Friday newspaper round-up: Postal deserts, Philip Morris, Applied Materials, Elon Musk

(Sharecast News) - The owner of WH Smith's former high street business is aiming to change contracts with the Post Office to make it easier to close outlets within its stores, increasing fears that communities will become "postal deserts". TG Jones operates 180 post offices and it is understood that as many as 60 could be closed under a restructuring plan by Modella, the private equity group that renamed the WH Smith high street chain as TG Jones after buying it last year. - Guardian

Anti-tobacco campaigners have condemned a global advertising campaign for Marlboro by Philip Morris International (PMI), saying the company is being duplicitous in claiming it wants to end cigarette sales. The "I AM Marlboro" campaign - which experts on the tobacco industry said appeared designed to attract young people - includes billboards, TV ads and online content. Roadside stands selling Marlboro cigarettes in the Philippines have run competitions to win a scooter or campaign-branded merchandise by buying the cigarettes. An Indonesian television advert shows young adults climbing mountains and rehearsing in a rock band. - Guardian

Blackouts in Spain and Portugal show we still need cash as a payment method, the Bank of England's chief cashier has said. Victoria Cleland said that severe, system-wide power outages - such as those in southern Europe last year - had demonstrated the importance of "cash as a contingency". - Telegraph

Beijing has warned Sir Keir Starmer that it will fight to protect Chinese manufacturing giant Jingye after the UK Government announced plans to nationalise British Steel. China's ministry of commerce said Beijing would "take firm measures" if Britain did not "safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese enterprises". It comes just days after the Prime Minister introduced legislation to allow state ownership of the loss-making Scunthorpe plant after the Government initially seized administrative control from Jingye in 2025. - Telegraph

Applied Materials has forecast third-quarter revenue above Wall Street estimates, betting that heavy spending on data centres and AI infrastructure would sustain strong demand for its chip-making tools. The world's largest supplier of semiconductor manufacturing equipment, providing the machines and technology used to produce chips for electronics and AI, said it expects revenue of about $8.95 billion, plus or minus $500  million, for the current quarter, compared with estimates of $8.09 billion, according to data compiled by the London Stock Exchange Group. - The Times

A lawyer for Elon Musk attacked the credibility of the OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman on Thursday, near the end of a trial over whether to hold the ChatGPT maker and its leaders responsible for transforming the nonprofit into a vehicle to enrich themselves. One of OpenAI's lawyers fought back, claiming Musk waited too long to claim OpenAI breached its founding agreement to build safe artificial intelligence to benefit humanity. The claims were made during closing arguments of a trial in a California federal court. - The Times