Wednesday newspaper round-up: Water companies, Sellafield, EY

Hundreds of millions of pounds of local transport funding in England could be cut in next week’s spending review despite having been agreed with regional mayors, putting bus, tube and tram improvements at risk. The mayors, most of whom are Labour, are engaged in a last-minute lobbying campaign to stop the Treasury raiding their transport budgets as Rachel Reeves looks for immediate savings. – Guardian

Water companies in England could be banned from making a profit under plans for a complete overhaul of the system. The idea is one of the options being considered by a new commission set up by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) amid public fury over the way firms have prioritised profit over the environment. – Guardian

The former boss of fashion giant Abercrombie & Fitch and his British partner have been arrested and face sex trafficking charges. Ex-chief executive Mike Jeffries, his partner Matthew Smith and a third man, Jim Jacobson, were arrested on Tuesday morning in Brooklyn, New York. The trio were arrested following allegations that they sexually abused young men at parties in the United States and other countries. – Telegraph

The cost of managing Britain’s most hazardous nuclear waste has risen by almost a fifth to £136 billion due to a failure to set a realistic budget, the government’s spending watchdog has concluded. Sellafield, which is home to about 85 per cent of the UK’s nuclear waste and stores the most hazardous waste, is not delivering value for money as large projects are running behind schedule and over budget, according to the National Audit Office’s latest assessment. – The Times

Dozens of staff at EY, the Big Four professional services firm, have been branded cheats by the firm and sacked for streaming more than one training video at a time to meet quotas. EY confirmed that some of its employees in the US were fired last week for trying to save time by watching multiple online training courses at one time. – The Times