24: In less friendly, fuzzy, and frolicsome animal news, it has been revealed that Joe Biden’s famously foul-tempered dog “Commander” bit US Secret Service agents at least 24 times. The incidents all occurred between October 2022 and July 2023. The German shepherd was removed from the White House last fall.
7.8: How much of the world’s population lives in a “full democracy?” Just 7.8%, according to a new report from the Economist Intelligence Unit. Meanwhile, flawed democracies and authoritarian regimes are each home to about 40% of the world’s people. The study finds that overall, the strength of the world’s democratic institutions is at its lowest ebb since the study began in 2006, as a number of partial democracies slide towards authoritarianism.
100,000: More than 100,000 users of major US cell phone service providers were without signal for part of Thursday in a massive outage that has yet to be explained. Subscribers of AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, and Cricket were affected. Was it a malicious attack? Nobody knows yet, but Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio made a point of warning that a “Chinese Cyberattack” would be “100 times worse” than Thursday’s outages.Xi Jinping will welcome Donald Trump with lots of pomp and circumstance. The summit, though, will be short on substance.
Israel used AI in Gaza in a way that felt "potentially uncomfortable for the US military tradition" says Bloomberg reporter Katrina Manson.
Ian Bremmer breaks down the complicated reality inside Venezuela after Nicolás Maduro’s removal from power. While the Trump administration sees the operation as a major foreign policy victory, Ian argues the harder challenge is only beginning; turning Venezuela into a stable economy and a representative democracy.
Even Eurovision cannot escape geopolitics, South Africa’s constitutional court opens door to Ramaphosa impeachment vote, Zelensky’s former right-hand man accused in corruption probe