In a post on his Truth Social platform on Sunday, the US President boasted of his “very good relationship” with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un while ordering the Pentagon to scale back joint military exercises with long-standing American ally South Korea.
Trump’s comments indicated that the order to reduce US involvement in training drills due to start this week was related not only to cost, but also to South Korea’s reluctance to join the US “denuclearisation of the Islamic Republic of Iran” and his concern that the exercises “send a signal that is totally inappropriate and hostile” to the North Korean regime.
Eurostar rival finally gets go ahead – everything we know
Incoming Eurostar rival Virgin Trains has been granted track access for new services between London and Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam in 2030.
It marks a step closer to ending Eurostar’s monopoly. The trainline has operated without competition for nearly 32 years.
Approval lasts for 10 years
- The Office of Rail and Road (ORR) has given approval for Sir Richard Branson’s company to run up to 20 daily services through the Channel Tunnel between October 2030 to December 2040.
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Virgin Trains in Eurostar stations
- In October, Virgin Trains was told it could share Eurostar’s Temple Mills depot in east London.
- Temple Mills is the only depot that can be accessed from High Speed 1 – the line that runs between London and the tunnel.
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‘Still more work to do’
This is an important next step in bringing competition and growth to the market for international rail services, and we welcome the progress and London St Pancras High Speed have made. While there is still more work to do, we are supporting and the wider industry to grow international services.
Martin Jones, Deputy director of access and international
What next?
Despite just clearing a major regulatory hurdle, Virgin Trains has yet to secure access to other rail networks.
It must also obtain safety approvals from the ORR and relevant regulators in the EU before services start in 2030.
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The weather to expect for the rest of the summer
While temperatures are expected to drop this week after the UK’s fifth heatwave brought a record 38.1°C – it appears the relief will be only temporary.
Another heatwave is expected to descend on the UK next month, the Met Office has warned, after a month of unprecedented hot and dry conditions.
A September heatwave
The Met Office has predicted that there is a chance of a late-season heatwave developing in September as the UK moves into the meteorological autumn.
The forecaster said there was “a chance that late-season hot spells or heatwaves develop” in the south between 31 August and 14 September.
Northern areas to see ‘more changeable conditions’
The Met Office predicts “drier, more settled weather is slightly more likely towards the south and east. Temperatures are again likely to be near to or above average overall”.
While the south may see more heat, there will likely be “more changeable conditions” in the north and northwest of the country as autumn begins, the Met Office said.
Rain to fall after record dry July
Looking to the weekend, BBC Weather forecasts up to a 58 per cent chance of rain on Sunday, 23 August.
The following week could also see some rain, with BBC Weather predicting showers on Thursday, 28 August and Friday, 29 August – some respite after the driest July on record across England.
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Where does the Gaza peace deal stand?
US envoy Jared Kushner is in the Middle East today for talks with key figures, following a rare meeting with Hamas’s leader yesterday.
Last month, Donald Trump’s Board of Peace said it had reached an agreement for the “complete disarmament” of Hamas and other armed groups in Gaza.
Here’s what you need to know.
Israel rejects Gaza peace plan
Hamas deal
Trump said Hamas had agreed to disarm if Israel withdraws its forces from Gaza. Israel rejected the 15-point plan, which calls for Gaza to be rebuilt under a new civilian Palestinian administration.
The Hamas deal breakthrough came nine months after a US-brokered ceasefire was signed, with negotiations between Israel and Hamas largely deadlocked since then.
US envoy to meet Netanyahu
Netanyahu rejects plan
The Israeli PM said his military would not withdraw from Gaza, warning there would never be a Palestinian state in Gaza under his leadership.
US envoy in Middle East
Trump’s envoy Jared Kushner is expected to meet Netanyahu today to discuss the US-backed Gaza plan. He met with with Hamas leader Khalil al Hayya yesterday.
What happens next?
Eight Muslim countries issued a statement on Sunday condemning Israel’s rejection.
While it’s not yet clear whether Kushner’s talks will be successful, one topic at the heart of discussions will be the disarmament process.
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Why average house price plunged by £7,360 in August
Average house prices nosedived by more than £7,000 this month- marking the biggest August price fall since 2018, according to new figures.
Property site Rightmove said asking prices fell by 2 per cent, or £7,360 month-on-month.
Rightmove downgrades annual house price projections
While prices usually fall in August, this is a much bigger drop than the 10-year average of 1.3 per cent.
The figures prompted Rightmove to downgrade its annual house price forecast for 2026 from a 2 per cent increase to between 0 and a 2 per cent fall.
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What is influencing the figures?
The average asking price for a home in Britain stood at £364,999 in August – 1 per cent lower than a year ago.
And it’s all down to the supply.
- The number of available homes for sale is at a 12-year high for this time of year.
- This, combined with the quiet summer holiday period, has led to lower price expectations from sellers.
- Colleen Babcock, a property expert at Rightmove, said the larger-than-usual price drop is a sign sellers are pricing much more competitively from the offset.
- “Buyers have the widest choice of homes for sale at this time of year in more than a decade, so standing out on price for the right reasons is hugely important,” she said.
A regional divide in property prices
But not everywhere is experiencing a dampening in property prices – as usual, there is a regional divide, Rightmove said.
In the North West of England, average asking prices are up by 1.9 per cent annually, beating out homes in London where prices have sunk by 3.1 per cent on average.
- The depressed figures follow a “mini bounce” in buyer demand since Andy Burnham became PM.
- Buying activity, however, remains roughly 10 per cent below 2025 levels due to the changing picture for mortgage rates, geopolitical uncertainty and October’s Budget spooking potential buyers.
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Everything you need to know about Reform’s welfare overhaul
Reform UK is preparing to unveil the biggest shake-up of the welfare system “in a generation”, with plans to abolish personal independence payments (PIP) for working-age adults and save an estimated £50bn a year.
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‘We will not pretend this is painless’
Nearly three million people would see their disability or sickness payments withdrawn or changed under the plans.
The party’s treasury spokesman, Robert Jenrick, set out the proposals in an article for , ahead of a full 50-page policy paper due on Monday. He has acknowledged the human cost directly, writing: “We will not pretend this is painless.”
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What is Reform proposing?
- Reform would scrap PIP and the health element of universal credit for working-age adults. Both would be replaced with a new “health security allowance”, a single, regularly reviewed payment.
- Only claimants with “severe, enduring and high-risk” conditions would qualify for that cash support.
- Everyone else currently receiving disability-related payments would lose their cash entitlement altogether.
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A closer look at the detail
Those who would lose access to payments would instead be supported through council-run disability support accounts.
Reform estimates that 2.16 million would keep their present cash entitlement in full, while 2.89 million would see theirs modified or withdrawn.
Child payments impacted
- The party plans to extend the same approach to children’s benefits, aligning the system for anxiety, depression and ADHD with the adult changes, though only for new claimants.
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Plans modelled on Dutch system
Reform would also place a new obligation on businesses with more than five staff to take out “return to work cover” insurance, which would pay for the cost of an employee’s first two years off sick, rather than the state covering that cost through benefits.
The scheme is modelled on the Dutch system, where Reform argues disability benefit applications fell by 40 per cent after similar reforms were introduced.
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Scientists hail malaria breakthrough – what we know
A new compound has been hailed “an exciting step forward” in the fight against malaria – which kills hundreds of thousands of people each year.
Researchers at the University of Dundee, who discovered the compound, say it has the potential to simplify dosing regimens for the treatment and prevention of the illness.
A ‘novel drug-like molecule’
The new compound, called cabamiquine, is described as a “novel drug-like molecule” that can be delivered in a single dose.
An early-stage clinical trial showed that when administered with a commonly used antimalarial drug called pyronaridine, it is both effective and has a favourable safety profile in adults and adolescents.
Larger trials on the horizon
The team said the findings support the development of the combination therapy for larger trials and children.
In 2024, there were an estimated 282 million cases of malaria and 610,000 deaths from the disease worldwide. Figures have been rising in part due to resistance to common malaria medicines.
An ‘exciting step forward’
This is an exciting step forward for a compound which has great potential to simplify dosing regimens for , a disease which causes hundreds of thousands of deaths every year. We are delighted to see how the compound… is progressing into a potential medicine.
Dr Beatriz Baragana, a member of the Dundee University team that discovered cabamiquine
“It is undeniably a boon for North Korea,” Christian Le Miere, honorary fellow at the Council on Geostrategy think-tank and expert on Indo-Pacific security, told The i Paper. “Exercises build readiness, interoperability and understanding between allies and make it easier to fight. They also act as a significant signal and deterrent to rivals.”
Le Miere noted that the move to scale back support for South Korea comes at a time when the US military is dangerously stretched and risks indicating – not only to North Korea, but also to Russia and China – that American power in the Pacific is on the wane.
“It is a clear signal to China that if Beijing were to launch an operation on Taiwan, it would understand that a simultaneous crisis or conflict in another theatre that dragged in US forces and attention would weaken US presence in Asia,” he said.
Trump’s social media post follows American forces re-deploying missile defence interceptors from South Korea to the Middle East earlier this year, and the withdrawal of the last American aircraft carrier in the region to focus on operations against Iran.
“The carrier gap is likely temporary, but it certainly highlights how the US is unable to maintain high-tempo operations in multiple theatres for a prolonged period of time,” added Le Miere.
Jong-un has been a steadfast ally of Vladimir Putin, supplying the Russian military with millions of artillery and mortar rounds, ballistic missiles, and thousands of troops in support of Putin’s war with Ukraine. The North Korean leader reaffirmed his deep ties with Russia in a message to Putin this weekend.
“If the US/South Korea alliance weakens or frays, China, Russia, and North Korea will all be rubbing their hands,” said Edward Howell, lecturer in international relations at the University of Oxford and author of A New Axis of Upheaval: North Korea, Russia, China, Iran.
Howell told The i Paper that “North Korea is at the moment at its most emboldened point ever in history,” arguing that Jong-un has been the most successful North Korean leader at getting what he wants from Russia and China as well as Trump.
What Jong-un really wants, though, is an acknowledgement from the US that it is a legitimate nuclear power, Howell believes.
“If the US accepts North Korea as a nuclear weapons state, North Korea will say, well, get rid of sanctions, because sanctions are tied to the country’s nuclear programme. Then North Korea will say, get rid of the 28,500 troops stationed in South Korea; we don’t need them. Let’s have a peace treaty to end the Korean War. It’s a very dangerous path, but that’s what North Korea wants,” he said.
Trump’s approach to long-time Asian partners has parallels in how he has sought to bully European Nato allies over defence spending and turn mutually beneficial relationships into transactional deals.
“Trump has always had a sceptical view of the US alliance with South Korea; he sees South Korea as a free rider,” said Samuel Ramani, associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute think-tank and expert on geopolitical risk. “It is also heavily related to the Strait of Hormuz, where Trump is saying that people who are dependent on Middle Eastern fossil fuel, and are expecting the US security umbrella to handle the situation, are free riding.”
South Korea had previously been held up as a model American ally, with US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth telling a regional defence conference in May: “If you want to see what burden sharing looks like, consider the Republic of Korea.”
The 11-day exercise Ulchi Freedom Shield, due to run until 27 August, has been an annual event with thousands of US and South Korean troops taking part. The apparent about-turn this week shows how much damage the war in Iran has done to American power – and to Western interests.
“When sophisticated missile systems were being redeployed to the Middle East, this was a big victory for China and North Korea, a huge victory,” said Howell.
“China, Russia and North Korea each have their own interests, but they have a common overarching interest in undermining the US’s global leadership, the US’s alliances, and the broader stability of the West.”