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Officials fear Mideast war

Diplomats raced to avert conflict between Israel and Iran following the former’s killing of a top Hamas leader on the latter’s soil, which spurred Tehran to vow revenge. US and European Union officials held talks in regional capitals seeking to convince Iran either to not respond or only do so symbolically over the killing of Hamas’ political leader Ismail Haniyeh. A funeral procession for Haniyeh began in Tehran on Thursday: His group carried out the Oct. 7 attack that killed 1,100 Israelis and sparked the Gaza war that has so far left more than 39,000 dead, but he was also a key figure in ceasefire negotiations which now appear unlikely to make headway.

Guilty pleas in 9/11 case

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed agreed to plead guilty to his involvement in the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the US, which left thousands dead, triggered two wars, and reshaped American and global politics. Mohammed and two accomplices are expected to enter the pleas as early as next week, the Associated Press said, with their defense lawyers requesting life sentences in exchange. US officials say Mohammed was the mastermind of the plot, which involved the hijacking of commercial airliners to use as aerial suicide bombs. If it goes ahead, the deal will bring to a close a lengthy legal process in which US authorities’ use of torture — Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times while in CIA custody — was put in the spotlight.

Prisoner swap speculation grows

High-profile Western prisoners held in Russian jails disappeared from view, fueling speculation among Kremlin-watchers that “what may be the biggest swap since the Cold War” was imminent. The former US marine Paul Whelan, the Russian-British dissident Vladimir Kara-Murza, and Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich as well as a slew of domestic critics of Moscow were all named as potentially involved in the multi-country discussions. Negotiations for such a complex prisoner exchange were shrouded in secrecy, but if successfully executed, the timing would be notable: Russian President Vladimir Putin is loath to offer a political win to Democrats in the US, but likely fears Republican candidate Donald Trump’s “bull-in-a-china-shop approach to deal-making,” Politico said.

US readies new China chip curbs

US authorities are reportedly readying new restrictions on China’s access to advanced chip technology but will likely exclude shipments made by allied countries’ companies. Washington has in recent years placed steadily heavier curbs on Beijing in a bid to slow its technological advancement, and has used the so-called foreign direct product rule to impose restrictions on companies in other countries from dealing with China. The latest moves would bar the export of semiconductor manufacturing equipment, Reuters and Bloomberg reported, but likely exempt Japan and the Netherlands, home to two of the sector’s giants. Shares in ASML, the Dutch firm which makes the world’s most advanced chip lithography equipment, surged on the reports.

Uber-BYD deal could boost EVs

Uber signed a deal with BYD to incentivize drivers to use the Chinese automaker’s electric vehicles. Uber drivers will be offered discounts when buying, charging, and maintaining the cars. The agreement will roll out first in Europe and Latin America, then the Middle East, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, and the two companies hope it will bring 100,000 more EVs to global roads. Obstacles to the plan remain, The Verge reported: Countries around the world are restricting sales of or raising tariffs on Chinese EVs in response to Beijing’s subsidies which they say undercut local manufacturers. Uber is also working with autonomous vehicle manufacturer Waymo to boost its robotaxi plans.

Maduro fights election criticism

​​Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro ordered the government-controlled Supreme Court to audit his disputed presidential election win amid mounting unrest at home. Skepticism from international observers has grown as researchers in Venezuela have gained access to numerous ballots, estimating Maduro received just 31% of the vote. Despite mass protests spreading across Venezuela, waning interest in the West and increased support from Caracas’ international allies — notably China and Russia — are leading some to conclude Maduro may ultimately manage to hold on to power. “Once dictators take power, they are almost impossible to remove. Almost,” the editor-in-chief of Americas Quarterly wrote.

Nigerian protests expand

​​Nigerians vowed “days of rage” shortly before the start of a planned 10-day protest across the country. Nigeria is experiencing its worst economic crisis in a generation, at least partially because of the removal of a fuel subsidy on which much of the economy relied. The shift set off an inflationary wave that has sent food prices soaring, forcing many Nigerians to turn to foodstuffs they would have previously discarded. Analysts fear the demonstrations could set off a wave of violence like the one that engulfed Kenya last month. Some protestors remained undeterred by threats of repression. “We are down already, so we have lost our fear,” one told the BBC.

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Seals jabbed for rabies

South Africa will vaccinate seals against rabies after the first documented outbreak of the disease in marine mammals. At least seven people were infected by rabid seals, although all seven received treatment in time. One surfer reported that a “little seal came up at me at high speed,” biting him and his surfboard repeatedly. Cape Town authorities warned people to steer clear of seals, which are usually playful with humans, behaving aggressively. There are 2 million Cape fur seals in southern Angola and South Africa’s Eastern Cape, making comprehensive vaccine coverage unlikely, but the program will target those that come into contact with humans, as well as migratory seals of other species to stop them carrying rabies to other colonies.

Phelps’ coach powers Marchand

French swimmer Léon Marchand won an unprecedented double gold in the 200-meter butterfly and breaststroke races, breaking the Olympic record in both. Marchand’s rapid rise to the pinnacle of the sport — his best result in the last Olympics was 6th — has been propelled by coach Bob Bowman, who also worked with the Games’ greatest-ever swimmer Michael Phelps. The challenge for Marchand now is “surviving the success,” according to Bowman. “He has no idea but I know exactly what’s next,” Bowman told Reuters. “He has to somehow find his way back to a [practice] pool… and start going up and down it.”

Google Olympics ad grosses out writers

An advert for Gemini, Google’s generative artificial intelligence model, drew backlash. The ad shows a father giving Gemini prompts to help his daughter write a fan letter to the Olympic hurdler Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone. The ad “makes me want to throw a sledgehammer into the television,” Alexandra Petri wrote in The Washington Post: “What will these buffoons come up with next? ‘Gemini, propose for me’?” But Axios pointed out that some people find staring at a blank page stressful, and that an AI can help with prompts which the writers then turn into something more personal, rather than it being a replacement for human creativity.

• The Bank of England is expected to lower its benchmark interest rate.
• The US secretary of state is due in Mongolia in the latest stop on a 10-day Asia tour.
• Season 3 of From Me to You: Kimi ni Todoko, an anime series, drops on Netflix.

The number of citations held by scientific papers authored by Larry Richardson, a cat. Fraudulent citations are a major problem: Scientists’ careers progress in large part on the impact of their research, which is measured in citations. One researcher used a citation-boosting service advertised on Facebook, in the name of his grandmother’s cat, and within two weeks had engineered 12 fake, but apparently highly cited, papers. It makes Larry the most cited cat in history. More subtle methods of citation fraud are in use: Scientists are increasingly hiding citations of their old studies in the metadata of their newer ones, which don’t show up in the paper itself but are scraped by Google Scholar and other systems to boost citation counts.

Red Lungi, by Banu Mushtaq. The Kannada short story, translated into English in the summer issue of The Paris Review, is remarkable for the fact that its original language is not the author’s mother tongue, reflecting what its translator noted is a growing trend in India: That of multilingual authors who grew up speaking various languages or dialects — Mushtaq “sprinkles her Kannada with Dakhni, Urdu, and scant Arabic” — increasingly defaulting to more popular languages while writing.

• Trump falsely says Harris ‘turned Black’ after previously promoting Indian heritage at NABJ meeting.
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• Anyscale, software provider for OpenAI and other major firms, hires new CEO to boost sales.