TODAY’S INTERNATIONAL story

Argentina’s Milei buoyed by regional election wins

What happened
Argentine President Javier Milei (pictured above) came out on top in midterm elections yesterday for a third of the senate and about half the seats in the lower house. Milei’s libertarian La Libertad Avanza party took about 41% of the total vote, versus 31% for the left-leaning Peronist opposition bloc, putting his free-market reforms and radical austerity measures on a more solid footing.

Who said what
Milei’s victory, which far exceeded expectations, was projected to give his party “at least one-third of the seats in both chambers,” a “critical threshold” that allows him to “preserve his veto power and defend his sweeping decrees,” The Wall Street Journal said.

Voter turnout was just under 68%, “among the lowest recorded since the nation’s 1983 return to democracy,” The Associated Press said. But few Argentine legislative elections have “generated so much interest in Washington and Wall Street.” President Donald Trump had conditioned a $20 billion currency bailout and an additional $20 billion in private funds on Milei doing well in the midterms. “Critics — and Trump administration officials — have portrayed the move as a blatant effort to influence politics in Argentina and the rest of the region,” The Washington Post said.

What next?
“We think it is much better to use American economic power up front to stabilize a friendly government” and “set the tone in Latin America,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told NBC’s “Meet the Press” yesterday. Yesterday’s win “buys Milei time with investors,” the Journal said, but the “domestic pain” from his policies “has been severe.”

TODAY’S CRIME Story

France makes first arrests in Louvre jewels heist

What happened
French police have arrested the first suspects in last week’s brazen daytime theft of royal jewels from the Louvre, Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau said yesterday. French media reported that two suspects were arrested, but Beccuau confirmed only that “one of the men arrested was preparing to leave the country” from Charles de Gaulle Airport on Saturday evening. Four people carried out the heist.

Who said what
The theft of more than $100 million worth of historical jewels from the world’s most-visited museum “stunned France,” The New York Times said. The arrests were a “major breakthrough for French investigators, who are racing to find the thieves before the jewelry is dismantled and the rare stones and metals can be sold or melted down.”

The two arrested suspects are in their 30s and “known to police,” and at least one was “identified from DNA traces” recovered from the crime scene, The Associated Press said, citing a police official. Beccuau said she “deeply” regretted the “hasty disclosure” of the arrests, as it “can only harm the investigative efforts of the 100 or so investigators who mobilized in the search for both the stolen jewelry and for all of the criminals.”

What next?
Police can hold the suspects in custody for up to 96 hours before deciding whether to release them or bring preliminary charges. Beccuau said she would “provide additional information at the end of this period.”

It’s not all bad

Carlos Costa fell in love with movies during his first trip to the theater; 50 years later, he opened an independent cinema in São Paulo, Brazil. Costa converted an old garage into the Cine LT3 theater, with 35 vintage seats, a snack counter and a box office. He runs the entire operation, including choosing the art-house titles, running the projector and making the popcorn. “I also think that’s part of the charm,” he told The Associated Press.

Under the radar

Peanut allergies have plummeted in children

Food allergies in kids have dropped by 36% over the past 10 years — a change mostly attributed to a 43% drop in peanut allergies, according to a study published in the journal Pediatrics. Now, eggs have overtaken peanuts as the most common allergen among children. This decrease comes 10 years after a study found that early exposure to peanut products cuts the chances of developing a peanut allergy by 80%. In 2017, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases formally issued national guidelines for this early introduction.

“Early allergen introduction works,” Dr. David Hill, the lead author of the study, said to NPR. For the “first time in recent history, it seems like we are starting to put a brake pedal on the epidemic of food allergy in this country.”

Peanut allergies occur when the body’s immune system “mistakenly identifies proteins in peanuts as harmful and releases chemicals that trigger allergic symptoms, including hives, respiratory symptoms” and sometimes “life-threatening anaphylaxis,” said CBS News. Because of this, parents were previously advised to avoid feeding their kids foods likely to trigger allergens before the age of 3.

The current guidelines, updated in 2021, call for “introducing peanuts and other major food allergens between 4 and 6 months, without prior screening or testing,” said CBS News. It “doesn’t have to be a lot of the food,” just “little tastes of peanut butter, milk-based yogurt, soy-based yogurts and tree butters,” Hill said. These are “really good ways to allow the immune system exposure to these allergenic foods in a safe way.”

On this day

October 27, 1982

China announced that its population had reached 1 billion, making it the first country to hit this milestone. The country remained the world's most populous until 2023, when it was surpassed by India, which has a current population of 1.4 billion.

TODAY’S newspaperS

‘Shutdown gets real’

“Trump’s view of Japan differs from today’s reality,” The Washington Post says on Monday’s front page. “China, U.S. agree to outline of trade deal,” The Boston Globe says, but in the U.S., “crisis grows ahead of halt in food aid.” Government “shutdown gets real” with “loss of SNAP benefits, paychecks,” the Detroit Free Press says. “Hunger awaits if families lose benefits,” The Dallas Morning News says. “Companies bet they can grow without hiring,” The Wall Street Journal says. “In Trump-friendly Iowa, his policies have hurt,” The New York Times says. "Trump’s push for redistricting hits red-state barriers” in Kansas and Indiana, says the Los Angeles Times.

► See the newspaper front pages

Tall tale

A gleam in his eye

An Alabama jewelry designer with vision loss blinged out a prosthetic eye with an embedded $2 million diamond, according to LADbible. Slater Jones’ right eye had to be removed following a toxoplasmosis infection, and he worked with ocular prosthesis expert John Imm to bring his idea to life with a 2-carat diamond — because a 3-carat stone “wouldn’t fit,” Imm said on Instagram.

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