Taxpayer money will be used to help private companies build offshore windfarms on parts of the seabed owned by the Crown Estate, with the aim of generating enough electricity for 20 million homes. The project is the first major plan announced by Great British Energy, the new state-owned company for renewable power, which will receive £8.3bn in government funding over the next five years. Joe Biden has addressed Americans for the first time since his withdrawal from the presidential race, saying he took the decision because nothing should come before “saving our democracy”. There was no “sadder proof” that the president had to go than his thin, raspy voice, says Tom Peck in The Times. “It should never have come to this.” No new coins will be minted this year for the first time, because the Treasury has decided there is enough change in circulation to satisfy demand. The department has denied rumours that copper 1p and 2p coins are to be scrapped for good.

Our ex-PMs have become an embarrassment

It’s time to rethink the role of “ex-prime minister”, says Simon Kuper in The Guardian. In the past couple of decades, the shameless antics of Britain’s former leaders have helped send trust in politics “to all-time lows”. We’ve seen Tony Blair “shilling for autocracies” like Kazakhstan; David Cameron lobbying for China and the collapsed financial firm Greensill Capital; Boris Johnson cosying up to Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro on behalf of a hedge fund; and Liz Truss “giving embarrassing but well-paid speeches” to rightwing Americans. It’s hard to think of a more vivid symbol of elite corruption than the country’s best-known politicians “renting themselves out to dubious clients”.

It used to be the case that most former PMs had family money, so they’d never dream of doing anything “so vulgar as consult for Kazakhstan or speak at a Trumpist conference”. The monetisation of the role only really began with Ted Heath, who advised both a Chinese state-owned shipping company and a Saudi sheikh. But not all ex-PMs are “grasping”. John Major and Theresa May have settled for giving “boring but harmless” talks on the public-speaking circuit. Major says he chooses his post-power gigs by asking himself: “How would this look on the front page of a newspaper?” And Gordon Brown “appears not to have enriched himself at all” – his fees from advisory roles reportedly go directly into funding his charitable work. Major, May and Brown should be the template for “how to be an ex-PM”. For too many of their colleagues, leading the country seems to have been little more than a “CV-burnishing temp role”.

In a faintly worrying development, China is secretly building up vast stockpiles of key commodities, says The Economist. In the past couple of years the country has massively upped its imports of everything from grain and copper to natural gas and oil, despite slowing demand for many of these things because of an economic slowdown. This hoarding is making American officials nervous not only because it could raise commodity prices, but also because the supplies China is after are “exactly those it would need to survive a protracted conflict, perhaps as it blockades Taiwan”.

Over the course of its 768 episodes, The Simpsons has made a number of “eerily accurate predictions”, says the LA Times. They include Donald Trump being president; the Covid-19 pandemic; the existence of video calls and smart watches; and even Finnish economist Bengt Holmström taking home the Nobel Prize. With the ascension of Kamala Harris, another has come to light: in the 2000 episode Bart to the Future, Lisa succeeds Trump to become the first female US president, and is seen addressing the nation in a purple suit, pearl necklace and pearl earrings – exactly what Harris wore at her inauguration as vice president in 2021.

How Melania keeps Trump on his toes

“Melania Trump has some chutzpah,” says Jemima Kelly in the FT. While Jill Biden spent weeks fiercely defending her “doddery husband”, her predecessor as First Lady didn’t even show up to stand by her beloved’s side two days after someone tried to kill him. Melania made just one brief appearance at the Republican convention, to give Trump an “awkward hug” after his speech. She has attended virtually none of his campaign events or recent court appearances. And on the rare occasions she does appear with him, she looks uniformly disinterested and downright repulsed by his attempts to kiss her. It takes a special kind of woman to keep a man like Trump on his toes. With her “trademark DGAF style”, his third wife has been doing it for 20 years.

Melania isn’t afraid of ruffling feathers. Who could forget her speech at the 2016 Republican convention, which stole whole sections from Michelle Obama’s address to the Democratic convention in 2008? Or when she turned up to a presidential debate wearing a bright pink pussy-bow blouse, two days after audio was released of her husband boasting how he likes to “grab ‘em by the pussy”? When she was photographed on a visit to a detention centre for migrant children wearing a jacket emblazoned with the words “I REALLY DON’T CARE DO U?”, she insisted the message was intended for the “leftwing media” rather than the children. But it seems she truly doesn’t care what anyone thinks. “People think and talk about me like: ‘Oh, Melania, oh poor Melania,’” she once said. “Don’t feel sorry for me.” I wouldn’t dare.

If you’ve ever dreamt of living in a nuclear bunker, now’s your chance. This one, near Sedbergh in Cumbria, is going up for auction tomorrow with a guide price of £15,000 to £20,000. Built in the 1950s by the Royal Observer Corps, the dry, clean and secure hideaway was designed to hold enough food and water to last 14 days. It comes with a phone line that could potentially carry broadband; above ground, there’s a small shed and off-street parking for one car. Put in a cheeky offer here.

Amazon lost a whopping $25bn from its smart speaker business between 2017 and 2021, says The Wall Street Journal. The tech company’s plan was to sell its Echo devices for a pittance in the hope that customers would use them to buy more profitable products. Instead, most people just get Alexa to set alarms and check the weather forecast. As one former employee put it: “We’ve hired 10,000 people and we’ve built a smart timer.”

They’re paper cuttings made by 17th-century schoolgirls, which have gone on display for the first time. The paper playthings were discovered in the 1980s under the floorboards of London’s Sutton House, a historic building that once functioned as a boarding school for upper-class girls. Their charm, beyond their age, lies in the endearingly childlike details: one figure of a colourful hen is misspelled “hean”, for example. The exhibition at Sutton House runs until December; book your ticket here.