Afternoon.

It’s Monday 5th October: BT is rescuing TalkTalk, mortgage rates have climbed back to 6% and US bombers have been pulled from a British airbase after a suspected terror plot.

Kettle on.

📅 On this day: In 1962, The Beatles released their first UK single, Love Me Do. It reached number 17 in the charts, which wasn't a bad start to proceedings. Give it a spin.

BT has agreed to buy TalkTalk for £400m after the struggling broadband company entered administration. TalkTalk has around 2.5 million customers and £1.5bn of debt. Attempts to find another buyer failed, leaving it at risk of collapse. BT's deal saves around 900 jobs and, rather importantly, keeps everyone's broadband working.

The government helped speed things along because TalkTalk's network doesn't just connect people's homes. Hospitals, schools and emergency services also rely on it, making a straightforward collapse rather inconvenient.

The deal isn't completely done and dusted. TalkTalk competes with BT while also using BT-owned Openreach's network, so the Competition and Markets Authority has been asked to examine whether the takeover creates competition problems. It has until 19 October to report back.

For customers, though, the immediate message is reassuringly uneventful: services should continue as normal.

Anyone coming to the end of a fixed mortgage deal may want to approach their renewal sitting down. The average five-year fixed mortgage has hit 6% for the first time in more than three years. The average two-year deal is just behind at 5.98%.

The speed of the change is striking. At the beginning of September, there were almost 1,500 fixed mortgage deals available below 5%. According to Moneyfacts, there are now just nine, excluding deals only available in Northern Ireland.

Mortgage lenders partly base their fixed rates on what it costs them to borrow money for the next few years. Those costs have risen as markets worry about inflation, interest rates and government borrowing, so lenders have been rapidly repricing their deals.

If you're already on a fixed mortgage, nothing changes until that deal ends. The problem is for people buying a home or needing to remortgage soon, who are finding considerably fewer cheap options waiting for them.

The US has withdrawn its B-1 bombers from RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire following a suspected plot targeting the base.

Five British men were arrested near Fairford last weekend after being seen leaving vans containing petrol. No explosives were found. A sixth man, who has British and Iranian citizenship, was later arrested in London. All six have since been released on bail while the investigation continues.

Prime Minister Andy Burnham says there are "strong indications" of Iranian involvement. Iran denies any connection, and nobody arrested has been charged. The Pentagon says the B-1s have now returned to the US. NATO says the move does not affect its ability to defend Europe.

Coach operators are warning of service cuts as record diesel prices pile pressure on their finances, with school transport among the services potentially affected.

Diesel has climbed above £2 a litre following disruption to global fuel supplies. Hauliers are feeling it too, with the Road Haulage Association estimating that higher prices are adding around £350 a week to the cost of running each truck.

The G7 is releasing up to 100 million barrels of oil from emergency reserves in an attempt to bring prices down. The government says UK fuel supplies remain resilient, so the problem at the moment is price rather than petrol stations running dry.

More than 325,000 people living in supported or temporary accommodation should be able to keep more of their earnings under new Housing Benefit rules taking effect today.

Previously, some residents could increase their working hours only to see much of the extra money disappear through reduced housing support. The calculation is now being changed to bring it more closely into line with Universal Credit.

In simpler terms: working a few extra hours should now be considerably less likely to leave someone barely better off.

Courts in England and Wales must now formally record when domestic abuse was involved in an offence.

Domestic abuse could already be treated as an aggravating factor when somebody was sentenced, but there was no consistent marker attached to the conviction afterwards. The new system should make it easier for police, prisons and probation services to identify previous domestic abuse when managing offenders.

Google is heading to court over claims it overcharged Android users through commissions charged on purchases in its Play Store.

The case is being brought on behalf of around 20 million UK consumers and businesses and seeks roughly £1.2bn in damages. It argues that commissions of up to 30% charged to app developers were ultimately passed on to customers through higher prices.

Google denies breaking competition law. The trial begins tomorrow, so nobody should start mentally spending any compensation just yet.

The government is considering tariffs on Chinese electric cars amid concerns that state subsidies are allowing manufacturers to sell vehicles unusually cheaply in Britain.

The EU already imposes tariffs of up to 45% on some Chinese EVs. Britain hasn't followed suit, but ministers are now consulting the car industry as they weigh protecting UK manufacturers against keeping cheaper electric cars available to buyers.

Nothing has been decided yet, so for now this is one to watch rather than a new tax on your prospective BYD.

Scottish and Japanese engineers are planning to send whisky into space to see what five years orbiting Earth does to it.

The University of Glasgow project plans to launch a small satellite containing whisky and its ingredients in 2028. Researchers want to find out whether repeatedly switching between extreme heat and cold as it circles the planet could change or even speed up the ageing process.

The satellite will orbit Earth roughly every 90 minutes before returning in 2033, at which point scientists can compare its contents with whisky that stayed safely on the ground.

A five-year wait for a whisky is admittedly less impressive when you remember Scotland has been doing that bit for centuries.

Have a great day.

See you tomorrow.

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