Who's living under New York?

ALISTER: More than a quarter of young adults in Wales eat two or more takeaways a week, and the tutting started on cue. One guy said he can't afford to cook, another said nobody ever taught him. It's a world where the takeaway is simply the path of least resistance.

MERIDYTH: Sympathy noted, but this is the most fixable problem in the country. Cooking is a skill anyone can easily pick up, and Instagram is heaving with lovely recipes for one. Cook a meal for 2 and tomorrow's lunch is sorted, instead of spending £10 at Pret.

ALISTER: Easy when you're not the one cooking it. Solo cooking is a mug's game. The multibuys are built for a family of four, half the veg rots before you reach it, and feeding one person costs more per head than feeding two. After a 10hr shift or a few pints with mates, a curry just fits. The rest is sad leftovers.

MERIDYTH: Even sad leftovers beats a sad receipt. Nobody's demanding a soufflé, just one proper meal a week to start. You can feed yourself for thirty quid a week if you stop letting the spinach die. It's the one lever that's actually yours, and a skill that keeps paying out for the next 60 years.

Bots now account for 56% of internet traffic for the first time in history, driven by AI agents completing tasks at inhuman scale. The web increasingly consists of machines reading content made by machines. Humans are still there, mostly squabbling, so share this with a breathing living person.

🛫 The flight that never flew. An international court has rejected Rwanda's £100m claim that the UK still owed it for the scrapped deportation scheme. Only four people ever went voluntarily, after Britain had already paid around £290m. At least someone got a result.

📦 A thousand jobs automated. Asda is shifting its George clothing ops to a single site in Derby fitted with Norwegian AutoStore robots. Of 1,250 staff expected to transfer, only about 250 roles will survive. The union fears it's the start of something much bigger.

🔍 Google told to ask first. Britain's competition watchdog has ordered Google to let publishers opt out of having their content scraped for AI search features and model training, a world first. Google, which called AI search a "space for monetisation" has 9 months to comply.

🍺 One pint too many. Britain is considering a national database of disruptive air passengers, meaning one airline ban could ground you with all of them. The government says everyone should enjoy a pint at the airport. Just not, apparently, six of them followed by a mid-air brawl over Türkiye.

🏥 One in ten Brits wait over a year for a specialist. The UK has some of Europe's worst healthcare waiting times, with 11% of patients waiting more than a year to see a specialist and 58% waiting over three months for cataract surgery, more than double the pre-pandemic figure.

GOOD NEWS… for anyone who likes cheaper bills, as Australia's emissions fell 2.1%, renewables now power over half the grid and electricity prices are somehow falling. Take note, Britain. BAD NEWS… for Switzerland, who hosted the entire ice-hockey world championship and then lost the final 1-0 to Finland on home ice. Consolation prize: a nation's worth of chocolate. 🍫

🚀 The ceasefire cracks. Iran fired waves of missiles at Israel on Sunday night, its first since April's truce, hours after Israeli struck Hezbollah in Beirut. The IDF says it intercepted them all, with no injuries reported. But Iran is now threatening "a full week of continuous strikes."

🛢️ Shell knew and kept pumping. Documents obtained by the BBC show Shell ran a Nigerian pipeline for years after its own technical VP warned it breached safety standards, flagging it critically compromised in 2012 and pumping on. Niger Delta communities are now suing for $1bn.

☢️ Europe's new nuclear godfather. Nine European countries incl the UK have signed up for French nuclear protection as trust in America wavers, with every decision staying in Paris. In effect, Macron appears to be the continent's self-appointed nuclear bodyguard. C'est la vie.

🔌 Big Tech, pay your own way. Tennessee has made data centres fund their own power rather than quietly loading the cost onto residents' bills. One Memphis AI supercomputer uses enough electricity for 300k homes. Someone has to pay, just not the neighbours.

🍵 Move over matcha! Black tea is the one dietitians pick for brain, heart and gut in a single cup. Its theaflavins help circulation, the L-theanine gives calm focus without the coffee jitters, and 3 cups a day feeds healthy gut bacteria. Just hold the sugar.

📖 Reading rewires your ears. Learning to read changes how your brain handles sound. Played a language they'd never heard, readers could pick out a particular word 75% of the time. Non-readers, 17%. Your eyes are teaching your ears.

💪 Power changes the wishlist. Women with more power in a relationship prioritise looks over wealth in a partner. Men's preferences stay put no matter who leads. What you want, it seems, depends heavily on what you've already got.

🧫 A 5,300-year-old loaf. Researchers revived living yeast from the gut of Ötzi the Iceman and, after 3 months, baked it into sourdough. The verdict, "very, very good." Beer is next. Ötzi was killed by an arrow, but his microbiome is doing just fine.

💊 Addiction by design. A leaked Microsoft document shows its new Scout AI listed "make people addicted" as its first launch goal. CEO Satya Nadella said he'd never seen it and had no idea who wrote it. It was two of his senior execs, one of whom wrote the official Scout announcement. 🙈

💧 The bottle that bounced back. FIFA banned fans from bringing water into World Cup stadiums, then reversed it within days after a backlash that even roped in Starmer. Now one sealed bottle is allowed, into games played across the US, Mexico and Canada. FIFA says safety. Fans say Coca-Cola.

🎹 Volunteered by a mate. A keyboardist fell ill mid-show in Sydney, so the conductor asked 2,500 people if anyone could sight-read. A 21-year-old said yes, improvised a demanding synth solo he'd never rehearsed, and got a standing ovation. His friend had raised the hand for him.

By Alister

I consider myself something of a chocolate mousse connoisseur, and it’s official. The search is over. Bonne Maman's little pots of chocolate mousse are simply divine. Soft, airy, properly chocolatey without tipping into a bitter cocoa bomb, and so good you will be scraping the pot with your tongue and pretending you did not.

I get mine from Costco (and the flowers too), though Waitrose stock them too. This is my number one pick, full stop, and I had to physically restrain myself at the till.

One honest heads up for the vegetarians, and anyone keeping halal or kosher: despite the wholesome French countryside branding, there is pork gelatine lurking in the ingredients. Everyone else, you have no excuse.

Give them a go and I promise your dessert game changes forever. If you love chocolate and have even a faint streak of dessert fiend in you, consider this your newest and most delicious addiction. Sorry in advance to your willpower.

By Alister

There is a video doing the rounds that perfectly sums up our relationship with robots in 2026.

A Unitree G1 in a blue clown wig is performing for a crowd in Xinjiang, launches into a roundhouse kick with real conviction, and connects squarely in the stomach of a small boy standing a touch too close. The lad doubles over. Nobody else flinches. The phones stay up. The robot struts on like it has just nailed an audition for Strictly.

Good news for the nervous. He wasn’t seriously hurt, which is the only reason I’m allowed to find this as funny as I do. The internet, naturally, went full Terminator, with one guy declaring "so it begins" and another noting the thing had broken Asimov's First Law before its wig had even settled.

The ICC Women's T20 World Cup lands in Britain on Friday, with matches in Manchester, Leeds, Birmingham and beyond, so there is fine bowling to catch wherever you are. We will be back in your inbox next Monday. Same time, different squabble.

Alister & Meridyth