Financial news

• ‘We’re in the Hamptons of England’: Trump sends wealthy Americans fleeing to the Cotswolds

  10-05-2025 13:00
  
  Upmarket bucolic area notes big rise in number of US citizens scoping a plan B away from the StatesThanksgiving in the Cotswolds is no small affair. Every November, Americans flock to the English market town of Stow-on-the-Wold to collect glazed turkey breasts, green bean casserole and a traditional sweet potato dish covered in marshmallows.It is, by Jesse D’Ambrosi’s own admission, “bizarre”. The chef, owner of D’Ambrosi Fine Foods, is one of the many Americans who
  
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• Fixing England’s water isn’t just the right thing to do – it can be the start of Labour’s fightback | Clive Lewis

  10-05-2025 13:00
  
  There is an appetite in this country for policy that will change lives. What is more fundamental than the water we use and bills we pay?Clive Lewis is the Labour MP for Norwich SouthIn the wake of a brutal set of local election results, MPs from across the Labour party are trying to establish what went wrong. To me, it’s very clear that this was no fluke: it was the entirely foreseeable outcome of my party’s approach to Reform UK. And as the party moves forward and prepares to face R
  
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• AI firms warned to calculate threat of super intelligence or risk it escaping human control

  10-05-2025 13:00
  
  AI safety campaigner calls for existential threat assessment akin to Oppenheimer’s calculations before first nuclear testArtificial intelligence companies have been urged to replicate the safety calculations that underpinned Robert Oppenheimer’s first nuclear test before they release all-powerful systems.
  Max Tegmark, a leading voice in AI safety, said he had carried out calculations akin to those of the US physicist Arthur Compton before the Trinity test and had found a 90% probabil
  
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• Chinese and US officials meet in Geneva for ‘de-escalation’ trade talks

  10-05-2025 12:14
  
  World Trade Organization hails ‘constructive step’ as senior figures come together to discuss tariffsSenior US and Chinese officials held talks early on Saturday in Geneva in a tentative first step towards defusing a trade war that is disrupting the global economy, according to China’s state-owned news agency and people close to the talks.China’s vice-premier, He Lifeng, and the US treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, met after weeks of growing tensions as duties on imports
  
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• ‘Really a mess’: America’s air traffic control system suffering from years of neglect

  10-05-2025 12:00
  
  Roots of the crisis go back to Reagan but Musk’s Doge team accused of making things worse – can it be fixed?Twice in the past two weeks, communications between air traffic controllers and airplanes at Newark Liberty, one of the US’s busiest airports, have failed – leaving controllers unable to communicate with pilots.The outages have, thankfully, only led to massive delays, not disaster. But they have also once again focused a harsh light on the persistent safety problems
  
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• Whiplash reversals mean Trump’s erratic trade policy is as clear as mud

  10-05-2025 08:00
  
  The specifics of the administration’s economic masterplan – from strollers to movies to China – change by the dayDecades of economic orthodoxy failed millions of Americans, according to Donald Trump, who marched back into the White House promising to shred the status quo. But the specifics of his alternative – exactly how his administration claims it will make America great again – change by the day.The US president declared this week to be a key milestone of his se
  
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• Thousands of civil servants to be moved out of London under fresh reform plan

  10-05-2025 08:00
  
  Ministries’ funding to be contingent on plans to relocate roles around UK in attempt to bring policy making closer to communitiesWhitehall departments will be required to set out plans to move thousands of staff out of London as part of their bids to secure funding from the Treasury at the spending review.The proposal to relocate civil service jobs to a dozen towns and cities across the UK is aimed at bringing the development of government policy closer to the communities it affects. Conti
  
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• Ryanair’s £79 membership scheme takes off – but Which? says ‘think twice’

  10-05-2025 08:00
  
  T&Cs show limitations to the promises of 12 free seat reservations, insurance and monthly access to a saleRyanair has become the latest low-cost airline to offer a yearly membership scheme that promises benefits such as free reserved seats and cheap flights – but the consumer group Which? says you should look at the small print before you join.The low-cost carrier’s Prime membership costs £79 a person a year and promises 12 free seat reservations, travel insurance, and mont
  
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• Bicester Village at 30: how a wet field in Oxfordshire defied the death of the shopping mall

  10-05-2025 08:00
  
  With almost 100% occupancy and a waiting list for pop-up spaces, the Disneyland-inspired fashion mecca is bucking trendsBefore a shopping centre selling past-season designer fashion at discounted prices opened its doors in April 1995, the site of Bicester Village had been “a wet field containing two old horses that looked ready for the knacker’s yard, and a fallen-down shed behind a small branch of Tesco”, remembers Colin Woodhead, a PR director who worked on the launch. &ldquo
  
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• From Send to cycle lanes, how Reform may try to change English councils

  10-05-2025 07:00
  
  Nigel Farage’s party took control of a swathe of councils in the 2025 local elections. Its promises will now be put to the testReform UK councillors face allegations of sharing far-right and Islamophobic contentNigel Farage’s Reform UK is now in charge of a number of councils across England, including 10 where it has overall control.Its haul of 677 council seats also means it is on the brink of power in at least four others where it emerged as the largest party. It also has two regio
  
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• Britons increasingly swapping Med’s busy hotspots for ‘destination dupes’

  10-05-2025 07:00
  
  TikTok trend is inspiring tourists to seek out cheaper locations such as Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina It will take more than a TikTok trend to break Britons’ love affair with Mediterranean beaches. But latest figures show travellers are increasingly swapping Málaga for North Macedonia and Benidorm for the Balkans as part of a social media craze for “destination dupes”.Flights from the UK to Bosnia and Herzegovina soared by 284% in 2024 compared with the previous
  
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• Toxic tofu? How plastic waste from the west fuels food factories in Indonesia

  10-05-2025 01:05
  
  Tofu factory owners in Indonesia’s East Java feed their boilers with tonnes of foreign plastics each week to produce tofu sold in the regionPlastic waste from Australia, New Zealand, Japan, France, the US and Britain is being used to fuel tofu production in Indonesia, the Guardian has learned.Five factory owners in an industrial village in East Java, and one environmental organisation told the Guardian that imported plastic is burned daily to fuel furnaces in factories that produce tofu, p
  
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• Diver dies during salvage operation to recover Mike Lynch’s superyacht

  10-05-2025 00:50
  Dutchman, 39, had been working underwater in Sicily during operations to raise British tech tycoon’s vesselA diver who was working on preliminary operations to raise the late tech tycoon Mike Lynch’s sunken superyacht, Bayesian, has died during underwater work in Sicily.The 39-year-old Dutch diver died on Friday while working underwater in preparation to cut the ship’s mainmast. Continue reading...
  
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