| Gerard Baker Editor in Chief The Wall Street Journal |
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War of Words—for Now President Trump on Thursday broadened the North Korea sanctions to cover any individual, company or financial institution doing business with Pyongyang, not just those aiding its weapons program or laundering funds. This stepped-up effort to strangle the nuclear-armed state’s financing gives the U.S. Treasury power to sanction any entity involved in North Korean trade or finance and freeze U.S. assets of foreign banks working with the country. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un later let loose over Mr. Trump’s Tuesday speech to the United Nations, calling it “unprecedented rude nonsense” from a “mentally deranged U.S. dotard” and saying he would consider a “hard-line countermeasure”—which his foreign minister said could mean detonating a hydrogen bomb over the Pacific Ocean. The rising tension had other foreign ministers at the U.N. chiming in. China urged negotiations, while Russia warned against “hysteria.” |
Facebook Shares Under fire for its response to Russian activity on its site before the U.S. presidential election, Facebook said it will hand over detailed information on thousands of Russian-backed ads to congressional investigators and increase political transparency, including by requiring disclosure on political ads and bolstering its ad-review process. “I don’t want anyone to use our tools to undermine democracy,” CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a live video broadcast on the site. The action highlights Facebook’s growing role in politics and the delicate balance it must strike between being more open and maintaining users’ privacy. Seeking to limit how far it will go in monitoring content, Mr. Zuckerberg added on the broadcast: “Freedom means you don’t have to ask permission first, and that by default you can say what you want.” |
Supermarket Sweep Born in the ashes of World War II, the secretive German supermarket chain Aldi offers shoppers limited choices and rock-bottom prices—a formula that has carried it to 10,000 locations in 18 countries. This summer, Aldi opened a new chapter of this seemingly unstoppable expansion, saying it will spend $3.4 billion to boost its U.S. presence to 2,500 stores by the end of 2022. That puts it on pace to become America’s third-biggest grocer by number of locations, further shaking an industry already roiled by Amazon’s purchase of Whole Foods Market this summer. Under Amazon, Whole Foods has cut prices and now has laid out plans to centralize decision-making by limiting brand representatives’ involvement. |
Southern Hospitality A local-maker renaissance sweeping the South is redefining downtown Birmingham, Ala., as a 21st-century creative hub. The old steelmaking town is refiring its peanut roasters, installing laudable restaurants in once-crumbling storefronts and seeding green space in the rusted footprint of old rail industry. For a winning Southern getaway, check out the revival brewing in the “Magic City.” Here’s our guide. Or for a little magic closer to home, in this week’s Slow Fast Food, chef Julia Sullivan of Henrietta Red in Nashville, Tenn., offers one of those recipes that just about prepare themselves: steamed clams with pesto sauce. |
| | Watch Unwound | | | | The recently unveiled Apple Watch Series 3 has all the ingredients of the future we were promised, including connectivity without an iPhone—but our Personal Tech columnist Joanna Stern finds short battery life and choppy connections make the smartwatch unreliable. | |
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| People were just exposed to the elements of the hurricane. Nowhere to run to, nowhere to hide. | | Dominican Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit, after Hurricane Maria ravaged the tiny island as a Category 5 storm. Puerto Rico is also emerging crippled from the storm, its power grid destroyed and more than 95% of its wireless cell sites out of service. |
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| Responding to yesterday’s question on the SEC’s disclosure of a 2016 hack into its corporate filing system, Stewart Cumming of California wrote: “The breach at the SEC is just another straw on the camel’s back which sooner or later is going to break. It should be obvious by now that no computer network is safe, and that any information stored is fair game for public dissemination.” Jim Baker of Florida weighed in: “We need to move on to updating data at rest with encryption across the board. If the hackers get to the data, make the data worthless to them.” Dolores Yvars of New York shared: “If there is one thing short of war that could bring Wall Street to its knees, it would be the loss of confidence in the safety of financial transactions.” | |
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| | This daily briefing is named “The 10-Point” after the nickname conferred by the editors of The Wall Street Journal on the lead column of the legendary “What’s News” digest of top stories. Technically, “10-point” referred to the size of the typeface. The type is smaller now but the name lives on. Sign up here to receive “Brexit Beyond: Europe in Flux,” a daily email update on the unfolding Brexit process and its global implications for business and finance. | | |
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