Flagship

US stocks hit fresh highs

US stocks hit a fresh record on Monday as traders looked past stalled US-Iran talks, even as the tensions pushed up the price of oil. The market optimism came as US President Donald Trump met with top national security officials after Iran sent a proposal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and end the war — and leave nuclear negotiations off the table. The chances of a breakthrough are slim, a Mideast expert said, given that both sides are still presenting maximalist positions and Washington won’t want to lose leverage in nuclear talks. Iran, for its part, is on a diplomatic blitz, with its foreign minister visiting Pakistan, Oman, and Russia, where he met with President Vladimir Putin.

Merz belittles Trump’s war strategy

The US is being “humiliated” by Iran two months into the war, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Monday, in a candid statement that reflected rising discontent in Europe. Merz’s remarks — made on a visit to a school, where he also said the Donald Trump administration lacks a clear exit strategy from the conflict — threaten to reignite a transatlantic rift: Frustration has been “boiling over” in Berlin about the war, which was launched without Europe’s knowledge but is disrupting the continent’s energy and travel sectors, Bloomberg wrote. Trump, meanwhile, has lashed out at Washington’s European allies for not joining the fight. Berlin is looking to reduce reliance on the US and China by deepening ties with middle powers such as Brazil.

UK royals visit White House

King Charles III and Queen Camilla arrived at the White House on Monday, marking the first such visit by a British monarch in nearly two decades. The trip comes at a particularly fraught time: two days after an alleged assassination attempt on US President Donald Trump, and eight weeks into the US’ war against Iran. London’s refusal to join the offensive has irked Trump, and “the special relationship looks worse than at any point” since the 1950s, The Economist argued. Beyond the pomp and pageantry of a state visit, the UK must first “be honest about its shortcomings” — including the need to spend more on defense — to repair its relationship with Trump.

Crunch time for EU airports

European air travel faces growing challenges from fuel price hikes, falling demand, and regulatory pressure, investment analysts warned. Apollo Investment Group’s chief economist said that Britain, France, and Germany — along with Australia — were the countries most vulnerable to rising jet fuel prices. Morgan Stanley told investors that it was “crunch time for EU airports” over the coming months, as the Iran war’s price hikes reduce demand for air travel. The airline industry has already been badly hit by the war: Prices were up 24% year-on-year in March, and airlines have called for reductions in passenger taxes to protect them from the worst impacts.

China, EU tensions flare

Tensions between the EU and China have flared up across diplomatic and economic channels. China on Monday attacked the bloc’s Made-in-Europe strategy aimed at promoting local industry and threatened to retaliate; Beijing also chastised Brussels for including Chinese companies in its latest anti-Russia sanctions package. The escalations come as new data shows that a flood of Chinese EVs to the European market led Beijing to a record trade surplus with the EU in the first quarter, fueling the bloc’s push to shield strategic industries. French President Emmanuel Macron warned that the continent is facing a “unique moment where a US president, a Russian president, a Chinese president are dead against the Europeans.”

Prosecutors allege assassination attempt

The suspect in the White House Correspondents’ Dinner shooting was charged on Monday with attempting to assassinate US President Donald Trump, as more details emerged on the chaotic Saturday night incident. Cole Allen, 31, had allegedly criticized Trump and his Cabinet members before trying to storm the press gala. While administration officials on Monday placed blame on Democrats and the media for an uptick in political violence, politicians from both parties “are all increasingly at risk,” the Financial Times’ US correspondent wrote. One expert pointed not to a specific side of the aisle, but to a “toxic information environment” full of “conflict entrepreneurs getting rich by making us angry at one another.”

India power demand hits record

India hit a record high demand for power over the weekend as a heat wave hit swaths of the world’s most populous nation. The surge, driven by household air conditioning use, points to the challenges facing India as it grapples with fossil fuel shortages from the Iran war. New Delhi ramped up coal and gas-fired power ​generation amid the heat wave, but renewable energy sources also proved critical to meeting the need for electricity: Solar accounted for a fifth of total generation during the time of peak demand on Saturday, The Times of India reported. The government expects electricity consumption to keep rising this year and plans to rely more on coal and hydropower.

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‘Climateflation’ becomes detectable

Climate change is starting to have a visible impact on prices, researchers said. Extreme weather such as droughts and floods have always affected costs, and since global warming is expected to increase their frequency, modeling suggests that it will lead to price rises. But teasing out its impacts is difficult: A rare exception was the 2022 European heat waves which economists estimated drove the continent’s food prices up 0.7%. But “climateflation” is increasingly detectable. As temperatures rise above certain thresholds, crop yields fall: Each 1°C (1.8°F) increase is associated with a roughly 1% increase in inflation, one researcher told Bloomberg. Extreme weather’s inflationary effects are felt for about two years.

May the best baguette win

The Parisian baking scene is increasingly Sri Lankan-dominated. This Friday, the newly crowned winner of Paris’ prestigious Grand Prix de la Baguette, awarded annually to the maker of the best baguette in the city, will begin supplying the Élysée Palace with baguettes. Sithamparappillai Jegatheepan could not bake when he fled the Sri Lankan civil war in 2003, but became obsessed with the practice, and set up his own bakery in 2018; his offering had “a generously airy crumb, a thin, golden crust,” according to the judges, and was “the result of time, expertise and passion.” But Jegatheepan is not even the first Sri Lankan winner. That honor goes to Tharshan Selvarajah, another migrant, who took the prize in 2023.

‘Supershoe’ helps break marathon record

Both men who entered the sub-two-hour marathon club on Sunday credited their shoes, an ultra-lite Adidas sneaker with a single carbon-plated sole. Adidas has for years been jostling with competitors to build a so-called “supershoe,” Reuters wrote, and the records broken during the London