Move comes as Senator Elizabeth Warren condemns Barclays response to questions over ex-boss’s ties to sex offender

US lawmakers have unveiled a new bill to hold Wall Street’s “Epstein-connected” bosses to account for helping finance the late sex offender’s crimes.

It came as top Democratic senator Elizabeth Warren condemned the UK bank Barclays for “dodging responsibility” over its failure to vet former boss Jes Staley and his ties to the once well-connected billionaire.

Yorkshire and Thames among providers facing penalties for missing performance targets, but bills could rise elsewhere

• Business live – latest updates

Thames Water, Yorkshire Water and other providers could be forced to cut tens of millions of pounds from household bills after the regulator said they had missed performance targets.

Customer bills at Yorkshire Water could fall by £27 on average, while those at Thames could decrease by £7, according to estimates by Ofwat, the regulator of the privatised industry in England and Wales.

Talks between Sainsbury’s and Morrisons have set industry tongues wagging, with analysts saying the market is ripe for change

• Tesco lifts profit forecast and says shoppers are resilient

They may be two of the most recognisable brands in Britain, with a combined 188 years serving shoppers, but industry watchers agree that either Asda or Morrisons – or both – could disappear within a decade.

This week, it emerged that Sainsbury’s and Morrisons – the UK’s second- and sixth-largest supermarket chains – had held merger talks between last November and February, before the larger player decided to walk away.

Move expected to make pump pricing more transparent and encourage competition after diesel hits record £2 a litre

Drivers will be able to see live petrol prices on Google Maps for the first time from Thursday, in a move that will help motorists shop around for the cheapest fuel.

Millions of motorists will be able to find the cheapest petrol and diesel prices by searching for a local forecourt in the Google app, in what could prove to be “a major development” in making fuel prices more fair, according to campaigners.

Pennon slashes dividend and launches £550m cash call ‘to drive improved outcomes for customers and communities’

• Burnham, take note: water shareholders have their uses

The owner of embattled South West Water has slashed its dividend and launched a cash call to investors as it attempts to fund infrastructure investment, days after it was hit by a record £7.9m fine for hundreds of sewage spills.

London-listed Pennon said on Wednesday it would tap investors for £550m, as part of a £1bn investment “to drive improved outcomes for customers and communities”.

Odds are good the CMA would approve of a supermarket merger. But does Sainsbury’s need Morrisons?

Would competition regulators really smile upon a combination of Sainsbury’s and Morrisons? One must assume the two companies believed the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) would give a thumbs up if asked, otherwise they would not have initiated their now-aborted merger talks.

It’s easy to list the arguments the duo could make. First, the combined market share of Sainsbury’s (15.2%, on the latest numbers from Worldpanel analysts) and Morrisons (8.4%) would still be less than that of mighty Tesco (27.8%). It would not be a case of leap-frogging the market leader, which was Sainsbury’s big idea back in 2018 when Asda was in its sights.