Greetings! Happy National Philanthropy Day to those celebrating.

Let’s get into today’s top stories.

🇨🇩 Congo signs a fragile peace treatise with M23. Mediators announced a framework that could deescalate fighting in eastern Congo, where Rwanda-backed M23 rebels have seized key ground and displaced families by the hundred thousand. The document outlines benchmarks on withdrawal zones, cantonment, and disarmament, but verification and timelines remain hazy. Humanitarian agencies say any lull must be measured in reopened roads, restored clinics, and school attendance, not only in signatures. Regional envoys want a joint monitoring mechanism with satellite checks and community observers to deter quick violations. Mineral corridors that feed global cobalt and tin supply chains will be a litmus test for whether trucks move safely again. Skeptics note past accords collapsed when funding, trust, or command control failed. Durable peace is logistics plus legitimacy, and both are scarce.

🇲🇽 Mexico’s emblem traces a myth that made a nation. A new exhibition unpacks how a Mexica story of an eagle devouring a snake on a cactus became the visual backbone of Mexican identity. Curators show coins, flags, and manuscripts that track the symbol’s evolution from imperial icon to republican seal. Historians argue the power lies in adaptability, as successive governments layered new meanings over an old image. The National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) scholars tally centuries of reproductions that standardized the posture and plumage. Designers note how heraldry bridged indigenous memory and modern statecraft with a single silhouette. For citizens, the emblem binds festivals, football kits, and passports with shared shorthand. Symbols endure because they solve for belonging in one glance.

🗳️ Virginia and New Jersey voters grade the economy. County maps in both states showed swing suburbs leaning toward messages that framed inflation, wages, and mortgages as the central referendum. Analysts detected turnout bulges in precincts where commuting costs and childcare dominate household math. Campaigns that tied price relief to visible services outperformed abstract growth claims. The National Association of State Election Directors (NASED) highlighted smooth operations despite staffing scar tissue from the shutdown. Early-vote patterns suggested persuasion mattered more than base expansion this cycle. Pollsters will parse education and age splits for what carries into 2026. In politics, grocery aisles beat spreadsheets every time.

🛒 Tariffs scrapped on beef, coffee, and tropical fruit. The White House moved to zero out tariffs on selected staples to shave cents at checkout, a bid to counter grocery inflation without new spending. Trade lawyers say the relief hits categories with wide consumption and clear pass-through to shelves. Importers expect contracts to reset quickly for coffee and bananas, while beef adjustments move slower due to quota calendars and cold-chain inventories. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) literature suggests tariff cuts lower prices faster than subsidies that must route through agencies. Retailers will test how much savings reach consumers versus absorbing logistics and shrink. Food banks welcomed cheaper inputs as holiday demand rises. The price tag is the policy, and shoppers will score it weekly

💔 Trump splits with Marjorie Taylor Greene. After years of alliance, the president publicly severed ties with the Georgia lawmaker, downgrading a megaphone that once amplified his hardest edges. Strategists read the move as a base-management play that shores up persuadables without fully alienating loyalists. House dynamics could shift if committee allies recalibrate distance for suburban districts. Donor networks like message discipline, and this signpost advertises it. Culture-war entrepreneurs may try to fill the vacuum with fresher outrage inventory. For the congresswoman, media oxygen will hinge on new coalitions and hearing room theatrics.

🏭 States demand proof as data center power forecasts surge. Grid planners are revising load curves upward as artificial intelligence projects multiply, but regulators in Texas, Ohio, and Pennsylvania want shovel-ready evidence, not just slide decks. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is pushing for clearer interconnection queues and penalties for speculative reservations. Utilities propose new substation clusters and high-voltage upgrades sized for tens of megawatts per campus. Cloud buyers from Microsoft ($MSFT), Alphabet ($GOOGL), and Amazon ($AMZN) argue long-term contracts can underwrite the steel, even as Nvidia ($NVDA) stock soars. Environmental groups press for water and heat reuse plans alongside megawatt math. Bond markets favor districts with guaranteed offtake and synchronized permits. The next boom will be measured in transformers and trenches, not tweets.

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That’s all for today!

Much obliged and many thanks for reading and sharing today’s newsletter.

See you tomorrow!