President says US navy will ‘guide’ stranded ships out of waterway but report says warship was hit by Iran

• Middle East crisis – live updates

The world’s shipping industry has questioned whether vessels will be able to travel safely to and from the Gulf after Donald Trump announced his latest plan to open the strait of Hormuz.

Trump wrote on Monday that the US navy would “guide” stranded ships out of the waterway, writing on his social media site Truth Social that the operation, “Project Freedom”, would be a humanitarian gesture “on behalf of the United States, Middle Eastern Countries but, in particular, the Country of Iran”.

Staff are handing over sandwiches from behind a theft-proof counter as the high street fights back

Greggs has axed self-service display cabinets in bakery stores that have been most severely hit by shoplifters.

The move is the latest aimed at combating a problem plaguing the high street. Last year official figures revealed annual shoplifting offences in England and Wales had passed half a million offences for the first time, and since then many retailers have reported high levels of crime in their shops.

Trade union criticises airline’s plan to halve passenger numbers to the city as ‘purely profit-oriented’

Ryanair is to shut its Berlin operating base and cut its winter schedule to the German capital in half, blaming soaring aviation taxes in the country.

The Irish budget carrier said its relocation of seven aircraft to other centres would reduce its Berlin passenger numbers from 4.5 million to 2.2 million a year, with flights in and out of the city served from October by planes based at other airports.

Consultancy that advised TikTok, Palantir and GSK collapsed amid fallout over former minister’s links to Jeffrey Epstein

Peter Mandelson’s former consultancy firm Global Counsel went bust owing £4.6m – including more than £600,000 to the taxman – a report by the group’s administrators has revealed.

The company, which provided advice to high-profile clients including Chinese-owned TikTok, US tech firm Palantir and UK pharmaceutical firm GSK, collapsed in February, after it lost a series of accounts over the peer’s relationship with the convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Shopkeepers charged millions of pounds, including alleged £10,000 penalty for mistake that cost firm £7.08

Vodafone incentivised its security staff to increase “clawbacks” levied on its own franchisees, as part of a programme that led to the telecoms group fining its own shopkeepers millions of pounds for seemingly small administrative errors.

The policy – which included one alleged case of a £10,000 penalty for a franchisee whose mistake cost Vodafone £7.08 – involved setting “key performance indicators” (KPIs) for the telecoms group’s internal employees to collect total annual fines of £1.5m from the small business people running the FTSE 100 company’s high street stores.