Last week, as the war in Iran continued to choke global oil supplies, the UK government announced a 13% increase in the cap on energy prices. But it was another related story on the other side of the world that caught my eye.
In Australia, the energy minister announced a fall of up to 10% in the benchmark electricity price in parts of the country, driven by record levels of renewables and batteries in the power grid.
Australia was already a world leader in domestic solar power. But with little fanfare, it is also pioneering a revolution in home renewables and battery usage, proving that with the right policy initiatives, profound changes can be made to the ways energy markets work.
Five essential reads in this week’s edition
The big story | Is the Iran war Trump’s Vietnam moment? The current Middle East conflict has been far shorter than the war that defined the 1960s and early 1970s, but it has rapidly revealed the strategic weakness of US firepower in an interconnected world, argues Patrick Wintour
Health | Cancer breakthroughs from the world’s largest oncology conference From groundbreaking genomic tests to tumour-shrinking injections, health editor Andrew Gregory reports from the American Society of Clinical Oncology’s annual meeting in Chicago
Feature | The people fighting back against pothole-riddled roads The dire state of roads has provoked pothole vigilantes and become a political flashpoint from Manchester to Manhattan. How did we get here? Oliver Franklin-Wallis reports
Opinion | If you’re still on Elon Musk’s X, ask yourself this: why? Some argue that quitting the platform formerly known as Twitter cedes the space to malign actors. But it’s an open sewer, beyond redemption, says Jonathan Liew
Culture | Children’s illustrators on the art of storytelling From The Twits to The Gruffalo and an angry bear in search of his hat … famous illustrators talk to Stuart Heritage about how they bring children’s books to life
The talks which led to the deal did not include the Iranian-backed armed group, which said it fired rockets at Israeli targets hours after the truce was announced.
History, hauntings and high-jinx figured in Britain’s first motoring guides, finds Jack Watkins
What a Derby day
Epsom hosts one of racing’s most thrilling spectacles. Jack Watkins picks 10 of the best winners
Monaco
Adam Hay-Nicholls explores the changing face of Monaco, Steven King treads the Prince Rainier III sculpture trail, Arabella Youens seeks out the best properties for sale in the Principality and Mark Hedges cruises serenely into town
His green and pleasant land
John Constable painted places he knew and loved the best. Susan Owens examines how insight influenced his landscapes
Outstanding in their fields
From ‘shoy hoys’ to Worzel Gummidge, Aeneas Dennison traces the story of scarecrows
Andy Wilman’s favourite painting
The television producer chooses a work that reveals a human response to the brutality of war
Country-house treasure
A godfatherly gift ensures that Sir Edwin Lutyens and Shilstone House in Devon are happy bed-fellows, discovers John Goodall
Building on the past
In the second of two articles, John Goodall reveals how Elizabethan Doddington Hall is thriving into the 21st century
The legacy
Octavia Pollock profiles Percy Shaw, the inventor of cat’s eyes, the 20th century’s top design
Winging it
The feral pigeon’s modern-day scavenging masks a more valiant history, suggests Mark Cocker
Drawn to the land
Katharine Freeland meets artists who are mapping estates in an echo of traditional landowners
Jack Watkins strolls the streets that became an artist’s muse, our writers have all you need to know this month, Will Hosie shares seven of the best homes on the market and Rupert Clague charts the rise of the capital’s coffee houses
Death, taxes and Tests with New Zealand
What next for England’s Bazball approach, asks James Fisher
Luxury
Amie Elizabeth White is on red alert — and gives pearl a whirl
Interiors
Arabella Youens admires an extended Cotswolds cottage and Giles Kime ponders going it alone
Dreaming of roses
Charles Quest-Ritson shares 1,000 reasons to fall in love with the restored walled garden at Dummer House, Hampshire
Arts & antiques
Rebecca Salter, president of the Royal Academy, outlines her ambitions to Carla Passino
Travel
A mountain-top encounter rings a bell with Pamela Goodman
MIT SLOAN MANAGEMENT REVIEW: The Summer 2026 Issue features articles that show that when business leaders are willing to share their successes and their challenges with others, they position their own organizations and their industries for better management practice and growth.
We founded Skeptic magazine and the Skeptics Society in 1992, partially in response to a market demand from consumers and the media for a scientific and rational response to increasingly tantalizing claims of the paranormal and supernatural, ESP and Psi, telepathy and telekinesis, NDEs and OBEs, ghosts and poltergeists, astrology and psychics, cryptozoology and strange creatures, haunted houses and mysterious places, UFOs and aliens, conspiracy theories and cults, and a litany of anomalous psychological experiences people reported.
I’m a humanistic weirdo, and as such I’m not sure where I belong in this modern culture war. I love truth and reason — I’ve built a career on them — but I belong to a humanistic tradition that refuses to stop at the head and leave the heart out of it. And these days there aren’t many of us. So when I look at the people we’ve come to call “anti-woke intellectuals”—many of whom have written for Skeptic or appeared as guests on The Michael Shermer Show podcast—I don’t see them the way either side wants me to.
In the governor’s race, a Trump-endorsed Republican held a narrow lead. In Los Angeles, Mayor Karen Bass advanced, but her opponent was yet to be decided.
President Trump’s pick for governor of Iowa lost his primary, while Democrats in the state chose a nominee for what they hope will be a competitive Senate race.
The U.S. and Iran accused each other of launching new strikes. President Trump told The New York Post that Iran’s supreme leader was involved in peace talks.
As an annual economic conference was set to begin, President Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukraine had targeted a navy base and an oil terminal in the region that includes Russia’s second-largest city.
Under pressure from President Trump, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel held off from attacking Beirut. But he vowed to continue Israel’s campaign against Hezbollah, which could threaten peace talks with Iran.
The war has not been going the Kremlin’s way recently, with battleground losses and mounting casualties. With renewed strikes, Moscow hopes to gain a better position for negotiations.
Moscow’s repeated warnings of a major strike, combined with the delay before it happened, seemed intended to inflict a psychological toll on the Ukrainian capital.
Hospitals See Diseases Resurge as Vaccinations Decline
Doctors in the U.S. are encountering more children with bacterial infections and other serious illnesses, as well as more adults refusing tetanus shots.
Boomers Daily 