Rory McIlroy hunts historic career grand slam on Masters final day
The Masters reaches its conclusion with Rory McIlroy hoping to end his Augusta hoodoo and complete a career grand slam.
McIlroy’s excellent 66 on Saturday saw him seize control of the tournament, with the Northern Irishman taking a two-shot lead into the final round. After producing two outstanding rounds to bounce back from a slow start, the 35-year-old is on the cusp of becoming only the sixth man to win all four majors, as well as ending an 11-year wait to add to his tally of four.
His likeliest challenger is Bryson DeChambeau, who sits within striking distance after an up-and-down third round. The sometimes-outspoken LIV Golf star is proving popular with the patrons at Augusta and has the game to match McIlroy – as well as a possible psychological edge, too, having denied his rival at the US Open at Pinehurst last year. Corey Conners, Ludvig Aberg and Patrick Reed also begin the final day in the top five looking to put the pressure on – though this looks like it may be a final group duel.
Follow all of the action, and the final round scores and leaderboard, from Augusta below:
Body found in search for girl, 11, who went missing in River Thames
The family of an 11-year-old girl who went missing in the Thames last month have been informed that a body has been found in the river.
Kaliyah Coa, who had been playing with another young girl and boy during a school inset day, slipped into the water on 31 March before a life ring could be thrown to her, nearby residents said.
She entered the Thames near Barge House Causeway, close to London City Airport in east London, and was not found despite a huge search by emergency services.
The Metropolitan Police has now said her family was told that a body was found in the river on Sunday morning.
Officers were alerted to a body in the River Thames in Maritime Quay in east London on Sunday at 9.03am.
A police spokesperson said: “The body is yet to be formally identified. However, the family of Kaliyah Coa have been informed of this development and are being supported by specialist officers.”
Kaliyah’s family asked that their privacy be respected at this time, the force added.
At the time of her disappearance, emergency services launched a “large-scale response”, but the search was later scaled down, with the London Ambulance Service, London Fire Brigade and the RNLI saying crews had been stood down.
Kerry Benadjaoud said a male neighbour told her he had called the police. She said: “But he said at the time he could see her [the girl’s] hands going down. So, by the time I got down there with the ring, I couldn’t find her.”
The lifelong area resident said she discovered shoes, a sock, a coat and a phone near the river and handed the items to the police.
“Apparently she was paddling, so her socks and shoes were off, her coat, then she must have slipped and gone down,” she added.
Piastri lays down F1 title gauntlet to Norris with victory in Bahrain
Oscar Piastri eased to victory at the Bahrain Grand Prix as Lando Norris battled back from his disappointing qualifying to finish third.
The Australian converted his pole position into a commanding win under the lights at the Sakhir circuit, coming home over 15 seconds ahead of Mercedes’ George Russell.
Norris, who began the weekend with a one-point lead in the championship, overcame a five-second penalty and a ding-dong battle with Charles Leclerc to finish on the podium.
Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton secured fourth and fifth for Ferrari, while Max Verstappen finished sixth.
Norris retained his championship lead and is now three points clear of his teammate Piastri in the standings.
McLaren looked set to dominate the weekend – as predicted by their rivals – after topping every practice session, but Norris’ slip-up at the death in qualifying left him with work to do from sixth.
The British driver said he was “clueless” about how to get pace from his car after qualifying but he was certainly quick off the line, surging past Pierre Gasly and Kimi Antonelli by the first corner before dispatching Leclerc.
Norris’ positive opening was soon dashed as he was hit with a five-second penalty for a false start – Verstappen flagging it on the radio as replays showed the championship leader comfortably ahead of his grid box.
Russell also made a strong start to claim second but could not keep pace with Piastri out front.
Norris pitted after 10 laps to try and undercut Russell – who waited three laps to make his stop and emerged still just ahead of the McLaren.
Leclerc and Hamilton both started on medium tyres from second and ninth respectively and each pitted after 17 laps, the Monegasque urging his team to “please consider” a different strategy.
The Scuderia pair came alive in their second stint, Hamilton surging past Yuki Tsunoda and Verstappen as Leclerc charged after Norris.
Leclerc was unable to make his first pass stick but did next time around, blasting around the outside to claim third.
The race picture changed on lap 32 as debris from Tsunoda and Carlos Sainz’s collision brought out a safety car.
Mercedes gave Russell – in second – the soft tyre with 24 laps remaining in a move he described as “audacious”.
Norris tried to overtake Leclerc as the race resumed but was instead passed by Hamilton. He soon reclaimed fourth place but did so by leaving the track as McLaren told Norris to hand the place back.
Norris was soon back ahead of the seven-time world champion, who said his hard tyre “sucked”.
Leclerc’s battle with Norris unfolded over the final 10 laps. The McLaren man locked up as he attempted to go round the outside of turn one on lap 46 before he was off the track as he attempted the same move three laps later.
Norris claimed he was pushed off by Leclerc, but the stewards did not agree.
The British driver finally got the job done on lap 52 and piled the pressure on compatriot Russell, who held on to finish second.
As the action unfolded behind him, Piastri kept a cool head in the desert and his win never looked in any doubt.
Verstappen, who claimed a surprise win in Japan last weekend, endured a miserable afternoon with two slow pit stops hitting his chances.
Police issue warning after several children reported missing on beach
Parents have been warned not to let their children go unsupervised on the beach after police received “completely avoidable” reports of missing children.
Families flocked to the beach this weekend as temperatures reached 24C in some parts of the UK on Saturday. But a police unit in Lancashire has urged parents to “do this safely”.
Fylde Police said officers have received “several reports of missing children” in the last two days, “which have used a significant amount of police and coastguard resources”.
The unit warned in a social media post that the beach “is a very dangerous place for unsupervised children”, adding: “It is disappointing to see that youngsters are still regularly permitted to approach the water unsupervised.”
It said: “This could prove fatal, even to those who are competent swimmers. You are also risking the lives of the coastguards who would be deployed in a rescue situation.
“These incidents are completely avoidable and have a detrimental impact to the service we offer, as when police officers are looking for lost children, we are unable to deal with or prevent crime.”
The unit urged parents to follow some “basic tips”, including never leaving children unsupervised “especially near the water”, reminding children of the basic principles of stranger danger, and who to approach if they need help.
It added that parents should take a photograph of children at the start of the day “so you have a clear image of each child and their clothing” and asked parents to consider attaching a wristband to each child with a parent’s contact number but no name.
It also said families should discuss a meeting point with all members of the group in the event of any person becoming lost.
Farage claims Musk was ‘trying to encourage him’ with sacking call
Nigel Farage has claimed Elon Musk was “just trying to encourage” him when he called for him to be sacked as the leader of Reform UK.
The former Ukip leader had a spectacular falling out with the billionaire adviser to Donald Trump earlier this year.
At its height, just hours after Mr Farage claimed his friendship with the Tesla founder made his party “cool”, Mr Musk called for him to be replaced at the top of Reform.
The row erupted over Mr Musk’s support for jailed far-right activist Tommy Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon.
Mr Farage has consistently opposed allowing Robinson to join his political parties, describing him as “thuggish”.
At the time there had been speculation that Mr Musk could donate $100m to Reform, in what would have been the largest political donation in British history.
But after the two men fell out Mr Musk backed the now-independent MP Rupert Lowe, suggesting he could take over Reform.
Asked about the row on BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg, Mr Farage said he had since met Mr Musk and discussed the row.
“We talked about it,” he said, adding: “He was just trying to encourage me in a few policy areas, ones I wasn’t prepared to go down.”
He was also probed over his claim that his association with Mr Musk made the party look “cool”, just hours before the entrepreneur suggested Mr Farage should be replaced.
He said Mr Musk would “say what he wants to say at any moment in time”.
But, he added, “as far as young people are concerned in Britain, we are certainly cooler than the other parties”.
Before their row, Mr Farage said of the US President’s ‘first buddy’: “The shades, the bomber jacket, the whole vibe. Elon makes us cool – Elon is a huge help to us with the young generation, and that will be the case going on, and frankly that’s only just starting.
“Reform only wins the next election if it gets the youth vote. The youth vote is the key. Of course you need voters of all ages, but if you get a wave of youth enthusiasm you can change everything.
“And I think we’re beginning to get into that zone – we were anyway, but Elon makes the whole task much, much easier. And the idea that politics can be cool, politics can be fun, politics can be real – Elon helps us with that mission enormously.”
The global event bringing fresh energy to planet-positive solutions
As we navigate significant environmental and social challenges, the return of ChangeNOW, the world’s biggest expo of solutions for the planet, is much needed to reinvigorate climate action. The 2025 edition, which will take place from April 24th to 26th, will host 140 countries, 40,000 attendees, 10,000 companies and 1,200 investors.
Visionary leaders, established businesses and start-ups alike will gather to showcase over 1,000 sustainable solutions and groundbreaking innovations in key sectors such as clean energy, biodiversity, sustainable cities and the circular economy.
The ChangeNOW 2025 summit will be held at the iconic Grand Palais in Paris, a nod to the 10th anniversary of the Paris Agreement. Reuniting for the occasion will be guest speakers Mary Robinson, the former (and first female) president of Ireland, Laurent Fabius, former French prime minister, Patricia Espinosa, former UN climate chief and diplomat and Diána Ürge-Vorsatz, leading climate scientist and professor – all of whom were in the French capital a decade earlier to help shape the Paris Agreement at COP21.
There may have been obvious setbacks to environmental policy around the world of late, the United States’ recent withdrawal from the Paris Agreement being a notable one. However ChangeNOW 2025 intends to reaffirm the spirit of Paris, while serving as a catalyst for progress ahead of COP30 and the United Nations Ocean Conference (UNOC). “Ten years after COP21, ChangeNOW is where leaders and changemakers converge to accelerate the ecological and social transition,” states Santiago Lefebvre, founder and president of ChangeNOW. “Thousands of solutions will be showcased demonstrating that meaningful progress is within reach.”
His message of positive climate action will be supported by a multitude of world famous faces who will be in attendance at the auspicious event. Natalie Portman, Academy award-winning actress, director, author, activist, and producer; Captain Paul Watson, Founder of Sea Shepherd and Ocean Conservationist; Hannah Jones, CEO of The Earthshot Prize and Olympic champion boxer and gender equality advocate Imane Khelif are just a few of the names set to appear at ChangeNOW 2025.
With over 500 speakers and 250 conference sessions exploring climate action, biodiversity protection, resource management, and social inclusion, ChangeNOW 2025 will also hear the insights of acclaimed corporate leaders from Accor, Bouygues, Henkel, Lidl, Nexans, and Saint-Gobain, who will explain how businesses can be the ones to drive real change.
And the event will not only be an opportunity for global policymakers to discuss next steps in climate action, it will also be a platform for nations to showcase local innovations through their country pavilions. Expect impactful solutions from countries including South Africa, The Netherlands, and Ukraine – demonstrating international collaboration on the topic of climate.
In addition to the packed program of speakers, workshops, exhibits and networking opportunities, ChangeNOW 2025 will host the Impact Job Fair on Saturday, 26 April, with over 150 recruiters and training organisations offering in excess of 600 roles. Dedicated to the public and young professionals, the interactive workshops, educational activities, and career opportunities in sustainable sectors on offer aim to inspire the next generation of changemakers.
The summit will also present the annual Women for Change conference and the accompanying portrait exhibition, which showcases 25 women who are set to have a significant positive impact on their communities, countries or on a global scale over the next 10 years. Created in 2021, the Women for Change initiative aims to platform and provide opportunities for women who are leading change around the world but require further recognition or investment to continue their work. The annual flagship event, which takes place on the afternoon of April 24th, offers women the chance to discuss new ideas, network with likeminded people, and also acquire funding to help solidify their leadership, and amplify their impact.
Step outside the Grand Palais and take a few steps to the Port des Champs Elysées, on the bank of the Seine, where the The Water Odyssey village awaits. One of the event’s standout features, the immersive 1,000 m² exhibition is open to the public and highlights solutions to maritime and river sustainability challenges – offering a mix of conferences, interactive displays, and sensory experiences to engage all ages.
For three days, ChangeNOW will transform Paris into the global capital of impact, bringing together policymakers, entrepreneurs, investors, and the public in the pursuit of sustainable progress.
Book your ChangeNOW 2025 ticket here
Has the government given up on the grooming gang inquiries?
There is confusion about the government’s attitude to the local inquiries into the notorious activities of grooming gangs that sexually abused girls over many years. Many of the cases have involved men of Pakistani origin or heritage, with the victims young white girls.
Often the crimes took place in towns in the north of England, though there were also notable examples in Telford and Oxford. Because of the extreme and sadistic sexual violence employed by these groups, they are also described as “rape gangs”.
The matter has for a long time been fiercely controversial, with allegations that the authorities ignored the plight of the victims, and that the police, social workers and politicians were complicit. In recent days, the government has been accused of dropping the local inquiries that were promised by the home secretary, Yvette Cooper, in January. Some people are outraged; others are asking for a national inquiry…
It seems not, but it certainly allowed that impression to be formed. Under intense attack from the opposition and persistent questioning by the media, Cooper has insisted that the local inquiries into grooming gangs in five towns are still going ahead.
A number of factors. Earlier this month, the lawyer charged with helping set up the local inquiries, Tom Crowther KC (who chaired the 2022 inquiry into the Telford gangs), told a Commons select committee that he had been given little information about the role, and had needed to ask a civil servant “Do you still want me?”
It didn’t help that only one location out of the five – Oldham – was identified in January, and that none have been earmarked since for the “rapid” review, suggesting a certain lack of urgency. Seizing on the issue, the shadow Home Office minister, Katie Lam, demanded answers.
Unfortunately, when the safeguarding minister, Jess Phillips, made her “update” statement to the Commons, she didn’t say much about the local inquiries, and just confirmed that the £5m was still available. She also made her statement on the final day of the parliamentary session before the Easter recess, which made critics suspicious that the government was trying to sneak bad news out.
What Phillips said on 8 April was: “We will set out the process through which local authorities can access the £5m national fund to support locally led work on grooming gangs. Following feedback from local authorities, the fund will adopt a flexible approach to support both full independent local inquiries and more bespoke work, including local victims’ panels or locally led audits into the handling of historic cases.”
It gave the strong impression that the government was trying to downplay the local inquiries for political purposes. Trevor Philips, former chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, put the charge against ministers forcefully, saying that they were reluctant to push ahead “because of the demographic of people involved… largely Pakistani Muslim background, and also in Labour-held seats and councils who would be offended by it”.
Aside from denying that they are being complacent, ministers have put forward a case that is rather bureaucratic, and comes late in the day, when the misunderstandings have (arguably) gained traction. They say they are awaiting a different inquiry, that being an audit by Louise Casey, the former victims’ commissioner. This is due next month and will “uncover the true scale of grooming gangs in the UK today, including looking at ethnicity”, according to the Home Office.
Once again, it’s not that clear. Some councils, such as Bradford, have rejected any further inquiries anyway. Keir Starmer, on the other hand, has opened up the possibility of funding for more than five local inquiries. But he and his colleagues say their emphasis is on implementing the recommendations made by previous inquiries – for example, creating a new criminal offence of obstructing an individual from making a report; making reporting of child abuse mandatory; and making “grooming” an aggravating factor in sentencing for rape.
We’ve had one lengthy one already – set up by Theresa May, and chaired by Alexis Jay – which reported in 2022. There have also been trials, along with various local investigations, such as in Derby, Rotherham and Telford, and considerable media interest (indeed, The Times broke the scandal in 2011).
The problem is that the Jay inquiry was national but very broad indeed, taking in so-called VIP abuse as well, while the local investigations have been piecemeal and lacked authority. Even if another five, or more, local inquiries took place, there would be areas left uncovered.
A more powerful argument is that the survivors and victims’ families want an investigation, and that they won’t feel that justice has fully been done and the truth made known unless an inquiry takes place that carries full judicial powers.
Grooming – and the sexual abuse of children in a broader sense – has never been confined to men of Pakistani heritage, but as a specific phenomenon, the gangs have aroused intense interest and debate. The topic is also being exploited, obviously, by racists and Islamophobes.
The clamour for a further national inquiry will not die down, and it feels inevitable that one will need to take place in order to restore some truth and perspective to the discussion. Meanwhile, in the local elections, the Conservatives and Reform are making the most of it.
Britain’s aid cuts harm the world – and the UK itself
When the government announced that it was to divert almost half of the annual foreign aid budget to defence spending, the outcry, beyond the aid community and the demonstrative resignation of the development minister, was rather less than might have been expected in response to such a drastic switch.
To be sure, the muted response had its causes, which included the acceptance that Europe was going to have to pay a lot more towards its own defence; the continuing strength of UK public support for Ukraine; and the regrettable reality that foreign aid is rarely a popular destination for taxpayers’ money. If there was also an element of ignorance – or, at the very least, a reluctance to acknowledge the likely consequences of such a major redirection of resources – such excuses are no longer tenable, if ever they were. The scale of the likely damage has now been spelt out in an analysis by the charity Save the Children – and a disastrous picture it presents, too.
As is so often the case, the first to suffer will be the poorest, and chief among those are women and girls, mothers and babies. Programmes designed to widen access to education, family planning, clean water and food are all likely to be cut back or ended, affecting as many as 12 million people. Almost 3 million fewer children could be in education compared with five years ago. Poor sanitation means the spread of disease; curtailing sexual health programmes risks increasing the spread of HIV. By any measure, these add up to a big step in the wrong direction.
Even those dismal figures, however, do not tell the whole story. When the reallocation between the aid and defence budgets was announced, the prime minister insisted that aid to Gaza, Ukraine and Sudan would be protected. Together, however, these commitments amount to nearly £7bn of the £9.2bn that is envisaged to be the aid budget in 2027. To that has also to be added the £3bn or so that currently goes from the foreign aid budget towards the cost of accommodating asylum seekers and irregular migrants in the UK. Save the Children estimates a “black hole” of at least £750,000 that could presage the end of practically every other aid programme, with as many as 55 million people affected around the world.
One very partial remedy might be for the government to reallocate the asylum costs to domestic spending departments. But this looks unlikely. While it was questioned at one time by none other than the foreign secretary, David Lammy, the use of the foreign aid budget to fund accommodation for asylum seekers is clearly designed to fend off criticism and, with the number of small-boat crossings only rising, these costs look unlikely to come down soon, despite the home secretary’s hopes of cutting spending by speeding up procedures. Dan Paskins of Save the Children has it right when he says, “We should not fund our response to one crisis at the expense of others.”
International pressure to keep up foreign aid spending is also diminished. The Trump administration went so far as to disband one of the world’s biggest aid agencies, USAID, with some immediate dire consequences, including for earthquake relief in Myanmar. Rather than being seen as an example of what not to do, however, that one move seemed to give others a green light to downgrade their own foreign aid efforts. The UK was one – and the scale of the cut was savage. At 0.3 per cent of gross national income (GNI), the UK’s aid contribution is now at its lowest for 25 years.
It is a far cry from the 0.7 per cent of GNI that is called for by the UN, was promised by the Blair government, and was finally reached by the UK in 2013. This is where it stayed until 2021, when it was “temporarily” reduced to 0.5 per cent by the Johnson government in the light of Covid spending pressures. Last year’s Labour manifesto included an undertaking to restore the budget to 0.7 per cent. For all the current special circumstances, the government should be held to its pledge.
Summary cuts to vital aid programmes harm the intended recipients above all. But they harm the donor country and its government, too. They damage its reputation and its projection of “soft power”, but they also threaten to increase multiple risks, from the spread of disease to security threats and enforced migration, any or all of which could eventually reach our shores. A supposedly short-term slashing of the foreign aid budget today can all too easily translate into much higher costs for everyone tomorrow.