‘It can be quite a thankless job’: why driving examiners are quitting

It has long been a stressful rite of passage for many young people but, in recent years, passing the actual driving test is the easy part. Now, many people seeking a test need to wake up early to snag a date before the bots do and, even then, they are looking at a long and arduous wait.Despite moves from the government to address the issue, an audit report released this week found plans to cut the wait for a driving test to seven weeks by the end of the year would not be achieved until November 2027.One of the main barriers is an exodus of driving examiners. Only a net 83 more driving test examiners have been hired despite 19 recruitment campaigns since 2021, with the average wait for a practical test now at 22 weeks across Great Britain, according to the National Audit Office

Tinsel and Home Alone back in style as TikTok seeks comfort in #90sChristmas

Tinsel, DIY tree decorations, deep burgundy drapes – and Home Alone on VHS. Christmas has gone retro on TikTok, and in people’s living rooms.The app has reported a surge in Christmas decor videos, with an emphasis on nostalgia as users embrace festive looks from bygone eras. For younger TikTokers, that means the 90s.More than 8,000 videos have been posted under the hashtag #90sChristmas, celebrating a look that includes multicoloured tree lights, homemade felt ornaments and – in a post with nearly 4m views – VHS tapes of Christmas classics such as the Macaulay Culkin caper

Elon Musk’s massive 2018 Tesla pay package restored by Delaware court

Elon Musk’s controversial $56bn pay package from Tesla was reinstated by the Delaware supreme court on Friday, two years after a lower court struck down the vast compensation deal as “unfathomable”.The reinstated pay package could be worth as much as $139bn today, according to the New York Times. The decision comes less than two months after Tesla shareholders approved a new plan that could be worth $1tn to Musk, already the world’s richest person, in a decade’s time. Musk’s fortune currently stands at an estimated $600bn.Rescinding the pay deal would be “inequitable”, and would leave Musk “uncompensated for his time and efforts over a period of six years”, the Delaware supreme court justices wrote, echoing arguments from Tesla board members earlier this year

‘A black hole’: families and police say tech giants delay investigations in child abuse and drug cases

Max Osterman was 18 when he connected with a drug dealer on Snapchat who used the handle skyhigh.303. Max would message him whenever he wanted to buy Percocet, and they would meet. After about a year, and just days after their last exchange, Max collapsed. The pills he ordered had been laced with fentanyl

The Com: the growing cybercrime network behind recent Pornhub hack

Ransomware hacks, data theft, crypto scams and sextortion cover a broad range of cybercrimes carried out by an equally varied list of assailants.But there is also an English-speaking criminal ecosystem carrying out these activities that defies conventional categorisation. Nonetheless, it does have a name: the Com.Short for community, the Com is a loose affiliation of cybercriminals, largely native English language speakers typically aged from 16 to 25. Its activities run from crippling the IT systems of British retailers to phoning in bomb threats to schools and encouraging teenage girls to harm themselves

Sony collars Snoopy in £340m deal to take control of Peanuts franchise

Sony has taken control of Charles Schulz’s Peanuts franchise including Snoopy and Charlie Brown in a deal worth C$630m (£340m).The Japanese conglomerate has bought 41% of Peanuts Holdings, which owns the intellectual property Schulz created, from the Canadian children’s entertainment company WildBrain.The deal raises Sony’s total stake, which it began building in 2018, to 80%. The Schulz family owns the remaining 20%.Peanuts, which first appeared as a comic strip in seven newspapers in 1950 and ran daily until the cartoonist’s death in 2000, has gone on to become a global franchise spanning TV, toys, films and theme park attractions