Gilyonos for Shabbos attached

Morrisons has revealed it will close 17 daily convenience stores, including the Featherbed Lane branch in Croydon, from Wednesday, April 16.

The closures come as the supermarket giant announces several moves to “reinvigorate” the company, enabling money to be invested in other areas.

Britons have been urged to renew their passport as soon as possible as new passport ruled have come into effect a price rise on Thursday.

The Home Office announced three weeks ago that the price of renewing a UK passport would rise by 7 per cent on April 10.

This means that the cost of renewing a passport online will jump to £94.50 from £88.50. For a child, a new passport will cost £61.50.

The Palestinian Islamist group Hamas has submitted a legal filing saying it should be removed from the UK government’s list of proscribed terrorist groups.

Hamas, which carried out the 7 October 2023 attacks on southern Israel, in which more than 1,200 people, mainly civilians, were killed and a further 250 taken hostage, is arguing that it is not a terrorist group but “a Palestinian Islamic liberation and resistance movement whose goal is to liberate Palestine and confront the Zionist project”.

The assertion is contained in a witness statement by Mousa Abu Marzouk, head of international relations for Hamas and the applicant for the claim to the UK home secretary, Yvette Cooper, published by Drop Site News.

His statement continued: “The British government’s decision to proscribe Hamas is an unjust one that is symptomatic of its unwavering support for Zionism, apartheid, occupation and ethnic cleansing in Palestine for over a century. Hamas does not and never has posed a threat to Britain, despite the latter’s ongoing complicity in the genocide of our people.”

The Home Office said it did not comment on proscription matters.

The trade minister has travelled to China for an unpublicised visit this week at the same time as the head of the British military, the Guardian has learned.

Douglas Alexander, the minister for trade policy and economic security, is paying a visit to Beijing this week for talks with Chinese counterparts. He is also due to visit Hainan and Hong Kong.

Alexander’s trip, which does not appear to have been publicised anywhere by the UK or Chinese governments, coincided with an unannounced visit to China by Adm Sir Tony Radakin, the head of the British military, for the first time in a decade.

Alexander held talks with Chinese counterparts at a time when Beijing’s trade dispute with the US was intensifying, and while ministers have been locked in talks with British Steel’s owner, Jingye.

A government source said Alexander’s trip was pre-planned and unrelated to Donald Trump’s tariffs or the negotiations over the future of British Steel, with no talks planned with Jingye. The department said Alexander was promoting British exports and was due to give a speech at a Chinese consumer expo.

China’s defence ministry said Radakin had discussed strengthening military cooperation with a country that the UK officially describes as posing a “systemic challenge”.

Six people, including three children, were killed after a helicopter carrying a family of tourists crashed into the Hudson River in New York, authorities have said.

The family of five was from Spain and the sixth person was the pilot, New York City Mayor Eric Adams told reporters on Thursday. All were onboard the helicopter at the time of the crash.

“Our hearts go out to the families,” Adams said.

New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said the identities of the victims will not be released until the families are notified. The cause of the crash is under investigation.

Video footage of the incident shows the helicopter falling out of the sky upside down and then splashing into the Hudson River.

Officials said the helicopter lost control soon after turning at the George Washington Bridge to move along the New Jersey shoreline.

The helicopter was operated by New York Helicopters and took off from the Downtown Skyport on the lower side of Manhattan at 14:59 local time (19:59 BST)

Only 10% of the nearly 1,000 signatories are active reservists and will be removed from their positions, the IDF says; Protesters say the “continuation of the war doesn’t advance any of the declared goals of the war, and will bring about the deaths of the hostages, of IDF soldiers and innocent civilians. Every moment of hesitation is a disgrace”; Letter is ‘not a call to refusal’ signatory says

A protest letter signed by approximately 950 former and reserve Israeli Air Force personnel was published Thursday morning as a full-page ad in several national newspapers, despite warnings from IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir. Initial military reviews found that around 10% of the signatories are currently active reservists—most of them volunteers—while the rest are retired or no longer in service.

US President Donald Trump on Thursday said progress was being made regarding the return of the hostages being held in Gaza and that he was dealing with both Israel and Hamas, but he gave no other details about the talks.

“We’re getting close to getting them back,” Trump told reporters at a cabinet meeting,

“A lot came back. A lot of people are very grateful. Some came back in pretty bad shape. They’re okay. I think they’re going to be scarred mentally for a long time because if you sit down and talk to them, as I have, what they went through is incredible,” he said.

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Isabel Oakeshott, a journalist for the British newspaper The Telegraph, was lost in daydreams while riding a scooter on the Tel Aviv promenade. It’s unclear whether the handsome young people playing volleyball on the beach or the spectacular sunset distracted her attention, but she suddenly found herself on the sidewalk with a severe blow to her chin and head.

After kind passersby helped her up, the journalist returned to her hotel room, where concerns arose that she might be suffering from a concussion. She independently made her way to Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv and received treatment with such speed and efficiency that it surprised her enough to inspire a column about her experience.

Under the headline “What my stupid accident in Tel Aviv reveals about truly world class healthcare,” Oakeshott describes her experience in the Sylvan Adams Emergency Department at Ichilov Hospital. “There were no 12-hour queues like those in Britain’s National Health Service. Within half an hour, I was standing before a nice doctor who spoke excellent English, stitched my chin, and took blood tests – the prognosis was that I was perfectly fine,” Oakeshott wrote.

“I wanted to come to Israel to learn about war… and I did all that, but the accident also drew my attention to the enormous differences between Israel’s healthcare system and Britain’s,” Oakeshott added. She continued by explaining the history and structure of medical services in Israel, outlining the health maintenance organizations and the public and government hospitals.

“The Sylvan Adams Emergency Department uses all kinds of time-saving and life-saving devices and artificial intelligence wizardry to treat patients well and quickly. Robots move around providing directions, and in their free time, staff members amuse themselves by testing the artificial intelligence system to see if it understands slang or distinguishes between female and male voices,” she noted in her piece.

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