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Moldova looks West, CP5 sue Trump and the FTC gets real

 
Today's INTERNATIONAL story

Moldova backs joining EU in close vote marred by Russia

What happened
Moldovans narrowly voted in favor of joining the European Union, according to election results released Monday, in a referendum the government said was marred by widespread Russian interference, including vote-buying. A 42.5% plurality of voters also supported President Maia Sandu in a parallel election Sunday, pushing her into a runoff against former prosecutor-general Alexandr Stoianoglo, a pro-Russia candidate who got 26%.

Who said what
"The people of Moldova have spoken: Our EU future will now be anchored in the constitution," Sandu, 52, wrote on X. "We fought fairly in an unfair fight — and we won." Sandu's government, in office since 2021, asked to join the EU after Russia's full-scale invasion of neighboring Ukraine in 2022. The referendum, which passed 50.4% to 49.6%, made joining the EU a goal enshrined in the former Soviet satellite's constitution. That's a win for Sandu, The Washington Post said, but the "knife-edge result is far from a confident endorsement of her attempts to push the country sharply toward the West" and away from Russia.

Moldova, the EU and the United States said the Kremlin had waged a "hybrid war" campaign to destabilize the country and keep it in Russia's sphere of influence, including funding pro-Moscow parties, spreading disinformation and pouring millions of dollars into schemes to buy up 300,000 votes. Nearly 1.5 million Moldovans ultimately voted.

Earlier this month, Moldovan law enforcement accused exiled pro-Russia oligarch Ilan Shor of paying about $16 million to 130,000 Moldovans to vote against the referendum and for anybody but Sandu. A BBC producer on Sunday "heard a woman who had just dropped her ballot in the transparent box ask an election monitor where she would get paid," the BBC said, and after realizing no cash was coming, she cursed the man who offered the payment, saying, "He tricked me!"

What next?
Sandu and Stoianoglo will face each other in a Nov. 3 runoff for the presidency, with Moldova's direction on the line. The "apparent success of Russian hybrid warfare" in Moldova, Politico said, is a "worrying omen for next week's critical elections in Georgia — another EU candidate country where Moscow is seeking to strengthen its hand."

 
 
Today's LEGAL story

'Central Park 5' sue Trump for defamation

What happened
Members of the Central Park Five, a group of Black and Hispanic men wrongfully convicted as teenagers of the 1989 rape of a jogger in Manhattan, sued Donald Trump yesterday for spreading "false, misleading and defamatory" claims about their case last month during his presidential debate with Kamala Harris.

Who said what
Harris noted in the debate that Trump in 1989 "took out a full-page ad in The New York Times calling for the execution of five young Black and Latino boys who were innocent, the Central Park Five." Trump said in reply that "they admitted — they said, they pled guilty. And I said, well, if they pled guilty they badly hurt a person, killed a person ultimately."

The jogger did not die in the attack. And the five men "never pled guilty to the Central Park assaults," lawyers for the group said in a filing in federal court in Philadelphia, where the debate took place. They "maintained their innocence throughout their trial and incarceration." DNA evidence exonerated all five in 2002, and they reached a $41 million settlement with New York City in 2014.

Trump falsely "made it appear that they were guilty," and "it is devastating to be accused of these things all over again on national television to an audience of 67 million people," lawyer Shanin Specter told The New York Times. A Trump campaign spokesperson called the defamation claim "just another frivolous, Election Interference lawsuit."

What next?
The group, now calling themselves the "Exonerated Five," are "seeking unspecified monetary damages for reputational and emotional harms as well as punitive damages," Reuters said.

 
 
Today's Consumer protection Story

FTC bans fake online product reviews

What happened
Companies are now prohibited from paying for or selling online product reviews and generating other types of fake testimonials under a Federal Trade Commission rule that went into force yesterday. The FTC rule, finalized and unanimously approved in August, will be enforced through civil penalties, including fines of up to $51,744 fine per violation. 

Who said what
"Fake reviews not only waste people's time and money, but also pollute the marketplace and divert business away from honest competitors," FTC Chair Lina Khan said in August. The new rule "will protect Americans from getting cheated, put businesses that unlawfully game the system on notice and promote markets that are fair, honest and competitive."

Reviews are "increasingly important in almost all of our purchase decisions," Sandy Jap, an Emory University marketing professor, told The Wall Street Journal, and fake reviews create a "noisier environment for consumers" and muddle trust. The FTC also now prohibits hiding or suppressing bad reviews, reviews written by undisclosed company insiders, and "buying fake indicators of social media influence," like bot-generated followers or views.

What next?
The FTC finalized a "click to cancel" rule last week that will take effect in about six months, giving companies time to come up with mechanisms to cancel subscriptions that are "at least as easy" as signing up for them, with no tricks or traps. The rule, approved 3-2 along party lines, is "part of President Joe Biden's efforts to crack down on 'junk fees,'" USA Today said.

 
 

It's not all bad

A herd of long-horned tauros will be released in the Scottish Highlands to replicate the role of aurochs, the extinct ancestor of cattle. Bred in the Netherlands, the tauros are a crossbreed closely resembling the ancient aurochs and are expected to help restore landscapes and boost biodiversity. The rewilding charity Trees for Life plans to establish Britain's first herd of 15 tauros on an estate near Loch Ness. Aurochs vanished from Britain in about 1300 BC, but their DNA lives on in some ancient cattle breeds.

 
 
Under the radar

National Geographic reported on Oct. 13 that Mount Everest explorers had found the suspected frozen foot of Andrew "Sandy" Irvine, who disappeared on the mountain alongside his climbing partner, George Mallory, during an expedition in 1924. Mallory's body was found in 1999, but no remains of Irvine had ever been located, until now. 

It is "not known whether the pair ever reached the summit — an important Everest mystery among climbers and historians alike," said NBC News. That is because any proof that Irvine and Mallory indeed summited Mount Everest in 1924 would change the course of mountaineering history. It would mean the pair conquered the mountain 29 years before New Zealand's Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay made the first confirmed summit in 1953.

The discovery of Mallory's body in 1999 has not provided conclusive evidence that the pair reached the top of Everest, but "historians suspect that a Kodak camera they were carrying may have photographic evidence of a successful summit," said The Washington Post. DNA testing will be done to ensure that the frozen foot belonged to Irvine. 

But even with this newfound information — and hope that the lost camera could contain a picture of Irvine and Mallory at the summit — Irvine's family "has always maintained the mystery, and the story of how far they got and how brave they were, was really what it was about," Irvine's great-niece Julie Summers told the BBC.

 
 
On this day

October 22, 1884

Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) was adopted as the universal prime meridian by the International Meridian Conference in Washington, making it the starting longitude for mean (clock) time. Prior to the conference, world clocks existed under a series of "initial" meridians and haphazard time zones; GMT created 24 standard international time zones, with longitude zero in Greenwich, England.

 
 
TODAY'S newspaperS

"Dr. Phil" McGraw and a remorseful juror who convicted Robert Roberson of "shaken baby" murder were among the people who testified before a Texas House committee seeking to prevent the "miscarriage of justice" that would be his execution, The Dallas Morning News says on Tuesday's front page. Gov. Greg Abbott (R) urged the courts to "block House subpoena" that temporarily spared Roberson's life, the Houston Chronicle says. With two weeks before Election Day, Donald Trump and Kamala Harris are "hustling for a boost over the top," USA Today says. The two candidates are "even in new poll," The Washington Post says. That's why the "battle is fierce for sliver of pie: undecided voters," The New York Times says.

â–º See the newspaper front pages

 
 
Tall tale

Definitely not a successful ruse

Oregon police got more than they bargained for when they stopped a man and a woman driving a stolen car in Portland. Officers found cash, a loaded gun, scales and a bag of drugs with the words "definitely not a bag full of drugs" printed on it, law enforcement officials said. Despite the disclaimer, court records said the bag was filled with more than 10 grams of fentanyl and methamphetamine.

 
 

Morning Report was written and edited by Theara Coleman, Nadia Croes, Catherine Garcia, Scott Hocker, Anya Jaremko-Greenwold, Justin Klawans, Devika Rao, Rafi Schwartz and Peter Weber, with illustrations by Stephen Kelly and Julia Wytrazek.

Image credits, from top: Elena Covalenco / AFP via Getty Images; Presley Ann / Getty Images; Andrii Zastrozhnov / iStock / Getty Images; Illustration by Julia Wytrazek / Getty Images