Russia has warned the UK that the deeper its involvement in supporting Ukraine, “the higher the price it will pay”, after the revelation that British-made drones were used in successful strikes on Russian military and industrial sites. Moscow has accused Britain of being an accomplice in “the bloody crimes and terrorist attacks committed by Ukrainian neo-Nazis” and said its actions would “carry consequences”. British children are becoming “intoxicated by extremism” online, according to a new report by the UK children’s commissioner. Dame Rachel de Souza said experts were “deeply concerned” that children are being drawn into “radicalisation and violence fascination” online and called on the government to press ahead with social media curbs for under-18s. The Isles of Scilly are the friendliest place in England, according to a new index measuring how often people chat to neighbours, levels of participation in civic life, local pride and feelings of belonging. Other friendly spots included Devon’s South Hams and Richmond upon Thames, while the least friendly was Barking and Dagenham.

Like many of my fellow British Afghans, says Nelufar Hedayat in The Guardian, I hear fewer and fewer stories from the land of my birth. Before, I would open Instagram and see my cousins lip-syncing to trending videos or posing with flowers at a rose garden or “at a trendy cafe in their coolest outfits”, freely and happily keeping a record of their lives. British-Afghan friends and I would eagerly await the latest music videos from Afghanistan’s many pop stars. But since the disastrous withdrawal of Western troops five years ago shattered the fragile peace of Kabul’s young democracy, Afghanistan’s culture and people, including my friends and family, feel unreachable.

Immediately after the withdrawal, I spent days glued to my phone, monitoring WhatsApp groups filled with people asking for information and help, begging me to get them out of the country “because we all knew what was coming”. I will never forget having to tell one friend, a school headmistress who advocated tirelessly for women’s education and self-fulfilment, that after trying everything I could think of, pushing everyone I knew and even securing a passport when it was impossible to do so, Taliban control of the airports meant I wasn’t going to be able to get her out. Knowing what it would mean to live under the Taliban’s monstrous “gender apartheid”, she asked me a terrible question: “surely to end her life now was better than carrying on?” Speaking to her today, we mostly avoiding talking about our lives for fear of upsetting one another, me with talk of work, gigs, holidays; her with talk of morality police and bombs. The Taliban’s brutal theocracy will not last forever. But for now, “almost everyone I speak to in Afghanistan sounds as though they’re suffocating”.

When Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan holds quarterly analyst calls, says Gina Heeb in The Wall Street Journal, his comments are riddled with “obscure, archaic words”. Moynihan has more than once used “gainsay” to mean something is untrue or invalid. One quarter, he said he didn’t “get fantods” to mean he wasn’t nervous, while another quarter he celebrated strong productivity in one area producing “concomitant” growth in another. It turns out it’s a game. A small circle of senior executives hand him a list of arcane words just before the calls start, and Moynihan has to find a way to cram them in.

The long hot summer is squeezing Italy’s “cheese banks”, says Quirino Mealha in Euronews – the climate-controlled vaults in Emilia-Romagna containing more than half a million wheels of Parmigiano Reggiano, which are used as collateral for farm loans. Farmers sell fresh wheels of parmesan to special investors for around 80% of their eventual price, providing much-needed cash to dairies and giving bankers a tidy margin when they sell the aged product three years later. But the cost of cooling the massive vaults has rocketed in the hot weather, and forced the formaggio financiers to upgrade their kit at huge cost.

As Germany’s far-right AfD has grown, the Brandmauer – the firewall other parties have erected to keep it out of power – has become an “organising principle of public life”, says The Economist. Legislation is cancelled if AfD votes would be needed to get it passed; parliamentary rules are changed to prevent the party affecting the election of judges; AfD MPs are banned from Bundestag football teams. But today, the Brandmauer is crumbling. Germany’s ruling CDU promised in 2018 to halve AfD support by tacking right on immigration. Since then, support for the far-right party has doubled. Next month, state elections in Saxony-Anhalt may topple the firewall altogether. The AfD is currently polling above 40%, putting an absolute majority within reach, while forming an alternative government would force the centre-right CDU into an untenable coalition with the far-left Die Linke, possibly ending the career of Chancellor Friedrich Merz.

The Brandmauer “will not survive the autumn”, says Andreas Rödder on Welt TV, and the CDU itself is “on the verge of collapse”. If the polls ahead of the Saxony-Anhalt state elections are correct, the far left and far right now command a clear majority of votes between them. Moving closer to either extreme would trigger mass defections from the CDU, fatally splitting what has traditionally been Germany’s largest party. This could have been avoided if mainstreamers had been less squeamish about cooperating with the AfD on specific issues like migration. But because German elites have been so stuffy, refusing even to shake hands with AfD members in the corridors of the Bundestag, they have “no recipe at all” for how to deal with the existential threat they face today.

The latest food craze is for more or less everything to be “pickle-flavoured”, says Olivia Hau in The Wall Street Journal. Those craving the sour, briny taste can now gorge on pickle-flavoured noodles, pickle-infused beer, pickle-spiked Sauvignon Blanc, pickle-zested ice cream, and pickle-laced margaritas. Sales of pickle-flavoured snacks are up 30% in the past year alone. Last year, PepsiCo made its Flamin’ Hot Dill Pickle Cheetos a permanent offering after they became the fastest-selling limited-edition flavour in the brand’s history.

If you bought one of those “modish” standing desks, says The Economist, you may as well ditch it. A 2018 analysis found that standing at work burned just nine more calories per hour than sitting and a 2020 study found that while body fat and blood-sugar control improved slightly, blood pressure, insulin and cholesterol did not. There’s even evidence to show that those who stand for more than two hours a day are at a higher risk of varicose veins. What matters far more is movement: just 15-30 minutes of extra daily exercise can erase most of the “excess mortality risk” associated with sitting at work.

It’s Ferrari’s first ever electric vehicle, which has sold at auction for a record $40m, says Jennifer Hahn in Dezeen. The Ferrari Luce, dreamt up by the British iPhone designer Johnny Ive, proved controversial when it launched in May, with many complaining that with five seats, four doors and no engine, it wasn’t a proper Ferrari. But the first production model still managed to raise more than 60 times the retail price of the car (roughly $640,000) at a charity sale in California, making it the most expensive new vehicle ever to be sold at auction.