Thousands of anti-racism protesters took to the streets across England yesterday, after police warned that more than 100 far-right rallies had been planned. Many of the anti-immigration demonstrations failed to materialise, and the smattering that did were dwarfed by counter-protests. Three Taylor Swift concerts in Vienna have been cancelled due to a planned terrorist attack. Three people have been arrested on suspicion of plotting “ISIS-inspired” atrocities in the Austrian capital; the roughly 200,000 ticket-holders for the shows tonight, tomorrow and Saturday will be refunded. Wild beavers have been born in Scotland for the first time in more than 400 years. Two kits were spotted in the Cairngorms National Park, belonging to two of the six beaver couples released in the area as part of an effort to re-establish the species.

“What an absolute balm for my country heart”

It’s hard to overstate how dramatically the US presidential race has shifted, says Noah Smith on Substack. Before Joe Biden dropped out, the polling guru Nate Silver put the president’s chances of victory at just 27%; today, he reckons Kamala Harris is the narrow favourite. Obviously this is partly because a big concern for voters – Biden’s age – has evaporated. But there has also been a shift in the party’s tone. Whereas Biden’s messaging was “dark and dire”, focusing on Donald Trump’s threat to democracy, Harris’s has been much lighter, more reminiscent of Barack Obama or Bill Clinton. Rather than calling Trump a would-be dictator, she has dismissed him as “weird”. And her campaign is “overtly patriotic”: her rallies are draped with American flags; her supporters chant “U-S-A! U-S-A!” Everything can change, of course. But the switch to “positive vibes” seems to be paying off.

It’s the same with the elevation of Tim Walz, a man who embodies earnest and humane “prairie populism”, says Sarah Smarsh in The New York Times. I grew up on a farm, and I’ve long struggled to explain the confusing gulf between the true essence of the “rural white working poor” who raised me – “honest, flawed” – and the “red-hatted-fool” caricature we’ve been assigned by the coastal media. The whole middle of the US has effectively been dismissed as “Trump Country”, leaving us to the “loud racism, homophobia and jingoism” of today’s Republican Party. But there are millions of Americans in small towns, and many of them are “hopeful, co-operative folks” ruled by a sense of responsibility to community rather than a fear of those outside it. What a joy, then, to have Walz as Harris’s running mate. “What an absolute balm for my country heart.”

Busy couples are increasingly “running their families like a corporation”, says Sarah Wheeler in Romper. I spoke to one husband and wife who have a sit-down meeting every Monday at noon, with a written agenda that includes a specific mutual feedback session before they get on with business. Others organise their home logistics through project-management tools like Trello and use chat apps like Discord and WhatsApp to talk about anything family-related, with separate chats for the likes of shopping lists, meal plans, children’s medical info and date-night ideas. The idea is to compartmentalise all that logistical stuff, so neither partner has to think about it the rest of the time.

Cuban wrestler Mijain Lopez has become the first athlete to win five consecutive Olympic golds in the same individual event, says The Athletic. The 41-year-old won the men’s heavyweight Greco-Roman wrestling final in Paris 6-0, adding to his victories in Beijing, London, Rio and Tokyo. (He was knocked out in the quarter-finals at Athens 2004.) In what is presumably a massive relief to everyone else in the sport, Lopez announced his retirement after the win on Tuesday by symbolically placing his shoes on the mat.

The Hollywood hunk is back

I have important news from the world of cinema, says Alaina Demopoulos in The Guardian. “The hunk is back.” For too long, leading men have been “soft-muscled alt boys” like Timothée Chalamet. But in 2024, it’s all about “overt charisma and abs like Fort Knox”. There’s the Texas-born Twisters star Glen Powell, a man who seems to have been “built in a lab” to get women swooning: he’s blond and brawny, loves his mum and “owns a puppy named Brisket”. Another unapologetic hunk is British actor Theo James, recently pictured wearing nothing but a pair of white budgie smugglers for a new Dolce & Gabbana ad. Then there’s the forthcoming Gladiator sequel, starring Paul Mescal, Pedro Pascal and Denzel Washington, which “promises scenes of men with calves the size of bone-in hams making guttural moans while attacking each other with swords”. Yes please.

The “horniness” these hunks evoke is incredible. In one viral clip, an Australian journalist tells Elvis star Austin Butler she is feeling “flustered” in his presence. “You have a very piercing gaze,” she gushes. “You have a very piercing gaze too,” he shoots back, never breaking eye contact (watch it here). Truly, “the most dedicated fan fiction writer could not dream this up”. And the phenomenon isn’t limited to the big screen. Taylor Swift ditched her “unhinged” musician boyfriend Matty Healy in favour of American football star Travis Kelce, “a literal tight end”; the model Bella Hadid is dating an actual cowboy. Sure, it may be too early to write off the “anaemic-chic” stars. But “classically handsome men are in again”.

A recent survey of American air travellers found that 66.7% prefer the window seat and 31.7% like the aisle – which means an incredible 1.7% plump for the middle seat. That’s obviously totally insane, says The Hustle, but it does sort of make sense. “Severe psychopathy affects roughly the same proportion of people.”

It’s Jasper, an onager foal recently born at Chester Zoo. Conservationists are “delighted”, says local news site Deeside, because the wild Asiatic ass, native to the semi-arid regions of Iran, is one of the rarest animals in the world. Similar asses were once abundant across the deserts of Mongolia, China and Persia, but thanks to illegal poaching and competition from domesticated livestock, they now only survive in two tiny, protected pockets of Iran. The director of Chester Zoo – the only site in the UK willing to take on the challenge of breeding the rare equids – says the “leggy youngster” is “doing very well”. Keep it up Jasper.