Much of Italy will be placed under a strict lockdown as of Friday in the most drastic steps the country has taken to fight the coronavirus since it led the world into lockdown nearly eight months ago.
The big picture: Italy managed to keep the spread of the virus largely under control for months after a brutal first wave. But like much of Europe, it's currently recording unprecedented daily case counts and scrambling to avoid a return to overcrowded hospitals and climbing death tolls in the coming weeks.
While Joe Biden and Donald Trump were giving their initial election night reactions, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was ordering ministers from his Likud party to refrain from any public statements on the vote, two ministers tell me.
Why it matters: Netanyahu has closer relations with Trump than any other world leader, but he doesn't want to give even the slightest impression that he's taking sides before the results are final, Israeli officials told me.
Jack Ma is brilliant. He's innovative. He's one of the world's richest men, and even has a lovely singing voice.
Driving the news: He also made one of the weightiest unforced errors in the history of global business, scuttling what was expected to be a $35 billion IPO for Chinese financial services company Ant Group.
China's suspension of Ant Group’s $35 billion IPO is "just the beginning of a renewed campaign by China to rein in the fintech empire controlled by Jack Ma," Bloomberg reported Tuesday.
Details: "Authorities are now setting their sights on Ant’s biggest source of revenue: its credit platforms that funnel loans from banks and other financial institutions to millions of consumers across China," the article noted, citing unnamed sources.
Here's why Ant Group's IPO was pulled on Tuesday: It is one of the most systemically important financial institutions in the world, and at the moment it's barely regulated.
The big picture: Ant provides the technology that powers much of the Chinese economy, from borrowing to saving to investments to insurance. A failure of its systems could have devastating consequences for hundreds of millions of people.
China is the biggest business story on Election Day in America.
What's happening: The country abruptly pulled the plug on Ant Group's IPO, which was expected to happen Thursday and be the biggest public offering ever.
Twenty years after astronauts moved in full time, the International Space Station is nearing its end, opening up a new geopolitical landscape above Earth.
Why it matters: The end of the program will force nations collaborating on the station, along with China and others new to the human spaceflight scene, to recalibrate. They could also turn their attention to cooperating — or competing — on the Moon instead.
Poland's conservative government has delayed the implementation of a ruling that would ban abortion in nearly all cases after two weeks of protests across the country.
Why it matters: The constitutional court ruling would make abortion illegal except in cases of rape, incest or a risk to the life of the mother. The motion sparked daily protests, with tens of thousands marching through major cities.
Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf said on Tuesday there is no evidence so far that a “foreign actor” compromised votes in the 2020 election, Reuters reports.
Why it matters: Since Russians interfered with the 2016 election and hacked the emails of Democratic officials, the country has been antsy about a potential repeat in an already closely contested election.
The Ant Financial IPO will not go forward as planned Thursday, as Chinese regulators cracked down on what would have been the largest public offering of all time.
Why it matters: Jack Ma, the founder of the Chinese payments giant, gave a major speech at the end of October railing against financial regulation both in China and in the West. That speech resulted in a dressing-down from Chinese authorities — and the end of Ma's dreams that Ant would be able to go public.
Schools in Vienna will remain closed and residents are being urged to remain home as authorities search for other possible shooters from Monday's terrorist attack that left four people dead, including the suspect, officials said.
The big picture: Three people were confirmed killed and 15 others injured in the shooting that spanned six different locations in Vienna, Austrian authorities said on Tuesday morning. A suspect was also killed by officers at the scene.
