AstraZeneca boss Pascal Soriot’s pay rises to £17.7m

Pascal Soriot, the chief executive of Britain’s largest pharmaceutical company, received a 6.4% pay rise last year, taking his total remuneration to £17.7m.The AstraZeneca boss is in line for a further increase this year, potentially making him the UK’s highest-paid chief executive once again.Soriot received a salary of £1

Oil prices hit seven-month highs as tensions rise before US-Iran talks

Oil prices have reached seven-month highs, as traders reacted to heightened tensions between the US and Iran ahead of nuclear talks this week.US crude futures rose to $67.28 a barrel on Monday, while Brent crude touched its highest level since 31 July at $72.50 a barrel. Prices fell back late in the session, but were up again on Tuesday morning, approaching Monday’s highs

‘A feedback loop with no brake’: how an AI doomsday report shook US markets

US stock markets have been hit by a further wave of AI jitters, this time from yet another viral – and completely speculative – warning about the impact of the technology on the world’s largest economy.The latest foreboding is from Citrini Research, a little-known US firm that provides insights on “transformative ‘megatrends’”. Its post on Substack, which it called a “scenario, not a prediction”, rattled investors by portraying a near future in which autonomous AI systems – or agents – upend the entire US economy, from jobs to markets and mortgages.Citrini’s scenario begins now and ends in June 2028, with US unemployment cresting over 10% and an Occupy Silicon Valley movement setting up camp outside OpenAI and Anthropic’s offices. In the interim, a series of events triggered by the widespread use of AI agents guts software companies and ripples outwards, hitting private credit and mortgages, and leading to an unchecked downward spiral

Meta agrees $60bn deal with chipmaker AMD despite AI bubble fears

The owner of Facebook has agreed to buy $60bn (£44.5bn) of artificial intelligence chips from the US semiconductor company Advanced Micro Devices – despite fears about the vast sums committed to AI infrastructure projects.It is one more massive deal in a year in which US tech companies are expected to spend $660bn on AI assets, and may represent part of a broader pivot in Meta’s AI strategy, said Alvin Nguyen, an analyst at Forrester.The five-year deal involves Meta buying 10% of the California chip company, a similar arrangement to a partnership between OpenAI and AMD last year.Both deals underscore an appetite among leading AI players to diversify their chip supplies beyond the offerings of Nvidia, AMD’s larger rival, said Nguyen

Harry Brook relieved to lead England into last four after ‘the hardest winter of my life’

Sometimes Harry Brook makes everything look easy but some of his recent experiences have been anything but painless, and after scoring a sublime century to steer his team into the World Cup semi-finals England’s white-ball captain described his past few months as “probably the hardest of my life”.Brook endured a disappointing Ashes, scoring just two half-centuries and averaging 39.77, his second-worst in a Test series in which he has played more than a single innings. It was towards the end of his time in Australia that it was revealed he had got in to a drunken altercation with a nightclub bouncer in Wellington on the eve of the final fixture of his first overseas tour as an international captain, a controversy which has dogged him since.“It’s probably been the hardest winter of my life to be honest,” he said in Pallekele, after England had secured victory against Pakistan and the two points they needed to claim a place in the final four

England edge past Pakistan: T20 Cricket World Cup Super 8s – as it happened

The pull goes to the fence for four and that completes a fine performance from England, their best of the tournament so far.Aha, here’s Simon Burnton’s match report……which means we’re done here. Thanks all for your company and comments; peace out.Brook, giving a second interview, says he was moved up the order because they wanted to make more of the powerplay and he goes after it. He’d been thinking about it for a while, not just for internationals but franchise cricket too, and when Baz said “Pakistan are your team,” he was up for it