Thames Water lenders float new £10bn rescue plan

Thames Water’s lenders have put forward a £10bn rescue plan that would involve paying off the troubled water company’s hundreds of millions of pounds-worth of fines for leaks and pollution, as part of an effort to stave off financial collapse.A group of private equity firms and investment groups said they would inject about £3.35bn of cash into Thames Water and raise £6.65bn in debt, in exchange for the company not falling into a government-handled administration, in effect a temporary nationalisation.Bills for Thames Water’s 16 million customers in south-east England are already due to rise steeply until 2030 but the rescue plan would, at least, hold them at that level rather than pushing them even higher

Taxpayer bill for saving Scunthorpe steel furnaces could top £1.5bn by 2028, auditor says

The cost of keeping the UK’s last remaining blast furnaces going at British Steel’s Scunthorpe plant could exceed £1.5bn by 2028 if it continues at its current rate, according to the government’s spending watchdog.Ministers took the plant into public control in April last year, after its Chinese owner – industrial firm Jingye – threatened to shut down the loss-making site.The National Audit Office (NAO), which monitors state spending, said the intervention saved thousands of jobs at Scunthorpe and prevented a “serious impact” on UK industry, including Network Rail, which buys steel for the railways from the plant.Shutting the plant would also have ended Britain’s “primary” steel-making ability because blast furnaces allow steel to be made from scratch, rather than relying on scrap metal

AI has exposed age-old problems with university coursework | Letter

The frustration many academics are expressing about artificial intelligence and critical thinking is understandable (‘I wish I could push ChatGPT off a cliff’: professors scramble to save critical thinking in an age of AI, 10 March). But from my experience working with students on academic writing, blaming AI risks masking a problem that universities have lived with for years.In my work with students, I have long seen the ways in which thinking can be outsourced when assessment allows it: essay mills, shared past papers, model essays passed between cohorts, or heavy reliance on tutors and friends to structure assignments. Artificial intelligence did not invent this behaviour. It has simply industrialised a shortcut that already existed

Trump administration reportedly set to be paid $10bn for brokering TikTok deal

Donald Trump’s administration is reportedly poised to be paid $10bn by investors as part of a deal to create a US-controlled version of TikTok.The $10bn, considered by the US government as a sort of transaction fee, will be paid by the administration-friendly investors who took control of TikTok’s US operations from its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, according to reporting that first appeared in the Wall Street Journal.The investors in the popular social media app include software company Oracle; MGX, an investment firm based in the United Arab Emirates; and private equity business Silver Lake. These entities, along with other backers, paid $2.5bn to the US treasury when the deal closed in January and are set to make further payments in the unusual arrangement until the total hits $10bn

Sydney Swans admit to altering Bondi attack tribute to omit mention of Jewish community

The Sydney Swans have again apologised for the club’s “error of judgment” that resulted in the Jewish community not being mentioned in the AFL’s opening round pre-match tribute to victims of the Bondi terror attack.In a statement on Monday, the club attempted to absolve the AFL of any blame after the league was referred to the royal commission on antisemitism and social cohesion by Liberal senator James Paterson.Before the Swans’ season-opening game against Carlton at the SCG, Sydney’s chief executive, Matthew Pavlich, led a tribute to victims of the Bondi attack and first responders, some of whom joined the teams on the field.The club has now apologised multiple times, after journalist and former player Gerard Healy revealed Pavlich’s speech had been edited to remove references to the Jewish community.“There was no directive or instruction from the AFL to remove or change the reference to the Jewish Community in the script,” the club said in a statement

Cheltenham raised a cheer – but fatalities and fallouts tainted bounce-back festival

Attendance: up. British winners: up. Bookies’ profits: through the roof. Punters will wince at the last of those after a ferociously difficult four days at Cheltenham, with winners at 66-1, 50-1, 40-1 and 33-1 among the biggest skinners for the books. The Paddy Power client in Ireland who was paid €558,000 (£484,000) after putting Friday’s first six winners into a 50 cent each-way Lucky 63 would be a very worthy inductee into the Cheltenham Hall of Fame