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Washington is flexing its economic muscle, corporate America is making some very big bets, and the digital world is looking increasingly difficult to secure. Elsewhere, a peace overture could reshape a decades-old standoff, scientists are filling gaps in Mars’ history, and Hollywood has plenty queued up for the years ahead. Here’s what you need to know today.

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Luigi Mangione, 28, pleaded guilty Friday to federal stalking charges tied to the December 2024 shooting death of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, telling a Manhattan federal judge, "I shot Mr. Thompson in Manhattan, and he died. I knew what I was doing." Thompson's family sat in the front row as Mangione described using a 3-D printer to make the gun, then posing as an investor to track his target to a scheduled conference.

Sentencing is set for December after a federal judge earlier struck down the counts that could have carried the death penalty. Mangione's state murder trial is set to begin next month, but his defense filed a motion Friday citing New York's strict double-jeopardy law and asking Judge Gregory Carro to dismiss the state charges outright.

The Senate passed the Russia sanctions bill championed by the late Lindsey Graham, clearing the way for steep tariffs on countries that keep buying Russian oil and gas. India and China are as much the target as Moscow. The goal: choke the revenue funding Russia's war in Ukraine.

Graham, who died unexpectedly in July, spent years pushing this against a shifting Senate mood on Ukraine aid. Its passage is a rare bipartisan foreign policy moment and hands the White House a fresh economic cudgel — one it now has to decide whether to swing.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency conditionally approved a national trust-bank charter Friday for World Liberty Trust Co., sponsored by World Liberty Financial — a crypto firm 38% owned by an entity affiliated with President Trump and members of his family. The charter will let the company issue its own stablecoins in-house, replacing the third-party service it currently uses from BitGo.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren blasted the move, saying Trump "is now the first President in history to approve, operate, and supervise his own bank" in what she called "the most brazen act of self-dealing our financial system has ever seen." Warren said she and Senate colleagues will introduce legislation barring presidents and senior officials from owning or controlling banks; the OCC declined to comment.

One of the worst blazes in Croatia's history is tearing through hills near the port town of Omis, injuring dozens and forcing thousands of evacuations along the Dalmatian coast. Firefighters from across the EU have joined the effort as winds keep fanning the flames.

South Korean President Lee Jae-myung offered Saturday to open talks with North Korea to formally end the Korean War, which has technically continued since fighting stopped under a 1953 armistice. No peace treaty was ever signed, and the offer comes amid renewed diplomatic overtures from Seoul toward Pyongyang.

A 7.7-magnitude earthquake struck the eastern Indonesian island of Flores just before 5 a.m. Saturday at a shallow 15-kilometer depth, killing at least 38 people according to national disaster agency BNPB. A brief tsunami warning was lifted about three hours later after 2,000 residents had already self-evacuated.

Colorado's lawsuit against the federal government took a turn as an email surfaced tying targeted actions to Trump's anger over the conviction of election denier Tina Peters. An administration official convened a group to weigh "immediate actions," according to the filing.

Tropical Storm Lala is projected to make landfall on Hawaii's Big Island with hurricane-force winds within hours, and Governor Josh Green has declared a state of emergency. Forecasters warn of life-threatening floods, mudslides, and high surf across the island chain.

Andrés Manuel López Beltrán, son of former Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador, said the Trump administration canceled his U.S. visa and publicly denounced the move. It's the latest friction point in an increasingly tense U.S.-Mexico relationship.

Nvidia disclosed in a regulatory filing that its SpaceX position was worth about $21 billion at the end of Q2, tied to 122.8 million Class A shares. SpaceX went public in June and closed Friday at $140, down from $170.86 at quarter-end — putting Nvidia's stake now closer to $17.2 billion.

Private equity firm Silver Lake is in potential buyout talks with payroll and HR platform Workday. Analysts read the report as a floor under enterprise software after this year's AI-driven selloff, with several boutique firms flagging other names that could follow.

Shares of SanDisk surged nearly 35% in the week ending Friday after JPMorgan upgraded the memory-chip maker. Investors have been piling back into memory names alongside a broader AI-hardware rally that has SNDK up more than 500% year-to-date.

A rock blasted off Mars and recovered in Algeria as NWA 13441 fills a nearly 2-billion-year gap in the Red Planet's geological record, Boston College researchers say. The chemistry of the sample is unlike anything previously seen in Martian meteorites.

Archaeologists at the University of Tübingen unearthed two mammoth-ivory birds tucked in 40,000-year-old layers of Hohle Fels Cave, calling them the smallest known Ice Age figurines. The find pushes the boundaries of what our ancestors were capable of crafting by firelight.

Researchers say aggressive MDS stem cells carry a metabolic "energy addiction" that could be exploited to selectively kill the cells driving relapse. The approach may help patients whose cancers resist standard chemotherapy.

Shane Bieber held the Yankees to one run on four hits to outduel Gerrit Cole in Toronto's 3-1 win — Cole's first loss after three straight winning starts. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. left the game after taking an inadvertent knee to the head during a rundown at third.

Scottie Scheffler birdied his first five holes and shot a 9-under 61 to take a three-shot lead at the FedEx St. Jude Championship. The round tied the TPC Southwind course record and set up a Saturday cushion at the FedEx Cup opener.

With new ownership in place, the Timberwolves confirmed they will retire Kevin Garnett's No. 21 in February, ending years of standoff between the franchise legend and the club. Garnett had long refused a ceremony over grievances with the previous ownership group.

MLB is bringing its Field of Dreams Game back to Dyersville, Iowa on August 12, 2027, with the Red Sox facing the Royals on the iconic movie-set diamond. It'll be the fourth edition of the cornfield showcase.

Kevin Feige officially set the MCU's X-Men reboot for May 5, 2028, with Sadie Sink as Jean Grey, Kit Connor as Cyclops, and Samara Weaving as Emma Frost. It's Marvel's biggest franchise reset since acquiring the mutant characters from Fox.

Disney revealed the first plot details for Frozen 3, teasing an Anna-and-Kristoff wedding, a girlfriend for Olaf, and a new villain when the film hits theaters November 24, 2027. The sequel keeps the franchise's Thanksgiving release tradition intact.

Disney used its D23 event to announce Zootopia 3, with Ginnifer Goodwin and Ke Huy Quan reprising their roles for a story that will focus on birds. Zootopia 2 was one of last year's biggest global hits, giving the studio easy math on a threequel.

What it is: Data-breach victim notices sent to US consumers in the first half of 2026 already total more than 471 million, per the Identity Theft Resource Center. That single-quarter tally comfortably outpaces the 297.5 million notices sent in all of 2025.

The detail: The ITRC counted 1,803 incidents through June, up from 1,732 in the same stretch of 2025 and on pace to eclipse the 3,321 total for last year. A cyberattack on the education tool Canvas accounted for 275 million of the first-half notices on its own. Malicious-insider incidents jumped to 21 in six months — versus three for all of last year — with ITRC president James Lee tying part of the surge to disgruntled laid-off employees and an FBI-flagged scheme in which North Korean IT workers use stolen identities, deepfake video interviews, and AI-generated résumés to land remote roles inside US firms.

Why it matters: A separate IBM study found that one in four breaches between March 2025 and February 2026 was AI-enabled, up 56% year over year. Consumers are getting less useful information when breaches happen: only 24% of first-half 2026 notices included details about what was stolen, down from 93% in 2021, which Lee attributes to companies stripping down disclosures to the bare legal minimum after a wave of litigation.

What to watch: Watch how quickly the Canvas figure moves other education-tech vendors into regulatory crosshairs, since edtech has become an unusually rich target. Watch the malicious-insider trend — Lee said the ITRC has "never seen more than three data breaches in a given year" from insiders, and this year could see forty or more. And watch whether Congress moves to standardize breach-disclosure rules, since the current state-by-state patchwork means, as Lee put it, "Where you live determines if you find out."

That's the world in five minutes, with the biggest developments separated from the noise. Share Five Minute Daily with someone who wants a clear morning briefing, and subscribe to get the next edition.

—The Five Minute Daily Team