‘It’s a twilight zone’: Iran war casts deep shadows over IMF gathering in Washington
Posted on Saturday April 18, 2026

Rachel Reeves joins global finance chiefs in highlighting how households and businesses are feeling the pain of higher energy prices

• Middle East crisis live: latest news updates

The most severe energy shock since the 1970s, the risk of a global recession and households everywhere stomaching a renewed surge in the cost of living – hitting the most vulnerable hardest.

In a sweltering hot Washington DC this week, the message at the International Monetary Fund meetings was chilling: things had been looking up for living standards around the world. But then came the Iran war.

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Central bank bosses enlist for war game to gauge threat of Lehman-style bust
Posted on Saturday April 18, 2026

Finance chiefs to join exercise in Washington designed to assess how they would handle collapse of significant bank

The bosses of the central banks and treasuries of the UK, US and EU are to take part in a war game in Washington on Saturday to test how they would handle the collapse of a globally significant bank.

Amid growing unease over the risks to global financial stability, the most senior officials from the US Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank and the Bank of England – including its governor, Andrew Bailey – are expected to take part.

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Can Europe avoid a summer of holiday flight and cross-Channel travel chaos?
Posted on Saturday April 18, 2026

Passengers face risk of cancellations due to fuel shortages – and long airport queues due to EU entry-exit system

• What are your rights if your holiday flight is cancelled?

Holidaymakers have faced numerous stresses in recent years when planning and budgeting for the sacred summer holiday. Holiday flights to Europe have kept growing despite a pandemic, a cost of living crisis and long airport queues, but summer 2026 threatens to bring fresh anxieties.

Legacies of Brexit mean longer border checks for Britons and most non-EU nationals to get into much of Europe, and the US-Israel war on Iran has prompted fears that airlines may not have enough fuel for every scheduled flight.

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Questions raised over whether £3.8m government grant awarded to Wrexham AFC was lawful
Posted on Friday April 17, 2026

Exclusive: The club, owned by Hollywood stars Ryan Reynolds and Rob Mac, received the grant without a contract or final state aid assessment in place

Wrexham AFC, the football club part-owned by Hollywood stars Ryan Reynolds and Rob Mac, was given a £3.8m government grant without a contract or a finished state aid assessment in place, raising questions over whether the award was lawful.

The club has received £18m in taxpayer-funded grants – far more than any other in the UK – to help to redevelop its stadium, the Racecourse Ground (Y Cae Ras in Welsh).

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Finance leaders warn over Mythos as UK banks prepare to use powerful Anthropic AI tool
Posted on Friday April 17, 2026

Release of new Claude model, so far limited to US firms, will expand to British institutions in coming days

British banks will be given access in the next week to a powerful AI tool that was deemed too dangerous to be released to the public, as a series of senior finance figures warned over its impact.

Anthropic, which has so far limited the release of the new model to a small clutch of primarily US businesses, including Amazon, Apple and Microsoft, said it would expand that to UK financial institutions.

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Liz Kendall urges UK public to embrace AI as government makes first £500m fund investment
Posted on Friday April 17, 2026

Technology secretary plays down fears over jobs and cyber security as stake taken in British startup

The UK technology secretary has urged the country to “make AI work for Britain”, brushing off fears about its impact on jobs and cybersecurity as the government announced its first investment under a £500m sovereign AI fund.

Liz Kendall said the UK had to “seize” the opportunity offered by AI despite concerns underlined this month when US startup Anthropic revealed it had developed an AI model that posed a potentially significant cyber threat.

Asked how the government makes the case for embracing a technology that could disrupt jobs and now cybersecurity, Kendall said: “We have to seize this to make it work, for Britain, for our jobs, for solving the biggest challenges we face as a world.”

Speaking on Thursday as the government unveiled its first investment in a UK company as part of a £500m sovereign AI fund, Kendall acknowledged “people are worried about the risks and what it means for their jobs”, but AI entrepreneurs also believed they can “make it work … they can create jobs”.

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Supercharged GOAT-level swim‑genius Adam Ramsay-Peaty is the Messi of breaststroke | Barney Ronay
Posted on Saturday April 18, 2026

The three-time Olympic champion is brilliant, charismatic, relatable, basically the best British athlete of all-time. But he’s also a victim of the decline of minority sports

The Austrian philosopher and novelist Robert Musil once wrote a lengthy meditation on human capacity based around seeing the phrase “a racehorse of genius” in a newspaper sports section. Musil was disturbed by this idea. His basic question was: can a horse really be a genius?

If we are to ascribe the label of genius to a horse, based on its ability to run fast and successfully eat oats, where does this leave the unmapped capacities of the actual human genius? What is consciousness? What is a human? Should the question in fact be: will there ever be a human of sufficient genius they are able to actually perceive the genius of a horse?

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Spurs seek elusive victory, Lionesses in Iceland and Coventry seal Premier League promotion – matchday live
Posted on Saturday April 18, 2026

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The Guardian has kicked off a new chapter in puzzles with the launch of its first daily football game, On the ball. It is now live in the app for both iOS and Android … so what are you waiting for?

Not something you see everyday, it’s like something from a Hitchcock film:

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