Isle of Fright 🦕

Happy Monday. Some great news for dinosaur fans to kick the week off.

Britain’s got itself a brand-new entry to the dinosaur game, with a new species unearthed on the Isle of Wight. Istiorachis macaruthurae strutted around 125 million years ago sporting a flamboyant sail along its back and tail—part fashion statement, part “don’t mess with me”. In a brilliant UK twist, it’s even named in honour of Dame Ellen MacArthur, blending dino drama with nautical flair.

MARKETS

Data: Google Finance, 5-day Market Close

Notable UK earnings this week: Ashtead Group (AHT), M&G (MNG), Aplha Group Int. (ALPH), Oxford Nanopore Technologies (ONT).

Notable US earnings this week: Broadcom (AVGO), Salesforce (CRM), Copart (CPRT), Zscaler (ZS), Lululemon (LULU).

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PROJECT WATCH

🔋 NatPower set to build first battery storage facility in UK. Read more

🏟️ Aston Villa’s £100m expansion to North Stand gets approval. Read more

🔌 JDR Cable Systems win supply contract for Eni carbon capture project. Read more

BUSINESS & FINANCE

Biggest British warship export in history (thank you, Norway)
The UK government has clinched a £10bn deal to deliver five Type 26 frigates to the Norwegian navy, marking the biggest British warship export in history. Take that, ship envy. The frigates, built at BAE Systems' shipyards in Glasgow, will support over 4,000 UK jobs, offering job security well into the 2030s – about time we had some good news on the job market.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer called the deal a boost for growth and national security, while Defence Secretary John Healey touted the ships as submariners’ worst nightmare. These anti-submarine specialists will reinforce NATO’s presence in northern waters, and provide some much needed good news to the UK economy.

Norway’s PM Jonas Gahr Støre went full Midsummer Murders and followed up the diplomatic dance with a late-night call to Starmer, revealing the UK had beaten out France, Germany and even Uncle Sam to bag the deal (I’ll bet they were fjoriøus). Apparently, the key questions were who’s our best mate, and who builds the best boats. Lucky for us, the answer to both was Great Britain.

Layoffs at Lotus
Lotus have announced a cull of up to 550 UK jobs. The Norfolk-based maker of posh motorised toys for the midlife-crisis crowd blames a cocktail of causes, with US tariffs (the red hat man) and “a rapidly evolving automotive environment” topping the list.

The axe won’t fall on just one department. It’s an all-you-can-shed buffet across the board at Lotus, though Hethel HQ - home to most of its 1,300 UK staff - is likely to suffer the biggest hit. Wellesbourne, Warwickshire, the lesser-known sibling in the Lotus empire, is in the firing line too. Still, the company says affected employees can “apply for other roles” within Lotus. Because nothing soothes redundancy like being told you can compete for your own seat in musical chairs.

The company insists Norfolk isn’t being ghosted - Lotus is “fully committed to the UK,” apparently. That said, they’re also keenly sweeping up more of their operations into the “global group”. Translation: fewer jobs in blighty, more manufacturing and admin tucked neatly elsewhere.

POLITICS

Gone to the dogs
The Welsh government has decided it’s time to call final bets at the dog track, with a draft law set to ban greyhound racing between 2027 and 2030. The bill, bred out of a political pact with the Welsh Lib Dems, would criminalise operators and organisers of the sport.

At present, Wales only has one such track, the Valley Stadium in Ystrad Mynach-so this really is a case of the last greyhound standing. Advocates of the ban point to the sport’s high injury toll, while detractors growl that it’s more about politics than pooches.

Sanctions & shifting tides
The UK made waves by barring Israeli officials from September’s London arms fair, citing Tel Aviv’s deepening war in Gaza. While Israeli defence companies can still exhibit, the lack of an official pavilion prompted Israel’s defence ministry to boycott the event entirely.

ACROSS THE POND

Tariffs deemed illegal… but remain in place
Donald Trump’s beloved tariffs have been declared unconstitutional by a US federal appeals court – but just to keep things exciting (and confusing), they’re not going anywhere just yet. Yes, the court ruled that Trump didn’t have the authority to slap taxes on most imports under the guise of a national emergency, but then promptly decided to let the tariffs hang around while the legal wrangling continues. Justice is blind, but apparently also a bit indecisive.

Naturally, Mr Trump took to Truth Social – his echo chamber of choice – to hail the ruling as a win, arguing that removing the tariffs entirely would be “a total disaster” and leave America “financially weak”. Given that the US Treasury raked in a whopping $142bn from those tariffs by July, double the amount collected the year before.

Still, the court’s ruling has clipped The Donald’s wings a touch, making it trickier for him to flex his infamous economic.. Observers reckon it could weaken the US’s punch in future trade negotiations, with foreign governments now a bit less likely to roll over.

US makes Denmark’s naughty list over Greenland
Denmark's foreign minister summoned the top U.S. diplomat in Copenhagen after a national broadcaster blew the lid off a frosty little scandal: three individuals linked to Donald Trump have allegedly been poking about Greenland, conducting covert influence operations in a bid to bend the icy jewel of the Arctic into the MAGA orbit. Yes, Greenland—the same place Trump once tried to buy like it was a pair of second hand kicks on Vinted.

While Washington insists, with the straight face of a poker champion, that “the U.S. government does not control or direct the actions of private citizens,” Copenhagen isn't feeling particularly reassured. Mark Stroh, the deputy chief of mission, was promptly summoned for a chat and a diplomatic cuppa. The U.S. said the conversation was “productive” – which is Foreign Office speak for “we didn’t throw chairs”.

TECH

Rocket rhapsody & quantum quirks
SpaceX’s Starship got its groove back with Flight 10, a fiery spectacle that lit up Texas skies. After three dud launches and one explosive rehearsal that left Ship 36 in pieces, Ship 37 and its Super Heavy booster ticked every box. Elon Musk wasted no time teasing future iterations-Version 3 by year’s end, and a 150-metre Version 4 by 2027, just in time to land NASA’s Artemis astronauts on the moon.

On Earth, another science fiction dream is inching closer: the quantum internet. Engineers at the University of Pennsylvania have managed to send delicate entangled particles through ordinary Verizon fibre lines with 97% accuracy. Their secret? A Q-chip that pairs each fragile quantum particle with a classical “chaperone” signal, ensuring it gets where it’s going without collapsing into uselessness.

Hearts, handsets & human headaches
Doctors in London have unveiled a stethoscope that can do in 15 seconds what most GPs take weeks to diagnose. This AI-powered gadget listens, records, and analyses heartbeats, spotting heart failure, valve disease, and arrhythmias with uncanny precision. Trials show it doubles detection rates and could save thousands from A&E heart scares. At roughly the size of a pack of cards, it’s the biggest shake-up for the stethoscope since 1816.

AI wasn’t quite as helpful at Taco Bell, where the drive-through assistant was tricked into taking an order for 18,000 cups of water and repeatedly asked customers if they wanted drinks with their drinks.

Across Asia, governments are drawing the line at tech excess. Japan’s Toyoake wants to cap daily smartphone use at two hours (cue teenage mutiny), while South Korea has gone further, passing a classroom phone ban after surveys showed over a third of teens admit social media derails their daily lives.

WORLD

Tsetse triumphs & soy sauce sorrows
Kenya has swatted away one of Africa’s deadliest foes: sleeping sickness. Once a scourge spread by the infamous tsetse fly, the disease has officially been eliminated in Kenya as a public health threat, according to the World Health Organisation. Kenya now joins nine other African nations in putting the parasite to bed.

On the other side of the globe, South Australia is making waves with a ban on tiny plastic soy sauce fish that lurk in sushi bags like aquatic stowaways. From September 1st, the bite-sized bottles-too small for recycling, too enduring for landfill-will be phased out in a push against single-use plastics.

England has already axed polystyrene cups and disposable cutlery, so perhaps it’s time Britain followed suit. After all, it’s hard to make a splash in sustainability if you’re still swimming with plastic fish.

Caps & clashes
At the US Open, Polish tennis star Kamil Majchrzak served up a heart-warmer after spotting that a fan’s cap-gifted from his hand-had been pinched by a nearby opportunist. Tracking the boy down via Instagram, Majchrzak presented him with a fresh cap and a goodie bag, proving good sportsmanship doesn’t stop at the baseline. The CEO stealer posted a first-come, first-served public non-apology.

In Indonesia, kindness was in shorter supply. Waves of protests, sparked by lawmakers’ ballooning allowances, nearly ten times Jakarta’s minimum wage, have ignited nationwide unrest. Demonstrations have turned violent, with parliament buildings torched and clashes with police escalating.

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