Evening Briefing: Monday 21 September 2026
- Fuel: Oil crashed 8% below $100 for the first time in twelve days — Saudi exports are flowing again and diplomacy hopes built into UN week; relief should reach forecourts within days, though diesel set another record.
- Mortgages: Gilts eased to 5.21% as the oil slide cooled rate-hike bets — but a November rise stays 80% priced, and the Budget’s tax questions now have numbers attached: a reported £14bn capital-gains raid.
- Travel: A second air traffic control failure in a fortnight — this time at Prestwick — cancelled dozens of flights; the backlog clears tonight, the questions don’t.
Houthis Drive for Yemen's Highlands as Trump Calls Off Strikes at the Last Minute
Houthi fighters pushed to seize the Kahboub mountains commanding the road between the Red Sea coast and Aden — while it emerged that Mr Trump prepared airstrikes on the group on Sunday after pleas from the Saudi crown prince, then called t…
Oil Crashes Below $100 as Saudi Flows Recover and Diplomacy Stirs
Brent fell as much as 8% towards $95 — below $100 for the first time in twelve days, a fourth straight decline from last week’s $109 — as tanker data showed Saudi crude surging back through Hormuz: four million barrels a day of exports in…
Moscow's Refinery Stops Entirely as Russia's Ruling Party Claims Its Wartime Win
The fires from Sunday’s record barrage did their work: Gazprom Neft’s Moscow refinery — 230,000 barrels a day, one of Russia’s largest — has halted all crude processing, with repairs measured in weeks and its fuel vanished from the St Pete…
UN Week Opens: Burnham Flies Tonight for His First Meeting With Trump
The 81st General Assembly’s high-level week opened with the wars it cannot stop crowding its agenda — and Britain’s Prime Minister flying to New York tonight for tomorrow’s first face-to-face with Mr Trump: interceptors for Ukraine and reo…
Merz Clings On: 'Reforms Are the Antidote to the Authoritarian Poison'
Germany’s chancellor answered his party’s worst weekend since 1949 with defiance: the results are “a disaster”, but he will stay and govern — “reforms are the antidote to the authoritarian poison that is penetrating ever deeper into our so…
Burnham Weighs £14bn Capital Gains Raid to Fund Allowance Rise for the Lowest Paid
The Budget’s shape leaked into Monday’s front pages: the Prime Minister is weighing a capital-gains tax increase — a 45% top rate among the proposals — to fund raising the income-tax personal allowance, worth around £600 to low earners, un…
Specialist Rape Courts to Reach Every Crown Court by 2028
The Prime Minister announced specialist courtrooms for rape and serious sexual offences across all 84 Crown Court buildings by 2028 — remote viewing, video evidence from separate rooms, private entrances, trained staff, and fixed trial dat…
Second Air Traffic Failure in a Fortnight: 'A National Confidence Crisis'
NATS failed again — a connectivity fault at its Prestwick centre, which handles 42% of British airspace, cancelling dozens of flights across Scotland, northern England and Northern Ireland before a mid-morning fix. Coming three days after…
First UK Charges Over the Rwandan Genocide, Thirty-Two Years On
British prosecutors charged Dr Vincent Brown — formerly Vincent Bajinya, a 65-year-old London doctor — with seven offences over the 1994 Rwandan genocide: the first charges ever brought in Britain over the hundred days that killed 800,000…
Farage Unveils Helen Jenner as Reform's Welsh Leader After Arrest Vacancy
Reform filled its Welsh vacancy on the Senedd steps: Helen Jenner, a former teacher and the party’s deputy in Wales since spring, takes the leadership Dan Thomas resigned after his arrest on suspicion of assault and coercive control — alle…