Italy and Spain have deployed naval vessels to assist the Global Sumud Flotilla as it sails to take aid to Gaza. The “unprecedented move” by the two governments follows “repeated attacks” on the flotilla, including one by a drone, that have been blamed on Israel, said Al Jazeera, and amid an escalation in “Israeli rhetoric” against the activists.

What is the flotilla about?
The boats of the Global Sumud Flotilla set sail after experts from the UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification officially confirmed the famine in Gaza City and warned that central and southern Gaza could also face starvation within weeks.

The stated goal of the activists aboard, who include Swedish climate campaigner Greta Thunberg, is to “break the illegal siege on Gaza by sea, open a humanitarian corridor, and end the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people”. Similar initiatives have proved controversial, and three other attempts this year to deliver aid to Gaza by sea have been intercepted by Israeli forces.

How has Israel responded? 
More than 50 flotilla vessels were targeted in waters near Crete last Wednesday by drones that dropped explosives, damaging some of the boats, as well as grenades containing irritant gas. An Italian MP on board one of the vessels said their radio communications were “jammed” with ABBA music.

Israel has not responded to questions about the drone attacks, but its descriptions of the flotilla have shifted from “selfie cruise” to “Hamas flotilla”. That’s telling, according to Yanis Varoufakis on Novara Media, because Israel, “before or after it has attacked, maimed or killed anyone it wants to ‘take out’, it calls them Hamas”.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry warned on Thursday that it “will not allow any vessel to enter the active combat zone”, and “any further refusal” from the flotilla activists “will put the responsibility on the flotilla organisers”. 

When could the flotilla reach Gaza?
In an update on social media early today, the flotilla said its lead vessels were “just 366 nautical miles [678km] from Gaza, with an estimated arrival in three to four days”. The activists said they would be in the high-risk zone within two days, adding: “Our determination is absolute, but this is the moment where your global vigilance and solidarity are needed most.”

It was ironic that, on the day when the European team broke their 13-year Ryder Cup away-win “duck”, US fans tried to distract them with “squeaky duck” toys being handed out in a drinks promo, said Sky News. But that was the least of the insults, slurs and raucous interruptions aimed at Team Europe during golf’s premier team competition.

Golf is “generally a genteel and polite game”, with “many unwritten rules of etiquette”, said CNN, and this weekend’s scenes at Bethpage have left many feeling that its fans have gone way “too far”.

‘Cheap shots’
One of the most historic competitions in sport has been “appropriated by a nauseating coarseness” that gave it the air of a “stag party from hell”, said The Times. As the weekend drew on, the wife of Masters-winner Rory McIlroy (pictured above) was “called a whore” and had drinks “thrown at her”, while the wife of his teammate Shane Lowry received “dog’s abuse”.

The tone was set early, and not just by fans attending the event. On Saturday, the master of ceremonies at the first tee, comedian and actor Heather McMahan, led repeated chants of “Fuck you, Rory”. She later apologised and stepped down from her role.

The “ugliness” of US spectators’ behaviour was symptomatic of a darker, tribal thread running through “Trump’s all-caps America”, said The Guardian. The atmosphere at Bethpage had long been trailed as a “snarling, uniquely American cauldron” that would “rattle Europe”. But “the idiots took it literally”, hurling “homophobic slurs” and “boos during backswings”, and aiming “cheap shots dripping with tiresome stereotypes” at McIlroy, in particular.

‘Zero tolerance approach’
You would be hard pressed to find anywhere in the world with “obnoxious golf fans quite like America”, said The Independent.  Combined with a “sincerely troubling security presence”, this year’s Ryder Cup match turned into a “travelling bear pit”.

Organising body the PGA of America did beef up security for the final day, with police officers trailing the players as messages warning of a “zero tolerance approach to abusive shouting flashed up on huge screens” on the course, said the BBC. But in future competitions, “enforcement has to be swift, visible and consequential or it becomes permission by another name”, said The Guardian. “You can fill a grandstand without emptying your standards.”

A swimmer equipped with goggles and a crucifix prepares to compete in the 36th edition of the Dakar-Gorée Crossing. The annual 5km swim from the Senegalese capital to the former slave island is a tribute to the slavery victims who attempted to swim to freedom, often in chains.

Guy Peterson / AFP / Getty Images

English fizz “chalked up” a milestone victory over its “rivals across the Channel” earlier this month when a bottle of Nyetimber’s Blanc de Blancs became the first sparkling wine from outside Champagne to scoop a prestigious prize at the International Wine Challenge ceremony, said The Telegraph.

In a historic first, the producer, based across Sussex, Hampshire and Kent, took home the Champion Sparkling Wine Daniel Thibault Trophy for its Blanc de Blancs 2016 magnum. Judges described it as a “time capsule of a wine” bursting with “mouth-watering acidity, citrus zest and camomile”.

The brand is a “favourite of the royal family”, said London’s The Standard, and its winning entry is the product of a warm growing season in 2016, which, added to its five years on the lees, has created a “complex” wine. Expect “biscuity notes”, with a hint of brioche and “aromas of warm peaches and candied lemon”. 

This isn’t the first time that UK sparkling wine has commanded attention. British fizz has been bounding from “strength to strength”, attracting a raft of “awards and accolades” in recent years, said The Independent. In many cases, even to the most sophisticated oenophile, certain bottles produced in Essex, Sussex, and even South Wales can be considered superior to “those made in Champagne”.

The future for the British sparkling industry is bright, said The Times. Our climate is suited to producing “naturally green, lean, high-acid wines”, which is a staple of the “finest fizz”, giving the wine its unique selling point. Higher quality yields in the UK tend to have come from temperate, “frost-free 2014, 2015 and 2020 vintages” boosted by “long, warm, quality-enhancing autumns”.

Starmer’s fatal flaw? He misunderstands why voters are against him
Kamal Ahmed in The Telegraph
“Confidence and its close sibling, trust, spring from a politician’s ability to say something and for voters to believe it will happen,” writes Kamal Ahmed. Keir Starmer has “failed this simple test too often for comfort”, yet I’m not sure he “understands the size of the hole” that he’s dug himself. Many Labour members are concluding he’s “not fit for the intellectual challenge of leading the country and lacks the street-smart skills necessary to win political battles”.

The ‘tradwife’ fantasy
Rana Foroohar in the Financial Times
In a Christian “trad wife” marriage, the woman “follows but is, in turn, protected by the man, physically, spiritually and economically”, writes Rana Foroohar. This resonates with many women because they “like the idea of having someone else work for money while we make jam” and “play with the kids”. But “let’s be clear”: most of us “can’t afford to stay at home”. Many of “those mythologising the lifestyle” may not actually practise it themselves.

The joy of war films
Tom Jones in The Critic
“For a certain type of man,” writes Tom Jones, films like “Battle of Britain” and “A Bridge Too Far” are a “uniquely British phenomenon”. They are the movies you “find repeated on Sunday afternoon and settle down to watch with your father”; they tell the “noble story of heroic self-sacrifice that is the moral crucible in which Britain’s identity is forged”. And so “we watch and rewatch”, because “they are a thread between generations”.