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26 October, 2023

Israel sent tanks into Gaza last night as part of a targeted raid which the military says was in preparation for “the next stages of combat”. Benjamin Netanyahu has confirmed plans for a full-scale ground offensive, vowing to “rain hellfire” on Hamas. Police are hunting for an “armed and dangerous” suspect after a mass shooting in Maine. At least 16 people were killed when a gunman opened fire at a bowling alley and restaurant in the city of Lewiston. Spain’s Duke of Huéscar has been told that his baby daughter’s name is too long to be legally registered. She currently goes by Sofía Fernanda Dolores Cayetana Teresa Ángela de la Cruz Micaela del Santísimo Sacramento del Perpetuo Socorro de la Santísima Trinidad y de Todos Los Santos.

Gazans fleeing south. Ali Jadallah/Anadolu/Getty

The inconvenient truth about war and refugees

The British government and many right-wing commentators are firmly behind Israel’s plans for Gaza, says Aaron Bastani in Novara Media: namely, that more than a million people in the territory’s north should move south, in advance of a planned Israeli invasion. There’s even an implication that Gazans should leave the strip entirely and take refuge in neighbouring Egypt. The Egyptians aren’t playing ball: they have an inflation crisis to deal with, and are rightly worried that any Palestinian refugee camps would – as in Lebanon, Jordan and Syria – become permanent. As one senior Cairo official reportedly told a European counterpart: “You care about human rights so much – you take them.”

It raises the question: why do so many of those who want to stop asylum seekers from reaching Britain support moves that could potentially displace “millions of people in Europe’s near abroad”? The truth is that these people almost always fail to connect foreign policy choices with migration. In recent years, the most popular route for refugees travelling to Europe has been via Libya – a country whose leader, Muammar Gaddafi, the West helped topple in 2011. Likewise, Iraqis claim asylum not because of Britain’s benefits system, but because Western intervention left their homeland a near-failed state. Iranians claim asylum not because of Britain’s “superior climate”, but because of decades of onerous sanctions. Palestinians don’t want to flee to Europe or Egypt. “They want a sovereign and safe homeland.” It’s time we acknowledged that war and refugees go together.

Earlier this year, says Vogue, TikTokers became obsessed with “latté make-up”: gold bronzer, cinnamon eyeshadow, and so on. Now the craze appears to have permeated the fashion world, with coffee-inspired hues “popping up on the runway at Ferragamo, Hermès, Loewe and Tom Ford”. Celebrities spotted wearing the look include Hailey Bieber, combining a coffee-coloured miniskirt with an oversized jacket; Timothée Chalamet in tailoring with “deep and sophisticated browns”; and Meghan Markle wearing appropriately “liquid fabrics”, such as satin.

Tinder is taking “meet the parents” to a whole new level, says The Guardian. With the dating app’s “Matchmaker” feature, users can give a select group of friends and family 24 hours to assess their matches. This trusted circle can make suggestions about your potential dates – but “fortunately, cannot start messaging on your behalf”.

Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call/Getty

After three weeks of Republican infighting, says Axios, the US House of Representatives finally has a new Speaker. Mike Johnson – now second in line to the presidency, after the vice president – is a dedicated Trumpist: he led efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, and was a “staunch defender” of Donald Trump during his impeachment over the January 6 insurrection. But the 51-year-old isn’t well known in the corridors of power: he has been a congressman for just shy of seven years, making him “the least experienced representative to obtain the gavel in 140 years”.

There’s trouble ahead for investors. Spencer Platt/Getty

The West is living way beyond its means

Largely unnoticed outside the financial pages, says Iain Martin in The Times, there has been a “giant sell-off” in government bonds, sending yields – the interest rates states must pay lenders – to levels not seen since the financial crisis. What worries investors is not so much the growing risk of war in the Middle East, but “excessively high government spending”. America’s total debt stands at an eye-watering $33.6trn, more than triple the $9trn it owed in 2007. In Britain, the costs of an ageing population and the pandemic have sent debt from £700bn in 2007 to £2.5trn today. The moves in the bond market show that investors have decided the “pandemic party of ever-increasing spending” is now over.

But if investors aren’t concerned about the risk of war, they should be – especially because the US and much of the West is “maxed out on spending and debt”. At the end of World War Two the US debt-to-GDP ratio (what the government owes compared to what its economy produces) stood at 114%. Today it is approaching 130%, and the fight has barely begun. Yet our leaders appear blind to the “scale of the sacrifice and economic reorganisation” that will be needed in Western democracies if what’s happening in Israel and Gaza turns into a regional war, or “something even worse”. Much more of Western nations’ spending will have to go on national security, and the latest economic data “tells a troubling story” about our ability to afford this. “We appear to be living in the last days of a collective delusion.”

“Jump scares” – ghosts, ghouls and other nasties suddenly appearing on screen – used to be standard horror movie fare, says The Washington Post. But an analysis of more than 1,000 films has found that the number of these startling moments has fallen precipitously since 2014, from about one every 10 minutes to one every 15. Some directors still use the cinematic device, however: Host, a 2020 horror, features a jump scare every two and a half minutes. 😱

There’s a new online game in which users try to remember the names of all 416 stations in the London Tube network. Developer Benjamin Tran Dinh tells The Daily Telegraph he had already created versions for Paris and Berlin, but that the reception in London has been much more enthusiastic. One player who got all 416 – supposedly without cheating – says she doesn’t know whether to be “proud or embarrassed”. Have a go yourself here.

It’s an artist’s rendition of the “Adventure” hotel, designed by the Dutch architect Chris van Duijn to nestle among craggy cliffs near Saudi Arabia’s Gulf of Aqaba coast. The luxury resort will be one of three boutique hotels in “Leyja”, the latest “region” announced as part of the Neom desert city. No opening date, or construction timetable, has yet been confirmed.

“The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls.”

Pablo Picasso

That’s it. You’re done.

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