When Kamala Harris replaced Joe Biden at the top of America’s Democratic ticket in July, the party’s despair over this year’s presidential election gave way to jubilation. Her campaign has raised $540m since launching; last week’s Democratic National Convention was a raucous coronation. Ms Harris has been reluctant to slow the momentum down: her speeches focus on broad values rather than nitty-gritty talking-points, and so far she has avoided the press. But on Thursday night Ms Harris and Tim Walz, her running-mate, sit down for their first joint interview—with Dana Bash, of CNN.

As vice-president, Ms Harris had a reputation as unsteady, inauthentic and gaffe-prone. To a large extent that was a result of her performance in interviews, in which she could be awkward and prickly. But on the campaign trail, the old Ms Harris is gone, replaced by a self-assured and polished politician. Her supporters will be hoping her reinvention holds when she meets the press.

Foreign ministers of the EU’s 27 member states will meet in Brussels on Thursday, as the continent’s long summer break comes to an end. The main crises the diplomats have to contend with—notably in Ukraine and Gaza—are much as they were at their last meeting in July. The confab was due to be held in Budapest but was moved after the Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orban, visited Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, in Moscow in July.

Expect a packed autumn. A report by Mario Draghi, a former prime minister of Italy, on the EU ’s economic policy is due in September. A new batch of European commissioners will be unveiled soon, including supremos for trade, regulating big tech and industrial policy—all of whom will have to be grilled by the European Parliament. And the continent will hold its breath in early November as America decides whether to send Donald Trump back to the White House.

The Indian government prides itself on its “multi-aligned” foreign and defence policy. Its leaders have fiercely resisted Western pressures to distance their country from Russia, its biggest arms supplier. But India’s military ties with the West have steadily deepened all the same, especially since a deadly clash on its Himalayan border with China in 2020. The latest sign of this is India launching its first-ever multinational air combat drills this month.

The second phase of the Tarang Shakti drills (meaning “power of waves”) began on Thursday. The exercises will run for a little over two weeks in the northern city of Jodhpur, after the first phase in the country’s south earlier in August. They involve 67 military aircraft from ten countries, including America, Britain, Australia, France, Germany, Spain and Greece. China will not attend, even as an observer. Indian officials say that Russia and Israel were also invited, but are tied up with ongoing wars.

Robot priests. Farewell cards that dissolve in water “along with your sadness”. A shuttle that shoots the ashes of your loved ones into orbit. These are just some of the innovations that companies have showcased at Endex, Japan’s largest expo for the funeral industry, which runs in Tokyo until Thursday.

Demographic and cultural changes have brought an explosion of interest in the “end of life” business in Japan. More people live alone, have fewer kids to care for them, and feel less tied to traditional customs—such as maintaining the family grave. In the year to April 2023 over 151,000 tombs were dismantled because younger generations were abandoning them and opting for city-friendly alternatives. Similar trends can be spotted elsewhere in the world. London has been suffering from such a shortage of graves that it is reusing old ones. Outer space might not be the resting place of choice for now—but funerals have a long way to go.

As every pub quizmaster knows, the world’s largest desert is not the Sahara. It is Antarctica. The polar continent gets almost no rain—and is home to a host of unique and hardy creatures, whose ancestors survived several ice ages. Visitors from warmer locations, including small animals like earthworms and mites, have been known to hitch rides on great rafts of kelp.

But research published in Global Change Biology shows that invasive species may also hitch rides on another vessel: plastic debris, By modelling the drift of millions of virtual particles, scientists found that objects can float to Antarctica from South America, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand—not just (relatively) nearby sub-Antarctic islands, as was previously thought. Beyond trashing the pristine landscape, the invaders could threaten Antarctica’s ecosystem. Harsh conditions have hitherto stymied the growth of invasive colonies. However, warming waters, as a result of climate change, could aid the arrival—and survival—of newcomers.