London’s Heathrow airport has been closed until midnight on Friday after a fire at a nearby electrical substation caused power outages. Heathrow, one of the world’s busiest airports, said it expected significant disruption. Counterterrorism police, who are leading the investigation into the blaze because of its impact on national infrastructure, said there was no indication of foul play. More than 16,000 homes are also without power.
European leaders failed to agree on a military-aid package worth €5bn ($5.4bn) for Ukraine at a summit in Brussels. Some countries, including France and Italy, reportedly balked at the proposed expenditure. There was greater consensus, however, on imposing further sanctions on Russia. Only Hungary dissented from that plan. Earlier Ukraine launched a drone strike against a Russian airfield some 700km behind the front line.
The upper house of Germany’s parliament approved the creation of a €500bn ($542bn) fund for infrastructure and the loosening of the “debt brake”, the country’s legal limit on government borrowing, to allow for greater defence spending. The centre-right Christian Democrats, led by Friedrich Merz, the probable next chancellor, passed the bill with the support of the centre-left Social Democrats and the Greens.
Donald Trump awarded Boeing a contract to develop a next-generation fighter jet. The aerospace giant’s shares rose by more than 5% following the announcement. America’s 47th president said that a prototype of the plane, the name of which he revealed as the F-47, had been tested in secret for five years. Boeing has been beset by safety and production problems in recent years.
Johnson & Johnson announced investments of $55bn in its American manufacturing capacity over the next four years—an increase of 25% on the previous four. The drugmaker has begun building a plant in North Carolina and said it would build three more. The announcement comes as Donald Trump’s tariff plans threaten to raise the price of imported drugs.
The Sudanese Armed Forces recaptured the presidential palace in Khartoum, the country’s capital. The army appears to be on the cusp of reclaiming the city from the Rapid Support Forces, a paramilitary group which seized it soon after the outbreak of civil war in 2023. The RSF still controls much of western Sudan, including large swathes of the Darfur region.
Conor McGregor announced a bid for Ireland’s presidency. The mixed martial-arts fighter plans to campaign on an anti-immigration platform, though he still requires the nomination of at least 20 Irish lawmakers (or four of the country’s councils) to run in the elections, to be held this year. Mr McGregor was found liable for rape in a civil suit in Ireland last year.
Figure of the day: $1.5bn, the value of cryptocurrencies stolen by North Korean hackers in a single heist on February 21st. Read the full story.
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