Today's Headlines: Flavio Bolsonaro refused to concede to Lula and said he’d seek an annulment, and after Trump called the result “another rigged election,” Flavio conceded minutes later, though he still plans to sue over Lula’s “abuse of incumbency” (he’s also under investigation for corruption and money laundering, police ordered him to surrender his passport, and a source told the Washington Post he’s terrified his father will die in jail and that he’ll be jailed this week, so like father, like son). On the strongman beat, the WSJ reports the Trump administration is pushing Hungary’s ousted Viktor Orban for UN Secretary-General and trying to get Russia and China to “joint nominate” him, which would make it very likely. Meanwhile, Trump’s DOJ charged James Comey a third time, with two counts of leaking sensitive info to a New York Times reporter in 2016, which we only know because Comey asked a judge to unseal the indictment, and it was signed by specially appointed deputies of Todd Blanche rather than career prosecutors (the seashells case is delayed until 2027 while a judge weighs dismissal), and in what looks like a bizarre coincidence, just hours earlier a different judge ruled the DOJ wrongly fired Maurene Comey, the Epstein prosecutor and Comey’s daughter, and ordered her reinstated with backpay, which matters for the other prosecutors fired the same way. On the Epstein front, House Judiciary Democrats released a 50-plus page report on Trump’s documented ties to Epstein and are calling for an independent special counsel, also to look at Blanche’s conflicts and why the DOJ won’t release all the files. In tech news, Anthropic filed IPO paperwork, with a listing possible as soon as the week before Thanksgiving, and its 400-page filing shows it isn’t really profitable in the technical sense, though it earned over a billion dollars in interest on its cash and forecasts outcomes ranging from curing cancer to humans losing control of AI, while the FTC also demanded Anthropic executives testify in a consumer harm probe similar to its OpenAI investigation, with more subpoenas coming. Speaking of AI’s costs, Microsoft offered voluntary buyouts to 60,000 employees, 27% of its workforce, as part of an “AI efficiency push.” Finally, Halloween candy prices are up 7.7% over the past year, more than twice overall inflation, and while the National Retail Federation forecasts record spending of $13.5 billion, NielsenIQ says candy sales are down almost 7%, and today is also Israel’s election day, so stay tuned.
Resources/Articles mentioned:
Reuters: Trump says Brazil election looked 'rigged' as Bolsonaro refuses to recognize Lula win
WSJ: Viktor Orbán, U.N. Secretary-General?
WaPo: Justice Dept. charges James Comey, ex-FBI director, for a third time
NBC News: Judge orders DOJ to reinstate former federal prosecutor Maurene Comey, daughter of ex-FBI director
MS Now: House Judiciary Democrats release 50-page report on Trump’s alleged involvement in Epstein files
WSJ: The Biggest Takeaways From Anthropic’s IPO Prospectus
Axios: FTC demands Anthropic execs testify in expanding AI safety probe
CNBC: Microsoft offers voluntary buyouts as AI leads to efficiency push
WaPo: Halloween candy is more expensive than ever
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