Iranian forces seize two ships in critical waterway as Washington and Tehran maintain separate blockades
Iranian forces have seized two ships in the strait of Hormuz as the US and Iran doubled down on imposing separate blockades of the shipping waterway.
The standoff over the strait – through which about 20% of the world’s oil and liquefied fossil gas passed through during peacetime – has raised doubts about whether stalled peace negotiations will resume.
Continue reading...Jonathan Brash says ‘own goals’ are distracting from Labour’s achievements
UK inflation accelerated to 3.3% in March after the Iran war triggered the biggest jump in fuel prices for more than three years, Richard Partington reports.
Today the Liberal Democrats staged a photocall to publicise their line about this being “Trumpflation”. Daisy Cooper, the Lib Dem deputy leader and Treasury spokesperson, said:
People across our country have been struggling for years with a devastating cost-of-living crisis and Donald Trump’s idiotic war in Iran has added to it. The cost of fuel is soaring, mortgage rates are rising and fixed energy deals are already going up by hundreds of pounds.
But what is utterly inexcusable is that there are politicians in this country - Nigel Farage and Kemi Badenoch - who are happy to cheerlead Donald Trump as he hikes people’s bills. All the while this Labour government promised to fix the country but instead we’ve got political Groundhog Day: yet more sleaze and scandal.
Continue reading...Rising costs have continued to plague the company, now facing soaring fuel costs due to the war with Iran
The White House is finalizing a financing package to help ailing US budget carrier Spirit Airlines, which could receive as much as $500m in loans as rising costs continue to plague the company.
News of the potential deal comes as Spirit and others struggle with soaring fuel costs due to the war with Iran.
Continue reading...The injunction pauses policy giving senior Trump official direct sign-off on federal clean energy projects
A federal judge in Massachusetts on Tuesday struck down several Trump administration actions slowing down development of clean energy, including a requirement that all solar and wind energy projects on federal lands and waters be personally approved by the interior secretary, Doug Burgum.
Denise J Casper, chief judge of the US district court for Massachusetts, ruled that a coalition of plaintiffs representing wind and solar developers were likely to succeed on the merits of their claims that the administration’s actions violate federal statute and would cause irreparable harm if the court did not intervene.
Continue reading...Janet Fordham died in crash after travelling to see man who claimed he would help to recover money from earlier scams
A British woman who was scammed of up to £1m in a string of so-called romance frauds died in a road crash after travelling to west Africa to try to recoup some of her lost fortune, an inquest in Devon has heard.
Janet Fordham was cheated of her life savings and her home over a period of five years by fraudsters apparently based in the UK, Germany, the US and Ghana, the inquest in Exeter was told.
Continue reading...Lawyers for oligarch claim freezing of £5.3bn of assets ‘unfair and abusive’ amid row over use of funds for Ukraine
Roman Abramovich has gone to the European court of human rights (ECHR), claiming that a criminal investigation into his financial affairs by the Jersey authorities has breached his human rights, according to reports.
The former owner of Chelsea FC, who is under UK sanctions over his links to Vladimir Putin, is being investigated in Jersey over allegations of corruption and money laundering.
Continue reading...Justin Sun alleges World Liberty Financial installed tools to prevent sale of his tokens after they became tradeable
Billionaire crypto entrepreneur Justin Sun on Tuesday sued World Liberty Financial, the digital currency venture co-founded by Donald Trump and his sons, alleging that World Liberty illegally froze his holdings of tokens issued by the company.
Sun, the largest investor in World Liberty, alleged in the lawsuit, filed in a federal court in California, that the company secretly installed tools to prevent the sale of his tokens after they became tradeable in September 2025. The lawsuit also alleges that World Liberty threatened to “burn” – or permanently delete – his holdings, even while they were in Sun’s digital wallet.
Continue reading...Serious Fraud Office investigation relates to firms allegedly submitting false invoices for work they failed to carry out
The UK’s Serious Fraud Office has arrested four people on suspicion of a home insulation scam that may have cost energy companies as much as £44m.
The SFO and the National Crime Agency said on Wednesday that the unnamed people were arrested in coordinated dawn raids across England on suspicion of conspiracy to defraud.
Continue reading...Iran’s goal is to maintain chokehold on the global economy, even as some say it could run out of oil storage by Sunday
Donald Trump’s indefinite shelving of the plan to bomb Iran’s bridges and power stations on Tuesday night is being widely described as leaving the conflict in limbo, but that is anything but the truth.
Pakistan insists the prospect of talks in Islamabad has not evaporated, and positive messages are still being exchanged, but in the meantime the site of kinetic activity has switched from land to sea.
Continue reading...George Robertson says diplomatic tone from White House is at ‘historic low’ and two allies are likely to keep diverging
Britain’s high military dependence on the US is “no longer tenable” and the UK has to become increasingly independent of the special relationship with Washington, a former Nato chief has said.
George Robertson, who last week accused British leaders of a “corrosive complacency” towards defence, said on Wednesday that the traditional allies were diverging over values – and that even after Donald Trump leaves the White House, the separation was likely to continue.
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