Time to wrap up.

Binance said hackers used a bogus job interview to compromise ⁠a computer and an internal artificial intelligence tool to gain control over the company’s wallets before stealing $6.3bn from customer accounts, in what ⁠could be the ⁠largest-ever financial heist.

Brent crude reversed earlier gains and turned negative, sliding as much as 3%, after Donald Trump said the US will stop providing military funding to Israel after the end of this year.

The US president said he made a deal with ⁠Israeli prime ⁠minister Benjamin ​Netanyahu and that Washington would no longer be providing ⁠military aid to Israel after the end of this ⁠year.

Brent crude is now down 0.6% at $104.08 a barrel.

MPs have called on the government to act to protect Poundland and other high street businesses from “predatory capitalism” and asset stripping as the future of the budget retailer hangs in the balance.

The fate of the company, and its 12,000 staff, remains uncertain after the retailer, which is controlled by the US restructuring specialist Gordon Brothers, filed a notice of intention to appoint administrators at the high court last Thursday, with the advisory firm AlixPartners lined up to run the process.

Our other main stories:

Thank you for reading. We’ll be back tomorrow. Take care! – JK

Binance said hackers used a bogus job interview to compromise ⁠a computer and an internal artificial intelligence tool to gain control over the company’s wallets before stealing $6.3bn from customer accounts, in what ⁠could be the ⁠largest-ever financial heist.

In ​a initial report into what went wrong, the world’s largest crypto exchange detailed a sophisticated hacking endeavour that began with an advert ⁠for a tampered version of a coding tool in June and set in chain a series of security breaches that culminated in the ⁠theft of the crypto on 29 October.

The FBI has blamed a North Korean hacking group, ​a claim North Korea has rejected. Binance ‌has said it is ‌repaying all customers who have lost funds through the hack.

Binance said that the attack started ‌when an employee from its wallet developer team in June downloaded an AI tool that had been tampered with. The crypto exchange detected this, replaced the device and changed credentials but the employee’s role and that of others on the wallet team were exposed to the hacker.

Then in September a second software engineer seeking a ‌new job downloaded “malicious code repository” onto his computer after interviewing for what the person thought was a legitimate role, including meeting virtually with the CEO ​of a fictitious company.

On 20 October, the attacker used the compromised computer plus an internal AI tool to gain control of the wallet developer’s system and that of a second wallet developer on that team.

On 29 October, the attacker used the second wallet developer’s computer, using stolen ⁠credentials from the first wallet developer, and triggered a malicious script to ​launch the attack.

Binance ‌said:

This should not ​have happened, and we apologise ​for the concern, disruption and uncertainty it caused our users, partners and the ​wider industry.

Binance said it will ramp up investment in AI-enabled detection and set up a security research fund and targeted initiatives with leading AI companies.

Back to the Poundland debate in the British parliament, where the retailer’s owner Gordon Brothers was described as “private equity vultures”.

MPs called on the government to step in to prevent asset strippers cashing in on high street businesses.

Antonia Bance, Labour MP for Tipton and Wednesbury, told business minister Kate Dearden earlier:

And I wanted to ask the minister if it emerges that a viable bid to keep Poundland intact was blocked, putting 12,000 jobs at risk, what specific powers will the Secretary of State use to hold [Poundland owner] Gordon Brothers to account, and will she now establish an urgent review of whether our corporate governance and insolvency frameworks give sufficient protection against asset stripping and short term financial engineering at the cost of jobs and our high streets?

Dearden responded:

It’s absolutely legitimate for the government to be asking the business that they are doing everything they can to protect employees and suppliers.

Ownership brings responsibilities absolutely, as well as rights.

Richard Tice, the Reform Party’s business spokesperson, said Poundland’s management was “very concerned” that “the owners of Poundland are looking to abuse the insolvency process in order to maximise their financial returns”.

Natural gas prices have also fallen sharply following Trump’s remarks.

The British front-month gas contract is down 6.1%.

The European benchmark gas contract has fallen 6.8%, to €88.41 per megawatt hour.

Brent crude has turned negative, sliding 3%, after Donald Trump said the US will stop providing military funding to Israel by the end of this year.

The US president said he made a deal with ⁠Israeli prime ⁠minister Benjamin ​Netanyahu and that Washington would no longer be providing ⁠military aid to Israel after the end of this ⁠year.

Speaking to Fox News’ Fox and ​Friends programme, Trump ‌said Israel ‌no longer needs it and that ‌some Democrats and left-wing politicians were using this US funding to Israel as a talking point to criticise Republicans.

Now, as far as paying ‌Israel, Bibi Netanyahu and I have made a deal that ​we give Israel $4bn a year, and we made a deal months ago that we’re stopping.

We’ve ​already ​agreed that by ​the end of this year ​we ‌won’t be paying ​Israel. ​Now we’ll help Israel if they need it.

Poundland’s owner Gordon Brothers has been accused of “predatory capitalism” as 12,000 jobs are under threat, while the government insisted it was working hard to protect “as many jobs as possible,”

Poundland’s future hangs in the balance after the retailer, which is controlled by the US restructuring specialist Gordon Brothers, filed a notice of intention to appoint administrators at the high court last week, with the advisory firm AlixPartners lined up to run the process.

The founder of Poundland, Steve Smith, has warned that staff at the retailer could be out of work for “years” if it collapses, as he called on the owners of the troubled chain to accept a proposed buyout deal.

In response to an urgent question in the House of Commons about the fate of the budget retailer, Kate Dearden, minister in the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade, said officials had met with Gordon Brothers and Jonathan Reynolds, the business secretary, is due to meet the company “ to continue to press our concerns and establish the facts”.

She said:

We are establishing the facts, keeping in close contact with those involved and monitoring developments closely. The Secretary of State and I continue to engage closely on this issue. We have met and are in going contact with the trade union Usdaw, who I know are extremely concerned about their members’ jobs and their livelihoods, and I want to thank them for their work and engagement. We’re also meeting with Bill Williams, the managing director of Poundland, this week. Earlier this week, officials met with Gordon Brothers and the Secretary of State is due to meet with them.

However, there are ongoing commercial negotiations concerning a private business and it would not be appropriate for government to seek to influence the outcome or comments on the merits of individual bids. The owners should be acting in the best interests of their loyal UK staff and stores. What we want is the best possible outcome for Poundland workforce and the future of the business. The 12,000 staff and the many thousands of suppliers are at the forefront of our minds and we want to see an outcome that protects as many jobs as possible and keeps as much of the business trading as possible.

Gareth Snell, Labour MP for Stoke on Trent Central, then asked:

What can this house do to send a message to Gordon Brothers that the predatory capitalism that they are putting into this company will not be tolerated, because we in this country will always stand with people before profit.

Britain’s most polluting power plant could soon power the country’s largest datacentre under a £20bn deal to build AI infrastructure on the site of the Drax power plant in North Yorkshire.

The power plant’s FTSE 250 owner has struck a deal with infrastructure investor Brookfield and ⁠and the AI infrastructure platform Radiant to develop a datacentre with an eventual capacity of more than 1 gigawatt which could begin operations by early 2028.

In the initial phase of the project Drax will provide the datacentre project with land and access to the national power grid through existing connections on the site, but it hopes to begin powering the data centre directly by the early 2030s.

Drax said the development could attract more than £20bn ($26.8bn) in investment and represent “the next chapter” for the former power plant after ministers signalled plans to limit its power generation in the future.

Will Gardiner, the chief executive of Drax, said the project would “help secure the long-term future of the site and protect hundreds of jobs” while “supporting the North’s reindustrialisation and strengthening sovereign AI capability”.

The largest power plant in the UK produces almost 5% of the country’s electricity by burning woody biomass pellets, making the site the single largest emitter of carbon dioxide, according to analysts.

These emissions are not accounted for by the UK government because Drax claims that the equivalent carbon emissions are absorbed by growing trees which provide the waste wood used to make the biomass pellets.

Love it or hate it, the 2026 John Lewis Christmas advert is here – and it’s Kristin Scott Thomas v Pickles the evil AI overlord puppy!

The John Lewis Christmas advert no longer lands with the same thud as old. Once it prompted full media saturation and performative crying contests on social media. Now, more often than not, it’s the thing you skip before watching cat videos on YouTube. Nevertheless, its release is still an event, and so here we are again, writes the Guardian’s Stuart Heritage.

This year, either by fluke or by design, John Lewis has managed to remember that it is a shop, and not simply a vessel for feelings of unfathomable sadness. Rather than being a vignette about lonely penguins or Moon Hitlers or Elton John’s growing fears about his own mortality, the John Lewis Christmas advert is literally about a woman going shopping. Admittedly there are caveats, but we’ll get to those. For the most part, this is less ‘Christmas can be emotionally brutal’ and more ‘Hey guys, remember shops?’ That has to be a good thing.

Exciting news for Primark shoppers: it will launch a home delivery service in Great Britain before the end of next year.

George Weston, the chief executive of the clothing chain’s parent company Associated British Foods, told Reuters:

Home delivery, we’ll launch by the end of 2027.

We’re sure it will be incremental [for sales] and profitable.

ABF intends to spin off Primark in December 2027, separating it from its sugar business.

In September, ABF said Primark would launch home delivery “in the future”.

Until now, the company – which already offers a click and collect service – has shied away from home delivery, arguing that its low prices made it too difficult to absorb the cost of packing and shipping orders.

Stock markets have fallen in early trading, as new strikes by the US on Iran led to a rebound in crude oil prices, dampening hopes for new peace talks to bring the eight-month war to an end.

The UK’s FTSE 100 index is down nearly 44 points at 10,717, a 0.4% drop. Germany’s Dax slid 1%, France’s CAC 40 is down 0.6%, and Italy’s FTSE MiB and Spain’s Ibex both lost around 0.9%.

Brent crude, the global oil benchmark, is trading 1.7% higher at $106.55, a day after it fell sharply towards $103 a barrel. The US carried out strikes on Iran’s Qeshm Island in the strait of Hormuz, a US official said – a day after Iran signalled it was open to peace talks and Donald Trump also suggested he would give diplomacy a chance until after the US midterm elections.

The strikes also came hours after the US vice-president, JD Vance, said he was optimistic that diplomatic efforts to end the war were moving in the right direction.

Primark owner Associated British Foods is is among the main FTSE 100 losers, after it forecast another year of falling profits because of deeper losses in its sugar business and weaker sales at Primark. Mining shares Anglo American, Antofagasta, Fresnillo and Endeavour Mining and commodities trader Glencore are leading the blue-chip index lower.

Hugo Boss shares fell 2.6% in early trading in Frankfurt after the German fashion retailer cut its sales and profit outlook as it pointed to weak consumer demand.

Bucking the trend, shares in the German pharmaceuticals and crop science company Bayer jumped 5.6% after it lifted its 2026 profit outlook.

Virgin Media O2 is to cut thousands of UK jobs in an £800m cost-cutting drive as the telecommunications company aims to tackle its £22bn debt pile.

VMO2, which is jointly owned by the British-Dutch-American telecoms company Liberty Global and Spain’s Telefónica, said £300m of the savings target will come from job cuts that will reduce the company’s employee wage bill by 30% over the next two years.

The company did not specify how many jobs this will equate to, but it could be as many as 25% of its 16,000 workforce.

The company, which said that most of the job losses will come from non-customer facing roles, said it intends to increase the use of AI tools in areas including customer service, network planning and fault management.

The VMO2 chief executive, Lutz Schüler, said:

While we will give a fuller update on the new strategic plan in the coming months, we are already progressing and making difficult decisions to prioritise investments and reduce costs which includes the size of our workforce.

Standing still and doing what we’ve always done is not an option and while many of these decisions are tough, they are necessary for our future success and growth. Virgin Media O2 must evolve, and the action needed to make that happen starts now.

Good morning, and welcome to our rolling coverage of business, the financial markets and the world economy.

The Saudi state oil company Saudi Aramco has reported that profits rose by more than a third in the latest quarter despite attacks on its facilities.

The world’s top oil exporter posted a net profit of $3.25bn in the three months to September, compared with $26.9bn a year earlier.

The US-Israeli war on Iran has reduced Aramco’s output, but this has been offset by higher oil prices.

This morning, Brent crude climbed $2.38 a barrel to $107.15 a barrel, a 2.2% gain, after the ⁠US reportedly launched limited strikes on ​Iran’s Qeshm Island late on Monday. (Before the war, which started on 28 February, Brent traded around $72 a barrel.)

However on Monday, the global oil benchmark plunged 11% to $103.28 a barrel after Donald Trump reportedly said he was willing to give diplomacy more time.

Amin H. Nasser, Aramco’s president and chief executive, said:

Geopolitical uncertainty and attacks on key energy facilities continued to amplify the global energy supply crisis in the third quarter of 2026, with serious implications for global energy security. Despite challenges, the unwavering dedication of our workforce, our operational excellence, the flexibility of our system, and the strength of a supply network built over decades enabled us to continue delivering reliably to our customers through this extraordinary period.

We continue to explore additional overseas storage capacity and alternative export routes to further strengthen our global supply network, and our robust operational and financial performance during this volatile period demonstrates the value of our resilience.

This means that the world’s biggest oil companies are on track for combined profits of around $100bn between July and September.

Australia’s central bank has lifted interest rates for the fifth time this year, taking them to the highest level in 18 years.

The Reserve Bank of Australia’s board raised its cash rate by 25 basis points to 4.85% and said it will continue to do what it considers necessary to bring inflation to target. However, it dropped its previous guidance that it would raise the cash rate further if needed.

And a surprisingly narrow 6-3 vote indicated policymakers may be getting to the end of their rate hikes.

Michele Bullock, the governor, said it was “not the news that many Australians want to hear”, but it would prevent “even worse pain down the track”.

She said it was unclear what the next move in rates will be, adding that the three dissenting members stressed downside risks such as the weakening housing market and rising unemployment.

After five rate hikes this year, she said it is an appropriate time to pause and assess how the economy is responding to the rate rises, but cautioned that

there is still a bit of a skew on the upside to inflation risks, and we need to be alert to those materialising.

Updated forecasts from the central bank show headline inflation hitting 4.5% in the fourth quarter, before easing back to the target range of 2% to 3% in the second half of next year. Unemployment is forecast to rise above 5% in the next couple of years.

Ipek Ozkardeskaya, senior analyst at Swissquote, said:

Higher energy prices… would strengthen the case for further monetary policy tightening by the Federal Reserve (Fed) and other major central banks. The Reserve Bank of Australia delivered a 25bp hike today, as expected, while the Bank of England (BoE) is widely expected to announce a 25bp hike on Thursday, following a rather uneventful budget announcement last week that allows the BoE to go on with its life — and take care of its inflation problem.

The Big Picture

Overall, if we take a step back and look at the bigger picture, the latest monetary policy decisions have brought either rate hikes or the prospect of tighter monetary policy to fight inflation fuelled by elevated global energy prices. On top of that, many developed-market bond yields face upward pressure from intensifying fiscal concerns, while large bond issuance by technology companies to finance their massive AI buildout could add to that pressure.

The cryptocurrency exchange Binance said hourly deposits exceeded withdrawals this morning, suggesting flows are stabilising after its hack last week. This resulted in $6.3bn of assets being stolen from customer accounts.

It has been described as the biggest heist in history; experts identified North Korea as the probable culprit.

The Agenda

• 3pm GMT: US JOLTs job openings for September

• 3pm GMT: US Factory orders for September