UK - When my eldest daughter came to me wanting to buy a custom-made prom dress for several hundred pounds, I felt mean for saying no. But this expectation is fast-becoming the new reality for parents of teenagers in 2026. I should know – I have three of them. There is the essential spending; my eldest child, Isaac, is 19 and has just finished his first year at university. His accommodation, train fares, money to live on and mobile phone all tot up to the tune of more than £1,000 per month.

CHINA - The proliferation of low-cost suicide drones and interceptor drones appears to be accelerating as nation-states begin stockpiling these expendable platforms, reflecting a rapid and structural shift in modern warfare toward mass, attributable weapons. More concerning is that some of these drones appear to be marketed far beyond traditional military channels and potentially sold to the highest bidder.

IRAN - When Iran declared the Strait of Hormuz closed on Monday, the regime wanted to assert its control over a waterway vital to the world’s economy. But it may end up unravelling its own in the process, after the United States said it would reimpose a crippling naval blockade. Even before President Trump’s announcement on Monday, the numbers painted a grim picture for the regime. The Iranian economy is predicted to contract by 10 per cent this year and the conflict may push the country into its worst unemployment crisis in decades. Analysts say that millions of jobs are at risk. Inflation has rocketed to more than 80 per cent, and food prices are rising even faster. Iran’s leaders had acknowledged even before the conflict that they had no solution for its sanctioned and corruption-riddled economy.

IRAN - Having choked off shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, Iran is now signalling it could play its most dangerous card yet: using their Yemeni proxy organization, the Houthis, to shut the Bab el-Mandeb gateway to the Red Sea, opening a new front against Washington and putting two of the world's most vital energy arteries at risk. As US strikes deepen inside Iran and Houthi attacks escalate in tandem, analysts say Tehran is widening the conflict and seeking to increase pressure on Washington by extending the threat to global trade and energy supplies beyond the Gulf.

USA - The phrase “too big to fail” originally described banks so large and so entangled with the rest of the economy that governments felt they had no choice but to bail them out rather than let them collapse and take everything down with them. Medicine now sits in a similar position: so much wealth, so many careers, and so large a share of the market are tied to the existing system that almost no one with the power to change it can afford to, and so, rather than fix the corruption, everyone involved has every incentive to keep it running. In parallel, the FDA (the agency responsible for catching trial manipulation), is itself financially dependent on the industry it regulates. In short we effectively have a “too big to fail” scenario where no one can afford to rock the boat by challenging the premises it rests upon (but can get rich through insider trading). As such, while small attempts are made to reform things, as the years go by, things become more and more corrupt and the American people ultimately pay the price by becoming sicker and sicker from what the “health” agencies give to us.

EUROPE - When Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine, he triggered an energy shortage and a cost of living crisis that dealt a blow to Europe’s zeal for net zero. Just this week, new data shows that Europe is struggling to wean itself off Russian gas. In the invasion’s wake, populist politicians have increasingly questioned whether Europe needs to race to climate neutrality at top speed and at all costs. Beleaguered businesses, meanwhile, reeling from soaring energy bills and cut-price Chinese imports, are begging to be spared from yet more red tape and higher climate-related costs. Brussels has been unable to ignore the backlash. In the past 18 to 24 months, it has taken the pruning shears to its thicket of green rules. The European Commission’s rhetoric, from president Ursula von der Leyen down, has focused less on fighting climate change and more on the cost of energy and the security of supply. The electrification plan is shaping up as a litmus test of the EU’s changing mood.

MIDDLE EAST - The war in the Gulf that everyone thought had ended has been revived, with more than 100 US strikes on targets inside Iran over the weekend. They were a response to a blatant breach by Tehran of the agreed 60-day ceasefire with attacks on shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. This critical waterway has become pivotal to the entire conflict with Iran using their geographical proximity effectively to force its closure. Last month, Washington and Tehran signed a memorandum of understanding under which the Strait would be reopened and shipping restored. Some 500 vessels have used the route since then. But they have largely done so on sufferance from Iran which is dictating “approved” routes for ships. Those that follow an unsanctioned course are being hit by missiles.

USA - The Federal Reserve could be forced to step in and bail out Wall Street in the event of a stock market meltdown, an executive at the banking giant ING has said. Bob Homan, global chief investment officer, said the US central bank could mimic efforts by the Japanese government in 2002 and 2009 when it took stakes in failing financial institutions during banking crises. Stock markets have endured sharp corrections this year as a result of the Iran war and concerns about surging valuations among AI-linked companies. The benchmark S&P 500 on Wall Street dropped nearly 8 percent following the outbreak of the Middle East conflict but has climbed 19 percent since then as tech stocks have rocketed. Many analysts have raised concerns that stocks linked to AI are beginning to show signs of entering bubble territory, echoing the era before the dotcom crash in the early 2000s.

UK - The ritual for an incoming prime minister, unchanged for decades, has never been so fraught with significance. Soon after Andy Burnham enters No 10, he will be taken to a secure room where Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton, the Chief of the Defence Staff, will brief him on how to authorise a British nuclear strike. At that moment, Burnham will join the handful of world leaders with the individual power to inflict a greater measure of destruction than has ever been wrought before. Burnham will be inducted into the dreadful prime ministerial function of overseeing Britain’s ultimate deterrent and deciding this country’s nuclear policy. That responsibility is heavier and perhaps more bleakly consequential today than ever before. The reasons go beyond the simple fact that Vladimir Putin is now waging Europe’s bloodiest war since 1945 on the battlefields of Ukraine.

GERMANY - Volkswagen (VW), Europe’s biggest auto-maker, and once the proud symbol of Germany’s industrial strength, is finally taking the bold action needed to try and save the company. The carmaker will halve the number of models, and, if it can secure the agreement of the unions, it will cut 100,000 jobs from its workforce. Yet it is surely too little, too late. The only rescue plan worth considering is breaking the business up into VW, Audi, Porsche and Skoda and letting each one sink or swim. Every other plan leaves it on the road to complete ruin. Volkswagen has been in decline for years, but the crunch now appears to have finally arrived.

ETHIOPIA - Leaders of northern Ethiopia’s breakaway Tigray region say the peace deal that ended a civil war in 2022 has collapsed and they are preparing “to fight the coming disaster”. The Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), the main political party and militia in Ethiopia’s northernmost state, fought a two-year civil war beginning in 2020 against the federal government, led by Abiy Ahmed, the prime minister. The Tigray war is considered one of the deadliest of the 21st century, with as many as 600,000 people — mostly civilians — believed to have died from the violence and an ensuing humanitarian crisis, including famine. The conflict was officially ended by the Pretoria Peace Agreement, brokered by the African Union, though implementation of the deal has been contested.

UKRAINE - Ukraine’s long-range drone campaign is pushing deeper into Russia, increasing pressure on Moscow’s energy system and forcing the Kremlin to defend targets far beyond the front lines. Ukrainian drones struck Russia’s largest refinery in Omsk on Monday, sparking fires nearly 1,500 miles from Kyiv-controlled territory. The strike marked a major expansion of Ukraine’s deep-strike campaign, which had largely focused on European Russia. The drones used in the Omsk operation can fly as far as 2,100 miles, according to Ukrainian manufacturer Fire Point. That range puts more of Russia’s oil-and-gas industry, military facilities, pipelines and pumping stations within reach.

USA - This thing is honestly pretty wild. MIT engineers built a robot inspired by the Atlantic puffin. The same wings let it fly through the air… then paddle and move through the water. Most drones are built for one environment. This one switches between both. The part that caught my attention is what happened during testing. The robot took off directly from Lake Geneva without catapults, boosters, or any outside help. It lifted itself out of the water using the same flapping wings. That has been one of the biggest challenges for hybrid drones. Water is dense. Air isn’t. Designing one set of wings that works well in both has been a huge engineering problem. Now imagine where this goes next. Ocean research is the obvious answer. Military surveillance is another. A drone that can disappear beneath the surface, then pop into the air and keep flying creates a very different kind of reconnaissance platform. That’s probably why defense companies are already paying attention. It may look like a robotic bird. But it feels more like the first step toward a whole new class of drones.

USA - What happens when the water dries up? Much of the American West is close to finding out. John Wesley Powell led the first expedition through the Colorado River Basin in 1869, filling in the last blank spot on the map we now call the United States as the country celebrated its 93rd birthday. As America turns 250, the reservoir that bears his name is in danger of hitting dead pool, marking a crisis point for the river complex and the 40 million people who rely on it.

USA - Giant storms filled with potentially deadly fungal spores are set to sweep across at least 11 US states this summer, with the worst conditions still weeks away. Meteorologists and health experts have warned that dust storms in the Southwest will stir up dangerous fungal spores from the soil through September, potentially exposing millions to Valley fever. This common illness is a lung infection caused by breathing in microscopic fungus particles called Coccidioides that live in dry soil frequently blown around by strong desert winds.