• President Trump and President Xi Jinping held a high-level summit, marking the first U.S. presidential visit to China in nearly a decade.
• The meeting focused on diplomatic relations and economic cooperation, signaling a potential shift in trade dynamics and geopolitical stability.
• This summit is critical for Asian markets as it may reduce trade tensions and influence investment flows across the region.
• Massachusetts Democrat Rep. Richard Neal plans a broad tax agenda if he reclaims the Ways and Means gavel after a House control change.
• Neal is unlikely to revive the battle over President Trump's tax returns, focusing instead on more urgent priorities like corporate rates and credits.
• This positions Democrats to counter GOP tax policies, impacting revenue and economic inequality debates.
Station will be first to be given full GBR branding and will directly link city’s Biomedical Campus to London, Brighton and Stansted airportThe delayed Cambridge South station will finally open in late June – and become the first station to be given full Great British Railways branding, the government has announced.The station sits beside the city’s Biomedical Campus, Europe’s largest medical research centre, and will connect it with direct trains to London, Brighton and Stansted airport, as well as up to nine trains an hour to the centre of Cambridge itself. Continue reading...
Moscow blanketed in heavy security despite last-minute announcement of three-day ceasefire with UkraineVladimir Putin has declared Russia will always be victorious as he oversaw a scaled-back Victory Day parade on Red Square held under heavy security amid mounting fears of Ukrainian attacks and growing public fatigue with the war.Speaking to the crowd, the Russian leader invoked the sacrifices of the second world war to rally support for his soldiers fighting in the war in Ukraine. Continue reading...
International Airlines Group expects to spend £1.7bn more on fuel than planned since US-Israeli attack on IranBusiness news – live updatesThe parent company of British Airways has issued a profit warning and said it expects to spend about €2bn (£1.72bn) more on fuel than planned this year due to the Iran war.International Airlines Group (IAG), which also owns Aer Lingus, Iberia and Vueling, said it has hedged 70% of its expected fuel use for this year with costs expected to be about €9bn, up from previous forecasts of €7.1bn. Continue reading...
Amber Davidson-Orozco said the family had lost Dodger, their cat, during their move out of CaliforniaA family cat who got lost amid a move from California across the US is said to be settling back into his old ways with his humans at their new home in Georgia after experiencing an unlikely – but long hoped for – reunion more than seven years in the making.As owner Amber Davidson-Orozco put in an interview Wednesday, her cat Dodger still responds to his name and allows her sons to flip him playfully over their shoulders despite an absence from them that to the cat lasted the equivalent of roughly 24 years. Continue reading...
Monarch to allude to recent strains in special relationship in speech to both houses during four-day state visitKing Charles is expected to allude to recent strains between the UK and US in a rare address by a monarch to the US Congress as he will underline that “time and again our two countries have always found ways to come together”.The king’s remarks in a speech to both houses on Tuesday come after Donald Trump has threatened to tear up a trade deal signed by the UK and US, mocked the Royal Navy and insulted the UK prime minister. Continue reading...
Exclusive: Documents released to campaign group 38 Degrees reveal UK officials briefed on possibility of altering food standardsBritish officials were briefed on the possibility of allowing chemical-washed chicken into the UK before a meeting with the US embassy, new documents reveal.The Food Standards Agency is also looking at studies performed in the US on washing chicken with bacteriophages, including chlorine dioxide, to remove pathogens, according to the documents, released to the campaign group 38 Degrees under freedom of information laws. Continue reading...
President says he gave Britain ‘better deal than I had to’ but ally was ‘not there when we needed them’ on IranMiddle East crisis – live updatesBusiness live – latest updatesDonald Trump has threatened to row back on the trade deal the US signed with the UK last year, in his latest salvo against the British government over sharp differences about the US’s approach to the Middle East.The US president said the economic deal struck with the UK, which cut some of his tariffs on cars, aluminium and steel, was “better than I had to” and that it could “always be changed”. Continue reading...
‘Ukraine has expertise concerning sea waterways, and the defence and reopening of maritime traffic,’ says president. What we know on day 1,500Volodymyr Zelenskyy offered on Thursday to provide Ukraine’s expertise in dealing with freedom of navigation in the Black Sea to those countries considering how to keep the strait of Hormuz open amid the conflict in the Middle East. The Ukraine president, speaking in his nightly video address, said the foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, had taken part in a virtual meeting devoted to reopening the strait of Hormuz, attended by about 40 countries. “Ukraine has relevant expertise concerning sea waterways, and the defence and reopening of maritime traffic,” he said. “If [our] partners are ready to act, we will consider how we can strengthen them, how we can apply our expertise, knowledge and technological potential.”Russia’s army recorded no territorial gains on the frontline in Ukraine in March, for the first time in two and half years, AFP analysis of data from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) showed. The Russian army’s advances have been slowing since late 2025 due to Kyiv’s localised breakthroughs in the south-east, and losing ground in March and February on the southern section of the frontline, between the Donetsk and Dnipropetrovsk regions, the analysis showed. Across the entire frontline, Ukrainian forces managed to recapture 9 sq km in March.North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, gave “field guidance” at the Memorial Museum of Combat Feats at the Overseas Military Operations, which is under construction , state media KCNA said. The museum in Pyongyang will be a place to commemorate the fallen soldiers sent to support the Russian army in the war in Ukraine. The construction of the museum is almost complete and Kim said the opening ceremony would be held in mid-April, marking the first anniversary of the deployment of the North Korean soldiers.Six Ukrainian children will be returned from Russia to their families in Ukraine, the White House said on Thursday, citing efforts by Melania Trump to expedite their return. A seventh Ukrainian child will also be returned to their family later this month, the first lady’s office said in a statement. Ukraine says almost 20,000 children have been illegally sent to Russia and Belarus, where they are sometimes subject to military training and forced to fight against their own country’s troops.Russian strikes across Ukraine on Thursday killed at least two people and wounded dozens, officials said, as Moscow stepped up its attacks amid stalled peace talks. In the south-eastern Kherson region, Russia attacked “with artillery, mortars and UAVs”, the regional prosecutor’s office said on social media. A 42-year-old man was killed when a drone hit a civilian car, and 16 others – including a teenage boy and three police officers – were wounded in air attacks and artillery shelling, it added. In the Chernihiv region, north of the capital Kyiv, Russia attacked with a ballistic missile, the head of Chernihiv’s military administration, Dmytro Bryzhynsky, said on Telegram.Russian forces maintained a daylong barrage of drone strikes on Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city, on Thursday, injuring at least two people, local officials said. Kharkiv’s mayor, Ihor Terekhov, posted reports on Telegram throughout the day and well into the evening, noting strikes in four city districts. One city official said there had been at least 20 drone strikes. He said some had triggered fires and two people had been injured in an evening attack, including an eight-year-old girl.Russian forces carried out 129 attacks on Ukrainian gas and heating facilities during the recent 151-day heating season, the state oil and gas firm Naftogaz said on Thursday. “The Russians hit pipelines, gas production, underground storage facilities, heating systems – everything that Ukrainians depend on for heat and gas,” it said in a statement. Continue reading...