Donald Trump says a US-UK trade deal can be done “very quickly”, and suggested Britain might be spared from tariffs after meeting Keir Starmer in Washington yesterday. The president said a Ukraine ceasefire was “very achievable” but refused to guarantee American military support. Trump also accepted an invitation from King Charles to make an unprecedented second state visit to the UK. The BBC has apologised for “serious flaws” in a documentary depicting the lives of children in Gaza after it emerged that the 13-year-old narrator was the son of a top Hamas official. More than 500 media figures, including Gary Lineker and actor Riz Ahmed, signed a letter criticising the broadcaster’s decision to remove the show from iPlayer. Seven planets will line up in the sky tonight in a rare form of syzygy (an alignment of three or more celestial bodies) known as a planetary parade. Stargazers will easily be able to see Venus, Jupiter and Mars, but Mercury and Saturn will be harder to spot, and Uranus and Neptune will only be visible with a telescope.

Starmer’s diplomatic masterclass

Mr Starmer goes to Washington sounds like some straight-to-video offering you’d find in the bargain bin at a jumble sale, says Madeline Grant in The Daily Telegraph. Still, here we were at the White House yesterday, with the least predictable leader in the West meeting a prime minister who gives the impression he “uses a ruler to measure out his toothpaste”. The PM came across as a “nerd trying to cosy up to the school bully”: nodding along gamely as Trump slagged off the EU, interrupting his host’s many monologues only with “squeaks of agreement”. But he did have an ace up his sleeve: the formal invitation from King Charles inviting Trump for an unprecedented second state visit. “Trump was enamoured of the monarch’s enormous Sharpie-pen signature, which he declared ‘very beautiful’ before making sure that Sir Keir didn’t take it back home with him.”

In terms of what was actually achieved, says Steven Swinford in The Times, Starmer didn’t secure the US security guarantees he wanted for any future Ukraine peacekeeping force. But the PM did win some “significant concessions”. Trump backed his controversial Chagos Islands deal, and said tariffs might not be “necessary” for the UK, praising Starmer for driving a hard bargain: “He earned whatever the hell they pay him over there.” On a personal level, the “bromance” between the two appeared real. Trump spoke of the PM’s “beautiful” wife Victoria; Starmer patted his host’s shoulder “in a show of bonhomie”. The whole meeting appears to be a vindication of Starmer’s strategy “not just to avoid confrontation with Trump but to go out of his way to charm him”. He will return from Washington with “good reason for optimism”.

The real winners of the German election were the political fringes, says Victoria Reichelt in Der Spiegel. A quarter of 18-to-24-year-olds voted for the hard-left Die Linke and 21% voted for the far-right AfD, in a clear protest against “carry-on-as-before” centrists. These voters have grown up with politics in “crisis mode”: the pandemic; wars in Ukraine and the Middle East; soaring living costs. The result is a “polarised generation” receptive to simple answers to complex problems. After an Afghan migrant stabbed to death two people in Aschaffenburg last month, the AfD didn’t speak of radicalisation or government failure but of solutions – closing borders and a “migrant stop”. To tackle Germany’s stark housing shortage and sky-high rents, Die Linke has promised a six-year nationwide rent cap. These sorts of clear, no-nonsense policies are well received by a youth desperate for “radical ideas and real change”.

When Steve Coogan checks into fancy health spas and hotels, he sensibly uses an alias so that he’s not disturbed, says Popbitch. The downside of the “Mr Smith” trick revealed itself recently, when the service at a particularly posh wellness spot dropped below the level of “fawning obsequiousness” Coogan prefers, and he found himself petulantly asking a staff member: “Do you know who I am?” “Err, yes,” came the response. “You’re Mr Smith.” Which only infuriated Coogan even more.

The case for the Ukraine minerals deal

Critics of Donald Trump’s minerals deal with Ukraine are totally missing the point, says Marc Thiessen in The Washington Post. Under the agreement set to be finalised and announced today, Kyiv will deposit 50% of its future revenue from state-owned natural resources – oil, gas, rare earth metals and so on – into a fund, and this fund will then pay for American companies to rebuild the country. In other words, the US will be invested – “literally, not figuratively” – in securing a peace deal and ensuring that Ukraine remains a free and sovereign nation. And while the terms don’t appear to include explicit security guarantees, sending in American workers, bulldozers and earthmovers amounts to the same thing. As Trump rightly put it on Wednesday: “Nobody’s going to be messing around with our people when we’re there.”

All that may be true, says Dan Perry in Newsweek, but at what cost? There’s nothing wrong with “transactionalism” in foreign affairs: everyone does what they must to further their interests. But there’s a vast difference between making deals to pursue a specific geopolitical agenda, and shaking down a war-weakened ally in its darkest hour for some easy cash. Using military and economic aid as a “quid pro quo for profit” will erode trust in Washington’s allies, who will rightly conclude that American loyalty “can be bought and sold”. And it could make humanitarian assistance and disaster relief “endangered species”. Had an earthquake? Pay up, or you can fend for yourselves. Unlike the colonial powers that conquered for primarily financial gain, the US has always provided foreign aid to “serve a higher purpose”: security, stability, and in some cases, simple morality. Under Trump, it seems, the principal motive will be “vulgar profiteering”.

There are only two people alive today who were heads of state during World War Two, says Helen Lewis on Substack. One is Tsar Simeon of Bulgaria, who ascended to his throne in 1943, at the age of six. When his country became a Soviet Republic in 1946, he sensibly slunk off to do “ex-king stuff” in Egypt and Greece, before magnificently returning after the fall of communism to serve as Bulgaria’s prime minister between 2001 and 2005. The other is the 89-year-old Dalai Lama: he was formally recognised as leader of Tibet in 1939, “when he was still a toddler”.

Gen Z are ditching capital letters, says The Guardian. Using all lowercase, apparently, gives off a more “calm, friendly” vibe, while capitals are seen as “stern or abrupt” and make a point “stronger than it needs to be”. Artists like Billie Eilish have embraced the trend, using lowercase in her song titles and album names, while Spotify’s curated playlists like “chill vibes” and “teen beats” avoid capitals to appeal to a young audience. There’s even a TikTok counter-trend in which older Gen Zs announce they’re switching back to using uppercase, as a “sign of maturity”.

It’s a promontory near the Chinese town of Yichang, which has gone viral after a local noticed it looks like a dog’s face, says AP News. Guo Qingshan, who spotted the likeness last month, dubbed the headland xiaogoushan, or “Puppy Mountain”. Videos with the hashtag #xiaogoushan have racked up millions of views on social media, and some particularly excited dog owners have taken their pups there to see how closely they resemble the mutt-like mountain.