Israel has begun its long-planned ground offensive in Gaza City. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed an “intensive operation” had begun as he appeared in court as part of a long-running corruption trial, and asked to be excused from testifying because “important things” were happening. A United Nations report has concluded that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, having shown a clear “intent to destroy the Palestinians”. Police say security will be at a “very high threat level” around Windsor Castle today as Donald Trump arrives for his second state visit to the UK. Public order officers, dog and horse units and drone squads have been deployed, as well as a marine unit drafted in to patrol the River Thames. An app that detects when older users are getting ill is halving hospital admissions, saving the NHS more than £1.5m every day. The software, which has been rolled out to more than 10,000 carers and nurses in England, analyses key markers like blood pressure and heart rate using AI to detect subtle health changes, often before symptoms emerge.

A dangerous moment for the Tories

Danny Kruger’s defection from the Conservatives to Reform UK is a big deal for both parties, says Tom Jones in The Critic. Until now, the Tories who have jumped ship to Nigel Farage’s party have been “bit-part players, also-rans or have-beens”: the likes of Nadine Dorries, Andrea Jenkyns and Jake Berry. Kruger, the Eton-educated son of top chef Prue Leith, is not only the first sitting MP (and shadow minister) to defect; he is also widely considered one of the Tory party’s “most thoughtful, serious and intellectually capable” figures. A social conservative and devout Christian, he previously worked for David Cameron and then Boris Johnson. Speaking alongside a delighted Farage yesterday, the 50-year-old said his rationale for shifting allegiances was simple: “The Conservative party is finished.”

In a way, Kemi Badenoch brought this on herself. Just two weeks ago, the Tory leader declared that if people didn’t like the way she was running things, they were “welcome to leave”. The worry for her now is that the party’s other “rising stars” will decide that if a man of Kruger’s capabilities and conviction thinks the Conservative Party is a busted flush, then they’re better out than in. This should also be a “turning point” for Reform. It further burnishes their credentials as a serious operation. And it should allow them to be more selective in who else they take on from the Tories – if they import too many “veterans of the old regime” it rather dilutes their claim to “radical renewal”. One thing’s for sure: Kruger won’t be the last Conservative to make the jump into the “turquoise sea”.

💔😬 As for Kruger himself, says Paul Goodman in The Daily Telegraph, he’ll be hoping he can fare better than previous Tory defectors. Neither Douglas Carswell nor Mark Reckless, who joined the Brexit Party, sit in Parliament as Reform MPs today. And the wider list of those Farage has “worked with, fallen out with and seen off” is a very long one, including the likes of Robert Kilroy-Silk, Godfrey Bloom and Rupert Lowe. “No one else is allowed to last long in the limelight.”

Growing tensions in No 10 “finally exploded into the open” last week after Keir Starmer got mauled at Prime Minister’s Questions over the Peter Mandelson scandal, say Glen Owen and Dan Hodges in The Mail on Sunday. “You’re supposed to protect me from things like this!” a furious Starmer is said to have shouted at his chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney. To which McSweeney, the man dubbed “The Real Deputy Prime Minister”, reportedly roared back: “That’s exactly what I was trying to do!”

Polybounce is a “weirdly compelling” game, says Matt Muir on Web Curios, in which players must guess how many bounces it will take a ball to escape a particular shape. There are 10 levels, with the number of sides to the shape increasing on each one. Starts easy; becomes impossible by about level five. Extremely addictive. Try here.

The “online nihilism” that killed Charlie Kirk

Most people assume that when a political figure like Charlie Kirk is assassinated, the motive must be political, says Sam Leith in The Spectator. Before the suspect had been identified, Donald Trump and others decried the murderous violence of the left; when it transpired that the alleged killer was from a pro-gun, Republican family, some thought he might instead have belonged to an ultra-right fringe group. But it turns out this isn’t so much politics as the “grotesque nihilism of someone riddled with internet brain-worms”. The messages inscribed on the bullet casings aren’t ideological, they are memes: “notices bulge” is a recondite joke about the online “furry” community; “if you read this you are gay lmao” is standard-issue gamer trolling. In other words, a young father lies dead, and the killer’s motive appears to be nothing more substantial than “being talked about on Reddit or 4Chan”.

This ultra-online nihilism is the most underrated and “perhaps most poisonous” force in politics today, says James Marriott in The Times. One recent survey found that 58% of young adults find “little or no purpose or meaning” in their everyday lives. The lonely, atomised internet age has deprived them of the human connections that are “essential to purpose”. And the internet itself is dangerously skewing reality: the only way to be noticed online is to game the algorithm by espousing the most outrageous, deranged views possible. But offline we are still living in a “cosseted corner of history”, with nothing truly existential to fight about. Nihilists “kick at the pillars of our civilisation” because they can’t ever quite believe the roof will fall in. That is the “consequence-free unreality” they have learned from video games and social media. And it seems to have cost Charlie Kirk his life.

Florida estate agent Breanna Banaciski has ditched her profession’s default cheerful banality for “sarcasm and zingers”, says David Segal in The New York Times. In social media videos that have racked up millions of views, she tears into the high-end properties she is showcasing with lines like: “I feel like this house belongs to someone in his late 50s who still wears Axe body spray”, “the only people who can afford this place are the people on the f***ing Epstein list” and “What do rich people do with a closet this size? This is where they store their tax write-offs”. Watch for yourself here.

The world has an unlikely new boomtown, says The Economist: Baghdad. In the past three years, at least four new hospitals have opened and more than 1,700 schools built or rebuilt. Around half a dozen fancy hotels are set to open. BP has resumed operations in the country, and talks are under way with ExxonMobil and Chevron. One reason for this “development frenzy” is stability: Iraq is as calm as it has been since 2003. Also helping are digital reforms. Government salaries are no longer paid in cash; bank cards – used by almost no one five years ago – are now “essential”. The passport office issues travel documents within just 45 minutes, which they say is “the fastest in the world”.

It’s a postcard that has been returned to its sender after 72 years “lost in the mail”, says The Postal Times. American Alan Ball, 88, sent it to his parents in 1953 on his first trip away from home, when he visited the UN headquarters in New York before flying to Puerto Rico. The postcard never arrived – postal officials think it got lost somewhere in the UN building – and Ball had entirely forgotten about it until last Wednesday when an “eager” postie handed it to him at his Idaho home. “That 2 cents,” says Ball, “did a lot of work.”