Gone are the days of working a grueling nine-to-five. Employees have started microshifting, a practice that involves completing duties in short, productive bursts. This allows workers to make their own schedules and save time for other obligations and hobbies.

Flexibility in the workplace has become increasingly common and sometimes even expected of hybrid and remote jobs. There may also be some benefits for business in allowing workers a freer schedule.

‘A little bit of autonomy’

Approximately 65% of workers are interested in microshifting, according to an analysis by Owl Labs. The practice, though not labeled at the time, took off during the pandemic at the height of remote work. Covid-19’s “work-from-home requirement demonstrated that employees can work successfully from anywhere, without a boss watching over them all of the time,” said The Wall Street Journal. Now, “flexibility increasingly means giving employees more control over when they work, not just where.”

Microshifting is most common in “industries where flexible work arrangements are already common, such as IT, financial services and professional and technical services,” said the Journal. People with “caregiving responsibilities at home — for children or other relatives — are more likely to try microshifting than noncaregivers.”

Over time, management and leadership have become more “adept at giving a little bit of autonomy,” Kevin Rockmann, a professor of management at George Mason University’s Costello College of Business, said to The Associated Press. Employees have also gained the “motivation and almost the license to ask for this.”

‘It’s good to take breaks’

Microshifting can have benefits for both employers and employees. Breaking the workday into shorter chunks allows employees to “squeeze in some personal business as well,” giving them “more time to relax and enjoy” days off “rather than spend them running errands,” said Moneywise. As a result, they work when they are “most focused and productive,” and “companies get the most” out of time with them. More than half of employees (59%) “schedule personal appointments during typical work hours, and 38% take up to an hour each day for personal time,” said the analysis by Owl Labs.

“From a creativity standpoint, it’s good to take breaks,” Rockmann said to the AP. “When you stop thinking about a task is when your best ideas come to you.” Microshifting can also improve relationships, allowing more time with friends and family, all while reducing burnout. “Taking walks or attending a child’s school function can be reinvigorating for people who get drained from sitting at a desk or looking at a computer screen,” said the AP.

‘Tremendous amount of discipline’

Microshifting also has its risks. A lack of a clear schedule “can gradually weaken our ability to commit to longer stretches of uninterrupted work,” Aytekin Tank, the founder and CEO of Jotform, said at Forbes. It could also lead to a less collaborative work environment. Employees “have to be more aware of the preferred work hours of colleagues,” and if their microshifts don’t coincide, it “can lead to periods of inactivity that might ultimately slow things down,” said Moneywise.

Without structure, employees may also “fall behind on deadlines and actually wind up working round-the-clock,” said the Journal. Microshifting “requires a tremendous amount of self-discipline,” said Moneywise. If someone is “not a motivated worker (or are someone who is easily distracted), getting things done in those work blocks could be challenging.”

More than 1,000 schools across England and Wales are closing or finishing the day early this week to protect students against extreme heat.

Teachers and pupils are struggling to cope in school buildings never designed for sky-high temperatures fuelled by global warming.

Twelve school days a year could be lost

With the UK experiencing increasingly extreme weather, temperatures in schools have become a “major concern”, said The i Paper.

Modelling by the Met Office and University College London for the Department for Education published last year found some schools may already have one or two days a year when indoor temperatures hit 35C and learning becomes “very difficult”.

But “without the implementation of any adaptation measures, students could potentially lose up to 12 days of learning per year on average, as a result of generally warmer temperatures and not just from extreme heat”.

There is evidence that children struggle to sleep at night when temperatures remain above 20C. So government guidance warns teachers and school leaders to look out for the symptoms of “heat stress”, including discomfort, irritability and signs of dehydration.

“The kids can’t cope,” said Nottingham junior school teacher Radhika Sanghani in The Independent. “One of the kids didn’t sleep well because of the heat, so he was falling asleep at his desk, literally dozing. They’re only seven to nine years old. It’s a lot to expect them to study in that heat. They’re tired, they’re red-faced, they’re finding it all horrendous.”

Extreme heat is already forcing schools to postpone sports days and cancel trips, while some primaries are having to resort to “hot play”, where children are kept indoors because it is simply too hot to go outside.

Air conditioning ‘only real solution’

The problem is that most schools are not built to cope with temperatures that regularly hit 35C.

“Many schools don’t have any ventilation systems other than opening and closing windows,” said Tim Fulford, a teacher and National Education Union health and safety representative. In some of the newer Blair-era private finance initiative (PFI) schools “you can’t even do that”.

Last month, a landmark report from the government’s Climate Change Committee warned the UK is “built for a climate that no longer exists today and will be increasingly distant in years to come”.

Among its many recommendations was a call for air conditioning to be installed in all schools within 25 years.

This is the “only real solution”, said Sanghani, “but they’re never going to fit out all schools with AC. The cost would be astronomical.”

In the meantime, the CCC has said exams should be held at cooler times of the year. It cited research that showed taking a test on a 32C day reduces a pupil’s chance of passing by around 10% compared with a 22C day.

The UK Health Security Agency has gone further, advising that schools should “consider rearranging school start, finish and play times to avoid teaching during very hot conditions”. This happens in countries like France, which have longer summer holidays and have earlier start and finish times on very hot days.

“That would still be an inconvenience for parents to have to find childcare solutions, but it’s the best solution I can think of,” said Sanghani. “I’d personally be very happy to start the teaching day earlier when it’s cooler and head home by the time it gets unbearable.”

As rabid fans pack stadiums for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, some of the tournament’s most contentious issues are not about what the players say or do but what they wear. Several countries have put themselves in the crosshairs of political debates regarding their team jerseys, and in some cases FIFA has been forced to intervene.

Colombia

Colombia’s iconic yellow soccer kit became “embroiled in the country’s bitterly disputed presidential election, sparking debate over whether the yellow shirt should be used at political rallies,” said The Associated Press. Abelardo de la Espriella, the right-wing presidential candidate endorsed by President Donald Trump, turned the Colombian jersey “into his campaign’s official attire,” said The New York Times, with thousands of de la Espriella’s supporters donning the athletic wear.

Sen. Iván Cepeda, de la Espriella’s leftist opponent, “slammed his rival’s choice of apparel, accusing him of stealing a national symbol,” said the AP. But despite Cepeda’s anger, the sea of yellow jerseys seemingly propelled de la Espriella over the finish line, as he appeared to narrowly defeat Cepeda in the June 21 election, becoming Colombia’s president-elect.

Egypt

Egypt is playing in the World Cup with a major change to their uniforms, as their jerseys are “not bearing the stars commemorating their seven Africa Cup of Nations victories, following a reminder from FIFA,” said ESPN. The Egyptian national team typically wears jerseys emblazoned with the stars to “recognize each of their continental triumphs,” but such a display is not allowed by FIFA.

FIFA’s being involved in the stars’ removal marks a shift from normal procedure. Typically, the “accompanying of stars to commemorate historical honors on kits is at the discretion of national teams themselves, with different national federations opting to interpret the guidelines in different ways,” said ESPN. But for the World Cup, FIFA told the Egyptian team that stars may only appear on jerseys to “commemorate victories in the competition itself.”

Haiti

Haiti’s 2026 World Cup outing marked the team’s first appearance in the tournament in 52 years. Though the team was eliminated early, the jerseys generated plenty of buzz. The team was forced to alter their jersey design after FIFA “deemed certain elements to be too political in nature,” said The Guardian. FIFA’s issue was with the “shirt’s right hip, which depicted silhouettes inspired by the Battle of Vertières and the Haitian Revolution.” One of these silhouettes represented Haitian revolutionary leader Jean-Jacques Dessalines.

Many supporters were angry that FIFA forced Haiti to adopt the change. FIFA’s decision is part of an “effort to discredit the Haitian Revolution,” and the “mere implication of Dessalines, standing alongside his fellow revolutionaries, was enough to elicit a backlash,” Julia Gaffield, a history professor at William & Mary College, said at The Conversation. Despite FIFA’s decision, the jersey has “become a fan favorite” and is still sold on the manufacturer’s website.

Mexico

Mexico is one of the three co-hosts at this year’s World Cup, but even hosts can spark drama. The nation’s iconic green jersey “brings back the Aztec calendar design that was popular in the 1990s,” said The Associated Press, but the manner in which the jerseys were made sparked an uproar among some indigenous Mexican artists.

The jerseys were “embroidered by hand by 150 Nahua women high in the mountains of central Mexico, in a tiny town called Naupan,” said The New York Times, but activists have accused the manufacturers of “exploiting the Nahua women while profiting off their image.” There are “murky details behind the Adidas collaboration with the artisans of Naupan,” Luz Valdez, a Mexican activist and influencer, said in a translated TikTok video. The artists were reportedly “not even allowed to use their traditional sewing method.”

Back in 2001, his plan to start a rocket company seemed so misguided, his friends urged him to abandon it.

Last Friday, Elon Musk listed SpaceX on the Nasdaq at an initial valuation of $1.77 trillion. The largest flotation in history, it blasted Musk into the stratosphere as the world’s first trillionaire.

Eye-popping valuation

What makes the flotation doubly extraordinary, said Boris Johnson in The Mail on Sunday, is that it amounted to a punt, a gamble on one man’s vision for the future. In a nutshell, Musk plans to use the $86 billion capital injection to build thousands of huge, fully reusable Starship rockets, which will slash the cost of sending mass into space. These will be used to launch data centres into orbit, so that they can tap into the energy of the Sun to power our ever-growing use of AI, along with thousands more Starlink satellites, to bring reliable internet access to the three billion people who still do not have it.

With the revenue this generates, Musk will build a city on Mars. How exactly this will “butter our parsnips” on Earth, we still do not know; but what a thrilling prospect this is for humankind.

On paper, the flotation makes little sense, said John Rapley on UnHerd. SpaceX has never generated a profit; its eye-popping valuation is based on a price-to-sales ratio of 92 to one – way above the 3.6 to one average in the S&P 500. That the IPO succeeded was due in large part to excitable forecasts by investment banks who stood to make vast sums from it; but it is also the case that many investors have faith in Musk’s ability to make science fiction a reality.

A move to Mars?

His plans are hugely ambitious, said The Economist. They depend on Starship, which is already late; and tech that doesn’t even exist yet. But Musk has defied sceptics before: people said he’d never be able to land rockets for reuse; now his firm does it twice a week. And 10,000 of his Starlink satellites are already beaming internet access to 12 million people – as well as to various arms of the US government.

Of course, some people will hate the idea of doing anything that adds to Musk’s wealth and power, said Will Dunn in The New Statesman. Others, who do not object to his hard-right political interventions, may worry that his commercial vision is crackpot: cities on distant planets sounds exciting, but you have to wonder how many people will want to move from Earth – which has “terrific amenities including a magnetic field and an atmosphere” – to the toxic deserts of Mars.

But most of us will be giving Musk money, like it or not. SpaceX and Tesla are now such a huge presence in the market, there will hardly be a retirement or savings fund that is not invested in them.

“Those who saw the video will not easily forget it,” said Rory Carroll in The Guardian. It showed an assailant sat astride his victim on a street in north Belfast, stabbing him in the face and neck, while shouting in Arabic.

Passers-by intervened to help Stephen Ogilvie, who was badly hurt during the attack last Monday; he lost an eye and suffered other injuries. And “the judicial system was fast”: less than two days later, Hadi Alodid, 30, a Sudanese refugee, was charged with attempted murder.

But long before that, said George Odling in The Times, the footage had spread around the world. Tommy Robinson, who was in Moscow, shared it with his two million followers on X/Twitter barely an hour after the attack, saying it showed an “invader trying to behead a man”. Elon Musk called on people to protest. Anti-immigrant activists in Northern Ireland were quick to latch on, posting meeting points for mass protests, and disseminating “hit lists” of migrants' homes and hostels.

Before nightfall the following day, protesters had closed arterial routes around Belfast, said The Economist. Petrol bombs were then thrown at police; a bus and police vehicles were set on fire; 12 officers were injured. But foreigners were the real targets. Doors were kicked in, cars and homes torched. Ugandan care workers, Indian IT professionals and a Middle Eastern supermarket were attacked, said Sky News. A family with a young child had to be evacuated in an armoured police car as their home went up in flames. In Glengormley, a mob targeted a hotel that housed asylum seekers.

‘Migration back door’

The violence was “disgusting”, said The Times, but the “clichéd condemnation” that followed failed to acknowledge the root cause: immigration. “The general perception is that legal and illegal immigration is out of control, that Britain is a soft touch”, and that millions are being spent on refugees who can pose a real danger to UK citizens. The issue now poses an “explosive” threat to “national stability”.

This case also exposes another huge hole in our borders, said David Frost in The Daily Telegraph. Alodid had travelled to Northern Ireland via Paris and Dublin. It's unclear how he was able to fly to the Republic, without a visa; but once there, because of the Common Travel Area, he was able to enter Northern Ireland without passing through immigration controls. When anyone from any country who can get into Ireland can get into the UK, “we have a migration back door”.

It is “asinine” to accept the far-right claim that these riots were an expression of serious concerns about immigration, said Séamas O'Reilly in The New Statesman. An alleged crime by a single Sudanese man in no way explains or justifies rioters “carrying out a pogrom against every migrant or non-white person” they can find. We would never see attacks on white British people as a legitimate response to murders committed by white Britons. For those of us who always find such justifications dubious, it's revealing to see them deployed in Northern Ireland, “where immigration barely exists”. Only 3% of its population belong to an ethnic minority. Net international migration, from 2001 to 2023, reached just 62,000 people in a country of two million; there are currently about 2,400 refugees.

Disturbing new politics

In fact, the “chilling thing” is how familiar last week's riots felt, said Michael Magee in The Independent. “I wish I could say that this is not the Belfast I grew up in, but loyalist mobs rampaging through the city is nothing new to us.” Most, if not all, of the rioting took place in unionist areas; instead of contested parade routes or flag disputes, the “orchestrated violence” was directed at a new enemy: immigrants and asylum seekers.

The awful thing is that “immigration riots work”, said Max Jeffery in The Spectator. The Roma whose homes were burned in Ballymena in County Antrim last year have not returned. The asylum seekers and immigrants attacked last week will likely move away.

We are seeing a disturbing new politics in Britain, said Jason Okundaye in The Guardian, stoked by the smartphone and social media. The public is now consistently fed a stream of shocking, graphic images – such as the footage of a dying Henry Nowak, or of Stephen Ogilvie being attacked – which previously would have been seen only by investigators or in a courtroom. Politicians of the hard-right exploit these to foment rage and disorder, pushing a narrative of a UK invaded by third-world criminals.

Yet it would be wrong to blame everything on social media, said Janice Turner in The Times. It's hard to ignore the many “vicious, unprovoked” crimes committed by refugees, particularly those fleeing extreme violence – in, for instance, Sudan or Afghanistan. Jonathan Hall, the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, noted last week that refugee rights can conflict with “national security”. Britain needs to grasp this issue, “or get used to riots”.

The internet is awash with jokes about the reflecting pool in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, which is now riddled with algae.

The Trump administration spent more than $14 million (£10.5 million) draining the pool and painting the bottom “American flag blue” in time for the 250th anniversary of US independence. The president had described the reflecting pool – the scene of Martin Luther King’s 1963 “I have a dream” speech – as “filthy” and “dirty”, and promised to transform it into something “beautiful”. Instead, residual algae has “proliferated” in warm weather, said The Guardian, turning the pond “Wicked” green.

Something positive that can be said about the pool’s algal bloom is that it’s harmless. But toxic algae blooms are a worldwide phenomenon that can harm humans and devastate marine life. And as the climate crisis warms the water, the problem is growing.

‘Underwater phantom’

“Algal blooms are a rapid, explosive growth of algae,” said pharmacology researcher Ian Musgrave on The Conversation. Blue-green algae, known as cyanobacteria, naturally occur in inland waters, estuaries and the sea. They often contain multiple species, some of which produce toxins. The “bewildering variety” can cause many effects in humans, from nausea and skin irritation to increased asthma symptoms and even liver failure. Those that don’t produce toxins can “suffocate fish” by damaging the gills and reducing oxygen.

For a year now, a toxic algal bloom in South Australia has had “devastating effects” on wildlife. “At my local beach, walks were a sad parade of dead sea life,” said Musgrave.

Since last March, algae have “flared at hotspots” along the coastline, causing “stinging eyes, coughing, rashes, headaches and breathing difficulties” among surfers, said ABC. One swimmer was hospitalised with severe gastroenteritis. “It was like razor blades in my gut,” he said. “I was rolling around on the floor in the emergency room, coughing and spewing blood.”

Along the “jagged coastline”, it has become “an underwater phantom”, and researchers are “not entirely sure why”, said The New York Times. Beachgoers are “horrified by the dead animals washing ashore”. Since February last year, a crowdsourced platform has recorded more than 100,000 instances of dead sea life. “It was literally just like an underwater bushfire,” said a recreational fisherman.

Recent citizen science data suggests the bloom affected nearly 8,000 square miles. Last October, state agency scientists estimated the algae had impacted about a third of South Australia’s coasts. The psychological effect is enormous: in a survey of South Australians last July, nearly 70% said “they were repeatedly thinking about the bloom”, said researcher Brianna Le Busque, from Adelaide University. Some compared seeing the washed-up marine life to “the death of a loved one”.

‘Visible from space’

Harmful algal blooms stalk shores far beyond Australia. In Southern California last year an “unprecedented, multi-toxin event” killed hundreds of seabirds, sea lions and dolphins, said the Public Policy Institute of California.

Lough Neagh in Northern Ireland, the UK’s largest freshwater lake, has also been blighted by blue-green algae for years. This “majestic landscape of water and sky”, the inspiration for Seamus Heaney’s prize-winning poetry, is “choking on recurring toxic algal blooms”, said The Guardian.

The algae feed on high levels of nutrients in the water, mainly from agriculture (farm run-off, fertiliser and livestock waste), as well as “inadequate wastewater treatment”. Global warming has also increased the temperature of the lough, encouraging the abundant blooms. Last year, there were 243 detections of cyanobacteria growths, according to Northern Ireland’s Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs: a record.

In some places, the green sludge – “so widespread it is visible from space”, said The Guardian – forms “patterns and swirls redolent of Gustav Klimt”. But far from picturesque, the blooms “coat the surface, kill wildlife, unleash stenches and make the lake all but unusable”. The impact on wildlife and tourism is “incalculable”.

“Lough Neagh is dying in front of our eyes,” said Claire Hanna, leader of the Social Democratic and Labour Party. “Images of fish and eels gasping for life on the surface are not just shocking – they are a stark warning of total ecological collapse.”

Two Ukrainian men have been found guilty of plotting arson attacks last year on property relating to Keir Starmer.

The trial of Roman Lavrynovych, 22, Stanislav Carpiuc, 27, and a third man was “strange”, said the BBC, “mainly because the true author of the drama was never revealed”.

But as more details of the case come to light it has revealed a shadowy network of online provocation and misinformation allegedly orchestrated from Russia that constitutes what the PM called “an attack on democracy” itself.

El Money

During the six-week trial at the Old Bailey, jurors heard that the fires at Starmer’s former family home and other related targets were ordered by a Russian-speaking handler on the encrypted messaging app Telegram. Going by the pseudonym “El Money”, he directed Lavrynovych to carry out the attacks in exchange for promises of payment in cryptocurrency.

A Financial Times investigation “based on Telegram archives, cryptocurrency wallets, court evidence and interviews with Western officials” established that El Money was “located in Russia and was closely aligned with NoName057(16), a pro-Kremlin hacktivist group that the US has called a Russian ‘state-sanctioned project’”.

But the Russian embassy told the BBC: “We reject any attempt to associate Russia or its foreign ministry with unlawful activities.” It said that Russia poses “no threat to the United Kingdom or its people and harbours no aggressive intentions towards Britain”.

Now the BBC has identified evidence suggesting that El Money, or EL as he was known on Telegram, “is a young Russian diplomat, schooled in information warfare by spies and propagandists, who is close to the highest levels of power in Moscow”. The broadcaster named him as 23-year-old Evgeny Lyukshin, the son of a senior official.

It concluded that the arson attack was “just one part of an extensive campaign of sabotage, provocation and lies leading all the way to the Russian state”.

Part of this misinformation campaign included a “conspiracy theory falsely claiming that the arsonists were male prostitutes seeking revenge” on the PM, said The i Paper. Research by The i Paper and the Center for Countering Digital Hate charted the false “rent boy” rumour, which first emerged online less than 15 minutes after Lavrynovych was arrested and before it was made public by the police. The rumour spread from a “handful of small X accounts, through a network of far right activists and conspiracy theorists, into Russian media outlets and widespread online circulation”.

The accounts where the claim originated did not appear to be directly part of Russian disinformation networks. But Melanie Smith, from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, said Russian propagandists continually “monitor the online ecosystem” – particularly the far right in Europe – “trying to figure out which narratives are circulating and which ones of those work to their advantage”.

Russia’s war against the West

While not proven in court, the alleged involvement of Russia “points to a series of incidents in recent years, which, though piecemeal and hard to prove, lay bare how Russia’s intelligence services have moved towards a new kind of attack on the West”, said The Guardian.

“Dozens of people” have been detained across Europe – in Britain, Lithuania, France and Estonia – “accused of being foot soldiers in a new front of Russia’s war against the West”. This “war” includes Moscow-backed campaigns of “sabotage, arson and disinformation against the continent”.

Russian nationalist cyber groups like NoName, linked by the FT to last year’s London arson attacks, “have sought to recruit proxies online to further the Kremlin’s geopolitical interests, as well as foment disorder across Europe by amplifying far-right and anti-migrant messages”.

Britain, in particular, has become a “soft target” for Russian and other state propaganda because of a failure to educate people on how to deal with information warfare. This leaves it “extraordinarily vulnerable”, security expert Fiona Hill told a recent parliamentary committee.

“As it becomes harder to convince Russians that their own country is on the up, Vladimir Putin is instead presenting the West as not just hostile but in crisis”, said historian Mark Galeotti in The i Paper. The Kremlin “eagerly mines the news for stories it can spin, shade and downright misrepresent to advance these lines”, and Starmer’s misfiring government is “offering ample opportunities”.

As one staffer at the state-controlled Channel One news operation in Moscow said of the UK government: “There’s a combination of belligerence and incompetence there, a self-righteousness and lack of self-awareness that is just too good to pass up.”

Two years ago, it was brat summer. This year, for summer 2026, everyone is wrapping themselves in a new trend: whimsy. From dopamine-spiking decor to more childlike, bright clothes, adults are romanticizing the smallest aspects of their lives and fully running with a lighthearted outlook.

Bring on the ‘childlike joy’

The word whimsy and the vibe associated with it are “having a moment,” thanks to Gen Z and millennials who have “recast the word to characterize a lifestyle that blends playfulness, spontaneity and being present,” said The New York Times. Searches on Etsy for “whimsical jewelry,” “whimsical decor” and “whimsy-related items” were each up by at least 50% from last year.

Shoppers use whimsy as a “form of everyday escapism, seeking out pieces that feel personal, playful and a little unexpected to make everyday life more extraordinary,” said Dayna Isom Johnson, Etsy’s trend expert, to the Times. The craze puts an “emphasis on offline activities” that parallels a “movement by young people who are leaving behind smartphones and screens,” the outlet said.

Being whimsical is about “bringing levity to life when you can,” said Business Insider. The trend is flooded with lively colors and playful accessories.

Whimsy is “easier to recognize than to translate," said NSS Magazine. It is not “just an aesthetic” but a “different way of inhabiting one’s days.” For those who relish it, being whimsical means “reconnecting with what as children seemed natural: to be amazed, to invent, to celebrate even the smallest things.”

Chasing authenticity

Whimsy devotees see it as a “response to compounding anxieties over a series of stressors, including a challenging economy, multiple wars and a volatile presidency,” said the Times. No one can control “what our leaders are doing,” but you can control “what kind of mug you’re going to choose, what cute outfit you’re going to wear and what beautiful thing you can do in your morning,” podcaster Liz Plank said to the Times.

In the age of the internet, millennials and Gen Z face a more intense flood of information than ever before. Whimsy offers an escape from the more performative aspects of social media, Nassir Ghaemi, a psychiatry professor, said to the Times. These online experiences have been “going on now long enough” that Generation Z and millennials have figured out that a “lot of these online interactions are inauthentic.”

With how swiftly the trend cycle swerves, the whimsical moment may not last. Gen Z, in particular, has “grown up in a context in which almost everything can be turned into merchandise,” said NSS Magazine. Many trends are “intercepted, packaged and resold as a product,” as has happened in the past with viral terms such as “girl math, girl dinner or demure.” All were “born for fun” but became “tools for overconsumption.”

Still, when whimsy is “understood in its purest, most spontaneous and curious sense,” said NSS Magazine, then it can be read as an “attempt to withdraw from the pressure of constant consumption, choosing to live with more freedom.” A whimsical life can be a “small form of everyday resistance.”

President Donald Trump’s preference for personal loyalty in his subordinates may pose an insurmountable problem for a White House in search of a permanent attorney general. Nominee and acting AG Todd Blanche, the president’s onetime personal lawyer, faces a steep nomination process, as concerns grow over his alleged willingness to subvert the role of attorney general for the president’s political purposes.

Is Blanche’s nomination dead on arrival? Or does Trump still command the senatorial clout to ensure his longtime consigliere survives a bruising nomination fight?

‘Credibility on the line’

Blanche will test whether a “handful of increasingly restive Republican senators” are “prepared to defy Trump on a high-profile nominee,” said The Washington Post. As acting attorney general, Blanche “played a central role in setting up” Trump’s $1.8 billion Department of Justice weaponization reparations fund, a move that “triggered a rare revolt by Senate Republicans” before the courts froze the project entirely.

Blanche would replace former AG Pam Bondi after she was “forced out of the administration following the botched handling of the Epstein files,” said Politico. But during a closed-door congressional interview last month, Bondi told lawmakers that it was Blanche who was “responsible for the Justice Department’s handling of the files.”

In the Senate Judiciary Committee, “just one GOP rebel could stop the whole thing,” said Semafor. Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina has had “no issue gumming up Trump’s nominees” in the past, said ABC News. Blanche’s odds of a successful nomination “go up immensely” if the controversial weaponization fund is truly dead, Tillis said to reporters last week, per ABC. However, he remains “undecided” at the moment.

Blanche has “told us and the world that we’re not going to do” the fund, and “I believe him,” said Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) to reporters, per Semafor. “He’s put his credibility on the line, and that’s what I expect him to say in a hearing.” Whether Blanche remains as committed as he’s indicated “will obviously impact the story.”

‘Corruption’ and ‘competence’

There are “two stories” playing into Blanche’s nomination, said MS NOW legal analyst Andrew Weissmann to Slate. The first is a “story about corruption” and the “complicity he is willing to engage in for the president.” The second is a “question of competence” about someone who has “made a series of serious missteps.” Given “such an array of things to ask him about, the only question is whether senators will be effective in asking those questions.”

Having voted in lockstep for Bondi during her nomination, “by contrast, Republicans seem noncommittal on Blanche,” said The Independent. In a “healthier political climate,” there would be “dozens” of GOP senators who would “immediately pronounce Blanche unqualified for the job,” said The New York Times. Today, the list of senators who “may have the courage to do so is shorter, yet plenty long enough.”

Lawmakers are exploring a new front in the electoral battle between Democrats and Republicans. Both parties have zeroed in on the other’s fundraising operations, with Republicans vowing to intensify their existing investigation into Democrats’ ActBlue online platform after Executive Director Regina Wallace-Jones repeatedly invoked her Fifth Amendment protections during a Republican-led House hearing last week. In turn, Democrats have increased calls for similar investigations into the GOP’s WinRed platform over allegations of illegal international contributions and fraud.

Foreign funds and ‘profoundly alarming’ allegations

Democrats on the House Administration, Judiciary and Oversight committees last week requested WinRed CEO Ryan Lyk sit for a “transcribed interview” and “preserve documents and communications” about WinRed’s fraud prevention, said Politico. Reports that “foreign nationals have used WinRed to donate money to President Donald Trump’s campaign” are “profoundly alarming,” said New York Rep. Joe Morelle, Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), and Robert Garcia (D-Ca.), in a letter to Lyk.

The letter is the “latest salvo in a long-running battle” between Democrats and Republicans over their respective online fundraising infrastructures, said Politico. Republicans have spent “over a year looking into ActBlue’s process for vetting foreign political contributions,” said Campaigns and Elections. Conservatives “escalated their probe” in April following a “bombshell New York Times report” that ActBlue’s lawyers had “previously warned Wallace-Jones that she may have misled congressional investigators” about ActBlue’s donation vetting practices. That warning “instigated a meltdown at the highest levels of ActBlue” and was a “key cause of the tumult” at the organization, said The New York Times.

The GOP’s pursuit of ActBlue is not “legitimate oversight,” said Wallace-Jones at The Washington Post. Rather, it is a “coordinated campaign of political retribution,” and last week’s hearing was the “latest assault in that corrupt campaign.” Democrats on the House Administration committee have meanwhile “sought to draw attention” to Ken Paxton, Texas’ Republican attorney general and Senate nominee, whom they claim has ignored questions “about any similar probes of GOP fundraising practices,” said Roll Call.

‘Defrauded, in real time’

“Dozens of political donors” have “begged Paxton’s office in recent years for recourse” against both WinRed and ActBlue, “complaining of thousands of dollars in unauthorized charges and nonstop text messages requesting more money,” said the San Antonio Express-News. But Paxton “hasn’t publicly taken action” and “deploys the same aggressive tactics” in his own WinRed fundraising.

By targeting ActBlue with a lawsuit this past spring, Paxton’s “willful blindness has come home to roost,” said Reps. Morelle, Raskin and Garcia in a letter to the attorney general demanding he preserve his WinRed documents. “Dozens of your constituents are being defrauded, in real time.”

Dueling allegations over both platforms are now “putting an otherwise bipartisan effort” for campaign finance reform “at risk,” said NOTUS. With four campaign finance bills “recently approved by the House Administration Committee,” subsequent “bipartisan progress appears strained” as partisan fighting intensifies.

Democrats, meanwhile, have only increased their threats ahead of November’s midterm elections. Congress “has a duty to investigate” cases of alleged fraud and malfeasance, said Rep. Morelle, per Politico. “House Republicans have not taken that duty seriously. But next year, rest assured, committee Democrats will.”

College graduates have been booing company bosses who mentioned artificial intelligence in graduation ceremonies as “AI anxiety” starts “boiling over into public backlash”, said Business Insider.

The trend is “highlighting a gulf” between older generations who feel the technology “offers new opportunities” and Gen Z, who are “growing increasingly anxious” about what it “means for their future”.

Backlash and resistance

A Gallup survey in April found excitement about AI among Gen Z has fallen from 36% last year to just 22%, while their anger towards the technology has risen by nine points, to 31%. Another survey, carried out by Numerator, found that among Gen Z people who don’t use AI, 57% are not open to adopting it, compared to just 32% of boomers.

“Read that again,” said Fortune – “older Americans are more open to AI than young ones”. It seems that a “surprising segment of the generation that was supposed to lead AI adoption” is actually “leading the resistance to it”. For them, AI was “foisted upon them” by their “parents, big tech CEOs” and Donald Trump.

“Every technology young people have ever loved”, like video games, social media and the internet itself, came to them as “play or transgression”, but AI “arrived as a mandate” from schools and employers. Also, Gen Z prizes “authenticity above almost everything” and AI “attacks” that.

Young people “were sold on the promise that a college education secured a good future”, but now employers are “gutting entry-level positions” in favour of AI, said Denison University student Jack Jackoboice in The Wall Street Journal.

A global survey found that 43% of CEOs plan to reduce junior roles, so young people are “actively being written out of a future” they have “no control over”.

A backlash is taking shape. Some Gen Z workers are “actively sabotaging their company’s AI initiatives” by feeding sensitive company data into public AI tools and by “intentionally producing low-quality, AI-assisted junk work” to make the technology “look unreliable”, said Vice.

Existential melodrama

But Gallup found that over half of 14- to 29-year-olds say they use AI daily or weekly, and some Gen Z-ers do see an upside in AI.

The “danger” is that “economic anxiety” can “curdle into existential melodrama”, said Ethan Tran, a student at Davidson College, in The Wall Street Journal. “Fear underrates human ingenuity”, so young people shouldn’t “hide from replacement” but “look for opportunities that arise from the transformation”.

The CEO of Big Machine Records, Scott Borchetta, also gave short shrift to AI anxiety, when graduates at Middle Tennessee State University booed him for saying that AI is rewriting the music industry. He told the hecklers: “You can hear me now, or you can pay me later.”

Weeks after successfully squaring up to Elon Musk in court, Sam Altman is preparing to challenge his old adversary “on a different plane”, said Bloomberg. Days before SpaceX’s expected debut, his company OpenAI – which kicked off the AI boom with the launch of ChatGPT in 2022 – has “filed confidentially” for an IPO, setting the stage for the third mega-listing this year, after SpaceX and Anthropic.

Despite reportedly missing “certain internal revenue and user-growth targets” and losing several key executives, OpenAI recently raised $122 billion from private investors at an $852 billion valuation. But the details of its IPO plan are being kept deliberately vague. “We have not decided on timing yet; it may be a while.”

In fact, OpenAI’s decision to go public, potentially this autumn, “rests more on the outcome of SpaceX’s IPO ... than on just about anything else”, said Andrew Ross Sorkin in The New York Times. It remains an open question whether there is “enough investor capacity for three giant IPOs, potentially in rapid succession” – particularly as already listed giants are also tapping the market. “Wall Street is rushing to fund the AI bonanza in every conceivable way,” said Sam Goldfarb in The Wall Street Journal. Google parent Alphabet last week raised $85 billion; Meta is also weighing a stock offer.

OpenAI might usefully streamline its sprawling product line-up before listing. Indeed, Altman and co are plotting “the biggest overhaul of ChatGPT” since its launch – aiming for a “superapp” that combines both coding tools and AI agents, said Cristina Criddle in the Financial Times. The move reflects the company’s “growing conviction” that “the future of AI lies not in chatbots that answer questions, but in agents that perform tasks”. As one senior honcho put it: “Chat is dead.”

What the US is trying to do in Kenya reeks of “neo-colonialism”, said The Daily Nation (Nairobi). To protect Americans from the deadly Ebola outbreak that is thought to have already killed at least 91 people in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the Trump administration has decreed that no one with the disease may enter its borders, even if they’re a US citizen. Any American unlucky enough to have contracted the virus in DRC should instead be sent for treatment hundreds of miles away to a specially commissioned Ebola health centre in Kenya.

Cue outrage in Nairobi. “Kenya is NOT America’s biohazard dumping ground,” fumed a spokesman for one of Kenya’s doctors’ unions, echoing widespread fury at the proposal to set up a 50-bed quarantine facility at Kenya’s Laikipia Air Base. And hundreds of protesters took to the streets of Nanyuki, the town closest to the air base, fearing the disease might spread to their community. They blocked roads and set fire to tyres, and police had to fire tear gas to disperse them.

According to some reports, two people were shot dead. Yet despite the uproar, and a temporary court order blocking the site’s construction, Kenya’s President William Ruto has vowed to press ahead with it.

Potentially ‘catastrophic’

The debacle in Kenya is far from the only mistake the US has made over the Ebola crisis, said The East African (Nairobi). “Epidemics are best fought collectively”, but under Trump the US has withdrawn from the World Health Organisation (WHO) and shut down USAID, scuppering the international response needed to stem the current outbreak, which has now spread to Uganda.

Trump’s decisions have been disastrous, said Craig Spencer in The New York Times. Over the past year, critical surveillance networks in DRC have been dismantled, with the result that US officials only learnt of the first Ebola death a month after it happened, making it inevitable that the outbreak would turn “catastrophic” in scale.

To put this in context, the world’s worst-ever Ebola outbreak, which broke out in Guinea in 2014, went on to kill 11,300 and infect 28,600 others. That outbreak was first detected when there were around 40 to 50 cases; for this one, that number was 400 to 500. And to make matters worse, rapid tests and vaccines do not exist for the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola that is behind this latest epidemic.

“We are not getting ahead of this virus. We are running after it,” said Denis Mukwege in Le Monde (Paris). It’s already the third-largest outbreak in history, and could well become the deadliest ever.

Deep mistrust

The challenges facing teams on the ground are immense. For a start, the epicentre of the outbreak is war-torn eastern DRC, where conditions make contact-tracing almost impossible. And as the US has cut aid to the DRC from $1.34 billion in 2024 to just $428 million in 2025, local responders have “far fewer resources” than in any comparable recent crisis.

To add to the crisis, front-line health workers are “deeply” mistrusted by the local population, said The Economist. Look what happened two weeks ago in the small town of Mongbwalu in northern DRC, where a group of young men made four different attacks on the local hospital in a bid to retrieve the body of an Ebola victim for burial. The day before that, townsfolk had torched an isolation unit.

The crucial requirement is for the response to be consolidated under a single actor, just as it was for the 2014 outbreak when the UN Mission for Ebola Emergency Response (UNMEER) took charge, said Anthony Banbury in The Washington Post. Congolese health workers and international NGOs have done an excellent job so far, but the lack of coordination has been a serious hindrance. “It is like going to war with scattered, independent military units, but no central headquarters directing the overall effort.”

In the absence of a body like UNMEER to devise and oversee a strategy for containing the outbreak, this epidemic could “spin out of control”. And then the world would be in real trouble.

Though caffeine remains the world’s most widely consumed drug, some people are turning to a smaller dosage to achieve their morning kick. A slew of lower-caffeine drinks are hitting the market as consumers look for ways to shake the negative effects of caffeine, while still having their daily cup of coffee.

‘Experimenting with a new range of options’

Even as millions of Americans consume mass quantities of caffeinated drinks, some question their caffeine intake. Many started “experimenting with a new range of options beyond the traditional cup of hot java, paying heed to caffeine’s impact on their sleep, mood and energy level,” said Bloomberg. Some people still consume multiple caffeinated drinks per day, but others are “becoming more cognizant of ‘energy management’ in their beverage choices,” Daniel Jhung, the president of the coffee and beverage division of Nestlé USA, told Bloomberg.

Many of the options are changing to accommodate shifting preferences. Younger consumers have begun to “embrace cold, canned beverages over hot coffee,” said Bloomberg. The change is not only evident in “rapid growth of energy drinks but also in less-supercharged options.” Sales of ready-to-drink, low-caffeinated bottles of coffee and tea were “up almost 15% in the 52 weeks ending March 22” of this year, while “sales of coffee beans and cocoa fell nearly 10%,” according to data from market research group Spins cited by Bloomberg.

A number of companies are also moving toward this trend. Panera Bread began “rolling out a new line of lightly caffeinated drinks,” said Business Insider, which comes about two years after the company’s discontinued, ultra-caffeinated Charged Lemonade was “linked to two deaths and multiple lawsuits.” While the Charged Lemonade had about 260 milligrams of caffeine, or the equivalent of three Red Bull cans, Panera’s lighter caffeinated drinks “contain about as much caffeine as a can of soda.” There has also been a resurgence in sales of Coca-Cola Zero Zero, which has no sugar or caffeine, said Bloomberg.

‘There are also some concerns about excessive consumption’

Many doctors seem to be happy that caffeine is trending the way it is due to potential health issues. Caffeine can “have positive effects on alertness, cognitive function and athletic function,” but there are also “concerns about excessive consumption and potential health risks,” said the American Medical Association (AMA). “One of the things that people don't realize is, if you think of it as a medicine, then the best way to use it is in small, frequent doses,” Dr. Shannon Kilgore, a neurologist, told the AMA.

Most people, despite the shifting tides, are consuming too much caffeine, which could have negative health effects. About 85% of adults “consume 135 milligrams of caffeine daily in the U.S.,” approximately “equivalent to 12 ounces of coffee, which is the most common source of caffeine for adults,” said the AMA. While drinking up to three cups of coffee per day “can reduce dementia risk and slow cognitive decline,” according to a recent JAMA study, even that would still be over the recommended daily dosage of caffeine.

The shift toward low-caffeine is because “health and wellness trends have persuaded many consumers to scrutinize ingredients more closely, with many trying to cut back on artificial dyes, added sugar, processed food and, in some cases, caffeine,” said Bloomberg. The anxiety of Jeremy Clark, an engineering professor in Montreal, has declined “almost to negligible levels” since he cut back on caffeine, Clark told Bloomberg. “So I think it was worth it.”

Swiss voters will decide this month whether to limit the country’s population to 10 million people. Critics say the anti-immigration measure could upend Switzerland’s economy.

The June 14 referendum has been “likened to a ‘Swiss Brexit,’” said Reuters. The right-wing Swiss People’s Party asserts that migration-driven population growth is “driving up rents and crime,” as well as pushing roads and other local infrastructure “to the limits.” They are selling the measure as a “sustainability initiative.” But opponents from the business community fear the measure would “limit Switzerland’s access to skilled labor and damage relations with the European Union.”

Foreign residents now make up 28% of the population, growing Switzerland’s population from 7.3 million to 9.1 million over the last quarter-century. Some residents are feeling the squeeze. “More and more people are living in the same space," Swiss banker and parliamentarian Thomas Matter said to Reuters.

Dismantling the ‘openness that has made the country rich’

The proposed cap features “two main measures” to curb population growth, said The New Yorker. One would impose “restrictions in the areas of asylum and family reunification” if the population exceeds 9.5 million. The other would terminate the right of European Union citizens to “work, study and live” in Switzerland if the population exceeds 10 million, a target that could arrive as soon as 2033. That would “rupture” Swiss relations with the EU and represent a dramatic shift for a country known as one of the “most cosmopolitan nations in Europe.”

Business leaders say those measures would also damage the Swiss economy. Alphabet, Google’s parent company, employs “5,000 foreign workers from 85 countries” in Zurich, said Seeking Alpha. Pharmaceutical company Roche employs thousands more. The country “cannot meet the need for bright minds on its own,” Roche CEO Severin Schwan said to shareholders earlier this year. The EU is more than a source of workers for Switzerland’s businesses, said Seeking Alpha. It is also the “biggest export destination” for Swiss products, and that business could dry up if the referendum passes.

The measure would “dismantle the openness that has made the country rich,” Joseph de Weck said at The Guardian. Switzerland’s diversified economy “keeps salaries high and income inequality comparatively low.” But there is “resentment that not everyone is getting their fair share of the pie” amid “sky-high rents and increasing urbanization,” said Bloomberg. The country should “put on the brakes before things get out of hand,” said Zurich bike shop owner Roland Meyer to the outlet.

‘Voters don’t like immigrants’

The vote reflects a “broader European trend” of right-wing parties “capitalizing on anxieties surrounding immigration, housing and public services,” said The Independent. That is creating a dilemma for EU governments. Their “rich economies” need workers to create wealth, Alan Beattie said at the Financial Times, “but their voters don’t like immigrants.”

Polling shows that “supporters and opponents are neck and neck,” said SWI, a Swiss news agency, with 52% opposed to the initiative and 45% in support. Swiss voters “vote with their wallet,” retired dentist Jan Kedzior said to Bloomberg. If the measure does pass, said the outlet, lawmakers “may try to water it down later to limit any economic fallout.”

There’s a “noble tradition” of pop stars “putting on extravaganzas” in public toilets, said Ed Potton in The Times. “Never before, though, have we had a WC this full of VIPs.”

Madonna’s new 14-minute short film “Confessions II”, which marks the release of her latest album, features a “full-throttle celebrity perv-rave” in a nightclub loo packed with famous faces from Richard E. Grant to Benedict Cumberbatch. The Queen of Pop has delivered the kind of OTT, “bells-and-whistles music video” that seemed to be “on the way out”.

‘Hide the cocaine!’

In much the same way Madonna’s “Vogue” music video became “shorthand” for “‘pointy tits’” thanks to her pink conical bra, “Confessions II” will be remembered as the “vagina laser video”, said Zoe Williams in The Guardian. This time, the star must traverse a shadowy forest dodging green laser beams that fire from the dancers’ crotches in a symbol of “life force and unstoppable orgone energy”.

In one of the “clever scenes, Madonna literally morphs” into Julia Garner – the actor who is set to play her in her “long-gestating, self-directed biographical film”, said Joey Nolfi in Entertainment Weekly. She also “leans even more into embracing artists” who have followed her lead, such as Sabrina Carpenter. “The baton isn’t passed as much as it’s entrusted to artists who directly (Garner) and indirectly (Carpenter) walk in Madonna’s light.”

Later, she storms into the club bathroom where Chelsea footballers Cole Palmer and João Pedro “look around in alarm” from the urinal “as you would if the Queen of Pop sashayed past when you were having a wazz”, said Potton in The Times. “Hide the cocaine!” she sings before the camera cuts to Kate Moss flipping her hair in the mirror and dancing in slow-mo. Cumberbatch delivers some “textbook dad dancing”; “cruelly dressed” in a suit, he looks like “a City trader who has stumbled into a cool party and whipped off his tie to try and blend in”.

‘Gloriously over the top’

“Confessions II” is more than just a “flashy, star-studded commercial” for Madonna’s new album, said Nolfi in Entertainment Weekly. “It’s a powerful meditation on her legacy, her future, and how the world sees her as she reaches a new dawn in a storied life that’s largely played out in arenas beyond her control.”

The film will have “generated exactly the response she will have hoped for”, said Dan Wakeford in The Independent. Cameos from the eclectic assortment of celebrities have us “agog, debating who we are most thrilled to see sharing a frame”. But she’s also created a dance floor where “barriers between worlds have come down entirely”. The inclusion of the prestigious actor Cumberbatch is a “deliberate provocation”, telling us “high culture and club culture are the same culture” and it’s “cool to include someone who has no business being there”.

In its first 24 hours the film amassed just 1.2 million views on YouTube, far behind BTS’ “Butter”, which “racked up 108.2 million views on its first day in 2021”, said Potton in The Times. But “impact is not just about YouTube clicks” and various sequences from the dream-like film are sure to be “regurgitated endlessly” on TikTok. “There are signs that the event video could be on its way back.”

Of course, there have been “predictable snarks” about how Madonna should be behaving more appropriately for her 67 years. “Nonsense. Raucous, baffling and gloriously over the top, this film is exactly what she should be doing.”

“Tofu Talarico.” “Six-Gender Jimmy.” “James Talafreako.” These are just some of the nicknames allies of Texas Republican Senate nominee Ken Paxton have levied against his Democrat competitor, James Talarico.

Paxton himself attacked Talarico as being “too low-T for Texas” in a campaign ad that accuses his opponent of being a “threat to everything we hold dear.” Now, by deploying these aggressively gendered lines of attack against Talarico, Republicans have positioned dueling definitions of masculinity as a key issue in one of the most combative campaigns of this election year.

‘Obviously coordinated and unusually overt’

Since winning the GOP Senate primary late last month, Paxton and Republicans have “pushed the issue of manliness and masculinity to the forefront,” said USA Today. Their push “encapsulates the broader thinking” in our “current man-o-verse of faux-tough-guy podcasters, politicians and influencers.” In this paradigm, men “are to be bold, dominating and aggressive” and “must mock other men who don’t fit their criteria.” The “explicit, sometimes vulgar emphasis on masculinity as an electoral argument” is “one highly visible way” of tracking Donald Trump’s political and cultural influence over the past decade, said NPR.

The GOP’s “anti-Talarico blitzkrieg” is both “obviously coordinated and unusually overt,” said The Atlantic. Talarico’s “aw-shucks niceness and youthful looks” is “reframed as the result of low testosterone,” while GOP attacks manifest as “99,999 dog whistles implying that he is gay.” The “obvious explanation” for the intensity of the GOP’s gendered attacks on Talarico is that “Paxton’s nomination has created certain challenges for Republicans,” given the attorney general’s many legal and personal scandals, said columnist Matt Lewis at The Hill. Conservatives must now “dirty up a squeaky clean seminarian who appears to be something of a Boy Scout.”

Any politician who can “discredit a candidate right out of the gate” by suggesting that they “don’t share the culture of the people” and aren’t “up to the task of representing a state like Texas” has ultimately won, said Southern Methodist University political science professor Cal Jillson at the CBC. The GOP’s masculinity attacks “wouldn’t necessarily work in places like California or New York, or possibly parts of the Midwest,” said Monika L. McDermott, the co-editor of the book “Masculinity in American Politics,” to the outlet.

’Rather strange vision of masculinity’

Conservative japes about Talarico’s masculinity “never come from a place of comfort or security,” said Dave Holmes at Esquire. Rather, the politicians and pundits attacking Talarico “fall short of their own definitions of masculinity, and it is killing them.” Republicans are working to “inflict a rather strange vision of masculinity on America,” said The New Republic. Theirs is “meant to look like a parade of Aryan Ubermenschen” but instead reads as a “depressingly absurd circus sideshow.”

Ironically, the “very qualities that make Talarico a ripe target today” — his relative youth, faith and vocal enthusiasm for “servant leadership” — were “once traits that many conservatives would have regarded as virtues,” said Lewis at The Hill. The “sad thing” isn’t simply that Texas conservatives are publicly questioning “whether these cultural signifiers say he’s a real man.” It’s that “it just might work.”

David Sullivan, billionaire owner of West Ham United, has resigned as the football club’s co-chair to fight accusations by seven women of “sexually exploitative and predatory behaviour”.

A joint investigation by The Times and the BBC’s “Panorama” revealed claims that women were offered spots as “regular girls” in the tabloid newspapers he owned if they agreed to have sex with him. Two women were told that refusing would mean “damaging their future modelling careers”.

Sullivan “made a fortune from selling sex in the pre-internet world of adult magazines, films, telephone chat lines and newspapers filled with topless glamour models and teenage girls”, said the BBC. He was known as the “king of porn”.

In a statement released by West Ham, Sullivan, 77, said he “categorically” denies all the allegations, which he characterised as “decades-old”, “factually incorrect and entirely false”.

“Many inside the game will be taking in the news of Sullivan’s departure,” said The Guardian, “and reflecting on how a pornographer managed to rise as high in the modern game as he did.”

‘Immoral earnings’

Sullivan, who was born in Cardiff and whose father was an RAF officer, grew up in South Wales, Essex and Hertfordshire, before being sent to boarding school aged 11. He was “short and shy” growing up, said The Times, and “experimented” with business from an early age, selling football memorabilia to students. “I stopped being shy when I was 22 and started to earn money,” he later said. “Money gives you confidence.”

After studying economics at Queen Mary College in east London and a short period working in advertising, he began selling “glossy prints” of topless models with university friend Bernard Hardingham. “In one week alone they made £26,000, the equivalent of more than £300,000 today.”

In 1973, their success “caught the attention of the authorities” and both were charged with conspiring to publish and post obscene materials and fined £50, said the BBC.

“By 25, Sullivan was a millionaire, and decided to branch into films,” said The Guardian. “Come Play With Me” was the “first, and most successful”, marketed as the “strongest sex comedy film ever produced and distributed in Britain”.

In 1982 Sullivan was convicted of “living off the immoral earnings of prostitution from massage parlours and jailed for nine months”, though he spent just 71 days in prison following an appeal. He has always maintained his innocence. “One headline at the time read: ‘King Porn is caged at last’,” said The Times. But this conviction “appeared to do little to suppress his ambition”.

Further allegations against Sullivan surfaced in a 1981 undercover investigation by the News of the World. Under the headline “Come to bed if you’re seeking a job”, it alleged that Sullivan had asked a woman for sex in exchange for a job, said The Times. Within 15 minutes of meeting reporter Tina Dalgleish, he allegedly asked: “So are you coming upstairs with me for 10 minutes to see what you can do?”

‘Mainstream’ success

Sullivan then turned to more “mainstream” publishing, founding the Sunday Sport in 1986, and five years later the Daily Sport, said the BBC. They ran a “mixture of bizarre, lurid and salacious stories with a steady diet of topless glamour models on many pages”. There was also a “Countdown to 16” feature, where “partially clothed” schoolgirls were shown before a full topless feature on their 16th birthday. The age limit for when models could legally appear topless was raised to 18 in 2004.

In 1993, Sullivan acquired a majority stake in Birmingham City, which was in administration, for £700,000. In 2010, having sold his Birmingham stake, he bought West Ham, alongside David and Ralph Gold, who ran the Ann Summers sex toys and lingerie empire.

Sullivan resigned as co-chair and director of West Ham on Saturday, saying in his statement that he was stepping down to apply his “full energy and attention on fighting these false allegations”. It has since been revealed that Sullivan has been “banned from having contact” with West Ham’s women’s and youth teams since 2023 due to “safeguarding concerns”, said the BBC.

Sullivan retains a 38.8% stake in West Ham, making him its largest shareholder. With a total net worth of £1.1 billion, together with his family, he is the 149th richest person in the UK, according to the 2026 Sunday Times Rich List.

The horror genre occupies the current Hollywood spotlight, and we have YouTube to thank for a bevy of high-grossing indie films directed by popular former users of the video platform. The runaway success of these box office darlings has industry insiders questioning if this crew represents a new filmmaking era or if it’s a passing phase.

Pipeline from YouTube-to-horror filmmaker

The recently released “Backrooms” is “part of a growing wave of breakout films from fledgling directors” who “honed their instincts on YouTube” rather than “inside the Hollywood ecosystem,” said The New York Times. Kane Parsons, the 20-year-old first-time director, signed a deal with distributor A24 to make the film when he was 17. He joined the ranks of two other creators who have “already turned online followings into surprise box-office hits this year.”

The “YouTuber-to-filmmaker boomlet,” said the Times, began in January when YouTube creator Mark Fischbach, known as Markiplier by his fans, self-distributed his horror movie, “Iron Lung.” Though it only cost $3 million to make, it “took in $50 million” in the end. The run of successful YouTube horror directors continued with “Obsession,” a $750,000-budget horror movie directed by Curry Barker. Both Barker’s film and “Backrooms” have surpassed $200 million in earnings each. “It’s not an anomaly,” Stephen Galloway, the dean of Chapman University’s film school, said to the Times. It is the start of a “gigantic shift.” These are the “cinematic insurgents of our era.”

The YouTube generation has “finally come of age,” horror filmmaker James Wan, who coproduced “Backrooms,” said to Variety. They grew up creating content without money. That spirit has fostered a “new wave of filmmakers and storytellers.” YouTube is the “perfect incubator for emerging voices.”

There is a “whole generation of moviegoers who grew up” with a “very specific taste in horror, the stuff that sits a little outside the mainstream,” Jason Blum, the producer of the “Paranormal Activity” franchise, said to Variety. When one of these filmmakers “makes the jump to a theater, the audience that found them online comes with them.”

Wins with a grain of salt

While they are currently making a splash, these “box office victories come with caveats,” said the Times. All three movies are horror films, the genre that has “long been the most forgiving for first-time filmmakers, in part because horror is relatively cheap to produce.” For some studio executives, “that context is a reason for caution.” The real shift will come when “horror isn’t the only proof of concept.”

With so much emphasis being put on the “YouTube-to-horror movie trend” as the “next frontier of finding talented new voices,” a “difficult, uncomfortable conversation is more necessary than ever,” Slash Film said. Unless you exist as a “cisgender, heterosexual, white man,” the pipeline “doesn’t actually exist.” YouTube is not and has “never been a truly democratized platform,” and we are doing the “next generation of creatives a disservice by pretending it is.”

There are “random people from Discord who are, like, 14-year-olds” who are “not working in the industry at all, but they’re fucking wizards,” Parsons said to The Verge. Still, he refuses to “preach the blind optimism that I hear from a lot of other filmmakers who say, ‘You got a phone; everyone can be a filmmaker now.’”

The best lesson executives could take from the success of Parsons and Barker is “not to throw a zillion dollars at more movies that look just like these,” movie critic Alissa Wilkinson said at The New York Times. It would be to “find more creators like these two” because they’ve “built audiences in an organic way in the places that younger audiences congregate” and to give them “creative freedom to explore what feels right to them.” Remember, too, that “not everything will hit like these two movies.”

The world-renowned Bayeux Tapestry will embark on a “highly secretive journey” to cross the Channel on loan to the British Museum, said ITV News. The artefact, which depicts the Battle of Hastings in 1066, has reportedly been insured for “around £800 million” by the UK Treasury during its 10-month stay, which will begin in September.

The 70m embroidery, believed to have been created in the 1070s by English needleworkers, has left Bayeux only twice in 950 years. In 1803, it was displayed in Paris by Napoleon to inspire troops against the British, and during the Second World War it was moved several times to protect it from damage and the Nazi occupation.

The Tapestry is the “single most recognisable and understood object in our history”, former chancellor George Osborne, now chair of the British Museum, told the Financial Times. “The only thing that comes close is Stonehenge, and nobody’s going to be moving that any time soon.”

Dress rehearsals

The announcement of the loan “caused uproar” in France, said The Telegraph. A petition started by La Tribune de l’Art newspaper garnered around 78,000 signatures protesting the move due to the fragile condition of the tapestry. An assessment of the fabric in 2021 found that it contained “24,000 stains, 16,445 creases, almost 10,000 areas of damage and about 30 tears”.

A new “highly detailed” report on the arrangements for the tapestry’s transportation has “eased many concerns”, said Le Monde. “Nothing has been left to chance”, said Delphine Christophe, director general of heritage and architecture in the Ministry of Culture.

British roads – which generate “far more intense and constant vibrations” than their French counterparts – are the main source of concern. As such, teams have tested seven routes, and experts have “mapped every pothole and bump along the route from Bayeux to the British Museum”. Vibrations have now been “reduced by 96%”, said the outlet. This is about the “same level of movement a sculpture experiences on its pedestal in a museum”.

For the journey, the tapestry will be stored in a 1.6 ton “specially built climate-controlled crate” which is “literally suspended in mid-air” to minimise adverse motion. Two “full dress rehearsals” using a replica of identical length and weight have already taken place to practise proper handling of the 900-year-old work. The tapestry itself is currently being stored in a “secret location”.

‘Arduous’ journey

The Bayeux Tapestry is more than an artefact, said Financial Times political editor George Parker. Its arrival on British soil will be “hailed as a symbolic reconciliation of Britain and France after the chaos and bitterness of Brexit”. Ironically, despite depicting violent and bloody conflict between the Normans and Anglo-Saxons, the effort to bring the tapestry back to the UK has become a “symbol of Anglo-French co-operation”.

Britain’s journey to displaying the Bayeux Tapestry has been “arduous”, said The Independent. Requests to exhibit it in London have been “rejected several times”, most notably for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953, and for the 900th anniversary of the Battle of Hastings in 1966. President Emmanuel Macron, however, first “signalled his eagerness for the move” in 2018, although progress was stalled by the Covid pandemic.

Now, the British Museum is “set to hit the jackpot”, said Le Monde. The cost of installing, displaying and protecting the piece, none of which will be covered by France, is “classified and likely enormous”. But considering that the tapestry has attracted around 400,000 visitors in Bayeux, the museum could easily expect to generate at least “€10 million” (£8.6 million) in ticket sales.

This will be the “museum event of the century”, but it may not be the easiest viewing experience, said Apollo Magazine. Time slots for viewing will be “only 40 minutes”, which has caused the art community to “raise an eyebrow”. “With the tapestry being 70m-long, that means each visitor has about 34 seconds to move along the work in 7cm intervals.”

Jared Kushner’s goal to open a luxury resort on Albania’s coast has hit a speed bump. Albanian investigators have begun digging into the private equity firm spearheading the project, the first son-in-law’s Affinity Partners. And mass public protests over the proposed resort are a flashpoint for broader civic frustrations. What began as a “local land dispute on Albania’s southern coast,” said France 24, has now become a forum for “wider grievances” over “corruption, arrogance of power and disgruntlement with the ruling government.”

‘Flamingo revolution’

The proposed luxury resort project is slated for construction on the “uninhabited Adriatic island of Sazan” and hundreds of acres of the Vjosa-Narta protected site, a “sensitive coastal wetland area home to flamingos, seals and sea turtle nesting sites,” said Politico. Protesters gathered outside Prime Minister Edi Rama’s office this week “using a pink flamingo as their emblem,” said the BBC.

The symbol “echoes the deployment of a yellow duck” used in Serbian civic protests, but here “reflects the protesters’ very specific concerns” about the project’s environmental impact. “Hence,” said France 24, “why the movement has now been nicknamed Albania’s ‘flamingo revolution.’” Asher Abehsera, Kushner’s “business partner” on the project, claims the development will focus on “responsible stewardship” and “enhancing the environment,” as well as on creating “jobs and value for local communities,” said the BBC.

‘Total lack of transparency’

Initially a local development dispute, the project has spiraled into a “national political crisis,” said the Tirana Times, “triggering mass protests” and calls for Rama’s resignation. In addition to opposition to Kushner’s involvement in the construction, the endeavor has “drawn scrutiny” over “disputed land titles, unclear ownership structures and the involvement of powerful domestic business interests.”

“From start to finish, there has been a total lack of transparency,” said leading Albanian conservationist Aleksander Trajce to The Guardian. “We have seen no public consultation or public documentation regarding permits.” If Albanian authorities “remove the bulldozers, remove the fence and restore the habitats to what they were, then we can start talking.”

Prime Minister Rama has hailed the project as a “milestone in the Balkan country’s trajectory from Stalinist state to high-end holiday destination,” The Guardian said. While he has offered to “meet protesters in an attempt to break the logjam,” Rama also “stuck to his guns,” declaring last week that “there is absolutely no chance that the investment will stop as long as I am here.”

Broader frustrations

“No longer only about a resort,” the growing protests are now a “vehicle for wider anger” over Albanian civic society, said the Tirana Times. “It’s more or less everything” at the protests, said Albanian Ornithological Society President Taulant Bino to The New York Times. “You find people from the left, people from the right, people from different religious beliefs.”

Now, investigators from Albania’s Special Structure Against Corruption and Organized Crime anti-corruption office are digging into “controversial changes in the area’s protected status and land ownership in 2024,” said Politico. The office operates “independently of the national judiciary” and is “currently the most trusted institution in the country, according to several independent polls.”

Young people in Britain today risk becoming a “lost generation” owing to job opportunities shrinking, “not growing”, a landmark report warned last week.

Compiled by the former Labour minister Alan Milburn, the report said that almost a million 16- to 24-year-olds (equivalent to one in eight young people) are now “Neets” – not in education, employment or training.

He called this a “catastrophic failure” and said that, without urgent action, the proportion would reach one in six within five years.

‘Getting stickier’

In his 232-page report, Milburn said the rise in Neets could be attributed to factors including rising employment costs (such as increases to the minimum wage); a decline in Saturday jobs; and a 70% increase over a decade in those who are Neet because of ill health, nearly half of whom cite mental health conditions. Ministers said the review had laid bare “the scale of the challenge [...] we need to confront”.

Keir Starmer is often criticised for commissioning “endless reports”, rather than “forging ahead with policies”, said the Financial Times. But Milburn’s review serves a vital purpose, and “deserves to be heeded”.

Britain’s “Neets problem” isn’t new: the proportion has been at 10% or above for 25 years. But it’s “getting stickier”. The UK has three times as many Neets per capita than the Netherlands, and more than any EU country except Romania. Six in ten Neets today have never had a job, up from four in ten in 2005, and 15% have degrees. With data showing that nearly half of young Neets on benefits will not be working 15 years later, this is more than an economic problem; it’s a “moral” issue.

‘Transformative’ implications

“Milburn’s charge list is long,” said The Daily Telegraph. He criticises an education system that fails to prepare students for work, and a welfare system that spends £25 on benefits for the young for every £1 spent on getting them into work. Young people themselves, however, are rightly absolved of blame, said The Independent. Milburn stresses that 84% want to work, but are being let down by a failing system.

Milburn’s report provides “an excoriating overview” of this failing system, said Polly Toynbee in The Guardian. It identifies huge structural problems – from the 1.6 million “first-rung jobs” that have vanished in the past 20 years, to a more than 40% fall in the number of young people starting apprenticeships since 2016. It gives a voice to those who spend their days firing off job applications to firms that use faceless AI systems to screen CVs, and that don’t even bother to notify rejected candidates. And it outlines how the pandemic led to a surge in truancy levels (which are closely linked to youngsters becoming Neets), and left a generation utterly ill-equipped for the jobs market.

Crucially, it also details how the welfare boom is exacerbating this crisis, said Fraser Nelson in The Times. With the right political will, the report could trigger a total rewiring of the benefits system – continuing the “transformative” tradition of reviews such as the 1942 Beveridge Report, which laid the foundations for the welfare state.

‘Moral crusade’

Milburn deserves credit for dragging welfare back onto the agenda, said Lana Hempsall in The Spectator. But much-needed reform hasn’t been stymied by a prior lack of analysis, but rather by the unwillingness of MPs to grasp the nettle. It’s only a year since the government proposed some “relatively minor” tweaks to the welfare system, only to be forced into a climbdown by its own backbenchers.

Milburn’s “mammoth” report gives the government cover to have another crack at overhauling the system, said Josh Glancy in The Sunday Times. Rooted in data and humanised by the voices of real people, it cleverly frames welfare reform as a “moral crusade” through which Labour can create a better future for the young. Admittedly, it will still be hard to persuade Labour MPs to make cuts, and the Treasury to fund the cost of moving from one system to another. But if Labour doesn’t seize this opportunity to mend a broken system, the party will “deserve to watch as Nigel Farage or the Tories” cut the welfare bill “their way”.

Milburn is due to publish his recommendations in the autumn. As part of a radical restructuring, he is said to be considering the case for an “entirely separate welfare system for young people who have never worked”, reports the FT, with a focus on getting them into jobs. Pat McFadden, the Work and Pensions Secretary, is due to join Milburn on a fact-finding trip to the Netherlands next week. The country has similar levels of mental ill health in young people as Britain does, but has much more success at keeping them in work or education.

President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) has no known national security experience. But the new interim intelligence director, Bill Pulte, does have a history of going after Trump’s rivals. And this combination is raising alarms in Congress.

The 38-year-old Pulte is an “unusual selection” to be the interim intelligence chief following Tulsi Gabbard’s resignation, said The Hill. Before leading the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) under Trump, he owned a construction company and private equity firm and has “no high-level national security experience.”

Pulte at FHFA “proved his loyalty to the president by combing through the mortgages of Trump’s enemies,” said Talking Points Memo. His inquiries led to federal mortgage-fraud cases against New York Attorney General Letitia James and Fed Governor Lisa Cook.

Pulte has “deep experience managing the most sensitive matters in America,” Trump said, per The Hill. But the president’s GOP allies are concerned. “We don’t need a weaponized DNI,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said to reporters, per Axios.

‘Vocal attack dog’

“Everybody hates Bill Pulte,” said The New Republic. That may not be entirely correct — Trump is clearly a fan — but Pulte has a knack for inspiring bipartisan revulsion even within Trump’s own cabinet. At a 2025 event involving White House officials, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Pulte he was “going to kick his ass,” according to Bessent’s testimony in a Senate hearing this week, per CBS News.

Pulte’s willingness to scrap with Trump’s enemies both online and through official channels has earned him a reputation as a “vocal attack dog,” said The Washington Times. But his dearth of national security credentials may be a challenge. The law that created DNI says the director “shall have extensive national security experience.”

The office was created after 9/11 to ensure the coordination of the nation’s various intelligence agencies. But Pulte’s history of fractiousness may not make him a “promising person” to get “top officials to work together,” David A. Graham said at The Atlantic.

‘Senate GOP rebellion’

Trump’s announcement of Pulte as his choice prompted pushback from Democrats. Pulte’s willingness to investigate the president’s enemies demonstrates he “can’t be entrusted to protect our national security,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), per Roll Call.

The pick has also prompted a “Senate GOP rebellion,” said Axios. Pushback is coming from Thune, along with Sens. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) and John Cornyn (R-Texas). So Pulte might not have the support to get Senate confirmation for the long term.

Senate Democrats may tank efforts to “renew a powerful surveillance program” over the Pulte pick, said The Guardian. Reapproval of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was already facing obstacles but has an even more difficult path forward, said Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) to NPR, as long as “someone with no intelligence background” and a “record of misusing private information” is in the running to lead DNI.

Peter Murrell, the former chief executive of the SNP, appeared “for 20 excruciating minutes” at the High Court in Edinburgh on Monday, said Tom Peck in The Times. His earlier guilty plea meant there was little prosecuting to be done. “What we saw, instead, was a High Court edition of ‘Supermarket Sweep’”, as the prosecutor detailed how Murrell had embezzled £400,000 from the SNP over 12 years and spent it on 627 items in total, from £3.60 door fixings to the infamous £124,000 motorhome. How did he get away with it? Because “the Great Expenser” was in charge of the process. “He submitted his expenses to himself, then he signed them off himself.”

The list “makes for dazzling reading”, said Louis Wise in the FT: not just the Jaguar, the Golf, the luxury watches, the £2,000 salt and pepper shakers – but also “no fewer than seven – seven! – vacuum cleaners”. One luxury goods PR described Murrell's splurge as “like a regional sales manager's idea of living large”. But actually it's stranger than that – from the £75 men's “slouch pouch” onesie, to the Xbox, the 108 Covid-era loo rolls, and the posh edition of Hannah Arendt's “The Origins of Totalitarianism”.

Double life

“She should have known. She must have known. Nobody can get away with it for that long, in secret, in a marriage.” These are some of the accusations levelled at Nicola Sturgeon, said Victoria Richards in The Independent. Except it's not that simple. As she has pointed out, they were both well-paid, and they had no children. None of these items were unaffordable, except perhaps the motorhome, which Murrell parked at his mother's house.

Countless people find their partner has been living a double life. And, as Sturgeon told the BBC's Laura Kuenssberg, a lot of women “end up finding themselves blamed for the actions of the men in their lives”. She's right to reject that sort of misogyny. “This isn't Sturgeon's fault.” That's a “risible” defence, said Oliver Kamm in The i Paper. The accusations are against her as a politician, not as a wife. She is not the “wronged party”.

Conflicts of interest

When Sturgeon became SNP leader, Alex Salmond advised her that having Murrell as chief executive might create conflicts of interest, said Daniel Finkelstein in The Times. She chose to ignore this. She allowed three members of the party's finance and audit committee, its treasurer and its auditors to resign, “all complaining they were being prevented from doing their jobs properly”. Through all this, Sturgeon defended the arrangements, and fiercely discouraged further inquiries. “This was grotesque behaviour. It produced one of the worst scandals of modern political history.”

I still have “a smidgen” of sympathy, said Susan Dalgety in The Scotsman: Sturgeon's “legacy has been reduced to jokes about motorhomes”. But only a smidgen. “She failed on every count.” Long after we have stopped laughing at Murrell's purchases, “the stench of government corruption will linger over Scotland”.

The death of a British soldier in Iraq has refocused concerns over the UK’s military presence in the Middle East.

Lance Corporal James Stewart Freeman died in northern Iraq on Sunday during a training exercise, the Defence Secretary John Healey has said. The US has confirmed that the Briton, and an American soldier, died at a US-controlled base in Erbil, in the semi-autonomous Kurdish region near the Iranian border.

The UK’s position on the Iran war is to participate in “defensive action” only. But after Iran began retaliating against US-Israeli strikes, the UK deployed more personnel to the region, bringing the total number to about 1,000.

The heightened risk to British troops

Northern Iraq has been “one of the most dangerous places for British troops” since Iran launched retaliatory attacks on Gulf countries, said The Times. Tehran has been targeting “US strongholds” across the border in Iraq; specialist soldiers stationed in Erbil have “shot down more than 100 kamikaze drones” since the US and Israel started the war. British personnel “have been within a few hundred feet of successful Iranian strikes”. There is a “heightened risk” that Iran or its proxies could “hit coalition bases in the Middle East”.

The US has about “two dozen significant air bases, naval facilities and outposts scattered from Turkey to Oman”, said The Independent. About 50,000 US service personnel are stationed across the Middle East, many in Arab Gulf countries such as Kuwait, Iraq, Qatar and the UAE – “all of which are at risk of Iranian retaliation with short-range weapons”. There are also about 200 British service personnel deployed in Iraq, involved in “training and supporting Iraqi and Kurdish security forces”.

Oman has been a “strategic hub” for the UK since the Royal Navy opened a “joint logistics support base” at Duqm port. The MoD said Duqm gives the UK a “strategically important and permanent maritime base east of Suez, but outside of the Gulf”. The UK also has two Sovereign Base Areas in Cyprus: Akrotiri and Dhekelia. A string of drone attacks, presumably by Hezbollah, appeared to target the RAF Akrotiri base in March.

Britain: an unwilling participant?

“The UK’s armed forces have long had a presence across the Middle East,” said Geraint Hughes, military historian at King’s College London, on The Conversation. The UK’s naval support facility, which supports the Royal Navy’s “longstanding maritime security mission” in the Persian Gulf, has been in Bahrain since the 1980s. The base and its 300 personnel were “close to the Iranian missile strike” targeting the US Fifth Fleet headquarters in February. That shows that British military personnel “could potentially be at risk from an Iranian attack, even if indirect”.

Keir Starmer maintains that the UK will not join in “offensive action”, and that military assets are only being used to “support the defence of the Gulf states”. But Iran is “unlikely to acknowledge this distinction between ‘defensive’ operations and more ‘offensive’ ones”. As part of the Five Eyes alliance, Britain also “closely coordinates its eavesdropping operations” with the US.

Fundamentally, said Hughes, the regime in Iran is “profoundly Anglophobic”. It presumes the US and Britain will “always collaborate” – as they have done in the Middle East in the past. Iran may have “assumed British complicity in the launching of Operation Epic Fury”, and may “target the UK’s military assets in the Gulf and beyond”. Whatever Labour’s intentions, the UK “may find itself drawn into a war it had no say in starting”.

One of the most storied news franchises in history has a fresh leader, as CBS News names journalist Nick Bilton the executive producer of “60 Minutes.” Bilton’s significant experience as a reporter likely made him an appealing choice for CBS News Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss. But others at the program are questioning how Bilton, who has never worked in television news, will run the iconic show.

‘Some of that kind of gonzo journalism’

Bilton wants to ensure that “‘holding people to account’ and ‘investigative journalism’ remain core principles” of “60 Minutes” under his watch, he told The Hollywood Reporter. But there may also be opportunities for “some of that kind of gonzo journalism stuff” that Bilton has personally become known for. Examples include “Fake Famous,” his 2021 documentary film about social media influencers, and “American Kingpin,” his 2017 book about the online black market Silk Road.

There are a “lot of parts of ‘60’ that are fantastic and work really well, and I think there are other parts of it that can be brought into the modern era,” Bilton said to The Hollywood Reporter. The core premise of the changes “appears built around extending ‘60 Minutes’ to the places where consumers primarily get their news,” potentially moving away from traditional television. The primary goal, which “has been the focus of the show since its inception, is the story,” Bilton told Axios.

There will now be an “emphasis on telling stories beyond the weekly show and experimenting with new voices from outside traditional broadcast news,” said The New York Times. These changes come amid a larger shift at CBS News itself. In addition to hiring Bilton, Weiss “also fired Cecilia Vega, the program’s first Latina correspondent, and Sharyn Alfonsi, whose segment on torture in Salvadoran prisons was pulled off the air abruptly last year.”

‘Fear what comes next’

Many are wary of what these changes mean for “60 Minutes” and its longstanding legacy of groundbreaking journalism. Particular criticism was levied at Bilton himself, a “credulous dope” who represents a “specific type of dolt from a bygone era,” said Defector. Some cited his 2015 article for The New York Times, which was “so factually f--ked, it now contains a 203-word editor’s note and a 98-word correction.”

Weiss is standing behind her decisions. Bilton is “one of the most entrepreneurial and ambitious journalists working today. I am thrilled that he is the next executive producer of 60 Minutes,” she said on X. But Weiss’ changes will “probably generate heat from the staff of ‘60 Minutes,’” who were fiercely loyal to prior executive producer Tanya Simon, said The Guardian. Many “viewed her promotion to executive producer last year as an indication that the new leadership of CBS News parent company Paramount wanted to preserve the show’s winning formula.”

Now some are cautious of the direction “60 Minutes” could be headed. “I very much fear what comes next,” Vega said in a statement after her ousting. Others have been even more blunt, including longtime “60 Minutes” correspondent Scott Pelley. “‘She’s murdering ‘60 Minutes,’” Pelley said of Weiss in a heated meeting with Bilton, according to numerous sources. “She does not love this place. She was brought in to kill it and is doing exactly that.”

Dating apps are “rooted in rejection and judgement” and that’s “not healthy”, Bumble founder Whitney Wolfe Herd told Fortune. She had an “epiphany” during a 14-month leave of absence that users are just “hurt people hurting people”, and has vowed to bring “more joy and satisfaction” to her app.

Bumble is now shifting to matching-making driven by AI – and it’s not the only dating app to see this as the solution to increasing dating-app fatigue. But newcomer Breeze is taking another route: switching the focus to in-person experiences by reducing opportunities to chat in app, and sending only a time-specific, limited number of matches.

‘Payment and consequences’

“Breeze is a welcome disruptor in the dating app landscape,” said Isabella Silvers in The Telegraph. Since it launched in Europe in 2020, after winning investment from the Dutch version of “Dragon’s Den”, it has clocked up more than two million downloads. Users join “matching pools” that bring together “like-minded daters”, based on everything from hobbies (“outdoor lovers”) to niche interests (“rat owners/lovers”). To date, the app has arranged more than 737,000 dates, “resulting in 10 babies – that it knows of”.

Users receive a “select number of profiles” at 7pm every day and the key to the app’s success seems to be “payment and consequences”. Once you accept a match, you have to fill out your availability and pay a £9.50 deposit to secure a drinks date (or £4.50 for a “walk and talk”), “before being allowed to make a decision on anyone else”. The chat function for matched users is only opened up four hours before the date – prompting last-minute date confirmations, rather than “meaningless messaging”.

Breeze is “evidently working”, especially in the Netherlands where it’s “the third most popular and fastest-growing” dating app, said Lydia Spencer-Elliott in The Independent. “But can it save Britain’s dismal dating scene?” It can certainly save us from “boring convos generated by ChatGPT”, or being stood up or ghosted or “strung out” for weeks with no follow-through. But “what it absolutely can’t save” us from “is ourselves”. It’s ultimately “knackering” to keep “riding the rejection rollercoaster of the dating-app landscape” – and, sometimes, “the best remedy is to give it all a rest”.

‘Charming chatbots’

There is “rampant” dating-app burnout, said Catherine Pearson in The New York Times. As Bumble embraces AI-powered algorithms to re-engage those who “crave an experience that feels less overwhelming and more purposeful”, it’s also removing its swipe feature. It’s hoping to “end superficial, snap judgements” by altering “the dating habits of millions of users who have grown used to vetting partners with the flick of a finger”.

But the AI pivot comes with risk. Integrating AI features “sloppily” could “alienate” dating-app customers, said Tatum Hunter in The Guardian. Some users are already reporting “being plagued by AI paranoia, unsure whether the people they are messaging are real or charming chatbots”. The messaging from the industry is clear: “if we let AI take the wheel, this will all get less depressing”. But can a “smooth, mindless path toward connection” really make dating more joyful?

Evolutionary psychology reminds us that “only a signal that is difficult to fake can carry reliable information about the sender”, said Andrew King on Quillette. A rightward swipe behind a screen “communicates almost nothing about the sincerity of the person making it”. But making an approach in person at a bar or an event carries the potential for “public rejection”, and that cost is a signal of sincerity. These signals “matter” and “cannot be easily digitised”: “the discomfort is the point”.

Nvidia has unveiled a new superchip for personal computers, marking its first entry into the lucrative consumer market.

“This reinvention of the computer is as big a deal as the reinvention of the phone into what we now know as the smartphone,” Nvidia’s chief executive Jensen Huang said, as he unveiled the RTX Spark chip at the Computex technology show in Taiwan on Monday.

‘Real game-changer’

Selling artificial intelligence chips used in enormous data centres has helped Nvidia become the world’s most valuable company, currently worth more than $5 trillion (£3.7 trillion). “Now it’s looking to put its technology in people’s homes,” said The New York Times’ Tripp Mickle.

The RTX Spark is a “new superchip for the era of personal AI agents – offering a new class of computer that moves from tool to teammate”, Nvidia said on its website.

Expected to be released in the autumn, it will power laptop and desktop computers from Dell, HP, Microsoft, Lenovo and others and is designed to run local AI systems that can sort files and quickly perform tasks.

The move into personal computing fires a “warning shot across the bow” of historic industry leaders such as AMD, Apple and Intel, said TechRadar, which described the move as a “real game-changer”.

Intel, Microsoft’s long-term partner, was once the “undisputed king of PCs”, but its performance has “slipped in key areas like battery life” in recent years, said Mickle. In 2021, Microsoft made it possible to run Windows software with processers from rival providers, creating an opportunity Nvidia has now exploited.

With the RTX Spark, the company will be hoping to move in on the growing market for AI computers that is currently dominated by Apple, which ditched Intel processors for its own hugely popular and powerful M-series chips in 2020.

“Apple more or less owns this market today,” Max Weinbach, a technology analyst at Creative Strategies, a tech research firm, told The New York Times. “Nvidia wants to build a laptop ecosystem for Windows that’s an alternative.”

An AI supercomputer in every home

The chip “lies at the heart of Nvidia’s push to embed AI directly into end-user devices, aiming to transform PCs into personal assistants which perform various tasks such as searching email, fixing coding bugs and accelerating generative AI features in software including Adobe Photoshop”, said Aqsa Qaddus Tahir on The News International.

Shohag Hossain, a digital creator, posted on X that the Nvidia-Microsoft partnership had “quietly built the hardware layer that makes AI run locally, privately, instantly, no cloud needed”. The result is your laptop “becomes an AI agent that works offline”, which means “no more sending your data to some server farm”.

“The real competition isn’t Apple vs Windows any more, it's who owns the AI that runs on your device.”

This new superchip could be the first step towards AI supercomputers becoming a common home appliance in the future, in the way that home theatres, large televisions, lawn mowers and dishwashers are not unusual, Huang told the conference in Taiwan.

“I could totally imagine someday there’s an AI supercomputer in your house,” he said. “It’s running all of your agents, it’s running all your assistants, and they’re doing all kinds of things for you all the time.”

When Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin first suggested blocking some international flights from cities that didn’t cooperate with federal immigration enforcement during an April Fox News appearance, it “seemed more like a wild swing than a real plan,” said The Atlantic. Now, Mullin’s seemingly far-fetched pitch to remove immigration agents from certain airports and reroute flights to Republican-led cities feels increasingly plausible. If the plan is enacted, airline experts and officials warn the impact could be catastrophic across multiple vectors.

‘Devastating effect’

Removing Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents from international airports “would cause immediate and lasting harm,” said the U.S. Travel Association in a press release. A CBP drawdown may have a “devastating effect on the airline and tourism industries,” said trade association Airlines for America in a statement to CNN, causing “significant operational disruption to carriers, travelers and the flow of international cargo.”

The travel industry is “on edge” with worries that Mullin’s comments could “jeopardize international flights,” said The Associated Press. Major airlines “quickly condemned the idea,” and “even Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said it doesn’t make sense to him.” The government “shouldn’t shut down air travel in a state that doesn’t agree with our politics,” said Duffy at a congressional hearing last month. Duffy also said he would “like to learn more about the context” of the proposal and “maybe ask Mullin a question about what he meant,” the AP said.

The Justice Department last month published a list of states and cities it claimed were “impeding U.S. immigration policies,” said CNBC. Among the locales listed were “major international air hubs” including Boston, Newark, San Francisco and Los Angeles.

‘Thin grasp of global-travel logistics’

Mullin is “pushing forward” with his plan despite concerns, said The Atlantic. Last month he convened a “small group of airline and travel-industry executives at DHS headquarters in Washington” and reportedly discussed reductions in CBP staffing at “major airports that serve sanctuary jurisdictions,” such as JFK in New York and Dulles in Washington, D.C. The secretary’s plans seemed to “reflect a thin grasp of global-travel logistics” and displayed an “inflated sense of the government’s ability to impose economic pain on specific cities.”

It’s “not clear” how Mullin’s goal to block international travel to certain cities would “work in practice,” said Time. The proposal is “actively insane,” said Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, on X. Airlines would be forced to “cancel flights en masse,” which would cause “enormous economic damage” that extends “waaaaay beyond a few big cities that were the target.” It is also unlikely, said MS NOW, that officials in Democrat-run communities will be willing to “overhaul their approach to immigration policy” simply to “prevent Mullin from sabotaging many of the busiest airports in the Western Hemisphere.”

Migrant deaths in federal custody hit an all-time high this year, as the Department of Homeland Security executes President Donald Trump’s anti-immigration policies across the nation. Between October 2025, when the federal fiscal year began, and April 2026, at least 29 people died in DHS custody according to government data, “already surpassing 2004’s toll of 28, the previous record,” said NPR.

Suicides, in particular, have exploded at an “alarming” rate, said The Associated Press. And with tens of thousands of migrants still concentrated in DHS camps across the country, mortality rates have become a regular feature of the agency’s current tenure.

‘Something is going profoundly wrong’

The rise in deaths at DHS facilities comes as “detention numbers have skyrocketed during the Trump administration,” said NPR. Trump officials “denied there’s been a spike in deaths” and “attributed the increase to the large number of people in detention” overall. The increase in deaths is “because we do have the highest amount in detention that ICE has ever had since its inception in 2003,” said outgoing ICE Acting Director Todd Lyons at a congressional budget hearing in April.

That an “unprecedented number” of DHS detainees have taken their own lives is an “indication that authorities are failing to properly oversee the detention” of their tens of thousands of charges, said the AP. “Something is going profoundly wrong from any kind of public health or mental health perspective,” said epidemiologist Dr. Sanjay Basu, the co-author of a new study on mortality and suicide rates among ICE detainees, to NPR. “This is one of those alarming, sudden increases.”

Last year saw “more than 1,000 emergency requests” to 911 made from multiple detention centers around the country, 28 of which were prompted by “serious incidents of self-harm,” said NBC News. One detainee “swallowed a razor blade,” another “drank cleaning chemicals” and “at least three cut their own wrists.” Suicides among people in DHS custody are “tragic and rare,” an ICE spokesperson said in a statement to the outlet. Upon seeing “signs of a detainee being at risk for suicide,” detention center staff follow a “strict prevention and intervention protocol to ensure the detainee’s health and well-being is protected.”

‘Preventable’

More detainees have died in DHS custody last year than in any year in at least two decades, said CNN, with 2026 “on track to be even higher.” But many of the past year’s deaths “appear to have been preventable.” In “more than a dozen cases,” the “deadly outcomes” stemmed in part from “substandard treatment by at-times understaffed medical teams dealing with escalating detainee populations.”

California’s Adelanto ICE Processing Center and the Camp East Montana in El Paso, Texas, have each seen three migrant deaths in their respective facilities — the “most out of ICE’s sprawling detention operation,” said NPR. ICE has “repeatedly asserted” that all detainees are screened for “medical, dental and mental health conditions” within 12 hours of arrival, said the AP. But reviews of ICE’s own inspection reports and jail records show “three of the nine facilities where ICE detainees died by suicide have struggled to meet that standard.”

Vomiting, diarrhoea, sweating and a swollen face. Not the normal desired effects of a detox, but a kambo ceremony is not a normal detox.

Kambo is a poisonous secretion from an Amazonian tree frog, used by some indigenous people as traditional medicine. Its use as a wellness practice has spread to the US and Europe.

Last weekend it was reported that Kristian Trend, a 40-year-old wellness coach and cancer survivor from Leicester, had died after taking the frog poison. “He is believed to be the first British victim,” said The Times, but at least six deaths worldwide have been associated with kambo.

The substance is harvested from the defensive skin secretions of the Amazonian giant monkey tree frog. In the traditional medicine of some indigenous peoples of the Amazon, kambo “is applied to superficial burns on the skin of participants to produce an intense purging effect”, said Martin Williams, research fellow at Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, on The Conversation.

‘Uncontrolled increase in fatalities’

Self-styled “kambo practitioners” have touted a range of supposed benefits for the purge and detox, including reduced anxiety, boosted energy and relief from chronic pain. Despite the documented side-effects, “the great majority of users of kambo anecdotally report positive physical, emotional and spiritual after-effects”, said Williams. Several celebrities have reportedly tried kambo, including actor Orlando Bloom, who told GQ that he had tried the treatment several times and claimed it left him with a “feeling of being clearer and wide open”. “You have this sensation of death and you kind of purge your body. But it’s incredible.” He did add, however, that “it was pretty brutal in terms of what it does to the body in the moment”, describing it as “coming out both ends”.

Kambo can also have more severe health consequences, with a paper published last year in Cureus, the online journal, warning of potential long-term issues. According to the scientists, the psychiatric effects were induced by hyperthermia and hyponatraemia, which were “often misinterpreted by participants as ‘astral travel’, instead of being recognised as potentially fatal conditions”. They added: “The widespread availability of kambo on the internet poses another pressing concern, contributing to an uncontrolled increase in fatalities.”

‘Absolute Western arrogance’

Governments around the world have acted to ban the poison. In Brazil, it’s illegal to sell or market kambo. In Australia, where two deaths after kambo rituals have led to coroner’s inquests, it was listed by the Therapeutic Goods Administration in 2021 as a Schedule 10 poison: a “substance of such danger to health as to warrant prohibition of sale, supply and use”.

Trend’s mother Angie told The Telegraph that she wants the treatment to be banned in the UK following her son’s death: “He was going to cleanse himself, that’s what he said to me. He was very spiritual. He took a lot of vitamins.”

Despite the dangers, the adoption of wellness rituals involving kambo continues to grow worldwide. “A lot of these Western wellness practitioners are exploiting people’s gullibility and exploiting those who are sceptical about Western medicine,” Prof Roger Byard, a forensic pathologist at Adelaide University, told The Guardian.

“But the techniques of shamans and healers in Indigenous communities have been used for hundreds of years and they have been trained to safely use these substances for certain, specific situations. To think that we can go into a community or spend a bit of time in another country and then take one of their time-honoured, cultural practices and then just take it for our own use is absolute Western arrogance.”

CBS needed a replacement after controversially canceling “The Late Show” hosted by Stephen Colbert and found a longstanding media name to fill the gap: Byron Allen, a billionaire industry mainstay whose “Comics Unleashed” panel comedy show ran in syndication from 2006 to 2016 and is now running in place of “The Late Show.” But unlike Colbert, Allen, who began his career in standup, has vowed to shy away from political humor.

Comedy roots

Allen, 65, was born in Detroit and eventually moved to Los Angeles with his mother. At a young age, he had an obsession with “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson” and at 18 became “one of the youngest comedians to perform stand-up on Carson’s show, making his debut on May 17, 1979, a week before graduating high school,” said CNN.

He eventually transitioned from the stage to a behind-the-scenes role and soon “developed a business model that would define his career: producing reality shows and selling them directly to local stations,” said CNN. Allen founded his eponymous company, Allen Media Group, in 1993 and currently “owns over a dozen ABC, CBS and NBC network-affiliate broadcast television stations around the country, 10 24-hour HD television networks and multiple digital streaming platforms,” said USA Today. He also owns The Weather Channel and recently “acquired a ‘majority stake’ in BuzzFeed.”

‘I’m not trying to replace him’

When it was announced in July 2025 that Colbert‘s show would be ending, Allen originally “urged CBS to ‘not put on another show’ if it went through with canceling the cancellation,” instead offering to buy the block of time, said NBC News. Allen’s “Comics Unleashed” ran in syndication from 2006 to 2016 before being slotted in to take over “The Late Show.” Under his deal with CBS, Allen “leases the hour and sells the advertising inventory himself.”

In another departure, Allen’s “Comics Unleashed” focuses “strictly on comedy and roundtable storytelling with no political content,” said NJ.com. Colbert was known for his humor revolving around President Donald Trump (many feel his cancellation was politically motivated, an accusation CBS denies). “I’m not trying to replace Colbert. I don’t think anybody can replace Colbert. I think he’s phenomenal,” Allen said to The Guardian.

There is “nothing like it on TV right now where you have five comedians sitting around with one purpose: making people laugh,” Allen told The Guardian of his show. When Allen “first started doing the show, and I’ve had on over 1,000 comedians, I said, ‘No political humor, nothing racist, nothing sexist, nothing antisemitic, nothing homophobic, just be funny.’” Allen has also claimed that people are okay with not hearing political humor in late-night.

“Would you have interest to look at news that was recorded a month ago or two months ago? That news is long gone,” Allen said to The Guardian. “So why do you want to hear about the political news from eight weeks earlier?” Allen claims that “Comics Unleashed” is already making a profit for CBS (the network cited financial reasons for axing Colbert’s show). Despite the controversy, the late-night slot is an opportunity Allen has long wanted. “If they are looking for a show, my hand is already up,” Allen said in October 2025 to Variety. “Fifty years I have been waiting for this moment.”

Target is back on target. The big-box retailer known for affordable style has returned to its roots, sparking a turnaround after a multiyear slump.

The company’s first quarter sales were its “best results in four years,” said CNN. That’s the product of CEO Michael Fiddelke’s move to “win back shoppers with new, buzzy brands” such as Pokémon and Parke. Fiddelke took over earlier this year after a “series of strategy mistakes,” including cutting DEI programs and Pride displays, which sparked boycotts by the company’s largely liberal customer base. But now, Target’s “comeback strategy is working.”

‘Style and design’

Target is attempting to get back to what “historically made the chain distinctive,” said Axios. The company does best when it’s “truly leading with style and design at an incredible value,” said Fiddelke to reporters. Those elements help distinguish the retailer from rivals like Walmart and Amazon and are being applied not just to the products on Target’s shelves but also to “store design, remodels and even shopping carts,” said Axios. Style must be at the “center of how we think about the business,” said Fiddelke.

The company is also “executing its largest grocery transition” in more than 10 years, said Retail Touch Points. Target added 3,000 new food items to its grocery aisles during the first quarter of 2026, as well as 1,500 new health and wellness items. Customers are “actively seeking newness,” Chief Merchandising Officer Cara Sylvester said to reporters. Such changes helped, but so did consumers who seemed ready to spend during the early part of the year. Bigger-than-normal tax returns “were a source of upside to consumer spending,” said Chief Financial Officer Jim Lee.

Target’s quarterly report comes as analysts are watching to see if “surging gasoline prices due to the Iran war” are leading to consumer cutbacks, said The Associated Press. The cutbacks are also a sign of how well the company can weather becoming a “flashpoint” in culture wars. But boycotts and politics have “never been the main issue” behind the company’s slump, GlobalData Retail’s Neil Saunders said to the AP. Instead, customers felt Target was “failing on execution,” said the outlet.

‘We want to be careful’

The turnaround “may not be as smooth as the latest results imply,” said MarketWatch. Target must pivot from halting the slump to sustaining “full-scale growth,” said Brian Mulberry, of Zacks Investment Management, to the outlet. Though the company has upgraded its sales expectations for 2026, Fiddelke acknowledges the headwinds as consumers pull back from spending. “We want to be careful not to get out over our skis,” he said to reporters.

Next up are store revamps. Target and other big retailers are “pouring billions of dollars back into their stores” to lure customers even as online sales continue to occupy a bigger share of consumer spending, said The New York Times. Remodeling brick-and-mortar stores, Fiddelke told the outlet, is part of the strategy for “elevating the Target experience.”

A controversy surrounding a prize-winning short story has raised questions over the use of artificial intelligence in fiction.

“The Serpent in the Grove” by Jamir Nazir was named the winner in the Caribbean category of the Commonwealth Prize, but “syntactical tics” alleged to be telltale signs of AI use, as well as “the verdict of an AI detection platform”, have caused an uproar in the literary world, said The Guardian.

Smelling a rat

The judging committee said the winning story was told in “a voice of restraint and quiet authority”, praising Nazir’s language as “sublime” and “precise yet richly evocative”. But soon “literary sleuths smelled a rat,” said LitHub.

“Off a hunch”, Ethan Mollick, a professor who studies AI, ran the story through Pangram, a program that claims to detect AI writing with 99% accuracy; the results came back with “100% red flags”. Writing on Bluesky, Mollick said: “Come on, if you know you know.”

Nazir has denied using AI to write the story, which he says was inspired by childhood memories. Granta, the magazine that published the winning story, said they were still investigating the allegations. The foundation that awarded the prize said that all entrants were required to confirm that their submission was their own work and not created with AI assistance.

The accusation is “another episode” in an “ongoing, frenetic conversation” about “whether artists and creators are passing off AI-generated work as their own” and whether publishers “will be able to reliably catch them doing it”, said The Guardian.

In April, Hachette pulled a novel called “Shy Girl” by Mia Ballard from bookshops after Pangram said it was 78% AI-generated, and in March, The New York Times cut ties with a freelance journalist after he admitted to having used artificial intelligence to write a book review. Such episodes have “fuelled discourse around the telltale signs of AI writing”, including frequent use of specific words (“delve” being one example), a “profusion of em dashes” and a predilection for “vague, soft intensifiers” such as “quietly powerful” and “deeply transformative”.

Detection industry

The “ideal” expressed by Razmi Farook, director-general of the Commonwealth Foundation, who said she places “complete trust in writers”, may not “be enough to stem the tide of AI slop” in “everything from high literature to scientific research”, said Wired.

Some writers have already admitted that they use AI. Steven Rosenbaum acknowledged that his new book “The Future of Truth”, which “grapples with the nature of veracity in the AI age”, itself contains AI-hallucinated quotes. The Nobel Prize-winning novelist Olga Tokarczuk “outraged her own fans” by admitting that use of LLMs is “part of her creative process”.

But the “biggest bummer is to come”, said LitHub, because although “winning a literary prize is one small step” for AI, it’s “sure to be catnip for the pushers touting the technology’s creative potential”.

Meanwhile, the row over the Commonwealth Prize and similar controversies have “generated energetic business” for a “new cottage industry” of AI detectors, said The Guardian. Researchers into the efficacy of the models predict that there will be “a continuous technical arms race” between the detectors, AI models and writers adapting their usage of them.

Not long ago he was regarded as virtually Ukraine’s co-president, said Jamie Dettmer on Politico. Now, less than six months after being forced to resign as President Zelenskyy’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak finds himself in custody.

He was arrested last Thursday on suspicion of helping to launder $10.5 million (£7.7 million) via the construction of four luxury homes near Kyiv, some of the funds reportedly being part of the proceeds of a $100 million (£77 million) kickback scheme on contracts signed at Energoatom, the state’s atomic energy agency.

A man with outsize influence

Many of Zelenskyy’s allies have already been implicated in the wider case, including his former business partner Timur Mindich, who fled to Israel last year, and the former energy minister German Galushchenko, who was arrested in February while trying to flee the country. But Yermak’s arrest brings the matter to the very heart of the president’s inner circle, fuelling speculation about what Zelenskyy himself “may have known – or ought to have known”.

Yermak’s arrest could prove disastrous for Zelenskyy, said Steve Gutterman on Radio Free Europe (Prague). In voters’ minds, there’s an “inseparable” link between the two men. They met in 2011 when both were working in television, and their close friendship and Yermak’s “outsize influence” as an unelected adviser mean that any stain on him could well “bleed over onto Zelenskyy”. The scandal also puts at risk Kyiv’s bid for fast-track EU membership, as one of Brussels’ key demands has been that Ukraine’s notorious corruption must be curbed.

Room for optimism

Zelenskyy has stayed “tight-lipped” since the Energoatom scandal broke in November, said Kateryna Denisova in The Kyiv Independent, but it may prove harder to downplay things this time round. He hasn’t been accused of wrongdoing himself, but ever since the name Vova (a diminutive for Volodymyr) popped up in a recently leaked audiotape conversation of two corruption suspects discussing a property development outside Kyiv, rumours about him have started to swirl.

Given the ongoing war with Russia, all these allegations feel particularly egregious, said Paul Niland in the Kyiv Post. However, there is room for optimism. The $10.5 million (£7.7 million) mentioned in the Yermak case is a “far cry” from the $10 billion (£7 billion) thought to have been stolen each year from 2010-14 under the former president, Viktor Yanukovych. Ukraine’s two anti-corruption agencies have been so determined to win the fight against graft that theft on that sort of scale is no longer possible. And there’s no clearer sign of that than the arrest of someone as powerful as Yermak.

After decades of maintaining steady numbers of American service members at sites across Eastern Europe, the United States has begun quietly shifting where and how it deploys troops along Russia’s doorstep. This month, the Pentagon “abruptly” halted an already underway deployment of some 4,000 soldiers to Poland as “part of a larger troop reduction,” fueled in part by President Donald Trump’s “anger over Europe’s refusal to aid in the war with Iran,” said The Washington Post. Similar reductions and withdrawals have been ordered for other American military assets in the region, and White House figures are defending the moves as part of Trump’s America First ethos.

‘Growing rift’

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s “last-minute decision” to pause the planned Poland deployment took Pentagon officials and European allies “by surprise,” said Politico. It is the latest instance of an “abrupt personnel move” that has “blindsided both sides of the Atlantic.”

The Pentagon has largely employed the easier process of canceling deployments “as opposed to yanking forces already stationed there,” The Associated Press said. In addition to nixing the planned Polish deployment, Hegseth’s orders also “led to the cancellation of an upcoming deployment to Germany of a battalion trained in firing long-range rockets and missiles.” Hegseth “scrapping plans” for a “long-range fires battalion to be stationed in Europe,” marks a “significant loss for the continent,” said the Post.

The change in troop levels comes as Trump has “repeatedly criticized NATO countries for not participating in the Iran war,” said CNN. Trump has also lashed out at German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who has said the U.S. is “being ‘humiliated’ by Iran.” The move “reflects a growing rift between the administration and traditional European allies” that has been exacerbated by a “lack of support for the Iran conflict,” the AP said.

‘Overreacting’

Changing the Poland deployment was “not an unexpected, last-minute decision,” said the Pentagon to the Post. However, the military declined to “provide clarification on when the process started and when the order to depart was given,” the outlet said. Pressed on the changes, Vice President JD Vance also downplayed their significance. “We're not talking about pulling every single American troop out ⁠of Europe,” said Vance on ABC News Tuesday. The move merely shifts “some resources around in a way that maximizes ​American security,” and “frankly, a lot of the European media is overreacting to this.”

Polish lawmakers visiting Washington this week “welcomed U.S. statements clarifying” that the troop drawdown was a “temporary measure,” said the Post. Warsaw has also “lobbied to host some of the U.S. troops set to be withdrawn from Germany,” using the argument that “Poland already has the infrastructure needed to accommodate additional American forces,” said Polish broadcaster TVP World.

For now, the White House’s “broader strategy remains unclear,” said Politico. The upcoming German withdrawal is “still in the planning stages.” While it would be a “relatively minor drawdown of the 38,000 U.S. troops in the country,” it also signals to European allies that “they could pay a price for publicly disagreeing with the White House. “

Google has become so synonymous with online search that its name has evolved into a verb in its own right. Now, the company is attempting to “revamp its decades-old business model to fit the era of artificial intelligence”, said CNN. In essence, “Google wants to help you google less”.

‘New era’ for search

Although Google already offers “AI Mode”, it will now integrate the technology across the entire search experience through its new Gemini 3.5 Flash model. Rather than simply typing keywords or short phrases, users will be able to ask conversational questions, share images or voice commands with agentic AI, and even interact through live video.

Instead of generating only the familiar list of blue links, Google Search will give a customised AI-written summary of the topic being researched. This will then open a conversation with AI Mode directly on the main search page, allowing users to ask follow-up questions more naturally.

This marks a “new era for AI search”, according to a Google blog post, bringing “advanced model capabilities” and “new AI features” to Search. The update will allow users to deploy AI agents “just by asking a question”. The company is also introducing a new intelligent, AI-powered search box, which it describes as Google’s “biggest upgrade in over 25 years”.

Crucially, the shift means that search will become more conversational and personalised, reducing the need to click through to web pages. Increasingly, Google will function more like an assistant than a traditional index of third-party information providers.

‘Radical transformation’

For many people, Google’s search box is the “lobby of the internet”, said Time, so this “radical transformation” signals a major shift in how people use the web. It could “disrupt many industries” that rely on search traffic to attract customers, with news publishers and small businesses particularly vulnerable.

The changes will likely “further decimate” referrals from Google to publishers, which have “already been suffering from declining referrals” because of AI Overviews, said TechCrunch. The trend has already “put some ad-dependent media operations out of business, and now things will likely get worse”.

Using AI-based searching could also erode important skills, said Riley MacLeod on internet news site Aftermath. Google Search is “one of the first and primary places that people experiment with and grow their information-searching skills”. While “spoon-feeding” users AI summaries and “obscuring or bypassing the source of the information” may seem convenient, it risks depriving people of the opportunity to build the “vital information literacy skills” they “need more than ever in an AI-obsessed world”.

For Google, however, the ambition is far larger: to move “closer” to its long-term goal of developing artificial general intelligence – a “theoretical stage of AI” where technology becomes as intelligent as humans across a broad range of subjects, said CNN. The competition is intense, with OpenAI, Meta and others all “racing to be the first to get there”.

Those who want to send weapons through snail mail may soon have the option, as the U.S. Postal Service considers a proposal to allow people to ship handguns. Doing so has been illegal for nearly a century, and some firearm safety advocates are warning that the proposed change could bring unintended consequences.

‘Bypassing a longstanding law’

Efforts to undo the ban on mailing handguns first came when the Postal Service introduced a rule change “bypassing a longstanding law prohibiting the practice,” said The Trace. It has been illegal to mail concealable firearms like handguns since 1927, though the mailing of long-barreled weapons like rifles and shotguns is allowed if they are properly secured. The new rule would “expand the scope of mailable firearms” by “allowing lawful handguns to be mailed under the same terms and conditions as lawful rifles and shotguns,” according to the text of the rule in the Federal Register.

The push by the Postal Service seemed to come largely at the behest of the Trump administration. The proposal was introduced two months after a Justice Department opinion declared that a ban on handgun mailing was “unconstitutional as applied to constitutionally protected firearms” because it “serves an illegitimate purpose and is inconsistent with the nation’s tradition of firearm regulation.” If the rule passes, it will “allow people to use the Postal Service to mail handguns to each other within the same state without involving a licensed gun dealer,” said The Trace.

The rule would additionally let people “send handguns across state lines as long as they address the package to themselves ‘in the care of’ a resident in the destination state,” said The Trace. It would also lift the prohibition on mailing handguns to out-of-state gun dealers. Gun rights activists lauded the rule, which represents “another key victory for America’s law-abiding gun owners,” John Commerford, the executive director of the NRA Institute for Legislative Action, told the Los Angeles Times.

‘Gun trafficking pipeline’

Some are concerned that allowing handguns to be sent through the mail will increase the chances of gun-related crimes. Passing the rule would turn the Postal Service into a “gun trafficking pipeline” by giving “felons, abusers and straw purchasers a direct line to illegal firearms while stripping law enforcement of the tools they need to prevent and investigate gun crime,” John Feinblatt, the president of the nonprofit Everytown for Gun Safety, said to USA Today.

Others are worried that the rule would make the Postal Service the “only option for handgun owners seeking to mail their firearms,” said The Trace. FedEx and UPS only allow guns to be shipped by licensed dealers, while DHL “prohibits the shipping of firearms altogether.” There are concerns that forcing all handgun owners to go through one channel could instate new problems.

A group of 22 attorneys general from largely Democratic states has sent a letter to the Postal Service urging it not to pass the rule. “This irresponsible loophole blatantly disregards public safety and would create a direct strain on state resources,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta said in a statement. The rule is likely to be “challenged in court,” Andrew Willinger, an assistant professor of law at Georgia State University, told The Trace, because the 1927 statute “says mailing concealable firearms is prohibited.”

The sound of typing has been the background hum of office work for a century and half. But now it’s all about whispers.

After years of bashing typewriters, then tapping keyboards, desk-bound employees are, in ever-increasing numbers, murmuring to AI dictation apps to send emails, draft reports and write code.

‘Double words per minute’

Voice-to-text software has been around since the 1960s but it was always “clunky” and slow and “never worked quite right”, said employment reporter Jo Constantz on Bloomberg. But now advances in AI have made it “viable”: it can “take the messiness of speech and package it into something more useful”.

Early adopters of AI dictation apps are “drawn inexorably to the promise of ever-greater productivity”. In “voice mode”, you can produce double the words-per-minute than you can when typing.

Dictation is definitely “having a moment”, said Joe Castaldo, business reporter at Canada’s The Globe and Mail. More and more software engineers, in particular, are switching from “pressing keys individually” to “adopting AI-powered speech-to-text apps to verbally issue instructions” to tools such as Anthropic’s Claude Code. Eight months ago, internet entrepreneur Reid Hoffman posted on his LinkedIn platform that he has been “voicepilled”: he’d realised you can “amplify your ability” by “seriously using your voice to interact with technology”.

Start-ups today are like “a high-end call centre – except everyone is chatting with AI”, one venture capitalist told The Wall Street Journal. There is an “etiquette”: “users try to keep their voices low and often wear headphones to block out sound from their dictating neighbours, dialling down the annoyance factor”. But talking to yourself is still “weird, if not a little embarrassing”.

‘Velocity towards voice’

It’s too early to say if and when “the Qwerty keyboard might follow the ticker tape and fax machines into obsolescence” but “the velocity towards voice is accelerating”, Dylan Fox, CEO of San Francisco-based AssemblyAI, told the Los Angeles Times. We’re predicting a 10 to 100-fold “increase in demand for voice, AI applications and interfaces”.

There’s now “a mad dash to dominate any corner of the evolving field”, said Bloomberg’s Constantz. The market for AI voice generators alone is estimated to be worth $7.7 billion (£5.75 billion) this year, rising to $21.8 billion (£16.27 billion) by the end of the decade, according to US consulting firm Grand View Research.

Google, Apple and Microsoft have invested heavily in their voice-to-text products, and dictation app start-ups – many with variations of “whisper” in their name – have experienced remarkable growth over the past year. After all, Superwhisper founder Neil Chudleigh told The Globe and Mail, “we’re talking about replacing every keyboard on the planet”.

Conservatives have long gone after what they perceive as discrimination against whites in hiring and have now found their latest target. The Florida attorney general sent the National Football League investigative subpoenas over alleged civil rights violations in its hiring practices. The issue centers on a longstanding NFL rule, and an investigation by Florida could have wider implications for diversity in sports.

‘Raises more questions’

The escalation began when Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier (R) issued a letter to the NFL earlier this year, alleging that its Rooney Rule violates Florida’s civil rights laws. The rule, in place since 2003, requires all NFL teams to “interview at least two external minority candidates for open head coach, coordinator and general manager jobs,” said Politico. Though his letter led the NFL to alter some of the diversity language on its website, Uthmeier claims the league didn’t go far enough with its changes, resulting in him doubling down with the May 13 subpoenas.

“We appreciate how quickly the NFL changed its website in response to our letter and capitulated on some of their discriminatory hiring quotas,” Uthmeier said on social media. But the NFL’s response “raises more questions about the Rooney Rule, and we look forward to their cooperation with the investigative subpoena.” The subpoenas are Uthmeier’s way of “keeping pressure on the NFL after he previously gave the league a May 1 deadline to scrap the Rooney Rule,” said Politico.

The NFL showed no signs of capitulating. The league’s diversity efforts are “consistent with both Florida and federal law,” NFL General Counsel Ted Ullyot said in a responding letter. The Rooney Rule “doesn’t impose any hiring quotas or mandates nor does it even limit who may be interviewed,” and “diversity of the candidate pool, both on the field and off, is also a critical part of the NFL’s success.” The league itself “does not permit the consideration of race, sex or any other legally protected characteristic in any hiring decisions or employment actions.”

‘An existential challenge’

Florida’s subpoenas are “just the latest target of MAGA backlash to diversity, equity and inclusion efforts,” said NPR. While the effectiveness of the Rooney Rule has been “panned by many, including coaches, former coaches, the NFL Players Association and football fans,” continued legal pushes could represent an “existential challenge” to the NFL’s hiring practices.

Legal challenges could also expand to other areas of the NFL beyond the Rooney Rule. Uthmeier’s subpoena targets “many of the NFL’s diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, including a now-discontinued mandate that required teams hire a minority offensive assistant,” as well as the “league’s diversity accelerator program” and a rule related to compensatory draft picks if a “minority assistant coach or executive a team developed is hired away,” said ESPN.

Uthmeier’s threats “echo a broader campaign waged by the Trump administration,” said NPR. They come as the White House and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) have “now made tackling discrimination against white people, especially men, a priority.” While there could be implications for the NFL, the effect of the legal challenges could also be seen beyond sports. The head of the EEOC has repeatedly “warned employers that even in the interview selection process, they should not take into consideration a candidate’s race, sex or any other protected characteristic” of the Civil Rights Act.

Reading test scores have been on the decline since the mid-2010s, then the pandemic made recovery that much more difficult. And the proliferation of screens, student absenteeism and a push away from phonics-based teaching has further led to the reduction in scores.

Contributing factors 

The U.S. entered a “learning recession” in 2013 as “student progress in math and reading stalled and began to decline,” said Education Scorecard. From 2017 to 2019, “students lost as much ground in reading as they did during the pandemic, and reading scores continued to fall at a similar rate through 2024,” said The New York Times. Reading scores were “down last year in 83% of school districts where data was available,” while “math scores were down in 70%,” compared to a decade ago. The declines have “affected both rich and poor districts, and crossed racial and geographic divides.”

The reduced scores “coincided with a dismantling of test-based accountability in schools and a dramatic rise in social media use among young people,” said Education Scorecard. While it “remains unclear whether and how much each factor caused the decline in scores, both are likely candidates.” The shift is an "enormous problem that’s not getting enough attention,” Nat Malkus, a senior fellow studying education policy at the American Enterprise Institute, said to the Times.

A variety of factors have reduced reading capabilities in students. For years, “schools taught reading using approaches that deemphasized phonics and encouraged strategies such as guessing words based on context clues,” said The Associated Press. In addition, the pandemic “accelerated learning declines, especially for the poorest students,” and to this day, student absenteeism “remains higher than prepandemic,” said the Times.

Over the past decade, screen time has also increased exponentially. “There’s no question that swiping has decreased students’ focus and persistence, and time on devices has displaced time spent reading or studying,” said the Times. “Far more teenagers — nearly one in three — now say they ‘never or hardly ever’ read for fun.” The good news is that “some states and school districts are making progress,” said the AP. A “common factor was a shift toward phonics-based instruction and providing extra support in other ways as well for struggling readers.”

Little recovery

“Scores inched upward in reading last year and have climbed more steadily in math since 2022,” said the Times. But “it has been nowhere near enough to make up for lost ground.” Only “five states plus the District of Columbia had meaningful growth in reading test scores from 2022 to 2025,” said the AP. Nationally, “students remain nearly half a grade level behind prepandemic reading scores and only slightly better in math.”

The country has also seen a U-shaped recovery, which “suggests the middle has been left behind,” said Education Scorecard. There have been “larger improvements among the highest-income and the lowest-income school districts in the country,” while “middle-income districts (those with between 30% and 70% of students receiving federally subsidized lunches) have seen the least improvement on average.” The pandemic “was the mudslide that had followed seven years of steady erosion in achievement,” Thomas Kane, a Harvard professor who helped create the Education Scorecard, said to the AP.

In the early 1950s, thousands of UN troops in Korea fell ill with a mysterious fever, said Chris Smith in The Spectator. Doctors suspected that a virus might be to blame – but it wasn’t until 1978 that a Korean scientist isolated the culprit in a mouse, and named it after a nearby river, the Hantan.

He also showed that hantaviruses, which are carried by rodents, can be inhaled by humans in dust contaminated by droppings or urine. The troops had likely kicked the virus up as they dug foxholes.

Old vs. New World

Since then, numerous strains that can be transmitted to humans have been identified. They divide into two groups: Old World hantaviruses, in Europe and Asia, cause kidney dysfunction and have a mortality rate of 1% to 15%; New World ones, in the Americas, lead to severe lung infections and are fatal in around 40% of cases. It was the latter group that caused the outbreak on the cruise ship MV Hondius, and specifically the Andes strain, the only hantavirus that – in very rare cases – can pass from human to human.

It is not yet clear how this outbreak started, said Esther Addley in The Guardian, but it is thought that one, or possibly two, passengers were carrying the virus, which has an incubation period of up to 42 days, when they boarded the ship in Argentina on 1 April. A Dutch ornithologist who fell ill on 6 April and died five days later has been identified as “patient zero”. He had spent months travelling in South America with his wife – who died on 26 April. A German woman then died on 2 May. By 10 May, seven others had fallen ill.

No pandemic

This week, 20 British nationals on board flew home to the UK, and were bussed to an isolation facility on the Wirral, said Sarah Knapton in The Daily Telegraph. Described as healthy, they were assessed for 72 hours and then asked to self-isolate at home for 42 days.

Health officials have stressed that we are not facing a pandemic. The Andes strain does not spread easily: it requires intimate or very close contact. And though many passengers left the ship weeks ago, there have so far been no “third-generation” cases – among people who were not on board. Given the virus’s incubation period, clinicians say that 21 June is the date to watch: if there have been no third-generation cases by then, it means the outbreak has run its course.

Since it swept to power in 2014, little has stood in the way of India's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the party of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

But West Bengal – India's fourth-most populous state – was a rare exception, said Nadim Asrar in Al Jazeera (Doha). Well over 25% of its some 105 million population is Muslim, and for the past 15 years its voters have spurned the Hindu nationalist BJP in favour of the centrist Trinamool Congress (TMC), whose leader, Mamata Banerjee, has sought to appeal to Muslims and Hindus alike.

But all that changed last week, when the BJP won a “stunning” majority of 207 seats in the state's 294-member assembly.

Dislodging ‘Didi’

It's hard to exaggerate just how stunning this victory is, said Sadanand Dhume in The Wall Street Journal. It's a bit like the Democrats winning the governorship of Texas for the first time in a landslide.

The 71-year-old Banerjee is India's fiercest female politician and one of Modi's toughest critics. Her supporters refer to her as “Didi” (older sister), and love her for her disdain of luxury – she wears “simple” saris and flip-flops. But her detractors regard her as a petty despot who has “pandered to fundamentalist Muslims”.

And the BJP was determined to dislodge her, said Robin Jeffrey on Inside Story (Melbourne). West Bengal is a prize they've hungered for. Its capital, Kolkata, was once “the intellectual centre of India” and home to many of the heroic events and figures revered by the BJP. So Modi's people “threw a kitchen full of sinks at Banerjee and her party”.

‘Ferrari and a bicycle’

That they did, said the Deccan Herald (Bengaluru). In the run-up to last month's vote, the election commission – a supposedly independent body often accused of doing the BJP's bidding – stripped more than nine million names, nearly 12% of the total, from the state's electoral register under a process called Special Intensive Revision. The ostensible aim was to remove alleged illegal migrants from neighbouring Bangladesh from the rolls. And at least 2.7 million people, mostly Muslims, were thus excluded from voting.

In dozens of constituencies, the BJP's margin of victory was smaller than the number of voters removed, said Aparna Bhattacharya on The Wire (New Delhi). But, in fairness, the BJP would probably have prevailed in any case. “Didi” had been in power too long: her TMC had grown increasingly unpopular over issues such as high unemployment.

With “Didi” gone, Modi is close to “his dream of an opposition-free India”, said Alex Travelli in The New York Times. The BJP now controls 20 of the 28 state governments, a dominance not seen since Congress Party rule in the 1960s. And as the BJP's income is six times that of its nearest rival, it will be hard for other parties to compete, said Nadim Asrar.

It's “a race between a Ferrari and a bicycle”, as the writer Arundhati Roy once put it. Good for Modi, maybe, but perhaps not so good for India.

This March, a car carrying alleged Sinaloa cartel figure Francisco “El Payin” Beltrán mysteriously exploded on a busy Mexican highway outside the capital city. The incident, said CNN, was part of an “expanded and previously unreported CIA campaign” that has sent American assets to “dismantle the entrenched cartel networks” in Mexico. Both the CIA and the Mexican government have denied the network’s allegations of an agency-run disruption program south of the border, even as newly reported details suggest a complex — and widening — operation.

Source of friction with Mexico

“Since last year” CIA assets have “directly participated in deadly attacks on several, mostly mid-level cartel members” on Mexican soil, said CNN. The operations are a “significant expansion of the kind of thing the CIA has been willing to do inside Mexico,” with the “lethality” of their work “seriously ramped up,” said a source to the outlet. The covert CIA presence comes largely in the form of the agency’s “elite Ground Branch unit,” whose work reportedly includes “directly participating in ​targeted assassinations,” said Reuters.

The renewed focus on potential CIA activity within Mexico comes as President Donald Trump pursues an “aggressive campaign” against alleged Latin American drug cartels, a campaign that critics claim has “overstepped legal and presidential norms,” said Al Jazeera. The effort has been a “source of friction with Mexico” and culminated last month in a threat from President Claudia Sheinbaum to “sanction authorities” who allegedly allowed CIA operatives to “participate in raids on clandestine drug laboratories.”

Still, after Beltrán’s death, Sheinbaum, in a press briefing, “strongly denied that CIA agents were operating in Mexico, let alone working there to kill someone,” said The New York Times. The CIA also rejected CNN’s allegations as “false and salacious,” said agency spokesperson Liz Lyons on X.

The “presence of CIA agents on the ground in Mexico,” for the second time in less than a month, has “unsettled the Sheinbaum administration,” said El País. “At different times” denials from the CIA and Sheinbaum government might have “resonated more strongly with the public,” but “in light of the events of recent weeks, doubts now surround their statements.”

‘Who did this?’

Security officials from both governments have “repeatedly” said their anti-cartel cooperation is “limited to intelligence sharing and training, with no on-the-ground role for U.S. forces,” the Times said. Crucially, operations with potential CIA involvement often attract “little attention outside of Mexico or in some cases beyond even the specific region where they take place,” CNN said. That localization, combined with the relative obscurity of many of the intended targets, has allowed the CIA’s involvement to “remain a secret” in a “playbook” not dissimilar to “counterterrorism missions designed to destroy groups in the Middle East.”

The CIA “definitely wanted this incident to create the question in everyone’s mind of ‘who did this?,’” said a former agency paramilitary officer to CNN about Beltrán’s death. It is also “in the Mexican government’s interest” to accept the CIA’s denials of its participation in operations on Mexican soil “given the taboo of direct U.S. intervention,” said The Washington Examiner.

Hearing that one football club has spied on another “conjures images of classic, covert espionage”, said the BBC. But, as Middlesbrough have found out, sometimes it’s “not that difficult”.

The English Football League has charged Southampton with spying on their opponents two days before the first leg of the Championship play-off semi-final on Tuesday. Middlesbrough claim the supposed spy was a Southampton analyst observing a training session.

Southampton then beat Middlesbrough in extra-time of the second leg to progress to the play-off final at Wembley, but the Middlesbrough manager, Kim Hellberg, has accused them of trying to cheat in what has become known as “spygate”.

‘Understandably incensed’

Southampton have launched an internal review to “ensure that all facts and context are properly understood” before “conclusions are drawn”, said chief executive Phil Parsons. “Given the intensity of the fixture schedule and the short turnaround between matches, we have requested time to complete that process thoroughly and responsibly.”

But the club have “not tried to fight the accusation that they tried to gain an unfair advantage”, said The Telegraph. They reportedly claimed the analyst was “acting on his own initiative and had not been instructed to travel to Rockliffe Hall hotel, adjacent to Boro’s training ground, to spy on Kim Hellberg and his players”. Middlesbrough, though, were “understandably incensed” after their media team “caught the spy lurking near some bushes with professional surveillance equipment”.

Boro have also “been led to believe by whistleblowers that this is not the first time Southampton have spied on their opponents’ training sessions”.

Cases of spying were “practically unheard of” until 2019, said the BBC, when Leeds United boss Marcelo Bielsa admitted he had sent a member of staff to spy on “every team they played that season”.

At that time, there was no specific regulation against spying; “bullish” Bielsa “even paid the fine himself”. The EFL then introduced rule 127: “no club shall directly or indirectly observe (or attempt to observe) another club's training session in the period of 72 hours prior to any match”.

That’s what Southampton have been charged with breaching, as well as rule 3.4: clubs must “act towards each other with the utmost good faith”.

But perhaps the “most high-profile case of spying” was during the 2024 Olympics in Paris, when New Zealand’s women’s football team spotted a drone above their training session before their game against Canada. French police found its operator: a member of Canada’s staff.

That it was Canada who “performed such an egregious breach of the rules”, a country “known for its people being polite, respectful, laidback and just terribly nice”, added to “the ironic drama”, said The Athletic.

‘Tainted triumph’

Back in the Championship, “spygate 2.0 has become the biggest crisis in play-off history”, said The Independent. And it risks being “Spygate £200 million”, the potential value of a place in the Premier League, if – as predicted – Southampton beat Hull in the final at Wembley on 23 May. If they do, it will be a “tainted triumph”.

The EFL is in an “impossible position”; Southampton would usually have 14 days to respond to the charges, but the EFL has asked the independent disciplinary commission to fast-track the case, given the time pressure. There are also “logistical issues as well as moral ones”.

The “nuclear option” – expelling Southampton from the play-offs – creates “an almighty mess”. But finding them guilty and fining them would cost far less than the prize for promotion, which isn’t likely to “assuage Middlesbrough”.

Meanwhile, Middlesbrough are in “limbo”, continuing to train in case they have to take Southampton’s place in the play-offs. Southampton or the EFL could also appeal any verdict, but Middlesbrough cannot, although they could pursue legal action.

Some Southampton fans are planning to go to Wembley “dressed as hedges or carrying binoculars”. But for Boro and the EFL “this is no laughing matter”.

As the Trump administration scrambles to control its war with Iran, both countries have turned to an unexpected moderator: Pakistan, which has led multiple rounds of ceasefire negotiations between the two nations. Now, Pakistan is quietly growing its influence in the region while Washington and Tehran circle one another for another round of talks.

From ‘kind of a sideshow’ to being in Trump’s ‘favor’

Islamabad’s role as a major player in this conflict, for many observers, has “come as a surprise,” given Pakistan’s “global position, domestic challenges” and “volatile relationship” with the first Trump administration, said the Chicago Council on Global Affairs (CCGA). But “perhaps it shouldn’t,” the BBC said.

Pakistani Field Marshal Asim Munir “is in U.S. President Donald Trump’s favor,” with the president asserting that the Pakistani leader knows Iran “better than most.” Pakistan, in its own messaging, has hailed a “brotherly” relationship with neighboring Iran, with the two nations sharing “deep cultural and religious ties,” said the BBC.

Although Pakistan was “kind of a sideshow” during the first Trump administration, it has “really reached out” to both the White House and “Donald Trump personally, as well as his family members, to try to build influence in Washington,” CCGA said. Pakistan’s connections to Saudi Arabia and China have also allowed it to “place itself in a mediator role” with a “greater level of geopolitical clout and influence than we might have expected a couple of years ago.”

Given Pakistan’s reputation for corruption and military authoritarianism, it “would not be an exaggeration” to describe it as a “failed state,” said The Spectator. But simply “being a nuclear power” affords Pakistan a “head start in terms of credibility” by gracing Islamabad with the “nuclear aura that Iran would love to possess.” China, which has played a “background but crucial role” in the peace negotiations, has also had a “longstanding close relationship” with Islamabad, as both nations “enjoy common cause against India.”

Pakistan as a ‘responsible middle power’

“Playing the role of mediator” between the United States and Iran — or “at least message-bearer” — has “been a boon for Islamabad,” Le Monde said. The country has undergone “its authoritarian drift,” in which it “silenced its large Shiite minority during the war and solidarity movements with Iran.”

After having sheltered Osama bin Laden, Pakistan “wants to convince international opinion that it is no longer a breeding ground for terrorism,” said Gilles Boquérat, an associate researcher at the Foundation for Strategic Research, to Le Monde. Instead, it is portraying itself as a “responsible middle power, capable of ensuring regional security from the Arabian Peninsula to the Indian border.”

But Pakistan’s ties with Iran have earned Islamabad its share of critics during the current war, including Sen. Lindsey Graham (R.-S.C.). “I don’t trust Pakistan as far as I can throw them,” Graham said during a Senate hearing this week regarding reports that the Pakistani government has aided Iranian forces. “If they actually do have Iranian aircraft parked in Pakistan bases to protect Iranian military assets, that tells me we should be looking maybe for somebody else to mediate.”

GPS jamming across the Middle East has exploded since the US and Israel began their war against Iran in February, “plunging both sides into an ‘electronic warfare arms race’”, said The Independent.

“Underlying the dramatic clashes across the region”, forces on all sides are “quietly fighting an invisible war by land, air and sea, distorting tracking information to sow chaos or hide in plain sight”.

‘Electronic warfare arms race’

Jamming of the Global Positioning System (GPS) works by disrupting signals from global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) with electromagnetic noise. “Spoofing” is more sophisticated and involves transmitting fake signals to provide a false location. Both are used to distort drone and missile guidance systems.

Interference “isn’t a new phenomenon”, said CNN. It has been used in modern warfare since the Second World War but has become “a major issue” for shipping and aircraft since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The problem is now “endemic” in regions such as the Baltic Sea, Black Sea and parts of the Middle East, said Michelle Wiese Bockmann, from shipping intelligence firm Windward.

While all sides engage in it, Iran is particularly “prolific” in spoofing. Tehran uses it to “add confusion and disrupt any of the allied intelligence gathering”, said Philip Ingram, an intelligence expert and former British Army colonel.

The tools used by Iran are likely to be domestically produced or made with equipment sourced from Russia or China, Thomas Withington, from the Royal United Services Institute think tank, told the BBC.

Tracking ‘has stopped telling the truth’

The problem with GPS jamming is that it cannot be contained within precise geographic boundaries and does not discriminate between military and commercial systems.

On the first day of the war alone, electronic interference disrupted the navigation systems of more than 1,100 commercial ships in UAE, Qatari, Omani and Iranian waters, according to a Windward report cited by Inside GNSS.

“The missiles and drones make for good headlines, but they’re a distraction,” said Erik Bethel, from investment firm Mare Liberum, and Windward CEO Ami Daniel in Fortune. The “real story” is that the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world’s oil and gas passes, has “gone dark. Not in some poetic sense, but literally.”

In effect, the Automatic Identification System (AIS) – the network that’s supposed to be the “gold standard” for commercial tracking and is used by ships to avoid one another – “has stopped telling the truth”.

The same thing happened in the region last year during the 12-day war between Israel and Iran and has also troubled vessel navigators in the Baltic Sea. But “this is next-level”, said Bockmann. “We can’t over-estimate the huge danger this places to maritime navigation and safety.”

“Without reliable and accurate” navigation systems, ships are “effectively sailing blind”, said The Wall Street Journal.

‘Anti-jam antenna system’

There are various technologies that offer protection against GPS jamming. These can include “automatically detecting jamming or interference and switching to unaffected frequencies”, said the BBC.

UK defence giant Raytheon produces an “anti-jam antenna system” device the size of an ice hockey puck that can be installed on different kinds of vehicles and uses multiple channels to overcome jamming. Other companies have “developed navigation tools that work around GPS’s flaws”.

Alternative navigational tools that do not rely on GPS at all but instead harness quantum technology are also in development “but remain a long way off operational use”, said CNN.

“GNSS is a wonder of the modern world,” said Ramsey Faragher, chief executive of the Royal Institute of Navigation in London. “You can switch it on and within a few seconds, it works out where you are to within a metre and what time it is to within a nanosecond. Unfortunately, the luxurious era of those signals not being messed about with intentionally is over. We need to rapidly catch up.”

With the Supreme Court set to rule on President Donald Trump’s challenge to birthright citizenship, an oft-cited practice is at the center of it all. The practice, called birth tourism, has become commonplace for women who want their kids to have U.S. citizenship. But the Supreme Court may further support the Trump administration’s anti-immigration stance by cracking down on it.

‘Side issue into a main argument’

Birth tourism occurs when pregnant women from other nations “travel to the U.S. for the purpose of giving birth, thereby obtaining citizenship for their babies,” said The Philadelphia Inquirer. The practice is regularly mentioned by legal scholars, yet birth tourism is “actually rare, despite the outsized role it’s gained in the debate over citizenship.” There are about 26,000 cases of birth tourism in the U.S. annually, according to the Migration Policy Institute.

While this is just a small fraction of the 3.5 million yearly U.S. births, the White House has “elevated what was once a side issue into a main argument for revocation,” said the Inquirer. It is part of Trump’s “aggressive immigration agenda that includes attempts to restrict birthright citizenship,” said Newsweek. Trump signed an order banning birthright citizenship in 2025, triggering a “series of legal challenges now before the Supreme Court” given that the practice is enshrined in the 14th Amendment.

The Trump administration continues to use birth tourism as a primary point of contention when presenting its case to the court. Immigration laws have “spawned a sprawling industry of birth tourism as uncounted thousands of foreigners from potentially hostile nations have flocked to give birth in the United States in recent decades, creating a whole generation of American citizens abroad with no meaningful ties to the United States,” U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer said in oral arguments to the Supreme Court.

‘The scale of the problem is marginal’

Even though the White House has positioned birth tourism as a major factor in why birthright citizenship should be overturned, proponents “say that the scale of the problem is marginal,” said The New York Times. They typically “argue that it can be addressed through regulation and law enforcement without eliminating what has long been considered a central tenet of the United States — equality at birth, regardless of race, religion or the immigration status of the parents.”

Republicans have long used birth tourism as a way to highlight criminal enterprises. In 2019, officials in California “arrested three people who operated multimillion-dollar birth tourism companies and had charged as much as $100,000 to Chinese couples” for a luxury bundle that included “housing, nannies and shopping excursions to Gucci,” said the Times. GOP lawmakers have also “cited birth tourism in the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. territory that has looser visa requirements and is closer to China.”

Support for overturning birthright citizenship remains low. Nearly two-thirds of Americans, 65%, think citizenship “should be granted to all children born on American soil, no matter the circumstances,” according to a recent AP-NORC survey of 2,596 adults. Republicans are less convinced; only 44% are in favor of birthright citizenship. “It’s fundamental to sovereignty, being able to determine who is a citizen,” said Jessica Vaughan, the director of policy studies for the Center for Immigration Studies, to the Times.

Is Benjamin Netanyahu's time finally up? Is Israel's longest-serving prime minister, in power for almost 15 of the past 17 years, heading for a fall at the forthcoming October general election?

Following the decisive move made by Israel's opposition parties last week, that is now a real possibility, said Ravit Hecht in Haaretz (Tel Aviv). The hardline right-winger Naftali Bennett and the centrist Yair Lapid have announced they will be merging their two parties to form a single party called Yachad (Together). Prior to their announcement, polls had Bennett's party projected to win 21 seats and Lapid's party seven. A total of 28 seats would make Yachad the biggest party in the 120-seat Knesset, ahead of Netanyahu's Likud, on a projected 25.

‘Era of correction’

This pair have teamed up before, said Philissa Cramer on the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. After the 2021 election that briefly dislodged Netanyahu from office, before he stormed back in late 2022, they struck an unusual power-sharing deal, agreeing to take it in turns to serve as prime minister. And this time they are presenting their combined party as a more permanent antidote to the polarisation in Israeli society that has deepened under Netanyahu. “Our unity is a message to the entire people of Israel,” declared Bennett on announcing the merger. “The era of division is over. The era of correction has arrived.”

Don't be so sure, said Ori Wertman in The Jerusalem Post. This merger may well backfire. True, the two men have agreed on some significant issues, including the need for an eight-year cap on a PM's time in office and for a full army draft with sanctions on Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) draft evaders. But the fact remains that Bennett is an Orthodox Jew who has called for the annexation of parts of the West Bank: in teaming up with Lapid, a secular Jew who has previously endorsed the two-state solution, he may well prompt some of his supporters to defect to Likud.

Conversely, Lapid's shift to the right – he has agreed to rule out the possibility of a coalition with any of Israel's Arab parties – will alienate much of his moderate base. And indeed, the first post-merger poll projects the new party winning just 26 seats, not the 28 total forecast when the two parties were running separately.

‘Same troubled system’

Still, there is a clear political logic behind the merger, said Aaron T. Walter in The Times of Israel. Lapid's support has crashed since his party won 24 seats in the last election, while Bennett – who is going to lead the new party – has gained in popularity. The trouble is, Yachad has a “core arithmetic problem”.

Without Arab parties, which it has ruled out as potential coalition partners, its only hope of securing the 61 seats needed for a majority is to lure Gadi Eisenkot, former chief of staff of the Israel Defence Forces, in to join the party. Eisenkot's military credentials and his moving personal story of having lost a son to the war in Gaza have made him a leading contender of the Right. But for that very reason he'd probably only join if made leader, something Bennett has made plain he won't countenance.

But what would a Yachad victory actually achieve, asked David Issacharoff in Haaretz. Lapid and Bennett are keen to highlight the corruption charges Netanyahu has managed to fend off by staying in power, and to blame him for the security failures that enabled Hamas's October 2023 attack. But on the big questions – how to extricate Israel from the conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon; how to prevent settler violence in the West Bank – they've nothing new to say.

Yachad's central weakness, said Hani Hazaimeh in Arab News (Riyadh), is that its focus is simply on removing Netanyahu from office. By refusing to address “the unresolved Palestinian issue” and “the normalisation of military-first policies”, they have missed the chance to redefine Israel's future in any meaningful way. Even if his rivals do displace him, Netanyahu's fall would be less a “political revolution” and more a “reshuffling of power within the same troubled system”.

While the “Avatar” movie series remains one of director James Cameron’s most celebrated works, a new lawsuit revolving around the first film could have widespread implications. The lawsuit, which accuses Cameron of using a performer’s image without permission, comes amid concerns about the legal ownership of actors’ faces.

‘Without credit or compensation’

The actor Q’orianka Kilcher filed a lawsuit alleging that in 2005, when she was 14, Cameron “extracted her facial features” from a movie about Pocahontas called “The New World” then “directed his design team to use it as the foundation for the character of Neytiri” in 2009’s “Avatar,” said a release about the suit, per NBC News. Kilcher’s face was supposedly “captured in production sketches, sculpted into maquettes and laser-scanned into high-resolution digital models, then distributed across multiple visual effects vendors to render Neytiri’s final appearance.”

Kilcher’s face as Neytiri “went on to appear in the films, on movie posters and on merchandise, without her knowledge or consent,” the release said. Kilcher is of Native Peruvian heritage, and the case “exposes how one of Hollywood’s most powerful filmmakers” used Kilcher’s “cultural heritage to create a record-breaking film franchise — without credit or compensation to her — through a series of deliberate, non-expressive commercial acts,” the lawsuit said.

‘In the age of AI, our likeness is no longer safe’

The lawsuit raises broad concerns about who truly owns actors’ likenesses: the actors themselves or the studios they work for. It is possible that lawyers for Cameron and Disney “will be able to make some kind of fair use argument here, claiming that Neytiri is enough of a transformation of Kilcher’s original appearance as to be cleared of any of her claims,” said the AV Club.

This case revolves around a “complex area of the law that has taken on a new immediacy in the age of generative AI, an emerging technology that allows anyone with an internet connection to easily create images that replicate existing art, photographs and human likenesses,” said The New York Times. Laws attempt to balance First Amendment rights by “distinguishing between commercial exploitation” and artistic works. But “there is not always a bright line,” Jennifer E. Rothman, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania, said to the Times.

The lawsuit “reflects a core fear among Hollywood performers in the artificial intelligence age: losing control of their own faces,” said the Times. And such a problem could seep into the general public as well. New pushes against AI are “less about the technology than who owns your image, voice and likeness,” said Forbes. The “fight over AI has entered a harder phase, one measured in licensing fees, fraud claims, takedown demands and liability.” Celebrities are simply an “early test case,” as the law must now reckon with a question “it did not have to answer at this scale before: When does a digital version of a person become something that person can control?”

As the debate over likeness usage rages, actors like Kilcher are standing up for themselves. “In the age of AI, our likeness is no longer safe,” Kilcher told the Times. “While what happened to me is personal, it’s also a big warning that, if we don’t act now, this type of thing will become standard. This case is about the future of identity.”