Flagship

Trump wins decisively

Donald Trump won the US presidential election decisively. The Republican Party was on track to win the popular vote for the first time since 2004, and retook the Senate. It represents a huge defeat for Democratic strategies of delivering populist labor, tax, and health care policies, Semafor’s David Weigel noted, but also backed up theories of a “racial realignment” in US politics. Whatever the reason, Trump’s victory is remarkable — he shrugged off a criminal conviction and court cases, assassination attempts, and political vulnerabilities over his stance on abortion and his role in the Jan. 6, 2021 riot on the US Capitol: “America has given us an unprecedented and powerful mandate,” he told supporters as he declared victory.

What a Trump win will mean

Donald Trump’s presidential election victory will have a major impact on a vast array of domestic and global policy issues. The Republican has promised hefty tax cuts and tariffs on many imported goods, which economists have warned could spur inflation. Abroad, he has pledged to end the war in Ukraine — which Kyiv fears could mean a deal in which it gives up territory to Russia — and the Middle East. And on global climate policy, Carbon Brief said Trump’s return to the White House would likely result in the US missing its climate pledges “by a wide margin,” though it noted that some Biden administration policies such as a mammoth clean-tech spending program may “prove hard to unpick.”

GOP retakes Senate control

Republicans retook control of the Senate, a shift that — combined with Donald Trump’s electoral success — has major political and economic implications. In the short term, the GOP’s control of the Senate empowers a Trump administration to pass new tax cuts and “likely dashes progressives’ hopes of dramatically shifting the burden of US taxation towards corporations and wealthy individuals,” Bloomberg noted. The longer-term fallout may be even more significant, with Republicans now “in position to reshape the federal judiciary,” Semafor’s congressional bureau chief Burgess Everett noted. Only a third of Senate seats are up for grabs every two years, so “with this cycle sealed, Democrats are expected to immediately go on the campaign offensive,” Politico wrote.

World leaders congratulate Trump

World leaders congratulated Donald Trump on his presidential election win. France’s Emmanuel Macron, Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu, and Germany’s Olaf Scholz were quick to do so, while Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy, whose country relies on US military support, praised Trump’s “peace through strength” approach. Trump has been critical of NATO, but its secretary general said he will be “key to keeping our Alliance strong” and stressed that more of its members now spend 2% of GDP on defense than during Trump’s first term, when the issue was a regular bugbear of his. Meanwhile the European Commission president said the bloc shared “a true partnership” with the US: Trump has said the EU will pay “a big price” in tariffs.

Markets up on Trump win

Global stocks jumped as investors bet on Donald Trump’s promised tax cuts and vows to slash regulation. The price of Bitcoin — which Trump has promised to ease regulation on — reached a record high. “If you had the Trump trade on for the last six weeks, it’s been outstanding,” an analyst told Bloomberg. The dollar strengthened at the fastest rate in two years, pushing the Mexican peso to its lowest level since 2022, largely thanks to his pledge to impose tariffs on all imports. Economists say that policy would drive inflation, in turn likely prompting the US Federal Reserve to raise interest rates: Treasury bonds fell as a result.

Netanyahu engulfed in ‘BibiLeaks’

Israeli authorities arrested several people — including a spokesman for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — over the alleged leak of classified information intended to strengthen Netanyahu’s position in ceasefire talks with Hamas. The “BibiLeaks” scandal comes with truce negotiations over Israel’s wars in Gaza and against Hezbollah in Lebanon languishing, and with Netanyahu having just fired his defense minister in an apparent domestic political effort to turf out a cabinet critic of his. The talks with the Palestinian militant group, in particular, had at times this year appeared close to success, but have made little progress, while Israel has trumpeted battlefield successes such as the killing of top Hamas and Hezbollah commanders.

China hack targets top US officials

China-backed hackers gained access to cellphones used by US security and government officials, with “potentially dire national security consequences,” The Wall Street Journal reported. Intruders spent months burrowing into telecoms infrastructure, stealing call logs, texts, and audio from thousands of US citizens and their contacts, but limited their targets “to several dozen select, high-value political and national-security figures,” the Journal said. Intelligence officials have long warned that Beijing is amassing information to help uncover spies and predict political decisions, as well as potentially build dossiers on individual citizens. People affiliated with both presidential campaigns — including the next vice president, JD Vance — were targeted, although officials reportedly do not suspect China of using the information to disrupt the presidential election.

BYD buoyant, others downbeat

Chinese electric vehicle giant BYD said it would ramp up production and hiring on the back of rising sales, a sharp contrast with legacy automakers who reported disappointing results. BYD’s announcement came after its latest results showed its revenues for the first time outpaced those of Tesla. Yet even as it and other major Chinese carmakers have expanded both their output and their ambitions, increasingly targeting overseas markets, historically powerful automotive companies BMW, Honda, and Toyota all posted sharp declines in quarterly profit, in large part because of sagging demand in China. The dueling narratives came as Reuters reported that Beijing directed its automakers to halt investments in European Union countries that supported tariffs on China-made EVs.

Cancer deaths to nearly double

Global deaths from cancer are projected to grow 90% by 2050. Researchers used recent rates of growth in 36 types of cancer across 185 countries along with UN population projections, and suggested the most rapid rise would come in low- and middle-income countries: Niger and Afghanistan, for instance, are expected to see nearly a threefold increase. Partly the cause will be growing cancer risk, driven by higher levels of obesity and sedentary lifestyles as countries become richer — so far not offset by falling alcohol and smoking rates in poorer countries as much as in the West — but it is also a positive story: In order to die of cancer, predominantly a disease of aging, people must first not die of something else.

Fast-eating black hole discovered

A black hole that appears to be growing 40 times faster than theorists thought possible is rewriting our understanding of the dead stars. As well as eating matter, black holes give off radiation — the bigger the hole, the more radiation, which pushes material away. That should limit their rate of growth and mean that “supermassive” black holes should take billions of years to form. But astronomers keep finding new giants, suggesting they must form quicker than thought. The newly identified fast-eating black hole is good news for cosmologists, Ars Technica reported: It suggests black holes can grow rapidly, potentially explaining the large number of them and helping make the universe make a bit more sense.

• Singapore’s prime minister meets Indonesia’s newly inaugurated president in Jakarta.
• The Financial Times hosts its fifth Commodities Asia Summit.
• Pedro Páramo, a Mexican fantasy horror, is released on Netflix.

The value of the UK foreign ministry’s wine cellar. The collection — built over decades and tapped into during official receptions — includes extraordinarily rare bottles such as a 1931 Quinta do Noval, “regarded by some as the Port vintage of the 20th century,” the Financial Times reported. The tipple sells for almost $8,000 per bottle, when it’s available. According to the foreign ministry, the collection generates its own profit, meaning it is “as self-financing as possible.”

My Friends by Hisham Matar. The novel, which follows Libyan exiles during the rule of Muammar Gaddafi, is “not a typical immigrant tale in which the protagonist [finds] peace in the bosom of their adoptive home,” says The Johannesburg Review of Books: Instead, every character lives under “constant threat” and “fear is a pervasive, palpable feature,” although the book is written in “delightfully lively and pithy prose.” Buy My Friends from your local bookstore.

Elon Musk’s internet service provider Starlink is halting new sign-ups in Africa, citing a demand surge in the continent’s biggest cities, Semafor’s Alexander Onukwue reported. Starlink’s Africa rollout has also been met with some resistance from local telecoms companies and concerned regulators, Onukwue wrote.