Terrorists could harness artificial Intelligence to create destructive bioweapons, the head of MI5 warned, as he launched a new spy-led AI Threat Assessment Centre to assess the risks of the emerging technology.
Biological weapons – often shortened to “bioweapons”- are disease-causing agents, such as bacteria, viruses, fungi, or the toxins they produce, which are used to deliberately harm or kill people, animals, or crops. They work by spreading illness rather than through explosive force.
Sir Ken McCallum, director general of MI5, sounded the warning while giving his annual threat update in a speech at the agency’s London headquarters. He also warned Prime Minister Andy Burnham not to amplify the work of Russian trolls during the Brexit referendum for fear of doing their work of sowing discord for them.
The UK towns at risk of running out of water this winter
Five successive heatwaves and the warmest summer on record have left millions of Britons living in drought conditions, which experts believe could remain in place for the foreseeable future unless there is a “significant amount of rainfall” this winter.
Which regions are in drought?
- Yorkshire became the latest area to fall into drought last Friday.
- All of central, southern and eastern England are already in drought.
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Eight reservoirs ‘exceptionally low’
The i Paper understands the Environment Agency is concerned about the low levels at Wimbleball, Ardingly, Clatworthy, Colliford, Hanningfield and Abberton.
These are variously operated by South West Water, South East Water, Wessex Water and Essex and Suffolk Water.
England would need 120 per cent of typical rainfall over the next seven months just to be considered out of the drought status.
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When will hosepipe bans be lifted?
No bans have ended in the past month, with restrictions on water usage still in place in most of southern and eastern England, affecting almost 30 million people.
- Professor Liz Bentley, chief executive of the Royal Meteorological Society, said the bans would stay in place for the forseeable future unless there is a “significant amount of rainfall” soon.
Midwives win £750,000 over nitrous oxide exposure
More than 120 maternity staff at Basildon University Hospital have been awarded almost £750,000 after they were exposed to high levels of nitrous oxide, which is given to women during childbirth, at work.
How did midwives get exposed to the gas?
- Leaky pipes and poor ventilation caused exposure to the gas.
- Midwives reported fatigue, headaches, brain fog and anxiety.
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Who got the payout?
The payout was awarded to staff who worked at the hospital between 2021 and 2023, after the Royal College of Midwives (RCM) took legal action against the hospital.
Roughly 80 members of the RCM received compensation along with around 60 others.
The union said the hospital knew about the leaks in 2021 but staff were not warned about the risks until October 2022.
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Breaking Bad actor RJ Mitte dies aged 34
Who was RJ Mitte?
The American actor was cast as Bryan Cranston’s on-screen disabled son when he was 14, and drew on his experience of living with cerebral palsy for the role.
His disability is rarely mentioned in the show, which ran from 2008 to 2013, with Walter ‘Flynn’ White Junior defying his father and cracking jokes at his expense. He won a Screen Actor’s Guild award for his performance in the role in 2014.
What did he do after ?
Mitte continued acting with roles in Talking to Strangers and Switched at Birth. He also created The Mitte Foundation, a charity to support community initiatives, and was an ambassador for United Cerebral Palsy.
He died on Monday at what is believed to be his home in Brownsville, Texas, aged 34. No cause of death has been determined.
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I’m in deep despair as I write this tonight…That kid was still pretty raw when we started shooting the pilot in February 2007, but little by little we watched him grow into a real fine actor…All that promise and potential is now such a loss.
bryan cranston, Actor for Walter white in , on instagram
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The taxes Healey could raise in Budget – and the risks
The Chancellor, John Healey, is weighing up tough choices over whether to slash spending on public services or raise billions of pounds through tax rises in the Budget on 28 October.
Windfall tax on banks
Speculation has grown that Healey could hit the nation’s biggest banks with a tax rise after he held talks with finance bosses last week.
Some Labour backbenchers have been pushing for a windfall tax on banking profits to sit alongside existing levies on the sector.
Bank executives warned such a measure could affect lending and make the UK less attractive to investors.- A bank windfall tax has the backing of voters, though, according to a BMG Research poll for The i Paper, which found half the public support one.
Capital gains tax reform
- Many economists saw an increase to capital gains tax (CGT) as the front-runner after Healey said the UK had the “lowest CGT of any European G7 nation”.
- CGT is paid on the profit of the sale of an asset such as a second home or shares.
- Labour insiders are pushing for CGT rates to align more closely with income tax rates to remove a loophole for those who earn money on properties and shares.
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Pensioner tax rises
- Pensioners and those saving towards their retirement could be in the firing line for some tax increases.
- One option would be to cut the size of the tax-free lump sum people can take from their pensions. Another idea is to limit pension tax relief.
- However, policies that directly affect older voters are known to be politically toxic as pensioners are more likely to turn out at the polls.
Other options on the table
There is speculation that smaller tweaks to inheritance tax could be made, such as tightening rules around giving gifts.
Healey had also been looking at the high value council tax surcharge – the “mansion tax” – but has now ruled out lowering the threshold for the property surcharge.
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Meet the 71-year-old Miss Great Britain contender
Ann Marie Harper, from Ayrshire, is preparing to make history as the oldest Scottish contender to reach the national final in the pageant’s 81-year history.
The Scottish pageant queen, also known as Glamour Gran Ann, is to compete at the Miss Great Britain Classic competition on 16 October.
It is open to women aged 45 and over – meaning she will be pitted against rivals up to 26 years her junior.
Age is just a number
Ahead of the competition – which she qualified for by winning Miss Great Britain Classic Ayrshire in June – Harper said: “it doesn’t matter what age you are, people can do wonderful things.
“I realise this could make history because I’m over 70, and I don’t believe it’s been known before.
“It’s given me a real boost in my life, to say it doesn’t matter what age you are, people can do wonderful things.”
Does medical cannabis really help patients with insomnia?
There is “insufficient” evidence to conclude whether or not medicinal cannabis can help patients with insomnia, according to a new review.
What the review found
- More research must be done to judge whether medical cannabis is an effective treatment for insomnia.
- Scientists examined nine studies relating to 537 patients aged between 18 and 76 years.
- “Medical cannabis may have little to no clinically meaningful effect on quality of sleep/satisfaction with sleep, total sleep time, or daytime functioning,” the authors concluded.
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Medical cannabis in the UK
Medical cannabis is only likely to be prescribed on the NHS for rare forms of epilepsy, for some patients having chemotherapy, and for some who live with multiple sclerosis (MS).
However, private health providers can prescribe medical cannabis for insomnia.
The story in numbers
2 million
From June 2025 to May this year, 1,967,268 unlicensed cannabis items were issued on private prescription.
This suggests a big jump on previous data.
660,000
Previous figures showed 659,293 items were dispensed in 2024.
This was up from 282,920 the year before.
How to be more grateful for daily life in five easy steps
The world feels like a difficult place at the moment, and it can feel very hard sometimes to find things to be thankful for; when we are overwhelmed, we have less capacity to notice and reflect on the good things. Yet, ironically, proactively cultivating gratitude is one of the things that can actually help us feel less stressed.
NHS GP dR RADHA
The science
Research has shown that feeling or expressing thanks can actually alter our brain.
- The balance of neurotransmitters change; more serotonin and dopamine (feel good chemicals) are produced.
- This can be long lasting if we make gratitude a regular habit.
- We also get a decrease in our cortisol (stress hormone) levels which helps lower anxiety.
- Being grateful can strengthen the nerve pathways which triggers positive emotion.
How can we build gratitude?
Change your words
Instead of seeing something as a problem, try to see the opportunities within it.
Our brains are very receptive and what we read or write can alter our emotional system.
Express it
This will not only make you feel good, but you will also get a positive response from others.
How can we build gratitude?
Notice more
Throughout your day, try to notice all the things that are going well; has someone opened a door for you, or smiled?
The basics
By being thankful for the small things every day, we are far more likely to be and stay healthy so that we can enjoy them.
What to do
Gratitude can lead to feelings of optimism, lower our blood pressure, and improve sleep quality.
- Write down what potential good aspects there are to the things you don’t feel like doing, or even what could be worse about it.
- Spend a few minutes writing down three things that you are looking forward to that day, or the good things that have happened to you that day.
- Say thank you to yourself for the things you have achieved, or managed to get through and changed that day.
Sales of battery
electric vehicles hit a record high last year.
Starts at £22,995 for the smaller battery
Available with either a 40kWh battery or a larger 52kWh pack, that offers almost 255 miles, the latest, retro-inspired Renault 5 is both a joy to behold and a hoot to drive.
The interior has been lavished with a level of detail that’s typically reserved for more expensive cars.
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A champion of EV efficiency
It offers a remarkable 491 mile range on a single charge from the 85kWh battery.
It is a technological masterclass inside with the ability to option screens that span the entire width of the dashboard, including an optional display for the front passenger.
Priced from £37,400
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It’s a lot of money to part with, but this is arguably all the car you will ever need.
The £89,000 Macan is a premium SUV that somehow manages to blend Porsche’s reputation for dynamics and sporty driving with everyday practicality.
The 95kWh batteries can go from 10 to 80 per cent in as little as 21 minutes from the fastest public charging outlets.
With the business class-style six seat configuration costing a staggering £76,995, it is by far the most expensive Kia ever made, but it backs up its financial demands with a suite of genuinely useful and impressive onboard technology.
It’s fast, goes a long way between stops and charges relatively quickly but the interior is bland, the onboard technology is infuriating and the experience is devoid of emotion.
All of its gadgetry can’t disguise the fact that performance is weak, even for a typically zippy EV, the ride is fussy at slower speeds and it’s not in the least bit enjoyable to drive on a country road.
- While good value (prices start at £17,935) for the 200-mile max range, there are more interesting options from Hyundai, Citroen and Renault for similar money.
- It attempts to wow with tech, much of which hinders, rather than helps.
- There’s no tangible benefit over mounting your phone to the dash.
- Simply an average driving experience, adequate range and slow charging speeds.
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“Many terrorists would dearly love to have some kind of capability of getting [a] biological or meteorological weapon. This is not yet manifest. But one risk is that AI could allow dangerous knowledge to get into their hands,” McCallum said, warning even “comparatively low sophistication actors may have a capability.”
New AI Threat Assessment Centre
The new AI Threat Assessment Centre (AITEC) will combine information from spies and open sources to “separate the bluster from the realities” to seek “both to seize the huge opportunities of Al and manage the risks thrown up by its misuse,” he said.
Last month Anthropic said it identified and disrupted attempts to use its AI model for “malicious activity” which could support the development of biological weapons, including an attempt to use its AI tool, Gemini, to obtain a “complete, step-by-step technical guide for synthesizing weaponised biological agents”.
General Sir Richard Barrons, who co-authored a root-and-branch review of Britain’s defence capabilities, told The i Paper earlier this year that “scary” advances in AI could help hostile states or actors more easily develop pathogens that could even target people.
A report last year by the authoritative Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) warned that in one scenario, an existing pathogen such as a strain of avian influenza – which has a high fatality rate in humans but cannot currently transmit between people – could be adapted to spread more easily between humans.
The report warned: “Imagine, for instance, bird flu: Some strains have a reported human mortality rate of more than 50 per cent, meaning that approximately one out of every two people that contract the disease will die.
“Such a scenario would likely make the Covid-19 pandemic – which has claimed more than 27 million lives and shaken the world economy – look like the common cold.”
Sir Keir Starmer’s government published a new UK Biological Security Strategy in 2025 which acknowledged that “rapid developments in AI-enabled scientific tools and engineering biology offer significant opportunities for drug discovery and vaccine development, but also have the potential to introduce new risks of misuse”.
The day after Burnham was mired in a political row about the extent of Russia’s involvement in the 2016 Brexit referendum. Burnham said Russia did interfere with the Brexit referendum only for his own minister to clarify that there had been no fresh evidence since Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee found the Kremlin had tried but failed to alter the result.
“It is openly on the record that and and other Russian media organisations came in pretty strongly around the time of the referendum and it is also a matter of open-source record that there is certain amount of interference potentially through trolls and bots.
“I agree strongly with what the Prime Minister said yesterday, we did see a hack and leak inside the 2019 general election,” McCallum said.
However, the head of MI5 warned the premier not to re-run old battles at risk of amplifying the Russian trolls and bots who sowed division at the time.
McCallum added: “It is dependent upon us how far we allow our various attitudes to define us and I’m a little bit worried that we all stay in this debate for another few days that the Russian trolls… they’ll be delighted.
“They are front-page news once again, despite the comparative un-impressiveness of much of what they do at all the points along the journey. I am a little bit anxious that we don’t play into our adversaries’ hands by making these trolls look 10 feet tall. That’s not our experience of them.”
Russia greatest threat to UK
In a wide-ranging speech McCallum named the greatest threat to UK security from Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin, after a cyber-attack on Polish energy infrastructure, an attempt to blow up a German cargo plane with an explosive-laden drone and a thwarted assassination plot in the US. A man was charged in the UK last month for allegedly preparing to sabotage a drone factory in Swindon.
“Russia remains aggressor number one, as Putin’s Kremlin continues to lash out at the UK and its allies,” McCallum said.
“The Russian military and intelligence services are once again escalating their attempts at hybrid warfare- being careful to stay below the NATO Article V threshold it would be foolish for them to cross. This means Russia is using tactics that stop short – though sometimes not much short – of conventional conflict.”
The MI5 chief said it is “no accident” that Russia is trying to unsettle other European homelands “at a time when their military progress in Ukraine is minimal and horrifically costly.”
“You might be surprised to know that in 2026, MI5 is devoting more resource to countering state threats than during the Cold War. Over the last decade, our state threats caseload has quadrupled.”
Iran threat leads to 50 arrests in UK
He also said that 2026 has seen the Iranians, like the Russians, “attempting to expand their hybrid campaign. Over the last twelve months, our Iran-linked operations have led to more than fifty arrests in the UK.”
The alleged terror plot at RAF Fairford is not unique, he said, adding that Iran is aiming to hit targets here and abroad.
He also warned that “extreme right-wing terrorism also continues to skew young, driven by the internet.”