Flagship

Russia uses ICBM, Ukraine says

Russia struck Ukraine with an intercontinental ballistic missile, Kyiv said, the first time such a weapon was reported to have been used in the war. The missile carried conventional, rather than nuclear, warheads, although a Ukrainian government official said it was an attempt to “frighten the world with nuclear weapons.” It follows Ukraine’s use of long-range cruise missiles to strike targets in Russia after its Western allies lifted restrictions on such attacks, raising fears of escalation by Moscow, although Reuters reported that President Vladimir Putin is open to discussing a Ukraine ceasefire with US President-elect Donald Trump. Putin apparently ruled out major territorial concessions or Kyiv joining NATO in such a deal.

Nvidia exceeds expectations

Chip goliath Nvidia reported surging sales and doubled profits thanks to a boom in artificial intelligence spending. In particular, the company said its next-generation Blackwell chips were already so popular that sales would be constrained by supply, rather than demand. The latest results cement an astonishing rise in Nvidia’s fortunes, thanks in large part to AI: Its market capitalization has increased just this year by more than the entire value of Alphabet, Google’s parent company. Still, its stock fell, with investors disappointed by the bumper figures. The Information likened Nvidia shareholders to “spoiled children,” while CNBC said the company was a victim of the “hedonic treadmill,” in which people’s expectations rise alongside any success, necessitating ever-growing improvements.

DOJ moves to force Chrome sale

The US government wants to force Google to sell its Chrome web browser. A federal judge ruled in August that the tech giant holds an illegal monopoly over internet search, and the Department of Justice is seeking to break it up. The sale could be worth up to $20 billion, marking Washington’s “most aggressive effort to rein in a technology company” since an unsuccessful attempt to break up Microsoft in 2004, Bloomberg said. Chrome is the world’s most popular web browser, and defaults to using Google for search — key for the company’s lucrative ad business, allowing it to see signed-in users’ activity and target promotions.

DOGE bosses outline cuts plans

Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, the newly appointed heads of US President-elect Donald Trump’s “Department of Government Efficiency,” outlined their planned spending cuts. They argued in The Wall Street Journal that bureaucratic regulations tie elected officials’ hands in “antidemocratic” and illegal ways, and said they will present a list of thousands of rules for Trump to end by executive action. Among their proposed cuts is removing $500 billion in federal expenditures, such as backing for Planned Parenthood and public broadcasting. DOGE will also “identify the minimum number of employees required” for agencies and enact headcount reductions. They may struggle in enacting those plans, though: In a separate piece, the Journal noted that “lawmakers often balk at cuts.”

China’s job hunt worsens

China’s already cut-throat job market is becoming even more competitive for young people. The education ministry projects a record 12.22 million university graduates will be looking for jobs at the end of this academic year, potentially worsening youth unemployment, which currently sits at 17.6% — a metric that itself had to be revised when it hit alarming levels. One screenshot from a popular job-search platform showcased the extent of the struggle: It showed a recruiter asking a prospective employee for data on their smartphone battery usage, arguing that employees who were too often on their phones made for poor workers, to which the candidate replied, “I don’t think this is a rational standard.”

US business turns away from degrees

US business is increasingly hiring people without college degrees, turning to “skills-based” assessments of potential employees’ suitability. Around two-thirds of the population has no degree, especially among ethnic minorities, and the cost of college has shot up in recent years, locking millions out of large parts of the jobs market. Companies including Amazon, General Motors, and Lockheed Martin have enacted or announced plans to boost hiring from outside the college system, testing applicants’ skills and offering them apprenticeships. A skills-based hiring system is more labor-intensive for recruitment departments, the Financial Times reported, but has advantages: College degrees are an inefficient signal of applicants’ suitability, and retention is higher for the new method.

Japan hosts Western intel group

Japan hosted a meeting of the Five Eyes intelligence partnership, a sign of Western nations’ eagerness for intelligence on China as well as Tokyo’s increasingly key role in Asian security. Japan has been deepening partnerships with the group’s members — Australia, Britain, Canada, New Zealand, and the US — and one expert noted that senior Japanese politicians raised the possibility of it formally joining the alliance as far back as 2020. The extent of intelligence-sharing between the existing members is such that any short-term accession is practically impossible. Still, the meeting raised hackles in Beijing: The Global Times, a Communist Party mouthpiece, thundered that the Five Eyes were “only using Japan’s zeal to serve their own hegemonic purposes.”

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Haiti descends further

Gang violence surged in Haiti, with a paroxysm of bloodshed leaving at least 150 dead and driving the charity Doctors Without Borders to suspend its operations in the country. Haiti has been racked by armed groups who operate with impunity, unrestrained by a government that controls little of the nation’s actual territory. A Kenya-led multinational police force has sought to impose order but made scant progress so far, and its limited efforts may be undone by a withdrawal of funding from the incoming Trump administration as well as opposition from China and Russia to transforming it into a UN operation. “The latest upsurge in violence,” the UN’s high commissioner for human rights said, “is a harbinger of worse to come.”

Wagner’s Africa playbook

A new report outlined the depth and breadth of a disinformation operation by Wagner, the Russian paramilitary organization, in the Central African Republic. Described by Le Monde as “the laboratory for the group’s influencing techniques on the African continent,” CAR has relied on Wagner’s security forces for years, though this influence may be waning: A US private military group was last year reported to be in discussions to displace Wagner in the country. Still, Wagner’s hold persists, multiple French outlets reported. The Russian outfit pays would-be protesters to stage demonstrations, hands cash to CAR journalists for favorable pieces, and amplifies those stories via Russian outlets. “The prime targets,” said Forbidden Stories, which coordinated the reporting, were “Western countries and institutions.”

Fighting malaria with mosquitoes

A newly developed malaria vaccine can be delivered via mosquito bite. The insects are infected with a genetically modified version of the malaria parasite, which is transmitted to humans when the mosquito feeds. Malaria kills around 600,000 people, almost all children, a year, and although vaccines are being rolled out, they are only partially effective and scientists are seeking other approaches. The new trial was interesting also because it involved “human challenge” — instead of waiting for the immunized subjects to become infected naturally, they were deliberately exposed to malaria-carrying mosquitoes, speeding up the discovery process significantly. Nearly 90% of those bitten avoided contracting malaria. The trial was small and the researchers intend to try a larger-scale one.

• Defense ministers of ASEAN member states meet in Laos.
• Unions are set to protest against Ecuador President Daniel Noboa’s economic policies.
• Slush, Finland’s annual startup event in Helsinki, wraps up.

The height in feet of the newly set altitude record for an amateur rocket. Students from the University of Southern California’s engineering department built the Aftershock rocket and launched it last month from the Black Rock Desert in Nevada, USA. It reached a top speed of 3,602 mph — that’s a mile a second — and a peak altitude just shy of 90 miles, comfortably above the 62-mile-high “Kármán line” that is considered the edge of space. It also broke the previous altitude record, 71.97 miles, set in 2004 by the Civilian Space Exploration Team’s GoFast rocket.

Granta 169: China. The British literary magazine’s latest issue is dedicated to translations of Chinese literature, and features a “fantastic selection of writers and translators,” Kaiser Kuo — who recently interviewed Granta’s editor on the Sinica podcast — wrote. Order the issue from Granta’s website or buy it from your local bookstore.

While Palo Alto Networks CEO Nikesh Arora and his firm are more under the radar than Silicon Valley’s consumer companies, his experience has turned him into a valuable voice on the industry, including the AI revolution.

Semafor’s Reed Albergotti spoke to him about the tech industry’s changing relationship with the US government, how AI is going to change everything, and the future of cybersecurity.