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Hungarian President Sulyok Rejects Magyar’s Call to Resign
Hungarian President Tamas Sulyok rejected demands from new Prime Minister Peter Magyar to resign by the end of May, setting the stage for a legal battle in Budapest.
Your current Galaxy phone may not support Gemini Intelligence
Gemini Intelligence's high hardware requirements make most Galaxy devices incompatible with the advanced AI feature.
Rare earth breakthrough in China’s icy northeast
A new type of deposit in Heilongjiang and Jilin promises easier, cheaper mining than in southern clay-rich areas, say scientists.
MiniPlasma Windows 0-Day Enables SYSTEM Privilege Escalation on Fully Patched Systems
MiniPlasma revives a 2020 Windows cldflt.sys flaw, enabling SYSTEM access on May 2026 patched Windows 11 systems.
China Politics
China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi, center, looks on as diplomats and staff members gather for an official group photo following the presentation ceremony for the ministry's Outstanding Diplomat Medal in
China Politics
China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi arrives alongside foreign diplomats for the presentation ceremony of the ministry's Outstanding Diplomat Medal in Beijing, China, Monday, May 18, 2026. (Maxim Shemetov/Pool Photo via
Thailand to Pare 7,000 Business Rules to Lure Foreign Investment
Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul’s government plans a sweeping reform of more than 7,000 business regulations, aiming to cut bureaucratic hurdles and accelerate investment as it tries to compete for global capital.
Legislation to stop funding for Rochester sports complex will not advance
Rep. Greg Davids (R-Preston), the only Republican co-author on the bill, said there was a “real problem” in determining how the bill could be put together to stop the project.
NextEra Energy Said to Be in Talks to Acquire Dominion, Creating a Utility Giant
A deal, involving the utilities in Florida and Virginia, would come as demand for power is soaring, largely because of the rapid growth of A.I. data centers.
A prayer festival calls for more religion in politics, not less
A prayer festival on the National Mall in Washington, DC was partially organized and funded by the federal government. Its evangelical Christian messaging and call for more religion in politics not less, aligns with the Trump administration's fusion of faith and governance. NPR's Emily Feng went to the event to understand the audience for this approach, and she spoke with author Eric Metaxas, a speaker at the Rededicate 250 festival.For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. Email us at considerthis@npr.org.This episode was produced by Henry Larson, with audio engineering by It was edited by Sarah Robbins and Daniel Burke.Our executive producer is Sami Yenigun.
New Windows 'MiniPlasma' zero-day exploit gives SYSTEM access, PoC released
A cybersecurity researcher has released a proof-of-concept exploit for a Windows privilege escalation zero-day dubbed "MiniPlasma" that lets attackers gain SYSTEM privileges on fully patched Windows systems.
NextEra to discuss paying about $76 per share for Dominion, Bloomberg News reports
U.S. power firm NextEra Energy is discussing a mostly stock deal for Dominion Energy that would value the smaller Virginia-based utility at about $76 per share, or around $66 billion, Bloomberg News reported on Sunday.
Critics fear a midterm purge as the Trump administration promotes program to check voter eligibility
At least 67 million registrations, primarily from Republican-controlled states, have gone through a beefed-up verification program at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and tens of thousands of those have been flagged as potential noncitizens or people who have died.
I almost gave up on Google Calendar until this Gemini hack fixed my main gripe
Google Calendar gets better when I don't have to open it
10 million bacteria in a thimble — scientists discover 'miniature worlds' floating in fog
A thimbleful of fog water can contain roughly 10 million bacteria.
Gemini app rolling out ‘Extended’ thinking level, new 3rd-party app integrations
Ahead of I/O 2026, Google continues to roll out Gemini app features, with some users now seeing a "Thinking level" option.
I connected Gemini with Spotify and elevated my music experience in no time
A match made in playlist heaven
People overestimate how confident AI systems are in their responses, experiments reveal
Artificial intelligence (AI) systems, particularly conversational agents such as ChatGPT or Gemini, are now used daily by a growing number of people worldwide. While many users trust the answers of AI ...
Minnesota Vikings News and Links: What Moves Are Next?
Not much going on right now as we await the first OTAs and minicamp. The current Cap Space (per OverTheCap) without the Jennings signing reflected is : $12,267,125One June 2nd it will increase due to the Post-June 1 release savings: +$12,500,000 (combined from Harrison Smith and Jonathan Allen)Adjusted Total Cap Space: $24,767,125 I imagine Jennings […]
Albany Mayor Applyrs looks ahead in budget gap update
On Saturday, the mayor said her administration has been able to find almost $6 million in savings to address a $19 million operating deficit.
Trump administration promote program to check voter eligibility. Critics fear a midterm purge
The Trump administration has run the names of at least 67 million voters through government databases as it looks for noncitizens and people who've died.
Trump administration promote program to check voter eligibility. Critics fear a midterm purge
The Trump administration has run the names of at least 67 million voters through government databases as it looks for noncitizens and people who've died.
White House looks like it’s playing politics with Californians’ health care
The administration is right to go after Medicaid fraud, but singling out the state for a huge penalty looks like retribution.
White House looks like it’s playing politics with Californians’ health care
The administration is right to go after Medicaid fraud, but singling out the state for a huge penalty looks like retribution.
News Analysis: Trump spent two days with Xi in Beijing. Was he outplayed?
The Trump administration argues the trip was a success, having secured the display of conciliation and partnership the president had sought after years of increasingly dangerous acrimony.
The ungovernable country? Why Britain keeps losing prime ministers
May, Johnson, Truss, Sunak, and now perhaps Starmer: each one was brought low for a reason. But what if the deeper problem is the office itself?
South Korea says it will pursue all options to avoid Samsung strike
South Korea will pursue all options, including emergency arbitration, to avoid a labour strike at the country's biggest employer Samsung Electronics and to minimise any damage if one does occur, its prime minister said on Sunday.
Letlow, Fleming advance to runoff in Louisiana GOP Senate primary, CBS News projects
Incumbent GOP Sen. Bill Cassidy, who had occasionally broken with the Trump administration, did not advance to the runoff, CBS News projected.
Google’s new Gemini Intelligence will only be available on a handful of the best current Android flagships for now
The advanced AI-powered feature seems to have some crazy high requirements, both hardware and arbitrary ones. A few days ago, Google announced Gemini...
Report: Just 3% of Israeli ninth graders met science requirements in latest tests
Education minister claims results were leaked for 'political' reasons, without addressing why it withheld the science scores from the rest of the exam data published last month
Is it harder than ever to be prime minister?
Discontent with the political class is greater than ever - has the UK become ungovernable?
Now What? With Carbon Pricing Eroded and Pipeline Politics Advancing, Here Are the Pathways for Climate Success
At the end of a whirlwind week of news on carbon pricing and electricity strategy, capping a madcap year of pretty much non-stop, dramatic change, the word across much of Canada’s climate and energy transition community is that climate policy in this country has been shredded. Eviscerated. Hit with a sledgehammer by policy rollbacks that have pushed the country’s 2050 net zero target “well out of reach”. That means it’s never been more important to look for the rays of hope and glimmers of possibility. To glimpse the seeds of the next set of strategies to get Canada’s climate pollution under control and the country into the accelerating global dash away from fossil fuels. And then, once we’ve spotted those possibilities, get on with the hard, day-to-day slog of trying to make them a reality. Nothing takes away from the frustration and the deep disappointment so many climate and energy hawks are expressing, the sense of betrayal by the author of Value(s) and the former UN special envoy for climate action and finance. But we knew two things as the week drew to a close. We’re looking at the world as it most definitely is. And we don’t get to give up finding the pathways to confront climate change and deliver faster, deeper carbon cuts that leave no one else behind. So really, the first question we all have to ask ourselves is: What’s next? Subscribe All the Oxygen in the Room The outpouring of anger and grief over the carbon pricing deal between Prime Minister Mark Carney and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has been absolutely understandable. So much of the climate community poured years, more than a decade, into dragging the current federal pricing regime across the finish line, then defending it from a deluge of three-syllable rhymes after the Trudeau government proved utterly incapable of delivering its own message. The policy foisted on us by neo-classical economists took up all the oxygen in the room, burned through years of climate response time that we won’t get back, while cornering climate hawks into the position that the best response to the crisis of our lifetimes is a new tax…in an era of historic anti-tax sentiment. I mean, really—what could possibly have gone wrong? Against that history, let’s appreciate columnist Max Fawcett’s point that even a modest carbon pricing agreement with a government as off-the-wall libertarian/conspiracist as Danielle Smith’s—those adjectives are mine, not Max’s—is a win worth savouring (as long as Smith keeps her promises for a change). But part of living in the world as it is (no, I’m not letting that go) is to be clear-headed about what we can and can’t control. And one thing we get to decide, after seeing this week’s carbon price festivities take up all the oxygen yet again, is whether we want to keep letting that happen. Particularly when success down that road depends on a factor that no one with a climate agenda can control or influence—a provincial carbon pricing mechanism that has been manipulated and eroded beyond its lowest possible denominator. Thankfully, that’s not the way it has to go. Not when we have so many other powerful, practical tools at our disposal, including the ones still available to us through this abominable Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between Canada and Alberta. Tools In Our Toolbox When I started roughing out this list, I didn’t expect it to grow to nearly a dozen bullet points. It’s probably still incomplete. Some of the greatest hits in today’s climate solutions toolbox include: • No Carbon Capture, No Pipeline: On Friday, Prime Minister Mark Carney explicitly stated that there’s been no change to the MOU provision that there will be no West Coast pipeline without an industry commitment to build its massive, $16.5-billion carbon capture and storage (CCUS) hub in Northern Alberta, and vice versa. The two megaprojects were joined at the hip when the MOU was signed Nov. 27, and the implementation agreement this week affirmed that they still are. A parade of independent analysts have spent years pointing to the economic and technical flaws in CCUS, while the industry kept postponing its investment decision until it could arm-twist the government for more “clarity” (by which it meant even more lavish taxpayer subsidies) on the project. Now the industry itself is running away from the CCUS hub and insisting the pipeline should proceed without it, but Carney doesn’t seem to be budging from a central tenet of the MOU to which Smith has signed on. • No Subsidies, No Investors: Climate analysts and advocates have quite rightly been hammering away at Carney and his team, insisting that any new capacity the industry wants to build must proceed without new subsidies. The government has responded with a growing collection of funding and financing mechanisms for the very wide menu of industrial development and nation-building projects they say they want to take on, and that menu always includes fossil fuel infrastructure. But it’s hard to see how even the combined fiscal clout of the federal and supportive provincial governments will deliver the financial backing private investors would need when the business case for new fossil fuel development is evaporating before their eyes. Particularly when… • No Market, No Demand, No Investors: As our friend Markham Hislop at Energi Media (our apparently sleepless friend, given the massive volume of great material he’s been churning out) points out this morning, the biggest vulnerability in any pipeline deal is the assumption that Asian buyers will want the oil or liquefied natural ga that our fossil industry is so keen to send them. Hislop writes in part: Ottawa and Alberta are effectively betting that countries like China and India will continue increasing oil imports for decades as their economies grow and energy consumption rises. That assumption underpins the entire economic rationale for expanding oil sands production and building billions of dollars in new export infrastructure. But Asian energy systems are changing rapidly… China, India, South Korea, and other major hydrocarbon importers are now investing hundreds of billions of dollars into electricity systems built around wind, solar, batteries, nuclear, hydro, and expanded transmission infrastructure. Domestic “energy sovereignty” is increasingly replacing the old energy-security model based on stable oil and gas imports. Those investments are expected to sharply slow oil demand growth and eventually reverse it, even as overall energy consumption continues rising. There are also refining constraints. Many Asian refineries and petrochemical complexes are already optimized to process discounted heavy crude from the Middle East and Latin America. That raises serious questions about how much additional Canadian bitumen Asian markets can absorb at profitable prices. Small wonder that there’s still no private sector investor for the project, despite Smith’s government desperately beating the bushes to put together a deal. For now, Alberta is acting as proponent and covering early start-up costs for a pitch to the federal Major Projects Office, which could actually turn into the next tough hurdle for Smith and her pipeline to jump. • Canada Day Looms: How ironic that Canada’s birthday this year could become a major chokepoint for the provincial premier who’s been working so diligently to tear the country apart! The July 1 target date for Alberta’s pipeline proposal is baked into the MOU, was reaffirmed by the implementation plan, but it hadn’t dawned on me that it cuts both ways. As one very smart colleague wrote in an email yesterday, “they’ve thrown the ball into Alberta’s court to get the project proposal on the table really quickly and to have to do a whole pile of work to put together a massive, complicated project that would typically take years to assemble, and they’ve given them weeks to do it.” That makes July 1 a looming deadline that Smith won’t be able to run away from politically, especially with the separatists in her party and her caucus breathing down her neck. (See previous ref to off-the-wall.) But if Alberta comes in with a sloppy, incomplete submission, even after Carney bent over backwards to simplify the application process and the rules that govern it, it may be harder for the province or the industry to blame Ottawa and insist on the faster process they claim their investors are demanding. (Oh, wait—which investors would those be??) • We’ll See You In Court (Then We’ll See You Again): If Carney did cave, that would be just one more reason for Indigenous and other affected communities to take the government and the process to court—Just as Alberta First Nations did, successfully, in response to Smith’s half-baked separation referendum. Veterans of the Harper era have been warning that a shoddy process around fossil fuel infrastructure or other major projects will be a recipe for the very delays that process seeks to avoid. And now more than ever, with renewable energy and energy storage eating fossil fuels’ lunch in import markets around the world, a delayed pipeline or LNG terminal may be as good as a cancelled one. • Charged Up, Ready to Go: With its goal of doubling Canada’s electricity supply to meet a doubling of demand by 2050, the national electricity strategy that Carney unveiled Thursday has a lot to like. With its explicit language about speeding the shift from fuels to more efficient and affordable electricity, global investment and deployment patterns that already favour that shift, an emerging bidirectional power grid, the role of front-line options like rooftop solar and heat pumps, the emergence of electric vehicles as behind-the-meter energy storage, and the domestic jobs and manufacturing to make it all happen, the document doubles down on the essential cornerstone of a faster shift off fossil fuels. The strategy envisions a more prominent role for gas and nuclear power. But some of those provisions were already in the Clean Electricity Regulations that climate hawks are now fighting so hard to defend, inserted as a compromise in a futile attempt to mollify the industry and its political representatives in Alberta and Saskatchewan. But once again, gas will be a tougher sell when it’s more expensive and now so much more unpredictable than the clean alternatives. The new nuclear technologies are still speculative and deeply vulnerable to cost overruns. Increasingly, utilities, developers, and investors know it. Carney declared Thursday that “it doesn’t do us good to be sitting in court all the time with provinces. It doesn’t do us good to be talking past each other. What does do us good is to come together with specific projects.” There are no guarantees, but so much of the language and narrative-building in the electricity strategy suggests the lion’s share of those projects will be renewable. • The Party Has Already Started: The electricity strategy only rarely digs down to specific projects, but provinces representing three-quarters of Canada’s population are already embracing a faster transition. Hydro-Québec is working on a 10-year, $185-billion renewable energy and grid buildout by 2035. Ontario recently brought 10 provinces and territories together in a National Energy Corridor Agreement to boost interprovincial and -territorial transmission infrastructure. And the MOU implementation agreement commits Alberta to facilitate investment in renewable energy projects, a big step back from its continuing, punitive restrictions on renewables development. The electricity strategy envisions much of the financing and infrastructure that will be needed to pull those advances together into an integrated whole. • Delivering on Affordability: The MOU implementation plan has little or nothing to say about affordability (are you surprised?), but the electricity strategy does, with a top-line pledge to reduce home energy costs for seven out of 10 Canadian households by 2050, a total saving of $15 billion across the board. It’s just a start, but it puts affordability on the government’s narrative map. If they’re serious and deliberate about patching together a least-cost energy strategy, it’ll have little if any room for oil, gas, or nuclear—not with powerful evidence, for example, that electricity prices are higher when those prices are set by gas. • Smith Proves that Canada Works: By signing a deal that makes it harder to claim the federal government is blocking a new pipeline, Smith has helped prove Carney’s constant anti-separatist refrain that “Canada works”—incurring the rage, no doubt, of her own political base. Canada also needs to work for anyone who depends on a clean environment, healthy and thriving ecosystems, and safe, stable climate. But with Smith and her separatist constituents setting up as a fifth column for annexation by Donald Trump’s United States, let’s set aside any notion that 51st state status for Canada is a recipe for anything other than climate disaster (and so much else). Resisting and withstanding Trump (just 170 more sleeps until mid-term elections, which is a damn sight better than the 730 we started with) doesn’t mean a free pass for a pipeline, but we can still appreciate it that keeping Canada whole and sovereign is still Carney’s Job One. • The Words Not Spoken: Apart from a commitment to export a million barrels of “low-emission” Alberta bitumen per day (memo to Smith and Carney: You realize that that’s less than the industry is already exporting??), the MOU implementation plan says nothing about the international trade and economic sovereignty deals that Carney has been travelling the world to negotiate. It didn’t have to. Carney doesn’t need permission from Danielle Smith, her American enablers, or her separatist allies to continue building the alliances that will ratchet down our economic dependency on our unstable, unreliable neighbour to the south. But every connection he builds with countries outside North America helps align our economy and our future with a faster shift off fossil fuels. Little if any of this was on our bingo cards a year or two ago. But it’s the pathway that has opened up to us. And if it gives Canada any climate or energy gains at all in an era still dominated by Trump and his increasingly ridiculous tariffs, his loutish trade negotiations and his continuing annexation threats, we have to take the wins. Not least because they’ll be the point of departure for what we can achieve in 2027, 2029, and beyond, as Trump’s grip and this era begin to loosen and then fade. What is Carney Doing? If this line of thought is right—and it’s a possibility, not a prediction—it means that Carney’s actions and decisions are largely about buying time. Time for Trump’s power to wane. Time for Alberta’s separatist/conspiracist virus to spread, mutate, die out, or at least die back, with help from a vaccine of federal steadiness and calm (appropriate enough, for a movement populated largely by vaccine deniers) that no conspiracy theory can dismiss. And time for the government’s trade and investment agenda to deliver results—even knowing that some of those results will bring impacts that front-line communities will not and should not accept. In the immediate moment, none of this changes the way the wider climate community has to respond, from campaigners to investors to front-line practitioners. All of our voices are still essential. But those voices will be stronger and more confident if we have a clearer sense of the brutal game we’ve been pulled into, and a plausible path (or two it three) for playing it to the win we need. This conversation also underscores our biggest task for the remaining years of what was supposed to be the “decisive” decade for climate response: if we can shift the energy narrative in Canada, make it a mainstream view that the country’s preoccupation with oil and gas has us falling farther behind a changing world, we’ll see far better results in the 2030s and beyond. For many veteran climate advocates, taking on that part of the fight will begin with recognizing that most of our friends and family, neighbours and colleagues already understand that climate change is real and right in front of us: they’re looking away and staying silent because they don’t have what climate communicator Katharine Hayhoe calls “efficacy”. As Hayhoe recently pointed out in a feature interview with The Energy Mix, it amounts to science denial to keep hammering away at the dire news about global warming without also helping audiences understand what they can do about it, with multiple studies telling us why that won’t work. Far better to open those conversations with the dominant crises like energy security, food security, emergency preparedness and business continuity, affordability, and financial security that have knocked climate change far lower on the list of public priorities, and will likely keep it there. We Knew This Would Happen Climate hawks have always known this day would come. For decades, we warned that everyone had to pay attention to climate change right now, because it would be much tougher to respond once the crisis itself started affecting our daily lives. We were right, and here we are. But now, thanks to decades of hard work, communities and countries have an alternative to doubling down on fossil fuels. “In 10 years everyone will have ‘always known’ that solar and batteries were going to win,” Morgan Solar Executive Chair Mike Andrade writes on LinkedIn. With the disruption in the Strait of Hormuz roiling energy priorities around the world, Canada and the United States are among the shrinking number of countries that are still very keen on fossil fuel development. Understanding that gap is a first, essential step in spotting the opportunities ahead, and averting the deep economic as well as environmental and social risk we face if we don’t seize them. Thanks for reading The Energy Mix Weekender! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support our work. Subscribe Mitchell Beer traces his background in renewable energy and energy efficiency back to 1977, in climate change to 1997. Now he and the rest of the Energy Mix team scan 1,200 news headlines a week to pull together The Energy Mix and The Energy Mix Weekender. Chart of the Week BYD Eyes 20 Dealership Locations After Canada Greenlights Chinese EV Imports ‘Sledgehammer’ Carbon Price Deal Boosts Emissions by 230Mt, Aims for Fall 2027 Pipeline Approval ‘Worse Than Harper’: Regulatory Rollback Would Stop Canada from Assessing Project Impacts, Critics Warn Electricity Strategy Aims for Doubling by 2050, Allows ‘Flexibility’ for Gas Power Plants Opposition Mounts as O’Leary’s Data Centre Approved in Drought-Stricken Utah Diluted Carbon Price Misses ‘Reality of the World We’re In’, Could Impede Diversified Trade: Climate Institute $200B in Clean Energy Investment Will Need On-Time Delivery, Reliable Policies, Trade Association Says ‘Sovereign Pipeline’: CEO Pitches to Keep Trans Mountain in Government Hands What a Supercharged El Niño Could Mean for Canada Canada’s future is electric, and here’s how a power grid superhighway would get us there (Toronto Star) The Perilous Waters of Hecate Strait (Globe and Mail) Saudi Aramco profits jump despite conflict in Middle East (The Guardian) Farmers confront rising cost of fertilizer and fuel as spring seeding under way (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) Clarkson forecasts 24% decline in offshore oil, gas capital expenditures (Oil & Gas Journal) Pipe Dreams: How Oil and Gas Fail to Deliver Economic Development in Africa (Oil Change International) Developing countries must hold the pen to script the fossil fuel transition (Climate Home News) Iran war threatens the dream of a post-oil economy in the Gulf (Washington Post) U.S. Oil, Gas Work Force Hits Lowest Level Since 2022 (Rigzone) Why Polestar Is Doubling Down on Net Zero as Rivals Pull Back on EVs (Bloomberg) Why this Michigan utility plans to sell its hydro dams for $13 (E&E News/Politico) Levees can no longer save New Orleans (Vox)
Trump’s health cuts complicate federal messaging on hantavirus
The federal hantavirus response has laid bare the impact of the Trump administration’s cuts to U.S. and global health, renewing concerns among public health experts that the U.S. is not prepa…
Climate change is a health crisis – and fixing it is a health opportunity
Independent Commission of former heads of government, international bodies, ministers and civil society leaders delivers 17 recommendations for what WHO and countries should do next.
DRC health minister warns ‘very high’ Ebola lethality rate as toll hits 80
Africa CDC concerned that outbreak of Bundibugyo strain could spread rapidly due to intense population movement.
UK ex-health minister says will run to replace Prime Minister Keir Starmer
Pressure mounts on Starmer's government, as Labour rivals including recently resigned Wes Streeting circle.
U.K. health secretary will run for prime minister after challenging Starmer's leadership in scathing resignation letter
I used Gemini to restart a hobby I abandoned 20 years ago — and I found something unsettling
AI is very helpful, so why does it feel so wrong?
As global crises multiply, scores of US diplomats say they have been forced out
Amid ongoing foreign policy crises around the globe and as the Trump administration struggles to reach a deal to end the war with Iran, the State Department last week finalized the firings of nearly 250 foreign service officers in a brief, impersonal email.
Latvia’s President Nominates Kulbergs to Form New Government
Latvia’s President Edgars Rinkevics nominated Andris Kulbergs of the United List party to form a new government after Prime Minister Evika Silina resigned on Thursday ahead of parliamentary elections in October.
EY Pays Over £100 Million to Settle NMC Health Legal Claim
EY UK has paid more than £100 million ($133 million) to the administrators of NMC Health Plc to settle claims it was negligent in its audits of the failed firm, according to people familiar with the matter.
Trump’s New Grift Is His Most Brazen … Ever?
The administration is mulling a plan for a massive taxpayer-funded slush fund for Trump’s closest allies.
A new tool just combined ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and more — lifetime access is on sale for $70
A lifetime subscription with access to 20+ AI models usually costs $619
Trump returns from China with no Iran breakthrough — and a decision to make
As Donald Trump grew increasingly frustrated with diplomatic efforts to end the war with Iran, administration officials were closely watching whether the president’s trip to China — a nation with close ties to Tehran — would yield a significant breakthrough.
It’s Been a Wild Week in British Politics. What Happens Next?
Nobody has yet challenged Prime Minister Keir Starmer for the leadership, but his leading rival, Andy Burnham, finally has a route to Downing Street.
Examining what a potential Macklin Celebrini contract extension could look like
After a stellar second NHL season, Sheng Peng previews what a potential contract extension could look like for San Jose Sharks star Macklin Celebrini.
Westwood business students win national awards
FROM A NEWS RELEASE ISHPEMING — Eleven Westwood High School business students attended the Business Professionals of America National Leadership Conference, “Amplify Your Impact,” from May 6-10. Nearly 7,000 delegates attended the conference, which was held in Nashville, Tennessee. Three students came home national winners. National award winners are: Lucy Ostola, third place, legal office […]
Gemini Intelligence requirements mean most Android phones are going to miss out
Gemini Intelligence's requirements are higher than you might realize.
Dems say SBA left businesses vulnerable to 'predatory' financing
Sens. Ed Markey and Ron Wyden argue that the Small Business Administration neglected to warn small firms of the risks of merchant cash advances and closed off a key "escape route" from the resulting debts.
Intel’s NUCs Live On… as an Excessive Asus Mini Gaming PC
The Asus ROG NUC 16 seems like an excellent console-like PC until you see its supposed price.
US moves to end job protections for hundreds of health department workers
President Donald Trump's administration on Friday moved to strip U.S. Department of Health and Human Services workers of civil service job protections, according to an email reviewed by Reuters.
Trump Administration Weighs $1.7 Billion Fund for Allies Investigated Under Biden
Critics denounced the highly unusual plan, which has yet to be finalized or approved, as a vast political slush fund financed by taxpayers.
‘Each feminist advance in American public life has prompted an equally strong backlash’
Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
Dr. Oz highlights political patronage as a 'major concern' regarding fraud
Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz discusses recent Anti-Fraud Task Force crackdowns and highlights massive fraud schemes on 'Varney & Co.'
Gemini Intelligence has high Android spec requirements, likely won’t support Pixel 9 or Galaxy Z Fold 7
Google’s new Gemini Intelligence push was announced this week and it has pretty steep requirements for Android devices to support...
Uganda confirms outbreak of Ebola virus disease
Uganda on Friday confirmed an outbreak of the highly infectious Ebola virus disease, the health ministry said, adding that the outbreak involves the Bundibugyo strain.
Moratorium won’t impact existing home health, hospice services in Maine, advocates say
The Trump administration announced a 6-month moratorium on new agencies, citing 'waste, fraud and abuse' in Medicare and Medicaid programs.
How one rural health system is designing targeted AI pilots to ease care delivery pressures
Berkshire Health Systems CIO William Young says artificial intelligence must do more than impress people with new features. It has to save time, cut waste, and help a rural health system survive mounting financial and operational strain.
A political dynasty heiress and a former trade minister advance to Peru’s presidential runoff
LIMA, Peru (AP) — Peruvian voters will choose their next president between a political dynasty heiress and a former trade minister who has promised to reform Peru’s mining sector, after advancing on Friday to Peru’s June presidential runoff election.
Trump says sculpture garden honoring prominent Americans is planned for park along Potomac River
President Donald Trump plans to build an exhibit of statues featuring prominent Americans in a tightly regulated park along the Potomac River, potentially opening a new legal fight over whether his administration is ignoring the approvals process that typically governs Washington's monumental core.
How to Prevent Chrome Browser from Downloading 4GB of Local AI Model Files
If you’re a Mac user of the Chrome web browser, as many are, you might be interested to know that the latest versions of Chrome default to downloading a large local Gemini AI model that can t…
Some Medicare Patients Can Now Get Free CBD
The Trump administration has authorized a test program to see if the cannabis compound can ease some symptoms and reduce health care costs among older patients.
Googlebook finally delivers a true desktop with app icons and widgets to Google’s laptops
For over a decade, the ChromeOS desktop has been little more than a glorified wallpaper viewer. While there is definitely an appeal to that distraction-free, minimalist approach, users migrating...
British Politics Is About to Get Even Messier
The looming contest between Prime Minister Keir Starmer and left-wing mayor Andy Burnham is spooking markets worried about Britain’s finances.
Justice Department challenges efforts to sanction Trump administration lawyers in new lawsuit
The Justice Department is challenging efforts to sanction attorneys from the first and second Trump administrations, asserting in a lawsuit that the District of Columbia Bar is unfairly playing politics with the legal disciplinary process.
Google's slimmed down Gemini model is quietly winning AI customers
Vercel CEO Guillermo Rauch highlights Google's Gemini Flash model's rise in AI demand, overtaking Anthropic in Vercel's AI Gateway.
14 Cool Mini Gadgets You Can Find On Amazon
From portable projectors to pocket-sized tools and speakers, these budget gadgets pack surprising functionality into their diminutive designs.
What you need to know about the new health secretary James Murray
What are the most pressing priorities for the new minister in charge of health?
Gemini's Spark agent has leaked, and it looks like it's gunning for Claude Cowork's throne
It could clean up your messy Gmail inbox or make changes to your Google Docs.
ASUS Announces ROG Strix SCAR 18, Featuring 240Hz Mini LED Display With ROG Nebula ELMB
ASUS launches ROG SCAR 18 gaming laptop with RTX 5090 and first 240 Hz Mini LED display, starting above $4000
U.S. and Cuban officials: CIA director met with Raul Castro's grandson in Havana
Ratcliffe also met with Interior Minister Lázaro Álvarez Casas and the head of Cuban intelligence services
Britain Politics
From left, Mayor of London Sadiq Khan, Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Commander Clair Haynes, and Commissioner Mark Rowley meet police officers to discuss operational planning, in London, Friday, May 15,
Louisiana university focuses on wellness and nutrition, starting with its medical students
Wellness knowledge starts in medical school, a Louisiana university leader says. Here's how one Louisiana hospital system is examining nutrition training.
Britain Politics
From left, Commander Clair Haynes, Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Mayor of London Sadiq Khan meet police officers to discuss operational planning, in London, Friday, May 15, 2026. (Peter Nicholls/Pool
Britain Politics
Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer meet with police officers to discuss operational planning ahead of this weekend's protests in London, Friday, May 15, 2026. (Peter Nicholls/Pool Photo via AP)
Britain Politics
Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Commander Clair Haynes meet with police officers to discuss operational planning ahead of this weekend's protests in London, Friday, May 15, 2026. (Peter Nicholls/Pool
My unsung hero of science: Carolyn Wood Sherif, pioneer of feminist psychology who foresaw the risks of scientific bias
In 1979, Wood Sherif wrote my favourite psychological paper of all time.
Gilts Slump as Investors Brace for Burnham Challenge to Starmer
Gilts tumbled after Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham secured a pathway to potentially challenge Keir Starmer for the UK prime minister’s job, threatening a fresh bout of political instability that investors fear could result in more expansive fiscal policy.
Chartbook 449: Voldemort on Threadneedle street. The Bank of England and the "haunted house" of English politics.
Imagine the scene: In some Harry Potter version of 21st-century London, a group of deathless UK Treasury officials gathered from across the last century huddle over warm pints and glasses of Chardonnay. Around the table there are officials from the 1920s, the 1930s, the 1970s, 2022 and today. Inevitably, in May 2026, the subject of conversation is the disintegration of the current Labour government. Despite its huge majority in parliament, it has been reduced to tatters by catastrophic local election result. These exposed the fact that rather than having a government with a clear popular majority, the UK is like most other modern societies divided into 5 segments each of which commands between 26 and 16 percent of the vote. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the leadership at Nos 10 and 11 Downing Street - where the Prime Minister and the Chancellor (Treasury Secretary) work - seem paralyzed. They are caught between mounting discontent over unfairness and the cost of living, and tough fiscal strictures that push them into making unpopular spending decisions. In the London pub, the Treasury officials from across the ages, can barely hide their satisfaction at the latest display of democratic politics caught in the vice-grip of financial logic. “Remember the mur d’argent and the banker’s ramp?” “Just like yesterday!” There are smirks around the table. Then the representative of 2026 pipes up: “One thing you have to say about the current lot (referring to the latest hapless Labour government), you don’t have to teach them about the bond market!” There is a murmur of ascent from the Treasury Mandarins. The trauma of the fiscal crisis of September-October 2022 sits deep. Back then, in the final stages of Tory decay, a ‘mini budget’ that challenged fiscal orthodoxy led to a brief but fierce panic in one of the oldest government bond markets in the world (aka gilt market). Now all you have to do is to mention the “bond market” to hush debate. [ Paul Mason@paulmasonnews In the name of public service, and as ex-economics editor of BBC Newsnight, I offer to do a zoom call, tonight, with any Labour MP who wants to understand why bond markets do not "fall into line" with governments. 1/ 3:57 PM · May 12, 2026 · 466K Views 224 Replies · 674 Reposts · 3.93K Likes ](https://x.com/paulmasonnews/status/2054229532404519082?s=20) “And the funny thing is”, the young man in the huddle continues, “they don’t even want to talk about … ”. There is a sudden hush. Significant looks are exchanged around the table. About? One of the senior figures puts down his glass with a decisive “clink”. He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named has entered their thoughts. Meanwhile, a few miles away in a grubby pub in Bloomsbury, two conspirators from the camp of Critical Macrofinance huddle over cans of low-alcohol IPA. They look at each other and blurt out loud: “The Bank!” “Everyone in the bloody Labour party is talking about the bond market. But why aren’t they even mentioning … the Bank of England!?” “Why is no one talking about Voldemort?” In Paul Mason’s blogpost, after much chest-thumping about basic fiscal logic, the basic point about the Bank of England is buried in the fine print at #3 in his list of suggestions as to what a radical Labour government might actually be able to do! [ Conflict & Democracy Down with the bond market! Down with gravity! It may seem unfair to focus on Labour MP Paula Barker for her off-the-cuff assertion that the bond market would have to “fall in line” with Andy Burnham, should he replace Keir Starmer as prime minister. But Burnham himself told the New Statesman that Labour had to “get beyond this thing of being in hock to the bond markets… Read more 2 days ago · 100 likes · 3 comments · Paul Mason ](https://htsf.substack.com/p/down-with-the-bond-market-down-with?utm_source=substack&utm_campaign=post_embed&utm_medium=web) Back in Bloomsbury they shake their heads and ask: “Didn’t we learn anything from the Eurozone crisis?” Meanwhile, as if summoned to the conversation by some higher force, the “pink pages” announce: “The days of ultra-cheap government borrowing have come to an end” and Martin “Whizzard” Wolf publishes the graph of the season Look at the UK in 2026, perilously positioned on the upper edge of the pack. No wonder no one in London needs any lessons about the “bond market”. But, look again. Imagine how they feel in Rome. What is London’s nightmare in 2026? The nightmare is that you end up like Italy in the early 2010s during the Eurozone crisis. Once comfortably situated in the middle of the pack, watching with horror as your ten-year yields explode to 7 percent and “spreads” become a national nightmare. One of the largest economies in Europe, a founding member of the euro, stigmatized. But the message of the Italian experience is ambiguous. After all, the stigma didn’t last. In 2026, Italy borrows at rates lower not only than the UK but the US. The US, which, as everyone knows, enjoys the “exorbitant privilege” of being the issuer of reserve, safe asets. What kind of magic is this? How did Italy, in the space of fifteen years, go from being good, to bad and back again? Which brings us back to our dissident friends in their Bloombury boozer and their memories of the Eurozone crisis. Italy never was Britain - with its ongoing fiscal deficits. Without interest payments, on primary balance, from 2000 to 2020 Italy ran a tight fiscal ship. Even in 2008 it barely went into deficit and when it was being put on the rack in the early 20210s its primary surplus matched that of austere Germany. So, what happened? How did it end up stigmatized? Of course Italian politics didn’t help. Berlusconi was at the helm and he had legal issues. But amongst friends in the Bloomsbury pub, Berlusconi is a sideshow, the name we whisper to each other is “Trichet”. From 2004 to 2011 the ECB was headed by Jean-Claude Trichet, ex of the French Treasury, more German than the Germans. After 2009 as the news of the Greek fiscal disaster broke, the European bond markets wento into panic mode and Trichet began a brutal game of cat and mouse. Between 2009 and 2011, Trichet intervened in the bond market to help, only when he thought he had compliance with austerity. When he thought they were uncooperative, he withdrew. In the summer of 2011, he even made direct suggestions to his Italian counterparts in Rome, as to how Italy should be governed. It was this cat and mouse game that drove the bond markets crazy and exposed Italy to a violent squeeze. When Mario Draghi took over the ECB at the end of 2011 and declared “whatever it takes”, the pressure on Italy, gradually eased. It is that starring role that has made Draghi into the towering figure in European politics that he remains today. So now you see why voices in London hush when it comes to the Bank of England. “The bond market” isn’t an irresistible objective force like the weather or an avalanche. It can appear like that. But that depends on the way it is being handled, or not handled by the central bank. Which is why the silence about the Bank of England in London right now is so significant. If you think this all sounds a bit fishy, coming from a left-liberal Keynesian like myself, well, let me introduce you to Robin Brooks, who, to put it mildly, plays on a different quidditch team to me. Here, from the position of a fiscal hawk is Robin’s celebratory account of the Bank of England’s role since 2022; In October 2022, at the height of the bond market blow-up in the UK, something incredible happened. Governor Andrew Bailey told British pension funds the Bank of England would end its support program for the country’s fragile gilt market, drawing a line under how much help the central bank was willing to give to exposed pension funds and - implicitly - the government. By the end of that week, Kwasi Kwarteng - the finance minister - had resigned. Prime Minister Liz Truss would soon follow. This episode is so incredible because it contrasts with what happened in the Euro zone earlier that year. Bond markets in Spain and Italy were under pressure amid high inflation and rising interest rates. In the middle of this, Mario Draghi - Italy’s Prime Minister - resigned, compounding pressure on bond markets of high-debt countries on the Euro periphery. Unlike the Bank of England, the ECB caved. It bought Italian and Spanish government bonds in an effort to cap yields and introduced a new tool that signaled to markets it might do such caps more frequently going forward. Faced with pressure on bond markets, the ECB capitulated to political pressure from high-debt countries like Italy and Spain. The Bank of England stood its ground and toppled the Truss government. This kind of thing has long-lasting consequences. It means markets price a higher probability of yield caps in the Euro zone, which keeps Italian and Spanish yields artificially low, while markets feel free to push up UK yields without fear of central bank intervention. As I flagged in yesterday’s post, this means you really can’t compare UK yields to those of other high-debt countries. The UK looks worse, but only because its central bank isn’t interfering with markets. There’s more to this than just that 2022 episode. The Bank of England has also been much more aggressive in its quantitative tightening (QT) than other central banks. If one motivation for quantitative easing (QE) is to lower bond yields - especially longer-dated ones - then it stands to reason QT pushes yields up. The left chart above shows a four-quarter moving average of UK government debt issuance (black line) in percent of GDP and which sectors absorb this issuance, including the Bank of England (blue bars). The right chart above compares the Bank of England’s accumulation or run-off of government bonds (blue line) with that of other central banks, where this blue line is the same as the blue bars in the left chart. The Bank of England was quicker and more aggressive than other central banks in downsizing its bond holdings, so UK yields will have risen more than elsewhere also for this reason, not just because of Governor Andrew Bailey’s remarks in October 2022. Back in October 2025, after a conversation in New York with friends in British politics, my sense of dysphoria was such that I raised the issue of the Bank of England openly in the FT Since 2008, the UK has slid into a deep economic and political predicament. Growth has stagnated to a degree far worse even than in the 1970s. The Tory leadership’s wager on the Brexit referendum spectacularly backfired, leaving the UK isolated from Europe and at the mercy of its special relationship with the US, many of whose political class regard the UK as a basket case. After years of austerity, the Labour party lurched to the left and then back to the centre. The Tory party has been eclipsed by the populist nationalism of Reform. Any British government should be worrying first and foremost about how to restart growth. Instead, Keir Starmer is beset by shades of the gilt market panic triggered by the Liz Truss government in 2022. The debt level is higher than in recent years, but there is no cause for panic. UK debt is at far from critical levels and of long duration. Whether you want to “take back control” or launch progressive economic policy, a democracy dogged by fear of bond market vigilantes is unhealthy. In a country that is a monetary sovereign, this climate points to one thing: a disconnect between the government and the central bank. Since 1997, the independence of the Bank of England has become a sacred cow. But independence is what you make of it. And in the wake of the gilt market crisis of September 2022, relations between the Bank of England and the UK government need a reset. In normal times, there is no doubt that an inflation-targeting independent central bank can serve a country well. But since 2008, the UK and other advanced economies have not had the luxury of such simple problems. To their credit, central bankers around the world have not stood on orthodoxy. After 2008, the US Federal Reserve rescued the global banking system and, through quantitative easing, it stabilised the Treasury market in the face of huge deficits. In Europe, things were trickier. Both the Bank of England under Mervyn King and Jean-Claude Trichet’s European Central Bank played cat and mouse with national governments. This was a high stakes wager that between 2010 and 2012 escalated bond market tension and triggered a disastrous turn to austerity. Shaken by the impact of those shocks, their successors, Mark Carney and Mario Draghi adopted a more protective stance (assuming you were not the government of Greece). Recall that Draghi’s legendary slogan, “Whatever it takes”, was uttered to face down the City of London’s bond vigilantes. In 2015, Draghi launched QE — financial repression by another name. In 2016, Carney used the authority of the Bank of England to stabilise markets following the vote for Brexit, an exemplary demonstration of how central banks can underpin democratic choice, even when those choices are wrong headed. All these were independent central bankers steeped in the best practice of the 1990s, who recognised that historic crises demanded radical action. It was the price surge of 2021-2023 that poisoned the atmosphere. Though the shock came mainly from the supply side, central banks ended up in the dock. Nowhere more so than in the UK. The Bank of England reacted with aggressive normalisation. Faced with a cost of living crisis, the governor called for workers to accept real wage cuts. In early 2022, as gas prices were at record levels and Russia’s army was poised to invade Ukraine, the Bank adopted a stringent programme of quantitative tightening, elevating interest rates. When the Truss government got itself in trouble, the Bank took almost a week to come to the rescue. Rather than enacting a charade of normality, it is time to recognise that in 2025 the UK faces a period of historic transition. To meet this challenge, what is needed is a new concordat with the Bank. This should not ignore inflationary pressures or the long-run trajectory of debt, but should affirm the priority of reviving investment-led growth. One could follow Donald Trump in demanding interest rate cuts. The Bank could shadow the ECB in its commitment to capping Eurozone yields. But the top priority should be to lay the ghost of September 2022. The Bank’s slowing of QT last month was a concession. An immediate and complete end would send the right signal. Such a concordat will not by itself restore sanity to politics, solve the housing problem or rebuild the NHS. But it would help to lift the fear of bond market crisis, which is paralysing the effort by democratic politicians to answer the fundamental questions facing the nation. Now, that call for a new concordat between government and Bank of Englands seems more urgent than ever. The problem is that in October 2025, Starmer still had some authority. Today the government is in tatters. And when you are the “under the harrow” - to echo a phrase of Montagu Norman’s from the 1920s - it is the worst possible time to consider institutional change. To make general arguments at a time of crisis can only seem like special pleading rather than a general argument for long-term change. The same, unfortunately, is also true for the other basic institutional reform that Britain urgently needs i.e. the abolition of the out-dated first past the post electoral system and its replacement by a moderated form of proportional representation. And thirdly - whilst we are saying the quiet parts out loud - Britain needs to reopen the question of EU membership. What the local election results of 2026 show is that this remains a key issue. And what they also show is that there is a clear majority that would favor a return. Until these basic features of Britain’s political economy are addressed the country will carry on its politics as though in a haunted house, governed by governments that lack actual majorities, conjuring up false constraints whilst ignoring the real ones. This one is for DG and MI. I love writing the newsletter. If you enjoy it too and fancy buying me a coffee once a month, you know what to do. Click below! Subscribe
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