Good afternoon. Here’s what you should know today, Sept. 22:

• Kamala Harris is courting the business community

• Longer-term Treasury yields have risen after the Fed rate cut

• How missteps and the AI ​​boom have weakened Intel

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1.

Israel and Hezbollah are sliding toward full-scale war after intense strikes.

Israel and Hezbollah have accelerated their cross-border attacks, in a rapidly deteriorating situation that has the adversaries as close to full-out war as they have been in their nearly yearlong conflict. Through a series of shocking blows inflicted on Hezbollah last week, Israel has aimed to push the Lebanese militant group to stop launching attacks on northern Israel. But so far, Hezbollah has shown no sign of retreat, meaning the increasing tit-for-tat attacks are likely to continue (🔐 read for free).

Israel’s Ultimatum to Hezbollah: Back Off or Go to War (Read)

Israeli Military Raids and Shuts Al Jazeera’s West Bank Bureau (Read)

🎥 Israeli Strike Kills Senior Hezbollah Leaders in Beirut (Watch)

2.

Kamala Harris is making an undercover push to win over Corporate America.

The vice president has made taking on wrongdoing by American corporations a central part of his pitch to voters, referring on the campaign trail to his record of taking on big business, blaming food manufacturers for high grocery prices, and promising to increase taxes on corporations and the wealthy. But, in private at least, she is seeking out advice from leaders across sectors. She has offered few policy specifics, but many executives say they view her openness to their feedback as enough for now.

Republicans Boost Jill Stein as Potential Harris Spoiler (Read)

🎧 Chasing the Vote: How Election-Fraud Claims Go Over in Georgia (Listen)

3.

Not all borrowing costs are going down despite the Fed’s rate cut.

The Federal Reserve is finally cutting interest rates, but one key gauge of borrowing costs has been going up anyway. Yields on longer-term Treasurys have ticked higher since the supersize cut of 0.5 percentage point, a reminder that the Fed does not have complete control over borrowing costs in the US One investor said his team is betting that yields will likely rise a little more.

Streetwise: The Fed Is Flying Blind. Investors Don’t Seem to Care. (Read)

🎧 The Fed Finally Cut Rates. What Does That Mean? (Listen)

4.

Intel has failed from global chip champion to takeover target.

Three years ago, Intel was worth more than double its current value, and Chief Executive Pat Gelsinger was on the prowl for acquisitions. Now Intel itself is a takeover target, in a sign of how strategic missteps and the artificial-intelligence boom have combined to reshape the fortunes of America’s most storied semiconductor company. A recent acquisition approach by Qualcomm reflects a vulnerability with few precedents in Intel’s 56-year history.

5.

Elliott Hill loved Nike and left it. Now he’s back as CEO.

Nike’s incoming CEO started working at the sneaker giant in 1988 as an intern, taking calls from customers and moving boxes in a warehouse. Over more than three decades, Hill climbed to be one of his top executives before he was passed over for CEO and retired in 2020. On Thursday, Nike announced that he was coming back, this time to take the helm. Starting in October, Hill’s job will be to undo recent mistakes and lead Nike’s turnaround.

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550,000

The rough number of homeless people counted so far in the US, based on numbers from more than 250 homeless-service organizations covering cities, metro areas and vast rural areas that are meant to reflect homelessness as it existed on a single night early this year. The trend thus far means the US is likely to top the roughly 653,000 homeless people estimated in 2023.

$1.99

The average retail price per pound for a whole chicken, according to the latest data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Consumer Price Index. But shoppers are willing to spend more on premium brands that promise a happier, healthier, more delicious bird.

The Civil War still echoes in the South, forcing towns to take sides.

In 2020, when protests over police violence against Black men and women spread around the US, the campaign to take down Confederate monuments in the South drew national attention. In North Carolina, 20 of the monuments were removed in a single month, some under the preservation law’s public-safety exemptions. Yet more than 70 remain on public property around the state, largely in small towns and rural communities where local residents refuse to surrender their Confederate landmarks, saying they are a piece of history worth saving. Similar fights are under way across the South, where hundreds of Confederate monuments and memorials remain.

“I told him, ‘I’m not getting in it.’”

— Tony Nissen, former engineering director for OceanGate, during testimony at a US Coast Guard hearing investigating last year’s catastrophic implosion of the underwater-exploration company’s Titan submersible. Nissen says he argued with CEO Stockton Rush about whether the submersible was safe and was fired in 2019.

• Trump Claims Women ‘Will No Longer Be Thinking About Abortion’ If He Wins (Read)

• Google Emails Show Unease Over Advertising Dominance (Read)

• Cards Against Humanity Sues Elon Musk’s SpaceX for Trespassing (Read​)

• Four Killed in Mass Shooting in Birmingham, Ala. (Read)

Test-drive your retirement spending while you’re still working.

Before buying a new car, most people go for a test-drive. They should do the same for retirement. To take retirement life for a spin while still working, try to live for a month on your expected budget. This makes the years of abstract financial plans and calculations real. These trial runs help reveal whether your vision for how to spend time and money really is a good fit, says Christine Benz, Morningstar’s director of personal finance. We spoke with Benz about other ways to prepare for the transition to retirement financially and emotionally.

• The Work From Home Free-for-All Is Coming to an End (Read)

• It’s the Year 2030. What Will Artificial Intelligence Look Like? (Read)

• They Bought a French Castle. Then Came the Royal Pains. (Read)

As the NFL looks to expand outside the US, Brazil became the first country in the Southern Hemisphere to host a regular-season game. There was some confusion.

Beyond the Newsroom

Buy Side from WSJ: What Is a 529 College Savings Plan?

Today’s newsletter was curated by Michael Wright in London and Allison Chopin in New York.