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

UK government tries to placate opponents of AI copyright bill

The UK government is trying to placate peer and Labour backbencher concerns about copyright proposals by pledging to assess the economic impact of its plans.Creative professionals including Sir Paul McCartney, Sir Tom Stoppard and Kate Bush have strongly criticised ministers’ proposals to let artificial intelligence companies train their models on copyright-protected work without permission, unless the rights holder opts out.Their stance has been supported by peers, who have passed amendments pushing back on the proposals, and by some backbench MPs.It is understood that concessions offered to MPs and peers this week include an economic impact assessment, with a report that could address issues such as how AI developers access data to train their models and transparency around use of copyright-protected works.Ministers are hoping the concessions will allow thethe data (use and access) bill to pass

Italian police increase security at Tesla dealerships after 17 cars destroyed in Rome fire

Italy’s interior ministry has written to police forces across the country to increase security at Tesla dealerships after 17 of the electric cars made by Elon Musk’s company were destroyed in a fire in Rome.Italy’s state police anti-terrorism unit, Digos, is investigating whether the fire at the Tesla dealership in Torre Angela, a suburb in the east of the capital, was started by anarchists.Firefighters worked for hours to put out the blaze in the early hours of Monday. Drone images showed a row of the burnt-out remains of the vehicles in a parking area of the dealership. Using his social media platform, X, Musk referred to it as “terrorism”

Emma Raducanu withdraws from Great Britain squad for BJK Cup qualifiers

Emma Raducanu has pulled out of Great Britain’s squad for next week’s Billie Jean King Cup qualifiers against Germany and the Netherlands.The British No 2 reached the quarter-finals of the Miami Open last week, her deepest run at a WTA 1000 event and best tournament performance since her stunning US Open triumph in 2021.Raducanu has featured at seven tournaments in a busy first three months of the year and it is thought she is planning to take a short break from competitive action, using the next two to three weeks as a training block before returning to action at an as-yet unspecified date.Raducanu’s representatives told BBC Sport that pulling out of the British squad for the matches in The Hague was a “difficult decision,” adding: “She needs a little space in the calendar to best look after her body.” Raducanu took a medical timeout during the second set of her three-set defeat to Jessica Pegula in the Miami quarter-finals

Charlotte Edwards to make England players ‘accountable for their fitness’

Charlotte Edwards has promised to make England’s players “more accountable for their fitness” as she seeks to improve the team’s fortunes after her appointment as women’s head coach.The 45-year-old insisted that despite England women’s recent troubles against Australia they were capable of winning this year’s 50-over World Cup in India, saying she was “really confident we can turn things around very quickly”. Jon Lewis was sacked as coach last month after a miserable winter in which group-stage elimination at the T20 World Cup was followed by a 16-0 rout in the Ashes.Clare Connor, the England and Wales Cricket Board’s managing director of England women, led a “very thorough, comprehensive and honest” review of that series which “told us that we did need a significant reset in terms of leadership and the environment”.The ECB chose to abandon its normal open recruitment process once it became clear that Edwards, who since retiring as a player had enjoyed success as a coach with Hampshire, Mumbai Indians and Sydney Sixers, would accept the job