GSK to cut jobs amid £1.9bn cost-cutting plan and bid for faster drug development
Posted on Tuesday July 28, 2026

Pharmaceuticals company is investing £400m in UK life sciences and moving scientists to new Cambridge R&D site

• Business live – latest updates

The British drugmaker GSK is to announce sweeping job cuts as part of a £1.9bn cost-cutting programme to pay for a £400m investment in UK life sciences over the next three years, including in a new research and development centre in Cambridge, as it looks to develop drugs more quickly under its new chief executive.

The pharmaceuticals company announced on Tuesday it will move more than 1,000 of its scientists to its new site on the Cambridge biomedical campus. It will close its R&D site in Stevenage in Hertfordshire by 2029, while upgrading its R&D laboratories at nearby Ware and moving some employees there.

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Apple becomes second ever $5tn company as investors flee AI stocks
Posted on Tuesday July 28, 2026

Share price rally driven by strong product demand as well as decision to sit out AI spending race, amid wider tech sell-off

Apple has become only the second company to pass the $5tn valuation mark, as it benefited from investors fleeing AI and semiconductor stocks amid a wider tech sell-off.

The iPhone maker’s shares hit a session high ⁠of $342.89 on Tuesday, giving it a market ⁠capitalisation of $5.04tn (£3.78tn), then eased back to 0.8% up at $339.68 – around the $4.99tn mark.

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Burnham urged to increase tax on banks as Barclays’ profits soar
Posted on Tuesday July 28, 2026

TUC says lender ‘can easily afford to pay more tax’ as it increases half-year bonus pool by nearly 30%

• Business live – latest updates

Andy Burnham has been urged to launch a tax raid on UK banks, as Barclays revealed a 30% increase in its half-year bonus pool after a rise in profits.

Fresh corporate filings released on Tuesday showed the bank put £1.3bn towards its bonus pool for the first half of the year. That figure, which includes annual and deferred bonuses, was up from £1bn last year.

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Fifa accused of ‘selling the soul of football’ over $20bn World Cup commercial rights sale plan
Posted on Tuesday July 28, 2026

• World governing body set to raise millions from venture

• Uefa hits out at proposal and could take legal action

Fifa has announced plans to sell the commercial rights to its tournaments, including the World Cup, to private investors in a controversial move that triggered an immediate backlash from Uefa, leading European clubs and politicians.

Uefa released a strongly worded statement accusing Fifa of “attempting to sell the soul of football” and is believed to be considering its legal position, while sources at numerous elite clubs were highly critical of the proposal in private. Andy Burnham, the UK’s new prime minister, condemned the move.

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Spies in the sky: how worried should we be about the arrival of AI-enabled smart lamp-posts?
Posted on Tuesday July 28, 2026

The new breed of camera-equipped streetlights has the potential to fight crime and track down missing persons. Or will it just take Britain one step closer to a surveillance state?

How would you feel if your neighbourhood lamp-posts could recognise your number plate, and also your face? Maybe you wouldn’t mind, given how long we’ve had automatic number plate recognition and CCTV. What about if that lamp-post could power itself through its own solar panels, and perhaps find another use for any extra power generated – that would be good, right? This is what Conflow Power Group (CPG) in Warwickshire claims for its iLamps, the first of their kind in the UK.

What if lamp-posts had the potential to incorporate new AI capability – gait analysis, suspicious behaviours – that you haven’t even heard of? This is what the organisation Big Brother Watch worries about. And what if the home secretary had explicitly said she believed in a “panopticon state” – that is, a state that could watch you at all times (as Shabana Mahmood already has) – and what if she still had a job when the lamp-post eyes got their updates? Or what if the next home secretary was even keener on hyper-surveillance (hard to imagine), and the street apparatus was already in place? What about all the data this would harvest – who would own it?

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Home Office used ‘AI hallucinated’ information to refuse asylum claim, judge suggests
Posted on Tuesday July 28, 2026

Upper tribunal unable to find document cited in case and claims it is ‘analogous to relying on bogus evidence’

A senior judge has accused the Home Office of relying on “AI hallucinated” information to refuse an asylum claim.

The case relates to a Moroccan woman and her child who fled her country after experiencing forced underage marriage and extreme violence, including rape. The woman claimed asylum on the basis of fears that she would be killed by her husband: a powerful, previously convicted criminal.

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Fifa accused of ‘selling the soul of football’ over $20bn World Cup commercial rights sale plan
Posted on Tuesday July 28, 2026

• World governing body set to raise millions from venture

• Uefa hits out at proposal and could take legal action

Fifa has announced plans to sell the commercial rights to its tournaments, including the World Cup, to private investors in a controversial move that triggered an immediate backlash from Uefa, leading European clubs and politicians.

Uefa released a strongly worded statement accusing Fifa of “attempting to sell the soul of football” and is believed to be considering its legal position, while sources at numerous elite clubs were highly critical of the proposal in private. Andy Burnham, the UK’s new prime minister, condemned the move.

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Commonwealth Games 2026: 100m finals in athletics and swimming golds up for grabs – live
Posted on Tuesday July 28, 2026

• Follow updates from Tuesday’s action around Glasgow

• Full medal table | Day five – in pictures | And mail Daniel

Check out the medal table.

Swimming: Another impressive swim from 16-year-old Amalie Smith who wins her 200m medley heat comfortably. This comes after taking silver in the 400m event.

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