What happened

President Donald Trump’s handpicked Kennedy Center board voted Thursday to add his name back to the building’s facade and follow through with his plan to close most of the center for two years of renovations. This apparent “attempt to find a creative workaround” to the federal law governing the Kennedy Center also “aggressively” tests U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper’s May ruling that blocked the center’s closure and ordered Trump’s name removed, The New York Times said.

Who said what

The board decided the center’s facade would now read “The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts Restored and Renovated By President Donald J. Trump,” and its grounds would be renamed “President Donald J. Trump Plaza,” according to Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio), the ex-officio board member who successfully sued to get Trump’s name excised. The new decisions are a “transparent effort to circumvent the court’s ruling,” Beatty said in a statement.

The Kennedy Center has become an “unlikely — and highly visible — metaphor for presidential power” in Trump’s second term, The Associated Press said. His name was removed in June, but a “massive tarp” has shielded the court-ordered void from public view. Board member and longtime Trump ally Paolo Zampolli told the Times his goal was to reinscribe Trump’s name “as big as it can get.”

What next?

As with the Kennedy Center’s prior legal issues, the board’s decisions will be subject to Cooper’s approval.

What happened

The Department of Homeland Security secretly surveilled and infiltrated labor unions and progressive groups during ICE’s surge in Minnesota, beginning four days after an immigration agent killed protester Alex Pretti in January, according to newly released government documents filed Thursday. The filing, from a defense attorney for one of 15 indicted protesters, documents “an array of invasive tactics” used to gather information on “many groups and individuals who were never accused of crimes,” The New York Times said, evidently “crossing the line that has traditionally stood between investigating criminal activity and political dissent.”

Who said what

DHS opened two investigations, according to the filing. “Operation Puppet Master” involved “extensive use of undercover informants” to “probe gatherings at churches,” union halls and other places, Talking Points Memo said, while “Operation Whipple Shield” was a “sweeping campaign to obtain financial records from people and groups organizing against” the ICE surge. The “surveillance reports in particular documented what largely appeared to be political activity protected by the First Amendment,” the Times said.

What next?

“So far, none of the organizations targeted” in the operations “have faced charges,” the Times said. But “prosecutors showed grand jurors a PowerPoint slide asserting that 18 groups — including the AFL-CIO, the country’s largest federation of labor unions — were part of a conspiracy to impede the work of immigration officers,” and the subpoenaed financial records went “well beyond the civil unrest in Minnesota.”

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

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

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

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

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

What did the commentators say?

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

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

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

What next?

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

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

What happened

President Donald Trump was sued in federal court on Wednesday over a new Trump Media offering that sells early access to his social media posts for up to $100,000 per month. The First Amendment “guarantees equal access to the president’s public announcements,” the Freedom of the Press Foundation and The Intercept argued in their suit.

Who said what

“A president selling priority access to news he himself generates for the benefit of a private company he controls” is “blatantly corrupt and unconstitutional,” the Freedom of the Press Foundation said in a statement. Trump owns more than 40% of Trump Media, Truth Social’s parent company.

Trump often uses Truth Social to “announce policy decisions, executive orders, personnel changes and war declarations,” CNN said, and “clearly, the company — and Wall Street — believe the special access holds significant value.” Trump Media on Wednesday called the plaintiffs “left-wing activists” who are “trying to wrongfully weaponize the courts to censor” Trump and “harm our shareholders.”

What next?

Trump Media, which reported a $238 million quarterly loss this week, “needs the money — and a lot more” — and “the clock is ticking,” The Associated Press said. Its lenders can “demand” early repayment of $1 billion in late November, and after Trump leaves office, it’s “not clear” why traders would still “pay as much $1.2 million a year for sneak peeks at his posts.”

What happened

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt “will be departing her role at the end of the month,” President Donald Trump said on social media Wednesday. Leavitt said on X she “made the bittersweet decision to depart the White House” after returning from maternity leave last month and realizing she couldn’t do the job and “be the best mom my two young children deserve.” Trump said it was a “decision I totally understand and respect.”

Who said what

The “youngest White House press secretary in history,” Leavitt has been one of Trump’s “closest advisers” and “fiercest defenders” in his second term, The Wall Street Journal said. She’s leaving “at a critical time for the White House,” The New York Times said, with Trump facing “multiple headwinds, foreign and domestic,” and midterm elections in “which he will need to sell policies” that Leavitt was “among the most effective at defending.”

What next?

“Karoline will now be one of my top outside advisers, and an influential voice within the Republican Party,” Trump said. The White House did not say when he would name Leavitt’s replacement — a position that “does not require Senate confirmation,” said Axios.

What happened

Primaries on Tuesday in Minnesota and Wisconsin offered mixed verdicts for the progressive and establishment wings of the Democratic Party and for candidates endorsed by President Donald Trump. In the most-watched contest, establishment-backed David Crowley eked out a projected win in Wisconsin’s Democratic gubernatorial primary, beating democratic socialist Francesca Hong by less than 1%. He will face Rep. Tom Tiffany (R) in the general election. Michael Alfonso, the Trump-backed son-in-law of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, won the GOP primary for Tiffany’s seat.

Trump-endorsed “MyPillow Guy” Mike Lindell lost Minnesota’s GOP gubernatorial primary to state House Speaker Lisa Demuth. She will face Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D). Minnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan (D), the more progressive candidate in the primary to replace retiring Sen. Tina Smith (D), beat Rep. Angie Craig and will face Republican former sports broadcaster Michele Tafoya.

Who said what

Crowley, the Milwaukee County executive, dropped out of the “chaotic race” in July but “reactivated his campaign” after the “implosion” of two top establishment rivals, CNN said. His “stunningly narrow, surprise win” over Hong “seemed to settle little in the party’s national battle” between establishment and “insurgent, populist” left, The Associated Press said. A week after progressive Abdul El-Sayed beat out his moderate rival by a similarly “razor-thin” margin in Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary, “neither side” appears to be “winning the argument convincingly.”

What next?

In South Carolina, Trump-endorsed Sen. Darline Graham (R) advanced to an Aug. 25 runoff in Tuesday’s special GOP primary to replace her brother, the late Sen. Lindsey Graham, on November’s ballot. She will face hardline conservative Rep. Ralph Norman.

Ann Widdecombe, who has died aged 78, enjoyed a level of prominence in public life that was unusual for a politician whose most senior role in government was as a mid-level minister.

That was partly due to her robust opinions on a range of issues, some informed by her Christian faith – which she never shied away from voicing. It also helped that she was instantly recognisable, said The Times, with her pudding-bowl haircut, no-nonsense manner and rasping voice. In a typically forthright appraisal, she said of herself: “I am toothy, dumpy, ugly, overweight and a spinster – what the hell.”

As a politician, her most significant action was arguably sinking Michael Howard’s leadership bid following the party’s defeat in 1997. The pair had feuded at the Home Office, and Widdecombe got her revenge by giving a speech in Parliament in which she tore into her ex-boss’s character and record; her leaked private comment – that there was “something of the night about him” – followed him for years.

Second career

Yet Widdecombe was a kinder, more sensitive person than her uncompromising “carapace” suggested, said The Guardian. This became more apparent when she retired from front-line politics, and embarked on an unexpected second career as a TV personality. On “Strictly Come Dancing”, she gamely allowed herself to be hauled across the dancefloor like a sack of potatoes; she was a runner-up on “Celebrity Big Brother” in 2018; and she appeared in several pantomimes.

The public learnt that “Widdy” had for years acted as a surrogate mother-figure to the children of a local kebab shop owner, said The Daily Telegraph, and that she had spent thousands to get a nephew off drugs. When, in 2009, the Telegraph published its report about MPs’ expenses, she was singled out as one of the “saints” at Westminster, reinforcing the view that whatever else she was, she was not corruptible.

Westminster controversies

Widdecombe was born in 1947. Her father was a civil servant in the Admiralty Office. Although she was Anglican, she was sent to a Catholic boarding school. She read Latin at Birmingham University, and then PPE at Oxford, where she became involved in student politics and had her only boyfriend: Colin Maltby was president of the Oxford Union. On graduating, she worked first for Unilever, and later as a university administrator.

Widdecombe spent years trying to become a Tory MP, applying to scores of constituencies. She stood twice unsuccessfully before finally being elected MP for Maidstone in 1987; she would represent that part of Kent for 23 years. At Westminster, she soon made her mark with the first in a series of aggressive efforts to restrict access to abortion. She also supported capital punishment, and voted against the repeal of Section 28, the law banning the promotion of homosexuality in schools, and civil partnerships. When the Church of England allowed the ordination of women priests, Widdecombe converted to Catholicism.

As prisons minister from 1995, she made waves by seeming to defend the practice of female prisoners being kept in handcuffs during childbirth. In fact, they were only shackled until they went into labour, and after they’d given birth, but the public was not impressed by the distinction and in the media she was dubbed Doris Karloff. Her row with Howard was over his sacking of the director of the Prison Service, Derek Lewis, which she thought unfair. From 1999 to 2001, she was shadow home secretary.

Having insisted that she’d never leave the Tories, she defected to the Brexit Party in 2019 and later joined Reform UK. Since 2010, she had lived in a bungalow at the edge of Dartmoor that she had named Widdecombe’s Rest. She was found dead there in July with serious injuries; police have opened a murder investigation.

What happened

President Donald Trump left a NATO summit in Turkey last month aboard an alternate military aircraft after publicly boarding Air Force One, then secretly exiting from the plane’s opposite side in an “airport catering truck typically used to load meals and other supplies preflight,” The Washington Post reported Monday, citing U.S. officials and “corroborating material.” The “elaborate deception” to “spirit” Trump out of the region was prompted by a credible “threat against him and Air Force One from Iran,” The New York Times said.

Who said what

The “furtive operation” was apparently “developed in a matter of hours,” the Times said. Reporters flying with Trump were not told of the deception, thereby “making them unwitting participants in the ruse and leaving them, along with some White House staff members, to serve as unknowing decoys.” The journalists and staffers were not “made aware of the extent of the threat on Air Force One,” the Post said.

When reporters asked Trump later why they had been advised to keep their window shades closed on the flight from Ankara to Britain, he said they were “probably on a dangerous flight,” but since he’s Iran’s top target, “if I go, you go.”

What next?

Asked about the reports, White House Communications Director Steven Cheung said “many enemies of America” have “their sights on” Trump and “we use every tool at our disposal to address those threats.”

What happened

Rep. Max Miller (R-Ohio) will remain on the ballot in November after Monday’s state deadline to replace him passed. Allegations that Miller physically and emotionally abused his ex-wife and 2-year-old daughter helped turn what had been a safe Republican district into a competitive race against Democrat Brian Poindexter, a union ironworker. The nonpartisan Cook Political Report on Monday shifted Miller’s 7th Congressional District from “likely Republican” to “toss-up.”

Who said what

Republican officials had “led an intense push” to get Miller out of the race, CNN said. But as it became clear he wouldn’t drop out, members of President Donald Trump’s political team urged Ohio Republicans “not to wage a public pressure campaign” against him, arguing that such “moot” efforts “would complicate messaging” when “those same leaders would likely later have to defend Miller’s candidacy,” said Politico.

What next?

Local Republican leaders in North Carolina’s 11th District on Monday selected state Rep. Jennifer Balkcom to replace Rep. Chuck Edwards, who dropped his reelection bid last week after the House Ethics Committee urged his censure over troubling conduct toward two female aides. Balkcom “will now have roughly 80 days to crisscross” the mountainous district and raise a “crush of cash” to compete against well-funded Democrat Jamie Ager, said The New York Times.

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

What did the commentators say?

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

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

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

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

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

What next?

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

What happened

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi Sunday said a deal with Oman on control of the Strait of Hormuz was in the “final stages,” but that “does not mean reopening the strait” until “conditions” are fulfilled. Iran’s Supreme National Security Council on Saturday said the strait won’t be reopened until the U.S. “corrects its behavior,” permanently ending the war, lifting the naval blockade and sanctions, “unconditionally” unfreezing Tehran’s assets and “completely” compensating it for war damages.

Who said what

Between its leverage over global oil prices, the “diminishing stockpiles” of key U.S. weapons and the war’s deep unpopularity with U.S. voters, “Iran believes it holds the cards,” The Associated Press said. Trump Sunday told Axios that the U.S. was “low-keying it” with Iran, waiting for economic pain to bring it to heel. Iran’s demands are largely what Trump “already agreed to” in June, The New York Times said. And denying Trump the “ability to claim victory over the strait” is Iran’s “most efficient lever to persuade him to recommit to those agreements.”

What next?

Tehran’s emerging deal with Oman would give each country control of one direction of transit through the strait. There would be no “fees or tolls during the interim period,” the AP said, but “formal control over even part of the strait would be a clear win for Iran and a loss for the U.S.”

“Not so long ago he was ‘Britain’s next prime minister’,” said Sean O’Grady in The Independent. Today, Nigel Farage seems a rather deflated figure. For the first time in 15 months, some polls are putting his Reform UK party in second place to Labour. Last week, Reform came a distant second in the Greater Manchester mayoral election.

Farage’s own popularity has slumped to 32% – the lowest net rating of any major party leader. And he is currently trapped in an “end-of-the-pier show in Clacton” of his own making, as he prepares for next week’s by-election against Count Binface, Baron Von Thunderclap and other novelty candidates.

Operation Distraction

Meanwhile, questions continue to be asked about Reform’s finances and Farage’s acceptance last year of a £5 million gift from Christopher Harborne, which intensified last week when it emerged that he had, by then, discussed returning as Reform’s leader.

Desperate to change the subject, Farage announced “Operation Fortress” this week – a plan to use the Navy to force migrant boats back to France. It is a ludicrous idea, said The Independent. Paris has already warned that such pushbacks would violate French sovereignty and breach international law. That Farage came up with it shows how much trouble he and his party are in.

Let’s not get carried away, said Josh Glancy in The Sunday Times. “Reform is in a rut”, but Farage is still attracting “adoring crowds” in Clacton, and many polls are still putting Reform on 24%, neck-and-neck with Labour. Concern about migration remains a highly potent issue with voters. And when Andy Burnham’s honeymoon ends, as it surely will, Farage is likely to bounce back.

Under siege

Farage tends to perform best when his back is against the wall, said Tim Ross on Politico. His core support has only “solidified as a result of his recent difficulties”: his approval ratings have risen 13 points among Reform voters since May. They believe “the Establishment” is “intent on punishing the people’s champion” and is out to get Farage. They are standing by their man.

But Farage can’t rely on the diehards to get him to No. 10, said David Frost in The Daily Telegraph. There are not enough of them. He has achieved extraordinary things as leader, but Reform is now sitting on a plateau beneath the summit. There are “two possible routes up off it”. He could double down on immigration and the culture wars, which would shore up the base, but there is a ceiling on the number of voters who favour that tear-it-all-down approach. Or he could turn Reform into a broad-spectrum party, calling for deregulation, public-sector reform and tax cuts, to attract residual Tory votes.

But is Farage the man to lead that party, asked Dan Hodges in The Mail on Sunday. He is so divisive, some voters will do anything to keep Reform candidates out, and his brand is becoming more toxic. Reform needs to decide if it is a serious party or a “monument to one man’s folly”.

What happened

The Senate Homeland Security Committee on Thursday voted along party lines to hold former U.S. infectious disease chief Dr. Anthony Fauci in contempt of Congress for repeatedly refusing to answer questions during testimony on the federal response to Covid-19. Committee Chair Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and other Republicans contended that Fauci could not invoke his Fifth Amendment rights “because he’d already received a preemptive pardon from former President Joe Biden,” CNN said. But “GOP lawmakers also openly acknowledged” last week that they “hoped to get Fauci to perjure himself in his testimony, allowing them to bring new charges.”

Who said what

“Fauci faced no risk of federal prosecution,” Paul said. “All he had to do was tell the truth.” Fauci’s lawyer called the vote a “crude political stunt” to “punish” a public servant for “exercising his constitutional rights.” Paul appears so “hellbent on putting Fauci in jail” that his office immediately hand-delivered the contempt resolution to federal prosecutors, Politico said. Contempt referrals “rarely bypass the full Senate,” The Wall Street Journal said, and “it isn’t clear whether a referral made in such a manner is legally valid.”

What next?

The Justice Department on Thursday evening said it had received Paul’s referral, is “reviewing it and will work with the Senate accordingly.” If prosecutors decide to file charges and win a conviction, Fauci faces up to a year in prison.

Perhaps Zack Polanski’s refusal to apologise to Nigel Farage last week wasn’t so surprising, given that sorry seems to be the hardest word in politics.

The leader of the Greens said it was “quite obvious” he had not done anything wrong “apart from make an inadvertent mistake” after he had agreed to a social-media collaboration on a series of photos – one of which showed a man in a T-shirt, an outline of a guillotine and the words: “We’re only making plans for Nigel”. Polanski added: “If I’d done it deliberately, I’d be apologising.”

It was the “syntax recognisable to parents of teenagers everywhere”, said The Economist. But the Greens leader’s position fits snugly into a long-standing tradition of politicians stubbornly avoiding or delaying apologies.

What did the commentators say?

For “such a short phrase, it is surprising how little ‘I’m sorry’ crops up in the UK political sphere”, said Rachel Cordery in The New Statesman. Instead, politicians often “employ a common arsenal of political tools” that includes “shifting the blame, denial, resigning”.

After the Suez Crisis of 1956, Anthony Eden “resigned in shame” but “never accepted responsibility for his failings”; instead, the official line given for his resignation was that it was done “on grounds of ill health”.

Today, the “first step is to deny that the problem exists” and if the story persists, politicians “acknowledge the crisis without accepting responsibility”. The “final stage, if it gets that far”, is to “find a person or an organisation to take the blame”.

Sometimes, an apology is just not sufficient. When Nick Clegg said sorry for his U-turn on tuition fees, the “loss of trust was so complete” that most likely no amount of apologising would have been enough. However “genuine” it might have been, it ended up a “derisive meme”.

Public figures make an apology for a scandal so “long after the event” it is made “safe in the knowledge that no blame could possibly attach to them”, said Simon Jenkins in The Guardian. You only need look at “Rishi Sunak for infected blood, David Cameron for Hillsborough” and “Keir Starmer for Grenfell”.

Some opt for the partial apology: Tony Blair said sorry not for the Iraq war, only for “some failures” in its planning and its “aftermath”, and the total of Liz Truss’ atonement for her “disastrous budget” was going “too far and too fast”.

But people “not only need apologies, they are likely to respect them” because there is “nothing nobler than sincere regret”. Offering one could make the public “less cynical towards those in power”.

Politicians “almost never apologise”, said Bence Hamrak on LSE, adding that a plausible reason is the “lack of electoral punishment for dishonesty”. His research found that apologies “may contradict the aggressive, masculine style of politics that voters might expect from leaders”, so saying sorry “might be interpreted as a sign of weakness by voters”.

What next?

Reform UK accused Polanski of “incitement to violence”, but the police decided to take no further action. Polling by the More in Common think tank suggests the row has damaged Polanski and the Greens. His personal approval rating has fallen to minus 28, making him the most unpopular major party leader in the country.

“If Nigel Farage wants to apologise for all the times that he’s put other people in danger then I’ll be happy to make an apology,” said Polanski.

And therein perhaps lies the point, said Marie Le Conte in The New World. When it comes to the current political discourse, “the hypocrisy and bad faith of it all are exhausting”.

Polanski “erred and showed, once again, that he probably isn’t ready for the big time quite yet”. But his lack of apology does not make him “unfit to lead, though: after all, he merely is a product of the times we live in, and these times are really quite rotten”.

The UN is preparing to choose a new secretary general for the first time in a decade as six candidates vie to succeed António Guterres of Portugal.

But the winner faces a huge challenge, with a host of geopolitical crises and the very status of the body itself in question.

Who is in the running?

Calls for a “madame secretary general” have been growing “louder”. So the next appointment will “test whether the UN is committed to breaking glass ceilings” by appointing a woman to the post for the first time, said the Australian Institute of International Affairs.

The candidates include Michelle Bachelet, former president of Chile; Maria Fernanda Espinosa, former foreign minister of Ecuador; Rebeca Grynspan, former vice president of Costa Rica; and Carolyn Rodrigues Birkett, former foreign minister of Guyana and permanent representative to the UN.

Several female candidates were overlooked in 2016, when Guterres was elected to serve the first of his two terms. “If I am polite, I would say the world was not prepared for it,” said Bachelet in April. “Is it prepared now? I hope so,” adding that appointing a woman as secretary general would be “a good signal”.

Among the men in contention is Rafael Grossi, the Argentinian diplomat who is director general of the UN’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, and Macky Sall, a former prime minister and president of Senegal.

The successful candidate will be chosen by the UN General Assembly following the recommendation of the Security Council, whose permanent members are the UK, China, France, Russia and the US.

Those nations “have the future of the world body in their hands”, said Agence France-Presse. Observers say “it is difficult to pick a favourite” because the world’s major powers are “divided on the outcome”, but Grossi has been “repeatedly mentioned”.

What does the secretary general do?

The secretary general is the chief administrative officer and public face of the UN. The role is “equal parts diplomat and advocate, civil servant and CEO”, according to the UN itself.

They oversee several important UN bodies, including the Security Council, which is charged with maintaining peace and security. However, unlike a prime minister or president, the secretary general does not have the power to make laws or command countries. The role is more about persuasion, diplomacy and authority rather than objective political or military power.

What will be in their in-tray?

Gaza and Ukraine will be high in the pile but they’ll have a “tough task” because the “relevance, power and financial capability” of the UN is “under an increasingly harsh spotlight”, said Deutsche Welle.

“Simply put,” said Politico, the UN is “an increasingly irrelevant global institution”, because the United States, “its most powerful member”, is “abandoning and defunding” many parts of its “sprawling structure”.

The Security Council itself “barely functions” because of the “rivalries” between the US, China and Russia, all of whom have the power of veto. “Even as a venue for international gatherings”, the UN is “fading” because leaders would “rather meet and make deals” at the G20.

What happened

The Trump administration has refunded about $100 billion of the roughly $166 billion collected through President Donald Trump’s 2025 “liberation day” tariffs, according to a court-ordered progress report filed Tuesday with the U.S. Court of International Trade. The Supreme Court ruled in February that those import taxes had been collected illegally using an authority the president did not have, and a judge subsequently ordered their return to the importers.

Who said what

Trump has “placed heavy-handed tariffs at the center of his economic and foreign policy agendas,” CNBC said, and he has “vented his rage over the court rulings.” The “speed at which the money has been refunded has surprised trade lawyers and analysts” alike, the Financial Times said. White House officials had “warned that the refunds would depend on further litigation.”

What next?

Trump’s administration has “recently taken a series of steps to effectively re-create” his initial sweeping tariffs “using other legal authorities,” said CNBC. On Monday, 25 states sued the administration over the new tariffs, “calling them a pretext for replacing” the axed “liberation day” levies, The Associated Press said.

What happened

The Senate on Wednesday confirmed Dr. Erica Schwartz as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s first permanent director in nearly a year. Schwartz is “widely considered a qualified and traditional selection for the role,” Politico said. She “has repeatedly affirmed the safety and efficacy of childhood vaccines,” The New York Times said, but the 51-44 vote “fell mostly along partisan lines.”

Who said what

Schwartz will take over a “public health agency beleaguered by political meddling and low morale,” The Associated Press said. Her predecessor, Susan Monarez, was ousted after less than a month following a clash with Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. over vaccine policy, The Wall Street Journal said, and the White House was “looking for a CDC nominee who would minimize controversy” this time around.

What next?

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) said he joined Republicans in voting for Schwartz because public health leadership is urgently needed amid the U.S. outbreaks of measles and cyclosporiasis and Congo’s Ebola crisis. “It’s becoming very obvious what happens when the invisible workings of public health are not functioning the way we need them to,” Johns Hopkins biosecurity expert Gigi Gronvall told The New York Times. But it’s not clear “how much good” Schwartz can do when “the main problem is RFK Jr.”

What happened

Rep. Chuck Edwards (R-N.C.) dropped his bid for reelection on Wednesday, two days after the House Ethics Committee recommended he be censured for “persistent unprofessional and inappropriate conduct toward two young female staffers.” But Rep. Max Miller (R-Ohio) reiterated his intention to stay in his race for a third term despite a House ethics investigation launched earlier this week following allegations he abused his ex-wife, Emily Moreno, and their 2-year-old daughter.

Two House Republicans in Florida on Wednesday endorsed a primary challenger to Rep. Cory Mills (R-Fla.), who is also under investigation by the ethics panel over allegations including domestic violence. Mills and Miller, both endorsed by President Donald Trump, have denied any wrongdoing.

Who said what

The “serious allegations” against the three GOP incumbents have fueled Republican anxieties that the “mounting political crises” could “further endanger their majority,” costing them “seats once considered mostly safe,” CNN said. Some senior House GOP campaign strategists “worry that Miller’s chances of reelection” have “vanished,” The Associated Press said.

Pressure on Miller to drop out “exploded” on Sunday, Politico said, after his ex-father-in-law, Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio), said Miller needed “professional help” and shouldn’t be serving in Congress. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) told Politico he would talk with Miller but the Ethics Committee process needed to “play out.”

What next?

The Republican executive committee in North Carolina’s 11th District will meet next week to select Edwards’ replacement. Miller “would have to formally withdraw by sometime Saturday” for his party to replace him by a Monday deadline, the AP said. “Privately, some top Republicans are hopeful that Mills will lose his GOP primary” on Aug. 18, said CNN.

Andy Burnham has said his radical plans to devolve power away from Westminster will “increase the case” for a written constitution.

The lack of a codified constitution “disempowers” areas that have suffered from deindustrialisation and decades of neglect by central government, said the new PM. A desire for equal standards of living across England’s economically disparate geography must be the “cornerstone” of any constitutional settlement.

‘Crisis of trust between citizens and state’

The UK’s current unwritten constitution is made up of a “a vast and contradictory morass of legal statutes, court precedents, codes of conduct, scholarly opinions, treaties, traditions, gentlemen’s agreements and unwritten rules”, said George Monbiot in The Guardian. It is about “as easy to follow as a fishing line washed ashore after months at sea, bundled and ravelled in weed and tar”.

This “allows great scope for interpretation, which ruthless operators readily exploit”. Without a clearly defined constitution, there is nothing to stop a government with a safe majority from turning the UK in a “blatantly authoritarian” state.

Codification would help “redistribute authority”. But it would need to be debated “alongside the wider settlement on electoral reform, a regional second chamber and executive accountability”, said an editorial for The Burnham Programme, which tracks the PM’s plans for “national renewal”.

Constitutional reform is “unlikely to be a hot topic or a big vote winner at the next election”, said Lucy Jolin in the Cambridge University alumni magazine CAM. But while “it might sound very removed from the reality of our lives”, the process of agreeing a new constitution “could, in fact, be a tool to address a very obvious crisis that governments across the world are facing: a crisis of trust between citizens and state”.

‘Virtually nothing is off the table’

Recent crises – from Brexit to the attempted prorogation of Parliament by Boris Johnson to Covid – have put the UK’s constitution into the spotlight. But, “far from being inadequate, irrelevant or even damaging”, it has “performed adequately – if not admirably at times”, said Brian Jones in a 2023 paper for the Institute for Government and Bennett Institute for Public Policy.

If anything, the UK system does a better job of allowing and incorporating change than most written constitutions. These codified systems “either take items off the table or make it more difficult to update constitutions”, whereas “in the UK virtually nothing is off the table”. As such, it is better suited to adapting to “political, legal, economic and cultural change”.

The “flexibility” of the British constitution means Andy Burnham, “having never won a general election and with no mandate or manifesto to call upon, can simply announce a whole series of reforms to devolution in England”, said Lee David Evans, a historian of the Conservative Party, on UnHerd.

If the UK had a written constitution, where the “relationship between devolved and central authority was much more rigid, his recent policy announcements would be much more difficult – perhaps even practically impossible”.

What happened

President Donald Trump’s National Guard deployment to Washington, D.C., will cost the federal government another $1.4 billion through the end of his term in 2029, according to a Defense Department estimate for Congress obtained by news organizations Tuesday. The estimate “offers a glimpse of how much taxpayer money will be spent” on a deployment local officials call an “infringement of their city’s autonomy,” said The Associated Press.

Who said what

The White House “has not disclosed the full cost of the mission so far,” The Washington Post said, so the Pentagon’s new figure represents the “most comprehensive accounting yet” of Trump’s “unprecedented use of the military.” In January, the Congressional Budget Office estimated the deployment was costing about $55 million per month, or more than $700 million to date. “The National Guard are not pawns and taxpayer dollars are not a piggy bank for Trump’s political stunts,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said in a statement.

What next?

About 4,600 military personnel were stationed in D.C. as of last week, and the new estimate assumes that an average of 2,500 National Guard members will be there for the remainder of Trump’s term. But it’s unclear if governors will “extend their state units for more than two years,” said the AP.

What happened

The Democratic Party’s moderate and progressive wings each won key primaries in Michigan, Virginia, Missouri, Kansas and Washington state on Tuesday. In the highest-profile showdown between the two factions, progressive candidate Dr. Abdul El-Sayed narrowly won the Senate primary in Michigan, The Associated Press projected, beating establishment-backed Rep. Haley Stevens.

Voters in Kansas defeated a Republican ballot measure that would have turned state Supreme Court appointments into partisan races — a “referendum designed to overturn Kansas’ constitutional right to abortion,” Politico said. In Missouri, voters overwhelmingly rejected a GOP-led amendment that would have made it harder to pass voter-approved ballot measures.

Who said what

The winners in the Democrats’ moderate faction include Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (Wash.), who fended off a leftist challenger; former Rep. Elaine Luria (Va.) and Richmond-area prosecutor Shannon Taylor, who won swing-district primaries; and Rep. Wesley Bell (Mo.), who prevailed in his rematch against democratic socialist former Rep. Cori Bush. Progressive climate activist William Lawrence won a three-way primary against two moderates in Michigan and will face Rep. Tom Barrett (R) in a “competitive contest that will test whether left-wing populism is viable in swing districts,” The New York Times said.

What next?

The race between El-Sayed and Stevens was this year’s “most significant test” of how Democratic voters are “weighing questions of ideology and electability,” CNN said. Despite his eventual victory, El-Sayed’s consistently thin lead was “much narrower than what the most recent polling had shown” in the pivotal race to succeed retiring Sen. Gary Peters (D), the Times said. El-Sayed will face former Rep. Mike Rogers (R) in the general election.

What happened

President Donald Trump on Monday accused U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro of having “choked” over the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool case. Trump told reporters that Pirro “folded like an umbrella” in moving to drop vandalism charges against four people, including former Olympic canoeist David Hearn. Announcing the decision last week, the Justice Department said Trump’s $14 million renovations of the Washington landmark were “hasty and botched.” It also criticized the Interior Department for withholding key information about the project.

Who said what

The president has reportedly considered firing former Fox News host Pirro, a longtime Trump loyalist, for contradicting his assertion that bad actors are to blame for the pool’s peeling paint. “To me, it was a pure case of VANDALISM,” Trump wrote on Truth Social over the weekend. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said on social media that “the evidence is clear, vandals have repeatedly caused damage” to the pool.

Waterproofing experts concluded the peeling paint was “probably caused by application errors,” The Washington Post said. The president is miffed because “Pirro did not give the White House a heads-up about dropping the charges,” a White House official told the outlet. Pirro met with Trump in the Oval Office, but she was not fired and did not offer her resignation, two sources told The New York Times.

What next?

Hearn’s lawyers are expected to respond this week to Pirro’s request to dismiss the case against him. He has “legal options that could unearth more embarrassing details on how his case was handled,” CNN said.

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

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

What did the commentators say?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What next?

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

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

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

What did the commentators say?

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

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

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

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

What next?

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

What happened

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche on Sunday formally rescinded the controversial plan for a $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization fund” that would have compensated President Donald Trump’s allies. Blanche also agreed to limit the scope of Trump’s tax audit immunity, which, along with the fund, was agreed as part of a settlement with the Justice Department after Trump sued the IRS for leaking his tax returns. Blanche’s announcement follows negotiations with two key Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee who were threatening to block his bid to become permanent head of the DOJ.

Who said what

Blanche had repeatedly sworn during Senate hearings that the fund was dead. But Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) “wanted to see the promise in writing,” NPR said, “especially as Trump continued to express support for the idea.”

“My team and I have met with committee members and Senators over the past several weeks and addressed any concerns or outstanding questions," Blanche said on X. In a statement, he also clarified that tax immunity for Trump and his family “applies only retroactively,” so it “does not protect the president from examination of future tax filings,” The Associated Press said.

What next?

A Senate Judiciary Committee vote on Blanche’s nomination is scheduled for Tuesday. His announcement “appears to clear the way” for his confirmation, Politico said, and GOP leaders hope to confirm his appointment “before the end of the week.”

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

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

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

What did the commentators say?

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

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

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

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

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

What next?

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

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

What happened

Former White House chief medical adviser Anthony Fauci on Wednesday refused to answer questions during a three-hour Senate hearing on the government response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Instead, he repeatedly invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who subpoenaed the scientist to appear, threatened to call a vote on a resolution declaring Fauci in contempt of Congress.

Who said what

Fauci values “legitimate congressional oversight” but Paul has an “obvious obsession” with seeing him prosecuted, the doctor said in his opening remarks. “The sole reason he is calling me before this committee is to get me to say something, anything, that could vindicate his repeated public pledges that I end up, in his words, ‘behind bars,’” Fauci said. His attorney, David Schertler, lambasted Paul for building his “personal brand” around prosecuting Fauci for “imaginary crimes.”

Paul said he had hoped to hear an “an apology” or that “judgment errors were made” in the pandemic response that Fauci led. “There will be repercussions for your refusal to testify,” he warned. The combative hearing showed that the “rage” over lockdowns, vaccines, and mask mandates is “still simmering below the surface” six years later, Politico said.

What next?

The Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee is scheduled to vote on Paul’s contempt resolution on Aug. 5.

What is the best pub snack?

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

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

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

What did the commentators say?

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

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

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

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

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

What next?

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

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

Labour looks set to pass its first test with voters since Andy Burnham took over as prime minister, with the party’s candidate the favourite to succeed him as Manchester mayor in today’s by-election

The race to replace Burnham has been somewhat “overshadowed by events in Westminster” over the past week. But the region’s two million voters go to the polls today to take part in “the biggest by-election in British political history”, said The Guardian.

Who’s running?

Bev Craig, current leader of Manchester City Council, is standing for Labour against Reform UK councillor for Baguley, Sian Niamh Astley, in what has been a heated contest between the two parties.

Other names throwing their hat into the ring include Altrincham councillor Geraldine Coggins, representing the Green Party, Bowdon councillor Phil Eckersley for the Conservatives, and Didsbury West Liberal Democrat councillor Richard Kilpatrick. Marlon West is standing for Restore Britain, with former mayoral candidate Marcus Farmer running as an independent.

How does the vote work?

UK mayoral elections use a system known as supplementary voting that gives voters the option to choose their first- and second-choice candidate.

If any candidate secures more than 50% of the first-choice votes, they will automatically be elected mayor. If no candidate receives more than 50% of the first-choice votes, the contest moves to a second round between the two candidates who received the most first-choice votes. All other candidates are eliminated, and ballot papers are counted again factoring in second-choice votes.

What do the polls say?

When Burnham declared his intention to return to Westminster, “the prospect of Labour losing control of Greater Manchester was used as an argument to keep him in post”, said Dan Haygarth in The Independent. After the mayoral by-election was announced, some bookmakers even made Reform the early favourite, but polls suggest that Labour will retain the mayoralty with “relative ease”, leaving Reform and the Greens to battle it out for second place.

YouGov polling from 17 July had Craig on 38% to Astley’s 24%, with Coggins in third on 17%. But in a second-round run-off, the Labour candidate would trounce Reform’s 62% to 38%

With both the Greens and Reform offering radical alternatives to a deeply unpopular Starmer government, this election could have been “a mighty close battle and very difficult for Labour to hold on”, Jon Tonge, professor of politics at the University of Liverpool, said in The Independent. But now voters are less likely to be “looking for an alternative to Labour; they’re prepared to support Labour, for now at least, across Greater Manchester”.

What’s at stake?

The winner of Thursday's race will take control of the biggest mayoral authority outside London, with a £3 billion budget and wide-ranging powers across housing, health, policing and transport. But the race also has deep implications far beyond Manchester.

Professor Rob Ford, of the University of Manchester, said in The Guardian that the real mark of success would be whether Labour was able to push back the Green tide in Manchester and close the gap in Reform-leaning areas such as Wigan and Bolton.

Whatever the result, Greater Manchester will be “very close to the heart of power given the location of Number 10 North”, Professor Andrew Russell, from the University of Liverpool, said on the BBC. “Not for the first time of late, all eyes will certainly be on the city.”

What happened

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said Tuesday it will end a Medicare subsidy program aimed at lowering prescription costs for some seniors at the end of 2026, one year ahead of schedule. The Medicare prescription drug benefit, which is expected to cost the government some $3.6 billion in subsidies this year, was introduced by former President Joe Biden in 2024. It shields some 25 million people with “Part D” Medicare plans from steep insurance premium hikes.

Who said what

Characterizing the government subsidies as a “bailout” that “gave BILLIONS of taxpayer money DIRECTLY to Big Insurance Companies,” CMS Administrator Mehmet Oz said on social media that the administration is “stabilizing the market.” All but a quarter of Part D enrollees are likely to see their premiums rise next year as a result of the change, some by $20 a month, an anonymous Trump administration official told The Wall Street Journal.

The change could “inflame the debate” about healthcare costs at a time when “voters’ concerns about the cost of living are a top campaign issue,” Bloomberg said. Republicans could find this “politically damaging” ahead of the November midterm elections, The New York Times said.

What next?

CMS will release the new monthly Part D premiums in September, which means Medicare users could be in for some “sticker shock while shopping for next year’s drug plan,” the Times said.

While New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has backtracked on a pledge to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he enters the city, those in the Big Apple remain split on the idea. Some believe Netanyahu is a war criminal who should be subject to the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant if he visits the United Nations in Manhattan this September. Others think it is hypocritical to focus only on the Israeli leader.

‘Not welcome in New York City’

Mamdani originally said he was looking into whether officials in New York City could arrest Netanyahu. But while the Israeli prime minister is a “war criminal,” New York City police officers do “not have the independent legal authority to enforce this warrant,” Mamdani said in a video on X. “I want to be equally clear, Benjamin Netanyahu is not welcome in New York City, nor is any other war criminal at large.” The federal government should “join the International Criminal Court and execute both this warrant as well as any warrant the International Criminal Court holds.”

These words could inspire New Yorkers to hold “larger demonstrations against Israeli officials and supporters during the U.N. General Assembly,” given that Netanyahu is “one of many foreign officials who have outstanding arrest warrants issued” by the ICC, Elizabeth Kim said at Gothamist. Talk of an arrest also “gave the issue prominence at a time when Mr. Netanyahu’s conduct of the war in Gaza has led two independent United Nations inquiries and humanitarian groups inside and outside of Israel to accuse him of perpetrating a genocide,” say Sally Goldenberg, Dana Rubinstein and Liam Stack at The New York Times.

Some Palestinian advocacy groups are still pushing for additional action to be taken against Netanyahu by New York City officials. Palestinians “welcomed Mr. Mamdani’s statement,” but “this has never been about one individual,” Nerdeen Kiswani, the co-founder of the pro-Palestinian group Within Our Lifetime, said to the Times. Mamdani also admitted he “sympathized with New Yorkers who were ‘disappointed’ to hear that Mr. Netanyahu would not be arrested,” said Goldenberg, Rubinstein and Stack.

‘A selective approach’

Some feel the idea of arresting Netanyahu is unwarranted. Going after the Israeli prime minister presents a “selective approach to ICC arrest warrants,” said Zvika Klein at The Jerusalem Post. The U.N. General Assembly always “hosts the largest annual gathering of accused war criminals on Earth” who “arrive on diplomatic passports, sweep past the barricades on First Avenue, address the world from the green marble rostrum and fly home.” When the U.S. “decides a foreign leader belongs in a courtroom, it has tools,” but New York City is “not among them.” International law “survives on the belief that it applies to everyone, or it protects no one.”

Others consider a Netanyahu arrest even more risky. Lawmakers may have “advised the mayor that attempting an arrest could have subjected him and his collaborators to criminal liability,” said Paul Mauro at The Wall Street Journal. The law “explicitly states that ‘abducting’ any person who is ‘a foreign official, an internationally protected person or an official guest’ is a federal offense.” So if officials “discussed the logistics of such an operation with the mayor and either he or they took any action directed at making it happen,” they “could all have faced federal charges.”

A shrinking pool of ultra-wealthy donors increasingly bankroll Britain’s political parties. Should we be worried?

Why is this issue in the news?

The short answer is because of Reform UK. In December 2025 the Electoral Commission, the statutory body that regulates elections and political finance, reported that Reform had received £9 million from the Thai-based crypto investor Christopher Harborne – the largest donation to a political party ever made by a living person in the UK. (Harborne also gave £5 million, said to be a personal gift, to Nigel Farage in 2024.)

The latest figures show that just under £25 million was donated to UK political parties in the first quarter of 2026: £9.9 million to Reform, £6 million to the Conservatives, £4 million to Labour and £3 million to the Lib Dems. Of the money given to Reform, £7 million of it came from Harborne and one other donor, Ben Delo, the Hong Kong-based founder of a crypto exchange. This is, increasingly, a theme of all political funding. In 2015, donations of £1 million or more from individuals and companies accounted for 1% of all private political donations. By 2024, such high-value donations made up fully 35% of the total.

Why is this happening?

Voluntary donations fuel party politics in the UK. State funding is limited to relatively small amounts given to opposition parties. Parties need money to pay their staff, conduct research, advertise and fight elections. The steady decline of membership – the Tories had around three million members in the 1950s, and now have around 130,000 – has seen fees replaced by donations.

Big donations are not limited to Reform: members of the Sainsbury family have given tens of millions to the Conservatives and Labour, including a £10 million bequest to the Tories in 2022, the largest donation in UK history. Yet the past decade has seen the rise of a new generation of mega-donors, less well known, often residing abroad. At the same time, overall spending has grown, aided by the Tories’ controversial decision to raise the electoral spending cap by 80% in 2023. The total spent by all parties at the 2001 election was £27 million; at the 2024 election, it was nearly £69 million.

What does the law say about political spending?

For election campaigns, spending limits are set for each national party (calculated at £54,010 per constituency contested) and for each local candidate (from £11,390). There is, however, no general limit on political donations. Since 2000, donations over £11,180 (previously £7,500) must be reported to the Electoral Commission. However, loopholes abound. For instance, Frank Hester and his company The Phoenix Partnership donated £15 million to the Conservatives before the 2024 election (63% of the party’s campaign spending) but broke it up into smaller amounts to avoid scrutiny.

Donors have to be “permissible”, meaning they’re an individual who is on the electoral register (this includes overseas voters), or a UK-registered company, union or other body. Those who are not UK voters can get round the ban by giving money via UK subsidiaries, or by using so-called unincorporated associations.

Why is this a matter for concern?

Money affects electoral outcomes. Arguably, Reform could not have established itself as a major party without generous funding for it and its predecessor, the Brexit Party. And by and large, parties do not get something for nothing. Political scientists often divide donors into three (overlapping) groups: “ideologues”, motivated by a cause; “investors”, who give money to those they think will represent their interests; and “intimates”, who enjoy the access it gives to lawmakers and the associated prestige. The dangers of this are well-rehearsed. But as donations grow more narrow and concentrated among the super-rich, the fear is that parties are ever-more vulnerable to donor pressure. It is no coincidence, critics say, that two-thirds of Reform’s money comes from crypto businessmen, and that the party is calling for a regulatory “Big Bang 2” to turn the UK into a “crypto hub”.

But the problem spreads wider than that. Transparency International UK has assessed that £42 million given to political parties since 2001 came from donors either alleged, or proven, to be involved in fraud, corruption or money-laundering.

Is there an alternative to the current system?

Many nations cap not what parties can spend but what donors can give. Australia has a $50,000 annual donation cap; Canada limits individuals to around $1,750 per year; France caps them at $7,500. In each case, however, the state makes up the shortfall – per voter, France spends over ten times as much as the UK on political parties – and in Britain such state funding is unpopular; most taxpayers reject the principle that they should fund parties they disagree with.

At the other end of the spectrum from France is the US, where the Supreme Court has scrapped all donation and spending limits on freedom of speech grounds. The cost of US elections, and the influence of the very rich, has since rocketed.

Are there any plans to limit donations?

Labour’s 2024 manifesto promised to “protect democracy by strengthening the rules around donations”. Philip Rycroft’s independent review into foreign financial interference recommended, among other things, an annual £100,000 cap on political donations from British voters living abroad; a suspension of crypto donations; and tighter “Know Your Donor” checks. In March, these were added as amendments to the Representation of the People Bill, which was due to come to the Commons for its third reading last week.

The bill’s progress was abruptly delayed, because of backbench amendments aimed at capping domestic political donations. The Labour MP Stella Creasy proposed a universal annual cap of £100,000 on individual donations. (This would have stripped Reform of around 85% of its funding.) Both Reform and trade unions – whose block donations to Labour could have been affected – objected. The delay will allow Andy Burnham’s government to reshape the legislation.

“The most important Oval Office address since the Cuban Missile Crisis.” That’s how one Republican senator who had been given a preview of President Trump’s speech last week described it in advance, said Kyle Cheney on Politico.

Needless to say, the televised address failed to live up to the hype. Trump sought to give the impression that newly declassified intelligence had revealed “shocking vulnerabilities” in America’s election system and proof of Chinese interference in the 2020 election. But he offered no evidence for this, or for his claim that the “deep state” was working to actively suppress information about Beijing’s “sinister election meddling”.

Overblown panic

What makes Trump’s overwrought rhetoric about “election security” more ridiculous, said Steve Benen on MS Now, is that he has just fired all the remaining board members of the bipartisan Election Assistance Commission (EAC), a federal body created to help states fairly administer elections. How is that meant to improve matters?

Democrats are freaking out about the gutting of the EAC, said The Wall Street Journal. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called it “a brazen attempt to seize control of our elections before a single vote is cast”. This panic is overblown. The EAC only has a modest role, and its staffers can still perform its basic duties. Yes, Trump “is probably willing to do whatever he can to help the Republicans keep Congress” in November’s midterm elections, but the “comforting reality is that the ballots are controlled by thousands of different state and local officials” – not by the federal government.

Pushing the envelope

On the contrary, Trump’s opponents have every reason to be worried, said The Philadelphia Inquirer. For the past year, the president has been escalating his “election-tampering efforts”. He has called for the federal government to seize control of elections. He has pushed GOP lawmakers to redraw election maps in the party’s favour, while at the same time seeking to change rules to suppress the Democrat vote, demanding an end to postal votes, and signing an executive order that would require voters to show proof of citizenship. He has “rewarded election deniers” and worked continuously to sow distrust in elections. Who knows what else he’ll try. His attempt to overturn the 2020 election results showed he’s willing to “cross any line”. Let’s state the obvious: he’s “out to rig” the midterms.

After their terms end, most U.S. presidents try to make their remaining time count. They often do so by building a presidential library and museum, as every commander-in-chief of the 20th and 21st centuries has done. Many of them also write an autobiography or presidential memoir, as former President Joe Biden is currently doing. But many ex-presidents have also undertaken more unusual tasks after leaving the White House.

Barack Obama

While former President Barack Obama’s presidential center recently opened in Chicago, the 44th president has been keeping busy in a variety of other ways. Most notable is Higher Ground, the production company he launched with Netflix in 2018 alongside his wife, Michelle Obama. The company began with film and television projects and has since branched out into documentaries and podcasts.

In April 2026, it was announced that Higher Ground would “transition to becoming independent when its current first-look deal with Netflix is up,” said Deadline, though the company will be “continuing to collaborate with the global streamer on existing projects.” The independence has allowed Higher Ground to work with other studios, including partnering with HBO on Larry David’s “seven-part sketch comedy series that’s an irreverent look at American history,” said NPR. The show features a cameo from the former president.

George W. Bush

After his presidency, George W. Bush mostly shunned the limelight, instead retiring to his ranch in Texas. But he took up several hobbies since leaving office, most notably painting. Bush’s artworks are “both more and less interesting than they initially seem,” said Artforum, and often feature world leaders he met during his time as president, including Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Beyond his brushstrokes, Bush is also an avid mountain biker and uses this to give back. He has “hosted a charity ride for veterans for years,” said Bike magazine, and in 2021 even released a short documentary about the ride. “Any day you ride with the vets is a good day,” Bush says in the video. Several veterans “who found community and healing in the sport of mountain biking were interviewed in the documentary,” said Bike.

Bill Clinton

It was Bill Clinton’s wife, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who had the more prestigious career after leaving 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. But the former president hasn’t kept to himself entirely these last 26 years — Clinton has remained largely active in global affairs. In 2009, he “arrived in North Korea” on a secret trip to “try to win the freedom of two American journalists,” said NPR. North Korean leader Kim Jong Il pardoned the journalists after his visit.

That same year, Clinton was also appointed as the United Nations’ special envoy for Haiti, thereby “building on the former United States president’s extensive engagement with the Caribbean nation,” said the U.N. Clinton’s work on the island helped “support the efforts of the Haitian authorities to jumpstart sustainable social and economic development.” He remains closely tied to Haitian affairs.

Jimmy Carter

When former President Jimmy Carter died at age 100 in 2024, many said it was his post-presidency for which he’d be most remembered. While Carter’s time in the White House was largely seen as unsuccessful, upon leaving Washington he “intended, without returning to public office, to continue to work toward the promotion of peace, progress, and human rights throughout the world,” said the American Historical Association (AHA).

Carter used his four decades after his presidency to “promote peace in the Middle East, to address international security and arms control, and to close the gap between what we know how to do in healthcare and what is actually achieved,” said the AHA, largely through the creation of the Carter Center. He also waged a “war against ‘neglected’ diseases — diseases in far-off lands that most Americans will never suffer from and may not have even heard of,” said NPR. These efforts helped lead to the near-eradication of the parasitic Guinea worm disease.

Dwight D. Eisenhower

When Dwight D. Eisenhower’s time in office came to an end, the former World War II general went back to the military — sort of. Eisenhower “reactivated his commission as a five-star general in the United States Army.” Aside from George Washington, Eisenhower is the “only United States president with military service to reenter the Armed Forces after leaving the office of president,” said the Eisenhower Library.

But Eisenhower’s reactivation was largely in name only, as he soon retired to a small farm near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. On this farm, Eisenhower and his wife “raised Angus cattle, painted” and “traveled both for pleasure and to revisit the sites of past triumphs, as when they went to Normandy to film a documentary for the twentieth anniversary of D-Day,” said the University of Virginia’s Miller Center. Before his death, Eisenhower also “consulted frequently with President Lyndon B. Johnson after LBJ committed combat troops to Vietnam.”

Calvin Coolidge

Calvin Coolidge’s presidency has largely been forgotten in the 21st century, but he did take up a unique job after leaving the White House, becoming a journalist. Through the McClure Newspaper Syndicate, Coolidge “wrote a syndicated newspaper column between June 30, 1930, and June 29, 1931,” called “Calvin Coolidge Says,” marking a “rare example of a former president weighing in on current events after leaving the White House,” said the Calvin Coolidge Presidential Foundation.

Coolidge also served a variety of other roles post-presidency. These included the “president of the American Antiquarian Society,” as well as a “directorship on the board of the New York Life Insurance Company” and “chairmanship of the National Transportation Committee, formed by a group of banks, insurance companies and other organizations interested in railway securities,” said The New York Times.

William Howard Taft

William Howard Taft didn’t stay out of government long after his presidency ended in 1913; eight years later, the former president was appointed chief justice of the United States Supreme Court. He remains the only person to have held both roles. The Supreme Court marked a leap back into public life for Taft, who first “became a professor of constitutional law” at Yale University after leaving the White House, said Encyclopedia Britannica.

As chief justice, Taft’s most “most important contribution to constitutional law was his opinion in Myers vs. United States,” a 1926 ruling “upholding the authority of the president to remove federal officials,” said Encyclopedia Britannica. And despite having served as president, Taft considered the judicial branch a higher calling. “To Taft,” said the White House Historical Association, the Supreme Court appointment was his “greatest honor; he wrote: ‘I don’t remember that I ever was president.’”

When President Donald Trump announced he was gifted a new luxury Boeing 747-8 from Qatar to use as an interim Air Force One, many national security analysts were worried about risks potentially inherent to the plane. Now that Trump has started using the vehicle, it seems some of those concerns have been borne out, with even Trump himself insinuating that the plane may have security lapses.

What makes Trump’s new plane different?

The plane was designed to be used only during Trump’s presidency. It is built on the body of a Boeing jumbo jet, but there are some significant differences from prior Air Force Ones. The biggest change is that it appears to almost uniquely suit Trump’s taste, complete with a new color scheme after the plane was “repainted in dark navy blue, deep red and gold,” said CBS News.

In keeping with Trump’s affinity for gold and luxury, the plane’s interior features “cognac leather seats” with lie-flat capabilities alongside tray tables made of “mahogany with silver trim,” CNN reported. To communicate with the outside world, the plane serves as an “airborne command post equipped with a new communications system that enables resilient, secure connectivity to respond to global events without disruption,” said L3 Harris Technologies, the contractor used by the U.S. Air Force to upgrade the plane.

What are the security issues?

For all the talk of the gilded plane, there is no shortage of worries about how secure it is. The new model “lacks the same defensive countermeasures that were security features of the old model, including its advanced antimissile capabilities,” sources told The New York Times. At least two Air Force officials were “surprised to see Trump fly on the new jet overseas, where there are greater security risks.”

The plane was gifted by Qatar, a nation that Trump “used to accuse of supporting terrorism,” said MS NOW. But since receiving the jet, the White House has “cozied up to Qatar to a remarkable degree, even unilaterally extending a NATO-like security guarantee to the nation.” That has not changed the fact that the plane “may ​not be as ⁠secure as the baby blue Air Force One that preceded it,” said Reuters.

The White House originally shot back at these insinuations, sending subpoenas to the reporters at The New York Times who wrote about the plane; these were later withdrawn. Trump has since “acknowledged that the Boeing jet given to him by Qatar cannot match the defensive armor of a true presidential aircraft,” said The Guardian, telling reporters he will go back to using the original plane while the new one is “grounded and ‘maxed out’ with the protections it was never built with.” Republicans in Congress have blocked efforts to halt further work on the vehicle.

During a recent overseas trip to Turkey, Trump initially flew aboard the plane but “switched to an older, more heavily defended aircraft for the return leg amid rising tensions with Iran, reportedly on the advice of the Secret Service,” said The Guardian. Despite the security concerns, as well as ethics controversies over accepting the $400 million jet, it is “perfectly safe for the president’s travels but will receive additional upgrades and enhancements in the fall, which will take approximately one month to complete,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said.

What happened

Vance Boelter, the man who assassinated former Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman (D) and her husband at their home last summer, was sentenced on Thursday to two life terms plus 40 years in prison. Boelter, 59, who also shot and critically injured state Sen. John A. Hoffman (D) and his wife, pleaded guilty last month to federal charges “so federal prosecutors would not seek the death penalty,” said The Associated Press.

Who said what

Boelter’s attacks “raised nationwide alarm” about “rising political violence,” said The Washington Post. His is the “longest sentence I have imposed,” said Judge John Tunheim, but “I do believe it is deserved.”

“No sentence can do justice for the horrific and unconscionable acts this monster perpetrated,” members of the Hoffman family said in a statement to The Minnesota Star Tribune. We must “start leading with kindness in grace in our public dialogue.”

What next?

With his federal case over, Boelter “will soon face accountability in a Hennepin County courtroom” on state charges, Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said in a statement. Boelter is scheduled to appear in court on August 3.

What happened

Undeterred by Supreme Court rulings rejecting his tariff regime, President Donald Trump on Thursday launched a new workaround to continue taxing foreign imports. Under the new scheme, which replaces an expiring near-blanket 10% duty, the United States will introduce new tariffs of 12.5% on goods from trading partners, including China and Japan, that have allegedly failed to impose or enforce bans on goods produced with forced labor. Those deemed to have taken steps against forced labor, such as the United Kingdom and the European Union, qualify for a lower 10% rate. Goods from the 60 affected trading partners make up 99.4% of U.S. imports.

Who said what

“The real message here that everyone needs to take away is the president is going to always use the tools at his disposal to achieve his trade policy objectives,” a White House official told CNN. But “Trump’s new tariffs are angering voters,” said Politico. This latest move will only serve to “aggravate Americans who were already blaming the tariffs for stubborn inflation ahead of a midterm election dominated by economic issues.”

Trump has also “once again inspired anger and confusion in U.S. allies and trading partners,” said The Guardian. Many officials argued that the “rationale was hard to swallow.”

What next?

The tariffs are expected to face fresh legal challenges and risk in-kind retaliation. “Everything is on the table,” Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said after meeting with his provincial and territorial counterparts on Thursday to discuss a response.

Spring forward, fall back — that old rule of thumb for resetting clocks at the start and end of daylight saving time may soon be a relic of the past, as the House of Representatives last week overwhelmingly supported a bill to make the time change permanent. And President Donald Trump has expressed his support. After all, people like later sunlight hours. But keeping the clock on summer hours could have negative ramifications.

‘Hidden consequences’

Americans are “tired of the biannual time change,” and making daylight saving time permanent is a “commonsense reform that will improve everyday life for millions,” bill sponsor Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-Fla.) said in a statement, per The Hill. Trump agrees. Passing the bill would be a “very nice WIN for the Republican Party,” he said on Truth Social. But there would be “hidden consequences” to year-round daylight saving, said Axios. Under the reset the “sun won't rise until 8 or 9 a.m. in the winter,” leaving “millions of children” and commuters to start their days “in the dark.”

There would probably be health consequences too. Morning sunlight is “key to maintaining our circadian rhythms” and “overall health,” said The Washington Post. “Circadian misalignment” can cause lost sleep, which in turn is connected to “obesity, Type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, mood disorders” and other health challenges. Americans “would be misaligned all year long,” Vanderbilt University’s Beth Malow said to the paper.

The change would disrupt the daily prayer practices of Orthodox Jews, said NPR. Some prayers “can only be said communally” and are often performed “every morning before heading out for work or school.” The change would be a problem for a “synagogue that has had a morning prayer service for 100 years” if it cannot muster enough of the congregation to “show up at the prayer time close to 9 o'clock because they have jobs,” Rabbi A.D. Motzen, national director of government affairs for Agudath Israel of America, said to the outlet. “Some Muslim prayers and religious observances” would also be affected, said Axios.

Airlines “could take up to two years” to adjust their “complex scheduling” to permanent daylight saving, said CBS News. The shift could affect “crew and aircraft positioning” as well as “domestic and international connectivity,” trade group Airlines for America said in a statement. Trucking and railroad companies that are “also timetable dependent” would face challenges as well, said CBS.

‘Abandoned prematurely’

Congress authorized permanent daylight saving in 1973 to save energy during the oil crisis, said The Independent. The project was “abandoned prematurely” amid concerns about “children and criticisms from the construction and agricultural industries.”

Permanent standard time might be a healthier alternative, said Yahoo News. Stanford University researchers determined that sticking to the regular clock all year would result in “300,000 fewer strokes and 2.6 million fewer people with obesity.” People need “more morning light and less evening light” to have a balanced day, Stanford University’s Jamie Zeitzer said to the outlet.

As Andy Burnham steps into his new post at No. 10. Downing Street, his family has inevitably been brought into the limelight alongside him.

Throughout his political career, Burnham has spoken openly about his upbringing and parents, but has been “generally private about his wife and children”, said Kasia Delgado in The i Paper. He has preferred to allow them to “get on with their lives away from the spotlight” – but his latest career move has made this less likely.

‘Active but not showy’

Burnham met his Dutch-born wife, Marie-France van Heel, in 1989 when both were undergraduates at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge. They began dating, but took a break when Marie-France “asked him for permission to appear on Cilla Black’s ‘Blind Date’”, said Isaac Bickerstaff in Tatler. She and Burnham married in 2000.

Van Heel, known as Frankie by friends and family, has built up an “illustrious” career as a “marketing maven” and currently sits on the board of directors of Be.EV, a company that “masterminds public charging points for electric vehicles”.

Described by those close to her as “very gentle” and “highly intelligent”, she is “rarely seen in public” but joined Burnham this week at Buckingham Palace for his official swearing-in as prime minister.

In 2010, her sister Claire died of breast cancer, and Van Heel subsequently discovered that she “carried the gene” for the disease, said Jon Craig on Sky News. She decided to have a double mastectomy as a result, and is a donor to Cancer Research UK, “often participating in the charity’s Race for Life”. “Politically active, but not in a public or showy way”, she also sits on the board of Plan International, a charity that supports children around the world.

She and Burnham have three adult children. Jimmy, 26, studied Caribbean and Latin American history at University College London and currently works as an International Policy Officer for the Royal College of Nursing, said The i Paper. Rosie, 24, is a “sales manager at Jägermeister”, and 21-year-old Annie attends Cardiff University, following in her father’s footsteps by pursuing a degree in English literature.

The PM has a close relationship with his children, with whom he shares a love for music. Burnham has mentioned how “his son got him into bands The Strokes and Big Thief”, and regularly attends festivals and concerts with his children.

‘Protective of each other’

Before his move to Downing Street, Burnham lived close to his mother and father in Greater Manchester. Parents Roy and Eileen met while working in Liverpool but raised their three sons in Culcheth, a village near Warrington, Cheshire.

John, the oldest brother, has been chair of the Council of the Sixth Form Colleges Association for the last decade. Youngest brother Nick, born four years after Andy, also went into education, and is currently the principal of Cardinal Newman College in Preston, Lancashire. The brothers are said to be close and “protective of each other”, said Delgado. The “tight” family will “bring him back down to earth” if he gets “too Westminster”.

Their father now suffers from Alzheimer’s disease and lives in a care home. But although he is “unaware” of his son’s new position, he has had a lasting influence on his work, said Aine Fox and David Hughes in The Independent. A lifelong Labour supporter, Roy Burnham felt particularly strongly about a “change in the voting system to proportional representation”, a system his son now publicly supports. “It’s a family achievement,” Burnham said of his elevation to No. 10, in an interview with The Times. “Although he doesn’t know it, it still makes me feel that we’ve kind of done something together.”

What happened

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told a Senate committee on Tuesday that President Donald Trump’s Iran war had cost an estimated $37.5 billion so far, and that the $67 billion in supplemental war funding he was requesting is an “urgent, necessary” stopgap as Congress debates Trump’s $1.5 trillion annual Pentagon budget request. Hegseth faced “fiery questions” during the “combative Senate Appropriations Committee hearing,” The Associated Press said. And the scrutiny was “bipartisan,” The Washington Post said, as “frustrated lawmakers” pressed him to “explain the Trump administration’s strategy for the war” amid “renewed hostilities.”

Who said what

Hegseth’s appearance “represented an attempt by the administration to sell the unpopular conflict as a necessary expense,” Politico said. But Senate Democrats “questioned both the success of the war so far and the need for more military money, citing $75 billion in unused funds” from last year’s huge GOP-only spending package. “The problem is not a lack of money, but poor planning,” Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) told Hegseth. “This war is now spiraling out of control again,” and Trump is “asking for $70 billion more — and for us to just trust him it’ll all work out fine.”

What next?

The House plans to quit Washington on Thursday “for a month-long recess,” the Post said, “leaving any deal on military funding weeks away at the earliest.”

In his first speech as Labour leader, Andy Burnham promised to deliver the “most significant change moment in our politics for 40 years”. Days later, on the steps of No. 10, he pinpointed a “series of wrong turns” taken in the 1980s, including the deindustrialisation of “large parts of the country” that “still haven't recovered”. Under Margaret Thatcher, the new PM said, “political power was centralised and economic power was privatised”; now we need a “circuit breaker” and a “new model”.

Undoing Thatcher’s ‘damage’

Many of the “familiar and formidable” problems Burnham faces can indeed be traced “back to the deindustrialisation associated with Thatcherism”, said Bill Keegan, senior economics commentator at The Observer. Placing reindustrialisation “as a central part of his economic strategy” would help Burnham “go some way to undoing the damage Thatcher wrought”.

There was lower growth in the 1980s than the 1970s, said Andrew Fisher, Labour’s director of policy under Jeremy Corbyn, in The i Paper. And any “proceeds of growth” were only felt at the top of society: “inequality increased by a third, homelessness grew and unemployment soared above three million. And that was just the immediate impact” of Thatcher’s “disastrous policies”: their legacy still haunts us today in “stagnant growth, higher utility bills, and in deep inequality consolidated by a grossly unfair tax system”.

To address all this, the new PM needs to set a clear direction from the top of government, said Jonathan Freeland in The Guardian. And, ironically, his “model” here has to be Thatcher. During her time in power, “even the most junior official, when confronted with a policy choice, knew what the boss wanted”: “crudely, less state, more market”. Burnham’s Day One attack on centralised political power and privatised economic power “effectively tells Whitehall” that this PM wants “the opposite”: “political power devolved, and a more active economic state, unafraid of public ownership”.

Playing ‘buzzword bingo’

In laying the ills of modern Britain on “40 years of neoliberalism”, Burnham is playing “fashionable buzzword bingo: deregulation, privatisation, austerity, financialisation, trickle-down economics”, said Kristian Niemietz of the free-market think tank Institute of Economic Affairs on City A.M. And he could not be “more wrong”: the UK economy today is “a million miles away from ‘neoliberalism’”. There may be “a sensible centre-left answer” to our economic challenges “but Burnham’s 1980s karaoke will not get us there”.

What we’re really faced with now is a “grotesque blend of the worst of Thatcherism with the worst of Blairism: bad aspects of ‘neoliberalism’ coexisting with bad aspects of bureaucratic statism”, said Jonny Ball in UnHerd. Our key utilities and critical industries are in the hands of profiteers, we’re “addicted to imported cheap labour” and our local and national management structures have amalgamated into a “public-private partnership blob”. Any “genuine saviour” will have “to topple” this “mongrel system we currently inhabit”.

And while the Left hope a “charismatic mayor with a warm smile” can “exorcise Thatcher’s ghost”, they shouldn’t lose sight of “the Reformist Right” that’s still praying “it will one day complete her unfinished revolution”.

Nicaragua will stop holding elections in a bid to prevent foreign-backed interference, the country’s long-standing president Daniel Ortega has announced.

In a speech to commemorate the Sandinista revolution, which overthrew the US-backed Anastasio ⁠Somoza dictatorship in 1979, the 80-year-old strongman leader declared “the days when parties backed by the Yankees and the Somocistas would return to power are over – never again”.

Who is Daniel Ortega?

A key figure in the revolution, Ortega has held office continuously since 2007, having also served as president in the 1980s.

During his nearly two decades in power, his government has transformed Nicaragua into an “authoritarian state”, according to the UN Human Rights Council.

He has cemented control over virtually all branches of government, including the army and judiciary, and crushed political opposition, with hundreds killed and even more imprisoned following mass anti-government protests in 2018. Last year, further constitutional reforms extended presidential terms to six years, made his wife, Rosario Murillo, co-president, and effectively established a one-party system.

Why has he cancelled elections?

The last elections in 2021 were “widely disputed” after Ortega “detained opponents and business leaders and criminalised dissent”, said Reuters. Hundreds of opposition figures were imprisoned in the run-up to the vote, including a number of presidential hopefuls, before being stripped of their citizenship and expelled to the US and Guatemala.

Nicaraguans had been due to go to the polls again next year before Ortega’s recent announcement that “there won’t be any more elections here for them to try to seize the government and seize power”.

But analysts and opposition figures say the move has highlighted the Ortegas’ fear of a growing opposition movement taking root.

“Ortega and Murillo are evidently afraid at the idea that the slightest political opening could create the conditions for dissent to manifest and threaten their grip on power,” said Tiziano Breda, a senior analyst at Armed Conflict Location & Event Data, a non-profit organisation that tracks political violence. “Instead of staging a rigged election, they have opted to eliminate electoral competition altogether.”

What will the international reaction be?

In the wake of the US military raid in January to capture Venezuela’s then-President Nicolás Maduro, the Nicaraguan government announced it would release more political prisoners, “apparently an effort to stave off pressure on itself”, said AP News. “But there has been no follow-up and little transparency on the issue.”

Despite proscribing the Ortega government as a dictatorship, and imposing sanctions on more than 2,350 Nicaraguan officials and their relatives, the Trump administration has remained remarkably quiet on Ortega and the potential for regime change.

There are a “range of explanations” for this, said Politico’s Nahal Toosi, “including that the regime is making smart moves on battling drug trafficking, that it’s benefiting from a lack of natural resources for Trump to covet and that it doesn’t have a slew of migrants in the US”.

“The lesson from Nicaragua is: don’t matter too much, don’t embarrass Washington and don’t become a domestic political issue,” said Juan Gonzalez, a former Latin America aide to Joe Biden. “For an administration that doesn’t care about democracy or human rights, that’s an effective survival strategy for authoritarians.”

What happened

Former Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham took office Monday as the United Kingdom’s seventh prime minister in 10 years, vowing that his government would be a “circuit breaker” after a series of “wrong turns” by successive leaders since the 1980s. “I know people at home are fed up with politics,” Burnham said in a speech outside No. 10 Downing Street shortly after King Charles III officially appointed him prime minister following Keir Starmer’s resignation. “We need to be better. We will be.”

Who said what

Burnham “wasted no time” showing there’s “much more to him than the friendly, folksy image he’s cultivated in public by swiftly banishing Keir Starmer’s closest allies from the Cabinet,” Politico said. The “biggest surprise” was Burnham’s appointment of former defense secretary John Healey as chancellor of the exchequer, putting the U.K. Treasury in a “safe pair of hands” as he moves to decentralize power from London, re-industrialize the country and unwind the privatization of key utilities. The new prime minister also named Ed Miliband as foreign secretary and kept Shabana Mahmood as home secretary, signaling he’s “largely backing her efforts to crack down on legal and illegal migration,” The New York Times said.

What next?

Burnham said he was working on a 10-year plan for Britain and on Tuesday would unveil some initial measures “to give people some breathing space now, some help with the cost of living.” He also pledged to end “rough sleeping,” or homelessness.

Andy Burnham began his premiership in dramatic style last night, with a brutal purge of ministers loyal to his predecessor in a cabinet reshuffle far more wide-ranging than many expected.

Today the new PM welcomes the first meeting of his top team, “spanning the mainstream wings of the party, including key Northern allies and ministers who fell out with Starmer”, said Politico’s UK political correspondent, Sam Blewett.

Who took the top jobs?

Burnham aside, the biggest winner following the toppling of Keir Starmer is the new Chancellor, John Healey. A surprise pick, the veteran MP – who quit as defence secretary last month in a row over funding – first held a Treasury brief under Tony Blair back in the early 2000s. Hailing from the centre of the party, he is seen as a safe pair of hands who, it is hoped, will not spook the markets like some other names who had been tipped to replace Rachel Reeves.

Chief among these was former Labour leader and net zero champion, Ed Miliband, who has instead been appointed foreign secretary. He replaces Yvette Cooper, who moves to the health department in what is technically a demotion. Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood is one of the few Starmer-era ministers to keep her job, along with Pat McFadden at the Department for Work and Pensions, and Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy.

And what about the rest?

Burnham loyalists make up much of the rest of the cabinet, with his right-hand woman and key enforcer Louise Haigh becoming chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, first secretary of state and Cabinet Office minister, tasked with making government run effectively.

Anneliese Midgley, one of the key figures in Burnham’s leadership campaign, has become chief whip, while Miatta Fahnbulleh, another close ally of the PM who has been advising him on policy, takes over from Miliband as energy secretary.

Rounding off a long evening of Westminster psychodrama, former deputy PM Angela Rayner returned to her old job as housing and communities secretary, while one-time leadership contender Wes Streeting becomes secretary of state for defence.

What does the line-up say about Burnham’s plans?

Downing Street has insisted Burnham and Healey have the “same outlook” when it comes to the major issues that the new PM wants to tackle, including re-industrialisation, devolution and the cost of living. While his appointment signals that the new government will prioritise defence spending – perhaps through the issuing of so-called “war bonds” – many see Healey as more of a blank slate than the likes of Miliband or Mahmood, suggesting economic policy could ultimately emanate from No. 10, rather than next door.

In his first speech as PM, Burnham vowed to end rough sleeping, raise the income tax personal allowance, cut VAT on electricity bills and reform social care. Now it’s up to Healey to find the cash and flexibility, within strict fiscal rules, to make these and other ambitions happen.

The elevation of Miliband to the Foreign Office suggests Burnham also wishes to break from Starmer when it comes to international relations, to “focus relentlessly on the domestic”, said Blewett. Having a “big figure from Labour’s left in charge of the foreign brief could help smooth that ride”.

If there is one thing we learnt from yesterday’s appointments it is that Burnham has a “much stronger theory of power – a view about how he wants to use the office and what he wants to prioritise – than his recent predecessors”, said journalist Sam Freedman in his Comment is Freed newsletter.

Unlike Starmer, whose government “looked buffeted by events and U-turns” from day one, Burnham “has indicated not just that he has priorities but that he is willing to make the institutional changes required to make them happen”.

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

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

What did the commentators say?

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

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

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

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

What next?

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

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

Graham Platner’s “reputation is in tatters,” said George F. Will in The Washington Post, and “so should be the reputations of all those national figures” who tried to make him a U.S. senator. For months, Democrats stuck by the 41-year-old political novice, primary voters’ choice to challenge Maine’s longtime GOP Sen. Susan Collins in November, despite a steady drip of scandals. They weren’t fazed by his troubling Reddit posts, the Nazi chest tattoo, his habit of sexting women not his wife, or claims of physical abuse by an ex-girlfriend. It took one ex’s claim that Platner showed up drunk at her house in 2021 and raped her to dislodge him from “the warm embraces” of left-wing populists such as Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, leaving Platner little choice but to end his “ludicrous-from-the-start” campaign. Democrats would have you believe they turned on Platner because of the rape accusation, said Nick Catoggio in The Dispatch—an accusation that Platner, in a “mopey, 11-minute” exit video, called “all false.” In truth, they looked at his sinking poll numbers and reports that this supposedly working-class oysterman was actually the privately schooled son of a successful attorney, who sold his oysters mostly to his mother’s upscale restaurant. As Democrats scramble to find a new nominee for a race that could decide control of the Senate, what lessons can they learn from this “Frankenstein-tier experiment gone wrong?”

They can start by accepting the need to vet their candidates, said Michelle Goldberg in The New York Times. Platner was discovered and groomed for the spotlight by a pair of progressive operatives, Daniel Moraff and Leanne Fan, who were “so infatuated with his identity—a gruff, handsome oysterman with social democratic politics—that they failed to do their due diligence.” This was Platner’s first run for office, yet they skipped the standard $20,000 background check for a budget-friendly “expedited” version that didn’t find the many skeletons in his closet. These are the corners you cut when you “fall in love too easily,” said Renée Graham in The Boston Globe. Why bother vetting when in this gravel-voiced Marine combat veteran they’d been handed the perfect “white working-man whisperer” to sell socialism to the masses?

The truth is darker than that, said Monica Potts in The New Republic. When Platner’s “questionable treatment of women” started coming to light, his boosters did more than defend him. They celebrated his “checkered history” as proof of Platner’s “authenticity,” that he was, in the words of independent journalist Ken Klippenstein, not a “smoothgroin” politician. In defending Platner, Democratic elites revealed their disdain for blue-collar voters, said Noah Rothman in National Review. A binge-drinking, woman-abusing, Nazi-curious liar, they clearly thought, is “just what you get when you meet the American working class where they live.”

Platner was a “train wreck,” said Perry Bacon in The New Republic, but it wasn’t crazy to think an unconventional outsider might resonate with Maine’s white, rural electorate. Maybe not, said The New York Times in an editorial, but Platner’s initial appeal “was never really about oysters or facial hair.” He won June’s primary by 50 points because, unlike many Democratic candidates, he seemed to stand for something beyond simply opposing President Trump—he spoke with “conviction” about fixing “an economy that seems rigged for the powerful.” The lesson of Platner is not that the party needs to find scandal-free saviors, but rather that it should find a “purpose.”

Andy Burnham entered No. 10 today, promising to address the cost of living crisis and put “the right values and the right standards at the heart of government”.

His supporters will be hoping the former mayor of Manchester will be able to revive not just the country but the fortunes of the Labour party. But the rival parties are already looking to spoil Burnham’s political honeymoon.

What did the commentators say?

The most obvious loser in Labour’s shift to the left under Andy Burnham is likely to be the Greens, said Kate Devlin in The Independent Polling experts are predicting a “significant blow” to the party’s “recent surge in support”. Burnham has already “shifted Labour’s stance on a number of issues likely to appeal to new Green voters”, notably including an apology for his party’s initial response to Israel‘s miliary action in Gaza.

“After months of benefiting from voter disillusionment with Keir Starmer’s government,“ Green Party leaders are “now grappling with a new political landscape”, said Zoe Crowther on Politics Home. It’s thought they’re planning “to use Burnham’s first weeks in office to draw political dividing lines” and “challenge him over issues including rent controls, wealth taxation, public ownership and arms exports to Israel”.

They also plan to target Shabana Mahmood, according to an internal Green Party memo seen by The New Statesman. They see her as “an absolute gift to us”. Should she become chancellor, they will accuse her of “fiscal constraint and economic orthodoxy” but, even if she doesn’t, they will mount attacks on her controversial immigration reforms.

This, of course, risks playing into Burnham’s hands when it comes to the fight against Reform in large parts of northern England. As do Nigel Farage’s many months of taking aim at Labour’s “snobby north London approach to politics”, said The Telegraph’s James Frayne. The new Labour leader is an “authentic” Northerner, with a “strong track record and an interested local electorate willing him to succeed”. Burnham “not only makes Reform’s chosen approach more difficult; he potentially turns all this on its head”.

Labour’s new appeal to both Green and Reform voters presents a “rare opportunity” for the Conservatives to occupy the centre, said Kate Maltby in The Observer. But Kemi Badenoch’s insistence that all prospective Tory parliamentary candidates back British withdrawal from the European Convention on Human Rights and the scrapping of net zero targets is a strong signal that “she has absolutely no intention of doing so”.

“Intriguingly,” said George Parker in the Financial Times, the Liberal Democrats “also seem determined to attack Burnham from the right” in the hope of winning over “moderate One Nation Tory voters”.

What next?

There must be a general election by summer 2029 at the latest, so the “clock is already ticking” as Burnham takes on the “mammoth task in trying to convert his message of hope into government policy”, said Dan Bloom on Politico. But he has already made it clear he will run a more campaign-oriented No. 10 than Keir Starmer did, kicking off with a summer “listening tour” around the country.

If he succeeds and manages to build Labour a consistent lead in the polls, Burnham could choose to go to the country early. “This summer, mental,” one Labour MP told Bloom. “Next year, definitely possible.”

Many had written off Marine Le Pen, said Katya Adler on BBC News. They thought the de facto leader of the far-right National Rally (RN) had run out of political road after being convicted in March 2025 of helping to embezzle more than €4 million in EU parliamentary funds, which the RN diverted to pay for its own staff.

And since her punishments include a five-year ban from holding office, it seemed likely that her charismatic 30-year-old protégé, Jordan Bardella, would have to take her place in the 2027 presidential election.

But Le Pen has a habit of defying the odds. And so it proved last week, when the Court of Appeal confirmed her conviction, but reduced her period of ineligibility to 15 months, allowing her to compete next April.

‘Risky gamble’

There was one large caveat, however: she would have to wear an ankle tag for 12 months as part of her three-year jail sentence, two of which are suspended. This made some doubt that she’d run. But just six hours after the ruling, Le Pen “came out swinging”. In a TV interview, she said yes, she would run for president, and no, she wouldn’t have to wear a tag, at least not until the Court of Cassation has ruled on her final appeal. Ever defiant, she has styled herself as “a phoenix rising from the ashes”.

Barring Le Pen from standing would have had “devastating consequences” for French democracy, said Jean-Éric Schoettl in Le Figaro (Paris). True, she has been convicted of wrongdoing, but even so, it should be left to the French people to decide whether they want her as president or not.

The judgment was a tightrope act, said Olivier Beaud in Le Monde (Paris). By reducing Le Pen’s sentence and letting her stand, the court has freed the judiciary from accusations of political meddling. But at the same time – and this is the really important point – it has upheld her conviction for a grave criminal offence.

Le Pen is not out of the woods by any stretch, said Julien Lécuyer in La Voix du Nord (Lille). Her “risky gamble” could backfire. The Court of Cassation has now said that it will rule on her case at some point before the election. If it upholds last week’s verdict, Le Pen could, in theory, be forced to wear an ankle tag on the campaign trail. Such physical proof of her criminality would be a godsend to her rivals.

Wingman Bardella

The RN is currently well ahead in the polls, said The Economist (London), but its path to the Élysée Palace faces pitfalls beyond the legal saga. One is the potential for infighting. Until his mentor’s sudden reprieve, the highly popular Bardella had assumed he was going to be the RN’s presidential candidate. So he has been pushing his own vision of the path the RN should follow, a path which differs from Le Pen’s. Being a more business-friendly politician, he balks at her plan to reduce the pension age for some workers to 60. Such differences will “inevitably strain” their relationship in the coming months, for all that Le Pen insists they are united.

Yet the truth is she cannot win without him, said Clea Caulcutt on Politico (Brussels). In what was “either a stroke of genius or a sign of desperation”, she had him constantly at her side last week. She was “all smiles” at the RN rally in La Flèche; he was “more stone-faced”, as if “adjusting to his new role as wingman”.

Le Pen’s candidacy sheds light on the “true nature” of the RN, said Le Monde. It’s a family concern. A Le Pen has stood in all but one election since 1972, the year her late father Jean-Marie founded what was then called the National Front. And the family retains its tight grip: Le Pen’s niece is her comms director; her brother-in-law is her main adviser.

The only thing different about the party today is Le Pen’s double conviction, which exposes the rot at the heart of it. So much for the RN’s old slogan “Clean hands and head held high”; so much for Le Pen’s 2013 proposal to give lifetime bans to politicians guilty of embezzlement. The RN poses a “serious threat” to France, and its opponents must wake up before it’s too late.

“Imagine the ecstasy Democrats felt when they first found Graham Platner,” said Carine Hajjar in The Washington Post. At last, a man who could help them win back the blue-collar vote: a charismatic, gruff-talking oyster farmer and combat veteran.

They were so excited to think his run for Maine senator might succeed, and deliver their party control of the upper chamber of Congress, that they dismissed a growing list of ugly revelations about him.

A gamble too far

That large Nazi tattoo on his chest? Platner didn’t know the skull motif had SS associations (though he apparently called it his “Totenkopf”). His history of bigoted comments on social media, and sexting of women? He’d been through a “dark period”, but had “grown”. The allegation of physical abuse from a (Republican) ex-girlfriend? Probably politically motivated. But a credible accusation of rape from a (Democratic) former partner finally tipped the balance – and, last week, Platner quit the race.

The Platner affair was a train wreck, said Perry Bacon in The New Republic, but that shouldn’t deter Democrats from seeking unconventional candidates who will make voters give them a second look. The party has to enlist support from outside its core base.

Platner was a gamble too far, but we know from the 2016 and 2024 elections what happens when Democrats run milquetoast candidates with “Republican-lite” policy platforms: they lose. The party needs new blood, said The New York Times. More importantly, though, it needs to define what it would do with power. It needs “a purpose” more than it needs charismatic outsiders.

Selected on ‘vibes’

The Democrats must take more care with recruitment, said Christina Cauterucci on Slate. Platner was enlisted by a political strategist called Daniel Moraff, solely on the basis of “vibes”. He had no track record as an official or an activist. There was minimal vetting. Voters wanted “real human beings”, Moraff insisted, not “vat-grown people”.

Yet the joke is that Platner’s rugged image is itself confected. He comes from an affluent family and attended a fancy prep school; his oyster farm’s main customer is his mother’s upscale restaurant. Genuinely working-class voters weren’t impressed by Platner: he polled poorly among them, and did much better among college-educated voters. This is a cautionary tale about treating “class signifiers” – a dense beard, tattoos and a grimy sweatshirt – as proof “of political merit”.

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

What did the commentators say?

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

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

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

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

What next?

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

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