Microsoft is racing to restore its services as a global outage continues to leave many users unable to access its workplace software, including Outlook and Teams. The firm says its attempts to fix the problem, which began yesterday, are slowly making progress, and that there is no indication the disruption is the result of “malicious or cyber activity”. US commerce secretary Howard Lutnick has been drawn into the Nvidia scandal, after several lawmakers demanded he testify before Congress to explain how he allowed chips to be exported to the firm linked to the alleged Chinese spy who had an affair with Jensen Huang. The Nvidia chief executive resigned yesterday over revelations about multiple extramarital relationships. The UK government has agreed to organise a “fitting commemoration” of England’s 1,100th birthday next year, following a campaign by politicians and historians. July 2027 will mark 1,100 years since the Anglo-Saxon monarch Æthelstan was named the first “King of the English” after driving the Vikings out of York.

Andy Burnham is so good at making “left-wing remarks”, says Janan Ganesh in the FT, that left-wingers don’t notice when he denies them policies of actual consequence. Because he seems like a socialist – northern, casual, good at saying words like “neoliberalism” – he can govern like a pragmatist. The other way round is far worse. Because the Labour left mistrusted the professional, north London knight of the realm Keir Starmer, he had to give them “business-clobbering budgets” and other “proofs of tribal membership”. Were Burnham more obviously middle-of-the-road he might have had to appoint soft-left Ed Miliband as chancellor. But because he already belongs to the tribe, he didn’t have to.

If Burnham actually meant half the things he said – about bond markets, for example – he would be a “ruinous prime minister” like Liz Truss. National security, he said in September, “can’t come at the expense of social security”. On the face of it, that statement is disgraceful. “Britain faces mortal threats, about which he is better briefed than anyone.” But the PM is “attuned to the essential dappiness of the soft left”. If such ludicrous remarks reassure his MPs that he is one of them, there is less pressure for him to act on it. This is not a movement with the mental stamina to check up on whether a platitude is being implemented. It wants nice-sounding things, rather than bad-sounding things, and it isn’t prepared to think about it much more than that. This is not to say Burnham is a cynic – “he is authentically shallow”. But in a world where actual state reform is next-to-impossible, “national mood manager” is not a bad role for a prime minister.

Jensen Huang was introduced to his future mistress Alice Huang (no relation) by a Chinese businessman he’d known for a decade, says Lingling Wei in The Wall Street Journal: her husband, Kang Wei. And for the past two years, Kang has apparently been entirely relaxed about his wife’s lover, talking openly about their closeness and joking that she was the Nvidia founder’s “personal assistant”.

Apparently, says Carol Midgley in The Times, the “intergluteal cleft” is the new cleavage. That’s right, “now is your bottom crack’s time to shine”. This could mean a see-through dress to show off that “bum crevice”, or one that’s split to the waist, “letting it all sag out like a pair of deflated basketballs”. Or, choose a dress with a bit cut out at the back “resembling a serving hatch”, which is also handy if you “need somewhere to pop your Biro”. And if you’re on a budget, you can always “steal one of those hospital gowns that flap open at the back”.

Twenty-five years after 9/11, much of the world has “moved on from the war on terrorism”, says Eghosa Osaghae in Foreign Affairs. After the defeat of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria and the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, Washington and its allies turned to other concerns – like the growing confrontations with China, Russia and Iran – and away from the threat of transnational extremism. Buttressing this shift has been a general decline in terror attacks in the West since ISIS peaked in the 2010s. But there is one region where terrorism not only persists but also appears to be growing: Africa.

In the past five years, Africa alone has accounted for more than half of all terrorism-related deaths. The continent is home to three of the world’s four deadliest jihadi groups: ISIS (which still exists in Africa), Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (a major offshoot of al-Qaeda) and al-Shabab. Outsiders may already know that the Sahel – the continent-wide strip of land that separates the Sahara from the more humid savannahs to the south – is a “hotbed of extremism”, with Boko Haram in Nigeria, Cameroon and Chad, as well as Lakurawa in Niger and Nigeria. But few realise that terrorist activity has spread right across the continent, even to places with little history of jihadism or extremist violence, like Benin and Mozambique. These terrorist groups, many with stout anti-Western sentiments, pose a growing threat to global stability, especially as Russia and China scramble for Africa’s mineral resources. Unless the West can find a way to help local governments stamp out the problem, the recent lull in global terror may soon be over.

Younger folks have long regarded cruises as passé holidays for naff old fogeys. No longer, says Brittany Chang in Bloomberg. In recent years, the industry’s promise of “cost-effective comfort” has rapidly become an easy sell to cash-strapped youngsters. In its first year of operation, between 2021 and 2022, adult-only Virgin Voyages found just 32% of its guests were under 45. Now it’s 45%. Royal Caribbean Group, which operate’s the world’s largest cruise ships, told investors in early 2025 that it had seen young passenger numbers almost doubling since 2019. By this summer, millennials and Gen Zs accounted for around half of its total guests.

John Healey will be pleased his first budget last month didn’t spook the bond markets, says Andy Haldane, a former chief economist at the Bank of England, in The Independent. But the reality is our public finances are the shakiest they’ve been for 50 years, with most lights on the fiscal dashboard “flashing red”. Our 10-year borrowing costs are more than 1% above the G7 average – higher than in the US, France, Italy and even Greece, despite our smaller debts. Why? Because nobody believes the government’s plans. I am yet to find anyone in finance or politics, of any party, who reckons they add up. Think of bond yields as the economy’s blood pressure. Britain’s is dangerously high, yet instead of statins and a diet, the government has prescribed “homeopathic remedies”.

It’s a new indoor security drone, says David Li on NBC News, that allows owners to monitor their homes while they’re out. Created by the doorbell camera company Ring, the $250 Drone Cam can fly around checking for intruders, investigating disturbances, or simply seeing whether a window was left open or the oven left on. Users can set “patrol points” to be monitored, such as jewellery boxes, and the device is equipped with lights that automatically turn on in the dark to keep video quality crisp.