New Jersey Congressman Tom Kean Jr. won his GOP primary election yesterday, a notable event given that he has not been seen in public for months. And the question of his whereabouts is drawing increasing scrutiny.

The mystery is “frustratingly unsolved,” said The New York Times. Kean last cast a vote in Congress on March 5, then was sidelined by what his aides vaguely described as a “personal medical issue” from which he is expected to recover. Voters, journalists and House colleagues “haven’t seen or heard directly from Kean” since then, and it is “still unclear” when he might return to work or the campaign trail, said CNN.

Kean is “focused” on “recovery” and expects to return to work “within a matter of weeks,” he said in a Tuesday night post on X. But his ongoing and mostly unexplained absence is “rattling” Kean’s GOP allies, who worry the “massive public relations failure” will damage the party’s ability to defend his “critical swing seat” in November, said CNN.

What did the commentators say?

Kean “owes voters” answers about “his mystery illness,” The Bergen (N.J.) Record said in an editorial. His absence has coincided with House debates about the “Iran war, funding for the Department of Homeland Security and other critical issues.” His team spent weeks creating the “illusion of a fully functioning representative” by sending out a “steady stream of first-person social media posts and news releases” before acknowledging his medical issue in late April. New Jersey voters deserve a representative “who is straight with people about his own capabilities.”

The lack of transparency is a “slap in the face to voters,” Max Burns said at MS NOW. Kean is one of several House members who have gone “missing in action” in recent years. Rep. Frederica Wilson (D-Fla.) missed weeks of votes after undergoing eye surgery, then announced her retirement. Kean and Wilson “can’t be blamed for battling health issues,” but they owe more candor to their constituents. And if they are “unwilling or unable” to work, they should “make way for someone with the capacity to serve.” The duo has a “right to privacy” but also a “duty as public servants to represent their voters.”

What next?

The congressman’s absence has not interfered with the operation of his political machine. At least five speeches in his name “have appeared in the Congressional Record” during his leave from Congress, said Roll Call. While it is “not uncommon” for House members to publish speeches in the record they did not deliver in the chamber, Kean’s “frequent submissions” while he is away have “raised eyebrows.”

Kean’s congressional district is “among the country’s most competitive,” said The Washington Post. The GOP “cannot hold the majority without this seat,” an anonymous operative said to the outlet. Republicans urgently need to know if Kean is “capable of running for reelection and winning.”

Kean still snagged President Donald Trump’s endorsement in the midterms, said The Hill. Kean “will never let you down!” Trump said on Truth Social.

The war in Ukraine is unwinnable and could bring down the Russian economy. That’s the emerging assessment among Russia’s power brokers, as Vladimir Putin faces mounting challenges on the battlefield and at home.

Kremlin propagandists may still be “projecting confidence about the outcome of the war”, said Igor Gretskiy, of the Estonian-based International Centre for Defence and Security, but there’s been “a marked shift in mood” among Russia’s political and business elites. It’s no longer their “default assumption” that Russia will achieve its objectives.

What did the commentators say?

Setbacks have been mounting on several fronts, said Gretskiy. “First, the cracks in the Russian economy became impossible to ignore”, with the federal budget “deeply out of balance” and the deficit at the end of April nearly double what was planned for the whole of 2026.

“In the most serious sign of internal division” since Russia invaded Ukraine four years ago, senior Russian government officials have warned Putin that spending on the war “is on an unaffordable path”, said Bloomberg.

Then there is the military situation itself. Ukrainian drone attacks are causing severe disruption to Russia’s logistical networks and supply lines to the front, and long-range strikes have hit Russian oil-production infrastructure and even threatened Moscow. The Russian army is no longer able to grind out incremental capture of Ukrainian territory, and one million of its soldiers are thought to have been killed or wounded since hostilities began.

We’re in a situation where “the capabilities of both sides are comparable”, said Russian political scientist Vasily Kashin on Russia in Global Affairs. “Historically, such wars have only extremely rarely resulted in the complete destruction of one side.” Russia can have no hope “of annexing new large Ukrainian territories” when “it lacks the capacity to sustainably control and manage” them, and its goal of eliminating the Kyiv regime is “fundamentally unattainable at this stage”. The publication of such a damning analysis is “a further sign of growing dissent at the top of Russia’s political establishment”, said Catherine Belton, Russia reporter for The Washington Post.

“Sustaining the war machine” is also “eroding” the president’s “social base”, said anti-Putin activist Alexey Sakhnin in Jacobin. A recent poll by Moscow’s independent Levada Center suggests that 62% of Russians favour peace talks with Ukraine, with only 27% expressing support for continuing the war.

What next?

There are parliamentary elections in September, so the Kremlin will want to ensure that “increasingly evident war fatigue” doesn’t “affect the cohesion” of Putin’s system”, said exiled Russian politician Vladimir Kara-Murza in The Washington Post last week.

But if events continue to turn against him, Putin may feel he has not choice but to roll the dice and go for broke, Tatiana Stanovaya of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Foundation told The Post’s Belton: “To a great degree, escalation is the only way to respond to a situation which you can’t control.”

Donald Trump “lashed out” at Benjamin Netanyahu last night in an “expletive-laden call” with the Israeli PM about the country’s actions in Lebanon, according to US officials speaking to news site Axios. The official paraphrased Trump’s remarks as: “You’re fucking crazy. You’d be in prison if it weren’t for me. I’m saving your ass. Everybody hates you now. Everybody hates Israel because of this.”

Trump himself described the call as “very productive”, saying he had demanded Israel abandon plans for a “major raid” and that Netanyahu had “turned his troops around” as a result.

The Israeli prime minister is caught between Donald Trump’s demands to end the bombardment of Lebanon, which threatens peace talks with Iran, and domestic pressure to escalate the campaign against Hezbollah, which has seen the Israeli army moving deeper into Lebanon and escalating air strikes.

What did the commentators say?

Since the 7 October attacks, Netanyahu has “struggled to assure Israelis he will keep them safe” against Iran and its proxies, said The Times. There was already “mounting frustration in Israel at the failure to defang Hezbollah”, said the Financial Times’ Jerusalem correspondent, James Shotter. Most polls suggest Israelis “favour more aggressive action” against the group, and Netanyahu’s “climbdown” to Trump provoked criticism from “across the political spectrum”.

National security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, of his own coalition, urged him to ignore Trump’s demands and ratchet up the campaign against Hezbollah. “This is the time to tell our friend, President Trump – ‘no’,” Ben-Gvir wrote on X. Naftali Bennett, the right-wing former prime minister “widely regarded as one of Netanyahu’s main rivals” in the crucial upcoming election, accused him of “losing control over Israeli sovereignty”.

Netanyahu is also worried that any US-Iran deal will “leave Israel’s core concerns – Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium, its ballistic missile program and regional proxy network – largely unaddressed”, said Tal Shalev of CNN’s Jerusalem bureau.

For more than three decades, Netanyahu has “defined himself as the leader who would confront Iran’s nuclear ambitions”. But a recent poll from Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies found that 45% of Israelis believe the situation with Iran has worsened compared to before 7 October; only 31% believe it has improved. Nearly half believe Israel will probably not win, or has already lost, the war against Iran.

“It’s hard to overstate how deeply Netanyahu views this moment as a possible personal and political defeat,” Danny Citrinowicz, senior researcher at the institute, wrote on X. “Mr. Iran” may be forced to accept an agreement that “not only legitimises the very regime he sought to weaken but also exposes the collapse of his long-standing Iran doctrine”.

Ultimately, Netanyahu has to defend his own citizens, said The Jerusalem Post in an editorial. Northern Israel is “under constant rocket and drone fire”. Hezbollah had used the ceasefire as a “tactical opportunity” to regroup and rearm. It has “no intention of genuinely ending hostilities”; its purpose remains the destruction of Israel. The ceasefire “prioritised a quick diplomatic achievement for Washington” over the security needs of Israel; extending it further would mean “trading Israeli lives for a few more days of quiet”. The US negotiations with Iran over Lebanon “are certainly not worth the lives of Israeli citizens”.

What next?

Just hours after Trump announced the ceasefire agreement, Israeli attacks on southern Lebanon resumed. At least eight people have been killed today, according to Lebanese state media.

In a statement, Netanyahu said that he had told Trump that Israel would continue its operations. “Our position remains the same,” Netanyahu wrote. The Lebanese government, which wants Hezbollah to disarm, has begun direct negotiations with Israel today.

Iran continues to insist that any ceasefire between the US and Iran hinges on peace in Lebanon, with a senior military officer saying today that resumption of war with the US is “inevitable”.

Even before a Russian drone hit a Romanian apartment complex last week, European leaders were worried that Vladimir Putin is preparing to amplify his war beyond the Ukrainian territory he has failed to conquer.

There is “growing fear” that Putin will undo the current stalemate by “expanding the conflict to Europe,” said The Wall Street Journal. The Kremlin has made “increasingly bellicose threats” against neighboring Baltic states, and Russian drones approached Lithuanian airspace last month. Putin broadly aims to “threaten the whole European security architecture,” Benjamin Haddad, France’s minister for European affairs, said to the outlet. Russian leaders are encouraging such fears. European authorities “have unilaterally entered into a war with Russia” by supporting Ukraine, the former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev said on X after the Romanian incident. “The peaceful sleep is over.“

What did the commentators say?

Putin might be “starting to think about the next war,” David Ignatius said at The Washington Post. He might see the opportunity to strike “before European nations fully rearm,” and while U.S. President Donald Trump is “treating NATO like a punching bag.” The Russian leader might soon decide that his moment to “challenge NATO and impose a new order is closing.” A continent-wide war is a “chilling prospect.“

A new Russian attack is “plausible,” and NATO is “vulnerable” unless member countries “get their act together,” Alexander Gabuev, the director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, said at The New York Times. Putin sees NATO as a “major threat to Russia’s security.” The organization’s defense sector now “produces more tanks, shells and missiles” than before the Ukraine invasion. And Putin has surrounded himself with “sycophants” who are “afraid to speak the truth.” Europe is entering “the most dangerous period.“

Europe “needs to be united to fend off Russian aggression,” Tom Clifford said at the Kyiv Post. Ukraine’s defense against invasion is “protecting Europe,” but that does not mean Europe’s leaders “have secured the continent” from Russia’s war-making. Putin knows European opposition is “less than it should be.” The democracy embraced by Europe since World War II “always has to be fought for.”

What next?

The Russian drone that hit Romania on Friday “has only added to the wariness Europeans feel” as the war in Ukraine persists, said The New York Times. Moscow’s ongoing “campaign of cyberattacks and sabotage against critical infrastructure” is a warning to NATO countries and an attempt to force a conclusion to the war in Ukraine. Putin is attempting to “reestablish some form of dominance” to settle the war “from a position of strength,” Ivo Dalder, a former U.S. ambassador to NATO, said to the outlet.

Ukraine’s wartime success “should not lead us to underestimate Russia,” Peter Dickinson said at The Atlantic Council. Many Europeans seem “unimpressed” by the threat. But Moscow’s “expansionist agenda” and “well-armed military” signal that Russia will “remain a hostile power” as long as Putin is in charge.

The Trump administration’s moves to cut foreign aid and end ties with the World Health Organization could be making it more difficult to halt the latest Ebola outbreak in Africa.

Public health experts believe White House policies are “weakening critical networks” that respond to outbreaks in a “densely populated, politically unstable part of the world,” said Axios. The dismantling of U.S. support has “left the region dangerously exposed,” leading to the likelihood that Ebola was spreading “for some time” before it was detected, International Rescue Committee’s Heather Reoch Kerr said in a statement, per the outlet.

The Trump administration is pushing back against the criticism. The U.S. is “working with international partners” and “supporting response efforts” in Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Health and Human Services spokesperson Andrew Nixon said in a statement to Axios.

What did the commentators say?

“This is what happens when you defund Ebola prevention,” Sara Herschander said at Vox. There are “no vaccines or treatments” for the strain of virus at the heart of the current outbreak and the disease is spreading quickly “under the heavy shadow of U.S. foreign aid cuts” that “gutted” Ebola detection and response programs. Many of the experts and researchers who once would have guided the response are “simply not there anymore.” The U.S. has now pledged $23 million in emergency funding to Congo and Uganda, but “you can’t expect a bandaid to make up for the damage.”

The Ebola outbreak is a story of “institutional erosion,” Columbia University’s Thoai D. Ngo said at Newsweek. U.S. aid “helped build laboratory networks, train field epidemiologists, establish emergency operations centers” and other public health infrastructure that made it possible for epidemics to be “detected early and contained quietly.” That system is being “hollowed out,” which is short-sighted. “Global health security is domestic health security.”

The world “doesn’t have to fail” the test posed by Ebola, Michael T. Osterholm, the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, said at The Washington Post. It is “not fair” to place blame for the outbreak at the “feet of the Trump administration.” This virus emerged in an “unstable area of Congo” and is able to avoid detection by Ebola tests designed to find more common strains. But the U.S. can choose to once again deploy its resources to help contain dangerous diseases, even when they emerge in foreign lands. That choice would protect Americans “at home and abroad from a highly lethal illness.”

What next?

American infectious disease experts “have been barred from speaking directly with the World Health Organization,” said CNN. The Trump administration-issued ban — which applies to officials at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases — was in place for the recent hantavirus outbreak aboard a cruise ship but was “relaxed slightly” for the Ebola outbreak.

These restrictions “hobble quick cooperation” in disease response, health officials said, per CNN. The United States has “written off most of the institutions with global health,” Jeremy Konyndyk, the president of Refugees International, told the outlet.

The rise of artificial intelligence depends on the construction of giant new data centers to supply the necessary computing power. But Americans do not want the facilities in their neighborhoods.

Backlash to data centers is “bipartisan and growing across the country,” said 404 Media. States and cities are outlawing the “noisy, power and water hungry buildings” in a fight that could “shape American politics for years to come.” Seven in 10 Americans oppose building a data center in their area, said Gallup, higher than the 53% who would oppose a nuclear plant nearby. Industry leaders are now fretting over their inability to win public opinion that is “increasingly aware and skeptical,” said Business Insider. The tech sector “hasn't done a good job of explaining itself,” said Flexential CEO Ryan Mallory, whose company develops and operates the data centers.

What did the commentators say?

The backlash to AI “could get very ugly,” Lila Shroff said at The Atlantic. A “record number of proposed projects” were canceled during the first quarter of this year after “local pushback.” In April, an Indianapolis councilman found a “NO DATA CENTERS” note under his doormat after somebody shot at his house 13 times.

The fights over data centers will likely only “intensify,” as the facilities “stimulate local economies” but also take “physical and environmental tolls” on the places they are built, said Shroff. And though AI opponents may not be able to stop Anthropic from distributing its Claude model, “they can raise concerns about new construction at a local city-council meeting.”

“Nobody wants this in their backyard,” Sara Pequeño said at USA Today. In Utah, officials overrode local opposition to approve a giant new center that will consume “more than two times the energy used in the entire state.” Rural areas across the country face similar proposals. Data centers are “almost certainly here to stay” because of the computing power needed to keep up with “our ever-growing reliance on AI.” But Americans “clearly don’t feel great” about having them nearby.

The “brewing populist resistance” to data centers is a “critical new front in the fight against tech-enabled authoritarianism,” Astra Taylor and Saul Levin said at The Guardian. A local fight over land use can double as opposition to “job-eating algorithms, distorting deep fakes and autonomous drone strikes.” It also portends the next big electoral fight. AI is “shaping up to be a key fault line” in both this year’s midterms and in 2028.

What next?

The canceled data center projects are “sapping confidence” among AI investors, the investment bank Jefferies said in note to clients, per Axios. The pushback could become a “financial liability for AI labs if it continues to curb access” to the computing power artificial intelligence requires, the outlet said.

The backlash movement has one notable new ally. Erin Brockovich, the activist portrayed in an Oscar-winning performance by Julia Roberts, has launched a new website tracking proposed and under-construction data centers. The map “captures the real-world footprint” of the AI race, she said on the site.

Iran has signalled that any peace deal must include an end to Israel’s offensive against Hezbollah in Lebanon. But it’s unclear if the US could get Israel to agree to that, even if it wanted to.

Despite last month’s ceasefire, Israel has continued to pound Lebanon with airstrikes, killing at least 608 people, according to the World Health Organization. Yesterday, in response to a Hezbollah attack on its military posts, Israel launched one of its most intense waves of bombings, saying it had hit more than 100 Hezbollah targets. “I have ordered an even greater acceleration of our operations,” Benjamin Netanyahu said. “We will intensify our blows, increase our firepower, and we will crush them.”

What did the commentators say?

“Lebanon is in danger of becoming an overlooked but increasingly deadly sideshow”, as both Israel and Hezbollah violate the ceasefire, said Tom Kington in The Times. Israeli troops are occupying swathes of southern Lebanon, and won’t withdraw unless Hezbollah disarms. But the Iran-backed group says it won’t stop attacking Israeli positions until Israel withdraws. “The result has been a stand-off.”

Hezbollah is “waiting for a cue from Iran, which in turn depends on how Iran’s talks with the US go”, Michael Young, of the Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Centre in Beirut, told The Times. “If Iran emerges stronger from its clash with the US, Hezbollah will feel reinvigorated.” They will “be able to say they resisted and claim victory”. Meanwhile, Israel will be trying “to torpedo any deal”.

Washington is “pressuring” Lebanon’s leaders to disarm Hezbollah or else “face more Gaza-style destruction”, said Rami G. Khouri, a policy analyst at the American University of Beirut, in Al Jazeera. It has also “tied financial support” for the country’s reconstruction to “Beirut’s compliance with US-Israeli terms”. The Lebanese government faces “a disgruntled, deeply impoverished population, exasperated by relentless Israeli attacks”.

April’s ceasefire agreement heralded “weakened US-Israeli positions in the region”, as well as dealing “deep political blows” to Netanyahu and gifting “new diplomatic leverage” to Iran and Hezbollah. Having survived their “existential” battles and now pressing for permanent ceasefires, they could “weaken Israeli postures and help reshape Lebanon’s internal dynamics”.

“But far-right members of Netanyahu’s coalition are pushing him to challenge” Donald Trump on the “ceasefire with Hezbollah”, said The Guardian’s chief Middle East correspondent, Emma Graham-Harrison. “It is time for the prime minister to bang on Trump’s table and inform him that we are returning to war in Lebanon,” said Itamar Ben-Gvir, the national security minister, on social media. “There is an urgent need to put an end to the threat posed by Hezbollah’s explosive drones,” the finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, posted on Telegram. Hezbollah has “ignored repeated requests to stop firing at Israel”, a US official told Reuters. Israel will never “​passively absorb attacks on its forces and civilians”.

But Tehran won’t accept such attacks on its proxy, either, Danny Citrinowicz, a Middle East expert at the Atlantic Council, told The New Yorker. Lebanon is of “real strategic importance” to Iran; Hezbollah is “a vital element” of its “so-called Axis of Resistance”. So Trump “has a mountain to climb”. If he wants an agreement with Iran, he will have to “force Netanyahu’s hand on Lebanon”.

What next?

On Friday, delegations from Israel and Lebanon will meet for direct talks in the US, in preparation for further negotiations on 2 and 3 June.

The shaky US-Iran ceasefire, meanwhile, is under increasing strain: Iran has said US strikes near the Strait of Hormuz on Monday were a “gross violation”, and validated its “deep suspicion”. The US said its attacks were “defensive”.

But “even if Lebanon is part of a US-Iran peace deal, the Lebanese people will be wary”, said Kington in The Times. After all, April’s Pakistan-brokered ceasefire between the US, Israel and Iran, supposedly included Lebanon – but Israel “denied this was the case and launched 100 attacks in a few minutes”.

SpaceX, Anthropic and OpenAI are all preparing initial public offerings, competing for investor cash that could determine who ends up the winner of the artificial intelligence era.

The three companies “could make 2026 the biggest year for U.S. IPOs,” said the Financial Times. The competition has been “sharpened” by familiarity: SpaceX chief Elon Musk departed OpenAI in 2018 (and recently lost a lawsuit against the ChatGPT parent) followed by Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei leaving OpenAI in 2020. Now the AI rivals are positioning themselves to “command the deepest pool of capital.” All are hoping to “ride a wave of AI enthusiasm” among investors, but stock markets may be less enamored of the AI sector’s “vast cash burn” than private backers have been.

There is still enthusiasm. The artificial intelligence giants are “well-run, high-growth businesses,” said Rob Hilmer, the founder of Goanna Capital, to the Financial Times.

What did the commentators say?

The success of the IPOs depends on if the AI startups “can keep growing at the ridiculous rates they’ve achieved so far,” Parmy Olson said at Bloomberg. OpenAI says it will bring in $280 billion in revenues by 2030, up from about $25 billion now. To achieve that goal, the company’s corporate customers “must plug its technology into a broader array” of uses including “sales, finance, healthcare, human resources, logistics” and more. But many potential business clients are “keeping generative AI at bay” amid questions about whether it is “reliable enough for use in high-stakes decision-making.” Claude and ChatGPT will eventually be worked into corporate workflows. “The issue is how long that might take.”

A critical question: “How bad is the burn?” Beatrice Nolan said at Fortune. OpenAI’s need for “data centers, chips and cloud capacity” requires it to spend a lot of money, and its IPO filing will help investors determine if the company can turn a profit sooner than later. The answer “will matter to the whole AI industry.” If investors are willing to subsidize a “company spending at this scale” that will suggest the market “still has tolerance for AI’s cash bonfire.” If not, life could become “more complicated for the next wave of AI listings.”

What next?

Investors are enthusiastic about AI, but some experts warn the “novel technology comes with new risks,” said The Wall Street Journal. The sector has great potential, but the markets have “not factored in the cost of the vulnerabilities these systems could create,” Navrina Singh, the CEO of Credo AI, said to the outlet. That creates an unsettled market. “Everything is evolving so quickly,” said Jeffrey Bernardo, the CEO of Augustine Asset Management.

The IPOs could be derailed by “abundant and cheap” artificial intelligence available from Chinese labs like DeepSeek, said CNBC. There is also a “wave of Western challengers” such as Nvidia, Cohere, Reflection and Mistral that are “building cheaper, smaller, more efficient alternatives” than Anthropic and OpenAI. By the time their IPOs come to fruition, the “central premise of their valuations may already be gone.”

Donald Trump’s claim that the US and Iran are closing in on a peace deal has already been met with widespread criticism within his own Republican party.

The details haven’t been made public but Iran is said to have agreed to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, without charging tolls, and dispose of its stockpile of highly enriched uranium. In return, the US would cease hostilities, unfreeze billions of dollars of assets, and gradually remove economic sanctions.

But Republican Senator Ted Cruz said it would be a “disastrous mistake” to leave Iran “able to enrich uranium and develop nuclear weapons, and having effective control over the Strait of Hormuz”. And Senator Roger Wicker, chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, warned that the emerging deal “would not be worth the paper it is written on”.

What did the commentators say?

The “grim reality” is that, by closing the Strait of Hormuz, Iran has “leverage” over peace talks, said the Financial Times’ chief foreign affairs columnist Gideon Rachman. And now the US seems poised to agree to a deal that “threatens to leave Iran in a stronger position than before the war began”. Trump likes to “deride” the nuclear non-proliferation agreement that Barack Obama negotiated with Iran in 2015, but this looks in many ways “worse”. Perhaps the US president “should have reread” his book, “The Art of the Deal”.

Eli Groner, a former director-general of Benjamin Netanyahu’s office, said Iran’s knowledge that it can now close the Strait of Hormuz at any point “is a victory far deeper and more strategic than any point-scoring military achievement”. His summary? “Disaster.”

The framework of the deal described by US officials would be “a series of compromises, well short of the capitulation that Trump sought”, said David Ignatius in The Washington Post. Iran hasn’t accepted his demand that its highly enriched uranium be delivered to the West, nor has it agreed to give up its “right to enrich” in the future. But Trump “doesn’t appear to have any better options” to escape what has become “a military morass and a strategic dead end”. Tehran “can claim victory simply by having survived” the US assault.

Some Republicans are arguing that “peace could bring a pay-off for voters” by lowering petrol prices and easing inflation as oil tankers start to move through the Strait of Hormuz again, said CNN’s Stephen Collinson. But recovery from the strait’s closure will take time and won’t “immediately improve global economic prospects or affordability in the US”. Trump “can’t win politically”: given that a majority of Americans oppose the war, he would face a huge “backlash if he ordered new strikes”.

There’s no way to spin this humiliating “catastrophe”, Middle East expert Danny Citrinowicz, a fellow at the Atlantic Council, told The New Yorker. Rather than toppling the Iranian regime, the US and Israel have “ended up strengthening” it. It’s hard to imagine Tehran will just “give up its nuclear material” – to Trump or anyone else – because “they’re so much in the driver’s seat” here. Iran is already rebuilding its missile capacity and still has most of its launchers. Now we have “a more radicalised regime that can rush into a nuclear bomb and still have a conventional missile capacity. It’s a shit show.”

What next?

We have “reached a conclusion on a large portion of the issues under discussion”, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Esmail Baqai told a news conference in Tehran yesterday. “But to say that this means the signing of an agreement is imminent – no one can make such a claim.” The two sides were not discussing Iran’s nuclear programme “at this stage”, he added.

This is “not a final settlement”, said the BBC; this “memorandum of understanding” seems simply to involve a 60-day extension of the ceasefire and a plan for further negotiations on “some of the thorniest issues”, including the nuclear one. That timeline seems “rather compressed, given the complexity of the issues”, said CNN’s Collinson. “History shows Iran would love to drag the United States into a prolonged period of inconclusive diplomacy that lasts months or years.”

After months of stoking speculation over which Republican he would endorse in the acrimonious Texas Senate primary runoff race, President Donald Trump on Wednesday finally made his choice between Attorney General Ken Paxton and incumbent Sen. John Cornyn. But by throwing his political heft behind Paxton, a candidate whose skeleton-filled closet risks turning off general election voters, Trump may have instigated a major GOP schism in a reliably red state.

What did the commentators say?

Trump’s “eleventh-hour decision” to endorse Paxton, a “longtime MAGA ally,” gives the embattled attorney general a “late boost over establishment Republicans’ preferred candidate,” said Politico. Cornyn’s camp, however, fears that nominating the “scandal-plagued Paxton” could “put control of the Senate at risk and cost the party hundreds of millions of dollars to defend the seat this fall.” Paxton “would be an albatross around the neck of our candidates,” said Cornyn at a campaign event just hours after Trump’s endorsement, per KTSM 9 News. If nominated, Paxton “would likely lose” to Democrat James Talarico in November.

Republican senators “appeared stunned and livid” as news of Trump’s endorsement reverberated across Washington, said The New York Times. Many in the caucus “had been urging” the White House to back Cornyn, “whom they saw as a stronger candidate in a general election.” Trump’s “decision to do otherwise amounted to a slap at” Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.), who is “an institutionalist like” Cornyn.

“I’m sad personally for John Cornyn, and I hope he’s successful in his election regardless,” said one Republican senator to The Hill. “I’m sad for the institution.” It is “as much about President Trump sending a message to John Thune as the leader of the Senate as it is about an endorsement of Ken Paxton,” said longtime Trump ally Steve Bannon to The Wall Street Journal.

Made after “months of waffling,” Trump’s decision to endorse Paxton reflected the president’s “renewed conviction” that he “maintains an iron grip on the party following recent electoral victories,” said the Journal. Trump likely saw “recent internal polling,” was “convinced Paxton was pulling ahead with GOP primary voters” and “wanted to be on the winning side,” said Larry Sabato, the director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, to the Houston Chronicle. Trump picking Paxton “isn’t a shock given their history,” said the outlet. Not only has Paxton “golfed with Trump,” but he attended Trump’s 2021 “Stop The Steal” rally that preceded the January 6 insurrection and had “filed a petition with the Supreme Court to challenge the 2020 presidential election results in swing states for Trump.”

“Already the most expensive primary in history,” the Paxton-Cornyn race is also the “most expensive runoff ever,” said MS NOW. Some Republicans worry that it will “cost the GOP even more to keep the Senate seat red,” as the broader race, thanks to Trump’s intervention, has now grown “more competitive.”

Texas has “long been a great white whale” for Democrats, said The Hill. With a “uniquely strong nominee in James Talarico,” the party hopes that Trump’s “boost of Paxton could leave them with a vulnerable opponent” in November.

What next?

“Prolonged Republican infighting,” coupled with “growing anti-Trump sentiment,” has created a Texas race “more competitive than anyone would have predicted a year ago,” said The New Yorker. Democrats, “wary after years of predictions” that statewide wins are “just around the corner,” are now “allowing themselves to hope again, cautiously.”

We’ll learn “soon enough how GOP voters in Texas respond” to Trump’s backing of Paxton, said MS NOW. It’s “worth appreciating” that many Texas conservatives “believe Paxton can win.” But if he clinches the nomination over Cornyn next week, the GOP will “have to spend heavily” on Paxton’s behalf with “money they won’t have to spend elsewhere.”

Should Cornyn lose to Paxton, Trump will “face the prospect” of his joining a group of “lame duck senators more willing to buck his demands,” said the Times. Still, some Republicans are sticking with Trump’s choice, at least publicly. “You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out the pathway for Paxton is there,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) to the outlet. “What we’ve got to do is raise a lot more money now.”

Forty-two athletes, including swimmers, weightlifters and sprinters, will compete in Las Vegas on Sunday in the first Enhanced Games.

Little in sport has “caused as much controversy – nor provoked as many questions – as the Enhanced Games”, said BBC sports editor Dan Roan. “Those behind it claim it is here to stay, and could soon expand to more events and other disciplines.”

But there is another side to the spectacle of juiced-up competitors trying to beat the world record in their discipline. Earlier this year, the company behind the event, Enhanced, launched a range of personalised performance and longevity medicines to sell to the public.

What did the commentators say?

Proponents of the games say the aim is “to challenge sporting norms by allowing athletes to push their potential with legal drugs under strict medical oversight”, said Chris Kenning in USA Today. “The approach is, let’s not be naive and pretend it’s not happening,” said Enhanced CEO Max Martin. “Let’s just take what’s happening in the shadows, put it out in the open.”

But that’s not sensible, say some sports medicine experts. “It’s akin to me saying I’m going to make smoking safe by supervising you while you’re smoking,” Aaron Baggish, professor of medicine at the University of Lausanne, told Yahoo Sports.

Most critics though “overlook the fact that the Enhanced Games is making obvious what society has always quietly accepted”, said Byron Hyde, philosopher of science and public policy at Bristol University, on The Conversation – namely “that most people are willing to watch athletes risk harm when the entertainment is good enough”. Brain trauma is the “potential price of boxing entertainment”, so “why the outrage about pharmaceutical enhancement risks?”

For Baggish, the “primary concern” is the message the event sends to the public that using these substances when taking part in sports “is in any way, shape or form OK. That’s the really scary thing.”

That appears to be one of the goals of the organisers. Aron D’Souza, founder of the Enhanced Games, told The Independent in 2024: “This is the route towards eternal life.” The games will “bring about performance-medicine technologies that then create a feedback cycle of good technologies, selling to the world, more revenue, more R&D, to develop better and better technologies”. Ultimately, “it’s about being a better, stronger, faster, younger athlete for longer. And who doesn’t want to be younger for longer?”

But, said The Economist, “the real purpose of the games is to push the limits of what the public sees as the acceptable use of performance-enhancing drugs”. The event is taking place “at a time when concerns are being raised over the medicalisation of Western society”, said Roan. Social media and ‘looksmaxxing’ are being “blamed for fuelling demand for weight-loss injections, cosmetic treatments and performance substances”.

What next?

The Enhanced Games “speak to a vision of the future in which medicines, rather than being simply used to treat disease, can extend human longevity and enhance well-being”, said The Economist.

But on Sunday, the athletes involved will effectively be the guinea pigs for this idea, albeit ones who have “burned bridges, risked their future livelihoods or their health”. And with the launch of Enhanced’s consumer business, “more and more people may soon be wagering their bodies on a chance to roll back the clock”.

Two things are true: Cruise ships can be breeding grounds for disease. Americans love cruises anyway.

Expedition cruise lines “haven’t experienced any slowdown in bookings” following the deadly hantavirus outbreak on the MV Hondius, said The Wall Street Journal. Oceangoing travelers “generally understand the realities” of long boat journeys, Expedition Cruise Network CEO Akvile Marozaite said to the newspaper. Despite the scary headlines, industry experts “expect a record number of people” to take cruises this year, said The Associated Press. The sector “seems to be somewhat Teflon” to the bad publicity, Cornell University’s Robert Kwortnik said to the outlet.

What did the commentators say?

“Why would anyone go on a cruise?” Dave Schilling said at The Guardian. The Hondius drew worldwide attention, but a separate ship that was briefly quarantined with a rash of stomach flu cases was largely overlooked by the media. The stories are “piling up” about cruise ships being ocean-bound “fetid petri dishes.” There is not “one thing” a cruise offers “that isn’t available in the safe bosom of dry land.” Cruises will remain popular anyway. If Covid-19 “didn’t kill” enthusiasm for the excursions, “I think the industry is safe.”

People who criticize cruises are “wrong about nearly everything,” Nicole Russell said at USA Today. The hantavirus outbreak “won’t dampen my desire to go on a cruise.” There may be many stories of “terrible things happening on cruise ships,” but they are “worth the risk” because they can provide an “affordable, joy-filled family vacation.” Cruises, like life, are a “trade-off.” And life is “meant to be lived.“

“Do I think cruises are worth it, health-wise?” epidemiologist Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz said at Slate. The answer is a “bit complicated.” Cruises are “absolutely great places for illnesses to thrive,” but there is not a “great deal of evidence showing that infections are more likely” than on land. It is possible that people “just generally come into contact with lots of others on vacation.” Meyerowitz-Katz is considering taking his own family on a cruise. After weighing both the risks and benefits, “it doesn’t seem like the worst idea in the world.“

What next?

People planning to take a cruise should “practice great hand hygiene,” said CNBC. They should also “get up-to-date on your vaccines” before departing. And they should “keep a safe social distance” if illness rears its head. Best to stay clear of anyone who is coughing, “has difficulty breathing or is exhibiting fever,” Wellness Equity Alliance’s Dr. Tyler B. Evans said to the outlet.

The Hondius’ next voyage is already planned, said Forbes. After arriving in the Netherlands, the ship is to be “disinfected using chlorine and peroxide,” and the crew quarantined. Two scheduled voyages for the Hondius were canceled, but the plan “pending successful cleaning” is to sail in June from the Svalbard islands to the North Pole.

The UK’s net migration dropped sharply to 171,000 in the year to December 2025, the lowest outside the pandemic since 2012. But nobody seems to care.

A survey commissioned by the think tank British Future found only 16% of people believed net migration had fallen in 2025 compared with the previous year, while 49% thought it had increased. The poll of 3,003 adults in the UK “also suggests public concern is being shaped more by asylum and small boat crossings”, said the BBC Verify’s Rob England.

While net immigration figures have been falling (the number to December 2024 was 331,000), Labour and Conservative MPs “are speaking in a more hostile way about immigration than at almost any other time in the last century”, said The Guardian. The number of far-right and anti-immigration protests “has increased 15-fold since Labour took power in July 2024”, said The Telegraph.

What did the commentators say?

“It’s little wonder voters think net migration is going up when the only debate we have is about how to bring it down,” British Future’s director Sunder Katwala said. “We should be having a conversation about how to manage the pressures and gains of migration to Britain.”

“The difference in tone towards issues relating to asylum, immigration and human rights under this Labour administration compared to previous ones is stark,” said Alexander Horne in The Spectator. “These issues are now portrayed as problems to be solved.” New polling from YouGov also showed that Labour Party members have backed Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood’s tougher immigration policies by a two-to-one majority.

The net migration figures came as Andy Burnham’s allies signalled he would back Mahmood’s controversial immigration policies should he become Labour leader. “For Andy, migration is a moral issue as much as anything, showing people who’ve lost faith in politics that we do have control and we can do good,” one source told The Guardian. “We need to tell a positive story about the contribution of migration to our country, but we cannot do that unless people trust that the people they vote for have control over our borders.”

Mahmood’s closeness to Keir Starmer has led many to believe that she and her reforms will be jettisoned if the PM leaves Downing Street. “This is a pity for the country,” said Andrew Tettenborn in The Critic. Mahmood has thought deeply about immigration and she “overtly embraces the idea that settlement in the UK must be a privilege and not something there almost for the taking”. Despite criticism from within her own party, the voters Labour needs to woo – “the just-about-managing, the fed-up and those from the Red Wall” – care a “great deal for immigration control and a great deal for removing obstacles to it”.

But politicians should be wary of swinging too harshly one way or the other on immigration, said Sarah O’Connor in the Financial Times. “After the 2016 Brexit referendum, public concern about immigration fell”. Then it surged again “when the Conservative government liberalised visa routes for students and care workers between 2019 and 2022”. Now Mahmood has taken a restrictive turn.

What is happening is that successive governments are over-interpreting and over-reacting to a change in public opinion, “which reacts in turn, prompting a sudden swing the other way”. These frequent changes in immigration policy are bad for employers, migrants and the economy but also corrosive of trust between politicians and the public.

And yet “the tragedy of all this is that it’s not happening because politicians ‘aren’t listening’ to the public on immigration”. Rather, “it’s because they are listening too much”.

What next?

Mahmood’s proposed reforms “have caused a slow-bubbling revolt on the backbenches”, said Ethan Croft in The New Statesman, so whether they will survive a Commons vote remains to be seen.

Russian forces last month lost more territory to Ukraine than they were able to capture. The first of such occurrences in nearly two years, this marks an ignominious milestone and potential turning point in Moscow’s years-long invasion effort. At the same time, Russia is losing soldiers faster than it can recruit and deploy them. While the Ukraine front remains an active war zone that has left deep scars on both nations, there is a growing sense among observers that momentum has shifted in Kyiv’s favor.

What did the commentators say?

Russia’s conspicuously “diminished” Victory Day parade this month “signaled its vulnerability,” said The Economist. That sentiment was an “accurate reflection of Russia’s battlefield setbacks,” as well as the country’s “fear of the growing effectiveness of Ukraine’s long-range strikes.”

Russia’s weakened position can be traced to a confluence of three factors, said The Economist, citing research from the Institute for the Study of War: Ukrainian “ground counter-attacks and mid-range strikes,” the end of Russia’s “illicit use of Starlink terminals in Ukraine” and the Kremlin’s “paranoid throttling of the Telegram messaging app at home.” At the same time, Russia’s “exaggerated territorial ambitions and aggressive territorial demands” have run “completely counter to battlefield reality,” said the Institute.

May marks the fifth consecutive month in which Russia has lost “more soldiers than it can replace,” said National Security Journal. Ahead of an expected fifth summer of violence, Russia’s invasion “continues to falter” as the “fortunes of the war” seem to be “trending less and less in Russia’s favor.” Ukraine’s military technological advances have “not been the only key element” in Kyiv’s “recent battlefield gains.” Rather, they come amid Russia’s “growing command-and-control problems within its own military.”

Communications failures “contributed significantly to Russia’s problems” on the battlefield, said the Atlantic Council. After SpaceX “cut the Russian army’s illicit access to the satellite-based Starlink system” this spring, some Russian commanders were “forced to rely on inaccurate maps” showing “exaggerated gains.” In other cases, clusters of Russian troops were deployed “without adequate communication tools or coordination,” leaving them “highly vulnerable to Ukrainian counterattacks.”

All this comes as the public mood within Russia is “souring,” said Alexander Baunov at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center. The Putin government has “unceremoniously violated” the terms of its social trade-off offered to the public — that “you can live outside of the war, but you cannot be against it” — and now “society is angry.” Russian authorities have also banned the use of “popular foreign messaging apps” because they are “nontransparent” and boosted the “homegrown” Max app as an alternative. But the “implication” of Max’s transparency “has not gone unnoticed, and people feel their privacy has been rudely invaded.”

Russians “increasingly chafe” at the “restrictions on their liberties” imposed “in pursuit of a battlefield victory that now appears to be unattainable,” said Noah Rothman at the National Review. Moscow lacks “freedom of action” in the theater of battle and has “lost the ability to dictate the tempo of events,” while its economy contracts “following several years of war-driven growth.”

What next?

The Russian military’s “recent communications problems” are “unlikely to persist in their current form indefinitely,” said the Atlantic Council. Moscow has already explored a “range of alternatives, including relay drones and satellite links.” But it will probably take a “number of years for the Russian military to replicate the same level of efficiency previously provided by Starlink.”

Russia’s flagging battlefield progress is a problem for Putin, who has “insisted that Russia’s victory in the war is inevitable,” said CNN. That promise has “always been flawed,” given how “slow and incredibly costly the Russian advances have been.” Still, the momentum shift of late “feels like an inflection point in the war,” said Sir Lawrence Freedman, an emeritus professor of war studies at King’s College London, to The Economist. “If the Russians have nothing to show for their efforts, I would not be surprised if in some places things start crumbling.”

Rising Ebola cases in the Democratic Republic of the Congo are ringing alarm bells across a region still scarred by previous outbreaks of the highly contagious viral disease. The World Health Organization has declared a “public health emergency of international concern”.

At least 540 suspected cases and 131 suspected deaths have been reported by DR Congo’s health minister, and two cases have been confirmed in neighbouring Uganda. But the WHO’s initial sampling suggests the outbreak is potentially much more widespread.

And what makes this outbreak “extraordinary”, said the WHO, is that it’s caused by the rare Bundibugyo strain of the Ebola virus. This has a lower fatality rate (about 35%) than the more common Zaire or Sudan strains (up to 90% and 50% respectively) but there is no licensed Bundibugyo-specific vaccine or treatment – and the tests for it do not appear to work very well.

What did the commentators say?

Experts are alarmed that this outbreak “has been able to spread for weeks undetected across a densely populated ​area”, said Reuters. It took weeks to identify it as the Bundibugyo strain and then pinpointing cases was “slowed by limited diagnostic capacity”, with only six tests possible per hour.

The lack of a vaccine is why I am in “panic mode”, Jean Kaseya, the director-general of Africa-Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, told Sky News. And ongoing attacks by Islamic State-backed militants in Ituri, the province at the centre of the outbreak, are “restricting surveillance and rapid response operations”.

Ituri is “rebel-held territory”, close to “porous borders” with Uganda and South Sudan that communities cross constantly, said The Times. That’s certainly one factor that’s “making containment so difficult”. Bundibugyo is also “among the least studied of the Ebola strains”: this is only the third outbreak on record.

We reached a “critical moment”, said the BBC’s health correspondent James Gallagher. Most Ebola outbreaks are small but specialists are still “haunted” by the largest, which started in 2014 and killed more than 11,000 people in West Africa. This time, there is a “significant threat” not only to DR Congo and Uganda but also South Sudan and Rwanda. But that doesn’t mean we’re “in the early stages of a Covid-style pandemic”. The risk to the rest of the world “remains tiny”.

DR Congo has “extensive experience in dealing with Ebola outbreaks”, and its response is “significantly stronger today than it was a decade ago”, Daniela Manno, of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, told the BBC’s Gallagher. But recent US-led foreign-aid cuts have taken their toll. Containing the 2014 outbreak “relied on US leadership from USAID”, said Devi Sridharm, chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh, in The Guardian. But “the USAID team dedicated to Ebola-like diseases was cut by Elon Musk”. Since Donald Trump withdrew the US from the WHO, the organisation’s emergency-response budget has shrunk by 37%. UK foreign-aid funding has also “fallen to its lowest level in two decades”.

The worry “is less about this becoming a global pandemic” (unlikely, as Ebola only spreads through contact with infected body fluids), and more about “the devastation it can cause” to the region and its “already fragile” healthcare systems. But this is an “interconnected world”: “if your neighbour’s house is on fire, you don’t wait and watch; you help to put it out before the fire spreads to yours.”

What next?

The WHO is sending a team of experts to Congo and, on Friday, will host an emergency scientific consultation of researchers, clinicians, public health bodies and funders. “The cash-strapped organisation has already released almost $4 million (£3 million) to combat the outbreak,” said the BBC, “but much more may be needed.” Public health officials are also considering using a combination of the existing approved vaccines for the Zaire and Sudan strains.

But communities in the region “have little trust in government or external aid agencies”, said Sridhar. If Ebola spreads to a major urban hub, it will be “much more difficult to stop”.

“I don’t think that, in two months, we will be done with this outbreak”, Anne Ancia, the WHO’s representative for the DRC, told reporters in Geneva at the World Health Assembly. The 2014 Ebola outbreak took two years to end.

Just days after he waved goodbye to Donald Trump, Xi Jinping is hosting another world leader, a man the famously opaque Chinese leader has described as his “best friend”.

Vladimir Putin arrives in Beijing today for the two-day summit, their second in less than a year and their 40th, at least, overall. Their “carefully cultivated friendship” is defined by “highly personal rituals” involving vodka, lakeside tea, sports events and even making pancakes, said the South China Morning Post.

It’s obvious what a war-fatigued and internationally isolated Russia seeks from China, on whom it relies for drones and economic support. But it’s less obvious what the now far more powerful China wants from its unstable neighbour.

What did the commentators say?

The timing of Putin’s visit, days after Trump’s, “sends an unmistakable signal”, said The Economist. Xi is emphasising that even if he can “stabilise relations” with the US, it won’t “come at the expense of his ‘no limits’ partnership” with Putin. Those ties could “grow deeper yet” because of the US war in the Middle East. Xi and Putin could share intelligence about Trump’s military action against Venezuela and Iran, whom both count as allies.

Xi could “exploit his newfound leverage” – the balance of power has “shifted dramatically” since Russia’s full-scale invasion – to “secure more sensitive military technology and know-how”. China now produces most of its own weapons, many based on Russian designs; it could now seek “more high-end assistance” in nuclear and ballistic missile areas. Russia is “thought to have been sharing” drone data and expertise garnered from its experience in Ukraine.

A “key aim” for China is “more reliable and sustainable energy supplies”, said Deutsche Welle. China is concerned about dependence on seaborne imports, which account for about 90% of its oil. The blockade of the Strait of Hormuz and the global disruption to supplies make Russian oil a “more attractive” prospect, and Western sanctions on Russian exports mean China can “secure Russian energy at a discount”.

“China and Russia are like a couple in the same bed with different dreams,” said Claus Soong of the Mercator Institute for China Studies. A weakened Russia, or even the collapse of Putin’s regime, would “pose immediate strategic risks for Beijing”. There are signs of cooling since the unlimited friendship they proclaimed in 2022, before Russia invaded Ukraine, but “Russia still has more to offer” than Europe.

Any deals will likely be on Chinese terms, Alexander Gabuev, director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center think tank, told the BBC. “Russia is fully in China’s pocket, and China can dictate the terms.”

But despite the asymmetry of power, the pair share vital interests – security along their 2,670-mile (4,300km) border, and China’s market for Russia’s oil, gas and other materials, said Ankur Shah, BBC Global China Unit editor. Russia’s war in Ukraine is also an “asset to Beijing as it considers its options for a potential invasion of Taiwan”. Russia still has some niche military technologies it can sell. But Moscow’s “big advantage” is “its ability to stand its ground”. Russia “may be the junior partner, but it’s also a proud one”.

What next?

Xi’s meeting with Trump, the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, and cooperation across energy, trade and security are all expected to be part of the discussions tomorrow, said CNN’s senior China reporter, Simone McCarthy.

Both Beijing and Moscow are “weighing up whether to play any role in helping to end a US-Iran conflict”. This could “potentially win each goodwill” with the US, but both also want to use Trump’s actions to “advance their own vision of a world that’s not dominated by American power”.

Any concrete agreements, however, are “unlikely to be made public”, said The Economist. “As during previous visits, announcements are likely to be broad in scope but thin on detail.”

Ukraine in recent months has slowed Russia’s invasion to a near-halt and forced Moscow to ramp up its own security measures. Kyiv’s homegrown drone technology and techniques are now in demand around the world. These accomplishments have come despite diminished U.S. support for Ukraine’s warfighting efforts.

What did the commentators say?

The fight against Russia is “going better than you think,” said Vox. Kyiv still relies on the “fickle U.S. government” for Patriot missiles and battlefield intelligence, but Ukrainian leaders have “more confidence” in their ability to withstand the invasion than they did a few months ago. The “Ukraine line is not really in danger of breaking” even though Russia has “sustained enormous casualties” in attempts to advance, military analyst Franz-Stefan Gady said to the outlet. Ukraine might not be winning the war at this point, said Vox, but it “doesn’t appear to be losing.” Its leaders now believe Ukraine “no longer needs the United States as much” as it did early in the war, said The New York Times.

Ukraine “has finally given up” on President Donald Trump, Phillips Payson O’Brien said at The Atlantic. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is “aggressively seeking new diplomatic and military partners” and has sent drones to strike Russian oil facilities despite U.S. warnings against doing so. American leaders have “reduced what little weaponry” they were sending to Ukraine and pressured Zelenskyy to cede territory in exchange for peace. But Ukraine’s ability to adapt with reduced American support “has been startling.”

It is “significant” that Ukraine is “reversing the trend” of Russia’s progress in the war, The Wall Street Journal said in an editorial. One sign: Russian leader Vladimir Putin scaled back his country’s usual Victory Day parade in early May out of apparent fears of a Ukrainian drone strike. It is clear the “tide may be turning against Russia” after four years of war. That is an opportunity for the U.S. to “increase support for Ukraine so it can keep the pressure on Russia” and bring the struggle to an end.

The war will not end unless Ukraine inflicts a “decisive defeat” on Russia that poses a “direct threat to Putin’s regime,” Andrew A. Michta said at 19FortyFive. Putin’s military is “well positioned to continue” thanks to the backing of China’s industrial might and money flowing in from oil sales. Trump’s pressure on Zelenskyy to negotiate is a “signal to Moscow that its strategy is working.”

What next?

The U.S. is now looking to Ukraine for help in the war against Iran. The two sides this month signed an agreement to potentially “export military technology to the U.S.” and manufacture Ukranian-designed drones in the United States, said CBS News. Kyiv has “sent drone interceptors and pilots to the Middle East” to defend Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates against Iranian attacks. Ukraine is a “hub for drone innovation,” said the Financial Times. That is expertise the U.S. now needs.

Is Britain ungovernable? That is the question many are asking after a dramatic week in Westminster that potentially fired the starting gun on a Labour leadership race that could give the UK its seventh prime minister in a decade.

This latest political “merry-go-round has prompted soul-searching”, said Charlie Cooper on Politico. A G7 economy and “former global hegemon”, Britain is “increasingly a picture of political instability and economic stagnation”.

What did the commentators say?

After securing his election win, Keir Starmer promised to be honest with voters about “how tough this will be. And frankly, things will get worse before they get better.” But less than two years on, said Cooper, it is the parties on the extremes “offering quick and direct solutions” – such as Reform’s pledge to slash immigration or the Greens with promises of wealth taxes – “that now win a hearing with voters”.

With few in parliament able to “combine policy nous, real-world experience and the ability to sell a vision and convey hard truths”, the “constant churn” among PMs is “an indictment of leadership in the country”, said Tej Parikh in the Financial Times. “In a democracy, politics and policies are a reflection of the public too”, but “Britons struggle” to accept some necessary “trade-offs”.

Ending the pension “triple lock” is just one example of this. Throw in rising “expectations of government”, the electorate’s lack of patience and the declining “calibre of public discourse” and “it is little surprise Britain gets cakeist and myopic leaders, who are low on reform and high on easy answers”.

The electorate is “furiously disillusioned and disappointed” but the hard truth is that this “omnicrisis” of low productivity, a housing shortage, social care strain, welfare reform and ballooning national debt is not “easy to answer”, said Isabel Hardman in The i Paper.

“Failing to answer” these questions “leaves Britain hobbled in the long-term” and leaves voters feeling “let down by the politicians who they elect and pay to be honest and take the difficult decisions on their behalf”. Doing something about this would require “a leader who doesn’t care about social media storms or polling fluctuations or the complaints of focus groups” and is able to “switch off all that noise and fixate on the real problems”.

What next?

For too many people, the change they voted for in 2024 and repeatedly tell pollsters and focus groups they want “hasn't come fast enough”, said TUC general secretary Paul Nowak in The Mirror. It “hasn’t been all doom and gloom” but “the good work the government has done” – renationalising the railways, ending the two-child benefit cap and upgrading workers’ rights – “has been overshadowed by too many self-inflicted mistakes and a failure to shout proudly about those achievements”.

“Anyone who wants to replace Starmer has to start by accepting that he has done good things – just not enough and not at scale”, said Aditya Chakrabortty in The Guardian. Then they must “turn and face the country and tell us what they would do better”.

A “deep and justified pessimism” is gripping the UK. The feeling is that “tomorrow will be worse than today, that our children will not enjoy the same standards of living that we have done. That is what any Labour leadership contest must address.”

Many voters have a “palpable sense that the system is rigged against them”, said Nowak. Whoever is in No. 10 “today, tomorrow, in five years or in 10”, they “will have to fix the broken social contract”.

With Democrats looking toward the 2026 midterm elections, they are pushing an anti-corruption agenda in hopes of persuading voters. The party has called for laws against corruption to be placed on the books and repeatedly accused President Donald Trump of corrupt practices. Democrats are hoping this strategy, coupled with Trump’s plunging approval ratings, can help them win in November.

What did the commentators say?

Democrats unveiled an anti-corruption task force in their attempts to “claw back control of Congress from Republicans,” said The Associated Press. The task force will look to “overhaul ethics rules and protect access to the ballot.” Democrats aim to implement the same playbook used in Hungary against former Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who “was ousted by an opposition campaign with an anti-corruption message.”

The New Democrat Coalition, a caucus of 115 moderate House Democrats, has also released a plan to “crack down on loopholes that could assist insider trading, prediction-market schemes and cryptocurrency scams that any members of Congress or officials in the Trump administration engage in, including the president,” said NOTUS. Insider trading is already illegal, but “there is a growing concern among both parties that some members are profiting off their jobs.” Democrats are hoping the anti-corruption effort will “earn the trust of Americans” ahead of the election.

Democrats are also arguing that they care more about weeding out corruption than Republicans. Democratic officials have noted in campaigns that FBI Director Kash Patel “dismantled the agency’s public corruption team, which had previously been deployed to help monitor possible criminal activity,” said ProPublica. Over 200 Democrats have additionally aligned themselves with the End Citizens United PAC, which commits to “rejecting corporate PAC money, supporting a ban on congressional stock trading and working to end dark money in politics.”

What next?

Despite Democrats having a unified message around anti-corruption practices, voters in “battleground districts still do not give Democrats any advantage over the GOP when it comes to cleaning up corruption in the capital, showing how difficult it might be for the party to break through on the issue,” said the HuffPost. The End Citizens United PAC has urged candidates to “use anti-corruption arguments to underscore Democrats’ near-universal messages about affordability,” arguing that this will push them over the edge in November.

Some have cited Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) as an example of a politician successfully running an anti-corruption platform. “Nobody is articulating this kind of frame better than he is doing right now,” Tiffany Muller, the president of End Citizens United, said to HuffPost. But “gaining an advantage on the issue may require heading into territory some Democrats are uncomfortable with,” such as supporting “anti-corruption ideas more typically favored by the right, including term limits.”

If the Democrats win in the midterms, Trump’s “brand of corruption” will begin to wane in November and “go away in three years,” Ian Bremmer, the president of the global consultancy firm Eurasia Group, said to Semafor. The president is “putting his own best interest, and his family’s interests and his inner circle’s interest above those of the country,” Bremmer added. “Some of that is vainglorious.”

Wes Streeting, who quit as health secretary yesterday, has endorsed Andy Burnham as having the “best chance of winning” the Makerfield by-election. That fact should “override factional advantage or propping up one person”, Streeting said on X.

Pending approval from Labour’s ruling National Executive Committee, Burnham is set to stand in the northwest constituency, providing him with the chance to return to Parliament and challenge for the party leadership.

But with rising support for Reform UK in the region, and Labour plummeting in the polls, this will not be easy. How this by-election plays out “could decide the future direction of the country”, said the Manchester Evening News.

What did the commentators say?

Burnham contesting a seat vacated by Josh Simons, former chair of the Labour Together think tank, was “not high on my bingo card for this year”, said Ben Walker in The New Statesman. “Yet the logic behind the move is clear.” It is clearly “a pitch for prime minister”.

But Burnham’s return to Westminster is a “difficult proposition”, if the recent by-election in Gorton and Denton is anything to go by. “Yet, to state the obvious, this would be no ordinary by-election.” Makerfield is a “very different” constituency, and though it is only a “railway line away from Gorton, politically and culturally it is another world entirely”.

Taking into account Burnham’s popularity having been mayor of Greater Manchester since 2017, and exit-poll data from the Gorton and Denton contest, Britain Predicts forecasts a Labour hold, but “only narrowly”, by three points ahead of Reform. Whatever the result, the Makerfield by-election could be “one of the most totemic and decisive” in modern British history.

This is a “high-stakes gamble for everyone involved”, said Tim Shipman in The Spectator. “But then, in Labour politics right now, everything is.” The Makerfield seat is far from safe, despite being held by Labour since it was created in 1983. Simons won with a “majority of only around 6,000 over Reform” in 2024.

Nigel Farage’s party will contest the seat “with all guns blazing” and would be wise to select a “hyper local” ex-Labour supporter to stand, depicting Burnham as a “carpetbagger” who “takes your vote for granted”. With Keir Starmer unlikely to block Burnham standing, as he did in Gorton and Denton, the PM’s position is now “somewhat in the hands of Farage”.

A lot rests on Burnham’s “personal popularity” to get him over the line, said Ollie Corfe in The Telegraph. A YouGov poll this month shows his +4% net favourability score as the only positive rating of any senior Westminster politician (Starmer -46%, Angela Rayner -33% and Streeting -28%).

He will have to combat the disintegrating “Red Wall” in the northwest, where Labour has just lost 372 councillors, while Reform gained more than 400. Neighbouring St Helens saw one of the “most dramatic results” in the entire local elections, with Reform winning 71% of all seats.

The path to Westminster is a “route paved with thorns” that might yet end with the mayor of Greater Manchester’s “hopes in tatters”, said Stephen Bush in the Financial Times. And for Labour, the “stakes could not be higher”.

If Burnham does win, his reputation as a slayer of Reform would “only be enhanced”, and “his march to the leadership he has coveted for so long would then surely be unstoppable”. But if he loses to a Reform candidate, the public will question whether any Labour candidate can win. “Burnham’s defeat would secure Starmer as prime minister: but it could well confirm that he is on course to be Labour’s last prime minister.”

What next?

For the by-election to go ahead, several processes need to happen, said Jamie Grierson in The Guardian. By convention, the Labour chief whip – currently Jonathan Reynolds – will start the process by “moving the writ”, formally asking Parliament to start the election process. Once the writ has been moved, a by-election must take place between 21 and 27 working days later, and usually held on a Thursday.

This should take “about five to six weeks”, said The Guardian, which means the earliest Burnham could return to Westminster, if he wins, would be “early July”. Once achieved, “he could trigger a leadership contest, which he would be expected to win, potentially unchallenged”.

The war in Iran is still simmering, but President Donald Trump may already have eyes on his next target: Cuba’s Communist government.

An invasion of Cuba “could be imminent,” said Axios. The administration last week “imposed additional sanctions on Havana” amid a “worsening humanitarian crisis” of food shortages and power blackouts exacerbated by a U.S. blockade of oil shipments to the island nation. The U.S. has also surged surveillance flights off of Cuba’s coast, said CNN, and Trump on Friday suggested he might send an aircraft carrier to the region.

The president is “growing impatient” that “months of sustained U.S. pressure” have not caused the Communist regime to collapse, said NBC News. Trump speaks about Cuba “as if he wants to make it the 51st state,” a former U.S. official told the outlet.

What did the commentators say?

Trump knows “he can’t bomb his way to victory” in Iran, Heather Digby Parton said at Salon. He instead appears willing to start “yet another military operation” closer to U.S. shores. Invading Cuba seemed “less likely as the quagmire in Iran has developed,” but the president may see pivoting back to the Western Hemisphere as a way to “distract from his failure in Iran.” Cuba is in weakened condition right now. A quick victory might be achievable. “The real question is what happens then.”

It is “not clear how it’s supposed to end,” Joseph Zeballos-Roig said at MS NOW. The Trump administration “has yet to release a basic strategic road map” of its aims or how to achieve them. The U.S. has long wanted economic and political reforms to “loosen the Cuban government’s tight grip on its citizens,” but Havana should not be underestimated. The regime has “managed to foil the well-laid plans of 13 presidents dating back to Dwight Eisenhower.”

The Trump administration is unlikely to install a “new democratically disposed government” in Havana, Renee Pruneau Novakoff said at The Cipher Brief. But it is “realistic” to demand the regime boot Russian and Chinese intelligence operations from its shores. That “important milestone” would allow the U.S. and Cuba to “move forward with the relationship” between the two countries. Beyond that, however, “regime change will have to be a Cuban affair.”

What next?

Senate Republicans are “cautioning” Trump against a Cuba attack, said The Hill. The U.S. should remain “focused on where we are and that is trying to get the Strait of Hormuz opened up,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune said to reporters. “I want less war, not more,” said Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.). GOP senators last month blocked a resolution forbidding military action, said the outlet, but sentiment in the party is “shifting as a military operation against Cuba appears more likely.”

It is possible Trump will hold back, said Reuters. “Cuba is asking ⁠for help, and we are going to ​talk!!” the president wrote Tuesday on Truth Social. He did not provide more details.

It has generally been the case that younger Americans are more optimistic than their older counterparts about finding jobs. But a recent survey shows that tune has changed in a major way. Perceptions have gotten so bad that the gap between how young Americans and older Americans view the job market is now the widest in the world. There are several reasons why people in their early 20s can’t secure jobs, and AI isn’t the only factor.

What did the commentators say?

In 2025, only “43% of Americans ages 15 to 34 said it was a good time to find a job,” said a Gallup survey of 1,000 adults. Compared to the 64% of Americans ages 55 and older who said the same, the 21-point difference is the “largest gap of any country in job market perceptions between younger and older adults.” It’s “rare for younger adults to be significantly less positive about local job conditions than the oldest age group,” especially in developed countries; in “only five other places — China, Serbia, the United Arab Emirates, Hong Kong and Norway — does this pattern hold.”

Many of these younger Americans “have higher education and aren’t yet working full time,” Benedict Vigers, a senior news writer at Gallup, said to Axios. AI definitely plays a part in this less-than-stellar job market, as it is “gutting entry-level roles,” Sam Hiner, the co-founder and executive director of the Young People’s Alliance, said to the outlet. The “corporate landscape” is also “often heavily reliant on social capital over qualifications,” further contributing to the “pessimism.”

A higher competitive edge among young people is additionally making it harder to secure jobs. “You speak with your peers, and you realize that every single one of us are competing for the same opportunities,” Amelia Sexton, a 19-year-old sophomore at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said to Axios. Gender may weigh in as well, as the “American labor market is tilting away from men,” said The Wall Street Journal. In the past year, nearly all job growth “has come from healthcare and social assistance, a sector with a dearth of men,” and “sectors with heavily male workforces have been losing jobs.”

What next?

It is clear from the data that there is a “generational rift in Americans’ views of economic opportunity,” said The Associated Press. With the midterm elections on the horizon, the split among young and old is “likely to continue fueling generational divides in politics, where younger voters have focused on economic issues such as housing costs and have registered less faith in institutions.”

The greater optimism among older generations also comes from people who “aren’t actually job hunting — they’re retired or already employed, so they judge the market abstractly without personal stakes,” said Entrepreneur magazine. Older Americans are “far more likely to own homes and have savings, insulating them from the housing and cost-of-living shocks driving young workers’ pessimism.”

The negativity felt by young job-seekers is an “incredibly new phenomenon,” Vigers said to the AP. Gallup’s 2025 poll was the first time the organization found younger Americans to be more pessimistic than people in other countries about job prospects, and that trend looks primed to continue. “Has this happened in most other advanced economies? The answer is a resounding no.”

Andy Burnham might be the bookmakers’ favourite to replace Keir Starmer as Labour leader, despite his lack of a Westminster seat, but he certainly isn’t the bond market’s favourite.

In fact, gilt traders see the Greater Manchester mayor as the “biggest threat” of all the potential candidates, said the Financial Times. He troubled investors last year when he suggested the country should not be “in hock” to the bond market. Six out of 10 fund managers picked Burnham as the candidate that would “trigger the most negative market reaction”.

Burnham has said his comments on the bond market were misinterpreted, but the political project he espouses and the vision he offers for the country’s future – Manchesterism – remains highly divisive. Critics see it as “mostly vibes and boosterism” that “relies on a bottom-up localism” difficult to scale at a national level, said PoliticsHome. Others see it as our potential economic and political saviour.

What did the commentators say?

Manchesterism is a “horrifically overused phrase” about how my city “does things differently”, said Stephen Topping in the Manchester Evening News. But it’s true. Manchesterism is “‘place-based’ rather than party political”. It involves “public services working closer together, and in partnership with both the private sector and community groups, to ensure the benefits of a stronger economy can be felt by more people”.

The Greater Manchester region has become the UK’s fastest growing economy over the past decade, “at more than double the rate of the national average”. Devolution has been critical: the “trailblazer” deal struck in 2023 has allowed Greater Manchester to “take public control of key services” such as the bus network, which has improved living standards and boosted the local economy. Those who have worked closely with Burnham believe Manchesterism “could work in other parts of the UK”, though it would pose “a radical departure from the UK’s largely centralised economy”.

Burnham’s programme has begun “delivering affordability and economic dynamism” by “regaining public control” of essential services, said Mathew Lawrence, director of progressive think tank Common Wealth, in The New Statesman.

Energy, water, housing, transport and care are “domains of inelastic demand” and “existential need”. So market governance of the supply side “produces rent extraction” and underinvestment. The public “pays twice: through higher bills” and taxes to fund support. But public control of essentials eliminates the privatisation premium. “Rebuilding public provision is not the alternative to fiscal prudence. It is fiscal prudence.”

Manchesterism might be the “buzzword of the day”, but it’s simply people projecting their “pipe dreams” on to Burnham’s “blank canvas of soft-left localism”, said Daniel Johnson in The Telegraph.

“The irony is that 19th-century Manchesterism was more or less the opposite of what the Labour Party now thinks it means.” Manchester was “both the laboratory and the showcase of the Industrial Revolution”, the “citadel of free trade”. It had nothing to do with Burnham’s “municipal socialism”. His proposed solution to Britain’s economic woes is “a muddled melange of municipal meddling, including tax hikes and more borrowing”. What Britain needs is the 19th-century version, which Burnham doesn’t understand.

The vision of Manchesterism Burnham outlined in January is, in practice, an industrial strategy – and there is “nothing new about those”, said Christopher Snowdon in The Critic. Economists have long criticised them for “misallocating resources, crowding out private investment, picking losers, and forcing taxpayers to bail out industries that are only kept on life support for political reasons”. How, exactly, can Manchesterism “stop us being in hock to the bond markets” when Manchester City Council is “one of the most indebted in the country”.

What next?

Burnham is planning to reassure the bond market that his possible election to Labour leader would “not trigger a financial meltdown”, said The Telegraph. Sources say he is planning to endorse a pamphlet outlining a framework for Manchesterism, setting out how it could be rolled out across the UK and “the wider economic theory behind his ideas”.

But the uncertain national landscape, in which voters are moving both further left and further right, could make the success of Manchesterism “a challenge for anybody”, Sarah Longlands, chief executive of the Manchester-based Centre for Local Economic Strategies, told Manchester Evening News.

Manchesterism is still in its early stages, yet for all the benefits devolution has brought, Greater Manchester is still “a tale of two cities”, with a great income and opportunities divide exacerbated by the cost of living crisis. “Growth in Greater Manchester has to be for everybody – otherwise, what’s the point?” Longlands said.

El Niños arrive every few years, inflicting drought, flooding and other climate destruction across the globe. Climate scientists are predicting “potentially the biggest El Niño event since the 1870s” in the coming months, said State University of New York at Albany’s Paul Roundy, per The Washington Post. Rising temperatures in the equatorial Pacific Ocean waters could “shift patterns of droughts, floods, heat, humidity and sea ice across the planet,” said the outlet, as well as create a “higher frequency of heat waves” across much of the United States. Such dramatic shifts could have a “profound impact on human society and human well-being,” said climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe to the Post.

El Niños are natural phenomena, but could prove combustible when combined with global warming. The coming El Niño might “lock Earth into a hotter climate” with “lasting changes in heat, rainfall and drought patterns” around the world, said Inside Climate News. Researchers believe the newest cycle “could permanently push” the planet past the 1.5 degrees Celsius warming milestone long seen as the threshold for “potentially irreversible climate impacts” likely to affect food production, human health and the global economy.

What did the commentators say?

The world is about to learn “how much climate disruption we can manage at the moment,” David Wallace-Wells said at The New York Times. The biggest recorded El Niño in 1877 produced famine that killed millions of people in Egypt, India and China and elsewhere, often followed by epidemics of “malaria, plague, dysentery, smallpox and cholera” that further harmed “famine-weakened populations.” The next El Niño may not “produce nearly as much human suffering as the one of 150 years ago.” But it is “almost certain” to make 2027 the “hottest year on record by some margin.”

“Prepare for bedlam,” Bill McKibben said on The Crucial Years Substack. “We get lots more” fires and floods “when the temperature tilts sharply up” as happens during an El Niño. The coming cycle may offer “final proof that global warming is actually accelerating sickeningly,” coming atop a “higher baseline temperature” produced by the “steady warming of the planet.” The likely weather disasters could set in motion the “next, pivotal chapter of the climate fight.” The ugly truth: “We are ever further into the great overheating.”

What next?

“A lot has changed” since the 1877 El Niño, said The Washington Post. Advances in climate monitoring make the world “much more prepared to deal with the consequences” of massive weather shifts.

It will still be a challenge. “Hotter, drier weather across Asia” could damage crops while farmers on the continent “grapple with fertilizer shortages” caused by the Iran war, said Reuters. El Niño could also “dump more rain ​on Europe and the United States,” affecting U.S. corn and soybean harvests. The uncertainty may prompt farmers to hedge their planting plans. “Why spread expensive fertilizer on a crop that is going to be poor anyway?” said Vitor Pistóia at Australia’s Rabobank to the outlet.

For nearly a quarter of a century, Vladimir Putin has led the Russian Federation as one of the most successful authoritarians on Earth. But more than four years after launching an all-out invasion of Ukraine, the Russian president synonymous with Moscow’s kleptocratic rule finds himself in unfamiliar territory. Russia is now roiled by rumors of organized unrest with months to go before parliamentary elections, while Putin himself faces allegations of extreme isolation and a weakening grip on power.

What did the commentators say?

There is a sense of “mounting unease within the Kremlin” as it grapples with domestic and economic problems plus “increasing signs of dissent and setbacks on the battlefield in Ukraine,” said CNN, citing a report from a European intelligence agency. The Kremlin has “dramatically increased” Putin’s security, even installing surveillance systems “in the homes of close staffers” in measures “prompted by a wave of assassinations of top Russian military figures and fears of a coup.” Putin is “increasingly concerned” about an alleged “plot by members of the Russian political elite to topple him, or even assassinate him with drones,” said The Times. The president and his family have “stopped visiting their luxury residences” and Putin is spending “weeks at a time in bunkers.”

The report focuses on “growing internal tensions” between Putin and former Defense Minister and current Security Council Secretary Sergei Shoigu, said the Kyiv Post. Considered a “potential coup risk” for his “continued influence within the military leadership,” Shoigu has not “personally” been linked with hard evidence to “any wrongdoing.” The arrest this past March of one of Shoigu’s deputies was “presented in the report” as a “sign of weakening informal protections among the elite” that has contributed to the tensions.

Putin’s slipping power is “not only about falling approval ratings,” said The Economist. Russia’s future is “no longer discussed” in terms of what Putin “will decide” but as “something that will unfold independently of him — and possibly already without him.” This waning authority comes from a “confluence” of factors, including rising wartime costs and a “growing demand for rules among elites who have been forced back into Russia, along with their capital.” Shifting geopolitical winds and the collapse of Russia’s previous “social contract,” in which the state “stayed out of people’s private lives while citizens stayed out of politics,” have created a “situation which in chess is known as a Zugzwang: when every move worsens the position.”

This isn’t to say that “revolution is imminent” or that the 73-year-old Putin “will be sidelined soon,” said The Wall Street Journal. Nevertheless, the “change in mood is remarkable” compared to “just last December,” when Russia was “buoyed by hopes” of a Moscow-friendly, Trump-negotiated ceasefire with Ukraine.

Changes in national mood notwithstanding, the “sudden spate” of coup-oriented reporting stemming from the “conveniently anonymous ‘European intelligence agency’” looks “suspiciously more like a psyop meant to generate paranoia in the Russian elite than a serious assessment,” said The Spectator. Europe has a “desperate appetite” for a “deus ex machina, for some miraculous end to the Ukraine war,” and a coup to oust Putin “certainly fits the bill.” Still, this would “hardly be the first time” intelligence services “succumbed to the temptation to provide their masters with what they want, not need, to hear.”

What next?

For the time being, Moscow “understands that there could be serious discontent ahead” and has accordingly “decided to allow low-level discontent to manifest itself,” said former Putin adviser Marat Gelman at the Journal. As things stand, Putin has “enough resources to crush any civil revolt.”

“In Russia, they say that things don’t happen fast, but when they happen, they happen fast,” former U.S. Ambassador to Russia John Sullivan said to the Journal. While he “wouldn’t have said it a year or two ago,” civic revolt is “possible now.”

Fresh off a world tour, Vice President JD Vance was in Iowa this week to boost GOP Rep. Zach Nunn in his reelection bid, as Republicans scramble to defend their congressional majorities by November. But no political visit there can escape speculation stemming from Iowa’s role as the nation’s first presidential caucus state. Vance’s Iowa excursion may have been an example of a vice president dutifully doing what the party requires of him. It might also have been a soft launch of a much bigger effort from the veep’s camp.

What did the commentators say?

Vance’s trip to Iowa was “billed as a White House message to American workers” on top of being an “effort to promote Nunn,” NBC News said. But Vance’s appearance, his “first to the state as vice president,” had “added political weight” and an “expectation that the visit would be the first of many for him.” Although most of Vance’s remarks in Iowa “traced back to the midterm elections and, specifically, Nunn’s race,” he also “carefully recognized each of the high-ranking Republicans in the room” in a speech “loaded with personal touches, including biographical details” from his “Hillbilly Elegy” memoir.

Not only do Iowan Republicans see a “high-profile” visit like Vance’s as helping “build momentum” for Republicans ahead of the midterms, Iowans are also “constantly gauging national figures as potential presidential candidates,” said Iowa Public Radio. Iowa Republicans see someone who comes to help in the midterms “as a team player,” State GOP Chair Jeff Kaufmann said to the outlet. That, in turn, “helps” if they “choose later to run for president.”

In a state “more freighted with presidential expectations than any other,” Vance used his time to “woo influential Iowans,” including “Kaufmann, evangelical leader Bob Vander Plaats and conservative talk show host Steve Deace,” said The New York Times. “I’ve never supported Trump in a primary,” Deace said to the outlet. Vance, however, is the “leader in the clubhouse for me” in 2028.

Vance’s “association” with Trump’s agenda presents a “high-risk, high-reward proposition” that could “make or break his political future,” Politico said. “That’s the risk of being part of an administration,” Iowa GOP strategist David Kochel, who has advised multiple presidential campaigns in the state, said to the outlet. “This is the Kamala Harris problem.” With Trump not on the ballot this year, Vance “keeping his supporters engaged” in November could be “critical” for holding Nunn’s seat, said Iowa’s KTIV. But Trump himself is “underwater in districts that he won in 2024,” Puck said, including in Nunn’s, where Republicans are “just one point” ahead of Democrats.

During his speech, Vance attempted to “project loyalty” to Trump, despite the administration’s push for a war in Iran that Vance “privately signaled he was not eager to see the United States enter,” The Washington Post said. Vance had also been “slow to return” to Iowa as veep, “even as other ambitious Republicans,” including Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders of Arkansas, “trekked here for widely attended conservative summits and dinners in 2025.”

What next?

Vance is currently the “overwhelming front-runner” for the GOP presidential nomination in 2028, even as he “remains unpopular with the broader electorate,” the Times said. And “unlike other cabinet officials” serving at the pleasure of the president, Vance can campaign for the future “while keeping his day job.”

Still, despite speculation over Vance’s Iowa visit, there was “no special reason the vice president came here this week, as opposed to closer to the general election,” the Post said, citing multiple sources with knowledge of Vance’s schedule. Iowa was “merely next on the White House’s list of swing-state House districts for Vance to visit.” Said one source, simply: “Gotta go to Iowa eventually.”

“Labour has gone from its loveless landslide to having no political heartland in the UK to call its own,” said Adam Boulton in The i Paper.

Reform UK has made sweeping gains across England in the local elections, while the SNP is likely to be the largest party in Scotland. Labour has already admitted it is not going to form the next government in Wales.

Keir Starmer has declared he is “not going to walk away and plunge the country into chaos”. However, amid rumours of challenges from former deputy prime minister Angela Rayner, Health Secretary Wes Streeting and Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham, Labour’s poor performance in the local elections could prove the tipping point for the PM.

What did the commentators say?

“Kingmaker” Ed Miliband has reportedly privately suggested to Starmer he should set out a “timeline for his departure” after the results, said Steven Swinford in The Times. Though the former party leader is “supportive” of Starmer, he is worried that Labour may “descend into a bitter and damaging leadership contest”.

Both Rayner and Streeting are thought to have the support of the 81 Labour MPs needed to “trigger a contest”. Rayner reportedly does not see the ongoing HMRC investigation into her tax affairs as a “barrier to putting herself forward”. Burnham has also “emerged as the preferred candidate of powerbrokers on Labour’s soft left”. They believe an “orderly transition to his leadership over a period of months is the only way to avert a bloody civil war”, with reports of a backbench MP standing down to accommodate his return to Westminster.

Indeed, it may appear an “obvious conclusion” – that changing the leader would make its problems “go away”, said Boulton. “Obvious but wrong.” Inexperienced Labour MPs – “more than half” of whom were first elected in 2024 – had “supped full on the bloodshed” of five axed Conservative leaders before the general election. But they “failed to notice that such a butcher’s bill did not ultimately improve the Tories’ fortunes”. The reality is they have a “poor leader who has led them into an electoral catastrophe, but without him, things could always get worse”.

Starmer may be on the end of one of the party’s “worst set of election results in history”, but he may “take solace” in his potential challengers also “facing heavy losses in their own patch”, said Kiran Stacey in The Guardian. Labour lost control of Tameside in Greater Manchester, Rayner’s local council, and “struggled” across the northwest, impacting Burnham. Experts also expect Labour to “do badly” in Streeting’s home council of Redbridge in northeast London.

Labour MPs will have a “terrible sinking feeling”, said political strategist James Frayne in The Telegraph. They won’t know which way to turn, but the “great risk” for them is “looking like they’re part of the problem”. Staying silent implies a weakened party is becoming more divided, but appearing to “trot” out excuses for Starmer “risks downplaying the prospect of a straightforward Farage majority at the next election. That’s not a risk that anyone with any hope of a future in the Labour Party can take.”

It is “hard to deny” that Starmer’s days are “numbered”, said Simon Walters in The Independent. But the question remains: “how is any replacement going to make things better for Labour?” Starmer “may not set the pulse racing” but he is “decent and honest”, as well as making the right calls over Iran, and “standing up to Donald Trump with courage and quiet dignity”. Until someone raises “convincing solutions” to current issues, those who are “indulging in a petty blame game” in Westminster “should be careful what they wish for”.

What next?

Votes were still being counted, but the Labour “post-mortem” had already begun, said Ethan Croft in The New Statesman. Amid the “necessary evasions and sugar-coating of damage control”, there are “hard-headed calculations” about which direction the party should turn. Over the next few days expect everyone on the Labour left and right to use the results to “validate what they already believed”, and to “argue for policies and strategies they were already advocating for the party’s future”.

Those on Labour’s right are “confident” the results “vindicate” Shabana Mahmood’s “hardline” stance on immigration, believing the party must do more to “neutralise” Reform on Labour’s own terms. Those on the left of the party, however, think this is “precisely the consequence of pursuing that brand of politics”, and is also why they are being “walloped” by the Greens.

A new skirmish looms in President Donald Trump’s trade wars. The treaty that binds the U.S., Canada and Mexico markets together is up for review, but tensions are rising and could scuttle or undermine the pact.

A “war of words” has pushed review of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) to the “breaking point,” said Axios. The three countries must decide by July 1 whether to continue the accord for another 16 years, but U.S.-Canada discord stands in the way. Canada has raised U.S. hackles by moving to deepen trade ties with Europe and China in the wake of Trump’s imposition of tariffs last year.

Canada has been “taking advantage of the American economy and people for decades,” an administration spokesperson said to The New York Times. Canadians do not need a “small deal that disadvantages us,” Prime Minister Mark Carney said to CBC News. The treaty’s implosion would have “far-ranging economic effects,” said Axios, affecting the supply and trade of cars, crude oil and natural gas.

What did the commentators say?

The tense negotiations “reveal how serious the fissures” have become between the U.S. and Canada, Michael Froman said at the Council on Foreign Relations. Trump’s tariffs against America’s northern neighbor have “ushered in a new wave of ‘Canada first’ patriotism” that has been hard on trade, tourism and goodwill between the two countries. But Canada is “condemned by geography” to deal with the U.S., and the U.S. is dealing with rising inflation and gas prices. The treaty should be reaffirmed quickly. The “last thing” the United States needs at the moment is a “major trade crisis.”

Canada “should call Trump’s bluff” on trade talks, Peter Jones said at The Walrus. Ottawa “has more leverage than it thinks” because the U.S. economy is weakening under the weight of the country’s increasing national debt. The United States needs “stuff” that Canada makes, and “our market is an attractive one for American businesses.” Trade has “greatly benefited America.” Canada should remember that at the negotiating table. “We have cards too.”

Trump’s hardball trade tactics are “doing reputational damage” to the U.S. and “undermining the American economy,” Mary Anastasia O’Grady said at The Wall Street Journal. The survival of USMCA is “important for American investors, workers, businesses, farmers and ranchers” and scuttling it is “bound to inflict wounds on lots of American companies.” It will also raise prices on American consumers amid an affordability crisis. “That sounds like a bad political strategy.”

What next?

Expect more “drama” as the USMCA review deadline approaches, said NOTUS. There will be “threats to withdraw, threats to break it up” and “maximal demands” by the United States, said former Commerce official William Alan Reinsch to the outlet.

Experts believe ending the pact is the “least likely option,” said NOTUS. U.S. business leaders are “bracing” for a showdown. There is much at stake: Exports to Mexico and Canada “support millions of domestic jobs generating trillions of dollars.”

Zack Polanski has reason to be pleased with his ­leadership of the Green Party so far.

Membership has ­tripled since he took over last September, and the party has made “great electoral strides”, said The Times. It is polling strongly and is forecast to “make gains in Labour’s London strongholds” in today’s local elections.

But “there is a darker side”. Polanski, himself Jewish, “appears intent on exploiting” anger on the left over Israel’s bombardment of Gaza. As he works to cultivate a new, populist base, he “seems not to recognise”, or is unwilling to confront, antisemitism within his party – although it is “staring him in the face”.

What did the commentators say?

Greens are “often lionised as nicer and kinder than other parties”, said The Telegraph. But how do voters square the party’s “‘anti-racist’ credentials” with “the revolting online behaviour of many” of its candidates?

Two standing in Lambeth, Sabine Mairey and Saiqa Ali, were arrested last week on suspicion of stirring up racial hatred online. One shared a post suggesting an attack on a synagogue “isn’t antisemitism” but “revenge” for Israel “murdering people”. Other candidates have defended the 7 October massacres, questioned whether “Zionism is a mental illness” and “implied that antisemitism is justified”.

Polanski provoked outrage when he suggested police tackling the armed suspect in the Golders Green terror attack had used excessive force. Antisemitism “appears to have become normalised on the left, a dog-whistle used to win votes”, said The Telegraph.

No one is suggesting that Polanski himself is “some frothing-at-the-mouth anti-Semite”, said Tom Slater in The Spectator. But the accusation that the party “has become a magnet for anti-Semites”, and “a key voice” in downplaying the growing threat” to Britain’s Jews, is “hardly unfounded”.

Polanski, when asked about the spate of arson attacks on synagogues and the torching of four Hatzola ambulances, came out with “the already-infamous lines”: “Now, there’s a conversation to be had about whether it’s a perception of unsafety or whether it’s actual unsafety, but neither are acceptable.”

But those comments to Haaretz have been widely “misrepresented”, said Owen Jones in The Guardian. What Polanski said was that he feels pro-Palestine marches “have been perceived as unsafe by some Jewish people and safe by others, including himself”. Other journalists have accused Polanski of using his Jewish identity as “a political shield”. How does their treatment of Polanski square with his party’s “repeated, explicit condemnations of antisemitism?” Yes, there have been “allegations of vile antisemitism” by party candidates, and “a small number of examples” from a party that has nearly quadrupled in size since September – but “to extrapolate from these” and “smear an entire party” is “cynical”.

Polanski has condemned any antisemitic remarks, saying this was “not an abstract idea” for him. “As a Jewish person, those comments disgust me,” he told the BBC on Sunday. But, he added, “I don’t believe we have a particular problem compared [with] wider society and other political parties”.

What next?

Polanski’s vocal support for Palestine and his “consistent condemnation of Israeli crimes and excesses undoubtedly contributed to the party’s surge in support”, said Tony Greenstein, from the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, on Al Jazeera.

But it has also triggered an antisemitism smear campaign “almost identical to the one that eventually saw Jeremy Corbyn and his leftist, pro-Palestine supporters ousted from the Labour Party”. How the Green leader responds “will determine not only the future of his party, but potentially the direction of British politics”.

In effect, Polanski “still has a real shot at carrying his party to power”, but he could lose it all “if he repeats Corbyn’s mistakes and tries to appease his bad-faith critics”.

The Green Party is “facing a test on antisemitism”, said Ailbhe Rea in The New Statesman. In a “quite extraordinary development”, the deputy leader Mothin Ali encouraged some of the suspended candidates to “take legal action against the party”.

Polanski said the main lesson he needs to learn from Corbyn is to “navigate antisemitism allegations better”. He is “absolutely correct”. But how and when he plans to do so have “not yet become clear”.

Hantavirus is typically spread by exposure to rodent droppings. That’s concerning enough. But health experts are alarmed that a deadly ship-borne outbreak of hantavirus might be spreading from human to human.

The possibility of person-to-person transmission of hantavirus is “very, very surprising and obviously a very rare occurrence,” Kari Debbink of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health said to NPR. Three people aboard the MV Hondius cruise ship have already died from the outbreak, and there are several other suspected cases among the 147 passengers and crew.

A typical rodent-caused outbreak could be resolved by “taking people off the ship,” the University of Michigan’s Emily Abdoler said to the network. But the possibility of a human-transmitted disease means “taking folks off the ship doesn’t stop the spread.”

Passengers aboard the Hondius have been isolated in their cabins in a “lockdown reminiscent of the Covid-19 pandemic,” said The Associated Press. Authorities are being cautious but also warning the public against panic. The Andes strain of hantavirus at issue “requires very close, prolonged contact” to spread between people, KFF Health News’ Céline Gounder said on “PBS NewsHour.” That’s “very different” from Covid or flu viruses that can be “transmitted much more easily through the airborne respiratory route.”

What did the commentators say?

The outbreak is “serious and frankly a bit unnerving,” Katherine J. Wu said at The Atlantic. A human-transmitted hantavirus could “pose an additional threat” to people at the ship’s destination or to healthcare workers treating the sick. The ship’s passengers will eventually disembark, but officials cannot yet say the risk that passengers and crew “will pose to the broader global community.” Making the investigation more difficult: The cruise ship environment where “strangers are constantly schmoozing” makes it easy for people-to-people viruses to spread but difficult for medical professionals to track the source.

There’s “no reason for panic,” Lisa Jarvis said at Bloomberg. A “handful of cases of a deadly virus” is understandably sufficient to “raise all our hackles” following the Covid pandemic. Hantavirus is “ubiquitous” in parts of the United States such as the desert Southwest, while actual “infections are still rare.” The current outbreak is “unlikely to turn into anything bigger.”

The World Health Organization was “built to manage” emergencies like this, Krutika Kuppalli said at Stat News. Indeed, the WHO is “coordinating the response.” But the U.S. government has not been able to take advantage of the information generated by the agency, having withdrawn from the WHO in 2025. And the outbreak should be a “warning sign to the U.S.” of the costs of that decision.

What next?

The Hondius “remains at sea” while regional leaders “clash over its docking,” said The New York Times. Spain has said the ship can dock in the Canary Islands, but regional government officials have “objected to the ship docking there.” The isolated passengers are keeping themselves busy with “reading, watching movies, having hot drinks and that kind of thing,” said travel influencer Kasem Hato to the Times.

Donald Trump has paused the US operation shepherding ships through the Strait of Hormuz to see if a lasting peace deal with Iran can be agreed. But there remains scepticism on both sides that a permanent end to the conflict is near.

The ceasefire, which was extended indefinitely by Trump on 21 April, “opened up a chance for diplomacy that looked for a short time as if it might make progress”, said BBC international editor Jeremy Bowen. A first round of talks in Pakistan ended without agreement, but while both America and Iran “want to have a deal” they have “different deals in mind and are sticking to their red lines”.

Trump is demanding the immediate reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of global oil and gas exports pass, and cast-iron restrictions on Iran’s nuclear capabilities. Tehran wants an end to the war, guarantees against future attacks, a withdrawal of US forces from around Iran, the release of frozen Iranian assets worth billions of dollars and the lifting of sanctions.

What did the commentators say?

Iran has “slightly softened” its proposal around the US blockade of the Strait, but on the two biggest issues – enrichment of uranium and transferring its highly enriched uranium – both sides remain “far apart”, Paul Musgrave, from Georgetown University in Qatar, told Al Jazeera.

Kenneth Katzman, from the New York-based nonprofit Soufan Center, said Iran’s mistrust of Trump remains a bigger obstacle.

This is partly driven by the president’s “increasingly contradictory statements about the United States’ strategy” and the administration’s “shifting timeline for the war’s end”, which has been “one of the clearest examples of its flip-flopping messaging”, said Julia Ledur in The Washington Post.

Trump “clearly wants to end the war in Iran”, said Katrin Bennhold in The New York Times. At first, “he tried scare tactics” but his ultimatums “proved flexible and his threats to wipe out a civilisation empty (at least so far)”. He is now trying “to inflict financial pain on the Iranian leadership” but his blockade isn’t “faring much better”.

Trump’s “conviction that more economic or even military pressure will bring about Iran’s capitulation is deeply flawed”, said Steven Erlanger in the NYT. Officials and analysts say it is a “misreading of the Islamic republic’s strategy, psychology and capability for adaptation”.

What next?

For now, “diplomacy is not entirely frozen”, said Barak Ravid and Marc Caputo on Axios, as Trump’s envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff are still in contact with Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi.

But things could still go either way. One senior US official said: “There are talks. There are offers. We don’t like theirs. They don’t like ours. We still don’t know the status of the [Supreme Leader]. And they’re carrying messages by hand to caves or wherever he or whoever is hiding. It slows the process down.

“It’s either we’re looking at the real contours of an achievable deal soon, or he’s going to bomb the hell out of them.”

“But if history is any guide, there’s a real chance the war continues to drag on,” said Will Walldorf, from the Defense Priorities think tank, in Foreign Policy.

This is because a “few core elements that have turned past conflicts into forever wars are present in this one, too”. These include “high resolve by the weak, erosion of cost-benefit thinking by the strong, and weak institutional constraints to war-fighting on at least one side”. Combined, they mean that “resisting the expansion of the Iran conflict into a forever war won’t be easy”.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order last week creating a new pathway for working-class Americans to save for retirement. But what will the “Trump IRAs” actually accomplish?

About 56 million Americans “lack access to an employer-sponsored retirement plan at work,” said CNBC. The president’s order in 2027 will create a new website, TrumpIRA.gov, where those workers can “research, compare and enroll in private-sector individual retirement accounts” on their own. Low-income working Americans may even be eligible for a yearly matching contribution of $1,000 from the federal government.

The program could amount to the “largest potential expansion of retirement coverage since Social Security,” Teresa Ghilarducci, the director of the Wealth Equity Center at the New School for Social Research, said to MarketWatch. Other experts say the new effort needs a “more robust match and automatic enrollment” to truly help more workers secure their retirement, said Axios. But “that requires legislation” to pass through Congress.

What did the commentators say?

Trump’s new retirement plan “carries big political risks,” The Wall Street Journal said in an editorial. There is “nothing to stop Americans” from setting up and contributing to their own IRA accounts without the government acting as a “broker and quasi-sponsor” of private retirement efforts. But IRAs that come with a “government imprimatur” might “squeeze out other private savings options.” Helping Americans save for their senior years is a “worthwhile goal” better achieved by “easing fiduciary regulations” for employer-sponsored plans while “bringing down inflation and growing real wages.”

The president’s proposal requires Congress’ backing to “have teeth,” Elizabeth O’Brien said at Barron’s. Legislation is needed to expand income eligibility for the matching contribution and to “make participation in Trump IRAs automatic.” Workers can already open their own IRAs but often do not “due to lack of knowledge, time to navigate the process or money to contribute.” Without new laws to back Trump’s plan, the new executive order will end up a “well-intentioned effort aimed at a real problem that doesn’t break new ground or live up to the hype.”

Legislation to automatically enroll workers in retirement funds would “create more problems than it solves,” the Cato Institute’s Romina Boccia said at The Washington Post. Such efforts also do “little to solve” the broader issue of “Social Security’s deteriorating finances.” The program faces “long-term shortfalls” of up to $28 billion that could result in benefit cuts starting in 2032. If the president and Congress really want to help Americans have a secure retirement, “they could instead focus on fixing Social Security” and help the seniors “who rely on the program as their primary source of retirement income.”

What next?

Workers making less than $35,000 a year will be eligible for the $1,000 matching contribution, said NBC News. The Trump administration will work with Congress to “significantly expand this program,” and it is “looking forward to legislation this year,” Kevin Hassett, the director of the White House’s National Economic Council, said at the executive order signing.

For more than a century, British politics has been a contest between two parties. That could end with Thursday’s local and devolved elections.

Reform UK is currently leading on 25%, said Politico’s poll of polls on 30 April, with the Conservatives and Greens tied on 18%, and Labour on 17%. The Liberal Democrats are just a few points behind. In Scotland, the Scottish National Party is hoping to secure an overall majority in Holyrood, while Plaid Cymru is on course to lead the devolved government in Wales.

“We’re going to see records tumble. We are living in unprecedented circumstances,” the UK’s leading polling expert, John Curtice, told The Times. “The basic assumptions of British politics – there isn’t enough space for a party to the right of the Tories or the left of Labour – have gone.”

What did the commentators say?

The fracturing of the electorate was already evident at the last general election, but has been turbo-charged over the past two years as “binary tribalism has been replaced by retail politics”, said The Times in an editorial. Voters are “more promiscuous in their favours” and, following a decade and a half of stagnant living standards, “they are prepared to take a punt on insurgent parties without kicking the tyres”.

The result is that a “nation that has long prided itself on moderation and stability” is now experiencing an “anti-establishment revolt of the sort that has gripped countries from the US and Argentina to Germany”, said Irina Anghel for Bloomberg. Reform and the Greens look set to pick up hundreds of former Labour and Conservative seats. This represents a “power shift” that would “reinforce insurgents’ local networks and party organisations across the country, helping to forestall any restoration of the two-party system by the next general election”.

“It’s the Dutch-ification of British politics,” said Simon Hix, a politics professor at the European University Institute. “Everyone used to make fun of the Netherlands, where 17 parties get elected to parliament, but this trend is happening everywhere in the world.”

“Of course, the popularity or otherwise of all parties ebbs and flows over time” and as recently as the 2017 general election Labour and the Conservatives won a massive 82.4% of the vote between them, said BBC political editor Chris Mason. “But the longer-term trend is clear”: in recent years, the “palette of popular political parties has widened” beyond the Tory-Labour duopoly.

What next?

The dawn of genuine five-party politics – or seven-way if you include nationalist parties in Scotland and Wales – in Britain “spells problems for the political system” beyond the immediate aftermath of Thursday’s vote, said Sky News data journalist Alicja Hagopian.

In the short term, electoral fragmentation “brings governability into question”, said the Financial Times. Voters are “largely moving from one left-leaning party to another, or from one right-leaning party to another, but coalitions of left and right can be hard to build”. Britain’s first-past-the-post system also “creates particular problems of democratic legitimacy”. It means that as voting fragments, candidates are elected with an ever-smaller share of votes cast. In January, Reform won a council seat from Labour in Wales with a vote share of just 22%.

“Choice is good for democracy. It gives a fairer representation of what people actually want,” said Rob Ford, professor of political science at the University of Manchester. “But this puts our electoral system for local elections under pressure, because first-past-the-post is not designed for fragmented competition between five strong parties.”

As the EU faces the encroaching threat of outside countries, one nation is taking matters into its own hands. Germany is heavily investing in its military budget, spending more money on defense in 2025 than in the prior 36 years, according to recent reports. Officials have stated their intentions to make the country’s military the strongest in Europe over the next decade and a half, all while President Donald Trump is ratcheting up German-U.S. tensions.

What did the commentators say?

Germany put significant resources into its military last year, with its defense expenditure “growing by 24% year-on-year to $114 billion,” said a report from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. The German government was the largest military spender among the 29 European members of NATO, and its military budget “exceeded the 2.0% threshold for the first time since 1990, reaching 2.3% of GDP in 2025.”

The country has “dramatically boosted its military spending as part of a long-term vision helmed by both former Chancellor Olaf Scholz and German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius,” said Military.com. Pistorius is overseeing a defense development plan whose aim is to turn the German Army into the “strongest conventional army in Europe” by 2039.

As part of this plan, Germany aims to continue upping its military spending in the near future. The country is “planning to increase defense spending by a fifth in 2027 compared with this year,” said the Financial Times, putting it ahead of NATO’s military budget goal by at least six years. To accomplish this, Germany “unlocked its constitutional debt brake last year to allow virtually unlimited borrowing for defense.” The military plan “dwarfs that of fiscally constrained France and the U.K., Europe’s two big nuclear-armed powers.”

The rearmament of Germany is a “marked turnaround from just a few years ago when the country was widely regarded as a defense spending laggard and security free rider by its critics,” said Stars and Stripes. Germany has also been increasing its wartime industrial capabilities, with “manufacturers opening new factories and converting old ones to churn out ammunition.” The country has signed $130 billion worth of weapons contracts since 2022, according to the German newspaper Der Spiegel, per Military.com.

What next?

This remilitarization is happening alongside the looming question of how Trump’s foreign policy will affect Germany. After German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said the U.S. has been “humiliated” by its war with Iran, Trump announced he was withdrawing approximately 5,000 American troops from Germany. The decision came “at a time of deep divisions between Washington and its European allies, with trans-Atlantic tensions already heightened by tariff threats,” said NBC News.

German defense analysts have “expressed little concern in the days following the announcement over losing a small chunk of the about 35,000 American troops currently stationed in the country,” said The New York Times. But some experts appeared concerned that the withdrawal may create an “economic hit that could be felt in communities that depend on American military institutions.” From “simple stripes to stars, I know all the ranks,” said Derya Uluc, who runs a dry cleaners near the U.S. Ramstein Air Base in southeast Germany, to the Times. “I have to be honest, business in Ramstein only works because of the Americans.”

It might be the ultimate clash of tech giants. Elon Musk and Sam Altman are in court this week, battling over the origins of OpenAI and its pivot from a nonprofit organization to a for-profit business. It’s a “deeply personal” civil trial, said The New York Times, featuring “two very different tales” of OpenAI’s founding.

Musk helped start the company as a nonprofit and contends it was “ripped from its promise of altruism” by Altman’s greed. It’s “not OK to steal a charity,” Musk said on the witness stand. Altman, OpenAI’s CEO, counters that the lawsuit is simply “sour grapes” for the success of OpenAI’s ChatGPT years after Musk parted ways in 2018, said the Times. Altman and OpenAI “had the nerve to go on and succeed without” Musk, said William Savitt, OpenAI’s lead counsel.

What did the commentators say?

The trial is “big in every conceivable measure,” said Slate. Musk is seeking $130 billion in damages along with the removal of Altman and another OpenAI co-founder, Greg Brockman, from the company’s board of directors. It also comes as both OpenAI and Musk’s SpaceX — which houses his current AI venture, xAI — prepare to take go public. The verdict “could change the very future of Silicon Valley and the future of tech throughout the world forever.”

Altman and Musk “sure dislike each other,” Matteo Wong said at The Atlantic. Altman and Musk founded OpenAI because they disagreed with Google’s approach to artificial intelligence then split up over their own disagreements. The trial is giving the public its “clearest glimpse” at a small clique of tech pioneers “whose bickering is shaping the most expensive infrastructure buildout in human history.” It is a technology that could “upend the labor market” and “reshape the geopolitical order,” and neither man wants the other to have that kind of power. The trial makes the AI boom “seem sordid and small.”

A “yearslong feud” between Altman and Musk means the trial is “going to get messy,” Elizabeth Lopatto and Hayden Field said at The Verge. Musk appears to be “trying to damage OpenAI’s reputation however he can.” His demands that the company change its operating structure and remove executives “are likely unrealistic.” But if enough ugly secrets are revealed at trial, Musk will “have made it look like it’s not worth keeping Mr. Altman in his position” at the top of OpenAI, Georgia Institute of Technology’s Deven Desai said to the outlet.

What next?

The trial comes at a “precarious moment” for OpenAI, Rob Nicholls said at The Conversation. Altman was recently the subject of an embarrassing profile in The New Yorker, and the company is “bleeding” money as rival Anthropic surges to the front of the AI conversation. OpenAI expects to lose $14 billion in 2026 and recently shut down its Sora video-creation product. A Musk victory might derail OpenAI’s IPO and leave “ripple effects” that “could be felt for many years to come.”

More than a decade ago, U.S. schools started putting Chromebooks and iPads in the hands of young students. Now, parents are pushing back and demanding less screen time and more analog work for their algorithm-addled kids. The movement could partially undo the tech revolution in the classroom.

Los Angeles parents are “fed up with schools loading up students with laptops and tablets,” said The New York Times. The L.A. school board last week passed new rules to “eliminate digital devices entirely through first grade and develop screen time limits for higher grades,” a major development in “escalating national reckoning for the powerful classroom technology industry.” New York parents are asking for ChatGPT limits in schools, while Utah last month passed a law to let parents monitor their kids’ screen time on school devices. “Big Tech” is “encroaching into our public schools,” said Schools Beyond Screens’ Anya Meksin to the outlet.

Reducing screen time “isn’t as simple as hitting an off switch,” said Education Week. Tech is “infused into nearly every part” of K-12 education. Federally required reading and math assessments are “largely digital,” and digital learning management systems are “now staples for school districts.” Educators do not want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Technology can “be misused” in the classroom, North Carolina educator Casey Rimmer said to the outlet, but when used thoughtfully, it has “a lot of power” to enhance education.

What did the commentators say?

Technology is “not the answer or the problem,” Matthew Yglesias said at Slow Boring. Companies once “were making a lot of unrealistic utopian promises” about the promise of iPads in education, but those promises have fallen short. To educate students well, schools need “solid standards” and a curriculum “aligned with those standards.” Technology works when it is also “aligned with those standards.” Schools have too often “signed up for too many apps” without a plan to “integrate them with each other or a curriculum.”

Schools should “take stock, set goals and develop strategy around learning-tech use,” Meredith Coffey said at Education Next. Educators frequently buy hardware and software “regardless of its relevance to their students’ needs.” They should instead “pursue solutions, not shiny objects” by focusing on “evidence-based tools that align with defined goals.” Administrators and educators largely agree that lessons should be “device-based only when it provides a clear advantage.” That will allow for “more face-to-face time” with teachers and kids while still letting students build “those 21st-century skills we keep hearing about.”

What next?

Education debates can often turn partisan, but conservative parents and liberal teachers unions have “become unlikely allies” to fight back tech in schools, said NBC News. The tech backlash “cuts across partisan lines in a way that I haven’t seen in a long time,” The Heritage Foundation’s Corey DeAngelis said to the outlet. Both sides “really want the best for our kids,” said Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers.

Indonesia, Qatar, Ecuador and Angola have all departed the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries in recent years. But the loss of the UAE, one of its longest-serving and most influential members, is seen as a major blow to the cartel.

The UAE said on Tuesday that quitting Opec and the broader Opec+ alliance next month reflects its “long-term economic vision” and desire to speed up investment in energy production. But Emirati officials had threatened for years to leave, blaming Opec’s production quotas for unfairly curtailing its oil exports. (The UAE has repeatedly been accused of exceeding those limits.)

Rising tensions with Saudi Arabia, Opec’s de facto leader, have also been greatly exacerbated by the Iran war; the UAE has criticised its Gulf neighbours for failing to defend it from Iranian retaliation. The question is whether the blow to Opec of losing its third-biggest oil producer will be a knockout one.

What did the commentators say?

This is “the beginning of the end of Opec”, energy analyst Saul Kavonic told the BBC. The group “loses about 15% of its capacity and one of its most compliant members”. Saudi Arabia “will struggle to keep the rest of Opec together”. This means “a fundamental geopolitical reshaping of the Middle East and oil markets”.

Opec’s ability to influence oil prices will be “clearly weakened”, said former International Energy Agency official Neil Atkinson. The UAE “will attempt to sell as much oil as they can to as many people as possible”. That “will run up against any attempts” Opec makes to “keep prices high”.

But when the UAE announced its decision, “oil markets merely shrugged”, said the Financial Times. The “muted” reaction is “a symptom of Opec’s declining relevance”. It was a “major power” in 1973 when its Arab members carried out a “devastating” embargo on countries supporting Israel. But despite its expansion to include 10 nations in Opec+, its influence has “waned” as non-members, particularly the US, boosted oil production.

Iran’s stranglehold on the Strait of Hormuz is “a further blow to Opec’s ability to control the market”. Tehran showed it could halt most of the flow of oil from the Gulf – more than half the cartel’s oil production. “It completely dilutes Opec’s market power and puts Iran in control of the vast majority of Opec’s exports,” said Joel Hancock, senior commodities analyst. Opec “effectively becomes an instrument of Iran’s foreign policy”.

The UAE’s departure would probably not be “fatal” for Opec, said Raad Alkadiri of the Center for Strategic and International Studies – unless Venezuela, Iraq or Iran also quit.

And that’s “only a matter of time”, said Damien Phillips in The Spectator. “Opec has always been a tenuous and fractious alliance that just about holds together when convenient and nearly falls apart when it isn’t.” It has always been “beset by chronic quota cheating” and “wildly inconsistent” compliance. There are “endless disputes over baseline production levels”, which often lead to “full-blown price wars”. Membership has also become “increasingly toxic”; the West sees Opec’s attempts to tighten oil supply as “helping to fund Russia’s war effort and immiserating ordinary consumers”.

The UAE understands “energy security and abundance” is now a global priority. In a world of “drill, baby, drill”, “price-fixing relics like Opec are being left behind”. Opec members “can see that the end is nigh”.

What next?

Opec’s remaining 11 members, and 10 more in Opec+, will still account for about 40% of global oil output. But Kazakhstan and Iraq are seen as most likely to “soon start creeping toward the door”, said MarketWatch. Both have excess crude-production capacity that could “incentivise them to leave”. Kazakhstan, like the UAE, has been “chafing” under Opec’s production quotas.

The UAE, meanwhile, is “splashing cash on production infrastructure”, aiming to increase production from the current 3.6 million barrels a day to 5 million by 2027, said The Economist. But any increase in exports depends on when the Strait of Hormuz reopens. The UAE’s departure from Opec, long a “bugbear” of Donald Trump, may “endear” it to the US, but it will “further sour its relations with Saudi Arabia”.

Saudi Arabia “might respond with an oil price war” that poorer Opec members might not be able to withstand, said the BBC’s economics editor Faisal Islam. “Much depends” on their response. Emirati officials also talk of building new pipelines from the Abu Dhabi oil fields towards “the underused port of Fujairah”, bypassing the strait entirely. If they do so, “Emirati oil will flow like never before”. “It will have little effect on the current blockades. It could change everything afterwards.”

When the 2026 FIFA World Cup kicks off in June, it may be missing something important: fans. Several factors, including political unrest and high transportation costs, are causing host cities across the United States to worry that the presumed economic bump from the World Cup may not occur.

What did the commentators say?

Eleven U.S. cities will be hosting World Cup games: Atlanta, Boston, Dallas, Houston, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Miami, New York City, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Seattle. These cities are dealing with everything from “labor strife and high ticket prices to geopolitical turmoil and culture-war politics fanned by President Donald Trump,” factors that are “turning the event into a nationwide stress test for the governmental institutions charged with pulling it off,” said Politico.

Many were hoping the World Cup would provide a “triumphal turn in the international spotlight,” but it is instead becoming a “case study in the local hazards of staging a spectacle at a moment of global disruption,” said Politico. Cooling forecasts are largely due to “ticket prices, inflation fears and anti-American sentiment,” said the Financial Times. Many hotels are reflecting this reality: Room rates for game days in “Atlanta, Dallas, Miami, Philadelphia and San Francisco have dropped about a third from their peak earlier this year.”

FIFA originally predicted the World Cup would give the U.S. a $30.5 billion economic boost. But the “demand has certainly not been at anywhere near that level,” Vijay Dandapani, the president and CEO of the Hotel Association of New York City, said to Forbes. International soccer fans were expected to provide a lifeline, as they typically “spend four times as much as domestic travelers,” said the outlet. But it is “unclear if foreign visitors will come in the numbers necessary to drive the promised economic boost.”

The White House’s “‘America First’ agenda and rhetoric have also fueled widespread perceptions that the country is unwelcoming,” said The Athletic, causing many international soccer fans to rethink their plans. The potential presence of immigration officers is worsening things for Europeans. The Trump administration’s immigration agenda has created “heightened anxiety about travel and attendance for both fans and teams,” said Politico. The tension is especially increased for Iran, as the ongoing war “has raised questions about whether that country’s squad will even play.”

Transportation has additionally played a role, especially in cities where the cost of living is higher. In Massachusetts, a game day train trip to the stadium near Boston will cost $80. In New Jersey, where the New York City-area games will be played, a ride will be $150. This is over an 11 times increase from the standard $12.90 train fare in New Jersey. FIFA is also charging an average of $175 for parking at most venues nationwide.

What next?

Trepidation over hosting the games in the U.S. “could be sufficient motivation” for global fans to “hold off until 2030, when the tournament will take place in Spain, Portugal and Morocco,” said the Financial Times. Amid growing tensions, the head of Norway’s soccer association has also called for Trump to be stripped of his recently awarded FIFA Peace Prize. But FIFA officials seem not to be too worried. The organization is “confident that the event will be a resounding success for everyone involved, all the participating teams, the fans from all around the world and the hosts,” FIFA spokesperson Bryan Swanson told Politico.

Donald Trump has hailed the relationship between the US and UK as “a friendship unlike any other on Earth” during what is widely being seen as a hugely successful state visit by King Charles.

After delivering a much-praised speech to Congress, the King, with Queen Camilla, last night joined the US president and first lady for a star-studded banquet. In a playful toast, Charles joked about Trump’s “readjustments” to the East Wing of the White House following his “visit to Windsor Castle last year”, and presented the president with the bell from the British Second World War submarine, HMS Trump.

Officially a celebration of 250 years of American independence, the three-day visit “has also been billed as a rescue mission”, said the BBC’s North America correspondent Anthony Zurcher. With US-UK relations “strained” by Britain’s refusal to fully back the US-Israeli war against Iran, “the King’s goal has been to ease those tensions with a royal charm offensive”.

What did the commentators say?

King Charles delivered a “masterclass in Trump II diplomacy” at the banquet, said Shawn McCreesh, White House reporter for The New York Times. His speech had “all the right ingredients”: “dry British understatement”; jokes tailored to “Trump’s proclivities”; “a little obsequiousness balanced with a little prodding about Nato”, and “the shiniest, Trumpiest of gifts”.

The president was “on his best behaviour” and, apart from one protocol-breaking moment when he suggested that the King had agreed with his views on Iran’s nuclear ambitions, he “seemed like putty in the bejewelled hands of the monarch. There are few foreign figureheads who can work this president the way this king can.”

“Entirely predictably”, Charles’ speech to Congress did not directly mention Iran, Israel, climate change, immigration, Jeffrey Epstein, “nor a bunch of other hot potatoes in the Trump era”, said David Smith, The Guardian’s Washington correspondent. But it was “exquisitely measured” in its “less-is-more” emphasis on “common bonds that long predate” this president and – “hopefully! – will long outlast him”. Judging by the applause, this “soft power flex worked a treat”.

Charles showed “deep respect for his hosts”, said CNN’s Stephen Collinson. But it’s no small irony that “it took a king to remind America of its republican values: the rule of law, democracy and the power of its international example”.

What next?

After recent “fraught” weeks, this state visit will “probably help stabilise relations” between Britain and America, said former Tory foreign secretary William Hague in The Times. But “it cannot, on its own, reverse the trend of declining trust and mutual respect”. We will still look at Trump, “fearing this might be the future”, and the US will “look at us and worry that our glories are all in the past”.

The special relationship will endure, “whatever the quarrels over Iran”, said the Financial Times editorial board, but “Britain’s place in the world is not what it was” in its heyday. “In the harsh new world of the 21st century, other connections are going to matter a lot, too.”

Japan wrote pacifism into its constitution and culture following World War II, but that era may be coming to an end. Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi last week moved to allow arms sales to foreign countries, signaling a pivot toward a more hawkish stance.

Many Japanese felt pride in the country’s postwar commitment to “never resort to force to settle international disputes,” said The Wall Street Journal. Pacifism “has been our moral compass after the tragedy,” 87-year-old Michiko Yagi said to the outlet. But growing tensions with China have sharpened a sense of alarm and increased support for Takaichi’s efforts to build the country’s defenses. Japan cannot expect the U.S. to come to the country’s defense “when our own people aren’t even defending our own country,” said Nagasaki resident Masashi Kajiyama.

The U.S. focus on Iran is a factor in the pivot: The Trump administration moved military assets from Asia to the Middle East to support the war, leaving Japanese leaders “rushing to find viable alternatives for its own security and defense,” Keio University’s Michito Tsuruoka said to The New York Times. Raising Japan’s defenses is a response to an “increasingly challenging security environment,” Takaichi said in a social media post.

What did the commentators say?

Japan’s pacifism “once served a purpose,” Kenji Yoshida said at Asia Times. Dovishness “reassured neighbors” threatened by the country’s former militarism and enabled a near-miraculous economic recovery from World War II. But such stances “can outlive their usefulness.” Tokyo has long found ways to stretch its supposed constitutional limits, dispatching minesweepers during the 1991 Gulf War and deploying “noncombat” troops to Iraq during the 2004 invasion. “Public opinion remains cautious” on such issues, but the time has come for Japan to shed its “unsustainable pacifist illusion.”

The Japanese public is “divided” on the move to a more hawkish stance, The Japan Times said in an editorial. Japanese people retain an “instinctive concern” about security issues that is a “remnant of the bitter experience of World War II.” But an “increasingly contested security environment” in Asia requires change. Tokyo must “value hard power as a contributor to deterrence” against threats. “Ideally, the provision of defense equipment will prevent conflict, not enable it.”

What next?

Japan has seen a “seeming erosion of pacifist norms” over the past decade, said The Diplomat. Mass protests greeted 2015 legislation to allow the country’s military to deploy overseas. But Takaichi’s recent popularity suggests the arrival of a “post-pacifist” era, giving her “unprecedented authority to expand Japan’s defense ambitions.”

Takaichi has suggested she will seek “changes to the pacifist clause” of Japan’s constitution, said The Washington Post. But the hints of change have also sparked “rare nationwide protests” by Japanese who fear the country might be “drawn into military conflicts if it drops its constitutional guardrails.” The “hollowing out of pacifism” could prompt a backlash from Japan’s neighbors, Hiroshima City University’s Shiro Sato said to the Post, making Japan less safe by “increasing insecurity and potentially worsening the security environment.”

The Trump administration’s threat to review its position on Britain’s claim to the Falkland Islands could have a significant impact on the future of the South Atlantic British Overseas Territory, analysts have said.

A leaked internal Pentagon memo published last week by Reuters revealed that, as punishment for not supporting Donald Trump’s war against Iran, the US could reassess diplomatic support for longstanding European “imperial possessions”, such as the ⁠Falkland Islands, which have been administered by Britain since 1833 but are still claimed by Argentina.

Argentina’s President Javier Milei is “upbeat about the prospects”, said Reuters, after the Trump ally told a radio show that “we are doing everything humanly possible to bring the Falkland Islands back into Argentine hands”.

On Monday, his vice president, Victoria Villarruel, ramped up rhetoric further by calling for Falkland Islanders to go back to England.

What did the commentators say?

Donald Trump “has repeatedly demonstrated his desire to use transactional diplomacy to pressure both allies and adversaries”, said the BBC. The Falklands are a “pressure point for the UK but irrelevant to the US”, making them a perfect target for this kind of “leverage”.

Given the current state of Britain’s armed forces, the UK would “struggle to defend the Falkland Islands if Donald Trump followed through on threats to withdraw American support for British sovereignty”, said The i Paper.

But while the loss of American backing for UK control of the islands would “make it easier for Argentina to press its claim more assertively”, said Dr Johanna Amaya-Panche, senior lecturer in international relations and politics at Liverpool John Moores University, an invasion remains unlikely.

“Argentina is not capable of retaking the islands militarily, and there is no credible indication that it intends to try,” but the Milei government “may adopt a more assertive diplomatic or legal strategy, seeking to internationalise the dispute and mobilise external support”.

Downing Street has insisted that the Falkland Islands’ status will remain unchanged, with the prime minister’s spokesperson saying “sovereignty rests with the UK and the islanders’ right to self-determination is paramount”.

“Such robustness is a welcome surprise,” said The Telegraph in an editorial. The government will be hoping the state visit by King Charles will help defuse tensions with the White House. The reality is that “casting doubt over the ownership of the Falklands would hardly be in Washington’s interests”. Even in 1982, the Royal Navy “had to leave other missions unresourced in order to retake the islands” and today its numbers are “so shrunken that it could never act meaningfully in the South Atlantic and in support of the US simultaneously”.

What next?

If the US did change its position to one in which it supported Argentinian claims over the islands, that would be “pretty significant”, Ed Arnold from the Royal United Services Institute security think tank, told the BBC, as “it might cause other countries to move that way as well”.

“You could potentially see a situation where Argentina pushes for some intervention at the UN and the US may support or just not actively block.”

“A change of US policy towards the sovereignty of the Falklands will not mean we will face a repeat” of the 1982 war with Argentina, said former defence secretary Penny Mordaunt in The Express. “But it should be a reminder that the world can change fast” and that “we owe it to all Brits, whether they reside in the UK or in her territories, that we are capable of defending them and their interests.”

Following an assassination attempt at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner on April 25, President Donald Trump wasted little time in framing the still-ambiguous episode to support his legally dubious ballroom construction efforts. He also used the opportunity to attack a familiar list of political adversaries, including Democrats and members of the press.

What did the commentators say?

After the attack on the WHCA dinner, Trump and his allies have “coalesced” around the embattled ballroom construction project as their “solution for presidential security,” The New York Times said. Trump’s plans for the White House ballroom include a secure bunker under what was once the East Wing. But Trump and his administration’s “coordinated effort” to connect the WHCA attempted shooting to the ongoing legal “tug of war” over the ballroom “ignored the realities of the annual dinner and the circumstances of the breach.” The shooting attempt has become “fodder to support building the president’s pet project,” said Zeteo. “Even before Trump addressed the public, the talking points already seemed to be circulating.”

Trump has a history of using attempts on his life as a “political symbol” to “rally his supporters and strengthen his grip on state affairs,” said South Korea’s The Chosun Daily. His post on Truth Social requesting the WHCA “LET THE SHOW GO ON” after the attack shows that even during a “crisis that could have led to a disaster,” Trump was able to display his “signature showmanship.”

It is “notable” that “neither Trump nor anyone on his team rushed to assign a political motive” in the hours immediately following Saturday’s attack, said The Sydney Morning Herald. Instead, Trump “predictably” spent the time turning the attack “to his own purposes.” The president’s behavior in the immediate aftermath of the shooting attempt, including at his press briefing that evening, “underscored his instinct to spin narratives with himself as the undaunted hero” while “rarely missing a chance to plug his priorities,” said Reuters.

There is a “pattern” at play, said Politico. After an attempt on Trump’s life, there are “calls from both sides to turn down the temperature. And then, a pivot.” After initially pushing for Americans to “resolve” their differences, it took “less than 24 hours” for Trump to insist in a 60 Minutes interview with CBS’s Norah O’Donnell that the “hate speech of the Democrats” is “very dangerous.”

As in previous instances where Trump has asked for bipartisan calm after facing violence, such calls “proved to be very short-lived,” said The Associated Press. A host of “right-wing politicians and media figures” have begun “laboring to blame the apparent assassination attempt on rhetoric from Democrats,” said Zeteo. It is this dynamic that has allowed Trump to cast himself as a unifier who, on Sunday, “vowed that violence should not win,” while at the same time “accusing the Washington press of being in league with Democrats and covering him unfairly,” said CNN.

What next?

That there were still WHCA after-parties and associated events in the hours following the assassination attempt is a “testament to the nonstop insanity of the Trump era,” during which an “active shooter getting close to the president — for a second time” can be so “quickly metabolized by Washington,” said New York magazine.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche has already begun using the episode to “pressure a preservation group to drop a lawsuit seeking to halt the construction” of Trump’s ballroom, The Guardian said. “I hope yesterday’s narrow miss will help you finally realize the folly of a lawsuit that literally serves no purpose except to stop President Trump, no matter the cost,” Blanche said in a letter to the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which has sued to stop what it claims is Trump’s illegal ballroom construction. “Enough is enough.”

Ultimately, Trump has “experience” with the “opportunities presented by such moments,” Reuters said. “No one can turn danger into a political asset better than this president,” one White House official said to the outlet.

As polarisation increasingly divides America, violence is becoming embedded in its politics.

“We do believe it was administration officials,” said Acting US Attorney General Todd Blanche, when asked for the target of the shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner in Washington. “But as far as exacting threats that may have been communicated beforehand, we’re still actively investigating that evidence.”

For many Americans, Saturday night’s events were “at once shocking and familiar”, said Lisa Lerer in The New York Times. Politically motivated violence has become a “routine intruder” into our lives, bringing with it a “numbing narrative of assaults, bomb threats and assassination attempts”.

What did the commentators say?

“Instead of a speech stacked with heated barbs against the media, the event ended like many in the US do: with gun violence,” said Rachel Leingang in The Guardian.

The association’s initial decision to continue the event (it was later rescheduled) may have surprised some, but for many it “struck a chord about the regularity of gun violence in American life”. Trump said afterwards that the presidency is a “dangerous profession”, but the fact that violence in the political domain is a “feature”, rather than an “outlier, rang true on a night meant to celebrate the freedom of the press”.

Attacks like these are “convulsing” American politics from both sides of the partisan divide, said Guy Chazan in the Financial Times. The suspected gunman had barely been apprehended before “ranks of Maga influencers” were blaming Democrats, and left-leaning conspiracy theorists claimed it was a “staged” hoax to “advance Trump’s political agenda”.

So-called “conflict entrepreneurs” are “getting rich by making us angry at one another”, fuelled by a “loss of trust in democratic institutions that makes it easier to see illegal violence as a solution”, said William Braniff, from the American University. Modern assassination attempts are “backed by a growing public acceptance of the use of violence in the pursuit of political ends”, said Chazan. “Things could get even worse.”

Saturday’s events reveal how “dangerous” US politics has become over the last few years, said James Piazza, political science professor at Penn State, on The Conversation. Intense polarisation means opponents are “suspicious and hostile” towards each other, believing others to be “evil or immoral” instead of merely sharing a different view.

In turn, this has made violence more “normalised”, and because public backlash is “dampened” at each attempt, further violence becomes even “more likely”. Disinformation and social media have also accelerated this trend. Disinformed users are “hermetically sealed off” from alternative sources and this “facilitates radicalisation” for isolated communities.

Even with America’s “grim history of political violence”, Trump “certainly seems to attract a higher share than others of would-be assassins”, said Edward Luce in the Financial Times. He has now been the target of three assassination attempts: his “ear was grazed” by a bullet in Butler, Pennsylvania; there was the Mar-a-Lago golf course incident that was foiled by Secret Service agents; and then Saturday’s Washington dinner.

Nearly following in the footsteps of Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, William McKinley and John F. Kennedy, Trump said that he was “honoured” by comparisons with the four assassinated presidents because he’s “done a lot”. Let’s not forget that eight children were killed in Louisiana last week, but it “only briefly made the headlines”: mass shootings are now “part of the texture of American life”, said Luce.

What next?

It is “absolutely critical” that both Democratic and Republican politicians “unite to condemn this attack and all political violence”, said Piazza on The Conversation.

Commentators should condemn any violence with political aims and political elites should “adopt rhetoric that does not normalise this sort of behaviour. If the message comes from across the political spectrum, it will be that much more effective at reducing the public attitudes that nurture political violence.”

Following the Pennsylvania assassination attempt the image of Trump with a bloodied face raising his fist “partly defined his campaign”, said Luce. This time around, “any sympathy wave is likely to be more limited”.

Before the incident at the Washington Hilton Hotel, Trump’s approval ratings hit a “personal low of below 40%” in some polls last week, and the “rising unpopularity” of the war in Iran is “driving his nadir”.

Though there is no doubt Trump will “try to make political hay” from the attempt on his life, “ironically” it has been his “early zeal for assassinating senior Iranians” that is “shaping his political future”.

President Donald Trump’s desire to outdo and undo the achievements of former President Barack Obama is well-documented. Trump in 2018 tore up the 2015 agreement by his predecessor to limit Iran’s ability to develop its own nuclear weapons. Now Trump faces a challenge of getting a better deal as he tries to wind down a costly war.

The president is “adamant” he can exceed Obama in Iran, said The Hill. The 2015 nuclear agreement was “one of the Worst Deals ever made,” Trump said on Truth Social. But foreign policy experts warn that getting a satisfactory deal with Iran will be “much easier said than done,” said The Hill. The “dizzyingly complicated” Obama agreement took two years to negotiate and involved experts “poring over the details of nuclear technology, sanctions and international banking.” The U.S. decision to abandon that agreement and go to war may have convinced Tehran that a “nuclear weapon would be the best deterrent they can pursue,” said Allison McManus at the Center for American Progress to the outlet.

The earlier agreement “capped Iran’s uranium enrichment for 15 years,” said CNN. Trump is now demanding a 20-year pause, while Iran wants limits for just five years. But Tehran is negotiating with new leverage: Its closure of the Strait of Hormuz is a “weapon that is far more usable than nuclear weapons,” said CNN’s Fareed Zakaria.

What did the commentators say?

Trump has sold himself as the “ultimate dealmaker,” but that image is in conflict with his “intensifying love of unilateral power,” Bill Scher said at Washington Monthly. A good negotiator has “knowledge, patience, creativity and flexibility,” but the president prefers “impatiently breaking laws and norms.” Trump launched the war with Iran amid weeks of negotiations, which have left the regime’s leaders leery of reengaging. Obama, it now seems clear, mastered the “art of the deal” and avoided a disastrous war. “Trump didn’t, and here we are.”

One big difference between the 2015 agreement and any deal the U.S. makes now: Iran’s nuclear program is “largely in rubble,” Eli Lake said at The Free Press. Tehran may still possess as many as 500 uranium-enriching centrifuges, but the country’s ability to quickly develop a weapon “has been taken away through military force” and will be difficult to rebuild. Even if Trump fails to get a deal at this moment, he has nonetheless “destroyed the nuclear program that Obama legitimized.”

What next?

Trump faces “major hurdles” getting a better deal than Obama did, said The Guardian. And if a deal is reached, he will be asked to demonstrate that the war with Iran provided a superior outcome than what pre-war negotiations in Geneva were set to deliver. Otherwise the president will have “inflicted massive damage on the world economy” when other options were available. Getting to an agreement will be a challenge. There is a “trust deficit” between the two sides that “makes a solution so difficult.”

The S&P 500, the benchmark US stock index, hit a record high on Wednesday. This is being mirrored in other major stock markets across Asia and Europe, despite growing concerns over global fuel and energy prices as a result of the war in Iran and the blockage of the Strait of Hormuz.

“There’s a lot of risk out there and yet asset prices are at all-time highs,” Sarah Breeden, deputy governor of the Bank of England, told the BBC’s business editor Simon Jack. “We expect there will be an adjustment at some point”, she said. What “really keeps me awake at night is the likelihood of a number of risks crystallising at the same time”.

As Jack said: “It is unusual for a senior figure at the Bank to be so forthright on market movements.” With confidence fluctuating around peace talks, and reverberations in energy markets continuing, what has gone up could just as easily come down.

What did the commentators say?

“Nothing, it seems, can dent the almost inexplicable optimism coursing through financial markets,” said the ABC’s chief business correspondent Ian Verrender. In the past, stock markets would “shudder” and “tumble”, then spend a decade recovering from economic “calamity”; nowadays the recovery time is cut down to weeks, “if they bother to react at all”.

Investors are not “oblivious” to what is happening in the world, said Joe Rennison, financial markets reporter for The New York Times. They are just attuned to “what exactly the markets are measuring”, looking beyond the “immediate upheaval from the war” to concentrate on its “long-term effects on corporate profits”. Americans may be struggling to afford fuel for their cars, but companies have been “very profitable indeed” for “quite a while now”. Big tech is “riding a wave of enthusiasm”, and it is these bigger companies, like Microsoft and Meta, who have been shielded from the war and tend to influence the market more profoundly.

Although the market “rapidly rebounded – and then some” after Trump’s ceasefire announcement, having been on a steady slide for most of March, investors are “not simply taking Trump at his word” that the war is “almost over”. Instead, they are responding to the White House’s “apparent eagerness” to find an end to the combat. “Investors might not believe Trump, exactly, but they do seem to believe that the worst of the war has already passed.”

After “years of headline-driven volatility” and a “dip-buying mindset”, investors have learned not to “stay bearish for too long”, said Bloomberg. The current pattern echoes the “Ukraine-war playbook from early 2022, when an initial equities sell-off and commodity price surge” soon reversed to normal.

“It is never easy to price uncertainty,” said Tej Parikh in the Financial Times. Investors have long relied on “ebitda”, or earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation, to ascertain the “core value of a business”. But it now appears they have changed their tune, relying on “earnings before Iran, tariffs and dubious announcements”.

What next?

Since the war in Iran began, analysts have “actually raised their expectations for upcoming profits” for S&P 500 companies, said The Associated Press. Major companies such as PepsiCo and GE Vernova have either “stuck by” or “raised” their revenue forecasts for the year, which were initially published before the start of the war. S&P 500 profits could “accelerate to 20% in the second quarter, and companies aren’t giving them many reasons to reconsider”.

Of course, the US stock market “can easily return to falling”. If US-Iran peace talks break down, or if oil supplies cause greater concern, Wall Street’s mood could “swing quickly back to fear”. If oil prices, in particular, stay elevated for long enough, that could “erode” profits and raise costs, not to mention “weaken the spending power” of consumers around the world.

Hungary’s ousting of longtime Prime Minister Viktor Orbán this month sent shockwaves across Europe and beyond. In Moscow, Hungary under Orbán had been a rare ally amid an adversarial EU. In Kyiv, Orbán’s intransigence had scuttled various European initiatives to aid Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s government in the country’s with Russia. But with Orbán out, Hungary will seemingly focus on repairing and normalizing EU ties. Ukraine stands to benefit from this emerging era in Eastern Europe, even as it faces a host of risks.

What did the commentators say?

Over the past four years of war with Russia, Hungary has been a “persistent source of irritation” for Ukraine, The New York Times said. Orbán’s government “maintained friendly relations” with Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin while “blocking critical European Union funding” for Kyiv’s war effort and “stalling Ukraine’s path toward integration into the bloc.” Orbán’s ousting means “this sort of Trojan horse for Russia within the EU may disappear,” said Andreas Umland, a policy fellow with the European Policy Institute in Kyiv, to the Times.

Orbán’s “vociferous recalcitrance” toward Ukraine allowed him to cast himself as “virtually the only opponent of aid to Ukraine in the entire EU,” said the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center. “In reality,” Orbán was “simply willing to wield his veto and absorb all the backlash,” allowing other antagonists to “remain in the shadows.”

The victory of Hungary’s incoming Prime Minister Péter Magyar “clears the way for greater European support for Ukraine,” said the Council on Foreign Relations. Already, that shift has seen Hungary lift a hold it placed on a 90 billion euro loan to Kyiv, which Orbán coupled with what he claimed was Ukraine’s destruction of the Druzhba oil pipeline (Ukraine contends the pipeline was damaged in a Russian strike). The “spat” over the Druzhba pipeline also blocked a round of Russian sanctions the EU had hoped to “adopt to mark the fourth anniversary” of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in late February of this year, the CBC said.

With Orbán’s hold lifted, Ukraine is expected to make short work of the initial EU loan payments, the first of which are supposed to arrive in Kyiv “as soon as next month,” said The Telegraph. To date, Ukraine has been “reliant on donations from allies to plug the gap left by the Hungarian veto” and will use the newly released funds toward “U.S.-made Patriot air-defense interceptors to protect against incoming Russian ballistic missiles, new-fangled drone technologies produced in Ukraine and other legacy weapons, such as British Storm Shadow missiles.”

Ukraine is also taking Orbán’s ousting as an “opening to expand its energy footprint in Europe and displace Russian crude oil in Eastern Europe,” said Politico’s E&E News. Ukraine’s state-owned Naftogaz oil company is “eying plans to ship about 100 million barrels of oil a year” from a Black Sea port to neighboring countries, including Hungary, which could “supplant the Russian deliveries.”

What next?

Although the “dramatic change in tone” from Hungary is “certainly encouraging,” Ukrainians are “well aware that Hungary is not likely to become a major supporter,” said the Atlantic Council. Incoming Hungarian leadership has already “ruled out” arming Ukraine and “underlined” opposition to “fast-tracking the country’s EU accession process.”

While Magyar is “expected to take conciliatory steps toward Ukraine,” said the Russia Eurasia Center, “expectations may be overstated.” Ukraine’s inclusion in the EU is “increasingly unpopular in the bloc’s eastern part,” where countries like Poland and Bulgaria see Kyiv as a “direct competitor for European subsidies, jobs and agricultural markets.” Ukraine is also seen by some of its neighbors as an “obstacle to accessing Russian energy supplies.”

Removing Hungary’s vetoes on Ukrainian aid improves the EU’s “decision-making capacity,” said Zsuzsanna Végh, an analyst at the German Marshall Fund think tank, to The Telegraph. But Hungary won’t contribute to the EU funds directly, as Magyar’s Tisza party is “unlikely to embrace expansive military support.”

Ukrainians saw Orbán as the “hostile actor,” said Kyiv Independent reporter Tim Zadorozhnyy to the Lowy Institute, “not Hungary itself.” With Magyar’s promises of eased tensions and EU backing, he “now has all the cards in his hands.”

The EU has finally signed off a €90 billion (£78 billion) loan to Ukraine after Hungary dropped its veto. The loan – agreed in December but blocked for months by Hungary in a row over an oil pipeline – is “a question of our life, of surviving”, said Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Without the money, his country was struggling to manufacture the number of weapons it was capable of producing, he told CNN.

“Ukraine really needs this,” said EU foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas. “It’s also a sign that Russia cannot outlast Ukraine.”

What did the commentators say?

“European officials had found ways” to get some funds to Ukraine during the delay but this no-interest loan provides “far more substantial financial support”, as Moscow’s full-scale invasion extends into a fifth year, said The New York Times. Ukraine will only need to repay the loan if a future peace deal includes Russia paying reparations.

Having finally secured the loan, Zelenskyy has renewed calls to restart peace talks with Vladimir Putin, said The Independent – although US mediators are currently “preoccupied with the conflict in Iran”.

A resumption of talks seems unlikely any time soon. Only a few weeks ago, the Russian president gathered key oligarchs behind closed doors and asked them to contribute financially to the war, said independent Russian news outlet The Bell. “We will keep fighting,” its sources reported Putin as saying. “We will push to the borders of Donbas.”

And it’s the question of Donbas that led to the most recent peace talks being “placed on hold”, said political scientist Samuel Charap and military analyst Jennifer Kavanagh in Foreign Affairs. Donald Trump’s administration had “centred the talks on a core bargain”: that Ukraine cede the roughly 20% of the Donbas region it still holds to Russia “in exchange for security commitments from the US and Europe”. This approach exaggerated “the significance of territory for Russia and the importance of Western assurances for Ukraine”. It also neglected to “address the key challenge in ending any war”: convincing each side that “its enemy will really commit to peace”.

What next?

A Kremlin spokesperson has been reported as saying Putin would only meet Zelenskyy “for the purpose of finalising agreements”, said The Guardian. Instead, Russia wants the US to send Trump’s delegates Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner – who “have repeatedly listened to Putin’s maximalist demands” – to Moscow.

While the EU loan is “sorted”, there is now “another issue altogether”: Ukraine gaining membership of the EU, said Henry Foy in the Financial Times. Zelenskyy has long seen this as key to securing Ukraine’s long-term security and prosperity. “Belligerent public opposition” to the idea from outgoing Hungarian president Viktor Orbán had long “provided a useful shield for many other EU leaders to huddle behind” but, with his departure, “they will be forced to clarify their positions”.

Claims that new AI models can outperform humans at some hacking tasks has sparked widespread alarm about the future of digital security.

Tech firms “usually create buzz around products they plan to release”, said The Economist. American artificial intelligence lab Anthropic, “has managed to create excitement – and a good deal of worry – around something it plans not to”, having announced that its new Claude Mythos model would not be released to the general public.

The problem is not that the new model is “buggy or unreliable” but rather “that it works so well that releasing it would put the world’s digital infrastructure at risk”.

What did the commentators say?

This next generation of AI models such as Anthropic’s Mythos or OpenAI’s new closed-version GPT 5.4-Cyber can not only write code, but also recognise errors – or “bugs” – in the code, which can be used to both identify potential weaknesses but also ways to attack computer systems.

“It’s impressive – and, at the same time, worrying” – because it makes cyberattacks “easier”, said professor of cyber security Florian Tramèr on ETH Zurich university’s website. A lone hacker “can suddenly try out thousands of variants” and “if one attack fails, he or she can simply try with the next one.” “This increases the risks for companies, state institutions or even private individuals,” especially “if such models become cheaper and more efficient”.

Recognising the danger this might pose, Anthropic has limited access to Mythos to a handful of trusted tech companies under an initiative called Project Glasswing. Similarly, OpenAI is providing limited access to GPT-5.4-Cyber to vetted security professionals so they can use it for defensive cybersecurity measures.

Yet even Anthropic’s strict security protocols appear to have been breached, after the company confirmed it was investigating how a group of users gained “unauthorised access” to Mythos Preview “through one of our third-party vendor environments”.

The risk of unauthorised access will only “add to anxiety” about Mythos, and “raises concerns” about whether Anthropic “can keep the technology it develops out of the hands of bad actors”, said Cristina Criddle in the Financial Times.

News of these new models’ cybercapabilities had already “sent shockwaves through the markets and prompted high-level discussions among financial institutions and global regulators”, with finance ministers from across the G7 hosting bank bosses to discuss what AI-enabled hacking might mean for their businesses.

What next?

Capitalising on a “mix of fear and excitement over AI and its future impact” has “become a hallmark of the sector and its marketing strategies in recent years”, said BBC reporters Liv McMahon and Joe Tidy.

In the case of Mythos, “we still do not know enough about it to know whether these hopes or fears are justified, or more a reflection of the hype surrounding the industry”.

In reality, “like other tools from the long history of cybersecurity”, the latest AI models “can be used for both offence and defence”, said The New York Times.

There is still disagreement on “whether one side of this struggle has gained a significant advantage through AI” and experts are “unsure how the battle will play out in the coming years”. Most agree, however, that “the companies and governments that do not embrace the latest AI for defensive purposes will leave themselves enormously vulnerable”.

With the cyberenvironment experiencing the “most change” ever, said Francis deSouza, the chief operating officer and president of security products at Google Cloud, “you have to fight AI with AI.”

New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani ran for office promising to raise taxes on the rich to pay for new social welfare programs. Now he is backing Gov. Kathy Hochul’s proposal to levy a new tax on expensive second homes.

Manhattan “may have more billionaire residents per square foot” than just about anywhere in the world, said New York’s ABC 7. But many of the “luxury, multi-million dollar apartments” in the city are second homes. Hochul’s proposed “pied-à-terre” tax would apply to more than 13,000 such residences worth more than $5 million. Those locations are owned by the “super wealthy” to “store their wealth to benefit from New York City’s real estate market,” Mamdani said in a statement. Critics say the proposed tax will hurt the city’s construction and real estate industries.

The proposal comes as blue states are looking to raise taxes on wealthy residents. Golden State voters are contemplating a “one-time, 5% ‘wealth’ tax on roughly 200 California billionaires,” said USA Today. And the Maine Legislature this month passed a “millionaire tax” on the Pine Tree State’s wealthiest residents, said Maine Morning Star. Getting the highest earners to “pay just a small percentage more” will help solve the state’s revenue problems, Democratic State Rep. Drew Gattine told the publication. But there is a backlash.

What did the commentators say?

New York’s business community believed that the moderate Hochul “would surely stand in the way” of Mamdani’s tax-the-rich ideas, Crain’s New York Business said in an editorial. And Hochul is “adamantly opposed to the broader tax hikes Mamdani continues to champion” to close the city’s budget gap. But her backing of the second-home tax “moved the needle significantly to the left.” A similar proposal in 2019 failed after getting “scorched-earth opposition” from New York’s real estate sector. Broader tax reform would be more beneficial, but it is easier to sell voters on taxing “foreign oligarchs who spend two weeks of the year in a luxury Billionaires Row penthouse.”

If the concern is that taxing the rich will drive out wealthy New Yorkers, the second-home tax “threads that needle by targeting people who are, by definition, not full-time New Yorkers,” The New York Daily News said in an editorial. The people who buy second homes in the city do so because it is a “global hub of business and culture” and can “happily” pay the tax. They already “enjoy and benefit from the enormous services and amenities that the city offers,” so they can “pay a little bit more on their assets” to contribute to that vitality.

What next?

One notable second-home owner is loudly criticizing the proposed tax, said The Hill. “Mayor Mamdani is DESTROYING New York!,” President Donald Trump, a Florida resident who owns a residence at New York City’s Trump Tower, said on Truth Social. Mamdani and Trump had previously found “common ground on the issue of affordability.” That ground may be lost. “The TAX, TAX, TAX Policies are SO WRONG,” Trump said.

Keir Starmer’s future once again hangs in the balance over his decision to appoint Peter Mandelson as UK ambassador to Washington, despite the peer’s well-known links to China and friendship with paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

The prime minister accused the Foreign Office of hiding from Downing Street that the UK Security Vetting organisation recommended that Mandelson be denied full security clearance. But today the former head of the Foreign Office, the recently sacked Olly Robbins, told a parliamentary hearing there was an “atmosphere of pressure” and a “very strong expectation” from No. 10 that Mandelson should be “in post” as quickly as possible. Robbins believes he and the Foreign Office “made the correct decision”, said the BBC’s Henry Zeffman – but Starmer’s position is “the exact opposite”.

What did the commentators say?

It’s far from ideal for a prime minister to plead to the House of Commons that he has not lied to MPs because “he didn’t know what was going on in his own government”, said The Independent in an editorial. His defence is that “nobody told me”, even when he asked. “So much for absolute prime ministerial power.” Until there’s evidence to the contrary, his defence has to be accepted, “even if it beggars belief”. Starmer will “most likely survive at least until the May elections and beyond” – but “his troubles and the weaknesses of the government remain”.

It could be worse, said John Crace in The Guardian. Many MPs long ago decided Starmer wasn’t the right person for the job, but the Iran war and local elections next month mean it’s not the right time to replace him. “The party and the country wouldn’t thank them for turning a drama into a crisis.” But clearly it doesn’t occur to Starmer to “ask the questions that any normal person would” – such as, did Mandelson pass his security vetting? Starmer’s credibility is “on the line”. Because if he didn’t know, it was his job to know. “It would almost have been better if he had known about the vetting and approved it regardless. At least he would have been in control.”

The latest twist is “not enough to oust Starmer, but it has undermined the faith of MPs in the PM” and “removed the gloss he had accumulated” by staying out of the war with Iran, said Tim Shipman in The Spectator. “It makes it marginally more likely that he will be removed after May’s local elections.”

It is “clearly absurd” that Robbins didn’t tell Starmer, regardless of the legality. But Starmer knew about the red flags and decided to appoint Mandelson anyway. “This remains the fundamental original sin of this episode, which no amount of gabbling about process can excuse.” Yes, there is a “damaging lack of coordination and cooperation” at the top of government, but Starmer remains a “semi-detached, bizarrely incurious leader who seems barely engaged” with its activities. About 53% of voters believe he has been dishonest about the whole affair, according to YouGov polling.

Starmer’s dismissal of multiple advisers has also “added to the sense that a scapegoat can always be plucked from officialdom”, said Dan Bloom and Sam Blewett in Politico. There could be a “chilling effect” – civil servants might become “more defensive and suspicious”. And what then? Plenty of prime ministers have discovered that the civil service – famously compared to a Rolls-Royce by Michael Heseltine – is “capable of growling, not just purring”.

What next?

Starmer has announced an inquiry into the security concerns raised during Mandelson’s vetting. But clearly the man appointed to handle “what is perhaps Britain’s most sensitive of foreign relationships” was doing so despite the recommendation that he be denied security clearance, said Politico.

One “huge potential curveball” remaining is the planned release of thousands of emails and WhatsApp messages between Mandelson and government figures in the coming weeks. “Not even Starmer can be sure how the story will evolve from there.”