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☆ Wall Street Journal insiders are bracing for more changes under its new top editor, including layoffs that could hit as early as this week
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-30 | by ( Lucia Moses | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Wall Street Journal staffers are bracing for layoff news as early as this week and other changes under its new EIC. Emma Tucker has shaken up the top editor ranks, and insiders expect changes to the editing process. Wall Street Journal staffers are bracing for layoffs and broader changes under new top editor Emma Tucker. People expect Tucker to overhaul the cumbersome front-page editing process for top enterprise stories and deemphasize commodity news in favor of more investigative pieces, with specifics to come as early as June. "She's not afraid to ask questions that are challenging Wall Street Journal orthodoxy," a second insider said.

☆ Opinion: The ultimate ‘Succession’ lesson
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-28 | by ( Richard Galant | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +13 min

We’re looking back at the strongest, smartest opinion takes of the week from CNN and other outlets. Walt Handlesman/Tribune Content AgencyIn a much more ominous vein, the theme of survival dominates the HBO show “Succession,” which is coming to an end Sunday. She’s so caught up in beating her brothers at the succession game that she can’t see this baby as anything but an obstacle.”“Ultimately, this storyline is a perfect encapsulation of the larger tragedy that is ‘Succession,’” Bodenheimer added. The contest for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination heated up last week with the official entry of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former President Donald Trump’s strongest challenger in the polls.

☆ Newsroom insiders are bracing for changes at The Wall Street Journal under its new top editor, including layoffs that could hit as early as this week
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-26 | by ( Lucia Moses | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Wall Street Journal staffers are bracing for layoff news as early as this week and other changes under its new EIC. Emma Tucker has shaken up the top editor ranks, and insiders expect changes to the editing process. Wall Street Journal staffers are bracing for layoffs and broader changes under new top editor Emma Tucker. One audio staffer was laid off last week, in keeping with Journal practice to quietly shed people in small numbers. "She's not afraid to ask questions that are challenging Wall Street Journal orthodoxy," a second insider said.

☆ Disney is seriously unpopular with GOP primary voters in key states, internal DeSantis 2024 campaign data and leaked audio show
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-26 | by ( Kimberly Leonard | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +9 min

But DeSantis 2024 campaign polling shows it could help him with Republican voters in a primary. Ryan Tyson, pollster for the campaign, found the company was deeply unpopular among Republicans primary, according to findings shared with The Messenger. "The campaign thinks this is a very good issue for primary voters," Dan Eberhart, CEO of drilling services company Canary, LLC, told Insider. Neither campaign responded to a query from Insider addressing whether they had polling that conflicted with the DeSantis campaign findings. When combining this week's calling efforts with online donations, the DeSantis campaign raised $8.2 million in the fist 24 hours of the campaign.

☆ Erdogan's election lead leaves Turkey's opposition reeling and an economy on the brink
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-19 | by ( Natasha Turak | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +9 min

Since neither candidate won more than 50% of the vote, however, the election will go to a runoff on May 28. They also reveal that despite Turkey's current economic turmoil, tens of millions of Turks still see Erdogan as their only viable leader. Supporters of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan celebrate at the AK Party headquarters garden on May 15, 2023 in Ankara, Turkey. Still, Kilicdaroglu's 44.9% of the vote is notable as the highest any opposition candidate ever received, said Orcun Selcuk, an assistant professor of political science at Luther College in Iowa, on Twitter. "The opposition clearly did not meet the expectations but it would be a misjudgment to say that opposition coordination failed.

☆ Turkey economy: Erdogan vows to keep cutting rates to bring inflation down
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-19 | by ( Olesya Dmitracova | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +4 min

London CNN —Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has promised to continue with his unorthodox policy of cutting interest rates to reduce sky-high inflation if he is re-elected on May 28. “I have a thesis that interest rates and inflation, they are directly correlated. The lower the interest rates, the lower the inflation will be,” Erdoğan told CNN. “In this country, the inflation rate will come down along with the interest rates, so that we will come to a point where people will be relieved. This is not an illusion.”Soaring pricesIn late 2021, as price rises started to accelerate around the world, Erdoğan ordered Turkey’s central bank to slash interest rates.

☆ Premarket: Turkey's big economic gamble looks set to continue
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-19 | by ( Mark Thompson | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +6 min

In an exclusive interview with CNN on Thursday, Erdogan promised to continue cutting interest rates to tackle soaring prices if he is re-elected on May 28, my colleague Olesya Dmitracova reports. “Please do follow me in the aftermath of the elections, and you will see that inflation will be going down along with interest rates,” Erdogan told CNN’s Becky Anderson. “I have a thesis that interest rates and inflation, they are directly correlated. As price hikes started to accelerate around the world in late 2021, Erdogan ordered Turkey’s central bank to slash interest rates. The weekly claims attributed to Massachusetts fell by 14,042 on a non-seasonally adjusted basis, representing three-quarters of the decline of 18,605 claims.

A main focus of Trump's attacks has been Social Security - the federal pension system - and Medicare. I will always protect Social Security and Medicare for our great seniors." Today, party leaders and many Republican voters oppose reforming Social Security and Medicare because so many Americans rely on the programs. They are reliant on Social Security and Medicare and they worry about this stuff," Feehery said. INSULTS KEEP COMINGThere is so far no clear polling on how Trump's attacks on entitlement spending have impacted DeSantis.

☆ Eastern Orthodoxy Gains New Followers in America
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-17 | by ( Francis X. Rocca | Photographs Alyssa Pointer For The Wall Street Journal | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Michelle Jimenez was captaining an oil tanker in the Gulf of Mexico in early 2020 when she heard about a Bible-study group organized by a crew member. Though she had been baptized a Catholic in infancy, she was never raised in that or any other faith. She had experimented with New Age beliefs and Zen Buddhist meditation, but hadn’t found a spiritual home. Her new encounter with Christianity eventually led her to an Eastern Orthodox liturgy.

☆ Turkey's Erdogan faces toughest test yet in landmark election — with high stakes for the world
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-12 | by ( Natasha Turak | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +9 min

He came to prominence as mayor of Istanbul in the 1990s, and was celebrated in the first decade of the new millennium for transforming Turkey's economy into an emerging market powerhouse. But recent years have been far less rosy for the religiously conservative leader, whose own economic policies have triggered a cost-of-living crisis. Now, given a recent downturn in support for Erdogan, some fear he may play dirty to ensure his hold on power. The stakes are high for the entire country and, more broadly, global geopolitics – and the mood on the ground is tense. Mustafa Kamaci | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images"I'm very concerned that [Erdogan] may deploy underhanded tactics, cheating and even violence," Ibish said.

☆ Mitch McConnell says Tucker Carlson's following in the GOP is 'disturbing'
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-09 | by ( Bryan Metzger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Mitch McConnell recently offered his most blunt remarks yet on former Fox News host Tucker Carlson. "At the risk of patting myself on the back, not many Republicans went after Tucker Carlson, but I did," McConnell told Bloomberg. "I think Carlson had developed a coterie of followers in the Congress as well as in the country that I found disturbing." "I do think the party of Ronald Reagan is coming back here," said McConnell. Despite McConnell's comments, Carlson continues to enjoy warm relations with many in the Republican Party.

☆ Opinion | Are Anti-Trump Republicans Doomed to Repeat 2016?
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-06 | by ( Ross Douthat | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +3 min

First, there’s the limits of ideological box-checking in a campaign against Trump. Part of DeSantis’s advantage now, compared with Cruz’s situation in 2016, is that he has seemed more congenial to the party’s bigger-money donors. Remember how nothing remotely like that happened among Republicans in 2016? This reflects another tendency that helped elect him the first time, the weird fatalism of professional Republicans. In 2016 many of them passed from “he can’t win” to “he can’t be stopped” with barely a way station in between.

It would ensure the central bank's independence and roll back measures such as allowing the cabinet to select its governor. FOREIGN POLICYIt would adopt the slogan of "Peace at Home, Peace in the World" as the cornerstone of Turkey's foreign policy. Judges' willingness to abide by Constitutional Court and European Court of Human Rights rulings would be considered when evaluating promotions. Measures would be taken to ensure courts quickly implement rulings by the two high courts. It would ensure that pre-trial detentions are the exception, a measure that critics say is abused under Erdogan's rule.

☆ Pope, meeting Ukrainian refugees, says better future possible
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-29 | by ( Philip Pullella | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

REUTERS/Bernadett SzaboBUDAPEST, April 29 (Reuters) - Pope Francis on Saturday met Ukrainians who fled the war on Hungary's eastern border, telling the refugees that a different future is possible. "We were welcomed here and we have found a new home (but) many have suffered and suffer still because of the war," Yakovlev told the pope. Since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, millions of refugees have fled through Central Europe, including Hungary, and moved to other countries. Later the pontiff met with Metropolitan (bishop) Hilarion, representative of the Russian Orthodox Church(ROC)in Budapest. The Russian Orthodox Church is by far the biggest of the churches in the Eastern Orthodox communion, which split with Western Christianity in the Great Schism of 1054.

☆ Microsoft’s blockbuster deal to buy Activision is in jeopardy. Here’s what could happen next
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-26 | by ( Brian Fung | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

UK officials said Wednesday they will block the company’s $69 billion deal to acquire video game giant Activision-Blizzard. It could also complicate Microsoft’s future in the gaming industry and severely upend Activision, which was in the throes of an internal crisis in the months leading up to the deal. By buying Activision, Microsoft would become the third-largest video game publisher in the world after Tencent and Sony. (The UK dropped its concerns about the console market in March, while the European Union reportedly does not oppose the deal.) In a memo Wednesday to employees, Kotick attempted to strike an optimistic note, whatever the outcome of the deal may be.

☆ David Zaslav Challenged the Streaming Industry’s Orthodoxy. Now, Rivals Are Following His Lead.
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-11 | by ( Joe Flint | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. Distribution and use of this material are governed by our Subscriber Agreement and by copyright law. For non-personal use or to order multiple copies, please contact Dow Jones Reprints at 1-800-843-0008 or visit www.djreprints.com. https://www.wsj.com/articles/david-zaslav-challenged-the-streaming-industrys-orthodoxy-now-rivals-are-following-his-lead-b38dfb1c

[1/4] Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, accompanied by his wife Emine Erdogan, greets the audience during a meeting of his ruling AK Party to announce the party's election manifesto ahead of the May 14 elections, in Ankara, Turkey April 11, 2023. Erdogan is facing the biggest political challenge since his AK Party (AKP) came to power in 2002, with polls showing support sagging in recent years after unorthodox economic policies hobbled the lira currency and sent inflation surging. Erdogan said last week a team was working on strengthening economic policies under the coordination of former economic tsar Mehmet Simsek, who is well respected by international investors. In the presidential election next month, Erdogan will be up against the main opposition alliance candidate, Kemal Kilicdaroglu. On foreign policy, Erdogan said the AKP would continue normalizing relations in the region and aim to build an "axis of Turkey".

☆ Picasso: Love Him or Hate Him?
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-05 | by ( Deborah Solomon | April | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +14 min

It is not hugely cool to profess a love for Picasso these days. This is what Picasso’s detractors — like Hannah Gadsby, the Australian comedian and Picasso basher, who will help curate a Picasso show at the Brooklyn Museum opening on June 2 — often miss. Picasso, by contrast, brought the weight of lived experience into his work, even when he was tethered to archetypal subjects. “The Mother” (1901), an early painting by Picasso, shows a view of motherhood purged of Renaissance idealization. The conventional view of the painting holds that the women are “dolled-up cocottes,” as John Richardson glibly put it in his biography of Picasso.

ISTANBUL, March 24 (Reuters) - Scores of foreign investors are returning to Istanbul and Ankara after years in the cold for a flurry of meetings to understand whether Turkish elections could bring a tidal change for its economy and financial markets. President Tayyip Erdogan's unorthodox policy approach, including aggressive rate cuts in the face of soaring inflation, left the economy and markets heavily state-managed and spurred an exodus of foreign investors over the last five years. Investors seek to understand "who will win, who will hold key positions and what the programme will be." Wall Street bank Citi said it held two days of meetings in Istanbul earlier this month for its bond and equity investors. "It may be a good opportunity to rethink Turkey's currently significant 'underweight' positioning among peer markets," the investor said.

Separately, in a televised interview on Wednesday, Erdogan downplayed the significance of the meeting with Simsek, saying such meetings were ordinary. A senior government official told Reuters the AKP was somewhat divided with some members opposed to Simsek's return, and described the outcome of the Erdogan meeting as "undesirable". The party may now need to revise its economic platform ahead of the election campaign, he added. The AKP declined to comment on whether it was revising its economic strategy ahead of the vote. Two recent polls by MAK and Turkiye Raporu show the opposition presidential challenger Kemal Kilicdaroglu between 4 and 9 percentage points ahead of Erdogan.

☆ Zelenskiy: Ukraine seeks 'spiritual independence', acts against church
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-12 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

March 12 (Reuters) - Ukraine's punitive actions against a branch of the Orthodox church linked to Russia are part of a drive to achieve "spiritual independence," President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Sunday. Zelenskiy and other Ukrainian leaders have accused the long-established Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) of undermining Ukrainian unity and collaborating with Moscow. "One more step towards strengthening our spiritual independence was taken this week," Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address, without referring directly to the order. Orthodoxy is the primary faith in Ukraine and the Moscow-linked church has been in competition for worshippers with an independent Orthodox Church, founded after the Soviet collapse in 1991 but only recognised by church hierarchy in 2018. The Ukrainian culture ministry says the Moscow-linked church has until March 29 to leave the Pechersk Lavra monastery complex.

☆ UK's Hunt to keep tight budget with eye on 2024 election
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-08 | by ( William Schomberg | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

He and Hunt told investors that Britain was not ripping up the economic orthodoxy after all. It's the election timetable," Resolution Foundation chief executive Torsten Bell said in a panel discussion about the budget this week. Until now, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) has been less pessimistic about growth than the Bank of England (BoE). Last month, the BoE said GDP would show no growth at all over 2024 and 2025 after a 0.5% fall in 2023. Hunt has said he will lay out economic growth measures in the budget, including ways to address the fall in the size of Britain's workforce.

☆ Vanguard’s CEO Bucks the ESG Orthodoxy
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-27 | by ( Terrence Keeley | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +1 min

Vanguard’s Tim Buckley is having a Copernican moment. Like the famous Renaissance polymath who challenged conventional wisdom about celestial movement, the 54-year-old CEO is challenging the asset-management industry’s environmental, social and governance orthodoxy. “Our research indicates that ESG investing does not have any advantage over broad-based investing,” Mr. Buckley said in a recent interview with the Financial Times. Matching word to deed, his comments came after he had withdrawn his firm from the $59 trillion Net Zero Asset Managers initiative, an organization that is part of the $150 trillion United Nations-affiliated Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero. Mr. Buckley claims the financial world, swept up in climate-change fervor, can’t make such commitments without reneging on its fiduciary duties.

☆ Former UK PM Liz Truss is blaming the left-wing 'economic establishment' for ousting her
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-06 | by ( Elliot Smith | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +7 min

British Prime Minister Liz Truss announces her resignation, outside Number 10 Downing Street, London, Britain October 20, 2022. Henry Nicholls | ReutersLONDON — Former U.K. Prime Minister Liz Truss is blaming a "powerful economic establishment" for bringing her chaotic 44-day tenure to an end last year. Truss was elected leader of the Conservative Party in September, defeating her eventual successor Rishi Sunak, after garnering 81,326 votes from party members following the ousting of Boris Johnson. She was acting as if winning a majority of the Conservative Party membership gave her economic credibility, and it most clearly doesn't." Current Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's government vowed to restore this credibility upon taking over in October, and quickly reversed Truss' entire economic agenda.

☆ UK's shortest-serving PM Liz Truss blames economic 'orthodoxy' for downfall
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-05 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

LONDON, Feb 5 (Reuters) - Former British prime minister Liz Truss blamed on Sunday the economic "orthodoxy" in the country's finance ministry, other nations and in parts of the governing Conservative Party for derailing her premiership and "plan for growth". But she was not successful, she wrote, because she had underestimated "the blob of vested interests" and orthodoxy. "As I had spelled out during the leadership campaign, I wanted to go for growth ... But this was not in line with the instinctive views of the Treasury (finance ministry) or the wider orthodox economic ecosystem." Grant Shapps, business minister, said everyone wanted lower taxes but Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's government had to focus on reducing debt, bringing down inflation and boosting growth first.

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