USA - President Biden told the United States that “the best way to unite the nation” was “to pass the torch to a new generation” in an Oval Office address that gave no further explanation for his decision not to seek a second term. Biden, speaking in hoarse monotone, said he believed his record, leadership and vision for the country “all merited a second term” but that he would not let his personal ambition stand in the way of “saving our democracy”. The 81-year-old president was making his first public statement since announcing on Sunday that he was ending his re-election campaign, the latest that a sitting president has done so. It followed intense pressure from his own party to make way after a dismal television debate performance four weeks ago raised concerns about his mental acuity and led to Donald Trump pulling further ahead in opinion polls.

CHINA - China has been vying for control over [the South China Sea] the large body of water for decades and repeatedly clashed with its neighbours to assert its sovereignty. Xi Jinping's government announced it had struck an agreement with Manila to end the naval and verbal clashes that have rocked their relationship for the past year. Experts, however, have warned the truce could be short-lived as another area of the disputed body of water has been tipped to become a major flashpoint in the ongoing maritime row. The disputed Sabina Shoal has emerged as a potential next target in China's hostile attempts to assert its power over the South China Sea.

MIDDLE EAST - Palestinian rivals including Hamas and Fatah agreed to form a unity government at talks hosted by China, Beijing said on Tuesday, a deal meant to deliver a post-war Gaza administration but was quickly rejected by Israel as it seeks to crush Hamas. Analysts said the agreement would prove hard to implement, with complications including the deep enmity between Palestinian factions and Western opposition to Hamas having any role in governance. No timetable was declared for implementation.

UK - Shoplifting has reached its highest level since records began as thieves operate “without fear of apprehension”. The number of shoplifting offences recorded by police in England and Wales is up 30 per cent compared with last year, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) reported. The organisation also reported a 40 per cent rise in “thefts from the person”, such as snatch thefts and pick-pocketing. A government report this week claimed that Britain was growing increasingly tolerant of fraud and theft. The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) document said that Britain’s “growing propensity to commit fraud” — fuelled by a society increasingly tolerant of dishonesty — is making it harder to control the cost of claimants ripping off the benefits system.

UK - The Treasury has placed no new orders for coins this year for the first time as it was revealed that more than a third of UK adults are living largely cashless lives. Ministers have decided not to ask the Royal Mint for any new coins, believing there are enough in circulation already, as the number of payments made by cash continued to fall. The Treasury decision will accelerate fears that the use of cash is dying out, amid warnings that lower-income households were more likely to be reliant on physical currency. A Treasury spokesman said it is not expected to order any new 1p or 2p coins in the coming years, as there are around 27 billion coins in circulation. It was reported that officials were considering scrapping the copper coins altogether, as part of a package of suggestions being prepared for ministers.

USA - Binyamin Netanyahu has launched an attack on people protesting against the war in Gaza, calling them Iran’s “useful idiots” during an address to the US Congress. In his first visit to Washington since the attack on October 7 last year, when Hamas terrorists killed more than 1,200 people, the Israeli prime minister called for the United States to “stand together” with his nation and speed up military aid. Thousands of demonstrators marched towards the Capitol to protest against his visit, with some carrying signs branding Netanyahu a war criminal.

UK - There needs to be a rapid increase in the number of solar farms and wind turbines if Britain is to achieve its net zero goals. Britain is likely to miss a lofty new government target to fully decarbonise the electricity system by the end of the decade because the country is not on track to build enough new wind and solar farms, energy experts have warned.

UK - It was February when the lorries arrived, crawling in convoy under police escort from the port of Bristol. Their cargo: three wind turbine blades, each 60 metres long; four sections of steel tower, weighing 80 tonnes apiece; and the generator, which, hoisted 92 metres above the ground, would transform the air whistling down the Bristol Channel into 4.2 megawatts of electricity, enough to power 3,000 homes. “They turned up exactly on the day we had booked them for, a year in advance,” said Charles Gamble, managing director of Community Power Solutions in Bristol, which spearheaded the project. “It came from Enercon, a company in Germany. They put the tower up in a day, the generator and its housing the next day, and the blades on the next day.” They may go up quickly, but that single turbine, owned by the community of Lawrence Weston in north Bristol, was the only one erected anywhere in England in the whole of 2023.

USA - The failed coverup of Biden's patently dire condition discredits everyone close to the White House – including his Vice President. And it's still ongoing. Biden should resign immediately. Every day he stays in office, Kamala and her West Wing co-conspirators are still complicit. Who do they think they're fooling? By dropping out of the 2024 race, Biden has finally admitted that his age and his apparent decline prohibit him from fulfilling the job of president one day longer. He wasn't even able to face the cameras to declare his withdrawal on Sunday, instead sending in his notice via a letter posted in a Tweet. Even aged 96, Queen Elizabeth II showed up to greet a new British prime minister two days before she died. 81-year-old Joe can't match that – and the guard has now changed without him showing face. How utterly humiliating.

USA - Working- and middle-class Americans are competing for jobs against more than 30 million migrants, including legal immigrants, visa workers, and illegal aliens, the Pew Research Center revealed. The latest from the Pew Research Center shows that as of 2022, more than 30 million legal immigrants and illegal aliens were in the United States and holding American jobs — a 20-percent increase over the last 15 years. More specifically, the number of legal immigrants alone who were holding American jobs as of 2022 increased by almost 30 percent since 2007. Meanwhile, during the same 15-year period, the number of native-born Americans who have been added to the United States workforce has increased by less than 10 percent.

USA - Americans continue to express complex views about human origins, with a majority believing God played at least some role but also a majority believing humans evolved from less advanced forms of life. Though diminished from the early 2000s, the largest segment of Americans, 37%, are creationist purists, saying God created humans in their present form within the past 10,000 years. Twenty-four percent of US adults accept the scientific theory of evolution, that humans evolved from less advanced forms of life over millions of years without God’s involvement. One in three, 34%, straddle both theories, saying humans evolved, but with God’s guidance.

YEMEN - Leaders of the Iran-backed Yemeni terrorist group Ansarullah, commonly known as the Houthis, threatened unnamed Arab states on Tuesday with an “answer” to their alleged cooperation with neighboring Israel, part of a larger statement of belligerence promising “unprecedented” attacks on Israel. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) struck Houthi strongholds in Yemen for the first time this weekend in response to the terrorists bombing a residential community in Tel Aviv, a significant escalation in the conflict between the country and the terrorists.

CANADA - Out-of-control wildfires near the Canadian town of Jasper have forced more than 25,000 to flee one of the country’s largest national parks as multiple blazes and thick smoke descended on the Rocky Mountain community. Officials in the province of Alberta ordered residents of the Jasper townsite to leave immediately on Monday night, and soon after they called for the park, more than 4,200 sq miles (10,900 sq km) in size, to be fully cleared out. The town is home to 5,000 full-time residents, alongside 5,000 seasonal workers. The park also had roughly 15,000 visitors at the time. Heavy smoke and fire cut off key escape routes, forcing evacuees towards neighbouring British Columbia. There are currently 170 fires in Alberta and 316 in British Columbia.

CHAGOS ISLANDS - Located in a remote region of the Indian Ocean, the largest of the Chagos Islands, Diego Garcia, is home to a strategically important UK military base which has been leased to the United States. Britain’s centuries-old sovereignty of the Falkland Islands and Gibraltar will be undermined if new Foreign Secretary David Lammy turns his back on a remote archipelago in the Indian Ocean, ex-minister Sir Robert Buckland has claimed. The Chagos Islands, officially known as the British Indian Ocean Territory or BIOT, consists of a group of seven atolls comprising about 60 islands, located roughly 300 miles from the Maldives.

UK - Keir Starmer paid his own tribute to Joe Biden after the president announced he would not be contesting November’s election after all. “I respect President Biden’s decision and I look forward to us working together during the remainder of his presidency,” the prime minister wrote on X. “I know that, as he has done throughout his remarkable career, he will have made his decision based on what he believes is best for the American people.” Starmer and the president held one-to-one talks at the White House following the Nato summit in Washington, after which Starmer described Biden as having been “on good form” – a diplomatic white lie that is entirely forgivable in the circumstances. Still, as Starmer watches the enfolding political drama from across the Atlantic, he will be seriously contemplating how his government would deal with a Trump administration from next January.