Kamala Harris has called for an “immediate ceasefire” in Gaza to allow for the release of Israeli hostages. The US vice president urged Hamas to agree to the six-week pause currently on the table at peace talks, while encouraging Israel to “significantly increase the flow of aid” into the Palestinian enclave. The head of Germany’s air force has accidentally leaked British military secrets to Russian intelligence after using an unencrypted telephone line. Kremlin spies intercepted a call in which Luftwaffe boss Ingo Gerhartz discussed Nato operations in Ukraine, including the previously unconfirmed presence of British ground troops in the country. Donald Trump fans have been spreading deepfakes of black voters in a bid to boost his popularity among African Americans. Dozens of AI-generated images circulating on social media show black people embracing the former president in various settings.

Rochdale is a dismal sign of things to come

Last week’s Rochdale by-election win for George Galloway is a “dismal augury” for both our main parties, says Matthew Parris in The Times. The Tories are doomed, and Labour looks likely to be a “riven and weak-kneed administration”. There was a clear “anyone but the Tories” impulse at work that is “not restricted to Rochdale”. Downing Street should accept that the ruling party’s “appalling” polling is not Sunak’s fault, and there’s nothing he can do to change it, whatever his advisors suggest. How does it fit his “reputation for level-headedness” to give a “panicky emergency-style speech” declaring that Britain is “descending into mob rule”? The best he can do is “stop bothering about ratings and do what’s right” until the last (which is January 2025), while giving Labour the maximum amount of time to trip themselves up.

As for Labour, there is probably little they could have done to alter the outcome in Rochdale. But Keir Starmer’s “long and very public dither” about whether to suspend the former Labour candidate Azhar Ali is revealing. It’s hard to avoid the suspicion that Starmer simply had “no personal instinct”, so preferred to wait and see if the storm over Ali’s anti-Semitic remarks would die down. It was the same with Labour’s abandoned £28bn green spending pledge. It isn’t that Starmer is excessively cautious or lacks courage, but rather that he “genuinely doesn’t know where he’s going”. Given the battles ahead over state spending, the NHS, Gaza, relations with a Donald Trump-led America and more, our next prime minister will need a “strong personal compass”. If Starmer turns out to lack this, his government will be “thoroughly bogged down before 2025 is out”.

The skylines of Europe don’t quite measure up, says The Economist. Of the world’s 1,000 tallest buildings, only seven are in the EU. Warsaw’s 310m Varso tower is the tallest occupied building in the bloc, but even with its “pointy appendage” – an 80-metre “height-enhancing spire” made of steel – the Polish edifice is only the 172nd tallest building in the world. It’s more than half a kilometre shorter than the world’s tallest building, Dubai’s 828m Burj Khalifa.

For the first time in modern history, says The New York Times, “both major party candidates for the White House are teetotallers”. Joe Biden and Donald Trump maintain they have never touched an alcoholic drink in their lives – although a number of New York bartenders claim to have served Trump.

France could learn a thing or two from Argentina’s radical new president

When Argentina voted its zany libertarian president Javier Milei into power, says Matthew Lynn in The Spectator, snooty economists everywhere predicted his radical free market reforms would quickly “plunge the country into chaos”. The currency would collapse, output would go into freefall, unemployment would soar and the IMF would be back in charge faster than you could say “chainsaw”. But three months into his tenure, there are signs that “Milei’s harsh medicine might be working”. The peso, which Milei devalued sharply on taking office, has started to recover; the S&P Merval Index that includes Argentina’s largest companies has almost doubled over the last six months; and for January, the country reported its first monthly budget surplus since 2012.

The French political class could learn a thing or two, says Luc de Barochez in Le Point. The last positive balance of our public finances was in 1974, “the year Valéry Giscard d’Estaing was elected President of the Republic”. Milei’s mantra, encapsulated by his comments at Davos that “the state is not there to direct our lives, but to watch over our rights”, might shock the average 21st-century Frenchman. But Milei is “in line with a long liberal tradition”. And the case of Argentina is instructive. A century ago, it was one of the richest countries on the planet, and attracted migrants from all over Europe, including Milei’s Italian and Croatian ancestors. But shocking mismanagement by an over-mighty socialist government turned it into one of the world’s iconic basket cases. The lesson is clear: “prosperity is not one-way”. Well-managed poor countries can become immensely rich; “conversely, prosperous countries can impoverish dramatically”. France, which has racked up a public debt of more than $3trn, is protected by the single European currency, whose stability is based on the power of the German economy. “But until when?”

Even the tooth fairy is giving in to inflation these days, says The Wall Street Journal. According to a poll last year, the average pay-out for a lost tooth in the US is at a record high of $6.23, but more and more parents are going above and beyond the call of tooth fairy duty. Some particularly jaw-dropping returns include video games, a silver fairy necklace, a Louis Vuitton bracelet, a brand new iPhone, and “a $100 bill decorated with glitter and tiny removable rhinestones”.

It’s Gary Goldsmith, the uncle of the Princess of Wales, who has been “read the riot act” after signing up for Celebrity Big Brother, says The Sun. He is the brother of Kate’s mother, Carole Middleton, who “fears he could spill royal secrets on the show”, which starts airing today. Goldsmith, a millionaire businessman, once hosted Prince William and Kate at his eight-acre estate in Ibiza, nicknamed “Maison de Bang Bang”.