Attempt to turn a stretch of the English-Scottish border into a commercial forest exposes threat to habitats from wealthy investors On the English-Scottish border a small species of butterfly, the northern brown argus, has fended off one of the biggest investors in the UK. Todrig, with its heath moorlands and hundreds of species of flora and fauna, represents an investment that could save Britain’...
Attempt to turn a stretch of the English-Scottish border into a commercial forest exposes threat to habitats from wealthy investors On the English-Scottish border a small species of butterfly, the northern brown argus, has fended off one of the biggest investors in the UK. Todrig, with its heath moorlands and hundreds of species of flora and fauna, represents an investment that could save Britain’s wealthiest families millions of pounds in inheritance tax . Continue reading...
Visitors flock to Book Arsenal in Ukraine’s capital as wartime writing takes centre stage It was a literary festival, all right, but if your reference for such things is Hay-on-Wye and Edinburgh, or Melbourne and Sydney, or New York and Washington DC, then at Kyiv Book Arsenal you might think you had slipped through a crack in the universe and landed in an alternative reality. For a start, they we...
Visitors flock to Book Arsenal in Ukraine’s capital as wartime writing takes centre stage It was a literary festival, all right, but if your reference for such things is Hay-on-Wye and Edinburgh, or Melbourne and Sydney, or New York and Washington DC, then at Kyiv Book Arsenal you might think you had slipped through a crack in the universe and landed in an alternative reality. For a start, they were so young, the audience members. Dressed in their considerable best, they clutched their bags of books bought directly from publishers’ stalls and stopped to hug their friends – the festival providing the perfect opportunity for a people-watching passeggiata through its venue, the city’s vast 18th-century military arsenal. Continue reading...
From franchise hits to historical epics, joyous musicals to autobiographical family sagas: Steven Spielberg has done it all. As his latest sci-fi film Disclosure Day is released, film-makers, authors and Guardian critics reveal which of his movies means the most to them Steven Spielberg is often described as the inventor of the “event movie” – or as the creator of our new age of IP supremacy, in w...
From franchise hits to historical epics, joyous musicals to autobiographical family sagas: Steven Spielberg has done it all. As his latest sci-fi film Disclosure Day is released, film-makers, authors and Guardian critics reveal which of his movies means the most to them Steven Spielberg is often described as the inventor of the “event movie” – or as the creator of our new age of IP supremacy, in which the genre property is more important than any above-the-title film star. But that isn’t quite it. He came of age in the American new wave era but in spirit belonged neither to that nor fully to Hollywood’s golden age studio system that preceded it. In fact, he synthesised both into a directing style that was audacious and fluent. He availed himself of the subversiveness of the new wave, and yet was classically oriented, drawing upon his love of – and alienation from – the all-American suburb, making him the Edward Hopper or the Andrew Wyeth of the movies. Tellingly, it was François Truffaut, the most emollient and Hollywood-friendly of France’s Nouvelle Vague masters, whom Spielberg cast in a cameo in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Continue reading...
Live over-by-over updates from 11am UK time Lord’s of London: 150 Tests at cricket’s grand citadel You can email Tim with your thoughts Morning everyone and welcome to a Test that has somehow dribbled into a fourth day. We’ve had a wicket roughly every four overs, but the rain gods have allowed only five sessions’ play. England are well on top, yet they could still lose. They need five more wicket...
Live over-by-over updates from 11am UK time Lord’s of London: 150 Tests at cricket’s grand citadel You can email Tim with your thoughts Morning everyone and welcome to a Test that has somehow dribbled into a fourth day. We’ve had a wicket roughly every four overs, but the rain gods have allowed only five sessions’ play. England are well on top, yet they could still lose. They need five more wickets before New Zealand score 199 more runs. So far, between the showers, the New Zealanders have managed only 168 for 15 wickets, so 199 for four may sound like a stretch. But they’ve got more batting left than you’d think because they sent in a nightwatchman, way back on Friday evening. Continue reading...
New research suggests the fuzzy insects may be capable of spontaneously solving problems the way animals with much larger brains do. (Image credit: Mikko Törmänen/University of Oulu)
New research suggests the fuzzy insects may be capable of spontaneously solving problems the way animals with much larger brains do. (Image credit: Mikko Törmänen/University of Oulu)
The UK will offer to buy artificial intelligence chips from technology companies in an effort to encourage them to stay in Britain, the Telegraph reported on Sunday. Technology Secretary Liz Kendall will outline plans to make “strategic purchases” of semiconductor equipment from UK-based companies in a speech at the London Tech Week conference this week, the paper said, citing draft outlines of th...
The UK will offer to buy artificial intelligence chips from technology companies in an effort to encourage them to stay in Britain, the Telegraph reported on Sunday. Technology Secretary Liz Kendall will outline plans to make “strategic purchases” of semiconductor equipment from UK-based companies in a speech at the London Tech Week conference this week, the paper said, citing draft outlines of the proposals. The plans also involve ensuring companies have access to funding, including from the taxpayer, and investing in skills so the firms can keep their workforces in Britain. In a speech at Bloomberg in January, Kendall said the government intended to plug £1 billion ($1.3 billion) into expanding its AI research resource “by 20-fold.” The initiative offers free public compute to businesses and researchers. The UK has been grappling with how to remain a draw to its burgeoning tech companies, as well as how to become less reliant on overseas firms for procurement contracts. A recent report from lawmakers on the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee said that the US firm Palantir Technologies Inc. should not play such a significant role in the UK public sector, and warned of a growing reliance on a small number of providers including Microsoft Corp. and Amazon Web Services. Kendall said in her January speech: “We must, and we are, securing our own sovereign AI capability.” “This is far too important a technology to depend entirely on other countries especially in areas like defense, financial services and health care,” she added. A number of promising UK tech companies have been snapped up by buyers overseas, with US semiconductor giant Qualcomm buying Alphawave IP Group Plc for $2.4 billion last year, while AI chip designer Graphcore was purchased by SoftBank Group Corp in 2024. British chip designer Arm Holdings Plc , whose majority owner is SoftBank, picked New York for its main listing in 2023.
bunhill/iStock via Getty Images Executive Summary I said the May employment report has likely ruined the idea of impending interest-rate cuts. Maybe "ruined" seems like a harsh term, but I think it's fair. For many months the markets acted like a child in the backseat crying, "Are we there yet?" Each slightly better-than-expected data point created an immediate narrative that supported the belief ...
bunhill/iStock via Getty Images Executive Summary I said the May employment report has likely ruined the idea of impending interest-rate cuts. Maybe "ruined" seems like a harsh term, but I think it's fair. For many months the markets acted like a child in the backseat crying, "Are we there yet?" Each slightly better-than-expected data point created an immediate narrative that supported the belief that the Federal Reserve was one step closer to lowering interest rates. Then the May employment report came out, and all of those narratives fell apart. In May, the number of jobs added exceeded expectations. The prior two months' job additions were upwardly revised. Unemployment did not rise. Wage growth was not weak enough to provide the Federal Reserve a compelling reason to switch directions. To me this matters because after the May employment report, I believe the emphasis transitioned from " when will the Fed cut? " to " will the Fed raise rates? " This is why I am cautiously bearish toward the Nasdaq 100 Index and the most overvalued areas of the growth trade. I have a bearish view on the market. Later in the article, I will explain both the macro reasons behind this view and the technical levels that could define my next entry points. That said, my negative view is primarily directed at growth stocks in general and at AI-related semiconductor stocks in particular. These stocks have already risen significantly, priced in very high future earnings, and are therefore more exposed to higher yields. Don't worry, I'll discuss this in detail too. It'll be a bit like going back to college. I'll try to explain in simple terms what's happening and why the market reacted so poorly on Friday. June represents the convergence of three risks that do not lend themselves well to coexistence: inflationary pressures that may not abate, a Federal Reserve that could potentially present itself as more hawkish (especially with Kevin Warsh now involved in the monetary policy discussion) a...
Reaching age 60 is a major milestone. You're likely only two to seven years away from retirement. And you probably think about your financial readiness for retirement quite frequently. Net worth is a financial metric that many people use to compare their financial position with others. What is the average net worth for Americans at age 60? You may be surprised. Image source: Getty Images. Continue...
Reaching age 60 is a major milestone. You're likely only two to seven years away from retirement. And you probably think about your financial readiness for retirement quite frequently. Net worth is a financial metric that many people use to compare their financial position with others. What is the average net worth for Americans at age 60? You may be surprised. Image source: Getty Images. Continue reading