The Trump-Harris slugfest: The high/lowlights

Written by: Aarthi Ramnath, Aakriti Anand & Raghav Bikhchandani

The Trump-Harris slugfest: The high/lowlights

Background: Three months after Joe Biden’s disaster class, Kamala Harris took on Donald Trump in a presidential debate—at a time when both of them are running neck and neck in some polls—though the BBC News poll of polls puts her ahead. It is also the only presidential debate in this election.

What happened now: The debate was a slugfest. Highlights included the following:

One: Both candidates heckled each other—even when their mics were turned off to ensure they didn’t hog the time. Watch Kamala almost swear below:

Two: Donald Trump accused immigrants of stealing and eating their neighbours’ cats in an Ohio town.

Three: Donald Trump accused Kamala Harris of being a commie: “She’s a Marxist — everybody knows she’s a Marxist. Her father’s a Marxist professor in economics, and he taught her well.” But—surprise, surprise—he did not question her racial identity or birth certificate. So we count that as a win.

Four: Harris scored some points on abortion: “One does not have to abandon their faith or deeply held beliefs to agree with the government — and Donald Trump, certainly — should not be telling a woman what to do with her body.” Ooh, snap! Notably, Trump refused to commit to any policy move on abortion—or healthcare. Even the moderator had to step in to fact-check Trump on abortion.

Five: Harris’ latest catch phrase: the “opportunity economy”—which she is using to rebut Trump’s salvo on high inflation. And she managed to take a dig at his terrible business career.

Six: On Gaza, Harris stuck to her ‘balancing’ act—condemning the October 7 attack and saying “far too many innocent Palestinians have been killed” by Israel’s ongoing military offensive in Gaza. Trump, OTOH, kept it simple: “She hates Israel.”

The main takeaway: Everyone is calling it a knockout for Harris—which is great news since she has momentum. Also: Taylor Swift endorsed her on Insta—balle balle! For more, check out the live blog of the New York Times and The Guardian. You can watch CNN anchor Chris Wallace's analysis of Harris' performance below:

Editor's note: We changed the main takeaway from the debate, based on reporting after we published today's edition.

Two notable stories of sexual assault

One: An officer in the Indian Air Force has accused her Wing Commander of sexual assault. The alleged harassment took place in Srinagar—where the two of them are posted. According to the FIR, he forced her to perform oral sex. When she complained, air force officials dragged their feet—finding excuses to delay the investigation. The Internal Committee eventually closed the case—due to the lack of “eyewitness” (?!). Also this:

She said she requested interim relief and asked for leave multiple times but

was denied. “I am forced to socialise with these people and attend events with my abuser.... While he is enjoying. I am getting harassed in the hands of authorities on a daily basis,” the complainant said.

The Telegraph has more on the case.

Two: Tariq Ramadan—a renowned Muslim philosopher and theologian—has been convicted of raping and sexually coercing a woman—back in 2008. The Geneva-based scholar has also been accused of raping three women between 2009 and 2016 in France. Al Jazeera has a detailed profile of Ramadan—and his influential career. (New York Times)

Big setback for big tech

The European Union’s highest court rejected appeals by Google and Apple in two separate landmark cases. The Apple case was about tax evasion:

[T]he court sided with a European Union order from 2016 for Ireland to collect €13 billion, worth about $14.4 billion today, in unpaid taxes from the company. Regulators determined that Apple had struck illegal deals with the Irish government that allowed the company to pay virtually nothing in taxes on its European business in some years.

That’s a lot of money for the Irish Treasury. Apple OTOH calls it a case of double taxation—as it already pays taxes in the US.

As for Google: It was accused of rigging search results to favour its shopping services—over that of rivals. The company was fined €2.4 billion—which it will now have to pay. Reminder: Google is on trial in the US for illegally monopolising the online ad industry—and has already lost a landmark case that determined it illegally monopolised search. The problem with its online ads biz:

Website publishers looking to make money from advertising rely on this technology to act as a kind of middleman. Google’s services allow sites to sell ads on their pages and for advertisers to buy ad space that reaches potential customers, while Google takes a sizable cut of the ad dollars from both sides.

Why any of this matters: Governments around the world are moving to tightly regulate the internet—and the tech giants that dominate it. This is one front of that battle—the arrest of Telegram founder Pavel Durov is another. The Guardian has more on the US case. New York Times reports on the setbacks in the EU.

No doctors for rural India

The context: In rural India, there are three tiers of health service. The primary health centres offer basic care. Next point of healthcare contact: community health centres—which have 30 beds—and offer specialist services to around 160,000 people on average. The last are district hospitals—which are often at great distance from villages.

What happened now: According to a new government report, 80% of rural community health centres do not have specialist doctors—such as gynaecologists, paediatricians, physicians, or surgeons. Of the 13,232 vacancies, 8,900 remain unfilled. In comparison, 56% of such listings are unfilled in urban centres.

This is despite a 2X increase in the number of admissions in medical colleges. The reason: doctors with advanced degrees simply don’t want to serve at these places. OTOH, primary health centres have no shortage because GPs are not as picky. Why this matters: The lack of specialists puts a huge burden on district hospitals—which are already stretched to capacity. And rural Indians don’t get critical specialist care close to home. (The Print)

Light pollution is shrinking spider brains

A new study has found that the rising amount of artificial light at night is affecting the brain development of juvenile spiders. Here’s why:

[B]oth humans and spiders produced melatonin at night time, an important chemical that acted as an antioxidant and driver of day-night rhythms. Light pollution interfered with these processes, impacting reproduction, survival, immune function and a whole suite of physiological processes.

This affects their ability to hunt and climb—skills that are necessary for survival. Why you should care:

Spiders provided a model for understanding effects of light pollution, [the study’s co-author, professor Therésa Jones], said. “Yes, it’s got eight legs … obviously we can’t take a human and scoop their brains out and CT them, but we can use spiders to start looking at some of the impacts.”

Also: spiders do handy things like eat mosquitoes. The Guardian has the nerdy details on the study.

Country music snubs Beyoncé

The Queen released the biggest country hit—‘Texas Hold ‘Em’—this year. She became the first Black woman to have a number one country song on the Billboard charts. But her album ‘Cowboy Carter’ has not been nominated in any category for the Country Music Awards (CMA).

Why this matters: This is an outrage for a number of reasons. For starters, this is the second time the CMA have treated the star poorly:

In 2016, the star attended the CMAs to perform her song Daddy Lessons with The Chicks (then known as the Dixie Chicks). Their performance faced a barrage of criticism — and racism — online. Natalie Maines, lead singer of The Chicks, later told the New York Times that the way Beyoncé was treated after the show was "disgusting."

Next, Beyonce has been snubbed—but Shaboozey is up for best new artist and single of the year for his track ‘A Bar Song (Tipsy)’. But Shaboozey rose to prominence because he was featured on two tracks on ‘Cowboy Carter’. Also on-brand for country music: “Morgan Wallen walked away with the most nominations, three years after being suspended by his record label for using a racial slur.” (New York Times, login required, BBC News)

Say hello to the first trifold phone

Who cares about AI iPhones when you can get yourself a dual-hinged, triple-screen phone from Huawei. As you’d expect, the super bendy device has a huge screen—of 6.4 inches as a single-screen and 10.2 inches when fully unfolded. And it’s got fancy cameras: a 50-megapixel main camera, and an 8-megapixel front camera. The catch: It costs—wait for it—$2,800!!! Makes the $799 iPhone 16 look like a bargain. And yet it has more than 4 million pre-orders. The Verge has product details. Reuters has more on how Huawei stole the spotlight from Apple. Watch the cinematic promo below.

what caught our eye

business & tech

For its upcoming Mars mission, NASA has ditched the Jeff Bezos-owned Blue Origin rocket as it’s unlikely to be ready in time.
Most Indian users of digital financial services know their privacy is being violated—but just don’t care.
Hundreds of Samsung India factory workers have been on strike since Monday, demanding recognition for their union.
Global analysts expect Apple’s AI phone—iPhone 16—to be its most successful launch ever. Indian analysis concur—estimating a 20% jump in sales in the festive season.
When it rains, it pours for SEBI chief Madhabi Puri-Buch—the Congress alleges that her husband received Rs 4.78 crore (47.8 million) between 2019 and 2021 from Mahindra group, when SEBI was adjudicating the group’s cases. Check out our Big Story for more on Puri-Buch.
The Conversation has a good read on the need for a sex ed-esque approach to social media literacy for young people.

sports & entertainment

An update on the horrific death of Olympic runner Rebecca Cheptegei—her boyfriend, who had killed her by setting her on fire with gasoline, has also died in hospital from burns he had sustained in the attack.
India’s men’s hockey team have made a flying start in the Asian Champions Trophy—they sit at the top of the table after thrashing Japan 5-1.
BBC News has a must-read analysing how India’s Paralympic contingent went from just one medal in London 2012 to 29 in Paris 2024.
The Israeli government’s efforts in court to block this release have failed—the revelatory anti-Netanyahu documentary ‘The Bibi Files’ premiered at the Toronto film festival this week.
Get hyped to see Green Day and Shawn Mendes—they’ll be headlining the next edition of Lollapalooza India.

as for the rest

Farewell to Air India Express’ business class—the budget airline will phase out the seating category on its ‘white-tail’ Boeing 737 MAX aircraft.
Manipur has imposed a curfew and banned internet access for five days amid fresh bouts of ethnic violence and student protests in the state. Check out our Big Story for more context.
An update on the RG Kar rape-murder case—junior doctors are defying a 5pm deadline ordered by the Supreme Court to resume their work duties and snubbed a state government invite for dialogue with CM Mamata Banerjee.
Drugs and namkeens are among the items that will get cheaper after the GST Council spiced things up in its meeting on Monday.
Israel likely used 2,000 pound-bombs in its attack on a ‘safe zone’ tent encampment in Gaza’s al-Mawasi, killing 19 people.
Germany is temporarily tightening up its land borders in response to “irregular migration” and “extremist threats”.
South Korea government officials aren’t too happy. The reason: Falling birth rates and soaring sales of dog strollers. Wall Street Journal (splainer gift link) has more.
The US infant mortality rate is rising due to…the declining bat population. Washington Post (splainer gift link) has more on the new study drawing this unlikely connection.
Speaking of alarming increases, new research shows methane emissions are spiralling out of control.
Nearly 200 people were killed in 2023—over a third in Colombia—for defending the environment, new figures show.
The Economist (splainer gift link) has a good read on the mystery of the cover letter, and why recruiters still ask for them.

Six things to see

One: The Empire State Building in New York paid this glowing tribute to James Earl Jones—who passed away on September 9. (Times Now)

Two: The Hubble Space Telescope and Chandra X-ray Observatory have captured a pair of supermassive black holes—that are only 300 light years apart. That’s the closest ever for black holes. Below is the telescopic image:

And here’s a way prettier artistic version: (BBC Sky at Night Magazine)

Three: Bye-bye revenge dress, hello revenge perfume! Dubai princess Sheikh Mahra first divorced her husband via triple talaq on Instagram. Then she released a perfume named ‘Divorce’. All very cheeky for a woman whose father is notorious for trying to abduct his runaway wife—and two runaway daughters (see: this insane Big Story) (NDTV)

Four: On Monday, Afghanistan and New Zealand arrived at the Shaheed Vijay Singh Pathik Sports Complex in Noida—to face off in a historic Test match. Sadly, the field is a soggy mess due to poor drainage. The ground staff have taken the jugaadu route of digging up parts of the outfield—and replacing them with grass from the practice nets’ area. ESPNCricinfo has more on the sh*tshow.

Five: Ahead of Rajini’s birthday, the first song from his highly anticipated movie ‘Vettaiyan’ is out—and it is all kinds of nostalgic! Through the magic of AI, the track ‘Manasilaayo’ features the voice of the legendary singer Malaysia Vasudevan—who sang playback for Rajini from the ‘70s through the ‘90s. Indian Express has more on the singer and how this feat was achieved.

Six: Check out this funny teaser for the upcoming HBO show ‘The Franchise’—which is all about the travails of making a hit Marvel-like movie. The show stars Himesh Patel and Aya Cash among others, and has been produced by Armando Ianucci and Sam Mendes. The show drops on October 6. (Deadline)