Axios

The Castro era ended in Cuba on Monday after six decades, with Raúl Castro handing over the reigns of a party founded in 1965 by his brother Fidel.

Why it matters: Miguel Díaz-Canel, 60, now assumes the challenge of maintaining Communist rule while grappling with growing discontent over Cuba's economic stagnation.

More COVID-19 cases are now being recorded globally each day than ever before in the pandemic, surpassing the previous global peak in early January.

The big picture: At that time, the U.S. and Europe were driving the surge. This time, the biggest source of new cases is India.

Germany’s leading political parties convened to nominate their candidates for chancellor on Monday, but while a bitter fight was raging in the conservative camp the Greens displayed no such drama in picking Annalena Baerbock.

Why it matters: With Angela Merkel set to step down after 16 years following September's elections, there's a growing chance Germany’s next chancellor will again be female but this time Green.

International Energy Agency modeling underscores the kind of sweeping energy transformations needed in the relatively near future to meet the Paris Agreement's temperature goals.

The big picture: The chart above via IEA's World Energy Outlook last October shows changes in demand for various fuel sources in three IEA scenarios.

The odds of calamitous climate events, from collapsing polar ice sheets and the ensuing sharp rises in sea levels to deadly heat waves, increases dramatically if the world exceeds the Paris Climate Agreement's temperature targets.

Why it matters: In order to have a decent chance of meeting the agreement's most ambitious temperature target — holding warming to 1.5 °C above preindustrial levels — greenhouse gas emissions need to be sharply reduced before 2030.

Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C) are calling on the Biden administration to help resettle Yazidi women who were the victims of a brutal Islamic State campaign in Iraq from 2014-2017, according to a letter shared with Axios.

The backstory: Thousands of women from the Yazidi religious minority were enslaved by ISIS and raped by their captors, as the senators note in a letter to Secretary of State Tony Blinken and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. Many were forced into marriages and made to convert to Islam.

Europe's biggest soccer clubs have established The Super League, a new midweek tournament that would compete with — and threaten the very existence of — the Champions League.

Why it matters: This new league, set to start in 2023, "would bring about the most significant restructuring of elite European soccer since the 1950s, and could herald the largest transfer of wealth to a small set of teams in modern sports history," writes NYT's Tariq Panja.

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has been transferred to a hospital in another penal colony, one day after his doctor warned that the jailed Putin critic "could die at any moment," Russia's prison service said Monday.

Why it matters: News that Navalny's condition had severely deteriorated on the third week of a hunger strike prompted outrage from his supporters and international demands for Russia to provide him with immediate medical treatment.

The biggest hurdle for President Biden in winning new emissions reduction commitments at this week's White House summit is America's on-again, off-again history of climate change efforts.

Why it matters: The global community is off course to meet the temperature targets contained in the Paris Climate Agreement. The White House wants the summit Thursday and Friday to begin to change that.

Officials in Moscow announced Sunday that 20 Czech diplomats had 72 hours to leave Russia, after the EU nation accused Russian operatives of being behind a deadly ammunition depot explosion in 2014.

Why it matters: The action, which came a day after the Czech government expelled 18 Russian diplomats over the blast, marks the latest escalation in what's become the worst tension between Russia and Western nations since the Cold War.

A massive wildfire spread from the foothills of Table Mountain to the University of Cape Town Sunday, burning historic South African buildings and forcing the evacuation of 4,000 students, per Times Live.

The big picture: Visitors to the Table Mountain National Park and other nearby attractions were also evacuated and several roads, including a major highway, were closed. South Africa's oldest working windmill and the university's Jagger Library, which houses South African antiquities, were among the buildings damaged.

12 of world soccer's biggest and richest clubs announced Sunday they've formed a breakaway European "Super League" — with clubs Manchester United, Liverpool, Barcelona Real Madrid, Juventus and A.C. Milan among those to sign up.

Why it matters: British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is among those to express concern at the move — which marks a massive overhaul of the sport's structure and finances. It effectively ends the decades-old UEFA Champions League's run as the top European soccer tournament.