China is being quietly credited with keeping energy prices down during Donald Trump’s war with Iran, helping to prop up the global economy while cementing its own power on the world stage.

By tapping into its huge reserves of oil, “China kind of saved the day” and helped avert a “doomsday scenario” when the Strait of Hormuz closure choked off 20% of global energy supply, said S&P Global Ratings economist Paul Gruenwald.

What did the commentators say?
China long depended heavily on imported crude to meet its ever-growing energy needs. But under President Xi Jinping, the country has spent billions of dollars amassing the world’s biggest stockpile of oil, as well as making huge investments in renewable energy.

The Iran conflict has highlighted China’s success in transforming what was once a major weakness “into a surprising source of geopolitical power”, said The New York Times. This success has “big implications for the global energy industry, where oil producers like Saudi Arabia and the United States – not importers like China – have traditionally held most of the cards”.

The Strait of Hormuz crisis has not only vindicated China’s “muscular energy policy” but could also prove a “major tool” in any future war over Taiwan, giving Beijing a buffer if Western powers block its fuel imports, said The Wall Street Journal. “Oil is not the Achilles’ heel we thought it was,” Michal Meidan, head of China energy research at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, told the paper. “I think a lot of people thought China was very, very vulnerable to oil supply disruptions. It’s not.”

What next?
 China’s oil stockpile has helped the world avoid a far deeper energy crisis, “but that buffer may face a test as Beijing shows signs of resuming purchases”, said CNBC. Analysts warn that the drag on global growth from elevated oil prices could then deepen well beyond current estimates.

More than a quarter of a century ago, her heroic struggle against a utility giant became an Oscar-winning Hollywood movie. Now, Erin Brockovich has turned her attention to the “rapid and opaque” expansion of artificial intelligence data centres across the United States, said El País.

‘Weapons against her’
Brockovich was working as a file clerk at a Los Angeles law firm in 1992 when she uncovered evidence linking a rash of illnesses in the California town of Hinkley to high levels of hexavalent chromium in its drinking water. Her work ultimately led to utility giant Pacific Gas & Electric paying $333 million to the town’s residents, in what was then the largest settlement of a class-action lawsuit in US history.

Dismissed as an “environmentalist with cleavage”, Brockovich “frequently saw her blonde hair and striking looks turned into weapons against her”, said El País. But even after becoming the subject of a Hollywood movie, she was determined not to be “absorbed into the machinery of pop culture”. This year she’s “turned her attention to a new target”, said Time: the AI data centres being built by tech giants including Meta, Google and Microsoft.

‘Hinkley on steroids’
In April, Brockovich issued an online callout for anyone with concerns about data centres in their area to get in touch, said The Guardian. Within a month, 3,862 people had responded. She has since built a “chilling” map of AI data centres across the US: as of June, 33 were already operational, 68 were under construction, and 41 were proposed. In May, Utah gave approval for a centre twice the size of Manhattan.

“This feels like Hinkley on steroids,” Brockovich told the paper. She alleges that data centres are being built without proper environmental assessments or community input, and have significant impacts on local resources, particularly water usage. She is seeking a case-by-case moratorium on the approval of new data centres until their impacts can be properly assessed and addressed.

“You’re up against forces that have all the money and all the intelligence and all the bandwidth in the world,” she said. But Brockovich, said The Guardian, “won’t walk away until it’s over”.

Donald and Melania Trump pose alongside Xi Jinping and his wife Peng Liyuan on the South Portico of the White House as the Chinese president begins a three-day state visit to the US.

Saul Loeb / AFP / Getty Images

Now is the time to experience the UK countryside “at its most colourful” as woodlands turn “gold, russet and crimson”, said Country Living. Here are some favourite spots to do just that.

Cannock Chase, Staffordshire
This “former medieval royal hunting forest” is mainland England’s smallest Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and is also home to endangered species such as the nightjar and woodcock, said Daniel Graham on BBC Countryfile. In October, you might spot muntjac and red deer searching for the rare Chase berry, a “blueberry-cowberry hybrid”.

Abinger Roughs and Shere Woodlands, Surrey
The 300-year-old “ancient, gnarly oak trees” on Abinger Roughs are the perfect antidote to an “existential crisis”, said Alexandra Sims and Rhian Daly in Time Out. Fifteen minutes’ drive away, the equally tranquil Shere wood “feels like it should be much further away from a capital city than it is”.

Castle Ward, County Down
The “leafy deciduous woodland and historic follies” of this 800-acre estate on the shores of Strangford Lough hold many moments of excitement for autumn walkers, said Jen and Sim Benson in The Times. Look out for “light-bellied brent geese arriving from the Arctic in autumn and grey seal pups, born in November”.

Allen Banks, Northumberland
Allen Banks is “awesome in autumn”, said Sarah Baxter in The Telegraph. Cutting through “deepest Northumberland”, this riverside gorge is “flanked by the most extensive area of ancient woodland in the county”. Keep an eye out for “scampering red squirrels” amid the “fiery beech and oak spilling down the valley”.

Why your holiday is good news for the UK
Chris Giles in the Financial Times
Britain is “far less useless than it appeared” in Office for National Statistics data that left economists struggling to explain the country’s lack of productivity since 2009, writes Chris Giles. It turns out the financial crisis didn’t “wreak far more damage” here than in the rest of Europe, the US and Japan; the statisticians just failed to account for factors such as annual leave. The figures have now been revised, but the “accuracy of the economic picture still falls far short of what an advanced nation should expect”.

I’m a lifelong surfer, the waves don’t scare me, travelling as a Jew does
Rabbi Hayim Leiter in The Jerusalem Post
As a keen surfer “who often works abroad”, I’ve had “the opportunity to search out beaches with great waves to ride”, writes Rabbi Hayim Leiter. But “I can no longer go to these places as myself”. Since October 7, “currents” of antisemitism have been “gaining momentum in Europe and beyond”. Now, when I’m in foreign lands and seas, I’m “hiding something beneath the surface: my Jewish identity”.

The real shock in the Lindsay Clancy case is that the child-killer isn’t a man
Deborah Frances-White on The Nerve
“About 90% of homicides worldwide are committed by men”, so Lindsay Clancy’s case has provoked intense scrutiny, writes Deborah Frances-White. Mothers who kill infants are often affected by “severe postpartum psychiatric disorders”, which “is why women have come out in numbers to campaign” for Clancy. She was said to have been “begging for help” before killing her three young children, but she “was not heard”. To reduce violence by both sexes, “mental health and anger management” must be our “collective priorities”.