Nation & world news – at a glance – for Saturday, November 4, 2023

Republican National Committee announces tougher criteria for fourth debate

The Republican National Committee has set a date for the fourth debate of the 2024 primaries — over the objection of the party’s front-runner, Donald Trump — and incrementally ratcheted up the criteria to make the stage, according to a memo sent to campaigns Friday. The next debate, the party told campaigns, will be in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, on Dec. 6. Candidates will be required to have a minimum of 80,000 unique donors and to have reached 6% in two national polls, or in one national poll and in one poll in one of the four early states. The previous criteria had been 4% in the polls and 70,000 donors.

Former State Department aide sentenced to nearly six years in Jan. 6 attack

A former U.S. Marine who served in the Trump administration as a low-level State Department aide was sentenced on Friday to nearly six years in prison for his role in the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Federico G. Klein, of Falls Church, Virginia, was a State Department employee when he used a stolen riot shield to repeatedly assault officers during several violent clashes in a tunnel below the Capitol, prosecutors said. He was arrested in March 2021 and indicted later that year. After a non-jury trial in July, Klein was convicted of eight felony charges as well as several misdemeanors.

Former Pennsylvania nurse is charged in additional nursing home deaths

A former Pennsylvania nurse who had been accused of killing two patients with doses of insulin faces more murder charges and has confessed to trying to kill 19 additional people at several locations, authorities said Thursday. In May, Heather Pressdee, 41, admitted to authorities that she had intended to kill three patients in her care with insulin doses, resulting in her arrest on two counts of murder and one count of attempted murder. The new charges announced by the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office on Thursday include two additional counts of murder, 17 counts of attempted murder and 19 counts of neglecting a care-dependent person.

Can the humanities survive the budget cuts?

For years, economists and more than a few worried parents have argued over whether a liberal arts degree is worth the price. The debate now seems to be over, and the answer is “no.” Not only are public officials questioning state support for the humanities, a growing number of universities, often aided by outside consultants, are now putting many cherished departments — art history, American studies — on the chopping block. They say they are facing headwinds, including students who are fleeing to majors more closely aligned to employment. Several public institutions have announced or proposed cuts to programs, largely in the humanities.

Job growth slows, sowing a mix of concern and calm

The labor market has been relentlessly hot since the U.S. economy began to recover from the shock of the pandemic. But there are signs of cooling as the holidays approach. Employers added 150,000 jobs in October on a seasonally adjusted basis, the Labor Department reported Friday, a number that fell short of economists’ forecasts. Hiring figures for August and September were revised downward, subtracting more than 100,000 jobs from earlier reports. And the unemployment rate, based on a survey of households, rose to 3.9% from 3.8% in September. But about 96,000 people reported being out of work because of a strike or labor dispute, the most since 1997.

Mint, one of the first budgeting apps, is shutting down

Mint, one of the earliest and most popular personal finance apps, is shutting down, and its owner, Intuit, is encouraging users to switch to Credit Karma, its platform that offers free credit scores and helps users track their money. Intuit said Tuesday that it was “re-imagining” Mint as part of Credit Karma and that Mint users would be able to transition to Credit Karma. Credit Karma will absorb Mint by Jan. 1, Intuit said Friday. Mint has been one of the top online budgeting tools for years, with 3.6 million active users in 2021, according to Bloomberg. Introduced in 2007, it was a game-changer in the world of personal finance.

Bezos says he is leaving Seattle for Miami

Jeff Bezos, who founded Amazon out of his Seattle garage in 1994 and plowed billions of dollars into transforming the city into a tech boomtown, said Thursday he was leaving his home of three decades and moving to Miami. Bezos, 59, announced his move in an Instagram post Thursday night. He said his parents had recently moved back to Miami, where he attended high school, and he wanted to be closer to them and his partner, Lauren Sanchez. Another factor, he said, was that operations for his rocket company, Blue Origin, are shifting to Cape Canaveral, Florida, just over 200 miles by road north of Miami along the Atlantic coast.

Electric planes, once a fantasy, start to take to the skies

For most of aviation history, electric aircraft have been little more than a fantasy. But technological advancements, particularly in batteries, and billions of dollars of investment have helped make short-distance electric air travel feasible — and, its backers hope, commercially viable. Privately held Beta Technologies, which employs about 600 people, mostly in Vermont, has raised more than $800 million from investors and recently finished building a factory in Burlington where it plans to mass produce its aircraft, which have yet to be certified by the Federal Aviation Administration. The first will be the CX300, a sleek, futuristic plane with a 50-foot wingspan, large curved windows and a rear propeller.

Jewish viewers find a refuge in Fox News

Fox News, long a preferred source of news for the right, has become an information refuge for some American Jews who believe the mainstream media has been too hostile to Israel. It’s somewhat of an improbable alliance. Jews overwhelmingly identify as Democrats. And as the Republican Party came to embrace a more populist brand of politics that vilifies “globalist” corporate interests and wealthy liberal business owners, Fox News hosts and guests promoted those views. But more than any other major cable news channel, Fox News has wrapped itself in the Israeli flag since the Hamas attack. Its coverage tends to emphasize the radical and antisemitic elements of the pro-Palestinian opposition.

Russia Sends Biggest Drone Barrage in Weeks, Ukrainian Officials Say

Russian forces targeted Ukraine overnight with their biggest drone attack in weeks, part of what Ukrainian officials and military analysts say appears to be a campaign to wear down Ukrainian air defenses before winter. Ukraine’s air forces said Russia had used some 40 kamikaze drones and a cruise missile, adding that they had shot down the missile and more than half of the drones. Their account could not be independently verified. Data from the Ukrainian military shows that Russia has recently increased its drone assaults, targeting Ukraine with nearly 650 Iranian-made Shahed drones in the past two months, compared with about 450 in July and August.

New Delhi chokes as annual curse of pollution returns with a vengeance

Schools closed in New Delhi on Friday, while some diesel-burning vehicles were ordered off the roads and much of the city’s incessant construction was halted, as authorities tried to mitigate the effects of a thick haze of pollution that has descended on India’s capital, an annual blight. The measures provided little relief for the city’s many millions of residents. In health terms, the deadliest pollution contains the finest matter. In June, during Canada’s worst-ever wildfire season, New York saw its skies turn orange from the smoke, which was measured at a concentration of about 117 micrograms per cubic meter. By comparison, on Friday in Delhi, the average was around 500, reaching 643 in some places.

Japan and Philippines, wary of China, look to expand military ties

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida of Japan said Friday that his country would start formal talks with the Philippines to allow the deployment of Japanese troops to the Southeast Asian country, further strengthening ties between two countries that have embraced each other as bulwarks against China. “We share serious concerns on the situation in the East China Sea and South China Sea,” Kishida said, referring to Beijing’s increasingly assertive actions in the region. Kishida’s announcement came after a meeting with President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. of the Philippines, at the beginning of a two-day visit to Manila. It was Kishida’s first trip to the country since he took office in 2021.

Flooding in Tuscany leaves six dead

At least six people have died in Tuscany, Italy, amid widespread flooding, local officials said Friday, after Storm Ciaran swept into the country with torrential rains overnight on a path of destruction across Western Europe. Ciaran left a trail of damage and a number of deaths after it made landfall in northwestern France with record-breaking winds late Wednesday and moved north. Casualties were reported in France, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and Spain on Thursday, along with flooding and damage.

By wire sources