Good morning! Welcome to the first week of fall and the last full week of September before Spooky Season begins in October.

WORLD

🇺🇳 United Nations meets in New York

When you join the Secret Service, agreeing to take a bullet for the president is part of the deal. Potentially taking a bullet for the president of Iran, however? Oddly enough, that’s also part of the deal.

More than 130 of the world’s presidents, kings, and prime ministers will be in town to speak at the biggest United Nations event of the year, the General Assembly. And they’re going to need a lot of security. Thankfully, the skilled agents of the U.S. Secret Service are ready for duty.

• Keeping world leaders safe at the U.N. is complicated business. The Secret Service, the NYPD, the Coast Guard, the Diplomatic Security Service (DSS), and the U.N.’s own security team are all taking part.

• Upon his arrival in New York yesterday, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian was given a full Secret Service detail featuring heavily armed federal agents, motorcades, and more.

Part of the job: In 1947, the United States agreed to host the permanent HQ for the baby-fresh United Nations. In exchange for the prestige, economic benefits, and diplomatic benefits associated with hosting — the government version of hosting a party and getting to use your own bathroom upstairs — the U.S. agreed to take care of security for meetings and visiting dignitaries. Awkwardly included in that deal? Protecting baddies who hate you.

• The hosting agreement means the U.S. can’t deny foreign leaders the ability to come to New York for United Nations business no matter who they are.

• That gets a little awkward when it’s people the U.S. government has sanctioned, like Iranian or Russian officials or straight-up warlords.

• One solution is to allow the baddies in but tightly restrict their movement, like a teenager who’s only allowed to drive to school and back.

The 79th session of the U.N. General Assembly kicked off on September 10. Regular meetings, featuring the U.N.’s 193 member countries, typically run into December. Delegates vote on everything from the basics like who should be the U.N. secretary-general to loftier (and more controversial) human rights and diplomatic issues.

• U.N. votes are politically important. But they’re also non-binding and about as effective as pressuring your late friend into being on time for once.

• New York holds the HQ. But the U.N. has offices all over the world. The three other “major” offices are in Geneva, Switzerland; Nairobi, Kenya; and Vienna, Austria.

President Biden will address the Assembly in one of his final big moments on the world stage. The wars in Gaza and Ukraine are already major topics of debate this week. You can bet that will continue.

• On that note, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will speak on Wednesday. Russian President Vladimir Putin, however, sent his foreign minister in his stead.

GOVERNMENT

🏛️ Congress failed last week to pass a temporary six-month budget strapped to a controversial voting law. America’s distinguished politicians will spend this week trying to pass an even more temporary budget ahead of the September 30 deadline. This one lasts just three months and will expire right before Christmas, which is a spectacular time of year to rush through something as unimportant as the federal budget.

⚖️ The Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP), part of the Department of Justice (DOJ), has its hands full at its detention center in Brooklyn. New York City's only federal lockup has had problems for ages. Now, amid a new oversight law, the BOP has boosted staffing and begun tackling long-overdue maintenance. The refurb is well-timed, too. The place is getting some fresh eyeballs now that one Sean "Diddy" Combs is a full-time resident.

💊 The fentanyl epidemic has devastated the United States while mostly avoiding Europe. But that luck may be running out. Interpol Secretary-General Jürgen Stock said Europe’s lack of worry on the subject “has been changing” as overdose deaths in the U.S. fall and the American government pushes back on the drug’s China-based supply chain. Founded in 1923, Interpol is the International Criminal Police Organization. It ties together law enforcement databases, eases communications, and provides specialized support and expertise.

POLITICS

🍽️ Kamala Harris declines free food

Kamala Harris will skip the Al Smith Dinner. Or, in English, Harris isn’t going to attend a famous formal charity fundraising dinner in New York next month. Presidential nominees typically attend and give speeches roasting each other and themselves (here’s Trump and Hillary in 2016). Harris is the first nominee to decline an invitation since Walter Mondale (D) in 1984.

One event Harris wants to attend, however, is a second presidential debate. She accepted an invite from CNN for another showdown on October 23. But it takes two to tango and Donald Trump nixed the idea, saying “it’s just too late, voting has already started.”

• Harris’s team, via its Kamala HA account, took to social media to call Trump a chicken. Or, more accurately, a “🐔🐔🐔.”

• If you’re a big debate watcher, fear not. You’ve still got one more to look forward to. VP hopefuls Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) and Sen. JD Vance (R-OH) will square off in a CBS-hosted VP debate on October 1.

Team Harris is blowing Team Trump out of the water in the money race. In August, her campaign raked in more than four times more cash than his. As a result, she was able to plow $135 million into advertising last month. Trump made a comparatively tiny $47 million ad push.

• In light of the Trump campaign’s light fundraising totals, non-campaign outside groups are doing some of the heavy lifting for Republicans.

• Unlike campaign accounts, outside groups aren’t subject to individual donation limits. Pro-Trump group MAGA, Inc. pulled in $25 million last month, most of which was from a handful of uber-wealthy donors.

Donald Trump will not run again in 2028 if he loses this year. Asked yesterday if he had another round in him, Trump said “No, I don’t. I think that will be, that will be it.”

• Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC) is trying to convince the Republican-controlled Nebraska government to change the way it awards its Electoral College votes.

• Forty-eight states give every electoral vote to the statewide winner, but Nebraska and Maine pass ‘em out based on congressional district. Harris is likely to win the moderate Omaha, Nebraska area. Some Republicans fear that, if the race is close, that single vote could sway the whole thing.

TRIVIA

More than 7,000 languages are spoken around the world. Needless to say, that’s a bit of a problem for international organizations like the United Nations. But picking a favorite language for U.N. business wouldn’t work diplomatically or practically. So they picked six. What are the six official languages of the United Nations? You get one meaningless fake point for every answer you get right.

Hint: Nothing too weird here.

POLLING

📊 Trump leads on the issues

Bill Clinton's 1992 campaign famously coined the phrase, "It's the economy, stupid," to reinforce to its staff the issue that mattered most. As it turns out, not much has changed in the past 32 years.

A new national poll from NBC News has economic issues — that’s inflation, the cost of living, jobs, and the economy overall — as the most important issue to 41% of voters.

• “Threats to democracy” comes in a distant second with 19%.

• In a close third, with 14%, is immigration and the border.

The same poll found that voters prefer Donald Trump on both the economy and immigration. Despite his strongest issues being most important" to 55% of voters, the survey shows Harris leading Trump by 5% nationwide. It also found:

• 65% of voters believe the country is on the wrong track

• 54% of voters disapprove of the job President Biden’s been doing

• 48% of voters prefer a Democratic congress, while 46% like Republicans

In other odd polling news, a survey of American adults found that just 14% think the word “Christian” is a good description for either Kamala Harris or Donald Trump.

BRIEFS

• FBI searches home of interim NYPD commissioner week after last guy resigned over same thing

• Pennsylvania health system owes $65 million after hackers leak nude patient photos

• SocialAI app fills your feed with AI-generated responses to whatever nonsense you post

• Ex-Apple design boss Jony Ive working on new device with ChatGPT-maker OpenAI

• House unanimously passes law giving Biden-level protection to Trump and Harris

• FBI agents, EPA cops, and Coast Guard raid ship in Baltimore run by company tied to Key Bridge disaster

QUOTE

ANSWER

The six official languages of the United Nations are:

1. Arabic

2. Standard Chinese (a form of Mandarin)

3. English

4. French

5. Russian

6. Spanish