Biggest August fall in British house prices since 2018; Dimon warns UK against higher bank taxes – business live
Posted on Monday August 17, 2026

British house prices expected to fall this year, despite ‘Burnham bounce’, Rightmove reports

• Asking prices for newly listed homes in UK’s richest borough fall by £100k in one month

• JP Morgan boss Jamie Dimon warns UK chancellor not to hike taxes on banks

Back in the markets, the pound has hit a three-month high against the weakening US dollar.

Sterling is up a third of a cent at $1.356, its highest level since 12 May.

The longer-term outlook for the US dollar and US bonds looks bearish: investors dislike the boiling Middle East war, which is costing the US way more than it was supposed to (it was supposed to be a few-week operation), while the exploding US debt and the lack of budget discipline from the Trump government weigh on appetite for US debt, as the national debt is about to surpass the $40 trillion mark.

“This is an important next step in bringing competition and growth to the market for international rail services, and we welcome the progress Virgin Trains and London St Pancras High Speed have made.

While there is still more work to do, we are supporting Virgin and the wider industry to grow international services.”

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Virgin Trains gets go ahead to run services to Europe in new blow to Eurostar monopoly
Posted on Monday August 17, 2026

Operator wins track access approval for up to 20 daily return trains through tunnel to Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam in 2030

• Business live – latest updates

Virgin Trains has been granted track access by the rail regulator to run new services between London and Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam in 2030, in a step forward for its plans to break’s Eurostar’s passenger monopoly on the cross-Channel route.

The Office of Rail and Road (ORR) said it had granted approval for Sir Richard Branson’s company to run up to 20 new daily return services through the Channel tunnel.

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Brian Eno, Romy and Thom Yorke sign letter urging PM to reject new North Sea drilling
Posted on Monday August 17, 2026

Robert Smith, Olly Alexander and Paris Paloma also among signatories saying exploitation of Rosebank and Jackdaw fields defies reality

• Business live – latest updates

More than 200 musicians including Massive Attack and Brian Eno have written to Andy Burnham, urging him to reject plans for more oil and gas drilling in the North Sea.

The letter, signed by 211 artists such as Bobby Gillespie, Olly Alexander and Paris Paloma, called on the prime minister to reject the Rosebank oilfield, warning the project will fail to lower energy bills or provide energy security as most of the oil is likely to be exported.

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Summer jobs bounce back in UK thanks to busy calendar of sport and music
Posted on Sunday August 16, 2026

Industry tracker finds ‘exceptionally warm weather’ has helped boost job listings in hospitality and tourism sector

The summer job has staged a comeback this year thanks to the hot weather and a packed calendar of events such as the men’s football World Cup, new UK figures show.

Recent months have seen a significant increase in seasonal hiring in sectors such as hospitality and tourism compared with summer 2025, said the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC), which runs a monthly labour market tracker.

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Are Microsoft’s AI plans being held back by a shortage of chips?
Posted on Monday August 17, 2026

Guardian investigation finds apparent discrepancy between what tech company has said about its AI capacity – and the number of advanced chips it has in operation

The chips are quite small and some can be held in the palm of a hand. They are fundamental to the development of artificial intelligence models – and the world’s biggest technology companies need vast numbers of them to keep ahead.

Microsoft is one of them. And, on paper, it seems to have a problem. A Guardian investigation has found an apparent discrepancy between what the company has said about its AI capacity – and the number of advanced AI chips it has in operation.

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Temperatures to fall across Europe as substantial rain heading for parts of UK
Posted on Monday August 17, 2026

Temperatures could drop by more than 15C compared with last Thursday as cold front moves arrives from Monday

Relief from the unrelenting heat is finally arriving this week across western Europe, with more unsettled conditions bringing the chance of rain. Temperatures are expected to fall back towards the seasonal norm, with some parts of the UK even falling about 3C below normal by Thursday. After such a scorching summer, and with a temperature drop of more than 15C compared with last Thursday’s heat, it may feel surprisingly chilly.

There are signs that some substantial rain could be on the cards for the south of the UK this week as a cold front moves in from the Atlantic on Monday night into Tuesday. As of Monday, parts of southern England had endured 62 consecutive days of no rainfall – this is observed at a Met Office weather station in Wisley, Surrey. Even the last recorded rainfall here on 16 June amounted to just 0.4mm.

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The Hotspot | Extreme heat has changed elite sport this summer – it must adapt to survive
Posted on Monday August 17, 2026

In today’s newsletter: how climate crisis is affecting athletes and what steps are being taken to protect them from rising temperatures

The mercury-shattering European summer pants alongside us on the back straight, looming as we hug the shadows, sweaty sandals on the parched earth. Across Asia, Africa and North America too, inhabitants have endured the warmest July of their lives.

In Toronto, Alex Hutchinson, author of the bestseller Endure: Mind, Body, and the Curiously Elastic Limits of Human Performance, has just come back from an early run. “Here I am in Canada, a famously frosty country, and my general take when I wrote ‘Endure’ in the 2010s was that heat was not that big a deal. Occasionally, people died of heat, often in the deep south of the US, often returning to football practise in August, when they were not prepared, but that was rare.

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European Athletics Championships: 25 of the best images - in pictures
Posted on Monday August 17, 2026

We take a look back at some of our favourite track and field images from Birmingham after Great Britain finished second in the medal table

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