Trump accused of attacking UK energy policies on behalf of fossil fuel industry

Climate campaigners have accused Donald Trump of attacking Britain’s energy policies on behalf of the fossil fuel industry, which made record donations to his presidential campaign.The US president-elect wrote in a social media post on Friday that the British government was gravely mistaken by cracking down on North Sea oil and gas producers – and that the UK should abandon wind generation.The broadside appeared to be a clear condemnation of the Labour government’s decision to raise taxes for oil and gas producers while granting record subsidies to new wind power projects.The UK plans to double its onshore wind generation and quadruple its offshore wind capacity by the end of the decade, aiming to run a clean power system by 2030 and hit legally binding climate targets. At the same time it has ruled out granting any new oil and gas licences

Biden blocks Nippon Steel’s $15bn bid for US Steel over national security fears – as it happened

Time to wrap up…US president Joe Biden has used his final days in office to block Japanese firm Nippon Steel from taking over US Steel, amid national security concerns.The general sentiment: keep key US resources like steel under the control of US companies.The move has prompted pushback from the Japanese industry minister, who says that the decision is ‘regrettable’ and ‘difficult to comprehend’.However, this is one of the few policies that his successor, president-elect Donald Trump, has also backed. Elsewhere, Trump has been making waves after he used his Truth Social media platform to hit out at UK wind farms and windfall taxes on North Sea oil producers

Meta is killing off its own AI-powered Instagram and Facebook profiles

Meta is deleting Facebook and Instagram profiles of AI characters the company created over a year ago after users rediscovered some of the profiles and engaged them in conversations, screenshots of which went viral.The company had first introduced these AI-powered profiles in September 2023 but killed off most of them by summer 2024. However, a few characters remained and garnered new interest after the Meta executive Connor Hayes told the Financial Times late last week that the company had plans to roll out more AI character profiles.“We expect these AIs to actually, over time, exist on our platforms, kind of in the same way that accounts do,” Hayes told the FT. The automated accounts posted AI-generated pictures to Instagram and answered messages from human users on Messenger

Nick Clegg has sold almost $19m in Meta shares since joining Facebook in 2018

Nick Clegg made almost $19m from the sale of shares in Meta during his six-year term at the owner of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, filings show.The former British deputy prime minister had sold $18.4m (£14.8m) worth of shares in the group before announcing on Thursday that he was leaving his role as its president of global affairs and communications.His total pay at Meta has not been disclosed but he still holds almost 39,000 of the company’s shares, worth about $21m at their current price

Australia v India: fifth men’s cricket Test, day two – live

50th over: Australia 176-9 (Lyon 6, Boland 5) Apologies, my middle of the night brain forgot to change the email address on the page from Angus’ – do drop me a line at tanya.aldred.freelance@theguardian.com. Lyon and Boland mine a precious three runs from Prasidh’s over49th over: Australia 173-9 (Lyon 1, Boland 4) “Morning Tanya”

Luke Littler reveals that rewatching last year’s final defeat inspired PDC triumph

Luke Littler has revealed how watching back his defeat in last year’s final in the hours before facing Michael van Gerwen gave him the inspiration to become the youngest world darts champion in history.The 17-year-old produced a nerveless performance to beat Van Gerwen 7-3 to lift his first PDC world title. But he insisted that looking back at his 7-4 loss to Luke Humphries last January on YouTube had given him a premonition of how he could win the biggest match of his life.“Earlier today I watched all the game back against Luke and I had the visions,” said Littler. “I knew what went wrong last year