| Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer had their final head-to-head debate last night. It's almost certainly too late to have changed any minds, says Kitty Donaldson in the I newspaper, but this was the moment the PM "finally found his mojo". Blasting his opponent's voting record on welfare spending and migration, Sunak was like "General Custer after six bags of Haribo". Bolivia's president has seen off a bizarrely short-lived attempt at a military coup. General Juan José Zúñiga stormed the presidential palace in La Paz with hundreds of troops, before withdrawing a few hours later. He claims President Luis Arce ordered the aborted ouster himself to boost his popularity. The original cover art for the first Harry Potter book has sold for £1.5m at auction, making it the most expensive piece of memorabilia related to the series. The watercolour, painted when artist Thomas Taylor was only 23, had been expected to go for between $400,000 and $600,000. |  | Sotheby's |
| | |  | Mousehole, Cornwall. Education Images/Getty |
| Tourists are wrecking our beauty spots | The Mediterranean is often said to be "revolting" at this time of year, says Paul Clements in The Independent. "It certainly will be for some." In recent weeks the likes of Menorca, Ibiza and Formentera have all been hit by angry protests against over-tourism; in Mallorca, locals "jeered" sunbathing visitors off an isolated beach popular with Instagram influencers. But Barcelona has trumped them all by announcing it will ban Airbnb in the city by 2028, in response to rental prices rising by 70% in the past decade. Since its launch in 2010, the popular booking platform has "dramatically reshaped" the holiday rental market, depleting housing stock and pricing locals out. It has also "warped neighbourhoods", with family-run businesses replaced by "tourist cafes, bike rentals and souvenir shops". | There are plenty of places in Britain that should follow Barcelona's lead. Yes, Airbnb and its competitors have boosted local economies. But the revolving door of tourists is shattering the peace in many of the country's most picturesque neighbourhoods, with everything from hot tub parties in rural "party pads" to the chorus of wheelie suitcases trundling down cobbled streets in the small hours. Some of our prettiest seaside spots, such as Robin Hood's Bay in North Yorkshire and Mousehole in Cornwall, have become "ghost towns" out of season because locals have been priced out. In London, holiday platforms do nothing while users illegally rent out council houses to tourists (one tenant reportedly made £4,000 a week subletting his flat). Forcing visitors back into hotels may be the only way for Britain to "take back control". | | | | The winner of this year's Royal Entomological Society Insect Week photography competition was a picture of two cuckoo bees resting on a blade of grass. Runners up include images of a brightly coloured Picasso bug crawling down a plant; a European mantis peaking out from behind some pink petals; a pair of Orange-tip butterflies cavorting on a tuft of lichen; and a close-up of a damselfly's face. See the rest here. |
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| | | Joe Biden and Donald Trump have prepared for tonight's first TV debate in very different ways, says Politico. Biden has stuck to the "standard debate prep script", spending the week hunkered down with his team at Camp David practising his lines. Trump, by contrast, has "hit the campaign trail". At a rally in Philadelphia last week, the former president said "Crooked Joe" was in fact sleeping at Camp David, not preparing, "because they want to get him good and strong". He also claimed, only half-jokingly, that Biden would get "jacked up" for the head-to-head with cocaine. | | | | | | Advertisement | | Vintage Cash Cow is the UK's easiest way to sell gold, silver, watches, cameras, jewellery, and more. More than 100,000 customers say it's free, fast and fully insured! What's the catch? There isn't one, it's no obligation and they are rated "Excellent" on TrustPilot. Simply pop your items into a box, drop it in at your local Post Office or have it collected, then receive a fair offer from their experts. Have a look at the items they buy and get your free postage pack by clicking here. |
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| | | | "Chains, if you haven't noticed, are everywhere," says Luke Winkie in Slate. Stars including Ryan Gosling, Barry Keoghan and Paul Theroux have all helped make the linked-metal necklace the go-to accessory for men. Some trace the craze to actor Paul Mescal and the "iconic" thin silver chain he wore in the 2020 adaptation of Sally Rooney's Normal People. (The chain was so scintillating it earned its own fan account on Instagram.) But also, they're so easy to get right. The internet went crazy when Mark Zuckerberg wore one and it made him look "sort of hot". And that's only "one step away from Bill Gates" giving it a go. Truly, we have entered the "chain guy era". | | | | | | Enjoying The Knowledge? Click below to share | | |
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| | |  | The WikLeaks founder greeting his wife Stella in Australia |
| Reckless Assange is no hero | Julian Assange is seen by his (very vocal) media supporters as a heroic whistleblower and the victim of a gross miscarriage of justice, says The Times. "The truth is less elevated." Yes, the hundreds of thousands of classified documents and recordings he "purloined" and published online contained some genuinely newsworthy items, such as the footage of Iraqi journalists being gunned down by an American helicopter. But by failing to redact the material, the WikiLeaks founder "recklessly" endangered the lives of hundreds of dissidents and western allies in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. "Many now lie dead." His team also stole and released documents from the Democratic Party in 2016, aiding the Kremlin's efforts to interfere in that year's election. Assange is not a whistleblower, or even a journalist. He's a "common thief". | What makes the adulation poured on him even harder to take is that "he is the author of his misfortunes". Rather than stand trial on accusations of serious sexual assault by two Swedish women, he chose to abscond from bail and hole up in the Ecuadorian embassy for seven years. He has never faced charges for those allegations; his accusers, by contrast, have been subject to "a barrage of misogynistic insinuations and abuse from his supporters". As Assange begins a life of freedom in his native Australia, he should perhaps consider the relative "compassion" with which he has been treated by the British and American authorities. "The autocratic regimes and causes whose interests he has advanced treat genuine journalists altogether differently." | | |  | TikTok/@nigel_farage |
| 🗳️ 7 days to go…
Nigel Farage is outperforming "all other parties and candidates on TikTok", says The Guardian, "eclipsing politicians considered most popular among young people". Since the election was called, videos posted to the Reform leader's personal account have had more engagement and views on average than any other candidate. His efforts to woo young voters – appearing on podcasts popular with young men and posting videos showing him mouthing along to Eminem songs – appears to be working. A YouGov poll last week put Reform on 11% among 18 to 24-year-olds, and his posts have garnered more interaction per video than those of Jeremy Corbyn, Labour's Zarah Sultana and the Greens' Carla Denyer "put together". |
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| | | When cold storage was first invented, says The New Yorker, fridge magnates tried to quell public suspicion by hosting a banquet featuring only refrigerated foods. The menu for the meal, held at a luxury hotel in Chicago on 23 October 1911, proudly listed each item's origins. "Your capon received its summons to the great unknown along about last St Valentine's Day," read one entry. "The egg in your salad – go right on and eat it – well, some happy hen arose from her nest and clucked over that egg when winter was just merging into spring." It went down a storm. As one of the 400 attendees said: "This hotel has never served a better luncheon." | | | | | | | | It's a robot's face made out of living human skin, says BBC News. Bioengineering boffins at Tokyo University developed the machine mug in a lab using real human cells. When attached to a robot, it allows for more realistic facial expressions and can even repair itself when cut – just like the real thing. "Is this the future," asks one person on X, "or is civilisation entering its horror era..." Another wrote simply: "please no". | | | | | "Queue here to complain the festival isn't as good as it used to be."
A sign at the Glastonbury site office, which has been there for 20 years |
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