Home
The King ‘initiated a formal process to remove the Style, Titles and Honours of Prince Andrew’, who is now known as Mr Andrew Mountbatten Windsor; his lease on Royal Lodge, Windsor, was relinquished and he made a private arrangement with the King to live on the Sandringham estate. His former wife, Sarah Ferguson, will find her own accommodation. Their daughters remain Princess Eugenie and Princess Beatrice. Richard Gott, who resigned as literary editor of the Guardian in 1994 after The Spectator accused him of having been in the pay of the KGB, died aged 87. Gopichand Hinduja, the head of Britain’s richest family, died aged 85.
Eleven people were taken to hospital after a stabbing attack on a train from Doncaster to London, which began after it left Peterborough. The train had to be stopped at Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire. Samir Zitouni, an LNER staff member, was critically wounded and praised by police for ‘bravery beyond measure’ in trying to protect passengers. Anthony Williams, 32, was charged with ten counts of attempted murder and another count relating to an incident on the Docklands Light Railway the day before. Police were asked if they had done enough when it emerged the suspect was linked to three other knife crimes hours before the attack. A train was derailed near Shap in Cumbria, but no one was badly injured. Fayaz Khan, serving a five-year sentence for threatening to kill Nigel Farage, posted a series of videos to TikTok from his cell, in one of which he made a shooting gesture and said: ‘Pop pop pop!’ Police launched a manhunt after an Algerian man was mistakenly released from Wandsworth prison, south London.
In a set-piece speech, Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, refused to stand by Labour’s manifesto pledge not to increase income tax, national insurance or VAT but said: ‘Each of us must do our bit.’ The pound fell to a seven-month low. Reeves was earlier found not to have the legally required licence when she rented out her house in Dulwich, south London, at £3,200 a month. A Kurdish crime network is enabling migrants to work illegally in mini-marts throughout Britain, the BBC reported. Britain is ‘sliding into an economic inactivity crisis’, with those unable to work due to ill health costing the country 7 per cent of GDP, Sir Charlie Mayfield said in a report commissioned by the Department for Work and Pensions. Sir Alan Bates settled his claim against the Post Office over the Horizon scandal. Avian influenza was reported in several counties.
Abroad
Democrat Zohran Mamdani, 34, was elected mayor of New York. President Donald Trump of America met Xi Jinping, the ruler of China, in South Korea; they agreed to lower tariffs on Chinese goods, easier American access to rare earths and ‘massive amounts of soybeans’ for China. Starbucks said it was selling a 60 per cent stake in its business in China. Global stocks fell amid suspicions of an AI bubble. Dick Cheney, the US vice-president who persuaded George W. Bush to invade Iraq, died aged 84. Trump ordered the military to prepare for action in Nigeria against Islamist groups killing Christians. The Sagrada Familia in Barcelona reached a height of 534ft 6in, becoming the tallest church in the world, beating Ulm at 530ft.
Russia said it had tested a nuclear-capable underwater drone, Poseidon, announced in 2018. President Trump said: ‘I have instructed the Department of War to start testing our nuclear weapons on an equal basis.’ Ukraine was defending the town of Pokrovsk from thousands of Russian assailants. In Dutch elections, the centrist liberal D66 party won 26 seats, equalling the right-wing Party for Freedom led by Geert Wilders, now pushed into opposition. In Tanzania, President Samia Suluhu Hassan won another term with 98 per cent of the vote.
The Rapid Support Forces paramilitary group in Sudan, reportedly backed by the UAE, was blamed for a massacre of more than 400 people at a hospital in el-Fasher, the city it has taken in the north Darfur region. An earthquake struck Mazar-i-Sharif in Afghanistan. A French prosecutor said that suspects from Seine-Saint-Denis were implicated in the theft of jewels valued at £76 million from the Louvre. A French taxi driver was cleared of stealing cash and luggage from David Lammy, when he was foreign secretary, after a 370-mile journey through the Alps. Italian police seized shares worth £1.1 billion from the company that controls the manufacturer of Campari over alleged tax evasion. CSH
Comments