Bank of England governor says UK ‘not out of the woods’ on inflation, after leaving interest rates on hold – as it happened

The Bank governor, Andrew Bailey, has warned that the UK is ‘not out of the woods’ in the cost of living squeeze.Announcing today’s decision to leave interest rates on hold, Bailey said:“Although we expect inflation to return to our 2% target, we’re not out of the woods yet so any future cuts will need to be made gradually and carefully.”Food prices have been a key factor pushing up inflation, and there are forecasts that food inflation will rise towards 5.5% by the end of the year.Time to wrap up…The Bank of England has left interest rates on hold at 4% and will slow the pace of its “quantitative tightening” programme in the year ahead to avoid distorting jittery government bond markets

Novo Nordisk shares climb after positive results for anti-obesity pill

The value of the drugmaker Novo Nordisk jumped by about £9bn on Thursday after research showed that taking its new anti-obesity pill can result in almost as much weight loss as its Wegovy jab.The Danish company is racing against its US rival Eli Lilly to get a tablet treatment to market. Shares in Novo Nordisk climbed by more than 6% on hopes that it can claw back market share lost to Eli Lilly and cheaper generic versions of GLP-1 drugs.The shares had fallen by nearly 60% in the past year as sales slowed and Novo issued several profit warnings, prompting its new chief executive, Mike Doustdar, to plan 9,000 layoffs.Novo said on Thursday that a once-daily pill version of Wegovy helped people achieve “significant weight” loss in a clinical trial, with close to one in three participants losing 20% or more weight

Meta announces first Ray-Ban smart glasses with in-built augmented reality display

Meta has announced three new pairs of AI smart glasses, including the first Ray-Bans with a built-in screen for augmented reality.The Meta Ray-Ban Display will be the first smart glasses with a heads-up display from a mainstream brand since the ill-fated Google Glass. They use a classic Wayfarer-like styling to avoid looking too obviously like wearable technology, while still having a camera, speakers and microphone.A small, bright and crisp colour display is projected on to the inside of the right lens, which appears to float just below the wearer’s eye line, and can show anything from text and images to live video calls. The display appears when interacting with the glasses, but isn’t visible from the outside

Google DeepMind claims ‘historic’ AI breakthrough in problem solving

Google DeepMind claims it has made a “historic” artificial intelligence breakthrough akin to the Deep Blue computer defeating Garry Kasparov at chess in 1997 and an AI beating a human Go champion in 2016.A version of the company’s Gemini 2.5 AI model solved a complex real-world problem that stumped human computer programmers to become the first AI model to win a gold medal at an international programming competition held earlier this month in Azerbaijan.In a performance that the tech company called a “profound leap in abstract problem-solving”, it took less than half an hour to work out how to weigh up an infinite number of possibilities in order to send a liquid through a network of ducts to a set of interconnected reservoirs. The goal was to distribute it as quickly as possible

Nottinghamshire stun Surrey, Somerset v Hampshire, and more: county cricket, day four – live

I’m going to write up now for the paper but do chat on BTL.There are four matches in play:In Division TwoGloucestershire are 11-1, and need 147 to beat Northants at Bristol.You’d expect handshakes at Old Trafford soon, where Middlesex are 86 behind but still have seven wickets left. This will, I think, send Glamorgan up.In Division OneDurham need 24 more runs for maximum batting points against Worcestershire

Salt’s fine form adds flavour to question of who opens for England at T20 World Cup | Taha Hashim

Phil Salt’s opening remarks in his post-match press conference were a slight surprise. He had just hit 89 to win England’s series opener against Ireland, following on from his unbeaten 141 last Friday. But his mind was still on the missed opportunity inbetween. “I was quite disappointed at Trent Bridge to not get out there and have a chance to win a series against South Africa,” he said.Rain ruined that decider on Sunday, denying a man who had found form – three consecutive single-figure scores preceded his hundred – and wanted more