PANAMA CITY (AP) — Businesses have doled out up as much as $4 million to move boats through the Panama Canal with the Strait of Hormuz effectively closed, according to the Panama Canal Authority, in a move that has created a seismic shift in global trade flows.

While passage through the waterway usually comes at a flat rate via reservations, companies without reservations can cross by paying an additional fee in an auction for slots, which are awarded to the highest bidder rather than waiting for days off the coast of Panama City.

That price has ballooned in recent weeks as Iran and the United States have bottlenecked the key shipping route, the Strait of Hormuz, and demand for those slots has skyrocketed. Ships have increasingly traveled through the Panama Canal as shipments are rerouted and buyers purchase from other countries to avoid commerce through now-treacherous Middle Eastern waterway.

“With all the bombings, the missiles, the drones … companies are saying it’s safer and less expensive to cross through the Panama Canal,” said Rodrigo Noriega, said lawyer and analyst in Panama City. “All of this is affecting global supply chains.”

Meanwhile, Noriega said Panama’s government is “maximizing what it can earn from the Panama Canal.”

The average price to cross through the canal ranges between $300,000 and $400,000 depending on the vessel. Previously, to get an earlier crossing, businesses would pay an additional $250,000 to $300,000. In recent weeks, the average additional cost has jumped to around $425,000.

Ricaurte Vásquez, the canal’s administrator, said another company that he would not name paid an extra $4 million when its fuel vessel had to change its destination because of ongoing geopolitical tensions.

“It was a ship carrying fuel to Europe, and they redirected it to Singapore, and it needed to get there because Singapore is running out of fuel,” he said.

Other oil companies paid an excess of $3 million in addition to the crossing fee to accelerate their passage in the face of soaring oil prices.

Vásquez said that ships have not piled up at the canal, but rather the costs can be attributed to last-minute shifts and greater urgency by vessels needing to get from one point to another faster in the wake of larger trade chaos.

Vásquez emphasized that the costs were not a blanket market rate, but rather a temporary toll shouldered by companies.

“They decide how high a price to go,” Vásquez said.

At the same time it’s earning more money from the new business, Panama’s government has also been dealt a blow by the geopolitical struggle.

On Wednesday, the country’s foreign ministry accused Iran of illegally seizing a Panama-flagged vessel from the Italian company, MSC Francesca, in the Strait of Hormuz.

Panama, a country with one of the world’s largest ship registries, said the ship was “forcibly taken” by Iran. It wasn’t immediately clear if the boat remained in Iranian custody.

“This represents a serious attack on maritime security and constitute an unnecessary escalation at a time when the international community is advocating for the Strait of Hormuz to remain open to international navigation without threats or coercion of any kind,” it said.

Noriega, the analyst, said that the amount companies are paying to cross the Panama Canal may only go up if the conflict continues to stretch on, as oil prices are already skyrocketing. The price of a barrel of Brent crude oil briefly jumped above $107 this week, soaring from around $66 a barrel a year ago.

“No one really foresaw the potential effects (the war) would have on global trade,” Noriega said.

Neil Donaldson, commercial director of growers Hall Hunter, which has farms near Wokingham and Wargrave in Berkshire and Godalming in Surrey, said: “Cool nights and warm sunny days create the perfect conditions for growing sweet, full-flavoured strawberries — and that’s exactly what this weekend’s forecast is bringing.

Footage appears to show an Albanian gang clad in balaclavas filming themselves on TikTok raiding a cannabis ‘crop house’.

The chilling post shows masked men using infrared scanners on normal suburban streets to locate the heat from cannabis grow lamps. Once they have found a target, they make their way inside.

They pose for the camera with a violent trap song accompanying the footage with ‘f*** you’ written as a caption as the gang appear to rob the house.

The clip shows a bewildered-looking man in shorts and a T-shirt who apparently lives or works in the house being intimidated by the gang. The camera focuses on the raiders clutching cannabis plants.

The ‘crop houses’ are kitted out with high-tech lighting and heating to aid the growth of the plants in what can be a highly lucrative business.

The shocking footage is one of a series of videos featuring the men in what seems to be a celebration of their criminal lifestyle. The house, allegedly a ‘crop house’ in which cannabis is grown on an industrial scale, features several times on the account.

The property, which looks like an ordinary suburban house, cannot be identified.

The video is believed to have been shot in West Yorkshire, according to the online footprint of the account holder who posted the clip.

Other footage posted on the same TikTok account shows a masked member of the ‘gang’ climbing up the side of a house before clambering through an open window.

Another shows an apparent reconnaissance mission in which the gang hide and watch a crop house.

Some of the footage is tagged with Albanian flags and accompanied by slogans in Albanian.

The rap themes are charged with violence and knives are mentioned. But no weapons are featured in the clips.

In one of the films the ‘gang’ members are seen holed up in what appears to be a safe house.

The latest ‘crop house’ footage is chillingly similar to that posted by another Albanian ‘crew’ this time in east London.

In Barking, a heavily armed Albanian gang called the Hellbanianz filmed themselves brandishing weapons while flaunting cash, Rolexes while driving Ferraris.

They ran the Gascoigne estate where their ‘soldiers’ lived. Their brash online posts eventually led the police to the door and some members have been convicted.

Meanwhile the Metro exposed a criminal network operating in Southgate, north London, where people trafficking and drug deals are bringing in huge sums.

An Albanian gang with its centre of operations around Southgate station has a ‘vice-like’ grip on the area, according to local security sources.

Such is the prevalence of the crew that the area around the station is known to locals as ‘Little Tirana’ after the Albanian capital.

A source told Metro: ‘We call it little Tirana around here. The Albanian gangs have a grip on the community and there is a lot of fear about being taken out [killed]. They have taken over some of the businesses and have threatened others.

‘There have been connections with people trafficking, protection rackets and drug dealing. It’s their turf for sure and they hide in plain sight.They have taken over some of the businesses and have threatened others.

 ‘There have been connections with people trafficking, protection rackets and drug dealing. It’s their turf for sure and they hide in plain sight. We know who they are and where they operate out of. It has been reported to the police they need to get a grip of this.’

Other areas of the capital have also seen the rise of Albanian gangs.

When raiders stormed an Albanian cannabis factory to steal the product their machetes and knives proved no match for the handguns the Albanians pulled to defend their territory.

A court heard that the robbers who were trying to steal from the factory in Croydon had ‘brought knives to a gunfight’.

The Shqiptare is the term used by the National Crime Agency to describe the Albanian crime syndicates.

They sell huge amount of cocaine smuggled into into the UK via Latin America.

It is believed they run a majority of the estimated £5bn cocaine market. They are buying for up to £5,000 a kilo according to police estimates. They started selling for less profit than their rivals to corner the market.

The supply of cocaine and other drugs on an industrial scale has provided the Albanian mob with funds to almost ‘buy up’ communities.

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Taken just before 4pm on Monday, April 20, the driver stops at a red light and a pedestrian starts to cross Trinity Street.

But, moments after – a car crashes with a white Mercedes which pushes it towards the pedestrian island as a woman crossing stops and quickly rushes back across the road.

The Mercedes crashes through the pedestrian signal light and the traffic light before coming to a stop on the road located between Aldi and Bolton One.

Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service confirmed that a fire engine attended the scene shortly after the crash – which involved seven vehicles.

A spokesperson said: “Just after 4pm on Monday 20 April, one fire engine from Bolton Central attended a crash involving seven vehicles on Trinity Street, Bolton.

“Firefighters assisted North West Ambulance Service and Greater Manchester Police to help make the surrounding area safe and were in attendance for around half an hour.”

A spokesperson for Greater Manchester Police (GMP) said there were no crimes recorded and only minor injuries in the crash.

Britain should consider rejoining the European Union after none of the Leave campaign’s “heady promises” materialised, the man who led the country’s departure from the bloc has said.

Philip Rycroft, former permanent secretary at the Department for Exiting the European Union, said there needs to be a “clear-headed appraisal of what is in the country’s best interests” and that life outside the EU had not lived up to lofty expectations.

Writing in The Times, he warned the road back into the bloc would be “long and windy”, but that the “argument is there to be won”.

The unusual intervention comes after Sir Keir Starmer said the UK would not cross the “red lines” of rejoining the single market or customs union.

But the newspaper reports several senior figures in government are pressing for the policy to be reviewed ahead of the next general election.

Mr Rycroft cited figures from recent YouGov polling for the campaign group Best for Britain, which shows that 53 per cent of people are now in favour of rejoining the EU, while 32 per cent are opposed and 14 per cent don’t know.

“Most economic analysis suggests that we have taken a significant hit to GDP as a result of leaving the single market,” he added.

“The precise number, and the impact on our export performance to the EU and beyond, might be subject to debate, but no one can credibly claim that we have marched to the sunny uplands of sustained economic growth as a consequence of Brexit.”

He said it was “not hard to see” why people may be “falling out of love” with Brexit.

“We are seemingly no nearer achieving an immigration policy that commands general consent,” he continued, in reference to the Leave campaign’s promise that leaving the bloc would allow the UK to take back control of its borders.

Last month, European affairs minister Nick Thomas-Symonds told The Independent “there is no appetite” to return to the debates of the past over EU membership.

While he insists that the government wants to develop closer ties with the EU, particularly as the world becomes a more dangerous place, Mr Thomas-Symonds ruled out any sort of deal that would lead to the UK and the EU entering a customs union.

He said that even a bespoke version, like the agreements the bloc has with countries like Turkey and Norway, is off the cards.

The Coronation Street icon has been undergoing treatment for cancer while being seen leaving the ITV show on medical grounds

Beverley Callard has told fans she has been forced to miss the I’m A Celebrity… South Africa final on medical advice after being diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer.

Ahead of Tuesday’s (April 21) episode of the I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here spin-off, it was confirmed that a campmate had to leave the South African savanna unexpectedly on medical grounds before it was revealed that former Coronation Street star Beverley Callard was the one who informed her campmates that she was unable to stay in the competition.

She was seen gathering her fellow campmates, Beverley was seen telling them on the ITV show: “I didn’t feel very well this morning… and the medics have advised I can’t return to camp. I’ve got to go home.” With tears in her eyes she added: “I don’t want to go. I’m absolutely gutted. I wanted to finish.”

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Following the episode, Beverley, who is famed for playing Liz McDonald in ITV’s Corrie, and first took part in I’m A Celeb back in 2020 when the programme was relocated to a Welsh castle, took to Instagram to share a video message with her followers. In it, she said: “Well, I’ve just watched by exit on I’m A Celeb and it made me cry all over again. Of course, I didn’t know then that I had cancer but I just knew that it was the last couple of days there that I hadn’t felt very well.

“What happened was, I went into the Bush Telegraph and apparently, I lost consciousness for a little while. I just wasn’t feeling myself. They took me to a medical hut and they were amazing; they really looked after me and they said you can’t go back.” She added: “And I said ‘don’t say that, don’t send me home, I’ll be fine. I wanted to succeed and make it through to the end but that was the start of everything. It’s made me really emotional but I will beat this. I will beat it.”

Beverley, who publicly shared her breast cancer diagnosis in February, also captioned the post: “That was such an emotional watch… especially knowing what I know now. I wanted to prove that age is just a number and I feel so proud of what I achieved. Just got to get through this real life trial now #imaceleb.”

Now, Beverley has confirmed that she is no longer able to attend the show’s live final on Friday (April 24) after doctors had confirmed it was unsafe for her to fly from her base in Ireland to London for the programme. Sharing the news in an Instagram video, the soap star said: “Yesterday, I should have flown to England to get ready for the I’m A Celeb final.

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“I was so excited and looking forward too it but on medical advice, I can’t go, I am gutted. I was dying to see them all and it would have been brilliant. I can’t go and yesterday, the flights were booked and everything but no, they said, it is basically too long a day with flying there and then a very late night [with filming]. I will be watching.”

While not able to attend in person, she added: “I will be on Zoom chatting to everyone. So I’ve got to make the best of a bad job but I am resting and I am doing as I am told. Thanks to everybody.”

Mohammad Shethwala and his wife Sadikabanu Tapeliwala were a young couple with a dream, selling everything they had and borrowing money off neighbours to fund a move from India to Britain, where she had been admitted for a Masters at Ulster University’s London campus.

She graduated in 2023, the same year they had their first child Fatima, and both husband and wife found enough work to slowly build a life together, even sending small amounts back home to support the family and friends who had believed in them.

On 12 June last year, in a matter of seconds, their bright future disappeared in a fiery crash next to an airport in western India. Tapeliwala and two-year-old Fatima were on board Air India Flight 171, which came down shortly after take-off from Ahmedabad, killing 260 people including all but one of those on board.

Shethwala, who was back in London at the time, was devastated. Now, 10 months on, he is faced with another loss: the prospect of being forced to leave the UK, the country where he says every memory of his young family was made.

“I have already lost them,” the 28-year-old tells The Independent in an interview. “I want to hold on to the dream at least and fulfil it, to honour the memories I have.”

When Tapeliwala was granted her student visa in 2022, Shethwala joined her in Britain as a dependant. Their route to the UK, he says, was financed not by wealth but by sacrifice.

“We did not have money at the time to afford education in the UK,” he says. “People in our neighbourhood lent some money. Both our mothers also sold their jewellery, their life savings, to send us abroad.”

His father ran a small shop in India, earning no more than Rs 10,000 ( £78) to Rs 15,000 (£118) a month. Tapeliwala’s father sold goods door-to-door by bicycle.

Once in Britain, the couple worked relentlessly. His wife’s student visa limited her hours, Shethwala says, so he took multiple jobs, including delivery work. They spent their first year paying back the debt to those neighbours and friends. “After that, we were able to support both families,” he says.

At first, they had not planned to settle permanently. But Britain began to look less like a stopgap and more like a home.

“When we spent some time here, we decided it would be wise to settle here,” he said. “Our family background in India was not strong. But since moving here, we were able to support both her family and mine. We would not have managed it in India.”

By spring 2025, the family’s plans appeared to be falling into place. According to Shethwala, his wife had secured work connected to her studies and was preparing to switch into the Skilled Worker visa route after probation. The move would have given the family a more secure footing.

Then came a family wedding in India. Because both adults were working, they had hoped to travel together, he says, but could not get leave at the same time. He stayed behind. His wife and daughter went ahead.

On the morning Tapeliwala and Fatima were due to return to Britain, he says he called them to check in.

“She was at the airport,” he says. “My family were urging that I leave my daughter behind with them [in India]. My wife asked me if I should. But I was hesitant. My daughter was already away from me for a month.”

Fatima, he recalled, was crying at the airport. His wife said she had to go, to complete their check-in, and that she would call again once she was seated on the plane.

“That call never came,” he says.

Later that day, as he prepared to collect them from the airport, messages began arriving about a crash. He phoned the friend who had booked the tickets. Then came confirmation from multiple sources: it was the same flight.

“I was speechless,” he said. “I could not grapple with what was happening.”

Flight 171, a Boeing 787-8 travelling from Ahmedabad to London Gatwick, crashed shortly after take-off and struck a medical college building on the ground. Alongside 241 passengers and crew, 19 people were killed on the ground.

Shethwala booked the first available flight to India, and until he reached there relatives tried to shield him from the worst news, insisting his wife and daughter were safe and in hospital.

When he arrived in Ahmedabad and went to the civil hospital, staff asked for a blood sample.

“I assumed, if they are taking my blood sample, it is to identify the body,” he says.

Doctors informed him there had been only one survivor.

A friend who had travelled with him then admitted the truth. “We did not tell you,” Shethwala recalled being told, “because we wanted you to reach India safely.”

His daughter’s remains were handed over to the family on 17 June. His wife’s followed later, on 21 June.

“It was given in a coffin,” he says. “I did not open the coffin before cremation.”

For days, he said, he could not accept what had happened.

“It was like a nightmare and that at any moment, I will wake up and find them both right in front of me.”

Then, as he describes it, another blow followed the first.

“The moment I managed to stabilise, the visa issue came like a dagger,” he said.

Because his immigration status depended on his wife’s visa route, her death left his own future uncertain. According to Shethwala, had she lived, the family expected to move onto a Skilled Worker visa. He says he still has her job offer letter.

“If my wife were alive, we would have had the skilled worker visa,” he said. “Things would have been different.”

He later applied for Further Leave to Remain on compassionate grounds, arguing that his circumstances were exceptional. A psychiatric report detailing his mental health was submitted with the application, he says.

But on 9 April, around nine months after the crash, he received notice that his application had been refused. He says he was then granted temporary immigration bail while expected to leave the country.

“I was not given an opportunity to even appeal,” he says.

The Home Office has not publicly commented on the individual case, and did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Independent.

In reported correspondence, officials are said to have maintained that Shethwala’s circumstances did not meet the threshold for exceptional leave to remain in Britain and that support, including mental healthcare and family connections, would be available in India.

As Shethwala describes spending sleepless nights in a flat once filled with nursery rhymes, he is speaking to lawyers about whether he has any recourse to appeal.

“We believe this is a genuine humanitarian case and request fair and kind consideration,” says Ayush S Rajpal, case manager at Chionuma Law.

“Our client has lived in the UK for four years and built his life there with his wife,” he tells The Independent. “He is working and settled, and it would be very difficult for him to find similar work in India. After losing his wife, he is facing financial and emotional difficulties and is under psychiatric care. In these circumstances, we kindly request that he be allowed to remain in the UK on compassionate grounds.”

Shethwala says returning to India would not bring peace.

“My relatives kept saying, ‘What will you do in London? Just return,’” he says. “But to leave the country for me is to also leave those memories bound to this place.”

He says he is not trying to exploit a loophole or rewrite the rules. He says he simply wants time: time to work, time to recover, time to remain in the place where the future he and his wife imagined briefly felt possible.

Four teenage boys have been arrested on suspicion of murder after a 44-year-old was killed in a crash – this is a breaking story

Four teenage boys have been arrested on suspicion of murder after a 44-year-old was killed in a crash near a pub.

Emergency services were called to Accrington, Lancashire, on Wednesday evening after reports that a man had been struck by a car. The victim, named as Matthew Weller, was found with serious injuries near the Nag’s Head pub, at the junction of Blackburn Road and Birch Street, Lancashire Police said. He was rushed to hospital, where he was pronounced dead a short time later.

The force said a VW Passat car failed to stop at the scene and was later found abandoned in Barden Road. Following enquiries, detectives arrested three 17-year-old boys from Accrington and one 18-year-old man from Blackburn on suspicion of murder.

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The Boys star Erin Moriarty said she hurt herself several times while filming the latest season as the shoot coincided with her Graves’ disease symptoms peaking.

Moriarty, who plays Annie January aka Starlight in the Prime Video series, shared the details on her social media shortly after the release of the fourth episode of the fifth and final season.

“Okay, so: season 5, episode 4 of The Boys is one of the most important episodes I’ve ever shot,” she wrote on Instagram, over a picture of her bandaged leg.

“Unfortunately, that part of the season coincided with my health issues peaking before my diagnosis. I am saving you the gnarly part of this picture but not long after this episode, I started to lose the ability to walk.”

“The numbness in my feet led to a lot of falling,” she continued. “The night before we shot my segment of this episode, I fell and shredded up my knee.”

The actor revealed her Graves’ disease diagnosis in June last year, saying it had left her nauseous and exhausted. “One thing I can say: if I hadn’t chalked it all up to stress and fatigue, I would’ve caught this sooner,” she said at the time, adding that she felt her strength increasing within 24 hours of beginning treatment.

Graves’ disease is a form of hyperthyroidism. It is caused when the body’s immune system produces antibodies that disrupt the thyroid gland to make excessive thyroid hormone.

According to the NHS, symptoms may include a fast heart rate or palpitations, tremors, diarrhoea, difficulty sleeping, weight loss, irregular periods, and feeling hot, hungry, or anxious.

Some patients may experience neck swelling or bulging eyes, known as Graves’ ophthalmopathy.

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On Thursday, Moriarty said her injury and the worsening symptoms affected her ability to fully enjoy the production.

“I barely have any [behind-the-scenes] shots of this season, especially as things worsened,” she said.

“This isn’t a pity post. It’s mostly to say: f*** autoimmune disease. F*** it so hard. F*** the ignorance surrounding it, too. I can’t remedy that ignorance but not being outspoken about it occasionally feels wrong.”

The Boys, which debuted in 2019, explores what happens when superheroes become as popular as celebrities, as influential as politicians, and as revered as gods – and abuse their superpowers rather than use them for good.

The series also stars Karl Urban as Billy Butcher, Jack Quaid as Hughie Campbell and Antony Starr as Homelander, alongside Jessie T Usher, Laz Alonso, Chace Crawford, Tomer Capone, and Karen Fukuhara.

Moriarty shared a tearful picture of herself after wrapping up her final scenes last July. Her post came after she was forced to take an “extensive if not permanent” social media break following harassment over “reductive assumptions” about her appearance.

It comes amid strains in relations between the two countries

The UK was back on Donald Trump’s mind as he threatened ‘a big tariff’ in retaliation to a digital services tax introduced by Westminster six years ago. The tax, which has been enforced since 2020, imposes a two per cent levy on the revenues of several major US tech companies – including social media firms.

But amid strains in relations between the two countries during the Middle East war, Mr Trump raised the issue with journalists at the Oval Office on Thursday (April 23). He told reporters: “We’ve been looking at it and we can meet that very easily by just putting a big tariff on the UK, so they better be careful. If they don’t drop the tax, we’ll probably put a big tariff on the UK.”

The tax targets companies whose worldwide revenues from digital activities exceed £500 million, with more than £25 million of the revenue from UK users. According to a 2025 Treasury review, the levy raised more than £800 million in 2024–25, up from £678 million in 2023–24.

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Mr Trump argued the laws, which have long been a source of tension in UK-US relations, targeted ‘top companies in the world’. “The UK did it, a couple of other people did it,” he said. “They think they’re going to make an easy buck, that’s why they’ve all taken advantage of our country.”

The digital services tax went unchanged under the UK–US trade deal agreed in May 2025, despite being a point of discussion. Asked how high the tariff would be, the president said it would be ‘more than what they’re getting’ from the levy.

“What we’ll do is we’ll reciprocate by putting something on that’s equal or greater than what they’re doing,” he said. The latest remarks add to wider strains in UK-US relations, which have deteriorated after Sir Keir Starmer ruled out British involvement in the conflict in the Middle East.

Mr Trump’s comments on tariffs come months after similar US threats to impose new tariffs and export controls on countries with digital taxes or regulations affecting American tech giants. A number of European countries, like France, Italy and Spain, have a digital services tax.

In a post on Truth Social from August 2025, Mr Trump said he would ‘stand up to countries that attack our incredible American Tech Companies’. “Digital Taxes, Digital Services Legislation, and Digital Markets Regulations are all designed to harm, or discriminate against, American Technology,” he wrote.

“This must end,” he said and vowed that ‘unless these discriminatory actions are removed’, he would ‘impose substantial additional tariffs’ on the offending nation’s exports to the US. Press Association approached Downing Street for comment.

Earlier this month, Mr Trump suggested the terms of the UK-US trade agreement brokered last year ‘can always be changed’ in an interview with Sky News. Speaking at Prime Minister’s Questions in the House of Commons, Sir Keir addressed pressure from the US over the Iran war.

He told MPs: “My position on the Iran war has been clear from the start. We’re not going to get dragged into this war. It is not our war.

“A lot of pressure has been applied to me to take a different course, and that pressure included what happened last night. I’m not going to change my mind. I’m not going to yield. It is not in our national interest to join this war, and we will not do so. I know where I stand.”

Aim at Prince Harry and rules out nuclear attack on Iran

Mr Trump also took aim at Prince Harry speaking to journalists in the Oval Office.

Asked about Harry’s comments calling on him to do more to bring the war to an end, Trump initially said: “How’s he doing? How’s his wife? Please give her my regards, OK?”

He went on: “I don’t know. I know one thing, Prince Harry is not speaking for the UK, that’s for sure. I think I’m speaking for the UK more than Prince Harry, that’s for sure. But thank him for his advice.”

Meanwhile, Nigel Farage has admitted he is ‘starting to worry slightly’ about Mr Trump’s judgement amid the war in Iran. Admitting his ‘friend’ might not be ‘everyone’s cup of tea’, the Reform leader told the Mail: “I do, as a friend, worry slightly about his judgment on this, yes. I do. It will be a terribly sad end to an amazing political career if the man that was always anti-war in the end gets (brought) down by this – I struggle to understand it.”

On Thursday, Trump ruled out using nuclear weapons in Iran, saying the mere question was “stupid”.

Asked by a female reporter whether he would consider it, Trump reacted angrily, barking: “No. Why would I need it? Why would a stupid question like that be asked? Why would I use a nuclear weapon when I’ve totally and in a very conventional way decimated them without it. No I wouldn’t use it. A nuclear weapon should never be allowed to be used by anyone.