Full coverage: US

Yale School of Management executive fellow Gautam Mukunda discusses why Ireland must reduce its reliance on the US, the collapse in standards among US business leaders, and how the tech sector has been corrupted by success.

In departing remarks, Warren Buffett marvelled at the success of the US over its 250-year history and cited a secret sauce unique to Uncle Sam. But as America celebrates its anniversary this weekend, such nationalism is proving itself to be lazy of thought and bloody of effect.

Friendly countries in Europe, Asia and the Middle East are frustrated with President Trump but also reliant on the U.S. for their security, writes Yaroslav Trofimov, The Wall Street Journal.

From red hats to hourglasses, from city streets to the Oval Office, the US is alive with signals of tension, humour, and frustration.

Some companies have found lucrative opportunities to capitalize on a growing need, billing long hours and extracting payments as high as $800 an hour, write Christopher Weaver, Tom McGinty and Anna Wilde Mathews, The Wall Street Journal.

The allies’ intelligence agencies discovered a rare opportunity to target high-level officials, including the country’s supreme leader, write Dov Lieber in Tel Aviv, Alexander Ward in Washington and Laurence Norman in Berlin, The Wall Street Journal.

The mass release of the Epstein files has produced embarrassment, outrage and online blood sport. What it hasn’t produced is clarity.

From Trump’s muddled geography in Davos to a $1bn “Board of Peace” and ICE raids in Vacationland, another week of slippery language, hard power and harder truths.

Some concern is driven by longer-term debasement of data collection budgets. Yet, most concern stems from politically charged moves from the White House and its challenge of statistical agencies' independence.

As Tennessee voters inch leftward and Trump lashes out at immigrants, allies and adversaries alike, Washington is consumed by economic alarm, foreign-policy fog and a restless MAGA base.