Burnham treads carefully with Zelensky visit, balancing Trump and Ukraine
President Volodymyr Zelensky’s visit to London follows a well-trodden diplomatic path in a war now in its fifth year.
For months, US President Donald Trump had been a largely benign presence in the conflict, promising Ukraine greater access to American air defence technology and threatening more sanctions on Russia.
Then last week Trump carried out an abrupt U-turn, lifting sanctions on Russian diesel and calling for Zelensky to be replaced.
Once again Ukraine’s leader got on his plane to shore up support among European allies. Today London, tomorrow Brussels.
For the prime minister there was the tricky but now familiar diplomatic task of needing to show solidarity with Zelensky without appearing to criticise Trump.
Burnham’s answer was to say and announce as much as he could without exposing himself to questions from journalists asking about Trump’s latest betrayal of Kyiv.
So Downing Street issued an embargoed press notice overnight with warm words of support for Zelensky.
It said Burnham would promise to go “further and faster” in helping Ukraine with financial and military aid.
Specifically, the prime minister would pledge to speed up the delivery of lightweight multirole missiles that can help bring down fast jet-powered Russian drones.
There was a military honour guard in Downing Street to greet Ukraine’s president, followed by a controlled photo opportunity showing the start of the meeting between the two men.
In No10, before that meeting, Burnham told Zelensky that Britain stood with him “at this difficult time”.
He said it was clear “who the aggressor is” after Russia’s attacks on Ukraine’s critical national infrastructure. And crucially he praised Zelensky for his “leadership” in being prepared to sit down and discuss Donald Trump’s call for an energy ceasefire.
In his reply, Zelensky said it was an “absolutely terrible time” for Ukraine. There was no energy ceasefire, he said, but Russian escalation instead.
He said Ukraine “counted on partnership with the US” but spoke of “some difficulties” and “different surprises” with Ukraine’s access to US intelligence and the Starlink satellite network.
In the House of Commons, at the start of his weekly question time, Burnham used the opportunity to offer what he called his “unwavering” support for Zelensky and promise greater military and financial aid in the future.
But it fell to the Liberal Democrat leader, Sir Ed Davey, to ask the question journalists might have asked if they had the chance.
Sir Ed said the prime minister had studiously avoided commenting on Trump’s decision to rip up international sanctions on Russia.
“This House does deserve to know his position, as does frankly President Zelensky and our brave Ukrainian allies,” Sir Ed said.
“Doesn’t he agree this is yet another shameful Trump betrayal of the Ukrainian people and European security?”
In reply, Burnham admitted it was a “very dark and difficult moment” for Zelensky, who was “carrying the heaviest of weights” right now.
But Burnham eschewed the chance to criticise Trump and told MPs this: “What I have to do in my role is try and repair bridges so that the support comes back and therefore I should, at this moment in time, be careful in terms of laying the ground to bring people back together.”
“That is the role I intend to play – it’s the right role for me to play – in this moment. I will listen to President Zelensky carefully but he won’t be going away from Britain today empty handed.”
In other words, do not expect the prime minister to join in the widespread European criticism of Trump.
After the now infamous falling out between Trump and Zelensky in the Oval Office in February 2025, the UK played a key role in calming the row and bringing both sides back together.

Following an announcement earlier this week where Epic committed to the future of AI development, Epic made two announcements today. The first is a new game launcher in preview that they proudly state they vibe coded, and the second is a comprehensive plan towards a solution for Linux anti-cheat with their games, which will help them extend Fortnite to Linux based systems. What a mixed bag!
In a blog post today, Epic outlined their new preview build of their game launcher. “Programming is hard. So, instead of doing that, we vibe coded a new Epic Games Launcher that’s way faster and more responsive than the current one, and has a new look. This first release is light on features. Think of it as a speedboat and not a yacht! Though it does have advanced digital commerce technology such as a shopping cart.”
If Epic had not straight up said the client itself was vibe coded, the page itself for the refresh would have been a big flag. It has all the makers of “one of those projects” (if I see another website that has letters with a pink to blue gradient or weirdly busy code effects I’m gonna hurl).
Points for honesty I guess, but as with most communication from companies Epic’s size, gloating about not doing work does not endear me to the work even if I accept the sad reality of AI coding in these companies. Epic is not some guy on Reddit or X with a little vibe coded project, they’re a company valued in the billions, and this is kinda tacky.
Despite having many games via the Epic Store for work, I don’t actually use the Epic Game Launcher a lot, and instead I’ve opted for the Heroic Games Launcher, which unifies my Epic and GoG games under one launcher, with the option to add those games to Steam, which I actually use. But for the sake of journalism I installed their new preview client on Bazzite, which boasts Linux support. I can confirm that it booted up quickly and was a buggy mess, which makes sense given it’s a preview build of a vibe coded Linux client.
In addition to this, Epic announced something far more interesting: extending and improving Linux support of Epic’s Easy Anticheat. For people who don’t regularly game on Linux, anti-cheat is one of the biggest problems facing Linux adoption, in part because many Windows-based solutions require a kernel driver. Games can run well via Proton, but without a way to secure an anti-cheat solution, entire games remain unplayable online on Linux. Easy Anticheat has had an opt-in Linux client, but implementation has been spotty and uneven at best.
“To close the gap for Linux, we are rebuilding our Linux anti-cheat implementation into EAC Linux v2,” Epic wrote. “We will bring the level of protection much closer to par with Windows, in the very near-term, using existing Linux features including signed kernel, signed kernel modules, and secure boot with attestation. These requirements build on work that distribution maintainers already do, and the more distributions that meet these requirements by default, the fewer players will need to change their setup to play.”
The blog goes on to explain the various technologies Epic is using to achieve comprehensive anti-cheat without a kernel driver, as well as the steps they’re taking to reach out to members of the Linux community and hosting a panel with Fedora project lead Jet Spaleta. Their FAQ also mentions that while the Steam Deck does not have the required features needed to support their anticheat solution, they are actively in conversation with Valve on the topic.
This is the kind of stuff that Epic should be spending time and resources on, instead of bragging about vibe coding a currently broken launcher. The reason why people have relatively positive feelings towards Valve is because they act like Linux developers, slowly but consistently pushing out open source quality of life features to their products without making much of a fuss. If Epic wants the same kind of goodwill Valve currently has, then they need to put the time in. And I do hope they end up focusing more on currently intractable problems in Linux instead of just bragging about how much work their agents are doing for them.

The U.S. may have intentionally withheld early warnings this week of Russian strikes on Ukraine, multiple sources familiar with the matter told CBS News.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukraine “received no advance warning from our partners” when Russia launched a ballistic missile barrage at Kyiv and other locations early Tuesday.
The sources said American officials told their Ukrainian counterparts the system used to detect Russian missile launches had failed due to “bad weather.” Ukrainian officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity given the sensitivity of the topic, told CBS News they did not believe the excuse, and they accused the U.S. instead of “playing” with the system.
When Russia launched another wave of ballistic missiles around 3 a.m. local time on Wednesday, the sources said the U.S. early warning system appeared to be working again.
The sources said the U.S. had failed to provide intelligence on Russian ballistic missile launches during one previous instance earlier this year, citing the need to focus more resources on the Middle East.
Zelenskyy said Wednesday that Russia launched more than 39 ballistic missiles and more than 120 attack drones and loitering munitions during the overnight attack, primarily targeting energy and critical infrastructure in Kyiv and Kharkiv, killing six people and leaving some 600,000 without power.
President Trump, asked Tuesday if the U.S. had stopped sharing intelligence with Ukraine, said: “No, we haven’t. We help them, but we’re really helping them get to a final answer. We want the war ended.”
“We are helping them, and we are sharing intel. We want the war to end, so we’re working with them and with Russia on getting the war to end,” Mr. Trump said.
Russia started launching strikes soon after Mr. Trump said in a social media post on Sunday that Russia and Ukraine had agreed to an “energy ceasefire.”
Earlier this week, the Trump administration threatened to stop sharing intelligence and to halt the purchase of U.S.-made weapons by European allies for Ukraine via the PURL procurement system if Ukraine did not stop deep strikes against Russian energy infrastructure, a European and a Ukrainian official told CBS News.
Ukraine relies on U.S. intelligence for both offensive and defensive military capabilities, including data from satellites and aircraft sensors used to identify launches of Russian aircraft and missiles. Sources familiar with the matter told CBS News the U.S. had not ceased intelligence sharing with Ukraine overall — calling the lack of a warning about this week’s attacks a specific incident.
Ukrainian officials and soldiers also told CBS News that Ukraine’s military had started experiencing difficulties Tuesday night and Wednesday morning with Starlink, the satellite technology owned by SpaceX’s Elon Musk.
In an interview with CBS News earlier this year, Ukraine’s former minister of defense Mykhailo Fedorov said Starlink was one of Ukraine’s most important technologies, as it allows Ukrainian soldiers to communicate and carry out strikes in environments saturated by electronic warfare.
“On the night of 14 October, without warning the Defence Forces, SpaceX unilaterally restricted the operation of Starshield terminals (‘military package’) while in motion. This complicates UAV missions, particularly interceptors and middle-strike drones, and reduces capabilities for frontline logistics, reconnaissance and signal relay,” sources in Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense told CBS News. “At present, the Ministry of Defence is in contact with the United States, SpaceX and NATO partners, is collecting data from all units, and backup communication channels are being tested and put into use.”
The Starlink restrictions were first reported by the Kyiv Independent and the Financial Times. CBS News has reached out to SpaceX, the White House, and the Pentagon for comment.
On Wednesday, as President Zelenskyy arrived in the United Kingdom to meet with Prime Minister Andy Burnham and other officials, he called for a U.S. response to the recent Russian strikes.

Bank of America (BAC.N), has been fined $1.21bn by US regulators for widespread failures to detect ‌potential money laundering and other illicit activity, a penalty the bank said will hurt third-quarter earnings.
The treasury department said the fine, the third-largest in department history, is due to the bank’s failure to report more than $5bn in suspicious activity to the government, including $1bn that posed national security-related and other priority illicit finance risks.
“Financial institutions are on the ​front lines of protecting our economic and national security,” the treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, said in a statement. “When a bank of this size ​fails to meet its anti-money laundering and sanctions obligations, the consequences extend far beyond its own walls, exposing the ⁠entire US financial system to significant illicit finance risks.”
The treasury said the bank “prioritized its revenues” in building compliance programs, and overly relied on inquiries ​from outside parties such as law enforcement and other financial institutions instead of its own internal controls.
The consent order requires Bank of America to hire an ​independent third party to review past transactions, identify suspicious activity that the bank failed to detect at the time, and report those transactions to FinCen.
“Financial crime compliance is serious, and we are responsible for getting it right,” said a Bank of America spokesperson in a statement. “We have invested billions of dollars in technology and dedicated thousands of ​employees to combat financial crime, and our team is far along with and committed to completing the work required to address the issues raised ​by our regulators.”
The spokesperson added that the bank’s third-quarter results due for release on Wednesday would include a non-tax-deductible charge of $1.2bn, which will reduce quarterly net income ‌by approximately ⁠17 cents a share.
Analysts have estimated adjusted EPS of $1.10, according to mean estimates compiled by LSEG, but that excludes one-offs like this fine.
Shares were down 2.7% in after-hours trading after closing the day down 1.1%.
The penalty is likely to add to negative investor sentiment and raise concerns about higher expenses and whether Bank of America can maintain its roughly $6bn quarterly share buyback pace, the UBS analyst Erika Najarian said in a note.
With earnings due ​on Wednesday, “we think shares likely underperforming at ​open,” she said.
She noted there ⁠was no asset cap, a regulatory penalty that would limit how large the bank could grow.
As part of the fine, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency levied a $750m civil ​penalty against the lender, the largest ever for the regulator, citing failures to address shortcomings in its anti-money ​laundering programs that were ⁠identified as part of a 2024 cease-and-desist order from the watchdog.
The regulator said the bank’s compliance program was “deficient and ineffective”, and its transaction monitoring system caused the bank to delay filing suspicious activity reports on billions of dollars of transactions.
In addition, the bank paid an $11.6m fine to the Office of Foreign ⁠Assets Control ​for over 400 apparent violations of numerous sanctions programs. The treasury said the bank mistakenly ​processed millions of dollars in payments that violated sanctions programs targeting countries including Russia and Iran.

Dr. Rachel Brem decided at age 12 that she wanted to cure cancer after her mom was diagnosed with breast cancer. It was early detection that led to her mother living way past her prognosis of six months. Now, Brem is working to improve breast cancer screening for all women.
Brem is a board-certified diagnostic radiologist and director of Breast Imaging and Intervention at George Washington University. She created the Brem Foundation to help prevent breast cancer from taking more lives.
On this week’s episode of “Healthful,” she discussed the innovation that makes her hopeful.
Artificial intelligence and breast imaging
“AI is going to change everything in medicine, and certainly breast cancer detection,” Brem said.
In addition to her work with George Washington University’s Breast Imaging and Intervention unit, Brem collaborates with ScreenPoint Medical to develop Transpara, an AI breast cancer screening software.
Already there is significant scientific research showing mammograms paired with AI evaluations “can find cancer up to five years earlier,” she said, by detecting warning signs in women that might be missed with just mammograms alone. The software can also predict future risk of breast cancer even when none is detected in a mammogram.
“Imagine what the impact of that is going to be on survival therapy,” Brem said.
If women begin getting screened at age 35 with AI-enhanced readings, she noted the software will constantly teach itself how to improve in detecting breast cancer with each analysis. That’s younger than the starting age recommended by several major medical organizations.
At George Washington University, Brem said, “we’ve been using AI for over four years in every mammogram,” adding that using the software does not cost extra.
However, nationwide, just 20% of practices use AI with their mammogram procedures. Often, the AI readings cost extra, which may make the option inaccessible for some.
“There is nothing you can do to absolutely prevent breast cancer,” Brem acknowledged.
But she said, “One of the things AI can do is really equalize the inequalities,” referring to the racial disparities that affect diagnosis and treatment for many women.
“Black women die at a 40% higher rate [from breast cancer] than White women,” Brem noted, and women with fewer resources have less access to mammograms.
Brem wants to change this with her foundation, which for the past 20 years has championed early detection through innovative screening, increased education and awareness, and equitable access.
“I look forward to the more wide-reaching implementation of AI to help not only find more cancers, but with healthcare,” she said.
A breast cancer breath test?
Brem is helping to develop a breath test that could detect breast cancer. Diseased tissues give off a chemical compound that becomes gas and, scientists believe, could be used as a noninvasive way to assess who needs further screening.
“It’s not available yet, but I’m really excited about having no pain, no compression, and no injection way of diagnosing if you’re accurately diagnosed,” Brem said.
And there’s hope it could someday help beyond breast cancer. “The next step on our roadmap is not just breast cancer but a women’s health panel where you could do one breath and get all these tests done,” Brem said.
The current state of breast cancer screening
The guidelines from the American College of Physicians stated in 2026 that women over the age of 50 should get a mammogram every other year. The United States Preventive Services Task Force recommends that women should start screening every other year at the age of 40.
To Brem, “This is a travesty.”
“Women will die if they listen to that.”
From her research, women should get checked for breast cancer annually starting at the age of 40. For those with a history of breast cancer in their family, they should start at 35.
This is all easier said than done. Women often cite anxiety as a reason they delay or skip getting screened. The thought of receiving a positive test result understandably makes women nervous, but as Brem notes, “We don’t get rid of the disease by not knowing we have it.”
Early detection of breast cancer leads to significantly better outcomes compared to cases where breast cancer is found in its later stages.
“Ninety-nine percent of women with early breast cancer survive and thrive,” Brem said, but this outcome can only be possible if women screen for it early and regularly.
In addition to the recommended mammograms, Brem also believes “you absolutely, unequivocally definitely need more exams” if you have dense breasts. Half of women have dense breasts, and mammograms might not be able to pick up potentially deadly tumors hiding behind the tissue. Ultrasounds, MRIs or contrast-enhanced mammograms are necessary for those with dense breasts to get a complete view of their risks.
Supplemental screening isn’t always standard with some doctors. Brem advised that it is “really important” for women to insist that their doctors order these extra exams. The mammograms are not enough.
Demand more, get educated, and “be badass”
Brem is adamant in her belief that women can be proactive now to better their health and improve their breast cancer outcomes. If you have dense breasts, demand additional screening.
For those under 40 who think they have time until they need to start screening for breast cancer, think again.
“You’re not too young to have breast cancer,” Brem warns.
Having the conversation now about your plan for breast cancer screenings and seeking out additional exams is essential in early detection and better prognosis. “If you find it early, even if you’re young, it’s curable,” Brem said.
Rates of cancer are rising in younger women and awareness is the first step to being proactive about your health. Her foundation provides resources to educate women.
But what do you do with this information? Brem urges you to advocate for yourself at the doctor’s office.
“We tell women to be badass,” she said. “You need to advocate for yourself. It is a fundamental principle. It’s your right. It’s what you deserve, and it’s not a maybe.”