We’ve all looked up and seen the white lines trailing behind aircraft in the sky.

Known as contrails, these icy clouds contribute to climate change, and scientists have been trying to work out how to stop them.

Now, a £5m UK trial will test whether AI can help, by predicting where warming contrails are likely to form and getting planes to avoid those areas.

It will focus on the Shanwick Oceanic airspace in the eastern half of the North Atlantic corridor which accounts for approximately 5% of global contrail warming.

The 30-month Operation Blue Skies project brings together Google, the UK government, the Met Office, air traffic control provider National Air Traffic Services (NATS) and researchers at the University of Cambridge and Imperial College London.

Contrails – also known as vapour trails – are made when the hot exhaust from aircraft engines meets the cold air at high altitude, creating ice crystals.

Many disappear quickly, but in particularly cold and humid conditions they can persist and spread, forming clouds which trap heat that would otherwise escape from the Earth.

Dr Paul Hodgson, Google’s technical lead for the operation, told the BBC’s Tech Life programme his five-year-old has a more colourful description for the white lines – “sky graffiti”.

“We think that contrail warming is responsible for something like a third of all aviation climate warming,” he said.

Dr Hodgson acknowledged there was uncertainty around the precise figure, but said scientists were confident it was “either quite a large problem or a very large problem”.

The project also comes as the government backs expansion of UK airports, raising the wider question of whether tech solutions can sufficiently reduce aviation’s environmental impact as demand for flying grows.

Google is also one of many big tech companies spending billions on new data centres – the giant, power-hungry banks of computer chips which power AI – which environmentalists are concerned will contribute even more to climate change.

Disney and ABC have filed a lawsuit to stop the Trump administration from launching an early licence renewal process, arguing that the network is being unfairly targeted over its editorial content.

“Government censorship is deeply un-American,” the lawsuit says. “This case concerns the Administration’s sustained effort to do just that.”

The lawsuit says the Federal Communication Commission – the government’s media regulator – is being pressured to renew broadcast licences years early. It alleges the push stems from complaints from, and under the direction of, President Donald Trump.

FCC chairman Brendan Carr has said that the renewal requests were focused on “public interest”, not retaliation.

“If broadcasters don’t like that, that’s okay,” Carr told CNBC in July.

“They can become a cable channel, they can become a podcast, they can stream online. But if you want to uniquely be on the public’s airwaves, you have to comply with those obligations.”

The BBC has contacted the FCC for comment.

Disney and its eight owned-and-operated TV stations are plaintiffs in the lawsuit filed on Tuesday against FCC and its chairman.

The FCC ordered licence renewals for the Disney-owned ABC stations in April.

Disney previously had been under investigation for its alleged diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) practices and for ABC’s daytime talk show, The View.

But the notice for early renewal of licence from the FCC came a day after ABC’s late-night host Jimmy Kimmel made a joke about first lady Melania Trump.

In the lawsuit, Disney calls the order by the FCC “unprecedented”, saying that before then the commission had not called for early renewal in over 50 years.

“Acting through the Federal Communications Commission, the Administration has waged a retaliatory campaign against ABC for a single reason: it disapproves of what ABC broadcasts,” the lawsuit says.

It cites Trump’s own social media posts as evidence, including one in which Trump complained about ABC’s coverage of him being “almost 100% negative”.

In the same social media post, Trump also questioned whether their broadcast licences should “be terminated”, and answered his own question: “I say, Yes!”.

Under pressure from FCC chairman Carr, Disney pulled Kimmel off air in September 2025, after he made remarks about the murder of conservative activist and Trump ally, Charlie Kirk.

But Kimmel was quickly returned to his role after widespread public backlash over alleged free speech violations, including from Republican Senator Ted Cruz.

The FCC gave ABC and Disney 30 days to file applications, which, according to plaintiffs in the lawsuit, “ordinarily take months to prepare”.

The lawsuit also notes that the FCC has never demanded early renewal applications from a group of stations commonly owned by a single broadcast network.

ABC and Disney have requested a “speedy hearing” from the court and a temporary restraining order.

Pay growth in the private sector slowed to 2.8 per cent in the three months to June, the weakest rate in almost six years, while pay in the public sector rose by 6.1 per cent, according to figures from the Office for National Statistics published on Tuesday.

The annual rate of private sector pay growth was down from 2.9 per cent in the previous quarter and is the lowest since the three months to October 2020, during the coronavirus pandemic, the ONS said.

Public sector pay growth rose from 5.5 per cent in the previous three months. The ONS said the increase was driven by NHS staff receiving their pay award this year compared with 2025.

The unemployment rate held steady at 4.9 per cent. Vacancies fell by around 4,000 over the quarter to 707,000 in the three months to June, down from a peak of nearly 1.3 million in 2022 and the lowest level outside the pandemic since 2014, as job openings have continued to fall across the economy.

Single-month estimates for June alone, which the ONS says should be treated with caution, showed the unemployment rate climbed to 5.4 per cent from 4.6 per cent in May. The reliability of the ONS’s labour market data has weakened in recent years because of a decline in responses to the survey that underpins it.

Unemployment among people aged 18 to 24 edged down to 14.6 per cent from 14.8 per cent, although it remains close to an 11-year high. The economic inactivity rate, which measures the share of people not in work or looking for a job, was unchanged at 20.9 per cent.

Liz McKeown, director of economic statistics at the ONS, said: “Regular wage growth has remained broadly stable in recent months. However, private sector pay growth has continued to ease, while public sector pay growth remains elevated due to the timing of the latest NHS pay awards.

“The labour market picture is little changed overall, with some softening still evident. Employment, unemployment and inactivity rates have all remained steady, while the number of employees on payroll fell slightly in the latest quarter.”

The figures come as the Bank of England weighs its next move on interest rates. Bank Rate has been held at 3.75 per cent since December, and the Bank’s governor has played down the prospect of near-term cuts.

Yael Selfin, chief economist at KPMG UK, said the labour market figures “will provide the Bank of England with further evidence that its cautious approach to monetary policy remains the most appropriate path”.

She added: “Pay growth continues to show little sign of generating significant inflationary pressure, while wider labour market conditions appear to have bottomed out.”

James Smith, a developed markets economist at ING, said: “Barring a severe and persistent spike in energy prices [caused by the Middle East war], we think the Bank will keep rates on hold until next Spring, before cutting rates at least twice in 2027.”

After accounting for inflation, average pay excluding bonuses across the economy rose by 1 per cent in real terms in June, the ONS said, with real-terms pay under pressure in parts of the private sector. Inflation figures due on Wednesday are expected to show the annual rate climbed to 2.9 per cent in July from 2.6 per cent the previous month.

The ONS also said on Tuesday that productivity, measured by output produced per hour of work, rose by 0.7 per cent in the second quarter compared with the same period in 2025.

Jamie Young

Jamie Young is Senior Reporter at Business Matters, covering SME finance, employment law and Westminster policy since 2016. He has reported on every Budget and Autumn Statement since 2018, helped make sense of the ‘covid era’ and the bounce-back loan scheme from launch through the fraud investigations, and broke the magazine’s coverage of the 2024 late-payment reforms. He joined Business Matters straight from completing his BA in Administration from Exeter University and is NCTJ-qualified. Reach him at jyoung@cbmeg.co.uk

Operator

Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Region Group FY ’26 Results Call. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Greg Chubb, Chief Executive Officer. Please go ahead.

Gregory Chubb
CEO & Managing Director

Thank you, and good morning, and thanks for joining us for the Region Group FY ’26 Full Year Results. My name is Greg Chubb, and it’s a privilege to welcome you to my first results presentation as Chief Executive Officer. David Salmon, our Chief Financial Officer, is presenting these results with me today, and Erica Rees, our Chief Operating Officer, is also in the room with us. This morning, I’ll start with an overview of our strategy before looking at the operating performance of the portfolio and the opportunities we see to drive both organic and inorganic growth. David will then take you through the financial results before I return to discuss the guidance and outlook for FY ’27.

And we’ll start with our strategy on Slide 4. And since joining Region earlier this year, I’ve met with our major retail tenant partners, a number of our investors and visited many of our centers around Australia, where I’ve spent time reviewing priorities with our people. This has reinforced 2 things for me. Firstly, we have a resilient scale supermarket-led portfolio of essential