As Matt Bevan experiments with AI stuck in the recent past, he finds computers have gotten good at predicting certain kinds of futures. So what does that mean for us, and for US President Donald Trump?

In 1982, the US reluctantly backed Britain over Argentina in the Falklands War. Trump's closest ally Javier Milei wants them back and a leaked Pentagon memo suggests the US might not automatically side with Britain this time.

Trump's trade war has pushed separatist Quebec to rally around Canada, while sparing oil-rich Alberta's economy has fuelled a growing push there to leave. Trump doesn't care where the cracks form, as long as Canada caves.

Decades before the War on Terror, the US held Haitian refugees, including HIV-positive detainees, at Guantanamo Bay under a legal loophole. That same loophole is why, 25 years on, the base still hasn't closed.

A glacier collapse in Nepal triggered a flood that still isn't over, with new lakes threatening to burst again at any moment. It's a growing global problem, and a rare one we actually know how to fix, if anyone builds it.

The USS Abraham Lincoln has spent 250 days at sea with broken toilets and meals of mystery mush, a symptom of a Navy shipbuilding crisis. Now Trump wants steam catapults back, right as the same shipyard builds Australia's AUKUS subs.

The Secret Service still splits its time between protecting the President and hunting counterfeit cash. It's understaffed, burnt out and already linked to failures in Butler. Can it handle a new wave of assassination threats?

Ukraine struck an Iranian ship in the Caspian Sea, exposing a secret Russia-Iran arms pipeline. Meanwhile pro-Trump influencer Laura Loomer, once virulently anti-Ukraine, is now touring Kyiv with Zelenskyy. So what changed?

Nigel Farage's fixer advertised money laundering on the dark web. His biggest donor's diamond mines didn't actually exist. Now Farage is being paid to promote gold and crypto. So who's really bankrolling him?

Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump want a resort on protected flamingo habitat in Albania. Thousands are protesting in the Flamingo Revolution. Albania has been burned by get-rich-quick schemes before, and isn't buying it twice.

An anonymous Polymarket account made $800,000 correctly betting on Iran strikes, while Trump's own teleprompter operator is under investigation for betting on his speeches. So who's actually watching for insider trading?

In 2020, Trump was rushed into a bunker with just $92 million to his name. Now he's made $2.2 billion in just a year, through crypto hype and access-selling podcast bros. So is this just what being president looks like now?

Every president renovates the White House, Trump's ballroom should be no different. But after years of encouraging distrust in Washington, even a building project has become the latest conspiracy.

Benjamin Netanyahu needs evacuated Israelis to return to the north before the election in October. Donald Trump needs a peace deal before the midterms in November. The trouble is, both men need different endings to the same war.

Donald Trump wants a historic deal with Iran. The problem is that some of the biggest obstacles aren't in Tehran or Washington. They're on the border between Israel and Lebanon. So can this conflict be contained, or will it derail the deal before it's signed?

When the UFC was on life support, Donald Trump threw it a lifeline. Decades later, when Trump's political fortunes were fading, Dana White returned the favour. Now the UFC is back at his side. Will it work again?

Since the 90s, the number of people in Taiwan who identify as Chinese has collapsed, while Taiwanese identity has surged. That leaves Xi Jinping facing an uncomfortable reality. Taiwan won't come willingly, but a military invasion would be enormously costly. So what happens when both persuasion and intimidation fail?

A fistfight erupts in Taiwan's parliament. On one side is Chen Shui-bian, from Taiwan's progressive DPP, on the other is Han Kuo-yu, a KMT populist. But this isn't just another political brawl. Their careers mirror Taiwan's transformation from authoritarian rule to one of Asia's most vibrant democracies.

For decades, Taiwan has occupied political limbo: claimed by China but governed separately. Today, many people in Taiwan increasingly see themselves not as Chinese, but distinctly Taiwanese, shaped by a history of colonisation, civil war, and separation.

The world watched Donald Trump and Xi Jinping sit across from each other in Beijing last week. Two leaders with radically different strategies but the same ambition. Two grandmasters are playing for control of the chessboard.

Alex Karp, the bizarre CEO of surveillance tech company Palantir, has long believed that his work is preserving democracy. But could the unprecedented power he is handing the US government cause more harm than good?

Palantir's pitch was simple: help analysts spot connections across messy data. Now, turbocharged by AI, it's gone from finding needles in haystacks to predicting where they'll land. Fitting for a company named after an all-seeing stone.

For decades, the tiny gas-rich nation of Qatar has been surviving off the back of its international diplomacy. But now old alliances are falling apart and diplomatic norms are being crushed - is the law of the jungle the only law left?

In the midst of bluffs, empty threats and broken promises, Trump has struggled to find any leverage over the Iranian regime he declared war on. So why is he so confident he can make a better deal than Obama did back in 2015?

Since the US-Iran war started, gas prices have doubled. The spike should have meant a big payday for Australia. But decades ago we locked in energy deals that now look out of step with reality. Case in point: our gas agreements with Japan.

Scam compounds filled with hundreds of thousands of trafficked workers are rampant through Myanmar. China has had enough of their citizens being kidnapped, but can they stop the tide?

Since WWII, the US has attempted to juggle its twin interests of supporting the state of Israel, and ensuring the stability of the global oil market. In one fell swoop, that decades-long project has failed in a big way. Does this mean a return to the fuel rationing of the 70s?

While governments scramble to find a way around the Strait of Hormuz, a pipeline sits half-finished in the desert that would have solved the problem. So why was it never completed?

Water is the lifeblood of all civilisations. In Iran, the water is drying up. The result is a slow-moving environmental emergency now pressing into politics, daily life, and the stability of the regime itself.

There's a persistent fantasy in Washington that regimes are like lightbulbs: smash the fixture, screw in a new one, problem solved. The reality in Iran is closer to a tangled electrical grid that's been growing since 1979.

Donald Trump once warned against endless wars. Now, he's launched a strike killing Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and many Iranian leadership figures. So what has changed? Has Trump decided the Iranian regime's threats are all talk?

Where did Jeffrey Epstein get his vast fortune? We've never known for sure. Now, the deposition of billionaire Les Wexner suggests that Epstein just pocketed his naive clients' money. Could the truth be so simple?

In the UK, proximity to Epstein is politically lethal, even when guilt isn't proven. Across the Atlantic, it's barely a footnote. So what happens when the same revelations shake two democracies but only one starts to crumble?

After years of pressure, the Epstein Files have been released by the U.S. government. These documents have exposed a deeply broken system, but instead of restoring trust, they've underscored how fragile that trust has become.

These days Donald Trump seems far more emboldened to break the rules, and that's down to folks like Stephen Miller, the key driver behind Trump's immigration policy. So who is Miller and how did he amass such power?

During the Cold War, it was a very real fear that a nuclear winter would obliterate life as we know it. In 2026 the sense of dread has been replaced by the threat of climate change. So are we destined to feel doomed? (Part 4)

In 1959 travel was getting faster and many expected we'd be routinely zipping to other planets in no time. But now, our transport is not much faster than it was back then, so why are we still so slow? (Part 3 of 4)

In the 1950s three quarters of Australians were homeowners. Nowadays, house prices have sky rocketed and younger generations largely feel locked out. So where did it all go wrong?

For years, many feared our planet would be stripped by the weight of a colossal population. In 2026 we've found ourselves in a world where we're not scared about having too many babies, but too few. So what happened?