Tens of thousands of Syrians are fleeing the city of Homs as rebel forces push south towards the capital Damascus. The militants seized the city of Hama yesterday, in a second major blow to President Bashar al-Assad after he lost control of Aleppo last week. The Met Office has issued a rare red weather warning for wind as Storm Darragh approaches Britain. Western and southern coastal regions in Wales and the Bristol Channel could see gusts of 90mph tomorrow morning, while heavy rain and strong winds are expected across the west of the UK. Pantone has named “Mocha Mousse” its 2025 colour of the year. Described as an “evocative soft brown”, the coffee shade – Pantone 17-1230, to be precise – was chosen for its “inherent richness and sensorial and comforting warmth”.

Why are we rolling out the red carpet for Qatar?

I have some sympathy for the royal family, says Douglas Murray in The Spectator, “because of the ghastly people they are forced to meet”. The late Queen had to welcome Nicolae and Elena Ceaușescu, Idi Amin and Robert Mugabe. This week, the King and Prince and Princess of Wales had to greet the Emir of Qatar and his wife. True to form, the British media managed to “miss every major problem with this”. The BBC did at least bleat something about Qatar’s record on LGBT rights. But far more troubling is that Britain should ever have welcomed the leaders of such a “sordid, terrorist-supporting statelet” in the first place.

For two decades, Qatar has been one of the leading “supporters, funders and hosts” of the proscribed terror group Hamas, funnelling them billions of dollars and hosting their leadership in luxury hotels in Doha. Qatari cash has “polluted” British and American universities – it’s no coincidence that almost every US campus that has played host to pro-Hamas protests over the past 14 months has received “wads of bribes from Qatar’s slush fund”. The Qataris are also the funders and founders of Al Jazeera, a number of whose “journalists” have turned out to be terrorists – according to the IDF, one moonlighted as a bomb maker while another was found hiding three Israeli hostages in his flat, where they were tortured. On the death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar this year, the current Emir’s mother – “the gruesome Sheikha Moza” – mourned and praised him, saying “he will live on, and they will be gone”. From Sheikha Moza down, this lot should become pariahs. Sanction them, seize their assets. “Let them continue with their slave state and their terror-sponsoring. But not with our blessing.”

The new Spectator editor Michael Gove was the butt of several jokes at the magazine’s annual awards night on Tuesday, says Patrick Kidd in The Times. Angela Rayner said that when she took over his old government office she inherited a white sofa that “used to be blue” and was warned by staff not to sniff it. Wes Streeting said Jeremy Hunt’s reference to “four Es” in his 2023 budget was less a plan for growth and more “Michael’s plan for a night out in Aberdeen”. When someone later heckled that Gove was Voldemort from Harry Potter, the health secretary felt things had gone too far. “No,” he said. “Voldemort was a main character.”

Muhammad has become the most popular baby boy name in the UK for the first time, says The Daily Telegraph. There were 4,661 Muhammads born last year, with Noah second and Oliver third. For girls, Olivia remained the top choice for the eighth year in a row, followed by Amelia and Isla. The boys’ name with the biggest increase was Cassian, up 79%, likely because of a character in the romantasy novel series A Court of Thorns and Roses. Politicians didn’t appear to have the same influence: there were only seven Donalds, five Nigels and four Keirs (though there were 28 Borises). New entries into the top 100 include Hazel, Lilah, Autumn, Nevaeh and Raya for girls, and Jax, Enzo and Bodhi for boys. Find out how popular your name is here.

There’s nothing feminist about getting your bum out for the lads

When I read that the singer Kate Nash had started a “BUTTS 4 Tour Buses” campaign on OnlyFans, I was taken aback, says Katie Edwards in The Independent. But that’s the point, isn’t it? Selling photos of her bum isn’t just “for a laugh”, but to fund her current tour and to make a point about the way women in the music industry are treated. And why not? Celebrities like Kim Kardashian have long exposed themselves to promote their work, and this is just a more “direct” way of doing that. Nash calls it “empowering” and says we should be “standing by and fighting” for women having control over their bodies. Quite right. After centuries of being sexualised for the profit of others, we are finally getting to choose what we share and pocket the money ourselves. That’s called “progress”.

I know as well as anyone that self-employment can be tough, says Josephine Bartosch in The Critic. There have certainly been times when the thought of getting paid handsomely to “stamp on the testicles of willing men” has appealed. But the idea that opening “Mistress Josephine’s Parlour of Pain” would be some sort of “feminist act” is nonsense. Women have struggled for decades to be respected for their work rather than their sex appeal. Male creatives aren’t “dropping their pants for cash” on OnlyFans, and definitely wouldn’t call it “empowering”, so why should we? All women, especially successful women like Nash, have a responsibility not to legitimise an industry that reduces us to our body parts. No matter how you try to sell it, getting your arse out for leering strangers is not “sticking it to the man”.

With Yoon Suk Yeol facing impeachment over his brief declaration of martial law this week, a clip of the South Korean president singing Don McLean’s 1971 classic American Pie has been doing the rounds. It was filmed at a White House state dinner with Joe Biden in 2023 – happier times, presumably, for both men. Watch the full video here.

Georgian president Salome Zourabichvili, who is currently engaged in a stand-off with her country’s government, has had a remarkable journey to the top, says Alastair Campbell on The Rest is Politics. She was born in Paris, the daughter of Georgian political refugees. After entering the French diplomatic service, she rose up the ranks and was eventually sent to be France’s ambassador to Georgia. With the French government’s permission, she then became a Georgian citizen and joined their diplomatic service. “And now she’s the president.”

It’s an extreme close-up of a toothbrush, says Moss and Fog, part of a compilation of zoomed-in shots of everyday objects that has racked up more than 200,000 views on YouTube. Part of the fun is guessing what the items are before the narrator reveals the answer – see how many you can work out in the full eight-minute video here.

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