The Guardian
1 day ago
Trump’s Iran deal could place his legacy in the hands of Tehran
He lambasted Jimmy Carter during the 1980 hostage crisis; now Trump’s presidency could be similarly blemishedIt began with the fate of hostages.Donald Trump’s first recorded foray into politics was sparked by the 1979 takeover of the US embassy in Tehran, which saw 52 American diplomats held incommunicado for 444 days. Continue reading...
The Guardian
1 day ago
KPMG leaked confidential Optus information and surveilled whistleblower’s laptop, inquiry hears
International firm owns up to breach of ethics after staff leaked confidential Optus information while bidding for telco contractFollow our Australia news live blog for latest updatesGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastKPMG has admitted to another breach of ethics after its staff leaked Optus’ confidential information to colleagues bidding for an audit contract with Telstra.The consulting firm’s executives also surveilled a whistleblower’s laptop and dismissed the individual as someone with “workplace grievances”, a parliamentary inquiry heard on Friday. Continue reading...
The Guardian
1 day ago
On the trail of the dotcom queen: how Julie Meyer left a pattern of unpaid bills, missing funds and broken dreams in her wake
Investigation: The entrepreneur was once the toast of London’s tech scene, a ‘global leader of tomorrow’ who starred on Dragons’ Den and promised untold riches for the startups she championed. But people she worked with in the last decade, from Malta to Switzerland, describe a very different realityJulie Meyer is sitting in a starkly lit attic, surrounded by piles of £50 notes. A California blond in a crisp, white shirt, her long, stockinged legs crossed at the knee, she listens intently to the young man standing before her. As he talks, she sizes him up. Eventually, she tells him: “I’m going to make you an offer.” It could be a scene from a heist movie, but Meyer is in a BBC studio, shooting a 2009 episode of the TV show Dragons’ Den. A celebrated entrepreneur with a venture capital fund, she is ready to invest in whichever contestants catch her eye. For the viewers, she has some advice: “What is success? A lot of it is self-belief. Continuing on when most rational people would stop.”This is an online spin-off from the original Dragons’ Den series, so the stakes are a little lower. But for Lex Deak, a 23-year-old with a big idea for a social media website, what happens in this room today could be make or break. He desperately wants to work with Meyer. Continue reading...
The Guardian
1 day ago
UK borrows more than expected as impact of Iran war takes toll
May figure of £23.3bn underlines challenge facing Andy Burnham if he ends up as Labour leaderThe UK borrowed a higher-than-expected £23.3bn in May amid the economic fallout from the Iran war, underlining the fiscal pressures facing Andy Burnham if he takes over as the Labour leader.In figures released shortly after Burnham’s victory in the Makerfield byelection, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said public sector net borrowing – the difference between government spending and income – for the month was the second highest for any May on record. Continue reading...
The Guardian
1 day ago
MPs urge Fujitsu to make ‘immediate’ payment to Post Office Horizon victims
Liam Byrne, who chairs Commons business committee, says too many operators are still waiting for redressThe Japanese tech company at the centre of the Post Office IT scandal is facing calls from a parliamentary committee to make an “immediate” payment towards the compensation bill for victims.Fujitsu supplied the faulty Horizon software to the UK Post Office, which led to branch operators being wrongly prosecuted over discrepancies in their business accounts. Continue reading...
The Guardian
1 day ago
Telegram questioned by Ofcom after arsonist who targeted Starmer-linked properties recruited on app
Exclusive: Telegram urged to clarify how it detects illegal incitement after attacks were coordinated using appTelegram is facing questions from Ofcom over how it detects and prevents illegal incitement after a Ukrainian man was found guilty of carrying out arson attacks on a car and property associated with Keir Starmer.A spokesperson for the regulator said it had contacted the messaging app “to seek further clarification” because the arsonist had been directed on Telegram by a handler linked to Russia. Continue reading...
The Guardian
1 day ago
Homes for sale in former schools in England and Scotland – in pictures
From a one-room village school transformed into a five-bedroom rural pile to a flat in a grand Victorian building in London Continue reading...
The Guardian
1 day ago
Think like a billionaire part one – podcast
Glamorous, rich and well-connected, Julie Meyer was a darling of the dotcom boom. But people who worked with the entrepreneur complain about unpaid wages, debts to suppliers and missing money. Journalist Olivia Lee and the Guardian’s investigations team unravel the complicated storyJournalist Olivia Lee was in Fabric nightclub in London when she heard a story that intrigued her: a tech founder told her a tale of woe about a luxury networking event he had been to. He told Lee there were supposed to be yacht trips and gala dinners. But nothing had gone as planned. “He claimed that there were these really chaotic scenes of taxi drivers supposedly working for the organiser going on strike because they hadn’t been paid. People chucked out of hotel rooms because the organiser appeared to have not paid the hotel bill.”The woman he said was behind the event was Julie Meyer. An entrepreneur who had been the queen of the 00s dotcom scene in London and was later awarded an MBE. Lee, along with Juliette Garside from the Guardian’s investigations team, began looking into Meyer. Lee tells Helen Pidd what she learned about the tech entrepreneur and the accusations made against her. Continue reading...
The Guardian
1 day ago
CDC to tap $107m in emergency funding for Ebola response in DRC and Uganda
Number of people infected now tops 1,000 though health officials say the global risk remains lowSign up for the Breaking News US newsletter email The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will tap $107m in emergency funding for Ebola outbreak response in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Uganda, officials said on Thursday.The continued Ebola outbreak in the DRC comes as Canada, Mexico and the US jointly host the Fifa World Cup, attracting visitors from around the world. The officials said the outbreak, now the third largest on record, required “strong immediate support”, but that the global risk remained low. Continue reading...
The Guardian
1 day ago
Another FTSE 100 firm falls to private equity. Where are the new listings? | Nils Pratley
You can’t complain Intertek’s £10bn takeover happened – the problem is the lack of arrivals in the other direction It would be a stretch to describe the £10bn-ish takeover of Intertek as a landmark event for the London stock market or the FTSE 100 index.This is not an Arm Holdings moment – the purchase of that Cambridge chip designer by Japan’s SoftBank in 2016 provoked long (and continuing) agonising over the lack of whizzy tech stocks on the London market. Continue reading...
The Guardian
1 day ago
The Guardian view on OnlyFans: revelations of abusive middlemen merit MPs’ attention | Editorial
Reports of agents taking 50% of women’s earnings undermine the company’s rhetoric of empowerment Since its launch a decade ago, and throughout its journey to becoming one of the UK’s most successful internet startups, OnlyFans – which was valued at more than £3bn in April – has presented itself as a vehicle for content creators’ empowerment. Revelations of the role played by middlemen in transactions on the website, which is dominated by pornographic content, undermine such claims and require a response from parliament.A Guardian investigation and a BBC documentary uncovered details of male-run agencies that seek out young women, persuade them to film sexual material, and take 50% of their earnings (all OnlyFans creators also pay a 20% commission to the website). The reporters heard from women who faced pressure to make their content more explicit, and about online networks where managers sell contracts with performers to each other. The BBC interviewed a woman in Wales who was physically attacked in her home.Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading...
The Guardian
1 day ago
The billionaire hidden behind the curtain inside Trump’s Pentagon
Media-shy financier Stephen Feinberg has quietly amassed extraordinary influence over US military spendingThe only available video over the last 15 months of the official who really wields power in Donald Trump’s Pentagon is a cartoon animation. Released in May on X by the US government, it shows a silver haired figure in a grey suit lighting up a cigar and sitting at a massive wooden desk with a nameplate: DEPSECWAR FEINBERG.Stephen Feinberg, the 66-year-old billionaire founder of the private equity giant Cerberus Capital Management, has served as the deputy secretary of defense since March 2025. His boss, the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, makes frequent appearances working out with troops or insulting reporters at press conferences, and posts often on social media. But Feinberg does not show his face. He has been obsessively media shy for decades, and is so reclusive that since his confirmation hearing he has not testified to a single committee on Capitol Hill, has held no press conferences and given no interviews. His press spokesperson left the government months into his tenure and has not been replaced. Continue reading...
The Guardian
1 day ago
‘Cynical to get power’: Michel Barnier on Boris Johnson, Brexit and the EU’s future
Former negotiator believes in an unstable world, it is ‘perfectly possible’ the UK can rejoin the EU with old opt-outsUK could keep special pre-Brexit terms if it rejoined EU, Michel Barnier saysA couple of years ago, Michel Barnier spent a weekend with Boris Johnson’s father, Stanley. It was not some ghoulish Brexit spin-off of The Traitors, but the result of the former EU negotiator’s wife, Isabelle, being a close friend of Johnson’s French cousin, Anne du Boucheron, the owner of Château de la Baronnière, a 19th-century estate in Mauges-sur-Loire, in western France.“We spent a weekend together in a French castle. Very friendly. Long promenades in the forest,” Barnier recalls of Johnson senior, with whom he discussed the former prime minister’s motivation to back Brexit. “It was interesting. Boris was much more European at the beginning. Even if he was critical. I don’t see it as a motivation but it is, perhaps, a method or attitude: to be pragmatic in some way. Cynical. Cynical to get power.” Continue reading...
The Guardian
1 day ago
UK could keep special pre-Brexit terms if it rejoined EU, Michel Barnier says
Exclusive: Former chief Brexit negotiator says staying out of euro and Schengen area would be ‘perfectly possible’‘Cynical to get power’: Michel Barnier on Boris Johnson, Brexit and the EU’s futureMichel Barnier has said Britain could regain its special terms if it rejoined the EU and claimed it was becoming clearer every day to the British people that they would be stronger in Europe.In an interview before the 10th anniversary of the Brexit referendum next week, the EU’s former chief Brexit negotiator said he could not see any obstacle to the UK keeping the pound and remaining outside the passport-free Schengen travel area should the country rejoin. Continue reading...
The Guardian
1 day ago
Attorney general tells department to stop using X amid UK disinformation concerns
Exclusive: Richard Hermer’s office understood to be first in government to restrict use after recent riotsThe attorney general for England and Wales has told his office to no longer post on X, making it the first UK government department to stop using the Elon Musk-owned platform amid increasing worries about its use to incite violence and racism.Richard Hermer’s office last posted on X on Friday, and it is understood that officials have been told to no longer use the site, unless for the specific purpose of combatting disinformation there. Continue reading...
The Guardian
1 day ago
Barbados prime minister announces manifesto for slavery reparations
Updated document, which emphasises harm done to African women, is being considered by other Caribbean countriesBarbados’s prime minister, Mia Mottley, has announced a new manifesto from Caribbean leaders asserting the “moral, ethical and legal case” for reparations over damage caused by hundreds of years of enslavement.Mottley was speaking at a “historic” conference in Ghana to advance the push for reparatory justice after the United Nations adopted a landmark resolution declaring the trafficking of enslaved Africans as the gravest crime against humanity. Continue reading...
The Guardian
1 day ago
South African men sentenced in ‘world’s largest’ rhino horn trafficking case
‘Mastermind’ Dawie Groenewald given fine of 2m rand or four-year jail term almost 16 years after arrestTwo traffickers of rhino horns have been sentenced by a South African court in what police said was the world’s largest such case, partly bringing to an end an almost two-decade legal saga.Dawie Groenewald and Tielman Erasmus had faced more than 1,700 charges ranging from illegally hunting and dehorning rhinos to racketeering and money laundering. Continue reading...
The Guardian
1 day ago
‘Mega-consumers’ of food and energy cost environment $5.7tn a year, study finds
Top 10% generate climate and biodiversity damage bill that exceeds economies of most countries, say researchersThe environmental damage bill racked up by the highest-consuming 10% of the world’s population has reached up to $5.7tn a year – larger than the economy of every country except the US and China, a study has found.Mega-consumers in this group are concentrated in the global north, accounting for more than half the population of the US and 40-45% of people in the EU. Continue reading...
The Guardian
1 day ago
Rightwing MEPs chant 'send them back' after controversial deportation plans are passed – video
Several lawmakers celebrated a vote in the European parliament approving plans to increase deportations of undocumented people. Chants of 'send them back' spurred other MEPs to chant back 'shame on you'. The plans could lead to ICE-style immigration measures being implemented in Europe, which have been criticised by rights groups Continue reading...
The Guardian
1 day ago
Moment fuel storage lid flies off Moscow refinery during drone attack – video
Footage shows the moment an explosion at an oil refinery in Moscow caused a fuel storage lid to fly off. The explosion was caused by a Ukrainian drone attack where one of Moscow’s most important energy facilities was damaged for the second time this weekMoscow oil refinery struck in Ukraine’s biggest air raid on city since start of war Continue reading...
The Guardian
1 day ago
Fewer than half of commuters in Great Britain think train fare value for money
Findings of national survey comes as rail regulator reports record 1.83bn passenger journeys last yearFewer than half of rail commuters in Great Britain think their train fare is value for money, a national passenger survey has found.Travellers on the CrossCountry long-distance rail service were the least satisfied overall, according to the research by the passenger watchdog Transport Focus. Continue reading...
The Guardian
1 day ago
The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales review – a playable love letter to Zelda
PlayStation 5, Xbox, Nintendo Switch 2, PC; Team Asano/Square EnixUpbeat, charmingly retro RPG full of treasure-hunting, temple-roaming, monster-slaying and princess-saving is an absolute blast to playYou can’t help but wonder if developer Team Asano is in a private competition with itself to come up with the most ridiculous name for a video game. Following Project Triangle Strategy and Bravely Default: Flying Fairy we have this mouthful: The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales. It’s a playable love letter to the Zelda adventures of yesteryear rendered in the studio’s trademark glorious 2D-HD art style, melding evocative pixel sprites with modern visual effects.From west Philabieldia, born and raised, our hero is adventurer Elliot. The antagonist making trouble in the neighbourhood is a king’s dastardly aide intent on summoning an ancient evil. The story is pure after-school-TV schlock, fully voice-acted but still unafraid to make you sit through reams and reams of text, and the action comprises treasure-hunting, temple-roaming and dispatching monsters. It’s part Chrono Trigger, part Oracle of Seasons as our almost obnoxiously upbeat hero journeys through the ages in order to solve puzzles, tip his fedora and of course, save a princess. Continue reading...
The Guardian
1 day ago
Americans are spending $800 just to cool their homes. We are at a breaking point | Mark Wolfe
While the stock market booms for the rich, cost of living is soaring for everyone elseSince 2020, the stock market has more than doubled. Americans who own substantial financial assets are reveling in economic success. For everyone else, the economy feels very different. This summer, the average family will spend nearly $800 just to keep their home cool, almost 40% more than in 2020 and up 10.5% since last summer.Americans now carry more than $1.2tn in credit card debt. Nearly 60% say they are living paycheck to paycheck. One in six households is behind on its utility bills. Every year, utilities disconnect electric service more than 13m times. Nearly 40% of lower-income households struggle to pay their energy bills.Mark Wolfe is an energy economist and serves as the executive director of the National Energy Assistance Directors Association representing the state directors of the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program and the co-director of the Center on Energy Poverty and Climate. He also serves as an adjunct professor at the Trachtenberg School of Public Policy at George Washington University Continue reading...
The Guardian
1 day ago
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