UK - Emmanuel Macron last night pledged that France will finally adopt a 'firm' approach to the small boats crisis – but warned that Britain must act to make it harder for migrants to build a new life here. The president and first lady Brigitte Macron were welcomed by the Prince and Princess of Wales as he arrived in the UK yesterday for a three-day state visit. In a wide-ranging speech, Mr Macron, under pressure over record small boats numbers this year, said a summit with Sir Keir Starmer this week would produce 'tangible results' aimed at reducing the flow of illegal arrivals across the Channel. But he said the UK also had to address the 'pull factors' that mean a third of all illegal migrants entering the EU are heading for the Channel. France has long complained that the UK makes it too easy for illegal migrants to work and claim benefits in this country, with one of Mr Macron's MPs recently saying Britain has become an 'El Dorado for migrants'.

UK - A record high of almost three in 10 conceptions in England and Wales ended in a legal abortion in 2022, official figures show. The percentage was 29.7% - up from 26.5% a year earlier and 20.8% in 2012, according to the Office For National Statistics (ONS). The figure has generally been increasing for all age groups since 2015, the ONS added. Figures published last year by the government showed the number of abortions in 2022 for women in England and Wales was at a record 251,377. Girls aged under 16 remained the age group with the highest percentage of conceptions leading to abortion, at 61%.

VATICAN - Zelensky and Leo held talks in Castel Gandolfo, a small Italian hill town near Rome, where the pope is taking a two-week vacation. Pope Leo XIV told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday that the Vatican was willing to host Russia-Ukraine peace talks. The pope, meeting the Ukrainian leader for the second time in his two-month-old papacy, also discussed "the urgent need for a just and lasting peace," the Vatican said in a statement. Russian officials have told Reuters in the past that they did not see the Vatican as a serious venue for talks because it is surrounded by NATO member Italy, which has supported Ukraine. Leo, who has made appealing for peace in world conflicts a major theme of his young papacy, previously met Zelensky at the Vatican on May 18. The pope also held a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin on June 4, during which the Vatican said Leo had asked Putin to take concrete steps to end Russia's three-year war on Ukraine.

MIDDLE EAST - Yemen-based terror group use drones to film raid on a vessel bound for Israel in the Red Sea. Houthi terrorists have released a Hollywood-style video showing them capturing and then sinking a large cargo ship in the Red Sea. The high-quality drone footage shows the 200-metre vessel being hit by a large explosion, as well as uniformed gunmen running towards the bridge in the style of a commando raid. Having seized control of the bulk carrier, the gunmen simultaneously detonated multiple charges around the ship’s hull, causing it to sink. The attacks, which demonstrate advanced planning, mark significant escalation of terrorist acts against commercial ships in the Red Sea, following a lull since December last year.

UK - For a country already drowning in debt, it is surely now official – we can’t afford it. It would lower energy costs. It would create hundreds of thousands of “well-paid green jobs”. And it would turn Britain into a global leader in a series of major new industries. For more than a decade, we have been lectured that creating a net zero economy would pay for itself many times over. But hold on. Yesterday, the Office for Budget Responsibility admitted that it would cost £800 billion over the next two decades. Seriously? The blunt truth is this. For a country already drowning in debt, which can’t even save £5 billion a year in welfare reforms, and where taxes have already been pushed to the maximum limits, that is an impossible sum of money. It is surely now official – we can’t afford it. That does not mean we have to abandon the objective of reducing our carbon emissions or combatting climate change. It does, however, mean that we have to scrap the current plan. We have been living in a fantasy world where net zero will pay for itself. The OBR has exposed that as a myth, and a very dangerous one. And one point is surely clear. We should re-work the entire plan before it bankrupts the country.

USA - Forecasters have sounded the alarm for severe storms poised to unleash damaging winds and flash flooding across the Bay, with conditions expected to deteriorate after 7pm and creep towards Delmarva. The risk of tornadoes looms large, especially westward along the I-95 corridor, as volatility in weather patterns escalates. Torrential downpours are forecast, triggering urgent alerts from meteorologists for possible flash floods in low-lying and poor drainage zones. They further instruct: "TAKE COVER NOW! Move to a basement or an interior room on the lowest floor of a sturdy building. Avoid windows. If you are outdoors, in a mobile home, or in a vehicle, move to the closest substantial shelter and protect yourself from flying debris."

UK - Britain will be unrecognisable by the end of this century. Unless things change, and change fast, the population of the UK will be permanently transformed by mass immigration. White Britons will become a minority by the year 2063. The foreign-born and their immediate descendants will become a majority by 2079. And nearly one in four people in the UK will be following Islam by the year 2100; this figure would rise to around one in three among under-40s. Many people struggle to make sense of the pace and scale of these changes. They ask how a nation can be transformed this fast without the consent of the governed. But, last week, brand new data from the Office for National Statistics has made it abundantly clear that these trends are already well underway.

DENMARK - Denmark has officially launched its unprecedented military conscription program for women, marking a radical shift in the Nordic nation’s defense policy. As of July 1, all 18-year-old Danish women must register for potential mandatory military service, putting them on equal footing with men in what the government calls "full equality in military service." The new law extends compulsory service from four to eleven months, effectively transforming Denmark into one of only a handful of nations to draft women into combat roles. This controversial policy arrives amid heightened NATO militarization, fueled by escalating tensions with Russia following the Ukraine conflict. The feminist dilemma: Equality means equal obligation. For decades, feminists demanded equality in the workplace, politics, and even combat roles. Denmark’s draft delivers exactly that: equal obligation under threat of punishment. If equality now means mandatory military enrolment, then today’s "progress" is merely yesterday’s tyranny repackaged.

USA - It’s Gov’t Gone Wild! That includes The House, Senate, President and Federal Reserve. The purchasing power of the US Dollar was $1004.4 on 1915-03-01. By 2025-05-01, the purchasing power fell to $31.1, a loss of 97%. Public debt since the last year of GW Bush, Obama/Biden (with a brief hiatus with Trump) rose 317% since January 2009. M2 Money printing grew 210% since January 2009.

USA - The US Navy’s carrier fleet is stretched thinner than it looks on paper. Out of 11 nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, only 4 are currently operational. The rest are either docked for repairs, undergoing refueling, or stuck in overhaul cycles that can drag on for years. That’s not a rumor. That’s the July 2025 status confirmed by fleet trackers and Navy dispatches. These ships don’t bounce back quickly. A full overhaul can take 18 to 36 months depending on the condition and backlog. The Navy’s own reports show that half the fleet is unavailable at any given time due to the sheer complexity of keeping these 100,000-ton platforms combat-ready.