US strikes Iranian island ahead of midterm elections
The US has launched strikes on Iran's Qeshm Island in the Strait of Hormuz, US officials have told CBS, the BBC's US partner.
The officials described the strikes as limited and said they were in response to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) firing on a US aircraft.
Iranian state news agency Irna reported several explosions on Qeshm on Monday. The IRGC did not comment, but said its forces had shot down two US MQM-170 reconnaissance drones south of the island as well as a US MQ-9 drone over an area east of the Strait of Hormuz.
The BBC has contacted US Central Command (Centcom) for comment on the strikes, which came ahead of the US midterm elections.
Trump has been facing falling polling numbers and pressure from within his Republican Party to end the war, which began when the US and Israel attacked Iran in February. Earlier on Monday, he told reporters that he was in "no rush" to ramp up strikes on Iran.
"One way or the other, we will do something, but there is no rush. We crippled them financially," he told news outlet Axios. "They have no money, no gasoline and their people are getting very tired of it."
He also said the US "might need to go after Pickaxe [Mountain]", an underground site linked to Iran's nuclear programme, in an interview with Fox News on the eve of the midterms. This was "not a big deal" and could be done in "one hour", Trump added.
There has been mounting speculation in the last few days that the US may resume significant strikes in Iran again after the midterms. But asked by a reporter on Monday if that was the case, Trump said "no".
Meanwhile, the Associated Press cited two regional officials as saying that, during a weekend phone call, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had pushed Trump for another wave of strikes on Iran following the midterms.
FULL REPORT AT: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx240mrm3g8vo
Russian bombing kills 29 people at Ukraine aid centre, Kyiv says
At least 29 people were killed after Russian bombs hit an aid distribution centre, in an attack that Ukraine's leader has called "utterly horrific".
Another 10 people were injured and 48 were reported missing after at least nine 3,000kg aerial bombs hit the village of Komyshuvakha in the southern Zaporizhzhia region, regional head Mykhailo Semikin said.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said that after the first strike on the local school "used for humanitarian needs", there was a second attack on the place where people were sheltering.
He posted a video showing a huge crater left after Monday's attack, and rescuer teams searching through the rubble. The Russian military has not publicly commented.
FULL REPORT AT: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cjy56dndlyz0o
UK also affected by cyber-attack which hit European supermarket fridges
After hackers targeted refrigeration systems in supermarkets and food suppliers across Europe, the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) says it is aware of "a couple of instances where vulnerable technology had been exploited in the UK".
The NCSC's chief executive Dr Richard Horne told the Today programme, on BBC Radio Four, that it had "worked through the night" to alert potentially affected organisations in the UK.
He said it had alerted "handfuls" of bodies, and that it was aware of a "couple of impacts". It comes after supermarkets in countries including Ireland, Sweden, Estonia, and Belgium reported fridges being hiked in temperature on Monday.
The events followed attacks targeting supermarkets and food suppliers across France in early October.
Hundreds of stores were targeted by the overnight hack, which spoiled fresh and frozen food estimated to be worth millions of euros.
Those attacks exploited vulnerabilities in some systems used to remotely control and manage cold refrigeration units that had been surfaced by cyber-security researchers months prior.
FULL REPORT AT: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckq6ndq8l6v0o
