Live and let fly: James Bond helicopter firm awaits UK decision on £1bn deal

The Merlin helicopter sitting on a factory floor in Yeovil is a familiar sight to James Bond aficionados: it featured in the climactic shootout of the 2012 film, Skyfall.Workers at the Somerset factory are upgrading the aircraft for the Canadian air force, a lucrative source of income for its owner, Italian state-backed weapons maker Leonardo.But Leonardo has its eyes on a bigger prize for Yeovil: after a drawn-out process, it has emerged as the single bidder for a £1bn contract to build new medium-sized helicopters to replace the Pumas used for decades by the Royal Air Force in conflicts around the world.Yet with Labour in the UK carrying out a strategic defence review, some in the industry believe the helicopter purchase could be scrapped altogether by a government that has stressed the gloomy state of the public finances.What happens next matters hugely for Britain’s last remaining helicopter factory, the Somerset market town of Yeovil, and Britain’s wider defence industry

More than 2,000 jobs axed as UK prison builder ISG collapses

More than 2,000 jobs have been axed and dozens of government construction projects could be paused as ISG, one of the UK’s largest contractors, fell into administration.In the biggest collapse of a UK construction company since Carillion, administrators EY confirmed on Friday that ISG had ceased trading with immediate effect, with the closure of all of its sites.It confirmed that most of the 2,400 people it employed in the UK would be made redundant with immediate effect, with only 200 staff retained to assist administrators.ISG is involved in 69 live central government schemes, including several projects as part of the Ministry of Justice’s plan to increase the capacity in Britain’s prisons by an extra 20,000 spaces. It is also working on schemes for the Department for Work and Pensions and several school building projects

Google says UK risks being ‘left behind’ in AI race without more data centres

Google has said that Britain risks being left behind in the global artificial intelligence race unless the government moves quickly to build more datacentres and let tech companies use copyrighted work in their AI models.The company pointed to research showing that the UK is ranked seventh on a global AI readiness index for data and infrastructure, and called for a number of policy changes.Google’s UK managing director, Debbie Weinstein, said that the government “sees the opportunity” in AI but needs to introduce more policies boosting its deployment.“We have a lot of advantages and a lot of history of leadership in this space, but if we do not take proactive action, there is a risk that we will be left behind,” she said.AI is undergoing a global investment boom after breakthroughs in the technology led by the release of the ChatGPT chatbot, from the US company OpenAI, and other companies like Google, which has produced a powerful AI model called Gemini

Brazil top judge accuses X of ‘willful’ circumvention of court-ordered block

In the latest round of the dispute between Elon Musk and Brazil’s top court, a senior judge has accused X of a “willful, illegal and persistent” effort to circumvent a court-ordered block – and imposed a fine of R$5m ($921,676) for each day the social network remains online.The social media platform formerly known as Twitter, which has been banned by court order since 30 August, on Wednesday became accessible to many users in Brazil after an update that used cloud services offered by third parties, such as Cloudflare, Fastly and Edgeuno.This allowed some Brazilian users to access X without the need for a VPN – which is also prohibited in the country.Late on Wednesday, X described its reappearance in Brazil as an “inadvertent and temporary service restoration to Brazilian users”.But the influential supreme court justice Alexandre de Moraes – who ordered the original ban as part of an attempt to crack down on anti-democratic, far-right voices – on Thursday described the move as a deliberate attempt “to circumvent the court’s blocking order”

‘Don’t disrespect me’: Anthony Joshua stands up for clash with Daniel Dubois

‘I’m just ready to fight,” Anthony Joshua said earlier this month as he looked ahead to his bout against Daniel Dubois at Wembley Stadium on Saturday night. Dubois sat opposite Joshua at a table in a television studio and, replicating the often manufactured drama which pre-fight shows are meant to generate, he looked coolly at his more famous opponent and said: “Let’s go.”His promoter Frank Warren, sitting alongside Dubois, smiled and added a little caveat to dilute the sudden intensity: “But let’s wait until the 21st.” Dubois, for once, ignored Warren and continued: “If he wants to swing, let’s go now.”“Shaddup,” Joshua snapped

City Of Troy wows crowds gathered for key Breeders’ Cup test at Southwell

When Southwell racecourse staged a seven-race card with 71 runners on a Friday afternoon three weeks ago, a grand total of 560 spectators turned up to watch. But there were nearly 1,000 here on Friday to watch just five runners, and there was something else too: the buzz that heralds the arrival of a special horse on a racecourse, as City Of Troy, the Derby winner, paid probably his final visit to a British track.The instant that City Of Troy set foot on the Tapeta, he went straight into the top 1-2-3 of horses to appear at Southwell. The exact point where he fits in remains open for argument, as the other contenders for the No.1 spot are Galileo, the 2001 Derby winner and later a legendary stallion, and Giant’s Causeway, who went down only narrowly in the 2000 Breeders’ Cup Classic