 Liz Truss resigned after 45 days in office on Thursday, becoming the shortest-serving British Prime Minister in history. Her downfall came after her proposed economic plan prompted British bond yields to skyrocket as investors soured on her vision for future growth. More: - A Conservative Party leadership race will begin next week, with the ultimate winner becoming the next British Prime Minister.
- Any candidate in the leadership race will need to get 100 nominations from Conservative MPs, meaning that there will be up to three candidates.
- Newly-appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt said he plans to enter the race.
- Rishi Sunak, who lost to Truss in the final run-off in the summer leadership race, is seen as a leading candidate.
A Brief History of the Truss Prime Ministership: - Truss was felled by the condemnation of her economic policy program by the British public, the media, the parliamentary opposition, and even members of her own party.
- Truss and her first Chancellor of the Exchequer, Kwasi Kwarteng, released their plan to implement deficit-funded tax cuts for the wealthiest Britons as means of stimulating growth on Sept. 23.
- In 2012, along with several other Tory MPs, Truss and Kwarteng co-authored "Britannia Unchained," a book in which they outlined their right-wing, libertarian economic vision.
- After the announcement, the British Pound fell to an all-time low against the U.S. Dollar and sovereign bonds saw their yields jump due to a sell-off.
- Many British pension funds then became vulnerable to margin calls due to overexposure to volatility in bonds markets (enabled by leveraged liability-driven investment strategies pursued by many institutional investors), prompting the Bank of England to buy billions of pounds worth of British bonds.
- The move stabilized the bond market and prompted a bounceback for the pound.
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 U.S. existing home sales fell in September for the eighth straight month. The slowdown from the red-hot housing market of 2020 and 2021 comes as average mortgage rates approach 7%, their highest level in decades. More: - Existing home sales fell 1.5% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.71 million units in September -- the lowest rate since September 2012 (excluding spring 2020).
- Home resales, which make up a majority of U.S. home sales, were down 24.8% YOY.
- The average 30-year fixed mortgage rate averaged 6.94% last week.
- The median existing-home price was up 8.4% YOY to $384,800.
- The number of previously owned homes on the market was 1.25 million, down 0.8% YOY.
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 L to R: Salvini, Berlusconi, Meloni Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi expressed support for Russian President Vladimir Putin and the invasion of Ukraine, according to leaked audio. Berlusconi said he had "reconnected" with President Putin and that he believed Ukraine had forced Russia to invade by violating the 2014-2015 Minsk agreements. More: - Berlusconi previously expressed support for Russia's invasion of Ukraine on an Italian political talk show.
- Berlusconi's Forza Italia party is expected to become part of the new Italian government led by the far-right Brothers of Italy party.
- Giorgia Meloni, the leader of the Brothers of Italy party and the likely next prime minister, has expressed support for Ukraine after the Russian invasion.
- However, in her 2021 book, "I am Giorgia," Meloni wrote that Russia “defends European values and Christian identity."
- Matteo Salvini, leader of the right-wing populist League party, was a vocal supporter of Putin for much of his political career before making a similar pivot following the invasion.
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 GOOD NEWS: The Department of Agriculture is offering $53M in grants to help state agencies, nonprofits, and community groups improve the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC). The funding comes from the American Rescue Plan Act, which was passed by Congress last year. The grants can be used to improve the WIC program, whether it be through funding outreach, new technology, or training to help grocery store staff understand the needs of beneficiaries. More: - 6.2 million Americans benefitted from the WIC in February 2022, up 1.2% from 2020.
- WIC benefits contributed $7B in spending to local economies.
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 Researchers have sequenced the genetic code of a Neanderthal tribe that lived ~55,000 years ago, revealing fascinating details about their social ties. The paleogeneticists who led the study extracted the genetic codes of 13 Neanderthals who lived in two caves in central Russia, sequencing the genomes of a whole clan for the first time. More: - The study found evidence that Neanderthal women moved to live with the family of the men they partnered with.
- Lara Cassidy of Trinity College in Dublin, who was not involved in the study, said that the research is exciting "because what we have is a [Neanderthal] community, and we can start to understand a bit about how these communities worked."
- The study's author said that the Neanderthals in the study were likely among the last of their kind, with the hominids ultimately going extinct about ~10,000 years later.
- The genetic code of Non-African humans contains an average of 2% Neanderthal DNA.
- The research was published in the journal Nature.
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The White House said on Thursday that the U.S. has evidence of Iranian forces working with Russian troops in Crimea. Russia has increasingly been using Iranian-made drones in its war against Ukraine, most prominently in a deadly attack on Kyiv earlier this week. More: - National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said: "The information we have is that the Iranians have put trainers and tech support in Crimea, but it’s the Russians who are doing the piloting."
- During the summer, the U.S. stated publicly that Russia was purchasing Iranian drones, a claim that Iran denied.
- Kirby said that Russian troops were having technical problems with the drones, prompting Iran to send over "trainers and some technical support."
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- The president of Iran's national Olympic committee said that renegade climber Elnaz Rekabi, who competed without a mandatory headscarf in a South Korean competition over the weekend, will not be punished or suspended from the national team.
- The Organization of American States will hold a special meeting after Peruvian President Pedro Castillo alleged that government officials investigating him are instigating a "coup d'etat."
- Spain and Italy have reportedly forced the Russian owners of detained superyachts to pay for their upkeep.
- American Airlines beat its Q3 earnings expectations. The company said that it sees "no signs of demand slowing as we move into the new year."
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 The Angel of Port Lligat by Salvador Dali. 1952.
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 |  | Daniel Smith is an Inside Analyst who currently resides in Miami, Florida. A native of Brooklyn, New York, Daniel spent the last four years as a PhD candidate in Politics and International Studies at Cambridge University in the United Kingdom. He is fascinated by tech, business, politics, venture capital, and everything in between. When he’s not writing for Inside he can be found kicking a ball on the nearest rugby pitch. Follow him on Twitter @DanSmithInside. |  | | Editor | Eduardo Garcia is a writer and editor based in New York. He is the author of "Things You Can Do," an illustrated book about climate action. Bylines in The New York Times, The Guardian, Slate, Scientific American, and others. In one of his previous lives, Eduardo worked as a Reuters correspondent in Latin America for nearly a decade. | |
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