October 23 2024

1. North Korea Sends Troops to Ukraine, in Major Escalation
2. Chicago Schools Face Crisis as Covid Relief Funds Run Out
3. Freshman College Enrollment Down 5%
4. Defense Contractors Develop Laser Weapons to Counter Drone Threats
5. China's Economic Troubles Worsen Amid Real Estate Crisis and Rising Unemployment
10/23/1929 The first transcontinental air service begins from New York to Los Angeles

See the new Ad Astra Podcast! Released on Apple and Spotify around 10a CST.

Editors note: We’re still waiting on Israel’s retaliatory strike on Iran. It will come and when it does, we’ll cover it.

1. North Korea Sends Troops to Ukraine, in Major Escalation

Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III confirmed on Wednesday that North Korea had sent troops to Russia to join the fight against Ukraine, a major shift in Moscow’s effort to win the war. Mr. Austin called the North’s presence a “very serious” escalation that would have ramifications in both Europe and Asia. His statement came as American intelligence officials said they were preparing to release a trove of intelligence, including satellite photographs, that show troop ships moving from North Korea to training areas in Vladivostok on Russia’s east coast and other Russian territory further to the north. No troops have yet reached Ukraine, the intelligence officials said. both Russia and North Korea experts called it a watershed moment. Desperate not to stir up domestic resentments about the huge casualties Russia has taken — over 600,0000 killed or wounded, American officials recently estimated — Mr. Putin is now reaching for mercenary forces, supplied by the same country that has sold him more than a million artillery rounds, many of them defective. For Kim Jong-un, the North’s leader, the war in Ukraine has been a pathway out of geopolitical isolation. For the first time in decades, the North possesses assets that a major power is willing to pay for.

Article Source: NYT

2. Chicago Schools Face Crisis as Covid Relief Funds Run Out

Thousands of people have been hired at Chicago Public Schools over the past few years, fueled by $2.8 billion in federal covid relief funding. Now the money is gone, but no one wants to reduce the workforce, and an ugly budget fight has plunged one of the nation’s largest districts into a financial and leadership crisis. The new teachers, aides and school nurses, officials say, were desperately needed even before the pandemic exacted a severe toll on the city’s children. But no one in the district has a plan for how to keep paying them. Other school districts around the country may soon face similar budget reckonings as the covid relief money runs out, experts say Soon after the federal government approved a historic $190 billion in covid relief money for schools, experts warned school districts across the country that it would be risky to use the one-time funding for ongoing expenses. Some districts opted to spend their money on discrete projects, such as improving facilities or contracts with tutoring companies. But others, including Chicago Public Schools, said the need for new staff was acute. For years, the system has been underfunded, and the district saw an opportunity to rectify that.

Article Source: WaPo

3. Freshman College Enrollment Down 5%

Fewer freshmen showed up on college campuses this fall, according to a new national report released Wednesday, yet the overall number of undergraduates is up for the second year in a row. An early snapshot of fall enrollment from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center shows undergraduate head count this fall is 3 percent higher than last year, fueled by continuing students and high-schoolers getting a jump on college courses. That figure is still 2.8 percent below what it was in the fall of 2019. Despite that growth, the total freshman head count of all ages across all segments of higher education was down 5 percent, the first decline since the start of the pandemic in 2020, when it plunged nearly 10 percent, according to Clearinghouse data. Colleges and universities reported an almost 6 percent drop in 18-year-old freshmen signing up for classes this fall. “It’s very hard to pinpoint any single cause of the changes, particularly in freshmen this fall,” Doug Shapiro, the research center’s executive director, said on a call with reporters Tuesday. “There have been so many different headwinds,” including “demographic declines … continuing concerns about the cost of college and labor market shifts.”

Article Source: WaPo

4. Defense Contractors Develop Laser Weapons to Counter Drone Threats

Defence companies are accelerating plans to develop low-cost, high-energy laser weapons as militaries around the world look for ways to counter cheap new missile threats such as drones.  Some of the world’s best-known contractors, including RTX in the US and Europe’s MBDA, as well as Britain’s QinetiQ, are investing heavily in the cutting-edge technology — long regarded as more science fiction than reality.  The race to deploy the weapons, whose laser beams cut through metal and destroy electronics, has taken on new urgency as governments search for more cost-effective ways to tackle the proliferation of cheap drones and missiles. Earlier this year, British and American ships were forced to fire multimillion dollar missiles to shoot down drones launched by Houthi rebels in the Red Sea.

Article Source: FT

5. China's Economic Troubles Worsen Amid Real Estate Crisis and Rising Unemployment

Wars in the Middle East and Ukraine dominate the headlines, but the Indo-Pacific remains the fulcrum of world politics and where the 21st century will take shape. While bombs fall and missiles fly elsewhere, the Chinese Communist Party is wrestling with its greatest challenges since Deng Xiaoping’s reforms fueled a generation of blistering growth in the 1980s. Unfortunately, the economic choices China is making look set to promote greater repression at home and increased tension with neighbors and trading partners around the world. According to recent Wall Street Journal reports, up to 90 million housing units across China stand empty in a country whose population is falling. Real-estate developers cannot service their loans. Local governments, which have long funded their programs by land sales to developers, are drowning in debt. With government encouragement, Chinese households invested nearly 80% of their total savings in real estate. Now that house prices have fallen about 30% since 2021 in some markets, shocked consumers are reining in their spending. Industrial profits are down 17.8% in the past year. Youth unemployment continues to rise. Europe and the U.S. are planning new tariffs against an expected flood of cut-price Chinese exports. Banks don’t want to lend, and foreigners don’t want to invest.

Article Source: WSJ, Walter Russell Mead

10/23/1929 The first transcontinental air service begins from New York to Los Angeles

Sources

1. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/23/us/politics/north-korea-russia-military-ukraine.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

2. https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2024/10/21/chicago-schools-covid-money-crisis/

3. https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2024/10/23/freshman-college-enrollment-decline/

4. https://www.ft.com/content/c4c90a0e-303a-4445-85f8-54afbfbf23ab

5. https://www.wsj.com/opinion/china-falls-into-its-own-trap-economic-model-unstable-but-reform-politically-risky-eeebeab6?st=bxCjNt&reflink=article_copyURL_share