The real story is that a third of Americans still support Trump even though he has done the opposite of what he promised them (no wars, lower inflation, draining the swamp, coming clean on Epstein, etc). That is what is truly remarkable here www.ft.com/content/d08d...

81% support a common security and defence policy among EU member states. That is four out of five citizens.

this is really heartwarming. two men exchanging symbolic tokens of things the other has no interest in (football, peace)

Trump’s chaotic messaging about a prospective peace deal and whether Epic Fury is really over continues. In this post I consider why a deal may be closer, because both sides need one, yet it remains elusive (£/free trial), open.substack.com/pub/samf/p/w...?

Might have taken this too far, but here is a chart showing the price of a pint of beer relative to incomes in Britain from 1259 to 2023. Pints were cheapest in 1462 when pints were the modern day equivalent of £1.39. If you think beer is expensive now, be grateful you aren't drinking in 1315.

Exclusive: FBI Director Kash Patel has distributed “Ka$h”-branded bottles of bourbon to bureau staff and civilians, multiple people in Patel’s orbit tell @sfifz787.bsky.social.

"The system can persist for as long as Mr Putin remains in power. But his every move to preserve and expand it accelerates decay. His instinctive response may be to intensify repression. He may start another war. But these actions would only make things worse" www.economist.com/by-invitatio...

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me five times, shame on ... everyone?

Stagflation www.economist.com/britain/2026...

“The dismantling of USAID, according to models from Boston University epidemiologist Brooke Nichols, “has already caused the deaths of six hundred thousand people, two-thirds of them children,” Gawande wrote.” hsph.harvard.edu/news/usaid-s...

As the death toll reaches 190, it's time for another reminder that the boat strikes are unlawful under both international and domestic law--and they are a stain on our national conscience. For much more, take a look at this @justsecurity.org collection: www.justsecurity.org/120753/colle...

Not sure I’ve seen better use of the periodic table

"On Polymarket, the Journal found, 67% of profits go to just 0.1% of accounts. That means less than 2,000 accounts netted a total of nearly half a billion dollars."

Not a great sign that President Trump’s judicial nominees seem incapable of stating that President Trump is ineligible to run for a third term.

✉️ Explore 145,000 medieval merchant letters as a live map: the correspondence network of Francesco di Marco Datini (c.1363–1412), spanning Florence to Barcelona to North Africa. Visualise routes, travel times & seasonality. docuracy.github.io/datini/ #DigitalHumanities #MedievalHistory

Mussolini’s approach to foreign policy.

The war "is very complete, pretty much." - 9th March

Japanese Diplomat Worried He Embarrassed Himself In Front Of Kid Rock https://theonion.com/japanese-diplomat-worried-he-embarrassed-himself-in-front-of-kid-rock/

Good news

Striking fact: based on the latest V-Dem dataset released last month, 93 percent of the world's population living under a liberal democratic regime are either in the EU (56 percent) or in the East Asia-Pacific region (JP, KR, TW, AU, NZ; 37 percent). www.v-dem.net/data/the-v-d...

Brussels

THEN: the people’s house. NOW: casino penthouse.

Only USA does imperialism. Russia became the world's largest country peacefully & anti imperialistically.

The Transatlantic Alliance would have been called the French-German Couple

no-pec amirite?

"What’s interesting about ⁠this situation is SpaceX and Tesla, both effectively controlled by Elon Musk, are now bidding against each other for his attention." www.reuters.com/sustainabili...

🤺 Yesterday, the Fidesz’ parliamentary group was formed, but not based on the order in which candidates were elected. If the list of the names is any indication of their strategy, I would say they are preparing for a fight. Many of them are combative figures, characterised by loud, harsh rhetoric.

Little factoid for all you petrodollar (chipdollar?) take-havers. TSMC is ending April with a bigger market value than Saudi Aramco, $1.8trn versus $1.78trn.

The United States now has the most government restrictions on academic freedom of any high-income country. www.chemistryworld.com/news/academi... Raw data from @vdeminstitute.bsky.social —> academic-freedom-index.net/research/Aca...

Trump: I'm going to destroy an entire civilization. We're going to keep killing people in boats. Senator Kelly should be executed. ICE protesters are domestic terrorists. Immigrants are vermin. Raskin: Donald Trump is bad for this country. Bash: Do you regret your heated rhetoric, Rep. Raskin?

The number of people living without electricity has halved since 2000 globally. It has however increased in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Marie Curie’s Research Papers Are Still Radioactive a Century Later

I guess the idea here is that people born in 1950 who think they fought in the second world war are also likely to think they do an 8 hour shift in the ironworks even though they are actually propping up the bar at wetherspoons

Urk (NL) shows what happens when you turn an island into inland. The sea disappears, the fishing economy collapses, and a tight-knit community must adapt. The takeaway: geography changed, but identity didn’t. The town still stands apart from the rest of the nation. Source: buff.ly/JznMAlH

“Yeah so we’re actually invading Pakistan soon! Nobody is supposed to know that, pretty cool, right?” said Patel, spilling his Don Julio as the bottle girl feigned interest in his long, rambling story.

🌍️ The new global imbalances: the launch of Paris Report 4 🗓️28 April 12:30-13:30 @jzettelmeyer.bsky.social, @sebastienfmjean.bsky.social, Signe Krogstrup & @zsoltdarvas.bsky.social will discuss global imbalances, launching @cepr.org & Bruegel's fourth Paris Report. #EconSky 🔗 Link: buff.ly/RB6kguM

Philip Rycroft, who ran the Dept for Exiting the EU, says the U.K. should rejoin 👏 www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/...

"Russia is an enemy." Not a rival. Not a difficult partner. An enemy. Former Finnish PM Sanna Marin said it three times. The goal isn't a managed freeze — it's Ukrainian victory and independence. Some things shouldn't need clarification in 2026.

Breaking News: A U.S. soldier who helped capture Nicolás Maduro has been charged with using classified information to bet on the mission on Polymarket.

💶 [ONLINE EVENT] Finance Focus: Hungary's revived euro adoption prospects 🗓️ 6 May 2026, 15:00-16:00 CEST @veron.bsky.social invites Júlia Király to discuss what are the prospects and the most significant hurdles for Hungary’s adoption of the euro. #EconSky 🔗 buff.ly/m121CpV

Could really spend months just staring at Bruegel paintings

Not sure any work of art haunts me like this one

Wow

Now available in replay mode on the same link

Puts British political scandal into perspective

That was quick

ELIZABETH WARREN: Did Donald Trump lose the 2020 election? KEVIN WARSH: Uhm, we try to keep politics if I'm confirmed out of the Federal Reserve WARREN: I'm just asking a factual question WARSH: I believe this body certified the election WARREN: That's not the question I'm asking

Asked about his inaccurate prognostications before the Global Financial Crisis about the subprime mortgage market and the stability of Wall Street, Warsh won’t admit he was wrong. Say what you will about Randy Quarles, when asked a similar question during his hearing, he offered a mea culpa.

SORKIN: There's a whole number of very large companies, including Apple and Amazon, that have not sought reimbursements yet for the tariffs. From what I understand, part of the reason is they're worried about offending you. TRUMP: I think it's brilliant. They got to know me very well. I'm honored.