Anatel, Brazil’s telecom regulator, has provided documentation confirming that the iPhone 16e is being assembled in Brazil, China, and India. The locally assembled iPhone 16e is priced at approximately $890 in Brazil, although it can be found at retailers for as low as $670, likely due to tariff exemptions for domestic production. In comparison, the phone starts at $600 in the United States. These phones are apparently not yet available in America, but the quick change indicates that Apple is not wedded to China as its main base of operations, despite signing a massive deal with the communist country.

In contrast, products from Brazil have only been subject to a 10 percent tariff, making it an attractive alternative for Apple to import iPhones from Brazil rather than China. The company flew multiple planes carrying hundreds of tons of iPhones and other products from India and China before the tariffs took effect, in an effort to minimize the immediate impact on its supply chain.

The neo-Democrats unleashed millions of unvetted criminals and terrorists on us with open borders. Many are getting services illegally thanks to Democrats in the previous administration twisting the laws. Our educational system was transformed into Marxist-based ideological factories from DEI to transgender ideology. Our economy faces an existential threat of interest and debt, having become a debtor nation.

Even more unsettling, western democracies are being compelled — albeit rightly — to assume greater responsibility for their own defence while being attacked, verbally and economically, by the White House. If anyone doubts just how far “through the looking glass” we are, they should contemplate the events of February 24, when the United States sided with Russia, Belarus and North Korea to oppose a draft European resolution in the United Nations condemning the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

I have become alarmed by some of the parallels, as well as the contrasts, between the 1940s and the present. As we approach the 80th anniversary of VE Day, it seems more important than ever to learn the lessons of 1939-1945, and the coalition that triumphed over fascism.

Until March 1941, when Congress agreed to “lend” the beleaguered empire the tools, if not to “finish the job” then at least to remain in the war, the British were forced to pay in dollars or gold for all their war purchases. On January 10, 1941, a US cruiser arrived off South Africa to carry away £42 million worth of Britain’s last remaining gold reserves. “I am afraid they may misuse their strength”, wrote the British diplomat Roger Makins, lamenting the “dangerous” American tendency to “strip us to the bone.”

By February 1945, when the big three met at Yalta in Crimea, there was little the western powers could actually do to prevent Stalin from dominating eastern Europe. The Red Army was already in possession of the Baltic States, Poland, Romania and Bulgaria...

Today, the situation is quite different. Putin’s military cannot even defeat a former Soviet satellite state, albeit one supported by western funds and materiel. Relative to Russia, the West is far stronger in 2025 than in 1945 and yet it is the West that is fracturing and Putin that is gaining by Trump’s inversion of US foreign policy. “The only thing worse than fighting with allies is fighting without them” is a verity that even the American government may come to appreciate one day.

Rare earth minerals are highly important due to their diverse and crucial applications in modern technology, energy, and defense. They are essential for manufacturing a wide range of products, from electronic devices and electric vehicles to wind turbines and military equipment. Their unique properties, including magnetic and luminous qualities, make them indispensable for many modern technologies.

Beijing has fired an extraordinary new broadside at America amid growing trade war anger – with a senior Chinese official declaring ‘Let those peasants in the United States wail in front of 5,000 years of Chinese civilisation’. Xia Baolong, a top Chinese official who oversees Hong Kong affairs, branded the US tariffs as ‘extremely shameless’ and warned that bullying has never worked on Chinese people in a televised speech today.

We know that both sides have already been conducting cyberattacks on one another. In fact, the Chinese are now publicly accusing the NSA of conducting cyberattacks inside China just two months ago… A cyberattack is an act of war. So the fact that both sides are already conducting cyberattacks should deeply concern all of us. Hopefully cooler heads will prevail, because if we stay on the path that we are currently on this story is not going to end well.

The Abraham Accords, involving Gulf countries normalizing with Israel, have been on hold since the Gaza war began, and Riyadh and Tehran have over the last couple years been making strides for peace and full normalization with each other. This doesn't bode well for US or Israeli interests, also given the Saudis have of late declared that no country can use their airspace for attacks on Iran.

Last October, Iran and Saudi Arabia took their improving ties a huge step further by conducting an unprecedented joint naval exercise in the Gulf of Oman. The two countries' populations have also been religious rivals for centuries. Tehran has always been the heart of the Shia world, while the Saudi kingdom leads Sunni Muslims. Sunnis tend to consider Shia to be heretics, and historic, fierce battles have been fought over interpretations of the Quran. More recently, they waged proxy war for Syria, and before that Iraq.

China has been the big power which has mediated the Iran-Saudi rapprochement, at a moment when the US is widely viewed as in retreat in the region.

But Meloni didn’t take the bait. Instead of grandstanding, she delivered a steady, confident show of diplomacy — and extended a personal invitation to President Trump. When a reporter tried to stir the pot, asking, “The retaliatory tariffs that the European Commission passed and then suspended, are they still on the table if you cannot make a deal with President Trump?” — Meloni didn’t blink.

She made it clear she wasn’t there on behalf of Brussels. Her focus was on building trust. “I’m here to help on that. I cannot, look, deal in the name of the European Union,” she explained. “My goal would be to invite President Trump to pay a visit to Italy and understand if there’s a possibility when he comes to organize also such a meeting with Europe.”

Maria Zakharova, the outspoken spokeswoman for Russia’s Foreign Ministry, pulled no punches, per usual. Speaking at a press conference Thursday, she stated bluntly that if Taurus missiles — capable of hitting targets 300 miles away — are used on Russian infrastructure, like the Crimean bridge, it will be considered a direct act of war by Germany against Russia.

“This will be considered direct participation by Germany in hostilities on the side of the Kyiv regime, with all the consequences that this entails for Germany,” Zakharova warned, making it clear that Moscow won’t turn the other cheek.

Speaking to ARD last Sunday, Merz, who is expected to be officially named chancellor on May 6, said that he could deliver Taurus missiles to Ukraine. The weapon has a range of 500km. His predecessor Olaf Scholz has repeatedly refused Kiev’s requests for the rockets, citing fears of an escalation of the conflict.

Commenting on Merz’s remark during a press briefing on Thursday, Zakharova warned that “since live firing these cruise missiles is impossible without the direct assistance of Bundeswehr servicemen, a strike on any Russian facilities, [or] critical transport infrastructure... will be regarded as direct German participation in military operations.”

Russia’s ambassador to Germany, Sergey Nechaev, similarly stated that while unable to alter the battlefield dynamics, the delivery of Taurus missiles to Ukraine could lead to an escalation of the fighting and compel Moscow to retaliate. Throughout the Ukraine conflict, Moscow has repeatedly condemned Western military aid to Kiev, insisting that it only serves to prolong the bloodshed.

Trump’s abrupt escalation of import tariffs goes well beyond violating the principles of comparative advantage, but we can start there. “Comparative advantage” is not all it’s cracked up to be. Repeated in business schools as if it were gospel since the 1980s, it goes something like this: “Wool is cheaper in Scotland, and wine is cheaper in France, so France should sell their wine to Scotland, and Scotland should sell their wool to France.” Everybody wins. Period. That’s the extent of it. That is the essence of free trade theory.

In the real world, though, policies that rely on “comparative advantage” doctrine as their moral justification have gotten pretty ugly. While overall economic growth may be maximized when every nation exports products that it produces most cost-effectively, the local impacts are not always benign. Nations that produce coffee at competitive global prices, for example, end up with valuable cropland converted from food production to coffee plantations.

These coffee plantations are typically owned by multinational corporations that repatriate profits to low-tax nations elsewhere while buying off a small local elite that streamlines the regulatory environment. Meanwhile, the nation becomes dependent on imports for everything except coffee, and even the coffee ends up priced out of reach for the average citizen. Replace “coffee” with any specialty product, and all too often, the “gains of trade” translate on the ground into nations with seething, destitute populations dependent on accumulating debt and foreign aid.

These examples aren’t restricted to foreign nations, nor are they restricted to commodities. While American multinationals moved manufacturing overseas, in the process destroying millions of jobs and thousands of communities in America, it wasn’t just cheap wool, cheap wine, and dirt-cheap flat-screen TVs that were pouring into the country in exchange. We offshored our production of steel, our chip manufacturers, our pharmaceutical industry, and much more. And even that devastation was tolerated for decades because its effects were mostly felt in what we now call rust belt states.

The majority of human beings have an inherent sense of good and evil; we often refer to this condition as conscience or moral compass. The intuitive inner voice that guides us and warns us when we stray into “the dark side” is a product of archetypal knowledge – what psychologist Carl Jung described as a set of inborn complexes or symbols that tap into our deepest emotions and sense of identity. All our social interactions are in some way affected by these archetypes.

To summarize, leftists are TOTAL relativists. The rules do not apply to them. The law does not apply to them. Morality does not apply to them. Conscience is non-existent for them (or it exists but they have trained their minds to ignore it). Biological reality does not apply to them. They think they are special and that boundaries should only exist for the people they don’t like. This is pure evil. There’s no other rational way to look at it.

Bisphenol is a class of chemicals used in a wide range of consumer products, such as food packaging, fabrics, toys and cookware. Regulators have largely focused on bisphenol A (BPA), which is banned in Europe for food uses because it is so toxic. Many companies have phased out BPA’s use and food companies often advertise when their packaging is BPA free.

But recent research has found BPS, the alternative largely used in place of BPA, to be just as toxic. It’s linked to hormone disruption, cognitive damage, decreased sperm count, breast cancer and other health issues. Previous research has found it can be absorbed by the skin, and CEH’s new study shows how high the risk is just for brief exposures while holding a receipt. The findings are particularly concerning for cashiers and people working in retail who may handle many receipts throughout the day.

“Everyone is asking for more trade with Europe — and it’s not just about economic ties. It is also about establishing common rules and it is about ­predictability,” she said. “Europe is known for its predictability and reliability, which is once again starting to be seen as something very valuable.”

She compared the American president’s ­inner circle of “bros” such as Elon Musk to Russian oligarchs. “We don’t have bros or oligarchs making the rules,” she said. “We don’t invade our neighbours, and we don’t punish them”, a reference to Trump’s “make America great again” tariffs and Putin’s naked imperialism against Ukraine.

Xi Jinping, China’s president, last week spoke warmly of ties with Brussels, urging the bloc to join Beijing to “jointly safeguard the trend of economic globalisation and the international trade environment, and jointly oppose unilateral acts of bullying”. Trump’s trade war has given China the chance to shake off its image as the rogue giant of global trade and investment, and appear as a pillar of stability in contrast to a volatile and unpredictable US.

Alicia Garcia-Herrero, senior fellow at the think tank Bruegel, says China’s “charm offensive” seeks to foster closer links with Europe, and much of the rest of Asia, to form a “united front … to isolate the US”.

Perhaps the strongest example of this strategy is the Chinese ban on deliveries of Boeing airliners, announced on Tuesday. It not only will hurt a US national champion still reeling from a safety crisis, but also threatens to hand arch-rival Airbus a virtual monopoly over civil aircraft exports to China. The market is expected to account for 20 percent of global demand over the next two decades. The loss of China would deliver a body-blow to Boeing as it seeks to claw its way back from years of turmoil triggered by two fatal crashes involving the 737 Max.