Vladimir Putin has warned that the conflict in Ukraine is becoming global, following the decision by the US and Britain to allow Kyiv to use Western-made long-range missiles on targets in Russia. In an unscheduled TV address, the Russian president said yesterday’s launch of a hypersonic ballistic missile at the Ukrainian city of Dnipro was in retaliation for the escalation. Donald Trump has nominated Pam Bondi as his attorney general, after scandal-plagued Matt Gaetz withdrew from consideration. A two-term Florida attorney general, Bondi represented the president-elect during his first impeachment trial. The Trafalgar Square Christmas tree – a 56-year-old, 20-metre Norwegian spruce – has been felled in Norway before starting its journey to London. The Nordic nation has sent a tree every year since 1947 in thanks for Britain’s support during World War Two.

Is Netanyahu really guilty of war crimes?

At last, Benjamin Netanyahu is being held accountable for one of the “gravest” atrocities of our age, says Owen Jones in The Guardian. If the International Criminal Court hadn’t issued yesterday’s arrest warrant for the Israeli prime minister (and former defence secretary Yoav Gallant) for alleged war crimes, then the global legal order would not have survived. Why? Because of the scale of destruction in Gaza; the overwhelming evidence; and the fact that few crimes in modern history have been so openly confessed to – “boasted about, even”. It’s not just Netanyahu and Gallant who should “tremble before justice”, but all the “guilty men and women” of Western governments who have aided and abetted them.

The ICC is a clown show, says The Wall Street Journal, which has “twisted the law and the facts” to suit its legal assault on Israel. For one thing, it only has jurisdiction over member states – but “Israel isn’t a member, and Gaza isn’t a state”. For another, the chief prosecutor abruptly changed the course of the investigation within days of discovering he was being investigated for potentially career-ending sexual harassment allegations. As for the facts, Hamas began this conflict by sending death squads into Israel and promising to do so “again and again”. And the Israeli military response may have achieved the “lowest ratio of civilian-to-combatant deaths in the history of urban warfare”. All the ICC has done is vindicate Hamas’s strategy of using civilians as political weapons, endangering innocents everywhere.

Dogs in Wales are racist, says Michael Deacon in The Daily Telegraph. That, at least, appears to be the conclusion of the environmental group Climate Cymru BAME, which has advised the Welsh government to set up more dog-free areas in green spaces to help make the outdoors less racist. The prejudiced pooches can console themselves with the fact that everything is accused of being racist these days. Recent (entirely genuine) examples include: Latin names for plants, ballet, cutlery, dieting, gardening, fireworks, astrophysics, opera, punctuality, culling parakeets, tipping, veganism, numeracy, eye-rolling, Remembrance poppies, yoga, libraries, cow’s milk, and Jingle Bells.

During his 1994 Labour leadership campaign, John Prescott, who died this week aged 86, was asked how quickly he could neck a pint. Keen to prove his man-of-the-people credentials, Prescott promptly obliged – in an impressive five seconds. See the full video here.

Today’s politicians can’t win

Kemi Badenoch’s first approval ratings are in, says Hugo Rifkind in The Times, “and it turns out she’s an even worse Conservative leader than the last one”. She’s apparently at minus 5% – the only Tory leader to be rated worse this early was Liz Truss. Presumably Badenoch will do the right thing and resign immediately. Unless, of course, “this is all total balls”. Because how can she be doing so badly three weeks in? “She’s barely had time to leave the house.” Meanwhile, Keir Starmer’s ratings have already plummeted to minus 38%, which was “trembling lip” territory for Rishi Sunak. For context, Tony Blair didn’t dip into negative territory for three years. David Cameron’s honeymoon lasted seven or eight months, and “he didn’t even win the election outright”.

The obvious explanation is that today’s politicians are rubbish. Looking at Truss, or Boris Johnson, it’s hard to dispute this “kakistocracy” theory. But perhaps the job itself is just much harder. Every leader wants to be divvying up the benefits of growth; all recent incumbents “have instead had to allocate the costs of decline”. And they’ve had to do it under relentless scrutiny “that would probably make anyone look shifty”. Would Harold Wilson have paid for his Taylor Swift tickets? What would it have said on Margaret Thatcher’s LinkedIn page? My suspicion is that, as an electorate, our expectations have become unachievable and our patience “Rizla thin”. No PM has won re-election since Cameron in 2015, and perhaps it can no longer be done. In an age of populist promises, to win is to lie and “to serve is to disappoint”.

Last night, 97-year-old Herbert Blomstedt conducted the Philharmonia Orchestra at the Royal Festival Hall – and good on him, says Stuart Jeffries in The Guardian. By the time I’m 97, I don’t expect I’ll be able to lift a baton, “never mind put one of the world’s leading orchestras through its paces”. But conductors have a history of longevity: one 1956 study found that they live on average 38% longer than the rest of us. Boffins say it’s probably because practising music is associated with improved brain elasticity, and because there are myriad social benefits of being part of a musical group.

As anyone who’s been to a supermarket in the past couple of years will have noticed, olive oil is bloody expensive, says Lucy Denyer in The Sunday Times. In 2021, a 500ml bottle of Filippo Berio extra virgin cost £3.75; today, it would set you back £10 – a 166% increase. The main reason is, simply, the weather: crops were damaged by early heatwaves, as well as by droughts, flooding and a rise in pests and diseases.

It’s a visualisation of what a single photon, or particle of light, would look like to the human eye, says IFL Science. British researchers created a computer model to investigate a facet of “duality”, the idea that light can be propagated in both waves and particles. “Almost as a bi-product of the model,” says Benjamin Yuen from the University of Birmingham, “we were able to produce this image of a photon, something that hasn’t been seen before in physics.”