UK government borrowing costs soar to highest since 2008 amid Iran war

Investors wary of the impact of the Iran conflict dumped UK government bonds on Friday, pushing the yield, or interest rate, on 10-year borrowing to its highest level since 2008.The market move followed the Bank of England’s decision on Thursday to leave interest rates on hold and hint at a future increase. By Friday morning, markets were pricing in as many as three interest rate rises in 2026.Higher gilt yields create a headache for the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, by pushing up the cost of servicing the government’s debt pile.The 10-year yield was 4

UK borrowing costs hit highest since 2008, as money markets predict three interest rate rises this year – business live

A key measure of UK government borrowing costs has hit its highest level since 2008, as traders bet that the energy price shock will push up interest rates.The yield, or interest rates, on 10-year UK gilts has risen to 4.927% this morning, a rise of 9 basis points (0.09 percentage points). That’s the highest level since July 2008, in the run-up to the financial crisis

Fire experts ‘kept awake’ over growing hazard of lithium-ion batteries

Lithium-ion batteries represent a new technological hazard that one fire science expert has said keeps him awake at night, as fire service chiefs warn the ubiquity of the batteries in everyday products is outpacing public understanding and safety regulations.The blaze that devastated a historic building in Glasgow and resulted in the continuing closure of Central Station, Scotland’s largest rail interchange is believed to have started in a shop selling vapes, which are powered by lithium-ion batteries. The latest data reveals a sharp increase in battery-related fires across Scotland, while firefighters in London attend an e-bike or e-scooter fire every other day.Paul Christensen, a professor of pure and applied electrochemistry at the University of Newcastle, underlined that, while the probability of a fire from a lithium-ion battery is very low, the hazard is “very, very high, as we’ve seen with this fire in Glasgow”.Guillermo Rein, a professor of fire science at Imperial College London, said: “It’s a new technology that comes with an unintended new hazard, that keeps me awake at night

Essex police pause facial recognition camera use after study finds racial bias

Essex police have paused the use of live facial recognition (LFR) technology after a study found cameras were significantly more likely to target black people than people of other ethnicities.The move to suspend use of the AI-enabled systems was revealed by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), which regulates the use of the technology deployed so far by at least 13 police forces in London, south and north Wales, Leicestershire, Northamptonshire, Hampshire, Bedfordshire, Suffolk, Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire, Surrey and Sussex.The ICO said Essex police had paused LFR deployments “after identifying potential accuracy and bias risks” and warned other forces to have mitigations in place. LFR systems are either mounted to fixed locations or deployed in vans. In January, the home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, announced the number of LFR vans would increase five-fold, with 50 available to every police force in England and Wales

For Mexico and Canada, injuries are striking just as World Cup hosting duty looms

When Marcel Ruiz slumped into the grass of San Diego FC’s Snapdragon stadium late in the first half of Toluca’s Concacaf Champions Cup game last Wednesday, he seemed to already know. He covered his mouth with his left hand and clutched his right knee – first the back of it, then the front – with his other hand. He turned his head every which way, perhaps hoping that he might scan something or someone who would tell him that this was not in fact happening. That his World Cup on home soil was not already over three months before it was to even start. That Mexico’s injury crisis had not just deepened further

No Limit: can rap mogul Master P really become an elite basketball coach

The 55-year-old has is an assistant coach at the University of New Orleans. Now he believes he can take the step up to the top of his sportYou are Arizona State athletics director Graham Rossini, more of a forward-thinking sports executive than a classic campus administrator. The Sun Devils basketball team have just staggered through another middling season, missing the NCAA tournament for a third straight year. You’ve just fired coach Bobby Hurley, but the vacancy isn’t what anyone in the sport would call coveted – not compared to a blue-blood program like Duke or Kentucky, or even the cross-state rival Arizona Wildcats men’s basketball, standard-bearer of the old Pac-10.You could hire another hardwood hero like Hurley, a Duke Blue Devils men’s basketball supervillain whose winning pedigree as a player surfaced only in flashes over 11 uneven years on the sideline