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Israel’s long-planned pager operation

Israel’s operation to detonate pagers across Lebanon to target Hezbollah and undermine the group’s morale and communications was long in the making and astonishingly complex, The New York Times reported. Well before Hezbollah’s leader urged members to switch to pagers in February, Israeli agents established a shell company to produce the devices with the ultimate aim of manufacturing booby-trapped ones for Hezbollah members: Pagers were shipped to Lebanon as early as 2022. The attack has further upended regional stability, and while some analysts told The Times the operation was a tactical success without any apparent strategic goal, the Pentagon fears the blasts could mark a prelude to a wider Israeli ground operation, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Digesting the Fed’s cut

Stock markets globally went up slightly after the US Federal Reserve announced an outsized interest-rate cut, with promises of more on the way. The relatively muted reaction to the half-percentage-point reduction pointed to the challenge facing the Fed, whose chair yesterday sought to head off concerns over slowing growth while insisting the bank was on the front foot. The timing of the rate cut — less than two months before the US presidential election — was also key, with Republican candidate Donald Trump saying the Fed could be “playing politics.” Though the bank’s move comes amid a broad rate-cutting cycle in the West, the Bank of England is today expected to hold steady.

New EU antitrust enforcer

The European Union’s powerful new antitrust enforcer proposed easing the bloc’s stringent rules on state support to allow its member states to bolster green investments. Speaking to the Financial Times, Teresa Ribera said she would “evolve” the role, which has long been a bane of Big Tech companies in the US in particular, in order to focus on building up European champions to take on global rivals. Her remarks come amid worries on the continent over Europe’s long-term competitiveness compared to the United States and China, particularly in developing industries such as artificial intelligence and the energy transition.

EU tariff vote delayed

The European Union postponed a vote over tariffs on Chinese-made electric vehicles. The delay, reported by Politico, comes with China’s commerce minister in Brussels to push for the policy to be dropped or watered down: Beijing has convinced some EU countries to oppose the plans, with Spain indicating it will vote no and Germany reportedly also lobbying against the proposals. The tariffs of up to 35% on Chinese-made EVs are part of a wave of such trade restrictions by Western countries in the face of Beijing’s carmakers’ growing dominance: In May, the US announced a 100% tariff.

US overdose deaths fall at last

Drug overdose deaths in the US fell 10% year-on-year, new data showed. Drug poisonings have been rising for decades, driven by prescription opioids and new street drugs such as fentanyl. In 1999, fewer than 20,000 overdose deaths were recorded: In recent years, that figure has been over 100,000. But the numbers plateaued in 2023 and early data showed that in the 12 months to April 2024, the toll was 101,000, down from 112,000 in the same period a year earlier. The number is still staggeringly high, but researchers said that states with more up-to-date numbers showed even sharper declines. Experts told NPR that new treatments for addiction, and law enforcement efforts reducing fentanyl availability, may be behind the drop.

CERN to expel Russian scientists

CERN, the European particle-physics collaboration which operates the Large Hadron Collider, will expel hundreds of Russian-affiliated scientists from its laboratories. The Geneva-based organization decided to cut ties with Moscow after Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, ending nearly 60 years of collaboration, and the agreements are now lapsing. Russia has never been a full member but worked closely on nuclear physics. Scientists tied to Belarusian institutions already saw their contracts end in July, and any Russian-linked scientists will lose access, as well as residency permits, in December. CERN will, however, maintain links with the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, an intergovernmental center near Moscow, a decision which is controversial with some researchers.

US plans to back failing African states

The US Congress is pushing a foreign aid bill to support failing states, especially in Africa’s troubled Sahel region. Coups across northwest Africa have left the region more vulnerable to militant groups. The bipartisan Global Fragility Act, a revival of a Trump-era law, would unify assistance programs for the different countries into a single cohesive effort, and is intended to act as an early-intervention system that could help stop a country sliding into chaos, Foreign Policy reported. The bill will focus on Benin, Ghana, Guinea, Ivory Coast, and Togo, on the West African coast, as well as Haiti and Libya. The US may even put troops into some countries to support struggling friendly governments.

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Venezuela opposition blames Maduro

Venezuela’s opposition presidential candidate — widely seen to have won July’s disputed election — alleged he was forced to sign a letter admitting defeat in order to flee to Spain. Incumbent President Nicolás Maduro claimed a thumping victory, but international observers allege rampant fraud. His opponent, Edmundo González, said in a post on X that he was subjected to “tense hours of coercion, blackmail, and pressure.” Top Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, meanwhile, told El País that “the regime exerted very cruel pressure” on González to drive him abroad. Speaking herself from a secret location, she added: “They have no scruples, they are capable of overstepping any boundaries.”

Movie studio signs AI deal

Lionsgate, the studio behind John Wick and The Hunger Games, signed a deal with a startup to use generative artificial intelligence in its films. The AI company Runway will gain access to Lionsgate’s content library in exchange for a custom-made AI model that can speed up movie editing and production. Hollywood has been riven by debates over the use of AI, with actors striking for months last year partly over the use of “digital replicas.” But Lionsgate expects to be able to save millions by using AI tools to ease processes like storyboarding and special effects. “We blow a lot of things up,” a studio executive told The Wall Street Journal, “and that is one of the things Runway does.”

The rise of vintage soccer fashion

Soccer fans are increasingly shelling out on expensive vintage shirts. Soccer jerseys have been becoming mainstream fashion for a while: US rapper Kendrick Lamar launched a collection recently, while Dua Lipa wore an AC Milan kit. But the real money appears to be in classic uniforms. Arsenal FC’s 1991-1993 away kit, known as the “bruised banana,” is “an incredibly valuable collector’s item,” one seller told the Financial Times, going for up to $560 — despite the fact that “Arsenal were crap in 1991-1993” — while West Germany’s 1990 World Cup-winning team’s shirt might sell for $400. The “collectors’ holy grail,” though, is a “geometric-patterned, almost luminescent” Adidas jersey worn by the great 1988 Netherlands team, which could fetch $1,200.

• Malaysia’s King Sultan Ibrahim begins a four-day trip to China.
• The European Commission and IEA chiefs meet to discuss how to help Ukraine through its energy crisis ahead of winter.
• A Woman Like Me, a memoir by Diane Abbott, Britain’s first Black woman MP, is published.

The number of divorces in China each year since 2016. Marriage separation has proven a boost for an unexpected business sector: Industrial shredders. China’s growing middle class often spends thousands of dollars on the perfect premarital wedding shoot and framed portraits, some of them up to five feet tall. But when the marriage doesn’t pan out, they are hard to get rid of: Burning them is bad luck, and municipal waste rules ban dumping them. The owner of one shredding company told The Washington Post that photo destruction now accounts for 95% of his business, and four in every five are wedding pics.

Lion of the Sky by Ritu Hemnani. The novel, set during the Partition of the Indian subcontinent in 1947, is one among several new books of fiction that seek to help younger readers better understand that tumultuous period of South Asian history. “These books address grim realities,” Mahnaz Dar wrote for Kirkus Reviews, “with honesty and empathy, grounded in details that will speak to young readers.” Buy it from your local bookstore.

• Trump’s growing tax cut promises will give GOP a huge headache.
• Political infighting is holding back Ukraine’s energy reconstruction.
• Senators in both parties open to treaty vote on US-Saudi defense pact.