Top World News

Jun 22, 2026 - World

President Donald Trump's war with Iran put the global economy on the brink of collapse, and one economist warns that it could get worse if one sector of the economy begins to show signs of weakness. Liaquat Ahamed, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and former World Bank investment chief, said during a recent episode of "The Court of History" podcast on the Legal AF Network that Trump's unilateral decision to impose tariffs on America's trading partners had already weakened the global economy before his war with Iran began. After the Iranian regime closed the Strait of Hormuz, the economy came exceedingly close to the brink, Ahamed argued. The only thing that saved Trump from collapsing the global economy was the enormous amounts of money tech companies are spending to build data centers around the world, Ahamed added. Without that, the economy would be in a "dark place," he continued. "The tech companies are spending trillions of dollars to build these data centers, and that is essentially sustaining the global economy," Ahamed said. Ahamed compared the state of the global economy to recent historical crashes, borrowing the old adage attributed to Ernest Hemingway that economic crises often unfold "slowly, then very quickly." He noted that the current value of the U.S. stock market is more than double the country's GDP, which he described as similar to the valuations seen during the dot-com bubble. That is happening at a time when more stress is being injected into the economy. Tensions between the U.S. and Iran appear to be ramping up again after Vice President JD Vance traveled to Switzerland to negotiate a deal with the Iranian regime to end the conflict. The Iranians announced they are closing the Strait of Hormuz once again in response to Israel's continued fighting with Hezbollah in Lebanon, which the regime has described as a "red line" in the negotiations. "Calling an end to this whole thing is very hard," Ahamed said. "On the other hand, I can assure you there will be an end."

Jun 22, 2026 - World

Leftwing opponent alleges vote count irregularities after Trump-endorsed lawyer Abelardo de la Espriella secures narrow majorityA Trump-admiring far-right millionaire lawyer and self-styled “outsider” has defeated a leftwing senator by a razor-thin margin to win Colombia’s presidential runoff, in an election that promises to mark a dramatic shift in the country’s decades-long armed conflict.With 99.99% of ballots counted in the preliminary vote tally, the far-right lawyer Abelardo de la Espriella had secured 12.96m votes, or 49.66%, just 250,830 more than the leftist senator Iván Cepeda, who received 12.7m votes, or 48.7%. A further 1.6% of ballots were cast blank. Continue reading...

Jun 21, 2026 - World

Objections come as Trump threatens to renew attacks on Iran if it doesn’t rein in its proxy in LebanonUS political figures from left and right voiced fresh objections on Sunday to Donald Trump’s provisional deal with Iran – even as the US president made new threats while Vice-President JD Vance hailed progress during the first round of direct peace talks in Switzerland.Negotiations in Lucerne between the US and Iran have already run into difficulties, after Trump wrote on Truth Social that “Iran must immediately stop their highly paid PROXIES in Lebanon from causing trouble. “If they don’t, we’ll hit Iran very hard again, just like we did last week, only harder!!!” Continue reading...

Jun 21, 2026 - World

A foreign-relations expert offered blunt advice to President Donald Trump as negotiations between his administration and the Iranian regime deteriorate. Joseph Cirincione, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, told MS NOW's Alex Witt on "Alex Witt Reports" that Trump appears to have a way to make a stronger deal with the Iranian regime, but the president is blind to it because of how much he is blustering about the state of the war. His comments come at a time when Trump's deal with Iran has become the "joke in Washington," according to Cirincione, and the Iranian regime seems to be backing away from an agreement struck between the two sides over continued fighting between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon. On Sunday, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi refused to shake hands with Vice President JD Vance when the two met for peace negotiations, which some observers described as a "humiliation" for Vance. While the two sides appear far apart on the war, Cirincione pointed out that Trump could still accomplish one of his major goals by preventing the Iranian regime from developing a nuclear weapon. "The Obama approach to negotiation worked. If Trump hadn't torn that up, we would have a fundamentally different relationship with Iran now, and Iran would still be many, many years away from the ability to build a bomb," Cirincione said. "So the only hope is to go back to negotiations and to hope that because Iran has emerged stronger from this war ... it doesn't really need a nuclear weapon as much as they thought they did." "They thought they needed it for defense," he continued. "Well, they have stronger deterrence right now." Cirincione said there is one catch that could make or break the talks. "I think they are willing to compromise on the program if Trump can just shut up and let the negotiators get to work and force the Israelis to stop their war in Lebanon; you could get a deal," he said. "You could still salvage this. But Trump has to act, not bluster."

Jun 21, 2026 - World

Sen. Chris Murphy says a single image from this week's G7 summit captures one of his deepest fears about the growing power of the tech industry: the chief executives of major artificial intelligence companies seated at the table alongside presidents and prime ministers, as if they were heads of state themselves."At the G7, the CEOs of the big AI companies sat at the table like heads of state, alongside presidents and prime ministers," the Connecticut Democrat wrote, sharing a photo of the summit's main session. His reaction was blunt: "This is the nightmare scene."For Murphy, the optics were not a harmless photo op but a visual representation of how far corporate influence has crept into the highest levels of government. The concern is that companies building the most powerful AI systems are no longer simply lobbying governments from the outside, but are being granted a seat among the elected leaders who are supposed to regulate them.Murphy paired the warning with a call for governments to push back against what he described as the "state-like power" of these firms. He floated several possible responses, suggesting officials consider "taking ownership shares, breaking them up into smaller entities, or imposing a regulatory structure that controls their power over citizens." The range of options, from partial public ownership to outright breakup, signals how seriously he believes the threat should be taken.The senator has emerged as one of the more vocal critics in Congress of concentrated corporate and technological power, and his framing fits a broader unease on the left about the cozy relationship between the tech sector and the current administration. The sight of AI executives integrated into a gathering traditionally reserved for the world's most powerful elected officials, in his telling, is evidence that the balance has already tipped too far toward private industry.His underlying argument is that state-like power demands a state-like response. If a handful of companies can shape economies, information, and security on a scale once reserved for governments, Murphy contends, then leaving their authority unchecked is itself the danger. The photo, to him, is less a snapshot of cooperation than a warning about who is really sitting at the table when the world's decisions get made.At the G7, the CEOs of the big AI companies sat at the table like heads of state, alongside presidents and prime ministers.This is the nightmare scene.Governments need to have a response to the state-like power of these companies, whether it’s by taking ownership shares,… pic.twitter.com/aPdK7FFRaE— Chris Murphy ???? (@ChrisMurphyCT) June 21, 2026