Nov 17 update

During talks in San Francisco America’s president, Joe Biden, and China’s leader, Xi Jinping, agreed that their countries would resume military communications. They also pledged to battle the spread of fentanyl—China is a source of many of the chemicals used to make the drug, which is ravaging parts of America. But Mr Biden also reiterated his assessment that Mr Xi is a “dictator”, and described the countries’ relationship as “competitive”. China cut off military dialogue with America in 2022 after Nancy Pelosi, then speaker of the House of Representatives, visited Taiwan.

Israel struck the Gaza residence of Ismail Haniyeh, a Hamas leader who lives in Qatar. It said the building was being “used as terrorist infrastructure”. The Israel Defence Forces continued to search al-Shifa hospital in Gaza city, where they claim to have found Hamas weapons and equipment. Neither of the Israeli claims could be independently verified. Hamas denies operating at the hospital.

Spain’s parliament voted to reinstall Pedro Sánchez, leader of the Socialist Party, as prime minister. The vote ends four months of negotiations in Madrid, culminating in a controversial deal between Mr Sánchez and several regional separatist parties to form a minority government. Under the agreement, thousands of people involved in Catalonia’s illegal independence referendum in 2017 will be pardoned.

George Santos, the scandal-ridden Republican congressman from New York, said he will not seek re-election, after America’s House of Representatives issued a scathing ethics report alleging that he spent campaign money on Botox and at a casino, among other misdeeds. Mr Santos has pleaded not guilty to 23 federal charges, including wire fraud; an earlier effort to expel him from the House failed.

America’s Senate approved a stopgap funding bill to avoid a partial government shutdown that would have disrupted pay for some 4m federal workers. The bill, which passed by 87 votes to 11, ensures funding for the federal government until January 19th. It will be sent to Joe Biden to be signed into law before a deadline on Friday.

Finland said it will close four of the nine crossings on its border with Russia on Saturday, in order to reduce the number of asylum-seekers entering the country. On Wednesday Finland’s president suggested that Russia was funnelling migrants to the border in retaliation for his country’s alignment with America—a suggestion Russia denied. Finland joined NATO earlier this year.

Britain became the first country to approve a medical treatment based on CRISPR, a gene-editing technology that uses molecular scissors to edit DNA. Casgevy, developed by Vertex Pharmaceuticals and Crispr Therapeutics, was approved for use to treat blood disorders. CRISPR is poised for a big year; medicines for conditions from cancer to HIV infections are being developed using it.

Figure of the day: 5.6, the daily average number of kilowatt-hours of sunlight per square metre enjoyed by Morocco. Read the full story.

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PHOTO: REUTERS

Israel’s progress in Gaza

After almost three weeks of ground fighting, Israel now has control of the area north of Wadi Gaza, a riverbed that bisects the 45km-long Gaza Strip. This heralds the end of one phase of the war against Hamas. Israeli forces have dislodged the militant group from power in this part of the enclave. The group that has controlled Gaza since 2007 is scattered and reeling.

Yet Israel has still to find Hamas’s leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, and its military chief, Muhammad Deif. Both are thought to be hiding in the maze of tunnels beneath the enclave. Israeli troops will spend the coming weeks blowing up the entrances to those tunnels and scouring the north for arms and militants. Inevitably, some Hamas fighters will have fled to southern Gaza, along with civilians. At some point, therefore, Israel will have to turn its attention south. How much it will be able to do there, however, will depend on domestic politics and diplomatic pressure.

PHOTO: GETTY IMAGES

Harder times at Alibaba

China’s biggest shopping day, Singles’ Day, which falls on November 11th, was something of a flop this year. E-commerce sales declined by 1% year on year. That is in keeping with this year’s sluggish trend in consumer demand. It is not good news for Alibaba, which has the biggest share of the e-commerce market.

Investors got a sense of just how bad things are on Thursday. Alibaba posted a quarterly net income of 27.7 billion yuan ($3.8 billion), an improvement on the net loss it made for the same period last year but lower than expected. Worse still, the company called off plans to spin-off its cloud computing business into a separate company, blaming American export controls on computer chips. The move throws into doubt the rest of the company’s ambitious restructuring plan of splitting itself into six separate businesses, announced in March. Alibaba shares fell after the news. The company’s Single’s Day was poor, but its break-up is going even worse.

PHOTO: PICTURE ALLIANCE

America avoids a shutdown

As early as Thursday Joe Biden is set to sign into law a bill that averts a government shutdown. The news is welcome—if perplexing. In September Republican Kevin McCarthy, then the speaker of America’s House of Representatives, defied hardliners in his party and relied on Democratic votes to pass a short-term funding bill to avoid a shutdown. He was summarily defenestrated. Six weeks later, Mike Johnson, his replacement (pictured), did largely the same thing. Yet, for now, his job is safe.

Mr Johnson, knowing that Republicans would get the blame for a shutdown, needed a short-term solution. Though the bill lacked military aid for Israel or Ukraine, it was acceptable to Democrats because it included no spending cuts. Some members of the far-right House Freedom Caucus voted against it, but following the weeks-long scramble to replace Mr McCarthy, even they were not keen on more chaos. Overall, Republicans are giving Mr Johnson “a longer leash”, as one pundit put it, than the divisive Mr McCarthy.

PHOTO: COURTESY OF HUMANE

A new AI badge could change how we use technology

Naomi Campbell wore it first. A small pin on the lapel of an angular, pinstriped blazer intrigued onlookers at a fashion show in September. It was no mere decorative accessory. Instead it was a device intended to make handheld smartphones obsolete. On Thursday the AI Pin will be available for early orders in America.

Created by Humane, a startup staffed by former Apple employees, the AI Pin is a smart-assistant that attaches to clothing using a magnet. It differs from conventional smartphones by having no screen. Nevertheless, it takes photos, can access the internet, make phone calls, and project text onto surfaces (using lasers).

Generous funding of $240m from Microsoft, OpenAI and others has generated huge expectations in the tech market. Critics worry that a wearable device powered by generative artificial intelligence poses challenges for data protection. Using the pin will also require a substantial behavioural shift. Liberating the world from its smartphone addiction may yet require more technology.

PHOTO: DAVE SIMONDS

Giorgia Meloni’s passion for Frodo

An exhibition that has precious little to do with art, but much to say about the cultural enthusiasms of Giorgia Meloni, the Italian prime minister, and her hard-right Brothers of Italy party, opens to the public on Thursday at the National Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art in Rome.

The show is devoted to the British writer J.R.R. Tolkien, author of “The Hobbit” and “The Lord of the Rings”. Exhibits include manuscripts and letters, first editions of his books and art works inspired by his tales. Tolkien’s fantasy sagas, embraced by hippies in the 1960s, found a radically different set of admirers in Italy where they became the favoured reading of young neo-fascists. Ms Meloni, who once belonged to the neo-fascist youth movement, attended its “Hobbit Camps”. She has since often quoted from Tolkien’s works. Why Tolkien? For her culture minister, Gennaro Sangiuliano, his writings reflect “opposition to the most controversial and dehumanising aspects of modern times”.