Trump ‘slashes aid repayments bill’ to open up minerals deal
Russia launched a “massive” overnight drone attack on the Black Sea port city of Odesa damaging residential buildings and warehouses.
It comes just hours after Nato secretary-general visited the region alongside Volodymyr Zelensky.
“The enemy has again attacked Odesa with a massive drone attack,” Oleh Kiper, governor of the broader Odesa region of which the city of Odesa is the administrative centre, said in a post on Telegram messaging app.
The full scale of the attack is not yet clear, but Odesa’s mayor Hennadiy Trukhanov said on Telegram that there were no injuries.
He posted photos showing the aftermath, with residential buildings nearly destroyed and emergency workers sifting through the rubble.
The attack sparked fires that damaged a number of homes and civilian infrastructure, injuring at least three people, according to local officials.
Meanwhile, the US appears to have tempered demands for Ukraine to repay aid as part of the ongoing mineral deal talks between the two countries.
Following a round of negotiations in Washington last week, Donald Trump’s administration reduced its estimate of US aid provided to Kyiv to about $100 billion from $300 billion, sources told Bloomberg.
Trump sees the deal – which would allow the US to share profits on Ukraine’s rare minerals – as a means to recover the billions of dollars spent on aid in Ukraine.
How Arsenal are being gaslit ahead of crunch Real Madrid clash
As David Raya walked out of the cavernous Bernabeu media room, having said Arsenal are “super-convinced” they can win – and then repeating it – Mikel Arteta gave him a knowing nod. The right message had been sent. Something was needed to counter “the narrative”, as the Gunners boss put it.
The main difficulty in Wednesday’s Champions League quarter-final might not even be facing Real Madrid, given what Arsenal did to them in the first leg, but the noise that Real Madrid make.
Jude Bellingham almost laughed when asked which word has been said the most in the dressing room over the last week. The answer was obviously “remontada”, since it is what everyone outside the dressing room has been raving about incessantly.
This is what manifestation looks like. Madrid have almost worked themselves into a fervour. Bellingham insisted “you can’t come into this believing there’s going to be anything other than a comeback”, and Madrid admittedly have the best possible reason for that. They have come back from two-goal-plus first-leg deficits more than any other club in European history.
It’s the great intrigue of this tie, and one challenge that Arteta – and, in truth, very few managers – have ever faced. Arsenal have a 3-0 lead but they’re essentially being gaslit into thinking they are the club facing the pressure, who have it all to do. This is what the Santiago Bernabeu can do to you.
It is one of very few stadiums you can go to with a lead like that and fear that a tie is still alive. The club hierarchy have promised something “special” for the pre-game tifo, which fits with how they’ve been trying to create “ambiente de remontada” all week. Fans have previously had pageantry about how your dream is their reality.
Now, they might well say that what seems impossible for you is inevitable for us.
Real Madrid great Emilio Butragueno was this week telling Madrid’s younger players about the epic comebacks of the 1980s, as Bellingham admitted he’d been watching some of the goals on TikTok. Madrid have naturally put highlights of all of their epic remontadas on social media, which is why Arteta was right to say it’s impossible to shut out.
“That’s the source of education these days,” Bellingham laughed. He did add “it’s infectious”, and spoke about a striking mindset.
“We had one of the worst results that could happen, and now everyone feels it’s nailed on we’re going to come back. It’s a nice feeling… a club like no other, the best in the world.”
This is what Arsenal have to withstand. It does add a genuinely fascinating psychological and sporting dimension to a tie that would otherwise be considered done.
That challenge is sharpened by the relative inexperience and youth of the Arsenal team. The Madrid camp have been all too keen to mention this almost as much as remontadas, pointing to how Arteta’s side have never played together in a stadium like this at a stage like this.
That’s where the Madrid media industrial complex is so effective, for reasons more than transfer campaigns. All of this is of course a vintage attempt to change the feeling around the tie, to make it feel like “anything can happen”. Even Pep Guardiola’s most experienced Manchester City teams have succumbed to that.
That’s precisely what Madrid have to try, though, since this tie proceeding as normal would just see Arsenal go through rather comfortably. There is even the possibility this merely becomes a huge anti-climax, as Arteta’s side just sit and shut Madrid out.
Those within the Arsenal camp even scoff at the idea that youth might be a disadvantage, since they say it has actually afforded this team “a fearlessness”. The travelling fans might understandably be nervous, many of them refusing to book cancellable trips for future rounds out of a fear of tempting fate, but that just hasn’t got through to the dressing room. They’re “super convinced”, you might say. Arteta himself laughed when asked about “fear”.
“I wouldn’t use that word,” the manager said. “It’s respect, and admiration for what they’ve done… but after that it’s just an opposition team.” Arsenal proved that in the first leg, stripping a stale and lethargic Madrid of aura.
“We have the momentum,” Raya said. The goalkeeper then repeatedly said Arsenal are here “to win”, having refused to get into any discussion of remontadas at all. Raya wasn’t going to play that game.
When asked about what game Arsenal would play, Arteta re-iterated that ambition to win. That naturally prompted a question about why he would take such an unnecessary risk.
“Because it’s the way of playing we feel most comfortable with,” Arteta said. “It’s about expression… to be brave, to be better than them.”
That may have revealed a bit of psychology on the other side.
Given how lethal Madrid can be on the break, and how a robust Arsenal don’t need to actually step out, it is hard to believe a manager as canny as Arteta will be so cavalier.
More instructive was actually what he said about “adapting quickly” to whatever happens, and “taking the game where we want”. This was an obvious reference to a Madrid early goal or similar, even if the Basque naturally didn’t want to outright describe that. He doesn’t want his players visualising negatives.
Arsenal have been conscious of this. Arteta and his staff have naturally watched all of Madrid’s recent comebacks, and studied how those games went as they did.
With City’s stoppage-time 3-1 collapse in 2021-22, it was genuinely the “uncontrolled euphoria” that stopped them Guardiola’s side doing what they normally do, while empowering Madrid. Arteta has specifically attempted to prepare for this, if only by working with his players on how to keep at the job at hand rather than dwelling on the potential of actually going behind. Again, “visualisation” is so vital here.
Preparing is one thing, though. The reality is something else.
Such is the history of this stadium that the temptation is almost to call it a “magical realism”. Ancelotti hasn’t got this far by indulging in such talk, though.
“I say nothing of magic, because magic doesn’t exist.”
He instead appealed to much more corporeal elements, saying Madrid have to “play with your head, heart and balls”.
This is where the headlines were coming in, as Raya repeated Arteta’s line of “writing our own history”.
This is all just another part of the noise, though. “Let’s do it on the pitch,” Arteta said. “It’s the only thing that matters.”
There’s no coming back from there.
UK inflation falls by more than expected in boost to Reeves
UK inflation has slowed down for the second month in a row on the back of falling petrol prices, new official figures have revealed.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said the rate of Consumer Prices Index (CPI) inflation eased to 2.6 per cent in March, from 2.8 per cent in February.
It was a steeper drop than predicted by economists, who had expected a reading of 2.7 per cent for March, and marks the lowest reading since December.
ONS chief economist Grant Fitzner said: “Inflation eased again in March, driven by a variety of factors including falling fuel prices and unchanged food costs compared with the price rises we saw this time last year.
“The only significant offset came from the price of clothes, which rose strongly this month, following the unusual decrease in February.”
Chancellor Rachel Reeves said: “Inflation falling for two months in a row, wages growing faster than prices, and positive growth figures are encouraging signs that our plan for change is working, but there is more to be done.
“I know many families are still struggling with the cost of living and this is an anxious time because of a changing world. That is why the Government has boosted pay for three million people by increasing the minimum wage, frozen fuel duty and begun rolling out free breakfast clubs in primary schools.”
Last month, drivers were told they should see fuel prices fall from a six-month high after a drop in wholesale costs.
The RAC said average pump prices should come down by at least 6p per litre for petrol and 3p per litre for diesel if the savings are passed on. The organisation believe price cuts are possible because the cost of oil has dropped from above 80 US dollars in mid-January to below 70 US dollars.
The falling rate of inflation continues to make it likely that the Bank of England (BoE) will push forward with an interest rate cut when they meet on 8 May. Some experts are now foreseeing a further two cuts to the base rate across 2025 beyond next month’s.
However, most economists still expect the drop in inflation to be short-lived.
“This is a temporary slowdown. Inflation will almost certainly lurch higher in April as annual price resets and budget tax rises take effect,” explained RSM’s economist Thomas Pugh.
“We think that inflation will peak at around 3.7 per cent in the summer, but the risks are now more even sided.
“The drop in inflation in March was driven by weaker inflation almost across the board. Lower oil prices fed into a drop in fuel price inflation and food price inflation also weakened a little. Clothing inflation rebounded and, more importantly, services inflation slowed from 5.0 per cent to 4.7 per cent.
“While a drop in inflation is good news for the BoE and reinforces the chances of a rate cut in May, this is merely the calm before the storm of price rises that will come in April. A combination of higher energy prices, indexed linked price resets and firms passing on the jump in employment costs will probably push inflation to 3.5 per cent or even a bit higher.”
Next month’s data will be the first to include pricing alterations since the labour cost increases to businesses as a result of National Insurance and minimum wage rises.
Martin Sartorius, principal economist at CBI, said: “March inflation coming in broadly in line with Bank of England expectations is welcome news, particularly ahead of a likely pick up in price pressures in April due to higher energy costs, regulated price increases, and the passthrough of Autumn Budget measures.
“The introduction of higher US tariffs adds some uncertainty to the outlook, as they could put both upward and downward pressure on inflation in the UK. Businesses welcome the government’s ongoing commitment to the principles of free, fair, and open trade, as well as promising to go further and faster to support firms during this period of instability.
“Today’s data suggests that the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee will likely cut rates next month. Looking ahead, we expect them to continue their ‘gradual and careful’ approach to reducing borrowing costs amid an uncertain economic environment.”
Despite an impending cut to interest rates, homeowners might not see an immediate additional benefit in terms of further lowered mortgage costs, believes MPowered Mortgages’s Peter Stimson.
“May’s all-but-certain base rate cut is unlikely to translate into a further wave of mortgage rate cuts next month,” he said. “The reason for this is that mortgage lenders price their fixed-rate loans according to swap rates, which are a forecast for the future course of the base rate, rather than the base rate of the day.
“Swap rates have fallen since Donald Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ tariff announcement two weeks ago, and many lenders have responded by cutting their mortgage rates accordingly. In other words, they have already ‘priced in’ a base rate cut in May and may not have scope to reduce their rates again so soon.”
Britain still has free speech – as Steve Bray has shown loud and clear
Steve Bray, known to most as the “Stop Brexit Man” after his years-long noisy campaign against Britain’s departure from the European Union, has won his latest legal case.
He has been cleared of failing to follow a police order, namely to stop being quite so loud in the environs of parliament. Westminster Magistrates’ Court, in quiet deliberation, agreed with Bray’s arguments that he has the right to protest at any given level of decibels.
Deputy District Judge Anthony Woodcock said Bray “admitted that he is ‘anti-Tory’ … He believes his is an important message to disseminate. He needs the volume that he uses to get the message across from Parliament Street to the Palace of Westminster.”
After nearly a decade as a fixture on the streets and public spaces around Whitehall – and too divisive and annoying to be termed a “national treasure” – Bray has at least become a part of Britain’s constitution…
By offering a supposedly inappropriate musical accompaniment to then prime minister Rishi Sunak’s entry into the House of Commons on 20 March 2024. It was not a legal argument, but Bray justified blasting the Darth Vader theme in the general direction of the Palace of Westminster on the grounds that Sunak is a Star Wars fan (a matter of public knowledge and not in doubt). When he followed up with The Muppet Show theme during Prime Minister’s Questions, police confiscated his loudspeakers.
Officers had previously issued Bray a map of permitted areas for his protests, using a Westminster Council by-law. But that was no match for the amateur human rights lawyer. He told them the map was inaccurate and, as an obiter dictum, that the officers could “stick it where the sun don’t shine”.
If authorities now choose to appeal this week’s judgment, the arguments could go all the way to the European Court of Human Rights (which, let’s face it, he’d enjoy … though in his absence, Westminster would be a bit more tranquil.)
It proves that, contrary to what Elon Musk and JD Vance claim, free speech is alive and well in Britain – loud and clear.
By no means. A price of (extremely loud) free speech is disruption to anyone working or living in the area, who must endure a racket which, like a bad busker knocking out Oasis, could be viewed as a form of torture.
In court, Bray apologised to those affected. Lee Anderson, the Tory/Brexit Party/Reform UK MP who sometimes had testy exchanges with Bray, condemned the judgment: “As well as being a public nuisance, Steve Bray is also known as a sponging parasite who relies on dimwitted do-gooders to subsidise his lifestyle. I suspect Bray is probably a person of interest to the HMRC, as are many others who scrounge an existence through political campaigning. It is time for transparency and people like Bray should publish all their donations just like a charity has to. I suspect he has trousered hundreds of thousands of pounds. It’s about time he spent some of it on new clothes and toiletries.”
Anderson provided no evidence for his claims, and his arguments did not address the legal right to say things that Reform UK might not like.
Plenty of D:Ream’s “Things Can Only Get Better” as Labour came closer to power, while Liz Truss had to compete with Kaiser Chiefs’ “I Predict a Riot” during appearances in Downing Street in her brief premiership. Most notably, Yakety Sax – used on The Benny Hill Show – eradicated any vestigial dignity during Boris Johnson’s resignation statement.
Protest and survive. Bray’s case adds to the corpus of legal protections for awkward dissent. Brian Haw, the man who spent about a decade living in a tent on Parliament Square in protest against the Iraq war, similarly survived numerous legal attempts to dislodge him. In 2005, then home secretary David Blunkett drafted an act of parliament apparently specially designed to end Haw’s small and untidy encampment; the attempt failed because someone failed to make the legislation retrospective.
Squares and streets around Westminster have always been the scenes of marches, protests – and the odd riot – and will continue to do so. For Steve Bray, things can hardly get better; he’ll be fine now –unless Lee Anderson ever gets to be home secretary.