USA - Elon Musk’s bromance with President Donald Trump has taken a hit after the tech billionaire blasted the White House for ‘undermining’ him and treating DOGE like ‘whipping boys.’ The billionaire Tesla CEO spoke to the press before launching a SpaceX Starship into the stratosphere on Tuesday night and unleashed on Trump’s $3.8 trillion spending bill. ‘It undermines the work that the DOGE team is doing,’ Musk bluntly told CBS. ‘I was disappointed to see the massive spending bill, frankly, which increases the budget deficit, not just decreases it.’

UK - If you wanted a reason to be pessimistic about the future of Western democracies – besides the low birth rates, internal strife and rising competing powers – you could do a lot worse than look at two fiscal rows, one in Westminster and one in Washington. Between them, a hidden failure mode in democracy has been put on full display. In Britain, Sir Keir Starmer is on the ropes after being forced into an about-turn on cuts to winter fuel payments, with Left-wing MPs demanding an end to the child benefit cap while opposing cuts to disability benefits. Meanwhile, the IMF is bluntly stating that Britain has no more room to borrow within its fiscal rules, squeezing the PM and Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, from the other direction.

ITALY - A powerful series of earthquakes at Campi Flegrei, a massive supervolcano in Italy has raised fresh concerns among scientists about the risk of a major eruption. In May, the Phlegraean Fields near Naples was shaken by a magnitude 4.4 earthquake, the strongest in 40 years. Over the past six months, scientists have recorded more than 3,000 smaller quakes, known as tremors, a figure far above normal seismic activity for the area. Experts say eruptions are usually preceded with the increase in earthquake activity, as underground pressure builds up. Campi Flegrei poses a serious threat to over four million people living in the metropolitan area of Naples.

UK - Britain will run out of drinking water by the mid-2030s if new reservoirs are not built, the water minister has warned, as the government seized control of new projects from local councils. Emma Hardy told Times Radio that the country was facing an “infrastructure crisis because we haven’t built the reservoirs we need”. She added: “In fact, we built no reservoirs for the past 30 years.” Ministers have taken over two reservoir projects in East Anglia and Lincolnshire by deeming them “nationally significant” and speeding them through the planning process. It will also take over future projects.

GERMANY - The shift in tone is significant in a country whose leadership follows a policy of special responsibility for Israel due to its history. Germany's foreign minister threatened unspecified measures against Israel on Tuesday and said Berlin would not export weapons used to break humanitarian law, as he and Chancellor Friedrich Merz delivered their most severe rebuke yet over Gaza. Germany, along with the United States, had long remained in support of Israel's conduct since the October 7, 2023 attacks by Hamas, even as Israel became increasingly isolated internationally. Its about-turn comes as the European Union is reviewing its Israel policy and Britain, France and Canada also threatened "concrete actions" over Gaza.

ISRAEL - Coverage of the mass famine in Gaza has been used by media outlets to demonize Israel, overlooking Hamas's responsibility. It doesn’t take much to stir up hatred for Israel. Just splash a bunch of photos depicting starving children with protruding bones, gasping in desperation, and the job is done. And that is exactly what many biased media outlets have done. Provided with the visual ammunition, they have wasted no time disseminating the most horrifying images that have helped to vilify and demonize Israel as a heartless, sadistic, and immoral country, deserving of no sympathy for its own sufferings of October 7.

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.