Israel has declared a “new phase” in its war with Hezbollah, after a second wave of remote-controlled explosions in Lebanon yesterday left at least 20 people dead and 450 injured. The attack, targeting the terror group’s walkie-talkies, has raised fears of all-out conflict, with Hezbollah official Seyed Hashem Safiuddin warning that “revenge is inevitable”. Keir Starmer’s chief of staff, Sue Gray, is paid £170,000 a year, £3,000 more than the PM himself. “It was suggested that she might want to go for a few thousand pounds less than the prime minister to avoid this very story,” a source told the BBC. “She declined.” A tightrope walker has become the first person to cross into another continent on a slackline. Jaan Roose, a 32-year-old Estonian stuntman, took just 47 minutes to complete the 1,047-metre journey from Asia to Europe, across the Bosphorus Strait in Istanbul.

Israel’s message to Hezbollah: “We own you”

The scenes in Lebanon this week were “like something out of a bizarre James Bond movie”, says David Ignatius in The Washington Post: thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies exploding simultaneously in the pockets of Hezbollah fighters, presumably having been fitted with explosives before they arrived in the country. Israel’s message to the Iranian-backed militia was clear: “We own you. We can penetrate every space in which you operate.” While the IDF has “effectively neutered” Hamas in Gaza since the October 7 attack, Hezbollah has continued to ramp up its rocket strikes against northern Israel. More than 60,000 Israelis have had to leave the region, and the political pressure to get them home has become nearly as intense as the desire to free the hostages taken by Hamas. That effort appears to be under way.

Israeli government sources insist this wasn’t the “opening salvo” in a showdown with Hezbollah, says Paul Wood in The Spectator. But we already know, through leaks over the summer, that their eventual plan is to send the army in across the border and establish a “buffer zone” in southern Lebanon. Yet it’s not entirely clear what that will achieve. Like Hamas, Hezbollah has stashed its military hardware “deep underground”, so destroying it would require a long and bloody campaign. And even with Israeli tanks in its backyard, the terror group could “pull back some of their long-range missiles and still pour fire into northern Israel”. The Americans are “begging” Benjamin Netanyahu not to open a new front in the north, but he ignored similar US advice on invading Rafah and striking a hostage deal. Whatever happens, it won’t be a decision he takes lightly. The Israelis always say “the first war they lose will be the last”.

Sudden death has “long been a feature of American politics”, says Daniel Finkelstein in The Times. After Lyndon Johnson became vice president in 1961, the former congresswoman Clare Boothe Luce asked him why he was giving up his influential role as Senate majority leader for such a powerless position. “Clare, I looked it up,” replied LBJ. “One out of every four presidents has died in office. I’m a gamblin’ man, darlin’, and this is the only chance I got.” Two years later, John F Kennedy was assassinated and LBJ took over.

When Lauren Bacall starred in her first film, the 1944 classic To Have and Have Not, she was absolutely terrified, says The Daily Telegraph. Her first scene is considered “one of the most striking in Hollywood history”: slouching in a doorway, she effortlessly catches a pack of matches Humphrey Bogart tosses her, before “lighting up her cigarette and slinking out of the room”. But during filming, the jittery Bacall missed the box “umpteen times” before finally catching it. To stop herself shaking, she pushed her chin down to stabilise her head then stared sharply upwards – inadvertently forming her famous ‘Look’.

Should we take the Lib Dems seriously?

Of all the things I have to do for work, says Tim Stanley in The Daily Telegraph, “my saddest duty is to report from the Lib Dem conference”. During the speeches in Brighton this week, a “dozen old crocks” shuffled among the audience with buckets collecting change, as if it were a church service. Up on stage the party’s treasurer read out inspiring quotes from new MPs on their hopes and dreams, such as: “It was essential we win mid-Dunbartonshire.” And boy, do these guys love a vote. They voted on Gaza, they voted on prisons, they voted on voting itself. “Whatever they get up to in their hotel rooms, we can be sure they take a vote on it first.” And as ever, the Lib Dems appear totally clueless about what they actually want to be. For those uninterested in politics, they must be the most dislikeable party of all – one that exists “purely to get elected”, without “any discernible philosophy”.

Only the Lib Dems could be gloomy after notching up their best election result since 1923, says Robert Shrimsley in the FT. In truth, things have never been better for the smaller parties. Labour and the Conservatives took just 57% of the vote in July, their lowest share since Labour first emerged more than 100 years ago. And the Lib Dems, along with Labour, demonstrated how successful you can be by focusing on the right constituencies: they won 72 seats with 3.5 million votes, up from 11 seats with 3.7 million votes at the last election. This “electoral efficiency” relies on occupying second place in a constituency – and Reform currently has 98 second places, all but nine of them in Labour seats, while the Greens have 40. Of course, the UK may well revert to its “electoral mean”. But the Labour-Conservative duopoly has “never looked more vulnerable”.

The word “tabloid” was first trademarked by a drugs company in 1884, says The Economist. A portmanteau of “tablet” and “alkaloid”, it initially denoted drugs in tablet form but quickly came to mean “anything compressed or concentrated for easy assimilation”.

AI chatbots can help talk people out of believing in conspiracy theories, says Axios. Researchers from MIT and Cornell found that interactions with bots can reduce a person’s belief in whacky claims by about 20% on average. There’s just one problem, according to Robbie Sutton, a University of Kent professor who specialises in the subject: “The very presence of these chatbots will inevitably become the focus of new conspiracy theories.”

It’s convicted fraudster Anna Delvey, who took to the floor this week in her bejewelled ankle monitor for the new series of the hit US show Dancing with the Stars. Delvey, whose real name is Sorokin, was convicted in 2019 after travelling the world as a fake European heiress, conning banks, lawyers and a private jet company out of more than $200,000. ABC described its new star as an “artist” and “fashion icon”; the New York Post called the decision a “new low for pop culture”.