神
21 探究性的问题
23 美国有袋类动物
26 1974年流行金曲“____-Ca-Dabra”
27 “Diet Pepsi”歌手 Addison ____
29 攀墙者
30 部分女孩的成年礼
33 喋喋不休
35 在慕尼黑，意为“现代的”
36 酿酒师和面包师的供应品
37 哈根达斯口味
41 其最高点是卡塔丁山
43 方言结尾
44 可能在末尾加上 Q 的首字母缩写词
47 没有影响力范围的理论家？
51 西区洗手间
52 岩石爆破员
53 小型合唱团
54 加入一份浓缩咖啡的滴滤咖啡
56 名流群体
58 法语中的女性朋友
59 空中的烦恼
60 意外成本，如本字谜中四个答案所示
65 马萨诸塞州美式足球队（俗称）
66 在杜兰戈，意为“不同的”
67 例如，德梅因市居民
68 也许在后悔一次锻炼
69 阳光之州棒球队
70 刚刚得知
纵向
1 奥地利人的感叹词
2 兄弟会好友
3 卢瓦尔河的水
4 助手（简称）
▶ 在 WSJ.com / Puzzles 在线解谜并参与讨论。
5 波士顿
昵称
6 持续地
阴郁
7 即时通讯先驱
8 60-70年代
由 Efrem
Zimbalist Jr. 主演的
程序剧
系列
9 强力地
宣布
10 其首次飞行
是从
瑞士
飞往以色列
11 回放
分析师的
关注点
12 兴奋的
欢呼
13 二战秘密
组织
18 欧洲的游牧民族
22 “Straight Outta Compton”说唱歌手
23 樱桃废弃物
24 潜在胚胎
25 “Ariel”诗人
26 咒语绑定者？
28 承包商的数字
31 Aviv
32 Osso buco（烩牛膝）肉类
34 哲学家 Immanuel
38 需要
39 火山喷发物
40 “递些泡沫饮料过来”
41 高级戏剧学位
42 充满事实的书籍
45 “天哪！”
46 青蛙的18个之一
48 做正确书写之事的人
49 “芝麻街”上的双语木偶
50 控制，如支出
55 “莫尔·弗兰德斯”作者
57 微小
58 骚乱
59 学校统计数据
61 像某些幽默和某些天气一样
62 “呸！”
63 大快朵颐
64 冬季产品前缀
上一期字谜答案
📄 Original Section
The Criterion Collection gathers the master director's complete films
His orders came from the Shawnee Land and Cattle Co. So, train a shotgun on its president, maybe? No, we are told, that executive is simply trying to keep up with the demands of his bank. Maybe go to Tulsa and shoot a banker? "He ain't anything but the manager," we learn, just another worried guy trying to keep up his bottom line.
“Then who do we shoot?” asks a puzzled farmer.
And there it was, the predicament of modern man: You can't fight your enemy because you can't see your enemy. The antagonist is everywhere, and nowhere. He has no face, no home address.
Ford's successor as the American cinema's greatest master of image and composition, Stanley Kubrick (1928-1999), built his career on this insight. In Kubrick's films, men get caught up in a faceless, abstract, all-powerful system, fight it with everything they have, and are ground to dust—with one notable exception. The filmmaker, or God, can almost be heard chuckling offscreen as the final frames roll.
The man Christopher Nolan calls the greatest filmmaker who ever lived now has his monument: "The Complete Kubrick," a 30-disc, \$600 boxed set of 4K Blu-Ray editions of all 13 features. The Criterion Collection package also includes Kubrick's three short films, archival interviews, and several documentaries about the director—including the revealing one made by Vivian Kubrick, who followed her dad around as he filmed "The Shining." As befits an obsessive director, it's a gift for obsessives. (The release date is Oct. 20.)
Kubrick called his experimental first film (“Fear and Desire,” 1952) a failure, and his second, “Killer’s Kiss” (1955), isn’t very good. The other 11? Pretty much all landmarks, even the one that, Kubrick groused, reduced him to a “hired hand”—1960’s “Spartacus,” a brilliant mid-century epic but not re-
ally Kubrickian. Producer-star
Kirk Douglas called the shots.
The filmmaker told a decades-long tale about men undone by war (1957's “Paths of Glory,” 1987's “Full Metal Jacket”), the military-industrial complex (1964's “Dr. Strangelove”), lust (1962's “Lolita”), the supernatural (1980's “The Shining”), dreams (1999's “Eyes Wide Shut”), and fate (1956's “The Killing,” 1975's “Barry Lyndon”). In most cases, the indomitable system exploits a major character flaw: The ghosts don't really do anything for Jack Torrance in “The Shining” except unlock a cabinet for him. It's his rage-filled alcoholism, or alcohol-fueled rage, that destroys him.
These films' icy, forbidding majesty invites re-watch after re-watch; I've been cueing up "Barry
Lyndon" every couple of years for four decades, and it always lands differently. Kubrick didn't lecture us or seek to comfort or improve us. "Fail Safe" (1964) tells the same story as "Dr. Strangelove," released the same year, yet has faded from the cultural memory because its earnest message-making doesn't endure like Kubrick's wicked irony.
Though the New York-born filmmaker would have deplored today's micro attention spans, his work has adapted to the 2020s. The elliptical and oblique aspects are made to be dissected by chat groups; meme-worthy images get endlessly recycled. Tony Curtis calling out, “I’m Spartacus!” is indelible cinematic history, as are Slim Pickens’s whooping through his end-of-the-world rodeo in “Dr. Strangelove,” the eyes-propped-open brainwashing in 1971’s “A
Clockwork Orange," Frozen Jack at the end of "The Shining," and the "I dare you" look in Sue Lyon's eye as she suns herself in a bikini in "Lolita."
In a way, the least Kubrickian story is “2001: A Space Odyssey” (1968) because it’s the only one in which the hero triumphs, and on a mind-boggling scale. Astronaut Dave Bowman is reborn as a god-like character (called Star Child in the companion novel by Kubrick’s co-screenwriter Arthur C. Clarke) who is in effect Friedrich Nietzsche’s Übermensch, the ultimate life form. Kubrick pointedly paired the appearance with “Sunrise” from Richard Strauss’s Nietzsche-saluting composition “Also Sprach Zarathustra.” Possibly Kubrick felt he displayed enough optimism here to cover him for a lifetime of bleak endings; “A Clockwork Orange” does
Sterling Hayden (gesturing) and company in 'The Killing,' Kubrick's puzzle-like 1956 noir.
close with a sort of victory by its protagonist, but it's an ironic one, as a psychopathic murderer extinguishes all reform efforts and reverts to his horrible true self.
"The Killing," which was an inspiration for Quentin Tarantino's "Reservoir Dogs," is among the foundational examples of how to film a jigsaw-puzzle story that trusts the audience to assemble it—then a rare approach, now nearly ubiquitous, especially in prestige television. It's a tale of an exacting, step-by-step plan to rob a racetrack and how it is wittily undone by even more meticulous and unforgiving fate. Kubrick ends it with his signature black-comic panache. Sterling Hayden's Johnny Clay, having endured all manner of complications, watches helplessly as a suitcase full of stolen money spills off a luggage cart. The cash blows away. "You've got to run!" he is told. "What's the difference," he replies, with impeccable noir-antihero resignation.
Johnny can't escape fate any more than Barry Lyndon, the penniless Irish rogue who paves a path of lies through 18th-century Europe, rises to a surprisingly high station, yet ultimately suffers the necessary comeuppance, and then some. The Harvard Lampoon declared “Barry Lyndon” “dull” and “the worst film of 1975.” Today it ranks as the 12th-best film of all time in Sight and Sound’s 2022 directors’ poll and 45th in its critics’ poll. Similarly, the weird and slow-developing “Eyes Wide Shut”—call it “1999: A Sex Odyssey”—doesn’t give up its secrets easily. Yet it keeps winning new and obsessive admirers.
The film world considered Stanley Kubrick a genius while he was alive, but if anything his reputation stands even higher a quarter-century after his death. When he passed, Steven Spielberg noted: "He created more than just movies. He gave us complete environmental experiences that got more, not less, intense the more you watched his pictures. He copied no one while all of us were scrambling to imitate him." Kubrick's cinema may last forever . . . and ever . . . and ever.
“我完全不敢相信我的指挥官队在时间管理上如此糟糕，”魔术师约翰逊在 X 上发帖称，“我们只需要踢个射门球就能赢得比赛！”
杰森·盖伊（JASON GAY）
📄 Original Section
HAPPENINGS FOR THE WEEK OF OCTOBER 13
BY WSJ ARTS IN REVIEW STAFF
Film
"You Can See Everything" (Oct. 16)
Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes and her partner, Billy Evans, hosted a documentary crew led by Lance Oppenheim and Nathan Fielder to capture their lives in the leadup to Holmes's entry to federal prison to serve a sentence for defrauding investors. Mr. Oppenheim and Mr. Fielder, the latter making his feature directorial debut, then followed the couple for three years.
"Sacrifice" (Netflix, Oct. 16)
"Street Fighter" (Oct. 16)
Elizabeth Holmes in 'You Can See Everything.'
The Capcom videogame series gets a big-screen story in which estranged brawlers reunite to enter a major tournament. Among those throwing fists in the ensemble cast are Noah Centineo, Andrew Koji, Callina Liang, Joe "Roman Reigns" Anoa'i, Cody Rhodes, Eric André, Andrew Schulz, Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson, Jason Momoa and Orville Peck.
TV
"Masterplan"
(Prime Video, Oct. 16)
(Prime Video, Oct. 16)
Stanley Tucci stars as a skilled thief who teams up with strangers, played by Simona Tabasco and Victor Belmondo, to steal the Mona Lisa. During their work a surprising family connection among the trio comes to light.
A fading celebrity (Chris Evans) tries to engineer a career comeback at a swanky charity dinner only to be interrupted by eco-terrorists (Anya Taylor-Joy and Yung Lean).
Theater
"Other Desert Cities"
(Hudson Theatre, New York,
Oct. 18-Jan. 17, 2027)
Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Ed Harris and Allison Janney star in the Broadway revival of Jon Robin Baitz's 2012 Pulitzer finalist. John Benjamin Hickey directs
this tale of a well-connected family whose status is put at risk when its daughter returns home having written a tell-all memoir.
Music
Fontaines D.C., "Dopamine Chamber" (Oct. 16)
The Irish alt rockers embrace a more synth-driven sound on their fifth album, which includes a feature from Spanish singer-songwriter Rosalía.
Max Richter, "While the Flood Rages" (Oct. 16)
Opera
The German-born composer's new release is adapted from his score for Wayne McGregor's ballet "MaddAddam," which was inspired by post-apocalyptic stories by Margaret Atwood.
"Carmen" (Los Angeles Opera, Oct. 17-Nov. 7)
Bizet's masterpiece gets a new staging that embraces the Spanish Gothic in this production directed by Thaddeus Strassberger and conducted by Domingo Hindoyan.
Art
"Siena: The Art of Bronze, 1450-1500" (The Frick Collection, New York, Oct. 15-Jan. 18, 2027)
This is the first exhibition to focus on Siena as the center of experimentation and innovation in bronze during the Italian Renaissance. Some 40 works—including statues, reliefs, medals and more, many of which have never been shown outside of Tuscany—reveal the genius of Donatello, Vecchietta, Francesco di Giorgio and others.
"Walker Design Triennial: Beyond Materialism" (Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Oct. 17-Feb. 14, 2027)
The museum launches a triennial that looks at the ways design shapes culture, both responding to current ideas and shaping the way we interact with the world. This inaugural exhibition focuses on how contemporary design is moving away from industrial concerns toward more spiritual subjects.
Last Call
"Creatures of Myth and Imagination: Europe and the Americas"
(The Met Cloisters, New York, through Oct. 18)
This exhibition reveals the enduring trans-Atlantic fascination with beings that transcend species and reality. Our critic noted, "Despite a sea between them literally and metaphorically, Europe and the Americas shared a common imagination, a curiosity to explain the unknown, and a desire to make the mystical beautiful."
The Blunder That NFL Teams Keep Making Again and Again
The Philadelphia Eagles and Washington Commanders both coughed up wins in jaw-dropping fashion because of clock-management issues in the final moments of their Week 5 games
BY ANDREW BEATON
he Philadelphia Eagles had taken a one-point lead over the Jacksonville Jaguars on Sunday, and with eight seconds remaining they were all
but guaranteed to have a cheerful flight home from London.
And yet, they somehow managed to lose anyway. The reason was right there on the Philadelphia sideline.
The Jaguars were able to steal the win because Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni didn't kill as much clock as he could have and then elected to give Jacksonville kick returner Ameer Abdullah something he could return, instead of having his team kick for a touchback.
Abdullah took advantage by bringing it back 53 yards. That left a single second on the clock for Cam Little to nail a 57-yard field goal and clinch a 19-17 victory that left the Eagles absolutely devastated.
“I didn’t make the right decision,” Sirianni said, “and I lost us that game.”
The only consolation for Siri-
anni might be that it wasn't even the most astonishing ending on Sunday afternoon. A few hours later, the Washington Commanders were in position for a game-winning field goal against the New York Giants in the final minute of overtime, but inexplicably killed so much time that the game clock expired after quarterback Jayden Daniels went down without a time-out, resulting in a 27-27 tie. It was so boneheaded that Giants players celebrated as if they had won.
Both situations show how even though NFL teams worth billions of dollars pay their players,
Top: The Jaguars' Cam Little reacts after a game-winning kick. Left: Jayden Daniels and the Commanders tied the Giants.
coaches and executives fortunes to make the best decisions, they still routinely bungle something most fans on their couches can understand: late-game clock management. In both instances, the Eagles and Commanders committed strategic malpractice and paid the price by not walking off the
field with a victory.
“Leaving tonight with a tie feels like a loss,” Washington coach Dan Quinn said. “I’m gutted for our team.”
For the Eagles to blow Sunday's game, it actually took a series of errors. Already within field-goal range in the final minute, they
threw the ball on both first and second downs, resulting in an in-completion and a receiver running out of bounds—stopping the clock for Jacksonville each time. When the Eagles ran the ball on third down, the Jaguars used their final timeout, which they only had because Philadelphia hadn't made them burn it earlier. Otherwise, the Eagles' field-goal attempt could have been the final play of the game.
Instead, the Eagles had to kick-off with eight seconds to go, and they blundered again. If Eagles kicker Jake Elliott had blasted a kick for a touchback, the Jaguars would have had almost no time—with no timeouts—to make something happen. Instead, Eagles kicker Jake Elliott sent one that Abdullah could easily handle before he was brought down just in time for a field goal.
“It sucks,” Elliott said. “You come all this way and you think you’re in the driver’s seat to win a big game, and now we’re feeling pretty down.”
Oddly enough, a team faced a similar decision just a couple of weeks ago and also miscalculated. In that case, the Dallas Cowboys erred by doing what the Eagles should have done.
Playing the Baltimore Ravens, the Cowboys tied the game with seven seconds to go before they kicked off for a touchback, giving the Ravens the ball at the 35-yardline. Even a return as long as Abdullah's would have left the clock with all zeros. And unlike Jacksonville, Baltimore had a timeout left. That allowed quarterback Lamar Jackson to make a long completion and stop the clock to set up the game-winning kick.
The two outcomes show how three years into the NFL's new kickoff rules, teams are still bumbling through the search for optimal moves. Entering this season, there hadn't been a single instance of both teams making field goals in the final 10 seconds of the fourth quarter, according to Stats Perform records dating back to 1970. It has now happened twice in the past three weeks after Sunday's Eagles-Jaguars game.
“You feel like you let everyone down,” Sirianni said. “That will stick with me for a long time.”
The result in Washington was even more gobsmacking. The Commanders had the ball in position for a field goal with about a minute left. After a running play bled away most of it, quarterback Jayden Daniels took another snap with 12 seconds to go and went down. Only Washington didn't have another timeout. And instead of kicking a field goal, the team was left kicking itself when time expired.
It didn't bode well for Quinn's job security when the sequence was promptly assailed by none other than one of the team's owners.
“I’m in total disbelief my Commanders had such poor clock management,” Magic Johnson posted on X. “All we had to do was kick the field goal and we would have won the game!”
JASON GAY
总统试图将其外交政策目标与克制派及鹰派调和。
最终将分歧严重的 MAGA 联盟凝聚在一起的，是对特朗普先生的信仰，而非意识形态。在信徒看来，特朗普先生能够关闭边境，并铲除整个西半球的反美政府。他能够阻止毒品走私并瓦解贩毒集团。他能够将制造业回流，开启一个蓝领繁荣的金黄色时代。他能够扭转颓废与世俗化的浪潮。他能够击退那些干预政事的官僚和反美全球主义者的推进。他的手段有时可能看起来奇怪甚至令人反感，但没有人能像他那样交付成果。
The Yankees Aren't Arrogant Jerks Anymore. That Might Be a Problem.
Is there anything less frightening than the New York Yankees in the playoffs?
A warm basket full of kittens? A gentle
hayride at the state fair? Curling up in a hammock with a lemonade and a copy of “Clifford the Big Red Dog?”
How about a vegetarian shark? A comfy sweater? How about two warm baskets full of kittens? I'm asking because New York's most historically entitled, championship-gorged baseball club has a crisis: no one's scared of them anymore.
Why should they be?
Last week, the Tampa Bay Rays rolled into big, bad Yankee Stadium, put their feet on the couch, and swept the passive, punchless Pinstripes out of the postseason. The Game 3 finale was disrupted by a fan interference call—what is it with overenthusiastic Yankee fans and outfield walls—but the result was hard to dispute.
The better, poorer team won.
Which means for the 17th straight season, the Yankees won't win a World Series title. While that dry spell will draw empty stares from fans in Seattle, Pittsburgh or San Diego, it's a fiasco for a franchise that's won 27 of them and regards October silverware as its birthright.
These are the Yankees, for crying out loud! This is a team that's supposed to start every spring with a promise to win a ring—or walk straight into the Hudson.
Instead one of the most successful franchises in sports is now a speed bump on the way to somebody else's title. In their last 13 playoff appearances, the Yankees have made the World Series only once.
They lost that, too.
Surely you've seen Yankee fans strutting around in those braggy jackets, the ones with patches for all the World Series titles—not just the titles with Derek Jeter, but also the titles with Bill Dickey, as if the jacket owner was alive for those.
A new jacket is in order: BACK TO BACK DIVISIONAL SERIES RUNNER-UP. '25-'26.
Order me one. I'll wear it for Halloween and scare no one.
The Rays weren't the least bit intimidated by any of it, not even the Yankee fans who invaded their home at the Trop.
Tampa Bay rolled over a sloppy Yankees team like it was a three-game series against the Rockies in June.
Afterward, for laughs, the Rays cranked up the speakers in the visitor's clubhouse and played Sinatra's "New York, New York"—the official Yankee theme.
For the 17th straight season, the Yankees won't win a World Series title.
Does that sound like an intimidated opponent?
In the olden days, when George Steinbrenner was rattling around in a turtleneck, it would have been different. Surrender was unacceptable. Phones would be destroyed. Back pages would ooze disgust. Limp bats would be exiled and heads would roll. There'd be a loud pledge to straighten it out. Even if they didn't straighten it out.
These Yankees aren't those Yankees. George's son Hal doesn't run hot like his late father. His team is run clinically, analytically—modern but a little soulless. These 21st century Yankees are strangely loyal. Manager Aaron Boone has survived nine seasons without a title, an unthinkable milestone in George's time. Brian Cashman is closing in on three decades as general manager.
These jobs used to have the permanence of a summertime life-guard. Cashman is a Supreme Court justice.
Big George's run tends to be confused with prolonged success—it's important to remember the last time the Yankees had a 17-year gap was from 1979 until 1996, Steinbrenner's domineering, paws-on prime.
After the Reggie titles in ‘77 and ‘78, the franchise didn’t win another Series until Admiral Huffenpuff was sidelined with a suspension and patient GM Stick Michael cultivated a young roster.
Still, it's hard to argue that the edge is gone.
These Yankees—led by mild-mannered slugger Aaron Judge, who was injured these playoffs—are inoffensive, even likable. They don't ooze the urgency or arrogance that defined other Yankee eras.
Frustrated Yankee fans fret that the team is no longer baseball's biggest spender—the Dodgers, Mets and Phillies spent more in payroll in 2026. The Dodgers and Phillies used it to reach the playoffs. The Mets used it to make a big leaf pile of money at Citi Field and set it on fire.
The Yankees once spent whatever it took--and worried about the repercussions later. Now there's
fiscal responsibility, but without the clever roster building of low-payroll teams like Tampa Bay or Milwaukee.
The reigning back-to-back champ Dodgers do whatever it takes (and yes, this is its own intrigue.) Los Angeles is the behemoth everyone hates, to the point their spending and dominance may result in an extended lockout and work stoppage.
The Dodgers don't care. They lean right into the supervillainy.
“We’re smarter, we’re better, and we’re tougher,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said after Los Angeles moved on to another National League Championship Series. He said this knowing full well the public would see it and want to hurl.
These Yankees need a little more of that. Likability is nice, but it won't win a ring.
After nearly six years in the White House and more than a decade at the center of American politics, Donald Trump can still shock the world. In the
past week alone, he has hinted at new attacks on Iran after the midterm elections, said that the U.S. will buy diesel fuel from Russia as American officials warned Europeans about a possible cutoff of weapons, announced an “energy cease-fire” that appeared to catch Kyiv by surprise, mused publicly about resuming hostilities against the Houthis, and called on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to step aside.
The president's latest burst of diplomatic activity reflects his convictions about Iran, Russia, the importance of energy and the unimportance of Europe. He has seen Iran as a threat to the U.S. since the 1980s and believes that an Iranian nuclear weapon or Iranian domination of the Persian Gulf's energy resources would threaten American interests. He believes that fossil fuels will remain a key element of geopolitical and economic power and wants the U.S. to play the predominant role in the Gulf.
Similarly, Mr. Trump believes that the U.S. and Russia have overlapping interests in preventing Moscow from becoming Beijing's junior partner, countering Sunni Islamist militancy, and managing their roles as major energy producers. Mr. Trump and Vladimir Putin also share a contempt for what they agree is the civilizational suicide embraced by modern European liberals. Washington and Moscow in this view shouldn't be divided by anything as petty as the nationalistic ambitions of Ukraine or the moans of its liberal supporters in Europe.
Meanwhile, Mr. Trump knows that his political coalition is divided into restrainer and hawkish wings. The hawks want tough policies against both Russia and Iran. The restrainers want the U.S. to make up with Moscow and leave the Middle East alone.
Mr. Trump has sought to reconcile his own instincts with the wishes of his base by pursuing a divided policy. While never giving anybody everything, in general he's given the hawks more influence over Iran policy while catering to restrainer sensibilities on Russia. As he contemplates a longer and messier war in the Middle East, Mr. Trump wants to satisfy his restrainer allies with a more aggressive attempt to build ties to Moscow. That he can present his Russia diplomacy as an effort to secure cheaper fuel as the midterms approach is an added benefit.
But however reasonable this policy mix may look to the White House, the public doesn't like the Iran war and the high fuel prices it brings, and it doesn't like accommodating Russia. Playing to the hawks in the Gulf and to the restrainers on Russia may distribute the pain evenly across Mr. Trump's coalition, but judging from the polls, the coalition is shrinking. Mr. Trump's presidency appears to be entering a new and from his point of view perhaps less satisfactory stage.
The president tries to reconcile restrainers and hawks with his foreign-policy goals.
It is faith in Mr. Trump, not ideology, that ultimately holds the fractious MAGA coalition together. As the believers see it, Mr. Trump can close the border and eliminate anti-American governments across the Western Hemisphere. He can stop drug smuggling and break the cartels. He can reshore manufacturing, unleashing a golden age of blue-collar prosperity. He can reverse the tide of decadence and secularism. He can beat back the advance of interfering bureaucrats and anti-American globalists. His methods may sometimes look strange or even distasteful, but nobody can deliver what he does.
To keep the enchantment alive, Mr. Trump must keep
Americans and the world fixated on the spectacle of the Trump Show. And he must keep the gap between glittering promise and inevitably disappointing results to a minimum.
Wars make the former task easier but complicate the latter. Conflicts make for compelling theater, and nobody understands this better than Mr. Trump. But wars also turn out to be hard to spin. Despite the president's efforts, the war between Russia and Ukraine continues to escalate. Despite his claims about Iran's weakness and helplessness, gasoline and diesel prices remain high and reports about the vulnerability of American bases in the Gulf to Iranian missiles persist. Where's the magic, supporters are beginning to wonder.
Disenchantment starts slowly but can quickly go viral. With polls pointing to tough midterms for Republicans, lame-duck status becoming more of a concern, and interest rates and inflation hitting voters, Mr. Trump may be facing the hardest years of his long career. It could be a lonely struggle. Not only do America's adversaries want him to fail, so do many of our allies.
Shock-and-awe foreign policy offers hope of breakthroughs that would shore up the president's position. The world should brace for more Trump shocks. He has no incentive to calm things down.
Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario "Trump's hatred for Canada has permanently damaged world's best trade relationship."
So reads a Saturday head-
ODD KOROL/REUTERS
line in the Edmonton Journal. It isn't surprising, given the president's penchant for belittling Canada by referring to Prime Minister Mark Carney as the “governor” and the country as our “51st state.”
We are in the thick of a trade war that began in February 2025 and shows no signs of abating. Meanwhile, the Parti Québécois won enough seats in last week's provincial
The prime minister plays a popular but self-defeating game of tariff tit for tat.
election to form a separatist minority government. And it looks as if Canada also faces a separatist movement in oil-rich Alberta.
In this context Mr. Trump may be the only thing the Canadians agree on.
That isn't because he's popular. British-based Lord Ashcroft Polls found that only $25\%$ of Canadians consider America an ally. That's down from $73\%$ in 2022, when Joe Biden was president.
Nervousness about the U.S.-Canada trade war is bolstering support for Mr. Carney. Unfortunately, when he does something to answer Mr. Trump's volleys, it often turns out to be a Canadian form of the protectionism he rightly regards as destructive when Mr. Trump directs it at Canadians.
The pattern is self-defeating—and Trumpian. After the Trump tariffs on Canadian products, the Canadian government imposed 25% retaliatory tariffs on nearly \$30 billion of American goods. Then, in May 2025, the U.S. introduced 25% levies on autos and parts.
Earlier this year, the president's war took a hit when the Supreme Court ruled that he exceeded his authority with his sweeping tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977. The Trump administration invoked the Trade Act of 1974. Canada also adjusted and is looking to formalize a closer economic relationship with the European Union.
Which prompts a question: Are there Canadians who believe they have gained from this whole back and forth?
The answer is surely no. The prime minister plainly decided that the best response, or maybe the only politically viable one, was to try to out-Trump Mr. Trump. As for the president, when reporters asked last week about trade negotiations before the midterm elections, he said the terms of trade currently favor Canada—but that this is changing: "It will work out eventually, but I don't know about—the United States is in no rush."
Prime Minister Mark Carney.
Mr. Trump is probably right that America, with a larger and stronger economy, can absorb more pain than Canada can. But that's zero-sum thinking. A real trade deal should benefit all parties, not by carving up markets but by leaving anyone who wants to buy or sell a product with a consenting adult from across his border free to do so.
Yes, countries cheat. But no one has figured out a way of punishing cheats without imposing unfair costs on innocent bystanders. It says something that Mike Rogers, a Trump-supporting Republican in Michigan running in a tight Senate race against Democrat Abdul El-Sayed, is running ads reminding voters that “Canada is not the enemy.”
As dumb as tariffs are, retaliating with countertariffs, as Mr. Carney is doing, is dumber still. He explained it this way in August: “Canada will match those tariffs dollar for dollar to protect our workers and businesses.”
The better response is to take steps that ensure America, not Canada, pays the price for its inefficiency and protectionism. That means freeing up the Canadian market.
“Retaliatory tariffs,” write Jock Finlayson and Steve Globerman of the Vancouver-based Fraser Institute, “will increase the cost of living for Canadian households but are unlikely to weaken Trump’s tariff fixation. Indeed, the Trump administration may respond to any incremental Canadian ‘retaliation’ by announcing additional market access restrictions targeting various Canadian industries.”
These tariffs make even less sense for Canada given the outsize U.S. role in its economy. Americans are the No. 1 customer for Canada, and vice versa.
Mr. Trump can be cutting when he dismisses Canada, such as the crack that “we don’t need them for anything.” But tell that to the American industries that rely on Canada for oil, electricity and natural gas. It’s another reason Canada would do better to fight Mr. Trump by opening its economy rather than joining his game of chicken.
“Canada has one of the strongest private property rights regimes in the developed world,” Mr. Globerman says. “It should leverage that by significant corporate tax and regulatory reform—which they have started to.”
莱文先生是一位独立历史学家，他出版的Substack时事通讯《内战记忆》（Civil War Memory）在历史爱好者和学者中广受欢迎。他擅长戳破神话，尤其是关于黑人自愿在邦联军队中服役这一根深蒂固的误解。在《光荣的命运》中，他将注意力转向联邦军队中黑人士兵真实且重要的存在，以及首批招募黑人士兵的官方团之一：由肖指挥的马萨诸塞州第54步兵团，该团在瓦格纳堡那场灾难性的进攻中损失了一半的人员。作为几十年来出版的第一部关于肖的传记，它成为了最细腻的一部——在不影响推进叙事的同时，经常停下来进行分析，而叙事的高潮则发生在这位25岁的青年迎来其人生时刻之时。
President Trump and top artificial-intelligence executives signed a voluntary pact last month largely allowing companies to self-regulate, with no penalties for AI-agent misbehavior. Critics say Washington is allowing the industry to police itself. They have a point.
The federal government is far ahead of the private sector in securing its systems against rogue agents. In my 37 years in information-technology security, largely working alongside federal agencies, I never saw Washington lead industry on technology until now. That advantage reflects two decades of federal agencies' strengthening their security protocols.
Today's best cyber defense is known as zero-trust network access. Once a rogue AI agent is inside a network, it moves like other malware. After landing on a machine, it will try to move laterally to the next, hunting for data, passwords or other systems to take over. That horizontal movement is how most serious cyber breaches spread.
Under the zero-trust approach, devices don't trust each other merely because they are on the same network.
Federal agencies got out ahead of industry on cybersecurity.
They must prove they are authorized during every connection. The effect is to contain rogue agents as soon as they land on a system, with no avenue to spread.
Federal agencies are under a strict mandate to adopt zero-trust security infrastructure. The Pentagon has a deadline to reach full integration by the end of fiscal 2027.
Several executive-branch directives dictate how fast agencies must patch cybersecurity vulnerabilities and how thoroughly they must keep inventory of the software they use. Agencies must report their progress to the White House's Office of Management and Budget, and they risk losing funding if they fall behind target.
These guidelines govern purchasing too. Software that can't operate in a segmented network will soon be unfit for federal use, and agencies are writing this requirement into future contracts.
Industry began adopting a zero-trust approach several years ago, but work has stalled. I believe most large companies got 80% of the way there but stopped because of concerns about disruption and high costs.
That was shortsighted. Companies are racing to deploy AI agents on networks allowing the free movement that zero-trust architecture is designed to prevent. The result will be more data theft and disruptions to critical systems.
Businesses aren't bound by voluntary government directives, but they still operate in the real world. The federal government's zero-trust strategy is publicly available, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency offers additional guidance about implementation.
While federal AI regulation is needed, businesses shouldn't wait for Washington's orders to take the technology's risk seriously. When rogue AI agents cause havoc, the press will rush to blame the technology itself. But some fault will lie with the private sector for not safeguarding its defenses. They should finish what they started.
Mr. Rinderer is senior vice president for federal and enterprise growth at NinjaOne, an endpoint-management and remote-monitoring software company.
BOOKSHELF | By Harold Holzer
评论与展望
📄 Original Section
Making a Martyr For the Union
A Glorious Fate
By Kevin M. Levin
North Carolina, 328 pages, \$32.50
At the climax of Edward Zwick's film "Glory"—and of Kevin M. Levin's riveting biography of Robert Gould Shaw—a young white colonel of the Union Army leads his black troops across a narrow strip of South Carolina beach into a murderous Confederate fusillade from the seemingly impregnable Fort Wagner on July 18, 1863. Anyone who has seen the 1989 film knows what happens next: Shaw, the spruce, Harvard-educated scion of an elite Boston family, falls dead in a hail of bullets and shells and topples into a heap of black bodies. As an intended insult, Confederates bury him with his men in a shallow mass grave. A hero of the Civil War dies, and a martyr is born.
It is hard to imagine any book rendering this scene more vividly than the cinematic version, but Mr. Levin has managed the task with panache. What truly elevates “A Glorious Fate,” however, is the author’s revealing look at Shaw’s complex personality—including his surprising indifference about slavery. In contrast to the nobly principled leader of historical fiction, Mr. Levin offers up the real, flawed Shaw, a young man more vainglorious than glorious. The book adds a frank examination of
the mystique that grew up around Shaw after his death—a calculated effort to sanctify him in the hope of advancing racial equality in both the military ranks and post-Civil War America.
Mr. Levin, an independent historian who publishes the Substack newsletter Civil War Memory—widely read by history buffs and scholars alike—specializes in puncturing myths, particularly the stubborn misconception that black men served voluntarily in the Confederate ranks. In “A Glorious Fate,” he turns his attention to the genuine, important presence of black soldiers in the Union Army, and to one of the first official regiments to recruit them: the 54th Massachusetts Infantry, which Shaw commanded and which lost half its men at the ill-fated assault on Fort Wagner. The first biography of Shaw to appear in decades, it takes its place as the most nuanced—frequently pausing for analysis without impeding the propulsive narrative that peaks when the 25-year-old meets his moment.
Shaw was born in 1837 in Dartmouth, Mass. His wealthy parents, Francis and Sarah, were ardent abolitionists who migrated to a succession of like-minded communities. When Robert was still young, the family moved to Staten Island, N.Y., where he was miserable at home and at school. In his teens, he developed a rebellious streak more directed to gambling, drinking and reckless spending than on antislavery idealism. “I have no taste for anything excepting amusing myself,” he admitted to his indulgent mother in a letter. Later, while a student at Harvard, he confessed, “I hate Cambridge.” Mr. Levin paints the pampered youngster as a “stubbornly self-centered” boy who kept “studiously aloof” from the anti-slavery activism that young Harvard radicals embraced in the late 1850s—and that Shaw was all but born to.
Then how, one wonders, was Shaw born again as a champion of black rights? Mr. Levin's answer is that he really wasn't. "I don't talk and think Slavery all the time," Shaw told his dismayed parents as the secession crisis worsened. He all but welcomed disunion because it offered him a chance to pursue his only true passion: Army service.
Shaw's parents rejected offers to disinter his remains. Their son could have no better resting place than among his black troops.
Shaw began his military career as a recruit in the Seventh New York Militia Regiment (made up of the sons of many well-to-do families), marching off to war only a week after the 1861 attack on Fort Sumter. Later Shaw became an officer in the all-white Second Massachusetts Infantry, seeing action at Cedar Mountain and Antietam. To the last, Mr. Levin argues, Shaw cared more about “military concerns” than the “moral crusade” championed by his parents.
When black enlistment began in earnest in 1863, Shaw did not campaign to lead a unit of black soldiers. The opportunity came to him in recognition of the elder Shaws' abolitionist credentials. Shaw, in fact, turned down the commission at first before changing his mind. A friend later recalled Shaw expressing doubts that "negro troops . . . would fight in [the] line of battle," wondering whether it might be necessary to order white soldiers to march behind them and prod them forward with bayonets. Toward the formerly enslaved people he encountered in the South, he could summon no more than paternalism, remarking on "their utter ignorance, and innocence of evil."
Yet this same, initially indifferent Shaw quickly trained his recruits into a skilled fighting unit and supported their fight for equal pay. After a sendoff at Boston Harbor, Shaw and the 54th headed south, where in June 1863 the newly promoted colonel objected to orders to help loot and burn the town of Darien, Ga. A few weeks later, in South Carolina, Shaw agreed to lead his men in the ill-planned assault on one of the batteries that protected the city of Charleston: the powerfully armed Fort Wagner. Mr. Levin suggests that the assignment was not meant as an honor. A New York Tribune correspondent later reported that he had overheard two senior commanders agreeing, using pungently racist language, to sacrifice the black troops, with one adding that “we may as well get rid of them one time as another.”
Eyewitnesses who glimpsed Shaw in the final minutes before the attack described him as “bent on accomplishing or dying.” Ultimately, his death became his greatest accomplishment. When his parents rejected offers to disinter and return his remains—declaring their son could have no better resting place than among his black troops—Shaw was transfigured from soldier to symbol, celebrated by poets and artists. Even now, he appears in Augustus Saint-Gaudens’s bravura relief sculpture on the Boston Common. Willingly or not, as one 19th-century essayist put it, Shaw became “a voluntary sacrifice on the altar of Liberty for an enslaved race.”
Mr. Holzer is the director of Hunter College's Roosevelt House and the author of “Brought Forth on This Continent: Abraham Lincoln and American Immigration.”
issile and drone attacks by Yemen's Houthis over the weekend have Saudi Arabia reeling. The skies over Riyadh
emptied after a Saturday strike on the international airport killed 13 and injured more than 300, and a Sunday attack killed one more. Now comes the test for U.S. policy.
Asked Saturday about join-
Asked Saturday about joining Saudi strikes against the Houthis, President Trump said, “We may. We’re going to look at it.” Yet the last thing he seems to want before midterm elections is a military escalation. That hesitation may be what Iran and its Houthi militia proxies, whom it arms and finances, are counting on.
How about a regional anti-Houthi alliance with Israel and U.A.E.?
The U.S. could let the Saudis fend for themselves against the Iranian axis, but at great strategic cost. The region is watching what Washington will do when the cornerstone of its Gulf alliance system is under attack.
This doesn't require a blank check for Riyadh, and U.S. interceptor shortages constrain what Mr. Trump can provide on defense. But this fight won't be won on defense, continuing to play whack-a-mole with Houthi projectiles. That points to offense, where munitions stocks are healthier and U.S. help is needed to take out Houthi surface-to-air missiles.
Real-time U.S. intelligence support is more discreet but equally important. The Saudi-backed Yemeni government offensive already has the Houthis under pressure along Yemen's western coast and Red Sea corridor, but it's moving slowly.
The U.S. can also continue its diplomacy to rally a regional anti-Houthi coalition, including Israel and the United Arab Emirates. The Houthis threaten the region and international shipping, not only Saudi Arabia, and they operate as part of a larger Iranian strategy. Though Houthis-Saudi conflict predates the current Iran war, the war has put Saudi Arabia in the line of fire. Iran may believe it has identified the weak
It didn't have to be this way. The original Western error was to restrain the Saudi-Yemeni
alliance when it had the Houthis on defense. Amid international humanitarian concerns over civilian casualties, a chance to defeat the Iranian proxy was missed in 2018 and 2019. In February 2021 the
new Biden Administration cut off all support—arms, intelligence and logistics—for the anti-Houthi offensive.
To accommodate Iranian power, Joe Biden even lifted the Houthis' terror designation. This for a group whose chant is: "God is the Greatest, Death to America, Death to Israel, Curse be upon the Jews, Victory to Islam." The Saudis then cut a deal to appease the Houthis, including funneling money to grease the peace. As with Qatari money in Gaza, it didn't work. The Houthis used the reprieve to rearm.
The Saudis spent \$83 billion on defense in 2025, more than Israel or Iran. Under direct attack, Riyadh now has to decide if it has the will to fight back. If it doesn't, all the modernizing ambitions of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) will suffer. Few will want to invest in an easy, repeat target.
MBS's new Mecca pact partners, Turkey and Pakistan, don't seem eager to help despite their large militaries. That leaves an appeal to the U.S. as usual. U.S. support doesn't mean standing in for Saudi Arabia but helping it lead. Pushing MBS into another deal with the Houthis instead would lock in the militia's gains in preparation for the next war.
The Houthi challenge may seem obscure, but the stakes are high for the Saudis, the Middle East and the U.S. It is now tied to Mr. Trump's campaign against Iran and his hope for an expansion of the Abraham Accords between Israel and the Arab states that someday includes Saudi Arabia. As it stands now, the Houthis have the upper hand.
Justice Samuel Alito underscores mistakes originalist judges make in applying the theory (“Even Originalist Judges Make Mistakes,” op-ed, Oct. 3). But another mistake can occur with the definitional frame of reference. For him, originalism denotes that “constitutional provisions should be understood to mean what the public would have taken them to mean when they were adopted.” The “public” would mean ordinary people like colonial patrons of taverns who gathered round to read the proposed Constitution in newspapers.
The problem is that the Constitution wasn't adopted by an Athenian democracy where all citizens were lawmakers. The Framers abhorred pure democracy and opted for a republic based on representation. Legislatures appointed the Framers. It follows that the most relevant and practical frame of reference is what the Framers, fewer than 50 of whom were signers, took the provisions to mean rather than what a colonial citizenry of over two million took them to mean.
Justice Alito notes that “the general public or lawmakers in 1868” didn’t understand “liberty” in the 14th Amendment to include same-sex marriage. But the two viewpoints can diverge. From all accounts, ordinary citizens in 1787 interpreted “misdemeanor” as a minor crime but still a crime, just like today’s ordinary citizens. The Framers understood “misdemeanor” as signifying a breach of trust, or abuse of office, not necessarily amounting to any crime.
What words mean to lawmakers who make a law should be paramount in case of divergent meaning,
In his op-ed “The Birth and Re-birth of Western Civilization” (Oct. 9) based on excerpts from his great speech in Athens, Marco Rubio demonstrates once again that in his head and heart he’s more like Ronald Reagan than any other top Trump administration official. But he omits a major source of Athens’s freedom and greatness that Reagan likely would have put front and center—namely, that Athenian liberty, prosperity and power were built on international trade.
As Will Durant explained in his book “The Life of Greece” (1939), trade was foundational to the prosperity and success of Athens. He wrote: “Foreign commerce advances even faster than domestic trade, for the Greek states have learned the advantages of an international division of labor, and each specializes in some product; the shieldmaker, for example, no longer goes from city to city at the call of those who need him, but makes his shields in his shop and sends them out to the markets of the classic world. In one century Athens moves from household economy—wherein each household makes nearly all that it needs—to urban economy—wherein each town makes nearly all that it needs—to international economy—wherein each state is dependent upon imports, and must make exports to pay for them . . . [I]t is this trade that makes Athens rich.”
o much for that energy cease-fire between Russia and Ukraine. President Trump announced the truce Sunday on Truth So-
cial, along with the warning "do not break it!" Within hours Vladimir Putin did.
On Sunday a Shahed drone hit a power plant in Kyiv, and the Russians also struck a thermal power plant in
Kharkiv. “This happened after the statement by the President of the United States about a ceasefire in the energy sector,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky wrote on Telegram.
Trump announces
a truce. Russia
immediately violates it.
Ukraine refrained from striking Russian refineries overnight, Mr. Zelensky said Monday, and “we are ready to adhere to any energy truce, if Russia is willing to do the same.” Mr. Putin has repeatedly refused.
The Russian dictator is multiplying his aerial attacks on Ukrainian cities and civilians as he has run into difficulties on the battlefield in eastern Ukraine. The Russians have made “near-zero gains since March 2026,” the Institute for the Study of War said last month. In early summer the Ukrainians stymied Russia’s plans for a southern offensive. And Ukraine’s
Operation Vivaldi has now thwarted Russian plans to encircle the eastern defensive stronghold known as the Fortress Belt.
So Mr. Putin's plan now is to “make civilian life in Ukraine unbearable such that Ukraine will capitulate to Russia’s demands,” ISW said this month. Mr. Putin is taking advantage of Ukraine’s
shortage of Patriot missiles and functioning F-16 jets to hammer energy plants ahead of a long winter.
Mr. Trump is scapegoating Ukraine for rising diesel prices, and on Saturday he said Kyiv “better damn well stop” its strikes on Russian refineries. But is Ukraine supposed to sit back and take the Russian blitz? Oil and gas exports fund Mr. Putin’s military, and Russian energy production is a legitimate war target.
Mr. Trump made a major concession Friday with a pause on diesel sanctions that will allow Russian energy companies to rake in some \$4.5 billion. Yet Mr. Putin is giving him nothing we can see in return. The Russian refusal to accept an energy cease-fire is the latest evidence that Mr. Trump's courtship isn't working.
California taxpayers have spent tens of billions of dollars on affordable housing to little productive effect. Yet spe-
cial interests want voters this November to pony up tens of billions more and—get this—establish a state-backed housing lender. Call this the triumph of false hope over experience.
The California Association of Realtors and labor unions are backing Prop. 37, a ballot measure that would authorize the California Housing Finance Agency to issue \$25 billion in government bonds to fund a home down payment assistance program. Another measure (Prop. 1) would authorize \$11.25 billion in bonds to fund affordable housing.
The state wants voters to let it get into the lending subsidy game.
Supporters say the down payment program won't cost taxpayers a dime, but this is misleading. The state would issue bonds to fund loans to cover down payments for buyers of newly constructed homes. Loans could cover as much as $17\%$ of a home's purchase price, so the buyer would only have to put $3\%$ down.
The down payment loan would be a second mortgage, which a buyer would pay off over time. While the program is ostensibly aimed at helping middle-income households, buyers earning up to 200% of an area's median income could qualify for homes costing as much as \$1.5 million. The median is roughly \$400,000 for a family of four in Silicon Valley.
Why is the state program needed given that the federal government already backs mortgages with minimal down payments? The Federal Housing Administration insures mortgages with 3.5% down payments, though borrowers must pay premiums equal to 1.75% of the loan amount, plus a roughly 0.55% annual fee for the life of the loan.
Government-sponsored enterprise Fannie Mae also guarantees mortgages for lower-income households with as little as 3% down, though borrowers generally must pay higher interest rates and insurance premiums. California's program looks to be a subsidy for the relatively affluent who are struggling to afford homes at ethereal prices and today's interest
rates.
The idea seems to be that the state down payment loan would obviate the higher interest rates buyers would otherwise have to pay under federal programs if they put only
3% down. By making a 20% down payment that is mostly funded by a state-backed second mortgage, borrowers could qualify for a lower interest rate.
It's not clear the state could fund down payment loans at rates that are attractive to borrowers without losing money. The state might be able to take advantage of the municipal bond tax exemption to issue bonds and thereby fund down payment loans at below-market rates. Thirty-year tax-exempt muni bonds currently yield around $5.7\%$ .
But the state would still have to factor in the price of the loan's administrative and underwriting costs. Because the down payment loans would be subordinate to a primary mortgage, bond buyers would likely charge a yield premium. While California might set interest rates on down payment loans below its cost of funding, taxpayers would then be stuck subsidizing them.
In any case, subsidizing buyers will push up prices as long as supply remains constrained. Prop. 1 won't help with either. Most of the \$11.25 billion in bonds would fund homeless and multifamily housing, which can cost \$1 million a unit to build because of government building codes, prevailing wage requirements and other regulation.
California voters have approved \$12 billion in bonds for such projects since 2018, which comes on top of nearly \$20 billion in general fund spending. Yet both homelessness and housing costs have increased. Let's hope voters have the wisdom to stop this endless housing-subsidy racket and defeat both propositions.
关于约瑟夫·C·斯特恩伯格（Joseph C. Sternberg） 10 月 9 日发表的专栏文章《法国的骚乱？这里也可能发生》（政治经济版）：法国的债务危机是一个完美的例子，说明了当政治家们更关心如何保住工作而非履行职责时会发生什么。他们似乎没听过这样一句话：“当你身处深坑时，请停止挖掘。”
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📄 Original Section
It's OK if Markets Force Some Colleges to Close
Jeff Yass's op-ed “Pouring Money Into the Ivy League Won’t Solve Its Problems” (Oct. 9) is right on target, but to accommodate new academic ventures, we need the Schumpeterian “creative destruction” so critical to the emergence and triumph of competitive private enterprise capitalism in the U.S. and across the globe. The downsizing or near death of iconic brand names like Sears and Eastman Kodak helped free resources to finance the Anthropic, Nvidia, Apple and other leaders of recent economic progress.
The growing threat of closure is already forcing some existing colleges out of desperation to throttle the administrative bloat that had distracted them from their primary mission of discovering and disseminating knowledge and creative ideas. Some institutions are also considering revising tenure provisions and are even rethinking costly intercollegiate athletic spending. Labor markets are making unemployable majors like gender studies undesirable for students. Some schools are asking professors
The Permitting Reform Bill Harms Historic Preservation
If permitting reform passes as your editorial suggests (“Permitting Reform at Last, Really?,” Oct. 6), it will symbolize a larger, disturbing trend taking shape in Washington right now—public policy and federal actions that lack clear process, meaningful public and stakeholder involvement and sound judgement. In particular, the proposed sweeping changes to the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) of 1966 within the permitting reform bill are unprecedented and go too far. If passed, these provisions would eviscerate our nation’s civic and cultural inheritance. The proposed changes must be rejected. We are eager to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the NHPA on Oct. 15—a foundational law that has stood the test of time and served our country well. Our elected and appointed officials should practice greater deference to our nation’s heritage.
BRENT LEGGS
President and CEO
Natl. Trust for Historic Preservation
Washington to teach more and write fewer articles for last-resort journals. Talk is growing of having three-year instead of four-year bachelor's degrees.
Because of massive taxpayer and private philanthropic subsidies, market signals that lead to needed collegiate resource reallocation are weakened, but they are still present and beginning to work. I share Mr. Yass's enthusiasm for the University of Austin, but I think the death of a few hundred existing schools will scare the rest into promoting less ideologically driven wokeness and instead focus on greater efficiency.
PROF. EM. RICHARD VEDDER
Ohio University
Athens, Ohio
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胡椒……与盐
华尔街日报
“他需要从所有这些情感支持工作中休息一下。”
📄 Original Section
Mamdani's Oct. 7 Response
Regarding your editorial “Celebrating Hamas on Oct. 7” (Oct. 8): My mother survived Auschwitz. Throughout her life, she returned to one painful question: “Why didn’t we run away when we still had the chance?” It was the reflection of someone who knew there was a brief window when leaving Europe might still have been possible.
I thought of my mother when reading your editorial regarding New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani's statement on the anniversary of the attacks. While the mayor briefly acknowledged the horror of that day—of those killed and taken hostage—his statement quickly shifted to qualified political context, adding that the suffering “did not begin nor end that day.”
New York isn't 1930s Europe, and I would never diminish what my mother endured. But her life taught me that people don't always recognize when the world begins to shift.
Oct. 7 was a day of slaughter. The mayor has 364 other days a year to complain about occupation and genocide. On this anniversary, that suffering should have stood on its own. Instead, his rhetoric left me wondering if my mother's question has now become mine: Should we think about leaving?
Regarding Joseph C. Sternberg's column “Riots in France? They Could Happen Here” (Political Economics, Oct. 9): The French debt crisis is a perfect example of what can happen when politicians are more concerned with keeping their jobs than doing their jobs. They don't seem to have heard the expression “when you're in a hole, stop digging.”
Letters intended for publication should be emailed to wsj.ltrs@wsj.com. Please include your city, state and telephone number. All letters are subject to editing, and unpublished letters cannot be acknowledged.
为何会发生这种突然的转变？在“弗曼诉佐治亚州案”（Furman v. Georgia, 1972）中，最高法院因现有所有死刑法缺乏大法官们所设定的某些程序保障而将其废除，随后35个州重新修订了法律以采用这些程序。1977年，犹他州通过枪决处决了加里·吉尔摩（Gary Gilmore），这是暂停执行死刑后的首次处决。但反对者继续挑战处决行为（包括处决方式），认为其造成痛苦或具有侮辱性。
而且，目前还没有一种被认可的、能保证快速无痛死亡的方案。药企测试药物是为了治病，而不是为了杀人。各州在即兴尝试，有时使用已知会引起剧烈疼痛的药物，并施以镇静剂来减轻痛苦。镇静剂并不总是有效，而且有充分理由相信部分囚犯遭受了痛苦；派克女士实际上就告诉了我们这一点。多年来，发生了无数次失败的处决，法学教授科琳娜·莱恩（Corinna Lain）在她最近出版的《杀戮国家的秘密：致命注射不为人知的故事》（Secrets of the Killing State: The Untold Story of Lethal Injection）一书中详细记录了这些令人毛骨悚然的细节。
rizona succeeded in killing Joseph Rudolph Wood III on July 23, 2014, the day after the Supreme Court lifted a stay that had been
issued by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The state administered 15 injections of midazolam and hydromorphone over nearly two hours. It was, at the time, the longest execution in U.S. history.
That record is now eclipsed by the failed execution of Christa Pike, who survived two injections of pentobarbital, to the apparent surprise of the Tennessee officials administering them. One can only hope that this disturbing episode will cause reconsideration of our half-century-long experiment with lethal injection, but I'm not so sure. Wood's
Lethal injection only looks humane, and it blurs the distinction between healing and killing.
execution generated extensive publicity, including a “60 Minutes” segment in which I, then a Ninth Circuit judge, was interviewed, and then nothing happened. Almost every death-penalty state, along with the federal criminal code, designates lethal injection as the sole or default method of execution.
It wasn't always so. For much of the 20th century, states used hanging, the gas chamber, the electric chair and occasionally firing squads. Then, in 1977, Oklahoma authorized lethal injection. Texas first used it in 1982 when it executed Charles Brooks Jr. The other capital punishment states quickly fell in line.
RICK BOWMER/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Why this sudden transformation? After the Supreme Court struck down all existing death-penalty laws in Furman v. Georgia (1972) for lacking certain procedural safeguards that the justices invented, 35 states retooled their laws to adopt such procedures. In 1977 Utah executed Gary Gilmore by firing squad, the first execution after the moratorium. But opponents continued to challenge executions, including execution methods, as painful or degrading.
Perhaps states thought lethal injection would fare better in court because it resembled a familiar medical procedure. Perhaps they wanted executions to look less medieval. Either way, the appeal was obvious: Put the prisoner on a gurney, attach tubes, administer drugs, and invite the public to imagine that death arrives cleanly and quickly, without anyone getting blood on his hands.
Appearances, however, aren't reality. Lethal injection was a terrible choice, practically and philosophically. It borrows medicine's costume without the people and safeguards that make medicine work. Physicians are barred by the American Medical Association's ethics code from participating in executions; similar constraints apply to nurses. The job therefore falls to law-enforcement personnel, who must obtain the drugs, find a vein, insert a catheter, and administer the substances in the right quantities and sequence. If the first attempt fails, they try again. In Wood's case, 14 times.
The supply problem makes matters worse. Drug manufacturers have refused to sell their products for executions. States have resorted to Rube Goldberg-like schemes to obtain drugs from abroad, sometimes under false pretenses, or have used drugs that are expired or improperly stored. The state wants the appearance of a modern medical procedure but can't reliably obtain the materials or expertise that real medicine requires.
Nor is there an accepted protocol guaranteed to produce a quick, painless death. Drug companies test medications to heal people, not kill them. States have improvised, sometimes using drugs known to cause severe pain and administering sedatives to blunt it. Sedatives don't always work, and there is good reason to believe that some prisoners suffer; Ms. Pike actually told us so. Over the years there have been numerous botched executions, as documented in gruesome detail by law professor Corinna Lain in her recent book, "Secrets of the Killing State: The Untold Story of Lethal Injection."
The philosophical problem is more fundamental: Execution by lethal injection is dishonest. It dresses an execution in the reassuring garb of medicine, encouraging us to mistake a state killing for a clinical event. Medicine seeks to preserve life; execution ends it. This blurring of what are diametrically opposite functions is epistemologically perilous and morally repugnant.
Which is why I applaud Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's decision to execute Nidal Hasan by firing squad. As I argued at the time of the Wood execution: "Eight or ten large-caliber rifle bullets fired at close range can inflict massive damage, causing instant death every time. There are plenty of people employed by the state who can pull the trigger and have the training to aim true. The weapons and ammunition are bought by the state in massive quantities for law enforcement purposes, so it would be impossible to interdict the supply. And nobody can argue that the weapons are put to a purpose for which they were not intended: firearms have no purpose other than destroying their targets. Sure, firing squads can be messy, but if we are willing to carry out executions, we should not shield ourselves from the reality that we are shedding human blood. If we, as a society, cannot stomach the splatter from an execution carried out by firing squad, then we shouldn't be carrying out executions at all."
The intervening decade has reinforced my views. Deserving as Mr. Hasan may be of his punishment, no one merits a lingering, possibly excruciating death. I have some doubts whether livestreaming the execution is advisable, but Mr. Hegseth should be commended for his honesty, and for showing Mr. Hasan mercy.
Mr. Kozinski served as a judge on the Ninth Circuit, 1985-2017.
宏观经济学的一次正确授奖
作者：大卫·R·亨德森 (David R. Henderson)
诺贝尔奖委员会在周一的一份声明中表示，罗伯特·霍尔 (Robert E. Hall) 和迈克尔·伍德福德 (Michael Woodford) 因“宏观经济稳定的微观经济基础”而被授予诺贝尔经济学奖。两位经济学家均为美国人。83岁的霍尔先生是斯坦福大学的经济学教授，也是胡佛研究所的高级研究员。70岁的伍德福德先生是哥伦比亚大学的经济学教授。
Since long before James Carville pinned his famous epigram to the wall of Bill Clinton's campaign headquarters in 1992, the reductive formula for success or failure in elections has been obvious: the material condition of the people.
Mr. Carville's maxim was only the second of a triplet (the others were about change and healthcare), but it resonated for the timeless reliability of its psephological predictiveness. When the economy sucks, incumbents lose.
It is the primary pre-explanation for the drubbing Republicans expect next month. But now as then, it may be that a flawed perception of the economy rather than economic reality is driving voting behavior, and that now as then the U.S. is in the early stages of an economic golden age.
By the time Americans voted that November, the recession Gov. Clinton had rhetorically exploited was long over. During the second half of 1992, gross domestic product expanded at an annual rate of 4%. Unemployment peaked that summer and was falling sharply by the time the new president took office.
It's invidious to tell voters that what they believe isn't true; but today, as then, there can be no other explanation for the level of popular dyspepsia with an economy that, in macro terms, is in robust health.
The best sense of how big a disconnect there is between polling and economic facts can be had by comparing President Trump's current ratings with his immediate predecessor's at the nadir of America's recent economic performance.
The latest Quinnipiac poll gives Mr. Trump a 31% approval rating on the economy. In June 2022 Joe Biden enjoyed—if that's the word—a higher rating, 33%.
That month consumer prices were up 9.1% from a year earlier, the highest inflation in 40 years. In the first half of that year, the economy had contracted at a rate of just over 1%. Real wages were falling: Between January 2021, and June
2022, hourly earnings adjusted for inflation had fallen by 4.1%. The rate on a 30-year mortgage had almost doubled, from 2.65% to 5.1%. Average gasoline prices had more than doubled, from \$2.39 a gallon to more than \$5. The S&P 500 index of leading stocks increased just 1% in the first 18 months of the Biden term. The unemployment rate was the one bright spot, at 3.6%.
As in 1992, Democrats are poised to win big based on mistaken perceptions that times are difficult.
Contrast that with today. Consumer price inflation is at 3.4%, up since the beginning of Mr. Trump's term but well below where it was four years ago. Gasoline prices and interest rates are up, but not by as much as they had increased under the Democrats. Gasoline is up about 65% since Inauguration Day, at around \$5 a gallon. Mortgage rates are at 7%, just about where they were when Mr. Trump took office.
In the first half of this year growth averaged more than 2.4% a year. The Atlanta Federal Reserve estimates third-quarter growth at 3.6%.
Real wages are up. The S&P 500 is up about 35%. Unemployment is higher than it was four years ago, but at 4.1% still historically low.
In the 1960s Arthur Okun invented the “misery index,” the sum of the inflation and unemployment rates, as a gauge of economic success. On that, Mr. Biden scored 12.7 in June 2022; Mr. Trump 7.5 now. Even if we create an augmented misery index, adding gasoline prices, diesel prices and average mortgage rates, Mr. Biden still comes out “ahead,” 29 to Mr. Trump’s 25.
By just about any measure, the economy is in much better shape today than it was four years ago, yet the incumbent gets lower marks.
There are several plausible explanations. Voters care less about the relative softening in inflation in the past two years and more about the continuing cumulative increase in prices. After decades of almost no inflation, prices have risen by 25% since 2020. The incumbent is paying the price. Voters may also see a clearer link between Mr. Trump's policies and their current challenges than they saw with Mr. Biden. Tariffs and a war that has pushed up energy prices both directly feed higher costs. There is also the sense that the benefits of the current economic strength are distributed even less equally than usual.
Yet as Mr. Clinton's election in the midst of misperceived misery coincided with the start of a long economic boom, so Americans may come to look back on 2026 as the early stages of a period of prolonged prosperity.
Growth is accelerating. Underlying inflation pressures are easing—consumer prices minus food and energy rose by 2.4% during the year ending in August, down from 3.3% when Mr. Trump took office. The artificial-intelligence investment boom is the primary driver of growth, and if the productivity increases investors expect from it materialize, growth may be about to exceed anything we have seen for decades.
Which would give a whole new meaning to “the economy, stupid.”
Robert E. Hall and Michael Woodford have been awarded the Nobel Prize in Economic Science for “microeconomic foundations of macroeconomic stabilisation,” the prize committee said in a statement Monday. Both economists are American. Mr. Hall, 83, is an economics professor at Stanford and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. Mr. Woodford, 70, is an economics professor at Columbia.
Ever since John Maynard Keynes's 1936 classic, “The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money,” which essentially established macroeconomics, economists have debated how governments should stabilize an economy. Keynes believed that during high unemployment, the government should increase aggregate demand for goods and services by temporarily increasing government spending or temporarily decreasing taxes. Keynes also believed that if people’s income increased, they would spend a certain percentage of that increase. Thus, consumer spending could pull an economy out of a recession. Later economists, including 1976 Nobel laureate Milton Friedman, found problems with Keynes's simplistic idea. Mr. Hall built on Friedman's insight.
In his 1957 book, “A Theory of the Consumption Function,” Friedman argued that people wouldn’t base their consumption solely on current income but would instead consume according to what he called “permanent income”—their expectations of future income. Because a temporary cut in taxes wouldn’t have much effect on permanent or long-term income, Friedman argued, such a tax cut wouldn’t increase consumer spending by more than a small percentage of the tax cut.
In a 1978 paper in the Journal of Political Economy, Mr. Hall took the next step. He argued that consumption depends on the expectations of future income, making it hard to predict consumption using past data. This was evidence for Mr. Hall's view that consumers are forward-looking. By definition, people's expectations about the future aren't captured by current data.
In 1982, Mr. Hall and co-author Frederic Mishkin helped pioneer
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Michael Woodford's main contributions were on monetary policy. His 2003 book, “Interest and Prices,” has been called a bible for central bankers. Keynesians, up to and including 1970 Nobel laureate Paul Samuelson, argued that mone-
Among Mr. Hall's most important works is his 1985 book, “The Flat Tax,” written with Alvin Rabushka. Messrs. Hall and Rabushka made a strong case for replacing the current income tax with a flat rate and showed that it would be much less distortionary and more pro-growth than our current tax system.
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the use of household-level consumption data, rather than solely aggregate data, to study what the Nobel committee calls “the rational-expectations, permanent-income hypothesis.” They found that 20% of households lived “hand to mouth,” but that the consumption behavior of the other 80% was consistent with their forward-looking hypothesis.
DOW JONES | News Corp tary policy was ineffective at lifting economies from recessions. Friedman, on his own and with co-author Anna J. Schwartz, showed that monetary policy, for good and ill, was quite effective. Friedman had
Michael Woodford and Robert E. Hall built on Milton Friedman's critique of John Maynard Keynes.
focused on the money supply. Mr. Woodford showed how the Federal Reserve could affect the economy by targeting the federal-funds rate. As Hoover economist John Cochrane notes, the Taylor rule, named for economist John Taylor, is central to the framework Mr. Woodford developed. According to that rule, to reduce inflation, the Fed should aggressively raise interest rates.
The Nobel committee said the prize was awarded for “demonstrating how economic models could be reconstructed to revitalise stabilisation policy.” That leaves out two important points. First, Mr. Hall’s work on consumption shows that using Keynesian fiscal policy wouldn’t work. Second, the work of both Messrs. Hall and Woodford shows how government policy, especially monetary policy, has at times erred and caused instability. The Nobel committee has an unfortunate tendency to attribute implicitly almost all problems of unstable economies to the economies themselves and almost none of the problems to bad government policy. Fortunately, the work of this year’s winners offsets this tendency.
Mr. Henderson is a research fellow with the Stanford University's Hoover Institution and editor of the Concise Encyclopedia of Economics.
“我们需要资金来部署更多的计算能力，” 的联合创始人兼首席执行官 Max-Hervé George 表示。他补充说，他对比特币挖矿“毫无兴趣”。
他的公司感兴趣的是：随 Genesis Digital 一起收购的位于德克萨斯州、北卡罗来纳州、南卡罗来纳州和瑞典的数据中心。 希望将这些中心提供给所谓的“超大规模运营商”——如亚马逊网络服务（AWS）或谷歌云（Google Cloud）等云计算提供商，这些公司为 ChatGPT 及类似 AI 工具提供了大部分计算火力。
虽然 Genesis Digital 最初专注于在哈萨克斯坦进行比特币挖矿，但后来撤出了这个中亚国家。George 表示， 正在出售其在哈萨克斯坦最后剩余的资产，即一组由三个小型比特币挖矿站点组成的资产。
班克曼-弗里德从 2021年开始参与其中。他最终通过其加密货币交易公司 Alameda Research 向 Genesis Digital 投资了超过 10 亿美元 billion，最终持有该公司 20% 的股份。Alameda 与 FTX 紧密交织。
到 2022年 11 月 FTX 申请破产时，Genesis Digital 正深陷比特币价格暴跌以及哈萨克斯坦的敌意之中——请翻至 B2 页
📄 Original Section
Ritual Offers What Medicine Can't
By Maria Balhara
The mother and father stayed close to their child's hospital bed while family members stood quietly nearby. The child wouldn't recover.
How does a parent say goodbye to a child? Who remains present when medicine reaches its limits? Hospitals are filled with people confronting these questions. Clinicians pause silently after deaths. Chaplains perform emergency baptisms in neonatal intensive-care units. Nurses preserve handprints and footprints for grieving families. Music is played at bedsides during extubations. Care teams gather quietly outside rooms before difficult conversations.
I have come to realize that many of these practices share features traditionally associated with ritual: symbolic action, repetition and the marking of transitions often involving uncertainty, vulnerability or death.
Calling these practices rituals can feel strange in modern medicine, a field grounded in science and technical expertise. But the effects of severe illness on patients and their loved ones isn't merely physical. Consider the parent who must navigate uncertainty and anticipatory grief while making decisions for a sick child who can't speak.
Ritualized practices help patients, families and clinicians acknowledge realities that are emotionally and morally significant but difficult to express.
As a chaplaincy trainee, I entered the hospital expecting to encounter ritual in overtly religious settings. I found it woven into ordinary clinical life. Even people who wouldn't describe themselves as religious were among the practitioners.
A physician sitting down to talk at a patient's eye level before delivering devastating news. A nurse calling for the spiritual care team to visit quietly with the mother of a dying child. These rituals won't end disease or suffering, but they aren't trivial. They communicate gravity, respect and the recognition of shared human vulnerability.
Such practices allow clinicians to acknowledge the emotional and moral pressures of their work. In this sense, ritual doesn't exist outside medicine but is essential to humanity in medical practice.
Ms. Balhara is a philosophy major at the University of Pennsylvania and a student chaplain at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.
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Top 10 Tom Cruise films by worldwide box office gross | Film Title | Gross (in $ billion) | Top Gun: Maverick | Mission: Impossible - Fallout | Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol | Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation | Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning | War of the Worlds | Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One | Mission: Impossible II | Mission: Impossible | The Last Samurai | # BUSINESS & FINANCE
克鲁斯曾获得三次演技提名：分别是在《四月四日出生》（Born on the Fourth of July，1989 年）中饰演一名激进的、使用轮椅的越南战争退伍军人，在《一个叫杰瑞·马奎尔的人》（Jerry Maguire，1996 年）中饰演一名积极进取的体育经纪人，以及在《木兰花》（Magnolia，1999 年）中饰演一名励志大师。他还作为《壮志凌云：独行侠》（Top Gun: Maverick，2022 年）的制片人获得了最佳影片提名。
Various holdings, previously seen as bad investments, draw new interest
BY ALEXANDER OSIPOVICH
A bitcoin-mining business that appeared left for dead after the collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried's crypto empire is being resuscitated to serve the artificial-intelligence build-out.
The business, previously known as Genesis Digital Assets, had been snarled for years in the FTX bankruptcy process. It was taken over this summer by SWI Group, a digital-infrastructure company that has been buying up data centers in the U.S. and Europe to serve AI companies hungry for computing power.
SWI announced Monday that it has raised €800 million, or around \$900 million, to fund the upgrading and expansion of its data centers. Shares of the Amsterdam-listed, Singapore-incorporated company rose 16% after the deal was announced, giving it a market capitalization of around \$6.9 billion.
“We need capital to deploy more compute,” said Max-Hervé George, co-founder and chief executive of SWI. He added that he had “zero interest” in bitcoin mining.
What his firm is interested in: the data centers in Texas, North Carolina, South Carolina and Sweden it bought with Genesis Digital. SWI hopes to put them at the service of the so-called hyperscalers—cloud-computing providers such as Amazon Web Services or Google Cloud, which provide much of the computing firepower behind ChatGPT and similar AI tools.
While Genesis Digital originally focused on bitcoin mining in Kazakhstan, it later pulled back from the central Asian country. SWI is in the process of selling its last remaining assets in Kazakhstan, a group of three small bitcoin-mining sites, George said.
Bitcoin mining involves running programs to solve complex mathematical equations to generate new units of the digital currency. Originally done by enthusiasts on their personal computers, it eventually grew into a big business, with companies amassing racks of Nvidia chips to mine bitcoin on an industrial scale.
Many of those companies have lately pivoted to AI, which promises more lucrative returns.
George, a 37-year-old French entrepreneur, started out investing in distressed real-estate properties before pivoting to data centers.
But few assets he has tackled have as thorny a history as
Genesis Digital.
Founded in 2017 by a group of German and Kazakh entrepreneurs, it grew into one of the world's largest bitcoin miners.
Bankman-Fried got involved starting in 2021. He ultimately invested more than \$1 billion in Genesis Digital through his cryptocurrency trading firm, Alameda Research, which ended up with a 20% stake in the company. Alameda was closely intertwined with FTX.
By the time FTX filed for bankruptcy in November 2022, Genesis Digital was struggling with a deep slump in bitcoin prices and hostility in Kazakh-Please turn to page B2
保险公司的母公司Group 1001的一位发言人表示，该公司已知晓近期的诉讼。“目前还没有任何法院裁定Group 1001 Insurance或Delaware Life Insurance Company有任何过错，我们将根据我们服务保单持有者的诚信长期记录，坚定地为本案辩护，”该公司表示。
Delaware Life和Clear Spring在6月披露，它们严重低估了其在所谓的
📄 Original Section
‘Digger’ Misfire Upends Cruise’s Oscar Hunt
BY JOHN JURGENSEN
AND ESTHER ZUCKERMAN
The high-concept satire sold just \$8 million of domestic tickets in its opening weekend against its \$125 million cost.
In June, the first glimpse of Tom Cruise's newest movie appeared with a surprising prologue—a highlight reel spanning his entire career.
It was a 2½-minute show-case of the range and charisma of the world's biggest movie star, building to a line from a “Mission: Impossible” movie: “Everything you’ve done has come to this.”
Cut to Cruise as a bombastic oil baron in “Digger,” encased in prosthetics, sounding off with a Texas drawl and firing a finger gun. One of the top comments on YouTube: “my man is coming for the Oscar.”
Then “Digger” landed with a thud.
The high-concept satire from writer-director Alejandro González Iñárritu, which cost about \$125 million to make, sold just \$8 million worth of tickets at more than 3,300 domestic theaters its opening weekend.
That unleashed the kind of “bomb” and “flop” headlines that haven’t haunted a Cruise release since “The Mummy” in 2017. It also put what had seemed like an inevitable run to the Academy Awards in question—and made that celebratory career montage look premature.
“That’s when it felt like they were trying too hard to get Tom a nomination,” said Hollywood marketing veteran Dennis Rice, who worked with Cruise when the actor helped revive the United Artists studio in the 2000s.
Cruise holds a Guinness World Record for most consecutive \$100 million-grossing movies by an actor (11). He has executed movie stunts other actors would never consider. He is frequently referred to as "the last movie star." Hoisting that golden trophy for his acting is one of the only Hollywood milestones that Cruise has yet to achieve.
"It's his Everest," said Jeff Benedict, author of a forthcoming biography of the star.
Cruise has three acting nominations: for playing a firebrand, wheelchair-using Vietnam War vet in “Born on the Fourth of July” (1989), a gung-ho sports agent in “Jerry Maguire” (1996), and a motivational guru in “Magnolia” (1999). He also received a best picture nod as a producer of “Top Gun: Maverick” (2022).
Yet the only Oscar actually in his possession is an honorary one for his 45-year career. "Making films is not what I do," he said in accepting it last year, "it is who I am."
Though he devoted the 2020s to spectacle, Cruise has demonstrated his range as a serious, awards-worthy actor since the 1980s, when he took roles supporting Paul Newman in “The Color of Money” and Dustin Hoffman in “Rain Man.” (Both leading actors walked away with Oscars for their performances.)
Later came his psychosexual turn in “Eyes Wide Shut” by revered director Stanley Kubrick; a leap into pure comedy, bald cap and all, in “Tropic Thunder,” and steely villainy in “Collateral,” among other performances that won him critical respect.
Yet the Academy never bought in. "I believe Tom's one of the greatest actors of our industry, but because he's also a commercial actor, he sometimes doesn't get the recogni-
Lawsuits are piling up against Dodgers owner Mark Walter brought by senior citizens who bought annuities from his insurance companies.
A suit filed Monday is at least the third to allege Walter and his insurers sold annuities based on misrepresentations and false promises. The suits, brought by class-action lawyers seeking to represent a larger group of policyholders, come after two of Walter's insurers disclosed in June that they were under federal investigation for failing to report how much of their portfolio was deployed as loans to other companies connected to Walter's sports-and-financial empire.
Rick Phillips, a Los Angeles-area retiree, filed suit on Monday asking policyholders at two Walter insurers, Clear Spring and Gainbridge, be let out of their annuity contracts without penalty or reimbursed for the difference between what they paid and cheaper price the companies might have had to accept had they been upfront about the extent of their affiliated investments.
Annuities were designed to appeal to older people who live on fixed incomes and have little appetite for risk. Indexed annuities, which offer policyholders the potential for stock-market-like gains, surged in popularity over the past decade, helping fuel the private lending of alternative asset managers.
On Wednesday, Robert Kalinsky, a 76-year-old Davie, Fla., resident, filed a separate lawsuit against Clear Spring and another Walter insurer, Delaware Life, also for misrepresenting the extent of their affiliated assets. Another Delaware Life annuity policyholder, Ira Rosner, filed his own lawsuit last month.
Walter's conglomerate, TWG Global, has said there was no fraud at either his Wall Street firm Guggenheim Partners or at his insurers.
A spokesman for the insurers' parent, Group 1001, said the firm is aware of recent lawsuits. "No court has ruled that Group 1001 Insurance or Delaware Life Insurance Company did anything wrong, and we intend to defend the case vigorously, consistent with our long track record of serving policyholders with integrity," the firm said.
Delaware Life and Clear Spring disclosed in June that they had dramatically understated their share of so-called Please turn to page B2
FICO credit scores played a critical role in determining homeownership for many Americans for decades. Now the mortgage industry is embracing another metric.
Regulators and lenders recently opened the door to using VantageScore, a joint venture by credit-reporting firms Equifax, Experian and TransUnion, for their mortgage-underwriting decisions. It is the latest chapter in the Federal Housing Finance Agency's crusade against Fair Isaac's near-monopoly over the \$13 trillion mortgage market—one that sent the company's stock down about 60% this year.
The FHFA is the overseer of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which backstop much of the market and therefore set the standards for home lending. FHFA chief Bill Pulte and President Trump have been trying to lower mortgage costs and increase home affordability,
SZWARC HENRI/ABACA/ZUMA PRESS
combating mortgage rates that have climbed to their highest levels in years just before the midterm elections. The administration says the credit-score change will make it easier and cheaper to get a mortgage.
Pulte has more in store for the industries, including changing longstanding requirements around credit reports, according to a person familiar with the matter.
“We do not care who wins,” Pulte said on X in late September. “We just want [FICO] and Vantage to compete—not be a cartel or abusive monopolies.”
Making home-buying more affordable is a monumental task filled with potential pitfalls and unintended consequences. So far, the market is seeing the score changes as increasing risk, and there are early indications that it is leading to higher rates on some mortgages.
The FHFA, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac all said in statements that the changes would modernize the credit-scoring Please turn to page B2
AUTOS
Technology-loaded
Chinese cars are
powering the Paris
Motor Show. B3
TECHNOLOGY
Dating app company
Bumble is in talks to go
private in a deal valuing
it at \$1 billion. B4
企业索引
本索引列出了今日版面中大多数母公司和商业人士的重要参考页码。区域插页中的文章未列入本索引。
A
Airbnb B10
艾伯森超市 (Albertsons) B1
亚马逊 (Amazon.com) A11,B2,B10
美国航空 (American Airlines) A11
B
Beyond Meat B4
黑石 (Blackstone) B4
Booking B10
Bumble B4
比亚迪 (BYD) B3
C
奇瑞汽车 (Chery Automobile) B3
D
达美航空 (Delta Air Lines) A11
E
Equifax B1
Expedia B10
Experian B1
F
Fair Isaac B1
福特汽车 (Ford Motor) B3
G
吉利汽车 (Geely Automobile) B3
Getty Images B4
广州汽车 (Guangzhou Automobile) B3
H
爱马仕 (Hermès) B5
希尔顿全球 (Hilton Worldwide) B10
I
IonQ公司 (IonQ) B5
K
开云集团 (Kering) B5
Keurig Dr Pepper B4
克罗格超市 (Kroger) B1
L
理想汽车 (Li Auto) B3
Lucid B3
LVMH B5
Lyft A3
M
万豪 (Marriott) B10
Match B4
Meta平台公司 (Meta Platforms) B3,B10
N
英伟达 (Nvidia) B1
R
Rocket B2
S
上汽集团 (SAIC Motor) B3
赛力斯 (Seres) B3
Seven & i B4
西南航空 (Southwest Airlines) A11
SpaceX A3
斯特兰蒂斯 (Stellantis) B3
SWI B1
T
特斯拉 (Tesla) B3
TransUnion B1
U
Uber Technologies A3
联合航空 (United Airlines) A11
UWM B2
V
大众汽车 (Volkswagen) B3
W
沃尔玛 (Walmart) B2
X
小鹏汽车 (XPeng) B3
Z
零跑汽车 (Zhejiang Leapmotor Technology) B3
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📄 Original Section
Albertsons Wants Kroger to Pay \$8 Billion After Failed Merger
Share-price performance, past five years
BY PATRICK THOMAS
Supermarket chain Albertsons wants its top rival Kroger to pay it at least \$8 billion after their grocery megadeal imploded two years ago.
Albertsons is accusing Kroger leaders of making “lowball offers” to federal regulators to largely keep the most-profitable stores in the combined company, and hive off the weaker-performing ones, according to a court filing unsealed Monday.
The filing is part of Albertsons' lawsuit against Kroger in Delaware Chancery Court following the companies' failed deal. A bench trial is slated to begin Oct. 19 and the proceeding is expected to last about two weeks.
Albertsons said it is seeking lost merger premiums and interest totaling as much as \$9.3 billion. The amount includes a \$600 million breakup fee that Kroger
Source: FactSet
hasn't paid.
Kroger said Albertsons' arguments are "fatally flawed" and that both companies knew the deal faced high regulatory scrutiny. "There was nothing Kroger could have done that would have made a difference," the company said in a court filing.
The trial reflects the journey that Kroger and Albertsons have taken from industry rivals to potential merger partners to competitors again over four years.
Since the deal fell apart, both companies have struggled. Grocers are reeling from rising costs, while cash-strapped shoppers cut back Please turn to page B2
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人物索引
A
Antonio, William A10
B
Banfield, Bill B2
萨姆·班克曼-弗里德 (Bankman-Fried, Sam) B1
Bernard, Adam B3
Brown, Ethan B4
Buchta, Scott B2
C
Cabanis, Cecile B5
Chesky, Brian B10
Clarke, Richard B10
D
Dacus, Stephen B4
F
Foran, Greg B2
G
Gawrelski, Ken B10
George, Max-Hervé B1
Gupta, Ravi B4
H
罗伯特·霍尔 (Hall, Robert E.) A2
Hegeman, John B4
Hunt, Hunter A10
K
Kang, Clifford B3
L
Leyva, Mauricio B4
M
Marshall, John A2
Masi, Niccolo de B5
Mazzola, Joe A2
Miller, Andrew A10
马斯克 (Musk, Elon) A3
N
Nan, Alex B3
S
Seiberg, Jaret B2
Smith, Desmond P B2
U
Ulzheimer, John B2
W
马克·沃尔特 (Walter, Mark) B1
Wang, Alexandr B3
Weiss, Emily B4
Winebrenner, James B5
Wolfe Herd, Whitney B4
迈克尔·伍德福德 (Woodford, Michael) A2
X
Xiaopeng, He B3
Z
扎克伯格 (Zuckerberg, Mark) B3
Zyciora, Klaus B3
📄 Original Section
INDEX TO BUSINESSES
These indexes cite notable references to most parent companies and businesspeople in today's edition. Articles on regional page inserts aren't cited in these indexes.
A
Airbnb B10
Albertsons B1
Amazon.com A11,B2,B10
American Airlines A11
B
Beyond Meat B4
Blackstone B4
Booking B10
Bumble B4
BYD B3
C
Chery Automobile B3
D
Delta Air Lines A11
E
Equifax B1
Expedia B10
Experian B1
F
Fair Isaac B1
Ford Motor B3
G
Geely Automobile B3
Getty Images.....B4
Guangzhou Automobile...B3
H
Hermès.....B5
Hilton Worldwide.....B10
I
IonQ.....B5
K
Kering.....B5
Keurig Dr Pepper.....B4
Kroger.....B1
L
Li Auto.....B3
Lucid.....B3
LVMH.....B5
Lyft.....A3
M
Marriott.....B10
Match.....B4
Meta Platforms.....B3,B10
N
Nvidia.....B1
R
Rocket.....B2
A
Antonio, William.....A10
B
Banfield, Bill.....B2
Bankman-Fried, Sam.....B1
Bernard, Adam.....B3
Brown, Ethan.....B4
Buchta, Scott.....B2
C
Cabanis, Cecile.....B5
Chesky, Brian.....B10
Clarke, Richard.....B10
D
Dacus, Stephen.....B4
F
Foran, Greg.....B2
G
---
年金买家起诉保险公司
接 B1 页
，在第一季度的申报文件中披露了其关联资产。根据《华尔街日报》基于州保险申报文件的计算，当这两家保险公司重新陈述这些数字时，其存放于关联投资中的持仓比例从个位数百分比分别上升至 Clear Spring 的 $59% 和 Delaware Life 的 $42%，这些公司表示，在受到纽约联邦检察官和美国证券交易委员会（SEC）调查后，它们才发现了其关联投资的规模。Gainbridge 在申报文件中表示，它正在配合调查人员进行调查。
关联持仓可指贷给关联公司的资金，或由关联公司出售但由其他借款人担保的投资。存放在 Delaware Life 和 Clear Spring 这些投资中的资金代表了数十万美国人的储蓄，其中包括菲利普斯（Phillips）和卡林斯基（Kalinsky）。三家保险公司的母公司 Group 1001 Insurance 表示，截至 2024 年年底，该公司拥有近 500,000 份有效的年金合同。
根据诉状，罗斯纳（Rosner）是在 Delaware Life 收到联邦检察官的传票之后，但在该保险公司披露其正接受调查之前购买的年金；当他得知该调查时，他提前套现，并为此支付了罚金。卡林斯基退保了一份年金，并继续持有另外两份。这两起诉讼均由佛罗里达州博卡拉顿的一家名为 Robbins, Geller, Rudman and Dowd 的律所提交至佛罗里达州南区法院。
菲利普斯持有一份来自 Clear Spring 的年金和多份来自 Gainbridge 的年金。他曾出现在一篇关于持有沃尔特旗下保险公司保单的年金领取者的《华尔街日报》文章中。负责提起此案的律师、总部位于圣路易斯的 Korein Tillery 律所的乔治·泽尔克斯（George Zelcs）在《日报》上读到关于他的报道后联系了菲利普斯，并在 Clear Spring 设有办事处的印第安纳州南区法院提起诉讼。
Continued from page 81 affiliated assets in their first-quarter filings. When the two insurers restated those figures, the share of their holdings parked in affiliated investments rose from single-digit percentages to $59\%$ at Clear Spring and $42\%$ at Delaware Life, according to Wall Street Journal calculations based on state insurance filings. The firms said they discovered the extent of their affiliated investments after coming under investigation by federal prosecutors in New York and the Securities and Exchange Commission. Gainbridge said in its filing that it was cooperating with investigators in the probe.
Affiliated holdings can refer to money lent to connected companies or investments sold by them but backed by other borrowers. The money parked in those investments at Delaware Life and Clear Spring represents the savings of hundreds of thousands of Americans, including Phillips and Kalinsky. Group 1001 Insurance, the parent for all three insurers, said it had nearly 500,000 active annuity contracts as of year-end 2024.
Rosner bought his annuity after Delaware Life received a subpoena from federal prosecutors but before the insurer disclosed that it was under investigation, according to the suit, and when he learned about the probe, he cashed out early, paying a penalty for doing so. Kalinsky surrendered one of his annuities and continued to hold on to the other two. Both suits were filed in the Southern District of Florida by a Boca Raton, Fla., firm, Robbins, Geller, Rudman and Dowd.
Phillips owns one annuity from Clear Spring and multiple annuities from Gainbridge. He was featured in a Wall Street Journal article about annuitants who hold policies from Walter's insurers. The attorney filing the case, George Zelcs of St. Louis-based Korein Tillery, reached out to Phillips after reading about him in the Journal and filed the case in the Southern District of Indiana where Clear Spring has offices.
This isn't the first time Mark Walter and his companies faced legal complaints from those who bought his annuities. In 2014, two policyholders brought a class-action lawsuit against Guggenheim Partners, where he is chief executive, and several affiliated insurers. They accused Guggenheim of turning the insurers into “a cash machine” that used policyholder money to buy the Dodgers.
FTX 资产引发新关注
接第 B1 页
斯坦，当地政府因比特币矿工大量耗电而对其产生反感。
在去年针对这家比特币矿业公司提起的一项诉讼中，管理 FTX 破产事宜的团队称，Genesis Digital 是“班克曼-弗里德最鲁莽的投资之一”，并寻求追回 Alameda 投入的 11.5 亿美元 billion。
SWI 集团首席执行官马克斯-埃尔韦·乔治（Max-Hervé George）。
的管理人认为，Genesis Digital 在哈萨克斯坦的资产“几乎毫无价值”，而其在美国的资产“仅值班克曼-弗里德支付金额的一小部分”。
Over the past decade, however, Cruise has hit something like exalted status, not just for being a movie star with longevity at 64 but for being such a booster for the theatrical experience itself, especially around the time “Top Gun: Maverick” helped bring people back into theaters following the pandemic shutdown.
“Digger” doesn’t go down easy as Oscar bait. Cruise’s tycoon character spins the narrative around global cataclysm caused by his drilling, wrapping comedy around the film’s doom and gloom message about the climate crisis. The movie also hinges on a major twist that Warner Bros. worked to keep secret, making it challenging to discuss Cruise’s performance in full.
“I think he chose the riskiest project you could,” said Amy Nicholson, a film critic and author of a book on
Cruise. “If there’s one genre that always seems to struggle in the year that it’s released, it’s a pointed contemporary climate change satire.”
In a counteroffensive to the many negative reviews for the film, Warner Bros. created ads that juxtaposed critics' takes ("magnificent," "insufferable") as a way to draw out potential ticket buyers with the message, "Decide for yourself." Warner Bros. didn't respond to a request for comment.
The movie has its defenders, plus a growing number of celebrity champions, from Jane Fonda to Mandy Patinkin. Anne Hathaway, Cruise's costar on the coming sequel to 1990's "Days of Thunder," posted "loved this brilliant movie" on the film-centric social media app Letterboxd, giving "Digger" five stars.
It's the kind of Hollywood support that implies an Oscar nomination is still on the table, even if the possibility of a win seems more difficult now.
He faces stiff competition in the best actor race that includes Matt Damon for “The Odyssey,” which premiered over the summer, as well as forthcoming contenders John Malkovich for “Wild Horse Nine” and Andrew Scott for “Elsinore.”
stan, where the local government had soured on bitcoin miners over their heavy use of electricity.
Genesis Digital was “one of Bankman-Fried’s most reckless investments,” the team managing FTX’s bankruptcy said in a lawsuit filed against the bitcoin-mining company last year, seeking to claw back the \$1.15 billion that Alameda had spent.
Max-Hervé George, chief executive of SWI Group.
The FTX administrators argued that Genesis Digital's assets in Kazakhstan were "virtually worthless," while its U.S. assets were "worth only a fraction of what Bankman-Fried paid."
FTX dropped its lawsuit on June 15. That same day, SWI announced it had spent \$500 million on a major stake in Genesis Digital. Since then, it has expanded its stake to become the company's majority owner.
All the legal disputes relating to FTX and other shareholders have been settled, George said.
Bankman-Fried is serving a 25-year prison sentence after being convicted of fraud.
Today, some of his investments appear better in hindsight than they did when FTX failed and prosecutors accused him of misappropriating billions of dollars in customer funds to go on a huge spending spree.
Notably, he invested \$500 million in Anthropic in 2021, giving FTX a stake of 7.8% in the startup before the AI boom turned it into a household name.
The FTX bankruptcy estate sold its stake in Anthropic for \$1.3 billion in 2024. Based on the AI company's last valuation, that stake would now be worth about \$75 billion.
Continued from page B1 on their habits and flock to rival discount stores.
On Monday, Kroger said it is planning to cut 3,000 employees over the next three years, reducing its total corporate workforce by more than a third. Chief Executive Greg Foran said in a note to employees that Kroger is using new technology, including artificial intelligence, to do more with fewer people. "Our company has more layers, more handoffs and more overhead than we need," he said.
A Phoenix Albertsons store. The grocer's proposed merger with Kroger collapsed in 2024.
Shares in Albertsons are down about 30% over the past 12 months, bringing its market value to around \$6 billion.
Kroger in 2022 agreed to buy Albertsons for \$20 billion, uniting the No. 1 and No. 2 U.S. supermarket chains by store count. The combined company would have nearly 5,000 stores under Kroger banners including Fred Meyer, Roundy's and Mariano's with the owner of Safeway, Vons and Jewel-Osco.
The goal was to create a bigger grocery competitor to megaretailers such as Walmart and Amazon and discount grocers like Aldi, which have the scale and buying power to undercut supermarket shelf prices.
To ease concerns about the deal, the companies offered to sell hundreds of stores to grocery distributor C&S Wholesale Grocers. The Federal Trade Commission sued in 2024 to block the deal, claiming that reduced competition would raise grocery prices.
A Portland, Ore., federal court judge later blocked the deal on antitrust grounds. The day after the ruling, Albertsons sued its former deal partner, alleging Kroger didn't do enough to secure regulatory approval. Kroger has said Albertsons isn't owed a breakup fee.
A Portland, Ore., federal court judge later blocked the deal on antitrust grounds. The day after the ruling, Albertsons sued its former deal partner, alleging Kroger didn't do enough to secure regulatory approval. Kroger has called Albertsons' claims baseless and said that the company isn't owed the breakup fee.
Both companies have about \$1 billion each on deal-related costs, including lawyer and consulting fees.
In its court filing, Albertsons said Kroger leadership gave priority to keeping stores that would help it hit specific financial targets once it completed its deal to acquire Albertsons' more than 2,000 stores. It pointed to a \$400 million bonus pool that then-CEO Rodney McMullen established for executives based on profit targets after the deal closed.
Kroger said that its divestment proposals were economically sound and had strong economic incentives to close the deal, according to court documents. It also said Albertsons developed a “Plan B” to sue if the merger failed to close.
Continued from page B1
system, making it more predictive, and create a safer and sounder market.
The changes have been brewing for the past year but kicked into gear last month when Pulte directed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to approve all lenders to use VantageScore 4.0. The mortgage-lending industry, which is dominated by nonbanks, got on board quickly. Rocket Mortgage, the nation's largest lender, said die charge based on borrowers' credit score and loan size compared with the value of the house they are financing.
The administration is now adding VantageScore to the equation. One iteration, released in early September, treated the scores as different. For instance, a 720 VantageScore should be thought of as a 700 FICO, the grid showed.
Then at the end of September, Pulte erased that differential. He said there would be one set of pricing grids that treat FICO and VantageScore equally. "We are Simplifying Mortgage Pricing following feedback from lenders and consumers," he wrote on X.
It was akin to waving a magic wand and allows the lenders to choose the highest score available.
tember that pulled both scores. On the mortgages that Rocket originated, VantageScore 4.0 ran 11 to 12 points higher than FICO Classic on average, he said. "What that meant, in the most simplest terms, was that the vast majority of people got the same price or a slightly better price by using VantageScore," he said.
Mortgage-bond investors who buy bonds from Fannie
So far, the market isn't treating the scores as equal.
and Freddie are worried about their own models and “if they are being compensated for risk,” said Scott Buchta, head of fixed-income strategy at investment bank Brean Capital.
An analysis by Milliman found that during the pilot period, borrowers with similar credit-score ranges were charged a higher rate—up to 0.2 percentage point more—when their loans were originated using VantageScore instead of FICO.
简单。安全。稳定。
为重视本金保护、可预测结果和坦诚沟通的人士提供年金产品。
ManhattanLife，与您同行。始于 1850 年。
📄 Original Section
The changes were brewing for the past year but kicked into gear last month.
it would use VantageScore as its preferred scoring model over FICO. United Wholesale Mortgage said it would pull both scores and use the higher one. And PennyMac said it deployed VantageScore across tageScore across its businesses.
"We want to give our brokers, and therefore our consumers, the ability to get the best of whatever is available to them," said Desmond P. Smith, chief growth officer at UWM.
Nearly \$4 billion of Fannie and Freddie mortgages were originated with VantageScore 4.0 in August, when some lenders were piloting the new score, up from \$8 million in April, according to an analysis by consulting firm Milliman.
Roughly 3% of the \$400 billion that Fannie and Freddie sold into securitizations in the six months through September was tied to VantageScore, up from essentially zero, according to trade publication Inside Mortgage Finance.
At the core of the change are pricing grids meant to assess risk that Fannie and Freddie rolled out during the 2008 housing crisis. The grids determine the fees Fannie and Fred-
FICO and VantageScore credit scores are crunched off different algorithms and with different data. In general, the FICO score that has long been used for Fannie and Freddie is a tougher bar for consumers to clear. For example, it requires that consumers have a lengthier credit history—about six months—than the VantageScore version.
“I question whether or not Pulte knows what he’s doing,” said John Alzheimer, who has worked for FICO and VantageScore. “It’s like Fahrenheit and Celsius—to some extent you’re never going to have the same output.”
A 20-point drop in a FICO score increases the chances of default by 40% to 50%, according to FICO.
“If one believes the prior grids accurately measured risk, then this means Fannie and Freddie are taking on more risk with each VantageScore loan without being compensated,” TD Cowen analyst Jaret Seiberg wrote in a report.
Bill Banfield, chief business officer at Rocket, said the company ran 1.4 million credit reports from May through Sep-
Muse Wonder comes as downloads slow for Muse, company's personal assistant
BY MEGHAN BOBROWSKY
Meta Platforms released a new artificial-intelligence model on Monday it says vaults the company to the AI frontier, a goal it established last year when it created Meta
Superintelligence Labs.
One important test of the model, called Muse Wonder, will be how much it can improve retention and accelerate adoption of Muse, the company's new personal-assistant agent introduced last month.
Muse has amassed nearly nine million global downloads since its release. But downloads have started to slow and its retention lags behind that of ChatGPT after 14 days, Sensor Tower data shows.
"Some people have a pretty clear sense of what they want to use the product for or how it can improve their lives," Alexandr Wang, Meta's AI chief, said in an interview. "Other folks who maybe are less familiar with AI or agents may not understand that, and for them, I think it's more of a hurdle to get on board."
The new model, which Meta says performs better than OpenAI's Astra and Anthropic's Fable on several tests, will soon power Muse for subscribers of both the \$20 a month and \$100 a month tiers. It includes better memory, better focus to help users tackle challenging goals, and more expertise in the health, finance and legal fields, Meta said.
“We think it is competitive as a frontier model with the very best models that are out there,” Wang said. “But in addition to that, it also is specifically the very best model for personal and professional agents and will be the best model to power an experience like Muse."
Meta's stock climbed $3\%$ on Monday.
Meta overhauled its AI efforts in spring 2025 after the disappointing launch of its then-latest model, Llama 4. Meta Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg hired Wang from Scale AI to lead the effort at newly created Meta Superintelligence Labs with a vision of providing so-called “personal superintelligence" to its billions of users. That goal has emerged in the form of Muse, which Zuckerberg said last month is the "centerpiece" of what the company is building.
OpenAI released Dots, a competing AI agent, at its annual developer conference nearly two weeks ago. Google offers an agent called Gemini Spark, and startup Instinct has also launched its own buzzy agent that has emerged as the main competitor to Muse so far.
The China Passenger Car Association attributed the weakness to shrinking demand for autos powered by traditional fuels.
China's monthly auto sales weakened yet again in September, with the traditional peak season failing to bring cheer.
Retail sales of passenger cars fell 28% in September from a year earlier to 1.62 million units, the China Passenger Car Association said Monday. Sales rose 5% compared with August.
After 12 consecutive months of declines, the country failed to report a recovery in sales in September, the start of the traditional peak season.
The association attributed the weakness to shrinking demand for cars powered by traditional fuels, as high oil prices and overall weak consumption sentiment in China damped consumer sentiment.
Higher memory-chip costs also are slowing the pace of new vehicle launches in China, weighing on overall sales, the CPCA added.
After years of rapid expansion and strong sales a year earlier, China's auto market has been going through a slow period with some early signs of consolidation.
Last month, Guangzhou Automobile Group said it would acquire a 50% stake in FAW Toyota from FAW Group. Geely and NIO also reached a battery swapping and charging partnership.
Sales of new-energy vehicles, which comprise electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids, as well as exports have become the major themes in China's auto market.
NEV cars accounted for a record 67% of total car sales in September, the agency said. However, retail sales of new-energy cars fell 17% to 1.08 million units in September.
To offset slowing demand in China's market, many Chinese automakers have turned to overseas markets for growth.
In September, exports of China's NEVs more than doubled again. Exports of passenger cars rose $74\%$ to 917,000 units last month, CPCA data showed.
In September, Tesla exported 30,529 units made at its Shanghai plant and sold 95,366 units.
The CPCA doesn't expect a strong recovery in China's auto sales in October. The overall consumption sentiment remains weak for Chinese residents, and they tend to remain on the sidelines instead of making purchase decisions amid price wars among Chinese automakers. Demographic changes and high oil prices also could hurt sales.
Exports also are expected to slow because of trade pressure in the European Union, the agency said.
BY DOMINIC CHOPPING and range-extender models, it said.
Volkswagen Group vehicle deliveries fell in the third quarter as the German automaker continued to suffer from a deteriorating market in China.
includes VW, Porsche, said Monday that group vehicle deliveries fell 14% on year to 1.89 million.
The company, which houses a stable of brands that includes VW, Audi and
"The Volkswagen Group was unable to escape the significant decline in the Chinese total market,
Deliveries in China fell 39% in the quarter to 405,800 vehicles.
particularly in the combustion-engine vehicle business," it said.
Deliveries in China fell $39\%$ in the quarter to 405,800 vehicles, despite increasing demand for the company's second-generation plug-in hybrid
\*Excludes China
The company saw deliveries drop across all of its regions except Central and Eastern Europe, with Western Europe deliveries falling 2.8% and North America deliveries dropping 5.8%.
Globally, deliveries of the group's all-electric vehicles
fell 4.7% on year to 240,200, with Europe the only region showing growth.
"In our home market, we are seeing a significantly accelerated trend towards all-electric ve-"
hicles," said Martin Sander, member of the group's extended executive committee for sales. "The main reasons for this are the currently high fuel prices and the wider range of entry-level models."
古普塔是风险投资公司红杉资本（Sequoia Capital）的合伙人，曾任 Instacart 的首席财务官。赫格曼是 Meta 的前高管，最近担任首席营收官。
PATRICK T. FALLON / 惠特尼·沃尔夫·赫德
📄 Original Section
The Paris Motor Show Is Now Being Powered by Chinese Cars
BYD executive vice president Stella Li and Stellantis vice president John Elkann at the Paris Motor Show on Monday.
BY STEPHEN WILMOT
AND RYAN FELTON
PARIS—Li Auto, a Beijing-based luxury carmaker, used this city's auto show to show off a car with massage seats at the front, a 21-inch screen for passengers in the back and a unit in the central console that can keep your energy drink cool or your coffee warm.
Meanwhile, BYD, the world's bestselling electric-vehicle brand, took the veil off an SUV for Europe that can fill up much of a battery in five minutes.
And not to be outdone, XPeng touted a test of autonomous-driving technology it conducted around the Arc de Triomphe, the 19th century monument commissioned by Napoleon Bonaparte on the Champs-Elysées. The vehicle, an SUV outfitted with tech that was supervised by a driver, was up for the task, Chief Executive He Xiaopeng said at an event Sunday.
Welcome to the Paris Motor Show—though, this year, one could be forgiven for mistaking it for a China auto show. In total, around 20 Chinese vehicle brands had stands, representing one-third of all brands here. That is second to Europe and up from nine when the show last took place two years ago.
Three American brands were represented: Tesla, Ford Motor and Lucid.
The Chinese automakers helped make Europe's biggest car show much more buzzy than its U.S. counterparts. Unlike recent events in Detroit and Los Angeles, the Paris show consistently had throngs of attendees crowded around stages to witness the debut of new vehicles. Carmakers held news conferences back-to-back, sometimes overlapping, as Chinese executives played up their plans to increase manufacturing in Europe.
“They are looking to not only sell here, but be perceived as good citizens,” said Adam Bernard, a U.S.-based automotive consultant.
Chinese automakers are accelerating their sales across Europe by offering vehicles packed with high-end features at competitive prices. They accounted for 11.3% of all sales in the year through August, up from 7.1% in the same period of last year.
The shift is among the reasons for a wave of job cuts among European automakers, alarming political leaders and accelerating negotiations between Brussels and Beijing.
On Friday, the European Union and China reached a deal that the bloc said could halve its imports of Chinese hybrid vehicles. The EU will impose an annual quota of 350,000 units in the first year, EU officials said Monday, adding that the amount can increase by 6% in each of the following three years.
French President Emmanuel Macron personally sought to inject a dose of European flair into the show. Macron admired a prototype all-electric version of Citroen's 2CV model, a classic of the French company and a fixture of European streets in the postwar era. Like other long-established European car-makers, Stellantis, which owns Citroën, is leaning in to its 20th century heritage in response to the wave of 21st century startups from China.
So far, brands owned by five companies account for most of Chinese imports into Europe: BYD, Chery, SAIC, Geely and
Leapmotor, which is expanding through a joint venture with Jeep owner Stellantis.
State-owned Changan, China's fourth-largest automaker, is following their lead. It has a target of selling 1.5 million vehicles outside China by 2030, more than twice last year's total. The company said it hoped to sell 100,000 vehicles in Europe next year, up from a target of 30,000 in 2026.
“We aim high,” said Klaus Zyciora, Changan’s global executive adviser.
Chinese carmakers also are trying to edge out European brands in their closely guarded luxury market. The Aito brand made by Seres Group announced that it would launch in Europe in the fall of 2027.
“Chinese companies are known for their cost efficiency. Convincing customers that we can also do luxury will take time. But we will get there,” said Clifford Kang, a Seres board member.
Chinese cars are essentially shut out of the U.S. by high tariffs and software restrictions, but President Trump last month repeated comments that he would welcome them if they were locally built, alarming Detroit. Congress is debating a legislative ban of Chinese cars.
John Bozzella, president of the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, the top U.S. car-industry group, said: “Europe is a cautionary tale for the U.S. What American policymakers are trying to do is address the issue up front.”
Chinese cars got their foot-hold in Europe partly by exploiting an inadvertent loophole created in Brussels. Officials in 2024 excluded plugin hybrids from additional European Union tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles. Chinese brands pivoted to selling those models and have since seized a disproportionate market share of a vehicle type that has emerged as a sweet spot for consumers looking for fuel economy without compromises.
European nations are hesitant to totally shut off China from its market, fearing retaliatory measures by Beijing. The continent relies on exports much more heavily than the U.S.
“I’ve got to make sure I’m protecting my export markets,” said U.K. Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds in a recent interview.
The U.K., like the EU, has been flooded with Chinese cars, including a model made by Chery's Jaecoo brand that became the bestselling vehicle in September.
Chinese companies are starting to localize production to avoid tariffs and smooth relations. “In Europe for Europe” was a slogan touted by many Chinese automakers at the show.
At a Sunday evening gala inside a floating art museum on the Seine River, industry executives mingled over drinks and a live jazz band while locals passed by on runs along the water. "For Geely, globalization is not a solo sprint," Alex Nan, vice president of Geely Auto, told the audience. "It is a marathon we run side by side with our partners."
EU Aims to Curb Chinese Hybrids
The European Union aims to curb a surge of Chinese hybrid cars being shipped to the bloc by capping imports from the country at 350,000 units a year, a senior EU official said after both sides made progress in trade talks earlier this month.
Under the plans, the EU will seek to curb Chinese hybrid and plug-in hybrid vehicle imports over the next four years, with the aim of more than halving China's projected shipments to the bloc, the official said Monday, adding that the safeguarding measure could take effect in early December.
The cap also will include a fixed annual increase limit of 6%.
The 27-member bloc imported roughly 107,000 hybrid cars from China in 2024 and around 302,000 in 2025, according to Eurostat data. The EU official said that figure could reach up to 800,000 units in 2026.
European officials are seeking to rebalance the 27-member bloc's relationship with China over concerns of a surge in cheaper imports from the country.
—Edith Hancock
7-Eleven北美负责人借鉴日本经验
新任负责人认为，在日本受欢迎的理念也能在美加消费者中获得成功。
作者：MEGUMI FUJIKAWA
AKIO KON / 彭博新闻社
7-Eleven Inc. 的新任负责人计划通过镜像复制在日本取得成功的经验，来重塑这家知名便利店连锁店在北美的形象。
Bumble, the dating-app company founded by Whitney Wolfe Herd, is in advanced talks to be taken private in a deal that values it at roughly \$1 billion, according to people familiar with the matter.
The buyer is Ithaca Holdings, a firm founded recently by two Silicon Valley executives, the people said. Bumble would be one of the first major moves for Ithaca, which plans to apply advanced technologies including artificial intelligence to its investments.
Bumble had a market value of around \$335 million as of Friday's close. Its shares have dropped over 90% since it went public in 2021.
Wolfe Herd founded Bumble in 2014 after having co-founded Match Group's Tinder. She is expected to roll at least part of her stake in the dating app as part of the deal and remain involved with the company, the people said.
Private-equity firm Blackstone was one of Bumble's early backers and bought a majority stake in 2019. It sold much of its stake down following Bumble's IPO but still owns a roughly $14\%$ stake, according to FactSet.
A deal could come as soon as this week, assuming talks don't fall apart.
When Wolfe Herd founded Bumble, she sought to turn the traditional dating dynamic on its head by creating a platform on which women initiate conversations. The idea created buzz, with the company's market value peaking at above \$14 billion following its IPO.
But Bumble and other dating-app companies including Match Group have struggled as younger users are increasingly turned off by online dating platforms. Wolfe Herd returned as Bumble's CEO in 2025, and a few months later the company laid off roughly $30\%$ of its staff.
At Match, increased revenue from dating app Hinge partly offset roughly flat revenue from Tinder, its largest app, in the second quarter.
At Bumble, meanwhile, both Bumble and Badoo, the company's other app, reported revenue drops. Both companies have been more deeply integrating AI into their businesses. In August, Bumble said it would drop its women-first messaging feature.
Ithaca, which says on its website its mission is to “use frontier technology to build products to meaningfully improve people’s lives,” was founded by Ravi Gupta and John Hegeman.
Gupta is a partner at venture-capital firm Sequoia Capital and the former chief financial officer of Instacart. Hegeman is a former executive of Meta, where he was most recently chief revenue officer.
7-Eleven's North American Boss Takes Cue From Japan
New boss thinks popular concepts in Japan can be a hit with U.S. and Canadian shoppers.
BY MEGUMI FUJIKAWA
AKIO KON/BLOOMBERG NEWS
The new head of 7-Eleven Inc. has a plan to revamp the famed convenience-store chain's image in North America: mirror what has worked in Japan.
By taking lessons from 7-Eleven's model in Japan, Mauricio Leyva bets he can refuel the brand's growth in the U.S.
“It’s something that I like to say we’re stealing with pride,” he said in an interview Friday.
Leyva, who became chief executive of the convenience-store giant's North American arm in August, thinks concepts that are popular in Japan can be a hit with shoppers in the U.S. and Canada, too.
"One of the things that we like most about Japan that I've personally experienced is this attention to detail and focus on quality—that is something that we need to enhance and do better in North America," he said.
Seven & i Holdings, the Japanese operator of 7-Eleven stores, has tasked the retailsector veteran with executing an ambitious overhaul involving modernizing stores, expanding private-label brands across North America, and scaling the 7NOW delivery platform.
Reflecting on his decades of experience in the consumer industry—most recently as group president of Keurig Dr Pepper—Leyva said he is focused on understanding customers better than his competitors, and delivering experiences that keep shoppers returning to 7-Eleven for everyday needs.
One example he cited from Japan's playbook is the creation of store staples that become iconic, such as 7-Eleven Japan's egg-salad sandwich. Leyva also highlighted extensive food variety and easy-to-open product packaging.
He expressed confidence that the retail group's “North Star” transformation strategy can succeed, despite headwinds such as inflation hitting consumers’ disposable income.
In second-quarter earnings released last Thursday, Seven & i reported strong profitability in its overseas convenience-store unit, as higher gasoline prices boosted its performance in North America.
Still, Leyva expects to see a shift in U.S. consumer behavior as living costs rise.
"The transactions happening at the store level are actually keeping up in frequency but not necessarily in the amount and ticket of the basket," he said. "Value and quality will continue being as important as it's been now, but even in an accelerated way."
In Friday's interview, Seven & i also gave an update on its plan to list 7-Eleven Inc., a move aimed at unlocking shareholder value and streamlining its business structure.
The company first announced the initial public offering in March last year, but has since pushed back the timeline due to unfavorable market conditions. It now expects a listing by fiscal 2027 at the earliest.
"The objective is not to do an IPO. The objective is to increase shareholder value," said Stephen Dacus, CEO of Seven & i.
Dacus noted that the environment for retail public offerings remains challenging due to the artificial-intelligence boom.
“A lot of the oxygen has been sucked out of that by AI. That’s where all the money’s going,” he said.
Management also must deliver sustained performance improvement under the transformation plan to give investors total confidence before tapping capital markets, Dacus added.
The planned IPO is also a defensive measure against hostile buyout attempts following a long-running \$47 billion takeover campaign by Circle K owner Alimentation Couche-Tard.
The Canadian retail conglomerate ultimately withdrew its offer over friction around valuation gaps and antitrust issues in the U.S., prompting Seven & i to focus on restructuring and a standalone North American IPO strategy.
A listing could pave the way for Seven & i to secure a higher valuation, closing the stock-price gap that made it an attractive target for foreign takeovers.
Supported by:
3 brand metrics
For more details of the winning campaigns, go to www.world-media-group.com/awards
这些协议是一项重组交易的一部分，旨在改善 的资产负债表并允许该公司私有化。Koch Equity Development 和参与投资的 SWI 家族成员将持有重组后 100% 的股份。
在 Koch 提供最高 13 亿美元 million 融资的支持下， SWI 在重组期间将继续正常运营。
📄 Original Section
Food Maker Beyond Eyes Revamp
Share price
BY PATRICK COFFEE
Beyond Meat has spent much of its history engaged in "a truly epic marketing battle" with the meat industry, according to founder and Chief Executive Officer Ethan Brown. Now the beleaguered food maker hopes marketing can power a turnaround.
It dropped “meat” from its brand name on its packaging in 2025, introduced products and brands outside its core meat alternatives last month, and is talking with marketing agencies about a new campaign and positioning to debut next year.
The company also has begun adding a new corporate name, Beyond the Plant Protein Company, to official communications such as news releases and earnings reports.
Brown acknowledged that Beyond's brand remains in recovery mode, a condition he attributes partly to yearslong efforts by groups affiliated with meat producers to label plant-based alternatives as heavily processed and unhealthy and partly to short sellers and prediction-market traders betting on the company's decline. A 2020 regional Super Bowl ad depicted a child at a spelling bee struggling with the name of an unfamiliar ingredient that it said was used in synthetic meats, before telling viewers, "If you can't spell it or pronounce it, maybe you shouldn't be eating it."
“Beyond has been denigrated,” Brown said in an interview to discuss the company’s new strategy. “There’s so much confusion around it." The company's challenges go beyond brand perception. It has reported an operating loss each year since going public in 2019 at a nearly \$1.5 billion valuation, with shares dropping more than $98\%$ since then.
Sources: S&P Capital IQ (results); FactSet (share price)
It has recently cut spending in areas including marketing. While revenue has fallen consistently on a quarterly basis, its year-over-year sales decline improved to an 8% slip in the second quarter of this year from 20% in the final quarter of 2025.
The company also faces a market that has changed since its products first hit shelves in 2012, as consumer interest in sustainability has given way to concerns such as weight loss and protein intake, according to Emily Weiss, senior principal analyst at research firm Gartner.
But the cycle of hype and backlash that surrounded plant-based foods has almost entirely disappeared in recent years, potentially giving Beyond a chance to tap in to Americans' obsession with all things protein and find new consumers among GLP-1 users picking their foods more carefully, Weiss said.
Beyond hopes that is the case. The company's new product portfolio includes Beyond Starmatter protein powder, Beyond Starcut beef-jerky-style bars and Beyond Immerse, a line of protein-heavy carbonated beverages that recently came out of testing.
“Beyond is going to be the anchor for anything that’s plant-based, center-of-the-plate protein, but then we’re creating these other brands...and they all have a story line,” Brown said.
Patrick Coffee writes for WSJ Leadership Institute's CMO Today.
Getty Images is filing for bankruptcy and going private through a restructuring deal with the Koch family's company.
Koch Equity Development and members of the Getty family committed to invest \$533 million in equity in Getty to facilitate the company going private and filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
In addition, noteholders representing 83.5% of Getty's unsecured bonds have agreed to reduce outstanding debt through the retirement of \$270 million of outstanding unsecured notes.
Holders representing about 89% of Getty's secured bonds and term loans and 100% of revolving credit facility lenders have agreed to reduce interest obligations and extend debt maturities on Getty's secured debt.
The agreements are part of a restructuring deal designed to improve Getty's balance sheet and allow the company to go private. Koch Equity Development and the investing Getty family members will own $100\%$ of the reorganized Getty.
Getty will continue to operate normally through the restructuring, supported by financing from Koch, which could be as much as \$143 million.
Quantum-computing company IonQ struck an all-stock deal to buy closely held Elisity in a transaction that values the cybersecurity firm at up to \$1.3 billion, executives told The Wall Street Journal.
It is a bet that cybersecurity will be even more critical for companies as quantum computing and AI systems become more powerful and advanced, said IonQ Chairman and Chief Executive Niccolo de Masi.
"The bad guys are going to keep taking advantage of new technology," he said in an interview. "Unfortunately, we are entering the most dangerous years, vis-à-vis cybersecurity risks."
The \$1.3 billion deal price includes as much as \$150 million in contingency payments subject to Elisity's future performance.
IonQ shares on the Nasdaq closed down 9% Monday, with its market value close to \$16 billion. The stock had been on a tear since it went public via a special-purpose acquisition company in 2021.
IonQ's quantum hardware and software aims to solve problems too difficult for traditional computers across a range of industries, from drug discovery to national defense. It specializes in what's called trapped-ion quantum computers that have proved to offer greater accuracy.
The number of IonQ shares expected to be issued in the transaction will be calculated at a price between \$33.07 and \$49.61 a share, the executives said.
administration and its backing of quantum-computing technology in the U.S.
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LVMH销售额削弱奢侈品前景
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📄 Original Section
\$1.3B The deal will value cybersecurity firm Elisity at up to this much.
The business has gotten a boost from the growing enthusiasm of President Trump's
During the summer, the president signed executive orders pushing for building a powerful quantum computer and protecting the government against related cyber threats.
Founded in 2019, Elisity offers a platform that aims to prevent cyber attackers or ransomware from spreading across organizations. Some of its big customers include healthcare companies and hospitals.
Elisity Chief Executive James Winebrenner is expected to remain after the deal with IonQ closes.
De Masi said the two com-
panies together will aim to help customers address various growing cybersecurity risks, including threats that involve so-called AI agents.
A series of rogue AI hacks in recent months has rat-
tled the industry and government officials. In one instance, a swarm of OpenAI agents accessed U.S. government websites over several months.
Anthropic's Mythos model also has set off alarm bells on Wall Street.
De Masi said American corporations and the U.S. government must be prepared ahead of “Q-Day”—a looming point in time when quantum computers will be powerful enough to crack today’s widely used public-key cryptography.
IonQ, which works closely with the Defense Department, has been on an acquisition spree to become a one-stop shop for its customers. Earlier this year, it struck its biggest deal yet, a \$1.8 billion takeover of chip maker SkyWater Technology.
ADEK BERRY/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
The mainstay fashion division, home to Louis Vuitton and Dior, whose outlet is seen in Beijing, booked a 5% drop in sales.
Paris-based group recorded organic growth of just 1% from year earlier
BY JOSHUA KIRBY
French luxury giant LVMH said sales growth slowed, putting the brakes on a long-awaited recovery in Europe's struggling luxury-goods industry.
The Paris-based group, owner of a stable of fashion, jewelry and champagne brands that constitutes a bellwether for the wider sector, made sales of 18.5 billion euros, or \$20.72 billion, between July and September, it said on Monday. That marks organic growth of just 1% from the same period last year, slowing from the 3% increase the company booked over the second quarter.
The result was in line with the expectations of analysts, according to those polled by Visible Alpha ahead of the print. Still, the group's mainstay fashion division, home to heavyweight brands Louis Vuitton and Dior, booked a 5% drop in sales on year to €8.245 billion, below analysts' forecasts.
date.
The division had returned to growth in the second quarter, but the fast drop back into the red suggests LVMH—and its peers—will have to work hard to secure a sustained recovery. A slowdown in Chinese demand weighed on performance in the fashion business, LVMH said, pointing to a “less buoyant” environment in the key market.
"The third quarter brought a more challenging Chinese consumer backdrop," finance chief Cécile Cabanis said in a call on Monday. She pointed to negative newsflow that weighed on the mood among Chinese shoppers over the summer.
LVMH will likely now have to show how it can adjust pricing to make its core products more affordable to a broader public, analysts at brokerage firm Bernstein wrote following the sales up-
The deceleration in sales growth at LVMH casts a pall over the wider sector, which had hoped to put a tough patch behind it. Investors are likely to stay shy of luxury stocks until brands can show firmer acceleration in their top lines, analysts at Bank of America wrote recently.
“Luxury demand has deteriorated in the third quarter,” BofA warned.
Shares in the sector have plummeted in recent years as investors note flatlining sales with concern. Shares in Europe-based luxury firms have shed more than 20% on average this year, with LVMH among the worst performers. And analysts see little spur to demand on the horizon. A yearslong boom in Chinese demand has fizzled, and the West's aspirational middle classes, vital to brands like Louis Vuitton, are increasingly squeezed by price inflation, damping their confidence to splurge on high-end goods. The simmering war between the U.S. and Israel and Iran has only exacerbated those macroeconomic pressures.
"The reality is that the disposable income of the majority of luxury consumers is under pressure," Berenberg analysts wrote in a recent note. That leaves brands struggling to generate reliable sales growth, the analysts said.
"The fragility of demand leaves the sector vulnerable to shocks," Berenberg said. "The luxury supercycle is over."
Other companies in European luxury are due to report their own latest sales figures this month and next, including Gucci parent Kering, exclusive-handbag maker Hermès and Italian fashion house Prada next week. There were some positive signs in LVMH's sales results; the watches and jewelry division—home to Tiffany and Bulgari, as well as a host of upmarket watch brands—recorded a 6% rise in sales on year. The selective-retail business recorded an 8% increase, driven by strong growth at beauty retailer Sephora.
人工智能正以前所未有的速度重塑各行各业，在为创新和增长创造非凡机遇的同时，也带来了新的风险、伦理问题和治理挑战。董事们处于这一切的中心，帮助组织建立韧性并增强适应能力，同时保持深厚的人文关怀。通过由专家主导的讨论和同行交流，并依托道琼斯 (Dow Jones) 和《华尔街日报》 (The Wall Street Journal) 的全球专业知识，本次峰会将为董事们提供实用见解和前瞻性战略，以引导其组织度过这个全新的领导力时代。
峰会主题：
zscaler
\- 人类优势
\- AI 时代的领导力
\- 构建具有韧性和适应力的组织
申请邀请：
发送电子邮件至 BoDCouncil@wsj.com 或扫描二维码。
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📄 Original Section
The Board of Directors Council Summit
November 9-10 | Palm Beach
SELECT PARTICIPANTS:
Michael Miebach
CEO, Mastercard
Brian Cornell
Chairman of the Board of Directors, Target
Joe Jimenez
Lead Director, P&G;
Director, General Motors;
Former Novartis CEO
Ellen Kullman
Director, Amgen, Carbon, Goldman Sachs;
Former Chair and CEO, DuPont
FOUNDING SPONSOR:
Stephanie Linnartz
Board Member: Home Depot; Former President, Marriott International; Former President and CEO, Under Armour
Pat Russo
Chair, Hewlett Packard Enterprise;
Lead Director, General Motors;
Director, Merck, KKR
Jing Ulrich
Member of the Board of Directors: adidas, Swarovski, Wella Company; Luxury Advisor and Brand Ambassador, Rolls-Royce Motor Cars; Former Vice Chairman, JPMorgan
Mark Weinberger
Director, Johnson & Johnson, JPMorgan Chase, MetLife, Saudi Aramco; Former Global Chairman and CEO, EY
The WSJ Board of Directors Council will convene November 9–10 in Palm Beach, Florida, as boards confront the defining leadership challenge of our time.
Artificial intelligence is reshaping industries at an unprecedented speed, creating extraordinary opportunities for innovation and growth while introducing new risks, ethical questions and governance challenges. Directors are at the center of it all, helping organizations build resilience and become more adaptable, while remaining deeply human. Through expert-led discussions and peer exchange, drawing on the global expertise of Dow Jones and The Wall Street Journal, the summit will provide directors with practical insights and forward-looking strategies to help guide their organizations through this new era of leadership.
Summit Themes:
zscaler
\- The Human Advantage
\- Leading in the Age of AI
\- Building Resilient and Adaptable Organizations
REQUEST INVITATION:
Email BoDCouncil@wsj.com or scan the QR code.
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广告投放请致电：800-366-3975 或访问 WSJ.com / classifieds
船舶
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📄 Original Section
How to Read the Stock Tables
The following explanations apply to NYSE, NYSE Arca, NYSE American, Nasdaq Stock Market, Cboe BZX and Texas Stock Exchange listed securities. Prices are consolidated from trades reported by various market centers, including securities exchanges, Finra, electronic communications networks and other broker-dealers. The list comprises the 1,000 largest companies based on market capitalization.
Underlined quotations are those stocks with large changes in volume compared with the issue's average trading volume.
Boldfaced quotations highlight those issues whose price changed by 5% or more if their previous closing price was \$2 or higher.
1-New 52-week high; 1-New 52-week low; dd-Indicates loss in the most recent four quarters.
Stock tables reflect composite regular trading as of 4 p.m. ET and changes in the official closing prices from 4 p.m. ET the previous day.
富国银行（WELLS FARGO BANK, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION）作为受托人，旨在为 CD 2018-CD7 抵押信托商业抵押贷款穿透证书 2018-CD7 系列的持有者提供利益，其通过 2018 年 8 月 1 日签署的汇总与服务协议项下的特别服务商 Rialto Capital Advisors, LLC 行事。原告起诉 PRINCE 26, LLC；29 PRINCE STREET ASSOCIATES LLC 等被告。根据本案于 2026 年 8 月 5 日签署的特定命令与判决（“判决”），我，下述裁判员，将于 2026 年 10 月 21 日下午 3:00（东部时间）在纽约州纽约市纽约县 Prince 街 26 号（邮编 10012）的前台阶处，通过公开拍卖出售以下房产（作为单一批次出售），该术语定义如下，具体描述及边界如下：地块 A：位于纽约州纽约市纽约县曼哈顿区的所有特定地块、碎片或土地，其边界及描述如下：起点位于 Prince 街北侧的一点，距离 Prince 街北侧与 Mott 街东侧交汇点向东 27 英尺 11 1/4 英寸（契据），27.94 英尺（实际）；由此向北，与 Mott 街东侧平行或近似平行，部分穿过共用墙，83 英尺 11 英寸（契据），82.54 英尺（实际）；由此向东 26 英尺 9 6/10 英寸（契据），24.40 英尺（实际），至一条线上的某一点，该点距离 Prince 街北侧向北 86 英尺 1 英寸（契据），86.08 英尺（实际），该线与 Mott 街东侧平行或近似平行，并与 Prince 街北侧交于一点，该点距离 Prince 街北侧与 Mott 街东侧交汇点向东测量为 54 英尺 7 1/4 英寸（契据），55.61 英尺（实际）；由此向南，沿上述与 Mott 街平行或近似平行的线，部分穿过共用墙，86 英尺 1 英寸（契据），86.08 英尺（实际），至 Prince 街北侧；由此沿 Prince 街北侧向西，26 英尺 9 6/10 英寸（契据），27.67 英尺（实际），至起点。街区：508 地块：52。
上述待售房产地址为 29 PRINCE STREET, NEW YORK, NEW YORK 10012（“地块 A”）。地块 B：位于纽约州纽约市纽约县曼哈顿区的所有特定地块、碎片或土地，其边界及描述如下：起点位于 Thompson 街西侧的一点，距离该 Thompson 街西侧与 Prince 街北侧交汇点向北 169 英尺 6 英寸；由此向西，与 Prince 街平行，100 英尺；由此向北，与 Thompson 街平行，24 英尺 8 英寸；由此向东，与 Prince 街平行，部分距离穿过共用墙，100 英尺至 Thompson 街西侧；由此沿 Thompson 街西侧向南，24 英尺 8 英寸至起点。街区：517 地块：31。
上述待售房产地址为 137 THOMPSON STREET，亦称 135-137 THOMPSON STREET, NEW YORK, NEW YORK 10012（“地块 B”）。
地块 C：位于纽约州纽约市纽约县曼哈顿区的全部特定地块、片区或土地，其边界及描述如下：起点位于 Prince 街南侧的一点，该点距离 Prince 街南侧与 Mott 街东侧交汇处向东 47 英尺 6 英寸；由此向南并与 Mott 街东侧平行延伸 114 英尺 7 英寸至某一点；由此向东，沿其北侧与前述方向成 88 度 04 分 30 秒夹角的线延伸 23 英尺 1 英寸至某一点；由此向北，沿其西侧与前述方向成 91 度 55 分 30 秒夹角的线延伸 109 英尺至 街南侧的一点，该点距离起点向东 24 英尺；由此沿 街南侧向西延伸 24 英尺（记录值），23 英尺 7 英寸（测量值）至起点。街区：493 批地：15。拟出售的上述房产地址为 26 STREET, NEW YORK, NEW YORK 10012（“地块 C”）。（地块 A、地块 B 和地块 C 合称为“房产”）。
欲了解有关权益出售更多信息的意向方，请联系担保方律师 Braunstein Turkish LLP（地址：7600 Jericho Turnpike, Suite 402, Woodbury, New York 11797，联系人：Vincent L. Georgetti, Esq.，电话：(516) 802-0700 分机 312，电子邮件：vg@braunsteinturkish.com）。
NOTICE OF SALE OF REAL PROPERTY – MANHATTAN UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK.
WELLS FARGO BANK, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION, AS TRUSTEE, FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE HOLDERS OF CD 2018-CD7, MORTGAGE TRUST COMMERCIAL MORTGAGE PASS-THROUGH CERTIFICATES, SERIES 2018-CD7, acting by and through its special servicer, Rialto Capital Advisors, LLC, as Special Servicer under the Pooling and Servicing Agreement dated as of August 1, 2018. Plaintiff against PRINCE 26, LLC; 29 PRINCE STREET ASSOCIATES LLC, et al Defendant(s). Pursuant to that certain ORDER & JUDGMENT entered herein and dated August 5, 2026 ("Judgment"), I, the undersigned Referee will sell at public auction, at the front steps of 26 Prince Street, New York, New York 10012 on October 21st, 2026, at 3:00 p.m., prevailing Eastern Time, the following Premises (to be sold as a single lot), as that term is defined below, and more particularly described and bounded as follows: PARCEL A: ALL THAT CERTAIN plot, piece or parcel of land, situate, lying and being in the Borough of Manhattan, County of New York, City and State of New York, bounded and described as follows: BEGINNING at a point on the northerly side of Prince Street, distant 27 feet 11 1/4 inches (deed), 27.94 feet (actual), easterly from the corner formed by the intersection of the northerly side of Prince Street with the easterly side of Mott Street; RUNNING THENCE northerly parallel or nearly so with the easterly side of Mott Street and part of the way through party walls, 83 feet 11 inches (deed), 82.54 feet (actual); THENCE easterly 26 feet 9 and 6/10 inches (deed), 24.40 feet (actual), to a point on a line distant 86 feet and 1 inch (deed), 86.08 feet (actual), northerly from the northerly side of Prince Street which line is parallel or nearly so with the easterly side of Mott Street and intersects the northerly side of Prince Street at a point 54 feet 7 1/4 inches (deed), 55.61 feet (actual), when measured in an easterly direction from the corner formed by the intersection of the northerly side of Prince Street with the easterly side of Mott Street; THENCE southerly and along said line drawn parallel or nearly so with Mott Street and part of the way through a party wall, 86 feet 1 inch (deed), 86.08 feet (actual), to the northerly side of Prince Street; THENCE westerly along the northerly side of Prince Street, 26 feet 9 and 6/10 inches (deed) 27.67 feet (actual), to the point or place of BEGINNING. Block: 508 Lot: 52.
Said premises to be sold is known as 29 PRINCE STREET, NEW YORK, NEW YORK 10012 ("Parcel A"). PARCEL B: ALL THAT CERTAIN plot, piece or parcel of land, situate, lying and being in the Borough of Manhattan, County of New York, City and State of New York, bounded and described as follows: BEGINNING at a point on the Westerly side of Thompson Street, distant 169 feet 6 inches Northerly from the intersection of said Westerly side of Thompson Street and the Northerly side of Prince Street; RUNNING THENCE Westerly parallel with Prince Street, 100 feet; THENCE Northerly parallel with Thompson Street, 24 feet 8 inches; THENCE Easterly parallel with Prince Street and part of the distance through a party wall, 100 feet to the Westerly side of Thompson Street; THENCE Southerly along the Westerly side of Thompson Street, 24 feet 8 inches to the point or place of BEGINNING.. Block: 517 Lot: 31.
Said premises to be sold is known as 137 THOMPSON STREET a/k/a 135-137 THOMPSON STREET, NEW YORK, NEW YORK 10012 ("Parcel B").
PARCEL C: ALL THAT CERTAIN plot, piece or parcel of land, situate, lying and being in the Borough of Manhattan, County of New York, City and State of New York, bounded and described as follows: BEGINNING at a point on the southerly side of Prince Street, distant 47 feet 6 inches easterly from the corner formed by its intersection of the southerly side of Prince Street and the easterly side of Mott Street; RUNNING THENCE southerly and parallel with the easterly side of Mott Street a distance of 114 feet 7 inches to a point; THENCE easterly along the line forming on its northerly side an angle of 88 degrees 04 minutes 30 seconds with the last mentioned course a distance of 23 feet 1 inch to a point; THENCE northerly along a line forming on its westerly side an angle of 91 degrees 55 minutes 30 seconds with the last mentioned course a distance of 109 feet to a point on the southerly side of Prince Street which point is distant 24 feet easterly from the point or place of beginning; THENCE westerly along the southerly side of Prince Street a distance of 24 feet (record), 23 feet 7 inches (survey) to the point or place of BEGINNING. Block: 493 Lot: 15. Said premises to be sold is known as 26 PRINCE STREET, NEW YORK, NEW YORK 10012 ("Parcel C"). (With Parcel A, Parcel B, and Parcel C, collectively, being the "Premises").
Pursuant to Judgment, Premises will be sold a single lot and is not to be divided or sold separately. The approximate amount of the Judgment for Premises, collectively, is \$46,677,820.90 plus interest & costs.
Premises will be sold subject to provisions of filed Judgment and forthcoming terms of sale. Civil Action File No. 23, cv. 05586 (RAF) (QTW).
STEPHEN F. ELLMAN, ESQ., Referee
MATTHEW MANNION, from Mannion Auctions, LLC as Auctioneer
Holland & Knight, LLP
Attorney(s) for Plaintiff
787 Seventh Avenue, 31st Floor,
New York, New York 10019
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商业机会
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📄 Original Section
UNIFORM COMMERCIAL CODE PUBLIC SALE NOTICE
Please take notice that Mannon Auctions, LLC, Matthew D. Mannion, licensed auctioneer (DCA #1434494), on behalf of L&L Capital Partners LLC, a New York limited liability company ("Secured Party"), offers for sale at public auction on October 16, 2026, at 1:00 p.m. (Eastern Time) at the offices of Braunstein Turkish LLP, 7600 Jericho Turnpike, Suite 402, Woodbury, New York 11797, and simultaneously by remote auction via Zoom (Meeting link: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/88017043260?pwd=Z1QJhJb4MkKXkJ167ifzPyLqOKEfM;1; Meeting ID: 880 1704 3260; Meeting passcode: 254998; Call-in number: +1 646 558 8656), in connection with a Uniform Commercial Code sale of the limited liability company membership interests ("Interests") in Royal Energy Properties LLC, a New York limited liability company ("Property Owner"), which entity is the fee owner of real property located at 1666-1672 Route 9W, Milton, New York. The Interests represent one hundred percent (100%) of the ownership interest in Property Owner and is owned by Royal Energy Properties Delaware LLC, a Delaware limited liability company.
The Interests are being offered as a single lot, "AS-IS, WHERE-IS", with no express or implied warranties, representations, statements or conditions of any kind made by the Secured Party or any person acting for or on behalf of the Secured Party, without any recourse whatsoever to the Secured Party or any other person acting for or on behalf of the Secured Party. The winning bidder shall be responsible for the payment of all transfer taxes, stamp duties and similar taxes incurred in connection with the purchase of the Interests.
All interested parties shall be required to provide a minimum deposit of \$100,000 with Secured Party's counsel at least 5 days prior to the auction, and all bids (other than credit bids of the Secured Party) must be in U.S. Dollars, and the successful bidder must be prepared to deliver immediately available good funds by wire or bank check to the Secured Party, within twenty-four (24) hours after the sale and otherwise comply with the bidding requirements.
The following explanations apply to the New York Stock Exchange, NYSE Arca, NYSE American and Nasdaq Stock Market stocks that hit a new 52-week intraday high or low in the latest session. % CHG-Daily percentage change from the previous trading session.
These prices reflect buying and selling of a variety of actual or "physical" commodities in the marketplace—separate from the futures price on an exchange, which reflects what the commodity might be worth in future months. |
Key annual interest rates paid to borrow or lend money in U.S. and international markets. Rates below are a guide to general levels but don't always represent actual transactions.
Overnight repurchase | U.S. | 3.90 | 3.91 | 4.30 | 3.49 | U.S. government rates | Discount | U.S. prime rate is the base rate on corporate loans posted by at least 70% of the 10 largest U.S. banks, and is effective September 17, 2026. Other prime rates aren't directly comparable; lending practices vary widely by location; Discount rate is effective September 17, 2026. Secured Overnight Financing Rate is as of October 9, 2026. DTCC GCF Repo Index is Depository Trust & Clearing Corp.'s weighted average for overnight trades in applicable CUSIPs. Value traded is in billions of U.S. dollars. Federal-funds rates are Tullett Prebon rates as of 3:30 p.m. ET. |
Federal funds | Effective rate | n.a. | 3.8900 | 4.1100 | 3.6300 | High | n.a. | 3.9500 | 4.2000 | 3.7000 | Friday, October 9, 2026
Prices of firms' bonds reflect factors including investors' economic, sectoral and company-specific expectations
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债券 / wsj.com / market-data / bonds / benchmarks
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📄 Original Section
Key Interest Rates
Data delayed due to holiday. |
|
Contract |
Open interest | Open | High hilo | Low | Settle | Chg | March'27 | 101-200 | 101-200 | 101-200 | 101-200 | -1.1 | 640 |
30 Day Federal Funds (CBT) | Oct | 96.1175 | 96.1175 | 96.1150 | 96.1175 | .0025 | 725,289 | Nov | 96.0750 | 96.0800 | 96.0650 | 96.0700 | -.0050 | 547,501 |
Yields and spreads over or under U.S. Treasurys on benchmark two-year and 10-year government bonds in selected other countries; arrows indicate whether the yield rose(▲) or fell (▼) in the latest session |
\* Primary market NYSE, NYSE American NYSE Arca only.
†(TRIN) A comparison of the number of advancing and declining issues with the volume of shares rising and falling. An Arms of less than 1 indicates buying demand; above 1 indicates selling pressure. |
Country/currency |
Mon |
US$vs.YTD chg(%) | in US$ | per US$ |
Americas | Argentina peso | .00071516.7423 | 4.5 | Brazil real | .2005 | 4.9875 | -9.6 | Canada dollar | .7001 | 1.4284 | 4.1 | Chile peso | .001024 | 976.87 | 8.5 | Colombia peso | .000313 | 3195.84 | -15.2 | Ecuador US dollar | 1 | 1 | unch | Mexico peso | .0548 | 18.2640 | 1.4 | Uruguay peso | .02485 | 40.2389 | 3.0 | Australia dollar | .6960 | 1.4368 | -4.1 | China yuan | .1494 | 6.6921 | -4.3 | Hong Kong dollar | .1274 | 7.8482 | 0.8 | India rupee | .01045 | 95.658 | 6.4 | Indonesia rupiah | .0000557 | 17954 | 7.5 | Japan yen | .006304 | 158.63 | 1.3 | Kazakhstan tenge | .002217 | 451.05 | -11.1 | Macau pataca | .1237 | 8.0857 | 0.8 | Malaysia ringgit | .2448 | 4.0852 | 0.7 | New Zealand dollar | .5588 | 1.7895 | 3.0 | Pakistan rupee | .00361 | 276.994 | -1.2 | Philippines peso | .0159 | 62.768 | 6.5 | Singapore dollar | .7809 | 1.2806 | -0.4 | South Korea won | .0007494 | 1334.45 | -7.4 | Sri Lanka rupee | .0030199 | 331.14 | 6.9 | Taiwan dollar | .03130 | 31.948 | 1.9 | Thailand baht | .02974 | 33.620 | 6.7 |
Prediction Market: How many Fed rate hikes in 2026? This market will resolve according to the exact amount of hikes of 25 basis points in 2026 by the Fed (including any hikes made during the December meeting). | Close | Net Chg | % Chg | YTD % Chg | WSJ Dollar Index | 97.58 | 0.20 | 0.21 | 1.73 | Sources: Tullett Prebon, Dow Jones Market Data
Sources: J.P. Morgan; Bloomberg Fixed Income Indices; ICE Data Services
共同基金
数据由 LSEG 提供
按净资产排列的纳斯达克公布份额类别的前 250 位共同基金列表。e-除权分红。f-前一日报价。g-适用脚注 x 和 s。j-适用脚注 e 和 s。k-由 LSEG 使用更新数据重新计算。p-分销成本，12b-1。r-可能收取赎回费。s-股票拆分或股息。t-脚注 p 和 r。v-脚注 x 和 e。x-除息。z-脚注 x, e 和 s。NA-由于价格、业绩或成本数据不完整而无法提供。NE-LSEG 未发布；数据审核中。NN-未追踪基金。NS-期初该基金不存在。
The logistics arm of United Arab Emirates's oil-and-gas giant Adnoc is in talks to acquire a big stake in HEA Energy, a deal that would value the Middle Eastern-based energy marine services company at up to \$3 billion, according to people familiar with the matter.
The talks involve Adnoc Logistics & Services, a unit of Abu Dhabi National Oil, taking either a large minority or controlling stake in HEA, the people said.
The discussions are advancing but could still fail to turn into a deal, the people familiar said.
The state-backed energy logistics provider is flush with cash. Charter rates in its shipping business surged this year when conflict in Iran bottled up the Persian Gulf and made it costlier to get oil out of the region. Adnoc L&S quadrupled its net profit in the second quarter to \$917 million from the same period a year earlier.
Adnoc is seeking to boost oil and gas production after the
U.A.E. broke away earlier this year from OPEC, the price-setting oil cartel. That move gives state-owned Adnoc more freedom to make investments to boost output and establish itself more prominently as an energy superpower. In August, Adnoc's gas-production business said it would invest more than \$8 billion to increase capacity.
Adnoc L&S supports offshore drilling projects and operates more than 100 ships used to transport crude oil, liquefied natural gas and refined prod-
ucts globally.
An ownership stake in closely held HEA would bolster the U.A.E.'s footprint in offshore oil and gas services, extending Adnoc L&S's reach geographically including in the North Sea and the U.S.
Founded in 2022, HEA is based in Abu Dhabi. It operates a network of so-called jack-up barges—floating platforms used to support offshore wind farms and oil-and-gas maintenance activity.
HEA also provides accommodation vessels to house oil and gas workers, and battery-powered subsea vessels.
HEA generated operating income of \$65.2 million in the first six months of the year, up 128% from the year-ago period, while revenue more than doubled to about \$100 million, according to the company's website
The U.A.E. has been aggressive in shipping oil out of the Persian Gulf despite Iran's drone and missile attacks. Adnoc has provided “shuttle run”
services, ferrying oil in tankers from inside the Gulf to just outside the Strait of Hormuz, where it is delivered to customers.
Adnoc L&S expanded its ability to ship energy when in August it said it acquired 11 vessels—five to carry gas and six to transport crude oil—for a total of about \$1.3 billion. Publicly traded in Abu Dhabi, Adnoc L&S has a market value of more than \$15 billion. It is about 80% owned by Adnoc, its state-owned parent.
Top 250 mutual-funds listings for Nasdaq-published share classes by net assets. e-Ex-distribution. f-Previous day's quotation. g-Footnotes x and s apply. j-Footnotes e and s apply. k-Recalculated by LSEG, using updated data. p-Distribution costs apply, 12b-1. r-Redemption charge may apply. s-Sock split or dividend. t-Footnotes p and r apply. v-Footnotes x and e apply. x-Ex-dividend. z-Footnote x, e and s apply. NA-Not available due to incomplete price, performance or cost data. NE-Not released by LSEG; data under review. NN-Fund not tracked. NS-Fund didn't exist at start of period. | Fund | NAV | Net Chg | YTD %Ret |
AB Funds | MunilncmShares | 10.36 | ... | -3.5 |
American Century Inv | Ultra | 102.70 | -0.76 | 9.1 |
Putnam Funds Class A | PutLargCap p | 45.55 | +0.23 | 16.5 |
Putnam Funds Class Y | PutLargCap | 45.58 | +0.23 | 16.8 |
Schwab Funds | 1000 Inv r | NA | ... | NA | FunUSLgInst r | NA | ... | NA | Intl Sel r | NA | ... | NA | S&P Sel | NA | ... | NA | TSM Sel r | NA | ... | NA |
客户关系在预订后也不会结束。伯恩斯坦（Bernstein）分析师 Richard Clarke 指出，$90%$ 的 客人会继续就到达时间、钥匙或当地税费向房东发送消息，这使得 与交易双方都建立了联系。
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📄 Original Section
Airbnb Could Still Prevail Over AI Threat
For the lodging platform's stock to thrive in the age of bots, it has to turn repeat customers into loyal ones
Sept. 2026
CEO Brian Chesky at an Airbnb event in San Francisco earlier this year.
AI agents like Muse can already find you the cheapest hotel room in Paris. But they can't locate a cheaper version of that Catskills cabin you've been eyeing, because it might only be available on Airbnb.
Investors should pay attention to that distinction. When Meta Platforms launched its Muse agent last month, travel stocks including Booking Holdings, Expedia and Airbnb all fell sharply.
Airbnb, though, has a real chance to emerge as a winner from the upheaval. The catch: Its stock already reflects above-industry growth. To justify its valuation, Airbnb will need to turn repeat customers into loyal ones.
Online travel companies make much of their money by simplifying search and collecting fees on bookings. AI agents threaten that model.
But not all travel marketplaces are equally exposed. Booking and Expedia largely sell hotel rooms that travelers can also book directly or through competing sites. If an agent can find the same room elsewhere, it has little reason to favor either Booking or Expedia.
Booking and Expedia also sell sponsored listings that steer travelers toward particular properties. Wells Fargo estimates those will account for about $8\%$ of Expedia's revenue and a much higher percentage of profit next year.
Airbnb has more ways to adapt. More than half its listings are available only on its platform, and more than 90% of its traffic comes directly to its app or website.
The customer relationship doesn't end after booking, either. Bernstein analyst Richard Clarke notes that $90\%$ of Airbnb guests go on to message their hosts about arrival times, keys or local taxes, giving Airbnb a connection to both sides of the transaction.
Airbnb's growth seems to be accelerating this year.
Source: FactSet
How the companies have responded to the possible agentic future is telling.
Expedia quickly signed on as a Muse partner. Airbnb hasn't, and Chief Executive Brian Chesky says AI chatbots have so far been a boon, sending customers to Airbnb's website.
Chatbots might work for buying paper towels, he quipped at a Skift
conference last month, but people enjoy planning trips. He argued that browsing dozens of homes isn't something a text-based chatbot is well suited for.
Still, the AI jitters arrived just as Airbnb was persuading investors it de-
served its pricey multiple. For years after its 2020 initial public offering, the stock—which trades around 25 to 30 times forward earnings—went nowhere. Investors saw a mature operator trading at a growth premium.
This year, Airbnb growth seems to be accelerating. The stock jumped in August after the company raised its full-year revenue-growth guidance with its second-quarter results. Wells Fargo
analyst Ken Gawrelski credits a run of product improvements under a revamped leadership team.
Among the changes: letting guests reserve now and pay later, adding hotels, and a redesigned home page and app. Investors were also betting on what comes next, including thousands more hotels, car rentals and, eventually, advertising.
The irony is that some of those growth drivers push Airbnb closer to the kind of business Booking and Expedia run—the kind of business AI agents could threaten. Even if AI agents capture a large share of travel planning and booking, Airbnb would capture the demand. But it and others would slowly lose control over how customers find and choose properties.
That would undermine the advertising opportunity investors are counting on. The bigger point for Airbnb and other marketplaces is that losing control of customer acquisition could mean surrendering some of their pricing power and margins.
To bulletproof itself, Airbnb might look to another e-commerce giant that has so far kept AI agents at arm's length: Amazon.
Like Amazon, Airbnb has a loyal customer base and hard-to-match supply. But it has nothing like Prime membership to make customers think twice before taking their business elsewhere.
That is where loyalty comes in. Business travelers stick with Hilton or Marriott because enough nights earn them perks. Leisure travelers rarely accumulate stays with one chain. Airbnb has millions of listings and plenty of repeat customers, but no broad rewards program. It has begun experimenting with credits on hotel stays, but it should make loyalty a priority, not just a promotion.
Airbnb also plans to launch its own AI agent next year. But travelers using an agent might still want it to search Airbnb, Vrbo, Booking and hotel websites alike, rather than limit itself to one company's inventory.
Eventually, Airbnb might have to strike deals with agent makers, using its unique homes as leverage to negotiate favorable terms, says Gawrelski.
Such deals, along with rewards for loyal guests, could over the long term eat into the company's roughly $13\%$ take rate, he adds. But if they bring in enough additional bookings, the trade-off could be worthwhile.
History offers a reason not to panic. The shift from desktop to mobile unsettled investors in Alphabet and Amazon, but both emerged as major beneficiaries. Companies with valuable assets can come out of a platform shift stronger, if they adapt quickly enough.
Airbnb has homes the bots can't easily replace. Now it needs to give guests a reason to insist on booking them there.
Excess return of normal S&P 500 vs. S&P 500 Equal Weight Index since...
...ChatGPT release through today
...Yahoo IPO to Tech bubble peak
Note: Yahoo's IPO was on April 12, 1996; ChatGPT's release date was 1,409 days ago
Source: FactSet
Stocks are near a record, but lots of them are in the doghouse, too. It's the investing edition of "two things can be true at once."
Only one-third of stocks in the S&P 500 index were trading above their 50-day moving average as of Friday, even as the benchmark flirted with a record. You might have heard about that narrow leadership—“bad breadth,” as the overused gag goes.
Many pundits say that's a problem, but it's complicated. Short-term breadth readings only occasionally signal a pullback, and usually just a minor one.
It's also the history of markets in a nutshell. Diversified investors own hundreds of companies, yet most stocks don't earn investors money in the long run. A small minority have produced half of the
historical gain over the past century.
Sometimes, though, narrow market action really precedes a major cyclical turning point. It happens when ear
happens when certain stocks get big and then produce an outsize share of market gains over a short time span, powering the index higher on their own.
amount of every stock with the standard index that holds them in proportion to their market value.
The equal-weighted version of the S&P 500 has been trounced by
Short-term breadth readings only occasionally signal a pullback.
the widely followed capitalization-weighted version for years now. That went into overdrive when ChatGPT was released in November 2022 and AI became the only
game in town.
When one group of large companies opens up a big gap in just a handful of years, it precedes an even faster reckoning, and usually a bear market. Great technological advancements don't change that. The pattern held for radio,
the Nifty Fifty and dot-coms, and this time probably isn't different.
Since ChatGPT's unveiling, the capitalization-weighted S&P 500 has earned nearly 50 percentage points more of total return than the equal-weighted one. To pick a historically similar moment to ChatGPT, the S&P 500 was beating its equal-weighted twin by an almost identical amount the same number of trading days after Yahoo's 1996 initial public offering.
Maybe the equal-weighted index is just worse? Nope.
It has beaten the S&P 500 since 1990. That is no accident because keeping an equal weighting forces an index to favor smaller, cheaper stocks—two factors known to boost long-run returns.
The more interesting point is when an equal-weight index wins. Like a rubber band stretched tight, it catches up a lot more quickly—and painfully—than it took to pull it into that shape.
-Spencer Jakab
金融与投资
美国股票资金流向，月度
来源：EPFR
---
📄 Original Section
MONEY & INVESTING
Fund flows to U.S. stocks, monthly
Source: EPFR
---
股票聚焦
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📄 Original Section
Stock Spotlight
---
Chipotle
由于有报道称星巴克否认了可能尝试收购这家卷饼连锁店的猜测，其股价下跌3.8%。
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📄 Original Section
Chipotle
Shares declined 3.8% on reports that Starbucks dismissed speculation it might try to purchase the burrito chain.
Shares of the cloud-computing company edged 1.1% lower after a report by the Information that it has struck a deal with Anthropic.
Shares of the data-center company soared 16% after it said it raised about \$900 million to upgrade the company's assets, which include FTX's old bitcoin-mining business.
Valero and Marathon Petroleum
Shares of U.S. oil-refining\*
groups edged up as investors weigh the impact of U.S. moves to boost diesel supplies.
Volkswagen
The German automaker said deliveries declined in the third quarter as the company continued to suffer from a deteriorating market in China. Shares edged higher by less than 0.1%.
◆ Federal Reserve speakers: Fed governor Christopher Waller at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum in New Delhi.
◆ Economic data: Existing-home sales for the month of September, ADP employment data, September Treasury budget, and Johnson Redbook retail sales index
---
预期公布财报公司：
摩根大通（JPMorgan Chase）
强生（Johnson & Johnson）
联合健康（UnitedHealth）
高盛（Goldman Sachs）
富国银行（Wells Fargo）
花旗集团（Citigroup）
达美乐比萨（Domino's Pizza）
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📄 Original Section
EARNINGS EXPECTED:
JPMorgan Chase
Johnson & Johnson
UnitedHealth
Goldman Sachs
Wells Fargo
Citigroup
Domino's Pizza
---
美国股票基金流入量达到狂热状态
投资者涌入美国股票基金的速度在市场历史上极为罕见。
美国股票基金已连续13个月录得资金流入，这是EPFR自2000年以来数据中最长的一次连续增长记录。
—Gunjan Banerji
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📄 Original Section
U.S. Stock Funds' Inflows Hit Fever Pitch
Investors are piling into U.S. stock funds at a pace rarely seen in market history.
U.S. stock funds have drawn 13 consecutive months of inflows, the longest streak in EPFR data going back to 2000.
—Gunjan Banerji
---
赛富时股票评级上调
在美银（Bank of America）对其人工智能战略表示信心并发布看好评级后，赛富时（Salesforce）股价上涨2.1%。
Shares of Salesforce rose 2.1% after Bank of America issued a vote of confidence in the stock, citing its artificial-intelligence strategy.
The bank upgraded the stock to "buy" from "underperform" and raised its target price to \$285 from \$160.
While there have been concerns that AI could render traditional enterprise software companies obsolete, BofA analysts noted that large corporations are unlikely to replace platforms that house their business logic, data, workflows and compliance frameworks. The upgrade was further supported by Salesforce's strong free cash flow and expected accelerating revenue growth.
—Vicky Ge Huang
SCOTT APPLEWHITE/AP
ZUMA PRESS
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
DOW JONES
News Corps
\* \* \* \* \*
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 13, 2026 \~ VOL. CCLXXXVIII NO. 88
DJIA 51850.55 ▲ 195.60 0.38%
NASDAQ 27245.90 ▼ 0.4%
WSJ.com
STOXX 600 635.65 ▲ 0.6%
10-YR. TREAS. Closed (5.243%)
OIL \$93.74 ▲ \$1.89
U.S. Edition
GOLD \$4,165.80 ▼ \$25.20
EURO \$1.1157
YEN 158.63
What's News
Business & Finance
◆ Major U.S. stock indexes ended mixed, with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq losing 0.06% and 0.4%, respectively, and the Dow gaining 0.4%. The U.S. bond market was closed for the Columbus Day holiday. A1
◆ Lawsuits are piling up against Dodgers owner Mark Walter, brought by senior citizens who purchased annuities from his insurance companies. B1
◆ A bitcoin-mining business that appeared left for dead after the collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried's crypto empire is being resuscitated to serve the AI build-out. B1
Meta Platforms released an AI model whose utility will be tested by how much it can improve retention and accelerate adoption of the company's Muse agent. B3
◆ Quantum-computing
company IonQ struck an all-
stock deal to buy closely
held Elisity in a transaction
that values the cybersecurity
firm at up to \$1.3 billion. B5
◆ Dating-app company Bumble is in advanced talks to be taken private in a deal that values it at roughly \$1 billion. B4
♦ Volkswagen's deliveries fell in the third quarter as the German automaker continued to suffer from a deteriorating market in China. B3
♦ China failed to report a recovery in auto sales in September, traditionally the start of peak season. B3
◆ In a legal filing, supermarket chain Albertsons is demanding its top rival Kroger pay it at least \$8 billion after their grocery megadeal imploded two years ago. B1
---
Worldwide
♦ Iran is fortifying its defenses, rallying loyalists and threatening a wider and harsher response against the U.S. and its Gulf allies as it prepares for potential American attacks after the midterm elections and seeks to deter them. A1
♦ A suspected plot to attack a U.S.-run military air base in England was “almost certainly” directed by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, British Prime Minister Andy Burnham said. A6
♦ NATO's top military commander sought to steady an anxious Europe by outlining the alliance's new plan to thwart a potential Russian assault along its eastern flank. A8
◆ U.S. economists Robert E. Hall and Michael Woodford were awarded the Nobel Prize for Economic Sciences for their work on the role of household and business expectations in providing the foundations of economic stability. A2
◆ Trump said he is considering firing Kimberly Guilfoyle, his ambassador to Greece, after revelations that she asked a donor to cover personal expenses in the lead-up to her confirmation hearing. A3
counted for more than half of the \$300 million that Trump raised for the new White House ballroom and legacy projects around Washington, a filing indicates. A4
◆ British comedian and actor Russell Brand appeared in a London court for the start of his trial on rape and sexual-assault charges. A6
RAID: Homeland Security Investigations officers carry boxes Monday from the Washington residence of Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) during a search described as part of a criminal investigation. Omar's office called it 'an outrageous abuse of power.' A3
◆ Died: RJ Mitte, 34, actor on “Breaking Bad.” A2
Options- Trading Frenzy Shows Bullish Investors' Zeal for Risk
Market's soaring volumes hit \$700 billion a day—akin to meme-stock mania
BY KRYSTAL HUR
AND HANNAH ERIN LANG
Individual investors aren't letting anything get them down these days.
Their fervor is showing up in frenzied trading of options, or contracts that allow holders to buy or sell a stock at a set price, by a certain date. Volumes in options tied to individual stocks have recently reached levels seen during the meme-stock mania of 2021, about \$700 billion of notional volume a day, according to Carrick Lane, an investment manager specializing in options strategies. The prices of call options, which give the right to buy, have eclipsed levels seen during that time.
A new generation of individual investors discovered the markets during the post-Covid rally, and by early 2021 many amateur traders were pushing into more complicated, and often riskier, bets. A boom in stock options and other derivatives was under way.
Those markets are now abuzz with retail activity once again, and Wall Street knows the reason: Individual investors are looking past rising interest rates, \$100 oil prices and war in the Middle East. They are focusing on strong corporate earnings and are as comfortable rolling the dice on volatile markets as they were back when GameStop, Roaring Kitty and AMC Entertainment were the talk of Reddit forums.
Bullishness among individual investors, as measured by the percentage who expect stock prices to rise over the next six months, reached 40.3% for the week ended Oct. 7, according to the latest survey from the American Association of Individual Investors. That is the highest level since mid-July and comparable to levels seen in 2021.
Many, like 41-year-old Ku-nal Berry, are buoyed by the success of the artificial-intelligence trade and optimistic about the technology's poten-Please turn to page A2
◆ Heard on the Street: How to look at a narrow rally..... B10
Iran Preps For More War Amid Trump's Threats
Regime, convinced the U.S. is ready to strike, rallies Iranians, fortifies nuclear sites
BY BENOIT FAUCON
Iran is fortifying its defenses, rallying loyalists and threatening a wider, harsher response against the U.S. and its Gulf allies as it prepares for potential American attacks after the midterms and seeks to deter them.
Iranian officials have warned publicly and in private conversations with regional officials that the Islamic Republic will respond with further escalation across the Middle East if the U.S. launches new strikes.
Satellite images show Iran is strengthening sensitive locations, including nuclear sites and border areas, to make them more resilient to attacks. The government is also preparing Iranians for renewed war, sending paramilitary forces to read war stories to kindergartners, advertising training in firing shoulder-mounted antiaircraft missiles and holding rallies.
Iran has little ability to defend against attacks from advanced U.S. jets, high-altitude bombers or cruise missiles, giving it an incentive to try to deter such attacks with threats. The belligerent tone also serves as a distraction from the deepening economic misery Iranians are experiencing as the U.S. tightens sanctions and pressures airlines not to fly to the country, tightening the blockade.
"The war footing is serving them well for now due to an impasse on many fronts—dip-Please turn to page A6
FICO Hit By Rise Of Rival
FICO credit scores have long played a critical role in mortgage-underwriting decisions. Now regulators and lenders have opened the door to using a rival, VantageScore. The move to break Fair Isaac's hold over the mortgage market has sent its stock down about 60% this year. B1
Soaring Welfare Spending Is Crushing Britain
Disability benefit claims surge, but leaders struggle to make cuts
BY MAX COLCHESTER AND DAVID LUHNOW
LIVERPOOL, England—Catherine Wieland got on Britain's welfare rolls in 2021. With a history of emotional trauma, she was too anxious to go outside or carry out simple tasks like washing herself, she told the government.
Soon, she was receiving about £700, or \$1,000, a month in disability benefits. And, it turns out, going outside quite a bit.
Using a taxpayer-subsidized program for those with disabilities, Wieland paid a small deposit for free use of a BMW, which she used to regularly visit the hair salon, dine out, attend a pride parade and visit an amusement park. According to court reports in her fraud conviction, she also flew to Cancún, Mexico.
Wieland's case is an extreme example of a new reality in the U.K.: Disability payouts are no longer just for those most in need; they've become a financial crutch for a swath of the population as wages stagnate and prices rise.
It's blowing up Britain's welfare bill, hamstring its politicians and imperiling its long-term financial stability.
Please turn to page A10
First-Class Amenity Kits Are Now Holy Grail Collectibles \* \* \*
Travel enthusiasts accrue free toiletry pouches by the dozens; ‘I love every single one’
BY VICTORIA ALBERT
Like most New Yorkers, Andrew Lim doesn't have much space in his apartment.
The e-commerce specialist shares a tight one-bedroom with his husband in Manhattan. But there will always be room for one prized possession.
sion: His collection of about 200 airline amenity kits, the travel-sized toiletry pouches that come free with first- and business-class seats on long-haul flights. Lim, a travel
Lim, a travel content creator, has spent decades accumulating the kits. After flying more than 3 million miles, his collection includes rare finds like United Airlines' 'Star Wars' collaboration and newer offerings like China Airlines' partnership with Marc Jacobs.
Gold status
He keeps them all tucked away in a closet—out of sight of his husband, who isn't as keen on the enterprise. But sometimes, he can't resist taking them out for a trip down memory lane.
"He thinks I'm crazy," said Lim, 51.
For most fliers, amenity kits are a quick fix for the annoyances of even business-class travel: A sleep mask to darken the cabin; lip balm and lotion to help with dry air; socks to find a little more com-
fort. But for the rare travel enthusiast, they are so much more: a way to memorialize a favorite trip or claim a piece of airline history.
Devotees collect them by the dozens, even hundreds. They show them off alongside Pleaseturn to page 412
Please turn to page A12
INSIDE
Hope Swells in Venezuela For Oil Industry's Revival
PERSONAL JOURNAL
PERSONAL JOURNAL
Is your grown child pulling away? Look for the early signs of estrangement. A11
BUSINESS & FINANCE
Tom Cruise was going after a best actor Oscar. Then 'Digger' flopped. B1
BY KEJAL VYAS
CABIMAS, Venezuela—An oil gusher discovered more than 100 years ago gave birth to Venezuela's energy industry near this once-booming city on the shores of Lake Maracaibo. Today, Cabimas is at the center of the U.S. effort to resurrect the sector.
This city of 350,000 resembles an oil-industry graveyard. Mangled drill towers and collapsing offshore platforms are visible as far as the eye can see. Hardened globs of crude cling to fishing nets pulled from the lake, and natural gas gurgles up from busted underwater pipelines. The lake's shores are black with petroleum.
Nearby, children play baseball between leaky pump jacks that often stop working because of power outages that last up to 12 hours a day.
Many residents here said they can't wait for U.S. investors to arrive and start plowing money into rebuilding the country's dilapidated oil infrastructure. Many remember the boom years when oil workers enjoyed housing provided by international oil companies, along with neighborhoods with swimming pools, sports clubs and golf courses, and a lake with clean water and healthy marine life.
The question they are asking is: Can the U.S. bring the good times back?
“God willing, the foreigners will come back soon and we’ll have a better quality of life,” said José Medina, a fisherman with five children. But he is worried it will take a long time. “It feels like we’re neither moving forward nor backward.”
The decaying industry here reflects two decades of mismanagement under late President Hugo Chávez and his successor Nicolás Maduro, whom the U.S. captured in a raid in January and is prosecuting in New York on drug-trafficking charges, which Maduro denies. Industry executives and experts said residents' fears are well-founded: Reviving Vene-
Please turn to page A10
Military spending share of GDP
CAPITAL ACCOUNT | By Greg Ip
A Nordic Plan for Defense, and Growth
Projected growth, 2026
Projected fiscal deficit or surplus as share of GDP, 2026 $^{†}$
\*Excluding production abroad by Danish companies, growth would be around 2%
†Includes central, state and local governments. Standardized measure, which may differ from national fiscal authorities.
Sources: Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (military spending); National central bank (projected growth); OECD September Outlook (fiscal deficit/surplus)
Sweden's central bank has been worrying about what cashless consumers would do if an emergency such
as a Russian cyberattack took down the electrical or communications grid.
And so as of July, Swedish consumers can buy essential goods using their Mastercard and Visa cards without a network connection. The central bank (the Riksbank) wants to go further by enabling offline purchases with Swish, a local mobile payments system that bypasses the Visa and Mastercard networks altogether.
“What this whole geopolitical situation has brought about is that you need to be redundant in your operations,” the governor of the Riksbank, Erik Thedéen, explained in an interview.
"If we look on our payment system, it happens to be that we have two credit cards that are from the same country, the U.S.," he said. "I think we should keep that in mind."
The initiative, in its own small way, shows how much this corner of the world has changed. Few countries thrived as much from globalization and the end of the Cold War as the Nordics—Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland and Iceland.
That world is gone. Russia threatens their territory, China threatens their markets, and they can no longer count on the U.S. to defend either. A visit to Denmark and Sweden showed me how they are pivoting to this reality: sinking more money and manpower into defense; tackling vulnerabilities in payment systems, supply chains and trade relations; and integrating their economies, defense industries and militaries more tightly with each other and Europe.
Far from paying a price, they seem to be thriving, an encouraging sign for the rest of the world.
Few members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization have responded as energetically to President Trump's demand to shoulder more of their own defense as the Nordics. Last year, Denmark and Norway each spent more than the U.S. on defense as a share of GDP, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. A decade ago they spent a third as much. Sweden and Finland aren't far behind.
As notable has been the political consensus behind the buildup. In elections in Denmark in March and Sweden last month, parties on the left and right, including the far-right anti-immigration parties, supported the military boost.
The reason: Russia looms across the Baltic Sea. The Danish Defense Intelligence Service has concluded that after a ceasefire in Ukraine, Russia would be ready to hit the Baltics within two years, and able to wage large-scale war in Europe within five, assuming NATO is slow to re-arm and the U.S. doesn't help.
“People know that, so they know why [rearmament] is so crucial,” said Flemming Moller Mortensen, a member of parliament with the Social Democratic Party, which leads the governing coalition.
The change in mindset shows in more mundane ways. Just as Sweden has made sure payment cards work if the
grid goes down, Denmark has asked households to keep three days' worth of essentials on hand, including food, water, medicine and a solar or battery-powered radio.
Young adults face the prospect of being drafted. Sweden reinstated conscription in
2018 and will call up 9,000 recruits this year, compared with 3,500 in 2018. It is debating lifting the prohibition on conscripts serving outside Sweden. Denmark has made women eligible and extended conscripts' service to 11 months from four.
Trump's lukewarm commitment to NATO and efforts to annex Danish-ruled Greenland (shelved under an agreement with Denmark last month) woke Danes and Swedes up to their dependence on U.S. technology for security: Patriots for missile defense, Palantir for police and military AI, even Microsoft in desktop software. Like most of Europe, Denmark struggles to compete with Silicon Valley on innovation. Startups such as Zendesk and Unity often move their headquarters to the U.S.
"The ownership of technologies has become a factor in all conflicts," said Martin Lidegaard, Danish minister of business and competitiveness. While the U.S. is still Denmark's most important business partner, "we need to ensure...that we will not be depending on American technologies."
Denmark has taken small steps—such as making drones for Ukraine with Ukrainian expertise—to build a defense base. Lidegaard plans to unveil a more ambitious strategy for stimulating defense production.
While Sweden has a substantial defense industry, it is pushing joint procurement with European allies and Canada to lessen dependence on the U.S. It is buying frigates from France, and France is buying the GlobalEye radar surveillance plane from Sweden's Saab. Canada, which makes GlobalEye's airframe, is weighing a purchase.
The U.S. remains their main market, but incremental growth will increasingly come from elsewhere, helped by free trade pacts the European Union has signed.
“We can trade with Canada today more easily than with the United States,” said Lars Sandahl Sorensen, head of Dansk Industri, Denmark’s main business association. “We have heavy investment into Australia now in the green transition.”
And they are deepening cooperation with each other. Lidegaard and his Nordic counterparts just announced a Nordic Growth Alliance to promote cooperation in sectors such as quantum technology, data centers and space, while reducing red tape.
Elsewhere, the transition to a less open, more dangerous world has been costly. Military spending is contributing to the fiscal crisis now engulfing France. A trade war with the U.S. has laid Canada's economy low. German politics have been convulsed by the rise of a right-wing party.
Denmark and Sweden are coping better in part thanks to lessons learned from the past. In the 1990s Sweden endured bank failures, soaring deficits and unemployment, and interest rates that briefly hit 500%.
“Everything that you see that you think is good in Swedish economic policy, is very much a child of the 1990s crisis,” said the Riksbank’s Thedéen. That includes tough rules on deficits, an independent central bank, and a pension system that indexes retirement to lengthening lifespans. It has made it difficult for politicians to be fiscally profligate, he said.
Denmark recently has run surpluses. Any country afraid of turning into France could do worse than to study Denmark and Sweden.
Two Americans Win Nobel Prize for Economics
The prize committee announcing the winners of the Nobel for economics in Stockholm.
JONATHAN NACKSTRAND/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
BY PAUL HANNON
Two U.S. economists, Robert E. Hall and Michael Woodford, have been awarded the Nobel Prize for Economic Sciences for their work on the role of household and business expectations in providing the foundations for economic stability.
Hall is a professor of economics at Stanford University, while Woodford holds the same position at Columbia University. The 12 million Swedish kronor prize, equivalent to roughly \$1.3 million, will be shared equally.
Policies first proposed by John Maynard Keynes in the 1930s to stabilize the economy when it is either running too cold or too hot were effective until the 1970s, when they proved unable to respond to a series of energy shocks.
The Nobel organization said the work of Hall and Woodford helped to provide a framework for understanding why those policies failed, and emphasized the importance for governments and central banks of communicating clearly with households and businesses about their plans and their reasons for intervening.
"The understanding of the people making decisions about spending, their expectations of what policy is likely to be like in the future is crucial to the effects of policy," Woodford told reporters.
The Nobel committee highlighted Woodford's 2003 book "Interest and Prices: Foundations of a Theory of Monetary Policy" as the key work that outlined the new framework founded on his research and that of Hall. "I'm elated," Woodford said. "It's a tremendous honor, it's a surprise."
Hall also described the award as a surprise. “I’ve spent my career trying to understand how the economy works, following interesting questions wherever they led,” he said. “When I thought I had a new idea, the next step was to find out whether it was actually new, whether it was right, and whether it mattered."
One key example of the new approach is the use of forward guidance by central banks, in which they offer businesses and households a clear understanding of how interest rates are likely to change.
Forward guidance was widely adopted by central banks following the global financial crisis, when their key rates had already been lowered to zero and further stimulus was needed to avoid a slide into deflation. By assuring households and businesses that borrowing costs would remain low for a significant period, central banks hoped to stimulate borrowing for investment.
“Making more explicit statements about the likely future path of interest-rate policy was an important part of the response in the years from 2009 onward and I think it did contribute to better stabilization,” Woodford said.
That form of forward guidance, however, has fallen out of favor in the 2020s, where the global economy has been buffeted by supply shocks that make it difficult to make even tentative commitments about the future rate path. Federal Reserve Chairman Kevin Warsh is a critic of the use of forward guidance.
The work of Hall and Woodford also emphasizes the importance of credibility for the success of central bank and government policies. Their work suggests that if they believe central banks will raise their key rates enough to tame inflation, households and businesses are less likely to behave in ways that reinforce the move in prices.
Options Show Zeal For Risk
Continued from Page One
Source: Carrick Lane
Continued from Page One
tial to transform business and
the economy.
Note: Notional volumes
"The growth is there," the Los Angeles based consultant said. Berry has chased gains in megacap tech names including Nvidia, Amazon and SpaceX. "The short-term volatility—you've just got to have the stomach for it," Berry said.
The meme-stock craze might have faded as many of the era's favorite stocks eventually lost their luster. But individual investors' enthusiasm for the markets has only grown stronger over the past five years. This cohort kept "buying the dip" even during
April 2025, when a global trade war rattled pro investors and triggered a deep sell-off. They helped crown a new class of AI darlings and piled into the SpaceX initial public offering. And they are still buying today.
On Monday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.4%, or about 196 points. The S&P 500 fell less than 0.1% and the Nasdaq composite lost 0.4%.
In another sign investors are feeling much as they did in 2021, more traders are comfortable betting on short-term price moves.
More than half of current single-stock options volumes are concentrated in contracts less than two weeks away from expiring, according to John Marshall, partner at Carrick Lane.
One reason behind their persistent optimism is strong corporate profits, which have helped drive stocks to repeated records this year.
\$800 billion
Companies in the S&P 500 are expected to report earnings growth of about 30% for the third quarter from the prior year, according to FactSet. For 2026, profits are expected to jump 33%.
Individual investors have grown a bit more selective in
2026, analysts said, opting to throw their weight behind a few high-conviction names over buying broader market dips. And retail activity slowed during the summer, following an explosive rally in shares of memory stocks and chip makers that peaked in June.
But that summer cooldown historically tends to reverse in October, according to data from Citadel Securities—and DIY traders could be even more plugged in through the rest of the year.
Not everyone is all-in on derivatives, either.
But even more risk-averse investors are choosing to stay in the market.
The top position bought by Charles Schwab clients in September was an exchange-traded fund tracking the Dow Jones U.S. Dividend 100 Index. That is the first time an ETF has taken that spot since Schwab began collecting that data in 2021. Clients also snapped up call options tied to ETFs last month, according to Schwab.
“It’s a little bit more cautious optimism,” said Joe Mazzola, head trading strategist at Charles Schwab. “They’re definitely looking to buy dips.”
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U.S. WATCH
OBITUARY
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RJ Mitte, 34, 'Breaking Bad' Star
"Breaking Bad" actor and disability-rights advocate RJ Mitte died Monday at age 34, authorities and his representatives said.
Cameron County Justice of the Peace Cyndi Hinojosa declared Mitte, who had cerebral palsy, dead at what she believed was his home in Brownsville, Texas. She was unable to provide a cause, but an autopsy will be performed.
—Associated Press
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NEW YORK Actress in Custody After Plane Incident
Actress Selma Blair was taken into custody after a flight from Los Angeles to New York for being physically abusive and injuring two flight attendants, authorities said. Blair, 54, was taken into custody Sunday night at New York's JFK airport. In a statement, a Blair representative said she had a medical emergency that led to the alleged conduct. She was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2018.
-Associated Press
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CORRECTIONS & AMPLICATIONS
Readers can alert The Wall Street Journal to any errors in news articles by emailing wsjcontact@wsj.com or by calling 888-762-5450.
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Federal Agents Search Omar's Home
Homeland Security immigration probe is cited; she attacks 'abuse of power'
BY SADIE GURMAN
AND JOHN MCCORMICK
WASHINGTON—Federal agents searched the Washington, D.C., home of Rep. Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.) Monday as part of a criminal investigation, people familiar with the matter said.
Agents from Homeland Security Investigations conducted the search, the people said. Details of the investigation couldn't be determined, but one of the people said it was long-running and immigration-related.
Omar is one of the original members of what is known as the Squad, a group of progressive congresswomen of color known for challenging Democratic leadership and being vocal critics of President Trump.
The Justice Department said the agents executed a court-authorized search in the District of Columbia area but declined to elaborate.
Omar's office issued a statement objecting to the search.
“This raid by Trump’s DHS is an outrageous abuse of power and an unprecedented escalation in the weaponization of federal law enforcement to target political enemies. For a decade, Donald Trump has relentlessly targeted Congresswoman Ilhan Omar with inflammatory rhetoric, repeatedly putting a target on her back. Now, those attacks have escalated to a pointless federal raid,” the statement said.
The search took place just three weeks before November's elections in which Omar is running for a fifth term. The Justice Department traditionally seeks to avoid public investigative steps involving political candidates within 60 days of an election, to avoid the appearance of partisan influence.
Trump said federal officials are looking “very carefully” at Omar.
"I've always found her to be totally crooked," Trump said. "She's a terrible person. Just a complainer. She comes from a country that is a non-country, and then she comes over here and she complains about our Constitution."
Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin told a conservative podcaster in September that there was a continuing federal investigation into Omar, who he said “married her brother to try to bring him into the United States.” She has denied that claim for more than a decade.
Omar, 44 years old, has long been a target for attacks from Trump and conservatives.
Born in Mogadishu, Somalia, in 1982, Omar arrived in the U.S. in the 1990s. Her family moved to Minnesota as she entered high school.
Omar shares her Washington home with her husband, Tim Mynett.
The congresswoman was first elected in 2018 from a heavily Democratic district that includes Minneapolis.
TIM EVANS/REUTERS
Rep. Ilhan Omar
Yosemite Land Swap Sets Off Fight
BY KATE KING
A sliver of meadow and trees on the edge of Yosemite National Park has become an unlikely battleground over whether development is allowed in national parks.
Developer Jeff Pori and the National Park Service signed a preliminary agreement in which he would transfer a piece of California property in exchange for about an acre on the western boundary of Yosemite National Park's nearly 750,000-acre expanse.
The National Park Service recently signed a preliminary agreement for a land swap with a Las Vegas developer. Under the arrangement, the federal government would give about an acre on the western boundary of Yosemite National Park's nearly 750,000-acre expanse, nestled in California's Sierra Nevada.
That would allow developer Jeff Pori to build a short road into the park from his adjacent property. Without it, he said, guests at the rustic resort Pori is planning would have to drive about 45 minutes along winding dirt roads to reach the park's main entrance.
In exchange, Pori agreed to transfer to the National Park Service a similarly valued piece of property located elsewhere in California. He said his project would add needed lodging to the popular park, allowing more people to enjoy it.
"I remember a lot of hiking and a lot of streams and rivers around there," said Pori, who grew up in the Bay Area and camped in Yosemite with friends and family as a child. "It's just like heaven, really."
News of the proposed land exchange set off a fury among conservationists, former Yosemite officials and many members of the public. Cicely Muldoon, a former superintendent of Yosemite, said the swap would set a dangerous precedent by signaling that protected natural spaces can be bartered away to private interests.
“It’s not a piece of land that you use for real-estate transactions,” Muldoon said.
Pori's attorney, Lanny Davis, said he has received so many threatening notes that he hit his iPhone's limit for blocking email addresses.
The blowback shows how fiercely protective Americans are of their national parks—particularly the “crown jewels” such as Yosemite, best known for its waterfalls—and how some consider any move toward private development to be crossing a line.
The Trump administration has a different view. It has been willing to consider opening protected federal land to private developers and businesses.
Last year, the administration formed a task force to identify federal land that could be used to build affordable housing in an effort to address the nation's housing shortage.
Federal agencies are also pursuing proposed land exchanges with private landowners. In Texas, a federal judge recently allowed a proposed land swap between the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Elon Musk's SpaceX to proceed.
In Georgia, the National Park Service has signed preliminary agreements to give federal land to two private landowners on Cumberland Island, a federally protected barrier island wilderness, in exchange for privately owned parcels in ecologically sensitive areas.
Some land exchanges involving national parks have happened over the years, including an agreement with a public utility in the Everglades and a swap that allowed the island of St. John to build a public school on a parcel of the Virgin Islands National Park.
But conservationists say land exchanges have historically been used only to expand the boundaries of federal parkland.
"Now they're using that same authority to break off pieces of the park to benefit a private developer," said Ed Stierli, vice president of government affairs for the nonpartisan advocacy group National Parks Conservation Association.
In 2024, Pori purchased 83 acres just outside the boundary of Yosemite. The property, known as Hazel Green Ranch, is an undeveloped parcel of meadowland.
Pori, through his real-estate firm Kingsbarn Realty Capital, wants to build something similar to what Hazel Green Ranch's former owner had proposed: a 150-room lodge and cabins scattered around the meadow's perimeter.
But for the business to work, he needs to build a 700-foot-long road across federal land connecting his property to the Big Oak Flat Road leading into Yosemite.
Pori knew getting approval would be an uphill battle. He is friends and business partners with Russell Geyser, the son of Hazel Green Ranch's previous owner, Lewis Geyser, who previously lost a five-year legal battle over the issue.
Pori said he first asked Yosemite officials two years ago for an easement that would allow him to build his proposed road and was told “no.” He and Davis then met last year with officials from the Interior Department, who offered a possible solution: a land exchange.
Critics have pointed to Pori's political contributions, which total \$4,700, to Republican campaigns and candidates, including Trump, as evidence that his request may have received special consideration.
The Interior Department's press office said there was no political pressure to reach a predetermined outcome on the exchange, which is still far from finalized. Pori and Davis said they never sought political favors. Even if the land exchange moves forward, Pori faces a long process before he can get approval for his proposed development.
“I bought this with absolutely no guarantee,” he said. “I knew that going in.”
Trump Says He Is Considering Firing Guilfoyle
BY PHILIP WEGMANN
President Trump said he is “looking at” firing Kimberly Guilfoyle and that he “is not happy” with his ambassador to Greece after revelations that she asked a donor to cover personal expenses in the lead-up to her confirmation hearing.
The Wall Street Journal first reported text messages of Guilfoyle asking Trump donor Eric Deters to wire \$100,000 to her American Express account last year. "It won't show up anywhere if you wire money to American Express,"
she wrote on Signal. "Please."
Deters, a former congressional Kentucky candidate, had previously paid Guilfoyle in speaking fees. He made a similar \$200,000 payment to Donald Trump Jr. and \$100,000 to Eric Trump. He refused, however, to pay her credit card bill.
The State Department Office of the Inspector General is now investigating whether Guilfoyle received gifts or favors from private businessmen. The Wall Street Journal later reported on audio of the diplomat boasting that Greek business magnates had paid for her flight to Paris along with luxurious hotel accommodations.
Asked on Monday about the reports of potential misconduct by Guilfoyle and whether he might fire her, Trump said, "Well, we're looking at it. Yeah, we're not happy."
Trump administration officials spent the weekend discussing whether Guilfoyle should continue on as ambassador in light of the allegations. Some floated asking the envoy to voluntarily relinquish her post to save Trump from the embarrassment of having to fire her, according to a senior administration official familiar with the deliberations.
A spokesman for Guilfoyle didn't return requests for comment.
Jesse Binnall, a lawyer for Guilfoyle, previously told The Journal that the ambassador disputed the authenticity of the messages showing her asking Deters to pay her credit-card bill. He said she had been paid to speak at events before her nomination and “was owed a balance for traveling to and supporting these patriotic events.” Deters said he didn’t owe Guilfoyle any balance.
Guilfoyle was previously engaged to Donald Trump Jr., the eldest son of the president.
Rep. Don Beyer (D., Va.) called for Guilfoyle to be fired and “if she broke the law, which seems highly likely, prosecuted.” California Rep. Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the House oversight committee, in a letter to Guilfoyle said the reported conduct “raises serious public corruption and national security concerns” and requested she provide financial records and copies of her communications with certain government officials.
California Ride-Share Drivers Turn to New Union
Left, drivers in August; right, Margarita Peñalosa says the cost of driving has doubled since 2017.
FROM LEFT: MIKE BLAKE/REUTERS, MARGARITA PEÑALOSA
BY PAUL KIERNAN
LOS ANGELES—When Margarita Peñalosa began driving for Uber and Lyft in 2017, eight hours a day was enough to cover living expenses and send cash to family in Colombia. Now she said it takes 12-hour days.
"The cost of driving is twice what it was when I started," said Peñalosa, who is 46.
Her frustrations explain why she and more than 50,000 California ride-share drivers recently signed cards to join the newly formed California Gig Workers Union. Organizers have told drivers the union could help them secure more take-home pay in one of the nation's least affordable states, where the country's highest gasoline prices and a growing fleet of driverless taxis undercut gig-work economics.
The union marks the biggest U.S. effort yet to organize a workforce that numbers in the millions nationwide. Ride-share drivers set their own schedules, giving them flexibility to care for children or work other jobs. But since they are classified as independent contractors rather than employees, gig workers lack traditional labor protections in most of the U.S. Those include minimum-wage laws, workers' compensation and collective-bargaining rights.
Instead of an hourly wage,
Uber and Lyft drivers are paid by the ride. To receive trip requests, they must be “online” with the ride-share app. Drivers are offered upfront rates determined by the platforms’ proprietary algorithms and must learn to quickly distinguish worthwhile trips from low-paying ones.
They don't get paid for time spent behind the wheel waiting for trip requests or driving back from a distant drop-off with an empty back seat.
More mostly Democratic cities and states are extending new labor protections for gig workers. Massachusetts certified the nation's first union for ride-share drivers in May, a few months ahead of California. Illinois could soon follow after Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed a law in August that will allow Uber and Lyft drivers to unionize.
California and Massachusetts also guarantee drivers a minimum wage based on the time they spend actively driving passengers, though the rest of their time remains uncompensated.
In Oregon, Portland's city council considered a proposal this year to cap the “take rate,” or share of a passenger's fare that goes to Uber and Lyft, at 20%. New York City, Washington state and Minnesota have adopted rules guaranteeing drivers earn a minimum amount per mile.
Drivers pay vehicle-related expenses, including insurance, repair and maintenance costs that have all outpaced inflation in recent years. And they are hit by gasoline prices that are up more than 50% this year nationwide. California drivers are filling up at about \$6.31 a gallon for regular, the highest average of any state, AAA said.
Lyft declined to comment on driver pay. An Uber spokesman said the company's drivers earn more than \$34 an hour in California "when actively working"—meaning the time between accepting a ride and dropping off a passenger—an increase of 17% since 2019.
After factoring in their operating costs and the time they spend online but not actively serving customers, several ride-share drivers in Los Angeles said their actual hourly earnings often fall below the state's \$16.90 minimum wage. "The gas is killing me," said Artur Gevorkyan, 46, who has been driving for Uber since 2015.
He earned \$1,006 before taxes and expenses for about 22 hours of active driving time in one of his better recent weeks, according to a review of his pay statement. Measured by active driving time, that means he was grossing nearly \$45.50 an hour. But after including 30 additional hours he spent online for Uber, his pretax income for that same week would come out to less than \$19.50 an hour.
His expenses include a \$600 monthly payment on his 2019 Infiniti QX60, nearly \$800 every six months for the insurance and close to \$70 for gasoline on a typical 250-mile day.
Gridwise, an analytics platform used by hundreds of thousands of Uber and Lyft drivers, estimates that average gross pay nationwide was \$24.38 an online hour in the second quarter. That was up 7.3% from a year earlier but down about 10% from 2021.
Uber and Lyft haven't fought the unionization push partly because the California bill that allowed drivers to unionize was part of a legislative bargain that reduced the ride-share companies' insurance costs.
AARON SCHWARTZ/GETTY IMAGES
Top donors to the 'anti-Aipac' super PAC Contributions to candidates and political committees
A felled tree is seen at East Potomac Golf Links on Saturday. As many as 430 trees had been removed despite a court order.
Judge Blasts Administration For Felling Golf-Course Trees
BY LOUISE RADNOFSKY
An angry federal judge overseeing litigation challenging President Trump's plan to overhaul a Washington, D.C. public golf course said the administration violated her instructions by cutting down hundreds of trees around East Potomac Golf Links on short notice over the weekend.
U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes, who had previously warned the administration not to take irreversible steps on the project without telling her, on Monday temporarily barred further tree removal, and warned the government that she would initiate contempt proceedings for the slightest violation.
She also demanded to hear from three Interior Department officials under oath about plans the government made for the removals in the days before it told the court about them late Friday. Workers began taking down trees Saturday morning, and Reyes yelled at the suggestion from a Justice Department lawyer that as many as 430 trees had been removed.
“I have given the government every single benefit of the doubt that it would not do what it has done,” the Biden-nominated judge said during the three-hour hearing.
“What has happened has cost the government all of its credibility” in the case, she said.
By the end of the hearing, Reyes questioned “whether or not I’ve been lied to.”
Justice Department lawyer Marissa Piropato said the tree removal was part of a long-standing maintenance plan and was unconnected to any golf course project. “This is not a renovation, your honor,” she said.
The East Potomac facility has been open for more than a century, offering the public affordable green fees in a picturesque setting close to Washington's famous monuments.
Trump has described the facility as run down and talked for months about redeveloping it, with an eye toward creating a course that could host major golf tournaments. He previously said the renovation would begin in September.
In court papers filed over the weekend, the administration said the project “remains at an early and conceptual stage.”
The DC Preservation League sued earlier this year, raising several legal arguments, including that the project raised environmental concerns and exceeded the president's authority. The administration said its actions were legally compliant and argued the lawsuit was premature.
Trump has raced through several projects in the nation's capital, including the building of a White House ballroom. Courts have struggled to keep up.
Reyes in previous hearings expressed concern that the Trump administration could move quickly on the golf course renovation and then tell her it was too late to “stop the trains.”
The judge during those hearings said the government needed to inform her before taking major actions.
Trust Used by Trump, Allies Lands Windfall
Ten megadonors accounted for more than half of the \$300 million that President Trump raised for the new White House ballroom and legacy projects around Washington, according to a new filing from the nonprofit he and his allies are using to take in the money.
---
By Brian Schwartz, Annie Linskey and Theo Francis
The identities of the donors, who contributed between \$10 million and \$25 million apiece, weren't included in the public filing by the Trust for the National Mall, a long-established nonprofit which the White House has also used to manage funds it raised for the triumphal arch and the Rose Garden.
The annual filing shows the trust recorded \$320 million in contributions and grants last year, up from less than \$10 million in 2024. Three contributors gave \$25 million apiece. The trust also racked up \$210 million in expenses last year, the filing shows, most of it going to maintenance and capital improvement projects.
The documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal don't show how much money has gone to each project and they don't name the donors. The White House has previously identified some ballroom donors but hasn't disclosed how much they contributed.
Spokespeople for the Trust for the National Mall and White House didn't respond to requests for comment.
The Journal has reported that Apple cut a check for around \$25 million toward the White House ballroom project, while Microsoft gave around \$10 million, among others. YouTube, a subsidiary of Alphabet, gave \$22 million to the nonprofit for the ballroom as part of a settlement for a 2021 civil lawsuit that Trump brought against the company.
The Laura & Isaac Perlmutter Foundation contributed \$20.3 million to the trust, labeling the sum as “restricted — White House ballroom” in its own tax filing. It was by far the largest contribution during the year reported by the Perlmutter Foundation, created by former Marvel Entertainment chairman Ike Perlmutter and his wife.
Trump has made beautifying Washington a priority in his second term and pushes companies and donors to write checks for tens of millions of dollars to finance these projects, the Journal has reported. His chief fundraiser, Meredith O'Rourke, calls major companies frequently making specific, at times eight-figures asks, the Journal reported.
No laws prohibit presidents from raising unlimited sums of money for nonprofits and public disclosure of donors isn't required. Trump's unprecedented fundraising from companies with business before his administration has raised concerns from congressional Democrats about the potential for conflicts of interest. A spokeswoman for Trump previously said the president is the “most successful fundraiser in modern political history” and “President Trump can't be bought.”
The newly released documents do provide some detail as to how the funds were spent. The trust paid more than \$800,000 to Florida Architectural Precast, a concrete manufacturer, for construction and other project services.
Meet the Donors Who Are Powering the Left's Upstarts
Progressive candidates in the Journal analysis $^{†}$
\*Includes 24 progressive PACs and advocacy groups. Jan. 1, 2025, through Oct. 7, 2026. Another \$4.6 million was spent across 23 other states and D.C., and nothing in 15 states. iCA-11 had two progressive candidates in its primary.
Sources: AdImpact (spending); AP (results, incumbents)
In Michigan this year, a new super PAC vowing to fight pro-Israel money chipped in more than half a million dollars to help progressive Abdul El-Sayed's Senate bid. Its funders: a crew of virtually unknown political donors, many of whom had never given to politics before last year but have since donated up to \$1 million each.
---
By Maggie Severns, Anthony DeBarros and Kara Dapena
In New York, billionaire Alex Soros cut checks directly to progressive politicians, including Reps. Pramila Jayapal of Washington and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota.
Those donations are part of the millions of dollars that Soros and his father, George, plan to give to Democratic causes this year.
And in Philadelphia, nearly a million dollars in TV advertising paid for by outside groups is boosting Democratic U.S. House candidate Chris Rabb, highlighting his endorsement from New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and his willingness to fight for Medicare for All.
The left flank of the Demo-
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The Mamdani Factor
Zohran Mamdani's election as mayor of New York City last fall sparked a new era of politics and a new generation of political donors, many of them critical of the war in the Middle East and frustrated by Aipac spending to support politicians who back Israel.
cratic Party raises and spends only a fraction of what many Republicans and the Democratic establishment do on elections. But as the far left gains momentum, supporters are working to expand their funding.
Even the Democratic Socialists of America, which is funded exclusively by membership dues and relies largely on volunteers, has been experimenting with raising more money.
While introductory dues for DSA members usually start at \$10 a month, the organization's newer option to pay income-based "solidarity dues" set contributions at a much heftier 1% of member's incomes. "Give your 1% for the 99%," the DSA's website advertises.
Another group that focuses on identifying and helping progressive candidates, Justice Democrats, said its goal is to remain competitive in races where opponents can use funding advantages to overwhelm progressives with ads.
“We will never have the amount of money that Aipac or crypto have,” said Usamah Andrabi, a spokesman for the group, referring to the pro-Israel American Israel Public Af-
In the past, donors to progressives were generally older, wealthy hippies or successful Hollywood players.
The new group skews younger, often comprises Americans of South Asian or Middle Eastern heritage, and works in fields such as technology and medicine.
Sathvik Kaliyur, CEO of
■ American Priorities super PAC ■ Other Mamdani donor fairs Committee and a cryptocurrency industry that has spent more than \$90 million during the midterms. (Aipac spokeswoman Deryn Sousa said the group “is a membership organization of individual Americans, not an industry.”)
Sources: Federal Election Commission (contributions); NYC Campaign Finance Board (Mamdani)
Here is how the progressive movement compares with other big-money counterparts:
fundraising firm NWF Strategies, whose clients have included Mamdani and El-Sayed, said his goal is to make it easier for candidates who don't come from money to run.
Many of the biggest checks are going to a super PAC that aims to be an “anti-Aipac” force, called American Priorities, which has used its funds to support progressives who criticize Israel, including more than \$1 million to help elect Claire Valdez and Darializa Avila Chevalier, two DSA-backed candidates who won New York congressional primaries.
The ads didn't mention Israel or the Palestinian territories as an issue: Instead, they stressed affordability and that the two women were “Mamdani-endorsed.”
One of the group's funders, Texas entrepreneur Sam Mahrouq, said he supports efforts that “encourage a balanced American foreign policy and oppose corption, discrimination, endless wars and excessive special-interest influence.”
Who are the big donors?
The biggest donors often wouldn't consider themselves Democratic socialists:
The list includes old-school progressives and donors interested in abortion rights and the environment whose money is helping candidates who share their views on those issues.
Establishment groups are also now backing progressive candidates who won their primaries in tossup districts, including in California's Central Valley.
A super PAC linked to House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and an affiliated group, for example, have spent or booked more than \$9 million in television advertising to help educator Randy Villegas.
Some Democrats running in red districts are receiving unexpected help: A super PAC launched by Democratic Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker.
It has reserved more than \$2 million of television advertising in a Tennessee district that leans heavily Republican to support Justin Pearson, who has been endorsed by Ocasio-Cortez.
Methodology
The Wall Street Journal reviewed Federal Election Commission filings for 52 campaign committees and 19 PACs. Candidates were included based on endorsements by Democratic Socialists of America, Justice Democrats and the Working Families Party as of September. PACs were included based on ad spending in races that included the progressive candidates. To calculate donor totals, the Journal searched records of individual contributions. Because donors often appear in FEC filings with several name spellings, addresses or employers, the Journal combined amounts when it could determine that records represented the same individual.
Top donors to progressives
Contributions to progressive candidates and political committees
Saikat Chakrabarti (Calif., tech and politics) ran for Congress this year in California, gave more than \$11 million to his own committee, which he has since converted to a super PAC.
PROGRESSIVE CONTRIBUTIONS
Democracy PAC (N.Y., finance) run by George and Alex Soros, backs both Democratic establishment causes and the left.
Deborah Simon (Ind., real estate investment scion) is a longtime Democratic megadonor known for her support of Planned Parenthood.
NJ-10 NY-18 NY-19 PA-07
Susan Mandel (Conn., finance) is a major donor to environmental causes. \$2.5 M
NY-18 NY-19 PA-07
Mary Quinn Delaney (Calif., real estate investing) she and her family's trust give to a range of Democratic candidates and causes.
Source: Federal Election Commission (contributions)
Data is everywhere. Intelligence is not.
---
By: George Popstefanov, Founder and CEO, PMG
AI accelerates analysis, automates tasks, and generates more output than any organization can absorb. Customer signals update in real time. Media fragments by the hour. Commerce, culture, and technology move faster than the operating models built to manage them.
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Access to data is not the same as intelligence. And intelligence alone is not an advantage.
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Companies have invested billions in technology designed to create visibility. But visibility without integration has not created better performance. It has created more complexity.
More data has not solved fragmentation. It has exposed it.
The companies outperforming today are not those with more information. They are the ones structurally built to act on it. They operate as integrated systems where strategy, activation, commerce, and measurement align in real time. Intelligence does not sit in reports. It compounds.
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From the beginning, PMG was engineered as a platform company. One system integrating people, technology, and intelligence into accountable growth.
Our proprietary operating system, Alli, connects strategy to execution and execution to measurement, creating continuity between decisions and outcomes. Insights become decisions. Decisions build on each other. Performance compounds.
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As AI reshapes workflows and the lines between content, media, and commerce continue to blur, the gap between insight and action will widen. The companies structured to close that gap will lead. Those that are not will struggle to keep pace.
Data will multiply. Tools will evolve.
PMG is a platform company built for that future.
The next era will belong to those engineered to act.
WORLD NEWS
Xi's Superpower Ambitions Fuel Debt Spiral
Note: 2025 figures are estimates. Excludes debt tied to special construction funds and other government-guided funds. Converted at \$1=6.7 yuan.
Source: International Monetary Fund
Chinese leader is presiding over surge strangling economy and spilling abroad
BY BRIAN SPEGELE
Chinese leader Xi Jinping, intent on pouring trillions into making China a technological and military superpower, is presiding over a dangerous spiral of debt that is strangling the domestic economy and damaging trade partners.
Rising debt loads in many countries have spooked investors of late. But few nations have seen a surge more dramatic than China.
Last year, China's credit to the nonfinancial sector—a broad measure of corporate, government and household borrowings—topped $300\%$ of gross domestic product, 60 percentage points higher than at the end of 2019 and now far bigger than in the U.S. It has jumped by more than \$43 trillion since Xi took office in late 2012, according to the Bank for International Settlements.
Much of the money has been wasted, financing factories and apartment blocks for which there isn't enough demand, sparking debilitating price wars, and hurting profits and wages.
Many economists say China likely isn't facing an imminent financial crisis, in part because the debt buildup has largely relied on domestic savings, rather than foreign investors who might be quicker to dump it.
But China's debt deluge is increasingly becoming the world's problem, too. Chinese companies that need to service this enormous debt are churning out more cars, solar panels and electronics than consumers at home want. In response, exporters are pouring these goods onto foreign markets, opening up a trillion-dollar annual trade surplus.
Despite trade tensions with many countries—including ris-
Chinese government debt, by type
ing anger in Europe over a flood of Chinese electric cars and other exports—Beijing appears unwilling to change course.
One challenge for China is the huge amount of debt carried by unprofitable companies, much of which can't easily be repaid as overall growth stagnates. Efforts to cut back on extending fresh credit to such firms could expose Chinese state banks to big losses.
"If you want to change that system, you have to accept a lot of losses, and I think the Chinese government is not ready for that," said Camille Boullemois, associate director at research firm Rhodium Group. "The most likely scenario is that it continues getting worse slowly and there's a sort of slow decay of the financial system that becomes increasingly inefficient at producing growth."
By kicking the debt problem down the road, it also allows Xi to remain focused on investing in new technologies, the military and other strategic priorities. Chinese officials see a window of opportunity now to firmly establish China as a great power alongside the U.S., and consider investment in core technologies such as artificial intelligence, space technology and energy as crucial.
China's government says its debts are under control. Central-government borrowings were only around $30\%$ of GDP in recent years, small compared with federal debts in the U.S.
But that doesn't account for the bulk of China's problem, which sits at the local level.
In particular, financing firms tied to local governments ran up trillions of dollars of new liabilities over the past few years as they tried to drum up enough business to hit economic growth targets and keep people in their cities employed. Many such firms were involved in local real-estate development and have been hit hard by China's yearslong property bust.
A broader gauge of overall Chinese government debt—including official local borrowings as well as the debts of these local government financing vehicles—ballooned to an estimated 127% of GDP last year, according to the International Monetary Fund, up from 98% in 2020.
Even as Chinese officials signal they prefer to stick to the current course, “we are seeing a system running into some of its limits,” said Jacob Gunter, head of the economy and industry program at the Mercator Institute for China Studies, a Berlin-based think tank.
“Local governments are subsidizing loss-making companies to keep them alive,” said Gunter. “But the fact that they are loss-making also means that there are no profits to tax.”
UNITED KINGDOM
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Russell Brand's Trial For Rape Begins
British comedian and actor Russell Brand appeared in a London court on Monday for the start of his trial on rape and sexual-assault charges.
The hearing was adjourned until Tuesday after a morning of jury selection.
Brand, 51 years old, has pleaded not guilty to three counts of rape, three counts of sexual assault and one count of indecent assault. The charges involve six women and alleged offenses between 1999 and 2009.
Prosecutors said at previous hearings that Brand is accused of raping a woman in a hotel room at a Labour Party conference, grabbing a TV staffer's breasts and forcing her into a sex act in a toilet, and kissing and groping a radio-station employee.
—Associated Press
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Pyongyang Tests Ballistic Missiles
North Korea on Monday fired several ballistic missiles toward its eastern waters, South Korea's military said, adding to a recent streak of weapons demonstrations that has heightened tensions during a freeze in diplomacy.
Jang Do-young, spokesperson of South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff, said missiles of various types were fired from an area around the North Korean capital of Pyongyang, where the country's main airport has been a major launch site in recent years.
Jang said one of the missiles flew more than 560 miles before falling into the sea, but he didn't comment on the flight details of the other weapons. The joint chiefs didn't specify how many missiles it detected.
BRITAIN
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Iran Likely Behind Attack: Burnham
A suspected plot to attack a U.S.-run military air base in England was “almost certainly” directed by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, British Prime Minister Andy Burnham said Monday.
He had said there were strong indications Iran was linked to the apparent plan last month to attack the RAF Fairford air base, which has been used by U.S. bombers to strike Iran in the continuing war.
Police have arrested seven men, but all suspects have been released on bail and no one has been charged. Iran has denied involvement.
"I can confirm our assessment that it is highly likely to have been coordinated in Iran, almost certainly directed by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard," Burnham said.
—Associated Press
WORLD WATCH
LIGHTING THE WAY: Parishioners celebrated the Feast of Our Lady of Aparecida at the Basilica of the National Shrine of Our Lady of Aparecida in Brazil on Monday.
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Iran Preps To Counter U.S. Threat
Continued from Page One
lomatically, economically and politically,” said Sanam Vakil, Middle East director at London’s Chatham House think tank. “With a new war, the Islamic Republic could dig itself out of the cul-de-sac it has dug for itself.”
In an attempt to deter a potential attack, some Iranian officials have hinted that their forces could conduct land incursions into neighboring nations, people familiar with the warnings said. The country's top national-security official, Mohsen Rezaei, said on Sunday Tehran could target the United Arab Emirates, which has largely escaped being attacked since late spring, as well as data centers and internet cables across the region.
Tehran has separately warned Arab officials it could strike regional targets, including Saudi oil facilities in the event of a renewed conflict, some of the people said. That would add to the threat Saudi Arabia faces from Iran-backed Houthi militants in Yemen, who attacked its capital's international airport over the weekend.
The U.S. military has itself been gearing up for a possible return to fighting. A third aircraft carrier strike group and another Marine expeditionary unit are steaming toward the Middle East, and the Pentagon is weighing sending additional air-defense equipment and munitions to bases in the region, The Wall Street Journal has reported.
While President Trump last week ruled out an attack before the midterm elections on Nov. 3, he has also publicly mulled hitting Iran's Pickaxe Mountain nuclear site, and U.S. officials have said the military is preparing a range of options for new strikes. Trump, a Republican, said over the weekend that the U.S. was in communication with the Houthis but might join Saudi strikes on the militant group. "What they did was very bad," the president said on Saturday night, referring to the deadly attack on Riyadh's airport.
The efforts by both sides to shore up their fighting capacity underscore how, more than seven months into the war, neither side feels compelled to give up a fight that is largely deadlocked. The U.S. has ramped up its economic-pressure campaign and is guiding tankers through the Strait of Hormuz with increasing success.
Iran has stepped up its strikes on vessels in the Persian Gulf area. At least three commercial vessels were hit over the weekend in and around the strait, according to U.K. Maritime Trade Operations, which is affiliated with the Royal Navy. A drone attack set a fire on Emirati tanker Petro Dolphin near Oman on Sunday, leaving two Indian sailors missing.
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Neither side is inclined to give up a fight that is largely deadlocked.
The missile attack by Houthi militants on the Riyadh airport killed at least 13 people and injured hundreds more on Saturday, the single deadliest attack on the U.S. or its Gulf allies in the conflicts related to the Iran war.
The attacks highlighted the vulnerability of major economic targets in the region if Trump decides to resume fighting.
The government has also told mediators it would more aggressively target U.S. personnel, including by trying to sink U.S. warships in the Middle East and kill their crews, some of the people familiar with the warnings said.
Iranian missiles came close to U.S. warships during attacks in September. The Pentagon moved a dozen B-1 bomber aircraft from a U.K. military base last week over concerns Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had planned a drone attack.
Direct fighting between the U.S. and Iran has largely been on hold since Trump called off plans for a major escalation in late July, partly because of concerns about supplies of missile interceptors needed to defend targets across the region, the Journal has reported.
Iran has used the pause to rebuild its missile and drone facilities and replenish its arsenal. Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei praised the work but acknowledged supply-chain struggles in early September comments published by news outlets linked to the Revolutionary Guard.
Iran has also reinforced protection around its nuclear sites and other security-related bunkers. Last month, it built passive defense measures such as makeshift dirt mounds around its Pickaxe Mountain and Natanz nuclear sites to impede any attempted raid by ground forces, according to Vantor satellite images analyzed by the Institute for Science and International Security, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit.
Iranian officials are touting their efforts. The country's airports, seaports and power plants "have prepared for wartime conditions," installing shelters and backup supplies to continue operating in a crisis, Brig. Gen. Gholamreza Jalali, the official in charge of the country's contingency plans, said at the end of September.
State media have also been broadcasting daily pro-regime gatherings. Iranian residents said the crowds have grown bigger and spread to more locations in recent weeks.
Billboards in Tehran now advertise civilian training courses in the use of shoulder-fired antiaircraft missiles and sniper rifles.
Last month, the Revolutionary Guard boasted it had trained its first female commando units in guerrilla tactics, firearms use and drone piloting, according to footage posted by the Fatehin, an elite unit of Iran's Basij volunteer defense forces.
In Sabzevar, a city in north-eastern Iran, a Revolutionary Guard unit visited a kindergarten and told the children stories about the fighting this year and displayed a U.S. Tomahawk missile the unit said it had neutralized, according to the social-media account of the guard's ground forces.
“In both word and deed, the Islamic Republic is actively preparing for the next war,” said Behnam Ben Taleblu, senior director of the Iran program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington think tank.
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Europe defense expenditures as share of GDP in 2025, by country
Russia Hits Ukraine's Power Infrastructure
BY ANASTASIIA MALENKO
KYIV, Ukraine—Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russian strikes hit energy infrastructure across his country hours after President Trump declared an energy ceasefire between the warring sides.
The Russian attacks—including on gas infrastructure, a power plant and a substation—come as the U.S. heaps pressure on Ukraine to stop striking Russian oil refineries, and after Trump moved to allow Russia to export diesel to the U.S. in a bid to drive down U.S. prices at the pump.
“Last night, Russian oil refineries were not burning. But at midnight, a Russian jet-powered Shahed struck a gas-production facility in Ukraine,” Zelensky said in an address to the Warsaw Security Forum on Monday. “And there was also a Russian strike on an ordinary gas station, involving several drones.”
Ukraine has long maintained that it would be prepared to halt drone and missile strikes on Russian oil facilities if Moscow stops its bombing campaign against Ukraine's energy infrastructure, which has caused widespread power cuts this fall.
Zelensky reiterated that pledge on Monday, adding that European and other leaders support that approach.
"If Russia wants us to stop our long-range strikes against its oil refineries and oil exports, then Russia must stop its strikes against our energy system and critical infrastructure. And stop killing our people," he said.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on Monday he couldn't share any comments regarding the announced energy ceasefire as contacts continued, Russian state news agency TASS reported.
Overnight into Monday, a Russian jet-powered drone attack damaged equipment at a gas infrastructure facility in the Kharkiv region, said Ukrainian state oil-and-gas company Naftogaz.
Another attack damaged a power substation in the northern region of Zhytomyr, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha told journalists at a European Union foreign ministers meeting in Luxembourg.
“No one should believe Putin’s words. Look at his actions instead,” Sybiha said, reiterating Ukraine’s readiness for a reciprocal energy truce.
In an attempt to draw the attention of U.S. decision makers to what he called Russian violations, Zelensky said an effective energy ceasefire could be “a major step toward ending the war” if the U.S. steps in to ensure Moscow abides by it.
Expressing his frustration with Ukraine's campaign against Russian refineries and the continuing war, Trump has called for Zelensky to be replaced as leader.
"I think it's time for Ukraine to get a new president," Trump told reporters on Saturday, blaming Zelensky for the conflict that Russia started in 2022 and Kyiv's airstrikes for high diesel prices in the U.S. and worldwide.
Before this year's war between the U.S. and Iran, the Middle East was the world's top exporter of diesel, accounting for $19\%$ of global exports last year, according to commodities-tracking service Kpler. North America had a $15\%$ market share and Russia was the third-biggest supplier at $11\%$ .
Disruptions to diesel shipments from Persian Gulf countries, along with attacks by the Houthis on Saudi Arabia's Red Sea refineries, also have contributed to the rise in prices.
A man grieves after a Russian airstrike killed his wife in a residential area of Kharkiv.
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EU Imposes Sanctions on Nearly 1,600 Russians, Firms
The European Union imposed sanctions Monday on nearly 1,600 Russians and companies linked to Moscow's arms industry, targeting those suspected of involvement in making parts for drones and missiles.
pied parts of Ukraine.
In the biggest single listing of sanctions since the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, the EU also targeted 77 people accused of organizing, working on, or running in “sham elections” in occu-
Announcing the sanctions, EU foreign-policy chief Kaja Kallas said more than half of them “address the production chain for the ballistic missiles Russia uses to kill Ukrainian civilians every day.
"This is not the time to ease pressure on Moscow but to increase it," she said.
The EU said the companies are on a list established by the Russian government itself “that identifies them as belonging to the Russian military-industrial complex, and they are therefore entitled to receive subsidies.” The EU considers those officials running the companies to be “supporting Russia’s military and industrial complex.” It said the sanctions are aimed at “mid-level suppliers that represent the ‘core’ of the Russian military industry.”
—Associated Press
Starving Ukrainians Risk Death to Escape Front-Line Town
Outside the U.S. Embassy in Warsaw protesters decry the humanitarian crisis in Russian-occupied Oleshky.
BY NIKITA NIKOLAIENKO
AND IAN LOVETT
Nearly two months passed without food deliveries to the Russian-occupied city of Oleshky when Maria Zakhavko decided she and her husband had to leave.
Before setting out, they dropped off the food they gathered for Zakhavko's elderly parents, who were too frail to make the 12-mile trek across mined and corpse-strewn roads to the next town. They had to wait for an evacuation—if one ever came.
“See you soon,” Zakhavko recalled saying, hopefully. On Aug. 17, she and her husband set off on the first leg of what would become a much longer journey to safety, aware that not everyone made the trip safely.
Once a city of 24,000 people on the southern bank of the Dnipro River, Oleshky is now at the center of a humanitarian crisis.
All year, food supplies have dwindled as mines and drones made the road impassable, cutting contact between Oleshky and the outside world. The last volunteers bringing food arrived in May. After that, residents said, several vehicles hit land mines and the volunteers stopped coming.
Roughly 2,000 civilians are effectively trapped in Oleshky, said Ukrainian officials, who maintain contact with residents by phone. The city has been under Russian control since the first days of the 2022 invasion.
The remaining residents live off vegetables they grow, soups of boiled weeds and cans of food they scavenge from abandoned homes. Some periodically make the harrowing 25-mile round-trip journey deeper into Russian territory to Radensk, the nearest town where they can buy supplies. The road is impassable for cars, but can be traversed—at great risk—by foot or bicycle.
Ukrainian troops occasionally deliver food and other supplies by drone from across the river, but Ukrainian officials say Russian forces sometimes intercept the packages, or punish those caught receiving them. Russian troops also move into locals' apartments and eat whatever they find, say residents who have left.
"The Russians are essentially using these civilians as a human shield," said Oleksandr Tolokonnikov, deputy head of Ukraine's Kherson Regional Military Administration. "By remaining behind civilians, it makes it easier for them to shell our side of the river. They don't even feed them—we send food ourselves, and risk losing drones." Each drone used for food deliveries, he said, costs roughly \$22,000.
In an email to The Wall Street Journal, the Kremlin said there were only 200 civilians in Oleshky, and that Ukraine was preventing them from leaving and blocking food and water deliveries. "The Russian army continues to deliver supplies there."
Life in Oleshky, located across the Dnipro River from Kherson, has been difficult for much of the occupation. In 2023, Russians blew a nearby dam, submerging much of the city in water and washing land mines and other munitions into residential areas.
Russian troops moved into the city, and Ukrainian forces shelled it. Electricity, water and gas were cut. Most residents left. Those who stayed, most of them elderly, got used to cooking over open fires in their courtyards and the sound of drones buzzing overhead.
Last winter, food began to run low as fewer volunteers braved the road to deliver supplies. At the small market, prices skyrocketed—\$17 for a dozen eggs, say residents. After the volunteers stopped coming, the search for food grew desperate.
Olena Solovyova, 50 years old, said her father in Oleshky moved in with a neighbor last winter—his house had no wood-burning stove, so he had no way to heat it when the gas was cut.
As food ran low during the summer, she said, he decided to make the journey by bicycle to Radensk. He repaired the bike and set off with a group who knew the way. The trip back took six hours, because he was walking with 70 pounds of food—though there was no meat available to buy.
“He said drones were flying overhead the entire time,” Solovyova said. The road has since been more heavily mined, she said, and several residents who tried to make the trip in September were killed. It is unclear whether Ukrainian or Russian forces are laying the mines.
Since last week, Ukrainian forces delivered roughly 10 tons of food and other supplies by drone.
Tetiana Hasanenko, the head of Oleshky's city military administration, who is based in Ukrainian-held territory, said the missions weren't announced beforehand, but officials messaged some residents privately that the shipments were coming. In the past, Russian forces tried to intercept the drones.
Oleshky's hospital remains open, but is short of medicine and other supplies.
Solovyova said a former teacher of hers, who remains in Oleshky, was injured by shrapnel in September. She was taken to the hospital, but doctors lacked supplies to stop the bleeding and ultimately had to amputate the leg. "The basement is full of bodies," she said of the hospital.
Zakhavko and her husband are among the most recent residents to make it safely out of Oleshky. “I worry about my parents constantly now,” she said. “There are hundreds of people there who simply aren’t capable of leaving.”
NATO Military Chief Lays Out Plan Designed to Thwart Moscow
Reported Russian-linked incidents from March 2021 to September 2026
\- Drone/airspace incursions
Sabotage
Espionage
Cyberattack/electronic warfare
NATO member states
\*Luxembourg's defense expenditure is calculated as a percent of Gross National Income.
Sources: Center for European Policy Analysis (incidents);
EDA defense data portal (expenditures) DANIEL KISS/WSJ
NATO's top military commander sought Monday to steady an anxious Europe, outlining the alliance's new military plan to thwart a potential Russian assault along its eastern flank with a mix of firepower, autonomous systems and sensors that borrows from the lessons of Ukraine.
---
By Michael R. Gordon, Robbie Gramer and Daniel Michaels
The speech by Gen. Alexus Grynkewich on the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's "theory of victory" outlined a series of steps to block an initial attack and, if aggression continues, break the adversary's ability to control and support its forces.
The goal would be to stop the invasion in its tracks while minimizing the risk of conventional or nuclear escalation by stopping short of the complete destruction of the enemy.
Speaking onstage after his address at the Warsaw Security Forum, Grynkewich said he presented the strategy both to reassure Europeans made nervous by Russian aggression and to send a message “should someone be foolish enough to try to attack our territory.”
Grynkewich, a U.S. Air Force general who serves as both the head of American forces in Europe and the alliance's top commander, delivered the speech in Poland, a U.S. ally that has been worried about Russian President Vladimir Putin's intentions toward
Europe as the conflict in Ukraine enters its fifth year.
While Grynkewich outlined his veiled warnings to Moscow—which he didn't identify by name in his speech—President Trump's weekend pronouncements left European allies and U.S. lawmakers reeling.
“Outlining military plans is important, but it can’t be divorced from addressing what everyone is worried about: Trump’s outbursts, Russia’s war on Ukraine and threats to Europe, and questions on whether we’re pulling significant U.S. forces out of Europe,” said Kurt Volker, a former U.S. envoy to NATO and later to Ukraine under the first Trump administration.
Some Republican lawmakers have criticized Trump over a deal, which he announced over the weekend, to import Russian diesel fuel, warning it hands Moscow financial assistance without making a significant dent in U.S. energy prices. Shortly after Trump announced the energy ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine, Russian forces attacked a power plant in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv.
That Grynkewich's reassurance was needed at all marks a turnabout for an alliance that once believed it had won the Cold War and harvested a peace dividend. Instead, NATO faces a bellicose Russia that has invaded Ukraine, penetrated Western airspace with drones and is suspected of carrying out sabotage attacks on infrastructure, military equipment and defense companies in Europe.
The “shadow warfare,” as it
was dubbed recently by a senior German intelligence official, has unnerved Western officials, who have struggled to develop an effective strategy to deter Russia's hybrid warfare and who are preparing to defend against the possibility of more substantial attacks against NATO's Baltic members and its eastern frontier.
Grynkewich said a classified version of his plan had been finalized three months ago and it called for investing in “affordable mass,” a reference to the relatively cheap drones Ukraine has used to complement the alliance’s arsenal of more sophisticated weapons.
If Russia attacked, the alliance's first goal would be to block the initial assault and prevent any advances if it continues. In carrying out such a strategy, the NATO commander indicated the alliance would not be seeking to vanquish Russia or undermine its government. "We are not seeking to impose a strategic defeat on our adversary," he said. "Rather, we are only seeking to stop any attack in its tracks."
Grynkewich didn't provide a timetable for stiffening the defenses. The alliance's efforts are taking place against the background of munitions shortages in Europe of American PAC-3 Patriot air defense interceptors and Atacms surface-to-surface missiles, as U.S. munitions have been funneled to the Middle East to contend with Iran.
NATO's “theory of victory” draws on the efforts of retired Gen. Chris Donahue, the former U.S. Army commander in Europe and head of the alliance's Land Command, who was forced out of his post in July when Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth downgraded his post.
Under its strategy, an “autonomous zone” would be established so that drones and ground robots could blunt a Russian attack without extensive allied casualties.
At the same time, long-range missiles would strike Russian command posts and air defenses in the exclave of Kaliningrad, near St. Petersburg and in Belarus. That would puncture Russia's efforts to control the skies and enable the U.S. Army's V Corps and other NATO ground forces to counterattack.
NATO air forces would move to strike Russian reinforcements as they streamed toward the battlefield and to attack other targets in the rear.
Some veteran officials hailed NATO's efforts to update its strategy, but said the test for the alliance would be committing the resources to put it fully in place.
“It is great that NATO is through this adaptation, but they have to hurry. And nations have to come through with the money and the political will to do this,” said Jim Townsend, who served as deputy assistant secretary of defense for Europe and NATO during the Obama administration. “NATO as an institution can do the planning, but it is the members who are going to have to go home, spend the money and train the troops.”
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Venezuelans Ponder Oil Future
Continued from Page One zuela's oil sector will be a lengthy undertaking costing hundreds of billions of dollars.
Ten months after Maduro's ouster, little of the investment has flowed in. National oil production has hovered just above a million barrels a day since January, up from 500,000 a day in 2020 after U.S. sanctions began to bite but far below the more than 3.2 million barrels a day produced in the late 1990s.
U.S. officials said change is on the horizon. At a recent packed conference of foreign investors in Venezuela's capital, Caracas, Michael Garcia, deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy, pointed to deals involving Chevron and power-equipment firm GE Vernova as evidence that an alliance with
The conference, another in a string of events marking Venezuela's reopening after years of economic isolation and U.S. sanctions, brought more than 650 executives from international energy companies together.
There was little disagreement over the business potential in a country sitting on some of the world's largest oil and gas reserves. "Venezuela has more crown jewels than the Tower of London," said Hunter Hunt, chief executive of Texas wildcatter Hunt Energy.
Maduro's former deputy, acting President Delcy Rodríguez, was reviving the oil sector and shoring up a shaky national electrical grid. "Real work remains," Garcia said. "But the direction is unmistakable."
Panelists at the three-day conference were asked to keep discussions technical and apolitical, leaving Venezuela's political future unaddressed. Polls show growing discontent with Rodríguez's unelected interim administration, a potential obstacle to long-term investment. Small protests have broken out nationwide in recent weeks, with demonstrators blocking roads to demand elections.
A fallen power transmission tower rests on an inactive oil pumpjack on Lake Maracaibo in Cabimas, Venezuela.
Executives at the conference listed the challenges to ramping up output: power cuts, a small pool of experienced contractors, and the difficulty of securing project financing while navigating a web of U.S. sanctions. Only a third of the 30,000 wells in the country is active after almost eight years of international blacklisting that kept new technologies from entering, said
William Antonio, managing director for Mexico, Central America and Venezuela at SLB, an energy-services firm formerly known as Schlumberger.
The return of U.S. investors to Venezuela has also revived old political grievances. Jorge Giordani, a Marxist and former chief economic planner in Venezuela's government, told a gathering of leftist activists in Caracas that capitalists are trying to steal "the devil's excrement," the enormous oil wealth long seen as a blessing and curse in the country.
“They’re back,” the 86-year-old said. “And they’re only interested in one thing: our hydrocarbons.”
Lucila Nava, a retired secretary whose father had worked for 40 years at Shell and who lives near Lake Maracaibo, said she was frustrated that the U.S. supported Rodríguez and kept Maduro's authoritarian government intact as foreign companies secured lucrative contracts.
“We liked [President] Trump when he took out Maduro,” Nava said. “But you can’t just take away oil like this. We get it, the U.S. is the biggest power in the world. But that doesn’t give you the right to do something like this.”
Executives hope brownfields—as mature fields are called—can be quickly rejuvenated. Several of the 17 oil blocs recently acquired by private Venezuelan firm North American Blue Energy Partners in a venture with the Pentagon are also here.
People try to be resourceful with what is left of the oil industry. In Cabimas, a group of neighbors tap a pump jack for natural gas and pipe it into their kitchens. At times, oil seeps through the rudimentary pipework, sending the black goo into the kitchen.
Security guard Elmo Quintero said he had hoped that after Maduro's overthrow, his three children in Colombia could return home and the decrepit health system would improve. A diabetic, the 65-year-old said he couldn't afford insulin and the local clinic rarely has syringes. He self-medicates with a concoction of herbal tea.
Quintero helps maintain a rusted pump jack for the state oil company, Petróleos de Venezuela, on a patio adjacent to his brick shack. His chickens feed between pipelines. Water service is available for a couple of days every three months. As he spoke, the pump jack ground to a halt behind him—another power failure. He was doubtful he would see an improvement in his lifetime.
“I’m thinking more about my grandchildren,” Quintero said.
Ballooning British Welfare
Not including healthcare, the country will spend more than £100 billion this year on all types of welfare benefits for the sick and disabled, about a third more than defense spending. The tab has surged by a quarter in just four years and is on course to hit £130 billion in the next four, according to the government's fiscal forecasts.
Some seven million people—more than 10% of the population—now claim at least one or more sickness or disability benefits. The numbers are growing fastest among working-age people who should be powering the economy, surging more than 60% in the past six years to 4.7 million from 2.9 million in 2019.
Continued from Page One
Many of the newer disability claims are for mental-health issues which can be harder for the government to verify.
Total number of Brits granted personal independence payments by select type $^{†}$
U.K. borrowing costs are higher than any country in the Group of Seven, recently hitting their highest level since the 2008 financial crisis. A slow but steady exodus of wealthy Brits has shown there are limits to how much the government can keep raising the tax burden, already at its highest level since World War II.
One benefit, created to help those with disabilities be more mobile, allows people to give up part of their welfare cash handout in return for a new car lease every three years. It now accounts for around one in every seven new car sales in the U.K. Among those who got new cars last year: 40 people whose primary medical condition was tennis elbow, 50 with wheat intolerance and 320 with dyslexia, according to government figures.
The surge in welfare spending is “clearly not sustainable on any level,” says David Coombs, head of multiasset investments at U.K. fund manager Rathbones. “It really is the big issue of the moment.”
Current yields on 10-year government debt for G-7 countries\*\*
Borrowing costs on Britain's 10-year bonds have risen to $5.5\%$ from $4.5\%$ at the start of the year, adding a few extra billion pounds to the country's
U.K. benefit expenditure to support disabled people and people with health conditions, by age group $^{4}$
It's also a litmus test of a pressing question facing the West: Is it possible for political leaders to rein in spending on ever expanding welfare states? So far, the answer seems to be no, increasing the chances that countries like Britain are inching toward a financial reckoning.
Yield on 10-year government debt for U.K.\*\*
The U.K., like its European peers, is caught in a vicious cycle. Its spending is surging thanks to an aging population, greater defense needs, a costly green-energy transition and the swelling bill for welfare and debt interest. But its income is mostly flat, with weak economic growth.
The government has raised taxes and binged on debt, borrowing an extra £1 trillion since the pandemic. That strategy is running out of road.
The scale of the payout has become a scandal. No other western country has seen such a rise in disability claims.
\*In nominal terms; Fiscal years end March 31; £1=\$1.32 †Cumulative data \*Data shows spending on benefits for disabled people, people with health conditions and their carers \*\*As of Friday 5:30 a.m. ET Sources: Department for Work and Pensions (spending, payments, expenditure); Tullett Prebon (yields)
---
'Not sustainable'
In 2025, then U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced plans to tighten eligibility requirements for sickness and disability welfare in a bid to shave £5 billion a year off government spending by 2030.
The backlash was so sharp Starmer abandoned the cuts. Investors, spooked that a government with a big majority couldn't push through such a reform, sold off government bonds, the pound fell sharply and the Chancellor of the Exchequer cried in Parliament.
Starmer was later ditched by the Labour Party, replaced this summer by the telegenic Andy Burnham, who has also pledged to deal with welfare—but not through what he calls “crude cuts.”
But across Europe, attempts to change the social safety net is proving politically toxic. In France, attempts to trim spending on entitlements led the National Assembly to oust two previous prime ministers. After Germany passed some modest changes to its unemployment and health benefits, furious voters have punished the ruling center-right party.
running costs. The U.K. is paying more for its debt than spendthrift France or historical basket cases like Greece.
The U.K.'s youth inactivity rate used to be middle of the pack in Europe. By last year, only Romania recorded a higher rate of young people not in employment, education or training. "I think there's a lack of understanding about how unskilled some of the most disadvantaged people are in Britain and that actually we would be much better off investing in their skills than just giving welfare," says Alun Francis, the chair of the U.K. Social Mobility Commission, an independent body.
Burnham will unveil his first budget later this month and is widely expected to include fresh tax hikes, which could
Across the European Union, government welfare spending has steadily grown from just 10% of economic output in the early 1960s to an average of 27% today, compared with about 21% in the U.S.
videos," he says.
Government officials are considering ways to tighten eligibility for young people and instead pay for extra training to get them into work. The Department for Work and Pensions says it's spending a further £3.5 billion toward helping those with disabilities get jobs.
Disability and sickness payments in the U.K. show how the system sprawls.
---
Mission creep
Britain's postwar government introduced disability payments to help offset lost wages for, say, a worker who lost a hand in an industrial accident. But over time, the system grew into an alphabet soup of programs. Some are aimed at people who are too sick to work. Others are broader: Personal independence payments are a cash handout for anyone—rich or poor, working or not—who has an illness or disability to help cover higher living costs.
When the benefit's precursor was created in the 1990s, the government thought a few hundred thousand would claim. Today one in every 12 people is getting disability checks. The program now covers people living with a range of physical and mental health issues, including anxiety, ADHD, depression and even acne.
"People aren't working around here because they can get on PIP, so they sit around and do drugs and drink," says Stephen Walker, 65, as he strolls through Walton on a recent day. "It's unfair."
things it was not intended to do," says Paul Johnson, an expert in fiscal issues at the University of Oxford.
In deprived areas, particularly former industrial centers, a significant number of residents depend on welfare. In Walton, a Liverpool suburb, around 1 in 2 households claim welfare, and 1 in 5 working-age residents claim PIP.
He acknowledges some do need the help—including three of his grandchildren. But he says too many use it to top up their income.
“I think people broadly agree the system is now doing meet thanks to subsidized housing and unemployment benefits of about £650 a month.
Charities say the welfare payments are a relief for people who've seen food and heating costs soar. "People don't just come in and go, oh, you know, 'Jackpot. I've got an ADHD diagnosis. Gimme, gimme, gimme.' It doesn't work like that," says Mick Blakeley, head of operational development at Citizens Advice Liverpool.
Eleonore Paxman's three children are all on disability welfare. Noelle, 31, has Type 1 diabetes, retinopathy and ADHD. Coco, 18, has autism and OCD, and Benjamin, 15, has pathological demand avoidance and ADHD.
Paxman, 52, says the money has been a godsend, especially after her husband went deaf and lost his job as a music arranger. She gave up work to home-school her two youngest children, which the couple felt was necessary after Benjamin spiraled when he first went to school in their London suburb.
“Without the help, we’d be in big trouble,” she says.
Recently, Price was classified as suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder after experiencing abuse growing up in foster care. She now gets an extra £300 a month in PIP payments to cover costs related to her condition.
While the system genuinely helps people in need, it is also open to abuse. The claims don't need a doctor's backing; they are based on whether a person can carry out a range of everyday activities.
“You get knocked back and then the only way you can support yourself is by claiming benefits,” she says.
A cottage industry of charities and consultancies have cropped up to help claimants navigate the benefits claim system, which can be both byzantine and, critics say, gamable. On average nearly 1,000 people a day are being put on PIP, according to government figures.
---
'Knocked back'
The problem for the British state is that the pool of people who could claim PIP is huge. A government survey published in 2024 found that a quarter of working-age Brits could be technically classed as disabled.
The financial incentives to claim are significant. For example, a young person living outside London can claim around £900 a month on unemploy-
---
A gateway
A short drive from Walton, Roy Pearman is reaping the fruits of PIP at the car dealership where he works.
Tony Shepherd, who oversees the Liverpool charity St Andrew's Community Network, says the government has built a conveyor belt for getting people on welfare, with little help to get them off again. There's a long waiting list for things like state-funded mental-health support that could help people get back to work, he says. There's also a lack of jobs.
Customers who get PIP and are classed as having limited mobility can lease a car for no cash upfront—they simply forgo about £320 a month of “enhanced mobility” allowance. Included in the lease that the government pays for are all road taxes, insurance and car servicing. The car can be swapped in for a new vehicle every three years.
It doesn't go well for everyone. Wieland, the Cancun vacationer, pleaded guilty to fraud earlier this year and has to give back some £23,000. Her lawyer told the court Wieland didn't realize that receiving the payments meant she wasn't allowed to actually go outside.
The business that provides the vehicles, Motability, is now the country's biggest car-leasing company. Last year 860,000 people in the country had a Motability car. “The scheme exists because there is a real market failure which we solve,” Motability Operations CEO Andrew Miller says.
At the dealership, some 60% of the Fords and high-end BYD electric cars sold are Motability. “There is nothing like it anywhere else in the world,” Pearman says.
PIP is particularly valuable because it is a gateway to other incapacity payments and can remove a cap on the total amount of unemployment or housing benefits a family can claim.
“It’s a sticking plaster,” he says, using the English term for Band-Aid.
put Britain's finances on firmer footing but will further crimp economic growth.
OMINIC WHISSON FOR WSJ
If the government wants to gain investor trust and lower borrowing costs, it needs to show it can make politically painful spending cuts to areas like welfare, says Andy Haldane, a former chief economist at the Bank of England and ex Burnham adviser. “The market now suspects that this is a traditional tax-and-spend socialist government with better TikTok ment and housing benefits. If they are classified as being too sick to work and also claim PIP, that increases to around £2,000, tax free. If you work 40 hours a week in a minimum-wage job in the U.K., you take home £1,880 a month after tax.
In Walton, a significant number of residents depend on welfare.
Standing on Walton's main street near a fried chicken shop, Morgan Price, 22, is one of a million young Brits who aren't in school, don't have a job and aren't training for one. Price and her boyfriend make ends
Research shows that pullback from parents often begins gradually. Recognizing the stages can help with reconciliation, therapists say.
Rutgers University Professor Kristina Scharp studies estrangement.
ELIZABETH
BERNSTEIN
Tuesday, October 13, 2026
W hen I interview parents who are estranged from their adult children, many say: "My child cut me
off out of the blue. I didn't see it coming."
Yet people who have gone “no contact” with their parents often tell me that this decision was their last resort—and a long time coming.
Why the disconnect?
Estrangement typically occurs on a continuum—and parents don't always recognize the signs, says Kristina Scharp, a communication professor at Rutgers University who studies the issue. Think of a scale from one to 10, where 10 is full contact between parent and child and one is none. In between, there is a slow pullback: fewer calls and visits, less access granted.
“It’s a myth that estrangement is always all or nothing,” Scharp says.
Scharp identified eight characteristics of estrangement, or areas in which adult children who are pulling away from their parents change their behaviors or feelings:
Communication quantity: They reduce the amount of contact. In a less-severe estrangement, they might call from time to time. In a more severe case, there is no contact.
Communication quality: They stop sharing meaningful or personal information. Instead of talking about their job or partner, for example, they might talk about the weather.
move away or stay away. Some might remain in touch. Others move and don't tell their parents where they live.
Presence or absence of emotion: The amount of emotion that they feel for their parent changes. Some are flooded with anger or devastation. Others report feeling numb.
Positive or negative affect: The flavor of emotion changes, often becoming more negative as the child becomes more estranged. For example, someone might go from feeling that their mom is difficult to resenting or even hating her.
Desire for reconciliation: The wish to remain in the family changes. Some decide to cut ties. Others hold out hope that the relationship can be repaired if certain parental behaviors change.
Role reciprocity: They no longer think their parents are behaving the way a mom and dad should.
And they stop behaving as a child might be expected to toward a parent. For instance, they may refuse to visit when a parent is sick or even dying.
Legal action: They formally sever ties with a parent, like changing their name or beneficiaries in their will.
All of these behaviors occur on a spectrum, and not all are at play
Joe Bernstein says he tried different approaches with his father before blocking him.
in every estrangement, Scharp says. People may also fluctuate, moving closer—or away—from a parent at different times.
If parents understand this, they may be able to improve the relationship. “The continuum is where the compromise can exist,” Scharp says.
On Reddit, commenters share strategies on how to pull back from parents: respond to every other call or text; return calls when you know your parents will be busy; request that they stop asking about you; and start “grey rocking,” which is to deliberately make your communication as dull and unresponsive as, well, a grey rock.
ways tell their parents. Even when they do, parents sometimes resist the boundaries their children are trying to set. Meanwhile, parents may mistake the pullback as a natural developmental phase, realizing the scope only in hindsight.
Yet people who are pulling away don't al-
"The final cutoff is the undeniable writing on the wall," says Jennifer Hershon, a family-es-
trangement coach in Sacramento. "But there's room for repair before the pattern is entrenched."
Joe Bernstein, 51 years old, spent decades trying to set boundaries with his dad after what he described as an adverse childhood. First, he tried talking to his father less. Then when he got married and had a child, he stopped sharing news of his family and refused to allow get-togethers. He also tried to actively put his dad out of his mind.
But none of this made him feel better, Bernstein says. He still had flashbacks about incidents in his childhood. He felt consumed by anger. And the more he pulled away, the more his father pushed back, he says.
Then three years ago, Bernstein started therapy, which helped him process his feelings. When his dad later criticized this, Bernstein says he responded by blocking his father.
“This gives me the quantum of solace to step back and sit more peacefully with the situation,” says Bernstein, a higher-education administrator in Chicago. “And it leads to even a sense of compassion for him because he had a rough childhood, too.”
As for a potential reconciliation, Bernstein says he would welcome it if his father was able to treat him with respect and civility. "That would be the better outcome," he says. "Because ending things in darkness isn't good for anyone."
What can estranged parents and children do to bridge the divide?
Not all people who have pulled away or cut off a parent may want to reconnect. If they were abused, for example, it may be safer to stay away.
Yet many estrangements are caused by communication or boundary issues. In these instances, therapists recommend parents and kids who want to repair the relationship meet in a neutral setting, like a restaurant, to talk. The adult child should acknowledge that they are pulling away—and focus on patterns, not individual incidents, when they explain what is wrong.
Parents should have a notebook with them, says Catherine Hickem, a psychotherapist in Atlanta who specializes in parent-adult child relationships. She recommends that parents tell their child: “I realize I have made some mistakes that have hurt you and I want to hear about all of them.”
It is important for parents not to be defensive, try to explain themselves or justify their actions, Hickem says. They should listen. Tell their child that they appreciate the courage it took to tell the truth. And promise to work to change their behavior.
Then the parent should take a few days to reflect on what they heard, call their child back and keep the dialogue going.
“Repair is not this fully cathartic moment,” says Rachel Haack, a licensed marriage and family therapist in Reno, Nev., who works with families dealing with estrangement. “It’s staying connected through the distance.”
United Targets Rivals With 'Status Match'
BY DAWN GILBERTSON
The following items first appeared in the weekly Travel newsletter.
You probably have heard about the kerfuffle between Delta and Elon Musk after the airline passed on Starlink service in favor of Amazon. United seized the moment to tout its Starlink service by going after Delta (and American) frequent fliers. It did so with something called a status match.
Not familiar? Here's how it works. If you have status on one airline, you can apply to instantly get the same level at a competing airline, temporarily at least. Airlines often run status-match promotions to get frequent fliers to switch sides or at least try the competition.
Sometimes, they match your status plus one. American Airlines offered such a promotion through our corporate travel department in August. I have A List status on Southwest Airlines so applied by providing proof. Soon after, I was granted Platinum status on American through Dec 16. (Gold is American's
through Dec. 16. (Gold Is American's base level.) The status has already given me free extra-legroom seats, checked bags, priority boarding and bonus miles. No upgrades yet.
Here's the catch: You have to rack up a certain number of loyalty points by the deadline to keep the status. You earn these by flying or spending money with one of the airline's partners and by using one of its credit cards. (I signed up for one of American's low-fee credit cards to help the cause and cash in on a welcome bonus.)
To keep platinum through March 2028, I need to rack up 25,000 loyalty points from the start of the challenge. I've earned 11,255 so far.
That might be out of reach even with two American flights coming up, including a flight in economy to Europe. But I've already reached the threshold for Gold (10,000 loyalty points), so that's a small win. The promotion does have me using American more, a win for the airline.
You don't have to have a corporate agency to be eligible for a status match. The latest United one targets Delta and American fliers, but there's been a promotion running all year. So if you're holding status in an airline and want to play the field, reach out to that airline's frequent-flier program.
Delta and American fliers have until Oct. 15 to match during United's Starlink promotion. Once approved, you have to spend between \$1,500 and \$7,000 and fly within 90 days to keep the status.
Notes from the road
▶ Good news for you Newark fliers: American Express now plans a
Airlines like United lure travelers with temporary status promotions.
30,000-square-foot lounge, its largest, in Terminal A. The original plans called for an 18,000-square-foot lounge. (Those plans also called for it to open this year; the bigger lounge will debut in 2027.) Amex couldn't resist a jab at the other credit-card companies nipping at its lounge heels: It will be the only operator with outlets at the three major New York airports. Amex also announced the addition of a second lounge at London's Heathrow.
▶ American Airlines is promising a lounge glow-up at its Charlotte, N.C., hub with plans for a new 40,000-square-foot Admirals Club. The lounge is due to open in 2028.
Separately, American plans to install Starlink Wi-Fi service on all of its 1,000 mainline jets, up from the 500 it announced earlier this year.
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One good tip
Hate stalking the airline seat map for a better seat ahead of your flight like it's a part-time job? American Airlines will now automatically search for a seat in the same cabin if you opt into a new feature on its app after booking a flight and do so at least 24 hours before departure. It's called automatic seat change. You pick aisle, middle or window and whether you only want to move to seats closer to the front. Don't like bulkhead seats? Don't check that box. Exit row seats are excluded. The airline says passengers are accommodated based on their frequent-flier status and when they signed up for the seat-change option. United Airlines unveiled a similar feature earlier this year.
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Travel Math: \$500 million
That's ticket sales for "The Wizard of Oz" at the Sphere in Las Vegas since its debut in August 2025. Some analysts are worried, though, that demand is cooling despite new features including 4D effects.
Cheers and Jeers
Cheers to Southwest Airlines for a new-to-me feature. In the help center on its app, there's a "We'll call you" feature under "Need more assistance?" You just type in your name and phone number and you get a call back. (This is different from calling a company and being offered the option for a call back during long waits.) A Southwest rep called me back almost instantly and was able to quickly clear up a seat-assignment issue.
Big jeers to hotels where front-desk clerks greet you not with a warm hello, but a rote, "ID and credit card, please." No different than those doctors' offices that ask you for your ID and insurance card as soon you approach the counter. In my experience, it happens too often regardless of a hotel's daily rate and sets the wrong mood for the stay.
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Climate Expert Disaster-Proofs Her Own Home
NYU researcher says every homeowner should think about preparing for extreme weather
BY AMY MYERS JAFFE
When it comes to my home, I get obsessive about climate risk. I come by the caution naturally.
For one thing, it is my job, as an energy and sustainability expert at New York University who has studied U.S. climate resilience under a grant from NASA.
But I have also had to deal with many extreme-weather events while living in climate-stressed places. At the end of September, in fact, a powerful nor'easter toppled a huge tree on my property, thankfully missing my house. Meanwhile, just weeks before, the sump pump in my basement was working overtime in the teeth of torrential rains.
It was the latest in a long string of extreme weather events I have lived through. One time in Houston, a hurricane turned so suddenly toward the city that we couldn't evacuate safely in time. Awaiting the landfall, we slept upstairs with a life raft, axes and an emergency weather radio, in case we had to escape through the roof. Luckily, water never got past our front lawn, but we lost electricity for more than five weeks.
In Davis, Calif., the transformer on my block repeatedly blew up during heat waves, leaving us sweltering, sometimes for days. Worse still, we were all constantly sick from breathing in the smoke from nearby wildfires. The blazes never reached Davis itself, but sometimes they kept me from commuting home when I was working in my office in Oakland.
I was also in New Haven, Conn., during the famous Snowmageddon that dropped 108.6 inches of snow on Boston in a single winter. It also brought polar-vortex cold—and my rental house had ridiculously thin window glass and poor
at least some thought to climate issues, especially as a warming planet makes extreme-weather events more likely and potentially more intense.
No matter where you live, chances are climate preparation is worth considering. I was part of a team whose research shows that extreme heat and rainfall have already intensified in many parts of the U.S., and some of the worst future severe weather events are going to come in places that haven't had such an event to date.
Here's what I picked for my current home based on experiences I've lived through:
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Flood and fire risk
In a climate-challenged environment, being close to the nearest food store, pharmacy or emergency room, if possible, is beneficial. So, I selected a property that wouldn't leave me isolated in a crisis. The hill we live on is walkable to town, which means I can get to a grocery store and commuter rail no matter how much snow without using my car.
Living on a hill also makes a difference. My street doesn't have a propensity to flooding and sea-level rise won't affect my real-estate value or insurance rates over time, based on 2050 flood maps—a widely used reference. My driveway also has drains built into it. That matters not only for repeated downpours but for melting snow.
What's more, I nixed anywhere with high wildfire risk, as well as any property that borders forestland. I love to hike in nature preserves, but don't want them as my next-door neighbors.
Then there's the majestic white oak tree that stood as a stately landmark on our property just weeks ago. It looked magical—like something that might talk to small children in a Disney movie—and I truly loved it. But as part of my
disaster planning, I took some steps that were sad at the time, but maybe saved my house.
Early on, I consulted an arborist. We trimmed the canopy—this needs to be done regularly—so it would be less apt to catch the wind, and cut back branches that had the highest risk of falling on the house during a storm.
At the suggestion of the arborist, we had the tree's main limbs secured by industrial wiring that prevented them from swinging too wildly. The strategy worked for countless previous storms but not the latest one. But who knows what kind of damage the now-downed branches might have done otherwise.
Keeping the lights on
The way the climate is going,
backup generators or batteries are
worth having. My house came al-
ready equipped with a full-to-
scale, whole-home generator. I learned the hard way how important one of these can be, when a two-minute cyclone tornado came ashore Long Island Sound a few years ago and hit a major transmission line. Friends and neighbors were in the dark for weeks with no refrigeration or modern conveniences. I hate to brag, but in addition to being able to see at night, we could take a hot shower and prepare a home-cooked meal.
The most reliable fuel for a home-generator backup system varies depending on where a person lives. My general expert opinion is rooftop solar plus battery. But rooftop solar can be expensive to install on an existing home, and not every roof is amenable. My house has gables and skylights, so surface area for solar is limited.
We currently use propane in our generator and, so far, supplies haven't been a problem, regardless
Amy Myers Jaffe stands beside her uprooted tree.
of the weather. Many Houstonians have home diesel generators, but I don't recommend that. Diesel supply chains often get disrupted in extreme weather, and diesel generators can be finicky if they have been sitting dormant.
We also have a way to stay mobile in an emergency: our electric vehicle. I know this sounds counterintuitive, but based on my experience, an EV with a home charger and a backup generator is better than a gasoline car for storm resistance. Remember, gasoline can't be pumped without electricity. In blackouts, EV owners often do better than their friends and neighbors with regular cars for local driving.
Playing defense In today's downpours, you must have an automated sump pump for the basement. Originally, we had ours hooked up to a battery system—then the battery failed during a bad storm. Now we have the pump connected to our home electricity network, which has
proved to be reliable, given our generator. Earlier this month, the pump held up against a deluge of rain that brought about 7 inches over just a couple of hours.
That is also a reminder: In today's changing climate, you can never be too careful about what you stick in your basement. Whatever it might be, it needs to be stored on shelves off the ground. We also have the whole basement and crawl spaces covered in mold-protecting wall covering. That is also a must for post-flooding cleanup, should the worst happen.
To keep our electronics safe, we have a whole-house surge protector, which filters out sudden electrical spikes in the grid that can harm our appliances. I learned my lesson after a heat wave in Davis, Calif.: A power surge from an exploding transformer fried the circuit board of my refrigerator.
window glass and poor insulation.
So maybe it isn't all that surprising that before my husband and I bought my dream home in southern Connecticut, I made sure my place would be as climate-proof as possible.
Most people will find some of the measures I've taken excessive (my family does at times). But I believe every home buyer should give
A tree-removal crew clears the downed oak. Far right, one of the many air-filtration units inside Jaffe's home.
Charming as it is, we don't use the fireplace regularly. (We have blocked off three others for weatherizing purposes.) One of my climate obsessions, post-California, is clean indoor air, which rules out burning wood inside the house.
My current home is also stocked with multistage, HEPA-filter air purifiers that combine carbon absorption and ionizer technology, which came in handy during Covid. We could isolate someone and keep everyone else uninfected. Here in New England, they are also proving useful in combating Canadian wildfire smoke.
Climate tech can be useful, no matter your thinking about global climate trends or the climate risk in your area. Your family might grouse about all these precautions, but in the end, they will be thankful for the results.
Holy Grail Collectibles: Amenity Kits
Continued from Page One
airline memorabilia. They tuck them away in storage, waiting for the next flight or a bigger apartment. Some take care to use all the items inside, while others clear them out—wary of what could happen, chemically speaking, to an errant lotion left in a bag for decades.
On the resale market, highly sought-after kits can fetch over \$100. But many collectors say buying online is tantamount to cheating.
Chris Miedl, an airline blogger from Germany, estimates he's accumulated at least 70 from his travels. There's a neon-yellow China Airlines collaboration with the North Face and a square black Singapore Airlines pouch that comes with a Lalique candle and a warning: DO NOT USE IN AIRCRAFT.
“I love every single one,” said Miedl, who stores them in a silver airline service trolley he bought at auction for a few hundred euros. He’s since ordered two more trolleys, one for pajamas and the other for more amenity kits.
To Miedl, 51, the kits are a way for airlines to treat their high-spending passengers like valued guests. And the airlines have tried to outdo each other, inking deals with high-end retailers: Turkish Airlines and Lanvin, Delta and Missoni, Saudia and Elie Saab.
Women who fly Emirates first class are treated to more than \$100 worth of Bulgari's Le Gemme Sahare eau de parfum. There's also a golden pocket mirror. Men get Bulgari perfume, a woody scent "inspired by the vibrant energy of the Blood-red Jasper gemstone."
It wasn't always like this, said
Chris Miedl stores his kits in a silver airline service trolley.
Rhonda Crawford, senior vice president of customer experience design and strategy at American Airlines.
After cutbacks during the pandemic, she said, some airlines wondered if they should keep offering amenity kits at all. (American said it never considered it.) But the post-pandemic boom—and a travel-obsessed generation of young fliers—has reinvigorated the call for high-end products.
"There is just a growing demand for experiences—and, quite honestly, premium experiences," Crawford said. She considers the kits "the sparkle on top of the core offering."
American has dabbled in specialty kits, including a collaboration with
Andrew Lim has collected around 200 amenity kits on his travels.
U.S. Soccer tied to this summer's World Cup that tucked cooling gel into a clear, stadium-friendly bag. Its standard fare—which is also available in premium economy—includes products from celebrity facialist Joanna Vargas.
Ben Nickel-D'Andrea relies on the travel-sized bottles for much of his day-to-day skin care.
The Seattle-based freelance travel journalist takes a more utilitarian approach to his roughly 150-kit collection. Mini toothbrushes and socks go to charity. Beauty products stay until he or his husband, also a travel journalist, need them again. Some bags—like the hard-shell United case he uses for medications—get frequent use.
About 15 are on display in his home office, alongside model planes and other travel paraphernalia. “It wasn’t intentional,” the 41-year-old said. “We just ran out of space in our storage bins.”
Parth Kochhar checks what amenity kits are available before he books a flight—though it doesn't yet influence his final purchases. “I’m not being spoiled with that choice,” he joked.
He's collected around 30. Once the 34-year-old has his hands on a kit, he wouldn't dream of using the high-end beauty products inside—even on a flight. That could disturb the thin slips of paper some kits are wrapped with.
"I just don't feel like opening it," said Kochhar, a consultant from Gurugram, India. "I could slide it and probably see, but I feel like if it doesn't go into the same shape or the same place, it wouldn't seem right."
The kit he's currently coveting is Qatar Airways' collaboration with Diptyque, full of beauty offerings from the French perfumer. If he can't resist sampling it, he'll ask a flight attendant for a second one.
For Lim, the e-commerce specialist, the holy grail is something rarer still: a kit from North Korean carrier Air Koryo.
"I don't know if they give out amenities," he said. "But that would be a good one to have."
ARTS IN REVIEW
FILM REVIEW | KYLE SMITH
Stanley Kubrick's Legacy
n John Ford's greatest masterpiece, his adaptation of John Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath" (1940), a family of Oklahomans ruined by the 1930s Dust Bowl disaster sets
about stopping the bulldozer driver sent to flatten the home they no longer own. But why blame this beleaguered fellow? He's doing it because he needs a job.
The Criterion Collection gathers the master director's complete films
His orders came from the Shawnee Land and Cattle Co. So, train a shotgun on its president, maybe? No, we are told, that executive is simply trying to keep up with the demands of his bank. Maybe go to Tulsa and shoot a banker? "He ain't anything but the manager," we learn, just another worried guy trying to keep up his bottom line.
“Then who do we shoot?” asks a puzzled farmer.
And there it was, the predicament of modern man: You can't fight your enemy because you can't see your enemy. The antagonist is everywhere, and nowhere. He has no face, no home address.
Ford's successor as the American cinema's greatest master of image and composition, Stanley Kubrick (1928-1999), built his career on this insight. In Kubrick's films, men get caught up in a faceless, abstract, all-powerful system, fight it with everything they have, and are ground to dust—with one notable exception. The filmmaker, or God, can almost be heard chuckling offscreen as the final frames roll.
The man Christopher Nolan calls the greatest filmmaker who ever lived now has his monument: "The Complete Kubrick," a 30-disc, \$600 boxed set of 4K Blu-Ray editions of all 13 features. The Criterion Collection package also includes Kubrick's three short films, archival interviews, and several documentaries about the director—including the revealing one made by Vivian Kubrick, who followed her dad around as he filmed "The Shining." As befits an obsessive director, it's a gift for obsessives. (The release date is Oct. 20.)
Kubrick called his experimental first film (“Fear and Desire,” 1952) a failure, and his second, “Killer’s Kiss” (1955), isn’t very good. The other 11? Pretty much all landmarks, even the one that, Kubrick groused, reduced him to a “hired hand”—1960’s “Spartacus,” a brilliant mid-century epic but not re-
ally Kubrickian. Producer-star
Kirk Douglas called the shots.
The filmmaker told a decades-long tale about men undone by war (1957's “Paths of Glory,” 1987's “Full Metal Jacket”), the military-industrial complex (1964's “Dr. Strangelove”), lust (1962's “Lolita”), the supernatural (1980's “The Shining”), dreams (1999's “Eyes Wide Shut”), and fate (1956's “The Killing,” 1975's “Barry Lyndon”). In most cases, the indomitable system exploits a major character flaw: The ghosts don't really do anything for Jack Torrance in “The Shining” except unlock a cabinet for him. It's his rage-filled alcoholism, or alcohol-fueled rage, that destroys him.
These films' icy, forbidding majesty invites re-watch after re-watch; I've been cueing up "Barry
Lyndon" every couple of years for four decades, and it always lands differently. Kubrick didn't lecture us or seek to comfort or improve us. "Fail Safe" (1964) tells the same story as "Dr. Strangelove," released the same year, yet has faded from the cultural memory because its earnest message-making doesn't endure like Kubrick's wicked irony.
Though the New York-born filmmaker would have deplored today's micro attention spans, his work has adapted to the 2020s. The elliptical and oblique aspects are made to be dissected by chat groups; meme-worthy images get endlessly recycled. Tony Curtis calling out, “I’m Spartacus!” is indelible cinematic history, as are Slim Pickens’s whooping through his end-of-the-world rodeo in “Dr. Strangelove,” the eyes-propped-open brainwashing in 1971’s “A
Clockwork Orange," Frozen Jack at the end of "The Shining," and the "I dare you" look in Sue Lyon's eye as she suns herself in a bikini in "Lolita."
In a way, the least Kubrickian story is “2001: A Space Odyssey” (1968) because it’s the only one in which the hero triumphs, and on a mind-boggling scale. Astronaut Dave Bowman is reborn as a god-like character (called Star Child in the companion novel by Kubrick’s co-screenwriter Arthur C. Clarke) who is in effect Friedrich Nietzsche’s Übermensch, the ultimate life form. Kubrick pointedly paired the appearance with “Sunrise” from Richard Strauss’s Nietzsche-saluting composition “Also Sprach Zarathustra.” Possibly Kubrick felt he displayed enough optimism here to cover him for a lifetime of bleak endings; “A Clockwork Orange” does
Sterling Hayden (gesturing) and company in 'The Killing,' Kubrick's puzzle-like 1956 noir.
close with a sort of victory by its protagonist, but it's an ironic one, as a psychopathic murderer extinguishes all reform efforts and reverts to his horrible true self.
"The Killing," which was an inspiration for Quentin Tarantino's "Reservoir Dogs," is among the foundational examples of how to film a jigsaw-puzzle story that trusts the audience to assemble it—then a rare approach, now nearly ubiquitous, especially in prestige television. It's a tale of an exacting, step-by-step plan to rob a racetrack and how it is wittily undone by even more meticulous and unforgiving fate. Kubrick ends it with his signature black-comic panache. Sterling Hayden's Johnny Clay, having endured all manner of complications, watches helplessly as a suitcase full of stolen money spills off a luggage cart. The cash blows away. "You've got to run!" he is told. "What's the difference," he replies, with impeccable noir-antihero resignation.
Johnny can't escape fate any more than Barry Lyndon, the penniless Irish rogue who paves a path of lies through 18th-century Europe, rises to a surprisingly high station, yet ultimately suffers the necessary comeuppance, and then some. The Harvard Lampoon declared “Barry Lyndon” “dull” and “the worst film of 1975.” Today it ranks as the 12th-best film of all time in Sight and Sound’s 2022 directors’ poll and 45th in its critics’ poll. Similarly, the weird and slow-developing “Eyes Wide Shut”—call it “1999: A Sex Odyssey”—doesn’t give up its secrets easily. Yet it keeps winning new and obsessive admirers.
The film world considered Stanley Kubrick a genius while he was alive, but if anything his reputation stands even higher a quarter-century after his death. When he passed, Steven Spielberg noted: "He created more than just movies. He gave us complete environmental experiences that got more, not less, intense the more you watched his pictures. He copied no one while all of us were scrambling to imitate him." Kubrick's cinema may last forever . . . and ever . . . and ever.
ARTS CALENDAR
HAPPENINGS FOR THE WEEK OF OCTOBER 13
BY WSJ ARTS IN REVIEW STAFF
Film
"You Can See Everything" (Oct. 16)
Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes and her partner, Billy Evans, hosted a documentary crew led by Lance Oppenheim and Nathan Fielder to capture their lives in the leadup to Holmes's entry to federal prison to serve a sentence for defrauding investors. Mr. Oppenheim and Mr. Fielder, the latter making his feature directorial debut, then followed the couple for three years.
"Sacrifice" (Netflix, Oct. 16)
"Street Fighter" (Oct. 16)
Elizabeth Holmes in 'You Can See Everything.'
The Capcom videogame series gets a big-screen story in which estranged brawlers reunite to enter a major tournament. Among those throwing fists in the ensemble cast are Noah Centineo, Andrew Koji, Callina Liang, Joe "Roman Reigns" Anoa'i, Cody Rhodes, Eric André, Andrew Schulz, Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson, Jason Momoa and Orville Peck.
TV
"Masterplan"
(Prime Video, Oct. 16)
(Prime Video, Oct. 16)
Stanley Tucci stars as a skilled thief who teams up with strangers, played by Simona Tabasco and Victor Belmondo, to steal the Mona Lisa. During their work a surprising family connection among the trio comes to light.
A fading celebrity (Chris Evans) tries to engineer a career comeback at a swanky charity dinner only to be interrupted by eco-terrorists (Anya Taylor-Joy and Yung Lean).
Theater
"Other Desert Cities"
(Hudson Theatre, New York,
Oct. 18-Jan. 17, 2027)
Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Ed Harris and Allison Janney star in the Broadway revival of Jon Robin Baitz's 2012 Pulitzer finalist. John Benjamin Hickey directs
this tale of a well-connected family whose status is put at risk when its daughter returns home having written a tell-all memoir.
Music
Fontaines D.C., "Dopamine Chamber" (Oct. 16)
The Irish alt rockers embrace a more synth-driven sound on their fifth album, which includes a feature from Spanish singer-songwriter Rosalía.
Max Richter, "While the Flood Rages" (Oct. 16)
Opera
The German-born composer's new release is adapted from his score for Wayne McGregor's ballet "MaddAddam," which was inspired by post-apocalyptic stories by Margaret Atwood.
"Carmen" (Los Angeles Opera, Oct. 17-Nov. 7)
Bizet's masterpiece gets a new staging that embraces the Spanish Gothic in this production directed by Thaddeus Strassberger and conducted by Domingo Hindoyan.
Art
"Siena: The Art of Bronze, 1450-1500" (The Frick Collection, New York, Oct. 15-Jan. 18, 2027)
This is the first exhibition to focus on Siena as the center of experimentation and innovation in bronze during the Italian Renaissance. Some 40 works—including statues, reliefs, medals and more, many of which have never been shown outside of Tuscany—reveal the genius of Donatello, Vecchietta, Francesco di Giorgio and others.
"Walker Design Triennial: Beyond Materialism" (Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Oct. 17-Feb. 14, 2027)
The museum launches a triennial that looks at the ways design shapes culture, both responding to current ideas and shaping the way we interact with the world. This inaugural exhibition focuses on how contemporary design is moving away from industrial concerns toward more spiritual subjects.
Last Call
"Creatures of Myth and Imagination: Europe and the Americas"
(The Met Cloisters, New York, through Oct. 18)
This exhibition reveals the enduring trans-Atlantic fascination with beings that transcend species and reality. Our critic noted, "Despite a sea between them literally and metaphorically, Europe and the Americas shared a common imagination, a curiosity to explain the unknown, and a desire to make the mystical beautiful."
Write to
brian.kelly@wsj.com.
COVERED COSTS | By Aaron Ullman
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The WSJ Daily Crossword | Edited by Mike Shenk
Across
1 What your heart might skip
6 Facts and figures
10 Problem for a sound engineer
14 1929 stock market event
15 Sounds from awed people
16 Thailand neighbor
17 Game night strictures
19 Singer-songwriter Tori
20 God among the Avengers
21 Probing question
23 American marsupial
26 1974 pop hit “\_\_\_\_-Ca-Dabra”
27 “Diet Pepsi” singer Addison \_\_\_\_
29 Wall climber
30 Coming-of-age ceremonies for some girls
33 Yammer
35 Modern, in Munich
36 Supply for brewers and bakers
37 Häagen-Dazs flavor
41 Its highest point is Mount Katahdin
43 Vernacular ending
44 Initialism that might add Q at the end
47 Theorist with no sphere of influence?
51 West End washroom
52 Rock blaster
53 Small singing groups
54 Drip coffee with a shot of espresso
56 Groups of glitterati
58 Frenchman's female friend
59 Airborne annoyance
60 Unexpected costs, as found in four of this puzzle's answers
65 Bay State gridiron team, familiarly
66 Different, in Durango
67 Des Moines denizen, e.g.
68 Regretting a workout, maybe
69 Sunshine State baseball team
70 Just learning about
Down
1 Austrian's exclamation
2 Frat bud
3 Water in the Loire
4 Helpers, for short
▶ Solve this puzzle online and discuss it at WSJ.com/Puzzles.
5 Boston
nickname
6 Relentlessly
gloomy
7 IM pioneer
8 1960s-'70s
procedural
series starring
Efrem
Zimbalist Jr.
9 Forcefully
declare
10 Its first flight
went from
Switzerland
to Israel
11 Replay
analyst's
concern
12 Exuberant
cries
13 Covert WWII
org.
18 Itinerant people of Europe
22 "Straight Outta Compton" rapper
23 Cherry discard
24 Potential embryos
25 "Ariel" poet
26 Spell binders?
28 Contractor's fig.
31 Aviv
32 Osso buco meat
34 Philosopher Immanuel
38 Requires
39 Volcanic spew
40 "Pass over some suds"
41 Advanced theater deg.
42 Fact-filled book
45 "Golly!"
46 One of 18 for a frog
48 One who does the write thing
49 Bilingual Muppet on "Sesame Street"
50 Control, as spending
55 "Moll Flanders" writer
57 Wee
58 Commotions
59 Sch. stat
61 Like some humor and some weather
62 "Blecch!"
63 Chow down
64 Winter product prefix
Previous Puzzle's Solution
The Blunder That NFL Teams Keep Making Again and Again
The Philadelphia Eagles and Washington Commanders both coughed up wins in jaw-dropping fashion because of clock-management issues in the final moments of their Week 5 games
BY ANDREW BEATON
he Philadelphia Eagles had taken a one-point lead over the Jacksonville Jaguars on Sunday, and with eight seconds remaining they were all
but guaranteed to have a cheerful flight home from London.
And yet, they somehow managed to lose anyway. The reason was right there on the Philadelphia sideline.
The Jaguars were able to steal the win because Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni didn't kill as much clock as he could have and then elected to give Jacksonville kick returner Ameer Abdullah something he could return, instead of having his team kick for a touchback.
Abdullah took advantage by bringing it back 53 yards. That left a single second on the clock for Cam Little to nail a 57-yard field goal and clinch a 19-17 victory that left the Eagles absolutely devastated.
“I didn’t make the right decision,” Sirianni said, “and I lost us that game.”
The only consolation for Siri-
anni might be that it wasn't even the most astonishing ending on Sunday afternoon. A few hours later, the Washington Commanders were in position for a game-winning field goal against the New York Giants in the final minute of overtime, but inexplicably killed so much time that the game clock expired after quarterback Jayden Daniels went down without a time-out, resulting in a 27-27 tie. It was so boneheaded that Giants players celebrated as if they had won.
Both situations show how even though NFL teams worth billions of dollars pay their players,
Top: The Jaguars' Cam Little reacts after a game-winning kick. Left: Jayden Daniels and the Commanders tied the Giants.
coaches and executives fortunes to make the best decisions, they still routinely bungle something most fans on their couches can understand: late-game clock management. In both instances, the Eagles and Commanders committed strategic malpractice and paid the price by not walking off the
field with a victory.
“Leaving tonight with a tie feels like a loss,” Washington coach Dan Quinn said. “I’m gutted for our team.”
For the Eagles to blow Sunday's game, it actually took a series of errors. Already within field-goal range in the final minute, they
threw the ball on both first and second downs, resulting in an in-completion and a receiver running out of bounds—stopping the clock for Jacksonville each time. When the Eagles ran the ball on third down, the Jaguars used their final timeout, which they only had because Philadelphia hadn't made them burn it earlier. Otherwise, the Eagles' field-goal attempt could have been the final play of the game.
Instead, the Eagles had to kick-off with eight seconds to go, and they blundered again. If Eagles kicker Jake Elliott had blasted a kick for a touchback, the Jaguars would have had almost no time—with no timeouts—to make something happen. Instead, Eagles kicker Jake Elliott sent one that Abdullah could easily handle before he was brought down just in time for a field goal.
“It sucks,” Elliott said. “You come all this way and you think you’re in the driver’s seat to win a big game, and now we’re feeling pretty down.”
Oddly enough, a team faced a similar decision just a couple of weeks ago and also miscalculated. In that case, the Dallas Cowboys erred by doing what the Eagles should have done.
Playing the Baltimore Ravens, the Cowboys tied the game with seven seconds to go before they kicked off for a touchback, giving the Ravens the ball at the 35-yardline. Even a return as long as Abdullah's would have left the clock with all zeros. And unlike Jacksonville, Baltimore had a timeout left. That allowed quarterback Lamar Jackson to make a long completion and stop the clock to set up the game-winning kick.
The two outcomes show how three years into the NFL's new kickoff rules, teams are still bumbling through the search for optimal moves. Entering this season, there hadn't been a single instance of both teams making field goals in the final 10 seconds of the fourth quarter, according to Stats Perform records dating back to 1970. It has now happened twice in the past three weeks after Sunday's Eagles-Jaguars game.
“You feel like you let everyone down,” Sirianni said. “That will stick with me for a long time.”
The result in Washington was even more gobsmacking. The Commanders had the ball in position for a field goal with about a minute left. After a running play bled away most of it, quarterback Jayden Daniels took another snap with 12 seconds to go and went down. Only Washington didn't have another timeout. And instead of kicking a field goal, the team was left kicking itself when time expired.
It didn't bode well for Quinn's job security when the sequence was promptly assailed by none other than one of the team's owners.
“I’m in total disbelief my Commanders had such poor clock management,” Magic Johnson posted on X. “All we had to do was kick the field goal and we would have won the game!”
JASON GAY
The Yankees Aren't Arrogant Jerks Anymore. That Might Be a Problem.
Is there anything less frightening than the New York Yankees in the playoffs?
A warm basket full of kittens? A gentle
hayride at the state fair? Curling up in a hammock with a lemonade and a copy of “Clifford the Big Red Dog?”
How about a vegetarian shark? A comfy sweater? How about two warm baskets full of kittens? I'm asking because New York's most historically entitled, championship-gorged baseball club has a crisis: no one's scared of them anymore.
Why should they be?
Last week, the Tampa Bay Rays rolled into big, bad Yankee Stadium, put their feet on the couch, and swept the passive, punchless Pinstripes out of the postseason. The Game 3 finale was disrupted by a fan interference call—what is it with overenthusiastic Yankee fans and outfield walls—but the result was hard to dispute.
The better, poorer team won.
Which means for the 17th straight season, the Yankees won't win a World Series title. While that dry spell will draw empty stares from fans in Seattle, Pittsburgh or San Diego, it's a fiasco for a franchise that's won 27 of them and regards October silverware as its birthright.
These are the Yankees, for crying out loud! This is a team that's supposed to start every spring with a promise to win a ring—or walk straight into the Hudson.
Instead one of the most successful franchises in sports is now a speed bump on the way to somebody else's title. In their last 13 playoff appearances, the Yankees have made the World Series only once.
They lost that, too.
Surely you've seen Yankee fans strutting around in those braggy jackets, the ones with patches for all the World Series titles—not just the titles with Derek Jeter, but also the titles with Bill Dickey, as if the jacket owner was alive for those.
A new jacket is in order: BACK TO BACK DIVISIONAL SERIES RUNNER-UP. '25-'26.
Order me one. I'll wear it for Halloween and scare no one.
The Rays weren't the least bit intimidated by any of it, not even the Yankee fans who invaded their home at the Trop.
Tampa Bay rolled over a sloppy Yankees team like it was a three-game series against the Rockies in June.
Afterward, for laughs, the Rays cranked up the speakers in the visitor's clubhouse and played Sinatra's "New York, New York"—the official Yankee theme.
For the 17th straight season, the Yankees won't win a World Series title.
Does that sound like an intimidated opponent?
In the olden days, when George Steinbrenner was rattling around in a turtleneck, it would have been different. Surrender was unacceptable. Phones would be destroyed. Back pages would ooze disgust. Limp bats would be exiled and heads would roll. There'd be a loud pledge to straighten it out. Even if they didn't straighten it out.
These Yankees aren't those Yankees. George's son Hal doesn't run hot like his late father. His team is run clinically, analytically—modern but a little soulless. These 21st century Yankees are strangely loyal. Manager Aaron Boone has survived nine seasons without a title, an unthinkable milestone in George's time. Brian Cashman is closing in on three decades as general manager.
These jobs used to have the permanence of a summertime life-guard. Cashman is a Supreme Court justice.
Big George's run tends to be confused with prolonged success—it's important to remember the last time the Yankees had a 17-year gap was from 1979 until 1996, Steinbrenner's domineering, paws-on prime.
After the Reggie titles in ‘77 and ‘78, the franchise didn’t win another Series until Admiral Huffenpuff was sidelined with a suspension and patient GM Stick Michael cultivated a young roster.
Still, it's hard to argue that the edge is gone.
These Yankees—led by mild-mannered slugger Aaron Judge, who was injured these playoffs—are inoffensive, even likable. They don't ooze the urgency or arrogance that defined other Yankee eras.
Frustrated Yankee fans fret that the team is no longer baseball's biggest spender—the Dodgers, Mets and Phillies spent more in payroll in 2026. The Dodgers and Phillies used it to reach the playoffs. The Mets used it to make a big leaf pile of money at Citi Field and set it on fire.
The Yankees once spent whatever it took--and worried about the repercussions later. Now there's
fiscal responsibility, but without the clever roster building of low-payroll teams like Tampa Bay or Milwaukee.
The reigning back-to-back champ Dodgers do whatever it takes (and yes, this is its own intrigue.) Los Angeles is the behemoth everyone hates, to the point their spending and dominance may result in an extended lockout and work stoppage.
The Dodgers don't care. They lean right into the supervillainy.
“We’re smarter, we’re better, and we’re tougher,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said after Los Angeles moved on to another National League Championship Series. He said this knowing full well the public would see it and want to hurl.
These Yankees need a little more of that. Likability is nice, but it won't win a ring.
Trump's Shock-and-Awe Strategy
GLOBAL
VIEW
By Walter
Russell Mead
After nearly six years in the White House and more than a decade at the center of American politics, Donald Trump can still shock the world. In the
past week alone, he has hinted at new attacks on Iran after the midterm elections, said that the U.S. will buy diesel fuel from Russia as American officials warned Europeans about a possible cutoff of weapons, announced an “energy cease-fire” that appeared to catch Kyiv by surprise, mused publicly about resuming hostilities against the Houthis, and called on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to step aside.
The president's latest burst of diplomatic activity reflects his convictions about Iran, Russia, the importance of energy and the unimportance of Europe. He has seen Iran as a threat to the U.S. since the 1980s and believes that an Iranian nuclear weapon or Iranian domination of the Persian Gulf's energy resources would threaten American interests. He believes that fossil fuels will remain a key element of geopolitical and economic power and wants the U.S. to play the predominant role in the Gulf.
Similarly, Mr. Trump believes that the U.S. and Russia have overlapping interests in preventing Moscow from becoming Beijing's junior partner, countering Sunni Islamist militancy, and managing their roles as major energy producers. Mr. Trump and Vladimir Putin also share a contempt for what they agree is the civilizational suicide embraced by modern European liberals. Washington and Moscow in this view shouldn't be divided by anything as petty as the nationalistic ambitions of Ukraine or the moans of its liberal supporters in Europe.
Meanwhile, Mr. Trump knows that his political coalition is divided into restrainer and hawkish wings. The hawks want tough policies against both Russia and Iran. The restrainers want the U.S. to make up with Moscow and leave the Middle East alone.
Mr. Trump has sought to reconcile his own instincts with the wishes of his base by pursuing a divided policy. While never giving anybody everything, in general he's given the hawks more influence over Iran policy while catering to restrainer sensibilities on Russia. As he contemplates a longer and messier war in the Middle East, Mr. Trump wants to satisfy his restrainer allies with a more aggressive attempt to build ties to Moscow. That he can present his Russia diplomacy as an effort to secure cheaper fuel as the midterms approach is an added benefit.
But however reasonable this policy mix may look to the White House, the public doesn't like the Iran war and the high fuel prices it brings, and it doesn't like accommodating Russia. Playing to the hawks in the Gulf and to the restrainers on Russia may distribute the pain evenly across Mr. Trump's coalition, but judging from the polls, the coalition is shrinking. Mr. Trump's presidency appears to be entering a new and from his point of view perhaps less satisfactory stage.
---
The president tries to reconcile restrainers and hawks with his foreign-policy goals.
It is faith in Mr. Trump, not ideology, that ultimately holds the fractious MAGA coalition together. As the believers see it, Mr. Trump can close the border and eliminate anti-American governments across the Western Hemisphere. He can stop drug smuggling and break the cartels. He can reshore manufacturing, unleashing a golden age of blue-collar prosperity. He can reverse the tide of decadence and secularism. He can beat back the advance of interfering bureaucrats and anti-American globalists. His methods may sometimes look strange or even distasteful, but nobody can deliver what he does.
To keep the enchantment alive, Mr. Trump must keep
Americans and the world fixated on the spectacle of the Trump Show. And he must keep the gap between glittering promise and inevitably disappointing results to a minimum.
Wars make the former task easier but complicate the latter. Conflicts make for compelling theater, and nobody understands this better than Mr. Trump. But wars also turn out to be hard to spin. Despite the president's efforts, the war between Russia and Ukraine continues to escalate. Despite his claims about Iran's weakness and helplessness, gasoline and diesel prices remain high and reports about the vulnerability of American bases in the Gulf to Iranian missiles persist. Where's the magic, supporters are beginning to wonder.
Disenchantment starts slowly but can quickly go viral. With polls pointing to tough midterms for Republicans, lame-duck status becoming more of a concern, and interest rates and inflation hitting voters, Mr. Trump may be facing the hardest years of his long career. It could be a lonely struggle. Not only do America's adversaries want him to fail, so do many of our allies.
Shock-and-awe foreign policy offers hope of breakthroughs that would shore up the president's position. The world should brace for more Trump shocks. He has no incentive to calm things down.
How Canada Should Fight Trump
MAIN
STREET
By William
McGurn
Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario "Trump's hatred for Canada has permanently damaged world's best trade relationship."
So reads a Saturday head-
ODD KOROL/REUTERS
line in the Edmonton Journal. It isn't surprising, given the president's penchant for belittling Canada by referring to Prime Minister Mark Carney as the “governor” and the country as our “51st state.”
We are in the thick of a trade war that began in February 2025 and shows no signs of abating. Meanwhile, the Parti Québécois won enough seats in last week's provincial
---
The prime minister plays a popular but self-defeating game of tariff tit for tat.
election to form a separatist minority government. And it looks as if Canada also faces a separatist movement in oil-rich Alberta.
In this context Mr. Trump may be the only thing the Canadians agree on.
That isn't because he's popular. British-based Lord Ashcroft Polls found that only $25\%$ of Canadians consider America an ally. That's down from $73\%$ in 2022, when Joe Biden was president.
Nervousness about the U.S.-Canada trade war is bolstering support for Mr. Carney. Unfortunately, when he does something to answer Mr. Trump's volleys, it often turns out to be a Canadian form of the protectionism he rightly regards as destructive when Mr. Trump directs it at Canadians.
The pattern is self-defeating—and Trumpian. After the Trump tariffs on Canadian products, the Canadian government imposed 25% retaliatory tariffs on nearly \$30 billion of American goods. Then, in May 2025, the U.S. introduced 25% levies on autos and parts.
Earlier this year, the president's war took a hit when the Supreme Court ruled that he exceeded his authority with his sweeping tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977. The Trump administration invoked the Trade Act of 1974. Canada also adjusted and is looking to formalize a closer economic relationship with the European Union.
Which prompts a question: Are there Canadians who believe they have gained from this whole back and forth?
The answer is surely no. The prime minister plainly decided that the best response, or maybe the only politically viable one, was to try to out-Trump Mr. Trump. As for the president, when reporters asked last week about trade negotiations before the midterm elections, he said the terms of trade currently favor Canada—but that this is changing: "It will work out eventually, but I don't know about—the United States is in no rush."
Prime Minister Mark Carney.
Mr. Trump is probably right that America, with a larger and stronger economy, can absorb more pain than Canada can. But that's zero-sum thinking. A real trade deal should benefit all parties, not by carving up markets but by leaving anyone who wants to buy or sell a product with a consenting adult from across his border free to do so.
Yes, countries cheat. But no one has figured out a way of punishing cheats without imposing unfair costs on innocent bystanders. It says something that Mike Rogers, a Trump-supporting Republican in Michigan running in a tight Senate race against Democrat Abdul El-Sayed, is running ads reminding voters that “Canada is not the enemy.”
As dumb as tariffs are, retaliating with countertariffs, as Mr. Carney is doing, is dumber still. He explained it this way in August: “Canada will match those tariffs dollar for dollar to protect our workers and businesses.”
The better response is to take steps that ensure America, not Canada, pays the price for its inefficiency and protectionism. That means freeing up the Canadian market.
“Retaliatory tariffs,” write Jock Finlayson and Steve Globerman of the Vancouver-based Fraser Institute, “will increase the cost of living for Canadian households but are unlikely to weaken Trump’s tariff fixation. Indeed, the Trump administration may respond to any incremental Canadian ‘retaliation’ by announcing additional market access restrictions targeting various Canadian industries.”
These tariffs make even less sense for Canada given the outsize U.S. role in its economy. Americans are the No. 1 customer for Canada, and vice versa.
Mr. Trump can be cutting when he dismisses Canada, such as the crack that “we don’t need them for anything.” But tell that to the American industries that rely on Canada for oil, electricity and natural gas. It’s another reason Canada would do better to fight Mr. Trump by opening its economy rather than joining his game of chicken.
“Canada has one of the strongest private property rights regimes in the developed world,” Mr. Globerman says. “It should leverage that by significant corporate tax and regulatory reform—which they have started to.”
Write to mcgurn@wsj.com.
Sometimes Government Is Innovative
By Egon Rinderer
President Trump and top artificial-intelligence executives signed a voluntary pact last month largely allowing companies to self-regulate, with no penalties for AI-agent misbehavior. Critics say Washington is allowing the industry to police itself. They have a point.
The federal government is far ahead of the private sector in securing its systems against rogue agents. In my 37 years in information-technology security, largely working alongside federal agencies, I never saw Washington lead industry on technology until now. That advantage reflects two decades of federal agencies' strengthening their security protocols.
Today's best cyber defense is known as zero-trust network access. Once a rogue AI agent is inside a network, it moves like other malware. After landing on a machine, it will try to move laterally to the next, hunting for data, passwords or other systems to take over. That horizontal movement is how most serious cyber breaches spread.
Under the zero-trust approach, devices don't trust each other merely because they are on the same network.
---
Federal agencies got out ahead of industry on cybersecurity.
They must prove they are authorized during every connection. The effect is to contain rogue agents as soon as they land on a system, with no avenue to spread.
Federal agencies are under a strict mandate to adopt zero-trust security infrastructure. The Pentagon has a deadline to reach full integration by the end of fiscal 2027.
Several executive-branch directives dictate how fast agencies must patch cybersecurity vulnerabilities and how thoroughly they must keep inventory of the software they use. Agencies must report their progress to the White House's Office of Management and Budget, and they risk losing funding if they fall behind target.
These guidelines govern purchasing too. Software that can't operate in a segmented network will soon be unfit for federal use, and agencies are writing this requirement into future contracts.
Industry began adopting a zero-trust approach several years ago, but work has stalled. I believe most large companies got 80% of the way there but stopped because of concerns about disruption and high costs.
That was shortsighted. Companies are racing to deploy AI agents on networks allowing the free movement that zero-trust architecture is designed to prevent. The result will be more data theft and disruptions to critical systems.
Businesses aren't bound by voluntary government directives, but they still operate in the real world. The federal government's zero-trust strategy is publicly available, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency offers additional guidance about implementation.
While federal AI regulation is needed, businesses shouldn't wait for Washington's orders to take the technology's risk seriously. When rogue AI agents cause havoc, the press will rush to blame the technology itself. But some fault will lie with the private sector for not safeguarding its defenses. They should finish what they started.
Mr. Rinderer is senior vice president for federal and enterprise growth at NinjaOne, an endpoint-management and remote-monitoring software company.
BOOKSHELF | By Harold Holzer
Making a Martyr For the Union
A Glorious Fate
By Kevin M. Levin
North Carolina, 328 pages, \$32.50
At the climax of Edward Zwick's film "Glory"—and of Kevin M. Levin's riveting biography of Robert Gould Shaw—a young white colonel of the Union Army leads his black troops across a narrow strip of South Carolina beach into a murderous Confederate fusillade from the seemingly impregnable Fort Wagner on July 18, 1863. Anyone who has seen the 1989 film knows what happens next: Shaw, the spruce, Harvard-educated scion of an elite Boston family, falls dead in a hail of bullets and shells and topples into a heap of black bodies. As an intended insult, Confederates bury him with his men in a shallow mass grave. A hero of the Civil War dies, and a martyr is born.
It is hard to imagine any book rendering this scene more vividly than the cinematic version, but Mr. Levin has managed the task with panache. What truly elevates “A Glorious Fate,” however, is the author’s revealing look at Shaw’s complex personality—including his surprising indifference about slavery. In contrast to the nobly principled leader of historical fiction, Mr. Levin offers up the real, flawed Shaw, a young man more vainglorious than glorious. The book adds a frank examination of
the mystique that grew up around Shaw after his death—a calculated effort to sanctify him in the hope of advancing racial equality in both the military ranks and post-Civil War America.
Mr. Levin, an independent historian who publishes the Substack newsletter Civil War Memory—widely read by history buffs and scholars alike—specializes in puncturing myths, particularly the stubborn misconception that black men served voluntarily in the Confederate ranks. In “A Glorious Fate,” he turns his attention to the genuine, important presence of black soldiers in the Union Army, and to one of the first official regiments to recruit them: the 54th Massachusetts Infantry, which Shaw commanded and which lost half its men at the ill-fated assault on Fort Wagner. The first biography of Shaw to appear in decades, it takes its place as the most nuanced—frequently pausing for analysis without impeding the propulsive narrative that peaks when the 25-year-old meets his moment.
Shaw was born in 1837 in Dartmouth, Mass. His wealthy parents, Francis and Sarah, were ardent abolitionists who migrated to a succession of like-minded communities. When Robert was still young, the family moved to Staten Island, N.Y., where he was miserable at home and at school. In his teens, he developed a rebellious streak more directed to gambling, drinking and reckless spending than on antislavery idealism. “I have no taste for anything excepting amusing myself,” he admitted to his indulgent mother in a letter. Later, while a student at Harvard, he confessed, “I hate Cambridge.” Mr. Levin paints the pampered youngster as a “stubbornly self-centered” boy who kept “studiously aloof” from the anti-slavery activism that young Harvard radicals embraced in the late 1850s—and that Shaw was all but born to.
Then how, one wonders, was Shaw born again as a champion of black rights? Mr. Levin's answer is that he really wasn't. "I don't talk and think Slavery all the time," Shaw told his dismayed parents as the secession crisis worsened. He all but welcomed disunion because it offered him a chance to pursue his only true passion: Army service.
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Shaw's parents rejected offers to disinter his remains. Their son could have no better resting place than among his black troops.
Shaw began his military career as a recruit in the Seventh New York Militia Regiment (made up of the sons of many well-to-do families), marching off to war only a week after the 1861 attack on Fort Sumter. Later Shaw became an officer in the all-white Second Massachusetts Infantry, seeing action at Cedar Mountain and Antietam. To the last, Mr. Levin argues, Shaw cared more about “military concerns” than the “moral crusade” championed by his parents.
When black enlistment began in earnest in 1863, Shaw did not campaign to lead a unit of black soldiers. The opportunity came to him in recognition of the elder Shaws' abolitionist credentials. Shaw, in fact, turned down the commission at first before changing his mind. A friend later recalled Shaw expressing doubts that "negro troops . . . would fight in [the] line of battle," wondering whether it might be necessary to order white soldiers to march behind them and prod them forward with bayonets. Toward the formerly enslaved people he encountered in the South, he could summon no more than paternalism, remarking on "their utter ignorance, and innocence of evil."
Yet this same, initially indifferent Shaw quickly trained his recruits into a skilled fighting unit and supported their fight for equal pay. After a sendoff at Boston Harbor, Shaw and the 54th headed south, where in June 1863 the newly promoted colonel objected to orders to help loot and burn the town of Darien, Ga. A few weeks later, in South Carolina, Shaw agreed to lead his men in the ill-planned assault on one of the batteries that protected the city of Charleston: the powerfully armed Fort Wagner. Mr. Levin suggests that the assignment was not meant as an honor. A New York Tribune correspondent later reported that he had overheard two senior commanders agreeing, using pungently racist language, to sacrifice the black troops, with one adding that “we may as well get rid of them one time as another.”
Eyewitnesses who glimpsed Shaw in the final minutes before the attack described him as “bent on accomplishing or dying.” Ultimately, his death became his greatest accomplishment. When his parents rejected offers to disinter and return his remains—declaring their son could have no better resting place than among his black troops—Shaw was transfigured from soldier to symbol, celebrated by poets and artists. Even now, he appears in Augustus Saint-Gaudens’s bravura relief sculpture on the Boston Common. Willingly or not, as one 19th-century essayist put it, Shaw became “a voluntary sacrifice on the altar of Liberty for an enslaved race.”
Mr. Holzer is the director of Hunter College's Roosevelt House and the author of “Brought Forth on This Continent: Abraham Lincoln and American Immigration.”
REVIEW & OUTLOOK
If the Saudis Will Fight, the U.S. Can Help
link in the U.S. regional alliance.
M
issile and drone attacks by Yemen's Houthis over the weekend have Saudi Arabia reeling. The skies over Riyadh
emptied after a Saturday strike on the international airport killed 13 and injured more than 300, and a Sunday attack killed one more. Now comes the test for U.S. policy.
Asked Saturday about join-
Asked Saturday about joining Saudi strikes against the Houthis, President Trump said, “We may. We’re going to look at it.” Yet the last thing he seems to want before midterm elections is a military escalation. That hesitation may be what Iran and its Houthi militia proxies, whom it arms and finances, are counting on.
How about a regional anti-Houthi alliance with Israel and U.A.E.?
The U.S. could let the Saudis fend for themselves against the Iranian axis, but at great strategic cost. The region is watching what Washington will do when the cornerstone of its Gulf alliance system is under attack.
This doesn't require a blank check for Riyadh, and U.S. interceptor shortages constrain what Mr. Trump can provide on defense. But this fight won't be won on defense, continuing to play whack-a-mole with Houthi projectiles. That points to offense, where munitions stocks are healthier and U.S. help is needed to take out Houthi surface-to-air missiles.
Real-time U.S. intelligence support is more discreet but equally important. The Saudi-backed Yemeni government offensive already has the Houthis under pressure along Yemen's western coast and Red Sea corridor, but it's moving slowly.
The U.S. can also continue its diplomacy to rally a regional anti-Houthi coalition, including Israel and the United Arab Emirates. The Houthis threaten the region and international shipping, not only Saudi Arabia, and they operate as part of a larger Iranian strategy. Though Houthis-Saudi conflict predates the current Iran war, the war has put Saudi Arabia in the line of fire. Iran may believe it has identified the weak
It didn't have to be this way. The original Western error was to restrain the Saudi-Yemeni
alliance when it had the Houthis on defense. Amid international humanitarian concerns over civilian casualties, a chance to defeat the Iranian proxy was missed in 2018 and 2019. In February 2021 the
new Biden Administration cut off all support—arms, intelligence and logistics—for the anti-Houthi offensive.
To accommodate Iranian power, Joe Biden even lifted the Houthis' terror designation. This for a group whose chant is: "God is the Greatest, Death to America, Death to Israel, Curse be upon the Jews, Victory to Islam." The Saudis then cut a deal to appease the Houthis, including funneling money to grease the peace. As with Qatari money in Gaza, it didn't work. The Houthis used the reprieve to rearm.
The Saudis spent \$83 billion on defense in 2025, more than Israel or Iran. Under direct attack, Riyadh now has to decide if it has the will to fight back. If it doesn't, all the modernizing ambitions of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) will suffer. Few will want to invest in an easy, repeat target.
MBS's new Mecca pact partners, Turkey and Pakistan, don't seem eager to help despite their large militaries. That leaves an appeal to the U.S. as usual. U.S. support doesn't mean standing in for Saudi Arabia but helping it lead. Pushing MBS into another deal with the Houthis instead would lock in the militia's gains in preparation for the next war.
The Houthi challenge may seem obscure, but the stakes are high for the Saudis, the Middle East and the U.S. It is now tied to Mr. Trump's campaign against Iran and his hope for an expansion of the Abraham Accords between Israel and the Arab states that someday includes Saudi Arabia. As it stands now, the Houthis have the upper hand.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
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Constitutional Originalism and the Framers
Justice Samuel Alito underscores mistakes originalist judges make in applying the theory (“Even Originalist Judges Make Mistakes,” op-ed, Oct. 3). But another mistake can occur with the definitional frame of reference. For him, originalism denotes that “constitutional provisions should be understood to mean what the public would have taken them to mean when they were adopted.” The “public” would mean ordinary people like colonial patrons of taverns who gathered round to read the proposed Constitution in newspapers.
The problem is that the Constitution wasn't adopted by an Athenian democracy where all citizens were lawmakers. The Framers abhorred pure democracy and opted for a republic based on representation. Legislatures appointed the Framers. It follows that the most relevant and practical frame of reference is what the Framers, fewer than 50 of whom were signers, took the provisions to mean rather than what a colonial citizenry of over two million took them to mean.
Justice Alito notes that “the general public or lawmakers in 1868” didn’t understand “liberty” in the 14th Amendment to include same-sex marriage. But the two viewpoints can diverge. From all accounts, ordinary citizens in 1787 interpreted “misdemeanor” as a minor crime but still a crime, just like today’s ordinary citizens. The Framers understood “misdemeanor” as signifying a breach of trust, or abuse of office, not necessarily amounting to any crime.
What words mean to lawmakers who make a law should be paramount in case of divergent meaning,
PROF. EM. MICHAEL J. POLELLE
Univ. of Illinois Chicago School of Law
Sarasota, Fla.
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Ancient Greece's Greatness Was Built on Trade
In his op-ed “The Birth and Re-birth of Western Civilization” (Oct. 9) based on excerpts from his great speech in Athens, Marco Rubio demonstrates once again that in his head and heart he’s more like Ronald Reagan than any other top Trump administration official. But he omits a major source of Athens’s freedom and greatness that Reagan likely would have put front and center—namely, that Athenian liberty, prosperity and power were built on international trade.
As Will Durant explained in his book “The Life of Greece” (1939), trade was foundational to the prosperity and success of Athens. He wrote: “Foreign commerce advances even faster than domestic trade, for the Greek states have learned the advantages of an international division of labor, and each specializes in some product; the shieldmaker, for example, no longer goes from city to city at the call of those who need him, but makes his shields in his shop and sends them out to the markets of the classic world. In one century Athens moves from household economy—wherein each household makes nearly all that it needs—to urban economy—wherein each town makes nearly all that it needs—to international economy—wherein each state is dependent upon imports, and must make exports to pay for them . . . [I]t is this trade that makes Athens rich.”
PHIL GRAMM AND DONALD J. BOUDREAUX
American Enterprise Institute and
George Mason University
Helotes, Texas, and Fairfax, Va.
Putin Ignores That Energy ‘Cease-Fire’
o much for that energy cease-fire between Russia and Ukraine. President Trump announced the truce Sunday on Truth So-
cial, along with the warning "do not break it!" Within hours Vladimir Putin did.
On Sunday a Shahed drone hit a power plant in Kyiv, and the Russians also struck a thermal power plant in
Kharkiv. “This happened after the statement by the President of the United States about a ceasefire in the energy sector,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky wrote on Telegram.
Trump announces
a truce. Russia
immediately violates it.
Ukraine refrained from striking Russian refineries overnight, Mr. Zelensky said Monday, and “we are ready to adhere to any energy truce, if Russia is willing to do the same.” Mr. Putin has repeatedly refused.
The Russian dictator is multiplying his aerial attacks on Ukrainian cities and civilians as he has run into difficulties on the battlefield in eastern Ukraine. The Russians have made “near-zero gains since March 2026,” the Institute for the Study of War said last month. In early summer the Ukrainians stymied Russia’s plans for a southern offensive. And Ukraine’s
Operation Vivaldi has now thwarted Russian plans to encircle the eastern defensive stronghold known as the Fortress Belt.
So Mr. Putin's plan now is to “make civilian life in Ukraine unbearable such that Ukraine will capitulate to Russia’s demands,” ISW said this month. Mr. Putin is taking advantage of Ukraine’s
shortage of Patriot missiles and functioning F-16 jets to hammer energy plants ahead of a long winter.
Mr. Trump is scapegoating Ukraine for rising diesel prices, and on Saturday he said Kyiv “better damn well stop” its strikes on Russian refineries. But is Ukraine supposed to sit back and take the Russian blitz? Oil and gas exports fund Mr. Putin’s military, and Russian energy production is a legitimate war target.
Mr. Trump made a major concession Friday with a pause on diesel sanctions that will allow Russian energy companies to rake in some \$4.5 billion. Yet Mr. Putin is giving him nothing we can see in return. The Russian refusal to accept an energy cease-fire is the latest evidence that Mr. Trump's courtship isn't working.
California Has a Home to Sell You
California taxpayers have spent tens of billions of dollars on affordable housing to little productive effect. Yet spe-
cial interests want voters this November to pony up tens of billions more and—get this—establish a state-backed housing lender. Call this the triumph of false hope over experience.
The California Association of Realtors and labor unions are backing Prop. 37, a ballot measure that would authorize the California Housing Finance Agency to issue \$25 billion in government bonds to fund a home down payment assistance program. Another measure (Prop. 1) would authorize \$11.25 billion in bonds to fund affordable housing.
The state wants voters to let it get into the lending subsidy game.
Supporters say the down payment program won't cost taxpayers a dime, but this is misleading. The state would issue bonds to fund loans to cover down payments for buyers of newly constructed homes. Loans could cover as much as $17\%$ of a home's purchase price, so the buyer would only have to put $3\%$ down.
The down payment loan would be a second mortgage, which a buyer would pay off over time. While the program is ostensibly aimed at helping middle-income households, buyers earning up to 200% of an area's median income could qualify for homes costing as much as \$1.5 million. The median is roughly \$400,000 for a family of four in Silicon Valley.
Why is the state program needed given that the federal government already backs mortgages with minimal down payments? The Federal Housing Administration insures mortgages with 3.5% down payments, though borrowers must pay premiums equal to 1.75% of the loan amount, plus a roughly 0.55% annual fee for the life of the loan.
Government-sponsored enterprise Fannie Mae also guarantees mortgages for lower-income households with as little as 3% down, though borrowers generally must pay higher interest rates and insurance premiums. California's program looks to be a subsidy for the relatively affluent who are struggling to afford homes at ethereal prices and today's interest
rates.
The idea seems to be that the state down payment loan would obviate the higher interest rates buyers would otherwise have to pay under federal programs if they put only
3% down. By making a 20% down payment that is mostly funded by a state-backed second mortgage, borrowers could qualify for a lower interest rate.
It's not clear the state could fund down payment loans at rates that are attractive to borrowers without losing money. The state might be able to take advantage of the municipal bond tax exemption to issue bonds and thereby fund down payment loans at below-market rates. Thirty-year tax-exempt muni bonds currently yield around $5.7\%$ .
But the state would still have to factor in the price of the loan's administrative and underwriting costs. Because the down payment loans would be subordinate to a primary mortgage, bond buyers would likely charge a yield premium. While California might set interest rates on down payment loans below its cost of funding, taxpayers would then be stuck subsidizing them.
In any case, subsidizing buyers will push up prices as long as supply remains constrained. Prop. 1 won't help with either. Most of the \$11.25 billion in bonds would fund homeless and multifamily housing, which can cost \$1 million a unit to build because of government building codes, prevailing wage requirements and other regulation.
California voters have approved \$12 billion in bonds for such projects since 2018, which comes on top of nearly \$20 billion in general fund spending. Yet both homelessness and housing costs have increased. Let's hope voters have the wisdom to stop this endless housing-subsidy racket and defeat both propositions.
It's OK if Markets Force Some Colleges to Close
Jeff Yass's op-ed “Pouring Money Into the Ivy League Won’t Solve Its Problems” (Oct. 9) is right on target, but to accommodate new academic ventures, we need the Schumpeterian “creative destruction” so critical to the emergence and triumph of competitive private enterprise capitalism in the U.S. and across the globe. The downsizing or near death of iconic brand names like Sears and Eastman Kodak helped free resources to finance the Anthropic, Nvidia, Apple and other leaders of recent economic progress.
The growing threat of closure is already forcing some existing colleges out of desperation to throttle the administrative bloat that had distracted them from their primary mission of discovering and disseminating knowledge and creative ideas. Some institutions are also considering revising tenure provisions and are even rethinking costly intercollegiate athletic spending. Labor markets are making unemployable majors like gender studies undesirable for students. Some schools are asking professors
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The Permitting Reform Bill Harms Historic Preservation
If permitting reform passes as your editorial suggests (“Permitting Reform at Last, Really?,” Oct. 6), it will symbolize a larger, disturbing trend taking shape in Washington right now—public policy and federal actions that lack clear process, meaningful public and stakeholder involvement and sound judgement. In particular, the proposed sweeping changes to the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) of 1966 within the permitting reform bill are unprecedented and go too far. If passed, these provisions would eviscerate our nation’s civic and cultural inheritance. The proposed changes must be rejected. We are eager to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the NHPA on Oct. 15—a foundational law that has stood the test of time and served our country well. Our elected and appointed officials should practice greater deference to our nation’s heritage.
BRENT LEGGS
President and CEO
Natl. Trust for Historic Preservation
Washington to teach more and write fewer articles for last-resort journals. Talk is growing of having three-year instead of four-year bachelor's degrees.
Because of massive taxpayer and private philanthropic subsidies, market signals that lead to needed collegiate resource reallocation are weakened, but they are still present and beginning to work. I share Mr. Yass's enthusiasm for the University of Austin, but I think the death of a few hundred existing schools will scare the rest into promoting less ideologically driven wokeness and instead focus on greater efficiency.
PROF. EM. RICHARD VEDDER
Ohio University
Athens, Ohio
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Mamdani's Oct. 7 Response
Regarding your editorial “Celebrating Hamas on Oct. 7” (Oct. 8): My mother survived Auschwitz. Throughout her life, she returned to one painful question: “Why didn’t we run away when we still had the chance?” It was the reflection of someone who knew there was a brief window when leaving Europe might still have been possible.
I thought of my mother when reading your editorial regarding New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani's statement on the anniversary of the attacks. While the mayor briefly acknowledged the horror of that day—of those killed and taken hostage—his statement quickly shifted to qualified political context, adding that the suffering “did not begin nor end that day.”
New York isn't 1930s Europe, and I would never diminish what my mother endured. But her life taught me that people don't always recognize when the world begins to shift.
Oct. 7 was a day of slaughter. The mayor has 364 other days a year to complain about occupation and genocide. On this anniversary, that suffering should have stood on its own. Instead, his rhetoric left me wondering if my mother's question has now become mine: Should we think about leaving?
Regarding Joseph C. Sternberg's column “Riots in France? They Could Happen Here” (Political Economics, Oct. 9): The French debt crisis is a perfect example of what can happen when politicians are more concerned with keeping their jobs than doing their jobs. They don't seem to have heard the expression “when you're in a hole, stop digging.”
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France Keeps Digging a Hole
ROBERT M. SUSSMAN
Paradise Valley, Ariz.
Letters intended for publication should be emailed to wsj.ltrs@wsj.com. Please include your city, state and telephone number. All letters are subject to editing, and unpublished letters cannot be acknowledged.
JACOB ELBOGEN
Brooklyn, N.Y.
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Pepper ... And Salt
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"He needed a break from all the emotional support work."
The Case for Firing Squads
By Alex Kozinski
rizona succeeded in killing Joseph Rudolph Wood III on July 23, 2014, the day after the Supreme Court lifted a stay that had been
issued by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The state administered 15 injections of midazolam and hydromorphone over nearly two hours. It was, at the time, the longest execution in U.S. history.
That record is now eclipsed by the failed execution of Christa Pike, who survived two injections of pentobarbital, to the apparent surprise of the Tennessee officials administering them. One can only hope that this disturbing episode will cause reconsideration of our half-century-long experiment with lethal injection, but I'm not so sure. Wood's
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Lethal injection only looks humane, and it blurs the distinction between healing and killing.
execution generated extensive publicity, including a “60 Minutes” segment in which I, then a Ninth Circuit judge, was interviewed, and then nothing happened. Almost every death-penalty state, along with the federal criminal code, designates lethal injection as the sole or default method of execution.
It wasn't always so. For much of the 20th century, states used hanging, the gas chamber, the electric chair and occasionally firing squads. Then, in 1977, Oklahoma authorized lethal injection. Texas first used it in 1982 when it executed Charles Brooks Jr. The other capital punishment states quickly fell in line.
RICK BOWMER/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Why this sudden transformation? After the Supreme Court struck down all existing death-penalty laws in Furman v. Georgia (1972) for lacking certain procedural safeguards that the justices invented, 35 states retooled their laws to adopt such procedures. In 1977 Utah executed Gary Gilmore by firing squad, the first execution after the moratorium. But opponents continued to challenge executions, including execution methods, as painful or degrading.
Perhaps states thought lethal injection would fare better in court because it resembled a familiar medical procedure. Perhaps they wanted executions to look less medieval. Either way, the appeal was obvious: Put the prisoner on a gurney, attach tubes, administer drugs, and invite the public to imagine that death arrives cleanly and quickly, without anyone getting blood on his hands.
Appearances, however, aren't reality. Lethal injection was a terrible choice, practically and philosophically. It borrows medicine's costume without the people and safeguards that make medicine work. Physicians are barred by the American Medical Association's ethics code from participating in executions; similar constraints apply to nurses. The job therefore falls to law-enforcement personnel, who must obtain the drugs, find a vein, insert a catheter, and administer the substances in the right quantities and sequence. If the first attempt fails, they try again. In Wood's case, 14 times.
The supply problem makes matters worse. Drug manufacturers have refused to sell their products for executions. States have resorted to Rube Goldberg-like schemes to obtain drugs from abroad, sometimes under false pretenses, or have used drugs that are expired or improperly stored. The state wants the appearance of a modern medical procedure but can't reliably obtain the materials or expertise that real medicine requires.
Nor is there an accepted protocol guaranteed to produce a quick, painless death. Drug companies test medications to heal people, not kill them. States have improvised, sometimes using drugs known to cause severe pain and administering sedatives to blunt it. Sedatives don't always work, and there is good reason to believe that some prisoners suffer; Ms. Pike actually told us so. Over the years there have been numerous botched executions, as documented in gruesome detail by law professor Corinna Lain in her recent book, "Secrets of the Killing State: The Untold Story of Lethal Injection."
The philosophical problem is more fundamental: Execution by lethal injection is dishonest. It dresses an execution in the reassuring garb of medicine, encouraging us to mistake a state killing for a clinical event. Medicine seeks to preserve life; execution ends it. This blurring of what are diametrically opposite functions is epistemologically perilous and morally repugnant.
Which is why I applaud Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's decision to execute Nidal Hasan by firing squad. As I argued at the time of the Wood execution: "Eight or ten large-caliber rifle bullets fired at close range can inflict massive damage, causing instant death every time. There are plenty of people employed by the state who can pull the trigger and have the training to aim true. The weapons and ammunition are bought by the state in massive quantities for law enforcement purposes, so it would be impossible to interdict the supply. And nobody can argue that the weapons are put to a purpose for which they were not intended: firearms have no purpose other than destroying their targets. Sure, firing squads can be messy, but if we are willing to carry out executions, we should not shield ourselves from the reality that we are shedding human blood. If we, as a society, cannot stomach the splatter from an execution carried out by firing squad, then we shouldn't be carrying out executions at all."
The intervening decade has reinforced my views. Deserving as Mr. Hasan may be of his punishment, no one merits a lingering, possibly excruciating death. I have some doubts whether livestreaming the execution is advisable, but Mr. Hegseth should be commended for his honesty, and for showing Mr. Hasan mercy.
Mr. Kozinski served as a judge on the Ninth Circuit, 1985-2017.
It's the Economy, Stupid—but How Stupid?
The economy, stupid.
EDITOR
AT LARGE
By Gerard
Baker
Since long before James Carville pinned his famous epigram to the wall of Bill Clinton's campaign headquarters in 1992, the reductive formula for success or failure in elections has been obvious: the material condition of the people.
Mr. Carville's maxim was only the second of a triplet (the others were about change and healthcare), but it resonated for the timeless reliability of its psephological predictiveness. When the economy sucks, incumbents lose.
It is the primary pre-explanation for the drubbing Republicans expect next month. But now as then, it may be that a flawed perception of the economy rather than economic reality is driving voting behavior, and that now as then the U.S. is in the early stages of an economic golden age.
By the time Americans voted that November, the recession Gov. Clinton had rhetorically exploited was long over. During the second half of 1992, gross domestic product expanded at an annual rate of 4%. Unemployment peaked that summer and was falling sharply by the time the new president took office.
It's invidious to tell voters that what they believe isn't true; but today, as then, there can be no other explanation for the level of popular dyspepsia with an economy that, in macro terms, is in robust health.
The best sense of how big a disconnect there is between polling and economic facts can be had by comparing President Trump's current ratings with his immediate predecessor's at the nadir of America's recent economic performance.
The latest Quinnipiac poll gives Mr. Trump a 31% approval rating on the economy. In June 2022 Joe Biden enjoyed—if that's the word—a higher rating, 33%.
That month consumer prices were up 9.1% from a year earlier, the highest inflation in 40 years. In the first half of that year, the economy had contracted at a rate of just over 1%. Real wages were falling: Between January 2021, and June
2022, hourly earnings adjusted for inflation had fallen by 4.1%. The rate on a 30-year mortgage had almost doubled, from 2.65% to 5.1%. Average gasoline prices had more than doubled, from \$2.39 a gallon to more than \$5. The S&P 500 index of leading stocks increased just 1% in the first 18 months of the Biden term. The unemployment rate was the one bright spot, at 3.6%.
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As in 1992, Democrats are poised to win big based on mistaken perceptions that times are difficult.
Contrast that with today. Consumer price inflation is at 3.4%, up since the beginning of Mr. Trump's term but well below where it was four years ago. Gasoline prices and interest rates are up, but not by as much as they had increased under the Democrats. Gasoline is up about 65% since Inauguration Day, at around \$5 a gallon. Mortgage rates are at 7%, just about where they were when Mr. Trump took office.
In the first half of this year growth averaged more than 2.4% a year. The Atlanta Federal Reserve estimates third-quarter growth at 3.6%.
Real wages are up. The S&P 500 is up about 35%. Unemployment is higher than it was four years ago, but at 4.1% still historically low.
In the 1960s Arthur Okun invented the “misery index,” the sum of the inflation and unemployment rates, as a gauge of economic success. On that, Mr. Biden scored 12.7 in June 2022; Mr. Trump 7.5 now. Even if we create an augmented misery index, adding gasoline prices, diesel prices and average mortgage rates, Mr. Biden still comes out “ahead,” 29 to Mr. Trump’s 25.
By just about any measure, the economy is in much better shape today than it was four years ago, yet the incumbent gets lower marks.
There are several plausible explanations. Voters care less about the relative softening in inflation in the past two years and more about the continuing cumulative increase in prices. After decades of almost no inflation, prices have risen by 25% since 2020. The incumbent is paying the price. Voters may also see a clearer link between Mr. Trump's policies and their current challenges than they saw with Mr. Biden. Tariffs and a war that has pushed up energy prices both directly feed higher costs. There is also the sense that the benefits of the current economic strength are distributed even less equally than usual.
Yet as Mr. Clinton's election in the midst of misperceived misery coincided with the start of a long economic boom, so Americans may come to look back on 2026 as the early stages of a period of prolonged prosperity.
Growth is accelerating. Underlying inflation pressures are easing—consumer prices minus food and energy rose by 2.4% during the year ending in August, down from 3.3% when Mr. Trump took office. The artificial-intelligence investment boom is the primary driver of growth, and if the productivity increases investors expect from it materialize, growth may be about to exceed anything we have seen for decades.
Which would give a whole new meaning to “the economy, stupid.”
A Nobel Prize for Macroeconomics Done Right
By David R. Henderson
Robert E. Hall and Michael Woodford have been awarded the Nobel Prize in Economic Science for “microeconomic foundations of macroeconomic stabilisation,” the prize committee said in a statement Monday. Both economists are American. Mr. Hall, 83, is an economics professor at Stanford and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. Mr. Woodford, 70, is an economics professor at Columbia.
Ever since John Maynard Keynes's 1936 classic, “The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money,” which essentially established macroeconomics, economists have debated how governments should stabilize an economy. Keynes believed that during high unemployment, the government should increase aggregate demand for goods and services by temporarily increasing government spending or temporarily decreasing taxes. Keynes also believed that if people’s income increased, they would spend a certain percentage of that increase. Thus, consumer spending could pull an economy out of a recession. Later economists, including 1976 Nobel laureate Milton Friedman, found problems with Keynes's simplistic idea. Mr. Hall built on Friedman's insight.
In his 1957 book, “A Theory of the Consumption Function,” Friedman argued that people wouldn’t base their consumption solely on current income but would instead consume according to what he called “permanent income”—their expectations of future income. Because a temporary cut in taxes wouldn’t have much effect on permanent or long-term income, Friedman argued, such a tax cut wouldn’t increase consumer spending by more than a small percentage of the tax cut.
In a 1978 paper in the Journal of Political Economy, Mr. Hall took the next step. He argued that consumption depends on the expectations of future income, making it hard to predict consumption using past data. This was evidence for Mr. Hall's view that consumers are forward-looking. By definition, people's expectations about the future aren't captured by current data.
In 1982, Mr. Hall and co-author Frederic Mishkin helped pioneer
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Michael Woodford's main contributions were on monetary policy. His 2003 book, “Interest and Prices,” has been called a bible for central bankers. Keynesians, up to and including 1970 Nobel laureate Paul Samuelson, argued that mone-
Among Mr. Hall's most important works is his 1985 book, “The Flat Tax,” written with Alvin Rabushka. Messrs. Hall and Rabushka made a strong case for replacing the current income tax with a flat rate and showed that it would be much less distortionary and more pro-growth than our current tax system.
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the use of household-level consumption data, rather than solely aggregate data, to study what the Nobel committee calls “the rational-expectations, permanent-income hypothesis.” They found that 20% of households lived “hand to mouth,” but that the consumption behavior of the other 80% was consistent with their forward-looking hypothesis.
DOW JONES | News Corp tary policy was ineffective at lifting economies from recessions. Friedman, on his own and with co-author Anna J. Schwartz, showed that monetary policy, for good and ill, was quite effective. Friedman had
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Michael Woodford and Robert E. Hall built on Milton Friedman's critique of John Maynard Keynes.
focused on the money supply. Mr. Woodford showed how the Federal Reserve could affect the economy by targeting the federal-funds rate. As Hoover economist John Cochrane notes, the Taylor rule, named for economist John Taylor, is central to the framework Mr. Woodford developed. According to that rule, to reduce inflation, the Fed should aggressively raise interest rates.
The Nobel committee said the prize was awarded for “demonstrating how economic models could be reconstructed to revitalise stabilisation policy.” That leaves out two important points. First, Mr. Hall’s work on consumption shows that using Keynesian fiscal policy wouldn’t work. Second, the work of both Messrs. Hall and Woodford shows how government policy, especially monetary policy, has at times erred and caused instability. The Nobel committee has an unfortunate tendency to attribute implicitly almost all problems of unstable economies to the economies themselves and almost none of the problems to bad government policy. Fortunately, the work of this year’s winners offsets this tendency.
Mr. Henderson is a research fellow with the Stanford University's Hoover Institution and editor of the Concise Encyclopedia of Economics.
Ritual Offers What Medicine Can't
By Maria Balhara
The mother and father stayed close to their child's hospital bed while family members stood quietly nearby. The child wouldn't recover.
How does a parent say goodbye to a child? Who remains present when medicine reaches its limits? Hospitals are filled with people confronting these questions. Clinicians pause silently after deaths. Chaplains perform emergency baptisms in neonatal intensive-care units. Nurses preserve handprints and footprints for grieving families. Music is played at bedsides during extubations. Care teams gather quietly outside rooms before difficult conversations.
I have come to realize that many of these practices share features traditionally associated with ritual: symbolic action, repetition and the marking of transitions often involving uncertainty, vulnerability or death.
Calling these practices rituals can feel strange in modern medicine, a field grounded in science and technical expertise. But the effects of severe illness on patients and their loved ones isn't merely physical. Consider the parent who must navigate uncertainty and anticipatory grief while making decisions for a sick child who can't speak.
Ritualized practices help patients, families and clinicians acknowledge realities that are emotionally and morally significant but difficult to express.
As a chaplaincy trainee, I entered the hospital expecting to encounter ritual in overtly religious settings. I found it woven into ordinary clinical life. Even people who wouldn't describe themselves as religious were among the practitioners.
A physician sitting down to talk at a patient's eye level before delivering devastating news. A nurse calling for the spiritual care team to visit quietly with the mother of a dying child. These rituals won't end disease or suffering, but they aren't trivial. They communicate gravity, respect and the recognition of shared human vulnerability.
Such practices allow clinicians to acknowledge the emotional and moral pressures of their work. In this sense, ritual doesn't exist outside medicine but is essential to humanity in medical practice.
Ms. Balhara is a philosophy major at the University of Pennsylvania and a student chaplain at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.
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Top 10 Tom Cruise films by worldwide box office gross | Film Title | Gross (in $ billion) | Top Gun: Maverick | Mission: Impossible - Fallout | Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol | Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation | Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning | War of the Worlds | Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One | Mission: Impossible II | Mission: Impossible | The Last Samurai | # BUSINESS & FINANCE
Various holdings, previously seen as bad investments, draw new interest
BY ALEXANDER OSIPOVICH
A bitcoin-mining business that appeared left for dead after the collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried's crypto empire is being resuscitated to serve the artificial-intelligence build-out.
The business, previously known as Genesis Digital Assets, had been snarled for years in the FTX bankruptcy process. It was taken over this summer by SWI Group, a digital-infrastructure company that has been buying up data centers in the U.S. and Europe to serve AI companies hungry for computing power.
SWI announced Monday that it has raised €800 million, or around \$900 million, to fund the upgrading and expansion of its data centers. Shares of the Amsterdam-listed, Singapore-incorporated company rose 16% after the deal was announced, giving it a market capitalization of around \$6.9 billion.
“We need capital to deploy more compute,” said Max-Hervé George, co-founder and chief executive of SWI. He added that he had “zero interest” in bitcoin mining.
What his firm is interested in: the data centers in Texas, North Carolina, South Carolina and Sweden it bought with Genesis Digital. SWI hopes to put them at the service of the so-called hyperscalers—cloud-computing providers such as Amazon Web Services or Google Cloud, which provide much of the computing firepower behind ChatGPT and similar AI tools.
While Genesis Digital originally focused on bitcoin mining in Kazakhstan, it later pulled back from the central Asian country. SWI is in the process of selling its last remaining assets in Kazakhstan, a group of three small bitcoin-mining sites, George said.
Bitcoin mining involves running programs to solve complex mathematical equations to generate new units of the digital currency. Originally done by enthusiasts on their personal computers, it eventually grew into a big business, with companies amassing racks of Nvidia chips to mine bitcoin on an industrial scale.
Many of those companies have lately pivoted to AI, which promises more lucrative returns.
George, a 37-year-old French entrepreneur, started out investing in distressed real-estate properties before pivoting to data centers.
But few assets he has tackled have as thorny a history as
Genesis Digital.
Founded in 2017 by a group of German and Kazakh entrepreneurs, it grew into one of the world's largest bitcoin miners.
Bankman-Fried got involved starting in 2021. He ultimately invested more than \$1 billion in Genesis Digital through his cryptocurrency trading firm, Alameda Research, which ended up with a 20% stake in the company. Alameda was closely intertwined with FTX.
By the time FTX filed for bankruptcy in November 2022, Genesis Digital was struggling with a deep slump in bitcoin prices and hostility in Kazakh-Please turn to page B2
‘Digger’ Misfire Upends Cruise’s Oscar Hunt
BY JOHN JURGENSEN
AND ESTHER ZUCKERMAN
The high-concept satire sold just \$8 million of domestic tickets in its opening weekend against its \$125 million cost.
In June, the first glimpse of Tom Cruise's newest movie appeared with a surprising prologue—a highlight reel spanning his entire career.
It was a 2½-minute show-case of the range and charisma of the world's biggest movie star, building to a line from a “Mission: Impossible” movie: “Everything you’ve done has come to this.”
Cut to Cruise as a bombastic oil baron in “Digger,” encased in prosthetics, sounding off with a Texas drawl and firing a finger gun. One of the top comments on YouTube: “my man is coming for the Oscar.”
Then “Digger” landed with a thud.
The high-concept satire from writer-director Alejandro González Iñárritu, which cost about \$125 million to make, sold just \$8 million worth of tickets at more than 3,300 domestic theaters its opening weekend.
That unleashed the kind of “bomb” and “flop” headlines that haven’t haunted a Cruise release since “The Mummy” in 2017. It also put what had seemed like an inevitable run to the Academy Awards in question—and made that celebratory career montage look premature.
“That’s when it felt like they were trying too hard to get Tom a nomination,” said Hollywood marketing veteran Dennis Rice, who worked with Cruise when the actor helped revive the United Artists studio in the 2000s.
Cruise holds a Guinness World Record for most consecutive \$100 million-grossing movies by an actor (11). He has executed movie stunts other actors would never consider. He is frequently referred to as "the last movie star." Hoisting that golden trophy for his acting is one of the only Hollywood milestones that Cruise has yet to achieve.
"It's his Everest," said Jeff Benedict, author of a forthcoming biography of the star.
Cruise has three acting nominations: for playing a firebrand, wheelchair-using Vietnam War vet in “Born on the Fourth of July” (1989), a gung-ho sports agent in “Jerry Maguire” (1996), and a motivational guru in “Magnolia” (1999). He also received a best picture nod as a producer of “Top Gun: Maverick” (2022).
Yet the only Oscar actually in his possession is an honorary one for his 45-year career. "Making films is not what I do," he said in accepting it last year, "it is who I am."
Though he devoted the 2020s to spectacle, Cruise has demonstrated his range as a serious, awards-worthy actor since the 1980s, when he took roles supporting Paul Newman in “The Color of Money” and Dustin Hoffman in “Rain Man.” (Both leading actors walked away with Oscars for their performances.)
Later came his psychosexual turn in “Eyes Wide Shut” by revered director Stanley Kubrick; a leap into pure comedy, bald cap and all, in “Tropic Thunder,” and steely villainy in “Collateral,” among other performances that won him critical respect.
Yet the Academy never bought in. "I believe Tom's one of the greatest actors of our industry, but because he's also a commercial actor, he sometimes doesn't get the recogni-
Please turn to page B2
Source: Rentrak
Annuity Buyers Sue Walter Insurance Companies
BY HEATHER GILLERS
Lawsuits are piling up against Dodgers owner Mark Walter brought by senior citizens who bought annuities from his insurance companies.
A suit filed Monday is at least the third to allege Walter and his insurers sold annuities based on misrepresentations and false promises. The suits, brought by class-action lawyers seeking to represent a larger group of policyholders, come after two of Walter's insurers disclosed in June that they were under federal investigation for failing to report how much of their portfolio was deployed as loans to other companies connected to Walter's sports-and-financial empire.
Rick Phillips, a Los Angeles-area retiree, filed suit on Monday asking policyholders at two Walter insurers, Clear Spring and Gainbridge, be let out of their annuity contracts without penalty or reimbursed for the difference between what they paid and cheaper price the companies might have had to accept had they been upfront about the extent of their affiliated investments.
Annuities were designed to appeal to older people who live on fixed incomes and have little appetite for risk. Indexed annuities, which offer policyholders the potential for stock-market-like gains, surged in popularity over the past decade, helping fuel the private lending of alternative asset managers.
On Wednesday, Robert Kalinsky, a 76-year-old Davie, Fla., resident, filed a separate lawsuit against Clear Spring and another Walter insurer, Delaware Life, also for misrepresenting the extent of their affiliated assets. Another Delaware Life annuity policyholder, Ira Rosner, filed his own lawsuit last month.
Walter's conglomerate, TWG Global, has said there was no fraud at either his Wall Street firm Guggenheim Partners or at his insurers.
A spokesman for the insurers' parent, Group 1001, said the firm is aware of recent lawsuits. "No court has ruled that Group 1001 Insurance or Delaware Life Insurance Company did anything wrong, and we intend to defend the case vigorously, consistent with our long track record of serving policyholders with integrity," the firm said.
Delaware Life and Clear Spring disclosed in June that they had dramatically understated their share of so-called Please turn to page B2
A Credit-Score Shift Shakes Up Mortgages
BY JASMINE LI
AND ANNAMARIA ANDRIOTIS
FICO credit scores played a critical role in determining homeownership for many Americans for decades. Now the mortgage industry is embracing another metric.
Regulators and lenders recently opened the door to using VantageScore, a joint venture by credit-reporting firms Equifax, Experian and TransUnion, for their mortgage-underwriting decisions. It is the latest chapter in the Federal Housing Finance Agency's crusade against Fair Isaac's near-monopoly over the \$13 trillion mortgage market—one that sent the company's stock down about 60% this year.
The FHFA is the overseer of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which backstop much of the market and therefore set the standards for home lending. FHFA chief Bill Pulte and President Trump have been trying to lower mortgage costs and increase home affordability,
SZWARC HENRI/ABACA/ZUMA PRESS
combating mortgage rates that have climbed to their highest levels in years just before the midterm elections. The administration says the credit-score change will make it easier and cheaper to get a mortgage.
Pulte has more in store for the industries, including changing longstanding requirements around credit reports, according to a person familiar with the matter.
“We do not care who wins,” Pulte said on X in late September. “We just want [FICO] and Vantage to compete—not be a cartel or abusive monopolies.”
Making home-buying more affordable is a monumental task filled with potential pitfalls and unintended consequences. So far, the market is seeing the score changes as increasing risk, and there are early indications that it is leading to higher rates on some mortgages.
The FHFA, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac all said in statements that the changes would modernize the credit-scoring Please turn to page B2
AUTOS
Technology-loaded
Chinese cars are
powering the Paris
Motor Show. B3
TECHNOLOGY
Dating app company
Bumble is in talks to go
private in a deal valuing
it at \$1 billion. B4
Albertsons Wants Kroger to Pay \$8 Billion After Failed Merger
Share-price performance, past five years
BY PATRICK THOMAS
Supermarket chain Albertsons wants its top rival Kroger to pay it at least \$8 billion after their grocery megadeal imploded two years ago.
Albertsons is accusing Kroger leaders of making “lowball offers” to federal regulators to largely keep the most-profitable stores in the combined company, and hive off the weaker-performing ones, according to a court filing unsealed Monday.
The filing is part of Albertsons' lawsuit against Kroger in Delaware Chancery Court following the companies' failed deal. A bench trial is slated to begin Oct. 19 and the proceeding is expected to last about two weeks.
Albertsons said it is seeking lost merger premiums and interest totaling as much as \$9.3 billion. The amount includes a \$600 million breakup fee that Kroger
Source: FactSet
hasn't paid.
Kroger said Albertsons' arguments are "fatally flawed" and that both companies knew the deal faced high regulatory scrutiny. "There was nothing Kroger could have done that would have made a difference," the company said in a court filing.
The trial reflects the journey that Kroger and Albertsons have taken from industry rivals to potential merger partners to competitors again over four years.
Since the deal fell apart, both companies have struggled. Grocers are reeling from rising costs, while cash-strapped shoppers cut back Please turn to page B2
---
INDEX TO BUSINESSES
These indexes cite notable references to most parent companies and businesspeople in today's edition. Articles on regional page inserts aren't cited in these indexes.
A
Airbnb B10
Albertsons B1
Amazon.com A11,B2,B10
American Airlines A11
B
Beyond Meat B4
Blackstone B4
Booking B10
Bumble B4
BYD B3
C
Chery Automobile B3
D
Delta Air Lines A11
E
Equifax B1
Expedia B10
Experian B1
F
Fair Isaac B1
Ford Motor B3
G
Geely Automobile B3
Getty Images.....B4
Guangzhou Automobile...B3
H
Hermès.....B5
Hilton Worldwide.....B10
I
IonQ.....B5
K
Kering.....B5
Keurig Dr Pepper.....B4
Kroger.....B1
L
Li Auto.....B3
Lucid.....B3
LVMH.....B5
Lyft.....A3
M
Marriott.....B10
Match.....B4
Meta Platforms.....B3,B10
N
Nvidia.....B1
R
Rocket.....B2
A
Antonio, William.....A10
B
Banfield, Bill.....B2
Bankman-Fried, Sam.....B1
Bernard, Adam.....B3
Brown, Ethan.....B4
Buchta, Scott.....B2
C
Cabanis, Cecile.....B5
Chesky, Brian.....B10
Clarke, Richard.....B10
D
Dacus, Stephen.....B4
F
Foran, Greg.....B2
G
---
INDEX TO PEOPLE
S
SAIC Motor.....B3
Seres.....B3
Seven & i.....B4
Southwest Airlines.....A11
SpaceX.....A3
Stellantis.....B3
SWI.....B1
T
Tesla.....B3
TransUnion.....B1
U
Uber Technologies.....A3
United Airlines.....A11
UWM.....B2
V
Volkswagen.....B3
W
Walmart.....B2
X
XPeng.....B3
Z
Zhejiang Leapmotor Technology.....B3
Gawrelski, Ken.....B10
George, Max-Hervé.....B1
Gupta, Ravi.....B4
H
Hall, Robert E.....A2
Hegeman, John.....B4
Hunt, Hunter.....A10
K
Kang, Clifford.....B3
L
Leyva, Mauricio.....B4
M
Marshall, John.....A2
Masi, Niccolo de.....B5
Mazzola, Joe.....A2
Miller, Andrew.....A10
Musk, Elon.....A3
N
Nan, Alex.....B3
S
Seiberg, Jaret.....B2
Smith, Desmond P.....B2
U
Ulzheimer, John.....B2
W
Walter, Mark.....B1
Wang, Alexandr.....B3
Weiss, Emily.....B4
Winebrenner, James.....B5
Wolfe Herd, Whitney.....B4
Woodford, Michael.....A2
X
Xiaopeng, He.....B3
Z
Zuckerberg, Mark.....B3
Zyciora, Klaus.....B3
Annuity Buyers Sue Insurers
Continued from page B1
Continued from page 81 affiliated assets in their first-quarter filings. When the two insurers restated those figures, the share of their holdings parked in affiliated investments rose from single-digit percentages to $59\%$ at Clear Spring and $42\%$ at Delaware Life, according to Wall Street Journal calculations based on state insurance filings. The firms said they discovered the extent of their affiliated investments after coming under investigation by federal prosecutors in New York and the Securities and Exchange Commission. Gainbridge said in its filing that it was cooperating with investigators in the probe.
Affiliated holdings can refer to money lent to connected companies or investments sold by them but backed by other borrowers. The money parked in those investments at Delaware Life and Clear Spring represents the savings of hundreds of thousands of Americans, including Phillips and Kalinsky. Group 1001 Insurance, the parent for all three insurers, said it had nearly 500,000 active annuity contracts as of year-end 2024.
Rosner bought his annuity after Delaware Life received a subpoena from federal prosecutors but before the insurer disclosed that it was under investigation, according to the suit, and when he learned about the probe, he cashed out early, paying a penalty for doing so. Kalinsky surrendered one of his annuities and continued to hold on to the other two. Both suits were filed in the Southern District of Florida by a Boca Raton, Fla., firm, Robbins, Geller, Rudman and Dowd.
Phillips owns one annuity from Clear Spring and multiple annuities from Gainbridge. He was featured in a Wall Street Journal article about annuitants who hold policies from Walter's insurers. The attorney filing the case, George Zelcs of St. Louis-based Korein Tillery, reached out to Phillips after reading about him in the Journal and filed the case in the Southern District of Indiana where Clear Spring has offices.
This isn't the first time Mark Walter and his companies faced legal complaints from those who bought his annuities. In 2014, two policyholders brought a class-action lawsuit against Guggenheim Partners, where he is chief executive, and several affiliated insurers. They accused Guggenheim of turning the insurers into “a cash machine” that used policyholder money to buy the Dodgers.
Cruise's Oscar Hunt Takes a Hit
Continued from page B1
tion he deserves," Rice said.
Over the past decade, however, Cruise has hit something like exalted status, not just for being a movie star with longevity at 64 but for being such a booster for the theatrical experience itself, especially around the time “Top Gun: Maverick” helped bring people back into theaters following the pandemic shutdown.
“Digger” doesn’t go down easy as Oscar bait. Cruise’s tycoon character spins the narrative around global cataclysm caused by his drilling, wrapping comedy around the film’s doom and gloom message about the climate crisis. The movie also hinges on a major twist that Warner Bros. worked to keep secret, making it challenging to discuss Cruise’s performance in full.
“I think he chose the riskiest project you could,” said Amy Nicholson, a film critic and author of a book on
Cruise. “If there’s one genre that always seems to struggle in the year that it’s released, it’s a pointed contemporary climate change satire.”
In a counteroffensive to the many negative reviews for the film, Warner Bros. created ads that juxtaposed critics' takes ("magnificent," "insufferable") as a way to draw out potential ticket buyers with the message, "Decide for yourself." Warner Bros. didn't respond to a request for comment.
The movie has its defenders, plus a growing number of celebrity champions, from Jane Fonda to Mandy Patinkin. Anne Hathaway, Cruise's costar on the coming sequel to 1990's "Days of Thunder," posted "loved this brilliant movie" on the film-centric social media app Letterboxd, giving "Digger" five stars.
It's the kind of Hollywood support that implies an Oscar nomination is still on the table, even if the possibility of a win seems more difficult now.
He faces stiff competition in the best actor race that includes Matt Damon for “The Odyssey,” which premiered over the summer, as well as forthcoming contenders John Malkovich for “Wild Horse Nine” and Andrew Scott for “Elsinore.”
FTX Assets Are Drawing New Interest
Continued from page B1
stan, where the local government had soured on bitcoin miners over their heavy use of electricity.
Genesis Digital was “one of Bankman-Fried’s most reckless investments,” the team managing FTX’s bankruptcy said in a lawsuit filed against the bitcoin-mining company last year, seeking to claw back the \$1.15 billion that Alameda had spent.
Max-Hervé George, chief executive of SWI Group.
The FTX administrators argued that Genesis Digital's assets in Kazakhstan were "virtually worthless," while its U.S. assets were "worth only a fraction of what Bankman-Fried paid."
FTX dropped its lawsuit on June 15. That same day, SWI announced it had spent \$500 million on a major stake in Genesis Digital. Since then, it has expanded its stake to become the company's majority owner.
All the legal disputes relating to FTX and other shareholders have been settled, George said.
Bankman-Fried is serving a 25-year prison sentence after being convicted of fraud.
Today, some of his investments appear better in hindsight than they did when FTX failed and prosecutors accused him of misappropriating billions of dollars in customer funds to go on a huge spending spree.
Notably, he invested \$500 million in Anthropic in 2021, giving FTX a stake of 7.8% in the startup before the AI boom turned it into a household name.
The FTX bankruptcy estate sold its stake in Anthropic for \$1.3 billion in 2024. Based on the AI company's last valuation, that stake would now be worth about \$75 billion.
Albertsons Seeks \$8 Billion
Continued from page B1 on their habits and flock to rival discount stores.
On Monday, Kroger said it is planning to cut 3,000 employees over the next three years, reducing its total corporate workforce by more than a third. Chief Executive Greg Foran said in a note to employees that Kroger is using new technology, including artificial intelligence, to do more with fewer people. "Our company has more layers, more handoffs and more overhead than we need," he said.
A Phoenix Albertsons store. The grocer's proposed merger with Kroger collapsed in 2024.
Shares in Albertsons are down about 30% over the past 12 months, bringing its market value to around \$6 billion.
Kroger in 2022 agreed to buy Albertsons for \$20 billion, uniting the No. 1 and No. 2 U.S. supermarket chains by store count. The combined company would have nearly 5,000 stores under Kroger banners including Fred Meyer, Roundy's and Mariano's with the owner of Safeway, Vons and Jewel-Osco.
The goal was to create a bigger grocery competitor to megaretailers such as Walmart and Amazon and discount grocers like Aldi, which have the scale and buying power to undercut supermarket shelf prices.
To ease concerns about the deal, the companies offered to sell hundreds of stores to grocery distributor C&S Wholesale Grocers. The Federal Trade Commission sued in 2024 to block the deal, claiming that reduced competition would raise grocery prices.
A Portland, Ore., federal court judge later blocked the deal on antitrust grounds. The day after the ruling, Albertsons sued its former deal partner, alleging Kroger didn't do enough to secure regulatory approval. Kroger has said Albertsons isn't owed a breakup fee.
A Portland, Ore., federal court judge later blocked the deal on antitrust grounds. The day after the ruling, Albertsons sued its former deal partner, alleging Kroger didn't do enough to secure regulatory approval. Kroger has called Albertsons' claims baseless and said that the company isn't owed the breakup fee.
Both companies have about \$1 billion each on deal-related costs, including lawyer and consulting fees.
In its court filing, Albertsons said Kroger leadership gave priority to keeping stores that would help it hit specific financial targets once it completed its deal to acquire Albertsons' more than 2,000 stores. It pointed to a \$400 million bonus pool that then-CEO Rodney McMullen established for executives based on profit targets after the deal closed.
Credit-Score Shift Shakes Mortgages
Kroger said that its divestment proposals were economically sound and had strong economic incentives to close the deal, according to court documents. It also said Albertsons developed a “Plan B” to sue if the merger failed to close.
Continued from page B1
system, making it more predictive, and create a safer and sounder market.
The changes have been brewing for the past year but kicked into gear last month when Pulte directed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to approve all lenders to use VantageScore 4.0. The mortgage-lending industry, which is dominated by nonbanks, got on board quickly. Rocket Mortgage, the nation's largest lender, said die charge based on borrowers' credit score and loan size compared with the value of the house they are financing.
The administration is now adding VantageScore to the equation. One iteration, released in early September, treated the scores as different. For instance, a 720 VantageScore should be thought of as a 700 FICO, the grid showed.
Then at the end of September, Pulte erased that differential. He said there would be one set of pricing grids that treat FICO and VantageScore equally. "We are Simplifying Mortgage Pricing following feedback from lenders and consumers," he wrote on X.
It was akin to waving a magic wand and allows the lenders to choose the highest score available.
tember that pulled both scores. On the mortgages that Rocket originated, VantageScore 4.0 ran 11 to 12 points higher than FICO Classic on average, he said. "What that meant, in the most simplest terms, was that the vast majority of people got the same price or a slightly better price by using VantageScore," he said.
Mortgage-bond investors who buy bonds from Fannie
So far, the market isn't treating the scores as equal.
and Freddie are worried about their own models and “if they are being compensated for risk,” said Scott Buchta, head of fixed-income strategy at investment bank Brean Capital.
An analysis by Milliman found that during the pilot period, borrowers with similar credit-score ranges were charged a higher rate—up to 0.2 percentage point more—when their loans were originated using VantageScore instead of FICO.
The changes were brewing for the past year but kicked into gear last month.
it would use VantageScore as its preferred scoring model over FICO. United Wholesale Mortgage said it would pull both scores and use the higher one. And PennyMac said it deployed VantageScore across tageScore across its businesses.
"We want to give our brokers, and therefore our consumers, the ability to get the best of whatever is available to them," said Desmond P. Smith, chief growth officer at UWM.
Nearly \$4 billion of Fannie and Freddie mortgages were originated with VantageScore 4.0 in August, when some lenders were piloting the new score, up from \$8 million in April, according to an analysis by consulting firm Milliman.
Roughly 3% of the \$400 billion that Fannie and Freddie sold into securitizations in the six months through September was tied to VantageScore, up from essentially zero, according to trade publication Inside Mortgage Finance.
At the core of the change are pricing grids meant to assess risk that Fannie and Freddie rolled out during the 2008 housing crisis. The grids determine the fees Fannie and Fred-
FICO and VantageScore credit scores are crunched off different algorithms and with different data. In general, the FICO score that has long been used for Fannie and Freddie is a tougher bar for consumers to clear. For example, it requires that consumers have a lengthier credit history—about six months—than the VantageScore version.
“I question whether or not Pulte knows what he’s doing,” said John Alzheimer, who has worked for FICO and VantageScore. “It’s like Fahrenheit and Celsius—to some extent you’re never going to have the same output.”
A 20-point drop in a FICO score increases the chances of default by 40% to 50%, according to FICO.
“If one believes the prior grids accurately measured risk, then this means Fannie and Freddie are taking on more risk with each VantageScore loan without being compensated,” TD Cowen analyst Jaret Seiberg wrote in a report.
Bill Banfield, chief business officer at Rocket, said the company ran 1.4 million credit reports from May through Sep-
Simplicity. Security. Stability.
Annuities for people who value principal protection, predictable outcomes and straight talk.
ManhattanLife, Standing By You. Since 1850.
Meta Says New AI Model to Boost Agent
Muse Wonder comes as downloads slow for Muse, company's personal assistant
BY MEGHAN BOBROWSKY
Meta Platforms released a new artificial-intelligence model on Monday it says vaults the company to the AI frontier, a goal it established last year when it created Meta
Superintelligence Labs.
One important test of the model, called Muse Wonder, will be how much it can improve retention and accelerate adoption of Muse, the company's new personal-assistant agent introduced last month.
Muse has amassed nearly nine million global downloads since its release. But downloads have started to slow and its retention lags behind that of ChatGPT after 14 days, Sensor Tower data shows.
"Some people have a pretty clear sense of what they want to use the product for or how it can improve their lives," Alexandr Wang, Meta's AI chief, said in an interview. "Other folks who maybe are less familiar with AI or agents may not understand that, and for them, I think it's more of a hurdle to get on board."
The new model, which Meta says performs better than OpenAI's Astra and Anthropic's Fable on several tests, will soon power Muse for subscribers of both the \$20 a month and \$100 a month tiers. It includes better memory, better focus to help users tackle challenging goals, and more expertise in the health, finance and legal fields, Meta said.
“We think it is competitive as a frontier model with the very best models that are out there,” Wang said. “But in addition to that, it also is specifically the very best model for personal and professional agents and will be the best model to power an experience like Muse."
Meta's stock climbed $3\%$ on Monday.
Meta overhauled its AI efforts in spring 2025 after the disappointing launch of its then-latest model, Llama 4. Meta Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg hired Wang from Scale AI to lead the effort at newly created Meta Superintelligence Labs with a vision of providing so-called “personal superintelligence" to its billions of users. That goal has emerged in the form of Muse, which Zuckerberg said last month is the "centerpiece" of what the company is building.
OpenAI released Dots, a competing AI agent, at its annual developer conference nearly two weeks ago. Google offers an agent called Gemini Spark, and startup Instinct has also launched its own buzzy agent that has emerged as the main competitor to Muse so far.
The China Passenger Car Association attributed the weakness to shrinking demand for autos powered by traditional fuels.
China's Monthly Auto Sales Fall 28%
BY JIAHUI HUANG
China's monthly auto sales weakened yet again in September, with the traditional peak season failing to bring cheer.
Retail sales of passenger cars fell 28% in September from a year earlier to 1.62 million units, the China Passenger Car Association said Monday. Sales rose 5% compared with August.
After 12 consecutive months of declines, the country failed to report a recovery in sales in September, the start of the traditional peak season.
The association attributed the weakness to shrinking demand for cars powered by traditional fuels, as high oil prices and overall weak consumption sentiment in China damped consumer sentiment.
Higher memory-chip costs also are slowing the pace of new vehicle launches in China, weighing on overall sales, the CPCA added.
After years of rapid expansion and strong sales a year earlier, China's auto market has been going through a slow period with some early signs of consolidation.
Last month, Guangzhou Automobile Group said it would acquire a 50% stake in FAW Toyota from FAW Group. Geely and NIO also reached a battery swapping and charging partnership.
Sales of new-energy vehicles, which comprise electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids, as well as exports have become the major themes in China's auto market.
NEV cars accounted for a record 67% of total car sales in September, the agency said. However, retail sales of new-energy cars fell 17% to 1.08 million units in September.
To offset slowing demand in China's market, many Chinese automakers have turned to overseas markets for growth.
In September, exports of China's NEVs more than doubled again. Exports of passenger cars rose $74\%$ to 917,000 units last month, CPCA data showed.
In September, Tesla exported 30,529 units made at its Shanghai plant and sold 95,366 units.
The CPCA doesn't expect a strong recovery in China's auto sales in October. The overall consumption sentiment remains weak for Chinese residents, and they tend to remain on the sidelines instead of making purchase decisions amid price wars among Chinese automakers. Demographic changes and high oil prices also could hurt sales.
Exports also are expected to slow because of trade pressure in the European Union, the agency said.
VW Deliveries Fall on Lingering China Weakness
BY DOMINIC CHOPPING and range-extender models, it said.
Volkswagen Group vehicle deliveries fell in the third quarter as the German automaker continued to suffer from a deteriorating market in China.
includes VW, Porsche, said Monday that group vehicle deliveries fell 14% on year to 1.89 million.
The company, which houses a stable of brands that includes VW, Audi and
"The Volkswagen Group was unable to escape the significant decline in the Chinese total market,
Deliveries in China fell 39% in the quarter to 405,800 vehicles.
particularly in the combustion-engine vehicle business," it said.
Deliveries in China fell $39\%$ in the quarter to 405,800 vehicles, despite increasing demand for the company's second-generation plug-in hybrid
\*Excludes China
The company saw deliveries drop across all of its regions except Central and Eastern Europe, with Western Europe deliveries falling 2.8% and North America deliveries dropping 5.8%.
Globally, deliveries of the group's all-electric vehicles
fell 4.7% on year to 240,200, with Europe the only region showing growth.
"In our home market, we are seeing a significantly accelerated trend towards all-electric ve-"
hicles," said Martin Sander, member of the group's extended executive committee for sales. "The main reasons for this are the currently high fuel prices and the wider range of entry-level models."
Source: the company
The Paris Motor Show Is Now Being Powered by Chinese Cars
BYD executive vice president Stella Li and Stellantis vice president John Elkann at the Paris Motor Show on Monday.
BY STEPHEN WILMOT
AND RYAN FELTON
PARIS—Li Auto, a Beijing-based luxury carmaker, used this city's auto show to show off a car with massage seats at the front, a 21-inch screen for passengers in the back and a unit in the central console that can keep your energy drink cool or your coffee warm.
Meanwhile, BYD, the world's bestselling electric-vehicle brand, took the veil off an SUV for Europe that can fill up much of a battery in five minutes.
And not to be outdone, XPeng touted a test of autonomous-driving technology it conducted around the Arc de Triomphe, the 19th century monument commissioned by Napoleon Bonaparte on the Champs-Elysées. The vehicle, an SUV outfitted with tech that was supervised by a driver, was up for the task, Chief Executive He Xiaopeng said at an event Sunday.
Welcome to the Paris Motor Show—though, this year, one could be forgiven for mistaking it for a China auto show. In total, around 20 Chinese vehicle brands had stands, representing one-third of all brands here. That is second to Europe and up from nine when the show last took place two years ago.
Three American brands were represented: Tesla, Ford Motor and Lucid.
The Chinese automakers helped make Europe's biggest car show much more buzzy than its U.S. counterparts. Unlike recent events in Detroit and Los Angeles, the Paris show consistently had throngs of attendees crowded around stages to witness the debut of new vehicles. Carmakers held news conferences back-to-back, sometimes overlapping, as Chinese executives played up their plans to increase manufacturing in Europe.
“They are looking to not only sell here, but be perceived as good citizens,” said Adam Bernard, a U.S.-based automotive consultant.
Chinese automakers are accelerating their sales across Europe by offering vehicles packed with high-end features at competitive prices. They accounted for 11.3% of all sales in the year through August, up from 7.1% in the same period of last year.
The shift is among the reasons for a wave of job cuts among European automakers, alarming political leaders and accelerating negotiations between Brussels and Beijing.
On Friday, the European Union and China reached a deal that the bloc said could halve its imports of Chinese hybrid vehicles. The EU will impose an annual quota of 350,000 units in the first year, EU officials said Monday, adding that the amount can increase by 6% in each of the following three years.
French President Emmanuel Macron personally sought to inject a dose of European flair into the show. Macron admired a prototype all-electric version of Citroen's 2CV model, a classic of the French company and a fixture of European streets in the postwar era. Like other long-established European car-makers, Stellantis, which owns Citroën, is leaning in to its 20th century heritage in response to the wave of 21st century startups from China.
So far, brands owned by five companies account for most of Chinese imports into Europe: BYD, Chery, SAIC, Geely and
Leapmotor, which is expanding through a joint venture with Jeep owner Stellantis.
State-owned Changan, China's fourth-largest automaker, is following their lead. It has a target of selling 1.5 million vehicles outside China by 2030, more than twice last year's total. The company said it hoped to sell 100,000 vehicles in Europe next year, up from a target of 30,000 in 2026.
“We aim high,” said Klaus Zyciora, Changan’s global executive adviser.
Chinese carmakers also are trying to edge out European brands in their closely guarded luxury market. The Aito brand made by Seres Group announced that it would launch in Europe in the fall of 2027.
“Chinese companies are known for their cost efficiency. Convincing customers that we can also do luxury will take time. But we will get there,” said Clifford Kang, a Seres board member.
Chinese cars are essentially shut out of the U.S. by high tariffs and software restrictions, but President Trump last month repeated comments that he would welcome them if they were locally built, alarming Detroit. Congress is debating a legislative ban of Chinese cars.
John Bozzella, president of the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, the top U.S. car-industry group, said: “Europe is a cautionary tale for the U.S. What American policymakers are trying to do is address the issue up front.”
Chinese cars got their foot-hold in Europe partly by exploiting an inadvertent loophole created in Brussels. Officials in 2024 excluded plugin hybrids from additional European Union tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles. Chinese brands pivoted to selling those models and have since seized a disproportionate market share of a vehicle type that has emerged as a sweet spot for consumers looking for fuel economy without compromises.
European nations are hesitant to totally shut off China from its market, fearing retaliatory measures by Beijing. The continent relies on exports much more heavily than the U.S.
“I’ve got to make sure I’m protecting my export markets,” said U.K. Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds in a recent interview.
The U.K., like the EU, has been flooded with Chinese cars, including a model made by Chery's Jaecoo brand that became the bestselling vehicle in September.
Chinese companies are starting to localize production to avoid tariffs and smooth relations. “In Europe for Europe” was a slogan touted by many Chinese automakers at the show.
At a Sunday evening gala inside a floating art museum on the Seine River, industry executives mingled over drinks and a live jazz band while locals passed by on runs along the water. "For Geely, globalization is not a solo sprint," Alex Nan, vice president of Geely Auto, told the audience. "It is a marathon we run side by side with our partners."
EU Aims to Curb Chinese Hybrids
The European Union aims to curb a surge of Chinese hybrid cars being shipped to the bloc by capping imports from the country at 350,000 units a year, a senior EU official said after both sides made progress in trade talks earlier this month.
Under the plans, the EU will seek to curb Chinese hybrid and plug-in hybrid vehicle imports over the next four years, with the aim of more than halving China's projected shipments to the bloc, the official said Monday, adding that the safeguarding measure could take effect in early December.
The cap also will include a fixed annual increase limit of 6%.
The 27-member bloc imported roughly 107,000 hybrid cars from China in 2024 and around 302,000 in 2025, according to Eurostat data. The EU official said that figure could reach up to 800,000 units in 2026.
European officials are seeking to rebalance the 27-member bloc's relationship with China over concerns of a surge in cheaper imports from the country.
—Edith Hancock
Bumble in Advanced Talks to Go Private
Founder Wolfe Herd
expected to stay
involved with
company in deal
BY CARA LOMBARDO
Bumble, the dating-app company founded by Whitney Wolfe Herd, is in advanced talks to be taken private in a deal that values it at roughly \$1 billion, according to people familiar with the matter.
The buyer is Ithaca Holdings, a firm founded recently by two Silicon Valley executives, the people said. Bumble would be one of the first major moves for Ithaca, which plans to apply advanced technologies including artificial intelligence to its investments.
Bumble had a market value of around \$335 million as of Friday's close. Its shares have dropped over 90% since it went public in 2021.
Wolfe Herd founded Bumble in 2014 after having co-founded Match Group's Tinder. She is expected to roll at least part of her stake in the dating app as part of the deal and remain involved with the company, the people said.
Private-equity firm Blackstone was one of Bumble's early backers and bought a majority stake in 2019. It sold much of its stake down following Bumble's IPO but still owns a roughly $14\%$ stake, according to FactSet.
A deal could come as soon as this week, assuming talks don't fall apart.
When Wolfe Herd founded Bumble, she sought to turn the traditional dating dynamic on its head by creating a platform on which women initiate conversations. The idea created buzz, with the company's market value peaking at above \$14 billion following its IPO.
But Bumble and other dating-app companies including Match Group have struggled as younger users are increasingly turned off by online dating platforms. Wolfe Herd returned as Bumble's CEO in 2025, and a few months later the company laid off roughly $30\%$ of its staff.
At Match, increased revenue from dating app Hinge partly offset roughly flat revenue from Tinder, its largest app, in the second quarter.
At Bumble, meanwhile, both Bumble and Badoo, the company's other app, reported revenue drops. Both companies have been more deeply integrating AI into their businesses. In August, Bumble said it would drop its women-first messaging feature.
Ithaca, which says on its website its mission is to “use frontier technology to build products to meaningfully improve people’s lives,” was founded by Ravi Gupta and John Hegeman.
Gupta is a partner at venture-capital firm Sequoia Capital and the former chief financial officer of Instacart. Hegeman is a former executive of Meta, where he was most recently chief revenue officer.
PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
Whitney Wolfe Herd
7-Eleven's North American Boss Takes Cue From Japan
New boss thinks popular concepts in Japan can be a hit with U.S. and Canadian shoppers.
BY MEGUMI FUJIKAWA
AKIO KON/BLOOMBERG NEWS
The new head of 7-Eleven Inc. has a plan to revamp the famed convenience-store chain's image in North America: mirror what has worked in Japan.
By taking lessons from 7-Eleven's model in Japan, Mauricio Leyva bets he can refuel the brand's growth in the U.S.
“It’s something that I like to say we’re stealing with pride,” he said in an interview Friday.
Leyva, who became chief executive of the convenience-store giant's North American arm in August, thinks concepts that are popular in Japan can be a hit with shoppers in the U.S. and Canada, too.
"One of the things that we like most about Japan that I've personally experienced is this attention to detail and focus on quality—that is something that we need to enhance and do better in North America," he said.
Seven & i Holdings, the Japanese operator of 7-Eleven stores, has tasked the retailsector veteran with executing an ambitious overhaul involving modernizing stores, expanding private-label brands across North America, and scaling the 7NOW delivery platform.
Reflecting on his decades of experience in the consumer industry—most recently as group president of Keurig Dr Pepper—Leyva said he is focused on understanding customers better than his competitors, and delivering experiences that keep shoppers returning to 7-Eleven for everyday needs.
One example he cited from Japan's playbook is the creation of store staples that become iconic, such as 7-Eleven Japan's egg-salad sandwich. Leyva also highlighted extensive food variety and easy-to-open product packaging.
He expressed confidence that the retail group's “North Star” transformation strategy can succeed, despite headwinds such as inflation hitting consumers’ disposable income.
In second-quarter earnings released last Thursday, Seven & i reported strong profitability in its overseas convenience-store unit, as higher gasoline prices boosted its performance in North America.
Still, Leyva expects to see a shift in U.S. consumer behavior as living costs rise.
"The transactions happening at the store level are actually keeping up in frequency but not necessarily in the amount and ticket of the basket," he said. "Value and quality will continue being as important as it's been now, but even in an accelerated way."
In Friday's interview, Seven & i also gave an update on its plan to list 7-Eleven Inc., a move aimed at unlocking shareholder value and streamlining its business structure.
The company first announced the initial public offering in March last year, but has since pushed back the timeline due to unfavorable market conditions. It now expects a listing by fiscal 2027 at the earliest.
"The objective is not to do an IPO. The objective is to increase shareholder value," said Stephen Dacus, CEO of Seven & i.
Dacus noted that the environment for retail public offerings remains challenging due to the artificial-intelligence boom.
“A lot of the oxygen has been sucked out of that by AI. That’s where all the money’s going,” he said.
Management also must deliver sustained performance improvement under the transformation plan to give investors total confidence before tapping capital markets, Dacus added.
The planned IPO is also a defensive measure against hostile buyout attempts following a long-running \$47 billion takeover campaign by Circle K owner Alimentation Couche-Tard.
The Canadian retail conglomerate ultimately withdrew its offer over friction around valuation gaps and antitrust issues in the U.S., prompting Seven & i to focus on restructuring and a standalone North American IPO strategy.
A listing could pave the way for Seven & i to secure a higher valuation, closing the stock-price gap that made it an attractive target for foreign takeovers.
Supported by:
3 brand metrics
For more details of the winning campaigns, go to www.world-media-group.com/awards
Food Maker Beyond Eyes Revamp
Share price
BY PATRICK COFFEE
Beyond Meat has spent much of its history engaged in "a truly epic marketing battle" with the meat industry, according to founder and Chief Executive Officer Ethan Brown. Now the beleaguered food maker hopes marketing can power a turnaround.
It dropped “meat” from its brand name on its packaging in 2025, introduced products and brands outside its core meat alternatives last month, and is talking with marketing agencies about a new campaign and positioning to debut next year.
The company also has begun adding a new corporate name, Beyond the Plant Protein Company, to official communications such as news releases and earnings reports.
Brown acknowledged that Beyond's brand remains in recovery mode, a condition he attributes partly to yearslong efforts by groups affiliated with meat producers to label plant-based alternatives as heavily processed and unhealthy and partly to short sellers and prediction-market traders betting on the company's decline. A 2020 regional Super Bowl ad depicted a child at a spelling bee struggling with the name of an unfamiliar ingredient that it said was used in synthetic meats, before telling viewers, "If you can't spell it or pronounce it, maybe you shouldn't be eating it."
“Beyond has been denigrated,” Brown said in an interview to discuss the company’s new strategy. “There’s so much confusion around it." The company's challenges go beyond brand perception. It has reported an operating loss each year since going public in 2019 at a nearly \$1.5 billion valuation, with shares dropping more than $98\%$ since then.
Sources: S&P Capital IQ (results); FactSet (share price)
It has recently cut spending in areas including marketing. While revenue has fallen consistently on a quarterly basis, its year-over-year sales decline improved to an 8% slip in the second quarter of this year from 20% in the final quarter of 2025.
The company also faces a market that has changed since its products first hit shelves in 2012, as consumer interest in sustainability has given way to concerns such as weight loss and protein intake, according to Emily Weiss, senior principal analyst at research firm Gartner.
But the cycle of hype and backlash that surrounded plant-based foods has almost entirely disappeared in recent years, potentially giving Beyond a chance to tap in to Americans' obsession with all things protein and find new consumers among GLP-1 users picking their foods more carefully, Weiss said.
Beyond hopes that is the case. The company's new product portfolio includes Beyond Starmatter protein powder, Beyond Starcut beef-jerky-style bars and Beyond Immerse, a line of protein-heavy carbonated beverages that recently came out of testing.
“Beyond is going to be the anchor for anything that’s plant-based, center-of-the-plate protein, but then we’re creating these other brands...and they all have a story line,” Brown said.
Patrick Coffee writes for WSJ Leadership Institute's CMO Today.
Getty Images to Restructure in Bankruptcy
BY KATHERINE HAMILTON
Getty Images is filing for bankruptcy and going private through a restructuring deal with the Koch family's company.
Koch Equity Development and members of the Getty family committed to invest \$533 million in equity in Getty to facilitate the company going private and filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
In addition, noteholders representing 83.5% of Getty's unsecured bonds have agreed to reduce outstanding debt through the retirement of \$270 million of outstanding unsecured notes.
Holders representing about 89% of Getty's secured bonds and term loans and 100% of revolving credit facility lenders have agreed to reduce interest obligations and extend debt maturities on Getty's secured debt.
The agreements are part of a restructuring deal designed to improve Getty's balance sheet and allow the company to go private. Koch Equity Development and the investing Getty family members will own $100\%$ of the reorganized Getty.
Getty will continue to operate normally through the restructuring, supported by financing from Koch, which could be as much as \$143 million.
Cybersecurity Firm Elisity Sold to IonQ
BY LAUREN THOMAS
Quantum-computing company IonQ struck an all-stock deal to buy closely held Elisity in a transaction that values the cybersecurity firm at up to \$1.3 billion, executives told The Wall Street Journal.
It is a bet that cybersecurity will be even more critical for companies as quantum computing and AI systems become more powerful and advanced, said IonQ Chairman and Chief Executive Niccolo de Masi.
"The bad guys are going to keep taking advantage of new technology," he said in an interview. "Unfortunately, we are entering the most dangerous years, vis-à-vis cybersecurity risks."
The \$1.3 billion deal price includes as much as \$150 million in contingency payments subject to Elisity's future performance.
IonQ shares on the Nasdaq closed down 9% Monday, with its market value close to \$16 billion. The stock had been on a tear since it went public via a special-purpose acquisition company in 2021.
IonQ's quantum hardware and software aims to solve problems too difficult for traditional computers across a range of industries, from drug discovery to national defense. It specializes in what's called trapped-ion quantum computers that have proved to offer greater accuracy.
The number of IonQ shares expected to be issued in the transaction will be calculated at a price between \$33.07 and \$49.61 a share, the executives said.
administration and its backing of quantum-computing technology in the U.S.
---
\$1.3B The deal will value cybersecurity firm Elisity at up to this much.
The business has gotten a boost from the growing enthusiasm of President Trump's
During the summer, the president signed executive orders pushing for building a powerful quantum computer and protecting the government against related cyber threats.
Founded in 2019, Elisity offers a platform that aims to prevent cyber attackers or ransomware from spreading across organizations. Some of its big customers include healthcare companies and hospitals.
Elisity Chief Executive James Winebrenner is expected to remain after the deal with IonQ closes.
De Masi said the two com-
panies together will aim to help customers address various growing cybersecurity risks, including threats that involve so-called AI agents.
A series of rogue AI hacks in recent months has rat-
tled the industry and government officials. In one instance, a swarm of OpenAI agents accessed U.S. government websites over several months.
Anthropic's Mythos model also has set off alarm bells on Wall Street.
De Masi said American corporations and the U.S. government must be prepared ahead of “Q-Day”—a looming point in time when quantum computers will be powerful enough to crack today’s widely used public-key cryptography.
IonQ, which works closely with the Defense Department, has been on an acquisition spree to become a one-stop shop for its customers. Earlier this year, it struck its biggest deal yet, a \$1.8 billion takeover of chip maker SkyWater Technology.
ADEK BERRY/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
The mainstay fashion division, home to Louis Vuitton and Dior, whose outlet is seen in Beijing, booked a 5% drop in sales.
LVMH Sales Dim Luxury View
---
Paris-based group recorded organic growth of just 1% from year earlier
BY JOSHUA KIRBY
French luxury giant LVMH said sales growth slowed, putting the brakes on a long-awaited recovery in Europe's struggling luxury-goods industry.
The Paris-based group, owner of a stable of fashion, jewelry and champagne brands that constitutes a bellwether for the wider sector, made sales of 18.5 billion euros, or \$20.72 billion, between July and September, it said on Monday. That marks organic growth of just 1% from the same period last year, slowing from the 3% increase the company booked over the second quarter.
The result was in line with the expectations of analysts, according to those polled by Visible Alpha ahead of the print. Still, the group's mainstay fashion division, home to heavyweight brands Louis Vuitton and Dior, booked a 5% drop in sales on year to €8.245 billion, below analysts' forecasts.
date.
The division had returned to growth in the second quarter, but the fast drop back into the red suggests LVMH—and its peers—will have to work hard to secure a sustained recovery. A slowdown in Chinese demand weighed on performance in the fashion business, LVMH said, pointing to a “less buoyant” environment in the key market.
"The third quarter brought a more challenging Chinese consumer backdrop," finance chief Cécile Cabanis said in a call on Monday. She pointed to negative newsflow that weighed on the mood among Chinese shoppers over the summer.
LVMH will likely now have to show how it can adjust pricing to make its core products more affordable to a broader public, analysts at brokerage firm Bernstein wrote following the sales up-
The deceleration in sales growth at LVMH casts a pall over the wider sector, which had hoped to put a tough patch behind it. Investors are likely to stay shy of luxury stocks until brands can show firmer acceleration in their top lines, analysts at Bank of America wrote recently.
“Luxury demand has deteriorated in the third quarter,” BofA warned.
Shares in the sector have plummeted in recent years as investors note flatlining sales with concern. Shares in Europe-based luxury firms have shed more than 20% on average this year, with LVMH among the worst performers. And analysts see little spur to demand on the horizon. A yearslong boom in Chinese demand has fizzled, and the West's aspirational middle classes, vital to brands like Louis Vuitton, are increasingly squeezed by price inflation, damping their confidence to splurge on high-end goods. The simmering war between the U.S. and Israel and Iran has only exacerbated those macroeconomic pressures.
"The reality is that the disposable income of the majority of luxury consumers is under pressure," Berenberg analysts wrote in a recent note. That leaves brands struggling to generate reliable sales growth, the analysts said.
"The fragility of demand leaves the sector vulnerable to shocks," Berenberg said. "The luxury supercycle is over."
Other companies in European luxury are due to report their own latest sales figures this month and next, including Gucci parent Kering, exclusive-handbag maker Hermès and Italian fashion house Prada next week. There were some positive signs in LVMH's sales results; the watches and jewelry division—home to Tiffany and Bulgari, as well as a host of upmarket watch brands—recorded a 6% rise in sales on year. The selective-retail business recorded an 8% increase, driven by strong growth at beauty retailer Sephora.
The Board of Directors Council Summit
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SELECT PARTICIPANTS:
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Ellen Kullman
Director, Amgen, Carbon, Goldman Sachs;
Former Chair and CEO, DuPont
FOUNDING SPONSOR:
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Board Member: Home Depot; Former President, Marriott International; Former President and CEO, Under Armour
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Lead Director, General Motors;
Director, Merck, KKR
Jing Ulrich
Member of the Board of Directors: adidas, Swarovski, Wella Company; Luxury Advisor and Brand Ambassador, Rolls-Royce Motor Cars; Former Vice Chairman, JPMorgan
Mark Weinberger
Director, Johnson & Johnson, JPMorgan Chase, MetLife, Saudi Aramco; Former Global Chairman and CEO, EY
HEIDRICK & STRUGGLES
CONTRIBUTING SPONSOR:
WSJ — BOD Council
OVERVIEW:
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Summit Themes:
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\- The Human Advantage
\- Leading in the Age of AI
\- Building Resilient and Adaptable Organizations
REQUEST INVITATION:
Email BoDCouncil@wsj.com or scan the QR code.
---
How to Read the Stock Tables
The following explanations apply to NYSE, NYSE Arca, NYSE American, Nasdaq Stock Market, Cboe BZX and Texas Stock Exchange listed securities. Prices are consolidated from trades reported by various market centers, including securities exchanges, Finra, electronic communications networks and other broker-dealers. The list comprises the 1,000 largest companies based on market capitalization.
Underlined quotations are those stocks with large changes in volume compared with the issue's average trading volume.
Boldfaced quotations highlight those issues whose price changed by 5% or more if their previous closing price was \$2 or higher.
1-New 52-week high; 1-New 52-week low; dd-Indicates loss in the most recent four quarters.
Stock tables reflect composite regular trading as of 4 p.m. ET and changes in the official closing prices from 4 p.m. ET the previous day.
NOTICE OF SALE OF REAL PROPERTY – MANHATTAN UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK.
WELLS FARGO BANK, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION, AS TRUSTEE, FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE HOLDERS OF CD 2018-CD7, MORTGAGE TRUST COMMERCIAL MORTGAGE PASS-THROUGH CERTIFICATES, SERIES 2018-CD7, acting by and through its special servicer, Rialto Capital Advisors, LLC, as Special Servicer under the Pooling and Servicing Agreement dated as of August 1, 2018. Plaintiff against PRINCE 26, LLC; 29 PRINCE STREET ASSOCIATES LLC, et al Defendant(s). Pursuant to that certain ORDER & JUDGMENT entered herein and dated August 5, 2026 ("Judgment"), I, the undersigned Referee will sell at public auction, at the front steps of 26 Prince Street, New York, New York 10012 on October 21st, 2026, at 3:00 p.m., prevailing Eastern Time, the following Premises (to be sold as a single lot), as that term is defined below, and more particularly described and bounded as follows: PARCEL A: ALL THAT CERTAIN plot, piece or parcel of land, situate, lying and being in the Borough of Manhattan, County of New York, City and State of New York, bounded and described as follows: BEGINNING at a point on the northerly side of Prince Street, distant 27 feet 11 1/4 inches (deed), 27.94 feet (actual), easterly from the corner formed by the intersection of the northerly side of Prince Street with the easterly side of Mott Street; RUNNING THENCE northerly parallel or nearly so with the easterly side of Mott Street and part of the way through party walls, 83 feet 11 inches (deed), 82.54 feet (actual); THENCE easterly 26 feet 9 and 6/10 inches (deed), 24.40 feet (actual), to a point on a line distant 86 feet and 1 inch (deed), 86.08 feet (actual), northerly from the northerly side of Prince Street which line is parallel or nearly so with the easterly side of Mott Street and intersects the northerly side of Prince Street at a point 54 feet 7 1/4 inches (deed), 55.61 feet (actual), when measured in an easterly direction from the corner formed by the intersection of the northerly side of Prince Street with the easterly side of Mott Street; THENCE southerly and along said line drawn parallel or nearly so with Mott Street and part of the way through a party wall, 86 feet 1 inch (deed), 86.08 feet (actual), to the northerly side of Prince Street; THENCE westerly along the northerly side of Prince Street, 26 feet 9 and 6/10 inches (deed) 27.67 feet (actual), to the point or place of BEGINNING. Block: 508 Lot: 52.
Said premises to be sold is known as 29 PRINCE STREET, NEW YORK, NEW YORK 10012 ("Parcel A"). PARCEL B: ALL THAT CERTAIN plot, piece or parcel of land, situate, lying and being in the Borough of Manhattan, County of New York, City and State of New York, bounded and described as follows: BEGINNING at a point on the Westerly side of Thompson Street, distant 169 feet 6 inches Northerly from the intersection of said Westerly side of Thompson Street and the Northerly side of Prince Street; RUNNING THENCE Westerly parallel with Prince Street, 100 feet; THENCE Northerly parallel with Thompson Street, 24 feet 8 inches; THENCE Easterly parallel with Prince Street and part of the distance through a party wall, 100 feet to the Westerly side of Thompson Street; THENCE Southerly along the Westerly side of Thompson Street, 24 feet 8 inches to the point or place of BEGINNING.. Block: 517 Lot: 31.
Said premises to be sold is known as 137 THOMPSON STREET a/k/a 135-137 THOMPSON STREET, NEW YORK, NEW YORK 10012 ("Parcel B").
PARCEL C: ALL THAT CERTAIN plot, piece or parcel of land, situate, lying and being in the Borough of Manhattan, County of New York, City and State of New York, bounded and described as follows: BEGINNING at a point on the southerly side of Prince Street, distant 47 feet 6 inches easterly from the corner formed by its intersection of the southerly side of Prince Street and the easterly side of Mott Street; RUNNING THENCE southerly and parallel with the easterly side of Mott Street a distance of 114 feet 7 inches to a point; THENCE easterly along the line forming on its northerly side an angle of 88 degrees 04 minutes 30 seconds with the last mentioned course a distance of 23 feet 1 inch to a point; THENCE northerly along a line forming on its westerly side an angle of 91 degrees 55 minutes 30 seconds with the last mentioned course a distance of 109 feet to a point on the southerly side of Prince Street which point is distant 24 feet easterly from the point or place of beginning; THENCE westerly along the southerly side of Prince Street a distance of 24 feet (record), 23 feet 7 inches (survey) to the point or place of BEGINNING. Block: 493 Lot: 15. Said premises to be sold is known as 26 PRINCE STREET, NEW YORK, NEW YORK 10012 ("Parcel C"). (With Parcel A, Parcel B, and Parcel C, collectively, being the "Premises").
Pursuant to Judgment, Premises will be sold a single lot and is not to be divided or sold separately. The approximate amount of the Judgment for Premises, collectively, is \$46,677,820.90 plus interest & costs.
Premises will be sold subject to provisions of filed Judgment and forthcoming terms of sale. Civil Action File No. 23, cv. 05586 (RAF) (QTW).
STEPHEN F. ELLMAN, ESQ., Referee
MATTHEW MANNION, from Mannion Auctions, LLC as Auctioneer
Holland & Knight, LLP
Attorney(s) for Plaintiff
787 Seventh Avenue, 31st Floor,
New York, New York 10019
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UNIFORM COMMERCIAL CODE PUBLIC SALE NOTICE
Please take notice that Mannon Auctions, LLC, Matthew D. Mannion, licensed auctioneer (DCA #1434494), on behalf of L&L Capital Partners LLC, a New York limited liability company ("Secured Party"), offers for sale at public auction on October 16, 2026, at 1:00 p.m. (Eastern Time) at the offices of Braunstein Turkish LLP, 7600 Jericho Turnpike, Suite 402, Woodbury, New York 11797, and simultaneously by remote auction via Zoom (Meeting link: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/88017043260?pwd=Z1QJhJb4MkKXkJ167ifzPyLqOKEfM;1; Meeting ID: 880 1704 3260; Meeting passcode: 254998; Call-in number: +1 646 558 8656), in connection with a Uniform Commercial Code sale of the limited liability company membership interests ("Interests") in Royal Energy Properties LLC, a New York limited liability company ("Property Owner"), which entity is the fee owner of real property located at 1666-1672 Route 9W, Milton, New York. The Interests represent one hundred percent (100%) of the ownership interest in Property Owner and is owned by Royal Energy Properties Delaware LLC, a Delaware limited liability company.
The Interests are being offered as a single lot, "AS-IS, WHERE-IS", with no express or implied warranties, representations, statements or conditions of any kind made by the Secured Party or any person acting for or on behalf of the Secured Party, without any recourse whatsoever to the Secured Party or any other person acting for or on behalf of the Secured Party. The winning bidder shall be responsible for the payment of all transfer taxes, stamp duties and similar taxes incurred in connection with the purchase of the Interests.
All interested parties shall be required to provide a minimum deposit of \$100,000 with Secured Party's counsel at least 5 days prior to the auction, and all bids (other than credit bids of the Secured Party) must be in U.S. Dollars, and the successful bidder must be prepared to deliver immediately available good funds by wire or bank check to the Secured Party, within twenty-four (24) hours after the sale and otherwise comply with the bidding requirements.
The following explanations apply to the New York Stock Exchange, NYSE Arca, NYSE American and Nasdaq Stock Market stocks that hit a new 52-week intraday high or low in the latest session. % CHG-Daily percentage change from the previous trading session.
These prices reflect buying and selling of a variety of actual or "physical" commodities in the marketplace—separate from the futures price on an exchange, which reflects what the commodity might be worth in future months. |
Key annual interest rates paid to borrow or lend money in U.S. and international markets. Rates below are a guide to general levels but don't always represent actual transactions.
Overnight repurchase | U.S. | 3.90 | 3.91 | 4.30 | 3.49 | U.S. government rates | Discount | U.S. prime rate is the base rate on corporate loans posted by at least 70% of the 10 largest U.S. banks, and is effective September 17, 2026. Other prime rates aren't directly comparable; lending practices vary widely by location; Discount rate is effective September 17, 2026. Secured Overnight Financing Rate is as of October 9, 2026. DTCC GCF Repo Index is Depository Trust & Clearing Corp.'s weighted average for overnight trades in applicable CUSIPs. Value traded is in billions of U.S. dollars. Federal-funds rates are Tullett Prebon rates as of 3:30 p.m. ET. |
Federal funds | Effective rate | n.a. | 3.8900 | 4.1100 | 3.6300 | High | n.a. | 3.9500 | 4.2000 | 3.7000 | Friday, October 9, 2026
Prices of firms' bonds reflect factors including investors' economic, sectoral and company-specific expectations
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Key Interest Rates
Data delayed due to holiday. |
|
Contract |
Open interest | Open | High hilo | Low | Settle | Chg | March'27 | 101-200 | 101-200 | 101-200 | 101-200 | -1.1 | 640 |
30 Day Federal Funds (CBT) | Oct | 96.1175 | 96.1175 | 96.1150 | 96.1175 | .0025 | 725,289 | Nov | 96.0750 | 96.0800 | 96.0650 | 96.0700 | -.0050 | 547,501 |
\*\*EMBI Global Index. \*\*\*Bloomberg yield data as of 10/09 Sources: ICE Data Services; Bloomberg Fixed Income Indices; J.P.Morgan
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Global Government Bonds: Mapping Yields
Yields and spreads over or under U.S. Treasurys on benchmark two-year and 10-year government bonds in selected other countries; arrows indicate whether the yield rose(▲) or fell (▼) in the latest session |
\* Primary market NYSE, NYSE American NYSE Arca only.
†(TRIN) A comparison of the number of advancing and declining issues with the volume of shares rising and falling. An Arms of less than 1 indicates buying demand; above 1 indicates selling pressure. |
Country/currency |
Mon |
US$vs.YTD chg(%) | in US$ | per US$ |
Americas | Argentina peso | .00071516.7423 | 4.5 | Brazil real | .2005 | 4.9875 | -9.6 | Canada dollar | .7001 | 1.4284 | 4.1 | Chile peso | .001024 | 976.87 | 8.5 | Colombia peso | .000313 | 3195.84 | -15.2 | Ecuador US dollar | 1 | 1 | unch | Mexico peso | .0548 | 18.2640 | 1.4 | Uruguay peso | .02485 | 40.2389 | 3.0 | Australia dollar | .6960 | 1.4368 | -4.1 | China yuan | .1494 | 6.6921 | -4.3 | Hong Kong dollar | .1274 | 7.8482 | 0.8 | India rupee | .01045 | 95.658 | 6.4 | Indonesia rupiah | .0000557 | 17954 | 7.5 | Japan yen | .006304 | 158.63 | 1.3 | Kazakhstan tenge | .002217 | 451.05 | -11.1 | Macau pataca | .1237 | 8.0857 | 0.8 | Malaysia ringgit | .2448 | 4.0852 | 0.7 | New Zealand dollar | .5588 | 1.7895 | 3.0 | Pakistan rupee | .00361 | 276.994 | -1.2 | Philippines peso | .0159 | 62.768 | 6.5 | Singapore dollar | .7809 | 1.2806 | -0.4 | South Korea won | .0007494 | 1334.45 | -7.4 | Sri Lanka rupee | .0030199 | 331.14 | 6.9 | Taiwan dollar | .03130 | 31.948 | 1.9 | Thailand baht | .02974 | 33.620 | 6.7 |
Prediction Market: How many Fed rate hikes in 2026? This market will resolve according to the exact amount of hikes of 25 basis points in 2026 by the Fed (including any hikes made during the December meeting). | Close | Net Chg | % Chg | YTD % Chg | WSJ Dollar Index | 97.58 | 0.20 | 0.21 | 1.73 | Sources: Tullett Prebon, Dow Jones Market Data
Sources: J.P. Morgan; Bloomberg Fixed Income Indices; ICE Data Services
Adnoc Logistics Looks to Buy HEA Stake
BY BEN DUMMETT
The logistics arm of United Arab Emirates's oil-and-gas giant Adnoc is in talks to acquire a big stake in HEA Energy, a deal that would value the Middle Eastern-based energy marine services company at up to \$3 billion, according to people familiar with the matter.
The talks involve Adnoc Logistics & Services, a unit of Abu Dhabi National Oil, taking either a large minority or controlling stake in HEA, the people said.
The discussions are advancing but could still fail to turn into a deal, the people familiar said.
The state-backed energy logistics provider is flush with cash. Charter rates in its shipping business surged this year when conflict in Iran bottled up the Persian Gulf and made it costlier to get oil out of the region. Adnoc L&S quadrupled its net profit in the second quarter to \$917 million from the same period a year earlier.
Adnoc is seeking to boost oil and gas production after the
U.A.E. broke away earlier this year from OPEC, the price-setting oil cartel. That move gives state-owned Adnoc more freedom to make investments to boost output and establish itself more prominently as an energy superpower. In August, Adnoc's gas-production business said it would invest more than \$8 billion to increase capacity.
Adnoc L&S supports offshore drilling projects and operates more than 100 ships used to transport crude oil, liquefied natural gas and refined prod-
ucts globally.
An ownership stake in closely held HEA would bolster the U.A.E.'s footprint in offshore oil and gas services, extending Adnoc L&S's reach geographically including in the North Sea and the U.S.
Founded in 2022, HEA is based in Abu Dhabi. It operates a network of so-called jack-up barges—floating platforms used to support offshore wind farms and oil-and-gas maintenance activity.
HEA also provides accommodation vessels to house oil and gas workers, and battery-powered subsea vessels.
HEA generated operating income of \$65.2 million in the first six months of the year, up 128% from the year-ago period, while revenue more than doubled to about \$100 million, according to the company's website
The U.A.E. has been aggressive in shipping oil out of the Persian Gulf despite Iran's drone and missile attacks. Adnoc has provided “shuttle run”
services, ferrying oil in tankers from inside the Gulf to just outside the Strait of Hormuz, where it is delivered to customers.
Adnoc L&S expanded its ability to ship energy when in August it said it acquired 11 vessels—five to carry gas and six to transport crude oil—for a total of about \$1.3 billion. Publicly traded in Abu Dhabi, Adnoc L&S has a market value of more than \$15 billion. It is about 80% owned by Adnoc, its state-owned parent.
Top 250 mutual-funds listings for Nasdaq-published share classes by net assets. e-Ex-distribution. f-Previous day's quotation. g-Footnotes x and s apply. j-Footnotes e and s apply. k-Recalculated by LSEG, using updated data. p-Distribution costs apply, 12b-1. r-Redemption charge may apply. s-Sock split or dividend. t-Footnotes p and r apply. v-Footnotes x and e apply. x-Ex-dividend. z-Footnote x, e and s apply. NA-Not available due to incomplete price, performance or cost data. NE-Not released by LSEG; data under review. NN-Fund not tracked. NS-Fund didn't exist at start of period. | Fund | NAV | Net Chg | YTD %Ret |
AB Funds | MunilncmShares | 10.36 | ... | -3.5 |
American Century Inv | Ultra | 102.70 | -0.76 | 9.1 |
Putnam Funds Class A | PutLargCap p | 45.55 | +0.23 | 16.5 |
Putnam Funds Class Y | PutLargCap | 45.58 | +0.23 | 16.8 |
Schwab Funds | 1000 Inv r | NA | ... | NA | FunUSLgInst r | NA | ... | NA | Intl Sel r | NA | ... | NA | S&P Sel | NA | ... | NA | TSM Sel r | NA | ... | NA |
Meet the industry leaders joining to shape the conversation on building influence and driving business forward.
FEATURING:
Ndidi Oteh
CEO
Accenture Song
Jonathan Adashek
SVP and Chief Global Affairs Officer
IBM
Mark Kirkham
CMO
PepsiCo U.S. Beverages
Presenting Sponsors:
Oshiya Savur
CMO
e.l.f. Beauty
Gülen Bengi
Lead Global CMO, Mars Inc.
Global Chief Growth Officer,
Mars Snacking
Sophie Goldschmidt
President and CEO
United States Ski
and Snowboard Association
Jennifer Temple
EVP and Chief Marketing
and Communications Officer
HPE
Rachel Epstein
National Women's Soccer League (NWSL)
Adobe Deloitte.
Frank Cooper III
CMO
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Contributing Sponsor:
Request an Invitation: Email CMOCouncil@wsj.com or scan the QR code.
Airbnb Could Still Prevail Over AI Threat
For the lodging platform's stock to thrive in the age of bots, it has to turn repeat customers into loyal ones
Sept. 2026
CEO Brian Chesky at an Airbnb event in San Francisco earlier this year.
AI agents like Muse can already find you the cheapest hotel room in Paris. But they can't locate a cheaper version of that Catskills cabin you've been eyeing, because it might only be available on Airbnb.
Investors should pay attention to that distinction. When Meta Platforms launched its Muse agent last month, travel stocks including Booking Holdings, Expedia and Airbnb all fell sharply.
Airbnb, though, has a real chance to emerge as a winner from the upheaval. The catch: Its stock already reflects above-industry growth. To justify its valuation, Airbnb will need to turn repeat customers into loyal ones.
Online travel companies make much of their money by simplifying search and collecting fees on bookings. AI agents threaten that model.
But not all travel marketplaces are equally exposed. Booking and Expedia largely sell hotel rooms that travelers can also book directly or through competing sites. If an agent can find the same room elsewhere, it has little reason to favor either Booking or Expedia.
Booking and Expedia also sell sponsored listings that steer travelers toward particular properties. Wells Fargo estimates those will account for about $8\%$ of Expedia's revenue and a much higher percentage of profit next year.
Airbnb has more ways to adapt. More than half its listings are available only on its platform, and more than 90% of its traffic comes directly to its app or website.
The customer relationship doesn't end after booking, either. Bernstein analyst Richard Clarke notes that $90\%$ of Airbnb guests go on to message their hosts about arrival times, keys or local taxes, giving Airbnb a connection to both sides of the transaction.
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Airbnb's growth seems to be accelerating this year.
Source: FactSet
How the companies have responded to the possible agentic future is telling.
Expedia quickly signed on as a Muse partner. Airbnb hasn't, and Chief Executive Brian Chesky says AI chatbots have so far been a boon, sending customers to Airbnb's website.
Chatbots might work for buying paper towels, he quipped at a Skift
conference last month, but people enjoy planning trips. He argued that browsing dozens of homes isn't something a text-based chatbot is well suited for.
Still, the AI jitters arrived just as Airbnb was persuading investors it de-
served its pricey multiple. For years after its 2020 initial public offering, the stock—which trades around 25 to 30 times forward earnings—went nowhere. Investors saw a mature operator trading at a growth premium.
This year, Airbnb growth seems to be accelerating. The stock jumped in August after the company raised its full-year revenue-growth guidance with its second-quarter results. Wells Fargo
analyst Ken Gawrelski credits a run of product improvements under a revamped leadership team.
Among the changes: letting guests reserve now and pay later, adding hotels, and a redesigned home page and app. Investors were also betting on what comes next, including thousands more hotels, car rentals and, eventually, advertising.
The irony is that some of those growth drivers push Airbnb closer to the kind of business Booking and Expedia run—the kind of business AI agents could threaten. Even if AI agents capture a large share of travel planning and booking, Airbnb would capture the demand. But it and others would slowly lose control over how customers find and choose properties.
That would undermine the advertising opportunity investors are counting on. The bigger point for Airbnb and other marketplaces is that losing control of customer acquisition could mean surrendering some of their pricing power and margins.
To bulletproof itself, Airbnb might look to another e-commerce giant that has so far kept AI agents at arm's length: Amazon.
Like Amazon, Airbnb has a loyal customer base and hard-to-match supply. But it has nothing like Prime membership to make customers think twice before taking their business elsewhere.
That is where loyalty comes in. Business travelers stick with Hilton or Marriott because enough nights earn them perks. Leisure travelers rarely accumulate stays with one chain. Airbnb has millions of listings and plenty of repeat customers, but no broad rewards program. It has begun experimenting with credits on hotel stays, but it should make loyalty a priority, not just a promotion.
Airbnb also plans to launch its own AI agent next year. But travelers using an agent might still want it to search Airbnb, Vrbo, Booking and hotel websites alike, rather than limit itself to one company's inventory.
Eventually, Airbnb might have to strike deals with agent makers, using its unique homes as leverage to negotiate favorable terms, says Gawrelski.
Such deals, along with rewards for loyal guests, could over the long term eat into the company's roughly $13\%$ take rate, he adds. But if they bring in enough additional bookings, the trade-off could be worthwhile.
History offers a reason not to panic. The shift from desktop to mobile unsettled investors in Alphabet and Amazon, but both emerged as major beneficiaries. Companies with valuable assets can come out of a platform shift stronger, if they adapt quickly enough.
Airbnb has homes the bots can't easily replace. Now it needs to give guests a reason to insist on booking them there.
—David Wainer
When to Worry About Narrow Stock-Market Rallies
Excess return of normal S&P 500 vs. S&P 500 Equal Weight Index since...
...ChatGPT release through today
...Yahoo IPO to Tech bubble peak
Note: Yahoo's IPO was on April 12, 1996; ChatGPT's release date was 1,409 days ago
Source: FactSet
Stocks are near a record, but lots of them are in the doghouse, too. It's the investing edition of "two things can be true at once."
Only one-third of stocks in the S&P 500 index were trading above their 50-day moving average as of Friday, even as the benchmark flirted with a record. You might have heard about that narrow leadership—“bad breadth,” as the overused gag goes.
Many pundits say that's a problem, but it's complicated. Short-term breadth readings only occasionally signal a pullback, and usually just a minor one.
It's also the history of markets in a nutshell. Diversified investors own hundreds of companies, yet most stocks don't earn investors money in the long run. A small minority have produced half of the
historical gain over the past century.
Sometimes, though, narrow market action really precedes a major cyclical turning point. It happens when ear
happens when certain stocks get big and then produce an outsize share of market gains over a short time span, powering the index higher on their own.
amount of every stock with the standard index that holds them in proportion to their market value.
The equal-weighted version of the S&P 500 has been trounced by
---
Short-term breadth readings only occasionally signal a pullback.
the widely followed capitalization-weighted version for years now. That went into overdrive when ChatGPT was released in November 2022 and AI became the only
game in town.
When one group of large companies opens up a big gap in just a handful of years, it precedes an even faster reckoning, and usually a bear market. Great technological advancements don't change that. The pattern held for radio,
the Nifty Fifty and dot-coms, and this time probably isn't different.
Since ChatGPT's unveiling, the capitalization-weighted S&P 500 has earned nearly 50 percentage points more of total return than the equal-weighted one. To pick a historically similar moment to ChatGPT, the S&P 500 was beating its equal-weighted twin by an almost identical amount the same number of trading days after Yahoo's 1996 initial public offering.
Maybe the equal-weighted index is just worse? Nope.
It has beaten the S&P 500 since 1990. That is no accident because keeping an equal weighting forces an index to favor smaller, cheaper stocks—two factors known to boost long-run returns.
The more interesting point is when an equal-weight index wins. Like a rubber band stretched tight, it catches up a lot more quickly—and painfully—than it took to pull it into that shape.
-Spencer Jakab
MONEY & INVESTING
Fund flows to U.S. stocks, monthly
Source: EPFR
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Stock Spotlight
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Chipotle
Shares declined 3.8% on reports that Starbucks dismissed speculation it might try to purchase the burrito chain.
---
IREN
Shares of the cloud-computing company edged 1.1% lower after a report by the Information that it has struck a deal with Anthropic.
Shares of the data-center company soared 16% after it said it raised about \$900 million to upgrade the company's assets, which include FTX's old bitcoin-mining business.
Valero and Marathon Petroleum
Shares of U.S. oil-refining\*
groups edged up as investors weigh the impact of U.S. moves to boost diesel supplies.
Volkswagen
The German automaker said deliveries declined in the third quarter as the company continued to suffer from a deteriorating market in China. Shares edged higher by less than 0.1%.
---
In Market History
APIC/GETTY IMAGES
On this day in 1971, Intel went public.
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TUESDAY'S EVENTS:
◆ Federal Reserve speakers: Fed governor Christopher Waller at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum in New Delhi.
◆ Economic data: Existing-home sales for the month of September, ADP employment data, September Treasury budget, and Johnson Redbook retail sales index
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EARNINGS EXPECTED:
JPMorgan Chase
Johnson & Johnson
UnitedHealth
Goldman Sachs
Wells Fargo
Citigroup
Domino's Pizza
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U.S. Stock Funds' Inflows Hit Fever Pitch
Investors are piling into U.S. stock funds at a pace rarely seen in market history.
U.S. stock funds have drawn 13 consecutive months of inflows, the longest streak in EPFR data going back to 2000.
—Gunjan Banerji
---
Salesforce Stock Upgrade
Shares of Salesforce rose 2.1% after Bank of America issued a vote of confidence in the stock, citing its artificial-intelligence strategy.
The bank upgraded the stock to "buy" from "underperform" and raised its target price to \$285 from \$160.
While there have been concerns that AI could render traditional enterprise software companies obsolete, BofA analysts noted that large corporations are unlikely to replace platforms that house their business logic, data, workflows and compliance frameworks. The upgrade was further supported by Salesforce's strong free cash flow and expected accelerating revenue growth.
—Vicky Ge Huang
🔥 一、正在进行的文化现象与时代切片 (Story & Mindset Deep-Dive)
🔥 要闻
《绝命毒师》明星 RJ Mitte 逝世，享年 34 岁
📰 报刊故事还原：当局及其代表表示，《绝命毒师》（Breaking Bad）演员兼残疾权利倡导者 RJ Mitte 周一去世，享年 34 岁。
💡 驻外文化与社会背景解码： 该报道刊发于《The Wall Street Journal》要闻版面，折射出当地社会在日常生活与观念层面的真实关注点。
2026 诺贝尔经济学奖得主罗伯特·霍尔（Robert E. Hall）与迈克尔·伍德福德揭示了现代消费的核心规律：约 80% 拥有资产的家庭根据『对未来长期收入的预期』平稳消费；而底层 20% 缺乏储蓄的『月光家庭（Hand-to-mouth）』则完全受制于当期账单，解释了为何高通胀下美国会出现一边高端消费旺盛、一边底层生存焦虑的 K 型分化。
