The Bank of England has lowered interest rates for the first time in four years, from 5.25% to 5%. The decision to bring rates down from a 16-year high came after inflation eased in recent months, hitting the 2% target in June. Hundreds of rioters clashed with police in London, Manchester and Hartlepool yesterday evening, in a second night of unrest following the deadly knife attack in Southport. Keir Starmer will meet police chiefs later today to discuss the violence, which was sparked by false reports that the 17-year-old charged with the attack was a migrant. Signs of life have been found growing from the stump of the felled Sycamore Gap tree. Eight shoots have emerged at the site near Hadrian’s Wall, raising hopes that the arboreal icon could live on.

Maduro’s “victory” shows the limits of US power

There was “palpable hope” in Venezuela on Sunday as millions flocked to the polls, says Max Boot in The Washington Post. Although the chief opposition leader was banned from running, supporters had rallied around another candidate, Edmundo González, and it seemed this could finally be it for President Nicolás Maduro’s disastrous rule. Exit polls showed González had won a “resounding victory”. Alas, the government decreed otherwise, brazenly claiming that Maduro had won with 51% of the vote. It’s hard to predict what will happen next – there have been huge protests in Caracas – but one thing’s for sure. America’s policy towards Venezuela has been a “dismal, bipartisan failure”.

The Trump administration tried to dislodge Maduro by imposing “some of the most draconian sanctions in history”. These restrictions, combined with the Venezuelan president’s corruption and mismanagement, helped send the country into an economic free fall “twice as precipitous” as America’s during the Great Depression. Some eight million people, roughly a third of the population, have now fled the nation. In 2019, Trump declared National Assembly leader Juan Guaidó the rightful president, in a bid to foment a popular uprising. That failed, too. Biden has tried a different approach, offering some sanctions relief in exchange for free and fair elections – and we’ve seen how that worked out. Ultimately, Venezuela has joined a long list of rogue nations, from Iran to Syria to Myanmar, that have “withstood decades of US pressure”. It’s a reminder of the limitations of American power. “Some problems simply don’t have an obvious solution – at least not one made in America.”

It’s easy for those of us who follow politics closely to forget just how little the rest of the country care about it, says Helen Lewis in The Atlantic. A month before the 2016 US election, 40% of Americans couldn’t name the vice-presidential candidate from either party. It’s a fact worth remembering the next time you hear complaints about politicians repeating the same lines, such as Keir Starmer telling everyone his father was a toolmaker. These messages aren’t meant for people who always know what’s going on in Westminster; they’re meant for voters who tune in only briefly, “between hobbies and friendships and fulfilling personal lives”.

When the Texas socialite Sandra Ilene West died in 1977, says the San Antonio Express-News, her will contained an unusual stipulation: that she be buried in her favourite Ferrari. In accordance with her wishes, her body was dressed in a lace nightgown and placed in the front seat – “slanted comfortably”, she had specified – of the $20,000 powder blue 1964 Ferrari 330 America. The car was placed inside a concrete box, which was lowered by crane into a 19ft-long grave in a San Antonio cemetery. Rather less endearingly, the whole thing was then covered with a layer of cement to deter thieves.

In praise of pillocks, plonkers and speccy bams

“Stone the crows”, says James Hookway in The Wall Street Journal, British slang has “all gone Pete Tong”. New research shows that nearly 60% of Gen Zs haven’t heard the insult “lummox”, less than half know what a “ninny” is, and only slightly more are familiar with “prat” or “tosspot”. This is a travesty. It wasn’t long ago that nearly everyone in Britain would sling around insults like “blighter” or “toe rag”. Back then, the population had more of a shared pop culture, built around comedies like Only Fools and Horses. Today, with everyone getting their linguistic cues from TikTok, young Britons just copy Americans and call each other “basic” or “Karen”.

All is not lost. The Scottish still like to use their own slang, largely because “it’s Scottish and not English”. Someone prone to embarrassing themselves, for example, is a “roaster”; someone who’s “a danger to themselves and others” is a “weapon”. An impressive 80% of young Scots know the words “bam” and “speccy bam”, meaning, respectively, “a nutcase and a nutcase who wears glasses”. Long may this linguistic adventurousness continue. Traditional terms of abuse like “pillock” and “numpty” are softer than their contemporary equivalents, enabling a “wider range of emphasis and intensity”. They can be used to defuse what might otherwise become a tense situation. Plus, of course, they’re a lot of fun. So don’t be a wazzock, and keep the silly stuff coming. Even if it is “a load of twaddle”.

It’s the end of the line for the phrase “this train terminates here”, says The Daily Telegraph. Rail firms have decided to replace the announcement with “this train ends its journey here”, as part of a years-long drive to make their language easier to understand. “Every now and then we tweak our guidance to colleagues,” says a spokesman for Great Western Railways. “Terminating ‘terminates’ seems like a sensible move to make way for something less jargony and needlessly bureaucratic.”

It’s Emmanuel Macron’s sports minister, Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, planting a rather passionate kiss on the French president’s neck after the Olympics opening ceremony. The picture has “caused quite a stir” in France, says Midi Libre, with one commentator noting that Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, who was standing next to the pair, didn’t know where to look. “Woah!” wrote another. “When I kiss a colleague, she doesn’t hook the back of my neck.”