US drones, Inflation bites, Macron's pension reform, 2024 Paris Olympics

Accidents can happen, goes the song. But for the Pentagon, the Russians tempted fate when they first dumped fuel on a US reaper drone and then clipped the unmanned surveillance craft. While the US tries to carefully manage its nuclear-armed rivalry with Moscow NATO allies harbour no such qualms: Slovakia pledging a fleet of 13 MiG-29 Soviet-era warplanes to Ukraine, the second former Warsaw Pact nation in as many days to answer Kyiv's long-running request after Poland which pledged four.