European gas prices are up 25% amid escalating tit-for-tat strikes on Gulf energy infrastructure. Israel attacked Iran’s South Pars gas field yesterday, prompting Tehran to strike the world’s largest liquefied natural gas field in Qatar. Donald Trump claimed he knew “nothing about” the Israeli strikes, but threatened to “massively blow up” South Pars if Iran struck the Gulf state again. Plans to double the time migrants already in the UK must wait to qualify for permanent settlement could be watered down after Angela Rayner labelled the policy “un-British”. Downing Street said yesterday “transitional arrangements” could be introduced to soften the impact on those expected to start qualifying this year. King Charles wished guests “Ramadan Mubarak” at last night’s state banquet for Nigerian president Bola Ahmed Tinubu, which fell during the Islamic holy month. Guests at the dinner, which began after sunset, ate quail egg tartlets, turbot with lobster mousse and iced blackcurrant soufflé, and were served an alcohol-free cocktail containing English rose soda, spice, grenadine, and hibiscus and ginger syrup – as well as the usual champagne and English sparkling wine.

Something changed this week, says Anne Applebaum in The Atlantic. For 14 months, foreign leaders have bent over backwards to stay in the US president’s good books. Strike a favourable deal or go along with whatever madcap idea he is proposing, went the thinking, and you might just escape the worst of his mercurial impulses down the line. No longer. Despite Trump’s threats that Nato faces a “very bad” future if it doesn’t help him clear the Strait of Hormuz, America’s allies have politely but firmly rejected his requests for military assistance. In the words of German defence minister Boris Pistorius: “This is not our war, and we didn’t start it.”

The shift in attitude is, of course, partly because they don’t want to get embroiled in a deeply unpopular and unnecessary Middle East war. And it’s partly because of the offensive way in which Trump has treated them: the Greenland debacle; the economic chaos wrought by his tariff regime; the false and offensive claim that allied troops in Afghanistan “stayed a little back, a little off the front lines”. But it’s also a geopolitical calculation. Allied leaders have realised, belatedly, that all their toadying to Trump has yielded them precisely nothing: no favourable treatment, no exemptions from tariffs, no big shift in his support for Ukraine. They’ve stopped trying to dig out the “hidden logic” behind his actions – Imperialism! Isolationism! The Monroe Doctrine! – and realised that any contribution they make in Iran will “count for nothing”. A few days or weeks from now, Trump will neither remember nor care who pitched in at his hour of need. So why bother?

👅🇺🇦 The “serves him right” narrative must be very satisfying for Trump’s critics, says The Wall Street Journal. But it’ll be Europeans and Asians who’ll be harmed the most if the strait remains closed, because of their reliance on energy imports. And on the biggest issue for Europe – Ukraine – they still depend entirely on US military power. Remember, Trump will be in the White House for another 34 months. His allies “may come to regret their short-term Schadenfreude”.

In a recent interview with the Jewish Chronicle, during which she went behind the tills at Kosher Kingdom and stocked the shelves of Grodz bakery with bagels, Kemi Badenoch claimed that Keir Starmer’s Iran policy was an attempt to “appease a sectarian vote”. Irony aside, says Stephen Bush in the FT, it is worth pointing out that most British Muslims – around eight in 10 – are Sunni, while the Islamic Republic of Iran is Shia. There is no block of “sectarian” votes to be found in opposing war in Iran. If anything, just the reverse, as is obvious to “anyone with the most basic familiarity with Islam in general and British Muslims in particular”.

If you ever find yourself wide awake at 3am, says Anahad O’Connor in The Washington Post, try the 4-7-8 breathing method. First, inhale through your nose for four seconds, then hold your breath for seven, and finally exhale through your mouth for eight, repeating the process as many times as you need. Though deceptively simple, the technique, which is based on an ancient yogic technique called pranayama, relaxes your muscles and slows your heart rate, allowing you to drift off more easily.

When Donald Trump demanded the Chinese help police the Strait of Hormuz, says Roger Boyes in The Times, Beijing echoed the response given by the UK, France and Germany: “No.” In an era of great power rivalry, even asking China seems odd – why would the rising power help the hegemon out of a tight spot? But Trump believed he had leverage: 40% of China’s oil imports come through the Gulf and Beijing is an ally of Tehran’s, so ought to be able to constrain its client. This is a misunderstanding. China does far more business with the US-aligned Gulf states than with Iran, and has a “brutal talent for discarding old friends”. This is not China’s war, it is Trump’s. Why interrupt your enemy while he’s making a mistake?

China is not immune from the coming oil shock, says The Economist, but it’s a hell of a lot better prepared than anyone else. The central “planning agency” has temporarily banned the export of refined products including petrol, diesel and jet fuel. The country’s small, independent “teapot” refiners are busy processing Iranian crude, which is still flowing through the strait at 90% of its pre-war level. If the war drags on, Beijing can dip into its vast strategic oil reserves, which were sensibly topped up when oil prices were low last year. And China’s “petrol-price formula” smoothes out the international market’s ups and downs anyway, insulating citizens. In the long run, the world may decide to outgrow fossil fuels not because they are dirty but because supply comes from such a dangerous region. China’s lead in solar panels, batteries and EVs is unassailable. Beijing will suffer, but less than most.

The Chinese firm Galbot Robotics has released a video of one of its humanoid robots enjoying a spot of tennis, says Atharva Gosavi in Interesting Engineering. The athletic android ran around after fast-moving balls played by a human partner, consistently hitting the ball over the net and sustaining lengthy rallies. In simulation tests, the humanoid even managed an impressive 96% success rate in forehand shots. No word on whether it has learned to smash its racket against the ground or swear at the umpire. Watch the full clip here.

For all the talk of the Iran war shifting attention away from Kyiv, says Ben Judah in The Independent, America’s fragility in the Middle East conflict is proving to be “Ukraine’s moment”. Not only are Ukrainian drone experts on the ground assisting Qatar, the UAE and Saudi Arabia, but Ukrainian teams and drone interceptors have rushed to help defend US bases in the region. Meanwhile, in eastern Ukraine, Kyiv has quietly liberated some 400 sq km of territory from Moscow using kamikaze drones to puncture Russian lines. Donald Trump once said Volodymyr Zelensky didn’t hold any cards. Not anymore.

It’s a holztrompete, says Ronald Blum in AP News, an extremely niche wooden instrument which has been painstakingly crafted to match “ambiguous specifications” written by Richard Wagner for his opera Tristan und Isolde. The 4ft-long instrument, which the German composer wrote should be “made of wood, almost trumpet-like, slightly curved downwards so that the bell is open to the side”, now forms part of the orchestra in a new production at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. Billy Hunter (pictured), who plays the idiosyncratic instrument from stage left, compares the sound to that of a bugle: “Joyous.”