Under Two Hours.
A new proposal.
1. Kenya’s Sabastian Sawe shattered one of athletics’ most elusive barriers yesterday, becoming the first man to run a marathon in under two hours in an official race as he stormed to victory at the London Marathon in one hour 59 minutes and 30 seconds. After years of global obsession, lab‑backed experiments and near‑misses, the marathon’s ultimate barrier finally fell as Sawe obliterated the world record previously held by the late Kelvin Kiptum, who set a time of 2:00:35 at the Chicago Marathon in October 2023. For context: Imagine running 100 meters in under 17 seconds – and then keeping that pace up for another 26 and a bit miles (42km). That is what the 31-year-old Kenyan did. (Sources: reuters.com, theguardian.com)
2. World military expenditure reached $2887 billion in 2025, an increase of 2.9 per cent in real terms over 2024. Military spending declined in the United States but rose by 14 per cent in Europe and by 8.1 per cent in Asia and Oceania. The top three military spenders—the USA, China and Russia—spent a combined total of $1480 billion, or 51 per cent of the global total, according to new data published today by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). Global military expenditure increased to $2887 billion in 2025, the 11th year of consecutive rises, bringing the global military burden—military expenditure as a share of gross domestic product (GDP)—to 2.5 per cent, its highest level since 2009. (Source: sipri.org)
3. General Caine warned about this. From The New York Times:
Since the Iran war began in late February, the United States has burned through around 1,100 of its long-range stealth cruise missiles built for a war with China, close to the total number remaining in the U.S. stockpile. The military has fired off more than 1,000 Tomahawk cruise missiles, roughly 10 times the number it currently buys each year.
The Pentagon used more than 1,200 Patriot interceptor missiles in the war, at more than $4 million a pop, and more than 1,000 Precision Strike and ATACMS ground-based missiles, leaving inventories worrisomely low, according to internal Defense Department estimates and congressional officials.
The Iran war has significantly drained much of the U.S. military’s global supply of munitions, and forced the Pentagon to rush bombs, missiles and other hardware to the Middle East from commands in Asia and Europe. The drawdowns have left these regional commands less ready to confront potential adversaries like Russia and China, and it has forced the United States to find ways to scale up production to address the depletions, Trump administration and congressional officials say. (Read the rest. Sources: nytimes.com, wsj.com)
4. Iran gave the U.S. a new proposal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and end the war, with nuclear negotiations postponed for a later stage, according to a U.S. official and two sources with knowledge. The diplomacy is in a stalemate, and the Iranian leadership is divided about what nuclear concessions should be on the table. The Iranian proposal would bypass that issue en route to a faster deal. But lifting the blockade and ending the war would remove President Trump’s leverage in any future talks to remove Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium and convince Tehran to suspend enrichment — two primary war objectives for Trump. (Source: axios.com)
5. Prospects for meaningful US-Iran negotiations remain low due to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps’ (IRGC) domination of decision-making and opposition to compromise. Iranian Foreign Affairs Minister Abbas Araghchi travelled to Muscat, Oman, on April 26 to discuss security in the Strait of Hormuz with Omani Sultan Haitham al Tariq. (Source: understandingwar.org)
