Spring forecast: Rachel Reeves to insist government has ‘right economic plan’, as Middle East crisis threatens inflation spike – live updates
Posted on Tuesday March 03, 2026

Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news, including the UK’s spring forecastRachel Reeves’s plans could be hit by Middle East conflict, say economistsHeathrow boss Thomas Woldbye received a total pay package of £3.8m last year – up 14% from £3.3m in 2024, despite the controversy around his handling of the power outage at the airport in March that messed up the travel plans of 200,000 passengers.Or rather non-handling, as he was fast asleep, leaving Heathrow’s chief operating officer Javier Echave to deal with the outage, after a fire at a nearby substation knocked out power supplies to the airport. Continue reading...

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Anthropic’s AI model Claude gets popularity boost after US military feud
Posted on Monday March 02, 2026

Claude climbs to top of app store charts in US and UK after being blacklisted by Pentagon over ethics concernsThe AI model Claude has surged in popularity after being blacklisted by the Pentagon last week over ethics concerns.Claude climbed to the No 1 spot on Apple’s chart of top free apps on Saturday in the US – dethroning OpenAI’s ChatGPT, just one day after the Pentagon tapped OpenAI to supply AI to classified military networks. The bot’s app climbed the iPhone app charts in the UK but did not beat out ChatGPT. Claude also raced up the Android charts in the US and UK, though ChatGPT reigned supreme, according to data from Sensor Tower. Continue reading...

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BrewDog bought by US cannabis and drinks firm for £33m, costing nearly 500 jobs
Posted on Monday March 02, 2026

Many early-stage crowdfunders left empty-handed as Tilray acquires beer company’s UK and Irish assetsBusiness live – latest updatesThe UK and Irish assets of BrewDog, the Scottish self-styled “punk” brewer, have been sold to the US cannabis and drinks firm Tilray for £33m, in a deal that will cost nearly 500 jobs and leave legions of the company’s early-stage crowdfunders empty-handed.Tilray agreed a deal to buy BrewDog’s brand, intellectual property, UK brewing operations and 11 “strategic” bars in the UK and Ireland, the two companies confirmed, preserving 733 jobs. The remaining 38 bars will close immediately, at a cost of 484 jobs. Continue reading...

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Hundreds of UK teenagers to pilot social media bans and restrictions
Posted on Sunday March 01, 2026

Trials to form part of three-month consultation on Keir Starmer’s plans to tackle negative effects of smartphone useHundreds of teenagers will be enlisted to trial social media bans in the coming months with overnight digital curfews and daily screen time limits also tested as part of Keir Starmer’s plan to crack down on the negative effects of smartphone use.The trials will be part of a three-month consultation launched this week that could lead to an outright ban on social media for under-16s similar to that introduced in Australia. Ministers have said they are ready to toughen laws just six months after the introduction of child protection measures in the Online Safety Act. Continue reading...

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‘The digital colonization of flyover states’: how datacenters are tearing small-town America apart
Posted on Monday March 02, 2026

The rapid rollout of datacenters across the US is creating a divide between municipal governments and residentsWilmington, Ohio, resident Quintin Koger Kidd was so concerned last June with his local public officials’ alleged misdoings – open meeting violations and other discrepancies – that he filed a complaint in court to have the mayor and city council members removed from their posts.When Koger Kidd later heard that the city supported plans by Amazon Web Services to build a $4bn datacenter on 500 acres (200 hectares) south of town, he was aghast. Amazon has sought a tax abatement that would see its datacenter exempt from paying property taxes for 30 years in exchange for the funding of local schools and infrastructure projects. Continue reading...

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Infantino’s idolisation of Trump has left football with blood on its hands | Barney Ronay
Posted on Monday March 02, 2026

The Fifa president’s sycophancy towards the US president has left the organisation facing a new nadir, but any reckoning seems a distant prospectMr President. Fellow exco members. We’re going to need a bigger Board of Peace. How many mini‑pitches are we up to now? Gaza got 50 of them last month. What will it take to football-fix the global conflict being set in train by Fifa’s own Peace Prize Boy? A hundred mini-pitches? Four billion mini-pitches? All the mini‑pitches in the universe?In a more sane version of what we must, out of habit, call the real world, it would seem absurd to talk about sports administration in the context of the US, Iran and the airborne conflict being played out across the borders of their allies. Continue reading...

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Ian Holloway: ‘If you can’t hear other people, you are isolated from the world’
Posted on Tuesday March 03, 2026

To mark World Hearing Day, the Swindon manager talks about wearing hearing aids, his family’s experience of deafness and communication in footballIan Holloway is talking about one of the telltale signs, away from frontline management, that led to him wearing hearing aids. “I became more and more aware how loud I was having to put the volume on the telly,” he says, before delivering the punchline. “My neighbours must be delighted.” The other giveaway came courtesy of his wife, Kim. “How often I had to say: ‘Sorry? Pardon?’ It started to really annoy both of us. At first I thought I was just deliberately not listening after 37 years of marriage.”This Saturday, when his Swindon side visit Crawley hoping to maintain their League Two promotion push, Holloway, who turns 63 this month, plans to wear his hearing aids for the first time. “Unfortunately ageing happens to all of us – your body does deteriorate – so put the ego down and get the best hearing you can. I want to be the best I can be for as long as I can be.” Continue reading...

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