On Our World Today With a "Snapshot" Courtesy the Economist of London

 

The US in brief A sharp round-up of the most important political news

Our presidential forecast model, re-launched on Thursday, shows just how much Kamala Harris has transformed the race. On July 21st, the day Joe Biden withdrew, our model gave the president a 24% chance of re-election. Now we reckon that Ms Harris has a 52% chance of winning in November.

Ms Harris leads in national polls and in a number of swing-states. But such surveys are unreliable, especially this far out from the election. And because of Mr Biden’s withdrawal, this year there have been only three weeks of polling with Ms Harris and Donald Trump as the candidates. To compensate, our forecast combines polling with structural factors that influence voter decisions, such as the state of the economy. Read our explanation of how the model works.

Columbia University’s Minouche Shafik became the third Ivy League president to resign over the handling of student protests against the Gaza war. In April Ms Shafik authorised police to break up a pro-Palestinian camp on the university’s grounds. That month she was summoned to Congress to answer accusations that she tolerated antisemitism and denied free speech. The presidents of Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania had earlier resigned after a similar grilling.

Meanwhile a federal judge ruled that the University of California, Los Angeles cannot let protesters block Jewish students from campus. The preliminary injunction is the first ruling related to the pro-Palestinian protests that swept universities in the spring. The judge wrote that Jewish students’ exclusion from parts of UCLA’s campus was “abhorrent to our constitutional guarantee of religious freedom”.

Google said that Iran-backed hackers had gained access to the personal email account of a “high-profile political consultant”. But the tech giant said it had succeeded in blocking “numerous” attempts by the group to access accounts associated with both Mr Biden’s and Mr Trump’s campaigns. Earlier the FBI confirmed it was investigating alleged hacking attempts against both campaigns.

Mr Trump promised that Americans’ incomes would “soar” if he were re-elected at a rally in North Carolina, but did not elaborate on how this might happen. Ms Harris is expected to flesh out her economic policies, so far light on detail, at her own event in the state on Friday. Earlier on Thursday, annual inflation was reported to have fallen to 2.9% in July, lower than analysts’ expectations.

Feeling grounded During his previous presidential runs, Mr Trump took a haphazard approach to his ground game. This time, in Pennsylvania at least, his effort looks more formidable. With a close election in the state looking likely, the campaign is pledging to open an office in almost every county. Read our story on how the Trump campaign has become more professional.

A view from elsewhere Tim Walz is the “embodiment of typical middle America”, wrote Katy Hill in the Sydney Morning Herald, an Australian newspaper. He looks like “he went to the hardware shop for a new garden hose one Saturday morning and picked up a VP nomination on the way home”. That’s a problem for Mr Trump. When he lashes out at Mr Walz he “punches his own voters”.

The World in Brief

Lane Greene Senior digital editor

Good morning. In today’s newsletter: Russia’s reaction in Kursk, the push for a ceasefire in Gaza and Britain’s university challenge.

Today’s top stories

Russia declared a federal emergency in Belgorod, a Russian border region, as Ukraine’s army continued its offensive in the neighbouring oblast of Kursk. Russian authorities also ordered more civilians to leave Kursk, where some 200,000 people have been evacuated since Ukraine’s incursion began on August 6th. Ukraine reportedly captured over 100 Russian soldiers on Wednesday, adding to what Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, calls the country’s “exchange fund”.

Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister, said that perpetrators of sexual violence must face “the strictest punishment” after the rape and murder of a young doctor in Kolkata last week. Thousands of women have taken to the streets in response to the crime. Figures from 2023 show that the number of crimes against women in India rose by 4% from 2021 to 2022.

The World Health Organisation declared that the spread of mpox, a virus that causes flu-like symptoms and blistering, is a global public-health emergency. The WHO raised the alarm after a new strain of the disease spread beyond the Democratic Republic of Congo to at least 12 other African countries. Cases are up 160% compared with the same period last year and more than 500 people have died since January.

Britain’s economy grew by 0.6% between April and June, a second consecutive quarter of growth, driven in large part by the services sector. GDP expanded by 0.7% in the first three months of the year. Though Britain’s economy has resoundingly bounced back from its brief recession at the end of 2023, risks remain, including a weakening job market.

Columbia University’s Minouche Shafik became the third Ivy League president to resign over their handling of student protests against Israel’s war in Gaza. In April Ms Shafik authorised police to break up a pro-Palestinian camp on the university’s grounds. That month she was summoned to Congress to answer accusations that she tolerated anti-semitism and denied free speech. The presidents of Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania had earlier resigned after a similar grilling.

Japan’s economy grew at an annualised rate of 3.1% in the second quarter of 2024, much faster than expectations of around 2%. In the previous quarter, the economy shrank at an annualised rate of 2.9%. Rising private consumption helped drive the growth in the second quarter. The Bank of Japan increased interest rates in late July, to 0.25%.

Parts of North Korea will reopen to international tourists in December, according to two Chinese tour operators. The country enforced strict border closures in 2020 following the outbreak of covid-19; international flights to and from the country resumed last year. In June Vladimir Putin, Russia’s leader, visited for the first time in over two decades to meet with Kim Jong Un, his North Korean counterpart.

As America prepares to vote in national elections in November, keep abreast of the political news by reading The US in brief, our daily update. Sign up to receive it as a newsletter each weekday.

Figure of the day: 80%, the proportion of Japanese voters that told pollsters they did not want Kishida Fumio to continue as prime minister. Read the full story.

The day ahead

Another push for Gaza ceasefire Mediators from America, Egypt and Qatar will gather in Doha on Thursday to discuss a ceasefire in Gaza. Israel has said it will send a delegation. Hamas has not: it says there is nothing to discuss beyond the ceasefire proposal it offered in July. But the two sides still disagree on core issues, including whether Israeli troops would withdraw from Gaza completely. Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, has spent months trying to sabotage any possible deal to ensure his own political survival. The talks in Qatar’s capital are not only meant to end the ten-month war in Gaza. Mediators also want to prevent Iran and its allies from retaliating against Israel for assassinations in Beirut and Tehran last month. President Joe Biden thinks Iran will hold back if there is a ceasefire in Gaza. Some Iranian officials have made similar comments. If the talks fail, the fear is that a bigger regional war may follow.

Tremulous times in Japan It has been a rollercoaster of a year for Japan. On Wednesday the prime minister, Kishida Fumio, said that he would step down next month, amid dismal polling numbers. On August 5th the stockmarket suffered its biggest fall since 1987. And the Bank of Japan, which abandoned its longstanding negative interest-rate policy in March, raised its benchmark interest rate to 0.25% in July. The economy has had a shaky post-pandemic recovery. It shrank by an annualised 2.9% in the first quarter of 2024, mainly because of sluggish private consumption. But on Thursday figures showed annualised growth of 3.1% in the second quarter, much faster than was expected. It is not just economic and political tremors that Japan fears: warnings of a mega-earthquake on its Pacific coast, even if it does not come, may put off tourists and drag down consumption. The government may end its week-long earthquake alert on Thursday. If it does, the country will breathe a sigh of relief.

Britain’s university conundrum Pupils in England, Northern Ireland and Wales receive their A-level exam grades on Thursday. If Scottish grades, released last week, are any indication, many will be disappointed: pass rates in that country have returned roughly to pre-covid levels after several years of lenient marking. But the deepest frowns will be on the faces of university leaders . Foreign students, who pay higher fees than natives, seem to have cooled on Britain: the number of applications for study visas was 15% lower in July than a year earlier. The government has frozen tuition fees paid by British students, so incomes to universities are falling in real terms. The new Labour government seems disinclined to raise fees. That would anger students and could increase the cost to the state, since most students pay for tuition by taking out subsidised loans, and not all of the money is paid back. Expect loud, eloquent grumbles.

A new bridge and old problems in Kashmir Kashmir has long stood apart from the rest of India. That is partly down to geography: its valley, where most of its residents live, lies deep in the Himalaya mountains. It is inaccessible to India’s vast railway network. That will change on Thursday, when the first train will enter Kashmir via the Chenab Bridge, timed to mark India’s 78th independence day. Opened earlier this year by Narendra Modi, India’s infrastructure-obsessed prime minister, the structure, which stands 359 metres above the Chenab river, is the world’s highest rail bridge. It is meant to attract greater trade and tourism to the region. Locals, however, have more pressing concerns. Militancy in the region has surged in the past month. Three soldiers were killed in attacks this week. In 2019 Mr Modi’s government controversially took over the administration of the erstwhile state of Jammu & Kashmir, partly to promote peace and stability there. Recent events suggest that might be a bridge too far even for Mr Modi.

Brussels in biennial bloom For just four days starting on Thursday something remarkable will sprout in the Belgian capital. Close to a million fresh blooms will be laid out in the city centre to form the Brussels Flower Carpet. Created every two years since 1986, the brightly-coloured display of dahlias and begonias celebrates Belgian traditions of flower cultivation and decorative design. Viewed from the tower of the Gothic town hall that dominates the city’s main square, the 70-metre-long floral arrangement looks like a lush carpet. Previous editions have featured designs that evoked African tribal art, pre-Columbian Mexico and Turkish kilims. This year’s pattern, created by Océane Cornille, a Belgian street artist, is a tribute to Brussels itself. Titled “Rhizome”, it references Art Nouveau, the playful, swirling and plant-like decorative style that first flourished in the city before taking hold in fin-de-siècle Paris and Edwardian London.

There is a thin line between politics and theatricals. Julian Bond