Mornings

Amazon Web Services suggested an attempt to exploit a critical online security flaw was made days before it was publicly disclosed, while Cloudflare claimed millions of exploitation attempts were made hours after disclosure; an engineer using AI tools had spotted the flaw. A major study found that daily nicotine vaping may be as harmful to blood vessel health as smoking 20 cigarettes a day, with researchers at Manchester Metropolitan University comparing vapers, smokers and non-smokers over three years and saying the findings were particularly important for young people who had never smoked.

A report marked five years since the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan, citing the UN's description of the country as the worst place to be a woman or girl and its characterization of the treatment of women and girls as gender apartheid, and reporting that an estimated million children are starving. President Trump backed special envoy Steve Witkoff after criticism of Witkoff describing Vladimir Putin as a humanitarian; Witkoff thanked Putin for releasing US prisoner Stephen Hubbard, and Trump said he would not comment one way or the other while negotiations with Russia to stop the war in Ukraine continued and that he was happy Russia had not got involved with Iran. Offenders who refuse to attend sentencing hearings could be confined to their cells for weeks or lose privileges such as visits for nearly three months under tougher penalties, building on an existing law that can impose fines or another two years in jail, with the Ministry of Justice acknowledging longer jail time alone was unlikely to be enough of a deterrent. MPs warned that gaps in the UK's ability to defend the Arctic left it vulnerable to potential Russian attacks, with the Commons Defence Committee saying a shortage of Royal Navy warships and submarines left critical infrastructure in the high north seriously exposed.

Pharmacy leaders called for prescription charges to be scrapped in next week's budget, citing a poll finding 79% of people thought it unfair that patients in England are charged while those in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are not, and the National Pharmacy Association called the charges a cruel tax on illness. Nearly 7,000 miles of road resurfacing was set to be finished in the coming months as part of efforts to repair potholes in England, with figures showing more than a 10% increase in repairs this financial year and the government announcing a further £220 million for councils. The Met Police recovered tens of thousands of pounds worth of goods during a two-week crackdown on the resale of stolen products, using a forensic solution detectable by UV light and making 42 arrests and securing closure orders for 11 shops. A report from eastern Poland described preparations for the possibility of a Russian attack, including reopened Cold War bunkers, text alerts and air raid sirens after airspace incursions and hybrid attacks put Poland on high alert; in Lublin a refurbished 1980s bunker can accommodate 200 people for up to 72 hours, and Poland now has nearly 90,000 places of shelter nationwide, with phone apps and standardized signs. A former head of Poland's National Security Bureau warned NATO had three years to prepare and said Russia was experimenting with different types of attacks, while NATO's top commander vowed a robust response if the alliance is attacked; in the border village of Dorohusk drones came down last month, and a school converted a cloakroom into a permanent shelter as children received daily air raid alerts.