In his speech to Congress on March 4th President Donald Trump painted a fantastical picture. The American Dream, he declared, was surging bigger and better than ever before. His tariffs would preserve jobs, make America richer still, and protect its very soul. Unfortunately, in the real world things look different. Investors, consumers and companies show the first signs of souring on the Trumpian vision. With his aggressive and erratic protectionism, Mr Trump is playing with fire.

By imposing 25% tariffs on goods from Canada and Mexico, also on March 4th, Mr Trump is setting light to one of the world’s most integrated supply chains. Although he belatedly delayed duties on cars by one month, plenty of other industries will suffer. He has also raised tariffs on China and has threatened the European Union, Japan and South Korea. Some of these duties may also be deferred; others may never materialise. Yet in economics as in foreign relations, it is becoming clear that policy is being set on the president’s whim. That will cause lasting damage at home and abroad.

When Mr Trump won the election in November, investors and bosses cheered him on. The S&P 500 rose by nearly 4% in the week after the vote in anticipation of the new president lighting a bonfire of red tape and bringing about generous tax cuts. His protectionist and anti-immigration rhetoric, investors hoped, would come to nothing. A stockmarket correction or a return of inflation would surely curb his worst instincts.

Alas, those hopes are going up in smoke….

Read it all.

La copertina del nuovo Economist. Gli Art Director non hanno mai avuto tanta materia prima. pic.twitter.com/rnuMWWYaN1

— Jeanne Perego (@jeperego) March 7, 2025

The Synod’s failure to vote for such an approach, but to prefer more time to explore the legal and logistical barriers to outsourcing diocesan safeguarding teams while simultaneously creating a new, independent scrutiny body, was, Mr Myer said, “deeply disappointing”.

The decision, he said, “did not follow the recommendation from Professor Jay and many other specialists and professionals, or the preference of many survivors”.

Two separate surveys have suggested that about three-quarters of the victims and survivors questioned supported Professor Jay’s recommendations; but her advice was not supported by all safeguarding professionals.

Jim Gamble, the head of the INEQE Safeguarding Group, which is auditing all Church of England dioceses and cathedrals, was among those to disagree with Professor Jay. In a report published the day before the Synod’s debate, he wrote: “When it comes to delivering effective safeguarding practice — practice that genuinely works and makes a difference — it is most effectively delivered from within, not imposed from without”….

Read it all.

In a House of Commons debate on Monday evening, MPs criticised the General Synod’s decision last month not to outsource all safeguarding functions immediately to an independent body https://t.co/phh7IAy7FJ

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) March 6, 2025

Global government borrowing is expected to reach a record $12.3tn this year, as a rise in defence and other spending by major economies and higher interest rates combine to push up debt levels.

The 3 per cent rise in sovereign bond issuance across 138 countries would take the total debt stock — which has been pushed higher by the global financial crisis, coronavirus pandemic and now the need for greater European defence spending — to a record $76.9tn, according to estimates by S&P Global Ratings.

Big economies’ focus on fiscal policy to “deal with crisis after crisis continues, and the outcome is you do have a much more indebted sovereign picture”, said Roberto Sifon-Arevalo, global head of sovereigns at S&P. This had been compounded, he added, by a rise in debt-servicing costs, as bond yields have moved substantially higher since the end of central banks’ bond-buying programmes.

Borrowing to fund higher spending “was fine and sustainable while you had the borrowing costs that you had before the pandemic, now it presents a much bigger problem”, Sifon-Arevalo said.

Read it all.

Also from the @FT:
“Global government borrowing is expected to reach a record $12.3tn this year, as a rise in defence and other spending by major economies and higher interest rates combine to push up debt levels.
The 3 per cent rise in sovereign bond issuance across 138… pic.twitter.com/y5ctXg3EcB

— Mohamed A. El-Erian (@elerianm) March 4, 2025

When a mortar round exploded on top of their American-made Bradley infantry fighting vehicle, the Ukrainian soldiers inside were shaken but not terribly worried, having been hardened by artillery shelling over three years of war.

But then the small drones started to swarm.

They targeted the weakest points of the armored Bradley with a deadly precision that mortar fire doesn’t possess. One of the explosive drones struck the hatch right above where the commander was sitting.

“It tore my arm off,” recounted Jr. Sgt. Taras, the 31-year-old commander who, like others, used his first name in accordance with Ukrainian military protocols.

Scrambling for a tourniquet, Sergeant Taras saw that the team’s driver had also been hit, his eye blasted from its socket.

Read it all.

Drones are now responsible for 70% of deaths and casualties in the Ukraine war.

A Thousand Snipers in the Sky: The New War in Ukraine https://t.co/53dQU6uF2q

— Martin Ford (@MFordFuture) March 3, 2025

Sandra, a teenage girl who wears her curly brown hair tied back in braids, awaited the instant message on her mobile phone. The instructions were matter of fact: Wear makeup and a short skirt. If possible, don a crop top.

Like other girls in her neighborhood outside Medellín, Colombia, Sandra said she didn’t always have food for dinner, let alone trendy clothes and electronics. But a friend tipped her off to a sure-fire way to make money fast. This amiguita, she said, told her about the plentiful meals she could afford, the iPhone she uses, the motorcycle she’d soon be sitting astride. Sandra could enjoy this life too, her friend said. The cost? Her virginity. To a foreigner.

Sandra agreed. Her friend connected then-14-year-old Sandra and her younger sister Verónica (both of whose names Bloomberg changed to protect the siblings against reprisal), with a woman, who, on social media projected a youthful, fun-loving air. Known as la patrona, the woman posed in one photo in a white bikini, hand on hip, on a poolside lounge chair surrounded by palm trees.

The woman expeditiously gathered up the girls’ identity numbers and nude photos. She offered them an advance of 8.6 million pesos ($1,990) for jobs well done. The interchanges were carried out through Meta Platforms Inc.’s social media apps Facebook and Messenger, according to Sandra.

Recruitment and grooming of children are but the first in a multi-step process…

Read it all.

Sex trafficking in Colombia runs through a web of US apps like Facebook, Tinder and Airbnb https://t.co/0tD6KNvVJB

— Bloomberg (@business) March 3, 2025

Donald Trump, seeing “a big, beautiful Ocean” between his country and the world’s problems, wants to curtail America’s responsibilities abroad. His party is also broadly keen on increasing military spending, and the Trump administration, working with Congress, has new priorities for the Pentagon.

In February several media outlets reported that Pete Hegseth, the defence secretary, had ordered a $50bn cut to Pentagon spending. Yet the reported memorandum’s vague language and fuzzy maths belied the reality that Mr Hegseth was seeking cuts merely to offset new spending on “America First” programmes. The Pentagon chief vowed that the changes would make the American “military once again into the most lethal, badass force on the planet”.

Defence spending is poised to rise above levels in the Biden era, when the former president consistently requested after-inflation reductions to outlays. On February 21st the Senate approved $150bn in new defence spending, on top of the department’s existing annual budget that approaches $900bn. The following week a House bill approved $100bn. Some Hill appropriators wonder whether these big numbers will survive the give-and-take of complex spending negotiations, but it is clear that if Mr Trump is pulling back from the world, he isn’t yet pulling back on defence spending. 

Read it all.

America is set to spend more—and differently https://t.co/MY9pqNzJyp #economy #usa #governmentspending #Trumpadministration #military #technology #21stc

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) March 3, 2025

Science fiction has long been full of robots that look, move and even think like we do. In the real world humanoid forms have, until very recently, been a nonstarter. Hard to build, expensive, slow and lumbering, they have never made sense compared with the countless other varieties of purpose-built—and vastly more affordable—robots that have multiplied rapidly in the past decade. 

That’s changing. As global demand for new kinds of robots has shot up, mass manufacturing and falling costs for components are making them cheaper to produce. Just as important, new kinds of AI—some close kin to the kind that has upended the priorities of tech companies and governments since the debut of ChatGPT—are animating robot bodies in ways that simply weren’t possible even a few years ago.

While purpose-built robots continue to proliferate, be they wheeled conveyances or dog-shaped machines carrying guns, the advantages of a body plan like ours are beginning to carve out a niche for humanoid robots. The world, after all, is built for things that look and move like we do. It’s full of stairs, gangways, shelves at shoulder height and sightlines at eye level, so hewing to the humanoid form makes it easier to slot robots into existing roles. Then there are the more subtle advantages of the human form—we can pick up heavy loads by cantilevering them over bent legs. By contrast, a robot with wheels and arms would have to have a much wider and heavier base to keep from tipping over.

More than a dozen startups worldwide are now offering humanoid robots….

Read it all.

Humanoid Robots Finally Get Real Jobs https://t.co/VIHt9364Il #myfcsi #robots #ai pic.twitter.com/0h3YUWx4jF

— William Bender, FCSI (@WmBender) February 27, 2025

The rupture of the post-1945 order is gaining pace. In extraordinary scenes at the UN this week, America sided with Russia and North Korea against Ukraine and Europe. Germany’s probable new chancellor, Friedrich Merz, warns that by June NATO may be dead. Fast approaching is a might-is-right world in which big powers cut deals and bully small ones. Team Trump claims that its dealmaking will bring peace and that, after 80 years of being taken for a ride, America will turn its superpower status into profit. Instead it will make the world more dangerous, and America weaker and poorer.

You may not be interested in the world order—but it is interested in you. America’s Don Corleone approach has been on display in Ukraine. Having initially demanded $500bn, American officials settled for a hazy deal for a joint state fund to develop Ukrainian minerals. It is unclear if America will offer security guarantees in return.

The administration is a swirl of ideas and egos but its people agree on one thing: under the post-1945 framework of rules and alliances, Americans have been suckered into unfair trade and paying for foreign wars. Mr Trump thinks he can pursue the national interest more effectively through hyperactive transactions. Everything is up for grabs: territory, technology, minerals and more. “My whole life is deals,” he explained on February 24th, after talks on Ukraine with Emmanuel Macron, the French president. Trump confidants with business skills, such as Steve Witkoff, are jetting between capitals to explore deals that link up goals, from getting Saudi Arabia to recognise Israel to rehabilitating the Kremlin.

Read it all.

A mafia-like struggle for global power has begun, with rules that do not suit America. Other countries are already planning for a lawless era https://t.co/DOIFBsgW0A pic.twitter.com/n36hVsuZir

— The Economist (@TheEconomist) February 27, 2025

The pandemic response wasn’t perfect. But the pandemic itself was real, and punishing. Above all, it revealed our vulnerability — biological, social and political. And in the aftermath of the emergency, Americans have largely looked away, choosing to see the experience less in terms of death and illness than in terms of social hysteria and even public health overreach. For many, the main lesson was that in the world of humans, as in the world of microbes, it’s dog-eat-dog out there.

But the consequences and aftershocks were also more subtle and diffuse: it isn’t easy to live in isolation and in fear, often largely online and surrounded by exceptional illness and mortality, as we watched aspects of the world and our own lives we’d long taken for granted be withdrawn or torn apart. And it isn’t easy to get over all that, however eager we thought we were to “return to normal.” We lived through as many deaths as some of the worst-case scenarios predicted, and without an initial spasm of inspiring solidarity and miraculous biomedical intervention, it could have been worse. But when we came out the other side — 1.5 million fewer of us — we were, as a country, exhausted, resentful, deluded and distrustful. A huge amount of the world in which we now reside was formed in that crucible. I will write more about that next week.

Read it all.

The Covid Alarmists Were Closer to the Truth Than Anyone Else https://t.co/431zklvB2r

— judy gitlin (@heyjudenyc) February 26, 2025

Many Americans are pinching pennies, exhausted by high prices and stubborn inflation. The well-off are spending with abandon. 

The top 10% of earners—households making about $250,000 a year or more—are splurging on everything from vacations to designer handbags, buoyed by big gains in stocks, real estate and other assets.

Those consumers now account for 49.7% of all spending, a record in data going back to 1989, according to an analysis by Moody’s Analytics. Three decades ago, they accounted for about 36%.

All this means that economic growth is unusually reliant on rich Americans continuing to shell out. Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, estimated that spending by the top 10% alone accounted for almost one-third of gross domestic product. 

Between September 2023 and September 2024, the high earners increased their spending by 12%. Spending by working-class and middle-class households, meanwhile, dropped over the same period. 

Read it all.

Households making $250,000+ now account for 49.7% of all U.S. spending.

"Three decades ago, they accounted for about 36%. All this means that economic growth is unusually reliant on rich Americans continuing to shell out."

This chart that accompanies @WSJ's story is striking: https://t.co/uT4cc3Qv05 pic.twitter.com/7gxYPjX4aG

— Marty Swant (@martyswant) February 24, 2025

[Right now there are]…16 million people — that’s 6 percent ofAmerican adults — taking GLP-1 weight-loss drugs, and their collective purchasing power has the potential to profoundly reshape the economy in the coming years.

There’s evidence that the demographic of people on the drugs overlaps with those who like to spend, a group some analysts have dubbed “over consumers.” Cutting their daily calorie counts in half — or more — is resulting in all sorts of interesting consequences still coming to light.

Ozempic, and its GLP-1 cousins Mounjaro, Wegovy and Zepbound, may not be the lightbulb, jet airplane or internet, but their impact is expected to be so significant that Jan Hatzius, chief economist at Goldman Sachs, predicts that if 60 million people take the medications by 2028, GDP would be boosted by 1 percent — or several trillion dollars. Hatzius’s analysis was based primarily on the idea that healthier people mean a healthier workforce and, in turn, lower health-care costs.

But there’s a lot more to it.

Read it all.

Weight-loss drugs aren’t just slimming waists. They’re shifting the economy. https://t.co/y9Ikk6SLxr

— Nick Baumann (@NickBaumann) February 23, 2025

“We want to show people what can be done in a small place,” said Priest-in-Charge, the Rev Kay Jones. “So, we started with the church environment being different.”

Inside the building, a legacy provided for LED lighting and thermal boards, helping the church lower its carbon emissions, as well as providing a warm space for the community. “It’s not freezing anymore,” said Kay. “We can have warm-space activities. People like being here.”

And people are connecting with it. An open day to launch the potting shed brought 17 adults and 27 children together. “It was hard to get rid of them at the end,” Kay joked. “It is changing things for small numbers of people,” she added.

“What I’m seeing is people wanting to be part of what we do,” she said. “People are trying different foods grown in the garden, learning how – and what – to recycle in the church’s recycling bins, and crucially, learning where food comes from, helping to reduce their food bills.”

Read it all.

"We want to show people what can be done in a small place."

A church in one of the country’s most deprived areas is bringing people together and helping them with their wellbeing – thanks to the launch of a series of environmental projects.

Read more at https://t.co/Joa7q8MizC.

— The Church of England (@churchofengland) February 21, 2025

Friedrich Merz, the man favored to be Germany’s next chancellor after elections on Sunday, is a conservative businessman who has never been a government minister and was forced out of party leadership years ago for challenging Angela Merkel.

As a Christian Democrat and committed trans-Atlanticist, he has been considered a potentially better match for President Trump than the current Social Democratic chancellor, Olaf Scholz. He is also expected to lead a foreign policy more aligned with Mr. Trump’s ideas about Europe’s taking responsibility for its own defense.

But recent comments by Mr. Trump and Vice President JD Vance have displayed just how difficult any partnership may be with a United States that is less reliable and possibly hostile, and sympathetic to Russia’s narrative on Ukraine and spheres of influence.

That challenge is especially profound for Germany, and after Sunday is likely to fall on Mr. Merz, 69, who is known to be assertive and direct, if a bit awkward.

Read it all.

"Next Likely Chancellor Promises a Tougher Germany" by Steven Erlanger via NYT New York Times https://t.co/k70kWvVQ7b

— LadyEleanorA (@LadyEleanorA) February 20, 2025

The past week has been the bleakest in Europe since the fall of the Iron Curtain. Ukraine is being sold out, Russia is being rehabilitated and, under Donald Trump, America can no longer be counted on to come to Europe’s aid in wartime. The implications for Europe’s security are grave, but they have yet to sink in to the continent’s leaders and people. The old world needs a crash course on how to wield hard power in a lawless era, or it will fall victim to the new world disorder.

Speaking in Munich last week, America’s vice-president, J.D. Vance, offered a taste of how the home of fine wines, classical architecture and welfare cheques faces humiliation, when he ridiculed Europe as decadent and undemocratic. Its leaders have been excluded from peace talks between the White House and the Kremlin, which began officially in Riyadh on February 18th. However, the unfolding crisis goes far beyond insults and diplomatic niceties.

Mr Trump appears ready to walk away from Ukraine which he falsely blames for the war. Calling its president, Volodymyr Zelensky, a “dictator”, Mr Trump warned him that he had “better move fast or he is not going to have a country left”. America may try to impose an unstable ceasefire on Ukraine with only weak security guarantees that limit its right to re-arm.

Read it all.

Europe’s worst nightmare, and what to do about it. Our cover this week @TheEconomist https://t.co/JVwHunz4Cr pic.twitter.com/SCJc0rjs4R

— Sophie Pedder (@PedderSophie) February 20, 2025

The “relevance to the 2020s” of Kindleberger’s [1973] book is greater and gloomier. We have two competing superpowers, the US and China. Both fancy themselves as hegemons; neither is willing to accept the responsibilities of the role. The US vows vengeance on anybody who threatens the primacy of the dollar even as its own actions put that primacy in doubt. China rails against its lack of status in the current economic system, even as it plays a prime role in destabilising it.

With luck, there will be no crisis on a scale that needs leadership and global co-ordination to resolve — but luck always runs out in the end. It makes sense to bolster the international institutions as much as possible. It makes sense, too, to run sensible domestic policies and not end up dependent on the kindness of strangers, an unhelpful truism, like advice not to let your house catch fire.

“If leadership is thought of as the provision of the public good of responsibility, rather than the exploitation of followers or the private good of prestige, it remains a positive idea,” wrote Kindleberger. The US, for all its failings, provided that kind of leadership. The world awaits, with trepidation, the experience of an economic or financial crisis without it.

Read it all (registration or subscription).

Who will now stabilise the world economy? https://t.co/gAb7tUq1jd | opinion

— Financial Times (@FT) February 19, 2025

Deep under the sea, pipelines and cables carrying fuel, power and communications are strewn on the ocean floor like a central nervous system for the global economy. 

Huge stretches of these critical connectors lie unprotected in the murky depths—and vulnerable to attacks such as the 2022 sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines that carry Russian natural gas to Europe under the Baltic Sea.

Now, in the way that the use of drones has changed the conduct of land wars, artificial intelligence is about to change everything about how the deep sea is navigated and how critical underwater infrastructure is protected in wartime and against threats of terrorism.

Read it all.

AI is about to change everything about how the deep sea is navigated and how critical underwater infrastructure is protected
https://t.co/JCmJcgtNe0 via @WSJ

— Martijn Rasser (@MartijnRasser) February 17, 2025

Donald Trump’s demand for a $500bn (£400bn) “payback” from Ukraine goes far beyond US control over the country’s critical minerals. It covers everything from ports and infrastructure to oil and gas, and the larger resource base of the country.

The terms of the contract that landed at Volodymyr Zelensky’s office a week ago amount to the US economic colonisation of Ukraine, in legal perpetuity. It implies a burden of reparations that cannot possibly be achieved. The document has caused consternation and panic in Kyiv.

The Telegraph has obtained a draft of the pre-decisional contract, marked “Privileged & Confidential’ and dated Feb 7 2025. It states that the US and Ukraine should form a joint investment fund to ensure that “hostile parties to the conflict do not benefit from the reconstruction of Ukraine”.

Read it all.

Revealed: Trump’s confidential plan to put Ukraine in a stranglehold

Panic in Kyiv as US president demands higher share of GDP than Germany’s First World War reparations.https://t.co/3rFDHydtCd

— Ruchir Sharma (@ruchirsharma_1) February 18, 2025

Washington’s Birthday was celebrated on February 22nd until well into the 20th Century. However, in 1968 Congress passed the Monday Holiday Law to “provide uniform annual observances of certain legal public holidays on Mondays.” By creating more 3-day weekends, Congress hoped to “bring substantial benefits to both the spiritual and economic life of the Nation.”

One of the provisions of this act changed the observance of Washington’s Birthday from February 22nd to the third Monday in February. Ironically, this guaranteed that the holiday would never be celebrated on Washington’s actual birthday, as the third Monday in February cannot fall any later than February 21.

Contrary to popular belief, neither Congress nor the President has ever stipulated that the name of the holiday observed as Washington’s Birthday be changed to “President’s Day.”

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2/2 George Washington at the Battle of Princeton, 1779. Again painted by Charles Wilson Peale, who portrayed Washington often. And it's his day. pic.twitter.com/rVYMfXoYmB

— Dr. Peter Paul Rubens (@PP_Rubens) July 4, 2018

The Anglican Church in Uganda has adopted a series of strategic measures to safeguard its vast tracts of land that are under threat from encroachers.

The church’s initiatives involve venturing into coffee farming to transform unused land into productive agricultural spaces, registering mass tracts of untitled church land, issuing spiritual warnings and pursuing legal action against land grabbers.

The church said the initiatives will safeguard property and contribute to economic growth and social stability — ensuring that church land remains a valuable resource for future generations.

For nearly four decades under President Yoweri Museveni’s National Resistance Movement government, land grabbing has remained a significant challenge, not only for the other sections of society but also for the church. This issue has led to the displacement of thousands of impoverished Ugandans and even the demolition of churches. In 2020, a renowned land grabber demolished 40-year-old St. Peters Church in Ndeeba, in Kampala, sparking outrage among Christians.

Read it all.

The Anglican Church in Uganda has adopted a series of strategic measures to safeguard its vast tracts of land: transforming unused land into productive agricultural spaces, mass registration of untitled church land, spiritual warnings and legal action.https://t.co/OWkv1YpB5H

— Religion Unplugged (@ReligionMag) February 13, 2025

Ukraine sent its largest-ever delegation to Washington, DC, last week to rally support for more military defense and plead with Donald Trump not to pull the plug and make a deal that favors Russia. Pastors and religious leaders in the delegation fear that time is running out. 

“We know that President Trump is working on the new negotiations to help bring this war to an end,” said Igor Bandura, vice president of the Baptist Union of Ukraine. “We are here to pray, to advocate, to share our experience, and to remind the American people and American politicians that we are looking not just to end the war, but we need a just peace.”

American conservative and evangelical support for Ukraine has waned as the war has gone on and the Republican Party under Trump has grown increasingly skeptical of international alliances. Past efforts to shore up support for Ukraine among Republicans have yielded results, though, so the delegation remained hopeful, despite deep concerns.

Read it all.

Ukrainian Christians are pleading with the Trump administration not to pull the plug on support and make a deal that favors Russia.

“We are looking not just to end the war, but we need a just peace.”https://t.co/wQ0WrrLZGI

— Christianity Today (@CTmagazine) February 13, 2025

While it’s true that traditional monasticism is declining in many historic Christian traditions, new monasticism—the contemporary reappropriation of monastic wisdom—is still very much alive. More than that, the movement is gaining a new and growing following among the next generation and is meeting universal human needs that are felt more now than ever.

In our global digital age, many Christians are rediscovering the importance of community, the value of rhythms and routines amid chaotic circumstances, and the need for deeper commitment to spiritual formation. Over the past five years alone, the pandemic, incidents of racial injustice, and the church abuse crisis have led to a wake-up call. We are realizing that it may be worth sacrificing modern comforts and conveniences to live out our highest ideals and potential as God’s people and that we may need to look back in order to go forward.

Some believers have been sensitive to these needs for a long time—people who consider themselves “new monastics” (like me), who are fascinated by the desert elders’ courage to relocate to abandoned places. We are intrigued by the idea of living in a close community and making serious commitments to fundamental values. We wonder if establishing communal rules for life might tame the wild horse of late modern culture and help us better order our lives around the gospel.

Today, this reappropriation is taking the form of devotional apps like Lectio 365, introductory virtual classes on contemplative prayer, repurposed convents in Europe, and prayer spaces in alleyways and financial districts. It looks like Christian university campus houses establishing their own rules of life or communal discipleship programs, and small “colleges” of Christian students attending larger universities. It is happening through globally dispersed organizations like OMS, which takes prospective members through stages of preparation and vow-taking in a digital initiation process modeled after traditional religious orders.

Read it all.

“The entire town feels like it is in a pandemic, locked up without being able to go out and enjoy our lives due to violence.”

That is how “Jorge” – not his real name – feels about his neighbourhood of Guayaquil, a city in southern Ecuador.

His father, Marcos Elías León Maruri, was kidnapped there by the Los Tiguerones gang.

A person is killed every two hours in Ecuador and seven are kidnapped daily, according to government figures.

That’s why security is the top issue for voters ahead of the first round of the presidential election on Sunday, in which incumbent Daniel Noboa is being challenged by 15 other candidates.

Whoever wins will be tasked with restoring security to the country, which has gone from being one of the safest to among the most dangerous in the region.

Read it all (Hat tip-BBC World News America).

Ecuador chooses president against backdrop of gang violence https://t.co/LGXIXTbUaa

— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) February 7, 2025

Big Tech’s massive spending on artificial intelligence is set to continue unchecked in 2025 after Amazon topped its rivals with a planned $100bn-plus investment in infrastructure this year.

Spending by the four leading US tech companies had already surged 63 per cent to historic levels last year. Now executives are vowing to accelerate their AI investments, dismissing concerns about the vast sums being bet on the nascent technology.

Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon and Meta have reported combined capital expenditure of $246bn in 2024, up from $151bn in 2023. They forecast spending could exceed $320bn this year as they compete to build data centres and fill them with clusters of specialised chips to remain at the forefront of AI large language model research.

The scale of their spending ambitions — announced alongside their fourth-quarter earnings — has surprised the market and exacerbated a sell-off caused by the release of an innovative and cheap AI model from Chinese start-up DeepSeek in late January.

Read it all.

Big Tech is set to spend over $300 billion on AI this year. pic.twitter.com/7AL7J7i5mY

— Brew Markets (@brewmarkets) February 7, 2025

If investment in data centres is about to slow, nobody told Mark Zuckerberg. On January 29th, during an earnings call, Meta’s boss boasted that the social-media giant had plans to build an artificial-intelligence (AI) data centre “so big that it’ll cover a significant part of Manhattan if it were placed there”.

His timing was conspicuous. Only two days earlier the share prices of firms from Nvidia, a chipmaker, to Dell, a manufacturer of servers used in data centres, had nosedived in response to the release of a new AI model created by DeepSeek, a Chinese firm. Its training costs were a fraction of those for similarly powerful Western models, raising questions over how much computing power—and investment—is needed to develop ai systems.

Although many of those share prices have since recovered, the episode has brought increased scrutiny to the huge sums of money that are being spent on data centres. Meta and America’s three big cloud-service providers—Alphabet, Amazon and Microsoft—forked out a combined $180bn on data-centre infrastructure last year. Add in spending by smaller tech firms, telecoms providers, big enterprises and data-centre operators such as Digital Realty and Equinix, and the figure rises to around $465bn. Land, buildings and peripheral gear such as electrical equipment make up about 30% of that, with chips, server racks, networking kit and the like accounting for the rest. Cashed-up private-equity firms such as Blackstone have been lured in by the spending boom, undertaking a record $70bn-worth of data-centre deals last year.

Read it all.

The data-centre investment spree shows no signs of stopping https://t.co/SckehPpeGp

— Marc Baronnet (@baronnet) February 5, 2025

Cartels are deeply entwined with the Mexican economy. Many of the tomatoes, bell peppers and cucumbers consumed in the U.S. are grown in the Mexican state of Sinaloa, where many farmers pay the cartel for water for their fields. Businesses such as mining companies and avocado growers are widely believed to pay extortion money to cartels.

“For better or for worse, this will likely force Mexican businesses and the Mexican government to confront pervasive cartel influence,” said Andrew Kaufman, an international lawyer who is counseling Mexican and multinational firms on the expected FTO designations.

Trump’s executive order took note of the cartels’ vast reach. The order gives the secretary of state—in consultation with other cabinet members—14 days to determine which Mexican cartels should be designated as FTOs. Then, key members of Congress have seven days to comment before the designation takes legal effect.

The order accuses the Mexican cartels of infiltrating governments and destabilizing countries across the Americas.

Read it all.

President Trump wants to deploy a blunt new tool to fight Mexican cartels that flood the U.S. with drugs, by adding them to a list of terrorist groups that includes the likes of al Qaeda and Hamas https://t.co/pZ2amUzOxO

— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) February 5, 2025

In 2022 and 2023, the Army missed its recruitment goal by nearly twenty-five per cent—about fifteen thousand troops a year. It hit the mark last year, but only by reducing the target by more than ten thousand. The Navy has also fared badly: it failed to reach its goals in 2023, then met them in 2024 by filling out the ranks with recruits of a lower standard; nearly half measured below average on an aptitude exam. The Army Reserve hasn’t met its benchmark since 2016, and the ranks are so depleted that active-duty officers have been put in charge of reserve units. Some experts worry that, if the country went to war, many reserve units might be unable to deploy. A U.S. official who works on these issues put it simply: “We can’t get enough people.”

At the end of the Second World War, the American military had twelve million active-duty members. It now has 1.3 million—even though the population has more than doubled, and women are now eligible for armed service. “The U.S. military has been shrinking for thirty years,” Lawrence Wilkerson, a former senior State Department official who leads a task force on the challenges facing the armed services, said. “But its global commitments haven’t changed.” The military operates out of bases in more than fifty countries, and routinely deploys Special Operations forces to about eighty. Now, Wilkerson said, “it’s not clear that the military is large enough anymore for America to uphold its promises.”

For decades, the armed forces based their requirements on a defensive doctrine called “win and hold”: the capacity to win one war while fighting a second to a standstill. Today, with the U.S. confronting perhaps its starkest global-security challenges since the Cold War, many analysts fear that even one war would be too taxing. A conflict with China over the disputed island of Taiwan could leave thousands of Americans dead in a matter of weeks—amounting to nearly half the losses the country sustained in twenty years of fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.

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Dexter Filkins reports on the U.S. military’s struggle to recruit from a population that’s not just unenthusiastic but unable to serve as it also reckons with political turbulence at home and mounting security threats abroad. https://t.co/bw6y3RY3zT

— The New Yorker (@NewYorker) February 3, 2025

Americans are the most optimistic they have been in the past seven years about several aspects of the U.S. economy, particularly economic growth and the stock market. Majorities of Americans expect both indicators of economic health to go up this year, while 41% are hopeful that interest rates will fall, exceeding the 35% saying interest rates will rise.

The public is divided over whether unemployment will increase (38%) or decrease (38%) — although at a time of relatively low unemployment, the 21% expecting the rate to hold steady could be viewed as positive. A slim majority of Americans, 52%, predict that inflation will rise, but that is down significantly from recent years.

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"Americans are the most optimistic they have been in the past seven years about several aspects of the U.S. economy, particularly economic growth and the stock market."@Gallup pic.twitter.com/dvNHxgJTA1

— Daily Chartbook (@dailychartbook) February 4, 2025

O God, who orderest the common things of the common day, dignify by thy presence and aid the trivial round and routine tasks of thy servant whose hope is in thee, that least duties may be grandly done and all activities marked with the seal of thy righteousness; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

–Robert W. Rodenmayer, ed., The Pastor’s Prayerbook: Selected and arranged for various occasions (New York: Oxford University Press, 1960)

Wishing you a happy new week from Roseberry Topping, North Yorkshire pic.twitter.com/1HWS2sApsC

— Nicky (@Nicky13Johnson) February 3, 2025

A key determinant of becoming a global leader in AI is the ability to build an efficient, sustainable and resilient infrastructure that ensures energy is available, reliable and constant. The state of national power grids in China, the EU, and the US remains a significant barrier. China’s creaking grid represents a major constraint to progress and the government is planning to invest more than US$800bn over the next six years. The investment will support Beijing’s Eastern Data, Western Computing initiative, which aims to tap into China’s energy resources in the west and transfer computing power to economic hubs along the coast.

The European power grid is one of the oldest in the world. Moreover, around 40% of the grid is around ten years off its expected lifespan, while over half of the physical grid needs to be repaired or replaced. It remains uncertain whether the estimated US$584bn in European grid investments needed this decade will materialise. In 2024, the EU’s Modernisation Fund handed out almost US$3bn to modernise member states’ energy systems, amongst other activities.

The ageing and fragmented US grid comprises three main regions (Western, Eastern and Texas), which remain inefficient, especially for interconnections between regions. The US Department of Energy (DoE) estimates that power outages cost the US economy US$150bn annually. Modernising the US grid will cost trillions over the coming decades.

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Building AI infrastructure is only one part of the story, as sovereign AI capabilities may prove more decisive.

Read the latest analysis by Charlie Edwards: https://t.co/5y4Hb1bd1o pic.twitter.com/HWb7vskEoL

— IISS News (@IISS_org) January 31, 2025

 China’s military is building a massive complex in western Beijing that US intelligence believes will serve as a wartime command centre far larger than the Pentagon, according to current and former American officials.

Satellite images obtained by the Financial Times that are being examined by US intelligence show a roughly 1,500-acre construction site 30km south-west of Beijing with deep holes that military experts assess will house large, hardened bunkers to protect Chinese military leaders during any conflict — including potentially a nuclear war.

Several current and former US officials said the intelligence community was closely monitoring the site, which would be the world’s largest military command centre — and at least 10 times the size of the Pentagon.

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SCOOP China builds huge new wartime military command centre in western Beijing – 10 times the size of the Pentagon https://t.co/19nxQg0MqM via @ft

— Demetri (@Dimi) January 30, 2025