Oil prices jump 5% on Middle East tensions and US hurricane threat
Posted on Thursday October 08, 2026

Global bond market sell-off continues and stocks fall amid reports White House has asked to see options for more strikes against Iran

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Oil prices have risen sharply amid fears about escalating tensions in the Middle East and a squeeze on production from the threat of a hurricane off the US coast.

Brent crude, the international benchmark, rose by 5% to $105.3 a barrel on Thursday, triggering a wave of selling in the global bond and stock markets.

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Top bosses at Goldman Sachs to share bonus pot worth up to $500m
Posted on Thursday October 08, 2026

Eye-watering sum, to be split between 20 bankers, is one of the biggest payouts in the bank’s history

Top bosses at Goldman Sachs are in line to share a bonus pot worth up to $500m (£378m) this year, marking one of the biggest payouts in the Wall Street bank’s history.

The eye-watering sum will be shared between 20 bankers, with its chief executive, David Solomon, due to take about $100m (£75.6m) of the reward, which is made up of Goldman Sachs stock.

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MoD has objected to four windfarms in past year over radar interference fears
Posted on Thursday October 08, 2026

Complaints risks putting defence ministry on collision course with Department for Energy Security and Net Zero

The Ministry of Defence has objected to at least four planned windfarms in the past year over fears the spinning blades could cause “unacceptable interference” with radars used to detect military aircraft.

MoD officials raised concerns in late June over plans for an onshore windfarm in County Durham that could result in aircraft “not being detected” within an RAF Low Flying Area, according to a letter to Britain’s planning authority.

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Harvey Nichols’ Birmingham store to close in January
Posted on Thursday October 08, 2026

Closure will cost at least 60 jobs, while Leeds and Bristol outlets to be converted to Flannels brand

Harvey Nichols’ Birmingham store is to close in January, with the loss of at least 60 jobs, while its Leeds and Bristol outlets will be converted to the Flannels brand in a shake-up under Mike Ashley’s Frasers Group.

The owner of Sports Direct bought the department store chain, whose headquarters are at the Knightsbridge site in London, for £43m on the day it was put into administration in mid-August.

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‘Dystopian’: Co-op becomes latest firm to put staff under AI surveillance
Posted on Thursday October 08, 2026

Whistleblower says recording and analysis of all probate calls in Co-op Legal Services is oppressive

The Co-op has become the latest employer to place workers under AI surveillance with an automated listening technology that rates every phone call some of them make to customers.

In a system described as “oppressive and dystopian” by a whistleblower, Co-op Legal Services is using AI models to record, analyse and award a percentage score for interactions between agents and customers seeking advice about probate, wills and estates.

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Molly Russell’s father to tell UK cinemagoers: ‘Instagram helped kill my daughter’
Posted on Thursday October 08, 2026

In ad to be shown before The Social Reckoning, Ian Russell will say ‘too little has changed’ since death of Molly, 14

Molly Russell’s father will tell UK cinemagoers that “Instagram helped kill my daughter” in an advert to be shown before screenings of a new film about Mark Zuckerberg’s social media empire.

In the 30-second ad before The Social Reckoning, released on Friday, Ian Russell says “too little has changed” since the death of his 14-year-old daughter, who took her own life in 2017 after viewing harmful content on Instagram.

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Is Prem rugby union turning into basketball? Nailbiters supply case for defence
Posted on Thursday October 08, 2026

Record try-glut in round one suggested all-out attack is en vogue, but maybe you can defend well and still concede tries in the modern game?

After one weekend of the Prem season the feeling was we had crossed the Rubicon. A remarkable 52 tries, eclipsing the previous record for round one despite the fact that fewer matches were played added further weight to the argument – a criticism and a compliment – that the English club game is creeping closer towards a form of basketball.

Then came round two and 41 tries. A sizeable number, certainly compared with seasons of yesteryear, but equally giving a sense that defences had their day in some cases. Sale’s gritty victory over Saracens was a dogfight, Leicester’s win over Newcastle wasn’t pretty and while Bristol ran in six tries against Northampton, their success owed everything to defensive steel.

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Khaldoon al-Mubarak: the tightrope walker who made rare misstep over City charges
Posted on Thursday October 08, 2026

Manchester City’s chair is key to the project of making Abu Dhabi a secure world power but his next move may be the sale of the club

No one better understands the precarious tightrope Abu Dhabi walks when it tries to balance its relationships with western Europe while weighing the complex geopolitics of the Gulf region than Manchester City’s chair, Khaldoon al-Mubarak. He was eight when his father, ambassador Khalifa Ahmed Abdel Aziz al-Mubarak, left the family’s Paris apartment for work on 9 February 1984, and was assassinated on the street by a Palestinian terrorist.

And no one outside the emirate’s royal family could be more wrapped up in the project of making and maintaining Abu Dhabi as a significant and secure world power and the dominant member of the United Arab Emirates, a nation state still only 55 years old. His paternal grandfather, Ahmad bin Abdul Aziz al-Mubarak, was chair of Abu Dhabi’s Sharia judicial department and senior adviser to Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan, the founding president of the UAE. As such, Ahmad bin Abdul Aziz was the James Madison of the UAE (the founding father, not the Spurs player) in that he crafted the Islamic legal framework of the new nation in the 1970s.

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