The Week 1562

An owl – blown off course by Storm Amy and left starving and exhausted in the middle of the North Sea – had a stroke of good fortune when it found an oil rig to land on. The shorteared owl was spotted by staff on the Noble Patriot platform, 180 miles off the coast of Shetland. They made it a little home, and fed it raw chicken, then flew it back to shore in a helicopter and handed it to a wildlife centre. It was nursed back to health and has been released back into the wild. A British art historian believes he has identified the girl with the pearl earring – the subject of Johannes Vermeer’s celebrated 1665 painting. Andrew Graham-Dixon says that the artist painted it for his…

Ceasefire in Gaza: a chance for peace The streets of Tel Aviv felt empty on Monday morning, said Roy Schwartz in The Guardian. “There was no need to ask where everyone was.” Thousands of people were packed into the plaza known now, and perhaps for ever more, as Hostage Square. Others were glued to their televisions at home, watching the joyous scenes as the 20 remaining living Israeli hostages were reunited with their families, after 738 days in captivity. There were parallel celebrations in Gaza and the West Bank as almost 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and detainees were released on the same day as part of the ceasefire deal agreed last week. In Israel’s parliament, where he received a hero’s welcome, Donald Trump hailed what he called the “historic dawn in…

In the days after the ceasefire began on Friday, tens of thousands of displaced Gazans set out for their homes in the north of the Strip, many of them on foot and carrying little more than the clothes on their backs, said Nedal Hamdouna and Bel Trew in The Independent. Flanking their route, on the coastal road, were the ashen remains of bombed-out buildings and piles of twisted metal, while “mangled skylines” loomed all around. “Your body shivers from the scale of the destruction,” said Mahmoud Al-Kafarneh, 37. Having been living for so long in a tent, he said he was looking forward to seeing familiar places; but would he find them? Elsewhere, returning Gazans found only skeletal ruins where their homes had been – and nothing they recognised. Even…

Controversy of the week The Chinese threat “It has all the makings of a gripping spy novel,” said Gaby Hinsliff in The Guardian. Two young men – one a parliamentary researcher, the other a teacher – are accused of passing secrets to China; but amid “swirling political intrigue” the case mysteriously collapses weeks before going to trial. The Government was forced last week to deny that it intervened in the case to appease China, after the Crown Prosecution Service accused it of failing to provide the necessary evidence to prosecute both men. The current government and the last one have blamed each other for failing to officially designate China a threat to national security – without which, it is argued, the case would have been thrown out. It’s ludicrous, said…

In a twist on the trend for “unboxing” consumer goods, Gen Zers are filming themselves peeling prickly horse chestnuts, and marvelling at the shape and shine of the conkers inside. They have dubbed conkers “nature’s Labubus” – after the ugly Chinese toys that come in unmarked boxes, so you don’t know which model you have bought until you unwrap it. For years, people have fulminated about trigger warnings. Now, a study has looked into how these affect people’s behaviour – and its conclusion is, not much at all. In 90% of cases, the participants ignored the warning of distressing content, with those who had experienced trauma no less likely to do so. Some said the trigger warning actually piqued their interest.…

Automation, with news that self-driving taxis are due to arrive in the UK next year. The vehicles, made by the Alphabet-owned firm Waymo, will appear on the streets of London within a few weeks, with human safety drivers behind the wheel; the company will then seek permission for fully driverless rides to start in the spring. Cristiano Ronaldo, who was named as football’s first billionaire. The Bloomberg Billionaires Index estimates that, thanks to his platinum-plated deal with the Saudi team Al-Nassr, the former Manchester United player’s net worth now stands at £1.04bn. Ronaldo has signed a two-year extension to his tax-free contract with the Riyadh-based team, believed to be worth £300m. The Green Party, in England and Wales, which reported that its membership has exceeded 100,000 for the first time,…