Keir Starmer knew Peter Mandelson had continued his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein after the late financier’s 2008 conviction when he appointed the New Labour veteran the UK ambassador to the US. The prime minister says Mandelson lied to him about the “sheer depth” of their relationship with the late paedophile, and “betrayed our country” by leaking seemingly market-sensitive information to him in 2009 and 2010. Russian spacecraft are believed to have intercepted the communications of at least a dozen key European satellites. Security officials say the interceptions, carried out by Moscow’s Luch-1 and Luch-2 space vehicles over the past three years, risk compromising sensitive information transmitted by the satellites and could allow Russia to manipulate their trajectories or even crash them. Three quarters of cancer patients in the UK will survive the disease by 2035, the government has promised. Under a new national cancer plan, £2.3bn will be spent on scanning equipment, testing technology and a significant expansion of robotic surgery.

Xi Jinping has repeatedly said that bringing Taiwan under mainland China’s control is “central to his vision of national rejuvenation”, says Karishma Vaswani in Bloomberg. But his recent dramatic removal of top general Zhang Youxia – merely the latest in a sweeping purge of the military’s top ranks – raises an important question: is the Chinese leader prioritising political loyalty over his long-standing geopolitical ambitions? And if so, why? Xi appears to be consolidating his personal grip on power, but at the cost of stripping the People’s Liberation Army of some of its most experienced operators. That may be good news for the rest of us. The shake-up leaves the PLA “operationally weakened”, making a near-term, large-scale invasion of Taiwan less likely.

That’s a dangerous assumption, says the FT. Beijing politics is so opaque that even close China-watchers disagree strongly on the true cause and implications of Zhang’s defenestration. It is just as likely a “calculated demonstration of Xi’s strength”. Some saw Zhang – a veteran of China’s 1979 invasion of Vietnam, with close personal and family ties to Xi – as a potential impediment to the premier’s likely efforts to extend his term or engineer a succession that leaves him pulling the strings indefinitely. And far from decapitating the PLA, Xi is now free to promote a new generation of officers who are not only more loyal, but also more professional and less corrupt than those culled. A younger, more nationalistic officer class with no institutional memory of major conflict may find it easier to embrace Xi’s mission of bringing Taiwan under Beijing’s control. And an isolated leader, with no one left to pass on unwelcome truths, may be more inclined to try to “make a mark on history”.

🇨🇳🤖 Another possible reason for Xi’s purge, says John Garnaut in The New York Times, is that the new generation of generals will be young enough to master advanced technologies like AI and drones, as well as space, undersea and cyber warfare. The aim is to create a military force capable not just of taking Taiwan but of “prevailing in a potential confrontation” with the US.

The environment is no longer a “main issue” for Green Party voters, says Louisa Dollimore in The New Statesman. Research by the progressive Good Growth Foundation think tank found that supporters of Zack Polanski’s party are far more focused on the economy, the NHS and tackling poverty – just one in five lists the climate or the environment in their top three issues.

I recently asked ChatGPT, Gemini and Grok to draw me a picture of the big AI companies in a race, says Noah Smith on Substack. The best was probably Gemini’s, which portrayed the firms as different vehicles on a race track (and, amusingly, had itself winning the race). ChatGPT’s image had the companies as smiling cartoon mascots sprinting on a running track. Then there was Grok’s. Like ChatGPT’s, it was set on a running track. Unlike ChatGPT’s, it had them as manga-style girls wearing short skirts, garters and suspenders.

No doubt there is a brilliant documentary to be made about the ambitious daughter of a chauffeur in communist Yugoslavia, who becomes a globe-trotting model, marries a New York property mogul and finds herself hosting world leaders in the White House, says Xan Brooks in The Guardian. “The horrific Melania emphatically isn’t it.” For nearly two hours, America’s first lady leads the audience through the preparations for Donald Trump’s second presidential inauguration. She glides from dress fitting to table setting with a “face like a fist” and a voice of sheet metal. “Candlelight and black tie and my creative vision,” she says, as though listing the ingredients in a cauldron. “As first lady, children will always remain my priority,” she coos. You can almost picture her “coaxing them into her little gingerbread house”.

Over the years, says Maureen Dowd in The New York Times, liberals have fantasised that behind her perfect mannequin mask, the “Slovenian sphinx” was a secret member of the #resistance – that she was a phantom at the White House because she couldn’t stand her husband, and would one day, as “conjugal saboteur”, renounce him. Those fantasies can be firmly put to bed. Melania, who reportedly pocketed $28m for the documentary, understands her deal with the president and has no problem with his “authoritarian ways”. During the Jan 6 riots, an aide texted: “Do you want to tweet that peaceful protests are the right of every American, but there is no place for lawlessness and violence?” Melania texted back simply “No.” She was busy getting ready for a photo shoot of a rug she had chosen for the White House. As Melania amply shows, the first lady is exactly where she wants to be: “in the bosom of a corrupt family that is prostituting the People’s House”.

🥶😮‍💨 Perhaps the only genuine insight from this dismal documentary, says Marina Hyde in The Rest Is Entertainment, is that Melania is terrified of being shot. She is openly relieved when the inauguration is moved inside because of the cold. When Secret Service officials are explaining where she and her husband can wave to crowds during the inauguration parade – which was later moved inside too – she immediately asks: “Is it safe?”

We have no real idea how many people live on Earth, says David Oks on Substack. Take Papua New Guinea, which said in 2022 that it was home to 9.4 million people. That figure, as even the government admitted, was a “hazy guess” based on the 2000 census. In Nigeria, official figures are extrapolated from “politically fraught” censuses in which certain regions inflate their populations to gain more parliamentary seats and thus more oil revenue. The Democratic Republic of Congo’s last census was in 1984, Afghanistan’s was in 1979, and South Sudan and Eritrea have never had one at all.

What’s most striking about the Jeffrey Epstein scandal, says Adrian Blomfield in The Daily Telegraph, is that the three people who have paid a significant price for their misdeeds are all British: Ghislaine Maxwell is in prison; Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor lost his title and home; Peter Mandelson lost his job. In America, Donald Trump remains US president, Bill Gates continues to run his philanthropic foundation, Bill Clinton hasn’t endured any “serious social ostracism”. Part of the reason is that “Britain does shame differently”. We relish scandal in this country and there is no greater spectacle than the rich and powerful getting their comeuppance. Elite networks in the US, by contrast, instinctively close ranks and protect their own.

It’s a recently restored fresco in Rome’s Basilica San Lorenzo, says Gabriella Cerami in La Repubblica, which appears to have been altered to bear the face of Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni. The pope was reportedly furious about the likeness, and papal authorities have instructed the 83-year-old restorer, Bruno Valentinetti, to re-restore the work with a new face. Meloni herself was unbothered. She posted a picture of the artwork on social media with the caption: “No, I definitely don’t look like an angel.”