Official Budget forecasts were accessed almost 25,000 times before their formal release after a leak at the Office for Budget Responsibility, according to a new investigation by the UK’s cyber security authorities. A report by the National Cyber Security Centre found that documents prepared by the Office for Budget Responsibility were downloaded on “at least” 24,701 occasions in the hour before Rachel Reeves delivered her Budget speech on 26 November. The figure is far higher...
Barclays is turning to artificial intelligence to power the next phase of its turnaround, as the bank targets around £2 billion of cost savings and commits to returning more than £15 billion of surplus capital to shareholders by the end of 2028. C.S. Venkatakrishnan, the chief executive, widely known as Venkat, said the bank would pursue about £2 billion of gross efficiency savings over the next three years, alongside increased investment in technology, including AI,...
The UK Government has confirmed a new wave of onshore renewable energy projects under the Contracts for Difference scheme, following last month’s record-breaking offshore wind auction. Results from Allocation Round 7 (AR7) show 4.9GW of solar and 1.3GW of onshore wind capacity secured across Britain, reinforcing the pace at which clean power is being rolled out across the country. Solar projects were awarded contracts at a strike price of £65.23 per megawatt hour (in 2024...
The House of Representatives’ top Democrat claimed Republicans’ election security bill was tantamount to ‘voter suppression’ on Monday. House Majority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., criticized the House GOP-led SAVE America Act during his weekly press conference ahead of an expected vote on the bill coming as early as Wednesday. ‘Republicans have adopted voter suppression as an electoral strategy. That’s what the so-called SAVE Act is all about,’ Jeffries said. He said the bill getting a...
Sen. Bill Hagerty, R-Tenn., filed a formal complaint against Verizon on Monday after the carrier handed over his phone data to the Biden-era Department of Justice during its probe of President Donald Trump and the 2020 election – a move Republicans say violated the Constitution. Lawyers for Hagerty wrote in the complaint to the Federal Communications Commission, reviewed by Fox News Digital, that Verizon should publicly admit wrongdoing and discipline employees who were involved in...
Numerous women urged Attorney General Pam Bondi in a high-profile Super Bowl ad on Sunday to release more files from Jeffrey Epstein’s sex-trafficking cases, signaling their dissatisfaction with the Department of Justice’s efforts to comply with the Epstein Files Transparency Act. Prominent Democrats, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., immediately elevated the ad, which came in the wake of the DOJ releasing more than 3 million pages of files and concluding its review. Schumer...
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley and Sen. Amy Klobuchar introduced a bipartisan measure to crack down on money laundering by increasing penalties and ensuring laws apply to systems used by drug traffickers and terrorists. Grassley, R-Iowa, and Klobuchar, D-Minn., introduced the ‘Combating Money Laundering, Terrorist Finance and Counterfeiting Act’ Friday to enhance criminal money laundering statutes. The bill would update counterfeiting laws to prohibit state-of-the-art counterfeiting methods and increase penalties for bulk cash smuggling....
Progressive Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, shared a vulgar six-word warning for President Donald Trump as Democrats continue to hunt for links implicating him in Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes. It comes after Ghislaine Maxwell’s closed-door deposition before the House Oversight Committee in which the convicted Epstein accomplice invoked the Fifth Amendment to avoid answering any questions from lawmakers. ‘We’re gonna be on his a–,’ Crockett told reporters on Monday morning after the deposition concluded. ‘We have a...
The House Oversight Committee’s deposition of Ghislaine Maxwell ended less than an hour after it began on Monday morning, when the convicted accomplice of the late Jeffrey Epstein pleaded the Fifth Amendment. Maxwell appeared before lawmakers virtually for a closed-door interview in the House bipartisan probe into the federal government’s handling of Epstein’s case. Her attorney apparently told lawmakers, however, that she could not implicate neither President Donald Trump nor former President Bill Clinton in...
Japan’s Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party secured a sweeping win in Sunday’s parliamentary elections, capturing about 316 seats in the 465-member lower house and achieving a governing supermajority alongside allies. The result gives her a strong mandate to advance a conservative agenda focused on defense, immigration and economic reforms, the Associated Press reported. A heavy metal fan and drummer, Takaichi — who has long cited former British PM Margaret Thatcher as a...
