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Campaign finale, Moldova election and Quincy Jones bows out

 
Today's politics story

2024 race ends with swing state barnstorming

What happened
Kamala Harris and Donald Trump spent the final weekend of the 2024 campaign holding rallies in mostly battleground states, though Trump visited Democratic-leaning Virginia and New Mexico while Harris stopped in New York City to appear on "Saturday Night Live." More than 77 million people have already voted.

Who said what
Trump and Harris have both been "racing through rallies and impromptu appearances in the battleground states," The New York Times said, but "in message and demeanor" their closing events "could not have been more different." Trump, 78, "appeared particularly tired" yesterday morning, and "his voice was hoarse and his pace was slow as he delivered remarks marked by grievances and the occasional vulgarity," saying at one point that things were so great at the end of his term, "I shouldn't have left, I mean, honestly."

Harris, 60, "has mostly stopped mentioning Trump," The Associated Press said. "She is promising to solve problems and seek consensus, while sounding an almost exclusively optimistic tone reminiscent of her campaign's opening days" in July. "We have momentum. It is on our side," she said at a rally in East Lansing, Michigan, last night. "Can you feel it?"

Watching the two candidates yesterday, "it could feel at times" like "the bottom is falling out" for Trump, Adam Wren said at Politico. But the fact that he's "still in a margin-of-error election" after his "week of unadulterated indulgences on the trail" shows his remarkable political "durability."

What next?
Harris holds events today in Pittsburgh and Allentown before ending the campaign with a late-night Philadelphia rally featuring Lady Gaga and Oprah Winfrey. Trump will visit North Carolina and Pennsylvania before closing the campaign in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Most polls continue to show the race a dead heat, though some outliers — like a well-regarded Des Moines Register poll that found Harris leading by 3 percentage points in Iowa — suggested the possibility that most polls may be weighing their samples wrong in either direction or missing some other dynamic.

 
 
Today's INTERNATIONAL story

Moldova's pro-West president wins 2nd term

What happened
Moldova's president, Maia Sandu, won a second term yesterday. Sandu, a 52-year-old former World Bank adviser who is pushing her ex-Soviet satellite country to join the European Union, beat former prosecutor Alexandr Stoianoglo 55% to 45% in a second round of voting.

Who said what
"Moldova, you are victorious!" Sandu said early Monday. "Today, dear Moldovans, you have given a lesson in democracy, worthy of being written in history books. Today, you have saved Moldova!" As with the first round, she said Russia had aggressively meddled during the campaign to swing power to Stoianoglo, who heads a traditionally pro-Moscow party. Russia denied interfering. Georgia, another ex-Soviet country seeking EU membership, reelected a Russia-friendly prime minister last week, in an election its president called a "Russian special operation."

"It takes a rare kind of strength to overcome the challenges you've faced in this election," European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told Sandu on X. "I'm glad to continue working with you towards a European future for Moldova and its people." Moldova, "sandwiched between Ukraine and Romania," has "seesawed between East and West since it gained independence in 1991," The New York Times said.

What next?
Sandu's victory "delivered a major lift to the West's hopes of loosening Moscow's grip on former Soviet territories," the Times said. But Stoianoglo's "dominance across swathes of the country," Reuters said, suggested Sandu's party "faces a stiff challenge at key parliamentary elections next summer."

 
 
Today's CULTURE Story

Quincy Jones, music icon, is dead at 91

What happened
Quincy Jones, a towering figure in music who produced hit albums for Michael Jackson and Frank Sinatra, died last night at his home in Los Angeles, his publicist said early this morning. He was 91, and no cause of death was given.

Who said what
Jones' death is "an incredible loss," his family said in a statement, but "we celebrate the great life that he lived and know there will never be another like him." He was "one of the most powerful forces in American popular music for more than half a century," The New York Times said, starting as a trumpet player then branching out to all corners of recorded music. Jones won 28 Grammys, putting him behind only Beyoncé and Georg Solti.

"Best known as the architect of Michael Jackson's 'Thriller' and the man who made stars collide for 1985's 'We Are the World,'" USA Today said, Jones "appears as a producer, composer, conductor, arranger or performer on more than 400 albums" by a who's who of jazz and pop artists. For decades, "it was unlikely to find a music lover who did not own at least one record with his name on it," The Associated Press said, and his "list of his honors and awards fills 18 pages in his 2001 autobiography."

Jones was born on the South Side of Chicago before his father moved the family to Bremerton, Washington. There, Jones said, he was moved to leave a life of petty crime for music when he discovered a piano in a recreation center he broke into to steal food.

What next?
Jones was married three times and leaves behind seven children, including the actress Rashida Jones.

 
 

It's not all bad

For the last 56 years, six friends from South Yorkshire, England, have met nearly every Thursday for a pint at a local pub. The pals calculate that since starting their tradition in 1968, only about two dozen gatherings were canceled when no one was available. Their talks have gone from "soccer and sex" to "prostates and pensions," group member Peter Thirlwall joked to the BBC, but one thing has remained the same: their tight bond.

 
 
Under the radar

The S2 meteorite, which hit Earth approximately 3.26 billion years ago, "likely had significant effects on early life," said a study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The effects included massive destruction along with stimulation of life on Earth. The meteorite "triggered a massive tsunami that would have churned the ocean floor with debris, flushing into coastal regions," Space.com said.

S2 initiated several life-giving processes. "The impact released essential nutrients, such as phosphorus, on a global scale," said study lead author Nadja Drabon, an early Earth geologist and assistant professor at Harvard's Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, to CNN. Heat from the impact boiled off the topmost layer of the ocean while also heating the atmosphere, she said. "Overall, this is very good news for the evolution of early life on Earth, as impacts would have been much more frequent during the early stages of life's evolution than they are today." While scientists posit that life did exist prior to this point, "no complex life had formed yet, and only single-celled life was present in the form of bacteria and archaea."

The aftermath of S2 included "sharp spikes in populations of unicellular organisms that feed off the elements phosphorus and iron," which were "likely stirred up from the deep ocean into shallow waters," said Harvard University. Because of this iron metabolization, bacteria flourished, and "this shift toward iron-favoring bacteria, however short-lived, is a key puzzle piece depicting early life on Earth."

 
 
On this day

November 4, 2008

Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) was elected the 44th president of the United States, becoming the first Black person to hold the office; he would serve until 2017. Kamala Harris would become the second Black person elected president, and the first woman, if she defeats Donald Trump in tomorrow's election.

 
 
TODAY'S newspaperS

With Election Day one day away, Donald Trump and Kamala Harris "offer voters a stark choice," The Atlanta Journal-Constitution says on Monday's front page. The "stark contrast" is evident in their closing arguments, where "Harris preaches unity as Trump lashes out," The Washington Post says. As they each "pursue edge on turnout," Trump's "dark pitch gets third airing" in his final run, The Wall Street Journal says. The candidates stand "apart on issues, solutions and demeanor," The Boston Globe says. But the polls show a "photo finish," the Philadelphia Daily News says. The "tightest contest in decades grows tighter at finish," The New York Times says. 

► See the newspaper front pages

 
 
Tall tale

Flight risk

After returning home from a day at Germany's Karlsruhe Zoo, Elina Öfele found a stowaway in her jacket: a bat that escaped from its cave. Öfele and her son had walked through the bat habitat during their visit but she had no idea the little flying mammal hitched a ride in her clothes until he fell to the floor. She put the bat in a box with honey water and a banana, and returned him to the zoo the following day.

 
 

Morning Report was written and edited by Theara Coleman, Nadia Croes, Catherine Garcia, Scott Hocker, Anya Jaremko-Greenwold, Justin Klawans, Devika Rao, Rafi Schwartz and Peter Weber, with illustrations by Stephen Kelly and Julia Wytrazek.

Image credits, from top: Ryan Collerd / AFP via Getty Images; Daniel Mihailescu / AFP via Getty Images; Charley Gallay / Getty Images for Spotify; Illustration by Julia Wytrazek / Getty Images