Nottingham has become one of the first cities in the UK to enact a ban on balaclavas, as part of an “Operation Reclaim” initiative to tackle youth anti-social behaviour. Other areas of the country are considering similar restrictions following masked anti-migrant protests on the south coast, but opinion is divided on the extent and effectiveness of bans on face coverings.

Why is the balaclava so controversial?
Popularised by US drill rappers “wearing head coverings and ski-masks in videos”, the balaclava has become something of a transatlantic “urban fashion trend”, said The Telegraph. Ironically, the garment “is now marketed by British leisurewear outlets on the very high streets blighted by ‘ballie’ crime”.

The balaclava has traditionally been used by both “far-right” and “left-wing agitators” to conceal identities during protests, said James Hanson on LBC. But it is also a common accessory for street crime and anti-social behaviour. “If you’re popping into Sainsbury’s in a balaclava, you’re hardly there to top up your Nectar points.”

How will the ban work?
Current legislation already allows senior police officers to declare a protest area in which concealing identity would be an offence, but this power was not used during the Dover protests.

From today, police and council officers in Nottingham will be permitted to ask people to remove face coverings if they “reasonably believe” that they are being worn to conceal their identity or to commit crime or anti-social behaviour. Those who refuse can be given a £70 on-the-spot fine and referred to the Immediate Justice Programme, a scheme requiring community work. If the person is prosecuted, courts are able to impose a maximum fine of £1,000. Repeat offenders may also be issued with a criminal behaviour order, “which could ban them from the city centre indefinitely”, Nottingham Police said. Those wearing face coverings for religious, health, medical or work reasons or another legitimate purpose will be exempted from the ban.

Other councils in the UK will be “carefully watching Nottingham’s progress”, said The Telegraph. A few areas have already adopted similar measures, including Wolverhampton, Woking and the London borough of Hammersmith and Fulham.

Learning to drive used to be a rite of passage for teenagers, but now many say they haven’t even considered learning. No wonder, said The Telegraph: it’s “Britain’s biggest rip-off”, and booking a test has become a complete “nightmare” too.

‘Driving divide’
The average learner pays for more than 18.5 hours of driving lessons, which costs a minimum of £777, said Helen Coffey in The Independent, citing a study from Confused.com. The price of a theory test is a further £23, while the practical test is £62, and half of British learners have to retake it at least once. “Welcome to the world of the £1k driving licence.”

Nearly one in five young people in Britain have not even considered learning to drive because of the expense, according to a poll by the price comparison website. A separate study, by car insurer Prima, found that 70% of British adults who do not hold a full driving licence believe learning to drive is unaffordable.

Robot cars
For would-be drivers able to afford lessons, waiting times for tests have risen “astronomically” and now stand at between five and six months for the practical, said The Telegraph. The average wait was around five weeks in February 2020, before the Covid pandemic caused the ongoing backlog.

New drivers face further hefty costs after securing a licence, paying an average of £1,241 to get insured. But cultural issues are also fuelling the decline in young motorists. “Perhaps the simplest explanation is that many young people just don’t need to drive,” said Lucy Reade in The New World. Gen Z are “concerned about climate change” and “nutty about public transport”, which is easy for many of them to access given the “massive urban migration” of young people towards cities. And now there’s also the spectre of self-driving taxis on the horizon. “For a generation already less likely to learn to drive, the prospect of simply summoning a robot car to do it for us may prove irresistible.”

Protesters burn tyres and block roads in the Syrian city of al-Bab. Demonstrations over the government’s decision to increase fuel prices are taking place across the country, in the first major unrest since longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad was ousted in 2024.

Bakr Alkasem / AFP / Getty Images

It’s not surprising that a trip to the Galapagos Islands “tops many travellers’ wish lists”, said The Times. The “far-flung Ecuadorian archipelago” is home to “astonishing landscapes” and an array of rare wildlife, from blue-footed boobies to marine iguanas and giant tortoises. It is best navigated on small ships, all of which are “strictly regulated” in order to protect the “pristine natural area known to have inspired Darwin’s theory of evolution”. 

We took an early morning flight from Quito to Baltra Island in the centre of the archipelago before boarding the National Geographic Islander III, said Marc Shoffman in The Independent. Accommodating 48 guests, it’s an intimate boat: you won’t find any waterslides or ice-cream shops, but my daughters were happy “snorkelling among the turtles, parrot fish and manta rays in the unseasonably warm waters”.

It’s worth getting up early to avoid the heat and “capture the wildlife at its calmest”. On South Plaza Island, we were greeted by “sleepy sea lions and the region’s unique swallow-tailed gulls”, while on Las Bachas “rare birds such as the red-footed booby and shiny white Nazca boobies simply waddled by”. The best moment, though, was watching the “famous giant tortoises as they calmly ate grass at the Rancho El Manzanillo, unfazed by our gawping”.

If you love the water, Celebrity Cruises is a good option, said The Telegraph. During the seven-night itineraries, guests have plenty of opportunities to “splash around with the archipelago’s diverse and diverting marine wildlife”. Snorkelling sessions are a great way to get close to sea turtles, reef sharks and, if you’re lucky, the “darting, bullet-like form of a Galapagos penguin”.

The incoming ‘super’ El Niño will create chaos around the world – and we are far from ready for it
Bill McGuire in The Guardian
El Niño is already adding a “jaw-dropping” amount of stored ocean heat into the atmosphere, writes climate-hazards professor Bill McGuire. “It will spawn a string of weather catastrophes around our world” and there’s “no reason to think the UK will be immune”. We should prepare for “flooding on a serious – perhaps even epic – scale”, and “significant impacts” on our food security. This “coming monster” should be a “wake-up call”, yet governments “continue to row back on green policies”.

Reform is a party for very rich men who pretend to care about ordinary people
Suzanne Moore in The Telegraph
After Reform’s “chaotic” conference, it “looked as if Nigel Farage’s dreams were starting to unravel”, writes Suzanne Moore. “Then lo! In the East there appeared some shining moolah.” The “privately educated traders, property developers and ex Tories” at the top of the party have “quite clearly been bought” by “crypto barons” who want “deregulation and tax breaks”. Reform’s pretence to represent the “legitimate grievances of poor people” is “just a way for these elites to maintain unaccountable power”.

Man baby Harry and his bratty wife Meghan are so delusional they might be the only two people on Earth who don’t realise what’s really going on here
Maureen Callahan in the Daily Mail
“Harry and Meghan have been back in the UK for two weeks, and already they’re throwing fits in the media,” writes Maureen Callahan. They reportedly expected to be welcomed back into the royal family, which “would be hilarious if it weren’t so delusional”. If that really was “their thinking”, they should have kept “their heads down” and shown “a bit of humility”. Instead, “they dwell in their own reality” and “obstinately push back” like children when they don’t get what they want.