Good morning. The Epstein controversy continues to ripple through British politics as allegations about Peter Mandelson were reported to the National Crime Agency this year, though law enforcement decided against a full investigation. Meanwhile, King Charles has declined to meet with Epstein victims during his upcoming U.S. state visit next week, despite a formal request from Representative Ro Khanna for a private audience. On the domestic political front, Sadiq Khan is warning that Labour risks being "stonked" in the May 7th London elections, describing the current campaign as among the most difficult he's experienced in over four decades of politics.
Closer to home, a BBC investigation has uncovered a disturbing trend of High Street mini-marts being exploited by criminal gangs to sell cocaine, cannabis, and prescription drugs right from their shopfronts across the UK. In other developments, Tesla's revenue is climbing again as the company increases its spending plan to $25 billion for AI and robotics expansion, though Elon Musk has admitted that millions of Tesla vehicles won't receive the promised unsupervised full self-driving capability. Apple has also quietly fixed a security bug that police were using to extract deleted chat messages from iPhones.