USA - Donald Trump has announced a “massive” trade deal with Japan that would earn the US economy $550 billion (£407 billion) in investment. The agreement, with one of the US’s largest trading partners, would lower tariffs for Japan and is the most significant of a string of trade deals the White House has negotiated before Mr Trump’s tariffs are due to kick in on August 1. Under the plan, the US president said Japan will pay a 15 per cent tariff on goods imported to the US – down from 25 per cent – and open its markets to American goods, including cars and rice. Two-way trade between Japan and the US reached nearly $230 billion in 2024, with Japan running a trade surplus of nearly $70 billion. Japan is the fifth-largest US trading partner in goods, and the largest investor in the US.

IRAN - Iran will not abandon its nuclear programme despite “severe” damage caused by US and Israeli air strikes, its foreign minister said. Abbas Araghchi conceded late on Monday that uranium enrichment had “stopped because, yes, damages are serious and severe”, ahead of renewed talks with European powers. But Mr Araghchi told Fox News: “Obviously, we cannot give up enrichment because it is an achievement of our own scientists.” He called the programme a source of “national pride”. Donald Trump quickly responded to Mr Araghchi’s comments, threatening on social media to “do it again, if necessary!”

USA - President Donald Trump is pulling the US out of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) over its “anti-Israel bias”. In February, Mr Trump ordered a 90-day review of America’s membership of the heritage group, probing any “anti-Semitism or anti-Israel sentiment within the organisation”. Now Mr Trump is set to cut ties with the agency after the review uncovered alleged pro-China and anti-Israel bias, as well as the promotion of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies, according to The New York Post. “President Trump has decided to withdraw the United States from Unesco – which supports woke, divisive cultural and social causes that are totally out-of-step with the common-sense policies that Americans voted for in November,” White House deputy spokeswoman Anna Kelly told the newspaper.

USA - When the average American is at the grocery store shopping for beef, you are likely to see labels that say, “MADE IN THE USA.” Sadly, and outrageously, these labels mean next to nothing: “Made in the USA” product labels might seem self-explanatory, but in the food world they’re anything but. Let’s take beef as an example. Under current rules, a cow could be born, raised and slaughtered outside the United States, but still have a “Made in the USA” or “Product of USA” label as long as the final product was packaged within US borders. Beef and pork are almost the only food products where country of origin labelling isn’t required.

UK - The Bank of England, in coordination with European supervisors, is now asking major banks to run internal stress tests for a once unthinkable scenario: a full scale US dollar funding shock. This includes modeling situations where access to dollar liquidity, even via swap lines could freeze entirely. These requests, made quietly through the BoE’s Prudential Regulation Authority, reflect growing concerns over the global system’s overreliance on the dollar and its exposure to US political volatility. Behind this shift is a deeper anxiety: that the US may no longer be a reliable or apolitical provider of emergency dollar liquidity during global crises. The trust that underpinned the dollar’s role as the lifeblood of global finance is eroding, not from economic weakness, but from geopolitical instability and policy unpredictability out of Washington. It’s a major turning point: when even the Bank of England starts war gaming a dollar shortage, it’s not about ideology, it’s about survival.

USA - Meat processors are buying machines that inject water into your dinner. It’s not a conspiracy theory. It’s a business model. Industrial emulsifiers and injectors are being sold to manufacturers across the US, Europe, and Asia to pump meat with plumping solutions: water, salts, phosphates, and preservatives. The goal is not nutrition. It’s weight. More weight means more profit. That’s the pitch. “Profitability guaranteed,” says one supplier. The practice is legal. The labeling is vague. The consumer pays for water at meat prices. Their machines are used by processors in over 60 countries. The emulsifiers homogenize the solution. The injectors distribute it. The result is heavier meat, longer shelf life, and higher margins.

CANADA - Someone Get Al Gore A Tissue. Of course, they'll still find SOME way to turn this into a 'scary story. They always do. Remember when National Geographic had everyone in a panic over that skinny polar bear story, where they invented a whole back-story and pinned it to… you know it without my even saying so. After a few months of panic, followed by a great deal of fundraising over the ‘endangered’ polar bears, and the predictable scolding the rest of us have for just living our lives, National Geographic retracted the story admitting that we really didn’t know what was wrong with that bear, or whether it was one sick bear or part of some larger story.

USA - Is one of the biggest scandals in US political history about to explode? At the end of last week, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard released evidence that appears to prove that Barack Obama and his national security team manufactured intelligence in order to undermine the legitimacy of the 2016 election. If Gabbard’s allegations are ultimately proven true, it was essentially a coup attempt, and those that were involved could potentially be convicted of treason. There are a lot of steps that we would have to go through before we ever see any convictions, but Gabbard is calling for those that were involved in this conspiracy to “be investigated and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law”. If Gabbard actually gets her wish, it will turn this country completely upside down. So far, most of the big mainstream news outlets are trying to ignore the evidence that Gabbard released on Friday. But they won’t be able to ignore this story if big names start getting arrested.

USA - Nearly 800 earthquakes have rattled Washington's Mount Rainier in the last 30 days, sparking fears that one of America's most dangerous volcanoes is coming to life. More than half of the quakes, approximately 512, struck in July alone, with one intense swarm unleashing over 400 tremors in just 12 hours. This towering stratovolcano looms over more than 3.3 million people across the Seattle-Tacoma metro area, threatening to cripple entire communities with ashfall, flooding, and catastrophic mudflows if it erupts.

USA - A high-tech new supersonic aircraft dubbed the 'son of Concorde' could slash flight times between New York and London to less than four hours. The futuristic X-59 is now in the taxi testing stage, which means manoeuvring the plane on the ground at varying speeds, to assess handling characteristics, performance, and system behaviour before flight, particularly during takeoff and landing.

UK - The Netherlands won’t be building as many wind turbines in the North Sea as it had first planned. New Zealand has started issuing licences for developing new offshore gas fields again. Even Canada, under one of the champions of the green energy transition Mark Carney, has upped the production of fossil fuels. Right across the developed world, with the one significant exception of China, governments are scaling back their green targets, recognising that they are too expensive, too poorly planned and won’t deliver the power needed at the right price to keep a modern economy functioning. But hold on. If the rest of the world is ripping up the plan, why can’t Britain as well? Because we need cheaper, reliable energy more than any of our major industrial rivals.

IRAN - Iran is currently experiencing a major water crisis. The Iranian government has declared an emergency public holiday in Tehran Province as the nation grapples with a severe water shortage and energy crisis compounded by soaring temperatures that have pushed the country's aging infrastructure to its breaking point. President Massoud Pezeshkian delivered a stark warning during a cabinet meeting on the same day, citing an energy ministry report that revealed the crisis was more severe than publicly acknowledged. "The water crisis is more serious than what is being discussed today, and if we do not take urgent action now, we will face a situation in the future for which no remedy can be found," Pezeshkian was quoted as saying by state media.

EUROPE - Weakened EU Commissioner Ursula von Der Leyen tries to negotiate €1.8 trillion budget, gets panned by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz. Ursula von der Leyen wants to centralize European power and money in Brussels. After surviving a motion of censure in the European Parliament, Commissioner Ursula von der Leyen has noticeably lost a lot of political pull – but not her will to make the EU bigger and costlier to the struggling nations of the old continent. As she rolls out her budget proposal for 2028-2034, she immediately faces harsh opposition from her native country, Germany.

USA - One of America's most stunning national parks, Yellowstone, has recently become the subject of intense speculation that the supervolcano lying beneath its breathtaking beauty could soon erupt. Videos showing herds of animals fleeing the park have sparked fears of an imminent volcanic eruption, leading many to wonder if the creatures know something that humans do not. Yellowstone National Park is home to a vast array of free-roaming animal life, hundreds of bird species flying overhead, and numerous fish species inhabiting its rivers. The park attracts visitors from around the world, eager to catch a glimpse of its remarkable inhabitants. However, recent unusual animal behaviour has raised eyebrows among visitors, with creatures appearing to hastily flee the area. This has led to speculation that the park's infamous supervolcano could be on the brink of erupting, possibly sending an apocalyptic ash plume into the atmosphere.

UK - Modern doctors appear to have little use for the concept of medical ethics, preferring to play politics. As a young artist, my grandfather took the long journey by ship to Japan in 1908. The trip was his prize for winning a competition. While in Japan, he took up jiu-jitsu, the martial art. It was a condition of his training that he should sign an oath, in his own blood, that he would use the skills he learned for good and not for ill. He was gaining, after all, skills that would enable him to wound or kill. It was required that he would promise to deploy them virtuously and responsibly. It is a similar story with medical ethics. In ancient Greece, as doctors first began to learn methods that could mean the difference between life and death, a code of ethics was developed, known as the Hippocratic Oath.