Israel has launched airstrikes across Lebanon, widening the Middle East conflict, as it begins trading blows with Hezbollah. Iranian strikes are continuing throughout the region, and the US says three of its jets were downed over Kuwait with no injuries in an “apparent friendly fire incident”. A British military base in Cyprus was hit by an Iranian drone overnight, after Keir Starmer announced permission for the US to launch defensive strikes from UK bases. Refugees arriving in the UK from today will be granted only temporary status in the biggest shake-up to refugee laws since World War Two. Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood’s new reforms – effective immediately to prevent a surge in migrant crossings – will see refugee status reviewed every 30 months and migrants required to return home once their country is deemed safe. Michael B Jordan scooped a surprise win as Best Actor for his role in the vampire thriller Sinners at last night’s Actor Awards. Previously known as the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) awards, the event also saw Jessie Buckley awarded Best Actress for Hamnet and the late Catherine O’Hara receive a posthumous prize for her role in The Studio.

Donald Trump didn’t start a war on Saturday, says The Wall Street Journal. He fought back in a conflict that Iran, “the world’s foremost promoter of terrorism”, has been waging for decades. First and foremost, this was an act of deterrence. By enforcing the red lines he drew warning the regime against killing protesters in January, the US president is sending a clear message to China and Russia about the costs of testing his military resolve. If the US and Israel can take out enough regime leaders, Basij militia and Islamic Revolutionary Guards, the chance for an internal coup or popular revolt – aided, perhaps, by Mossad and CIA agents on the ground – might open up. Yes, Operation Epic Fury carries risk. But it also has the potential to “reshape the Middle East for the better and lead to a safer world”.

The big problem, says Max Boot in The Washington Post, is that the self-proclaimed “president of peace” appears to have no strategy for achieving regime change. Air strikes alone rarely, if ever, bring down dictatorships. Iran is a big country – covering an area the size of France, Germany, Spain and Italy combined – with a deeply entrenched regime backed by huge, “and ruthless”, security forces. What happens if the Iranians rise up and get slaughtered again? “How often can the US bomb Iran?” Trump’s avowedly isolationist vice president, JD Vance – who was notably absent from the Mar-a-Lago war room on Saturday – said before the attack there was “no chance” the US would get drawn into a lengthy conflict. Isn’t that what George W Bush thought before Iraq? And LBJ before Vietnam? Military action is inherently unpredictable, which is why you should pursue it only if you absolutely have to. “There is no reason to think this war is necessary.”

🚀🫡 Don’t mistake Iran’s missile strikes as “calculated acts of retaliation” for the death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, says David Blair in The Daily Telegraph. Long before this war, which the mullahs always knew might come, the commanders of the country’s missile and drone batteries were given instructions to “start firing” at a list of pre-approved targets the moment hostilities had begun. Their orders will be to keep blasting out drones and missiles until they hear otherwise – or until the Americans and Israelis find them.

The United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia have long marketed themselves as “affluent safe havens” for tax-shy sunseekers from around the world, says Gideon Rachman in the FT. This weekend, all were hit or targeted by Iranian missiles, and unless the conflict is brought to a swift conclusion, their safe-haven status is under threat. Many hoped that peace and prosperity would spread out from the bougie enclaves of the Gulf to stabilise the rest of the Middle East, which has remained mired in conflict. The risk now is that the process runs the other way, with chaos and violence threatening the future of the region’s rich and stable oases.

The latest Gen Z trend on social media is “Chinamaxxing”, says Coco Khan in The Guardian: the “drastic pursuit” of Chinese culture. TikTokers are posting themselves engaging with traditional customs and pastimes, such as qigong (an ancient exercise involving slow movements and stretching), drinking hot water in the morning, learning Mandarin on Duolingo, binge-watching Chinese period dramas, and so on, alongside some variation of the caption: “You met me at a very Chinese time in my life.” Although largely “playful”, the trend did manage to rile a few American commentators on Fox News, who fretted that Gen Z were “glamourising life in communist China”, and may be about to “topple the West from the inside”.

You can see why Hannah Spencer won the Gorton and Denton by-election for the Greens, says Camilla Long in The Sunday Times. The 34-year-old’s social media videos are approachable and funny; the party’s “good vibes only” bromides hold obvious appeal. But people should be in no doubt about what the Greens really are. In the past 18 months, Zack Polanski’s party has switched its central cause from the environment to anti-capitalism, and by extension Gaza. The joint deputy leader, Mothin Ali, defended Hamas for October 7 and celebrated winning a council seat by bellowing “Allahu Akbar”. Polanski, himself a Jew, says he will happily support the extremely anti-Semitic party motion that “Zionism is racism”. The joke in Westminster is that the “Green” in the party’s name refers not to the environment but the green of the Palestine flag.

All of which means the party is now a bonkers alliance between “misogynistic, intolerant men and rich, liberal cat-lady women”. Why the likes of Ali, whose wife wears a full burqa, would share a platform with ultra-progressives who want to legalise prostitution, heroin and gender self-ID is beyond me. “Maybe he just really hates carbon emissions.” You can understand why people are angry with the political status quo, but how far anti-establishment do we want to go? Between them, the Greens and Reform UK won almost three-quarters of the vote in Gorton and Denton. So the choice now appears to be between “the Jew-hating, pro-Palestinian lot or the ones who want to deport Muslims”. Is our politics really all just “screaming nutjobs (and Keir Starmer)”? That, perhaps, is the real lesson of last week. There’s a new vacancy in Westminster: the “moderate, rational” centre ground.

🗳️🤷 By-elections are rarely as important as excitable commentators claim at the time, says David Aaronovitch in The Independent. The SDP’s 1981 win in Crosby was hailed as a game-changer, but the “then beleaguered” Margaret Thatcher went on to win re-election in a landslide. Labour’s humiliation in Hartlepool five years ago didn’t spell an end to Keir Starmer. As we get closer to a general election, the Greens and Reform will come under much more scrutiny, and ordinary voters will (briefly) tune back in. Chalk up Gorton and Denton as “interesting” rather than “epochal”.

Ukrainians have taken to using 19th-century Maxim machine guns to defend against drones, says Tom Newton Dunn in War & Peace. Invented by Britain’s Sir Hiram Stevens Maxim in 1884, the ancient arms have a water-cooling system around their barrels which means that, unlike modern machine guns, they can fire continuously for minutes at a time without overheating, creating a sustained “wall of lead”. Some of the Maxims being used in the war today were first delivered to Tsarist Russia before World War One. If it ain’t broke...

Membership of the royal family was long determined by “Britain’s grandest directory”, says Robert Hardman in The Spectator: the royal household’s Green Book. Until publication sadly ceased, this little volume listed the details of “kith, kin and every distant cousin” down as far as the 21st Lady Saltoun, widow of Queen Victoria’s great-grandson, Alexander Ramsay. Beyond Flora Saltoun (who died in 2024), “one ceased to be royal”.

It’s Marigold, says Gerry Warren in Kent Online, an Irish Setter from Canterbury who has just given birth to a record 17 puppies. Owner Miranda Pellecchia says that during the 13-hour labour – which started just before lunch and didn’t finish til midnight – the babies “just kept coming”. Marigold has been chunking down 12 tins of dog food a day to keep her strength up while feeding, and the family has still had to supplement that with formula milk. Now eight weeks old, the pups are for sale at £1,300 a pop. “Obviously, we’re going to miss them because they’re adorable,” says Pellecchia, “but I’m also looking forward to getting my life back.”