Andy Burnham has announced a 20% cut to business rates for pubs, clubs and live music venues from next April. The measure, costing about £100m a year, will be funded by reviewing tax relief for businesses that don’t make a “positive contribution” to communities, such as vape shops. The US and Saudi Arabia have signed an agreement to help the Gulf state develop a civilian nuclear programme. The 30-year, multibillion-dollar deal would give US companies a leading role in the development of a Saudi nuclear energy programme, including the possible American-led construction of a uranium enrichment facility. Wild orcas have been newly observed using a “hold-and-ram” technique to break up prey. One orca gripped an enormous sharptail sunfish – some of which can weigh up to two tonnes – while another smashed into it at top speed, breaking it into thousands of bite-sized pieces. “This may help younger orcas feed more easily,” says lead researcher Kathryn Ayres, “or it could also just be for fun.”

To those hoping Andy Burnham will turn out a “bit less socialist” than is generally feared, says Janan Ganesh in the FT: be careful what you wish for. If our new PM muddles through, Britain will remain in purgatory – not dysfunctional enough to change, “but not so functional as to be happy”. Better for everyone if Burnham fails so badly his successor is licensed to finally make the sweeping reforms we dearly need. Bad ideas must be tested to destruction. And Burnhamism, with its cheap shots at “neoliberalism” and London, its earnest belief in tax-and-spend paternalism, its sapping welfare largesse, and its featherweight MPs is, collectively, a bad idea in every respect. Best to give it one last heave. “Then voters will accept change.”

Remember the stakes: Britain hasn’t balanced its fiscal budget since the millennium. Every region runs a deficit bar London and the South East. Welfare takes up more of national output than it did before Margaret Thatcher came to power. “The UK borrows more expensively than Greece.” We have, proportionally, more social housing than either France or Germany. Our tax burden is up. Government debt is around 95% of GDP – one of the highest levels since the 1960s. And still, a lot of people, including Andy Burnham, think the problem is something called neoliberalism. It’s less a belief than a “religious incantation”, so it will only budge when public spending causes a breaking point. So “let Andy be Andy”– price controls, subsidies, perhaps another stab at “industrial strategy” from a state that couldn’t build a high-speed rail from Birmingham to Manchester without disgracing itself. Reform only happens when it absolutely has to happen. “So try again, prime minister. Fail again. Fail worse.”

An AI “agent” created by ChatGPT maker OpenAI recently went badly rogue, says Dan Milton in The Guardian, breaking out of its supposedly secure test environment and hacking into another company’s servers. OpenAI said that the GPT-5.6 Sol bot found a previously undiscovered vulnerability that allowed it to gain access to the open internet – “effectively an escape route” – whereupon it hacked into Hugging Face, an AI start-up that hosts datasets for developers, looking for data on how to cheat at a particular test. Hugging Face had to use top Chinese AI models, which are free, to make sense of what had happened.

China now makes 45% of the global supply of foie gras, say Katrina Northrop and Chuqin Jiang in The Wall Street Journal, amounting to an incredible 11,000 tons a year. The texture is good, says Beijing-based French chef Nadia Meliani, and the flavour is improving, though it doesn’t “linger in the mouth” quite as it should. Chinese producers are also churning out vast quantities of caviar – 40% of global supply – and a growing quantity of truffles. For decades, “Made in China” was a mark of cheap, low-quality products. That’s changing fast.

We’ve watched some horror shows in the Oval Office over the past 18 months, says David Ignatius in The Washington Post. But this week’s visit by Lebanese president Joseph Aoun was a “moment to celebrate”. On Lebanon, Trump has been “rock solid”, pushing Aoun to disarm Hezbollah – despite fears in Beirut that it might trigger a civil war – and putting pressure on Israel to begin a troop withdrawal that could allow the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) to “reclaim the country’s sovereignty” at last. In short, unlike so many before him, Aoun walked away from the White House with a credible pledge of support that could rescue his country from half a century of chaos.

It helps that for once Trump “wasn’t the biggest guy in the room” – Aoun is a “bald-headed bull of a man” who Trump obviously likes and trusts. The US president, who often portrays himself as a victim of unfair attacks, seems to identify personally with the Lebanese cause. “It has been a very badly treated place and country,” he says, promising to make sure it’s “treated with the respect it deserves.” US aid means more money and weapons for the Lebanese army to take on Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militia that has long operated as a “state within a state”. But the really hard part will be standing up to Israel, which has spent five decades “bombing or invading its northern neighbour at will” in the fight against Hezbollah. The LAF, however, believes it is ready. “Give us the tools,” says Aoun, echoing Winston Churchill, “and we will finish the job.” Wrestling this battered country back from ruin won’t be easy, “but I’m rooting for the Lebanese bull”.

Britain’s “healthiest place to grow old” is Orkney, says Sophie Gallagher in The i Paper. The Scottish island has an average “healthspan” – the age to which you can expect to live on good form – of 72.9, compared to 60 in many parts of the UK, and a horrifying 50 in Blackpool. The archipelago’s relative isolation means supermarkets have a narrower choice – fewer ready meals, more home cooking – and there is a strong emphasis on exercise, including walking, gardening and dancing, as well as a booming over-60s social scene. The weekly routine of 74-year-old Wendy Flett, for example, includes pilates, aerobics, wild swimming, bingo calling and volunteering. “I’m not the exception,” she says. “And I don’t do anything on a Friday.”

South America is making impressive strides in eradicating hunger, says The Economist. The share of people going hungry is down by a third since 2020, with just 3.5% of people in the region consuming insufficient calories. Brazil, Guyana and Chile have fallen off the UN’s “Hunger Map” – countries with more than 2.5% of the population chronically hungry – while Argentina, Colombia and Paraguay are nearly there. The cause is boring but important: increased economic stability thanks to more independent central banks, and savvy handouts, such as Brazil’s Bolsa Família which pays families to vaccinate their children and send them to school.

It’s a British-made “loyal wingman” drone, says Athena Stavrou in The Independent, which has been unveiled by new defence secretary Wes Streeting in what he called a “groundbreaking moment for UK defence”. Developed and built in Lancashire by BAE systems, the “Brontanax” Collaborative Combat Aircraft is unmanned, autonomous and designed to fly alongside manned jets such as Typhoons and F-35Bs. It is the first British-designed combat drone vying to supply the RAF’s new £300m Storm Fighter contract.