Hong Kong financial stocks fell after a report that some banks have suspended opening bank accounts for clients in mainland China, as part of a broader push to stem capital flight after Beijing launched a crackdown on illegal cross-border trading. Bloomberg Intelligence's Francis Chan and Steven Lam discuss the implications. (Source: Bloomberg)
Hong Kong financial stocks fell after a report that some banks have suspended opening bank accounts for clients in mainland China, as part of a broader push to stem capital flight after Beijing launched a crackdown on illegal cross-border trading. Bloomberg Intelligence's Francis Chan and Steven Lam discuss the implications. (Source: Bloomberg)
Producer of The Rest is … podcasts reports sales of £37.9m, boosted by rise in subscriptions and live events The media production company co-founded by the former England footballer Gary Lineker and behind The Rest is … podcasts is now the fastest-growing business in Britain in a new ranking. Goalhanger made £37.9m in sales in 2025, growing at an average annual rate of 321% over the past three yea...
Producer of The Rest is … podcasts reports sales of £37.9m, boosted by rise in subscriptions and live events The media production company co-founded by the former England footballer Gary Lineker and behind The Rest is … podcasts is now the fastest-growing business in Britain in a new ranking. Goalhanger made £37.9m in sales in 2025, growing at an average annual rate of 321% over the past three years, according to the latest Sunday Times list of the 100 quickest-growing private companies. Continue reading...
Jess Asato’s lawyer says others want to take action over demeaning sexualised material created by Grok AI tool New claimants have come forward to take legal action against Elon Musk’s company xAI after the Labour MP Jess Asato launched a test case against the firm over demeaning sexualised material created by its Grok AI tool. A handful of complainants contacted Asato’s lawyer on Thursday in respo...
Jess Asato’s lawyer says others want to take action over demeaning sexualised material created by Grok AI tool New claimants have come forward to take legal action against Elon Musk’s company xAI after the Labour MP Jess Asato launched a test case against the firm over demeaning sexualised material created by its Grok AI tool. A handful of complainants contacted Asato’s lawyer on Thursday in response to coverage of the MP’s decision to sue Musk’s company for damages over its creation and circulation of fake images of her in a bikini and an AI-created video that she said showed her “being chloroformed and prepared for a sexual assault”. Continue reading...
Nicola Walker is a furious mother who decimates her best mate’s life after he sleeps with her daughter in an excruciating wrongcom. Plus, the LGBTQ+ adoption drama that has made waves There’s a brilliantly cringe take on intergenerational romance in this comedy starring Nicola Walker and Jemaine Clement as the titular middle-aged best friends. Their relationship is shattered when Steve accidentall...
Nicola Walker is a furious mother who decimates her best mate’s life after he sleeps with her daughter in an excruciating wrongcom. Plus, the LGBTQ+ adoption drama that has made waves There’s a brilliantly cringe take on intergenerational romance in this comedy starring Nicola Walker and Jemaine Clement as the titular middle-aged best friends. Their relationship is shattered when Steve accidentally falls for Alice’s 26-year-old daughter Izzy (Yali Topol Margalith). Alice and Steve (created by Sex Education writer Sophie Goodhart) rightly doesn’t shy away from the messiness of the whole scenario and instead leans into it with great relish. Alice’s fury leads to some terrible behaviour on all sides – there’s a new contender for the most excruciating TV dinner party of all time. But the story is nuanced and sympathetic, too. And the cast, Walker in particular, are sublime. Phil Harrison Disney+, from Monday Continue reading...
In this week’s newsletter: Utah’s gargantuan Stratos development is the latest battleground in the AI-driven fight for water, energy, and our environmental future • Don’t get Down to Earth delivered to your inbox? Sign up here Kevin O’Leary is many things. He is a flamboyant venture capitalist, co-host of the TV show Shark Tank, vocal supporter of Donald Trump and, recently, a villainous tycoon (o...
In this week’s newsletter: Utah’s gargantuan Stratos development is the latest battleground in the AI-driven fight for water, energy, and our environmental future • Don’t get Down to Earth delivered to your inbox? Sign up here Kevin O’Leary is many things. He is a flamboyant venture capitalist, co-host of the TV show Shark Tank, vocal supporter of Donald Trump and, recently, a villainous tycoon (or, in his character’s words, a vampire born in 1601) in the Oscar-nominated Marty Supreme. For the people of Utah, however, O’Leary is the highly controversial face of a new climate controversy. I’ll explain why, after this week’s most important reads. Prepare for imminent return of El Niño, UN warns ‘An equal and habitable world is possible’: academics set out sweeping vision for planetary survival Damaged, deserted, dilapidated … what comes next for the Great Barrier Reef island resorts lying in ruins? Continue reading...
From boat trips on Lake Garda to zip-wiring in Wales, you share your favourite family-friendly breaks in Europe • Tell us about a glamorous seaside hotel that didn’t break the bank? The best tip wins a £200 holiday voucher Lake Garda gave us one of the most memorable and unexpected family holidays yet. We hired a car and headed from Milan to Unesco-listed Peschiera del Garda and the family-focused...
From boat trips on Lake Garda to zip-wiring in Wales, you share your favourite family-friendly breaks in Europe • Tell us about a glamorous seaside hotel that didn’t break the bank? The best tip wins a £200 holiday voucher Lake Garda gave us one of the most memorable and unexpected family holidays yet. We hired a car and headed from Milan to Unesco-listed Peschiera del Garda and the family-focused apartment we found on Airbnb. A gentle 15-minute walk to the lakeside restaurants and gelaterias, this was the perfect base for exploring the beautiful town. Special mentions go to: Gelateria la Romana , with its wonderful ice-cream; the boat trip to Sirmione, an old town with thermal springs on a narrow peninsula; and, further up the lake, picturesque Malcesine and the cable car to the top of Monte Baldo to watch paragliders and to take in the amazing views. Alex Continue reading...
In her first novel for adults, the YA author explores the dark side of writers who fictionalise their children’s lives Children’s writers are sometimes cruel, and often damaged. And, as AS Byatt put it crisply when talking about her 2009 novel The Children’s Book: “Writing children’s books isn’t good for the writer’s own children.” Think of Christopher Milne, raging at having been Christopher Robi...
In her first novel for adults, the YA author explores the dark side of writers who fictionalise their children’s lives Children’s writers are sometimes cruel, and often damaged. And, as AS Byatt put it crisply when talking about her 2009 novel The Children’s Book: “Writing children’s books isn’t good for the writer’s own children.” Think of Christopher Milne, raging at having been Christopher Robin; Vivian Burnett, dragging Little Lord Fauntleroy behind him; Alastair Grahame, lying down on train tracks. This is fertile material, as Byatt recognised, for a grown-up book. The American author Melissa Albert, herself a very successful children’s writer, has made it the theme of her first adult novel. The Children’s protagonist is Guinevere Sharpe, who as a grown woman is trapped by a very public version of her childhood. Her mother, Edith, a sort of JK Rowling/Enid Blyton composite, wrote an era-defining run of children’s portal fantasies called the Ninth City series, in which Guin and her older brother Ennis appeared as the named protagonists. Continue reading...
Critics say high drop-out rate among under-18 army recruits make it a poor means of tackling youth unemployment Young people looking for employment should “really seriously take a look at the armed forces”, according to the veterans minister, Louise Sandher-Jones, and with more than 1 million 16 to 24-year-olds not in education, employment or training (Neets), everyone that age is aware of how ble...
Critics say high drop-out rate among under-18 army recruits make it a poor means of tackling youth unemployment Young people looking for employment should “really seriously take a look at the armed forces”, according to the veterans minister, Louise Sandher-Jones, and with more than 1 million 16 to 24-year-olds not in education, employment or training (Neets), everyone that age is aware of how bleak the job market is at present. But not all agree about whether the military is the answer. Alexandra Williams is from rural Lincolnshire and studied law at a university in Manchester. She went in with the intention of becoming a lawyer, but early on was led to believe that would be impossible. “One of my lecturers was like: you’ve got no contacts, you’re not going to get anywhere,” she says. Continue reading...
Dinnerstein/Baroklyn (Naïve) With a refreshingly organic approach, the US pianist and her string ensemble revitalise the modern minimalist master’s score for The Hours and his Tirol Concerto Getting ahead of next year’s 90th birthday celebrations, American pianist Simone Dinnerstein presents two works by Philip Glass, performing alongside her own string ensemble. Baroklyn – the name conflates her ...
Dinnerstein/Baroklyn (Naïve) With a refreshingly organic approach, the US pianist and her string ensemble revitalise the modern minimalist master’s score for The Hours and his Tirol Concerto Getting ahead of next year’s 90th birthday celebrations, American pianist Simone Dinnerstein presents two works by Philip Glass, performing alongside her own string ensemble. Baroklyn – the name conflates her home borough of Brooklyn and the baroque sensibilities of JS Bach – take a far-from-mechanical approach to the composer’s minimalist tics. Their aim is to emulate the passage of time like sand through an hourglass (hence the title) rather than chopping the music into segments like the hands of a clock. And it works. Arranged by Michael Riesman, Suite from The Hours splices Glass’s score for Stephen Daldry’s film into an almost symphonic three-movement work. The story’s pain and poetry is encapsulated in an immersive score for piano, strings, harp and celesta, with Dinnerstein raising the emotional stakes by adopting considerably slower tempi than the movie soundtrack. Continue reading...
A 24-year-old Chinese woman keeps managing to shine on stage despite wearing a patch and a mask after she lost an eye and her left upper jaw to cancer. Han Yifei, from eastern China’s Jiangsu province, has moved many people online and garnered over 7,000 followers on a social media platform with her beautiful ballroom dancing. In videos she uploaded, she always wears an eye patch and sometimes a m...
A 24-year-old Chinese woman keeps managing to shine on stage despite wearing a patch and a mask after she lost an eye and her left upper jaw to cancer. Han Yifei, from eastern China’s Jiangsu province, has moved many people online and garnered over 7,000 followers on a social media platform with her beautiful ballroom dancing. In videos she uploaded, she always wears an eye patch and sometimes a mask. Han lost part of her jaw and the vision in her left eye to osteosarcoma, a type of bone...
Support For Germany's AfD 'Firewall' Plummets As Voters Call To Bring Party In From The Cold Via Remix News , Germany's long-running "firewall" that sees the country's legacy parties exclude cooperation with the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) is moving further out of step with a large section of the electorate, with new polling showing voters now evenly divided over the governing CDU's r...
Support For Germany's AfD 'Firewall' Plummets As Voters Call To Bring Party In From The Cold Via Remix News , Germany's long-running "firewall" that sees the country's legacy parties exclude cooperation with the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) is moving further out of step with a large section of the electorate, with new polling showing voters now evenly divided over the governing CDU's refusal to work with the nationalist party. Alice Weidel (AfD), federal chairwoman and parliamentary group leader, walks past Federal Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) in the plenary session of the German Bundestag. (Photo by Lilli Förter/picture alliance via Getty Images) According to the latest Deutschlandtrend survey by Infratest Dimap for ARD and Welt , 47 percent of Germans now say the CDU's exclusion of cooperation with the AfD is not right , while the same proportion say it is right. That marks a significant shift since September 2024, with opposition to the stance rising by 12 points and support falling by 13 points. The figures come as the AfD remains Germany's strongest party in the national polling. Infratest Dimap puts the AfD unchanged on 27 percent, ahead of the CDU/CSU on 23 percent, with the Greens on 14 percent, the SPD on 13 percent, and the Left Party on 10 percent. The FDP and BSW would both remain below the five-percent threshold for entering parliament. The CDU's position still has clearer backing among its own voters, with 62 percent of CDU/CSU supporters saying the exclusion of cooperation with the AfD is right. However, the wider national picture suggests the policy is no longer backed by a clear public majority. The east-west divide is particularly stark on the AfD question. In western Germany, a narrow majority still supports excluding cooperation with the AfD, 50 percent in favor to 45 percent against. In the east, where the AfD has built some of its strongest support, a clear majority opposes the CDU's stance, 58 percent against to 38 percent in fa...