South East Water warns over survival as funds dry up
Posted on Friday July 17, 2026

Supplier to 2.4m customers says it doesn’t have enough money to last beyond July 2027

South East Water has warned there is “material uncertainty” over its survival, after a disastrous year in which the lossmaking company paid millions of pounds in fines and its chief executive was forced out.

The water supplier to 2.4 million customers said it had sufficient funds to make it through to July 2027. However, “shortly after” the utility will need “new loan facilities in order to continue as a going concern”, it said in its annual report published on Friday.

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How Burnham’s team could reshape the Bank of England
Posted on Friday July 17, 2026

Taking a fresh look at the Bank’s role would send a strong signal that a Burnham government is prepared to do things differently

When Louise Haigh – then a lowly backbencher – wrote a policy prospectus for the leftwing Renewal journal back in May, it contained a little-noticed nugget: a rethink of the Bank of England’s mandate.

Haigh, who quit as transport secretary in 2024 after it emerged she had been convicted of fraud over a missing work phone, is back in frontline politics as a linchpin of Andy Burnham’s operation. Economists are now asking whether the Bank, and the mandate it gets from the chancellor to solely target stable prices, will be in the new administration’s sights.

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Apple dethrones Nvidia to regain title of world’s most valuable company
Posted on Friday July 17, 2026

Shift in pecking order illustrates that investors are reassessing outlook for artificial intelligence

Apple overtook Nvidia on Friday to become the world’s most valuable company, reshuffling the top ranks of tech heavyweights as investors reassess the outlook for artificial intelligence.

Apple was last valued at $4.88tn as ⁠its shares held steady, while Nvidia ⁠was roughly at $4.86tn, ​after a 3.5% decline.

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Hot tubs and £80 rosé: how the mud-soaked British festival got a luxury makeover
Posted on Friday July 17, 2026

Struggling industry seeks to capitalise on Gen Z’s willingness to spend on experiences and comfort

It had always been the great British festival way: greasy burgers and warm beer, retch-inducing toilets and the descent into dishevelment as roughing it takes its toll.

But a generation of festivalgoers has emerged who are willing to splash the cash to inject luxury into the experience. This summer, there are signs the under-pressure industry is ramping up its offer, from gleaming private toilets and “pamper parlours” to fine dining, hot tubs, saunas and even a “cold waterfall drench” to keep refreshed.

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Thousands of Google workers demand layoff protections amid AI boom in petition to CEO
Posted on Thursday July 16, 2026

The petition to Sundar Pichai, the CEO, included more than 4,500 signatures and included calls for buyout options

Google workers on Thursday delivered a petition calling for layoff protections as tech giants continue to slash their workforces while pouring billions into AI.

“Make no mistake: this is a company that is enjoying massive, unprecedented success,” Parul Koul, Google software engineer and Alphabet Workers Union president, said outside the company’s California headquarters after delivering the petition to the office of the CEO, Sundar Pichai’. Koul pointed to Google’s $4tn valuation, which has quadrupled over the last six years: “These layoffs and cuts are not difficult decisions, but simply profit being put over the people that make this company run.”

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Trump made $1.4bn from crypto in one year. Is Justin Sun the man who helped him do it?
Posted on Thursday July 16, 2026

The entrepreneur is known in Washington as the financial power behind the president’s crypto fortune. How did Sun’s business love-in with the Trump family spiral into dueling lawsuits?

The most infamous financial scandal in US presidential history – the 1920s Teapot Dome affair – involved then president Warren G Harding’s interior secretary, Albert Fall, taking roughly $400,000 in bribes. Adjusted for inflation, that’s about $6m today. Last year, Donald Trump made at least $2.2bn; his single year of income is on the order of 200 to 300 times larger than the bribe that defined “presidential corruption” in the American imagination for a century.

It’s taken for granted that Trump flogs items like Bibles and gold sneakers as a way to wring more money from his loyal base. But of the president’s $2.2bn, at least $1.4bn came from his crypto businesses. That’s an extraordinary achievement, even for an unscrupulous sitting president. How exactly did he do it without any prior background in crypto?

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Garry Sobers was the greatest of all time, a cavalier in an era of roundheads
Posted on Friday July 17, 2026

West Indies legend, who has died aged 89, was cricket’s finest all-rounder, delivering victories with style and grace

Cricket nuts like an argument. Who is the best fast bowler ever? The best spinner? The best wicketkeeper? The best slip catcher? They – oh all right, we – can spend hours discussing the candidates. But the best all-rounder?

That does not take any longer than the debate over the best batter; here we have to concede even in the presence of our Australian friends the supremacy of Don Bradman. The best all-rounder is universally agreed to be Garry Sobers. The other contender, WG Grace, lived so long ago that we are reduced to guesswork. So Sobers it is.

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The Open 2026: Herbert and Burns shoot record-equalling 62s on day two at Royal Birkdale – live
Posted on Friday July 17, 2026

️Updates from the second round at Royal Birkdale
️Official leaderboard | Mail David with your thoughts

An opening birdie for the 2011 champion Darren Clarke. He’s +2. Apropos of nothing, and just because I happen to have the stat to hand, so may as well share it, Clarke is joint holder of the record for most appearances by an Open champion before his first victory. That’s 19, after his 2011 win, and he shares the number with Phil Mickelson (2013). Nick Price (1994) is next on the list.

Birdie for Jackson Suber at 2, and the leader stretches his advantage at the top! He tugged his drive into the rough down the left, but got a decent lie, and was able to wedge over the flag from 90 yards to 12 feet. One fairly straight roll later, and he moves to -6. Meanwhile Laurie Canter nearly aces the 4th. His tee shot lands just past the bunker guarding the front left and serenely glides to kick-in distance, though it was never threatening to drop, always on a route below the hole. The 36-year-old Englishman is -2.

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