As the United States and China compete for dominance in artificial intelligence, energy is emerging as a critical battleground. Former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson warns that while the US still leads in AI technology, electricity shortages could become a major constraint as data center demand surges.
Over recent months, YouTube has been flooded with adverts promising “free satellite internet”, “government‑funded broadband kits”, or even “Starlink free for life”. These ads are slick, professionally voiced, and often dressed up to look like genuine technology news.
Over the past two years, Scotland’s private rented sector has been reshaped by a steady, unmistakable trend: landlords are selling up and leaving the market. The pattern is visible across the country, but some areas are feeling the pressure more sharply than others.
The latest ONS labour‑market release, published today, confirms what many employers and jobseekers across the Highlands have sensed for months. The UK jobs market is cooling, vacancies are shrinking, and the slowdown is no longer confined to a few fragile sectors.
You could find some savings in this video..
The drone strike on the Barakah Nuclear Power Plant happened on Sunday, 17 May 2026. UAE authorities said the drone hit an external electrical generator outside the inner perimeter of the plant.
Prof Steve Keen has been right so many times people should listen..
The Engineering Construction Industry Training Board’s (ECITB) award-winning e-learning platform has been hailed as a great example of industry collaboration in action. To mark Learning at Work Week 2026, NRS Dounreay has highlighted how the ECITB’s Learning Experience Platform (LXP) has become a “go-to training solution” for its 1,400 workers.
The comparison is complicated because inflation, Covid and energy-crisis borrowing distort the figures. The last Conservative parliament (2019–2024) saw extraordinarily high borrowing because of: the Covid pandemic, furlough, energy support schemes, higher interest costs, and weaker growth.
For decades, many Highland car parks were seen almost as a public right especially in rural communities, tourist beauty spots and smaller towns where parking had traditionally been free. But across the Highlands, and increasingly across the rest of the UK, councils are steadily turning more of these spaces into paid parking areas.
The latest Index of Production from the Office for National Statistics offers another reminder that the UK’s industrial foundations remain uneven, fragile and deeply exposed to global pressures. On the surface, the first quarter of 2026 looks mildly positive, with production output rising by 0.2% and manufacturing showing a more convincing 0.8% increase.
At the moment, rationing of petrol and diesel in the UK or most Western countries is still considered a last-resort scenario rather than something imminent. But the risk has clearly risen because the oil market is now relying heavily on emergency reserves rather than normal supply flows.
Who really governs Britain? In this video, I explore the hidden political power of the City of London Corporation and the offshore finance network linked to it. Most people have heard of the City of London, but very few understand that it operates under a unique constitutional structure unlike anything else in the UK.
Parents urged to claim Child Benefit for their new baby to avoid missing out. 6.8 million families are claiming Child Benefit more than 30% of new parents are missing out on payments by not claiming in their baby’s first year parents urged to claim via the HMRC app to ensure they get their payment as quickly as possible One in three new parents are missing out on Child Benefit payments in their baby’s first year, new figures reveal.
Half a tank, half a tank, Half a tank onward, All in the diesel queue Waiting and worried. “Forward for fuel once more!” Governments thundered.
In the three years from December 2022 to December 2025, the share of 16- to 24-year-olds in payrolled employment fell by 4.3 percentage points (equivalent to 330,000 people) from 54.9% to 50.6%. In comparison, the decline seen over the COVID-19 pandemic was 6.5 percentage points, while the fall in the 2008 financial crisis was 5.4 percentage points (relative to the pre-crisis trend).
The Scottish Government proposal (led by the SNP in 2026) to cap prices on up to 50 essential goods—such as bread, milk, and rice—is intended as a temporary, emergency measure to combat high cost-of-living pressures. While designed to improve affordability and nutrition, industry experts and economists widely argue that such price caps are unlikely to work effectively or sustainably in the long term.
Ministers announce the introduction of legislation to tackle late payments and protect small businesses. Small Business Protections Bill introduced to Parliament to back small businesses with the toughest late payment regime in the G7.
The Secretary of State for Culture, Lisa Nandy and Minister for Economic Transformation, Blair McDougall, will today lead a delegation of 250+ strong business and cultural leaders to the US to drive economic growth at a major expo, Greater Together LA. Following King Charles’s historic address to Congress, the UK Government’s GREAT Britain & Northern Ireland Campaign is holding a major expo in Los Angeles, California, from 18th - 22nd May, 2026.
There are no new DVLA parking rules coming in this week. The stories circulating online are real, but they are not DVLA rules and not taking effect this week.