The good:

• The analysis views tension surrounding global trade as one of the biggest, likeliest threats facing world markets, but it sees the U.S. as an increasingly stable player. The recent agreements with Mexico and the EU on trade make it seem like President Trump is attempting to salvage — or at least work to reform — America's trade deals with its core allies.
• The biggest threat on the board — a complete breakdown between Russia and NATO — remains the least likely to take place, even as heightened tensions continue to grab headlines worldwide.

The bad:

• Economic relations between the U.S. and China are not good — and steadily worsening, especially given the latest trade war salvo between the two nations. The analysis views continued tensions here as the market's most likely disruptor. And because the issue is so intertwined with the North Korea conflict, there are multiple ways for it to potentially boil over.
• Emerging countries are marked by continued upheaval. Some, like Brazil and Mexico, are set or likely to have populist leaders in place soon. And Turkey is facing a continued currency crash and isolation from the international sphere amid the increasingly authoritarian rule of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The bottom line: BlackRock's risk measure is notably volatile. Take a look: The markets viewed the world's geopolitical risks as above-average back in June during the height of the uncertainty surrounding North Korea. Things have trended downward significantly since then on more positive news, but we live in an age when 280 characters can turn the world on its head.Go deeper: Take a look at the full report, which includes detailed analyses of what BlackRock has deemed the 10 greatest geopolitical risks.

• May also said that she's "a little bit irritated" at the rumors of a leadership challenge from within her party ranks as she attempts to negotiate a Brexit solution. But today's statements aren't likely to make life easier for her on that front. The Chequers plan forced high-profile resignations from the most visible Brexiteers in her Cabinet, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and Brexit Secretary David Davis, upon its announcement.

Never one to keep quiet, Johnson fired back in his weekly column in The Telegraph, headlined, "We are heading for a car crash Brexit under Theresa May's Chequers plan."

• "The whole thing is a constitutional abomination, and if Chequers were adopted it would mean that for the first time since 1066 our leaders were deliberately acquiescing in foreign rule."

At issue is the Irish backstop — determining the economic alignment between Northern Ireland, which is part of the U.K., and Ireland, which is a member of the EU — and whether there would be a hard border between the two areas after Brexit.

• May is adamant that a hard border cannot be allowed, advocating for "friction-free" movement of goods enabled by close economic ties to the EU. She told the BBC, "The only proposal that has been put forward that delivers on them not having that hard border and ensures that we don't carve up the United Kingdom is the Chequers plan."
• Boris argued in his column that Chequers undermines the fundamental aim of Brexit: "We are volunteering that the whole of the U.K. must remain effectively in the customs union and large parts of the single market until Brussels says otherwise."
• Michel Barnier, the EU's chief Brexit negotiator, blasted the Chequers' Irish backstop plan earlier this month: "If we let the British pick the raisins out of our rules, that would have serious consequences."

The bottom line: While it seems that May has finally upped the ante on Brexit, both her Conservative Party and the EU are in strong positions to call her bluff moving forward.

• Food insecurity was found to be significantly worse in countries where people are dependent on agriculture for their livelihood, especially when they don't have systems in place to counter the effects of climate shocks.
• "It is shocking that, after a prolonged decline, this is the third consecutive year of rising hunger. The inescapable fact is that climate change is now leaving people around the world without enough to eat," Robin Willoughby, head of food and climate policy at Oxfam GB, told The Guardian.

The big picture: Climate change has the potential to erode the gains made toward fighting global hunger over the past decade — which were largely due to political stability, economic growth and greater social protections in the developing world — as extreme weather kicks off more and more societal crises around the world. Some specific weather trends are triggering the worst climate shocks on food stores:

• Higher temperatures — and spikes in temperature anomalies — can affect crop yields.
• Severe droughts and floods linked to climate change have both seen an uptick in recent years — most notably, flood-related disasters spiked 65% in the last quarter-century.
• Changes in seasonality, especially in the developing world, throw off rainfall patterns and growing seasons.

Of the 51 countries that faced food crises in 2017, 34 had climate shocks, per the UN report. The food security threat deepened in the 14 countries that simultaneously faced conflict and regional instability in addition to climate shocks.

• Yemen, where 22 million out of 27 million citizens are in need of humanitarian assistance, perhaps best represents this horror. Already one of the world's poorest countries, Yemen faces the combination of an ongoing civil war and serious famine that led UN Ambassador Nikki Haley to remark "no one should ever have to live the way the people of Yemen are living."

The bottom line: Without significant action to address climate change, some of the world's most vulnerable citizens may face increasing risk from global hunger, which was on a marked downward trend just 5 years ago — and the UN had hoped to eliminate fully by 2030.

Go deeper:

• Climate change may boost pests, stress food supplies.
• Why climate change hits poorest countries hardest.