Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Jake Scott
“A flurry of recent news from the European Union has put the eurozone economy into the spotlight: amid a background of solid growth in the manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI), the European Central Bank (ECB) has held off another rise in interest rates as inflation sticks at 3.8%, almost double its medium-term target of 2%. On top of this, the president of the ECB, Christine Lagarde, has announced her intention to resign in February 2027, roughly nine months earlier than her tenure is expected to end. There is, evidently, a lot going on in this, but despite the significance of Lagarde’s announcement, the most important is the level of inflation.” (11/04/26)
“Texas could soon give alligator hunters significantly more time to pursue the reptiles as wildlife officials grapple with a surprising trend: more alligators, but fewer being hunted. The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) is proposing to more than triple the alligator hunting season in 22 Southeast Texas counties, including Galveston, Brazoria, Chambers, Jefferson and Liberty. The season would expand from 20 to 61 days, running from Sept. 1 through Oct. 31 instead of Sept. 10 through Sept. 30. The changes, which will be discussed during a Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission meeting on Wednesday, Nov. 4, would also allow nighttime alligator hunting on private property, including private waters, and expand the methods hunters can use to capture the reptiles.” (11/04/26)
“Have Americans gotten the loyalty business all wrong? Are we grasping the ‘second rate’ when we rely on politics to lift us? We are the ones, not politicians, who will build an America we are proud of.” (11/04/26)
“A former U.S. government contractor has admitted passing classified intelligence to Ethiopia that officials used in military operations, the U.S. Justice Department said Tuesday. Abraham Teklu Lemma, 54, supplied secrets to senior Ethiopian officials for more than two years urging them to deploy drones against fighters battling the government, according to the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington. Lemma, of Silver Spring, Maryland, pleaded guilty Tuesday to conspiring to transmit national defense information to a foreign government. He worked as an information technology contractor at the State Department, Justice Department and National Reconnaissance Office, prosecutors said.” (11/04/26)
“In the wake of the Democratic blowout in Tuesday’s midterms — South Carolina, Kansas, and Texas have gone blue — beware the preachers of holy complexity bent on obfuscating the obvious: President Trump and the GOP broke their pledge of peace, launched an ill-conceived war with Iran, and thus exacerbated an affordability crisis they’d been elected to solve. To be sure, other failures marked the first two years of the Trump administration: the chaotic tariff regime, the grotesque corruption, the performative cruelty of ICE, Trump’s own descent from mere reality-TV vanity to ballroom-obsessed, Neronian caprice. But the Iran war — given both its inflationary effects and galling betrayal of one of Trump’s core pledges — looms largest. The preachers of holy complexity have good reason to avoid this bare truth.” (11/04/26)
“A Bronx nurse and her federal agent boyfriend were found shot dead in a Riverdale apartment Tuesday night in an apparent murder-suicide, according to police and sources. Andrea Cantarini, 37, and her boyfriend, Juan Cornelio Diaz, 38 — a US Customs and Border Patrol officer stationed at JFK airport — were found with fatal gunshot wounds to their heads inside Cantarini’s apartment on Blackstone Avenue in Riverdale around 9 p.m., the NYPD said. Diaz allegedly shot and killed Cantarini, before apparently turning the gun on himself, according to the sources.” (11/04/26)
