The upcoming release of the UK’s first weight-loss pill will be “game-changing”, according to a leading pharmacy provider. “We’ve already seen record demand ahead of the expected launch” of the Wegovy tablet,  Chemist4U chief executive James O’Loan said in a statement. The majority of customers expressing interest have not used weight-loss injections, but the new pill “could widen access to millions of people across the country”.

How does it work?
The pill is an oral version of the weight-loss injection Wegovy, containing the same active ingredient, semaglutide. While the injections “pass directly into the bloodstream, the pill has to first be absorbed through the stomach”, said medical journalist David Cox in The Telegraph. This is possible through “scientific innovation, creating a way of encapsulating semaglutide and shielding it from stomach acid”. As with the injections, the Wegovy pill “mimics the effects of a gut hormone called GLP-1, released after eating, which regulates appetite and signals a feeling of fullness”. While the injections are weekly, the pill is taken daily, and comes in different doses that can be steadily increased each month.

Common Wegovy side effects include “nausea and vomiting (slightly more common with the pill version), diarrhoea and/or constipation and abdominal discomfort”, said Dr Mark Porter in The Times, “but these generally settle once people get used to the medicine”.

How effective is it?
Early tests suggest the pill’s effectiveness is similar to that of injectable Wegovy. After 64 weeks, adults taking the pill lost an average of 14% to 17% of their body weight, and about one in three lost 20% or more. It will only be prescribed to people classified as clinically obese, with a body mass index of more than 30, or overweight (27-30) and with at least one weight-related health condition such as high blood pressure or type 2 diabetes.

How much will it cost?
The pill will initially be available only on private prescription and exact prices are yet to be set. But Robert Bradshaw of Oxford Online Pharmacy told The Telegraph that it was likely to “come in roughly at the same price as the injections”.

Three senior defence figures have accused Keir Starmer of depriving UK troops of the funding needed for them to carry out their duties. In “scathing remarks” in Parliament, former defence secretary John Healey, former Armed Forces minister Al Carns and the country’s senior military officer, Rich Knighton, all accused Starmer of “underfunding the military”, said The Guardian.

What did the commentators say?
Following the 2024 general election, Starmer commissioned a strategic defence review to “set out a vision for UK defence over the next 10 years”. But “what it didn’t do” was “provide insight into how it was to be funded”, said Thomas Caygill, a politics lecturer at Nottingham Trent University, on The Conversation.

According to reports, military leaders requested an £18 billion uplift to address a massive funding shortfall, but the Treasury offered no more than £13.5 billion (a 0.08% budget increase). But “to give the Treasury some credit”, said Caygill, the Ministry of Defence is “known for poor spending decisions” and has “long been criticised for wasting taxpayers’ money”. The hesitancy “may be justified” when “public finances are very tight” and the cost of government borrowing has risen.

The battle between the MoD and the Treasury over defence spending has “raged longer than the Hundred Years’ War”, said Libby Brooks in The Guardian. The “general acceptance in military circles” is that Britain is “already under threat on home soil” from electoral interference, sabotage and arson attacks. But the “case for increased defence spending is harder to make with a population who experience no direct threat while bombs continue to drop elsewhere”.

What next?
Starmer has signalled that there is unlikely to be more money for defence. The PM told reporters at this week’s G7 summit in France that he had already “taken the decision” to cut capital spending by 1% from other departments to pay for further increases, and that it was up to Dan Jarvis, the new defence secretary, “where he wants that money to be spent”. If Jarvis can’t secure any more money for the department in the next two weeks, he will have to make “very significant cuts”, said Larisa Brown in The Times.

Pope Leo XIV blesses an angelic-looking baby during his weekly general audience in the Vatican’s St Peter’s Square. The pontiff used the homily to reflect on his recent visit to Spain, thanking the country’s Catholics for their “joyful expression of their faith and affection”.

Andreas Solaro / AFP / Getty Images

Madonna’s bold 14-minute film to mark her latest album, “Confessions II”, has put music videos back in the spotlight. Here are some of the trailblazing artists who helped revolutionise the genre.

Michael Jackson, Thriller (1982)
As well as being “one of the greatest pop songs of all time”, said Kelly Murphy and Dale Maplethorpe in Far Out Magazine, “Thriller” also has “one of the most memorable music videos ever recorded”. Essentially an entire “horror movie in its own right”, it gave the world an “iconic” and unforgettable dance.

A-ha, Take On Me (1985)
Steve Barron’s “thoroughly immersive” video for A-ha’s “Take on Me” expertly mixes live action with hand-drawn animation, said Slant Magazine. After more than four decades, it remains “one of the most gripping narrative videos of all time”, and a “testament to the power, proficiency and poignancy of the medium itself”.

Madonna, Vogue (1990)
“‘Come on, vogue’ – Madonna commands it, and the world listened,” said Rolling Stone. In her third collaboration with David Fincher, the Queen of Pop took vogueing – an “outlandish” form of dance that originated in Harlem’s queer, underground ballroom scene – into the mainstream.

Childish Gambino, This is America (2018)
The “gut-punch impact remains no matter how many times” you watch “This is America”, said Rolling Stone. Donald Glover’s “musical alter-ego” Childish Gambino wanders from scene to scene, shimmying his way through “dancing kids, angry cops” and scenes of both “social unrest and unfettered black joy”.

Is it bad that Elon Musk has a trillion dollars? Yes, and here’s why
Ingrid Robeyns in The Guardian
Elon Musk’s new status as the world’s first trillionaire highlights a major “problem”, writes philosopher Ingrid Robeyns. “Extreme wealth concentration stands for extreme power.” It “undermines democracies”, and the “ultimate danger” lies in the “so-called oligarchic endgame theory, whereby power is concentrated among the super-rich”. We need to define the “threshold at which wealth begins to cause harm”, and to understand that “billionaires and trillionaires are not a sign of success, but of a dysfunctional system that is harmful to all our lives”.

I broke the news of Brexit to Britain – 10 years on, we still haven’t seen a single benefit
David Dimbleby on The Independent
“I remember the night of the referendum well,” writes former BBC presenter David Dimbleby. I announced that “the British people have spoken, and the answer is, we’re out” – a “statement of the obvious which, to my amazement, went viral”. The Brexit campaign was not “edifying”, and the vote was not a “sensible way of deciding policy” on such a “fundamental matter”. And “as for the benefits of leaving, 10 years have passed – and we are still waiting”.

The real reason Prince George is going to Eton – and it’s not what you think
Jennie Bond in The i Paper
“To most of us”, Eton College is an “alien world” with “seriously weird uniforms” and “eye-watering” fees, writes Jennie Bond, but Prince George’s parents have decided it’s “where he will be happiest”. It’s a “world which William knows well”: as his own parents “battled over their failing marriage”, he “found solace” in Eton’s “exclusive surroundings”. Sending George there may “look out of touch”, but it is “every parent’s right to make what they believe is the best decision for their child”.