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Economics & Development

India is rapidly increasing its number of trade agreements. Since February 2021, India has signed seven free trade agreements covering 10 countries, bringing its total number of signed free trade agreements to 17. India has also concluded negotiations on a trade deal with the European Union, though it has not yet been signed, and is currently negotiating a trade agreement with the United States.
After years of negotiations, the European Union is closing a series of trade deals with Southeast Asian countries. The EU has reached substantial agreement on a free trade deal with the Philippines, Indonesia plans to sign a trade deal with the EU in October, and negotiations with Thailand and Malaysia are expected to wrap up early next year. If those timelines hold, the EU could have negotiated trade deals with six of the 11 Southeast Asian states by mid-2027. The EU already has free trade agreements in place with Singapore and Vietnam.

Energy & Environment

The black robin, a threatened songbird recently named New Zealand’s Bird of the Year, has rebounded from a population of just five birds in 1980 to around 350 in 2025. Conservationists rescued the species by moving the remaining birds to a predator-free island and using another species, the Chatham Island tomtit, to foster their eggs, allowing the robins to lay multiple clutches each breeding season.
China’s crested ibis has recovered from the brink of extinction. In 1981, just seven known crested ibises remained in the wild. Today, after more than four decades of captive breeding, habitat protection, and reintroduction, the estimated crested ibis global population—including wild and captive birds—exceeds 10,000.

The European Union’s age-standardized suicide rate fell to 10.4 suicides per 100,000 people in 2023, down from 12.2 in 2013, a decline of almost 15 percent.
The share of American drinkers who say they sometimes overindulge has fallen to a record low. In a July 2026 Gallup survey, 13 percent of US adults who drink alcohol said they sometimes drink more than they think they should, down from a high of 35 percent in 1989. The share of US adults who drink at all remains at a record low of 54 percent.
Reported leprosy cases continue to decline worldwide. According to the World Health Organization, 167,356 new cases were reported globally in 2025, down 3.1 percent from 2024 and 23.3 percent from 2016.

The cost of AI performance is falling at an exceptional rate, according to a new report from Epoch AI, a research nonprofit. Epoch tracked how much it costs for AI models to achieve given scores on five tests, covering mathematics, hard sciences, and games of skill such as chess puzzles. Across all five tests, Epoch estimates that the minimum cost of reaching a given score has fallen about 47 percent per quarter since 2023, a roughly 13-fold decline each year. According to Epoch’s analysis, that’s about four times faster than the fall in DNA sequencing costs, one of the fastest price declines in history.

An autonomous aircraft has completed a multi-leg flight across the United States. Using Joby Aviation’s autonomous flight technology, the converted Cessna traveled 3,199 miles from California to North Carolina, handling taxiing, takeoff, navigation, and landing without control inputs from its onboard safety pilot.
A recent Gallup survey found widespread international optimism about artificial intelligence. In 32 of the 37 countries surveyed, AI-aware adults who expected the technology to improve their daily lives outnumbered those who expected it to make their lives worse. And in 34 countries, more AI-aware adults reported feeling at least one positive emotion about AI—curiosity, happiness, or excitement—than reported a negative emotion—worry, sadness, or anger.