Thursday Morning Briefing: 'Go away Florence' - hurricane creeps toward U.S. coast

Highlights

Hurricane Florence crept closer to the U.S. East Coast, packing tropical storm-force winds across hundreds of miles that threaten the region with potentially catastrophic flooding and torrential rain.

A message is posted on a boarded up building before the arrival of Hurricane Florence on Oak Island, North Carolina, U.S., September 12, 2018. REUTERS/Carlo Allegri

The U.S. Army is mobilizing to find and fix lead hazards in housing on bases across the country and around the world, after a Reuters investigation last month unearthed dangers lurking in base homes, lapses in military oversight, and a code of silence keeping families at risk.

Federal Reserve officials tout a decade of falling unemployment as among their major victories in fighting the economic crisis of 2007 to 2009. Now they are beginning to worry they have been too successful.

Democratic voters in New York will decide today whether Governor Andrew Cuomo deserves a third term or should be replaced by actress and activist Cynthia Nixon, a first-time candidate mounting a challenge from the left.

World

“My thought sitting there was that it was a show fit for a god,” a tourist told Reuters as he watched the “Mass Games” in Pyongyang. A sobering reminder of the power of the state in North Korea, however, was the realisation that many of the thousands of performers on the field were young children.

China welcomed an invitation by the United States to hold a new round of trade talks, as Washington prepares to further escalate the U.S.-China trade war with tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods.

Myanmar government leader Aung San Suu Kyi aid two jailed Reuters journalists can appeal their seven-year sentence, and that their jailing had nothing to do with freedom of expression. Read more on their case here.

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"Oslo is dead.” “It was a 100 percent surrender.” "We will make peace.” “They won, the extremists." Twenty-five years on from Oslo, opinions are still divided. https://reut.rs/2N8yT7u

5:02 AM - September 13, 2018

Business

U.S. utility solar contracts 'exploded' in 2018 despite tariffs

Procurement of solar energy by U.S. utilities “exploded” in the first half of 2018, prompting a prominent research group to boost its five-year installation forecast despite the Trump administration’s steep tariffs on imported panels.

3 min read

Apple iPhones get bigger and pricier, Watch turns to health

Apple introduced its largest-ever iPhone and a watch that detects heart problems in an attempt to get customers to upgrade to more expensive devices in the face of stagnant global demand for smartphones.

6 min read

Sonny's roadshow: How Trump's Ag chief sells a trade war to farmers

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue, or “Secretary Sonny, ”has racked up thousands of miles, visiting 42 states, on a goodwill tour trying to shore up support among farmers who heavily supported Trump in 2016 - but now see their livelihood threatened after losing much of the massive Chinese market for staple crops such as soybeans, pork and sorghum.

8 Min Read

Notes from the 2008 financial crisis

Global central banks got out their ‘bazooka’ to pull the world out of recession, after the collapse of Lehman Brothers deepened world’s financial crisis, explains Reuters journalist Howard Schneider in the latest installment of our multimedia series. But ten years on, has it worked?

5 mins

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