Sky owner announces £1.6bn takeover of ITV’s broadcasting arm
Posted on Monday July 06, 2026

US telecom giant Comcast to snap up free-to-air TV channels and streaming platform to create UK’s biggest commercial broadcaster

• Business live – latest updates

Sky has announced a long-awaited £1.6bn deal to buy ITV’s broadcasting and streaming arm to create the UK’s biggest commercial broadcaster.

Sky, which is owned by the US telecoms company Comcast, will pay £1.2bn in cash initially for ITV’s media and entertainment business, which includes its free-to-air TV channels in the UK and ITVX streaming platform. It has agreed to pay a further potential £200m in the second half of 2028, depending on 2027 advertising revenues.

Read more...

Wegovy weight-loss pill goes on sale on UK high street and online pharmacies
Posted on Monday July 06, 2026

Thousands of people begin receiving their first deliveries of once-a-day medication made by Novo Nordisk

• Business live – latest updates

A once-a-day Wegovy weight-loss pill has gone on sale at high street and online pharmacies in the UK, but is not yet available on the NHS.

Thousands of people began receiving their first deliveries of the pill, made by the Danish drugmaker Novo Nordisk, on Monday. It contains the same active GLP-1 ingredient as the Wegovy jab, semaglutide, and is similarly effective, according to studies.

Read more...

EasyJet shares jump almost 10% after it agrees £5.5bn takeover bid
Posted on Monday July 06, 2026

Airline’s board to recommend offer of £6.90 a share in deal analysts say shows UK firms are being bought on the cheap

Shares in easyJet surged nearly 10% after the airline agreed to a £5.5bn takeover at the fifth attempt, but analysts said that it showed UK firms were being bought on the cheap.

The low-cost carrier’s board will recommend shareholders accept an offer price of £6.90 a share from Castlelake, a US private equity firm, after rejecting four previous bids of as little as £5.60 per share. EasyJet shares closed at 610p.

Read more...

‘Smart operator’: how BT’s first female CEO helped turn company around
Posted on Monday July 06, 2026

The firm’s share price has risen 80% under Allison Kirkby’s leadership – but pressure remains for her to deliver further growth

• Business live – latest updates

If timing is everything, then Allison Kirkby may have judged it perfectly.

Since becoming BT’s first female chief executive more than two years ago the company’s share price has climbed 80%, an investor-pleasing turnaround that has seen Kirkby well-rewarded with a pay and bonus package of £5.6m last year, the largest for a boss of the telecoms company in well over a decade. However, there are questions over how much credit Kirkby can take for the apparent revival of the business.

Read more...

Revealed: landmark Scottish AI project has no prospect of meeting renewables promise
Posted on Monday July 06, 2026

Exclusive: Government and developers privately acknowledged Lanarkshire datacentre site had power provision ‘issue’

• ‘It’s smoke and mirrors’: hope turns to fear in Scottish village chosen for AI datacentre

• What are Britain’s AI growth zones and are the plans feasible or ‘complete bunk’?

A landmark AI development billed as delivering jobs and prosperity has misrepresented its plans to channel a nuclear reactor’s worth of power to a site in rural Scotland, a Guardian investigation has found.

When it was announced in January, the government promised that an £8.2bn AI datacentre complex in Lanarkshire – built by the US firm CoreWeave and the Scottish company DataVita – would be powered entirely from on-site renewables and built by 2030.

Read more...

AI altering meaning of users’ drafts on issues from abortion to climate, study finds
Posted on Monday July 06, 2026

Researchers say small changes in drafting could spread rapidly and create long-term shifts in public opinion

AI tools are twisting online messages on sensitive political topics about everything from abortion to climate change in ways that could snowball to reshape long-term public opinion, experts have said.

As tech companies push AI tools as convenient ways to redraft and summarise the massive influx of daily messages, many inject their own political biases – some leaning distinctly rightwing, others more liberal, according to a study from Oxford and Potsdam universities.

Read more...

World Cup 2026: Trump admits lobbying Fifa over Balogun red card; Starmer intervened on England kick-off time – live
Posted on Monday July 06, 2026

⚽️ World Cup news and reaction as the last 16 continues
⚽️ Uefa accuses Fifa of ‘crossing red line’ over Balogun
⚽️ Mexico 2-3 England | Player guide | And email us

We haven’t even mentioned Balogun-gate yet. The Belgian FA, and you can assume a large proportion of the football world, has been left “astonished” by Fifa’s decision after lobbying by Donald Trump to reverse the suspension given to the striker for his red card in the team’s win over Bosnia and Herzegovina. He is now free to play in the last-16 game against Belgium.

Sources have told the Guardian that Trump made three calls to Fifa, starting from Wednesday, to ensure that the change was made.

Read more...

Tour de France 2026: Pogacar surges clear to win stage three and take yellow jersey – live
Posted on Monday July 06, 2026

‍♂️ Official stage start time: 11.10am BST/12.10pm CET
‍♂️ Granollers to Les Angles (195.9km) | Stage two report
‍♂️ You can follow us on TikTok. And also email Andy

180km to go. Big crash at the front of the bunch. Bruno Armirail (Visma-Lease a Bike) goes down heavily, along with Vacek and three Netcompany Ineos riders. It appears to have been caused by a rider trying to squeeze past the Frenchman on the inside. He seems to have banged his knee, this could hinder one of Jonas Vingegaard’s helpers.

Seixas super domestique Matthew Riccitello (Decathlon CMA CGM Team) is back at the doctor’s car too.

Read more...