Energy prices in the U.K. will increase by over 80 percent for the average household, after energy regulator Ofgem on Friday announced the price cap will rise to £3,549 per year, from £1,971, on October 1.
The new cap sets the maximum price energy providers can charge per unit of fuel between October and December, and reflects what it costs to buy energy on the wholesale market and supply it to households. Ofgem’s CEO Jonathan Brearley said he expected the price cap will rise again after this period, compounding the cost-of-living pressures facing U.K. households.
Speaking on the BBC’s Today program minutes after the Ofgem announcement, Brearley said: “We accept there is significant pricing pressure, not only from today, but also through January and potentially into next year.” He would not indicate the extent to which prices are likely to continue jumping, saying: “What we don’t do is give figures, because things changed massively.”
Brearley acknowledged the surging energy prices, driven in large part by Russia’s war on Ukraine, would cause significant hardship over the winter and called on the new prime minister and their Cabinet to provide an “urgent response.”
“This is beyond the capacity of the regulator and the industry to address,” Brearley told the BBC. “The prime minister with his or her ministerial team will need to act urgently and decisively to address this.”
British Conservative Party members are currently in the process of choosing a new leader to replace Boris Johnson — and become the next prime minister, with a winner to be announced on September 5. Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak are the two candidates in the runoff for the top job.
Chancellor Nadhim Zahawi said in a statement that he knew the higher cap will “cause stress and anxiety for many people.” Zahawi added that “help is coming,” pointing to a series of measures the current government has confirmed.
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Lithuania’s government on Wednesday proposed Andrius Kubilius as its potential next European commissioner, officially starting a nomination procedure that the country’s Prime Minister Ingrida Šimonytė…
<img src="https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-loaded/v1/Hss63mFCsiG0iaUxoukcNHn9ye8UNv30" border=0 width="1" height="1" alt="Transgender service members urge justices to let them continue to serve" title="Transgender service members urge justices to let them continue to serve"> <p>A group of transgender service members urged the Supreme Court on Thursday to leave in place an order by a federal judge that bars the government from enforcing a policy that would prohibit them from serving in the U.S. military. Putting the order on hold, they told the justices, would “upend the <em>status quo</em> by allowing the government to immediately begin discharging <em>thousands</em> of transgender servicemembers, including” the plaintiffs in this case, “thereby ending distinguished careers and gouging holes in military units” </p> <p>The Trump administration came to the court last week, asking the justices to put the order on hold while the service members’ challenge to the policy continues in the lower courts. The order, it said, had usurped the executive branch’s “authority to determine who may serve in the Nation’s armed forces.” </p> <span id="more-505582"></span> <p>The proceedings now before the court began as a challenge to a policy issued in February by the Department of Defense that, subject to narrow exceptions, disqualifies anyone who has gender dysphoria – that is, psychological distress caused by a conflict between the sex that someone is assigned at birth and that person’s gender identity – or has undergone medical interventions to treat gender dysphoria. </p> <p>Seven of the eight individual plaintiffs are currently members of the armed forces and have collectively served more than 100 years and received more than 70 medals. The eighth individual plaintiff would like to join the military. </p> <p>The lead plaintiff is Commander Emily Shilling, a naval aviator who has flown more than 60 combat missions and served as a naval test pilot. During her nearly two decades of service, she says, the Navy has spent more than $20 million on her training. </p> <p>The plaintiffs contend that the policy violates, among other things, the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection. </p> <p>Senior U.S. District Judge Benjamin Settle, a George W. Bush appointee, agreed with the plaintiffs and barred the government from enforcing its policy anywhere in the United States. He called the policy a “de facto blanket prohibition on transgender service.” </p> <p>When the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit declined to pause Settle’s order while the government appealed, the Trump administration went instead to the Supreme Court on April 24. Solicitor General D. John Sauer stressed that an expert panel during Trump’s first administration had concluded that allowing people with gender dysphoria to serve in the armed forces would be “contrary to ‘military effectiveness and lethality.’” Indeed, he noted, the justices during that administration had allowed the government to enforce a policy “materially indistinguishable from the one at issue here.” </p> <p>The plaintiffs reject the premise of the policy. Instead, they maintain, “equal service by openly transgender servicemembers has <em>improved</em> our military’s readiness, lethality, and unit cohesion, while discharging transgender servicemembers from our Armed Forces would <em>harm</em> all three, as well as the public fisc.”</p> <p>It is immaterial, the plaintiffs say, that the Supreme Court allowed the military to implement a “much narrower and different policy” in 2019. That policy allowed active-duty service members who had already transitioned to remain in the armed forces and retain their healthcare. The earlier policy, they contend, also “lacked the animus-laden language” of the 2025 policy and the executive order that led to it, “which disparage transgender people as inherently untruthful, undisciplined, dishonorable, selfish, arrogant, and incapable of meeting the rigorous standards of military service.” Moreover, the policy before the court in 2019 was “based on <em>predictions</em> about open service by transgender people.” But since then, they emphasize, transgender people have served openly in the military, without any negative effect on military readiness or lethality. </p> <p>The plaintiffs push back against the government’s insistence that the ban only applies to people with gender dysphoria, not to transgender people, dismissing that argument as “folly.” The ban requires members of the armed forces to “only serve in accordance with their [birth] sex,” they note, and prohibits them from serving if they have ever tried “to transition to any sex other than their [birth] sex.” Indeed, they add, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and the department itself have repeatedly referred to the ban as applying to transgender service members. </p> <p>The Trump administration will now have an opportunity to reply to the plaintiffs’ brief. After that, a ruling on the government’s request could come at any time. </p>
<p>The post <a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/2025/05/transgender-service-members-urge-justices-to-let-them-continue-to-serve/">Transgender service members urge justices to let them continue to serve</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.scotusblog.com">SCOTUSblog</a>.</p>
Britain’s Prime Minister Rishi Sunak speaks to employees during the launch of their local elections campaign, at a bus depot in Heanor, northern England on…
