In the headlines
The energy price cap will soar by 80% to £3,549 a year from October, the regulator Ofgem has announced. Liz Truss, who has already pledged to reverse national insurance rises, is now considering removing VAT on energy bills and hiking universal credit payments, says The Times. Europe narrowly avoided “radiation disaster” yesterday, says BBC News, after the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant was disconnected from Ukraine’s power grid. Fires meant the power supply to the reactors was temporarily cut. Kim Jong-un has built eight new luxury mansions to help him avoid would-be assassins, says the Daily Mail. The paranoid North Korean dictator flits between the pads in his Pyongyang complex so that his enemies “never know where he’s sleeping”.