US economy adds 142,000 jobs in August as Fed plans to cut interest rates
US employers added 142,000 jobs last month, the labor department announced on Friday, in one of the year’s most closely watched economic news releases.The release comes as the US Federal Reserve prepares to cut interest rates for the first time since March 2020, and November’s election puts a spotlight on the state of the US economy.The reading for August was shy of the average forecast increase of 163,000 jobs by economists surveyed by Bloomberg.The labor department also cut its figures for the number of new hires for June and July by a combined 86,000 jobs, a further sign that the remarkable post-pandemic hiring boom is weakening.The headline unemployment rate also decreased from 4
Why are the Murdochs trying to buy UK property site Rightmove?
Getting into property is considered to be Lachlan Murdoch’s shrewdest and most profitable contribution to building the family empire.Shortly after the turn of the century, Rupert Murdoch’s eldest son persuaded News Corporation to take a 44% stake in REA Group, the owner of Australia’s realestate.com.au property website.More than two decades on, the media baron’s favoured son could be about to repay his father’s recent move to hand him full control if a takeover of Rightmove, the UK’s leading property website, succeeds
Telegram to shake-up features; markets slide after US job creation misses forecasts – as it happened
Newsflash: The boss of the messaging service Telegram, Pavel Durov, has announced that his app is removing or disabling some features that he says have been misused by scammers, bots and criminals.Durov says Telegram will take a new approach towards moderating content and remove some features that had been abused for illegal activity. The move comes almost two weeks after Durov was arrested in France.Writing on Telegram,and also on X (formerly Twitter), Durov says the platform is tackling the “0.001% involved in illicit activities” on the plaform
Asos to charge shoppers who regularly return large amounts of goods
Asos is to start charging UK shoppers who frequently return large amounts of goods a fee of £3.95 to send items back unless they keep up to £40 worth of their order.The online fashion retailer, which until now has made free returns of unused items within 14 days an important part of its offer in Britain, has written to some shoppers saying it has updated its “fair use” policy for orders made from 8 October.Frequent returners signed up to the group’s Premier subscription service will have to keep at least £15 of their original order to escape a fee, while non-subscription shoppers who regularly send back large amounts will have to keep at least £40 of their orders.The company has not defined what it deems to be a frequent rate of returns but one industry definition suggests a customer who sends back more than nine in 10 of the items they order over an extended period
‘We’ve not had a summer’: retailers battle unpredictable British weather
When the season switched from summer to autumn, like clockwork clothing stores would swap out the racks of floaty frocks and fill them with heavy coats and jumpers.Now, as the nights draw in, retailers are having to rejig seasonal ranges as the UK’s unpredictable weather calls for summer jackets and lighter knits.Launching its autumn/winter collection this week, Richard Price, Marks & Spencer’s managing director of clothing and home, joked: “Hopefully we’ll get an autumn because we have not had a summer.” During one particularly wet week this summer, “raincoat” had been the top search term on the M&S website, he said.With cruel irony, when the UK’s biggest clothing retailer launched its autumn campaign featuring the actor Sienna Miller in September 2023, the temperature was “unhelpfully” above 30C (86F), Price recalled, adding “so it’s warm but not quite as warm as that”
Richard Caring ‘close to £1bn sale of Ivy chain to private equity group’
Richard Caring and fellow shareholders are reportedly close to selling the Ivy chain of restaurants for £1bn to a little-known private equity group.The chain of more than 40 restaurants in the UK is poised to be bought by Si Advisers within weeks, according to Sky News.Si Advisers is controlled by Hamza Ben Abderahmen, a director of the health and safety training provider Boyd Group, and Ameel Somani, who is described as “a private equity investor and keen supporter of the arts”.Somani serves on a number of boards and previously worked for Helios Investment Partners, a private equity firm that invested in Africa.The reported deal, which would end Caring’s relationship with the chain after almost 20 years, would not include the high-profile entrepreneur’s other restaurants, including Scott’s, Sexy Fish and J Sheekey, or clubs such as Annabel’s and Mark’s Club
Australian police are warning about ‘sadistic sextortion’. Here’s how it works, and the red flags for parents
Oura Gen 3 review: can smart ring worn by celebs and athletes work for you?
UK signs first international treaty to implement AI safeguards
YouTube to restrict teenagers’ exposure to videos about weight and fitness
Racism, misogyny, lies: how did X become so full of hatred? And is it ethical to keep using it?
Meta’s moderation board backs decision to allow ‘from the river to the sea’ in posts
Drinking wine to 5: Dolly Parton launches prosecco and rosé range in UK
Whether it’s 9 to 5, Jolene or Islands in the Stream, Dolly Parton fans are no stranger to belting out her hits with a glass of wine in hand, but now they can sip her vino, too, as the singer’s “down to earth” wine range goes on sale in the UK.The brains behind Dolly Wines say they have bottled Parton’s “vivacious spirit and love for life” with the decision to branch out from selling albums to alcohol pitting the US country music star against the pop princess Kylie in the battle for the “easy drinking” top spot.With similar pricing to Kylie’s successful wines, Parton’s £11 prosecco is “deliciously fresh and zingy” while, at £9.50, her rosé is “delicate and romantic” with “lingering white strawberry flavours”.The range is a collaboration with Accolade Wines, the Australian group behind Hardys and Mud House
An ‘earthquake’ at Volkswagen – and a crisis for Germany?
The company is seen as crucial not just to local but national wellbeing – and never before have its workers been threatened in their own homeland like this‘Earthquake at Volkswagen” ran the stark headline in the Wolfsburger Nachrichten, the newspaper serving the north German city that is synonymous with the carmaker.The news that the crisis-stricken company was weighing up the closure of factories in Germany for the first time in its history, and prematurely dissolving its 30-year-old employment protection agreement as part of an attempt to save around €10bn (£8.4bn), had barely filtered through to the workers emerging from Gate 17 at VW’s main factory in Wolfsburg on Monday, where a lone reporter had been dispatched to capture reaction at shift’s end.But they did not express surprise. “The mood has been in the doldrums for some time,” one said
Telegram to drop ‘people nearby’ feature and improve moderation
The chief executive of Telegram, Pavel Durov, has announced the messaging app will improve moderation on the platform and has removed some features that have been used for illegal activity.The app’s founder unveiled the changes on Friday hours after calling his arrest by the French authorities last month “misguided”. Durov has since been charged with allegedly allowing criminal activity on the app.In a post on X, he said the messaging app was “committed to turn moderation on Telegram from an area of criticism into one of praise”.The changes announced by Durov included removing the app’s “people nearby” feature, which he said had “issues with bots and scammers”, and replacing it with “businesses nearby”, featuring legitimate businesses; and disabling media uploads on the app’s blogging tool, Telegraph, which Durov said was being “misused by anonymous actors”
Google using anti-competitive tactics in UK ad market, claims watchdog
The UK competition watchdog has accused Google of anti-competitive behaviour in the market for buying and selling ads on websites, in a move that follows similar investigations in the US and the EU.The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said it had found that Google has “abused its dominant position” in online advertising to the detriment of thousands of UK publishers and advertisers.The CMA said the vast majority of publishers and advertisers used Google’s ad tech services to bid for and sell advertising space, but the search company prevented rivals from offering competitive alternatives.The regulator has focused on Google’s role in three areas: its ownership of two tools for buying advertising space; its operation of an ad platform for publishers that allows them to manage their advertising space online; and its control of an ad exchange, AdX, that brings together advertisers and publishers, akin to matching buyers and sellers in a stock exchange.“The CMA is concerned that Google is actively using its dominance in this sector to preference its own services,” said the watchdog
Fin Graham wins road race gold for GB as Paralympics medal flurry continues
Fin Graham has had his fair share of close finishes at these Games. In the velodrome he was edged out by his teammate Jaco van Gass in the C3 indidivdual pursuit. In the road time trial on Wednesday fewer than 20 seconds over those 28.3km separated him from a second medal.But on Saturday he finally came out on the winning side of a close call, taking gold in the men’s C1-3 road race in Clichy-sous-Bois by a whisker from France’s Thomas Peyroton-Dartet
Sydney Swans stage epic comeback to defeat GWS Giants and secure home preliminary final
That’s all from the SCG, folks. AFL action now heads to the Gabba where Brisbane take on Carlton in the elimination final with the bounce at 7.35 AEST. Thanks for your company on this thrilling Saturday afternoon in Sydney.Here’s AAP’s match report:Sydney have pulled off a fourth-quarter fightback for the ages to defeat GWS by six points in a thrilling AFL qualifying final
Diane Abbott on her standoff with Labour: ‘It was a question of who blinked first. And they did’
Labour ministers reveal grave concerns about winter fuel payment cut
Starmer leads with compromise for new family pet – and gets ‘dog-like’ cat
Labour’s plans to boost workers’ rights widely supported by managers, poll says
Sixth-generation wire-maker blames Brexit for shredding its business
First step on Starmer’s reset with Europe | Letters