All of Britain’s hereditary peers are to be removed from the House of Lords within as little as 18 months. New government legislation introduced today will axe the remaining 92 seats in the upper chamber reserved for the hereditaries, in one of the biggest constitutional changes for a quarter of a century. Emmanuel Macron has named Michel Barnier, the EU’s former chief Brexit negotiator and a veteran of the conservative Les Républicains party, as the new French prime minister. The decision is an attempt to break the deadlock after snap parliamentary elections in July left no party in overall control. New Zealand’s national bird is actually Australian. Palaeontologists have discovered that the kiwi probably evolved in its antipodean neighbour a few million years ago, and are encouraging New Zealanders to switch their allegiances to the kakapo, an endangered species of parrot, rather than “an Australian immigrant”.

I dislike Netanyahu, but he’s right to refuse a hostage deal

Since the days of Abraham, who according to Genesis rescued his nephew Lot after he’d been seized by an invading army, “Jewish tradition has placed supreme value on the redemption of captives”, says Bret Stephens in The New York Times. It is the fulfilment of a “primary, implicit commandment”. It is also, “to mix references from antiquity”, a Jewish Achilles’ heel. In 2006, Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit was kidnapped by Hamas and held in Gaza. He was released five years later, in a deal agreed by Benjamin Netanyahu under enormous public pressure. The price? The release of more than 1,000 Palestinians, many of them terrorists, including Yahya Sinwar, the mastermind of October 7.

This week, following the murders of six hostages by Hamas, there were huge demonstrations in Tel Aviv once again calling for Netanyahu to strike a deal with the terror group. In the face of overwhelming condemnation at home and abroad, he has refused. And here’s the thing: “Netanyahu is right, and it’s important for his usual critics, including me, to acknowledge it.” Some 60 Israeli hostages are thought to be alive in Gaza. Any decent human being must feel “acutely sympathetic” to their plight. “But sympathy cannot be a replacement for judgment.” The price of one hostage’s life or freedom cannot be the life or freedom of another, even if we know the name of the first but not yet the second. There are bright people who argue that the only thing that matters is securing a deal to free the hostages and end the horror of the war in Gaza. Israelis should remember that “wars will be worse, and come more often, to those who fail to win them”.

Every morning in Istanbul, says Thrillist, a group of men meet on the banks of the Bosphorus at dawn and swim to the other side. This loose collection of teachers, baklava chefs and retirees – known as the Sarayburnu Conquerors – have been swimming the strait that divides Eurasia almost every day for the past two decades. Their number swells to as many as 60 during the summer months, and plummets to four or five hardy souls in winter. Some do the half-mile journey for the thrill, but for others swimming from Asia to Europe is just their morning commute.

Spanish supermarkets are selling out of pineapples because of a social media craze in which shoppers use the fruit to find love, says Sky News. Videos on TikTok encourage singles to visit branches of the Mercadona chain between 7pm and 8pm and “put a pineapple upside down in their trolley”. They’re then instructed to go to the wine aisle to find others with the fruit in the same position, and, if they like them, to “bump their trolley against theirs” to get chatting. Police were called to a branch in Bilbao after one store was overwhelmed by a “flash mob of hopeful singles”.

Labour’s winter fuel cut is “mean and stupid”

You know a politician is rattled, says Larry Elliott in The Guardian, when they start coming up with “ludicrous explanations for ill thought-through decisions”. It doesn’t get much more ludicrous than Commons leader Lucy Powell’s claim that the government was forced into emergency budget cuts to avoid a run on the pound. A backlash from the City, she said, was the reason millions of pensioners would no longer receive their tax-free £200 or £300 winter fuel allowance. This is total balls. Chancellor Rachel Reeves was under “zero pressure” from the City, nor had there been “the slightest murmur” from currency traders. “Nor was there ever likely to be.”

Instead, the pressure is now coming from those who hate the decision to means-test the allowance, in the form of pensioner lobby groups and MPs who are getting stick from their constituents. The problem is “entirely of Labour’s making”. The payment was introduced by Gordon Brown on the grounds that he was, in his words, “simply not prepared to allow another winter to go by when pensioners are fearful of turning up their heating”. Yet this is precisely what’s going to happen in the coming months. “It may cost lives”, and it will certainly pile pressure on to an already creaking NHS. Reeves says Labour’s plan is to grow the economy so she can be more generous later, but it’s unclear how cuts to winter fuel payments achieve this. Perhaps she thinks it won’t hurt Labour because most over-70s will vote Tory regardless. That’s probably true, but plenty of Labour voters still think the cut is mean and stupid. “They are right on both counts.”

In work-obsessed Japan, just asking for a day off can be tricky enough. Even trickier, says CNN, is tendering a resignation, which can be seen as the “ultimate form of disrespect” in a culture where people typically stick with one employer for decades, if not for life. Furious bosses have been known to rip up resignation letters and bully employees to try to force them to stay. So, for the price of a fancy dinner, specialist “resignation experts” will come in and quit your job for you. Business is booming. The operations manager at one such firm, Momuri, says in the past year alone they have received 11,000 enquiries. Momuri is Japanese for: “I can’t do this any more”.

It’s a Honey Deuce cocktail, which looks set to be the real winner of the US Open, says Quartz. The mix, which combines Grey Goose vodka, fresh lemonade, raspberry liqueur and a garnish of “tennis ball-inspired” honeydew melon, has been a runaway favourite among spectators at this year’s championships. At $23 a pop, it’s expected to generate $10m in sales before the tournament ends this Sunday – nearly $3m more than the prize money for both singles winners combined.