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Greetings ladies and gents,

Hopefully no one fell for any major April fools this week. But then again, when the whole news cycle is a joke, does April fools really matter?

Tree falling in the woods and all that.

Enough philosophising, let’s get stuck in.

⏰ Today's reading time is 6 minutes

The prime minister told a news conference he would use a summit with the EU later this year to seek more cooperation with the bloc on the economy and security.

It comes as relations between the US and the UK have been increasingly strained by the PM's refusal to be drawn further into the war with Iran.

It’s not just that though, as both the PM and Chancellor Rachel Reeves have made a number of interventions in recent months arguing for a closer trading relationship with the EU:

He added that Brexit "did deep self-inflicted damage to our economy" and "the opportunities to strengthen our security and cut the cost of living.... are simply too big to ignore (title of my sex tape)".

A UK-EU summit is expected this summer, after the two sides struck a deal last May on areas including trade, defence, energy, and of course, capitulating to the French after they complained about something.

Despite all the euro-proselatising from the government, Keir & friends have ruled out a return to the single market, a customs union or going back to freedom of movement.

Trump attended the hearing in person, becoming the first sitting president to show up to oral arguments.

Well, technically Bill Clinton was the first to show up for oral arguments,but that’s by the by.

Trump left before they finished and then posted on Truth Social that America is "the only Country in the World STUPID enough" to allow birthright citizenship. 

Roughly 30 other countries also offer it. Funnily enough, in a country that’s less than 300 years old and comprised almost entirely of the descendants of immigrants, it’s a pretty popular principle.

Liberal and conservative justices alike tore into the government's arguments, including three justices Trump himself appointed. Doh.

Chief Justice John Roberts, responding to the administration's claim that "we're in a new world," replied simply: "It's the same Constitution."

The government's position was essentially that the 14th Amendment, for 160 years, had been misread by everyone. Justice Elena Kagan noted this relied on "pretty obscure sources."

The ruling comes this summer but based on Wednesday's performance, the White House should probably start preparing to be disappointed.

France's Minstrels Mistral AI has borrowed $830 million from seven banks to build a data centre outside Paris, in what is being described as Europe's bold bid for AI sovereignty.

Given that they’re going to be stuffing it with 13,000 American NVIDIA chips, it reminds us of a certain someone’s 'sovereign’ nuclear deterrence.

As has usually been the case, the scale of the fundraising doesn’t even begin to compare with the Americans.

Mistral has raised just over $3 billion in total, whilst OpenAI has raised over $110 billion in a single round, and Claude-makers Anthropic are looking to IPO at a $380 billion valuation.

In order to remain competitive, Europe’s most valuable AI startup has committed to some efficiency measures for the project:

A Gallup study of 20,000 Americans has found that the more time people spend on social media, the more they believe their voice matters, and the less they believe in democracy.

Heavy users, defined as five (rookie numbers) or more hours a day on social media were more likely to feel represented by the government.

They are more confident that ordinary citizens can create change and more likely to believe that sometimes violence is an acceptable way to achieve a political goal.

Those Saddam Hussein x Lana del Rey edits have done some reel damage it seems (pun very much intended).

They were also more likely to think facts are subjective, that politicians shouldn't compromise, and that governments should control news reporting.

It could be time to get 1984 back on the English curriculum. Assuming anyone is still reading books at this rate.

Don’t fret too much though.

People reading The Pint newsletter instead spending the least time on social media largely still believe democracy is fine.

Deform Reform UK has said it would cut the benefits bill by billions of pounds to offset the cost of keeping the triple lock on state pensions if the party was in power.

The triple lock, which was introduced in 2011, means the state pension rises each year in line with either inflation, wage increases or 2.5% - whichever is the highest.

Reform UK was considering whether to scrap the triple lock and last year party leader Nigel Farage said he shared "the concern with pensions being unaffordable on a national level".

But at a news conference on Thursday, Farage said the party had debated the matter and decided to keep the triple lock.

He said he was confident the savings he had made up on the spot found would be "more than sufficient to cover the increase in public spending" from the triple lock.

To be fair to Toady McToadface and his band of merry wingnuts, they aren’t the only major party to get a bit 🥺👉👈 about scrapping the triple lock.

Since ‘Dodgy’ Dave Cameron introduced it back in 2010, the Conservatives, Labour and Liberal Democrats have all consistently backed the policy.

Only the Greens have proposed a change, which would consist of bumping it down to a double lock (the higher of inflation or earnings).

It is a major pressure on the UK's public finances, with the annual cost estimated to reach £15.5 billion by 2030.

But given that pensioners go out to vote in droves every election, no major party has yet had the balls to drop it.

A broker for Pete Hegseth, the US defence secretary and former Fox News anchor, attempted to make a big investment in major defence companies in the weeks leading up to the US-Israeli attack on Iran, according to a report in the FT.

Hegseth’s broker at Morgan Stanley contacted BlackRock in February about making a multimillion-dollar investment in the asset manager’s Defense Industrials Active ETF, shortly before the US launched military action against Tehran.

The largest holdings of the fund include defence conglomerates RTX, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman, which count the US Department of Defense as their biggest customers, as well as data integration specialist Palantir.

All investments that you would think, even as a drunken moron with no experience in government whatsoever, would at the very least constitute a conflict of interest, potentially even insider trading.

Hegseth is among the chief architects of the war in Iran, and also served as one of the Trump administration’s most vocal advocates for the attack on the Islamic republic.

Ultimately, the investment didn’t go ahead, as the fund wasn’t yet available for Morgan Stanley clients to buy.

Besides, even if the insider trade had gone ahead, Hegseth’s stupidity is so profound that he would have somehow managed to lose money on it, given that the fund has actually fallen 13% since the Iran conflict began.

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We’re not particularly bothered, as AI is pretty shocking at making memes and/or writing anything that doesn’t use a rhetorical sentence every other line.

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Andy Milne, a 62-year-old retired teacher, says he is ready to cash in on his house so he can afford to follow the World Cup in the United States, Mexico and Canada.

Don’t worry though, it’s only a second home…

This will be his 10th World Cup supporting England, ninth for the men plus the 2023 Women’s World Cup.

England went home empty handed in each one.

We’d love it if you left us some feedback as to how you found this edition.

Our intern will get back to you within 4-5 business days, once we’ve let them out of the basement for some fresh air.

Thanks to Max L.S, Harry & Charlie