Take that male rage and put it in the trash

Five women are killed every hour by someone in their own family. [Bloomberg]( This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, a once-scrappy growth stock of Bloomberg Opinion’s opinions. [Sign up here](. Today’s Agenda - [Mothers]( and [babies]( are a package deal. - Ryanair made [enough money]( to squeal. - China spots Taiwan’s [achilles’ heel](. - PE [decongestants]( won’t help you heal. The Male Rage Needs to Go Please know, readers, that I didn’t wake up this morning planning to pepper you with soul-crushing statistics about infant mortality and violence against women. But the death rate for babies in the US rose 3% last year — the first significant increase in infant mortality in about two decades — and we have a new report about femicide in Italy. So I’m suspending my usual aspiration to make this newsletter a breezy and entertaining read. Maybe tomorrow. First, there is the blue line on this chart, which (unlike a blue line on a pregnancy test) is no cause for rejoicing: Throughout the US, reproductive health systems are crumbling, and women of all backgrounds — particularly Alaska Native and American Indian women — are paying the price. “Pressures include increasingly limited access to abortion care services, rising rates of maternal mortality and morbidity, growing swaths of the country that lack maternal care, and lack of insurance coverage,” Lisa Jarvis [writes]( (free read). But there’s not enough data to know “whether this is a one-year blip or part of a more concerning shift,” she says. Then there is this [distressing report]( from Europe, courtesy of Rachel Sanderson: October 25th marked a grim milestone in Italy: the year’s 100th killing of a woman. Two days later, Annalisa D’Auria, a teaching assistant in Turin, became number 101. Her husband Agostino Annunziata, having seen D’Auria chatting with another man the day before, sought first to strangle her and then stabbed her in the throat in front of their three-year-old daughter. He then killed himself. A woman is killed every three days in Italy, most often in a family context, according to the Interior Ministry. More than 80 of these deaths are defined as femicide, that is when the perpetrator is the victim’s partner, ex-partner or is a close family member of a friend. About one-third of these victims are killed with extreme violence: “Bludgeoning, burning, dismemberment and poisoning have all been features of recent cases,” she writes. And if you think this is just some sort of “Italian thing,” like [cornettos]( or [wine windows](, you are sorely mistaken. Although Italy is among the worst countries for femicides in the European Union, the epidemic of men murdering women is worldwide. In [Australia](, six women have been killed in the past 10 days, five allegedly by men. In Brazil, 1,437 femicides were [registered]( in 2022— an average of nearly four deaths per day. According to the UN, about 45,000 women and girls [worldwide]( were killed by their intimate partners or family members in 2021. That means more than five women or girls are killed *every hour* by someone in their own family. “Studies repeatedly suggest countries with policies that promote gender equality do better on virtually all measures. That’s a wake-up call for Italy where a shockingly high proportion of women die because of their gender and where female participation in the workforce is the lowest in the EU,” Rachel writes. But there’s a long road ahead: Too often, police officers and court officials minimize domestic violence by calling it “familial conflict.” Imagine going to the ER with a dislocated shoulder and the doctor telling you to ice your “lightly bruised” collarbone. You’d be more than a little bit upset, right? All told, we’ve got a health care system that’s failing mothers and babies and a society that’s allowing women to die from male rage. That’s not a world I’m particularly proud of, nor should you be. How Much Money Is Too Much? Mmm, it sure would be a nice day to be a Ryanair shareholder: “Monday’s announcement of a €400 million ($430 million) maiden payout and a plan to return 25% of after-tax earnings thereafter signal this once-scrappy growth stock is all grown-up now and making more money than it knows what to do with,” Chris Bryant says. It turns out that the budget air carrier is just as good at making a profit as it is at [trolling]( its passengers: Ryanair is an interesting case study. Even before the pandemic, it’s been zigging while everyone else was zagging. Unlike full-service airlines that are drowning in debt, Ryanair’s light-touch approach has netted the carrier more than €800 million in cash. It owns its fleet of planes rather than leasing them, so the company isn’t subject to rising rental costs. And although the low-cost airline is too big to be growing as fast as it did in its early days, Chris says it still aims to increase total annual passengers carried by 80% in the coming decade. Read [the whole thing](. Taiwan Takeover The Israel-Hamas war has dominated the world’s attention for a full month at this point. Just today, we have two thought-provoking columns on the ongoing crisis. First, Matthew Yglesias dares to [ask the question]( on everyone’s mind: What if Netanyahu just … stepped down? And then Niall Ferguson says the war on Hamas is [bad news for inflation]( (free read). Now, I could spend the next few paragraphs mapping out their arguments to the best of my abilities. Or you could read them on your own time and I could take this space to focus on something that hasn’t dominated your attention this news cycle: Taiwan. Let’s do that, shall we? While 2023 has been rather quiet in the Taiwan Strait, next year may not be, Hal Brands [writes]( (free read). In January 2024, Taiwan’s next presidential election will take place, opening up a window for Beijing to startle the new government. What that might entail, [nobody knows](. “China has at least five possible strategies for squeezing and perhaps subjugating Taiwan. They range from what is already happening today — systematic, short-of-war coercion — to a full-on invasion, with options including blockade, bombardment and small seizures of Taiwanese territory in between,” he writes. For now, Xi Jinping would prefer to keep [the status quo](. The People’s Liberation Army has spent the past few years running Taiwan’s military ragged, flying into their airspace and [barreling]( across the center line of the strait. “In this sense, the fight for Taiwan is happening every day,” Hal writes. But in the event that coercion isn’t enough for Xi, there are more hands-on approaches he could take to escalate the situation. “The US and its friends need to be [ready for all]( the courses Xi might pursue,” he writes, “especially the one whose effects would be most catastrophic.” Bonus Military Reading: The Iranians are already testing out [cyber and military attacks]( to see if an escalation against the US would be effective. — James Stavridis Telltale Charts I’ll never forget when one of my college classmates wrote a short story from a young girl’s perspective as she sat at the kitchen counter with her mom, helping her sort through little red pills. Although it was a creative writing class, we were often told to write what we knew. And that’s when we learned that my classmate was the daughter of a drug addict. Instead of sculpting Play-Doh after school, she’d help her mom illegally make meth out of Sudafed. Luckily, that all changed in 2005 when Congress passed the Combat Methamphetamine Epidemic Act. Now, you’re required to provide a pharmacist with a photo ID and you can’t buy more than 120 pseudoephedrine tablets in one month. “The response of the pharmaceutical companies was to plunge ahead with the only remaining drug that could be sold freely on shelves,” F.D. Flam [writes](. That drug is called phenylephrine, or “PE,” but it’s not nearly as good as the behind-the-counter stuff. In fact, the [FDA]( recently confirmed that a lot of the oral “decongestants” you can buy in the aisle [don’t decongest]( at all. While it’s very good that little kids aren’t living meth labs anymore, it’s not good that ineffective medicine has flourished as a result. In 2011, both Japan and Germany knew the gig was up: They had to call it quits on nuclear power. But they took diametrically opposite approaches: While Germany’s zero-carbon initiatives sparked a green revolution, Japan went backwards, building new [coal plants]( across the country. “How could the host country of the first major emissions-reduction treaty — the nation that invented the lithium-ion battery, the hybrid car and solar-powered calculator — have fallen so far behind?” David Fickling [asks](. It’s an ugly reality that should serve as a warning to other countries who want to join the renewables revolution. Further Reading FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried may have done society [a favor](. — Bloomberg’s editorial board There were two huge [problems]( with SBF’s courtroom pitch. — Matt Levine India — the world’s [largest whisky market]( — produces spectacular single malts. — Bobby Ghosh Marvel’s [never-ending spinoffs]( have lost casual moviegoers. — Jason Bailey Galactic Britain isn’t an out-of-this-world idea: The UK has [a big stake]( in space tech. — Matthew Brooker Victoria's Secret can teach [Lululemon]( about the price of hubris. — Leticia Miranda Pacific Islands are searching for [a climate solution](. The US isn’t listening. — Karishma Vaswani This [Yale rape case]( will change how the accused are treated. — Stephen L. Carter Apple’s [China business]( is in danger, whether Tim Cook wants to acknowledge it or not. — Dave Lee ICYMI The US has 2 million extra [retirees](. [Bumble]( and [Slack]( are getting new CEOs. Can [cargo containers]( ease the housing crisis? The 2024 [election rematch]( that nobody wanted. Marijuana use raises the risk of [a heart attack](. Kickers Pickleball hall of famers can’t [get a court](. Baskin-Robbins has a festive [new flavor](. (h/t Mike Nizza) [Never-Updaters]( are in a cult, maybe. (h/t Dave Lee) Erewhon has [a lot of secrets]( for a grocery store. Britain’s [loneliest sheep]( has a new home. (h/t Andrea Felsted) Oh, Fiona Notes: Please send turkey dinner flavor ice cream and feedback to Jessica Karl at jkarl9@bloomberg.net. [Sign up here]( and follow us on [Threads](, [TikTok](, [Twitter](, [Instagram]( and [Facebook](. Follow Us Like getting this newsletter? [Subscribe to Bloomberg.com]( for unlimited access to trusted, data-driven journalism and subscriber-only insights. Before it’s here, it’s on the Bloomberg Terminal. Find out more about how the Terminal delivers information and analysis that financial professionals can’t find anywhere else. [Learn more](. Want to sponsor this newsletter? 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