NatWest boss warns against higher bank taxes as lender’s profits rise 30%

NatWest Group’s chief executive has warned the government against increasing taxes on banks in the autumn budget as the high street lender reported a 30% jump in profits.Paul Thwaite said he understood the “difficult choices” that the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, had to make in order to help close a potential £30bn shortfall in the public finances but argued she needed to “balance fiscal discipline” with “policies that create stability, consistency and support growth”.Twaite said on a call with journalists on Friday: “I think the government should be thoughtful about signals it sends to investors who are looking at the UK as a long-term home for capital.”His comments came as NatWest reported a strong jump in profits, which grew 30.4% to £2

Dash for gold helps drive retail sales in Great Britain to three-year high

Sales at UK retailers rose unexpectedly last month to their highest level since July 2022, according to official figures, boosted by tech purchases amid the release of the new iPhone 17 as well as strong online demand for gold.Data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) shows that retail sales volumes rose by 0.5% in September, the fourth consecutive monthly increase, confounding economists’ forecasts of a 0.2% monthly drop.Sales of products at computer and telecommunication retailers grew strongly last month

Amazon reveals cause of AWS outage that took everything from banks to smart beds offline

Amazon has revealed the cause of this week’s hours-long AWS outage, which took everything from Signal to smart beds offline, was a bug in automation software that had widespread consequences.In a lengthy outline of the cause of the outage published on Thursday, AWS revealed a cascading set of events brought down thousands of sites and applications that host their services with the company.AWS said customers were unable to connect to DynamoDB, its database system where AWS customers store their data, due to “a latent defect within the service’s automated DNS [domain name system] management system”.DynamoDB maintains hundreds of thousands of DNS records. It uses automation to monitor the system to ensure records are updated frequently to ensure additional capacity is added as required, hardware failures are handled and traffic is distributed efficiently

Trump pardons founder of Binance, world’s largest crypto exchange

Donald Trump issued a pardon for the founder of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange on Thursday.“President Trump exercised his constitutional authority by issuing a pardon for Mr Zhao, who was prosecuted by the Biden administration in their war on cryptocurrency,” a White House statement said. “The war on crypto is over.”Changpeng Zhao pleaded guilty in late 2023 to one count of failing to maintain an anti-money laundering program and stepped down as CEO of Binance, which paid $4.3bn to settle related allegations

NBA gambling scandal shines harsh light on US sports’ embrace of betting

The NBA gambling scandal is the biggest story of the year in US sports, a culmination of the years-long embrace between professional leagues and the multibillion-dollar gambling industry that has now crossed the line from synergy into scandal.In two sweeping federal indictments unsealed in Brooklyn on Thursday, prosecutors charged more than 30 people – including the Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier, Portland Trail Blazers coach Chauncey Billups and former NBA player and assistant Damon Jones – with schemes that turned inside information and rigged card games into engines of profit for organized crime.Federal officials dubbed the twin takedowns Operation Nothing But Bet and Operation Royal Flush, likening the sprawl of defendants and their aliases to something out of a Scorsese film.It’s the most significant corruption crisis to hit a major American league since betting was legalized in most US states, and the most revealing picture yet of how deeply gambling has fused itself into the bloodstream of professional sports.The filings describe a network of insiders, bookies and mafia affiliates who allegedly used private player data to wager on prop bets – wagers on specific occurrences within a game, such as how many assists a player records or whether they’ll make their first three-point attempt – and ran high-stakes poker games wired with cheating technology

NFL hands down $315k in fines over Giants’ concussion protocol violations

The New York Giants, head coach Brian Daboll and running back Cam Skattebo have been fined for violating the NFL’s concussion protocol during an evaluation of rookie quarterback Jaxson Dart in the team’s game against the Philadelphia Eagles, the league and NFL Players Association announced Friday.The Giants were hit with a $200,000 fine for breaching the protocol, while Daboll was fined $100,000 and Skattebo $15,000 for conduct detrimental to the league.The incident occurred during the 9 October matchup at MetLife Stadium after Dart was sacked midway through the third quarter and remained on the turf, clutching his helmet. Following standard procedure, he was escorted to the blue sideline medical tent for a concussion evaluation by team physicians and an independent neurotrauma consultant.According to the league’s review, Daboll approached the tent during the evaluation and briefly stuck his head inside