‘It’s brutal, they feel very attacked’: budget uncertainty hits Southampton boat show

“What would happen if red wine got on that?” It is a common enough question when perusing a carpet store. But, as it happens, the same query crops up when shopping for a yacht. “Oh, you’d never get it off that decking,” the other half of a young couple replies as they size up one of the £2m triple-decker yachts moored at the recent Southampton international boat show.Top boat manufacturers descended on the port city from across Europe to show off bigger, better and bolder yachts than ever before, as well as lines of smaller sailing and motor boats. But the show, once a must-attend of the season alongside exhibitions in Cannes and Monaco, has shrunk by about 30% this year, according to some vendors’ estimates

Nexperia halts chip supplies to China in threat to global car production

Nexperia, the EU-based automotive chipmaker at the centre of a geopolitical dispute, has suspended supplies to its Chinese factory, stepping up a trade war that threatens to halt production at carmakers around the world.The company wrote to customers this week informing them all supplies to a Chinese plant had been suspended.In September, the Netherlands used national security laws to take control of the chipmaker, citing concerns that its Chinese owner, Wingtech Technologies, was planning to shift intellectual property to another company it owned. The Dutch government said that threatened the future of European chip capacity, and removed the Wingtech chairman, Zhang Xuezheng, as chief executive.China responded by halting exports from all Nexperia’s factories in China, prompting warnings this week that the embargo would force production lines at EU car factories to close within days

Apple reports record iPhone sales as new lineup reignites worldwide demand

Apple reported its first quarterly earnings since the release of its new lineup of iPhones on Thursday, beating Wall Street analysts’ expectations. The company showed steady financial growth and a strong bottom line despite slow progress on artificial intelligence. The report comes just days after the company hit a $4tn market value for the first time.“Today, Apple is very proud to report a September quarter revenue record of $102.5 billion, including a September quarter revenue record for iPhone and an all-time revenue record for Services,” Apple’s CEO, Tim Cook, said in a statement

Amazon reports strongest cloud growth since 2022 after major outage

Amazon has made its first financial disclosures since the disastrous outage suffered by its cloud computing division that brought everything from smart beds to banks offline.In spite of the global outage, Amazon Web Services has continued to grow, and this quarter reported a 20% increase in revenue year over year. Wall Street estimated that AWS would bring in $32.42bn in net sales in the third quarter, with the company reporting actual revenue of $33bn.“AWS is growing at a pace we haven’t seen since 2022,” CEO Andy Jassy said in a statement accompanying the earnings report

Ireland 13-26 New Zealand: rugby union Test – as it happened

The report has landed and that’s my cue to leave.Thanks for joining me. Well done to New Zealand who got their revenge across a scrappy game. Still, a win is a win.See you all next week

Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu lights up South Africa’s nine-try rout of Japan

A dark, wet evening in Brent is a long way from the sun and sea of Brighton. And, boy, there were not many echoes here of rugby’s greatest upset – quite possibly sport’s – bar the names of the teams and the inimitable fellow sitting in Japan’s coaching box, Eddie Jones. South Africa were 43-point favourites in 2015 and a mere 37 this time, but the reality of lopsided rugby was all too formidably asserted.Instead, it was Wembley that echoed, the lower tier around two-thirds full. South Africa, nine of whose squad play their rugby in Japan, wanted to organise this run-out to bring together their squad from around the world before the big one next Saturday against France