There may have been a few sore heads and impeccably timed phone calls to bosses in England this morning after last night’s World Cup win over Mexico. But football fans must be thankful they don’t live in Germany, where workers will have to report to a doctor in person to get a sick note on the first day they are ill under sweeping new reforms.

What is Germany doing?
“The number of sick days is too high,” said Friedrich Merz, the German chancellor, announcing the plan.

The “tough” new rules are “aimed at boosting Germany’s stagnating economy”, said The Telegraph. Although they will be “welcomed” by employers, they have “angered” the country’s “powerful trade unions”. The services sector union, Verdi, accused Merz of creating a “culture of distrust of employees”.

What are sickness policies like elsewhere?
In the Netherlands, employers are generally obliged to pay employees on sick leave 70% of their wages for up to two years. Norway is even more generous: it provides up to a year of income replacement at 100% of salary (subject to an earnings cap).

Although the US is one of the richest countries in the world, there is no nationwide entitlement to paid sick leave, so access depends largely on state laws, local ordinances and employer policies. 

In the UK employees who earn over £125 a week and are off sick for four or more days in a row, are entitled to £123.25 per week of statutory sick pay for up to 28 weeks. This equates to around 15% of the average UK weekly wage. Employees need to give their employer proof if they’re ill for more than seven days. Many employers have a sick pay policy that is more generous.

How many sick days do people take?
In 2025, 149 million working days were lost to sickness or injury in Britain – an average of more than four days per worker. On average, Americans take roughly one to three days of sick leave per year. In Germany, workers take about three weeks, or 15 working days. This is lower than in France, but higher than Sweden, the Netherlands, Denmark, Poland and Italy.

Sky’s £1.6 billion acquisition of ITV is yet another sign of the “seismic consolidation” taking place between media companies trying to compete with the major streaming platforms, said Deadline.

But with its public service broadcast contract set to expire in 2034, and no guarantee this will continue, ITV’s deal could change the complexion of British commercial broadcasting.

‘Media landscape may look very different’
Sky, and its US owner Comcast, will now have access to the 21 million households reached by ITV, as well as a greater share of advertising spend at a time when broadcasters are “facing an uncertain future”, said the Financial Times. 

Sky and ITV are required by law to continue free-to-air service until at least 2034. Sky will also have to commission a proportion of programmes made outside London, and honour the contract for ITN’s news bulletins for ITV until 2031.

As a public service broadcaster, Sky could also bid for “‘listed’ crown jewel tournaments” – shown on free-to-air channels – such as the Olympics and the Grand National, said the BBC’s Katie Razzall. Sky is also guaranteed a “prominent position” on TV home screens, and in an “ever more competitive world, prominence matters”. But in eight years’ time, the “media landscape may look very different”.

‘Last stand’ against streamers
This long-rumoured deal unites the UK’s two largest commercial broadcasters in an attempt to “bulk up” against the streaming giants, said the FT. The British media industry has experienced a “period of radical change” in the last 20 years, and companies such as YouTube and Netflix pose an “existential threat”.

No longer will there be a binary “broadcast versus streaming” battle, said Forbes, but a series of “connected ecosystems that combine premium content, intelligent data and measurable commercial outcomes”. 

This deal looks “less like a monopoly and more like a last stand”, said The Drum. For years, the British media market maintained a “stable” competition between its three biggest players: BBC, ITV and Channel 4. But with the arrival of “better-capitalised” generalist streamers like Netflix, YouTube and Disney+, not only was the structure disrupted between the old broadcasters, suddenly “they weren’t even one of the three” leaders.

King Charles rides in a Challenger 3 tank during the Royal Tank Regiment’s Families’ Day at the Tank Museum in Dorset. There was further royal controversy today concerning Prince Harry as Buckingham Palace said he would not be staying at the palace during his visit to London this week, despite Harry’s team announcing this morning that he had accepted an invitation to do so.

Chris Jackson / Getty Images

As the scorching weather returns, the best way to cool down is with an ice cream by the sea. The UK’s coastal towns are peppered with parlours serving everything from rich, creamy gelato, to refreshing sorbets and conefuls of quirky flavours. Here are some of our favourite spots.

Joe’s Ice Cream, Mumbles, Swansea
This century-old family-run parlour in Mumbles is a “local cult”, said Felicity Cloake in The Times. It also has branches in Cardiff and Llanelli. There are rules: “always order the vanilla”, which is “churned fresh every day” and has a “distinctly savoury edge”. You’ll also find huge sundaes here, and a knickerbocker glory that owner Adrian Hughes thinks is “far too big for one person. Believe me, it’s not.”

Jannetta’s Gelateria, St Andrews, Fife
“If you’ve ever visited St Andrews in winter, you’ll appreciate just how good Jannetta’s gelato must be to have stuck it out in South Street for the past 118 years,” said Cloake in The Times. When it comes to choice you’ll be hard pressed to find better: the parlour serves 54 flavours that make use of locally sourced ingredients like Fife tayberries and Dundee marmalade. Expect long queues when it’s hot but the samples on offer while you wait “sweeten the deal”.

Rossi’s Ices, Weymouth, Dorset
“Forget your standard vanilla,” said Judy Cogan in The i Paper. At Rossi’s, the Figliolini family “let the natural taste of the cooked milk shine”. They’ve been scooping here since 1937 and certainly know a thing or two about how to make and serve ice cream properly. Expect everything from banana splits and chocolate sundaes to affogato and ice cream sodas.

Burnham will soon be just as loathed as Starmer
Simon Heffer in The Telegraph
“Mr Popularity” might “all too easily become Mr Unpopularity”, writes Simon Heffer. “To govern is to choose” but, so far, Andy Burnham’s “promises” are “inherently paradoxical”. He must “face reality”, “stop infantilising the electorate” and “have an honest, adult conversation with them”. We can’t fund a “something-for-nothing” society any longer, so “people must stop being incentivised to claim welfare benefits”. But saying that would make him “deeply unpopular with his clientele”, so Britain will remain a “shambolic failure”.

My nine-year-old son Mohammad, killed by Israeli soldiers, is not just another number
Aliyah Abdel Majid al-Halaq in The Guardian
“I always knew” that the “occupation” was “built on violence, humiliation and fear”, writes Aliyah Abdel Majid al-Halaq, but I always told myself that “our children could still grow up happy”. When the Israeli army killed my nine-year-old son Mohammad, and his blue school uniform “turned red”, that “fragile belief was taken from me”. As well as “a soldier who pulled the trigger”, there’s “a system that protects those responsible” and “a world that remains silent”.

The anti-sex, anti-fun godmother of Nimbys who gummed up modern Britain
John Oxley in The i Paper
Mary Whitehouse, who died 25 years ago, “may have had the morality of an early 20th-century evangelical”, writes John Oxley, but she “had the instincts which created modern politics”. She was the “godmother” of “Nimby-ism and pressure groups”, who waged “censorious campaigns” and “harangued her targets” because she “grasped” that “the age of deference was over”, and institutions would “bow to pressure”. The result is “tortuous governance” where “policy victories are rarely won but instead are endlessly contested”.