When Arsenal face Sporting in their Champions League quarter-final first leg on Wednesday, there will be much more riding on the game than just a knockout match in Lisbon.

For many, this is where the Gunners need to show back-to-back defeats, against Manchester City in the Carabao Cup final and the damaging loss to Southampton in the FA Cup quarter-final, will not leak into their European and Premier League campaigns.

Arsenal have been tagged as the ‘nearly men’ under Mikel Arteta with three successive second-placed finishes in the Premier League in the last three seasons.

But the Gunners have played a ruthless style of football this season, which has seen them establish a nine-point lead in the Premier League, reach the final of one cup competition and, depending what happens in two legs against Sporting, at least the quarter-final stage of the two other cup campaigns they began.

Their style of play has been questioned at times but now it is the team’s mentality that is coming under the spotlight.

The Gunners have been so impressive this season that their defeats by City and Saints are the first time they have lost successive matches this campaign, while the loss on the south coast was just the fifth of the season.

But, with the Champions League and Premier League the top prizes for the Gunners, this is where Arteta needs to show the pain of coming so close in precious campaigns is not going to overwhelm his side as they look to win their first major trophy since 2020.

“Have some perspective about how difficult it is what we have done until now,” said Arteta, when asked how he and the team prevent a longer run of defeats.

“Feel the pain, feel the emotion and use it to be better and improve.”

Homestead Kitchen, opened by chef Peter Neville and his partner Cecily Fearnley in 2021, is situated in Goathland, and was praised for making one of March’s “standout dishes” according to the culinary experts.

The North Yorkshire Moors village that “feels like being transported back to the 1960s” is known as the real-life location of ITV drama Heartbeat.

Sharing its recent foodie guide, Michelin said: “With the Michelin Guide Inspectors on the road throughout the year, they eat a vast array of dishes from all cuisine types and restaurant styles.

“Each month we ask our Inspectors to choose a standout dish of the month from their recent restaurant visits.

“This could be the most creative dish they ate, something that hit the right note at just the right time or simply the one that stuck in their memory for the longest.”

What did the Michelin Guide say about Homestead Kitchen?

In March, it was Homestead Kitchen’s Homestead moorland stottie with Hartlepool kipper butter and caramelised Botton cheese fondue that impressed Michelin Inspectors.

Found on the Chef’s Tasting Menu, an Inspector commented: “It’s always a pleasure to dine at this utterly charming restaurant in the North Yorkshire village of Goathland – which was used for the filming of long-running TV series Heartbeat.

“My meal kicked off with their version of a stottie – a traditional bread popular in this part of the world – which is made with locally milled flour, fitting their ethos of low food miles in every dish.

“It was accompanied by a subtly kipper-infused butter and, the star of the show, a light cheese fondue with a touch of mustard.”

Other dishes found on the Chef’s Tasting Menu include brassica salad with roasted cauliflower puree, soy and maple glaze and roasted pumpkin seeds, as well as North Sea turbot poached in brown butter with salsify fritters, brill and cep mushroom sauce, and kalettes.

Homestead Kitchen also offers other menus, including à la carte, lunch and Sunday lunch – all of which can be found on the restaurant’s website.

The highly rated foodie spot details: “When you take a seat in the restaurant, this is your time to relax, look out over the rolling North York Moors, and sample dishes that have been carefully created to showcase the finest ingredients that have been sourced locally, and most importantly seasonally.

Michelin stars explained (what each one means)

“The menu follows the ebb and flow of the seasons, using home grown organic vegetables, local suppliers, and even produce kindly donated by local folk who kindly bring anything they have an abundance of.”

As well as being known for its relaxed fine-dining, Homestead Kitchen is a converted 18th century farmhouse that also provides a self-contained holiday cottage and a family home.

Over on Tripadvisor, the eatery currently has an “excellent” 4.8/5 rating based on 157 reviews.

This happy customer wrote: “After living and working in London for thirty years and visiting many top end restaurants the end to end experience I had yesterday was one of the best in a long time and the best I have had in North Yorkshire.

“Your food was delicious and beautifully thought through, the location is stunning , the decor is just right, the warmth was spot on and even the music playing was perfect.

Do you opt for fish or meat dishes when eating at a restaurant? (Image: Tripadvisor)

“A huge part of success of the meal was the waitress , she was attentive, interested and a credit to your business.”

Someone else posted: “Just fabulous from start to end. The young sommelier/manager just had it all in hand and managed a perfect mix of being friendly but also so knowledgeable and efficient and service was spot on.

“We chose a mix from the fixed price lunch menu and the à la carte – everything was beautiful.

“We will certainly return – thank you team Homestead.”

Have you been to any restaurants in North Yorkshire that the Michelin Guide are raving about? Let us know in the comments below.

It is the first time they have attended the Easter service since 2023

The Prince and Princess of Wales along with their children have joined the wider Royal Family at today’s Easter Sunday service (April 5). It is the first time the Wales family have attended the Easter Matins Service since 2023.

This is because they have prioritised spending the holiday privately as a family following Princess Catherine’s cancer diagnosis at the start of 2024. It is also not customary for the heir and their family to attend the event every year.

The Prince and Princess of Wales and their three children, Prince George, 12, Princess Charlotte, 10, and Prince Louis, seven, led the royals as they walked to church this morning. The service is being held at St George’s Chapel in Windsor Castle.

Prince William, Prince George and Prince Louis all wore dark-coloured suits. The Heir to the throne matched a white shirt with a blue tie, while his sons wore matching sky blue ties. Catherine wore a cream-coloured outfit, paired with a matching coloured hat. Princess Charlotte wore a beige, buttoned knee-length coat and opted not to wear a hat in the blustery conditions.

No official guest list has been released by Buckingham Palace but we can predict who will attend based on previous attendance. The King and Queen are expected to be joined by his siblings, the Princess Royal, and her husband, Vice Admiral Sir Tim Laurence, and the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh.

Four family members will not be attending this year. Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and Sarah Ferguson remain in royal exile following their links to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, while their daughters Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie have made alternative Easter plans.

He was diagnosed with cancer in December 2023 after he had just started university.

A Northern Ireland student has opened up about how a home from home support service helped in his recovery from a rare and aggressive form of cancer.

Young Lives vs Cancer first opened the doors to their Belfast Home from Home Amy’s House in early 2016. Ten years on, staff, supporters from the community, young people with cancer and families who have previously stayed at the Home have gathered to celebrate the milestone anniversary and the support it has provided over the past decade.

They include Romeo, who was studying music at Ulster University in Derry when he was diagnosed with Ewings Sarcoma, a form of bone or soft tissue cancer that primarily occurs in children and young adults, at 18 years old in December 2023.

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Now 21, he stayed at Amy’s House for eight months during the entire duration of his treatment whenever he wasn’t in hospital.

Romeo said: “Amy’s House made one of the greatest impacts on my treatment outside of the actual treatment in hospital. At the time with most of my friends starting university, I was on my own. Without Amy’s house I would have likely struggled to find a place to live while undergoing treatment. Now I’m currently recovering still and trying to manage the after-effects of my surgery from cancer as well as the fatigue I have along with it to this day.”

Young Lives vs Cancer is the leading UK charity for children and young people (0–25) with cancer and their families. Amy’s House is one of Young Lives vs Cancer’s ten Homes from Home across the UK, and one of two in Northern Ireland. Each Home provides young people and families with a free place to stay nearby to where they or their child is having cancer treatment.

Treatment can often be a long way from home, which can be stressful and expensive so being able to stay at a Home from Home lessens that stress and helps families stay together.

Since opening in 2016, more than 700 families have stayed at Amy’s House. It is located just a short walk away from Belfast City Hospital and has five ensuite bedrooms for families to use. The Home also has communal areas, with a fully equipped kitchen and lounge areas, allowing families to meet, talk and share experiences with each other if they want to.

Rachel Kirby-Rider, Chief Executive at Young Lives vs Cancer, said: “This anniversary celebrates an incredibly special and vital service our charity provides in Northern Ireland. We wouldn’t be here and able to provide our Home from Home without our supporters and everyone who donates. We want to thank the community for their continued support.

“When a child or young person is diagnosed, they are often miles from their home, their family and friends. We know how much having their families able to stay close by to them in hospital helps, and the financial pressures Amy’s House eases for young people.

“We’re thankful we’ve been able to support young people with cancer and so many families in Northern Ireland at Amy’s House, and it’s been a special occasion hearing the impact the Home from Home has had over the past decade. Thank you to all our supporters, incredible house staff and social workers for everything they do to help be there for children and young people with cancer.”

To celebrate the ten-year milestone, Young Lives vs Cancer staff were joined by families who have previously stayed at Amy’s House. They marked the occasion with balloons, cake and swapping stories of how important the Home was to them.

Geraldine Burns, Accommodation Manager at Amy’s House, said: “We are so glad we can be there, for young people like Romeo, at a time when they need it most. This anniversary is a special occasion to take a moment to recognise the impact Amy’s House has in the community for so many people – and to celebrate and thank all the supporters who, through their vital donations, allow us to continue to be there for young people and families.

“I feel incredibly proud of Amy’s House and all the staff here who make the Home what it is for young people and families. In the last year, 119 young people and families have stayed at Amy’s House. Long may our service to the community continue, so we can be there for every child, young person or family member that needs us.”

To find out more about Young Lives vs Cancer’s Homes from Home and the support the charity provides, visit their website: www.younglivesvscancer.org.uk.

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NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks drifted higher in hesitant trading on Monday, ahead of a deadline that President Donald Trump has set to bomb Iranian power plants.

The S&P 500 rose 0.4%, coming off its first winning week in the last six. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 165 points, or 0.4%, and the Nasdaq composite climbed 0.5%.

Oil prices likewise rose after seesawing through the day amid uncertainty about what will happen in the war with Iran and how long it will slow the global flow of oil and natural gas. Iran on Monday rejected the latest ceasefire proposal and instead said it wants a permanent end to the war.

“We won’t merely accept a ceasefire,” Mojtaba Ferdousi Pour, head of the Iranian diplomatic mission in Cairo, told The Associated Press. “We only accept an end of the war with guarantees that we won’t be attacked again.”

Fighting continued in the war, meanwhile, including an Israeli attack on an Iranian petrochemical plant. And in the background was the clock ticking toward a deadline, one that Trump has moved multiple times, where he has threatened to attack Iranian power plants if it does not open the Strait of Hormuz. A fifth of the world’s oil typically sails through the strait during peacetime.

Trump on Monday suggested that his latest deadline of Tuesday at 8 p.m. Eastern time will be the final one, saying he’d already given enough extensions. “The entire country can be taken out in one night, and that night might be tomorrow night,” Trump said.

Monday also offered the first chance for U.S. stock prices to react to a report from Friday that said U.S. employers hired more workers last month than economists expected. The unemployment rate unexpectedly improved.

They’re encouraging signals for an economy that’s had to absorb painful leaps in costs for gasoline since the war’s beginning. The average price for a gallon of regular gasoline is nearly $4.12 across the country, according to AAA. It was below $3 a couple days before the United States and Israel launched attacks to begin the war in late February.

For countries that don’t produce as much oil as the United States, the pain has been even worse. That’s because they are more reliant on oil coming from the Middle East, and the war has blocked in much of the crude produced in the Persian Gulf area. That oil typically gets to customers around the world by exiting the Strait of Hormuz.

The price for a barrel of benchmark U.S. crude rose 0.8% to settle at $112.41 after erasing an earlier modest dip. Brent crude, the international standard, added 0.8% to $109.77 per barrel and remains well above its roughly $70 price from before the war.

In the bond market, Treasury yields held relatively steady. The 10-year Treasury yield was sitting at 4.33%. That’s still well above its 3.97% level from before the war. The rise has pushed up rates for mortgages and other loans going to U.S. households and businesses, which slows the economy.

A report on Monday said that finance, transportation and other U.S. businesses in services sectors grew in March for a 21st straight month of expansion. But the growth was slightly slower than economists expected, and a measure of prices accelerated at its fastest pace since 2022 in a potentially discouraging signal for inflation.

In stock markets abroad, Japan’s Nikkei 225 added 0.5%, and South Korea’s Kospi jumped 1.4%. Many other markets in Europe and Asia were closed for holidays.

___

AP Business Writers Yuri Kageyama and Matt Ott contributed.

The annual World Coal Carrying Championships in the village of Gawthorpe, near Ossett, saw 240 entrants haul sacks of coal across a distance of 3,320ft (about 1,000m). Men carried 7st 12lb (50kg) sacks of coal, with women racers shifting 3st 2lb (20kg) bags, from the Royal Oak pub to the village’s Maypole Green.

He took on the supersized project following his retirement

A retired electrician who says “you can only cook and clean for so many hours” has earned himself the nickame “Mr Big Stuff” thanks to his new and rather unusual hobby. DIY-fanatic Steve Wainwright builds supersize versions of everyday household objects.

So far in Steve’s collection, he has made items including a giant pencil, cassette tape and a playing card. These usually palm-sized objects are made out of wood, metal and plastic and can take anywhere from three days to two weeks to complete.

Steve, 62, and from Stanground near Peterborough makes his models from a workshop at the bottom of his garden and has now made 20 different models, including a 1.5m tall Staedtler pencil and a 1m tall cassette tape.

He said: “I took on the role of a house husband as I retired before my wife. You can only cook and clean for so many hours so I decided I wanted to build something. I didn’t want to be bored in the house.

“I had a tape measure in my hand when I saw an electrical plug and I thought I could build that bigger. I settled on ten times the size as it’s easy maths but sometimes I do use a bit of artistic licence.

“Anything that will fit in the palm of my hand, I will give it a go – lipstick, screws, pencil sharpeners.”

Steve, who also worked with the ambulance service for 10 years, describes himself as a “maker of things”. He started building in his garage but soon moved into a £4k workshop which he built himself. His sculptures catch the eyes of those passing by, and he has also exhibited some items for charity.

He said: “From the male point of view, they’ll say ‘This is amazing!’ But from the female perspective, they usually ask where I could possibly keep everything. I’ve been asked to support charities and the blind find they can identify items by touch, especially with the original, smaller version alongside it. The public loves the pencils.”

Steve has made a table-sized retractable tape measure whic took two weeks to build, whilst the pencil sharpener took him three days. He has even sulpted giant keys – one shed and one Yale – and said he’d love to take them into Timpson.

Steve says that he thinks he has spent around £2.5k on the materials, but added: “It was never about the money. The joy of it would fade. People don’t appreciate the skills they have and look over just how capable they can be.”

Coronation Street favourite Debbie Webster, played by Sue Devaney, was dealt with heartbreak yet again on Easter Monday’s episode as she realised how she was being conned again

Coronation Street’s Debbie Webster appeared to disown her long-lost son on Easter Monday’s episode of the ITV soap. The hotelier, who is played by Sue Devaney, has only just been released from prison after winning an appeal off-screen after she took the blame for son Carl’s dangerous driving during the Emmerdale crossover.

Up until recently, Debbie was said to be Carl’s sister but she revealed the truth to him just before she was sent to prison. Back at work at the Chariot Square hotel Carl (Jonathan Howard) was soon up to his old tricks and asking Debbie to bail him out financially yet again. He claimed that he was £10,000 in debt to ruthless businesswoman Fiona (Sara Poyzer) yet again and she agreed to help him out, on the condition that he paid her back by working at the hotel.

Debbie, who was diagnosed with vascular dementia last year after producers confirmed that the much-loved character will be killed off at some point in the future, seemed to be happy to make this arrangement but her husband Ronnie Bailey (Vinta Morgan) smelled a rat instantly.

READ MORE: Coronation Street villain ‘ruled out as death’ after returning character news

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Ronnie is the former flame of Fiona, so had no qualms out calling her up to check on the situation. As he did this, Carl had been pestering Debbie to make the transfer all day and she fobbed him off with excuses about bank security checks causing a delay. When Ronnie turned up on the scene later that afternoon, Debbie said: “I know, Ronnie, you don’t approve of it, but once he’s paid off this debt, he can start afresh!”

Ronnie told Debbie: “I’ve just been to see Fiona. His debt was five grand. Not ten. He’s fleecing you. Five grand on the debt, and another five in his back pocket. He’s playing you, babe. “

Debbie was visibly heartbroken as the truth dawned on her as she turned to Carl and said: “After everything I’ve done for you?” On the verge of tears, she said: “Do you know what? We’re done! Camels and straws and all that etc. I can’t do this anymore, Carl. I can’t do it.”

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Viewers will know that Carl is one of five potential murder victims, as teased in a flashforward that aired earlier this year. On April 23, fans will finally discover whether Carl, Jodie Ramsey, Maggie Driscoll, Megan Walsh, or Theo Silverton will be killed off.

Fans were thrilled that Debbie had finally seen the light, but some were concerned that Carl may be able to return to his ways once her condition deteriorates.

Taking to X, one fan said: “Debbie cutting Carl off now that she’s lucid but will he take advantage when she has a memory symptom? A part of me thinks Carl will ruin the hotel as retaliation thus ruining the #Swarla wedding but another part says if he ruins the hotel he won’t have a place to live. #Corrie.”

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Another said: “I did love watching Debbie wash her hands of Carl. Let’s hope it sticks though,” whilst a third wrote: “Tell him Debbie,” and emblazoned their tweet with a clapping-hands emoji.

A fourth said: “Debbie’s finally accepted that Carl is playing her. She’s known for a while, she’s been understanding, she’s forgiven him but he just keeps doing it & now she’s had enough!”

Coronation Street airs weeknights at 8:30pm on ITV1 and ITV X.

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