UK to give £380m grant to Tata battery factory in Somerset

The Somerset battery factory due to supply Jaguar Land Rover is to receive £380m in UK government funding as it pushes ahead with construction despite delays.JLR, Britain’s largest automotive employer, is due to receive batteries from the site to make electric versions of its Range Rover and Jaguar models. The Indian conglomerate Tata owns JLR and the electric vehicle (EV) battery factory under its Agratas subsidiary.The business secretary, Peter Kyle, announced the grant on Thursday during a visit to the construction site in Bridgwater, Somerset. The government said the battery plant – also known as a gigafactory – would employ 4,200 people in the long term

Lidl to open 50 UK stores in year ahead – and its first pub

Lidl is to open 50 new UK stores in the year ahead – as well as its first pub – as it aims to overtake Morrisons as the country’s fifth largest supermarket chain.The German-owned retailer has begun building a pub in east Belfast in response to strict local licensing laws that cap the number of premises that can sell alcohol.In Northern Ireland, supermarkets that want to sell alcohol must buy a licence that has been “surrendered” by another business, such as a pub that is shutting. They then must show there is an inadequate number of existing licensed premises in an area to meet the public’s needs.Lidl was not able to pass the inadequacy test for a standard off-licence, but was able to for a pub as two nearby bars had closed in recent years

British computer scientist denies he is bitcoin developer Satoshi Nakamoto

A British computer scientist has insisted he is not the elusive developer of bitcoin, after a report claimed to unmask him as its creator.A story in the New York Times details a years-long effort to unmask Satoshi Nakamoto, the mysterious author of the bitcoin white paper which laid the theoretical foundations for modern digital currencies.It names Adam Back, a London-born computer scientist and entrepreneur. In a thread on X, Back promptly denied being the mysterious – and presumably ultra-wealthy – technologist.“I also don’t know who satoshi is, and i think it is good for bitcoin that this is the case, as it helps bitcoin be viewed [as] a new asset class, the mathematically scarce digital commodity,” he wrote

Britons warned about Russian hackers targeting internet routers for espionage

Russian hackers are exploiting commonly sold internet routers to harvest information for espionage purposes, the UK’s cybersecurity agency has said.The hack could allow attackers to obtain users’ credentials, redirect them to fake sites, and potentially access other devices on their home network such as phones and PCs, said Alan Woodward, a professor at the University of Surrey.The National Cyber Security Centre said on Tuesday the operations were “believed to be opportunistic in nature, with the actor targeting a wide pool of victims and then likely filtering down for users of potential intelligence value at each stage of the exploitation chain”.It follows a common pattern of cyber-actors targeting edge devices – hardware such as internet routers or internet-connected security cameras – that act as a bridge between users and the cloud.Woodward said: “It’s not the first time that warnings have come out about routers

McIlroy attacks Augusta as champion with big grin and hell of a swing | Andy Bull

Can Rory McIlroy win back-to-back Masters titles? Jack Nicklaus will tell you that McIlroy’s already done the hardest part. “Well, the key is to win two years in a row,” Nicklaus said with a grin after hitting the honorary tee shot on Thursday morning, “and I think Rory’s the only one that’s got a chance to do that this year.” Nicklaus did it back in 1965 and ’66. “Rory’s talented enough,” he added. “Now he’s got that monkey off his back, I think he has a very, very good chance to repeat

‘For the first time I’m the hunter’: Fury relishes return to face Makhmudov

A cheerful Tyson Fury has promised his latest comeback to the ring will begin with a destructive knockout of Arslanbek Makhmudov at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London on Saturday night. “It’s going to be different because, for the first time in forever, I’m the hunter,” Fury said at the fight’s final press conference. “I’m not the hunted, and we all know that when I’ve always been the hunter in the past, I’ve always fucked people up.“I actually feel sorry for Makhmudov because I’m going to make an example of him. He’s a big six foot seven lump, 18 or 19 stone