UK imposes sanctions on another 206 Russians after Ukraine railway attack

Foreign secretary says 178 of those targeted helped prop up self-proclaimed republics in Luhansk and Donetsk

The UK government has imposed sanctions on another 206 individuals in response to Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, including 178 people it said were involved in propping up the self-proclaimed republics in Luhansk and Donetsk.

Liz Truss, the foreign secretary, said the latest sanctions were imposed in a direct response to the “horrific rocket attacks” on a train station in Kramatorsk, eastern Ukraine, that killed dozens of civilians.

Vladimir Yakunin, a former head of Russian Railways who the Foreign Office said had close ties to Putin. The US had already imposed sanctions on Yakunin.

Igor Kesaev, the founder of the cigarette company Megapolis, who the UK says has a £2.9bn fortune.

Saodat Narzieva, “a pro-Kremlin oligarch with close ties to Putin” and a sister of Alisher Usmanov. She was hit with EU sanctions last week.

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GSK to buy US cancer drug developer amid pressure from activist investor

GlaxoSmithKline’s £1.5bn Sierra Oncology deal comes after pressure from Elliott to boost its pipeline

The UK drug company GlaxoSmithKline has agreed a £1.5bn deal to buy a US cancer treatment developer, Sierra Oncology, as it tries to fend off pressure from the activist shareholder Elliott Management.

The deal will give Britain’s second-largest pharmaceutical company access to California-based Sierra Oncology’s momelotinib, a drug being tested on anaemic patients with a type of bone marrow cancer called myelofibrosis. GSK said the drug had “significant growth potential” and it expected sales to start next year, with one analyst predicting it could generate peak annual sales of about $1.7bn (£1.3bn).

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One in eight privately rented homes in England pose threat to health, MPs say

Serious health and safety risks costing NHS £340m a year, public accounts committee report finds

More than one in eight privately rented homes in England pose a serious threat to people’s health and safety, costing the NHS about £340m a year, according to a report from a committee of MPs.

It also uncovered evidence of unlawful discrimination, with an estimated one in four landlords unwilling to let to non-British passport holders.

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Jump in UK wages fails to keep pace with cost of living

Pressure for more support for households and businesses after consumer prices rise 6.2%

Business live updates: jobless rate drops and wage squeeze continues

Britain’s cost of living crisis moved into its fourth consecutive month in February despite a jump in wages and a fall in unemployment to just 3.8%, its lowest level since 1974.

The Office for National Statistics said average earnings growth of 5.4%, including bonuses, failed to keep pace with a 6.2% rise in the consumer prices index in February, while for those who missed out on a bonus the situation was even worse after average wages increased by only 4%.

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Morning mail: Putin confronted by Austria’s leader, flood-related scams, Sydney’s last video shop

Tuesday: Austrian chancellor becomes first western leader to hold face-to-face talks with Russian president since invasion of Ukraine. Plus: Australia’s top travel experiences

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Good morning. Putin meets Austria’s chancellor in his first face-to-face visit with a western leader since the invasion of Ukraine. Scott Morrison and Anthony Albanese will be out campaigning in marginal seats, with jobs and healthcare on the election agenda. And Lonely Planet selects Australia’s top travel experiences.

The last Ukrainian soldiers defending Mariupol said they were “running out of ammunition” on Monday and expected to be killed or taken prisoner very soon by Russian forces surrounding the city. Writing on Facebook, the 36th brigade said its 47-day defence of Mariupol was coming to a tragic conclusion. “We were bombed from airplanes and shot at by artillery and tanks. We have been doing everything possible and impossible,” it said. Meanwhile, Austria’s chancellor, Karl Nehammer, said he told Vladimir Putin that “all those responsible” for war crimes must be brought to justice and warned that western sanctions would intensify as long as people kept dying in Ukraine. After becoming the first western leader to hold face-to-face talks with the Russian president since the invasion, Nehammer said his trip to Moscow was not “a visit of friendship” and that the two had had a “direct, open and hard” conversation.

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BlackRock urged to delay debt repayments from crisis-torn Zambia

Anti-poverty campaigners say world’s largest fund manager refuses to reduce or delay payments on Zambia’s debt

BlackRock, the world’s largest fund manager, has come under pressure to delay demands for debt interest payments from Zambia to prevent the crisis-hit African country’s finances from spiralling out of control.

Anti-poverty campaigners said BlackRock, which manages $10tn (£7.68tn) of assets, was among the private sector lenders that had refused to reduce the interest rate or delay payments on Zambian bonds, unlike governments and international agencies that hold the country’s debts.

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Elon Musk unveils vision for Twitter after joining board

The Tesla boss, who now has a 9.2% stake in the social network, has offered suggestions and criticisms in a series of tweets

Elon Musk has set out his vision for Twitter after buying a 9.2% stake in the company, in a series of posts on the social network described by one commentator as having “chaos energy”.

Since being appointed to the Twitter board on Tuesday, Musk has posted a stream of open questions about the present and future of the site, proposing new features, highlighting areas of concern, and making jokes. Typically for the Tesla billionaire, it was not always clear which was which.

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Government urged to allow Asic to decide claims against itself after investors left in limbo

Former speaker says treasurer Josh Frydenberg should authorise corporate regulator to decide claims under compensation scheme for defective administration

The former speaker Tony Smith has urged Josh Frydenberg to allow the corporate regulator to decide claims against itself, after investors had no one to resolve their bid for compensation over a failed retirement village empire.

Smith, acting in his capacity as chair of a parliamentary committee with oversight of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (Asic), also criticised Treasury’s position that the treasurer could not decide claims against Asic under a government program known as the scheme for compensation for detriment caused by defective administration (CDDA).

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Manchester City under pressure over Kremlin-backed sponsor

Premier League champions’ global partner Marathonbet is one of around 20 firms cleared to operate in Russia

Manchester City football club faces scrutiny over its official global betting partner Marathonbet, which is approved by the Kremlin for its gambling operations in Russia.

Marathonbet, which was established in Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan in 1997, is one of around 20 firms approved in Russia for betting, according to Kremlin federal tax office documents seen by the Observer.

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Five key questions Rishi Sunak and Akshata Murty have yet to answer

Analysis: While the chancellor says his wife paid all UK taxes due, pressure is building over what he hasn’t said about their finances

Rishi Sunak is under huge pressure over his financial affairs and those of his wife, Akshata Murty, the daughter of an Indian billionaire who made his money in IT. These are the key unanswered questions:

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As Britain learns to live with Covid, it faces a new pandemic of disruption

Staff shortages, delays and rising prices are playing havoc with the healthcare, education, farming, hospitality and travel sectors

Although the UK no longer faces the threat of lockdowns or intensive care units being imminently overrun, coronavirus is still disrupting much of society and the economy.

As Britain learns to live with Covid, the virus is still playing havoc with our daily lives, and these difficulties have been compounded by post-Brexit chaos in some in sectors.

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DeSantis takes on Disney in latest battle in the Republican culture war

Florida’s governor is unhappy that Disney has opposed his ‘don’t say gay’ bill –and is threatening to revoke its privileges

It took a single stroke of Ron DeSantis’s pen, passing Florida’s so-called “don’t say gay” bill into law, to transform the self-proclaimed happiest place on earth into a scene of bitter conflict.

Disney’s theme parks have become the latest battlefront in the pugnacious rightwing Republican governor’s culture war on what he calls “wokeness”, and on the state’s LBGTQ+ community. DeSantis, a close Trump ally, and perhaps rival, is threatening sanctions on the corporate behemoth after it dared to challenge the controversial law banning discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity in classrooms.

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Sunak’s wife to pay UK tax after outcry

Akshata Murty says she realises many felt her arrangements were not ‘compatible with my husband’s job as chancellor’

Sunak defends wife’s tax status as Labour and No 10 deny leak

Rishi Sunak’s wife, Akshata Murty, bowed to pressure to pay UK taxes on Friday night, after Boris Johnson said he had been unaware she was a “non-dom” and fresh questions emerged over the couple’s tax affairs.

With Sunak’s position under increasing threat, Murty said she realised many people felt her tax arrangements were not “compatible with my husband’s job as chancellor”, adding that she appreciated the “British sense of fairness”. She will pay tax on all worldwide income in future and for the last tax year, but not on backdated income, which could have saved her an estimated £20m of UK tax on foreign earnings from her billionaire father’s Indian IT company.

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Liberty Steel to cut 200 jobs but create up to 160 more in plant move

Jobs set to go at Stocksbridge in South Yorkshire and at West Bromwich, but new posts to be created at Rotherham

Liberty Steel has announced plans to cut 200 jobs in the UK at plants in South Yorkshire and the West Midlands, as industrialist Sanjeev Gupta’s metals group looks to shift production to Rotherham.

The company said on Friday that it would cut 160 jobs at a plant in Stocksbridge, South Yorkshire, and 45 in West Bromwich in the West Midlands as it focused production on the plant in Rotherham, also in South Yorkshire.

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Shirtmaker TM Lewin could return to UK high street in rescue deal

Company’s lender, understood to be Petra Group, said to be considering possibility of opening stores

The shirtmaker TM Lewin could return to the high street after being rescued from administration by its main lender, understood to be Petra Group.

It is not clear if the group’s 50 staff will be kept on under the rescue deal for TM Lewin, which called in administrators last month for the second time in less than two years.

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Ex-Goldman banker Roger Ng found guilty in billion-dollar 1MDB scandal

Ng, 49, found guilty of helping to embezzle money earmarked for development in one of biggest frauds in financial history

The former Goldman Sachs executive Roger Ng has been found guilty of helping to steal billions of dollars from Malaysia’s 1MDB sovereign wealth fund after a lengthy trial brought by US prosecutors, who described the fraud as one the largest financial scandals in history and who hoped to show that individuals are always at the center of corporate wrongdoing.

A New York jury found Ng, 49, once Goldman’s top investment banker in Malaysia, guilty of helping his former boss Tim Leissner embezzle money intended for development to benefit Malaysia’s poor from a fund connected to Malaysia’s then prime minister, Najib Razak, and then to launder the proceeds while bribing officials in Malaysia and Abu Dhabi.

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Union rejects pay rise of £1,500 for BT staff and plans strike ballot

CWU bosses say increase is relative cut in salary but BT says it is its biggest award in two decades

BT has given 58,000 workers a £1,500 pay rise that it says is its biggest award in two decades, despite its largest union rejecting the deal and saying it intends to ballot members over strike action.

Last week BT had a £1,200 pay rise offer rejected by the Communication Workers Union (CWU), which represents about 40,000 of the company’s 100,000 employees, with union bosses describing it as “insulting” and a “relative pay cut” as soaring inflation fuels a cost of living crisis.

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PM to put nuclear power at heart of UK’s energy strategy

Plan will not please environmental campaigners, who say it fails to meet government’s net-zero targets

Boris Johnson is to put nuclear energy at the heart of the UK’s new energy strategy, but ministers have refused to set targets for onshore wind and vowed to continue the exploitation of North Sea oil and gas.

Amid deep divisions among senior Conservatives, the strategy will enrage environmentalists, who say the government’s plans are in defiance of its own net-zero targets and neglect alternative measures that experts say would provide much quicker relief from high energy bills.

Increasing nuclear capacity from 7 gigawatts to 24GW

Offshore wind target raised from 40GW to 50GW (from 11GW today)

Solar could grow five times from 14GW to 70GW by 2035

An “impartial” review into whether fracking is safe

Up to 10GW of hydrogen power by 2030

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National insurance rise forces UK employers to shoulder £9bn tax burden

Bosses say 1.25-point rise heaps pressure on firms already enduring soaring costs linked to Covid and Brexit

Britain’s employers are being forced to shoulder a £9bn tax rise after the government pushed ahead with raising national insurance on Wednesday despite stiff opposition.

Company bosses said the 1.25-percentage-point rise in national insurance contributions (NICs), which is paid by workers and their employers, would add to already severe pressure from runaway inflation and soaring business costs this year linked to Covid, Brexit and Russia’s war in Ukraine.

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At least 50 US gig workers murdered or killed since 2017 – study

Activists say companies like Lyft and Uber ‘try to protect their bottom line by offloading risk’ on to workers

On a Sunday afternoon in August 2021, the Lyft driver Isabella Lewis was shot in the head by a passenger she had just picked up and left for dead as the man sped off in what appeared to be a fatal carjacking.

Lyft released a statement to the press at the time saying it was “heartbroken by this incident” – but Allyssa Lewis, Isabella’s sister, said her family had never received direct communication from the company, nor any financial compensation.

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