Global Headlines Express | A Gunman Shoots Up a U.S. Newsroom, and The Atlantic Says the Trade War Is Hurting Bourbon

Global Headlines is a new QDaily column for 2018, still in its trial run. As ever, it is here to help you know more.

What the Agenda-Setters Are Talking About

The Atlantic: Why Has Bourbon Become the Latest Casualty of the US-EU Trade War?

At the end of May, the United States announced tariffs on metals imported from the EU, Canada and Mexico: 25% on steel, 10% on aluminum. Less than a month later, the EU announced retaliation, drawing up a list of about a hundred American products — jeans, Harley-Davidson motorcycles, whiskey — to hit with steep tariffs.

Days after the US-EU trade war began, Harley-Davidson told the US Securities and Exchange Commission in a June 25 filing that it was considering moving some of its plants out of the United States. Last year it sold nearly 40,000 motorcycles in Europe, its main market.

Bourbon has the same problem. Europe is its largest export market too. "Bourbon has seen remarkable growth rates around the world, especially in Western Europe," said Spiros Malandraki, chief alcoholic drinks analyst at the market research firm Euromonitor International.

As of last Friday, the 22nd, the EU charges a 25% tariff on whiskey imported from the United States.

The Atlantic looked at the whiskey business and weighed what the tariffs will do. Because spirits sit in inventory a long time, bourbon will not feel the shock as fast as other goods — but it will still be fought over politically.

Look closely at what the EU singled out for heavy tariffs and the choices stop looking accidental: bourbon is made in Kentucky, the home state of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell; Harley-Davidsons come from Wisconsin, the home state of House Speaker Paul Ryan; jeans come mostly from California, the home state of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.

Bourbon, though, cannot do what Harley-Davidson can and move its factories. The reason is simple: once it leaves Bourbon County, Kentucky, bourbon is no longer bourbon.

Bourbon also carries another meaning for Americans. In 1964, the US Congress passed a resolution listing bourbon as a "distinctive product of the United States" — something that could be made only in America. There was some skepticism at the time, but the vote turned bourbon into a symbol of the American spirit.

Perhaps because of that link to the American spirit, Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin sounds confident. He called the EU tariffs a "money grab," and insisted Europeans will not change their drinking habits: "Europeans will drink more bourbon this year than they did last year."

Reality may not be as kind as Bevin expects. "The American whiskey industry is in a bind right now. Unlike other industries, if it has to change, the change can't be small," said Reid Mitenbuler, author of Bourbon Empire: The Past and Future of America's Whiskey. Bourbon usually needs four to eight years to mature, he added, so distillers have to forecast demand years ahead. That means a sudden, sharp drop in demand leaves them cutting prices to clear surplus stock — on top of the inventory pressure they already carry.

But plenty of whiskey sellers in Europe treat the trade war as a short-term problem. They think it is a bargaining tactic and will be settled in the end. And if it isn't, the market has other bottles waiting to take bourbon's place.

The 24-Hour News Makers

Shooting at a Maryland Newspaper Kills 5 and Badly Wounds Several Staff

At 3 a.m. Beijing time on June 29, shots rang out in Annapolis, Maryland. A man burst into the offices of the local paper Capital Gazette and sprayed the staff inside with gunfire. Police took an emergency call 90 seconds later, went straight to the scene, cleared people out and arrested the suspect.

Maryland police chief William Krampf confirmed that the shooting killed 5 people and left several employees "seriously injured." Officers also found several gas canisters the suspect had left behind.

CNN reported that the suspect is a white man in his 30s who used a long gun; investigators are looking into his background and his motive. Sources told CNN he had dealt with the paper's management before.

Capital Gazette reporter Phil Davis was there. He said the gunman fired through the glass door in front of him, then ran into the office and shot at everyone. Afterward he described the scene on Twitter: "There is nothing more terrifying than hiding under your desk, hearing several colleagues killed and hearing the gunman reload."

Maryland Governor Larry Hogan issued a statement of grief, saying Capital Gazette had been an important source of news in his life: "It is because they light up this world every day that the rest of us can see it more clearly and more precisely."

Annapolis Mayor Gavin Buckley praised the police: "If they hadn't responded so fast, this could have been much worse." He added: "I'm not saying this kind of thing should happen in our community, but we really were fully prepared."

White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders condemned the gunman: attacking journalists at work is an attack on every American.

Capital Gazette has since said it will publish as usual today.

What Else Happened in the World

A man attacked schoolchildren outside Shanghai World Foreign Language Primary School, killing 2 and injuring 2. The latest police findings say he had come to Shanghai only in June this year and, unable to make a living, wanted to take revenge on society.

Fire tore through the largest market in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya. The blaze burned fiercely for 90 minutes, killing 15 and injuring 70. Local police say it started near the part of the market that sells timber and secondhand clothes.

Iran announced it will restart a nuclear plant that has been shut for nine years. It is Iran's latest move since the United States pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal. The deal's formal name is the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), signed in 2015 under the Obama administration. It requires Iran to cut its enriched-uranium stockpile and limit production, in exchange for lifting most economic sanctions.

The Tokyo metropolitan government passed an ordinance against secondhand smoke. It takes effect in stages starting this year, banning smoking inside restaurants; after April 2020, more than 80% of the city's restaurants will be entirely smoke-free. Governor Yuriko Koike said Tokyo is hosting the 2020 Olympics, which is why the city is acting on secondhand smoke.

The US-Russia summit has a date: July 16, in Helsinki, Finland. Russia's TASS news agency, citing the Kremlin, said Putin and Trump will discuss US-Russia relations and other international issues when they meet.

The French government plans to require everyone aged 16 and over to take part in a national service program. The program has two stages: first a compulsory work placement, then something closer to military service, with all young people interning at defense and security bodies.

Foxconn broke ground on its factory in Wisconsin. Trump brought three officials to the ceremony to show his support. Terry Gou said Foxconn was not just building a display-panel plant in the US but bringing many smart-technology applications with it, from high-tech manufacturing and health care to education and entertainment. He kept coming back to one word: jobs.

Someone Said

"This stuff is everywhere in the galaxy"

CNN reports that researchers at the University of New South Wales in Australia and Ege University in Turkey recreated the conditions of space in a lab to work out how life forms. Eight scientists made and analyzed material resembling the matter found in the galaxy, then used it to calculate how much "greasy carbon molecules" space holds. Their answer: 10 billion trillion trillion tons.

University of New South Wales professor Tim Schmidt told CNN that "it's not some pure substance, it isn't biological, and it's random — it dirties things the way soot does, and you wouldn't want to eat it," and that "this stuff is everywhere in the galaxy."

Schmidt called the space-grease work a "major achievement." The findings will run in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society and should help scientists understand how stars and planets are born, and how life begins.

Things You Might Also Be Interested In

The UN says more than 10,000 children died in armed conflict in 2017.

On June 27, Virginia Gamba, the UN Secretary-General's Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, released a report on how children live in conflict zones: more than 10,000 children were killed in armed conflicts around the world. Afghanistan was the worst, with 3,179 children dead.

Child soldiers are a serious problem too. The UN report says the number of child soldiers in the Central African Republic rose fourfold from a year earlier, and doubled in the Republic of Congo.

Newsweek recently reported on the worsening child-soldier problem, noting: "Between 2016 and 2017, the number of children recruited by armed groups rose 50%."

Gamba condemned it sharply: "They are flagrantly disregarding international law, subjecting ordinary people — children in particular — to violent abuse and exploitation."

On This Day in History

June 29, 1900: The Swedish government formally approved the founding of the Nobel Foundation.

June 29, 1925: 250,000 workers in Hong Kong walked out, in what became known as the Canton–Hong Kong Strike.

June 29, 1959: Mao Zedong convened the Lushan Conference to discuss the important lessons of the "Great Leap Forward."

June 29, 1965: US forces fought in Vietnam for the first time.

June 29, 2007: Apple's iPhone went on sale.

June 29, 2007: Taiwanese film director Edward Yang died at 60.

In History: Tomorrow and the Day After

June 30, 1950: China's Central People's Government promulgated the Agrarian Reform Law of the People's Republic of China.

June 30, 1980: Vigdís Finnbogadóttir won Iceland's presidential election, becoming the world's first democratically elected female president.

July 1, 1917: In the early years of the Republic of China, after Yuan Shikai's "Hongxian" monarchy collapsed, the warlord Zhang Xun restored Puyi to the throne.

July 1, 1940: America's NBC aired the world's first television commercial, an ad for the Bulova watch company.

July 1, 1958: Red Flag, the theoretical journal of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, first used the term "people's commune."

July 1, 1988: Red Flag ceased publication.

July 1, 1997: Britain handed sovereignty over Hong Kong to the People's Republic of China, and the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region was formally established, ending more than 150 years of British colonial rule.

July 1, 2003: 500,000 people joined Hong Kong's first "July 1 March," organized by the Civil Human Rights Front, against legislating Article 23 of the Basic Law of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China. The article covers national security in Hong Kong, including treason and secession.

Cover image: the Capital Gazette logo.