EUROPE - Europe can become militarily independent of the United States by the end of the decade if its leaders have the political courage to do so, leading German defence figures have said. The influential group said “autonomy” could be achieved within five to 10 years at a cost of €500 billion (£432 billion), a 10 per cent increase on existing spending plans by NATO’s European allies. But money alone will not fix the imbalances, according to the German defence experts. Their paper sets out the need to rip up red tape, boost industrial cooperation and end decades of fragmentation across defence industries. It calls for a system styled on the Manhattan Project – bringing together a historic level of cooperation between European allies to break the reliance on the US. They concluded: “If we build the central capabilities at the right pace, Europe can protect itself against aggressors and generate credible deterrence.”

UK - As dawn breaks on this year’s local election results, the early signs of victory for Reform UK are already clear. The full picture will not emerge for some hours, and the final tallies will not be declared in some areas for two days. But the anticipated teal surge is already making itself known in the Red Wall, where Labour is trying in vain to hold on to control. Britain is now in an era of five-party politics, and Mr Farage’s party is riding a wave of support, having topped almost every Westminster poll for over a year. Analysis suggests that Sir Keir Starmer’s party has lost almost 90 per cent of the seats it is contesting, including wards in areas that would previously have been considered party strongholds.

UK - When you look at these seismic local election results, remember how the Left has constantly attempted to smear, disparage, ridicule and discredit Nigel Farage and his party. Ponderous commentators have repeatedly predicted the Reform bubble would deflate; just another protest vote to be forgotten when Business as Usual returned to the political scene and voters drifted back to the old Tweedledum and Tweedledee of Labour and Conservative. Already, the night has exceeded even Nigel Farage’s expectations. Reform is eating Labour’s breakfast, lunch and dinner. Its vote share is already up 38 per cent in councils across the country... But Reform has the momentum. Character assassination has not destroyed Farage or his growing team. If anything, it has convinced more voters that the political class fears the new party because it speaks to concerns the mainstream parties have long neglected and would still rather ignore.

USA - By threatening military withdrawal, the US president is giving the Continent the push it needs to rearm. The erratic American president, increasingly unpopular at home and facing likely painful mid-term elections in the autumn, has put the continent on notice yet again. Last week, he threatened to hit European-manufactured cars and trucks with a 25 per cent tariff, on top of the 15 per cent agreed to already. This was revealed in a Truth Social post claiming, without elaboration, that the proposed tariffs would be retaliation for failures by the EU to abide by its side of the recent trade agreement.

USA - Donald Trump is on the verge of securing a sweeping peace deal with Iran that would lift US sanctions, free billions in frozen assets and open a path to uranium enrichment, mirroring the Barack Obama pact he spent years trashing. A one-page, 14-point memorandum of understanding is being negotiated between senior Iranian officials and Trump envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner. The White House believes the memo could finalize a framework to end the war within 48 hours.

USA - A group of popular American pastors have warned that President Donald Trump’s release of ‘alien files’ could shatter Christian beliefs, according to the Daily Mail. They have claimed that US intelligence officials have held a series of meetings with them and told them to prepare churches to hold the Christian community together in the wake of the revelations’ shockwaves. Popular evangelist pastor Perry Stone said that the alien files could include reports and possibly videos of aliens and extraterrestrial spacecraft. “You’re going to have people who are going to say if there are galaxies and there are allegedly other creations in the galaxies, then the whole creation story is a myth, and you’re going to have people that’s going to apostatise and turn from the Christian faith because they have no answer for what they’re about to hear,” said Stone.3

IRAN - Today on Stinchfield, President Trump’s economic pressure campaign is hitting Iran so hard the numbers sound almost impossible to believe. Reports out of Iran now show some families facing nearly $70 for a loaf of bread and as much as $500 for a chicken as inflation devastates the country and the regime struggles to contain the chaos. This is what happens when America stops appeasing dictators and starts squeezing them economically. The media mocked Trump’s sanctions. Democrats called his policies reckless. But now Iran’s currency is collapsing, prices are exploding, and the regime is feeling the pain where it hurts most. We’ll expose the economic disaster unfolding inside Iran and why Trump may have proven that financial pressure can be more powerful than bombs.

UK - Rise in arrests blamed on effects of Covid isolation and online culture that glamourises gangsterism. “It wasn’t my dad’s time to die,” Carla Rivero said in court as three teenage girls were sentenced for the death of her father. Fredi Rivero, 75, died on February 27, 2025, one day after he was shoved, kicked and punched by girls aged 17, 16 and 14. One of them recorded the assault on her phone. Ms Rivero told the court the attack in Islington, north London, had left her “questioning what type of generation of youths is being raised as a result of all this”. She was not the first to ask. Violence among teenage girls has been on the rise since the Covid lockdowns. Since 2019, the number of women and girls aged 20 or under arrested for violent crimes has increased by almost 24 per cent, from 7,885 to 9,755.

GERMANY - Germany will do “everything in our power” to ensure that the Nord Stream gas pipelines from Russia are not brought back into service, a cabinet minister has said. The 760-mile route along the floor of the Baltic Sea, previously a symbol of Europe’s dependence on Moscow for fossil fuels, was rendered largely inoperable in September 2022 by a series of underwater explosions, which Berlin attributed to a team of Ukrainian saboteurs. However, it is understood that the German government has quietly carried out a report into the technical feasibility of resuming the gas supply. The report concluded that three of the four pipes had been damaged and then corroded by seawater to the point where they would be prohibitively difficult and expensive to repair. Yet it found that the one intact conduit, Strand B of Nord Stream 2, could theoretically be reactivated at any time with only a handful of legal formalities.

USA - Has any prior pope ever called out a US president for lying? Has any prior president ever repeatedly, publicly falsely accused a pope of taking positions antithetical to Catholic teaching? It would be hard to overstate how unprecedented this situation is. It’s hard just to fathom it. At least four times in recent weeks, President Donald Trump has implied or outright stated that Pope Leo XIV approved of Iran having a nuclear weapon. “The pope made a statement. He says Iran can have a nuclear weapon,” he claimed in an April 16 exchange with a reporter. No such statement, needless to say, existed, and this false claim was immediately debunked both by Catholic sources and by mainstream media outlets.

USA - On February 19, President Trump ordered the Pentagon and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth to release all information the government possesses regarding UFOs and alien life. Last week, Trump said that the first files would be released 'very, very soon' and would contain some 'very interesting' things for the public. However, officials in this secret meeting allegedly said the information on its way may cause some Christians to question how the universe was created and even lose faith in religion. 'They're going to freak out and they're going to come to pastors, ministers, and teachers and say, "What is this? Is this really real?"' The three pastors also warned that when the US government finally releases the historic report about UFOs and extraterrestrials, it will not just be surprising news, they believe it will be part of a plot designed to pull people away from faith in Jesus. The men compared it to what the Bible calls the 'great deception' in end times prophecies.

IRAN - Iran has escalated its strikes against US allies in the Persian Gulf region after the US launched "Project Freedom" — a humanitarian effort to escort commercial vessels through the Strait of Hormuz — by launching ballistic and cruise missiles at the UAE, striking the Fujairah oil terminal which allows the UAE to export oil without entering the strait. Iran's message is clear: "If they are not allowed to sell their oil, no one in the region is allowed to sell their oil either," directly challenging the petrodollar system and proving that the United States "can no longer guarantee the flow of energy." Iran has more ballistic and cruise missiles than the US has in the region, and the US bases have been so heavily damaged that they will take "years and years" to rebuild, with 13 out of 19 US military bases destroyed or rendered unusable.

MIDDLE EAST - We live at a time when deception is running rampant. Iran is not telling the truth about what is going on in the Strait of Hormuz. Neither is the Pentagon. On Monday, a few commercial vessels were able to get through the Strait. On Tuesday, that number dropped to zero. That isn’t progress. In fact, that is the opposite of progress. The closure of the Strait of Hormuz by Iran is the greatest threat to the global economy that I have seen in my entire lifetime. If it is not reopened soon, it will be an unprecedented catastrophe for the entire world.

MIDDLE EAST - Rubio announces end of Operation Epic Fury, says US has concluded offensive stage of Iran war. Rubio also announced that Operation Epic Fury has ended, and the United States has transitioned to taking defensive action in enforcing its blockade of Iranian ports, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a Tuesday press conference. "Operation Epic Fury is concluded. We achieved the objectives of that operation," Rubio told reporters, saying that the offensive stage of the war with Iran was "over". "We are only responding if attacked first. This is a defensive operation," Rubio said. "If no shots are fired at these ships and no shots are fired at us, we're not firing shots, but if we're fired on, we will respond."

USA - Given Mr Trump’s “America First” posture, it had been expected from his first presidency that he would gradually uncouple from Europe. But, as is often the case with the US leader, it is hard to distinguish between official policy and a fit of pique. While some senior diplomats cautioned against alarmism and pointed out there had been no formal US policy approach to NATO about troop reductions, others were less sanguine.