The Rwanda bill is set to become law, after a marathon session of parliamentary “ping pong” between the Commons and the Lords late last night ended with peers finally backing the legislation. Five migrants died trying to cross the Channel this morning – in 2023, a total of 12 people lost their lives attempting the crossing. Two men have been charged with spying for China under the Official Secrets Act. Christopher Berry, 32, and Christopher Cash, a 29-year-old parliamentary researcher connected to several Tory MPs, are accused of passing “articles, notes, documents or information” to a foreign state. A British boy has won gold at the European seagull impression championship, held in the Belgian coastal resort of De Panne. Cooper Wallace, nine, scored a whopping 92 out of 100 for his imitation of the bird’s screech. Watch (and listen to) the superlative squawk here.

The Trumpist who risked his career for Ukraine

Political bravery has been in short supply among Republicans in the “MAGA era”, say Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen in Axios. So all credit to US House Speaker Mike Johnson for teaming up with Democrats to pass a $61bn military aid package for Ukraine. As a fervent supporter of Donald Trump – who was sceptical of the bill – Johnson knew the decision could cost him his job. Hard-line Trumpist lawmakers like Marjorie Taylor Greene are openly trying to oust him over it. But intelligence briefings from President Biden’s national security team convinced him that if the US didn’t pony up, Russia would “expand its war beyond Ukraine”. Yes, the bill itself is messy – the Ukraine aid is bundled up with measures including funding for Israel and a potential ban on TikTok. But it’s still a “rare triumph of consequential bipartisanship”.

Better late than never, says Max Boot in The Washington Post. In the months Johnson has wasted trying to keep his party’s “pro-Putin wing” happy, the situation in Ukraine has taken “an ominous turn”. Ukrainian forces are now heavily outnumbered, with 200,000 troops to Russia’s 470,000, and “outgunned 10 to 1 in artillery shells”. Russia is reconstituting far faster than Western estimates suggested. Despite having lost more than 2,000 tanks and 315,000 soldiers, its army is now 15% larger than it was when it invaded. The Kremlin’s forces recently captured the strategic Ukrainian city of Avdiivka, and fears are growing that they could break through Ukraine’s “depleted” front lines in a summer offensive. This aid package comes “not a second too soon”.

Agatha Christie once had a sideline as an agony aunt, says The Sunday Times. While working as a volunteer nurse at a hospital in Devon during World War One, she and her colleagues produced a satirical magazine to boost morale. The 60-page publication, which was recently unearthed from the British Psychoanalytical Society archives, featured “Aunt Agatha” answering the concerns of her “readers”, and offering a critique of a drawing. “The water lilies were very nicely drawn, they were perhaps a little big as they made the cow look rather funny,” goes one response. “Remember, a cow is larger than a water lily.”

DonnaJean Wilde, a 59-year-old retired teacher from Alberta, Canada, has broken the women’s Guinness World Record for the longest time holding the plank position. The grandmother of 12 (pictured) managed to rack up a whopping four and a half hours last week, breaking the record in front of some of her former students. Wilde first took up the exercise 10 years ago, and trained for her recent feat by planking while reading, checking her emails and scrolling on her phone.

The myth of Britain’s “fair play” society

Like many people, says Sherelle Jacobs in The Daily Telegraph, I used to believe that Britain’s mental health crisis was merely the symptom of a “snowflake society”. But then I heard about the mysterious phenomenon of cowboys driving their trucks off the mountains in the American frontier. Travelling to Wyoming, I met parents of young men whose grand expectations had crumbled on contact with life’s harsh realities. They had entered the adult world with “prom-king looks” and “entrepreneurial animal spirits”, only to suffer breakdowns when their American dream didn’t pan out. Our country is tortured by something similar: the “diabolical lie” that we are a “fair play” society, where you can coast along and enjoy a “quaintly comfortable” life. This myth is instilled from our early years, with teachers now marking in neutral colours rather than red pen, and non-competitive sports days where it is the “taking part that counts”. But the reality is that Britain is “rampantly competitive”.

Decently paid manufacturing jobs have been replaced by dismal cashier and call centre work. Those wishing to better themselves have few options. Most university degree certificates are worthless – only graduates from the very best institutions get interviews at top firms, where entry-level positions are becoming scarcer. And it’s not just work. The world of dating has become hyper-competitive too, with the “delusionally desperate” trawling the apps and failing to attract the “delusionally fussy”, who are themselves chasing an elite who strictly date within their own pool. People need to wake up. If misery springs from a disconnect between expectations and reality, then “either expectations must be lowered or reality must be improved”.

In April 1984, says Letters of Note, a 13-year-old boy from South Carolina wrote to Ronald Reagan asking for federal funds for a clean-up project, because his mum had declared his bedroom a “disaster area”. In his response, the US president told Andy Smith the application had been “duly noted”, but pointed out that funds were “dangerously low” as a result of hurricanes (539 already that year), floods, forest fires, and a drought in Texas. He also explained that requests for federal aid were supposed to come from the authority declaring the disaster. “In this case, your mother.”

It’s The Black Dog in Vauxhall, which has been mobbed by Taylor Swift fans after she appeared to reference the south London pub in her new album. In a song of the same name, she describes using a location tracker on her smartphone to watch the movements of an ex-boyfriend (thought to be British actor Joe Alwyn). “I am someone who until recent events you shared your secrets with and your location,” she sings. “You forgot to turn it off. And so I watch as you walk into some bar called The Black Dog.”