Every worker in Britain will require a government-issued digital ID card by the end of this parliament, under plans announced by Keir Starmer this morning. The PM says the new proposal will stop people from “slipping into the shadow economy”, providing a strong deterrence against illegal migration. Tony Blair has reportedly offered to lead an interim government in Gaza once the war is over. The 72-year-old former prime minister, who presented his plans to Donald Trump last month, is said to have the support of senior figures close to the US President – including Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff – to run the enclave for several years before handing over to the Palestinian Authority. The discovery of a million-year-old skull in China has cast doubt on where and when our species first emerged. Analysis suggests the remains belong to the Homo longi branch of human ancestry, meaning humanity was already splitting into different species – including us, Homo sapiens – 400,000 years earlier than previously thought, and in Asia rather than Africa. Ni hao, grandpa.

Almost two decades after stepping down as Britain’s prime minister, Tony Blair has his eyes on leadership again, says The Economist. This time, in Gaza. Under plans reportedly backed by Donald Trump, the 72-year-old would head a body that would become the territory’s “supreme political and legal authority” for five years. Palestinians wouldn’t be encouraged to leave – as they would under Trump’s previous proposal – and the territory would “gradually” be handed over to the Palestinian Authority, which currently runs the West Bank. Gulf states, which also support the plan, would foot the bill. No one doubts Blair’s commitment to ending the conflict: within weeks of it breaking out he had made repeated trips to Jerusalem and tasked his foundation with drafting a post-war plan. But would Israel ever agree to this scheme? And how would Palestinians feel about being ruled by the man who helped George W Bush invade Iraq?

The former Labour leader certainly isn’t the “obvious” choice in the quest for peace in the Middle East, says The Daily Telegraph. But Blair has spent years studying the region’s history and complexities, and is “one of the few international figures to be respected by both sides”. Similar transitional arrangements were successful in post-conflict Kosovo and East Timor. And if the Israelis pull out of the strip without an alternative governance structure in place, “Hamas will likely regain control in short order”. Those who reject this proposal need to ask themselves what other option would not only offer security to Israel but also help Gaza to rebuild. For Blair, this would be a “fitting final chapter” for a statesman who has “long been in search of a meaningful role”. For Gazans, it may well be their “best hope for peace”.

People often like to downplay Russia’s clout by pointing out that its GDP at the start of the Ukraine war was only about the size of Spain’s, says Wolfgang Münchau in UnHerd. But that’s if you measure its economy in US dollars, which isn’t a good way to judge a country’s capacity in wartime. What matters during a war is the spending power of your money – how many tanks you can buy with your rubles, say. By this measure, known as “purchasing power parity”, Russia has the fourth-largest GDP in the world, after only China, the US and India. In other words, “they can buy a lot more tanks than us”.

Sororities on American university campuses are producing ever more elaborate videos to recruit new members and, increasingly, score major commercial deals, says Sarah Spellings in The Wall Street Journal. The University of Arizona’s Blythe Beardsley (pictured) was flown to New York Fashion Week after she and her fellow Kappa Kappa Gammas posted a viral video dancing to Gwen Stefani’s The Sweet Escape. Brands are desperate to cash in on these so-called “rush” videos: make-up firms supply the sororities with thousands of free eyebrow pencils and eyeliners, and this year the “probiotic” fizzy drinks company Poppi sent them more than 430,000 customised cans.

Dubai has long been portrayed by athletes, celebrities and influencers as a world of convenience and abundance, says Jonathan Liew in The Guardian. But recently the emirate has emerged in our political discourse as more than just an “escapist” lifestyle filled with boozy brunches and pristine malls. Piers Morgan says it shows a “level of ambition the rest of the world needs”. Reform UK’s Richard Tice says Britain could learn from its national pride and low crime levels. The Telegraph columnist (and Tice’s partner) Isabel Oakeshott, who moved to the city last year, has enthused about life without striking train drivers, “toxic gender ideology claptrap” or Just Stop Oil protesters. “Those who break the law or can’t look after themselves,” she gushed, “are simply imprisoned or deported.”

This, then, is “the quiet part being said out loud”. And it shows what the populist right are willing to tolerate in exchange for a certain vision of “utopia”. Dubai has no workers’ protections nor any right to protest. It’s a place of “pure environmental dereliction”; a place where homosexuality is illegal, adultery punishable by prison and citizenship defined along “narrow ethnic lines”. The super-rich can do and consume as they please, while the poor are “cleared out of sight”, often living in squalid camps on the scorching peripheries of the city and working long hours for low wages. Yes, the crime rates are low, the buildings are tall and no one has to pay income tax. But this “model society” the right eulogise is also undemocratic and run on “ruthless suppression of dissent”. Those calling to remake Britain in its image should be careful what they wish for.

A special website for horror movie buffs, or those who have to watch films with them, tracks the so-called “jump scares” – sudden, terrifying bits – including specific time stamps so you can “prepare or skip it”. According to WhenJumpScare, The Shining, for example, has three “minor” jump scares: the first is 50 minutes and eight seconds in; the second after two hours, eight minutes and 40 seconds; the third around four minutes later. This year’s The Conjuring: Last Rites contains a frankly silly 20 (13 minor and 7 major), half of them in the last, presumably unwatchable, 10 minutes. Click here to see more.

One of the pivotal figures in America’s recognition of Israel in 1948 was a failed shirt seller from Missouri, says Daniel Finkelstein in The Times. Eddie Jacobson had been an army buddy of Harry Truman’s in World War One and later owned a shop with him. (Truman liked the idea of going into business with a Jew “because he thought them good with money”.) Their haberdashery went under, but they remained lifelong friends, and Jacobson later convinced Truman to meet Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann, who persuaded the then-president that an Israeli state should be created. “You win,” Truman said to Jacobson, “you baldheaded son-of-a-bitch.”

It’s a picture of an autopen replicating Joe Biden’s signature, which Donald Trump has hung up on the walls of the White House, says Alejandra Jaramillo on CNN. A video of the new “presidential walk of fame”, which has black-and-white portraits of previous leaders in gold frames, shows the snarky image, rather than a picture of Biden, above a plaque reading: “Joseph R. Biden, Jr.” Trump is “fixated” on his predecessor’s use of the device, claiming Biden’s aides signed legislation and pardons in his name because the then-president himself was too doddery to know what was going on.