Your Evening Briefing

David Rovella

31 Oct 2019, 04:12 AM IST

(Bloomberg) --

Twitter said it will ban political advertising from its platform starting Nov. 22, a move that could make life even harder for its social media rival. Facebook Chairman Mark Zuckerberg has come under withering fire for refusing to fact-check political posts, leaving his company to profit from fabrications circulated across its platform. U.S. President Donald Trump has taken advantage of Zuckerberg’s policy by running ads with unsubstantiated claims about former Vice President Joseph Biden. Zuckerberg, whose platform played a key role in Russia’s effort to tilt the 2016 election in Trump’s favor, said technology firms shouldn’t have to play referee when it comes to paid political advertising.

Here are today’s top stories

Despite its troubles, Facebook reported positive earnings news Wednesday. Ride-hailing company Lyft and Starbucks did, too.

Apple projected revenue for the holiday quarter that beat analysts’ estimates, signaling solid demand for the latest iPhones and Apple TV+.

As expected, the Fed lowered interest rates by a quarter-percentage point for the third time this year, while signaling a pause in further reductions unless the economic outlook changes materially. As with the past two cuts, two Fed members dissented.

While current and former U.S. government officials testify about Trump’s effort to push Ukraine to obtain dirt on Biden in exchange for military aid, a more dramatic deposition may be coming: Fired National Security Adviser John Bolton has been invited to Capitol Hill.

Chilean police and soldiers are firing projectiles into crowds of civilians, maiming and blinding them as they protest inequality across a range of issues. With more than 140 injured and 13 dead, Chile is already the subject of an international human rights investigation. The government cancelled a global climate summit as well as next month’s APEC summit in Santiago, where Trump has said he expected to sign a partial trade pact with China.

Al Gore is conducting an experiment on his family farm. The former U.S. vice president says it may be the world’s most realistic chance at averting climate catastrophe. The solution, Gore says, is under your feet.

What’s Joe Weisenthal thinking about? The Bloomberg news director says European households are saving more. That’s bad news for demand in a region where inflation expectations are already at epic lows, especially while there’s diminished monetary firepower to shore up economic growth. Meanwhile, the global trade outlook remains weak.

What you’ll need to know tomorrow

Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign is cutting staff and pay.
This is how Boris Johnson’s Brexit election gamble could backfire.
Businessweek: The drone wars are here, and they’re escalating
China pulls back and a Los Angeles development grinds to a halt.
Uber has a new adversary: The Mexican National Guard.
This secretive, super-rich family must decide where to put $4 billion.
Pizza and beer don’t go well together anymore (if they ever did).

What you’ll want to watch in Bloomberg Originals

Mosquitoes are much more than a bloodsucking annoyance. For half of the world, they represent disease and death. In some tropical regions, they transmit a powerful virus called dengue that kills hundreds of thousands each year. It’s the world’s fastest spreading tropical illness, and with accelerating climate change, is appearing in non-tropical areas once free from it. In the second installment of Moonshot, a Bloomberg Originals series, we look at the non-profit that aims to eliminate dengue for good.