The Papers: 'Fiscal worries mount' and 'Meghan in Guy Ritchie talks'

The Daily Mail splashes on the judge's ruling about costs in the Duke of Sussex's failed privacy claim against the paper's publishers, Associated Newspapers. The paper calls it "The Day of Reckoning", external, saying the claimants - including Prince Harry and Elton John - will now have to pay "millions to the Mail". It says the ruling is a "disaster" for the duke.

The Times argues the claimants' legal insurance only covers, external up to £16.2 million. That would leave a possible shortfall of £18m in the total potentially demanded by the publisher. The paper also suggests the ruling threatens to overshadow the duke and duchess' announcement that they will soon return to Britain.

The Daily Telegraph reports that the criminal investigation into whether Lord Mandelson passed confidential government information to Jeffrey Epstein is at risk of collapse, external. Scotland Yard detectives are said to believe it is increasingly unlikely that the US Department of Justice will hand over key unredacted Epstein files which may be needed to charge the former Labour cabinet minister with misconduct in public office. Lord Mandelson has denied any wrongdoing.

According to the Guardian, MPs have accepted, external almost £400,000 worth of hospitality to concerts and sporting events this year. The paper said they had failed to learn lessons from the outcry when Sir Keir Starmer accepted football tickets and clothing in 2024. Louise Haigh, Lucy Powell and Wes Streeting are among those who have accepted tickets. Labour said declarations had been in line with parliamentary rules.

And the Financial Times reports that world powers are pushing to agree how to measure the passage of time on the Moon, external. Clocks there tick fractionally faster than on Earth because of differing gravitational pull, which the paper says could affect navigation and communications just as efforts grow to establish a lunar colony. Countries are due to vote in October on proposals for what the paper calls Greenwich Moon Time.