~Bitcoin News of the Day

• Support is growing within the U.S. Congress for the establishment of a U.S. Bitcoin reserve, marking a significant shift in how lawmakers view the cryptocurrency’s role in the nation’s financial future. This bipartisan effort, spearheaded by Senator Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) and recently backed by Representative Ro Khanna (D-CA), calls for the acquisition of 1 million Bitcoin using funds from the Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury. The proposal underscores the belief that Bitcoin could serve as a strategic national asset, strengthening the country’s financial position in a rapidly evolving global economy.

Global Trade & ~Econ

• Israel, still battling Hamas in Gaza, bombed Beirut on Thursday as it continued its conflict with Lebanese group Hezbollah days after being attacked by Iran. Yet MSCI's world stock index .MIWD00000PUS, opens new tab is just 1% off last week's record highs and oil prices, which rose around 5% in the 24 hours after Iran's missile attack on Israel, have steadied around a far from threatening $75 dollars a barrel.

~Politics_and_Law

• Hard-line views on how the U.S. should approach China have been around for some time, but the most extreme among them have usually existed only on the margins of the policy debate in Washington. In recent months, however, an expanding coalition of mainstream U.S. politicians and foreign policy analysts has pushed dangerous and irresponsible views that go far beyond traditional or reasonable concerns about China and which could very well spark a future conflict. This new wave of ultra-hawkish hardliners is getting greater attention in the mainstream media, and some of them may be in a position to shape the next administration’s China policy, making it all the more urgent to push back against their most extreme positions.

~Stacker_Sports News

• Ohtani makes $70 million a year, receives and gets taxed on $2 million of it with the rest stashed for later, has an overall contract that reads $700 million over a decade — and he's underpaid. That's right, underpaid. Hugely so, if we're being real about it, because no player in sports means more to his league than the 30-year-old Japanese sensation does to this one.

~Tech & ~Science

• The investment represents one of the biggest fundraising rounds in U.S. history, and ranks as the largest in the past 17 years that doesn’t include money coming from a single deep-pocketed company, according to PitchBook, which tracks venture capital investments.

~History with Mystery

• "Framed in gold and 2.4 metres in diameter, the world pictured here was a combination of rolling blue seas with cresting waves and off-white landmasses, all covered with handwritten notes. It was one of the most beautiful, and beautifully complex, things that I had ever seen."

~Entertainment World

• The outdoor mall, long a magnet for Brentwood residents including Kamala Harris, Gwyneth Paltrow, Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Garner, has faced unrest in recent days over a controversial book.