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Good morning from the Financial Times. Today is Monday, August 14th,

and this is your FT News Briefing.

The Ruble took a tumble, and there is a battle in Washington over whether to give

green tax subsidies to ethanol. Plus, demand for minerals critical to green technology is surging.

The FT's Harry Demsie tells us about the countries where they're being mined.

And that has governments thinking, wow, you know, we need to really ensure we secure our

fair share of this deal. I'm Sonya Hudson in for Mark Filipino, and here's the news you need to

start your day.

The Ruble has hit a 16 month low. Russia's currency has lost a quarter of its value this year.

That's thanks to a surge in military spending, a drop in exports, and of course western sanctions.

Plus, the country's central bank has been aggressively cutting interest rates.

There is a glimmer of hope for Moscow, though, oil and gas revenues started to rebound in July.

Airlines and farmers are joining forces in the US. They want corn-based ethanol to power

airplanes instead of jet fuel. So, the groups are lobbying the federal government to make ethanol

qualify for green tax breaks under the Inflation Reduction Act. But they're going up against

environmentalists who say ethanol isn't actually that green. Joining me to talk about this

is the FT Chicago correspondent Claire Bushee. She covers the airline industry. Hi, Claire.

Hi, how are you? I'm doing well, thanks. So, why is the airline industry so interested in ethanol?

I mean, they are interested in lots of types of alternative fuels, but we can't overstate how tiny

and decent the market for sustainable aviation fuel actually is. And so, the airlines say that

...