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8 June

In the headlines

Rishi Sunak will “wave through” Boris Johnson’s resignation honours list, says The Times, in the hopes of ending “months of acrimony” between the pair. Among the 50 people who will be nominated for a peerage are the MPs Nadine Dorries and Alok Sharma, who would have to stand down and trigger by-elections if they were to move to the House of Lords. Britain will host the first global summit on AI regulation this autumn. China will probably be excluded from the conference, which Downing Street says will be limited to “like-minded countries”. Wildfires in Canada have blanketed cities on the east coast of North America in a thick layer of smoke, disrupting everything from air travel to Broadway shows. New York was the worst hit: on Tuesday night its air quality ranked worse than any city in the world, even New Delhi.

 

Drinking

Good Morning America asked bartenders to predict the “it” cocktails we’ll be sipping this summer. Their bets included: the limoncello spritz, combining the liquor with prosecco and soda water; a tequila tipple mixed with “pineapple, mango and coconut, with a dash of spiciness like jalapeños”; and a “Rocco margarita”, pairing blanco tequila with mandarin-infused cognac, fresh lime, honey and grapefruit bitters.

Noted

“Virgin birth” might be possible in crocodiles, says New Scientist. Staff at a Costa Rican zoo discovered that a female croc had laid 14 eggs – one containing a still-born fetus – despite having had no contact with any males for years. Parthenogenesis, “a form of asexual reproduction in which embryos develop from unfertilised eggs”, is known to occur in some snakes, lizards and even turkeys. Its discovery in a crocodile suggests that the trait dates back to the animals’ shared ancestors, and could even have taken place in dinosaurs.

Gone viral

In 1982, the town of Northampton held a double-decker bus race as part of its annual carnival. As one Twitter user writes, it’s “a lot more interesting than Formula 1 this year”.

Gone viral

Product designer Soren Iverson creates mockups of nightmarish – and often genius – “improvements” to the apps we use each day, says Digg. Examples include a nepotism disclosure feature for LinkedIn (pictured); a note on Facebook to tell you if someone has actually read the article they are sharing; and “Meet Your Meat” for Uber Eats, which gives a brief biography of the animal used for your order (“Janice ate primarily alfalfa but loved apples as a treat”). See more here.

Letters

To The Times:

Last year I drove past a church in south London outside which was a sign proclaiming “God Loves Man” – to which someone had added the word “United”.

N Jeremy Taylor, London

Snapshot

It’s a life-size replica of the Ferrari Daytona SP3, made from 402,836 Lego bricks. The ridged sculpture, currently on display at Legoland in Windsor, weighs more than 1,500kg, and has been fitted with a genuine steering wheel and rubber tyres.

Quoted

quoted

“Yield to temptation. It may not pass your way again.”

Science fiction writer Robert Heinlein