Flagship

Thousands flee as Israel pounds Lebanon

Tens of thousands of people fled their homes in southern Lebanon as ongoing Israeli strikes killed at least 492 people and wounded thousands more. Israel said it had struck more than 1,100 Hezbollah targets, the biggest Israeli onslaught since the two sides began exchanging fire following Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel. The strikes widened the breach between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Joe Biden, the latter of whom will today address the UN General Assembly. The outcome of the broadening Middle East conflict could define Biden’s foreign policy legacy: He “wants to go out on a high note,” an expert told The Washington Post. “The Israel-Lebanon issue is going to make that very hard to do.”

China’s economic stimulus package

China is aiming to revive its stumbling economy with a package of stimulus measures. The central bank cut borrowing costs and allowed banks to lend more, in an aggressive policy shift that went further than analysts expected. China faces severe economic problems, notably a sharp property market decline — a huge problem in a country where 70% of savings are in real estate — and slow growth. The bank’s measures were “the most significant… since the early days of the pandemic,” one analyst told Reuters, but may not be enough to meet Beijing’s 5% growth targets. Still, “it is better late than never,” an economist said.

Russian plane enters Japan airspace

Tokyo lodged a protest with Moscow after a Russian surveillance plane violated Japanese airspace. Fighters scrambled to intercept the Russian aircraft, and when it entered Japanese territory for a third time, they launched flares to warn it off. The incident is the first publicly acknowledged incursion since 2019, but Tokyo’s defense minister said the Russian military had been more active since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Japan is concerned about Russia’s growing cooperation with China: Tokyo is in territorial disputes with both Moscow and Beijing. Russia and China held joint naval drills in the Sea of Japan this month, and Chinese military aircraft and a ship entered Japanese territory in August.

US murder numbers plummet

Murders in the US dropped by 11.6% between 2022 and 2023, the largest annual decline in 20 years. Other crimes were also down, and preliminary data also showed a decline this year. Public perception is out of step with reality, NBC reported, with around 80% of US citizens thinking crime is up, perhaps thanks to the availability of video. Philadelphia’s experience may help explain the drop, two criminologists argued in The Conversation: During the pandemic, police stops decreased significantly, thanks to reduced officer numbers, social distancing rules, and the public response to George Floyd’s murder. Gun violence in the city went up, apparently as a result. But the justice system has returned to something like normality.

Global safety on the rise

People around the world feel safer now than they did a decade ago, according to a new Gallup poll. The company’s annual Global Safety Report asked 146,000 people whether they felt safe walking alone at night, and 70% said yes, up from 64% in 2013 although down from a 2020 peak of 72%. Progress has not been uniform: People in former Soviet states feel much safer than they did 20 years ago, but those in sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America noted a decline. Ecuador in particular, once relatively peaceful, is now the country where people feel least safe. On the flip side, El Salvador, ranked second last in Gallup’s 2016 poll, is tied for eighth following a controversial crackdown on gang violence.

Ecuador battles drought

Ecuador announced rolling power cuts as authorities confronted the country’s worst drought in 60 years. Ecuador’s energy ministry said the “radicalization of climate changes” had forced its hand despite the toll the blackouts will have on the beleaguered economy. Much of South America has been battered by drought in recent months, as global warming and El Niño, a warm-weather pattern, have aggravated a years-long deficit. Much of the continent — parts of which rely on hydro for energy production — has experienced record low levels of rainfall, halting commerce and trade, including a sharp reduction in the number of Panama Canal crossings.

Egypt arms Somalia

Egyptian warships delivered arms to Somalia in a move likely to stoke simmering tensions between the two countries and Ethiopia. Ties between Cairo and Mogadishu have grown recently as both seek to undermine Addis Ababa: Egypt says Ethiopia’s construction of a hydro dam infringes on its control of the Nile, while Somalia has criticized landlocked Ethiopia’s plans to build a port in Somaliland, a breakaway region that Mogadishu claims as its own. Some fear the tension could spark a regional conflict. Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has refused to rule out a military option, an expert wrote for the Atlantic Council.

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Superintelligence is close, Altman says

Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, said that artificial “superintelligence,” a machine much smarter than humans, could be with us “in a few thousand days.” Altman wrote in an essay that the development of AI will lead to “things that would have seemed like magic to our grandparents,” and that the fact that “deep learning worked” may be “the most consequential fact about all of history,” leading to an age of “massive prosperity… fixing the climate, establishing a space colony, and the discovery of all of physics.” He acknowledged concerns about AI’s impact on jobs, but did not address AI safety critics’ worries about existential risk — something that Nick Bostrom, the philosopher who coined the term “superintelligence,” was most concerned about.

Bottlecap law shows EU’s regulatory heft

Britons wondering why plastic bottle lids are now attached to their bottles can blame or thank the European Union. Some people hate the new tethered caps, which became universal on July 3: “The actual worst thing about modern Britain,” one drinker told the Financial Times’ Soumaya Keynes. The UK left the EU in 2020, and in theory is no longer subject to its laws, but it’s uneconomic to make UK-specific designs, so “Brits get the new caps too,” Keynes noted. “Doesn’t freedom taste sweet?” The episode highlights the success of the EU’s efforts to be a“regulatory superpower”: It is such a huge market that even non-members are often subject to its rules, even if they don’t want to be.

AI discovers new Nazca lines

Hundreds of previously unknown Nazca drawings were discovered in the Peruvian desert with the aid of artificial intelligence. The images, vast pictures of animals or abstract shapes carved out of the soil — some up to 1,200 feet long — are 2,000 years old, but Western explorers did not realize what they were until they were seen from the air in 1941. They are a UNESCO World Heritage site, and around 100 were known, but satellite imagery combined with AI image recognition detected many more. The newly discovered drawings, which are smaller than the already known ones, include decapitated heads and killer whales armed with blades, hinting at human sacrifice, New Scientist reported.

• Demonstrators and relatives of Mexico’s Ayotzinapa students hold a protest ahead of the 10th anniversary of their disappearance.
• OPEC issues its annual World Oil Outlook including updated forecasts for long-term demand and supply.
• George and Amal Clooney host their annual fundraiser in New York City.

The forecast cost of Mexico’s Interoceanic Corridor, a train and port project that seeks to connect the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Originally conceived more than a century ago, the 188-mile rail line aims to compete with the Panama Canal, which has struggled in recent years amid a historic drought that has restricted the number of ships that can cross it. Mexican authorities hope the corridor will help it take customers from Panama, with some forecasts suggesting it could soon take as much as 5% of its traffic, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Fears of a Setting Sun: The Disillusionment of America’s Founders, by Dennis C. Rasmussen. The pseudonymous Jane Psmith of Mr and Mrs Psmith’s Bookshelf says this 2021 book is a story of the US Founding Fathers’ “disillusionment, disappointment, and despair” as they grew convinced that their “great experiment” of independence and republic had failed. It is also, she says, “a really fun read.” Buy it at your local bookstore.

• JD Vance is taking a different approach to the debates than Donald Trump.
• 2024 could be the beginning of a global decline in emissions.
• UAE’s Pure Harvest seeks over $100 million for expansion.