USA - Gone are the animal spirits rampaging to Make America Great Again. In comes that new bugaboo, “uncertainty”, the lethal scourge of those spirits. “Economic prosperity is excessively dependent on a political and social atmosphere which is congenial to the average businessman,” wrote John Maynard Keynes not quite 90 years ago, while explaining the importance of “animal spirits” to economic growth and rapid innovation. No such atmosphere exists in America today. Instead, the uncongenial beast “uncertainty” has been let loose by a president who might be the only person other than his acolytes who basks in the comfort of certainty. The uncertainty afflicting Americans is not the sort with which investors are expected to cope to earn the profits they seek, or consumers accept as a fact of life when they sign a six-year lease on a new car or a 30-year mortgage on a new home. It is the numbing uncertainty that makes a family hesitate to buy a house.

USA - Donald Trump’s administration has hit out at Germany after the US ally designated the far-Right Alternative for Germany party as an extremist group. JD Vance, the US vice-president, was joined by Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, in condemning the move by Germany’s domestic intelligence service, which gives authorities greater leeway to monitor the group. On Friday, Mr Vance wrote on X: “The West tore down the Berlin Wall together. And it has been rebuilt – not by the Soviets or the Russians, but by the German establishment.” He described the Alternative for Germany party (AfD), which has aligned with the current US administration on key issues including immigration, as “the most popular party in Germany”. Mr Rubio, who is Mr Trump’s national security adviser, wrote on X: “Germany just gave its spy agency new powers to surveil the opposition. That’s not democracy – it’s tyranny in disguise. Germany should reverse course.” He added: “What is truly extremist is not the popular AfD, which took second in the recent election, but rather the establishment’s deadly open border immigration policies that the AfD opposes.”

VATICAN - This will be the first clickbait conclave in history and everyone has a stake in it, not just Catholics. Opponents of the Catholic Church arguably have an even greater stake in this antiquated method for choosing the next pope. Even if you find the Catholic Faith absurd, or loathe everything about the Church, if the person leading 1.4 billion people around the world and at the head of perhaps the most powerful non-secular institution in the last 2,000 years, is at least more to your tastes, then that can help offset the more troubling aspects of Catholicism (its ideas on marriage, contraception, homosexuality, the endless guilt, etc).

MIDDLE EAST - Despite concerted American efforts, the Iran-backed Yemeni group continues to launch missile attacks against Israel and merchant shipping in the Red Sea. For the sailors moving the aircraft around on the hangar deck of USS Harry S Truman last week, the ship’s sudden manoeuvres came as a rude surprise. But what happened next served as a salutary reminder of the costs of the western way of war when confronting an elusive enemy.

ISRAEL - A missile fired from Yemen landed near the main terminal of Israel's Ben Gurion airport on Sunday morning, Israeli authorities said. Unverified footage posted online appeared to show drivers on a road nearby pulled over to take cover as a projectile lands, creating a plume of black smoke near the airport, which is on the outskirts of Tel Aviv. Four people were injured due to the blast, with another two injured on their way to a shelter, Israeli media reported, citing emergency services. Israel's defence minister, Israel Katz, said in a statement: "Anyone who hits us, we will hit them seven times stronger". The Houthis, an Iran-backed rebel group based in Yemen, have regularly launched missile attacks at Israel in solidarity with Hamas in Gaza, but it is rare for one to make it through Israel's air defences.

UK - Bananas that don’t go brown, strawberries that last for weeks, tomatoes boosted with vitamin D: gene-edited foods could be on supermarket shelves as soon as next year as parliament prepares to pass new legislation. Scientists say the proposed rules — which have already passed through the House of Commons and will be debated by the Lords in the final reading on Tuesday — will allow British consumers to benefit from tastier, healthier food with a lower environmental impact. The controversial GM method — which involves taking genes out of one species and inserting them into another — still has a public relations problem. But technology has moved on. These days scientists do not need to find genes from another species: they can simply edit a plant’s genetic code to introduce the traits they want.

SPAIN - Spanish power distributor Red Eléctrica announced on X early Tuesday that 99% of the country's power capacity had been restored following a daylong, unprecedented blackout that plunged much of Europe's Iberian Peninsula into chaos and darkness. The outage paralyzed digital payment systems, disrupted communications, and brought various modes of transportation networks to an apocalyptic standstill. While a Spanish judge has launched an investigation into whether a cyberattack was responsible, early indications suggest the culprit is likely net zero.

USA - I went to the White House Correspondents Dinner, and it was literally insane. I am not saying that, like, as in, we have different politics. I mean, like, actually insane. Delusional. Zero self-awareness, or awareness of reality. Not everyone, but, mostly. Experiencing that in person, talking to them in a social setting, realizing who our media is, gave me an epiphany: media bias isn’t about politics — it’s much more banal — it’s actually just narcissism of people who happen to be Democrats. Like many reading this column, I’m sure, I always thought media bias was political activism. The media isn’t biased because it’s liberal, it’s biased because it has no concept of reality. The people who make media content are incapable of separating their own self-worship from objective truth. Their egos dictate that they are so important, they decide “the truth.”

USA - Donald Trump has already sued multiple outlets, including CBS and ABC, winning a $16 million (£12 million) settlement from the latter. The President has also excluded Associated Press journalists from White House events and launched probes into outlets like NBC, PBS, and NPR. Donald Trump has launched a news aggregator platform designed to rival Drudge, bypass the mainstream media and flood the internet with pro-Trump headlines. The site, which debuted this week, aggregates content from right-wing outlets like Fox News and The Daily Caller, alongside White House-published material, creating an unfiltered echo chamber for his supporters. The move is part of Mr Trump’s long-running feud with what he calls the "fake news" media. “The media is the enemy of the people,” he declared in 2019, and now he’s built his own outlet to deliver the narrative he wants — free from critical voices.

USA - Courts Hold Grooming Kids in School is Fine But Don’t You Dare Mention God. In a recent case, Lee v Poudre School District R-1, Colorado parents Jonathan and Erin Lee, along with Nicolas and Linnaea Jurich, sued their school district, alleging it groomed their daughters into the LGBTQ cult through secretive Gender and Sexualities Alliance (GSA) meetings. They claimed teachers misled their children about gender identity, encouraged them to hide it from parents, and caused severe emotional harm, including suicidal ideation. Yet, on April 22, 2025, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the dismissal of their lawsuit because, according to the Court, the parents failed to prove the district’s policies directly caused their injuries. Yet, when parents, like those in Lee v Poudre, fight back, courts toss their cases. Courts will intervene to banish even the mention of God from the schools. But when it comes to protecting kids from relentless LGBTQ indoctrination, the Courts humbly decide not to get involved and to deprive the parents of their day in court.

USA - President Donald Trump held a very special ceremony at the White House Rose Garden on Thursday, where he signed an order establishing a new commission aimed at protecting religious liberty in America, proving once again that he is a president for Americans of all faiths and beliefs. The president’s order was signed at the conclusion of an event commemorating the National Day of Prayer. Faith leaders from across the country joined the president onstage while worship songs were sung, including a moving rendition of “Amazing Grace.” “We’re bringing back religion in our country, and we’re bringing it back quickly and strongly because for America to be a great nation, we must always be one nation under GOD,” the president said during his remarks.

USA - President Donald Trump held a National Day of Prayer ceremony at the White House on Thursday, where he signed an executive order establishing the “Religious Liberty Commission.” Religious leaders, government officials, and others joined Trump at the ceremony in the Rose Garden. In his remarks, Trump, who has credited God for saving him from being assassinated last July, said, “We have to trust God.” “So as we bow our heads on this beautiful day, once again, we have to trust our God because our God knows exactly where we’re going, what we’re doing, knows every inch of our life,” Trump said. “And may He continue to hear our prayers to guide our steps and build up our beloved nation to even greater heights,” he added. Dr Phil McGraw, known for his hit TV show Dr Phil, spoke during the ceremony, sharing he was glad to “see religion coming back to the White House.” He also attested to Trump’s faith based on their private interactions when cameras are off.

CHINA - Hundreds of angry Chinese workers are marching in the streets of China’s industrial cities to protest layoffs and unpaid wages after President Donald Trump’s tariffs forced their factories to shut down. Unemployment was already a big problem for China’s faltering post-pandemic economy, particularly youth unemployment, and now analysts are predicting Trump’s tariffs could wipe out more than 16 million jobs. Ji Feng, a survivor of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protest, told RFA that Chinese businesses were in much worse shape than the regime in Beijing was willing to admit, so the blow of Trump’s tariffs struck much harder than predicted. Chinese dictator Xi Jinping and his top officials remain defiant, but on Wednesday Xi hinted that major policy changes could be coming to handle tariff damage. He did not say exactly what his government planned to do, besides creating more propaganda to accuse the United States of being a bully.

USA - The Oversight Project gathered every document they could find with Biden’s signature – ALL used autopen signatures except for the announcement that he was dropping out of the 2024 election. New analysis of Executive Order signatures showed an “increased use of the autopen as President Biden’s mental and physical decline accelerated,” the Oversight Project revealed on Thursday. Joe Biden used a wet signature on every Executive Order during the first year and a half of his presidency. However, in late spring and early summer 2022, everything changed, and Biden’s autopen appeared on every clemency warrant and executive order. President Trump on Sunday called for the person or persons who operated Joe Biden’s autopen to be jailed.

RUSSIA - The Pravda network has published hundreds of thousands of articles since November, including falsehoods about King Charles and Keir Starmer. A Russian disinformation site is targeting Britons with thousands of articles attempting to undermine support for Ukraine and bogus stories about the royal family and senior politicians. European agencies have flagged the Pravda network as a Kremlin operation that has more than doubled in size since late last year. Researchers have also warned that it is distorting the output of AI chatbots by flooding the large language models that power them with pro-Kremlin falsehoods. The network publishes in countries across Europe, Africa and the Middle East in almost 50 languages, and in February alone it carried more than 350,000 articles. “It is the continuous hammering of disinformation that in the end erodes consensus, weakens democracies, and pushes Kremlin talking points. The Pravda network is consistent with this effort.”