Friday briefing: ​After a week of disruption, is living with threats our new normal?

In today’s newsletter: From diverted airliners to hacked ​fridges, a string of disruptive incidents has exposed the ​vulnerabilities of modern ​life. ​There is now an increasingly blurred space between peace and conflict, the grey zone. Good morning.

A multiplicity of hoax bomb threats divert passenger flights across Europe. A malign cyber-attack targets supermarket fridges in Belgium, Sweden, the UK and – in a sickening escalation – the cold storage facilities of France’s national blood service. The actors behind this week of chaos and disruption, be they hostile states or criminal gangs – or even enterprising teenagers – are yet to be identified.

But what is certain is that they operate in a context of deepening global conflicts, building national threat and an accompanying, pervasive sense of vulnerability. UK news | Russell Brand has been found guilty of raping a woman and sexually assaulting three others over the course of five years of his show business career.