UK petrol and diesel prices have climbed back towards levels last seen during the energy shock of 2022, with petrol now averaging 169.68p a litre and diesel reaching 191.68p, as the war involving the US, Israel and Iran keeps the global oil market under severe strain.The conflict has had an outsized effect on oil supplies because it effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway through which a large portion of the world’s traded energy passes. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), an average of 20 million barrels per day of crude oil and oil products moved through…
Author: Helen Rourke
Helen Rourke
Helen Rourke trained as a chartered accountant and spent fourteen years in financial services before starting to write. She qualified at a mid-tier firm, moved in-house to a media company's finance team, and spent her last years as a finance director at a creative agency, which gave her an unusual vantage point on both sides of the balance sheet. She writes about personal finance, tax, pensions, and the money questions people ask at dinner parties but never ask their accountant. She explains numbers without condescension and has no interest in making simple things sound complicated. Helen lives in North London. She files her own tax return on the first day it opens and considers this a character flaw.
Contributed content: this article was written by a third-party contributor and does not necessarily reflect the views of Humanima. Editorial and Advertising Policy South Tyrol has built its reputation on precisely this combination: the morning on the mountain and the afternoon in the water. But finding a hotel that genuinely delivers both – a serious outdoor activity programme and an infinity pool worth the name, with mountain views that justify it – requires knowing what to look for. This guide defines the criteria. Your Checklist: Outdoor Activities + Infinity Pool in South Tyrol The Infinity Pool Is the pool genuinely…
Contributed content: this article was written by a third-party contributor and does not necessarily reflect the views of Humanima. Editorial and Advertising Policy Lech am Arlberg is one of the world’s most celebrated alpine resorts. It occupies a place in the history of skiing. At the centre of that history, stands Hotel Post, known locally and internationally simply as the Gasthof Post, the five-star luxury hotel in the heart of Lech that has been owned and run by the Moosbrugger family for nearly nine decades. A Family History That Shapes Every Corner of the Hotel In 1937, the Moosbrugger family…
The average cost of a student belongings insurance theft claim has doubled in just three years, according to Aviva, as laptops, phones and bikes remain the items most frequently targeted by thieves when students head to university.Aviva says the average value of a student possessions claim rose from £781 to £1,766 between 2022 and 2025, a near-doubling that underlines just how much more students are carrying with them and how costly it can be when those items go missing or are damaged.Theft accounts for the majority of student claimsThe theft problem is more widespread than many students heading off for…
Oil markets lurched higher at the start of the week following the Saudi East-West pipeline attack, which forced the kingdom to close a critical artery carrying crude away from the increasingly volatile Strait of Hormuz. US West Texas Intermediate futures rose 2.89% to $102.94 per barrel, while Brent crude, the international benchmark, climbed 2.82% to $107.56 per barrel.The pipeline, which spans the Arabian Peninsula for Al Jazeera describes as 1,200 kilometres (746 miles), connects Saudi Arabia’s oil-producing regions near the Persian Gulf to export terminals on its Red Sea coast. At full capacity, it can move seven million barrels of…
A vessel was hit by an unknown projectile during a Strait of Hormuz vessel strike late on Saturday, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) centre confirmed, as a senior Iranian official declared further negotiations with the United States pointless.UKMTO said it received the initial report at 2300GMT on Saturday, according to Anadolu Agency. A fire broke out on board, and local authorities arrived to help evacuate crew members. The vessel had been transiting the Strait when the projectile hit.What We Know About the Strait of Hormuz Vessel StrikeThe attack is one of numerous incidents on shipping in the Strait…
Chinese President Xi Jinping has called on Xi Jinping BRICS Middle East allies to back a permanent ceasefire and a two-state solution, telling the bloc’s summit in New Delhi that the conflict in the region ‘has caused severe losses to the people of the region and is not in the common interest of the international community.’The 18th BRICS Summit took place in New Delhi on 12 September 2026, according to the Chinese Government Official Website. Xi used the occasion to set out China’s position on the Middle East in direct terms, stressing that all parties should ‘adhere to the direction…
A former Anthropic researcher whose warnings about Anthropic researcher AI fears have now reached tens of millions of people online has told the BBC that staff working on artificial intelligence are ‘genuinely frightened’ about where the technology is heading, and that some colleagues are even making contingency plans for civilisational collapse.Jacob Coxon, 27, left Anthropic after previously working at OpenAI, and published a resignation post that has since been viewed more than 70 million times on X, according to CNBC. He appeared on Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg to explain what drove him to go public with his concerns.A park bench,…
Rough sleeping in Harlow is rising, and the charity at the heart of the town’s response says that housing people is only the beginning of the problem. Streets2Homes, which works with people experiencing homelessness in the Essex town, was monitoring and supporting 31 rough sleepers when its chief spoke to BBC Politics East, a figure she described as high and still creeping upward.The government has pledged £442m over three years to help end rough sleeping in England, a commitment that includes what BBC News reports as more than 1,000 homes to give rough sleepers permanent accommodation. The plan, steered by…
The Houthis’ advance toward full control of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, the narrow waterway connecting the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden, has rattled oil markets and raised fears for global trade, as fighting between the United States and Iran reshapes the Middle East’s most critical shipping lanes. Brent crude settled down 2.8% on Friday at $104.61 a barrel, pulling back from a peak of around $108 the previous day, though the weekly gain remained sharp after prices surged above $100 for the first time in months.The week’s extraordinary volatility was driven by a cascade of military and diplomatic…
