SNP leader Humza Yousaf has abruptly ended the party’s power-sharing deal with the Scottish Greens. The decision, which follows the government’s move to abandon key climate change targets, means the SNP will govern as a minority. In Westminster, Labour has pledged to renationalise most rail services within five years if it wins the election. The party says it would shut private companies out of running passenger trains by taking responsibility for each operator’s services as their contracts expire. The four nominees for this year’s Turner Prize have been unveiled. They include Scottish artist Jasleen Kaur, who uses cars, worship bells and Irn-Bru to reflect life growing up in Glasgow’s Sikh community; and Manila-born Pio Abad, whose work examines colonial history and growing up in the Philippines.

Like it or not, we all live in a TikTok world

As American lawmakers lay the ground for TikTok to be banned in the US, it’s worth reflecting on the extraordinary ways in which the app has influenced Western culture, says The New York Times. For one thing, it’s now a major news source, with around a third of American 18 to 29-year-olds turning to the app to find out what’s going on in the world. Even the most successful traditional media outlets have only a few hundred thousand followers at most, but one user called V Spehar, who discusses the news from under a desk, has three million, and has become a regular visitor to the White House. These people have no particular claim to insight on global events, but they are now a major force in shaping how young people think about the world.

On a more prosaic level, TikTok is also the origin of almost every new trend that ends up being written about in mainstream news. Everything from latte makeup and lucky girl syndrome to quiet luxury, stealth wealth and tomato girl summer – they all began on TikTok. And what starts on the app quickly becomes real: US demand for feta jumped 200% after a baked feta pasta recipe took off in 2021; insulated cup maker Stanley chalked up a profit of $750m last year, up from $73m in 2019, after one of its tumblers became a TikTok sensation. Last summer’s “Barbenheimer” craze played out almost entirely on the platform, and resulted in both movies grossing over $1bn. “Even if you’ve never opened the app, you’ve lived in a culture that exists downstream of what happens there.”

👾😵‍💫 While TikTok is owned by a Chinese company, ByteDance, the app isn’t available in China itself, says Vinod Khosla in the FT. Instead, Chinese consumers use Douyin, a sister app full of “educational and patriotic” videos, which each person can use for only 40 minutes a day. “Spinach for Chinese kids, fentanyl – another chief export of China’s – for ours”.

One of the silliest things to emerge from Tim Shipman’s new book about the Brexit negotiations is the array of names for MPs’ WhatsApp groups, says the FT. There’s a “Trains and Buses” group comprising ex-transport ministers, and a cross-party “Mating Porcupines” group. There are groups called “The Birthday Club”, “Room 34”, and “Tally-ho”. Soft Brexit ministers had a “Croissant Club”; Eurosceptics had the “Pizza Club”. When hardcore Brexiters styled themselves the “Spartans”, the Croissant gang decided they needed a name with a bit more heft and rebranded themselves “the Rebel Alliance”.

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The idea that pasta should always be cooked al dente is a total myth, says The New York Times. The misunderstanding probably stems from the fact that the Italians usually cook their pasta twice – first in water, then with the sauce – so slightly undercooking it during the first stage makes sense. But there’s no hard and fast rule. Some people like a little bite; others want the pasta to give way immediately. The tenderness is up to you – “even in Italy”.

Why America is richer than Europe

When “the zeitgeist changes in Brussels”, so do the buzzwords, says Michael Sauga in Der Spiegel. Politicians used to talk about sustainability and climate neutrality; now it’s all about competitiveness and the “technology gap”. Everyone recognises that the old continent has fallen far behind the US on growth, productivity and innovation. Various solutions have been proposed: a more integrated internal market; a finance hub “modelled on Wall Street”; an “investment offensive” worth at least €500bn. But the root cause of the divergence between the two economies is simple. US companies make more profit, in sectors from tech to pharmaceuticals and retail, than their European competitors. And “it is profit that attracts money”.

The European way has typically been to regulate. Brussels is tackling the green energy transition with “sustainability requirements” and “efficiency guidelines”. In America, by contrast, Joe Biden offers big tax breaks to those who invest in sustainable technology. His country’s version of the market economy has always preferred to create something new rather than maintain something old. In the US, young companies grow quickly and old ones are often in danger of going under. “Many of the largest companies there are no more than 30 years old.” Germany’s flagship firms, on the other hand, mostly have their roots in the 19th and 20th centuries. There are legitimate anxieties around embracing US-style “unbridled capitalism”; it can lead to greater inequality and produce overmighty billionaires. But unless the EU loosens its legal straitjacket on business, it’ll soon become an “industrial museum”.

When Harry Truman was in the White House, his daughter Margaret had a successful singing career, says Air Mail. He took a dim view of her detractors. In 1950, The Washington Post’s music critic wrote a withering review of one of Margaret’s concerts, saying she couldn’t sing “with anything approaching professional finish”. The following day, the president handwrote the critic a letter. “I’ve just read your lousy review of Margaret’s concert,” it read. “Some day I hope to meet you. When that happens you will need a new nose.”

It’s a painting which may be the earliest record of blue denim being used to make clothes, says The Guardian. The picture, by an anonymous artist known only as the “Master of the Blue Jeans”, is from 17th-century northern Italy, and depicts a woman sewing what looks like a denim skirt. Currently on exhibition at Galerie Canesso in Paris, the work appears to upend “modern jeans mythology” – that it was Levi Strauss who first came up with the idea of using the fabric for workwear, 150 years ago in San Francisco.