Keir Starmer has promised "the biggest reimagining of our NHS since its birth", after a new report warned that the health service is in a "critical condition" and must "reform or die".

The nine-week long review, led by independent peer Lord Ara Darzi, found that A&E wait times are likely to be causing an additional 14,000 deaths a year. The report also highlighted stalling progress on cardiovascular diseases; high cancer mortality rates compared with other countries; and "crumbling" infrastructure.

The report said that ministers must stop simply "throwing money" at hospitals, which have failed to increase productivity despite a major increase in staff numbers since 2019. The prime minister insisted there would be no extra funding for the NHS without major reforms.

What did the commentators say?
Darzi's report has allowed Labour to "return to its favourite themes – trashing the Tories' record and promising to fix the foundations of public services", said the BBC's political correspondent Leila Nathoo. But Labour will need to set out exactly how its promise to "reimagine" the NHS will have markedly different consequences from the reforms of 2012, "which they claim were catastrophic for the health service".

Health Secretary Wes Streeting has spoken "airily" of three "shifts" in the health service, said Eliot Wilson in The Spectator – from "hospital to community", from "analogue to digital", and from "treatment to prevention". But "how are these shifts to be achieved, and how much will they cost"? If Streeting can pull off substantial improvements without "enormous" sums of public money, "he will be as much in demand as if he had achieved perpetual motion".

What next?
Starmer has promised "big reform", said the BBC's health correspondent Nick Triggle, but the exact details won't be clear until the spring, when the new NHS 10-year plan will be published.

It seems inevitable that the Labour government's three "big shifts" will require "upfront investment". Yet with Starmer ruling out tax rises, despite the NHS "now accounting for more than 40p out of every £1 spent on day-to-day public services", many in the health service are "wondering how this will be paid for".

While sightings of unidentified flying objects have been documented as far back as the fourth century, interest in aliens has soared in recent years amid growing belief that the truth really is out there.

That belief is gaining "unprecedented traction" in the US, said Newsweek. In the late 1990s, only 20% of people believed UFO sightings were proof of alien life. By 2022, 34% did.

Keeping secrets?
Tony Milligan, a senior research fellow at King's College London, argued on The Conversation that "familiar anti-elite tropes" rooted in the idea that authorities are hiding the "truth" may be behind the rise. In a 2019 survey, a "staggering" 68% of Americans said the US government hadn't revealed all it knew about extraterrestrial life.

Depending on the results of November's presidential elections, that could change: Donald Trump has vowed to declassify videos of alleged UFOs if he takes back the White House. The Republican nominee has had a "decade-long fascination" with the issue, said The Sun.

That this fascination is shared by so many others is also due in part to the rise of social media, according to Professor Barry Markovsky, of the University of South Carolina. Mobile phone images of "nondescript lights in the sky" can quickly go viral, adding to speculation about aliens and encouraging others to share their photos of "odd-looking content", he said on The Conversation.

Memory tricks
Psychologist Chris French told the BBC's Sky at Night magazine that a UFO was not automatically a sign of alien life, and that ufologists knew that the vast majority of sightings had a "mundane explanation". But most people liked the more exciting explanation, he said.

French also argued that other UFO-related experiences, such as alien abduction, could be episodes of sleep paralysis. As for group cases of UFO sightings, that could be down to "memory conformity" – when a group discuss what they think they've seen and by doing so, influence each other's recollections.

Whatever the reasons, belief in aliens is always going to ebb and flow, said Markovsky, but "like political scandals and high-waisted jeans", it will never go away.

"This is hip-hop dance, and opera house rules do not apply." That's the message that comes through loud and clear at the start of "The Mad Hatter's Tea Party", said Siobhan Murphy in The Stage. ZooNation's staging of "Alice in Wonderland" has returned to London's Royal Opera House and from the outset, the audience is encouraged to "make as much noise as possible".

The show is set in Ward W at Ladrington Brook, an "Institution for Extremely Normal Behaviour", where a "motley collection of inpatients is kept under lock and key". Each of Lewis Carroll's characters has been given a backstory: the White Rabbit, for example, has OCD, while the Mad Hatter is suffering from mercury poisoning.

Choreographer Kate Prince's "clever, anti-authoritarian take on Carroll's surreal world" feels "compassionate yet comical", said Donald Hutera in The Times. This "irresistibly feelgood" production is full of "ebullient" dancing and a "disarming, beat-driven melange of funk, rap and house".

At times, "The Mad Hatter's Tea Party" strays too far into "didactic med- and psych- speak", which is "pushing it" for a show appealing largely to families, said Mark Monahan in The Telegraph. But Nethra Menon is a "beguilingly impish" Queen of Hearts, while Isaac Baptiste is a "lively and decidedly charming" Mad Hatter.

As the show draws to a close, the audience is asked whether anyone would like to join the cast on stage. Watching a "tiny boy grooving gleefully with the March Hare spoke volumes about the show's all-enveloping wackiness and warmth".

"The Mad Hatter's Tea Party" is running until 24 September, Royal Opera House, London

The Tories brought the prison system to a point of total breakdown. They must own it
Ian Dunt on the i news site
After years of pushing for "increased sentencing", writes Ian Dunt, "elements of the right-wing press suddenly care about the state of the criminal justice system". Tory leadership hopeful Robert Jenrick described the early release of prisoners as "a day of shame", but who "drove prisons into a state of collapse"? Jenrick and his right-wing media friends are "desperately looking for someone to blame" but "they can start by staring into the mirror".

Do not ignore Mali's multifaceted humanitarian catastrophe
Fadumo Abdulqadir for Al-Jazeera
Mali is "experiencing a multifaceted humanitarian crisis", and without urgent help from the international community, it will only "deepen", writes Fadumo Abdulqadir. "Long-term political instability, protracted armed conflict and seemingly endless economic struggles" are piling on the pressure, on top of an unfolding "climate emergency". But "the world seems to be turning a blind eye to the suffering of people". Leaders must "turn their attention to Mali and its perfect storm".

Statistics are still misunderstood in the courtroom
Anjana Ahuja for Financial Times
When it comes to scientific evidence in the courtroom, the Lucy Letby case is "grimly compelling", says Anjana Ahuja. While "making no claims" about the former neonatal nurse's guilt or innocence, "several eminent statisticians" have raised concerns over "shortcomings in how scientific and statistical evidence is gathered and presented in court". Safeguards "must be put in place that allow judges and jurors to fully understand the numbers, charts and other technical evidence put before them".