Are Americans ready for “bloody cage fights on the White House’s South Lawn?” asked Jack Crosbie in Rolling Stone. On June 14, President Trump will celebrate both his 80th birthday and America’s 250th anniversary with a card of seven outdoor UFC fights at the People’s House. These mixed martial arts fights, in which kicks to the head, elbows to the face, punching prone fighters, and choke holds are all legal, are big in “the right-leaning manosphere”—and with Trump, who calls it “the greatest sport.” The president—who recently bought stock in UFC’s parent company—is pals with Dana White, the company’s CEO, who has openly allied the sport with Trump. The UFC is “allegedly footing the bill” for the spectacle, which will take place in a temporary arena that can hold some 4,000 fans, with up to 90,000 watching on a screen outside. The Pentagon has placed a casting call for brawny troops in short-sleeve uniforms to help fill the stands, so long as they “meet a certain physical standard.”

The kitschy “Las Vegas–style venue” highlights “just how extensively Trump has remade the White House grounds to his liking,” said Erkki Forster in The Daily Beast. A hulking steel arch that’s nine stories tall and decked out “in patriotic red, white, and blue graphics” has been raised over the stage and seating area. It looms over the torn-up construction site for Trump’s $400 million ballroom, where “the East Wing once stood.” Erecting this garish “monstrosity” is among Trump’s “worst insults” to Washington’s once-dignified architecture, said Zeeshan Aleem in MS.now. But his endorsement of brutality on White House grounds sends an even darker message than the aesthetic desecration: Violence can be glorious and patriotic.

Gladiatorial combat is just one way Trump has turned our national birthday into “a royalist celebration of himself,” said David Frum in The Atlantic. He’s “seeking to emblazon his face on coinage and currency,” displaying “his image on banners in downtown Washington,” repainting the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool a garish blue, and gilding bronze horse statues. The 250th celebration should’ve been “an easy layup, a gimme, a chance for a now-unpopular second-term president to reinvent himself as the leader of all of the American people.” But he’s unable to rise above his egomania, and has “made a pitiful shambles of what should have been a glorious moment.”

What’s happening to the river?

Running from the Rocky Mountains in Colorado to Mexico’s Gulf of California, the Colorado River is being pushed to the breaking point by years of drought and overuse. That dwindling flow is causing panic across the region because the river supplies water to more than 40 million people in seven Western states—Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming. It also provides power to more than 25 million people through hydroelectric dams at the nation’s two largest reservoirs: Lake Powell (in Utah and Arizona) and Lake Mead (in Nevada and Arizona). Water levels at both are down about 75% from peak volumes; declining water levels at Lake Mead could potentially reduce the Hoover Dam’s power generating capacity by 40% as early as this fall. And the situation will likely worsen as climate change accelerates and further dries out the West, with recent studies suggesting the river will provide 10% to 45% less water by 2050. With an October deadline looming for the seven states to agree on a new Colorado River Compact—the plan that governs how water is distributed between them—regional officials are under pressure to strike a compromise on steep water cuts. “Maybe this is the first worldwide climate-change crisis that’s going to force really fundamental policy-level decisions to be made,” said Brad Udall of Colorado State University’s Colorado Water Center.

How did the situation get this bad? 

The entire Colorado River Basin has been in drought since 2000, with snow and rain down 7% from the 20th-century average. The snowpacks that feed the river hit their lowest level on record this year, with snow accumulations in Colorado’s high country peaking a month early in March and containing just half the average moisture. Even a rare May storm that dropped 30 inches of snow in parts of the Rockies offered little relief. But drought is just one of the basin’s problems. Struck in 1922 during an unusually wet period, the Colorado River Compact overestimated how much water the river could provide. Meanwhile, the demands for water keep rising as drought shrinks the flow. The semi-arid region’s population has exploded over the past century—the river served only 457,000 people in 1922—as has its agriculture sector, which now covers more than 5 million acres of farmland and accounts for 70% of all water use. Alfalfa grown for cattle feed swallows 26% of all water consumed in the basin, more than every city in the region combined. Former Upper Colorado River commissioner Anne Castle likens the demands on the river to “spending more money than you’re bringing in. You can pull on your savings, but your savings aren’t going to last forever.”

Are states willing to take less water?

In theory. But three years of talks on a new compact between the four upstream states—Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming —and the three downstream states of Arizona, California, and Nevada have yet to produce an agreement. The Lower Basin states recently proposed slashing their water allotments by about 20% annually and asked Upper Basin states to commit to permanent cuts to ensure water keeps flowing south. But Upper Basin states are wary of restrictions that would limit future development and stop them building new dams. “I see still a very large lack of skin in the game by the Upper Basin,” said Tom Buschatzke of the Arizona Department of Water Resources.

What’s the federal government doing? 

To avert potential water shortages, the Interior Department in April sent billions of gallons from Wyoming’s Flaming Gorge Reservoir into Lake Powell. Up to a third of the water in Flaming Gorge could be let out over the next year to ensure Powell’s dam keeps generating electricity. The Upper Basin states only reluctantly agreed to the Flaming Gorge drawdown, which could put many boat ramps out of action at the popular tourist destination and also hurt local fish populations. “Our consideration and approval are not taken lightly,” said Wyoming state engineer Brandon Gebhart, “and we wouldn’t be recommending this release except for the historically dire conditions.”

What happens if states can’t reach a deal?

The Bureau of Reclamation, which oversees water in the West, will step in and impose cuts. Buschatzke said a plan under consideration by the Trump administration would slash the Lower Basin’s allocation by up to 40%—almost as much water as flowed from 19 million people’s taps in Southern California last year. For now, any breakthrough in compact talks seems unlikely. If anything, the recent releases by the Interior Department have exacerbated tensions, with Upper Basin states complaining they’ve already been forced to use less than the 7.5 million acre-feet allotted by the compact because dry conditions have cut their water supply by 25%. “The Upper Basin is proud to be part of the solution,” said Colorado water commissioner Becky Mitchell. “But we cannot be the entire solution.”

Could taps actually run dry? 

It’s possible in some areas. The small desert town of Kearny, Ariz., gets its water from a reservoir on a Colorado tributary that’s only 2% full. Mayor Curtis Stacy has warned residents they could run out of water in July unless they take radical action now; he’s suggested washing clothes less often and showering together. Other towns and cities are rationing water just in case. Las Vegas, N.M., has barred restaurants from serving water to customers unless specifically requested. Denver and Aurora, Colo., have ordered cuts to outdoor watering. Climate change could force more communities to drastically reduce their water usage in coming years. “Just because we’re the first don’t mean we’ll be the last,” said Stacy. “We’re the canary in the copper mine.”

Is President Trump finally tired of winning? asked Shawn McCreesh in The New York Times. Asked in a Cabinet meeting two weeks ago if he feels pressure to end the Iran war before November’s elections, Trump airily replied, “I don’t care about the midterms.” In the context of Iran, Trump’s “posture of nonchalance” is defensible. Presidents shouldn’t let politics sway their thinking on matters of war. But GOP lawmakers are starting to wonder if Trump couldn’t care less about their party’s bleak electoral prospects. Republicans trail Democrats by 7.6% in the generic ballot, dragged down by Iran, high gas prices, Trump’s slumping approval rating (38% and falling), and the belief—shared by 77% of Americans, including most Republicans—that Trump’s policies have driven up the cost of living. Without a course correction, the GOP could lose both the House and Senate in November, a prospect suddenly more likely after Trump’s endorsement lifted Ken Paxton, the scandal-drenched MAGA loyalist, over incumbent Texas Sen. John Cornyn in last week’s primary. But instead of assuring cash-strapped Americans that he feels their pain, Trump spends his days constructing “pricey pet projects,” from his gilded White House ballroom to a 250-foot triumphal arch. These don’t seem like the actions of someone who’s especially bothered “about what’s coming after the summer.”

“Don’t be fooled,” said Frank Bruni, also in the Times. Trump’s ego won’t let him confess his midterm anxieties. But beneath the “bluster and makeup, he’s sweating.” Look at how hard he’s pressured red-state legislatures to redraw their electoral maps to gain a handful of seats in November, and how he’s “haranguing congressional Republicans” to pass new voting laws to depress Democratic turnout. And the electoral landscape this fall might not be as grim for Republicans as it looks now, said Mene Ukueberuwa in The Free Press. Progressives are pushing Democrats toward nominating class warriors like Maine’s Graham Platner and Michigan’s Abdul El-Sayed, potentially alienating moderate voters in what would otherwise be “easily winnable races.”

I suspect Trump is relaxed about the midterms because “there might be political upside regardless of who wins,” said Abby McCloskey in Bloomberg. If the House and Senate turn blue, Trump will gain the scapegoat that his second term has lacked. He can blame “any and all shortcomings on Congress’s new Democratic majority.” And if empowered Democrats push left-wing legislation and try to impeach him, Trump will get to replay his favorite roles: “victim of the elite” and “protector against the progressive tide.” There’s a Jan. 6–size hole in such analyses, said Joel Mathis in his Substack newsletter. Trump’s indifference to the midterms more likely flows from the fact that he has plans in place—this time fully thought-out—to ignore or reverse the results “unless they are favorable to him.”

None of this explains why Trump suddenly cares so little about his popularity, said Paul Waldman in MS.now. Perhaps he’s contemplating his post-2029 legacy. He may be comfortable with being loathed by two-thirds of the country “so long as there are gigantic buildings with his name on them.” And his newfound indifference to approval ratings may be liberating. Trump has spent his life trying “to free himself of any and all constraints”—the law, civility, political norms, international alliances—“so he can do whatever he wants.” The interests of his party, and Americans, are just more things tying him down. “And he’s going to cut those cords.”

Filling up your tank is pricey, and the total cost is more than just the price of gas alone. Every time you fill up, a federal gas tax and a state tax gets tacked on to each gallon of gas you put into your car.

With the price of gas skyrocketing of late, in large part because of the war Donald Trump started with Iran, the president has floated the idea of suspending the federal gas tax altogether. But how much would that really save consumers?

What is the federal gas tax?

It is an “excise tax that’s paid on any fuel that’s sold in the US.,” said Intuit TurboTax. Initially, the tax “was meant to be temporary when President Herbert Hoover signed it into law in 1932 to help pay for national defense spending,” said The New York Times. “But persistent budget deficits kept it in place, and the money it raises is used for road maintenance through the Highway Trust Fund.”

How much is the federal gas tax?

The current federal gas tax costs drivers 18.4 cents, a charge that applies per gallon of gas. For those filling up with diesel fuel, the cost is a bit higher, at 24.4 cents per gallon.

Keep in mind, that is just the federal gas tax. All states and the District of Columbia also tax motor fuels, with per-gallon gas tax rates ranging “from 8.95 cents in Alaska to 62.9 cents in California,” said the Tax Policy Center. Additionally, “10 states also levy a general sales tax or gross receipts tax on purchases of motor fuel,” which can further increase the overall cost of filling up.

How much could drivers save if the gas tax is suspended?

Will nixing those cents on the gallon actually allow drivers to save on gas? Yes, but only minimally. If the federal gas tax were to drop by the full 18.4 cents, that would mean “for a 15-gallon tank, that’s $2.70 saved,” said CBS News. “When filled up weekly, that’s about $10.80 a month.”

However, “experts say the price drop would be less than 18 cents,” said CBS News. Some of that gas tax would instead “end up staying with the gas station itself, maybe the producers or anyone else in the supply side of the gas market,” added the outlet, citing tax policy expert Adam Hoffer.

Gas taxes ultimately make up just a small portion of the amount consumers are paying at the pump. Even with the suspension of both federal and state gas taxes, “prices would still average 35% more per gallon than they were at the start of the Iran war,” said NBC News. Since the war began in late February, “prices nationwide are up more than 50%.”

Maine’s Graham Platner was seen as a potent populist challenger to incumbent GOP Sen. Susan Collins. But revelations about the Democrat’s Nazi-linked tattoo, charged social media posts, and past treatment of women now have his party’s leaders debating whether to pull their support. And either choice might cost them a shot at winning the Senate in November.

Democrats should “cut Platner loose,” David Frum said at The Atlantic. Republicans in 2017 ditched Alabama’s Roy Moore over revelations about his pursuit of underage girls as a thirtysomething adult. GOP leaders then had to “choose between character and power.” Now it is time for Democrats to “muster equal shrewdness and toughness.” Other observers disagree. Democratic critics must “stop submarining” Platner, Michael Tomasky said at The New Republic. The party should stick with the candidate unless there are revelations “involving murder, rape or a taste for child pornography.” That is admittedly a “low bar,” but Collins has spent her public career helping Republicans “pick the pockets of working-class people.”

‘Scandal fatigue’

The party is “betraying its own values” if it does not denounce Platner, Michael A. Cohen said at MS NOW. The evidence suggests Platner is a “moral and political train wreck” with an “unceasing drumbeat of scandals about him.” The latest revelations include reporting that he has been “volatile, unfaithful and physically threatening” to the women in his life. Supporting Platner “opens up Democrats to charges of hypocrisy” in their criticisms of Texas Senate candidate Ken Paxton and risks “losing both the Maine Senate race and their souls.”

Democrats’ chances of retaking the Senate now depend on a “baggage-laden candidate with clear character issues and a sketchy past,” Nia-Malika Henderson said at Bloomberg. “Scandal fatigue” could dampen enthusiasm for Platner, but America’s “ultrapolarized” politics could also “work the other way, hardening support for Platner.” It is a dynamic that has worked for GOP candidates like President Donald Trump and Paxton, who have both succeeded “despite a raft of scandals.” After years of criticizing Trump’s transgressions, “Democratic voters face a character test of their own.”

‘Fed up with rolling revelations’

“Unfortunately for Graham Platner, he needs women on his side to win,” Steve Collins said at the Portland Press Herald. Independent and Democratic women voters in Maine are “increasingly fed up with rolling revelations” about the candidate’s past, and social media is “full of Maine women who say they’re no longer buying what Platner’s selling.” Maine Gov. Janet Mills, who suspended her campaign in April, could pick up votes in Tuesday’s primary as a result.

Critics “at the national level misunderstand” his populist campaign, Platner said Friday to supporters, per Politico. “They think this is a race about me, but it isn’t.” Platner’s supporters remain similarly “unfazed” by the revelations, said The Wall Street Journal. The scandals demonstrate “that he is a real person,” Maine voter Amanda Nicholson said to the outlet.

‘Flu vaccines should not be this hard’

Katherine J. Wu at The Atlantic

In a “typical year, the process of bringing a new seasonal flu shot to market is one of the United States’ most predictable vaccine routines,” but this is “not a typical year,” says Katherine J. Wu. The job would normally “fall to the CDC’s expert vaccine advisory panel, known as ACIP, which guides the agency’s recommendations,” but “currently, no functional ACIP exists to guide this autumn’s immunization campaigns.” This “could further undermine ACIP’s role as a key scientific check on government policy.”

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‘How women are shaping Minnesota’s cannabis industry’

Clemon Dabney at The Minnesota Star Tribune

Cannabis legalization “created a market in Minnesota. Women are helping create its culture,” says Clemon Dabney. While women are “still underrepresented in cannabis ownership,” the “women who are launching dispensaries across the state” are “doing far more than opening stores.” These women are “claiming space in an industry where they have too often been overlooked, underestimated or asked whether a man is really behind the business.” They “are setting the tone for what this market becomes.”

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‘Is Britain getting a new prime minister?’

Eliot Wilson at The Hill

In “America, changes of leaders are predictable,” but “in Britain, it is more nuanced,” says Eliot Wilson. It is “impossible to predict whether Sir Keir Starmer will still be prime minister at the end of this year, this month or perhaps even this week.” There is “no bar to a party in office changing its leader, who then becomes prime minister.” Will the United Kingdom “have a new prime minister by autumn? Yes. Or possibly no.”

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‘AI leaders are cosplaying James Bond villains’

Gautam Mukunda at Bloomberg

“Shark Tank impresario Kevin O’Leary wanted to build data centers on 40,000 acres in rural Box Elder County, Utah,” the “latest battle in the war that might determine the future of artificial intelligence,” says Gautum Mukunda. AI “might unleash miracles of productivity, cure cancer or make energy too cheap to meter,” but it “can’t do any of those things — or at least it can’t do them in the United States — if the public rejects the technology.”

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Have bread; breadcrumbs are inevitable. You would think then, with boundless English-speaking cultures using bread, there would be endless words for breadcrumbs. Terms that are mere descriptors for the bread pieces, like “fine,” “medium” and “large.” Would that we have 50 words to express a range of kinds of breadcrumbs, in the way Tamil has more than four dozen words for love.

In “All That Crumbs Allow,” authors Michelle Marek and Camilla Wynne creep toward that goal. Across 45 recipes — each its own kind of breadcrumb-naming treatise — the duo proclaims how versatile the kitchen staple both is and can be.

A prayer to pulverization

There is much bread-on-bread action in this text. Marek and Wynne, who both have backgrounds in pastry, cannot help themselves. Wynne, in a recipe for bread and jam twice-baked croissants, eschews the nut filling and crafts a breadcrumb frangipane, which is then slathered on bisected day-old croissants along with the jam of your choosing and baked until crackly.

Marek reminisces about the sweet cheese dumplings of her childhood visits to the Czech Republic. Soft bread cubes are beaten with butter, sugar, flour, egg and farmers cheese before a poaching turn in sweetened boiling water. The pillowy dumplings are then added to hot crisped breadcrumbs and served with roasted or fresh fruit.

Other recipes for sweets include such zingers as breadcrumb-glazed doughnuts, rhubarb cardamom breadcrumb cake and witches’ froth, a fluffy cloud of whipped apple served with clattering toasted breadcrumbs.

Savory-heads, fret not: Marek and Wynne have not abandoned you. A three-page blueprint for schnitzel ensures the finest you might ever cook. Roasted potatoes are shellacked with buttery crumbs. From the annals of cooking past, sauce jouvert, spunky with marjoram, red wine vinegar, both walnuts and hazelnuts, and breadcrumbs, is raised from the annals of recipe history to be draped over pretty much any kind of vegetable.

In the beginning, there was bread

The book’s centerpiece chapters on starters, mains and sweets are bookended on one side by a treatise on how to make and store breadcrumbs of various sizes, with an under-duress sub-section about how to buy breadcrumbs. “There is, it must be said, something perverse about paying for breadcrumbs,” Marek and Wynne write. “Buying breadcrumbs is one of life’s cosmic jokes, and it makes us laugh every time.”

A pantry chapter closes “All That Crumbs Allow.” It is a terse collection of six recipes that swerves from the book’s much-used, dead-simple Crunchy Topping to Fairy Rocks, with their sparkling blend of freeze-dried raspberries, sesame seeds, ground rose petals, sugar and, yes, breadcrumbs.

The book’s coda is a collection of exciting recipes from pals. In Marek and Wynne’s world, breadcrumbs are not for gatekeeping. They are meant to be spread wide and far. You can almost hear the authors chattering, “May you forever follow a trail of gluten nubbins to immeasurable deliciousness.”

What happened

Former “60 Minutes” correspondent Scott Pelley on Sunday said he hadn’t expected to be fired after criticizing CBS News editorial chief Bari Weiss at a staff meeting last week. But “somebody had to stand up,” he told The New York Times in an interview. She was putting a “thumb on the scale for the president’s version of events that I felt was a level of political influence that I had never seen in 37 years at CBS News.”

Who said what

After Pelley had gotten final sign-off on a report on ICE’s killing of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, Weiss “sends an email to my boss” asking for some post-deadline changes, including, “Can we make the protesters look more violent?” and “Good’s car — you need to describe her as driving toward the officer,” Pelley said. That is “not what you see on the video,” he said, but it’s “what the president said.” A CBS News spokesperson said Weiss’ suggestions “had no political motivation” and sought to make the piece “strong, fair and accurate.”

What next?

Weiss is a “lovely person,” but “television’s not her thing” and she needs to be removed, Pelley said. “It’s possible to land this plane. But right now, CBS News is on fire.”

What happened

President Donald Trump abruptly ended an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press” broadcast Sunday after Kristen Welker challenged his assertions that last week’s California primaries and the 2020 election were “dirty” and “rigged.” During the interview, taped at a farm in Wisconsin, Trump “made a series of false, misleading or exaggerated comments,” NBC News said, including that he “didn’t promise” no new conflicts or “guarantee no war.”

Who said what

Trump “repeatedly pledged not to involve the United States in war,” The New York Times said, including in his 2024 victory speech, when he said, “I’m not going to start a war.” During Welker’s interview, Trump “appeared to become agitated” when she asked about the purportedly defunct $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund, The Washington Post said. And when she pressed Trump for evidence that there was cheating in California’s notoriously slow election count, he raised his voice, called Welker “either stupid or crooked” and said the “fake, dirty press” knows about the “rigged” elections. “Let’s call it quits because I’ve had enough,” Trump said. “Thank you, darling. Have a good time.”

What next?

Welker said that Trump later agreed that heavy rain on the metal barn roof had caused audio complications and agreed to sit down for another interview at an undisclosed time.

What happened

Iran and Israel on Sunday night fired missiles at each for the first time since a U.S.-backed ceasefire took effect in April. Iran said it targeted an Israeli air base in response to Israeli strikes in Lebanon, and Israel said it retaliated by striking military targets in western and central Iran. Israel also said it intercepted a missile from Yemen.

President Donald Trump told Fox News earlier that the U.S. was not involved in Israel’s strike on Beirut’s suburbs and “I’m not happy about it.” After Iran launched missiles at Israel, Trump warned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to imperil peace talks by firing back, according to several news reports. “I call all the shots,” Trump told the Financial Times. Netanyahu “doesn’t call the shots.”

Who said what

Trump told Netanyahu to stand down because “we are close to doing something good in terms of a deal,” a U.S. official told Axios, and Netanyahu “pseudo-agreed.” Israel “has responded enough, they don’t need to respond anymore,” Trump told Israeli public broadcaster Kan. “We can achieve peace after 3,000 years.” No “self-respecting country in the world would tolerate such an attack, and neither will Israel,” Israel’s U.S. ambassador, Yechiel Leiter, said on X.

What next?

The tit-for-tat attacks continued Monday morning and “threatened to drag the wider Middle East back into a regional war,” The Associated Press said.

President Donald Trump’s executive order that voluntarily allows artificial intelligence companies to receive more government oversight marks a shift in the White House’s attitude about AI. It seems Trump, Republicans and even some Democrats are changing their tune.

What did the commentators say?

The order signed by Trump is “relatively toothless” because most major AI companies “already had agreements in place that allowed the government to preemptively test their models for safety risks,” said The Atlantic. But it is also “meaningful in that the president is doing something — anything — about AI” given that when Trump retook office, he largely “signaled to tech companies that he would stay out of the way.”

National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett previously said the administration was considering federal guidelines that would “require AI models to go through an evaluation process similar to that used by the Food and Drug Administration,” said The Hill. This idea seemed to fizzle out as AI advocates became “concerned that an evaluation process from the White House could strangle development.”

The order that was signed “nonetheless represents a sea change in Washington’s willingness to tighten oversight of the technology,” said Politico. For the “first time it’s on a piece of paper, a structure and a process,” former Trump adviser Steve Bannon told the outlet. Some argue that Democratic politicians were already doing the same thing. “This executive order is implementing a voluntary regime to do pre-deployment evaluations of models for security risks,” Saif Khan, a tech adviser under former President Joe Biden, told Politico. “That is the thing that the Biden administration was doing.”

What next?

It is unclear where the Trump administration may go next with AI. The “entire chaotic saga — a wishy-washy White House, confused statements from populist and tech-elite Trump whisperers — is only the latest in a long string of strange, often contradictory AI policy positions,” said The Atlantic. There is a chance Trump could change his mind again, as his policies on the matter have been “inconsistent, if not incoherent, almost since the day he retook office.”

While Trump says he is focused on AI security, his White House has also slashed major portions of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency (CISA), the “government agency that aims to protect the nation against hackers,” said The Atlantic. The budget cuts mean CISA is “heading into the AI era with shrinking resources and a diminished role,” said Axios, which could pave the way for future vulnerabilities. Many fear the agency “no longer has the capacity to help utilities, banks and other critical infrastructure operators prepare for a coming wave of AI-fueled cyberattacks.”

Others believe that both sides of the aisle have it wrong. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) wants to ban data centers and is currently “calling for the government to own 50% of AI companies” — and it “would be easier to dismiss his ideas if they weren’t partially built on bipartisan consensus,” said The Washington Post editorial board. But U.S. tech policy works, and the “U.S. is a wealthy country because it doesn’t engage in the kind of government ownership schemes that Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump are fond of.”

Instead of reaching for biscuits or chocolate to “combat the 4pm slump”, people are turning to a “more natural sweet alternative: dates”, said The Guardian.

The wrinkled fruit has been “thrust into the snacking spotlight” thanks to a slew of viral online recipes and a growing demand for alternatives to ultra-processed foods. Ocado reports that sales of Medjool dates have soared by 100% year-on-year and searches for date butter have shot up by 458% over the same period.

Some fitness experts are suggesting their followers swap “additive-laden” protein bars for energy balls made with a mix of dates, nuts and oats. And TikTok is bursting with ideas for comforting yet nutrient-dense snacks like “sticky fried dates drizzled with olive oil and served with tangy yoghurt”.

First cultivated in the hot, arid climates of the Middle East and North Africa, “dates have had a place in culinary culture for millenniums”, said The New York Times. Traditionally used to break the fast during Ramadan, they are a staple ingredient in everything from tagines to sticky toffee pudding.

With more consumers interested in adding fibre to their diet, dates are “emerging as a simple vehicle for the macronutrient”. One serving of dates (around two to three large Medjools) contains about 5g of fibre – “a helpful step towards the daily recommendation of 25g per day for women and 38g for men”.

Brands like Date Better are opting for “bold flavour choices” to stand out in the crowded market. Varieties include dates stuffed with cashew butter, coated in chocolate infused with lime and dotted with toasted quinoa “for texture”.

But it’s important to “manage your health-related expectations” if you’re reaching for a jazzed-up version of the fruit. “If it’s stuffed with peanut butter and covered in chocolate, enjoy it!” said nutritionist Maya Feller. “But don’t think it’s going to support gut health. Right? That’s a dessert.”

If you don’t want to splash out on pricey on-the-go packaged snacks, consider adding the fruit when baking cakes, said The Times. Dates can be “chopped or blended” and “stirred through the batter instead of sugar, substituting the weights like-for-like”. They also make a delicious caramel sauce: simply soak them in boiling water before “blending them with butter” and “adding enough hot water until you have a smooth sauce”.

Dates aren’t only suitable for sweet treats, though. “I do a simple but brilliant lemon, chickpea, feta and date traybake,” said author and cook Melissa Hemsley. “The sweetness of the roasted dates with the salty feta is amazing. I’ll have that in a wrap or toss it into a warm salad. It’s perfect.”

Israel and Iran have traded tit-for-tat strikes, in defiance of Donald Trump, for the first time since a fragile ceasefire was agreed in April.

The Israeli Air Force confirmed hitting military targets in western and central Iran, in response to Iranian missile attacks on its own air bases. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said it had attacked the air bases after an Israeli strike on an alleged Hezbollah site in southern Beirut.

This escalation is a “major test for negotiations”, said CNN. Donald Trump said both sides must “stop shooting”, and told the media he had urged Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu not to retaliate to the Iranian attack. “We are very close to a final deal with Iran,” he told Israel’s Channel 12 News. “It is going to be a good deal. I don’t want it to blow up because of what is happening now.”

What did the commentators say?

Tensions between Iran and Israel have been heightening over Lebanon, said Maziar Motamedi at Al Jazeera. The Lebanese government was alarmed by Israeli troops crossing its Litani River last month. And, despite reports that Trump had convinced Netanyahu not to target Beirut, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps warned last week that “there will be no calm in the region” if Israel continued its occupation of southern Lebanon. The Israeli strike on the alleged Hezbollah site crossed “an unofficial red line for Tehran”.

Israel’s decision to strike back at Iran was “deliberate”, said Alex Winston in The Jerusalem Post. “It could not afford to leave unanswered” Tehran’s retaliation for the strikes in Lebanon. Had it not responded, “the message to Tehran would have been pretty clear”: “any Israeli response to Hezbollah could be framed by Tehran as a provocation, allowing Iran to fire directly at Israel while assuming that American diplomatic pressure would keep Jerusalem’s hands tied”.

Netanyahu’s decision to defy Trump’s instructions underscores a relationship that is increasingly at odds on how to prosecute the war on Iran, said The Wall Street Journal. “Under pressure from his political allies and the opposition to respond to the Iranian missile barrage”, the Israeli PM’s order to resume direct attacks on Iran “threatened to escalate a conflict that has been largely contained”.

What next?

Iran has now announced “a halt to the operations of the armed forces”. Mediation efforts “are naturally continuing”, said Esmail Baghaei, spokesperson for the Iranian foreign ministry, earlier today, but he warned that Iran believes the US “bears responsibility for the Israeli regime’s aggression”. No one would believe that the Israeli regime would take action “without coordination with the US,” he said. America will “be responsible for the consequences of any escalation in tensions”.

Tehran has also used its Houthi proxies in Yemen to threaten a blockade of the Bab al-Mandab Strait if Israel continues to escalate its use of force. The route is “another vital artery connecting major trade routes between Europe, Asia and the Arab world”, said CNN; closing it “would compound the worldwide economic pressure” generated by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

The bees of the United States are in trouble and so is their honey. Disease and budget cuts have put bee populations in peril across the country even as honey demand has skyrocketed. The government is also planning on closing an important agricultural research center, risking further loss of both bees and their beloved nectar.

Honey, I shrunk the output

The U.S. demand for honey has grown significantly during the past three decades, mostly due to population growth and “consumers’ association of honey as a ‘superfood,’” said the USDA. However, as more people seek honey, the country is producing less. The U.S. has seen “staggering honeybee colony losses,” said the bee research nonprofit Project Apis m. Between June 2024 and March 2025, 1.6 million colonies were lost, with commercial beekeepers sustaining an average loss of 62%.

There are several reasons for the reduced honey production. The parasitic mite called the varroa destructor has “decimated hives ever since its appearance in the late ’80s,” said Bloomberg. More than 60% of honeybee colonies in the U.S. that died from June 2024 to January 2025 were “infected by mites resistant to the industry’s most widely used pesticide.”

For the bees that survived the mites, “it’s generally more lucrative for beekeepers to put them to work pollinating crops, rather than dedicating the insects to honeymaking.” As a result of the growing demand and reduced supply, “near-record imports are flowing in to fill that widening gap, with India, Argentina, Brazil and Vietnam emerging as some of the top suppliers.”

A bad place to bee

Alongside the ecological issues, the government is perpetuating the honey dearth. The USDA is planning to close the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center, a “6,500-acre agricultural research station in Maryland that is home to the nation’s premier bee research and disease diagnosis hub,” Jennie L. Durant, a research affiliate in human ecology at the University of California, Davis, said at The Conversation. Beltsville researchers “have helped beekeepers respond to varroa mites” and is now “helping them prepare for a deadlier mite that is infesting honey bees in Asia: Tropilaelaps mercedesae.”

The USDA has claimed that its reason for decommissioning the Beltsville center is that “building maintenance and renovations would cost an estimated $500 million,” said Durant. However, the price, experts argue, is well worth it. “The lab is $3.2 million a year for 20-plus scientists,” Zac Lamas, a researcher at the bee lab within the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center, said to The Associated Foreign Press. “We responded to a $600 million problem,” so the “idea that we’re redundant and expensive isn’t a good way to generalize the value of this lab.”

In addition to the Beltsville center, the Trump administration has “proposed eliminating the U.S. Geological Survey’s Ecosystems Mission Area, a move that could defund the USGS Bee Lab, an essential resource for research on native bees,” said Durant. The honey industry “has never been this stretched to keep healthy bees,” Jeff Pettis, who worked as a bee researcher at Beltsville from 1996 to 2016, said to Wisconsin Public Radio. And maintaining bee health is “what Beltsville was all about.”

Jared Kushner’s goal to open a luxury resort on Albania’s coast has hit a speed bump. Albanian investigators have begun digging into the private equity firm spearheading the project, the first son-in-law’s Affinity Partners. And mass public protests over the proposed resort are a flashpoint for broader civic frustrations. What began as a “local land dispute on Albania’s southern coast,” said France 24, has now become a forum for “wider grievances” over “corruption, arrogance of power and disgruntlement with the ruling government.”

‘Flamingo revolution’

The proposed luxury resort project is slated for construction on the “uninhabited Adriatic island of Sazan” and hundreds of acres of the Vjosa-Narta protected site, a “sensitive coastal wetland area home to flamingos, seals and sea turtle nesting sites,” said Politico. Protesters gathered outside Prime Minister Edi Rama’s office this week “using a pink flamingo as their emblem,” said the BBC.

The symbol “echoes the deployment of a yellow duck” used in Serbian civic protests, but here “reflects the protesters’ very specific concerns” about the project’s environmental impact. “Hence,” said France 24, “why the movement has now been nicknamed Albania’s ‘flamingo revolution.’” Asher Abehsera, Kushner’s “business partner” on the project, claims the development will focus on “responsible stewardship” and “enhancing the environment,” as well as on creating “jobs and value for local communities,” said the BBC.

‘Total lack of transparency’

Initially a local development dispute, the project has spiraled into a “national political crisis,” said the Tirana Times, “triggering mass protests” and calls for Rama’s resignation. In addition to opposition to Kushner’s involvement in the construction, the endeavor has “drawn scrutiny” over “disputed land titles, unclear ownership structures and the involvement of powerful domestic business interests.”

“From start to finish, there has been a total lack of transparency,” said leading Albanian conservationist Aleksander Trajce to The Guardian. “We have seen no public consultation or public documentation regarding permits.” If Albanian authorities “remove the bulldozers, remove the fence and restore the habitats to what they were, then we can start talking.”

Prime Minister Rama has hailed the project as a “milestone in the Balkan country’s trajectory from Stalinist state to high-end holiday destination,” The Guardian said. While he has offered to “meet protesters in an attempt to break the logjam,” Rama also “stuck to his guns,” declaring last week that “there is absolutely no chance that the investment will stop as long as I am here.”

Broader frustrations

“No longer only about a resort,” the growing protests are now a “vehicle for wider anger” over Albanian civic society, said the Tirana Times. “It’s more or less everything” at the protests, said Albanian Ornithological Society President Taulant Bino to The New York Times. “You find people from the left, people from the right, people from different religious beliefs.”

Now, investigators from Albania’s Special Structure Against Corruption and Organized Crime anti-corruption office are digging into “controversial changes in the area’s protected status and land ownership in 2024,” said Politico. The office operates “independently of the national judiciary” and is “currently the most trusted institution in the country, according to several independent polls.”

Manhasset

Architect Tim Maldonado designed this 1991 modern four-bedroom in North Hills, on the North Shore in Nassau County. Carved Parisian doors open to a home with flamed Canadian granite floors, a water feature at the base of a floating steel staircase, a living room with floor-to-ceiling windows, and a primary suite with a balcony.

On more than an acre, the landscaped property includes a guest cottage, pool and spa, patios, fig trees, and a garage. $5,500,000. Irene Rallis, Douglas Elliman, (516) 241-9848

Quogue

Built in 1967 and expanded in 1998, this shingled Hamptons five-bedroom is near shops and oceanside Dune Road. The vaulted living room features a floor-to-ceiling brick fireplace, wood floors, and sliders to a deck; the home also includes two kitchens, a den, a sitting room, a screened porch, and a loft.

The flat property has yards, mature trees, and space for a future pool and sports court. $4,850,000. Lauren Battista, Brown Harris Stevens/Luxury Portfolio International, (917) 744-9382

Southampton

About five minutes from town and the beach, this estate spans more than 2 acres. The original 1900 barn has been expanded into a five-bedroom, open-plan home with decks extending from both levels and a 25-foot-tall great room topped by a loft with wood railings.

Outside are a three-story art studio with an elevator, a heated pool and hot tub, a shed, a garage, a riverbed garden, and stone bridges. $7,395,000. Pat Garrity, The Corcoran Group—Southampton, (631) 903-5900

Water Island

In a small, secluded, largely car-free enclave within the Fire Island National Seashore, this 2015 oceanfront coastal modern compound designed by Scott Bromley has a one-bedroom main house and a four-bedroom guesthouse.

Both feature walls of windows, cedar and teak woods, ocean views, built-ins, a high-end kitchen, and decks; the larger building also includes a pool, an outdoor kitchen, and a bar. The Atlantic Ocean is steps away down a boardwalk. $6,250,000. Nathaniel Larson, Daniel Gale Sotheby’s International Realty, (631) 800-1301

Sag Harbor

Set in the converted 1881 Watchcase Factory Lofts, this 2016 two-bedroom penthouse condo is a block away from the village’s Main Street. The apartment has exposed brick walls, 10-foot ceiling beams of old-growth pine, oak floors, oversize windows, a fireplace, and a chef’s kitchen with Thermidor appliances and thick stone counters.

Outside are a roof terrace with a firepit, plus a community pool, gym, lounge, bar, and parking. $5,995,000. Jack Pearson, Compass, (516) 457-7111

Port Washington

Docked on Manhasset Bay, this 1986 houseboat is near Bat Walk Park and shops and dining in the town’s center. The two-bedroom features diagonal wood-clad walls, a step-up living room and kitchen area with a woodstove and granite counters, and a lower level with bedrooms, a bath, and laundry.

Outside are a balcony, a lower deck, and an upper deck with 360-degree water views. $299,999. Giedre Pogozelski and Elpis Hardiman, Douglas Elliman, (917) 335-0264

‘Backrooms’

Directed by Kane Parsons (R)

★★★

“Might social media, a force often credited with hastening the death of theatrical moviegoing, instead prove to be its salvation?” asked Justin Chang in The New Yorker. As the three-week-old horror film Obsession continues its surprising run, it has now been blocked from topping the box office chart by another made-on-the-cheap hit by a young director whose vision was also shaped by social media. Backrooms, created by 20-year-old Kane Parsons, is “an ingeniously contoured exercise in liminal horror” built around the notion of a nearly endless maze-like expanse of eerily bland office spaces. Though the film “ends on a disappointingly conventional note,” it establishes Parsons as “an undeniable talent.”

Given that his theatrical debut grew out of the huge audience he’d built on YouTube for short videos set in the same world, said Amy Nicholson in the Los Angeles Times, “Backrooms would be one of the year’s most significant releases even if the movie itself was merely fine.” Instead, “it’s a work of honest-to-goodness art,” an “uncannily mature” tale about how the self-serving narratives we tell ourselves block emotional growth. Chiwetel Ejiofor plays an embittered furniture store owner who discovers a passage into the mundane alt-space, eventually drawing two young employees and his therapist, played by fellow Oscar nominee Renate Reinsve, into also braving its potential dangers. Still, Backrooms is less straightforward horror than “a surrealist painting in motion.” It conjures “a deep-in-the-bones unease,” said Kyle Smith in The Wall Street Journal. And while the disappointing screenplay ensures the film isn’t “a fully explained wonder,” it remains “well worth the wander.”

‘Power Ballad’

Directed by John Carney (R)

★★

The latest music-filled comedy drama from the director of Once and Sing Street “should be breezy fun,” said Stephanie Zacharek in Time. Instead, “it left me feeling mildly depressed,” because its happy ending felt unearned after roughly 90 minutes about a nice-guy musician who has a song stolen from him by a pop star. Co-stars Paul Rudd and Nick Jonas “aren’t to blame here; it’s the story that lets them down,” and the wrong turns start with the pain we have to see Rudd’s underdog endure.

Beyond that, “you have to suspend quite a bit of disbelief to meet the film on its own terms,” said Christian Zilko in IndieWire. Rudd plays Rick, the middle-aged American leader of a Dublin-based wedding band who, after meeting a former boy-band member, winds up exchanging song sketches deep into the night. Months later, Rick is shocked, and begins spiraling, when one of his tunes becomes an uncredited global hit for his new celebrity soulmate. But while some key events in the story are “tough sells,” the characters’ actions convey emotional truths, and “the film builds toward the mature realization that sometimes it’s OK to miss out on our material dreams if we replace them with something better,” such as a rich family life. Still, the likable Rudd is “about all that tethers Power Ballad to something like life,” said Manohla Dargis in The New York Times. Director John Carney “keeps everything insistently light, gesturing at complexities rather than delving into them.”

‘Masters of the Universe’

Directed by Travis Knight (PG-13)

★★

“The creators of the new Masters of the Universe movie really, really want to let you know that they’re in on the joke,” said Frank Scheck in The Hollywood Reporter. The brains behind Mattel Studio’s first movie since Barbie know that only children and over-grown adolescents would care about He-Man and Skeletor, two 1980s toys turned cartoons, so they’ve packed the film with “so much campy, self-referential humor that you don’t know whether to laugh or cry.” There’s plenty of action, but even that feels “more dutiful than exhilarating, with nothing really seeming at stake.”

When the movie works, it’s “a rollicking under-dog space adventure,” said Clint Worthington in RogerEbert.com. Nicholas Galitzine plays He-Man, aka Prince Adam of Eternia, who, as an adolescent, was sent to Earth after his kingdom was conquered by Skeletor, played by Jared Leto as a purring diva. Fifteen years later, Adam is working a dreary HR job when a chance encounter sends him back home to reclaim the throne. Owing to all the wisecracking, however, the movie too often “feels like it’s ashamed of what it truly wants to be.” It’s “most enjoyable as a fish-out-of-water tale on either side of the planetary divide,” said Guy Lodge in Variety. Once we’re back on Eternia, though, “things get less spry,” and as the movie lurches from one fight scene to the next, it becomes “a nostalgia trip that never quite belongs to the present, and never rouses any cherished memory of the past.”

The authorities in China have banned a prizewinning film because nationalists and the manosphere “resented its portrayal of their country”, said The Economist.

The movie, “Her Heart Beats in its Cage”, is a prison drama based on real killing, centering on Zhao Xiaohong, who may be perceived as a “star in the making”, a “feminist icon”, a “murderer” or “part of a calculated deception”, said The Times.

Deeply conflicted 

Zhao killed her husband with a fruit knife during an argument that “spilt over into a violent altercation” about the wider division of domestic chores. A court found her guilty of intentional killing in 2009 and sentenced her to 15 years in prison.

She was preparing for release from jail when Xiaoyu Qin, a film director, “discovered” her. He visited her prison, and was surprised to find “marginalised individuals full of personality and complexity, intense clashes between notions of good and evil” and “deeply conflicted stories”, he told China Newsweek.

For the film, Qin blended documentary-style footage of Zhao’s time in jail, filmed with the approval of the government, with scripted performances by her and her family, including her husband’s relatives. Critics claimed that Qin had “lured” the grieving family into participating and “feigning forgiveness”, said The Economist.

When the film was shown last year at the San Sebastian Film Festival in Spain, it “caused an immediate stir” and “made headlines back home in China”, said The Times.

It was quickly criticised online for allegedly whitewashing a convicted killer. Some argued that the film was “condoning violence” and “rewarding a criminal”, while others “questioned whether she was a victim of domestic violence at all”, noting that the judge had “rejected” her claim of self-defence.

There were also “the usual claims” on China’s “highly nationalistic internet” that the movie depicted the country in a “bad light”, which is the “sort of issue” on which censors “tend to agree with popular opinion”.

The film’s release in China was hotly anticipated, but as controversy raged, it disappeared from schedules less than a fortnight before its release. No explanation was given.

Meanwhile, the film’s cast and crew are not responding to requests for interviews, so “even finding out their defence to the accusations and counter-accusations” aimed at the film has “become more and more difficult”, as reports and reviews are “ruthlessly scrubbed”. Zhao’s social media accounts have also been blocked, according to reports in state media.

Touchy nationalism 

Chinese “propaganda” is “full of distortion and deception”, said The Economist, but much of the reaction online “reflected a touchy nationalism”, claiming the film was a “Western plot to undermine party rule by spreading liberal, pro-feminist values”.

China is undergoing its own “version” of the “West’s culture wars”, said The Times, with feminists “calling out the patriarchy and sexual harassment”, while men, particularly young men, are “crying foul”.

But “more informed online debate” about the movie has focused on reforms to the justice system. The law has been altered to allow judges assessing a self-defence claim to take into account any previous history of domestic violence.

I remember southern Africa’s old-fashioned sleeper trains, with their wooden carriages and “grand” dining cars, from my childhood in what was then Rhodesia in the 1950s and 1960s, said Matthew Parris in The Times.

They fell out of use long ago, and few of the region’s railways now carry passengers at all. You can, however, relive their glory days – with added luxury – thanks to Rovos Rail.

This tour operator was founded in 1989 by Rohan Vos, a South African businessman with a “passion” for restoring old railway carriages. The company’s trains now ply routes across the region, from Cape Town to as far afield as Dar es Salaam, going at a slow pace for comfort (the tracks are narrow gauge and sometimes poorly maintained) and making many stops for excursions to nearby “wonders” and occasional nights in “lovely” lodges.

I took an 11-night trip from Pretoria to the “massive sand dunes and mysterious desert coast” of Namibia – an expedition that combined “adventure” with “amenity and elegance of a high order”. Our train had 19 carriages from the old Rhodesia Railways, but carried just 60 passengers: my compartment occupied a third of a carriage and had mahogany panelling, brass fittings and an en suite shower.

The meals served in the two “magnificent” dining cars were “splendid” and varied. The staff were charming. A South African historian gave “sparkling” lectures. And I never tired of the observation car, where I spent chilly mornings and warm evenings sipping coffee or post-prandial negronis and watching the “ever-changing” landscape slip by.

In South Africa, we went for a cruise on the Orange River and took a trip to the Augrabies Falls, where the river plunges into an “immense” granite gorge. In Namibia, we gazed over the vast Fish River Canyon and saw lions and elephants in the Etosha Pan game reserve. The most fun I had, though, was sliding down a huge sand dune at Sossusvlei. “I felt like a boy again.”

Distant Journeys (distantjourneys.co.uk) has a 16-night trip from £9,696pp, including flights.

Developed after 9/11 and during the Iraq War, Prevent is the first of four pillars of the government’s counter-terrorism strategy for England, Scotland and Wales (together, they make up the “four Ps”: Prevent, Pursue, Protect, Prepare).

It has three main objectives: tackling the ideological causes of terrorism, intervening early to stop people becoming radicalised, and enabling those who have engaged with terrorism to “disengage and rehabilitate”. Prevent is, in theory, not about getting people “into trouble”, but about helping those “susceptible to radicalisation” with early intervention.

Even so, the programme has faced repeated criticisms, from a range of perspectives: both that it stigmatises Muslims, and is too soft on them; that it chills free speech; and that, ultimately, it fails to prevent terrorism.

How has it failed to prevent terrorism?

It has failed to stop a series of high-profile terror incidents. Ahmed Hassan detonated a bomb in Parsons Green in 2017 after Prevent officials had discussed his case for more than a year, and almost closed it days before the attack. Usman Khan, responsible for the 2019 Fishmongers’ Hall attack, was monitored by Prevent officials, while Ali Harbi Ali, who murdered David Amess MP in 2021, was later found to have manipulated Prevent through “disguised compliance”. Axel Rudakubana, the Southport killer, had been referred to Prevent three times, but his case was closed each time. The suspect in the Golders Green stabbings in April was referred to Prevent in 2020, but his case was shelved that year.

At the same time, there have been notorious cases of “false positives”, such as a 10-year-old Muslim boy referred in 2015 after writing at school that he lived in a “terrorist house”; he meant “terraced house”.

How does Prevent work?

Anyone can make a Prevent referral, to police or a local authority. In 2024-25, there were 8,778 referrals, an all-time high; in the past the figure has been closer to 6,000. The median age of a referral was 16; 36% were aged 11 to 15.

Until 2011, Prevent was aimed specifically at Islamist extremism. Today, there are 15 other categories of concern, the most common being extreme right-wing ideology (20% of 2024-25 referrals), compared to 9% in the Islamist category; but also including left-wing, environmental and incel extremism (“involuntary celibates” driven by misogyny).

Once a referral is received, police evaluate whether the individual is at real risk of radicalisation. If so, their case goes before a multi-agency panel (called a Channel), chaired by the local authority and attended by social services, education and mental-health professionals, who agree on a support package. In 2024/25, only 17% were adopted as a Channel case. Taking part is voluntary – those referred, or their parents, must give their consent.

Why is it so controversial?

By definition, it involves keeping tabs on people, mostly young people, who haven’t committed crimes: gathering detailed and often personal intelligence on them, sharing it with different agencies and retaining it for years or even decades. Campaigners argue Prevent violates the principle of “innocent until proven guilty”; it operates in what is designated, in rather Orwellian terms, as a “pre-criminal space”.

Controversy often centres on the so-called Prevent duty. Since 2015, schools, hospitals, prisons and police have had a statutory duty to identify and refer those showing signs of potential radicalisation. The National Union of Teachers voted against it in 2016, arguing it created “suspicion in the classroom”. That Prevent has been largely focused on one religious minority makes the issues more acute.

Is that criticism justified?

For many years, particularly during the peak of Islamic State influence, the great majority of Prevent referrals targeted Muslims: in 2015-16, for instance, 65% related to concerns about Islamist extremism. In 2015, the former senior Met officer Dal Babu said that many Muslims were suspicious of the scheme and saw it as a tool for spying on them; that it had become a “toxic brand”. The Muslim Council of Great Britain said that year that some parents were “training their children” not to discuss their beliefs at school.

However, in recent years, referrals for extreme right-wing terrorism have frequently equalled or surpassed those for Islamist extremism. This itself, however, has proved controversial.

Why is that controversial?

The 2023 independent review of Prevent, conducted by William Shawcross, concluded that it suffered from a “culture of timidity”, due to fear of upsetting Muslims, and neglected Islamist extremism relative to the threat level it posed to the UK: 80% of police counter-terrorism investigations focused on Islamist terror, but such cases accounted for only 22% of Prevent referrals.

What do Prevent’s defenders say?

In counter-terrorism, successes – attacks prevented – are inherently hard to prove. However, the Channel programme gives bespoke support to about 500 people every year, and officials claim that it has successfully helped more than 6,400 people to disengage from extremism since 2015. Prevent’s budget is limited: £38.7 million in 2025-26, barely 3% of the national £3 billion counter-terrorism spend; and down to a reported £25 million this year.

With regards to Muslim “mistrust”, last year’s Prevent review by David Anderson KC found that 80% of British Muslims supported Prevent, and that many of its practitioners are Muslim. However, Anderson found that it was facing a structural problem. It was set up to deal with people driven by ideologies. Yet more than half of those referred to Prevent in the past year were found not to have one. The Home Affairs Committee said last month that the programme was becoming “saturated” with such cases.

The changing landscape of extremism

When Prevent was set up in 2006, the threat it was built to address was relatively contained: young men drawn towards al-Qa’eda-inspired Islamism via mosques, prisons and radical preachers. While Islamist and extreme right-wing threats haven’t gone away, new forms of extremism have emerged, nurtured by social media, gaming platforms and online forums, and communicated via influencers, memes, coded messaging and AI-generated content. These new forms of extremism are a murky blend of conspiracy theories, nihilism, identity-based narratives and a fascination with violence.

Of the 2024-25 Prevent referrals, 56% (4,917) were for individuals with “no identified ideology” – the largest single category; 5% (469) were due to concerns regarding “fascination with extreme violence or mass casualty attacks”, not accompanied by an ideology. That “fascination with extreme violence” category was created in response to cases such as Axel Rudakubana’s: his lack of a clear ideology had led to Prevent dismissing his case three times. Mental health and neurodiversity also seem to be a factor: a third of Prevent referrals had mental-health conditions, and 14% had been diagnosed with autism, compared to 1% of the UK population.

How Kemal Atatürk – founder of modern Turkey, the man who transformed the decrepit Ottoman monarchy into a modern secular republic – must be “turning in his grave”, said Jonas Roth in Neue Zürcher Zeitung (Zurich).

Last week, Turkish riot police stormed the headquarters of the CHP, the social democratic party Atatürk set up in 1923, to flush out the party’s current leader, Özgür Özel. For three days, Özel and a group of party officials had barricaded themselves inside the building in protest at a highly controversial court ruling that had just ordered Özel to stand down, claiming there had been voting irregularities at the CHP party congress that elected him leader in 2023.

Using batons, tear gas and rubber bullets, the police rushed in to evict him; Özel emerged to address the cheering crowd outside and then led a march to the parliament building.

‘No longer unbeatable’

It isn’t hard to detect the hand of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan behind all this. For 13 years, from 2010 to 2023, the CHP under its former leader, Kemal Kılıçdaroglu, had proved an ineffectual opposition, losing every single election, local and national, to Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP). But under Özel, the CHP has been transformed into a political force capable of ending Erdogan’s 23-year rule.

So the fact that the judiciary, which Erdogan has made his tool, should now have ordered Özel to be replaced by the perennial loser Kılıçdaroglu, speaks for itself. The crackdown on the CHP began in earnest after it inflicted a “historic defeat” on the AKP in local elections in 2024, said Ecehan Balta in Xekinima (Athens). Holding Erdogan responsible for the economic crisis that had seen inflation rise above 80%, voters turned en masse to Özel’s party, which won 35 provinces to the AKP’s 24. This was a huge blow to the president, a sign that his political machine, for all its grip on state institutions and the media, was “no longer unbeatable”.

And, since then, hundreds of CHP officials have been arrested, notably Ekrem Imamoglu, the popular mayor of Istanbul, who was detained last March on the same day that he was chosen as his party’s next presidential candidate.

Hope not lost

What happened to Imamoglu was a travesty, said Raphael Geiger in Süddeutsche Zeitung (Munich): he faces up to 2,352 years in jail, if convicted of corruption and espionage. But the dethroning of Özel is even worse. It “eliminates everything that remains of Turkish democracy”, effectively snuffing out “the faint hope” of a different government being elected.

Indeed Turkey, now lacking a genuine opposition, is closer than ever to “one-man rule”, said The Economist. Özel could try and found a new party, but without the “powerful brand” of the CHP behind him, he is unlikely to succeed. In any case, Erdogan is expected to call a snap election before the next scheduled vote in May 2028. In doing so, he would be exploiting a loophole which allows him to stand again if he doesn’t fully complete his current presidential term, which the constitution mandates should otherwise be his last.

All hope is not lost, though, said Dogan Ertugrul on Turkish Minute. Imprisoning your main challenger and sowing chaos in the ranks of their party is a sign not of strength, but of insecurity.

And these risky political steps could well backfire. Look at the Gen Z-led protests that have erupted across the country since Imamoglu’s arrest. They are still going strong and have Erdogan worried, said Giorgio Brizio in La Repubblica (Rome). On the same day police raided the CHP’s offices in Ankara, thousands of students and staff staged a demonstration at Bilgi University in Istanbul, a bastion of liberal thought that the president had just closed down. In scenes “unthinkable” until a few years ago, police burst onto the campus, targeting protesters with batons and pepper spray. Many of the students were arrested; but they stood firm, and soon after Erdogan issued a decree to reopen the university. The students’ victory is clear proof that Erdogan is not invincible.

Young people in Britain today risk becoming a “lost generation” owing to job opportunities shrinking, “not growing”, a landmark report warned last week.

Compiled by the former Labour minister Alan Milburn, the report said that almost a million 16- to 24-year-olds (equivalent to one in eight young people) are now “Neets” – not in education, employment or training.

He called this a “catastrophic failure” and said that, without urgent action, the proportion would reach one in six within five years.

‘Getting stickier’

In his 232-page report, Milburn said the rise in Neets could be attributed to factors including rising employment costs (such as increases to the minimum wage); a decline in Saturday jobs; and a 70% increase over a decade in those who are Neet because of ill health, nearly half of whom cite mental health conditions. Ministers said the review had laid bare “the scale of the challenge [...] we need to confront”.

Keir Starmer is often criticised for commissioning “endless reports”, rather than “forging ahead with policies”, said the Financial Times. But Milburn’s review serves a vital purpose, and “deserves to be heeded”.

Britain’s “Neets problem” isn’t new: the proportion has been at 10% or above for 25 years. But it’s “getting stickier”. The UK has three times as many Neets per capita than the Netherlands, and more than any EU country except Romania. Six in ten Neets today have never had a job, up from four in ten in 2005, and 15% have degrees. With data showing that nearly half of young Neets on benefits will not be working 15 years later, this is more than an economic problem; it’s a “moral” issue.

‘Transformative’ implications

“Milburn’s charge list is long,” said The Daily Telegraph. He criticises an education system that fails to prepare students for work, and a welfare system that spends £25 on benefits for the young for every £1 spent on getting them into work. Young people themselves, however, are rightly absolved of blame, said The Independent. Milburn stresses that 84% want to work, but are being let down by a failing system.

Milburn’s report provides “an excoriating overview” of this failing system, said Polly Toynbee in The Guardian. It identifies huge structural problems – from the 1.6 million “first-rung jobs” that have vanished in the past 20 years, to a more than 40% fall in the number of young people starting apprenticeships since 2016. It gives a voice to those who spend their days firing off job applications to firms that use faceless AI systems to screen CVs, and that don’t even bother to notify rejected candidates. And it outlines how the pandemic led to a surge in truancy levels (which are closely linked to youngsters becoming Neets), and left a generation utterly ill-equipped for the jobs market.

Crucially, it also details how the welfare boom is exacerbating this crisis, said Fraser Nelson in The Times. With the right political will, the report could trigger a total rewiring of the benefits system – continuing the “transformative” tradition of reviews such as the 1942 Beveridge Report, which laid the foundations for the welfare state.

‘Moral crusade’

Milburn deserves credit for dragging welfare back onto the agenda, said Lana Hempsall in The Spectator. But much-needed reform hasn’t been stymied by a prior lack of analysis, but rather by the unwillingness of MPs to grasp the nettle. It’s only a year since the government proposed some “relatively minor” tweaks to the welfare system, only to be forced into a climbdown by its own backbenchers.

Milburn’s “mammoth” report gives the government cover to have another crack at overhauling the system, said Josh Glancy in The Sunday Times. Rooted in data and humanised by the voices of real people, it cleverly frames welfare reform as a “moral crusade” through which Labour can create a better future for the young. Admittedly, it will still be hard to persuade Labour MPs to make cuts, and the Treasury to fund the cost of moving from one system to another. But if Labour doesn’t seize this opportunity to mend a broken system, the party will “deserve to watch as Nigel Farage or the Tories” cut the welfare bill “their way”.

Milburn is due to publish his recommendations in the autumn. As part of a radical restructuring, he is said to be considering the case for an “entirely separate welfare system for young people who have never worked”, reports the FT, with a focus on getting them into jobs. Pat McFadden, the Work and Pensions Secretary, is due to join Milburn on a fact-finding trip to the Netherlands next week. The country has similar levels of mental ill health in young people as Britain does, but has much more success at keeping them in work or education.

As Pride Month begins in the U.S., numerous Republican governors have “bestowed alternative titles” for Pride Month that “both supporters and opponents view as counterprogramming,” said The Associated Press. But this is just one of several ways the current Republican Party’s stance on LGBTQ+ rights has revealed itself during President Donald Trump’s time in office.

What did the commentators say?

The GOP governors of both Indiana and Tennessee “rebranded June as Nuclear Family Month to celebrate units made up of ‘one husband, one wife and any biological, adopted or fostered children,’” said the AP. Alabama deemed June Strong Families Month, whose “proclamation says fathers are ‘the head of the household.’” And Utah and Arkansas christened June as Fidelity Month, which “emphasizes fidelity to faith, country and family.” The “contest over the month of June reflects decades-long culture war questions, exacerbated by partisan polarization and a sense that red and blue states increasingly represent different values,” said Deseret News.

The current White House has also attempted to “enact a nationwide ban on transgender girls participating in girls’ sports,” expel transgender service members from the military and prevent “transgender Americans from having their gender on their passport,” said Roll Call. These efforts are a result of “rank animus against transgender people,” Jessica Clarke, a law professor at the University of Southern California, told the outlet. The “legislation dovetails with administration efforts and state laws intended to curb the rights of transgender Americans,” said Roll Call.

While both of Trump’s presidencies have been defined by anti-LGTBQ+ stances, his second term efforts are “more far-reaching and extreme than those he put in place during his first term,” said The 19th. Civil rights groups pushed back against Trump’s anti-trans executive orders during his first four years in office, but the courts are “not as friendly as they once were,” Mike Zamore, the national director of policy and governmental affairs at the American Civil Liberties Union, told the outlet. These groups shouldn’t assume that a court case “that was successful in the first Trump administration would necessarily prevail this go around.”

What next?

The Republican ramp-up against the LGBTQ+ movement is likely here to stay, as “every Democratic president since Bill Clinton in 1999 has signed a Pride proclamation each year — and no Republican president has,” said the AP. There also appear to be changing public views on whether same-sex marriage should be legal, which is “largely because more Republicans oppose them” now than before Trump retook office.

Approval of “same-sex marriage, moral acceptance of gay and lesbian relations and endorsement of gender changes are all down from peaks reached in the early 2020s,” according to a recent Gallup survey. The poll of 1,001 adults found that 65% of Americans support same-sex marriage. While this still represents a majority of Americans, it is also “down six percentage points from the peak in 2022 and 2023.”

Many people also appear to be going back on their acceptance of the transgender community, according to Gallup’s results. The “share of Americans who consider changing one's gender morally acceptable has declined eight points over the past five years, to 38%,” said Gallup.

Editor's note: The following is The Week's Good News newsletter. You can subscribe to it on Substack here or register to have it emailed to you once a week here.

Wearable ultrasound tracks high-risk pregnancies

A new wearable ultrasound patch could one day help detect pregnancy complications early on and prevent stillbirths. The UPatch, now a proof-of-concept device, continuously monitors fetuses in the womb and tracks blood flow. In a trial of 52 pregnant women, the UPatch found that one woman with preeclampsia, a serious type of high blood pressure, had extreme intrauterine growth restriction. Her baby was then delivered via caesarean to prevent a stillbirth, researchers reported in the journal Nature Biotechnology.

Paralympian could be first astronaut with disability in orbit

British Paralympic sprinter John McFall is set to make history as the first disabled astronaut in space. The 45-year-old surgeon is a member of the European Space Agency astronaut reserve and has been cleared to participate in a two-week mission to the Haven-1 commercial space station, set to launch as soon as next year. Among other tasks, The Guardian said, McFall will assess how the space environment affects modern prosthetic limbs, “which often rely on sensors and microprocessors to function properly.”

New method transforms ocean water into drinking water

A new desalination method offers a waste-free way to turn ocean water into drinking water without any chemical additives. Self-cleaning solar panels distill the water and separate out the salts, which can be used as table salt or to extract minerals like lithium. The researchers who designed the system at the University of Rochester’s Institute of Optics say it is scalable for use worldwide and tackles both clean drinking water scarcity and damage caused by mining minerals.

Patients helped by therapy donkeys at French psychiatric hospital

Therapy donkeys are helping to improve the emotional regulation and communication skills of patients at a French psychiatric hospital. As part of their treatment, patients with conditions like anxiety, schizophrenia and depression take the donkeys on walks, clean their hooves and give them hugs. This is “animal medicine,” one patient, Nathalie, told France 24. “It brings relief. You stop thinking about everything else.” Participants are paired with one donkey so they can form a bond.

President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) has no known national security experience. But the new interim intelligence director, Bill Pulte, does have a history of going after Trump’s rivals. And this combination is raising alarms in Congress.

The 38-year-old Pulte is an “unusual selection” to be the interim intelligence chief following Tulsi Gabbard’s resignation, said The Hill. Before leading the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) under Trump, he owned a construction company and private equity firm and has “no high-level national security experience.”

Pulte at FHFA “proved his loyalty to the president by combing through the mortgages of Trump’s enemies,” said Talking Points Memo. His inquiries led to federal mortgage-fraud cases against New York Attorney General Letitia James and Fed Governor Lisa Cook.

Pulte has “deep experience managing the most sensitive matters in America,” Trump said, per The Hill. But the president’s GOP allies are concerned. “We don’t need a weaponized DNI,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said to reporters, per Axios.

‘Vocal attack dog’

“Everybody hates Bill Pulte,” said The New Republic. That may not be entirely correct — Trump is clearly a fan — but Pulte has a knack for inspiring bipartisan revulsion even within Trump’s own cabinet. At a 2025 event involving White House officials, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Pulte he was “going to kick his ass,” according to Bessent’s testimony in a Senate hearing this week, per CBS News.

Pulte’s willingness to scrap with Trump’s enemies both online and through official channels has earned him a reputation as a “vocal attack dog,” said The Washington Times. But his dearth of national security credentials may be a challenge. The law that created DNI says the director “shall have extensive national security experience.”

The office was created after 9/11 to ensure the coordination of the nation’s various intelligence agencies. But Pulte’s history of fractiousness may not make him a “promising person” to get “top officials to work together,” David A. Graham said at The Atlantic.

‘Senate GOP rebellion’

Trump’s announcement of Pulte as his choice prompted pushback from Democrats. Pulte’s willingness to investigate the president’s enemies demonstrates he “can’t be entrusted to protect our national security,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), per Roll Call.

The pick has also prompted a “Senate GOP rebellion,” said Axios. Pushback is coming from Thune, along with Sens. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) and John Cornyn (R-Texas). So Pulte might not have the support to get Senate confirmation for the long term.

Senate Democrats may tank efforts to “renew a powerful surveillance program” over the Pulte pick, said The Guardian. Reapproval of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was already facing obstacles but has an even more difficult path forward, said Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) to NPR, as long as “someone with no intelligence background” and a “record of misusing private information” is in the running to lead DNI.

Staying on budget does not have to mean staying in all the time. But going out can often be a slippery slope — especially if you are doing so with friends who have different financial situations and spending habits. Your friend might suggest another round or two of drinks or grabbing dinner at a pricey restaurant, and the next thing you know, your bank account balance is not where you would like it to be.

How can you balance having a good time with friends and feeling good about your spending? Read on for some tips and tricks.

Make a budget before going out

“Setting aside a specific line item in your budget for parties, trips or weekend brunches lets you enjoy your social life without the stress of overspending,” said Money. By doing the math on the front end, you can know exactly how much you can afford to spend in a given month. This will also give you a clear way to track how much of that allotted amount you have already gone through at any point throughout the month, which is helpful to know prior to meeting up with friends.

Come up with lower-cost activities

“Meaningful experiences with your friends don’t have to be expensive,” said Ally. If you want to spend time with a friend and are nervous about shelling out, consider suggesting something free or fairly inexpensive — who knows, they may even breathe a sigh of relief for their own budget. Some easy ideas include going on a hike, checking out a free museum or outdoor concert or attending a local book club together.

Invite people over

Having people over is an easy way to get the crew together while skipping the bar tab or the restaurant bill. Maybe you can ask everyone to bring over a dish for a potluck, or you could even cook as a group. Perhaps someone brings over a bottle of wine, and you pull out a board game or put on a movie. The bonus of this approach is that everyone can stay as long as they (or you) would like.

Be open with your friends

Maybe you have been trying to dance around your financial reality because it feels embarrassing or like a potential buzzkill. But “discussing money openly with friends can help dismantle the shame around financial struggles and is a great way to explore affordable ways to spend time together,” said Ally. It also gives you a more honest way to say no to an invitation in the future, if you need to.

Spend on what matters to you most

“Look at money as ‘a tool to enhance your values and your experiences,’” as opposed to just a default way to socialize, said Jack Howard, the head of money wellness at Ally, to CNBC Make It. Evaluate what you really enjoy spending money on, versus when you are spending just to spend, and adjust your expenditures accordingly. “If costly activities like going out to dinner or traveling with friends are important to you, you may have to make cuts in other areas of your life in order to prioritize them,” said the outlet.

‘Why gambling won’t ruin sports’

David Bockino at The Boston Globe

Even the “most vocal critics of widespread legalization concede that gambling has always been part of American sports,” says David Bockino. Gambling “wasn’t an inconvenient intrusion upon the nascent American sports industry but rather an essential catalyst — perhaps the essential catalyst — for nearly every major American sport.” This “revelation also suggests that our current sports betting mania isn’t the result of a national attitudinal shift.” People “have always wanted to bet on stuff. Especially young people.”

Read more

‘Texas is America Inc’s new center of gravity’

The Economist

Texas is “establishing itself as America Inc’s new center of gravity,” as “no state receives more business investment or is adding more people to its population,” says The Economist. The “state’s appeal to yuppies is also growing,” and it “seems there is no part of America with which Texas is not competing.” Texas’ cultural “ascendancy” is “making it easier for firms to convince workers to move there,” though “cultivating homegrown talent is a big part of Texas’s economic plan.”

Read more

‘It’s time the US got serious about Canada’

Richard M. Sanders at Newsweek

One of the “more bizarre features of Donald Trump’s second term in office has been the enormous effort he and his senior officials have put into damaging relations with Canada,” says Richard M. Sanders. The U.S. “has some genuine trade issues with Canada,” but the “administration seems locked into a policy of taking shots.” What “seems clear is that diplomacy by insult and provocation, which has characterized the administration’s approach, has only led to suspicion and hostility.”

Read more

‘What a week in the hospital showed me about our broken healthcare system’

Gregg Gonsalves at The Nation

A successful surgery happened “thanks to the miracles of modern medicine,” but it “was no thanks to modern American healthcare,” which is “fundamentally broken,” says Gregg Gonsalves. The “system is sclerotic, and trying to get appointments, even for things I have been told are urgent, is a challenge.” This is a “cry for help that goes unheard and unaddressed year after year.” The “rot deepens in the day-to-day foundation of American medicine, at the level of the physician-patient interface.”

Read more

With many Americans opposing the construction of giant AI data centers in their neighborhoods, some tech companies are proposing an unconventional solution: attaching mini data centers directly to people’s houses. At least one major startup backed by Nvidia is looking into the prospect, though it will likely be controversial.

How would these mini data centers work?

People typically associate data centers with big buildings churning out massive quantities of AI datasets. But the home version would be a “unit about the size of an air conditioner, mounted in the side yard,” said Scientific American. It could perform “artificial intelligence tasks, drawing power from your home’s energy supply” and theoretically “earning you discounted electricity and internet in exchange.”

Most of the attention has been focused on Span, an electrical panel startup that recently began manufacturing these types of units in partnership with Nvidia. The company said its mini data centers would be “less of a financial burden on residents” and “have a potentially lower ecological footprint than warehouse data centers,” said Fortune. Span’s units are also quiet, thereby “mitigating the problem of noise pollution that has drawn the ire of residents of areas with nearby warehouse data centers.”

Industry experts hope the home models like those proposed by Span could help alleviate the financial and energy constraints created by large buildings; a typical AI data center “consumes as much electricity as 100,000 households,” according to the International Energy Agency. Instead of “building a single large data center that requires its own substation upgrade or on-site gas turbines,” the AI “spreads compute across thousands of homes that are already connected to the grid,” said Scientific American.

What has the reaction been?

Creating more energy-friendly data centers is a “cool idea on paper, but it’s almost completely unproven in real-world use,” said Fast Company. And even if the home data centers took off, the “main point of resistance” is the fact that these centers “will result in higher electric bills for everyone in the area,” even if they are at people’s homes. Whether it’s a “new central data center or a distributed data center,” the “risk of higher costs — perhaps because of transformers and other infrastructure running hotter and degrading more quickly — could arguably be the same.”

Politically, gathering power from existing homes “may be easier than talking a city council into issuing a permit for a data center,” said Fast Company. But all of this is moot if tech companies are unable to perform the “tangled math of coordinating thousands of tiny residential energy resources to fuel the energy beast that data centers are,” said The Arizona Republic. While “distributed power generation has been around for years,” it has never “been harnessed at the scale needed for feeding data centers.”

Officials with Span remain optimistic that the home-based products will work. “There is certainly opportunity, as Span can provide homeowners with access to innovative technology and potential income generation that can help offset monthly energy costs,” a spokesperson for the company told Inc. “On a larger scale, if the technology proves out, it might also keep local infrastructure from being overburdened, which could keep land open for other uses, such as building homes.”

What happened

President Donald Trump on Thursday said his administration was pouring more than $700 million into reviving the struggling coal industry. The funds will reopen one coal-fired power plant, extend the life of 13 others, subsidize coal mining and export operations and build the first two new coal-burning plants since 2013. Trump said he was invoking the 1950 Defense Production Act to intercede in the market. The money for the new coal-fired plants had been allocated by Congress for clean energy technologies.

Who said what

This is the “latest in a series of extraordinary efforts” Trump has taken to “improve the fortunes of coal, the most polluting of the fossil fuels and a favored industry” in his White House, The New York Times said. Energy experts “quickly attacked the subsidies as irrational” since “burning coal is one of the least economic methods of producing power,” The Washington Post said. The half-dozen coal plants Trump has kept open through emergency orders have cost “ratepayers tens of millions of dollars.” He has concurrently “clamped down on renewable energy,” said The Associated Press, blocking wind and solar projects and “ending clean energy tax credits.”

What next?

Analysts said Trump’s investments “could run into trouble if a future president cracked down on the coal sector,” the Times said.

What happened

Lawyers at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts on Thursday ordered President Donald Trump’s name stripped from the building by June 12 and “immediately” removed from marketing materials, staff signatures and other documents. The order follows a federal judge’s ruling last week that Trump had unlawfully appended his name to the storied arts institution, designated by Congress as a living memorial to the assassinated 35th president.

Who said what

The Trump-picked board “acted beyond its authority” when it added his name to the institution, the Kennedy Center general counsel’s office said in a memo to staff. “Expunging Trump’s name throughout the center would be the most tangible setback” in his quest to “take over” the venue, The Washington Post said, and the memo was the “first indication that the Kennedy Center plans to comply with the judge’s order.” Trump was “incensed” by last week’s ruling, The New York Times said, and Kennedy Center leaders had quickly “indicated that they planned to appeal.”

What next?

The general counsel’s memo said the center was “considering its options” regarding the judge’s temporary halting of plans to shut the arts venue down for two years for renovations and “will provide further guidance shortly.”

What happened

The House on Thursday voted 226 to 195 to provide Ukraine with $1.3 billion in security aid and $8 billion in direct loans while imposing stiff new sanctions on Russia. It was the “most robust aid package to advance in Congress in more than a year,” The Washington Post said, and 18 Republicans joined all but one Democrat to pass the bill “over the objections of the chamber’s GOP leadership” and the White House.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Thursday issued an open letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin proposing a face-to-face meeting outside of the stalled peace process involving President Donald Trump’s envoys. But “woven into the offer for peace talks were needling remarks” in which he “taunted the Russian leader over wartime setbacks, inflation” and “Putin’s advancing age,” The New York Times said.

Who said what

The House’s “strong show of support for Kyiv” was also a “fresh bipartisan blow” to Trump’s foreign policy, Politico said. Republican leaders had “warned the bill would undermine negotiations” on a peace deal, The Associated Press said. But combined with the House’s Iran war rebuke earlier this week, the Ukraine vote signaled bipartisan “impatience” with Trump’s approach to war and peace.

What next?

Trump told reporters he was “glad” Zelenskyy had suggested direct talks with Putin and it “would be great” if they met. But it wasn’t clear if Zelenskyy’s letter was “meant to jump-start talks or to denigrate” Putin, the Times said. It “appeared to be at least in part a publicity move” to highlight Kyiv's drone strike outside St. Petersburg and “recent shifts in Ukraine’s favor on the battlefield.”

“Right now, it’s like the AI industry has a gas pedal but it doesn't have a brake pedal,” Anthropic co-founder Jack Clark told the BBC.

Anthropic recently overtook OpenAI, the makers of ChatGPT, as the world’s most valuable AI start-up. But Clark has called for a global freeze in AI development, warning that humans risk losing control of the technology. He revealed that 80% of the code that Claude, the company’s chatbot, is operating on was written by Claude itself. And reaching 100% is only a couple of years away.

Clark and his research colleague, Marina Favaro, have suggested that work at Anthropic could undergo “a meaningful slowdown or pause” if other AI tech firms were prepared to do the same. “If it were possible to effectively slow the development of this technology to give ourselves more time to deal with its immense implications, we think that would likely be a good thing,” they wrote in a blog post.

What did the commentators say?

Better regulation “would keep AI systems in their lane”, said David Krueger, a specialist in responsible AI, in The Guardian. We should insist companies have “clear and well-scoped purposes” for their AI tools, and “demand evidence that they are fit for purpose”. And they should report statistics and data so that we can see if their product is being used in ways that “deviate from its intended purpose”.

But the “safest, sanest” option is to “stop racing” to make AI smarter. The creation of Moltbook (a forum for AI agents that humans can only observe) is one of the “increasingly alarming warning signs” that “rogue AI agents” could be on their way. “We need to make sure” that rogue AI isn’t “capable of threatening humanity, by agreeing to enforceable, international limits on AI capabilities and AI development”.

There are some hopeful signs in the US. On Tuesday, Donald Trump signed a “much-awaited” executive order to establish a measure of vetting for AI companies, said Politico. It was “messy, muted and far less ambitious than Silicon Valley’s critics had hoped for” but it does mark a “sea change in Washington’s willingness to tighten” AI oversight. The new voluntary process of sharing new models with the US government, so that security risks can be identified and addressed before the technology is released, could “soon pave the way for mandatory vetting, federal pre-approval of advanced AI systems and other regulations”.

Some may think it “meaningful” that Trump is “doing something – anything – about AI”, said The Atlantic, but this executive order is “relatively toothless”. He wants to look like he’s being robust, to “score points” with the public, but, in fact “he is not saying or doing anything substantive at all”. The window for serious government regulation, anywhere in the world, is “rapidly closing”; “hopefully, it is not already gone”.

We’re missing the point, said John Burn-Murdoch in the Financial Times. “AI’s capacity to deliver genuine value has been vastly exaggerated.” In one US study, researchers tracking software developers before and after they adopted AI tools found an initial “explosive” increase in productivity (300% more files created or edited) but, after verification and review, just a 30% “uplift” in the number of releases. These are “powerful new tools” but it’s going to take some time before they can interact with current workflow “processes and structures” without friction or bottlenecks.

What next?

Trump’s executive order is a “good first move in creating a safer tech ecosystem”, said Jen Easterly, former director of the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, in The New York Times. But a voluntary framework, predicated on mutual cooperation between private companies and the US government, “cannot guarantee” effectiveness. And, let’s not forget, a “principle enshrined in an executive order is only as durable as the administration that issued it”.

For this step to be a positive one, in an American context at least, the legislative branch needs to follow suit. The responsibility of building an AI environment that is “innovative, trusted and resilient” ultimately lies with the US Congress.

Peter Murrell, the former chief executive of the SNP, appeared “for 20 excruciating minutes” at the High Court in Edinburgh on Monday, said Tom Peck in The Times. His earlier guilty plea meant there was little prosecuting to be done. “What we saw, instead, was a High Court edition of ‘Supermarket Sweep’”, as the prosecutor detailed how Murrell had embezzled £400,000 from the SNP over 12 years and spent it on 627 items in total, from £3.60 door fixings to the infamous £124,000 motorhome. How did he get away with it? Because “the Great Expenser” was in charge of the process. “He submitted his expenses to himself, then he signed them off himself.”

The list “makes for dazzling reading”, said Louis Wise in the FT: not just the Jaguar, the Golf, the luxury watches, the £2,000 salt and pepper shakers – but also “no fewer than seven – seven! – vacuum cleaners”. One luxury goods PR described Murrell's splurge as “like a regional sales manager's idea of living large”. But actually it's stranger than that – from the £75 men's “slouch pouch” onesie, to the Xbox, the 108 Covid-era loo rolls, and the posh edition of Hannah Arendt's “The Origins of Totalitarianism”.

Double life

“She should have known. She must have known. Nobody can get away with it for that long, in secret, in a marriage.” These are some of the accusations levelled at Nicola Sturgeon, said Victoria Richards in The Independent. Except it's not that simple. As she has pointed out, they were both well-paid, and they had no children. None of these items were unaffordable, except perhaps the motorhome, which Murrell parked at his mother's house.

Countless people find their partner has been living a double life. And, as Sturgeon told the BBC's Laura Kuenssberg, a lot of women “end up finding themselves blamed for the actions of the men in their lives”. She's right to reject that sort of misogyny. “This isn't Sturgeon's fault.” That's a “risible” defence, said Oliver Kamm in The i Paper. The accusations are against her as a politician, not as a wife. She is not the “wronged party”.

Conflicts of interest

When Sturgeon became SNP leader, Alex Salmond advised her that having Murrell as chief executive might create conflicts of interest, said Daniel Finkelstein in The Times. She chose to ignore this. She allowed three members of the party's finance and audit committee, its treasurer and its auditors to resign, “all complaining they were being prevented from doing their jobs properly”. Through all this, Sturgeon defended the arrangements, and fiercely discouraged further inquiries. “This was grotesque behaviour. It produced one of the worst scandals of modern political history.”

I still have “a smidgen” of sympathy, said Susan Dalgety in The Scotsman: Sturgeon's “legacy has been reduced to jokes about motorhomes”. But only a smidgen. “She failed on every count.” Long after we have stopped laughing at Murrell's purchases, “the stench of government corruption will linger over Scotland”.

The death of a British soldier in Iraq has refocused concerns over the UK’s military presence in the Middle East.

Lance Corporal James Stewart Freeman died in northern Iraq on Sunday during a training exercise, the Defence Secretary John Healey has said. The US has confirmed that the Briton, and an American soldier, died at a US-controlled base in Erbil, in the semi-autonomous Kurdish region near the Iranian border.

The UK’s position on the Iran war is to participate in “defensive action” only. But after Iran began retaliating against US-Israeli strikes, the UK deployed more personnel to the region, bringing the total number to about 1,000.

The heightened risk to British troops

Northern Iraq has been “one of the most dangerous places for British troops” since Iran launched retaliatory attacks on Gulf countries, said The Times. Tehran has been targeting “US strongholds” across the border in Iraq; specialist soldiers stationed in Erbil have “shot down more than 100 kamikaze drones” since the US and Israel started the war. British personnel “have been within a few hundred feet of successful Iranian strikes”. There is a “heightened risk” that Iran or its proxies could “hit coalition bases in the Middle East”.

The US has about “two dozen significant air bases, naval facilities and outposts scattered from Turkey to Oman”, said The Independent. About 50,000 US service personnel are stationed across the Middle East, many in Arab Gulf countries such as Kuwait, Iraq, Qatar and the UAE – “all of which are at risk of Iranian retaliation with short-range weapons”. There are also about 200 British service personnel deployed in Iraq, involved in “training and supporting Iraqi and Kurdish security forces”.

Oman has been a “strategic hub” for the UK since the Royal Navy opened a “joint logistics support base” at Duqm port. The MoD said Duqm gives the UK a “strategically important and permanent maritime base east of Suez, but outside of the Gulf”. The UK also has two Sovereign Base Areas in Cyprus: Akrotiri and Dhekelia. A string of drone attacks, presumably by Hezbollah, appeared to target the RAF Akrotiri base in March.

Britain: an unwilling participant?

“The UK’s armed forces have long had a presence across the Middle East,” said Geraint Hughes, military historian at King’s College London, on The Conversation. The UK’s naval support facility, which supports the Royal Navy’s “longstanding maritime security mission” in the Persian Gulf, has been in Bahrain since the 1980s. The base and its 300 personnel were “close to the Iranian missile strike” targeting the US Fifth Fleet headquarters in February. That shows that British military personnel “could potentially be at risk from an Iranian attack, even if indirect”.

Keir Starmer maintains that the UK will not join in “offensive action”, and that military assets are only being used to “support the defence of the Gulf states”. But Iran is “unlikely to acknowledge this distinction between ‘defensive’ operations and more ‘offensive’ ones”. As part of the Five Eyes alliance, Britain also “closely coordinates its eavesdropping operations” with the US.

Fundamentally, said Hughes, the regime in Iran is “profoundly Anglophobic”. It presumes the US and Britain will “always collaborate” – as they have done in the Middle East in the past. Iran may have “assumed British complicity in the launching of Operation Epic Fury”, and may “target the UK’s military assets in the Gulf and beyond”. Whatever Labour’s intentions, the UK “may find itself drawn into a war it had no say in starting”.

When is a ceasefire not a ceasefire?

Agreements have been announced in recent months “to great fanfare” in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran, said PBS News, yet fighting continues. So the term “ceasefire” is “rapidly losing its meaning”.

What is happening?

Israeli forces have captured more territory in Gaza, contravening the US-brokered truce with Hamas in October, and at least 900 Palestinians have died in strikes, according to the strip’s ministry of health. Israel has also been increasingly bombarding Lebanon and making deeper incursions across the border, while Hezbollah has kept up rocket fire into northern Israel. The US and Iran have also continued to trade fire since the agreement in April, as they try to reach a permanent truce.

Advantages of an imperfect ceasefire

Ceasefires “often seem to be just smoke and mirrors that precede another round of fighting”, but “even when they don’t hold, they still have value”, said academics Avishay Ben-Sasson-Gordis and Simon Frankel Pratt on Foreign Policy.

They can “establish new bargaining baselines that, over multiple iterations, can become a ladder to a more permanent peace agreement”. The Northern Ireland peace process was primarily driven by two ceasefires in 1994, which ultimately paved the way for the decisive Good Friday Agreement in 1998.

Even a partial decrease in fighting can save lives, reduce injuries and limit the destruction of infrastructure and homes. A ceasefire that cuts violence by 50% is often preferable for many than no ceasefire at all.

Truces can also help with humanitarian access because aid organisations can deliver food, medicine, fuel and other supplies to affected populations. Civilians may be able to evacuate dangerous areas. Even brief pauses in fighting can enable exchanges of detainees, recovery of bodies, or arrangements for missing persons. Meanwhile, observers can assess conditions on the ground.

What are the disadvantages?

Sceptics argue that imperfect ceasefires allow forces to regroup militarily. They can be exploited for propaganda, or they may create a false impression that a conflict is being resolved.

So “cynics begin to see ceasefires as jokes from the start, while the naive fall into a cycle of optimism and despair”, said Ben-Sasson-Gordis and Frankel Pratt. Diplomacy “starts to look false and pointless”.

An imperfect ceasefire can create long-term problems if policymakers do not have a clear objective. After the first Gulf War in 1991, the US stumbled into a “decade-long trap of its own making”, said academics Daniel Chardell and Samuel Helfont on Foreign Affairs.

Washington “crafted a cease-fire agreement” with Iraq that led to ongoing tensions, repeated military confrontations and a long-term containment strategy rather than a durable peace. Subsequent US presidents were unwilling to accept Saddam Hussein remaining in power or fully commit to removing him.

The US enforced no-fly zones, sanctions, military patrols and repeated air strikes, effectively becoming a policeman. Meanwhile, international support eroded and frustration grew in Washington. Ultimately, the ceasefire became a stepping stone to the larger war in 2003.

Find out how closely you’ve been paying attention to the latest news and other global events by putting your knowledge to the test with our Quiz of The Week.

Should more men get prostate cancer screening? Is it time to swipe left on dating apps? And why is Sagrada Familia still controversial?

Olly Mann and The Week delve behind the headlines and debate what really matters from the past seven days.

A podcast for curious, open-minded people, The Week Unwrapped delivers fresh perspectives on politics, culture, technology and business. It makes for a lively, enlightening discussion, ranging from the serious to the offbeat. Previous topics have included whether solar engineering could refreeze the Arctic, why funerals are going out of fashion, and what kind of art you can use to pay your tax bill.

You can subscribe to The Week Unwrapped wherever you get your podcasts:

• Spotify
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The Olympic gold medal-winning cyclist picks her favourite books. Her own book, “The Fear Opportunity: How Feeling your Fear Builds Strength and Confidence”, is available for purchase.

Invisible Women

Caroline Criado-Perez, 2019

This book explores the under-representation of women in the way the world is designed. It is tragically enlightening about the gender bias in everyday life.

The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse

Charlie Mackesy, 2019

I love this beautifully illustrated book in so many ways; it’s comforting and reassuring and filled with the kind of phrases that should be ingrained in your soul for all the hard moments in life. I wish I had read it as a child.

The Chimp Paradox

Steve Peters, 2012

I lovingly call Steve Peters “Uncle Peters”, because I worked with him on the Olympic team and he had such a huge influence on my life. This book helped me understand my behaviour better and allowed me to access my fullest potential. I would not have won gold without Steve.

Circe

Madeline Miller, 2018

I’m obsessed with mythology and I loved this reimagining of the sorceress from “The Odyssey”. I find it intriguing the way that Miller looks at ancient myths from the point of view of the characters. I couldn’t put it down.

Milk and Honey

Rupi Kaur, 2014

This poetry collection made me go, “Wow!” I’d never come across anything like it, and I found it very reassuring because it reflects the struggles and anxieties of the female experience in a way that is very relatable. It doesn’t pull any punches.

Dancing with Elephants

Jarem Sawatsky, 2017

In Western society we’re not very good at navigating death, and this book helped me through the loss of my brother and father. Sawatsky describes his journey through terminal illness and shows us how to celebrate the experience, rather than mourning the person it’s happening to. Beautiful.

With more people looking to unplug from the digital world, analog “grandma hobbies” are making a comeback. Crafting activities like crocheting, baking, painting and knitting are especially popular among young people looking for a way to slow down. And they have been shown to help with mental health issues such as depression and anxiety. Here’s how to get your granny on.

Start with a gateway hobby

The list of so-called grandma hobbies is long, with some being more complicated than others. There’s no need to start an advanced project immediately, and the right task could keep you more engaged in the long run. Many people “jump straight into punch needling or crochet and are put off when they don’t get it right,” said Andie Reeves, a writer and fiber artist, to Verywell Mind. Try a more accessible endeavor, such as “cross-stitch, coloring books or simple beading kits.”

Match your “activity levels to the hobby that you choose,” said Susan Albers, a psychologist at Cleveland Clinic. If you are tired, ” choose an activity that has slow, repetitive movements, such as crocheting or knitting.” If you are feeling more alert, a “brain puzzle or putting together a puzzle can help to tap into your focus and concentration.”

Let go of perfectionism

Grandma hobbies are therapeutic because they allow us to make mistakes and focus on the joy of creating. Amid the pressure to “constantly hustle and be productive,” grandma hobbies offer a “refreshing pressure-free way to achieve fulfillment and well-being,” said Forbes. They remind you that “time spent doing something slow, quiet and meaningful is not wasted.” Rather, it’s “restorative" and a way of “choosing presence over pressure and imagination over efficiency.”

Embrace taking a break from the digital world

It’s hard to “doomscroll while embroidering,” said Verywell Mind. Crafts offer an “immersive experience that pulls us out of the (often addictive) digital world.” Picking up a “crochet hook, a paint brush or a recipe for bread reconnects you with simple, sensory pleasures,” said Emily Sharp, an art therapist, to Verywell Mind. While you are “using your hands and letting your mind wander,” you are “getting in touch with a part of yourself beyond the phone screen.” That’s a practice “we should all actively nurture.”

Take your time

The most valuable aspect of incorporating grandma hobbies into your life “lies in embracing the freedom of slowing down and savoring the process,” said Forbes. When you set aside time for mindful activities, you “reconnect with a softer pace of life.” To make this a consistent part of your routine, “start by dedicating small, nonnegotiable time slots each week for your chosen hobby.” Remember not to do them for “social media, for likes or for others’ approval.” The magic lies in indulging in these activities “purely for your own satisfaction, without any expectation of a perfect outcome.”

Don’t forget community

You can obviously do these hobbies alone, but there’s a lot to be gained from doing them with other like-minded people. If possible, “learn from someone who already does it,” said Shelly Dar, a mental health and well-being specialist, to The Good Trade. “Ask your grandmother, your neighbor, someone at a community garden.” These hobbies are “always meant to be passed hand to hand, and that exchange is part of the healing.”

Engaging with other hobbyists “fosters a sense of connection based on shared interests,” which is “especially valuable in today’s technology-driven world that often leaves people feeling isolated,” said Patricia Dixon, a licensed clinical psychologist, to Good Housekeeping. It can motivate you to “improve and deepen your skills, creating an environment of mutual growth.”

Spinal-cord injuries are “notoriously difficult to treat,” said Rhys Blakely, science editor of The Times. But Zurich-based researchers think a solution may be in sight: injectable microrobots.

When the spinal-cord is damaged, recovery is often limited: nerve-fibre regrowth can be hampered by scarring, and the nerve cells usually cannot regenerate on their own. But studies by a team at the Multi-Scale Robotics Lab at ETH Zurich suggest that microrobots, made from stem cells with magnetic nano-particles, could “coax” these nerve cells to repair and regenerate.

The studies were carried out in a lab on zebrafish and mice, so there is “still a long way to go” before the microrobots can be tested on humans. But the results are promising, and scientists the world over are intrigued by the idea of “microscopic repair crews, guided by magnets”.

‘Near-complete recovery’

The decision to build this “fleet of living machines” came after other experimental treatments had fallen short, said Blakely. Attempts to inject immature nerve cells into the injured area, then implant electrodes to stimulate them to develop, had failed.

So the Zurich robotics team engineered microscopic machines about six micrometers wide – smaller than a red blood cell. Each one combines a neural progenitor cell (a spinal stem cell) with a cluster of customised nanoparticles. These nanoparticles have two layers: one is sensitive to magnetic fields, so the microrobot can be guided by a magnet; the other turns magnetic signals into electrical pulses. This “lets scientists steer the cells and then coax them, electrically, into maturing into new nerve tissue”.

Millions of these microrobots were needed during the animal trials. First, they were injected into injured zebrafish larvae and, in three days, the larvae were exhibiting “near-complete recovery of swimming and exploratory behaviours”, according to the study published in Nature Materials. Then, when tested on mice with severed spinal cords, the microrobots “promoted neural differentiation, and resulted in substantial improvements in motor function within four weeks”.

‘Reproducible and scalable’

Further research is needed before these microrobots can be tested on humans but the Zurich team is already thinking about ways they can be used in other medical settings. “The reproducible and scalable production of microrobots using our lab-on-a-chip system demonstrates” that there is a great deal of “application potential”, said study leader Salvador Pané i Vidal. With adaptations, the microrobots could be used in wound healing, and to make cardiology and oncology treatments “safer, more controllable and more effective”.

Different microrobots have already been shown to be successful in other areas of medicine, said Healthcare in Europe. Formed in droplets, they are effective at “precision-targeted drug delivery”, outperforming IV-delivery on the amount of drug than reaches the target tissue.

Listening lounges, recording studios, secret venues and vinyl lending libraries are a few of the perks guests can tap into at these seven hotels made for music lovers. You may not run into your favorite artist, but you sure might discover a new one.

Aria Hotel Budapest, Hungary

Music inspired every design element at Aria Hotel Budapest, starting with the piano-keyboard marble inlay that stretches across the indoor courtyard. Rooms come in four styles — Classical, Opera, Contemporary and Jazz — and feature elegant touches like Murano glass chandeliers, coffered ceilings and custom area rugs.

In the afternoon, guests are invited to a wine and cheese reception with live music, and they can end the night on the rooftop High Note SkyBar. Aria even has a musical director, who arranges performances and special events and compiles soundtracks for individual stays.

D Maris Bay, Marmaris, Turkey

Once the sun goes down, the energy level at D Maris Bay goes way up, as guests prepare to spend the night dancing to DJ sets and live musical performances. Situated in a “stunning bay” on the Turquoise Coast, the resort’s “fabulous setting” and “extensive facilities” make it “one of the best” luxury beach properties in Turkey, said The Telegraph.

The property’s nightlife is second to none, with DJs coming from around the globe to play. The resort also hosts a summer gala series that blends gourmet dining with musical performances; previous artists included Seal and Sophie Ellis-Bextor.

Hotel El Ganzo, San José del Cabo, Mexico

The soundtrack of Hotel El Ganzo includes musicians jamming in the Underground Studio and bands performing on the private marina. Creatives love staying at this boutique property, where murals cover the walls, the rooms feature one-of-a-kind paintings and the Musicians in Residence program brings artists like Thievery Corporation, Rufus du Sol and Khruangbin to the hotel. When you’re ready to chill, head to the beach and swim club Playa El Ganzo, the rooftop pool, or the spa and wellness center.

Hotel Saint Cecilia, Austin, Texas

Named in honor of the patron saint of music, Hotel Saint Cecilia is an “ultraprivate” spot where “record label execs, artists, musicians and writers” go for a getaway, said Condé Nast Traveler. The rooms and suites inside this Victorian-era mansion have their own “distinct decor and personality” and come with Rega turntables and Geneva sound systems. When you feel like listening to tunes, head to the hotel’s lending library and borrow a vintage vinyl; while you are there, check out one of the many rock biographies available to borrow.

Okupa Athens, Greece

The centerpiece of Okupa is the Kitchen & Listening Bar, an “all-day space that combines brunch, dinner and a listening bar moment,” said Vogue Adria. Okupa is a place where “food, music and atmosphere” all “function as one and the same mood.” Here, you can enjoy an on-property jazz session, DJ set and concert in one day. The 32 modern, comfortable rooms come with portable speakers and, in some cases, record players. The music never need stop.

The Verb Hotel, Boston

The Verb Hotel “proudly” celebrates its hometown musical heroes, with local artists “commemorated through posters and pictures” across the hotel, said Rolling Stone. Other big acts who visited the city are “immortalized with autographs and coffee table books,” and this memorabilia makes the property feel like a “retro-chic museum” that “happens to offer plush beds.” For an over-the-top experience, stay in one of the Backstage trailers complete with Bose sound systems, custom art and “unique pieces of tour life.”

W Nashville, Tennessee

Music surrounds you at W Nashville. Both established and up-and-coming artists perform inside the intimate Living Room Bar & Lounge, and guests have a chance to attend listening sessions and songwriting collaborations in the Sound Room, a small venue hidden behind a wall of speakers.

The party continues poolside, where local DJs keep the tunes going at the Wet Deck. It’s a “stylish” property with excellent service — head to the friendly concierge with requests for “tickets to the Grand Ole Opry or whoever is playing at the Ryman,” said Condé Nast Traveler.

“The era of ever-expanding workplace perks is ending,” said Tina Reed in Axios. With jobs harder to come by and workers’ negotiating leverage shrinking, “some employers are rolling back” the glowing enticements they started dangling a few years ago. And it’s “not just free kombucha and laundry” that are off the table—policies like “paid parental leave and retirement matches are on the chopping block” as well. Consulting giant Deloitte announced recently it is “reducing paid time off, halving parental leave, and eliminating a $50,000 reimbursement for family-planning services” for most of its employees, said Lauren Goode in Wired, citing the rising costs of keeping such benefits in place. Companies should know, however, that “plenty of research shows that diminishing employees’ quality of life and lowering their total wages” harms the bottom line.

Yet companies seem to feel that “no benefit is off-limits anymore,” said Steve Russolillo in Business Insider. It’s one thing for the “free food, on-site laundry, and gym subsidies” to go, but “I really thought certain benefits like paid time off and parental leave would be untouchable.” Clearly, “I was wrong.” Of course, it’s better to have benefits cut than to lose a job entirely. But the workers who survive downsizing efforts aren’t looking at a future full of perks. The Trump administration, however, wants one specific benefit to be more widely accessible, said Lauren Kaori Gurley in The Washington Post. The Labor Department proposed a new rule to make it easier for employers to offer in vitro fertilization (IVF) and other fertility benefits, and easier for workers to sign up for them. It wouldn’t “eliminate all costs for beneficiaries,” but it could reduce them.

Small businesses should take note of what Deloitte and other corporations are doing, said Suzanne Lucas in Inc. If “you’ve felt like you couldn’t compete with the big companies” as an entrepreneur, now is your chance. “Where you could never match Deloitte’s $50,000 IVF reimbursement or 16 weeks of paid parental leave,” you can offer other attractive perks, like remote work, four-day workweeks, and flexibility. It’s an opportunity to grab top-tier talent that was “out of your reach six months ago.”

At the same time, some perks were getting out of hand, said Pilita Clark in the Financial Times. The London law firm Slaughter and May, for instance, recently ended a policy from 2022 that allowed workers to bring their pets into the office. Seriously. Other benefits, like fertility procedures, won’t be widely missed—they are used by fewer than 1% of workers, according to benefits platform Heka. Employers are simply “waking up to the fact that what employees say they want differs from what they actually use.”

‘India is losing its economic edge’

Sadanand Dhume at The Wall Street Journal

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi “faces a painful reality check: his promise to modernize India’s economy hasn’t panned out,” says Sadanand Dhume. The country “faces a rapidly weakening rupee, dwindling net foreign investment and worries that artificial intelligence will take a wrecking ball to the information technology industry.” Instead of “assuming that the world wants to beat a path to India, the government should emulate countries like Vietnam that ruthlessly focus on being more business-friendly.”

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‘We’ve come too far to let AIDS win’

Elton John and Bill Frist at USA Today

Thanks to “American leadership and extraordinary global cooperation, despair has given way to hope and action,” as “we are closer than ever to ending AIDS,” say Elton John and former Sen. Bill Frist (R-Tenn.). The “bipartisan President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) has saved more than 26 million lives,” but the U.S. State Department should “consider doubling their rollout plan so resources can reach more communities without delay and to reengage community health workers.”

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‘As we approach July 4, the capital is, fittingly, a mess’

Jackie Calmes at the Los Angeles Times

One month “out from America’s celebration of its 250th birthday, the national capital is a mess,” says Jackie Calmes. This includes “sites central to the pilgrimages that millions of Americans make each year to Washington.” It’s “all about Trump,” who “sees only a site for self-glorification.” This is “hardly the adulatory message appropriate to a people who, by the Declaration of Independence 250 years ago, renounced a king and went on to create a democratic republic.”

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‘To be a better negotiator, learn to live a little’

Attia Qureshi and John Richardson at Time

Negotiation is a “skill — one most of us haven’t learned or practiced. Most of us, most of the time, just aren’t very good at it,” say Attia Qureshi and John Richardson. There are a “lot of components that go into a successful negotiation. But before you can use most of those strategies, you need to get the other person’s attention.” Start by “pushing that reciprocity button and watching for any changes in the other person’s reactions.”

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People looking to grill hamburgers this summer may not get a respite from rising beef prices anytime soon, as an ongoing cattle shortage across the United States could compound high costs at the grocery store. Farmers are now worried the beef industry could be on the fritz for a while.

How is the cattle shortage affecting the beef market?

At the beginning of 2026, American cattle producers had 86.2 million heads of cattle nationwide according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), marking the lowest number to start the year since 1951. The number of cattle that had calved (given birth to a baby) was also down 100,000 from the prior year. Several economic and geopolitical factors have “been pushing livestock numbers down, including rising costs, international competition and increased consolidation in the cattle industry,” said NPR.

“Years of severe drought in the western United States” have also “strained feed supplies and forced many ranchers to reduce their herds,” said WTHR-TV Indianapolis. With less grain comes less grass for cattle to feed on, so “farmers have cut herd sizes — a decision that can shrink the nation’s beef supply for years.” The reduced supply is becoming unsustainable for ranchers.

As cattle become more scarce, their price goes up, and these higher prices have led many ranchers to “sell their livestock and have dissuaded them from buying new animals to rebuild their herds,” said NPR. Cattle farmers say they are being forced to gamble with the industry. “We could put another 100 head out on grass, with what our grass will hopefully be this spring, but then you’re also wondering too, ‘Is that too much of a risk?’” Amanda Hall, a cattle farmer in Lexington, Kentucky, told NPR.

What does the future hold?

Even as ranchers are looking for solutions to high prices, there is “no quick fix for tight supplies, as the sticker shock in the grocery aisles didn’t happen overnight,” said Bloomberg. But Americans don’t want beef any less just because it’s more expensive, and demand has “allowed big retailers to stay on the winning side of these sales, while meatpackers lose out, as larger accounts have leverage to negotiate their pricing,” David Anderson, an agricultural economics professor at Texas A&M University, told Bloomberg.

President Donald Trump’s effort to “lower beef prices has divided top administration officials and some of his closest allies,” said Politico, potentially throwing another wrench into the problem. Trump faces a dilemma in “trying to balance consumers’ concerns about rising grocery prices with those of his supporters in the cattle industry.” The administration’s decision to import large quantities of Argentinian beef has also rubbed many ranchers the wrong way.

The government still remains optimistic that the livestock lull is temporary. While short-term lows remain, cattle inventories “are expected to rise to 91.6 million head in 2034,” said the USDA. Prices in 2026 could reach record highs “before falling back through 2031 and then starting a new climb through 2034.” Other parts of the farm are also expected to grow, as “broiler chicken production is projected to reach successive annual record highs over the next 10 years.”

China’s manufacturing might is overwhelming Europe, and Europe is gearing up to push back. A trade war could be in the offing as Brussels seeks to protect the continent’s workers and factories from a flood of inexpensive imports from state-backed Chinese manufacturers.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is aiming for a “major crackdown on subsidized Chinese imports,” said Politico. Europe cannot “be the victim of a predatory strategy that is destroying our industry,” EU industrial strategy chief Stéphane Séjourné said to the outlet.

China is warning it will retaliate against any EU action. Europe is “going further and further down a radical path,” said state-run social media account Yuyuantantian, per The Wall Street Journal. The tit for tat could further unsettle a global economy already rattled by President Donald Trump’s trade policies and fallout from the Iran war.

What did the commentators say?

The Chinese economy is “taking everyone down,” Michael Schuman said at The Atlantic. The country has become a “government-subsidized, export-driven manufacturing juggernaut” that is “alienating trading partners.” That includes Europe, where Chinese imports are “costing Germany 10,000 manufacturing jobs a month.” The success of China’s export strategy may make its businesses seem “unstoppable,” but its continuation relies on the “assumption that other countries will continue to absorb China’s exports.” Beijing may instead be pushing its rivals to embrace a “protectionism that depresses prosperity for everyone.”

“What, precisely, is the problem with Chinese surpluses?” Martin Sandbu said at the Financial Times. Chinese car imports have indeed increased in recent years, but that merely “displaced imports from elsewhere.” The overall number of vehicles shipped into the EU has “remained steady” during that time. Europe could benefit from manufacturing competition “as a spur to faster productivity improvements at home.” That would be good both for European businesses and “for consumers.”

The EU may be “finally waking up to China,” Peggy Corlin and Luca Bertuzzi said at Euronews. The reassessment “has been long in the making” after “decades of deepening economic dependence.” But Europe is not entirely united on the issue. Germany, for example, is still focused on “securing market access for German companies in China,” while Spain is welcoming a “growing share” of Chinese investments. “Political will” is the “key determining factor” in what happens next.

What next?

Europe’s search for solutions is “increasingly urgent,” said The New York Times. EU officials are worried about the “imminent collapse of industry,” Jeromin Zettelmeyer, the director of the Bruegel think tank, said to the outlet. “The tone is basically panic.”

Curbing imports could ultimately be “profoundly tricky” in a European marketplace where consumers have become “hooked on what China is selling,” said the Times. The issue may soon come to a head. “Global economic imbalances” will be on the agenda for the G7 Summit of European and North American leaders later this month.

What happened

New World screwworm, a deadly flesh-eating parasite, has been confirmed in a calf in south Texas, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said late Wednesday. It was the first case of the fly-borne parasite found in U.S. livestock since 1966.

Who said what

Screwworms are “parasitic flies whose females lay eggs in open wounds” on “any warm-blooded animal,” hatching hundreds of larvae that “use their sharp mouths to burrow through living flesh, eventually killing their host if left untreated,” Reuters said. Human cases are “rare,” and the fly “poses no food safety issues.”

The U.S. has been preparing for the parasite’s arrival, sealing the U.S. southern border to livestock since screwworms were found spreading north through Mexico in 2024. If “more screwworms are found” in the U.S. beyond this one case, it “could devastate the American cattle industry,” The New York Times said. The nation’s cattle herd is “already at its smallest since the 1950s,” The Wall Street Journal said.

What next?

The USDA is “taking immediate action” to “contain” and “eradicate this case,” said Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, including forming a 12.4-mile “infested zone” quarantine around the calf, increasing monitoring and releasing millions of sterile New World screwworm flies to shrink the population.

What happened

Hungarian Prime Minister Péter Magyar on Wednesday announced a deal with Ukraine that should clear the way for Kyiv to begin the process to join the European Union. Magyar’s predecessor, Viktor Orbán, had “fiercely opposed Ukraine’s EU accession,” Politico said, and had used Hungary’s veto in the 27-member bloc to thwart Ukraine and Moldova’s “twinned” membership bids in a decision “ostensibly over minority rights for Hungarians living in Ukraine.”

Who said what

Hungary’s “shift in position unfolded suddenly” on Wednesday during a meeting of EU ambassadors in Brussels, Euronews said, and after weeks of negotiations between Hungary and Ukraine. Magyar later said on social media that Kyiv had agreed to expand the “linguistic, educational, cultural and political rights of the 100,000-strong Hungarian minority” in Ukraine’s western Transcarpathia region.

What next?

With Hungary’s objections lifted, accession negotiations are expected to “officially move to the next stage” at a June 15 meeting between the EU, Moldova and Ukraine, Politico said. However, Magyar “reiterated his opposition to fast-track Ukraine’s accession,” Euronews said. “If Ukraine manages to close all 33 accession chapters within 10 or 15 years,” he said, Hungary “will hold a legally binding referendum on the issue.”

What happened

The House of Representatives on Wednesday voted 215-208 to force President Donald Trump to stop military operations in the Iran war unless he gets authorization from Congress. Four Republicans joined all Democrats in passing the war powers resolution, which a bipartisan coalition pushed to the floor over the objections of House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.). It’s the first legislation to end the war approved in either chamber, though the GOP-led Senate advanced a similar measure in a procedural vote two weeks ago.

Who said what

The resolution’s adoption is a “remarkable rebuke” to Trump and his “handling of the conflict” from a GOP-led Congress that has “largely ceded its prerogatives” to curb his power, The New York Times said. Republicans who initially backed him on the war “have started to waver,” The Wall Street Journal said, as the conflict has “dragged on with no clear resolution in sight” and gas prices “continue to climb” while Trump’s poll numbers continue “sagging.” Later Wednesday, the House “bucked” Trump and Johnson on a “second foreign policy issue,” said The Washington Post, voting 218-204 to advance funding for Ukraine and “impose additional sanctions on Russia’s finance and energy sectors.”

What next?

The Iran war vote was “largely symbolic,” as the resolution is unlikely to gain the force of law, Politico said. But it “further stymies the White House’s political priorities” after Republicans recently “scuttled several Trump goals,” including funding his White House ballroom and paying off supporters with his $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund.

Parties contesting the Makerfield by-election are “locked in a war of words” over how much support there is for insurgent “far-right” party Restore Britain, said Kitty Donaldson in The i Paper.

An early poll by Survation puts support for Rupert Lowe’s Restore at 7%, with Labour at 43% and Reform UK at 40%. Labour supporters hope that Restore could split the right-wing vote and usher in Andy Burnham, who is expected to mount a leadership challenge to Keir Starmer should he win the by-election.

For Nigel Farage, Reform’s leader and long the champion of the right, this situation is “ironic”, said Melanie Phillips in The Times. “The axiom that the revolution eats its own” is “generally associated with the left. Now it has arrived on the right.”

What did the commentators say?

A Farage pivot has already begun, said The Economist. To date, his “vision of ‘colour blind’ politics” has been a “success”. But following the recent reaction to the murder of Henry Nowak – Farage called for the public to respond “with pure, cold rage” and declared that “white lives matter too” – it is clear that the Reform leader has “embraced a new, uglier way of thinking”.

This “dark turn” seems to have been prompted by the “threat” posed by Lowe. The Restore leader said “the killer should be executed and his family deported” following his life sentence. “Targeting the angry, and making them angrier, could be a winning formula” for Reform in the new fragmented political landscape.

It is clear that Farage and his allies are “visibly rattled” by Restore, said Robert Shrimsley in the Financial Times. Though Farage may not fear being “superseded” by Lowe, a split on the right could “cost him seats”. A “confident” Farage would “have to hold his nerve” and tackle Lowe at the next general election.

Restore could even be a blessing in disguise for Farage. Lowe and Co. could serve as a “decontamination chamber” to rid his own party of more extreme voices, in turn making Reform more palatable and within the “admittedly shifting” boundaries of “political decency”. All of this, of course, hinges on “how frightened Farage feels. But the last thing an already polarised nation needs is a new bidding war on the anti-immigrant right.”

Restore’s “march into culture warzones” like climate change and social integration is “profoundly depressing”, said Rosa Prince in Bloomberg. The party is “heavily backed” by “racially fixated billionaire” Elon Musk, who “regularly shares” its posts on his platform, X. Indeed, it may have been Musk’s endorsement of Lowe to lead Reform that led to the birth of Restore. Clips from a YouTube interview with Maga figure Tucker Carlson have also been “viewed millions of times”, adding to Lowe’s more than 1.3 million Facebook followers. Digital “ubiquity” and a “splintering” political system have fuelled the rise of both Reform and Restore. “We’re all poorer as a result.”

“Then there is Lowe himself,” said James Heale in The Spectator. Though undoubtedly on the charge, he is not infallible. At 68, Lowe must now “do in a decade what Farage managed in three”. Farage has “withstood 30 years of muckraking and press sleuthing. Is Lowe ready for the same?”

Lowe is already under investigation by the parliamentary watchdog after a complaint was made against him, and there is a perceived discord between his “clubbable” character in person and his online persona. As his party’s prominence grows, Lowe will also face pressure to “disavow comments his activists have made”. With the belief that Reform’s immigration policies are “insufficiently robust” as one of the party’s founding principles, Restore will also “inevitably struggle to keep its base onside”.

What next?

“Restore hopes to provide more than just a distraction” in the Makerfield by-election, said Nick Gutteridge in The Telegraph. Though the official, albeit small-sample, poll put Restore at around 7%, data collected by 300 Restore activists and released by Lowe claimed that “almost a quarter of households” said they would vote for Restore. “The claims were met with incredulity online and dismissed by political opponents.”

“You don’t need to be John Curtice to see what this means,” said Brendan O’Neill on Spiked. “The 7% being hoovered up by Restore’s oddball door-knockers is thwarting a potential Reform win.” It may be a “two-horse” race between those who believe Andy Burnham can “resuscitate the corpse of Labour” and those who are “taking a punt on the populists of Reform”. Restore is, in fact, “shaving support from Reform, is giving the listless, dull-eyed horse of technocracy its best shot of winning”.

Support for Restore could make a “critical difference” to the result in Makerfield, said Phillips in The Times. Regardless, “whoever occupies No. 10 after this by-election”, and perhaps the general election, “will be presiding over a country that has become an explosive tinderbox”.