Mayors are the big winners in Burnham’s devolution drive. So what happens to areas without mayors? | John Harris

Ignore Iran, the Epstein files, and your wallet – not to mention Trump’s plummeting approval ratings Don’t mention the war! Or the economy, for that matter. Or the Epstein files. Or Natalie Harp. Or “affordability”, which, as Donald Trump recently said at a rally, is a word that was “never used” by the media before he took office. Best not to talk about anything that affects ordinary people or embarrasses the president, really. Instead, let’s all rejoice in Trump’s latest triumph: renaming Lake Ontario, which is shared by Canada and the US, as Lake America. On Thursday, Trump signed an executive order directing federal agencies to America-fy the lake’s name on US maps and documents, which is an excellent use of time and resources. I suppose we can at least be thankful that the president, who is trying to slap his own name on everything from airports to the Kennedy Center, didn’t decree that the body of water be called Lake Trump. Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist..

Six months into the US-Israel war on Iran, the governments in the three countries are fighting political wars at home.

Andy Burnham is in need of radical proposals. A ‘care first’ year in exchange for 50% off fees could be just what he needs The UK’s social care sector is in crisis. Costs are spiralling, with many local councils forced to dedicate the vast majority of their budgets to it. At the same time, more and more families are seeing their savings disappear into the black hole of nursing home fees. With an ageing population, the problem is set to get worse. In only his second week as prime minister, Andy Burnham pledged to succeed where so many of his predecessors have failed: by fixing Britain’s social care system. And yet, as parliament returns from recess, the new-ish administration is still worryingly unclear about how it will do this. Despite Burnham declaring that care workers should enjoy better compensation, we don’t know how he plans to pay for any of it – not least because he has kept Starmer’s campaign pledge to not raise income tax, VAT or national insurance. At the moment, it looks as though it will be impossible to square the circle...