| | | | | | | Presented By Facebook | | | | Axios AM | | By Mike Allen · Sep 06, 2022 | | 🎒 Happy Tuesday, and welcome back. Smart Brevity™ count: 1,494 words ... 5½ mins. Edited by Noah Bressner. | | | | | | 1 big thing: Worst in 1,200 years | | No one alive in California has seen a September heat wave quite like this one: - The Golden State is breaking monthly and all-time records — and could tie a global record this week, Axios' Andrew Freedman writes.
- California ISO, the state grid operator, is predicting an all-time record demand for power today, with a danger of blackouts.
Why it matters: This is a local manifestation of a cooking planet. Climate change is making heat waves hotter, more frequent and longer-lasting. 🔭 Zoom out: A drought enveloping the Southwest since 2000 is the region's driest "megadrought" — a drought lasting two decades or longer — since at least the year 800, a UCLA-led study found in February. - The drought is worsening the heat wave, which further intensifies the drought in a feedback loop.
🔎 Zoom in: It's the combination of the magnitude and duration of this event that makes it so noteworthy and dangerous. - Some areas are seeing records that are set one day, only to be broken the next — then tied or broken again. It's relentless.
🥵 Most importantly from a public health perspective, overnight lows are smashing records, with temperatures not dropping below 80° in entire swaths of Central and Southern California. - So people without air conditioning will get little to no overnight relief. Studies show sharp increases in heat illnesses during heat waves if the overnight lows remain above 78°.
The bottom line: We're seeing extreme heat events that, studies show, would be virtually impossible without human-caused climate change. |     | | | | | | 2. 📦 Trump's piles | | Photos: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters Former President Trump's paper-hoarding, which now has him in danger of prosecution, was evident while he was in office: - These photos — from 2017, 2019 and 2020 — show aides carrying files as Trump boards Marine One and Air Force One for various trips.
How it works: From his desk, Trump filled cardboard boxes with "unanswered letters, unread briefing books and unread newspapers," then staff members "would take the boxes with Mr. Trump when he traveled, allowing him to complete correspondence or catch up on news stories while on Air Force One," the N.Y. Times reports (subscription). The great David Von Drehle, a Washington Post columnist, reports that a jumble of thousands of papers appeared to be a prop during a campaign interview in early 2016 aboard Trump's private 757: - "The world's fastest reader could not plow through Trump's mess in the time he would spend on his plane that day."
- "Indeed, Trump did not read anything from the paper piles. Several times during the flight he plucked a news clipping or report seemingly at random from the stack and peered at it with a puzzled look. Then he tossed it back onto the pile. The sequence repeated every five or 10 minutes."
The mountain of paper seemed meant to show "how very busy and important its owner was," Von Drehle adds: He dug down about three inches to unearth an 8-by-10-inch photograph of the late pop superstar Michael Jackson. "Do you know who this is?" he asked improbably. "A very good friend of mine," he answered himself. Later, he reenacted the same performance with a photograph of Muhammad Ali. Still later, a picture of boxing promoter Don King. Keep reading ... Document timeline. | | | | | | | | 3. Return of a '70s relic: Price controls |  | | | Illustration: Shoshana Gordon/Axios | | | | The inflation, energy and security shocks walloping the world economy are driving a kind of government intervention in markets last seen in the 1970s, Matt Phillips writes for Axios Markets. - Why it matters: Price controls were largely abandoned after the '70s, as both American and global policy shifted toward less government involvement in the economy.
Context: A greater reliance on markets emerged during the Reagan administration — and dominated the post-Cold War era. - "The pendulum is swinging back," Daniel Yergin — energy expert and co-author of "The Commanding Heights," a history of the shift from state economic control to the market-based system — tells Axios.
🎟️ State of play: So far, the major Western countries' efforts to manage prices have been confined to the energy sector. - Financial Times columnist Martin Wolf wrote (subscription) Sunday about soaring U.K. natural-gas prices: "Price controls, even rationing, must be on the table."
The bottom line: Energy markets have become theaters of economic war, and governments are being forced to play a larger role. | | | | | | | | A message from Facebook | | Facebook is taking action to keep its platform safe | | |  | | | | We have over 40,000 people working on safety and security across our platforms. That's more than the size of the FBI. And it's just one example of the work we're doing to create safer connections for our communities. Learn more about our work ahead. | | | | | | 4. 🏋️ New CEO flex | | Jeff Bezos in Portofino, on the Italian Riviera, in 2019. Photo: Backgrid. Licensed by Axios As part of a "Jeff Bezos effect," washboard abs are a new mogul status symbol, The Wall Street Journal's Ellen Gamerman reports (subscription). - Why it matters: "[T]he shred has become a 2022 corporate status symbol, taunting some men in midlife."
Superagent Ari Emanuel, 61, on a yacht off Mykonos, Greece, in July. Photo: Backgrid. Licensed by Axios What's happening: "Jeff Bezos's arms are ripped, Ari Emanuel (ab0ve) has a six-pack, and [video-game CEO] Strauss Zelnick is in skin-tight purple spandex. Elon Musk says he needs to get in shape." - The bragging rights that used to come with working long hours now apply to squeezing in a workout, Mark Cuban said: "I think the pandemic and work from home really created the opportunity for C-Suite executives to focus on their fitness."
Buff bottom line: Willy Walker, 55, chief executive of the commercial real-estate finance company Walker & Dunlop, tells The Journal: "I have an eight-pack." | | | | | | | | 5. 🔮 Senate plans fall vote on marriage | | Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer speaks last month before President Biden signs the climate bill. Photo: Susan Walsh/AP Senate Democrats plan a pre-midterm push to codify the right to same-sex marriage into federal law, Axios' Alayna Treene reports. - Why it matters: It's a bid to preempt challenges to that right in the wake of the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe.
🎟️ State of play: The bill received wide GOP support in the House, with 47 Republicans voting in favor of the legislation. - Democratic Sens. Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.) and Sen. Tammy Baldwin (Wis.) have been leading talks with Republicans.
⚖️ Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said he's committed to holding a vote on antitrust legislation led by Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa). But that could get pushed aside. - Schumer also promised to hold a vote this fall on legislation capping the price of insulin at $35, after that policy was stripped from the Inflation Reduction Act by the Senate parliamentarian.
🏛️ The intrigue: It's not yet clear whether the Senate will take up the Electoral Count Act — which would clarify the role of vice presidents in certifying presidential elections — before the election, or wait for the lame-duck session at the end of the year. | | | | | | | | 6. ⚡ How Biden will spend $50 billion on chips |  | | | Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios | | | | The Commerce Department today will unveil its plan for spending $50 billion on building up the domestic semiconductor industry to counter China, the N.Y. Times' Ana Swanson writes (subscription): - "Projects that involve economically disadvantaged individuals and businesses owned by minorities, veterans or women, or that are based in rural areas, will be prioritized," The Times reports.
- "So will projects that help make the supply chain more secure by, for example, providing another production location for advanced chips that are manufactured in Taiwan."
🔮 What's next: Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo told The Times the department wants to begin soliciting applications from companies by February, and could begin disbursing money by next spring. | | | | | | | | 7. What we're reading |  | | | Covers: The Atlantic, Foreign Affairs | | | | 🇺🇦 The Atlantic today launches a series on life in Ukraine and the state of the war. George Packer writes in "On Democracy's Front Lines": - "I told myself and others that Ukraine is the most important story of our time, that everything we should care about is on the line there."
In contrast to America, on the ground in Ukraine, he's inspired by the energy and unity of the people: - "Nearly everyone I met had looked for something to do as soon as Russia attacked—some way to be useful without waiting for instructions from a higher authority." Explore the package.
🌐 Dan Kurtz-Phelan, editor of Foreign Affairs, writes as the magazine marks 100 years from the first issue in September 1922, which launched with the claim that the development of foreign policy could no longer be confined to foreign ministries: [T]housands of articles have appeared in these pages. Many have, for good and for ill, helped set the course of U.S. foreign policy and international relations ... most famously, George Kennan's [1947] " X" article, which laid out Washington's Cold War strategy of containment. Explore the issue. | | | | | | | | 8. 🎞️ 1 film thing: Action era |  Data: The Numbers; Note: 'Other' includes horror and romantic comedy; Chart: Axios Visuals The continuing box office success of "Top Gun: Maverick" has helped the action genre reign supreme at the box office this year, Axios Media Trends author Sara Fischer reports. - Why it matters: Action and adventure movies have become more popular at the box office amid the streaming boom in recent years.
What's happening: Streaming has pushed more lower-budget and indie films to at-home streaming windows. - High-impact scenes warrant cinematic, big-screen experiences — more than romantic comedies or dramas.
Between the lines: Familiar franchises from Marvel, DC Comics, and others are an especially powerful box-office pull. - Case in point: Sony's re-release of "Spider-Man: No Way Home," which debuted last December, was one of the top films of this holiday weekend.
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