Morning Report
Harris on Ukraine, Vardy vs. Rooney, and the problems at 23andMe

 
today's INTERNATIONAL story

Harris claims Trump would 'surrender' on Ukraine

What happened
Kamala Harris said she would not enter into bilateral talks with Russia to end the war in Ukraine if she won the US presidential election unless leaders from Kyiv were also involved. In a one-on-one interview with CBS News's "60 Minutes", she claimed that the main policy of her Republican rival Donald Trump was to "surrender".
 
Who said what
"Ukraine must have a say in the future of Ukraine," said the vice president, adding that if Trump was in office "Putin would be in Kyiv right now". Trump has said he could end the fighting on "day one", but has not offered any detail on how he would achieve an end to the conflict. "You know what that is?" said Harris. "It's about surrender."

The war has become a "central and controversial topic" in the presidential campaign, said Brookings. "The issue for the American voter is whether the United States should continue to support Ukraine for as long as it takes", or whether it is time to pressure Ukraine to negotiate an end to the conflict "without having regained its full territorial integrity".
 
What next?
As Ukraine enters its third winter of war, the "mood is shifting" in Washington and in the "corridors of Kyiv", said the Financial Times. There is a recognition that a "negotiated settlement" with Russia that leaves the "bulk" of Ukraine intact "may be the best hope". Ukraine's prospects are "clouded above all by the danger that Donald Trump wins next month's US election and seeks a swift end to the war".

 
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today's UK story

'Wagatha Christie' back in court

What happened
Lawyers for Coleen Rooney and Rebekah Vardy (pictured above) returned to court yesterday in a dispute over the £1.8 million legal bill from the high-profile "Wagatha Christie" libel battle in 2022.

Who said what
The "latest court showdown" comes almost exactly five years after Rooney sparked the original epic "ding-dong" by accusing her fellow footballer's wife of leaking stories about her to the press, said The Sun. Vardy was ordered to pay 90% of Rooney's legal costs after unsuccessfully suing her for libel, but now claims the amount has been unfairly inflated.

The bill had "a 'kitchen sink' approach" and included "over £120,000 of costs to which Mrs Rooney has no entitlement" – including a lawyer's stay "at the Nobu Hotel, incurring substantial dinner and drinks charges as well as mini-bar charges" – said Vardy's representative Jamie Carpenter KC in a written submission to London's Royal Courts of Justice yesterday.

What next?
The preliminary hearing, which was not attended by either woman yesterday, will conclude tomorrow.

 
 
Today's US story

Hurricane Milton heading for Florida

What happened
Residents in areas across Florida have been ordered to evacuate as a "ferocious" category 5 hurricane threatens devastation just 10 days after Hurricane Helene pummelled the state, killing 14 people.

Winds of 180mph have been recorded as Hurricane Milton tears across the Atlantic towards Tampa Bay, where it is expected to make landfall on Wednesday evening.

Who said what
"We have to assume this is going to be a monster," said Governor Ron DeSantis as he told Floridians to prepare to leave.

The wind speed is at a "staggering level" that "only a handful of hurricanes in the Atlantic have ever reached", said meteorologist Judson Jones in The New York Times. The Tampa Bay region "has not endured a direct hit by a major hurricane in more than a century", said AP.

What next?
Debris from Hurricane Helene (pictured above), which claimed the lives of more than 200 people in total across six states, continues to be cleared as Florida's roads are jammed with people evacuating.

The new storm is expected to weaken to a category 3 as it crosses the Gulf of Mexico, but this can still cause devastating damage.

 
 

It's not all bad

Unseen footage from the 1960s TV show "Thunderbirds" has been found in a garden shed in Berkshire. The 22 film cans, discovered by the family of a former editor of the show, include an alternate version of an existing episode of the iconic British marionette show. "It took weeks, bit by bit ... you'd never know what you'd get," said Stephen La Rivière of Century 21 Films about the scanning and digitising of the reels for preservation. While some restoration work is still needed, La Rivière hopes the footage will be available to the public for the show's 60th anniversary next year after decades of "lying around waiting to be discovered".

 
 
UNDER THE RADAR

23andMe: will customer DNA go up for sale?

Millions of people have spat into test tubes for ancestry companies, but now there are questions being asked about what might happen to their DNA.

After a data breach, a sinking share price and mass board resignations, the chief executive of the Californian personal genomics firm 23andMe said she would consider selling the business. This means the DNA of its 15 million customers could also be up for grabs.

The valuation of 23andMe has "plummeted 99% from its $6 billion peak shortly after the company went public in 2021", said NPR. Its revenue for the first quarter of the 2025 fiscal year came to just $40 million, about 34% down on the same period the year before.

The business isn't bound by US health privacy laws like a GP practice, said The Atlantic, and its privacy policies "make clear that in the event of a merger or an acquisition, customer information is a saleable asset".

Although the company insists that it is committed to customer privacy, people who have submitted tests to discover ancestry lines or for healthcare research could "potentially leave their information vulnerable to threat actors", said The New York Times.

In a data breach last December hackers gained access to the personal information of nearly 7 million profiles by recycling old passwords that 23andMe customers had used on other sites that had been compromised.

So "if you ever used 23andMe", said PC Mag, you "might want to consider deleting your data while you still can".

 
 
on this day

8 October 2004

Martha Stewart reported to a federal prison in West Virginia to begin a five-month sentence for insider trading. The American lifestyle guru is the subject of a Netflix documentary titled "Martha", which will debut on 30 October. The 83-year-old has described the show as "lazy", saying it focused disproportionately on her "stupid trial".

 
 
Today's newspapers

The Daily Mail says the Tories are demanding that the government "come clean" on what Labour peer Lord Alli "got for his cash". The "No. 10 crisis" is "bigger than Sue Gray", with other "systemic issues" not addressed, unnamed "senior Whitehall figures" tell The Times. Keir Starmer has refused to rule out the British military getting involved "if Israel attacks Iran", says the i paper. It also notes that the prime minister is "toughening" his language against Tehran.

See the newspaper front pages

 
 
tall tale

Hero in a half shell

A Southern Water employee came across an unexpected co-worker at a water treatment site in Hampshire: a terrapin the size of a dinner plate. The red-eared reptile, native to North America, was "sunning itself" at Testwood Water Supply Works, said senior ecologist Tom Alexander, who rescued the exotic animal. "My children loved having him at home and named him Terry," he told the BBC. The terrapin was later rehomed at a Sussex animal sanctuary, where "it was identified as female and renamed Terri", said the broadcaster.

 
 

Morning Report was written and edited by Sarah Collins, Hollie Clemence, Chas Newkey-Burden, Harriet Marsden and Sorcha Bradley, with illustrations by Julia Wytrazek.

Image credits, from top: Bloomberg / Contributor / Getty Images; Wiktor Szymanowicz / Future Publishing / Getty Images; Tristan Wheelock / Bloomberg via Getty Images; Illustration by Julia Wytrazek / Getty Images.