Industries Are Left in the Lurch by Trump’s Stalled Trade Plans

By ALAN RAPPEPORT 8:57 AM ET

Since withdrawing from the Trans-Pacific Partnership pact in January, President Trump has accomplished little else of significance when it comes to reorienting deals with other countries.

Brazil's fall: why disaster looms for Latin America’s biggest economy

With poor finances and even poorer politics, Brazil lurches from one crisis to another. Why?
A former star of the emerging world faces a lost decade
ECON.ST

Is Jeremy Corbyn's victory a sign that voters are losing faith in social mobility?

Labour leadership lurches to the left
Jeremy Corbyn, Labour’s new leader, is the most leftwing politician to have held the post since Michael Foot in the early 1980s.
FT.COM

Google Ditches Ad Pact With Yahoo

Yielding to pressure from regulators, Google backed out of its ad pact with Yahoo -- a move that leaves Yahoo and CEO Yang in the lurch and highlights increasing scrutiny of Google.

China has lurched between defensiveness and cooperation on issues of product safety. Last year, it initially blocked the F.D.A. from investigating tainted pet food and accused foreign forces of exaggerating the issue. Then in July, China said that it had executed its former top food and drug regulator for taking bribes and promised reforms.

Italian authorities may revoke Alitalia licenseItalian aviation authorities say that they could revoke the licenceof the country's main airline, Alitalia if it cannot meet itsobligations, including safety guarantees. The head of Italy's civil aviation authority made the statement in a radio interview. Thiscomes a day after Air France-KLM withdrew an offer to purchase thestruggling air carrier. Trading in Alitalia shares has beensuspended on the Milan stock exchange as authorities await somestatement from the airline. Alitalia is reported to be losing around€1 million per day and is lurching toward possible bankruptcyprotection.

In the three years since joyous rebels seized the Libyan capital, Tripoli, the country has lurched from crisis to crisis, yet somehow stayed afloat. It is now sinking, weighed down by too many guns and too many factions, with too few institutions to repair the leaks wrought under the erratic dictatorship of Muammar Qaddafi. Libya now combines all the ingredients for a protracted civil war http://econ.st/1tPwuvb

Outages Leave Google Apps Admins In the Hotseat

Slashdot - USA
snydeq writes "This week's Google outages left several Google Apps admins in the lurch — and many of them are second-guessing their advocacy for making the ...

hot seat

Slang. The electric chair.
Informal. A position in which one is subjected to extreme stress or discomfort, as by excessive criticism.

lurch¹

━━ n. 大敗.

leave … in the lurch　（友などを）見殺しにする.

leave sb in the lurch
to leave someone at a time when they need you to stay and help them

lurch
verb
1 [I] to move in an irregular way, especially making sudden movements backwards or forwards or from side to side:
The train lurched forward and some of the people standing fell over.

2 [I + adverb or preposition] to act or continue in an irregular and uncontrolled way, often with sudden changes:
We seem to lurch from crisis to crisis.
She just lurches from one bad relationship to another.

lurch
noun [C]
The truck gave a sudden lurch as it was hit by a strong gust of wind.
The party's lurch (= sudden change) to the left will lose it a lot of support.

lurch[lurch¹]

発音記号[lə'ːrtʃ]

[名]

1 突然の揺れ；（船などの）不意の傾斜, 傾き

with a lurch
がたんと揺れて.

2 よろめき, 千鳥足.

━━[動](自)

1 〈船が〉急に傾く, 不意に揺れる.

2 よろめく, ぐらぐらする.

lurch・ing・ly

[副]

lurch[lurch²]

発音記号[lə'ːrtʃ]

[名]((次の句で))

leave a person in the lurch

((略式))〈人を〉窮地に置き去りにする；〈困っている人を〉見捨てる, 見殺しにする.

Left in the lurch

Meaning
Abandoned in a difficult position without help.
Origin
This has nothing to do with lurches in the sense of sudden unsteady movements.
Left in the lurch

There are suggestions that lurch is a noun that originated from lich - the Old English word for corpse. Lych-gates are roofed churchyard entrances that adjoin many old English churches and are the appointed place for coffins to be left when waiting for the clergyman to arrive to conduct a funeral service. To be 'left in the lych/lurch' was to be in dire straits indeed.
Another theory goes that jilted brides would be 'left in the lych' when the errant bridegroom failed to appear for a wedding. Both theories are plausible but there's no evidence to support either and, despite the superficial appeal of those explanations, 'lych' and 'lurch' aren't related.
Left in the lurch

In fact, the phrase originates from the French board game of lourche or lurch, which was similar to backgammon and was last played in the 17th century (the rules having now been lost). Players suffered a lurch if they were left in a hopeless position from which they couldn't win the game. The card game of cribbage, or crib, also has a 'lurch' position which players may be left in if they don't progress half way round the peg board before the winner finishes.
The figurative usage of the phrase had certainly entered the language by the 16th century as this line from Nashe's Saffron Walden, 1596, shows:

"Whom he also procured to be equally bound with him for his new cousens apparence to the law, which he neuer did, but left both of them in the lurtch for him."

The game came to England from continental Europe and its name derives from the word 'left', which is 'lurtsch' in dialect German and 'loyrtz' in Middle Dutch. Why call a game 'left'? The most plausible explanation (and regular readers will know that, in etymology, plausibility isn't everything) is that it relates to the bad feeling against the left hand that was then commonplace in many cultures. In English we have held on to this with the word 'sinister', which of course just means 'left-handed'.

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lurcher	(noun) Someone waiting in concealment.
Synonyms:	lurker, skulker
Usage:	Amanda caught a glimpse of a figure in the shadows of the alleyway and ran in fear of the mysterious lurcher.

lurcher: [名]1 ((英))（密猟者が使う）雑種犬.2 間諜(ちょう), スパイ.3 ((古))こそどろ；密猟者.

Grübel's Exit Leaves UBS in Lurch

The resignation of CEO Oswald Grübel throws UBS into renewed turmoil, leaving it struggling with the twin problems of revamping a troubled investment bank and finding a permanent CEO.

lurch
(lûrch) pronunciation

intr.v., lurched, lurch·ing, lurch·es.

To stagger. See synonyms at blunder.
To roll or pitch suddenly or erratically: The ship lurched in the storm. The car gave a start and then lurched forward.

A staggering or tottering movement or gait.
An abrupt rolling or pitching.

[Origin unknown.]

lurchingly lurch'ing·ly adv.

lurch² (lûrch) pronunciation

n.
The losing position of a cribbage player who scores 30 points or less to the winner's 61.

idiom:

in the lurch

In a difficult or embarrassing position.

[Perhaps back-formation from Middle English lurching, a total victory at a kind of game, perhaps akin to lurken, to lurk. See lurk.]

[名]

1 突然の揺れ；（船などの）不意の傾斜, 傾き

with a lurch
がたんと揺れて.

2 よろめき, 千鳥足.

━━[動](自)

1 〈船が〉急に傾く, 不意に揺れる.

2 よろめく, ぐらぐらする.

lurch Show phonetics
verb
1 [I] to move in an irregular way, especially making sudden movements backwards or forwards or from side to side:

The train lurched forward and some of the people standing fell over.

2 [I + adverb or preposition] to act or continue in an irregular and uncontrolled way, often with sudden changes:
We seem to lurch from crisis to crisis.
She just lurches from one bad relationship to another.

lurch Show phonetics
noun [C]
The truck gave a sudden lurch as it was hit by a strong gust of wind.
The party's lurch (= sudden change) to the left will lose it a lot of support.

leave sb in the lurch
to leave someone at a time when they need you to stay and help them