2: Hunter Biden — perhaps you’ve heard of him! — will plead guilty to two federal charges, and neither of them has anything to do with Ukraine, China, laptops, or any of the other things that Republicans have been hammering him about since 2020. The president’s son will cop to charges of tax evasion and illegal firearms possession, following a five-year probe that began during the Trump presidency.
28.7: Brazilian authorities have taken a megalodon-sized bite out of crime, confiscating a record 28.7 tons of illegally fished shark fins that were destined for delicacy diners in Asia. Investigators said as many as 11,000 sharks were killed in order to harvest the fins. Brazil is one of dozens of countries that ban “shark finning,” in which poachers slice off the fins at sea and discard the dying carcass in open water.
9: For the first time in nine years, Pakistan’s national football team will play against India in India. Home matches between the two are rare, given decades of geopolitical tensions. Neither is a star at football, but the match could pave the way for the first Pakistan-India cricket face-off in India since 2012 at this fall’s ICC Cricket World Cup. That would be a much bigger deal: a smackdown summit featuring two of the sport’s superpowers.
75: Some 75% of Australians polled believe that China will be a military threat to their country over the next two decades. It’s worth wondering whether Australia’s dependence on trade with China — by far its largest commercial partner — makes that outcome more likely, or less.
