Young fashion fans help UK charity shops thrive on struggling UK high streets

Young people inspired by secondhand fashion websites such as Vinted and Depop are helping charity shops thrive despite rising energy and employment costs.Save the Children’s retail sales rose 3% last year, helped by a surge in December when the charity rang up 11% more than the same month a year before, raising more than £1m for its causes.Ian Matthews, the charity’s director of retail and communities, said it saw a “big spike”, with sales continuing to be pretty strong in January.It did better than the charity industry’s average of 1.4% last year, according to the Charity Retail Association (CRA), which was itself ahead of the wider retail industry’s 1

AI-resistant ‘halo’ stocks drive UK and EU markets to record highs

Investors have a new mantra as they prepare for AI to shake up the global economy – the Halo trade.Interest in Halo – short for “heavy assets, low obsolescence” - has risen as investors seek out companies with tangible, productive assets, which might be insulated from AI disruption, such as energy and transport infrastructure companies.While US mega-cap tech companies have had a rough start to 2026, the Halo trade helped to push UK and EU stock markets to record levels by the end of February.Goldman Sachs reported this week that its basket of more than 100 big-spending companies had outperformed a similar grouping of capital-light firms by 35% since 2025, as “asset intensity becomes a key driver of valuations and returns”.“After more than a decade of under‑investment (particularly in Europe), corporates are shifting decisively back toward physical assets,” Goldman analysts told clients

Square Mile strikes back: how the City of London is fighting disinformation about crime

“Just visit London and you’ll see that it’s filled with crime,” the tech billionaire Elon Musk said as he was beamed into Tommy Robinson’s far-right rally in the UK capital last September.The comments by the SpaceX and Tesla boss, part of a roving speech that was later condemned by the UK government, added to a growing wave of anti-London disinformation that has spread in recent months. That includes Donald Trump’s notorious comments of London “no-go zones” and Nigel Farage’s warnings against wearing jewellery after 9pm in the West End.But the panic over antisocial behaviour and petty crime plaguing the capital has burst out of rightwing circles and social media platforms and into City boardrooms and diplomatic meetings, raising the hackles of state officials and influential financial sector bosses who fear that, if left unchecked, trade, recruitment and business investment could suffer.“Nobody’s saying ‘it means that I won’t invest in the City’,” said Susan Langley, the City of London’s mayor

Harrods faces legal action over £1-a-head dining charge not going to staff

Harrods is facing legal action over its addition of a £1-a-head cover charge to diners’ bills that does not go to workers, in a test case that could lead to changes at a string of upmarket restaurants.Legislation, which came into force in October 2024, requires business owners to hand over all tips and service charges to staff. Some restaurants, including those at Harrods, add a mandatory cover charge as well as an optional service charge and only pass on the latter to their workers.An employment tribunal case involving 29 Harrods restaurant workers backed by the United Voices of the World (UVW) union is to be heard in September. Workers argue that the cover charge functions in practice as a service charge and so should be distributed to them and not kept by Harrods

Paramount Skydance wins Warner Bros Discovery bid after Netflix walks away from deal

Paramount Skydance has beaten Netflix to take over Warner Bros Discovery’s storied Hollywood studios and streaming business after the streaming giant refused to increase its bid.The $110bn deal ends a high-stakes bidding war between the two media companies, but the takeover still faces regulatory hurdles and a backlash from critics worried about a rightward tilt in US media.David Ellison, chairman and CEO of Paramount, said: “From the very beginning, our pursuit of Warner Bros Discovery has been guided by a clear purpose: to honor the legacy of two iconic companies while accelerating our vision of building a next-generation media and entertainment company.”In a statement on Thursday evening, the Netflix co-chief executives Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters said: “At the price required to match Paramount Skydance’s latest offer, the deal is no longer financially attractive.”Netflix was given four business days to beat Paramount’s revised offer but quickly decided against doing so

Rachel Reeves ‘to give go-ahead’ for £1bn military helicopter deal

Rachel Reeves is to approve a £1bn deal to build military helicopters in Yeovil, saving about 3,000 manufacturing jobs, according to reports.The chancellor is expected to sign a contract with Leonardo – the Italian owner of the former Westland factory in Yeovil, Somerset – to build the new battlefield helicopters, after months of speculation as to whether the historical site would survive.Workers had feared the company would follow through on threats to close the facility at the end of March if the government failed to place an order for new helicopters in time.Leonardo was the only bidder for the UK’s £1bn “new medium helicopter” contract that was launched in February 2024, after the US aerospace company Lockheed Martin and Europe’s Airbus pulled out.The new aircraft will replace the Royal Air Force’s ageing fleet of Puma helicopters, which had been in service since the 1970s

Dissatisfaction with life in UK unchanged since Covid, official data shows

The proportion of people in the UK who feel dissatisfied with life has failed to improve since the pandemic despite the economic outlook improving, official figures show.The Office for National Statistics said a survey of personal wellbeing in the UK showed average life satisfaction remained below its pre-pandemic peak, despite the rate of gross domestic product per person rising since 2021.The report also flagged the more recent decline in living standards, pointing out that UK GDP per person fell in the third and fourth quarters of 2025.The ONS also said trust in the UK government remained low, with about one in five adults (21.9%) in Great Britain reporting trust in December 2025 to January 2026

Netflix quits Warner Bros takeover battle; FTSE 100 ends week at record high – as it happened

The market reaction to Netflix walking away from Warner Brothers indicates all sides have done well, suggests Matt Britzman, senior equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown.With Netflix and Paramount’s shares both up almost 9% in pre-market trading, Britzman says:double quotation markThe streaming takeover saga took a dramatic turn after Warner Bros. Discovery formally recognised Paramount Skydance’s offer as the superior bid, prompting Netflix to walk away almost immediately. After weeks of drama, meetings and speculation, Netflix’s decision to step aside brought an abrupt end to what had been one of the market’s most closely watched corporate chess matches. In the end, it underlined just how fast things can move when big money, regulators and strategic pride collide

BA owner’s profits rise by 20% despite drop in passenger numbers last year

British Airways’ owner, International Airlines Group, has announced a sharp rise in annual profits to almost £4bn despite a slight fall in passenger numbers in 2025.Pre-tax profits across IAG increased by 20% to €4.5bn (£3.9bn), with record operating profits on margins of more than 15% at BA and its sister airline Iberia.The group’s chief executive, Luis Gallego, said the lucrative transatlantic market, also served by IAG’s Aer Lingus and Level airlines, remained robust, after warnings of softening demand in the autumn

Sainsbury’s to cut 300 jobs as it restructures tech team and Argos deliveries

Sainsbury’s is cutting 300 head office jobs as it restructures its technology team and Argos delivery network, creating more separation between the two businesses.The London-based retail group said most of the job cuts would be in technology and data, where it was “consolidating routine reporting tasks” and creating dedicated teams for Argos and the supermarket.The changes also include restructuring the local delivery hubs for Argos, where teams’ shifts will change so they are working more regular hours with less overtime.Regional store directors for the Sainsbury’s Local convenience store chain are also being introduced to help drive that part of the business.The latest changes come after Sainsbury’s decided to invest more in technology to improve efficiency at its business, including AI forecasting tools and warehouse robotics

Trump says affordability crisis is over. Voters and data disagree

The affordability crisis is over, Donald Trump told the US on Tuesday. The president’s state of the union address put the blame for soaring prices squarely on the “dirty, rotten” lies of the Democrats and claimed prices were now “plummeting downward”.“Soon you will see numbers that few people would think were possible to achieve just a short time ago,” Trump said.But more than a year since he was sworn in to office, stubborn inflation and Trump’s chaotic trade policies, have done little to assuage consumers’ fears about the cost of living. Poll after poll shows that, as far as voters are concerned, “affordability” is still very much an issue

Hornby sells slot car racing brand Scalextric for £20m

For almost six decades Hornby has watched Scalextric drive revenues for its hobby business but on Friday the company said it had decided to sell the slot car racing brand for £20m to a little-known buyer.The model railway company, which also sells toy planes and cars under the Airfix and Corgi brands, has sold the Scalextric business and intellectual property rights to Purbeck Capital Partners.Kent-based Hornby, which experienced a hobby boom during the Covid pandemic, has owned Scalextric since 1968. Invented by Fred Francis, the very first Scalextric set was made in Hampshire in 1956.On Friday, Hornby’s parent company, Castelnau, which also owns businesses including the funerals firm Dignity, said it was selling the toy car racing business to Purbeck Capital Partners

The bubbling beauty of baked pasta

The other day, I climbed the communal stairs and opened the front door to the smell of cheese on toast. A welcome aroma made even more welcome when I realised that it was actually the tips of pasta tubes turning golden among grated cheese and creamy bechamel sauce. To add to the pleasant scene, my partner, Vincenzo, was washing up. Because that is the thing about pasta al forno – baked pasta – the time between finishing the construction and the eating is around about 25 minutes. That is, exactly the right amount of time to wash up and wipe up, or delegate those tasks to someone else while you make a salad and open a bottle of wine

Rachel Roddy’s recipe for beans with greens and sausages | A kitchen in Rome

The benefit of soaking and cooking (or, better still, pressure cooking) your own beans are many: less packaging; money saved (a 500g bag of dried beans costing £2.50 will yield 1.5kg cooked beans, while some 400g tins can cost more or less the same); the suspiciously coloured but flavourful and starchy bean cooking water; and some personal satisfaction that you actually remembered to soak the beans in the first place. The benefits – and joy – of tinned beans, however, are almost instantaneous. That is, just a ring-pull away – unless, of course, said ring-pull comes off prematurely, turning the tin into a door without a knob and leaving you two options: searching for the tin opener that is somewhere in the miscellaneous drawer (or among the picnic equipment, which is on top of the wardrobe), or puncturing the tin at exactly the right spot on the seam with a pointy parmesan knife, which is somewhere in the same drawer

Doom Bar maker Sharp’s Brewery in Cornwall to be closed by US owner

The Cornish brewery that makes Doom Bar ale is to be closed by its US owner, throwing the popular beer brand’s future into doubt and putting about 200 jobs at risk.The drinks company Molson Coors said it plans to shut Sharp’s Brewery in Rock, along with its national call centre in Wales, saying it was “no longer financially sustainable”.The Chicago-based company, which bought Sharp’s 15 years ago, said it was planning to close the site by the end of this year but it “remains committed” to Sharp’s beer brands.Sharp was founded in 1994, and most its sales come from Doom Bar, which is among the bestselling cask ales in the UK, and was named after a notoriously dangerous sandbank in Cornwall’s Camel estuary. Sharp’s also makes Atlantic and Twin Coast pale ales

Table for one: is eating lunch at work on your own a bad thing?

Name: The lonely lunch.Age: Recent, but growing.Appearance: Très misérable.Why are you talking French to me? Have you gone all pretentious? I am talking French to you because this is a French problem.It is? Oui

How to use on-the-turn milk to make an Italian classic – recipe

According to the Sustainable Food Trust, “the milk from 40,000 cows (300,000 tonnes) is tipped down the kitchen sink each year – a real slap in the face for the farmer”. Even though some supermarkets have now swapped use-by for best-before dates on their milk, those dates can still be confusing, so always do the sniff test before binning it: even if it’s a little sour, you can still cook with it.The Food Standards Agency advises that food with a best-before date can usually be tested using sensory cues such as the sniff test. And what better way to use up spent or sour milk than maiale al latte, or milk-braised pork, for which pork is slowly braised in milk and flavoured with a few aromatics until tender. The milk splits and forms large curds that thicken and caramelise the sauce, so creating a creamy rich dressing for the meat

Nadiya Hussain on food, faith and finding her voice: ‘I get paid less than the white version of me’

In a food world where the trend is for protein and weight-loss injections and sugar is the supervillain, Nadiya’s Quick Comforts seems somewhat contrary. There are golden syrup dumplings. There is a chapter devoted to deep frying, with cheese balls and ingenious deep-fried cannelloni.“If I could write an entire book on deep frying, I absolutely would,” says Hussain with a laugh. “This is how I cook, this is how I eat, this is how I show love to my family

Should you sanitise your strawberries? Experts on the right way to wash fruit and vegetables

You know the cost-of-living crisis is biting when videos of influencers unpacking their grocery “hauls” are viral on TikTok. Chewing through millions of views, fruit and vegetables are aesthetically plopped into a sink filled with water, piece by piece. “Sanitising” products are then added, ranging from the fizz of baking soda and vinegar to specialised vegetable soaps (“Amazon link in my bio!”). There are even expensive electronic purifiers, which shake, shimmy and bubble away in the basin, supposedly removing any nasties.But is ASMR deep-cleaning your fresh produce really necessary? And is it all too late for those of us who can barely remember to rinse our pears?For Queensland’s Rebecca Scurr, who shares what it’s like to “sell fruit for a living” to her 26,000 TikTok followers, fruit-washing videos make her “cringe so much”

Do you really need to chill cookie dough? | Kitchen Aide

Does chilling cookie dough really make for a better result?Emily, by email “It all depends on what kind of cookie it is,” says Guardian baker Helen Goh. “Let’s say it’s a cookie that you need to stamp out – the dough needs to be firm enough to roll it, but not so firm that you can’t.” That said, the question of whether to fridge or not to fridge is probably most prevalent in the chocolate chip cookie sphere. “There’s a perceived wisdom that chilling helps the dough develop the flavour and caramelisation,” Goh says, “but, to be honest, it also makes the dough a little easier to roll and ensures it bakes evenly, which is worth far more than that slight improvement in flavour.”Recommended chilling times vary from 30 minutes to overnight, although Goh finds the latter results in a “cakey” cookie: “I’m a real Goldilocks, so I like crisp at the edges with a chewy centre

José Pizarro’s recipe for roast carrot, saffron and chickpea stew with spinach

This is everyday cooking, the kind that comes naturally in winter. Carrots are always around and often forgotten, but they give a lot when you treat them properly. The saffron brings warmth and colour, and always makes me think of home. February can feel quiet and grey, and this stew suits that mood. It is comforting without being heavy, made for evenings when you want something ready on the stove and bread on the table, eaten calmly and enjoyed without any fuss

Rise of the ‘daycap’: is this the end of late-night drinking?

Forget nightcaps – an afternoon tipple is the new way to squeeze socialising into your evening, while still getting to bed on time. A great idea or a recipe for disaster?Name: The daycap.Age: As old as fermentation, and impatience.Appearance: Nothing new, under the sun.It’s not a hat, then

Supermarket hot cross bun taste test: Choice gives top score to a chocolate bun

Some might be scandalised by the idea of a hot cross bun containing anything other than fruit. But in the annual taste test of supermarket hot cross buns, consumer advocacy group Choice has awarded one of its highest-ever scores to a less than traditional product.This year Choice tested 15 buns from Coles, Woolworths, IGA, Aldi and Bakers Delight, including traditional fruit, chocolate and gluten-free varieties.Woolworths Bakery Chocolate Hot Cross Buns Made With Cadbury Milk Chocolate Chips, which cost 73c a bun, received an overall score of 95%, taking out first place in the chocolate bun category. That is one of the highest scores in Choice’s 10-year history of hot cross bun taste tests

‘Tinderbox’ UK may be one shock away from food riots, experts say

One shock could spark social unrest and even food riots in the UK, according to dozens of the country’s top food experts, because chronic issues have left the food system a “tinderbox”.The group first identified a series of issues that are making access to food vulnerable in the UK, including the climate crisis, low incomes, poor farming policy and fragile just-in-time supply chains. These have left the UK dangerously exposed, the researchers said.They then analysed the shocks that could tip this vulnerable system into a full-blown food crisis, with major extreme weather events, cyber-attacks or international conflicts ranked top. These shocks would hit supply chains and push up food prices, which could lead to increased social tension and hidden market sales of unsafe food and, in the worst-case scenario, civil unrest or riots