President’s $1bn Crypto Haul, EU Car Rules Threat, July 1

[🇺🇸] Trump’s financial disclosures reveal $2.2bn in total earnings for 2025, including over $1bn from crypto — an industry he deregulated. His explanation: ‘I think it’s a blind account… I never speak to the people who run the money.’ (BBC, The Guardian)

[🇪🇺] EU carmakers warn ‘Made in Europe’ rules could shut out UK manufacturers from their biggest export market. Described as the ‘most spectacular own goal in history.’ (The Guardian)

The US president enriched himself more last year than the entire UK car industry might lose.

[🇸🇩] Amnesty International says Sudan’s RSF committed crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing in El Fasher. The UN Human Rights Council will hold an emergency session, with 500,000 civilians around el-Obeid at risk. (Al Jazeera, The Guardian)

[🇦🇪] Abu Dhabi’s MGX raised a $49bn AI fund, exceeding its $45bn target, planning $10bn annual spending. Meta is building a rival cloud AI business to take on AWS and Azure. (Bloomberg)

[🇺🇸] The Supreme Court upheld birthright citizenship, striking down Trump’s executive order. He pledged to challenge the ruling. (Al Jazeera)

[🇲🇹] Yorgen Fenech, accused of ordering the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia, stands trial in Malta, more than nine years after her car-bomb death. (The Guardian)

[🇧🇪] A fire at an Antwerp apartment block killed at least six; 200 people lived there. (BBC)

Quiet.

Re-entry: the man who will soon host the EU presidency also believes Hezbollah is a terrorist organisation, but that’s a different story, and Zelenskyy doesn’t need another front.

The best news today is that a retiree named Kathryn might soon pay $50 for weight-loss drugs through Medicare, and that the US Supreme Court remembered the Constitution exists, at least on birthright citizenship. Trump promised to fight it, which is the sort of fight where you lose by winning too.

But the bridge is short and dark. Because while Kathryn gets her GLP-1, the US cooking oil market is shrinking as ICE raids hollow out Latino households. Mazola’s owner said people are reusing oil. Reusing cooking oil is not a lifestyle choice; it is the sound of a household deciding which meal matters less.

The escalation climbs through the numbers. Trump made $2.2bn last year, more than any president in history, and it came from an industry he personally deregulated. He described his own financial controls as a blind account he never speaks to, which is either the most reassuring or most terrifying sentence ever uttered about $1bn. Meanwhile Abu Dhabi is raising $49bn to buy the future of intelligence, and Meta wants to sell you access to the same future on a subscription plan. The future is not free; it is $49bn and also a monthly fee.

And then the bottom. Yorgen Fenech goes on trial in Malta, nine years after a car-bomb killed Daphne Caruana Galizia. The RSF committed ethnic cleansing in El Fasher. Six people died in an Antwerp apartment block fire. These are not three things; they are one thing happening at different speeds.

Here is the intervention nobody else drew: the Abu Dhabi AI fund and the Antwerp fire are the same story. One builds an intelligence that might predict genocide. The other proves we cannot stop a fire in a building where 200 people live. Progress and its shadow are not opposites; they are the same object seen from different sides.

The balance point is Salzburg banning tourists from driving into its historic centre. A city so beautiful it must protect itself from the people who love it. A policy that treats crowding as a solvable problem, which it is not, but the attempt is graceful.

Closing: the man who made $1bn from crypto while the Supreme Court told him no also bought his first Bitcoin at $60,000. It is now trading at $87,000. The value of a currency nobody controls is still going up. The value of a human being in El Fasher is down to zero. Nothing after it.