Turkey in dramatic interest rate rise

As Turkey’s currency crisis threatens to worsen and inflation soars to 18%, the country’s central bank has hiked interest rates to 24%. The result, says The Guardian, was a 3% recovery of the Turkish lira against the US dollar. But Turkish president Recep Erdogan has long voiced his opposition to interest rate rises, calling them an “instrument of exploitation” and he criticised the bank and portrayed the crisis as a foreign conspiracy.

Moodys warns of no-deal recession for UK

Credit ratings agency Moodys has said that if the UK left the EU with no deal in place, a sharp fall in the value of the pound would lead to higher inflation and a squeeze on real wages. The knock-on effect on consumer spending could potentially lead to a recession. The impact would also be felt by EU countries with strong ties to the UK, The Guardian reported.

UK dismisses Salisbury tourist claims

British prime minister Theresa May has called claims by two suspects in the Salisbury poisoning case that they were visiting the cathedral city as tourists “an insult to the public’s intelligence” according to a report in The Telegraph. In an interview on Russia Today, Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov said they had wanted to see the cathedral’s famous 123-metre spire.

New US sanctions against North Korea

CNN reports that the US treasury department has issued fresh sanctions against two information technology companies, purportedly Russian and Chinese based, that it says are North-Korean controlled entities. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has warned that IT companies across the world should take care they are not “unwittingly employing North Korean workers” by doing business with similar companies.

Florence hits Carolina

Power outage and building evacuations have marked the initial landfall of Hurricane Florence as the category 2 storm hits the Carolinas. The Guardian has rolling coverage of news from the affected areas.

Philippines braced for super typhoon

Meanwhile, the same paper reports that thousands of people have been evacuated in the Philippines as Typhoon Mangkhut closes in on the islands. Troops are on alerts as the super typhoon, the most powerful to hit the Philippines this year, threatens to affect an area populated by 4 million people.

VW squashes Beetle

Volkswagen has announced that production of its iconic Beetle is to cease in July 2019 says Deutsche Welle. It is the second time the marque has stopped producing the “bug”, as the car is affectionately known in the States, following a similar move in 1979. The model was redesigned and relaunched as the New Beetle in 1998.

Hockney set to break record

A painting by British artist David Hockney is set to become the most expensive work of art by a living artist when it goes up for auction at Christie’s in New York. “Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures)” was painted in 1972. Estimated by the auction house to go for around $80 million, the painting has been put up for sale by a Bahamas-based, Tottenham-supporting billionaire.

Uranus to get Examiner

Finally, residents in a Missouri town are divided over the name proposed for a new local newspaper, the Uranus Examiner. The Guardian reports that the mayor thinks the title puts his city "up for ridicule".

Today's breakfast briefing was written by Duncan Roberts