Good morning. History is made in Japan. If you haven’t heard of rare earths yet, you should. And the World Series heads north of the border for the first time since 1993. Listen to the day’s top stories.
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Sanae Takaichi won the parliamentary vote to become Japan’s prime minister, making her the first woman to clinch the nation’s top job in a country that ranks low in female political representation. Here’s a look at the new premier who’s an admirer of the hard-nosed politics of Iron Lady Margaret Thatcher and the heavy metal music of Iron Maiden (see Opinion section for more on her politics).
The White House is weighing imposing new tariffs on imports from Nicaragua or cutting the country off from benefits under a free trade deal because it says the country’s “abuses of labor rights, human rights and fundamental freedoms, and dismantling of rule of law” amount to a burden on US commerce. Speaking of tariffs, Swiss watch exports fell in September, hurt by the Trump administration’s 39% levy on its imports, the industry’s largest market.
The stocks rally lost steam as investors weighed trade tensions and the impact of upcoming US inflation figures. Food prices are at the top of American’s list of economic worries and they could even go higher as the Trump administration's immigration crackdown may impact the supply chain. Find your latest market themes right here.
And we’re back. Amazon Web Services resolved the issues that plagued its services for about 15 hours yesterday, an episode that highlighted how much of the internet is dependent on the world’s largest cloud provider. Remember Amazon’s 2021 outage that affected everything from Disney amusement parks and Netflix videos to robot vacuums and Adele ticket sales?
Deep Dive: How Rare It Is
Donald Trump and Anthony Albanese at the White House. Photographer: Yuri Gripas/Abaca
Donald Trump signed a landmark pact with visiting Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to boost America’s access to rare earths and other critical minerals and counter China’s tight grip on the supply chains of key metals.
The US has been locked in a tussle with China since Beijing fought back against Trump’s trade offensive earlier this year, imposing export curbs on the materials.
Closer to home, shares in Cleveland-Cliffs rallied yesterday after the US steelmaker said it’s evaluating whether rare earth minerals can be extracted from its mines.
Oaktree Capital Management controls two largely vacant residential land plots in a development in Qidong, China. Photographer: Qilai Shen/Bloomberg
Foreign investors who poured $140 billion into China's real estate are now facing steep losses as they try to sell properties in a market plagued by oversupply and falling rents.
The US Capitol building in Washington, DC. Photographer: Kevin Carter/Getty Images
The idea of a “neutral” rate isn’t helpful in fine-tuning monetary policy, Clive Crook writes. But it’s useful in thinking about the sustainability of public debt and whether a certain fiscal path is manageable.
George Springer of the Blue Jays hits a three-run home run against the Mariners. Photographer: Mark Blinch/Getty Images
The Blue Jays defeated the Seattle Mariners 4-3, powered by a late home run from George Springer that sealed the win. The victory sends Toronto to the World Series for the first time in more than 30 years. The Jays will take on the Los Angeles Dodgers in Game 1 on Friday.
