Greetings! Happy National First Responders Day to those celebrating.

Let’s get into today’s top stories.

🇪🇸 Spain’s shepherding revival finds help from African migrants. Rural Spain’s aging herders are handing crooks to younger migrants as ranchers struggle to staff transhumance routes that keep landscapes fire-resilient and biodiversity alive. The work is grueling, seasonal, and poorly paid, but offers legal pathways and housing in depopulated provinces where empty schools outnumber applicants. Agricultural co-ops are pairing training with language classes so flocks, farmers, and forests all benefit from managed grazing. Environmental planners say moving herds through traditional corridors reduces scrub fuel loads that feed megafires in hot, dry summers. Mayors chasing EU funds see pastoralism as cultural heritage and climate policy rolled into one budget line. The pipeline is still thin, but the alternative is fallow land and thicker underbrush. The countryside’s future arrives on tired boots at three miles an hour.

🇹🇷 Turkey eyes used Eurofighters from Gulf states. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said Ankara is talking with Qatar and Oman about buying second-hand Eurofighter Typhoon jets as a stopgap while domestic programs mature. The move would diversify away from American export politics after Turkey’s ejection from the F-35 program over S-400 purchases. Pilots and ground crews could transition quickly because coalition partners already fly Typhoons across NATO air policing missions. Defense economists note used platforms shave procurement time but raise sustainment costs when fleets mix blocks, engines, and avionics. The shopping list doubles as leverage in talks with Europe about co-production, spares, and software access. For Turkey’s aerospace industry, every imported airframe is a bridge to local manufacturing timelines. Airpower is strategy written in jet fuel and maintenance hours.

🥫 Food banks brace as SNAP payments face shutdown pause. With federal food aid from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) at risk of interruption, pantries report inventories sliding toward red while volunteer rosters stretch thin. Over 41.7M, or 1 in every 8, Americans rely on SNAP benefits, including an estimated 15.4M+ children. Directors are pre-positioning shelf-stable goods and arranging cooler space for bulk perishables if families turn up all at once. Small grocers in low-income ZIP codes warn of cashflow shocks if Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) cycles miss a month. State hotlines expect call volumes to spike as households ask whether benefits load on schedule. Warehouse partners are staging weekend distributions to smooth weekday crushes. The patchwork can carry a week or two; beyond that, warehouses become wish lists. If policy pauses, hunger does not.

🗳️ Maine and Texas test voter ID and citizenship measures. Voters in both states will decide on ballot initiatives that could tighten identification rules and require proof of citizenship for registration. Supporters frame the changes as trust builders that standardize procedures across counties. Opponents warn of administrative burdens and risks for naturalized voters or students who lack ready documentation. Election officials say implementation timelines will determine whether rules bite in municipal cycles or wait for statewide contests. Courts could still referee language and enforcement if lawsuits follow close outcomes. Turnout among newly eligible voters will be a leading indicator of friction. Ballots write rules that clerks must live with.

🏛️ Washington’s à la carte approach to UN funding goes prime time. A senior House Republican has become the face of a pick-and-choose strategy that steers money to favored United Nations programs while freezing others. Proponents say targeted checks improve accountability and align spending with national interests. Critics counter that selective dues corrode multilateral leverage and complicate humanitarian planning cycles. Field agencies warn that unpredictable disbursements increase overhead and shrink delivery windows for vaccines and disaster relief. The tactic also hands rivals an influence discount when they fill gaps with bilateral aid. Diplomacy prefers carrots, budgets prefer sticks, and the spreadsheet keeps score. In global governance, consistency is the most underrated currency.

🤖 Microsoft explores restructuring with OpenAI. Regulators signaled that OpenAI may proceed with a revised business setup, even as it deepens commercial ties to Microsoft ($MSFT) through products and cloud credits. The hybrid nonprofit-for-profit architecture is designed to raise capital while keeping a mission charter over frontier research. Investors care about who controls model weights, licensing, and safety gates that determine enterprise adoption. Antitrust skeptics will parse exclusivity terms, data access, and whether APIs privilege one cloud over others. For customers, procurement is simpler when governance is legible and roadmaps stable. The market has a long memory for AI pivots that overpromise. Structure is destiny when the product is trust.

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That’s all for today!

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

See you tomorrow!