Flagship

US voters head to polls

US voters cast their ballots in the country’s presidential election, the culmination of a furious campaign in which the two candidates have lambasted each other and warned of doom if their rival were to win. In a year in which around half the globe has gone to the polls, the US election is by far the most consequential, its impacts felt the world over and its results watched closely well beyond the country’s borders: “The two candidates have fundamentally different views about America’s global role,” the Financial Times’ chief foreign affairs columnist wrote, while Bloomberg analysts said the campaign had cemented beliefs in key capitals that “America’s brief heyday as the world’s lone superpower is history.”

US gender divide holds key to election

Gender will decide the US election, several observers argued. Women consistently poll pro-Vice President Kamala Harris, while men disproportionately back former President Donald Trump. Liz Cheney, an anti-Trump Republican, told ABC that women would “save the day” by voting Harris. A New York Times columnist argued that pundits are “underrating the scale of women’s fury” over abortion bans, and “revulsion at Trump’s cartoonishly macho campaign.” One poll showed 57% of women going for Harris and 58% of men backing Trump. A Trump campaigner told the Financial Times that the divide was overstated — “if a woman has nowhere to live… I can guarantee you she’s not concerned about abortion.”

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Gun violence hangs over US election

The specter of gun violence hangs over the US election. Ex-President Donald Trump in recent days suggested journalists could be fired upon and that one of his critics should have guns “trained on her face.” It is also the first election in which survivors of the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre will be eligible to vote, a symbolic marker of how little US gun-control policies have changed since a shooter killed 20 first-graders and six teachers in 2012, sparking a nationwide debate. The then six-year-old survivors are now 18, but guns remain the leading cause of death among US teens and children, and school shootings continue: A book about the slaughter at Uvalde, Texas, in 2022 will come out this month.

The energy transition’s impact

Fossil fuel companies are changing their demands of Donald Trump, underscoring the growing political impact of the energy transition. Oil and gas executives have reportedly urged the former US president to maintain the Inflation Reduction Act, President Joe Biden’s signature climate law, and many of Trump’s allies have benefited financially from the law’s clean-tech subsidies, Reuters noted. This week, the CEO of French oil giant Total cautioned that cutting climate regulations risked a backlash against the fossil fuel sector, telling the FT he was “not in favor of the wild west.” Globally, cooling growth in oil demand undermines Trump’s desire to expand domestic drilling, with shareholders asking companies to instead return profits to investors.

— For more on the politics of the energy transition, subscribe to Semafor’s Net Zero newsletter. Sign up here.

Trump threatens Mexico sanctions

Former US President Donald Trump warned that, if elected, he would impose sanctions on Mexico in a bid to force the country to crack down on drug trafficking across the border. “Every damn thing that they sell into the United States is going to have like a 25% [tariff],” Trump said. Mexico is perhaps the most vulnerable country to a shift in trade policy from Washington: Last year, almost 80% of its exports went to the US, while two-thirds of the tourists who visit the country — a key source of revenue — are from its northern neighbor. Meanwhile Trump has also vowed mass deportations of undocumented migrants to Mexico, which is already struggling with an overburdened asylum system.

China’s stimulus shortfall

Chinese authorities are unlikely to deploy the scale of stimulus necessary to bolster the country’s economy, analysts said. Policymakers meeting this week to hammer out details of the fiscal support are focusing on alleviating a local-government debt crisis, but officials are wary of announcing broad-ranging measures before fully digesting the results of today’s US election, and fear the consequences of sharing a huge headline number but ultimately falling short of supplying the necessary funds, The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg reported. The challenge facing Beijing is immense: Youth unemployment is high, economic growth is falling short, and the mammoth property market is teetering, with The New York Times noting that banks are more aggressively foreclosing on apartments.

The Ukraine war goes global

North Korean soldiers deployed to fight alongside Moscow’s troops came under fire in western Russia, Ukraine said. The incident was the first report of Pyongyang’s forces being involved in battle, and points to the growing internationalization of the nearly three-year war: Kyiv has appealed to its Western allies for more help, pointing to North Korea’s involvement as evidence of Russia drawing in other nations. Pyongyang — which today also fired ballistic missiles off the coast of the Korean Peninsula — is increasingly betting that allying with Moscow will ensure its regime’s preservation. Meanwhile Beijing is struggling to present itself as neutral over the Ukraine war, claims dismissed by the West, even as its allies band together to fight Kyiv.

Green concerns block green energy

Meta’s plans for a nuclear-powered artificial intelligence data center were stymied by the discovery of a rare bee species where the center would be built. CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the data center would have been built on land next to an existing power station. It’s not the first time environmental concerns have blocked green plans: In the UK, new onshore wind developments were effectively blocked for nine years until July, because a single objection — such as protecting local green space — could veto the project. It’s a reminder that local environmentalism is often in tension with the wider green energy transition, which requires large infrastructure projects.

Daoud wins French literary prize

Kamel Daoud became the first author of Algerian origin to win the Prix Goncourt, France’s top literary prize. Daoud was awarded the accolade for Houris, a novel based on Algeria’s bloody civil war between Islamist militias and the country’s army in the 1990s. The coveted prize usually catapults writers to fame in France and leads to hundreds of thousands of book sales — though Houris itself is banned in Algeria, according to AFP. “This prize has a lot of meaning,” Daoud told Le Monde: “It’s a strong signal for budding Algerian writers, those writers who are terrorized by certain political currents, who are destroyed in the cradle and who are afraid to write.”

Clay imprints show origin of first writing

The world’s first writing system may have grown out of imprinted seals used to denote ownership. The first known writing arose in ancient Mesopotamia, roughly 5,000 years ago. “Proto-writing,” with basic symbols and little grammar, predated it: It could only convey simple information such as “seven wheat bushels” rather than more complicated messages like “seven bushels of wheat will be delivered to you,” which requires true writing. New research suggests that some proto-writing itself grew out of symbols first carved onto cylinders and rolled onto wet clay, acting like a signature to show ownership: “Writing was first used for administration, not for storytelling,” New Scientist reported.

• The six-day China International Import Expo opens in Shanghai.
• Italian luxury carmaker Ferrari is due to release its third-quarter results.
• French fashion house Chanel stages its Cruise collection in Hong Kong.

Dave Weigel is Semafor’s national political reporter. Read his hour-by-hour guide on how to watch the results like an expert, and his summary of the 20 bellwether counties that will decide the election.

— For more from Dave, subscribe to his newsletter on the election campaign, Americana. Sign up here.

The Declaration in Script and Print: A Visual History of America’s Founding Document, by John Bidwell. Bidwell, a museum curator, began this history of the Declaration of Independence 36 years ago, and although he “modestly acknowledges that [it] can never be truly complete,” The New York Review of Books noted, the work shows his “deep connoisseurship” and knowledge of the piece of paper that paved the way for the modern US. Buy The Declaration in Script and Print from your local bookstore.

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.