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Chinese aerospace company LandSpace successfully recovered the first stage of a rocket on land for the first time on Wednesday, marking a major step toward reusable rockets. Reusability is crucial in the growing space race because it can dramatically reduce the cost of putting satellites into orbit. Until now, only two private companies — Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin — had successfully recovered and landed rocket boosters. SpaceX, in fact, now launches and lands reused boosters from its Falcon 9 rocket almost every day. China still trails the US in launch capacity and in the number of payloads – equipment or personnel for missions – it can send into orbit. But reusable rockets could help China narrow that gap. LandSpace plans to fly its recovered booster within the next six months.
At least five grain ships were struck near two Russian ports in the Black Sea earlier this week as Ukraine and Russia intensified attacks on each other’s exports. In July, Moscow began targeting key Ukrainian grain terminals, cutting its export capacity by roughly a third, and driving up the price of grain. Together, the two countries supply around 30% of the world’s wheat. Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine triggered the sharpest surge in worldwide food prices on record. But today;s comes at an already difficult moment for the global food supply: the cost of fertilizer, transported via the Strait of Hormuz, has risen since the start of the Iran war; heat waves in Europe are decimating crop yields; and a developing El Niño weather pattern threatens both extreme heat and excessive rainfall. Countries in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia will bear the brunt of the reduced capacity because they cannot afford to import more expensive grains.
Denmark this week introduced an emergency law to reallocate power grid resources amid surging demand from data centers. Under the previous first-come, first-serve system, data centers competed for grid access alongside other projects and infrastructure. The new law allows the energy ministry to set priorities for grid access, and places data centers at the bottom of the list. Denmark and its Nordic neighbors have attracted data center development because of their cool climates and abundant energy resources, but the boom is threatening to strain the grid. Earlier in March, Denmark’s state-owned grid operator halted new data center connections, with roughly 14 GW of projects waiting to come online — enough to nearly triple the country’s current electricity consumption. Denmark’s move could offer a blueprint for other European countries grappling with an explosion in data center power demand.
If Democrats want to take control of the Senate in November, winning Michigan is a must. Progressive candidate Abdul El-Sayed, who pulled off a razor-thin victory in last month’s primary, will face Republican Mike Rogers, and the race is widely considered a toss-up. A big risk for El-Sayed: a crucial bloc within the state’s Democratic electorate — Black voters — isn’t sold on him.
El-Sayed’s victory over a well-funded, establishment-backed rival bolstered the argument from progressives and democratic socialists that they can mobilize voters. El-Sayed is not a democratic socialist, though he has drawn support from Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) members. However, Michigan’s Black Democrats largely backed his opponent, Rep. Haley Stevens. One survey found that 69% of Black Democratic voters supported Stevens, compared with 37% for El-Sayed. In a general election this close, El-Sayed will need stronger Black turnout in November to prevail.
This dynamic extends beyond Michigan. Zohran Mamdani, the New York City mayor whose victory last year energized progressives, garnered just 26% support among Black voters in majority-Black precincts, compared with 59% for his opponent, former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. Earlier this month in Missouri, Rep. Wesley Bell, a moderate backed by the Congressional Black Caucus, easily fended off a primary challenge from democratic socialist and former Rep. Cori Bush in a St. Louis district with a plurality of Black voters. And last week in Wisconsin, Democratic centrist David Crowley defeated democratic socialist Francesca Hong in the gubernatorial primary, with strong support from older Black voters.
Polls also don’t show much enthusiasm among Black voters. At the national level, surveys show that most Black voters simply don’t know what to make of the DSA.
Taken together, these trends point to a potential challenge for the Democratic Party’s progressive and democratic socialist wing as it gains influence this year: Black voters, a crucial Democratic constituency, are not necessarily moving with it.
A long-standing model of Black politics. Economic strain and affordability are the top concerns for Black voters today, as they are for much of the electorate — but those concerns are not new. Black household wealth, for example, still trails far behind that of white households, despite major gains in civil and political rights.
For decades, many Black Americans viewed the Democratic Party as an avenue for economic and political empowerment. Jesse Jackson’s historic presidential campaigns in the 1980s brought millions of new Black voters into Democratic politics, linking the civil rights movement’s push for political power to a message of economic advancement. That model still resonates with many Black voters, particularly older ones, who also post some of the highest voter turnout rates in the country.
That history also helps explain why many Black voters tend to favor establishment Democrats. For voters who see the party as an institution through which Black Americans have built political power, candidates who openly challenge that institution can be a tougher sell.
A famous example came in 2020, when Rep. James Clyburn of South Carolina, widely seen as a kingmaker in Democratic politics, rallied Black voters behind Joe Biden just before the state’s primary. His support revived Biden’s struggling campaign and helped him overtake Sen. Bernie Sanders.
Progressives can also struggle with how they engage Black voters, according to Basil Smikle, a Democratic strategist and former executive director of the New York State Democratic Party. “The DSA and progressives tend to flatten the Black vote,” he says. “They often privilege class over race, instead of really discussing how important the intersection of that is.”
El-Sayed, like many progressives, has made affordability and the cost of living central to his campaign. But Smikle argues that the broader progressive movement risks treating Black voters as a uniformly working-class constituency, when many are also looking for policies that create opportunities to build wealth and move up the economic ladder.
But the Democratic establishment has faced its own disconnect with Black voters. In his 2024 victory, President Donald Trump nearly doubled his share of support among Black voters from 8% in 2020 to 15% in 2024. Melik Abdul, a Republican strategist, attributes some of that shift to frustration with Democrats and a sense that economic gains weren’t translating into broader prosperity. Democrats touted a strong stock market, cooling inflation, and falling unemployment on the campaign trail, but those indicators didn’t align with voters’ lived experiences.
“That 15% wasn’t because people were so in love with Donald Trump,” Abdul says. “There are still pockets of us who aren’t [doing well]. That concern will be the case in every single election.”
The shift was especially pronounced among younger Black men, who may not view empowerment through Democratic politics in the same way as older generations. Still, they represent a relatively small slice of the Democratic coalition: 83% of Black voters backed Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024, compared with 43% of white voters.
For now, Black voters remain a loyal Democratic constituency, and progressives need that support while candidates like El-Sayed face competitive elections. So far, many appear unconvinced. One exception is worth watching: On Tuesday, Angie Nixon, a democratic socialist state lawmaker with limited campaign funding, defeated establishment-backed Alex Vindman in a Florida Senate primary after organizing Black voters in rural, often overlooked parts of northern Florida. If the movement wants a road map to Black voters, Nixon’s approach might offer one.
The milestone brings warnings of a looming fiscal crisis, with national debt more than doubling in the last decade: when Donald Trump first entered office in 2017, debt stood at $19.95 trillion. During his first term, debt rose by $7.9 trillion, more than half of which came during his last nine months facing Covid. His second term has already added another $3.8 trillion to national debt. Under Joe Biden, debt increased by $8.4 trillion, with Covid spending heavily contributing.
When eager minds need a weekend pass to an unforgettable museum, we are there.
Campaigning for Nigeria’s January 2027 presidential election officially kicks off today, and President Bola Tinubu faces strong headwinds in his bid for a second term. His All Progressives Congress has governed Africa’s most populous country for more than a decade, but rising insecurity and frustration that Tinubu’s pro-business reforms have not translated into better living standards have created an opening for the opposition. Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar and businessman Peter Obi are both looking to capitalize on that discontent and challenge the incumbent.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky finds himself between a rock and a hard place after recently fired Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov publicly called for new elections on Tuesday. Zelensky declared martial law shortly after the war began, which bans elections for security reasons. Critics have said that Zelensky – now in his seventh year in office – has been in power for too long. Fedorov’s popularity gives his call extra sting: after Zelensky removed him as defense minister, Ukrainians took to the streets to protest his dismissal. Fedorov is closely linked to Ukraine’s battlefield drone prowess, and at just 35 years old, his rising political profile could make him a formidable challenger to Zelensky if, and when, Ukrainians return to the polls. Zelensky is unlikely to call elections in response to Fedorov alone, but if demands for a vote continue to grow, he may find them harder to ignore.
As the war in Iran drags on, Saudi Arabia and the UAE are looking farther afield for safe places to store oil. The two Gulf states have urged Japan to expand storage capacity tenfold from about 8 million barrels, and are reportedly holding similar talks with South Korea. Right now, much of the Gulf’s oil is stored locally, leaving exporters vulnerable to regional conflict and the ongoing closure of the Strait of Hormuz. Although Saudi Arabia and the UAE both have overland pipelines that bypass the strait and allow some exports to continue, these cannot meet demand from Asia. Before the war began, around 80% of the oil traveling via the strait was bound for Asia. While discussions are ongoing, Japan has a long history of storing foreign-owned oil after domestic oil consumption declined in the 2000s, leaving storage facilities with spare capacity to lease to other producers.
Iran is reportedly considering strikes on US military targets in Europe if Washington attacks Iranian infrastructure, according to the Financial Times. Iran has missiles capable of reaching parts of southern and southeastern Europe and is apparently eyeing targets in Bulgaria and Cyprus. Bulgaria began allowing the US to use its Bezmer Air Base to support operations against Iran last month, while Cyprus reported in March that an Iranian-made drone struck a British base. An attack in Europe would mark a major escalation. However, experts say Iran’s medium-range missiles, including its Shahab series, could struggle to inflict damage at those distances, suggesting that Tehran aims to deter Washington more than signal an imminent attack. Last month, President Donald Trump threatened to destroy Iranian infrastructure every time Iran attacks a ship in the Strait of Hormuz. For now, Tehran seems to be betting that threats to widen the war will discourage Washington from escalating it.
Washington and Ottawa are down to the wire with talks to reach an agreement by 12:01 a.m. Wednesday, when President Donald Trump has threatened to impose 50% tariffs on over $20 billion of Canadian goods. The proposed tariffs would hit Canadian exports to the US — everything from hockey sticks to paper — in retaliation for Canadian tariffs on US automobiles and bans by most of the provinces on the sale of US alcohol. As a result, Prime Minister Mark Carney will need support from individual provinces for any concessions. The dispute is just the next stage in an escalating trade war between the two neighbors: Canada initially imposed tariffs on US goods in response to tariffs on sectors including steel and lumber.
A landmark trial against Meta over the alleged harm social media causes children kicks off today, with attorneys general from California, Colorado, Kentucky, and New Jersey leading a group of 29 states seeking $200 billion in damages. The states allege that Meta knowingly and deliberately designed its features to be addictive and collected data on children under 13 without parental consent. Meta’s lawyers are expected to argue that the company has made a huge effort to protect children online, and that the AGs can’t prove that people were misled. Kentucky AG Russell Coleman called the trial the largest consumer protection lawsuit in US history. And Meta is not alone: other social media companies, including Snapchat, TikTok parent ByteDance, and YouTube parent Alphabet, also face similar cases in what states are calling social media’s “Big Tobacco” moment.
Japan and Australia signed an agreement on Tuesday that will allow Japan to test hypersonic missiles on Australian firing ranges, the latest sign of Japan’s push to expand its military capabilities. In a separate announcement, Australia said both countries agreed to jointly develop a prototype laser weapon. The two countries have deepened defense ties in recent months, including a new security agreement signed in May. Japan has rapidly boosted military spending under Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, whose government has pushed defense spending to 2% of GDP — a level not seen in Japan’s postwar WWII era, when the country adopted a pacifist stance. Tokyo has pointed to China’s growing military power and increasingly assertive posture in the Indo-Pacific as key reasons for the buildup. The partnership with Australia is also part of a broader effort by Japan to build a network of security ties beyond its longtime alliance with the United States.
On Monday, public health officials said the virus had killed 2,325 people, exceeding the death toll of every previous Ebola outbreak in the country. For weeks, the outbreak has also spread faster than any earlier outbreak. And the full toll may be even higher: WHO officials recently said the outbreak had begun months before authorities declared it in May.
Over the weekend, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi marked his country’s Independence Day by announcing the creation of a “massive” volunteer civil defense force. Calling India’s existing civil defense capacity “outdated,” Modi said the country of 1.4 billion people must protect the new targets of modern warfare, including refineries, the banking sector, or data centers – reflecting a growing view that infrastructure and the internet have become the new front lines of war.
Taiwan is preparing for the same reality. Last week, its government deliberately slowed mobile internet during its annual military exercises, simulating what civilians could face if China attacked communications systems. It marked the first time Taiwan involved civilians in such a drill, taking a page from Ukraine, where Russia has repeatedly targeted communications infrastructure since the full-scale invasion in 2022.
From Europe to Asia, governments increasingly believe that preparing for war cannot be left to soldiers alone. Civilians need to know what to do when the internet goes down, electricity grids are knocked out, hospitals fill up, or people need to evacuate. Societies also need to know how to withstand cyberattacks and disinformation campaigns.
The concept goes by different names, such as “total defense” in Sweden, “comprehensive security” in Finland and “whole-of-society defense resilience” in Taiwan. But the principle is the same: citizens need to be prepared and resilient in times of conflict — and that conflict could come sooner rather than later.
Europe on edge. Since the war in Ukraine began, experts say Russia has expanded its so-called “shadow war” against Europe – with drones entering European airspace, suspected cyberattacks on infrastructure and sabotage of power grids and undersea cables. In response, many northern European countries are revving up their civilian defense.
Sweden is spending roughly $1.7 billion over the next two years on measures such as medical stockpiles, protective shelters, food and drinking water security, and preparedness for municipalities and regional governments. Finland, which neighbors Russia, has long tasked its government, businesses, and civil society organizations with the responsibility of keeping society functioning in the event of a war, but is now expanding that approach to prepare for other “disruptions and crises,” such as infrastructure sabotage or cyberattacks.
Countries closest to Russia are also preparing to work together in the event a crisis spills over their borders. In March, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Estonia, Poland, and others agreed to coordinate evacuation routes and border crossings, transportation capacity, and places to house displaced populations. The European Commission wants to adapt elements of the Nordic model across the EU but faces resistance, in part because populations in southern and western European nations are farther from a potential “front line” with Russia and worry less about its threat.
Anxiety in Asia. Growing aggression and “gray zone tactics,” including cyberattacks and naval exercises in disputed waters by China, as well as increased ballistic missile tests and naval buildup by North Korea, are driving a similar effort across Asia. In 2024, Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te established a “whole-of-society” defense effort that focuses on training civilians, stockpiling and distributing critical supplies, protecting energy and infrastructure, and preparing hospitals, social services and shelters.
South Korea has long included civilians in its defense planning. It has maintained a Civil Defense Corps since the Korean War, mainly composed of men who have completed mandatory military service. Seoul recently stepped up those preparations as tensions with North Korea have risen, resuming nationwide civil defense and military exercises in 2023 after a five-year pause and adding new scenarios to prepare for, including GPS disruptions and cyberattacks.
Other Asian countries are following suit. In May, Singapore launched the Volunteer Defense Force, with plans to create 400 new civilian positions and expand its pool of military reservists and civilian volunteers in the next few years. In 2025, the Philippines held a joint exercise involving military and civilian participants while tensions with Beijing intensified in the South China Sea.
A recipe for deterrence. Together, these efforts reflect a broader shift in national defense. For decades after the Cold War, most Western countries treated security as the responsibility of their armed forces. But Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, rising tensions with China and North Korea, coupled with the rise of cyberwarfare, drones, sabotage and disinformation campaigns, has changed the game.
The rise of the citizen soldier is therefore less about putting civilians in uniform than preparing societies for disruption. And preparedness itself can be a deterrent: the harder a society is to disrupt, the less attractive a target it becomes.
World leaders pretend to read just like the rest of us. What’s on Vladimir Putin’s nighttable? How about Trump’s, Modi’s, Lula’s, or Merz’s?
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In the Pacific Northwest, acoustic monitoring is helping detect endangered southern resident orcas and alert nearby vessels in real time. By combining underwater sensors, edge computing, and AI, Microsoft and conservation partners are helping ships reduce noise and collision risks in critical feeding areas. The initiative offers a glimpse of how emerging technologies can support biodiversity conservation while balancing environmental and commercial interests.
Read the full story here.
In his latest Quick Take, Ian Bremmer asks whether the United States should be pushing countries to choose between American and Chinese technology as the AI race accelerates.
Ian looks at Pax Silica, a proposed US initiative aimed to strengthen supply chains for AI, semiconductors and critical minerals. He says the initiative is “good” and “overdue,” but questions whether tying it to a broader choice between the US and China is the right strategy.
Ian warns that many governments are already wary of becoming too dependent on the United States, while the future of AI remains highly uncertain. “Do you want to make a bet specifically on President Trump’s policies when you know that they might not have staying power?” he asks.
Ultimately, Ian questions whether AI should be treated as a zero-sum technology at all. Given how quickly AI is evolving and its potential impact on the economy, national security and society, he argues that greater global coordination will be necessary to manage its risks and opportunities.
