Nonrival

April 27, 2026

Human experts + AI summaries - on public policy, economics, and technology.

China's Military Is Using U.S. AI Chips to Build Advanced Weapons Systems

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• Analysis of thousands of Chinese military procurement documents reveals the People's Liberation Army is actively acquiring U.S. AI chips and deploying commercial AI models for military applications
• The PLA is using these systems for drone coordination, cyber warfare, psychological operations, and weapons modeling — capabilities that could help China close the military gap with the United States
• Despite export controls, Chinese military units continue requesting advanced Nvidia chips and accessing U.S. computing resources through intermediaries

Putin Uses War to Rally Ethnic Russians While Sending Minorities to Die in Ukraine

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• New research shows Putin's invasions of Ukraine in 2014 and 2022 sharply boosted his support among ethnic Russians, while battlefield casualties fell disproportionately on minority regions
• Russian attacks in Ukraine targeted areas with higher ethnic Russian populations rather than resource-rich regions, suggesting ethnic rather than economic motives
• The pattern reveals how authoritarian leaders can use foreign wars to consolidate domestic support among their core ethnic base while shifting the costs of conflict to marginalized groups

Why Oil Futures Markets Are Giving a False Picture of How Severe the Current Energy Crisis Really Is

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• A major war in Iran has disrupted over 10 million barrels per day of oil supply for more than 50 days, but futures prices averaging $98 since March mask the true severity of the crisis
• Physical oil prices—what refineries actually pay for real barrels—have averaged $111 and sometimes traded $30 higher than futures, with some crude grades above $150 and Asian jet fuel over $200
• The gap exists because desperate refineries will pay almost anything to keep running while financial traders avoid headline risk, meaning the physical market better reflects the real supply crunch

In the News

Conspiracy Theories Spread After Shooting at Hotel Hosting White House Correspondents' Dinner

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• A gunman opened fire at the Washington Hilton during the White House Correspondents' Dinner attended by President Trump, leading to the suspect's arrest and raising security questions
• Social media posts quickly spread false conspiracy theories, including claims that a press secretary's pre-event comment about "shots fired" showed advance knowledge and that the shooting was staged
• Fact-checkers debunked multiple misleading posts, clarifying that the press secretary was referring to Trump's planned jokes, the suspect wasn't killed as some claimed, and various suspicious "evidence" had innocent explanations

Analysis

EU's Browser Choice Screens Successfully Broke Safari and Chrome's Dominance on Mobile Devices

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• The EU's Digital Markets Act required Apple and Google to show browser choice screens to users, giving them an active choice instead of just accepting preset defaults
• Firefox usage jumped 113% on iOS devices and 12% on Android devices compared to what would have happened without the mandate
• The policy worked better on iOS because Apple showed choice screens to existing users, while Google mainly showed them only on new Android devices

Also Worth a Look

• Privacy Laws Meant to Protect Consumers May Be Blocking Their Access to Credit (voxeu)
• Why Cash Still Matters When the Lights Go Out (nber)
• Supreme Court to decide whether police need warrants for geofence data that tracks your phone's location (scotusblog)
• Drone Warfare Is Forcing Sudan's Doctors to Operate Underground by Phone Light (think_global_health)
• Trump's Second-Term Economy Shows Sharp Job Slowdown and Rising Inflation Despite Wage Gains (factcheck)
• When Men Lose Jobs to Robots, Households Spend More on Things Women Usually Buy (nber)
• What Is Authorship When Machines Can Write? (mit_press_reader)