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Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor was arrested on his 66th birthday on suspicion of misconduct in public office, and released under investigation. The King said: ‘The law must take its course.’ The government proposed introducing legislation to remove Mountbatten-Windsor from the line of royal succession, and agreed to a motion compelling ministers to release information relating to his appointment as a trade envoy ‘as soon as practicable and possible within the law’. Global Counsel, the consultancy co-founded by Peter Mandelson in 2010, collapsed into administration. Lord Mandelson, aged 72, was arrested in London on suspicion of misconduct in public office, and released on bail nine hours later. His lawyers said: ‘The arrest was prompted by a baseless suggestion that he was planning to leave the country.’ Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, appointed Antonia Romeo as Cabinet Secretary. He asked Sir Laurie Magnus, his ethics adviser, to look into the actions of Josh Simons, a minister in the Cabinet Office; the campaign group Labour Together, which he used to run, had commissioned a report into the backgrounds of journalists.
‘Do not give away Diego Garcia,’ President Donald Trump of America said, the day after the US government had given official backing to Britain’s plan to hand over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius. In London, James Lewis KC, chief justice of the British Indian Ocean Territory (and of the Falkland Islands), granted an injunction to block the deportation for the time being of four Chagossians who had landed on the islands. Britain and its allies should deploy non-combat troops in safe parts of Ukraine now, according to Boris Johnson, the former prime minister.
The government said it would reduce eligibility in England for Education, Health and Care Plans from 2035; children would be reassessed, starting in 2030. At present 482,640 pupils have such a plan – one in 20. Bridget Phillipson, the Education Secretary, defended freezing the earnings threshold for repaying student loans in England, saying graduates would pay back only £8 more a month on average. The British men’s curling team won silver in the Olympic Winter Games, losing to Canada.
Abroad
The US Supreme Court, by a 6-3 majority, ruled that President Trump had no authority to impose ‘Liberation Day’ tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act; the power resided with Congress. Mr Trump called the majority justices ‘fools and lap dogs’ and imposed a new 10 per cent global tariff, under Section 122 of the Trade Act 1974. The next day he said he was increasing it to 15 per cent. The question remained of how much of the $130 billion collected in import taxes might be refunded. Mr Trump made a 1hr 47min State of the Union address. Earlier he had said that countries on his Board of Peace had contributed $7 billion to a Gaza relief package. In Gaza, Hamas reasserted control over policing, health and tax collection. Pakistan carried out air strikes on what it said were militant camps in Afghanistan. More than 19 inches of snow fell on Central Park in New York City.
Students in Iran staged the first anti-government protests since thousands were killed in January. In Mexico, Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, known as ‘El Mencho’, the leader of the Jalisco New Generation drug cartel, was killed during an operation to arrest him; after the killing 9,500 troops countered a wave of violence. Scientists at Stanford University said they were developing a single nasal-spray vaccine against all colds and flu. Jan Timman, the chess grandmaster, died aged 74. An Austrian climber whose girlfriend froze to death on the 12,461ft Grossglockner last year was found guilty of gross negligence manslaughter.
After the killing in Lyon of Quentin Deranque, a right-wing student, who was kicked on the ground by masked men, seven men were charged who had connections to La Jeune Garde, which, before it was banned, offered protection to La France Insoumise, founded by the leftist Jean-Luc Mélenchon. The government of Panama took control of two ports on the Panama Canal from C.K. Hutchison, a Hong Kong-based company. Divers recovered the bodies of seven Chinese tourists and a Russian driver whose minibus fell through a fissure on the ice on Lake Baikal. A new model of the Seedance AI tool created by the Chinese company ByteDance produced high-quality video of Will Smith eating spaghetti. CSH
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