In the immediate aftermath of Poland’s Communist collapse, the country was considered one of the most economically dire in Europe — but the status quo has changed in a major way. Poland now has the 20th largest economy in the world, the country’s statistics agency announced last week, marking its highest-ever global ranking. Experts say there are a variety of factors that led to Poland becoming Europe’s new economic gem.

What did the commentators say?

Poland entered the top 20 economies by leapfrogging Switzerland; it reported more than $1 trillion in economic output for 2025, with its gross domestic product increasing 3.6% year-over-year, according to Poland’s statistics agency. This is a far cry from the early to mid-1990s, when Poland “rationed sugar and flour while its citizens were paid one-tenth what West Germans earned,” said The Associated Press.

But in “35 years — a little less than one person’s working lifetime — Poland’s per capita GDP rose to $55,340 in 2025, or 85% of the EU average,” said the AP. One of the most important factors in Poland’s economic growth was “rapidly building a strong institutional framework for business,” economist Marcin Piatkowski of Poland’s Kozminski University told the AP. This includes the creation of antimonopoly agencies and regulatory bodies, ensuring that Poland’s economy “wasn’t hijacked by corrupt practices and oligarchs, as happened elsewhere in the post-Communist world.”

Poland was also given significant help from the European Union both “before and after it joined the bloc in 2004,” said the AP. Once Poland became an EU state, it got additional funding as a result of its membership that “helped modernize Polish industry and expand an increasingly digitalized services sector,” said The Wall Street Journal. Above all, Polish business leaders “do not feel intimidated or constrained by any lingering sense of inferiority,” Dominik Kopiński, a senior adviser at the Polish Economic Institute, told Deutsche Welle. They “take opportunities when they see them and, more importantly, they are trailblazing for other companies.”

What next?

Even as Poland enjoys economic prosperity, not everyone is convinced that it will last. The country has a low birth rate and an aging society, meaning that “fewer workers will be able to support retirees,” said the AP. Wages in Poland are “lower than the EU average,” and “while small and medium enterprises flourish, few have become global brands.”

The country “must also contend with rising public debt,” said the Journal. Poland’s budget deficit of 6.8% is “significantly higher than the 3% benchmark for EU member states.” If Poland wants to continue climbing the economic ladder, its government will “need to rein in spending and raise taxes in order to ease debts over the coming years.” But there is also some good news, as Poland’s private-sector debt “remains low by EU standards.”

There is also the possibility of Poland leaving the EU, which could create further economic turmoil; dubbed ‘Polexit,’ Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has accused “right-wing opposition parties of steering the country toward leaving the bloc,” said Politico. “Polexit is a real threat today!” Tusk said on X. If his country left the EU, it “would be a disaster for Poland. I will do everything I can to stop them.”

As the Iran war enters its second week, violence from the U.S. and Israel’s western assault and counterstrikes by Iranian forces and their allies threatens not only Iranian, Israeli and American targets but the broader region as a whole. While U.S. and Israeli forces have struggled with unclear and potentially conflicting orders, as well as questionable AI-influenced operations, Iranian forces have long been preparing for an attack of this sort in principle, if not in specific execution.

What did the commentators say?

With violence expanding across multiple fronts in the region, Iran is operating with a “complex strategy” designed to combine “military escalation, economic leverage, domestic mobilization and diplomatic signaling,” said Middle East Monitor. By resting on “several interconnected pillars,” Iran’s strategy is meant to address both military maneuvers and prevent the “broader objective” many officials believe animates this war: regime change.

Iran is “fighting for survival, and survival on its own terms,” said the BBC, with the nation’s leaders having been “preparing for this moment for years.” Although it would be “naive” to expect Iran to hope for a “straightforward battlefield victory,” the evidence instead suggests they have “built a strategy around deterrence and endurance.” Theirs is a calculus that “rests partly on the economics of war,” in which “prolonged conflict” forces the U.S. and Israeli militaries to expend “high-value assets” like missile defense systems to intercept “comparatively low-cost threats” like kamikaze drones.

During the Israel-Iran war of 2025, Tehran’s barrage against U.S. troops stationed at the Al Udeid airbase in Qatar was “prewarned and largely seen as a face-saving exercise,” said Al Jazeera. Now, Tehran has seemingly “revised its military strategy to a more aggressive one focused” on national survival.

The updates include repairing facilities damaged by previous air assaults and “fortifying” several nuclear facilities, using “concrete and large amounts of soil to bury key sites,” said CNN. Past conflicts have also highlighted “weaknesses in Iran’s command structures under pressure,” leading a “new authority, the Defense Council, to govern in times of war.”

Iran’s newly established Defense Council is led by Ali Larijani, the country’s “top national security official,” a “veteran politician” and a former commander in the Revolutionary Guard Corps, said The New York Times. Since the council’s creation in the wake of last year’s Israel-Iran war, Larijani, 67, has “effectively been running the country,” sidelining heart surgeon turned politician President Masoud Pezeshkian as someone who can’t be expected to “solve the multitude of problems in Iran.”

Iran is “definitely more powerful than before,” Larijani said in an interview in Doha before the Iran war began, according to the Times. Tehran has “prepared in the past seven, eight months” and “found our weaknesses and fixed them.”

In February, the Revolutionary Guard Corps moved to “revive its so-called mosaic defense strategy,” which gives field commanders the “autonomy to issue orders to their units,” making the country “more resilient to foreign attacks,” said The Wall Street Journal.

The RGC also established about “100 monitoring points” in Tehran to “block potential insurgents or foreign forces” in the days leading up to the U.S.-Israel assault to preemptively neuter any “disruptive antigovernment unrest,” said the Journal. While last year’s war with Israel highlighted Iran’s “military inferiority” and the “limits of regional militia allies” like Lebanon’s Hezbollah, it also gave Tehran an “opportunity to test and refine its war tactics.”

What next?

Iran’s military says it has amassed “enough supplies to continue their aerial drone and missile war” against U.S. and allied positions across the Middle East “for up to six months,” said the National Post. President Trump’s refusal to rule out a ground invasion has also pushed Iranian officials to address the prospect of foreign troops on Iranian soil. “We are waiting for them,” said Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi to NBC’s “Meet The Press” last week. Iranian forces are “confident that we can confront them, and that would be a big disaster for them.”

Ultimately, Iran’s planning and in-war actions rest on the belief that it can “absorb punishment longer than its adversaries are willing to sustain pain and costs,” said the BBC. Their “calculated escalation,” then, is to “endure, retaliate, avoid total collapse and wait for political fractures to emerge on the other side.”

There are only so many weapons to go around. The United States is waging war on Iran, and some observers are concerned the massive expenditure of munitions will make it more difficult to supply Ukraine in its war against Russia.

Conflict in the Middle East may deprive Ukraine of weapons to “defend itself from Russia’s bombardment,” said The Wall Street Journal. The intensity of the U.S. war on Iran “will affect the amount of air defense we receive,” said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and the “sudden depletion” of air defense munitions will make it more challenging to “credibly project U.S. power against Russia in Ukraine,” said Time magazine. America’s “resources and supplies are limited,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.). That has raised concerns in Kyiv, said Time. “Everyone understands that the right weapons are our lifeline,” Zelenskyy said.

The Iran war “could save Vladimir Putin’s failing Ukraine invasion,” said The Atlantic Council. Russia “stands to benefit more than most” from the surge in oil and gasoline prices caused by the war in Iran, which could also “distract the Trump administration” from its efforts to mediate a peace deal between Moscow and Kyiv. Putin “will now likely be able to breathe a little easier” while the U.S. is distracted.

What did the commentators say?

The “obvious truth” is that Ukraine’s struggle is “not a priority for the White House,” Bohdan Nahaylo said at the Kyiv Post. The Iran war also increases pressure on Europe, which now must “deal with instability in two important areas simultaneously.” European energy markets that “had just stabilized after cutting off Russian supplies” have been thrown into renewed turmoil. That will create new challenges for a continent already “stretched thin” by its backing of Ukraine. The newest crisis will be a “test of Europe’s ability to remain focused and united.”

War in the Middle East “offers Russia several opportunities,” Stefan Wolff said at The Conversation. The oil shock gives Moscow a “new lifeline for financing its ongoing war” while the diversion of U.S. arms to Iran gives Putin an advantage in his “relentless campaign of missile and drone strikes” on Ukraine. The war in Iran will not give Russia a victory in Ukraine, “but it has thrown the world into additional turmoil for no good reason.” That will delay a “much-needed restoration of peace” for a war-weary Europe.

What next?

President Donald Trump is “looking to Ukraine to help its operations against Iran,” said Politico. Zelenskyy’s government has extensive experience with the kind of drone warfare at the center of the Iran conflict, making Ukraine a “world leader” in the kind of “anti-drone defenses” that the U.S. needs right now. The Ukrainian leader said the country would help as long as that assistance “didn’t weaken its own defenses.” Doing so may give Ukraine leverage with Trump: Assistance to the U.S. “serves as an investment in our diplomatic capabilities,” Zelenskyy said.

Maybe it is a coincidence, but maybe not: Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is accusing Ukraine of a plot to sabotage his country’s energy infrastructure just weeks ahead of an April parliamentary election that threatens his grip on power.

Orbán is “facing the prospect of defeat by his political rival, Péter Magyar,” said Politico. To make up a polling gap of eight points, Hungary’s leader has accused Magyar of being both pro-Ukraine and pro-European Union. And on Feb. 25, he ordered troops to protect “key sites” such as oil pipelines against the possibility of a Ukrainian attack. Such measures are necessary for the “protection of critical energy infrastructure,” Orbán said. That proclamation drew an “exasperated response” from European leaders trying to present a united pro-Ukraine front as that country fights a Russian invasion in its fourth year. It is wrong if Hungary “uses its own fight for freedom to betray European sovereignty,” said German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul.

What did the commentators say?

Hungary’s leader is “widely seen as the Kremlin’s strongest ally” in Europe, said NBC News. Orbán has cast his relationship with Moscow as “pragmatic” to ensure his country’s “access to reliable supplies of Russian oil and gas.” But critics see his “crackdowns” on media and nongovernmental organizations as borrowing from “Putin’s authoritarian playbook.”

Orbán’s actions are “aiding and abetting Russia’s kinetic war against Ukraine,” said Mark Toth and Jonathan Sweet at The Hill. He has long hidden behind “economic excuses” for his refusal to oppose Russia, claiming that Europe “cannot afford” to back Ukraine in its war, even as he “champions Putin’s interests in the West.” The prime minister would “gladly continue to crassly trade cheap Russian oil for Ukrainian lives.” Now Orbán is trying to convince his country that Ukrainians are the real threat even though “Ukraine is not at war with Hungary.”

This spring’s elections are “shaping up to be the most serious challenge” to Orbán’s power in the last two decades, Timothy Ash said at The Kyiv Post. It is no coincidence that the Hungarian leader’s campaign has been “shaped around picking fights with the European Union and Ukraine.” He appears to believe he can “play Hungary as the victim here” with Ukraine as the culprit for higher fuel prices thanks to energy disruptions caused by the war. The polling showing Magyar in the lead, however, suggests “this Orbán strategy is not really working.”

What next?

Hungary is “holding up about $105 billion in European funding for Ukraine,” said The Washington Post. The loan was “intended to reinforce Ukraine’s military and plug its budget gap,” but Orbán “used veto powers” to block the package that he had already agreed to. Back at home there are "growing fears" that Orbán may “cancel next month's election,” said The Bulwark. Hungary's constitution outlaws elections during a state of emergency, which makes the “manufactured” alarms over Ukraine look like a “deeply sinister” attempt to hold onto power.

President Donald Trump appears to be on the cusp of ordering an attack on Iran, but some Pentagon insiders are warning of potential risks of a new war in the Middle East. Any escalation could bring significant long-term conflict.

The possible downsides of attacking Iran include “U.S. and allied casualties, depleted air defenses and an overtaxed force,” said The Wall Street Journal. Trump is considering a range of options from a quick-hit strike to a longer aerial bombing campaign. While all the scenarios “carry risks,” an extended attack lasting multiple days “could incur significant costs to U.S. forces and munitions stockpiles” and has the “potential to pull the U.S. into a broader war in the Middle East.” Depleting American weaponry against Iran could also “impact preparations for a possible future conflict with China.”

What did the commentators say?

There is “no low-cost, easy, clean military option available in the case of Iran,” said Ali Vaez of the International Crisis Group to The New York Times. Iran’s government has command of “extensive military abilities” as well as a “network of regional proxy forces” that could attack U.S. forces in the region, said the Times. An Iranian counterattack could strike Israel, as well as American allies like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Iran’s goal would be to “quickly escalate and export instability” to spread the pain of a conflict, said Sanam Vakil, the director of the Middle East and North Africa program at Chatham House.

“The risks of escalation are grave,” said Rosemary Kelanic, the director of the Middle East Program at Defense Priorities, at The Hill. Iran is weak compared to the United States, but history offers numerous examples of “weak countries prevailing over stronger ones.” Weak countries “just need to not lose, to outlast their opponent” until the stronger country decides the costs are not worth it anymore. Iran’s leaders have incentives to take the retaliatory gloves off this time around. Trump’s “regime-toppling rhetoric” about Iran’s government makes this an “existential” crisis for Tehran. That gives the U.S. a “clear imperative” to avoid a “pointless war.”

Americans can “reasonably hope” for the downfall of the Iranian regime, said Thomas Wright at The Atlantic. And the United States could “defeat Iran quickly and decisively.” But an “open-ended regional conflict” is also possible. A “cornered” Iranian regime “could prove more resilient than expected,” leading to a drawn-out war that leaves Americans to “deal with the consequences for years to come.” The June 2025 attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities “bought time” for the U.S. to consider its options. Trump should use that time instead of attacking now.

What next?

The president is “increasingly frustrated” with his military options, said CBS News. Trump wants a “singular, decisive blow” that would force Iran’s leaders to make nuclear concessions at the bargaining table, but Pentagon planners have told him “such an outcome cannot be guaranteed.” What happens next will depend on “how much risk Washington is prepared to bear.”

Mexican security forces struck a major blow against international drug traffickers when they killed Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes over the weekend. Cervantes, known as “El Mencho,” was the leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel and one of Mexico’s most ruthless drug kingpins. But while his death leaves a power gap in the cartel, there could be even greater effects domestically and internationally.

What did the commentators say?

The most immediate effect of Cervantes’ death was a surge in violence, as “almost immediately, Guadalajara, Mexico’s third-largest city and the capital of Jalisco State, was plunged into chaos as the cartel retaliated,” said The New York Times. The carnage began “spreading to cities and beach resorts across Mexico as gunmen torched stores and banks and blockaded highways.” The U.S. Embassy ordered Americans to “take immediate shelter in their homes or lodgings” amid the “wave of high-intensity violence,” said The Arizona Republic. The blockades set up by the cartel became particularly troublesome as they “paralyzed different points of the state” of Jalisco.

Despite this violence, some across Mexico celebrated Cervantes’ death, as he had “built the Jalisco cartel into one of Mexico’s most feared criminal organizations,” said the Times. The cartel’s violence and brutality are notable “even among the country’s landscape of beheadings, dismemberments and bodies hanging off bridges.” Cervantes’ demise is the “most important blow that has been dealt to drug trafficking in Mexico since drug trafficking existed in Mexico,” said Eduardo Guerrero, a former Mexican security official, to the Times.

There is also likely to be an effect on Mexico’s drug trade, as the Jalisco cartel is “one of Mexico’s most powerful drug trafficking organizations, with significant cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine distribution networks,” said Al Jazeera. There is additional evidence that the cartel played a “major role” in recent fentanyl trafficking into the United States. Many who follow the cartel’s doings say the group’s “growth has been driven as much by strategy as by brutality.”

What next?

Most experts say it is unlikely the Jalisco cartel will simply go away. U.S. officials “consider the cartel to be as powerful as the Sinaloa cartel, with a presence in all 50 U.S. states,” said The Guardian, referencing the infamous trafficking organization led by Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán. Given that the Jalisco cartel “earns billions from the production of fentanyl and methamphetamines,” production appears primed to continue.

The long-term effect in Mexico will largely “depend on what succession plans Jalisco New Generation had in the event of Oseguera Cervantes’ capture or killing,” said The Independent. Beyond the current carnage, there is usually “longer-term violence associated with any succession.” How bad things will get depends on the cartel itself, but typically, operations where a “cartel boss is removed lead to more violence and fragmentation of criminal groups.”

There could also be ongoing political ramifications, as Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum’s move to target Cervantes “represented a hard policy turn following a year of intense pressure” from President Donald Trump, said CNN. But a “permanent cartel crackdown would create new dilemmas and political risks.” And while Sheinbaum has said she is focused on restoring peace and coordinating with security forces, historical killings of drug lords “don’t stop drugs flowing to Americans or temper cartels, which seed corruption throughout Mexican business, law enforcement and politics.”

More work in less time with fewer workers — productivity gains are supposed to be one of the big benefits of artificial intelligence. But those promises have not yet come to fruition, according to a new survey of corporate executives around the world.

More than 80% of the 6,000 executives surveyed by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) “detect no discernible impact from AI on either employment or productivity,” said The Register. It’s not for lack of trying: 69% of businesses say they use AI in the workplace, three-quarters “expect to use it over the next three years,” and more than 90% say it has “no impact on employment” at their businesses. The new survey is the latest addition to a “growing body of evidence” that AI’s advocates are “just not living up to their promises — at least not yet.”

The link between AI and productivity is “murky at best,” said Marketplace. That is because any productivity improvements are “going to be really hard to measure,” said Erika McEntarfer of the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research to the outlet. There are other factors increasing business productivity at the moment, including new investments in research and the “loosening labor market,” said Marketplace. Figuring out AI’s impact will involve measuring “hundreds of millions of people, doing at least that many, if not more, discrete tasks every day,” said George Pearkes of Bespoke Investment Group.

What did the commentators say?

The NBER survey is “damning,” said Frank Landymore at Futurism. While most firms are using AI in some fashion, the “vast majority” say the technology “hasn’t budged the needle for them yet.” Other surveys have found that AI can “slow down rather than speed up human programmers” and ends up “accelerating burn-out” among human workers. There is precedent for this: The adoption of computers decades ago was “obviously transformative,” but they “didn’t immediately translate to economic gains.” This is why executives will keep “clinging to the hope that the tech’s promises will be borne out in the long run.”

Businesses are experiencing the “pause before the gale,” said James Pethokoukis at the American Enterprise Institute. There is a growing consensus that AI will gradually seep into the workplaces via office software in “useful, but hardly revolutionary” fashion. The firms that see productivity gains will be willing to “thoroughly rethink how work is organized.” When the promised benefits of AI finally arrive, “no one will doubt its existence and import.”

What next?

AI’s economic impact is “just beginning,” said Columbia Business School. But the gap between the promises and the measurable outputs is creating a “growing tension in public discourse.” Artificial intelligence already “feels transformative” in many users’ daily lives, but the “effects are not fully visible in traditional macroeconomic statistics.” What seems certain is that work will evolve as the technology changes. Workers have adapted to new technologies throughout history, said Aaron “Ronnie” Chatterji, OpenAI’s chief economist. “I’m bullish on humans,” he said.

President Donald Trump’s consistent prodding of Iran hasn’t developed into armed conflict, but some foreign analysts are fearful it could be on the horizon. The White House has been pressuring Iran over its nuclear program and recently dispatched a second aircraft carrier to the Middle East as military tensions heighten. Despite this, other experts say the prospect of war with Iran remains unlikely.

What did the commentators say?

Trump has long hinted at the idea of a strike against Iran, and his administration did attack the country’s alleged nuclear weapons armaments in 2025. But White House officials have “discovered that the U.S. could not conduct a major offensive as quickly as they had hoped without real risks to American forces, support from allies, and regional stability,” said The Atlantic. The administration also doesn’t appear to have a plan of attack, as it has “yet to outline to military commanders what it would want to achieve through strikes.”

This likely suggests that the “use of force is not imminent” in Iran, said The Atlantic. Trump has “no good options when it comes to using force,” said CNBC, largely because the U.S. does not have the troop presence built up near Iran to mount a full-on war. While American forces in the region are growing, they are “not adequate to support a significant long-term military operation in Iran which would be necessary to achieve any major military objective,” said Alireza Ahmadi, an executive fellow at the Geneva Center for Security Policy, to CNBC.

But Trump has never shied away from conflict, and things could continue to devolve if negotiations between the U.S. and Iran break down. If he did decide to go to war, or even launch a targeted attack, it would be “something much larger, likely” than “what the Israelis did in the 12-day war,” retired U.S. Army Gen. Jack Keane said on “The Cats Roundtable” radio show. The conflict could create “something that would be quite formidable, that would put the regime clearly on a pathway to regime collapse.”

What next?

Despite “ongoing diplomacy to ease tensions with Iran,” said Al Jazeera, the Trump administration appears to be moving ahead with shoring up its Middle East forces. Recent moves by the White House “put two carriers and their accompanying warships in the region.” This occurred just hours after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with Trump in Washington, D.C., and “reaffirmed his preference for a diplomatic deal with Iran.” Trump “insisted that negotiations with Iran continue to see whether or not a Deal can be consummated,” the president wrote on social media.

Diplomatic negotiations have largely been positive, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said. But Iran also temporarily closed the Strait of Hormuz to “conduct military drills in the waterway,” causing concern since the “strait is the world's most vital oil export route,” said Reuters. And Iran may already be resigned to the fact that a U.S. attack is coming. The country is “preparing for the possibility” of an offensive move by the U.S., The Jerusalem Post reported; satellite images have shown a “larger push to create defensive layers to [Iran’s] nuclear and ballistic missile facilities,” said Jonathan Hackett, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran, to the Post. This is likely in “anticipation of a possible U.S. strike.”

Doomscrollers are familiar with the addictive properties of social media. Should Big Tech companies be legally liable for the way their products affect users’ mental health? A trial underway in California could set an important precedent.

A now-20-year-old plaintiff known in court documents as KGM says Meta and YouTube are “intentionally creating addictive platforms,” said CNN. Those companies’ algorithmic decisions caused her to “develop anxiety, body dysmorphia and suicidal thoughts” when she was younger, said the lawsuit. (Snap and TikTok settled her case before it went to trial.) The tech companies have “engineered addiction in children’s brains,” said lawyer Mark Lanier at trial this week. The trial verdict could influence the resolution of 1,500 similar cases around the country, said CNN.

Meta, in particular, has long been “compared to Big Tobacco,” said The Atlantic. Now the company’s day in court has come. Meta’s defense argues researchers have found only “weak and inconsistent correlations” between mental health and social media use. The trial is the company’s “first chance to tell their story to a jury and get a sense of how well those arguments are playing,” said Eric Goldman, a professor at Santa Clara University School of Law, to the outlet.

What did the commentators say?

The “infinite-scroll apps” that loom so large in teen social life “might soon be a thing of the past,” said Casey Newton at Platformer. Millions of children are “bullied and harassed” on social media, or are “introduced to groomers and predators.” Platforms will have a hard time defending themselves from the criticism. American politics may be polarized, but child safety issues are “increasingly the one thing that partisans of every stripe can agree on.” The California trial may force changes, or perhaps some other regulatory action in the near future. What seems clear: “Change is in fact coming.”

Personal injury lawyers “never let a cultural problem go to waste,” said The Wall Street Journal editorial board. It is difficult to prove that social media is at fault for society’s ills when “personal experience, personality and online exposure” all vary by individual. The young woman at the center of the California trial was “exposed to domestic abuse” as a child, perhaps making her more vulnerable. States and countries are already passing legislation to restrict children’s use of social media, and that is how such issues should be addressed. Lawsuits against Big Tech firms “won’t help teens.”

What next?

Meta and YouTube are pushing back, said The Associated Press. Evidence at the trial will show KGM averaged 29 minutes a day on YouTube over a five-year period. That shows that “infinite scroll is not infinite,” said Luis Li, an attorney for YouTube parent company Google, to jurors. But more trials are coming, said the AP, including a federal case in June involving school districts against Big Tech companies. KGM’s trial and the cases that follow will be a “reckoning for social media and youth harms.”

The 2011 Fukushima meltdown was a nightmare that all but shut down Japan’s nuclear power industry. But things change, and the country has now restarted the world’s largest nuclear power plant over the objections of neighbors who fear another calamity.

Restarting reactor No. 6 at Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant northwest of Tokyo is a “milestone in Japan’s slow return to nuclear energy,” said The Guardian. Japan’s government wants to reduce the country’s carbon emissions and increase its energy security without relying on fossil fuels. But many of the 420,000 people living near the plant say the restart is “fraught with danger.” That makes the move a “human rights issue,” said resident Ryusuke Yoshida. Authorities refused calls to hold a referendum on the plant’s future, said The Guardian, but polls show “clear opposition to putting the reactor back online."

Japan shut down all 54 of the country’s reactors following the Fukushima incident, and has since restarted 14 of the 33 that remain operable, said CNN. The Kashiwazaki-Kariwa restart, though, is seen as a “watershed moment in the country’s return to nuclear energy,” said Reuters. Tokyo Electric Power Co., which also operated the Fukushima plant, said it has a host of new safety measures. The company has learned the lessons of the earlier disaster, officials say. “We remain firmly committed to never repeating such an accident,” a TEPCO spokesperson said.

What did the commentators say?

"Japan’s big nuclear restart is an economic inevitability,” said Yuriy Humber at Nikkei Asia. Restarting reactors can “help lower electricity bills” in a country still experiencing high inflation. A dormant nuclear plant, meanwhile, “still costs tens of millions of dollars a year to maintain,” while an operating plant can bring hundreds of millions in profit. Shifting dependence to liquid natural gas and coal would be “neither cheap nor sustainable.” All of this has long been true, but the trauma of Fukushima forced officials to take a path that is “slow, deliberate and shaped as much by psychology as by policy.”

The nuclear power industry in Japan “cannot simply be switched on again,” said Tadahiro Katsuta at Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Reactors once supplied 29% of the country’s electricity, but that number has dipped to 5% in the years since Fukushima. Renewable energy has started to fill the gap, and is expected to fulfill 40% or more of Japan’s energy needs by 2040. The bottom line, though, is that the Fukushima incident demonstrated the “claimed inherent safety of nuclear power is a myth.”

What next?

The return of Kashiwazaki-Kariwa’s reactor was delayed by a day. The restart was “originally scheduled to resume” on Jan. 20, said Bloomberg, but was put on hold “following an issue with an alarm.” The issue was not serious, a company spokesperson said to The Japan Times, but safety demands that TEPCO “respond sincerely whenever issues are identified.” The reactor went online on the morning of Jan. 21.

President Donald Trump is celebrating the U.S. attack on Venezuela as a victory for control of that country’s oil reserves. “We’ve taken $4 billion of oil in one day,” he said Thursday on Fox News. “That will increase.” However, it is unclear whether American oil companies are willing to undertake the effort and expense of rebuilding Venezuela’s petroleum industry.

Venezuela’s “huge reserves of crude oil” are not necessarily a “tantalizing prospect for private investors,” said Politico. “Tens of billions of dollars” will be required over the next decade to rebuild the country’s “aging facilities,” a task complicated by the fact that the country’s crude oil reserves require “more expensive processing work” than oil from other sources. Privately, at least, many oil company executives are saying it might be difficult to make the project profitable. The numbers for a big investment “currently do not add up.”

U.S. oil companies like Exxon Mobil and ConocoPhillips have been “burned in Venezuela before,” said The New York Times. The bigger factor, though, might be that oil prices have “fallen more than 20% in the past year.” Despite the removal of former leader Nicolás Maduro, the country remains fragile. Few oil companies will “rush to go into an environment where there’s not stability,” said former Chevron executive Ali Moshiri.

What did the commentators say?

“The math simply does not work,” said Ed Hirs at The Houston Chronicle. Control of Venezuelan oil will not benefit oil companies or consumers. The break-even cost of extracting and processing the country’s oil is roughly $80 a barrel. West Texas crude, meanwhile, currently sells at under $57 a barrel. The bottom line is that it “will cost more to produce Venezuelan oil than it could sell for.” There is “little upside for consumers or taxpayers” in such an effort, and especially not for independent Texas oil companies, who “would see their taxes used to create a new competitor.”

Trump is offering U.S. oil companies a “poisoned chalice,” said Ron Bousso at Reuters. Those companies are “no strangers to political risk,” operating in places like Libya, Iraq and Angola over the years. But the current situation in Venezuela “looks like more trouble than it’s worth” until the government stabilizes and can be depended upon by firms looking to make an investment. It may be “tempting” to access the country’s resources, “but it’s a lot less attractive if you can’t trust the contract.”

What next?

Oil company executives met Friday with Trump, and their skittishness was clear. The big corporations “aren’t going to be bullied into spending money in a risky country or with risky terms,” said Dan Pickering, the founder of Pickering Energy Partners, to CNN. Trump said this week that U.S. taxpayers might reimburse companies for their investments in Venezuela. “A tremendous amount of money will have to be spent,” the president said per NBC News, and oil firms will be “reimbursed by us or through revenue.”

The United States intends to dominate Latin America. That is clear following the weekend’s operation to remove Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro from power. But the U.S. has competition. China is expanding its influence in the region, offering itself as an alternative to governments leery of American power.

China is Venezuela’s “largest creditor and biggest oil customer,” said The Wall Street Journal. That status is part of a larger push into Latin America, in which Beijing has “displaced the U.S. as the biggest trading partner” for a number of countries. The challenge to American regional preeminence is clear: A recent state television program depicted a “wargame simulation” showing Chinese confronting unnamed Western forces “around Cuba and Mexico.” The U.S.-China competition in the region has “only just begun,” said the Center for Strategic and International Studies in an analysis.

It is Beijing’s economic might that is taking center stage, however. China is ramping up imports of Latin American crops as it “pivots away from U.S. farmers” in the wake of Trump’s tariff hikes, said Investigate Midwest. Brazil has “stepped in as China’s biggest supplier of soybeans” while Chinese firms build “ports, railways, roads, bridges, metro lines” and more in places like Peru to cement the economic cooperation, said Henry Ziemer of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “These are long-term projects.”

What did the commentators say?

China’s Latin America strategy is “alarming,” said Jianli Yang at the National Review. A new strategy paper from Beijing portrays China as a “champion of the Global South” in contrast to American “bullying,” but its intentions are not purely altruistic. China aims to “impose opportunity costs” on Washington by forcing the U.S. to “devote greater attention and resources to its own hemisphere” instead of Taiwan and the Indo-Pacific region. U.S. leaders must build a smart response or “risk strategic overextension.”

Washington’s “obsession” with China’s moves in Latin America is a “familiar hysteria,” Leon Hadar said at Asia Times. But Beijing’s activities may not “actually threaten core American interests” in the region. China’s trade with Latin America has “increased tenfold” over the last 20 years, but that reflects China’s “massive demand for agricultural goods and minerals.” That is basic economics, “not geopolitical conspiracy.”

President Donald Trump’s return to the White House has actually “reduced and reversed” China’s influence among Latin American countries, said Arturo McFields at The Hill. Beijing has lost sway over the Panama Canal, seen Peru draw closer to Taiwan, and had a diplomat expelled from Paraguay. In the political contest between global powers, then, the U.S. “seems to be one step ahead.”

What next?

Beijing’s Latin America strategy will be “significantly tested” by the Trump administration’s actions in Venezuela, said The South China Morning Post. The White House is “moving aggressively to roll back Chinese influence” in the Western Hemisphere. Some Latin American countries “may adopt a more cautious approach in managing their relations with Beijing when facing pressure from Washington,” said Zhao Minghao, the deputy director at Shanghai’s Center for American Studies, to the outlet.

President Donald Trump has never been a fan of wind farms, delivering a “haymaker” to the clean energy industry this week by ordering a pause on the construction of five East Coast offshore projects slated to power nearly 2.7 million homes. He thinks wind farms are “ugly” and has frequently invoked potential harms to wildlife, said The New York Times. And administration officials argue that the five wind farms are “national security risks” but offer little evidence.

Trump remains “apoplectic” about his failure to stop construction of one off the coast of his Scottish golf course. Wind farms are “driving the whales crazy, obviously,” he said in January.

The president’s decision marks an “escalation of a yearlong effort to shut down the industry,” said Politico. Electricity customers may soon feel the effects. A New England grid operator warned that Trump’s move “could send power prices soaring,” while a Virginia utility said the pause hurts its ability to “keep up with rising electricity consumption from data centers.” American voters are angry about affordability issues, and Trump’s decision “is running contrary to that in my opinion,” said Tim Ennis, a power market analyst at GridStatus.

What did the commentators say?

The wind pause is a “blow to America’s energy future,” The Washington Post said in an editorial. Halting the projects will particularly “set back the cause of generating enough energy to meet the demands of the AI boom.” The White House cited national security concerns, suggesting wind turbine blades “could interfere with radar,” but those worries “were not significant obstacles during the permitting process.” The permitting process must be reformed to make it more difficult to block “projects the economy desperately needs.”

Trump is making Americans pay more for electricity “because he is angry at windmills,” Dean Baker said in his newsletter. It is true that, as Trump often says, windmills kill birds, which is the “case with any structure.” But “wind energy is cheap” and costs less to produce than coal — about the same as natural gas — all while avoiding greenhouse gases. All this comes while China is building as much wind and solar capacity “as the rest of the world combined.” Americans “will pay a high price for Donald Trump’s irrational hatred of wind energy.”

What next?

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul warned that Trump’s decision will make it difficult for her state to “reduce emissions” while also “fending off grid reliability concerns and spiking utility rates,” said Spectrum News. She was part of a larger group of Democratic governors from northeast states who plotted a “strategy” to save the wind farms from the president’s authority, said The New York Times.

A federal lawsuit challenging the decision is likely, but negotiations with the White House are also possible. The governors, said Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont, will be “exercising our rights and doing everything we can to keep these projects going.”

President Donald Trump likes to say that he has ended a number of wars during his term in office, and FIFA just gave him a peace prize for his work. But several of the conflicts he claims to have resolved appear ready to reignite, raising questions about his approach to life-and-death dealmaking.

Some of the peace deals that Trump claims to have struck have “simply unraveled,” said NPR. The president hailed a so-called peace accord between Thailand and Cambodia in October, but the border dispute between the two countries “flared up again” a month later, and then again this month. And there is still “low-level fighting” between Israel and Hamas, despite the ceasefire brokered by Trump. His unorthodox approach can sometimes produce “unexpected results,” said The Atlantic Council’s Matthew Kroenig. In places like Gaza, though, Trump has a habit of “declaring victory before it’s achieved.”

What did the commentators say?

The “crumbling peace deals” show the limits of Trump’s “high-speed” approach, said The Wall Street Journal. The Thailand-Cambodia deal and a faltering June accord between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo both depended on the United States using its “economic and military might” to get the parties to the table. Critics say those deals also “largely failed to resolve key issues” that led to fighting in the first place. That could have “serious consequences for regional stability,” said Kevin Chen at Singapore’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies.

There is a difference between “making a deal” and “making peace,” said Peter Beaumont at The Guardian. Trump’s specialty is dealmaking, which is a “fundamentally transactional affair” and quite different from the difficult work of “mediated peace processes.” The president has a “performative” instinct for the “handshake and the signing” of a deal more than a “durable and fair peace” that can leave both sides satisfied. Trump’s “lack of commitment” to an enduring process is “transparently obvious to all involved.”

Trump works for peace “loudly, dramatically and quickly” but without “sustained attention,” said The Economist. The approach “may pause, but cannot end” the globe’s most enduring conflicts. Despite the FIFA honor, the world can take comfort that Trump still wants a Nobel Peace Prize and might be willing to work for it. The Nobel committee should “keep dangling its own prize just beyond his grasp.”

What next?

Trump’s patience is “running thin” while Ukraine and its European backers consider a Trump-backed deal that would largely bow to Russia’s “hardline demands,” said NBC News. The “stop-start diplomacy” on the war since Trump returned to office has “yet to yield any breakthroughs.” The president is ready to move. “Sometimes you have to let people fight it out, and sometimes you don’t,” he said to reporters last week. Trump seems not to want to “get pulled into another round of negotiations,” said Neil Melvin, the director of international security at the Royal United Services Institute. That raises the risk that he will “do a deal over the heads of the Europeans with Russia.”

President Donald Trump’s tariff-driven trade war is not slowing down China’s export economy. Beijing this week reported a record $1 trillion trade surplus with the rest of the world in 2025, raising concerns about “growing imbalances” in the global economy.

The trillion-dollar milestone puts China’s well-known “dominance” of world trade “into even starker relief,” said The Wall Street Journal. While Trump’s tariffs have limited the country’s exports to the United States this year — plunging nearly a third in November compared to last year — China’s exports to Africa, Southeast Asia and Latin America have “surged” significantly. The trend has “raised alarms around the world, especially in Europe,” whose automotive and luxury goods sectors find themselves threatened by “nimble Chinese competitors.”

That leaves Europe “squeezed between an ultra-competitive China and a protectionist America,” said Politico. China’s trade surplus “is untenable,” said French President Emmanuel Macron to the Les Echos financial newspaper. European companies were once big investors in China, he said, and now it is time for Chinese businesses to “create value and opportunities for Europe.” Europe could impose Trump-style tariffs on imports, Politico said, but Macron would prefer a “truce” with Beijing.

What did the commentators say?

China’s gigantic trade surplus reveals the difficulty that Trump and others will have “trying to rebalance global trade,” said Amy Hawkins at The Guardian. But it also demonstrates how much Beijing’s economic might is “still overwhelmingly reliant on foreign markets.” And it has raised fears that the country is now flooding non-American markets with “cheap goods that threaten local industry.” It is more likely, though, that those goods will “ultimately end up in the U.S.” after traveling through third countries to avoid Trump’s tariffs.

We could be looking at a “second China shock,” said Alexandra Stevenson at The New York Times. The first shock came two decades ago when American and European companies outsourced manufacturing to China while closing factories at home. The second will come now that China is “redirecting more of its exports to developing countries” that have “less control over how it unfolds.” And there could be “profound” social consequences like unemployment and unrest in countries like Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia. “They’re going to need to brace for impact.”

What next?

The next developments may depend on whether the current trade “truce” between the U.S. and China can hold. Some observers believe the relative peace “may not last,” said CNBC. That failure — and a second effort by China to push its exports to other markets — “might compel Europe to impose more restrictive measures to protect its manufacturing sector,” said Jing Wang, a China economist at Nomura, to the outlet.

China’s economy will increasingly “ride on the strength of domestic demand,” said Bloomberg. For now, though, Beijing “faces a worsening economic picture” at home. There has been a slowdown in domestic consumption and investment is also falling. As a result, analysts believe that China will continue to rely on exports and take “only incremental steps” toward relying on its own people to be customers for the goods it makes.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been dogged for years by criminal corruption charges. Now he is asking President Isaac Herzog to short-circuit the legal process by giving him a pardon before the court hands down a verdict.

Netanyahu’s pardon application did not “include an admission of guilt” to allegations of bribery, fraud and breach of trust, said CNN. Instead, the request is part of an effort to “heal the rifts, achieve national unity and restore public trust in the state’s institutions,” the prime minister said in a one-page letter. Opposition leaders have been withering in their response. “Only someone guilty asks for a pardon,” said Yair Golan, the head of Israel’s Democrats party, on X. But right-wing leaders supported Netanyahu’s plea. A pardon is “critical for the security of the state,” said Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir in a statement.

The request “immediately hijacked the Israeli political conversation,” said The New York Times. But some opposition figures suggested they would support a pardon for Netanyahu on one condition. Former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said on X that clemency is possible for his rival if it is conditioned upon Netanyahu’s “respectful retirement from political life.”

What did the commentators say?

Netanyahu has committed a “staggering act of hypocrisy,” said Dan Perry at Forward. The promise to heal Israel’s national divide is “jaw-dropping,” given how Netanyahu launched a “demonization campaign against the courts” following his 2019 indictment. That spawned a fierce nationwide battle over the future of the Israeli Supreme Court. Netanyahu “now plays peacemaker” after poisoning the nation’s trust in its institutions. A pardon should come only with a “full personal admission of guilt — spoken aloud by Netanyahu himself.”

Herzog is facing a “political, national and leadership decision” unlike any other, Shalom Yerushalmi said at The Times of Israel. Israel’s president is unlikely to make a decision that “would tear the public apart rather than unite it” by granting the “most problematic pardon in Israel’s history.” But Herzog is likely to seek a “middle ground,” either by putting conditions on the pardon or by encouraging Netanyahu to return to plea-bargain discussions. There is no chance, though, that Netanyahu will heal the nation. “No one can change this prime minister at the age of 76.”

What next?

Herzog’s office is weighing an “extraordinary step with significant implications,” said The Jerusalem Post. The issue is “shaking many people in the country,” the president said in a statement, adding that he would move only in the “best interests of the State of Israel and Israeli society."

Israeli society is watching. Roughly 400 retired police officers asked Herzog to reject Netanyahu’s request, said The Times of Israel. A pardon might “ignite severe violence in Israeli society,” they said in a petition. Netanyahu is looking outside his country for support. The prime minister asked President Donald Trump to push again for his pardon, said Axios. That may not be forthcoming. Trump has “done all he can do," said a U.S. official to the outlet.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is facing bipartisan scrutiny after he reportedly ordered U.S. forces to “kill everybody” in a strike on an alleged Venezuelan drug-trafficking boat. If those reports are accurate, critics say, Hegseth and the servicemembers who carried out the attack may be guilty of war crimes.

The initial Sept. 2 attack on a Venezuelan boat left two survivors “clinging to the smoldering wreck,” said The Washington Post. A Special Forces commander ordered a second strike to comply with Hegseth’s order, and those survivors were “blown apart in the water.” Hegseth’s alleged instruction to kill all the occupants of the boat, even if they could no longer fight, would be an “order to show no quarter, which would be a war crime,” said Todd Huntley, a former military lawyer now at Georgetown Law, to the Post. But other officials said Hegseth’s order “did not specifically address” what should happen if there were survivors after the strike, said The New York Times. That could leave the mission commander, Admiral Frank M. Bradley, “exposed” to consequences.

Defending Americans or murder?

Hegseth’s alleged order is a “war crime that endangers every American in uniform,” said former Green Beret Karl K. Schneider at PennLive. Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions mandates that combatants who are “out of the fight due to wounds, surrender, or shipwreck” must be treated humanely. Targeting survivors of an attack is “not combat; it is murder.” That strikes at the “moral authority” of the United States. “America must not commit war crimes.”

“This is a very serious matter,” said Andrew C. McCarthy at the National Review. And Hegseth knows it. After the Sept. 2 attack, Hegseth and his commanders changed protocols to emphasize the rescue of survivors. That is why the survivors of an October strike were “repatriated to their native countries.” The defense secretary “knows he can’t justify killing boat operators who survive attacks.”

“Why is Hegseth being attacked for defending Americans?” asked Nicole Russell at USA Today. President Donald Trump was elected to “take drug cartels, terrorism and illegal immigration seriously.” If Hegseth has committed a war crime, it should be investigated, but we should “trust Hegseth to issue lawful commands.” And polls show that most Republicans believe the benefits of taking on cartels “outweigh the risks.”

A defiant tone

The civilian boat crews were “not at war with the United States,” said Fred Kaplan at Slate. Which means that the real question is not whether Hegseth committed war crimes but “whether he’s a criminal, plain and simple.” While a Fox News host, Hegseth crusaded on behalf of veterans accused of war crimes. As defense secretary, he fired top Pentagon lawyers who provide a buffer against illegal orders. Hegseth is a “thug — and proud of it.”

The Post’s report “sent shock waves throughout Washington,” said The Hill, and top lawmakers from both parties vowed inquiries. But Hegseth “struck a defiant tone” to reporters at a presidential Cabinet meeting on Tuesday, said Axios. The sinking of “narcoterrorists” boats has “only just begun,” he said.

It has been 14 years since Apple CEO Tim Cook replaced company founder Steve Jobs, a legendary figure, and then led the company to even greater financial heights. Now reports say Cook is contemplating retirement next year.

Apple is “stepping up its succession planning efforts” ahead of Cook’s possible retirement, said the Financial Times. Cook turned 65 this month and is looking to “hand over the reins” to a new company leader. The firm behind the iPhone has “very detailed succession plans,” he said in 2023 to singer Dua Lipa on her podcast. The transition comes at a critical time for the tech giant. While Cook has overseen a massive increase in its market valuation, from $350 billion to $4 trillion, the company has more recently “struggled to break into new product categories” and has fallen behind competitors in the artificial intelligence race, said the Financial Times.

Those challenges could prompt Cook to “think about stepping down and letting fresh young blood take over, said Macworld. So could challenges like the massive tariffs that President Donald Trump has levied on countries where Apple produces its products. But Apple is still experiencing “unprecedented success,” recently reporting quarterly earnings of more than $100 billion. That means his replacement “will have very big shoes to fill.”

What did the commentators say?

Cook has “actually been CEO of Apple longer than Steve Jobs ever was,” said M.G. Siegler at Spyglass. Jobs arguably set Cook up for his success. Cook “just needed to execute on the vision Jobs laid out,” but that should not diminish his accomplishments. After all, he was the “person best suited for that task perhaps in the entire world.” Now, though, its failures on AI show Apple is a company “clearly in need of some changes.” That makes it “pretty clear” Cook will retire soon. “It’s just a question of when.”

We are looking at the “twilight of the star CEO,” said Ben Berkowitz at Axios. Cook, along with Disney’s Bob Iger and Walmart’s Doug McMillon, are “stars of the business set” who are “preparing to leave the stage.” Their expected departures come at a “fraught moment for the American economy,” and involve companies that touch every aspect of life. The transitions at the top of these iconic corporations will complicate “what was already certain to be an uncertain 2026.”

What next?

The leak of Cook’s retirement plans looks like a “deliberate test of market reaction,” said 9to5Mac. Apple’s board would likely want to “gauge the response of investors” to Cook’s departure. Cook is probably “eyeing his retirement,” but his loyalty to Apple means he would “only leave at a point when the market is ready for it.”

John Ternus, Apple’s senior vice president of hardware engineering, is the “most commonly mentioned” name to replace Cook, said Fast Company. Cook will likely retain some involvement with Apple, perhaps on its board of directors. “I don’t see being at home doing nothing,” he said in January to the “Table Manners” podcast.

China and Japan exchanged angry words in recent days after Japan’s new prime minister said her country would regard an attack on Taiwan as an “existential threat” to security in the region. The two countries are in a “furious diplomatic spat” over the comments, said NBC News. Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s “unusually explicit" remarks suggested Chinese military action against Taiwan could force an armed response from Tokyo.

Japanese leaders have usually been vague about their commitments to Taiwan, just 70 miles from their country's territory. But China regards the self-ruled island of Taiwan as its possession, and officials responded with angry demands for a Japanese retraction. “The dirty neck that sticks itself in must be cut off,” said Xue Jian, a Chinese diplomatic official, on X. (The post was later deleted.)

Other Chinese leaders were less colorful but still pointed in their comments, said Reuters. Japan would suffer a “crushing defeat” if it intervened in Taiwan, said Chinese Defense Ministry spokesperson Jiang Bin. The grievances are rooted in a long and contentious history, said Reuters. There is “ongoing tension” between the two countries lingering from the Japanese invasion of China during World War II.

What did the commentators say?

Some observers see China’s angry response to Takaichi as a return to its “wolf warrior” days of the early 2020s, Jessie Yeung said at CNN. That is when Beijing officials would “hit back directly — and often colorfully” at criticisms of their country. That aggressive approach receded as Communist officials sought to “win back lost goodwill among Western nations.” But there is a “significant streak of anti-Japanese sentiment” in China, and the prime minister’s comments have prompted “state media and other prominent voices” to fan outrage against Tokyo.

The dispute illustrates the “essence of Japan’s strategic dilemma,” said Zheng Zhihua at The Diplomat. Tokyo wants to “signal deterrence” and send a message of solidarity with its U.S. ally. But it must also do so within the “constitutional limits of its pacifist defense policy.” Japan has also attempted to balance its relations with China with “unofficial” contacts with Taiwan, a “dual track” policy that allows it to “avoid direct confrontation with Beijing while supporting Taiwan’s stability.” The question now is whether Japan can maintain its “maneuvering space” or if the spat “hardens public attitudes on both sides.”

What next?

China “escalated its diplomatic feud” on Sunday, said The New York Times. It sent ships to patrol uninhabited islands that “both countries claim” while also warning Chinese students in Japan about unspecified threats to their safety. On Monday, Japan said it scrambled warplanes after detecting a suspected Chinese drone near the island of Yonaguni, said CBS News. “We are trying not to escalate the situation,” said one Japanese official.

The growing tensions have raised fears of a “rupture in Japan-China ties,” said The Japan Times. There may be more escalation to come. Beijing is prepared to “carry out substantial countermeasures against Japan,” a social media account run by state media said on Sunday.

The worldwide effort to mitigate climate change is not going well. Fossil fuels are still burning, temperatures are rising and effects ranging from historic droughts to super-powered hurricanes are becoming the norm. Authorities are now thinking more about how to adapt.

Climate adaptation efforts are “climbing up the agenda” as the world deals with “record-breaking hot years and extreme weather disasters,” said the Financial Times. World leaders gathering this week for the COP30 climate summit in Brazil have an eye on “shoring up economies against climate change. There is a tension between those who believe “governments and businesses are being too slow” to adapt and those who worry adaptation will “distract and divert finances from efforts to reduce” greenhouse gas emissions. Mitigating climate change is necessary, but near-term adaptation is the “first half of our survival,” said COP30 President André Aranha Corrêa do Lago.

The big question is cost. Adaptation efforts would include everything from “funding air conditioners and fans” to “AI mapping of soil conditions to improve crop yields,” said Reuters. A new United Nations report says developing countries will need $310 billion a year to buy those and other tools, but “where that money will come from is unclear.”

What did the commentators say?

The world must “stop burning fossil fuels,” University College London’s Susannah Fisher said at The Conversation. That is the first step to “stop further damage and make it possible to adapt.” In the meantime, nations must also prepare for the “future we are currently heading toward.” That means making big shifts in how people live, work and eat in order to “create new futures where they can thrive” even as the world warms. For now, though, adaptation efforts do “not go far enough to manage these effects of climate change.”

Participants at COP30 “must get serious” about financing adaptation efforts, said Demet Intepe at the World Economic Forum. Many countries are already “deeply affected by floods, heatwaves and wildfires,” which makes adaptation efforts an “essential lifeline for communities threatened by climate-related disasters.” It is unlikely the money will come from the private sector. Adaptation efforts like “coastal flood protection” are expensive but create “minimal opportunities for financial returns.” Without the opportunity to create new profits, there will be no substitute for the “scale and reliability of public finance.”

What next?

Any solutions negotiated at COP30 will happen without the help of the United States, which is still one of the world’s biggest greenhouse gas emitters. America is “not sending any top officials” to the summit, said The New York Times. In President Donald Trump’s second term, his administration has “abandoned” the country’s promise to “curb the burning of fossil fuels at home.”

Other countries are trying to keep up with their own goals and fill the gap left by the U.S. Germany and Spain have pledged $100 million to climate adaptation efforts, said Bloomberg. But more than $300 billion will be needed to help developing countries adapt, and that is a “figure that’s far higher than amounts currently being made available” from richer countries.

With layoffs hitting global industries across their workforces, companies are claiming a new culprit: the rise of artificial intelligence. Numerous brands, including major tech corporations like Amazon, have pointed to AI as the reason for the most recent wave of job cuts. But some labor analysts claim that blaming AI is simply a way for these companies to avoid taking responsibility when they downsize.

What did the commentators say?

Even as companies have been “blaming the promise of productivity with artificial intelligence for their decisions,” there is “uneven evidence that the promised cost-savings from AI are actually worth what companies are putting into it,” said NBC News. This has left some people “questioning whether AI could be serving as a fig leaf for companies that are laying off employees for old-fashioned reasons,” such as a company’s poor financial performance.

It is “much easier for a company to say, ‘We are laying workers off because we’re realizing AI-related efficiencies’ than to say, ‘We’re laying people off because we’re not that profitable or bloated, or facing a slowing economic environment, etc,’” David Autor, an economics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said to NBC. Even if AI wasn’t the reason for a particular layoff, companies would “be wise to attribute the credit/blame to AI.”

The most notable example of this is Amazon, which has announced a new wave of 14,000 job cuts. This “came just a few months after CEO Andrew Jassy said the rollout of AI technology was likely to spell job cuts,” said Al Jazeera. But while experts are skeptical, AI “may be” at fault for the Amazon cuts. This “latest move signals that Amazon is likely realizing enough AI-driven productivity gains within corporate teams to support a substantial reduction in force,” Sky Canaves, an eMarketer analyst, said to Reuters.

Despite these changes at Amazon, many people have “voiced skepticism that recent high-profile layoffs are a telling sign of the technology's effect on employment,” said BBC News. There is a “real tendency, because everyone is so freaked out about the possible impact of AI on the labor market moving forward, to overreact to individual company announcements,” Martha Gimbel, the executive director of the Budget Lab at Yale University, said to the BBC.

What next?

Whether AI is truly at fault or not, there’s no question that the technology is replacing certain jobs. In July 2025, Microsoft released a research paper outlining 40 occupations the company thinks could be outsourced to AI. At the top of the list were interpreters and translators, followed by historians, passenger attendants, sales representatives, writers and customer service representatives. The job that Microsoft felt was the safest from AI was a phlebotomist, followed by nursing assistants, waste removal workers, painters, embalmers and plant operators.

Understanding the “effects of AI on the economy” will become “one of society’s most important” efforts, the paper said. This has especially been true in the “last several years,” as “generative AI has come to the fore as the next candidate general purpose technology, capable of improving or speeding up tasks as varied as medical diagnosis and software development.” Its extensive reach has already been “reflected in the astounding rate of AI adoption.”

They call it the Great Freeze. That’s how some analysts describe the U.S. job market recently — a “low-hire, low-fire” environment where workers who have jobs are not losing them but finding a new job is difficult. But a thaw may be coming.

A “slew” of “large-scale layoffs” may be a sign that the labor market is “starting to tip over,” said Axios. Amazon announced it will slash 14,000 jobs, UPS said it was cutting 48,000 positions, and Paramount said it was laying off 1,000 workers. The unemployment rate had hovered around 4% for more than a year, but that “apparent stability” has concealed “change beneath the surface.” Now, companies appear ready to “take advantage of the potential of AI to transform work.” This could mean fewer jobs for humans.

The massive layoffs suggest the job market’s “current state of suspension has changed for the worse,” said MarketWatch. While companies are still comfortably profitable, they are waiting on the “dust to settle” from tariff negotiations, the government shutdown and the corporate adoption of AI. Amazon’s layoffs could be the tipping point. “We may see others join the fray,” said John Challenger, the CEO of career-services firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

What did the commentators say?

The job market “could get ugly,” Dan DeFrancesco said at Business Insider. “About 20 more Amazon-sized layoffs” would upend the labor market. That scenario is “not out of the realm of possibility” because “companies are known to follow the lead of their bigger peers.” Meta’s 2022 layoff of 11,000 workers led to a much larger wave of tech sector job cuts. American companies have recently been in a “holding pattern,” but if they start to let workers go without replacing them, the “somewhat resilient job market could start to show some real cracks.”

“The labor market is undeniably going through a transition,” Adam Hardy said at Money. Young workers are “canaries in the coal mine” since they are often the first to feel job market instability, and “young workers and recent college grads aren’t doing so well” at the moment. AI is often blamed, but there are other factors. Right now, there are “more graduates than there are jobs that require grads.” That’s a challenge that predates the rise of AI by “several years.”

What next?

The Federal Reserve cut interest rates by a quarter point this week to “shore up the softening job market,” said NPR. On top of private sector layoffs, the federal government has already cut about 100,000 jobs this year. American employment “may well be shrinking already,” Fed Governor Christopher Waller said earlier in October.

Bad news for the job market might be good news for graduate programs. “Applications are on the rise” at law schools and MBA programs, said Fortune, with law school applications up 3% over last year. Gen-Z job seekers are buying “more time to figure out what’s next” instead of “facing the bleak job market head-on.”

The United States has a long history of meddling in Latin American politics: Teddy Roosevelt reshaped the region’s map to get the Panama Canal built, while Ronald Reagan’s presidency stumbled on his support for a Nicaraguan rebel group. President Donald Trump’s new military buildup targeting alleged drug traffickers and the Venezuelan regime is reviving unpleasant memories in the region.

Some administration officials have dubbed the president’s aggressive policies the “Donroe Doctrine,” said The Wall Street Journal. Where President James Monroe conjured his original Monroe Doctrine to “keep European powers out of the region,” Trump instead has treated Latin America as an “extension of the U.S. homeland.” In addition to Venezuela, he has vowed to reclaim the Panama Canal and taken tougher stances against Colombia and Nicaragua. America is newly focused on “defeating threats in the Western Hemisphere,” Trump said to a gathering of American generals last month.

What did the commentators say?

Trump’s moves have dredged up “bitter memories” from the “long record of U.S. military interventions” in Latin America, said The New York Times. The American government supported coups that “ousted democratically elected leaders in Guatemala, Brazil and Chile” during the Cold War, while Cuba, Haiti and Honduras all saw “repeated U.S. military landings” during the early 20th century. A revival of American interventionism would touch a “historic and deeply felt popular nerve,” said Christopher Sabatini, a Latin America expert at Chatham House.

America has a “long record of fomenting regime change” in Latin America, said Max Boot at The Washington Post. That approach has “seldom worked out well” and created “deep-rooted resentment” in the region, yet Trump wants to “reprise this ignominious history.” America did better with “fast, in-and-out operations” in Grenada in 1983 and Panama in 1989, but Venezuela has already “proved resistant” to U.S. efforts to drive out leader Nicolás Maduro. History suggests a new regime change push by Trump would “backfire and simply feed anti-Yanqui sentiment in Latin America.”

The U.S. has “treated Latin America as its personal piñata” for more than two centuries, said Gustavo Arellano at the Los Angeles Times. America has “propped up puppets and despots” while deposing “democratically elected governments,” sparking mass migrations that “forever altered the demographics of the United States.” Americans should object every time a “suspected drug boat” in the region is destroyed by the U.S. military with “no questions asked and no proof offered.” But few may actually care. “It’s Latin America, after all.”

What next?

Latin American leaders are pushing back against U.S. intervention, said Mother Jones. American actions could “inflame South America and lead to radicalization of politics on the whole continent,” said Brazilian presidential advisor Celso Amorim. “Gringos, go home,” said Armando Benedetti, Colombia’s interior minister. The crisis may be at a tipping point. America will soon have to decide “whether to escalate to military strikes inside Venezuela, or whether to declare victory and move on,” said The Atlantic Council’s Geoff Ramsey to The Hill.

It often seems that economists are perpetually warning us about the next U.S. recession. One influential analyst says an economic slowdown is already a fact of life for many Americans.

Twenty-two states are “now experiencing persistent economic weakness and job losses that are likely to continue," said Mark Zandi, the chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, to MarketWatch. The overall American economy is “on the precipice. Government data released before the shutdown showed the “broader economy was in pretty good shape,” said MarketWatch, but some are skeptical. The gross domestic product might be rising, said Zandi, but the “job market is weaker.”

Other observers are warning of a bifurcated “K-shaped economy,” said CNBC. Wealthy Americans are “engaging their purchasing power,” but lower- and middle-class consumers are struggling with “rising costs on daily essentials like groceries and gas.” Meanwhile, “unofficial signals” like rises in missed car payments and women leaving the workforce are offering “early warning signs about what is to come,” said Quartz.

What did the commentators say?

“This moment feels much like late 2007 and early 2008,” said Ball State University economics professor Michael J. Hicks at The Indianapolis Star. For a time during that period, the economy felt stable “even as we entered recession.” Today is similar. While the gross domestic product is still rising, driven by the AI boom, “nearly every other measure of economic activity has stagnated or is in deep decline.” The United States may already be in recession. But “we don’t feel it yet.”

The U.S. economy is in a “weird place right now,” said economist Paul Krugman at his newsletter. Policymakers are “flying blind” because of the government shutdown and unemployment is “relatively low by historical standards.” And Americans “feel very bad about the economy,” with consumer sentiment surveys rivaling the lows of the Great Recession. One problem is that President Donald Trump’s “wildly erratic policies” are creating “huge uncertainty” for businesses and consumers. We may not be in a recession yet, but the “frozen state of the U.S. economy has already made life much worse for many workers.”

What next?

The government shutdown is “complicating the Fed’s ability to help the economy,” said CNN. The Federal Reserve “relies heavily on official economic statistics” from the government to make decisions about interest rates to help goose or slow down the American economy, but the shutdown has “effectively cut off access to that data.” The available information is not great, though, with August data showing the “weakest pace of hiring since 2010.” The Fed is expected to announce its latest policies at a meeting on Oct. 29.

Americans are not happy with all of this. A new poll from the Public Religion Research Institute shows that most voters — including nearly 30% of Republicans — gave the president “low marks on the economy,” said Axios. That dissatisfaction could “test the durability of Trump’s support.”

Ukraine is taking the war deep inside Russia, and it wants U.S. help to do so. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy believes American-made Tomahawk missiles could finally force Vladimir Putin into peace talks.

Tomahawk cruise missiles could reach Russian targets “far beyond any of the weapons the U.S. has provided to Kyiv until now,” said The Wall Street Journal. The Biden administration “never seriously considered” providing the weapons to Ukraine over concerns the move would “prompt a confrontation with Moscow,” but President Donald Trump has suggested he might allow it. “I’ll make a determination on that,” he told reporters on Wednesday.

Ukraine believes the missiles would give it the capability to hit Russian “military targets and energy facilities” thanks to their 1,000-mile range, said The Hill. Kyiv is already using drones to hit enemy oil refineries far from the front lines, but the U.S. weapons would “do even more damage against them, which definitely would hurt Russia,” said military analyst Emil Kastehelmi. Moscow has been “scathing” about the prospect, said CNBC. Introducing Tomahawks into the conflict would be “truly a serious escalation,” said a Kremlin spokesman.

What did the commentators say?

“Putin has no intention of voluntarily giving up his campaign against Ukraine,” said Marc Thiessen at The Washington Post. But Trump could force him to the negotiating table by furnishing the Tomahawks and “imposing unsustainable military and financial costs on Russia.” The U.S. should ignore Moscow’s talk of “escalation.” Russia, after all, has fired more than 2,400 cruise missiles into Ukraine since the start of the war. “It would be a proportional response to Putin’s escalation.”

The question is “whether Russia’s latest threats deserve to be taken seriously,” said Peter Dickinson at The Atlantic Council’s blog. Moscow has repeatedly warned of reprisals against U.S. weapons support for Ukraine, “only to then do nothing when these red lines are subsequently crossed.” Putin has managed to limit support for Ukraine by “exploiting the West’s collective fear of escalation.” Sending Tomahawks to Kyiv could mark an “important turning point in the biggest European war since World War II.”

“Getting the Tomahawks is one thing — using them is another,” said Leo Chiu at Kyiv Post. Complex “launch platforms and guidance expertise” are required to actually operate the missiles, which means the proposed deal would be “largely symbolic” unless accompanied by Pentagon support. The unanswered question: “Would Kyiv be able to use the missiles if the transfer comes to fruition?”

What next?

Trump might be “bluffing” by considering Zelenskyy’s request, said The New York Times. It might also be a sign of his “growing frustration” with Putin for not doing more to end the war. The Russian leader “just doesn’t want to end that war, and I think it’s making him look very bad,” the president said this week. One ominous sign for Ukraine was that Trump announced Thursday he will meet Putin in Hungary for more talks on the war.

Keir Starmer has met Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Mumbai as the pair attempt to emerge from “the shadow of tariff turmoil” brought forth by the US.

On a trip meant to promote business opportunities between the UK and India – two of the world’s largest economies – Starmer said he is hoping to implement the previously signed trade deal as soon as “humanly possible”.

In July, Starmer and Modi signed a trade agreement in the UK, “sealing a deal to cut tariffs on goods from textiles to whisky and cars, and allow more market access for businesses”, said Reuters. But projections, which predict an increase in trade of more than £25 billion by 2040, are ultimately “a floor, not a ceiling, to the ambition of the deal”. This week’s visit provides opportunities to further that partnership, said Starmer.

What did the commentators say?

“This trip has a big first,” said Sky News. Taking more business leaders along than on any previous such visit, the UK government’s “enthusiasm to take advantage of the signed, though not completed, free trade deal is clear”. Business leaders said that they’ve joined the tour to boost business in India, and also to “raise their profile with the prime minister”.

Overseas markets like India are more important to domestic businesses than ever. But the bosses’ enthusiasm might also be “a response to the nervousness about a £20 billion – £30 billion black hole Chancellor Rachel Reeves will have to fill” in the upcoming Budget.

Even so, “the visit had some awkward undertones”, said Bloomberg. Just before Starmer arrived in India, Modi wished Russian President Vladimir Putin a happy birthday. Starmer, who has been vocal in pressuring Putin to end his invasion of Ukraine, “deflected a question while on the plane to India” about the exchange. “Just for the record, I haven’t sent birthday congratulations to Putin, nor am I going to do so. I don’t suppose that comes as a surprise.”

And despite blossoming trade relations with India, “tensions over migration are expected to linger”. Indian and British businesses had reportedly pushed for more visas for highly skilled workers moving from India to the UK when the two countries were formalising their trade deal over the summer. But Starmer said that “the visa situation hasn’t changed with the free trade agreement”, adding that the visit was more about “business-to-business engagement and investment and jobs and prosperity coming into the United Kingdom”.

What next?

Starmer’s visit to India has already coincided with some developments that promise continued cooperation between the two countries.

British Airways has “announced a third daily flight” between Heathrow and New Delhi starting next year, and it plans to look into further opportunities in India as trade “expands”, said The Hindu. The new flight, which also includes the announcement of a New Delhi-Manchester route operated by India’s IndiGo, is expected to generate tens of millions of pounds in exports and tourism income, as well as 450 new jobs.

Starmer “also used the visit to announce that three Bollywood films will be made in the UK” by major film studio Yash Raj Films starting in 2026, said the BBC. Bringing Bollywood back to the UK after an “eight-year hiatus”, the move is expected to bring thousands of jobs and “pour millions into the economy”.

Plus, the prime minister – having praised India’s digital ID system as a “massive success” – is to look into how the UK can take inspiration for its own implementation of widespread digital IDs, said The Guardian. “Starmer defended the introduction of a similar measure in the UK, saying he believed the rollout of a voluntary system could be expanded to school applications, mortgages and driving licences.”

Hollywood has long been obsessed with tales of popular actors fighting to keep young rivals from replacing them on the marquee. Exhibit A: “All About Eve.” Now the competition is coming not from fresh-faced ingenues but from an artificial intelligence “actor” named Tilly Norwood.

Norwood is a “British-accented brunette” who does not exist in the real world, said Vanity Fair. The creator, Dutch producer Eline Van der Velden, expects to sign Norwood with a talent agency and hopes it can rival stars like Natalie Portman and Scarlett Johansson at the box office. Norwood “is not a replacement for a human being but a creative work — a piece of art,” Van der Velden said on Instagram. The backlash from Hollywood has been both fierce and a bit despairing. The arrival of an “AI actor” is the “end of the industry as we know it,” director Luca Guadagnino said on X.

"Guilds, actors and filmmakers” have reacted to Norwood’s emergence with an “immediate wave of backlash,” said The Associated Press. Acting performances should remain “human-centered,” the Screen Actors Guild said in a statement. Film and TV audiences “aren’t interested in watching computer-generated content untethered from the human experience.” The use of AI in film and TV productions was a “major bargaining point” in the 2023 actors strike, said the AP, but its implementation continues to be “hotly debated."

What did the commentators say?

Calling Norwood an actor is “inaccurate, it’s insulting,” Jenelle Riley said at Variety. Van der Velden calls Norwood a “creation,” though terms like “deepfake” or “animated character” might also work. Van der Velden’s references to Portman and Johansson reveal a “grotesque lack of understanding” of how acting works and “precisely what makes those actors special.” Norwood is merely an “attractive face that can repeat lines.” Unlike Johansson, “you’re not going to see Norwood suing Disney for pay she’s owed.” That may be part of the appeal.

Norwood “represents Tinseltown’s death knell,” Vinay Menon said at The Toronto Star. Artificial intelligence is already making it a “scary time” to be a “law student, a young software engineer, a young data analyst, a young accountant” or any other kind of young professional starting a career. The problem? “Human greed.” There is no evidence Norwood “could nail a Nespresso ad,” but AI is “impervious” to the annoyances of human actors who “flub lines” and “have contract demands.” The best that those humans can hope for is that Norwood’s debut is a “box office bomb."

What next?

Finding an agent for Norwood might be tough. Norwood “does not have a future” at some of the best-known talent agencies, said The Wrap. “We represent humans,” said Richard Weitz, the co-chairman of WME Group. Gersh Agency will also not sign Norwood, said Variety. But the issue of AI performance is “going to keep coming up,” said Gersh President Leslie Siebert. “And we have to figure out how to deal with it in the proper way."

President Donald Trump has traveled a lot since retaking office, but unlike the rallies that characterized his first term, Trump has largely used his time away from Washington, D.C., to hang out at sporting events. Trump’s second term has seen him attend the most recent iterations of the Super Bowl, Daytona 500, FIFA Club World Cup and the U.S. Open, as well as several UFC fights.

As with almost everywhere he goes, Trump has been met at these events with a mix of boos and cheers (ABC and ESPN were reportedly asked to mute the booing at the U.S. Open but declined to do so). Some feel that his attendance at these events has less to do with sports and more to do with politics.

What did the commentators say?

Trump’s idea behind going to the sporting events is a “strategy as old as human civilization,” said Kara Alaimo, a communications professor at Farleigh Dickinson University, to CNN. In Ancient Rome, leaders would host gladiator tournaments to “keep the people entertained and keep their focus off of what their government was doing.”

This type of strategy is “helpful for Trump because it’s keeping the spotlight off of two big things,” Alaimo said to CNN. The first is the “problems that Americans are facing,” and the second is that “so many Americans disagree with the policies that Trump has proposed or is pursuing.”

This could also be part of a ploy to gain more control over American institutions, experts say. As president, Trump has “asserted his dominance over politics, higher education and corporations,” and sports is “another venue he is trying to influence,” said The Boston Globe. While “most presidents have tried to use sports to unite a divided nation, he uses them to press a political advantage,” Tom Knecht, a political science professor at Westmont College, told the Globe.

Trump is “much more partisan in his approach to politics, and he is also much more willing to try to use the power of the White House to accomplish actual changes in the sporting world,” Knecht told the Globe. This presidential affinity for sports isn’t new, as “notable presidential involvement in American sports dates back to at least 1905."

But unlike prior presidents, Trump himself “loves being part of the professional sports world,” said The Athletic. He “seems intent on being America’s Commander in Chief of Sports, imposing his worldview on an area of society that has heretofore resisted such efforts.”

What next?

Trump will continue to attend sporting events; the president has claimed he will be in attendance for the Ryder Cup golf tournament in New York in September. This is unsurprising given that golf is the game Trump is most associated with. Bryson DeChambeau, a golfer who has previously played with Trump, was also “appointed to the President’s Council on Sports, Fitness and Nutrition,” said CNN, among a slew of other athletes.

Trump is also bringing sports to him: The president has teamed with UFC head Dana White to host a UFC match at the White House in 2026. The event will be a “mixed martial arts throwdown to be watched by thousands of spectators” with “fighter weigh-ins and a press conference” at the Lincoln Memorial, said The Wall Street Journal. Smaller sporting events have been hosted at the White House, but “nothing, though, approaches the scale Trump is attempting.”

During his unsuccessful 2020 reelection bid, President Donald Trump often made a point of attacking rival Joe Biden's age and fitness, accusing him of hiding in a basement rather than hitting the campaign trail. Five years later, however, it's Trump who is facing health-related scrutiny after a weeklong August stretch without public events prompted mass social media speculation about the 79-year-old's condition.

Although the president has since returned to a more visible schedule of appearances, the incident has renewed a longstanding debate about Trump's health and his transparency on the topic. This is particularly salient in light of Trump's history of weaponized claims about his opponents' health and fitness for his personal and political gain.

What did the commentators say?

After "years" of his being held up as the "model of health, an exemplar of youth and a man always in his prime," there's "well-earned skepticism" about Trump's well-being, said Time. So it's "completely understandable why tin-foil conspiracists of all stripes" would have jumped on rumors of Trump’s "imminent, or possibly recent, demise."

Trump's week without public appearances "could just be taking a few days down in August," which is "normal for presidents to do," said former Biden White House aide Meghan Hays on CNN. "Or there could be actually something wrong. The problem is we don't know, and they are not being transparent about it."

Trump's circle "only has themselves to blame for this," said Chuck Todd on his Chuck Toddcast podcast. While the administration has been "not forthcoming pretty much about anything," they are "times 10" worse when it comes to Trump's personal health.

Given that the health information this White House does release is either "laughably exaggerated, so bare bones as to be equally dubious," or "only released under pressure," we should not "trust anything" being released through official channels, said journalist Garrett Graff at his "Doomsday Scenario Substack. And while Trump's health does not, at the moment, appear to constitute a news "event," it's "even more puzzling" that the "national media doesn't even treat it as a news 'story.'"

Trump's public absence and the resulting conspiracy theorizing have reignited a debate over the "sensitive issue" of the media reporting on "how healthy an aging leader of the free world actually is," said The Associated Press. While Biden "faced significant scrutiny" over his health, he was also "far less accessible to the media" and made fewer public appearances than Trump, CNN said. Trump's relative availability, in turn, may have "fueled stories" across news outlets, "acknowledging the online hubbub and offering facts about Trump's weekend plans."

The furor over Trump's health is akin to the "many times the internet has gone wild with the Putin is dead and Xi is dead rumors," said political scientist Ian Bremmer on X. That the U.S. experienced something similar "says a lot more about the state of mistrust in information and institutions in the United States than it does about the health of the president."

What next?

Questions about Trump's health are "fake news" and proof of "why the media has so little credibility," the president said during a press conference on Tuesday. But a series of YouGov polls published the same day suggest otherwise: 38% of respondents said Trump's health and age "severely limit his ability to do the job," while 52% of respondents said they trusted the White House's health announcements "only a little" or "not at all."

Trump's press conference this week, coupled with a flurry of activity on his Truth Social account, has managed to "somewhat quell rampant speculation" about his health, said Vanity Fair. But, said internet culture reporter Taylor Lorenz to the publication, "these things snowball, and it's like a pressure valve." When someone as media savvy and omnipresent as Trump "drops out of view for days," said Margaret Sullivan at The Guardian, "that's fair game."

What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, unless nobody is staying in Vegas. Some of America's biggest travel hot spots say they saw a big downturn this summer, and President Donald Trump may be to blame.

July tourism figures for Las Vegas "dropped in just about every metric," said The San Francisco Chronicle. The number of visitors fell by 12%, and hotel occupancy was 7.6% lower. Vacation travel has "flagged across the country and internationally" in the wake of Trump's new tariff and border policies. And American travelers are now "sticking to budgets and shortening trips" as they tighten their belts. This dynamic poses a challenge for other tourist hubs. "If the house can't win in Vegas, where can it?"

America's tourist economy is "heading in the wrong direction," Julia Simpson, the president and CEO of the World Travel and Tourism Council, said to CNN. Cities like Seattle have lost out on their usual influx of Canadian tourists, who are angry about Trump's trade wars and threats to turn their country into a U.S. state.

Other international travelers are begging off American trips, citing fresh fears of "being questioned at the border" or a desire to avoid a new $250 "visa integrity fee," said CNN. "The U.S. government is putting up the 'closed' sign," said Simpson.

What did the commentators say?

The recent closure of a dozen Miami restaurants is a "flashing red light for the U.S. tourism industry," said Andrés Oppenheimer at The Miami Herald. Trump's "inflammatory rhetoric" and policies like "higher U.S. visa fees" and "stricter travel rules" are scaring away "millions of foreign tourists."

It's a uniquely American problem, as tourism is increasing around the world while declining domestically. Maybe the tourism sector will rebound. But if the president sticks to his policies, Miami will likely see "fewer foreign tourists and more 'for rent' signs on many restaurant doors."

Trump's trade wars will have "devastating consequences" for tourism, Rep. Dina Titus (D-Nev.) said at USA Today. Tariffs "harm the economies of our neighbors," making it less likely their citizens can afford to go on vacation, and they also raise the costs of "airline tickets, food and accommodations for visitors."

It does no good to eliminate taxes on tips for hospitality workers, as Trump and Republicans have done, "if no one is there to tip in the first place," said Titus. Stay on this path, and there will be "permanent damage to the travel and tourism industry."

What next?

The drop in tourism to the U.S. may last beyond this summer, said The Associated Press. "The sentiment drag has proven to be severe," said the travel research firm Tourism Economics. One exception to the trend is that Chinese tourism to the U.S. has actually risen this year, "confounding the expectations of many pundits," said the South China Morning Post.

More Americans are flying out than foreign visitors coming in, and the gap is increasing, said The Economist. For a president "obsessed with trade imbalances," this news "should be troubling."

Not long ago, the United States cultivated India as a potential bulwark against China. Then President Donald Trump imposed 50% tariffs on Indian goods as retaliation for that country’s purchases of Russian oil. Now, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is meeting this weekend with Chinese leader Xi Jinping amid signs of warming relations between the Asian rivals.

That improvement was "spurred on in no small part by Trump's global trade war," said The Washington Post. Modi is one of 20 world leaders — including Russia's Vladimir Putin and Iran's Masoud Pezeshkian — who will attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organization meeting. But the Indian leader's appearance particularly "underscores the way Trump's approach has alienated some friends" who, until recently, had a "warm diplomatic and trade relationship" with America.

Trump is the "great peacemaker" who deserves "all the credit" for the possibility of a China-India alliance, said Ashley Tellis of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace to The Times of India. The tariffs "due to India's Russia oil purchases" are "causing considerable distress" to Modi's government. India and China have a history of fractiousness, but "Trump is a good incentive" for both countries to put aside their differences, said Antara Ghosal Singh at the Observer Research Foundation.

What did the commentators say?

Trump has "dealt a heavy blow to efforts" by American leaders to align with India against "Chinese domination of the Indo-Pacific," said the Financial Times editorial board. During his first term in 2020, Trump told a crowd that "America will always be faithful and loyal friends to the Indian people." But his "U-turn" will help Beijing "portray itself as a more reliable international interlocutor," said the Times. India and China are "unlikely partners" who will need "nimble footwork" to make their relationship last. But Trump's stumble is clear. "By alienating its friends, Washington is playing into Beijing's hands."

A burgeoning "Russia-India-China alliance" is "unlikely to endure," said Karishma Vaswani at Bloomberg. There are "inherent tensions" in the India-China relationship that make a solid partnership difficult. One of the biggest sticking points is their "long-running border dispute" in the Himalayan region. Those disputes have caused bloody clashes in the past and the "risk of future standoffs can't be discounted." The partnership could "unravel" if "American pressure diminishes."

Trump's actions "may have accelerated the Sino-Indian engagement," but the process was already underway, said Harsh V. Pant at Time. The two countries reached a deal in October to "de-escalate tensions" along the border. That makes Trump a "marginal" factor in this weekend's meeting, which may be less than meets the eye: "There have been too many false starts in the past."

What next?

The Xi-Modi summit is "unlikely to usher in a fundamental realignment," said CNN. The big test is whether the meeting translates into "de-escalation on the ground" at the border. If that happens, the two countries can look forward to a "more stable relationship, where competition isn't necessarily over, but conflict is at bay," said Tanvi Madan, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

Waiting for a small package from overseas? You might not get it, at least anytime soon. A growing number of postal services and shippers around the world are cutting off deliveries to the United States, citing President Donald Trump's new tariff rules.

The interruption of deliveries is "threatening the flow of hundreds of millions of packages a year," said Axios. That's because Trump in July revoked the so-called "de minimis" exemption that had long blocked tariffs from being applied to packages valued at $800 or less. That exemption fueled a lot of e-commerce from China-based companies like Shein and Temu. Now, postal authorities and private shipping companies in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, India, Japan and a host of other countries are putting at least a temporary stop to American deliveries, "citing uncertainty about the new rules."

What did the commentators say?

Critics of de minimis say the exemption has made it too easy to let "drugs and unwanted goods" enter the United States, said The Hill. But the suspension of the rule "will likely impact the global economy significantly." Research suggests dropping de minimis "could result in costs of $11 billion to $13 billion for American consumers." For now, "more countries will likely continue to cease certain shipments" to America rather than deal with the headache.

"Ding-dong, de minimis is dead," said George E. Bogden, a former trade official in the Trump administration, at The New York Times. Changes to the rule had raised the threshold from $5 in 1978 to $800 in 2015. That allowed overseas exporters to "flood the U.S. market" with packages "without adequate inspection," with the result that "American industries were gutted." Trump's order revoking the rule "infuriated de minimis defenders," but it reasserted the principle that "all goods must face the full scrutiny, and the full weight, of U.S. law."

"Trump's trade war has come to your Etsy shopping cart," said Ryan Teague Beckwith at MSNBC. The de minimis exemption was created in the late 1930s, as the country "shook off the tariff hangover" from a trade war that "prolonged the Great Depression." The $800 exemption is "pretty high" and gave a boost that retailers like Shein "didn't really need." The sudden cutoff will have a dramatic impact, however. A "normal president" would be trying to "avoid needlessly harming" small businesses and U.S. consumers, but "Trump doesn't seem particularly concerned."

What next?

Small businesses are "scrambling" to make new arrangements, said CNN. Depending on the country of origin, previously exempt packages coming into America will face at least an $80 charge, or as much as $200 for countries with a tariff rate of 25% or more. Some foreign exporters have decided to stop shipping to the U.S. for now, regardless of whether their postal services will carry the shipment. "Clearly this is not something we want to do," said Wool Warehouse, a U.K.-based yarn and crafting company. The de minimis exemption formally ends on Friday.

The U.S. State Department has long compiled annual reports on human rights in other countries, but the recent edition from the Trump administration looks noticeably different. This has some outside observers questioning the department's methods. After putting out these reports since the 1970s, the State Department's latest iteration includes a slew of backtracks by the Trump administration about countries that have been accused of violating human rights.

What did the commentators say?

The reports contain individual databases about the human rights records of nearly every country in the world. But unlike prior editions, the latest reports "drastically reduce the types of government repression and abuse that the United States under President Donald Trump deems worthy of criticism," said NPR. The State Department has claimed that the reports were "streamlined for better utility and accessibility" compared to prior administrations.

But "critics say the reduced content lets authoritarians off the hook," said NPR. The Trump administration's reports "left out language on persistent abuses in many nations that was present in prior reports," said The New York Times. Language in "sections on El Salvador, Hungary, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Israel — all seen as close partners by the Trump administration — was scaled back or excised." These were all countries that were heavily accused of human rights violations in prior administrations' reports.

While the Biden administration viewed Israel as an ally, its report had "many more lines in the executive summary on the country's human rights violations during the military strikes that followed the Hamas attacks," said the Times. In reference to El Salvador, Trump's State Department said there were "no credible reports of significant human rights abuses," a sharp contrast from the prior report which "talked about 'significant human rights issues' and listed them as credible reports of unlawful or arbitrary killings, torture, and harsh and life-threatening prison conditions," said The Guardian.

The U.S. has also previously criticized alleged human rights violations in Afghanistan, China, Iran, North Korea, Russia and Venezuela. While the "human rights reports describe abuses in all these nations, the level of detail has been reduced" under the Trump administration's guidelines, said The Washington Post.

What next?

Many policy officials have "expressed concern that such shifts could signal inconsistencies in what are supposed to be core American values," said the Post. The "muted release of the reports — while Congress is in recess — is notable," especially given that Secretary of State Marco Rubio often "made a point of highlighting the importance of the reports during his years as a Republican senator from Florida."

The reports were "perceived as relatively impartial, because they tried to reflect well-articulated standards" and were "composed by professionals reporting from the ground," said The Atlantic. But with the current iterations, the "details of the reports are less important than the overall impact." The reports are "very bad for human rights defenders in places like Cuba or China," and "none of them can now claim that the State Department Human Rights Report has any factual standing, or indeed that any U.S.-government document on human rights is an objective measure of anything."

"This essentially says the United States is no longer your ally, that the United States doesn't see clearly beyond the rhetoric of your regime," a former official with the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor told The Atlantic. "And I think that's really, really tragic."

Henry Ford did not invent the assembly line, but he certainly jump-started a manufacturing revolution by using it to build his cars. To create a new generation of cheap electric vehicles, Ford — the company, not the man — is throwing out this influential innovation.

"This is not a standard factory upgrade," TechCrunch said of Ford's $2 billion plan to "transform" its plant at Louisville to build a new $30,000 mid-sized electric pickup truck. Instead of a "single conveyor line," the revamped process will use a faster "three-branched assembly tree" that has different lines for the vehicle's front, back and battery system, before being united at the end. The new EV "will be produced 15% faster" than traditional vehicles, the company said.

Ford's "complete rethinking" of its longstanding processes is needed to "overcome China's low-cost labor," Axios said. "We tore up the moving assembly line concept and designed a better one," said Ford CEO Jim Farley. The "dramatically faster and cheaper" process will require 20% fewer parts than the company's traditional products, Axios said. But it will also require fewer workers. Six hundred employees of the Louisville plant are being offered buyouts.

What did the commentators say?

"The timing couldn't have been worse" for Ford's decision to double down on EVs, said Andrew J. Hawkins at The Verge. Federal tax credits on EVs expire in September, and President Donald Trump's trade war is "tilting the balance in favor of China's EVs." Ford already loses $5 billion a year on electric vehicles, and Farley has spoken openly about China's "humbling" lead in the sector. That makes Ford's new effort to build a profitable EV the "biggest challenge of Farley's career," one that could decide whether the company thrives or ends up "just a footnote" in the EV industry.

Ford's announcement is a "proverbial moonshot and then some," said Liam Denning at Bloomberg. Until now, the company has focused on producing "electrified versions of existing models." While the "spirit of Tesla Inc. haunted" Ford's rollout of its plans, Farley will not be able to count on the "indulgence" that Musk has routinely received for touting new products and then "delivering half-measures years late." He has to deliver, or else. "Farley is risking a lot for both his company and himself."

What next?

Farley did sound a note of caution in announcing the new EV truck, said The New York Times. There are so many new things being attempted in the manufacturing process that "I can't tell you with 100% certainty that it will all go just right," he said. The challenge is steep: Chinese companies like BYD produce EVs at a "fraction of European and American costs," said the Times. But other observers believe Ford has a chance at success. The progress in lowering costs and production time puts the company "within spitting distance of the Chinese," said auto consultant Sandy Munro.

The chip-making industry is at the heart of America's rivalry with China. That may be why President Donald Trump last week called on Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan to resign from his position.

Trump's decision to put Tan in the spotlight came after Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) raised concerns that the CEO's interests include firms "linked to the Chinese Communist Party and the People's Liberation Army," said The Associated Press. Tan is "highly CONFLICTED and must resign, immediately," Trump wrote on Truth Social. Tan responded that he has "always operated within the highest legal and ethical standards."

Intel is "beleaguered" after missing out on the "mobile and AI boom," said CNN. Tan became CEO in March with a mission to "revive" the company as a "faster-moving, flatter and more agile organization." But he also has "personally and through various venture funds invested in hundreds of Chinese companies," including those connected to the Chinese military. That led Cotton and other Republicans to question Intel's "impact on US national security."

What did the commentators say?

Intel "owes us answers about its CEO," said Dave Lee at Bloomberg. The company has a right to feel aggrieved to be under scrutiny at the same time Trump is "controversially loosening export controls on high-end" Nvidia Corp. chips being sold to China. At the same time, the "question of Tan's investments" should have been a "significant focus of the board's due diligence" when it decided to hire him. Intel received $8 billion from the federal government under President Joe Biden's CHIPS and Science Act, which makes it a "stakeholder deserving of transparency and reassurance."

The company "must not bow" to Trump's demands, said Michael Moritz at the Financial Times. The Malaysia-born Tan is a "much-admired figure in Silicon Valley" and a longtime American citizen. There is no one "better equipped to transform Intel's fortunes." The company is in need of revival, which makes this a difficult time for it to stand up to the "president's artless bullying" when so many other institutions have already capitulated. Intel needs to move forward. "The last thing Tan needs is to be distracted by a vindictive political sideshow."

What next?

Tan was already "at odds" with some members of the Intel board before Trump jumped into the scene, said The Wall Street Journal. The issue: Whether the company should "stay in the manufacturing business or exit it entirely." Intel's chip factories supply a third of its revenues but are also a "money loser" for the company. Why stay? Those factories are also "politically important" because they "secure the U.S.'s semiconductor supply chain."

Trump's attack on Tan "could compound" Intel's struggles to determine its future, said The New York Times. The company is behind schedule on a new Ohio factory that would help it shift chip production from Asia to the United States. However the controversy with Trump and Tan ends, "we need an American company to make American chips on American soil," said Sen. Jon Husted (R-Ohio).

If you want to know where the next nuclear reactor is being built, you may have to look up at the stars. Transportation Secretary and interim NASA Administrator Sean Duffy is moving forward with a plan to construct nuclear reactors on the moon in the hopes of expanding American influence in outer space. But this may be easier said than done, thanks to the government itself, as NASA is facing significant budget cuts courtesy of the Trump administration. This could make the agency's nuclear goals difficult.

What did the commentators say?

The White House claims that the nuclear reactor project "could help accelerate U.S. efforts to reach the moon and Mars — a goal that China is also pursuing," and the "plans align with the Trump administration's focus on crewed spaceflight," said Politico, which first reported the news. It is "about winning the second space race," a NASA official told the outlet. "Let's start to deploy our technology, to move to actually make this a reality," Duffy said in a press conference.

Nuclear technology on the moon would "transform the ability of humanity to travel and live in the solar system," said The New York Times. A single lunar day is the equivalent of four weeks on Earth and cycles between two weeks of sunshine and two weeks of darkness. This "harsh cycle makes it difficult for a spacecraft or a moon base to survive with just solar panels and batteries," making nuclear power an attractive option. A "reactor would be useful for long-term stays on the moon, especially during the two-week-long nights."

Putting a "reactor on the lunar surface to help power moon exploration efforts would keep the United States ahead of China and Russia," said CNN. Both of these nations have announced similar nuclear projects, and if either of these countries managed to "achieve this feat first, it could declare a 'keep-out zone'" that "would effectively hold the U.S. back from its goal of establishing a presence on the lunar surface."

The plans for a lunar nuclear reactor aren't entirely new, as NASA has been considering them for a long time. But the administration's directive could "accelerate NASA's long-simmering — and, to date, largely fruitless — efforts to develop nuclear reactors to support space science and exploration," said Scientific American.

What next?

Duffy said NASA wants a 100-kilowatt reactor on the moon by 2030. However, questions remain about its viability, especially given recent actions by the Trump administration. While the White House has "proposed a budget that would increase human spaceflight funds," at the same time it "advocates for major slashes to other programs — including a nearly 50% cut for science missions," said Politico.

NASA had "previously funded research into a 40-kilowatt reactor for use on the moon," but this research is unlikely to move forward given current budget cuts by the Trump administration. The agency also "plans to award at least two companies a contract within six months of the agency's request for proposals," meaning the nuclear reactor initiative could move forward regardless.

This is "on-brand for America," said astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson to "CBS Mornings." What is "not on-brand is to cut science programs, not only in NASA but across the board, and then say, 'We want to excel in this one spot.'" For the U.S. "to say, 'Let's cherry-pick where we want to show the world where we're the best,' you can't really do that."

China has begun construction on the world's largest hydropower dam, a project so massive that Premier Li Qiang called it the "project of the century." But the dam could also create a big problem for China's next-door neighbor, India.

The Motuo Hydropower Station on the Yarlung Tsangpo river in Tibet could eventually "generate three times more energy" than current champion Three Gorges dam, said the BBC. But the $167 billion project has "attracted criticism" because of its potential to affect "millions of Indians and Bangladeshis" living downstream. The new dam gives China a "chokehold on India's economy," said the Lowy Institute in a 2020 report. That is an "existential threat" to India, said Pema Khandu, the chief minister of the state of Arunachal Pradesh. China could use the hydropower station "as a sort of 'water bomb.'"

The waterway is a "lifeline for millions" in India and Bangladesh, where it provides "irrigation, hydropower and drinking water," said Reuters. (The river is known as the Brahmaputra in those countries.) That heightens the risk of the dam project as a possible flashpoint: India and China "fought a border war in this region" during the 1960s. Beijing's "lack of transparency" about the new project has raised new fears that China would "cut off water in another conflict."

What did the commentators say?

China's "mega-dam" project could "reshape Asia," said Riley Callanan at GZERO. There are benefits: The hydropower station is expected to produce 60 gigawatts of electricity, "ten times as much" as the Grand Coulee dam in Washington state. That could "stimulate the Chinese economy." The danger is that the project will spark a water arms race of sorts, with China and India engaging in "competitive dam-building throughout the Himalayas." It would not be the first time that water has been weaponized. India suspended a decades-old water-sharing treaty with Pakistan during armed skirmishes in May. The new dam adds "another layer of complexity" to the relationships between regional "neighbors competing for the same resources."

The dam is "less a beacon of progress" and more a "harbinger of cascading crises," said Khedroob Thondup at The Sunday Guardian in India. The dangers are more than geopolitical. The dam is located in one of the "most seismically active zones on Earth," not far from the location of the 1950 Assam-Tibet earthquake that killed an estimated 4,800 people. While "China's pursuit of renewable energy is commendable," the world's climate future should not be "built on fault lines — literal and political."

What next?

India may start its own dam building, said Bloomberg. Officials are "working with local communities to build support" for a new dam downstream of the Tibet project. China has "already started their dam construction, and we cannot sit idle," said Ojing Tasing, a minister in the state government. Chinese observers see the new dam as a statement of their country's ambitions, said the South China Morning Post. The Motuo Hydropower Station is a "strategic pivot that could power both the nation and its markets into a new era," said Hong Hao, the chief investment officer at Lotus Asset Management.

While Russia's economy has faced significant turmoil due to heavy war-related sanctions, the country's currency has not suffered. The Russian ruble has grown significantly and is up 45% against the U.S. dollar in 2025. And interest rates on ruble deposits have similarly seen widespread growth, helping to attract investment savers. But according to financial analysts, the spike in the ruble's value may end up doing more harm than good to Russia's economy.

What did the commentators say?

The ruble has become the "best-performing global currency, posting this year's strongest gains against the dollar," said Bloomberg. It has even outperformed generally safe commodities like gold and silver, as well as typically strong European currencies like the Swedish krona and Swiss franc.

The spike in the ruble, as shown by data from the Bank of Russia, has been "driven primarily by the central bank's tight monetary policy and optimism" that the war in Ukraine could end, said Reuters. The Russian bank's handling of China's currency, the yuan, has also played a role, as Russia has been "selling the Chinese yuan, its only major intervention tool, to support the ruble." As a result, when the ruble "strengthens against the yuan, its rate against the dollar strengthens as well to avoid arbitrage." This has made China's currency more valuable in Russia than the U.S. dollar, and in "2024, 95% of Russia's trade with China was settled in yuan and rubles."

The "strength of the ruble has less to do with a sudden jump in foreign investors' confidence than with capital controls and policy tightening," said CNBC. Russia's central bank has "maintained a restrictive stance to curtail high inflation," and there has also been a "decline in foreign currency demand from local importers" due to the shrinking U.S. dollar, Andrei Melaschenko, an economist at Renaissance Capital, said to CNBC. The decline in the dollar has "given the ruble a boost as banks don't need to sell rubles to buy the dollar or yuan."

What next?

While the ruble has been extremely strong, this could cause cascading problems for Russia's economy. The ruble's "strength might cheer traders," but the "Russian government likely prefers the opposite," said Business Insider. The outlet noted that when a country's currency appreciates in value, it can "tend to diminish export revenue, threatening to weigh on the nation's budget."

The "sharp appreciation is proving to be a double-edged sword for the heavily sanctioned Russian economy," said Reuters. Energy revenues are also affected by the increase, and Russian businesses "argue it is making exports more expensive to buyers in dollars and other currencies." The increasing ruble value has not helped the overall Russian economy. Russia's central bank "cut the benchmark interest rate by two percentage points, to 18%," in the "latest sign of the country's economic slowdown," said The New York Times.

Many economists think the ruble is a moot point. The country is seeing a "prelude to stagflation, when an economy and employment stop growing but prices continue to rise," said the Times.

This is "unlikely to affect the Kremlin's ability to wage war in Ukraine for the foreseeable future," said the Times. However, this doesn't mean other effects won't be seen, as economic downturn "may lead Moscow to reduce spending in other areas, such as social benefits and infrastructure."

When first-term President Donald Trump leaned on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to provide damaging political material on 2020 electoral rival Joe Biden, his ask was based in part on Ukraine's reputation for a historically questionable commitment to anti-corruption efforts. Fast forward to today, and a very different Ukraine is once again grappling with the specter of crippling national corruption thanks to a controversial law hurriedly signed by Zelenskyy earlier this week. Critics contend it will weaken the country's independent National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAPO) by placing them under the auspices of Ukraine's presidentially appointed prosecutor general.

After days of mass demonstrations in opposition to the new law, Zelenskyy (facing significant domestic policy protests for the first time) appeared to relent. This morning, the Ukrainian president announced on X that he'd approved a new, still ambiguous draft bill which "upholds the independence of NABU and SAPO."

What did the commentators say?

Demonstrations in Kyiv, as well as across Lviv, Dnipro and Odesa, are Ukraine's "biggest anti-government protests" since Russia began its Ukrainian invasion in 2022, said the BBC. While Zelenskyy initially sought to justify the law as a necessary boost for the "efficiency of Ukraine's anti-corruption infrastructure," critics argue that the bill is "at odds" with the country's pro-democracy efforts. For those critics, the stakes in the controversy are clear, said The Nation. Can a country "fighting for survival" also defend the "hard‑won democratic reforms" achieved in its 2014 anti-Russian revolution?

The "unusual speed" with which Ukraine's parliament passed its anti-corruption reforms follows "mounting warnings" from activists who've cautioned against an "escalating crackdown on anti-corruption bodies and NGOs" lately, said The Kyiv Independent. Just one day before Zelenskyy signed the legislation, various Ukrainian security agencies conducted "sweeping searches of NABU and SAPO" in what officials claimed was targeting "suspected Russian infiltration and administrative misconduct." Earlier this month, a top anti-corruption activist was arrested and charged with fraud and evading military service, which defenders said was "political retribution for exposing corrupt officials," Reuters said.

Anti-corruption critics claim Zelenskyy has "overstepped his authority under the martial law imposed since the Russian invasion," with the initial law adjusting the NABU and SAPO's independence marking the "latest in a string of steps he has taken to consolidate his power, said The New York Times.

What next?

By enacting the new law's intended reforms, Zelenskyy risked "endangering" Ukraine's "bid to join the European Union," for which a "crackdown on internal corruption" is a "requirement," said Fox News. Some in Ukraine wonder if the new law and ensuing protests have afforded Russia a "powerful propaganda tool" that could be used not only to further divide Ukraine but also damage its "support from the West at a crucial moment in the war," said NBC News. Western officials are "alarmed" that Ukraine might be "backsliding" on its "endemic graft problem."

By submitting his alternate bill Thursday morning, Zelenskyy hoped to "defuse tensions" with a revised law that "underlines" that the prosecutor general's office "cannot give orders to anti-graft agencies or interfere in their work," The Associated Press said. It's "not immediately clear" when Zelenskyy's new bill will get a parliamentary vote, with protests "likely to continue until the law is passed." Still, representatives from NABU hailed the revised legislation as restoring "all procedural powers and guarantees of independence" to it, said the special prosecutors' office in a post on Telegram.

Nevertheless, should state organs like NABU ultimately lose their independence as the initial law proposed, "there will still be anti-corruption activity," said investigative journalist Yuriy Nikolov to The Kyiv Independent. "What will remain" is "anti-corruption activity against low-level people."

Linda Yaccarino never had an easy job at X. The social media platform's CEO was always overshadowed by its owner, Elon Musk, whose activities made it more difficult for her to lure advertisers. Now she's gone.

X may be the "world's largest and most politically relevant" real-time social media platform, but it faces an "uncertain future" in the wake of Yaccarino's "abrupt resignation" last week, said Axios. She left her job the day after X's AI chatbot, Grok, started "promoting antisemitic tropes and offensive language" that drew widespread condemnation. Yaccarino was originally brought into the company to "rehabilitate X's ad business," but Musk's "disdain for the ad business" made her job much more challenging. Meanwhile, X is "starting to face competition" from rivals like Threads, Meta's Twitter clone.

Yaccarino tried to make X a "global town square," said The Guardian. She courted talent like former CNN host Don Lemon to start shows on the platform, but Musk fired Lemon following a contentious interview. Instead of attracting "mainstream talent," X has "largely become a megaphone for Musk." And instead of attracting advertisers, X reportedly "resorted to threats of lawsuits" against companies that were reluctant to buy ads.

What did the commentators say?

Yaccarino's departure was "inevitable," Dave Lee said at Bloomberg. Even without Musk's activities or Grok's temporary transformation into "MechaHitler," she had many "moral and professional" reasons to leave. Most significant was her "clear absence from important decision-making" within X made her a "CEO without power or respect." Her resignation may be a sign of X's decline. The platform is "losing its political relevance" while being "more toxic for advertisers than ever." A CEO role meant to "cover Musk's rotten edges" instead "ended predictably."

She can "claim some successes," said The Economist. X's ad revenue was starting to grow again, though it "remains well below its pre-Musk level." And while the platform's audience has declined, it has not "collapsed as many predicted." X has achieved at least one of Musk's goals: The platform now airs a "broader range of views" than before his purchase. The Grok incident, however, proved the range to be a "little too wide."

What next?

It is "unclear" who might replace Yaccarino at X, said The Wall Street Journal. Musk appears to be unhappy with the company's progress. X's "user growth is stagnant, revenue is unimpressive, and we're barely breaking even," he reportedly said in a January email to employees. If Musk decides to replace Yaccarino, her successor "will have to have credibility with advertisers," said ad consultant Michael Kassan to the outlet.

Advertisers are "silent" after the Grok incident and Yaccarino's departure, said NBC News. The ex-CEO "kept brands' exodus from X from being worse," but it is unlikely they will want to return in the near future, especially not at the same levels as on Twitter during its pre-Musk years. The social media universe looks a lot different now. Ad buyers find it "more effective to spend on places like TikTok," said Brett House, the senior vice president of MediaRadar, a firm tracking digital advertising spending.

Europe is considering all its options as President Donald Trump prepares to end the 90-day pause on the massive new tariffs he announced in April. One possible strategy for the European Union could be pivoting to Asia as a primary trade partner.

"'Goodbye Trump, hello Asia' is Europe's new trade plan," said Politico. EU President Ursula von der Leyen wants Europe to team up with the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) — a 12-country trade group that includes Japan and Australia — to form a "coalition of the willing" that currently accounts for 30% of world trade. The plan would demonstrate that free trade is "possible on a rules-based foundation," said von der Leyen.

China may also benefit. The EU has long "moved in lockstep" with the United States to present a united front against Beijing on trade and other issues, but Europe and China could gain from teaming up in "blunting the impact from Trump's tariffs," said ABC News. The two sides will meet later this month, despite Europe's concerns about China's "human rights record, espionage, trade policies, military buildup and support for Russia."

What did the commentators say?

Europe and Asia built their economies on a free trade foundation that is "under threat," said Columbia University economist Shang-Jin Wei at Asialink. Cooperation between the two regions makes sense "given that everyone will suffer from these shocks." Von der Leyen's proposed partnership with the CPTPP "would establish trading rules for almost the whole world" that would be able to sidestep the "irresponsible behavior" of any single country. Building that new system will be challenging, but the "alternative will be far costlier to Asia and Europe."

There have been "years of stalled efforts" to jump-start Euro-Asian economic partnerships, said Brian P. Klein at The South China Morning Post. But a partnership now is among the "shrinking number of options" to "buffer both regional economies" from Trump's trade wars. The U.S. is not the only problem: China's economy is "not in great shape" and cannot absorb exports that its Asian neighbors were previously shipping to America. That creates a "rare opportunity" for European and Asian countries to get a deal done.

What next?

Negotiators from the U.S. and Europe spent the weekend haggling over a "skeletal trade deal" that would spare the EU the worst of the 50% tariffs Trump originally threatened, said The Washington Post. EU officials are angry at the situation. Trump's trade war is "madness," said one unidentified European official. The new tariffs will not help the "wider global supply chains or the overall global economy."

The whole world is scrambling to mitigate the consequences of Trump's tariffs, Akanksha Sinha said at The Diplomat. The muddle could lead to a new order of "middle powers leading global economic growth." That would have sounded "fantastical" not long ago, "but apparently a lot can happen in 90 days."

The face of the Trump administration's immigration crackdown is hidden. Masked ICE agents are swooping into American cities to detain and deport suspected migrants. Critics say those masks carry echoes of "secret police" in authoritarian countries.

Masked agents have become a "calling card" of the administration, said CNN. News and social media videos have captured the masked officers making arrests of suspected migrants even though they are "not wearing uniforms or displaying badges." Agents conducting deportation operations without identifying themselves is "pretty unprecedented to see at this scale," said former ICE official Scott Shuchart. The practice has raised fears in cities of "getting snatched off the street by secret police," said Boston Mayor Michelle Wu.

ICE officials say agents have "received death threats and been harassed online," said The Associated Press. The masks are necessary protection against people who "don't like what immigration enforcement is," said Todd Lyons, ICE's acting director. Critics see it differently. The masking of government agents "undermines trust and creates fear in our community," said San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria.

What did the commentators say?

What ICE agents are doing is "outrageous — and mostly legal," said Kimberly Wehle at The Hill. The masks, combined with the lack of identification, make it "impossible" for ordinary citizens to know whether the people making arrests really are "federal officials rather than vigilantes." But there is "no constitutional obligation" that law enforcement officers identify themselves. All this reveals "glaring blind spots" in the law, which is premised on the idea that government officials "mostly act in good faith." ICE may be acting badly, but the law is "ill-equipped to deal with it."

"Masking is not good law enforcement practice," said Raul A. Reyes at the Los Angeles Times. Agents who hide their identities have "impunity" to "make unlawful arrests, without the possibility of public accountability." All of this "undermines agents' authority," but it "endangers public safety as well" because it "risks people interfering with enforcement actions that look more like kidnappings." It is time to reverse course. The public's need for accountability "strongly outweighs any rationale for agents' anonymity."

What next?

There has been a "spate of arrests" of civilians impersonating ICE agents, said The Guardian. California authorities last week arrested a man with a "loaded gun and official-looking documents with Department of Homeland Security headings" in his vehicle. Experts are warning that ICE's practice of masking "makes it easier for imposters to pose as federal officers." That is a "public safety threat," said Mike German, a former FBI agent.

Democrats want more transparency. New York leaders held a news conference last week to promote Rep. Nydia Velázquez's (D-N.Y.) federal "No Masks For ICE" bill, said WABC. The legislation would ban agents from wearing masks and require them to "clearly display their name and agency" while making arrests. In California, a state bill would require ICE officers to identify themselves while working in the Golden State, said LAist. The public deserves to know "who they're interacting with and that they're interacting with actual law enforcement officers," said State Sen. Scott Wiener (D).

President Donald Trump has long accused other NATO countries of being freeloaders, relying on the United States to provide the bulk of Europe's defense. Now those countries have pledged to ramp up their spending amid fears of an American pullout.

NATO leaders agreed to an "ambitious spending goal" at this week's summit, said The New York Times. They set a 2035 target of 5% of each country's national income on defense needs like "troops, weapons, shells and missiles." That more than doubles the current 2% goal, which is a "win for Trump." Some countries "may never reach these targets," though. Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez of Spain said his country would spend "no more, no less" than 2.1% of its GDP on defense, and small countries like Slovakia and Belgium said the 5% goal will "be impossible to meet."

Most European countries "can ill-afford to spend 5%" on defense, said Reuters. The new goal will force some "unpalatable sacrifices" to domestic spending budgets as governments shift spending from butter to guns, and it will also require some "creative accounting" to classify current spending as defense-related. NATO allies agreed to the goal, however, as they worried about Trump's threats to pull America out of the alliance. That will likely leave European countries with a "less generous" welfare state, said Bruegel think tank fellow Guntram Wolff.

What did the commentators say?

Trump is "right that Europe needs to do more," The Washington Post said in an editorial. NATO is the "most effective, powerful and vital military alliance" in world history, but America cannot "bear a disproportionate share" of the cost. And while the U.S. commitment "should remain ironclad," Europe needs to take up more of the burden so that Washington can "make major investments" to confront the rise of China. It should be worth it to Europe: NATO is "worth fighting, and spending, to preserve."

NATO's 5% goal "misses the mark," Todd Harrison said at The Hill. Setting an "arbitrary target" for defense spending is "bad policy for both the alliance and America." The target "puts the budget ahead of strategy" and makes defense spending "subject to the whims" of the business cycle. A better approach would start with determining NATO's actual defensive needs and setting budget goals from there. The amount of spending is important, "but how we spend it is even more important."

What next?

"Key questions" still hover over NATO despite the American president's "big win," said CNN. Trump declined to offer a "full-throated endorsement" of NATO's commitment to collective self-defense that would obligate the United States to come to Europe's aid in the event of a Russian attack. America is "committed to being their friends, and I'm committed to helping them," Trump said. NATO General Secretary Mark Rutte is satisfied. The U.S. is , said Rutte, "totally committed to NATO."

The recent slew of protests in Kenya represent the culmination of anger at the country's government that has been brewing since June 2024. Prior protests at that time saw Kenyans breach the parliament building and clash with police officers, marking the beginning of wider disunion in the country. One year later, Kenyans are making their voices heard again, with some fearing the turmoil may be here to stay.

What did the commentators say?

These protests stem from "growing anger at alleged police brutality" after Kenyan police officers were recently "charged with the murder of a blogger in police custody," said Semafor. Much of this anger has been directed at Kenyan President William Ruto and his government, with protesters in the capital city, Nairobi, "vowing to march to his official residence" and chanting, "Ruto must go."

Many "young Kenyans were in the streets to demand justice for those killed in last year's protests," said Semafor. The 2024 protests were largely "demonstrations against a contentious tax plan, which ended last year with more than 60 people dead," said The New York Times. There was also agitation in the aftermath of those protests, as "dozens of people, including activists, medical workers and social media influencers, were abducted, interrogated and tortured, according to interviews with activists and rights lawyers."

Although Ruto's tax plan was eventually rolled back, anger over how those protests were handled by law enforcement remains. It is "extremely important that the young people mark June 25th because they lost people who look like them, who speak like them … who are fighting for good governance," Angel Mbuthia, the chair of the youth league for Kenya's opposition Jubilee Party, told Al Jazeera.

What next?

Protests devolved into chaos across the country on Wednesday but particularly in Nairobi, with "police firing tear gas and water cannons to disperse" the demonstrators, said Reuters. At least 16 people died during the initial round of protests, Kenyan officials said.

Many more people were hurt during the event, with at least 400 injuries reported between protesters, police officers and journalists, according to the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights. As with the 2024 protests, there were "allegations of excessive use of force" by police, including the "use of rubber bullets, live ammunition and water cannons," the organization said.

It is unlikely that the temperature will cool anytime soon, as these new protests have "become a lightning rod for Kenyans still mourning those who perished at last year's demonstrations, blamed on security forces, against a backdrop of dozens of unexplained disappearances," said Reuters. Kenyans are "fighting for the rights of our fellow youths and Kenyans and the people who died since June 25. We want justice," Lumumba Harmony, a protester, told the outlet.

Ruto himself has "urged protesters not to threaten peace and stability," said the BBC. Protests "should not be to destroy peace in Kenya," Ruto said during an address. "We do not have another country to go to when things go wrong. It is our responsibility to keep our country safe."

President Donald Trump's decision to attack Iran has renewed a long-running debate about war powers. The Constitution gives Congress, not the president, the authority to declare war. But presidents routinely wage war anyway, citing their role as commander-in-chief. Where does the power really reside?

Trump "faces bipartisan pushback" for authorizing the attack on Iran without congressional input, said ABC News. Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) introduced a resolution to restrain Trump from acting, saying there was "no imminent threat" to the U.S. that would justify attacking Iran without congressional approval. But Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said Trump has all the authority he needs. Congress "can't be the commander-in-chief," he said.

Trump's decision to act unilaterally "comes at a uniquely volatile moment" both in America and around the world, said The Associated Press. The War Powers Act, a 1973 law, says the president should consult with Congress in "every possible instance" before authorizing an attack. But it has been "habitual practice" for presidents to "minimally" meet the requirements, said Scott Anderson of the Brookings Institution. The law is "so vague and open-ended" that it is difficult to enforce.

What did the commentators say?

Congress has "tried and failed" for two decades to have a meaningful voice in war-making decisions, said Paul Kane at The Washington Post. Presidents of both parties have sent American forces into battle "without any real constraint from Capitol Hill." Congress passed its last "use-of-force" authorization in 2002. Since then, presidents of both parties have ordered attacks on Islamic State forces in Syria and elsewhere. Before that, though, the legislative branch approved six different resolutions to cover every theater the United States fought in during World War II. The change demonstrates Congress' "slow and steady slide into irrelevance."

"Bypassing Congress weakens American democracy," said Conor Friedersdorf at The Atlantic. Earlier congressional debates "helped educate lawmakers and the public" about arguments for and against war and "left a record of who made claims that later proved incorrect." The process allowed citizens to lobby Congress, and later to "hold members of Congress accountable for their choices." Skipping that process "isn't merely anathema to a self-governing republic; it is dangerous."

What next?

Democrats in the Senate are still trying to "forge ahead" with a war powers vote, said The New York Times. But the resolution "stands little chance of approval" in the GOP-controlled Congress, and the shaky ceasefire between Israel and Iran may mean the moment for legislative action has passed. If the war really is over, the "resolution becomes a moot point," said Massie.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said Tuesday he believes the War Powers Act is unconstitutional. "Many respected constitutional experts" say the law violates the president's constitutional authority as commander-in-chief, said The Hill. "I think that's right," Johnson said. Trump's decision to attack Iran's nuclear sites played out "as the framers of the Constitution intended."

Perhaps the most surprising thing about Israel's aerial assault on Iranian military targets is how unsurprising Thursday night's bombardment may have been. After years of pressure against Iran's embryonic nuclear program and threats of violence by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the attack is as much a culmination of longstanding antagonism as it is a new and sudden development. Now, as a clearer picture of this long-anticipated strike emerges, military experts have also begun looking ahead.

With regional tensions already high after years of war in Gaza, violence in Lebanon and revolution in Syria, Israel's latest assault may lead the Middle East into further turmoil. And a global order already roiled by President Donald Trump may struggle to respond to this latest disruption.

What did the commentators say?

In the wake of Israel's attack, it is "likely" that Iran will make a "desperate run to nuclear breakout," said former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Daniel Shapiro at Foreign Affairs. Trump, in turn, will be "faced with a decision" that will "split his advisers and political base" — whether to "intervene militarily" after having spent years touting American isolationism. Trump claimed he "not only knew about the strikes" beforehand, but that they are being used to "coerce the Iranians into his preferred bargaining position" for nuclear treaty talks with the U.S., said Responsible Statecraft.

"More conventional missile and drone attacks are expected" from Iran, said the Financial Times. Iran could also "turn to asymmetric warfare" such as closing the Strait of Hormuz, which it has threatened to do in the past. Before this week's attack, White House Special Envoy Steve Witkoff warned Republican senators that Iran could "unleash a mass casualty response" to any Israeli attack, said Axios. He highlighted concerns that "Israel's air defenses would not be able to handle an Iranian response involving hundreds of missiles."

With a nuclear Iran "unacceptable" and a permanent negotiated nuclear deal "highly unlikely," a military assault on Tehran was the "only viable option left," said Matthew Kroenig, the vice president and senior director of the Atlantic Council's Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. Crucially, Iran is left with "few good options" for retaliation, given its proxies are "degraded" and Israel's Iron Dome is able to "demonstrably defend" against missile attacks. As such, this "will de-escalate quickly, like Trump's strike on Qasem Soleimani during his first term."

What next?

Violence between Israel and Iran is "now likely to top the agenda" at the G-7 summit scheduled to begin this weekend in Canada, said the Financial Times. With foreign leverage over Israel "limited," the question becomes whether nations like Canada, Britain and France, typically critical of the Netanyahu government, will "support any defense of Israel against Iranian retaliation." Meanwhile, Israel is "going alone" against Iran, said Daniel Mouton, a nonresident senior fellow at the Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative. "Regardless" of what led Israel to launch its assault, the attack will ultimately "exacerbate preexisting tensions" between Israel and the United States.

For now, expect a "rapid cycle of escalation" between Israel and Iran, said CNBC. The attacks and drone counter-strikes that have electrified the skies above both nations are "probably still the opening salvo," said Firas Maksad, the managing director for the Middle East and North Africa practice at Eurasia Group. And even if the Iranian military "quickly backs down," said Shapiro at Foreign Affairs, Israel should still brace for an "ongoing series of asymmetric attacks, such as cyber operations and terrorist attacks against its embassies, travelers and businesses."

It took 18 months of planning and more than 100 carefully hidden attack drones smuggled to various clandestine staging sites deep inside Russian territory, waiting to be activated. And when the dust settled on June 1, Ukraine's audacious operation "Spider's Web" left dozens of Russian bombers smoldering on their airstrips in an unprecedented surprise attack.

While drones have increasingly played a role in 21st century warfare, "Spider's Web" is quickly being weighed by military analysts as a new and potentially precedent-setting expansion of unmanned combat tactics and capabilities — one which has not only altered the course of the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian conflict, but perhaps the future of war itself.

What did the commentators say?

The "strategic and symbolic" success of Ukraine's operation shows how the country has used drones in particular to "adapt and evolve" in its effort against Russia's "much larger army with more resources," said The New York Times. The scale and impact of the attack means similar long-range drone strikes are "now a commodity available to almost every nation state, and nonstate actor," so long as they have a "few million dollars and the desire to reach out and strike their adversary," said Australian Gen. Mick Ryan (Ret.), a senior fellow for military studies at the Lowy Institute, to the Times. The attack was "likely highly cost-effective," the Kyiv Independent said. The first-person-view drones believed to have been used in the operation can cost a few hundred dollars apiece, while the price tag for Russia's destroyed bombers likely "runs into the billions."

The attack may have been a brazen success, but the "means and technology to conduct an operation like this aren't that new," said Center for New American Security Senior Fellow Samuel Bendett to the Kyiv Independent. The potential for "wide-scale, low-end, localized drone attacks against prized aircraft sitting at airfields" has been a "brewing threat," said defense industry–focused publication The War Zone. Drone technology has "proliferated dramatically," while the "threshold requirements" for carrying out an operation like this have "dropped considerably." Ukraine's drone assault was a "really good example of just how quickly technology is changing the battlefield," said Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George at an AI conference yesterday, per DefenseScoop.

What next?

Ukraine's drone assault means Russia must now "devote more resources to protecting bombers and other valuable military assets" after having spent years leaving its assets "parked outside and easily visible, both for operational reasons and as part of nuclear-disarmament agreements with Washington around the end of the Cold War," said The Wall Street Journal.

Ukraine's advances in drone warfare often "outpace traditional U.S. defense contractors," said the Kyiv Post, with many tech firms "increasingly turning to Ukrainian drone makers for their frontline expertise." And it's not just corporate interests paying attention, either. This summer, Ukraine will host a group of soldiers from Denmark, training them in the art of widespread drone warfare, Defense News said. Meanwhile, a "new crop of testing facilities designed to test the small aircraft in war-like conditions" will begin operating across various European nations inspired to keep pace with Ukraine's drone innovations.

New studies and patents are "increasingly less likely to break with the past in ways that push science and technology in new directions," according to a 2023 paper that found a lack of disruptive scientific discoveries.

"This pattern holds universally across fields and is robust," said the paper published in Nature. And such a lack of innovative science may lead to a lack of economic growth. Despite these findings, not all scientists necessarily agree, arguing that science changes over time and so does what counts as "disruptive."

What did the commentators say?

Scientific research has significantly more barriers than before. "Modern-day researchers have much less freedom to go in unusual directions because of the rigid structures of academic careers and funding," said Nature. On top of this, there is "intensifying pressure to publish," causing researchers to "salami-slice" and spread their ideas "more thinly across more papers and reducing the disruptiveness or novelty of each article."

While it seems like there are fewer major findings, "over the long term, science hardly looks like a steady accumulation of earth-shattering discoveries," said The New European. It is also difficult to define what qualifies as a disruptive discovery. "There's no way we can measure something like this with the certainty of measuring an object's temperature or mass." In addition, it has "long been noted that review panels for funding agencies are conservative, favoring the safe but mediocre."

The seeming lack of disruptive science may be related to the nature of science itself. Science becomes "more complex as it matures," said University of Georgia professor John Drake at Forbes. "The simplest questions are often the first to be answered, and what remains are challenges that are more subtle, more interdependent and more difficult to resolve." But "this does not necessarily imply stagnation." Actually, the "frontier of science has expanded — not narrowed," Drake added. "If we consider scientific knowledge as a volume, then it is bounded by an outer edge where discovery occurs." Instead, the "surface area also expands, and it is along this widening frontier, where the known meets the unknown, that innovation arises."

What next?

Disruptive science stagnation is likely only going to get worse. The National Science Foundation, responsible for billions of dollars in research grants throughout the country, has seen record levels of budget cuts by the Trump administration. Research devoted to diversity, equity and inclusion, as well as misinformation research, has been gutted the most. A total of 1,753 grants "worth nearly $1.4 billion across numerous areas of research" have been affected, said CNN. "The result will be slower economic growth, less innovation and new tech startups, and even more diminished competitiveness vis-à-vis China," said Robert Atkinson, the president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, to The New York Times.

As a result of these budget cuts, 16 states have sued the administration. "Institutions will not be able to maintain essential research infrastructure and will be forced to significantly scale back or halt research, abandon numerous projects and lay off staff," said the states in the lawsuit. This will lead to fewer research scientists in the country. "You can't have science without scientists," said Rep. Zoe Lofgren (Calif.), the top Democrat on the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee, to the Times.

President Donald Trump seems to see himself as part of a broader global shift toward populism. But while he cozies up to other strong-arm heads of state like Russia's Vladimir Putin and Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu, the team that helped bring the MAGA movement to the White House has been working to expand the roster of aspiring autocrats, particularly in Albania.

Former Trump campaign strategist Chris LaCivita wants to replicate his 2024 success for Sali Berisha in Albania's May 11 parliamentary elections. Berisha, a former prime minister sanctioned by the Biden administration for corruption, is running to regain power from Prime Minister Edi Rama.

What did the commentators say?

LaCivita, a longtime GOP strategist and former chief operating officer for the Republican National Committee, has become a "surprisingly central figure" in the small Balkan nation's electoral scene, said The Wall Street Journal. He has organized "large rallies, helped design TV ads" and "appeared at various public events" on behalf of Berisha, becoming a "target for opponents and supporters alike." Much of LaCivita's campaign messaging has "echoed Trump," including blaming the incumbent party for "rising prices and crime" while focusing on inflation.

LaCivita is not alone in exporting the MAGA brand to Albania. He is joined by "Trump's longtime pollster," Tony Fabrizio, and Paul Manafort, the president's 2016 campaign manager, who was convicted in 2018 of "crimes that included secretly lobbying for Ukraine's former pro-Russian president," said The Associated Press.

Berisha's embrace of Trump's electoral team "makes clear" their value to candidates "trying to harness populist sentiment and replicate Trump's rise" in a country where perceived ties to the United States are seen as a "major asset," said the AP. To that end, Berisha and his Democratic Party of Albania have worked to frame LaCivita's work as a "sign of support from the Trump wing of U.S. politics," said the Albanian Times, even as that narrative "appears increasingly uncertain."

Rama is "George Soros' puppet in Albania and in the world," Berisha said to Albania's A2CNN network, reiterating the antisemitic trope frequently used among right-wing movements, including the MAGA movement. LaCivita's "crystal clear message," Berisha claimed, is that he and his party are "the USA's partner in Albania."

"I'm exporting MAGA," LaCivita said to The New York Times. "Make Albania Great Again!" But campaign branding aside, the Trump administration itself has "not signaled support for a preferred party in the parliamentary elections," and LaCivita has said he "would not approach the Trump administration on behalf of Berisha or his party."

The MAGA team's role in Albania's upcoming elections comes at a particularly fraught time, as Prime Minister Rama pushes ahead with plans to join the European Union, a body which Trump has routinely criticized and downplayed. Rama has made EU membership by 2030 a "key part of his campaign," Politico said, as the "growing rift between Brussels and Washington threatens to overshadow" Albania's application process.

What's next?

Despite his deep and ongoing ties to the Trump administration and its nebulous network of associated PACs and consultancies, LaCivita has no plans to "register as a foreign agent" for his work in Albania, The Wall Street Journal said. He also predicts he will be "limited" in taking on further foreign clients next year "because of his work for American politicians in the midterm elections."

Not that LaCivita's eventual withdrawal from the global export of MAGA means Berisha would be left without access to Trump's circle. Berisha's Democratic Party of Albania has recently retained the services of Continental Strategy, a Florida consultancy firm that "employs a roster of lobbyists with ties to Trumpworld," said Mother Jones. That "hefty tab" has been covered by the Make Albania Great Again Foundation, recently registered to a suburban address in New Jersey. Berisha is "seeking removal of a 'persona non grata' designation" imposed for corruption during the Biden administration. According to Continental Strategy's lobbying disclosure forms, the group has "already been in touch with the State Department on behalf of Berisha's party."

Will he stay or will he go? Tesla last week shot down a report that its board is searching for a new CEO to replace Elon Musk atop the company. But questions about the company's future are not going away.

Finding somebody to take Musk's place is a "huge challenge" for Tesla, said Axios. There are three "practically unanswerable" questions about the process: Who could take his place? How would Musk react? What would investors think? The questions may soon need answering. Tesla has "suffered declining sales" since Musk made himself the face of the Trump administration's government-slashing efforts. Despite the company's stumbles, any new CEO "will be operating in Musk's shadow."

What did the commentators say?

Musk has already told investors he will "pivot back to his job at Tesla," said The Wall Street Journal. His "detour into government" came at an already-perilous moment for the company: Sales of Tesla EVs declined in 2024, for the first time in a decade, and the Cybertruck has been the "butt of jokes by late-night comics." There are questions of overstretch: Tesla is "only one of five businesses" that Musk oversees. And to some inside the company, it has become clear that his political work is a "business liability."

Musk is Tesla's "greatest asset and gravest risk," said Bloomberg. Succession planning would be a sign that the company board is "looking out for investors." After all, any "reasonable set of directors" would be "taking steps to find a successor" to a CEO running "multiple companies" and making political waves "liable to trash the brand." Instead, Tesla's EV business has been in "decline for much of the past two years," while the board of directors stood by and failed to act. That reveals the "hollowness of the board" that ostensibly oversees Musk.

"The old rules of carmaking don't apply to Tesla," said the Financial Times. Neither do the usual rules of corporate governance. Tesla's stock value rests in part on "hordes of exuberant retail traders" who are big Musk fans. Investors do not seem to care that the CEO has "written numerous checks" he "subsequently failed to cash" with unfilled or late-arriving promises of self-driving cars and robotaxis. Analysts have noted that Tesla's stock has often "traded more in line with bitcoin than the wider market." If he leaves, so does much of the company's value. Even with declining car sales, Musk is "too big to eject."

What next?

Tesla has sent a message that Musk "isn't untouchable," said Quartz. The report of the board's willingness to replace him was likely part of a "game of high-stakes poker between the board and Musk" in which the board was firing a "warning shot," said Wedbush analyst Daniel Ives. It is likely Musk will remain CEO for at least five years.

Any new chief executive would have to shore up Tesla's sinking car sales while still working to deliver Musk's promised robotaxi network, said Reuters. It is a big challenge. "Is Musk bigger than Tesla?" said Gene Munster, managing partner at Deepwater Asset Management. "The answer is yes."