A prominent Al Jazeera reporter and five other journalists have been killed in an Israeli strike on their tent in Gaza City. Israel has confirmed that it targeted 28-year-old Anas al-Sharif, describing him as a “terrorist” posing as a journalist. I’ve seen the IDF’s evidence to support this claim, says Jeremy Bowen on BBC News. “It is not convincing.” Drivers over the age of 70 could be banned from the roads if they fail compulsory eye tests, under new plans to overhaul the UK’s road safety laws. Over-70s would be required to have their eyes checked every three years, and potentially take a medical test for conditions such as dementia. Warmer seas are helping to bring extraordinary new species to UK waters, which have had their hottest start to the year since records began in 1980. Scientists and nature lovers have spotted octopus, bluefin tuna, mauve stinger jellyfish and salps, none of which is usually widespread in UK seas.

The three things that matter for Ukraine

Be under no illusion about the Ukraine peace deal being cooked up ahead of Donald Trump’s meeting with Vladimir Putin in Alaska on Friday, says Daniel Hannan in The Sunday Telegraph. It’s a stitch-up. Details are still being hammered out, but it looks like Putin will hang on to most of the territory Russia has seized, sanctions will be eased and the US will stop supplying weapons to Kyiv. Regardless of what else is decided – on Ukraine’s NATO ambitions, say – this is a “colossal Russian victory”. People in the West need to remember that we’ve been supporting Volodymyr Zelensky not because he is “brave or handsome or even particularly democratic”. We’ve supported him because Ukraine is the “wronged party”; because land should not be annexed by force. This is a defeat not just for Kyiv, but for the “values which the Anglosphere and its allies have upheld since 1941, to the immense benefit of the human race”.

Not so fast, says Gideon Rachman in the FT. The idea that Kyiv can cede absolutely no territory is unrealistic. The “brutal reality” is that, with Ukraine seemingly losing on the battlefield, some sort of de facto recognition of Russian occupation may be necessary. Plus, the debate “cannot solely be about territory”. After World War Two, Finland conceded 10% of its territory to Russia – but, crucially, it retained its legal independence and democracy, enabling it to become a prosperous, free and successful country. Similarly, Ukraine’s future today will be decided by three issues: independence, sovereignty and territory. To emerge from this awful war with a positive future, Kyiv doesn’t have to achieve 100% of its goals in all three areas. If it gets to retain its independence and its democracy, giving up some already-conquered territory may well be a “painful but acceptable concession”.

There’s a “growing myth” among middle-class parents that state school children are more likely to be offered a place at Oxbridge than private school kids, says Louise Eccles in The Sunday Times. The official data shows that it’s nonsense. A fifth of state school pupils (19%) who applied to Oxford last year were offered a place, compared to a quarter of private school applicants (24%). At Cambridge, they have roughly the same chances.

To The Economist:

“The age of the celebrity brand” (5 July) reminded me of the story of Calvin Klein’s daughter, Marci, being acutely embarrassed when she was a young woman at seeing her father’s name emblazoned on her boyfriend’s briefs. Talk about a buzzkill.

Thellen Levy
San Francisco

A rictus grin, manic laughter and the demise of MasterChef

I couldn’t resist watching the new series of MasterChef, says Giles Coren in The Times. The BBC announced “proudly” that it had taken out all the jokes by its now-cancelled presenters, Gregg Wallace and John Torode. And while taking jokes out is “what the BBC does best” – they did it to Radio 4 comedy “decades ago” – where would they draw the line? Surely it would be like trying to edit a Nuremberg rally to leave Hitler in – “because he was integral to it” – but remove all those “nasty anti-Semitic bits”. What a surprise, then, to discover that the show begins with Wallace “standing naked with his cock in a sock” and Torode in blackface, “wearing a grass skirt and stirring a giant cauldron with two missionaries in it”.

Alas not. Instead it was Gregg looking “grimly cadaverous” – it’s either Ozempic or “all that chasing girls round the park to the Benny Hill theme tune” – and John declaring that his expectations get “higher and higher” with each new series. (“Unfortunately for him, so do the channel’s.”) What followed was totally surreal. With the jokes edited out, all that remained was Gregg’s “rictus grin and manic laughter”, so that he appeared “quite, quite mad”. The dialogue consisted solely of them saying things like “the rice is cooked beautifully” and “the lamb is cooked perfectly”, over and over again. After 20 minutes, you’re practically “longing for someone to stick their cock in a sock or shout something racist”. Which is presumably why they did it in the first place. “Sheer boredom.” Still, the inevitable demise of MasterChef hopefully means they can stop making these sodding food shows altogether. “At long bloody last.”

I love Noel Gallagher, says Rachel Johnson in The Spectator. When I interviewed the Oasis star a few years ago, I texted afterwards to apologise about the photo they’d used for the magazine cover. He brushed it off, but said he did have one complaint about the feature. “You said we were drinking PG Tips in my kitchen!!??? HOW FUCKING DARE YOU!!!!!! Anyone who is anyone knows that PG Tips are for squares. I haven’t had PG Tips in the house since 1998 (a moment of weakness as I’d JUST given up cocaine and was refusing to go to the supermarket). It was YORKSHIRE TEA we were drinking!”

When the Enola Gay dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, says Garrett M Graff in The Washington Post, the plane’s pilot, 30-year-old Col. Paul Tibbets, felt the explosion in his teeth. “At the moment of the blast,” he recalled, “there was a tingling sensation in my mouth and the very definite taste of lead upon my tongue.” Scientists later told him this was the result of electrolysis – an interaction between the fillings in his teeth and the radioactive forces from the bomb.

It’s the Grade II listed manor house in the Cotswolds where JD Vance and his family are staying over the summer, says The Daily Telegraph. The owners of Dean Manor, near Charlbury, have apologised to neighbours for the “circus” of the US vice president’s visit. Secret service agents have set up police checkpoints around the Oxfordshire village, cut a makeshift helipad into a field and installed some sort of antenna – possibly a signal jammer or anti-drone system – behind the house. “It’s humming constantly,” says one local. “I thought if I go near it might improve my signal but no luck.”