USA - Rent is due. The electric bill sits on the counter. The grocery receipt from last week still stings. For half of Americans, keeping up with basic monthly bills has become nearly impossible. A nationwide survey of 5,000 Americans from Talker Research reports 52% now struggle to pay bills like rent on time each month, while an equal number are struggling to afford necessities like groceries. Nine in 10 people believe the US is experiencing a full-blown cost-of-living crisis, and nearly eight in 10 said everything became more expensive in 2025. Tax refunds have become survival money. What used to be bonus money for a vacation or a splurge has become the difference between making it through the month or not. Half of respondents said they expect a tax refund this year, and among those, 73% admitted they need it more than ever before. Six in 10 said they need their refund earlier than usual just to stay afloat. Where the money goes tells a similar story. Nearly three in 10 people plan to use refund money on necessities like groceries and gas. Another quarter will put it toward savings or paying down debt. Only 14% said they’d spend refund money on anything fun. Think about that for a moment. When tax refunds stop feeling like extra money and start functioning as a financial backstop, something fundamental has shifted about what it means to get by in America.

USA - The majority of Americans are concerned about the economy and want lawmakers to address the mounting debt, but the deficit ratio to GDP growth is on track to surpass WWII levels. As we head further into 2026, most Americans continue to hold negative views of the US economy, a consensus that appears to hold across the political divide. The country’s fiscal burden continues to climb after it skyrocketed to $38 trillion in October of last year, and the debt is increasing by $6.17 billion per day, according to the US Joint Economic Committee’s Monthly Debt Update. When debt hit $38 trillion, the committee projected that the country’s debt would hit $39 trillion by approximately March 6, 2026. Over the past two decades, US borrowing has been uninterrupted, and an analysis reveals that the current US national debt, as a share of the economy, has surpassed that of World War II.

USA - The US has approved more than $6.5 billion in new potential military sales to Israel amid rising tensions with Iran, officials in Washington have announced. According to two separate statements by the Pentagon and State Department on Friday, the package includes a $1.98 billion worth of light tactical vehicles, AH-64E Apache helicopters costing $3.8 billion, and a separate $740 million contract for armored personnel carriers power packs. AM General, Boeing, and Lockheed Martin are among the prime contractors. ”The proposed sale will enhance Israel’s capability to meet current and future threats by improving its ability to defend Israel’s borders,” the Pentagon said, adding that the move “will not alter the basic military balance in the region.”

USA - ‘We want a lot of beef and we want to make it here in America,’ the health secretary tells cattlemen in Nashville. Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr urged American ranchers to boost their beef production, while on stage at CattleCon on February 5. “I’m begging you to increase the size of the herds,” Kennedy said during a discussion with National Cattlemen’s Beef Association President Buck Wehrbein in front of a packed ballroom of cattlemen in Music City Center. In 1972, the United States had 132 million head of cattle, and that total livestock inventory dropped to 92 million in 2025, the HHS secretary said during Thursday’s event. America’s cattle inventory has dropped due to years of drought and rising costs, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation.

UK - Keir Starmer never met Jeffrey Epstein. But the British prime minister’s job is under threat because of the fallout from the late sex offender’s global web of relationships. Friendship with Epstein has already brought down a British royal – Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, formerly known as Prince Andrew – and UK ambassador to Washington Peter Mandelson, fired by Starmer over his links to the financier. Now new revelations have plunged Starmer’s center-left government into turmoil. Starmer apologized on Thursday to Epstein’s victims, saying Mandelson had repeatedly lied and “portrayed Epstein as someone he barely knew.” “I am sorry, sorry for what was done to you, sorry that so many people with power failed you,” Starmer said. “Sorry for having believed Mandelson’s lies and appointed him.”

SWITZERLAND - WEF President and CEO Børge Brende was mentioned more than 60 times in millions of newly released Epstein documents published last week by the US Justice Department. Brende, 60, a former Norwegian foreign minister who has led the Geneva-based organization since 2017, oversees the annual gathering of global political, business, and cultural leaders in Davos, Switzerland. “The WEF seeks to clarify recent disclosures regarding its president and CEO, Borge Brende, and his participating in three business dinners with Jeffrey Epstein, along with subsequent email and SMS communications,” the forum said. Many individuals named in the files were also regular participants at the Davos forum, underscoring the overlap between Epstein’s network and some of the world’s most influential figures.

USA - The most recently released content from the "Epstein files" has proven to be a cesspit of disgusting revelations about some of the world's upper crust. The weakness, ignorance, venality, deceit and selfishness of America's "elites" is on display every day. Those who hold the highest positions in society – the famous, the wealthy, heads of companies, spiritual gurus, authors, educators and esteemed administrative leaders, powerful government officials, well-known media personalities and the world's highest-paid entertainers – are revealing themselves to be utterly unworthy of their social status. The worst part of all this is that despite these people's depraved proclivities, they still believe they deserve to be running the world and ruling over the rest of us.

UK - Before Charles and Camilla arrived in Denham, Essex, images of Andrew released by the US Department of Justice had been printed out and scattered around. The King was heckled by members of the public about his brother, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, during an official visit to Essex on Thursday. One man was heard to ask whether the King had urged the police to investigate Andrew. Charles did not appear to hear the question, which was shouted during a walkabout with the Queen. Another person was heard to ask whether the royal family would help with the investigation into Jeffrey Epstein, the paedophile financier who was found dead in his Manhattan jail cell in 2019.

USA - Global mistrust of Donald Trump has moved beyond mere partisan debate. It has become a driving force reshaping diplomacy, currency stability, and the very psychology that underpins alliances. The unease isn’t just about his grandiose claims, such as insisting he ended eight wars and his desire for a Nobel Prize. The real damage lies in the erratic warnings, personal threats, and refusal to follow any recognizable international norms. Allies struggle to read his intentions, while rivals see disorder as an advantage. The result is a global system no longer anchored by the United States but tossed about by its internal turmoil. All the signs point to a collapse of the established world order. The long-standing system of stable democracies, predictable partnerships, and rule-based international norms is under extraordinary strain. Whether this marks the end of an era or the painful birth of something new depends on how leaders and citizens respond.

JAPAN - ‘Iron Lady’ prime minister puts militarisation at heart of snap election. Behind black iron fencing, soldiers run laps in full view of the nervous residents of Kumamoto in far-western Japan. But the base, which is fast becoming a nerve centre for preparations for the prospect of a regional war, will soon be moving some of its activity underground. Camp Kengun houses some of Japan’s most advanced weapon systems. More have been moved here in recent weeks as Sanae Takaichi, the “Iron Lady” prime minister, transforms the country’s defensive posture and stands up to China. Moving operations underground will allow the base to keep operating in the event of an attack, something residents and local officials here are having to confront for the first time in decades. The subject of militarisation is still a taboo in Japan, where pacifism has been the reigning doctrine since the end of World War II, after Japan became the only country to have suffered nuclear attacks.

JAPAN - “My goal is to become the Iron Lady,” said Japan’s first female prime minister, as she took office last October. Even over just a few months, ahead of Sunday’s general election, Sanae Takaichi has shown some of the same leadership instincts as Margaret Thatcher, her long-declared political heroine. As a security hawk, Takaichi wants to revise Japan’s pacifist constitution and has taken a firm stance on security issues related to China and Taiwan. This is where it gets interesting and possibly even dangerous. Because, in contrast to the fiscal constraint espoused by the original “Iron Lady”, Takaichi is a champion of “Abenomics”, named after the assassinated former prime minister Shinzo Abe. That involves big fiscal spending and aggressive monetary easing – which, if implemented again, could seriously rattle financial markets. And, seeing as we’re talking about the world’s second-largest creditor and fourth-largest economy overall, that financial turbulence could spread worldwide. By banging the drum for rapid fiscal expansion, should she prevail in this election, Takaichi risks causing a global financial meltdown.

UK - British households are paying more for power than almost any other European country, the International Energy Agency (IEA) has warned. On Friday, the agency said power bills in the UK were rising faster than wages, mainly because of net zero levies, leaving consumers with less money left over to spend on other necessities. British households paid 30.45p per kilowatt hour (KWh), worse than Norway (9.5p per KWh), France (23.7p) and the Netherlands (21.8p). American consumers paid some of the lowest prices at 12.9p per KWh. “The rise in electricity prices for households has outpaced growth in income and general inflation rates since 2019 in many countries, leading to costlier bills for residential consumers,” the agency said.

UK - Leicester is no multicultural success – it is a stark warning to the rest of Britain. Increasing knife crime in the East Midlands city exposes how failed social cohesion is eroding public space. Leicester presents itself as untroubled: diverse, modern, quietly successful. But underneath the slogans is a city transformed faster than its institutions, politics, and communities were ever prepared to handle. Like Birmingham on the other side of the Midlands, Leicester is living with the consequences of neglect. A former industrial hub transformed rapidly by demographic change, ethnic division, and political fragmentation – yet discussed far less because it lacks Birmingham’s size and infamy. The absence of scrutiny has allowed problems to go unchecked.

UK - Being born in 1980, I don’t remember much about the Cold War. But I remember that sense of impotence: the fear that people very far away from me could make a decision, or just a mistake, that would end everything I knew. And recently I’ve started to have that feeling again. The other week Dario Amodei, the head of Anthropic, published a 19,000-word essay on the looming dangers of artificial intelligence. As Danny Fortson wrote in The Sunday Times, it was a powerful, but also deeply unsettling, read. “I believe we are entering a rite of passage… which will test who we are as a species,” said Amodei. And: “AI is so powerful, such a glittering prize, that it is very difficult for human civilisation to impose any restraints on it at all.” He warned that “the years in front of us will be impossibly hard” and concluded that “humanity is about to be handed almost unimaginable power, and it is deeply unclear whether our social, political and technological systems possess the maturity to wield it”.

USA - Big Tech is taking the AI age to a whole new level. When Amazon, Alphabet, Microsoft, and Meta announced earnings recently, one set of numbers stole the show: The massive projections for data center spending this year. Amazon said Thursday it is planning $200 billion in capex [capital expenditure] this year, a more than 50% increase from 2025 and the largest estimated budget among Big Tech companies. Google parent Alphabet stunned investors on Wednesday when it said it is planning $175 billion to $185 billion in capex for 2026, doubling its budget for the second year in a row. Meta said last week it is planning $115 billion to $135 billion in capex, close to doubling its spend from last year.