MIDDLE EAST - Hamas has ordered Palestinians to stay away from vital aid delivered by a US-backed organisation, claiming it is part of an Israeli plot to gather intelligence. The controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which has ties to both the Israeli and US governments, has been approved by Israel to take over aid deliveries inside the Strip, despite strong opposition from the UN and most aid groups. Witnesses reported that very few Palestinians were turning up at distribution centres, despite Gaza’s population being pushed towards famine following Israel’s three-month aid blockade. Hamas’s warnings about biometric screening procedures, an apparent requirement before food packages are handed out, have frightened Gazans, according to reports.

USA - During a press conference today, Governor DeSantis addressed the failure of Congress to enact one DOGE suggested cut. Elon Musk and his DOGE team found over 900 billion dollars in cuts. Congress has not followed up on even one. This is the key section of Governor De Santis’s comments which also spoke to successes in Florida: “Trillion dollar deficit is a tax on you. It works its way through the economy. There’s no free lunch, and that’s what ends up happening. And it’s a little frustrating. You know, Elon Musk went into this DOGE effort. He was getting lampooned, I mean, like they’re fire bombing his Tesla dealerships, media smearing him relentlessly. His businesses suffered. All this stuff because he basically said, 'Look, we can’t keep doing this, and we need to moderate and reduce the amount of money that the federal government is spending.' DOGE also found illegal aliens voting and Congress did nothing about that either. They don’t care at all."

USA - A federal court on Wednesday blocked President Donald Trump from imposing sweeping tariffs on imports under an emergency-powers law, swiftly throwing into doubt Trump’s signature set of economic policies that have rattled global financial markets, frustrated trade partners and raised broader fears about inflation intensifying and the economy slumping. The ruling from a three-judge panel at the New York-based US Court of International Trade came after several lawsuits arguing Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs exceeded his authority and left the country’s trade policy dependent on his whims. Trump has repeatedly said the tariffs would force manufacturers to bring back factory jobs to the US and generate enough revenue to reduce federal budget deficits. He used the tariffs as a negotiating cudgel in hopes of forcing other nations to negotiate agreements that favored the US, suggesting he would simply set the rates himself if the terms were unsatisfactory.

USA - Tech billionaire Elon Musk, head of the US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), has announced that he will no longer serve as a government employee. The statement comes amid reports of a growing rift between Musk and President Donald Trump. Trump established DOGE to identify and eliminate wasteful spending as part of his effort to make the federal government more responsive to everyday Americans. Musk’s organization, which is not a federal agency in the traditional sense, has overseen the elimination of grants and programs, as well as the termination of government jobs. Trump has also used DOGE to dismantle the Department of Education and the US Agency for International Development (USAID). “As my scheduled time as a Special Government Employee comes to an end, I would like to thank President Trump for the opportunity to reduce wasteful spending,” Musk wrote on his X platform on Wednesday evening.

USA - One of Harvard’s most celebrated professors has paid a historic price after seemingly telling on herself. As The New York Post reported, Francesca Gino, a renowned behavioral scientist at Harvard Business School, was fired and stripped of tenure after the school’s top governing board discovered she manipulated data in four studies to ensure that findings would boost her hypotheses. Harvard refused to detail the specific reason for the decision, but this marked the first time since the 1940s that a professor at Harvard had their tenure revoked, which is when rules for academic protection at the school were formalized according to the Harvard Crimson. Ironically, Gino’s work focused on honesty and ethical behavior. The Harvard Crimson reveals that she was a celebrated researcher in her field and the fifth-highest paid employee at Harvard in 2018 and 2019. Overall, she received more than $1 million in compensation each year.

VATICAN - And so it happened that Robert Prevost – who became the first American Pope in History, Leo XIV – has been formally inaugurated in a ceremony that gathered world leaders and hundreds of thousands of faithful. Leo XIV began his papacy by reaching out to conservatives, calling for unity, vowing to preserve the Catholic Church’s heritage and not rule like an ‘autocrat’. He took his first ride in the popemobile through the massive crowd of up to 200,000 in St Peter’s Square, before being officially installed as the 267th pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church.

USA - It has often been said that “war is hell”, and that is so true. It has been estimated that somewhere between 70 and 85 million people died during World War II, and now World War III is looming. I just asked Google AI to tell me how many people will die during World War III, and I was told that “it’s likely that the death toll would be devastatingly high, potentially reaching into the billions”. We are literally closer to that sort of an apocalyptic conflict than we have ever been before, and yet most of the population is partying as if there will be “peace and safety” long into the future. So many of us have been lulled into a false sense of security, but the truth is that the very small window of opportunity that we have to avoid World War III is rapidly closing. The clock is ticking, because once someone decides to use a nuclear weapon there will be no turning back.

UKRAINE - The battlefield rules have changed. Western allies have officially lifted all restrictions on Ukraine’s use of long-range weapons, allowing Kyiv to strike Russian military targets without range limitations. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz confirmed the shift, stating that the UK, France, Germany, and the US have removed all constraints on how Ukraine deploys its Western-supplied arsenal. Germany’s stance marks a major policy shift. Merz’s announcement signals a break from previous restrictions that limited Ukraine’s ability to target Russian positions beyond occupied Ukrainian territory. The decision follows months of pressure from Kyiv, which has argued that hitting Russian military infrastructure deep inside enemy territory is essential for defense. The Kremlin is furious. Russian officials have condemned the move, calling it “dangerous” and warning that it could escalate the conflict further.

USA - Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt recently gave a TED Talk, presenting a hypothetical scenario to highlight how geopolitical tensions could accelerate the AI arms race — especially between the US and China. He warned that this race could escalate to include sabotage or even attacks on data centers in the event of a conflict. With Schmidt confirming that foreign policy and military circles are already discussing scenarios involving preemptive strikes on critical AI infrastructure — including data centers — Trump’s push for a hemispheric missile defense shield appears to make much more sense now. Relocating data centers deep into America’s Heartland isn’t just about access to cheap energy; it’s also a matter of geographic security, offering far greater protection than vulnerable West or East Coast locations.

RUSSIA - The Russian press had declared Donald Trump's peace deal is "dying a slow death" as a key ally of Vladimir Putin mocked Western ceasefire plans by posting a map showing almost all of Ukraine occupied by Kremlin forces. The Moscow-based daily newspaper Moskovskij Komsomolets ran an editorial on current ceasefire negotiations, commenting that it believed the President's "energy charge" had "gone flat" and that it would soon become "obvious" even to Mr Trump that any deal was in its "death throes".

USA - US President Donald Trump issued a fiery warning to Russian President Vladimir Putin Tuesday morning, stating that Putin was "playing with fire." The short and to-the-point post was made on the president's Truth Social account. "What Vladimir Putin doesn’t realize is that if it weren’t for me, lots of really bad things would have already happened to Russia, and I mean REALLY BAD," wrote Trump, 78. "He’s playing with fire!" The latest post comes as both presidents continue to verbally spar with each other. Prior to the post, the Kremlin, Russia's government, verbally attacked Trump, labeling him a "clown" and claiming he suffers from "dementia."

USA - Across America, farmers are warning that their soil and water are being contaminated by “forever chemicals” — toxic compounds that never break down and accumulate in the food chain. PFAS, sprayed on fields through sewage sludge, are now poisoning crops, livestock, and livelihoods.

USA - Last week was tough for US Treasury bonds, the IOUs issued by the US government to pay for that portion of federal spending not covered by tax revenues. As Dominic O’Connell noted here on Saturday, yields on Treasuries (which rise as the price falls) rose sharply after Moody’s became the last major ratings agency to downgrade America’s credit rating from the highest level, while Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” came a step closer to being enacted and, with it, raising government borrowing by an estimated $3 trillion to $4 trillion over the next decade. A third — and important — factor driving the sell-off was that an auction of $16 billion worth of 20-year Treasuries on Wednesday drew only weak demand, implying a reluctance on the part of some investors to lend to Uncle Sam. Investors demanded a 5 per cent coupon (interest payment) for the risk they were taking on.

USA - Once renowned for widespread home ownership, the key Anglosphere countries are reverting to a feudal past, where land is owned by increasingly few. In every major market in Canada and Australia, and in much of America and the UK, house prices have skyrocketed to record levels, with corresponding consequences for home ownership rates. In a new report, demographer Wendell Cox traces this to the failure to build enough new housing units, particularly the single-family homes that consumers most desire. In the United States, homebuilders built about one million fewer homes (including rental units) in 2024 than in 1972 when there were 130 million fewer Americans. One estimate puts the US housing market short by about 4.5 million homes. Housing prices have been rising “three times faster than household median income over the last two decades.”

USA - Is the dollar in the early stages of losing its safe-haven status? Last Friday it fell to its weakest level since December 2023 on its trade-weighted basis, as international investors continued to come to terms with President Trump’s policies. Scott Bessent, the Treasury secretary, has said that the United States’s strong dollar policy is intact, but the markets are not convinced. The policy appears to be a weaker dollar to boost competitiveness, while also retaining its dominant position in global trade and payments, and as a reserve currency. Dollar devaluation and dominance are not mutually exclusive goals but once you start to turn sentiment against your own currency you need to be careful. Markets and investors cannot be turned on and off at will.