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Received yesterday — 12 December 2025

Nationwide fined £44m by watchdog for financial crime control failings

Ineffective systems culminated in serious case of Covid fraud that cost UK taxpayers £800,000

Nationwide has been fined £44m by the City watchdog over “weak” financial crime controls that culminated in a serious case of Covid fraud that cost UK taxpayers £800,000.

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) fined the building society for failures stretching over nearly five years. It said the lender had been aware that some customers were using personal accounts for business activity, in a breach of its own terms.

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© Photograph: Graeme Robertson/The Guardian

© Photograph: Graeme Robertson/The Guardian

© Photograph: Graeme Robertson/The Guardian

Received before yesterday

Over 250 people quarantined in South Carolina as measles outbreak rages

9 December 2025 at 17:34

A measles outbreak that began in South Carolina at the start of October is showing no signs of slowing as officials on Tuesday reported 27 new cases since Friday. Those cases bring the outbreak total to 111.

The southern state’s outbreak now rivals outbreaks ongoing in Utah and Arizona, which have tallied 115 and 176 cases, respectively. The outbreaks are threatening to cost the country its measles elimination status, which was earned in 2000 after vaccination efforts stopped the virus from spreading continuously. If the current transmission of the virus isn’t halted by January, the virus will have circulated for 12 consecutive months, marking it once again as an endemic disease in the US.

In an update on Tuesday, South Carolina’s health department suggested the spread is far from over. Of the state’s 27 new cases, 16 were linked to exposure at a church, the Way of Truth Church in Inman. And amid the new cases, new exposures were identified at Inman Intermediate School. That’s on top of exposures announced Friday at four other schools in the region, which led to well over 100 students being quarantined.

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© Getty | Natalya Maisheva

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13 October 2025 at 08:31

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