There is “remarkably weak” evidence that medical interventions like puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones improve the wellbeing of young people questioning their gender identity, according to a major new NHS review. The report, led by the paediatrician Hilary Cass, criticises how the “toxicity” of the trans debate prevents doctors from airing their views, and recommends a “holistic” assessment model that includes mental health screening. Five Bulgarian nationals have been convicted of stealing £53.9m via fake benefits claims, the largest-ever case of its kind in England. The gang ran their operation from “benefit factories” in Wood Green, north London, using forged documents to apply for Universal Credit payments. An art gallery employee in Germany has been fired for hanging up one of his own paintings. The 51-year-old technician mounted his artwork in an empty passageway of Munich’s Pinakothek der Moderne, but it was spotted and removed within hours.

Why Japan is one of Ukraine’s staunchest backers

Joe Biden will meet with the leaders of Japan and the Philippines today, to seal the deal on a historic trilateral alliance, says Josh Rogin in The Washington Post. Ironically, the man who deserves the most credit for this is Xi Jinping. The backdrop to the meeting is a “tense, medium-boil crisis” in the South China Sea. Beijing claims ownership of about 90% of this crucial waterway, and is becoming increasingly aggressive in asserting this claim. Its Coast Guard ships have taken to shooting water cannons “and even ramming” Filipino vessels trying to bring supplies to troops on one disputed reef. Although the president of the Philippines, Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr, came to power with Chinese support, this “bullying” is pushing him and other Indo-Pacific leaders into Washington’s arms.

Another factor is the Ukraine war, says The Wall Street Journal. Japanese PM Fumio Kishida has never viewed the conflict as a “faraway European question”. He and his officials fear that Russia’s invasion could embolden China to do the same with Taiwan, and worry about Moscow’s deepening ties to Beijing and North Korea. Tokyo has supplied Kyiv with non-lethal equipment like bulletproof vests and generators, and last year provided it with some $3.7bn in budget support, making it the country’s third-largest financial donor. Many in the West – not least US Republicans – claim the war in Europe is “a distraction from more serious threats in Asia”. Perhaps Japan can “disabuse them of this notion”.

Those lucky enough to see a total solar eclipse typically experience only a few minutes of complete darkness, says Space.com. But in 1973, a group of scientists spent a whopping 74 minutes in “totality” – by following the eclipse’s path in a Concorde. The very first prototype of the supersonic aircraft, Concorde 001, was specially modified for the flight, with the passenger area gutted and observation windows installed in the roof. British Airways and Air France tried to repeat the trick for tourists in 1999, but this time totality lasted just four or five minutes, and passengers could only see it for about 30 seconds “because of the small windows and the sun’s height”.

Once the preserve of older generations, afternoon tea is finding a new audience, says The Guardian. Research suggests that the British ritual is becoming increasingly popular among younger people, in part because of “how it will look on social media”. Sales of afternoon tea hampers are soaring, and hotels, restaurants and cafes are creating experimental offerings to capitalise on the trend. The Natural History Museum launched its first afternoon tea last month, featuring a “dinosaur-footprint macaron and an ammonite cookie”, while Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum marked its Colour Revolution exhibition with beetroot bread and Battenberg cake made with matcha and strawberry.

Watch out, writers – AI is coming for you

I’m obsessed with AI, says the author Sean Thomas in The Spectator, but a recent experience with the technology left me totally “shaken”. After gaining access to Google’s soon-to-be-released AI tool, Gemini 1.5 Pro, I plugged my latest novel manuscript into it and asked for some feedback. It took just 20 seconds – yes, 20 seconds – to read all 340 pages and serve up an incredibly detailed critique. It noted that the motivation for one character’s death was unclear. It said there were too many red herrings, an “over-reliance on coincidence”, and several underdeveloped characters – all with specific examples. On the plus side, it complimented the characterisation of the protagonist (“complex and well-developed”). With a few changes, the AI concluded, the novel had the potential to be “a truly thought-provoking read”.

When I read all this, I felt a sense of physical shock, “like I’d been slapped, in some amusing, slapstick way”. What was so striking was not just the detail of the comments, but how similar they were to those made by my editor – a real human, renowned for being “one of the best in the business”. And where the suggested edits differed, Gemini’s were “arguably a tad better”. If my experience is anything to go by, AI will be “laying waste to traditional publishing in the next five years”. And then, inevitably, it will do the same for all writers. My advice to fellow wordsmiths? “Get out there and enjoy the sun while you can.”

🤖🪶 If you like books by people, not robots, have a look at our top picks by clicking here.

The gang violence currently crippling Haiti relies on a very particular import, says The Washington Post: American firearms. Nearly 85% of the guns found at Haitian crime scenes and analysed by US officials in 2021 were American in origin; customs officials have intercepted weapons as high-powered as .50-caliber sniper rifles and a “belt-fed machine gun”. Much of the weaponry is hidden among items transported to the country via Miami’s “break-bulk” port, where cargo is loaded individually rather than transported in containers and thus “notoriously difficult to search”.

It’s a northern marsupial mole, says BBC News, a rare denizen of the Australian outback that’s so elusive “authorities don’t even know how many there are”. The palm-sized creatures are blind, with “silky golden locks”, a stumpy tail and flipper-like hands. As they live in sand dunes and rarely come up to the surface, sightings typically occur only a few times a decade – this one was stumbled upon by Aboriginal rangers in the Great Sandy Desert.