Somerset Sounds will be held at Somerset County Cricket Club in Taunton

A major new music festival will be held in Somerset next summer, it has been announced. Somerset Sounds will take place at Somerset County Cricket Club in Taunton, with organisers hoping to attract some of the world’s “biggest artists”.

The historic West Country club is teaming up with live entertainment company Full Fat 360 – the firm behind Milton Keynes’ SMK Live and Bristol’s BS3 Festival – to launch the annual event at the Cooper Associates County Ground.

Organisers say the venue will hose “major outdoor main-stage shows” which are expected to bring thousands of visitors to the county and boost the local economy each year.

“We want to create experiences that bring new audiences to Taunton from across the South West and beyond, while generating meaningful economic and cultural benefits for the county,” said Jamie Cox, chief executive of Somerset County Cricket Club.

“We have a proud history of hosting some of the world’s biggest artists here, and Somerset Sounds gives us the opportunity to build on that heritage and create something distinctive, ambitious and enduring.

“Our ambition is for Somerset Sounds to become one of the standout dates in the South West summer calendar and we’re incredibly excited about what we’re going to announce for 2027.”

World music stars including Sir Elton John, Rod Stewart and Lionel Richie are among the artists to have previously performed at the county ground and festival organisers have said that Somerset Sounds will build on that “legacy”.

Alongside musical performances, the organisers are planning to offer “premium hospitality” experiences and will have a fan village with food, drink and cultural attractions.

Oli Bartlam, founder of Full Fat 360, said: “The Cooper Associates County Ground already has an incredible legacy of hosting world-class live entertainment, and Somerset Sounds is the next ambitious step in that evolution.

“Taunton and the wider region have a massive appetite for major live music, and this partnership allows us to establish the region as a destination on the national touring circuit.

“We’re thrilled to be working with Somerset County Cricket Club to bring international acts to this iconic venue and build an event series the entire South West can be proud of. Summer 2027 is only the beginning.”

The launch marks a strategic move to establish the Cooper Associates County Ground as a primary UK live entertainment destination in its own right, expanding the venue’s footprint beyond its 145-year sporting history.

An impact report commissioned by the cricket club last year found the county ground attracts more than 150,000 visitors a year, while contributing £20m to the economy and directly supports over 200 jobs in the local area.

The line-up for Somerset Sounds 2027 is expected to be announced in the coming months.

Do your parents have a favourite child and give them more money, gifts or help?

Financial favouritism can cause jealousy and resentment long into adulthood and, in some cases, even spark legal disputes after a parent dies. But experts say there are strategies that can help you avoid it.

John says his parents, who have always supported his younger brother, recently refused to lend him £10,000 towards a house deposit after he broke up with his partner.

This was despite the money being “well within their financial grasp”, he says.

His parents had previously given his brother a deposit to buy a home and subsidised his living expenses.

John, 47, whose real name we have changed, says he was viewed as the more academic one growing up and expected to stand on his “own two feet” financially, while his brother, 42, struggled to make his way in the world and was “coddled”.

He says the favouritism has made him believe “the needs of others take precedence over my own”, leaving him feeling “isolated” and affecting friendships and romantic relationships.

President Donald Trump on Wednesday proposed giving a $5,000 “dividend” payment to every adult U.S. citizen if Republicans hold both chambers of Congress after this November’s midterm elections, though the cost could add substantially to the federal deficit.

Trump delivered a speech Wednesday night at the RNC’s Midterm Convention in Dallas, pledging to issue the $5,000 dividends if GOP candidates secure majorities in both the House and Senate.

“Because of our tremendous strength and success economically, I will issue a dividend to every adult citizen in the United States of America for $5,000,” Trump told the crowd, adding that the dividend would have to be spent in the U.S.

Trump has previously floated dividend payments to American households, including DOGE and tariff dividends that were discussed last year but weren’t enacted. And the latest proposal has raised concerns about the impact on the federal government’s budget deficit and the national debt.

AMERICA’S $40T NATIONAL DEBT IS ‘STEALING FROM OUR NEXT GENERATION,’ ECONOMIST WARNS

President Donald Trump pledged $5,000 “dividend” payments to U.S. adult citizens if Republicans win both chambers of Congress in the midterms. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

An analysis by the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) estimated that issuing a $5,000 dividend to every adult citizen in the U.S. in 2027 would cost over $1.2 trillion, which the budget watchdog warned would be far more than all three of the COVID-era stimulus payments combined, as well as the 2027 cost of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

CRFB found the cost of the $5,000 dividend would more than double the federal government’s primary budget deficit for next year, rising from $780 billion to $2 trillion, with the total projected deficit to $3.1 trillion. That would also push the deficit as a share of the economy from 5.8% of GDP this year to 9.4% in 2027.

CRFB President Maya MacGuineas called the proposal “fiscally dangerous, economically backwards and fundamentally unserious,” adding that while “pandering is all too tempting to politicians, the reality is that the more goodies politicians promise, the more ordinary Americans will pay the price at the grocery store, on their mortgage statements or in the burden they leave their children.”

US NATIONAL DEBT HITS $40 TRILLION MILESTONE FOR FIRST TIME EVER

Trump’s proposal for a $5,000 “dividend” payment to adult U.S. citizens would cost an estimated $1.2 trillion, according to CRFB. (Al Drago/Getty Images)

Competitive Enterprise Institute Senior Economist Ryan Young told FOX Business, “President Trump’s $5,000 check proposal is not going to happen, even if Republicans win the midterms.”

Young said that Americans are concerned about the $40 trillion national debt and that the plan would “add more than $1 trillion to that debt in one fell swoop.”

He also warned that the “checks conflict with Trump’s desire for lower interest rates. The extra cash in circulation would raise inflation, which the Fed would likely have to counter with higher interest rates.”

“Over and above anything the Fed does, a trillion dollars in new spending would raise interest rates on government debt by making the government’s financial situation even worse. Reluctant bond buyers would demand higher interest rates for taking on more risk.”

HOW MUCH HAS THE NATIONAL DEBT GROWN UNDER PRESIDENT TRUMP?

FOX Business reached out to the White House regarding how the dividends would be paid for.

“The doomers and naysayers have consistently doubted President Trump: when he pledged to create the historic Trump Accounts, lowered prescription prices with Most Favored Nations, secured the border with no crossings, cleaned up our streets, ended taxes on tips, grew real wages, renegotiated broken trade deals and reshored key manufacturing back to the United States,” White House spokesman Davis Ingle said. 

“President Trump has consistently proven his doubters wrong, drawing a clear contrast with the Democrats’ record of historic inflation, unfettered illegal immigration, skyrocketing crime and weakness on the world stage. With the continued support of the American people, President Trump will keep delivering real results.”

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Aliev, who had worked in finance before doing her MBA, was wary of first impressions at the firm.

“If you judge a book by its cover, it’s very easy to be like ‘oh, young girl, Wall Street background, coming in here and telling me what to do’… I was really conscious about that,” she says. “And I really didn’t want to come off that way to my team.”

Aliev says her approach was initially to just observe and learn. “Not coming in and telling them ‘this is how things are going to be’.”

The practice of a young entrepreneur borrowing money to buy a company and become its boss is known as entrepreneurship by acquisition or “search-fund investing”.

The would-be business owner sets up a fund, called a search fund, and aims to attract money from both institutional investors and wealthy individuals.

At the last count, in 2023, a record 94 search funds, external were found to have been launched that year in the US, with $682m (£505m) said to have been invested in funds and the companies they bought across 2022 and 2023.

In turn, there are now investment companies in the US that specialise in backing young entrepreneurs and their search funds, such as Search Fund Partners, Aspect Investors and Anacapa Partners.

They are attracted by reported high rates of return. For while some people may question the wisdom of putting a 20-something in charge of an established business, a report by Yale School of Management found that “juicy returns by any standard”, external are available, and funds generally “remained relatively stable”.

For existing business owners, selling to a younger entrepreneur is a chance to move on and perhaps retire. For would-be company leaders the aim is to grow the business for perhaps five to 10 years, before selling at a profit.

Now more than two years since taking over at Life Support Systems, and 30-years-old, Aliev has led the takeover of a competitor, which she says has doubled the size of the business.

She says that this focus on growth has been welcomed by most employees. One, Meaghan Richardson, says: “It can be a little bit challenging sometimes for those of us who have been here a long time… but it’s been really great since she’s come in because she’s just turned a lot of stuff around, which is really exciting.”

But not everyone has been happy with Aliev’s new approach. Some workers have left and she has made others redundant as “they just didn’t want to work in a growth company”.

Fifteen years ago there was almost no market for avocados in India, remembers Madhu Bopaiah.

Ripe fruit would fall off trees and be eaten by dogs, earning avocados the unappetising name dog fruit, he says.

Bopaiah has been working in India’s plantation industry for 26 years, he’s currently group manager at Cottanad Plantations, which grows cocoa, rubber, coffee, spices and fruits, including avocado, in the hills of Wayanad in the southern Indian state of Kerala.

“We never planted avocado as our main crop. We introduced it as a shade tree for coffee plantations, and only later realised it could become a profitable business,” he says.

He says the turning point was around 2011 when Bollywood star Shilpa Shetty said she used avocado for skincare.

“Overnight, prices doubled and then kept rising,” he says.

Cottanad has responded to that demand by planting avocado trees on 40 acres. Last year they harvested between 10 and 15 tonnes of fruit. In three of four years time they hope to raise that to 40 to 50 tonnes.

There’s been a lot to learn.

“We completely changed the way we grow avocados after learning from South African experts. Today we use raised beds, wider spacing and different planting methods because avocado roots are highly vulnerable to diseases,” Bopaiah says.

There’s plenty of scope for Indian farmers to step-up production.

“When we studied the market, we found a huge gap between demand and supply. India imports around 15,000 tonnes of avocados every year, while domestic production is only about 8,000–9,000 tonnes,” says Manilal Palliyath who helps promote India’s avocado industry.

He sees a big opportunity for farmers, particularly as traditional crops have suffered.

“Coffee and pepper have suffered because of changing climatic conditions, making diversification essential for farmers.”

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