The tragedy unfolded the day before the Tour of Flanders

A British cyclist has died after collapsing during an amateur race in Belgium.

The 51-year-old was competing in the mass-participation Tour of Flanders sportive, We Ride Flanders, which takes place on the day before the elite men’s and women’s races, when he collapsed before the Hotond climb near Ronse. According to reports from Belgium, the rider, who is believed to have been participating in the amateur race alongside his son, likely suffered a heart attack and tragically died at the scene.

Event organiser Gert van Goolen told Belgian radio that medics had rushed to where the rider had collapsed and attempted to save his life, but he sadly passed away.

“We received a report that a man had fallen,” he said in a statement to Radio 1.

“A medical team was quickly on the scene and was able to resuscitate him. Unfortunately, the man died at the scene.

“This is the last thing you want as an organization,” van Goolen added.

“You hope that 14,000 people can have a nice day here and you know there are risks, but you really don’t want this.”

The event has routes of different distances, the longest being a 247km route starting in Antwerp and ending in Oudenaarde.

Other ride distances – 79 km, 133 km and 163 km – started and finished in Oudenaarde, although it is unclear which route the rider had attempted, as all four include the Hotond, the highest hill in the region.

According to reports, two other competitors also needed resuscitating during the race following separate incidents during Saturday’s event.

One involved a 57-year-old Dutch man, while the other saw a second British rider rescued on the Oude Kwaremont, a 1,500m cobbled climb which forms a famous section of the Tour of Flanders.

Both riders were taken to hospital.

Two We Ride Flanders participants also died during last year’s event, including Stéphane Krafft, a former professional rider with the Cofidis team.

The amateur event sees cycling fans ride the course a day before the professional riders, allowing them to “suffer on the legendary hills, shudder over the famous cobbles and enjoy an unparalleled atmosphere along the routes” as the pros.

Around 14,000 cyclists take part in the event annually.

Prince William, Princess Kate and their three children have joined other members of the royal family for an Easter Sunday church service for the first time since 2023.

The family missed out on the service in 2024 as it came soon after Kate’s cancer diagnosis.

Last year, they skipped it again to take a family holiday to Norfolk.

King Charles and Queen Camilla were also spotted heading into St George’s Chapel in Windsor for the traditional event.

The King was spotted giving William and Kate’s son Prince Louis a pat on the shoulder as the seven-year-old arrived at the church with his brother George and sister Charlotte.

Unlike last year, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor did not make an appearance for what would have been his first Easter service since being stripped of his titles.

His ex-wife Sarah Ferguson also did not turn up, while his daughter Eugenie and Beatrice had reportedly made ‘alternative plans’ for Easter.

Princess Anne joined with her husband Sir Tim Laurence, while Prince Edward was accompanied by his family.

The Easter Sunday service at St George’s Chapel is seen as a family event rather than an official engagement.

However, the King and Queen shook hands with gathered members of the public and wished them a happy Easter as they left.

There was no official Easter message issued by the King this year.

The official Royal Family account on X shared an image of the cross with the message: ‘He is risen!’

An accompanying message said: ‘Wishing a joyous Easter Sunday to Christians celebrating in the UK, the Commonwealth and around the world today.’

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.

For more stories like this, check our news page.

MORE: Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor gets first royal visitor since exile for ‘quiet word’

MORE: Queen Elizabeth ‘refused to take Prince Harry’s calls without a witness’

MORE: Lipreader reveals Kate’s sweet comment about Diana during India visit with William

Liverpool captain Virgil van Dijk has apologised to the club’s supporters and said his side “gave up” as they were dumped out of the FA Cup by Manchester City.

The Reds’ hopes of winning silverware this season now rest on Champions League glory following Saturday’s humbling 4-0 quarter-final defeat at Etihad Stadium.

Manchester City demolished Liverpool in an 18-minute period which spanned the half-time break, scoring twice either side of the interval following an evenly matched opening half an hour.

“I can only apologise to the fans for what we have shown, especially the second half,” said Netherlands centre-back Van Dijk, 34.

“Obviously you come out with the right intentions from the dressing room [after half-time], to hopefully score for 2-1 as soon as possible to change the game.

“The opposite happens and to come back from 3-0 is obviously very difficult here – but also you shouldn’t give up and that’s maybe, at a certain point, what happened.

“We let our fans down, we let ourselves down, and the manager.

“The way we played in the second half, especially, must hurt for everyone. It definitely hurts me.”

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) — A fire broke out at a factory manufacturing gas lighters near Bangladesh ’s capital on Saturday afternoon, leaving at least five people dead, authorities said.

The blaze broke out in the Kadamtali area of Keraniganj near Dhaka, according to the fire service and civil defense.

Seven firefighting units were deployed to extinguish the blaze, which started in the afternoon, the fire department said. It took several hours to bring it under control.

Firefighters recovered five bodies by the evening and they couldn’t immediately be identified.

The cause of the fire was under investigation.

German men aged between 17 and 45 could have to get military approval if they want to leave the country for more than three months, according to recent changes to the law.

A spokesperson for the country’s defence ministry has since confirmed they expect approval to be given as long as service in the German forces is voluntary.

It comes as the nation moves towards increasing its military footprint, with new incentives to join up and conversations around conscription.

Iran war latest: US rescues missing pilot

A change to the law to reintroduce voluntary – for now – military service was made at the end of 2025.

However, late last week, German publication Frankfurter Rundschau noticed another change to Germany’s Wehrpflichtgesetz (WPflG) – its Cold War era military service legislation.

This change, when translated into English, means that “male persons must obtain permission from the competent career centre of the Bundeswehr (German armed forces) after reaching the age of 17 if they wish to leave the Federal Republic of Germany for more than three months”.

Previously, this would have only applied in times of “tension” or “defence” cases.

However, the WPflG was changed for it to apply universally, with a maximum affected age of 45.

Conscription in Germany was paused in 2011, but the war in Ukraine and subsequent global unrest have sparked discussions about whether it should be returned to mandatory from voluntary status.

The German defence ministry confirmed that the system was in place during the Cold War and “had no practical relevance; in particular, it is not subject to penalties”.

Instead, they state the system is intended for use in “an emergency” as the military “must know who may be staying abroad for an extended period”.

Exemptions are in the works to prevent “unnecessary bureaucracy”, they added.

The UK government has rejected suggestions it could move towards conscription, although it has introduced measures to try to encourage people to join the armed forces.

Germany is trying to increase the number of troops it has in the Bundeswehr from 180,000 to 260,000, with reserves set to reach 200,000.

If the British Royal Air Force, Navy and Army are combined, they number just under 150,000, according to a House of Lords report published last year, including full-time reserves.

Read more:
2025: UK has no plans for conscription
Details of military gap year for UK’s under 25s

👉 Click here to listen to Electoral Dysfunction on your podcast app 👈

Of these, 82,000 were in the Army, 33,000 were in the Royal Navy or Royal Marines, and 32,000 were in the Royal Air Force.

Like much of NATO, the UK has committed to increasing its defence budget in the coming years, although there are still questions about what this will look like as the Defence Investment Plan is yet to be published.

Robin Hood’s Bay, a fishing village on the North Yorkshire coast, has been praised for its tranquillity and charm.

This comes from new research by credit card brand Aqua, which evaluated various destinations across the UK.

Robin Hood’s Bay, though, scored highly as a “hidden gem,” partly due to its 117,000 Instagram posts and 22,800 average annual searches for visiting and staying.

The UK’s top hidden holiday destination, ranked higher than Robin Hood’s Bay in the list, is Broadstairs.

Broadstairs scored the highest of the “hidden gem” staycation destinations, with 332,000 Instagram posts and just 3,360 searches for visits and hotels.

This coastal village is ‘probably one of the most photographed and instantly recognisable locations in North Yorkshire’. (Image: Getty)

Second was Dartmouth in Devon, with 878,000 Instagram posts.

Interest in visiting or booking hotels remained relatively low at just 3,360 searches.

Whitstable, Poole, and the Scottish Highlands are all together in third place.

Robin Hood’s Bay has also been praised by Country Living for its “panoramic” clifftop views and was included on its seasonal outdoor guide for winter – making it a village for all seasons.

The publisher shared: “The UK’s beaches boast another level of stirring beauty in winter – not to mention the fact the off-season months are a great opportunity to get the wild and wind-beaten coast all to yourself.

“But where are Britain’s best winter beaches for a wave-crashingly scenic escape?

@thedarcytwins I cannot believe this is storybook town is a real place! 😍 #robinhoodsbay #storybook #wholesome #placestovisit #thedarcytwins #countrside #yorkshire #victorian ♬ QKThr – Aphex Twin

“Turn your collars up to the wind, wrap up warm and explore silky sands, rugged coastlines, clifftop views, wildlife-rich rock pools and picturesque coastal paths.

“All with the added drama and atmospheric beauty of unpredictable weather.

“There’s also nothing like the promise of a post-walk local ale or warming hot chocolate at a cosy old pub to enhance the trip.”

Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, instructed the military on March 29 to expand its operations in southern Lebanon. It is the latest conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, in which Netanyahu has again promised to dismantle the Lebanese Shia group, and does not seem close to a conclusion.

This is not the first time Israel has invaded southern Lebanon. And people across the country are bracing themselves knowing that previous Israeli invasions have almost always resulted in longer-term occupation. Lebanese fears are worsened by the opaque situation on the ground.

Contradictory reports regularly break about the success or failure of Israeli incursions. The latest of these is a widespread but unconfirmed rumour that Israeli troops have captured the Beaufort Castle, a 12-century fortress that overlooks the Litani River.

The Litani splits Lebanon horizontally to form the country’s southernmost region, which is seen by Israeli officials as a buffer zone that can help protect it from Hezbollah attacks. More recently, however, extremist Israeli groups have begun to aspire to settle the area.

As Hezbollah fights the Israeli military in the south, a different kind of battle is taking place north of the Litani. Since the start of the war in early March, more than a million people have been forced to leave their homes. These people are mainly Shia Lebanese from the south and Beqaa Valley.

In a deeply divided society where most areas are clearly – even if unofficially – demarcated along religious lines, the influx of huge numbers of displaced Shia into traditionally Christian and Sunni areas was always bound to heighten sectarian tensions.

Reports have circulated of displaced women and children being accused of bearing loyalty to Hezbollah and turned back in some places. Many displaced men have also been judged to be Hezbollah operatives whose presence in non-Shia areas could result in targeted Israeli strikes.

The last round of conflict between Hezbollah and Israel in 2024 was met with a feeling of unity inside Lebanon. Sparked by a shocking attack in which Israel blew up communication devices used by Hezbollah operatives, killing 42 people and wounding thousands more, this conflict led to a general sense of injustice among Lebanese people.

This time, however, the war is seen by most to have been started after Hezbollah fired rockets towards Israel in retaliation for the killing of Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei. As a result, it has left many Lebanese people feeling dragged into a war they did not want.

Combined with the fact that Israel has not refrained from attacking non-Shia areas of Lebanon where it has identified targets for assassination, Christian and Sunni residents across the country have felt less ready to welcome those who have been displaced.

The government’s lack of preparation for the task of providing shelter and food for more than a million people has only aggravated the situation. While over 1,000 public schools have been converted into shelters, many displaced people are renting from private landlords. The result has been a direct integration of the displaced population into non-Shia areas.

On March 24, missile fragments that were later revealed to have originated from an intercepted Iranian missile fell over the Christian area of the coastal city of Jounieh. Within hours, a group of residents were filmed attempting to expel displaced people from their area, blaming them for what had happened.

A few days prior, a planned shelter in the Christian-dominated Karantina neighbourhood of the capital, Beirut, had to be cancelled because of a public campaign by residents who feared it would “bring strikes to the area”.

There is some evidence that Israel is using heightened sectarian tensions to provoke some kind of uprising against Hezbollah in Lebanon. Israeli warnings for residents in southern Lebanon to evacuate in early March included specific instructions to “move north toward [Sunni-dominated] Tripoli … and east toward [Christian-dominated] Mount Lebanon”.

And days later, on March 13, Israeli planes dropped leaflets over Beirut telling citizens that “Hezbollah is turning your homes into terrorist hideouts”.

Incoming political battle

Another difference to the 2024 conflict is the government in place in Lebanon. At that time, a caretaker government was in charge, while the presidential position remained vacant. In early 2025, a new president (Joseph Aoun) and prime minister (Nawaf Salam) were sworn into office and have since promised to tackle Hezbollah’s military capabilities.

Widely seen as pro-US, this government – which does include two Hezbollah ministers – has tried to take overt steps to distance itself from Hezbollah’s military operations against Israel in a clear attempt to safeguard the rest of the country.

On March 1, it became the first Lebanese government to ban Hezbollah’s military activities. And more recently it has attempted to expel the Iranian ambassador, Mohammad Reza Shibani, from the country in protest at Iran’s involvement in Lebanese politics.

The fact that Hezbollah has continued fighting Israel and the ambassador has defied the government’s orders gives a clear indication of how little power the Lebanese government holds. Still, the consequences of its declarations are felt in the country as they give anti-Hezbollah elements of society grounds to accuse the party of acting against the Lebanese state.

The last time such a direct confrontation of Hezbollah occurred within Lebanon was in 2008, when the government attempted to take down the group’s clandestine infrastructure. The result of this was violent sectarian clashes in Beirut.

Hezbollah has rejected the government’s actions. The deputy head of Hezbollah’s political council, Mahmoud Qomati, insisted on March 17 that the group is “able to upend the country … and upend the government in the face of such decisions”. He then implied a comparison between the Lebanese government and Vichy France, the collaborationist regime that governed southern France during the Nazi occupation in the second world war.

Past experience shows that there is no hope for an end to the hostilities in Lebanon so long as Hezbollah and the Lebanese government remain as diametrically opposed as they currently are. As it stands, there is no Shia representative in the proposed Lebanese delegation for ceasefire negotiations – highlighting how distant a resolution remains.

As Hezbollah continues to fight Israel in the south, the rest of Lebanon is facing the prospect of another devastating civil conflict.

After a brutal winter storm season, cities across the United States are declaring a war on potholes as local officials race to make roads safe.

The East Coast and Midwest were battered by heavy snow and sub-zero temperatures for weeks in early 2026, leaving behind tens of thousands of potholes on roads and highways.

Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott said his city is still dealing with the aftermath of “ice-mageddon”, even in early spring. The Maryland city is used to heavy snow that then rapidly melts but low temperatures in late January and February kept ice intact for weeks.

“We had below-freezing temperatures for basically a month,” Scott told The Independent. “So it wasn’t going anywhere, and it was chunks of ice.”

Scott, who has joined road crews filling potholes, is overhauling Baltimore’s resurfacing program with a new public data dashboard and changes to city contracting. He wants to fill 25,000 potholes in the next 90 days. The city tackled 134,000 potholes last year.

The work has involved breaking up ice blocks that felt like concrete, he said. The salt put down to combat icy conditions unfortunately worsened the pothole problem. Road salt lowers the freezing temperature of water which then seeps into pavement, and helps develop potholes.

“With the amount of salt that we had to put down, that’s going to create potholes,” Scott said. “Where there is salt used, there will be potholes.”

He’s just one of hundreds of city leaders facing similar challenges after this winter and who are now in the midst of “pothole blitzes.”

As of late March, New York saw a 119 percent increase in pothole complaints to the city’s 311 system compared to the same period in 2025, the largest year-over-year increase ever, according to a New York Post analysis.

In Nashua, New Hampshire, city officials warned that a “very wet winter with very low lows, and weirdly strange high temps” were creating a “perfect storm” for potholes.

Chris Leo, a resident of nearby Manchester, recently lost a tire to a massive pothole on the way home from dinner.

“Think of a black abyss, like a black hole, and then double it, is basically the deepness of these potholes,” Leo told NHPR. “It was like the Mariana Trench.”

In Connecticut, drivers reported more potholes on state roads in the first two weeks of March than in all of March 2025.

In some jurisdictions, potholes moved from a daily annoyance to an all-out crisis.

In February, Sumpter Township in the Detroit metro area declared a public safety emergency over the state of its gravel roads.

Roads in the township had become “severely washboarded, rutted and potholed, contain standing water due to drainage failures, and significant segments of road are nearly impassable,” town supervisor Timothy Bowman wrote in a public declaration.

In Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, however, it was business as usual, according to John Samuelson, director of public works.

“We’re doing OK,” he told The Independent. “I have not heard of any increase in potholes as a result of the rains this year.”

He said the city generally fills potholes within 24 hours of being notified.

To raise public awareness and focus city efforts, leaders in places like New York City and Baltimore have launched “pothole blitzes” to tackle the problem. The Big Apple has filled more than 66,000 potholes since January, according to the local Department of Transportation.

Scott, the Baltimore mayor, said he enjoys joining the pothole crews on the job himself. It reminds him of helping out at his family’s HVAC business. “I’m a hands-on guy,” he said.

When mayoral elbow grease fails, cities have also turned to special equipment to patch up the winter-weary roads.

“We’ve had hundreds and hundreds of people calling after one of the worst winters on record — and that’s why I decided to put together a massive public facilities operation to repair the potholes, using what we like to call ‘the pothole killer,’” Bridgeport, Connecticut, Mayor Joe Ganim told News 12 last month.

The pothole killer set-up includes a truck with spray injection machines and a “hot box” asphalt recycler. Residents can also report potholes via an app, he said.

The costs of all these potholes can add up. A Manchester, NH, tire shop said this week it’s fixing a record number of damaged tires and rims as a result of the potholes.

Smaller municipalities only have so much money to patch holes. The Pittsburgh-area borough of Homestead told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette it has already blown through its full supply of 2,000 pounds of cold patch asphalt.

The holes can also be a major safety issue. A 46-year-old man in Queens, New York City, was fatally thrown from a motor scooter last month in the Ozone Park neighborhood when he hit a pothole.

Getting a handle on the pothole problem isn’t easy. Rising global temperatures, stronger storms, and unusual weather patterns as result of the climate crisis are expected to worsen potholes, while cities like Baltimore face persistent funding challenges.

The city, unlike others in Maryland, is responsible for maintaining both local and state roadways in its jurisdiction. It also lost nearly $1 billion in expected state funding thanks to years of budget cuts after the 2008 recession.

“You’re talking about thousands upon thousands of lanes of road that didn’t get surfaced that would have,” Scott said.

After securing funding increases in recent years, Scott is now lobbying state lawmakers to keep such support over the long term.

Little is certain in life, but you can always count on there being more potholes to fill.