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Glyphosate is currently sprayed on cereal and pulse crops to dessicate them and make them easier to harvestA new trade deal with the EU could lead to restrictions on the use of the controversial weedkiller glyphosate on UK food crops.The full-spectrum herbicide, which kills almost every plant it touches, is often sprayed on wheat, oats and other cereal and pulse crops immediately before harvest to desiccate them and make them easier to handle. Continue reading......

Shoppers concerned about effect of Middle East conflict, as UK retailers say government running out of time to cut costsFour in five people are worried that the Iran war will make food more expensive, according to a new poll, as businesses warned the “window is closing” for ministers to cut energy costs for UK retailers.Research by Opinium found that 80% of people are worried about the rising price of groceries, which would come from retailers passing on cost increases to consumers, while 73% expect the conflict to push up prices of other products. Continue reading......

Settlement, which includes no admission of wrongdoing, covers roughly 36m eligible devices in class-action lawsuitApple on Tuesday agreed to pay $250m to settle a class-action lawsuit accusing it of misleading millions of iPhone buyers by falsely touting artificial intelligence capabilities for its Siri voice assistant in late 2024.Plaintiffs accused the California tech company of having “promoted AI capabilities that did not exist at the time, do not exist now, and will not exist for two or more years” in order to boost iPhone sales, according to the suit. Apple's more “personalized” version of Siri still has not been fully released despite its announcement nearly two years ago. Continue reading......

Jet fuel has doubled in price since the start of the war on Iran. How bad will the disruption get and could this accelerate the route to jet zero?What happens to flights if the world runs out of oil? Well, obviously they will be grounded. To be more specific, is it possible, if the war in Iran does not resolve and the strait of Hormuz remains blocked, that airlines will simply run out of aviation fuel?It's not a question anyone has had to ask before. Air travel has hit some hurdles this century that nobody could have seen coming – Covid, of course, but also the Icelandic volcano in 2010, which closed much of European airspace for eight days, cost an estimated €3.75bn (£3.2bn) and caused untold supply chain chaos. There have been problems contained within a country or region – the Heathrow substation outage and the Iberian energy crisis, both last year, both closing airports – but since air travel began, it has never been globally impeded by a fuel shortage. Continue reading......

Spain says MV Hondius will be received in Canary Islands and passengers and crew treated before repatriationWhat is hantavirus, the infection thought to have killed three on cruise ship?A British crew member who became ill after a suspected outbreak of hantavirus on a luxury cruise ship in the Atlantic Ocean will be medically evacuated, as the World Health Organization (WHO) said rare human-to-human spread of the deadly virus may have occurred on the vessel.The crew member is being prepared for medical evacuation from the MV Hondius along with a Dutch colleague, with Dutch authorities overseeing the operation. Continue reading......

Europe punished Russian billionaires over the war in Ukraine. It should do the same to those abetting an ecocidal regimeThe ecological disasters of the US-Israel war with Iran are already bad enough. The noxious smoke from bombed oil facilities, spills in the Gulf's waters, the contamination of farmland and groundwater with toxic chemicals unleashed by explosions and their debris, the millions of additional tons of CO2 spewed into the atmosphere. But as bad as it is, the Iran war hides another conflict: the ecological war that Donald Trump's US is waging against the rest of the world.When the EU and UK imposed individual sanctions, travel bans and asset seizures on Russian oligarchs, it wasn't because most of them were individually responsible for Vladimir Putin's colonial war of aggression against Ukraine. They were targeted because, as a class, they were viewed by many as inextricable from the apparatus of corruption and levers of power of the Russian state threatening global stability.Alexander Hur...

Unions group wants rate returned from 3% to 8% after big four UK lenders reveal £14bn total profit in first quarter An increased windfall tax should be imposed on the UK's largest banks according to trade union leaders, after the big four lenders reported almost £14bn in first-quarter profits, partly fuelled by market turbulence caused by the Iran war.The Trades Union Congress (TUC) renewed its call for an increase in the current bank surcharge, which was reduced from 8% to 3% of profits above £100m by the Conservative government in 2023, as banks benefit from the high interest rate environment. Continue reading......

Party divisions over energy have deepened, but the need to move beyond fossil fuels has never been clearerEnergy has not been a prominent subject for discussion in the run-up to Thursday's UK elections. In England this is logical enough, since the big policy decisions are taken by ministers in Westminster, not at council meetings. But the stances adopted by the new governments in Scotland and Wales matter a great deal. They will have an influence beyond their borders, helping to shape the national climate debate in the coming years.In both nations, as in England, divisions have deepened as Conservatives have moved away from support for net zero and Reform UK has ramped up its opposition to renewables. Among Scottish parties, only the Greens are categorically against new fossil‑fuel developments in the North Sea. Under John Swinney, the Scottish National party's earlier opposition to the Rosebank oilfield has softened in advance of the upcoming decision over whether i...

If you're affected by the National Savings and Investments lost funds scandal, we would like to hear from youThis month the state-backed National Savings and Investments (NS&I) bank will share its plan to reunite thousands of bereaved families with their missing money.In March it emerged that 37,500 people faced delays because of problems tracing the premium bonds of deceased customers. The families are collectively owed nearly £500m. Continue reading......

Agreements with Microsoft, Google DeepMind and xAI focus largely on recognizing cybersecurity, biosecurity and chemical weapons risksThe US government has struck deals with Google DeepMind, Microsoft and xAI to review early versions of their new AI models before they are released to the public.The Center for AI Standards and Innovation (CAISI), part of the US Department of Commerce, announced the agreements on Tuesday, saying the review process would be key to understanding the capabilities of new and powerful AI models as well as to protecting US national security. These collaborations will help the federal government “scale (its) work in the public interest at a critical moment”, the agency said in a press release. Continue reading......

May rescheduling could be followed by summer cancellations as Middle East war continues to disrupt suppliesTwo million airline seats have been cut from this month's schedules as airlines redraw their operations because of soaring jet fuel prices amid the Middle East conflict.About 13,000 fewer flights will operate in May around the world after cancellations in recent weeks, according to data from the aviation analytics company Cirium. Continue reading......

Greg Brockman has faced questions about his emails, texts and writings in his personal diary in second week of the trialAs Elon Musk's case against OpenAI entered its second week, focus shifted to the company's president, Greg Brockman. Over the course of several hours on Monday and Tuesday, Brockman faced questions about his emails, texts and one piece of evidence that has become central to the trial: his personal diary.Musk's lawsuit revolves around his allegation that Brockman, OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman, violated the founding agreement of the artificial intelligence firm by turning it into a for-profit entity. Musk argues that Altman and Brockman also unjustly enriched themselves in the process, essentially taking Musk's money while deceiving him about their true intent for the business. He is seeking Altman and Brockman's removal, the undoing of the for-profit restructuring and $134bn, which Musk wants distributed to OpenAI's non-profit. Continue reading......

A Swedish firm's pursuit of the product testing company Intertek suggests investors' price expectations are yet to be shifted by the Iran warIt was a bad day for the FTSE 100 index on Tuesday – down 1.4% – but the puzzle in many quarters is why share prices haven't fallen further since the start of the US-Israel war on Iran. The index is still up by a couple of percentage points since new year, which is not a bet most would have made at the time if they had been told an inflationary energy price shock lay around the corner.An absence of Iran-related corporate profits warnings partly explains the relative resilience, even if those usually take a while to arrive. So, too, the fact that the Footsie is overpopulated with overseas earners for whom the US economy, which isn't suffering Europe's soaring natural gas prices, matters more than their home market. And higher oil prices obviously help the likes of Shell and BP. Continue reading......

The rising number of private renters in Britain have for too long put up with chronically insecure tenancy agreements and poor conditionsThe defining trend in British housing in recent decades has been towards private renting. The sector in England nearly doubled in size between 2004 and 2013. By 2023 almost two-fifths of households were either renting privately or socially. Meanwhile, the dream of home ownership has steadily eroded: 39% of 25- to 34-year-olds owned their home in 2023, 20 percentage points lower than the peak (59%) in 2000. Many younger adults now rent from a private landlord as the default, and expect to do so for the rest of their lives.Which is why the introduction of the Renters' Rights Act is important. Until last week, landlords could evict a tenant for requesting a reasonable repair, or challenging a rent hike. A poll in 2023 for the charity Shelter found that tenants who complained to their landlord or local authority were 159% more likely to be served a no-fault eviction notice ...

Rise in bond yields due to fuel prices and political uncertainty will eat away at Rachel Reeves's fiscal headroomBusiness live – latest updatesThe UK government's long-term borrowing costs have hit their highest level since 1998, amid rising fuel prices and concerns about political stability.The yield – effectively the interest rate – on 30-year UK government bonds (gilts) hit 5.77% at lunchtime on Tuesday, up 0.13 percentage points – exceeding the 27-year high reached last September. Continue reading......

'Least affordable' areas mainly in London commuter belt, UK Finance finds, with Iran war not yet reflected in dataBusiness live – latest updatesUK homebuyers are facing the worst mortgage affordability pressures for almost two decades, although the “pain” is not being felt equally across the country, according to industry data.The banking body UK Finance said that at a nationwide level, initial mortgage repayments were typically swallowing up more than a fifth (21.3%) of a homebuyer's gross income – the highest level since 2008. Continue reading......

BEV sales jumped nearly 60% in April, taking total electric car registrations to more than 2m, says SMMTBusiness live – latest updatesA recent jump in electric car sales in the UK is likely to be “tempered” by worries over rising inflation and energy prices caused by the Iran war, a leading industry body has warned.New car sales in the UK rose by 24% year on year to 149,247 in April, according to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT). Continue reading......

An exodus of workers will be damaging – and electoral change might help Britain escape instability and low growthWhile all eyes are on the Middle East and the risk of a global recession, a possible scenario with significant downside risk for the UK economy after the next general election is building: the impact of anti-immigration policies.We do not know enough about the actual policy changes a Reform UK-led government would impose, but if we get forced repatriation (including of some who were born in Britain) combined with a climate of fear, the economic disruption could be highly significant. Continue reading......

London-headquartered bank's shares slide as it sets aside an extra $300m to cover effects of Middle East conflictBusiness live – latest updatesHSBC has taken a $1.3bn (£961m) hit to profits, fuelled by the fallout from the US-Israel war on Iran and fraud in the troubled private credit sector.The London-headquartered bank said profits fell 4% in the first three months of the year, dropping $100m to $9.4bn, compared with the same period in 2025. Revenue increased 6% to $18.6bn. Continue reading......

Ministers have committed to changing rules for children, but how this will take shape is still up for debateThe UK government committed last week to either implementing a ban on under-16s accessing social media or imposing restrictions on children's use of those platforms.A consultation is already under way on whether to impose limits and the announcement confirms that curbs will be introduced. Here are some of the restrictions that could be brought in. Continue reading......