‘Shame on them’: Standard Chartered CEO decries banks that drop climate pledges

The chief executive of Standard Chartered has condemned rival banks that have dropped their climate commitments amid mounting political pressure.Speaking to journalists on Thursday, Bill Winters criticised banks that had jumped on the climate bandwagon when it was “fashionable”, but had since rolled back on their green ambitions or gone quiet on the subject.“Shame on them,” he said, without naming individual firms.His comments came weeks after HSBC became the first UK-headquartered bank to leave the global Net-Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA), in a further blow to international climate coordination efforts.The UN environment programme’s finance initiative, which is led by banks, commits members to aligning their lending, investment and capital markets activities with net zero emissions by 2050 or earlier

Next gets sales lift from sunny weather and M&S disruption

Next has reported bumper sales between May and July as sunnier UK weather and a disruptive hack at its rival Marks & Spencer sent customers flocking to the clothes and homewares retailer.Full-price sales at Next in the 13 weeks to 26 July rose by 10.5%, compared with the same period last year, which was £49m ahead of its guidance forecast of a 6.5% rise in takings.“In the UK, we believe that the over-performance was largely due to better than expected weather and trading disruption at a major competitor,” Next said, referring to the damaging cyber-attack that forced M&S to pause online customer orders for almost seven weeks and led to some shortages in stores

Zuckerberg claims ‘superintelligence is now in sight’ as Meta lavishes billions on AI

Whether it’s poaching top talent away from competitors, acquiring AI startups or proclaiming that it will build data centers the size of Manhattan, Meta has been on a spending spree to boost its artificial intelligence capabilities for months now.The massive splurge is paying off, according to Meta’s chief executive. In a new memo posted on Wednesday ahead of the company’s quarterly earnings report, Mark Zuckerberg, describes his ambitions for developing what he calls “superintelligence”.“Over the last few months we have begun to see glimpses of our AI systems improving themselves,” Zuckerberg wrote. “The improvement is slow for now, but undeniable

Wall Street delighted with Microsoft as it spends $100bn on AI

Microsoft, the world’s second-most valuable company, is dumping enormous sums of money into its artificial intelligence efforts. At the same time, the company is earning money hand over fist. Investors are thrilled.The enterprise software giant reported fiscal fourth-quarter results that exceeded expectations on Wednesday as the company races to acquire datacenters and talent, which continues to be investigated by investors. The company predicted its capital expenditure for the next fiscal year would top $100bn, a 14% increase from the year prior

Tour de France Femmes 2025: Maëva Squiban breaks away to win stage six – live reaction

Maëva Squiban (UAE Team ADQ) spoke to reporters after her stage 6 win. Of her first Tour de France Femmes victory, the 23-year-old French rider said:It is an amazing feeling. I didn’t expect to do that … I know we had a strong team and we knew we could do something special today. [It’s] a very special day for us.First and second place on stage six of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift go to French riders to the delight of crowds in Ambert

‘He doesn’t try to be intimidating. He just is’: Lions reveal how Andy Farrell makes the magic happen

Sitting in a car-wash with the windows jammed open would be marginally drier than walking the streets of Sydney this week. The forecast rain stayed away for the decisive second Test in Melbourne, but the outlook for the Accor Stadium on Saturday is properly damp. Not that the Lions are overly bothered as they seek to squeeze every last drop of joy out of their tour of Australia. From the moment they met up the mantra of this party has been based on showing the absolute best of themselves in the Test matches and winning this series 3-0. Nothing has changed in that regard, as reflected in Farrell’s largely rinse-and-repeat final-Test selection with the exception of Blair Kinghorn and James Ryan being elevated to the starting XV and a forward-loaded 6-2 bench split