Flagship

Ukraine pushes for missile support

Ukraine pressed for the US to allow it to more freely use long-range missiles against Russia. Kyiv’s defense minister was in Washington and its foreign minister in Brussels, the latter to push for European support in its effort to win American approval. Ukraine is rapidly expanding its defense capacity — it test-fired homegrown ballistic missiles this week and used recently acquired F-16s to help repel a Russian aerial barrage — and has controlled a significant chunk of territory within Russia, which it won in a surprise offensive this month. But it also faces challenges: A key logistics hub in eastern Ukraine faces an “extremely difficult” situation as a result of Russian pressure, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.

Sullivan holds Xi talks

US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan met with Chinese leader Xi Jinping at the close of a Beijing trip aimed at helping the two powers manage their broadening competition. Sullivan earlier spoke with China’s most senior uniformed military officer over the two countries’ differing views on Taiwan — which Beijing sees as a renegade province — and with the country’s foreign minister over a range of issues. Xi and US President Joe Biden have agreed to hold a call in the coming weeks but the South China Morning Post noted “speculation that Biden could make a trip to China” before he steps down, with Biden otherwise facing the prospect of being the first American leader not to visit Beijing in decades.

Trump angers veterans

Former US President Donald Trump was accused of illegally using the country’s main military cemetery in his election campaign. Trump’s team visited Arlington National Cemetery for a wreath-laying ceremony Monday. But a veteran’s family said the campaign filmed their relative’s grave without permission. A Trump staffer also apparently clashed with a cemetery worker who tried to stop the filming. Trump has a strained relationship with the military, as The Atlantic noted: He has described fallen soldiers as “suckers” and “losers,” said he didn’t want “any wounded guys” at a parade, and mocked former prisoner of war Senator John McCain as “not a war hero,” saying “I like people who weren’t captured.”

Arabs rebuke Israel

Arab capitals rebuked Israeli ministers for remarks deemed inflammatory. Though Israel has received Western criticism over the conduct of its war in Gaza, many Arab powers have stopped short of raising the issue, with Saudi Arabia in particular considering establishing diplomatic relations with the country. Recent comments from the Israeli foreign minister calling for the “temporary evacuation” of Palestinians from the occupied West Bank and the security minister saying he wanted to build a synagogue on the site of a Jerusalem mosque complex drew regional ire, though: Riyadh, notably, said it rejected the latter as “extremist and provocative.” Farther afield, the EU’s foreign policy chief raised the prospect of sanctioning “some Israeli ministers” for “unacceptable hate messages.”

Starmer’s EU reset plans

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer met with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz as part of efforts to “reset” Britain’s relationship with Europe. The two men committed to a new Anglo-German treaty, which Starmer said would cover defense, trade, migration, and many other topics: It is unclear whether that breadth is “a sign of how significant it is,” the BBC’s political correspondent wrote, or merely “writing down the ways in which the countries already cooperate.” But Starmer is keen to improve the vibes of London’s relationship with Europe, and the usually low-key Scholz was enthusiastic. Smoothing Britain’s access to European markets seems to be the key ambition. Starmer is now heading to France to continue his “reset” tour.

Challenges for S. Africa women

Twin reports pointed to the widespread difficulties facing women in South Africa. Data analyzed by a nonprofit supporting survivors of sexual abuse showed that a third of all women in the country suffer gender-based violence, across wealth levels. In the workplace, meanwhile, a persistent and deep gender pay gap has combined with low levels of women’s employment in the private sector, where women represent barely a quarter of senior management positions. They also comprise less than 3% of the heads of publicly listed companies. “We can’t wait five generations for things to continue and evolve the way they are evolving,” a law lecturer told the Mail & Guardian.

OpenAI courts billions

OpenAI is reportedly in talks to raise billions of dollars in new funding, the latest sign of a broadening artificial intelligence arms race. Analysts have speculated that investor concern over a lack of revenue resulting from heavy AI spending might push major companies to dial back their investments. Yet according to The Wall Street Journal and Financial Times, OpenAI wants to build up its war chest to maintain a lead held by its ChatGPT platform in the face of intensifying competition, and to develop new products. The latest investment round, potentially its biggest injection of capital since Jan. 2023, could value the company at $100 billion.

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Latam’s first top-security biolab

Construction began on Latin America’s first maximum-security biosciences laboratory. Biosafety level 4 laboratories are designed to work with deadly airborne pathogens for which there are no treatments, and other similarly dangerous materials: There are 51 around the world, mostly in North America and Europe. The Orion facility in Brazil will open in 2026, and a virologist told Nature that it was sorely needed: Latin America is “sitting on a powder keg” of pathogens, especially as the Amazon rainforest is cleared and humans come into more and more contact with animals and their previously unknown viruses: “We need a laboratory like this so we can give quick responses.”

Sea cow fossil eaten by croc, shark

An ancient manatee-like creature was first attacked by a crocodile and then eaten by a shark, paleontologists believe. The 10- to 20-million-year-old fossil, found in Venezuela in 2019, was fragmentary and poorly preserved, so scientists paid little attention at first. But then one noticed marks from different types of tooth, including puncture wounds around the snout that were likely caused by a crocodile’s predatory “death roll,” spinning and drowning its prey. Slitlike marks and an embedded tooth suggest its remains were then scavenged by an extinct species of tiger shark. The finding reveals the complexity of ancient food webs, and is also part of a “golden age of paleontology in South America,” one researcher told Scientific American.

Hokusai prints up for auction

Two prints of Katsushika Hokusai’s The Great Wave will be auctioned next month and are expected to represent a rare bright spot in a moribund art market. The famous 19th-century woodcuts, full title Kanagawa-oki nami-ura or Under the Wave off Kanagawa, are among the most famous images in the world: They have been made into LEGO sets and used on the front of novels. The two images are estimated to fetch $500,000 to $900,000 each, although another print broke records and expectations in March by going for $2.8 million. The market for The Great Wave is “very, very good right now,” an auctioneer told ARTnews, but the art auction world as a whole is experiencing a sharp downturn, The New York Times reported.

Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) New York; Scott Gottlieb, former Commissioner, Food and Drug Administration (2017-2019); and Samuel Levine, Director, FTC Bureau of Consumer Protection will join Semafor’s editors in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday, September 4 for discussions at the intersection of youth, social media, age-appropriate marketing and data privacy.

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• The UN deputy secretary-general visits Port Sudan to meet with the Transitional Sovereignty Council.
• Kamala Harris and Tim Walz will sit for their first big joint TV interview since accepting their nominations as the Democratic presidential and vice presidential candidates.
• The UK premiere of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, a sequel to the 1988 cult classic, is held in Leicester Square.

Proportion of adolescent boys in Europe who in a recent survey reported having used a condom during their last sexual intercourse, down from 70% in 2014. The proportion among girls also fell, to 57% from 63%, according to the World Health Organization. The decline — which officials warned could lead to a rise in sexually transmitted infections and unplanned pregnancies — was blamed on a broad neglect of sexual education, which has “increasingly come under attack in recent years on the false premise that it encourages sexual behavior.”

A Little Trickerie by Rosanna Pike. The Backstory bookshop in London named the novel its book of the month. It features a protagonist whom The Guardian said “stands for kindness, acceptance and the triumph of the underdog; and the historical context serves as a foil for this, an obstacle to watch her overcome.” Buy it from Backstory.

• The US needs a new plan to sell clean power to the world, a top Harris adviser says.
• Nigerian students avoid UK after migrant policy shift.
• Donald Trump buries the hatchet(s).