Mixture of Experts.

The most dangerous place in the world.

“There are a bunch of newsletters out there I have read. News Items is the one I want to read.” — Jane Metcalfe, Chair of the Board of Directors, Human Immunome Project, co-founder Wired Ventures and Wired magazine.

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1. China’s armed forces are more ready than ever to surround the self-ruled island of Taiwan, cut it off from the world and try to squeeze it into submission. A Chinese blockade of Taiwan would be an act of war that sparks a global crisis. It would provoke a military response by Taiwan, force President Trump to decide whether the U.S. military should help defend the island, disrupt global trade and impel European nations to impose punishing sanctions on Beijing. But the Chinese military, empowered by a decades-long buildup and ordered by leader Xi Jinping to rapidly modernize by 2027, already has demonstrated what it can do. In increasingly complex exercises, Chinese forces have encircled Taiwan and simulated blockades. The more that China prepares, the greater the risk that Beijing decides to shift without notice from drills to war. (Source: wsj.com)

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2. The Wall Street Journal:

On the eve of talks in Saudi Arabia, President Trump’s chief negotiator, Steve Witkoff, echoed some of the Kremlin’s main talking points on the Ukraine war, while advocating for future U.S.-Russian relations based on shared business interests.

In a lengthy interview with Tucker Carlson, Witkoff articulated a vision for the biggest reset in Washington-Moscow relations since the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. He also recounted his meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, saying the Russian president had a portrait commissioned of Trump.

Witkoff, who insisted he wasn’t taking sides, repeated Moscow’s assertions that the overwhelming majority of the people in four parts of eastern Ukraine “want to be under Russian rule” and pointed to Kremlin-run referendums in those areas that the European Union and the U.S. have denounced as shams.

“The question is will they be, will the world acknowledge that those are Russian territories?” Witkoff said. “Will Zelensky survive politically if he acknowledges this? This is the central issue in the conflict. Absolutely.” (Source: wsj.com)