USA - BlackRock rocked by $52 billion client exit in Q2 shock, massive outflow signals cracks in confidence around dollar assets. When a firm like BlackRock takes a hit of this size, it raises deeper questions: Who pulled the capital, and why? Was this a sovereign wealth fund reallocating for political or liquidity reasons? A pension plan de-risking into cash or private markets? Or a strategic exit tied to a shift in dollar exposure? In an environment where central banks are losing predictive control, rate policy is uncertain, and public markets are being hollowed out by private alternatives, this kind of capital flight may become more common, not because of underperformance, but because institutional players are reshuffling their exposure to duration, dollar assets, and US centric platforms. BlackRock’s size used to insulate it from idiosyncratic shocks. But in a fragmented, multipolar financial world, scale is no longer immunity, it’s concentration risk in disguise.

USA - US President Donald Trump blasted his own supporters and "stupid" Republicans Wednesday as he went on the attack against anyone questioning his administration's handling of the case of dead sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein. Trump took his most combative tone yet to try and shut down the issue, after days of struggling to brush off a conspiracy theory that his base has long embraced, but which he now claims is a Democratic hoax. Trump, 79, began on Wednesday by saying that "my PAST supporters have bought into this ‘bullshit’, hook, line and sinker", in a post on his Truth Social network, and calling them "weaklings." He later took aim at his own party. "It's all been a big hoax, it's perpetrated by the Democrats. And some stupid Republicans and foolish Republicans fall into the net and so they try and do the Democrats' work," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. Trump is facing the most serious split in his loyal right-wing base since he returned to power, over claims that his administration is covering up lurid details of disgraced financier Epstein's crimes to protect rich and powerful figures.

USA - Right-wing activist Laura Loomer warned that President Donald Trump’s handling of the investigation into Jeffrey Epstein threatens to “consume his presidency” in an interview on Wednesday, a dramatic rebuke from a presidential confidante that illustrates the growing rupture in the MAGA coalition. She likened it to the intense media interest in ties between Trump’s first White House campaign and Russia, saying “I don’t want it to consume his presidency.” “Obviously, this is not a complete hoax given the fact that Ghislaine Maxwell is currently serving 20 years in prison in Florida for her crimes and activities with Jeffrey Epstein, who we know is a convicted sexual predator,” Loomer told POLITICO. “This is why I said, and I’ll reiterate it again, the best thing that the president can do is appoint a special counsel to handle the Epstein files investigation.” The debacle over a new government review of evidence relating to Epstein, the notorious sex offender, has blown up in recent days, causing a schism within Trump’s MAGA movement over his administration’s approach to the case.

UK - Revelations about the state of Britain’s asylum and welfare system are the stuff of nightmares. Can it really get worse than discovering that more than one million non-British migrants are claiming Universal Credit at the expense of the British taxpayer? New figures show that 1.26 million non-UK citizens are currently claiming Universal Credit. That’s nearly one in six of all claimants. Worse still, 3.6 million people receiving the benefit are under no obligation to work at all. They’ve effectively been written off as economically inactive, many of them for life. Clearly Britain has become the benefits office of the world. This is not about lacking heart. It’s about having a spine. We cannot keep pretending that Britain can carry the world on its shoulders while millions here face housing shortages, NHS waiting lists, and crumbling public services. The fantasy must end.

UK - Eight healthy “three-parent” babies have been born via a “pioneering” IVF technique, British scientists have said. The world-first research reported that four girls and four boys — including one set of identical twins — were born to seven women at a high risk of transmitting mutations causing mitochondrial disease. One further woman is pregnant. Three of the children are under six months, two between six and twelve months, and two are between one and two years old. All are healthy and hitting their developmental milestones, according to the team from Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Newcastle University and Newcastle Fertility Centre. The babies would all have had a mitochondrial mutation, which could have been fatal or had a devastating impact on their quality of life.

USA - 'Crowds on Demand' CEO Adam Swart revealed in an interview this week that his company was offered a $20 million contract for an astroturfed nationwide anti-Trump demonstration scheduled for Thursday. 'Crowds on Demand' is the “largest protest company in the country,” Swart said, noting that they specialize in corporate publicity and celebrity publicity. “We’re probably best known for political advocacy group publicity, that is, creating crowds of peaceful, enthusiastic demonstrators to turn out in favor of a particular cause or in opposition to one." As The Gateway Pundit reported, leftist groups have planned over 400 protests across the nation on the anniversary of the death of Democrat activist and congressman John Lewis. Like many other recent nationwide days of protest, including the now-infamous “No Kings” day, the “Good Trouble Lives On” protests are being organized by the 50501 Movement.

USA - Mark Zuckerberg has said that Meta Platforms will spend “hundreds of billions of dollars” on building data centres to power artificial intelligence, including one with a footprint almost the size of Manhattan. Its first “multi-gigawatt” data centre, which will be called Prometheus, is set to come online next year, the billionaire technology executive wrote on Threads, his social media platform, while another, called Hyperion, would scale up to 5 gigawatts over “several years”. “We’re building multiple more titan clusters as well,” he said. “Just one of these covers a significant part of the footprint of Manhattan.” He pointed to a report from SemiAnalysis, an industry publication, that Meta was on track to be the first AI lab to bring a gigawatt-plus supercluster online. The American technology giant is “focused on building the most elite and talent-dense team in the industry”, Zuckerberg wrote.

EUROPE - The European Union is on course for a full-blown trade war with Donald Trump's America after preparing a new set of tariffs. Brussels is preparing retaliatory tariffs on US imports worth €72 billion (£63 billion), as tensions between the EU and Washington escalate. Donald Trump stunned European leaders when he threatened to impose 30% on EU imported goods from August 1. The announcement caught Brussels off guard, with officials having believed a deal was imminent. EU diplomats had previously briefed that a trade deal with a baseline reciprocal 10% levy was all but done and dusted. Brussels' trade commissioner Maros Sefcovic said the fresh threats of 30% tariffs on EU goods would “prohibit” future EU-US trade, if those levies came into force next month. However, Trump has threatened to impose even higher tariffs, if the EU dares to retaliate – as the prospect of an all-out trade war looms ever closer.

UK - There's an ugly impulse that persists in Britain which has reached a cartoonish nadir as a schoolgirl was placed in isolation for doing absolutely nothing wrong. It's the same impulse that middle-class do-gooders who think themselves oh-so virtuous feel when they see a St George's cross flying from an English pub, a feeling that retreats into non-existence when they see the Palestinian flag flown in East London. Courtney Wright, 12, was placed in isolation for wearing a Spice Girls-style Union Jack dress and matching hat to Bilton School in Rugby which invited its youngsters to celebrate heritage at its culture day last week. Courtney being a child untainted by the cynical racism of various fifth columnists who live in the UK took this invitation at face-value, dressed accordingly and gave a speech on British culture. She obviously didn't get the memo, which wasn't written down and the existence of which would probably be denied. But that memo translates to: "Do not celebrate anything British - 'causes racism'."

UK - Just wow. There are bad decisions - and then there is this. Like so many others, I read the story this morning about Courtney Wright, the schoolgirl put into isolation for wearing a Union Jack dress to school on a day that was meant to celebrate different cultures, open-mouthed and utterly aghast. Yes, people make mistakes. But this? It is such a bizarre failure of judgement, it absolutely beggars belief. How in anyone’s calculations can a British girl, going to a British school, dressed in a British flag to celebrate cultures be wrong? I tell you something… I have a girl who is the same age as Courtney and if she had been given the same brief, I’m certain she would have chosen an almost identical get-up. And should there have been any inkling of pushback? I’d have been as appalled as her father, Stuart Field, 47 who rightly said: “She should not be made to feel ashamed about being British - and she certainly shouldn’t be punished for it.”