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Intelligence for the New World Economy
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The World at a Glance
Updated 6:50pm EDT
1
Houthi rebels claimed new attacks on a Saudi Arabian oil refinery, as the US-Iran war threatened to expand.
2China’s AI firms are mounting new projects aimed at meeting and surpassing top US models’ capabilities.
3The Pentagon is shifting to developing cheap drone swarms as the Iran war taxes the US’ munition stockpiles.
4Chipmaker CXMT overtook Tencent to become China’s most valuable company.
5Reform UK leader Nigel Farage faced a parody candidate in a by-election, adding to the populist party’s woes.
6The US and Iran sparred over who controls the Strait of Hormuz, as traffic through the waterway remained at a trickle.
Democrats eye Republican-held Florida district
Democrats are hoping a potential blue wave will make a Rep. Anna Paulina Luna’s district competitive.
Tech companies mum on Trump executive privilege memo
Top tech companies are staying quiet so far about a new Justice Department memo that signals an executive privilege assertion over a wide swath of his communications with the private sector.
‘At a standstill’: Türkiye’s F-35 buy faces headwinds
A Russian air defense system is still standing in the way of a deal that President Donald Trump a last month.
How Britain’s No. 10 intervened in the AstraZeneca-Bristol merger
The scuttled pharma deal triggered UK government worries.
Balkans’ Trump lobbying heats up
Bosnian Croat leader Dragan Čović has tapped Trump-linked firm Mercury Public Affairs to lobby for his party.
Republican students trust their colleges despite Trump scrutiny, poll finds
Sixty-two percent of Republican students said their college’s leadership mostly acts in students’ best interests, compared with 55% of Democrats and half of independents.
View / There’s always money in the sports team
The fact that Mark Walter found the cash he needs in a professional sports team, and not in his pile of loans and financial instruments, points to a bigger change unfolding in the financial frenzy around sports these days.
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Politics
Talarico touts endorsement from man who accused Paxton of stealing his pen
Joe Joplin left his $1,000 pen in a dish near a courthouse metal detector, after which a security camera captured Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton picking it up and walking away.
Joel Angel Juarez/Reuters
Democrats eye Republican-held Florida district
Democrats are hoping a potential blue wave will make a Rep. Anna Paulina Luna’s district competitive.
Aaron Schwartz/Reuters
Pirro’s special grand jury raises eyebrows among Trump allies
Some officials see the special grand jury move as an obvious ploy to “save her job at all costs,” as one administration official put it.
Kylie Cooper/Reuters
Tech companies mum on Trump executive privilege memo
Top tech companies are staying quiet so far about a new Justice Department memo that signals an executive privilege assertion over a wide swath of his communications with the private sector.
US develops cheaper drones in arms shift
The US has lost upwards of 25% of its Reaper drones since the start of the Iran war.
Trump administration accuses China of dodging tariffs
“It’s big money, but there’s also a very human cost here,” said Peter Navarro, senior counsel for trade and manufacturing.
‘At a standstill’: Türkiye’s F-35 buy faces headwinds
A Russian air defense system is still standing in the way of a deal that President Donald Trump a last month.
Balkans’ Trump lobbying heats up
Bosnian Croat leader Dragan Čović has tapped Trump-linked firm Mercury Public Affairs to lobby for his party.
Republican students trust their colleges despite Trump scrutiny, poll finds
Sixty-two percent of Republican students said their college’s leadership mostly acts in students’ best interests, compared with 55% of Democrats and half of independents.
El-Sayed’s money challenge raises question for Sanders
Bernie Sanders got his guy in Michigan, but he’s going to have to do more if he wants to successfully shepherd Abdul El-Sayed through the general election.
US inflation rises 0.1% in July, easing pressure on Fed
The inflation data, along with a weak July jobs report, bolster the argument for a hold on rates.
Business
‘It’s an unbundling’: ADP’s Maria Black on how AI is changing the workforce
The payroll processor sees technology disrupting low-value tasks but making human judgment more valuable.
Courtesy of ADP/Graph Massara/Semafor
Chipmaker CXMT becomes China’s most valuable company
The changeover occurred after Tencent reported it had doubled its quarterly AI spending.
What the LA Lakers ‘firesale’ says about sports investing
The fact that Mark Walter found the cash he needs in a professional sports team, and not in his pile of loans and financial instruments, points to a bigger change unfolding in the financial frenzy around sports these days.
How Britain’s No. 10 intervened in the AstraZeneca-Bristol merger
The scuttled pharma deal triggered UK government worries.
Reed Hastings on life after Netflix and the coming ‘creative destruction’
The streaming pioneer says we’re underestimating how AI will change competition.
Technology
China’s AI ecosystem gears up to challenge US
ByteDance is reportedly developing an AI model rivaling Anthropic’s most advanced Mythos system, and DeepSeek is touting its efforts to build a Claude Code challenger.
Go Nakamura/Reuters
Flock tightens guardrails aimed at stopping cops from abusing its license plate cameras
CEO Garrett Langley pushed back against a “misconception that we are some evil entity that has these diabolical plans.”
Cheney Orr/Reuters
AI trade surges on firms’ cloud earnings
The race to develop ever more sophisticated AI models shows no sign of slowing.
The gap is widening between corporate AI adopters and laggards
OpenAI’s enterprise customers are shifting toward agents that do work, not chatbots that answer questions, new data suggests.
India’s IT sector downsizes amid AI disruption
Several large employers have slashed headcount by as much as 6% in 2026.
US tech leaders stage data center charm offensive
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg published a 6,500-word essay Monday announcing plans for a $1 billion fund to invest in communities that host data centers.
Energy
Houthis claim strikes on Saudi refinery
The strikes could impact the kingdom’s efforts to maintain shipping volumes amid ongoing disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz.
Khaled Abdullah/Reuters
US clean energy investment surges 22% in second quarter
The results, published by the Clean Investment Monitor, were largely driven by residential battery storage installations.
Mike Blake/Reuters
US power demand to hit new highs on data center buildout
The federal projections come after two years of record electricity demand peaks.
Shelby Tauber/Reuters
Gulf
Houthis claim strikes on Saudi refinery
The strikes could impact the kingdom’s efforts to maintain shipping volumes amid ongoing disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz.
Khaled Abdullah/Reuters
Falcon frenzy descends on Riyadh
Falconry is an important part of Saudi sporting heritage — along with camel racing and horse racing — but its economic importance is increasing too.
Gulf startups are staying private for longer
Market volatility and geopolitical uncertainty is continuing to narrow the exit window for venture capital companies.
Saudi regulator probes investment banks as stock market listings flop
The Capital Market Authority is investigating the poor performance of recent share sales as it looks to revitalize the market.
Hormuz closure dents DP World earnings
Container volumes at Jebel Ali plunged nearly 90% in the second quarter, but overall revenue still rose as the group’s global network of ports helped to offset the slowdown in its home market.
China
China’s AI ecosystem gears up to challenge US
ByteDance is reportedly developing an AI model rivaling Anthropic’s most advanced Mythos system, and DeepSeek is touting its efforts to build a Claude Code challenger.
Go Nakamura/Reuters
Chipmaker CXMT becomes China’s most valuable company
The changeover occurred after Tencent reported it had doubled its quarterly AI spending.
Maxim Shemetov/Reuters
China’s economic reformer Zhu Rongji dies at 97
Zhu’s signal accomplishment was steering China into the World Trade Organization in 2001.
Maxim Shemetov/Reuters
Africa
Africa’s Amazon turns to World Bank for shock absorber
Jumia is betting that fresh capital from the IFC and existing investors will help it navigate geopolitical and supply-chain disruptions.
Afolabi Sotunde/Reuters
Africa gets new sovereign bond ETF
The new sovereign bond exchange-traded fund launched with up to $250 million in commitments.
Tiksa Negeri/Reuters
US lawmakers mull extending AGOA trade program
The US Senate passed a government funding bill over the weekend that included an extension for the program.
Ebola spread undetected for months, WHO says
The revelation raises the likelihood that the latest Ebola outbreak’s true scale is far larger than previously thought.
Nigeria tax breaks target $50B oil investment
Africa’s biggest oil and gas producer hopes to rekindle international interest in offshore projects.
South Africa’s unemployment rate hits four-year high
More than 340,000 people joined the ranks of the unemployed between April and June, pushing the total number of jobless to 8.5 million.
Security
Reform UK leader Farage faces parody candidate in by-election
Farage will likely win, but at some cost to his reputation.
Toby Melville/Jack Taylor/Reuters
US develops cheaper drones in arms shift
The US has lost upwards of 25% of its Reaper drones since the start of the Iran war.
Pavlo Palamarchuk / SOPA Images via Reuters
German cabinet approves new spying rules
The changes augur a “revolution” in Berlin’s intelligence infrastructure, the German interior minister said.
Maryam Majd/Reuters
Media
Spotify’s new ‘skip’ button could end the podcast business as we know it
The Swedish streaming giant cast the move as streamlining a feature that already exists, the Spotify app’s 15-second skip button.
Screenshot/Max Tani/Semafor; Brendan McDermid/Reuters; Lucas Jackson/Reuters
The AI ‘news’ accounts hyping a blue-state dystopia
AI-generated videos are flooding YouTube with fake narratives about chaos in California and New York.
Senate Democrat’s new bills would restrict AI-powered ads and paid influencers
California Sen. Adam Schiff plans to introduce two new bills that would attempt to illuminate who is paying influencers for political speech online and restrict AI-generated likenesses of politicians.
Former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy on loneliness and why he’s more worried about your phone than your body
Former US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy joins Mixed Signals to make the case that America’s loneliness crisis is a public health emergency.
Steve Hilton on the Murdochs, David Ellison, and conservative media’s California
Steve Hilton has lived many lives: a key strategist to former British Prime Minister David Cameron, a populist Fox News host, and — after renouncing his UK citizenship — the Republican nominee in California’s gubernatorial race.
CEO Signal
‘It’s an unbundling’: ADP’s Maria Black on how AI is changing the workforce
The payroll processor sees technology disrupting low-value tasks but making human judgment more valuable.
Courtesy of ADP/Graph Massara/Semafor
Reed Hastings on life after Netflix and the coming ‘creative destruction’
The streaming pioneer says we’re underestimating how AI will change competition.
Why Max Levchin wants Affirm to act like your smarter older sister
The fintech founder sees AI threatening traditional lenders by alerting consumers to their hidden fees.
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