Top story: Alert as outbreak reaches large city in DRC

Hello – I’m Warren Murray with the news this Friday morning.

Authorities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo are rushing to contain an outbreak of Ebola that has reached the major city of Mbandaka, infecting dozens of people along the way. Several deaths have occurred so far in Bikoro, a rural area about 150km from the city. Local authorities and the World Health Organisation were hoping the remoteness would help contain the spread. Now, the WHO is considering whether to declare an international health emergency, which would ramp up foreign assistance.

The biggest ever outbreak of Ebola killed 11,300 people in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone from 2014 to 2016. A yet-to-be-licensed vaccine proved effective during that epidemic, and thousands of doses are being sent to the DRC’s capital, Kinshasa. “We are entering a new phase of the Ebola outbreak that is now affecting three health zones, including an urban health zone,” said Oly Ilunga Kalenga, the DRC health minister. Peter Salama from the WHO said health workers had identified 432 people who may have had contact with the disease. “We are now tracing more than 4,000 contacts of patients and they have spread out all over the region of north-west Congo, so they have to be followed up and the only way to reach them is motorcycles,” Salama said.

Peers all round – The prime minister is poised to appoint about 10 new members of the House of Lords in what is being seen partly as an attempt to end repeated defeats of her plans for Brexit. The senior Labour peer, Lord Adonis, said: “This is a classic example of packing the Lords to try and make Brexit easier to endorse.” Adonis has complained that Labour is legitimising the move by making three new peers of its own at the same time. Meanwhile in a round of meetings with EU leaders, the PM has struggled to rally support for her “backstop” plan on customs and the Irish border. Leo Varadkar, the Irish taoiseach, said he had heard “new thinking from May” but warned: “I very much emphasised that resolving the issue of a hard border requires more than customs.”

‘Total decimation’ – Donald Trump has muddied the waters further over North Korea by appearing to suggest its leader might share the grisly fate of Muammar Gaddafi if he doesn’t make a deal for denuclearisation. The president did add, though, that “if we make a deal, I think Kim Jong-un is going to be very, very happy … He would be [still] running his country. His country would be very rich.” Trump said the North Koreans had continued “negotiating like nothing happened” despite an outburst from Pyongyang triggered by talk of a “Libya option” for dealing with the situation. Bill Gates, meanwhile has told how Donald Trump didn’t know the difference between the HIV and HPV viruses. “I was able to explain that those are rarely confused with each other.” The Microsoft founder suggested that at more than one meeting he was left unsettled by the president’s behaviour, including the “scary” level of detail in which he described his daughter’s looks.

‘Withdrawn immediately’ – Ecuador is to remove the additional security surrounding Julian Assange at its London embassy where he is living under political asylum. “From now on, it will maintain normal security similar to that of other Ecuadorian embassies,” said a statement from the office of President Lenin Moreno. The WikiLeaks founder was taken in under the presidency of Rafael Correa, but his successor Moreno has described the situation as “a stone in his shoe”. Moreno’s move was announced a day after an investigation by the Guardian and Focus Ecuador revealed the country had bankrolled a spy operation costing at least £3.7m to protect and support Assange.

‘Unusual and controversial day’ – Speaker John Bercow has been heard by MPs calling Andrea Leadsom a “stupid woman” during exchanges in the House of Commons. Leadsom, the leader of government business, was said to have not heard the comment at a session in which the Speaker chastised the Conservative frontbench for breaching conventions during opposition debates. Bercow has been the subject of claims of past bullying and intemperate behaviour, but supporters believe it is a campaign to damage him from within Conservative ranks.

Just to let you know – Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are getting married on Saturday at Windsor Castle. Here is our visual guide to the big day. The addition of a biracial member to the royal family is cause to celebrate, so what do the black community in her former Los Angeles neighbourhood think about it? “No biggie,” is the consensus among people interviewed by Rory Carroll.

The question of whether Meghan’s father, Thomas Markle, will be able to attend has been answered in the negative; and with the FA Cup on at the same time, Britain and its broadcasters are gearing up for the biggest TV day of the year. Before, during and no doubt for some time after the event, you will find everything else you need to know at our royal wedding page.

Gammon-gate – Been wondering about all the pork-based insults flying around? Stephen Poole explains the history of “gammon” – which in current usage has come to mean “a ruddy-faced, middle-aged Brexit proponent”, but since the 1600s has been used variously as a personal insult, or as the term for a thief’s accomplice, or simply to decry something as nonsense. (It’s also good with pineapple on top.)

Lunchtime read: Door to EU stands ajar but not open

While Britain is having a hard time disentangling itself from the European Union, Balkan states are having their own battle to get in. There is an urgency to guard against Russian influence by bringing the likes of Montenegro and Serbia closer to the EU fold – but it is being outweighed by reticence and “enlargement fatigue” among current member states, driven partly by the deteriorating state of democracy in several recent new members.

“With Hungary, Poland and Croatia going the way they are going, there is no appetite to import new countries with the same issues,” one European diplomat working in the western Balkans tells Shaun Walker. “But if you stop the EU integration process it’s very hard to revive it, and there is a lot to lose if you push the countries towards China and Russia.” Edi Rama, the Albanian prime minister, said things became “very argumentative” at a lunch with EU leaders in Sofia, Bulgaria. He likened the EU’s vague commitments to the communist promise of a bright future that was always just around the corner. “We lived for 50 years with a red horizon which we never reached. We don’t want to live with a blue horizon now.”

Sport

“I haven’t emptied my desk and in a way I am still in shock.” In his first major interview since leaving Arsenal, Arsène Wenger discusses his future, not being consulted over his successor and whether Mikel Arteta has the qualities for the job. Eddie Jones expects Owen Farrell to rule through fear as captain in South Africa next month but believes the playmaker cannot repair the north-south divide within the England squad alone. Allyson Felix, the American sprinter who has the most medals in Olympic and world championship history, has told the Guardian she never wants to be satisfied with losing. Joe Root feels ready to make a success of England’s troublesome No 3 position after a year spent adjusting to the demands of being Test captain and premier batsman. Chelsea have become the first club to issue a payout to an alleged victim since the full extent of football’s sex abuse scandal was exposed but risk drawing criticism for not making the compensation deal public. And Britain’s Kyle Edmund was beaten in Rome by Alex Zverev but the match served as a thrilling insight into the future of tennis.

Business

Oil prices hovered around the $80 a barrel mark overnight after playing a big part in pushing the FTSE100 share index to a record closing high of 7,787.97 points on Thursday. Shares in BP and Shell soared as the commodity pushed through $80 in the trading session – its highest since November 2014. The multinationals have also been helped by the falling pound because they report their profits in US dollars. Sterling was flat overnight at $1.35 and €1.144.

The papers

There are pictures of Harry and Meghan on nearly every front page including our own with headlines about their “loving smile”, her engagement ring, her mum, her ailing dad, how they’re letting nothing spoil their big day, and on and on it goes. Unsurprisingly it gets especially big play in the likes of the Sun and the Mail – but there is other news happening too.

Today’s i says: “Britain on collision course with US”, because the UK along with Europe is sticking to the Iran nuclear deal – in defiance of American sanction threats. The Times splashes with “Hundreds more troops planned for Afghanistan” as Donald Trump calls on allies including Britain for more support. As detailed above, the Guardian reports how Theresa May is struggling to find EU support for her post-Brexit “backstop” plan on customs and the Irish border. The FT’s version: “May concedes on tie to customs union until Irish border resolved”. Meanwhile in the Telegraph: “Ireland says UK must keep single market ties”. The Express splashes with former attorney general Dominic Grieve’s call for CCTV cameras in care homes to protect residents.

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