Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent reached the G20 finance ministers’ summit in the Blue Ridge Mountains with little of the calm normally associated with the scenic setting.

Over the weekend, Donald Trump’s latest strikes on Iran had sent shockwaves through global markets, driving bond markets to record highs, while a newly opened trade fight with Canada the previous week added to the sense of gathering economic turbulence.

Bessent was already facing irritation from European officials after a US Treasury move a month earlier, when Washington sold euros and bought yen as part of a coordinated intervention with Japan aimed at shoring up the Japanese currency.

Tensions escalated further over the customary G20 “family photo,” which triggered a diplomatic dispute after European finance ministers refused to stand alongside Russia’s representative. Moscow has been largely excluded from G20 gatherings since Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

European officials made clear they would downgrade their presence and send deputies instead if Kremlin finance minister Anton Siluanov was permitted to take part.

‘The joint approach of the Europeans, for which I am also very grateful, ultimately led to this family photo taking place without the Russian finance minister, without the Russian delegation,’ German finance minister Lars Klingbeil told reporters.

Bessent defended the decision to invite Siluanov, saying: ‘I know that some Europeans had a sour taste, but I think it’s very important to engage.’

Yet the diplomatic row was only one of several fights hanging over the summit in Asheville, North Carolina, where the Trump administration was hosting finance ministers from the ‘Group of 20’ countries. 

Bessent was also facing a $40 billion tariff fight with Canada, whose prime minister Mark Carney had accused the Trump administration of ‘doing memes’ instead of taking negotiations to end the impasse seriously.

And the Treasury secretary appeared in no mood to back down, mocking Canada’s economic size, telling CNBC as the summit got underway: ‘I don’t think you can be in a tit-for-tat with someone who’s 13 times larger than you are.’

Despite the turmoil, Bessent used the gathering to make the case that America was setting the pace for the global economy.

‘The US is at a very special place in the world because we are the AI superpower and we are pulling away in computing power,’ he said, crediting Trump’s regulatory, tax and energy policies.

He urged other countries to ‘come with us and grow’, arguing that growth was the answer to the mountain of debt confronting the global economy.

‘The world is awash in debt,’ Bessent told reporters. ‘The only way for us to get out of this is to grow our way out of it.’

The IMF expects the US economy to grow more than twice as fast as the eurozone or Canada this year.

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But America’s strength has not insulated it from the shocks created by Trump’s policies. The IMF said this summer that the war in Iran had slowed US growth, while German economists said Trump’s war and tariffs had weakened what otherwise would have been Germany’s strongest growth year since 2022.

European officials also warned that the administration’s actions were creating instability far beyond America’s borders.

‘I think that in this world where tensions are numerous, it’s probably no time to add tensions, especially between two historical partners,’ French Finance Minister Roland Lescure told reporters.

German central bank chief Joachim Nagel said US officials now understood why Europeans ‘were not really enthusiastic about the fact that there was no prior coordination’ over the currency intervention.

Klingbeil was even more blunt: ‘The past few months have shown that uncertainty is poison for economic growth.’

‘The Iran war, the ongoing tariff disputes with the U.S. and distortions of competition like we are experiencing from China, all of this leads to instability,’ he added.

JPMorgan chief Jamie Dimon welcomed Bessent’s effort to bring business leaders into the discussions.

‘For the first time at G20, the Treasury has given the private sector a place at the table. Good policy is made better when those who lend, hire, invest and build have a voice in shaping it,’ Dimon said. 

‘We are here as America celebrates our 250th anniversary. This is a moment to reflect on how far our nation has come. And it is the perfect time to rededicate ourselves to the values that made this great nation of ours – freedom, liberty, and opportunity.

‘We encourage the other countries of the G20 to join us as we look back on this historic milestone for the United States, and as we look forward together to growth and opportunity for the next 250 years.’

The finance ministers’ meeting was also a preview of the headline G20 leaders’ summit, hosted by Trump at his Doral resort in Florida in December.

By then, the President will have faced the November midterms, which will be viewed in part as a referendum on his economic management of the US.

With gas prices still stuck above $4 a gallon, Europe’s finance ministers may be the least of Trump’s concerns.

With just a couple of episodes remaining in Reacher Season 4 on Prime Video, the body count keeps climbing over that cursed flash drive. Last time we saw him, Jack Reacher was in serious trouble, trapped inside the abandoned restaurant Lila and Amisha had converted into a makeshift slaughterhouse. For a moment, it looked as if the big guy might actually have to surrender the prize, especially with Amisha pressing her karambit against Jacob’s neck. But Season 4 has found a way to make the show’s formula even more elastic. Yes, the series still knows exactly how to deliver a classic Reacher beatdown. But it has also discovered a new trick for escalating its increasingly absurd, custom-built fight scenes: when Reacher is cornered by one enemy, simply throw in several more. They do not even need names. In Episode 6, right as Reacher appears ready to hand Lila the flash drive, another squad of anonymous armed thugs bursts through the place. Smoke grenades fill the room, turning the latest round of Reacher chaos into a murky, bone-crunching free-for-all.

There is something oddly admirable about a show this committed, week after week, to its own ridiculous rhythm. No one can see through the smoky haze, but bullets are flying, the Indonesian assassins are cutting people up, and Reacher is launching bodies through decaying drywall like it is just another Tuesday. By the end, the nameless gunmen are stacked among the defeated, Lila has slipped away with the flash drive after snatching it in the confusion, and the only named casualty is Russell Plum. He catches a bullet in the lung, though the conspiracy-minded blogger is not finished yet. Before heading to the emergency room with Jacob, Russell manages to give Reacher and Tamara the name of the chemist from the disputed file photo. They have lost the drive, but they have picked up a crucial lead.

“We look like shit, and you’re covered in blood. That stands out, even in Philly.” After escaping the scene of their latest violent mess, Green drags Reacher into an alley so they can clean up with a hose and hunt down whatever discarded clothes they can find. For Reacher, that means a promotional T-shirt big enough to double as a tent, advertising King Tough with the slogan “get cracked in Philadelphia.” Tamara ends up in a Lehigh Valley Phantoms shirt, a nod to her beloved Flyers’ minor-league affiliate. Taking in the sight of her massive, shirtless partner, she makes it clear that “Conan” is not her type. Still, she has questions — particularly about Reacher sleeping with the enemy. After all, there is only one way Lila could have known about the scar she mentioned, the rough, prominent line stitched across his stomach. It is a familiar piece of Reacher lore, famously tied to shrapnel from a terrorist bomber. “Lila sexed you up to get you to do what she wants,” Tamara says. That is not exactly the full story, though. Reacher and Lila very much sexed each other up.

Besides, technically speaking, all of that happened before Lila was exposed as the karambit killer. And Reacher, for his part, has never exactly been a stranger to killing. Hidden away in the luggage hold of a tourist bus where he and Tamara have stowed themselves, he shrugs off the idea of consequences. Accountability for his choices? Please. That belongs to a different kind of show. The bus carries them about 90 minutes outside Philadelphia, toward the headquarters of a pharmaceutical company founded by Leo Ahlquist (Shawn Doyle), the chemist from the past.

Now that the flash drive is in their possession, Lila and Amisha’s operation comes into sharper focus. They are not improvising; they have infrastructure. There are additional gunmen on standby, rows of beakers, burners and laboratory equipment, plus overworked tech specialists who clearly do not appreciate being micromanaged by impatient assassins casually spinning blades nearby. The computer team is using artificial intelligence to enhance the background of the photo stored on the flash drive, while Lila and Amisha have already arranged buyers for whatever formula or process they are trying to reconstruct. The only problem is that everything is moving too slowly for their taste. Then a visitor arrives. “Thank you for your act of selflessness,” they tell him. The man can only be Tomas Waberi (Talijah Levene), the enigmatic traveler from Djibouti. However he fits into the larger plot, it is safe to assume his role is tied to their fanatical, murderous worldview. “I’ll walk through hell with you,” Lila tells Amisha, her eyes flashing with the same cold brightness as a blade.

And how about this for some boutique fight sequence silliness? Reacher and Green discover Leo Ahlquist in his company’s server room, where he’s desperately feeding hard drives into an industrial crusher. Destroying evidence. And with its hungry maw of churning metal teeth, the machine might as well be Chekov’s gun. “I knew you or someone like you would show up!” Ahlquist says. He was warned by Cahill, Sampson’s chief of staff who tried to raw dog gravity. What they did back in Indonesia during the ’90s would be found out one day, and that day is today. Ahlquist is frantic. Right up until his latest group of mercenaries enter the room.

So all season long, the nameless mercs who crashed Reacher’s stomping parties were hired by Ahlquist to cover his involvement. “At great expense,” he adds, which tees up Reacher’s comeback. “Shame I killed so many.” It also tees up the latest throwdown. Tamara Green beats one guy with a server blade while Reacher does indeed plunge an attacker’s hand into the server crusher. It’s as satisfying as the look on Alan Ritchson’s face when Reacher does it. But it does not end this battle. The Big Cheesesteak gets tased for his efforts, and Tamara is subdued. They wake up cuffed, in the back of a van, with a tarp spread beneath them. This is the end of the line. The latest tight spot. They are about to be killed. But this is also Reacher, so maybe — probably — not.

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Pocket Items for Reacher Season 4 Episode 6 (“Plum Out of Luck”): 

• Jacob called his “unc” for help. Bad idea. Marty Derosa (Nick Searcy), his father’s old partner from Episode 5, sells him out. Derosa shows up in Philly, but turns Jacob over to Docherty. We still don’t know what side he’s on!

• “You put your arm around Paul Bunyan, and called him your old friend in front of the media.” Elspeth Sampson worries about the ever-widening Reacher-sized hole being blown in her husband’s political campaign.  

• NHL centers and wingers are well-represented among the childhood pet names of Detective Tamara “Don’t be shitty to my Gritty” Green. The lifelong Philadelphia Flyers fan remembers some guys — Eric Lindros, Bobby Clarke, Tim Kerr, Dave Shultz — as she’s trying to deflect her brain from tourist bus claustrophobia.

• “I once told a friend, we live and then we die — as long as we do both properly, we don’t have much to regret.” This is Reacher to Tamara as they anticipate being murdered by Ahlquist’s goons. But it’s also Reacher referencing Frances Neagley (Maria Sten), his old Army homie, de facto bff and longtime spiritual backstop. We can’t wait for Neagley to be the star of her own throwdown.

Johnny Loftus (@johnnyloftus.bsky.social) is a Chicago-based writer. A veteran of the alternative weekly trenches, his work has also appeared in Entertainment Weekly, Pitchfork, The All Music Guide, and The Village Voice.

PROVO, Utah — Comments from a defense attorney representing Tyler Robinson, the man accused of assassinating Charlie Kirk, drew sharp criticism Tuesday after the lawyer suggested in court that Kirk had spoken “hatefully” before he was fatally shot in front of thousands at a Utah Valley University speaking event.

“I think what the defense attorney said regarding Charlie Kirk and that he was full of hate, that was so unprofessional,” said David Gelman, a New Jersey criminal defense attorney who has been tracking the case. “That was so out of left field that he honestly — he should be embarrassed of what he said.”

Robinson, 23, is charged in the Sept. 10, 2025, killing of Kirk, a 31-year-old father of two, who was speaking to a large crowd during a Turning Point USA event on the Utah Valley University campus when he was shot.

During arguments opposing the case being bound over for trial, California-based defense attorney Richard Novak asserted that “Mr. Kirk spoke hatefully of certain groups of people.” Novak also argued there was a “significant gap” between Kirk’s views and Robinson’s feelings toward him.

As Novak repeated the phrase, Kirk’s parents, widow and other relatives were in court. They exchanged looks and some teared up. Erika Kirk leaned forward and said something to an aide with the county attorney’s office.

“You don’t ever and I mean ever say that, No. 1, as a defense attorney or a prosecutor, especially not even at a trial,” Gelman said. “If you want to paint Charlie as a bad person in front of the jury, knock your socks off. Do whatever you think you have to do. But to do that at a preliminary hearing…when you have the victim’s family all there, that was totally uncalled for.”

Chief Deputy Utah County Attorney Chad Grunander and Kirk family attorney Jeffrey Neiman both pushed back on Novak’s comments in front of the judge.

“The state takes great exception with Mr. Novak attributing all of this ‘hate’ to Mr. Kirk during his argument today,” Grunander said in his rebuttal. “None of what was presented during the preliminary hearing [shows] that he is hateful towards this group or hateful towards that group. He had an opinion that he would express on politics and religion. That doesn’t make it hate, but the fact that Mr. Novak even considered as hate makes the case for the state in his client’s own words, he hated what Mr. Kirk stood for.”

Neiman told the court that Kirk had made a career out of having “hard conversations” on difficult topics.

“Charlie was the opposite of hate,” he said. “Firing a bullet into a crowd and assassinating him. That is hate.”

In text messages prosecutors allege Robinson sent to Twiggs, the sender also accused Kirk of “hate.”

Lance Twiggs, Robinson’s roommate and romantic partner at the time, has been a key witness for prosecutors, who allege that Robinson confessed the crime and apparent motive to him.

“Why did I do it?” Robinson allegedly wrote to Twiggs after the slaying. “I had enough of his hatred. Some hate can’t be negotiated out. If I am able to grab my rifle unseen, I will have left no evidence.”

News Media has reached out to Robinson’s defense team for comment.

“Charlie Kirk was not full of hatred,” Gelman said. “If anything, he was full of love…He brought people together. He was there doing a free speech event, all right? He’s trying to bring people on the left on the right together.”

Judge Tony Graf Jr. bound over all charges to district court for trial Tuesday, including the death penalty-eligible charge of aggravated murder.

Robinson is due back in court on Oct. 23 for a pretrial conference , where Graf may set a trial date.

His attorney, Kathy Nester, entered not guilty pleas on his behalf to all charges at an arraignment Tuesday.