Even while Vladimir Putin does what he can to help Donald Trump salvage something from this month’s midterm elections, the Russian President is working on the assumption that the Republicans will lose badly. And he’s OK with that.
The Kremlin’s goal is, after all, to see the West paralysed by internal division and dispute, and it sees a humiliated Trump as a disruptive one.
Mired in a badly conceived and legally questionable war in the Gulf, with petrol and other prices rising and his erratic personal style increasingly counting against him, Trump has looked to Moscow for help.
The deal to buy Russian diesel will do little for prices at the pump, but gave Trump what he always craves: a splashy initiative to seize the news cycle, if only for a few days. Of course, it gave Putin a great deal more, not least in pitting Kyiv against the White House.
Why Jimmy Carr thinks comedy should be taught in school
Stand up comedian Jimmy Carr has said comedy should be taught in schools.
Here is everything we know.
Comedy is a ‘teachable skill’
54-year-old Carr is known for hosting 8 Out Of 10 Cats and as well as performing his own stand-up comedy shows.
Carr said he thinks no one is born funny and that comedy is a “teachable skill” that can help young people find their “authentic voice”.
Comedy is a ‘valuable skill’
Speaking on the podcast, he said: “I think comedy should be taught in schools, well drama more generally, but comedy specifically.
“It is a teachable skill. Is it an innate ability? Are you born funny? I don’t think so.
He added: “You will write down and order your thoughts. You’ll learn to communicate them and you will speak in your own authentic voice.
“It’s a valuable skill to learn.”
Everything you need to know about Israel’s election
Today, Israel is due to hold its first elections since the 7 October Hamas attacks in 2023.
What you need to know
Many Israelis have described the upcoming election as the most important one in their country’s history.
Polls show current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu trailing in the race behind his main challenger, former military chief Gadi Eisenkot.
However, it may take weeks or months before it’s clear who will be designated the winner.
More about the key players
Netanyahu has led Israel for 19 of the last 30 years at the head of a far-right coalition. He is currently on trial for corruption, so losing power could risk jail time for him.
Gadi Eisenkot is the former head of the Israeli military. He’s positioned himself as the opposite of Netanyahu, naming his party Yashar, or “Honesty”.
What are the polls saying?
Netanyahu in decline
Most polls show Netanyahu’s Likud and his current coalition parters losing their majority.
Anti-Netanyahu majority
Polls also show a clear anti-Netanyahu majority, but opposition seats are divided.
Palestine parties
Palestinian politicians have indicated they might support a minority government to unseat Netanyahu.
Voters disenfranchised
In the occupied West Bank, more than 500,000 Israeli settlers can vote.
In occupied East Jerusalem more than 230,000 Israelis with voting rights live among 350,000 Palestinians who cannot vote.
Two million Palestinians in Gaza, who live under Israeli military occupation, according to the international court of justice, also have no vote.
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What the result could mean
Neither Netanyahu nor Eisenkot supports the establishment of a Palestinian state in the foreseeable future. Their most significant differences concern democratic institutions, the West Bank and Israel’s relationship with the rest of the world.
- Netanyahu has governed with ultra-Orthodox parties that support settlement expansion in the West Bank. Eisenkot presents himself as a more pragmatic alternative. He has also taken a tougher position against violence by Israeli settlers.
The key detail Spotify is asking family plan users to prove
Spotify has outlined a new verification process for family plan users to prove they live in the same household.
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The process
What has changed?
Spotify will now ask family plan users to verify their address using a QR code.
How will it work?
The plan manager opens the QR code which needs to be scanned. All users on the plan need to be in the same place to scan.
What if you don’t?
If verification isn’t completed in seven days, the member can’t join a different Family or Duo plan for 12 months.
As part of our ongoing efforts to improve the quality and value of Premium we implement measures to ensure appropriate use of Spotify accounts. This includes reviewing Household Plans to ensure they are used only by primary account holders and those living at the same address, as stated in our terms and conditions.
a spotify spokesperson told sky news
The key takeaways from Russell Brand trial so far
Comedian and actor Russell Brand stands accused of rape, sexual assault and indecent assault. He denies all seven charges and has pleaded not guilty.
What we heard yesterday
- The jury heard from prosecution witnesses, including Brand’s former personal assistant, Helen Berger.
The first witness of the day was the sister of one of the alleged victims who said Brand raped her in the toilets of a Soho bar in 2004.
The manager of another alleged victim told the court that two of Brand’s male associates “both sat and watched and laughed” during the alleged sexual assault.
Berger told the court the comedian’s bad behaviour was “on another level” and she had seen “women being mistreated”.
What else did Berger say?
Berger also told the court that “peacock” Brand found random women online to satisfy his “insane sexual appetite”, but sex often made him depressed.
- “Though I’ve worked with a lot of celebrities before and seen a lot of people normalising bad behaviour, this was on another level,” she said on Monday.
The trial so far
Previously, the trial heard from alleged victims of Brand, with six female complainants making allegations spanning from 1999 to 2009.
One alleged the comedian groped her with a “maniacal grin”, before dragging her into a toilet to rape her. Another alleged he had raped her anally while she “begged” him to stop.
Women warned against using AI for cancer information
The Eve Appeal, a gynaecological cancer charity, has urged women not to use artificial intelligence (AI) platforms which offer “unreliable” information about common symptoms.
- The charity said that an AI tool “missed” a common red flag symptom of ovarian cancer – persistent bloating which is not improving with changes to diet.
- The popular tool also failed to reveal that vulval cancer could be behind another symptom.
- And the AI platform also gave incorrect information about cervical cancer screening, the charity said.
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Soaring inquiries in recent years
The charity has made its own AI tool, Ask Eve Assist, to ensure people were getting “trusted information” instead of an “online wild west”.
Athena Lamnisos, chief executive of the charity, warned: “The mistakes made by online AI platforms could be fatal.”
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The six Brexit options from rejoin to customs union
Explore what could be on the cards as Andy Burnham has put getting closer to the European Union at the heart of his premiership.
A future with Europe
At Labour’s annual conference in Liverpool last month, the Prime Minister said Brexit had done “more harm than good”.
Over the weekend, he opened the door to a future deal with Europe reintroducing freedom of movement.
Here are the main options which are likely to be on the table.
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What the options could look like
1. Reverse Brexit fully
The most radical option is to rejoin the EU. Burnham said he would like to see this “in my lifetime”.
2. Rejoin customs union
This allows goods to move freely within the union which would cut much of the bureaucracy created by Brexit.
3. Rejoin single market
It would improve the UK’s access to the EU market. But, it comes with major trade-offs.
What else is on the table?
4. Swiss-style model
Switzerland is not in the EU but has frictionless access to the single market via a web of bilateral agreements.
5. Bespoke UK-EU deal
Burnham could try to secure a tailor-made agreement rather than opting for other ‘off the shelf’ models.
6. A second referendum
On Monday, Burnham said that he would not reintroduce freedom of movement without a referendum.
Last week, Putin also freed Stephen Hubbard, a 74-year-old US citizen who had been given seven years in prison on charges of being a mercenary fighting for Ukraine. Trump was allowed to take the credit, telling reporters he asked Putin “could you let Steven Hubbard out, please? And he agreed to do it”.
As if this were not enough credit for the Trumps, the Kremlin has made much of the fact that a ceasefire it has agreed with Kyiv to allow residents of the beleaguered town of Oleshky to receive aid or simply flee the fighting, was driven by the First Lady, Melania.
The Russians seem to have no illusions about this. “We’ve always known that [Trump] was self-indulgent and self-destructive,” a Russian political commentator told The i Paper. “The only question was when he was going to sink his own ship.”
For all the talk in some Western circles about Trump being a “Russian asset”, either controlled by their intelligence services or eternally bamboozled by Putin, Moscow seems remarkably sanguine about the prospect of his suffering a humiliating setback in the midterms.
The reason for this is that the Russians themselves have long regarded Trump as periodically useful, but never reliable. When he was inaugurated in 2025, Russian pundits and officials alike repeatedly hammered home a simple message to their own people: Trump is not our friend. He is not our enemy, something that they accused his predecessor Joe Biden of being. However, he is driven by his own interests. Sometimes those interests will coincide with Russia’s, but at other times they will diverge.
Trump has certainly been helpful for Putin, not least in his desire to make Kyiv swallow a peace deal that reflects Russian interests. At the same time, Moscow has had to swallow seeing its Venezuelan client toppled, seen European countries ramp up their defence spending at his behest and watched Trump oscillate between damning and praising the Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky.
However, what the Kremlin does appreciate is that Trump is a sore loser, and a man who cultivates his grudges enthusiastically. Even in victory, he has sacked critics, denigrated rivals and pursued enemies in a campaign which the called “far more expansive, creative, efficient… than anticipated”.
The midterms may result in the Democrats winning both houses of Congress. However, foreign policy in particular tends to be much more the remit of the White House. While the Kremlin anticipates that there will be renewed efforts to restore and strengthen sanctions on Russia, as well as offering aid to Kyiv, it expects this to be gridlocked or at least slowed by intransigence from the Oval Office.
Indeed, it may make Trump all the more desperate to press his peace process, as a last chance to secure his legacy and the Nobel Peace Prize he seems so inexplicably convinced is his by right.
More broadly, the Kremlin believes he will be out for revenge, and will lash out at both Democratic rivals and Republicans whom he feels have let him down. Given his track record for operating with little concern for decency, accuracy, protocol and legality, this may well be a deeply destructive, divisive and thus distracting spectacle.
In other words, the United States political classes will be too busy to formulate, let alone execute any new Russia policy. Furthermore, this risks leaving a poisonous legacy both for a post-Trump USA and within the wider Western alliance.
The Kremlin often gets Western countries and democratic politics very wrong. Betting on Trump’s ego, anger and capacity to disrupt, though, is not necessarily a long shot.