The Post Office’s internal investigators were offered cash bonuses for successfully prosecuting the sub-postmasters affected by the faulty Horizon IT software, the inquiry into the scandal has revealed. Downing Street has backed calls for former postmaster Alan Bates to receive a knighthood for his 20-year campaign to expose the miscarriage of justice. Scientists have created a “breakthrough” test to improve the success rate of IVF, says The Times. The non-invasive procedure, which is still at an early stage of development, would enable clinicians to work out which lab-grown embryos are most likely to lead to a successful pregnancy. Botany boffins from Kew’s Royal Botanic Gardens discovered 74 new plants and 15 fungi last year, says BBC News. The novel species include three types of rare Antarctic fungi, a Madagascan orchid with translucent petals, and another “with spectacular bright red flowers” living on the summit of a volcano on the Indonesian island of Waigeo.

The Tories’ “barefaced lie” on immigration

Boris Johnson’s pitch to voters included a promise that he would introduce an Australian-style immigration system that would, in his words, attract “the best and the brightest” to Britain, says Matthew Goodwin on Substack. This new, highly skilled, highly paid immigration would supposedly “turbocharge Britain’s economic growth”, by flooding the country with brilliant people who pay more into the system than they take out. Brexit Britain, some Conservatives told us, would be transformed into an “oasis” of top-notch scientists and big tech entrepreneurs. The only problem, as new data reveals, is that it was a “big, fat, barefaced Tory lie”.

Over the past five years, Britain has seen net migration from outside Europe of a staggering two million people. How many came for work? “Just 15%.” The rest entered as the relatives of workers, as international students, as the relatives of those students, and as asylum-seekers or refugees. Rather than prioritising the best and brightest, Johnson actually made it easier – “against the advice of immigration specialists” – for international students to stay and work, regardless of how little they earn. That’s why non-EU student numbers have “rocketed” since Brexit – with most attending third-tier universities that rely on the higher fees paid by foreign students – along with the record number of relatives they’re bringing with them. Those who don’t drop out early, as many do, often go on to lower-paying jobs than other graduates. Far from ushering in a new era of “high-skill, high-wage” migration, the Conservatives have instead “further pushed open the floodgates” to “low-skill, low-wage” migration. If you want to know why voters are so “frustrated and disillusioned” over immigration, there’s your answer.

Working in Westminster “isn’t all it’s cracked up to be”, says Annabelle Dickson in Politico. Rodent sightings are frequent. Last summer, shards of glass fell from one atrium ceiling, sending water gushing through on to people below. In 2022, legionella bacteria were found in the showers. To avoid the “cold, crumbling” Houses of Parliament, workers are increasingly opting for hybrid working, with some privately admitting they come into the office “as little as humanly possible”. Even Keir Starmer prefers to base himself at Labour’s headquarters across the river.

A new interactive map displays the weather of the entire globe all at once, says International Intrigue. Users can check and compare measures like rainfall, cloud cover and temperatures in any country, sometimes with startling results. It turns out the evening heat in Paraguay can trump that of Botswana, while humidity levels can make parts of Poland as sticky as Vietnam. Peruse precipitation and more here.

I’m so glad I grew up without a smartphone

My generation is probably the last to have grown up without a smartphone, says James Harris in The Critic. What strikes me, as my year group “gradually washes up on the shores of middle age”, is how few of us resent this absence. “Not one of my friends sees their lack of childhood connectivity as a regret.” We all, obviously, have smartphones now, and we understand perfectly well what the benefits might have been – the joys of online gaming, for a start. But being unconnected as children allowed us to “form ourselves in quiet”.

We were, of course, “terribly bored”. But boredom is good for children – it forces you to “seek out information and form your imagination”. In my case, it meant I read more books rather than just “idly skimming online”. It also made the cultivation of my tastes a more “social” process, since I needed to go and “ask older people what was cool” and explore their recommendations, rather than having everything “served up by an algorithm”. And being phoneless spared us a lot of embarrassment. “Like most future moderates, I was a radical communist as a teenager.” But I could only express this in private, without leaving an excited trail of “hare-brained posts” that would get me into trouble as an adult. Like everyone, I “wouldn’t and couldn’t give up my phone now”. But I’m profoundly grateful to have grown up without one. “It’s been a marvellous inoculation against the excesses of the internet ever since.”

Drinkers of bottled water are swallowing thousands of microscopic pieces of plastic every time they take a sip, says The Washington Post. Scientists from Columbia University found about 240,000 particles in the average litre of the stuff, most of which were “nanoplastics” measuring less than 1,000th the width of a human hair. Researchers believe these tiny nasties get into the water from both the bottle itself and the filtration process. It’s not yet known how dangerous nanoplastics are for human health, but they are in theory small enough to make it into a person’s blood, liver and brain.

The investment portfolio owned by top US democrat Nancy Pelosi racked up a staggering 65% gain in 2023, says the New York Post, more than double the S&P500’s 24% rise, and better than the performance of most major hedge funds. Key to her success was the very “lucky” use of stock options, which is often a sign of trading on inside information – “something members of Congress have lots of”. Unsurprisingly, efforts to limit congressional trading have been repeatedly voted down by the very lawmakers whose staggering profits would be at risk. “It’s not just insider trading, but insiders blocking any rules that might stop them.”

It’s the first interstellar tourism campaign, designed to attract aliens to the city of Lexington, Kentucky, of all places. The conurbation’s tourist agency has encoded the image into a powerful laser pointed at TRAPPIST-1, a dwarf star surrounded by planets with Earth-like conditions. As the target is 39 light-years away, it would be decades before any interstellar bookings could be made. “Some may suspect the real agenda,” says IFL Science, “is to attract visitors from closer to home.”