Welcome back to the Morning Brief——brought to you by one of America’s largest independent newspapers—The Epoch Times.
It’s Friday October 23rd, and I’m Keegan Billings.
Let’s jump right in.
Good morning! It’s Friday. Here are today’s top stories.
• Shut Out of US Market, Chinese Automakers Flock to Europe.
• President Donald Trump took aim at lowering housing costs across the country by ordering his administration to create a pilot program to cancel mortgage insurance,
• The Supreme Court sided with New Hampshire Republicans, allowing officials to stop accepting student ID cards as valid proof of identity for voting.
• Federal prosecutors unsealed charges against Democratic Virginia state Sen. L. Louise Lucas, the chamber’s president pro tempore, for allegedly helping lead a criminal drug trafficking and money laundering operation.
• Shop owners in Paris are bracing for a new weekend of far-left protests against the rising cost of living, after last week’s demonstrations devolved into violence, looting, and arson across France.
NOW, BACK TO OUR TOP STORY:
Shut Out of US Market, Chinese Automakers Flock to Europe
Etienne Fauchaire reported from Paris, France.
A record 20 Chinese automakers took part in the Paris Motor Show this year, doubling their presence from two years earlier and accounting for roughly a third of the manufacturers exhibiting at the Porte de Versailles exhibition center.
The Paris Motor Show, the world’s oldest and Europe’s largest, is seen as a key moment for Chinese brands to gain international recognition and prestige, part of a common strategy used by major Chinese companies across sectors to trade on the French capital’s aura.
Since the United States has largely blocked Chinese electric vehicles with 100 percent tariffs, Europe is by far the most lucrative market still open to Chinese automakers, so much so that gaining a foothold there has become a matter of survival for them.
Tommaso Pardi, an economist at France’s National Center for Scientific Research and director of Gerpisa, an international automotive research network, told The Epoch Times.
“The Chinese have no point of entry into the United States. That is in fact why, for the past two years, they have been redirecting their entire commercial expansion toward Europe,”
For industry observers, the scale of the Chinese presence in Paris is a sign of a worrying shift.
Pardi said.
“If they are investing so massively to be present at the motor show, it is to send messages to competitors, consumers, and public authorities. Their intention is very clear,”
“European carmakers are extremely competitive. However, the Chinese are accelerating and growing.” (More)
Chinese brands captured 10.7 percent of the European car market in the second quarter of 2026, nearly doubling their 5.7 percent share from the same period last year and overtaking Japanese manufacturers, according to Schmidt Automotive Research.
By August, their market share had climbed to nearly 12 percent, Bloomberg reported, citing figures from Dataforce.
The speed of that expansion is particularly striking, according to Bernard Jullien, a French economist at the University of Bordeaux who specializes in the automotive industry.
“Reaching a 10 percent market share took Japanese manufacturers more than 20 years. Here, it is taking four years. So the danger is pressing,” he told The Epoch Times.
The push into Europe comes as Chinese automakers face difficult conditions in their domestic market, where fierce competition and weakening demand have intensified pressure to find buyers abroad.
Passenger car sales in China fell 27 percent in September, while exports exceeded 7.1 million vehicles during the first nine months of 2026, an increase of more than 70 percent from the same period last year, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers.
Brussels has adopted trade measures to protect European automakers from Chinese competition, but they have left major gaps.
In October 2024, the European Union imposed additional tariffs of up to 35.3 percent on Chinese-made electric vehicles, on top of the existing 10 percent import duty. This decision followed a European Commission investigation that found Chinese manufacturers received unfair subsidies from the communist regime.
Nevertheless, hybrid vehicles are exempt from the tariffs, giving Chinese carmakers another way to expand in Europe.
EU imports of Chinese hybrids almost tripled, rising from 107,000 vehicles in 2024 to 302,000 in 2025, according to Eurostat figures cited by China’s Ministry of Commerce. Chinese customs data also show that the value of hybrid exports to the EU tripled in the first half of 2026, reaching $7.5 billion.
The sharp increase has pushed Brussels to consider new restrictions.
Speaking in Beijing on Oct. 9, EU trade chief Maroš Šefčovič announced that the two sides had reached “a shared understanding to moderate China’s export of hybrids and plug-in hybrids to the European Union,” raising “the prospect of cutting China’s exports by more than half.”
Jullien was skeptical that the restrictions would lead to a sharp drop in Chinese sales, and said he was waiting to see the official export caps.
NOW, OVER TO POLITICS:
• President Donald Trump took aim at lowering housing costs across the country by ordering his administration to create a pilot program to cancel mortgage insurance, lower closing costs and mortgage rates for some borrowers, and boost manufactured homes.
The president also said he wanted to incorporate technology and artificial intelligence to lower costs and promote competition and innovation in the housing and mortgage markets.
The order directs Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency Bill Pulte, who oversees Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the 11 federal home loan banks, to create a test program to automatically cancel private mortgage insurance payments for certain qualifying homeowners once they have built up enough equity in their homes.
This is expected to save some homeowners from paying the high costs for insurance every month, the White House said. Only mortgages obtained after the program starts will qualify.
Pulte and Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Scott Turner will co-chair the Task Force on Manufactured Housing Innovation.
The committee is tasked with increasing the quality of manufactured housing and streamlining the permitting and regulatory burdens associated with building them.
The order also directed the task force to lower the cost of home building by making it easier to use modern manufacturing methods in factory-built housing production, among other actions.
• The Supreme Court sided with New Hampshire Republicans, allowing officials to stop accepting student ID cards as valid proof of identity for voting.
The high court cited the Purcell principle, which guards against changes to election rules close to Election Day.
Justice Brown Jackson dissented.
A state law known as HB 323 forbids the use of student IDs as valid proof of identity when voting. New Hampshire Secretary of State David Scanlan issued guidance directing election clerks not to accept student IDs as a backup form of identification.
A group called the Coalition for Open Democracy challenged both the state law and the directive in federal court. The group’s attorneys argued that the law ran afoul of both the U.S. and New Hampshire constitutions and discriminated against young voters on the basis of age. They also argued Scanlan exceeded his lawful powers as secretary of state.
The Supreme Court’s order remains in effect through the Nov. 3 general election, while the case continues on appeal in the lower courts.
• a U.S. official has said, that A Russian military satellite exhibiting threatening behavior came “dangerously close” to a commercial satellite without permission, in what specialists have described as a potential first-of-its-kind maneuver.
Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Thomas DiNanno said in an Oct. 21 post on X that Russia’s COSMOS 2612 behavior was consistent with “on-orbit weapons operations.”
He said
“This violates long-established safety thresholds in low Earth orbit,”
“The United States will continue to secure and defend American vital national security interests in, from, and to space.”
DiNanno made the statement after the United States revealed COSMOS 2612’s maneuver at the First Committee of the 81st session of the U.N. General Assembly on Oct. 21.
The U.S. representative to the committee said that the decision to conduct these activities last weekend was “deliberately reckless” and that the United States believed that these maneuvers “are being conducted in an unprofessional manner and do not reflect the behavior of a responsible spacefaring nation.”
Marco Langbroek, a satellite-tracking specialist at Delft University of Technology, analyzed the orbits which he said came within as little as a few hundred yards of each other or possibly closer.
Writing on his blog, Langbroek said that when he began tracking the satellites, he was skeptical
However, he said that after continued tracking for a number of weeks, he determined that a series of the Russian satellite’s maneuvers “were clearly designed to bring KOSMOS 2612 close to ICEYE-X36 US satellite and synchronise orbital altitude, eccentricity and orbital period.”
Astronomer Jonathan McDowell said in an Oct. 17 post on X that, to his knowledge, this is the first low-Earth orbit rendezvous of two active satellites where the owner of one of those satellites did not approve.
Russia rejected the claims,
And said Russia’s efforts to explore and develop outer space are for peaceful purposes,
AND MORE ON POLITICS:
• President Trump invoked the Defense Production Act of 1950 to increase oil production in the United States as prices remain elevated amid the Iran conflict.
In Thursday’s memorandum, Trump determined that ensuring the United States had a resilient domestic petroleum production, refining, and logistics capacity was essential for national defense.
The memorandum directed Secretary of War Pete Hegseth to to expand domestic petroleum infrastructure, including exploration and production, storage, marine terminals, and gathering and transmission pipelines.
” Trump wrote. “Without immediate Federal action, United States defense capabilities will remain vulnerable to disruption.”
The Defense Production Act, which was enacted during the Cold War, gives the president authority over the domestic industrial base in the interest of national security. Under the legislation, the president can incentivize the domestic industrial base to increase the production and supply of critical goods and materials through direct purchases, purchase commitments, loans, and loan guarantees.
The Trump administration’s use of the Defense Production Act on Thursday came as oil prices have significantly increased since the start of the Iran war in February. As of Thursday, the price of a barrel of Brent crude oil, the global benchmark, was more than $113 per barrel.
In addition, the average cost for a gallon of regular gasoline in the United States was $4.27, while the average cost for a gallon of diesel was $6.30 on Thursday, according to AAA.
Trump accused Iran on Thursday of attempting to increase oil prices ahead of the November midterm elections.
• In a Philadelphia high school, students were given an assignment that asked them to label Israel and the United States as terrorists. In Berkeley, California, students in an ethnic studies class were provided a map that renamed Israel as “Palestine” while the lesson also praised historical figures who made anti-Semitic remarks. Those events, and many others, are examples of what some Congress members call “political indoctrination” in a report released by House Education and the Workforce Committee.
Beyond anti-Semitic instruction, the report cited examples of discriminatory practices in both districts.
In Philadelphia, the staff-led Racial Justice Organizing Committee led instruction where males, white people, and Christians were labeled as “dominant,” while black people, members of the LGBT community, immigrants, and non-Christians were labeled as oppressed. The committee also cited controversial videos, such as “The White Supremacy of Being Asked Where I’m From” and one on “zi/zir/zim and xi/xir/xim” pronouns. Students were then tasked with reflecting on oppression, privilege, and “intersectionality,” according to the report.
Second-graders in the district learned about environmental justice, climate activism, and “the impact of bias, injustice, and privilege on a global scale,” the report said.
In Berkeley, students in a fifth-grade ethnic studies unit were told references to the nation’s Founding Fathers are harmful because they don’t acknowledge indigenous people who lived here before colonization, and because those men “upheld systems of racial and gender inequality,” the report said.
A seventh-grade unit required students to engage in a “resistance” project promoting decolonization and cultural preservation. A ninth-grade racial solidarity unit told students that “Asian people have been weaponized as pawns to serve a white supremacist agenda,” the report said.
The report criticized the National Education Association for hosting a 2025 Conference on Racial and Social Justice, where speakers said anti-Semitism is weaponized by white nationalist movements. There were also presentations on “Christian Nationalist Threats to Public Education,” and “Counternarratives to Dismantle Fears Against Muslim Students and Educators.”
• Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) responded to long-standing allegations that she married her brother, following a federal search of her home earlier this month as part of an immigration-related investigation.
While she spoke to MS NOW’s Chris Hayes, the embattled House lawmaker was asked about claims about her marriage.
“Not to my knowledge,” Omar said in response when she was asked by Hayes whether there is any “kernel of truth” regarding the claims she wed her brother. Omar said in response “Not to my knowledge,”
Hayes at one point said that “there are right-wing people who believe” that Ahmed Nur Said Elmi, a man she was married to, is her brother. Omar has been married to Tim Mynett since 2020.
Omar said
“Somebody put in there that, you know, he had to have been my brother or something to that effect,”, adding that it started on a “Somali blog,” without elaborating.
Omar was born in Mogadishu, Somalia, before she moved to the United States in the mid-1990s after her family gained asylum.
Omar also blamed “right-wing conspiracy theorists in Minneapolis” for spreading those claims, adding that they “found random” people to echo the allegations she called “insane.”
The lawmaker was also asked about her father’s naturalization process when he came to the United States, to which Omar responded that it is “so convenient” because her father “is no longer alive” and cannot provide the paperwork that he filed. Her father had served as a colonel in Somalian Marxist dictator Mohamed Siad Barre’s regime before it collapsed in the early 1990s amid civil war.
Omar, in the interview, was asked about her finances as well as claims she and her husband are worth around $30 million. Responding to the claims, Omar said she is “working class,” living “paycheck to paycheck,” and that she lives a “basic life” with a 2016 Toyota Camry.
• The Republican leaders of the House Judiciary and Administration Committees have subpoenaed the administration of New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill, demanding to hear why 6,600 noncitizens remained registered to vote until 2026.
In July, Sherrill said a software error in the state’s Motor Vehicle Commission system caused the 6,600 to be registered to vote between June 2023 and June 2024.
Sherrill, a Democrat, said that the individuals had answered “no” when asked on a keypad whether they were U.S. citizens while applying for driver’s licenses or identification cards but were still registered because of the alleged software error.
The White House stated in an email to The Epoch Times in July that the New Jersey error highlighted the need to pass the SAVE America Act, which Republicans say is necessary to ensure election integrity.
“Democrats and their media allies have repeatedly said it is impossible for noncitizens to register to vote, let alone cast a ballot,” White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said. “Time and again, they have been proven wrong.”
In a letter sent on Oct. 21, and seen by The Epoch Times, House Administration Committee Chairman Bryan Steil (R-Wis.) and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) wrote to acting New Jersey Secretary of State Shirley U. Emehelu.
The subpoena gives Emehelu until Nov. 16 to comply with the House Republicans’ demands for documentation.
The two House committees on Aug. 3 requested documents from New Jersey to confirm it was complying with federal voting laws.
But it said the state had produced only 12 documents, none of which explained how the alleged software error resulting in the registration of noncitizens was discovered, nor why noncitizens remained on the voter rolls until 2026.
• Federal prosecutors unsealed charges against Democratic Virginia state Sen. L. Louise Lucas, the chamber’s president pro tempore, for allegedly helping lead a criminal drug trafficking and money laundering operation.
Attorney General Todd Blanche said
The powerful Democratic senator approved and directed criminal activities to benefit her Lucas Enterprise,, noting that she also allegedly supervised the laundering of proceeds from marijuana sales.
He also said that Lucas is alleged to have “used her political influence to demand and accept a bribe and attempted to influence Virginia legislation for the benefit of herself and her family.”
Also in the news conference, Blanche said that Lucas and the six other co-defendants were “arrested or surrendered for allegedly participating in a large-scale RICO drug trafficking and money laundering conspiracy,” adding that they are currently in federal custody.
Following the announcement of the charges, Lucas wrote in a post on X that she believes that the charges are political in nature and suggested that racial animus also played a role.
“I grew up under Jim Crow,” she wrote, referring to a collection of local and state laws that enforced racial segregation and ended in the mid-20th century. “I’ve seen what happens when people in power try to silence those who stand up to them.”
While Lucas did not elaborate on how the charges relate to segregation, she wrote that she “will not be intimidated” and “will not back down.”
The 82-year-old Democratic lawmaker has spent decades rising through Virginia politics and has served in the state Senate since 1992, where she is president pro tempore, overseeing the chamber in the lieutenant governor’s absence.
An advocate of legalizing marijuana, Lucas partnered in opening the shop, The Cannabis Outlet, in 2021, selling hemp and cannabidiol (CBD) products, according to local media reports.
• The New York City Council voted to phase out horse-drawn carriages in Central Park by June 1, 2028, ending a 170-year tradition.
Forty Council members voted yes. Twenty-nine had signed onto the bill . Speaker Julie Menin is the first sitting speaker to support such a ban.
Menin said in a statement. landmark vote is a demonstration of this Council’s commitment to animal welfare, public safety, and worker protection,”
The law bars new licenses on or after June 1, 2028. Existing ones expire permanently on May 31, 2028. The law requires the mayor’s administration to create a workforce transition program by April 1, 2027, which includes job referrals, career counseling, hiring fairs, and educational opportunities.
It also considers compensation for owners based on business value, licenses, and equipment. Horses must be certified by June 1, 2027, not to be sold for slaughter or other inhumane purposes, and owners may keep them.
A joint working group will include one representative each from the speaker’s office, the administration, and labor.
The vote followed the June death of 18-year-old Romanch Mahajan, a tourist from India.
On June 17, Mahajan fell from a carriage after the horse spooked and bolted during a ride with his family. Mahajan hit his head and died. After his death, Menin announced her support for the ban in a video on X.
Mahajan’s death was the first in more than 160 years of horse-drawn carriages operating under the Transport Workers Union, which represents the carriage drivers, in the park.
President Donald Trump, who is from New York City, criticized the ban
he added, “The Horse-drawn Carriage in New York City is a quintessential New York experience. So sad that, for political reasons, we will see it go!”
Animal rights group New Yorkers for Clean, Livable, and Safe Streets (NYCLASS) reacted on X to the ban.
“For decades, NYCLASS fought to end cruel and dangerous horse carriages,”
Horse-drawn carriages have operated in Central Park since 1858. They began as transportation and became a tourist attraction.
Carriage license owner Ahmet Bilici, who trained as a veterinarian in Turkey before coming to the United States in 2001, became a carriage driver to support himself as he was learning English.
The job stuck, and he’s been a driver for 23 years. He said that if the City Council wanted to work with carriage drivers, drivers would be amenable, but he said the City Council just wants a ban.
he previously told The Epoch Times.
“When you take this carriage from me, I am going to lose my quarter century! No way!” “I trusted the city because the city licensed the medallion, and now you are shutting down? No way!”
NOW MOVING ONTO WORLD NEWS:
• Shop owners in Paris are bracing for a new weekend of far-left protests against the rising cost of living, after last week’s demonstrations devolved into violence, looting, and arson across France.
In the capital, 451 shops were vandalized on Oct. 17 and 18, including 228 that were looted, according to the City of Paris. The government counts about 3,000 businesses hit nationwide.
On Oct. 22, nearly every store along the Champs-Élysées was barricading its storefront with metal shutters, security grilles, or wooden boards, as bewildered tourists looked on, The Epoch Times observed. Chanel, Lacoste, and Louis Vuitton all had been targeted by looters last week.
Near the Place de la République, workers have been screwing plywood panels over windows and doors, while posters on the boards invite residents to join a neighborhood WhatsApp group against break-ins.
Shops were not the only targets on Oct. 17. In Paris, individuals also forced their way into residential buildings, The Epoch Times witnessed.
In a letter sent on Oct. 21 to Paris’s local elected officials, reported by France Info, Police Prefect Patrice Faure urged shop owners near the protest routes to hire private security agents, “possibly with dog-handler teams,” lower their shutters, and consider not opening on Saturday.
The reinforced police deployment cannot on its own guarantee the protection of every establishment, the letter states.
The advice sparked outcry from critics who said protecting citizens is the state’s job, not shopkeepers’.
• French President Emmanuel Macron said that “illegitimate” protests would be banned in the coming days and blamed “seditious” far-left groups, together with vandals, for last weekend’s riots and looting.
French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu told Parliament on Oct. 20, “A certain number of violent individuals from the radical extreme left and the ultra-left chose to operate in swarms, to sow violence in a methodical manner, using digital tools.”
Speaking after a meeting with senior ministers and intelligence chiefs, Macron said demonstrations organized by legitimate groups, such as trade unions, would be allowed, but could be diverted along alternative routes to protect businesses.
“Last Saturday we had political and seditious acts by ultra-left groups whose aim is to bring down the Republic,” Macron said.
Authorities across France are preparing for a fresh wave of protests following some of the worst urban unrest the country has seen in years.
All protests planned for Oct. 24 in Lyon—France’s third-largest city—have been banned, local authorities said, amid fears of another weekend of violence.
France’s main student union, UNEF, has called for protests on Oct. 24, posting on X: “On October 24, we stay the course. Protest, demand, and win!”
The anti-establishment yellow vest movement—largely dormant in recent years after its high-profile protests over fuel prices and the cost of living beginning in 2018—has filed plans for a march through central Paris.
A student protest organized for Oct. 22 in Paris was initially banned, but eventually allowed to go ahead. Central metro stations in the capital were shuttered by transit authorities in anticipation of possible violence from unauthorized gatherings.
And before we leave, here are some words of wisdom to start the day…Today’s quote was written by
“Being entirely honest with oneself is a good exercise.”
—Sigmund Freud
