Good morning. This week, immigration minister Anna Turley announced, with minor fanfare, the government will stop using a further 13 hotels to house asylum seekers across the country. That brings the total shut this year to 44, in pursuit of Labour's manifesto pledge, now reiterated by Andy Burnham, to cease hotel use completely by the end of this parliament. Doing so would remove what have become highly visible symbols of an increasingly toxic debate about migration. Less than 160 to go, according to the Home Office. Because nothing says 'compassionate immigration policy' like counting down the days until you've successfully made every asylum seeker homeless.

In other news, Wednesday's solar eclipse began in Russia's remote Arctic north, tracing an arc over much of western Europe. From the UK to northern Italy, tens of millions of people turned to the sky as the light of the setting sun was almost completely blocked out. Meanwhile, on Earth, nurses are collapsing during shifts amid 'inhumane and impossible' conditions caused by extreme heat, their union has warned, as Andy Burnham promised to grapple with 'the bigger questions' of climate adaptation. Because why address the root causes of a crisis when you can just promise to think about it later?

In US politics, Karoline Leavitt will step down as White House press secretary at the end of August, Donald Trump announced. In science, astronomers claim to have discovered a new kind of cosmic object, a black hole 'star', which is the size of the entire solar system and glows with a brilliant red light. And in the Middle East, Israeli militants have besieged two Palestinian families in their homes since the weekend, aiming to take over their properties in the West Bank village of Qusra through a campaign of terror.