Here are the key stories for the day, with thanks to our WhatsApp group who keep these coming in all day. There are now 126 members of the group, with every street represented.

Editorial:

Mark Hunter is training the Parish Council Members in the use of Zoom video and audio meetings ready for the Annual Meeting of the Council on 11th May. The law has recently been changed to allow this. Details of how it will work and how members of the public can engage with the meeting are still being worked out.

With David Hackett, I am starting to assemble an image archive of all the historical photographs shared on the WhatsApp forum, and other photos that have been offered. If anyone has any photographs, please let me know and I can arrange to scan them.

There have been twelve new additions to the puzzle library. The link is below. If you need a printed catalogue, then let me know.

Birthdays:

Today is the birthday of Brenda May from Duchy Close. It was her husband Jim's birthday on the 24th April. They were born in the same hospital in Somerset in the same year. They probably even met in the hospital nursery during the first few days of their lives and they are still together!

Nationally:

• UK reported hospital deaths from Covid-19 went up by 813 to 20,319. The number of new infections is still nearly 5,000 a day but at least are not going up. Our infection and death rate are now well above that of Italy at the same stage and are heading towards Spain.

This chart has aligned the epidemics from 4 countries with different approaches to the crisis.

Locally:

The Northamptonshire figures yesterday again reported corrections to previous days and are now two days behind the National figures. However, the corrected data does show that new infections are falling off significantly.

Daily links (all verified):

And finally . . .

As the sales of alcohol shoot up by 34% in a month . . .

Stay home, protect the NHS and save lives.