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Chinese aerospace giant Comac has unveiled its plans for the C949, a supersonic aircraft designed to fly 50% farther than the Concorde and produce sonic booms quieter than a hairdryer. Scheduled to debut in 2049—coinciding with the centenary of the People’s Republic of China—the aircraft positions China to challenge US supersonic projects like NASA’s X-59 and Boom Supersonic’s Overture in a race to redefine global air travel. “The most important thing here is that this shows supersonic is a race—and China’s interested,” says Blake Scholl, CEO and founder of Boom Supersonic. “Advanced airplanes symbolize technological superiority, and it’s no accident that China wants …

An empty light truck is cruising along a sun-drenched highway of Qionghai, a city in Hainan Island, the southernmost part of China. As the car that’s filming overtakes it, we can see the truck has no driver. In fact, it doesn’t even have a cabin: Its front is just a flat wall crowned by what looks to be sensors and cameras. It’s an eerie and surreal view, a Headless Horseman of trucks just as scary as an actual headless horseman. The futuristic yet cheap-looking vehicle is part of a fleet of driverless light trucks that can carry 1,000 parcels each completely unattended over a range of more than 110 miles. These vehicles, operated by Chinese logistics giant ZT…

China will impose tariffs of up to 19.8% on pork imports from the European Union, a drastic drop from preliminary tariffs of up to 62.4%, its Commerce Ministry said Tuesday. The ministry’s announcement followed an investigation the Chinese side launched into imports of pork from the trading bloc after the EU imposed provisional tariffs on China-made electric vehicles. Beijing also levied anti-dumping duties on European brandy, most notably cognac produced in France, though major brandy producers received exemptions. Imports of dairy products from the EU likewise were subject to anti-dumping probes. The EU runs a massive trade deficit with China: over 300 billi…

Every TV and movie critic is loving to hate on Darren Aronofsky these days. The Academy Award-nominated filmmaker—creator of lyrical, surreal, and deeply human movies like Black Swan, The Whale, Mother!, and Pi—has released an AI-generated series called On This Day . . . 1776 to commemorate the semiquincentennial anniversary of the American Revolution. Though the series has garnered millions of views, commentators everywhere call it “a horror,” slamming Aronofsky’s work for how stiff the faces look, how everything morphs unrealistically. Although calling it “requiem for a filmmaker” seems excessive, they are not wrong about these faults. The series, created using real…

“China has already won the materials war.” Andrew Barron, one of the top materials experts on the planet, didn’t mince words when I interviewed him for a documentary on the dangers of our civilization’s dependency on China’s quasi-monopoly of rare earth minerals. If the world does not stop depending on China’s supply of rare earths, he warned two years ago, we could face an economic collapse in just a few decades. It sounds like a dystopian sci-fi movie, but this potentially catastrophic scenario began this week for the United States, when Xi Jinping’s government issued an immediate suspension of rare earth mineral and magnet exports, retaliating against Presiden…

Dutch semiconductor chip machine maker ASML recorded a record net profit of 9.6 billion euros ($11.5 billion) in 2025 on sales of 32.7 billion euros fueled by AI-driven demand, the company reported Wednesday as it also announced plans to slash its workforce by about 1,700, about 4% of its workforce. The growth comes despite Dutch government restrictions on exports of machines that can be used to make chips that can be integrated into weapons systems. The measures, initially announced in 2023 and later expanded, are seen as part of a U.S. policy that aims at limiting China’s access to such technology. “In the last months, many of our customers have shared a notably more …