Portrait of the week: Spies in Norfolk, rats in Birmingham and Denmark ditches letter deliveries

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Three Bulgarians were found guilty of spying for Russia as part of a cell that plotted to kidnap and kill targets in Europe, under a fellow Bulgarian who lived in a former guest house in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk. The court heard that the spies reported to Austrian-born Jan Marsalek, who sought refuge in Moscow after the collapse in 2020 of Wirecard, the German payments company he helped run. Walgreens Boots Alliance, the US owner of Boots the chemist, was taken over by a private equity firm, Sycamore Partners. The government introduced the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, which will enable councils to seize land. The cost of a first-class stamp will go up 5p to £1.70 on 7 April.

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Reform UK suspended Rupert Lowe MP and referred him to police, alleging he had made ‘threats of physical violence’ against party chairman Zia Yusuf; Mr Lowe said that this was ‘no surprise’ a day after he had criticised Nigel Farage, the party leader. Nicola Sturgeon, the former Scottish first minister, will not stand in the Holyrood elections next year. Derek Hatton, 77, a former Liverpool councillor, and Joe Anderson, 67, a former mayor of the city, were charged with bribery and misconduct relating to council contracts. Rats welcomed a strike by dustmen in Birmingham.

The 600ft US-flagged Stena Immaculate tanker, carrying jet fuel for the US military, was hit by the 460ft Portuguese-flagged Solong container ship in the North Sea, ten miles off Holderness, Yorkshire; both vessels caught fire. Humberside police arrested the Russian captain of the Solong, from which a man was lost. A Kuwaiti migrant in his sixties died after a cardiac arrest while trying to cross the Channel in a small boat; in the seven days to 9 March, 1,171 others succeeded.