Nonrival

Expert analysis from think tanks and academia, on public policy, economics, and technology.
Human experts. AI summaries.

Elon Musk Cut Off Ukraine's Drone Communications Mid-War — and No One Knows Who's Really in Charge of Starlink

csis

• In October 2026, SpaceX quietly imposed speed restrictions on Starlink service in Ukraine, crippling Ukrainian interceptor drones at a critical moment — and no one, from Trump to Musk, has clearly claimed responsibility.
• The incident exposes a stark vulnerability: Ukraine's battlefield communications depend on a private American company that Ukraine has no regulatory leverage over, and whose decisions can be shaped by either corporate interests or U.S. political whims.
• CSIS analysts argue Congress should require government notification and approval before U.S. companies can cut or alter critical services to allies — modeled on existing arms-sale notification rules — before the next disruption hits at an even worse moment.

America's job growth since Trump took office has been strongest in swing-metro areas — and weakest in the bluest cities

eig

• Since Trump's inauguration in January 2025, employment has actually declined on net in the most Democratic metro areas, while politically purple metros — those where Trump and Harris were within 3 points of each other — have seen the strongest job growth of any political group.
• The gap isn't explained by industry mix: blue metros actually have a slightly more favorable sector composition on paper, meaning the same industries are simply performing worse there than in redder or more competitive areas.
• With midterms approaching, the political irony is sharp: the economy is weakest where opposition to Trump is strongest, and healthiest in the swing areas where Democrats most need to win converts.

Employees are hiding their AI productivity gains — and the way companies measure performance is why

lse_business_review

• When workers discover AI saves them time, they have strong incentives to stay quiet: revealing the gain risks higher targets, more work, or questions about whether their role is even necessary.
• Studies confirm the gains are real — a UK government trial found Copilot saved 26 minutes per employee per day — but because savings are self-reported and unverifiable, organizations can't tell where that time actually went.
• The authors argue the fix isn't more surveillance but "disclosure-safe measurement": tracking productivity at the workflow level rather than the individual level, and making credible public commitments about how recovered time will be reinvested.

In the News

A Middle East Conflict Knocked 6% Off Global Oil Refining — and Diesel Prices Hit Record Highs

eia

• A conflict that began in late February 2026 disrupted oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz, causing global crude oil refinery inputs to drop by 4.8 million barrels per day in Q2 2026 — a 6% decline — with China, India, South Korea, and Japan absorbing the biggest hits.
• Simultaneous attacks on Russian oil infrastructure compounded the problem, squeezing global diesel supply and pushing diesel prices to record nominal highs in September 2026.
• The U.S. emerged as a relative winner, ramping up refining and exporting more refined products to fill the gap, while global refinery activity remained about 5% below year-earlier levels even after a partial recovery in Q3.

Analysis

Meta paid $25 billion for lying about Cambridge Analytica — but no one has ever been held accountable for what Cambridge Analytica actually did

the_conversation

• A New Mexico judge just handed down a landmark $25 billion penalty against Meta, but the fine was for deceiving users about its data practices — not for the underlying political manipulation that Cambridge Analytica carried out using Facebook data ahead of the 2016 election.
• A decade of settlements, including a recent $459 million Cambridge Analytica carve-out buried in an unrelated teen safety case, have let Meta pay fines without ever having the actual harms from voter targeting and psychological profiling adjudicated in court.
• The author, a researcher whose work helped expose the original scandal, argues investigators never fully pursued the evidence and that the biggest privacy judgment in American history measures only the cover-up, not the crime.

Also Worth a Look

• China Is Close to Being Able to Withstand an Oil Blockade — Which Means the U.S. Needs a New Strategy for Defending Taiwan (atlantic_council)
• Americans' Trust in the Media's Watchdog Role Is Actually Growing — Even Among Republicans (pew)
• Wildfire damage is on pace to triple by mid-century, but making homes safer is cheaper than most people think (the_conversation)
• Three '1,000-Year' Rain Events Hit the U.S. in Three Days, and Climate Change Is Loading the Dice (yale_climate)
• The U.S. Has Between 3 and 5 Million Middle Eastern or North African Residents — and No Good Way to Count Them (pew)
• The Supreme Court Case That Could Ban 'Race-Neutral' Workarounds to Affirmative Action (scotusblog)
• Wall Street Is Tokenizing Your Stock Whether You Like It or Not (harvard_corpgov)