The state pension is set to rise by about £460 a year from April, after official figures showed that average earnings have risen by 4% in the past three months. Under the “triple lock”, the provision rises each year in line with whichever is highest: inflation, wage growth or 2.5%. Germany is introducing frontier checks at all land borders to keep out illegal migrants. The government has told the EU, which allows border controls within the passport-free Schengen zone only in the event of a crisis, that the six-month measure is a response to the “persistently high” burden of illegal immigration on Germany and “current threats of Islamist terrorism”. The Princess of Wales has completed her course of chemotherapy. In an unusually personal and emotional video of her family in Norfolk, the 42-year-old says that while the “cancer journey is complex, scary and unpredictable”, it has given her “a renewed sense of hope and appreciation of life”.

How Denmark defanged immigration

As the rise of anti-immigration parties destabilises the governments of the largest countries in Europe, says Aris Roussinos in UnHerd, Keir Starmer’s Britain may appear to be an oasis of relative calm. That’s an illusion. Starmer is fundamentally a 2010s figure – a Merkel, Ardern or Trudeau – marooned in the more polarised 2020s by Britain’s “distorting Brexit interlude” and a weird election result that was more about the Tories losing than Labour winning. His premiership will probably just be a brief interregnum before Britain re-enters the world of European politics, where “mass immigration is the central crisis around which political systems revolve”.

To avoid falling into the same trap as France and Germany, where weak and unpopular governments look unlikely to survive their own attempts to suppress the far right, Britain should look to Denmark. Here, leaders across the political spectrum have rejected the wider consensus among the Western left that mass immigration is a “moral good in itself”. Asylum is now a strictly temporary measure, not a path to permanent settlement – those who require a place of refuge are granted one for as long as their home country is unsafe, and no longer. This has drastically cut the numbers of those who see asylum as a “legal hack to improve their economic prospects”. And the policies are so “overwhelmingly popular” that they have effectively depoliticised migration as an issue, freeing the Danish centre-left to get on with the business of normal governance. It’s “a luxury Starmer will soon envy”.

Whatever loudmouthed depressives on social media try to tell you, don’t forget that “the world has never been as prosperous, educated and progressive”, says Sergei Guriev in the FT. Fifty years ago, more than 40% of mankind lived in extreme poverty; today, it is down to just 10%. Innovative boffins have reduced the cost of producing clean energy to the point where 96% of newly installed, utility-scale solar and onshore wind power plants are more economical than new gas or coal. Renewables now account for 33% of the global power mix, up from 22% 10 years ago. “Next year, renewables will overtake coal as the largest source of electric power generation in the world.”

After World War Two, says Paul Hockenos in The Atlantic, all the belligerents had to get rid of their leftover armaments. In occupied Germany, British forces achieved this largely by dumping theirs at sea. British sailors cast “crate after crate” of munitions into the ocean by hand; “whole ships and submarines packed with live munitions were scuttled”. Overall, experts reckon some 1.6 million tonnes of conventional weapons and another 5,000 tonnes of chemical weapons were ditched. As one clean-up expert says: “Nowhere in German waters is there a square kilometre of seabed without munitions.”

Ignore the wonks – the US election is a toss-up

People are losing their minds over the US election, say Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen in Axios. Over the weekend, a new national poll showing that the race between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump is still neck-and-neck prompted uproar: Democrats “melted down”; Republicans wildly celebrated. Adding to the frenzy was polling guru Nate Silver, who announced that he now has the race – and try to contain your excitement here – leaning slightly towards Trump. These narratives will no doubt change all over again after tonight’s much-anticipated Harris-Trump debate – until the release of the next “hot poll”, of course.

What no one likes to admit is that the result in November will be a complete toss-up, as it has been for “nearly every election since 2000”. The popular vote is largely irrelevant: the Democrats have won the most votes in seven of the past eight elections, but taken the White House in only five. Most votes don’t matter at all – in the past four elections, 40 states have voted for the same party each time. Democrats and Republicans are both targeting the same seven swing states, and the electoral maths effectively boils down to one sentence: “Harris needs Pennsylvania and Trump needs Georgia.” It’s the same story in the House of Representatives, where 400 of the 435 races are basically “over before they begin”. So read all you like about the polling and the campaigning and whatever interesting nugget your friend sent you on WhatsApp. Just remember that anyone professing even the slightest confidence about who will win is totally “full of it”.

To The Economist:

Armenia’s tricky balancing act of maintaining good relations with Russia and the West reminded me of how Kari Suomalainen, a political cartoonist, described Finland’s diplomatic position during the cold war. He said it was “The art of bowing to the East without mooning the West.”

Ryan Sharples, Tacoma, Washington

It’s a sculpture of a canal boat twisted into a loop-the-loop, which has been unveiled to celebrate Sheffield’s historic waterways and industrial heritage, says BBC News. The 42ft-long public artwork was designed by Alex Chinneck, who is known for “large-scale pieces that warp well-known structures”. The curious craft is made from nine tonnes of “helically rolled” steel and aluminium, which was painted in traditional barge colours and adorned with a Tudor Rose, the hallmark of Sheffield.