Good Morning. Frontsight’s Rachel Brooks is on site at Spaceport Cup, the world’s largest collegiate rocketry competition, where “aeronauts who will one day join forces with or build the startups to rival the giants of SpaceX and Blue Origin” are going head-to-head in their own space race. Be sure to check out the dispatch from Day 1.

— 🐈‍⬛ Acoustic Kitty

THE BOTTOM LINE UP FRONT

Hostage Families and Protests in Israel Block a Major Highway in Tel Aviv

Families of hostages held in Gaza joined mass protests in Israel, helping to block a main highway in Tel Aviv.

In Jerusalem, tens of thousands of Israelis have taken to the streets demanding early elections and immediate negotiations with Hamas for the release of hostages. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has dissolved his war cabinet amid mounting internal pressures from moderates and ultranationalists within his coalition.

The protests reflect significant public discontent regarding Netanyahu’s handling of the Gaza conflict and rising casualties on both sides, potentially destabilizing current leadership during a critical period.

INTERNATIONAL SECURITY & DIPLOMACY

Counterterrorism

• Lawmakers on Capitol Hill are pushing to label Russia a state sponsor of terror. The bipartisan bill comes after Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a deal with North Korea to defend each other if either country is attacked. The U.S. currently considers Cuba, Iran, Syria and North Korea state sponsors of terror.

• Canada is listing Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization and could investigate former senior Iranian officials living in the country

Military & Defense

• Ukraine’s use of aerial drones and robot boats are hampering Russian naval operations in the Black Sea and rewriting the playbook for war planners concerned with maritime chokepoints.

• Anduril’s Ghost drone has been officially added to the Blue UAS Cleared List. This certification, approved by the U.S. Department of Defense, marks a crucial step for Anduril, enabling its advanced unmanned aerial system to be widely deployed across military operations.

Cybersecurity

• Cyber espionage groups associated with China have been linked to a long-running campaign that has infiltrated several telecom operators located in a single Asian country at least since 2021 according to a report from the Symantec Threat Hunter Team.

• China's spy agencies are using talent competitions to recruit young hackers for cyberattacks on the US. Chinese hackers are now forced to compete in government-sanctioned domestic events, giving spy agencies a pipeline of knowledge and manpower that can be exploited for use against the US and its allies.

• Now in its second day, a cyberattack at a company called CDK Global has had the ripple effect of disrupting IT operations at potentially thousands of auto dealerships across the US.

Counterintelligence & Espionage

• China has alleged that the British Secret Intelligence Service MI6 turned two staff members of unnamed Chinese central state organs into spies for the British government.

• The trial of U.S.-Russian former ballerina Ksenia Karelina has started in Moscow, where she faces treason charges for allegedly acting as an American spy.

Transnational Organized Crime

• Colombian authorities have intercepted more than 6 tons of cocaine destined for Turkey over the past 5 years.

• A former U.S. Marine was sentenced in federal court to 195 months in prison for leading an international organization that transported ton-quantities of cocaine from South America to Mexico and into the United States.

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

A potential future conflict between Taiwan and China would be shaped by novel methods of drone warfare involving advanced underwater drones and increased levels of autonomy, according to a new war-gaming experiment by the think tank Center for a New American Security (CNAS).

The report comes as concerns about Beijing’s aggression toward Taiwan have been rising: China sent dozens of surveillance balloons over the Taiwan Strait in January during Taiwan’s elections, and in May, two Chinese naval ships entered Taiwan’s restricted waters.

In other news…

A research team characterize defects in silicon, which could be used as a diagnostic and control tool for defects in other material systems.

OpenAI challenger Anthropic has delivered its latest model — Claude 3.5 Sonnet — and claimed it outperforms rivals including OpenAI's GPT-4o, Google's Gemini 1.5 Pro, and an early snapshot of Meta's Llama3-400B .

DEALS & FUNDING

European small launch vehicle developer Isar Aerospace has raised more than $70M in an extension of an earlier round that includes participation from a new NATO-backed fund.

Among the participants in the round is the NATO Innovation Fund, a new venture fund backed by 24 of NATO’s 32 member states that plans to invest more than one billion euros in “deep tech” companies working on space as well as hypersonic systems, artificial intelligence and biotech, among other fields.

In other news…

Quantum Systems, a manufacturer of dual-use reconnaissance drones, won an €18.4M contract to supply the Romanian Ministry of Defense with its advanced Vector unmanned aerial systems (UAS).

U.S. manufacturing giant Honeywell plans to buy defense electronics maker CAES for $1.9B to enhance its military hardware for space and other domains.

Poland has signed a $735M contract with the U.S. for the supply of JASSM-ER missiles as the country spends heavily to bolster its armed forces since Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Exploration Laboratories, a startup focused on space resources, won a $1.9M Tactical Funding Increase (TACFI) from SpaceWERX.