Putin realises he can’t win Ukraine war, Trump’s envoy says

Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky has warned of an “emergency situation” at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which he called a ”threat to everyone”.

“It is now the seventh day – something that has never happened before – of an emergency situation at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant,” he wrote on X/Twitter.

“Because of Russian shelling, the plant has been cut off from power, disconnected from the electrical grid, and is being supplied with electricity by diesel generators.”

He called the situation “extraordinary”, adding that the plant and generators were not designed to deal with the onslaught. One generator has failed, according to reports.

Persistent Russian shelling is preventing the repair of power lines and “the restoration of basic safety”, Zelensky said. “This is a threat to everyone – no terrorist in the world has ever dared to do to a nuclear plant what Russia is doing.”

Russia has blamed Ukraine for the damage caused.

European leaders are meeting in Copenhagen today to discuss the formation of a “drone wall” along their borders with Russia and Ukraine to stop drones violating European airspace.

Travel warning for Britons after 69 killed in powerful Philippines quake

At least 69 people have been killed after a powerful 6.9-magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of Cebu province in the central Philippines late on Tuesday, collapsing homes, roads and public buildings in a region still reeling from a deadly storm just days earlier.

Officials said 14 people died in the coastal city of Bogo, where a landslide buried shanties in a mountain village. Twelve others were killed in Medellin town after ceilings and walls of houses gave way, while five people, including three coast guard personnel and a firefighter, died in San Remigio when a basketball game was disrupted by the tremor and they were crushed by falling walls.

Rescue teams were struggling to reach cut-off villages amid cracked highways, damaged water systems and widespread power outages. Hundreds of residents spent the night in open fields, fearing aftershocks.

The quake’s epicentre was about 19km northeast of Bogo at a shallow depth of 5km. A brief tsunami warning was issued and later lifted.

Cebu governor Pamela Baricuatro warned the full extent of the destruction may only become clear in daylight.

Greta Thunberg’s flotilla ‘aggressively circled by Israeli warship’

Greta Thunberg’s aid flotilla was “aggressively circled” by an Israeli military vessel as it made its final approach to Gaza, activists have said.

One of the lead vessels was forced to make a sharp manoeuvre to avoid a frontal collision with an Israeli ship, a statement by the Global Sumud Flotilla said.

Communications were remotely disabled as the Israeli ship “steered dangerously close” on Tuesday night, it added.

A second vessel in the flotilla, Sirius, was afterwards targeted by the boat, which repeated “similar harassing maneuvers for an extended period of time—before finally departing”.

“Warships disabled communications, aggressively circled civilian boats, and forced captains into sharp evasive actions to avoid collision,” a statement shared on Wednesday read.

“These hostile actions placed unarmed civilians from over 40 countries in grave danger.”

The Independent approached the IDF for comment.

The flotilla is continuing its journey to Gaza with around 500 activists on board including civilians from more than 40 countries.

On Tuesday, it entered the “high-risk zone” as it nears the Gaza coast.

Italy, which had sent a navy vessel to escort the boats, last night issued a warning to the boats to turn back from its mission.

“A hope of agreement has finally opened up to end the war and the suffering of the Palestinian civilian population and to stabilize the region. A fragile balance, which many would be happy to disrupt,” Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni said.

Israel has been preparing for the flotilla, ahead of its expected arrival this week.

The IDF’s naval forces are anticipating possible ‘active takeovers’ of vessels, Israeli outlet i24 News reported today. A special task force has reportedly been set up ahead of the approach, a joint effort between the IDF, Shin Bet, police and the Foreign Ministry.

The activists would be brought to shore and likely detained and deported, or held in custody if they refuse, the outlet reports. Thunberg was previously deported from Israel after her Gaza aid boat was intercepted in the Mediterranean in June.

The organisers of the new GSF have already reported difficulty in the flotilla’s approach on Gaza.

The organisers claimed on Tuesday 23 September that several vessels had been targeted by Israeli drones in international waters off Crete.

“Our boats were repeatedly attacked by military drones,” Maria Elena Delia, the GSF’s Italian spokesperson said at the time. “They struck us with unknown but irritating substances, with sound bombs, and even with drones that deliberately damaged the masts of several vessels.”

No casualties were reported among the more than 500 people on board the vessels.

Italian defence minister Guido Crosetto denounced the alleged attack and said he had redirected an Italian navy ship in the area to offer support.

The GSF also said that the flotilla was attacked in Tunisian waters on September 9.

They posted footage appearing to show one vessel being hit by an object outside the port of Sidi Bou Said.

Tunisian authorities disrupted that a drone was involved and said an initial inspection indicated the explosion came from inside the boat.

The GSF then shared footage appearing to show a second vessel being hit later in the night. They said the boat “sustained fire damage on its top deck”.

No injuries were reported.

The vessels left Barcelona on September 1 with a flotilla of some 40 vessels.

Gen Z wants dial-up back – as the internet may be nearing extinction

A familiar tone turns into phantom dialling. The little box in your house or office is calling out to an answering modem. Brief chirps confirm the two devices are ready to talk each other’s language. More beeps: binary code in audio form. Then, a teeth-grinding fuzzy sound, shards of digital noise pushed through your landline. A brave new world loads slowly on the screen in front of you.

The familiar icon of an AOL pyramid connecting and the sound of the dial-up handshake, often followed by someone in the other room shouting: “Get off the internet, I need to use the phone!” Or “it’s taking a bit longer because America is waking up”.

Dial-up internet and the era it represents – patchy connections, “You’ve got mail!” and an upstart tech industry – has been finally laid to rest. As of this week, AOL – the most popular internet service provider of the late 1990s – has finally discontinued its dial-up service, severing the connection of around 175,000 Americans who still (apparently) are using it.

Most of the world said goodbye to dial-up a long time ago. Most of us live in an age of seamless and relentless connection – neither sleep nor death will stop your phone from pinging with updates. But the story of dial-up is a vital one to understand and could even set the tone for the future.

It certainly can help us parse the chaos of today’s internet-infused reality, as well as what comes next, be it AI chatbots overpowering Google search, an Elon Musk monopoly, or the destruction of the internet entirely.

It was late evening in 2020 when Dr Gough Lui spied a familiar beige box crammed in the corner of his office – an old computer. “I live and breathe technology,” the biomedical and electronics engineer from Western Sydney University tells me, “I decided to adopt it for a nostalgia trip.”

After a bit of tinkering, he recreated a dial-up connection. “Part of the charm was simply the fact we had to be patient,” he remembers. Flaky connections and dropouts were tolerated, simply put, “because it was worth it”.

There has been a noticeable nostalgia for the early internet era lately. The breakneck speed of tech has led to a fondness for a quieter, more comfortable time. The recently opened Nokia Design Archive in Aalto University, Finland, invites people to reminisce about a time of brick phones and before push notifications. The Barbican’s extremely popular emo exhibition “I’m Not Okay: An Emo Retrospective” celebrated “a transatlantic subculture that thrived in cyberspace”.

Trends in fashion and on social media suggest that even younger generations are looking back fondly at a time they may not have experienced first hand. Y2K fashion is hitting catwalks and high streets again. TikTok is awash with explorations of old tech-y visual aesthetics, retroactively named things like “Frutiger Aero” (rolling green fields and bright aquatic PC backgrounds) and “Utopian Virtual” (the old art style of educational CD-ROMs and Microsoft Encarta).

Colette Shade, author of Y2K (How the 2000s Became Everything), has noticed this nostalgic longing. “Millennials have a sense memory of dial-up … Getting the internet installed at your house was a formative experience for many people that age, especially in retrospect.”

But more than this, the idea of “going online” is something that younger generations have not experienced; the internet wasn’t “woven into every aspect of life”.

“You could go online and talk to friends and strangers but then log off and go outside,” she says. Maybe it’s not the Nokia 3310 and low-rise pants we miss from the time, maybe it’s the prospect of living unplugged from the incessant din of the modern tech world. But how did we get here? Where did dial-up come from?

In 1966, a telephone line connected a TX-2 computer in Massachusetts manned by MIT researcher Lawrence Roberts to a Q32 computer on the other side of the country in California, manned by Tom Marrill. The reason for this connection? Like many technological innovations, it was the American military-industrial complex.

US president Dwight Eisenhower had created the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) 11 years earlier to contend with Soviet Union tech. Working on ballistic missiles and nuclear defences required a network for ARPA computers. Thus, that connection was created.

What was the first message sent using the internet? “LO”. It was meant to be “LOGIN”, but the network crashed.

If the biblical language was incidental, ARPA colleagues Robert Taylor and his boss JCR Licklider would make a prediction that would change everything on God’s green Earth: “In a few years, men will be able to communicate more effectively through a machine than face-to-face.”

It would be people like Barry Shein and Peter Dawe who would help fulfil this far-fetched prophecy.

Shein has a lofty and dystopian-sounding title: CEO of The World – the first internet service provider for the public. “I had installed the internet at Boston University over several years,” Shein tells me. Many of his customers were former students or recently laid-off Bostonians, who had developed a taste for email and the growing discussions happening online.

In 1989, Shein hired a lease line from UUNET, put five modems on a bookshelf and created something like the personal internet subscription we know today. The internet – and the widening web available via the connection – was no longer just for students or workplaces.

Dawe’s business started with similar grandeur at Pipex, the first UK internet service provider that operated a 64k transatlantic lease line to the US. Dawe hired a line from BT, rented a windowless Cambridge office, a PC and a secondhand Astra, and started offering connections to companies.

These first forays were met with slight disinterest and sometimes scandal. “There almost immediately appeared an opinion that I was illegally reselling a government resource,” Shein explains of The World’s early days. “At the time, I estimated we were blocked from about one-third of the internet, but there was still plenty for our customers to access.”

The pushback was commercial as well. Networks were “walled gardens”, Dawe explains. “The business model was to lock you in … But we were happier being promiscuous, and that was a massive innovation.” In 1993, the BBC signed up for a lease line. Pipex expanded abroad, and by the time he had moved on to found the Internet Watch Foundation, he maintains it was responsible for “half of global internet traffic”.

In 2000, 30 per cent of the US had a dial-up connection, the phone-hogging method was the primary pathway online as the digital superhighway was evolving. But as time pressed onward, broadband – with its faster connection and higher frequencies freeing up phone lines – began to surge, and its gain was dial-up’s loss. A decade later, only 5 per cent of Americans were using it to get online.

The “Magnificent Seven” companies born from the data-centred era after dial-up now make up 35 per cent of the US stock market. The “hippiedom” that Dawe says ran through those early years has been replaced. Innovation and huge amounts of capital walk in lock-step.

Despite rising murmurs of a “bubble” and the ever-receding horizon of human-level computer intelligence (AGI), AI is still the tech sector’s big thing. Its disruptiveness, combined with the “ens***tification” of search engines could mean that we talk about Google much like we’re talking about dial-up now, in a few years – or sooner.

Gigabit internet is the super-speedy connection that much of the hopes of AI are pegged to. For you, it means faster internet – it was rolled out to 3,800 homes in Northumberland this year – for the tech overlords, it means “quantum computing”, a complex kind of technology that borrows scientific notions of “entanglement” and “superpositions” to (potentially) solve big issues in pharmaceutical development and engineering.

The achievement of all of this still requires a connection to the internet, and on that, Dawe has his dark predictions. “Starlink is a fly in the ointment” when it comes to the free market of connection. Elon Musk’s company provides satellite internet services, and Dawe says it could grow to monopolise internet connections.

The other issue is the shift towards cloud computing. It works, Dawe says, until it doesn’t. Internet outages were reported in the Middle East and Asia at the start of this month, linked to Red Sea cables being “cut”, according to Microsoft. Governments in countries affected were fairly quiet on the events, but in an increasingly polarised world where vital infrastructure is in the aether of the cloud, one can only imagine what a larger outage could do.

The recent cyber attacks on Marks & Spencer, The Co-op and Jaguar Land Rover could be a horrifying portent. All three companies outsource to Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) for a range of tech needs, including – at least for The Co-op – adopting a “cloud-first strategy”.

If all of this sounds a little frantic and entropic, media theorist and author Geert Lovink agrees, and he’s had enough.

“Things are finite, and that is in contradiction to Silicon Valley and its need for eternal growth,” he says. His radical 2022 text, Extinction Internet, purports the need for a detachment from this seamless connection, to overcome the “polycrisis” we face, along with an understanding of the new techno-social dimension of the mind, and how it has been saturated by all-you-can-scroll content, delivered via a seamless internet connection.

He’s quick to point out that the cost of the internet has stayed the same since the days of The World and Barry Shein, but everyone pays it with no complaints.

And for what? For that dial-up promise of “people connecting” and a democratised cyberspace to be lost in a haze of chatbots and politically noxious social media platforms? Or for tech-libertarians to make money off of our cyberspace psyches while we are left with smartphone addictions and emaciated attention spans?

The first message on the internet may have had a biblical tinge, but the first ever message sent via electronic communication – Samuel Morse and his telegraph in 1844 – was a direct Bible quote: “What hath God wrought?” It feels more apt by the day.

Police shut down Oktoberfest after fatal explosion

Police have closed the Oktoberfest beer festival in northern Munich after an explosion that killed at least one person.

City officials said there had been a bomb threat issued by the suspected perpetrator of the explosion, early on Wednesday.

Munich police said the explosion was part of a domestic dispute.

It was not immediately clear whether the deceased person was the suspected perpetrator or someone else.

Police searched the Oktoberfest fairgrounds for other explosive devices and asked workers to leave the area.

Oktoberfest is the world’s largest beer festival and usually attracts up to six million visitors.

This year’s festival began on 20 September and ends on 5 October.

Reuters reported that the fairground was expected to remain shut until 5pm local time (3pm GMT) after police discovered explosives in a residential building.

Bild newspaper and multiple other reports said shots and explosions had been heard.

The BBC quoted police as saying that special forces had been called in to defuse the explosives, described as “booby traps”.

“The injured person who was found has since died. Another person is missing, but is not believed to pose any danger,” police said.

Numerous emergency personnel were on site on Wednesday morning.

Eats, Beats and Storied Streets: A journey through Louisiana

Few places in America are as spellbinding as Louisiana. Streets are alive with music, every table groans with food that tells a story, and every river bend reveals landscapes as mysterious as they are beautiful. Whether you’re dancing to zydeco in Lafayette, devouring beignets in the French Quarter, or gliding through the Atchafalaya swamps in search of alligators, this is a destination which offers travellers an unforgettable blend of rhythm, flavour and culture.

Music that Moves You

A seemingly never-ending party, a stroll through the bouncing streets of New Orleans’ French Quarter is one of America’s most thrilling sensory experiences. Guitars crunch, symbols crash and horns howl on every street corner, from Bourbon Street to Frenchmen Street. This Cajun corner of the US has a deep heritage too, and the Preservation Hall – dating back to 1961 – is an essential stop. With its intimate time-worn walls and wooden chairs facing the small stage, it’s a shrine to New Orleans jazz and every note should be savoured.

But Louisiana’s music tradition goes far beyond the Big Easy. Beginning in 1981, the Baton Rouge Blues Festival is one of the country’s oldest blues festivals and the state capital is a haven of Cajun music. It’s also the home of the swamp blues, so to hear the best of these laid-back rhythms, spend a foot-tapping night at Phil Brady’s Bar & Grill or Henry Turner Jr’s Listening Room. And for a little backyard boogie from local Louisiana musicians, try and hit the wonderfully chilled out Bee Nice Concert Series.

One of the more niche regional sounds is zydeco, and these infectious beats driven by accordions and washboards are perfect for dancing the night away. Over in Lafayette, the lush outdoor Hideaway on Lee and the charming Blue Moon Saloon host high-energy zydeco and Cajun jams. For a deeper dive into this unique music of the swamp, drop by the Festivals Acadiens et Créoles for three glorious days of Cajun, Creole, and zydeco sounds.

Flavours to Savour

Louisiana has one of America’s most distinct food cultures, with Creole dishes like gumbo and jambalaya not found anywhere else. Needless to say, the fiery flavours found in these creations are sublime and it’s no surprise that 2025 is Louisiana’s Year of Food.

With its rich broth, often featuring a roux base and embellished by juicy shrimp and thick sausage, gumbo is arguably the quintessential Creole dish. If you’re in New Orleans, look no further than no–frills downtown spots like Coop’s Place or head out to neighbourhood joints like the upscale Gabrielle Restaurant who serve a smoky take on Cajun-style gumbo or the dense dishes plated up at Liuzza’s by the Track. And if you’re so enraptured by this unique stew, then learn how to make it at home at the New Orleans School of Cooking.

A Cajun rice dish that originated in southern Louisiana in the 18th Century, Jambalaya is also iconic down here and can include meats, vegetables, seafood and spices in its mouthwatering mix. The Jambalaya Shoppe is dotted all around southern Louisiana and is a good place to start, though make time to visit Gonzales – the ‘Jambalaya Capital of the World. It even has its own Jambalaya Festival every spring.

Remember to make time for sweet treats though, as Louisiana’s beignets are something special. Warm, deep-fried pastries dusted with powdered sugar, these gentle delights are the perfect cafe snack. Open since 1862, the Cafe du Monde is an iconic French Quarter spot to watch the world go by with a beignet and café au lait.

And if you’re here for Mardi Gras, make sure to sample the sweet colourful King Cake as the jaunty floats pass by.

Culture and the Great Outdoors

Louisiana’s diverse cultural heritage is as unique as its landscape. French, Spanish, African, Caribbean and native influences all converge into Cajun and Creole identities and that’s most famously reflected in the state’s sublime cuisine. But don’t miss the great outdoors, as Louisiana’s biodiversity is enchanting too.

Acadiana’s humid moss-cloaked swamps and bayous are one of America’s last wildernesses, and boat tours of these serene and ethereal landscapes are unforgettable, especially if you spot wildlife like American Alligators, beavers, herons, eagles and white tail deer. The Atchafalaya Basin, just east of Lafayette, is a particular haven and several airboat tours depart from here, including McGee’s Swamp Tours and Last Wilderness Swamp Tours.

Road trails through these bayous can be just as inspiring, and the Bayou Teche National Byway tells stories. Running for 183 miles from Arnaudville down to Morgan City, this serpentine route passes by ornate antebellum homes like Shadows-on-the-Teche, tranquil fields of sugar cane, breezy swamps and historic towns packed with friendly cafes, zydeco dancehalls and local museums.

Look out for the region’s lively 400+ festivals too, which often celebrate Louisiana’s local culture. The Festival International de Louisiane in Lafayette celebrates the links between Acadiana and the Francophone world, through music, art and food, while the Southwest Louisiana Zydeco Music Festival in Opelousas aims to preserve Louisiana’s most gleeful music genre. And there’s no better way of learning about the state’s people and heritage than at the various tours, concerts, talks and cultural events held in Vermillionville in Lafayette.

Heathrow airport car park closed after fire breaks out

A car has burst into flames at Heathrow airport, causing delays and diversions in the area.

London Fire Brigade said four fire engines and around 25 firefighters rushed to the scene in a multi-storey car park at Terminal 3 of Heathrow airport.

A video shared on social media, believed to be from the scene, shows smoke pouring out of the first floor of a multi-storey car park.

The fire services said the main tunnel going into Heathrow’s terminals 1, 2 and 3 is currently closed while crews try to bring the situation under control. The airport itself remains fully operational.

A Heathrow spokesperson said: “Earlier this morning our teams responded to a small vehicle fire in the Multi Storey Car Park for Terminal 3. The fire was quickly extinguished and no injuries reported. The car park has now reopened and the rest of the airport continues to operate as normal. We apologise to passengers for any inconvenience.”

Buses travelling to Heathrow this morning have also been forced to terminate.

Arriva Herts and Essex said in a statement on X: “Good morning, due to a fire in Heathrow, the 724 service will be unable to serve the Greenways stop or Lees Road stop in both directions, the buses will be terminating and starting from terminal 5.”

The M4 southbound for Heathrow airport has been closed from Junction 4 due to the fire, National Highways said.

Those travelling to Heathrow airport are being advised to use the M4 J3 or the M25 J14.

But a major crash this morning at J14 on the M25 means there are already significant delays in that direction, with National Highways reporting roughly an hour’s worth of queues.

London Fire Brigade said a collision between a car and a lorry in the early hours of the morning left one man hospitalised and forced the closure of the road.

The road is not expected to open again until mid-afternoon.

Business news live – Pound climbs vs dollar, UK manufacturing falls

The US government shutdown has seen the value of the pound rise further against the dollar, up to around $1.3470 to £1 on Wednesday. Stock markets have also risen, with the FTSE 100 up 0.7 per cent in morning trading.

In wider economic data affecting the UK, manufacturing was down in September as expected, following on from news earlier in the week that GDP rose only 0.3 per cent in the second quarter of the year. Meanwhile, house prices rose once more in September following August’s slight decline, with year-on-year growth at 2.2 per cent across the UK.

Elsewhere, sales at Greggs slowed over the hot summer months and business confidence across the nation dropped, as Budget uncertainty continues to weigh on consumers and firms alike.

Follow The Independent’s live coverage of the latest stock markets and business news here: