Europe’s smaller airports ‘under threat’ if fuel shortages cause many cancellations

Europe’s smaller airports may not survive if jet fuel shortages triggered by the Middle East crisis lead to widespread route cancellations, the industry’s trade body has warned.Although airlines insist there are currently no supply problems within the normal four- to six-week horizon, the US-Israel war on Iran and the effective closure of the strait of Hormuz have doubled the price of jet fuel, prompting some carriers to cancel flights.The Airports Council of Europe said regional airports were the most exposed and faced an “existential threat” if airlines cut capacity and raised fares, as demand on their routes was generally more price-sensitive – demonstrated when Lufthansa axed 20,000 summer flights operated by its regional subsidiary, CityLine.Olivier Jankovec, the director general of ACI Europe, said that smaller regional airports had still not recovered since the Covid pandemic, with traffic still 30% below 2019 levels, while larger ones had bounced back to growth.He said: “The current levels of jet fuel prices and the prospect of a new cost of living crisis mean that many regional airports across our continent are likely to face both a supply and demand shock

Barclays cuts back risky lending after £228m hit from UK mortgage firm MFS

Barclays is pulling back from lending to risky borrowers, as its chief executive warned of increasing numbers of fraud cases and the bank took a £228m hit from the failure of a mortgage lender.The mortgage lender Market Financial Solutions (MFS) collapsed in February amid allegations of fraud, and the UK’s financial regulator has since launched an investigation into the scandal.Barclays provided banking services to MFS and said the £228m hit had pushed total credit impairment charges to £823m in the first three months of 2026, up from £643m a year earlier.Last year the British bank reported a £110m loss over the US sub-prime auto lender Tricolor, which collapsed amid fraud allegations.The chief executive, CS Venkatakrishnan, said: “This [alleged] fraud, as with the one in Tricolor, indicates to us the importance of strong financial controls at borrowers and the difficulty ex-ante of identifying fraud

‘They’re supposed to be handmade’: zine creators fight to resist AI influence

The self-published zine has long been central to cultural revolutions, from queer activism to Black feminism and the riot grrrl punk movement, producing titles such as Sniffin’ Glue and Sweet-Thang along the way. But now the traditionally analogue art form faces a new shift: artificial intelligence.AI may seem incompatible with the these cult DIY booklets, but some creatives, designers and artists have begun to experiment with the technology, causing alarm in parts of the underground publishing world. It has been their Dylan-goes-electric moment.“AI is eliminating a lot of people’s ability to think critically for themselves,” says Rachel Goldfinger, a Philadelphia-based video editor and illustrator who has published an anti-AI zine

MacBook Pro M5 review: serious power, still long battery life

Apple’s Macs have been on a roll this year with the brand new budget MacBook Neo and a faster MacBook Air M5, but now it’s time for its workhorse MacBook Pro to be upgraded with the fastest, most powerful M-series chips.The Guardian’s journalism is independent. We will earn a commission if you buy something through an affiliate link. Learn more.The latest MacBook Pro comes in two screen sizes and a large range of chip and configuration options

‘Like cutting the head off a hydra’: how Mary Cain exposed Nike’s disgraced coaching team

“As someone who has lost touch with reality, I like to hold a firm grasp on it now,” Mary Cain says while we walk through a palm-tree spotted campus in California.She’s telling me why she insisted she write her own memoir, This is Not About Running, without ceding the narrative to a ghostwriter, as happens with many athletes. “My story is so complicated … there are so many bad actors that I think it forces the reader to embrace nuance, and I don’t think you see that very often.”At 29, Mary Cain is a decade removed from her experience as the United States’ highest hope for a middle-distance track star since Mary Decker smashed women’s world records up and down the stat sheet in the 1970s and 80s.Cain set four different national high school records as a teen, and as a 17-year old made the world championships in the 1500m, finishing 10th in a field of pros

The Breakdown | Celebrating elite speed machines who can send rugby into the stratosphere

As Kenya’s Sabastian Sawe crossed the line to complete his world-record London Marathon sprint on Sunday the BBC’s commentator Steve Cram almost swallowed his microphone. “Absolutely incredible. I’ve never seen anything like that. What a finish.” Running 26