Politics today is defined by leaders under pressure and the price of staying the course. In London, Keir Starmer told a restive Cabinet he will not resign despite Labour’s poor local election results, casting any push to remove him as destabilizing even as junior ministers quit and party unease grows. In Washington, Donald Trump’s proposed “Golden Dome” missile shield ran into fiscal gravity, with Congress’s budget office estimating a staggering $1.2 trillion cost over two decades while warning it still may not stop a major attack. Australia, meanwhile, unveiled a politically risky budget that rewrites tax breaks on property and capital gains in the name of housing fairness, setting up a fight with the opposition. In Canberra’s Senate, Jacinta Nampijinpa Price gave a tearful call for action after the killing of Kumanjayi Little Baby. And in Uganda, Yoweri Museveni began a seventh term, extending nearly four decades in power as oil production nears.