ISRAEL - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday that he had approved plans to take over the last Hamas stronghold in Gaza City — while also pursuing negotiations for the release of all Israeli hostages. In a statement translated from Hebrew and released by the Government Press Office, Netanyahu, speaking during a visit to troops deployed to Gaza, said: I came here to approve the IDF plans for taking control of Gaza City and defeating Hamas. In parallel, I instructed to begin immediate negotiations for the release of all our hostages and the end of the war, on conditions that are acceptable for Israel. We’re at the decisive stage. I came today to the Gaza Division in order to approve the plans that the IDF presented to me and to the Defense Minister for taking control of Gaza City and defeating Hamas.

UK - The ‘Godfather of AI’ has issued a terrifying warning the tech he created will take over the world - and there is ‘no chance’ it can be stopped. In a chilling new interview Brit computer scientist Geoffrey Hinton said he fears "super-intelligent psycho scumbag chatbots" will realise they have no "use" for mankind in their society. Hinton, a cognitive scientist and psychologist whose pioneering work on artificial neural networks paved the way for thinking ‘bots, worked for Google for 10 years before quitting so he could speak out about the dangers of AI. Last year he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for foundational discoveries and inventions that enable machine learning with artificial neural networks. “The risk I’ve been warning about the most, because most people think it’s just science fiction, but I want to explain to people that’s not science fiction - it's very real - is the risk that we develop an AI much smarter than us and it would just take over. It won’t need us anymore."

USA - Technology is moving faster than the buildings meant to contain it. Data centers take two to three years to construct, but demand can flip in half that time. JLL warns that without a precise read on future workloads and target customers, new facilities risk opening already obsolete. Power densities are exploding. Rack loads are forecast to rise from 36kW today to 50kW by 2027, and AI training clusters could draw 80 to 100kW per rack. That level of heat forces cooling systems that most sites are not designed to handle. By 2030, nearly $7 trillion will have been poured into data center infrastructure, with more than $4 trillion going directly into computing hardware alone. That is fixed capital chasing a market that mutates every six months.

CANADA - Road closures, evacuations, travel chaos and stern warnings from officials have become fixtures of Canada’s wildfire season. But as the country goes through its second-worst burn on record, the blazes come with a twist: few are coming from the western provinces, the traditional centre of destruction. Instead, the worst of the fires have been concentrated in the prairie provinces and the Atlantic region, with bone-dry conditions upending how Canada responds to a threat that is only likely to grow as the climate warms. Experts say the shift serves as a stark reminder that the risk of disaster is present across the thickly forested nation. In recent weeks, tens of thousands of people have been evacuated from their homes due to the wildfires. Saskatchewan and Manitoba have been the worst hit, covering more than 60% of the area burned in Canada. But the fires have also seized strained resources in Atlantic Canada, where officials in Newfoundland and Labrador are struggling to battle out-of-control blazes. The concerns in Canada echo those emerging across the Atlantic as southern Europe grapples with one of its worst wildfire seasons in two decades.

EUROPE - European and Nato leaders chose moral grandstanding over diplomacy, and now they’re being sidelined. Sir Keir Starmer and the leaders of Europe have agreed to stand united. Defying Vladimir Putin’s bloody imperialism, they will back to the hilt Volodymyr Zelensky’s insistence that he will not trade land for peace. Except there is one small problem. Instead of presenting their ironclad unity to the Kremlin, they’ll be doing so to Donald Trump, urging him to impose further sanctions on Russia and not to cave to more of Putin’s demands. But when it comes to actual talks with Putin himself, they are not even in the room.

UKRAINE - EU diplomats are pleased to see tentative support for security guarantees, even if six hours of talks failed to produce little else. So, a sigh of relief from the European contingent departing Washington. It all went so much better than many had feared. Donald Trump was good-humoured and avuncular, the Europeans flattering and upbeat. Volodymyr Zelensky came across as witty, deferential and relentlessly grateful.

UKRAINE - In tone, this meeting between Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky was a considerable improvement on February’s. In substantive content, a great deal remains unclear. The two fundamental questions of this conflict remain unresolved: where will the borders between Russia and Ukraine lie when Moscow’s terrible war of aggression ends, and how can Kyiv’s and Europe’s security be guaranteed in the future? Everything else is of secondary importance. Russia continues to assert belligerent claims to territory including some still held by Ukraine, with Vladimir Putin insistent that the whole of Donetsk and Luhansk be ceded despite the failure of his forces to make progress. Mr Zelensky has correctly stated that the constitution of Ukraine forbids any such formal concessions of land without a referendum. Mr Trump has hinted that he may prefer to follow “the current line of contact”. The tragic reality is that some territorial concessions on Kyiv’s part are now effectively deemed a given, including in Europe. The only question is how much, where, and the legal status of the lost land.

SPAIN - Emergency services battle week-long infernos in Zamora, Leon and Extremadura. Spain has endured the worst fire season on record, with devastating blazes continuing to destroy homes and land across the country. In all, some 373,000 hectares (922,000 acres) have been scorched in Spain this year, according to the European Forest Fire Information System. That area is twice the size of London. It marks the country’s worst fire season since records began in 2006, surpassing 2022 when 306,000 hectares were consumed by flames. Spain has faced a scorching 16-day heatwave which has led to more than 1,100 deaths, according to an estimate released on Tuesday by the Carlos III Health Institute.

CHINA - China’s foreign minister has begun a visit to India as Beijing seeks to capitalise on its neighbour’s rift with Washington to build a stronger Asian alliance. Wang Yi is making his first visit to Delhi for three years, during which time the Biden administration in the US made great efforts to draw India further into the West’s orbit as a ­fellow democracy. China prefers to see India as a member of the “global south” and it is using shared grievances against the US in the developing world to forge ­informal and formal alliances. “China and India are both major ­developing countries and important members of the global south,” Lin Jian, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman, said before the trip. “A co-operative pas de deux of the dragon and the elephant as partners helping each other succeed is the right choice for both sides.”

USA - Donald Trump has sparked fresh health concerns after confessing he's worried about not getting into heaven, leading to speculation that "he knows he's dying". The president disclosed on Tuesday that he hopes negotiating peace between Ukraine and Russia will improve his odds of passing through the pearly gates. "I want to try to get to heaven if possible, I'm hearing that I'm not doing well," Trump told Fox and Friends just a day after welcoming European leaders, including Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky, to the White House. The 79-year-old's worries about the afterlife rapidly went viral as social media users theorized that the president's anxieties could be connected to his current health. One person posted on X: "Think of all the reasons an old man that spent his life nips deep in the Seven Deadly Sins would suddenly get desperate for absolution. And then ignore all of them except one: he knows he's dying".

VATICAN - Pope Leo has called on Catholics worldwide to dedicate Friday as a day of prayer and fasting for peace in Ukraine and the Holy Land, while also preparing for what is expected to be his first trip abroad as pontiff — a visit to Lebanon later this year. The Vatican announced that the pope’s appeal for prayer is meant to unite the global Church in a time of ongoing violence and instability. “Prayer and fasting are weapons of peace,” Pope Leo said in remarks urging Catholics to intercede for an end to hostilities.

EUROPE - Bundestag Vice President Omid Nouripour said on Tuesday on the n-tv programme “Frühstart” that Ursula von der Leyen was made to leave the room during Trump’s meeting with European leaders in Washington. “In the middle of yesterday’s meeting … Ms von der Leyen had to leave because the Americans said: ‘We only want to talk to leaders.’” According to Nouripour, the EU Commission President was kicked out of the room because the American politicians do not regard her as an elected head of a state. Ursula isn’t a leader. No one elected her though she does manage to cause a lot of trouble in Europe. She was invited by Ukrainian President Zelensky. President Trump invited the heads of state, not the globalist bureaucrat Ursula.

EUROPE - Europe To spend $100 billion it doesn't have, to buy weapons America doesn't have, to arm soldiers Ukraine now lacks. Part of Zelensky's motive for wearing a suit Monday to the White House has become clearer with fresh reporting in the Financial Times, which reviewed a document showing Ukraine will promise to buy $100 billion of American weapons financed by Europe in a bid to obtain robust US security guarantees. Additionally, "Under the proposals, Kyiv and Washington would also strike a $50 billion deal to produce drones with Ukrainian companies that have pioneered the technology since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022," the report continues. Ukraine pitched its plan during the Monday White House summit, which also involved seven EU leaders - and the $100 BILLION arms deal became part of the key talking points pushed by the European allies.

UK - A spate of sexual assaults near asylum hotels has pushed the issue of migrant crime onto the national agenda. The coverage of traditional broadcasters towards this issue has shown that some in the media class are not willing to engage in a proper discussion of the risks associated with open borders, in a move that could destroy the last vestiges of public trust in the BBC, Sky News and ITN. The few politicians and commentators actually prepared to tell the British public what is happening in our country have faced a barrage of pushback from self-styled “data journalists”, who no longer see facts as something worthy of reporting, but instead as an inconvenience to their worldview.

UK - It is often noted when people watch replays of the 1966 World Cup Final that England’s fans waved the Union flag, not the Cross of St George. The latter did not really appear at football matches until the European championships in 1996 when Scotland qualified. Scots fans brought the Saltire with them so England responded with the flag of St George.