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| 📝 Good afternoon and welcome to Notes on the News. Here's what you should know today, Aug. 31: New Orleans and the wider region are struggling after Hurricane Ida, President Biden defends his Afghanistan withdrawal, and a wildfire is threatening the Lake Tahoe area. Let us know what you think by replying to this email. Thanks for reading. | |
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| |  | | Damage caused by Hurricane Ida in LaPlace, La. PHOTO: TANNEN MAURY/EPA/SHUTTERSTOCK | | | | |
| 1. New Orleans hospitals are on backup power. The aftermath of Hurricane Ida continued to affect residents in the region, and a heat advisory was issued Tuesday. New Orleans schools are closed indefinitely, electricity could be out for up to three weeks, and hospitals already dealing with Covid-19 are now relying on generators and water reserves. Insured losses in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama could total $15 to $20 billion, according to some estimates. | |
| 2. President Biden defended the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan. Addressing the nation from the White House a day after the final plane carrying U.S. troops departed Afghanistan, the president said his administration would continue to help remaining Americans exit the country. | |
| 3. Social Security costs will exceed total income in 2021. The severe economic downturn caused by the pandemic and related lockdown measures weighed on Social Security's financial health, though not as much as forecasters originally feared. Trustees said they expect the program's reserves to be depleted by 2034. | |
| 4. The Lake Tahoe area is on high alert as a wildfire inches closer. The Caldor Fire edged toward the Nevada state line, as firefighters fought to protect homes and businesses a day after evacuation orders cleared out the tourist area. The fire had burned 191,607 acres and was 16% contained as of Tuesday. | |
| 5. Google and Apple will have to open their app stores to other payment systems in South Korea. A bill passed by that country's National Assembly is the first in the world to dent the tech giants' dominance over how apps on their platforms sell digital goods. It will become law once signed by President Moon Jae-in. | |
| 6. Jury selection began in the trial of Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes. The biotech entrepreneur arrived at court flanked by news cameras for her criminal fraud trial. Her legal team and prosecutors have been scrutinizing a pool of nearly 200 potential jurors to find the 17 needed to serve on the four-month-long trial. | |
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| 90% — The percentage of Americans in Afghanistan who wanted to leave who were able to, according to President Biden. 256 million — The number of people in the EU who have received two doses of a Covid-19 vaccine, equivalent to 70% of the adult population—a milestone after a slow rollout, though national rates vary across the bloc's 27 member countries. 86% — The share of paper products in stock in the U.S., including paper towels and toilet paper, as of Aug. 29. That's lower than the availability of consumer products on average, as demand for paper goods increases again amid the surge of the Delta variant and back-to school season. | |
| | What Everyone Wants To Know | | |
| |  | | Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, head of the Taliban's political office, and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi during a meeting in Tianjin, China in July. PHOTO: LI RAN/XINHUA/ASSOCIATED PRESS | | | | |
| In leaving Afghanistan, the U.S. is reshuffling global power relations. After the country's U.S.-backed government collapsed, Beijing couldn't contain its glee at what it described as the humiliation of its main global rival—even though one reason for the meltdown was Washington's decision to focus resources on China. In Russia, too, state media flowed with schadenfreude. But now that America's 20-year war has come to an end, the gloating has begun to wane. The failure of the U.S.'s Afghan client state marked the limits of American hard power, while scenes of despair in Kabul have frustrated many American allies and inflicted reputational damage. But Beijing and Moscow know the U.S. isn't the only one losing out. For one thing, managing Afghanistan from now on is increasingly a problem for Moscow and Beijing as well as their regional allies. | |
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Members Exchange, a startup backed by major Wall Street firms, wants regulators to allow half-penny stock prices. Investors could see Apple and Bank of America stocks selling for $152.005 or $42.115 a share if regulators sign off on the proposal. Members Exchange, known as MEMX, said the SEC should allow some heavily traded stocks to be priced in increments of half a cent. MEMX says that would lower costs for investors. It might also benefit MEMX and other stock exchanges by attracting a greater share of daily trading volume. There is no guarantee the SEC will approve the request, but the agency is reviewing market structure after the frenzied trading in GameStop and other meme stocks this year. SEC Chairman Gary Gensler has said that minimum price increments are part of that review. | |
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China's videogame limits signal a push to shape the next generation. Under Xi Jinping, China's ruling Communist Party has moved to reassert control over the country's economy, going after some of its largest private enterprises in a drive to dial back what it sees as capitalist excesses. Now, the party is making it clear that it intends to insert itself into the private lives of Chinese citizens to an extent not seen in decades. This week, officials unveiled new limits on the amount of time young people can spend playing online games. The government said all online videogames will be required to connect to an "anti-addiction" system operated by regulators. In response to Beijing's previous moves to limit young people's gaming, Tencent Holdings has used a combination of technologies that, for example, automatically boot off players after a certain period and use facial-recognition technology. The restrictions are part of a crackdown that represents a break with the approach of Mr. Xi's two immediate predecessors, in which China expanded personal freedoms in exchange for acquiescence to the party's monopoly on politics. | |
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| |  | Roy Lichtenstein, 'Untitled' (c. 1955). PHOTO: ESTATE OF ROY LICHTENSTEIN | | | | - Go check out: Images from an exhibit of Roy Lichtenstein's early work at the Parrish Art Museum on Long Island.
Before his signature works of colorful and dotted comic book characters, the artist "roamed blithely through the annals of art and illustration," our reviewer writes. | | |
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