TheChek News Flow

FINANCIAL TIMES
-American employers created 150,000 new jobs last month — fewer than forecast and barely half of September’s revised figure of 297,000. Many economists had expected a total of 180,000 new posts for October. The numbers helped boost stocks as well as US Treasuries, as investors bet that the slowdown in the labor market made it more likely that the Federal Reserve will not raise rates further in the coming months.
-Flatbread loaves have become a critical commodity in Gaza, where almost everyone is facing hunger after a month of siege. The bakery must cater for thousands of displaced people from northern Gaza and former customers of other bakeries forced to close by war, even as its own staff contend with the devastation around them.
-Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah gave a fiery speech, threatening and criticizing both Israel and the US. But, he fell short of declaring all-out war. Hezbollah has been conspicuously silent since the war began. Lebanese officials familiar with Hezbollah’s thinking told the FT that his group had come under intense diplomatic pressure to keep its response proportional to avoid a spillover conflict. They said Nasrallah “understood” that Lebanon was in no position to withstand a war, and was not interested in an aggressive escalation.
-Andrew Charlton, a former Qantas executive and managing director of consultancy Aviation Advocacy, said Australians used to be proud of Qantas. “If you take that loyalty for granted?.?.?.?that starts to chip away. The seemingly ceaseless scandals and service lapses mean that now, Qantas has even lost Australia,” said Charlton.
-Russia launched dozens of aerial attacks at targets across Ukraine, amid growing concerns in Kiev that western support could dry up. Ukrainian officials said the strikes included 40 drones as well as missiles that targeted 10 regions, including the city of Lviv near the Polish border, which had not been hit since September. More than half of the drones were shot down, said President Volodymyr Zelensky.
-Central banks’ interest rate policy may have shifted toward a freeze or even cuts. The ECB has chosen a freeze, as have the US Federal Reserve, the Bank of Canada, and the Bank of England, joining central banks in countries ranging from Czech Republic to New Zealand. Central banks in some emerging markets including Brazil and Poland are engaged in outright cuts. The halt in the rate-rising cycle has prompted optimism among bond market investors that leading economies are close to vanquishing the inflationary upsurge.
-The Chinese communist Party has banned officials from pouring their savings into domestic Chinese private equity funds, according to state media this week. The ban officially aims to tackle the myriad corruption risks that accompany cadres indirectly taking shares in companies.
-Despite the rush of patriotism in Israel following the October 7 attacks, even those on the right are furious with Prime Minister Netanyahu. The anger is palpable in the narrow lanes of Machane Yehuda, a big covered market in downtown Jerusalem that has long been a Likud stronghold: bibi is finished.
-Giorgia Meloni’s government has proposed constitutional changes to allow for the direct election of Italy’s prime minister in order to strengthening the office of Prime Minister’s role and ensuring that future coalitions last longer.
“We have done what we pledged to do, giving Italy the historic opportunity of a simple revolution,” Meloni said in a press conference, calling her proposal “the mother of all the reforms”.
-AP Moller-Maersk plans to axe at least 10,000 jobs as the container shipping industry’s pandemic-driven boom gives way to weaker demand during the economic downturn.
-Republican lawmakers’ election of Mike Johnson as speaker of the US House of Representatives will drive the Party further away from Democrats on the issue of climate change, deepening divisions that are likely to be among the most prominent of the 2024 election.

NEW YORK TIMES
-Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu appears to rebuff Blinken’s request for ‘humanitarian pauses.’After a meeting with Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said any cease-fire would hinge on the release of hostages. 
-In a worldwide war of words, Russia, China and Iran Back Hamas. Officials and researchers say the deluge of online propaganda and disinformation is larger than anything seen before.
-Israel used 2,000 pound bombs during an airstrike in a dense area north of Gaza City, a Times analysis shows.
-Hamas put wounded fighters on departure lists, delaying efforts to evacuate foreigners, a US official said.
-Trump has been temporarily released from a gag order. A panel of a federal appeals court lifted the order for at least two weeks, freeing Donald Trump to say what he wants about prosecutors and witnesses. 
-Donald Trump’s lawyers repeatedly criticized a judge’s clerk, overshadowing Eric Trump’s testimony.
-Donald Trump used misleading and recycled claims to talk about energy and jobs at a Houston rally.
-Jurors in Trump defamation trial to go unnamed for their own protection. A judge in the case filed by the writer E. Jean Carroll said that Donald Trump had not abided by gag orders in other cases, and that could lead to harassment.
-Shootings in Maine: President Biden has traveled a grim path through American communities grieving in the wake of mass shootings. On Friday, he added another to the list.
-Libraries across Europe appear to be facing attacks from cybercriminals. At Britain’s national library, an “incident” is sending scholars back to an analog age.
-China and Australia are trying to reconcile. Both sides have been cautious in the run-up to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s trip to Beijing, avoiding terms like “reset” in favor of “stabilization.”

NY POST
-Mark Zuckerberg suffered a torn ACL while training for an upcoming mixed martial arts competition, revealing Friday he’s undergone surgery and is on the road to recovery. “Tore my ACL sparring and just got out of surgery to replace it,” the Meta CEO shared on Instagram, along with a slew of photos from his hospital bed. “Grateful for the doctors and team taking care of me. I was training for a competitive MMA fight early next year, but now that’s delayed a bit.
-Attempts by Hamas to smuggle wounded terrorists out of the Palestinian territory have delayed ongoing efforts to get foreign nationals, including Americans, out of the Gaza Strip, the Biden administration revealed on Friday. 
“Hamas was not allowing anybody to leave,” a senior Biden administration official said during a call with reporters. “And then they said that they would allow foreign nationals to leave, subject to a number of wounded Palestinians being allowed to leave, as well, which of course is not objectionable.
-Elon Musk teased the release of his artificial intelligence startup xAI’s first tool on Friday. Musk, who has expressed concern about AI in the past, revealed that his firm will “release its first AI to a select group” beginning Saturday. “In some important respects, it is the best that currently exists,” Musk said without elaborating on who would test the tool or its purported capabilities.

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