The US has said that clearing mines from the Strait of Hormuz could take six months, and that it has “no time frame” for ending the war. The US military has intercepted three Iranian-flagged tankers in Asian waters after the IRGC stormed three other vessels in the strait yesterday, detaining two of them for “endangering maritime security”. A summer holiday crisis is looming in Europe as jet fuel stocks begin to run low. Lufthansa Group, one of the world’s biggest airline companies, announced yesterday that it was cancelling 20,000 flights in the coming months because of the crisis, while the EU energy commissioner said the shortage of aviation fuel would likely affect “many people’s” holidays. An AI-powered robot has learnt to defeat elite table tennis players, an achievement that has long been viewed as a demanding benchmark for robotics, requiring split-second reactions, precise perception and refined motor control. Sony AI’s bot, known as Ace, won three out of five matches against elite players, though lost its two matches against professionals.

In the likely event that this Labour government serves only one term, it will at least have one great legacy, says Polly Toynbee in The Guardian: “homegrown clean energy”. The biggest nuclear building programme in 50 years has been green-lit. Recent renewables auctions will secure enough clean, UK-generated power for 23 million homes, and our largest-ever solar project has been approved. Ed Miliband’s target of generating 95% of electricity from renewables by 2030 is within reach, bringing with it a significant boost to Britain’s national, economic and energy security. The great success of the NHS was not just the service it offered, but how it removed fear about the cost of illness from ordinary Britons. Homegrown energy has the potential to do the same, freeing us from “rollercoaster markets” and the whims of Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump and the ayatollahs.

Increasing Britain’s renewables capacity is important, says The Times. But so too, given everything that’s going on, is oil and gas exploration in UK waters. Even in modest amounts, this would boost tax revenues, create jobs and give the country control of additional deposits essential for enduring the kind of protracted international crisis we’re currently facing. Aside from Denmark, we are the only country on earth “deliberately failing to maximise its oil reserves”. For what? Environmental obligations? If Britain were an energy consumer on the scale of China, the US or India, this “self-denying ordinance” might make sense. But the UK produces less than 1% of global CO2 emissions, meaning Miliband’s “masochistic” aversion to exploratory drilling not only harms the country, but does nothing for the planet, either. As the former Labour leader himself has admitted, gas and oil will remain in the energy mix for decades. “So it may as well be British.”