Flagship

Trump’s signature bill close to passing

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act was on the verge of passing, in what would be a major victory for US President Donald Trump, after hours of debate and the quelling of a revolt by congressional Republicans. The bill will enact a series of tax cuts while cutting health care spending. GOP leadership had to water down several of the bill’s provisions, leading to chaos, Semafor’s Dave Weigel reported: Republicans found themselves defending parts of the legislation, such as tax breaks for Social Security, which had been taken out or diluted. Still, Speaker Mike Johnson was confident that it would soon pass after persuading party holdouts to vote yes on allowing the bill to come up for debate.

Dozens killed in Gaza

Israeli forces killed 82 Palestinians in Gaza overnight, including dozens as they waited for aid, according to the Hamas-run health ministry. The deaths come as Israel and Hamas moved closer to a possible ceasefire after nearly two years of war: US President Donald Trump said Tuesday that Israel had agreed to the terms of a 60-day truce, while the Israeli foreign minister said his country was “serious in our will to reach a hostage deal and ceasefire.” But Hamas has insisted that any agreement means an end to the war and the removal of Israeli troops from Gaza, conditions which Israel has so far opposed.

Trump hosts Africa leaders

US President Donald Trump will host five African leaders next week to discuss what the White House called “incredible commercial opportunities” on the continent. Trump has vowed to increase US interests in Africa, with a focus on controlling more of the continent’s key mineral deposits. However the abrupt cuts to US aid on which many African countries relied have strained diplomatic ties across Africa, while China and Russia have ramped up their presence there: A Kremlin spokesman said last month that Moscow would seek to boost its security alliances on the continent as Western powers retreat. The US “must lead with business,” Iyinoluwa Aboyeji wrote in a column for Semafor. “If it doesn’t, China will.”

US eases chip curbs on China

The US lifted some restrictions on the export of chip-design software to China, a sign of further easing in trade tensions between the two superpowers. Washington told a major software provider that it no longer had to apply for licenses to do business in China. The measures were imposed after Beijing limited shipments of rare-earth minerals to the US, itself a response to Washington’s tariffs and semiconductor export controls. China and the US are implementing a deal to ease flows of vital materials and technologies after a months-long trade war, Bloomberg reported, and years of the US attempting to stifle China’s chipmaking and artificial intelligence ambitions, which Washington sees as a security threat.

Japan’s inheritance ‘avalanche’

Japan’s financial sector faces its biggest shakeup in decades thanks to an end to zero interest rates and an imminent wave of inheritances. About half of Japan’s household wealth is kept in cash or current accounts, because for years savings have made no money. That is changing as interest rates rise, forcing banks to compete on savings offers. Meanwhile, about 14% of Japan’s rapidly aging population will die by 2035, creating an “inheritance avalanche,” the Financial Times’ Asia business columnist wrote. The two factors are forcing an end to decades of inertia in markets, with investors turning to US stocks and bank deposit rates soaring, and persuading ordinary Japanese — “Mrs Watanabe” — to think about returns after decades of not bothering.

Salvadoran prison torture claims

A Maryland man who was wrongfully deported from the US to El Salvador was allegedly tortured while in custody, court filings showed. Kilmar Ábrego García — who was returned to the US this month — was severely beaten and was forced to kneel for hours, while being denied access to a restroom. His is one of the few testimonies to have come out of El Salvador’s notorious megaprison, where hundreds have died while in detention. Leaders across Latin America have vowed to replicate El Salvador’s draconian tactics, which have brought murder rates down to record lows. However, voters should think twice before sacrificing “individual freedoms on the altar of maximum security,” a Bloomberg columnist wrote.

The secret to Zohran Mamdani’s winning strategy is simpler than you think. The once-little-known lawmaker shocked New York by winning the Democratic primary for mayor — thanks in large part to vertical videos that actually broke through. This week on Mixed Signals, Ben and Max talk to the candidate’s media team, Rebecca Katz, founder of the political ad agency Fight, and Morris Katz (no relation), the lead media strategist for the campaign. They get the behind-the-scenes scoop on how viral videos like “Halalflation” came about, why Mamdani’s videos worked, and what future political campaigns can learn from his success.

Listen to the latest episode of Mixed Signals now.

US agencies lose journal access

The US government canceled several federal agencies’ subscription to Nature and other scientific journals. A spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services said all contracts with Springer Nature, Nature’s publisher, had been “terminated” and that taxpayer money should not be used on “junk science.” Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr has an uncomfortable relationship with the scientific establishment: He is skeptical not merely of vaccines but of germ theory — the idea that disease is caused by microbes — and recently called several journals “corrupt” and “a vessel for pharmaceutical propaganda.” NASA and the energy and agriculture departments were among the agencies losing access. An expert told Nature he believed the move was politically motivated.

LLMs’ exponential improvement

Large language models’ abilities are doubling every seven months, new research suggested. It’s hard to gauge the relative performance of LLMs, IEEE Spectrum said, because their main output is written text, making objective assessment difficult. Instead researchers gave models tasks of differing complexity, as measured by how long humans take to complete them, and seeing how reliably the models completed them. The researchers found LLMs’ capabilities were improving exponentially, far outpacing Moore’s law, which says chips double in power roughly every two years. One of the study’s authors warned against naive extrapolation, but that if the trend continues, artificial intelligence could be taking on months-long projects by the early 2030s, and eventually “you might not need human workers.”

Witnessing executions

A leading US magazine writer who acted as a witness in several US executions found herself changed as a result. In The Atlantic, Liz Bruenig described watching four men die, three by lethal injection and one by hypoxia: Her own sister-in-law was murdered, and she has grappled with issues surrounding forgiveness and mercy. Despite her concerns that by advocating against judicial killings, she was “effectively siding with killers,” Bruenig wrote, she found that the death penalty dehumanized everyone involved: “The moral dimension of capital punishment is not just about what we do to others. It’s also about what we do to ourselves.” She found that the families of some victims campaigned against the murderers’ executions, and even — in one case — befriended the killer.

Baseball’s pitchers under strain

The Los Angeles Dodgers’ Clayton Kershaw became only the 20th pitcher to throw 3,000 strikeouts, a feat that has become increasingly out of reach. Pitchers were once expected to throw complete games, requiring stamina and accuracy. However, as velocity has become baseball teams’ most sought-after asset — forcing even teenagers to throw harder than ever to stand out — most pitchers can only throw for a few innings per game. The emphasis on throwing harder has in turn led to an elbow injury “epidemic,” which Kershaw has largely avoided, putting longevity feats out of reach for many. Pitchers’ arms are “being pushed beyond what [they] can take,” an expert told Sports Illustrated.

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• US President Donald Trump is due to speak at an Iowa event marking the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
• Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrives in Trinidad and Tobago as part of a five-nation tour.
• Madrid will hold its annual gay pride stiletto race on Calle de Pelayo.

The length of the phallus of the Cerne Abbas Giant. The Giant is a huge — 180 foot (55 meter) — chalk drawing of a club-wielding figure, drawn on the side of a hill in Dorset, England, and famous for its extremely prominent male member. Some English chalk figures, such as the White Horse at Uffington, Oxfordshire, have been around for millennia; the Giant is likely younger, though still perhaps a thousand years old. A British historian recently learned that “Britain’s rudest hillside chalk figure,” as The Telegraph described it, caused such offence that in 1932 the government considered covering its modesty: An official suggested using “a small grove of fig trees,” since the more traditional fig leaf would have been inadequate.

Elvia, Barichara, Colombia. Apparently Barichara is the most beautiful town in Colombia, and it is also home to one of the nation’s best restaurants. “The sense of pride and energy shared by the chefs and team here is infectious,” Time Out says, listing it among the country’s top 20 places to eat. Make a reservation here.

The “abundance” movement’s next front line is transportation, Semafor’s Eleanor Mueller reported.

“Unlocking America’s economic potential can be achieved by accelerating construction, eliminating unnecessary delays, and clearing the way for smarter, faster infrastructure investment,” Rep. Josh Harder, D-Calif., and 20 others wrote in a letter shared exclusively with Semafor; the group is asking leaders of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee to “cut excessive red tape” when they reauthorize spending on highways, rail, and transit set to lapse in 2026.