Politics: The Guardian Weekly – November 1, 2024

The Guardian Weekly (October 31, 2024) – The new issue features ‘The Balance Of Power’ – What the U.S. election could mean for the world…

Five essential reads in this week’s edition

1

Spotlight | Israel and Iran’s war comes out of the shadows
The Observer’s Simon Tisdall considers the consequences for the region of Israel’s weekend missile strikes on Iran

2

Environment | The Colombian warlord who reneged on deforestation
As the Cop16 nature summit in Colombia comes to a close, Luke Taylor tells a story that highlights the country’s complex relationship between environmental aspiration and political will

3

Feature | The brain collector
Using cutting-edge methods, Alexandra Morton-Hayward is unravelling the extraordinary mysteries of grey matter – even as hers betrays her. By Kermit Pattison

4

Opinion | It’s time to tell it how it is: Trump has fascist instincts
Those who know him best use the F-word to describe the former president. Every warning light is flashing red, argues Jonathan Freedland

5

Culture | The intersection of art and war in Ukraine
Poets, artists, playwrights and musicians are fighting and dying in Ukraine, and their work is capturing the horror and emotion of the conflict, finds Charlotte Higgins

News: French Politics, China’s Mounting Debt Problems, Israel-Gaza

Monocle Radio Podcast (October 31, 2024): Monocle’s Simon Bouvier joins Emma Nelson to discuss the future of the Renaissance party, as former French prime ministers Gabriel Attal and Élisabeth Borne avoid a political bust-up over who will be its next leader.

Plus: China’s mounting debt problems, Copenhagen’s witch exhibition and the Vatican City’s new anime mascot.

The New York Times — Thursday, October 31, 2024

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Flash Floods in Spain Leave at Least 95 Dead

About 1,000 soldiers from emergency response units deployed to the affected areas, and the death toll was expected to rise after one of the worst natural disasters to hit the country in recent years.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX, Already a Leader in Satellites, Gets Into the Spy Game

The Pentagon needs what the company offers to compete with China even as it frets over its potential for dominance and the billionaire’s global interests.

At Dueling Rallies, Harris Stresses Unity as Trump Attacks Biden’s ‘Garbage’ Remark

In three battleground states, Kamala Harris geared her message toward moderate Republicans and independents, while Donald J. Trump accused Democrats of demonizing him and his supporters.

How Trump Exploits Divisions Among Black and Latino Voters

Donald J. Trump’s anti-immigrant message is exposing longstanding tensions and challenging Democrats’ hopes for solidarity.

Research Preview: Nature Magazine-October 31, 2024

Volume 634 Issue 8036

Nature Magazine – October 30, 2024: The latest issue features ‘Spatial Awareness’ – Cancer cell atlases explore the landscape of tumour evolution…

Atomic smash-ups hold promise of record-breaking elements

Laboratory collisions that create the superheavy element livermorium could help scientists to discover new elements.

This plankton balloons in size to soar upwards through the water

A single-celled alga takes water into a bladder, allowing it to migrate to the sea’s sunlit surface zone.

Giant Turkish quake shifted the ground hundreds of kilometres away

The deadly earthquake led to unexpectedly large deformations some 700 kilometres from the epicentre.

Country Life Magazine – October 30, 2024 Preview

Country Life Magazine (October 30, 2024): The latest issue features

Zandra Rhodes’s favourite painting

The fashion designer chooses a colourful, cheering scene.

A home reborn

Magnificent Knowsley Hall, Lancashire, has been rescued from institutional use through an admirable restoration project and is once again a home, discovers John Martin Robinson.

The Legacy

Amie Elizabeth White dons a Blue Peter badge to salute the show’s creator, John Hunter Blair.

Heal the land, heal the waters

Our precious rivers hold myriad life forms, yet have been sullied by the hands of humans. John Lewis-Stempel urges us to take care of them.

You’ve got peemail

Dogs, bats and other creatures keep up with the news through sniffing and sensing. Laura Parker reports on the animal kingdom’s telegraph system.

The ghost hunters

Deep in a glad or underwater, our rarest plants defy discovery. Peter Marren joins the quest.

Let Nature never be forgot

A cornucopia of delights awaits Tiffany Daneff in Alan Titchmarsh’s Hampshire garden, with secluded seats, ponds and plenty of space for wildlife.

The Renaissance men

Well-educated and curious, the British tourists with an eye for art laid the foundations of our great collections, finds Michael Hall.

Return to the steppe

Teresa Levonian-Cole boards the Golden Eagle Trans-Siberian Express to traverse Uzbekistan, a land brimming with art, history and caviar.

And, as always, much much more, including luxury, recipes, interior inspiration and gardens.

London Review Of Books – November 7, 2024 Preview

London Review of Books (LRB) – October 30 , 2024: The latest issue features ‘What was Bidenomics?’; Jenny Turner returns to Gillian Rose and Julian Barnes – Drinking for France…

Jenny Turner

Love’s Work by Gillian Rose – Marxist Modernism: Introductory Lectures on Frankfurt School Critical Theory by Gillian Rose, edited by Robert Lucas Scott and James Gordon Finlayson

Josephine Quinn – At the British Museum: ‘Silk Roads’

Florence Sutcliffe-Braithwaite – The Searchers: Five Rebels, Their Dream of a Different Britain and Their Many Enemies by Andy BeckettA Woman like Me by Diane AbbottKeir Starmer: The Biography by Tom Baldwin

Current Affairs: Prospect Magazine – December 2024

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Prospect Magazine (October 30, 2024) – The latest issue features Francis Fukuyama sets out what is at stake if Donald Trump wins, an investigation reveals how much councils spend on temporary accommodation and Sarah Manavis examines why some women are drawn to misogyny

Make no mistake: Donald Trump is a demagogue

The Republican candidate has already damaged American democracy and the wider liberal order. Worse is to come by Francis Fukuyama\

‘You wouldn’t let a dog suffer like this’: should assisted dying be legal?

Temporary accommodation nation

Jack Shaw

The women who hate feminism

Sarah Manavis

The punch-up

Alona Ferber

The Glasgow doctor on the front line in Beirut

Imaan Irfan

My friendship with a robin works magic on my health

Sheila Hancock

Arts/Books: Times Literary Supplement – Nov. 1, 2024

Times Literary Supplement (October 30, 2024): The latest issue features ‘Scare Stories’ – On modern horror. Asked why he liked horror films, or terror films as he preferred to call them, Kingsley Amis wrote: “like Mark Twain on a dissimilar occasion, I have an answer to that: I don’t know”. He viewed horror as purely “harmless” entertainment. That explanation might satisfy teenage addicts, but moralists, psychologists and literary critics are inclined to examine the bloody entrails of the genre to divine deeper truths.

Dynamic, not doomed

Taking the British Revolution out of the Restoration’s shadow By Jonathan Fitzgibbons

Fiction for geeks and freaks

The decades before horror became respectable By Mark Storey

Married to amazement

How Mary Oliver ‘encourages us to believe’ By Rory Waterman

Green terror

An Australian vision of the eco-apocalypse By Tom Seymour Evans

The New York Times — Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2024

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An Ethical Minefield Awaits a Possible Second Trump Presidency

With business ties to foreign governments and holdings in industries overseen by federal regulators, Donald Trump would likely be the most conflicted president in U.S. history.

Michelle Obama Decries a ‘Double Standard’ in Treatment of Trump and Harris

As Donald Trump’s rhetoric grows more extreme, liberals say Kamala Harris is being held, unfairly, to a higher bar by voters and the media. One is “allowed to be lawless while the other one has to be flawless,” a congresswoman said.

Despite Covid ‘Amnesia,’ the Pandemic Simmers Beneath the 2024 Race

Dueling Trump and Harris rallies outside Atlanta offer a case study in how anger and anxiety over Covid-19, a proxy for the larger debate over trust in government, have shaped the 2024 race.

Florida Stopped Being a Swing State Slowly, Then All at Once

Once a top presidential battleground, the state is lost to Democrats. The party’s missteps, along with demographic change, led to every one of Florida’s 67 counties becoming more red.

Politics: Inside The World Of ‘Legal’ Election Betting

The Wall Street Journal (October 29, 2024): While polls show former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris in a dead heat in the final stretch of the 2024 election, the GOP nominee is dominating the Democratic candidate in the betting markets.

Chapters: 0:00 Election betting is legal 0:36 How it works 2:39 Prediction markets vs. polls 3:58 The reliability of betting markets

Once banned by federal regulators, Americans can now legally gamble on elections in prediction markets. Platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket have emerged as websites to place yes-or-no contracts. WSJ reporter Alexander Osipovich explains how these markets work, what they could tell us about the outcome of the election and the implications of trading on the future of the country.

News, Views and Reviews For The Intellectually Curious