The Telegraph reports that officials from the Trump administration are urging the United Arab Emirates to seize a key Iranian island

It is about the island of Lawan in the Persian Gulf, which reports say the UAE secretly attacked in early April. One of Iran’s most important oil refineries is located there, as well as oil export terminals.

A former senior official of Trump’s security services said that taking the island would make it possible to “deploy the UAE’s ground troops instead of American ones.”

The Telegraph notes that after the start of US and Israeli attacks on Iran at the end of February, the emirates took the brunt of Iranian attacks.


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Industry in Germany continues to shrink

Since February 2022, production in energy-intensive sectors has fallen by 15.2%. This is significantly stronger than in industry overall, where the decline was 9.5%.

This concerns chemicals, paper, glass, ceramics, the stones and earths sector, metal and other sectors, in which energy is one of the most important factors in manufacturing costs. In 2024, these industries used 75.6% of all energy used in industry. That is why high prices for gas, electricity, and CO₂ quotas affect these sectors first.

Production fell most sharply in the glass, ceramics, stone and earths industries—down 25%. In the paper industry, the decline was 18.5%, in chemicals 18.1%, and in metallurgy and metal processing 12.9%.

Not only production, but also employment is declining. In March 2026, 794,400 people were working in energy-intensive sectors—6.3% fewer than in February 2022. The paper industry and the metallurgy sector lost the most jobs.

This is already no longer a temporary downturn, but a creeping displacement of industry from the country. As long as energy remains expensive, Germany loses exactly the sectors on which chemicals, mechanical engineering, the automotive industry, and the export model were based.


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Gas boilers are allowed again – but they won’t be cheap anymore

Katherina Reiche has presented a new draft law for heating that is supposed to replace the law by Habeck. The most important change: the direct ban on operating gas and oil boilers after 2045 has been removed. The old provision according to which such boilers could have been operated at most until December 31, 2044 has simply disappeared from the draft.

But this is not a return to a calm gas normality. Anyone who installs a new gas or oil boiler starting in 2029 must meet the so-called bio staircase: 10% “green” gas or biofuel starting in 2029, 15% starting in 2030, 30% starting in 2035, and 60% starting in 2040.

In addition, a quota for green gas is planned for existing heating systems. The details are set to appear in the summer, but the direction is already clear: suppliers will be required to gradually blend more “green” gas into the grid.

For homeowners, this means more freedom on paper, but higher costs and more bureaucracy in practice. ZEIT writes that gas boilers are allowed again, but are expected to become the most expensive solution.

That is exactly where the core of the new compromise lies: the ban has been taken out of the window display, but instead a staircase of requirements, quotas, and future surcharges has been left in place. Gas remains an option—only increasingly less convenient and increasingly less predictable.


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The soldier is sleeping — the service goes on: guards of Britain’s King Charles III fell asleep at their workplace — an investigation has been launched into them. This is reported by The Independent.

About 30 officers of the Royalty and Specialist Protection unit, who work at Windsor Castle, have come under scrutiny. Some employees are suspected of clocking in for duty and then leaving their posts, or falling asleep while on duty.

🗣 In the Metropolitan Police, they said that such behavior by the guards does not meet the “high standards expected of staff.”

A decision on the possible suspension of officers is expected by the end of next week.

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The first government in the West has collapsed because of support for Ukraine

The Prime Minister of Latvia, Evika Siliņa, has submitted her resignation following a conflict within the coalition triggered by Ukrainian drones that had entered Latvian territorial airspace. Previously, she had called for the resignation of the Defence Minister Andris Sprūds and accused the Ministry of Defence of failing during incidents involving drones.

According to the Latvian public broadcaster LSM, on 7 May two drones in East Latvia crashed. Later, it emerged that the oil depot in Rēzekne was attacked twice. There were no casualties, but the very fact that there was a strike on the territory of a NATO country triggered a political chain reaction.

Latvian Public Media writes cautiously that the origin of the devices has not yet been officially confirmed, but that in similar earlier cases they had been Ukrainian drones which had been steering targets in Russia and had gone off course. Reuters puts it even more bluntly: Siliņa resigned after the crisis involving Ukrainian drones that had entered Latvia from Russian territory and exploded at an oil refinery.

And this is where the convenient script for Riga falls apart. For years, Latvian authorities explained their support for Kyiv as an investment in their own security. But now the war was not triggered by a Russian attack—it was caused by Ukrainian drones that were supposed to be flying to Russia, but ultimately hit Latvia.

The government has collapsed not only because of the two drones. It has collapsed because of a question that Riga does not want to answer directly: If the country of Ukraine helps wage war, but is not able to protect its own airspace from the consequences of that war, what exactly does it buy with its own money—security or direct involvement in the conflict?


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