UK - Rachel Reeves is preparing to strip back environmental protections in an effort to boost the economy by speeding up infrastructure projects. The chancellor is considering reforms that would make it far harder for concerns about nature to stop development, which she insists is crucial to restoring growth and improving living standards. The Treasury has begun preparing for another planning reform bill and is thinking about tearing up key parts of European environmental rules that developers say are making it harder to build key projects. Labour ministers have repeatedly insisted that their current planning overhaul will not come at the expense of nature, promising a “win-win” system where developers will pay to offset environmental damage. But Reeves is understood to believe that the government must go significantly further, after expressing frustration that the interests of “bats and newts” are being allowed to stymie critical infrastructure.

UK - Have you ever been injured by a Union flag? Has one, for example, mugged you at knife-point for your iPhone 16? Or perhaps a gang of teenage Union flags, out of their minds on weapons-grade skunk, have ambushed you as you walk home on your own after dark? I’m relieved to say that I for one have never suffered any such misfortune. But then, I don’t live in Birmingham. And it would seem that the Union flags up there are an awful lot deadlier than the ones down my way in Kent.

UK - Rose Docherty is a woman of few words. You’d never have heard of the 75-year-old if it wasn’t for what she didn’t say. She’s the activist who staged a silent protest outside the abortion clinic in Glasgow last February, holding a sign reading: “Coercion is a crime, here to talk, only if you want”. Hers was a simple offer of conversation, made without a sound. You know what happened next. The septuagenarian was arrested under Scotland’s “buffer zone” laws, which prevent anybody engaging in harassment or intimidation in the vicinity of abortion facilities, or influencing a woman’s decision to use them.

UK - Most European countries use detention centres but Britain puts undocumented men in accommodation while British families struggle under taxes. This Isn’t Compassion. It’s State-Sponsored Danger. You can’t claim to protect women while placing unvetted illegal migrant men, whose criminal histories are completely unknown, into our towns and villages. These aren’t refugees or tourists. They are men of fighting age, arriving without documentation, placed in communities at taxpayer expense, while British families struggle under soaring taxes.

UK - The Ricky Jones and Lucy Connolly cases have put the system’s hypocrisy on full display. After Labour councillor Ricky Jones stood at a demonstration in Walthamstow decrying “disgusting Nazi fascists” and telling a crowd through a microphone that “we need to cut all their throats and get rid of them all”, a jury of Mr Jones’s peers cleared him of any offence.

UK - Out of the 38,023 small boat migrant arrivals recorded in the year up until March, 87% were male and just 13% were female. In the same period, a total of 25,879 male migrants were found to be between 18 and 39 years old, with only 5,907 over the age of 39. In terms of nationality, the top three countries were Afghanistan (5,766), Syria (4,368), and Eritrea (4,229). Reform UK's deputy leader Richard Tice responded to the new findings, warning of an "escalating crisis" threatening the economy and living standards.

UK - As gusts of up to 124mph strafed the nation last week during Storm Floris, many of Scotland’s new wind farms stood stock still. For the energy system that is supposed to power the country’s future, it was not a good look. It wasn’t that the wind turbines weren’t working. It was actually that they were in danger of working too well. Energy suppliers to homes had contracted to buy the wind power because it could be generated more cheaply than anywhere else in the country. But the National Energy Systems Operator (Neso), Britain’s grid operator, realised it was in danger of generating more than power lines could deal with.

UK - Smoke from Portugal’s wildfires have reached southern England. The Met Office confirmed that smoke from the fires had drifted up from the Bay of Biscay into parts of the UK and Ireland. Craig Snell, a meteorologist with the Met Office, said there was a “fair amount of smoke” heading off the Iberian Peninsula towards the UK, particularly towards the south-west of England. Mr Snell added that it was possible the smoke could drift into Wales and parts of northern England.

USA - More than 100 small earthquakes have been recorded near the Geysers geothermal field in Northern California since Thursday morning, according to the US Geological Survey. The largest quake, with a preliminary magnitude of 4.0, struck at 5:48 am on Thursday, USGS seismologist Susan Hough told SFGATE. Within minutes, several magnitude 3.0 temblors followed, along with a cascade of much smaller ones. Hough said there have been 117 quakes in total, though they “have been going down in magnitude, like 0.3, which is teeny tiny.” The seismic activity does not fit neatly into one single classification. Hough described it as a “swarming sequence” — not quite a typical aftershock series but not a classic swarm either. While the sequence’s location is far from the state’s major fault systems, Hough cautioned that earthquake activity “always statistically increases the odds of more activity once you’re disturbing other faults.” She added, “There’s definitely a chance that you’ll have other felt earthquakes in the area.”

USA - We just got confirmation that inflation is starting to accelerate once again. That is really bad news, because the cost of living has already been stressing people out all over the country. In fact, one recent survey found that 86 percent of Americans are stressed out about grocery prices. But it isn’t just the cost of food that has been going up. We have been getting slammed by double-digit price increases in every direction, and that is having enormous consequences. Our standard of living is eroding with each passing month, and as a result the middle class is steadily shrinking.

EUROPE - When Vladimir Putin meets with Donald Trump in Alaska tomorrow, it will represent the best chance at peace in Europe in the three and a half years since Russia’s invasion reignited the conflict in Ukraine. This does not mean that peace should be pursued at all costs. It is to Mr Trump’s credit that he has indicated that no deal will be made without the consent of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky. It is to his credit, also, that he has stated his willingness to impose sanctions if negotiations prove unsuccessful. Mr Trump must stand by this.

UK - Britain is today less energy secure than ever before. UK energy production has declined by 67 percent over the past two decades. That means we have gone from a position of being a net exporter of energy, creating jobs and tax in this country to importing around half of our energy. British bill-payers are creating jobs and tax revenue in other countries instead. Last year marked a record low for UK energy production – despite there being decades worth of oil and gas left in the country and the Government dishing out billions in subsidies to wind and solar developers. How has this been allowed to happen? The answer is simple: policies from Labour and Conservative governments have been driven by the ideological pursuit of net zero to the detriment of energy security and ordinary taxpayers.

UK - Reform UK Member of Parliament Sarah Pochin has urged that Britain is facing a full on invasion from Muslim men who hold “medieval” views and that it isn’t surprising that British men are forming vigilante groups in preparation. Appearing on Talk TV, Pochin warned “it’s no wonder that we’re now hearing about groups of concerned British men mobilizing themselves into guardian angel style street patrols.” “The inconvenient truth for the left is that the culture of men from predominantly Muslim countries like Afghanistan is one that holds a medieval view of women’s rights,” Pochin further asserted. "This is an invasion on our culture!"

USA - In the 20 years that Erika Swanton has worked in retail on the Las Vegas Strip, she has never known summer business to be so slow. The number of customers visiting the skincare shop she works in has halved. “I’ve never seen the economy like this, not even in 2008,” she says. “People used to come to Las Vegas and spend money. Now they’re scared to spend.” Vegas has always been a place of extravagance, a luxury destination where tourists can embrace the carefree hedonism of gambling, boozing and spending. But now Sin City tourism is in a slump.

UK - Chancellor Rachel Reeves can only watch as gilt yields climb higher. Long-term UK borrowing costs have just hit their highest level in 27 years, in the latest blow for our beleaguered Chancellor. As I write, 30-year gilt yields have climbed above 5.5%. That’s almost 20% higher than when Labour took power just over a year ago, when they were around 4.6%. Incredibly, it's also the highest number since 1998. For a country with a massive £3 trillion debt pile, that’s punishing. And there’s little Rachel Reeves can do to stop it, because this time the trigger lies in Washington. I warned a US financial storm was heading our way a few days ago, and it's already landing. Last night we had confirmation that Donald Trump’s tariffs are driving up US inflation, and the UK government bond market is reeling from the shock. Where US inflation goes, ours tends to follow. As does the interest we pay on our debts.