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The clearing of the decks continues apace at BP. The last chief executive, Murray Auchincloss, got the heave-ho in December. Last month brought news of hefty write-downs on the troublesome low-carbon energy assets in solar and biogas. Now comes an admission that the current debt-reduction measures aren’t enough to ease the strain on an over-extended balance sheet. Share buy-backs are being suspended.Buy-backs have become the essential symbol of financial virility in today’s oil industry. At the right price, they represent an efficient use of excess capital and are a way for managements to send obligatory signals about “financial discipline”, meaning…

When Lunos, an AI startup in New York City, was gearing up for launch, its founder and chief executive, Duncan Barrigan, and his team wanted to make a splash. So they shelled out $3,500 to do the unconventional: hire a horse and a cowboy to lasso the bull of Wall Street.On a sweltering evening in late September, the cowboy galloped toward the iconic sculpture in lower Manhattan. Wearing ranch gear and a western hat stamped with the Lunos logo, he lassoed the bull’s horns as invitees and curious passersby watched. He and the horse then circled the statue, handing out…

Online prediction market Kalshi hit a daily record on Super Bowl Sunday, surpassing $1bn in trading volume, the company announced on Tuesday.Kalshi’s CEO, Tarek Mansour, called it an “incredible weekend”, telling CNBC that “Kalshi was the biggest brand of the Super Bowl this year, without running a Super Bowl ad”.Kalshi trading volume during the game was up 2,700% year over year. More than $100m were bets on Bad Bunny’s opening song and $45m on which artists would perform with him on stage. In comparison, the platform saw $27m in total trading volume at last year’s Super Bowl.Prediction markets like Kalshi…

Nearly 55,000 children in England live with foster carers, and despite a recent fall in the number of children in care, pressure on the system remains intense. Rising costs and the growing role of private providers in residential care and foster placements have exposed deep weaknesses, yet reform has lagged behind the crisis in children’s homes. Only now have ministers set out plans to reshape fostering. The test is whether their plan fixes the system, or papers over its cracks.The main thrust of a new policy paper from the Department for Education is that more foster carers are needed to…

Downing Street is increasingly confident that Anas Sarwar’s call for Keir Starmer to stand down was not part of a coordinated plot by a leadership rival to bring down the prime minister, the Guardian understands.The Scottish Labour leader spoke to several cabinet ministers including Wes Streeting, as well as former deputy leader Angela Rayner, ahead of his explosive intervention on Monday, but sources said he had not revealed his plans.No 10 had been braced for further calls for Starmer to go, including from Eluned Morgan, Labour’s first minister in Wales, along with ministerial resignations in Westminster. They immediately acted to…

If the sentence handed to the media mogul Jimmy Lai was meant to surprise, it would have been shorter. Twenty years behind bars is not a burst of rage. It is a sentence designed to make repression routine in Hong Kong. The 78-year-old founder of the shuttered pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily is now likely to die in prison after being convicted of sedition. The court was telling Hongkongers what kind of place they now live in, and signalling to foreign governments what kind of relationship Beijing expects them to accept.China’s national security law, imposed on Hong Kong in 2020, was…

In a motion backed by MPs last week, the government agreed to publish all documents relating to Lord Mandelson’s appointment as the UK’s ambassador to the US.The government agreed that sensitive documents would be referred to Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament (ISC), a group of MPs which will have a role in deciding what will be published.One source said following Streeting’s move to publish messages himself, there was now concern that ministers could feel political pressure to publish messages that should instead be shared by the ISC.When Environment Secretary Emma Reynolds was asked if she would follow Streeting’s…

Amid calls for a national shutdown on 30 January, Anton Kinloch displayed a sign on the sidewalk outside Lone Wolf, his craft cocktail bar and restaurant in Kingston, New York. In large block letters he wrote: “WE LOVE ICE IN DRINKS. WE DON’T LOVE ICE IN REAL LIFE. SOLIDARITY ALWAYS.”Along with his wife and business partner, Lisa Dy, he had made the difficult decision to stay open, electing instead to donate a portion of the night’s proceeds to a local immigrant advocacy group. With frigid temperatures and inclement weather stymying business in the region this winter, he simply could not…

The FBI on Tuesday released new photos and video footage of someone the agency’s director described as “an armed individual appearing to have tampered with the camera at Nancy Guthrie’s front door the morning of her disappearance”.Broadcast journalist Savannah Guthrie, host of NBC’s Today and Nancy’s daughter, wrote on social media: “We believe she is still alive. Bring her home.”Door-camera video shows individual appear to tamper with the camera at Nancy Guthrie’s front door – videoThe FBI director, Kash Patel, published the images as the search for Nancy Guthrie, 84, stretched into its second week, saying the images had been…

Khanna names six men appearing in unredacted Epstein filesOn the House floor today, congressman Ro Khanna named the six high-profile men that are included in the unredacted version of the documents relating to Jeffrey Epstein.Khanna named, US businessman Leslie Wexner of Victoria’s Secret, Abercrombie & Fitch and Bath & Body Works fame; Emirati businessman Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem; and Salvatore Nuara, Zurab Mikeladze, Leonic Leonov, and Nicola Caputo.“If we found six men that they were hiding in two hours, imagine how many men they are covering up for in those 3m files,” Khanna said. “Why are they protecting these rich…