JAPAN - A dramatic lurch in the Japanese bond market has heightened fears that debt-heavy Western governments such as the UK and even the US could be in line for a budget-busting financial crunch. Limp demand for government-issued 20-year bonds at an auction in Japan on Tuesday sent tremors through the debt markets, pushing long-term Japanese yields – the government’s cost of borrowing – to the highest in decades.

FRANCE - Due to France’s drug trafficking crisis, a large majority of French are in favor of the army being deployed into disadvantaged neighborhoods in problematic neighborhoods in France, including 80 percent of women. These “disadvantaged” neighborhoods are almost universally filled with migrants from Africa and the Middle East. Although the troops on the streets in French cities would be dramatic, 66 percent were in favor of such a move two years ago when they were last surveyed, and 33 percent were against it. Apparently, the idea has only grown in popularity since then. Now, only 23 percent are against French troops being deployed. France has seen an incredible 86 percent increase in sexual violence in the last 10 years, with mass immigration fueling this trend.

JAPAN - Tokyo will release 300,000 tonnes from the country’s reserves after soaring prices led to thefts and a drop in support for the prime minister. Tokyo said it would raid its rice banks in July to put an extra 300,000 tonnes in shops which are running out of the country’s basic food. An extra 200,000 tonnes was released in March, but distribution bottlenecks mean prices have not dropped and stores said they are struggling to meet demand. The average price of a 5kg bag of rice is about 4,200 yen (£21.75), almost double what it was a year ago. The soaring prices have even led to theft.

UK - Lucy Connolly's breach of law is inarguable, but the length of her sentence is purely political. Lucy Connolly, the wife of a Tory councillor currently serving a two-and-a-half-year stint at His Majesty’s pleasure over an ill-advised tweet, should not be in jail. Ms Connolly was incarcerated last October for 31 months after a post on Elon Musk’s platform amid the furious migrant riots. This lunchtime, her appeal against this absurd sentence was dismissed.

USA - "Once considered a conspiracy theory, weather control is latest MAHA battleground. He who controls the weather will control the world,” former President Lyndon B Johnson told students at Southwest Texas State University in 1962. Over six decades later, state lawmakers across America are trying to control the weather in their own backyards. In late April, Florida lawmakers passed Senate Bill 56 (SB 56), the Geoengineering and Weather Modification Activities Act. The bill is a blanket ban on any form of weather modification or, as the bill calls it, geoengineering. The bill, introduced by Republican State Senator Ileana Garcia, defines these activities as “the injection, release or dispersion by any means of any chemical, chemical compound, substance or any apparatus into the atmosphere for the purpose of affecting the temperature, the weather or the intensity of the sunlight.” "The burden of persuasion, the burden of proof, if you will, is on the practitioners of this activity to prove it is not harmful,” he told the Caller.

UKRAINE - Ukraine, Russia and the US have all said they're open to talks at the Vatican, as newly elected Pope Leo recently suggested. Donald Trump said late last night as he spoke to reporters at the Oval Office that "it would be great" and would give extra significance to the process. But those talks may not involve the US at all, Trump also warned, with Washington ready to "back away" if there is not enough progress. "This is not my war," he said. Donald Trump echoed remarks from his vice president yesterday, with both saying they're ready to pull out of talks if they don't see enough progress. Speaking before Trump's call with Vladimir Putin yesterday, JD Vance warned if Russia is not "willing to engage" then "eventually, the US has to say this is not our war". Trump used the same words after the call, telling reporters in the Oval Office: "This was not my war, I'm just here to try and help."

MIDDLE EAST - As people try to make sense of his continued praise for Gulf autocrats and dictators like Putin, they may be missing Trump’s point, which is to create relationships, which in turn create leverage. The US president praises flawed leaders, not because he’s blind to their records, but because he knows honey attracts more flies than vinegar. Charm is the currency he uses to build relationships and, crucially, to secure interconnectivity. It is easy to say no to an enemy, and very hard to say no to a friend.

USA - Donald Trump’s Middle East tour conspicuously excluded the Jewish state, potentially signaling the start of a new foreign policy paradigm. Last week, US President Donald Trump embarked on his first official overseas tour since taking office, choosing to visit three key Gulf nations – Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates. This itinerary was both unexpected and, in many ways, unprecedented. Unlike his predecessors, who traditionally began their foreign policy engagements with visits to long-standing Western allies, Trump opted to prioritize America’s Arab partners, deliberately bypassing Israel – Washington’s principal strategic ally in the region. This marked the first time in decades that a sitting US president visiting the Middle East consciously excluded it from the agenda.

USA - The Bureau of Economic Analysis reports that US government interest payments totaled $1.36 trillion in Q1 2025, comprising $1.11 trillion in federal and $0.25 trillion in state payments. This marks a 1.2% decline from the previous quarter but a 1.7% increase compared to Q1 2024. In summary, $1.36 trillion in interest payments strains budgets, risks economic growth, and signals rising debt challenges. The quarterly decline offers short-term relief, but the year-over-year increase underscores the need for fiscal prudence to ensure economic stability.

UK - Sir Keir Starmer will unwind a central principle of Brexit on Monday by agreeing to follow EU rules in what has been branded a “betrayal” of Leave voters. The Prime Minister and Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, will announce the changes as part of the UK’s long-awaited “reset” with Brussels. The “reset” deal will force the UK to follow European food standards and submit to the European Court of Justice (ECJ), in what Brexiteers and Labour rebels said amounted to “the worst of both worlds”.

UK - This was the day the Brexit dream died, and with it the vision of a vibrant, confident, sovereign Britain making its own rules and its own way on the international stage. Everything the EU wanted from these ‘negotiations’ it received, from the UK accepting ‘dynamic alignment’ with its food and agriculture standards to a deal allowing European fishing boats to keep plundering British waters for years to come.

USA - Our ultra-toxic society is slowly but surely killing virtually everything that lives on this planet. North America has lost almost 3 billion birds since 1970. That is not a misprint. You may have noticed that the birds aren’t singing as much as they once did. That is because we have billions fewer birds than we once did. Of course we are killing off the bees too. From 2023 to 2024, beekeepers in the United States “lost an estimated 55.1 percent of their colonies”. We are now facing a very serious bee emergency, but you rarely ever hear about this on the news. Our world is literally dying, but hardly anyone seems to care.

VATICAN - During Sunday’s Mass of Inauguration, Pope Leo XIV called for a “united Church” to foster peace throughout the world and for the faithful to “walk towards God and love one another”. Greeting hundreds of thousands of pilgrims, world leaders, and representatives from various Christian denominations, Pope Leo XIV marked the start of his Petrine Ministry with Mass in St Peter’s Square in which the Gospel was proclaimed in Greek and Latin. The call for unity comes amid divisions over the direction of the Catholic Church following the liberal-leaning Papacy of Pope Francis, who led the Church from 2013 until his death in April.

VATICAN - Leo XIV defended the traditional family, unborn babies and the elderly – and that’s great. After American Cardinal Robert Prevost, who made most of his ecclesiastical career as Bishop of Chiclayo in Peru, was chosen to sit in St Peter’s throne as Leo XIV, a question has reverberated across the world: is the new Pope woke? Prevost’s brother has repeatedly stated that Robert is not ‘woke’, and that Leo XIV will tread an unifying path. Whatever the truth may be, it seems clear that today, the Pope scored one for the good guys. In the same speech, the pontiff rejected LGBT ideology, denounced abortion and euthanasia – that’s a great start.

USA - Why is the mainstream media in the United States being so quiet about what is happening on the Sun? The giant ball of fire that we revolve around makes life on this planet possible, and it has started to behave very erratically. This should definitely be getting a lot more attention, because the link between solar activity and seismic activity has been well established by now. Some scientists still try to dispute this, but the truth is that when the Sun becomes more active we tend to see more large earthquakes and more volcanic eruptions. And of course if a large enough solar storm erupts, it could fry our power grids and throw our entire society into a massive state of chaos.