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Thursday newspaper round-up: Business rates, Barclays, Moonshot

Thu 23 July 2026 07:16 | A A A

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(Sharecast News) - Business rates will be cut by 20% for pubs, clubs and live music venues across England from April next year, Downing Street has announced. The discount will apply to nearly 32,000 hospitality businesses and is expected to save a typical pub about 1,100 annually, but will not be available to the very largest live music venues. - Guardian

The leading US senator Elizabeth Warren has called for urgent answers from Barclays over what she claimed was its "apparent failure to meaningfully investigate" ties between the bank's former boss, Jes Staley, and the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. In a letter sent privately to Barclays's chair, Nigel Higgins, and seen by the Guardian, Warren - the most senior Democrat on the US senate banking committee - said it was "deeply unclear how Barclays, supposedly investigating Staley's connection to Epstein, failed to uncover this decades-long relationship". - Guardian

A former PR executive for Lloyd's of London has threatened to sue the insurance market after an investigation found "no conclusive evidence" she had a romantic relationship with its former chief executive. Rebekah Clement, a former adviser to New Zealand's prime minister, is considering taking legal action against Lloyd's after a long-running review failed to find that she had a workplace affair with John Neal, the former chief executive. - Telegraph

The White House has threatened China with sanctions after accusing one of its top AI companies of stealing American technology. Scott Bessent, the Treasury Secretary, said claims that Chinese start-up Moonshot had extracted trade secrets from US company Anthropic could trigger retaliatory actions including a new round of levies on Beijing. - Telegraph

Alphabet beat second-quarter sales forecasts for its Google Cloud business as the technology company hoped to reassure investors about its huge investments in artificial intelligence infrastructure. The US company said Google Cloud revenue in the second quarter rose 82 per cent from a year ago to $24.8 billion, beating Wall Street's forecast of $22.4 billion. - The Times

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