Alan Greenspan was perhaps the most influential economic policymaker of his or any era. The former Federal Reserve chairman died this week at 100, leaving behind a debate about whether he supercharged the American economy or inadvertently caused its near-destruction.

Greenspan “helped define modern American capitalism” during his two-decade Fed tenure, said NBC News. Greenspan’s policy judgments “created an enormous amount of wealth and prosperity for our country” during the decade-long economic expansion of the 1990s, Kevin Hassett, the director of the National Economic Council, said to CNBC. On the flip side, critics say the Ayn Rand acolyte’s embrace of laissez-faire capitalism set the stage for the financial collapse that caused the late aughts’ Great Recession. Greenspan’s push to deregulate financial institutions “stripped away key safeguards, which could have helped avoid catastrophe,” the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission said in a 2011 report.

Good? Or lucky?

Greenspan was a “maestro of monetary policy,” said The Economist. His Federal Reserve “kept the American economy humming” through one of the longest economic booms on record. But it was not long after he left the Fed that the global financial crisis arrived. Greenspan defended the institution’s “light regulatory touch” that critics blamed for the crash, and he argued that the Obama administration’s interventions were “preventing the massive correction” that markets needed to recover. Such excuse-making raised a question about Greenspan’s formerly shiny reputation: “Had he been good, or merely lucky, and then unlucky?”

No one promoted the free-market system “with more ardor” than Alan Greenspan, Roger Lowenstein said at The New York Times. Those principles “work well most of the time,” but the 2008 financial collapse “was not one of those times.” Greenspan’s Federal Reserve “failed to crack down on hyperpermissive lending terms” that let Americans too easily borrow too much money for houses they could not afford. The damage to Greenspan’s reputation “should be imprinted” in the memory of every economic policymaker.

Greenspan’s “worst moment” came when he pronounced himself “shocked” that banks had failed to protect themselves or their shareholders in the rush to make bigger profits, said The Wall Street Journal. In truth, Greenspan had a “keen” understanding that “government can’t fine-tune the economy or create wealth.”

Lessons for Kevin Warsh

Greenspan’s supporters remember his Fed delivering “mostly stable prices, booming asset markets and steady economic growth,” Jonathan Levin said at Bloomberg. Those fans include Kevin Warsh, the new Fed chairman appointed by President Donald Trump. Warsh should understand that Greenspan’s hot economy was partly produced “from a good deal of economic and demographic luck” — the kind of positive development “Warsh can’t bet on today.”

The newly appointed Fed chairman should learn from Greenspan’s legacy as a “bipartisan operator,” Harry Kraemer said at Forbes. Greenspan served under both Republican and Democratic presidents, after all. The Fed’s commitment to “balancing low unemployment and rising inflation does not have to be politicized.”

What began as a photo opportunity between two world leaders has spiraled into geopolitical acrimony. An escalating war of words between President Donald Trump and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni over who asked whom to pose for a photograph at the recent G7 conference now threatens to impact material relations between the Trump administration and Italy’s right-wing government. As Trump rages on social media over the photo flap, Meloni returns to Italy with an eye toward next year’s national elections — and the benefits of being seen standing up to an increasingly unpopular American president.

‘Developing rift’ with origins in the Iran war

Meloni is “clearly irked” at Trump’s “suggestion that she ‘begged’ him for a photo” at the recent G7 summit, said NBC News. While the prime minister “didn’t respond publicly” to other Trump barbs this spring, the “most recent clash, by contrast, quickly escalated.”

Italy’s Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani “abruptly cancelled a planned trip” to the U.S. after calling Trump’s comments “serious and offensive” to the whole of Italy, said The Associated Press. “Italy and I never beg,” said Meloni in a video response posted to social media over the weekend.

The “continuing exchange” between the two leaders has “highlighted a developing rift between the two countries” stemming from Trump’s war on Iran, said the BBC. Trump and Meloni once enjoyed a “close political relationship,” with Meloni the “sole European leader” to have attended Trump’s second inauguration.

The binational relationship has “grown strained in recent months over the war in Iran,” said Axios, particularly after Italy “denied U.S. aircraft permission to land at its bases” in March. Trump’s relationship with Europe more broadly “had long been fraying” over the war with Iran, his trade policies and threats to annex Greenland, said the Los Angeles Times.

Still, while Trump took a “warmer tone toward other European leaders” at the G7 meeting as they “aligned behind his interim agreement” to pause fighting in Iran, “tensions again were expected to be on full display” at next month’s NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey. Meloni’s pushback on Trump’s photograph claim is a “punctuation mark” on a growing trend among European leaders to speak against the Trump administration, said CNN.

Electoral opportunity ‘deftly utilized’

Meloni had been trying to “preserve some harmony” between herself and Trump “until this week,” said The New York Times. She has “sought some distance” from the president now, as their “friendship became a political liability among Italian voters.” Meloni is “doing poorly in Italy with her level of popularity,” said Trump on Truth Social. Now that the U.S. has allegedly “defeated Iran militarily,” he continued, “she wants to be friends again in order to get her ‘numbers up.’ No thanks!!!"

Trump may be correct that Meloni’s furthering of this feud is being done with an eye toward domestic Italian politics, said Fox News. The prime minister “must have calculated” that a “public row” with Trump “yields no tangible consequences other than an increase in her domestic and international standing,” said Mattia Diletti, a political science lecturer at Sapienza University of Rome, to the outlet.

Trump’s story is nevertheless “very difficult to believe,” said MS NOW. Not only has he “peddled similar absurdities before,” but “he’s not at all popular in Italy,” leaving Meloni “no political incentive to be seen with him.” Meloni’s pushback to Trump comes as the premier “gears up for a reelection battle,” in which her “close relationship” with Trump has become an “increasing political liability,” said the Financial Times.

Meloni faced a “setback in her grip on power in Italy” in March, after her government lost a battle over justice reform, said Time. Critics saw that defeat as a “barometer of how Italians perceived her closeness" with Trump, and how they have been “troubled by Trump’s globally destabilizing actions.”

Meloni “deftly utilized the opportunity” presented by the president in his photography blame-game to “distance herself from Trump,” said the Financial Times. Italian diplomats are “now working in overdrive,” hoping to “limit the fallout or deter Trump from retaliating against Italy.” Meloni’s “international policy is in tatters,” said former Italian NATO Ambassador Stefano Stefanini to the outlet. In reimagining Italian foreign policy moving forward, she “has to be careful not to appear to flip-flop.” Italians will “remember her closeness to Trump, so she has to tread this very carefully.”

Elon Musk is now the world’s first trillionaire thanks to SpaceX’s record-breaking debut on the stock market. That milestone has produced a backlash with some Democratic officials reviving talk of a wealth tax.

The SpaceX initial public offering “thrust the richest man in the universe into an unexplored frontier of wealth,” said Wired, though much of that fortune is “tied up in shares” in SpaceX and Tesla. It also sparked a “tax-the-rich push” from Democrats, said Bloomberg. Musk’s vast holdings are a “sign the system is rigged,” Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) said in an email to supporters, per the outlet. A “typical” American family would “have to work more than 11 MILLION years to make Elon Musk’s level of wealth,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said on X.

The trillionaire backlash will likely be a “prominent theme” during the Democrats’ 2028 presidential primary, said Bloomberg, but it comes with a danger. Musk spent $291 million to help elect President Donald Trump in 2024, and “he shows every sign of staying in the game.”

‘World’s stingiest billionaire’

Musk’s “trillion-dollar payday” came from “generous government subsidies, years of government-funded research and government contracts,” Elizabeth Spiers said at The Nation. Yet society has decided to “treat Musk’s wealth as if it is fully earned,” even as he remains “one of the world’s stingiest billionaires in terms of philanthropic giving.” A broken system allows him to “keep accumulating money while giving little back.”

SpaceX is a “testament to human ingenuity, immigrant success and American greatness,” Jonah Goldberg said at the Los Angeles Times. If the trillionaire is successful in his goals, “he will be more responsible than any other human for making ours an interplanetary species.” The outrage over his riches can be attributed to “our obsession with income inequality,” but that is an “aesthetic complaint masquerading as a policy position.” The truth is that “no one was made poorer by Musk getting richer.” Instead, the wealth created by his companies help “grow the pie,” which in turn “means more pie for more people.”

‘Making everyone’s life better’

Democratic anger over Musk’s wealth “shows they don’t know how prosperity is created,” the Washington Examiner said in an editorial. The world’s richest man “hasn’t broken any rules,” but he does “provide immensely valuable services to millions of people, making everyone’s life better.”

Musk is a “poster child” for a billionaire class that has “more dollars than we have the ability to count,” Will Bunch said at The Philadelphia Inquirer. America’s ultra-rich continue to build unfathomable sums of wealth “even as thousands starve and his fellow Americans can’t pay the rent.” Musk has also used his wealth to buy the White House and stoke right-wing fury around the world via his social platform, X. It is time to “undo the massive policy failure of the world’s first trillionaire.”

It’s funny what the pressure of a ticking clock can do to a prime minister, said Hannah Barnes in The New Statesman. Just a few months ago, when more than 60 Labour MPs signed an open letter calling for a social media ban for under-16s, Keir Starmer wasn’t convinced. His own teenage children, he told MPs, had benefitted from using social media.

But with a leadership challenge looming, the panicking PM has suddenly “latched” on to this popular policy. He announced this week that, from next year, under-16s would be banned from social media platforms including Snapchat, TikTok, YouTube, X and Instagram. “I am not prepared to compromise on the safety and happiness of our children,” he declared.

Fencing the ocean

Strong rhetoric, said Christopher Snowdon in The Critic, yet this policy “has all the hallmarks of another government failure”. In Australia, a similar ban has proven almost totally ineffectual. Some 70% of parents whose children used social media before the ban say they still do so. Australia's e-safety commissioner, who is in charge of enforcing the ban, has said that it's like trying to “fence the ocean”.

There are countless reasons why blanket bans don’t work, said Chris Stokel-Walker in The Independent. You have to outwit 14-year-olds armed with VPNs, older siblings, and “group chats full of instructions”. Age verification is difficult. And even if you do get the kids off big social media sites, they “don’t suddenly take up whittling”. They move to darker, harder-to-regulate parts of the web: to Discord servers, private groups. “A serious government would force platforms to change their products”, as the campaigner Ian Russell has urged, so that they don’t pummel children with harmful content. “But this is a dead-duck administration grasping for a legacy.”

‘Multi-front’ battle

Besides, whatever happened to parenting, asked Daniel Hannan in the Daily Mail. Why use the “heavy hand” of the state, when the tide is already turning and most people now limit their kids’ screen time?

If only it were that easy, said Sam Leith in The Spectator. Like millions of other exhausted parents, I spend every day waging a “multi-front” battle against the screens: the iPhone and iPad, computer and PlayStation. I’ve set time limits, banned sites at the router, used third-party blockers. And yet still my children’s brains are being rotted by “AI slop, vacuous influencers” and silly videos, while I worry about far more damaging content. So, even if I have doubts about how it will work, I love the idea of the ban – like nine out of ten British parents consulted.

Until now, we’ve been fighting against the world’s most powerful tech companies almost totally unarmed, said Isabel Oakeshott in The Daily Telegraph. At last, the PM is giving us a “half-decent” weapon. Of course some children will get round the ban, as they do with underage drinking. But we haven’t abandoned the law on that, have we? I cannot wait to tell my teens “that lounging around on their screens is ‘literally illegal’”.

ITV has been accused of “unwitting sexism” after placing expert pundit Emma Hayes in a “bureau-meets-countryside-kitchen” set for its World Cup coverage, said The Times.

Hayes, the Londoner who is head coach of USA women and who won seven league titles with Chelsea, has been given an analysis slot during the new hydration breaks in World Cup matches and was in ITV’s Brooklyn studio for England’s victory over Croatia.

In “relegating” Hayes to using chalk and a blackboard, rather than the more customary interactive digital tools, on a set resembling a kitchen, ITV bosses have risked “reinforcing sexist stereotypes”.

Katie Bailiff, chief executive of charity Women in Film & TV, called it an “ill-conceived, damaging creative decision”, which has led to significant online criticism.

‘Intellect shone’

Hayes’ analysis has been “one of the triumphs of the tournament so far”, said Football365. ITV has “adroitly” leaned into her strengths by making the segment “as lo-fi as humanly possible”. Her blackboard insights gave “infinitely more value” than the “empty, lazy” cliches we are used to from the channel’s “tacticos”.

Her greatest asset is how “lightly she wears her vast and extensive knowledge”, digesting the game “without waffle or potential for bafflement” under intense time pressure.

The chalkboard set-up makes sense, said Molly Hudson in The Times. Hayes’ communication skills have helped her to the “pinnacle of the women’s game”. TV coverage is now “dominated by high-tech screens for analysis” by former players, so using the “classic prop for football managers” – especially one at the heart of the evolving game – is understandable. And she can add one more line to her “lengthy list of achievements”: she is the “woman who made hydration breaks fun”.

ITV has “bravely tried to innovate”, said Felix Keith in The Mirror. The BBC, who made the decision to broadcast from Salford, have “chosen to stick with what they know”, filling the time with back-and-forth between the commentator and co-commentator. But rather than copying their competitor, or using the breaks to “pump in another few minutes of adverts” like their American counterparts, ITV has given the stage to one of the world’s best managers to “educate us”.

Despite looking “a bit cheap”, the set had a “retro” feel and was “a bit of a throwback”, said Kathryn Batte in The Telegraph. It has been “genuinely refreshing” to see Hayes’ return after her absence from the 2022 men’s World Cup. ITV’s only failing is giving Hayes such a “short window” and not “maximising the air time of one of the best pundits at the tournament”.

‘Hung Hayes out to dry’

“Hayes’ ­intellect shone,” said The Times. But she was hampered by the ITV’s vision of an “old-school, retro, jumpers-for-goalposts vibe”. Without the “gizmos and graphics” afforded to her male colleagues, her “acute and informative” analysis was reduced to resemblances of “noughts and crosses”. “Lose the blackboard. She deserves better.”

Hayes is one of the “most decorated tacticians in world football”, said Louis Chilton in The Independent. But ITV’s decision to give her a “kitchen-esque backdrop” turned her insightful segments into “pure, uncut meme fodder”. The “inherently sexist optics” of positioning a female pundit in an “almost-kitchen” has “played into the hands of misogynist trolls”.

Hayes offers a “class of punditry that football sorely needs”. She stands alongside other established female commentators such as Karen Carney, Ellen White and Alex Scott who have bright careers in the field – “as long as ITV doesn’t put them in a kitchen, that is”.

“If you drew a Venn diagram of Emma Hayes’ critics and the fragile folk who cry ‘snowflake’ about others”, you would have drawn a circle, said Michael Hincks in The i Paper.

“The optics are awful from the World Cup broadcaster.” The lack of foresight to see that a “tinpot” chalkboard and kitchen setting would cause this much online furore is “naive”. It’s as if “someone ran to the nearest shop when realising drinks breaks equals more studio time”. The result is that ITV has “hung Hayes out to dry”.

When the “spine-tingling” trailer for Steven Spielberg’s “Disclosure Day” was released, many of us hoped that the great director would be delivering his “career-crowning masterpiece”, said Nicholas Barber on BBC Culture: a “profound last word” on aliens arriving on Earth, a topic that has obsessed him for years. Instead, we have a “flimsy, outdated car-chase thriller” that contains “no ideas about aliens that we haven’t heard before”.

Josh O’Connor stars as Daniel Kellner, a cybersecurity boffin who works for Wardex, a powerful US organisation that has for years been concealing proof of alien contact (yes, on one level it is “Men in Black”, but without the jokes). After stealing classified files, he becomes a fugitive pursued by Wardex’s sinister supremo (Colin Firth, “badly miscast”).

Instrumental to Kellner’s plan to expose Wardex is Margaret Fairchild (Emily Blunt), a television meteorologist who suddenly finds herself able to speak to aliens. Her scenes are “fantastic”: Spielberg should probably have made the film about her powers and “ditched the rest”.

‘Signature elegance’

There’s plenty of the director’s “signature elegance” to enjoy, said Robbie Collin in The Telegraph; some scenes move “with such breathless lucidity it is as if he is beaming excitement directly into your brain”. But the plotting is “woolly and lopsided”, while the tone is “an awkward mix of solemnity and silliness”.

I enjoyed it, said David Sexton in The New Statesman – it’s “as brilliantly filmed as anything Spielberg has ever made”, with a “marvellous” performance from Blunt and a “terrific” score from John Williams (his 30th for Spielberg). It’s a “corker, a proper summer blockbuster” and “a prime example of the genre he originally created with ‘Jaws’”.

The war against Iran upended the global economy and sent prices soaring. What happens now that a fragile peace has arrived?

Higher prices will “likely outlast the Iran war,” said The Associated Press. Fuel and food costs will come down slowly, airline tickets will stay pricey, and shipping costs will remain elevated as supply chain kinks are repaired after the Strait of Hormuz is reopened. There is a “good deal of uncertainty about how the reopening will unfold,” said David Ortega, a professor of food economics and policy at Michigan State University, to the AP.

Rebuilding ‘could take years’

The war “permanently altered” the global economy, said Patricia Cohen at The New York Times. Many countries discovered their “profound vulnerability” to shocks from relying on imported oil for energy supply, sparking a long-term “transition to renewables like solar and wind as well as nuclear power.” And China is “poised to benefit most” from that shift.

More broadly, the world economy has been “kicked onto a path of slower growth and higher prices,” said Cohen. Countries and businesses will not “simply pick up where they left off before the U.S. and Israel began bombing Iran.”

President Donald Trump long promised that oil prices would “drop like a rock” after the war ended. But that will be a “difficult promise for Trump to keep,” as the oil industry is experiencing “extraordinary practical challenges” to restoring supply chains disrupted by the war, said David Goldman at CNN. Tankers transiting the Strait of Hormuz face a “bottleneck” after Iran mined the passageway, leaving only “two narrow passageways” for safe travel. Gulf States will also need time to restart wells shut off during the war because there was no way to export the oil. Plus, rebuilding oil facilities damaged by attacks “could take years.”

The end of the war may mark a “new era of U.S. inequality,” said Matt Peterson at CNBC. The conflict heightened an “already historic disconnect” between Americans who “share in the affluence” generated by AI-driven stock market gains and “those who can’t.” The second group was forced to dip into its savings to pay for the “energy crunch” caused by the war, exacerbating already simmering economic tensions. The war “didn’t create American inequality, but it hasn’t helped.”

Volatility ‘already baked in’

It “may be too late” for Republicans to benefit from lower gas prices they hope will result from the new peace, said Politico. GOP officials fear that “voter perceptions of a sour economy are already baked in” to the midterm elections outlook.

The problem is that actual relief will take time to arrive. Price volatility is “expected to last beyond the summer months” and into campaign season. Voters are unlikely to “forget about the months and months of high gas prices that added to their pain” when they go to the polls in November, said Democratic pollster John Anzalone to Politico.

Apple introduced the iPhone to the world in 2007. That was the same year that birth rates around the world began to decline. And the two developments may be related.

“If your sex life is dead, you can blame Steve Jobs,” Brandon Vigliarolo said at The Register. Two new studies suggest smartphones are responsible for the baby bust. One study found the iPhone “caused as much as half of the fertility decline” from 2007 to 2011, said The New York Times. A second study of 128 countries found that teen pregnancies declined “once smartphones became a mass phenomenon.” It may be that people “began to socialize more on their phones and less in person,” or it could be that the technology “made pornography more accessible.”

Experts suggested caution is needed. Smartphones are just one “example of the kinds of social influences” that may have reduced fertility, said Wellesley College’s Phillip B. Levine to the Times.

‘Awkward, antisocial puppies’

Phones have “turned us into awkward, antisocial puppies who can’t handle eye contact,” said Lauren Veldhuizen at the National Review. The rise of smartphone technology has thus created a world in which “fewer people date and fewer babies are born.” Some might see the decline of teen pregnancies, in particular, as a positive development. But that would be true only if the decline were the result of an “increasing respect for the purpose of sex within the confines of marriage” instead of our increasing “inability to speak to one another.”

The media has glommed onto the new studies because of a collective mood of “total paranoia and doom about smartphones,” said Elizabeth Nolan Brown at Reason. The biggest plunges in the 2007-2011 study were among 15- to 24-year-old females, suggesting more girls and women are “avoiding unintended pregnancy at young ages.” The study’s time frame might also simply reflect the impact of the Great Recession. The research should be greeted “with some skepticism.”

Smartphones “short-circuit the deep-seated human need to have your kids keep you company,” said Noah Smith at Noahpinion. We are choosing to “forsake each other’s company to stare eternally into a black mirror.”

‘No easy fix’

Maybe smartphones first tarnished dating, but AI “might finish the job,” said Eric Levitz at Vox. Streaming and social media have helped us isolate from each other, yet online platforms could not discuss “your career anxieties, favorite Civil War battle or debilitating fear of iguanas.” Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini and other artificial intelligence chatbots can. “Humanity may be scrolling its way out of existence.”

There is “no easy fix here,” said Axios. Politicians have proposed “baby bonuses, tax credits or better child care and parental leave policies” to solve the fertility crisis, all to no avail. “Perhaps the solution is that everyone toss their phones into the sea.”

England captain Ben Stokes and bowler Gus Atkinson will not take part in the Test against New Zealand at The Oval, starting on 17 June, after breaking curfew rules in a Chelsea nightclub following their victory at Lord’s, England Cricket announced last week. Sonny Baker and Jordan Cox will make their debuts as their replacements.

At a press conference at The Oval, managing director of England men’s cricket Rob Key “answered the myriad questions over this whole mess with the enthusiasm of someone in a hostage video”, said cricket correspondent Chris Stocks in The i Paper. And as Key was fielding questions “mere metres away from a row of kegs of beer, the irony was lost on nobody”.

Key confirmed that management were considering a ban on alcohol for a national side that has repeatedly faced allegations of booze-fuelled unprofessionalism.

‘Staggering stupidity’

One of Stokes’ strengths as England captain has been his “capacity to show the way”, said Harry Latham-Coyle in The Independent. Given the additional scrutiny around the team’s culture, it is “scarcely believable” that he would allow himself to end up in a boozy altercation at a Chelsea nightclub.

Coming on the heels of reports of excessive drinking at last year’s Ashes, as well as white-ball captain Harry Brook’s run-in with a bouncer in New Zealand, Stokes’ behaviour shows “staggering stupidity”. The leadership team made a vow that things would be different after the Ashes. “That promise has been broken at virtually the earliest opportunity.”

“I find this beyond staggering,” said Matthew Syed in The Times. Stokes’ actions are born out of “utter, crass and unforgivable selfishness”, the symbol of an English side that is neither “trustworthy” nor “mature”. There is something “seriously wrong with the culture” of the England men’s cricket team. For that reason above all, Stokes’ captaincy is “permanently and irredeemably untenable”.

It is “impossible not to feel sympathy” for Stokes, said Emma John in The Guardian. This is a man who recently celebrated his 35th birthday, had just won the first Test of the summer, had 10 days before the next game and has been “teetotal for the best part of a year” in order to manage his heavy workload. England cricket has a “tradition of shooting itself in the foot”, and the instinct to judge him “for the most meaningless of infractions” has felt “perverse”.

‘Lagging behind’

“Heavy drinking sessions are nothing new,” said cricket reporter Elizabeth Ammon in The Times. “Cricket and alcohol have been intrinsically linked since the sport was invented.” Some players believe that “natural talent is a shield”, protecting them from the effects of alcohol, while excessive drinking can also be a response to the “sheer mental toll of long, isolated tours”. But although the modern cricketer is typically more professional than previous generations, the sport is “still lagging behind” its contemporaries.

“The absurd affair captures a simple truth,” said Tim Wigmore, senior cricket writer at The Telegraph. “Cricket is less professional than other leading sports.” Top England cricketers can be earning in excess of £1 million a year – excluding personal sponsorship deals – but this “surge in salaries” does not reflect “comparable advances” in professionalism.

Naturally, the “sheer brutality” of Test cricket – spending “hundreds of days” away from home and 30 hours per game “under spectators’ glare” – demands a “release”. But international cricket has “not merely tolerated alcoholic excess” as a means of escape, but “celebrated it”.

“Does cricket still have a drinking culture?” said The Athletic. “Yes.” But the situation is “complicated and more nuanced than it sometimes appears”. The game is full of “alcohol-related anecdotes”, and social drinking is “deeply entwined” with the sport. Indeed, at the grassroots level, booze is the “lifeblood” of many clubs, with the clubhouse bar “often central to the community”. But admittedly, and “increasingly at the top level, a compromise has to be reached”.

Major League Baseball remains the only North American professional sport without a ceiling on team spending, due in large part to the fearsome power of its players’ union. But owners have declared their intent to impose a salary cap, setting them on a collision course with the players, who remain opposed to joining their capped peers in football, hockey and basketball.

Baseball has enjoyed a resurgence in attendance and interest of late following rule changes like the pitch clock that have noticeably shortened the overall length of games. Hanging over the upcoming negotiations are memories of the disastrous 1994 labor stoppage that canceled the World Series, leading to a yearslong downturn in attendance and enthusiasm. It remains to be seen whether owners are willing to risk baseball’s new era of prosperity by dying on the hill of a salary cap.

Fans crave a cap

The owners are emboldened by polls that show fans want a salary cap. But perhaps the highest-profile booster for the owners’ position is the U.S. president, who has demonstrated a willingness to intervene in pro sports disputes. “If you don’t have a salary cap you don’t have a sport, because they can’t help themselves,” said President Donald Trump on June 5, per The New York Times. Fellow critics of the current structure note that each of the championships of the 2020s have been won by teams with top 15 payrolls. “The correlation between spending and winning is obvious,” said Andy McCullough at The Athletic.

The failure of the sport’s luxury tax system to dissuade richer teams from spending lavishly means that “we need a realistic framework that addresses the fans’ concerns about competitive balance,” said MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred per Fox Sports. Those concerns have been heightened by the free-spending habits of teams like the Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Mets, who have hoovered up the most prominent free agents on the market over the past several offseasons using financial loopholes like deferred salary payments. The Dodgers will pay a $169 million luxury tax on their $417.3 million payroll in 2026 alone, more than the total salary spending of 15 out of baseball’s 30 teams.

“Beneath the shameless posturing” of owners, the “gut instincts baseball watchers have about the state of the game” are “relatively legitimate,” said Lex Pryor at The Ringer. Backed by that fan outrage, many owners “are ready to burn the f---ing house down,” said one senior team official to ESPN.

Journalists and players think it’s a smokescreen

Baseball’s labor war pits owners and fans against not just the players but most baseball journalists. The push for a salary cap “drives me crazy,” said The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal on the Foul Territory podcast. The system is “not perfect,” but “does it need a salary cap that could cost us games in 2027 to be rectified? I still believe the answer is no.” Rosenthal and other salary cap critics point out that wild spending is no guarantee of success, and many clubs operating on a shoestring, like the Milwaukee Brewers, have found ways to win consistently.

For others, the salary cap proposal demonstrates pure greed from owners who are all fabulously wealthy yet perennially crying poor. Forget the details of the “gobbledygook-intensive” initial proposal from owners who are “less savvy businessmen than garden-variety landlords in search of that sweet, sweet passive income,” said Ray Ratto at Defector. “MLB owners want a salary cap just because everyone else in their microclass has one” and because it would inflate the value of their franchises.

Baseball has “just as much, if not more, parity than the salary cap leagues,” and pro-cap sentiment is driven by the reality that “deep down in places people don’t talk about at parties, there’s a feeling that the billionaires in business earned their dollars and the players just won the lottery by being good at a kids’ game,” said Matt Snyder at CBS Sports. Indeed, between 2015 and 2024, 14 different teams played in the World Series, as opposed to 10 in the NHL and NFL championships and just 8 in the NBA.

Republicans will be cheering the release of the National Audit Office’s report into the royal family’s property arrangements, said A.N. Wilson in the Daily Mail. We’ve known for years that Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor was allowed to live at Royal Lodge, his 30-room former residence in Windsor, for a fraction of its market value. But we now know that he was also allowed to let the three cottages that came with it and “pocket the proceeds”.

‘Unfathomable’ deals

He is not the only member of the royal family to have enjoyed such a generous deal. His daughters, Beatrice and Eugenie, have never paid a penny in rent for their grace and favour homes in London, despite being non-working royals; King Charles foots the bill using his private wealth, but at a discount on the market rent of about 40%. Meanwhile, the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh, who pay a peppercorn rent for the “enormous” Bagshot Park, are also allowed to sublet parts of the house, and other houses on the estate. All this will go down very badly, when so many Britons are “feeling the pinch”.

Some details revealed in the report are “unfathomable”, said Jennie Bond in The i Paper. It’s quite wrong that any money Andrew made through this “private” arrangement did not have to be returned to the Crown Estate, which owns Royal Lodge and pays its profits to the Treasury. In other words, it’s “taxpayers’ money for public spending”.

‘Staggering’ royal estate

Actually, many of the arrangements in the report make sense, said Hannah Furness in The Daily Telegraph. It is right that retired working royals are looked after: Princess Alexandra, the late Queen’s cousin, who is 89, made a one-off payment of £670,000 to rent her house in Richmond Park in 1995, and pays an annual ground rent of some £1,500. Few would “want to see her evicted”. It is also hard to quarrel with most arrangements for the grace and favour apartments, which are provided to long-serving members of staff, who pay rent based on a combination of income and circumstances.

Still, the situation as a whole is certainly problematic, said Craig Prescott in The Sunday Times. This report only covers the Crown Estate and the royal household. The family also has a “staggering array” of other properties at its disposal, as part of the Duchy of Lancaster, the Duchy of Cornwall and the private estates of Sandringham and Balmoral. All this will rankle many, particularly young people, who are less likely to own their own homes and whose support for the monarchy is already in decline. It is “distancing the institution of the monarchy from the very generation it needs for its future support”. We need a slimmed-down monarchy, and fewer cosy deals for the extended family.

The World Cup kicked off this week – but in the days leading up to it, “no one seemed all that excited”, said Jonathan Lemire in The Atlantic. The tournament will feature 48 nations playing 104 fixtures in 16 cities across the US, Canada and Mexico, and will give a stage to “some of the most famous people on Earth” – from Harry Kane to Kylian Mbappé. Yet for many, it is “surrounded by angst”.

Ticket prices are “astronomical”. Fifa has introduced “dynamic pricing”, so a seat at the final could set you back $10,000, and demand for many matches has slumped. Prices for everything from parking to accommodation have been vastly inflated: Airbnbs near New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium, where the final is being played, cost up to $17,000 for three nights. America’s relations with its co-hosts are strained, and there are fears of cartel violence in Mexico.

“Hanging over it all is the war in Iran, particularly because it was started by the guy to whom the tournament’s organisers recently awarded a peace prize.”

‘Maga World Cup’

This expanded World Cup will be the largest and most commercially driven in history, said Jason Burt in The Daily Telegraph.

Gianni Infantino, the Fifa president, wants “every match to be a money-spinning event” akin to the US Super Bowl: the fans are being treated like a “cash machine”. It’s also likely to be the “most politicised”. There have already been stories of Iranian players and staff struggling to secure visas; and progressives have voiced alarm that America’s immigration agency, Ice, is being used to provide stadium security. As for Donald Trump, he can be counted on to “hijack proceedings” in a cringeworthy way.

Some have already dubbed this the “Maga World Cup”, said Simon Kuper in the FT. But Trump might not see much benefit from it: all 11 of the US cities hosting games voted Democrat in their most recent elections, and there is a good chance of anti-Trump protests at matches.

Hard to mess up

But what of the football itself, asked US Women's National Team head coach Emma Hayes in The Guardian. The favourites for the tournament include Spain, France, Argentina and, yes, England; but much will depend on how well squads adapt to the stifling heat, games at high altitude, and having to play across four different time zones.

Before every major sporting event, “people foresee a nightmare”, said Will Leitch in The Washington Post. And then, when the games begin, everyone just enjoys them. Maybe some things will go wrong. But the World Cup is the one event that captures the interest of the whole planet. It’s hard to make a mess of it, “no matter how hard you might try”.

Presiding over America’s 250th anniversary celebrations should have been an easy win for Donald Trump, said David Frum in The Atlantic. “He is a showman, after all. He loves parades and extravaganzas.” But the president’s plans for Washington DC are shaping up to be “a fiasco”. They were set to include a series of concerts on the National Mall; but almost all of the acts scheduled to headline the 4th of July weekend have pulled out, complaining that what they’d been told would be a non-partisan event had turned into something else.

An irate Trump said that “instead of having overpriced singers, who nobody wants to hear”, he’d bring the “Number One Attraction anywhere in the World”: himself.

‘Threadbare’ celebrations

Celebrations will officially kick off this Sunday, Trump’s 80th birthday, with, of all things, a series of Ultimate Fighting Championship mixed martial arts bouts in an arena at the White House. Are Americans ready for this, asked Jack Crosbie in Rolling Stone: “bloody cage fights” on the South Lawn?

Back in 2024, a friend told me that he was voting for Trump in part because he couldn’t bear the thought of Kamala Harris and the Democrats presiding over the 250th anniversary. He had a point, said Jeffrey Blehar in National Review. Just imagine. “It would have been a year-long lecture with 4 July a day of solemn reflection and recrimination.” As it is, though, we’re still not getting much of a celebration, just another Trump rally, and some cage fights; even the remarkable collection of musical “has-beens and one-hit wonders” assembled – Vanilla Ice is the headliner – has begun to fall apart. While the semiquincentennial party will still be special to Americans, “it will feel far more threadbare than it has any right to be”.

Insatiable ego

It’s a shame, said Max Burns in The Hill. America’s bicentennial, in 1976, also came at a tense time. America was “only beginning to process the traumas of the Vietnam War”. President Ford had recently faced two assassination attempts in a month. Yet the country still managed to unite to celebrate.

Trump has ruined America’s 250th birthday by making it all about himself, with his vainglorious architectural schemes, his cage fights, his plans for a new $250 note bearing his image. His insatiable ego has made it impossible for anyone who isn’t a diehard Trump fan to enjoy what should be a shared cultural moment. “Oh, well – maybe we’ll get it right for the tricentennial in 2076.”

“Women are angry. Vexed. Livid. FUMING,” said Helen Coffey in The Independent. And women in Britain are "apparently the angriest in Europe”.

According to the latest Hologic Global Women’s Health Index, nearly one in four of us feel rage, compared with one in seven on the continent. The annual league table (based on polls of more than 76,000 women) revealed a “remarkable upsurge in fury”; rates of anger were 47% higher than the previous year, while levels in other European countries “remained fairly stable”. The UK dropped to its lowest-ever position, from 41st to 48th out of 142 countries in just a year.

This “fall from grace” of the world’s fifth-largest economy by GDP is “little short of a disgrace”. But given the medical misogyny, the crisis in women’s health and gynaecological care, significant gender pay gap, and relatively high rates of femicide, it’s “depressingly unsurprising”.

‘Lack of hope’ and profound pessimism

I might account for all that rage “all on my own”, said Deborah Ross in The Times. Only 27 of the 2,300 paintings owned by the National Gallery are by women – “you’ll be in and out in a flash”. Less than 3% of reported rapes result in charges. About a third of women have experienced sexual harassment or assault on public transport. Only 3% of venture capital goes to female founders. Male screenwriters have “sewn up all the television factual dramas”, so we are “spared a woman’s take on real events”. Care and domestic labour “still fall disproportionally on women”. Women are more likely to have their pain “dismissed by doctors”. Three women are still killed by men every week.

One in four women in England and Wales has also been raped or assaulted, said Emily Lawford in The New Statesman. Many have also been radicalised by Israel’s war in Gaza (and the government’s “apathy”), or the Jeffrey Epstein revelations.

Polling by Merlin Strategy for The New Statesman found that women aged 18 to 30 are 26 percentage points “less likely to feel positively about capitalism than young men”. They are also “much more pessimistic about the future”.

A “significant majority” feel isolated, ignored by the two main political parties, and fearful of Reform, but few seem to believe that voting Green will make a difference. And people they interact with online “reinforce their beliefs”; the femosphere both “reflects young women’s disaffection and perpetuates it, radicalising them further”. A profound “lack of hope” and pessimism has emerged over the past decade. “How could they not be angry?”

Lack of perspective on ‘how far their sex has come’

Actually, women in the West have never had it so good, wrote gender historian Zoe Strimpel in The Telegraph. They have an “overflowing cup”: the right to education, to choose whether to have children, to work, to keep our salary, and to “demand freedom from male coercion and violence”. A woman just flew past the moon, and “nobody even batted an eyelid”. Of course there are problems, and (sometimes violent) misogyny persists, but if Western women “want to make their mark”, there is very little stopping them.

These “furious young women”, with rights that women of the past “could only have dreamed of”, are channelling their anger into “false, often malign causes”, squandering their power. They seem to “lack any perspective on where they are now, and how far their sex has come”.

But “even those who are winning the game want to overthrow it”, said Jack Davey in The Critic magazine. The internet is “abuzz with the topic of ‘angry young women’”, but the ones I’ve met aren’t angry – they’re politicised. Gen Z women are “by far the most left-wing demographic in the country”; even the most privileged “want radical change”. That’s because, unlike young men’s problems, young women’s are “far less tangible”.

Most of these so-called “angry young women” are far more reasonable than the online caricatures, and “far more willing to compromise than polling would suggest”. But get used to them: angry young women are “here to stay”.

President Donald Trump is once again making baseless accusations of election fraud. This time it is in California, where right-wing Los Angeles mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt failed to survive this month’s primary election.

Trump treats “any Democratic election victory” as “suspicious on its face” even if it happens in “one of the most liberal cities in America,” said The New York Times. His evidence-free assertions of vote-rigging in the California race are an “unusually clear preview of how he could greet any disappointing results for his party in November.” It is “not possible” for Pratt to have lost this month’s election, the president said on Truth Social.

Trump’s efforts to take greater control of voting processes have so far fallen short, said the Times. His SAVE Act that would require voters to provide proof of U.S. citizenship failed to advance in the Senate. But as the Jan. 6, 2001 insurrection demonstrated, the president still can “sow substantial chaos” with false allegations of fraud.

‘Petty and tired strategy’

The president is using a familiar playbook, LeBron Antonio Hill said at The Sacramento Bee. Trump is attempting to “sow doubt, divide the country and rally his base with conspiracy” in order to upend elections that do not go his way. California is actually a “model for voter access and participation” with features such as “universal mail-in ballots, early voting and same-day registration” that have led to “record turnout” in elections. That achievement is “something to celebrate, not undermine.” Americans should not allow Trump’s “petty and tired strategy to become the norm.”

Trump’s California accusations have “naturally elicited eye rolls,” but the state really does have a “leaky election system” that juices Democratic votes, The Wall Street Journal said in an editorial. With the Golden State’s “sloth-like pace of counting ballots,” it can take days for results to emerge. That is why Pratt, who first appeared to be in second place in the early results, dropped to third and out of the race as more votes were counted. The delayed results are a “disservice to democracy,” but Democrats do not seem to care “as long as progressives are winning.”

‘Cried wolf too many times’

The debate makes California the “new ground zero for free and fair elections,” Marc Elias said at Democracy Docket. Trump has attacked its voting processes repeatedly over the years, claiming he would have won the famously liberal state if not for fraud. “If Jesus Christ came down and was the vote counter, I would win California, okay?” Trump said to Dr. Phil in 2024. That seems unlikely. Trump simply “cannot “bear the fact that there are people willing to stand up to him and his lies,” said Elias.

Trump’s fraud claims “may backfire on him in the fall,” Richard L. Hasen said at MS NOW. Pushback now against the president’s accusations could “inoculate the public against similar unsupported charges” in the midterm elections. “The boy has cried wolf too many times.”

Maine’s Graham Platner was seen as a potent populist challenger to incumbent GOP Sen. Susan Collins. But revelations about the Democrat’s Nazi-linked tattoo, charged social media posts, and past treatment of women now have his party’s leaders debating whether to pull their support. And either choice might cost them a shot at winning the Senate in November.

Democrats should “cut Platner loose,” David Frum said at The Atlantic. Republicans in 2017 ditched Alabama’s Roy Moore over revelations about his pursuit of underage girls as a thirtysomething adult. GOP leaders then had to “choose between character and power.” Now it is time for Democrats to “muster equal shrewdness and toughness.” Other observers disagree. Democratic critics must “stop submarining” Platner, Michael Tomasky said at The New Republic. The party should stick with the candidate unless there are revelations “involving murder, rape or a taste for child pornography.” That is admittedly a “low bar,” but Collins has spent her public career helping Republicans “pick the pockets of working-class people.”

‘Scandal fatigue’

The party is “betraying its own values” if it does not denounce Platner, Michael A. Cohen said at MS NOW. The evidence suggests Platner is a “moral and political train wreck” with an “unceasing drumbeat of scandals about him.” The latest revelations include reporting that he has been “volatile, unfaithful and physically threatening” to the women in his life. Supporting Platner “opens up Democrats to charges of hypocrisy” in their criticisms of Texas Senate candidate Ken Paxton and risks “losing both the Maine Senate race and their souls.”

Democrats’ chances of retaking the Senate now depend on a “baggage-laden candidate with clear character issues and a sketchy past,” Nia-Malika Henderson said at Bloomberg. “Scandal fatigue” could dampen enthusiasm for Platner, but America’s “ultrapolarized” politics could also “work the other way, hardening support for Platner.” It is a dynamic that has worked for GOP candidates like President Donald Trump and Paxton, who have both succeeded “despite a raft of scandals.” After years of criticizing Trump’s transgressions, “Democratic voters face a character test of their own.”

‘Fed up with rolling revelations’

“Unfortunately for Graham Platner, he needs women on his side to win,” Steve Collins said at the Portland Press Herald. Independent and Democratic women voters in Maine are “increasingly fed up with rolling revelations” about the candidate’s past, and social media is “full of Maine women who say they’re no longer buying what Platner’s selling.” Maine Gov. Janet Mills, who suspended her campaign in April, could pick up votes in Tuesday’s primary as a result.

Critics “at the national level misunderstand” his populist campaign, Platner said Friday to supporters, per Politico. “They think this is a race about me, but it isn’t.” Platner’s supporters remain similarly “unfazed” by the revelations, said The Wall Street Journal. The scandals demonstrate “that he is a real person,” Maine voter Amanda Nicholson said to the outlet.

How Kemal Atatürk – founder of modern Turkey, the man who transformed the decrepit Ottoman monarchy into a modern secular republic – must be “turning in his grave”, said Jonas Roth in Neue Zürcher Zeitung (Zurich).

Last week, Turkish riot police stormed the headquarters of the CHP, the social democratic party Atatürk set up in 1923, to flush out the party’s current leader, Özgür Özel. For three days, Özel and a group of party officials had barricaded themselves inside the building in protest at a highly controversial court ruling that had just ordered Özel to stand down, claiming there had been voting irregularities at the CHP party congress that elected him leader in 2023.

Using batons, tear gas and rubber bullets, the police rushed in to evict him; Özel emerged to address the cheering crowd outside and then led a march to the parliament building.

‘No longer unbeatable’

It isn’t hard to detect the hand of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan behind all this. For 13 years, from 2010 to 2023, the CHP under its former leader, Kemal Kılıçdaroglu, had proved an ineffectual opposition, losing every single election, local and national, to Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP). But under Özel, the CHP has been transformed into a political force capable of ending Erdogan’s 23-year rule.

So the fact that the judiciary, which Erdogan has made his tool, should now have ordered Özel to be replaced by the perennial loser Kılıçdaroglu, speaks for itself. The crackdown on the CHP began in earnest after it inflicted a “historic defeat” on the AKP in local elections in 2024, said Ecehan Balta in Xekinima (Athens). Holding Erdogan responsible for the economic crisis that had seen inflation rise above 80%, voters turned en masse to Özel’s party, which won 35 provinces to the AKP’s 24. This was a huge blow to the president, a sign that his political machine, for all its grip on state institutions and the media, was “no longer unbeatable”.

And, since then, hundreds of CHP officials have been arrested, notably Ekrem Imamoglu, the popular mayor of Istanbul, who was detained last March on the same day that he was chosen as his party’s next presidential candidate.

Hope not lost

What happened to Imamoglu was a travesty, said Raphael Geiger in Süddeutsche Zeitung (Munich): he faces up to 2,352 years in jail, if convicted of corruption and espionage. But the dethroning of Özel is even worse. It “eliminates everything that remains of Turkish democracy”, effectively snuffing out “the faint hope” of a different government being elected.

Indeed Turkey, now lacking a genuine opposition, is closer than ever to “one-man rule”, said The Economist. Özel could try and found a new party, but without the “powerful brand” of the CHP behind him, he is unlikely to succeed. In any case, Erdogan is expected to call a snap election before the next scheduled vote in May 2028. In doing so, he would be exploiting a loophole which allows him to stand again if he doesn’t fully complete his current presidential term, which the constitution mandates should otherwise be his last.

All hope is not lost, though, said Dogan Ertugrul on Turkish Minute. Imprisoning your main challenger and sowing chaos in the ranks of their party is a sign not of strength, but of insecurity.

And these risky political steps could well backfire. Look at the Gen Z-led protests that have erupted across the country since Imamoglu’s arrest. They are still going strong and have Erdogan worried, said Giorgio Brizio in La Repubblica (Rome). On the same day police raided the CHP’s offices in Ankara, thousands of students and staff staged a demonstration at Bilgi University in Istanbul, a bastion of liberal thought that the president had just closed down. In scenes “unthinkable” until a few years ago, police burst onto the campus, targeting protesters with batons and pepper spray. Many of the students were arrested; but they stood firm, and soon after Erdogan issued a decree to reopen the university. The students’ victory is clear proof that Erdogan is not invincible.

The European Union could soon add a 28th member to its ranks, as Iceland is set to vote on potentially joining the bloc this summer. But not all Icelanders support EU membership, with polls split down the middle, and what happens in the referendum could have ripple effects on the international order.

‘Important for international security’

Icelanders will not be voting on whether to join the EU but on whether Iceland should resume negotiations about joining. If the referendum passes, a second vote would be held to officially make Iceland an EU member.

Icelanders are mostly at a stalemate on the issue. According to a recent survey “on behalf of the foreign ministry, 42% of Icelanders are in favor of reopening accession talks and 39% are opposed,” said The Guardian.

Icelanders who are in favor of restarting talks view joining the EU as “important for international security and an opportunity for better integration in Europe,” said The Guardian. There have been considerations for a while about Iceland joining the bloc, but the turbocharged referendum is “in part motivated by threats from the U.S., a longtime close ally of Iceland, to forcibly acquire its closest neighbor, Greenland.” The “international order that underpinned our security and prosperity for decades is under serious pressure,” said Icelandic Foreign Minister Þorgerður Katrín Gunnarsdóttir to the outlet.

The EU has “intensified a rethink of its Arctic strategy since Trump’s rhetoric over Greenland, a semi-autonomous Danish territory, reached a peak earlier this year,” said Mari Novik at the Financial Times. Iceland was previously at an impasse with the EU over regulations regarding fishing, a major industry in the country, but the organization could “offer Iceland a carve-out on fishing policy to accelerate the country’s potential bid to join the bloc.”

‘Half the country will be upset’

Not all Icelanders are eager to join the EU. Some feel the country is “locked in an existential fight for Iceland’s soul, where extreme measures might be justifiable,” said Elías Þórsson at Icelandic news magazine The Reykjavík Grapevine. Politics in Iceland “tend to be rather benign,” but there’s “something about the EU debate that stirs the pot" of public opinion. “About half the country will be upset with the result” of the referendum, no matter what side wins, according to polls.

Those who oppose becoming part of the EU hark back to a “well-known refrain in Icelandic political discourse” that the nation is “being betrayed, that some kind of treason is underway, that foreigners are being allowed to come and run everything in Iceland,” said political scientist Ólafur Harðarson to the Grapevine. Some feel that EU membership means “giving up Iceland’s sovereignty,” said Þórsson.

The aforementioned fishing industry may be what the referendum ultimately comes down to. Icelanders have “watched with alarm as Ireland, an EU member, has endured cuts to fishing quotas that have devastated its coastal communities,” said Amelia Nierenberg at The New York Times. And the citizens are fearful the EU could do the same thing to Iceland without a carve-out.

“People feel that they might be forced to pick a side,” said Eirikur Bergmann, a politics professor at Iceland’s Bifrost University, to the Times. And then there’s “really only one side to pick.”

“I came here to play tennis, not to put on a fashion show,” said Laura Siegemund, following her loss to Naomi Osaka in the first round of the French Open. “If other people want to do a fashion show, they can do that.”

Osaka came on court in a black corset and matching pleated skirt to face Siegemund. Though she eventually lost to Aryna Sabalenka in the fourth round in a landmark night session, Osaka’s “shimmering gold dress” became even “more eye-catching under the lights”, said The Guardian.

Known for her “elaborate” playing outfits, including a jellyfish-inspired outfit at the Australian Open, Osaka sparked concern that she may “serve as a distraction”. With Wimbledon around the corner, the tennis-fashion debate is likely to intensify.

‘Another language’

Osaka “really knows how to turn a tennis court into a catwalk” and has done so for years, said the Daily Maverick. Though her “court-ure”, which also included an Eiffel Tower-inspired outfit, has been labelled “problematic” by critics, her choice of fashion is “part of how she chooses to be seen”. For someone who has spoken openly about her struggles with anxiety, depression and public communication, her outfits have become “another language”.

The four-time grand slam champion has “never had average tastes when it comes to fashion”, said The Athletic. Her look at the Australian Open – a “dreamy, dramatic ensemble” that was meant to “evoke jellyfish” – “took over cultural discourse far beyond her match”.

Female athletes “don’t want to be known or judged for their outfits alone”, said The Independent, but with less prime-time coverage of their games than male players, it “can’t hurt to turn a few heads and garner extra attention using a bit of tulle and some sequins, right?”

I understand “how annoying it must be for Osaka’s opponents”, said The Times’ fashion director Anna Murphy. Her “ballroom skirt” and “spangled waistcoat” are “more usually seen in ‘Bridgerton’” and “Dancing on Ice”. I appreciate her angle: professional tennis “isn’t for the shy and retiring”, and if you’re on a rumoured $10 million sponsorship deal, “why not milk it”?

Wimbledon has indicated it will go along with Osaka’s “fancy-dress-adjacent thing”, provided what she wears is white. The restrictions are only on colour, not style, “so what’s it going to be for SW19? A snowman? A snowball? A snowballgirl?” But this sets a precedent that could turn the circuit into a “fancy dress party”, inviting others to follow suit. I am “not sure how even I, a fashion journalist, feel about that”.

Fashion ‘embedded’ in tennis

Tennis has “always been a runway” and fashion has “long been entrenched” in the sport, said the Daily Maverick. Osaka’s idols, the Williams sisters, used fashion as a “platform of empowerment”. Serena Williams’ “iconic” 2018 catsuit “became one of the most discussed outfits in tennis history”, while Venus’ “‘scandalous’ cabaret-inspired 2010 look” also “challenged conventions”.

Such pageantry has become commonplace in other sports too, with “paddock fashion” in Formula 1 and “tunnel walks” in US basketball. People are only noticing, and commenting, because Osaka is “using fashion as a form of self-expression on her own terms”.

Outfits worn by Osaka and Sabalenka have “crystallised how deeply luxury fashion has embedded itself in tennis”, said the Financial Times. “Indeed, the relationship between luxury and tennis isn’t new.” Many of the major stars will have a partnership with a high-end brand: Jannik Sinner and Gucci, Carlos Alcaraz and Louis Vuitton, Zheng Qinwen and Dior, British star Jack Draper and Burberry; the list goes on.

Professional tennis is a “visual theatre”, with increasingly viable commercial opportunities. Lacoste, Ralph Lauren and Rolex have all been “intertwined” with the sport, but there has been a dramatic shift in tennis’ “scale and visibility, both as a participatory sport and a spectacle”. Broader participation in the US (up by 54% since 2019, according to the US Tennis Association), and rising broadcast audiences mean tennis has become a “compelling stage” for marketing. Tennis offers a “rare opportunity to speak simultaneously to affluent buyers and aspirational young fans”.

Spencer Pratt is the latest entrant in the reality-TV-to-politics pipeline. Pratt made his name as the villain on “The Hills” during the late aughts. Now he is a contender to be the next mayor of Los Angeles.

Polls show Pratt “within striking distance” of incumbent mayor Karen Bass in Tuesday’s primary election, said CNN. AI-produced viral videos have powered his campaign, which is focused on “frustration with the city’s leadership” amid “overlapping crises” — wildfires, Hollywood’s decline, homelessness — that have left L.A. with “deep uncertainty about its future.” Pratt, who waded into politics after losing his home in last year’s Palisades fire, betrays little such uncertainty about his chances. “I’m for sure going to be mayor,” he said to Vanity Fair. The message and the messenger both remind observers of President Donald Trump, who last week endorsed Pratt’s campaign.

‘Shining a light’ on city failures

The novice candidate has “captivated a frustrated Los Angeles,” Susan Shelley said at The Orange County Register. Rather than running a vacuous vanity campaign, Pratt has been “shining a light on the visible failures of Los Angeles government.” Those failures have left the city residents mired in “crushing utility bills, unaffordable insurance, dangerous parks, unsafe sidewalks, homeless encampments” and other challenges. Pratt could be a mayor “who solves problems instead of preserving them to justify more funding.”

The reality star is “betting that infamy can be political currency,” Louis Staples said at The Atlantic. On “The Hills,” Pratt established himself as an “agitator” who found celebrity by “fighting with the other cast members and even with his own family.” That turned the show into “addictive viewing” plus taught Pratt a lesson about “narrative control.” TV stars and politicians both use tabloid leaks, social media and podcast appearances as part of a wide-ranging strategy to “influence how they’re perceived.” Pratt is a political newcomer, “but he’s been playing this game for years.”

Pratt is part of a line of mostly Republican stars who have “leveraged their reality TV fame into political careers,” Lorraine Ali said at The Los Angeles Times. Pratt and Trump can “push conflict, drama and personality” so far in the social media era that “no one will ask what exactly it is that you do beyond posting.” Pratt has accomplished that much. “But what about his ability to govern?”

‘Almost certainly toast’

Pratt’s strong polling probably “represents a consolidation of the small but very real conservative minority” of Los Angeles voters who see him as a MAGA candidate, Ed Kilgore said at New York. The city’s broader left-leaning electorate puts a “pretty firm ceiling on Pratt’s vote” that will make it difficult for him to win the mayor’s office in November. Instead, his candidacy “may be the best thing that could have happened to Karen Bass.” Pratt may well survive Tuesday’s nonpartisan primary election, but “he’s almost certainly toast against a Democrat in a general election.”

He’s a “thin, limpish, bespectacled 94-year-old grandfather” whose revolutionary days are long gone, said Daniel DePetris in The Telegraph, yet he’s a wanted man in the US for all that. Raúl Castro has been a dominant figure in Cuba’s communist regime since his brother Fidel seized power in 1959.

Cuba’s defence chief from 1959 to 2008 and its president from 2006 to 2018, he still wields great influence behind the scenes. So it’s quite something that the US attorney general has now charged him with a murder he’s said to have been involved in back in 1996 – the fatal downing of two civilian planes over the Straits of Florida.

The four victims of that attack, three of them US citizens, had been working for Brothers to the Rescue, an NGO dedicated to helping Cuban refugees and dropping anti-communist leaflets over the island. Castro is accused of having instructed his fighter pilots to “knock them down into the sea when they show up”.

‘Warning for a deaf regime’

You could see this coming, said Diario de Cuba (Madrid). The Trump administration has been demanding that Havana open up its economy and end political repression; yet despite heavy US sanctions and an oil blockade imposed in January, the regime has made no more than limited concessions – allowing Cubans in exile to found companies back home, for example. So the indictment of Raúl Castro is a “warning for a deaf regime”. And quite possibly an effective one.

The regime was badly shaken when, in January, Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro was captured by US forces in a surprise raid on Caracas. And US Attorney General Todd Blanche has hinted something similar might occur in Cuba. Asked how he intended to bring Castro to trial in America, he cryptically replied there are “all kinds of different ways”.

Bringing in Castro would be a major blow to the regime, said CNN (Atlanta). Regarded as his late brother’s “more disciplined and discreet” enforcer, Raúl Castro remains “the power in the shadows”. And his family holds immense economic as well as political clout: GAESA, the military-run conglomerate Castro founded in 1995, controls 70% of the economy on some estimates: Cuba’s tourist industry is just one of the sectors it dominates.

Markets empty, prices soaring

That economy is now suffering its “greatest crisis” since the collapse of its close ally the Soviet Union, said The Washington Post. The oil embargo has driven it to the brink. “Havana looks like a bombed-out city,” said Yunior García Aguilera on 14YMedio (Havana). Its buildings, crumbling from decades of neglect, are “split open like broken ribs”. With no petrol to run dustbin trucks, rubbish is being burnt in the streets. People wade through “toxic clouds”, side-stepping sewage and hopping over pot-holes. “Plastic, rotten food and patience are all ablaze.”

And with no imports reaching the island, Cubans have to eat what’s grown locally, said CiberCuba (Valencia). Which isn’t much. Rice production had plummeted even before the fuel crisis. Without fuel for crop dusters, tractors or irrigation, farmers have “reverted to using oxen, buffalo, horses, windmills, and solar pumps”. Markets are empty, prices are soaring. Most Cubans have begun skipping meals.

The US hopes such suffering will spark a “mass uprising” and cause the regime to implode, said Fabio E. Fernández Batista in El Salto (Madrid). But such is the repressive nature of the regime, that seems unlikely, which is why not a few Cubans now hope that “Saint Donald” will come to the rescue, even “if it means bombs falling” on their homeland.

And the US appears “increasingly willing” to seek regime change in Cuba through military means, said Nahal Toosi on Politico (Washington) – by an air strike or possibly even a ground invasion. The signs are all there: there’s been a reported spike in US surveillance flights off Cuba, and last week the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz was sent to the Caribbean. Some assume the ongoing failure of his war in Iran will hold the US president back. Don’t bet on it. It’s never a good idea “to predict what the capricious Trump will do”.

“Suddenly, say those who live there, the mood in Moscow feels very different,” said Adrian Blomfield in The Telegraph. Ever since Ukraine’s counteroffensive stalled in 2023, Russia’s capital had “exuded confidence. Its residents could either bathe in the patriotic glory of war or ignore it altogether”. But lately, “bombast” has given way to fear, and to a longing for the conflict to end; and this feeling became more acute this month, when Moscow and its wider region came under fire from a barrage of Ukrainian drones.

It was “one of the most sustained aerial attacks of the conflict” so far. Three people were killed; all four of Moscow’s airports had to close; an oil refinery and residential buildings were hit. “Muscovites listening to drones buzz overhead and air defences firing into the night” were given a “glimpse of life in Kyiv – and they did not like it”.

‘Completely unravelling’

Events have not been in the Kremlin’s favour lately, said the Financial Times. Ukraine has upped its use of long-range drones to target energy and military facilities deep in Russia. On the front line, Russia is “scratching out meagre territorial gains at a devastating human cost”: US Secretary of State Marco Rubio recently asserted that it is “losing 15,000-20,000 soldiers a month. Not injured. Dead.”

The Russian economy, meanwhile, is ailing: some analysts reckon that inflation is running well above the official 5.6%; and interest rates are at a punishing 14.5%. Vladimir Putin has tried to bury bad news by tightening state control over the internet, said Phillips Payson O’Brien in The Atlantic. Even so, videos have increasingly been circulating in which Russians express “shock at their capital’s vulnerability”. His long-standing narrative, that the conflict in Ukraine is a “special military operation” that needn’t trouble Russia’s elites or middle classes, is “completely unravelling”.

‘Most challenging period’

Putin’s calculus on the war in Ukraine has not changed, said Pjotr Sauer and Shaun Walker in The Guardian. He remains determined to “press on” in the (surely misguided) belief that Moscow can capture the whole of Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region by the end of the year. Such “bravado”, however, is doing little to ease the disquiet inside Russia; and speculation is growing that Putin’s regime could be toppled from within.

There have been reports that Sergei Shoigu, the former defence minister, could emerge as a threat to his former boss’s grip on power. The likelihood of an imminent Kremlin coup may be remote; but there’s no doubt that, at 73, Putin is entering “the most challenging period of his long rule”.

Any path President Donald Trump takes to end the war with Iran is bound to generate a lot of dissatisfaction among his GOP supporters and advisers. Hawks like Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) continue to “press for more aggressive U.S. military action,” Daniel R. DePetris said at the Los Angeles Times, and Republicans “consider anything short of Iran’s total surrender a failure.” But Trump’s in-house political strategists want a quick end to the unpopular war to “minimize political repercussions against the Republican Party” in November’s midterm elections. Trump clearly wants the deal that he keeps promising to the U.S. public, yet accomplishing that may put him at odds with Republicans who “would consider anything short of Iran’s total surrender a failure.”

‘A bad option and a worse one’

The president “seems conflicted,” said DePetris. He’s “fed up with the current situation” but also “afraid of escalation,” said Danny Citrinowicz, of The Atlantic Council, to The New Yorker. The president is “fed up with the current situation,” but he is also “afraid of escalation,” the Atlantic Council’s Danny Citrinowicz said in an interview with The New Yorker. Escalation probably will not work “because the Iranians are not going to capitulate.” The other option to end the war, then, is a deal that provides both money and sanctions relief to the Islamic regime in exchange for the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. Trump’s choices are “between a bad option and a worse one.”

“Will Trump bail out Iran’s regime?” The Wall Street Journal said in an editorial. Inflation pressures at home are likely behind the president’s desire to “reopen the Strait even on Iran’s terms.” But a “bad deal would leave him worse off politically” even if domestic prices recede. Iran’s regime was beset by domestic crises that the war has exacerbated. A “half victory” by Iran now “would hurt America’s standing — and Mr. Trump’s.”

The issue is not Trump “terminating the conflict too soon,” Jacob Heilbrunn said at The Spectator. It is “that he began it in the first place.” The war is undermining both his presidency and U.S. military power, and the idea that escalation would result in Iran’s surrender “defies credulity.” The ugly truth illustrated by the Hormuz closure is that Trump “does not hold the cards.”

‘Leaving core issues unsolved’

Trump is looking to get a ceasefire deal now and “deal with the toughest problems later,” said The New York Times. He took the same approach in Gaza, where he brokered a truce last year. That effort ended the fighting but left issues of Hamas’ future and the rebuilding of Gaza to be figured out at a later date. So far that has not happened. Such an approach can be a way for Trump to “claim victory while leaving the core issues unsolved.”

“Doubling down” on the war remains a possibility, Ravi Agrawal said at Foreign Policy. But that would come with “uncertain benefits” and “much more potential pain.” We may soon find out one way or another, as the U.S. on Monday conducted strikes on Iranian positions, a sign the temporary truce is faltering.

Ferrari’s first foray into electric vehicles has sparked an intense backlash from fans and investors, with shares falling sharply after the unveiling of its new battery-powered Luce.

Created in collaboration with former Apple chief designer Jony Ive, the car’s futuristic shell-like form, silent engine and £475,000 price tag were always going to be “controversial”, said Politico. But Luca di Montezemolo, Ferrari’s former chairman, spoke for many “purists in Italy” when he said it “risks destroying the myth” of the legendary cars and should be stripped of the company’s prancing horse logo.

‘Polarising’

Montezemolo was far from alone in his assessment.

“The Luce does not look like a Ferrari. It looks like the concept for a Honda Hydrogen vehicle from 2002,” said Luke Plunkett on Aftermath. “It looks like one of the ‘this is what the future will look like from the 90s’ cars from ‘Demolition Man’, only worse.” It looks like “anything but a Ferrari”.

It has even managed to unite Italy’s fractious politics. Far-right transport minister Matteo Salvini slammed it on X, while centrist opposition politician Carlo Calenda called it an “aesthetic and technological insult to anyone who loves Ferrari”.

Even Ferrari’s chief design officer, Flavio Manzoni, admitted that the design was “polarising”, but he’s confident fans will embrace the new car with time.

Investors, however, were not so sure. Ferrari shares fell nearly 8% in Milan on Tuesday, amid fears the Luce launch “could become a repeat of Jaguar Land Rover’s controversial failed rebrand” in 2024. That was when the luxury British carmaker “tried to shift the marque away from its traditional ‘Jag man’ image towards ultra-wealthy customers”, said The Telegraph.

‘Energy transition challenge’

The Luce has had a “rather long gestation period”, with a Ferrari EV in the works for “a few years” before development officially started in 2021, said Car magazine. At the time, “EVs were riding high and increasing in popularity in the premium, sport and luxury space” but “the world slightly reassessed that overly positive attitude to EVs not long after and so did Ferrari”.

Since then, mass-production brands like Ford, GM, Honda and Volvo have “all retreated from their EV initiatives in one way or another as consumer demand plummets, profit falls and policy makers deprioritise moving away from traditional gas power”, said Forbes.

“Luxury and performance brands have done the same”, with Lamborghini scrapping its first planned EV, Porsche opting for hybrid and McLaren steering clear entirely.

“Underscoring the energy transition challenge for luxury carmakers”, the “initial negative reaction to Ferrari’s new model was not surprising”, said the Financial Times. But according to analysts, “the key challenge for the company was to fill the order book with the highly specific clients it had targeted for the Luce”.

As far as the Italian brand’s executives are concerned, “whether most current Ferrari customers think the Luce is cool is irrelevant,” said Scott Sherwood, an independent analyst of luxury carmakers. “If it tested well enough with the tech crowd to fill the order book, that’s all they are concerned with.”

A rare event occurred last week, said Fred Kaplan on Slate: President Trump posted a completely accurate observation on social media. Commenting on Iran’s response to a US ceasefire proposal, he declared it “totally unacceptable”.

He’s right about that. Iran’s statement – which included no concessions and a long list of demands, including war reparations, the lifting of all sanctions and Iran’s continued control over the Strait of Hormuz – read like something “the winner of a war would issue”. The question is, what can Trump do about it?

He has repeatedly threatened to resume bombing Iran if the regime rejects his peace proposals, but it’s hard to see what that would achieve. If the 38 days of devastating air strikes that began on 28 February failed to bring Tehran to heel, what difference would obliterating a few more targets make?

‘Wiggle out of this conflict’

“If this isn’t checkmate, it’s close,” said Robert Kagan in The Atlantic. Trump halted the bombing campaign on Iran “not because he was bored, but because Iran was striking the region’s vital oil and gas facilities”. If he’s not willing to accept the risk of more such retaliation, or to mount a full-scale ground and naval war to remove the Iranian regime, “walking away now could seem like the least bad option”.

Trump, to his credit, shows no sign of wanting to “wiggle out of this conflict” or sign some meaningless deal, said Noah Rothman in National Review. He’s rightly determined to stop Tehran getting a nuclear weapon. But to succeed, he’ll need to solicit the public’s support for this project, which requires showing a bit more patience and “humility”. He’s not going to win people over by branding all critics “stupid”, or dismissing the inflationary effects of the war. He recently claimed that he was motivated only by the nuclear issue, saying “I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation at all”. That quote is going to be used against him in countless Democratic campaign adverts.

‘We will all reap the whirlwind if Iran comes out of this stronger’

Trump’s rudeness and arrogance has also made Nato allies very disinclined to come to America’s aid, said Thomas L. Friedman in The New York Times. Which is too bad, as the administration could really do with their help. The reality is that it’s in all of our interests to fix the Iran situation. It will be terrible for Europe if Tehran is allowed to decide who can and who can’t pass through the Strait of Hormuz.

And it will be worse still for the Arab Gulf states that rely on the channel, endangering their modernising, pluralistic reforms. “The Dubai model is precisely the one Tehran wants to destroy.” It’s understandable that Nato allies are loath to help Trump, but make no mistake: “we will all reap the whirlwind if Iran comes out of this stronger”.

Among the many crusades in his quest to “Make America Healthy Again,” one target of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is antidepressants. Kennedy has long said that psychiatric drugs like SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors) are harmful, including claiming they cause mass shootings.

Kennedy recently announced at a MAHA Institute mental health summit an initiative to help wean Americans off antidepressants. The announcement sparked a debate among experts over the campaign’s pros and cons.

Stigmatization and lack of access

Kennedy’s perspective on deprescribing SSRIs “really is an oversimplification,” Theresa Miskimen Rivera, the president of the American Psychiatric Association, said to NPR. The health secretary’s view “ignores the larger reality,” which is that “too many patients really cannot access timely, comprehensive care.” Rivera and the American Psychiatric Association support “any plans to better train healthcare providers to safely prescribe and wean patients off antidepressants.”

The health secretary has “no real interest in fixing structural problems that leave people with no choice but to use SSRIs,” Amanda Marcotte said at Salon. On the contrary, Kennedy has a “long history of talking about people on SSRIs in dehumanizing, often racist language” that implies “their actual problem is they’re lazy and need to just work harder — or even work for free.” The problem isn’t “lack of will but lack of access.” The only purpose of Kennedy’s rhetoric is to make it “easier to justify taking away their healthcare.” It is the “same old Republican playbook, just dressed up in a phony mask of compassion.”

There is a “legitimate clinical problem” at the center of Kennedy’s initiative to help Americans stop taking antidepressants, Jonathan Slater, a clinical professor of psychiatry at Columbia University Irving Medical Center, said at Stat News. Deprescribing is indeed “understudied, undertaught and under-reimbursed.”

But the health secretary’s campaign “conflates that genuine clinical need with claims unsupported by evidence, and some that are actively dangerous,” said Slater. Redirecting patients away from medications is “only clinically responsible if the alternatives are accessible. They are not.” Patients on antidepressants deserve two things: an “honest conversation about whether they still need their medication” and a “system equipped to help them stop safely if they do not.” Right now, “we have neither the data nor the infrastructure to deliver that.”

Turning a blind eye to weaning difficulties

For decades, mainstream psychiatry “willfully blinded itself” to the “burden and severity of withdrawal and discontinuation-related difficulties” from antidepressants and other psychiatric drugs, Awais Aftab, a clinical associate professor of psychiatry, said to The New York Times. American Society for Clinical Pathology guidelines only “tinker” toward solutions and “generally recommend maintenance treatment for recurrent depression, bipolar I disorder and schizophrenia, ignoring controversies in these areas.” The guidelines assume that most people are “correctly diagnosed,” when in reality there is “widespread diagnostic chaos and decisions about maintenance are made under considerable uncertainty.”

Kennedy is correct that more “evidence-based care and therapies” should be available, Vera Feuer, a child and adolescent psychiatrist, said to NPR. Some of the health secretary’s recommendations are “completely reasonable.” Everybody should have access to a “detailed, careful assessment.” Prescribers should also not “feel pressured by parents and schools to instantly medicate behaviors that are due to other issues.”

In diagnosing “overmedicalization as a major problem,” the MAHA movement “gets something right,” Khameer Kidia, a physician and anthropologist at Harvard Medical School, said at The Boston Globe. However, the issue “doesn’t begin with physicians and our prescription pads.” As the opioid epidemic has shown, the “problem starts higher up.”

Drug companies have led the public to believe the “drugs corrected a chemical imbalance in the brain,” said Kidia. No such imbalance has been proven, and “many research studies show the drugs are only modestly better than placebos.” Now that so many patients are on SSRIs, “pharmaceutical companies have little incentive to get them to stop.” The problem with “MAHA’s approach to mental health” is the “overarching placement of responsibility with individuals” rather than the “exploitative systems that create poor mental health.” MAHA is “half right with the diagnosis,” but its “prescription conveniently ignores the root causes of the problems it has identified.”

“The Venice Biennale is the world’s most prestigious international art exhibition,” said Katrin Bennhold in The New York Times. Every other year, a colossal central show aspires to distil the current state of contemporary art, while the nations of the world stage individual exhibitions in designated pavilions, each competing for the coveted top prize. Elsewhere, a host of satellite exhibitions take over the city’s museums and public spaces.

In 2026, however, the art has been overshadowed by “everything else”. For one thing, the main event’s curator, Cameroon-born Koyo Kouoh, died unexpectedly last May. Then Russia – absent since 2022 – returned to the fold. In response, the biennale jury said it wouldn’t award prizes to countries accused of war crimes – there were protests against Israel too – and resigned in protest.

Yet some of the exhibits at this “massive mess” of a biennale still deserve a visit, said Eddy Frankel in The Guardian. The national pavilions are often interesting, and “some of them are even quite fun”. Denmark’s offering incorporates “a hi-tech sperm bank”; “a singing turd” is featured at Luxembourg’s; the Japanese show encourages visitors to carry around “fake babies”; and Malta’s features “a life-size chocolate Russell Crowe”.

Weirdest of all is Florentina Holzinger’s Austria pavilion, “a confrontational, stomach-turning” performance piece, in which naked female performers swim in urine and circle an artificial lake on jet skis. Ridiculous as it sounds, it’s “brilliantly obscene and vile” – and, beneath the wackiness, a scary portent of ecological catastrophe.

Russia’s display, on the other hand, is “wretched”, said Jackie Wullschläger in the Financial Times. I went in expecting a “whitewash” and was greeted with a “limp” display of flowers, some “embarrassed folk music performers” and insistent “offers of alcohol”. Nor is Lubaina Himid’s British pavilion up to much. Her paintings of “generic black figures characterised by profession (chef, tailor, gardener)” feel “lacklustre” and “predictable”.

The central exhibition, In Minor Keys, which foregrounds artists from the “global south”, aims to celebrate quiet pleasures and beauty in the face of tragedy, said Wullschläger. The idea is nice, but the overall quality is “poor”. Some exceptions aside – not least Theo Eshetu’s uprooted olive tree mounted on a revolving plinth, “superimposed with a film showing its earlier fullness” – it’s the same old melange of “identikit hanging textiles” and anti-colonial railing. I left feeling “alienated, hectored, patronised and bored”.

It’s not all bad, said Hettie Judah in Apollo. The Chilean artist Alfredo Jaar has his own room, “a vast lozenge of space flooded with disorienting red light”; at its end is a tiny metal cube forged from rare minerals necessary for modern technological gadgets. It’s “a temple to callous, extractive greed” and its “catastrophic human cost”. There are other highlights – but, true to its title, this is a show of “minor encounters” not “revelations”. And its very scale, alas, drowns out the “subtleties”. The show could have done with more “editorial rigour”.

Years of drought and growing demand have taken their toll on the Colorado River, which supplies water and hydropower to 40 million people in seven Western states. Now the moment of crisis has arrived.

The river is “on the brink of disaster,” said The Wall Street Journal. An “unusually warm winter” deprived Colorado and Utah of the snowpack that feeds the river in the spring. That will have literal downstream effects: Lake Powell reservoir in Utah and Arizona “will receive the least amount of water this year” since its creation in 1963.

Western states have struggled for years to divvy up the dwindling supply, and old agreements are expiring. Now the Trump administration is preparing a “drastic” plan to “cut water deliveries to farms, cities and tribes” by a third, said E&E News. “There wasn’t enough water to start with, and there’s still less water,” Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said last month, per The Arizona Daily Star.

Solutions ‘will not be popular’

“The clock is running out on a deal” between Western states to “keep the Colorado River alive,” Mike Gardner said at The Raincross Gazette in Riverside, California. The Interior Department’s proposal would likely face years of legal challenges, but the system of dams and reservoirs along the river “could cease to function due to lack of water” before the lawsuits play out. So the states must find agreement before the federal government imposes one. The “political reality,” though, is that elected officials who agree to water cuts “will not be popular” with their constituents.

States along the river have seen “enormous increases” in water consumption over the last half-century “with no thought for tomorrow,” Steve Hanley said at CleanTechnica. They have been “kicking this can down the road this entire century.” We are getting a “preview of the kind of wrangling” that will become common as “Earth becomes too hot in some places to sustain human life.”

Downsizing agriculture?

It is time to build more water desalination plants on the Pacific Ocean, Greg Walcher said at The Daily Sentinel in Grand Junction, Colorado. If the Colorado River “cannot continue to supply all the people who once relied on it” then desalination plants seem a logical solution to the West’s “seemingly unsolvable water dilemma.” Indeed, Arizona, Nevada and Utah are trying to “buy excess water” from San Diego, said The New York Times. The city built a desalination plant to process Pacific Ocean water in the 1990s and is now poised to sell its “surplus water” across the West.

Such solutions will take time and cutbacks loom in the short term. Farms use about three-fourths of Colorado River water to “grow alfalfa and other kinds of hay to feed cattle,” said the Los Angeles Times. It will be “critical” to “downsize” the sector’s water usage. Some agricultural lands “are going to go out of production,” The University of Colorado Law School’s Anne Castle said to the outlet.

Many questioned whether Pep Guardiola could hack it in the rough and tumble of the Premier League when he became Manchester City’s manager a decade ago.

Could his brand of beautiful “tiki-taka” football, refined in Barcelona and developed at Bayern Munich, cut it on a cold Tuesday night in Stoke?

Ten years on and his record speaks for itself: six Premier League titles, including one secured with over 100 points and another as part of a historic treble; the Champions League; three FA Cups; five League Cups; the Uefa Super Cup and Fifa Club World Cup. It makes him the second most decorated manager in Premier League history behind Sir Alex Ferguson. Now, with rumours of his departure at the end of the season, the question of his legacy has arisen.

‘Level of tactical complexity has soared’

As his mentor Johan Cruyff did as manager of Barcelona, Guardiola has “created a legacy that has changed the face of football at every level in England”, said BBC chief football writer Phil McNulty.

During his time at City, Guardiola “has not just shaped elite football and the game in the league’s pyramids” but “has had an impact at every level down to grassroots, where even junior coaches adopt his strategies”.

“His success goes beyond just the many wins,” said The Sun. “It is embedded into the very foundation of the game in England now.”

Even semi-professional teams now play out from the back. Goalkeepers will pass into danger rather than go long. The rigid formations of old are gone. Defenders sometimes play as strikers. “Kids are growing up with these roles more defined than ever” and “the level of tactical complexity has soared”.

To understand the extent of Guardiola’s impact you need only glance around at the other elite managers working in the game today. Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta, who this season delivered the club’s first Premier League title in 22 years, cut his teeth as Guardiola’s assistant at City, as did former Chelsea boss and likely successor at the Etihad, Enzo Maresca. PSG boss Luis Enrique worked under him at Barcelona, as did new Chelsea manager Xavi Alonso in Munich. Current Bayern boss Vincent Kompany was City’s talismanic captain for years under Guardiola.

‘Lingering question’

There is no doubt City’s Abu Dhabi ownership “more than got its money’s worth”, said The Independent’s Miguel Delaney, but there is “another way to think about Guardiola”.

Whether it was having Lionel Messi in his prime, taking charge of already Treble-winning Bayern, or the immense resources he was handed at City, “the one purely football caveat in Guardiola’s sensational record” is “he’s never really had to work anywhere where he’s had to compromise”.

The other “lingering question” concerns City’s “bludgeoning power” and how, “Guardiola’s prodigious gifts aside, they were able to acquire it in the first place”, said Oliver Brown in The Telegraph. The seemingly never-ending Premier League investigation into 115 charges of financial irregularity has hung over the club, and “for years Guardiola has had to deny suggestions of an asterisk being placed alongside their achievements”.

As for the future, replacing Guardiola “will be no easy feat”, said The Athletic. He has “set the standard so high, both for fans of Manchester City and for those of us judging from the outside, that anything short of sustained brilliance could easily seem underwhelming. Mediocrity would feel like disaster.”

The redistricting battles are over for now, and Republicans won. But Democrats might still have a path to recapturing the House in November’s midterm elections.

President Donald Trump “succeeded in tilting the playing field to the GOP’s advantage” by pushing for mid-decade gerrymandered maps to defend Republicans’ House majority, said The Washington Post. As many as 12 seats shifted to the right. Democrats would now have to “dig deep into Trump territory” to win the chamber. But redistricting may have also “diluted” GOP votes in existing red-leading districts, said Axios, a possible “dummymander” in which sitting Republican members of Congress could be “swept out of office” in a “Democratic wave” thanks to Trump’s growing unpopularity.

‘The GOP’s voter problem’

The redistricting wins “won’t matter if Republicans can’t get people to vote for them,” Russell Payne said at Salon. All the shuffling leaves Democrats needing to win the national popular vote by at least 3.5% in order to have a chance at winning the House, but polling currently puts them closer to six points ahead. A Democratic victory in the midterms “would buy them time” to respond with gerrymandering of their own in blue states like Virginia, Illinois and New York. Trump’s negative approval rating will not help Republicans. Redistricting “can’t fix the GOP’s voter problem.”

The new House map is “so tilted” that a national four-point Democratic voting advantage “might not be enough for a majority,” Henry Olsen said at The Washington Post. That outcome “would be highly unusual historically.” The GOP’s gerrymandering “might be enough to let the party keep the House,” but it could “hold back public opinion forever.” If Democrats keep that but lose the House, they will “rightly feel robbed.”

Trump and the GOP may have given Democrats a “lifeline” with Black voters, S.E. Cupp said at the Chicago Sun-Times. Republican redistricting is “carving up predominantly Black majority districts” and “potentially marginalizing minority voters” who were starting to move right: Trump received 15% of the Black vote in 2024, up from just 1% in 2016. Gerrymandering “might be the catalyst” Democrats need to win them back. The GOP “war on Black districts” could do just that “at least in the short term.”

Democrats: ‘May still have upper hand’

Democrats should not despair. Republicans “likely won’t realize all the gains” they hoped for, Jim Saksa said at Democracy Docket. And if Democrats play “hardball” after this year’s midterms by doing more “partisan redraws” in blue states, they could end up with an advantage of as many as 13 seats by 2028. But “it won’t be easy.”

The president’s party “typically loses seats in midterms,” said Reuters. GOP chances in the House “have increased,” said Inside Elections’ Jacob Rubashkin to the outlet, and “none of the underlying politics has changed.” Inflation, gasoline prices and the Iran war will all be factors. Democrats may “still have the upper hand” going into November, said Reuters.

Bruising brushes with financial markets have been the fate of Labour “down the ages”, said William Keegan in The Observer. Back in the 1960s, Harold Wilson complained about “the gnomes of Zürich” – a derogatory reference to international bankers then going “short on the pound”. This time, the threat is closer to home – in London’s febrile government bond markets.

‘The risk of some kind of accident is real’

Before this week’s escalation of the leadership fight, economists were playing down the political angle. “For all the noise, politics isn’t what’s driving yields higher right now,” James Smith of ING told The Times. “The overwhelming driver is still the energy crisis, oil prices and the impact on BoE interest rates.” But as a dramatic sell-off got under way, it became harder to discount the sense that debt markets are indeed badly rattled by Labour’s leadership woes. The 30-year gilt yield, which hit 5.81% on Tuesday, is at the highest this century. Yields on 10-year gilts (the benchmark for mortgage rates), at 5.13%, are at their highest since 2008.

It’s “a rubbish time” to be having a political crisis, said Daire MacFadden in the Financial Times. “Sadly, that’s precisely what we have.” Any leadership challenge is “all but certain to herald a move to the left and potentially an increase in government borrowing”. To some extent, the gilt market had already priced this in, but “the risk of some kind of accident here is real”.

It doesn’t help that Andy Burnham – who last year observed that government shouldn’t be “in hock” to the bond market – “keeps talking about bond markets as if they are some sort of entity he can bamboozle with jargon”, said John Stepek on Bloomberg. The view from his camp seems to be that renationalising various sectors of the economy will inherently make them more productive – so gilt markets “will be happy to fund the borrowing”. That’s a somewhat “courageous” assumption.

‘Bond vigilantes’ on the rise

“It seems like the only supporters that Keir Starmer has left are the so-called bond vigilantes,” said Robin Wigglesworth in the FT. As they point out, higher borrowing costs are already chipping away at the chancellor’s £24 billion of fiscal headroom, which forecasts suggest could halve. But for how long “can the gilt market act as the UK’s political police”?

Among Starmer’s rivals, Burnham is perceived by traders as the biggest threat and Wes Streeting as the least risky. We must hope he prevails and persuades investors to lend at “a lower premium” to Britain, said Adam Smith in The Telegraph.

The “intriguing paradox” of Labour politics is that the leader most distrusted by the Left may ultimately be the “most capable of financing the expansive social-democratic state that they all crave”.

Chinese-made EVs are cheap and increasingly popular around the world but not in the U.S. market where imports are mostly banned. American automakers and their allies in Congress want to keep it that way.

Congress is pushing to “lock Chinese cars out of the U.S. market,” said Autoweek. Michigan Reps. John Moolenaar and Debbie Dingell this week introduced a bill to entrench and expand a Biden-era block on “smart” cars with Chinese-made software systems the lawmakers say is a national security threat.

American automakers are also alarmed by what they see as unfair competition from Beijing-backed companies like BYD, Nio and Geely that have made “steady market share gains in ​Europe and Mexico,” said Reuters. Geely sells its EX2 EV for $22,500 in Mexico, while the average sale price of a new car in the U.S. is $51,000. Chinese carmakers have “some level of government support, or else they couldn't transact at that price,” Toyota’s David Christ said to the outlet.

‘Common sight in border towns’

Lifting the block on Chinese EVs “could devastate the U.S. auto industry,” Sandy K. Baruah and Glenn Stevens Jr. said at The Detroit News. China has “cunningly” built its carmakers using “vast state subsidies, uncompetitive labor practices and the monopolization of raw materials” to “dominate the global market.” Those practices have created an “unfair playing field” in which Chinese companies now make 62% of all new EV sales globally. “We must not allow that here.”

It is a question of “when, not if” Chinese cars will hit U.S. roads, Katrina Hamlin said at Reuters. The vehicles are “cheaper” and “often snazzier” than what American brands offer, and U.S. drivers “seem ​keen to buy Chinese cars” as “budget models become increasingly scarce” at home. BYDs purchased in Mexico are already a “common sight in American border towns like El Paso and San Diego” though they cannot be registered in the U.S. The change “looks increasingly like it’s just a matter of time.”

Congress is not buying

“Are cars the next TikTok?” Matthew Choi and Dan Merica said at The Washington Post. Lawmakers are concerned camera, sensor and trip data collected by Chinese smart cars could be shared with Beijing, similar to the fears that forced the sale of TikTok’s American operations to U.S.-based Oracle. President Donald Trump has suggested he would welcome Chinese automakers as long as their cars are “built by Americans in the U.S.” So far, though, “that is not a caveat Congress is buying.”

Chinese carmakers should be allowed “if they agree to conditions,” Bruce Stokes said at Roll Call. They should “hire American union labor” and “buy American-made parts.” They should also share “most advanced Chinese battery and other technologies” with U.S. partner companies and store the “vast amounts data” generated by their cars on U.S.-based servers. The U.S. must strike that deal or risk “being hopelessly shut out of the world market.”

A series of European leaders have been singled out for criticism by a frustrated Donald Trump over recent months, said The Guardian. Currently, it's Germany's chancellor who “finds himself in Washington's crosshairs”.

Friedrich Merz provoked the president's wrath last week by telling a class of schoolchildren in his home region of Sauerland that America lacked a clear strategy in Iran and was being “humiliated”. Trump swiftly hit back, calling Merz “totally ineffective” and threatening to shrink America's military presence in Germany. Two days later, the Pentagon announced the withdrawal of 5,000 of the more than 36,000 US troops stationed in Germany. Trump subsequently suggested that many more could be pulled out. He has also threatened to raise tariffs on European car imports from 15% to 25%, a step that would hit Germany hardest.

Awkward timing

This row arrives at a terrible time for Merz, who is struggling in the polls, said The Economist. However, it remains to be seen whether the troop withdrawals actually happen. Trump threatened to pull out 12,000 troops in his first term, but that plan was later cancelled. German bases such as Ramstein are “crucial hubs for American power projection, not least in the Middle East”. German officials are more concerned by the decision to cancel the deployment of a US intermediate-range missile unit to Germany.

This deployment, agreed in 2024 by President Biden, was “explicitly intended to send a message of strength to the Kremlin, a tangible signal of deterrence”, said Hubert Wetzel in Süddeutsche Zeitung. Trump's cancellation of the plan last week, after yet another long phone call with Vladimir Putin, could “almost be interpreted as an invitation to the Kremlin”. Nato's credibility ultimately depends on the belief that the US would come to Europe's aid in a crisis, but how sure can anyone be of that now?

Political misstep

Given how much Europe depends on America, its leaders really need to stop provoking Trump, said Wolfgang Munchau on UnHerd. Merz was of course right that the president entered the Iran war without a strategy, but it was foolish of him to talk of America being “humiliated”. More careful language is required. For all the talk of creating strategic autonomy, the reality is that Europe is miles away from being able safely to decouple from the US. It hasn't even agreed a joint defence strategy. The Europeans are in “dangerous denial”, always quick to criticise the US while persistently failing to address their own powerlessness. “Now Trump has called their bluff. No wonder they hate him.”

The Trump administration has lofty expectations about the state of the pharmaceutical industry, but not everyone appears to be a believer. Recent data from the White House predicted that the administration’s deals with drug companies could save the economy more than half a trillion dollars over the next decade. While Republicans are lauding this estimate, many Democrats are taking it with a grain of salt.

‘Touted his drug pricing deals as transformative’

The White House predicts that Trump’s deals could save $529 billion over the next 10 years, according to an analysis of data obtained by The Associated Press. The administration also estimated that federal and state governments could “save a combined $64.3 billion on Medicaid during the next decade” because of Trump’s agreements, Josh Doak said at the AP.

Trump administration officials have touted the president’s “drug pricing deals as transformative and urged Congress to codify their principles into law” as part of “most favored nation” (MFN) pricing, said Doak. The White House has “reached voluntary agreements with 17 pharmaceutical companies,” and it appears the administration’s “goal is to bring manufacturers of sole-source brand-name drugs and biologics into comparable arrangements,” Colleen Cabili said at Quartz. Details on the deal specifics remain unclear.

The president has “sought to position his pharmaceutical pricing push as a winning issue with voters,” said Cabili. Given his plummeting poll numbers over affordability, Trump has been “focusing on his efforts to cut deals with companies so that the cost of prescription drugs in the U.S. would no longer be dramatically higher than in other affluent nations,” said Doak.

The mechanism ‘remains a black box’

Despite the White House’s optimism, many across the aisle are skeptical of the Trump administration’s potential cost savings. Just prior to the White House’s analysis, 17 Democratic senators introduced legislation that would force Trump to provide details of the drug deals. If “these deals are actually lowering costs for patients, show us,” Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), one of the co-sponsors of the legislation, said in a statement. “Americans deserve transparency.”

If “these deals are so great, why is the Trump administration afraid of showing them to the public? Because Trump is a giant fraud when it comes to lower drug prices,” Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said in a parallel statement. The “scope of the savings claimed by the Trump administration are likely to intensify the scrutiny by Democrats,” said Doak at the AP. One of their primary concerns is that “pharmaceutical companies have increased their profit margins while working with the administration.”

The “exact mechanism” for these savings “remains a black box,” said Angus Liu at the biopharma news website Fierce Pharma. Beyond the price of the drugs themselves, the White House “has yet to define how commercial markets, such as employer-sponsored insurance, will access those discounted rates.” The “math for these massive savings only adds up if the administration can expand its circle of agreements beyond the 17 Big Pharma firms initially targeted” by Trump. Many biotech companies are also wary of “MFN’s impact on their business models” and “argue that they lack the diverse portfolios of pharma companies that can absorb revenue hits from pricing pressure.”

Plans for a summit between President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping were underway before America went to war with Iran. That war delayed the meeting, now set for next week, and will overshadow other issues the two leaders planned to discuss.

The war has “significantly altered” the agenda for the Trump-Xi summit and could be a “major obstacle” to resolving trade issues between the two countries, Lyle J. Goldstein said at Responsible Statecraft. The “tensions are palpable” in part because China has reportedly shared weapons and intelligence with Tehran, but both countries want to keep the world economy “from careening off the looming cliff.” Trump and Xi may be forced to work on “pragmatic compromise in order to keep their rivalry under control.”

Trump “may want to temper his expectations” for the summit, Jacob Dreyer said at The New York Times. China once saw presidential visits as “global validation” for its rise but now has “begun to chart its own course” as its leaders realize their country has “learned all it can from America.” Trump wants to improve the U.S.-China relationship but “maintaining a tense stability is about all he can hope for.”

‘A creditor-debtor dynamic’

The president has “fewer cards to play” at the summit, Brahma Chellaney said at The Hill. His choice to go to war against Iran has “boomeranged” into a “global energy shock,” with the result that a meeting intended as a “show of strength” for the U.S. president may end up being more about “damage control.”

The war has depleted American munitions and weakened the economy, accelerating a shift in the U.S.-China relationship from a “rivalry of near-peers” to “something closer to a creditor-debtor dynamic.” Trump’s question in Beijing is “not whether he can strike a deal,” but rather “what he will give up to get one.”

Trade issues “will take center stage at the summit,” Patricia M. Kim said at Brookings. Trump and Xi likely will continue the “trade truce” between their countries, with the U.S. getting Chinese exports of rare earth minerals and sales of American farm products, while China gets tariff and regulatory relief from Washington. A summit “focused on stability” could lead to more cooperation on security and trade or could turn the Washington-Beijing relationship more frosty if “Trump walks away dissatisfied with the results of the trip.”

Breakthroughs unlikely

The number of Americans with favorable views about China has “ticked up,” said Pew Research Center, nearly doubling since 2023 to 27%. Fewer Americans say China is an enemy, but most “still see it as a competitor.”

The summit is “unlikely to deliver decisive breakthroughs” between the U.S. and China, Yingfan Chen and Dingding Chen said at The Diplomat. Its significance will not be a “transforming” of the dynamic between the two countries but instead “maintaining a minimum level of predictability” in the relationship so the competition between China and America can continue “within constraints the system can absorb.”

“No company is more unapologetic about its controversial goals than Palantir Technologies,” said Brett Shafer on The Motley Fool.

The AI powerhouse has “rocketed to become one of the largest companies in the world by market capitalisation”, by selling its analytics software to governments and big business; yet it is rapidly becoming “a political football”.

‘Ramblings of a supervillain’

Opponents cite the rumoured use of its tech in the Iran conflict, and the confirmed use of its tracking software in President Trump’s ICE immigration crackdown – as well as the “aggressive” political stance of two of its co-founders: CEO Alex Karp and chairman Peter Thiel.

Karp’s recent release of a 22-point “manifesto”, based on a book he co-authored last year, has unsettled minds further. The book’s central claim is that the survival of US civilisation depends on the technological revitalisation of the military-industrial complex. Even Palantir insiders are becoming disturbed by the rhetoric, reported Wired, and belatedly “starting to wonder if they’re the bad guys”.

Palantir’s reputation in Britain is on an even sharper descent, said Robert Booth in The Guardian. One MP compared the manifesto, which “implied some cultures were inferior”, to the “ramblings of a supervillain”.

Indeed, more than 300,000 Britons have signed petitions calling for Palantir to be dropped from UK contracts, which include a £330 million deal to process medical data for the NHS and a £240 million Ministry of Defence deal. A contract to process criminal intelligence for the Metropolitan Police is also under discussion.

‘Blackening’ NHS values

Palantir’s pitch is that it performs essential “plumbing” – joining together scattered, often incompatible, sets of data to be analysed and searched easily. But is this really a company we should trust with “our most sensitive data”, asked Faiza Shaheen in The New Statesman. By funding Palantir, “we are blackening the very values” of the NHS. Even the way it obtained its contracts seems shady. It got its toehold in the NHS during Covid by offering assistance for a token £1. Later deals were helped along by Peter Mandelson, and his lobbying firm Global Counsel.

Palantir, which is run in the UK by Louis Mosley, has become “the Left’s favourite conspiracy target”, said Matthew Field in The Daily Telegraph. Green party leader Zack Polanski has made rooting out the company a rallying call. “The tech giant, meanwhile, has embarked on its own PR blitz, seeking to portray the fears of its critics as concocted and political.” There’s everything to play for: next year, Palantir’s NHS deal “runs into a break clause”. The US firm had “better be ready” for a fight.

Not many legal experts expect this week’s federal indictment of former FBI director James Comey to result in a conviction. Instead, observers say President Donald Trump’s Justice Department finds its credibility wavering amid ongoing efforts to prosecute the president’s political rivals.

The case will be a “challenge for the Justice Department to win,” said The Associated Press. Comey was charged with threatening Trump with an Instagram post showing seashells arranged in the numbers “86 47.” (He later deleted the post.) The message was “ambiguous” at best and given Comey’s background he likely “didn’t intend to convey a threat of violence,” John Keller, a former Justice Department official who prosecuted violent threats, said to the AP. “Broad First Amendment protections” for political speech will make proving the case a “tall burden for the government,” said the outlet.

The indictment is a “grave embarrassment” to the Justice Department, Ken White said at The Popehat Report. Bringing charges over a “mildly sassy arrangement of seashells” demonstrates the “complete collapse” of the department’s integrity. Government attorneys have traditionally been granted a “presumption of regularity,” assuming that they are properly discharging their duties. That tradition is dissolving, and the “road back to credibility for the department will be long and arduous.”

DOJ ‘got the message’

Trump-friendly outlets and pundits are finding it difficult to defend the charges. The Comey indictment is “bogus,” Andrew McCarthy said at National Review. The Justice Department “shreds its credibility with the courts” when it “abuses power this way” and could invite retaliatory investigations when Democrats next take power. The Instagram post may have been “crass,” but the First Amendment “protects bad and hateful speech,” Jonathan Turley said at Fox News. The indictment probably will not survive a challenge, but it is “likely to fulfill Comey’s narrative” about the dangers posed by the Trump administration.

The indictment shows the Justice Department “got the message” from the recent firing of Attorney General Pam Bondi, Glenn Thrush said at The New York Times. The agency’s “roiled leadership,” including acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, is now sharply focused on the “president’s restless efforts to exact vengeance on his enemies.” That may keep Trump “happy, or at least at bay.” But with Democrats poised to take control of Congress, the department’s leaders may find that the “opinion of a lame-duck president is increasingly not the only one worth heeding.”

‘Whims and petty desires’

The prosecution “will almost certainly fail,” Steve Benen said at MS NOW. But a conviction may not be Trump’s “intended end point.” Instead, the president is making clear he can “orchestrate federal prosecutions based entirely on his whims and petty desires.” Federal prosecutors are getting a message they should “play along with the revenge campaign or face unemployment.”

Republicans may find the case a challenge to their midterm campaigns, said The Washington Post. No candidate “wants to run on ‘I stand with Donald Trump’s retribution tour’” while gas prices are rising, said GOP strategist Barrett Marson to the outlet.

No-frills carrier Spirit Airlines is bankrupt. Now President Donald Trump is mulling a federal takeover of the company. Can the U.S. government make the planes run on time?

Spirit Airlines employs 14,000 people and “maybe the federal government should help that one out,” Trump said to reporters last week, per Reuters. But there is hesitation in Trump’s cabinet and among the president’s free-market fellow Republicans. There has been “a lot of money thrown at Spirit, and they haven’t found their way into profitability,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said to the outlet. The federal government “can’t make dumb investments.”

A federal takeover would make Spirit the “Amtrak of the skies,” Cato Institute’s Tad DeHaven said to Axios. The possible deal would give the airline $500 million in cash in exchange for a 90% government stake in the business. That would “mark a renewal of a bailout strategy” the government pursued following the 2008 financial crisis, in which the feds owned pieces of “too big to fail” companies such as General Motors, Chrysler and several banks, said the outlet.

‘Market discipline’ versus ‘Moral hazard’

The federal government “has to save Spirit Airlines,” Kyle Stewart said at Live and Let’s Fly. The Justice Department sued to block a merger between Spirit and JetBlue in 2022, arguing that the “Spirit effect” forced other airlines to lower fares to be competitive. And it is true that Spirit “made air travel possible for people who otherwise could not afford it.” But that created a moral obligation for the government. The government kept Spirit from selling itself, which means it “cannot shrug when the same airline later circles the drain.”

The Justice Department made the “wrong decision” blocking the 2022 merger, Ben Schlappig said at One Mile at a Time. The government’s intervention “failed to take into account that Spirit no longer had a viable business model.” But the “bad merger idea” probably would have failed, given that JetBlue is also currently stumbling. Beyond that, Spirit’s current rate of spending means it would likely burn through $500 million “in a matter of months.” That would leave the government “owning an airline that loses a lot of money. Then what?”

“There’s no economic justification for the government to save Spirit Airlines,” The Wall Street Journal said in an editorial. Letting the company fail “would be a useful lesson in market discipline,” but a bailout “would fuel moral hazard” that would invite rivals like JetBlue to seek government assistance as well.

‘Fundamentally flawed’

An infusion of government cash might not save an airline that has “been on life support for years,” said CNN. Spirit and other discount carriers “continued to lose money” after emerging from the pandemic. The company’s business “was fundamentally flawed,” United CEO Scott Kirby said to the outlet.

Spirit could become the “new face of state capitalism,” Jessica Karl said at Bloomberg. But the company’s problems have been apparent for years. “A check for $500 million from the Trump administration won’t magically change that.”

Thanks to “Bohemian Rhapsody”, “the visually and spiritually ugly Queen film that won four Oscars and earned $910 million worldwide”, we’ve had a spate of “soulless, estate-approved” biopics of famous musicians lately, said Clarisse Loughrey in The Independent. “Michael” is the latest of these.

‘Ghoulishness’

It seeks not to understand Michael Jackson, nor to explore his legacy, but simply to deliver content for fans – the scenes from the star’s life that they hope and expect to see. In that respect, it is not unique; but there is a “particular ghoulishness” in giving this treatment to a figure as complicated as the late King of Pop. “Michael” ends in 1988 – long before child abuse allegations surfaced against Jackson. It makes no mention of his accusers, or his tendency to share his bed with young boys. Instead, it depicts him as a man with no real agency: he is just a kindly dreamer, destined to “spread love and heal”.

Sanctifying bullshit

In this film, Jackson positively glows with Christ-like goodness, agreed Brian Viner in the Daily Mail, which makes sense when you look at the credits. Six of its executive producers have the surname Jackson, as does the film’s star: Jaafar Jackson is Michael’s nephew. The film opens in Gary, Indiana, in 1968, where the Jackson children are being screamed at by their strict father Joe, and little Michael (the poor “Lost Boy” who will one day buy his own Neverland) consoles himself by reading “Peter Pan” in bed. From then on, it plods through the familiar beats of his life, from the Jackson 5 to solo stardom. The music scenes are brilliant, said Kevin Maher in The Times. The rest is pretty disgraceful, two hours of weird, sanctifying bullshit. Surely, the genre has reached its nadir.

Two summers ago, the Scottish National Party was in a sorry state, said Annabel Denham in The Daily Telegraph. It had lost 38 Westminster seats in a punishing general election, and the party was “mired in scandal”, with its chief executive being investigated for embezzlement. It was haunted by policy failures – including a “stagnant education attainment gap”, poor health outcomes and “deteriorating public services” – that remain a problem today.

A recent poll found that 58% of Scots disapprove of the party's record in government. Yet bizarrely, the SNP is set to come top in next month's Holyrood elections, a result that would secure it its fifth win in a row.

Lure of independence

There are two main explanations for this, said Ian Swanson in the Edinburgh Evening News. One is that the party can always count on a solid base of support among pro-independence Scots. The other is that the rise of Reform UK as a political force in Scotland has fragmented the opposition vote. The result is that the SNP, like Labour in 2024, is on track to win a “loveless landslide”.

Under John Swinney, the SNP is doing its best to woo voters by sticking with its strategy of making Scotland the home of “free stuff”, said Chris Deerin in The New Statesman. Having already delivered free university tuition, eye tests and prescriptions, and baby boxes for every new parent, it's now promising a free school bag of stationery and books for every new primary school pupil. The SNP also plans to cap prices for essential food items in supermarkets. Then, of course, there's the lure of the independence issue: Swinney insists that a vote on breaking up the UK could be held as early as 2028.

‘Political panto’

On this issue, Swinney has got himself in a bit of a pickle, however. When he declared last year that the SNP would push for “Indyref2” if it won a majority in the Holyrood election, he no doubt assumed that he had set the bar safely high, said Andy Maciver in The Herald. The party is weakened, and it doesn't feel confident of winning a referendum now. It would rather leave the fight until the end of the decade, by which time it can hope to have a stronger record in government to point to – and the divisive Nigel Farage might be in No. 10.

The timing is not right for the SNP, agreed Robert Shrimsley in the FT. But it can still safely demand a new referendum because it knows Labour will veto any such effort. Swinney can then act all aggrieved. Everyone will play their part in this “political panto”, knowing full well that nothing will come of it. “The starting gun for the break-up of the union? Oh no it isn't.”

The United States has backed Israel since its founding as a modern state in 1948. That alliance is looking fragile these days, with recent polls suggesting American public support for its longtime ally has cratered amid deadly wars in Gaza, Iran and across the Middle East.

The number of Americans who now hold a “very or somewhat unfavorable view of Israel” is 60%, said Pew Research Center. That’s up seven points since last year, and “nearly 20 points since 2022.” There was once bipartisan support for Israel among U.S. voters, but 80% of Democrats now disapprove while 58% of Republicans approve. There has also been a departure from 25 years of polling, which long reported that “Israelis consistently held double-digit leads in Americans’ Middle East sympathies,” said Gallup. Americans now view Palestinians more sympathetically than Israel, by a margin of 41 to 36%.

‘Heavy-handed militarism’

The United States is “falling out of love” with Israel, Edward Luce said at Financial Times. Fewer Americans remember Yitzhak Rabin, the “courageous prime minister of Israel who sought peace with the Palestinians” but was assassinated in 1995 by an Israeli extremist. Benjamin Netanyahu has largely dominated Israeli politics since then, wielding a “heavy-handed militarism” in Gaza, and Americans have noted his role in persuading President Donald Trump “that it was a good idea to attack Iran.” Rabin lost his life for peace. “What will posterity say of Netanyahu?”

Netanyahu may be remembered as the “prime minister who lost Israel’s most important ally,” Michelle Goldberg said at The New York Times. The country’s faltering reputation is mostly a “consequence of its oppression of the Palestinians” and particularly the “mass killings” in Gaza during its war with Hamas. But the growing split is also the result of Netanyahu’s “aligning Zionism” with Trump’s “American authoritarianism.” U.S. views of Israel “could still have much further to fall.”

The United States “must stand with Israel,” Alex Tokarev said at The Detroit News. Like the U.S., Israel “values liberty” but is “surrounded by tyrants and terrorists determined to annihilate it.” A West that will not support its ally against such enemies “will not defend its own liberty.”

An ‘ominous turn’

Netanyahu has “torched U.S. support for Israel for a generation,” said Axios. The collapse can be seen among Democrats in Congress, where “lawmakers who started out staunchly pro-Israel are becoming increasingly vocal critics” of the U.S. ally. American leaders must “have a discussion about how to normalize” the relationship with Israel, Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colo.) said to Axios.

An “unprecedentedly overwhelming majority of Democrats” last week voted against failed Senate resolutions to block weapons and bulldozer sales to Israel, said The Times of Israel. Americans are “sick and tired of spending billions of dollars to support Netanyahu’s horrific wars,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said to reporters, per the outlet. The votes to deny arms to Israel are an “ominous turn that will encourage Iran, Hezbollah and their terrorist allies around the Middle East,” The Wall Street Journal said in an editorial.

It was not a joke. The shoe company Allbirds announced last week that it is pivoting to artificial intelligence, a sign that the AI bubble is about to pop. Or maybe the tech optimists are right and everything is AI now.

The company was “once the maker of Silicon Valley’s favorite shoe,” said The New York Times. Allbirds was previously valued at $4 billion, but the company earlier this year closed all its stores and sold its assets for a mere $39 million. Now the brand seeks a fresh start: The business is rebranding itself “NewBird AI” and announced it had received a $50 million influx to buy up advanced computer chips that will let it enter the AI infrastructure business. That investment is a “drop in the bucket” for an industry spending billions to build data centers, but Wall Street loved the news. NewBird’s stock immediately rose nearly 600%.

The market’s reaction proves “AI excitement is alive and well — but as silly as ever,” Noah Weidner said at The Street. The move might make sense, though. Artificial intelligence requires a “massive volume” of computing power, and companies able to furnish it “will drum up excitement” — even if that company once sold shoes.

AI is creating wealth

Will AI spending hold up?

The shoe company’s “flailing AI embrace” is “not a horrible idea on the surface” given that it fills a “real business need,” Nitish Pahwa said at Slate. But the AI spending that has “propped up the economy” might not persevere, and communities are “successfully obstructing the data centers” needed for further expansion. Indeed, Allbirds’ stock started to drop after the initial surge, said Bloomberg. The market roller coaster ride gives Allbirds the feel of a “meme stock,” said 50 Park Investments’ Adam Sarhan, in which “emotions take over and logic and reason get thrown out the window.”

In May 2025, Ye – formerly Kanye West – released a single called “Heil Hitler”, which contained a lengthy sample from one of Hitler’s speeches, said Dan Hancox in The Guardian.

Around the same time, he started selling swastika T-shirts on his website. As a result, the musician, who has frequently been accused of racism, homophobia and sexism, was sued by his own talent agency, and denied entry to Australia. So news that he had been booked to headline the three-day Wireless Festival in north London was, shall we say, “a little surprising”. It brought condemnation from Jewish groups; sponsors withdrew; and a week later the Home Office barred Ye from entry into the UK, prompting the cancellation of the entire festival.

Notoriety sells

Industry insiders were shocked by this sudden unravelling of a major event, said Eamonn Forde and Sarah Walker in the same paper – but were also puzzled as to why its organiser, Festival Republic, had risked booking Ye in the first place. Well, festivals are big business these days, said Zing Tsjeng in The i Paper – and notoriety sells. Festival Republic must have looked at Ye’s still-healthy streaming figures, and his ability to court outrage, and seen dollar signs.

Their own defence, however, was that Ye’s antisemitic actions could be overlooked because they were attributable to his bipolar disorder, said Will Hodgkinson in The Times. In January, the rapper had taken out an ad in The Wall Street Journal, in which he explained that he had been in the grip of a long manic episode, and insisted that he loved Jewish people. He sounded sincere, but he placed the ad shortly before announcing a world tour; and it made no mention of his long history of spewing antisemitic hatred.

In 2022, he publicly praised Hitler, and tweeted that he’d be going “death con 3” on Jews. He apologised then too – yet neither he nor his staff seem to have taken steps to prevent a public recurrence. He didn’t record and release “Heil Hitler” alone. He wasn’t printing his swastika merchandise in his shed. A manager with power of attorney could have stopped it.

‘Glamour of the censored’

I don’t really buy the mental health defence, said Ella Whelan in The Telegraph. If Ye doesn’t hate Jews, he uses Jew hatred to get attention. But I still think the government was wrong to ban him. That only lends him the glamour of the censored.

Many Britons will have applauded the decision that Ye’s presence would not be “conducive to the public good”, said Sarah McLaughlin on UnHerd; but do we really want ministers to filter visitors to the UK on the basis of their opinions? Banning them won’t make their offensive ideas go away; and it’s a power to limit free speech that could easily be misused.

It has been a busy spring for JD Vance. The diplomatically untested vice president was tapped for wartime negotiations with Iran, became the administration’s mouthpiece in a doctrinal feud with Pope Leo and led the White House in a last-ditch effort to salvage now-ousted Hungarian autocrat Viktor Orbán. It has hardly been an auspicious season for someone positioning themselves to carry the MAGA torch post-Trump.

Can he come back from a string of public flops?

Despite entering office as a “man full of ideas” just over a year ago, Vance and his opinions “matter less and less” within the Trump administration, said Idrees Kahloon at The Atlantic. While his diminished clout may be the “typical fate” of the vice president who is “forever on display but seldom listened to,” Vance’s shrinking footprint is a “major comedown from the role he once seemed likely to fill,” that of “Trumpism after Trump.”

Admittedly, the job of being veep was not “designed to be fun,” Edward Luce at the Financial Times said. But being Trump’s number two “brings unique discomfort.” Vance is “flailing” at backing policies that “often turn 180 degrees overnight,” rendering him “no longer Trump’s obvious successor.” Even if he should “regain his place in the Trumpian firmament,” there is “no such thing as a Vance base” within the modern GOP.

The past few weeks saw Vance bring his “noncharisma to bear” on Orbán’s behalf, prompting voters to “commit themselves to a serious program of Orbán Renewal” before he jetted off to “screw up the Iran peace talks,” Charles Pierce said at Esquire. Vance is playing “both sides against the middle” on Trump’s war in Tehran so as to maintain his “alleged viability in 2028,” while wings of the “elite political media” ready themselves to position him as the “next tinhorn Reasonable Republican.”

The future remains unwritten, but it’s “hard to imagine things going worse” for the veep, largely because Trump “forced Vance into this position,” Asawin Suebsaeng said at Zeteo. Vance may believe in Orbán’s ultra-nationalism as an “ideological pursuit, not a practical one” but it’s hard to “identify any political advantages” to his recent “crusade” on Orbán’s behalf, said Noah Rothman at the National Review. “Conversely, the downsides are becoming increasingly hard to ignore.”

Every time Vance debases himself on Trump’s behalf, “he gets less and less in return,” said Dana Milbank at The New York Times. Not only have his “political fortunes” begun to “dim,” his “soul has become a depreciating asset.” In many ways, Vance has “cast himself as the chief ideologist” of a MAGA movement with “no ideology” beyond the “instincts, impulses and glory of one man,” The Economist said.

Vance’s attempts to “take on” Pope Leo by attacking his “area of expertise” highlight the “deadly sin of pride,” Tom Nichols said at The Atlantic. Describing the “willingness” of someone like Vance to challenge the Vatican “requires a word from Yiddish rather than Latin: chutzpah.” That he would encourage Leo to “stay in his lane” while at the same time spreading “his version of the gospel from his powerful political perch” could prove “one contradiction too many, even for this skilled political chameleon,” Nia-Malika Henderson said at Bloomberg.

The well-positioned ‘heir apparent’

Still, Vance may remain well-positioned ahead of 2028. His “unusual second job” serving as the Republican National Committee’s finance chair is “exactly” what an “ambitious presidential aspirant might dream up,” said Theodore Schleifer and Shane Goldmacher at The New York Times said. While he’s done “some good for the party,” Vance has also done “some good for himself” by “wooing” the GOP’s “richest and most influential patrons,” even as his camp is “leery of being seen as plotting about anything beyond the 2026 midterms.”

In March, Vance was the main attraction at the closed-door spring summit of the Rockbridge Network, a “secretive donor group” that he cofounded in 2019 during his “stint as a private investor,” said Gabe Kaminsky at CBS News. Although his remarks were focused on 2026, the larger question “looming” over the confab was whether he had 2028 plans in place. Given Rockbridge’s reach within the MAGA coalition, Vance seems “poised to stand at the crossroads” of varying GOP interests that, one attendee told the outlet, “want JD to be the heir apparent.”

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

‘Powerful motivator’

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

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

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

‘Many acknowledge the role Iran played’

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

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

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

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

‘Two-way street’

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

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

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

Damage is done

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

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

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

Space programmes cost billions. By 2028, when the fourth mission in its current Artemis programme lands astronauts back on the Moon, Nasa will have spent $105 billion (£78 billion) – which is “a chunk of change”, said USA Today.

Spending so much seems puzzling “when we already did” the Moon thing: are “science, exploration and the possible value of moon materials” really worth it? Or would that all public money be better spent on ”healthcare or tax cuts”?

‘Futile pursuits of prestige’

“It’s absolutely self-evident to me that space exploration is pointless,” said Zoe Williams in The Guardian. And the more crises there are “besetting this planet we live on, the more pointless it becomes”. The US, “of all nations”, has got bigger issues right now, so “seriously, Nasa, can you not just knock it off”?

Ordinary Americans are tired of “these absurd expressions of vanity, these futile pursuits of prestige”, said space historian Gerard DeGroot on UnHerd. Even the Apollo missions in the late 1960s “were not as popular as Nasa pretended”: opinion polls showed “support was consistently below 50%”, with women, people of colour and the poor, in particular, questioning the “obscene cost”.

The current Artemis enterprise “reeks” of Elon Musk: his SpaceX Starship will have increasing involvement as the missions progress and, although the details of the deal are “shrouded in mystery”, it’s “safe to suspect that some quid pro quo is involved”. We know that SpaceX has received $17 billion (£12.6 billion) in government funding already.

Images to ‘catch the breath’

I've always thought the so-called “choice” between “advancing to the stars and solving problems back on earth” to be “a false one”, said Séamas O'Reilly in The New Statesman. Yes, the Artemis budget “may seem hard to justify” for what appears to be “a few rocket launches” and some “charming zero gravity footage of bulky astronauts surrounded by floating pens” but “this elides the truth” of the “titanic boost to science, technology and economies back home”.

Nasa’s Apollo programme “returned around $7 to the US economy for every $1 spent”. In all our homes, we can see “developments made at the bleeding edge of space”: if you have a laptop, a camera phone or a memory foam mattress, “you have Nasa to thank”. The same goes for advancements in water purification, landmine removal and artificial limbs – “not to mention the invention of ear thermometers and CAT scans”.

If those images beamed back from the Artemis II this week didn’t “catch the breath” in your throat, you can’t “be fully alive”, said Sam Leith in The Spectator. “The experience of seeing the Earth photographed from space” has “an effect on our collective imaginations”. The Apollo 8 “Earthrise” image, for example, is widely thought to have “kickstarted the modern environmental movement”.

Artemis II is “one small step towards living in deep space”, said evolutionary biologist Scott Solomon in The Washington Post. I see parallels between “establishing an enduring human presence” on the Moon (and, ultimately, Mars) and “the processes by which animals and plants” arrive on Earth’s islands and “evolve into new species”. Future generations living on other planets will “gradually become different from people on Earth”. And that will be “a giant leap for all humanity”.

An estimated $500 billion worth of lithium lies below the Salton Sea, a large lake in Imperial County, California, east of San Diego, and many people are eager to tap into this “white gold mine.” But the sea is located in a region of the Golden State where there are already numerous environmental concerns, and some residents worry that plundering for lithium could exacerbate the problem.

‘Saudi Arabia of lithium’

There has been a renewed push to extract the Salton Sea’s lithium, as the mineral is crucially important for rechargeable electric batteries. The lithium in question could likely “power our smartphones, electric cars and electricity grids,” said Soumya Karlamangla at The New York Times, and a modern gold rush “could bring jobs, tax dollars and economic revitalization to one of the most impoverished places in the nation.” In 2022, the area was called the “Saudi Arabia of lithium” by California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), a reference to that country’s abundant natural resources.

Pressure to extract this lithium is also coming from the artificial intelligence industry, as AI is “driving a surge in energy demand as tech companies scramble to build more data centers,” said Kori Suzuki at KPBS San Diego. There is “just a massive demand for power,” Rod Colwell, the CEO of Controlled Thermal Resources, said to KPBS. The company is planning to build a lithium extraction project in the region, and there has never “been a change of focus.”

‘Not everyone is eagerly welcoming’

Residents of Imperial County, on the other hand, are concerned that the ongoing lithium push could create even more environmental hazards, and “not everyone is eagerly welcoming” the industry, Karlamangla said at the Times. The Salton Sea has been rapidly shrinking, and “as it does, it spews plumes of pesticide-laden dust throughout Imperial County.” Lithium extraction requires a lot of fresh water, and locals “worry the process will deplete the region’s scarce water resources.”

Ecological groups have launched lawsuits, arguing that environmental hazards outweigh the benefits of extracting the lithium. The proposed project from Controlled Thermal Resources “would create a high-water demand in an arid desert environment where the drying out of the Salton Sea worsens severe air pollution impacts,” said a legal brief from the nonprofits Comite Civico del Valle and Earthworks. The lawsuits “only serve to delay progress on clean energy projects that are essential to the community, California and the nation,” Lauren Rose, a spokesperson for Controlled Thermal Resources, told CalMatters.

Others are not buying this argument. The project “must be corrected to meet the standards that protect our community and our environment,” Luis Olmedo, the executive director of Comite Civico del Valle, said to CalMatters. Imperial County is “no stranger to 21st century plans that arrive with great promise but do little to benefit locals,” Aaron Cantú said at Capital & Main. The lithium mining is “just another way the community will be sacrificed for private gain,” Anahi Araiza, a policy researcher at Imperial Valley Equity & Justice, told Capital & Main. Residents “want a slow and methodical process to ensure that things are done well.”

From his podium at the Conservative Political Action Conference, Donald Trump reminded his base how he differed from past presidents. “It turned out that I was able to stop wars from happening,” he said.

That was in 2024, said Natalie Allison at The Washington Post. A year later, the newly installed president was back at CPAC, boasting about being “a peacemaker, not a conqueror”.

Notable absences

This year, Trump skipped the jamboree for the first time in a decade: he was too busy managing the war with Iran he’d launched a month earlier. And he wasn’t the only high-profile no show, said Katy Balls in The Sunday Times. At the last event, J.D. Vance and Marco Rubio spoke, and Elon Musk ramped up the carnival atmosphere by brandishing a chainsaw on stage; this time, one attendee noted that there were more journalists present than politicians. That the event was rather more subdued than usual was due to several factors – including its relocation from DC to Texas; but the lack of buzz was indicative of the troubled state of the GOP as it gears up for the midterms.

A little over a year into his second term, Trump is discovering that for all his efforts to extend his authority, there are still constraints on what he can do, said Gerard Baker in The Times. Public revulsion has forced him to temper his migrant deportation policy; the Supreme Court has struck out his signature tariffs policy; the markets are squealing about the war in Iran. And even in his own backyard, the voters are restive: in late March, a Florida Democrat seized a red seat that takes in Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort.

Base betrayal

The die-hards remain intensely loyal, said Elaine Godfrey in The Atlantic, but polls show that Trump is losing support among the coalition of younger Americans and Latinos that gave him his victory in 2024. Many already felt betrayed by his attempt to block the Epstein files and by the impact of his Big Beautiful Bill on the deficit. Now, they’re furious that he has taken the US into a war that is costing billions and further driving up the cost of living.

In the manosphere, prominent voices who rallied behind his “anti-woke” rhetoric in 2024 are complaining that Americans were duped. The podcaster Joe Rogan has called the war “insane, based on what [Trump] ran on”. There is dissent within Maga too, some of which has veered into antisemitism: Tucker Carlson and others have been peddling the line that Israel manipulated Trump into the war. Disenchanted Trump fans are unlikely to vote Democrat in November; but they might easily just tune out of the election – and so inadvertently deliver a “blue wave”.

As Donald Trump’s war wears on, it becomes increasingly clear that he has no “overarching strategy” and is now fighting a war of attrition, said The Guardian.

America is still striking at Iranian targets while building up troops in the region. Iran, in turn, keeps attacking Israel and the Gulf states. Last week, it hit a US airbase in Saudi Arabia, injuring 12 US personnel and causing hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of damage. Tehran’s allies in Yemen have now entered the fray. The Strait of Hormuz remains shut. And while his officials talk about peace being “weeks, not months” away, Trump is still warning of far worse to come as he “searches for leverage”.

This week, the president said that the US could capture or “obliterate” Iran’s oil export hub, Kharg Island, and possibly even target Iran's energy and water systems – “war crimes by another name”.

Miles apart

Trump threatened to destroy Iran’s energy infrastructure last month, said Andrew Neil in the Daily Mail, only to row back, saying there would be no strikes for ten days to allow time for talks. That deadline elapses on Monday, but all the evidence suggests that he had no plan and was simply “playing for time”. And while he claims that Tehran is “begging for a deal”, the Iranians seem to think they have him “on the run”, and deny talks are even taking place.

Even if meaningful negotiations were on the horizon, the two sides are miles apart, said Richard Spencer in The Times. Iran is demanding not only an end to sanctions, but “an end to all attacks, including Israel’s, on Hamas, Hezbollah and other arms of the ‘resistance’”. It also wants reparations, and “sovereignty” over the Strait of Hormuz – a hint that it plans to charge for access, as Egypt does with the Suez Canal. The US, in turn, insists that Iran end its nuclear programme; give up its enriched uranium; and cut off support to its proxies.

When it comes to Trump’s rhetoric, a pattern is emerging, said Emily Maitlis in The i Paper. He reserves his most bellicose threats for the weekend, when the financial markets are closed, then starts talking up the possibility of peace so that the outlook seems more positive by the time traders are back at their desks. The markets, though, are getting wise to this tactic.

‘Escalate or talk’

As for Tehran, it seems unmoved by Trump’s threats. The fact is, Iran is far more capable than the US of both withstanding and inflicting pain, said The Economist. While the world counts the economic costs of this war, the regime is “making a mint” from sanctions-busting oil sales. Domestically, its hardline Revolutionary Guards remain in control. And overseas, its proxies continue to do its bidding: last Saturday, the Houthis provided a stark reminder of their capacity to ramp up the chaos when they fired missiles at Israel.

Trump, by contrast, is flailing. “Despite operational successes and his nonsensical claim of having already changed the regime in Tehran, he has yet to win any substantive gains from the fighting.” His choice now is to “escalate or talk”.

Given the risks of escalation, Trump will probably seek a deal to reopen Hormuz, said Gideon Rachman in the FT. But any outcome that leaves Iran with practical control over Gulf energy exports would be deeply unpopular with those states. It has even been suggested that the UAE and Saudi Arabia could “join the conflict rather than accept that outcome”.

‘The regime is hurting’

Trump will find the Iranians to be very tough negotiators, said Matthew Gould in The Times. The regime has shown its capacity before to withstand “repeated blows”, and is determined to stay in power no matter how much pain it causes its people. By contrast, Trump will be worrying about popular opinion ahead of the midterms. He is reportedly already “bored” with the conflict. And if it chooses, Tehran can use its trigger-happy proxies to derail the talks at any moment. That said, Iran has a habit of overplaying its hand and, “for all its bravado, the regime is hurting”.

Pakistan, in its role as mediator, has intensified its diplomatic efforts over the past week, said Saeed Shah in The Guardian; but Tehran is so far refusing to engage in face-to-face talks with US officials. Trump began the war confident that it wouldn’t take long to topple the Iranian regime, said Steve Bloomfield in The Observer. Its nuclear programme had been weakened, its allies had been hobbled, so the US and Israel seized the moment. Yet in the past five weeks, the mullahs have actually tightened their grip on power; and it’s the ordinary Iranians, who Trump promised to save, who will pay the price for this war. If it ends soon, other economies will bounce back. Iran could feel the impact for generations to come.