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Is Keir Starmer right about recognising Palestine?
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In the headlines
Benjamin Netanyahu has criticised Keir Starmerâs pledge to recognise Palestinian statehood in September unless Israel ends the war in Gaza, saying it ârewards Hamasâs monstrous terrorismâ. The British PM laid down the ultimatum yesterday, saying Israel needed to agree a ceasefire deal, commit to a two-state solution and pledge not to annex the occupied West Bank. Tsunami waves have hit the coasts of Russia, Hawaii, Japan and California after an 8.8-magnitude earthquake â one of the strongest ever recorded â struck off Russiaâs Kamchatka Peninsula early this morning. Millions of people have been told to evacuate in affected areas, but so far there have been no reports of any injuries or fatalities. The Lionesses celebrated their Euros win with an open-top bus parade down The Mall yesterday. Some 65,000 fans came out to support the victorious team, dressed in red and white and waving England flags. âIâve been crying all the way down The Mall,â said captain Leah Williamson. âThis is unbelievable.â

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Comment

The PM announcing the ultimatum yesterday. Toby Melville/AFP/Getty
Is Keir Starmer right about recognising Palestine?
I used to be wary of Britain recognising Palestinian statehood, says former foreign minister Tobias Ellwood in The Independent. Itâs a âcard that can only be played onceâ, so it must be used wisely. That time, as Keir Starmer has acknowledged, has come. The scale of continued suffering in Gaza can no longer be justified by Israelâs right to defend itself. There is no roadmap towards a long-term solution, and any support from the âeager-to-helpâ international community â Egypt, Jordan, the UAE, America â on establishing a post-conflict governance structure is being rejected. Britain cannot afford to wait around endlessly for the âperfect momentâ to take this crucial step in pushing for a two-state solution. The longer we hold off, the longer this âendless war will continueâ.
Sorry, but this is a disgraceful act of diplomacy, says Jake Wallis Simons in The Daily Telegraph. Of course the war in Gaza is horrendous; of course Israel has made mistakes. But promising to recognise Palestinian statehood without making any demands of Hamas â specifically the release of the remaining hostages â will only embolden the jihadis. Why would they release their captives and surrender now, when they know the world is âon their sideâ? This is already playing out: it was the growing international condemnation of Israel that led Hamas to harden its stance at ceasefire talks in Qatar last week, leading to the negotiations breaking down. So why is Starmer taking this decision? Well, just look at the cabinet members pressing him to do so: Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood, whose Birmingham constituency has a Muslim population of 46%; Health Secretary Wes Streeting, whose London seat is 23% Muslim. âA pattern emerges here.â The prime minister appears to care more about domestic politics than peace in the Middle East. Itâs âas hypocritical as it is deplorableâ.
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Nature
A pod of orcas has been filmed practising its killing technique off the coast of Western Australia, says James Halpin in The Sun. In a âgrisly lessonâ led by the groupâs matriarch, one of the young killer whales acts as a âbody doubleâ for the victim by stopping swimming, while the others practise drowning the âpreyâ by forcing it underwater where it cannot breathe. Their normal target, blue whales, can typically last for around 90 minutes beneath the surface, so in a real hunt it can take the murderous mammals several hours to exhaust and kill their victim. To watch the full footage, from a forthcoming BBC series narrated by David Attenborough, click on the image.
Noted
The latest round of doctorsâ strikes has had a decidedly mixed reception, says Polly Toynbee in The Guardian. And quite right too. Their union, the British Medical Association, is âkicking a government that has been well-disposed towards itâ. Health Secretary Wes Streeting ended last yearâs strikes by giving junior doctors a generous 22% pay rise, and he is handing them a further above-inflation 5.4% bump this year. The public no longer support industrial action: some 52% âsomewhatâ or âstronglyâ oppose it. And as Keir Starmer has warned, the strikes are âplaying into the handsâ of those on the right who are willing the NHS in its current form to fail.
Games

If you want to know how good you are guessing crowd numbers, says Matt Muir in Web Curios, give Crowdle a go. Itâs dead simple: every day there are five photos of different-sized crowds, and you have to guess how many people are in each one. The closer you are to the actual number, the more points you get. Try it here.
Comment

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Thinking is becoming a âluxury goodâ
Itâs pretty clear by now that technology is damaging our ability to concentrate, says Mary Harrington in The New York Times. Personally, if I need to focus on something for more than a few minutes, âI have to put my phone in a drawer or in another roomâ. What receives less attention is that this is creating âanother form of inequalityâ. Think of it like junk food. As ultra-processed snacks have become cheaper and more widely available, obesity has become âstrongly correlated with povertyâ â essentially, a gulf has opened up between people with the time and money to sustain healthy lifestyles and those without. Todayâs media environment â filled with fake news, clickbait and âAI-generated slopâ â is the âcognitive equivalent of the junk food aisleâ.
Less affluent children already spend on average two more hours per day on screens than their more affluent peers, enough to result in âworse working memory, processing speed, attention levels, language skills and executive functionâ. And the rich are more easily able to confront the problem. Some hire nannies who are required to sign âno phoneâ contracts, or send their children to expensive schools where the devices are banned or heavily restricted. Many US states are starting to limit student smartphone use, but itâs naive to think such rules will be implemented with the âsame determinationâ in huge public schools as they are in small-class private schools. The truth is that making âhealthy cognitive choicesâ is hard. In a culture where platforms like TikTok offer a âbottomless pitâ of enthralling, short-form content, thinking will soon become a âluxury goodâ.
đ€łđ My Instagram followers have given me some great suggestions for getting out of the habit of constantly looking at my phone, says Sophia Money-Coutts on Substack. They include: turning your deviceâs settings to greyscale so that everything on screen is less appealing; deleting all social media apps; downloading Brick or some other app that restricts your usage at certain times; wrapping rubber bands around the screen, which âmakes it almost impossible to scrollâ; and, perhaps as a last resort, clapping every time you think about picking your phone up (âYouâll look/feel so silly that youâll stopâ). For more tips click here.
Zeitgeist

Instagram/@delices_deden
The latest hosting trend for luxury brands is the dĂźnatoire, says Harrison Vail in Air Mail: a mix between a cocktail party and a formal dinner. Guests arenât âanchored to a formal dinner placementâ but will still be given food âworthy of social mediaâ, rather than the paltry finger food usually associated with standing events. âYouâre getting more than cruditĂ©s, you can float in and out, and you wonât be stuck next to someone dull,â says the co-founder of a Gen Z marketing firm â and it means PRs can âopen up the guest listâ without having to stress about last-minute RSVP changes.
On the money
Copper traders are taking extreme measures to get shipments of the metal to the US before the Trump Administrationâs 50% tariffs come into effect on Friday, says Bloomberg. One bulk carrier which left Australia earlier this month has changed its destination from New Orleans to Hawaii, shaving almost 20 days off the voyage time. On arrival, they may also pay extra to skip the queue at customs. You can see why theyâre rushing: the difference for a big shipment between arriving before the levy comes into effect and after it is more than $70m.
Snapshot

Snapshot answer
Itâs Michele Dougherty, says Kaya Burgess in The Times, the first woman to be appointed Britainâs Astronomer Royal in the roleâs 350-year history. Born in South Africa, the 62-year-old planetary scientist was inspired to learn more about space after using her fatherâs telescope in the garden. She has worked at Imperial College since 1991, and in 2005 was responsible for the âshock discoveryâ of water on Enceladus, one of Saturnâs moons, which is now considered one of the most exciting places to look for alien life. Her main duty, she says, will be making the public âexcitedâ about science. âIsnât it nice to get excited about things?â
Quoted
âConscience is the inner voice that warns someone may be looking.â
HL Mencken
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