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Happy Friday ladies and gentlemen,

Life is way too short to get caught up in the doom and gloom of the lamestream media.

That’s why we exist: to prove you can be informed (sort of) without wanting to jump off the nearest bridge every time you open your news app.

Anyway, lots to get through this week, so let’s get you up to speed via hand-crafted and carefully curated memes from our team of slaves interns hardworking autists.

⏰ Today's reading time is 5 minutes

Quote of the Week

The UK, France and Canada formally recognise Palestinian state

A coordinated wave of Western states announced recognition of Palestine this past weekend in an effort to revive the two-state solution and ‘isolate Hamas’.

Funnily enough, Kneecap’s favourite terrorist cell were quite chuffed with the news, calling it “an important step.”

The UK, Canada, and Australia became the first G7 countries to formally recognise Palestinian statehood, joined quickly by Portugal, Belgium, France and Malta.

The only major holdouts of Palestinian recognition (the 51st state Israel and the US aside) are the former axis of evil powers of Germany, Italy and Japan. The old gang thinking of making a comeback?

A wider rollout is planned at a UN conference on Monday, co-chaired by France and noted human-rights champions Saudi Arabia.

Unsurpringly, the US and Israel are boycotting the conference, perhaps due to a mixture of their dignitaries being worried about being stuffed into a suitcase and the fact they are pretty content with continuing down the path of the total annihilation of Palestine.

For France’s teacher’s pet Emmanuel Macron, the initiative is about staving off what he says is the “last minute” before a two-state solution becomes impossible, with Israel expanding settlements in the West Bank’s E1 corridor.

The plan ties recognition to reforms of the Palestinian Authority and the dismantling of Hamas, alongside a possible UN-mandated security force in Gaza.

There have even been discussions of former British PM Tony Blair leading the interim government in Gaza.

Saddam Hussein is turning in his grave…

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The bullish circle jerk surrounding artificial intelligence reached new heights when Nvidia announced that it planned to invest up to $100 billion in OpenAI in order to expand data-centre capacity.

Under the deal, which could be the biggest-ever vendor financing agreement investment in a private company if the $100 billion is fully committed to, OpenAI will buy as many as 5 million of Nvidia’s graphic processing units to increase its capacity to ten gigawatts (GW).

The pair described the agreement as “the biggest AI infrastructure deployment in history”. Nvidia also dug into its deep pockets to declare that it was taking a $5 billion stake in Intel, joining the US government as a major shareholder.

Following the announcement, OpenAI said it would open five new data centres in America in partnership with Oracle and SoftBank under the Stargate project, increasing Stargate’s planned capacity to nearly 7GW and taking investment in the project to $400 billion.

The full $500 billion, 10GW commitment should be reached by the end of the year, according to OpenAI, ahead of schedule.

Well as long as the Chinese don’t spook the market again with another cheaper, open-source model built in a cave with a box of scraps, everything should be fine, right?

Right?!?

UK unveils plans for ID cards to crack down on illegal immigration

Keir Starmer is pushing ahead with a plan to give every adult in Britain a mandatory digital ID, dubbed the “Brit Card,” in an effort to clamp down on illegal immigration.

Not content with making it impossible to watch porn without scanning your passport or u-turning on benefits cuts because they made old people sad, Starmer said the free ID would be required for right-to-work checks by the end of this parliament.

The card would link to a central database and eventually streamline access to services like welfare, your social credit score, driving licences and childcare.

Ministers argue it will reduce demand for undocumented labour and undercut trafficking gangs. France’s Emmanuel Macron has previously said Britain’s lack of ID cards was a big factor in the number of Channel crossings, alongside the obvious plus point of getting the fuck out of France.

The scheme marks a U-turn from last year, when ministers dismissed Tony Blair’s calls to revive IDs. The UK hasn’t had compulsory ID since just after the end of the Second World War, and past attempts were scrapped in 2010 amid civil liberties concerns.

Big Brother Watch warned it would create a “checkpoint society”, and the move has been met with some resistance within Labour itself as well as the other major parties.

To be fair, most European countries already have some form of national ID card, and their societies still haven’t become episodes of Black Mirror (yet).

European defence shares rally after Trump remarks on Ukraine

European defence stocks climbed this week after Donald Trump, having managed to make sense of the words on his teleprompter, told the UN that Ukraine could “win” the war with “patience and the financial support of Europe.”

He said that with EU and Nato backing, Kyiv could reclaim all land lost since Russia’s 2022 invasion.

The remarks sent the likes of BAE Systems up nearly 2% in London, with Rolls-Royce also rising. On the continent, Germany’s Rheinmetall, France’s Thales and Italy’s Leonardo gained between 2% and 4%.

All of the aforementioned companies values have increased substantially since the start of the war, with BAE’s more than doubling during that time.

Trump even suggested Nato jets might shoot down Russian aircraft entering alliance airspace, though aides later walked this back.

Adding to the war-mania, Volodymyr Zelenskyy used the UN stage to announce that he’d bought a new green shirt Ukraine will lift restrictions on arms exports imposed under martial law.

He said Kyiv is ready to share “powerful systems tested in real war,” particularly drones, to prove its defence tech is “reliable and modern”.

Looks like someone’s been rewatching Lord of War a few too many times.

Nigel Farage's claim that migrants are eating swans is dismissed by Royal Parks

Nigel Farage has claimed that migrants are killing and eating swans and carp in London’s Royal Parks, but both the Royal Parks authority and the RSPCA say there’s no evidence of this actually happening.

Farage told LBC that people from cultures where eating swans is “acceptable” were responsible, later suggesting 17th century English aristocrats eastern Europeans were scooping them out of ponds and cooking them.

The Royal Parks said “no incidents” of swan killing or eating have been reported, adding that their wildlife officers work with the Swan Sanctuary to protect the birds. Swans are protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, which makes it illegal to harm them.

It remains unclear whether Farage himself has actually ever interacted with a swan, as anyone who has can testify that they are quite prickly and don’t exactly make for the most convenient breakfast in London.

The RSPCA also dismissed a viral video cited by Farage, confirming it was taken from a 2010 TV show, not evidence of current activity.

The claims sound strangely similar to a conspiracy spread by Donald Trump, who falsely accused Haitian migrants of eating Americans’ cats and dogs in Ohio during his Presidential debate with Kamala Harris last year.

Pfizer seals up to $7.3 billion takeover of weight loss drugmaker Metsera

Pfizer is making a $7.3 billion play for weight-loss biotech Metsera as it scrambles to catch up in the booming obesity drug market race.

The pharma giant will pay $47.50 a share in cash — a 43% premium — valuing Metsera at $4.9 billion, with extra payments tied to trial and regulatory milestones that could lift the deal to $70 a share.

Metsera, founded in 2022 and freshly public, has a pipeline of oral and injectable obesity drugs, including a once-monthly GLP-1 shot that showed patients lost 8.4% of body weight in just over a month in early testing.

It also has amylin-based therapies and new oral candidates set to enter trials.

The deal follows Pfizer’s failed attempts to develop its own weight-loss pills, shelved due to armed resistance from personal trainers safety issues.

Analysts say the obesity market could top $100 billion by the 2030s, dominated by Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy and Eli Lilly’s Zepbound.

With Metsera’s pipeline, Pfizer hopes to finally get in on the action of rendering gyms and dieting completely obsolete.

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🍻Half Pints

Quick-fire news you might have missed

Meme of the Week

Health tip of the Week

Doctors in the US were advised by the Department of Health this week not to prescribe the pain reliever Paracetamol (known as Tylenol in the states) to pregnant women, citing a link between the drug and autism.

Considering that the US Health Secretary has admitted that a worm ate a portion of his brain and that he used to take heroin to help him study, we’d strongly advise to take the health tip of the week with a pinch of paracetamol salt.

That’s all for today, but before you go…

We’re always open to feedback (and hate-mail), so feel free to reply and we’ll get back to you within 5 “working” days.

Barring an act of god or being kidnapped by the deep state, we’ll see you next week.

Thanks to Ken and Brian