Lord Haskins obituary

Chris Haskins, Lord Haskins, was perhaps the most prominent business supporter of Tony Blair’s New Labour project, brought in to Downing Street at the start of his administration to advise on cutting red tape, and later as “rural tsar” in the wake of the devastating foot and mouth outbreak of 2001. What Blair would praise as Haskins’s invaluable “no nonsense approach” was honed during 40 years building up Northern Foods into Britain’s leading food manufacturer. There he was credited with developing the chilled food techniques that have made possible today’s enormous growth in ready meals and convenience foods.Haskins, who has died aged 88, combined the acumen of an entrepreneur and enlightened business manager with a socialist conscience. Alongside it went a compulsion to tell the truth as he saw it, which could sometimes get him into difficulties

Wake-up call: how Telstra’s ‘unreasonable’ price rises may cause customers to hang up

Telstra has long traded on its claim to have better – and far more expansive – mobile coverage than its rivals to justify a steep pricing premium that has accelerated in recent years.But the telco’s latest changes, which include steep price hikes and the closure of its cheaper “starter” plan to new users, combined with a dramatic rejection of its coverage claims by the industry regulator, risk putting off many of its traditional customers, according to consumer advocates.Telstra recently announced sweeping price changes including raising monthly charges on its mobile plans, a big money printer for Australia’s biggest telco.Telstra’s standard monthly mobile plan will increase from $70 to $74 for 50GB of data, representing an aggressive second price hike in less than a year.Its announcement cleared the path for rivals, including Optus, to make similar increases

Kurt Strauss obituary

My father, Kurt Strauss, who has died aged 95, was a senior engineer who worked for more than two decades at the Electricity Council, the government body that coordinated electricity supply in England and Wales before privatisation in 1990.He worked for all of that time within the council’s overseas relations branch, managing international relationships, technical exchanges and consultancy services while rising steadily through the ranks to associate director. German by birth but brought up in the UK, he was a passionate European who spoke French and German, and was therefore well suited to those responsibilities.Kurt was born in Degerloch, a suburb of Stuttgart, into a Jewish family. In 1937 his parents, Viktor, who worked in the family down and feather business, and Marianne (nee Melzer), sent Kurt’s older brother, Helmut, to safety in Britain, where he ended up at a boarding school, Sidcot, in Somerset

UK’s leading AI research institute told to make ‘significant’ changes

The UK’s leading AI research institute has been told to make “significant” changes by its main source of taxpayer funding.The Guardian revealed last week that the board of the Alan Turing Institute was reminded of its legal duties by the charity watchdog after a whistleblower complaint.The UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) body, which awarded the ATI a five-year, £100m funding package in 2024 and is its largest single source of funds, said it had conducted a review of the institute and found it underperforming in terms of strategy and delivering value for money.“The review concluded that overall strategic alignment and value for money are not yet satisfactory,” the UKRI said.Last summer, the government made clear that it expected a strategic overhaul at the nominally independent organisation and indicated the need for management changes, adding that its funding could be reviewed

NCAA women’s Final Four: UCLA top Texas; South Carolina take down UConn – live updates

What a strange night of college basketball. But we have two worthy winners.It’s a 51-44 final for UCLA.Booker drives but slips and falls. The ball gets to Oldacre for a baseline jumper, but she hits the side of the backboard

Geno Auriemma and Dawn Staley have tense postgame exchange after South Carolina shock UConn in Final Four

UConn coach Geno Auriemma and South Carolina coach Dawn Staley had a heated exchange on the sideline after the Gamecocks beat the undefeated Huskies 62-48 in Friday night’s semi-final of the NCAA women’s tournament.South Carolina ended UConn’s winning streak at 54 games and secured a return trip to the national championship game.As the two went to shake hands with 0.1 seconds left, Auriemma appeared to go to shake Staley’s hand and began yelling in her direction. Staley responded with words of her own