What happened

President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump on Monday separately demanded that ABC fire late-night host Jimmy Kimmel over a parody White House Correspondents’ Association dinner roast during last week’s show in which Kimmel joked that the first lady had a “glow like an expectant widow.” The outcry followed the shooting incident at the real gala two nights later. Federal prosecutors on Monday charged the alleged gunman with trying to assassinate Trump.

Who said what

Kimmel’s “rhetoric” was “completely deranged,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters. “Who in their right mind says a wife would be glowing over the potential murder of her beloved husband?” It was “obviously” a “very light roast joke about the fact that he’s almost 80 and she’s younger than I am,” Kimmel said on Monday night’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” The joke “was not, by any stretch of the definition, a call to assassination, and they know that.”

What next?

The controversy over a joke about a “dinner meant to honor the First Amendment is sure to revive” the censorship battle between Trump and Kimmel that “erupted” last fall, The New York Times said. After a brief suspension following a joke involving Charlie Kirk, Kimmel signed a one-year contract extension due to keep him on air until May 2027.

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

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

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

What did the commentators say?

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

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

What next?

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

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

What happened

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said Sunday he was prepared to drop his blockade of President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Federal Reserve after the Justice Department assured him it had dropped its criminal investigation of outgoing Fed Chair Jerome Powell. Tillis’ decision cleared the last major obstacle for Kevin Warsh to replace Powell.

Who said what

U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro last week said she had dropped her investigation of Powell tied to cost overruns on a Federal Reserve renovation, though she would “not hesitate to restart” it “should the facts warrant doing so.” With Democrats calling Warsh a “sock puppet” for Trump’s demanded interest rate cuts, Tillis’ opposition had “created an insurmountable deadlock” on the narrowly divided Banking Committee, The New York Times said.

What next?

The Banking Committee has scheduled a Wednesday vote on Warsh’s nomination, potentially advancing it to a full Senate vote before Powell’s chairmanship expires May 15. Powell can remain on the Fed Board of Governors through 2028, and Tillis said he suspected he would do so until the investigation is “fully settled,” which could be “a lengthy process.”

What happened

The gunman accused of trying to charge into the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner on Saturday night appears to have “set out to target folks who work in the administration, likely including the president,” acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said over the weekend. Law enforcement officials said they are trying to determine the assailant’s motive, but he was believed to have acted alone.

The suspect, identified as 31-year-old Cole Tomas Allen of California, was tackled after sprinting through a security checkpoint at the Washington Hilton carrying a handgun, a shotgun and knives, police said. A Secret Service agent was shot but protected by a bulletproof vest.

Who said what

After popping sounds were heard outside the ballroom during the salad course, Secret Service agents swarmed in, ushering President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance and top Cabinet officials to safety as most guests ducked for cover. The gunman “barely breached the perimeter,” Blanche told CNN, calling it a “massive security success story.”

At a White House press conference after the shooting, Trump “was unusually conciliatory,” The Associated Press said. But he “flashed a familiar anger” during a “60 Minutes” interview on Sunday, when Norah O’Donnell read from a manifesto Allen reportedly sent relatives before the attack, even though it did not mention Trump by name, Politico said. “I’m not a rapist,” and “I’m not a pedophile,” Trump said. “You shouldn’t be reading that on ‘60 Minutes,’ you’re a disgrace.”

What next?

Allen is scheduled to be arraigned in federal court Monday on preliminary charges of assaulting a federal officer and weapons charges.

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

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

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

What did the commentators say?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What next?

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

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

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

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

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

“Samantha Niblett’s Summer of Sex.” It sounds like something the police would have shut down in the “grubbiest era of Soho peep shows”, said Madeline Grant in The Spectator. But it is, in fact – “just as the world teeters on the brink of geopolitical collapse” – an “actual initiative” announced by a Labour MP last week.

Awash with sex

Niblett, the “dignity-phobic” member for South Derbyshire, said she wants to encourage “open, inclusive, lifelong sex education”, and have a “national conversation” about pleasure, including the benefits of masturbation. As part of her “Summer of Sex” scheme (launched with the appallingly ungrammatical tagline: “Yes Sex Please, We’re British!”) she has teamed up with Cindy Gallop, the founder of an adult website. Together, they’re planning a series of events, including a sex toy exhibition in Parliament. Really? Is there “literally no area of life” that’s safe from “government intervention”?

Fifty-odd years ago, when people thought you could “lose your virginity by riding a bicycle”, this sort of campaign might have had its place, said Shane Watson in The Times. “But, my goodness, where have you been, Niblett?” You can’t move for people talking about sex these days: the world is awash with porn and sex toys; it’s hard to switch on the TV without seeing a sex scene.

Noble stand

Maybe so, said Rowan Pelling in The Daily Telegraph, but I still think Niblett is taking a “noble stand”. She believes, surely rightly, that issues such as consent and sexual abuse are still not well enough understood. And she and Gallop are in fact campaigning against the warping effects of hardcore porn. (Gallop’s website is called Make Love Not Porn.)

I agree that people’s attitudes need a reset, said Hadley Freeman in The Sunday Times: the rising prevalence of choking, hair-pulling and “other abusive behaviours that porn dresses up as sexy” proves this. But Britain doesn’t need more sexual liberation, sex toys or online porn, even if it’s “ethical” porn.

Niblett should be teaching people – especially those who grew up with internet porn – that sex shouldn’t be degrading; it’s about intimacy and understanding other people. Understand that, and they will have “many happy summers – and years – of sex”.

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

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

Lure of independence

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

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

‘Political panto’

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

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

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

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

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

What did the commentators say?

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

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

What next?

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

What happened

The Justice Department on Thursday reclassified marijuana as a less-dangerous Schedule III drug for medicinal and research uses, effective immediately. The order aligns federal policy more closely with the 48 states that allow some form of medical marijuana use.

Who said what

The reclassification “will make it easier to study medicinal applications of marijuana and could shore up support from influencers who support the research,” Axios said. President Donald Trump signed an executive order to reclassify cannabis in December and appeared impatient last weekend when signing a separate order to loosen restrictions on psychedelics. “Joe, they’re slow-walking me on rescheduling,” he told podcaster Joe Rogan.

This is “one of the biggest changes to U.S. drug policy in decades,” Reuters said. But after “shares of cannabis companies jumped between 6% and 13% following the decision,” they “reversed their gains” as investors in the $47 billion industry digested the “limited scope of the federal government’s immediate moves.”

What next?

Marijuana for recreational use, as allowed in 24 states and Washington, D.C., remains an illegal Schedule I controlled substance, alongside heroin and LSD. But the Justice Department said it scheduled a June 29 hearing to consider a broader Schedule III reclassification for all cannabis.

What happened

Federal prosecutors in Manhattan on Thursday charged a U.S. special forces soldier with insider trading for allegedly using classified information about the raid on Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro to net $409,000 on the prediction marketplace Polymarket. Army Master Sgt. Gannon Ken Van Dyke placed 13 bets on the U.S. going after Maduro from Dec. 27 until hours before the Jan. 3 raid, which he helped plan and execute, the indictment alleges.

Who said what

The charges are “believed to be the first instance” of the Justice Department “prosecuting a case of insider trading on a prediction market,” ABC News said. The case, alongside other “presciently well-timed wagers around geopolitical events” like the Iran war, has “ignited broad concern” in Washington about using insider information to rig Polymarket and its chief rival, Kalshi, Politico said.

“The whole world unfortunately has become somewhat of a casino,” President Donald Trump said Thursday about government employees using prediction markets. “It is what it is. I’m not happy with any of that stuff.” But prediction markets “love the president’s unpredictability,” The Associated Press said. And Trump “seems to be a big fan, applying a light regulatory touch” and suing states “trying to ban prediction markets.” The Trump Organization is working to open its own prediction market, and Donald Trump Jr. is a Polymarket investor and a Kalshi adviser.

What next?

If convicted, Van Dyke faces many years in prison. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission also filed a parallel civil lawsuit seeking full restitution and penalties.

Investors are seeing the “lucrative land” on Britain’s golf courses as increasingly “ripe for redevelopment”, said The Times. And, with one in five golf clubs now estimated to be “financially vulnerable”, pressure is increasing on club owners to abandon their fairways and sell the land to housing developers.

“Rising maintenance, insurance and staffing costs” and “fluctuating” membership numbers have left many golf clubs “struggling to remain viable”, while the land they occupy, often on the edge of towns, is in “acute demand” for housing.

How much land do golf courses take up?

There are roughly 1,800 golf courses in Britain – accounting for over a quarter of the golf courses in Europe. In England alone, they occupy an estimated 270,000 hectares (667,000 acres): an area more than twice the size of Greater Manchester, and around 2% of the country’s total land area.

There is regional density: in Woking, Surrey, more than 10% of the land is taken up by golf courses; in St Andrews, Fife, there are 10 courses, and the London borough of Enfield has seven.

Given the amount of land golf courses occupy and the shortage of affordable homes, there is now a “furious debate” between “fairway and driveway”, said the BBC. The golf courses in Greater London, for example, cover an area the size of the entire borough of Brent, and the “area occupied by a single golfer could provide a home for around 380 people”, said architect Russell Curtis in his “Golf Belt” report.

What are the pros and cons?

“Courses are typically large, low-density sites” on the outskirts of towns, said The Times. Such well located pieces of land are naturally attractive to developers and councils trying to find space for new homes. A number of London courses “are very close to public transport”, Curtis told the BBC, so it “seems reasonable that at least some of those should be turned into housing”.

But it’s not an even picture. In Wales, for example, most courses sit in out‑of‑town or rural locations, and their lack of access makes them less attractive development prospects. Those opposed to this kind of development also point out that golf courses can be valuable havens for biodiversity. “Many courses provide tree cover, habitats for wildlife, pollinator‑friendly environments,” Gavin Anderson, from England Golf, told the BBC. They offer “opportunities for ecological improvement that can exceed what is possible on developed land or open fields”.

What does it mean for golf?

Golf clubs are enjoying mixed fortunes. Sixty have been forced to close in the past decade, said The Golf Business, and the Custodian Golf consultancy estimates that nearly 20% of those still operating are financially at risk.

And yet, membership of English golf clubs, particularly council-owned ones, is on the up – rising from 730,602 in 2024 to 750,071 in 2025, with junior membership growing by more than 34%. The sport’s supporters say this is down to efforts to make golf more inclusive, which would be undermined by mass sell-offs.

Developers buying up golf courses are going to take away the sport’s accessibility, Chris D’Araujo, who is campaigning to save Enderby Golf Course in Leicestershire from redevelopment, told the BBC. “All the private rich clubs, they’re going to still be about, but you are making it less affordable, and taking it away from the masses.”

The Department of Justice is throwing hot charcoal on the meatpacking industry’s grill, as the agency has reportedly opened an antitrust investigation that could have wide-ranging implications for the beef market. The probe, which comes following repeated pressure from President Donald Trump, is happening as beef prices continue to rise, causing consumers to have a negative view of the economy.

What is the investigation about?

The DOJ is looking into whether “large meatpackers that supply American consumers engaged in criminal anticompetitive conduct,” according to The Wall Street Journal, which first reported the investigation. The probe is “looking at all of the major companies that sell beef in the U.S.” Four companies currently control 85% of the country’s beef market share: the U.S.-based Cargill and Tyson Foods, and the Brazilian-owned JBS and National Beef.

The crux of the investigation is whether these companies “reached illegal agreements over how they purchase cattle from ranchers,” said Bloomberg. The Justice Department reportedly believes beef companies could be doing this to cut costs, as “beef processors have been losing money for the last 20 months as they pay producers higher prices for cattle.” The investigation appeared to come at Trump’s behest. The president said in November 2025 he would “order the Justice Department to investigate the meatpacking industry for alleged collusion,” said Axios.

Other food companies, like McDonald’s, have also accused “big beef packers of collusion and price-gouging,” said The Guardian. As of now, the probe remains a noncriminal investigation. None of the companies or their employees “have been accused of any wrongdoing and probes don’t always lead to charges or lawsuits being filed,” said Bloomberg. JBS “isn’t aware of any criminal investigation” and “operates in a highly regulated industry and is committed to complying with all applicable regulations,” a spokesperson for the company told the Journal. Cargill, Tyson Foods and National Beef haven’t commented.

What is the bigger picture?

Questions about the beef industry aren’t new, as ranchers have “long complained about anticompetitive conduct by the four companies,” said Bloomberg. Evidence of consolidation within the beef industry is “reflected in sharply increased spreads between cattle prices and wholesale beef prices,” said a U.S. Department of Agriculture report from 2024, with “stronger evidence of market power in the meatpacking industry.”

But a criminal investigation perhaps beginning “raises the stakes considerably for the companies and their executives, who face the prospect of steep fines and prison time,” said Bloomberg. A prior investigation “into alleged price-fixing during the Covid-19 pandemic closed without action.” The current high beef prices are “driven mostly by structural factors,” Dennis Follmer, the chief investment officer at Montis Financial, told Axios. Consumers “shouldn’t expect near-term relief.”

The prospect of Trump becoming directly involved due to rising prices remains on the table, as the president’s approval rating on the cost of living has been consistently falling throughout 2026. When Trump called for the DOJ to investigate meatpackers in November 2025, the average price of ground beef was $6.54 per pound, up 91 cents year-to-year, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. It has continued rising since then and is currently $6.70 per pound.

What happened

Rep. David Scott (D-Ga.) has died after nearly five decades in elected politics, his office announced Wednesday. The 80-year-old had recently filed to run for a 13th term and voted in the House as recently as Tuesday. Scott’s death widens the Republicans’ narrow majority in Congress ahead of November’s midterms. He was the fifth House member to die in office this Congress; four were Democrats.

Who said what

Scott, the first Black lawmaker to chair the House Agriculture Committee, was “once a leading voice for Democrats” on farm and food aid policy, The Associated Press said, but he “faced criticism and concerns in recent years because of declining health.” In his district, Scott sponsored “annual job and health fairs so popular they almost guaranteed his reelection every two years,” even as “age and physical ailments” limited his visibility, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution said.

What next?

Scott had been facing “strong challenges from well-funded Democrats” in his May primary, the Journal-Constitution said. Under Georgia law, the governor “has 10 days to call a special election to fill Scott’s seat,” with the election held “at least 30 days after that,” The Washington Post said.

What happened

The Pentagon on Wednesday said Navy Secretary John Phelan, a billionaire financier and donor close to President Donald Trump, was leaving “effective immediately,” in what was widely reported to be a firing engineered by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth after months of infighting. Phelan’s abrupt departure came amid an escalating naval standoff between the U.S. and Iran over control of the Strait of Hormuz.

Who said what

After Trump unilaterally extended a tenuous ceasefire, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on Wednesday attacked three cargo ships in the strait, seizing two. “These were not U.S. ships” or “Israeli ships,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Fox News. The news media is “blowing this out of proportion.”

As the Navy’s top civilian leader, Phelan had “no role overseeing deployed forces,” The New York Times said, so his firing “is not likely to have significant implications” for the war. But it’s the latest in Hegseth’s “near-continuous purge of the military’s most senior ranks,” often “with little public explanation,” The Washington Post said.

Hegseth believed Phelan was “moving too slowly” on ramping up shipbuilding and “was also irked by Phelan’s direct communication with Trump,” CNN said. Hegeth was “particularly annoyed” when Phelan “pitched the idea” for a modern “Trump Class” battleship directly to the president, The Wall Street Journal said.

What next?

Navy Undersecretary Hung Cao, a Navy veteran and former GOP congressional candidate in Virginia, is now acting secretary.

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

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

‘Heavy-handed militarism’

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

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

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

An ‘ominous turn’

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

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

What happened

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Tuesday lifted the Pentagon’s longstanding policy requiring flu vaccinations for service members. The vaccines will still be available to military personnel who choose to immunize themselves against the seasonal flu. The new policy poses “no threat to our military readiness,” Hegseth suggested in a video posted on social media.

Who said what

U.S. military vaccination programs “date back to the American Revolution,” said The Associated Press, but they became a “contentious political issue during the coronavirus pandemic.” The Pentagon’s annual flu shot requirement, dating back to the 1950s, has been a “major factor in lower rates of hospitalizations among service members” than the U.S. average, said the Military Times. Hegseth’s announcement “seemed to catch some Republicans in Congress off guard,” The New York Times said. “The reason it was mandatory was to enhance readiness,” Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) told reporters. “You do give up certain rights when you take the oath.”

What next?

U.S. military personnel are “still required to get vaccinations for diseases including measles, mumps and polio,” said the Times. Other immunizations “may be required depending on risk and military occupation.”

What happened

FBI Director Kash Patel filed a $250 million defamation lawsuit on Monday accusing The Atlantic and reporter Sarah Fitzpatrick of publishing a “sweeping, malicious, and defamatory hit piece” designed to destroy his “reputation and drive him from office.” Fitzpatrick, citing more than two dozen unidentified sources, reported last week that Patel was “deeply concerned that his job is in jeopardy” and “has good reasons to think so,” as his “conspicuous inebriation and unexplained absences” have alarmed FBI and Justice Department officials.

Who said what

“We stand by our reporting on Kash Patel” and “will vigorously defend The Atlantic and our journalists against this meritless lawsuit,” the publication said in a statement. As a public figure, Patel will have to prove “actual malice,” a “higher standard than an ordinary citizen” claiming defamation, The New York Times said.

Patel said on social media that meeting that standard would be “a legal layup.” But his complaint doesn’t “even hit the backboard,” First Amendment lawyer Adam Steinbaugh said on X. But it “has all the markings” of the Trump administration “playbook” of filing lawsuits “meant to silence dissent by driving up the cost of speaking,” Steinbaugh said in a separate statement.

What next?

If Patel’s suit isn’t “tossed out” before trial, CNN said, he “could be required to answer questions under oath about the alleged behavior” in the discovery process.

What happened

Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer is leaving the Trump administration “to take a position in the private sector,” the White House announced Monday. She had been under scrutiny for months over a series of workplace misconduct allegations. Unlike the recent ousters of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Attorney General Pam Bondi, Chavez-DeRemer’s exit “was announced by a White House aide,” not President Donald Trump, The Associated Press said.

Who said what

The Labor Department inspector general opened an investigation in January into allegations that Chavez-DeRemer was having an affair with a security staffer, often “drank on the job” and “concocted official events to facilitate her personal travel plans,” Politico said. The White House and Labor Department initially called the claims baseless, but the “official denials got less full-throated as more allegations emerged,” the AP said.

Among the “embarrassing details” likely to emerge in a pending inspector general’s report, The New York Times said, were text messages sent to “younger female staffers” with “inappropriate requests” from Chavez-DeRemer, her husband and her father. “The text messages were the final straw,” a Republican close to the White House told Politico. “I think the secretary demonstrated a lot of wisdom in resigning,” Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) told reporters.

What next?

Deputy Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling will take over as acting secretary. Sonderling, a “longtime ally of business leaders,” had “already been directing policy and personnel-related decision-making in Washington” as Chavez-Remer spent much of her tenure “on the road,” The Washington Post said.

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

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

What did the commentators say?

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

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

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

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

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

What next?

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

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

Former fighter pilot Rumen Radev led his party into Bulgaria’s parliamentary election promising to take on the “corrupt officials, conspirators and extremists” he claimed had run the country into the ground.

Voters responded on Sunday by handing his newly formed Progressive Bulgaria (PB) coalition the “single biggest vote haul in a ‌generation”, which “paves the way for greater political stability after eight elections in five years”, said Reuters.

“This is a victory of hope over mistrust, a victory of freedom over fear,” the 62-year-old Radev said after his landslide victory. Bulgarians had “rejected the complacency and arrogance of the old parties and did not succumb to lies and manipulation”.

Corruption crusader

Radev rose through the ranks of the Bulgarian air force to become a major general and finally head of the service. A relative latecomer to politics, he was elected to the largely ceremonial role of president in 2016. He held the position for nine years, keeping himself above the chaos and corruption scandals that have dominated Bulgarian politics in recent years.

In January he resigned, forming his new PB movement to run in the election after massive anti-corruption protests brought down the previous government. On Sunday he won just under 45% of the vote, giving Bulgaria its first parliamentary majority in nearly 30 years.

The “main factors” driving Radev’s victory were “deep frustration over years of futile anti-corruption efforts, concern over rising prices… and a potent mix of pro-Russian sentiment”, said Atanas Rusev, from the Center for the Study of Democracy in Sofia. “Radev played astutely on all these anxieties.”

The result “raises expectations of an end to the country’s cycle of short-lived coalition governments”, said Deutsche Welle. Radev had pledged to “crack down on corruption, tackle inflation and pursue a more independent foreign policy within the EU – one that does not exclude dialogue with Russia”.

EU tightrope

A Radev-led government is “bad news for Ukraine and would represent a significant win for Russia”, said Jan Surotchak on the Atlantic Council think tank. In the short term, his victory will “likely mean an end to Bulgarian ammunition supplies to Ukraine, forcing Nato to seek other sources”. The US-backed northern corridor for energy supplies to Eastern Europe could also “lose out in favour of Turk Stream, the last major energy pipeline bringing Russian gas to Europe”.

Radev’s winning message has been a “cocktail of anti-corruption pledges, Euro-scepticism and pledges to rebuild ties with Moscow, spooking some EU and Nato diplomats”, said the Financial Times. But “while his outreach to Russia may be symbolically valuable to the Kremlin, it is likely to be far less consequential in practice” than the recently deposed Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán, who “routinely vetoed EU decisions in order to benefit Moscow”.

“Unlike in Hungary the political cleavage here between the anti-corruption platform and the anti-Russia platform is wide, so those two messages won’t reinforce each other in quite the same seismic way,” said Vessela Tcherneva, from the European Council on Foreign Relations.

“Maintaining a strategic ambiguity towards Russia and the EU” while focusing on his anti-corruption message helped Radev secure an absolute majority, winning votes from both the far-right and progressives, said The Guardian. This may bring the country “political stability” but “leave it walking a tightrope on EU issues”.

Keir Starmer is to address the Commons this afternoon over the appointment of Peter Mandelson as ambassador to the US, after it emerged that the Labour grandee was approved by the Foreign Office despite failing internal vetting.

Following an internal fact-finding review, No. 10 are said to be “confident it will show he was kept in the dark over the details of the process until Tuesday night and therefore did not mislead Parliament”, said The i Paper.

What happened?

Mandelson, a Labour veteran, has been a central figure in the party since the 1980s. He played a key role in New Labour and the 1997 landslide election victory, was MP for Hartlepool and held ministerial positions but was twice forced to resign.

Keir Starmer appointed Mandelson as the UK’s ambassador in Washington in December 2024, but he was sacked last September, after Downing Street said new information about the extent of his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein had emerged.

But it’s since transpired that in January 2025 he had failed a “developed” security vetting carried out by UK Security Vetting (UKSV), a division of the Cabinet Office. The decision to overrule the UKSV was made by the Foreign Office without Downing Street’s knowledge, according to reports.

Civil servants at the Foreign Office were able to override security warnings by deploying a rarely used, high-level authority to grant clearance despite a recommendation to deny it. According to The Guardian, they acted on the understanding that the prime minister wanted the appointment to proceed.

Did Starmer know?

The so-called Mandelson files released so far show that Starmer was warned of the reputational dangers of the appointment, but there was no mention in any documents that Mandelson did not pass the security vetting process. More files are yet to be released.

At least two senior civil servants knew several weeks ago that Mandelson had failed security vetting for his US ambassador role, according to Sky News. A Cabinet Office spokesperson said that they didn’t pass the information to Starmer because they were waiting for legal checks on what information could be released.

Starmer said he was “absolutely furious” that he wasn’t made aware that Mandelson had failed the security vetting and described the situation as “completely unacceptable”. He insisted that he would have reversed the appointment had he known. Beth Rigby, Sky News’ political editor, said that although the PM is “normally not one to show emotion”, he was “near apoplectic”.

Who else knew?

The Foreign Office’s top civil servant, Olly Robbins, was “one of the few people who knew the true outcome of the vetting process”, said The Telegraph. He discovered this in January 2025 but decided to override the recommendation not to approve the peer for the US ambassador role, although he is thought to have “harboured private concerns about the appointment”. Robbins was sacked on Thursday after the revelations became public, and is said to be considering taking legal action.

As the Foreign Secretary, David Lammy had to formally give approval for Mandelson, to be given the go-ahead, but did so against his own wishes and was apparently unaware of the failed vetting, said the broadsheet. Allies of the foreign secretary, Yvette Cooper, said she did not find out until the story broke on Thursday, two days after the PM found out.

More than a quarter of women under 25 hold a negative view of men, according to a recent poll for The New Statesman, revealing what the magazine calls a “new radicalism”. This is seen as a challenge to the “prevailing narrative” that it is radicalised young men who are driving the so-called gender wars.

A “growing army” of female influencers broadly referred to as the femosphere is “urging” women to adopt a more cynical mindset when it comes to the opposite sex, “ditch their romantic delusions” and “be more aggressive in the dating game”, said Sarah Ditum in The Times.

What is the femosphere?

The term comes from the concept of the manosphere – a loose, online-based community of social media accounts, forums, blogs and podcasts that promote a view of “traditional masculinity”, with men in a dominant role and women subservient. “United in a belief that men are victims in a society that is designed for the benefit of women”, many of these spaces are “overflowing with rage”, said James Bloodworth in The Times.

The femosphere is a reaction to this with a message that “men are inherently selfish” and “only interested in one thing”, said Ditum. Manosphere terminology is gender-flipped: instead of “taking the red pill” (embracing the belief that society does not value men), the “pink-pill philosophy” encourages women to break with the egalitarian conventions of liberal feminism and see men as the “problem sex”.

What does that mean in practice?

Femosphere philosophy urges women to avoid casual relationships with men and to “adopt a more emotionally distant, calculated approach” to dating, said NBC News. Some of its content “frames” relationships as something to “win,” and advises followers to be “selective, guarded, and, at times, intentionally aloof”.

Mirroring the “pick-up artists” of the manosphere – those who offer manipulative strategies to persuade women to engage in sexual relationships – the femosphere has its “female dating strategists”, said The Guardian. Among them are the so-called “dark feminine” influencers who “encourage women to find men to support them financially” by cynically deploying behaviours associated with traditional femininity.

The appeal is understandable, feminist theorist Dr Sophie Lewis told the newspaper. The promise of liberal feminism that women could “have it all” has left many “saddled with both productive and reproductive labour”. The femosphere offers liberation from the “double shift”.

Is it a bad thing?

Femosphere influencers claim the movement is about “empowerment” of women rather than hatred of men, said NBC News. They see themselves as “pushing back against dating norms that have historically disadvantaged women” with a mindset that “encourages self-worth, boundaries, and higher standards in relationships”. But critics say it risks “turning dating into a transactional or manipulative experience”, where “authenticity” takes a “back seat to strategy”.

The “overarching belief” of the femosphere is the same as that of the manosphere, said The Guardian: “life is about survival of the fittest”. Men “will always hurt women and that will never change”, so “strategies are needed to conquer the opposite gender”.

The world is reeling from a war-induced oil shock, and China is poised to take advantage. The country builds nearly every component of the 21st-century electrical grid that will be needed to replace the oil currently bottled up in the Strait of Hormuz.

European and Asian countries facing oil shortages are realizing that “all paths to renewable power run through China and its exporters,” said The New York Times. Beijing has for decades “poured hundreds of billions of dollars into green energy” in its drive for energy independence, and its companies lead the world in producing solar panels, batteries and other equipment. The U.S. war against Iran will “catalyze even more investment and interest in renewables,” said Cory Combs, of analysis firm Trivium China, to the outlet. If Russia and Middle Eastern countries that produce the world’s oil are known as petrostates, China might be the world’s first electrostate.

“Consumers and governments around the world” are realizing their energy supplies are at the “mercy of wars and chokepoints,” said The Wall Street Journal. South Korea’s future “will be at serious risk if we continue to rely on fossil fuels,” President Lee Jae-Myung said to a town hall in March. Many are finding the answer in turning to China’s wind and solar power production, “even if that means more dependence on a single country.”

What did the commentators say?

The U.S. is pushing an “energy-hungry world” into China’s arms, Paul Krugman said on his Substack. President Donald Trump has been attempting to “stop the renewable energy revolution,” but he cannot because the “economics and the science are compelling.” What he can do is “ensure that the revolution passes us by.” His “debacle in Iran” may bring that future ahead of schedule, led by China. The U.S. may someday escape “Trump’s fossil fuel obsession,” but by that time “China’s lead in the manufacture of renewables will probably be insurmountable.”

There will be a “long-term psychological impact” from the Iran war, economist Andy Xie said at The South China Morning Post. The United States and Israel have been in conflict with Iran for nearly half a century, and a ceasefire now will not change the underlying dynamic. Other countries will expect more oil shocks in the future, which will “shape national policies for many years.” The upside: Reducing reliance on oil will take away incentive to wage war against countries like Iran. “Renewable energy makes the world safer.”

What next?

China is inaugurating the “electrostate era,” said Foreign Policy. Beijing spent recent decades plotting an energy strategy “designed precisely for moments like this.” Nearly a third of the country’s energy consumption comes from electricity, and “more than half of the cars sold in China are electric.” That has been the result of policies concerned less with reducing carbon emissions and more with energy independence. Beijing will not entirely avoid the consequences of the current oil shock, but the “push to become an electrostate” will reduce the pain.

What happened

The California Supreme Court on Wednesday ordered lawyer John Eastman, a key architect of President Donald Trump’s failed effort to overturn his 2020 election loss, to be stripped of his law license and “stricken from the roll of attorneys.” The ruling upheld a 2024 State Bar Court decision to disbar Eastman for concocting strategies to submit fake Trump electors and push Vice President Mike Pence to block Joe Biden’s victory in Congress on Jan. 6, 2021.

Who said what

Eastman “remains one of the highest-profile figures in Trump’s orbit to face enduring consequences” for participating in his 2020 election schemes, culminating in the Jan. 6 attack, Politico said. Although he only lost his license to practice law in California, disbarment decisions are “typically adopted by authorities in other jurisdictions.” State bars “across the country have been trying to seek accountability” against Eastman and other lawyers involved in trying to subvert the election, The New York Times said. Rudy Giuliani was disbarred in New York and Washington, D.C., in 2024, and Jeffrey Clark’s D.C. 2025 disbarment is tied up in appeals.

What next?

Eastman’s legal team said they would appeal his disbarment to the U.S. Supreme Court on First Amendment grounds.

Confusion reigns over whether there will be further direct talks between Lebanon and Israel.

Galia Gamliel, a member of Israel’s security cabinet, announced that Benjamin Netanyahu would be speaking to Lebanon’s President Joseph Aoun today, following historic talks earlier this week.

However, a spokesperson for Aoun said they were “not aware of any call” taking place between Aoun and the Israeli prime minister. Aoun did confirm that a ceasefire is the “natural starting point for direct negotiations”, and called the withdrawal of Israeli troops from the country an “essential step towards consolidating” such a ceasefire.

As Israeli air strikes destroyed the last remaining bridge connecting southern Lebanon to the rest of the country, and civilians continue to flee their homes, diplomatic talks appear somewhat hopeless as Israel’s aims remain unclear.

What did the commentators say?

It is “hard to imagine much change resulting from the meeting” between Israeli and Lebanese officials in Washington on Tuesday, said The Economist. As things stand, Israel has an “overwhelming military advantage”, and Netanyahu has demanded Lebanon presents a “comprehensive plan for disarming Hezbollah” and “establishing diplomatic relations between the two countries”.

But the Lebanese government is “too weak” to disarm the militant group and has faced “thinly veiled threats of a violent coup” should it try. Even if Beirut were able to strive for “political consensus” in its “deeply fractured society”, it is “unlikely” Netanyahu would “give them the necessary time” to capitalise on it.

For most countries affected by war, ceasefires are a “welcome development”, but for Israel’s “maximalist” leaders, they are often “seen as getting in the way of efforts to finish the job”, said Mairav Zonszein in The New York Times. Just as the ceasefire was announced, the Israel Defense Forces hit 100 Lebanese targets in 10 minutes, killing 350 and wounding “well over 1,000, many of them civilians”. War, as seen in Gaza and now Lebanon, is “increasingly the state’s go-to response to geopolitical challenges – not just the strategy but the norm”.

Israelis’ problem is that their “definition of victory” is “framed by a distorted reality” that threats “can and must be eliminated through invasion and occupation”. The media rarely provides an insight into civilian casualties, and practically no one in the domestic political landscape is challenging the country’s tendency to “treat war as a tool of first resort in statecraft”. This could end badly for all sides involved: “when war becomes the norm, everyone loses”.

“Israel’s primary goal is simple: weaken Hezbollah,” said Daniel Byman from the Center for Strategic & International Studies. Its ongoing campaign against the group displays a “familiar but intensified strategic objective”: that of “mowing the grass”; so “not the elimination of Hezbollah, but its sustained degradation”.

Yet there are “enduring risks” with this strategy. Even a wounded Hezbollah can disrupt life in northern Israel and “escalate unpredictably”. “Ultimately, Israel appears to accept that the conflict with Hezbollah will persist as a recurring feature of the region’s security landscape.”

For Netanyahu himself, the “rhetoric about the war on Lebanon is simple”, said Ori Goldberg on Al Jazeera. He wants to be the leader who “emerged as clearly and absolutely triumphant” from the “longest war in Israeli history”.

After alienating much of the Western world – except for his closest ally Donald Trump – it seems removing Hezbollah is his “only remaining opportunity to claim victory” on the world stage and secure a legacy. In the region, and on the domestic front, tackling the “fictitious invasion” by Hezbollah is the “only political promise Netanyahu hopes he can fulfil for future voters” in the elections expected this autumn.

What next?

Though these talks should be welcomed, “significant hurdles remain”, said Bilal Y. Saab from Chatham House. Given the “deeply rooted” Hezbollah problem, both sides need to take “more concrete action”.

In order to preserve ties with the Lebanese government, Israel must “avoid further attacks on state infrastructure”, particularly in Beirut, to destroy Hezbollah’s “narrative of resistance”. The Lebanese government’s focus, however, is internal. It should consider “expelling Hezbollah ministers from the cabinet”, confiscate arms, “outlaw all of Hezbollah’s financial activities” and “arrest anyone endangering civil peace”.

There are hopes this would lead to a formal peace deal. “It’s a long and winding road, but there’s no better alternative.”

Democrats are ready to be done with Donald Trump’s presidency. Trump’s critics are starting to talk more openly about removing him from office, using impeachment or the 25th Amendment. They assert that his recent social media tirades against Iran and Pope Leo reveal he is unfit for office.

Democrats in Congress mostly “steered clear of threatening impeachment” since Trump’s return to the White House, said The New York Times. The president’s threat last week to wipe out Iranian civilization “dramatically” shifted their calculations, spurring dozens of “formerly hesitant” House Democrats to back articles of impeachment. Trump “seems to be taking us on a path to mass war crimes,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said on X. The president’s recent “erratic behavior and extreme comments” have “turbocharged” discussion of his mental fitness, said the Times. The challenge: Removal efforts are “doomed to fail so long as Republicans control Congress,” said The Associated Press.

What did the commentators say?

The “fate of the Earth depends” on Trump’s removal from office, Will Bunch said at The Philadelphia Inquirer. The president’s growing list of “embarrassingly profane and unspeakably evil” social media posts demonstrates that he is “mentally and physically deteriorating,” a danger given his command of the “planet’s largest air force and a large cache of nuclear weapons.” The threat is too urgent to wait for Democrats to win control of Congress in November. Americans should join a May 1 general strike called for by the organizers of the “No Kings” protests to make their feelings clear. “It is a time for action.”

Democrats’ talk of impeachment “plays into Iran’s hand,” Peter Lucas said at The Boston Herald. Despite his words, Trump “will not end civilization in Iran.” But he will end Iran’s attempt to develop its own nuclear weapon. Democrats are looking for an excuse to “impeach him anyway if they gain control of the House in November.” They should instead acknowledge that Trump “saved the day” by taking action against Iran.

The 25th Amendment is “having a moment,” Ian Millhiser said at Vox, but it is unlikely to be used against this president. The constitutional provision would allow the White House cabinet to “temporarily prevent Trump from acting as president,” but the process is designed to replace an executive who is “physically or mentally incapacitated” rather than one who is “merely bad at being president.” Other democracies make it easier to remove an “incompetent, unfit or unpopular leader.” The United States should join their ranks.

What next?

Democratic leaders are trying to “shut down” impeachment talk, said Axios. That is not the “best use of our time” given that the effort would inevitably fall short, Rep. Madeleine Dean (D-Pa.) said to the outlet. Dean and other senior Democrats want the party’s focus to be on “concrete issues like the war in Iran and affordability” as midterm elections approach, said Axios. An impeachment that fails to remove Trump, said Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.), “is worse than no impeachment at all.”

What happened

President Donald Trump on Monday deleted from his social media account an apparently AI-generated image showing him dressed like Jesus and healing a man with orbs of light in his hands amid a panoply of religious and patriotic imagery. Following sharp condemnation, including from conservative Christian supporters, Trump told reporters he had posted the image but “thought it was me as a doctor,” and “only the fake news” would claim he was depicting himself as Jesus.

Who said what

The post’s removal was a “rare retreat” for Trump, who as a rule “does not apologize for doing and saying things that hurt or offend people,” The New York Times said. But the “image depicting himself as a Christ-like figure sparked outrage on the religious right,” angering a group that has “rallied behind Trump” through “two impeachments and three elections,” The Wall Street Journal said.

The image was “OUTRAGEOUS blasphemy,” and Trump needed to “ask for forgiveness from the American people and then from God,” Megan Basham, an evangelical Christian writer at The Daily Wire, said on X. Conservative Christian commentator Rod Dreher told the Journal that Trump is “radiating the spirit of Antichrist, no question.”

What next?

The “consternation over Trump’s social-media posts,” including his “pointed criticism of Pope Leo XIV,” could “turn into a political liability for Republicans,” the Journal said. Catholics “are America’s largest swing religious vote,” Axios said, “and Trump’s support among them was already sliding” before his posts.

What happened

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Liberal Party secured a majority in Parliament on Monday after winning three special elections to fill vacant seats. The party last year fell short of the 172 seats needed for a majority in the House of Commons. But following five defections from opposition parties in the past five months and last night’s victories, the Liberals now hold 174 seats, allowing them to legislate without other parties and keeping Carney in office through at least 2029.

Who said what

Carney’s election win last year was “fueled by public anger over President Donald Trump’s annexation threats” and trade war, The Associated Press said. With his new majority, Carney will have “broader latitude with his legislative agenda, which is focused on reducing Canada’s dependency on the United States,” The New York Times said. “No modern majority government in Ottawa has ever been built” through defections before, Politico said, and while opposition parties keep “hammering Carney over high grocery prices” and a “nationwide housing shortage, ‘Carneymania’ continues to sweep the nation.”

What next?

Now that he has a majority, it’s “important for Carney to actually deliver,” McGill University politics professor Daniel Béland told The Wall Street Journal. The “first move of Carney’s majority government,” Politico said, will “be to announce relief for Canadian consumers facing skyrocketing gas and diesel prices” from Trump’s Iran war.

What happened

Reps. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif) and Tony Gonzales (R-Texas) separately said Monday they will resign from Congress as both face House investigations into alleged sexual misconduct and growing calls to quit or face expulsion. Swalwell ended his campaign for California governor over the weekend after an unidentified former aide accused him of sexual assault and three other women said he had sexually harassed them. Gonzales dropped his reelection bid in March after admitting to a coercive relationship with a staffer who later died by suicide.

Who said what

The House Ethics Committee, which was already investigating Gonzales for violating rules prohibiting sexual relationships with subordinates, announced Monday it had opened an investigation into Swalwell. The Manhattan district attorney is also investigating the assault allegation, which Swalwell denied while apologizing for other past “mistakes in judgment.”

Ethics Committee investigations can take months, and House leaders had been “facing loud demands to hold votes to kick out Swalwell and Gonzales” after the House returned from recess Tuesday, The Wall Street Journal said. “Lawmakers had coalesced around the idea of an even trade — one Democrat for one Republican — to spread the ignominy across both parties and preserve the fragile balance of power” in the GOP-led House.

“Expelling anyone in Congress without due process, within days of an allegation being made, is wrong,” Swalwell said on X. “But it’s also wrong for my constituents to have me distracted,” so “I plan to resign my seat.” About an hour later, Gonzales announced that “when Congress returns tomorrow, I will file my retirement from office.”

What next?

Neither lawmaker gave a time frame for his departure. Rep. Teresa Leger Fernandez (D-N.M.) said she would file a motion to expel Gonzales unless he resigned “effective immediately” by 2 p.m. Tuesday.

What happened

First lady Melania Trump on Thursday denounced “unfounded and baseless lies” connecting her with “the disgraceful Jeffrey Epstein,” calling unspecified reports and online images “mean-spirited attempts to defame my reputation.” Addressing reporters at the White House, she also called on Congress to hold a “public hearing specifically centered around the survivors,” allowing those who wish to have their sworn testimony “permanently entered into the congressional record.”

Who said what

The first lady’s “seemingly out-of-the-blue” remarks caught “the White House — and indeed, all of Washington’s political world — by surprise,” The Associated Press said. It was “not clear why she chose to speak out now,” The New York Times said, but her comments are “sure to supercharge” a “scandal” her husband “has been struggling to make go away since last summer.”

The Epstein controversy had been “fading from public discourse amid the war with Iran,” CNN said, and some White House officials were “stunned by the timing of the remarks, which sparked rumors that the first lady was trying to get out ahead of something.” Sources close to Trump insisted she was just “increasingly frustrated by the online chatter.”

What next?

Congressional Democrats and some Republicans welcomed the call to let Epstein’s survivors speak. “We encourage” GOP leaders to “respond to the first lady’s request and schedule a public hearing immediately,” said Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) on social media.

What happened

A federal judge in Washington, D.C., on Thursday threw out Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s revised effort to restrict press access at the Pentagon, saying the Defense Department “cannot simply reinstate an unlawful policy under the guise of taking ‘new’ action.” Suppression of “political speech is the mark of an autocracy, not a democracy,” U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman wrote in his opinion, siding with The New York Times for the second time in a month in its challenge to Hegseth’s restrictions on reporters’ access to Pentagon sources and information.

Who said what

Almost all reporters in the Pentagon press corps walked out in October after Hegseth tied their credentials to an agreement to “publish only information preapproved by Department of Defense channels,” Politico said. Friedman found that unconstitutional in a March 20 ruling, and on Thursday he “voided the key parts of the revised policy,” including banning all unescorted movement through the Pentagon and evicting reporters from their longtime Correspondents’ Corridor offices to an “annex that has yet to be opened.”

“The curtailment of First Amendment rights is dangerous at any time, and even more so in a time of war,” Friedman said. Hegseth is trying to “dictate the information received by the American people” and “control the message” they “hear and see,” he added. “The Constitution demands better. The American public demands better, too.”

What next?

Frieman ordered the Pentagon to “fully restore Times reporters’ access,” The Washington Post said, and to “file a sworn declaration from a department official by April 16 detailing compliance.” A Pentagon spokesperson said the department will appeal the ruling.

President Donald Trump loves raging against the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, regularly chiding the military partnership for alleged financial delinquencies while at the same time boosting the interests of NATO’s primary antagonist, Russia. Now, as the U.S.’s war on Iran continues, NATO’s ostensible neutrality in that conflict has prompted him to renew his threat of leaving the organization altogether. Trump often tries to dictate reality by presidential fiat, but the legal process for leaving NATO is largely out of his hands and in Congress.’ The result is a Trump who’s more constrained on paper but not without a toolbox of other, less absolute options.

Why can’t Trump just leave NATO?

Trump has often threatened to leave the military alliance, but he has his own Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, to thank for the legal inability to do so. In 2023, Congress enacted what “appears to be the first statute prohibiting the president from unilaterally withdrawing from a treaty (specifically, the North Atlantic Treaty),” said the government’s Congressional Research Service in a February 2026 report. This “might be understood as a rejection” of the position that presidents possess “exclusive power over treaty withdrawal.”

The bill ensures presidents cannot exit NATO “without rigorous debate and consideration by the U.S. Congress with the input of the American people,” said co-sponsor Rubio in a statement on Senator Tim Kaine’s site; Kaine (D-Va.) was the amendment’s other sponsor. Before this, any member nation could exit the treaty one year after notifying the U.S., which would then “inform the governments of the other parties of the deposit of each notice of denunciation,” said the NATO charter.

Per the bill, a bipartisan effort for which Rubio partnered with Kaine and others from across the aisle, a president may only exit NATO “by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, provided that two-thirds of the senators present concur or pursuant to an Act of Congress.” This is a virtual impossibility, given the Democrats’ current holdings in the upper chamber.

The 2023 effort was “spurred by worries that Trump, if he returned to power, might try to quit the alliance,” said The Washington Post. Fast forward three years, and Trump “insists he would be able to do it anyway,” said Deutsche Welle.

What can he do then?

While it’s possible a constitutional challenge to Rubio’s 2023 bill would “likely favor the power of a president,” there are still “plenty of ways” Trump could “kneecap” the treaty “without leaving” or complying with the congressional restrictions, said DW. Even without an “official exit,” Trump’s “increasingly hostile stance toward the alliance may leave it weakened,” said CBS News.

If other member nations “can’t trust” that the U.S. will honor the treaty’s Article 5 mutual defense pact, then the alliance is “already broken in the way that matters most,” said political scientist Ian Bremmer on X. As soon as the group’s mutual defense pact is “questioned,” NATO “loses its potency” as a Russian deterrent, said Politico. Trump has, in that respect, “turned doubting NATO into official policy.”

The president is also “considering a plan to punish” some NATO member nations he deemed “unhelpful” during the U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran, said The Wall Street Journal. This would involve relocating some of the 84,000 American troops stationed in Europe and deploying them to “countries that were more supportive,” including Greece, Lithuania, Poland and Romania.

Trump could also withdraw American military assets entirely and shut off funding for NATO operations. Or if he wants to be “very dramatic,” he might even “decide not to staff the position of Supreme Allied Commander Europe,” a post traditionally reserved for American officers, said DW.

The president could “just downgrade our participation,” said Jim Townsend, a former Pentagon official who oversaw Europe and NATO policy, to Politico. He could skip summits, and the secretary of defense “won’t go to defense ministerials.”

With the “language” of its 2023 bill, Congress has “prevented” a “total” and “formal withdrawal from NATO,” said Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) to Politico. But the U.S. could “still be in NATO” with a president grasping “many different levers” so that the country’s impact would nevertheless be “diminished significantly.”

What happened

The Justice Department on Wednesday told the House Oversight Committee that ousted Attorney General Pam Bondi will not honor its bipartisan subpoena to sit for a deposition on her handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files, citing her firing last week. The notification “set off frustration” among lawmakers “clamoring for answers” about why she had not, “in their view, fully complied with the Epstein Files Transparency Act,” USA Today said.

Who said what

Bondi “cannot escape accountability,” Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) said on social media. The subpoena “was for Bondi by name, not by title.” If Bondi “defies the subpoena, we will begin contempt charges,” Rep. Robert Garcia (Calif.), the committee’s top Democrat, said in a statement. “The survivors deserve justice.”

Mace and four other Republicans “joined Democrats to force the subpoena” over the objection of committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.), and lawmakers were “concerned” Bondi “would try to avoid the deposition” even before President Donald Trump fired her, The New York Times said. Comer last month promised to honor the subpoena, but according to sources, he and Bondi “had been quietly working together to avoid the deposition.”

What next?

The committee will contact Bondi’s “personal counsel” about “scheduling her deposition,” a spokesperson said.

Donald Trump’s political rivals have denounced him as an “unhinged madman” and a “dangerous and mentally unbalanced individual” after he directed a string of expletives at the Iranian regime. “Open the F***in’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell!” the US president said on his Truth Social platform .

But Trump is far from the only potty-mouthed politician, and trends suggest that swearing in politics is increasingly going from taboo to mainstream.

‘Profanity seal’

Woodrow Wilson “broke the profanity seal” in 1919, when the then president recalled a time he made a “conspicuous ass of himself”, said Joseph Phillips, a politics lecturer at Cardiff University. “Since then, presidents, their seconds-in-command, and presidential hopefuls have used profanity at least 692 times” – but the vast majority of curse words, 87%, occurred in the last 10 years.

We’ve “come a long way from our shock” at John Major, not knowing he was being recorded, using the word “bastards” while prime minister in 1993, said Robert Crampton in The Times. Although “tough talk is nothing new in politics”, leaders “long avoided flaunting it”, said The Independent. But now, public vulgarity is “in vogue”. During a political rally in 2025, Trump “used profanity at least four times”. J.D. Vance has also sworn publicly, and former vice president Kamala Harris “earned a roar of approval from her audience” last October when she said of the Trump administration that “these mother******* are crazy”.

Members of Congress and the Senate have also sworn as a “volley of vulgarities underscores an ever-coarsening political environment” on social media. Posts that “evoke the strongest emotions are rewarded with the most engagement”.

‘Anti-intellectualism’

There’s a “misguided belief” that “profanity is more ‘honest’ or ‘authentic’ than polite speech”, said Solomon D. Stevens in the Illinois paper the Journal-Courier. This suggests that politicians who swear are “telling it like it is” or “being real”, while those who don’t must be “holding back and not telling the truth”. But “politicians who swear are just politicians who swear. They can lie just as easily as those who don’t swear.”

There’s also “an anti-intellectualism at work”, as politicians who swear imply that those who don’t are “putting on airs”. While some intellectuals can “certainly be pretentious”, “refraining from coarse language” is not in itself a sign of that.

Trump’s “disinhibited language” sounded like a “tantrum”, said Melanie Phillips in The Times. It “suggested that he’d lost self-control because Iran wouldn’t do what he wanted”. Swearing points to an “emotional release and thus a loss of reason”.

The president’s recent profanity also distracted from “the message itself”, said the Deseret News. A “rousing and well-crafted argument” could have “built a compelling case for ousting the country’s ruling regime”, because “when it comes to war, calm self-assurance speaks louder than ranting expletives”.

Politicians aren’t “bawling swear words because they can’t contain their outrage”, said Barton Swaim in The Wall Street Journal. They do it because, “like preteen boys trying to sound tough”, they believe “the odd public expletive enhances their authenticity” and gives them “an air of pugnacity apropos to the moment”. But they are mistaken. “Most Americans still prefer their leaders to talk like grown-ups.”

Nevertheless, Democrats are pushing back against the right, using bad language themselves and embracing more confrontational and crass tactics. They see it as a way to beat Maga at its own game, attempting to “step outside the bounds of the political correctness that Republicans have accused Democrats of establishing”, said The New York Times.

“In the end, cooler heads prevailed – at least for now,” said North America Correspondent Anthony Zurcher on BBC News. After Donald Trump’s threats to launch attacks on Iran that would wipe out the “whole civilisation” in the country, both countries agreed a two-week ceasefire.

The President has since claimed that this could lead to a “Golden Age of the Middle East!!!”, while Vice-President J. D. Vance called the ceasefire a “fragile truce”.

As peace talks are expected to take place in Pakistan, both sides have claimed the ascendancy, though uncertainty surrounding key elements of the agreement, such as the Strait of Hormuz and Iranian nuclear capabilities, have left many sceptical of continued peace.

What did the commentators say?

This ceasefire move is “check, not checkmate”, said Jonathan Sacerdoti in The Spectator. In fact, we shouldn’t even consider this a proper ceasefire; it is merely a “fragile” and “conditional” “pause” in the conflict, which is “already under strain”.

“Beneath the surface, fundamental disagreements persist” in a logistical sense. There has been “no clearly defined start time” and “key uncertainties” remain. The proposed 10-point plan issued by Iran contains “discrepancies” between its Farsi and English versions, “most notably” over the state of uranium enrichment, as well as ambiguity surrounding movement through the Strait of Hormuz. “If this is the Third World War, it is not over.”

“It’s TACO Tuesday!”, said David Charter in The Times, using the Trump Always Chickens Out acronym coined last year during Trump’s “on-off tariff threats”. Even if the ceasefire holds, the US has “left in place a cadre of battle-scarred leaders, no doubt harbouring thoughts of revenge”.

As “king of the ultimatum”, Trump has “played fast and loose in pursuit of his goals”, isolating himself from “shocked” allies, who are now “on their guard” more than ever before. The “reckless” flip-flopping could have “far-reaching consequences for America’s standing in the world”. On the world stage, countries may come to fear America’s “increasingly unpredictable behaviour” more than its “terrifying” military might.

“Both sides have good reason to hope the talks succeed, despite the obstacles,” said The Economist. For the US, the war is “deeply unpopular at home”, and Trump is “keen to have it finished” before his mid-May summit with Xi Jinping in China. “For Iran, renewed fighting would be catastrophic,” with America and Israel expected to continue striking key economic assets. The only outlier may be Israel, which maintained that the ceasefire does not include Lebanon.

“Diplomatic jujitsu” will be required to bridge the gap between the views of a final peace agreement held by Iran and the US, said David E. Sanger in The New York Times. It is hard to imagine that a settlement between the nations could be reached in “two years, much less two weeks”. Neither Trump’s “tactic of escalating his rhetoric to astronomical levels” or the “down-to-the-wire” negotiations have resolved the “fundamental issues that led to the war”. It took the Obama administration two-and-a-half years to negotiate the 2015 nuclear accord – which Trump tore up in 2018 – “and that was in peacetime”. Notwithstanding, “this negotiation will be held under the sword of a possible resumption of hostilities.”

The last-minute ceasefire is “in theory, a victory for real-estate geopolitics”, said Senior Foreign Correspondent Adrian Blomfield in The Telegraph. However, “as any real estate agent knows”, the devil is in the detail, and “closer inspection suggests Mr Trump’s triumph may not be quite as unalloyed as he claims”. Iran’s position is stronger than before the war, and has now “agreed to allow shipping through the chokepoint”, but “on its own terms and has not relinquished its claim to control it”. The country may have agreed to a ceasefire, but its negotiating position, “rhetorically at least, is now more hardline than before the war began”.

What next?

“What is certain is that the clock has been reset yet again,” said Sacerdoti in The Spectator. Providing the ceasefire holds, the “decisive moment” will come in two weeks’ time, when the “temporary pause” ends and the “question of whether it can be extended, or gives way to renewed fighting, will be answered”.

“The talks in Islamabad will be complicated, to say the least,” said The Economist. Significant work needs to be done, as the positions of both sides “could not be further apart”. “If both sides stick to their current positions, the talks could end up at the same impasse they reached just before the war in February.”

If talks were to fail, we would likely see an “uneasy return to the status quo”. Iran would face American sanctions and the continued “threat of further American strikes”, as well as remaining a “menace” in the Gulf region, and have “strong motivation to build a bomb”. “That would be a bad outcome for everyone: a weakened, hostile regime; an impoverished Iran; and a lingering threat to the global economy.”

What happened

Minneapolis officials on Monday released footage from a city-owned security camera that seemingly contradicted the federal government’s initial account of an ICE agent’s nonfatal shooting of Venezuelan immigrant Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis. The Justice Department dropped its felony charges against Sosa-Celis and his roommate Alfredo Aljorna in mid-February. But the “federal government had access to that video within hours of the shooting,” said The New York Times, which first obtained the footage, raising “questions about why it took weeks for the government’s case to fall apart.”

Who said what

The Department of Homeland Security’s initial statement said Sosa-Celis and Aljorna beat the ICE agent “with a shovel or broom” for about three minutes before the officer “fired a defensive shot to save his life.” But the video initially shows Sosa-Celis tossing the shovel aside as the encounter begins. The video then appears to show the agent tackling Aljorna outside their home, scuffling with him for 12 seconds, then firing through the front door after the migrants escape inside, wounding Sosa-Celis in the thigh.

When U.S. Attorney Daniel Rosen moved to drop all charges, DHS said that “sworn testimony” from two officers appeared to contain “untruthful statements.” Federal prosecutors had “felt urgency to file charges” and didn’t watch the video until “almost three weeks” after charging Sosa-Celis and Aljorna, the Times said, citing a Justice Department official. Both spent weeks in jail and their girlfriends were sent to a detention center in Texas.

What next?

ICE said Monday that federal prosecutors are “actively investigating” the “false statements” made by the agents, who “may face termination of employment, as well as potential criminal prosecution.”

What happened

Pope Leo XIV on Sunday celebrated his first Easter as pontiff by urging leaders “who have the power to unleash wars” to instead “choose peace!” President Donald Trump invoked God in obscenity-laced social media posts threatening to bomb all of Iran’s power plants and bridges unless it agreed to open the Strait of Hormuz by Monday evening. Indiscriminate bombing of civilian targets constitutes a war crime.

Who said what

“Time is running out — 48 hours before all Hell will reign down on them. Glory be to GOD!” Trump posted over the weekend. “Open the F--kin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell — JUST WATCH!” the president wrote, adding: “Praise be to Allah.” Trump’s post was “notable” for both its “vulgar language” and “somewhat desperate-sounding tone,” said The New York Times. It “would have stood out on any day, much less on what most Christians consider the holiest day of the year.”

The Vatican has become “alarmed” at the Trump administration’s “invocations of God” to “defend” the Iran war, The Washington Post said. Pope Leo has generally been “careful in his language,” leaving “more overt criticism” to U.S. bishops and “other senior proxies,” but he has “grown blunter in pushing back against suggestions that divine providence supports the use of force or violence.” In his traditional Urbi et Orbi blessing, Leo prayed that “those who have weapons lay them down” and choose a peace not “imposed by force” or the “desire to dominate others,” but through “dialogue.”

Some critics were more direct. Trump “is not a Christian,” former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), a former Trump ally, said on social media over a screenshot of his Easter post. “Everyone in his administration that claims to be a Christian needs to fall on their knees and beg forgiveness from God and stop worshipping the President and intervene in Trump’s madness.”

What next?

Before Trump, no “other recent American president has talked so openly about committing potential war crimes,” the Times said, and his “language and actions could have far-reaching consequences” for the U.S., Iran and the world. A “defiant Iran” responded to Trump’s threats by striking “infrastructure targets in neighboring Gulf Arab countries” and threatening to “restrict another heavily used waterway,” The Associated Press said.

The EU’s longest-serving current head of government has turned his country from a liberal democracy into something quite different. Orbán has been variously described as a populist strongman, an authoritarian capitalist, a “soft autocrat” and a “21st-century dictator”.

He himself announced in 2014 that he was building an “illiberal state”, parting from “Western European dogmas” and learning from Turkey, Russia and China. By then his Fidesz party had already rewritten Hungary’s constitution, modified its electoral system, and packed the courts and other institutions with party loyalists. Orbán's Hungary is seen as an inspiration to the populist Right across Europe and in the US, particularly to Donald Trump.

What is Orbán’s background?

Born in 1963, in a village some 35 miles west of Budapest where his father worked on a collective farm, he went on to study law in Budapest, and political philosophy at Oxford, on a scholarship. A former member of the Young Communists, he became a fierce critic of communist rule, co-founding Fidesz – originally a liberal centre-left youth movement – which demanded free elections and the withdrawal of Soviet troops.

In 1998, he led Fidesz to electoral victory, becoming Europe's youngest prime minister. A year later, Hungary joined Nato. By then, Orbán had already set about transforming Fidesz into a conservative nationalist party; but in 2002, he lost his re-election campaign to a Socialist coalition. According to his biographer, he resolved to return to power and change “the rules of the game” so that he’d never lose again.

How did he do that?

Fidesz was elected in 2010 with 53% of the vote, but quirks of seat distribution gave it a two-thirds majority – giving Orbán, as PM, considerable power to reshape the country. Ahead of the 2014 election, Fidesz passed a new electoral law that cut the number of seats from 386 to 199; districts were redrawn behind closed doors to favour Fidesz's rural strongholds. Voting rights were granted to ethnic Hungarians living in neighbouring countries, who voted over 95% for Fidesz.

He quickly muzzled the free press. In 2010, a new law created a media council with the power to levy heavy fines on outlets for “unbalanced” anti-government reporting. The biggest opposition newspaper, Népszabadság, was bought then shuttered in 2016 by a company linked to one of the PM's allies; TV and radio stations and websites also came under the control of friendly oligarchs. It’s estimated that today, Fidesz directly or indirectly controls 80% to 90% of the media.

Did Hungarians approve of this?

To a large extent, yes. Elections are free, if not fair, in the sense that opposition politicians are allowed to run, and ballots are counted correctly. And Fidesz has won three more general elections since 2010, never gaining less than 49% of the vote. Orbán has tried to unite the nation against perceived enemies, external and internal: refugees, particularly during the 2015 migrant crisis; the EU, with its “oppressive”, “imperial” system; gay people; “globalists” such as George Soros, the Hungarian-born US financier who has funded liberal causes across the world (and who paid for Orbán’s Oxford scholarship); and, more recently, Ukraine.

Orbán portrays Hungary as a “Christian democracy” under continual, existential threat – a canny policy in a country with a long history of foreign domination at the hands of Ottomans, Habsburgs and Soviets. Fidesz ideology is based on the pillars of “God, Nation and Family”: LGBTQ+ rights have been curtailed, and pro-natal tax breaks have been given to incentivise women to have children.

How are his relations with the EU?

Orbán's flouting of democratic norms has meant constant conflict with Brussels. In 2022, the EU parliament passed a symbolic resolution declaring Hungary to be a “hybrid regime of electoral autocracy”. Brussels has frozen billions of euros in EU funding, and has launched legal challenges against laws passed by Fidesz; but has so far stopped short of invoking the “nuclear option” of suspending its voting rights in the European Council. Orbán has continually sought to hobble EU action against Russia, a close ally that provides nuclear technology, and low-priced oil and gas to Hungary.

In February, Orbán used veto powers to block a €90 billion EU aid package to Ukraine, which he blames for disrupting oil supplies, and also claims to view as a military threat. He said this month that Hungarians should “fear the EU more than Russia”.

Why is his rule under threat now?

In the elections on 12 April, Orbán faces a challenge from Tisza, the centre-right opposition party led by Péter Magyar, formerly of Fidesz.

The “Orbán model” relied on delivering rising living standards in return for political dominance; but the economy has stagnated and living standards have declined. Magyar’s politics are not dissimilar to Orbán's, but he paints the PM’s rule as corrupt and “feudalistic” – with some justification. Hungary is often described as a kleptocracy. A circle of oligarchs tied to Orbán dominates the economy and lucrative public contracts. Orbán’s son-in-law is one of Hungary's richest men. A recent scandal concerns György Matolcsy, the former national bank chief, who spent €210 million renovating the bank, and had a deluxe bathroom made for himself, complete with a golden toilet brush. The golden toilet brush has become a symbol of Orbán’s elite.

Will Orbán lose?

Tisza is leading by at least 10 percentage points in independent polls, probably enough to offset Fidesz’s structural advantages. However, while Orbán and Fidesz retain control of much of the media and the machinery of state, the outcome, and the PM’s willingness to accept defeat, are far from certain.

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

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

Notable absences

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

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

Base betrayal

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

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

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

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

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

Miles apart

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

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

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

‘Escalate or talk’

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

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

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

‘The regime is hurting’

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

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

What happened

Environmental Protection Agency chief Lee Zeldin on Thursday said his agency has added microplastics and pharmaceuticals to a draft list of contaminants in drinking water, describing it as a “historic step” for the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a MAHA champion, joined Zeldin at Thursday’s briefing to announce a $144 million initiative to study and measure microplastics in drinking water.

Who said what

“This is a direct response to the concern of millions of Americans, who have long demanded answers about what they and their families are drinking every day,” said Zeldin at the briefing. The EPA is required to update the Contaminant Candidate List every five years under the Safe Drinking Water Act.

Adding microplastics and pharmaceuticals to the list “gives local regulators a tool to evaluate risks in their water supply,” NPR said, but it “doesn’t actually guarantee” research or contaminant limits. In fact, the EPA “rarely moves pollutants off the list” and into regulatory action, The Associated Press said. “I think it’s fair to call this theater,” Katherine O’Brien, an attorney with nonprofit Earthjustice, told NPR, especially as “these very same agencies” are doing “real harm” by “undermining actual legal protections” against toxic chemicals in drinking water and food. “This is an important first step,” Gannon University plastic pollution researcher Sherri Mason told NPR, “and I think we should recognize that.”

What next?

The draft Contaminant Candidate List will be open for public comment for 60 days and is expected to be finalized by mid-November.

What happened

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Thursday forced out Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George. A Pentagon spokesperson gave no reason, saying only that George “will be retiring” as the Army’s top uniformed officer, “effective immediately.” Hegseth also reportedly fired Gen. David Hodne, head of the Army’s new Transformation and Training Command, and Maj. Gen. William Green, chief of the Army Chaplain Corps.

Who said what

With George’s dismissal, Hegseth has “removed most of the leaders of the military services,” The Wall Street Journal said. He has “moved quickly” to reshape the Pentagon, Reuters said, but “firing a general during wartime is nearly without precedent.”

“Senior Army officers reacted with anger and frustration” to George’s abrupt removal, The New York Times said. His tensions with Hegseth were “not rooted in substantive differences” over Army policy, but instead reflected Hegseth’s “long-running grievances with the Army,” his “troubled relationship” with Army Secretary Dan Driscoll and a clash over Hegseth’s “highly unusual” decision to block the promotion of four Army officers, two of whom are Black and two women. George had forged a tight partnership with Driscoll, whom Hegseth “has perceived as a threat” due to his close White House ties, CNN said. “Hegseth can’t fire Driscoll,” an administration official told The Washington Post. “So he’s going to make his life hell.”

What next?

Hegseth was expected to replace George with Gen. Christopher LaNeve, the recently installed Army vice chief of staff and Hegseth’s former top military aide.

What happened

President Donald Trump on Thursday fired Attorney General Pam Bondi, saying in a social media post she would be leaving the Justice Department for an unidentified “much needed and important new job in the private sector.” Trump said Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, his former criminal defense lawyer, would serve as acting attorney general.

Who said what

Bondi’s ouster ends a “tumultuous 14-month tenure” that was largely “defined by her unyielding willingness to respond to Trump’s demands and desire to reshape the Justice Department in his image,” The Washington Post said. She “oversaw the hollowing out” of the department by “firing scores of experienced prosecutors deemed insufficiently loyal to the president.” Bondi also “set out to do Trump’s bidding” by “opening investigations into his political foes,” The Associated Press said.

But Trump became increasingly “incensed that she had not successfully prosecuted a number of his political enemies,” The Wall Street Journal said, and “frustrated she didn’t do more to contain fallout” from the Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking files. “People are going to say it’s Epstein,” a Trump confidante told Axios. But “this was all about his enemies list, and Pam wasn’t getting the indictments.” Trump had “many good reasons” to fire Bondi, Jeffrey Toobin said in an op-ed for The New York Times. “Her failure to serve his need for revenge against his enemies” is the “single bad one.”

What next?

Bondi is expected to leave in 45 days, Axios said. EPA chief Lee Zeldin and Blanche are widely reported to be in the running to replace her. Bondi “did almost everything Donald Trump asked” and “it wasn’t enough,” Politico said, so whoever succeeds her faces a “crucial” question: “How far will you go to avoid Bondi’s fate?”

Almost from the moment she was elected in 2022, Giorgia Meloni, Italy’s first female prime minister, has seemed “in complete control”, said Hannah Roberts on Politico. The working-class girl who grew up in a down-at-heel Roman suburb, and shot to power as leader of the hard-right Brothers of Italy party, had – until last week – been shrouded in “an aura of political invincibility”.

Her centre-right coalition – dominated by her own party in alliance with Matteo Salvini’s populist party, Lega, and the late Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia – has proved the most stable government Italy has had in years. But that invincible aura has now been shattered by her decision to call a referendum on her proposed judicial reforms, a flagship policy she claimed was needed to end supposed political interference by the courts.

The decision backfired spectacularly: in a vote last week that many considered a plebiscite on her leadership, some 54% of Italians opposed the constitutional amendment, which, among other things, would have separated the career paths of judges and public prosecutors, and reconstituted the bodies that oversaw them.

To Meloni’s critics, this proposal was a threat to judicial independence, and Italy’s three largest cities – Rome, Milan and Naples – all convincingly rejected it. In Naples, where the “No” vote received 71% support, dozens of lawyers and judges revelled in her resounding defeat: at the headquarters of the National Magistrates’ Association they sung the famous anti-fascist song “Bella Ciao” as they quaffed champagne. Her defeat has also given the opposition reason to be cheerful: Italy’s “torpid politics suddenly look competitive again”.

‘Spirit of vengeance’

The PM’s big mistake was to politicise the reforms, said Mario Orfeo in La Repubblica (Rome). Italy’s judicial system is in desperate need of overhaul, not least on account of its routine staff shortages and excessively long trials.

Rather than attempting to make it more efficient, however, Meloni was driven by “the spirit of vengeance”. For decades, the Italian Right has raged about the court’s perceived left-wing bias, a rage stoked by the “Mani pulite” (“Clean Hands”) investigations of the 1990s, in which hundreds of politicians were accused of corruption and had to stand down. The outrage grew under the premiership of media mogul Silvio Berlusconi, who had to face dozens of lawsuits over his business dealings, and who damned the judicial system as “a cancer of democracy”.

It’s in that spirit that Meloni and her allies – enraged by judicial rulings that have blocked plans to send asylum seekers to Albania and to build a $13.5 billion bridge to Sicily – approached this referendum. A “parallel Mafia”, is how the justice minister, Carlo Nordio, depicted prosecutors. Italy will be flooded with illegal immigrants and rapists, warned Meloni, if the “Yes” vote loses.

‘Surprisingly clumsy’

Meloni, who has immense political talents, has prospered by being pragmatic and forming viable alliances, said Luzi Bernet in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung (Zürich). But on this occasion she was “surprisingly clumsy”, foolishly assuming that her parliamentary majority would guarantee a simple victory.

But it wasn’t just hubris that led to her defeat, said Christian Rocca on Linkiesta. That “heavy blow” should also be put down to her close relationship with the “radioactive” Donald Trump: in Italy, where fears of rising petrol and electricity prices are rife, Trump’s Iran war is deeply unpopular.

This defeat marks a “major political turning point”, said Le Monde (Paris). Meloni is now weakened: the opposition Democratic Party, the Five Star Movement and the Italian Socialist Party, all smell blood. They are hamstrung, though, by a “glaring lack of leadership”. But a defeat like this will expose the PM to internal attacks and “sow doubt in the ranks”, said Federico Capurso in La Stampa (Turin). So ahead of the 2027 general election, Meloni will have to spend a year “in the trenches”. She may claim nothing has changed: the reality is that “everything has already changed”.

The Iran war follows on the heels of President Donald Trump’s tariffs on allies and threats to take Greenland from NATO partner Denmark. Now, the president is demanding that other countries reopen the Strait of Hormuz closed by the war he launched. And critics say he has transformed the U.S. from the so-called leader of the free world into a rogue superpower that threatens global stability.

Trump has driven “deep and perhaps permanent wedges” between the U.S. and its allies in Europe and Asia, said Robert Kagan at The Atlantic. The Iran war was launched with “no public debate, no vote in Congress” and no consultation with “allies other than Israel.” Europeans must now wonder if the war signals that the president is “more or less likely” to “take similarly bold action on Greenland.” American global leadership survived unpopular wars in Vietnam and Afghanistan. But it may not survive this.

Weaker, lonelier and less effective

The fallout from Iran demonstrates the administration “either didn’t understand how its actions would affect other states or simply didn’t care,” said Stephen M. Walt at Foreign Policy. That leaves “every country in the world” trying to determine how to work with an “increasingly rogue” U.S. For now, its ostensible friends have to weigh whether U.S. power “could be used to harm them either intentionally or inadvertently.”

Every post-Cold War administration has taken on actual “rogue” states, said Matthew Kroenig at The Wall Street Journal. U.S. presidents have waged a “de facto campaign of toppling anti-American dictators” such as Saddam Hussein in Iraq and Moammar Gadhafi in Libya. And Iran is the “biggest prize” on the list. Even if the Islamic regime does not fall under the weight of U.S. attacks, it will be “too weak to pose a serious threat for years to come.” That puts Trump “on the verge of eliminating the world’s rogue states.”

A swaggering superpower “could be a collective asset for the democratic world,” said Hal Brands at Bloomberg. But Trump’s approach could transform the U.S. into an “out-of-control hegemon” at risk of being “weaker, lonelier and less effective than before.” Success in Iran might “create a new Middle East with a U.S.-led coalition at its core,” but failure will serve as a “damaging rebuff of U.S. power.”

Allies look to Beijing

The U.S. “had to do it ourselves” because other countries would not join the “decapitation of Iran,” said Trump in a Wednesday night prime-time address to the nation. The president has threatened to leave NATO over the issue, but there are “few signs that’s happening,” said Politico.

Polling shows residents of Canada, France, Germany and the U.K. now “believe it’s better to depend on China” than the U.S., said Politico. The U.S. “no longer works in partnership” with its old allies, said former Deputy Assistant Secretary Mark Lambert to the outlet, and is “only focused on itself.”

“This is gutter politics,” was Armed Forces Minister Al Carns’ reply when quizzed about the theft. “We’ve got two wars on, one in the Middle East, one in Ukraine, and we’re talking about someone’s phone.”

But like it or not, the theft of Morgan McSweeney’s work phone is a big political issue, said Alex Glover in The Spectator. In October, when he was still Keir Starmer’s chief of staff, McSweeney was walking down a street in Pimlico, phone to his ear, when a man on a bicycle snatched it from his hand and pedalled off with it. Or so McSweeney told the police.

But that phone held text messages to his friend Lord Mandelson, messages that could have cast light on how the latter got to be appointed our US ambassador, and which would now have to be disclosed as part of the inquiry into the Mandelson/Epstein scandal.

Holes in the tale

To many, the theft sounds too convenient to be true. Not to Starmer, though. As he puts it: “The idea that somehow everybody could have seen that some time in the future there would be a request for the phone is, to my mind, a little bit far-fetched.”

I don’t know the exact fate of the “stolen” phone, said Dan Hodges in the Daily Mail, but I know this: “Starmer is lying his posterior off about what happened.” The phone was reported stolen over a month after Mandelson was sacked as ambassador, by which time everyone, Starmer included, knew the huge significance of his chief of staff’s phone messages. Indeed, meetings were held in Downing Street to “game-out” how to proceed should the government be forced, as it now has been, to release documents relating to Mandelson.

Understandable reaction

And there are huge holes in the tale McSweeney told police, said Amy Gibbons in The Daily Telegraph. He did say that it was a “government phone”, but he never mentioned that he worked for Starmer and that it contained sensitive information. He even gave them confusing details about where the theft took place. Amazingly, the stolen phone wasn’t reported to the intelligence services, nor did No. 10 make any attempt to recover it.

I’m confused, said John Crace in The Guardian. For years, right-wing hacks have been going on about London being “a hellscape ... where simply using your phone is an invitation to be mugged”. Yet instead of cutting McSweeney some slack, they’ve convinced themselves that his is “the only phone in London not to have been nicked”.

Not getting details right just after you’ve been mugged is understandable behaviour for anyone in shock, but not in McSweeney’s case it seems. “After all, it’s a well-known fact that men with ginger hair and a beard can’t be trusted.”

The U.S. may soon put proverbial “boots on the ground” in Iran. President Donald Trump is considering an operation to seize Kharg Island, a key oil hub for the Islamic regime, as he tries to bring about the end of the war on terms favorable to the United States.

Kharg could prove an attractive target as Trump seeks to “hobble Iran’s oil industry for leverage in negotiations,” said The Associated Press. But experts say a U.S. attack “would risk American lives” and possibly “still fail to end the war.” Kharg is not far from Iran’s mainland, so the regime “can potentially rain a lot of destruction on the island, if they’re willing to inflict damage on their own infrastructure,” said Michael Eisenstadt of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. American forces will find the island “hard to take,” said Danny Citrinowicz of Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies. “It will be hard to hold.”

Iran will probably respond to a Kharg invasion with “escalating strikes on energy infrastructure across the Middle East,” said Bloomberg. That would create additional turmoil for global oil markets, “where prices have already topped $100 a barrel” because of the war.

What did the commentators say?

Seizing Kharg “could be militarily feasible,” former Gen. Mark Hertling said at The Bulwark. But to what end? The U.S. can “seize terrain, conduct raids” and conduct other military operations with “unmatched precision.” But military campaigns require “alignment between ends, ways and means,” and right now “that alignment is not evident.” If the United States attempts to seize Kharg without a clear understanding of the end goal — regime change, the end of Tehran’s nuclear program or something else — “success will be temporary.” U.S. leaders owe troops a “strategy worthy of the risk we ask of them.”

“There are grounds” to believe that taking Kharg could force Iran’s regime to “capitulate before it implodes,” Marcus Solarz Hendriks said at The Spectator. The country’s economy “cannot limp on without crude oil exports.” A political system should not deflect such economic pain on its people, but the “Islamic Republic is capable.” The regime does not appear amenable to compromise or surrender. Tehran will back down only if “America projects unwavering resolve.” Trump’s path to victory, then, is “through escalation, even if the stakes are immense.”

What next?

Kharg is not the only potential target for U.S. troops. They could also try to reopen the Strait of Hormuz or seize Iran’s nuclear material, said The New York Times. The risks of any of those options “are enormous.” If troops do take the island, they could “be there for a while,” Trump said to the Financial Times.

The Pentagon is preparing for “weeks of ground operations” in Iran, said The Washington Post. That does not mean a final decision has been made. The Defense Department is working to “give the commander-in-chief maximum optionality,” said White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt.

What happened

U.S. District Judge Richard Leon on Tuesday ordered President Donald Trump to stop construction on his massive White House ballroom “unless and until Congress blesses this project.” The U.S. president “is the steward of the White House,” wrote Leon, a George W. Bush appointee. “He is not, however, the owner!”

Who said what

The National Trust for Historic Preservation, which sued Trump in December, is likely to succeed in its challenge because “no statute comes close to giving the president the authority he claims” to radically transform the White House, Leon said in his order. Trump demolished the East Wing last October to build the ballroom.

Leon’s decision, “punctuated by 19 exclamation points,” is the “first meaningful setback to the president’s increasingly audacious efforts to redesign the White House and Washington,” The New York Times said. The $400 million, 89,000-square-foot ballroom is a “passion project” for Trump, Politico said. He “fumed at the ruling,” The Associated Press said, calling Leon “totally wrong” about the need for congressional approval.

What next?

Leon paused his decision for 14 days so the White House could appeal, but warned that “any above-ground construction” in that period “is at risk of being taken down depending on the outcome of this case.”

What happened

The Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected a 2019 Colorado law barring licensed therapists from using “any practice or treatment” to change a child’s “gender expressions” or sexual orientation. The 8-1 ruling, written by Justice Neil Gorsuch, found that the “conversion therapy” ban, as applied to talk therapy, was a “presumptively unconstitutional” and “egregious assault” on First Amendment free speech protections.

Who said what

Every justice but Ketanji Brown Jackson rejected Colorado’s position that its never-enforced law “was not regulating free speech but outlawing substandard medical care — something courts have long allowed,” The Washington Post said. The law “censors speech based on viewpoint,” Gorsuch wrote, and tries to “enforce orthodoxy in thought or speech.”

Jackson warned in her dissent that the ruling could be “catastrophic” for the ability of states to “regulate the provision of medical care in any respect.” Because the court’s “majority plays with fire in this case,” she said, reading from the bench, “I fear that the people of this country will get burned.”

What next?

The Supreme Court sent the case back to the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, but “strongly hinted that the ban would fail” the “more stringent standard of review” Gorsuch laid out in his opinion, SCOTUSBlog said. In other words, CNN said, the “death sentence for the law” will “ultimately be carried about in another court.” About two dozen other states also “ban the discredited practice,” The Associated Press said, and Tuesday’s ruling is “expected to eventually make” those laws “unenforceable” as well.

What happened

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) on Monday signed legislation renaming Palm Beach International Airport as President Donald J. Trump International Airport. Florida Republicans — who recently named the road leading to the airport President Donald J. Trump Blvd. — said they were honoring the first president to claim Florida as his residence.

Who said what

DeSantis “signed the law in private, with little fanfare — an unusual move for the governor,” The New York Times said. But other Florida Republicans “were quick to celebrate” the “massive — and costly — rebranding,” Politico said. Florida Democrats pointed to the estimated $5 million cost to rename the airport, saying Florida taxpayer money was “being misused to celebrate the man who caused gas prices to rise to over $4 a gallon.”

The Palm Beach airport is the “latest in a series of buildings, institutions, government programs, warships and money” affixed with Trump’s name, Reuters said. The Trump Organization filed a trademark application in February for “President Donald J. Trump International Airport,” but later said it wouldn’t claim any money from the rebrand.

What next?

The airport name change goes into effect July 1, subject to administrative changes from the Federal Aviation Administration.