Andy Burnham has pledged to put “everything he’s got” behind reforming social care. Plans under consideration include a scheme that would require workers over 34 to make mandatory contributions to a fund, which would then pay for their care in later life. In a bid to show he’s serious about seeking cross-party consensus on the issue, the PM has invited Kemi Badenoch and Ed Davey to talks on the proposals today. The US military says it intercepted several ballistic missiles launched in a “surprise” Iranian attack on its forces in the Gulf this morning. In retaliation, the US conducted joint strikes with Saudi Arabia for the first time since the war began – as far we know – killing 20 members of a Tehran-backed militia in Iraq. A new weight-loss pill is proving more popular with men than the injections, according to pharmacies. The daily Wegovy tablet, which was released in the UK three weeks ago, is apparently enticing greater numbers of over-40s men because it is discreet and easier to take.

America’s new nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia is, geopolitically speaking, “nuts”, says Edward Luce in the FT. The agreement allows the Gulf state to build a civil nuclear industry, free of international safeguards and with the right to enrich its own uranium. It will inevitably encourage other countries to follow suit, provide the final nail in the coffin of the UN inspection regime and increase Tehran’s temptation to make a dash for the bomb. But the deal makes perfect sense for Trump himself, as it will ensure the Saudis keep steering business to him and his family. In other words, this isn’t about statecraft. It’s about the president earning yet more “big bucks”.

Perhaps madder than the deal itself was Trump’s attempt to amend the agreement the day after signing it, saying on Truth Social that it meant the Saudis had to normalise diplomatic relations with Israel. Riyadh’s response was cutting: “Tweets don’t overturn signed agreements.” Set aside the indignity of an American president being lectured on contract law by a dynastic autocracy. This was a vivid demonstration of Trump’s waning grip on power, and of the fact that being powerful is about more than just “constantly declaring how powerful you are”. Just look at the markets. Early in Operation Epic Fury, his threats and offers of talks with Tehran sent stock and oil prices lurching. But after months of this, and no real change in the situation, the markets now largely ignore him. Wall Street has gone from “TACO” (Trump Always Chickens Out) to a “shoulder shrug”. Having realised the limits of American firepower, the commander-in-chief is trying to “tweet the world into his own reality”. And it’s not working.

If Donald Trump goes ahead with his plan to inhibit the use of Chinese open-source AI models in the US to protect the pricing power of America’s AI giants, says Andrew Orlowski in The Telegraph, he’ll be handing Beijing a massive victory. The cost of AI in America would remain “artificially high”, pushing many businesses and consumers elsewhere towards cheap Chinese equivalents that would only improve further as more and more people use them. By banning the competition, America risks losing its lead. China probably “can’t believe its luck”.

Emily Wilson has sold more than a million copies of her contemporary translation of Homer’s The Odyssey, in large part thanks to the hype surrounding Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster film. But the University of Pennsylvania classicist, whose work Nolan cited as an influence on his adaptation, hasn’t let this fact sway her judgment. Reviewing the movie in the London Review of Books, Wilson says she would have been “ashamed” to have written the “abysmal” script, comparing the film to “an elaborate Fourth of July fireworks display – and with about the same level of narrative and emotional depth”. Plus, “all the food looks horrible”.

You can understand why Reform UK are so furious with Zack Polanski, says Tom Slater in The Spectator. Over the weekend, the Green leader “accidentally” shared an Instagram image of an activist in a t-shirt with a guillotine on it and the words “We’re only making plans for Nigel”. Imagine if the roles were reversed: if Farage had shared a post joking about Polanski hanging from a lamppost, only a few weeks after a Green grandee had been brutally murdered in her home. The response wouldn’t just be muted “outrage”. The Reform leader would almost certainly be arrested; hell, there might even be talk of making his party a proscribed organisation.

But none of that means Farage was right to call for Polanski’s arrest. Not only does it open up Reform to charges of hypocrisy over its vocal support for Lucy Connolly, the Northampton childminder given a 31-month prison sentence for tweeting in the wake of the Southport murders that immigrant hotels should be burned down. It also risks deepening the culture of “speech policing” that many conservatives have long been fighting. Polanski wasn’t inciting violence in any meaningful sense. And while our free speech laws are clearly unevenly applied – just speak to anyone who has had their collar felt for “accurately gendering men” – that’s all the more reason for those on the right to argue against it from “a position of unflinching principle”. Yes, sections of the left have an “alarmingly high tolerance” for disgusting views. But that’s one of the benefits of free speech – it allows us to see who people really are. “Let them hang themselves by their own hatred.” And keep the police out of it.

The website Drive From Home allows you to see what it’s like to drive around different cities across the world, with videos taken from inside a car accompanied by whatever’s playing on the local radio. You can choose where you go – from Motherwell in Scotland to Mogadishu in Somalia to Moroni in the Comoros Islands – or click a button to hop to a random city. There’s also a game where you are dropped into the driver’s seat and have to guess your location. Have a look for yourself by clicking here.

For many of America’s richest parents, says Jordi Lippe-McGraw in The Wall Street Journal, “one nanny isn’t cutting it any more”. Instead, so-called “CEO parents” are hiring whole teams of staff to raise their children, including potty-training specialists, bike-riding teachers, school admin managers and clothing stylists. Christine Landis, a former fintech CEO in San Diego who spends $250,000 a year on household staff, lets her team deal with bath time, clipping toenails and what she calls “repetitive play” – reading the same book five times, for example. She says she felt a pang of uncertainty the first time one of her children told a nanny: “I love you.” But “it passed”.

It’s a Groundfridge, says Martin Wright in Positive News, a subterranean chamber designed to keep fruit, veg and other foods cool by utilising the naturally chilly and unfluctuating temperatures of the underground. The £14,000 pod, which can hold the equivalent of a dozen conventional refrigerators and has virtually no running costs, is a modern take on a “very old idea”: before artificial refrigeration, people kept food and drink cool in cellars or thick-walled larders. The first British example of the Dutch-designed unit can be found at London’s OmVed Gardens in Highgate Hill.