Foreign students at American colleges and universities were thrust into uncharted waters this month after the Department of Homeland Security released new guidelines to severely restrict how and how long international students can study in the United States. While the White House says the change is necessary for national security, higher education advocates claim the new rules are a body blow to America’s role as an international academic powerhouse.

What did the commentators say?

Under the new rules, students on F-1 visas that for decades had allowed them to stay in the U.S. “as long as they maintain a full course of study” will now be limited to just four-year terms, said Bloomberg Law. The new rule also restricts shifting academic plans and “reduces the grace period” that visa holders have before they face deportation.

The new guidelines are the “latest” White House policy change “buffeting the roughly 1.2 million international students pursuing degrees in the U.S.,” said Bloomberg. The new rules also affect J-visas that “allow visitors on cultural exchange programs to work in the U.S.,” and I-visas for “members of the media,” said USA Today. For international graduate students, the policy also prohibits changing focus mid-program and bars transfers to other schools without authorization.

The policy changes also “reach beyond the classroom” to the government’s “Optional Practical Training” program, through which F-1 visa holders could “work in the U.S. for a year after finishing a degree” — or longer, depending on the area of study, said the Los Angeles Times. Now, that time “counts against the four-year cap.” Foreign students already in the U.S. will be subject to the new rules “automatically,” and their time will be “capped at four years from the rule’s effective date during the fall semester.”

These changes come as international student enrollment in American schools has “already plummeted” in President Donald Trump’s second term thanks to “new visa restrictions” targeting specific countries, “harsh immigration enforcement,” and the “prosecution of foreign students who engage in political activity that the administration disagrees with,” said The New Republic. This, in turn, has resulted in a “big drop in revenue” for American schools “which have had to cut programs” and “negatively impacted a major economic engine for the U.S.” Not only do international students “bring diversity and alternative worldviews,” said NPR, but they also “contribute heavily to colleges’ financial health” because, being ineligible for federal aid, “many pay full tuition.”

Placing “clear, finite limits on these visas” allows the U.S. to “properly screen, vet and monitor individuals within our borders,” said Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin in a statement. International students will now focus on their “primary purpose: completing their studies and returning home.” But international education experts have “warned that these actions could lead to a decline in international enrollment,” said Inside Higher Ed. The outcome, they say, will be institutions that “struggle to meet enrollment and revenue goals,” as well as disruptions to the nation’s “ability to recruit top students and scholars to contribute to American research and innovation.”

“I can’t graduate early by cramming my coursework” and “there’s no guarantee I’ll pass” the requisite American licensing exams, said nursing student Kim Se-hee, currently studying in Chicago, to The Korea Herald. After years spent “working toward building a life in the U.S.,” being sent back to Korea “right after getting my U.S. nursing license, it would all be for nothing.”

The new guidelines are “far more” than changing a visa rule, said immigration attorney Tahmina Watson to Business Insider. “It’s an economic policy” under which the U.S. “risks becoming a less attractive destination for the world’s brightest minds.” The result will hurt “universities, businesses, innovation, local economies” and, ultimately, “America’s long-term global competitiveness for generations.”

What next?

With the rule change set to go into effect in mid-September, schools are “scrambling to figure out” what this means for their “international student offices, their Ph.D. programs and admissions,” said NPR. The “fallout” from the changes “could be considerable,” said Forbes. The message globally is that America has become “less welcoming, less predictable and less committed,” said NAFSA: Association of International Educators Executive Director and CEO Fanta Aw in a statement.

After a World Cup dominated by hydration “ad” breaks, political interference and match-rigging conspiracies, football’s biggest prize really is, “it seems, for sale”, said Alyson Rudd in The Times.

Under plans drawn up by Fifa President Gianni Infantino, football’s world governing body would retain majority control of the tournaments it runs, including the men’s and women’s World Cup and Club World Cup, under a new company, the Fifa Forward Enterprise (FFE).

But a minority stake would be offered to each of Fifa’s 211 member associations and, controversially, to private investors. Infantino would be installed as “commissioner” when his term as Fifa president ends in 2031, a role that “could potentially earn him tens of millions of pounds”, sources have told The Times, which broke the story.

“This crosses a line that football’s governing institutions should never cross,” European football’s governing body Uefa said in a statement. “The soul and governance of football are not assets to trade – especially with zero transparency as to who gains financially.”

What did the commentators say?

For once, public outrage at the proposals is entirely justified and understandable “because it ties together so many of the extremes that have been pushing, pulling and twisting football, let alone the world, for so long”, said Miguel Delaney in The Independent.

To muddy the waters further, the Financial Times has reported that Joshua Kushner, the brother of Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law, is being lined up to lead the $20 billion commercial part of the deal through his Thrive Eternal investment fund.

Infantino “understands political and commercial power”, said the FT. And “in the latest battle for football’s soul and spoils”, the 56-year-old Swiss “has a key ally in Trump and, many suspect, the support of Fifa members around the world”.

Purists may decry the commercialisation of the beautiful game, but this has been happening for decades. Football’s “owners and exploiters have long seen the matches themselves as mere 90-minute sections of legacy content”, said Marina Hyde in The Guardian. These “would be far better relegated to the second, third or even fourth tier behind such always-on output as branded content, shareable clips, behind-the-scenes footage, lifestyle and commerce”.

Others will say that what Fifa is proposing is “no different to the commercial entities that the likes of the French and Spanish leagues have created and sold stakes in to private-equity funds”, said Matt Slater on The Athletic. The German and Italian leagues have debated “the same move for several years” too, and the strategy has been tried in other sports such as Formula 1 and golf’s PGA Tour.

What next?

Fifa insists the plans are still in the consultation phase, but “if this escapade succeeds, the trickle-down effect would be unpalatable”, said Rudd in The Times. It would, for example, “reinvigorate those who wanted a breakaway European Super League so feared by the fans and then so valiantly protested against”.

Selling off a slice of the World Cup “should be the cue for outright rebellion”, said Oliver Brown in The Telegraph. Given European teams made up six of the eight men’s World Cup quarter-finalists this year and three of the four semi-finalists, Uefa “should have the courage of its convictions and issue a warning to secede”.

That “will almost certainly never happen”, though. “These scandals follow a time-honoured pattern: politicians fulminate, a few federations speak out, and then Infantino ploughs ahead regardless.”

US Senator Lindsey Graham “relished his role as an informal envoy” between Donald Trump and foreign leaders, said The Economist. So it’s fitting that the Republican’s funeral today “will provide one final round of diplomacy”.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Benjamin Netanyahu will both attend the service for Graham, a “defence hawk” who “forcibly lobbied Washington” to back Ukraine against Russia, and Israel against Iran, said Reuters. Tonight, the Senate prepares to vote on a bipartisan package imposing sanctions on both countries that Graham “spent his final days trying to push across the line”.

Both leaders are also scheduled to meet the US president “with the goal of winning the ear of Donald Trump” at a time when US policy towards both wars is “in a state of flux”, said Robert Tait in The Guardian.

What did the commentators say?

Netanyahu will probably pressure Trump to further “escalate” the war in Iran, while Zelenksyy will “look to shore up American support” after the loss of Graham, “one of Ukraine’s staunchest backers”, said The Economist.

The two wars, taking place 1,550 miles apart, have “converged in recent days”, said Chris Hamill-Stewart on Al Jazeera. On Saturday, Ukraine attacked an Iranian tanker said to be carrying military technology and drones from Iran to Russia. Kyiv’s actions “will please” America, former US ambassador to Kazakhstan and Georgia, William Courtney, told the news site. But Zelenskyy is “unlikely to want to be too closely associated with the ‘unpopular’ US war on Iran”.

There are signs of “a dramatic change” in the US posture on Ukraine, said The Guardian’s Tait. Washington seems “more supportive” of Kyiv than at any other time in Trump’s second presidency. Last week, right-wing influencer Laura Loomer gave the latest “signal of a sea change” when she met Zelenskyy in Kyiv, before “recanting her previous support for Russia”. Trump and Zelenskyy’s “cordial” meeting at the Nato summit in Ankara was also “starkly” different to “last year’s bitter confrontation in the White House”.

By contrast, Trump’s relationship with the Israeli prime minister has grown “visibly strained” since they last met in February, said Tal Shalev on CNN. “Close cooperation and effusive praise” at the start of the Iran war has “given way to Trump’s expletive-laden outbursts”. Trump has said he lashed out at Netanyahu, calling him “crazy”, for continuing to bombard Hezbollah in Lebanon and endangering peace talks with Iran. He has been “resistant” to this meeting, having “little interest in resuming a full fight” against Iran before the US midterms in November, according to one Israeli source.

What next?

Ukraine and the US are moving closer towards a deal on joint drone production, which “could help the US catch up with Ukraine in this crucial military technology”, said Al Jazeera. And Trump and Zelenskyy agreed this month to allow Ukraine to jointly produce Patriot air defence interceptors, “a crucial component for the country’s defence against Russian aerial attacks”.

For Netanyahu, there’s the sticking point of Lebanon: he told his security cabinet on Sunday that the Trump administration “wants to pull Israeli forces back from positions in Lebanon, as well as in Gaza and Syria”. But, as Israel has already refused to withdraw its forces completely before Hezbollah disarms, Netanyahu “intends to oppose the idea”, said CNN’s Shalev. The Israeli PM is under political pressure ahead of elections in October: in recent polls, “he falls far short of the majority he needs to secure another term”. He knows Trump’s support “could be critical”. The stakes “are as high as ever”.

As Social Security is on track to be depleted by 2032, the White House is seeking alternatives for aging Americans, and President Donald Trump seems enamored with one particular country: Australia. Trump is reportedly looking to Australia’s retirement system as a substitute. While some economists feel this could be an easy solution, others say it is not so simple.

What did the commentators say?

Australia’s retirement system has “three main pieces: a compulsory employer-funded retirement account, a public means-tested Age Pension, and voluntary private saving, including housing,” said Forbes. The part Trump seems to be honing in on is the first piece, called superannuation. The process works by requiring employers to contribute at least 12% of an employee’s earnings into an investment account similar to a 401(k).

In other words, Australia “does not merely tell workers to save. It makes retirement saving part of the employment system,” said Forbes. Under Australian law, an employee’s retirement account “stays open even when switching jobs, their balance remains invested, and the new employer can continue contributing to the same account” without having to cash out, said Newsweek. The superannuation plan differs significantly from the U.S., where there is no requirement for employers to “offer or contribute to any retirement plan.”

Trump has previously supported a change to this type of model if Social Security benefits run dry. “We’re going to be doing also something we’re working on later on, and it’ll be also, I think, very popular, and I guess the best definition is they have a plan in Australia, which people really like,” the president said during an Oval Office event launching his Trump Accounts for children. “We’re going to be talking about that with Congress and see if we can implement it.” Australia’s “system is on pace to be the world’s second-largest retirement plan within the next decade,” while the United States is “facing its own retirement crisis,” said Bloomberg.

It is “easy to see the political appeal of a model that mandates high contributions, expands coverage even to part-time workers, and shifts the responsibility for funding and managing the plans into the private sector, said Bloomberg. Whether the idea would actually work in the U.S. has experts divided. Since the money for the savings would still be taken out of employee earnings, it “would hurt low-income workers, who might need all of their paycheck to cover the expenses of daily life,” Romina Boccia, the director of budget and entitlement policy at the Cato Institute, told USA Today.

What next?

While Trump has gotten behind Australia’s superannuation system, there isn’t a significant plan in place. As Trump’s handling of the economy gets low marks among voters, some economists say copying Australia would be a good idea. “If you were inventing a retirement system from scratch today, you would almost certainly do something like the Australian retirement system,” Andrew Biggs, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, told USA Today.

But the U.S. could still be a ways away from such a system. While “access to tax-favored retirement plans is widening as more states introduce ‘automated savings’ programs,” that is still a “far cry from requiring workers to save for retirement, as Australia mandates,” said USA Today.

“Overlooked and underfunded” adult social care has become “the Cinderella service of our wider welfare system”, said Labour List. Now Andy Burnham, whose father has Alzheimer’s and lives in a care home, has told the BBC that he will put “whatever political capital I have” into fixing it.

He is not the first prime minister to vow to tackle the issue. But “successive governments have come undone when faced with the tricky reality” of adequately funding state support to help older people live safely and independently, said The Times.

What did the commentators say?

There have been 22 botched attempts to the reform the English adult social care system in the past 30 years. And those successive failures carry “a heavy political cost”, said Chris Smyth in the Financial Times: long-term underfunding has made pay and conditions in the sector so unattractive to British workers that “visa rules were loosened after Brexit” and care workers arriving from abroad became “the single biggest reason why net immigration to the UK rose to all-time high”.

Now, as Britain’s “demographic centre of gravity” tilts towards retirement, social care is reaching its “most painful financial pinch point” yet, said The Telegraph's editorial board. In 50 years, more than 25% of the population could be over the age of 65, according to the Office for National Statistics. The “best solution” for funding social care on that scale would be an “insurance-based system, where Britons would be encouraged to pay into a fund that would cover their own care in old age, should they need it”.

But Burnham has said social care should be delivered “on an NHS basis”. This implies “a public service free at the point of delivery and funded by some form of taxation”, said The Guardian’s editorial board. When Burnham was health secretary in 2010, he proposed a “national care service” to be funded by a deferred levy on dead people’s estates. Other options could include “a new form of social insurance” or “a combination of private and state payments”.

A more “ambitious” solution would be take responsibility for funding social care away from local councils, whose “revenues don’t map neatly on to local care needs”, and simultaneously reform council tax as a central tax that better reflects current property values and generates revenue for a national social care service, said Ben Zaranko in The Observer. That would “create losers, be complicated and take time but the course of true radical social care reform never did run smooth”.

What next?

Burnham is scheduled to deliver a speech on adult social care on Wednesday. In it, he will “stop short of unveiling” any concrete plans, said the BBC, instead announcing that he is speeding up Louise Casey’s independent review of possible solutions for the system.

Yet “the veteran Whitehall troubleshooter on whom Burnham is relying to come up with answers” has already warned there is no quick fix, said the FT’s Smyth. Earlier this month, she said “we cannot keep pretending that a few tweaks will fix adult social care, or attempt major reform without the public’s backing”.

Iranian strikes on CIA facilities have led US intelligence officials to believe that unprecedented intelligence cooperation is taking place between Russia and Tehran, with China cooperating closely with Moscow too.

The US is investigating how Iran was able to accurately target covert CIA facilities in Saudi Arabia and other allied countries in March. Reuters cited former CIA officials who said that relatively few countries possess both the intelligence capabilities and strategic motivation to provide Tehran with such highly sensitive data.

If confirmed, “the successful targeting of covert CIA facilities would represent one of the most significant intelligence security breaches affecting US overseas operations in recent decades”, said Military Watch Magazine.

What did the commentators say?

It appears likely that Iran had help from Russia as the attacks “were far more advanced than what they’ve done before”, Nicole Grajewski, from the Center for International Research at Sciences Po university in Paris, told Al Jazeera. Russia “has also allegedly helped Tehran improve the accuracy” of its attack drones by supplying a Russian-designed anti-jamming navigation system, said Al Jazeera.

A secret document seen by The Economist and estimated by the newspaper to have been from the first six weeks of the war showed Russia also offered to provide Iran with “unjammable drones and training on how to use them against American troops in the Gulf”. Christo Grozev, an expert on Russia’s intelligence services, said the proposal was consistent with other evidence that Russia is looking for ways of increasing support for Iran.

For Russia, the benefits of a continued conflict in the Middle East are obvious. More countries are looking to buy Russian oil while the Strait of Hormuz continues to be unstable, said RadioFreeEurope. The Philippines, for example, “has sought to increase Russian crude access and expanded discussions over long-term energy cooperation”. Where Moscow could benefit economically, “China may see diplomatic gains amid the same situation”.

Moscow and Beijing “have coordinated closely throughout the crisis”, said Jasim Al-Azzawi on Middle East Monitor, jointly convening UN sessions and “declining to abandon Tehran diplomatically even as they withheld direct military support”. There is “a seductive myth that China and Iran are allies bound by blood and ideology, that Beijing would ride to Tehran’s rescue the way Nato would for a member under Article 5”. But “nothing could be further from the truth. What binds Beijing and Tehran is colder, more durable, and in some ways more dangerous than sentiment: mutual utility.”

The Iran war has been good for Beijing because it has “accelerated three of China’s long-held goals: a Middle East less dependent on America, a world more dependent on critical Chinese technology and a reputation for Beijing as a serious and steady world power”, said Fareed Zakaria in The Washington Post. Accordingly, China “provides technological and military support to Iran”, said Nadia Helmy on Modern Diplomacy. Chinese companies are “supplying vital components and technologies used in Iran’s missile and defence programmes, making Tehran a regional power that is difficult to deter without significant cost”.

What next?

The US is “surging forces, medics and weaponry to the Middle East to give President Trump more muscular military options as he considers expanding the conflict”, said The Wall Street Journal.

But any escalation will be complicated by the continued support of China and Russia for Iran and the changing of the geopolitical pecking order that this war is beginning to cause. “The Iran conflict has shown that governments increasingly judge the major powers by whether they can help manage energy costs, shipping risk and inflation,” Ilango Karuppannan, a veteran Malaysian diplomat, told RadioFreeEurope.

“This creates a risk for Washington. The US may remain militarily important while becoming less economically relevant.”

In politics, first impressions can mean a great deal and Donald Trump has heaped praise on Andy Burnham for his plans to fast-track oil and gas drilling in the North Sea.

Writing on his Truth Social platform, the president said “the People of Aberdeen” are “dancing in the streets” because Burnham said “he will be opening up, all the way, the invaluable North Sea Oil!” As ever with Trump, this was playing fast and loose with the truth, as Burnham is yet to commit to any new drilling in the North Sea.

But after Trump gave Burnham an initial thumbs-up, “talk in DC turned to Ed Miliband’s role as the most contentious figure”, said The Times’ Katy Balls. Miliband has been an outspoken critic of Trump in the past, which is “likely to put him on the back foot with an increasingly hostile US administration”, said Bloomberg.

What did the commentators say?

There’s an “opening” for a new prime minister who is “liberal, centre-left, internationalist” and who “recognises the world has changed”, said Steve Bloomfield on The New Statesman.

Burnham must “find a way to deal” with the “fracturing” of the special relationship, and having “seen how others have fared”, with Trump, he “should find it easier”.

New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani calls Trump a “fascist” but still works with him on “areas where they agree”, while Mark Carney and Anthony Albanese “took the risk of standing up to Trump” and “subsequently won elections they were predicted to lose”. So “standing up to Trump is not only morally right”, it’s “electorally effective”.

Economic, intelligence and defence ties “run deep”, so many believe it’s “better to stay on the right side of Trump – however tempting it might sometimes be to give him a (metaphorical) kick”, but you don’t want to be a “total toady”, said Anushka Asthana on Channel 4 News.

On energy, Burnham “seems prepared to move the rhetoric” with the suggestion he will green-light two oil and gas drilling projects in the North Sea. He’s promised “help on the Strait of Hormuz” but what if Trump breaches international humanitarian law? Diplomats and advisers know “full well” that the unpredictable president could “change his mind, at any moment”.

Keir Starmer’s relationship with Trump “turned from warm to cold”, said Andrew Buncombe on The i Paper. Burnham will “run into the same problems” on “issues that have created friction”, including Britain’s decision to cede control of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, its refusal to get involved in the war against Iran, and “how far to proceed with drilling for oil in the North Sea”.

The PM “only has a limited way to try and influence how Washington acts” and he should remember that his first call with Trump was “just that – the first talk”. If the “rest are positive”, then Burnham “will turn out to be a very lucky man”.

What next?

Starmer was a former prosecutor seen as a “cool-headed technocrat, unruffled by the insults as long as he was making his case”, said Steve Hendrix in The Washington Post. But Burnham has “honed a warmer, plain-spoken touch” which “could be an asset” with a president who “responds to personal chemistry in ways he doesn’t respond to formal diplomacy”.

The new PM has “made clear that his instincts, and his mandate, are relentlessly domestic”, so the new No. 10 will “have its eyes fixed inward”, not “across the Atlantic”. Trump and the rest of the “foreign policy inbox” is “expected to be substantially subcontracted” to the foreign secretary.

The end of the 2026 FIFA World Cup marks a major inflection point for soccer in the United States. While the U.S.’ co-hosting duties, along with round-the-clock media coverage of the American team, helped soccer’s status explode over the last month, the sport has never maintained long-term popularity in the country on the same level as, say, the NFL. Some believe that may all be changing.

What did the commentators say?

The arrival of the tournament always brings up the “quadrennial question: Can this be the World Cup that finally converts U.S. sports fans to soccer fanatics?” said Forbes. In 2026, the “answer might be yes, or at least closer than ever.” Many Americans have shied away from soccer because what they “find electrifying is the possibility and manifestation of drastic change” and large comebacks, like those often seen in football and baseball. Soccer’s “low-scoring structure makes such reversals rare.”

But many are hopeful that the 2026 World Cup marked the beginning of a turnaround. The “macro picture,” former U.S. Soccer President Sunil Gulati told The Athletic, has “always been about: What does it look like the day after” the tournament ends? A similar enthusiasm happened when the U.S. hosted the 1994 World Cup, but a “key difference between 1994 and now wasn’t just that American players then couldn’t fathom playing professional soccer, but that there was no real route to do so — at least domestically.”

Three decades later, though, the United States has created “not just the soccer-specific stadiums and training grounds but also the academies and pathways that led to a generation of players,” said The Athletic. Despite the U.S.’ loss to Belgium, the “next Christian Pulisic or Leo Messi somewhere along the way might have attended a game and perhaps is going to be sitting in the stands in the World Cup final and will see the greatest players in the world, and say, ‘Wow, I want that to be me,’” Don Garber, the commissioner of Major League Soccer (MLS), told The Athletic.

Others believe that MLS, the nation’s top professional soccer league, helped ingrain soccer into the United States even before this year’s World Cup. MLS is an “established, stable American sports league” whose “franchises keep increasing in value,” said The Tennessean. There is also the U.S. Women’s National Team, a dominant force that has “won four World Cups since 1991.” And while there has been “public discourse on a flawed youth soccer system in this country,” soccer enthusiasts are hopeful it will “lead to necessary improvements at the ground level” and that “American soccer will grow from this.”

What next?

There is also some data supporting the idea that soccer’s popularity may be here to stay. More than half of Americans, 57%, think the World Cup will “increase America’s general interest in soccer,” according to an Ipsos survey of 1,027 adults. Many of those polled also said their overall excitement about the game had grown, with enthusiasm about the World Cup rising from 25% in May to 38% in July.

The excitement about soccer is particularly strong among Gen Zers, as the sport is “already disproportionately popular among this demographic,” said YouGov. Gen Z adults “make up nearly a fifth of all soccer followers compared to just a tenth of the overall U.S. population (18% vs 10%).” Much of the data shows that the World Cup was a primer to “make America a soccer nation,” said Forbes.

The upheaval and unrest at the top of the Ukrainian government has worried its citizens and given succour to Russia at a crucial time in the war.

In his dismissal of popular defence minister Mykhailo Fedorov, Volodymyr Zelenskyy sparked anger and protests across Ukraine, turning what was an internal management issue into the “biggest military leadership crisis” of his presidency, said the Financial Times’ Christopher Miller.

Now Zelenskyy has been left with no choice but to acquiesce to protesters by firing controversial general and close ally Oleksandr Syrskyi and replacing him with Mykhailo Drapatyi, a 43-year-old Fedorov acolyte. But the whole affair has “exposed divisions over Ukraine’s military strategy” and the “willingness of the armed forces to address its shortcomings just as momentum in the war against Russia has swung in its favour”.

What did the commentators say?

Ukraine’s survival against a vastly more powerful Russia “has always rested on an uneasy alliance between a corrupt state, steeped in Soviet-era reflexes, and a more innovative, Westward-looking population, much of it too young to have been shaped by the former USSR”, said Bloomberg’s Marc Champion. The conflict between Fedorov and Syrskyi aptly highlighted that very tension.

Fedorov was appointed defence minister only in January having previously made a name for himself leading Ukraine’s digital transformation department. The 35-year-old won new admirers for adopting an innovative, data-led approach to military procurement and the expansion of battlefield drone technology.

Yet his at-times unorthodox methods put him increasingly into conflict with many of the military old guard, including the 60-year-old Syrskyi who is known among some troops as “the butcher” for his reported indifference to losses of soldiers.

Fedorov’s ousting, just six months into his tenure, “comes at a critical time”, said Radio Free Europe. More than four years on from the full invasion, Ukraine’s forces have battled Russian troops to a “near standstill – in large part due to the wide embrace of drone warfare and lightning innovations in drone technology” that have also been used to target supply lines and hit oil refineries deep inside of Russia. This has “buoyed many Ukrainians’ confidence that the Kremlin will be forced to negotiate a ceasefire”.

Now the “extraordinary rupture at the heart of Ukraine’s top war-fighting team” is one that “can only benefit Russia”, said Sky News security and defence editor Deborah Haynes.

“Perhaps more worryingly for the president and military chief” is the “disquiet within the ranks” that it has prompted, said Haynes. Senior serving officers have spoken out in defence of Fedorov, while some have even resigned in protest. This includes the deputy head of the Ukrainian air force, Colonel Pavlo Yelizarov, who called the decision a “great evil for the country’s defence capabilities”.

What next?

Zelenskyy has offered Fedorov a return to a “prominent position in government”. But it is not clear whether this offer will be accepted, with reports that Fedorov would only return to his previous role as defence minister.

The whole affair has exposed a deeper “troubling flaw in the president’s leadership”, said The Guardian’s Peter Beaumont.

It has prompted “inevitable suggestions that Zelenskyy and his circle – not for the first time – had sidelined someone seen as popular and a potential future political rival”.

The initial decision, an editorial in the Kyiv Independent said, “bears all the hallmarks of Zelenskyy’s tendency to dismiss top officials and commanders who get too popular, ahead of hypothetical elections that will never happen if Russia overwhelms Ukraine”.

But the fact that Zelenskyy has made a volte-face “rather than try to crush dissent is a source of hope for Ukraine”, said Champion in Bloomberg. “Ultimately, the two Ukraines that Syrskyi and Fedorov represent must cooperate if they are to stay one step ahead of Moscow.”

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) just signed off on the nation’s first state-level moratorium on data center construction, and other governors may follow, as the pushback against data centers grows. Voter anger at the facilities may be a major factor in this fall’s midterm elections, though how it plays out is still anybody’s guess. The issue does not easily map onto party-line divisions, and both Democrats and Republicans are trying to figure out the path forward.

What did the commentators say?

Congressional Democrats are looking at the New York example and are “hoping to seize on the issue in the November midterms,” said Politico. The issue could serve as a “bridge” between moderates like Hochul and progressives like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who have “clamored for more restrictions” on artificial intelligence.

Opposing data centers might be good politics. A whopping 71% of Americans “don’t want an A.I. data center built close to where they live,” said The New York Times. Democrats could be poised to take advantage. When U.S. voters “feel like there’s some industry or sector of the economy that’s out of control, they reach for Democrats,” said Heatmap’s Robinson Meyer to the outlet.

The challenge is that while Democrats see data centers as a problem, “they disagree on what to do about it,” said The Hill. The centers’ role in “exacerbating both electricity bills and climate change” makes restrictions a “no-brainer” for some in the party, especially in a year when affordability concerns are center stage. But neither Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) nor House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) has backed a “specific proposal to achieve those ends.”

Other Democrats, like Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, have meanwhile “rolled out the red carpet” for data center projects, Stephen Starr said at The Guardian. Opposing data centers “should be an easy way to win votes” for Democrats. Embracing construction is “risking their midterm hopes.”

The GOP also faces divisions over the issue. A “string of polls” shows that “even a majority of Republicans” oppose data center construction, said The Washington Post, and some Republican candidates are pitching themselves as defenders of local communities against the projects. Others have decided to “stake out firmly pro-AI positions” out of “concerns about losing the AI war to China.” The centers are “key to the revolution that’s coming,” Arizona congressional candidate Jay Feely said in a podcast interview.

What next?

The Trump administration is attempting to “quell public concerns” ahead of the midterms by inviting GOP governors to sign a “Ratepayer Protection Pledge” that would commit data center developers to “pay for their fair share of energy and water use.” Meanwhile, AI and tech groups connected to OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta and Google are “flooding money into the midterms,” said NPR. The election outcomes will have a “big impact on the shape” of any new legislation that regulates the sector over the next two years. Work in the current Congress “remains stalled” even though there is “bipartisan support to do something about the technology.”

Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi militia has announced it is closing the Bab al-Mandab Strait to Saudi ships, in a “maritime embargo” that could further disrupt global energy supplies. The strait, a strategic gateway linking the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden, is one of the world’s most important oil transit routes. And, in recent days, Iran has reportedly been calling on the Houthis to block the strait to all oil tanker traffic passing through it.

Closing off the Bab al-Mandab “chokepoint” on the sea path many oil tankers are now taking to avoid the Strait of Hormuz could seriously “squeeze the global economy” and “add another layer of complexity” to the Middle East conflict, said The Wall Street Journal.

What did the commentators say?

The Bab al-Mandab Strait is “one of the region’s most sensitive sources of leverage”, making the Houthis Iran’s “best placed” allies “to open another pressure front”, said Ahmed al-Shalafi on Al Jazeera.

Around 10% to 12% of annual global maritime trade passes through the strait. With both it and the Strait of Hormuz closed, cargo ships would have to “take a weeks-long detour” around Africa, said Akhtar Makoii in The Telegraph. The Houthis have already shown they are capable of shutting down the waterway: “during the Gaza war, they fired on commercial vessels in the Red Sea for months, driving much of the world’s shipping away from the route”.

Closing the strait again serves “Tehran’s ends” but the Houthis are “partners, not puppets” of Iran, and this move lets them “press their own regional ambitions” and, particularly, “punish Saudi Arabia, their long-time enemy”. Last week, Saudi Arabia “effectively opened a new front in the war” by bombing Sana’a airport in the Yemeni capital to prevent the landing of an Iranian plane carrying a Houthi delegation back from Tehran.

The growing hostilities are “breaking down” the informal 2022 Saudi-Houthi truce that “ended virtually all cross-border attacks” between the two countries, said Stephen Kalin in The Wall Street Journal. The Houthis “see an opportunity to gain an advantage” on the Saudis and feel “strategically emboldened by a perception that Iran has outmanoeuvred the US”.

What next?

Saudi Arabia does not seem “eager to return quickly to a broad war” with the Houthis, said al-Shalafi on Al Jazeera. And closing the Bab al-Mandab Strait completely would require “military, logistical and maritime control capabilities” that the Houthis no longer possess, Ibrahim Al-Malek, a Durham University specialist in Middle Eastern strategic governance, told US-funded Arabic news service Alhurra.

“Whether the Houthis move from threats to direct action remains the critical issue,” Yemeni analyst Mohammed Albasha told Reuters. But “even if no ships are attacked, ​the announcement alone is likely to disrupt shipping and create ​uncertainty”.

The U.S. has long led the world in scientific research — a feat that has undergirded the country’s economic and political might. Now researchers are pushing back against a proposed Trump administration rule. Scientists say it would upend the federal funding that drives U.S. science by shifting grantmaking decisions away from independent experts and into the hands of the president’s political allies.

What did the commentators say?

The proposed rule would give President Donald Trump’s appointees “power over hundreds of billions of dollars” in federal grant funding while “diminishing the traditional role of scientific peer reviewers,” said The Washington Post. Projects would be evaluated to ensure they “advance the president’s priorities” while rejecting projects and institutions that promote DEI, affirm transgender identities or support “anti-American” ideas. The new grantmakers would thus have wider latitude to defund “anything Trump doesn’t like,” said Elizabeth Kolbert at The New Yorker. The White House argues the change would “bring much-needed accountability to the grantmaking process,” an administration spokesperson said to the Post.

Shifting responsibility for scientific funding to political operatives would amount to “cancel culture for cancer research,” said Rep. Rosa L. DeLauro (D-Conn.) at The Hill. The proposed rule would allow the White House to reject or cut funds mid-project if an institution “uses the word ‘diversity’ in their mission statement” or if a researcher publicly opposed the Trump administration’s vaccine policies. It would be a system of “arbitrary political control” that is “ripe for abuse.” The Trump administration could deny a grant for “any reason — or no reason at all.”

The change should be welcomed by Americans who “believe in democracy and democratic accountability,” said Michael S. Kochin at The American Mind. Political appointees who would oversee grantmaking going forward are “accountable to the president and to Congress,” and projects should not advance if their “political masters” do not “believe them to serve the national interest.” The current peer review system, meanwhile, ends up “enforcing consensus rather than discovering truth” by rewarding scientists who play it safe. Federal grants should be directed at research that will “actually make us healthier, richer and freer.”

Peer-reviewed grantmaking is not perfect, but the Trump administration’s proposed solution is “far worse than the disease,” MIT’s Carlo Ratti said at the Financial Times. Researchers are “not immune to herd behavior” and can struggle to challenge their own assumptions. But “ideological pressures” are the wrong way to correct those problems, incentivizing scientists to abandon proposals that “could be cancelled when the political weather turns.”

Opponents say the Trump administration rule will blunt U.S. science supremacy. American researchers are “not going to be able to cure disease, and you’re not going to be able to grow the economy,” Sudip Parikh, the CEO of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, said to STAT. U.S. science is already struggling. The administration “suspended and canceled nearly 8,000 scientific grants” in 2025, said The Atlantic.

What next?

Science and education groups are lobbying lawmakers on Capitol Hill to oppose the rule, staging protests and organizing letter-writing campaigns. Some 300 leading scientific organizations sent a letter to the administration requesting more time to review the proposed regulation, said the Post. Dozens of Democratic members of Congress, along with Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), have condemned the proposal. But the public comment period closed last week, and the administration plans to finalize the sweeping rule by Oct. 1.

The Trump administration has been on a crusade against clean energy, and the costs are adding up. The White House has spent billions to steer energy companies away from wind power while simultaneously increasing coal subsidies. U.S. taxpayers, meanwhile, are dealing with ever-rising electricity bills and gas prices. Critics say something has to give.

What did the commentators say?

Trump is “forcing higher bills” on American energy consumers, former Washington Gov. Jay Inslee said to The Guardian. The administration has “directly spent $2.7 billion of taxpayer money,” the outlet said, paying energy companies to “cancel a total of eight offshore wind projects” while at the same time “pouring $1.125 billion into boosting coal” by retrofitting and expanding capacity at older coal-powered power plants.

Those and other White House changes to energy policies “could lead to households paying an average of $460 extra per year for energy costs” by 2035, said Newsweek, citing a new report from think tank Energy Innovation. Administration officials dispute that estimate. Trump has “rolled back burdensome regulations and bolstered U.S. energy production to lower prices for American families,” a spokesperson said to Newsweek.

The president in 2024 “promised to cut electric bills in half,” said CNN. The Energy Innovation report shows that he is “doing the opposite.” Electricity bills have “spiked nationwide by 7.4% since last fall,” and more than a dozen states are experiencing “double-digit increases year-over-year.” The attempt to back a resurgence of coal will also prove costly. Coal power is “more expensive than natural gas and renewables,” which will result in “higher power bills for consumers.”

“The strangest part of Trump’s wind buyouts is the way it ignores the law of supply and demand,” Paul Wesslund said at the Louisville Courier Journal. It is “bad economics” as well as “bad politics” to respond to the nation’s growing energy needs by cutting supply and raising prices during an affordability crisis. Wind and solar farms “don’t need constant refueling” but do have “shorter construction times” that make it easier to bring new projects online “as fast as possible.” Trump’s logic in killing off such projects is “just a lot of hot air.”

What next?

More than 200 clean energy projects have been canceled since the start of 2025, said Fast Company. The thwarted production has cost roughly “half a million jobs” and tens of billions in lost growth and tax revenues. But the clean energy economy has not “come to a stop.” More than 90% of new power plants in 2025 were solar, wind or battery plants, and the number is expected to grow this year. Because of Trump’s crackdown, however, the “pace is much slower than it otherwise would have been.”

Green power sources will “continue to grow,” E2’s Michael Timberlake said to Fast Company. But White House energy policies will cause the U.S. to “miss out on a lot of investments and a lot of manufacturing opportunities.”

Donald Trump used a prime-time address to the nation to allege Chinese interference in US elections in a move that looks to undermine voter confidence ahead of November’s midterms.

The White House released documents alleging that “over a period of years, starting during the 2020 election cycle” the Chinese government carried out “what is believed to be the largest compromise of election data in history, resulting in China’s illicit acquisition of 220 million US voter files”. Trump did not make clear, though, how the alleged Chinese activity could have helped Joe Biden win the 2020 presidential election.

“Raw intelligence obtained by the FBI in 2020, yet buried by rogue bureaucrats, stated that China's activities even included an attempt to manufacture illegal ballots for Joe Biden,” Trump said.

While China has denied the allegations, “none of the declassified information supports the claim that any previous election results – including the 2020 presidential contest that Trump lost – were manipulated by foreign interference or fraud in a way that would’ve changed the outcome”, said Marshall Cohen and Kevin Liptak on CNN.

What did the commentators say?

The speech “marked a striking effort by Trump to marshal the resources of the intelligence community to support his claims about election meddling and legislative agenda to tighten voter registration rules”, said Lauren Fedor in the Financial Times.

It’s true that “foreign powers do, in fact, try to influence American elections”, said Tom Nichols in The Atlantic. But that “was about all that the president – who seems shocked that other nations have preferences about who wins elected office in the United States – got right”.

The classified revelations, despite what Trump tried to claim, in fact “show that the intelligence community didn’t even agree” that China was fully engaged even in a more limited campaign of influence.

In his address Trump was plainly looking “to soothe his wounded ego over the 2020 election”. But he also might have “a darker motive”. In “attacking the integrity of American elections”, Trump could be seeking to delegitimise the upcoming midterms “and perhaps even create the predicate for interfering in them”.

In his address, Trump has “destroyed any confidence in the integrity of US elections for Americans inclined to believe him”, said Ed Kilgore in New York Magazine. In doing so he has set up “a certain challenge to any midterm results adverse to his party”. When Republicans “desperately needed him to make concrete proposals for improvements in living costs”, Trump instead “dragged the GOP down the election denial rabbit hole farther than ever”.

What next?

Republican politicians who would like the president to focus on the cost of living “have been wary of Trump’s unrelenting claims about flaws in the electoral system”, said the FT.

Senate majority leader John Thune “has resisted pressure from the White House to scrap Senate rules” in an effort by Trump to push through the Save America Act. This would require proof of citizenship to register to vote in federal elections, among other measures.

The accusations Trump made could also “complicate a fragile trade truce between the US and China”, said CNBC, while also “casting a shadow over Chinese President Xi Jinping upcoming visit to Washington” in late September.

Just days away from her expected departure, Rachel Reeves defended her legacy to the “great and the good of the City” in the annual Mansion House speech, said the Financial Times.

Her “valedictory” address claimed successes in reduced government borrowing and lower NHS waiting lists. “Loud applause and even whoops of support from guests” indicated support from the finance sector, too, even if possibly not reflected across the country.

But many in the audience were preoccupied by one question: “who would be in charge of the UK’s fiscal policy next week”?

What did the commentators say?

“Farewell, Rachel Reeves, the blubbing chancellor who made us all cry,” said James Moore in The Independent. According to most polling, she is by far the “most unpopular chancellor on record”. She may have resisted “juvenile attempts” to tax the billionaires advocated by many in her party, but she opted for “one of the worst possible means” to raise funds, in hitting employers with higher National Insurance.

But by far her “darkest legacy” is the “million young people not in education, employment or training”. Ultimately, despite a handful of isolated wins, Reeves has “rarely shown the kind of bravery or instinct needed for this great office”.

Reeves’ record is the worst of “any chancellor of modern times”, said financial columnist Matthew Lynn in The Telegraph. In her Mansion House speech, she primarily presented herself as the only person who could provide stability. “The trouble is, none of it was very convincing.” The economy’s “stagnant” growth only looks “tolerable” in the context of poor performances from other G7 countries, unemployment is on the rise, and debt has “soared” to close to “100% of GDP”. Given her shortcomings, her belated attempts to appeal to Andy Burnham’s regime were “cringey” at best. “It was an embarrassing end to a dismal chancellorship.”

“Barely a sector has escaped unscathed” from Reeves’ “duplicity”, said Alys Denby in CityAM. The first, and telling, blow was her “acrobatic triangulation” over the definition of a tax on “working people”, breaking her manifesto pledge by freezing thresholds. She will be remembered for “dissembling, breaking promises and making Brits poorer”.

Not everyone will be glad to see the back of Reeves, said Politico. Her tears in the Commons once sent financial markets “spiralling”: “now they’re the ones sobbing”. She is uniquely “friendly to the City”, typified by her “smoked salmon offensive” of holding regular breakfasts with City chiefs in the run-up to the 2024 election. With uncertainty over her successor, “things can only get worse” for the financial elite.

A “fair assessment” of Reeves’ tenure in No. 11 “would not be wholly negative”, said The Times’ editorial board. “She has a couple of sizeable achievements to her name.” She relaxed some of the “onerous” regulation on businesses, made reforms to the London Stock Exchange and “consolidated” the “fragmented” pensions industry. “Regrettably”, however, Reeves’ negatives “outweigh the positives”. Labour may have inherited a “sizeable fiscal problem”, but with Reeves’ “disastrous” first budget, they “exacerbated it”.

What next?

Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood is likely to become Reeves’ successor when Burnham’s cabinet is announced on Monday, said the Financial Times. Mahmood is on the right of the Labour Party and is viewed as a “tough operator and capable minister”, overseeing “contentious” immigration reforms. Since the reports broke, the markets have “responded positively”. Speaking on Wednesday, Burnham said that he might “ask for a little bit more” in tax, and refused to rule out a wealth tax. Whatever the selection, the future chancellor’s “big task” will be to frame a convincing autumn Budget.

“Dare I suggest there are the seeds here for a comeback” for Reeves, said Moore in The Independent. The UK is in a “precarious predication fiscally”, and we “shouldn’t underestimate” Reeves’ standing with the markets. If the Burnham project goes “horribly wrong”, he may find himself calling on someone to “steady the ship”. “The record shows that Reeves can take the blows. She could do it her way.”

With President Donald Trump’s refusal to either sign or veto a landmark bipartisan housing bill, the legislation automatically became law last week, and political analysts are hopeful the bill will help ease the pain of America’s nationwide housing crisis. But while experts laud Congress’ joint efforts to address the problem, the average American may not feel relief for years.

What did the commentators say?

The bill has a number of provisions that seek to “remove barriers to building homes, lower housing costs and shift greater control over housing to the local level,” said Time. One of the main goals is to increase the overall availability of houses, largely by mandating that the government “offer guidance on how communities could best reform zoning and land-use policies to reduce barriers to housing development.” Environmental reviews of housing construction will also be streamlined.

It also widens the definition of manufactured houses, which are “built entirely in factories before being transported to their sites,” said Time. The expanded definition will “‘unlock’ a segment of the housing market by making it cheaper and easier to mass-produce such homes,” Francis Torres, the housing and infrastructure director at the Bipartisan Policy Center, told Time. The current supply is “really not matching the growing and changing demand,” said Geoff Smith, the executive director of the Institute for Housing Studies at DePaul University, to WTTW.

The bipartisan nature of the bill, which easily passed both the House of Representatives and the Senate, “reflects both parties’ concerns with rising housing costs nationwide and shows that political compromise is still possible in Washington,” said The Dallas Morning News editorial board. If properly implemented, it has the potential to “modernize federal housing programs, streamline regulations and encourage innovation.”

But the effects of the bill may not be so profound for those in the worst financial situations. It will likely have a “fairly limited impact on affordability for the lowest-income folks in the country,” said Shamus Roller, CEO of the National Housing Law Project, to PBS News. The provisions “aren’t the kinds of sweeping policy changes many affordable housing advocates say will help dramatically reduce housing costs,” like major tax reforms and government-subsidized housing investments.

What next?

The legislation may take time to be effective because “many pieces of the legislation will require implementation from the now-diminished” Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), said PBS. About 32% of HUD’s workforce has left the agency since September 2024, according to the nonprofit Partnership for Public Service, which could make it hard to bring some of the bill’s provisions to life. As of 2024, no states in the U.S. had an adequate supply of affordable housing for low-income renters, said the National Low Income Housing Coalition.

So even as many are hopeful about the new promises, some “immediate relief may not come just yet for homeowners and renters,” said Yonah Freemark, a housing research associate at the Urban Institute, to CNN. The bill creates a “situation where not only will the federal government have to make changes, but then state and local governments also will have to make changes and then businesses, developers and the like will have to make investments, which itself takes time.”

Billed as a coronation, the change in prime minister is “unfolding more like a royal wedding”, said Zoe Williams in The Guardian. “You feel an ambient duty to spectate and even celebrate, but you’d be mad not to stay sceptical”.

Andy Burnham is set to be the seventh prime minister in a decade, having surpassed the “magic number” of 323 Labour MP nominations, making it “mathematically impossible” to challenge him.

The result was “never in doubt”, said The Times. However, he may be in a position of strength, but “beneath the surface there are already seething resentments and jockeying for position”.

What did the commentators say?

It’s hard to shake the feeling that Britain has “fallen prey to some national sickness”, said Tom McTague, editor of The New Statesman. We cling on to the “giants” of the distant past in “Attlee and Churchill, Macmillan and Thatcher”, but our post-Brexit politicians “barely seem to register”. It is up to Burnham to change that. Above all, he needs to create something, anything, “new and memorable” from what has been a “fevered, amnestic past decade”.

Burnham may turn out to be a “lucky prime minister”, said The Times editorial board. Embracing AI in its nascent stages could be “genuinely transformative” for the country’s fortunes. Immigration under “tough” Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood is “beginning to come under control”, and despite being unpopular, Rachel Reeves’ tax rises could “ensure a falling budget deficit” in future. If he can make a bold “pro-business gesture”, such as opening up the North Sea, he could definitely “repair the damage of the last two years”. “There is hope.”

It is precisely Burnham’s ability to inspire such hope, regardless of his lack of policies, that is his “key asset”, said Robert Shrimsley in the Financial Times. Politics requires a “feel for the country, the ability to tell a story and carry people with you”, and Burnham undoubtedly has a “genial public persona”. Personality stirs voters most deeply, and Burnham represents someone, like Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage, who would “at last listen to those who feel neglected and failed by politics”. Often overlooked, inspiring hope is neither common nor a “nice-to-have, it’s an essential aspect of leading”, and few before have had it.

It is clear that the “charming and combative” Burnham has cause for optimism, said The Economist. A lot is in his favour, such as “decent ideas” to devolve power and reform property taxes, and his win in Makerfield showed a rare “appealing audacity” on a local and national level. But backbench MPs have “gained a taste for rebellion”, and Burnham has “yet to set out a convincing programme to fix Britain”. If the former mayor believes an “easy manner or an ability to skirt elephant traps is enough” he is mistaken.

What next?

The MP for Makerfield will “have his work cut out for him”, said Bloomberg’s editorial board. His headline mission thus far to devolve power to other English regions could succeed if done “prudently”, but “will take years to bear fruit”. He faces much more “immediate” priorities of stimulating growth and “curbing Britain’s swollen welfare bill”.

He must also initiate “transparent” reforms to VAT, council tax and business rates, while reducing regulatory burdens, expanding apprenticeships, and improving transportation and housing. He will take office with “advantages Starmer never possessed. For the country’s sake, he can’t afford to squander them.”

Because of his “lack of a personal mandate”, Burnham’s appointments will prove pivotal, said associate editor, politics Andrew Rawnsley in The Observer. Of those, the most “ferocious jockeying for position” lies in the appointment of chancellor, perceived to be a “case of Ed Miliband versus Anybody But Ed”.

More widely, surrounding himself with economists Jim O’Neill and Andy Haldane, as well as arch-Blairite James Purnell, shows a “pragmatic preference for smart people with an interest in getting stuff done”. Team Burnham have likened their task to “rebuilding an aircraft while it is in mid-flight”. There will be “much turbulence to master” to avoid “plunging” from the sky like his six post-Brexit predecessors.

Affordable Care Act premiums are rising. Enrollment is plummeting, especially in red states. As healthcare costs increase, more Americans are choosing to go without expensive coverage, which could lead to a “death spiral” for the ACA, which was originally intended to expand healthcare affordability and accessibility.

What did the commentators say?

Middle-class Americans are “straining to pay” premiums for Obamacare, said The Associated Press. More than 2.5 million people dropped their coverage during the last year, and the problem is likely to worsen as insurers in the program’s marketplace are now seeking a “second straight year of double-digit premium hikes.” Insurers attribute the rising costs to the expiration of Covid-era federal subsidies and tough new eligibility requirements imposed by the Trump administration. So continues a vicious cycle. Healthier people are choosing to forgo coverage, leaving Obamacare insurers with a “sicker patient population that relies more heavily on insurance.” Additional premium hikes could occur for those who remain.

The pandemic-era ACA subsidies “overwhelmingly benefited red states,” said Axios. Those are also the states that are seeing the biggest falloff in enrollees since “Congress let the subsidies expire” this year. Ohio and Oklahoma “lost nearly a third of their Obamacare enrollment,” while Indiana, Louisiana, Michigan and Mississippi “also had deep coverage losses.”

“It’s almost certain that things will get worse,” Michael Hiltzik said at the Los Angeles Times. President Donald Trump’s 2017 attempt to repeal Obamacare failed, so his administration has now “implemented changes” to the program that “reduce access to healthcare and increase paperwork.” Instead of ending the program, Republicans are “eliminating or hamstringing all the elements that have bolstered its popularity.” The GOP never made good on its promise to end the ACA, but the latest statistics show that for “millions of Americans, repeal indeed has happened.”

Obamacare is a “slow-rolling failure that Congress has propped up with subsidies,” said The Wall Street Journal editorial board, a change evident in the enrollment numbers. The Department of Health and Human Services reported that its “efforts to crack down on fraud” kept 2.9 million people from getting coverage they were ineligible to receive. Republicans should pass legislation that serves as an “off-ramp to better insurance.”

What next?

The exodus of enrollees will leave insurers with a “smaller, sicker pool of people” to cover, Lisa Jarvis said at Bloomberg. If that happens, a “death spiral” could leave “some parts of the country” with no coverage options and many Americans with “impossible choices about their household budgets.”

Rising ACA premiums are “adding fuel to Democratic attacks over affordability” in the midterm elections, said The Hill. The president and congressional Republicans are “squarely to blame” for the rising healthcare costs, DNC Rapid Response Director Kendall Witmer said in a statement to the outlet. Obamacare survives for now, said Ceci Connolly, CEO of the Alliance of Community Health Plans, “but it is heading in a direction of instability.”

Tensions between Iran and the US are ratcheting up a new notch. Mojtaba Khamenei, Iran’s new Supreme Leader, has said “revenge” for the death of his father Ayatollah Ali Khamenei “is the will of our nation and must certainly be carried out”. Donald Trump has called Iranian leaders “scum”, and said any attempt by Tehran to assassinate him will be met by bombings “at levels they’ve never seen before”.

Meanwhile, both countries have renewed air strikes, as Iranian hardliners insist on control of traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, “their principal source of strategic leverage”, said US-based security think tank The Soufan Center. It seems the stage is set “for a return to major combat”.

What did the commentators say?

In “a high-stakes gamble”, Iran is “playing what it believes is its key card”: announcing the closure of the strait “in an attempt to pressure Trump to bend to its will”, said the Financial Times. Its “belligerent” stance, and its attacks on ships and on US-aligned Gulf states, poses “the most severe test yet” of the fragile ceasefire. “It also lays bare” the “hawkish mindset that has taken hold in Tehran”.

The leadership that has emerged in Iran since Khamenei’s death “looks keener to project strength” and wear down Trump “through military pressure, rather than diplomacy”, said The Economist. There has been a noticeable “shift in the regime’s centre of gravity” towards the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which “has accelerated Iran’s transition from a theocracy to an ambitious nationalistic state dominated by military men”.

Their aim is “preventing the erosion of their perceived influence”, Sanam Vakil, Middle East director at UK think tank Chatham House, told the FT. “They feel they have to do this to survive.” They are wagering that “Trump is risk-averse” and that they can “absorb” some “low-level conflict. But this is a quagmire.”

The recent trading of strikes “raises questions for the future of the region”, said The Soufan Center. While Tehran seems “willing to suffer the consequences of escalation, neither they nor Trump appear to want to return” to all-out war. “Each side prefers a ‘no war, no peace’ status”, even while a return to negotiations looks “bleak”.

What next?

The conflict has “descended into a mutually unsatisfying stalemate”, with Washington “unable to topple the Islamic Republic” and Tehran “unable to force the US to vacate its backyard”, said Ali Vaez on Foreign Affairs. US-Iranian tensions are “worse than ever before” but, “paradoxically”, this may be “a moment of opportunity” for both countries “to repair their broken relationship”.

Now that it is “plainly apparent” that neither side can “deliver a knockout blow to the other” or sustain “unmanaged hostility”, there are “decision-makers” in each nation who “have started looking for ways to co-exist”.

President Donald Trump and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy have never had what could feasibly be called a “warm” relationship, stretching back well into Trump’s first term. Given their frosty history, Trump’s enthusiasm during this week’s NATO summit for Ukraine’s recent wartime successes came as a shock to many. By announcing plans to loosen restrictions on American arms for Ukraine’s defense and hailing Kyiv’s wartime strides against Russia, has Trump come around to Zelenskyy as a peer among the world’s heads of state? Or will the infamously mercurial MAGA president revert to his previous hostility?

What did the commentators say?

Trump “heaped praise” on Zelenskyy and Ukraine during the NATO summit in Ankara, where he spoke in “unusually positive terms” about Kyiv’s strikes in deep Russian territory, said The Washington Post. By speaking in “admiring terms” and offering “dramatic new assistance” for Ukraine’s wartime efforts, Trump’s stance was a “dramatic departure from his tone during his first year in office.” Zelenskyy, meanwhile, spent his recent time with Trump showing “swagger and a hint of his prepresidential vocation as a popular Ukrainian comedian.” Trump and Zelenskyy “kindled a significant thaw in relations,” with the pair’s “bonhomie” signaling the “latest shift in a historically fraught relationship,” said The Hill.

Given that Trump has “zigged and zagged when it comes to Ukraine,” the president’s offer to grant Kyiv a Patriot missile manufacturing license is being “cheered” in Ukraine with a “heavy dose of caution,” said The New York Times. Similarly, Trump’s endorsement of Ukrainian deep drone strikes as an “escalation that could help end the war” marked his “strongest praise yet” for Zelenskyy’s wartime gains, and dealt a “significant blow to Russia’s efforts to keep Trump on its side in talks to end the war,” said The Wall Street Journal. Trump “always wants to be on the winning side,” said Viktor Shlinchak, the head of the Institute of World Policy, to the Times. “Right now, it does not look like Ukraine is losing.”

Following Trump’s push to grant Kyiv a manufacturing license for Patriot missiles, Zelenskyy at “times looked like he almost couldn’t believe his luck,” said CNN. Not only have the pair shared a “rocky relationship,” but the “flare-up in the war in Iran appeared to have put Trump into a foul mood” ahead of the meeting. But in a “break from earlier encounters” that “ended in acrimony,” Trump praised Zelenskyy’s “willingness to reach a deal” to end the ongoing violence, said NPR. “We’ve developed a good relationship — it’s even hard to believe — from the Oval Office until now,” said Trump at the summit meeting. “This will be the beginning, maybe, just the beginning.”

What next?

European leaders have “embraced the new messaging,” said the Post. “It’s so important” that Trump is “now taking very seriously that Ukraine has a chance” while Russia is “doing weaker,” said Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna, according to the outlet.

The unexpectedly friendly meeting between the two leaders “appeared to demonstrate the best-case scenario for Ukraine and its supporters among NATO members,” said The Hill. Many had worried that Trump’s “animosity toward the alliance” and “routine deference” to Russian President Vladimir Putin would “undermine support” for Kyiv and NATO.

Still, the language Trump used to promise Patriot manufacturing rights for Ukraine was “rather vague,” CNN said. The president “admitted that he had not yet discussed the issue” with arms manufacturers Lockheed Martin and Raytheon, which manufacture the missile batteries domestically. “We have Patriots, but we don’t have that many,” said Trump during his conversation with Zelenskyy. “We need them for ourselves, too.”

Even so, Zelenskyy was “emboldened by the good meeting” enough to joke that he couldn’t visit Moscow anytime soon because there are “too many Ukrainian drones there. It’s not safe,” said The Hill. Trump also appeared open to visiting Ukraine, but said he would rather the “war be over” before committing.

Documents have emerged from “clandestine” meetings in 2023 between Russian and Chinese leaders over neutralising the threat of Elon Musk’s Starlink in Ukraine, while also revealing a growing military cooperation between the two allies.

The joint investigation by The Insider, Der Spiegel and Le Monde exposes China’s “professed neutrality” in Ukraine “as a fiction”, and poses questions about the nature and targets of their alliance.

What did the commentators say?

The China-Russia “no limits” alliance is “one of the world’s most consequential relationships”, said Brookings. The “biggest misconception”, said policy expert Patricia Kim, is that Russia and China are either “inseparable partners” or “inevitable rivals that are on the brink of a split”. Neither may be true, but the relationship is “stronger than it ever has been in decades, certainly since the post-Cold War period”.

The personal connection between Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin is at the heart of the relationship, said Ankur Shah, editor of the Global China Unit on the BBC. The “strongmen” have described each other as “best friends”, and have met more than 40 times. Economically, the alliance is highly uneven, with China being “Russia’s largest trading partner, while Russia makes up just 4% of China’s international trade”. But as leaders, Xi and Putin “do not pass judgement on the actions of the other”, and despite their “asymmetries and differences”, they “share vital interests”.

China is by far the dominant party of the pair, and intent on satisfying Xi's desire for a “Sino-centric world”, said The Economist. In the past three months, China has received visits from Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, both seeking economic stability while engaged in wars of their own making. Crucially, Putin left without assurances for the proposed gas pipeline “Power of Siberia 2” that would allow Russia to sell “50 billion cubic metres of gas annually” to China, which it can no longer supply to Europe. In the space of a matter of days, both at home and abroad, China appeared the singular “fulcrum of global geopolitics, dealing with America as an equal” and relegated Russia to a “junior partner”.

Current relations between Russia and China have been strengthened by the influence of Donald Trump, said Leonid Ragozin in Al Jazeera. The war in Iran has given a “powerful impetus to strengthening Russo-Chinese ties”, meaning China has become “reliant” on Russian oil, and in turn funded the Russian war effort in Ukraine.

Let’s also not forget that Trump had pledged to “un-unite” Russia and China before his second presidential term in 2024. However, his recent “ambivalent” stance in effect echoes the “counterproductive policies of his predecessors”. Trump is famous for his “short span of attention”, and “may not even remember” what he promised to achieve in Russia and China. “But of course, the latter two do remember it well.”

It is true policymakers “suffered from a failure of imagination over the past decade” towards the potential of a Russia-China alliance, said Christopher Walker in the Centre for European Policy Analysis. Yet there is also a “risk of overcorrecting”. There are limits, “important imbalances and points of friction in the Sino-Russian relationship”, highlighted by China’s inactivity following American intervention in Venezuela and Iran: they appear unwilling to “close ranks against external threats”.

On a fundamental level, the two nations lack the “dense institutional connective tissue” that could match Nato, acting in “parallel play” rather than with lasting cohesion.

What next?

Nato has already reacted, said Seong Hyeon Choi in the South China Morning Post. Following the summit in Ankara, the organisation unveiled defence initiatives in response to “security challenges posed by Russia and China”. These included a motion on raw materials and a new Drone Edge programme, investing “US$40 billion in the next five years” into expanding modern warfare.

“China continues to modernise its armed forces and expand its nuclear capabilities without transparency”, and “North Korea continues to expand its nuclear programme and supply Russia”, said Mark Rutte, Secretary General of NATO. These countries working together “should concern us all”, because they “do not have our best interests in mind”, he continued: “to meet the challenge, we need a transatlantic defence industrial revolution”.

Democratic socialists are winning Democratic primaries and Republicans see an opportunity. GOP candidates are increasingly tagging their rivals as “communists,” an approach embraced by President Donald Trump. The United States “did not fight communism on battlefields across the world only to have that menace rear its ugly head right back here in America,” Trump said during his Independence Day speech. Democrats say the attacks harken back to discredited “red-baiting” smears of earlier eras. Will the accusations help the GOP in this fall’s midterm elections?

What did the commentators say?

The attacks come as U.S. voters increasingly “take on a positive view of socialism,” said The Washington Post. The longstanding Republican accusation that Democrats are socialists is no longer an “attack that stings as much,” GOP strategist Alex Conant said to the outlet. That leaves conservatives trying a message they hope will work with voters “old enough to remember Soviet-era nuclear drills and spy dramas,” said Axios. Trump himself “came of age” during the Cold War, historian Beverly Gage said to the publication. Whether accusing opponents of being communists resonates with younger voters is an open question, however. “Is the United States actually still susceptible to that kind of political language?"

“It was only a matter of time before Donald Trump went full Joe McCarthy,” Heather Digby Parton said at Salon. Republicans have used “red scare” tactics for nearly a century, and McCarthy’s right-hand man was a lawyer named Roy Cohn who later mentored Trump. The challenge for Republicans is that the policies advocated by upstart Democrats are “standard issue Bernie Sanders-style progressivism” that is popular among young voters and “some of the more populist MAGA types.” That ideology “certainly isn’t communism.”

Despite “media dismissals,” it is actually true that the “majority of the Democratic Socialists of America’s leadership identifies with Marxist ideology,” said Stu Smith at City Journal. The DSA was “not always” aligned with communism, but the organization’s recent “leftward shift” has attracted “members with Communist political tendencies.” Trump is “correct” in linking communism to the DSA’s “toehold in the Democratic Party,” said Jonathan Chait at The Atlantic. But the president’s demand for partial government stakes in companies such as U.S. Steel, Nvidia and OpenAI reveals he has “more in common with Communists than his hostile rhetoric lets on.”

Communist accusations against Democrats are “laughably false,” Sara Pequeño said at USA Today. National Democrats “barely want” DSA members in the party. “Why on earth would they suddenly be welcoming Marxist theory with open arms?”

What next?

Polls show “most Americans disapprove” of Trump’s job performance but there are also “warning signs” for Democrats, said USA Today. A majority of battleground state voters say Democrats are “too far to the left,” a sign Republicans “could find fertile ground” by raising the specter of communism. Democrats could be hurt if the midterms become a “referendum on the craziest ideas” of democratic socialist candidates, Third Way’s Matt Bennett said to the outlet.

American women in the workforce have long been outearned by their male counterparts. And though the difference narrowed during the Covid-19 pandemic, the gap is now increasing as overall wage growth slows and the economy shifts to jobs dominated by men.

What did the commentators say?

U.S. wage growth is “steadily slowing,” but for women it’s “slowing even more,” said Marketplace. The gap got narrower during the last three decades of the 20th century due to “more women entering the workforce, broader minimum wage protections and better access to contraception.” That progress has “stalled” during this century, pausing briefly when “demand for low-wage labor spiked” during the Covid-19 lockdown. Now the gap is widening again, largely because women are “more likely to be in lower-paid, stretched-thin jobs, covering the households’ basic needs,” said Elissa Braunstein, a professor of economics at Colorado State University, to the outlet. Overall, women “earn 16% less than men on average,” said Forbes.

“When women dominate a field, pay goes down,” said Mary Noble-Tolla at Lean In. When parks and recreation jobs shifted from a male-dominated field to one largely staffed by women, for example, “wages dropped by 57%.” Mothers are “hit the hardest” by the disparity, but closing the wage gap would be broadly beneficial. Paying women “fairly” would “cut the U.S. poverty rate in half and inject over $1.6 trillion” into the American economy.

“Women aren’t born wanting to earn less money,” said Maia Mindel at The Argument. Some commentators have made the case that women earn less than men “simply because they choose to” by taking less paid overtime and more unpaid time off. But the preference for “predictable, flexible schedules” comes “almost entirely” from women with children at home. Policymakers can bridge the gap by “broadening access to public services” like childcare and early childhood education.

The wage gap means most American households have “far fewer resources” to pay for “housing, food and healthcare,” Stefanie O’Connell said at MarketWatch. And that struggle “follows women throughout their lives,” as women over the age of 65 are more likely than men their age to live in poverty. The gap is also a “major drag on the economy” because women “make most household purchases.” When they do not have as much money to spend, “both businesses and investors pay the price.”

What next?

“There is no single policy that will close the wage gap,” said Emma Cohn and Elise Gould at the Economic Policy Institute’s Working Economics Blog. Possible solutions would include “pay transparency” laws that require employers to “include wage information in job postings.” Expanded medical and family leave requirements, universal childcare and an improved minimum wage would also help. Such efforts could “build an equitable economy that works for all.”

The endless will-he-won’t-he drama surrounding Prince Harry’s visit to the UK could be the final straw for hopes of reconciling with the royal family, said The Sun’s Clemmie Moodie.

“Following weeks of frenetic speculation concerning Harry’s possible rapprochement with his estranged father”, hours before he was due to land in the UK on Monday the Duke of Sussex said he had accepted an invitation to stay at Buckingham Palace. Minutes later royal sources counter-briefed, clarifying that Harry had not formally accepted the invite in time, and that the offer had since been withdrawn.

“It’s all just so terribly ‘EastEnders’ with Received Pronunciation”, and a world away from the late Queen Elizabeth II’s famous motto: “never complain, never explain”.

What did the commentators say?

“It has taken quite some time for the King to lose patience with his younger son” but it seems he has “finally had enough”, said The Telegraph’s royal editor Hannah Furness. Charles, “whose parenting has hitherto been criticised for being too indulgent, has drawn a boundary for his 41-year-old son in a sharp lesson to be learnt publicly”, namely that “Buckingham Palace is not available on lastminute.com”.

Debate has raged over whether the briefing debacle, which comes on top of an ongoing row over security, was a genuine case of miscommunication, or an attempt by Harry to try to “bounce” his father into reversing his decision, said the Daily Mail’s royal editor, Rebecca English. A third possibility is that “the furious prince simply doesn’t care any more and wants to cause his family maximum embarrassment”.

Either way, Harry’s long-planned trip to Britain is “once again mired in the same smorgasbord of chaos, confusion, claim and counter-claim that has characterised all of his dealings with Buckingham Palace in recent years”.

“As if he needed another reminder, Prince Harry has just learnt once again that the House of Windsor will always win,” said The Express’ deputy royal editor Rebecca Russell. The “real tragedy” is that the Duke of Sussex “has spent years fighting for control of his narrative, yet he remains completely blind to how he is being outplayed”. The institution “has marched on without him; it does not collapse under the weight of his attacks”.

What next?

Both fans of the Sussexes and royal traditionalists had been “united in their desire for meaningful reconciliation” after “arguably the most fractious time in royal history”, said Moodie in The Sun.

“And yet, here we are again”; all the good work the royals do has been “dismantled by behind-the-scenes bickering and now a very public comeuppance”. Charles has “given his petulant son a chance here, and if Harry blows it, he might not get another”.

A rekindling of brotherly love between Prince Harry and Prince William “seems even less likely”, said BBC royal correspondent Sean Coughlan. “They remain on very different trajectories, with William's life heading remorselessly to the point where he will take to the throne.”

As Iran’s religious, political and military elite turned out to say farewell to the country’s former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, one figure was conspicuously absent.

Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, who succeeded his father as the de facto head of the Islamic Republic, has not been seen in public since the joint US-Israeli air strikes that killed many of his close family members and decapitated the regime on the first day of the war.

Khamenei, who is said to have been seriously injured in the attack, is believed to be in hiding due to Israeli threats to his life, but his absence has “raised questions about who is really running the country, and allowed extraordinary open divisions to fester”, said Farnaz Fassihi in The New York Times.

What did the commentators say?

For 36 years, “the question of who ultimately ruled Iran had one answer”, said Joshua Keating for Vox. While the country has an elected president and legislature, “whenever the US confronted Iran, American policymakers knew it was Khamenei who would make the final decision.”

But now “they’re no longer so sure”. With the sheer number of senior figures who have been killed over the past four months, “there’s something of a power vacuum in Tehran right now”.

In the void left by the killing of a supreme leader “who exerted absolute power over all important decisions”, the conservatives have “split” and generals in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps have “consolidated power, effectively running the country”, said Fassihi.

With the power of the new supreme leader greatly diminished, and various factions and facets of the state jockeying for influence, the question now is just who is actually in charge of the Iranian system.

“The system is in control of the system,” Sanam Vakil, director of the Middle East program at Chatham House, told Vox. “I know we all want to think that there’s one individual that has power or authority. There’s no one commander in chief. It is a system that is commanding collectively for the time being.”

If the week-long funeral for Ali Khamenei represents a “calculated projection of strength by a regime determined to demonstrate continuity and resilience despite an extraordinary crisis”, it has done little to quell questions “over the country’s political succession”, said France24.

What next?

Amid the jostling for power, Khamenei’s funeral is undoubtedly a “big moment”, said BBC diplomatic correspondent Paul Adams: a “grand reminder that the old guard has given way to the new. And with the new faces comes a new approach with its own implications.”

The new leadership is not made up of ageing ideologues who emerged in opposition to the Shah and subsequently the US, “but of generally post-revolutionary leaders ruthlessly focussed on preserving the state and willing to act more decisively than their predecessors”, said Vali Nasr, professor of International Affairs and Middle East Studies at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.

“A whole new generation has taken over. They have a very clear agenda. They managed the war and now they’re going to manage the peace as well.”

Historically unpopular and facing potentially catastrophic midterm elections in November, President Donald Trump has thrown an electoral hand grenade into the campaign calendar. “For the first time ever, the Republican Party will hold a midterm convention” in Dallas, Texas, Sept. 9-10 — a “rally like none other,” said Trump on Truth Social last week. And as the president tries to consolidate GOP strength ahead of a make-or-break election, Democrats see signs of desperation and political opportunities.

What did the commentators say?

Party officials have been “planning the logistics of the event for months,” after Trump became “enamored with the idea of a splashy midterm convention last year,” said The New York Times. Given that the party in power has “historically lost ground in midterm elections, Republicans see a convention so close to election day as “offering the party a large platform to make the case to stay in power.” Democrats had “briefly considered” holding their own midterm convention, but ultimately “decided against such a pricey event.”

The “Trumpapalooza” gathering will offer Republicans a “chance to highlight all the wonderful things this president has done,” said Republican National Committee Chair Joe Gruters to Fox News. GOP officials also hope the convention will “energize MAGA voters who don’t always vote when Trump isn’t on the ballot,” said the outlet. Despite being “designed to showcase Republican achievements,” however, the planned convention is “likely to have detractors, even among party officials,” said Al Jazeera. Critics fear the event could “draw resources away from key battlegrounds in the final stretch of the race,” and will “shine a spotlight on Trump himself at a moment when his poll numbers are drooping.”

Although the convention “comes at a politically vulnerable time” for Republicans, its “location in Texas is also significant,” said Time. “No further proof is needed” that the GOP is “freaking the f*** out” over their midterms standing, said Texas State Rep. Cassandra Garcia Hernandez (D) on X. While Texas has “not elected a Democrat statewide in decades,” Democratic State Rep. James Talarico is currently neck and neck with Attorney General Ken Paxton for outgoing Sen. John Cornyn’s (R) U.S. Senate seat, and has become “one of his party’s top fundraisers,” said the Times.

Whether GOP officials “appreciate it or not,” there are “two main problems they should probably keep in mind,” said MS NOW. First, “holding a national convention is extremely expensive.” Second, and “just as important,” is the fact that the goal of a national convention is “nationalizing an election cycle.” Given how unpopular Trump is, the GOP should be “going out of its way to localize the midterms,” rather than the opposite.

What next?

It is likely that “many Democratic officials are looking forward” to Trump’s event, said MS NOW. The convention will “give the minority party an opportunity to do what it wants to do anyway: connect Republican candidates and officeholders to Trump.”

While much of the event’s programming remains under wraps, officials have begun to “fill in some of the details,” said The Dallas Morning News. The convention will “blend elements of a traditional political convention” with a “Trump-centered program designed to energize Republican voters.” The event will also “include delegates from across the country,” but it will feature “no official party business.” Organizers have also not clarified “whether members of the public will be able to attend” or how ticketing might work.

Trump’s scheduled convention will also be “clashing with a pair of NFL matchups that will kick off the 2026 season,” forcing both events to “potentially compete for viewership,” said Forbes. In the past, NFL kickoff games have been rescheduled to avoid overlap with political conventions during presidential election years. It is “not immediately clear if the same will happen to this year’s season opener.”

All eyes will be on Donald Trump as Nato leaders gather in Ankara this week following his administration's warning that allies must step up defence spending “immediately” or face consequences.

Last year’s summit was hailed as a “breakthrough” after members committed to spending 5% of GDP on defence – 3.5% on core requirements and 1.5% on broader security needs – by 2035, said Elsa Ohlen on CNBC.

This year’s gathering is “expected to move the debate from pledges to implementation” on “questions about procurement, industrial capacity, support for Ukraine and the political architecture of what the Trump administration has called ‘Nato 3.0’”.

“This is really the Nato summit where Nato goes from burden sharing to burden shifting,” Ulrike Franke, senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, told the channel.

What did the commentators say?

Nato is “both stronger than it was 18 months ago, when Trump returned as US president, and a lot weaker”, said the Financial Times. It is in “better shape” largely thanks to pressure from Trump to get non-US members to spend more “investing in readiness and rearmament”, and as Europeans take on “more command roles even as the US military remains professional and fully engaged”.

At the same time, the alliance is “much weaker because confidence that the Trump administration would stand by its allies if they are attacked has cratered”. The US, under the unpredictable president, also seems “to lack the discipline to come up with a burden-shifting plan”.

That is why this week’s summit in Turkey has been described as “one of the most consequential” in years, said Radio Free Europe’s Washington correspondent Alex Raufoglu. As the US seeks a “more balanced transatlantic partnership”, it is looking for clear signs that “this relationship is becoming more equal – not only financially, but strategically”.

The “expected focus is on industrial outputs”, but the allied “will to fight back to back is no less important than material defence readiness”, said Visegrad Insight editor Wojciech Przybylski. “Russia knows it better than most” and so this week’s summit will “test the political resolve – whether Western leaders can still project unified purpose and unambiguous strategic intent”.

What next?

Some, such as Poland, the Nordic and Baltic countries, “are doing more than others”, Matt Whitaker, the US ambassador to Nato, said ahead of the summit. “But many others are lagging behind” their pledge to up defence spending by 2035.

The Telegraph reported that Trump is “thought to be planning to reward or punish countries based on their defence spending”. Those with higher spending are likely to be moved “up the queue for the purchase of US weapons and mean they are invited for more face-to-face meetings with the president”.

This “threatens to put the US president on a collision course with Britain”, after Keir Starmer failed to secure a fully funded defence investment plan ahead of the start of the summit on Tuesday.

The UK is now ranked 12th among Nato members in terms of spending per GDP, having been third a decade ago. The outgoing PM is expected to “face down a rebuke” from Trump “in one of his final acts in office this week”, said The Times.

The hype of artificial intelligence is running up against pricey realities, at least for now. MacBooks and Xboxes are getting more expensive due to “AI inflation.” Central bankers are warning the AI boom could soon trigger a financial crash. Ford, meanwhile, has hired hundreds of engineers to do the work that artificial intelligence software could not. It has opened debate as to whether the benefits of AI are worth the costs.

What did the commentators say?

The mass buildout of data centers has created the “global shortage of memory and storage chips” behind the new device price hikes, said CBS News. MacBook Pros are going from $1,699 to $1,999, while the entry-level Xbox is rising to $499 from $399. The demand from tech giants such as Alphabet, Amazon, Meta and Oracle leaves fewer chips for “regular consumer devices,” Wedbush Securities’ Dan Ives said to the outlet. “That just further drives up prices.”

That inflation is typical of any “technological revolution,” Jennifer Schonberger said at Yahoo Finance. Big investment in new tech puts “pressures on resources with a lot of demand chasing a limited supply.” For now, AI inflation is “screwing with the rest of the economy,” said John Herrman at New York magazine. Once-accessible goods “seem to be slipping out of reach” of ordinary Americans, which “could meaningfully contribute to an already apocalyptic” national mood.

But the data center surge could come to a sudden, thudding halt if those big companies do not soon see a return on their investment. The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) on Sunday warned that an end to the data center “spending spree” could “rattle financial markets and damage the global economy,” said the Financial Times. There are “instructive parallels” in the dotcom boom of the 1990s and the buildout of British railways in the 19th century, the BIS said in its annual economic report. “These episodes ended with an eventual reversal in investment, inducing economy-wide recessions.”

The payoffs are fuzzy. Ford has hired 350 “veteran engineers” to “reprogram the artificial intelligence tools that weren’t getting the job done,” said Bloomberg. AI is a “fantastic tool,” Ford executive Charles Poon said to reporters last week, per the outlet. But it is “only as good as the information you use to train it.” Ford’s dramatic shift to AI was a “grave mistake” that affected the company’s quality control, said Danni Santana at Moneywise. That happens “when you overcommit to the technology without properly training it.” The company will still use AI, but its experience demonstrates that the technology cannot “completely replace humans in the workforce” for now.

What next?

Businesses that enthusiastically embraced artificial intelligence are now trying to find a balance. Many firms urged their employees to “integrate AI tools into their work” only to see their “AI spending bills double or triple,” said The Wall Street Journal. Executives at enterprises like Uber, Meta and Microsoft are now looking to “steer workers toward cheaper, homegrown tools” and help those employees “hone their skills.”

Last Friday afternoon, a light aircraft belonging to a local aviation school flew into the side of Beijing’s tallest building, the 109-storey Citic Tower, killing the pilot and injuring at least 13 people.

Five days later, we’re none the wiser about “why, and how, that happened”, said the BBC. The only official statement on the incident is a “60-word report detailing the basic facts in state-owned Beijing Daily”, while eyewitness videos and photos have been “scrubbed off the internet”.

What did the commentators say?

The skyscraper is only a few miles from Zhongnanhai, the tightly controlled complex that acts as the headquarters of the Chinese Communist Party and the centre of government. An unidentified aircraft over this sensitive area would have posed a security dilemma for authorities, said Li Wei, director of the Centre for Counter-Terrorism Studies at the state-run think tank China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations.

Once the plane deviated from its approved flight path, there would have been “little reaction time for air traffic control and air defence identification”, he told the South China Morning Post. “Shooting down a civilian aircraft in a crowded urban area would create potential ground threats and panic.”

Beijing has “some of the world’s strictest airspace controls”, including a “permanent no-fly zone of roughly 100 sq km (39 sq miles) over its political core”, said the BBC. Chong Ja Ian, a non-resident scholar at Carnegie China research centre, told the broadcaster that the incident would be an “embarrassment to the security services”. “A small plane hitting Citic Tower means that a drone or missile might be able to as well,” he said.

Although China “periodically” experiences high-profile “acts of suicidal violence”, the most likely explanation “lies not in protest but in privilege”, said James Palmer in Foreign Policy’s China Brief. Private planes are a rarity in China, reserved for the “well connected”, whose sense of entitlement “extends to the skies”. Corruption is “endemic” within the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), and “it would not be surprising if certain civilians were occasionally allowed into PLA airspace”. If that is what occurred here, “the political consequences will be severe for whoever bent the rules”.

What next?

Whether accidental or deliberate, “the fatal flight will raise awkward – and potentially career-ending – questions for those responsible for security” in the capital, said the Financial Times. At next year’s Communist Party Congress, Xi Jinping is expected to “choose a new line-up of top party cadres”, and regional analysts say responsibility for the Citic Tower incident could fuel “fierce jockeying among leadership candidates”.

Strong showings from the Democrats’ left flank in recent elections have spooked some in the party’s leadership. Criticism of Israel, once deemed outside the bounds of mainstream political discourse, has become an increasingly common feature of progressive campaigns. Victories in New York City by candidates who “ran hard against the war in Gaza” are now “turbocharging” Democrats’ “yearslong shift away from Israel,” said Politico. While progressives begin flexing their newfound electoral muscles, party centrists are feeling anxious. These growing pains for the party, combined with an appetite for sharper Israel criticism, could reflect a national electoral risk in November.

What did the commentators say?

Progressive primary victories by strident Israel critics in New York “paint a picture of a Democratic Party rapidly shifting” on an issue once considered a ”bipartisan prerequisite for success in the Big Apple and beyond,” said Politico. The victories of candidates like self-described “liberal Zionist” Brad Lander over the more conservative Democratic Rep. Dan Goldman demonstrated that “harsh criticism” of Israel is “not only politically survivable” but can even be “advantageous in New York City’s dominant party.”

Primary wins in the “deep-blue districts of Brad Lander, Claire Valdez and Darializa Avila Chevalier” signaled a “new era of skepticism” among some Democrats “toward the Jewish state and its actions,” said The New York Times. Do those wins “mark the end for Democratic politicians who hold traditional pro-Israel views?” asked Forward. Or do they “represent something more narrow” and specific to New York?

Democrats’ shifting relationship with Israel “looms in Michigan,” where the party will defend outgoing Sen. Gary Peters’ seat, and “may continue” to be felt in Colorado, where challenger Melat Kiros has accused Rep. Diana DeGette of “being too supportive of Israel,” said The Guardian. The ongoing focus on Israel has become a “bigger issue” that Democrats need to “deal with more comprehensively than, like, ‘If I don’t talk about it, it doesn’t happen,’” said Rep. Adelita Grijalva (D-Ariz.) to The Hill. The debate has become a “corporate issue with all these PACs pouring in a lot of money,” which is “giving people a really bad taste in their mouth.”

In previous elections, Democrats’ Israel-focused policies have been “confined largely to niche foreign policy considerations for most voters,” said Haaretz. This year, voters are “considering Israel at the ballot box more than ever before.” Establishment Democratic leaders “still very much believe that being a Zionist and a Democrat are not mutually exclusive.” But it’s become “abundantly clear” that aspirants “within the party structure” are “participating in a real-time vibe shift” that prioritizes a “willingness to hold Israel to account” over “pro-Israel bona fides.”

“More and more Democrats” are “making it clear” they want to end “U.S. taxpayer support to the government of Israel,” said Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) to the Times. Next session, Congress should eschew “reflexive unconditional support to the government of Israel.”

What next?

Incumbent losses in New York’s recent primaries show that the debate over Democrats’ relationship with Israel has “already left a lasting mark on the midterms,” said the Times. No matter what “other issues were at play in the individual races,” said JTA, the success of candidates with an “outsized focus” on criticizing Israel “sends the message that their approach is a winning strategy.” Republicans, meanwhile, “believe that Democrats reap what they sow” ahead of the midterms, said Fox Business. Conservatives “plan to use this” in November, as Democrats contend with a trend that works in “urban areas, but not swing districts.”

Leftist critics of Israel are having a moment,” said former Rep. Steve Israel (D-N.Y.) to Politico. “That doesn’t mean they represent a majority of congressional Democrats in the country.” Pro-Israel Democrats must develop a “better strategy before a handful of primaries approach a tipping point.”

The effects will likely be felt beyond November. Every Democratic presidential candidate “will be required to declare himself or herself on the matter of the United States’ stance toward Israel,” said Brookings Institution Senior Fellow Bill Galston to The Guardian. “The question was largely evaded in 2024. That strategy is no longer possible.”

Vladimir Putin took the rare step of acknowledging fuel shortages in Crimea, following Ukrainian bombardments targeting the Russia-annexed peninsula. As Ukraine’s drones and missiles struck roads, railways and bridges, Putin admitted that there was only “a few days’ supply” left in Crimea, though he insisted that he was “confident” more fuel would be brought in soon.

The offensive has “upended life in Crimea and undercut its image as a showcase of Putin’s imperial ambitions” in Ukraine, said The Wall Street Journal. Although he “poured money into the peninsula”, locals say “basic services” like kindergartens, trash collection and ATMs have “stopped functioning”.

What did the commentators say?

Ukraine’s offensive coincides with the approach of September’s Russian parliamentary elections, forcing the Kremlin to “maintain a strict sense of composure”, said The Wall Street Journal. Putin wants to prevent political tensions “from rising” over the situation in Crimea, framing Ukrainian strikes to his electorate as part of an information campaign to break Russia’s morale.

“The unspoken assumption within the Ukrainian government is that it will have to accept Russia’s de facto control of Crimea as part of the price of peace,” said The Times. But the “outcome” may be “rather less predictable” than Volodymyr Zelenskyy “seems to think”.

Some “pragmatists” in Moscow feel that the war has “reached a point of diminishing returns” for the Kremlin, who should now “freeze the conflict” along current lines and “declare victory”. However, the “maximalist camp” calls for “escalation”, with the “mobilisation of hundreds of thousands of reservists”, the “deployment of conscripts” and “more aggressive covert operations” against the factories in Europe that are supplying Kyiv’s weapons.

It “may be a mistake” to conclude that these problems will “force the Kremlin to yield”, said Matthew Chance, CNN’s chief global affairs correspondent. Putin has “built a relatively brittle image as an uncompromising leader”, which makes “capitulation, retreat or even compromise in Ukraine incredibly unlikely and difficult for him to pull off”.

What next?

“Despite his macho public persona”, Putin is “generally quite risk averse”, but when he’s “panicked, he tends to make decisions hastily and badly”, said The Times.

In a worst-case scenario, “egged on” by hard-liners, a pressured Putin “does something particularly stupid, such as escalating attacks on Kyiv or even using tactical nuclear weapons”, said The Telegraph in a leader. The Russian foreign ministry has already alluded to the possibility of unspecified “systematic strikes”. When Nato leaders meet in Ankara next month, they “need to be ready for a potential showdown with Moscow”.

The United States mostly abandoned the construction of new nuclear power plants after 1990, but that is about to change. The Trump administration is attempting to jump-start a new atomic age with a program to build 10 new power plants by the mid-2030s. And federal officials say that dozens more facilities could come online after that.

What did the commentators say?

“This is the start,” Energy Secretary Chris Wright said to reporters, per The Associated Press. The administration is providing $17.5 billion to “speed the development” of the new reactors in a bid to meet growing electricity demand from “massive data centers,” said the AP. President Donald Trump has made a goal of “quadrupling domestic production of nuclear power within the next 25 years.” But critics say the plants are “too expensive and riskier” than solar, wind and “other low-carbon energy sources.”

“Trump’s big nuclear play is here,” said Robinson Meyer at Heatmap. That is no surprise. Support for nuclear power has become “surprisingly bipartisan, at least at the elite level,” with figures as disparate as Trump and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) seeking to speed the development of new reactors. They are taking cues from countries like France and Sweden that have expanded their low-carbon power supplies by “undertaking large, state-led nuclear energy buildouts.” This should have benefits for the warming climate, but highlighting that benefit carries the “risk of discouraging the Trump administration.”

Nuclear power “should generate the cheapest electricity available,” said Alex Trembath at The Dispatch. Instead, the process of building new plants became “increasingly expensive over the decades” thanks to “overregulation, environmentalist opposition, and industrial mismanagement.” But the 57 plants that are online produce 20% of the nation’s power supply. Now it should be “time to build.”

The United States “used to be the world’s leader in nuclear power,” said The Washington Examiner editorial board. That ended because of “regulatory paralysis,” where “endless process had become an enemy of progress.” The Trump administration has now ordered the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to “speed up licensing” and created a Reactor Pilot Program that makes it easier for companies to “build, operate, and test reactors” under supervision from the Department of Energy. That has not yet resulted in a completed nuclear plant, but the “restoration of ambition” under Trump could “bring the nuclear renaissance America has needed for half a century.”

What next?

Hopes for a nuclear revival have been “longer on aspiration than action,” but the new loan program “could move the needle,” said Axios. Developing so many plants at once should “create more efficient, scaled, standardized and cheaper supply chains” that will enable the subsequent production of additional plants.

Even as the number of plants expands, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that oversees the industry is preparing to make “huge cuts” to hours devoted to safety and emergency inspections, said CNN. The changes “must be approved by five NRC commissioners to be finalized.”

The education system is “not set up to serve white working-class children and families”, an independent inquiry has found, and has created a “white working-class disadvantage gap”.

The Inquiry into White Working Class Educational Outcomes, found that in 2025, just 36% of white British pupils on free school meals achieve a Grade 4 or above in English and Maths GCSE, compared with 72% of non-free school meal pupils.

This independent investigation is the “biggest piece of research in recent years into white working-class underachievement in England”, said education editor Nicola Woolcock in The Times. But without immediate investment and implementation of recommendations, the gap could widen.

What did the commentators say?

Realising the reasons of why white working-class children “don’t make it” in education “may not be rocket science but it is complicated”, said social affairs editor Jackie Long on Channel 4 News’ Substack. “Behaviour, disengagement and absenteeism” seem to be the most significant factors for low attainment, but the “intersection between geography, culture, opportunity and aspiration” has yet to be “fully unravelled by the inquiry.” “There will be no quick fix.”

Nigel Farage and the political right have “overreached” by blaming the Equality Act and a “proliferation of critical race theory” in British institutions, said Dr Rakib Ehsan on UnHerd. There is an “endemic” problem, facilitated by a “broader economic malaise of regional and class disparity, deindustrialisation, a lack of secure local employment”. This is a lesson for the right: they should be “wary of indulging in the very types of racial victimhood and identity politics they seek to condemn”.

This demographic group has “dominated the headlines” in recent years, said educator Sir John Townsley in The Telegraph. Recent analysis by University College London revealed that 40% of white working-class pupils miss a day of school every fortnight, and that they are “more than twice as likely” than the average pupil to be “severely absent” from school.

But the reality is harsh. Blame lies not just with the government and wider society, but also with “the families in question” for perpetuating a “culture of low-expectations” and placing “no value whatsoever on education”. Without “radical change” and “generational” planning, we are headed for “further disaster”.

The narrative that white working-class boys have been neglected by the system is “set like concrete”, said Terri White in Prospect. But “what about our white working-class lasses?” White working-class girls still marginally outperform their male counterparts (by 38% to 35%) to achieve the “expected standard” at GCSE level, the girls’ numbers have “dropped dramatically” over the past six years, while boys are “seeing change in the opposite direction”.

And once girls leave school, they are “plunged” into an earning disparity which resembles a “yawning chasm”, with boys out-earning them even when they have fewer qualifications. White working-class girls are “walloped by” a “double disadvantage”: discrimination by both class and gender.

In an environment where education has become “increasingly politicised”, white boys are seen as a “problem”, said Joanna Williams on Spiked. With the prime example of Keir Starmer’s initiative to show Netflix’s “Adolescence” in every school, it appears the government has offered white working-class boys nothing except “panic-fuelled hectoring”. They have been let down by a political class that has done little to provide “well-paid, meaningful employment”, and been ignored by a schooling system that “prioritises therapeutic interventions over discipline and high standards”. “All children deserve better.”

What next?

Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson said that there is “clear” evidence that children “arrive at school not ready to learn, having not achieved the levels that they should”. Opportunities for progress lie not just with schools but “beyond the school gate, because so much of what a child is able to achieve in their life comes down to the support their family have”.

The inquiry has raised free transport for under-21s, a “crackdown on excessive screen use” and for high-performing schools to “take more white working-class children” as possible solutions, said Woolcock in The Times. In order to achieve progress, there must be a “clearer definition” of the term white working-class and that communities should “provide significantly greater access to sport, arts, culture, volunteering, outdoor activity and employer engagement, backed by sustained long-term funding”.

The dollar has long been the world’s primary currency, giving the U.S. unusual sway over international affairs. But China’s yuan is emerging as a small-but-growing competitor, with consequences for American power and influence.

What did the commentators say?

China is building an “alternative financial system” designed to weaken the United States’ “power to dictate world affairs,” said The Wall Street Journal. The dollar is still used in 80% of international trade, and that dominance has given U.S. governments a “big advantage in policing global business.” But transactions conducted using Chinese currency allow some businesses and rival countries to evade the U.S. banking system. That is how Iran earned up to $43 billion in oil revenue in 2024 despite restrictive American sanctions. And such examples are growing in number: The yuan’s share of global finance has “tripled over the past five years,” still well behind the dollar but ahead of the euro.

The yuan is emerging as a “more important part of the global financial system,” Robin Harding said at the Financial Times. But it does not yet threaten the dollar’s dominance, in part because “China’s economic model depends on its own relentless accumulation of dollar assets.” Beijing “wants to buy oil in its own currency,” but it also wants to maintain its “massive trade surpluses” with the rest of the world, and those transactions are conducted in dollars. There is “little sign of the dollar losing control of the global financial system.”

Beijing “cannot decree demand” for the yuan, Agathe Demarais said at Foreign Policy. While China has “made genuine progress in building alternative financial channels” to U.S.-dominated systems, it “cannot translate its rising global trade footprint into greater use of its currency.” That is because China puts strict controls on the use of the yuan outside the country, making it “costly and impractical” for foreign firms to use. Absent a “massive shock,” it is unlikely the world will “embrace Chinese financial channels.”

Beijing “doesn’t need to displace the dollar” to weaken U.S. dominance over global finance, said The New York Times. But having an alternative “could expand China’s influence in a financial crisis.” And some countries will welcome that alternative. “There is a desperate desire in the world to escape the clutches” of the America-dominated system, Cornell University’s Eswar Prasad said to the outlet.

What next?

The dollar is still the “dominant currency” for loans to “developing economies,” said Reuters, but there are signs of change. Kenya last year agreed to convert its debt to China (for loans to construct a railway) from dollars into yuan to “cut borrowing costs.” Now countries like Ethiopia, Indonesia, Mozambique, Pakistan and Zambia that have taken loans from China Eximbank are considering similar restructuring, and the bank is “encouraging — and in some cases requiring” national borrowers to “borrow in yuan rather than dollars.”

Under President Donald Trump, the U.S. has often seemed less welcoming to outsiders than it used to. But the World Cup is showcasing the country’s grassroots hospitality and prosperity to visitors from abroad.

What did the commentators say?

Many international soccer fans were worried about “visa access, high costs, gun violence” and other issues ahead of this year’s World Cup, said Reuters. Visiting teams and their fans have instead “flooded” social media with posts revealing a “warm welcome from Americans” as well as a “distinctive culture” awash in “free soda refills” and “chicken wings dipped in ranch dressing.”

Host cities across the United States have witnessed an “unlikely romance between everyday Americans and squads from around the world,” said The New York Times. While polls show the U.S. global reputation “has dipped in recent years,” the visitors are discovering American communities have “all kinds of estimable traits.”

“Welcome to the World Cup of U.S. hospitality,” Jack Butler said at The Wall Street Journal. There is a “long tradition” of foreign visitors being “deeply affected” by their visits to the United States. Now international soccer fans are “showing America’s greatness in real time.” They are “also amazed by America’s material abundance.” Buc-ee’s and Bass Pro Shops have been featured in viral videos and so has Chicago deep-dish pizza. America’s vastness “contains multitudes.”

U.S. residents are welcoming the world “even when their government has failed to do so,” Juliette Kayyem said at Early Warning. Events like the World Cup “represent a kind of soft power that America has been increasingly unwilling to exert” and had seemingly been lost. The world’s “dismal view of America” has been reflected in declining tourism numbers, and the damage “may not be repaired in a single summer.” There are signs of hope, however. “Americans are proving better diplomats than their administration.”

The Trump administration has been hard at work “besmirching America’s cultural attractiveness,” Daniel Drezner said at Drezner’s World. The World Cup is offering a different vision. It is the American people, not their government, who are “reminding the rest of the world that this country still has a lot of attractive values.” That may not matter to world politics in the short term, but it offers a “hopeful reminder that in just a few years America can be great again.”

What next?

The Department of Homeland Security is “easing its restrictions” on the Iranian national team, said The Associated Press. The team has been staying in Mexico and playing its matches in the U.S., with American authorities mandating the team return quickly to its home base after play is complete. Iran will now be allowed into the U.S. two days before its next match.

The team had “complained about the travel restrictions” for much of the tournament. “We are here for football, not politics,” Iran coach Amir Ghalenoei said to reporters, per the AP.

There will soon be a changing of the guard in the United Kingdom, as Prime Minister Keir Starmer has announced his resignation. But his likely replacement, Makerfield MP Andy Burnham, probably won’t have an easier time than Starmer did courting President Donald Trump. Burnham, a popular figure in the U.K.’s center-left Labour Party, has previously chided Trump and his administration. If he becomes prime minister, it could mark a turning point for American-British relations.

What did the commentators say?

When it comes to the White House’s view on Burnham, there has been no “immediate condemnation from the current administration,” said The Times. But “even if Burnham does benefit from a grace period with the president, his interventions on American politics are unlikely to endear him to Trump for long.” Similarly, the relationship between Starmer and Trump devolved soon after Starmer became prime minister.

Burnham has widely criticized Trump and right-wing U.S. politics. After the Jan. 6, 2021, attack at the U.S. Capitol, he “was scathing about British politicians who held their tongue to appease Trump,” said The Times. “Any U.K. politician who gave Trump the time of day should be ashamed right now,” Burnham said on X at the time. To “combat the rise” of the U.K.’s far-right Reform U.K. party, a Burnham premiership “may be tempted to more openly criticize Trump” with the “knowledge that the U.S. president is reviled by much of the British electorate,” said The Times.

Burnham will also have to reckon with a U.S. president who has “undermined British confidence by deriding British military sacrifices in Afghanistan,” said the Washington Examiner. Trump’s leaking of the announcement that Starmer “would resign and his simultaneously classless (if broadly accurate) criticism of Starmer’s policies further degrades U.S.-U.K. trust.” Burnham, or whoever the next prime minister is, must “be cautious,” as the U.K. is “heavily reliant on the intelligence, military and economic benefits provided by its American alliance.”

Overall, the “mood swings of Mr. Trump may be less of an issue for Mr. Burnham” than they were for Starmer due to the “timeline in America,” said The Independent. By the time a Burnham premiership gets fully settled, the 2026 midterms may have passed, and he will be dealing with a White House “entering the traditional ‘lame duck’ stage where power quickly ebbs away, not least because he cannot run again.”

What next?

Burnham could potentially enter office as prime minister by mid-July, but if there’s a contest for the position, the “election would likely drag on into September,” said The Associated Press. Either way, the U.K.’s likely next prime minister has urged caution against his country moving to be like the United States. “Politics is getting more polarized. And the path we’re on, if we are not careful, is a path toward the politics of the United States of America,” Burnham said during an event in the final days of his parliamentary campaign.

Burnham has also expressed dissent about the similarities between Trump and former Prime Minister Liz Truss, as well as Trump’s 2024 election victory. “The instability that Liz Truss brought to Britain, I think Trump is bringing to the U.S. and the world,” he told The London Economic last year. “Open your eyes to what could be really challenging and difficult issues and things that could polarize people further.”

How do you run for president in the 2020s? By becoming popular online. That is how Sen. Jon Ossoff of Georgia has emerged as a contender for the Democratic nomination in 2028.

What did the commentators say?

Ossoff has become an “internet sensation” churning out viral content for his current Senate reelection campaign, said The New York Times. His argument that President Donald Trump’s administration is “fundamentally corrupt and threatens American democracy” is “resonating on the ground and online” with Democratic voters who liken him to a young Barack Obama. Trump is a “failed president and a national disgrace” Ossoff said in one widely seen video. Ossoff is refusing to talk about 2028 for now, said the Times, keeping a “laserlike focus” on winning his Georgia campaign. He has nonetheless earned Trump’s ire. “Os(jerk!)off” is a “joke” who will lose his Senate seat in November, the president said on Truth Social.

Instead of pitting Democrats against Republicans, Ossoff is trying to define U.S. politics as the “wealthy elite versus average Americans,” Perry Bacon said at The New Republic. The senator helped popularize the term “Epstein class” to evoke “super-wealthy individuals” like Bill Gates and even Bill Clinton who have left the U.S. working class behind. Progressive Democrats appreciate Ossoff’s “willingness to slam corporations and the super-wealthy,” while moderates like that he “doesn’t push Medicare for All” or “other ideas that they worry scare off swing voters.” That “artful straddling of the center-left divide” is putting him “high on the 2028 lists.”

Ossoff is “becoming a rock star” in a “divided” Democratic Party, Lindsey Granger said at The Hill. He is just 39 years old, making him the “youngest sitting U.S. senator,” and he has proven his ability to “blend populist economic messaging with a more moderate record.” All of this matters to Democrats who are “searching for a new generation of leaders who can connect with younger voters” and compete in battleground states. Ossoff still has to win his Senate reelection campaign, but he is already “controlling the conversation before the real fight even begins.”

“Sorry, liberals. Jon Ossoff isn’t running for president,” Patricia Murphy said at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He has “zero interest” in running for president in 2028, Ossoff said in a statement to the paper. Presidential speculation surrounding him “has only grown louder online with each campaign rally” despite that declaration, Murphy said, but Ossoff is “strategic enough” to stay focused on the “relationships he’s cultivated” across Georgia as he fights for reelection.

What next?

First, the Senate. Before Ossoff can think about the Democratic nomination “he must win reelection in a swing state that went for Trump,” said USA Today. A loss in Georgia “would create a much tougher map for the party to flip control of the Senate” in the midterm elections. An Ossoff victory, meanwhile, would signal that he “successfully appeals to a broad coalition and could be a viable presidential candidate.”

President Donald Trump’s campaign promise to dismantle the Department of Education took a major step forward this month after the White House reassigned the agency’s special education and civil rights programs to other federal agencies. His administration says the adjustments will maximize efficiency by pairing programs with the departments best suited for their execution. But critics claim the reassignments are an illegal effort to circumvent congressional funding challenges and will harm children and the country’s educational prospects.

What did the commentators say?

At the center of this latest episode is the Education Department’s Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services, which protects the “rights of children with disabilities,” and its Office for Civil Rights, working with students who “experience discrimination based on race, sex or religion,” said The Associated Press. Those offices will now be operationally reassigned to the Department of Health and Human Services and the Justice Department, respectively.

Shifting the programs is “among some of the most high-stakes moves the Trump administration has made to end the agency,” said Politico. More than 100 of the Education Department’s programs and offices are “already relocating to five agencies — Interior, Labor, State, Treasury and Health and Human Services,” said Education Week. This spring, the Education Department also announced plans to “leave its Lyndon B. Johnson headquarters” and “turn the space over to the Energy Department,” said The Washington Post.

This latest change comes as “both Republicans and Democrats in Congress have raised concerns” with Education Secretary Linda McMahon over a “growing backlog of civil rights complaints in schools,” said The New York Times. Last month, the secretary told lawmakers she “wanted to hire more civil rights lawyers” for her department “despite a budget request from the White House to reduce funding for that office.”

By relocating the department’s programming now, critics say the White House is “weakening oversight after already drastically reducing staffing” in the affected offices, said the Times. McMahon has said that using interagency agreements will “help build the case for skeptical lawmakers” to “support abolishing the Department of Education as an independent agency” at large, said Education Week. But lawmakers “across both parties” seem “reluctant to affirmatively endorse this plan.”

“The irony here is that every action” the Department of Education claims will “reduce fraud, waste and abuse” ultimately creates “more chaos and confusion,” said former Office of Civil Rights attorney Beth Gellman-Beer to Inside Higher Ed. “No one understands how this is going to operationalize.” Ultimately, the shift could “make interagency coordination involving education programs more difficult,” said The 19th.

For instance, The 19th said, approximately “12% of students with disabilities are English learners” with about half attending Title I schools “serving economically disadvantaged children.” Rather than operating within a single department as they had in the past, the associated programs will henceforth be administered by “various federal agencies” across multiple departments.

What next?

Per the text of the agreement between the Departments of Education and Health and Human Services obtained by NPR, the latter “would do much of the work of administering formula grant programs” mandated under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, said NPR’s “All Things Considered.” The Department of Education would provide “management and leadership,” as required by law. The plan is “likely to garner some pushback” from legislators, “including among Republican lawmakers” who want to ensure the government meets its “legal obligations to students with disabilities,” said Politico.

The Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights will similarly “refer cases to the Department of Justice for evaluation and resolution” but will “continue to decide whether to pursue administrative enforcement action,” said Education Week. Legally, however, the agency’s Office of Civil Rights is “mandated to evaluate every complaint they receive,” while the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division “can pick and choose which complaints it pursues,” said Inside Higher Ed. Critics fear “this partnership could lead the Office of Civil Rights to become more like the DOJ” by “picking and choosing which cases it will address based on political priorities.”

Keir Starmer announced his resignation this morning, saying he had heard the answer to the question as to whether he was the right person to lead Labour into the next election and would “accept that answer with good grace”.

The pathway from landslide electoral victory in 2024 to candidate for most unpopular prime minister of all time must be “one of the shortest honeymoon periods in British political history”, said Becky Morton and Brian Wheeler on the BBC.

What did the commentators say?

Shortly after becoming prime minister, Starmer boasted “that there would never be such a thing as Starmerism”, said Morton and Wheeler. But what he saw as a lack of ideological baggage ultimately translated – in the eyes of the public and many within his own party – to a perception that the prime minister “was, simply, not very good at politics”.

“There is something lame about him that Starmer has struggled from the start to shrug off,” said Ameer Kotecha in The Spectator. His lack of charisma was sold as a sign of the dutiful competence that was supposed to distinguish him from the perceived frivolity of the Liz Truss and Boris Johnson eras. But over the course of his premiership, the Starmer who has emerged “appears constantly at the mercy of events”, his occasional moments of “startling ruthlessness” somehow “even more unattractive than his mere ineptitude”.

Starmer “arrived for a career in politics unprepared for what a career in politics actually means”, said Andrew Marr in The New Statesman. The former director of public prosecutions went from courtroom to “cage fight”, and never managed to sell himself or his messaging “in a raucous, jeering environment where many assumed he was a compulsive liar”. In taking on the premiership of a fractured, stagnating Britain, he “chose a painful, treacherous path at an unusually difficult time”. If it “hasn’t worked”, it is “by no means all his fault”.

What next?

“The beneficiary of Starmer’s demise is all but certain to be Andy Burnham,” said Sonia Sodha in The Times. Burnham is “a warm and effective communicator” – but he must use that charisma to “strike a realistically ambitious tone” and sell the public on “hard truths” about the road ahead, rather than quick-fix solutions whose inevitable failure will only benefit populist parties.

A Burnham administration “will test the power of personality over policy”, said The New York Times. His allies pin their hopes on his talents as “an effective storyteller who can counter the inflammatory rhetoric of populist rivals” in a way that always eluded Starmer. But so far his vision for the nation has been confined to “sweeping generalities” that offer little insight into how he will address huge challenges like “economic stagnation”, public sector funding and “ascendant, anti-immigrant populism”.

Tim Bale, a professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London, said the picture for Labour has become so “bleak” that most party insiders will be happy if Burnham can simply “persuade people to give the party a second look”. But “if the sausage isn’t going to change, when it comes down to it, all he’s really offering is some sizzle”.

Republicans in recent years have tried to match President Donald Trump’s populism with tentative steps toward union-friendly rhetoric. Their policies have not always kept pace, but that may be changing in a small way.

The House of Representatives last week passed a Democratic-sponsored labor bill with the help of 20 Republicans who “broke party lines to support the measure,” said Time. The Faster Labor Contracts Act would amend federal law to “accelerate contract negotiations between newly unionized workplaces and their employees.” The right of workers to unionize is “crucial to improving wages, hours, working conditions and so much more,” said Rep. Pete Stauber (R-Minn.). It was the latest example of union-friendly Congressional Republicans “flexing their muscles” in the face of “furious” opposition from the GOP’s traditional free-market conservatives, said The Hill. The move is part of a “larger war” over the party’s future as it has “made inroads with unions” under Trump.

What did the commentators say?

Congressional politics “are shifting in labor’s favor,” Timothy Noah said at The New Republic. The House recently passed two other bills to restore collective bargaining rights to federal workers, thanks to a “breakaway Republican faction” that joined Democrats to provide a majority vote in support of labor rights. The union-friendly bills still face “dismal odds” in the GOP-controlled Senate. Nonetheless, the House passage of those measures demonstrates that House Speaker Mike Johnson is “losing control over his caucus.” And 20 GOP votes to defy party leadership for a pro-union measure might be a “sign that labor solidarity is starting to undermine partisan solidarity.”

The latest pro-union bill is a “gift to the cultural left,” The Wall Street Journal said in an editorial. Republicans who joined Democrats to pass the measure may “think they’re burnishing their populist credentials,” but they are actually “selling out their constituents to the progressive left.”

The vote to speed contract negotiations between businesses and new unions “isn’t only about wages,” said the Journal editorial. Instead, it will likely provide cover for those unions to force firms to provide reproductive and gender-affirming care coverage as part of their benefits packages. “We wonder if Republicans know what they’ve voted for.”

What next?

Sens. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Cory Booker (D-N.J.) are sponsoring the Senate version of the act, said The Washington Examiner. Hawley is a union-friendly Republican and a social conservative, but the bill is running into opposition from other religious conservatives who say it will “require employers to cover abortion and transgender medical procedures.” Those objections “show that giant corporations are desperate to kill legislation that would help American workers,” said a spokesperson for Hawley.

The debates arrive at a time when “many union voters have turned” on Trump over rising prices and the war in Iran, said The Washington Post. Trump won 45% of union voters in 2024 on the strength of “his promise to restore U.S. manufacturing jobs.” The discontent could be meaningful in November. The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations is vowing to turn out 16 million union voters for the midterm elections.

Earlier this week, a bipartisan group of U.S. senators delivered a letter to the National Science Foundation urging Acting Director Brian Stone to “reverse course” on a Trump administration plan to dismantle the “vital” Ocean Observatories Initiative. Comprising “over 900 unique deep-sea buoys and other instruments,” the OOI “provides insights into changing ecosystem conditions and extreme weather events,” said the group. The administration’s plan threatens the “safety of our coastal communities” and undermines the U.S.’s “ability to monitor coastal environments, marine currents and extreme weather events.”

What did the commentators say?

The National Science Foundation’s order to remove Initiative equipment from coastal waters off Alaska, North Carolina and Washington came with “no warning and no scientific review” last month, said The Associated Press. The program had been “slated to run another 15 to 20 years.” Pulling back now “reflects the further lack of understanding that the current administration has of scientific value and scientific merit,” said Craig McLean, who was the acting chief scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration during the first Trump term, to The New York Times. Dismantling the OOI pushes the U.S. “back yet again into a rear seat in global scientific leadership.”

OOI data on “waves, currents, salinity, the soundscape for marine mammals, carbon dioxide levels, alkalinity and more” has been a “godsend to public researchers, hazard planners and private companies alike,” said The Bulwark. The loss, for example, “could well be existential” for North Carolina’s “tourism-dependent Outer Banks economy” and will be “pretty problematic for the rest of us, too.” The change is “pulling the plug on some of the most important science being done,” said retired coastal geologist and East Carolina University teacher Stanley R. Riggs to the outlet.

The plan to shutter the OOI was originally “laid out by conservative strategist the Heritage Foundation,” said Oceanographic Magazine. The group’s Project 2025 authors “explicitly targeted the network” for its contributions to climate change research. Dismantling the ocean monitoring system “marks another step” in Trump’s “rollback of science and climate initiatives,” said The Guardian. It also comes amid Trump’s “push to expand deep-sea mining and loosen fishing regulations.”

“Preserving and improving OOI” and oceanographic science overall is “critical to advancing U.S. ocean science,” said the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine in a statement. Doing so takes on additional significance as “other countries, including our competitors,” are “increasing their investments in ocean science and advancing their capacities.”

These cuts are “part of a broader retreat from environmental and climate-related science” by this White House, the AP said. Federal law requires congressional notification “at least 30 days in advance of any planned decommissioning of agency-owned facilities.” Instead, Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) “learned of the dismantling through news reports.”

“The alarm bells just went off,” said Merkley to the AP. “None of us” were given advance notice.

What next?

The National Science Foundation should respect “congressional intent and legal direction,” which is “clearly to maintain the operation of this cost-effective research system,” said the bipartisan Senate group in their letter. Any subsequent efforts to alter oceanographic research should follow a “thorough evaluation of OOI, including engagement with the marine science community and other impacted stakeholders.” The foundation must “cease this expensive, destructive and, crucially, illegal action at once,” a separate group of Democrats said in a letter signed by members of the House Committees on Science, Space, and Technology and Natural Resources.

For scientists who work with the OOI’s shared data, the program’s closure is only part of the frustration. “If we want to put [the instruments] back out again, we need people who know how to do it,” said Hilary Palevsky, a marine biogeochemistry and oceanography professor at Boston College, to The Guardian. However, the team with that exclusive expertise is “being dismantled along with the infrastructure program itself.”

Data collection for the OOI is a “huge engineering challenge,” said Palevsky in a separate interview with the Times. Researchers can’t simply leave “notes for the next person who comes in. There’s a lot of expertise that has the potential to be lost.”

Emmanuel Macron has home-field advantage during the ongoing G7 summit in the resort town of Évian-les-Bains, and the French president wants the involved countries to help him deal with Chinese trade, which he feels is unbalanced. Though China isn’t a G7 member, it has an advantage of its own given its power in the global trade market. So Macron may have to perform a delicate balancing act.

What did the commentators say?

The French president largely expects the G7 nations to “converge on the need to tackle a flood of subsidized Chinese exports that is disrupting global markets,” said Politico. But it is becoming increasingly clear that “credible action is one deliverable he won’t be able to land.” Macron is pushing for Europe and the U.S. to come together for a solution, but meetings are “unlikely to deliver answers to the problem.”

The problem is two-pronged: Beijing is “curling its lip” at Macron, while Europe and the U.S. are “diverging on how to contain China’s $1.2 trillion trade surplus,” said Politico. Macron wants the EU to present a unified front on China, and Europe has “made strides on its China policy since the Covid-19 pandemic” but “still struggles to align internally,” said The Chicago Council on Global Affairs. And the “squeeze is tightening from both directions.”

France and Macron’s ultimate goal during the summit is to “make the reduction of global imbalances and inequalities the priority and position the G7 as a space for dialogue among the major advanced industrialized democracies,” said the Chicago Council. Macron also believes that talks between China and France “signal a ‘new willingness’ by China, the U.S. and Europe to coordinate economic approaches,” said Bloomberg.

The American factor also looms large, as President Donald Trump appears to be “ready to use the G7 stage to berate allies for what he views as inadequate support,” said the Council on Foreign Relations. With this in mind, Macron’s “challenge may be less about advancing his personal initiatives than managing the summit itself.” He may find himself “confronting two sets of competing summit agendas: the one it planned and the one that geopolitical events — and Trump — have created.”

What next?

The Évian-les-Bains summit will be Macron’s last; his term as French president expires in 2027, and he is ineligible to run again. The United States is hosting the next G7 summit, meaning Macron “will seek to keep the flame alive as he passes the torch to the United States,” said the Council on Foreign Relations. China, meanwhile, maintains that it is ready and willing to engage in economic cooperation with the EU, even as these discussions come “against the backdrop of talks in Europe over possible new restrictions to counter China’s export surge,” said Bloomberg.

“All countries should uphold openness and cooperation, take an objective view of the comparative advantages of different countries, foster a free and facilitative trading environment and practice true multilateralism,” Chinese Vice Premier Zhang Guoqing said during a conference call with France, according to Chinese state news agency Xinhua. He also “called for prioritizing development, improving global governance and promoting inclusive growth of the world economy.”

Host Emmanuel Macron is expected to pull out all the stops for this week’s G7 summit to prove that this gathering of the world’s richest democracies still matters in an age of strongman politics.

In one of his last big diplomatic set pieces before his presidential term winds down next year, Macron “will seek to paper over divisions” between Donald Trump and the other six leaders, said Euronews. Top of the agenda will be trying to “forge common positions on how to end the war in Ukraine”, on the resumption of traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, and on “the development of safer technologies”.

What did the commentators say?

The summit is being held in the alpine spa town of Évian-les-Bains. The last time the G7 met here was in June 2003, when the US had invaded Iraq despite “the strident objections of France and Germany”, said Mark Landler, France editor of The New York Times. Then-US president George W. Bush “got chilly handshakes” but he worked hard with the other leaders “to maintain the veneer of like-minded countries uniting to confront the perils of an unruly world”. Two decades later, it’s the same town but another American war in the Middle East, and any “veneer” of unity has been “stripped away”.

The G7 is “a forum created to solve geopolitical crises but it was excluded from the US-Israeli planning for war” with Iran, said Flavia Krause-Jackson, Bloomberg’s Europe editor. And it was ignored by the US in both the diplomacy for and the timing of the peace deal, which Trump announced the day before the summit, with the signing taking place after it ends.

The truth is that while, collectively, the G7 nations – France, Italy, Germany, the US, the UK, Canada and Japan – might account for 45% of global GDP, individually, few would count as one of the world’s “biggest or indeed most powerful economies”, said Jonathan Moules in the Financial Times. And Trump would clearly rather play geopolitics with Vladimir Putin or Xi Jinping than waste time building consensus with leaders he views as weak.

For their part, Canada and Europe “no longer view the US as a partner on key issues such as climate change and security”, said Landler in The New York Times. And some even see America as a “threat”, given Trump’s “deepening disdain for Nato” and his repeated pursuit of Greenland. Across the group, there are “diverging opinions” on “how far to pull away from the US” but that’s certainly the direction of movement.

What next?

Expectations of what this three-day summit can achieve are “already low”, said Clea Caulcutt on Politico. “Despite all the efforts of the French presidency, the G7 format has lost much of its relevance,” an EU official told the website.

“They will talk, but I’m not sure anything will come out of it,” said a former French official. And even if it did, “any gains secured could be fleeting” with such a mercurial US president. In the end, it’s really all about keeping up appearances. As one European diplomat put it bluntly: “It will be a success if there is a family photo.”

Summer used to be time for teens to get a part-time job, earn a few bucks and pile up some work experience. Now cultural and economic shifts are making that tradition a thing of the past.

America’s teenagers “face a bleak job outlook heading into summer,” said Yahoo Finance. Rising oil prices, automation and artificial intelligence are all part of the problem. Work is simply more difficult to find for teens. But today’s young people are also increasingly turning to “club sports, extracurriculars, college prep and even content creation” as an alternative to lifeguarding at the local pool or flipping burgers at fast-food restaurants.

What did the commentators say?

If a young person “can only work one day a month” because of their extracurricular commitments “there’s no point in really hiring them,” Jesse Lauritsen of Washington D.C.’s Zeke’s Coffee said to NPR. That could be a problem as those teens get older and move into the full-time workforce. Employers tend to look for signals that new workers are “ready to go and they have what it takes,” ZipRecruiter’s Nicole Bachaud said to Yahoo. Without a summer job, they are not getting that experience.

“Youths aren’t bothering to get summer jobs,” Stephen Moore said at The Washington Times. Working a low-paying seasonal gig can teach vital lessons in how to “show up for work on time, be nice to the foreman and do a little extra to get noticed.” Federal data suggests only about a third of teens are seeking summer work, down from 50% in earlier decades. The change is “deeply troubling” because studies indicate that the “earlier one begins working, the more successful they are likely to be later in life.” One solution would be to create a lower teen minimum wage of $5 or $6 an hour to “incentivize employers to hire them for starter jobs.”

Teens have “found better opportunities” than taking summer work, Roland Fryer said at The Wall Street Journal. Summer hiring projections are the “weakest since the government began counting in 1948,” but the “classic” teen summer gig has been “disappearing for nearly half a century” for good reason. Time “spent folding shirts at the Gap” is less valuable than building a college resume, with a “lifetime payoff” that is “significantly larger.” U.S. teenagers are not being turned away from summer jobs. “They stopped wanting them.”

What next?

The issue has taken on political dimensions. Oklahoma voters will soon decide a referendum to gradually raise the state’s minimum wage to $15 an hour. Doing so could “make things even worse by pricing many teenagers out of the market,” Ray Carter said at the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs. But a higher minimum wage could provide stability that is the “difference between staying in school and dropping out” for lower-income young workers, Jill Mencke said at the Oklahoma Policy Institute. The referendum is Tuesday.

As the UK reels from anti-immigration protests, its neighbours on the continent are driving through a massive overhaul of their migration and asylum rules.

From today, all 27 EU states must follow a single set of rules on border screening and asylum procedures that include expanded detention and fast-track removal powers. The new Pact on Migration and Asylum will be backed by a shared digital database, and the establishment of “return hubs” outside EU borders for failed asylum-seekers. The aim “is to end a patchwork system where someone arriving in Greece faces an entirely different legal reality than someone arriving in Germany”, said Euronews.

It’s unclear what knock-on effect these stricter, uniform EU rules will have on UK asylum claims and irregular arrivals. But some are already warning that it could make Britain more attractive to migrants – just as tensions around immigration rachet up.

What did the commentators say?

There is “growing recognition” that, to curtail “the rise of hard-right parties” across the continent, “centrists must be able to show that they are responding to their citizens’ concerns about ­increasingly uncontrolled immigration”, said The Times’ editorial board.

The EU’s new goal is to “reduce irregular arrivals, speed up procedures” and “limit the number of people who fall off the radar” within the bloc, said Politico. Member countries that “receive the most migrants” will also get more support, either in the form or cash “or the relocation of migrants from one country to another”.

But the new deportation rules “will enable what more than 80 human rights organisations call ‘ICE-style’ detection, raids, detention and offshore return practices across Europe”, said geopolitical analyst Shada Islam in The Guardian. One MEP “quite rightly calls the pact a ‘legal arsenal serving a xenophobic ideology’”. All the talk of control and deterrence hides “what the European Network Against Racism calls an ‘imagined whiteness’, a political construct that defines who naturally belongs to Europe and who remains a permanently suspect outsider”.

The impact on the UK “is likely to be uneven”, said the UK in a Changing Europe think tank. It’s possible that, if Europe is rejecting asylum claims more quickly, “some rejected applicants may attempt onward movement toward the UK”. But “stronger” border enforcement in the EU may reduce overall “movement towards the north”.

No, more illegal migrants may now “look to Britain, which has no returns deals and weaker defences”, said James Crisp, Europe editor of The Telegraph. “One such weakness is the soft border with Ireland.” We can’t harden that border without threatening the Good Friday Agreement and Brexit treaties. Keir Starmer could use his much-vaunted EU reset negotiations “to pitch for an EU-wide migrant return deal” but that would mean “agreeing to European Commission migrant quotas”, which “could be politically suicidal”.

What next?

The ambition of the EU pact “is already running into reality”, said EuroNews. Member states are not signing up to anything like their share of asylum-seeker relocations, “with Hungary and Slovakia committing to none.”

For the UK, the “more realistic” approach is to push for greater intelligence sharing and more cooperation on migration, said The Telegraph’s Crisp. Both “Northern Ireland and Ireland are struggling to adapt to the challenges of modern migration”, so if everyone wants to “preserve and protect a common travel area that has lasted more than a century, they need to find a way to ensure its safeguards are still fit for purpose”.

Police have deployed water cannons to quell another night of violent protests in Belfast, and “civil war predictions seem to be increasing by the hour,” said John Harris in The Guardian.

Despite the family of stabbed Belfast man Stephen Ogilvie insisting that “unrest is not welcome”, online figures including Elon Musk and Tommy Robinson have fuelled anger, promoted protest, and are pushing the idea of a civil unrest – not only in Northern Ireland but also in the rest of the UK. Online fury is starting to have tangible consequences in the real world.

What did the commentators say?

This is not the first time “far-right figures” have used “incendiary language” to target ethnic minorities and migrants, said Shane Raymond in The Journal. Violent disorder in Southampton after Henry Nowak’s murder, “weeks of riots” last year in Northern Ireland, and the Stockport riots in 2024 were all triggered online. Misinformation, snowballing quickly on social media, played a large part in this week’s Belfast protests: there were even claims that the victim was a child, and had died from their wounds – that “was shared by an Irish county councillor”.

This is a “new type of civil disobedience”, said Finn McRedmond in The New Statesman. Northern Ireland’s “sectarian angst” has been replaced by a simmering resentment shared throughout England and the rest of the British Isles. It is “all connected now”: the “new atavistic rage of our time” is binding “north and south, east and west” in a “more straightforward form of ethnic conflict”.

Social media is being used to recast Britain as a “violent dystopia”, said Harris in The Guardian, and “smooth the path to power of some of the most terrifying politicians Britain has ever seen” – including “king of the civil war genre”, Nigel Farage. A vision of Britain in perpetual crisis is fed into “algorithmically curated video feeds” of fighting and riots. Politicians need to understand what people are seeing on phones “so overused that their screens are full of cracks” – “much like their owners’ understanding” of what is still a “largely stable country”.

Claiming we are on the verge of a civil war is “not only unconvincing, but potentially harmful”, said Jonathan Portes of the UK in a Changing Europe academic think tank. Throwing the term around “distracts from underlying issues”, contributing instead to a “more polarised and less constructive political environment”. Yes, “trust in institutions has declined”, but “this is neither new nor unique to the UK”. What is new is the rhetoric of crisis emerging from “fringe spaces” to “mainstream commentary”. This “exaggeration” is not “harmless” but “protest is not insurgency, and polarisation is not civil war”.

What next?

“It’s past time to moan about values and tolerance,” said The Times’ editorial board. Keir Starmer has condemned the Belfast protests but his “bemused and drifting government has done nothing to tackle the root cause”: a perception, however erroneous, that legal and illegal immigration “is out of control”.

Some suggest the solution is an end to the open border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland but that’s a “keystone” underpinning the Good Friday Agreement. What’s needed is “more intensive cooperation” with Ireland, and above all, Starmer needs to recognise the “explosive dimensions of immigration” and its “exploitation” by bad actors. Failure to do so would be a “national security risk”.

Kemi Badenoch’s call to scrap equalities guidelines for police and other public bodies has opened up a new front in the culture wars amid tensions over the death of Henry Nowak and riots in Belfast sparked by a knife attack by a Sudanese asylum seeker.

The Tory leader said the landmark Equality Act 2010 does offer a valuable “shield” against discrimination. But the Public Sector Equality Duty, which places an active requirement on public bodies to demonstrate the promotion of equality, had become a legal “minefield”, she said. It should be repealed “in its entirety”.

What did the commentators say?

Comparisons have been made between Henry Nowak and George Floyd, “but a more accurate precedent” for the murder of 18-year-old student Nowak would be the case of Stephen Lawrence”, said Andrew Doyle, the author of “Free Speech and Why It Matters”, in The Washington Post. That “horrific crime led to a much-needed overhaul of police practice” characterised by institutional racism.

Today, UK policing suffers from a “different form of institutional bias, which prioritises group identity and the tenets of diversity, equity and inclusion over impartial and rigorous law enforcement”. Nowak’s death “should lead to a similarly urgent reappraisal”.

By “incubating” diversity, equality and inclusion guidelines in the public sector, Labour and the Conservatives have “presented Reform UK with an open goal”, said The Times. With the Makerfield by-election coming up on 18 June, Nigel Farage has “weaponised the Nowak case”, alleging institutional “anti-white prejudice” and a “two-tier” justice system, giving fresh impetus to Reform’s calls to scrap the Equality Act entirely.

Keir Starmer is “right” to claim that Farage is “playing politics with a tragedy” but the PM “downplays genuine concerns about politicised policing”. In this febrile political atmosphere, it is Badenoch’s “common sense” approach that “emerges from this debate with most credit”, said The Times.

Badenoch’s response “should be commended for its sensible and responsible tone”, said The Independent. While suggesting improvements to the Equality Act, her speech “was in effect a strong defence of the principles behind it” and has Farage’s “simplistic slogans on the run”.

Given the recent “attacks on transgender rights” in the UK, “it is perhaps not surprising that the equalities consensus is all but dead now even with race”, said David Maddox in The Independent. Farage’s colourful rhetoric wins headlines but he remains a “policy vacuum”, so Badenoch has “spied her opportunity” to take the lead in “a policy arms race on the right of politics to own the culture wars agenda”.

What next?

Badenoch’s intervention has turned the “once uncontroversial” public sector equality duty into the “new battleground in Britain’s culture wars”, said Aamna Mohdin in The Guardian. She linked equality guidelines to the Bank of England’s decision to replace historical figures on banknotes with images of British wildlife.

But experts in equality law say many of the examples cited by critics “misunderstand its purpose and how it operates in practice”. They stress that the duty “does not require public organisations to provide a particular service or introduce a particular policy”.

Human rights barrister Karon Monaghan said the attack on equality guidelines in the public sector fuelled the right-wing attack on anti-discrimination provisions more broadly, including the Equality Act. “Do we want a society where women can be paid unequally, where black people can be told they can’t have a job, where disabled people can’t get into work?” she said.

With Farage and now the Tories expected to make scrapping “woke” equality rules a major part of their campaign at the next general election, “we may get our answer” then, said Mohdin.

President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Office of National Intelligence has thrown a contentious congressional battle into an even more precarious state. Appointee Bill Pulte’s off-color past, lack of requisite qualifications and history of pursuing Trump’s personal vendettas against perceived enemies have some lawmakers thinking twice about reauthorizing Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), a controversial warrantless wiretapping law. Already worried about how this White House would use the authorities granted by the law, Democrats now point to the controversial nomination as further justification to vote against the polarizing spy powers.

What did the commentators say?

A bipartisan Senate group working toward reauthorizing the provision had been “expected to deliver the votes necessary to move ahead” with their plan last week, said The New York Times — until Democrats’ “anger” over Pulte being named “prompted an almost unanimous retreat from the emerging deal” on Friday. The failed vote reflected “growing unease” with Pulte’s having led a “campaign of retribution” on Trump’s behalf while leading the Federal Housing Finance Agency, as well as his “lack of national security experience.”

The “very nature” of America’s surveillance data collection is “now going to be put in the hands of somebody who has a history of seeking out private information for political gain,” said Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), per Semafor. “Everything’s up in the air now,” said Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, a ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, per The Times.

Democrats are “threatening to let the government’s spy powers lapse,” said Axios. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) has “suggested that Democrats would vote en masse against renewing FISA” because of Pulte, said Punchbowl News, echoing Warner’s “similar threat.”

It is “absolutely outrageous” that Democrats would “try to play politics right now,” said House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) at a press conference last week. Among Republicans, however, opponents of the FISA renewal include “longstanding surveillance skeptics” who have been “some of the loudest voices within the conference” advocating for stronger warrant rules, said Politico. Now, Republicans “will likely need at least some Democratic support in the House” on top of a minimum seven Democrats in the upper chamber to reauthorize the FISA bill before a June 12 expiration deadline, said The Hill.

The GOP is “going to need some help from Democrats, obviously,” said Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) to reporters after Friday’s failed vote. Despite acknowledging that the “timing arguably wasn't the best” for Trump to announce Pulte’s appointment during the FISA negotiations, Thune “notably defended” Pulte from allegations he’d “targeted Trump’s opponents” at the Federal Housing and Finance Agency, said Punchbowl reporter Laura Weiss on X.

Pulte may not be “statutorily qualified” for the role, said Texas Republican Rep. Michael McCaul on ABC’s “The Week.” But failing to renew Sec. 702 during this summer’s World Cup and semiquincentennial celebrations would be the “most grossly irresponsible thing I’ve seen Congress do in my 22 years in office.”

What next?

Once “on track to pass a compromise bill after protracted negotiations” with Democrats, Republicans now “believe the renewal could be held up” past the June 12 deadline, said Reuters. The White House should “plan for a potential significant gap in foreign intelligence collection,” said Senators Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) in a letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio this past weekend.

In their letter, the Republican senators “blamed the situation ​on Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer,” Reuters said. However, on “one level,” the letter means “they’re acknowledging reality,” said Connecticut Rep. Jim Himes (D) on CBS’s “Face The Nation.” Pulte’s appointment has “taken 702 reauthorization off the table.”

Last week’s scuttled extension deal is now “empowering privacy hawks in both parties,” said Politico. Section 702 critics feel they “have momentum to kill any FISA deal” that doesn’t address their policy concerns, “whether Pulte gets yanked from his acting leadership post or not.”

President Donald Trump holds firm sway over the GOP and its voters. But his grip on Republican-controlled Congress may be slipping.

Trump’s White House “appears to be losing momentum” with a legislative agenda that has “stalled in Congress,” said Vox. His proposed “anti-weaponization fund” to reward allies “went down in flames after some unusual pushback from Republican lawmakers.” And Trump’s GOP allies are pushing back on personnel picks like Bill Pulte for acting director of national intelligence and Todd Blanche to serve as attorney general. House Republicans last week also “failed to block an effort to halt the Iran war,” said Politico, the “latest sign” that some members of the president’s party are “willing to buck him” on occasion.

What did the commentators say?

Trump is a victim of his own “petty revenge tour,” Chris Hayes said at MS NOW. The president recently demonstrated his mastery over the GOP by backing successful primary challenges to party figures like Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) and Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas). Those “spurned” figures will remain in Congress through the end of the year, though they “don’t appear eager to bail out the president” and the more controversial aspects of his legislative agenda.

Republicans in Congress have mostly been “invertebrates” during the Trump years, Rex Huppke said at USA Today. They are showing the “faintest signs of embryonic spines” now that midterm elections are approaching and they will face constituents who “can’t afford gas or hamburger meat” because of the president’s policies. The GOP remains “largely in lockstep” with the president, but the “cracks will spread and deepen” the closer we get to November.

The midterm threat might be “stronger than the sway of a president who will be a lame duck” after the election, Jay Evensen said at The Deseret News. The president’s poll numbers “have dropped, even in Utah.” Congress has largely “abdicated its role” as a check on the power and corruption of the presidency, but “maybe that’s changing.”

Senate Majority Leader John Thune “sounds like a man who’s had it with President Trump,” said Mike Zapler at Axios. The GOP leader has pushed back on the anti-weaponization fund and the president’s primary endorsements against Senate incumbents. “None of us controls what the president does,” Thune said to reporters, per the outlet.

Trump is reacting to the “widening rift” with Congress with a “blend of indifference and hostility,” said Isaac Arnsdorf and Natalie Allison at The Washington Post. He “lambasted” House Republicans who helped pass the Iran war measure and “brushed off” objections to his appointment of Pulte to the intelligence post. The president “does not think he needs Congress” as much as lawmakers might think and “feels no need to accommodate them.”

What next?

GOP opposition only goes so far. House Republicans this week are expected to approve long-delayed funding for immigration and border enforcement, said CNBC. The bill will fund those Trump priorities through the rest of his term.

Henry Nowak would “still be alive today” if Britain and Europe had “stood their ground against the politics of self-hatred and the mass invasion of migrants”, said J.D. Vance on X. The “proper response – the only response – is righteous anger”.

The “most outspoken member” of an “evangelistic” administration, Vance’s ire does seem to have a “particular focus on the UK”, said The Times. He has commented on protests around abortion clinics, and told Keir Starmer that there have been “infringements on free speech” in Britain.

Vance is now using the Nowak murder to “bolster” his narrative of Britain as a “once powerful nation” “pandering to liberalism”. This could just be a reminder for American voters that the Republican Party retains an “uncompromising approach to wokeism, borders and policing” in the upcoming mid-terms. But if Vance is anointed successor to the Maga movement, comments such as these could be a sign of things to come.

What did the commentators say?

“J.D. Vance is wrong to intervene in the controversy around the murder of Henry Nowak,” said The Telegraph in an editorial. That said, “there is a good deal of hypocrisy on show”: Labour Remainers had no issue with Barack Obama “intervening” in the Brexit debate, and have had “no compunction about condemning Donald Trump over domestic US policy. “Inevitably, politicians welcome foreign interference only if it suits their arguments”, when “it would be far better if each stayed out of the other’s business”.

Vance was “surely right” to call out the “politics of self-hatred” in the British justice system, said Ameer Kotecha in The Spectator. It is “perfectly legitimate” for the US to comment publicly on what is happening in the UK. The government’s reaction, arguing he has “crossed a red line of diplomatic protocol”, has been hypocritical and “frankly pathetic”.

Britain is just as guilty. For instance, the Labour Party sent 100 activists to campaign for Kamala Harris in 2024. “Rather than engage in shameless pearl-clutching, Starmer’s government should listen to what our closest ally is telling us.”

Interventions like Vance’s are “deepening the split between the Trump administration and Britain’s Labour government”, said Dominic Green in The Wall Street Journal. The division is inherent. Where Vance sees a mission to “stabilise values and societies after decades of self-inflicted confusion”, Britain sees “Bible-bashing and race-baiting”, and hears “only atavistic calls to the wrong kind of identity politics”.

This “political opportunism” against Britain goes far deeper than the vice president, said James Schneider in The New Statesman. “The exploitation of Nowak’s death is of a piece with a clear US state strategy, one which turns Europe into a source for American rhetoric.” Vance talks about Britain “not as an equal, but as a provincial outpost of the imperial system, nominally independent and permanently available for correction”.

What next?

Vance’s stance could have implications for the next election on this side of the Atlantic, said Gaby Hinsliff in The Guardian. If Vance remains in the White House as vice president, “or even as Trump’s successor” after the US elections in 2028, it’s hard to imagine him “standing idly by” when the UK goes to the polls, likely in 2029.

At best, the reaction to the Nowak intervention shows us that “plenty of Britons still reflexively dislike being lectured by Americans”. Yet, it has also warned us “not to take our political sovereignty for granted. Sooner or later, we may need to defend it.”