Business
Fining firms for sewage spills will get ‘quicker and easier’, says government
Jonah FisherEnvironment correspondent
Getty ImagesFining English water companies for spilling raw sewage will soon become quicker and easier, the government has said.
New proposals would see automatic fines of up to £20,000 issued for some minor offences and make it simpler to punish more serious ones.
In recent years data from the water industry’s own monitoring equipment has shown how frequently rules are broken around sewage spills. But the regulator, the Environment Agency, has by its own admission struggled to act.
“I want to give the Environment Agency the teeth it needs to tackle all rule breaking,” said Environment Secretary Emma Reynolds, announcing the proposals.
“With new, automatic and tougher penalties for water companies, there will be swift consequences for offences – including not treating sewage to the required standard, and maintenance failures,” she said.
The plans will be put to a six-week public consultation starting on Wednesday.
The English water companies welcomed the proposals, with a spokesperson for trade body Water UK saying: “It is right that water companies are held to account when things go wrong.”
Getty ImagesFor the most serious pollution offences, the enforcement system remains the same. The EA has to take water companies to court and prove to a criminal standard that an offence has been committed “beyond a reasonable doubt”. If that prosecution results in a conviction the company could have to pay a large fine, possibly in the millions of pounds.
The new proposals are focused on more minor offences which happen frequently and have in the past gone largely unpunished.
The plans would see automatic financial penalties of up to £20,000 introduced for rule breaches such as failure to report a significant pollution incident within four hours, failure to report spill data properly or if emergency overflow outlets discharge sewage more than three times in a year.
For some more serious offences the government wants to make it easier for the EA to take action.
So it’s proposing that the burden of proof be reduced from “beyond all reasonable doubt” – the norm for criminal proceedings – to “on the balance of probabilities”, which is used in civil cases. The fines which the EA can impose without going to court could be increased to a maximum of half a million pounds.
The reduced burden of proof for some offences is already written into law, having been part of the Water (Special Measures) Act which received Royal Assent in February 2025. This six-week consultation is to determine which offences should be included, and the level of the fines.
“Fines of £500,000 are pocket change to billion-pound companies like Thames Water,” says James Wallace, the CEO of campaign group River Action.
“Higher penalties and urgent, wholesale reform are essential to prevent negligent firms polluting our rivers and short-changing their customers.”
Powell’s term is nearing its end and the US Senate is considering Trump’s nominee for his replacement, Kevin Warsh. A key Republican, Thom Tillis, has withheld his support for Warsh unless the Trump administration would drop its investigation into Powell.
Business
Intel bags big gains! Chipmaker’s shares jump 26% on blockbuster results; how Trump admin benefits – The Times of India
Intel share price soared sharply on Friday after the chipmaker delivered a first-quarter performance that exceeded market expectations. And the win was not just for the chipmaker, but also the whole of US!The stock climbed 26.7% during trading on Friday, marking what could be its strongest single-day gain since 1987. Momentum continued after the closing bell, with shares rising a further 20% in after-hours trading as investors reacted to signs of a sustained turnaround driven by artificial intelligence.Intel reported revenue of $13.58 billion (€11.6bn) for the quarter, ahead of the $12.3 billion (€10.5 bn) forecast and up 7.2% from a year earlier. Adjusted earnings per share came in at $0.29, far exceeding expectations of $0.01.A key contributor to this performance was the company’s Data Centre and AI (DCAI) division, which delivered revenue of $5.05 billion (€4.2bn), up 22.4% year-on-year and well above analyst estimates of $4.41 billion (€3.77bn). The results indicate strong demand for Intel’s Xeon 6 processors and Gaudi 3 AI accelerators, particularly among enterprise clients and cloud service providers.Chief executive Lip-Bu Tan pointed to a broader shift in artificial intelligence usage as a major factor behind the growth. He said, “the next wave of AI will bring intelligence closer to the end user, moving from foundational models to inference to agentic.” He added, “This shift is significantly increasing the need for Intel’s CPUs and wafer and advanced packaging offerings.”The company also issued an upbeat outlook for the second quarter, forecasting revenue in the range of $13.8 billion (€11.8billion) to $14.8 billion (€12.6billion), surpassing investor expectations of $13 billion (€11.1billion).
But how is Washington winning?
The rally has had a direct impact on the US administration’s investment in Intel. In 2025, during a period of severe financial strain for the company, the administration of Donald Trump acquired a 9.9% stake in a move aimed at stabilising the business. The government invested $8.9 billion (€7.8bn) at a share price of $20.47 (€18.01), with $5.7 billion (€5bn) of that amount coming from previously approved but unpaid grants, according to the Euro News.At the time, Intel was facing multi-billion dollar losses and operational challenges, prompting concerns over its viability. As part of the intervention, the company cancelled planned factory projects in Germany and Poland, redirected focus towards US-based manufacturing, and reduced its global workforce by 25%, cutting around 25,000 jobs.Following the latest jump, Intel’s shares are now trading at $81.3 (€71.5), representing an increase of nearly 300% since the government first took its stake. The sharp rise highlights how the company’s improved financial performance has translated into substantial gains for the US administration.
Statistics Jersey says there have been “sharp increases” in some energy prices.
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