Flagship

Race has ‘choose your own adventure’ ending

Kamala Harris and Donald Trump hit the swing states in the last days of the US presidential election, while analysts debated a slate of last-minute and contradictory polls. At a Pennsylvania rally Sunday, Trump said he “shouldn’t have left” the White House and criticized pollsters — remarks made after a well-respected Iowa pollster showed Harris ahead by three points, a shocking result for a state that had been considered a lock for Trump. Other surveys told different stories, further muddying the waters as the race entered its last 48 hours. The final polls “give us a ‘choose your own adventure’ ending to an unprecedented election,” one political analyst said.

Inside Germany’s Trump preparations

Germany is gaming out what a Donald Trump victory would mean for Berlin, with diplomats and politicians racing to build relationships with Republicans, German lawmakers and officials told Semafor. Berlin did little to prepare for Trump’s victory in 2016, and “preparations are much more elaborate and more detailed than eight years ago,” Nils Schmid, a lawmaker for the governing Social Democrats, said. Some worry that Trump would withdraw US troops from Germany, something he tried to do before Joe Biden reversed the decision. Meanwhile, across Europe, officials are planning a unified response, particularly to Trump’s promise of huge tariff hikes: “We will hit back fast and we will hit back hard,” one European diplomat told Politico.

Elon Musk wins on Nov. 5 regardless

No matter who takes the White House after Nov. 5, Elon Musk wins regardless, The Information reported. One of Donald Trump’s biggest backers, Musk has made dire predictions about the fate of his companies under a Kamala Harris presidency, but recent history suggests they will be just fine: SpaceX and Tesla thrived under both Republicans and Democrats, garnering soaring valuations and billions in federal contracts. And while Harris might seek to rein in Musk’s artificial intelligence ambitions, her past championing of Big Tech makes this unlikely, her supporters say. Meanwhile, even if a Trump presidency seems more lucrative to Musk, there are no guarantees: “Trump is completely transactional,” Mark Cuban, a billionaire investor who supports Harris, told the outlet. “I think he would burn Elon.”

Beijing could OK fiscal stimulus

China’s top legislative body is set to meet in Beijing this week, with the country’s long-awaited fiscal stimulus package likely on the agenda. Since its announcement in September, the package’s details have remained elusive, yet estimates range from $280 billion to $1 trillion. The focus of the package will likely be on alleviating local government debt, analysts said — a “welcoming gesture to markets,” two Bank of America economists wrote. Yet even if the stimulus package succeeds short-term — rallying the stock market, boosting Chinese consumer confidence — a Council on Foreign Relations researcher warned that entrenched issues like trends in household saving, demographic decline, and geopolitical tensions will likely keep China’s long-term economic prospects uncertain for years.

Indonesia, Russia hold first naval drills

Indonesia and Russia hold their first joint naval drills this week, marking a shift in the archipelago’s foreign policy under its new president. Despite Western pressure on Jakarta, President Prabowo Subianto seeks stronger ties with Moscow — Indonesia holds a neutral stance on the Russia-Ukraine war, and Prabowo is pursuing a “broader agenda to elevate ties with whomever it may be, regardless of their geopolitical bloc,” an Indonesian politics expert said. While relatively small, the naval drills could raise eyebrows in Washington, which is also closely watching Prabowo’s engagements with Beijing. Indonesia recently agreed to resume military exercises with China, but the latter’s presence in the South China Sea means Prabowo faces more of a balancing act, analysts said.

COP16 deal unlocks new funding source

A world summit on biodiversity failed to reach hoped-for agreements on key conservation and funding targets. Despite the overall “disarray and indecision” at COP16 in Colombia, The Guardian wrote, the meeting did result in at least one new deal: Nations agreed to finance conservation efforts with money from companies that sell products using the DNA of plants and animals. Many corporations use such data to make drugs and other products like cosmetics, and the agreement could generate hundreds of millions of dollars annually to protect the environment, Vox wrote. It’s the only global tool designed to fund conservation with money almost exclusively drawn from the private sector.

Badenoch to lead UK Conservatives

The new leader of the UK Conservatives, the first Black woman to lead a major British political party, is expected to push the Tories further toward the right. Kemi Badenoch was elected Saturday to lead the party, after former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak stepped down following its crushing electoral defeat to Labour in July. Under her wing, the Conservatives are likely to take a more hardline approach to immigration, climate, and cultural issues. Badenoch is known for her opposition to what she perceives as progressive identity politics; as equalities minister, she issued guidance against gender-neutral bathrooms, and diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. Her ascension, The Economist wrote, is “evidence of how ideas about cultural power have displaced economics as her party’s animating matter.”

Washington is quietly discussing backup plans should American chip maker Intel’s financial situation continue to deteriorate, as first reported by Semafor’s Liz Hoffman and Reed Albergotti. In the high-stakes chips race between the US and China, “the question is whether the government — hampered by divisive politics — can produce the next Intel,” Albergotti noted.

Mathematician finds new prime number

A mathematician discovered a new prime number that’s 41 million digits long. Primes, divisible only by 1 or themselves, are among the most coveted prizes in math, in part because with each prime number’s discovery, they become rarer by default. The latest find, Scientific American reported, overturned the former record holder for the longest prime number after a full six years of searching. This prime has 41,024,320 digits, making the number “far beyond human intelligibility,” math columnist Jack Murtagh wrote. While primes are employed in encryption algorithms, this one will likely not become useful any time soon, he added, but rather is “a feather in the cap of a community that longs to apprehend the colossal.”

Japanese sees cozy cat fiction boom

Devotees of translated Japanese literature may have noticed a common thread among the newest titles: cats. A wave of feline-themed books with cozy plot lines, often featuring gentle and relatable characters, have been published in recent years, with more on the horizon, The Japan Times wrote. While some might “dismiss such writing as mere fluff,” their growing popularity represents “a yearning for comfort and consolation against the existential dread of the present.” The books stem from the Japanese genre iyashikei, essentially meaning “healing,” with cats often featuring in books and other media as a plot device to resolve the tensions the human protagonists face. This shifts the characters’ perceptions — and perhaps the readers’, too.

Marathon winners share wisdom

A Dutch runner won the New York City Marathon men’s race for the first time Sunday. Abdi Nageeye took the lead in the last mile, with course record-holder and defending champion Tamirat Tola finishing fourth. In the women’s race, first-time runner Sheila Chepkirui triumphed over Hellen Obiri, last year’s winner. Both winners told ESPN they followed the old marathon wisdom: Winning depends on pacing yourself throughout the race, so you can speed up in the last mile. ”Let me push the last mile, let me give it my best,” Chepkirui said. “When we were around 600 meters to go, I said to myself: I have to push harder. When I saw Hellen wasn’t coming, I knew I was going to win and was so happy.”

Nov. 4:

• Confirmation hearings begin in Brussels for nominees to the European Commission.
• Yum China Holdings, the parent company of KFC, Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell, releases its third quarter earnings report.
• Actor Matthew McConaughey turns 54.

A photographer who wields a lightsaber to capture surreal, long-exposure shots in low light has been shortlisted for the British Photography Awards. David Gilliver, considered a pioneer in the medium of “light painting,” wears all black while swooshing the saber through his settings, which often feature shorelines and other natural landscapes in Scotland. In another photograph, set amid standing stones on a Hebridean island, he created an image of a glowing orb by spinning a light on the end of a string. “I thought it was like sorcery, it’s like magic,” he told the BBC. He’s a finalist in a new category in the photography awards: best low light photograph.