The government will not compensate “Waspi” women – who say they weren’t given sufficient warning of changes to the state pension age – in a rejection of the parliamentary ombudsman’s recommendations. Chancellor Rachel Reeves, who previously supported the Waspi campaign, said that because the “vast majority” of women knew the changes were coming, the proposed £10.5bn compensation scheme was not “the best use of taxpayers’ money”. Inflation has hit an eight-month high after rising to 2.6% last month. The increase, driven by higher prices for fuel and clothing, cements expectations that the Bank of England will not cut interest rates when it meets tomorrow. Keely Hodgkinson, who won the 800m gold at the Paris Olympics, has been crowned the BBC Sports Personality of the Year. Darts prodigy Luke “the Nuke” Littler finished second in the public vote, with England cricketer Joe Root third.

Now Kyiv has Russia’s generals in its sights

“Another one down,” says Mark Galeotti in The Spectator. Yesterday morning, Igor Kirillov, the general in charge of Russia’s “Radiological, Chemical and Biological Defence Troops”, was leaving his Moscow flat when he was blown up by a bomb hidden in an electric scooter by a Ukrainian agent. He is the most senior Russian officer to be assassinated away from the war zone, but hardly the first. Earlier this month a car bomb killed the former head of a prison in occupied Ukraine which Kyiv believes has been used for torture and other war crimes. In November, the chief of staff of the Black Sea Fleet’s 41st Missile Ships was killed in Sevastopol by another car bomb. A few weeks earlier, the security chief of Ukraine’s own Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant died in a bomb attack after Kyiv’s spooks denounced him as a “collaborator”.

These kinds of behind-enemy-lines attacks are not strictly new, but the campaign is clearly “ramping up”. The targets have also changed. Previously, Kyiv’s assassins went after pro-war cheerleaders like the blogger Vladlen Tatarsky (blown up by a bomb hidden in a gold bust of his own head in April 2023) and Darya Dugina, daughter of a nationalist philosopher (killed in August 2022, in an attack possibly aimed at her father). But far from silencing these “turbo-patriots”, the killings merely made them martyrs. By going after commanders, Kyiv is now trying to demoralise those on whom the war directly depends. It’s well known that there is widespread dismay at the state of the war among Russia’s officer class. By showing that there is no impunity, “even for generals living back in Moscow”, Kyiv hopes to build the constituency who just want it to stop.

Elon Musk is now in open discussions with Nigel Farage about making a major donation to Reform UK, says The Daily Telegraph. The pair met on Monday at Mar-a-Lago, Donald Trump’s private members’ club in Florida, along with the party’s new treasurer, billionaire property developer and former Tory donor Nick Candy. Farage says “the issue of money was discussed” and that Musk “left us in no doubt that he is right behind us”. The bookies already have the Reform leader narrowly ahead of Kemi Badenoch as the favourite to be the next UK prime minister.

The Adventures of Tintin were remarkably “prescient”, says Michael Farr in The Spectator. The intrepid reporter travelled to the moon in Explorers on the Moon (1953), some 16 years before the Apollo 11 astronauts achieved the feat for real. Then there’s the unidentified flying object that appears at the end of Flight 714 to Sydney (1967) – Hergé, the books’ Belgian creator, said he had perhaps gone “too far” with this extraterrestrial sighting, but the US government now more or less admits that UFOs exist. And in the 1960 book Tintin in Tibet – Hergé’s “personal favourite” – the adventurer comes across a Yeti, the so-called Abominable Snowman. “We are still waiting.”

We should all “be more Fergie”

This weekend, a tabloid newspaper published photos of my ex-husband Michael Gove kissing his new, much younger girlfriend at a fancy restaurant in London, says Sarah Vine in the Daily Mail. Several friends sent messages of sympathy – one woke me up in the middle of the night with a hug emoji. But they needn’t have worried. Far from resenting him, I find myself wishing him every happiness. I want my children to have a happy dad, of course, but I also genuinely mean it. “We may not be together, but we will always be family, however wonky.” The secret to post-marital bliss? The three Cs: “communication, compromise, compassion”. Not my words, but those of Sarah Ferguson, Prince Andrew’s “long-suffering ex”, who clearly feels as indulgent towards her former husband as I do mine.

Fergie recently described the Duke of York as “the best; a great man with a great heart, and kind”. It’s a description “at odds with his public perception”, to say the least. But as someone whose own ex has had “more than his fair share of public trials”, I sympathise. For all Andrew’s flaws, he has raised two daughters who clearly love him very much. And while it would have been easy for Fergie to “jump on the Andrew hate-wagon”, she has always stood by him. A cynic would point out that she benefits from this loyalty, not least with her digs at Royal Lodge in Windsor. But I get the sense she “really means what she says about him” – possibly because Andrew’s mother, Queen Elizabeth, always stood by her. “She never let me down,” says Ferguson. “Even if I let her down.” Perhaps we should all strive to “be more Fergie”.

If villains went skiing, says The New York Times, they’d stay in Cabane Tortin. Perched on a rocky ridge in Valais, Switzerland, the new three-bedroom property looks “more like a gondola station” than a luxury chalet. But inside it’s the epitome of “mind-clearing Scandinavian minimalism”, complete with a sauna, fireplace and cantilevered glass windows overlooking the 4 Vallées ski area. It’s an off-piste junkie’s dream, but there are also dog sleds and caterpillar-tracked buggies for less active visitors. Catered stays start at $68,000 for three nights. Book here.

The world’s oldest bond has just celebrated its 400th birthday, says Robin Wigglesworth in the FT. After a flood in 1624, a local water authority in the Netherlands sold 50 bonds to raise money for repairs. One of these – promising the buyer and her descendants 2.5% interest “in perpetuity” – is still going, with the water authority’s modern equivalent paying out €13.61 a year. The debt’s current owner, the New York Stock Exchange, held a birthday party for it last week, with “pretty little cakes decorated with the original coat of arms of the issuer”.

It’s a totally fake clip made using Veo 2, a new video-generator from London’s world-leading AI company DeepMind. The Google-owned firm – which is also revolutionising medicine by using AI to predict the shape of proteins – says its new tool beats all other AI video generators in head-to-head comparisons. For this video, the text prompt begins: “A cinematic, high-action tracking shot follows an incredibly cute dachshund wearing swimming goggles as it leaps into a crystal-clear pool.” See more of Veo 2’s creations here.