Coverage opened with the fallout from Reform UK's £72m in crypto donations. Farage presented the war chest as readiness for government, while deputy leader Rayner threatened a cap on political donations, a move the Telegraph framed as two-tier rules to protect union funding and the Mirror said increased pressure for a crackdown.
Anthropic chief Dario Amodei's call to slow AI development, backed by Elon Musk and OpenAI's Sam Altman over reckless development, ran as a second thread through the Guardian, BBC and Channel 4.
From late afternoon attention shifted to Ukraine, where Russia struck a rail line near the Polish border shortly after a train carrying Boris Johnson, European officials and ex-CIA chief David Petraeus had passed. Johnson called the logic warped as officials said his train may have been the target.