Flagship

Iran launches missiles at Israel

Iran launched nearly 200 missiles at Israel on Tuesday, an attack that resulted in limited damage and one casualty, but further raised the temperature in the Middle East. Israel intercepted many of the missiles, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Iran made a mistake and will “pay for it.” Iran’s attack follows weeks of Israeli offensives against Tehran-backed Hezbollah, marked most recently by a limited ground invasion into Lebanon and the assassination of the group’s leader. A former US state department official told Politico that Iran responded “emotionally” rather than “strategically”: Analysts now expect a muscular response from Israel that would bring the adversaries even closer to all-out war.

Port strike could spark political dilemma

US dockworkers on the East and Gulf coasts began striking Tuesday, freezing the flow of half the country’s ocean shipping and injecting fresh risks into the economy. The impact of their first large-scale work stoppage in nearly 50 years is likely to ripple across the globe if the shutdown is prolonged, analysts said, delaying ships’ return to​​ Asia and causing bottlenecks in the Middle East. The White House finds itself caught between importers’ pleas to stop the strike and unions opposing such government intervention. The Biden administration hasn’t stepped in so far, but will also want to avoid an economic disturbance that raises prices and delays deliveries of cars and Christmas decorations weeks before the presidential election, Politico wrote.

Future of Chinese EVs in Europe precarious

Chinese companies are selling record numbers of electric vehicles, despite a slowdown in Europe. Five top EV makers set sales records in the last month, including global leader BYD, thanks to price cuts and new models. But in Europe, registrations of Chinese-made electric cars fell by nearly half in August compared with a year earlier, amid uncertainty about looming tariff hikes from Brussels, Bloomberg reported. European Union member states are set to vote Friday on whether to raise duties on Chinese EV imports, though Beijing is hoping to strike a deal and will likely continue its fierce lobbying until the last minute. ​“There is nothing clear regarding the role of the Chinese EVs in Europe,” one analyst said.

OpenAI opens voice feature to outside apps

App developers can now integrate OpenAI’s human-like voice feature into their own technology, allowing them to create AI assistants that talk to customers. A travel website, for example, could use the technology to create a virtual travel agent that can make phone calls and reservations, Semafor’s Reed Albergotti reported. The rollout comes at a critical time for OpenAI: The startup is facing criticism that it is developing its tech too quickly, and a slew of high-profile executives have left. The changes, including its apparent transition away from nonprofit control, are “tearing the company apart,” The Wall Street Journal reported, a characterization that OpenAI disagreed with.

Asia bets on AI-led grid demands

Artificial intelligence-driven demand for electricity is fueling a grid investment boom in Asia. Renewable energy output is growing enormously every year: Nearly a third of the global electricity supply came from clean sources in 2023. But the world’s grids have not grown at the same rate, meaning much of the energy may start going to waste. In Asia, companies are rushing to build up infrastructure to meet the new capacity, the Financial Times reported, knowing that AI-led demand will offer rapid profits for their investment. Japan’s largest electric utility company will invest $3 billion in the next two years, while Hitachi’s shares are up 80% on expectations that its grid-manufacturing arm will do brisk business in coming years.

Ukraine is losing the war

Ukraine is facing a perilous moment in the war with Russia, two recent reports argue. “The war is going badly,” The Economist declared, calling for a greater supply of missiles from the West, bolstered domestic arms production in Ukraine, and a firmer promise of NATO membership for Kyiv. The Financial Times wrote that Ukraine is facing “what may be its darkest moment of the war so far,” amid Russian advances, manpower challenges, and fatigue abroad. Western and Ukrainian officials, meanwhile, are growing more open to the possibility of peace talks. “That’s a major change from even six months ago, when this kind of talk was taboo,” one European diplomat told the FT.

Young American men are struggling

Young men in the US are increasingly likely to be out of work and living at home. While young women are entering the workforce in greater numbers than ever, the opposite is true for men, and 20% of males aged 25 to 34 still live with their parents, compared with 12% of women. “Young men are floundering,” The Wall Street Journal wrote. The shift is part of a decades-long trend that social scientists linked to changing gender roles, and was accelerated by the pandemic. Perhaps relatedly, the two groups are also growing apart politically: While young women have become far more liberal in recent years, the newest cohort of male voters, aged 18 to 24, is more likely than the generation before to identify as conservative.

Worshippers pay digital tithes

Worshippers are increasingly making religious offerings via QR code. Churches in Mexico now allow congregation members to pay tithes or make other donations through banking apps or services like PayPal. Adoption of the digital systems picked up during the pandemic, though 90% of the country still uses cash for most transactions, Rest of World reported in its series about tech and religion. In India, meanwhile, more than 530 Hindu temples are using QR codes to accept donations or payments for tickets as part of a government-supported pilot program. “Traditionally, temples are very cash-heavy locations. The amount of money that they handle is mind-boggling,” the CEO of a local payment company said. Larger temples can amass up to $26 million in donations each month.

‘Pig-butchering’ scams go global

Criminals are increasingly using trafficked and enslaved people to perpetrate online scams. “Pig butchering” operations, in which attackers build a rapport with a victim before defrauding them via a fake investment opportunity, originated in Southeast Asia, and are often run by Chinese gangs. The FBI estimated the scams brought in $4 billion last year. They are expanding: Since 2021, Dubai has emerged as a major epicenter, Wired reported, and rights groups believe there are at least six alleged scam compounds, full of enslaved laborers who are mostly from Africa. Nigeria’s scam industry has also pivoted to pig-butchering in recent years, and scam compounds have been found around the world, including on one British island.

Cats in hats for science

A Canadian researcher’s crochet skills could help unlock new clues as to how cats’ brains work. Felines are famous for many things, but sitting still with wires attached to their heads in a lab is not one of them. That makes studying their brain activity while they are awake nearly impossible, which means that for cats with neurological conditions like chronic pain, treatments and other interventions can be hard to test. By crocheting little caps to keep the electrodes (and the cats) in check, scientists were able to record the animals’ conscious brain activity — perhaps a world first, according to the team — to see how they responded to different stimuli. Eventually, researchers hope to use the technique to study treatments for pain in cats.

Oct. 2:

• US President Joe Biden travels to North Carolina to visit areas damaged by Hurricane Helene.
• WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange makes first public appearance since his release, in Strasbourg.
• Netflix releases season 7 of Love Is Blind, set in Washington, DC.

One of the world’s most famous pairs of lips is going on display in the UK. Salvador Dalí’s Mae West Lips Sofa is part of an extensive collection of Surrealist art compiled by Edward James, a patron of the movement. In the 1930s, James transformed his house into the UK’s only complete Surrealist space, commissioning several versions of Dalí’s sofa design, in which “the scarlet lips of Hollywood sex-symbol Mae West [are] reimagined as seating for a fantastical room-setting,” the Victoria and Albert Museum wrote. West Dean College will show the sofa in monthly public tours, alongside other Surrealist treasures including Dalí’s Lobster Telephone.

• Ex-Amex CEO Ken Chenault is a top candidate for jobs in a Harris administration.
• What to expect from the Tim Walz, JD Vance faceoff.
• South African economy rides coalition’s positivity wave.