The most sanctioned country in the world is wriggling out of its economic constraints. Though North Korea remains overwhelmingly impoverished, its capital city has transformed in just a few short years thanks to deepened international partnerships, especially with China and Russia. Chinese President Xi Jinping arrived in North Korea yesterday for the first time in seven years.

A lot has changed since Xi’s last visit. For starters, tourists recently told the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times that Pyongyang suddenly feels more modernized, with far more cars, smartphones, and people using delivery apps than just a few years ago.

By the numbers:

• North Korea’s economy grew by 3.7% in 2024, its fastest rate in eight years, according to the South Korean central bank.
• Construction is booming. North Korea built 10,000 new homes in the capital city last year and finished building Pyongyang’s largest hospital, plus a Central Park-sized greenhouse and a beach resort.
• All this growth is visible from the sky. Satellite data shows that North Korea is now about three times brighter at night than it was five years ago, WSJ reported.

What happened?

North Korea’s pandemic-era slump, which included widespread food shortages, began to turn around after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022. North Korea made $10+ billion from the summer of 2023 through the end of last year by selling munitions to Moscow and sending troops, according to the think tank INSS.

Separately, North Korean hackers have siphoned billions of dollars from crypto exchanges to the regime in recent years.

Now, China likely wants to remind North Korea that it’s a crucial trade partner, but North Korea’s budding relations with Russia also give Kim Jong Un more leverage in meeting with Xi. Still, monthly trade with China recently hit an eight-year high as more tech products enter North Korea.

Zoom out: North Korean GDP is less than 1% of US GDP, and most of North Korea’s growth is happening in Pyongyang. Nearly half of its 26 million residents are malnourished, according to the UN.—ML

The San Antonio Spurs win Game 3 of the NBA Finals. New York fans need to retire their “Knicks in four” chants, as the Spurs took Game 3 with a 115–111 victory last night at Madison Square Garden. In attendance were President Trump, who sat with Knicks owner Jim Dolan in his suite, and NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who said earlier in the day that he had bought a standing-room-only ticket directly from Madison Square Garden for around $1,000. Director Spike Lee wore a custom No. 14 Pope Leo Knicks jersey that the pontiff signed for him last year. On the Inside the NBA pregame show on ESPN, Lee said, “This is a team of destiny.” Game 4 is on Wednesday night in New York.

Iran and Israel halted the exchange of strikes. The two nations traded fire for the first time since April early yesterday morning before President Trump called for an immediate cessation. Shortly after that, Iran’s military announced it was halting offensive strikes, although it warned that further aggression would lead to “much more severe and crushing measures than before.” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed similar sentiments in a recorded statement released yesterday, but said Israel would continue its operation against Hezbollah in Lebanon. According to the Associated Press, diplomats scrambled in the aftermath of the exchanges to save the ceasefire between the US and Iran.

Bending Spoons filed for an IPO. Sure, it’s shaping up to be a Hot IPO Summer with SpaceX getting ready to launch and big AI companies filing paperwork behind the scenes, but there’s still room for the parent company of offbeat internet companies named after a reference to The Matrix. Yesterday, Bending Spoons filed to go public in the US. The Italy-based company owns Vimeo, AOL, Eventbrite, Meetup, Evernote, Issuu, WeTransfer, and more. Its valuation could reportedly reach $20 billion.—HVL

Tim Cook’s final dish is a souped-up Siri. Yesterday, Apple used its final annual keynote with Cook as CEO to tease a slew of Siri-centered AI features coming to iPhones, iPads, Macs, and Apple Watches this fall.

While Siri won’t be taking Cook’s job, Apple said the talkative tool, now known as Siri AI, will become smarter after years of AI product delays and underwhelming features had investors worried that the company is falling behind rivals.

Not just a new last name

Apple said Siri will finally be able to handle complex conversations and multistep tasks—much like a teenage sibling OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini. Speaking of Gemini, Apple is outsourcing some of the tech underpinning its overhauled Siri to Google:

• Siri’s answers will draw on information from the web, as well as your texts, emails, and photos.
• You’ll be able to get assistance answering emails, taking action after receiving a text, or getting answers about an item in front of you through the camera app.
• Siri itself will now live in a dedicated app, where users can revisit past conversations.

Plus, Apple said you’ll be able to shift the angle of photos or expand the frame using its AI.

But…AI-fied Apple has so far failed to enthuse investors: the company’s shares closed 1.9% in the red yesterday.

Aside from AI: Apple devices will soon get improved search and enhanced parental controls.—SK

The most innovative piece of coffee technology was made by a 130-year-old Italian. Coffee company Lavazza introduced its new sustainable espresso puck, Tablì, to the US yesterday, and it’s the first single-serve coffee product not enclosed in a pod or a cup for brewing. Each puck is 100% ground and packed espresso.

How does it work? You put the wrapper-less puck in the special $100 machine (of course there’s a special machine) that resembles a Keurig, push a button, and your espresso is ready.

Keurig really wanted to win the race for a plastic-free, single cup of coffee, since the SEC slammed it with a $1.5 million penalty in 2024 for recycling claims the agency said were misleading. Keurig neither confirmed nor denied the SEC’s accusations. Nespresso uses aluminum pods that can be recycled, but it requires customers to ship them back.

Big picture: Lavazza’s debut is part of a broader push to bolster its presence in the North American market, which brings in over $100 million annually for the company. But the Italian brand stressed that it’s not trying to unseat Keurig, which did almost $4 billion in US coffee sales last year. Plot twist: Lavazza has “an important contract” with Keurig to sell its own coffee in K-Cups, the company said.—MM

On Tuesdays, the Brew’s Matty Merritt brings you the news you need to make life a little easier during your 9-5, 5-9, or OOO.

Not long ago, index funds were considered a pretty boring investment—a good place to park cash that you didn’t want to get swept away in the volatile ups-and-downs of hot new trades because of the rules governing which companies were included. That’s also what made them one of the most popular features of Americans’ retirement accounts.

But just a week after SpaceX’s IPO on Friday, it will be able to slide into some index funds, despite reporting billion-dollar losses last year and the first three months of 2026.

Which ones? Those that track the stocks of the Nasdaq and FTSE Russell indexes. Within the last few months, both changed their methodology for when a company can join the indexes after becoming public. Now, what used to be a roughly three-month wait period is just five days for some of FTSE Russell’s indexes and 15 for the Nasdaq.

But the S&P keeps the wait. On Friday, S&P Global said it wouldn’t change rules to fast-track stocks into the S&P 500, which would prevent the nearly $7.5 trillion in passively managed funds that follow it from being invested in both SpaceX and other massive IPOs expected this year, like Anthropic and OpenAI.—MM

Brew Mini: If you know your “current events,” you’ll do just swell on today’s little puzzle. Play the Mini here.

State of happiness trivia

A major new study ranked this US state No. 1 in terms of quality of life. Can you name it from the following hints?

1. Its name comes from the Dakota words for “sky-tinted waters.”
2. Major companies headquartered there include Target, Best Buy, General Mills, and 3M.
3. On average, this state has one recreational boat per six residents.