Sunday newspaper round-up: Sainsbury, Border crackdown, Restrictions

Hedge funds are ramping up bets that Sainsbury’s will be the next British grocer to be snapped up in a debt-fuelled takeover, after the Issa brothers’ swoop on Asda. Investors have been buoyed by remarks by the boss of Canadian convenience store operator Alimentation Couche-Tard, which is examining takeover targets after a €16bn (£14bn) swoop for French supermarket Carrefour was blocked by politicians in Paris, according to City sources. - Sunday Telegraph

Boris Johnson will approve a new border crackdown on Tuesday that could ban foreign passport-holders from countries where the coronavirus is mutating from entering Britain. New arrivals, including British citizens who come home from Covid hotspots, would be met at point of entry and escorted to isolation hotels, where they will have to stay at their own expense. The proposals will have to be approved by a cabinet committee. - Sunday Times

The government is a “long, long, long way” from being able to lift coronavirus lockdown restrictions in England, Matt Hancock warned today, despite new figures showing that three quarters of the over-80s have been vaccinated. The health secretary said there was evidence that strict lockdown restrictions were having an impact while the vaccination programme was making “brilliant progress”. But he warned that even with those most likely to die from Covid being vaccinated, pressure on hospitals was likely to remain at critical levels from seriously ill younger patients. - Sunday Times

Experts have called for greater clarity on the monitoring in place to assess the 12-week dosing interval for Covid-19 vaccines, as the row over delayed second doses continues. The UK’s coronavirus vaccination programme was shifted late last year to prioritise administering the first dose to as many at-risk people as possible. As a result, the interval between the two doses was increased to up to 12 weeks. - Guardian

Dr Martens is set to launch a £3.5bn stock market float tomorrow that will shower multimillion-pound windfalls on senior staff — including £58m for its chief executive, who joined less than three years ago. The boot-maker, popular with skinheads in the 1960s, punks in the 1970s and now fashionistas, is expected to say it has secured cornerstone investors as it publishes the prospectus for a share sale next month. - Sunday Times

A nasal spray which can prevent a coronavirus infection for up to two days could be available in high street pharmacies by the summer, researchers have said. Scientists at the University of Birmingham have been developing the spray since April last year and are currently in discussions with shops and pharmaceutical giants on the next steps to mass produce it. - Sunday Telegraph

The UK is facing a constitutional crisis that will strain the Union as new polls reveal a majority of voters in Scotland and Northern Ireland want referendums on the break-up of Britain. A four-country survey we commissioned, based on separate polls in Scotland, Northern Ireland, England and Wales, also found that the sense of British identity that once bound the country together is disintegrating. - Sunday Times

HSBC, Barclays, NatWest and Lloyds Banking Group have all begun freezing business accounts linked to suspected fraud. They have seized sums of up to £50,000 from the accounts of hundreds of customers. The radical move to clamp down on criminal activity comes after the National Audit Office - the Government's spending watchdog - warned last year that taxpayers faced having to foot a bill of up to £26billion to cover fraud and defaults on Chancellor Rishi Sunak's flagship business recovery scheme. - Mail on Sunday

Milan prosecutors have accused BT Italia – the group’s Italian unit – and 20 defendants of attempting to conceal more than €280m (£250m) in losses and inflating revenues by falsifying contract renewals and invoices between 2013 and 2016. All the defendants have been indicted for alleged false accounting – relating to their roles – committed in 2015 and 2016, and all of them deny any wrongdoing. The trial, which will take place in a secure location on the outskirts of Milan because of Covid, will come as an unwelcome distraction for the current BT leadership. - Sunday Telegraph

Boeing says it will begin delivering commercial airplanes capable of flying on 100% biofuel by the end of the decade, calling reducing environmental damage from fossil fuels the “challenge of our lifetime.” Boeing’s goal – which requires advances to jet systems, raising fuel-blending requirements, and safety certification by global regulators – is central to a broader industry target of slashing carbon emissions in half by 2050, the US planemaker said. - Guardian