Saint Helena Pounds

Carillion collapsed on Monday when its banks pulled the plug, triggering Britain’s biggest corporate failure in a decade and forcing the government to step in.

European stocks were set to achieve their longest weekly winning streak for more than three years on Friday as M&A activity added to an advance on the back of a busy earnings season.

Hurricane Irma, one of the most powerful Atlantic storms in a century, drove toward Florida on Friday as it lashed the Caribbean with devastating winds and torrential rain, leaving behind 14 deaths and a swathe of catastrophic destruction.

Britain slashed its economic growth forecasts and expects to borrow a lot more going into the next decade, finance minister Philip Hammond said, but he nonetheless plans to spend more in the next couple of years to offset the impact of Brexit.