Twenty premier clubs have been informed of a proposed four-year agreement with FTSE-100 beverages behemoth Diageo that would cost more than £41 million.  The Premier League of English football is celebrating a £40 million sponsorship agreement with Guinness, which the Diageo-owned brand secured after Heineken withdrew its competition.

The decisive victory of Maldivian President Mohamed Muizzu's party in Sunday's parliamentary elections was not anticipated by many. This individual's victory in the presidential election the year prior was due to an accident.  During that period, the 45-year-old mayor of the capital Male abruptly registered as a proxy candidate for the presidency, after the opposition leader, former President Abdulla Yameen, was disqualified from running by the Supreme Court on account of a bribery conviction.

According to the largest mortgage lender in Britain, pre-tax earnings decreased by 28% in the first quarter of 2024. Nevertheless, it maintained that the decline was consistent with anticipated outcomes. Profits at Lloyds Banking Group have decreased since the company posted record-breaking results the previous year.

Deputy Defence Minister Timur Ivanov was apprehended by Russia on charges of organized corruption, constituting the most prominent case since the commencement of Russia's full-scale military campaign against Ukraine.  Russia's Investigative Committee issued a brief statement on Wednesday, attributing the arrest to a statute that prohibits accepting gratuities "on a particularly large scale" and stating that the incident occurred overnight.