Councils pursuing a four-day working week are being threatened with financial penalties by the government amid an increasingly bitter row between ministers and town halls over post-pandemic working practices. After announcing a £4bn cash injection to support councils in England amid a worsening crisis for local authorities, the government said …
Read More »Sadiq Khan: plans to cut migration will trigger London recruitment crisis
Sadiq Khan has said ministers’ plans to cut legal migration will lead to a “full-blown recruitment crisis” in London, with vacancies in hospitality alone still higher than they were pre-pandemic. Net migration to the UK boosted the UK population by 672,000 in the year ending June 2023, and about half …
Read More »Be glad UK’s watchdog has its eyes on what just happened at OpenAI | Nils Pratley
Why is the little ol’ Competition & Markets Authority, a UK regulator, inserting itself into the entertaining and important – but distant – drama at San Francisco-based OpenAI? Even if the CMA finds eventually that Microsoft, another US company, is pulling the strings at Sam Altman’s show, what could it …
Read More »Thames Water told by auditors it could run out of money by April
The parent company of Thames Water has been warned by its auditors that it could run out of money by April if shareholders do not inject more cash into the debt-laden firm. In accounts signed off in July and published on the Companies House website last week, PricewaterhouseCoopers said there …
Read More »Rupert Murdoch to be deposed in Smartmatic defamation case
Rupert Murdoch is set to be questioned under oath on Tuesday and Wednesday as part of voting technology company Smartmatic’s $2.7bn defamation lawsuit against Fox Corp over coverage of debunked vote-rigging claims involving the 2020 US presidential election, a person familiar with the matter said. Murdoch will be deposed in …
Read More »Regulator finds UK problem gambling rates may be eight times higher than thought
Rates of problem gambling may be more than eight times higher than previously thought, according to new data released by the betting industry regulator. The Gambling Commission has previously said the proportion of people suffering from a gambling problem may be as low as 0.3% of adults in Great Britain. …
Read More »‘Takes me back to Twiggy’: hundreds queue for H&M Paco Rabanne launch in London
Forget fairy lights and tinsel. Judging by the launch of Paco Rabanne’s collaboration with H&M, it is party guests in paillette-disc miniskirts, chainmail dresses and mesh tops who hope to shine brightest this festive season. Hundreds of people queued, many from the early hours of the morning, outside H&M’s store …
Read More »Mark Zuckerberg tears ACL while training for MMA fight early next year
Mark Zuckerberg’s latest martial arts sparring session sent him to the operating table. The Meta Platforms CEO and mixed martial arts enthusiast posted on social media on Friday that he tore one of his anterior cruciate ligaments, or ACLs, while training for a fight early next year. A photo he …
Read More »Sam Bankman-Fried denies messy hair part of ‘tech genius’ persona during trial
Sam Bankman-Fried testified in his own blockbuster crypto trial again Monday, with prosecutors grilling the one-time crypto mogul about the many discrepancies between his public and private claims about crypto-exchange FTX. Bankman-Fried appeared to have had a haircut over the weekend, just in time for prosecutors to start their cross …
Read More »University students in England ‘have 50p a week to live on after rent’
University students in England are left with the equivalent of 50p a week to live on from their loans after paying for accommodation, the cost of which has soared by nearly 15% over the last two years, research has revealed. Maintenance loans, which students take out on top of tuition …
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