Steve Witkoff’s fulsome – some would say creepy – declaration of thanks to Vladimir Putin, for his “humanitarian” gesture in releasing a retired American teacher, seemed designed to herald the era of new chumocracy between his boss Donald Trump and the Russian dictator.
It has led to an agreement to hold three-way technical talks between Russia, Ukraine and the US to bring peace to Ukraine. But this just means officials talking about talks. Major players won’t be present and Volodymyr Zelensky’s government most probably won’t be represented at all.
Trump, having gone full Russian in the past few weeks, to the dismay of even a core of Republican Congress members, will follow Moscow’s lead.
Putin’s terms for peace with Ukraine have been plain since his full-scale invasion in February 2022: Kyiv’s surrender, the Zelensky “Nazified” regime replaced by another pro-Moscow puppet, Ukraine’s armed forces neutralised and a pledge in perpetuity that the country will not join Nato or the EU.
It’s official – Glee will return to our screens
At last month’s series 13 premiere, director Ryan Murphy revealed he’d written an for a Glee reboot.
It’s been 11 years since the final episode of the musical-comedy-drama aired but now “Gleeks” have something to believe in as reported that Disney+ and Hulu officially picked up a revival of the iconic show.
I just finished the script an hour ago, so, we have a script. Brad, Ian, and I, who wrote all the first two seasons, have written something. I’ve been in touch with around 10 of the original cast members.
murphy in an interview with entertainment tonight
Who is coming back for the reboot?
Ryan Murphy seemingly confirmed that 10 of the original cast members are “enthusiastic” about reprising their roles – who are they?
Sources revealed to that Lea Michele, who played Rachel Berry, is “in”. Heather Morris confirmed in an Instagram post that Brittany Pierce “is alive and well” and back for more”. Chord Overstreet, who played Sam Evans, seemingly announced his return on X: “Reunited and it feels so good!”
What will it be about?
Will it pick up from where the series ended in 2015? Or will it fast-forward a decade?
As of the series finale, it left off as:
- Mr Shue becomes the principal of the up-and-coming performing arts school, McKinley High, and names its auditorium in Finn’s honour.
- Rachel wins a Tony Award, marries Jesse St James and becomes a surrogate mother to Blaine.
- Mercedes pursues a career in pop music and ultimately ends up as an opening act for Beyoncé.
A cultural phenomenon
How popular was Glee?
10 million
The chaotic six-series-long drama attracted an average audience of 10 million viewers a week, transforming stars like Lea Michele and Jonathan Groff as household names.
207
Known for its ballads, the show landed 207 covers on the Billboard Hot 100 alongside winning six Emmys and four Golden Globes during its run.
Blood tests could identify men most at risk of prostate cancer
Researchers at Oxford University have discovered signs in men’s blood that could protect those most at risk of the disease.
Here is everything you need to know.
What you need to know
This latest research will help predict which men will develop the cancer most aggressively and hopes that doctors will soon be able to screen for it in hospitals.
- It found that 12 proteins in the blood were linked to a future diagnosis of the cancer – sometimes appearing as late as 15 years.
The expert view
Prostate cancer is not one disease. By measuring thousands of proteins in blood collected years before diagnosis, we can investigate how men who develop aggressive cancer differ from men who do not. We hope this will improve how we assess risk in the future.
Dr Zhe Huang, a postdoctoral epidemiologist at Oxford Population Health
How does this research change current practices?
- The research found that the immune system may be keeping early cancerous stages in check before diagnosis.
- It opens avenues to identify the processes that drive aggressive forms of prostate cancer.
- It could help implement a national screening programme, which does not currently exist in the UK.
- It could help prevent unnecessary biopsies and treatments for slow-growing tumours.
- While these proteins do not always equate to cancer, they help reveal biological changes which can lead to the increased likelihood of it.
Prostate cancer – in numbers
- 7proteins linked to aggressive cancer.
- 1,500men a year will be offered tests under the latest NHS proposals, unless they have symptoms.
- 12,000men a year die from the disease in the UK.
- 63,000men are diagnosed with the cancer annually in the UK.
‘Unfair’ prescription costs in England should be scrapped – experts
Prescription charges in England should be scrapped, pharmacy leaders have said.
A new poll found that 79 per cent of people think it is “unfair” that patients in England are charged – while those in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are not.
What did the study find?
1,781 adults
A survey of 1,781 adults in England, carried out by Savanta on behalf of the National Pharmacy Association (NPA), found one in 10 people said they have gone without a prescription in the last year because of the cost.
Another 12 per cent said they had delayed getting their prescription for the same reason.
- The NPA said that prescription charges are a “cruel tax on illness” as they called on the Chancellor to scrap the charges in the Budget.
What happens elsewhere?
Prescription costs were abolished in Wales in 2007, in Northern Ireland in 2010 and in Scotland in 2011.
In England, the current prescription charge is now £9.90 per item. Some prescriptions are free including contraception and medicines prescribed for hospital inpatients.
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A closer look at the detail
- The NPA said it is a “national scandal” people are deterred from buying medicines because of cost.
- The Association said pharmacists have reported patients with multiple one-off medicines asking: “Which is the most important one to take?”
- The NPA has estimated that £732.8m was raised by prescription costs in in 2025-26.
The expert view
“No patient should ever see cost as being a barrier to accessing the medicines they need but this polling shows an alarming number do. It is a national scandal and deeply unfair that anyone could consider stopping vital medicines because of cost”
NPA chairman Olivier Picard
Universal credit payments to increase by up to £350 a year
Millions of benefit claimants are on course for at least a 3.5 per cent rise in their payments next April after inflation climbed to its highest level in almost a year.
Why will benefits rise?
3.5%
The Office for National Statistics said on Wednesday that the Consumer Prices Index rate of inflation rose to 3.5 per cent in September.
That was up from 3.1 per cent in August.
- September’s figure is the one ministers traditionally use to set benefit rates for the next year.
- By The i Paper’s calculations, most people on universal credit will see a larger rise of around 4.3 per cent, because of a law requiring the basic payment to go up faster than inflation.
Which benefits will rise with inflation?
The law says disability and carers’ benefits, such as personal independence payment and carer’s allowance, must rise at least in line with inflation.
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What else?
- For most other working-age benefits, such as child benefit, ministers can decide whether to raise them by inflation, by less, or not at all.
- If they rise by 3.5 per cent, child benefit for the eldest child would go from £27.05 to around £28 a week.
- Carer’s allowance would go from £86.45 to around £89.50.
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Storm Austen arrives in UK – where will be worst hit?
Storm Austen is expected to bring heavy rain to much of Scotland at the end of the week, with homes and businesses warned of potential flooding.
When and where it will hit
- The Met Office has issued a yellow warning for rain which takes effect at 6am on Friday, ending at 3am on Saturday.
- The warning area covers much of Scotland, from as far south as the Borders and Dumfries and Galloway to Fraserburgh in Aberdeenshire.
- Parts of the west, including all of Ayrshire, Lanarkshire, and Glasgow are affected, with the majority of the east also set to be hit by the rain.
What impact could the storm have?
There is a “small chance” homes and businesses could be flooded, causing damage to buildings, according to the Met Office.
Commuters have been warned to check trains and buses, while flooding may affect drivers. There is a chance communities may be cut off due to flooded roads, and power cuts are also possible.
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“You talk so much about my president, President Trump, being a humanitarian,” said Witkoff in full oleaginous mode. “You are a humanitarian, and I salute that.” The cue for this was the release of 74-year-old Stephen Hubbard, who had been a Russian prisoner after capture in eastern Ukraine, where he was living a civilian life, four years ago. He was tortured and deprived of food, according to fellow prisoners.
He was released without any swap of a Russian, or pro-Russian, detainee being released. Some detect a distinct odour of rat here. Putin seems to think he has got what he wants with Witkoff’s blandishments. Even so, within 24 hours of Hubbard’s release, a German journalist was arrested for spying. The game of hostage leverage goes on.
Overnight, Russia again bombarded Ukraine with ballistic missiles as it continues its nightly attacks on the country. Zelensky pointedly said three waves of missiles had been sent at the capital by “Russian humanitarians” since Tuesday evening, with two confirmed dead across the country and 34 injured, including five children.
Trump’s switch to Moscow, starting with the release of 300,000 tonnes of Russian diesel to the international market, the proposed partial unblocking of sanctions – against the wishes of much American public opinion – and now the suspension of Patriot missile deliveries to Ukraine, marks one of the biggest presidential handbrake turns in recent American history.
“The reason it’s hard to think of a precedent of America switching sides in a conflict like this,” the veteran US diplomat Richard Haass told s this week, “is there really isn’t one.” Richard Nixon’s overture to China and Mao in 1972 was a huge policy change, but that wasn’t a time of active war. This time, the world is having to deal with an inconsistent, fickle and chaotic presidency – at a moment when America’s military prowess has reached a new low of credibility.
This is no caper by two good fellas bent on exploiting peace in Ukraine to their mutual advantage. Putin and Trump want very different things. In the end, Trump wants a peace that profits his team. Putin seems to think he has the advantage. There may be temporary ceasefires and the personal defeat of Zelensky, but the war will go on.
The constant probing and challenging of Nato allies suggest Putin’s ambitions go beyond the subjugation of Ukraine. This was the conclusion of a remarkable seminar in the Department of War Studies at King’s College London this week, which looked at hybrid warfare from Ukraine across Europe.
The Sahaidachnyi Security Centre of Ukraine was launching its web tool tracking conflict and incidents across Europe over the past five years, “The Everywhere War – the sub-threshold war tracker”, which shows hundreds of data points across a map. Analysis was provided on ground, air, sea, space, cyber and “cognitive” confrontation and warfare, which includes information and media manipulation, especially social media and underground networks.
The visual impact of the mapping was startling – hundreds of provocations and unexplained incidents, incursions, cyber strikes and drone activity. The conclusion was that many of these recorded incidents seemed to be making a pattern of “shaping operations” for Putin’s wider war. The closure of the Narva border with Estonia and Russian drone strikes on grain ships within the territorial waters of Bulgaria and Romania – both Nato partners – were two recent examples.
The commentary from frequent visitors to and students of the region was stark. The regime shaped by Putin these past 26 years is geared to a military economy and a war footing. This will not change in the foreseeable future, even if Putin himself were to disappear. The , the securitocracy fashioned round the security and intelligence services, the FSB, GRU and SVR, would perpetuate rule by their elite. One Kremlin watcher, however, did conjecture that Putin might be chucked out for his brutal incompetence – and that a technocrat such as the Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin might be brought in to make the military machine run on time.
Putin has built his presidency on border wars: Chechnya, Georgia, Ukraine. Now three border areas are in his sights – Belarus, Moldova and the three Baltic states, which Sergei Lavrov, the foreign minister, has claimed aren’t real states at all but rightfully provinces of Russia. Rather more extravagantly, Poland and Finland have been mentioned as possible targets. Certainly, there is evidence of the building of huge bases and barracks in the rear of the Russian borderlands with these two frontline states.
Many Ukrainians suggested that Europe and the alliances of European powers was the main target of Putin in his fantastic vision of Russia and his role in its destiny. “He just doesn’t want to live alongside a prosperous Europe, as the poor neighbour. Russia should be the leading power of Europe.”
Putin must sense he can exploit Trump’s indifference to Europe, aided by the clownish antics of his sorcerer’s apprentice, Elon Musk. By fiddling with the on-off switch of SpaceX’s Starshield for Ukraine, he must have lost billions of dollars in potential sales. No Western military wants to rely on SpaceX/Tesla equipment in the future.
Putin has done colossal damage to Russia’s people and economy. No advanced nation today can sustain the loss of a million and a half soldiers in an inconclusive war – with the prospect of many more deaths to come. Russia’s actual and future wars will be dependent on China – and so far the Witkoff–Kushner pro-am diplomats have allocated only a walk-on part to Xi Jinping.
Faced with the conflicting plans for war and peace of the two monster egos of Trump and Putin, the medium nation allies (as Mark Carney of Canada puts it) – including Europe, the Gulf states, Japan, Australia and Canada – have to make their own plans for security and co-operation. Trump’s main priority is himself: extravagances in the theatre of Narcissus that might make even the Emperor Nero blush. Putin will smile and promise as little as possible, but deliver nothing.
In their agenda, the lives of most Russians, Americans and Ukrainians don’t figure much. A new linkage of multilateral alliances and friendships is needed, and quickly.