Boss of Grosvenor Casinos parent says tax plans ‘cast clouds over a regulated industry’

Britain’s “much-loved” bingo halls could be at risk of closure if Andy Burnham proceeds with a £460m increase in gambling taxes, according to the owner of Grosvenor Casinos and Mecca Bingo.

Richard Harris, chief executive of Rank Group, said on Thursday: “Tax proposals from anti-gambling campaigners continue to cast clouds over a regulated industry that is proud to support jobs across the country [and] deliver great hospitality experiences to millions of customers.”

The FTSE 250 company reported paying more than £225m in taxes last year, and warned the government against imposing further tax increases on the gambling sector.

Before Andy Burnham’s appointment as Prime Minister, a left-wing think tank had suggested he could generate £460m by raising tax on slot and fruit machines from 20 to 40 per cent.

Any rise in Machine Games Duty (MGD) “will further impact venue viability across both Grosvenor and Mecca and will lead to a reduction in tax receipts within 12 months,” Rank Group stated, as reported by City AM.

While the government abolished a tax on physical bingo halls earlier this year, the prevalence of gaming machines at Mecca Bingo venues means the company could still suffer from such a tax rise.

Harris said higher gambling taxes would mean that “much-loved bingo halls and casinos will be forced to close, impacting customers in local communities”. The group said it is focusing on efforts to drive revenue from its digital machines and electronic gaming at its Grosvenor Casino and Mecca Bingo sites.

Rank Group recorded a five per cent rise in gaming revenue, to £835m, in the year to June, though pre-tax profit fell by 15 per cent to £39m.

The firm said its statutory profit was impacted by a £7.5m impairment charge relating to its gaming machines.

The business generated an average £7.6m gaming revenue per week at its Grosvenor Casinos arm, a rise of five per cent, which operates around 50 venues across the UK.

The group introduced 850 new machines across 37 of its casinos in an attempt to boost turnover, but noted that the Middle East conflict weighed on performance in its table gaming offering.

Rank has been scaling back its portfolio of Mecca bingo halls, responding to an “oversupply” of venues throughout the UK.

The group has been left with “a much healthier estate of core clubs and flagship venues, well-placed to compete more effectively in their marketplaces,” it said.

Gaming machine revenue climbed by six per cent at Mecca, accounting for 42 per cent of the business’s gaming turnover across the year.

Entain, the FTSE 100 owner of Ladbrokes, on Thursday criticised the government’s “significant and disappointing” hike to taxes on remote gambling, which it said weighed on its underlying earnings.

The Rank Group traces its origins back to media group The Rank Organisation, founded by Hull-born J Arthur Rank.

Ford is preparing to expand U.S. production of Lincoln vehicles as the automaker moves toward ending imports from China for American customers, a move Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick highlighted while discussing the Trump administration’s push to expand domestic manufacturing.

Lutnick joined FOX Business’ Larry Kudlow on “Kudlow” to discuss the Trump administration’s auto tariffs and efforts to expand domestic manufacturing.

“They’re bringing their manufacturing home,” Lutnick said. “Ford is going to rock us with bringing manufacturing back to America.”

Ford plans to expand U.S. production of Lincoln vehicles beginning in 2030 and eventually stop importing vehicles from China for the luxury brand’s American customers. The company expects the expansion to generate thousands of direct and indirect U.S. jobs, but has not disclosed how much it plans to invest or which plants will receive the additional production.

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Lincoln’s U.S. lineup currently includes the China-built Nautilus. Ford has not said whether Nautilus production will move to the U.S. under the plan or identified which China-imported vehicles will be affected.

The automaker already has a sizable U.S. manufacturing footprint. Ford said it assembled more than 2 million vehicles in the U.S. in 2025 and employs approximately 56,300 hourly manufacturing workers in the country.

Lutnick pointed to Ford and other automakers as examples of companies increasing their focus on American manufacturing, and argued that tariffs are helping drive investment and jobs back to the U.S.

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“Thousands of jobs, thousands and thousands of jobs coming back to America because of these tariffs on automotives,” Lutnick said.

He also emphasized the need to prepare younger workers for increasingly automated manufacturing jobs.

“We’re gonna have to train young people for these high-tech jobs,” Lutnick said. “We are going high-tech in America.”

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Lutnick said the administration’s focus extends beyond final assembly to building advanced manufacturing capacity inside the United States.

“We are going to build these factories here in America, and that’s the key,” he said.

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Brittany Miller contributed to this report. 

China’s increasingly aggressive activity around Taiwan and other flashpoints in East Asia could trigger a wider conflict even if Beijing is not prepared to launch a full-scale invasion, according to a China expert.

Gatestone Institute senior fellow Gordon Chang joined FOX Business’ Cheryl Casone on “Mornings with Maria” to discuss China’s military posture toward Taiwan and the risk that confrontations involving U.S. allies could spiral into a broader war.

Chang argued that turmoil at the top of China’s military has left Beijing less prepared for a major operation against Taiwan. He pointed to vacancies on the Communist Party’s Central Military Commission, saying the leadership body currently lacks operational officers.

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“China right now, its military, is in no position to invade the main island of Taiwan,” Chang said. “That means that China has to intimidate Taiwan into submission because it can’t use force.”

Chang said his larger concern is that Beijing could stumble into a conflict through confrontations elsewhere in the region. He cited Chinese activity around Second Thomas Shoal and Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea, where tensions with the Philippines have persisted, as well as disputed islands in the East China Sea claimed by both China and Japan.

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“I do worry about China backing into a confrontation, and I think that may even be probable,” Chang said.

Those encounters, Chang warned, could become especially dangerous if Chinese President Xi Jinping finds himself unable to de-escalate after a confrontation begins.

“That’s how the war starts in East Asia,” Chang said. “It doesn’t start with Xi Jinping saying, I’m invading Taiwan this afternoon. It starts through an accident that no one can control.”

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Chang also argued that Beijing’s pressure campaign may be having the opposite effect on Taiwan, strengthening resistance to Chinese rule rather than pushing the island toward submission.

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Operator

Good afternoon, and welcome to Stardust Power Inc.’s Q2 2026 Earnings Call. My name is Tawanda, and I’ll be your operator today. Before this call, Stardust Power issued its financial results for the quarter ended June 30, 2026.

Joining us on today’s call are Stardust Power’s Founder and CEO, Roshan Pujari; and CFO, Uday Devasper. Following their remarks, we will open the call for questions.

Before we begin, Johanna Gonzalez, Stardust Power’s Director of Investor Relations and Communications, will make a brief introductory statement. Ms. Gonzalez, please proceed.

Johanna Gonzalez
Director of Investor Relations & Communications

Thank you, operator, and good afternoon, everyone. Before management begins their formal remarks today, we would like to remind everyone that some statements we’re making today may be considered forward-looking statements under securities laws and involve a number of risks and uncertainties. As a result, we caution you that there are a number of factors, many of which are beyond our control, which could cause actual results, outcomes, and events, and the timings of such results, outcomes, and events, to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements.

For more detailed risks, uncertainties, and assumptions related to our forward-looking statements, please see the disclosures in our earnings release and public filings made with the SEC. We disclaim any obligation or undertaking to update forward-looking statements to reflect circumstances or events that occur after the date the forward-looking statements are made, except as required by law.

We refer you to our filings with the SEC for detailed disclosures and descriptions of our business, as well as

More than 200,000 magnetic building toys were recalled over an ingestion hazard after two children who swallowed magnets required surgery, according to federal regulators.

About 213,500 Goody King Magnetic Building Cubes and Blocks sets are affected by the recall, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission announced on Thursday.

The building cubes can break or open, allowing the magnets inside to become loose, posing an ingestion hazard for children that could even lead to death.

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“When high-powered magnets are swallowed, the ingested magnets can attract each other, or other metal objects, and become lodged in the digestive system. This can result in perforations, twisting, and/or blockage of the intestines, blood poisoning and death,” the commission said.

Importer Yi Suen Commerce is aware of two children who have ingested magnets from the cubes and needed surgery to remove them.

The company also knows of at least 27 reports of the cubes breaking or opening, causing the magnets to become loose and accessible to children.

Consumers are urged to stop using the recalled magnetic building cubes immediately and to contact Yi Suen Commerce for a full refund.

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The cubes contain small, powerful magnets that allow the cubes to stick together and create 3D designs. The toy sets are available in various themed designs and colors, including forests, dinosaurs and unicorns.

The toy sets are sold online at Amazon from January 2024 through July 2026 for between $17 and $50 in sets of 45, 56, 100, 120, 150 and 300.

Mumbai: General Insurance Corporation of India (GIC Re) has reported a 9.7% year-on-year increase in quarterly profit after tax, helped by an improvement in claims and underwriting performance. For the June quarter, the company on Thursday said profit after tax increased to Rs 1,922 crore compared with Rs 1,752 crore a year earlier.

Gross premium income rose 8.8% to Rs 13,475 crore from Rs 12,388 crore in the year-ago quarter. The incurred claims ratio improved to 85.04% from 90.42%, while underwriting loss narrowed by 20.3% to Rs 724 crore from Rs 908 crore a year earlier.

GIC Re’s combined ratio, which measures claims and expenses against premiums, improved to 104.88% from 106.94%. A ratio above 100% indicates an underwriting loss.

Operator

Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us, and welcome to CapsoVision’s Second Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions]

I will now hand the conference over to Leigh Salvo, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Leigh Salvo

Thank you, operator. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us for CapsoVision’s Second Quarter 2026 Earnings Call. Joining me today are Johnny Wang, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Senior Vice President of Finance, David Garcia; as well as Doug Atkinson, Senior Vice President of Sales.

Before we begin, please remember that today’s remarks include forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual events or results could differ materially due to a number of risks and uncertainties, including those mentioned in the most recent Form 10-Q filed by us with the SEC. These forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of this call, and we expressly disclaim any obligation or undertaking to disseminate any updates or revisions to any forward-looking statements contained herein to reflect any change in our expectations with regard thereto or any change in events, conditions or circumstances on which any such statement is based.

Our call today will cover the following agenda. Johnny will begin with an update on CapsoVision’s business, target markets and recent highlights from our pipeline development. Then Dave will walk through a commercial update and recent financial results. After our prepared remarks, we’ll open the call for Johnny, David and