‘Battle Creek, a Rust Belt icon, battles back as American manufacturing jobs decline’

Chicago Tribune editorial board

For “generations, the Kellogg food company and Battle Creek, Michigan, went together like corn flakes and milk,” but “after decades as an independent public company, Kellogg split in two,” says the Chicago Tribune editorial board. Like “many other small industrial cities across the Midwest, Battle Creek is diversifying beyond its roots,” and its “resilience in the face of change shows that, under pressure, the Rust Belt’s factory towns can carve out a future based on their long-time strengths.”

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‘Universities must reinvent themselves for the intelligent age’

Klaus Schwab at Time

For “more than a century, universities have been among humanity’s most transformative institutions,” but the “world they helped create is now changing at unprecedented speed,” says Klaus Schwab. In the “‘Intelligent Age’ defined by the rise of artificial intelligence and quantum computing, education cannot remain preparation for life.” It “must become a continuous condition of life,” as “our culture is moving irreversibly from learning for life to lifelong learning.” This “demands systemic change across national education systems.”

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‘Why aren’t Republicans thrilled by the fall in teen pregnancies?’

Arwa Mahdawi at The Guardian

The “teenage birth rate in the U.S. fell by 7% in 2025,” and “while this might seem like a positive development, it has been a cause of dismay among the MAGA-adjacent crowd,” says Arwa Mahdawi. Republicans “aren’t just content with overturning the right to a safe and legal abortion; they’re also quietly undercutting access to contraception.” What’s “next? The party of ‘family values’ rallying behind child marriage? Oh, wait, they’ve already ticked that one off.”

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‘The ever-shrinking JD Vance’

Edward Luce at the Financial Times

The vice presidency “was not designed to be fun,” says Edward Luce. But “being Trump’s number two brings unique discomfort.” Defending “policies that often turn 180 degrees overnight — from vowing to destroy a civilization, say, to announcing a new golden age — requires pure acrobatics.” JD Vance “is flailing,” and “he is thus no longer Trump’s obvious successor.” Even “were Vance to regain his place in the Trumpian firmament, there is no such thing as a Vance base.”

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‘Vol. II’ by Angine de Poitrine

★★★

“The Canadian rock duo Angine de Poitrine conquered the internet this year with long-nosed, polka-dotted masks and music that’s intricate, microtonal, mostly instrumental, and unquestionably fun,” said Jon Pareles in The New York Times. Hailing from Quebec and named after pre-heart-attack chest pain, the two musicians, a guitarist and a drummer who go by Khn de Poitrine and Klek de Poitrine, seem to have mind-melded over two decades of collaboration. To build each song, Khn uses a looping pedal to stack guitar and bass riffs while Klek’s drumming “underlines every essential syncopation.” Despite the costumes that have helped attract millions of YouTube views, “Angine de Poitrine’s music is no gimmick,” requiring great feats of dexterity.

So here we are, in 2026, and “the world’s hottest rock band looks like they snuck a double-necked guitar onto the set of Beetlejuice,” said Christopher R. Weingarten in Pitchfork. It’s unexpected, because the act’s first album went unheard yet the duo’s sudden success is well-earned. “They have the muscle, the melody, and the magic to be the world’s weirdest party band.”

‘Distracted’ by Thundercat

★★★

On his first album in six years, Thundercat is “staring down loss while
making the struggle as beautiful, funny, spacey, and vibe-y as he can,” said Will Hermes in Rolling Stone. The 41-year-old bass virtuoso and R&B visionary has done the same before, dedicating his Grammy-winning previous album to rapper Mac Miller, a longtime friend. This time he’s also mourning another creative partner, jazz producer-promoter Meghan Stabile, and paying tribute with a sound that’s “’70s jazz fusion meets ’80s quiet storm,” supported by guests who include A$AP Rocky, Lil Yachty, and Willow Smith. Meanwhile, the newly sober headliner brought in hitmaker Greg Kurstin to replace Flying Lotus as his primary producer, and he “makes things smoother, shinier, and less weird.”

Kurstin’s approach “gives these tracks more oxygen than FlyLo’s arrangements ever would,” said Philemon Hayes in his Substack newsletter. That allows us to better hear Thundercat describe his ADD impulsivity and the wasted days it can cause. While “the jokes are still constant,” Thundercat’s old stoned persona “has been swapped out for something plainer and harder to dismiss.”

‘Creature of Habit’ by Courtney Barnett

★★★

“Creature of Habit makes it plain: Courtney Barnett is here to rock,” said Eoghan Lyng in PopMatters. The fourth album from the Australian-born singer is “a no-nonsense, heartfelt barrel of songs” that in spots hearken back to icons such as Lou Reed and Kurt Cobain. But while the grunge and indie-rock influences are obvious and expected, Barnett has also rarely sounded as confident as a vocalist, delivering her simple, artful lyrics “with rapier-sharp wit and total commitment.” There’s “yearning poetry” in the spare ballad “Mostly Patient,” while “Great Advice” features Barnett cackling as she tells critics she needs their opinions like a needle in the eye. Judging by the album’s plethora of zingers, Barnett could have been a stand-up comedian.

“Musically and lyrically, Barnett’s latest is a treatise on why humans are such habitual creatures,” said Grant Sharples in Paste. “Ironically, Barnett treads well-worn ground in her exploration of these ideas. Nothing here feels unfamiliar.” Still, there are worse things than playing to one’s strengths. “When you’re this good at what you do, there’s nothing wrong with continuing in that vein.”

‘Transcription’ by Ben Lerner

“As ever with Ben Lerner’s novels, the plot of Transcription is sparse, propelled mostly by the characters’ winding speech and the narrator’s thoughts,” said Hannah Gold in Harper’s. But even at 144 pages, it’s a “remarkable” book, one that suggests human consciousness, and thus our individual experience of the self, has been forever changed by the phones most of us now carry in our pockets. “The novel is by turns slapstick and sincere in its consideration of digital devices”: It opens with its unnamed Lerner-like narrator accidentally dropping his phone in a sink of water, triggering a foolish bit of subterfuge. When this middle-aged poet meets with his former mentor, a renowned 90-year-old intellectual, for what’s likely to be the older man’s final interview, he pretends that the broken phone is recording, then creates a faked transcript. As events play out, Lerner’s writing “crackles with new insights, images, motifs.”

“In another writer’s hands, the novel would be a comic tale of comeuppance,” said Sukhdev Sandhu in The Guardian. “Lerner is more ambitious.” The voice of the German-born mentor, Thomas, unfolds in “layered, associative sentences” that “skip across time and place to riddling, thrilling effect,” and although the narrator is lambasted when, in the novel’s middle section, he reveals at a symposium lecture after Thomas’ death that he reconstructed Thomas’ words. Lerner doesn’t end there. He adds a third section that finds the narrator in dialogue with an old friend, Max, who was also Thomas’ only son. That pair’s conversation touches on technology, parenting, and the Thomas they both knew, and yet the bristling intelligence of their back-and-forth is “at its most gripping when it addresses a seemingly simple issue: how to get a teenage girl to eat.” Max has watched his only daughter waste away, pained that she seems, in his eyes, to be rejecting the life provided to her because that life is a lie.

Such ideas “risk becoming arid, and there are certainly times when Lerner overexplains them,” said Sam Sacks in The Wall Street Journal. But “Lerner’s method is to flicker between humor and heartbreak,” and Transcription “mines a lot of humor from the bumbling of its poet-narrator.” Max recalls having his own final interview with Thomas, a remote phone-assisted conversation he recorded while Thomas lay dying in isolation because of Covid restrictions, yet that scene too is “ultimately reconfigured in surprising ways, leaving its meanings bracingly indefinite.” It remains a striking moment, said Alexandra Jacobs in The New York Times. These days, “smartphones have become so integral to our lives that how modern authors incorporate them into regular old paper books has become a kind of steeplechase. Right now Lerner, with his combination of erudition and lightness, is winning.”

‘The Meaning of Your Life: Finding Purpose in an Age of Emptiness’ by Arthur C. Brooks

“You might call Arthur C. Brooks ‘the happiness professor,’” said Anna Maxted in The Telegraph (U.K.). For the past decade, after all, the 61-year-old author and former president of the center-right American Enterprise Institute has been a Harvard faculty member teaching a popular course on the science of happiness. Beyond that—“and what a rare thing”—when he speaks about the importance of aspiring to what he calls moral beauty, he embodies the practice. His latest best seller, The Meaning of Your Life, aims to help anyone who finds that, even while enjoying successes by many measures, their existence feels empty. Self-focus alone, of course, “doesn’t bring happiness.” Even so, he shows how it can, when done right, lead to a surer sense of life purpose.

Brooks is “remarkably ill-equipped” to dispense such wisdom, said Becca Rothfeld in The New Yorker. He has made a career of parroting the fashionable ideas of the conservative establishment while avoiding taking meaningful stands. Now that he’s turned to self-help, a tack that has earned him hefty speaking fees and the privilege of co-authoring a 2023 best seller with Oprah Winfrey, the counsel he offers gets readers only so far. “Who would deny,” for example, “that we would all do better to turn off our phones, interact with other human beings, and maybe even go outside for a walk every once in a while?” Unfortunately, Brooks misuses science, and he “struggles when he strays into the rugged realm of philosophy.” Not surprisingly, he advises against trying to ascertain what’s true and right, or fighting for it. Instead, “he eschews all convictions, save those about what makes people feel better.”

Even so, much of Brooks’ advice rates as “wise and sometimes urgently needed counsel,” said Matt Reynolds in Christianity Today. He tells us to cultivate loving relationships, to seek out beauty, to pursue a professional calling, to ponder big questions, to engage in regular spiritual or philosophical study, and to learn from suffering rather than try to avoid it. When it comes to life’s meaning, though, his advice “remains curiously individualistic.” In short, you have to figure it out yourself.

Stumped on what to gift the person who has everything? A personalized present guarantees they receive a one-of-a-kind present, crafted with them in mind. These eight gift ideas can be tailor-made for anyone, for any occasion.

The Printed Gift custom recipe towel

Move their grandmother’s famous cookie recipe out of the box and onto a tea towel. The Printed Gift takes scanned handwritten or typewritten recipes, cleans them up to remove any stains and smudges then transfers them to a cotton towel. This is a “meaningful” way to preserve and “celebrate family recipes,” said Southern Living. ($30, The Printed Gift)

From the Library Of book embosser

This personalized book embosser will certainly make an impression. Choose from a variety of designs, add their name and poof, they’ll have the “perfect way to mark their books,” said Today. ($31.50, PickledStamps on Etsy)

Happy Tooned custom portrait

This one’s for the character in your life. Send Happy Tooned a picture of your person, and an illustrator will create a custom portrait of them in the style of an animated series. Options include “The Simpsons,” “Family Guy, “Rick and Morty,” “Bob’s Burgers” and “My Hero Academia.” The artist sends a preview for approval, and you can make as many revisions as you want until it’s perfect. (starting at $40, Happy Tooned)

Mark & Graham Bespoke Embroidered Crest pillow cover

Significant moments should be honored with a timeless gift. Mark & Graham’s bespoke pillow covers can be embroidered with monograms, names and dates, commemorating weddings, birthdays and anniversaries. There are four elegant crests to choose from in six colors. ($69, Mark & Graham)

Nautilus Puzzle customized puzzle

A customized wooden puzzle might be the missing piece to their game collection. The design process is simple: Upload the image you want on the puzzle, then choose a theme and size (260 or 475 pieces). There are 20 different categories to choose from, like birthday, congratulations and anniversary, and each style has its own shaped pieces to match the theme. (starting at $100, Nautilus Puzzles)

Smithey personalized ironware cookware

Making dinner is more enjoyable when using sturdy pots and pans, and Smithey’s “heirloom-quality” cookware is “undeniably great,” said CNN. Several of the company’s skillets, griddles and Dutch ovens can be personalized with a message or name, adding a special touch to kitchen essentials they’ll be using for “years to come.” (starting at $85, Smithey)

Songfinch custom song

Songfinch’s roster of independent musicians work with you to create a one-of-a-kind song that’s all about the recipient. After choosing a genre and artist, you’ll share with them memories, stories and other details you choose to be part of the lyrics. The final song is uploaded to a page that includes the lyrics and artist information. (starting at $200, Songfinch)

Susan Alexandra custom Devotion locket

Keep their favorite person, pet or item close at heart with this whimsical piece of jewelry. Upload the photo you want on the hand-enameled locket, then choose a background color and chain style (The Bijoux, made with colorful beads and pearls, adds a vibrant touch). An engraved message can also be added to the locket’s back. (starting at $278, Susan Alexandra)

This week’s question: A Burmese python can devour a whole antelope and then go on an 18-month fast thanks to a special molecule in its blood, a new study has found. If researchers were to create a snake-derived drug that gives humans the same feast-and-fast ability, what name should they give the medicine?

How to enter: Submissions should be emailed to contest@theweek.com. Please include your name, address, and daytime telephone number for verification; this week, please type “Snake fasting” in the subject line. Entries are due by noon, Eastern Time, Tuesday, April 21. Winners will appear on the Puzzle Page of the May 1 issue and at theweek.com/contest on April 24. In the case of identical or similar entries, the first one received gets credit. All entries become property of The Week.

The winner gets a one-year subscription to The Week.

Click or tap here to see the winner of last week's contest: Scream slogan

What happened

U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro’s office on Tuesday asked the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., to erase the seditious conspiracy convictions of Oath Keepers and Proud Boys leaders found guilty of playing key roles in the 2021 U.S. Capitol attack to keep President Donald Trump in power. The Trump administration has “determined in its prosecutorial discretion that dismissal of this criminal case is in the interests of justice,” Pirro’s office said. Trump pardoned most of the Jan. 6 rioters but commuted the lengthy prison sentences of the 12 covered by the new filing.

Who said what

The motion to expunge the convictions of ringleaders including Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes is the “latest effort by the Trump administration to erase the stain of Jan. 6,” Politico said. Asking the appeals court to “toss out the guilty verdicts” also lets the Justice Department avoid the “awkward situation of having to defend the convictions,” The New York Times said. That would “likely have required administration officials to assert that the far-right groups were acting on behalf” of Trump.

What next?

The request to vacate the last remaining Jan. 6 convictions is “likely to be granted because prosecutors have broad discretion to pursue or drop criminal charges,” The Washington Post said.

What happened

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) on Tuesday unveiled a bill to set up a bipartisan panel that could help remove a mentally or physically incapacitated president under the 25th Amendment. The legislation, which had 50 Democratic cosponsors, is a “matter of national security,” Raskin said in a statement. “Public trust in Donald Trump’s ability to meet the duties of his office has dropped to unprecedented lows” as he “threatens to destroy entire civilizations” and “aggressively insults the pope,” among other erratic behavior.

Who said what

The 25th Amendment empowers the vice president, plus the Cabinet or “such other body as Congress” provides, to declare the president unfit for office. “This body should have been set up” when the amendment was ratified in 1967, Raskin said. A White House spokesperson called Raskin a “lightweight” and praised Trump’s “sharpness” and “unmatched energy.”

The Democratic and Republican leaders in the House and Senate would each pick four of the panel’s 16 members — physicians, psychiatrists and former top Cabinet officials — and the panel would pick a 17th member as chair. If a medical examination found the president unfit, a majority of the panel could vote to suspend the president with the assent of the vice president.

What next?

The legislation “is a long shot,” Axios said, as “Republicans control Congress, and Trump could simply veto it.”

What happened

The U.S. on Tuesday hosted the first direct meeting between Israel and Lebanon since 1993. Israel, which is occupying southern Lebanon as it attacks Hezbollah, continued trading strikes with the Iran-backed militia during the meeting. Israeli attacks have killed at least 2,124 people in Lebanon in six weeks of war, including 168 children and 88 health workers, Lebanon’s health ministry said. Israel said 13 soldiers and at least two Israeli citizens have been killed.

Who said what

Tuesday’s two-hour Washington, D.C., meeting “concluded with encouraging words and talk of further meetings,” The New York Times said, but “no firm commitments and no change in Israel’s refusal to halt its punishing military campaign” in Lebanon. Israel’s U.S. ambassador, Yechiel Leiter, said he and his Lebanese counterpart, Nada Hamadeh Moawad, had agreed “that the evil of Hezbollah must be eradicated.” Moawad said she had “underscored the need to preserve our territorial integrity and state sovereignty” and “called for a ceasefire.”

The Lebanese government’s “capacity to confront Hezbollah” is “limited,” the BBC said. Hezbollah said it won’t abide by any agreements from the bilateral talks. “What does Lebanon have to offer on a negotiating table?” a Lebanese government official said to The Washington Post. “Nothing.”

The Israel-Lebanon talks are “a process, not an event,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters. “Hezbollah and Israel have always helped each other to destabilize the government of Lebanon,” U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said. “It’s time for Israel and Lebanon to be working together.”

What next?

The U.S. State Department said Israel and Lebanon “agreed to launch direct negotiations” at an unspecified “time and venue.”

Chancellor Rachel Reeves has proposed to increase defence spending by less than £10 billion over the next four years, despite the Armed Forces highlighting a £28 billion funding gap in the same period, and warning that Britain’s “national security and safety is in peril”, said The Times.

Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, a former Nato secretary-general, accused the Treasury in a speech on Tuesday of “vandalism” for inaction on defence. Leader of the 2025 Strategic Defence Review, Robertson said that for the UK “building deterrence will not be quick or cheap”. He added that “the public need to face that uncomfortable fact or suffer the consequences of not being safe in a very turbulent world.”

With a fragile ceasefire in the Middle East and continued conflict in Ukraine, many fear that the government’s pledges to defence will prove difficult to fulfil.

What has the government pledged?

Minister of State for the Defence Readiness and Industry Luke Pollard stated in the House that the government was undertaking the “largest sustained increase in defence spending since the Cold War”, in response to Lord Robertson’s claims, but this is a “low bar”, said Ben Chu on BBC News. Defence spending has been on an “almost constant downward path since the fall of the Berlin Wall”.

The UK government currently spends 2.4% of GDP on defence, and Keir Starmer has committed to hitting 2.5% from April next year. This will then rise to 3% “at some point during the next parliament”, said The Times, though some critics think that the UK “should be hitting the 3% target now”.

More broadly, in June last year the government also committed to a Nato-wide agreement to spend 5% of GDP on national security. This figure will be split into 3.5% on “core defence” and 1.5% on “resilience and security” by 2035.

What state are the Armed Forces in?

In 1990, at the end of the Cold War, the Army had “153,000 regular soldiers in its ranks”, said the BBC. Now, it has less than half that number, just 73,790, according to the Ministry of Defence.

When it comes to recruitment, “Britain is at serious risk of being left behind” as other countries look to bolster their ranks, said Cahal Milmo and Jane Merrick in The i Paper. European neighbours Germany, Finland, Poland and France are “forging ahead with rearmament schemes” and programmes to increase numbers applying to their armed forces.

In the year to September 2025, the number of applications to the British Army Regular Forces (108,020) decreased by 36.6% compared to the previous year (170,380), according to the MoD.

In terms of equipment, in 1990, the Royal Navy had 13 destroyers and 35 frigates, which has since dropped to six and 11 respectively, said the BBC. Similarly, in 1990 the RAF had 300 combat jets. Though the current 137 Eurofighter Typhoons and minimum 37 Joint Strike Fighter F-35 Lightning IIs are “technically superior”, they are fewer in number. The use in combat of unmanned drones, which did not exist in 1990, is rising, and these also form part of the UK’s military aircraft.

How have recent ventures fared?

The “sad state” of the Armed Forces was illustrated by the delay in the deployment of HMS Dragon to the Middle East, said Richard Norton-Taylor in The Guardian. Even after the delay, the destroyer “needed further repairs almost as soon as it arrived”. It is the Navy’s “lone destroyer available to help protect British interests” in the Middle East, as the Navy’s “largest and most expensive” ships, the Queen Elizabeth and the Prince of Wales – which “cost more than £6 billion” – were unavailable.

On land, ministers are facing “scrapping” the Ajax armoured vehicle programme, due to health concerns for its operators. Its issues are “so serious that vibration and noise have made soldiers training on it sick, with some suffering hearing loss”. More than £6 billion has been spent on the project, and it is “already eight years late”.

The government is also “under increasing pressure” to deliver its “long-delayed” Defence Investment Plan, said The i Paper. This promises to “overhaul Britain’s military capabilities with about £300 billion of investment over a decade”, said the outlet. Though expected to have been released last October, due to concerns over the MoD funding gap, it is not expected “until June at the earliest”.

What needs to be done?

The war in the Middle East should be a “wake-up call” for the UK to recognise its “vulnerabilities”, said George Robertson in Prospect. “There are many.” Public attention is mostly focused on the tangibles – such as planes, tanks and ships – but they are the “baubles on the Christmas tree”. “We need to focus on the tree itself” by addressing “crises in logistics, engineering, cyber, ammunition, training and medical resources”.

Toronto may not be top of your travel list, but there are so many reasons it should be. This vibrant city is a foodie’s sanctuary, a shopper’s delight, and a cultural hub bursting with museums, galleries and cafes.

Located downtown on University Avenue, the beautiful and luxurious hotel Shangri-La Toronto makes the perfect base to explore everything the city has to offer.

Why stay here?

Shangri-La’s central location means you can explore this multicultural metropolis, while enjoying a five-star stay with world-class comfort and service. But you may have to drag yourself outside; the spacious rooms and suites are bright and comfortable with floor-to-ceiling windows, hi-tech controls and marble furnishings.

My suite was an impressive 820 sq ft and featured a walk-in wardrobe, separate living room and stunning marble bathroom with a walk-in shower and a deep-soaking bath, where you can relax and take in the spectacular views – over iconic landmarks like the 1,1815ft CN Tower – day and night. The bathrooms are kitted out with divine John Masters Organic toiletries.

Toronto is easy to reach with direct Air Canada flights from Heathrow, and use of its Maple Leaf lounges when you fly business class. The hotel is a half-hour taxi ride from the airport and has an impeccable concierge service; the staff are happy to offer advice on what to see and how to get there.

Eating and drinking

Breakfast at Shangri-La Toronto is worth waking up for. It’s not your typical buffet, but an experience in itself with dishes that include a wellness frittata, duck congee, and homemade granola. It’s served at the hotel’s signature Bosk Restaurant, where dinner is just as delicious. The evening menu celebrates northern Italian flavours, sourcing produce from Canadian farmers and businesses.

One of the places the hotel sources its ingredients is St Lawrence Market, a short walk away. I took a tour with Bosk Restaurant’s chef de cuisine, Troy Cabarios. The market sells foods from around the world, reflecting Canada’s diverse population, and some of the stalls have been there for generations.

With your appetite woken, there are plenty of cafes and restaurants to try outside the hotel. I visited Takja BBQ House, a Korean restaurant where meat and seafood is grilled in the middle of your table. Lunch at the Peller Estates winery, producer of the best wine in Canada, is a must. It is close to Niagara Falls, so you can combine the two on a day trip. The winery runs a lunch and wine-tasting package, plus a tour of the winery. A five-course tasting menu starts from $200 (£107), and a tour alone costs from $45 (£24).

Don’t miss the 10below Icewine Lounge, made completely of ice, including the furniture. Its temperature remains at -10C all year round, which is the temperature Peller sets for harvesting its ice wine grapes. In the chilled atmosphere, enjoy a glass of the well-known Canadian ice-wine – liquid gold!

Things to do

As you may expect, the hotel’s Miraj Hammam Spa offers the perfect way to unwind and relax after a busy day of shopping and sightseeing. Middle Eastern wellness rituals blend with modern needs – you’ll want to try more than one treatment. I opted for a deep tissue massage, one of the best I have had, but you may be tempted by the Turkish bath or a Sodashi plant-based facial. You can also sample some in-room spa time: book the ‘bath butler experience’ in advance and your bath will be set up with petals, a candle and a bath bomb, alongside optional room service.

No visit to Toronto is complete without a tour of Niagara Falls, 80 miles away on the other side of Lake Ontario. But for something really special, book a trip with Niagara Helicopters, where you’ll have the opportunity to capture the most amazing views of the Falls. It doesn’t come cheap: a 12-minute flight costs $200 (£107) but you’ll leave with some incredible memories. I also tried out the recently opened virtual experience at Niagara Parks, where the immersive ride ($33 [£17] for adults) lets you soar above Lake Ontario and the thundering falls without boarding a helicopter.

While the falls is an unmissable side trip, there is plenty more to see. Don’t miss the CN Tower for amazing views of the city, Little Canada, the Aquarium – and the historic Distillery District is a must-see. See what’s on during your visit at Visit Toronto.

The verdict

Just as you would expect from any Shangri-La hotel, the Toronto outpost made my visit to the city truly enjoyable. It’s a seriously classy hotel and I found it the perfect place to come back to after exploring everything the busy city has to offer. If you want to combine adventure, luxury and relaxation, the Shangri-La is the place to stay.

Kalpana was a guest of the Shangri-La Toronto; shangri-la.com

Old sitcoms have a “habit” of returning to our screens either “tired” or “lazy”, said Stuart Heritage in The Guardian. “But that particular memo didn’t reach” the team behind the “Malcolm in the Middle” reboot. “Faster and funnier than before” with more emotional depth, it’s “miraculous how well it works”.

The action picks up 20 years after the original show. Frankie Muniz returns as Malcolm, “the child genius prone to fits of stress-induced sociopathy”. Nearing 40, he is now a single dad raising his teenage daughter Leah (Keeley Karston). Malcolm has turned out “alarmingly normal”, but we soon discover that’s because he has “put distance (physical and emotional) between himself and the full-blown chaos of his family life”.

“Unfortunately”, Hal (Bryan Cranston) and Lois (Jane Kaczmarek) are throwing a party for their 40th wedding anniversary, and they are “determined that it will be a full and inclusive family affair”, said Rebecca Nicholson in the Financial Times.

Most of the original cast are back, giving the “short, sweet four-parter” the “confidence of a well-oiled machine”. It succeeds largely because it doesn’t try to “modernise itself” – instead, it feels like the team has “banded together to make another handful of ‘Malcolm in the Middle’ episodes”.

Over the four shows, we follow Malcolm as he attempts to reunite with his dysfunctional family “without losing his mind”. There is something “comforting about the sameness of it all”, and the “gently bonkers escapades are soothingly familiar”.

However, trying to “recreate the dynamics of a kids’ comedy with adult characters” does at times feel odd, said James Poniewozik in The New York Times. “The siblings often seem less grown-up than simply enlarged into adult-shaped versions of their recognisable selves.”

Cranston’s face is “as elastic and expressive as ever” and the actors are “still funny”, said Annabel Nugent in The Independent. But the plot “scatters the family members on individual paths” and when they do eventually come together for the family reunion, it’s “fleeting”.

Still, the final showdown between mother and son had me “clenching a pillow” for “emotional support”, said Kristy Puchko on Mashable. Occasionally, a reboot manages to recapture the “magic” while “providing fresh fun”. “Malcolm in the Middle: Life’s Still Unfair” does both with this “joyful celebration” of the original show. “I couldn’t have predicted how much it would mean to me to see Hal, Lois, Malcolm, and the whole gang back again.”

David Szalay was “praised by the judges for its originality” when his pared-back novel, “Flesh”, scooped the Booker Prize last year, said The Times. “Yet some readers have found it strangely familiar.”

Critics have noticed “striking similarities” between “Flesh” and Stanley Kubrick’s 1975 film “Barry Lyndon”, which itself is adapted from William Thackeray’s 1844 novel. While some are “flummoxed” by Szalay’s reluctance to acknowledge the extent of the parallels, others are convinced he is “playing a game with readers, sending them on a literary treasure hunt”.

‘Near-identical trajectories’

With its “sparse prose” and constant repetition of the word ‘OK’, the British-Hungarian author’s novel caused quite a stir when it won the 2025 Booker Prize, said The Independent. The awards chair, Roddy Doyle, said the panel of judges had “never read anything quite like it”.

The rags-to-riches tale begins in Hungary, where 15-year-old Istvan lives with his mother in a housing estate. While the eponymous lead in “Barry Lyndon” hails from Ireland, the characters “follow near-identical trajectories: they enlist in the army, marry wealthy women, grieve their sons and clash with their stepsons, and lose everything they have earned later in their lives”.

Despite the almost indistinguishable plot, few critics pointed this out when “Flesh” won the Booker Prize. One of the first to note the similarities was writer Aled Maclean-Jones who in November 2025 described “Flesh” as “quite clearly a near beat-for-beat mirror” both of Thackeray’s novel and Kubrick’s movie, “to such a level I’d almost call it a retelling”, in a post on Substack.

“Szalay has the whole plot, the entire arc, supplied to him”, said David Sexton in The Standard. “There is nothing remotely wrong about it. It’s not plagiarism. Indeed it could be considered a vital tribute to a fantastic film”.

Reader ‘sleuthing’

When Szalay appeared on Dua Lipa’s “Service95 Book Club” podcast he listed five books including “Hamlet” and Virginia Woolf’s “Jacob’s Room” as having influenced “Flesh”, said The Independent. But he made no mention of Thackeray’s novel or Kubrick’s film.

Asked directly whether he had “Barry Lyndon” in mind when writing “Flesh”, he told Anthony Cummins in The Observer that he had seen the film when he was 20, “and the rags-to-riches arc was an influence”.

But in an episode of BBC Radio 4’s “This Cultural Life” due to air this week, Szalay “downplays the connection”, said The Times. When asked about whether the film is a “direct reference”, the author tells host John Wilson, “No, I wouldn’t go that far”, adding “Kubrick wasn’t really at the front of my mind, I don’t think.”

“I don’t understand why, at this stage, he won’t own up to it more”, Sexton told The Times. But Cummins had his own theory. “I think he is more artful than people are willing to credit”, he told the newspaper. The similarities could be “more akin to ‘Easter eggs’ in films, hidden messages for fans” to try and find. Perhaps he feels, “‘Why spoil it by talking people through the book in that way?’ There’s fun for the reader in sleuthing”.

The invasion of the golden oyster mushroom is posing a threat to native species. And with temperatures warming, further expansion could lead to dire ecological consequences.

Yellow flag

The golden oyster mushroom was brought to the U.S. from Asia during the 2000s mostly because it “can grow quickly, which was a boon, as it’s considered one of the most delicious mushrooms a forager can find,” said Vice. What was once deemed a benefit turned out to be a threat. The bright yellow mushroom’s ability to reproduce quickly has caused it to spread across the continent, making it notoriously invasive. The species has already been found in 25 states.

The fungus is “invisible for most of the year, living as mycelium, fungal strands within the wood,” said the BBC. In the spring, it “sends out its fruiting body,” which is “what we would recognize as the mushroom itself.” The “huge yellow clusters cascade out of logs and trees, each mushroom itself producing millions of microscopic airborne spores.” Though the golden oyster mushroom “isn’t yet posing a significant risk to Western forests, it is taking hold in the Northeast and Midwest,” said The Cool Down.

When the mushroom is present in a forest, the “fungal community composition significantly changes, and fungal species richness significantly decreases,” said a 2025 study published in the journal Current Biology. Trees colonized by the fungus have “about half the fungal biodiversity as trees without the golden oyster,” Aishwarya Veerabahu, a mycologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and lead author of the study, said to the BBC. “That was a huge indicator that they are likely outcompeting the native fungi that were there.”

Settling the spore

The golden oyster mushroom “mainly grows on dead or dying hardwood trees, breaking down the tough wood fibers,” said the BBC. The fungi are gilled mushrooms, which have the ability to “release up to billions of spores.” These oyster mushrooms also “happen to be one of the few carnivorous mushrooms” and mainly prey on nematode worms.

Dead wood is a “crucial habitat for small animals and tree seedlings in the forest,” said Veerabahu. The spread of the mushroom could pose a risk to a variety of species. The golden oyster “grows and ‘chews’ through woods so rapidly,” and it could spell bad news for the “rate of decay of wood and for the carbon emissions that come from that.” Not only this fungus but all invasive fungi are “especially dangerous because so little is known about them,” said Oregon Live.

Human trade brought the mushroom west. “It’s a problem created by the way we use, grow and transport fungi,” said the BBC.

And warmer temperatures due to climate change are creating conditions increasingly suitable for its spread. The mushroom’s “proclivity for expansion means it could soon become a problem in new territories,” including urban areas, said The Cool Down.

To prevent the fungus from overtaking forests everywhere, “continued research, management efforts anchored in social theory and collaborative conversations about microbial endemism” will be necessary, said the study. “The cultivation of local species or development of sporeless mushroom strains could also mitigate risks.”

India’s programme to reintroduce cheetahs to the country is “flourishing”, but mounting opposition to “Project Cheetah” from local farmers has “teeth”, said The Times.

The big cats were declared extinct in India 70 years ago because of habitat loss, prey reduction and “rampant Raj-era poaching for luxury fashion”, but now they are back, and causing plenty of division.

Ambitious vision

India’s links with the “world’s fastest land animal date back centuries”, and the word cheetah itself comes from Sanskrit citra, meaning spotted. Royals “kept them as pets”, and in the 12th century they became a “popular hunting animal” and the Mughal emperor Akbar was believed to have collected some 9,000 of them.

Legend has it that the last three cheetahs in India were shot dead by the Maharajah of the historical state of Koriya, on a nighttime drive in 1947. Sightings were reported “intermittently” after that but the big cats were declared extinct in the country in 1952.

Then, in 2022, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, launched an ambitious scheme, with the aim of re-establishing the cheetah within its historical territory in the central state of Madhya Pradesh. The government claimed the project would aid global conservation and “improve livelihood options for local communities through ecotourism”, said The Hindu.

Re-establishing a cheetah population initially relied on importing cheetahs from countries like South Africa, Namibia and Botswana. Last month, “nine wild African cheetahs were tranquillised in Botswana’s savannah, quarantined for a few weeks in the country, and then taken on a 10-hour flight over the Indian Ocean by the Indian Air Force” before being delivered by helicopter to a national park in Madhya Pradesh.

The latest arrivals from Africa bring the total number of cheetahs in India to 53, 33 of which are native-born cubs. In December, the government said India was on course to have a self-sustaining population of cheetahs by 2032.

Land grab

But the project has had its “hiccups”, said The Times. Several cheetahs went into septic shock and died during a monsoon. Others perished from climate stress and parasitic infections as a result of their transition from Africa’s savannahs to India’s “scrub forest ecosystems”.

The new population of predatory carnivores is also proving a headache for local livestock farmers. One villager in Chak Kishanpur said she had lost her goats, worth 10,000 to 15,000 rupees (£90-£120) each, and is now forced to harvest wheat in a nearby field instead.

Some scientists are also opposed: conservationists have called for a ban on importing cheetahs, demanding that the most recent batch should be the last, citing an “abysmal lack of habitat and prey”, said The Hindu. The project is currently entirely based in the Kuno National Park, which will become more and more crowded if the free-ranging cheetah population continues to multiply.

This is a land grab in the name of conservation, Nitin Rai, a fellow at the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment, told the outlet. Pointing to past conflict between state-led conservation efforts for tigers and the land rights of Indigenous communities, Rai said that “the cheetah, like the tiger, is being used as a proxy for territorial control of land and to move out forest dwellers.” The officials behind the cheetah scheme have “run roughshod over local opinions, understanding and histories of landscape change”.

CROSSWORD - April 24, 2026

SUDOKU - April 24, 2026

CROSSWORD - April 24, 2026

SUDOKU - April 24, 2026

The best cookbooks feature throughlines. These days, the threads in new cookbooks star the people behind the books, functioning as mirrors that showcase a cook’s technique, their family story or the kind of food the author likes to make. “Hot Sour Salty Sweet,” published in 2000, looks out, not in.

While researching the text, its authors, Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid, traveled along the Mekong River in Southeast Asia over a few decades. The pair visited villages, snapped photos and documented recipes from both sides of the monumental body of water that defines and feeds parts of Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Myanmar and China. The book is epic, like the tome’s size, its 330-plus pages loaded into a format that’s far wider than it’s tall. “Hot Sour Salty Sweet” is not easy to hold in one’s hand, much like the region’s diverse grandeur.

Variations of a common theme

The cookbook’s 12 chapters wander from Sauces, Chile Pastes and Salsas to Sweets and Drinks, with moorings at Simple Soups, Salads, Rice and Rice Dishes, Noodles and Noodle Dishes, Mostly Vegetables, Fish and Seafood, Poultry, Beef, Pork, Snacks and Street Food. Each chapter is a head-spinning exercise in dissimilarity, with so many common ingredients treated wildly unalike.

Take the seafood chapter. A recipe from Tonle Sap, Cambodia’s “great inland lake,” melds smoked fish and unripe mangoes with a dressing of vinegar, shallots, galangal and fish sauce — tart, funk, spunk, pop. In tom thit heo, from southern Vietnam, shrimp and thin slices of pork shoulder frolic in a stir-fry heady with lemongrass and black pepper. Simplest of all, salt-grilled catfish has its flesh slashed and loaded with coarse salt before a turn on a grill. Each dish and recipe howls with a common sense of place. Listen closely, and you hear the soft noise of distinguishability.

The personal as point of entry

There’s no foolhardy attempt at comprehensiveness in “Hot Sour Salty Sweet.” An essay about a border town on the edges of Laos, Thailand and Myanmar; a return to the village Sangkhom in northeastern Thailand to visit pals; a profile of a Laotian rice noodle maker working from her home on stilts near the Chinese border — Alford and Duguid covered thousands of miles of territory, but their experiences there are theirs alone.

Decades before the notion of the “exotic” was proscribed, rightfully, and white journalists began learning how to remove themselves from the center of every story, Alford and Duguid, who are both white, liaised with more than 15 Southeast Asian ethnic groups for “Hot Sour Salty Sweet.” They did so with curiosity, capturing their subjects with careful research, stirring photos and clear-eyed writing. This is documentation as honoring.

Democrats are ready to be done with Donald Trump’s presidency. Trump’s critics are starting to talk more openly about removing him from office, using impeachment or the 25th Amendment. They assert that his recent social media tirades against Iran and Pope Leo reveal he is unfit for office.

Democrats in Congress mostly “steered clear of threatening impeachment” since Trump’s return to the White House, said The New York Times. The president’s threat last week to wipe out Iranian civilization “dramatically” shifted their calculations, spurring dozens of “formerly hesitant” House Democrats to back articles of impeachment. Trump “seems to be taking us on a path to mass war crimes,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said on X. The president’s recent “erratic behavior and extreme comments” have “turbocharged” discussion of his mental fitness, said the Times. The challenge: Removal efforts are “doomed to fail so long as Republicans control Congress,” said The Associated Press.

What did the commentators say?

The “fate of the Earth depends” on Trump’s removal from office, Will Bunch said at The Philadelphia Inquirer. The president’s growing list of “embarrassingly profane and unspeakably evil” social media posts demonstrates that he is “mentally and physically deteriorating,” a danger given his command of the “planet’s largest air force and a large cache of nuclear weapons.” The threat is too urgent to wait for Democrats to win control of Congress in November. Americans should join a May 1 general strike called for by the organizers of the “No Kings” protests to make their feelings clear. “It is a time for action.”

Democrats’ talk of impeachment “plays into Iran’s hand,” Peter Lucas said at The Boston Herald. Despite his words, Trump “will not end civilization in Iran.” But he will end Iran’s attempt to develop its own nuclear weapon. Democrats are looking for an excuse to “impeach him anyway if they gain control of the House in November.” They should instead acknowledge that Trump “saved the day” by taking action against Iran.

The 25th Amendment is “having a moment,” Ian Millhiser said at Vox, but it is unlikely to be used against this president. The constitutional provision would allow the White House cabinet to “temporarily prevent Trump from acting as president,” but the process is designed to replace an executive who is “physically or mentally incapacitated” rather than one who is “merely bad at being president.” Other democracies make it easier to remove an “incompetent, unfit or unpopular leader.” The United States should join their ranks.

What next?

Democratic leaders are trying to “shut down” impeachment talk, said Axios. That is not the “best use of our time” given that the effort would inevitably fall short, Rep. Madeleine Dean (D-Pa.) said to the outlet. Dean and other senior Democrats want the party’s focus to be on “concrete issues like the war in Iran and affordability” as midterm elections approach, said Axios. An impeachment that fails to remove Trump, said Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.), “is worse than no impeachment at all.”

People across the United States are making their opinions known as the war in Iran enters its seventh week, and perhaps none more so than military members. Active-duty soldiers and veterans are experiencing an array of emotions connected to the conflict, with some in support and others vehemently against it. The differing feelings come as tensions in the Defense Department grow.

‘Powerful motivator’

Some soldiers are angry that the Iran conflict has been run with “strategic incoherence” because the “president hasn’t really been able to say with clarity to the American people what exactly this war is about,” Marine veteran Elliot Ackerman said to WBUR News. The war “leaves this question, okay, ‘So is this tool we have, the U.S. military, is that a tool that we can use to create that better future for our country and for Iran?’” It is important to “articulate a very clear plan if we’re going to put American service members’ lives in jeopardy.”

The number of people looking to leave the military had already been increasing, and the “war against Iran has been a powerful motivator,” Kat Lonsdorf and Tom Bowman said at NPR. Many soldiers are “airing their concerns and frustrations,” Bill Galvin, who helps run the GI Rights Hotline for military discharge, said to NPR. Most of the callers are “asking how to apply to become a conscientious objector,” and nearly all of them “mention the bombing of a girls’ school in Iran on the first day of the war.”

Many veterans also remember the effects of years-long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. When it comes to the war in Iran, the “U.S. is creating a new generation of anti-American sentiment in Iran and across the region,” Chris Sarson, who served in Operation Iraqi Freedom, said to WBUR News. Soldiers who served during these conflicts became “acutely aware of the heavy costs that civilians pay for war.”

‘Many acknowledge the role Iran played’

Though many in the Armed Forces feel the conflict might become another “forever war,” others have more complex feelings. Some soldiers are largely against war but “also acknowledge the role Iran played behind the scenes” assisting other regional nations in Middle East wars, Jeff Schogol and Patty Nieberg said at Task & Purpose. Wars in the Middle East have “caused a lot of moral injury and PTSD amongst the veterans’ community,” but “at the same time, Iran again has been a party to this conflict over the last 25 years,” Alex Plitsas, a former Army staff sergeant and Iraq veteran, said to Task & Purpose.

Some veterans feel that the war means Iran is “finally being held accountable,” said Schogol and Nieberg at Task & Purpose. “I’ve flown combat missions against the very terrorists funded and directed by the Iranian regime, and I’ve seen firsthand the threat Iran poses,” Rep. August Pfluger (R-Texas), an Air Force veteran, said in a press release when the war began. The conflict has been “coming for the ayatollahs, who have no regard for human life or peace.”

Many younger soldiers are also “excited to deploy” to Iran because the war is “what needs to be done,” Army veteran Juan Munoz said to The Associated Press. Other soldiers support the war thanks to their positive feelings about President Donald Trump. There “had to have been some reason” for Trump “to bomb them,” Army veteran Edward Bauman told the AP. “I don’t think he would have just went out of his way to just, ‘I’m going to bomb these people.’”

‘Have these people learned nothing?’

Michelle Cottle at The New York Times

Eric Swalwell “had his political career blown up by allegations of degeneracy and abject stupidity,” says Michelle Cottle. Many lawmakers “fail to learn from the ruined careers of the past in part because those around them too often shrug off the whispers, red flags and glaringly bad behavior until some line gets crossed.” The “problem is less a ‘boys will be boys’ tolerance than a sense of resignation among politicians, staff and other members of official Washington.”

Read more

‘Deportations are putting US disaster response at risk’

Yvette D. Clarke and Michael Shank at Newsweek

This year the U.S. “will be less equipped than in previous years to prevent, prepare for and respond to increasingly extreme weather,” say Yvette D. Clark and Michael Shank. The Trump administration made FEMA “less effective, less funded and less capable of helping Americans before, during and after a storm.” At the “same time, the administration’s immigration policies are shrinking the very workforce we rely on for disaster preparation, response and recovery.” The government “cannot operate in silos.”

Read more

‘Debating busting the filibuster’

Dan McLaughlin at the National Review

Some are “not against the idea of using the levers of the congressional rules to create theatrical confrontations that can move the public to apply pressure to members of Congress,” says Dan McLaughlin. But this is “undermined by senators believing that their votes are not necessary to passage.” The Senate “is dysfunctional, and it should debate and engage publicly more.” The filibuster is “more destructive than the benefits to be gained by any particular public debate.”

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‘Lebanon’s resilience is celebrated, as if survival were admirable rather than imposed’

Tayma Saliba at Le Monde

In Lebanon, “staying informed is both a dependency and a necessity,” says Tayma Saliba. Between “international media, local journalists, rumors and content generated by artificial intelligence, young people become informal analysts, cross-referencing sources and explaining the situation to relatives abroad.” A “recurring discourse celebrates Lebanese resilience, as if survival were admirable rather than imposed.” This is “meant to recognize endurance but ends up normalizing suffering, suggesting that the situation is manageable.” But “survival is not acceptance.”

Read more

What happened

President Donald Trump on Monday deleted from his social media account an apparently AI-generated image showing him dressed like Jesus and healing a man with orbs of light in his hands amid a panoply of religious and patriotic imagery. Following sharp condemnation, including from conservative Christian supporters, Trump told reporters he had posted the image but “thought it was me as a doctor,” and “only the fake news” would claim he was depicting himself as Jesus.

Who said what

The post’s removal was a “rare retreat” for Trump, who as a rule “does not apologize for doing and saying things that hurt or offend people,” The New York Times said. But the “image depicting himself as a Christ-like figure sparked outrage on the religious right,” angering a group that has “rallied behind Trump” through “two impeachments and three elections,” The Wall Street Journal said.

The image was “OUTRAGEOUS blasphemy,” and Trump needed to “ask for forgiveness from the American people and then from God,” Megan Basham, an evangelical Christian writer at The Daily Wire, said on X. Conservative Christian commentator Rod Dreher told the Journal that Trump is “radiating the spirit of Antichrist, no question.”

What next?

The “consternation over Trump’s social-media posts,” including his “pointed criticism of Pope Leo XIV,” could “turn into a political liability for Republicans,” the Journal said. Catholics “are America’s largest swing religious vote,” Axios said, “and Trump’s support among them was already sliding” before his posts.

What happened

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Liberal Party secured a majority in Parliament on Monday after winning three special elections to fill vacant seats. The party last year fell short of the 172 seats needed for a majority in the House of Commons. But following five defections from opposition parties in the past five months and last night’s victories, the Liberals now hold 174 seats, allowing them to legislate without other parties and keeping Carney in office through at least 2029.

Who said what

Carney’s election win last year was “fueled by public anger over President Donald Trump’s annexation threats” and trade war, The Associated Press said. With his new majority, Carney will have “broader latitude with his legislative agenda, which is focused on reducing Canada’s dependency on the United States,” The New York Times said. “No modern majority government in Ottawa has ever been built” through defections before, Politico said, and while opposition parties keep “hammering Carney over high grocery prices” and a “nationwide housing shortage, ‘Carneymania’ continues to sweep the nation.”

What next?

Now that he has a majority, it’s “important for Carney to actually deliver,” McGill University politics professor Daniel Béland told The Wall Street Journal. The “first move of Carney’s majority government,” Politico said, will “be to announce relief for Canadian consumers facing skyrocketing gas and diesel prices” from Trump’s Iran war.

What happened

Reps. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif) and Tony Gonzales (R-Texas) separately said Monday they will resign from Congress as both face House investigations into alleged sexual misconduct and growing calls to quit or face expulsion. Swalwell ended his campaign for California governor over the weekend after an unidentified former aide accused him of sexual assault and three other women said he had sexually harassed them. Gonzales dropped his reelection bid in March after admitting to a coercive relationship with a staffer who later died by suicide.

Who said what

The House Ethics Committee, which was already investigating Gonzales for violating rules prohibiting sexual relationships with subordinates, announced Monday it had opened an investigation into Swalwell. The Manhattan district attorney is also investigating the assault allegation, which Swalwell denied while apologizing for other past “mistakes in judgment.”

Ethics Committee investigations can take months, and House leaders had been “facing loud demands to hold votes to kick out Swalwell and Gonzales” after the House returned from recess Tuesday, The Wall Street Journal said. “Lawmakers had coalesced around the idea of an even trade — one Democrat for one Republican — to spread the ignominy across both parties and preserve the fragile balance of power” in the GOP-led House.

“Expelling anyone in Congress without due process, within days of an allegation being made, is wrong,” Swalwell said on X. “But it’s also wrong for my constituents to have me distracted,” so “I plan to resign my seat.” About an hour later, Gonzales announced that “when Congress returns tomorrow, I will file my retirement from office.”

What next?

Neither lawmaker gave a time frame for his departure. Rep. Teresa Leger Fernandez (D-N.M.) said she would file a motion to expel Gonzales unless he resigned “effective immediately” by 2 p.m. Tuesday.

The tragedy of the Southport murders, in which three young girls were killed and several more injured in a random attack by knifeman Axel Rudakubana, “defies description”, said The Sun. The report on the first stage of the inquiry, released this week, “laid bare” what its chair called an “inappropriate merry-go-round” of public sector agencies handing off responsibility for the increasingly troubled teenager. “Catastrophe was inevitable”, said the newspaper.

The inquiry report highlighted five key factors that prevented an adequate response to the threat posed by Rudakubana: a lack of risk acceptance, poor information sharing, lack of examination of online activity, a “misunderstanding of autism”, as well as “significant parental failures” at home.

Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said in a statement that the government has “already taken action to prevent such an awful tragedy from happening again”, but many are calling for concrete legislation to act on some of the 67 recommendations outlined in the inquiry.

What did the commentators say?

The murder of Bebe King, Alice da Silva Aguiar and Elsie Dot Stancombe was “one of the most depraved acts of violence ever seen on these shores”, said The Telegraph in an editorial. “But this did not come out of a clear blue sky.” Rudakubana’s “violent behaviour was known to his parents, his school, the police and to various agencies”. In the years leading up to the killings, he had attacked fellow pupils, been caught with a knife in public, and was referred to the Home Office anti-terror programme Prevent three times. Retired Lord Justice Adrian Fulford, who led the inquiry, said the culture of unaccountability “has to end”. “The trouble is we have heard that before”, said the newspaper, “and it never does”.

The “nightmare” of the July 2024 attacks in Southport “would never have happened if public bodies had done their jobs properly”, said The Guardian. The report did not “single out” any individual police or council officers, but “this does not make them any less culpable”: in fact, the “collective failure” to take responsibility for the events is the “single most disturbing conclusion”. The “grave failures” of those involved, including police, council officers, health professionals and Prevent, revealed the “deadly flaws” of the multi-agency systems linking them, said the paper. “Ministers must not wait for the inquiry’s second phase to explain how they plan to bring this dangerous culture of buck‑passing to an end.”

All those involved with Rudakubana’s case “should hang their heads in shame”, said Jawad Iqbal in The Spectator. The inquiry uncovered a “comprehensive” and “depressing” catalogue of “missed opportunities and systems of protection that were found wanting”. One such failure was officials using Rudakubana’s autism diagnosis to “excuse” his “increasingly erratic and violent behaviour”, rather than considering that, in this instance, his condition “heightened, rather than lessened, the risk he posed”.

“The Southport inquiry is damning in its clarity,” said The Mirror. “This tragedy was preventable.” But this report also “speaks to something far wider”: the roles and duties of parents. Fulford found Rudakubana’s parents bore “considerable blame for what occurred”, and that if they had “done what they morally ought to have done” by reporting his violent behaviour – including collecting knives and concocting poison at home – it is “almost certain” the attack would not have occurred. Parenting has “never been more consequential” in our age of “online radicalisation”, and children “disappearing into the darkness of their bedrooms”. “The duty to know your child, truly know them, and act on what you find has never mattered more.”

What next?

The next stage of the inquiry will consider the “need for a new mechanism” to manage the “growing threat” of Prevent being “overwhelmed” with referrals of teenagers who are “obsessed with violence” but do not display the “coherent ideology of political extremists”, said The Guardian. It will also consider “tighter regulation of social media use” and the “online sale of weapons”.

Any changes to the law will naturally need to be “carefully considered”, weighing up the risks of “making policy off the back of one case, however tragic”, but this case points to the need for “new policies”, “tighter processes and increased resources”. “The failures went beyond missed communications and overstretched staff.”

Questions of those who will take “organisational and individual accountability” and how government agencies will make meaningful change “remain unanswered”, said Iqbal in The Spectator. “Does anyone involved seriously reflect on their conduct and failures rather than simply seek to avoid blame and consequences?” One thing that the report makes “abundantly clear” is that “this culture must change”. “The tragedy of Southport demands nothing less.”

When Prince Harry and wife Meghan visited Australia in 2018 as working royals they were “welcomed by rapturous crowds”, said The Guardian. There was “little sign” of that “ecstatic reception” today when the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, who stepped down as working members of the royal family in 2020, arrived in Melbourne, said Reuters.

The couple have embarked on a tour that includes “engagements covering sport, mental health and veterans’ affairs”, but in their capacity as private citizens – an arrangement that has raised some eyebrows among their hosts.

Commercial activities  

During their four-day visit Harry will make a solo stop-off in the capital, Canberra, to meet military veterans. He and Meghan will then attend a ⁠mental health summit in Melbourne before rounding off the joint leg of their trip with sailing and rugby events in Sydney. It “still looks very much like a royal visit” even though “officially, it very much is not”, said ABC News.

But unlike on their previous visit, they’ll also “undertake commercial activities”, said Reuters. Meghan will host a wellness retreat at a luxury beachside hotel in Sydney, which will include yoga, manifestation and sound healing. Tickets cost A$2,699 (£1,417) including accommodation, or A$3,199 (£1,680) for a more VIP experience, including a group table photo with Meghan.

Meanwhile, Harry will be a star speaker at InterEdge’s “psychosocial safety” summit, a two-day professional development event with ticket prices as high as A$2,378 (£1,249) for the platinum option. For both of them, their sojourn in Australia is not only “private” but also “promotional”, said The Guardian.

Royal expert Giselle Bastin told the ABC that the commercial aspect of the tour was “unusual” and said the royal family would not be impressed that the Sussexes were “monetising their visit to Australia”.

Quasi-royal disaster

The “quasi-royal tour” was “already a disaster” before they set off, said The Times last month. “Early signs” showed that Australians “aren’t all that excited about their visit”; a recent Ipsos Australia poll found that only 40% of Australians view Harry favourably, while 46% view him unfavourably. Meghan “fares even worse”, with 55% holding a negative view of the US-born duchess.

The “honour” of this visit “comes with a hefty price tag”, said Bevan Shields in The Sydney Morning Herald. Although their travel expenses for the visit are being privately funded, ⁠local media reported that some of the policing costs would be paid by Australian taxpayers. Harry and Meghan are “laser-focused on building a healthy bank balance” now that their lucrative deal with Spotify has “imploded” and most of their Netflix projects have “fallen flat”. “Does anyone seriously believe they are coming to our shores for reasons other than financial and reputational?”. Our warm welcome back in 2018 clearly made Australians “look like a soft target”, so now they are back to “use us as an ATM”.

I “can’t begrudge them trying to make a living”, said Hello! magazine’s royal editor, Emily Nash. The reception of the Australia tour will be a “real litmus test for what else they may do this year”, with an Africa visit potentially on the cards, but it is also “something for the wider royal family to watch”. “The sorry saga” of the former prince Andrew and ex-wife Sarah Ferguson is a “reminder of how blurred the lines can become when titles and influence are mixed with personal gain”. If the Sussexes are able to “effectively operate alongside the working royals, but outside the carefully managed framework that governs royal duties”, that would represent a “headache” for the King.

The UK is home to some incredible birdwatching spots, but Europe’s scale and variety of wildlife is just as tantalising for twitchers. As migration season begins, get ready for an influx of species, from flamingos to forest woodpeckers. Here are some of the best destinations in Europe to try this spring.

The Camargue, France

“Few who slurp fizz on the French Riviera realise that one of Europe’s most rewarding birding destinations lies nearby,” said James Stewart in The Times. Situated on the south coast of France between Montpellier and Marseille, the Camargue is home to “abundant birdlife”. From autumn until spring, “thousands of flamingos” descend on the marshland, and touring around the Pont de Gau Ornithological Park is “photo magic”. For keen bird-lovers, consider driving half an hour inland for a chance to spot rare Bonelli’s eagles in the Alpilles mountains.

Andalusia, Spain

One of Andalusia’s biggest perks as the southernmost point of Europe is that it sits on “important migratory routes” between the continent and Africa, said David Escribano in Condé Nast Traveller. Each year, “millions of birds” make the nine-mile flight over the Strait of Gibraltar. The region is home to some of Spain’s “most elusive” birds, such as the “endangered Spanish imperial eagle, crested coot and red-necked nightjar”. Further north, the region is filled with the “colourful” oriole, hoopoe and the “beautiful” European bee-eater.

Bonus tip: head to the Fuente de Piedra Lagoon, famous for its colony of greater flamingos and the birds’ only breeding ground in Europe not located in a coastal area.

Folegandros, Greece

This “lesser-known” Cycladic island lies between Paros and Santorini, and is home to a reserve protecting the rare Eleonora’s falcon, which has a global population of under 20,000, said Freya Bromley in National Geographic. You can take part in seasonal bird monitoring programmes and volunteer surveillance expeditions to nearby inlets. For dedicated birdwatchers, you can even participate in measuring nestling growth, or for newcomers, depart on educational hikes with conservation experts.

Transylvania, Romania

Transylvania is one of Europe’s “last great unspoilt wildernesses”, said Stephen Moss in The Telegraph. You can see majestic Ural and eagle owls hunting at dusk, and the forests are home to “several species of woodpecker, including the largest member of the family in Europe, the crow-sized black woodpecker”. Be sure to travel into the mountains where you might spot “golden eagles soaring above, and also one of the most striking and beautiful birds in the world, the wallcreeper”.

You may be focused on what’s happening overhead, but don’t forget to keep an eye out for Romania’s other headline attraction: “Europe’s largest predator, the brown bear”.

Below the Antarctic ice lies a treasure trove of minerals, including copper, iron, gold, silver, platinum and cobalt. Warming temperatures due to climate change could unearth these minerals and, in turn, fuel future geopolitical conflict, potentially leading to a reversal of the current Antarctic drilling ban. If the ban is lifted, there may also be an increase in emissions. Those emissions would raise temperatures even more.

Iced out

Though under 0.6% of Antarctica is estimated to be free of ice cover today, scientists predict there will be up to a 550% increase during the next 30 years, according to a study published in the journal Nature Climate Change. And this climate-driven melting will lead to a “likely rise in the economic viability of Antarctic mineral resources over the coming centuries.” New accessible resources could pose problems in the future when it comes to determining whether these minerals can be mined and by whom.

A country’s interest in Antarctic mineral resource development may be “linked to whether it holds a territorial claim, the economic value of mineral resources within that claimed territory and the extent of land emergence,” said the study. The largest land emergence in Antarctica is “likely to occur over territories claimed by Argentina, Chile and the United Kingdom,” said Eos. But “all territorial claims on Antarctica were suspended by the 1959 Antarctic Treaty and are not recognized by other nations,” said The New York Times

Global copper demand is “currently at 28 million metric tons and is expected to jump to 42 million metric tons by 2040 as demand for electricity grows,” said the Times. Access to resources is going to become more important than ever. Changes to Antarctic ice cover could “put pressure on the region’s legal framework surrounding mineral resource activities,” said Eos. And interest may come from “states without territorial claims or non-state actors,” said the study.

Melting the ice

The Antarctic Treaty was signed in 1959 as a response to World War II and global interest in keeping Antarctica unmilitarized. The agreement stipulated that Antarctica should be “used for peaceful purposes only” and that “no acts or activities taking place while the present treaty is in force shall constitute a basis for asserting, supporting or denying a claim to territorial sovereignty,” said the treaty. It also bans any mining or drilling activities for commercial purposes.

These provisions may change in the future. Nations, beginning in 2048, will be able to request adjustments to the Antarctic Treaty. Along with Argentina, Chile and the U.K., Australia, New Zealand, France and Norway also made formal land claims to Antarctica before the treaty. “Major powers like the United States and Russia, though not formal claimants, retain strategic interests and could play a key role if rules around resource extraction change,” said Money Control.

Drilling in Antarctica can have significant negative environmental impacts, including the release of trapped greenhouse gases. Increased greenhouse gases would lead to worsening climate change, which would cause additional ice melt. In the future, “environmental impacts of mineral resource extraction activities will be weighed against societal pressure for sustainable resource development,” said the study.

Nonetheless, the ice melt is ”unlikely to trigger a major change to Antarctic governance on its own,” Tim Stephens, a professor of international law at The University of Sydney Law School, said to Eos. “The continent will still remain a very challenging environment for mineral resource extraction.”

Should Democrats shun Hasan Piker? asked Lauren Egan in The Bulwark. The irreverent, far-left livestreamer, who has nearly 5 million subscribers between his YouTube and Twitch channels, has become a “litmus test” for the party. Some progressives view Piker, a 34-year-old video gamer and gym bro, as a “liberal Joe Rogan” who can reach “tuned out” young white men. “Operatives have hustled to get their candidates booked on his stream,” which runs eight hours a day, seven days a week. Recent Democratic guests include Tom Steyer, who’s running for governor of California, and Abdul El-Sayed, a U.S. Senate candidate in Michigan who invited Piker to campaign with him on college campuses.

But many Democrats say Piker’s extremism should be disqualifying: A self-described Marxist, he has said that it didn’t matter “if rape happened on Oct. 7,” and that “Hamas is a thousand times better than the fascist settler colonial apartheid state” of Israel. Piker has also used the C-word and other misogynistic slurs.

Piker’s language sometimes is unfortunate, said Aaron Regunberg in The New Republic. But moderate “Third Way” Democrats have, “in bad faith” and without context, seized on a few moments from “almost 20,000 hours of entirely unscripted, off-the-cuff streaming.” The son of Turkish Muslim immigrants, he is an anti-Zionist but not an antisemite, and in fact has warned that antisemitism is “a canary in the coal mine of fascism.” Piker didn’t condone Hamas’ sexual violence against Israeli women, but argued that the attacks didn’t justify Israel’s subsequent bombing and killing in Gaza.

Why any Democrat would want to associate with Piker “is baffling,” said Michael A. Cohen in MS.now. A recent poll found that just 55% of Democrats have ever heard of him, and of those, “only 13% view him favorably.” Given his history of toxic comments, going on his livestream show is “a potential liability.” Sure, Piker can be “an insufferable jerk,” said Jesse Singal in his Substack newsletter, but Democrats he interviews don’t need to endorse his views. Piker appeals primarily to young, disillusioned males “who are looking to rebel.” In 2020, many in this cohort voted for Donald Trump. “It’s unfortunate” that young dudes are drawn to transgressive loudmouths, but to win back power, Democrats must “go to war with the potential voters they have, not the potential voters they want.”

Pam Bondi has discovered that “loyalty can get you a job with President Trump,” said Lindsey Granger in The Hill, “but it certainly won’t help you keep it.” The attorney general was fired earlier this month despite trying to do everything the president wanted. Over her 14-month tenure she purged scores of career prosecutors perceived as insufficiently MAGA, shuttered Justice Department offices that had probed Trump and his pals, and conducted lawfare against his political opponents. “But in the end, that just wasn’t enough.” Sources said the president was especially frustrated that Bondi hadn’t been more successful in prosecuting foes like former FBI boss James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James. Never mind that those cases “didn’t fail for lack of effort—they failed because they were weak.”

With Bondi ousted just weeks after Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, other top administration officials are now wondering if they’ll be next to hear “You’re fired,” said Matt Dixon and Peter Nicholas in NBCNews.com. Trump advisers say National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard, Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer, and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick are all at risk of being booted.

Bondi’s real sin in Trump’s eyes was that “she couldn’t make ‘it’ go away,” said LZ Granderson in the Los Angeles Times. “And you know what I mean about ‘it.’” She fueled the public obsession with Jeffrey Epstein by telling Fox News in early 2025 that the sex trafficker’s “client list” was “sitting on my desk right now.” There was no client list, and the resulting furor led to a bipartisan law that forced the release of the DOJ’s Epstein files—which contain hundreds of references to the financier’s former friend, Donald Trump. Bondi was an incompetent lackey, said the New York Daily News in an editorial. But “her firing bodes ill for the state of our democracy” because whoever comes next could be even worse. Acting DOJ boss and former Trump lawyer Todd Blanche has already declared his hostility to the rule of law, saying that it’s the president’s “duty” to influence investigations against his political opponents.

Can anyone succeed at the Justice Department “given Trump’s expectations?” asked The Wall Street Journal. The president wants an AG who’ll twist the law to his whims, but judges and juries will still refuse to play along. Trump needs an attorney general who will give sound legal advice, and—as then-AG Bill Barr did in 2020 when Trump demanded the Justice Department unearth nonexistent evidence of election fraud—say no. But that’s a word the “boss doesn’t want to hear.”

How common is execution?

It has varied over the decades, as public opinion sways for and against it. Hangings were frequent in colonial times, but by the mid-1800s some states had abolished the death penalty altogether. In 1972, the Supreme Court ruled that Georgia’s death penalty as then applied was arbitrary and discriminatory, forcing all states to rewrite their laws and beef up their systems to provide for death row defense lawyers. Executions then resumed in 1977, when double murderer Gary Gilmore was put to death by firing squad. A steady rise in state-level executions followed, reaching a peak of 98 in 1999 and then declining again. In recent years, the number of states abolishing the death penalty has grown, yet executions have surged in a handful of the 27 states where it remains legal. Last year, 11 states carried out 47 executions, the most since 2009. At the federal level, President Trump broke a 17-year moratorium in the final months of his first term, when he approved 13 executions in rapid succession. “We owe it to the victims and their families,” said then-attorney general Bill Barr, “to carry forward the sentence imposed by our justice system.”

Why did Trump bring it back? 

He’s always been in favor of the ultimate punishment. In 1989, long before he entered politics, Trump bought full-page newspaper ads calling for New York to “bring back the death penalty” after five Black and Latino teenagers—all of whom were later exonerated—were arrested on suspicion of raping a woman in Central Park. During his 2024 presidential campaign, he promised to “vigorously pursue the death penalty to protect American families and children from violent rapists, murderers, and monsters.” Last year, he instructed the Justice Department to pursue federal death sentences when possible and to assist states in carrying out executions. After Iryna Zarutska, a 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee, was stabbed to death on public transit in Charlotte last August, Trump called for her killer to be quickly sentenced to death. “There can be no other option,” he said.

How have states responded?

North Carolina, which has not carried out an execution since 2006, swiftly passed what legislators called “Iryna’s Law,” expediting the execution process and broadening available execution methods. Ron DeSantis, Florida’s Republican governor, has been in “lockstep” with Trump’s pro-death-penalty agenda, said Maria DeLiberato of Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty. Last year, Florida overtook Texas in carrying out the most executions, accounting for 19 of the 47 state-level executions in 2025. So far this year, Florida has executed four death row inmates; a fifth is scheduled for execution later this month.

Is Florida an outlier?

Pretty much. Upset after three jurors voted to spare the life of the Parkland school shooter, who had killed 17 people in 2018, state legislators passed a new law requiring only eight of 12 jurors to authorize a death sentence. That’s the lowest bar for execution of any state. Florida also passed the TRUMP Act, which mandates a death sentence for undocumented immigrants who commit capital crimes. Yet outside of Florida, the death penalty has been “losing its legitimacy,” says the American Civil Liberties Union’s Cassandra Stubbs. Last year, juries returned 23 death sentences nationwide; 30 years ago, the figure was over 300. While capital punishment is practiced by fewer jurisdictions, those that do it use it often. Just 2% of U.S. counties, most of them in the Southeast, account for 60% of America’s death row inmates.

What do Americans believe?

Public opinion is currently split, but support for capital punishment is waning. Some 52% of American adults back the death penalty for convicted murderers, according to a 2025 Gallup poll, down from 80% in 1994. But younger Americans are markedly less supportive than older ones, and the share of adults who believe the death penalty is applied unfairly has risen steadily and is now also right around 50%. Kirk Bloodsworth, a former death row inmate exonerated by DNA evidence in 1993, told National Geographic that people often rethink their stance on criminal penalties when they learn “how easy it is” to be convicted of a crime you didn’t commit. Still, pro-execution sentiment remains strong for particularly heinous crimes with clear perpetrators. “How much worse would the crime have to be to warrant the death penalty?” said Annika Dworet, whose son Nicholas was killed in the Parkland shooting at age 17.

Why is support declining?

Because faith in the system is, too. More than 200 death row inmates have been exonerated since 1973, thanks to DNA analysis and other investigative advancements. Blacks and Latinos make up 34% of the U.S. population but account for 53% of death row, which suggests there is racial bias in sentencing. The cost of maintaining death row prisoners and a number of botched executions in recent years—lethal injections or gas administrations that take far too long to work, for example—have also undermined confidence. Meanwhile, the U.S. rate of homicide, the crime most likely to engender a death sentence, is at its lowest level in at least 125 years, according to the Council on Criminal Justice, a nonpartisan think tank. And despite the upsurge in executions in a few jurisdictions, juries across the U.S. are returning fewer new death sentences. “Today’s death sentences are tomorrow’s executions,” says Corinna Barrett Lain of the University of Richmond School of Law. “If you don’t have new death sentences feeding the machinery of death, the death penalty will die on the vine.”

What happened

The U.S. military this week pulled off an audacious rescue of an Air Force colonel stranded 200 miles into mountainous Iranian territory, one of the most complex and dangerous special ops missions it had ever undertaken. An Iranian missile downed the weapons officer’s F-15E Strike Eagle—the first U.S. fighter jet lost to enemy fire in the war—forcing him and the pilot to eject. Officials said the pilot was rescued within hours, but the weapons officer could not be located for nearly two days. Injured and armed with only a pistol, he trudged up a 7,000-foot peak to make contact using his emergency beacon before hiding in a crevice to evade Iranian drones scouring the area. The CIA bought the military some time by spreading word in Iran that the airman had already been rescued, while the military used top-secret CIA tech to pinpoint the officer’s location.

The resulting nighttime exfiltration involved hundreds of special ops
troops and 155 aircraft. An official said it took several “excruciating” minutes for Navy SEAL Team 6 to find the airman and get him into a helicopter. “We just really wanted to get our guy out of there,” the official told CBS News. After they got to a temporary airstrip in Iran, their escape was delayed for hours because the transport planes were stuck in loose soil. Replacement aircraft were called to take everyone to safety in Kuwait. There were no additional U.S. casualties during the operation, though Iran downed an A-10 Warthog plane—its pilot ejected safely—and American helicopters sustained fire during the initial search.

A triumphant President Trump called the mission an “Easter Miracle,” and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth drew parallels to Jesus’ resurrection story. “A pilot reborn,” Hegseth said. “A nation rejoicing.” Trump then threatened to prosecute media outlets unless they revealed who leaked the information that the F-15 had been shot down. “Give it up or go to jail,” he said.

What the columnists said

There’s only one possible response to this amazing story, said Jeffrey
Blehar in National Review. That’s to “stand up and cheer.” You’ll be able to do so in the theaters when this inevitably hits the big screen “in a year or two.” It should be an easy lift for screenwriters: The operation played out like “a triumphant Hollywood action flick,” with thrilling details that “will revive your flagging hopes” about “America’s continued logistical and problem-solving excellence.”

No wonder the Trump administration is exulting, said Katherine Krueger in The Intercept. It hopes the happy ending will distract Americans from its “failing” and “deeply unpopular” war. Despite the ceasefire, the U.S. hasn’t secured a permanent opening of the Strait of Hormuz or a solution to Iran’s nuclear ambitions. “Don’t worry about that,” the administration seems to say, “check out this action sequence.”

Even the successful rescue demonstrated that Hegseth’s “repeated claims of air dominance come with serious caveats,” said John Hudson in The Washington Post. It turns out Iran is capable of shooting down U.S. aircraft after all. And while Hegseth told us last month that Iran’s missile and drone programs had been “overwhelmingly destroyed” by Israel and the U.S., an American intelligence assessment now says that “more than half” of Iran’s missile launchers and thousands of its kamikaze drones are intact.

Still, there’s no doubt that the U.S. scored a huge win by plucking the airman out of the heart of enemy territory, said John Sakellariadis in Politico. Had Iran gotten to him first, it would have had “a powerful bargaining chip.” Tehran, after all, has a history of taking hostages and using them to political advantage. What wouldn’t the U.S. have agreed to in order to get our man back? That would have been “a significant political embarrassment for the Trump administration.”

Strategic consequences aside, the airman’s rescue was “a victory of values,” said Mary Julia Koch in The Wall Street Journal. It was a reminder of the American military’s “sacred pledge of ‘No Man Left Behind.’” That doctrine has critics, who argue that it’s “outdated for modern, asymmetric warfare and can endanger more lives.” But it is what underpins U.S. troops’ pride and morale, what helps make them the most formidable force in the world. As one senior defense official said: “The notion that we will come and get you any time, in any place, no matter the cost, is an incredibly powerful thing.”

What happened

President Trump recently claimed a “total and complete victory” after Iran agreed to a 14-day ceasefire with the U.S., a fragile deal that both sides presented in starkly different terms. The agreement was struck just hours after Trump threatened to destroy Iran’s “whole civilization” and a day after he threatened the “complete demolition” of every bridge and power plant in the country unless it agreed to a deal and reopened the Strait of Hormuz—a Persian Gulf channel through which 20% of the world’s oil flowed before the start of the six-week war.

Trump’s threat to target civilian infrastructure, a likely war crime if carried out, drew condemnation from figures ranging from Pope Leo XIV to podcaster and former MAGA ally Tucker Carlson, who pleaded with White House aides to keep the president away from the nuclear football. But shortly before Trump’s 8 p.m. deadline, he announced a Pakistan-brokered deal for the ceasefire. Trump called the agreement a landmark that could pave the way for “the Golden Age” of the Middle East. Iran’s security council, meanwhile, hailed the agreement as an “undeniable, historic, and crushing defeat” for the U.S.

Questions remained about the shape of the deal. Trump called a 10-point Iranian plan “a workable basis” for upcoming peace talks in Islamabad. But he then said a version of the plan released by Iran—which called for the lifting of all sanctions and the payment of war damages by the U.S.—wasn’t the one he’d agreed to. Trump hailed the “complete” and “immediate” opening of the Strait of Hormuz, but Iranian officials said transiting ships would have to arrange passage with Iran’s military and pay tolls to Tehran. Trump also said the U.S. would work with Iran to “dig up and remove” its stockpile of 970 pounds of enriched uranium that was buried under joint U.S.-Israeli attacks last summer. But Tehran’s 10-point plan includes U.S. acceptance of Iran’s right to enrich uranium.

Amid the wrangling, Lebanon emerged as a flashpoint. Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said the ceasefire applied everywhere “including Lebanon,” but Israel, which is battling Iran-backed Hezbollah there, and the U.S. insisted otherwise. Israel hit Lebanon with scores of air strikes in a single day, killing at least 250 people, according to local officials. Trump said the issue will “get taken care of.”

What the columnists said

Trump’s retreat followed a “chaotic” blitz of negotiations, said Barak Ravid in Axios. After U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff flatly rejected Iran’s initial 10-point peace proposal, it set off a fevered round of amendments, passed by Pakistani mediators between Witkoff and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, with Egyptian and Turkish officials helping to “bridge gaps.” Once they landed on a ceasefire proposal, it was greenlit by Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, whom China was advising “to seek an off-ramp.” Next was Trump, who was urged to reject it by “hawkish allies and confidantes.” Even some close associates thought he’d spurn the offer “right up until he took it.”

Trump thankfully backed off his “genocidal threats” said Jennifer Rubin in The Contrarian. But that shouldn’t diminish their “horror.” A man who holds the nuclear codes threatened the vaporization of a nation of 93 million people in starkly religious terms, warning in one post that “Hell will reign down” and “Glory be to GOD!” It was “a mortifying intersection” of Christian nationalism, “pathological narcissism, and fascist warmongering.” This deeply sick man endangers not just our national security but the “stability of the planet.” Congress must remove him from office.

The president’s rhetoric was “condemnable,” said Noah Rothman in National Review. But to project “unflinching determination” amid a “contest of wills and hard power” has undeniable benefits. And it “forced the Iranians to blink,” said Eli Lake in The Free Press. They’ve agreed to ease their blockade of the Strait of Hormuz based on nothing but an agreement to negotiate. Meanwhile, having lost its navy, most of its missile launchers, and its top political and military leadership, the Islamists in Tehran have “never been poorer, weaker, or more isolated.”

This was a straight-up “surrender,” said William Kristol in The Bulwark—but by Trump, not Iran. Just a month ago he was demanding Iran’s “unconditional” capitulation. But the mullahs and Revolutionary Guard still control Iran. The regime still has its enriched uranium and “functional missile and drone capabilities.” And it now has unprecedented control over the waterway through which its Gulf Arab neighbors export oil and natural gas, and has shown the devastation it can inflict on those countries and the global economy in any future conflict.

Selling this as a win won’t be easy, said Jack Blanchard and Dasha Burns in Politico, but that’s clearly Trump’s intention. Given the public opposition to the war, spiking gas prices, and “the rapidly worsening global economic outlook,” he’s anxious to move on. And because stock markets surged following his ceasefire announcement, it’s hard to imagine he’ll resume the bombing. So “brace yourselves” for a barrage of messaging that “America won.”

Let’s count the cost of this debacle, said Anthony L. Fisher in MS.now. Thirteen U.S. service members are dead along with at least 32 people in Gulf Arab nations, 20 Israelis, and more than 1,600 Iranians, while the rest “remain under the yoke of a sadistic theocracy.” With his warmongering, flip-flops, and unhinged threats, our unstable, amoral president has done “irreparable damage to America’s reputation” and “upended” the postwar global order. “I’m not feeling any safer. Are you?”

What next?

President Trump will send a team led by Vice President JD Vance to Pakistan to “negotiate an end” to the war, said Steven Nelson in the New York Post. Special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner will also join the weekend talks. Iran’s participation “is in flux,” because it has told mediators it won’t attend without a ceasefire in Lebanon.

Reopening the Strait of Hormuz is “only the first step” toward “getting more energy flowing through the Persian Gulf,” said Rebecca F. Elliott and Ivan Penn in The New York Times. Dozens of refineries, storage facilities, and oil and gas fields across the region were hit during the conflict, shutting down “10% or more of the world’s oil supply.” Reversing that requires replacing equipment and “recalling employees and ships that have scattered across the globe.” With the ceasefire “on shaky ground,” the timeline is “highly uncertain,” but even under positive conditions, recovery will be “a months-long process.”

Climbing gas prices can put a major crimp in your budget, especially if you have a long commute or live in a car-reliant location. Just cents more per gallon can quickly add up to a higher total gas bill, and when the price per gallon skyrockets by a dollar or more — as it did in some areas in March amid the Iran war — that can make every fill-up feel like a nail-biter.

Common solutions to higher gas prices are often tied to driving habits, whether that means relying less on your car and more on public transportation, or finding someone to carpool with on your way to work. Those gas-saving strategies are certainly valid, but they are not your only option, particularly when gas prices are getting especially steep. Another hack might already be in your wallet, or could be a smart addition to it: a gas rewards credit card.

How can credit cards help offset higher gas prices?

Gas credit cards offer “rewards on fuel purchases, which can help reduce the cost,” said U.S. News & World Report. These rewards may come in the form of points or a percentage cash-back on every fuel purchase.

Many of today’s top gas credit cards “offer around a 3%-5% (or 3x-5x) return on your gas station spending,” said Yahoo Finance. And while this may not seem like much, it can “add up over time, especially while fuel prices are high.”

Are there any risks or drawbacks to using credit cards to cover gas?

Perhaps the biggest caveat is that gas rewards cards tend to be best for those who can afford to pay off their credit card balance in full each and every month. Given steep credit card APRs, “any rewards you might earn by paying with plastic would likely be overshadowed by the interest you’d rack up in just a single billing cycle,” said NerdWallet. Some cards may also charge annual fees, which can also eat into the rewards you earn.

Additionally, it is worth noting that cards may put a cap on the rewards you can enjoy in a certain period. “Depending on how much your regular gas bill is, these caps could make a difference in how much you can earn,” said Yahoo Finance.

How can you find the best gas credit card?

To get the most out of a gas rewards credit card, you need to know what to look for. There are two main types: specific “co-branded gas cards — those affiliated with a particular company such as Exxon or Shell,” and “general rewards credit cards,” said NerdWallet. The former “tend to offer incentives on fuel bought at those specific stations,” whereas general rewards cards allow you to earn rewards “on gas purchases made anywhere, not just with one specific brand,” and often at a higher rate. (There are, however, exceptions here, such as “cards affiliated with wholesalers like Costco and Sam’s Club, whose gas prices tend to be lower than average,” said NerdWallet.)

That said, when choosing a card, it is also important to note any associated costs. That could be a membership fee, as with the aforementioned wholesalers’ cards, or an annual fee.

For a general rewards credit card, you should also take a look at the card more holistically in terms of your financial habits. If you can “find a card that helps you save on gas along with your other regular budget items, you can save even more over time,” said Yahoo Finance.

The Department of Justice has opened a probe into the National Football League, exploring whether the sports juggernaut engaged in anticompetitive practices through the various streaming packages it offers viewers. While the league’s increasingly complex subscription structures may represent a legally actionable transgression, the DOJ’s investigation does not exist in a bubble. It follows years of hostility between the president and the NFL.

‘Fragmented viewing experience’

The Justice Department is investigating whether the NFL’s “deals with streaming services are leading fans to pay too much to watch pro football on TV,” said NPR. The Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961 permitted the league to let teams “negotiate for the media rights together,” but critics argue that more regulation may be necessary, as “this isn’t the same marketplace anymore.”

The rising costs of airing high-profile events are being “propelled in part” by demand from “deep-pocketed tech companies hoping to woo subscribers and advertisers,” said The Wall Street Journal. To meet that demand, the NFL has “increasingly sliced off smaller packages of games” for individual streaming services, resulting in a “more fragmented viewing experience” for consumers.

Within the NFL, there’s a sense that the Murdoch family, which owns Fox Corporation, is the “key driver behind the DOJ probe,” said ESPN. Murdoch’s media empire has “turned the cost of streaming into a hobby horse issue,” said league insiders to the outlet. This comes amid a “growing bipartisan anti-streaming sentiment in Washington” and during a Trump administration that has “at times targeted the league.”

‘Revenge tour’

Trump has a “long history” of “weighing in on the fortunes of football,” said The Independent. He condemned former quarterback Colin Kaepernick’s refusal to stand for the national anthem and demanded the Washington Commanders return to their racially insensitive original name. But Trump’s “grievance” with the league “stretches back further, to at least 1984,” when he unsuccessfully attempted to launch a new franchise for the sport.

Trump has “tried to get into the NFL a couple times since then” — defeats that now fuel the president’s “revenge tour for the league humiliating him and permanently barring him from the cool kids’ table,” said Above the Law. “If they screw me over, I’m gonna show them,” Trump allegedly said in 2014, broadcaster Stephen A. Smith told ESPN. “I’m gonna get them all back. I’m going to run for president of the United States.”

The NFL is “absolutely using its power to squeeze the media,” and the media, in turn, is “passing that on to the consumer,” said Above the Law. But this administration let Ticketmaster’s monopoly “walk” and put itself behind a “consumer-crushing media merger” on behalf of Paramount’s purchase of Warner Bros. Discovery. In that context, Trump and his administration “don’t care about sports fans getting gouged.”

The difference between federal officials moving against the Sports Broadcasting Act now and Trump’s other tangles with the NFL is that there are Democrats “aligned" with the Department of Justice in this instance, said ESPN. Congress could repeal and pass new laws to further regulate NFL viewing options, but the lengthy legislative and legal process means fans “might not notice any significant difference to the way they watch games anytime soon.”

The majesty of the natural world and the incomprehensible vastness of space are almost infinitely rearrangeable variables for documentarians. We are lucky to have a long (and still-growing) library of superb television series that explore the landscapes, creatures and philosophical underpinnings of both the known and the unknown. Done right, the way these acclaimed series are, documentaries can be just as thrilling as any fictional narrative.

‘Cosmos’ (1980)

One of the most-watched documentary series in history, “Cosmos” leans heavily on the charisma and chops of its presenter, astronomer and public intellectual Carl Sagan. Its 13 episodes tackle everything from the Cambrian explosion to the nature of time and space.

It also presents a plea for people to take care of the planet while acknowledging our relative insignificance in the context of the universe. “There’s never a dull moment” in what emerges as a “complete science course, encompassing not just cosmology but also chemistry, physics, biology and the history of human discovery,” said James Kingsland at The Guardian. (Internet Archive)

‘The Blue Planet’ (2001)

A spiritual successor to “The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau,” this BBC production outclasses its predecessors in every conceivable way. It introduces viewers to complex concepts like ocean currents and ecosystems like coral reefs, with narration from David Attenborough.

The 10 episodes took years to complete and, at the time, made up the most expensive nature documentary ever produced. The series is “unabashedly, poetically awestruck, yet unsentimental,” said Julie Salamon at The New York Times, featuring “images demonstrating the interconnectedness of life in the starkest terms.” A second season, “Blue Planet II” was released to great acclaim in 2017. (discovery+)

‘Planet Earth’ (2006)

The “11-part mother of all nature series” uses “helicopters, long lenses and all manner of cutting-edge film techniques to bring us the photographic spoils of a five-year global odyssey,” said Susan Stewart at The New York Times. It “often encourages you to root for the predator rather than the prey: fitting at a time when the planet itself seems as vulnerable as a newly hatched penguin.”

Rather than honing in on a particular animal or region, the series takes a kaleidoscopic look at life on Earth by visiting different ecosystem types, including plains, mountains, jungles, forests and the mysterious depths of the ocean. Collectively, the series leaves the viewer with a truly globe-spanning understanding of our home planet. It was followed by two additional series, “Planet Earth II” in 2016 and “Planet Earth III” in 2023. (HBO Max)

‘Frozen Planet’ (2011)

The forbidding landscapes and wildlife of the polar regions get the glowed-up documentary treatment in the BBC’s “Frozen Planet.” Attenborough narrates for the BBC, but the American version released on the Discovery Channel was recut with voice work by Alec Baldwin.

Episodes follow animals like polar bears through multiple climatic seasons, and the series is full of awe-inspiring observations about the critical importance of the region to the Earth’s general health, like the fact that a third of the trees on the entire planet exist in the circumpolar belt called the Taiga. “Frozen Planet” is “gorgeous to behold: lump-in-throat, tear-in-eye beautiful,” said Robert Lloyd at the Los Angeles Times, “made to reveal a world few people will ever see.” (HBO Max)

‘Wonders of the Universe’ (2011)

A series presented by the “incongruously boyish and immediately watchable Professor Brian Cox,” this BBC production is meant to show us “just how insignificant our little solar system is when presented with the enormity of space and time indefinite,” said Luke Holland at Den of Geek. Cox’s “deft ability to simplify a concept without patronizing an audience” results in a “profound triumph.”

The four-part series tackles the origins of the universe, the pivotal role of stardust in all living things, and the nature of space-time, among many other cosmic mysteries. Buoyed by sharp special effects and meditative insights, “Wonders of the Universe” is gripping television. (Prime)

‘Africa’ (2013)

This is yet another stellar series from the BBC, coproduced with the Discovery Channel and narrated by the extremely prolific Attenborough, who turns 100 on May 8 this year and is still working. The six episodes of “Africa” each look at one of the continent’s regions, starting with a tour of the forbidding Kalahari and Namib Deserts and traveling through the Congo Basin, the southern tip of the continent, and the savannahs of East Africa.

Forest Whitaker deftly presents the series in the U.S. market. The series “abounds in jaw-dropping visuals on a scale that, like the best fictional dramas, infuses the epic with the up-close-and-personal,” said Sheri Linden at The Hollywood Reporter. (HBO Max)

‘The Hunt’ (2015)

Viewers might want to steer little kids out of the room before pressing play on BBC’s “The Hunt,” which takes a long look at the dance between predator and prey in different kinds of environments, like grasslands and coasts. It’s not ideal for people who are sensitive to violence and gore, but it is riveting. Some cherished illusions will be shattered, including what chimpanzees eat, which is not exclusively fruit but sometimes other, weaker primates like red colobus monkeys.

If you can stomach it, “The Hunt” is full of such revelations, rendered lovingly and narrated by (who else?) Attenborough. “The footage is truly extraordinary and gorgeous and, for the most part, artfully edited,” said Ken Tucker at Yahoo Entertainment. (HBO Max)

‘Our Planet’ (2019-2023)

You will never guess who narrates this Netflix production about habitat loss and the consequences of human encroachment on the natural world. Attenborough, well into his 90s when the series was shot, did some of the best voiceover work of his long career here. The series’ 12 episodes across two seasons visit a dizzying array of locales, from the Congolese rainforest to the Arctic, where polar bears are struggling to adapt to climate change and the loss of their icy homes. A series that “plays notes of an elegy,” it also “contains the saddest scene perhaps ever shot in a nature documentary,” depicting an “enormous gathering of walruses that have been forced onto a tiny stretch of dry land due to the shrinking sea ice in the Arctic,” said Brian Resnick at Vox. (Netflix)

‘Hardly anyone checks this little box on their tax return. Why keep it?’

Adam Lashinsky at The Washington Post

There “was a time when nearly a third of U.S. taxpayers checked that little box on their income-tax returns authorizing the Internal Revenue Service to allocate $3 of their taxes” to “help pay for presidential campaigns,” says Adam Lashinsky. But now Americans “are — quite rationally — unwilling to fork over the cost of a Snickers bar to help elect the leader of their country.” Congress “ought to simply junk the checkoff as the relic it is.”

Read more

‘Democrats need to start planning now for a return to power’

Symone D. Sanders Townsend at MS NOW

Democrats “are already talking about a wave election,” and “people are starting to ask: What would Democrats do with that power?” says Symone D. Sanders Townsend. It’s a “more important question now than ever because, this time, winning will come with more risk and more responsibility.” A Democratic win “will not just be a rejection of President Donald Trump. It will be an expectation that they can use power in a way that actually changes people’s lives.”

Read more

‘Kalshi is half right about prediction markets and gambling’

Aaron Brown at Bloomberg

Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour “has an argument why prediction markets shouldn't be regulated as gambling,” says Aaron Brown. Sportsbooks “profit from customer losses, making them structurally predatory. Kalshi, by contrast, operates as a peer-to-peer exchange.” He is “right about the business model distinction. He’s wrong that it answers the regulatory question.” What Mansour is “describing — a balanced book, fees on both sides, no house risk on outcomes — has been the operating model of sports betting, both legal and illegal.”

Read more

‘Women’s brains are a $1 trillion opportunity’

Lisa Mosconi and George Vradenburg at Time

Nowhere is the “cost of ignoring women’s health more visible or more correctable than in the brain,” say Lisa Mosconi and George Vradenburg. Closing the “women’s health gap could add $1 trillion in annual incremental GDP to the global economy.” This should “reframe how every boardroom and budget office thinks about women’s health.” Researchers “need to mandate sex-disaggregated data and fund women-focused trials for brain disease,” and policymakers “need to recognize women’s brain health as a core input to labor force productivity.”

Read more

The divide between the American president and the American pontiff has exploded into view. Pope Leo has repeatedly rebuked President Donald Trump’s immigration policies and war in Iran, and Trump is now returning the criticism. Could the division prefigure a split in the Catholic Church?

Leo on Sunday delivered his “strongest condemnation yet” of war in a peace vigil at St. Peter’s Basilica, said CBS News. “Enough with war!” he said during the public service. Real strength is “manifested in serving life.” The president did not take kindly to the critique. Leo is “terrible for foreign policy” and should “get his act together as pope, use common sense, stop catering to the radical left,” Trump said on Truth Social.

The exchange followed a “bitter lecture” during a January meeting between Pentagon appointees and a Vatican diplomat, said The Free Press. The message from Defense Department officials: The church “had better take its side” on the world stage. One unnamed U.S. official “went so far as to invoke the Avignon Papacy,” the 14th-century period in which the French monarchy forcibly moved the papacy from Rome to France. Both sides downplayed the Free Press report. Even so, tension between Catholic leaders and the White House has “only risen since the start of the war with Iran,” said The Atlantic.

What did the commentators say?

“There will be no second Avignon,” Christopher Hale said at the newsletter Letters from Leo. Officials invoking that 14th-century history were making a “threat against the conscience of the world,” but the White House will be unable to repeat it.

A recent favorability survey published by NBC News found Leo finished first in a ranking of “14 public figures, institutions and political groups” by a wide margin. That makes him the “most popular public figure on earth.” Trump cannot compete. “The American people stand with Pope Leo XIV.”

Leo has “resisted Trump like a protester at a ‘No Kings’ rally,” said Gustavo Arellano at the Los Angeles Times. Critics will accuse the pope of “Trump derangement syndrome” and note that he stands “athwart the desires” of the 55% of Catholics who voted for the president in 2024. But Trump’s administration has pulled funding from Catholic charities and criticized bishops who dissent. Leo’s role is to “bear witness to the words of Christ,” who spoke more about caring for the poor than waging war. Unlike Trump, Leo “urges us to stand for something other than ourselves.”

What next?

The debate over the war is spilling into the wider religious sphere, “driving a wedge” between the president’s pro-Israel evangelical supporters and the Catholic commentators who are “increasingly hostile to Trump’s foreign policy agenda,” said Vox. The “Avignon-gate” report will continue to raise tensions “within the U.S. Catholic community and within the MAGA movement.”

Leo, meanwhile, will not return to the U.S. for the country’s 250th birthday celebrations in July, choosing instead to minister to migrants in Italy. Leo’s priority is to “be with those who are downcast and marginalized,” said Cardinal Blase Cupich on “60 Minutes.”

What happened

President Donald Trump on Sunday sharply criticized Pope Leo XIV, an increasingly vocal opponent of his Iran war. The first U.S.-born Catholic pontiff is “WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy,” and “thinks it’s OK for Iran to have a Nuclear Weapon,” Trump said on social media. “I’m not a fan of Pope Leo,” he told reporters. “He’s a very liberal person.” Shortly afterward, Trump posted an AI-generated image “depicting himself as a Christ-like figure healing a sick person with American flags and eagles in the background,” CNN said.

Who said what

Trump’s “angry counterpunch to the soft-spoken Leo” starkly “illustrated how differently two of the world’s most powerful Americans handle conflict,” The New York Times said. Trump’s broadside came after the pope held a vigil for peace at the Vatican on Saturday and suggested that a “delusion of omnipotence” was fueling the war. “Enough of the idolatry of self and money!” Leo said. “Enough of war!”

It’s “not unusual for popes and presidents to be at cross purposes,” The Associated Press said, but it’s “exceedingly rare” for them to openly criticize each other. Archbishop Paul Coakley, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said in a statement he was “disheartened” at Trump’s “disparaging words about the Holy Father.”

What next?

Trump’s “extraordinary public criticism” of the pope could put him “at odds with some Catholics, tens of millions of whom live in the U.S.,” The Wall Street Journal said. Pope Leo leaves Monday for a four-country tour of Africa, Catholicism’s fastest-growing region.

What happened

President Donald Trump on Sunday threatened to block the Strait of Hormuz after peace talks with Iran in Pakistan failed to produce a breakthrough. The U.S. Navy will blockade “any and all Ships trying to enter, or leave, the Strait,” he said on social media. But U.S. Central Command had a different interpretation of Trump’s order, saying it would block only vessels entering or departing “Iranian ports and coastal areas,” starting this week.

Who said what

A U.S. naval blockade would cut off a “key source of financing for Iran’s government and military operations,” CNN said. But a blockade could be a “blow to the rest of the world as well,” exacerbating the “war-driven global energy crisis” and raising U.S. gas prices, The Washington Post said.

The problem for Trump is that “Americans have a much lower threshold of pain than the Iranians,” Andreas Krieg, a security expert at King's College London, said to The Associated Press. The Iranians “can sustain this for far longer than the world economy” and “the Americans,” and Trump doesn’t have “any tool in the toolbox in terms of the military lever” he can use “to get his way.”

What next?

The face-to-face peace talks, led on the U.S. side by Vice President JD Vance, “were the highest-level negotiations between the longtime rivals” since 1979, the AP said. Iran said it was open to continuing the talks, and “neither indicated what will happen after the ceasefire expires on April 22.”

What happened

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán conceded defeat Sunday night after his far-right populist Fidesz party lost decisively to Péter Magyar and his center-right, pro-Europe Tisza party. Turnout was a post-Communist high of nearly 80%. As of Monday, Magyar’s alliance is on track to win 138 of the 199 seats in Parliament, exceeding the two-thirds supermajority needed to “change the constitution and unravel key pillars” of the “illiberal democracy” Orbán built over his 16 years in power, Politico said.

Who said what

“The election result is painful for us, but clear,” Orbán told supporters at Fidesz’s campaign offices. “We have liberated Hungary,” Magyar told cheering crowds gathered on the banks of the Danube in Budapest. “Hungarians said yes to Europe today, they said yes to a free Hungary.” European leaders, long frustrated by Orbán, rushed to congratulate Magyar.

Orbán was a “lodestar for MAGA culture warriors and right-wing populists in Europe,” The New York Times said. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin both supported Orbán’s candidacy and offered financial backing if he won. But Trump’s “several personal endorsements,” backed by a visit from Vice President JD Vance, could “do nothing to swing a contest that was shaped by growing public frustration over Hungary’s ailing economy, and the corruption and cronyism associated with Orbán,” Politico said.

What next?

Magyar called on Fidesz loyalists in key state positions, including the president, to step down or face expulsion by his parliamentary supermajority. “We will never again be a country of no consequences,” he said, vowing to set up an “office for the restoration of national wealth” to investigate and recover looted state assets and prosecute corruption.

The price of crude oil could rise to $150 a barrel under a US blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.

Jorge Montepeque, managing director of oil traders Onyx Capital Group, said prices “should be $140, $150” if the naval blockade goes ahead, said The Telegraph.

The US blockade was due to begin at 3pm today UK time. Writing on social media, Donald Trump said that the US was going to start “BLOCKADING any and all Ships trying to enter, or leave, the Strait of Hormuz” and will “interdict every vessel in International Waters that has paid a toll to Iran”.

How will it work?

Under Trump’s plan, instead of having navy ships escort commercial vessels through the Strait of Hormuz, US forces will board and potentially seize any vessels that pay Iran’s toll, a move that would effectively close the strait off entirely.

The US Central Command said that its forces would not impede the freedom of vessels travelling to and from non-Iranian ports. It also pledged that it would release additional information to commercial mariners.

The president warned that “any Iranian who fires at us, or at peaceful vessels, will be BLOWN TO HELL”, but “at some point” an agreement on free passage would be reached. He said that other countries would be involved in blockading the strait, but did not specify which. Keir Starmer said the UK would not join the blockade.

What will the effect be?

The consequences for the global economy could be serious. There’s “little clarity” about how the US navy will take control of the strait without “reigniting” the conflict with Iran and “causing another shockwave” in the money markets, said Michael Evans in The Times.

The blockade “might risk worsening a war-driven global energy crisis”, said The Washington Post. Although Iran would “potentially suffer the most economically”, it may also “come as a blow to the rest of the world”, particularly nations in Asia, which “rely heavily” on oil and gas from the Gulf.

So the president is “once again playing loose with the fortunes of financial markets and the global economy as he struggles to find a way out of the war”, said Australia’s ABC News.

As for Trump, the plan “reflects his hope” that he can repeat the “model of his intervention” in Venezuela, said the Financial Times. There, the US “seized” the then president Nicolás Maduro in a military operation after a naval blockade of the Latin American nation.

“You saw what we did with Venezuela,” Trump told Fox News. “It’ll be something very similar to that, but at a higher level.”

What did experts say?

Initially, Trump’s plan will only affect the small number of vessels that are still navigating the waterway, shipping expert Lars Jensen told the BBC. If the US does blockade the strait, it will “halt a very tiny trickle” of vessels and “in the greater scheme of things, it doesn’t really change anything”.

But three legal experts in the US said the blockade could violate maritime law. One of them suggested the blockade, which will be enforced militarily, would violate the current ceasefire agreement.

The blockade is a good “counterpoint” to Iran’s closure of the strait, Dennis Ross, the former senior US diplomat and Middle East negotiator, said on X. It puts “greater pressure on Iran” and “great pressure on China to pressure Iran”.

But Vali Nasr, a former US official and a professor at Johns Hopkins University, told the Financial Times that the plan will be “fine by the Iranians” because it “prolongs the chokehold on the global economy”.

Tehran might respond by shutting down the Bab el-Mandeb, a chokepoint off the coast of Yemen, said Nasr, and “then the US will have to deal with that”.

Viktor Orbán once described Hungary under his premiership as a “petri dish for illiberalism”. The end of his 16-year reign is, for many in the West, a sign that his Maga-style politics is on the way out. But Hungary’s future under new prime minister Peter Magyar, once a staunch Orbán loyalist, is far from certain.

Magyar only joined the centre-right Tisza party in 2024. “He has built an opposition movement at amazing speed,” Gábor Győri of Budapest think tank, Policy Solutions, told The Guardian. “Never”, since the fall of Soviet-based communist rule in 1989, has Hungary “seen a party rise this quickly”.

What the commentators said?

“Short of offering a bonanza of free oil,” it’s hard to see how Donald Trump could have done more to “shore up” Orbán, his “closest ideological ally in Europe”, said Oliver Moody and Michael Evans in The Times. He promised to strengthen Hungary with “the full economic might” of the US, and even parachuted J.D. Vance into Budapest to stand at Orbán’s side. But Hungary’s rejection of Orbán is a reflection of the broader sentiment across Europe, as “the populist right is either distancing itself from Trump or suffering by association with his brand”.

“There is no question that Orbán’s downfall is a loss for Maga-style politics,” said Alexander Burns on Politico. But “the sharpest message from Budapest should be for the Democrats” in the US. Orbán’s defeat is “a new triumph for a particular brand of disruptive politics”, in which reformists “launch new parties and blow up old ones, winning elections by rendering traditional political structures obsolete”. Currently, “there is no equivalent figure among Trump’s American opponents”.

There are warnings, too, for those in Europe who see Magyar’s win as a victory for liberal politics. Orbán’s fall “​​does not mean that Hungarian voters have rejected his tough-on-immigration, pro-natalist or Brussels-critical policies”, said The Telegraph’s deputy comment editor Michael Mosbacher. A former member of Orbán’s Fidesz party, Magyar is a social conservative who “on effectively every issue” comes down “firmly on the right of European politics”. Orbán may have been the EU’s bête noire over financial support for Ukraine, but his successor has said in the past that he is against sending weapons to Kyiv and opposes Ukraine’s push to join the EU.

What next?

“Despite more than two years of campaigning and a 240-page election manifesto, the details of what exactly Magyar will do remain vague,” said The Guardian. “He is very much a dark horse,” Győri told the paper. “We don’t know much about him.”

“There are both question marks and exclamation marks” about the consequences of Magyar’s victory, said Ákos Hadházy, an independent Hungarian MP and a long-time critic of Orbán. “But Hungarian society has accepted this.”

With its “green, rolling hills” and “patchwork of pinot noir and chardonnay vineyards”, Oregon’s Willamette Valley has been compared to Burgundy, said National Geographic.

The valley is home to 11 designated grape-growing regions with diverse terroirs, spanning all the way from Portland to Eugene. In recent years, the “cool nights and warm summer days” here have provided the perfect conditions for some “top-notch sparkling wines”. Grape varieties used in champagne like pinot meunier have been “thriving” here.

Method Oregon is a non-profit established by a coalition of producers to ensure high standards and help place their wines on the map. Bottles carrying the stamp must be “100% fermented, bottled, riddled, and disgorged in Oregon”, use the traditional method that requires sparkling wines to go through a “natural secondary fermentation in a bottle”, said National Geographic, and be aged for no less than 24 months en tirage (“the crucial stage where wines are aged on yeast”) to develop a complex flavour.

Gran Moraine’s sparkling brut rosé is “exquisite, rich and lovely”, said Clive Pursehouse on Decanter. The delicate wine spent six years en tirage and is bursting with “floral notes of apple blossom, sweet lemon cream, and ripe, fleshy pears”.

But chardonnay remains the “king of Oregon white wines”, said Mike Desimone on Robb Report. For a special occasion, consider splashing out on a bottle from Eyrie Vineyard where winemaker Jim Maresh makes “small-batch, high-quality wines from estate-grown grapes under his family label”.

Or, you can’t go wrong with a Résonance chardonnay, said Vine Pair. When renowned French winemakers come to Oregon “you know to pay attention”. That’s exactly what happened when Thibault Gagey and Jacques Lardière embarked on their “first project outside of Burgundy” in the Willamette Valley – and this bottle is an “excellent example” of how the chardonnay grape variety is flourishing in the cool climate. Expect refreshing mineral notes, hints of “ripe pear and crisp apples”, with a “wonderfully balanced” palate.

Airlines are feeling the strain of swelling oil prices resulting from the Iran war and closure of the Strait of Hormuz. To deal with higher operating costs, many companies are making changes that shift the burden to consumers, including higher baggage fees, more fuel surcharges and canceled routes.

How are higher gas costs affecting airlines?

Airlines and their customers across the U.S. are being impacted but especially those based in four major hubs: Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles and New York City. In these locations, the average price for a gallon of jet fuel is currently $4.25, according to the aviation trade association Airlines for America. On Feb. 27, the day before the war in Iran started, the average price was only $2.50. Airlines are also “facing an increase in the amount of fuel their aircraft use because of extra miles required to avoid flying over the conflict zone,” said The Guardian.

Fuel is already an expensive cost for aviators and is “generally airlines’ largest expense after labor,” said Quartz. Airlines are feeling the pressure as a result. If prices were to stay at their current level, it would mean an “extra $11 billion in annual expense just for jet fuel,” said United CEO Scott Kirby in a memo to employees. For “perspective, in United’s best year ever, we made less than $5 billion.”

How are airlines adapting?

Many are adding “extra fees and surcharges onto already rising ticket prices” to “recoup costs as the war in Iran causes fuel costs to surge,” said The New York Times. Luggage is one common area where airlines are bumping up the price. Delta and Southwest announced they would “start charging $10 more to check a bag on U.S. domestic flights,” days after United and JetBlue said the same.

The company with the most notable baggage changes may be American. The airline said it would “raise the fee by $10 each for the first and the second checked bag for travelers booking domestic and short-haul international flights,” said The Detroit News. The company also “increased the cost of a third checked bag by $50 to $200” for fliers and additionally announced an upcoming $5 increase on checked bags for passengers flying economy.

Some airlines are also including pricing for the fuel itself. Canada’s second-largest airline, WestJet, announced it would “add fuel surcharges of up to 60 Canadian dollars, or about $43, to some flights,” said the Times. Air Canada unveiled surcharges of 50 Canadian dollars to certain warm-weather destinations. For passengers, the decisions from airlines resulted in “rising fares and fees, fewer flight options and difficult decisions about whether a trip is worth the cost,” said The Associated Press.

Airlines are also cutting the number of places they go. Several Asian airlines have stated they would “cut flights to mitigate fuel shortages and mounting costs,” said Business Insider. Ryanair, Europe’s largest carrier, is also “considering reducing routes,” while Lufthansa could ground up to 40 planes. Air New Zealand will “cut about 5% of its flights, or about 1,100, at the start of May,” and in the U.S., United and Delta are both cutting routes.

As the world creeps toward peak travel season, industry leaders are taking notice of the fuel shortages. ACI Europe, an association representing airports in the European Union, notes these shortages could “hit within three weeks, disrupting summer travel and ‘significantly’ harming the European economy,” said CNBC. For people who still want to fly, experts say “flexibility and careful planning can help offset these costs,” said the AP, and “fare-tracking sites can alert travelers to price changes.”

Dover, Vt.

Sleepy Bear Farm, a 2004 timber-frame five-bedroom home on more than 90 acres, features two rustic post-and-beam bunk rooms—one with six double beds. The great room has cathedral ceilings, a two-sided double-height hearth, and French doors to a stone patio.

A lower level has media and wine rooms. Close to Mount Snow, the property includes trails, a brook, fruit trees, and a swimming hole. $3,300,000. Story Jenks, LandVest/Christie’s International Real Estate, (802) 238-1332

Wilmington, N.C.

Built in 2010, this West Indies–inspired waterfront home includes a bunk room with four beds, built-in shelves, and shiplap walls. The five-bedroom
features coffered ceilings, walnut floors, a fireplace, French doors, and a kitchen with a stove nook, a pot filler, and a butler’s pantry.

Outside are an infinity pool, a spa, a fireplace, a putting green, and views of the Intracoastal Waterway and Atlantic Ocean. Downtown Wilmington
is about 20 minutes away. $8,000,000. Nick Phillips, Landmark
Sotheby’s International Realty, (910) 620-3370

Mabank, Texas

On Cedar Creek Lake, this 2019 contemporary has two double bunk rooms with water views and en suite baths. The four-bedroom includes rustic beams, wood floors, a chef’s kitchen, and a white stacked-stone fireplace.

The property spans more than three waterfront acres, with a patio, pool, boathouse, yards, and a deck. Community access to riding, pickleball, and trails is included; Dallas is about a 45-minute drive. $3,500,000. Debbie French, Ebby Halliday Realtors/Luxury Portfolio International, (903) 340-7747

Truckee, Calif.

Set in the Martis Camp community about 20 minutes from Lake Tahoe, this 2014 lodge-style five-bedroom includes a six-person bunk room, as well as hickory floors, vaulted ceilings, exposed trusses, and a kitchen with a SubZero fridge and Wolf range.

There’s also a media room and billiards table. The lot, at just over an acre, includes a firepit, a built-in grill, and access to a shared beach, tennis courts, a lodge, and golf. $8,695,000. Dominic Cristalli, Martis Camp Realty, (206) 412-2493

Montrose, Colo.

This seven-bedroom modern farmhouse on nearly 15 acres has an eight-bed bunk room with tongue-and-groove walls. The 2006 home features exposed metal trusses, a stone fireplace wall, a 16-seat bar, and a chef’s
kitchen with a walk-in pantry.

Surrounded by the Uncompahgre National Forest north of Telluride, the property has a patio with a fireplace, an alfresco dining area, a putting green, firepits, shuffleboard, and a hot tub. $8,250,000. Kevin Holbrook,
LIV Sotheby’s International Realty, (970) 729-1601

Minneapolis

In the North Loop’s 1922 Soho Lofts building, this rustic modern studio loft has two bunks with four double beds, clad in barn-style wood. The condo has exposed brick and ducts, high ceilings, a large window, a reading nook, an open kitchen with concrete counters and a beverage fridge, and in-unit laundry.

Parking and a storage locker are included. Coffee shops, dining, and green space are steps away. $299,900. Joe Grunnet, DRG, (612) 244-6613

In 2022, Shan Hanes, the chief executive of the Heartland Tri-State Bank in Kansas, met a friendly investment adviser from Australia on WhatsApp. The adviser persuaded Hanes to invest a few thousand dollars in an online cryptocurrency-trading platform, which generated impressive returns. Hanes ended up investing all his own money, $60,000 from his daughter's college fund, $40,000 from his local church and $47 million from the bank he ran.

The “adviser” was, it transpired, not in Australia but most likely in Asia; the “trading platform” was fake; and Hanes had become the highest-profile US victim of a practice known in Chinese as sha zhu pan, a “pig-butchering scam”. Some money was recovered, but investors lost $9 million, the bank collapsed, and Hanes was sentenced to 24 years in prison.

How do the scams work?

“Long cons” have been around for ever, but these – in which the scammers invest a lot of time in building a relationship with the victim, a process they liken to fattening a pig for slaughter – have distinctive features.

Scammers actively seek out victims on social media: pig-butchering originated on regional Chinese dating sites around 10 years ago, but it has since spread to platforms such as Telegram, WhatsApp and LinkedIn. They create trusting relationships with their victims, sometimes of a romantic nature; one former scammer told The Economist she’d been trained to target people who were “rich but not good-looking”.

They rely heavily on crypto, which is easy to launder and difficult to recover. These and other online scams are increasingly run out of Chinese-linked “scam hubs” or “fraud factories” in Southeast Asia.

How did such operations develop?

Gambling – illegal on mainland China – is one of the main revenue streams for domestic and foreign-based Chinese mafias. Casinos and online gambling hubs for Chinese-speakers, based in Cambodia and Myanmar, were one of their main enterprises until 2019, when Cambodia tightened its regulations; Covid lockdowns then emptied the casinos. The criminal syndicates refitted their properties as centres where teams of workers – often trafficked and coerced – run online scams at scale.

Chinese citizens were their original targets, followed by Chinese communities around the world. But they soon expanded to other nationalities, which also meant expanding their trafficking activities. In the four years from January 2020, at least $75 billion was taken in crypto scams; estimates suggest the industry generates over $500 billion a year, comparable to the global drugs trade.

Why do they traffic people?

Many of the gangs’ voluntary workers went home during Covid; not enough locals had the necessary language and computer skills, and recruiting people into cybercrime isn't always easy. The scammers’ solution was to lure people – typically young graduates from developing countries – to cities such as Bangkok with fake offers of legitimate employment, then drive them to compounds in Myanmar, Cambodia or Laos, and put them to work under threats of torture, organ harvesting and sexual slavery.

A UN report this February found that there is a workforce of at least 300,000 people from 66 countries, about 75% of them in the Mekong River region of Southeast Asia. Many live in vast compounds, like self-contained towns – some over 500 acres in size, heavily fortified, with armed guards. It's unlikely that all the workers are coerced, but many of them certainly are; some families have had to pay ransoms in cryptocurrency to get them out.

What are the nations doing about it?

Weak local governance, along with easy access to China, is the reason the gangs set up shop in the Mekong region in the first place. Myanmar's military junta doesn’t control the whole territory; much of it is controlled by insurgent groups and warlords; while Cambodian politics has been dominated by one family since the 1980s. Transparency International ranks both governments among the most corrupt in the world. Analysts calculate that Cambodia’s scam hubs generate earnings worth about 60% of the nation's GDP. According to the US Treasury Department, the Huione Group, a financial conglomerate with ties to Cambodia’s ruling Hun family, has provided the gangs with financial and practical services. Like Latin American “narco-states” before them, these countries are well on the way to becoming “scam states”.

Is there international pressure to close them down?

Influenced partly by stories like the kidnapping of the actor Wang Xing, and even a popular film about scam hubs, “No More Bets”, China has launched an aggressive crackdown. There have been heavily publicised rescues of coerced workers in the Mekong countries; under Chinese pressure, local law enforcement has dismantled notorious scam hubs like the KK Park complex in Myawaddy, Myanmar, thought to have been run by Macau-based triads. Thai forces shelled several other hubs during a border conflict with Cambodia last year. China has arrested hundreds of thousands of people over scams, and in January it executed 11 members of the “Ming family” crime group, who had been extradited from Myanmar.

Is the situation improving?

Experts worry that police raids on compounds in Cambodia and Myanmar are largely for show: the bosses are often tipped off in advance. In any case, they have globalised their operations, popping up as far afield as Peru and the Philippines. Police even closed down an operation targeting Chinese citizens on the Isle of Man in 2024. But developments in AI may mean that the scammers are getting less reliant on human trafficking for language skills. One report on AI-assisted scams found that they rose by 450% in 2024-25 compared with 2023-24. The scammers now often use “deepfakes” of increasingly good quality to groom their victims.

In shops, offices and bars across Spain, a single story has been monopolising conversation, said Enrique Aparicio in El Público (Madrid). The case of 25-year-old Noelia Castillo, whose life was ended by euthanasia in a Barcelona hospital last month, has “stirred the entire country”, sparking a fierce debate about an assisted-dying law introduced in 2021.

Castillo had had a troubled life; she'd spent her teen years in state-run foster care, had suffered several sexual assaults, and in 2022 was gang raped by three men. Days after that, she threw herself out of a fifth-floor window. The suicide attempt left her paralysed and in chronic pain with depression: insisting that her life was no longer worth living, she asked that it be ended. However her father, backed by a religious advocacy group called Christian Lawyers, claimed that given her fragile mental state, she was in no position to give meaningful consent to an assisted death.

‘Unnecessary suffering’

It's appalling the way in which Castillo was denied the right to a dignified death, said El País (Madrid). Her euthanasia had been unanimously approved, as the law requires, by two doctors, a lawyer and a review and oversight body; and it had been scheduled to take place on 2 August 2024. But then the legal challenges started to roll in, and it was only on 10 March this year, when the European Court of Human Rights rejected the final appeal by Christian Lawyers, that they came to an end. And so her “unnecessary suffering” was prolonged for a “devastating” 601 days, and in the full glare of media attention.

No, that puts everything the wrong way round, said Javier Redondo in El Mundo (Madrid). The assisted-dying law was supposed to provide a “dignified death” for terminally ill patients languishing “bedridden, paralysed and intubated; in agony”. It was not meant for young people like Castillo, who “lacked hope for the life ahead”. This case has fundamentally shifted the “boundaries of euthanasia”.

‘Abandoned’ by society

Indeed, the noise of this scandal should reverberate “far beyond the borders of Spain”, said Laurent Frémont in Le Figaro (Paris). It lays bare a society that no longer knows how to look after its most needy citizens. At every turn, Castillo was failed by the state: it took her from her family when she was a teenager and put her in foster care; she was still in the state's care when she was gang raped; and finally, instead of providing the psychiatric care she so badly needed, the state granted her a medically assisted death. In short, she was “abandoned by the institution” meant to take her family's place.

We need to be careful here, said Pedro García Cuartango on ABC (Madrid). I myself am morally opposed to euthanasia, and I too view Noelia Castillo's death as a societal failure. Yet we must acknowledge that the assisted-dying law was passed by an absolute majority in parliament and thus has full political legitimacy. We may hate the outcome, but in the clash between the law and our moral convictions, we in the end have to accept the law.

“WE GOT HIM!” Donald Trump’s announcement on Sunday that the second of two US airmen had been rescued from “deep inside” Iran struck a “triumphant” tone, said Jonathan Sacerdoti in The Spectator – and no wonder.

The rescue brought to an end an episode that had begun on Friday, when a US air force F-15E Strike Eagle was shot down over southwestern Iran – the first time a US fighter jet had been downed by hostile fire since the 2003 Gulf War. Both crew members had “ejected safely”. But while one was quickly recovered by US forces, the second, a weapons systems officer, was stranded for 36 hours, as the two sides raced to find him.

Iran, eyeing a propaganda victory, offered a £50,000 reward for his capture, said Paul Nuki in The Telegraph. Washington, in turn, was desperate to avoid a humiliation evoking memories of the botched US attempt to rescue 53 embassy staff held hostage by Iran in 1980. In the end, Trump was able to celebrate what he called “one of the most daring search and rescue operations in US history”.

“Deep behind enemy lines”, seriously hurt, and armed only with a pistol, the officer had been in a terrifying position, said Guy Adams in the Daily Mail. But his “survival, evasion, resistance and escape” (SERE) training kicked in, and he scaled a 7,000ft ridge in the Zagros Mountains, before hiding in a crevice and using a satellite device to report his location.

The CIA, meanwhile, hatched a “deception plan”, spreading word in Iran that it was moving the airman out of the country on the ground, said Greg Jaffe in The New York Times. Then, on Saturday night, the US launched a “vast and complex” rescue mission. Two MC-130 troop planes carrying more than 100 special forces commandos landed on a disused airfield near Isfahan, which they used as a forward operating base. Drones and jets provided air cover, striking Iranian forces that came near. Then commandos used mini-helicopters to reach the mountains, extract the weapons officer, and fly him back to the airfield.

It was here that a major hiccup occurred, said Dan Sabbagh in The Guardian. The troop carrier planes became bogged down in the soil and had to be destroyed by the US to avoid them falling into enemy hands, while new planes were flown in. Although the US did get all its troops out, suffering no casualties, it lost hardware worth about $250 million (£185 million). The episode as a whole was a reminder that, for all America’s military superiority, Iran “can fight back” – and it would only need to “get lucky once” in this asymmetric conflict to secure a major propaganda victory.

Might the war in Iran “do what even Vladimir Putin couldn’t and blow up the North Atlantic Treaty alliance”, asked The Wall Street Journal. It’s “no longer an idle question”. Last week, President Trump vented his deep frustration with Nato, dismissing it as a “paper tiger” and declaring he is now “strongly considering” pulling the US out. If he does, it would be the “dumbest alliance breakup in modern history” – and it would be Europe’s fault.

‘Two-way street’

Spain and Italy blocked US military flights from their bases and Emmanuel Macron prevented use of France’s airspace. “Add its reluctance to help clear the Strait of Hormuz, and Europe is playing into every Maga stereotype about a one-sided Western alliance.” Europe’s reluctance to get involved is understandable, given Trump’s erratic policies and his failure to consult allies about the war. But it could have been more helpful. After all, it has its own interests to protect in the Middle East, and it would have shown that the alliance is “a two-way street”.

Our so-called “allies” have spent decades “free-riding on the US security umbrella”, said Josh Hammer in Newsweek: Trump is just saying so plainly. The “imbalance is staggering”: US defence spending accounts for 60% of Nato’s total. It’s clear that the “status quo is no longer defensible – and deep down, everyone knows it”.

Despite America’s frustrations, maintaining the alliance is still in its interests, said Con Coughlin in The Daily Telegraph. Nato gives the US access to a large network of naval, air and ground force bases – Nato’s top commander in Europe, an American, has gone so far as to say that US power projection depends on its European allies. Nevertheless, European leaders must convince the Trump administration that it is in Washington’s interests to stay in.

Damage is done

The severity of the threat should not be underestimated, said Roland Oliphant in the same paper. The US is not just the biggest member, it is “the lynchpin”, around which the whole edifice is constructed. It has capabilities, in satellite and signals intelligence, in missile defence, that the rest rely heavily on. If it abandons the alliance, the chances of Putin taking a gamble on attacking Europe “would increase substantially”.

“In literal terms, it would be near-impossible” for Trump to leave Nato, said The Independent. In 2023, Congress passed a law that means the US can only leave with the approval of the Senate, and there is little appetite among Republicans for this. But that wouldn’t prevent the US from “quiet quitting”. It could withdraw troops from Germany or simply “ignore its Article 5 duties to defend, for example, Estonia”.

The damage is already done, said Rafael Behr in The Guardian. Trump hasn’t just undermined Nato’s collective security guarantee; he has betrayed Ukraine and threatened to invade Greenland. “Trust is gone.” Europe must build up its own security arrangements immediately. There is no guarantee that Europe “will have an ally across the Atlantic” again any day soon.

A chorus of high-profile right-wing figureheads including Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly and Alex Jones recently criticized President Donald Trump’s ongoing Iran war. The president responded by denouncing them as “NUT JOBS” and “TROUBLEMAKERS” in a lengthy social media statement, essentially making them persona non-MAGA. But as the president struggles to contain blowback from his Middle Eastern adventurism, the MAGA fault lines are only growing.

The ‘biggest break thus far’

After several MAGA figures denounced the president’s actions in the Middle East and, in some cases, his presidency overall, Trump responded with a “blistering” 482-word Truth Social post that insulted them in “starkly personal terms,” The New York Times said. Trump’s missive came after “weeks of criticism” from the consortium of conservative figureheads, which he had “largely ignored” before this latest outburst. Jones, Kelly, Carlson and former Charlie Kirk collaborator Candace Owens are the “opposite of MAGA,” Trump said, before he began “insulting the pundits personally,” said The Hill.

Trump has “repeatedly dismissed suggestions” of an alleged “fissure in his MAGA coalition,” Forbes said. But criticism from MAGA notables “intensified” after Trump “threatened to wipe out Iranian civilization,” NBC News said. There is now a “growing schism within Trump’s base” over the Iran war, “particularly” given his campaign pledge of “no new wars.”

While Carlson in particular has been “highly critical” of the Iran conflict and “somewhat more gently critical of Trump the man, at least publicly,” the “gloves were off” this week “like never before,” said CNN. The result is “perhaps the biggest break thus far” between Trump and a “leading conservative influencer,” even as the GOP has “done its best to forestall these kinds of splits.” Carlson’s critiques won’t “suddenly equally divide Trump’s base,” but they are an “inauspicious sign” and “not helpful” for the party.

‘Deep anger’ and ‘quick rebukes’

Trump’s attacks on this batch of newly minted detractors reflect what seems to be a “deep anger” at once-loyal supporters, said Politico. The opprobrium runs both ways, as the targets of his ire offered “quick rebukes” to Trump’s attacks. “It may be time to put Grandpa up in a home,” Owens said in a “one-line quip” on X, said Forbes. “I’m just so sad that whatever’s happened to him has totally changed the man he once was,” said Jones in a video response on the same platform.

Iran has clearly “emerged as a growing weakness” for Trump, said CNN. While some MAGA supporters are “overwhelmingly on board,” the president’s wider base is “increasingly on a different page.” For Trump, the danger in rebukes by Carlson and other media figures is that it gives Republicans “skeptical of the war license to tilt into outright opposition to him.”