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British Design Fund secures £5m backing to boost UK-made product innovation

The British Design Fund (BDF) has secured a £5 million commitment from the British Business Bank to support early-stage UK businesses designing and manufacturing physical products, strengthening access to equity finance for product-led innovation across the country. The investment, made through the British Business Bank’s Regional Angels Programme, will support BDF’s mission to back founders building scalable, UK-based product businesses in sectors such as health, sustainability and assistive technology. The programme was launched in 2019...

UK economy unexpectedly contracts again as growth stalls ahead of Budget

The UK economy unexpectedly contracted for a second consecutive month in October, underlining the fragility of growth as households and businesses reined in activity ahead of the Chancellor’s Autumn Budget. Gross domestic product fell by 0.1 per cent in October, matching the decline seen in September, according to figures published by the Office for National Statistics. Economists had expected the economy to return to modest growth, forecasting an expansion of 0.1 per cent at the...

Scandal-hit OBR faced nearly 240,000 cyber attacks this year amid website failure that leaked Budget

The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) has been targeted by almost a quarter of a million cyber attacks over the past year, a dramatic surge that comes just weeks after the fiscal watchdog accidentally leaked the Chancellor’s Budget online. Freedom of Information data obtained by the Parliament Street think tank shows the OBR faced 238,678 hostile incidents in the past 12 months, including spam, malware, and phishing attempts. The figure represents a 162% increase on...

GoCardless founders in line for major payday as fintech sells for nearly £1bn

The founders of UK fintech GoCardless are set for a significant financial windfall after the payments company agreed to be acquired by Dutch rival Mollie in a deal valued at €1.05bn (£920m). The transaction is expected to deliver a major payday for GoCardless chief executive Hiroki Takeuchi, as well as fellow co-founder Tom Blomfield, one of Britain’s most prominent technology entrepreneurs and a co-founder of digital bank Monzo. Founded in London in 2011 by Takeuchi,...

Trump says every AI plant being built in US will be self-sustaining with their own electricity

President Donald Trump clapped back at a report that was just released about the global artificial intelligence arms race, which claimed China has more than double the electrical power-generation capacity of the United States. Trump, in a pointed social media post on his platform Truth Social, called the report’s findings ‘WRONG,’ adding that every big artifical intelligence plant being built in the United States will have its own private power plants that will also send...

UK ready to send troops, jets, ships if Trump clinches Ukraine ceasefire, defense chief says

Britain is preparing to take on the ‘heavy lifting’ in Europe if President Donald Trump secures a Ukrainian ceasefire, U.K. Defense Secretary John Healey said, outlining a deployment-ready coalition that London has been quietly organizing for months. The defense chief insisted that Trump is leading the negotiations for peace, even as leaders from Germany, Britain and France huddled with Volodymyr Zelenskyy this week to try to craft an alternative to a U.S.-brokered proposal the Ukrainian...

Clarence Thomas presses Dem operative Marc Elias in high-stakes Supreme Court clash

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas grilled prominent left-leaning lawyer Marc Elias this week about a campaign finance law, joining several other conservative justices in voicing skepticism about the law’s restrictions on certain types of political donations. Thomas’ questions centered on a Federal Election Campaign Act provision that limits how much money state and national political parties can spend when coordinating with specific candidates. Republicans who brought the lawsuit argued that the coordinated political spending is...

US set to seize tens of millions in Venezuelan oil after tanker interception, White House says

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the U.S. plans to take control of the oil currently on a tanker off the coast of Venezuela that was seized by U.S. forces Wednesday.  Trump ‘talks a lot about how he thinks the way to bring down prices for everything would be to bring down the cost of energy,’ Fox News Senior White House Correspondent Peter Doocy said Thursday. ‘Would he use this seized Venezuelan oil to...

23 Dems join House Republicans to kill progressive’s Trump impeachment bid

A lone progressive’s effort to impeach President Donald Trump failed Thursday, with nearly two dozen Democrats joining the House GOP to quash it. Rep. Al Green, D-Texas, moved to get a vote on two articles of impeachment Wednesday night via a privileged resolution, a mechanism allowing lawmakers to force action on a bill within two legislative days. Republicans called for a vote to table the measure on Thursday, a move that effectively kills consideration of...

Senate Dems’ Obamacare fix fails as Senate looks for off-ramp from healthcare cliff

Senate Republicans rallied to block Senate Democrats’ extension of expiring Obamacare subsidies as both sides of the aisle suffer defeats on their proposals to deal with the looming healthcare cliff. Over the course of the 43-day government shutdown, Senate Democrats made the longest closure in history all about the subsidies, which were passed and enhanced under former President Joe Biden. They argued that if Congress didn’t act, Americans who rely on the subsidies would be...