26 across — Trump’s reaction to Stormy Daniels? (7)

Resignations, sackings, space exploits, protests and the deaths of not one but two comic drag queen turns — April had plenty to occupy the thoughts of the latest crossword setter of the monthly FT News Puzzle.

BASILISK is the pseudonym of Jason Crampton, a former academic specialising in computer science. There are distinctive nods to science in his news puzzle, but the topics of April were sufficiently rich and varied to suit solvers of all persuasion.

This was the month that a British minister came unstuck, a well-known Premier League club changed its boss and the UK government was embroiled in strikes (fair enough — these could apply to several previous months).

“At the beginning of April, I started compiling a list of prominent stories in the news,” says Crampton.

“To some of these items I added potential words that could be included in the grid, using the story as the basis for the clue’s surface reading. For example, I was thinking of including SNIP as a grid entry with a clue referring to the SNP.”

When it came to filling the grid, Basilisk compiled a dictionary of words distilled from his list. “I am a big fan of symmetry in grids, so I tried to have newsworthy items in symmetrically placed across entries.

“When it came to writing the clues, I tried to write surface readings that alluded to current events for as many clues as possible. Some of these entries came from the dictionary, while others were serendipitous.”

FT News Puzzle for April is published on ft.com/crosswordapp.

[To solve the Trump clue, think what word in the clue could indicate an anagram].