Peter Kyle, the business secretary, has dismissed Donald Trump’s suggestion yesterday that Britain should use its military to stop illegal immigrants, telling BBC Breakfast the UK Border Force can handle the problem. The second Channel migrant to be deported to France under the government’s so-called “one in, one out” deal departed on a flight to Paris this morning, after Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood saw off a High Court challenge attempting to delay the Eritrean man’s removal. Former Labour MP Zarah Sultana has accused Jeremy Corbyn of sidelining her and overseeing a “sexist boys’ club” in their new left-wing party. The two comrades publicly clashed yesterday after Sultana sent an email offering £55 memberships for Your Party, an act Corbyn said was “unauthorised”. It’s all very “People’s Front of Judea”, says Politico. Britain will see some “spectacular autumn leaves” this year, says BBC Weather. The warm and sunny summer means trees have produced more sugar in their leaves, which will transform them into brighter and longer-lasting colours than usual.

Silicon Valley’s vote of confidence in Britain

The investment deals unveiled at state visits are always “padded with headline hyperbole”, says Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in The Daily Telegraph. But the US-UK “Tech Prosperity Deal” announced this week – with £31bn promised by the likes of Microsoft and chip giant Nvidia – is significant for two reasons. First, it is a vindication of Brexit. The EU continues to see AI as a “threat to be contained” and is imposing overly strict regulation to that effect. Britain, free from the “precautionary immobilism” of Brussels, sees the technology as an opportunity to be seized – and Silicon Valley is taking notice. Project 2025, the strategic blueprint for the second Trump presidency, stated explicitly that it was in America’s interests not to let post-Brexit Britain “slip back into the orbit of the EU”. Brussels appears to have allowed Washington to “snatch its prey”.

This week’s deal is also a vindication of something on the other side of the culture war: Britain’s clean energy strategy. Now, I have my doubts about Labour’s clean power target of 2030. But the many commentators who argue that net zero policies are decimating our economy might care to tell us why the world’s richest companies are flocking to our shores to build “the greatest concentration of energy-hungry data centres in Europe”. These tech bosses are no fools. They’ve clearly looked at the planned roll-out of wind, solar, interconnectors and battery capacity over the next five years – along with the fact that Britain is fast-tracking small modular reactors, the next-generation nuclear technology – and decided they “like what they see”. That’s the real “lesson of Trump week”. We’re in much better shape than we keep telling ourselves.

One under-appreciated reason why Russia is making little headway in Ukraine is that Vladimir Putin doesn’t want his generals doing too well, says Holman Jenkins in The Wall Street Journal. Fearful that successful military leaders might become “too independent” – and potentially form a power base that could one day overthrow him – the Russian president demotes anyone he thinks is showing too much competence on the battlefield. When General Sergei Surovikin received widespread praise for preparing Russia’s defence against Ukraine’s 2023 counterattack, for example, he was swiftly taken off the front lines. He now works at Russia’s embassy in Algiers.

Word Salad is a simple but satisfying word search game. Each day, players are given a theme – US states, fruits, “at the beach” – and must find the relevant words in the grid as quickly as possible. Hints are available, if you must. Give it a go here.

Germany’s dilemma over Israel

Israel is the “guarantor of Jewish life” around the world, says Maria Fiedler in Der Spiegel, and so Germany, on account of its role in the Holocaust, has long felt a special responsibility for its security. As Angela Merkel put it, protecting the Jewish state is part of the country’s “raison d’état”, a moral obligation stemming from “the darkest chapter in German history”. That sense of obligation is being sorely tested by the war in Gaza. What started as an act of self-defence by Benjamin Netanyahu’s government after October 7 has become a “war without measure”: civilians starving; the Israeli army advancing on Gaza City; mounting accusations of genocide. It’s become increasingly clear that German guilt should not have to imply “unconditional support for the Israeli government”.

That’s why Friedrich Merz is right to have “toughened the tone”. Germany’s chancellor has become increasingly outspoken in his criticism not of Israel as a country but of Netanyahu’s administration, telling him “very clearly and very explicitly” earlier this summer that Germany does not share the Israeli government’s policy on Gaza. Last month, Merz “almost single-handedly” moved to partially suspend the delivery of arms to Israel; when that decision prompted a backlash, including from his own party, he doubled down. Germany readjusting its relationship with Israel doesn’t mean abandoning its commitment to the protection of Jews, but rather recognising that the brutal and inhumane actions of Netanyahu’s government are “not in the interest of the Israeli people” – nearly two-thirds of whom oppose what the cabinet is doing. Yes, our country must be wary of its history and honour its promise of “never again”. But that shouldn’t mean Berlin is forced to support all of Israel’s actions. “Quite the opposite.”

The Anglo-Iranian comedian Omid Djalili has an opening gambit he uses when meeting ultra-famous colleagues on movie sets, says Jack Blackburn in The Times: he fawns over them while deliberately misremembering which films they’ve been in. This ice-breaker usually falls flat – but it didn’t with the late Robert Redford. When Djalili told the Hollywood legend he was a “big fan” of his, and that he was “the best thing in Hawaii Five-O”, Redford smiled warmly at the “rotund and un-hirsute comic” before replying: “Thank you. You were great in Doctor Zhivago, but you’ve let yourself go.”

If you’re looking for some (mostly non-fiction) book recommendations, says Dave Pell on Substack, check out 3Books.net. They’re taken from the hit podcast The Ezra Klein Show, which always ends with the New York Times columnist asking his guest – the likes of Barack Obama, Tom Hanks and Salman Rushdie – to recommend three titles. Have a browse here.

They’re Meta’s new AI-powered “smart glasses”, says Lily Jamali on BBC News. The hi-tech Ray-Bans have a built-in screen in the right lens – meaning wearers can read messages, look at a map and see video calls – as well as an integrated camera. Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg called the technology a “huge scientific breakthrough”, although when he tried to make a phone call using the device in front of a Silicon Valley audience this week it didn’t work. “I don’t know what to tell you guys,” he said. “I keep on messing this up.”