At around 10.30am, damage to the overhead electric wires between Bolton and Preston was reported, with trains instantly cancelled throughout the morning and afternoon.

The route, via Chorley, was shut in both directions, leaving many passengers facing major disruption to their Easter Sunday travel plans.

Replacement bus services between Bolton and Preston were organised for affected passengers, with the cancellations affecting trains moving between Blackpool North station and Manchester Airport.

The train line faced further disruption in the afternoon when an object was caught in the overhead wires between Blackpool North and Preston, leading to more cancellations.

The incidents were part of many across the UK’s railway network which took place in the wake of Storm Dave making landfall overnight.

At 13:24:59 Central Standard Time on December 19 1972, the Apollo 17 command module splashed down in the Pacific Ocean, about 350 nautical miles south-east of Samoa, concluding the last mission to the Moon.

During his career, Apollo 17’s commander, Eugene A. Cernan, logged 566 hours and 15 minutes in space, of which more than 73 hours were spent on the surface of the Moon. Cernan was the second American to have walked in space, and the last person to leave his footprints on the surface of the Moon.

The conclusion of the Apollo 17 journey marked not only the end of a mission, but the close of an era. Between 1969 and 1972, 12 astronauts walked on the Moon over the course of six separate landings.

Half a century later, Nasa is preparing to return under its Artemis programme. For the Artemis II mission, set to launch on April 1 2026, four astronauts will travel in a loop around the Moon in Nasa’s next-generation Orion crew capsule.

More than 50 years is a long gap, and it is only natural to ask if Americans could reach the Moon routinely in the early 1970s, why did it take so long for them to try to go back?

The answer is not simple. It has little to do with technology and much more with how politics, money and global support work. The place to start is with Apollo itself: its model of exploration was not built to last, and was clearly not sustainable.

On May 25 1961, before a joint session of Congress, President John F. Kennedy committed the US to the goal, before the decade was out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth.

After Kennedy’s assassination in 1963, President Lyndon B. Johnson ensured that this Moon landing goal was met. But rising costs from the Vietnam war and domestic reforms reduced his appetite for further space investment.

In fact, Nasa’s budget peaked in 1966 and began falling even before Apollo’s success, undermining prospects for sustained exploration. Further funding was declined, planned missions were cancelled, and Apollo ended in 1972 – not because it failed, but because it had accomplished its task.

Sustainable exploration (in space as on Earth) requires stable political commitment, predictable funding, and a clear long-term purpose. After Apollo, the US struggled to maintain all three at once.

Policymakers began to ask what direction Nasa should take next. In 1972, President Richard Nixon directed the space agency to begin building the space shuttle. It would lead Nasa to shift its focus away from deep space exploration towards operations in low-Earth orbit.

Marketed as a reusable “space truck”, the space shuttle was intended to make orbital access routine and affordable. However, it would turn out to be a vehicle of incredible complexity, marred by technical failures and human tragedies – the Challenger and Columbia accidents in which 14 astronauts’ lives were lost.

Eight years into the shuttle programme, some in the space community believed it was time for the US to once again set its sights on the Moon – and the tantalising prospect of a landing on Mars. On July 20 1989, the 20th anniversary of Apollo 11’s first Moon landing, President George H.W. Bush announced the Space Exploration Initiative (SEI).

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Why is the US going back round the Moon with Artemis II? A space policy expert explains

The plan aimed for a long-term commitment to construct Space Station Freedom, return astronauts to the Moon “to stay”, and finally send humans to the red planet.

However, the high estimated costs of SEI, reaching hundreds of billions of dollars, led to its downfall. Weak support in Congress along with other factors led to its cancellation under Bill Clinton’s presidential administration.

During the 1990s, the International Space Station (ISS) project cemented low-Earth orbit as the priority for human exploration. The space shuttle was the US’s means of building the station and transporting crews to and from the orbiting outpost.

The ISS became a symbol of scientific cooperation and technical prowess. Experiments carried out on the station generated valuable insights into everything from medical research to materials science. However, it also soaked up resources that might otherwise have supported deep-space exploration.

The Columbia disaster in 2003 – in which a space shuttle broke up over Texas with the loss of its crew – led to another rethink of America’s direction in space. As a result, President George W. Bush announced the Vision for Space Exploration.

The aim of this proposal, which would give rise to what was known as the Constellation programme, was to rebuild Nasa’s capability for reaching the Moon, with Mars as its longer-term goal. But independent reviews warned that costs and schedules were unrealistic. Congress never really gave full financial support to Constellation, leading to its cancellation in 2010 during Barack Obama’s presidency.

This repeated cycle of cancelled space projects exposes some inherent limitations to the system for funding lunar exploration. A sustainable Moon programme needs strong multi-sector commitment, and mechanisms in place for guaranteed multi-decade funding.

But such large programmes must compete each year with defence, healthcare and social spending. Electoral turnover and shifting committee leadership in the US further weaken the prospect of continuity.

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Lunar exploration has also suffered from an unresolved strategic question: why go back at all? Apollo’s purpose was largely geopolitical, and after the cold war no equally compelling justification really emerged.

Scientific returns from human space missions are limited compared with robotic exploration. Commercial prospects remain uncertain, and prestige alone rarely sustains or secures large budgets.

Maybe a more fitting question is: why does Artemis appear to have escaped the pattern? Well, Nasa argues that sending astronauts back to the lunar surface – and in particular, establishing a sustained presence there – will help researchers learn “how to live and work on another world as we prepare for human missions to Mars”. That is true, up to a point.

Nasa also emphasises that Artemis will be built through commercial partnerships and international cooperation, creating the first long-term human foothold on the Moon.

The programme seems to sit at a carefully crafted intersection of US government leadership, commercial launch capabilities, and a broad coalition of international partners brought together under the Artemis Accords. The accords are a set of common principles regarding the use of the Moon and other targets in outer space, agreed between the US and other countries.

The main difference from previous promises to return to the Moon is that this, at least in theory, spreads risk and widens the base of political support. In practice, though, Artemis remains costly and exposed to shifting budgets and priorities.

There is also a cultural dimension to this question. Apollo created a powerful – albeit fragile – myth of swift, heroic technological advance. Artemis is building its large technological base in societies and democratic contexts where investments and commitments tend to evolve slowly, shaped by negotiation, compromise and
competing interests.

If Artemis succeeds, it will be because all the political, economic, societal and scientific incentives have finally aligned in a durable way. But until that alignment is proven, the 50-year gap between Apollo and Artemis is less an engineering puzzle than a reminder of how difficult sustained exploration is for modern democracies.

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President Donald Trump began his Easter Sunday with another blustery warning to Iran and claimed that U.S. forces would begin a series of strikes against Iranian civilian infrastructure targets in two days.

The U.S. president wrote early Sunday morning on Truth Social that Tuesday would be “Power Plant Day” and “Bridge Day” for American forces selecting targets in the region, adding: “Open the F***in’ Strait, you crazy b*****ds, or you’ll be living in Hell.”

“Praise be to Allah,” Trump concluded his Easter Morning statement to Americans.

U.S. forces continue to conduct strikes within Iranian airspace as the president has vowed to unleash a more devastating salvo of attacks if the key waterway which serves as a crucial passage for a large fraction of the world’s oil traffic is not opened up by Iranian forces. The closure of the Strait of Hormuz has caused global oil prices to spike past $100 per barrel.

There’s little sign that Trump’s threats have been effective, however, and Iranian officials maintain that peace talks are not happening in any meaningful sense. The issue has angered the president, who has spent the past week making sequentially angrier and more severe threats to Iran’s military and civilian population. Like other messages Trump has sent recently, Sunday’s indication that Trump is considering targeting Iranian civilian infrastructure is a suggestion that the U.S. military could violate international law by expanding to include non-military targets.

On Saturday, he wrote that he’d “reign down hell” on Iran if the Strait wasn’t opened, his latest messaging flub as the White House and broader administration hope to sell the president’s expanding war to a skeptical American public and Congress, where the Pentagon is asking for billions to fund the war effort.

Trump and his allies continue to insist through all of this bluster that the war is actually won already, and that Iran’s military might has been devastated.

“Never in the history of warfare has an enemy suffered such clear and devastating, large-scale losses in a matter of weeks,” Trump told Americans during a primetime address last week, before claiming that the U.S. was “winning and now winning bigger than ever before”. That address ripped largely from his Truth Social posts.

Even so, the downing of a second American fighter jet and the continued inability of the U.S. to say it has reached its military objectives — either pertaining to the Strait of Hormuz, Iran’s ballistic missiles, or other factors — cheapens that view.

A U.S. airman was rescued from Iranian territory late on Saturday after being shot down in an F-15 days earlier, with Trump making that announcement shortly after midnight Sunday morning. The crew member had been missing since Friday.

The Strait’s closure has become a central point of the war as the president’s critics question why the administration did not plan for Iranian forces mining the area and shutting down sea traffic indefinitely. With the war now in its second month, U.S. predictions of a timeline for ending the conflict seem inaccurate and Trump’s own angry messages suggest that the White House is largely out of ideas to that effect.

The president separately claimed on Saturday that another U.S. strike had killed a number of senior Iranian military commanders. And in an interview Sunday with Fox’s Trey Yingst, he simultaneously claimed that Iran was on the verge of surrender and would accept a deal with his administration “by tomorrow.”

On NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday, Sen. Tim Kaine reacted to the president’s threat and called it “juvenile.”

“I hope the White House – I doubt the president will – but please dial back the rhetoric, because you don’t need to put people like these pilots more at risk,” said the Democratic senator from Virginia. He added that he didn’t believe the threat, or others to bomb Iran “back to the Stone Age” were effective, labeling them embarrassing.

“It’s people trying to act like they are puffed up and tough when what we really see from this administration is the absence of a plan, the absence of a clear rationale, no effort to get our allies onboard, and thus deep unpopularity of this war with the American public,” Kaine added.

Anna spends most of her workday typing on her laptop. After a few hours, she starts rubbing her wrists as her pain sets in. A glance at her desk reveals the painkillers that she uses to ease her discomfort. And for John, his neck pain sets in every time he listens to the news about a potential economic crisis and his stress levels start to rise.

These experiences of pain are not unique. Nearly 35% of people worldwide experience pain every day, and in the UK alone, almost 20 million people live with it.

Pain used to be thought of purely as a symptom of a physical problem: you break a leg, experience pain, see a doctor and the injury is treated. However, research has shown that pain can arise not only from physical injuries but also from emotional or psychological circumstances. This suggests that people can experience pain even in the absence of a physical injury.

In light of this understanding, other research conceptualised pain as something that can be related to a person’s socioeconomic situation, their thoughts and their behaviour. This perspective suggests that pain does not simply originate and stay in the body but influences and is influenced by other aspects of people’s lives.

For example, one study I was involved in found that people living in countries with higher unemployment rates reported greater levels of pain than those in countries where there was less joblessness. This was true regardless of an individual’s own employment status. It indicates that pain can be shaped not only by someone’s circumstances but also by broader social and economic environments.

One possible explanation is that being surrounded by higher levels of unemployment triggers feelings of financial and job insecurity, which in turn can exacerbate pain. This is consistent with evidence suggesting that stress can contribute to inflammation, and increase physical pain.

And of course, pain has significant consequences in the workplace. For instance, in the UK, musculoskeletal conditions such as arthritis and back pain account for around 30 million lost working days each year.

This not only undermines the productivity of organisations, but it also affects key aspects of workers’ wellbeing. On the one hand, time lost from work can erode the sense of dignity and purpose that having a job provides, for example by limiting time spent on meaningful activities or building social relationships.

On the other, people’s capacity to earn a living may be reduced, especially in jobs where income is directly tied to the time they spend working – freelance workers, for example.

A different way of thinking about pain

More broadly, this all contributes to research into the measures used to assess how citizens in a country are feeling.

For a long time, governments have been using pure economic indicators, such as national income represented by GDP per capita to assess how well their citizens were doing. But these indicators fail to capture aspects that are key for wellbeing, including things like income inequality or air pollution.

As a result, researchers have suggested alternative metrics that can provide a more accurate picture of wellbeing. These include happiness and life satisfaction, which are typically assessed by asking people to report on these aspects of their experience.

But another strong metric that could be used to enhance this picture is pain. After all, pain can capture dimensions of the human experience that are not fully addressed by traditional economic indicators or by proposed wellbeing measures.

For instance, although measuring life satisfaction or emotions like sadness and anger can provide insights into how citizens are feeling, assessing them often requires complex evaluation and reflection.

In contrast, pain can be seen as a more direct and reliable indicator, as it is experienced in the body and does not require the same level of cognitive processing. One way to measure pain is to ask people to rate their pain from zero (meaning no pain) to ten (meaning the worst pain they can imagine).

Since everyone has felt pain at some point in their lives, this technique makes measuring it straightforward and the results relatively trustworthy.

What’s more, pain may be less susceptible to the stigma that can make people reluctant to report supposedly negative emotions like sadness or anger in certain settings or cultures.

This shows that pain may be much more than just a personal problem; it affects several domains including work and relationships. Unlike abstract numbers such as GDP or survey data, pain is something felt in the body. This can make it a powerful signal of wellbeing.

Paying attention to pain can help governments and workplaces understand what really matters for people’s quality of life – and why supporting those in pain isn’t just a health issue, but a matter of social and economic importance.

A common mistake could be making your clothes smell bad even after washing them

Washing clothes should bring a new lease of life into them and refresh any bad smells. However, sometimes when coming out of the washing machine items can smell worse than when they went in.

Clothes, sheets and towels can pick up a stale smell, despite being thoroughly washed. It can become a very frustrating issue, but thankfully there is a simple fix.

Cleaning expert Lynsey Crombie says the “nasty” smell can actually come from a common mistake people make while doing the laundry. When washing clothes, many of us reach for bottles of fabric detergent and fabric softener.

They come in a wide range of pleasant smells, which sometimes appears to vanish once the items come out of the wash. Lynsey, who shares tips and tricks on her Queen of Clean account, said: “Ever wondered why your clothes still smell even after washing?

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“The answer could be too much fabric softener.” Lynsey explained that using too much of the cleaning product can actually make items “smell stale and nasty”.

She added: “Excess fabric conditioner creates build-up instead of freshening clothes. Less is more, avoid overuse for the best results.”

Lynsey’s followers have already listened to her advice as one said: “I used to use too much now I don’t anymore.” Another added: “Don’t know that thanks for the info.” Someone else commented: “You are absolutely right!”

Other cleaning experts have also shared their concerns about using too much fabric softener. Ann Russell, who goes by @annrussell03 on TikTok, responded to another user’s video warning that fabric softener can make your clothes ‘more flammable’.

She replied: “That is why I do not recommend using fabric softener for applications which it wasn’t intended for like spraying your upholstery to make it smell good, which people do.”

Ann explained that she’s not a great fan of the product even when it is used for its intended purpose. She added: “I’m not a fan of fabric softener in general anyway. I’m not saying I never use it because I do. I use it very, very rarely.

“Three reasons, if you over use it, it can make your clothes smell. They come out and they smell of fabric softener.

“You put them away and you open the drawer and two days later it smells sour – that’s fabric softener. It builds up on clothes and when you’ve got it your clothes feel floppy, heavy, and greasy.”

Ann said: “If you use it generously in every wash you will find that your clothes get dirtier quickly, it smells funky and sour, and you can end up with weird patches on your clothes when you get them out of the machine.”

Two more teenagers have been arrested on suspicion of murder after a 14-year-old schoolboy was shot dead in south London.

Eghosa Ogbebor died on Thursday afternoon, sparking a major murder investigation, which was followed by three arrests the following day – two boys aged 14 and 16 and an 18-year-old man.

Now two further people, a 16-year-old boy and a 19-year-old man, have been arrested and are in custody, the Metropolitan Police said on Saturday.

Eghosa has been named in tributes as a Drill rapper using the name Y.Risky.

The teenager is thought to have recorded a song at school in the days before he was shot dead.

Police were called at about 3.40pm on Thursday after reports of a shooting on a residential street close to Woolwich Dockyard train station.

Paramedics found Eghosa with fatal injuries and he was pronounced dead at the scene.

His family are aware and are being supported by specialist officers, the force said.

A 46-year-old man was also arrested on suspicion of assisting an offender and remained in custody.

DCI Lucie Card, whose team is leading the investigation, said: ‘Our team of dedicated detectives are continuing enquiries to investigate Eghosa’s tragic death.

‘Residents in Woolwich may have noticed a large amount of police activity last night, as officers arrested three further people in connection with the investigation.

‘We appreciate the concern that Eghosa’s death has caused, particularly among the local community who will continue to see an increased police presence around the area.

‘There may be people who have heard information or witnessed suspicious activity in the area but not yet contacted police. We urge these people to contact us and assist with the investigation.

‘We will continue to support and update Eghosa’s family as the investigation continues and our thoughts remain with them at this incredibly difficult time.’

Pictures captured on Thursday showed that flowers were laid on the road in tribute to Eghosa, which Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, called ‘appalling’.

Khan said: ‘My thoughts are with the family, friends and wider community in Woolwich following the appalling fatal shooting of 14-year-old boy. There is absolutely no place for this heartbreaking violence.’

It was the second fatal shooting in London in less than a week after Nahom Medhanie, 26, was shot dead while sitting in a car near Euston station during the evening on the previous Saturday.

Matthew Pennycook, the MP for Greenwich and Woolwich, said the killing ‘sees the promise of another life senselessly extinguished. It leaves yet another family grief-stricken and a community further traumatised.

‘We cannot allow serious youth violence to be normalised.’

Anyone with information or footage has been asked to call police on 101.

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The crime thriller is said to be perfect for fans of Halen Coben adaptations

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A crime drama boasting a perfect 100% rating has just been made available to stream on ITVX and is said to be ideal for fans of Harlan Coben adaptations.

All episodes of The Devil’s Hour are now accessible at no extra cost on the broadcaster’s own platform. Its first season originally aired back in 2022, with the second season following in 2024. A third season is reportedly in the pipeline.

Initially the series was exclusively available via Prime Video, but it is now streaming for free, without the need for a premium subscription. This means even greater numbers of viewers will be able to discover the title.

According to its plot synopsis, The Devil’s Hour follows Lucy Chambers, a social worker grappling with family and relationship troubles. She wakes every night at exactly 3:33 AM at the so-called devil’s hour.

That’s not all, as she is also attempting to cope with other inexplicable occurrences. Her eight year old son is withdrawn and appears utterly emotionless, claiming to see people that others cannot, reports the Mirror.

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Her mother speaks to empty chairs, also insisting she can see people that others do not. Lucy’s house is haunted by the echoes of a life that is not her own. Her name is inexplicably linked to a series of brutal murders in the area, and she finds herself drawn into the hunt for a serial killer.

Without giving anything away, the second season’s plot delivers even more twists and turns. It functions as both a prequel and a sequel, shedding some light on the background of a character portrayed by Doctor Who’s Peter Capaldi.

He portrays a mysterious and reclusive nomad, driven by a murderous obsession, who becomes the prime target of a police manhunt headed by compassionate detective Ravi Dhillon, portrayed by Nikesh Patel. The cast also features Call the Midwife actress Jessica Raine as Lucy, Ted Lasso star Phil Dunster and The Split’s Meera Syal.

The debut season achieved the rare distinction of securing a perfect 100% rating on the website Rotten Tomatoes. Good Housekeeping claims: “If you’re a Harlan Coben fan, you’ll enjoy the genuine unpredictability of it, the endless twists and turns and the many, many surprises within the series.”

Viewers have also heaped praise upon it since its initial release. It’s been described as ‘an absorbing mind bender’, “the most chilling show ever” and one viewer confessed they “binged this in two days, couldn’t stop watching.”

Meanwhile someone else stated: “The Devil’s Hour is absolutely gripping from start to finish. The eerie atmosphere and mind-bending mystery kept me hooked the whole way through. The writing was clever and darkly compelling, and the performances, especially the lead, were outstanding. It balanced horror and psychological thriller perfectly – a must-watch for anyone who loves intense, unpredictable stories.”

If that’s not enough to persuade you to give it a go, one viewer remarked: “This series is probably the best ever made, and is criminally underrated. The show deserves all of the flowers. In order to properly enjoy this series, payment is requested in the form of giving yourself over to confusion, and not getting too distracted.”

The Devil’s Hour is streaming on ITVX and Prime Video.

Footage has emerged of Jonathan Majors and another actor unintentionally falling through a window on the set of his comeback movie amid reports that some members of the film crew have since walked out, citing safety concerns.

It was reported earlier this year that Majors is starring in an as-yet-untitled action movie produced by right-wing media company The Daily Wire, co-created by conservative commentator Ben Shapiro.

The film will mark the 36-year-old former Marvel actor’s first on-screen role since being convicted in 2023 of assaulting his ex-girlfriend, Grace Jabbari.

In footage obtained by Deadline, Majors and fellow actor JC Kilcoyne can be seen jumping backwards into an unsupported window, which gives way. According to reports, the two men fell about six feet to the ground, and Kilcoyne required stitches in his hands.

In the clip, a voice that sounds like Majors asks if the production was rolling and suggests they keep the footage, saying: “Did we shoot it? Use it.”

The incident is reportedly part of the reason that the union International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) called a strike against the production at the end of last month, citing safety concerns and other labor issues.

“The producers are actively looking for replacement crew,” the union posted on social media. “All IATSE members are advised not to cross the picket line.”

The film, which is being produced by Dallas Sonnier‘s Bonfire Legend alongside The Daily Wire, is still filming.

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Sonnier hit back at the crew who walked off set in a statement to Variety, saying: “The actors’ fall was shorter than the failed movie careers of the now-union reps.”

Majors’ acting career was beginning to flourish following his roles in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and Creed III, but it was derailed when he was arrested in 2023 and charged with misdemeanor assault and harassment after an altercation with Jabbari.

Later that year, he stood trial, where he was found guilty of two counts of misdemeanor assault and harassment. He was found not guilty of one count of assault in the third degree and aggravated harassment in the second degree.

The actor avoided jail time but was sentenced to a year-long domestic abuse prevention program in April 2024.

Majors, who had been expected to reprise his villainous role as Kang the Conqueror in Marvel’s Avengers: The Kang Dynasty, was subsequently dropped by the studio. The film was effectively canceled and replaced by the forthcoming Avengers: Doomsday.

From Bishop Auckland to Consett and beyond, a number have been left without electricity, according to the Northern Powergrid.

It comes as the region continues to experience high winds that reached up to 70 and 80 miles per hour along the coast.

An amber weather warning for wind was also in place in the region between 7pm on Saturday (April 4) and 3am on Sunday, with caution that the storm could pose a danger to life.

Now, homeowners are bearing the brunt of the storm impact with cuts that the powergrid say they are “working hard” to fix.

A Northern Powergrid statement reads: “Storm Dave has caused damage to the network across our regions.