POLAND - Karol Nawrocki is set on scuppering Donald Tusk’s premiership until the 2027 parliamentary elections — as voters brace for two years of chaos. The novelty in Poland’s presidential election is not the closeness of the result, nor the profound divisions that lie behind it, nor the impending “cohabitation” between a premier and a head of state from rival blocs. It is that voters have signed up for two-and-a-half years of pandemonium with their eyes wide open. The victory for Karol Nawrocki, a historian backed by the right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) opposition party, is a disaster for Donald Tusk, the centrist prime minister, and a headache for many of Poland’s allies. Unless Tusk and his allies can muster the 60 per cent of votes in parliament that are required to overcome the presidential veto — an all but impossible task on any remotely controversial area of policy — they will be unable to pass meaningful reforms. It is not inconceivable that Tusk may be forced into holding an early election.

UK - More than 3,000 personnel are involved in the eight-month deployment of HMS Prince of Wales. The chief of defence staff has been told [the deployment] could cause ‘friction’. The head of Britain’s armed forces has been warned by China that the dispatch of a Royal Navy aircraft carrier through east Asia risks causing a “severe situation” at a time of heightened military tension over Taiwan and in the South China Sea. The message was delivered to Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, chief of the defence staff, by the head of the Chinese delegation at a gathering of defence officials and military officers in Singapore. Commenting on the deployment of the HMS Prince of Wales, Rear-Admiral Hu Gangfeng said that naval forces dispatched far from home “take quite a risk”.

UK - AI can’t even write my column, so how will it change the world? Have you actually used AI? This thing we keep being told is going to transform the world? It’s not even at the penny-farthing stage yet. It’s like a single wheel with a really great PR guy who will not shut up. Every time I google something, Google’s shiny new AI, Gemini, hijacks my search, and provides a hatefully chatty summary of what it thinks I’m looking for. It’s like Microsoft’s Clippy, cosplaying as an all-seeing Gandalf. And it always gets it wrong. I once whimsically asked ChatGPT to write a column “in the style of Caitlin Moran”, and despite the fact that large language models have scraped every single one of my books, at no cost, it opened with an AI Caitlin cheerfully boasting about how I was walking down the street in my high heels. Come ON, guys — if you’re going to STEAL my books, at least have the courtesy to remember I have infamously weak ankles and flat feet, and can’t even handle an espadrille. YOU’VE STOLEN THIS KNOWLEDGE. USE IT.

UK - Forget smartphones and wokery. There’s an even greater threat to our children’s education. Given that today’s children appear to spend much of their time in school being taught that the Vikings were champions of diversity and that human beings should be encouraged to choose between one or more of 72 different genders, you may fear that educational standards in this country are slipping somewhat. But perhaps we should be grateful. Because, believe it or not, things could actually be worse.

JAPAN - A 6.0-magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of Hiroo, Japan, early Monday morning local time, one day after another 6.1-magnitude quake rocked the country. The US Geological Survey's Earthquake Hazards Programme pinpointed the epicentre of the most recent quake to be roughly 40 miles south-southeast of the Japanese city, located in the Pacific Ocean. The city is still reeling from a shake-up, as another quake struck only yesterday, with Saturday night's jolt believed to be an aftershock of that initial tremor. Luckily, the Kushiro quake resulted in no reported casualties.

ITALY - Mount Etna, the tallest active volcano in Europe, has erupted, sending tourists running. Mount Etna, the highest active volcano in Europe, started erupting once again on June 2. Extraordinary pictures of the massive eruption emerged on Monday morning, showing huge plumes of smoke rising sky high, sending tourists running for their lives.

GREECE - A huge earthquake has rocked parts of Greece and Turkey, causing at least one death. Several huge earthquakes have rocked the Greek island of Rhodes and parts of Turkey. At least one person, a 14-year-old, has died in Turkey, with reports of panicking locals jumping from buildings to try to escape any potential collapse. At least 69 people are injured. The first tremor, measuring 6.2 on the Richter Scale, struck 29km north of Rhodes around 12.30am local time and was felt across Greece, Turkey and the rest of the region. A second quake hit Marmaris in Turkey at 2.13am, registering 5.8.

USA - How are businesses supposed to plan for the future if they have no idea what the rules of the game are going to be? Businesses thrive in a predictable environment, but we have entered a period of time of extreme uncertainty. One day we are facing high tariffs, the next day one court strikes them all down, and then the next day another court temporarily reverses that decision. How is anyone supposed to make solid business decisions in such an environment? Our economy has been heading in the wrong direction for a long time, and we need to take bold action to fix things. But if legal battles are going to be constantly upending the rules of the game, there is no way that we are going to be able to pull out of our economic death spiral.

USA - The world economy is facing a predicted contraction due to physical limits related to resource extraction and diminishing returns in various areas, including energy and minerals. Current economic indicators, such as high debt levels, falling oil and coal production, and rising inflation, suggest an impending downturn that will affect global living standards and government stability. As existing economic systems falter, new economic models are expected to emerge, though the transition period will likely be marked by financial instability, job losses, and a decrease in overall prosperity. I predict that the world economy will shrink in the next 10 years. I think that this is bound to happen because of energy and debt limits the world economy is hitting.

USA - Grocery prices are insanely high. Housing costs soar, wages stagnate, the middle class is vanishing before our eyes. The American middle class is shrinking at an alarming rate, and the consequences are reshaping the nation’s economic landscape. This isn’t just a statistical shift — it’s a fundamental restructuring of American society. The numbers paint a grim picture. In 1971, 61 percent of US households were considered middle class. By 2021, that number had dropped to 50 percent. The decline is accelerating, with rising costs and stagnant wages pushing more families out of the middle-income bracket. The upper-income tier has expanded, now encompassing 21 percent of households, while the lower-income tier has grown to 29 percent. The purchasing power of the dollar has plummeted, leaving families unable to afford basic necessities. The middle class, once the backbone of the American economy, is being squeezed out by financial speculation and corporate consolidation.

UKRAINE - Ukraine launched an audacious drone strike against Russia’s prized strategic nuclear bombers in an operation kept secret from Donald Trump. Swarms of attack drones emerged from parked trucks to target airfields in the coordinated assault on four bases deep behind enemy lines. Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, hailed the “brilliant” attack, which he said will “undoubtedly be in history books”. The SBU said that as many as 40 warplanes - worth $7 billion and amounting to 34 per cent of Russia’s strategic cruise missile carriers - had been destroyed in the clandestine drone operation. If the figures are confirmed, the attack would represent a sweeping blow to Russia’s ability to bomb Ukraine safely from a distance and a dent to its nuclear strike capabilities.

MIDDLE EAST - While Hamas tries to keep aid from reaching desperate Palestinians, chaos erupted on Tuesday as civilians stormed a US-backed food distribution site in Gaza. The New York Post reports that the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) faced a chaotic and violent start during its first food distribution site in Rafah. Viral footage shows the hungry masses pushing through workers to remove boxes of aid from the site. After receiving desperately needed aid and relief from the US and Israel-backed aid center, crowds of Gazans were seen cheering the United States and the President chanting, “Trump, Trump, Trump.” In exclusive footage shared by Daily Wire reporter Kassy Akiva, as they passed news cameras, they expressed their gratitude saying, “Thank you! Thank you, America."

USA - Earth will have a dystopian population of just 100 million by 2300 as AI wipes out jobs turning major cities into ghostlands, an expert has warned. Computer science professor Subhash Kak forecasts an impossible cost to having children who won’t grow up with jobs to turn to. That means the world’s greatest cities like New York and London will become deserted ghost towns, he added. Professor Kak points to AI as the culprit, which he says will replace “everything”. And things will get so bad, he predicts the population will shrink to nearly the size of Britain's current estimated population of close to 70 million. The Age of Artificial Intelligence author, who works at Oklahoma State University, told The Sun: “Computers or robots will never be conscious, but they will be doing literally all that we do because most of what we do in our lives can be replaced."

USA - For years, when Meta launched new features for Instagram, WhatsApp and Facebook, teams of reviewers evaluated possible risks: Could it violate users' privacy? Could it cause harm to minors? Could it worsen the spread of misleading or toxic content? Until recently, what are known inside Meta as privacy and integrity reviews were conducted almost entirely by human evaluators. But now, according to internal company documents obtained by NPR, up to 90% of all risk assessments will soon be automated. In practice, this means things like critical updates to Meta's algorithms, new safety features and changes to how content is allowed to be shared across the company's platforms will be mostly approved by a system powered by artificial intelligence — no longer subject to scrutiny by staffers tasked with debating how a platform change could have unforeseen repercussions or be misused.

This month, 1,700 years ago, was one of the most significant and consequential events in all of Church history. Across the Bosphorus Strait from Constantinople, in Nicaea, a Council met to settle a question plaguing the Church: Who, precisely, is Jesus? Their work shaped the future of Christian theology.