| Donald Trump is considering a military operation to seize the Iranian oil export hub of Kharg Island, telling the FT his preference is to "take the oil". The US president is also reportedly weighing a special forces mission to seize and remove from the country around 450kg of uranium. The Pentagon has ordered the deployment of 10,000 US troops to the region, 3,500 of whom arrived on Friday. Ten private doctors in Britain have between them issued more than 800,000 prescriptions for medical cannabis since 2019, more than half the overall total. Marijuana was legalised for medical use in 2018 after a case involving epilepsy, but is now mostly issued to patients with mental health problems via around 40 private clinics. Four masked thieves have stolen paintings by Renoir, Cézanne and Matisse worth a combined £7.8m from an Italian museum. The works pinched in the three-minute heist on the Magnani Rocca Foundation villa, near Parma, were Renoir's Les Poissons, Still Life with Cherries by Cézanne, and Matisse's Odalisque on the Terrace. | | | |  | Oil rigs in Texas. Getty |
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| This war will make America even more dominant | There's a lot of talk about Iran's asymmetrical warfare: using cheap drones to cause expensive damage. But the US "enjoys its own kind of asymmetry", says Patrick Foulis in the FT. Unlike in the first and second Gulf Wars, America is now a net energy exporter. It is comparatively insensitive to the global oil shock; its natural gas prices remain low and stable. Hence why its borrowing costs haven't soared, and why the earnings hit to its biggest companies is expected to be relatively modest. The dollar has risen, a sign that the "safe haven" paradox is back: "the more America disrupts the world, the more the world purchases its safe assets". | After the war, many US allies could end up even more dependent on the US. Countries in the Gulf, and perhaps Europe, will be queuing up to buy more American air defence systems. Governments keen to reduce their reliance on Qatari gas will go to the US, which has doubled its LNG exports since 2020 and is expected to supply a third of the market by 2030. The war will also give America's enemies plenty to think about. China will be glad to see America's alliances divided and its military drawn away from Asia. But despite a "gargantuan" stockpiling effort, the world's largest oil importer has only enough of the black stuff to cover up to 150 days. The lesson is clear: if Beijing were to launch its own "war of choice" over Taiwan, it would be extremely vulnerable to an energy embargo and would not have the "safe haven" cushion enjoyed by the US. Much of the world still has "no clear alternative" to relying on Washington – and Beijing has a long way to go to replicate its "unique strengths". | | | | | | Winning entries in the 2026 Wildlife Photographer of the Year People's Choice Awards include a snap of an Iberian lynx playing with its food; a polar bear and her three cubs resting after a long journey around Hudson Bay; a flamboyance of flamingos beneath a pair of power lines in Namibia; two bear cubs play-fighting in the road in Jasper National Park, Canada; a sarus crane gently cleaning its one-week-old chick in the rice paddies of Buri Ram, Thailand; and a sika deer on Japan's Notsuke Peninsula with the head of a slain rival rotting on its antlers. To see the rest, click the image. |
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