Google cloud failure hits millions as UK courts and banks knocked offline
Posted on Tuesday October 20, 2026

Services restored for most users, but power fault stalled hearings and left Revolut, Lloyds and HSBC customers unable to pay or move money

An outage at Google’s cloud services in the UK has caused widespread disruption, hitting courts and leaving millions of customers unable to access or send cash at banks including Lloyds, HSBC and Revolut.

Google blamed a “power event” for the failure at its London-based Cloud computing operations on Tuesday, which affected its “europe-west2-b zone”.

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Andy Burnham faces climate revolt after approval of North Sea gas drilling
Posted on Tuesday October 20, 2026

Jackdaw gasfield announcement signals UK’s commitment to North Sea industry but undermines green credentials

• What does the approval of the Jackdaw gasfield mean?

The Jackdaw gasfield will be given the go-ahead on Wednesday, signalling Andy Burnham’s commitment to the North Sea fossil fuel industry and threatening to trigger a row with climate campaigners and Labour MPs.

Miatta Fahnbulleh and John Healey, the energy secretary and chancellor respectively, will make the announcement from Aberdeen on Wednesday morning after more than a year of deliberations over whether doing so would violate the UK’s climate commitments.

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NatWest cracks down on 13,000 staff attending office two days a month
Posted on Tuesday October 20, 2026

Union furious as bank scraps remote-first policy from February 2027, forcing all UK employees to come in at least twice a week

NatWest has ordered 13,000 staff to increase their in-office days from two days a month to two days a week, angering its staff union.

The banking group, which serves customers under the Royal Bank of Scotland, NatWest, Ulster Bank and Coutts brands, will require all of its nearly 40,000 UK staff to follow a strict two days a week office schedule from February 2027, abolishing a remote-first policy for thousands of employees.

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Surprise drop in UK unemployment to 4.7% as John Healey’s first budget looms
Posted on Tuesday October 20, 2026

Latest ONS data presents mixed picture amid slump in job vacancies and analysts warning labour market is ‘running on idle’

• Healey to reject calls to raise CGT in budget

Unemployment in the UK has fallen unexpectedly in the final snapshot of the jobs market before John Healey’s first budget next week.

The jobless rate fell to 4.7% in the three months to August, from 4.9%, according to the Office for National Statistics. City economists had forecast a rise to 5%.

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Google cloud failure hits millions as UK courts and banks knocked offline
Posted on Tuesday October 20, 2026

Services restored for most users, but power fault stalled hearings and left Revolut, Lloyds and HSBC customers unable to pay or move money

An outage at Google’s cloud services in the UK has caused widespread disruption, hitting courts and leaving millions of customers unable to access or send cash at banks including Lloyds, HSBC and Revolut.

Google blamed a “power event” for the failure at its London-based Cloud computing operations on Tuesday, which affected its “europe-west2-b zone”.

Read more...

The dangers of letting tech billionaires shape our world
Posted on Tuesday October 20, 2026

As SpaceX impacts Ukraine and AI-generated music divides artists and fans, critics are asking what happens when technology has too much control over our lives

• This was originally published in TechScape, a newsletter about how technology shapes our lives. Sign up to receive it here

Hello, and welcome to TechScape. I’m Blake Montgomery, US tech editor at the Guardian, writing to you while sitting in front of Roy Lichtenstein’s monumental Drowning Girl, on view in New York City. Today in tech, we’re discussing the perils of Elon Musk’s one-man global infrastructure, AI-generated music and a Guardian AI conference in Paris.

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Doué and Vitinha burn bright as brittle Barcelona come unstuck against PSG
Posted on Tuesday October 20, 2026

Fire, noise, fury, a sense of empty energy. And across town, a football match too. Do any of these randomly pitched autumnal Champions League fixtures mean anything? Probably not when you’re Paris Saint-Germain and Barcelona, and the only game in town is risk-free TV income and a semi-guaranteed place in the knockout stuff.

But this was still a dazzling occasion at the Parc des Princes, where the champions of France and Spain played out a light, open, frictionless, exhibition-style game of football. PSG finished 4-2 winners, having been pegged back to 2-2 midway through the second half. But this was also a game where the score almost did not seem to matter, and where the only really hard message was the frailty of the Barcelona backline and PSG’s thrilling attacking energy in these midweek A-games.

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Mac Allister double sparks Liverpool’s thrilling comeback win over Villarreal
Posted on Tuesday October 20, 2026

Andoni Iraola and Iñigo Pérez parked a long and close friendship in the buildup to their first competitive confrontation as coaches. The old Athletic Bilbao teammates will have a humdinger of a Champions League contest to dissect once communications are restored. Liverpool, ignited by Rio Ngumoha, recovered from two goals down against Villarreal to maintain their 100% record plus their gathering momentum.

Alexis Mac Allister struck twice, Florian Wirtz capped recent improvement with his first goal of the season while Liverpool were dreadful for the opening 30 minutes, transformed after the break and fretting in stoppage time after Tani Oluwaseyi had volleyed in a third for Villarreal. The game flipped on Sergi Cardona’s mistake and Ronald Araújo’s equaliser with the final touch of the first half. “We weren’t able to handle the emotion tonight,” conceded Villarreal coach Pérez.

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