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  • WeekDay AM: 10 Things you need to know this morning
    Trump’s Ukraine ‘ceasefire’, a tiger attack, and Man City’s ‘meaningless’ win

     
    today’s international story

    Zelenskyy says Russia struck after Trump’s ‘ceasefire’

    What happened
    Russia has hit energy infrastructure in Ukraine, according to Ukrainian officials, just hours after US President Donald Trump declared an immediate halt to attacks on such facilities by both sides. The thermal power station CHP-5 in Kharkiv was struck at least twice, sparking a fire, while another facility in Kyiv had also been targeted, said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Moscow has not confirmed whether it’s agreed to the proposed truce.

    Who said what
    Trump announced the arrangement on his Truth Social platform, declaring: “Both parties have agreed. Do not break it!” Zelenskyy said Ukraine had not been consulted before the announcement, but was prepared to participate if Russia reciprocated.

    “Trump blames Ukraine – not his Iran war – for our skyrocketing fuel prices,” said Alex Nguyen on news site Mother Jones. The US president “keeps pointing the finger at everyone for surging fuel prices but himself”.

    “With the US election around the corner, the president faces an uncomfortable reality for a leader who promised to cut fuel prices,” said Connor Stringer in The Telegraph. But “Trump’s fantasy ceasefire tricks no one”.

    What next?
    The proposed truce’s terms remain unclear at this stage. Meanwhile, Zelenskyy is expected to continue discussions with European leaders as Ukraine seeks to secure further air defence assistance.

     
     
    today’s UK news story

    Woman tried to stop man entering tiger enclosure

    What happened
    A woman attempted to restrain the man who was killed by a tiger at Yorkshire Wildlife Park before he climbed into the animal’s compound, according to witnesses. The mother, who was with her two children, tried to pull him back as he prepared to jump from a bridge into the pen, but was unable to stop him. Emergency services were called to the Doncaster park at about 1.35pm on Saturday, but the man was pronounced dead at the scene.

    Who said what
    “He overpowered her and jumped off. She seemed really frightened,” said Anthony Hunt, who witnessed the incident. Another visitor said the man had earlier asked a stranger to photograph him with the animal in the background.

    Zookeepers have been “praised for their quick response”, said Sarah Barltrop in the Daily Express. Visitors said the keepers did “all they could” to stop the attack.

    There is the “distinct impression that zoo safety may not have got worse, or animals somehow more dangerous, but that human behaviour itself has instead become a problem”, said Ben East and Susanna Galton in The Telegraph.

    What next?
    Yorkshire Wildlife Park remained closed yesterday while staff received specialist support. The park confirmed that the tiger, named Altai, would not be put down following the incident.

     
     
    Today’s sports story

    Man City beat Liverpool 3-0 in ‘meaningless’ result

    What happened
    Manchester City beat Liverpool 3-0 at Anfield yesterday, where home fans greeted the visitors with hostility in their first match since the club was found guilty of breaking financial fair play rules.

    Who said what
    Liverpool fans chanted “cheats” and “shams” at the visitors, while City supporters displayed inflatable bananas and sang in support of their club.

    City “blew Liverpool away”, said Miguel Delaney in The Independent, “but was it all meaningless?” The result “only emphasises the need for this process to be concluded and – above all – why the sanctions should have been announced with the decision”.

    An afternoon that was “supposed to be about a national judgement on City” ended in the way “all of Enzo Maresca’s games at the helm have finished so far”, said Martin Lipton in The Sun. “With City dominant and unstoppable.”

    “We can admire the football,” said Gary Neville on Sky Sports, but this is all “really bad for the Premier League.”

    What next?
    Despite the result, Liverpool fans “will still feel they had the last laugh”, added Delaney, “as they chanted ‘going down’ at the final whistle”.

     
     

    It’s not all bad

    A small Welsh town is reviving its denim-making tradition, decades after overseas outsourcing wiped out hundreds of local jobs. Hiut Denim, founded in Cardigan in 2011, now employs 20 people producing 120 pairs of premium jeans a week, with plans to expand and train a new generation of craftspeople. The Guardian, in the first of a series of pieces on British manufacturing, reports that the company’s owners are attempting to preserve skills that once made Cardigan Britain’s biggest jeans-producing town.

     
     
    under the radar

    The Chinese trend of buying babies abroad

    As surrogacy remains illegal in China, demand is growing for overseas-born babies.

    An “industry of agencies, consultancies and fertility clinics” has sprung up to help Chinese people connect with potential surrogate mothers overseas, according to the Financial Times. Many are attracted by the US’s “advanced medical facilities, strong legal protections for the parents and the prospect of an American passport for their child”.

    Between 2014 and 2020, nearly a third of surrogate babies in the US were intended for international parents, a survey published in 2024 suggested. And more than 40% of those were from China.

    But there is a darker side: “a little-known trend in the largely unregulated US surrogacy industry”, said The Wall Street Journal. Chinese elites and billionaires are paying to “quietly have large numbers of US-born babies”. Some, “inspired by Elon Musk’s 14 known children”, shell out millions to hire women in America to “help them build families of jaw-dropping size”.

    One billionaire, Xu Bo, an “online megaposter” and “vocal critic of feminism”, calls himself “China’s first father”. The maker of fantasy video games claims to have 100 children. He told a US court in 2023 that he hoped to have 20 US-born children through surrogacy – preferably boys – to one day take over his business. Another wealthy Chinese executive, Wang Huiwu, hired US models as egg donors to have 10 girls, allegedly “with the aim of one day marrying them off to powerful men”. He ultimately plans to father 100 “high net-worth babies”, according to The Times.

    Although the practice is “arousing concern” in both the US and China, there is no US law stopping multiple surrogacy births for the same family. This “extreme surrogacy” is “a perfect mix of liberal Californian attitudes and Chinese productivity”, added The Times.

     
     
    on this day

    12 October 1994

    DreamWorks SKG film studio was founded by director and producer Steven Spielberg, former Disney executive Jeffrey Katzenberg and music executive David Geffen. The studio recently released the animated movie “Forgotten Island”, a story set in the Philippines that celebrates Filipino culture and stars Liza Soberano and Dave Franco in its voice cast.

     
     
    Today’s newspapers

    ‘Broken ceasefire’

    “Putin breaks Trump’s ‘ceasefire’”, says The Telegraph. “Heat pump subsidy to be cut to fund defence plan”, The Guardian reports. “Almost 2m on sickness benefit may not qualify”, The Times says. “Lettuce Liz iceberg ahead!” warns the Daily Star. “US threatens block on Kyiv’s arms in push to halt Russian refinery attacks”, the Financial Times reports. “BBC in Strictly trans ban row”, says The Sun.

    See the newspaper front pages

     
     
    tall tale

    Her flying highness

    The queen of Thailand has become the first reigning female monarch to fly a fighter jet solo. Known in the country as the “pilot queen”, Queen Suthida has logged more than 1,000 hours as a pilot since 2010, having previously served as a flight attendant. In the past 15 years she has undergone military training and served as a co-pilot on royal aircraft. After touching down in the jet she was awarded a Gripen Order Golden Patch badge by her husband, King Maha Vajiralongkorn.

     
     

    Morning Report was written and edited by Arion McNicoll, Harriet Marsden, Will Barker, Ross Couzens and Chas Newkey-Burden.

    Image credits, from top: Brendan Smialowski / AFP / Getty Images; Oli Scarff / AFP / Getty Images; Alex Pantling / Getty Images; Wang Zhao / AFP / Getty Images.
     

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