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The government withdrew an offer to create 1,000 more training posts for doctors in England after the British Medical Association refused to call off a six-day strike by resident doctors. In a speech at a White House Easter lunch, President Donald Trump of America mocked Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, for having to consult his team about sending ‘two, old broken-down aircraft carriers’ to the Middle East. Seven people protesting at Lakenheath RAF base were arrested on suspicion of supporting the proscribed group Palestine Action. Chris Rokos, the billionaire hedge fund owner, is to donate £190 million to the University of Cambridge to found a school of government. Wireless Festival in London in July was cancelled after Kanye West (now known as Ye), who had been booked as the headline act ‘despite his previous anti-Semitic remarks’, as Sir Keir Starmer put it, was refused authorisation by the Home Office to enter Britain.
Two British men, Hamza Iqbal, 20, and Rehan Khan, 19, and a 17-year-old boy of dual British and Pakistani nationality were charged with arson relating to the four Jewish-charity ambulances set on fire in Golders Green, London, on 23 March; at the court hearing a fourth suspect, a 19-year-old man, was recognised by police officers and arrested. An undertaker who kept bodies in his parlour in Hull for months, pleaded guilty to 30 counts of preventing a lawful and decent burial. The price of a first-class stamp increased to £1.80, while second-class is now 91p.
Thinus Keeve, the retail director at M&S, wrote to Sir Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, about shoplifting ‘becoming more brazen’, after scores of teenagers rampaged through shops on Clapham High Street in London, co-ordinated via social media. Five police protection officers guarding Sir Sadiq’s house were taken off duty after a woman found a bag in a nearby street containing police-issued firearms: a Heckler & Koch -carbine, a Glock pistol, a Taser and ammunition. Waitrose sacked an assistant of 17 years’ standing who tried to stop a shoplifter stealing Easter eggs from a branch at Clapham Junction. Lord Haskins, the pro-EU former chairman of Northern Foods, died aged 88. Nigel Farage sacked Simon Dudley as Reform’s housing spokesman, after he said that the Grenfell Tower fire was a ‘tragedy’ but that ‘everyone dies in the end’. Three migrants died after a dinghy carrying about 50 migrants got into trouble off Gravelines, France. In the seven days up to 6 April, 325 migrants crossed the Channel, in five small boats, all on 1 April. Cambridge men won the Boat Race for the fourth year running.
Abroad
America agreed to a two-week ceasefire with Iran if the Strait of Hormuz was opened; Iran agreed if attacks on it stopped. Mr Trump had threatened hours earlier that ‘a whole civilisation will die tonight’, and promised to destroy all the bridges and power stations in Iran. On Truth Social, he had announced his strategy: ‘Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell.’ China and Pakistan had presented a plan to try to end the war. A US F-15E fighter jet had been downed in southern Iran, and one crew member was rescued; a race with Iran to find the other was won by America, which extracted him two days later, with the help of four bombers, 64 fighters, 48 refuelling tankers and 13 rescue aircraft, some of which were destroyed. An A-10 Warthog was also hit; the pilot ejected over the Gulf and was himself rescued. A US-Israeli strike killed Majid Khademi, the intelligence chief of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Nasa’s Artemis II spacecraft, with four astronauts aboard, reached 252,756 miles from Earth, the furthest human beings had ever ventured, as it circled the Moon; Christina Koch, one of the crew, mended the lavatory, following instructions radioed from Houston. Mr Trump asked Congress to increase the US defence budget by 42 per cent to $1,500 billion. He also asked for $152 million to rebuild Alcatraz prison. Mr Trump sacked Pam Bondi as attorney general. Pete Hegseth, the US Defence Secretary, asked General Randy George to resign as the US army chief of staff.
Russia launched hundreds of drones and missiles against Ukraine on Good Friday, and the next day attacked a market in Nikopol, killing five people. J.D. Vance, the American Vice-President, visited Hungary in support of Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who faces elections on 12 April. Min Aung Hlaing, who led a coup in 2021, was appointed by Burma’s parliament as president. The Uffizi in Florence suffered a cyber-attack. CSH
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