The US also aims to redeploy a missile-launching submarine and an aircraft carrier, along with several warships and scores of jets that join the carrier’s missions, the New York Times said, adding that one of two groups of bombers previously assigned for Europe’s defense may also be reallocated.

"Historically, there has been an over-reliance on US forces and capabilities," NATO spokesperson Allison Hart told Reuters, adding that as Europe and Canada invest more in defense and develop greater capabilities, the balance of responsibility can shift.

US President Donald Trump's administration has repeatedly accused European governments of underinvesting in ​their militaries and relying too heavily on US protection, while urging both Europe and Asian allies ⁠to boost defense spending to 3.5% of GDP.

For Iran, time is not simply a factor in the conflict. It is the strategy. It is the asset. It is the battlefield. For more than two decades, Tehran has mastered the art of using crises, negotiations, and uncertainty to delay decisive action against it. When sanctions tighten, Iran offers diplomacy. When diplomacy stalls, it escalates. When pressure builds, it creates a new crisis. When the world begins moving toward a decision, Iran changes the conversation. The result is almost always the same: more time.

This strategy extends far beyond military affairs. It reaches directly into the global economy. Nearly 20% of the world’s oil passes through the Strait of Hormuz. Iran does not need to permanently close the waterway to create consequences. It only needs markets to fear that it might. That fear raises oil prices. It raises shipping costs. It raises insurance costs. It raises inflation expectations. A missile launched in the Middle East can affect the price of gasoline in New Jersey, transportation costs in Europe, and manufacturing expenses in Asia. Iran understands that uncertainty itself is an economic weapon. In many ways, it is one of the regime’s most effective weapons.

The real problem is that for social media companies, rage is a business model. Rage drives engagement. The more enraged people are, the more engaged they are and the more they will see the ads from which social media companies make money.

Pictures are more engaging than words, and social media are particularly good at generating and spreading the visual stimuli to which our brains respond most intensely. The researchers found that posts of AI-generated images of Muslim men abusing white women and heroic white figures standing up to them got three times as much engagement as the verbal stuff. One got 11 million views.

Both of these accounts had the blue tick that used to represent a trusted source. Not everybody knows that the tick can now be bought, so it legitimised them. X, concluded the researchers, has become “a polarisation engine”.

We need to remember that the relative social harmony we have enjoyed in this country for the past few generations is, in the great sweep of history, unusual. Look across time and geography: peace has not been the norm for humanity. Violence has. Our way of life is fragile, and digital technology is a great ally for those who would smash it.

His resignation letter is the most damning document published by a departing minister in decades, even more so because it convicts the Prime Minister out of his own mouth. “You spelled out the threats last week,” Healey reminds him, “‘it is our intelligence assessment, and the assessment of other countries in NATO, that there could be an attack by Russia on NATO as soon as 2030.’” That doesn’t leave room for complacency or delay.

“You know what defence needs. You made the argument for this powerfully in your speech at the Munich Security Conference back in February.” “You have been unable, and the Treasury has been unwilling, to commit the resources that the nation needs to defend the country at this time of rising threats.”

Those two words – unwilling and unable – are this Government’s obituary. It’s not a minister falling out with his Prime Minister but a minister telling the country that Sir Keir Starmer knows what he should do, but is too weak to do it.

In an education system increasingly driven by data dashboards and short-term economic utility, we risk neglecting one of humanity’s oldest and most essential forms of knowledge: understanding the living world. Biology, chemistry and physics remain indispensable, but on their own they tend to send young people down increasingly specialised paths. What is missing is a subject that draws these disciplines back together – one that captures a specific curiosity about nature and nurtures the integrated ecological understanding and systems thinking that the 21st century demands.

This is not sentimentality. The natural world remains one of our greatest sources of innovation, insight and technological inspiration. It is, quite literally, a masterclass in efficient computation – processing information, adapting and problem-solving at energy costs data centres can only envy.

Deep-sea sponges manufacture glass at two degrees centigrade using processes we cannot replicate. Nature constructs self-repairing, self-replicating structures with strength-to-weight ratios our factories still struggle to match. To study natural history is not to look backwards; it is to study the most advanced R&D lab on the planet. Today, too many British children leave school unable to identify a blue tit, an oak tree or a dandelion. That deficit may sound trivial. It is not. A society that loses the language of nature gradually loses its ability to defend it.

Recognition is the beginning of stewardship. You cannot value what you cannot see, and you rarely protect what you cannot name. But ecological literacy is about more than ticking off species on a list. It is also about observing how the living world behaves – the quiet engineering skill and mathematical precision in building a spider’s web, the architectural integrity inherent in a bird’s nest.

Natural history isn’t a Victorian museum piece; it is the foundation of 21st century scientific literacy. A Natural History GCSE will equip young people with the knowledge and skills they need to navigate, and to protect, the world they are inheriting.

A report produced by the World Food Programme (WFP), the UN’s food-assistance branch, found that 45 million additional people now face “critical” levels of food insecurity as a direct result of the war in the Gulf. Across the world, 260 million people already face similar levels of food insecurity. Most live in poor and fragile countries and are unable to meet their basic caloric needs. Many are selling off livestock and land to put food on the table.

In the long term, the food crisis will irreversibly damage physical and cognitive health, particularly in children, experts say. “We told the world the closure of the Strait was going to have a massive impact,” Dr Jean-Martin Bauer, the World Food Programme’s director of food security analysis, told The Telegraph. “There have been impacts on energy markets, on trade, on shipping, and all these are combining to create this cost of living crisis affecting millions of people.” But even if the Strait reopened tomorrow – and a peace deal currently feels elusive – experts say the war’s impact on food security will be long-felt.