Flagship

Trump safe after ‘attempted assassination’

Donald Trump was safe after a shooting which investigators said amounted to another apparent assassination attempt against the Republican presidential candidate. Trump was injured in July by a gunshot at an election rally, an incident that appeared at the time to transform the campaign — but which has since been largely overtaken in the US political consciousness by President Joe Biden stepping aside in favor of Vice President Kamala Harris, as well as last week’s debate between Trump and Harris. In the latest shooting, officials believe an armed man was trying to target Trump at his Florida golf course, CNN reported. “Nothing will slow me down,” the former president said in an email to supporters. “I will NEVER SURRENDER!”

Houthi missile strikes central Israel

Yemen’s Houthi militants will pay a “heavy price” after a missile they fired struck central Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned. The attack aimed to pressure Israel to end its war in Gaza, a spokesperson for the Hamas and Iran-aligned group said. Fears of a broader regional war are growing, as Iran appears to be building a “belt of fire” around Israel, supplying both the Houthis and Lebanon-based Hezbollah with precision missiles, Al-Monitor reported, weaponry Israel considers “a danger equivalent to the danger of nuclear weapons,” a senior Israeli diplomatic source told the outlet: That the missile made landfall at all has raised regional concern that the Houthis are advancing their military strength, with Tehran’s support.

The Gulf’s Trump trade

Donald Trump may appear the ideal partner for Gulf governments, but a second Trump presidency could be costly for the region, Al Arabiya’s Chief International Anchor wrote in her inaugural column for Semafor Gulf. The former US president is pro-business and staunchly pro-oil, but his policies — notably, he has promised “energy dominance” — would prioritize US energy output at the expense of Gulf countries, Hadley Gamble wrote. It’s a challenge for governments globally, whether they are US allies or adversaries: Trump’s short-term plans and unpredictability can be advantageous, but his aggressive policies may undermine economic stability in regions key to American interests. “Bottom line,” Gamble concluded, the Gulf “may prefer Trump but they probably can’t afford him.”

Top Modi critic to resign

One of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s fiercest critics is set to resign as chief minister of New Delhi’s regional government. Arvind Kejriwal made the announcement a day after being granted bail in a corruption case he has said is politically motivated. A former anti-corruption campaigner, Kejriwal quickly rose in mainstream politics, and has governed New Delhi since 2015. He was arrested weeks before India’s general election this year, a move analysts warned could “make Kejriwal into a martyr,” Al Jazeera wrote, helping to coalesce support for the opposition. At the polls, Modi’s Hindu nationalist BJP party ultimately lost seats in the election, and recent polling suggests that Modi’s popularity is slipping in favor of opposition leader Rahul Gandhi.

India Samsung strike spotlights union power

A recent workers’ protest at a Samsung plant in southern India put a spotlight on the country’s powerful and growing labor movement. The strike “cast a shadow” on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s goal of increasing foreign investment and tripling the country’s electronics production to $500 billion in six years, Reuters noted. While tech giants, including Apple and Foxconn, are moving factories from China to India, the latter’s powerful labor unions are a “crucial complicating factor,” The Wall Street Journal noted last year. To “derisk” from China, multinational firms will have to “make their peace with the cacophony of a rough-and-tumble democracy,” the Journal wrote.

Chinese EVs remain cheap post-tariff

Some Chinese electric vehicles will remain cheaper than their US competitors even after a 100% tariff imposed by President Joe Biden takes effect in late September. Well under the mid-market price of $30,000, a BYD EV at $12,000 with the tariffs imposed would be more affordable than a Tesla, an industry researcher told Nikkei Asia. This is in part due to China’s ability to more readily produce low-cost EV batteries, and the US has lagged in developing a domestic supply chain to compete. Meanwhile, Beijing has also boosted China’s EV industry with more than $231 billion over the last 15 years, Bloomberg reported, a “conservative” estimate that doesn’t include the benefits of low-cost land and alleged forced labor.

Shanghai braces for Typhoon Bebinca

Shanghai, China’s finance center, was braced ahead of the arrival of Typhoon Bebinca. Seaports were closed and more than 600 flights have been canceled, while local authorities have evacuated more than 377,000 people in the midst of Mid-Autumn Festival celebrations, a holiday that usually sees people travel throughout East Asia for family reunions. Described as a potentially once-in-a-century storm, Bebinca comes on the heels of the devastating Typhoon Yagi, which itself followed a summer marked by extreme heat and floods that threatened food security and damaged manufacturing hubs in China’s southern cities.

Semafor Gulf launches tomorrow, marking Semafor’s third global edition following the US and sub-Saharan Africa. Three times a week, the Semafor Gulf newsroom will bring you original reporting that examines how the region’s financial, business, and geopolitical decisions shape the world — from culture and investment to infrastructure, climate, and technology.

To drive its coverage, Semafor has assembled a world-class regional editorial team consisting of award-winning journalists and contributors who will provide in-depth coverage of the dramatic, high-stakes story unfolding in the Arabian Peninsula. Reporting from Riyadh, Abu Dhabi, Dubai, and across the region, they will work in concert with Semafor’s top- flight business reporters in New York, its technology journalists in San Francisco, and its Washington, D.C. bureau.

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‘Wildlife bridges’ for marine life

Underwater “wildlife bridges” could help marine animals adapt to human activity. The idea has the same premise as wildlife bridges on land, which are increasingly used throughout the US and Canada by wolves, elk, and bears to navigate roads and other manmade structures. The ocean may seem to have near-infinite routes from A to B. “That assumption, though, is wrong,” Hakkai magazine wrote. Many marine species, especially juveniles, stick to specific areas and routes to avoid predation. “This timidness can cause unexpectedly big problems” when human infrastructure, like an oil rig, comes between them and their feeding grounds. “Thoughtfully modifying our marine infrastructure could go a long way toward protecting animals as we continue to engineer the ocean.”

Helium demands expected to soar

Helium demand is expected to double in the next decade. Helium has the lowest melting point of any element, allowing it to remain liquid at temperatures barely above absolute zero. It’s also almost entirely chemically inert. Those facts make it vital in semiconductor manufacturing, and in superconducting magnets of the kind used in MRI machines and quantum computers. Demand for those products is expected to increase, and while helium production should also rise, it may not keep pace, analysts warned, particularly because much of it is produced in Russia. The nature of helium also adds difficulties: On Earth, helium is made through the radioactive decay of heavier elements, and because it is so light the majority simply escapes into space.

Literary finance is due a renaissance

Contemporary literature suffers from a lack of finance savvy, the Financial Times argued. Some of the greatest novels of the 19th century took pains to address the specifics of their characters’ cash: Mr Darcy’s £10,000 a year, Madame Bovary’s entrapment in debt, Charles Dickens’ Ponzi-like scheme in Martin Chuzzlewit. Victorians were “obsessed with financial speculation as a moral failing,” the outlet wrote; it’s possible that today’s readers are “indifferent,” or perhaps, although the piece does not speculate, bamboozled by the effects of decades of rapid inflation. There is perhaps a “huge narrative potential where financial complexity meets fiction,” that may be in danger of being forgotten.

September 16:

• The Booker Prize announces its 2024 shortlist.
• France’s foreign minister meets his Greek counterpart in Athens.
• The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia hears oral arguments from TikTok as it challenges a US ban.

The story of how Ukraine became the beating heart of the early 20th century avant-garde art movement is told through an ongoing Royal Academy exhibition in London. In the Eye of the Storm: Modernism in Ukraine, 1900-1930s, presents a vision of Ukraine at odds with that espoused by its modern-day Russian antagonists — “a nation that had been striving, since at least the mid-19th century, to realize its dreams of self-determination,” Hyperallergic wrote, whose recent art history has been “obscured” under the blanket banner of the Soviet Union. One such featured artist is Kazimir Malevich, a Suprematist painter typically identified as Russian, but in this exhibition, as a Ukrainian, Kazymyr Malevych, born 1879 in Kyiv.

• Biden’s top trustbuster faces a battle to survive, even under Harris.
• How the UAE got the US to bless its AI ambitions.
• Biden’s African diaspora council marks a year, but its future is unclear.