USA - It has often been said that “war is hell”, and that is so true. It has been estimated that somewhere between 70 and 85 million people died during World War II, and now World War III is looming. I just asked Google AI to tell me how many people will die during World War III, and I was told that “it’s likely that the death toll would be devastatingly high, potentially reaching into the billions”. We are literally closer to that sort of an apocalyptic conflict than we have ever been before, and yet most of the population is partying as if there will be “peace and safety” long into the future. So many of us have been lulled into a false sense of security, but the truth is that the very small window of opportunity that we have to avoid World War III is rapidly closing. The clock is ticking, because once someone decides to use a nuclear weapon there will be no turning back.

UKRAINE - The battlefield rules have changed. Western allies have officially lifted all restrictions on Ukraine’s use of long-range weapons, allowing Kyiv to strike Russian military targets without range limitations. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz confirmed the shift, stating that the UK, France, Germany, and the US have removed all constraints on how Ukraine deploys its Western-supplied arsenal. Germany’s stance marks a major policy shift. Merz’s announcement signals a break from previous restrictions that limited Ukraine’s ability to target Russian positions beyond occupied Ukrainian territory. The decision follows months of pressure from Kyiv, which has argued that hitting Russian military infrastructure deep inside enemy territory is essential for defense. The Kremlin is furious. Russian officials have condemned the move, calling it “dangerous” and warning that it could escalate the conflict further.

USA - Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt recently gave a TED Talk, presenting a hypothetical scenario to highlight how geopolitical tensions could accelerate the AI arms race — especially between the US and China. He warned that this race could escalate to include sabotage or even attacks on data centers in the event of a conflict. With Schmidt confirming that foreign policy and military circles are already discussing scenarios involving preemptive strikes on critical AI infrastructure — including data centers — Trump’s push for a hemispheric missile defense shield appears to make much more sense now. Relocating data centers deep into America’s Heartland isn’t just about access to cheap energy; it’s also a matter of geographic security, offering far greater protection than vulnerable West or East Coast locations.

RUSSIA - The Russian press had declared Donald Trump's peace deal is "dying a slow death" as a key ally of Vladimir Putin mocked Western ceasefire plans by posting a map showing almost all of Ukraine occupied by Kremlin forces. The Moscow-based daily newspaper Moskovskij Komsomolets ran an editorial on current ceasefire negotiations, commenting that it believed the President's "energy charge" had "gone flat" and that it would soon become "obvious" even to Mr Trump that any deal was in its "death throes".

USA - US President Donald Trump issued a fiery warning to Russian President Vladimir Putin Tuesday morning, stating that Putin was "playing with fire." The short and to-the-point post was made on the president's Truth Social account. "What Vladimir Putin doesn’t realize is that if it weren’t for me, lots of really bad things would have already happened to Russia, and I mean REALLY BAD," wrote Trump, 78. "He’s playing with fire!" The latest post comes as both presidents continue to verbally spar with each other. Prior to the post, the Kremlin, Russia's government, verbally attacked Trump, labeling him a "clown" and claiming he suffers from "dementia."

USA - Across America, farmers are warning that their soil and water are being contaminated by “forever chemicals” — toxic compounds that never break down and accumulate in the food chain. PFAS, sprayed on fields through sewage sludge, are now poisoning crops, livestock, and livelihoods.

USA - Last week was tough for US Treasury bonds, the IOUs issued by the US government to pay for that portion of federal spending not covered by tax revenues. As Dominic O’Connell noted here on Saturday, yields on Treasuries (which rise as the price falls) rose sharply after Moody’s became the last major ratings agency to downgrade America’s credit rating from the highest level, while Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” came a step closer to being enacted and, with it, raising government borrowing by an estimated $3 trillion to $4 trillion over the next decade. A third — and important — factor driving the sell-off was that an auction of $16 billion worth of 20-year Treasuries on Wednesday drew only weak demand, implying a reluctance on the part of some investors to lend to Uncle Sam. Investors demanded a 5 per cent coupon (interest payment) for the risk they were taking on.

USA - Once renowned for widespread home ownership, the key Anglosphere countries are reverting to a feudal past, where land is owned by increasingly few. In every major market in Canada and Australia, and in much of America and the UK, house prices have skyrocketed to record levels, with corresponding consequences for home ownership rates. In a new report, demographer Wendell Cox traces this to the failure to build enough new housing units, particularly the single-family homes that consumers most desire. In the United States, homebuilders built about one million fewer homes (including rental units) in 2024 than in 1972 when there were 130 million fewer Americans. One estimate puts the US housing market short by about 4.5 million homes. Housing prices have been rising “three times faster than household median income over the last two decades.”

USA - Is the dollar in the early stages of losing its safe-haven status? Last Friday it fell to its weakest level since December 2023 on its trade-weighted basis, as international investors continued to come to terms with President Trump’s policies. Scott Bessent, the Treasury secretary, has said that the United States’s strong dollar policy is intact, but the markets are not convinced. The policy appears to be a weaker dollar to boost competitiveness, while also retaining its dominant position in global trade and payments, and as a reserve currency. Dollar devaluation and dominance are not mutually exclusive goals but once you start to turn sentiment against your own currency you need to be careful. Markets and investors cannot be turned on and off at will.

USA - It is a lot of money to pay for a company that doesn’t make anything yet. This week, OpenAI paid $6.4 billion (£4.7 billion) for Sir Jony Ive’s design house, io. But then Ive is not just any old designer. The British-born guru was the man behind the iPhone, and many of the other iconic products that made Apple the biggest company in the world. The deal is a bet that he can pull off the same trick with an AI device. There will be lots of scepticism around that, and much of it will be justified. Yet, the smartphone is turning into a very dated piece of technology – and if anyone can take it down it is surely the man who created it.

UK - The hacks of M&S and the Co-op have drawn attention to the fact that such crimes are no longer the preserve of experienced coders. The first step on the hacking ladder for the so-called “script kiddie” (a novice hacker with little experience of writing software) is often to use the freely available “booster” and “stressor” tools needed to take down a website or service by bombarding it with traffic. From there they move on to the “malicious economic side”, Holt adds. “We asked him how he learned how to hack. And he said: ‘Well, actually, it’s just all out there on the open web. It used to be on the dark web, it used to be much more difficult to access… but now it’s just all out there on the open web’.”

UK - The Ministry of Defence has conducted its largest-ever AI trial across land, sea and air. More than 200 scientists from the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL) joined military personnel, industry partners and international allies in a five-day exercise aimed at testing how quickly and accurately AI algorithms developed by Thales could identify and help neutralise enemy targets. The trial — the third stage of Operation Wintermute — took place at Portland Harbour and involved 14 naval vessels, including the experimental ship XV Patrick Blackett, as well as an RAF fast jet, a helicopter and armoured vehicles. Participants operated in simulated battlefield conditions, with so-called “red teams” acting as hostile forces to provide a realistic operational environment.

CHINA - In the past year, Beijing has stepped up military pressure near Taiwan, sending warships and planes almost daily into the waters and air space around the island. China's army is more capable than ever before of launching a full-scale invasion of Taiwan, military experts believe. Beijing has long eyed reasserting its full control over the state, with President Xi Jinping signalling many times he is not afraid to use force to realise his political ambition. Beijing has put its army aviation units on a state of constant readiness and deployed a new rocket system capable of striking any target in Taiwan.

GERMANY - US companies have been assessing the feasibility and costs of restarting Germany’s decommissioned nuclear power plants, Bild reported on Friday. The EU’s largest economy has been struggling with soaring energy costs and a prolonged economic slowdown. Germany shut down its last three reactors in April 2023, following a post-Fukushima parliamentary decision to phase out atomic energy. However, with the country’s industrial output under pressure, calls to reverse the policy have been gaining momentum. This week, politicians and nuclear energy advocates met in Berlin to discuss the feasibility of reactivating the country’s mothballed plants. Among them was US nuclear engineer Mark Nelson, founder of Radiant Energy Group, who has been analyzing how quickly and affordably a nuclear restart could happen.

USA - Here’s a fact that will stop you in your tracks: Sears, which once employed more Americans than the US military, now has fewer stores than Starbucks locations in Manhattan. The company that built the American middle class is down to just 11 stores nationwide. Eleven. That’s the death of an empire. In just the past 12 months, major retailers have announced over 3,200 permanent store closures. CVS is shutting down 900 locations. Walgreens is closing 1,200 stores. Even Dollar Tree is liquidating hundreds of Family Dollar locations. These aren’t pandemic casualties. These are permanent shutdowns of profitable stores in busy shopping centers. The entire business model of physical retail is collapsing. High rents that made sense when foot traffic was guaranteed now feel like death sentences. Organized theft rings are stealing stores out of business. An entire generation has simply stopped shopping in stores. What you’re witnessing is the systematic dismantling of America’s massively over-built retail infrastructure.