Flagship

Israel expands war aims

Israel announced an expansion of its war aims to include halting attacks by the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, raising fears of a broader regional conflict. Israel will now seek to return residents of its northern regions — who fled as a result of cross-border fire between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah — back to their homes. The latest addition to the country’s goals come with ceasefire and hostage-release negotiations over the war in Gaza languishing. In rare good news, aid groups have recently been able to ferry fresh produce into Gaza, offering a reprieve for residents who have subsisted on canned goods for nearly a year. “My children were so happy to see apples,” a father of three told The Wall Street Journal.

EU plans new Ukraine funds

The European Union plans to raise up to $44 billion in loans for Ukraine, regardless of whether the US will provide its own funds. A G7 proposal to use frozen Russian assets to back Kyiv’s war effort faltered in the face of opposition from Hungary’s Moscow-sympathetic prime minister, who wants to delay any such move until after the US election. The frozen-assets program is still Europe’s plan A, the Financial Times reported, but if it collapses, Brussels must use powers that expire at the end of the year to raise its own money. The EU also wants to extend the freeze on Russian assets, from a rolling six-month block to 36 months, to provide more legal and financial stability.

Flooding hits Africa, Europe

Flooding devastated swaths of West and Central Africa as well as Central and Eastern Europe. Millions of people across seven African countries have been displaced, while around 40% of one major Nigerian city was submerged, with the United Nations warning of further heavy rainfall and flooding due in the region in the coming months. And in Europe, the mayor of one Polish town called for residents to evacuate as flooding struck his country, along with Austria, the Czech Republic, and Romania, while Hungary expects to be hit, too. On both continents, the flooding was linked to climate change: Warmer weather leads to more intense rainfall, and higher ocean temperatures result in greater evaporation that then drives storms, the BBC noted.

Satellites to monitor growing wildfires

Google backed a new constellation of private satellites to monitor wildfires. The tech giant’s philanthropic arm will partly fund the initiative to launch 50 small satellites that can detect blazes as small as 16 feet across. Fires are a growing problem as the world warms: Brazil is facing record blazes driven by unprecedented droughts, with more than 50,000 fires currently active and residents of cities including São Paulo “choking on the smoke,” ABC News reported. Small satellites are growing in importance. As well as SpaceX’s vast Starlink constellation, Earth-monitoring satellites, often made by developing countries, are increasingly tracking environmental health across the globe.

US science mag endorses Harris

Scientific American endorsed Kamala Harris for US president, only the second endorsement in the magazine’s 179-year history. The SciAm editorial board argued that Harris would boost science and embrace “technology and clean energy,” while treating “the climate crisis as the emergency it is.” It also said that her opponent Donald Trump had a “disastrous” record. The endorsement comes with some risks, though: A 2023 study in Nature, which backed Joe Biden in 2020, found that that decision reduced Trump voters’ trust in the scientific establishment and in the journal itself, while offering “little evidence that the endorsement changed views about Biden and Trump” or swayed any votes.

Lobbying against China curbs

Lobbying efforts on both sides of the Atlantic pointed to growing opposition to Western trade restrictions on China. Germany joined a push against proposed European Union tariffs on China’s electric-vehicle industry, the South China Morning Post reported, after Spain indicated it would oppose the barriers following a visit by its prime minister to China. Beijing has employed a carrot-and-stick approach to cajole individual EU members to oppose the tariffs, Reuters reported, adding: “China’s tactics appear to be working.” Separately, a US House of Representatives committee on China complained of efforts by semiconductor companies to erode American curbs on Beijing’s access to cutting-edge chip technology.

China’s food signals

Food trends in China highlight many of the deeper shifts confronting the country. In a nod to fast-changing demographics, restaurants are cutting portion sizes to accommodate individual diners and smaller families, according to Nikkei: About 100 Pizza Hut locations offer pizzas less than half the size of regular orders, and one hot-pot chain reorganized seating so customers can enjoy the meal — typically the preserve of groups — solo. Companies that produce baby formula, meanwhile, are pivoting to milk powder for seniors, The New York Times reported, as the birth rate declines. And in a sign of the slowing economy, the Taiwanese dumpling chain Din Tai Fung is closing all its northern China branches because customers are moving to lower-cost alternatives.

Thurs, Sept 19 | Washington, DC | RSVP

Join us on Thursday for discussions exploring the financial boom shaping the US sports gaming industry, and the critical policy challenges that come with it. As Congress considers federal rules around online sports betting, industry leaders will join Semafor on stage:

• Rep. Dina Titus (D) Nevada will offer unique insights into the role the gaming industry could play in the 2024 presidential race.
• Mark Ein, Limited Partner, Washington Commanders, will explore how sports betting is reshaping fan engagement.
• Lori Kalani, Chief Responsible Gaming Officer, DraftKings, will address rising concerns over gambling addiction, particularly among young people.
• Melonie Johnson, President of MGM National Harbor, will discuss ensuring fairness as gaming continues to expand.

Booker list exhibits historical trend

Five of the six authors on the newly announced Booker Prize shortlist were women, a record. With three of the books at least partly set in the past, the shortlist also exhibited a growing trend toward historical fiction. Twelve out of the last 15 fiction Pulitzer winners were historical, as were 70% of US National Book Award nominations since 2000. Between 1950 and 1980, by comparison, about half of the nominated books were set in the present. That may be because of the growing diversity of authors, Alexander Manshel argued in The Nation: Writers of color are often prized for “narratives of war, immigration, colonialism, and enslavement that span generations,” incentivizing those writers “only in a single sector of the literary field.”

London’s changing geography

Oxford Street, London’s flagship shopping area, will be pedestrianized, the British capital’s mayor said. Plans to ban cars from the area have been proposed before, but the local council has vetoed them. The country’s Labour government supports Mayor Sadiq Khan’s efforts and is expected to give him powers to override further vetoes. The global renown of Oxford Street is “at odds with a down-at-heel reality,” The Guardian reported, noting a post-pandemic collapse in retail, leading to the disappearance of several leading brands from the street and a proliferation of dodgy shops, many selling American candy. Khan believes that pedestrianization would increase footfall and spending and make it a more pleasant place to be.

Sharks return to Boston Harbor

Water quality has improved so much in Boston Harbor that it has apparently become a nursery for juvenile sand tiger sharks. Sand tigers, also known as gray nurse sharks, are big and impressive, but harmless: They were once the most common large shark species in coastal New England waters, but overfishing and pollution cut their population by up to 90% between the 1970s and 1990s. Boston’s harbor was “nasty and polluted” until relatively recently, but much like the rivers in London and Paris, it has been cleaned up: One researcher told The Boston Herald that it’s a “cool success story” that sharks are now “traveling thousands of miles to come grow here.”

• Millions of people across East Asia celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival, marking the full moon and giving thanks for the autumn harvest.
• Rap mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs faces charges after his arrest in New York on Monday.
• A concert in Atlanta celebrates former US President Jimmy Carter ahead of his 100th birthday on Oct. 1.

The amount, in pounds, of maple syrup held in Canada’s strategic reserve — the sole such facility in the world. That figure represents barely 5% of the country’s overall maple-syrup storage capacity, though: Years of poor production as a result of warm winters, combined with a spike in demand during the pandemic, drove reserves to their lowest level in 16 years. But good news is on the horizon, with production so far this year hitting record levels, Food Dive reported.

Private Lives: from the Bedroom to Social Media, an exhibition at Paris’ Musée des Arts Décoratifs. Le Monde says the exhibition, spanning 19th-century bathroom scenes by Edgar Degas as well as contemporary photographs by Nan Goldin, is a “dense” examination of how ideas of intimacy have changed, from 18th-century paintings of “rosy-cheeked coquettes spied through keyholes” to social media’s “blurred… boundary between private and public spheres.”

• Trump and Harris have the same oil problem.
• New York Times’ tech staff threatens strike during Election Day crunch.
• Kamala Harris and Hakeem Jeffries: The duo who could run Washington.