Morning Briefing: Friday 16 October 2026
- If you have a mortgage or savings: the expected path of interest rates has shifted in a week. Traders now put the chance of the American central bank holding rates on 27 and 28 October at 72.3%, where a hike was close to even money two days ago, and the Bank of England sets its own rate in three weeks.
- If you are waiting on the Budget: it is twelve days away and the banks themselves now say a tax rise on their profits is planned. They pay a 3% surcharge on top of the 25% corporation tax rate; restoring the 8% rate that applied under Rishi Sunak would raise around £2bn a year.
- If you keep pornography on a phone or in cloud storage: from 6 November three categories become criminal to possess as well as to publish, carrying up to three years for one and two years for the others. The justice minister’s advice was blunt: “If you’ve got this material, delete it.”
Three Children and a Teacher Shot Dead at an Oregon School
A sixteen-year-old forced his way into Silver Rail Elementary School in Bend by shooting at locked doors, killing three children aged five, eight and eleven, and a teacher. A seven-year-old and a second teacher are critically injured. The…
Reported Attacks on Shipping Near Hormuz Hit a Record High
Twelve vessels reported being attacked in and around the Strait of Hormuz between 5 and 11 October, the most in any week since the war began, with six struck last Sunday alone. Flows through the strait have fallen to about 12.6 million bar…
Officials Say the Starlink Order Came From Inside the White House
The instruction to slow Ukraine’s military satellite service came from within the White House, two American officials and a Western official have said, with the Pentagon told the service “needed to be slowed”. A senior official denies it n…
Fed Chairman Declines to Signal an October Rate Rise
Kevin Warsh, asked at the International Monetary Fund meetings in Bangkok whether American rates will rise this month, would not say: “I don’t prejudge meetings. I don’t believe in saying now what I might do.” Traders now put the chance of…
Carney Says Outside Forces Want to Break Canada Before Alberta Votes
Alberta votes on Monday on whether to instruct its government to begin the legal process towards a future referendum on leaving Canada. At a rally in Calgary the prime minister warned that “some outside our borders are working to break us…
Banks Say a Tax Rise on Their Profits Is Planned
Senior banking executives say the chancellor intends to raise taxes on the sector at the Budget on 28 October, and that banks are “on the menu”. Bank shares fell at the open, with Lloyds the biggest faller on the FTSE 100, down about 1.9%,…
Three Kinds of Pornography Become Criminal on 6 November
From that date it will be illegal in England and Wales to possess or publish pornography depicting strangulation or suffocation, sexual activity between people who are or pretend to be related, or adults role-playing as children under sixt…
Farage Filmed Resisting Advisers Who Wanted a Candidate Sacked
Fresh undercover footage shows the Reform leader pushing back when senior staff said a mayoral candidate accused of racist remarks about David Lammy had to go. His communications chief, who had called the candidate “clearly a racist” and s…
Burnham Offers Holyrood a Deal to Devolve Power Further
The prime minister, in North Lanarkshire today, invites the first minister to work with him on pushing power below Holyrood, arguing that “power was never supposed to stop at the doors of the Scottish Parliament”. The visit falls on the we…
A Same-Day Test Is Finding Infections Doctors Were Missing
A test that sequences all the genetic material in a sample, rather than looking for an infection a clinician has guessed at in advance, found hidden and drug-resistant infections in critically ill children at Great Ormond Street Hospital.…