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Highlights

Gold bars fraudulently stamped with the logos of major refineries are being inserted into the global market to launder smuggled or illegal gold, refining and banking executives tell Reuters. The fakes are hard to detect, making them an ideal fund-runner for narcotics dealers or warlords. It is not clear who is making the bars found so far, but executives and bankers think most originate in China.

Evangelical leader and prominent Donald Trump backer Jerry Falwell Jr personally approved real estate transactions by his nonprofit Christian university that helped his personal fitness trainer obtain valuable university property, according to real estate records, internal university emails and interviews. Falwell, one of the most influential right-wing Christian leaders in the United States, has been buffeted by disclosures about his private dealings over the last year and a half. Read our latest exclusive

China has denied a request for a U.S. Navy warship to visit the Chinese port city of Qingdao in recent days, a U.S. defense official told Reuters on Tuesday, at a time of tense ties between the world’s two largest economies. This marks at least the second time China has denied a request by the United States this month, having earlier rejected a request for two U.S. Navy ships to visit Hong Kong, as the political crisis in the former British colony deepened.

SpaceX test-launched an early prototype of the company’s Mars rocket on Tuesday, rattling the nerves of people living near the Texas site and clearing another key hurdle in billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk’s interplanetary ambitions. The prototype, dubbed Starhopper, slowly rose about 500 feet off its launch pad in Brownsville and propelled itself some 650 feet eastward onto an adjacent landing platform, completing a seemingly successful low-altitude test of SpaceX’s next-generation Raptor engine.

World

'Now or never' - Hong Kong protesters say they have nothing to lose. Exasperated with the government’s unflinching attitude to escalating civil unrest, Jason Tse quit his job in Australia and jumped on a plane to join what he believes is a do-or-die fight for Hong Kong’s future. “If we don’t succeed now, our freedom of speech, our human rights, all will be gone. We need to persist."

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson will limit parliament’s opportunity to derail his Brexit plans by announcing his new legislative agenda on Oct. 14 - his boldest move yet in the push to take the country out of the European Union on Oct. 31. That would effectively shut parliament from mid-September for around a month and reduces the parliamentary time in which lawmakers could try to block a no-deal Brexit.

The Taliban said they were close to an agreement with U.S. officials on a deal that would see U.S. forces withdraw from Afghanistan in exchange for a Taliban promise the country would not become a haven for international militants. Negotiations over how to end the 18-year war in Afghanistan have been held in Qatar’s capital, Doha, since late last year. The ninth round of talks began last week.

Ground shifts in Indonesia's economy as conservative Islam takes root. Arie Untung, a former video jockey for the Indonesian offshoot of MTV, says he used to drink alcohol regularly and - back then - was a jeans-clad, spiky-haired rocker who was only a nominal Muslim. But he says his religious fervor was rekindled by online preachers promoting more conservative interpretations of Islam, which are bringing profound changes in its economy.