A Trump-Putin summit is Agent Orange for Ukraine and democracy

A long-overdue summit between the presidents of the United States and the Russian Federation to discuss peace in Ukraine, where nuclear war has been threatened, must be seen as a historic moment for optimism.

Except that from London to Langley, Berlin, Canberra and Tokyo, intelligence chiefs will be on tenterhooks wondering whether this is another occasion resembling the meeting between an agent and his handler.

There’s no evidence that Donald Trump works for Vladimir Putin. But there is ample evidence that the US president favours Putin’s agenda. And that he has done all he can to hobble Ukraine while it attempts to defend itself against a Russian invasion of Europe’s eastern flank.

The summit was announced, significantly, by the Kremlin first. It may be held in the United Arab Emirates, which has been pursuing a “friends with all, enemies of none” foreign policy. That would be apt; a summit held in a mostly benign authoritarian state between a malevolent leader of a brutal authoritarian state and his greatest admirer, who happens to lead the world’s most powerful democracy.

Trump has done some performative pouting and sounded peevish about Putin recently. He has been humiliated by the Russian president’s indifference to his pleas to agree on a ceasefire in Ukraine.

This has provoked the leader of the free world to accuse its most dangerous challenger of “bulls***” and to threaten largely toothless sanctions against the Kremlin.

Earlier this year, Trump took a very different tone with Ukraine – a pro-Western democracy on track to join the European Union and hoping to become part of Nato.

Trump cut weapons supplies to Kyiv. He blinded the US intelligence feed to Ukraine during the Russian counteroffensive to retake territory in Kursk. He publicly insulted Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, accusing him of risking a third world war. He held Zelensky’s feet to the fire to get a colonial-style mineral deal to pay for weapons that had been free. Trump also took Russia’s side on every aspect of how he thought Ukraine should capitulate to Moscow in future peace talks.

Putin is obsessed with returning Ukraine to the former Russian (or Soviet) empire. He has never hidden his ambition to do so and consistently denies that Ukraine is an independent entity at all.

He is also a former KBG agent, an expert at manipulation, who genuinely believes that “the West” is plotting against Moscow, whatever ideology dominates the Kremlin. He ordered Russian intelligence services to interfere in the 2016 US elections, to undermine the very notion of truth in the Western media, and has been delighted by Brexit as it weakens the perceived threat of the EU.

In the US, Trump has further empowered Russia by his assault on the independence of the judiciary, his flouting of democratic conventions, the enrichment of his family through his presidency, and the widespread spectacle of ICE arrests by masked police. A weakened American democracy in crisis is a victory for Putin – and it’s been delivered by Trump.

As The Independent has reported before, the Five Eyes intelligence network that links the US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand is under strain because the agencies using the network do not trust Trump with their secrets – he has a record of blurting them out and of storing confidential material in his toilet.

When he met Putin for his first summit in Helsinki in July 2018, he did so for more than two hours with only a US translator in the room with him and the Russian delegation. He snatched away the translator’s notes after the meeting.

Then, when asked if he agreed with US intelligence assessments that Russia has interfered with the US elections, he said “no”.

“President Putin says it’s not Russia. I don’t see any reason why it would be,” he insisted.

The remark was condemned by many Republican grandees, including the then US House speaker Paul Ryan and Senator John McCain.

“No prior president has ever abased himself more abjectly before a tyrant,” McCain said after the Helsinki summit.

Most of Trump’s face-to-face meetings with Putin have not been properly recorded and they have often been held without the usual presence of White House aides and officials.

And every time they meet, Trump has emerged apparently dazzled and fulsome in his praise for the leader of a regime that kills its political opponents in jail, tosses critics off balconies and uses nerve gas and radioactive poisons to bump off defectors to Britain.

There is every chance that Trump will continue to take Russia’s side against Ukraine in a summit with Putin. The bilateral sanctions he’s threatened will make no difference to Russia, which now has negligible trade with the US. His “tertiary” sanctions against India, a 25 per cent surge in tariffs because it imports Russian oil, are unlikely to be imposed, or if they are, they will be short-lived. Trump needs India inside his tent.

Trump has not threatened to renew arms shipments to Ukraine. He has not said he might reconsider the Nato/Ukraine request for American troops to help guarantee a future peace deal. He’s granted tiny exports of enough Patriot air-defence missiles to Kyiv for about one night’s bombardment by Russia.

Trump has caused turmoil in Nato more widely. The leaders of the alliance no longer see the US as a reliable ally, let alone the cornerstone of a military construct that has protected Western democracy for six decades.

Trump’s relationship with Putin has been toxic for the West and for Europe, and is stripping the branches of democracy like Agent Orange.

‘Game-changing’ cancer vaccine trial to begin on NHS

Patients in England with head and neck cancer will be fast-tracked onto a clinical trial for a “potentially transformative” new vaccine, under an initiative announced by the NHS.

The first patients have received the jab, which uses mRNA technology to train the immune system to fight cancerous cells, with more set to be enrolled at their nearest NHS hospital.

Head and neck cancer is a general term to describe forms of the disease in those regions of the body, and can include cancer of the mouth, throat or voice box. Around 11,000 new cases are diagnosed in England every year.

Aggressive forms are difficult to treat, with high rates of recurrence and two-year survival rates under 50 per cent.

The vaccine used in the study has been designed to create two proteins that are commonly found in head and neck cancers associated with high-risk types of human papillomavirus (HPV).

These types of cancer, known as squamous cell cancers, develop from flat, scale-like cells in the outer layer of the skin and other areas of the body.

More than 100 patients with advanced forms of the disease will be matched to the trial, known as AHEAD-MERIT (BNT113), which will run at 15 hospitals over the next year.

Health minister Karin Smyth described the plan as a “massive win for cancer patients”.

“These cancer vaccines could be game-changing for patients facing some of the most challenging diagnoses. By getting these trials running in our NHS, we’re putting ourselves at the forefront of medical innovation, improving outcomes for people living with cancer.”

NHS England has joined forces with life sciences company BioNTech to help identify potentially eligible patients to refer to NHS hospitals running the trial.

The trial is the third to be run through the NHS Cancer Vaccine Launch Pad, which is supported by the Cancer Research UK-funded Southampton Clinical Trials Unit.

Professor Peter Johnson, national clinical director for cancer at NHS England, said: “It’s fantastic that more patients with advanced head and neck cancers will now be able to access this potentially transformative vaccine, offering renewed hope of holding the disease at bay.”

Tamara Kahn, chief executive at Oracle Head & Neck Cancer UK, said the trial “offers crucial hope to those living with advanced stages of cancer”.

“While we advocate for HPV vaccination to prevent these cancers, those already fighting this devastating disease urgently need new treatments that could mean more time with loved ones,” she added.

Chris Curtis was diagnosed with HPV-related head and neck cancer in 2011 and set up a support charity, The Swallows.

The 67-year-old, from Blackpool, said: “As a survivor of HPV-related head and neck cancer, I know first-hand the physical, emotional, and psychological toll this disease takes not just on the patient, but on the entire support system around them.

“With this aggressive cancer, you live in the fear of reoccurrence every day – so anything that could help control the disease or give people peace of mind is groundbreaking – it’ll allow people to get on with their lives and move forward.”

The Cancer Vaccine Launch Pad – a partnership between NHS England, the Government and BioNTech – has already helped refer about 550 patients to trials for vaccines for bowel and skin cancers.

Dr Iain Foulkes, executive director of research and innovation at Cancer Research UK, said: “The Cancer Vaccines Launch Pad is an important route to fast-track promising mRNA vaccine technology into clinical trials.

“Research into personalised cancer treatments is vital. There are over 200 different types of cancer and it’s unlikely there will ever be a single cure that works for everyone.

“That’s why it’s vital that we support a wide range of research, so that more people can live longer, better lives, free from the fear of cancer.”

Ex-Reform MP Rupert Lowe mistakes charity rowers for ‘illegal migrants’

Ex-Reform member Rupert Lowe has pledged £1,000 to a fundraiser after he mistook a charity rowing team for illegal migrants.

The now-independent MP for Great Yarmouth had posted a picture on social media on Thursday night showing a boat near some wind turbines off the Norfolk coast.

“Dinghies coming into Great Yarmouth, RIGHT NOW,” he wrote on X.

“Authorities alerted, and I am urgently chasing. If these are illegal migrants, I will be using every tool at my disposal to ensure these individuals are deported.”

But the vessel pictured was in fact an ocean rowing boat crewed by ROW4MND, a team of four who are attempting to row from Land’s End to John O’Groats to raise money for motor neurone disease (MND).

The crew – Matthew Parker, Mike Bates, Aaron Kneebone and Liz Wardley – said they had been contacted by the Coastguard and asked if they could see a dinghy nearby, but it soon became clear the Coastguard was asking about his own boat.

After satisfying the Coastguard that their boat was not carrying migrants, they continued, but several hours later were contacted again by the Coastguard because the police had “asked if they could send a lifeboat out to check who we were”.

Eventually, a friend forwarded Mr Lowe’s post, which Mr Bates said provided “a moment of light relief”.

He said: “We found it hilarious. I’ve not been mistaken for a migrant before.

“The best comment was the one asking where the Royal Navy were when you need them. I’m a former Royal Marine, so the Royal Navy were on the boat.”

He added: “But it was almost like a vigilante-style, people following us down the beach.

“They hadn’t twigged that we were parallel to the shore for hours and not trying to land.”

After realising his mistake, Mr Lowe pledged £1,000 to the team’s fundraiser, but said he will not apologise for “being vigilant”.

“Good news. False alarm!” he posted on X.

“The unknown vessel was charity rowers, thank goodness. As a well done to the crew, I’ll donate £1,000 to their charity – raising money for MND. Keep going, and watch out for any real illegal migrants!

“We received a huge number of urgent complaints from constituents – I make no apologies over being vigilant for my constituents. It is a national crisis.

“No mass deportations for the charity rowers, but we definitely need it for the illegal migrants!”

After the Coastguard checked their identities, the quartet set off from Land’s End on July 25 and initially headed north into the Irish Sea before bad weather forced them to stop at Milford Haven in Wales.

They then decided to return to Land’s End and start again, this time heading in the other direction, which Mr Bates said had been “about us showing resolve and resilience and hope”.

The journey is the first of four challenges over four years, with the group aiming to row from John O’Groats to Land’s End next year, from California to Hawaii in 2027 and New York to London in 2028, with a target of raising £57 million for MND research.

So far, they have raised £107,515 for the charity.

Mr Bates said: “We’re rowing for hope, we’re rowing to find a cure, and hopefully we’ll raise £57 million – we certainly will if MPs keep talking about us. Maybe Rupert will give us a donation.”

Why we’re in the middle of a ‘rest revolution’

A few weeks ago, in a dusty field at Glastonbury Festival, I bumped into a number of peers who asked (predictably) how work was going. “Yeah, good,” I heard myself telling them. “Although I’m kind of decentering work at the moment.”

“Decentering work” – those were genuinely the words I used, much to my own bemusement and presumably others’ too. They were drawn directly from an emerging lexicon of rest I had started out absorbing by cultural osmosis on social media and, before long, began to invest in. It’s all catchy lingo, of course – “micro-retirement”, “quiet quitting”, “lazy girl jobs” – easily dismissed as internet ephemera. But collectively, I soon learned, these terms point to something important: a subtle, but significant shift in the way people are approaching the relationship between work and rest.

It’s not just emerging in the language we use, but actively playing out in offices all over the country, too. This week, research by the British Chambers of Commerce found that one in 10 UK businesses has seen staff quit rather than comply with return-to-office mandates.

Experts have put forward various theories as to why workers are choosing freedom over stability, or autonomy over loyalty – but to me, it seems a natural response to a working world that has only become more extractive and less stable.

On initial inspection, though, “decentring work” sounds suspiciously like code for “I’m unemployed” – which wouldn’t be too far from the truth, given I was made redundant from my last full‑time job almost a year ago. It was a blow in many ways – a knock to my ego as well as a disruption in the steady forward march of my career.

But in others, it was incredibly liberating. I’d been a freelance writer for five years before that last job and had always loved being mistress of my own destiny. I figured I’d simply go back to working for myself. Pitch, write, repeat.

But when the time came to get back to the grind, I found myself dragging my feet. I was hit by a slow, baggy kind of ennui – not quite burnout but an insurmountable feeling of resistance to the hustle. Over the past few months, I’ve found myself taking on less, resting more, and not immediately filling every quiet hour with productivity.

Some of it is personal, but it’s also reflective of a broader movement. The working landscape has grown noticeably more hostile in recent years. We’re being asked to do more for less: less money, less stability, less long‑term reward, and that’s not just in the beleaguered media industry. The environment – chronic stress, overworking – increasingly (understandably) pushes professionals towards burnout.

In her book The Rest Revolution, Amanda Miller Littlejohn argues that now many people are “on the verge of burnout, pushed … to keep working … at the expense of their physical and mental wellbeing”.

Rest, then, has become revolutionary because burnout is tailored into the very architecture of modern work culture. Instead, she says, we should reframe rest as an active, intentional practice rather than a luxury or reward – even (perhaps especially) those who have been conditioned to equate their worth with their output.

Across sectors, job security is shrinking. In 2023, an estimated 6.8 million workers (21.4 per cent) were in severely insecure roles – zero‑hours contracts, low‑paid self‑employment or casual/seasonal work – a rise of 600,000 from the previous year. That means roughly one in eight workers now lacks basic stability. Payrolled employment declined by 0.4 per cent (135,000 jobs) between May 2024 and May 2025, and data for June 2025 shows a further 178,000 jobs lost in the year prior. In industries from hospitality to healthcare, people are working harder for less and with little idea of what tomorrow holds.

Writing in Vogue Business, Amy Francombe, a journalist and consultant who specialises in divining the values of Gen Z consumers, pointed out that “instead of clinging to long-term plans that no longer feel plausible, like buying a house or securing a well-paid job, many are overspending in the present and living beyond their means as a form of emotional survival. Financial logic,” she added, “has splintered, and in its place a new consumer mindset is emerging.”

And this mindset, she tells me, extends beyond purchasing choices. “Everything has become so out of reach – whether it’s job stability or getting onto the housing market – that it almost feels like you’re an idiot if you’re overworking because it’s not going to get you anywhere.” Rest, downtime, timewasting have all become more aspirational than luxury goods, reflecting, she explains, “a shift in logic”.

The concept of micro‑retirements – deliberate pauses from work to recharge, reassess, or simply exist outside of the grind – went viral earlier this year, with many pointing out that career breaks (however you want to brand them) would have a profound impact on pension contributions. But as Francombe – who is Gen Z – points out, “I simply can’t connect this Amy to 70-year-old Amy in my mind. Maybe bankers will gamble away our pensions on AI, maybe stem cell therapies will mean that I can’t retire until I’m 100, maybe I’ll die in the climate emergency at the age of 40. It’s all so uncertain that I might as well just go on holiday rather than pay into a pension.”

Of course, the fetishisation of rest isn’t just down to the fact that work is unstable and kind of depressing right now. As Ellen Scott, digital editor at Stylist magazine and author of Working on Purpose, points out, “I think we are desperately hungry for true, restorative rest, but we can’t sate that hunger.” She argues that part of the reason that downtime is constantly being repackaged and sold back to us is because “true rest is so rare and difficult to get hold of nowadays”.

“The technology that we’re surrounded by and the capitalist culture of productivity mean it’s incredibly difficult to have a quiet, peaceful moment for longer than a few minutes,” she explains. “Our expectations have changed and we accept that we should have constant sensory stimulation, or constantly be ‘doing’.”

In the meantime, though, we feel both overworked and overstimulated. “Because true rest feels like such a remote, slippery thing, we eat up any offering that tells us how to get it, whether that’s a new trend to try (quiet quitting! Lazy girl jobs!) or a product that will act as a cheat code to the rest we’re craving.

“You can really see that in the rise of retreats; we’re desperate for rest, struggling to fulfil that need, and so we’ll happily hand over significant amounts of cash for someone to please tell us how to do it.”

Lately, I’ve been thinking about what it would mean to rest without performance – not to optimise it, brand it, or turn it into a “radical act”, but just to allow it. I’m still working, but I’m no longer trying to win at work. I don’t know if that makes me lazy, disillusioned, or ahead of the curve – probably a bit of all three. But I do know that stepping back hasn’t made me feel less valuable. If anything, it has sharpened my sense of what matters.

Maybe “decentring work” wasn’t just a throwaway Glastonbury line after all. Maybe it was my nervous system, trying to tell the truth before my brain caught up.

Thousands forced to evacuate in Southern California as fast-moving fire spreads

Thousands of people were ordered to evacuate their homes in Southern California Thursday as a fast-moving brush fire ripped through a mountainous area north of Los Angeles.

The Canyon Fire ignited around 1:30 p.m. PST, growing to over 1,050 acres in less than three hours, according to Ventura County emergency response.

It remained zero percent contained late Thursday afternoon and was spreading east, the county said.

In LA County, around 4,200 residents and 1,400 structures are under an evacuation order, and another 12,500 residents are under an evacuation warning, said spokesperson Andrew Dowd for the Ventura County Fire Department.

“We’re doing a significant initial attack,” Dowd said. The evacuation order warned of an immediate threat to life.

Dowd said the fire was a “very dynamic situation” caused by hot, dry weather, steep and rugged terrain and dry fuel. There were 250 firefighters on the ground coordinating with helicopters and other air support, he said.

LA County Supervisor Kathryn Barger, who represents the district, urged residents to evacuate.

“Extreme heat and low humidity in our north county have created dangerous conditions where flames can spread with alarming speed,” Barger said in a statement. “If first responders tell you to leave, go—without hesitation.”

“The fire is burning east with a rapid rate of spread in light to medium fuels. The onshore push is influencing fire behavior, and the fire is threatening 60kv powerlines as well as the communities of Hasley Canyon and Hathaway Ranch, but is moving away from the community of Piru,” an update from the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said. “The fire has now crossed into LA County and continues to spread east toward the community of Val Verde.”

The fire is burning just south of Lake Piru, a reservoir located in the Los Padres National Forest. It’s close by Lake Castaic, a popular recreation area burned by the Hughes Fire in January.

That fire burned about 15 square miles in six hours and put 50,000 people under evacuation orders or warnings.

What the jury wasn’t allowed to hear in the mushroom murder trial

The husband of an Australian woman convicted of a triple murder by mushroom poisoning suspected she had been trying to kill him for over a year before the fatal meal.

The revelation emerged after a judge lifted a gag order on pre-trial evidence that Erin Patterson, 50, had sought to keep secret as she attempts to overturn her convictions.

Her estranged husband, Simon Patterson, testified at a pre-trial hearing that he had previously declined the deadly lunch invitation due to his fears, having suspected her of attempting to poison him.

“I thought there’d be a risk that she’d poison me if I attended,” the husband told the court months before the trial in testimony that was not presented to jurors.

Simon said while he had stopped eating food prepared by his wife, from whom he had been estranged since 2015, he never thought others would be at risk.

Erin Patterson was convicted by a Victoria state Supreme Court last month of murdering her parents-in-law Don and Gail Patterson, and Gail’s sister Heather Wilkinson at her home in Leongatha with a lunch of beef Wellington pastries contained toxic death cap mushrooms.

She was also found guilty of attempting to murder Ian Wilkinson, Heather’s husband, who survived the meal but spent weeks in hospital.

Erin Patterson was initially charged with attempting to murder her husband by inviting him to the lunch in July 2023. He had accepted the invitation then cancelled.

She was also initially charged three counts of attempting to murder him on three occasions around Victoria between November 2021 and September 2022.

Prosecutors dropped all charges relating to the husband before her trial began in April.

Simon Patterson testified before the trial that he suspected his wife had deliberately made him seriously ill with dishes including penne bolognese pasta, chicken korma curry and a vegetable curry wrap. No poisons were ever found.

The three alleged poisonings occurred during family camping trips. Simon shared his poisoning suspicions with his doctor, who encouraged him to create a spreadsheet listing what he had eaten around the time he became sick.

Justice Christopher Beale ruled for lawyers representing media who sought to overturn the gag order, ordering that the evidence that jurors had not seen would be made public.

Erin Patterson’s lawyers wanted all the evidence that was not deemed admissible at her trial kept secret until an appeals court decided whether to overturn her convictions.

Their reasons included that media interest in the case was unprecedented. Defense lawyer Colin Mandy argued that reporting of the suppressed evidence as well as references to it in books, podcasts and a planned television mini-series would “leave an indelible impression on the minds of potential jurors in the event that there is a retrial.”

A hearing will begin on Aug. 25 to determine what sentence she will get. She faces a potential life sentence for each of the murders and 25 years for attempted murder.

Prosecutor Jane Warren told Beale on Friday “a lot” of victim impact statements would be presented at that two-day sentencing hearing.

Once Erin Patterson is sentenced, she will have 28 days to lodge an appeal against the sentence, the convictions, or both.

Her lawyers say they will appeal against her convictions.

Surge in household costs puts Reeves’s growth plan at risk

Rachel Reeves has been given an inflation warning by the Bank of England, as it cut interest rates to their lowest level in two years but forecast months of sharp price rises driven by higher food prices.

Days after the chancellor was warned of a £50bn black hole in the government’s finances, the Bank said Ms Reeves’s national insurance hike and the rise in the minimum wage were helping to push up the cost of the supermarket shop.

There was relief for borrowers, as the interest rate was cut to 4 per cent.

But the Bank said headline inflation would accelerate to 4 per cent by September, while inflation on food is set to hit 5.5 per cent between now and Christmas – putting a squeeze on household budgets.

As a result, the Bank’s governor, Andrew Bailey, signalled that interest rates would fall more slowly in coming months, saying they were “still on a downward path” but that changes would have to be “made gradually and carefully”.

Amid fears that the rate cut could stoke inflation, the Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee was split and was forced to take a second vote for the first time in its history in order to break the deadlock.

The forecasts pile more pressure on the chancellor, less than 24 hours after Sir Keir Starmer pledged that this autumn’s Budget will make sure “people feel better off”.

Ms Reeves welcomed the rate cut, saying it would help to “bring down the cost of mortgages and loans for families and businesses”.

But she also left the door open to tax hikes in the Budget, after leading economists said she may have to raise levies, cut public spending, or tear up her fiscal rules in order to fill a multibillion-pound black hole.

She also came under pressure from former Labour prime minister Gordon Brown, who suggested increasing gambling taxes to fund the abolition of the two-child benefit cap and taking defence spending out of her borrowing rules to free up economic “headroom”.

But the Tories said the national insurance rise coupled with “reckless borrowing” had “pushed inflation well above target”.

Alongside the announcement of a cut in interest rates, the Bank of England said the chancellor’s £25bn national insurance raid had pushed up food prices. Higher wage costs are contributing to food inflation, partly because of an increase in the minimum wage and the impact of the increase in national insurance contributions (NICs).

A “relatively high proportion of staff” in food manufacturing and retail are paid the national living wage, or an amount close to it, according to the Bank’s latest monetary policy report. The national living wage increased by 6.7 per cent in April.

“Furthermore, overall labour costs of supermarkets are likely to have been disproportionately affected by the lower threshold at which employers start paying NICs, in part because a relatively high proportion of supermarket staff is employed part-time,” the report added.

Most of the wage costs, along with a proportion of the cost of higher NICs, have been passed on to consumers, putting up prices by around 1 to 2 per cent, with shoppers facing further hikes later this year.

The controversial decision to raise NICs has also “weighed on growth”, according to businesses, the report said.

Business chiefs also expressed concern to the Bank about other government policies, including deputy prime minister Angela Rayner’s Employment Rights Bill.

Helen Dickinson, chief executive of the British Retail Consortium (BRC), said: “Government policy will add £7bn to retailer costs this year, from higher employment costs to the introduction of a new packaging tax. Food prices have already been climbing steadily, and the BRC has warned this is only the beginning.

“If the autumn Budget once again lands on the shoulders of retailers, then it will only serve to fan the flames of food inflation, with poorer families being hit the hardest by the Treasury’s decisions.”

James Smith, of the Resolution Foundation economic think tank, said: “There was bad news for the chancellor from the Bank of England today as its forecasts remain more pessimistic on growth than [those of] the Office for Budget Responsibility, suggesting bad news is coming at the autumn Budget.

“Bank rate is now 4 per cent – its lowest level since March 2023. While this will be broadly welcomed by mortgagors, around 700,000 families will still see repayments rise as they come off five-year fixed-rate deals.

“There was also bad news from the Bank of England for families struggling with the cost of living: inflation is set to be higher than previously expected, with food inflation rising further in the coming months, and real wage growth set to hit a brick wall this year.”