Our daily travels around the world

🇺🇸🇸🇪 The US and Sweden signed a new military cooperation agreement. The pact gives US troops access to Sweden's 17 military bases to boost regional security and make it easier for the Scandinavian country to receive training and other support from the US. The deal comes as Sweden is pending approval to join NATO, marking a reversal of its long-standing policy of non-alignment in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The US is currently negotiating similar agreements with Finland and Denmark.

💥 Israel-Hamas war update: Israeli officials yesterday said its military had killed about half of Hamas’ mid-level commanders in Gaza since October 7 as part of a deliberate strategy to hamper Hamas’ ability to fight. Israeli airstrikes targeting Gaza have intensified since the end of a week-long ceasefire last Friday, with the country’s ground troops engaging in street-to-street combat with Hamas in Khan Younis (the largest city in southern Gaza). Hamas-led health authorities say at least 1,200 Palestinians have been killed since the ceasefire ended, bringing the total to at least 15,900 Palestinians killed since Hamas’ surprise attack on October 7. More than 1,330 Israelis have been killed since the October 7 attack, including ~900 civilians.

🇧🇷 A Brazilian city passed what appears to be the world’s first law entirely written by AI. In October, Porto Alegre’s city council unanimously passed legislation to prevent the city from charging taxpayers to replace stolen water consumption meters. What they didn’t know at the time was that the councilman who proposed and wrote the bill secretly used ChatGPT to come up with the entire thing, since he concealed this fact until six days after the law went into effect late last month. The councilman says he did so because he wanted to spark a debate over the merits of AI in lawmaking.