Thursday morning briefing with British news: Today’s headlines of The Telegraph

Welcome to The Telegraph’s early morning news – an overview of the highlights we cover today. To receive email notifications twice a day, Sign up for our Front Page newsletter for free.

1. Boris Johnson is likely to be among the 50 visitors to the Downing Street party to be questioned by police

Scotland Yard will contact more than 50 participants at Downing Street parties this week and ask them to explain their involvement in the events before detectives start issuing fines.

Boris Johnson is said to be among those who will receive an email requesting an “account and explanation” of his involvement in one of the 12 parties they are investigating. Read the full story.

2. Offering “tension” energy to millions of households

Millions of British households are set to introduce “surge prices” for the first time after Britain’s three largest suppliers took on their weight to revolutionize the country’s revolutionary electricity market.

Scottish Power, EDF and Octopus Energy announced on Wednesday that they support radical new tariffs, which will charge customers for peak energy consumption and less in quieter ones. Read the full story.

3. Boris Johnson puts several troops on standby and tells Russia to show “real diplomacy” over Ukraine

Boris Johnson said on Wednesday he was putting another 1,000 troops on standby to bolster NATO’s presence in Eastern Europe, and called on Vladimir Putin to show “real diplomacy” over the Ukrainian crisis.

Johnson will meet with NATO Commander Jens Stoltenberg on Thursday to offer additional troops to prevent the accumulation of Russian troops and support a humanitarian response in Ukraine and neighboring countries in the event of a conflict. Read the full story.

4. Early “laboratory-grown” Covid virus detected in sample gives weight to Wuhan theory

An early version of Covid-19, which appears to have been grown in a laboratory, was discovered in samples from a Chinese biotech company.

The finding gives weight to claims that the virus may have started life as a laboratory experiment that accidentally escaped. Read the full story.

5. Faceless painting worth £ 750,000 destroyed after being ‘attracted’ by a ‘boring’ security guard

On his first day at the art gallery, a security guard vandalized a £ 750,000 painting by a student of one of Russia’s greatest avant-garde painters by drawing eyes and a mouth on his bare face.

Visitors noticed accessories dotted with a pen on the impersonal motifs of Three Figures by Anna Leporskaya (1932-34), while the painting was loaned to the Yeltsin Center in Yekaterinburg, Urals. Read the full story.

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