Morning Brief, Tuesday 3 November

Iranian outlets reported five consecutive blasts late on Monday on Qeshm Island, a military and port hub near the Strait of Hormuz. A US official said American forces had carried out defensive strikes on Iranian targets, described as surface-to-air missile teams threatening US assets, while other officials said the operation sought to limit Iran's ability to attack commercial shipping. The strikes came after Donald Trump had said he would not launch new attacks before the 3 November midterms, though he also said bombing could resume after the vote.

The strike report landed on top of a diplomatic track that Tehran still says remains open. Foreign ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei said Iran could reopen the strait within two days if Washington accepted its conditions, including lifting a naval blockade, cancelling new sanctions and restoring agreed oil-sanctions exemptions. Iran says ships would then sail on a route agreed with Oman and under Iranian supervision. Washington has not accepted the proposal.

Ukrainian authorities said Russian air strikes hit a school used as an aid distribution point in Komyshuvakha, about 35km east of Zaporizhzhia city and close to the front line. Volodymyr Zelensky said the first bomb was followed by nine more on a shelter where people had taken cover, a pattern Ukrainian officials described as a double-tap attack. Emergency services later raised the toll to at least 26 dead, with five injured and 27 people listed as missing by the regional governor.

The strike followed the expiry of a six-day humanitarian ceasefire around Oleshky in neighbouring Kherson region. Ukraine's General Staff said Russian forces used the pause to rearm and rotate troops, while Ukrainian forces observed the deal. Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, said regrouping is common in such situations and said Ukrainian forces did the same. Moscow then resumed fighting in the neighbouring area, according to one report cited in the source cluster.

The US Supreme Court rejected the Trump administration's request to force California to set aside roughly 20,000 mail ballots one day before the midterm elections. The Justice Department had argued that the ballots should stay uncounted until election officials confirmed the voters were US citizens. The court gave a single-sentence order, with no signature, no reasoning and no recorded dissent.

The dispute began when the Justice Department sent Los Angeles County and California's secretary of state a storage drive naming more than 20,000 alleged non-citizens. Officials refused to separate the ballots within 48 hours, saying the list was unreliable and the demand would disrupt an election already under way. Dean Logan, the Los Angeles County clerk and recorder, said the department had not supplied the evidence or method behind its claim.

Poland's constitutional fight has moved from a police standoff to a headcount. Eight judges backed by Donald Tusk's coalition plan to meet on 3 November to approve the Constitutional Tribunal's budget and consider disciplinary proceedings against Bogdan Święczkowski and Bartłomiej Sochański, who were listed as suspended from the court's presidency and vice-presidency. A valid meeting needs 10 of the 15 judges, so at least two judges chosen under the former PiS government would have to attend.

The fight began with six judges elected by the Sejm in March 2026. President Nawrocki swore in only two, while the others took their oath before the Sejm, and the European Court of Human Rights later ruled that they must be allowed to work. Święczkowski kept them out of the building. Tusk accused Nawrocki of choosing confrontation and said the dispute could be resolved if the president recognised the Sejm-elected judges.

Opposition figures rallied outside the court, where Jarosław Kaczyński, Mateusz Morawiecki, Sławomir Mentzen and Grzegorz Braun appeared. Anna Bryłka, a vice president of Mentzen's Confederation party, said the groups differed on policy but shared one goal. Police reported objects thrown at officers and three detentions after people jumped the fence.

The cyberattack on supermarket refrigeration systems has spread from a curious IT incident into a food-waste and supply-chain problem. Retailers in Belgium, Sweden, Luxembourg, Estonia, the Netherlands and Ireland reported serious anomalies after systems malfunctioned overnight between Sunday and Monday. Staff found freezers pushed into defrost mode, with some units reportedly heating to 50 degrees above zero and goods ruined when stores opened.

Italy added a clearer picture of the southern damage. Giuseppe Spadaro, director general of the Radenza group, confirmed attacks on at least three Coop-branded stores in Catania and one in Palermo, and said the attack happened at 4am. Adnkronos reported faults at six supermarkets in Sicily, with further signals from a Tuscan catering company and a frozen-food producer in Emilia-Romagna. Italy's National Cybersecurity Agency said it had received one formal incident notification and had detected another suspected attack.

The US Food and Drug Administration approved a generic version of lenacapavir, a twice-yearly injection used as pre-exposure prophylaxis against HIV. Dr. Reddy's Laboratories and Unitaid announced the approval, which covers a generic version of a Gilead Sciences drug first approved in the United States in June 2025. The injection cuts HIV transmission risk by 99.9%, while older PrEP options require a daily pill.

The price is the real jolt. The generic is projected to cost $40 per patient per year in the 120 countries covered by the licensing deal, matching the cost of daily oral prevention pills while requiring only two injections a year. In the United States, Gilead's branded version, Yeztugo, lists at $28,218 a year before insurance adjustments and remains protected by patents, so the generic cannot be sold there.