Israel says it has assassinated Ali Larijani, the most powerful man in Iran and the country’s de facto ruler. The head of Tehran’s National Security Council – whose family is sometimes referred to as the “Kennedys of Iran”, and who is said to have orchestrated the massacre of tens of thousands of Iranian protesters in January – was reportedly killed in missile strikes overnight. Some of the cases in the deadly meningitis outbreak in Kent have been confirmed as meningitis B, a bacterial strain that most people are not vaccinated against. Routine vaccination against MenB for babies was only rolled out by the NHS in 2015, meaning most people are not immune. Oxford astronomers believe they have discovered a new type of planet around 35 light-years from Earth. Unlike rocky or gaseous worlds, the planet, known as L 98-59 d, is covered with a “global magma ocean” that lies beneath a highly sulphurous atmosphere with temperatures a toasty 1,500C.

The conflict with Iran started with vague war aims. It now has a single “clear and overriding objective”, says Gideon Rachman in the FT: “reopen the Strait of Hormuz”. Now that this narrow waterway – through which 20% of the world’s oil exports pass – has been effectively closed by Tehran, Donald Trump cannot simply declare victory and walk away. In the short term, the longer it remains closed, the greater the risk of global recession. And in the longer term, Iran now knows that its control over the strait gives it a “stranglehold over the world economy”. Even if it can be persuaded to relax its grip in the coming weeks or months, it can always “tighten it again in future”.

Iran’s advantage is asymmetric: a handful of attacks on oil tankers, and the threat of more, has been enough to persuade ship owners and crews to steer clear. And even if the US and Israel obliterate Tehran’s missile launchers, the Islamic Republic has plenty of other options, including deep-sea mines, inflatable boats equipped with limpet bombs, and drones. Trump has asked allies to send their navies to help break the blockade. “He has even appealed to Beijing.” But while Britain, the EU and others have a significant interest in the strait, after a year of tariffs, threats and insults they’re reluctant to risk their own forces to solve a problem they didn’t create and which the US navy can’t fix alone. Meanwhile, Iran’s Gulf neighbours face a dilemma: try to reach an accommodation with the current leaders, or press harder for regime change, with all the dangers that brings. Iran is taking a battering. But having demonstrated the power of its most potent geopolitical weapon, it may emerge stronger than ever.

🚢💣 Tehran has spent decades preparing to block the strait, says Caitlin Talmadge in Foreign Affairs. It amassed approximately 5,000 sea mines, including hard-to-find “seabed influence mines” that detonate in response to acoustics, magnetics or pressure (rather than contact). It has multiple means of delivering these mines, including midget submarines and hundreds of small boats, many of which may be hidden in networks of impregnable caves and tunnels. How much of this arsenal has survived the US and Israeli bombardment is unclear. But even a modest mine-laying campaign could be enough to stop tankers entering the strait.

For a political journalist, says Fraser Nelson on Substack, the “one-trade town” of Washington is perhaps the best city in the world. Dinner is often at 6pm to make time for evening receptions, “of which there are many”. My colleague Katy Balls uses an app to log her various invites – dress code, location, other attendees – and strategise accordingly. We even went to a party “between courses of a dinner”. The celebrity chef Wolfgang Puck was doing a slow-moving tasting menu, so Katy suggested we “nip to the British embassy” and come back for dessert. “The others at our table seemed to think this perfectly normal.”

Here’s the secret to a perfectly cooked burger, says Dylan Murray in The Takeout: start from frozen. An iced patty allows you to create a deeply browned crust – via the fêted Maillard reaction, which gives properly cooked meat its distinctive richness – without drying out the inside, which simply thaws while the outside is browning. Don’t freeze fresh burgers yourself: apparently the slow-freezing process damages the cell walls, resulting in more, not less, dryness. Buy the best pre-frozen patties you can find – they will likely have been “blast-chilled”, which retains maximum flavour.

Dubai was supposed to be safe, says Richard Florida in The New York Times. But in the past fortnight more than 260 ballistic missiles and over 1,500 drones have been detected above the city. Most have been intercepted, but their “percussive booms” have become part of the soundscape. The city that spent decades billing itself as a sleek sanctuary – “luxe, apolitical, income-tax-free” – is suddenly on edge. The airport has repeatedly suspended operations; big banks have told staff to avoid their gleaming office towers; people cower among the Lamborghinis in underground car parks. Many of the city’s richest scrambled for commercial flights or private jets out of the Gulf.

The attacks have struck at the fundamental premise of Dubai’s model as a “new type of global metropolis” – not so much a city as a “platform”. No history, no indigenous culture to speak of, just a “blank slate for the exchange of capital”. To a certain kind of blandly commercial rootless cosmopolitan, this has been highly attractive. The population has more than quadrupled since 2000, and nine in 10 residents are non-native. It is home to more than 80,000 millionaires (a number that more than doubled between 2014 and 2024) and 20 billionaires. In 2025 alone, an estimated 9,800 millionaires moved to the UAE, bringing some $63bn in personal wealth with them. But “Dubaification” is spreading, with Riyadh, Istanbul, Miami and Doha all trying to adopt the same basic formula: shining malls, towers and restaurants all fitted out like airport lounges. In a city conjured from the desert to provide the easiest imaginable life, even a little inconvenience is enough to send the “mobile and unattached” off to the next safe haven. With bombs dropping, “why would they stick around”?

🛩️🗓️ For all the stories of rich Dubai residents forking out vast amounts to escape the UAE, says the FT, some have been spending similar sums to fly back in. Their problem is that if they spend too many days outside the emirate, they’ll lose their tax-free status and be lumbered with a whopping tax bill. In many cases, the cost of hiring a private jet is far lower than the sums they’d have to hand over to the taxman.

American students love everything about the University of St Andrews, says Jasmine Li in The Wall Street Journal. “Except all the Americans.” A remarkable 20% of the student body is from the US, up from 14% a decade ago. Thanksgiving dinners and Super Bowl parties are becoming part of the social calendar; undergraduates wear university merchandise “without shame”. “I thought I was gonna be the special American,” says Finnegan Chamberlain, a fourth-year student from Oregon who was drawn to the “Harry Potter-esque” campus. “There are so many Americans here that it feels like another college in the States.”

Talksport pundit Jamie O’Hara stormed off set last week after some “light ribbing” from a fellow presenter, says The Upshot. “But as Talksport meltdowns go, it was small fry.” In the early 2000s, Patrick Kinghorn accused his co-host Tony Cascarino of having a wandering eye live on-air, saying: “Tony’s been chasing that 21-year-old around the office.” After a heated discussion in the next ad break, an apparently remorseful Kinghorn issued an apology. “I just want to apologise for saying that Cas has been chasing a 21-year-old around the office,” he announced. “She wasn’t 21, she was 19.” At which point Cascarino leaped across the desk and punched him in the face.

It’s Banksy, photographed in 2004, who has been unmasked as the Bristol artist Robin Gunningham after a lengthy investigation by Reuters. The true identity of the world’s most famous graffiti artist – known for his political commentary and distinctive stencil style – was confirmed after years of speculation thanks to a New York police report from the year 2000, when Gunningham was caught red-handed defacing a billboard and signed a written confession with his real name. The investigation also found that the artist, now in his early 50s, had subsequently changed his name to David Jones – one of the UK’s most common names.