America Braces for Post-Vote Violence

This race is getting tighter. Several polls out over the weekend showed narrow Joe Biden leads or Donald Trump slightly ahead in key states. Democrats are concerned about Pennsylvania, considered the tipping point state for the whole race. And yet, Biden has far more paths to 270 electoral votes and the OZY-0ptimus exclusive forecast gives him an 88 percent chance of victory. Looking for a canary in the coal mine? Erie County, Pennsylvania, as OZY reports, has gone with the winner in seven straight Keystone State elections. Meanwhile, the Texas Supreme Court has rejected a Republican plea to throw out nearly 127,000 votes cast in drive-through locations.

2. Warning Signs

Law enforcement officers across the country are preparing for violence and intimidation at the polls, and many businesses are boarding up windows in anticipation of unrest tied to Tuesday’s vote. There are growing signs of tension that could spill over at the polls: from pro-Trump motorists mobbing a Biden campaign bus in Texas to police using pepper spray on Black protesters, including children, who had blocked traffic en route to an early vote location in North Carolina. Are you worried about post-election violence? Vote on Twitter.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus is quarantining after the Ethiopian public health official came in contact with a person who has tested positive for COVID-19, at a time the U.K. has warned that it might extend its month-long lockdown beyond early December. Virus cases are peaking in Russia too. (Sources: Reuters, Nikkei)

2. My Way or the Huawei

That’s what the Chinese telecommunications giant has decided, amid growing Western pushback over security concerns. Huawei plans to set up a chip plant in Shanghai to cut its dependence on American technology in a bid to avoid U.S. sanctions and secure its dominance. (Source: FT)

3. Storm Coming: ETA Tuesday

This one’s announcing its arrival — though its name. Tropical storm Eta, the 28th named storm of this year’s Atlantic season, has an expected time of arrival of Tuesday in Nicaragua and Honduras. Meanwhile in the Philippines, the year’s strongest storm, Typhoon Goni, killed at least 10 people Sunday. (Sources: ABC, CNN) 

Knock before entering, or you might get eaten. Australian scientists have discovered a giant, 1,690-foot coral tower that’s taller than the Empire State Building and has a thriving community of aquatic residents at a time climate change is killing most coral reefs.   

Don’t let those impish dimples deceive you: In the 2018 blockbuster Raazi, they helped the Indian spy played by 27-year-old Bhatt bowl over the son of a top Pakistani general before the 1971 war that led to the creation of Bangladesh. Married into the general’s family, Bhatt’s character Sehmat uses her guile and karate skills to transmit military secrets. Among India’s finest young actresses, Bhatt might be cinema’s next super spy.

2. Pilar Gamboa

This 40-year-old Argentine actress can pull off six different characters in the same film. But the best among them is when she plays a mute spy who infiltrates Westminster in 2018’s critically acclaimed La Flor — even though her performance is meant as a spoof of the spy genre. Daniel Craig’s chiseled jawline has nothing on hers.

3. Pearl Thusi

The 32-year-old South African actress was teased as a child for having fairer skin than her siblings. But she can play characters of every shade — often in the same role. As Queen Sono in this year’s eponymous spy thriller (Netflix’s first African production), she’s an undercover agent racing across the continent while also dealing with the mysterious death of her mother. It’s a theme Thusi — who lost her own mother as a teenager — can relate to. She’s a straight shooter both on the screen and off, as trolls who’ve targeted her know. Stay out of her way.

Think you know all about James Bond? Here’s a test. What animal is a key character in multiple Bond films? 

Growing up, Brigitha Faustin’s parents — like many Tanzanian families — couldn’t afford cooking oil. Faustin has turned that childhood challenge into business brilliance, as the founder of one of Africa’s indigenous sunflower oil processing firms, OBRI Tanzania. She’s partnering with smallholder farmers — 90 percent of whom are women — to churn out affordable cooking oil while paying farmers four times what they otherwise get. Read more on OZY.

2. Stunning Slum Strains

In the former capital city of Dar es Salaam, the densely populated Tandale slum was once notorious for robberies and prostitution. Now it’s better known as the birthplace of a new street genre of music, singeli, that draws on more traditional Swahili rhythms but gets you grooving with pulsating beats and verses about slum life. Try this song. And read more on OZY.

3. Secret Pork Chops

Hush!! This one’s ideal for the undercover agents we’ve introduced today. Head to the back of the restaurant kitchen, pick your portion size and place your order. It could take an hour, but kitimoto is worth the wait. Pork has sparked religious riots in Tanzania in the past, so you want to be careful. But hopefully you’ve picked up some tips from Bhatt, Gamboa and Thusi by now. Read more on OZY.

How do youproduce lumber without chopping trees? Trust the Japanese to find an answer. The country's Kitayama region has mastered a 14th-century bonsai forestry technique called daisugi, allowing eachcedar tree to sprout whole new trees that shoot up perfectly straight from a platform, even as you prune the upper branches.

2. Cloud Forests, Peru

Here trees grow out of clouds — or so it appears. Machu Picchu is the majestic culmination of the Inca Trail, but the Andean cloud forests you’ll pass on the way are no less magical. These forests literally eat and drink mist from the clouds and use that nutrition to support a stunning range of hummingbirds, orchids and more.

3. Crooked Forest, Poland

The trees are shaped like inverted question marks — which is appropriate becauseno one quite knows how they got to be that way. Were they shaped using some tool in the 1930s? Did they get their shape because World War II tanks rammed into them? Or, to turn the question on its head, did the trees stop Germany's advance in the war? Perhaps it’s time to call in Queen Sono.

4. Avenue of the Baobabs, Madagascar

These 800-year-old giants arenearly 100 feet tall and line a red dirt road in western Madagascar. Theircanopies look like roots — and if you believe in legends, that's no coincidence. The devil, the story goes, yanked the trees out of the ground many centuries ago and replanted them upside down.