Good morning. Hope you had a great Easter weekend. Thankfully there are less than three weeks until the early May bank holiday. With 24 days to go until King Charles III’s coronation – and 26 until the extra holiday - Buckingham Palace has released the official procession route, emoji and hashtags.

Big Stories

Doctors on strike (again)

A four-day NHS junior doctor strike begins this morning, compounding prime minister Rishi Sunak’s struggle to end months of labour unrest that has slowed the UK’s post-Covid recovery. Tens of thousands of junior doctors, who are qualified medics in clinical training, will walk off the job across England for 96 hours starting at 7am today until Saturday. It's the second walkout this year. Hospital leaders and politicians warn the British Medical Association’s push for a 35% pay rise will cause unprecedented disruption to the NHS, with many staff still on annual leave during the school holidays following the Easter break. The BMA say their pay demand makes up for 15 years for below-inflation wage rises but the government says it is unrealistic. NHS leaders estimate 350,000 appointments could be cancelled.

Tesla’s China expansion

The US electric vehicle maker announced plans to build a new factory in Shanghai. The facility will manufacture Megapack batteries - large-scale energy storage units that can be used to help stabilise energy grids and prevent power outages. It will serve a growing market as the world shifts to renewable energy. CEO Elon Musk has promised to make Tesla’s battery division just as big as its car business. Tesla’s Shanghai plant produced almost 711,000 vehicles last year, accounting for the majority of its global production. The news came amid deepening trade tensions between the US and Chinese governments with Washington pressing American companies to become less reliant on China.

US jobs market slows

The US economy added 236,000 jobs in March, close to analyst expectations but the lowest monthly gain since December 2020. The unemployment rate fell by 0.1% to 3.5% while average wages rose 4.2% compared to the year before. The data is being closely watched amid looming uncertainty over the economy following the Federal Reserve's year-long efforts to bring inflation back down to its 2% target. Signs of a slowing labour market could encourage the US central bank to pause its series of interest rate hikes to cool the economy.

Major online partnership

THG, the online shopping group behind Cult Beauty and Lookfantastic, has announced a 10-year partnership with beauty e-commerce retailer Maximo Group, owner of All Beauty and Fragrance Direct. The deal will see Maximo's sites migrate onto THG’s digital commerce solutions arm, Ingenuity. THG expects this to add £150m gross merchandise value to the Ingenuity platform annually. The announcement comes three months after THG revealed that its profits would fall short of expectations for the third time in a year, blaming delivery disruption, contract delays and falling sales at one of its key divisions.

Elsewhere...

Poor flying: Budget-airline Wizz Air has been ranked the worst for flight delays from UK airports, for the second year in a row, an investigation has found.

Down and out: Thousands of UK Vodafone customers have complained after suffering from a broadband connection outage.

On the rise: UK house prices rose unexpectedly for a third month in a row in March in a sign of “resilience” in the market according to the latest report from Halifax.

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Number Of The Day

35

Average amount of days it took to agree a house sale on a UK home last month, roughly twice as long as a year ago.

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