Evening Briefing: Monday 26 October 2026
- If you are on a western coast tonight: a yellow wind warning runs from six this evening until three tomorrow morning, with gusts to 65mph, and a second warning covers much of Scotland, northern England and Northern Ireland through Tuesday. Further power cuts are thought likely; keep a torch to hand.
- If you are worried about winter bills: European wholesale gas has hit a four-year high and the British month-ahead contract its highest since December 2022, on cold weather, thin storage and Gulf supply fears. A 16% rise in a typical annual bill in January, to about £2,000, is a forecast rather than an announced cap.
- If you have a hospital appointment in late November: senior doctors in England will strike on the 25th and 26th, staffing emergency care only. Routine and planned work is the part that gets postponed, against a backlog of more than six million patients.
Gulf Chiefs Meet Iran’s President and Agree to Keep Talking
Saudi Arabia’s defence minister, Pakistan’s army chief and Turkey’s intelligence chief met President Pezeshkian and the secretary of Iran’s supreme national security council in Tehran today. Iranian state television says the four agreed to…
Trump Says He Is Choosing Between a Deal and Finishing It
Asked about Iran in a television interview on Sunday, the American president said he was weighing whether to make a deal or, in his words, “finish them off”. No date is attached to any of it. He has previously said strikes would not resume…
UN-Mandated Inquiry Finds Crimes Against Humanity in West Bank
A three-member commission of inquiry established by the UN Human Rights Council has reported that Israeli authorities and forces have committed the crimes against humanity of extermination, torture, rape and other forms of sexual violence…
Church Says More Than Sixty Christians Killed in Oromia
The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church says more than sixty people have been killed in a series of attacks on Christians across three areas of the Shirka district in Ethiopia’s Oromia region. A church official called it a massacre and said…
Algeria Approves Its First Such Foreign Deployment Since 1973
Both chambers of Algeria’s parliament have approved sending troops to Niger to protect energy installations in the north, near the Libyan border. It would be the country’s first such deployment since it sent forces to Egypt during the 1973…
No 10 Pulls Back From the Prime Minister’s Referendum Answer
Asked by broadcasters whether he could introduce freedom of movement without a referendum, the prime minister answered “no”. Downing Street spent the afternoon qualifying it, saying he “isn’t proposing a return to freedom of movement or an…
Low-Income Pensioners to Be Shielded From Income Tax
The chancellor will use Wednesday’s Budget to protect pensioners on low incomes from income tax through a new allowance, honouring an existing pledge not to tax people whose only income is the state pension. From April 2027 the full new st…
Consultants in England to Strike for Two Days in November
Senior hospital doctors in England will walk out on 25 and 26 November, staffing emergency care only, in a dispute over pay and hours. Seventy-six per cent of those voting backed action on a turnout of just over half. The health secretary…
Two More Wind Warnings, and a Correction to This Morning
About 22,600 properties were still without power on Monday afternoon, down from 90,000 in the morning. Two further yellow wind warnings follow: one from six this evening until three tomorrow morning on western coasts, and a second across m…
Britain Sanctions Fifteen Sudanese Commanders Over El Fasher
The government has imposed travel bans and asset freezes on fifteen commanders from both sides of Sudan’s war, suspected of sexual violence during the siege of El Fasher. It falls on the first anniversary of the city’s fall. The Foreign Of…