You just knew this day would come. President Donald Trump is really sprucing up the nation’s capital ahead of the country’s celebration of its 250th anniversary. One of the signature improvements has been the restored reflecting pool that sits between the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument.
As I noted on April 25, the very act of fixing this deteriorated site was universally attacked by the left, which is par for the course when it comes to leftist reaction to everything Trump does. Keep in mind, earlier reports indicated that traditional Washington had this project pegged at a cost of $300 million and years to complete. Trump got it done in months at a fraction of the cost – somewhere around $13 million when all is said and done.
Perhaps most significantly, the pool is stunningly beautiful. The navy blue that Trump chose as the base color for the pool’s sealant adds to the richness of the entire look of it. Knowing that the people who repaired the pool sealed all of the leaks and addressed infrastructure problems provides reassurance that, with some basic routine maintenance, this iconic landmark will shine for years to come.
The water is ON, the Reflecting Pool is reflecting, and D.C. is looking better than ever.
In the process, Trump is making leftists cry. Not tears of joy: tears of regret that they have to admit they actually like it.
A Democrat in DC says she hates she’s forced to admit the Reflecting Pool now looks good.
“I thought it was a stupid idea to paint the Reflecting Pool, but it looks really good. It makes the reflection look extraordinarily prominent in a way it did not before, and I hate that.” pic.twitter.com/yVTHm4rHUh
— Right Angle News Network (@Rightanglenews) June 5, 2026
You may remember that when the project was first launched, leftists came up with every excuse in the book as to why it was a dumb idea. The blue color was a problem, with leftists turning to AI to come up with gaudy swimming pool blue renditions of the project, and then reacting negatively to their own fake imagery. They were still using their AI pics up until the water was turned on.
As the project proceeded and it appeared the final product might actually be tasteful, leftists then started to complain about the cost. That’s right: Something they were willing to spend $300 million on over a period of years under a Democrat administration now costs too much at $13 million over a couple of months.
@POTUS originally estimated the repair & painting of the Reflecting Pool would cost roughly $1.8 million. Federal contract records indicate that the Department of the Interior ultimately paid $13.1 million, putting the project nearly $11.3 million OVER THE INITIAL ESTIMATE. https://t.co/dirx70hRI2
The same leftists who want to give millions of illegals free housing, free food, free health insurance, thanks to you, the taxpayer, all of a sudden care about a project that wouldn’t be necessary if the Obama administration didn’t already screw it up. Barack Obama spent $34 million over a couple of years on this, and it was a mess in the end.
🚨 NEVER FORGET: Obama spent $34 MILLION of your tax dollars renovating the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.
In a “feel-good Friday” Truth Social post, the president kind of punctuated the whole event in Trump style.
🚨 NOW: President Trump NUKES FROM ORBIT the Washington Post for lying about the Lincoln Reflecting Pool renovations
“The Great Reflecting Pool, that stretches between The Lincoln Memorial and The Washington Monument, just opened to “rave reviews” but, maliciously or not, some… pic.twitter.com/SWjYK5sUku
What’s the moral of this story? The left will never be happy about anything, but on the rare chance you catch them liking something that Trump did, it will most certainly bring them to tears.
President Donald Trump told reporters on June 5 that his administration is exploring the possibility of the United States acquiring a public stake in artificial intelligence (AI) companies.
Trump made the comment in response to a question about a recent News of the United States report, which suggested that unnamed senior U.S. officials had discussed with major AI firms the possibility of the federal government holding some shares in their companies.
“There’s so much money that is so big that there are concepts where pieces could be given to the American public, where the American public essentially becomes a partner with the companies,” Trump said aboard Air Force One.
“I have spoken to all of [the AI companies]. There’s something very interesting about it, where it almost becomes a partnership with the American public, and we’ll look into that,” he said.
Trump said he and his team have a meeting scheduled in the “very near future” with major AI firms to discuss this possible venture.
“We’re talking about it, where the American people can benefit from the success of AI, and by doing that, they can like it better,” Trump explained.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) penned an op-ed in The New York Times on Monday titled “A.I. Is a Public Resource. You Should Own Half of It,” where he announced he would soon introduce congressional legislation to give the American public a direct ownership stake in the largest AI companies in the United States.
“It would create a sovereign wealth fund through a one-time 50 percent tax—not on the profits of OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI, and other companies, but paid with something far more valuable than that: the stock,” Sanders wrote in the piece.
He said the legislation, which he plans to call the American A.I. Sovereign Wealth Fund Act, would give the American public a direct role in determining the future of AI while also guaranteeing that the trillions generated by the industry are “used to improve the lives of all of us—not simply to make the richest people in the world even richer.”
When asked on Friday if he found it odd that he and Sanders were seemingly on the same page about the proposal, Trump said that the two “have certain things that aren’t that far apart” regarding economic policy.
“People are surprised, but if you’ll take a look, many of the people who voted for Bernie Sanders … they went to me,” Trump said, referring to some of the voters who backed him in the 2016 presidential election after previously supporting Sanders in the Democratic primary that year.
Trump signed an executive order on Tuesday asking AI companies to voluntarily submit their frontier models for government review 30 days before a full public release.
In a post on X hours after the order was announced, Sanders said it was “good news” that Trump had “finally acknowledged AI poses a real threat” after the president had previously criticized efforts to tighten regulation of the AI industry.
“The bad news? His executive order is voluntary and does almost nothing to protect Americans,“ Sanders wrote. “Congress MUST act.”
Second Flesh-Eating Screwworm Case Raises Beef Supply Fears As Goldman Warns Outbreak “Could Be Disruptive”
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) confirmed a second New World screwworm (NWS) case in a one-month-old calf in Zavala County, Texas, roughly 5.6 miles from the first confirmed detection.
For now, both cases remain inside what the USDA calls an “established movement control zone and enhanced sterile insect dispersal area.” This suggests the outbreak is still contained within the USDA’s active response perimeter. Nearby suspect cattle tests have been negative so far, limiting signs of broader spread at this point.
USDA confirmed the second NWS case late Friday. The agency reported the first case on Thursday (read the report).
USDA has confirmed a second detection of New World Screwworm in a one-month-old calf in Zavala County, Texas — approximately 5.6 miles from the first case.
With our partners in Texas, we are responding with speed and strength.
— New World Screwworm Rapid Response (@Screwworm_RR) June 5, 2026
The detection of NWS in the U.S. – once eradicated in the U.S. in the 1960s – has seen an ongoing resurgence across Panama, Central America, a, nd Mexico. NWS burrows into living flesh, causing serious livestock damage and economic losses. This biological threat to the U.S. cattle herd comes as the nation’s herd level is already at a 75-year low, beef prices are at record highs, and meatpackers are under pressure from fewer and more expensive animals.
Cattle futures at record highs.
Goldman analyst Thiago Bortoluci lays out the implications if NWS spreads across the US beef industry:
In our view, the potential spread of NWS into Texas could be disruptive: the state holds the largest cattle herd in the country (12.1M head, 14% of the U.S. total), ranks among the top regions for feeder cattle (15%) and cattle on feed (22%), and is one of the most relevant sources of cattle shipped across state lines.
Should the Texas case be confirmed, we would expect:
Further pressure on the U.S. cattle herd, extending what has already been a multi-year downcycle, with elevated cattle costs further squeezing packers’ profitability. Potentially weaker consumer demand for beef, ahead of the seasonally high grilling season and the upcoming FIFA World Cup. Some short-term demand substitution effect toward chicken.
Read-across to our coverage JBS currently operates one plant in Texas, but we believe the negative externalities could extend into nearby states and potentially also impact MBRF’s National Beef operations (especially Liberal and Dodge City), given inter-state cattle trade. We estimate that each -50bp change in U.S. beef profitability would translate into a -3% impact on MBRF’s and JBS’s consolidated forward EBITDA.
On the flip side, the scenario could potentially be supportive for South American beef exporters given good cattle availability and no evidence of NWS in the continent till now. If this trend were to persist, Minerva would be the clearest beneficiary across our coverage, as exports to the U.S. account for 11% of its total sales.
Base case: heightened NWS biosecurity surveillance across Texas and tighter cattle movement controls, not mass culling
By 1PM Friday, the Nasdaq was already down roughly 3.3%, and suddenly the same crowd that spent the last few months explaining why valuations don’t matter is asking what is happening.
Bitcoin has also been taken behind the woodshed, crashing to around $60,000. Depending on where you’re measuring from, that’s a brutal decline in a remarkably short period of time. It’s down about 42% over the last twelve months. And it’s becoming clear that bitcoin bulls all have breaking points.
And I don’t want to sound like a d*ck, but frankly, none of this — the market tanking, or how it’s happening — is really surprising.
I’ve written for years that I think crypto is the tip of the risk-on spear. It tends to be the first asset class investors pile into when liquidity is abundant, speculation is rampant, and everyone is convinced they’re smarter than the market. It’s also frequently the first thing to crack when risk appetite begins to fade. So I’m not terribly surprised that after bitcoin started crashing (it’s down 16% in the last 5 days) that the rest of the market is following suit.
Friendly reminder for those who think this is a “crash” that in 2023, barely 3 years ago, the NASDAQ was more than -59% lower from here.
The current Shiller CAPE ratio sits at 42.7x, a level that should make investors uncomfortable. Historically, the CAPE has averaged just 17.38x, with a median reading of 16.09x, meaning today’s valuation is more than double what investors have typically paid for earnings over the last century.
Even more striking, the market is now approaching the most expensive levels ever recorded. The all-time high was 44.19x at the peak of the dot-com bubble in December 1999, a period not exactly remembered for rational pricing or stellar forward returns.
In other words, despite today’s selloff, stocks remain priced near some of the richest valuations in modern financial history. A 3% decline may feel dramatic on social media, but it barely registers as a scratch when viewed against the backdrop of historically extreme valuations.
The Buffett Indicator isn’t offering much comfort either. The total value of the U.S. stock market currently stands at roughly $75.4 trillion versus annualized GDP of approximately $31.8 trillion. That places the Buffett Indicator at 237%.
Historically, levels this elevated have been associated with investors discovering, sometimes painfully, that valuation eventually matters. Others, who aren’t in on the Fed-created “good macro news is bad news for markets because rate cuts are less likely” logic—a totally backwards, Jedi-mind-f*ck-deluxe recalibration of economic reality—don’t even seem to consider valuation.
And the uncomfortable reality is that many other investors are still operating under the assumption that the Federal Reserve will ride in on a white horse if markets get into trouble.
That assumption may be outdated. As I’ve written about, it appears the Fed has a problem. Inflation remains stubbornly elevated. Policymakers know financial conditions are tight enough to hurt growth but not loose enough to declare victory on prices. Cutting aggressively risks reigniting inflation pressures. Staying restrictive risks slowing the economy further. In short, the Fed is stuck.
For most of the last fifteen years, every meaningful market decline came with an expectation that central bankers would eventually step in with lower rates, more liquidity, or some variation of monetary painkillers. Today, that safety net looks considerably thinner.
The market may desperately want a rescue eventually, and inflation may not allow one. That creates a setup investors haven’t had to navigate in a long time.
Adding to the risk is the increasingly fragile nature of this rally.
At the same time, leverage and margin debt has expanded throughout the system, and options-driven flows have become an increasingly important source of market support. Dealer gamma effects can suppress volatility on the way up, creating the illusion of stability.
The problem is that the same mechanics can work in reverse.
When positioning begins to unwind, liquidity can disappear quickly. Dealers hedge. Leverage gets reduced. Momentum traders head for the exits. What looked like a calm staircase higher suddenly resembles an elevator ride lower. And that is usually accompanied by television personalities assuring viewers that everything is perfectly healthy.
None of this means we’re headed for a crash. It does mean investors should be careful about assuming every decline is automatically a gift.
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I also continued my coverage of SpaceX, a company that increasingly looks like a proxy for br
That mindset worked exceptionally well when valuations were lower, liquidity was abundant, and the Fed was eager to rescue markets at the first sign of distress.
Those conditions do not exist today. A 3% selloff is not a valuation reset. Bitcoin falling is not necessarily an isolated event. And a market priced near historic extremes with a Fed constrained by inflation is not the same environment investors enjoyed during most of the post-2008 era.
The market has temporarily remembered gravity exists. The question now is whether investors will remember it too. If they do, hold on to your nuts, cause I feel like it won’t take much for us to be on the verge of a leverage fueled sell-off that could reinvent our idea of “sharp correction” faster than you can say “subprime is contained”.
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Iran has again accused the US of breaking the ceasefire, with the Foreign Ministry on Saturday stating the US “not only lacks the will to reduce tensions and return to the path of stability, but with its adventurist actions, it seriously endangers the security of the region.”
The ministry on X denounced fresh US attacks its coastal radar and surveillance facilities in Sirik region and on Qeshm Island – saying this breached the ceasefire. The ministry “strongly calls on the countries of the region to observe the principle of good neighborliness and adhere to the fundamental principle of international law of refraining from allowing aggressors to use their territory and facilities to plan and carry out aggressive actions against the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
It seems clear that for each US action, Iran is seeking to establish deterrence, and so is not hesitating to fire or inflict some kind of ‘cost’ either on US bases or the Gulf allies hosting them.
More Pakistani efforts to forge together agreement to get US-Iran back to the formal negotiating table:
Pakistan’s Interior Minister @MohsinnaqviC42 has just departed from Lahore for Tehran where he will meet Iranian Leadership and deliver important messages as part of Pakistan’s Mediation efforts between the US and Iran — This is Naqvi’s third standalone visit to Tehran and 4th… https://t.co/mmaVRrU2aX
Salvo of Ballistic Missiles Fired on Kuwait, Bahrain
Soon after the initial drone shootdown engagement (below), it became apparent that anti-air defense systems were active over Kuwait, as its armed forces warned the public that explosions were the result of inbound projectile intercepts. While there were no reports of damage, the ground result is still anything but clear or certain (based on past instances of the US and Gulf allies concealing or downplaying damage or casualties).
Within hours after this initial exchange of fire, Iran followed up with more ballistic missiles on nearby Bahrain and Kuwait – as ‘punishment’ for the countries hosting US forces and American bases.
Bloombergreports that “Six ballistic missiles fired at Bahrain and Kuwait were intercepted and another failed to reach its intended target, hours after four drones headed to the Strait of Hormuz were shot down, Centcom said.” It notes that the “US military struck Iranian coastal surveillance radar sites in Goruk and on Qeshm Island in return.”
It Started With Iranian Drone Shootdowns
More details have come to light of the latest overnight flare-up in fighting between US and Iranian forces in and around the Strait of Hormuz and Persian Gulf.
The Friday night and overnight clashes started when the US military reportedly intercepted and shot down at least four Iranian one-way attack drones. According to US Central Command (CENTCOM), the incoming unmanned aerial vehicles were heading directly toward the Strait of Hormuz and posed an “imminent threat to maritime traffic.”
Following the drone shootdowns, American forces immediately launched retaliatory strikes against key military targets inside Iranian territory. CENTCOM further detailed that American assets hit Iranian coastal surveillance radar sites located in Goruk, a city in the Hormozgan province, as well as on Qeshm Island, a strategically vital Iranian outpost in the mouth of the strait.
Each Exchange Another Escalation Toward Full-Scale War
One thing is clear: these ‘limited’ escalations are becoming more regular, and even almost nightly at this point, raising the stakes and possibility of a more full-on, dangerous renewed war.
Every exchange like this could mean a return to full-scale war, and that’s what’s going to happen eventually unless Trump just pulls out, which I don’t think he’s gonna do. https://t.co/PFUiLoXktm
It has also become increasingly evident and acknowledged that the ceasefire has allowed Iran to reconstitute much of its missile and drone capabilities, and underground launch tunnels are being dug out with heavy equipment.
President Trump himself has recently admitted this state of things, amid the extended ceasefire:
US President Donald Trump, who has insisted for months that Iran was near its breaking point, conceded Friday that the country retains some missile and drone capacity. In an interview with NBC News, he said about 21-22% of Tehran’s missile arsenal remains.
“It’s a lot of missiles, but it’s not what it was when we first attacked,” he told the television network during a visit to Wisconsin. Earlier Friday, he told reporters the US is “having great success with Iran,” and “they’re in no position to have a nuclear weapon.”
Sunday will mark 100 days since the start of Operation Epic Fury. Trump and US officials had touted only a ‘short’ conflict, and seemed to have been betting on the government being toppled.
The Labour government in Britain is accelerating its assault on digital privacy under the well-worn banner of child protection. Fresh plans leaked to the press reveal ministers intend to compel Apple, Google and other tech firms to restrict smartphones so thoroughly that a digital ID will be needed to use them with unfettered access.
The mechanism comes in the form of expanded age verification that effectively demands digital identification for device setup and use. What is sold as safeguarding the young is shaping up as a backdoor mandate for every adult in Britain to submit ID just to operate a phone or go online.
This development lands alongside Google’s confirmation that it will soon bring digital IDs to Android devices in the UK via Google Wallet. Users will record a short video selfie and scan a government-issued ID to add a digital version of their passport or other documents.
Google is bringing Digital IDs to the UK ‘soon’ to bolster age checks on Android phones https://t.co/H9wSASduQe
The feature, already rolling out in select EU countries this summer, is explicitly tied to the UK’s Online Safety Act requirements for age checks on content involving self-harm, eating disorders, bullying and pornography.
Google is exploring certification under the government’s digital identity trust framework, which could extend its use to everyday purchases such as alcohol.
Apple has already implemented similar restrictions on iOS devices in Britain, forcing age confirmation or locking users into limited “child mode.”
Big Brother Watch director Silkie Carlo has been blunt about where this leads. “Protecting children online is vital, but these are outrageous plans that will fail to address the underlying causes of online harm. This will only result in population-wide ID checks for all of us to use our phones, tablets and laptops.”
She continued: “Put simply, the Labour Government is introducing ID checks for the internet. No one in a democracy should need to show their passport just to get online.”
Protecting children online is vital, but these are outrageous plans that will fail to address the underlying causes of online harm.
This will only result in population-wide ID checks for all of us to use our phones, tablets and laptops.
Carlo warned that the proposals replace genuine parental responsibility and meaningful tech design with “performative, authoritarian government control that children can easily circumvent by accessing adult-registered devices.” For the UK’s fifty million adult internet users, the outcome is stark: “this backdoor digital ID requirement would invoke the death of anonymity and internet privacy.”
The mechanics are chilling. Without submitting to intrusive ID checks during device setup, users face a “chokehold on your software and internet access leaving you with a child-locked device.” Restrictions on messaging, streaming and browsing open the door to client-side scanning – government spyware sitting in every pocket. Carlo noted this has long been a GCHQ ambition and “will be exploited for other purposes before long.”
The bigger picture involving “The Government mandating that all phones/devices in Britain require ID and surveillance software is a crossing of the Rubicon that would make the UK one of the most authoritarian internet regimes in the world.”
“I don’t know anywhere else in the world that has done this,” Carlo warned.
The story broke via a leak to The Times rather than any parliamentary process. Carlo called it a travesty: “This extreme technological censorship requires rigorous public and parliamentary scrutiny that is totally missing.” Big Brother Watch has pledged to fight the measures.
These phone-level controls do not exist in isolation. They slot directly into the UK’s wider digital ID infrastructure, already exposed as a dystopian experiment in mass surveillance.
The government’s One Login platform and planned GOV.UK Wallet create a centralized system for identity verification across public services, with biometric data, audit trails logging every use, and a permissions framework that can deny access to everything from jobs to age-restricted purchases.
What begins as convenient “right-to-work” checks or alcohol verification quickly becomes a comprehensive record of daily life, open to expansion and abuse.
The ambition reaches even further back – to the cradle. Labour ministers have privately discussed assigning digital IDs to newborn babies alongside their health records, modeled on Estonia’s system.
Framed initially as a tool to tackle illegal immigration through right-to-work verification, the scheme has ballooned into a cradle-to-grave tracking apparatus. Critics across the spectrum have labeled it a sinister overreach with nothing to do with stopping the boats and everything to do with building a permanent digital file on every citizen from birth.
Shadow ministers and former cabinet figures have condemned the lack of debate and the affront to British traditions of liberty.
This national infrastructure mirrors global blueprints pushed by the World Health Organization and funded by the Gates Foundation. A WHO document outlines a globally interoperable digital identity system for permanent, lifelong tracking of vaccination status from birth registration onward.
Records would integrate personally identifiable information with socioeconomic data including household income, ethnicity and religion. AI would target the “unreached,” combat “misinformation,” and support conditioning access to education, travel and other services on compliance.
Community health workers and digital alerts would enforce behavior, while fast healthcare interoperability standards enable cross-border data sharing. The architecture is explicitly designed for surveillance and control, not mere convenience.
The picture sharpens further with recent pushes for AI-designed “super vaccines.” Cambridge researchers have created the first entirely AI-generated antigen, tested in humans, aimed at training immunity against entire families of viruses rather than single strains.
Data drawn from viral surveillance programs feeds these systems. While presented as pandemic preparedness, the combination with digital ID infrastructure creates obvious pathways for tracking compliance.
Refusal could trigger digital consequences – restricted access to services, finance or movement – under the same “safety” logic already being applied to phones and age verification. The surveillance grid expands while public oversight remains minimal.
Real concerns about child exploitation and online harm are being weaponized to justify systems that deliver mass identification, device-level control, client-side scanning and lifelong data profiles.
While children can bypass the restrictions; adults lose the fundamental right to anonymous communication and private device use. The same political class that has presided over record migration, grooming scandals and institutional failures now demands ever more intrusive tools to monitor the population it claims to protect.
This is not incremental safety policy. It is the deliberate construction of an authoritarian digital regime. Every new verification layer, every leaked proposal for device lockdown, every tie-in with global vaccine-tracking architectures erodes the space for individual autonomy.
Britain is being marched toward a future where showing a passport-equivalent digital ID becomes the price of entry to the internet, to commerce, to normal life – all while the architects insist it is voluntary and ‘for the children’.
It is a stark crossing of the Rubicon indeed. The only question is whether the British public will recognise the destination in time to turn back.
The 2026 Football World Cup kicks off June 11, with Mexico vs. South Africa opening the tournament at Mexico City Stadium.
The tournament will feature 48 teams across 104 matches at stadiums in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico from next Thursday through July 19.
Jan Hatzius, chief economist and head of global investment research at Goldman Sachs, published a cheat sheet for clients that used a forecasting model built around Elo ratings – the ranking system originally developed for chess – to handicap the tournament. His top pick diverges from the latest Polymarket odds, with Hatzius placing Spain at the top of the list as the most likely World Cup winner.
“The model says that Spain has a 26% probability of winning the trophy, followed by France at 19%, Argentina at 14%, Brazil at 8%, and England at 5%,” Hatzius said.
He noted, “Spain is predicted to win because it has the highest Elo ranking, supported by scoring talent and good momentum into the competition. Argentina is penalised by the “winner’s slump”, i.e. the statistical underperformance of reigning champions in the following World Cup; France suffers from likely facing top-ranked Spain in the semifinals; and England underperforms its Elo rating given historical tournament disappointment, geographical headwinds (likely facing Mexico in high-altitude Mexico City), and a slightly unlucky draw.”
Hatzius built a regression model to estimate how many goals each team is likely to score against another, using nearly 20,000 international matches since 1978. The model shows a steep decline in goal scoring, with much of it occurring after World War II.
Elo measures national team strength based on results and opponent quality, updating as teams win, lose, or draw. By this metric, Hatzius and his team place Spain No. 1, ahead of Argentina and France, which differs slightly from FIFA’s official men’s rankings.
Most Likely Predicted Group Stage Results
Road To Winner
Unlike our previous notes on Goldman’s World Cup probabilities in 2022, 2018, and 2014, the rise of Polymarket has changed the betting game, bringing prediction markets directly into the sports-betting mainstream.
The latest Polymarket odds show France at 17%, Spain at 16%, and England at 11%…
…putting market pricing at odds with Goldman’s model, which ranks Spain as the winner.
The Israeli ambassador to France has been accused of “foreign interference” after saying he would prefer “anyone rather than Jean-Luc Melenchon” to win the 2027 presidential election.
Speaking in a television interview on Thursday, Ambassador Joshua Zarka said he would rather see any candidate elected to the Elysee Palace than Melenchon, the leader of the left-wing party La France Insoumise (LFI), a strong supporter of Palestinian rights.
Zarka also added that he met last month with Marine Le Pen, the leader of the French far-right National Rally. His remarks triggered an immediate backlash from across the French political spectrum.
Manuel Bompard, LFI’s national coordinator, described the comments as “blatant foreign interference”.
“In a normal democracy, the French authorities should react and condemn this type of statement,” he said.
Arnaud Le Gall, an LFI MP responsible for the party’s international relations, said Zarka had breached the neutrality expected of diplomats.
“He’s a diplomat stationed in France. He’s supposed to maintain neutrality in the country where he’s posted. So tell him to keep his mouth shut,” Le Gall said.
The criticism was echoed by Olivier Faure, leader of the Socialist Party, who called the ambassador’s comments “unacceptable interference”.
“The French people will decide their own future,” Faure said. “No one is surprised to see an envoy of [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu openly admitting his ties to the French far right.”
Zarka’s remarks also drew criticism from the right. Nathalie Loiseau, a member of the European Parliament from the Horizons party, described Zarka’s comments as “clear interference in our domestic political life” and said they were “totally inappropriate” for a foreign ambassador.
🇮🇱🇫🇷 Joshua Zarka dénonce une crise diplomatique sans précédent entre la France et Israëlhttps://t.co/rZxuIE9es0
During the interview, Zarka acknowledged that Israeli officials had previously avoided formal contact with leaders of Le Pen’s party, but argued that the movement had changed.
“The National Front had a clear antisemitic tendency,” he said, referring to the party’s former name. “The National Rally has changed.”
‘Take The Badge Off’: Former Ferrari Boss Slams New $635k EV That Company Thinks Will Attract ‘Younger Buyers’
One week after Ferrari unveiled its first-ever all-electric car, called the Luce, the design continues to divide analysts. Some referred to the new model as a “mix between a Honda Accord EV and a Tesla,” while others said that Tesla’s Model S Plaid was far superior. The latest report from Goldman analysts provided new details about their most recent visit to Ferrari’s headquarters in Maranello.
Last Friday, Ferrari hosted an investor day, which analyst Christian Frenes attended. He spoke with top Ferrari executives just days after the Luce reveal event in Rome earlier in the week.
Frenes said management framed the Ferrari Luce as an “additive range model designed to expand the customer base.“
He continued:
Management reaffirmed the Luce as a strategic entry point to engage new demographics and regions, particularly in markets with higher BEV penetration such as Asia and the Nordics while also targeting a new and younger customer group. The exterior design intentionally distinguishes the EV from existing ICE and PHEV models. Management also reaffirmed it remains aligned with its “technological neutrality” approach continuing to sell V12s and V8s to those interested.
Beyond design, Ferrari’s battery-powered, four-door, five-seat Luce has another problem: its price tag – a staggering 550,000 euros, or about $638,660. If Ferrari expects that to open the brand to a younger, broader customer base, management certainly has a different view of the world – one that isn’t grounded in reality.
For starters, Tesla’s Model S Plaid costs only a fraction as much and, on key performance metrics, appears to outperform the Luce. The Model S also comes with Full Self-Driving, a feature we are fairly certain Ferrari’s first EV lacks.
By the end of last week, Ferrari CEO Benedetto Vigna appeared to be on damage-control duty after shares dropped in response to negative investor reaction to the Luce’s design and performance specifications.
— Tesla Owners Silicon Valley (@teslaownersSV) May 27, 2026
Let’s not forget that Ferrari hybrids are depreciating faster than their petrol-powered counterparts. This is a sign that car collectors are shunning anything electric (read the report).
Shares have yet to recover to pre-Luce reveal levels.
Beyond the terrible design and high price, one could debadge the Luce, and it would be hard to decipher the car from a Kia or Toyota or even a Nissan …
That problem itself has infuriated Luca Cordero di Montezemolo, the former Ferrari president, who told local media that the Luce “risks destroying a legend, and I’m deeply sorry. I hope they at least remove the Prancing Horse from that car.”
American automotive YouTuber Doug DeMuro said Luce has the specs of a “nice Polestar” .. .
The current UK government’s policy of not allowing new drilling in the UK North Sea is “utter madness” as billions of barrels of untapped oil could benefit the UK industry and reduce Britain’s reliance on imports, Kemi Badenoch, the leader of the opposition Conservative Party, has said.
The ruling Labour government of Sir Keir Starmer has recently moved to permanently ban new oil and gas licenses in the UK section of the North Sea, drawing criticism from the UK offshore industry associations and from the Tories.
The Conservatives’ Badenoch commented this week on a new study by the University of Aberdeen, whose researchers said on Wednesday that it would be “economically, environmentally, and strategically beneficial for the UK to prioritise domestic oil and gas production rather than increasing reliance on imports.”
The University of Aberdeen’s peer-reviewed study found that significant untapped potential remains in the West of Shetland basin, which is estimated to contain about 4.7 billion barrels of oil equivalent (boe) yet to be discovered.
The study highlights that the remaining potential in the area could extend the life of the UK oil and gas sector, said Nick Schofield, Professor of Igneous & Petroleum Geology at the University of Aberdeen.
“West of Shetland is not a depleted frontier – it is a technically demanding but strategically important energy province,” Schofield noted.
The study showed the “utter madness” of the ruling Labour in opposing drilling in the North Sea, Badenoch said.
“The University of Aberdeen survey just demonstrates the utter madness of the stance taken by Keir Starmer and John Swinney,” the leader of the Conservatives said in remarks carried by Belfast Telegraph.
“Domestic oil and gas are vital to the nation’s energy security, as well as being the economic lifeblood of the North East,” Badenoch said.
“Yet the industry is on its knees due to the windfall tax and the ban on new developments. The Conservatives would scrap both immediately,” she added.
