The aviation climate disruption risk facing UK and European airports is growing, as climate scientists and industry figures warn that more powerful storms, rising sea levels and worsening clear-air turbulence could make the chaos seen at Heathrow and Gatwick this summer a recurring reality. Around 900 flights to and from the two airports were delayed in late June, some by up to 11 hours, when thunderstorms forced air traffic controllers to reroute aircraft around congested airspace and left planes waiting on the ground. Dozens more were cancelled entirely.For passengers at airports across Europe who had been hoping to fly into…
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.
The Pentagon Venezuela oil stake at the heart of Washington’s deal with North American Blue Energy Partners (NABEP) hands the US government a 35% equity share in a company that controls concessions to 17 oilfields in Venezuela for the next century, with no cost to the US taxpayer. Nothing quite like it appears to exist in modern American history.The arrangement was confirmed by the White House this week. Under it, the Rodríguez government in Caracas, led by interim President Delcy Rodríguez, following what the deal’s architects describe as the ousting of former President Nicolás Maduro, granted the concessions to NABEP,…
The Greenaway Foundation is hosting the Greenaway Live music festival at Crawley Rugby Club this Saturday, with all ticket proceeds going towards a project that covers the cost of Christmas dinners for families struggling financially across Kent, Sussex and Surrey.The charity provides families in those three counties with ingredients for a two-course Christmas dinner each festive season. It also runs a wish scheme for children from low-income families, delivering presents on Christmas Eve. Darren Greenaway, who founded the charity, said the Christmas project was ‘getting bigger and bigger, so this year we need to raise about £200,000’.What the Greenaway Live…
Canada holds more Canada US trade war leverage than a simple size comparison might suggest, with the country serving as the top export customer for 26 American states and sitting in the top three for 45 of the 50 states across the country. That reach into the United States economy is central to Prime Minister Mark Carney’s room to manoeuvre as the dispute between the two countries deepens.The trade fight has now hardened into something considerably more than a war of words. According to NBC News, 50% duties came into effect at the stroke of midnight, marking a sharp escalation…
Donald Trump’s demand that the Federal Reserve slash borrowing costs to the lowest of any country in the world has collided head-on with reality: the Trump Fed interest rate hike he publicly opposed was delivered anyway, as a robust August jobs report gave policymakers the cover they needed to act. The decision, confirmed on 16 September, marks the first increase in US borrowing costs since July 2023.The Fed raised its benchmark rate by a quarter of a percentage point, bringing the overnight funds rate to a target range of 3.75% to 4%, according to The New York Times. The move…
The diesel export ban impact from Russia, combined with refinery shutdowns across the Middle East, has pushed diesel prices to record levels and is feeding through to the cost of everyday goods. Two conflicts, thousands of miles apart, have combined to remove roughly 5 million barrels per day of refining capacity from global supply.Diesel powers the lorries, trains and ships that move almost everything consumers buy. When its price rises sharply, those costs do not stay at the fuel pump: they spread through supply chains and land on shop shelves.How the diesel export ban impact unfoldedUkraine’s sustained strikes on Russian…
US diesel prices have reached an all-time high, driven by a surge in wholesale oil costs since the Iran conflict began at the end of February. The jump at the pump has angered voters across America, with President Donald Trump now betting that a sweeping new oil agreement with Venezuela can bring prices down.Oil supplies have tightened sharply because Iran, responding to the war, has effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow waterway south of the country through which a fifth of the world’s oil passes. That supply squeeze has pushed fuel costs to records, arriving at a painful…
Argentina’s President Javier Milei has escalated his country’s long-running claim over the Falkland Islands, announcing plans for Milei Falklands oil sanctions targeting companies involved in a major offshore drilling project, as an Argentine court separately ordered all work on the same project to stop.In a nationally televised speech, Milei said Argentina would ‘need to recover’ the islands, which Argentina calls Las Malvinas. He called on the country to ‘not stand idly by’ and ‘show a united front to the world,’ according to Sky News. The Falklands are a self-governing British overseas territory situated roughly 500 kilometres east of the southern…
The European Union has backed the EU Iran sanctions push led by Washington, endorsing a sweeping campaign targeting Tehran’s access to global finance just as Group of 20 finance ministers and central bank governors gathered in Asheville, North Carolina. The endorsement adds multilateral weight to a pressure campaign that has already drawn fierce pushback from Iran and sharp warnings to countries that continue trading with it. Operation Economic Outcast: what the campaign covers The Trump administration launched what it calls “Operation Economic Outcast” in late August, with US Treasury Secretary Bessent unveiling the package at a Treasury Department news conference…
The Nvidia Hugging Face acquisition moved into public view on 3 September 2026, when Nvidia confirmed it had agreed to buy the AI platform for about $12.9bn, in one of the biggest deals the technology sector has seen this year. The purchase would bring more than 18 million developers and a vast library of open-source AI tools under Nvidia’s roof.The platform, founded in 2016 by French entrepreneurs Clément Delangue, Julien Chaumond and Thomas Wolf, has grown into one of the most widely used destinations in the AI world. Developers and researchers go there to find, share and test AI models,…
