Bomb hoaxes that grounded flights across Europe, including three from the UK, bear the hallmarks of state actors like Russia or Iran, aviation security experts said.
It comes as a new intelligence assessment warned Russian-linked sabotage on the continent is likely to increasingly target aviation, including hybrid attacks that endanger lives.
On Tuesday, seven planes carrying hundreds of passengers were the target of hoax bomb threats, fuelling suspicions of a co-ordinated plot to disrupt flights.
One intelligence expert told The i Paper that the threats “fit in perfectly within the narrative of hybrid warfare” and matches the “modus operandi” of how Russia operates.
The damning numbers behind the UK’s child obesity crisis
Obesity among children in England is on the rise, according to new data from the National Child Measurement Programme.
2 min read
New data on childhood obesity
- Some 10.7 per cent of children in Reception (ages four and five) are obese, which rises to 22.8 per cent for those in Year 6 (ages 10 to 11).
- The new data means that when figures from the pandemic are removed, obesity in Reception is at its highest-ever level since records began.
- Among children in Year 6, obesity is also higher than the previous year (22.2 per cent) and higher than pre-pandemic levels.
5 min read
Childhood obesity on the rise
- 1Overall, 1.1 million children were measured in state schools in England as part of the National Child Measurement Programme.
- 2The research found that 14 per cent of teenagers were active every day. In Finland, 28 per cent are active and in Canada, 25 per cent.
- 3Obesity in the most deprived regions is also more than double the most affluent areas both for Reception (14.2 per cent compared to 6.9 per cent) and Year 6 (30.3 per cent compared to 13.9 per cent).
A ‘gulf in children’s health’
“Today’s data shows worsening levels and that the gulf in children’s health between those living in deprived versus wealthy areas has widened.”
Anna Taylor, executive director of the Food Foundation charity
Five things will happen now that Trump has lost Congress
Former chief of staff of the US Department of Homeland Security
American voters just delivered a once-in-a-generation rebuke of a sitting president and his movement. Here are five things that will happen now Trump has lost Congress…
Midterm results
The Democrats made sweep victories in the midterm elections taking states such as Texas, Maine and Michigan to regain control of Congress.
I was in the White House the last time Trump lost part of Congress, in the 2018 midterm elections. Here’s what to expect out of Washington in the weeks and months ahead.
Five things that will happen
- 1Trump will axe members of his administration. His chief of staff, Susie Wiles, and defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, are in the firing line.
- 2Democrats will gear up for the biggest investigations in Congressional history.
- 3The companies and firms that cosied up to Trump will have to explain their decisions under oath.
- 4Before Democrats officially take power, Republicans will start to abandon Trump.
- 5Trump will re-focus on foreign policy.
The results that reveal Trump’s historic humiliation
Democrats have taken control of both chambers of Congress after momentous US midterm elections that will tip the balance of power in Washington DC and shape the rest of Donald Trump’s presidency. The results represent a humiliation for the President, who had asked Republicans to vote as if he was on the ballot.
Watch more from The i Paper
The ways HMRC will be able to raid your bank account
New debt recovery powers allowing banks access to accounts could be a “sledgehammer” leaving some people struggling to pay their bills, warn tax experts.
Healey’s plan
John Healey’s plan to let HMRC raid bank accounts over unpaid taxes has sparked fears it could push some people into financial hardship.
The Chancellor revealed at the Budget that the tax authority will get stronger powers to collect overdue tax “from those who can clearly afford to pay”.
How HMRC will raid bank accounts
From July 2029, HMRC will be able to order banks to start taking regular deductions from a person’s current account to recover tax debt that is owed.
- HMRC will also be able to recover money from a couple’s joint bank account to pay for just one partner’s debt.
- “Eligibility verification measures” (EVMs) were issued last month, asking banks to identify claimants who may have undeclared savings or remain abroad longer than benefit rules allow.
- These checks can be made on people receiving universal credit, Pension Credit and Employment and Support Allowance.
Issues with the new powers
Nimesh Shah, of tax firm Blick Rothenberg, told The i Paper the new powers could become a “sledgehammer” that will unfairly hit pensioners, people on low-incomes, and those with mental health issues.
Meanwhile, the Low Incomes Tax Reform Group (LITRG) is worried that non-engagement with HMRC may reflect genuine financial problems or difficulty understanding tax debt requests, rather than a refusal to pay.
Disability Rights UK said it is worried that the DWP could use EVMs to “undertake fishing exercises with absolutely no evidence of fraud”.
4 min read
Only needed when necessary
“The Government is not interested in where people do their weekly shop or how much they’re spending on new clothes.”
Banks will only be asked “to identify if somebody may no longer meet the rules for the benefits they receive, allowing us to investigate further where necessary”, Lilian Greenwood, DWP minister for fraud and debt said.
Who will actually be better off after this Budget? The i Paper writers’ verdicts
Following the Chancellor’s somewhat underwhelming Budget, The i Paper’s team of experts explain how it will affect your pocket.
How you ‘smart fridge’ could be hacked
Household appliances, energy meters and even microwaves are vulnerable to hacking from hostile states, experts have warned.
Here’s how…
Fridge hack
Hackers sent temperatures soaring in supermarket freezers across 10 countries on Tuesday – including Ireland, Italy, Belgium, Portugal and Sweden.
The incident occurred three weeks after an unprecedented cyber attack caused French freezers to heat to 50°C, spoiling millions of euros worth of food.
How was the attack carried out?
Older internet remote-control boxes that manage refrigeration were targeted with an automatic defrost function, triggering dozens of shops, including IKEA.
Security experts believe a state actor like Russia may be to blame for the attacks, which also affected fridges in a small number of British businesses.
While state-linked attackers are more likely to target supply chains or national infrastructure to cause maximum disruption, experts are now calling for homeowners to reconsider if they need appliances that connect to the internet and action from government.
5 min read
Warnings from the Government
Millions have ‘smart fridges’
A YouGov poll last year showed more than two million Britons have smart fridges.
MP Graeme Downie said people in the UK should reconsider the connected appliances in their homes.
Cellular modules
Downie warned against the use of smart cellular modules that can connect to the internet or mobile network.
What else is vulnerable?
Luke de Pulford, the co-founder of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, which monitors the threat from Beijing, said any firmware in devices that requires remote software could be vulnerable to hacking from a foreign-based entity.
- “Energy smart meters, microwaves, smart TVs – those are all things that are vulnerable. But also Chinese-made CCTV equipment. These are all devices that are well known to be vulnerable,” he said.
Taking pets abroad may be about to get easier – here’s why
Pet owners are likely to get easier access to the European Union for their pets under a new UK-EU agreement, it has been reported.
Pet passports
Pet passports will be revived under a new UK-EU sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) agreement due to be agreed ahead of a joint summit reports.
Post Brexit, pet owners paid £200 to obtain an animal health certificate in order to take them abroad. Under the proposed deal, pets will now be a given a passport.
New deals with the EU
- 1Travellers will be able to bring their dogs, cats, and ferrets into EU territory for the duration of their lifetime without the need for expensive certificates. This will be implemented from 2028.
- 2UK ministers also hope to agree a deal to give car manufacturers access to the EU’s Made in Europe scheme.
- 3The EU is also looking to agree a youth mobility scheme allowing up to 100,000 Europeans to work aand study in the UK a year. Separately, Brussels is also looking for a reduction in tuition fees for EU students.
UK may have to accept almost 100,000 young Europeans a year to unlock Brexit deal
British negotiators think they can strike a youth mobility agreement with the EU while staying under the “psychologically important” figure of 100,000 visas, The i Paper can reveal.
Why Rice Krispies is no longer made from whole grain rice
Kellogg’s has removed rice grains from its Rice Krispies and Coco Pops cereals after “changing weather conditions” affected the quality and availability of the ingredient, the firm has said.
New formula
Rice Krispies has been reformulated to use rice flour instead of rice, while Coco Pops now contains a blend of rice flour and corn flour in place of rice.
Under the new recipes, the cereals now also contain wheat gluten, meaning they are no longer suitable for shoppers with a wheat allergy or coeliac disease.
Kellogg’s spokeswoman:
“This recent change helps us maintain consistent quality at a time when changing weather conditions are affecting the quality and availability of some of the and grains used in our cereals.”
The change in formula comes after this year’s El Niño weather phenomenon caused widespread droughts, floods and heatwaves across much of Asia where most of the world’s rice comes from.
Watch more from The i Paper
Last month, a Russia-focused report by risk intelligence firm Osavul, which tracks global hybrid threats and supplies technology to Nato, said aviation “is where Europe’s hybrid threats now meet”.
It highlighted incendiary parcels at an air-cargo hub, satellite-navigation jamming, smuggling balloons from Belarus that sparked a nationwide emergency and hundreds of disrupted flights, drones over airports and an explosive drone that targeted Leipzig airport.
The report found there were no Russian-linked aviation incidents in Europe in 2022 and 2023. But in 2025-26, half of the hybrid threats in which Russia was suspected involved aviation.
The ‘gig economy saboteurs’
Around 95 per cent of identified perpetrators were ordinary citizens hired for money and often recruited online.
Searches of the planes hit by this week’s hoaxes found no viable devices and there was no immediate claim of responsibility.
Eric Schouten, an aviation security expert from Dyami and former Dutch intelligence liaison officer, told The i Paper, said the hoaxes “fit in perfectly within the narrative of hybrid warfare”.
While he said the threats could be down to someone motivated by a grudge against an airline, he added: “If you look at the modus operandi and disruption, this does fit in with how state actors like Russia work at the moment.
“Calling up the disposable agents basically and saying, hey, let’s disrupt aviation and can you make fake calls. You get 50 euros or 100 euros, and they don’t even know that they’re doing it for Russia.”
Amid growing concern over the threat from hybrid attacks by state actors, he added it is only “a matter of when” civilians are killed.
“If you start sabotaging railway systems, airport systems, food systems, medical systems, people will die,” he said.
On Monday, a Wizzair plane from Luton to Sofia was diverted to Budapest due to a bomb threat.
The next day, a flight from Heathrow to Warsaw and one from Manchester to Murcia were among seven planes searched in what Downing Street called “malicious hoaxes”.
Exploding parcels
Professor Anthony Glees, a security expert at Buckingham University, said it is “possible” Iran could be behind the “systematically organised hoaxes, my own thought is that with a probability that borders on certainty they have been orchestrated by the Kremlin”.
He said the “tools” used to oversee such attacks are likely the Russian military intelligence service, the GRU, alongside the people it pays to carry out attacks and “whose existence the Russians can claim they have no knowledge”.
Russia’s military intelligence service is also suspected to be behind a series of self-igniting parcel fires that targeted the UK and Europe in 2024, including one that exploded in Birmingham after arriving in the UK by air.
Western officials believe the huge blaze it sparked at an industrial estate near the M6 was caused by an incendiary device inside a package disguised as an electric massage machine being sent from Lithuania to the US or Canada.
A second device ignited at a DHL logistics hub in Leipzig. Security officials believe both were part of a covert operation to load them onto cargo or passenger planes.
Meanwhile, Russian independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta Europe identified at least 49 suspicious drone sightings between August and early November 2025, with 23 of the incidents near airports.
Last September, Munich Airport was closed for two days due to unconfirmed drone sightings, with more than 10,000 passengers stranded and dozens of flights affected.
Security experts told The i Paper that the apparent coordination of the bomb hoax threats aligns with recent suspected ploys by both Russia and Iran to use “violence for hire” tactics to cause major disruption to Europe.
Such tactics involve spymasters using a series of proxies, each thousands of miles apart, to find candidates for recruitment. These operatives are less capable than their traditional predecessors, but are easier to find in significant numbers and can be trained and deployed by hostile states.
“The dispersed nature of these apparently hoax threats might suggest they are the co-ordinated acts of a hostile state seeking to disrupt Europe’s civil aviation,” said Rob Jordan, director of proliferation and nuclear policy, at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI).
“Engineering such a wave of threats would be an attractive proposition for a hostile state recruiting individuals across secure messaging platforms, with apparently well-evidenced allegations against Russia and Iran over recent months of having used or attempted to use ‘violence for hire’ networks on multiple occasions.”
But he said airports involved have advanced aviation security measures that make the chances of a viable explosive device posing a threat to aircraft exceedingly low.