UK - Young women in the UK are now, for the first time, more likely to be in education, employment or training than young men. They are more likely to go to university. Their salaries are higher. They are increasingly dominant in many of the professions, including teaching, medicine and law. The world that is emerging, in other words, is one of power women — and powerless men. There has, for example, been much fretting over the rise in economic inactivity in the UK. But this has been, overwhelmingly, a rise in male inactivity. As Burn-Murdoch says, these high-flying career women and sofa-dwelling layabouts aren’t even meeting, let alone mating. The proportion of young South Koreans in relationships has dropped by 40 per cent since 2010, and fertility has fallen to match. In the UK and US, too, this “relationship recession” is starting to bite into the birth rate.

UK - We are living in a new era of threat. So writes the Defence Secretary, John Healey, in the just published UK Strategic Defence Review. This is a credible document, reflecting the serious team assembled to work on it. But it’s come under fire for promising much without explaining where the funding will come from. The strategic environment has pivoted fast. We live in a world where great power competition is a reality. It took time for governments across Europe to wake up to the level of threat. Radek Sikorski, Poland’s foreign minister, was an early proponent of higher defence spending. In a brilliant speech last summer at the Ditchley Foundation, he reminded his audience that: “We are in a pre-war moment. The question is not whether we will be attacked, but whether we will be ready.” The Poles have been preparing. They have been there before. History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.

USA - President Donald Trump warned there will be "troops everywhere" when asked if he will take more action if protests, like those in LA, continue to rage. In a directive Saturday, Trump invoked a legal provision allowing him to deploy federal service members when there is ”a rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States.” "We are going to have troops everywhere," Trump said after touching down on Air Force One in New Jersey on Sunday. "We are not going to let this happen to our country."

USA - On Friday’s “Alex Marlow Show,” host and Breitbart Editor-in-Chief Alex Marlow discussed Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s behavior with Breitbart International News Editor Frances Martel. Martel said, “He’s known for advancing a technology that is only useful if you believe in the climate crisis. If you fully believe the dogma that the world is going to end in, you know, a couple of decades because of climate change, then his company is for you. The way that he has led his private life is actively anti traditional family.” She added, “He promotes the destruction of the traditional family. And he’s very, very close to the Chinese Communist Party, and he’s been very open about his disgust with America’s respect for workers and labor rights and his disgust with Americans prioritizing family life, religion, and the things that make life worth living over, making more money for shareholders.”

JAPAN - Within a few minutes of the doors opening, the farm produce co-operative in Atami, a seaside town south-west of Tokyo, had completely sold out of subsidised Japanese rice. “This will only last us a couple of weeks,” said 46-year-old Yujiro Osaki, one of the dozens of people who had queued up for a 3kg bag just a few dollars cheaper than the supermarket price for rice of the same quality. “It’s a ridiculous situation for Japan to be in.” For millions of consumers struggling with sharply rising food costs after years of stagnant prices, queues and the quest for better deals are now part of buying rice in Japan.

USA - The Roman Empire, once a beacon of power and prosperity, crumbled under the weight of internal mismanagement, with reckless spending and currency devaluation playing pivotal roles in its decline. Rome’s vast empire required an immense military to defend its borders and suppress rebellions. By the 3rd century CE, military spending consumed a significant portion of the budget, with soldiers demanding higher pay and bonuses to maintain loyalty. Emperors also expanded the bureaucracy, creating a bloated administrative system that drained resources. This unchecked spending strained the treasury, leaving little room for economic stability.

UK - Britain is in the midst of a once-in-a-millennium transformation. Just as the Norman conquest changed the ethnic and cultural makeup of the people of the British Isles forever, so now, the mass migration of Muslims into the country has already changed the UK into a country that Victorian Britons and even World War II veterans would scarcely recognize, and the transformation has barely begun. Yet Britain was so different within the living memory of so many Britons today that the British establishment has started an all-out effort to convince British citizens that all is well and that what is happening to the country is just business as usual. One key element of this initiative is to convince schoolchildren that the newcomers to Britain are really people who have been there all along, and so no one should get the crazy idea that anything is amiss as the native people of the island are reduced to minority status in their own homeland.

USA - Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Saturday evening announced that Active Duty Marines stationed at Camp Pendleton will be mobilized to quell the anti-ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] riots in downtown Los Angeles. Camp Pendleton is located about 80 miles south of Los Angeles in North San Diego County. Violent protests began on Friday after ICE agents conducted multiple raids in downtown Los Angeles. The riots continued into Saturday. Protestors started fires, threw projectiles at law enforcement officers and damaged property in response to LA Mayor Karen Bass’s call for action. Democrat Karen Bass fanned the flames late Friday with an attack on ICE agents.

UK - Lawyers in England and Wales have been warned they could face 'severe sanctions' including potential criminal prosecution if they present false material generated by AI in court. The ruling, by one of Britain's most senior judges, comes on the back of a string of cases in which which artificially intelligence software has produced fictitious legal cases and completely invented quotes.

USA - The launch of ChatGPT in late 2023 sparked an arms race among Big Tech companies such as Meta, Google, Apple and Microsoft and startups like OpenAI, Anthropic, Mistral and DeepSeek. All are rushing to deploy their models and products as fast as possible, announcing the next “shiny” toy in town and trying to claim superiority at the expense of our safety, privacy or autonomy.

USA - Key Takeaways: A healthy spread of artificial intelligence (AI) companies exists globally, providing computing power and foundational models. The most prolific companies are in the most advanced economies, such as Google and AWS in the US and Alibaba and Tencent in China. According to the World Bank classification, India is the only lower-middle-income nation with a thriving and globally competitive AI scene. AI is no longer a theoretical tool, only accessible in research labs. Today, it is a ubiquitous technology being adapted across every industry, driving intense global competition and spurring innovation. Innovators around the world, including from lower-middle-income nations (according to World Bank classifications) such as India, are thriving and competing on an equal footing.

USA - Some communities and politicians are pushing back against data centers — vital yet sometimes controversial facilities underpinning our digital lives and the AI explosion. Why it matters: More than 5,000 of these key tech facilities now dot the American landscape, often requiring massive amounts of energy and land and receiving big government incentives. Threat level: Data centers are also driving a surge in electricity demand — especially amid the rapid growth of new AI tools. Utilities now estimate data centers will need nearly 40 gigawatts of additional electricity by 2028, per a December 2023 report from consulting firm Grid Strategies — nearly double their prior guess. Demand is so high that at least one mothballed nuclear reactor, Pennsylvania's infamous Three Mile Island, might come back online to power them.

CHINA - China’s near-total dominance of the world’s supply of rare-earth metals – which are used in the manufacture of everything from cars and computer chips to F-35 fighter jets and nuclear-powered submarines – means Xi can squeeze the US where it hurts. “Critical minerals are one of the most important bargaining chips for China in its negotiations with Washington. China will really hold on to this, as a significant point of leverage,” says Matilda Buchan, a senior analyst at Asia House, a London think tank. Beijing’s willingness to weaponise the rare-earths supply chain is so potent a threat to the US economy and military that it has already pushed the White House into de-escalating its planned trade war with China. The threat of factory production lines grinding to a halt highlights the immense power of China in this crucial market, and the power of its hand in negotiations.

RUSSIA - It’s becoming increasingly clear that new Pope Leo XIV is going to be ‘hands-on’ in the pursuit of peace, and is not going to be bound by his predecessor Francis’ approach. Further proof of that came today in the form of a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin – an act that can get almost anyone ‘cancelled’ and endlessly vilified. US-born Robert Prevost seems undeterred by that, and his Papacy as Leo XIV may well be surprising in this regard.

SWITZERLAND - The financial system is about to undergo a major transformation. The Basel III Endgame regulations, set to begin on July 1, 2025, will increase capital requirements for banks with over $100 billion in assets, forcing them to hold more reserves and limit lending. The Federal Reserve, along with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), finalized these reforms in July 2023, marking a new era of financial regulation.