US Treasury’s Scott Bessent ‘will lose’ battle with bond markets, former mentor warns
Posted on Tuesday August 25, 2026

Trump ally should cut budget deficit rather than try to suppress bond yields, says billionaire Stanley Druckenmiller

Scott Bessent’s attempt to calm the bond markets and push down America’s cost of borrowing have attracted a rebuke from the US Treasury secretary’s former mentor.

The billionaire investor Stanley Druckenmiller, who worked with Bessent at George Soros’s fund management firm in the 1990s, has warned that his former pupil is courting danger by trying to suppress US bond yields.

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Burnham mulls insolvency law shake-up to help bring utilities under public control
Posted on Tuesday August 25, 2026

Exclusive: Rules on special administration seen as potential ‘roadblock’ to reshaping how UK’s essential services are run

Andy Burnham is considering ripping up the country’s insolvency laws to make it easier to bring key utilities such as Thames Water under public control.

Sources have told the Guardian the prime minister is considering a range of options as he seeks ways of delivering on his promise to radically reshape the way England’s water and Britain’s energy companies are run.

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Canada announces retaliatory tariffs on wide range of US goods
Posted on Tuesday August 25, 2026

Ottawa’s ‘focused response’ to levies imposed by Donald Trump on Canadian products comes after trade talks collapsed last week

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Canada has announced it will impose tariffs on a wide range of key American industries including cosmetics, dairy, wood products and outdoor equipment in the coming weeks, as it retaliates roughly “dollar for dollar” against levies imposed by the US.

In a strong Canadian countermove to tariffs levied by Donald Trump, which took effect on Saturday after trade talks collapsed the day before, Canada’s finance and industry ministers on Tuesday called the measure a “focused response” to what they see as unfair trade practices.

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Lego sales jump 21% to nearly £5bn, helped by World Cup and F1 ranges
Posted on Tuesday August 25, 2026

Danish toymaker also scores success with KPop Demon Hunters, Star Wars and botanicals products

Lego sales have risen by more than a fifth as tie-ups with the football World Cup, Formula One and the hit film KPop Demon Hunters as well as its flower-based and Star Wars kits drive demand.

The toymaker said its revenues had increased by 21% to 41.9bn Danish kroner (£4.8bn) in the first six months of 2026, driven by strong growth in the Americas, Europe and the Asia-Pacific regions, offsetting stalled sales in China.

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From mixed martial arts to mechanical dogs: the World Robot Conference 2026 – in pictures
Posted on Monday August 24, 2026

More than 3,000 products were shown at the 2026 World Robot Conference in Beijing as China showcased its rapidly growing robotics industry.

The event, which ran from 19-23 August, showcased the latest advances across the robotics industry, from humanoid robots to embodied intelligence and cutting-edge components

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‘Never seen this level of objection’: Scotland pushes back against datacentre boom
Posted on Tuesday August 25, 2026

Holyrood ‘inching towards moratorium’ amid concerns over massive proposed developments in Auchtertool and beyond

In a village 21 miles north of Edinburgh, a real estate consultancy plans to build a datacentre larger than the village itself – 35 metres high, with an area larger than 100 football pitches.

Billed as the second-biggest datacentre in the world, the development in Auchertool, Fife, has attracted 1,600 objections.

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Celtic throw away four-goal aggregate lead to crash out of Champions League against Lask
Posted on Tuesday August 25, 2026

Celtic threw away a four-goal lead in Austria as they missed out on the Champions League for the second year running. The Scottish champions looked to be cruising into the league stage when Callum McGregor put them 4-0 up on aggregate against Lask with a 21st-minute deflected strike.

However, they went on to endure one of their all-time European lows with a 5-1 defeat in Linz delivering a £20m-plus blow.

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Serena Williams thrills New York crowd on US Open return with Alcaraz
Posted on Tuesday August 25, 2026

Former women’s No 1 proves she’s no nostalgia act before star pairing crash out in mixed doubles quarter-finals

Serena Williams’ US Open return lasted two matches and one afternoon Tuesday as she and Carlos Alcaraz followed a first-round win with a quarter-final defeat by Belinda Bencic and Flavio Cobolli in the headline attraction of the reimagined mixed doubles competition.

Back inside Arthur Ashe Stadium 1,453 days after the defeat by Ajla Tomljanovic that had appeared to end her career, Williams emerged from the tunnel at half past three to the roars of more than 10,000 spectators. As the 44-year-old American and Alcaraz warmed up in matching purple-and-black Nike kits, public-address announcer Andy Taylor rattled off her accolades one by one to a steadily rising wall of applause. Together they carried 30 grand slam singles titles, a record for a mixed-doubles team at a major.

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