UK - Rachel Reeves has utterly lost control of public spending and is putting the economy in peril. She would never “play fast and loose” with the public finances. She would bring back “stability” and allow businesses to plan for the long term. Her formidable experience as an economist meant she would keep an iron grip on spending. The Chancellor Rachel Reeves spent a lot of time boasting about how she would keep the books in order. And yet today’s horrific public borrowing figures make one point perfectly clear. She has completely lost control of public spending – and the British economy will be heading for a crash far sooner than anyone realises.

UK - Protests over the weekend have proven that sections of the Left are incapable of grasping basic reality. Last week we finally saw some evidence of sanity returning to the world when the UK Supreme Court ruled on the legal definition of "woman". “The unanimous decision of this court is that the definition of the terms woman and sex in the Equality Act 2010 refer to a biological woman and biological sex” declared Lord Hodge.

VATICAN - Most of the Roman Catholic cardinals who will choose the new pope are gay, despite the church’s doctrine that homosexuality is sinful, a Belgian expert has said. Rik Torfs, a professor of canon law at the Catholic University in Leuven, has started debate with his claims, made on a popular Belgian news analysis programme after Pope Francis’s death was announced on Monday. “A paradoxical situation remains,” Torfs said about Francis’s legacy. “On the one hand, homosexual relations are considered sinful but on the other, a significant percentage — probably the majority — of cardinals are homosexual.”

ISRAEL - ‘Release hostages now’ — Palestinian leader’s firmest threat to Hamas yet. The Palestinian Authority (PA) president Mahmoud Abbas called on Hamas to “hand over the hostages and be done with it” in his strongest speech yet against the militant group in Gaza. “Hamas has given the criminal occupation excuses to commit its crimes in the Gaza Strip, the most prominent being the holding of hostages,” Abbas said in a televised speech from Ramallah, the de-facto capital of the Palestinian territories partially controlled by his PA. “You sons of dogs, hand over what you have and relieve us of this,” he said to the Palestinian Central Council, as he called on the group to hand over control to his party, whose Fatah movement has been largely outlawed from the territory since Hamas took over in 2007.

USA - California's economy has overtaken that of the country of Japan, making the US state the fourth largest global economic force. Governor Gavin Newsom touted new data from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the US Bureau of Economic Analysis showing California's growth. The data shows California's gross domestic product (GDP) hit $4.10 trillion (£3.08 trillion) in 2024, surpassing Japan, which was marked at $4.01 trillion. The state now only trails Germany, China and the US as a whole.

UK - The self-indulgent, self-aggrandising stupidity of our political class and those responsible for our hopelessly inadequate and hideously expensive public services continues to plumb new depths. Not for the first time, I don’t know where to start. This is no longer a serious country. We’re on the brink of World War III; the economy is so far down the gurgler that only an accomplished bog-snorkeller could detect signs of life; the NHS is a basket case; our capital city is a gridlocked, crime-ridden hell-hole; immigration - both legal and illegal – is wildly out of control; and yet those responsible can only indulge in an orgy of onanistic displacement activity.

SWITZERLAND - After over five decades of defining the World Economic Forum’s mission and global influence, Klaus Schwab has officially stepped down as Chairman of the Board of Trustees, citing his age as he enters his 88th year. Schwab, who founded the Forum in 1971, leaves behind a legacy of fostering multistakeholder collaboration at the highest levels of global leadership. The World Economic Forum’s annual gathering of business and political leaders in the Swiss mountain resort of Davos has become a symbol of globalisation.

SWITZERLAND - Austrian businessman Peter Brabeck-Letmathe has been named interim chairman of the World Economic Forum, replacing Klaus Schwab, who is under investigation for allegations of financial and ethical misconduct. Brabeck-Letmathe, 80, is known for leadership in the global food and business sectors, spending his career at Nestlé. While there he was interviewed for a 2005 documentary, “We Feed the World,” and his comments about water use provoked considerable controversy.

ITALY - Italy's ring of steel for Pope Francis funeral: NATO jets, snipers, missile launchers and 8,000 cops readied for huge security operation as global elite including Trump and Prince William head to the Vatican. As thousands of mourners flood St Peter's Square following the death of Pope Francis, Italian authorities are quietly executing one of the most complex and secretive security operations in Vatican history. With as many as 170 foreign delegations - including those of Donald Trump and Prince William – expected to descend on the Vatican for Saturday's funeral, along with crowds of up to 200,000 people, those overseeing the event are preparing for a hyper-vigilant few days.

INDIA - There are certainties in life: death, taxes, and the ever-present risk of India and Pakistan going to war — and the latest spark could prove to be Tuesday's jihadi Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist attack that left at least 26 non-Muslims dead on the Indian side of the long-disputed Kashmir region. Visegrád 24 reported today that New Delhi announced "strong measures against Pakistan," including cancelling South Asia-regional SAARC visas for Pakistani visitors, closing the Wagah border crossing, and suspending the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) governing the allocation of water from the region's major rivers.

USA - Global economic leaders are gathering in Washington this week for the spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. They are arriving in a United States that is vastly different from the one they visited during the same forum last fall. Recent debates over industrial policy and whether the world economy could achieve a soft landing have been replaced by anxiety over President Trump’s trade war, revived inflation fears and new worries about the prospect of a global recession.

USA - Columbus, Ohio has been identified as the jumping off point for Somalis residing in the United States, including Somali Americans, to become radicalized and then head overseas to wage jihad. There isn’t a state without Mosques and Muslim communities, many controlled by Hamas-tied CAIR, and many are radicalized. Some are likely pushing Sharia and could be lying about it. The Islamic Center, one of 20 in Columbus, Ohio, is hardline and tied to six terrorist attacks. If we don’t do something about chain immigration and illegal immigration, it will be over for the United States. We must also ban Sharia throughout the nation. Hardline imams should be barred from entering and deported if they make it into the country.

UK - Experiments to dim the SUN in bid to curb global warming will be approved by the UK government within weeks. There's nothing quite like going for a walk on a bright, spring day. But basking in the sunshine could soon be a thing of the past. That's because it has emerged that experts are planning on dimming the sun in a bid to curb global warming. Experiments to reflect sunlight away from Earth will be given the green light by the Government within weeks, the Telegraph reports. Outdoor trials could include injecting aerosols into the atmosphere or brightening clouds to reflect sunshine.

USA - Elite universities have long been hot houses of leftist ideology and, more recently, pro-Palestinian protests that are intimidating Jewish students. US President Donald Trump is now taking them on and has withdrawn state funding from Harvard and other top American institutions in a campaign that we should ape in the UK. Furious at the failure to dismantle the aggressively pro-Palestinian encampments that have become a feature of campuses across the country – and the endemic Left-wing bias of further education in his country – Trump has withheld some $11 billion of state funding from at least seven top colleges. Some have accepted the criticism and withdrawn their Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programmes, but Harvard University, threatened with losing $2 billion in funding is fighting back by suing the White House for interfering in their academic independence. If any British politicians had the courage to take on the academic establishment, they too would find institutions long captured by woke, leftist activists.

VATICAN - Pope Francis did not fear death, but instead welcomed the 'new beginning' of eternal life with God, he revealed in an essay written just two months ago. Francis had reflected on death on February 7 this year as he penned a preface for Cardinal Angelo Scola's new book, titled 'Awaiting a New Beginning. Reflections on Old Age'. 'Death is not the end of everything, but the beginning of something,' the pontiff wrote in the preface, which was released by the Vatican today. The Pope wrote that 'we must not be afraid of old age' and 'must not fear embracing becoming old', but instead strive to live life on earth with 'grace and not with resentment'. 'It is a new beginning,' Francis said of death. 'Because eternal life, which those who love already begin to experience on earth within the daily tasks of life - is beginning something that will never end. And it is precisely for this reason that it is a "new" beginning, because we will live something we have never fully lived before: eternity.'