Dear reader,

Northern Ireland like the rest of the UK is preparing for the 75th anniversary of VE Day during lockdown.

In Friday's paper we will be reporting on the centenarian veteran Tommy Dixon, whose message will be broadcast by Belfast City Council, and we carry the ex guardsman and MP Danny Kinahan's recollections of people who served in the 1939-45 conflict.

We also report on the latest on the spread of the terrible virus that has led to the lockdown, and how nearly one in four care homes in Northern Ireland have been affected. 

Our paper tomorrow will also cover the latest on the Stormont deliberations on how to begin to end lockdowns, and future possible methods for dealing with the crisis such as face masks.

The Royal Black Institution has postponed its summer demonstrations due to Covid-19 and the former secretary of state Julian Smith has called for next year's Stormont elections to be postponed due to it. 

Meanwhile, Kate Carroll, whose PSNI husband Stephen was murdered by Irish republican terrorists in 2009, speaks about her heartbreak over the death of her son.

Stay safe

Ben Lowry
Deputy Editor

• Here are today’s headlines:
  
  The number of deaths in Northern Ireland – excluding those in which Covid-19 was a factor – has jumped by 236 above average for the first month of lockdown.
  Statisticians say it is too early to determine the cause but the NI figures coincide with similar surges across Europe.
  The news comes as Samaritans Ireland confirms that Coronavirus is a factor mentioned in 40% of all calls it is currently taking on the island.
  UK-wide experts have speculated that the trend could be caused by people being too afraid to go to hospital with heart attacks and strokes, suicides linked to self-isolation, people dying from Covid-19 without knowing they were infected or even, for example, people dying from a heart attack if an ambulance service was too over stretched to get to them in time.
  However statisticians and health experts say it is much too early to attribute causes to the 236 NI deaths.
  
  Passengers travelling through Manchester, Stansted and East Midlands airports are being ordered to cover their faces and wear gloves. Manchester Airports Group (MAG), which owns the three airports, said the measure is designed to “demonstrate one way in which air travel can be made safe”.
  The airports are believed to be the first in the UK to implement such stringent hygiene rules.
  Passengers are encouraged to bring their own gloves and face coverings or masks, but they will be provided in the early stages of the trial.
  The Health and Safety Executive here has sought social distancing details from three airports in Northern Ireland after pictures shared of Aer Lingus’ George Best Belfast City Airport to London Heathrow flight on Monday morning showed row after row filled with passengers.
  
  Coronavirus emergency may kill off ‘Boris Bridge’
  The collapse in economic activity prompted by the lockdown made it necessary and inevitable that government opened the spending taps.
  This mitigated the suffering which mass unemployment and wholesales business collapse might otherwise have produced, but it is not without consequences. There’ll be long-term challenges as UK government debt once again rises above 100% of GDP.
  There are aspects particular to Northern Ireland. NI has long been in a position – since at least the late 1960s – where government spending in the region far exceeds the tax revenue raised here.
  By implication, we have received a large fiscal transfer from the UK Exchequer. In 2018-19 that transfer was £9.4bn, equivalent in scale to about one-fifth of NI’s GDP.
  
  Lockdown survey: have your say on how you think restrictions should be eased.