Bloc losing €13bn in revenue with one in 10 cigarettes illegal, watchdog reports

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The illegal trade in tobacco is booming in the EU, according to a report by the bloc’s financial watchdog, with almost one in 10 cigarettes produced illicitly or smuggled, causing an estimated €13bn loss in tax revenue each year.

The European Court of Auditors (ECA) said in a report on Tuesday that the trade had “changed significantly” in recent years as smuggling, while still “a problem”, was overtaken by illicit manufacturing, which has increased dramatically in the bloc.

Review by paediatricians links child vaping with poor respiratory health such as coughing, wheezing and asthma

Young people who start vaping risk developing breathing problems and going on to smoke cigarettes, children’s doctors have warned.

Child vaping is consistently linked with poor respiratory health, such as coughing, wheezing, bronchitis symptoms and asthma exacerbations, while vapes have been shown to act as a gateway to smoking cigarettes, according to one of the most comprehensive reviews of the available evidence so far undertaken by the Royal College of Child and Paediatrics Health.

Ministers consider bringing e-cigarette laws in line with tobacco as data shows 20% of teenagers have tried vaping

Vapes could be sold in plain packaging as part of a range of proposals to stop them being marketed to children.

The UK-wide plans also include limiting device colours to white, black or grey, and keeping vapes out of sight in shops, according to the Department of Health and Social Care.

Analysis shows public understanding about vaping, which is far less harmful than smoking, has plummeted in past decade

More than half of adult smokers in the UK wrongly believe that vaping is as harmful or more harmful than cigarettes, making them less likely to switch to vapes and quit the deadly habit, research has found.

Evidence from scientific studies shows that, while vaping is not risk-free, it is far less harmful than smoking tobacco, which produces thousands of chemicals, including toxic metals, poisonous gases and substances that cause cancer.

From the gold rush to civil rights, the moon landing to 9/11, the US has always understood, mythologised and sold itself through the power of the still image

The United States was founded in 1776, but did not begin to see itself until the autumn of 1839, when daguerreotypes, the first form of photograph, reached American cities. You could argue the US began again on the morning it could look at its own face.

At first photography seemed to answer the democratic promise of 1776. A portrait was no longer reserved for the rich; almost anyone could now leave a trace of their existence. The gold rush became one of the first great American dramas to find the camera: ordinary diggers squinting into the lens, looking beyond it for gold. A more emblematic American scene can scarcely be imagined: what would be called the American Dream, a lottery everyone plays and very few win. The myth was not that they all found gold – it was that the search itself made them American.

The UN is set to review the legal status of nicotine. An outright ban would go too far, but there is no case for its easy availability

The health case for banning cigarettes is ironclad. As the then head of the World Health Organization, Gro Harlem Brundtland, put it in 2000, “a cigarette is the only consumer product which when used as directed kills its consumer”. Smoking is still the leading cause of preventable death worldwide. Many countries, including the UK, have taken strong measures to restrict and even ban cigarettes and other tobacco products. Over the past two decades, however, tobacco-free nicotine products such as vapes and nicotine pouches, which use a synthetic version of the addictive ingredient, have exploded in popularity.

Regulation has been slow. The nation of Palau has now tasked the WHO expert committee on drug dependence with reviewing nicotine, which will lead to a UN vote – likely to be in 2028 – on banning it worldwide. The case relies partly on deciding whether addiction and dependence themselves – in the absence of other major health consequences – are harmful. There is certainly an argument for that, and smoking taught us that it is often better to stamp out highly addictive habits if consequences may become obvious later. But there is also reason for caution.

His passion got him into scraps with the Paris Metro and numerous other bodies. Was it a social crutch? A Freudian response to his father? And why did he take such delight in writing to the Guardian about it all?
• David Hockney – a life in pictures
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David Hockney’s last self-portrait that went on show while he lived, in 2025’s Paris retrospective, has a Droste effect: the figure holds a picture in which the figure holds a picture. Between the fingers of one hand, a paintbrush; of the other, a cigarette. He could have been smoking and smoking and smoking into infinity. That’s the elemental truth of the work, and even while that turned out not to be literally true – he died this week, aged 88 – he gave it his best shot.

The painting is titled Play within a Play within a Play and Me with a Cigarette, and it got him into a scrap with the authorities of the Paris Metro, who said a photo of it couldn’t be used to advertise the show, since it contravened regulations – it is a pretty common rule that you’re not allowed to glamorise smoking lest you influence the young. “The bossiness of those in charge of our lives knows no limits,” he said at the time. “Art has always been a path to free expression and this is a dismal [decision].”

The WasteBar food truck hopes the eye-catching deal will change people’s attitude to waste in the Netherlands

Using cigarette butts to buy buttery Dutch pancakes? That is the deal one food truck is offering at festivals in the Netherlands as a way to get people thinking about litter.

Cigarette butts are the most common form of plastic waste in the world, with more than 4.5tn butts produced every year. In the Netherlands the estimated figure is in the hundreds of millions.

Despite the ban on disposables, waste professionals say the mountain of discarded devices is a £1bn-a-year issue

It is 2pm and Ana, 47, has just started the afternoon shift at the Suez recycling plant near Birmingham city centre, standing beneath a sign reading “Non-ferrous sorting station” with a bucket of vapes in front of her. Sorting and dismantling them is part of her job as a site operative.

Recycling them is not simple. Each bucket holds between 40 and 50 devices, and over the course of a shift, she gets through about half a bucket. Using a hammer, she has to smash each vape open, pry out the batteries and separate each component into a different container.

Philip Morris claimed it wanted to end cigarette sales, but experts and campaigners say new promotions seem designed to attract younger consumers

Anti-tobacco campaigners have condemned a global advertising campaign for Marlboro by Philip Morris International (PMI), saying the company is being duplicitous in claiming it wants to end cigarette sales.

The “I AM Marlboro” campaign – which experts on the tobacco industry said appeared designed to attract young people – includes billboards, TV ads and online content.

Caramel vape with your latte? ‘Banana ice’ with your curry? The perfect pairing is out there – and vapeologists are keen to help you find it

Name: Vape sommelier.

Age: Emerging.

Ministers hope tobacco and vapes bill, which will become law next week, will create a ‘smoke-free generation’

A bill banning anyone born after 2008 from buying tobacco in the UK has completed its progress through parliament in a move that ministers hope will create a “smoke-free generation”.

Under the tobacco and vapes bill anyone born on or after 1 January 2009 will never be able to be legally sold tobacco across the UK, in an effort to save lives and reduce the burden on the NHS.

Described as the ‘must-have’ home accessory of 2026, sales of ‘posh’ matchboxes are up 121% at Selfridges

Goodbye Swan Vesta, hello Cartier. Matchboxes are the latest home accessory to get a luxury makeover – and some of the price tags are striking.

At the upmarket department store chain Selfridges, sales of posh matchboxes are up 121% year-on-year and it said they were “the must-have home accessory for 2026”. The store has more than doubled its range to meet demand, selling over 100 styles at prices ranging from £5 to more than £230.

Clustered together in the area of Cheetham Hill are more than 50 shops specialising in vapes and vaping paraphernalia. How can they all make a living – and for how much longer?

I meet Ali outside his tiny wholesale business, Fly Vape – the store name combined with the image of a vape bookended by angel wings appears on the shopfront. In place of a halo is a cloud of vapour. The softly spoken 40-year-old says that working in the vape trade is “OK, better than nothing”. He opened Fly Vape just over two years ago, selling vaping products to small retailers such as convenience stores. Candy-coloured boxes bursting with fruity flavours line the shelves, although body sprays, soft drinks and a plentiful selection of bongs are available too. His customers come “from all around the UK”, he says, although he names only “Leeds, Bradford, Hull”. He shrugs at the fact that, compared with his neighbours, his sales are modest. He is not one of the “big men” here, he grins.

Ali’s store is in Cheetham Hill, Manchester, where two adjoining litter-strewn back streets near Manchester prison (formerly Strangeways) have emerged as a surprising industry hub in recent years. Ali’s is one of more than 50 outlets specialising in vapes and their accompanying products in an area that has been dubbed Britain’s “vape capital”. Most appear to be wholesalers; there are few passersby and some doors bear signs stating “trade only”, “not open to the public”.

‘There is no doubt that the cells and tissues of the oral cavity, the mouth and the lungs are altered by inhalation from e-cigarettes,’ academic says

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Vaping is likely to cause lung and oral cancer, researchers have found, as they urged regulators to act now rather than wait decades for a definitive level of risk.

Cancer researchers led by the University of New South Wales in Sydney analysed reviews of evidence from animal studies, human case reports and laboratory research published between 2017 and 2025, in one of the most detailed assessments to date of whether nicotine e-cigarettes could cause cancer.

Number fell 23% year on year in 2025 but waste companies say recycling systems still under strain from sheer volume

More than 6m vapes and vape pods are still being discarded every week in the UK, with waste management companies warning the sheer volume continues to strain recycling systems despite the ban on disposable e-cigarettes.

According to research by the recycling campaign group Material Focus, the 6.3m vapes and pods thrown away each week in 2025 represented a 23% reduction from the previous year.

Chris Parry, the party’s Hampshire mayoral candidate, was reportedly suspended after derogatory remarks about Jewish group

The live feed from the Lib Dem local elections campaign launch did not last long, and it did not include footage of Ed Davey taking questions from reporters. But this is what the Lib Dems are saying about their five key campaign issues.

-Cut the cost of living: A plan to halve energy bills within a decade, saving households an average of £870 a year

-Fix the NHS and care: Guarantee the right to see a GP within seven days (or 24 hours for urgent cases) and ending 12-hour A&E waits.

-Rescue high streets: Give an emergency cut to VAT for hospitality businesses, to bring prices down and boost struggling high streets.

-Clean up rivers: Ban water companies from dumping raw sewage into local rivers and coastal areas.

-Restore community policing: Ensure visible, effective local policing to reduce crime.

That first cigarette can lead to a lifetime of dependency, as well as cancer, strokes, heart attacks … Here’s why smokers crave their nicotine hit – and how they can fight back

Smoking is bad for you and you shouldn’t do it. You know both of these things, of course: you’ve been told them in school, on TV and the radio, by doctors, and via the Cronenbergian body-horror of cigarette packets themselves. It’s worth reiterating, though, for two reasons: first, because the effects of having a quick puff outside the pub aren’t just a long-term gamble on your health but an immediate way of making your life worse; and second, because cigarettes remain wildly, impossibly addictive. Some research suggests that as many as two-thirds of people who try one cigarette become, at least temporarily, daily smokers, while a recent survey found that less than a fifth of UK smokers trying to quit actually managed it. Estimates for the average number of times people try to quit before actually managing it range from half a dozen to well over a hundred. So what confluence of factors actually makes cigarettes so difficult to give up – and what does that mean for a wannabe quitter?

“The first thing that happens when you smoke a cigarette is that you inhale a noxious mix of nicotine, various irritants and carcinogens into your lungs, ‘stunning’ your cilia – the tiny, hair-like projections that line your airways – and making them do their job less effectively,” says Lion Shahab, professor of health psychology at University College London. “The other thing that happens very, very quickly is that nicotine gets absorbed through the lungs into the alveoli, into the bloodstream, and then gets transferred into the brain. This is when you start to feel good, and also a key thing that keeps you addicted.”

She said kissing me was like licking an ashtray, and I knew I had to quit smoking. But with a 40-a-day habit, it was no easy task ...

In 1970, as an 18-year-old college freshman in Boston, living away from home for the first time, I started to smoke cigarettes. A pack a day grew in short order to two packs a day, or a cigarette about every 30 minutes.

I choreographed my life around my smokes, puffing away after every meal, taking a drag with a drink and blowing smoke rings as I wrote, usually late into the night. I needed no pretext for smoking, but found plenty; every occasion fit the bill.