Financial news

• Biden signs $1.2tn spending package as government shutdown is averted

  23-03-2024 18:43
  
  Package passed Senate late Friday night by vote of 74-24, narrowly averting shutdown and banning Gaza aid through March 2025President Joe Biden on Saturday signed into law a $1.2tn budget bill to keep the US government funded through a fiscal year that began six months ago and to avert a partial shutdown, according to a statement released by the White House.“The bipartisan funding bill I just signed keeps the government open, invests in the American people, and strengthens our economy and
  
  Read more

• Undertaxed and over here: why the UK welcomes US mega firms | Phillip Inman

  23-03-2024 18:00
  
  Amazon and Google may be the most visible, but our lack of investment and regulation has let myriad American companies take over too much of UK lifeAmericans love Britain, and in many ways the British admire Americans, but the benefits of the relationship are becoming increasingly one-way.That’s the argument set out in a book published next month documenting how US companies have made inroads into the UK economy by exploiting a desperate need for investment, weak regulation and a public th
  
  Read more

• Ireland opens its arms to tech titans, yet shuts its eyes to failing public services | John Naughton

  23-03-2024 17:00
  
  Tax revenues from Silicon Valley giants have made the republic wealthy on paper, but housing and healthcare crises persistIn 1956, a chap named TK “Ken” Whitaker, an Irish civil servant who had trained as an economist, was appointed permanent secretary of the finance department in Dublin at the relatively young age of 39. From his vantage point at the top of his country’s treasury, the view was bleak. The Irish republic was, economically and socially, in deep trouble. It had no
  
  Read more

• Layoffs and AI sour annual Game Developers Conference: ‘The vibe is rancid’

  23-03-2024 14:00
  
  GDC 2024 catered to the frustrated and those out of work, with cheaper tickets and a group screaming sessionDespite the sunny spring skies in San Francisco this week, the mood among nearly 30,000 video game industry professionals was gloomy as they descended upon the city for the yearly Game Developers Conference (GDC). Some were so frustrated with the state of affairs in their business that they organized a group screaming session in a park.“Those of us who have a job and can afford to be
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• Rental surge in rural areas putting pressure on English councils, warns report

  23-03-2024 13:58
  
  Households renting outside cities rose by 19% with 450,000 more privately letting in 2021 compared with 2011A dramatic rise in the number of renters in rural areas has prompted England’s largest councils to call for a new long-term plan for housing.The number of households in private and social rentals has increased by more than half a million in rural areas over the past decade, outpacing London and major cities, according to a report from the County Councils Network. Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• The rise and fall of Sam Bankman-Fried: an unrepentant ex-mogul faces down decades in prison

  23-03-2024 13:00
  
  The former CEO of FTX, once a king of cryptocurrency, saw a swift reversal of his fortunes starting in November 2022 In a downtown Manhattan courtroom on the morning of 28 March, tech wunderkind turned fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried, unrepentant even after trial and conviction, will finally learn his fate.Bankman-Fried, who founded the cryptocurrency exchange FTX, was found guilty on 2 November 2023 of seven counts of wire fraud and conspiracy to launder money. Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• Is Science Museum’s green power gallery tainted by fossil-fuel cash?

  23-03-2024 13:00
  
  Museum’s funding by Indian energy group sparks controversy – with activists calling for boycott of ‘tainted’ partnership but others in full supportIt is intended to be an ­exploration of humanity’s past and future efforts to decarbonise the way we live. Historical objects mixed with interactive displays will show how environmentally friendly energy systems are shaped by imagination and innovation.But the new Science Museum gallery, Energy Revolution, the Adani G
  
  Read more

• No space, no power – and a hive of flaming bees: my teeny tiny off-grid house nightmare

  23-03-2024 12:00
  
  Living in a minuscule home is so crazy, you’d have to be a lunatic to do it. And it turns out I am that lunatic …It is November. It is 3am and I am lying awake listening to the sound of rats chewing the electrical wires within the walls of my house. If you’ve ever heard mice or rats scuttling around in the walls, you’ll know how annoying it can be. Imagine that, but with the rats separated from your head by only a slice of MDF. The scratching and gnawing is so loud, I ca
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• I have a great way to bring down inflation – make millionaires like me pay more tax | Phil White

  23-03-2024 10:00
  
  We expect families on limited incomes to curb spending – yet it’s the rich who should be doing our bit with greater taxation on wealthThe Bank of England’s monetary policy committee (MPC) has voted to keep interest rates at 5.25% in an attempt to curb inflation; the squeeze on homeowners, borrowers and renters continues. The thinking is that if we all just hunker down and get through this period of pain, the bank will meet its 2% inflation target and we’ll all start to fe
  
  Read more

• UK first-time buyers: how to get yourself mortgage ready

  23-03-2024 09:00
  
  High property prices and rising interest rates and living costs are hindering would-be homeowners, but there are optionsDiary of a first-time buyer: ‘Five brokers, four offers - but at last I’m a homeowner’How to pick a mortgage and the best UK dealsDream homes for first-time buyers in England – in picturesThe weather is warming up, and so too is the property market, according to some reports – which may not be music to the ears of would-be first-time buyers.The ave
  
  Read more

• Shallow roots: can UK vertical farms keep growing as foreign rivals shrivel?

  23-03-2024 09:00
  
  British producers hope to export technology despite challenges over funding and high energy pricesFifteen layers of trays, brimming with lettuces, salad leaves, basil and other herbs are growing underneath rows of multicoloured LED lights, stacked one above the other. The wall of edible greenery rises 10 metres high, all the way to the roof of a vast building in Lydney near Gloucester.This vast matrix of glowing shelves is one of Britain’s latest vertical farms, growing plants indoors in a
  
  Read more

• Land ownership in rural Scotland more concentrated despite reforms, study finds

  23-03-2024 08:00
  
  Exclusive: Half of all privately owned rural land held by 433 people and companies, according to campaigner Andy WightmanLand ownership in Scotland has become even more concentrated despite two decades of land reform legislation, with green capital investors becoming increasingly dominant, a study has found.Andy Wightman, the land reform campaigner who published a groundbreaking look at Scottish land distribution in 2012, has calculated that half of all privately owned rural land in Scotland, or
  
  Read more

• Easter on a shoestring: Cheapest eggs, food and free activities for all the family

  23-03-2024 08:00 via express.co.uk
  
  MoneyMagpie reveals how you can have all the Easter fun you crave over the Bank Holiday weekend.
  
  Read more

• What have we learned from week one of Mike Lynch’s US fraud trial?

  23-03-2024 07:00
  
  The criminal trial over the $11bn sale of Autonomy to HP saw prosecutors calling him ‘Dr Lynch’ – and defense using ‘Mike’At the height of his career, Mike Lynch – once the UK’s leading tech entrepreneur, hailed as “Britain’s Bill Gates” – sold his software firm to a Silicon Valley giant in an $11bn (£8.6bn) deal. Last Monday, more than a dozen years later, that deal became the centrepiece of a trial in San Francisco.Lynch h
  
  Read more

• Longest sustained rise in people too sick to work since 1990s, says thinktank

  23-03-2024 07:00
  
  Resolution Foundation points to legacy of Covid as it warns that near-record 2.7m people are too ill to workBritain is going through the longest sustained rise in the number of working-age adults who are too sick to work since the 1990s, according to a report warning that a benefits crackdown is unlikely to solve the country’s jobless crisis.The Resolution Foundation said economic inactivity due to long-term sickness – when people aged 16-64 are neither in work nor looking for a job
  
  Read more

• Inside the British borough where monthly rental prices have gone up by an insane £304

  23-03-2024 07:00 via express.co.uk
  
  The average home in the area cost £1,824 a month in the year to February 2024, an increase of 20 percent compared to the year before.
  
  Read more

Follow @financialnwsUK on Twitter!