USA - It’s a drone world. All over the world, law-enforcement agencies and military forces are going all-in towards these unmanned flying vehicles that have become the standard equipment to survey and even attack foes and invaders. From the forests of Eastern Europe to the American Western Mountains of Colorado, all we hear about is Drones. Drones everywhere. In Europe’s battlefields, drones have long become the ‘ace in the sleeve’ for combatants – from small FPV quadcopters to big deadly craft like the American Predator, Russian Lancet, Iranian Shahed or Turkish Bayraktar drones.

MIDDLE EAST - Other groups that participated in the October 7 massacre… include Palestinian Islamic Jihad - and Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the armed wing of the Fatah faction headed by none other than the president of the Palestinian Authority (PA), Mahmoud Abbas. The involvement of terrorists from Abbas's Fatah faction in the October 7 slaughter and terrorist attacks against Israeli soldiers and civilians, however, may surprise some people. Many in the West consider Fatah, which dominates the PA, to be a "moderate" party that wants to live in peace and harmony with Israel.

UKRAINE - While politicians in Britain pontificate, a thousand miles away, outside the city of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s war with Russia is intensifying. Kyiv has been forced to redirect thousands of troops to the north-eastern part of the front line to fend off Putin’s assault, leaving its defences exposed elsewhere. The war is reaching a critical juncture, as yet again Western interest in aiding Ukraine is at risk of waning. President Zelensky appears to be aware that Ukraine’s time is running out: over the weekend, he called on US president Joe Biden and Chinese premier Xi Jinping to attend the upcoming Ukraine peace summit in Switzerland to advance a “real peace”.

UK - Regulators must 'act quickly' to introduce safeguards protecting the electoral process from the threat posed by artificial intelligence, experts have urged. The warning came as a study found that bogus photographs and video footage generated by AI could influence the coming general election in a string of sinister ways. It concluded that so-called 'deepfake' imagery could be used for character assassinations on politicians, to spread hate, erode trust in democracy and to create false endorsements. Research by The Alan Turing Institute's Centre for Emerging Technology and Security (Cetas) urged Ofcom and the Electoral Commission to address the use of AI to mislead the public, warning it was eroding trust in the integrity of elections.

UK - The victim of an alleged assault in a West Sussex village reportedly in the midst of a growing crimewave has spoken of his shock at the "non-stop" attack. Two girls, aged 14 and 15, were arrested on suspicion of criminal damage and released on bail. The arrests came after what police described as an "unprovoked attack" at The Passage to India restaurant in The Square, Barham, at 10pm on Sunday, May 19. Muhammed Islam, 64, said he had been trying to reason with a group of youths who weren't customers at the restaurant but insisted on using its toilets before he was allegedly set upon.

UK - University courses labelled as “Mickey Mouse” degrees that are attended by one in eight undergraduate students will be closed down under a Conservative policy expected to be unveiled today. The money saved from fewer tuition fees will fund 100,000 extra apprenticeships a year, a rise of nearly a third compared to the 340,000 total places offered last year. Writing in The Telegraph on Wednesday, Gillian Keegan, the Education Secretary, says: “We will outlaw rip-off degrees so that no more students are lured on to courses that don’t deliver the outcomes people deserve. Our clear plan will help hundreds of thousands of young people find a path to a financially secure future. Many graduates would be better served doing an apprenticeship. Rather than being saddled with debt, apprentices gain real-world experience and earn while they learn.”

UK - Ultra-Processed-Food (UPF) is where we get most of our calories in the UK. Breakfast cereal? Mostly UPF. Supermarket bread? Mostly UPF. The meal deal you grab for lunch? All UPF. The ready meal you prep for dinner? UPF. Gym snacks, nutrition drinks? UPF. And that’s before we get to the obvious junk food: confectionary, fizzy drinks, snacks and crisps. In the UK, UPF makes up 60 per cent of our calories on average, and it’s not unusual for many people, particularly teenagers, to get 80 per cent of their calories from UPF. And yet the New Scientist story said: ‘UK officials have dismissed recent concerns that ultra-processed food is automatically unhealthy because of the way it is made or its artificial ingredients.’ It seemed like the government was disagreeing with the science.

RUSSIA - Europe remains an important strategic focus for Russia, but it’s no longer the main topic of discussion. Today, many see it as a “lost continent,” where the Western half has stopped acting based on its own interests and finds it difficult to even define them. States are increasingly losing their autonomy and succumbing to pressure from the US. The growing presence of NATO on Russia’s western borders worries our country. There are signs of the US-led bloc’s transition from hibernation to preparations for a major military confrontation in Europe. The path of increasing escalation and pressure on Russia is a dead end: Moscow takes the NATO threat seriously and has the means to deal with it.

UKRAINE - Many US-made munitions that rely on satellite guidance have failed to withstand Russia’s jamming technology after being supplied to Kiev, the Washington Post (WaPo) reported on Friday. The Ukrainian armed forces have had to stop using some of those armaments altogether because of Russia’s extensive electronic warfare capabilities, the paper said. The affected munitions include Excalibur GPS-guided artillery shells, rockets for HIMARS multiple rocket launch systems and JDAM aircraft-dropped bombs, the report read. The US completely ceased deliveries of Excalibur shells half a year ago after Ukraine reported that they had been rendered ineffective, unnamed Ukrainian officials told WaPo. The success rate of JDAMs also dropped significantly just weeks after they were first provided to Kiev. During that period, the US-made bombs were missing their targets by between 200 meters and 1.2km, it said.

UKRAINE - Russian forces have secured an advantage in the field of electronic warfare in Ukraine, the New York Times reported on Wednesday, citing military experts and Ukrainian soldiers. Kiev’s troops have been unable to effectively use their drones on the battlefield due to constant jamming by the Russians, the outlet claims. Drones have played a key role throughout the conflict and have been extensively used by both sides. For Kiev, as noted by the NYT, cheap commercial First Person View (FPV) racing drones have proven an effective alternative to artillery shells. “FPVs play a critical role for us, as these toys are essentially mobile artillery that compensate for the lack of ammunition,” one Ukrainian drone operator told the outlet. Over the past year, however, Russia has improved its jamming capabilities, significantly reducing the impact of Ukraine’s drones and straining its limited supply of off-the-shelf devices, threatening to completely sideline a “key component of Ukraine’s arsenal.”

ISRAEL - An Egyptian soldier has been killed in a firefight with Israeli soldiers, it has been reported. The rare exchange of force between the militaries of both countries is understood to have happened at the Gaza border near Rafah on Monday with sources in the Israeli Defence Force claiming Egyptian soldiers fired at Israeli soldiers who returned fire. The Jerusalem Post said no Israeli soldiers were injured in the incident and that commanders of the two forces were quickly in touch to arrange a ceasefire. Tensions are high between the two countries, as in June last year an Egyptian police officer shot dead three IDF soldiers. In October an Egyptian police officer killed two Israeli tourists and an Egyptian tour guide.

USA - You know how Google's new feature called AI Overviews is prone to spitting out wildly incorrect answers to search queries? In one instance, AI Overviews told a user to use glue on pizza to make sure the cheese won't slide off (pssst...please don't do this.) Well, according to an interview at The Verge with Google CEO Sundar Pichai published earlier this week, just before criticism of the outputs really took off, these "hallucinations" are an "inherent feature" of AI large language models (LLM), which is what drives AI Overviews, and this feature "is still an unsolved problem."

USA - Google Search now comes with fancy-schmancy "AI Overviews" — and predictably, they're already giving some pretty dumb answers. This latest one, though, really takes the cake — or shall we say pie. Someone looked up "cheese not sticking to pizza" on Google. The search engine's AI Overview authoritatively began that "cheese can slide off pizza for a number of reasons." "Here are some things you can try," it lectures. Its first suggestion is to mix in cheese into the sauce. Then, without so much as a warning, it recommends adding "about 1/8 cup of non-toxic glue to the sauce to give it more tackiness." That, we can all agree, is absolutely horrible, if not dangerous, advice — whichever way you slice it.

SWITZERLAND - Experts have issued a stark warning that the world is 'unprepared' for a new disease which could be far more catastrophic than Covid-19. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the head of the World Health Organisation (WHO), has previously stated that the world is not ready for 'Disease X'. This term was coined by the UN agency in 2018 to describe an unknown infection that could trigger another future pandemic. It's considered more of a theoretical threat than a real illness, but leading medics have insisted we must remain vigilant. Throughout this year, world leaders have been discussing how to prepare for the next pandemic. Experts predict that it could result in 20 times more deaths than the coronavirus pandemic.

ZAMBIA - Severe drought in Zambia is threatening hunger for millions of people, cutting off electricity for long periods and destroying the country’s social fabric and economy, the environment minister has warned, in a harbinger of what is in store for the region as the climate crisis worsens. Collins Nzovu said the “crippling drought” his country was experiencing hammered home the message that developing countries were facing catastrophe from the climate crisis, even as richer countries failed to muster financial help for the most afflicted.