Top story: Six more people stabbed
Good morning. I’m Martin Farrer and these are the stories to send you on your way to the weekend.
Six people, five of them teenagers, have been hospitalised following five separate knife attacks in London. The incidents occurred in Docklands, Ealing, Herne Hill, Mile End and Newham, with a 13-year-old boy suffering serious injuries in the latter attack. It comes amid mounting concern about violence on the capital’s streets that has seen the the tally of suspected murders reach 50 for the year so far, worse than that of New York. Last night, crowds gathered in Hackney close to where 18-year-old Israel Ogunsola, 18, was stabbed to death on Wednesday to call for an end to the violence. Protest organisers from the Guiding a New Generation group – commonly known as GANG – invited people to speak, with one issuing a plea to young people: “It’s not a pretty sight. You know what, it’s not a computer game. You’re not gonna come back, bruv.” A former senior police officer, Victor Olisa, said Scotland Yard appeared to have lost control of the streets and has accused the Met’s leadership of a “deafening” silence about the violence. However, our columnist Simon Jenkins, says we should beware of seeking “get-tough” solutions when the most obvious answer, decriminalising drugs, is never considered.
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Trump’s tariff tit-for-tat – We seem to be in full tit-for-tat mode in trade relations between the US and China. Donald Trump said last night that he was considering imposing another $100bn worth of tariffs on Chinese goods after Beijing announced on Wednesday that it was thinking about $50bn levies on US products including soy beans and small aircraft. Just to get the record straight, that was itself retaliation for Trump’s proposal to tax 1,333 Chinese imports to the tune of 25%, which followed China’s planned hit on US food imports, which followed Trump’s plans for levies on steel and alumnium and $60bn sanctions on Chinese goods. However, the plans won’t come into force until talks between the two countries so it may all be about jockeying for position. Perhaps tellingly, there was no big reaction from the financial markets in Asia overnight, although futures trade points to renewed selling in Europe and Wall Street on Friday.
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Midsomer poisoner? – Russia’s ambassador to the UN invoked the unlikely deeds in Midsomer Murders, but still failed to disrupt the diplomatic alliance that Britain has built to accuse Moscow of being responsible for the poison attack last month on Sergei and Yulia Skripal in Salisbury. Vassily Nebenzia led the Kremlin’s bid for a joint investigation into the poisoning at a special UN security council meeting in New York yesterday. He said Britain “would be sorry” if it tried to isolate Russia and mocked the view that Russia was behind the attack, saying that characters in Midsomer Murders knew better ways of killing people. “Couldn’t you come up with a better fake story?” he asked. But the UK ambassador to the UN, Karen Pierce, dismissed his remarks and the US and France refused to dilute their criticism of Russia.
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Unhappy youth – Concerns about jobs and money, a feeling of hopelessness and mental health problems are among the factors making young people more unhappy than ever before. The Prince’s Trust annual youth index showed the wellbeing of young people is at its lowest level since the study was first commissioned in 2009. Nick Stace, chief executive of the youth charity, said the survey of 2,194 people aged between 16-25 should “ring alarm bells for us all that young people are feeling more despondent about their emotional health than ever before”.
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Tooth tax – Before you let your kids have a soft drink this weekend, consider this fact from Public Health England: a child has a rotten tooth pulled out in hospital every 10 minutes. The alarming statistic has been released to highlight the launch of the government’s sugar tax today and persuade to switch their children’s drinks to mostly milk and water. The levy will hike the price of a litre of high sugar drink (8g of sugar per 100ml) by 24p and while it is a response to the obesity crisis, there is huge concern about children’s teeth as well. Every day, 141 children have teeth extracted in hospital and some are as young as one year old. It is the most common reason for children aged 5 to 9 to be admitted to hospital.
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Craft Cockney RIP – Eric Bristow, who became the face of the newly televised sport of darts by winning three successive world championships in the 1980s, has died after suffering a heart attack. Bristow, a Londoner who was known as the Crafty Cockney, was attending a darts match at the Echo Arena in Liverpool on Thursday night when he collapsed. He was 60. Barry Hearn, the promoter, said he was “a huge character and even after his retirement fans would travel for miles to meet him and see him play”.
Lunchtime read: Homaro Cantu, the ‘Edison of the Edible’
Today’s read is a fascinating essay by Kieran Morris on the life and death of the American chef, Homaro Cantu. He wasn’t just a chef – although by all accounts he was pretty handy in the kitchen – but rather a one-man dynamo who was determined to use molecular gastronomy (the science of cooking to you and me) to transform the way we eat and wipe out hunger across the world. Driven by a tough upbringing, he made his name with wildly inventive dishes at his Chicago restuarant, Moto, such as an edible menu and Cuban pork sandwich designed to look like a half-burnt cigar. Dubbed the “Edison of the Edible”, Cantu then began to embrace every technology imaginable to develop meatless burgers and miracle berries to create what he called “zero food-mile gastronomy”. Cantu’s story ends with his death in 2016 but his vision of using science to curb overconsumption lives on.
Sport
Sergio Gárcia, the defending Masters champion, was front and centre of an extraordinary scene on the return to the course which yielded his greatest triumph as he took 13 strokes at the par-five 15th. It was the joint-highest score ever on a single Masters hole and the biggest tally – by two – on that hole. Aaron Ramsey’s sublime goal helped Arsenal to a 4-1 win over CSKA Moscow in a quick and purposeful performance that set them fair for a place in the Europa League semi-finals. Conor McGregor was involved in a backstage melee after a news conference for UFC 223, and video footage appears to show the promotion’s biggest star throwing a trolley at a bus full of fighters, injuring at least one scheduled to compete tomorrow. And Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain has thanked Liverpool fans for generating a “horrible” atmosphere for Manchester City on Wednesday and believes it disturbed Pep Guardiola’s players during the Champions League quarter-final.
Business
Facebook directors and investors must be prepared to challenge Mark Zuckerberg on the running of the company if it is to ensure there is no repeat of the disastrous data breach to Cambridge Analytica, our business expert Nils Pratley says in a punchy column today. The pound slipped slightly against the dollar to $1.399 and €1.143.
The papers
The story of the elderly man who stabbed a burglar to death fills several front pages for a second day running today. The Express and Mirror both splash on the death of Henry Vincent, reporting that he was wanted by the police.
The Daily Telegraph is also all over the story, quoting treasury minister David Gauke who says “It’s right to take on burglars”.
The Sun leads on a story about Bake-off presenter Paul Hollywood being paid a lot of money to appear on special cancer charity shows. But the real news is the paper’s exclusive about the Skripal poisoning: “Spy’s cat is dead.” The Times has a more conventional line on the Salisbury attack, saying that the poison involved was “made at Russia’s Porton Down”.
The Guardian leads on crime in London. The paper interviews a former senior Met officer who says police “have lost control of the streets”.
The spate of murders in the capital also makes the front page of the FT, but the paper’s main story is about the equalities panel saying companies that miss the gender pay deadline must be punished. Meanwhile the Mail urges: “Curb bloated foreign aid”.
For more news: www.theguardian.com
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