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Markets set to see trading frenzy

Global markets are bracing for turmoil ahead of Tuesday’s US presidential election. Wall Street banks are pausing internal software updates and booking nearby hotel rooms for traders who will be closely watching the results, the Financial Times reported, with trading activity likely to spike as results come in. Volatility around elections is normal, but it’s especially pronounced in a race where the candidates have “very different visions for economically sensitive issues like taxes and tariffs,” Glenmede analysts wrote. The dollar, meanwhile, was on track for its largest single-day drop in value since September on Monday, a decline that analysts linked to polls showing a Kamala Harris lead in some swing states. Other so-called “Trump trades,” including his media company and Bitcoin, have also had a rough few days.

How to watch US election like a pro

The US presidential election may take days to be officially called, but analysts could have a good sense of how the race will turn out within hours of polls closing on Tuesday. As early as 6 p.m. on the East Coast, election watchers will be able to glean important bellwether trends, like whether Vice President Kamala Harris made gains with suburban voters and moderate Republicans. The final results, especially if it’s a close race à la Bush vs. Gore in 2000, could take longer, and Democrats have grown worried that Donald Trump will claim victory prematurely. But this year could see votes tallied faster than in 2020, when more people voted by mail because of the pandemic.

US abortion policy could go global

Abortion, a major theme of the US election, could become a key foreign policy issue should Donald Trump win. Ten states will vote on Tuesday on constitutional protections for abortion, and Democrats hope the issue will drive turnout. Meanwhile, Republicans are keen to promote their anti-abortion stance overseas. In his first term, Trump backed a multi-country declaration on women’s healthcare rights that said there was “no international right to abortion.” At the time, the one-page document didn’t have much of an impact, but abortion rights activists are bracing for it to “have renewed vigor” if he’s back in the White House, Foreign Policy reported: “To be brutal about it, women are going to die,” one said.

Challenge of defining misinformation

The field of “misinformation research” has grown rapidly, but there is little consensus on what “misinformation” actually means. Perhaps just 0.15% of most US consumers’ media diet is outright made up, Science reported. Misleading information is more common, but defining that is difficult. Also, researchers tend to be politically left-leaning, and right-wing material is much more likely to be labeled misinformation, which “can appear politically motivated.” The philosopher Dan Williams noted this year that expansive definitions of misinformation, such as “facts in a misleading context,” allow researchers to use it to describe almost anything — and that their judgments, like everyone else’s, are “corrupted by bias, partisanship, wishful thinking, and more.”

Rare earth minerals market roiled

Prices for rare earth minerals are expected to keep rising because of Myanmar’s civil war and China’s trade disputes with the US. Last month, armed rebels in Myanmar took over a mining hub that is a major supplier of rare earth oxides to China, effectively bringing the war-torn country’s mining operations to a halt, and further driving up global prices. China controls 90% of the world’s processing capacity for rare earths, which are used in smartphones and clean energy, and analysts say Beijing could use this leverage as a retaliatory tool or bargaining chip if trade disputes with Washington escalate under the next presidency, the South China Morning Post reported.

Malaysia sees IPO boom

Malaysia bucked a trend of slowing IPOs in Southeast Asia this year, and expects its boom to stretch into 2025. While Indonesia saw a drop in IPOs and Singapore had only one in the first nine months of 2024, Malaysia’s listings increased 32%, Nikkei Asia reported; IPOs across the Asia-Pacific region are down by an even greater rate, largely because of a slump in China. Malaysia’s stock market has also seen more investor activity this year, which analysts attributed to its stable government, strong economic growth, and position as a global supply chain and data center hub. But some warned the country’s plan to increase the minimum wage next year could prompt concerns over inflation and hit companies’ profit margins, potentially cooling investor excitement.

‘Longevity’ startups catch on in US

A spate of “longevity concierges” have cropped up in the US as more people seek affordable ways to extend their lives. Startups like Superpower, Longevity Health, and Brogevity are capitalizing on the recent “longevity science” craze — one 47-year-old tech millionaire spends $2 million annually to try to reverse his aging — by promising life-extending solutions at a lower price point. For several hundred dollars a year, members can get detailed blood panels, access to clinicians, and insights on health trends often assisted by AI. “Good health is becoming a status symbol,” one startup cofounder told The San Francisco Standard. But, the outlet wrote, the services are “just slick, AI-pilled packaging for what’s essentially a comprehensive set of blood tests paired with an on-demand doctor.”

New York Times journalists confronted their editors about the paper’s coverage of Donald Trump, amid criticism from the left that the Times is too soft on him, Semafor’s Max Tani scooped. “We got a lot of questions from folks worrying about what is in effect the ‘sanewashing’ of him, a term that has come up in terms of criticism of our coverage,” one reporter said during a meeting.

Meet the top fake degree hunter

A researcher with photographic memory has built a 22-year career in identifying fake academic degrees and hunting down the organizations that produce them. Sweden-based André Hesselbäck gets daily inquiries from employers and universities who want to know if applicants’ qualifications are legit. In industries like economics and engineering, he estimated in Nature, up to 15% of the workforce globally “are graduates of degree mills or unrecognized, substandard schools.” Hesselbäck is currently investigating a Pakistani company that he believes has sold more than nine million fake degrees “spanning just about every country in the world.” But degree mill hunters are getting “older and fewer,” he warned: “A lot of information and a lot of knowledge will be lost.”

Life of Xi’s father dramatized for TV

Chinese state television is premiering a new series about the life of leader Xi Jinping’s late father. Over 40 episodes, Time in the Northwest dramatizes 25 years of Xi Zhongxun’s life, documenting his rise as a Communist Party leader, Chinese media reported. The historical drama “opens up a new perspective and praises the revolutionary sentiments of the older generation,” the network’s announcement said. Xi Zhongxun became one of the most powerful men in the country, but the portion of his life portrayed in the show ends 10 years before he was removed from his posts. He was targeted and jailed over his support for a book about the party’s history that Mao Zedong opposed.

Wolf population spreads in Germany

Wolves have been thriving in Germany since their reintroduction 20 years ago. The country has lots of forest and other suitable environments for wolves, and the predators have spread through areas with little human presence, research found. As a result, about 75% of young wolves and up to 88% of adults survive each given year, meaning most of them reach reproductive age. The researchers said that once wolves occupy all the appropriate habitats, they will have to start settling in less suitable ones, and the average survival rates will begin to fall. But for now, Germany’s returned wolf population is “essentially healthy.” The majority of deaths are caused by humans, mainly traffic accidents.

Nov. 5:

• French President Emmanuel Macron hosts Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev in Paris.
• Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni meets NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte in Rome.
• Season 2 of Love Village premieres on Netflix.

“This is lit. This is also lit,” says Clarence, an older guide at the National Gallery Singapore in his TikTok video, pointing to various masterpieces. He’s not the only one to have understood the assignment: Museums everywhere are making videos of Boomers giving tours in internet slang in a bid to attract young people, with the caption, “We got our Gen Z intern to write the marketing script.” “Hey besties, brat summer is over, we’re in our museum era now, take a hot girl walk through our galleries,” says a 70-something curator at The New-York Historical Society, before admitting she has no idea what that means. Still, the Brooklyn Museum commented on the video: “Diva, the vibes are immaculate.”