‘We introduced avocado to the high street!’ How Pret conquered London – and began eyeing the rest of the world

At 93-95 Victoria Street, Westminster, a blue plaque marks a piece of London history: the first ever branch of Pret a Manger opened on this spot on 22 July 1986. Nearly 40 years later, it is still going strong.It’s a nice story – but it’s not the whole story. Look closer and the plaque states that the first Pret sandwich shop opened “near here”. In fact, it was down the road, at 75b, now a branch of Toni & Guy

Trump’s tariffs could deliver a $27bn blow to Australia – and the cost of a global trade war would be far higher

Liberation days signal the end of a war, not the start of one.So it is with rich irony that the US president, Donald Trump, has declared victory even as he massively escalates his attack on the global trading system.As Trump attempted to recast the world’s richest nation as a victim of “perfidious” foreigners who have been taking advantage of the superpower for too long, he unveiled sweeping 10% tariffs on goods imported from Australia. Notably, pharmaceuticals – one of Australia’s top exports to the US – escaped tariffs, as did critical minerals that are not mined in the US.The treasurer, Jim Chalmers, nevertheless declared it “a dark day in the global economy” as he promised to release updated Treasury modelling of how bad the tariffs will be for Australia

Labor offers $1bn in loans to Australian export companies and seeks to loosen US trade ties after Trump tariffs

Labor will provide $1bn in zero interest loans to help export-focused companies tap alternative markets as Australia seeks to loosen trade ties with the US in response to Donald Trump’s new tariffs.The lending facility would complement a separate government initiative to fund representative bodies of affected sectors “to secure and grow new markets”.The pledges, announced on Thursday, were made shortly after Trump’s “liberation day” speech. The US hit Australia with a 10% tariff in response to claims that Australia imposes the same sized impost on US goods through various trade barriers, a claim that Albanese disputes.Australia has sought to boost trade to countries like India and the United Arab Emirates and sign a free trade agreement with the European Union in a diversification strategy to be fast-tracked amid the upheaval in global diplomatic and economic relations

Heathrow should not mark its own homework on energy resilience | Nils Pratley

“We purchase and pay for a resilient setup from our suppliers,” Thomas Woldbye, Heathrow’s under-pressure chief executive, told the transport select committee, adding that the airport racked up energy costs of £135m a year. “Are we then also supposed to have a setup next to it? And then we would have to have a whole power station at the cost of billions to the airlines.”So runs Heathrow’s case that there was no alternative to closing the airport for a full day last month after a fire knocked out a nearby National Grid substation, one of three serving the airport.Heathrow’s engineers had to reconfigure an internal grid to take electricity solely from the other two substations. The reconfiguration involved shutting down and restarting 1,000 systems and could not be done in less than 10 hours

Ex-Barclays boss ‘took a chance’ in lying about his links to Jeffrey Epstein, court hears

The former chief executive of Barclays Jes Staley took a “chance” in lying to the UK regulator about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein amid fears that being truthful could end his career and fuel potential lawsuits by victims of the jailed child sex offender, a court has heard.The allegations were made by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) during closing statements for the high-profile case at the upper tribunal in London on Wednesday.The case is part of Staley’s efforts to overturn a lifetime ban from the UK’s financial sector, prompted by the FCA’s claims that he lied about the depth of his ties to the now-deceased sex offender in 2019.The FCA’s lawyer, Leigh-Ann Mulcahy, told the court on Wednesday that Staley had a “clear motive to mislead” the regulator about the relationship, which he “had been mischaracterising since 2015”. This was, in part, to protect his career, she said

Gold rises as markets await US tariffs; Heathrow airport was warned about power supply in days before closure – as it happened

The sell-off in European stock markets has gathered pace, and pharmaceutical stocks are among the biggest fallers ahead of Donald Trump’s tariff announcement later today.The Stoxx 600 healthcare index fell as much as 2.5% to its lowest level since December.Analysts said US tariffs this time round could focus on the pharmaceutical sector.Germany’s Bayer and France’s Sanofi dropped by 4