Financial news

• Food waste and the horror of discarded pumpkins | Letters

  11-10-2024 18:23 via theguardian.com
  
  Patrick Cosgrove says much can be composted at household level, Joy Webb fears for hedgehogs, while Bill Linton says climate news should make the front page In Julian Baggini’s article (The scandal of food waste – and how we can stop it, 8 October), I’m surprised that recycling for compost wasn’t given more prominence. At a household level, far more can be composted than at present, including scraps of leftover cooked food if mixed in with other organic material and relat
  
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• TV producer Hat Trick pays £4.2m to founder Jimmy Mulville and wife

  11-10-2024 16:55 via theguardian.com
  Revenues dip to £48.4m and company behind Mastermind and Derry Girls stays in red after it makes fewer seriesBusiness live – latest updatesA former standup comedian and his wife have received a £4.2m dividend from the TV production company behind Mastermind, Derry Girls and Have I Got News for You.Jimmy Mulville and his wife, Karen, shared the payout from Hat Trick Holdings, the producer behind hits including Father Ted, Trigger Point and Outnumbered. Continue reading...
  
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• Post Office boss admits attempts to double his pay look ‘very poor’

  11-10-2024 16:42 via theguardian.com
  
  Nick Read tells Horizon IT inquiry he did not threaten to resign over remunerationBusiness live – latest updatesThe boss of the Post Office has admitted his various attempts to double his pay look “very poor” given so many branch owner-operators are still awaiting compensation over Horizon IT failings.Nevertheless, speaking to the judge-led inquiry into the scandal on Friday, Nick Read denied ever threatening to resign over his remuneration. Continue reading...
  
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• Independent gyms jump into gaps in UK high street amid shift to local living

  11-10-2024 16:00 via theguardian.com
  More than 1,000 independent health clubs have opened since 2019 as landlords look for alternatives to retailBusiness live – latest updatesIndependent fitness centres offering activities from pilates to boxing are jumping in to fill the gaps on UK high streets amid a surge of interest in local alternatives to big gyms.More than 1,000 independent health clubs have opened on high streets, shopping centres and retail parks since 2019, an increase of a third, data shows, with almost four a week
  
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• Hurricane Milton has left two worlds in its wake. Elon Musk lives in one of them. The other is called reality | Marina Hyde

  11-10-2024 15:46 via theguardian.com
  Remember when the existence of natural disasters wasn’t up for ‘debate’? It seems like a long time ago nowI increasingly wonder why Elon Musk is bothering trying to establish himself on Mars, and not just because it looks like a complete dump up there. (Seriously, if you think that’s beautiful, I have around a hundred thousand disused quarries I’d love to show you right here on Earth.) Watching Hurricane Milton play out on Musk’s platform and elsewhere cemente
  
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• Police investigate 40 new allegations against Mohamed Al Fayed and others

  11-10-2024 15:40 via theguardian.com
  Forty people come forward to report alleged offences, including rape and sexual assault, covering 34-year periodThe Metropolitan police have said they are investigating 40 new allegations, including of rape and sexual assault, relating to Mohamed Al Fayed and others, after the broadcast of a BBC documentary about his behaviour.Scotland Yard said 40 people had come forward to make allegations since the airing of the BBC programme, in which five women said they were assaulted by the late billionai
  
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• BBC staff should not feel fear or worry at work, says chair, as review begins

  11-10-2024 15:15 via theguardian.com
  
  Assessment of workplace culture launched after series of scandals and will focus on ‘preventing abuse of power’Nobody at the BBC should “ever feel fear or worry while working” for the corporation, its chair said, as it launched an independent review of its workplace culture.The review, which will be led by a management consultancy firm, comes after a series of damaging scandals at the broadcaster, which led to questions being raised about how it prevents abuse by and of t
  
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• Rachel Reeves spends first 100 days in power trying to ride two horses

  11-10-2024 14:35 via theguardian.com
  
  As chancellor reaches milestone she faces the tricky task of rescuing public finances while also investing in growthThe politics all looked simple for Rachel Reeves as she stepped over the threshold of the Treasury on 5 July to take up her post as Britain’s first female chancellor. The outgoing Conservative government had been routed at the general election and the idea was to blame the discredited Tories for the looming repair job on the public finances deemed essential by the new governm
  
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• ‘They don’t just fall out of trees’: Nobel awards highlight Britain’s AI pedigree

  11-10-2024 14:22 via theguardian.com
  
  Recognition for Demis Hassabis and Geoffrey Hinton marks moment when important ingredients came togetherIt was more than even the most ardent advocates expected. After all the demonstrations of superhuman prowess, and the debates over whether the technology was humanity’s best invention yet or its surest route to self-destruction, artificial intelligence landed a Nobel prize this week. And then it landed another.First came the physics prize. The American John Hopfield and the British-Canad
  
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• Geoffrey Cox missed winter fuel votes while working abroad in second job

  11-10-2024 14:12 via theguardian.com
  Lib Dems say ‘public deserve better’ after Tory MP and lawyer spent several days working in Mauritius last monthThe Tory MP Geoffrey Cox has been missing parliamentary votes and sitting days while working at his lucrative second job as a lawyer in Mauritius, the Guardian can reveal.The former attorney general, who has declared at least £500,000 in pay from his second job this year, was on the Indian Ocean island for at least three days in mid-September and missed two votes on c
  
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• Politicians’ proposals would only minimally lower US drug prices, says report

  11-10-2024 13:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Advocates say multiple strategies must be used to lower prices as new drugs threaten to bankrupt health systemA new report finds some of politicians’ most popular proposals are likely to only have a single-digit impact on drug prices.The report, compiled by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), examined seven different policies that ranged from capping drug prices to bringing greater transparency to the market. Of the seven, the most effective would only likely reduce drug prices by 5%. C
  
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• ‘Many are obliged to sleep with the foreman’: Bolivia’s female builders square up to an abusive system

  11-10-2024 13:00 via theguardian.com
  
  In the face of sexism, harassment and unequal pay, a group of women in the construction industry offers support and empowerment to their colleaguesNot long after teenager Reyna Quispe started working in construction in Bolivia, she found herself hiding in the bathroom to escape her male colleagues’ sexist abuse.“Women in construction are viewed badly,” says Quispe. “Men say we harm them and distract them. It’s incredible that these attitudes still exist. There is a
  
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• Canada is showing that it’s possible to have universal, affordable childcare. Is the UK brave enough to follow? | Gaby Hinsliff

  11-10-2024 13:00 via theguardian.com
  
  If we treated this service as vital state infrastructure, it could make a huge difference to parents – and to the economyYou can’t get much for £5.50 nowadays. A takeaway coffee and a muffin, maybe; a pint and a packet of crisps, outside London. But in parts of Canada, roughly that amount can buy you a day’s childcare. Or it can, at least, if you can find a nursery place.The country is now three years into a post-pandemic social experiment, offering parents heavily (and e
  
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• ‘I love the whole atmosphere and can spend hours browsing’: how did bookshops suddenly become cool?

  11-10-2024 12:31 via theguardian.com
  
  A new survey suggests that young people are shunning AI algorithms and online retailers to experience the joy of visiting bookshopsGen Z’s cultural tastes are heralded, maligned and mythologised in almost equal measure. But one stereotype persists above all: that young people are addicted to their phones, keen to live their lives primarily through a screen.But is this the whole picture? A survey commissioned by the Booksellers Association ahead of Bookshop Day tomorrow has found that gen Z
  
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• The loaded punctuation marks of work emails: the Stephen Collins cartoon

  11-10-2024 11:30 via theguardian.com
  
  Continue reading...
  
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• The super-rich claim they’ll flee to escape a Labour ‘tax grab’. Here’s an idea for how to stop them | Polly Toynbee

  11-10-2024 11:00 via theguardian.com
  
  If the 1% follow through on their threats, an ‘exit tax’ could raise £500m a year – by plucking golden feathers as they take flightThey’re off! The millionaires are taking flight in droves, chased away by Labour’s budget plans. Day after day, rightwing thinktanks and media grow more demented in their attempt to frighten the wits out of the chancellor. “Number of millionaires in the UK to fall by a fifth,” warns the Times, echoing the Telegraph&rsqu
  
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• Mike Ashley’s Frasers Group takes £10m stake in online retailer THG

  11-10-2024 10:26 via theguardian.com
  
  Move is part of THG raising £95.4m to fund demerger of lossmaking technology arm IngenuityMike Ashley’s Frasers Group has become an investor in online retailer THG as part of a near-£100m fundraising to spin off the lossmaking technology arm Ingenuity.Frasers, which owns Sports Direct, Evans Cycles, the House of Fraser department stores, the luxury streetwear chain Flannels and multiple brands from Slazenger to Jack Wills, has made a strategic investment of £10m in THG. C
  
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• You be the judge: should my flatmate stop taking things off the street to furnish our home?

  11-10-2024 09:00 via theguardian.com
  Set designer Amala can’t resist a ‘please take’ sign. Ruby thinks it’s all junk and worries about dirt. You decide whose argument belongs in a skip
  Find out how to get a disagreement settled or become a jurorIf something has a ‘please take’ sign on it, Amala can’t ignore it even if it’s junk. She’s addicted!Ruby’s a bit paranoid about cleanliness. Street thrifting is fun – that’s how I got the sofa she loves Continue reading
  
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• Elon Musk unveils Tesla Cybercab self-driving robotaxi

  11-10-2024 08:54 via theguardian.com
  
  Billionaire says autonomous car expected ‘before 2027’ will have a pricetag of less than US$30,000, with a ‘Robovan’ that can carry 20 people to followTesla CEO Elon Musk has unveiled the company’s robotaxi, Cybercab, promising it will cost less than US$30,000, and announced plans to bring autonomous driving to its Model 3 and Model Y cars in California and Texas by next year.At the much-anticipated We, Robot event hosted at Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, Californ
  
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• Homes for sale on high streets in Great Britain – in pictures

  11-10-2024 08:00 via theguardian.com
  
  From an historic home incorporating a former shop in a London’s Pimlico to a one-bed in Edinburgh’s Old Town Continue reading...
  
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• Weatherwatch: a year after Suffolk floods, underinsured homeowners struggle to rebuild

  11-10-2024 07:00 via theguardian.com
  Many older houses were not insured for total rebuilding costs – so read the policy carefully before you signA year since storms wreaked havoc on parts of rural Suffolk, where picturesque black and white cottages were among the properties flooded, some owners are still not back in their homes. Despite having thought they were fully insured, some of these house owners are badly out of pocket.The catch was in the small print – you have to insure for the rebuilding costs of your home, sa
  
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• Labour’s carbon-capture scheme will be Starmer’s white elephant: a terrible mistake costing billions | George Monbiot

  11-10-2024 07:00 via theguardian.com
  
  The supposedly green project – brainchild of the previous Tory government – will increase emissions, not reduce themThis will be Keir Starmer’s HS2: a hugely expensive scheme that will either be abandoned, scaled back or require massive extra funding to continue, after many billions have been spent. The government’s plan for carbon capture and storage (CCS) – catching carbon dioxide from major industry and pumping it into rocks under the North Sea – is a fossi
  
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• Not all credit goes to Ratan Tata – but he did shape investment in UK steel and JLR | Nils Pratley

  11-10-2024 06:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Steel and car-making in Britain would have shrunk even further without long-termism of Tata Group’s late former chairIn India, Ratan Tata is being mourned as a towering business leader who took the sprawling family-controlled Tata Group into international markets while retaining its founding spirit of capitalism laced with philanthropy. But the UK has its own reasons to be grateful to the chair of the group from 1991 to 2012. Two heavy industries in the UK – steel and car-making &nda
  
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• WASPI campaigners blast Labour's 'lack of progress' on delivering compensation

  11-10-2024 01:01 via express.co.uk
  
  The Ombudsman has stated the women should get compensation and called on Parliament to take up the issue.
  
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