Witness statements published last night in the “China spying” case appear to bolster claims that charges against two alleged spies were dropped because the government didn’t want to upset Beijing. While the statements – which were needed to support the prosecution – stated that China was a threat to Britain’s “economic security”, they also repeatedly emphasised the UK’s desire for positive relations. Donald Trump says he has authorised the CIA to conduct covert operations inside Venezuela, in an escalation of his administration’s pressure on the dictatorship of Nicolás Maduro. Following five recent US attacks on suspected drug-trafficking boats in the Caribbean, Trump said: “We are certainly looking at land now.” The number of penalty points issued to UK drivers is rising rapidly. Some 9.6 million points were given out in 2024, up 12% on the previous year, with speeding the most common offence. In 2023, motorists received more than 216,000 fines for breaking 20mph speed limits, four times more than in 2018.

America just can’t quit the Middle East

In temperament and worldview, says Janan Ganesh in the FT, there may never have been a presidential transition as sharp as that from Barack Obama to Donald Trump. Yet both were elected promising to extract America from the Middle East: the occupation of Iraq had been botched and the US shale bonanza was lessening the need for oil. “Besides, there was China to worry about.” How’s that working out? In June, the US bombed Iranian nuclear facilities. Trump has agreed the first phase of a delicate Israel-Palestine peace deal, guaranteeing America’s role as the region’s chief “convener and arm-twister” indefinitely. And there are still some 40,000 US troops in the region. “What are the lessons of this bipartisan failure to shake off the Middle East?”

For one thing, you can “pivot to Asia” (or whatever) all you like, but external events are always going to dictate where an administration’s attention goes. Once Hamas attacked Israel, there was no hope of the US remaining aloof – at least not without losing face. And for all that’s made of Trump’s personal quest for a Nobel peace prize, “nations have egos too”. Perhaps the US chooses to move mountains in the Middle East because it is “one of the few places where it still can”. Almost all the countries there need something from America, whether it’s existential security or sanctions relief or the tech required to transition to a post-oil business model. Knowing it has such unusual clout in the region – note the absence of a “Beijing-brokered deal for Gaza” – Washington would have to be “almost inhumanly self-effacing” to resist asserting itself there. All 14 presidents since Harry Truman have done so. “When the 15th promises a change, don’t listen.”

Despite a “public display of unity” at the launch of their new political party last week, says The New Statesman, Zarah Sultana and Jeremy Corbyn have largely failed to hide the fact that they loathe each other. At the The World Transformed festival in Manchester the day after the launch, the left-wing pair refused to share a green room before speaking to delegates and their respective teams are said to have been kept entirely apart. Sultana rather gamely compares their relationship to that of Liam and Noel Gallagher. But as one festival-goer noted: “the Gallagher brothers actually achieved something” before they fell out.

The viral “six seven” meme – in which kids shout “six seven” when they encounter the two numbers in succession – is “spilling into real life”, says Ellen Gamerman in The Wall Street Journal. If a teacher asks pupils to “do questions six, seven...”, the students will invariably yell it back; some staff now avoid asking them to turn to page 67. A group of teens recently filled an In-N-Out Burger just to wait for the announcement of order number 67, and athletes who are 6ft 7in, or wear the number 67, are hearing six-seven shouts from kids in the street. It’s unclear where this weird meme originated, but apparently “the fact that six seven is not funny is funnier than 67 itself”.

Our tubby troops are a sniper’s dream

Here’s a shocking statistic, says Robert Crampton in The Times: the Ministry of Defence reckons 40,000 of the 150,000 servicemen and women in Britain’s armed forces are “too fat to fight”. I’m sorry, but this won’t do. On the battlefield, chunky squaddies “move slower and present a bigger target”. It’s harder to stretcher them to safety, and fewer of them fit inside the rescue helicopter. The Challenger 2 main battle tank has a crew of four, “so statistically one will get stuck in the turret”. It’s the same with submarines, which are cramped enough as it is. Fatty fighter pilots will struggle to eject; portly paras will have to use two parachutes rather than one. It’s a mess. Less Charge of the Light Brigade, more “Waddle of the Heavy Brigade”.

Then there’s the PR aspect. If the Guards regiments at London’s tourist sites have a “25% salad-dodger component” – buttons popping, belts straining, sweat pouring from under the bearskin – they’ll be mercilessly bullied by French teenagers. And think of those poor horses trying to lug around the tubsters in the Household Cavalry. In fairness, there are some scenarios in which the extra weight will come in handy. Given the “Eskimo principle” of insulating blubber, Arctic troops could save on winter clothing and underwater specialists could ditch their wetsuits (though the extra buoyancy might mean they keep “floating to the surface and giving away their position”). Overweight infantrymen are “less vulnerable to bayonet thrusts” and could perhaps be deployed as “emergency bridging equipment over rivers”. Still, this does feel like clutching at straws. Our “tubby troopers” need to get out on the assault course and lose some weight. “And try not to get stuck under the big net.”

The ultra-rich have stopped buying fancy things, says The Economist. The price of Bordeaux first growths, “including Lafite Rothschild and Margaux” has fallen 20% in two years; private jets and boats are down 6%; and Rolexes change wrists on the second-hand market for 30% less than in 2022. The reason for the shift is probably that “fancy goods are everywhere” now: with crypto bros and other naff types boasting about their “plutocratic assets” on social media, such things “no longer seem as luxurious”.

It seems absurd in hindsight, says Bret Stephens in The New York Times, but many in Hamas truly believed that the October 7 terrorist attack would not just injure Israel, but end up destroying it. One reason was that the mastermind, Yahya Sinwar, had spent years closely reading Hebrew-language newspapers – a habit he picked up in Israeli jails – and concluded that the country was so hopelessly weak and divided it would quickly crumble under pressure. What he didn’t understand was that, in a democracy, newspapers obsess over the negatives and ignore the positives. As a result, he was “better acquainted with Israel’s many self-advertised faults than with its underlying strengths”. Which, in his case, had lethal results.

It’s the “Peckham Conker Championships”, says Olivia Ovenden in The Observer, in which hundreds of young-ish hipsters battle it out in southeast London for a 22-carat golden conker and “life-changing kudos”. The annual event, which took place earlier this month, is rather more physical than the traditional childhood game. “We play Battle Royale rules,” says founder Chris Quigley, “which basically means that there are no rules.” Contestants bite each other and wrestle on the concrete; there are broken teeth and spraying blood. Even the eventual winner, a 27-year-old bespoke furniture designer with the nom de guerre “Timmy Nuts”, admitted it had all been “a little too crazy”.