Freddy Gray

'I beseech you to control him if you can,' Justice Arthur Engoron told Donald Trump’s lawyer in court yesterday. To which the only sensible reply is: ‘Good luck with that.’  Nobody can control, or stop, the 45th President – least of all, it seems, the legal system. The trials of Trump will drag on and on in the coming months, all sound and fury, signifying nothing. The Trump train will chug on towards the Republican nomination – and, perhaps, to the White House again.  The legal trials of Donald Trump will only help him politically ‘This is not a political rally,’ said Engoron, who himself seems to be enjoying the theatre a little too much. ‘This is a courtroom.

Try to think of leading names in the field of Artificial Intelligence. Kamala Harris is probably not the first that springs to mind. The woman can barely talk. But she is Vice President of the United States of America and as such she’s in London, about to give a speech ahead of Rishi Sunak’s big AI summit. Brace yourselves. Harris’s speeches often sound as if they had been scripted by an early or pre-intelligent incarnation of ChatGPT. But as sentient beings we can safely predict her gist. The advent of Artificial Intelligence brings many opportunities, Harris will say, but the technology must be carefully controlled to ensure it doesn’t become harmful.

Joe Biden prides himself on his decades of foreign-policy experience, his ability to talk tough yet be kind, and his talent for bringing opposing sides together. Touching down in Israel today, he gave Bibi Netanyahu a big hug – quite the gesture – and promptly told him he believed that ‘the other team’ – i.e. Hamas, not Israel – was responsible for the bomb that struck a hospital in Gaza last night, killing many of non-combatant Palestinians and inspiring another wave of anti-Israel protests. Biden will now set about trying to help release the hostages held by Hamas and persuading local powers to allow a secure flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza.   Israel will be grateful for Biden’s show of support.

In comparison to the Republicans in the United States, the British Conservative party is a model of unity and discipline. In Manchester this week, for all the blather about Nigel Farage and ‘pandering’ to the far right, the grumbling about nanny-statism and HS2ing-to-nowhere, the Tories held themselves together.  Across the Atlantic, meanwhile, a small group of right-wing representatives in Congress managed to throw out their own House speaker, Kevin McCarthy. A motion for him to ‘vacate to chair’ was won 216 to 210. That’s never happened before.  The trigger for McCarthy’s removal was disgruntlement over the spending deal he struck with President Joe Biden in order to avoid a US government shutdown.

‘If aliens attacked Earth, do you think we would be safer under Joe Biden or Donald Trump?’ That’s a question in a new poll of American voters, and 43 per cent of respondents opted for Trump, 32 per cent for Biden, while 25 per cent sagaciously picked ‘Don’t know’. It’s fun to imagine President Donald in charge against the extra-terrestrials. ‘Zogblark the Magnificent is a good friend of mine,’ Trump would shout from the White House lawn, as the helicopter blades of Marine One clattered away behind. ‘He’s said some very nice things about me. Believe me. Things you wouldn’t believe… But we can’t have him exerting the supreme authority of the Nebulons over our beautiful planet – the most beautiful planet in the universe, they say.