Could Tennessee become America’s movie capital? That scenario is on the table. Paramount chief David Ellison is threatening to move the studio’s headquarters out of California, a bid to force the state and its partners to end their lawsuit challenging Paramount’s planned merger with Warner Bros. Discovery.

What did the commentators say?

The vow to abandon Hollywood is “obvious brinksmanship” but also “not that far-fetched,” said The Hollywood Reporter. Paramount really could leave the “entertainment capital of the world” for Tennessee, Texas or Georgia. Still, Ellison is in the “talent business,” and a critical mass of creative TV and movie talent is “largely based in Los Angeles and New York.” Ellison’s threat is an “attempt to blackmail the regulators,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta said at a Politico event.

The antimerger lawsuit led by Bonta and a dozen other Democratic attorneys general could “make California’s Hollywood exit even worse,” Tosin Akintola said at Reason. An already-weakened Hollywood TV and movie production system “stands to lose the most should the merger collapse.” If it happens, the state could “lose $500 million annually in corporate tax revenue” as well as “thousands” of Paramount jobs. Bonta is working against the “economic interests” of his state in order to “bolster his bona fides as an antitrust crusader.”

“No one really wants to move from Beverly Hills to Nashville,” Sharon Waxman said at The New York Times. But the move would perhaps fulfill a “dream from the right to create an alternative to left-leaning Hollywood.” Tennessee, after all, is already home to the country music industry and has long been seen as a potential “Hollywood for conservatives.” Business needs might win out over ideology, however, and a lawsuit settlement may come before a dramatic departure. “Certainly no one wants this chaos.”

Ellison’s ultimatum is “more a temper tantrum than a master plan,” Brian Lowry said at Talking Points Memo. The son of billionaire Oracle chief Larry Ellison appears to be a “guy who wanted to become a movie mogul” and now finds his ambitions complicated. His legacy could end up being the “wreckage that the studio’s wild ride leaves in its wake.”

What next?

A big deadline looms. Paramount must pay a $7 million per day “ticking fee” to Warner Bros. shareholders if the deal is not complete by Oct. 1, said Deadline. The “better path” would be a settlement to resolve the case before the antitrust trial, the studio said in a public statement.

Ellison is upping the stakes. Paramount this week asked a court to order California and the other plaintiffs in the antitrust suit to “cover the costs of the delay created by their lawsuit” with a $1.88 billion bond, said The New York Times. Delaying the “merger carries substantial and quantifiable financial consequences,” Paramount said in a statement.

Reform UK’s plans to cut £50 billion per year from the welfare bill – unveiled yesterday by Robert Jenrick – are “extremely ambitious”, but also a “political risk”, said Ben Chu on BBC Verify.

Nigel Farage has said the party will not cut pensions, meaning roughly £207 billion of the overall £353 billion welfare budget is up for grabs, and Jenrick aims to cut around 25% of that.

Under the plans, long-term welfare claimants who are fit to work would be forced to do 20 hours of community work a week, and foreign nationals would be banned from claiming benefits altogether. Personal Independence Payments (Pip) to disabled claimants would be scrapped and replaced with a “health security allowance” with more stringent eligibility criteria that could exclude up to two-thirds of current recipients.

These proposals may fit Reform’s “current ideological appeal”, pollster Sir John Curtice told The Independent. But this has limitations to their wider appeal, and has the potential to significantly backfire with their base.

What did the commentators say?

The “centrepiece” of the policy is to exclude foreign nationals from claiming most UK benefits, said an editorial in The Times, including European Union citizens with ­settled status in the UK.

This is just another “calculated bang on the populist drum”: the majority of foreign nationals “don’t qualify in the first place”. UK visas stipulate a clause of “no recourse to public funds”. Not only would stripping entitlement from the 4.3 million EU citizens who have been in the UK for many years antagonise relationships with the bloc, it would be “pointless”; many of those with indefinite leave to remain would have a “near-certain chance of being granted British ­citizenship should they apply”.

But for the Reform base, a more pressing issue is the “proposed abolition of Pip”, said journalist Fraser Nelson on his Substack newsletter. “Every Reform MP sits on more Pip claimants than the majority that elected them.”

In Jenrick’s seat of Newark, where he was elected as a Conservative with a majority of 3,572, there are 6,011 residents who claim Pip. And almost all of Reform’s target seats are “heavily welfare dependent”. Jenrick risks going into the next election as “the Pip-snatcher, the grim reaper of welfare”. “The Labour attack lines write themselves.”

There’s no doubt that the welfare state “needs reform – but not Reform”, said The Independent’s editorial board. Not only would the proposed cuts impose “much misery on the most vulnerable in society”, but they would also “substantially weaken” the British economy.

Employers with more than five staff would “take on the role of the state in social insurance and health care”, carrying a “significant increase” in cost, risk and pastoral responsibilities. Afforded only “tiny tax breaks” in return, employers would be “even less willing to take on people with long-term conditions, or who they perceive as liable to develop them”.

There may be “flaws” in the Reform approach, but the ambitious scale of the reforms is “laudable”, said an editorial in The Telegraph. Jenrick is seeking to “revive” the “something-for-something contributory principle” of William Beveridge, “founder of the welfare state”, but is up against a system that is growing at an “unsustainable” pace.

What next?

Reform has been overtaken in the polls by Labour “for the first time in more than a year”, because of the “bounce” under Andy Burnham’s leadership, said the Financial Times. The government has said that it was “already reforming welfare by narrowing the gap between standard and health universal credit rates”, by reintroducing face-to-face assessments and “investing £3.5 billion in employment support”.

Burnham’s willingness to get to grips with the expanding welfare state is “likely to emerge as the key dividing line over the coming months”, said Rupert Yorke, former deputy chief of staff to Rishi Sunak, in The i Paper. “It remains to be seen whether he prioritises this issue with his backbenchers over his ambitious plans for regional devolution or social care”.

Donald Trump has ordered the Pentagon to scale back annual joint military exercises with South Korea after the country stayed out of the war with Iran.

Writing on Truth Social, the US president said the exercises “send a signal that is totally inappropriate and hostile” to North Korea, which “has been unthreatening and respectful” during his second term. He also noted that South Korea had recently declined to join the US in the “denuclearisation” of Iran.

What did the commentators say?

The US is losing the Iran conflict, so Trump has “taken the logical next step” of “punishing” a “loyal American friend”, said Tom Nichols on The Atlantic.

In fact, “scaling back the exercise” is an “insane” decision but in “Trump’s world, every loss, every defeat, is a personal insult”, and “when things go wrong, someone must be held responsible” and, of course, “that someone is never Donald Trump”.

So the world is “witnessing a public exhibition of narcissistic rage” because Trump “embarked on a war for personal glory”, but “what he got instead was ongoing humiliation”.

The Chinese, Russians and North Koreans will “draw the appropriate lessons from this deranged policy”, and notice that “when Trump fails, he hurts those he feels safe hurting”.

It is the “latest example” of Trump “appearing to turn against an ally in favour of a leader that previous administrations have cast as an adversary”, wrote Konstantin Toropin and Alanna Durkin Richer on The Associated Press. It’s a particularly “sharp turnaround” from how his administration has viewed South Korea recently.

The announcement could be “part of an effort to divert attention” from the war in Iran, which has “left energy costs high”. This has become a “sensitive economic issue” ahead of the US midterm elections, said The Korea Times.

It could “trigger a debate over whether the scaling down of joint exercises could affect the allies’ deterrence” against North Korea as the “recalcitrant regime has been doubling down on its nuclear and ballistic missile programs”.

The “sudden” announcement “risks renewing concerns” that “US forces are too stretched to support crucial Western allies or maintain deterrence against autocracies that threaten them”, said Brad Lendon on CNN. It’s also a “gift” to Kim Jong Un at a time when he has “ramped up his own nation’s threat to global stability and offered no concessions in return”.

What next?

Experts told the BBC that the “walking back” of these joint military exercises could “carry a high cost with relatively little benefit”.

They are “essential for military forces to be ready and capable of doing their jobs”, Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha University in Seoul, told the broadcaster.

“Scaling them back” could “damage alliance coordination”, as well as “slow the process of South Korea taking on greater responsibility for its own defence, and weaken deterrence against possible conflicts in Asia”.

In a statement, South Korea’s presidential Blue House said it was reviewing Trump’s comments and added that it hoped a favourable relationship between Washington and Pyongyang could lead to meaningful talks.

August 2026 marks one year since National Guard soldiers began patrolling Washington, D.C., at the behest of the Trump administration, and the past 12 months of troop presence have changed what daily life looks like for many in the nation’s capital. While some feel the National Guard has helped to reduce crime and maintain a sense of safety in Washington, others say that the past year has been indicative of an authoritarian takeover.

What did the commentators say?

Throughout Washington, armed soldiers have become “fixtures in Metro stations, on downtown streets and around newly refurbished federal parks,” said The New York Times. These “federal agents in flak jackets patrol residential streets alongside city police officers” and appear unlikely “to go away soon,” as the White House recently extended the National Guard deployment through the end of 2029.

At the outset, President Donald Trump “cast the deployment in dire terms, describing a city overwhelmed by violence and disorder and promising that federal intervention would restore control,” said ABC News. But the deployment came as “violent crime is in precipitous decline nationwide, falling to record lows in cities with no federal intervention,” said the Times. Specifically in Washington, violent crime “was already reaching the lowest levels in decades” before the August 2025 mobilization; it has since gone back up 3% on the year, according to the city’s policing data.

Opinions on the National Guard remain “mixed among residents, politicians and experts,” said Al Jazeera. “For the most part, they’ve kept things peaceful and tranquil here,” Aaron Taslitz, a 30-year-old teacher in D.C., told Al Jazeera. Some residents feel they’ve overstayed their welcome. The soldiers “ain’t doing nothing but walking,” Ybonne Coles, a 60-year-old restaurant worker, said to Al Jazeera. “That money could go toward organizations to help people that really need help.”

Others are concerned about the continued symbolism of the National Guard, as it has become “part of the city scenery,” said NPR. “I worry about these troops standing on street corners fading into the background, and people starting to accept this as just a fact of life,” Joseph Nunn, a counsel in the Brennan Center’s Liberty and National Security program, told NPR. Soldiers “standing on the street corners in an American city should never be normal.”

What next?

The White House’s extension of the troops’ stationing is set to keep National Guard soldiers in Washington through at least the end of Trump’s term in 2029. This will cost an additional $1.4 billion, according to estimates given to the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Many are wary of what this extended stay could mean for the city’s future, and some find the situation ironic given that the U.S. “was the first to establish the modern democratic norm of divorcing the military and civilian policing,” Nunn said to NPR, also noting there is a line in the Declaration of Independence “condemning King George III for keeping standing armies among the population in times of peace.” The troops were “deployed to our communities under false pretenses,” Monica Hopkins, the director of the Washington, D.C., ACLU, told NPR. “It’s not a genuine emergency.”

“What was the point of it all?” said Joe Pike on the BBC. Given that Nigel Farage “triggered this race and the result was entirely predictable”, did the Reform leader get what he wanted out of the Clacton by-election?

If he did, he didn’t celebrate it at the count. Reform UK claimed that Essex Police had warned of a threat to Farage’s safety, which meant he stayed away from the result declaration. But that claim was denied by the police.

When Reform chair Lee Anderson was pressed on this counter-narrative he told BBC Radio 4’s “Today” programme: “It’s not up to you at the BBC to decide if there’s a credible threat, it’s up to Nigel and his security team. He celebrated a stunning victory in Clacton. The people have stuck two fingers up to people like the BBC, the establishment, the whole blob.”

Not everyone agrees though. Farage “wanted a narrative of him taking on all comers on his own terms”, said James Ball in The New World. But the reality is, he “ended up in a low-stakes fight for his political survival against a comedically oversized bin”.

Farage won with 63% of the vote, with comedy candidate Count Binface coming second with 27% in an election boycotted by all of the main Westminster parties, who dismissed it as a stunt.

What did the commentators say?

In calling the by-election Farage “hoped to cock a snook at an establishment he feels is trying to bring him and his party down via allegations about financial contributions to himself and his party”, said polling guru John Curtice in The Times. In practice, “his decision was followed by an immediate fall in his party’s support, just when its year-long lead in the polls was under threat”. Reform’s national vote share in the polls is down to 24% after hitting a high of 32% last September.

What the by-election has revealed is that Farage, “a savvy, guerrilla political operator, and perhaps the most able political communicator of his generation, can be guilty of missteps”, said Jonny Ball on UnHerd. His victory “will not put a stop to awkward questions” and “the standards inquiry into his donations row will now continue”. He had hoped the by-election “might allow him to chalk up another success on his long political journey, but this victory will feel pyrrhic, and particularly hollow”.

But will it? I'm not so sure, said Ross Clark in The Spectator. Farage has shown that in Clacton “his personal support is every bit as strong as it was before”. It is remarkable that he won “more votes than he did in the 2024 general election in spite of the turnout collapsing”. Yes, Clacton “tells us nothing about the state of political play in Britain at the moment, because it wasn’t a proper contest”, but “I would be wary of anyone claiming that Farage has been weakened by it”.

What next?

Farage has “managed to professionalise Reform UK”, said Pike on the BBC. In securing significant funding and recruiting high-profile figures like Robert Jenrick and Zia Yusuf he is seeking to prove “that the third political party he has led during his long career is not just a one-man-band”.

But ultimately it is “voters nationally, and not in this corner of Essex”, who will decide Farage’s future and whether this by-election will “mark a downward shift in Farage’s brand”, or whether it will “be a springboard towards achieving his bigger aspiration of getting to Downing Street”.

President Donald Trump returned to office last year promising to unleash fossil fuels to power U.S. energy production. But the Iran war has sparked months of persistently high gasoline prices, threatening GOP fortunes in the midterm elections, and Trump is now talking about reining in the industry. Oil companies are “making too much money” and should lower gasoline prices, he said to reporters earlier this month. Executives are nervous about a crackdown.

What did the commentators say?

Oil industry officials are “rattled” by Trump’s “growing criticism of the sector,” said Politico. U.S. companies have profited from the Iran war, shipping American petroleum abroad to countries that have found their usual supplies cut off by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. There is now “upward pressure” on domestic gasoline prices as U.S. car owners “compete with the rest of the world for a suddenly shrunken supply.” Industry executives are now worried Trump might cut off American oil exports, though the White House has denied that is in the offing. The industry remains on alert. “Everyone knows Trump’s gonna Trump,” an anonymous executive said to the outlet.

The law of supply and demand is “as fundamental as they come,” but Trump is “acting like he’s above the law,” The Washington Post said in an editorial. The president has taken aim at Chevron and ExxonMobil’s “windfall profits” of $12.1 billion and $14.5 billion, respectively, during the second quarter. They should “give some of that back to the public,” he said to reporters. But gasoline prices have risen so much over the last year because of “decisions made in Washington, not by the oil majors,” said the Post.

The war is not Trump’s only inflationary policy. He has also imposed tariffs and “taken government stakes in private companies,” said the Post. Rather than criticize oil companies, the president “should focus on expanding the supply of oil at home and abroad.”

The war can be seen as the latest in a “history of handouts to the oil industry,” Jamie Friedman, Jenny Rowland-Shea and Alia Hidayat said at the Center for American Progress. Trump administration policies have made electric vehicles more expensive and gutted emissions standards for gasoline-powered vehicles, leaving Americans “more vulnerable to price spikes and gasoline dependency.” The way to bring gasoline prices down is to “stop the Trump administration’s reckless and unnecessary war in Iran.”

What next?

The Trump administration is considering several policies to expand production and bring down oil costs. The federal government has “fast-tracked an environmental review” for a proposed offshore fracking project off the coast of California, said the San Francisco Chronicle. The White House has also extended a waiver from shipping regulations to “keep fuel flowing amid the Iran war,” said CNBC. The move will “protect consumers from unnecessary price volatility,” American Petroleum Institute’s Kristin Whitman said in a statement.

England has just recorded its driest July since records began in 1836. Fast forward to 2053 and we could be living in a “dystopian hellscape”, said Patrick Galbraith, environment correspondent, in The Telegraph. Rivers running dry, water being turned off at the mains, and food “poised to be rationed”: “this is not science fiction, but a very realistic scenario for the UK”.

Nearly three-quarters of England has been declared in drought, with around 45 million people now living in a drought area, and more than 27 million facing water-use restrictions. Nowhere in England is now under a ‘normal’ status.

Problems concerning infrastructure, investment, distribution and regulation have all compounded the effects of Britain’s scorching summer, forcing the government to consider its plans for a water crisis more carefully.

What did the commentators say?

In 2053, Britain is expected to have a shortfall of five billion litres of water per day, according to Baroness Brown, from the government’s advisory Climate Change Committee. If it materialises, this deficit would have “devastating” consequences for food supplies “as well as the economy and social cohesion”, said Galbraith. “The dystopian future of 2053 may not be so far away.”

The “main problem” in our water crisis is regulation, said Emma Duncan in The Times. Water regulators in Britain have indeed kept bills down, but have allowed water companies to give “massive bonuses to bosses and to shovel vast sums to shareholders”. Around “£50 billion” has been paid in dividends in the three decades since privatisation, “rather than spending the money on necessary upgrades to water-treatment works and pipes”.

Jon Cunliffe’s recent review of the water sector produced “sensible” recommendations, arguing principally that the industry’s “disparate regulators be brought together” and so “attracting new capital into the industry”. The whole point of regulation is to “act in the interest of citizens” and ensure water companies are “preventing pollution and ensuring future supplies”.

“Without investment and reductions in our water use, we are facing a serious problem,” said Pippa Neill and Safeerah Ahmed in The Guardian. For “several decades” now, the main issues have been “fixing leaks and building new reservoirs”, meaning there is not only a problem of “storing water during times of plenty”, but also effective distribution when water is needed.

No major new reservoirs have been built in England and Wales since 1992, and research from Greenpeace UK found that 2.87 billion litres of water a day is wasted through leaky pipes in England and Wales: “enough to fill 1,150 Olympic-sized swimming pools and amounting to a fifth of all water pumped through the network”.

To fix the issue, water companies have committed to “record investment” to minimise leaks, and “several” new reservoirs are in the planning stage.

What next?

The UK already has “disaster planning scenarios in place for a severe drought”, said Galbraith in The Telegraph. The government’s Emergency Drought Order, if invoked, would force water companies to “implement rolling water-rationing across entire regions by cutting off people’s taps”. Rationed water would then be distributed from standpipes in central collection points. In this scenario, private customers buying water would “only have 20 litres of water per person per day”: or a “mere 14% of our current average usage”.

Alongside water rationing, repeated droughts would also “increase the risk of fire, with less water for firefighters to battle blazes”, said Joe Duggan in The i Paper.

The UK’s National Risk Register, which outlines the “most serious threats facing the country”, states that under a “reasonable worst-case scenario” of continuous dry weather patterns, “large swathes of South and East of England would be hit by severe drought”. Transport, hospitals, data centres, emergency services and telecommunications businesses would all be hit with restrictions.

Perhaps most concerningly, the document also considers the “potential changes in public behaviour including the potential for localised civil disorder”.

Is the honeymoon over already?

After a confident start in No. 10, Andy Burnham is facing his first real test as PM over his handling of the controversial prisoner early-release scheme.

Having already bowed to public pressure once to stop rapists and child sex offenders being released early, the PM this week insisted he was “increasingly confident” that the scheme can be adapted to exclude the killers of PC Andrew Harper.

Keen to find a line of attack that sticks, his critics have branded Burnham a “people pleaser” and a flip-flopper who does not want to take difficult decisions.

What did the commentators say?

The “conundrum” of how to manage the early release of prisoners required to free up much-needed prison capacity is an “acute example of the tricky political decision-making that inevitably comes with power”, said BBC political correspondent Jack Fenwick.

But Burnham’s choice to focus on the type of crime, rather than the length of offenders’ sentences, has “caused a political storm of its own” which has left the government scrambling to stop Harper’s killers being set free ahead of time.

His shifting position, and the decision to go on holiday while the row snowballed, is “his first serious mistake on the job”, said The Independent’s political editor John Rentoul. He has “belatedly realised that the politics of the problem are simple” and his premiership “would be over almost before it had begun if those two killers were let out early”.

But “the question posed by this course correction is whether the initial mistake was simply down to inexperience”.

While many politicians “seek to avoid the suggestion that they are swayed by public sentiment, Burnham has leaned into the idea that he is responding to Britons’ outrage”, said Lucy Fisher in the Financial Times.

U-turns are not necessarily a bad thing if they are judged to be the result of a government listening to the public’s concerns, as long as they don’t become a habit. Just ask Keir Starmer.

What next?

The row over exactly which offenders may or may not be eligible for early release “masks an uncomfortable reality”, said Rachel Cunliffe in The New Statesman: “our criminal justice system fails to keep people out of prison once they have left”.

If we were prepared to have a genuine debate about the issue, the “political fury” currently aimed at the government would instead “be directed at our dangerous reoffending rates” and how best to bring them down.

In place of that, the Home Office is pressing ahead with its aim to build 14,000 more prison places by 2031. In the meantime, in a Facebook post, Burnham has suggested removing foreign offenders more quickly, tackling the “long-running injustice of IPP sentences”, which have kept many minor offenders locked up for decades, and re-purposing some women’s prisons for male offenders, as ways to expand prison capacity.

But these are medium- to long-term solutions. The immediate task facing the government is trying to find a way to keep Harper’s killer behind bars without making a similar exemption for all manslaughter convictions.

Downing Street will hope its efforts over the past week “will be remembered as a PM who has forced the system to do what he wanted”, said Fenwick. They will “fear that the lasting impression could instead be of a misstep that’s left victims’ families in anguish”.

Ukrainian drones have hit 23 Wildberries warehouses across Russia in just three weeks, said Nataliya Vasilyeva in The New York Times. Known widely as “Russia’s Amazon”, the e-commerce giant has been targeted by Ukrainian long-range drones, with a fire breaking out overnight at a facility in Voronezh.

Ukraine claims that the company, founded in 2004 by now-multi-billionaire Tatyana Kim and has disputed links to the Kremlin, is aiding the Russian war effort. The retailer denies this.

Attacking the distribution network of one of Russia’s principal companies will increase financial pressure on consumers and retailers alike, but the longer-term threats to the Russian economy could pose a significant threat to the Kremlin.

What did the commentators say?

Wildberries, as a “linchpin of Russia’s consumer market”, is an “obvious target”, said Vasilyeva in The New York Times. It can access even the “most remote corners of the country”, making its reach in Russia “unmatched”. It is the most popular marketplace platform in the country, with 79 million people – more than half of the population – using it every month.

The strikes have “disproportionately affected” the “one million Russian sellers” who rely on the site for visibility and distribution. In a fractured country whose vast size poses significant business challenges, Wildberries’ 95,000 pick-up points “represent a sense of economic normalcy” for both retailers and consumers, “which the Kremlin has been eager to preserve” amid sanctions and economic pressure from the war.

Since the outbreak of the conflict, Wildberries has been championed as a “symbol of Russian ingenuity and resilience despite Western sanctions”, said The Wall Street Journal.

On the surface, it is a success story of economic growth, employing more than 15,000 people, having tripled its workforce last year alone. But with ties to “Kremlin-linked oligarch” Suleyman Kerimov, it is demonstrative of “Putin’s determination to restrict control over the engines of the economy to a cadre of businesspeople loyal to him”.

Ukraine’s reasons for striking Wildberries “appear to be two-fold”, said The Independent. Ukraine insists the platform is a “legitimate” target due to its involvement in “Russia's wartime logistics and economic infrastructure”. But the overwhelming motivation is a financial one. Alongside its smaller competitor Ozon and other rivals, Wildberries accounts for around 8.5% of Russia’s GDP and supports around four million jobs, “more than 5% of Russia’s workforce”. Signalled by the government purchasing a 5% stake in the company, Wildberries is considered “central to plans for economic growth”.

“Whatever the stated military rationale, the economic consequences extend far beyond the front line of war,” said finance expert Yerzhan Tokbolat on The Conversation. This latest tactic is making the “economic costs of the war harder for ordinary Russians to ignore”. The significance of the Wildberries strikes may not just be the destruction of warehouses, but rather found in the “millions of Russians whose incomes, shopping and sense of normality depend on them”.

The Kremlin’s protestation that Ukraine is attacking Russia’s civilian economy with their attacks on Wildberries “smacks of complete hypocrisy”, said Liam Nolan, Eastern Europe reporter at RTÉ. Russian forces have been destroying businesses and civilian infrastructure in Ukraine for the last four-and-a-half years, “despite the Kremlin’s insistence that it does not target civilian areas”.

Government drives to expand “long-range drone production and greater investment in deep-strike technology” have certainly pressed home the advantage. But Kyiv’s ultimate goal in targeting Wildberries – and Russia’s infrastructure more generally – is to “gain leverage in the negotiating process, whenever it restarts”.

What next?

Support for Putin will “not automatically weaken” because of these attacks, said Tokbolat on The Conversation. As of 28 July, the government announced it had been considering “loans, tax relief and subsidies” to maintain businesses, “but no decision had been made”. In fact, they could “reinforce patriotic sentiment” against Ukraine, and “generate solidarity with affected Russian businesses, rather than anger towards the Kremlin”.

“The greater political risk is cumulative.” The knock-on effects of fuel shortages and subsequent price increases, as well as a decline in small businesses, will make it harder to maintain the impression that “the war can continue without significantly changing everyday life in Russia”. But beyond outward support, Russia’s campaign depends on the “willingness of households and businesses to absorb the costs of war”. By placing a major economic engine, which affects everyday consumption, in its crosshairs, “Ukraine is testing that willingness”.

Colombia’s short-lived era of leftist leadership has ended, as far-right politician Abelardo de la Espriella takes office as the nation’s 36th president. Unlike his predecessor Gustavo Petro, who was the only left-wing president in modern Colombian history, de la Espriella wants to shift the South American country to the right. He is also dealing with a major natural disaster in his first days in office.

What did the commentators say?

The new president represents a “sharp” turn from former President Gustavo Petro, who “stopped awarding new oil and gas exploration contracts while pushing Colombia toward renewable energy” and encouraging a “global transition away from fossil fuels,” said The Associated Press. De la Espriella instead has pledged that “energy security would be a cornerstone of his administration,” as he makes plans to “revive the country’s oil and gas sector, restore state-owned energy company Ecopetrol and strengthen the electricity system.”

Alongside this energy agenda, de la Espriella will also be making changes stemming from his stance on social issues, including crime and drug trafficking. He has “promised to confront rebel groups in Colombia with greater military force while cutting government spending to reduce a budget deficit,” said NPR. In a symbolic move, de la Espriella was inaugurated not in the capital of Bogotá but in Cali, a city which has been “hit hard by drug violence and attacks from rebel groups.”

De la Espriella also “campaigned on promises to crush his country’s powerful drug traffickers with the help of the United States” and in collaboration with the right-wing Trump administration, said The New York Times. The White House has “made targeting traffickers in Latin America a priority,” although before de la Espriella’s election, President Donald Trump “made little headway with Colombia, the world’s largest cocaine producer and traditionally Washington’s closest ally in the region.”

Overall, Colombia’s new leader is “basically shifting the entire region, especially South America, toward the right,” the Washington Office on Latin America’s Gimena Sánchez said to PBS News. De la Espriella will be “feeling the pressure to make really big moves from the get-go because there’s so much expectation from the U.S. that he’s going to be hard on narcotraffickers.” It could “have a tremendous influence on the direction that Colombia takes.”

While all of these issues are simmering, the new president is simultaneously contending with the aftermath of a 7.4-magnitude earthquake that struck western Colombia on Aug. 10. Officials in several major cities, including Cali and Pereira, “reported dozens of injuries, people trapped inside collapsed buildings and serious damages,” said NBC News. “The quake felt here was very severe,” taxi driver Luis Angel Sarrio told NBC.

What next?

The earthquake killed at least 100 people, with casualties expected to rise significantly in the coming days. In the first major check of his power, de la Espriella “declared a national disaster situation,” which gives his government “special powers to react to the emergency, including to reallocate budgets,” said BBC News. Alongside earthquake recovery, de la Espriella’s government is still focusing on anti-crime efforts. In another sign of a looming partnership, the United States notably pledged at least $1 billion in security assistance to Colombia soon after de la Espriella took office. The U.S. State Department said this money would help the new president achieve shared goals, including fighting organized crime and illegal immigration.

Taliban fighters entered Kabul on 15 August 2021 as the Afghan government collapsed and US troops scrambled to complete their withdrawal from the country. A year later, the group declared the date an annual national holiday.

In the five years since, the Taliban’s “increasingly draconian policies have made Afghanistan one of the world’s gravest human rights crises, particularly for women and girls”, said Human Rights Watch.

Among United Nations members states, only Russia has announced it formally recognises the Taliban regime, but “international condemnation is not enough”, said HRW.

What did the commentators say?

On “The Proud Day of August 15”, as the day has become known, Afghans are likely to see parades of the Taliban’s “suicide bomber squad on motorbikes and American equipment left by Nato forces”, said Christina Lamb in The Times.

Yet the country remains “on the brink of famine”. Around 4.7 million Afghans are facing “life-threatening malnutrition”, and almost 19 million are “in the grip of acute hunger or worse”, according to the World Food Programme. Afghanistan remains the only country in the world to ban girls and women from secondary school and university, while “morality police” patrol the streets seeking infringements of dress codes. The Taliban has even “banned women being seen at windows”, and recently “scrapped the minimum age for child marriage”.

Five years into its rule, the Taliban continues to expose the “wishful thinking of Western political and military leaders who insisted the movement had changed”, said the Lowy Institute think tank. The West has a “wilful blindness” towards the regime and is “quietly lowering the threshold of behaviour it is prepared to accept”.

“Tellingly”, the United Nations now refers to the “relevant authorities” in Kabul rather than the “de facto authorities”, in effect “narrowing the linguistic difference between the regime and a recognised government”. Warnings of the widespread repression under the regime are still “accurate”; what has changed is the “willingness of the world to act on them”.

Britain’s hesitation to evacuate eligible Afghans who worked with British officials in the country is “typical” of the UK’s “attitude to its obligations to Afghans generally”, said an editorial in The Independent. According to an internal government review conducted in February, 7,000 people have been found to be eligible for resettlement and “still likely to be at risk from Taliban retribution”, yet Britain has scrapped plans to evacuate them. Made worse by a “catastrophic data breach in 2022”, “obfuscation and delay”, Britain has been “dragging its feet in protecting those who served alongside our troops in Afghanistan”. It, like other countries, must “discharge its obligations to our Afghan allies, promptly and in full”, as a “matter of national honour”.

The US, in particular, “has a moral responsibility to not simply look away,” said Mursal Rahim, who fled Afghanistan in 2021, in The New York Times. Since leaving Kabul, the US has “increasingly disengaged from the country and its people”, closing the embassy, withdrawing diplomats and leaving “sharply reduced assistance” for Afghans coming to America. The situation in Afghanistan no longer “commands America’s attention as it once did”, but to continue in this vein risks accepting that the “systematic erasure of Afghan women is no longer its concern”.

What next?

It may be unpopular, but “Afghanistan’s future depends on greater international engagement” with whoever is in charge, said Tobias Ellwood, former chair of the Defence Select Committee, in The Telegraph. But importantly, “engagement does not mean recognition”. The goal is to ensure that Afghanistan, and its population of 40 million people, is “stable, secure and prosperous enough”, but that “will not be achieved by shouting from afar. It begins by re-engaging with those who govern Afghanistan today.”

“Far too little” is being done to protect girls from child marriages, and promote education, said former PM Gordon Brown in The Guardian. Other countries in the region have had some success. Pakistan’s Sindh province has criminalised marriage under 18 and introduced “penalties for those who facilitate it”. Bangladesh has also tightened its birth registration system to make it harder to conceal a girl’s age.

Changes to the UK government’s new immigration and asylum bill are positive recognitions of the problem. “But we must go further.” We must establish a fund in support of Afghan girls who are threatened with child marriage. It should offer them “bursaries to continue their education, if necessary outside their home country”. This may only be a “small gesture” after five years of Taliban rule, but “it is our moral duty to help them”.

The House Ethics Committee this week announced it had opened an investigation into Ohio Republican Rep. Max Miller, after ex-wife Emily Moreno accused the lawmaker of violently assaulting her and the pair’s child. While Miller has denied the allegations against him, a growing chorus of Republicans, including Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio), Emily’s father, has demanded he resign from Congress. Still, not everyone in the GOP is on board with calls for Miller to step down — particularly during an election cycle in which Republicans’ narrow control of Congress appears up for grabs.

What did the commentators say?

With “public scrutiny” of Miller and the allegations against him “quickly mounting,” many of his Republican colleagues have been “slow to respond,” said Politico. The “surge of attention” surrounding Miller “presents a dilemma for Republicans.” They can either “speak out against their colleague” amid a competitive race or “face accusations of hypocrisy” after “hammering multiple similarly scandal-plagued Democrats.” The situation risks being like “Graham Platner on steroids,” said one GOP operative to the outlet. Republicans may be “struggling up and down the ballot in the Rust Belt state” in general, but Miller’s situation in particular has “muddied their prospects,” said Axios.

Intra-party debate over Miller’s behavior has “led to one question,” said Ohio Capital Journal: “Where is the line in believing accusations when an election is at risk?” Although Miller himself is “confident he will win in the fall,” other Republican officials are “not as confident of a Miller victory.” This “general reluctance to publicly engage” with Miller’s case until this week has “raised questions” for Republicans about the “standards they maintain within their own party,” said The Free Press.

“There’s all sorts of domestic events going on with 435 members of Congress all the time,” said House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) to Politico. “It’s not my business to get engaged in it.” The public should wait for the “process to play out.” Johnson’s response to Miller “raises the question of what Johnson does think the speaker’s business is,” said The Atlantic. His “reluctance to become involved” in Miller’s “messy, lurid story” is “understandable, but it’s also one of the burdens that falls on leaders.”

Despite publicly defending Miller as a “good person” whose family should “figure that out,” President Donald Trump offered a more candid take on a private call with the congressman Monday evening, said Axios. During the conversation, the president reportedly told Miller that “things aren’t looking good” and “repeatedly said his reelection would be tough.” But the president “stopped short of asking Miller to step aside,” said The New York Times, and Miller “made it clear he had no intention of doing so.” Because Trump has yet to “publicly withdraw his support” for Miller, other Republicans remain “reluctant to do so themselves.”

Miller himself has responded to the increased scrutiny by comparing the domestic violence allegations that “threaten his reelection” to the “political attacks Trump weathered in 2016,” said Cleveland.com. He mentioned the president’s “sexual assault and harassment claims” and the release of the now-infamous Access Hollywood tape.

What next?

With Miller’s “relatively safe House seat in jeopardy,” the congressman would need to “resign or drop out by Aug. 10 for Republicans to be able to replace him on the ballot,” said The Hill. “With him on the ballot,” said one Ohio GOP official to the outlet, it’s “incredibly difficult to hold a seat that they should.” Republican party chairs for the counties Miller represents have a “window” to “name a successor as the Republican candidate on the ballot,” said Cleveland.com.

Nationally, Johnson is for now “declining to bear” the burden of leadership regarding Miller, said The Atlantic. But by doing so, he may ultimately “ensure that he doesn’t have to worry about the duties of the speaker when the new Congress opens next January.”

While the Trump administration has become known for its policy of anti-globalization, recent reports that the White House plans to shutter five overseas embassies and consulates have some worried about the implications. Several of the planned closures will occur in nations with close diplomatic ties to the United States, including Canada and Japan. The rare moves, which often happen only during times of conflict, could create new foreign affairs headaches, even as Republicans laud the plans.

What did the commentators say?

The U.S. State Department has reportedly informed Congress that it is planning to close the embassy on the Caribbean island of Grenada; the consulates in Nagoya, Japan, and Medan, Indonesia; the diplomatic post in Winnipeg, Canada; and the embassy in Douala, Cameroon. The closures are “expected to save the government roughly $4.4 million per year,” but the affected buildings also “employ very few people compared with others,” said The Associated Press.

The buildings in Grenada and Nagoya “have only one American staffer and five local employees each,” said the AP, and the Medan consulate has only 47 local employees; the Douala embassy has only 14 and the Winnipeg post has just two. The closure effort is “part of a broader push by the Republican president to transform the U.S. bureaucracy so that it is fully aligned with his ‘America First’ agenda,” said Reuters. People seem split on the closures. Supporters have “portrayed cost-cutting measures as necessary to right-size ​an organization many conservatives see as bloated and overly bureaucratic.”

But Democrats “argue that cuts to the U.S. diplomatic footprint — coupled with the dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development, ‌which ⁠provided billions of dollars worth of aid globally — risks undermining American leadership,” said Reuters. While “on paper, the move is about efficiency,” in practice it “goes far beyond the fate of five buildings,” said Newsweek. The consular slashing “suggests the Trump administration sees America’s overseas presence as a dollar figure to be managed on a balance sheet, not as a strategic asset to be maintained.”

Some of the buildings planning for closure are far less consequential than full embassies; the diplomatic post in Winnipeg does “not provide full consular services, only emergency assistance to Americans in distress,” said the National Post. But the closures also mark a “rare reduction of America’s diplomatic footprint outside a specific geopolitical crisis,” said Newsweek, even though the shutterings themselves are “modest in isolation.”

What next?

The State Department hasn’t specifically confirmed or denied the closures but said its officials were “​focused on ensuring that the ⁠nation’s diplomatic footprint was efficient and effective,” the agency told Reuters in a statement. The department also said it was “committed to following congressional notification procedures.” No exact timeline for the shutterings has been announced.

The decision follows a recent pattern of closures. Earlier this year the Trump administration announced it would “permanently close the U.S. consulate in Peshawar, Pakistan, which was the closest diplomatic mission to Afghanistan,” said the AP. At the same time, the U.S. is also “investing millions of dollars into reopening the U.S. embassies in Caracas, Venezuela; Damascus, Syria; and Tripoli, Libya,” to “restore America’s formal diplomatic presence following the ouster of long-ruling autocrats in those countries.”

AI models going rogue and hacking the internet? That’s “the stuff of science fiction”, said The New York Times’ Katrin Bennhold. “Or at least it was until recently.”

The UK’s AI Security Institute announced on Tuesday that two AI agents it was evaluating – one powered by Anthropic’s Mythos 5 and the other by OpenAI’s GPT 5.6 Sol – had taken “sustained, unsanctioned action directed at real people and organisations”. In the most serious incident, the Mythos 5 agent created “fake online identities”, tried to deceive a software engineer, and attempted “to insert malicious code into a open-source project”.

Only a few days ago, Open AI and Anthropic revealed similar testing mishaps, in what was a “big moment” for the world, Nate Soares, of the non-profit Machine Intelligence Research Institute, told The New York Times. “These AIs were committing cybercrimes a human would be strongly punished for”. It is, “in a sense”, artificial intelligence’s “first felony”.

What did the commentators say?

“The ‘robots could kill us all’ argument” has long been dismissed “as hysteria or even calculated hype”, said the NYT’s Bennhold. But fears that frontier AI models were “getting too good too effective at exploiting software vulnerabilities” have “now become reality”. There needs to be “intense debate about the dangers of AI spiralling out of human control and posing a threat to humanity”.

AI engineers “and even their vainglorious bosses, are getting freaked out by the capabilities they are handling and worry about unchecked proliferation”, said Rafael Behr in The Guardian. The obvious historical analogy is nuclear fission, which could have been “harnessed benignly” or “deployed aggressively in warheads”. But now “there are multiple Manhattan Projects all frantically competing for market share, fuelled by trillions of dollars of debt” and “with the rest of the US economy as collateral”.

Negotiating international agreement on a safe way forward for frontier AI is going to be tricky, said The Economist, when it is “increasingly clear” that the US and China will “restrict access to their models for economic and strategic reasons”.

Chinese officials are already worried “about the cyber-capabilities of Mythos” and “its potential to be used as an offensive weapon, said Bloomberg. And, for the US and its allies, there is deep concern that their geopolitical adversaries “and the criminals in their orbit, will soon wield the same offensive tools”, said Michael Sulmeyer, former US assistant secretary of defence for cyberpolicy, on Foreign Affairs. With China, in particular, “already racing to build and acquire these AI capabilities”, the US may only have “nine to 12 months to protect its critical infrastructure from AI-powered attacks”.

What next?

Any kind of “consistent approach” to global AI regulation has “failed to materialise”, said Sky News. The Trump administration is finalising a voluntary framework under which US AI labs would submit models for federal safety testing before public release. But this latest “alarming behaviour” is “likely to ignite fresh calls” from lawmakers and Silicon Valley for “more rigorous regulation”, said Politico’s John Sakellariadis.

The recent incidents also raise the question of who bears responsibility when AI systems break the law. If those hacking attempts had been “human-originated, they would lead to clear and vigorous prosecution”, ethical hacker and cybersecurity expert Marc Rogers told Politico. “It’s time for a serious discussion about updates to existing computer security law.” Until that happens, said Andrew McDonald on Politico London Playbook, “this kind of thing is going to become more common, and quickly”.

The Ukraine war has entered a “dangerous new phase”, said Sky News’ Moscow correspondent Ivor Bennett.

Overnight, 17 Ukrainians were killed in Russian strikes on Kyiv, and just days ago seven people were killed by a Ukrainian drone attack on a crowded Russian Black Sea beach.

“More and more civilians are being killed on both sides” as Russia and Ukraine seem to expand their scope beyond military targets. As the conflict intensifies on multiple fronts, neither side shows signs of withdrawing.

What did the commentators say?

Four years into the war, it seems Ukraine is evolving its approach against Russia, said world affairs editor Sam Kiley in The Independent. Kyiv’s recent drone attack on a Russian Black Sea beach, where seven civilians died, including three children, marked a “shift in the war”. Ukraine may not have a policy of attacking civilian targets, but as it “steps up its war inside the Russian Federation, there have been, and will be, more civilian deaths”. Despite a reshuffle of top commanders, and being “outgunned, outmanned and outsized by the invaders”, Ukraine remains on the front foot. As it presses home the advantage, and “strikes deeper at Moscow, these tragedies will multiply”.

Following successful campaigns against Russian oil refineries, Ukraine’s increasing attacks on Wildberries – Russia’s equivalent of Amazon – are also changing the mood within Russia, said world affairs editor Catherine Philp in The Times. “Far from merely inconveniencing shoppers”, this is an “audacious attempt to bring down Russia’s economy”. The company accounts for around 50% of online retail in Russia, and “barely two days have passed without another warehouse in flames” since mid-July. This campaign shows that the conflict has broken beyond the front lines, and is now regularly “bringing the war into the lives of ordinary Russians”.

Even as these strikes intensify, Vladimir Putin has shown “no sign of backing down”, said Russian expert Professor Stephen Crowley in The Nation. The core response from European leaders has been to engage in the “greatest military build-up since the 1930s”. But all this does is perpetuate a “spiral of action and reaction on both sides” that invites further escalation. Instead, they should “open lines of communication” and bring about “difficult but necessary” negotiations to end the war through temporary lifting of sanctions or thawing diplomatic relations. Some would argue this would be giving “Putin a way out of his war of choice”, but once it is over, he would be forced to “face the Russian people and attempt to justify his historic debacle”.

As Trump focuses on the war in Iran, a “propitious moment to be the peacemaker in the Russia-Ukraine war could be slipping away”, said Thomas E. Graham, former White House Russia expert, in The New York Times. The conflict has entered a “dangerous escalatory spiral”, and both Putin and Volodymyr Zelenskyy have been clear in their wishes for the US to re-engage in negotiations. “Only Washington has the combination of access, leverage and political weight to lead a comprehensive diplomatic effort.”

Given Russia’s animosity towards Europe, the US should send envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner to Kyiv and Moscow to “lay the groundwork for an intense period of shuttle diplomacy to bridge the yawning gaps between the two sides”. But time is of the essence. They must act imminently, “before escalation closes the diplomatic opening that exhaustion has begun to create”.

What next?

Europe must “seize the moment and demonstrate that they are capable of acting decisively on the international stage”, said Lesia Ogryzko in Atlantic Council. Ukraine’s recent progress provides a “rare window of opportunity to increase the pressure on Putin”. However, this window is “likely to prove temporary”.

The continent should prioritise Ukraine’s manpower constraints, as well as “improving military recruitment, retention and mobilisation”. European leaders should also grant Ukraine access to critical technologies including advanced electronics, cloud-computing infrastructure, artificial intelligence tools, and communications systems. The goal for many years has been “strategic autonomy and Europe’s emergence as a serious security actor”. “The coming months may provide the clearest test yet of whether those ambitions are realistic.”

U.S. military power is immense but has its limits: Soldiers, sailors and Marines cannot fire missiles that do not exist. The war in Iran has used up much of the U.S. weapons stockpile, though the Pentagon is silent on how much remains. The answer to this question could determine President Donald Trump’s next steps in the Persian Gulf, as well as whether America is ready for a potential war with China.

What did the commentators say?

The missile question is “Washington’s very sensitive secret,” said The Wall Street Journal. Information about munitions stockpiles is always “closely guarded.” There is nonetheless “tremendous concern” within the government about a shortfall. The Army has reportedly “used up much of its stockpile of highly accurate long-range missiles” during the war with Iran, Reuters said this week. Fears that renewed fighting could “dangerously drain” remaining supplies have apparently been a factor in the president’s repeated decisions to “set aside” his threats to escalate the war, said The New York Times.

White House officials are pushing back against such a narrative, said The Associated Press. The military has “everything it needs to execute at the time and place of the president’s choosing,” a White House spokesman said in a statement to the outlet. But “shrunken inventories” of Patriot and other missiles are “potentially putting American troops at more risk,” said the AP, citing a new analysis from the Center for Strategic and International Studies. That fear seems borne out by battlefield experience. U.S. commanders are “picking and choosing” which Iranian attacks to defend against to “preserve the Pentagon’s diminishing supply of weapons,” said NBC News.

The munitions crisis is “even worse than you think,” Aaron MacLean said at The Free Press. If war with a “middling power” like Iran can deplete U.S. missile supplies after just a few months, “what would happen in a broader and more intense campaign” against China? It is a sign that American plans for a potential war in the Pacific “involved some magical thinking.” Realism is needed. The war against Iran is a reminder that “presumptively short wars have a tendency to run inconveniently long.”

A missile shortage “should be a five-alarm fire” for the White House, said The Wall Street Journal. And public concerns about such a possibility undermine the “credibility of U.S. resolve” by signaling to Iran that America “can’t sustain the fight.”

What next?

Trump is attempting to boost weapons production, said Reuters. The United States has the “best quality in the world,” he said to armsmakers last month. “But we need a ​little more speed."

The conflict has nonetheless highlighted concerns about U.S. munitions manufacturing “in a way that now cannot be ignored,” Virginia Burger said at The Project on Government Oversight. The U.S. is facing a “multiyear window of degraded stockpiles” that cannot be quickly restocked, given the timeline needed to produce America’s complicated and expensive weaponry. This issue poses a danger. “Munitions are the clear backbone of American military strategy.”

“Andy Burnham vows no early general election before 2029” was Metro’s take-away headline after a recent interview between the PM and the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg.

His aides have been “adamant, consistent and emphatic” that there will be no snap election, said The Spectator’s political editor Tim Shipman. But Burnham’s obvious hesitation when answering the question “was that of a man calculating the trade-off between survival now and long-term freedom of manoeuvre”.

What did the commentators say?

Burnham spent his first two weeks as PM in a “blitz of hyperactivity”, said The Guardian’s deputy political editor Jessica Elgot. “Bus fares, business rates, energy bill cuts, defence, Ukraine and devolution – he has been everywhere,” and brought a “renewed sense of optimism” among Labour MPs, buoyed by a series of polls that show the party leading Reform UK for the first time in more than a year.

For all his denials, a part of Burnham’s brain “will be furtively wondering whether it might become feasible to go to the country this autumn or early next year”, said Andrew Rawnsley, associate politics editor at The Observer. If “the bounce does get bouncier” then “the risk-reward ratio could begin to look more enticing”.

The Burnham bounce is “real”, Dylan Spielman, who led Labour’s data science team through the 2024 general election, told The Guardian, “but not yet big enough to put Labour back on course for a majority”.

More in Common’s voting intention tracker puts Labour on 28%, ahead of Reform UK on 24%, which, while a marked improvement from polling under Keir Starmer, would still likely mean a hung parliament if an election were held tomorrow.

The problem is that “so far the recovery has mainly come from reuniting the progressive bloc” who had drifted towards the Greens. while Labour is still “making much less progress winning back Reform voters and Conservatives who are pivotal in marginal seats”.

Labour candidate Bev Craig’s emphatic win in the Manchester mayoral election will have given Burnham “more food for thought”, said The Telegraph’s John Power. The PM’s coronation has, “for the moment, crushed his Left flank” while the Right is now “electorally split between the Conservatives and Reform”, with the latter struggling to move on from a series of political donation scandals.

The “strategic logic” behind calling an early election, “perhaps after a few more weeks of positive announcements, seems unassailable if the polls continue to trend up”. With no mandate and a reality-checking Budget due at the end of October, the PM’s “political strategy of promising everything to everyone has a natural timespan on it”. Labour sources are briefing that if the government consistently posts poll leads of 5% to 8%, Burnham will be advised to “go for it” and call a snap election.

What next?

In 2007, Gordon Brown failed to quash speculation of a snap election during his No. 10 honeymoon period – and never recovered when he backed out of holding one at the last minute, said Peter Franklin in UnHerd. The lesson for Burnham is that he “needs to reconcile two contradictory objectives: killing the anticipation that a snap election is imminent while leaving himself with the option of calling one”.

If Burnham does call an early election, “he’ll be like a gambler sticking all his winnings on one last spin of the roulette wheel”, said The Express’s Harvey Jones. “My guess is he’ll bank them instead”, but “if the first big crisis sends his poll ratings into freefall, he may wish he’d thrown caution to the wind while Lady Luck was still smiling”.

Russia’s war against Ukraine would seem to be an entirely separate conflict from the hostilities between the U.S. and Iran. But Ukraine last month attacked an Iranian cargo ship in the Caspian Sea, raising fears the two regional conflicts could merge and spiral into something bigger and more destabilizing to the world.

What did the commentators say?

The Caspian Sea attack “underscored the links between the wars,” said The New York Times. Russia has “launched swarms” of Iran-made drones at Ukraine, the outgrowth of a decades-long “close military relationship” between Moscow and Iran. (Ukraine said the Iranian ship was carrying a new supply of drones. Iran denied the accusation.) Ukraine, meanwhile, has “brought its hard-earned expertise” in drone warfare to the task of defending Gulf states from Iranian attacks after the U.S. launched its war.

The Ukraine-Iran conflicts are “beginning to overlap,” Gideon Rachman said at the Financial Times. The wars “now span two continents” in Europe and Asia and are “influencing conflicts in Africa.” Ukraine has “ample reasons” to want to hit Iranian shipments of drones that “killed a great many Ukrainians,” but leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy may also “see an opportunity to dramatically improve relations with the Trump administration” by assisting in the U.S. war. This is a fraught moment. The 20th century proved that “regional conflicts and great-power miscalculation can be a deadly combination.”

Zelenskyy appears to seek a “merging” of the two wars into a “single strategic theater,” Trita Parsi said at Responsible Statecraft. The Ukrainian leader has spent the war urging NATO to “move beyond supplying weapons and intelligence” and take a more direct role in defending his country. The Iran war now presents Ukraine with the opportunity to offer itself as a “strategic asset capable of helping Washington turn a military debacle into a splendid victory.” It is a “dangerous gambit” and it could “pave the way for a disaster.”

The Ukraine strike comes as the war in the Middle East appears to be expanding into a regional conflict that includes Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Yemen and Iraq. It is a “glimpse of just how apocalyptic” the war could become, Spencer Ackerman said at Forever Wars. There is increasingly a risk of the conflict “spiraling” beyond its current limits. “There is no mechanism at present to stop its growth.”

What next?

Iran and Russia may want no part of a larger war. Tehran and Moscow seek a “pragmatic partnership without entangling themselves in each other's regional wars,” Barnard College’s Alexander Cooley said to Newsweek. Ukraine could continue to “strike ships it believes are helping Russia,” said USA Today, but would otherwise “gain little from a full-scale confrontation with Iran.” Ukraine’s top priority “remains Russia,” Chatham House’s Neil Quilliam told the outlet.

Rupert Lowe has offered an olive branch to Nigel Farage and claimed the pair could unite the “patriotic right” of British politics in an electoral pact that could threaten Andy Burnham.

“Politics being politics,” said Politico, Lowe, a former Reform MP until being suspended by the party in March 2025, spelt out “five conditions for cooperation”. They included “a referendum on the death penalty and the exclusion of former Tory ministers from any future cabinet”.

Farage responded by saying he wanted the support of people from other parties to defeat the left. He didn’t name Lowe and Restore but said Reform’s potential allies should share his commitment to restoring Britain’s borders. But he stood by his former Tory front-benchers, saying: “I will never turn my back on my team.”

What did the commentators say?

The Greater Manchester mayoral election, won comfortably by Labour’s Bev Craig, has shown the danger Restore could pose to Reform at a future general election. Reform took 21% of first-preference votes, while Restore had 8.7% (Craig won 47.1%). Lowe “appears to have come to a realisation: that Restore is just big enough to prevent Reform victories, but far too small to win itself”, said George Spencer on UnHerd.

The conditions laid out by Lowe show that he is not serious about this offer, said veteran Farage ally Gawain Towler on Substack. It “is a demand engineered to be refused” and the timing of Lowe’s “gesture” comes while Farage is “under scrutiny he could do without”. In speaking out while Farage is under investigation for his financial conduct, Lowe “has chosen the moment of maximum embarrassment to apply pressure and called it generosity”.

But one figure with connections in Reform circles told Politico it was a “tempting offer” for Farage that would stop him “bleeding any more support … but the animosity between the pair is a big barrier”, said Politico.

Surely Farage is a “savvy enough politician to spot that this is not so much a gift as a trap, from a man whom he personally detests”, said James Ball in The i Paper. “Even if he wanted to work with Lowe and went along with his list of demands, this would create new political problems for him”. Among Reform’s voters are “people who aren’t fully signed up to the idea of mass deportations and full-blown Islamophobia”. Rather they are “simply fed up of the status quo and the mainstream parties”.

But “it now appears neither can make the progress needed to nullify the left without the other”, said Giles Sheldrick in the Daily Express. “Many of those closest to the man who almost single-handedly delivered Brexit have said he is driven by ego and ambition.” While Farage denies this is the case, Lowe’s “offer in a bombshell social media post may well provide the definitive answer”.

What next?

It remains to be seen “whether the Burnham bounce in the polls and the dip in Farage’s fortunes mark a decisive shift in momentum in British politics or merely a blip”, said Politico. “What is clear is that the challenges facing Reform are substantial, and growing.”

The ball is clearly now in Farage’s court but the imminent by-election in Clacton and the Labour government’s resurgence mean he “is facing something of a perfect storm,” Tim Bale, professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London, told Politico. “But while he’s on the ropes he’s by no means on the floor, let alone out for the count.”

Europe is braced for more explosive debate over immigration and open borders after an estimated 49,000 migrants crossed into Spain’s North African enclave of Ceuta from Morocco in 24 hours via land and sea.

Italy’s most senior politicians have called for Spain to be kicked out of Europe’s Schengen zone, and Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said on X that she was “prepared to take action – including extraordinary measures – to defend our borders and ensure citizens’ safety”. Spain’s Interior Ministry blamed human trafficking networks for encouraging the latest crossings, saying criminal organisations had exploited a recent Supreme Court ruling to lure more migrants, particularly young people, into attempting the journey.

Spain’s Supreme Court ruled earlier this month that migrants intercepted at sea while attempting to reach Ceuta or Melilla cannot be summarily returned under the enclaves’ special border-rejection regime. “It has been a slow trickle since the Supreme Court’s ruling, but today has been an explosion,” a Guardia Civil spokesperson said on Reuters.

What did the commentators say?

The tiny Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla sit on the northern shores of Morocco’s Mediterranean coast. Together they form the European Union’s only land borders with Africa. “It’s not yet clear what prompted this surge in illegal crossings from Morocco, or how hard the authorities there tried to prevent it,” said the BBC. But at one point, a Spanish official said the border was in total collapse.

Just a week ago, Jessika Roswall, a centre-right European commissioner, “painted an idyllic image of the Schengen area, praising the ‘seamless journeys’ made possible by ‘decades of European cooperation’”, said Eddy Wax on Euractiv. But “that Brussels fantasy has now been smashed apart”. Italy has “always been quick to clamour for EU solidarity when faced with inflows of migrants at its own borders” but Meloni “has particular form” for exploiting the Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s woes while “boosting his far-right adversaries”.

She “challenged him at the last EU leaders’ summit over his move to regularise hundreds of thousands of undocumented migrants” and last night, Antonio Tajani, Italy’s foreign minister, “alleged the policy itself was a pull factor”. That drew “a stern rebuke” from Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares, said Joe Stanley-Smith on Politico but the policy “has proven hugely contentious, both domestically and at a European level”.

“A young person leaving, sometimes with their parents’ consent, is a guarantee that they will send money back to their family,” sociologist Ali Zoubeidi said in Le Monde. “The Spanish government’s announcement [in April] of the regularisation of 500,000 undocumented migrants may also have encouraged young people to try to reach Ceuta.”

The situation “may also have been exacerbated by an event that suggests Rabat could have deliberately loosened controls at Ceuta’s border”, said Le Monde. Sánchez’s recent visit to Morocco’s regional rival Algeria, reportedly upset those in Rabat. For Abdullah Abaakil, deputy secretary of the Moroccan Unified Socialist Party, there is no doubt it played a role: “The Moroccan authorities clearly let them through,” he said. “There is a suspicious trend of using migration and the despair of young people to embarrass the Spanish government and to send a message when they are dissatisfied.”

What next?

Spain and Morocco have agreed to return all migrants to Morocco and Spanish Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska said the two countries would intensify joint efforts to combat irregular migration, describing cooperation with Morocco as “exemplary”.

Though Italy has called for closing the open-border Schengen agreement with Spain, the countries “do not share a land border, so Italy would likely need to get other European countries on board to be able to enforce this”, said the BBC.

But the crisis has intensified calls for further action on immigration from the bloc. Manfred Weber, president of the European Parliament’s largest political grouping – the centre-right European People’s Party – called for tougher action. “This proves one thing: the Migration Pact and return regulation must be enforced today, not tomorrow,” he said on X.

The U.S. Senate has sometimes been called the “world’s most exclusive club.” It might also be among the country’s most unloved institutions. There is growing talk of abolishing the upper chamber of Congress, a proposal promoted by Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) members who are making a push for power within the Democratic Party.

What did the commentators say?

The Senate is an “anachronistic institution” designed to ensure U.S. voters do not have “too much of a say” in the country’s governance, DSA co-chair Megan Romer said on “Fox News Sunday.” Abolishing the chamber and expanding the House of Representatives “would help make this country more democratic,” DSA co-chair Ashik Siddique said on C-SPAN, per The Washington Examiner. That is a tall order. Getting rid of the Senate would “require amending the Constitution,” said the Examiner, and necessitate the House taking on the upper chamber’s duties of “confirming executive and judicial nominees, ratifying treaties, conducting impeachment trials and considering legislation.”

A “teardown” of the Senate “might be the DSA’s best idea” and would “rank among the great democratic advances in American history,” said Jonathan Chait at The Atlantic. The equal representation the Senate gives all states means people living in sparsely populated states like South Dakota “enjoy more power” than voters in more populous states like New York. And because those smaller states are “rural and overwhelmingly white,” the Senate “systematically under-weights racial minorities.” It is a “form of affirmative action for white people” and should be eliminated.

“It’s important to understand how radical this is,” said The Wall Street Journal editorial board. The left “loathes the Senate” because it acts as a “restraint on temporary majorities” that can dissipate quickly. The equal representation among states “prevents dominance by California, New York and Texas.” The DSA’s goal is “eliminating barriers to rapid, radical change.” But the proposal might be a pipe dream. Constitutional mandates require that the Senate not be abolished “without the consent of every state.”

One alternative to abolishing the Senate would be to transform it into a “mostly ceremonial body, like the United Kingdom’s House of Lords,” said Osita Nwanevu at Slate last year. Such a move would make the U.S. like two-thirds of the world’s countries, “where one house holds nearly all real legislative power.”

What next?

Republicans are also contemplating reform. Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) this month signed on to a resolution to “repeal the 17th Amendment,” which “allows voters to cast direct votes for U.S. senators,” said PoliticsPA. State legislatures would choose senators instead. The current system has created “six-year politicians more focused on national ambitions” than on the “states they serve,” said resolution sponsor Rep. Keith Self (R-Texas) in a statement.

President Donald Trump is also calling for changes. On Saturday, he “once again urged” Republican senators to eliminate the filibuster to pass his proposed bill of election restrictions, said The Hill. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) has repeatedly said there are not enough votes to do so.

What is the best pub snack?

As Andy Burnham and John Healey took up their positions in No. 10 and No. 11 last week, they took a break from running the country to discuss the biggest question potentially facing Brits today. They did so in a video released to promote their announcement of a 20% cut in pub business rates, which racked up two million views across Instagram and TikTok.

The change in government has seen a new media strategy that is already winning much praise. “Labour’s comms has been in another league this week compared to what went before,” said The News Agents’ Lewis Goodall on X in response to the pub snacks video.

“That is certainly true,” said Gareth Roberts in The Spectator, but it’s “a bit like saying that a packet of Scampi Fries is, as a pub snack, in another league from a handful of gravel.”

What did the commentators say?

In 2026, “TikTok and Instagram are the most important stages that any politician who cares about reaching Gen Z, who don’t read newspapers or listen to the radio, must master”, said Issy Clarke on LBC.

Many of Burnham’s critics “will be precisely those who decry the lack of political engagement among Gen Z”, all the while “forgetting that the best remedy is to meet young people where they are”. Burnham “is the first British PM who has managed to do it”.

When it comes to his social media output, it has an “authenticity” to it, Bruce Daisley, the former boss of Twitter in the UK and Europe, told The Times. “And he is getting the cut through as a result.” Burnham is a politician who gets it and uses “a template of frequent, human communications”. In a way “it’s almost over-communication, but that way the message gets across”.

After years of gloom, “the chirpy bonhomie can’t help but appeal”, said Roberts in The Spectator. “Here is somebody saying that Britain isn’t broken, isn’t collapsing, and look, here’s a few little extra pennies for you.” It is the reason the polls are shifting effectively because “it’s so nice to see somebody with a smile on their face, even a gormless smile that defies reality”.

Yet the new PM’s “apparent openness to people he meets on the street has not, so far, been extended to lobby journalists”, said Keir Starmer’s biographer Tom Baldwin in The Guardian. “Aides insist there is no deliberate effort to avoid scrutiny and can point to how he spoke at length to the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg”, but in hoodwinking the lobby over the appointment of Healey as chancellor “there appears to be more than a little satisfaction about the lobby’s humiliation within the prime minister’s wider circle”. It is a dangerous tactic “from a new administration that will need to be trusted by the more responsible end of the Westminster media when, inevitably, the going gets rough”.

What next?

Burnham’s social media output is a “good way to signal to a large audience that the Labour government has changed”, said Stephen Bush in the Financial Times. But “while it allows the prime minister of the day to evade direct scrutiny and difficult debates, it also makes it harder for them to put their opponents under the microscope”.

It also means “neither Burnham nor his opponents are guaranteed a proper comeback when a rival is speaking”. Effectively, we are heading towards “a highly polarised country where political advertising is almost inescapable and neither side can be guaranteed the pain of scrutiny or the consolation of a rebuttal”.

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.”