Your Thursday Evening Briefing – The New York Times


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Good evening. Here’s the latest at the end of Thursday.

1. The U.S. economy is growing again, but fears of a recession remain.

Gross domestic product, adjusted for inflation, rose 0.6 percent in the third quarter after two consecutive quarterly contractions. However, consumer spending slowed and the housing market sharply contracted, according to government data. The mixed report added to fears of a looming recession but also kept alive the hope that one might be avoided.

The slow growth underscored the delicate balance facing the Federal Reserve as it tries to rein in the fastest inflation in four decades without sending the economy into a tailspin.

2. Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, reached out to conservatives in the West.

Putin declared that Russia’s battle was with “Western elites,” not with the West itself, in a speech seemingly aimed more at winning over conservatives abroad than his own citizens. The Russian leader contrasted “two Wests” — one that holds “Christian values” with one that protects the “neoliberal elite’’ — in an apparent effort to animate the culture wars and sway global public opinion in favor of Russia at a time when his army is losing ground in Ukraine.

Putin also denied that he was preparing to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine, despite frequent hints in the past that Russia could do so.

On the battleground: Moscow-controlled officials in Ukraine dispatched a team to a majestic 18th-century stone cathedral in Kherson for a special mission: Steal the bones of Prince Grigory Potemkin. Here’s why.


3. A remark by Donald Trump is dogging J.D. Vance in his campaign in Ohio.

Vance, the state’s Republican candidate for Senate, earned the former president’s endorsement after completely changing his tune: Having once asserted that Trump was unfit for the nation’s highest office, Vance now calls Trump “the best president of my lifetime.” That fealty, paired with a comment by Trump calling Vance a suck-up, has stuck with voters.

While he remains popular among Republicans, several Ohio voters say Vance’s about-face on Trump smacks of political opportunism.

In other politics news, some Black Democrats believe that the party is not doing enough to help Cheri Beasley and Val Demings, who are running competitive Senate campaigns in North Carolina and Florida.

4. The war in Ukraine is likely to speed the transition to clean energy, the world’s leading energy agency said.

Worldwide demand for every type of fossil fuel will peak in the near future, the International Energy Agency said for the first time in a new report. That’s mainly because many countries have responded to the energy crisis created by the war by embracing wind turbines, solar panels, nuclear power plants and other low-emission solutions.

Climate change still threatens to raise global temperatures to dangerous levels by the end of the century, but countries have made significant progress in recent years. In the Times Magazine, David Wallace-Wells explores how we managed to improve our fortunes and what challenges, and dangers, we still face.

In other climate news, European leaders have been visiting cities across Africa in an effort to find alternatives to Russian gas, shifting the power dynamics in a long unequal relationship.

6. The pandemic has reshaped American downtowns.

Long the beating hearts of cities, downtowns braid together offices and apartments, cultures and histories. Some faced hard times long before the pandemic, but the blast waves of Covid posed a threat that was new, and even existential.

More than two years in, some downtowns, like Peoria, Ariz., remain empty, struggling to bring back workers at prepandemic levels. But others, like Lexington, Ky., have come back even stronger and more resilient — drawing in tourists and new residents, even as many office workers stay home.

Our reporters and photographers went to 10 cities across the country to examine the varied recovery and reveal the challenges that lie ahead.


7. In states that ban abortion, OB-GYN residency programs face tough choices.

The directors of many programs preparing the next generation of obstetricians and gynecologists are in a quandary: Either they continue providing abortion training in states where the procedure is outlawed, opening themselves up to possible prosecution, or they stop, risking the loss of their accreditation.

The accreditation council reaffirmed its requirement that the programs make abortion training available and suggested that residents sidestep the issue by doing clinic rotations in a state where abortion is legal. But some program directors worry that allowing out-of-state training could make them vulnerable to private lawsuits or even charges of abetting a crime.

In other health news, a rise in Covid hospitalizations in New York is coinciding with the early arrival of flu season and a nationwide surge in respiratory syncytial virus, or R.S.V.


8. Can hypebeast magic revive J. Crew?

The men’s wear company was once an essential style source and a phenomenally successful purveyor of affordable, trend-conscious work and leisure wear. But in recent years, after a series of business missteps, it lost its cool and fell into bankruptcy.

Now the brand is betting its future on Brendon Babenzien, the former design director at Supreme, who once did for the hoodie generation what J. Crew did for its dads. Babenzien will attempt to translate his streetwear wizardry and marketing savvy to the overcrowded mainstream market.

In other fashion news, many longtime fans of Kanye West are considering whether to do away with his clothes and shoes after his antisemitic outbursts.

9. It’s been 50 years since Stevie Wonder reinvented the sound of pop.

Wonder released two albums in 1972: “Music of My Mind” followed by the more confident and far-reaching “Talking Book.” The second album was a breakthrough on multiple fronts. It demonstrated, with the international smash “Superstition,” that Wonder didn’t need Motown’s “hit factory” methods — songwriters and producers providing material that singers would dutifully execute — to have a No. 1 hit.

Wonder’s voice on “Talking Book” — his talking, teasing, preaching, moaning, barking and growling — influenced a generation of artists. Now, 50 years after its release, we spoke with 27 people, some of whom created the album and others who cherish it.


10. And finally, you be the umpire.

This year’s World Series, which begins tomorrow between the Philadelphia Phillies and the Houston Astros, could be one of the last ones where umpires will call balls and strikes. If the M.L.B. shifts to an automated strike zone, as they are considering doing as early as 2024, there will no longer be room for debate.



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