It’s Labor Day, which means half the country is at the grill and the other half is stuck in traffic trying to get to one. The news cycle’s moving just as slow, with fewer headlines hitting and most politicians conveniently “out of office.” But even on quiet days, the world doesn’t actually stop so here’s what you need to know.

China’s Power Party

China is throwing a party in Tianjin, and it’s not your average cocktail mixer. Xi Jinping just pulled in Vladimir Putin, Narendra Modi, and a laundry list of world leaders for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit. If the G7 is the West’s invite-only dinner, this is China’s buffet, lots of countries, lots of grievances, and lots of shade thrown at Washington.

The guest list is stacked. Iran’s new president, Masoud Pezeshkian, is there. Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan showed up. Central Asian leaders brought their entourages. But the real headline is Modi. This is the Indian prime minister’s first time setting foot in China in seven years. That matters. India and China have been locked in a tense stare-down along their shared border, so even a handshake and polite photo op counts as progress. Xi and Modi actually announced some movement on border management. Translation: baby steps, but better than nothing.

Meanwhile, Putin is right at home here. He’s still getting warm hugs from Beijing even as his war in Ukraine drags on. Expect him to pitch his own version of “let’s talk peace” while quietly asking for more support behind the curtain. Xi, for his part, is using this summit to look like the patient adult in the room while juggling Putin’s war, Modi’s mistrust, and Trump’s tariffs breathing down everyone’s necks.

What’s on the agenda? Security cooperation, renewable energy, digital tech, and whispers of a shiny new SCO Development Bank modeled after BRICS. Basically, a financial club to cut some reliance on the West. Oh, and lots of venting about Trump’s trade war, which has become the SCO’s unofficial bonding activity.

Big picture: Xi doesn’t need the summit to solve anything concrete. The point is optics. China is saying, “Look who comes when I call.” Russia gets legitimacy, India gets a thaw, and everyone else gets to complain about Washington with like-minded friends. The symbolism is the story. The world may be fracturing into camps, and Tianjin is China’s way of showing it can host the rival camp just fine.

Rapid Fire

🗳️ Trump says he’s about to drop an executive order forcing voter ID rules nationwide. He blasted it out on Truth Social with his usual caps lock flair: “Voter ID Must Be Part of Every Single Vote. NO EXCEPTIONS!” He also promised to axe nearly all mail-in voting, limiting it only to sick people and military members overseas. That would mark a sweeping change from the current patchwork system, where states set their own rules and 36 already require some form of ID at the polls.

The catch? U.S. elections are run by the states, not the White House. Trump already tried something similar in March, ordering proof of citizenship for federal voter registration, and that one’s headed straight for the courts. This new plan would almost certainly face the same fate. Even Republican-leaning states aren’t all on the same page when it comes to IDs and mail ballots. So while Trump can sign the order and rally his base, the bigger fight will be whether the courts let a president rewrite state election law with the stroke of a pen.

🏙️ Chicago’s mayor is bracing for a fight. On Saturday, Brandon Johnson signed what he calls the “Protecting Chicago Initiative,” basically telling Trump’s federal agents they won’t be getting any help from the city. Trump’s administration has been gearing up for a sweeping immigration crackdown, with talk of mass arrests, federal raids, and even National Guard deployments. Johnson says Chicago has “credible reports” that the city could be a key target, so he’s moving early to set the rules: no cooperation from Chicago police, and every city agency ready to push back in court.

The order is framed as more than just policy. Johnson cast it as the most sweeping resistance campaign of any city in the country, a defense of residents’ rights against what he calls “escalating threats” from Washington. The backdrop here is familiar. Chicago has long been a sanctuary city, clashing with federal authorities over immigration enforcement. Now, with Trump back in the White House and immigration once again a centerpiece of his agenda, Johnson is planting a flag: Chicago won’t be a willing partner in the crackdown, even if it means tangling with federal agents and possibly troops on its streets.

📱TikTok just hit pause in one of its biggest markets. The app suspended its live-streaming feature in Indonesia “for the next few days” after deadly antigovernment protests rocked the country. A company spokesperson said it was about safety, not censorship. TikTok wants to keep its platform “a safe and civil space” while the streets are anything but.

The protests started after a man was killed by a police vehicle, then exploded when Parliament decided to give itself fatter perks while ordinary people are scraping by. The backlash has been so intense that President Prabowo Subianto scrapped a planned trip to China, and Jakarta hauled in reps from TikTok and Meta to answer questions. With over 100 million Indonesian users, TikTok’s temporary shutdown isn’t just a tech tweak. It’s a move that shows how quickly digital platforms can get pulled into real-world unrest.

World Watch

A tragic maritime disaster unfolded off the coast of West Africa this week, where a boat carrying around 150 migrants capsized after leaving The Gambia. At least 70 bodies have been recovered, and survivors say the true toll could top 100. Only 16 people were rescued. Witnesses described the boat overturning when passengers rushed to one side after spotting lights in the distance.

The vessel carried mainly Gambian and Senegalese nationals, attempting the increasingly used but extremely dangerous Atlantic route to Spain’s Canary Islands. It is one of the deadliest accidents in recent years on this corridor, underscoring the desperate risks migrants face in search of a better future and the urgent humanitarian crisis playing out on these waters.

Today in What the Hell

El Salvador just shuffled its Bitcoin stash. The government’s National Bitcoin Office announced it moved the country’s entire reserve out of one giant wallet and into 14 fresh ones. Each new address will hold no more than 500 BTC, a setup meant to spread risk and avoid the rookie mistake of piling everything into a single keyhole.

The shift is basically a security upgrade. By breaking up the holdings, the country reduces the risk of a single point of failure, stays in line with crypto best practices, and even nods to future threats like quantum computing cracking old cryptography. For a nation that bet its reputation on Bitcoin, this is less about making headlines and more about quietly making sure its digital treasure chest doesn’t get picked open.

That’s all folks

Even on a holiday, the world doesn’t really take a breather. China’s flexing, Trump’s threatening, and TikTok’s ducking for cover. We’ll keep cutting through the noise so you don’t have to… See you back here tomorrow.