Axios

The Five Eyes intelligence alliance issued a rare joint warning this week that frontier AI capable of crippling governments and businesses is close. The fast rise of Chinese and Japanese models helps explain the urgency and fear, officials tell us.

Why it matters: Yes, Anthropic's Mythos model is the most cyber-lethal threat in the world. But OpenAI is close here in America. And China and Japan, using much cheaper models, have gotten closer, faster than intelligence agencies anticipated.

• "The timeline is not years, it is months," Five Eyes warned.

Congress is running out of opportunities to pass major kids' online safety and AI legislation this year.

Why it matters: The effort to pair kids' online safety legislation with federal pre-emption of some state AI laws is running into resistance from lawmakers, advocates and administration officials with very different priorities.

Sens. Mike Lee and Rick Scott have teed up what could be a tense, confrontational lunch Wednesday with President Trump and Senate Republicans.

• The two spent months pressuring Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) on the SAVE America Act. Now Trump will be in the room with them.

Why it matters: Trump is fixated on passing the SAVE Act to help Republicans in the midterms. But Thune is insistent that Republicans don't have the votes.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) is minimizing the significance of New York's congressional primaries, telling reporters the ideological direction of his party won't rest on a few House seats.

Why it matters: It is all part of a careful balancing act in which Jeffries is trying to stop a democratic socialist takeover while avoiding open conflict with New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

The UN's International Maritime Organization will evacuate more than 11,000 sailors stranded in the Strait of Hormuz during the U.S.-Iran war, the agency said Tuesday.

Why it matters: The operation underscores how the U.S.-Iran war disrupted a critical global shipping route and left thousands of civilian seafarers stuck.

Former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) announced Monday evening that she's ditching the Republican Party, following conservative commentator Tucker Carlson out the door.

Why it matters: The former Trump loyalist is part of a growing group of conservatives who believe the president's foreign policy has gone astray.

The U.S. is losing standing abroad as President Trump's foreign policy fuels doubts about whether America can still be counted on, according to new polling.

Why it matters: The Pew Research Center findings capture how Trump's second-term approach is reshaping America's image, with allies and partners increasingly viewing Washington as unreliable, self-interested and less committed to global cooperation.

Senate Democrats are asking the Treasury Department's Office of Inspector General to investigate resources devoted to a proposed $250 bill bearing President Trump's portrait.

Why it matters: Federal law bars living people from appearing on U.S. currency, making congressional action necessary before any $250 bill featuring Trump could be issued.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and the Pentagon's chief technology officer, Emil Michael, on Tuesday attended a demonstration of laser and microwave weapons in New Mexico.

Why it matters: It's the first known instance "of a sitting U.S. defense secretary personally observing a live directed-energy weapon firing," according to Laser Wars, which broke the news.

The Iranian soccer team will be allowed to travel to the U.S. two days before its next World Cup match in Seattle.

Why it matters: There are strict travel restrictions on the Iranian delegation during the tournament, which is co-hosted by the U.S.