Donald Trump has claimed that Iran wants to “make a deal so badly”, after the US military launched a fresh wave of strikes in “retribution” for Iranian attacks on ships in the Strait of Hormuz. Tehran retaliated with further strikes on US military bases and has not commented on the prospect of new negotiations. The UK is experiencing a “drug-driving epidemic”, campaigners have warned, after the number of recorded offences overtook those for drink-driving for the first time. DVLA figures show that nearly 31,000 drivers received penalty points for drug-driving last year – almost a fifth aged between 17 and 24 – compared with around 30,000 for drink-driving. Bonnie Tyler, the husky-voiced singer of the chart-topping 1983 hit Total Eclipse of the Heart, has died aged 75. Born Gaynor Hopkins, Tyler was the most successful female Welsh singer since Shirley Bassey, selling around 100 million records.

Marine Le Pen once joked that the only thing that could stop her running for office was a “truck running over me”, says Corentin Lesueur in Le Monde. But since March 2025, when she was convicted of embezzlement and disqualified from standing in the next election, she has looked less untouchable. On Tuesday, an appeals court upheld her conviction, but with “greater leniency”. She’ll only have to wear an electronic tag for one year, not two, and her election ban has been reduced to just 15 months, clearing the way for her to stand in the 2027 presidential race. Hours later, she confirmed she would be running, “taking her resurrection into her own hands”.

The new verdict won’t make Le Pen any less of a “political martyr”, says Andrew Hussey in The Telegraph. National Rally supporters already believe the odds are stacked against them by mainstream parties and the media. Le Pen has long said an electronic tag would make campaigning impossible, so forcing her to wear one will only strengthen the sense that the party is a “victim of a plot to keep it out of power”. It is impossible to overstate how much of a “political earthquake” the first judgement against her was in France, and how much it fortified her base. An estimated 10,000 people gathered in Paris to see Le Pen defend her actions. They came from all over the country and from every social class – many were young and fashionable – eager to stand by their leader. When Le Pen declared that “the nation is now in rebellion”, the crowd erupted in cheers. This time will be no different, intensifying the French far right’s “bitterness, fury and sense of injustice”.

Westminster has had a lot of fun with Nigel Farage’s coming by-election showdown with Count Binface, says Emilio Casalicchio in Politico Playbook. Rachel Reeves said the people of Clacton deserved better, “but if he wants to spend the summer arguing with a bin, I won’t stop him”. A Labour MP suggested a possible slogan for the parody candidate: “Do you want a joke MP – or Count Binface?” As for Binface himself, he says his manifesto, besides price-capping 99 Flakes at 99p, is refreshingly simple: “I’m not Nigel Farage.”

Swap is a very enjoyable online game in which players must guide a blue dot to a green square. It sounds simple, but quickly gets out of hand with ever-more elaborate set-ups and multiple balls, lethal red squares, doors that must be opened and so on. Highly inventive and keeps you on your toes in a delightful way. Try for yourself here.

US Democrats always want to “fall in love with their candidates”, says The Wall Street Journal. Better still is if the candidate can be a “supposedly common man plucked from obscurity”, with a rough demeanour and all the right progressive talking points. Until this week that was Graham Platner, an army veteran, oyster fisherman and darling of the party’s metropolitan elite, who was chosen to represent the Democrats in the all-important Maine senate race. “My kind of man,” said Elizabeth Warren when campaigning for him in April. But Platner has now been credibly accused of drunkenly barging into a woman’s home in 2021 and raping her. Although he denies the allegations, he has dropped out of the race and his former admirers are queuing up to distance themselves from him. They “can’t say they weren’t warned”.

You’d think the Nazi tattoo would have tipped them off, says Mike Nelson in The Atlantic. Platner spent two decades with an SS logo inked on his chest, and only covered it up when it became “politically inconvenient”. He has posted some abhorrent views on women and minorities online. Then there’s the well-documented history of “contemptible behaviour in his personal life”, including the dreadful treatment of an ex-girlfriend and rampant sexting on the campaign trail, despite being married. What’s extraordinary is that this clear pattern of bad judgement seems to have had no effect at all on his boosters, who thought they’d found the holy grail: an articulate white hick who complains about “billionaires” and “Israeli genocide”. (He actually polled terribly with working class Americans, who saw through his hokey schtick.) It really shouldn’t need saying, but if you’re supporting the candidate with the Nazi tattoo, you might not be the good guys.

After young Briton Arthur Fery beat Grigor Dimitrov in an epic fourth-round clash at Wimbledon on Monday, almost everyone in the Royal Box slunk off to enjoy the swanky hospitality. Not Roger Federer, says Jim White in The Telegraph. The eight-time champion was one of just four people to stay in his seat for the following game, between Alexander Zverev and Jiri Lehecka, watching with “characteristic lynx-eyed interest”. The clip of him sitting in the front row, surrounded by empty seats, shows that Federer “remains the undisputed king of Wimbledon”.

Food scientists at Imperial College London have developed a new type of “supercharged fibre” that prevents over-eating, says Hannah Twiggs in The Independent. So-called “food Ozempic” – real name inulin-propionate ester, or IPE – works by delivering a molecule called propionate to the large intestine. That stimulates the release of “satiety” hormones like GLP-1, the same reaction involved in Ozempic, which essentially tells the brain: “That’ll do, thanks.” IPE, which can be added to smoothies, cereal bars, breakfast cereals, bread and all kinds of other foods, has been approved by the European Food Safety Authority, and may start appearing on shelves within the next year.

It’s Bryan Murray, says Vicki Newman in the Guinness World Records, a great-grandfather from New Zealand who has just been named as the world’s oldest male water-skier at the age of 95. The nimble nonagenarian first tried the sport in 1955 before starting to compete in tournaments across his country in the 1960s. “He hasn’t stopped since.” Now a father of two, grandfather of six and great-grandfather of 10, Murray still loves taking to the water every summer, recently breaking the record on Auckland’s Lake Kereta. “You don’t stop because you are too old,” he says. “You get old because you stop.”