USA - The city of Los Angeles is being sued for its wild and unsupported claim that believing the Bible is a mental illness. Its anti-Christian ideology was revealed in a recent dispute with a city employee who as a Christian objected to the LGBT promotions in his department during June, and asked for permission to work remotely during that time period so as to avoid giving the appearance that he endorsed that agenda. The fight is being handled by Liberty Counsel, which already has filed a legal action against the city. “Instead of working remotely, officials suggested he simply use the ‘back door’ or seek ‘mental health counseling’ if the ‘Pride’ flag caused him distress,” the legal team explained. “[Eric] Batman received the suggestion that his religious beliefs about human sexuality ‘may need counseling’ as overtly hostile toward his religion,” the legal team said. The legal team pointed out that being allowed to work remotely is exactly the accommodation the city already allows for Muslims when they object to something in their workplace offending their beliefs.

UK - After a late-night debate in the House of Lords, a dark decision was reached that will affect generations to come, and deliver the United Kingdom into the arms of the ‘culture of death’ once and for all. In a shameful turn of events, the peers voted to allow abortion up to birth. This barbaric practice will now become lawful, in yet another sign of the decadence of Britain, and of the Western World in general. The amendment included a clause to change the law to decriminalize abortions for any reason, including if women did not want to have a child of a certain sex – and at any point up to and during birth.”

UK - The culture of death is taking hold of the United Kingdom. A mere two days after the UK House of Commons voted to decriminalize late-term abortion ‘up to birth’, the Labour party of failing Prime Minister Keir Starmer has approved a bill legalizing assisted suicide. Starmer was glad to vote for the bill, and – as proof of just how committed the UK has become to the culture of death – a good deal of Tories (including failed Globalist, former PM Rishi Sunak) and even Reform UK MPs also backed the bill. The ‘Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill’ was approved in the House of Commons by 314 votes with 291 against, a majority of 23 (down from a majority of 55 in the last reading of the bill). The Bill now goes to the House of Lords for further scrutiny, and if approved in the upper house it will ‘pave the way for assisted dying services to be introduced by the end of the decade’.

USA - President Trump just sent out a major warning to Iran over their South Pars gas field, threatening to blow it to kingdom come if Iran attacks Qatar’s LNG gas facility again. In short, Israel blew up a small portion of the South Pars gas field and Iran attacked Qatar’s LNG facility in response. Trump condemns the attack by Iran, says Israel won’t attack the gas field again, but tells Iran he’ll destroy it himself if Iran attacks Qatar’s LNG facility again.

MIDDLE EAST - The Gulf states’ ability to preserve stability, maintain strategic flexibility, and avoid being drawn into an escalation will shape the region for years to come. The ongoing war with Iran has placed the Gulf states squarely at the center of a confrontation they never sought. From Saudi Arabia to the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Oman, Bahrain, and Kuwait, these countries find themselves facing the consequences of a conflict that was started by others, yet whose reverberations have engulfed their territories and economies. For years, they have sought to avoid entanglement in Iran’s regional ambitions. Today, however, the war has forced them to confront the harsh reality of their vulnerabilities.

MIDDLE EAST - Iran’s attacks against the Gulf states are increasingly generating unity among them, as they tiptoe toward possible action against Tehran. Iran has launched thousands of drones and missiles at the Gulf states. In addition, it has sought to escalate incrementally against them over the course of the three-week war. After an Israeli strike on an Iranian gas field, for example, Iran attacked Qatar’s Ras Laffan industrial facility. The Gulf states are now seeking unity in talks about their next steps. Riyadh’s restraint could end, Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan said Thursday. “The Kingdom and its partners possess significant capabilities, and the patience we have shown is not unlimited,” Saudi Arabia-based newspaper Arab News quoted him as saying. “It could be a day, two days, or a week – I will not say.”

UK - Bond yields spiked, oil and gas prices rallied and the FTSE 100 sank to its lowest level since the start of the year as reciprocal military strikes on energy ­interests across the Middle East raised the prospect of a “doomsday scenario” for global energy markets. Heightened anxiety over the possibility that a protracted energy shock could stoke inflation led central banks in Britain, the United States, Canada, Europe and Japan to put interest rate-cutting cycles on hold. The Bank of England’s monetary policy committee voted 9-0 in favour of keeping the borrowing rate at 3.75 per cent, the first time it had acted unanimously since 2021, and warned that “energy supply would take time to ­recover even if the conflict abated”. Andrew Bailey, the Bank’s governor, said: “None of us know how this is going to play out.” He later told LBC “the longer it goes on… the effect will be larger”, adding that reopening the Strait of Hormuz shipping route was “the best thing to do to get the energy market back on its normal footing”.

USA - Prior to the war with Iran, the world had more than enough oil and gas, and as a result it was very inexpensive. Now we have transitioned into a time when that is no longer true at all. Both sides in this war are now specifically targeting oil and gas infrastructure, and that is going to have devastating consequences. Even if the war ended tomorrow and the Strait of Hormuz was immediately reopened, there is no way that conditions would return to how they were just before the war any time soon.

SAUDI ARABIA - If Saudi Arabia joins the US-Israeli war on Iran, it will activate its mutual defence pact with Pakistan and potentially lean on the South Asian country’s nuclear arsenal, a Saudi Arabian analyst told Canada’s CBC News. “If the Saudis were to decide to enter with complete force… Iran is going to be the biggest loser because Saudi Arabia will activate its bilateral defence agreement with Pakistan,” Salman al-Ansari, a Saudi Arabian geopolitical researcher, said in an interview. In addition to its diplomatic and defence ties with Saudi Arabia, Pakistan is reliant on the Gulf for crude oil and natural gas.

USA - The US and its allies have intensified the battle to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, sending low-flying attack jets over the sea lanes to blast Iranian naval vessels and Apache helicopters to shoot down Iran’s deadly drones, American military officials said. The stepped-up operation is part of a multistage Pentagon plan to reduce the danger from Iranian armed boats, mines and cruise missiles, which have halted ship traffic through the waterway since early March. If the danger can be reduced, the US could send US warships through the strait and eventually escort vessels in and out of the Persian Gulf.

USA - Donald Trump’s one-time pick to lead the Bureau of Labor Statistics has said the US economy is too weak to handle oil at $100 per barrel as he warned of rising consumer prices triggered by the war in Iran. “I don’t think this is an economy that is going to be able to handle $100 a barrel for oil, it’s just not,” EJ Antoni told the FT. “The economy is weaker than we thought it was, and inflation is worse than we thought it was,” he added in a call on Wednesday, shortly before the Federal Reserve’s March rate-setting meeting. “The lower energy prices that we saw in 2025 helped put downward pressure on prices throughout the economy. Now. . . we’re going to see higher energy prices have exactly the opposite effect and put upward pressure on prices throughout the economy.”

IRAN - Eskandar Pasalar, an Iranian regional governor, proclaimed: 'The pendulum of war has swung to a full-scale economic war.' European gas prices jumped by over 30 per cent as Donald Trump this morning threatened to 'massively blow up' a huge gas field in the Middle East amid fears of $200-a-barrel oil and years-long economic impact. It came after Tehran last night threatened to cripple the global energy market in a 'full-scale economic war' by ramping up missile attacks on oil and gas plants. In a major escalation of the Middle East crisis, facilities in neighbouring Gulf countries were evacuated as the regime threatened to pummel them with strikes in 'the coming hours'.

UK - It’s time for a brutal dose of reality. We are already at war on multiple fronts, and yet Britain is extraordinarily vulnerable, our defences against drone swarms, AI-powered missiles, space warfare and energy blockades woefully inadequate, our military hollowed out, our key financial assets and infrastructure absurdly under-protected. How would we function if GPS systems were rendered inoperable? What would happen were the National Grid to come under attack, or were undersea cables to be severed? How resilient are our food and petrol supplies, our sources of light and heat? I’m not seeking to catastrophise, merely to highlight our pathologies to provoke an urgent debate.

UK - Blackouts. Economic paralysis. Empty supermarket shelves. Petrol and diesel rationing. Riots. As oil prices soar to unprecedented highs, Britain is on the brink of the worst energy crisis in our history. The International Energy Agency has already described it as the worst-ever crisis to hit the world oil market. And experts across the political spectrum are warning this is just the beginning.

OMAN - Donald Trump’s war with Iran was “a grave miscalculation” which has put the Gulf economies in harm’s way, the diplomat who mediated the recent US-Iran talks between the two countries said. Writing in The Economist on Wednesday, Oman’s foreign affairs minister Badr Albusaidi said: “This is not America’s war, and there is no likely scenario in which both Israel and America will get what they want from it.” Oman hosted the US-Iran talks in the weeks leading up to the start of the war, with Mr Albusaidi acting as a go-between for the two delegations, which included Mr Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and his special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, both of whom have no prior experience in diplomacy.