Concerns about US strategic oil reserve damage are mounting as inventories fall below 300 million barrels for the first time since the reserve was filled in the early 1980s, with experts warning that the pace of releases could permanently impair the underground caverns where the oil is stored.The Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) holds crude oil in 60 salt caverns thousands of feet underground at four major sites along the Gulf Coast in Louisiana and Texas. Those caverns are now under strain. According to Wikipedia’s account of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, the SPR plunged to its lowest level since 1983 on…
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.
Iran has firmly rejected the Strait of Hormuz territorial claim made by US President Donald Trump, insisting the waterway belongs to Iran alone, as a bulk carrier in the strait was reportedly hit by an unknown projectile and diplomatic efforts between Washington and Tehran remained stalled.The confrontation over the strait’s status escalated late on Friday when Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi posted a direct rebuttal on X. ‘The Strait of Hormuz has been Iranian, is Iranian, and will remain Iranian; this strait will only be closed and opened under Iran’s command,’ he wrote. ‘The Strait of Hormuz cannot be…
The government has imposed an emergency disposable BBQ wildfire ban, prohibiting the sale of disposable barbecues in Great Britain both in shops and online, as drought and heatwave conditions push fire services across England and Wales to the limit.The Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade (DBIST) said the devices ‘cannot be considered a safe product’ in the current conditions and ‘must not be made available for sale either in store or online at the current time’. DBIST said disposable barbecues have been the cause of ‘a number of serious wildfires across the country over the summer months’. All retailers…
Five investors have filed a Wondermind investor fraud lawsuit against Selena Gomez and the mental health platform she co-founded, accusing her and her fellow founders of misrepresenting the company’s position and allowing it to collapse while keeping shareholders in the dark.The claimants are seeking to recover around $1.2m (approximately £890,000) they say was invested in Wondermind Global, along with costs and damages. Gomez, her mother Mandy Teefey, and businesswoman Daniella Pierson are all named in the suit. The BBC has contacted Wondermind and Gomez’s representatives for comment.What the Wondermind investor fraud lawsuit allegesThe lawsuit claims Wondermind’s founders ‘falsely represented’ the…
Oil markets rose sharply on Friday as the Iran naval blockade oil prices story intensified, with Brent crude climbing 1.8% to $88.64 per barrel after U.S. officials said an American naval blockade of Iranian ports could continue indefinitely, raising fresh fears about energy flows through the Strait of Hormuz. The Strait of Hormuz is one of the world’s most critical shipping passages, through which a large share of global oil exports travel. Any prolonged disruption there tends to send crude markets into sharp moves, and Friday’s session was no exception. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures also climbed, rising…
Concerns about USS Abraham Lincoln conditions have reached the US Congress, as American officials press ahead with an unprecedented economic squeeze on Iran and insist a naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz can be sustained for as long as necessary.The Lincoln is a US Navy aircraft carrier that has been at the centre of American operations in the Middle East for well over eight months. Understanding its situation requires knowing how the ship ended up there: according to Prothom Alo, the Lincoln departed California in November 2025 for duty in the South China Sea and was rerouted to the…
The Harvey Nichols Frasers Group acquisition has been confirmed, with Mike Ashley’s retail empire taking control of the 200-year-old luxury department store out of administration, while warning that a ‘significant restructuring’ will be needed to keep the business viable.Frasers Group, which owns Sports Direct, Flannels and House of Fraser among other brands, will take ownership of Harvey Nichols’s flagship Knightsbridge store, its other UK locations and its international franchise operations. Reuters reports that the deal brings to an end 35 years of ownership under Hong Kong-based businessman Sir Dickson Poon, who bought the group in 1991 and put it up…
The government’s own analysis has put zero hours contract costs to businesses at between £350 million and £2.9 billion a year under Labour’s planned employment reforms, reigniting a sharp dispute between business groups and trade unions over who stands to gain.The figures were published as part of a consultation into one of the central questions still unresolved in the legislation: how many hours a worker must regularly clock up before their employer is legally required to offer them a guaranteed contract.What the zero hours contract costs analysis actually showsThe range in the estimates is wide, and deliberately so. The government’s…
The UK economy Q2 growth figure came in at 0.4% between April and June 2026, lifted in part by warm weather and football crowds, though the pace has eased from the start of the year and economists expect a harder stretch ahead.The result, in line with what economists had pencilled in, falls short of the 0.6% expansion recorded in the first three months of 2026. The Office for National Statistics (Office for National Statistics) said growth had ‘remained relatively robust’, with the services sector driving the quarter’s performance while manufacturing also contributed positively. Overall, the economy is now 1.2% bigger…
The Strait of Hormuz oil disruption is keeping crude markets tense, with oil prices edging higher as a spreading tanker spill off Oman’s coastline adds a new pressure point to an energy market already strained by months of conflict and blocked shipping lanes.Brent crude futures for October delivery rose 0.1% to $88.90 a barrel, while US West Texas Intermediate futures for September gained 0.24% to $83.08 a barrel. Both benchmarks have been buffeted since early this year by a series of events that have reshaped how oil moves around the world.The spill off Oman’s coastA tanker that ran aground on…
