111MHz: ‘Introit.’ The Australian drummer and composer Laurence Pike is back with a post-Covid requiem that blends chorus (in this case, Sydney Philharmonia Choirs’ Vox) with drums and electronics. It reimagines what a requiem mass might sound like. Drums are very forward in the arrangement, as mightn’t entirely surprise you—even as the beauty does. A taste of his new album, The Undreamt-of Centre.

—Brendan Hasenstab

The resurgence of child poverty in America. Last week, the United States Census Bureau published its latest accounting of the U.S. population. Among its more sobering statistics: Between 2022 and 2023, child poverty in the country rose from 12.5 to 13.7 percent, representing some 979,000 more children now living below the line—and bringing the total to nearly 10 million.

What may be most striking about these numbers: In 2021, U.S. child poverty was near historic lows—at 5.2 percent.

What happened?

Before the Covid-19 pandemic, the child-poverty rate was close to what it is now. The U.S. government expanded the child tax credit to help Americans through, giving many families a monthly $300 per child. That moved around three million kids out of poverty—and when the expansion lapsed in 2022, the child poverty rate rebounded.

Now, both the Democratic and Republican presidential campaigns are floating proposals to reintroduce an expanded child tax credit. Kamala Harris is promising to bring it back in a more generous form—offering lower- and middle-income parents $6,000 in the first year of their child’s life. Donald Trump hasn’t tabled a specific proposal himself; his running mate J.D. Vance, however, has suggested $5,000.

Of course, it’s campaign season. But consensus between the campaigns on an idea like this—that’s notable.

—Gustav Jönsson

111MHz: ‘Ignition, Sneakers.’ The insistent “bing” from Lia Kohl’s car key in the ignition is the rhythm here, blending with squeaking sneakers on polished floors, stabbing keyboards, and a sweeping cello. Field recordings of machine-made sounds—and music of modern lives—from her new album, Normal Sounds. Kohl is a composer, cellist, and sound artist from Chicago.

—Brendan Hasenstab

A tough call in the Arctic. For months, Norway’s Port of Kirkenes has been negotiating with the Chinese state-owned shipping firm COSCO (not to be confused with an American big-box retailer) on a long-term lease to operate part of the port. The deal would include significant investments in Kirkenes.

COSCO is massive: Its container fleet has more capacity than any other shipping company in the world, and it holds major stakes in ports in Belgium, Germany, Greece, Italy, Spain, and the United States.

The deal looks sweet for Kirkenes—but it might fall through.

Earlier this month, Norway’s minister of justice said the government was prepared to block it; the country’s center-right opposition party has asked Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store to intervene; and as Gahr Store visited  Beijing this week—meeting with President Xi Jinping and a delegation of Norwegian business leaders—there was no mention of Kirkenes at all. What’s going on here?

Kirkenes isn’t an ordinary European port. It’s above the Arctic Circle, only a 20-minute drive from Russia and 53 nautical miles from the Russian Port of Pechenga. And ever since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, Kirkenes and ports like it have become more strategically important.

At the same time, Moscow and Beijing have been working more closely together in the Arctic; and according to Norway’s security service, the Chinese Communist Party is trying to build up its position and intelligence activities there. COSCO itself, meanwhile, has links to the CCP—every COSCO ship carries a party official—and even, according to the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, links to the Chinese military.

As Martin Wolf emphasized on The Signal earlier this year, security concerns like these have become a primary focus for the U.S. and its European allies in international trade—especially trade with China.

After the fall of Soviet communism more than 30 years ago, the West’s priorities in global commerce had been opening new markets and increasing trade around the world. But as geopolitical competition with China has been heating up in recent years, the economics of deals like the Kirkenes lease—however sweet—are becoming less important than their implications for global and national security.

—Michael Bluhm

A big bet on the Russian border. The Ukrainians stunned the world on the morning of August 6 by, of all things, invading Russia—crossing over their northeastern border into the Russian Federation’s Kursk region. At the same time, the Russians continued to take territory in Ukraine’s East and threaten the key transportation hub of Pokrovsk. In the U.S. and Europe, meanwhile, the Ukrainians have been pressing the case that the Kursk incursion showed it could win on the battlefield—and that they should, accordingly, now be free to use weapons from Western powers to attack inside Russia.

All very shocking and disorienting. What does it mean for the war? Today, Robert Hamilton looks at the risks and rewards of Kyiv’s unexpected gamble—and how it’s changing interpretations of the conflict in Ukraine, in the West, and not least, in Russia.

—Michael Bluhm

111MHz: ‘Sylvanshine.’ Oakland-based guitarist and composer Chuck Johnson conjures other worlds, with cathedrals of shimmering guitar. Here, on his new album Sun Glories, Johnson is supported by the saxophonist Cole Pulice; together, they evoke the great outdoors on a beautiful morning.

—Brendan Hasenstab

Magliabechi’s: The Contest Over National Security. In April 2023, U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan gave a speech outlining Washington’s new economic strategy. To have the National Security Advisor, not the Treasury Secretary, hold forth on economic policy might seem strange—but it’s a sign of how economic issues have become part of the American national-security brief. Sullivan said that the White House wants a “foreign policy for the middle class.” Domestic economic policy, in other words, isn’t separate from the United States’ “security competition” with rival powers—especially China.

Last week, Sullivan made the point to the Financial Times that the U.S. isn’t the only country linking economic policy with national security. “The role of national security in trade and investment policy and strategy is rising everywhere,” he said.

Meanwhile, the American administration is preparing to impose 25 percent tariffs on Chinese cargo cranes, citing the risk of the Chinese government using them to spy on American harbor operations. President Joe Biden has also promised to put some $20 billion into bringing crane manufacturing back to the States. And the 2022 Chips and Science Act is subsidizing American and allied countries’ semiconductor-chip industries to the tune of $39 billion.

But these moves haven’t angered only Beijing. As the Financial Times reports, Tokyo is unhappy with Biden’s opposition to Nippon Steel’s proposed $14.9 billion takeover of U.S. Steel—opposition Biden has motivated on national-security grounds.

From one perspective, the question may be why national security now increasingly includes economic security—but from another, it might be why it wouldn’t have before?

The answer to which, according to Peter Roady in his new book, The Contest Over National Security: FDR, Conservatives, and the Struggle to Claim the Most Powerful Phrase in American Politics, is: It did—for Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

In the 1930s, Roady writes, President Roosevelt made the case that national security encompassed protection not only from foreign threats but from economic want, as well. Roosevelt’s understanding of national security never won out; his successors developed a much more limited national-security state, putting military strength above all else. But while Biden hasn’t entirely revived Roosevelt’s vision, he’s speaking Roosevelt’s language.

—Gustav Jönsson

111MHz: ‘Before the Lightning Strike.’ This track—by Liew Niyomkarn, from her new album In All Possible Places at Once—blends field recording with electronics to build anticipation of the lightning strike in its title … thought it doesn’t resolve. Niyomkarn is from Thailand but currently based in Brussels. Her music draws you into a natural world, even—maybe especially—if you live in an urban one.

—Brendan Hasenstab

The non-ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. On September 1, the Israeli military found the bodies of six hostages in tunnels under the Gaza Strip. Hamas had recently shot each of them multiple times—almost a year after capturing them during the October 7 attack, in which the group killed more than 1,200 Israelis and took more than 250 others prisoner.

Since the discovery, there’s been massive pressure on Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to reach an agreement with Hamas to secure the return of the remaining hostages. The day after the bodies were found, hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets in Israel, for a general strike called by the country’s largest trade union, to protest the Netanyahu government’s failure to get the hostages back—despite months of negotiations.

Israel’s political elites have also publicly pushed Netanyahu to make a deal. Israel’s military commanders, meanwhile, have said for some time that they have largely finished their operations in Gaza, as ordered by the cabinet.

Hamas, too, is under pressure to stop the fighting—from Palestinians, tens of thousands of whom (more than 40,000, according Gaza Health Ministry) have been killed in Israeli strikes with much of the Gaza Strip now in ruins. Hamas itself has lost most of its troops.

So why haven’t the two sides come to an agreement?

Media reports say there are critical sticking points in the talks—above all, on the future presence of Israeli troops in Gaza and on the role of Hamas in running it. But this is a conflict with major geopolitical stakes. And as can be the case with such a conflict, the direct combatants aren’t the only parties to the talks.

The United States, Egypt, and Qatar have long been mediating these negotiations, and the upcoming U.S. presidential elections appear to be a key consideration. The American administration has strong political reasons to reach a ceasefire soon: A deal could help the election prospects of Vice President Kamala Harris—as bringing hostages back would play well among many voters who support Israel, while stopping the fighting would do likewise among those who support Palestine.

The elections could also factor into Netanyahu’s calculations, though, as he’s had far better relations in recent years with Republicans than Democrats—and he might well imagine he’ll get a deal more to his liking later, if Donald Trump wins in November. It’s not clear, meanwhile, what Egypt and Qatar are saying to Hamas.

—Michael Bluhm