Wednesday Briefing: Casting doubts on the U.S. election

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October 23, 2024

	By Gaya Gupta

Good morning. We’re covering Republican efforts to challenge U.S. voting and Hamas’s guerrilla tactics.

Plus, saving Japan’s most popular rice.

Representative Scott Perry. Gabriela Bhaskar for The New York Times

Republican lawmakers sow doubts about the election

As Donald Trump makes widespread claims that the Nov. 5 election will be rigged, a handful of his allies are already questioning this year’s voting. Their efforts could help lay the groundwork to once again undermine the results, should Trump lose.

Representative Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, who helped Trump try to overturn the 2020 election, is among those leading this effort. He and a group of Republican lawmakers have filed a lawsuit against their state’s government, alleging that its system to verify ballots cast by members of the military and Americans living abroad is insufficient. It’s one of about 100 cases filed by Republican allies related to topics like voter rolls and noncitizen voters. Election officials and other experts say that these claims are meritless.

More on the U.S. election Election Day is less than two weeks away. Russia may act to stoke protests and even violence over the U.S. election results, intelligence officials warned yesterday. Trump will record a podcast interview with Joe Rogan as part of his strategy to reach young men. The Harris campaign hopes that a blitz of Facebook ads and WhatsApp channels will help win over disillusioned Muslim and Arab voters. A Times analysis found that Project 2025, a conservative initiative to reshape the government, has numerous ties to Trump and his campaign, despite his claims otherwise. Do you have questions about the election? Send them to us, and we’ll find the answers.

Palestinians fleeing from the northern Gaza Strip this month. Omar Al-Qattaa/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Hamas’s guerrilla tactics make it hard to defeat

Hamas’s top commanders are mostly dead, its rank and file has been decimated and many of its hide-outs and stockpiles have been captured and destroyed. The group’s fighters are no match for Israel’s army in open combat, but that’s not how Hamas is fighting.

Small-scale, hit-and-run strikes have allowed the group to continue to inflict harm on Israel and avoid defeat. Its vast underground tunnel network has remained mostly intact despite Israeli efforts to destroy it. Even the death of the Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar is unlikely to affect the capacity of the group’s fighters in northern Gaza, analysts said.

Diplomacy: During Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s visit to Israel yesterday, he pressed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “to capitalize on” the killing of Sinwar and end the war in Gaza.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen in Washington, yesterday.  J. Scott Applewhite/Associated Press

A $50 billion loan to Ukraine

The U.S. and Europe are close to finalizing a plan to provide Ukraine with a $50 billion loan backed by Russia’s frozen central bank assets, the U.S. Treasury secretary said yesterday.

An announcement could come this week as finance ministers and central bank governors hold talks in Washington during the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. “This is a way of making Russia bear the cost and the expense of the damage that it’s inflicting on Ukraine,” the secretary, Janet Yellen, said at a news conference.

Related: The U.S. has agreed to provide $800 million in military aid to Ukraine for the manufacturing of long-range drones.

Inflation: In a report, the I.M.F. said that the global economy had managed to avoid falling into a recession, even though the world’s central banks have raised interest rates to their highest levels in years.

Michael Jeffries, in 2009. Mark Lennihan/Associated Press

Sports

Amrita Chandradas for The New York Times

For years, the giant Chinese property developer Country Garden sustained a build-and-they-will-come strategy that characterized China’s housing frenzy. But after it tried to take that model overseas, promising a “dream paradise” in Malaysia with 700,000 apartments across four man-made islands, it defaulted on its debt. The pop-up city, left largely unfinished, echoes the excesses of China’s housing boom.

Lives lived: Christine Boisson, a French actress who became famous at 17 with her performance in the erotic film “Emmanuelle,” died at age 68.

The Steart marshes in England are an important habitat for birds and home to a variety of fish, mammals, insects and amphibians. Andrew Testa for The New York Times

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Noriko Hayashi for The New York Times

The race to save Japan’s most popular rice

Last year, the Koshihikari rice crop was devastated by the hottest summer on record in Japan. But scientists have recently identified a pattern within rice DNA that makes certain varieties more resistant to heat. They are now embarking on a quest to crossbreed that genetic signature into Koshihikari rice.

Whether they succeed could determine the fate of Koshihikari, the “king” of Japanese rices, and the livelihood of farmers in Niigata, where the rice is the biggest agricultural output. Read more here.

Linda Xiao for The New York Times

Cook: This 20-minute pasta with spinach is coated with a tangy feta-yogurt sauce.

Read: John le Carré’s son revisits the British spy George Smiley in “Karla’s Choice.”

Watch: The comedy “What We Do in the Shadows” begins its final season.

Train: Here’s how to add active recovery to your exercise routine.

Compete: Take our quiz to see if you can find the hidden book titles.

Play: Spelling Bee, the Mini Crossword, Wordle and Sudoku. Find all our games here.

That’s it for today. See you tomorrow. — Gaya

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