Northern Ireland leads surge in fuel prices since start of Iran war

• The IDF issued warnings on April 2, 2026, of potential coordinated rocket attacks by Iran and Hezbollah toward Israel as rocket sirens sounded across the country on Passover eve. • Hezbollah reported a top commander killed in a Beirut strike, escalating tensions amid broader Middle East conflict. • This development heightens risks of multi-front escalation, directly impacting US ally Israel and regional stability critical to American interests.

Grandson of Reese’s cups inventor claims Hershey faked a pledge to switch back to original chocolate recipesThe grandson of HB Reese, the inventor of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, has accused the chocolate giant Hershey of faking a pledge to investors to switch back the recipes of its popular products – including KitKat – to the original milk and dark chocolate ones.A confectionary-focused dust-up between Brad Reese and the $42bn Pennsylvania-based company began in February when Reese, 70, accused the company of “quietly replacing” the ingredients – or “architecture” – in his grandfather’s invention with cheaper “compound coatings” and “peanut-butter-style crèmes”. Continue reading...

Democrats rebuke White House’s ‘bleak and unacceptable’ view of priorities after 10% cuts proposed to other programsUS politics live – latest updatesSign up for the Breaking News US newsletter emailDefense spending would surge to its highest level in decades under a budget proposal put forward by the Trump administration on Friday, while other government programs would face cuts totaling 10%.The document prepared by the White House office of management and budget (OMB) is a starting point for negotiations that will probably occupy Congress’s appropriators in the coming months, and are unlikely to be enacted in full. Continue reading...

Academics and youth workers say cuts to services, not social media, help explain recent unrest in south LondonIt started with a flyer sent around on Snapchat. Teenagers were invited to gather at a south London basketball court to celebrate the start of the Easter holidays. They were told to bring their own weed and laughing gas because it was going to be a late one.What followed in the hours after was chaos. Hundreds of young people came to the “link-up” last Saturday, and then gathered on Clapham High Street. Continue reading...

Effort to curb grade inflation, by limiting top marks to 20% of students in a course, is opposed by most studentsSign up for the Breaking News US email to get newsletter alerts in your inboxHarvard’s faculty is set to vote next week on a faculty committee proposal to cap the number of A grades per course in an effort to curb grade inflation.The proposal, which was first reported earlier this year by the Harvard Crimson, Harvard’s student newspaper, would cap A grades to 20% of students in a course, with an allowance for four additional As. It also would introduce a new internal “average percentile rank” system, which would rely on raw scores rather than grade point average (GPA) to determine honors and awards. Continue reading...

Downing of fighter plane – the first shot down over Iran since start of war – prompts frantic US rescue effort A US F-15E fighter has been shot down over Iran, prompting a frantic US search and rescue effort for its two-strong crew, in the first such incident since the start of the war.Images of a tail fin and other debris were released by Iranian state media early on Friday accompanied by an initial claim that an advanced US F-35 and been hit by a new air defence system over central Iran and the pilot probably killed. Continue reading...

The telco’s sweeping price changes and the closure of its cheaper ‘starter’ plan risk putting off many of its loyal customersTelstra has long traded on its claim to have better – and far more expansive – mobile coverage than its rivals to justify a steep pricing premium that has accelerated in recent years.But the telco’s latest changes, which include steep price hikes and the closure of its cheaper “starter” plan to new users, combined with a dramatic rejection of its coverage claims by the industry regulator, risk putting off many of its traditional customers, according to consumer advocates. Continue reading...

Proposal, a win for RFK Jr’s Maha movement, is a ‘first step’ toward tackling plastic pollution, advocates sayThe Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed on Thursday to include microplastics and pharmaceuticals on a list of contaminants in drinking water for the first time, a step that could lead to new limits on those substances for water utilities.Lee Zeldin, the EPA administrator, said they are responding to Americans who have worried about plastics and pharmaceuticals in their drinking water. The gesture also aims to hand a win to health secretary Robert FKennedy Jr’s Maha movement, which for months has pressured Zeldin to further crack down on environmental contaminants. Continue reading...

Capsule’s engine fires up for six minutes, putting crew on track to reach farthest distance travelled by humans in spaceThe four astronauts on the Artemis II mission are approaching 100,000 miles from Earth as they head towards the moon, putting them on track to reach the farthest distance humans have ever travelled into space.The crew have left Earth’s orbit and fired their engines on Thursday for a “translunar injection”, sending the Orion capsule on its trajectory towards the moon. Continue reading...

NASUWT says full entitlement should be increased from four weeks to 26 and paternity pay also improvedFull maternity pay for teachers across the UK should be increased to 26 weeks to help stem the exodus of women in their 30s from classrooms, a union leader has said.Matt Wrack, general secretary of the NASUWT teachers’ union, said it was a “national scandal” that so many teachers who quit said inadequate maternity support was one of the reasons. Continue reading...

Fourteen-, 16- and 18-year-olds arrested on suspicion of murder after incident near Woolwich Dockyard stationPolice have launched a murder investigation after a 14-year-old boy was fatally shot in Woolwich, south-east London. Three teenagers have been arrested on suspicion of murder.Officers received reports of a shooting on Lord Warwick Street, Woolwich, at about 3.40pm on Thursday, the Metropolitan police said. Continue reading...