Manchester United have been tracking one of the Bruno Fernandes’ international colleagues

Manchester United have stepped up their interest in West Ham’s Mateus Fernandes after rejecting the midfield star during Ruben Amorim‘s reign.

The Portuguese middleman was on United’s radar at the end of last season when he suffered relegation with Southampton. After United passed on the chance to land the 21-year-old, the Hammers swept in to sign him for £38million, plus £4m in add-ons.

Amid the London club’s struggles this season, Fernandes has stood out and will almost certainly leave if West Ham are relegated. Even if the Hammers beat the drop, they may struggle to retain the youngster amid interest from several clubs, including United, according to the Telegraph.

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Having watched him closely this season, United are said to have intensified their interest. Fernandes recently broke into the Portugal senior team, playing alongside Bruno Fernandes, who has been so impressed that he has even recommended him to United, reports The Sun.

Mateus looks up to his namesake, saying ahead of the international debut: “The biggest one [role model] right now is Bruno because of the player he already is. Back when I was at Sporting, I looked up to him and tried to learn from him.

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“He plays in the same league as me, he has a lot of experience with the national team and in the Premier League, I try to watch him a lot. Without a doubt, he stands out.”

Portugal manager Roberto Martinez is also a fan, calling his progress “incredible”. That progress could be rewarded with a place in Martinez’s World Cup squad.

Even before Casemiro’s impending departure was confirmed in January, it was clear that strengthening the midfield was going to be a priority this summer. Newcastle star Sandro Tonali, Nottingham Forest’s Elliot Anderson, Adam Wharton of Crystal Palace and Wolves’ Joao Gomes have all been linked with moves to Old Trafford.

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Real Madrid star Aurelien Tchouameni is another potential target. The Frenchman is understood to be high on the club’s midfield wishlist and could be sold by the 15-time European champions if they can sign a quality replacement.

There has been progress in the midfield department, with Kobbie Mainoo penning a new contract, tying him to the club until 2031. It completed a remarkable turnaround for the England star, who struggled for game time under Amorim and looked set to leave the club at one stage.

Sky Sports, HBO Max, Netflix and Disney+ with Ultimate TV package

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Sky has upgraded its Ultimate TV and Sky Sports bundle to now include HBO Max, Netflix, Disney+, discovery+ and Hayu, as well as 135 channels and full Sky coverage of the Premier League and EFL.

Sky broadcasts more than 1,400 live matches across the Premier League, EFL and more with at least 215 live from the top flight alongside Formula 1, darts and golf.

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When your party’s internal rows centre on whether a post was racist, you do not have a values problem – you have a values crisis. Nigel Farage has built his movement on stoking division and resentment

Reform rot is laid bare

With days to go before voters head to the polls, Reform UK finds itself mired in a row that speaks volumes about its judgment and its morals.

Arron Banks, the man who bankrolled Brexit and remains one of Reform’s most prominent backers, thought it perfectly acceptable to respond to a clip of a Black activist campaigning in Wales for Plaid Cymru with the sneering words “Welsh lad?”

The message behind that post was not subtle. Nobody with an ounce of decency could pretend otherwise. What makes this worse is that Reform’s own candidate, James Evans, felt compelled to call it out as racist.

When your party’s internal rows centre on whether a post was racist, you do not have a values problem – you have a values crisis.

Nigel Farage has built his movement on stoking division and resentment. Banks’ post is not an accident or an outlier. It is the rotten heart of Reform laid bare.

If you needed one reason not to give Farage’s party your vote on Thursday, here it is.

Precious time

A one-minute cancer jab replacing hours on a drip is not just a medical advance, it is a crucial human one.

Drugs like pembrolizumab are already saving lives. Now they are giving something just as precious: time.

Time not spent in hospital chairs. Time with family. Time in the garden. For thousands facing devastating diagnoses, that matters.

The NHS deserves credit for moving fast to roll this out, and staff for embracing change that will treat more patients, sooner.

This shows what is possible when innovation meets determination and why investment in cutting-edge treatment must never falter.

Fergie wishes

Concern will ripple through football at the news Sir Alex Ferguson has been taken to hospital after feeling unwell.

A towering figure of the game, he has given the sport so much. We wish Sir Alex well.

Throughout the bank holiday, tables at the popular venue off Piccadilly were busy and by the end of today (Monday, May 4), 1,000 people are expected to have passed through its doors.

It houses start-up local businesses, mostly in the catering industry, before they often move onto larger accommodation elsewhere.

On its eighth birthday diners and drinkers at SPARK said they liked its atmosphere, the variety of food, the ability to socialise in the open air and the chance to support local traders.

Busy tables at SPARK in Piccadilly York (Image: Newsquest)

Luke Castle, SPARK’s partnerships lead, said: “There is nothing else quite like it in York. York really took a chance when we first opened up, and we are very grateful for their support.”

Although it has recently got planning permission to be at the same site until 2030, Spark accepts that Piccadilly will not be its “forever home”.

It is hoping to find a permanent home elsewhere in the city centre, he said.

“York is home to SPARK, we want to stay in York, in the centre.”

A big balloon at SPARK (Image: NQ staff)

Among those at the venue on its eighth birthday was Barbara, who was at SPARK for the first time. She was following the suggestion of her daughter and said she could dine alone at SPARK as she couldn’t at a standard restaurant.

“I’ll be back,” she said as she ate a pizza.

As part of the celebrations, free cup cakes from Crumbs Cupcakery proved very popular and a lucky few customers each hour on the hour were given a free drink.

In the evening, there was a special edition of Quingo, the venue’s popular winter quiz-bingo night,  which raised funds for the Merchant Taylors’ Community Grant Fund.

The actress is returning to TV screens in a brand new Channel 5 drama alongside an EastEnders legend

Former Coronation Street star Sally Lindsay is back with a brand new TV series, but did you know that away from the screen she has a number one single and is married to a former Oasis drummer’s brother?

Prior to becoming an actress, Sally and her school choir, the St Winifred’s School Choir, released There’s No One Quite Like Grandma which reached number one on the UK Singles chart in 1980. The group even appeared on Top of the Pops to perform the song.

The Stockport native began her performing career in theatre and stand-up before turning her attention to acting. Sally got her big break in an episode of the sitcom The Royle Family as Michelle, Twiggy’s girlfriend.

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Going on to work on hit comedies Phoenix Nights and Fat-Friends, Sally joined Coronation Street in 2001 in the role of Shelly Unwin. Shelly was so popular that Sally won ‘Best Actress’ at the 2005 Inside Soap Awards.

Shelley had two failed relationships on the cobbles, the first with Peter Barlow, who hid that he was already married and had a son Simon, as he and Shelley said their vows. After finding out the truth, she threw him out and had their marriage annulled.

She soon became involved with Charlie Stubbs, who was later murdered by Tracy Barlow, but his controlling behaviour left her too scared to eventually leave her own bedroom. Before they made it down the aisle, she dumped him at the altar.

With Sally deciding to leave the ITV soap in 2005 to pursue new career opportunities, Shelly’s final scenes saw her leave for a job managing a country pub in the Lake District. Pregnant when she left, it was later mentioned she gave birth to a daughter.

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Once she was finished with her Weatherfield duties, Sally landed a role in the Wallace and Gromit film A Matter of Loaf and Death. Additionally, she co-developed and starred in ITV’s detective series Scott & Bailey which aired for five seasons.

On top of appearing on the ITV panel show Loose Women, Sally has appeared in the Sky One comedy-drama Mount Pleasant, the BBC sitcom Still Open All Hours. Since 2021, she has played Jean White in Channel 5’s The Madame Blanc Mysteries, which she co-created and produces.

Away from the spotlight, Sally has been married to Steve White since 2013. Steve is the former drummer of The Style Council and Paul Weller Band, he is the brother of Alan White, who played for Oasis from 1995 to 2004.

The couple welcomed twin sons, Victor and Louie, into the world. Sally is also a stepmother to her husband’s two children from a previous relationship, Kristabel and Curtis.

After decades of entertaining the nation, Sally was made Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2026 New Year Honours for services to drama. She said of the news: “Throughout my career I have met incredible people, made life-long friends and worked on many memorable projects.

“I would like to dedicate this award to the rest of the 8% of working class people who make up my industry and hope in the future there will be many more of us.”

Now, Sally is starring in a brand new Channel 5 series, titled Number One Fan. Acting alongside Sally is Jill Halfpenny, who is known for playing Rebecca Hopkins in Corrie and Kate Mitchell in EastEnders.

The series synopsis reads: “When a beloved TV presenter’s seemingly perfect life is disrupted by a chance encounter with an adoring fan, admiration slowly turns into something far more unsettling.

“As the spotlight intensifies and trust begins to fracture, fame becomes a dangerous place to hide… And the line between fan and foe starts to blur with devastating consequences.

“To her horror, Lucy comes to realise that Donna has a link to a hidden secret in her past which threatens to derail the career she has so carefully curated.”

Number One Fan airs at 9pm on Monday, May 3, on Channel 5

President Donald Trump says Iran will “be blown off the face of the earth” if U.S. vessels guiding ships through the Strait of Hormuz are attacked, escalating his threats to eliminate Iranian civilization as the countries test a tenuous ceasefire during the weeks-long war.

U.S. military officials said Iran launched missiles, drones and small boats at ships sailing through the passage with U.S. support on Monday. Six small Iranian boats were targeting civilian vessels, according to officials.

If Iranians continue to target commercial ships during the so-called Project Freedom escort operation, the country will “be blown off the face of the earth,” Trump told Fox News correspondent Trey Yingst on Monday.

Trump’s latest rhetoric follows last month’s threats that a “whole civilization will die” in Iran “never to be brought back again” if the nation did not agree to a ceasefire deal and reopen the Strait, whose effective closure has choked off global oil supplies and surged barrel prices.

“Iran has taken some shots at unrelated Nations with respect to the Ship Movement, PROJECT FREEDOM, including a South Korean Cargo Ship,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Monday as he suggested South Korea should “come and join the mission.”

“We’ve shot down seven small Boats or, as they like to call them, ‘fast’ Boats. It’s all they have left,” he wrote. “Other than the South Korean Ship, there has been, at this moment, no damage going through the Strait.”

On Sunday, Trump vowed to aid commercial vessels stranded in the waterway as part to “free up people, companies, and Countries that have done absolutely nothing wrong” for what he described as a “humanitarian mission.”

“They are merely neutral and innocent bystanders! For the good of Iran, the Middle East, and the United States, we have told these Countries that we will guide their Ships safely out of these restricted Waterways, so that they can freely and ably get on with their business,” he wrote.

The operation will deploy 15,000 troops, more than 100 aircraft and guided-missile destroyers, according to U.S. Central Command.

Iranian military officials have warned that any foreign forces approaching the Strait will be “targeted and attacked.”

“We have repeatedly said the security of the Strait of Hormuz is in our hands and that the safe passage of vessels needs to be co-ordinated with the armed forces,” according to Major General Ali Abdollahi.

Trump’s increasingly violent threats to Iran have fueled urgent, bipartisan demands to administration officials to remove him from office.

Last month, less than two hours before his self-imposed deadline to begin launching attacks that he said would destroy a “whole civilization,” the president announced a two-week pause in fighting while negotiations with Iran continued.

In an Easter Sunday message, Trump told Iran to “Open the F****’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell.”

Two days later, he wrote: “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will.”

Democratic members of Congress and some former Trump allies have rallied around the invocation of the 25th Amendment, which allows for the vice president and a majority of the cabinet to declare the president unfit to serve.

This is a developing story