To Infinity, and the 'Pot! 🚀

On this day in 2004, NASA launched the Spirit Rover marking the beginning of the Mars Exploration Rover mission. It roamed around the red planet, taking snaps and conducting scientific tests until it beached itself in a sand trap in 2009. It is said that through the radio waves, Mission Control heard echoes of “You can’t park there, Sir!”, from local Martian youths.

It’s only fitting that this week covers space exploration updates from Boeing, SpaceX and China’s Chang-e 6.

Meanwhile on Earth, on our tiny island, UK politicians are doing their best to appear as squeaky clean as Standard Charter’s allegedly laundered cash, while simultaneously hurling as much muck at one another in the race for number ten.

MARKETS

Data: Google Finance, 7-day Market Close

📈📉

On the NYSE, Nvidia is now worth more than Apple, meaning it’s more valuable than all of Germany’s stocks combined.

Chinese fast fashion giant Shein appears to be moving towards London, rather than New York, for its planned stock market listing.

PROJECT WATCH

🚢 Union Maritime will equip 34 new tankers with WindWings technology. Read more

♻️ DeepOcean has acquired a 120-day offshore recycling job. Read more

🌍 A new engineering Alliance, including Assystem, AtkinsRealis, Jacobs, and Vulcain Engineering, will support in delivering the Hinkley Point C and Sizewell C nuclear power plants. Read more

ECONOMY & FINANCE

Standard Chartered’s $100bn Laundering Allegations
It’s not quite a royal scandal but it’s close—FTSE 100’s Standard Chartered is back in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons. The City stalwart is facing fresh allegations in the US, claiming it’s been involved in money laundering worth a mind-boggling $100 billion, helping to fund some of the world’s most notorious terrorist groups.

Julian Knight, a former executive at StanChart, claims these dubious transactions happened between 2008 and 2013, breaking sanctions against Iran. The whistleblower alleges that the bank’s dealings include a staggering $9.6 billion in foreign exchanges linked to Hamas, Hezbollah, the Taliban, and al-Qaeda… talk about bad debt.

In a somewhat Shakespearean twist of fate, Knight says the evidence was there all along—it just slipped right through the investigators’ fingers back in 2012. According to him, about 500,000 transactions were misunderstood or simply missed by the US authorities. A simple “Oops” won’t cover it here, will it?

Standard Chartered insists it's innocent and that these claims are as fabricated as an IKEA wardrobe. In defence, they tout their $227 million settlement with regulators as proof they’ve squared off with Lady Justice before. Oh, and that billion-dollar fine they got in 2019? Apparently, it was just another day in the banking world.

The bank's shares took a hit, falling another 21p to 755p—hardly a noble plunge but a noticeable wobble in a wobbly market.

UK Construction Grows Despite Shaky Foundations
Britain's construction sector has clocked its most significant surge in activity in two years, with house-building making a dramatic return since Liz Truss's economic rollercoaster, a recent survey reveals. The S&P Global UK Construction PMI hit 54.7 in May, up from April’s 53.0, defying economists' forecasts and marking its highest level since May 2022.

Monzo in the Money
The digital bank that's had more bumpy rides than a London bus, Monzo has finally achieved a full year of profitability. The fintech marvel reported £15.4 million in pre-tax profits for the 2023-2024 fiscal year, shrugging off last year’s grim £116.3 million loss. If only Westminster could pull off a turnaround like that.

The bank’s revenues surged to £880 million, up from a modest £355.6 million in 2022. That’s more than twofold growth—an impressive feat rivalled only by the number of U-turns in government policies these days.

ACROSS THE POND

SpaceX Nails Ocean Landing After Three Fiery Fails
Mission control erupted in jubilation as SpaceX's Starship finally managed a "soft landing" in the Indian Ocean, marking a successful fourth attempt after earlier explosive encounters. What more could America wish for, on the 247th anniversary of adopting the Stars and Stripes national flag this week?

Elon Musk's enterprise, not one for understatement, upgraded its software and hardware for this mission. The Starship took off from Texas, completing a half-lap around the planet. Despite a roof job that'd make a builder blush—missing many tiles and bearing a damaged flap—the craft performed admirably, claiming bragging rights for surviving the flight.

Standing nearly 400ft tall, making it the largest flying object ever, the Starship system is about as subtle as a bulldozer in a flower shop. The 'Super Heavy' booster, which gets it off the ground, separated cleanly and dipped elegantly into the Gulf of Mexico.

Upon re-entering Earth's atmosphere, Starship defied its recent history of going out with a bang, instead splashing down as planned.

As if the pressure of a fourth test wasn't enough, NASA's $2.9bn (£2.2bn) contract looms large, pushing SpaceX to have the Starship moon-ready by 2026. This is ahead of China’s planned man-on-moon mission in 2029, keeping the US marginally ahead in the race to set up a moonbase there.

This event was a solid step towards Musk’s goal of a reusable spacecraft for moon and Mars missions. While it might not have been picture-perfect, the data gathered will help ensure future flights are less “dramatic”.

Hunter Becomes The Hunted
Five months shy of the US presidential election, Hunter Biden, son of the sitting President, faces trial over charges of illegally purchasing a firearm while using drugs.

The trial began last week, and already President Joe Biden has stated that he will not pardon his son if found guilty. While first-time, non-violent offences rarely come with significant prison time, his dad has yet to rule out the naughty step, grounding, and being sent to bed without supper.

TECH

Boeing's Starliner finally launched astronauts after a seven-year delay, just ahead of this week’s anniversary of Valentina Tereshkova becoming the first woman in space on June 16, 1963. Suni Williams is Boeing’s first-ever astronaut passenger to dock with the ISS, successfully arriving on Thursday. Meanwhile, China’s Chang’e-6 is bringing back moon rocks, causing a stir among boffins here in the UK who can’t wait to paw through these lunar leftovers.

Back on Earth, experts are sounding alarms about the potential apocalyptic risks of AI—think Jane Austen meets Terminator. OpenAI's eye on nuclear fusion to power their AGI (human intelligence level AI) is more ambitious than Elon Musk’s $56bn pay package.

Schools in Southwark are boxing up smartphones to reclaim childhood from digital distractions, reminiscent of Apple’s long-overdue parental control patch. Donald Trump is venturing beyond his Truth Social platform by joining TikTok, despite previously attempting to ban it, meaning schools banning the app might not be such a bad thing.

Santander's data breach, orchestrated by the same hackers behind the Ticketmaster incident, highlights the persistent threat of cyberattacks. Fortunately, Google’s new deletion policy for our location history offers us some solace if they ever become a target.

From Spain to Stockholm, turning Spanish graveyards into solar farms and the Swedes engineering everyday items into light-harvesting solar tech, it’s clear the future is just as bright as our past was computationally grand—evidenced by the nostalgic revival of the PDP-10, granting us a glimpse back at the noble glow of early digital days.

POLITICS

Just as Rishi Sunak tries to redefine "sex" in the Equality Act to mean biological sex only, Keir Starmer is out juggernauting through national security debates with a nuke-happy stance, asserting Labour’s renewed commitment to defence. Sunak argues for safeguarding single-sex spaces, which critics slam as election drum-beating rather than genuine reform.

Labour swerves from Corbyn’s cuddly anti-missile policies to Starmer pledging the continuation of Trident and modernising the UK's nuclear arsenal. No elephants in the room here, just explosive politics mingling with cultural reverberations, as D-Day anniversaries pass, and Britain's love affair with military history resurfaces.

As the shenanigans ramp up toward the looming election, the pomp of hoaxes crashes the circus. Poor Lord Cameron got himself jabbed by a fake ex-Ukraine president, reminding us of Boris Johnson's faux Armenian PM chinwag. Deepfakes are now intertwined with political pranks – just like Farage’s recurring milkshake misadventures.

Our “banter-loving” Brexit bard was doused yet again in Clacton, only to turn the frothy affair into a punchline. July's ballot boxes may deal in politics, but public affection for physical lampooning persists in good old British tradition.

With fractured Tory votes and a summer election nearing, Farage is boldly painting Clacton indigo against Sunak’s blue and Starmer’s revamped red. The stage is set for an inter-party tussle that promises both substance and spectacle.

WORLD

Taiwan's parliament—led by the opposition Nationalist Party (KMT)—has passed bills limiting the president’s powers, much to the dismay of the recently elected Lai Ching-te. If Tuesday’s parliamentary antics were anything to go by, it was less West End democracy and more WWE SmackDown, replete with inflatable balloons as the new weapons of choice.

Back in the UK, MI6 has been accused by China of recruiting a Chinese couple for espionage in a script worthy of John le Carré. In this ever-enticing game of spy vs spy, accusations fly faster than gossip at a village fete, leaving both sides claiming the moral high ground in a tussle worthy of the Sunday roast debate.

Two UK judges have resigned from Hong Kong’s highest court over political concerns, joining a growing exodus of Western legal experts as judicial independence faces scrutiny. Adding to the turmoil, three Hong Kong football fans were arrested for insulting China’s national anthem during a World Cup qualifier against Iran by turning their backs and refusing to stand, a scene likely leaving them singing in the clink instead of the stands.

In Africa, Nigeria is reeling from a nationwide union strike, plunging the country into darkness as the power grid shuts down amidst a dispute over minimum wage. As Nigerians grapple with these domestic challenges, a different kind of political drama unfolds in South Asia.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been sworn in for a third term in a grand ceremony at the presidential palace in Delhi. Despite the Bharatiya Janata Party's slimmer margin of victory, the inauguration was attended by thousands, showcasing Modi's enduring influence.

Cuppa Chat Cheat Sheet

🏏🇺🇸 The U.S. cricket team pulled off a stunning upset by defeating Pakistan in the T20 World Cup, their first appearance in the tournament. The victory has been dubbed one of the biggest shocks in cricket history.

🇺🇸❤️ Harold Terens, a 100-year-old WW2 D-Day veteran, married Jeanne, 96, and attended a state banquet in Paris honouring President Joe Biden. The couple celebrated their union at the Elysée Palace.

🤩📹 MrBeast overtakes T-Series as the largest YouTube channel with a record 269 million subscribers.

🎤📈 Eminem claimed his 11th number-one single with "Houdini" from his new album "The Death of Slim Shady (Coup de Grâce)"—his first chart-topper since 2020. This marks his first solo number-one in 19 years.

🎥⚖️ Fiona Harvey, is suing Netflix for £132m over claims of defamation and privacy violations, alleging she inspired the stalker character Martha in the series Baby Reindeer.

🩺🔍 A body has been found in the case of missing TV presenter Michael Mosley, who was last seen walking towards rocky hills on the Greek island of Symi.

🕷️🕸️ Giant, venomous Joro spiders are not taking over the U.S. Despite alarming headlines, scientists assert their spread is slow and exaggerated. They pose no significant threat to humans.

💍📰 Rupert Murdoch, 93, married his fifth wife, retired biologist Elena Zhukova, 67, at Moraga Vineyards in California.

📺🏠 The Sidemen, a popular YouTube group, have launched "Inside," a reality show featuring 10 influencers competing for a £1m prize. The first episode garnered over 4 million views in 24 hours.

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