‘When I was a child, everyone used it’: woman blames Johnson & Johnson talc for her cancer

It was Sue Rizzello’s husband who persuaded her to see a doctor, concerned about the bloating in her abdomen that was making her more and more uncomfortable. Rizzello, then in her late 40s, had assumed it was menopausal weight gain, but agreed to go to her GP. “A smart locum said: ‘There’s something wrong here,’ and sent me for a blood test … And that saved my life.”It was the worst news: Rizzello had stage 3 ovarian cancer that had begun to spread. She would need to begin chemotherapy immediately and prepare for the complete removal of her uterus, ovaries, fallopian tubes and omentum, a procedure that would put her into immediate menopause

Cost of taking over British Steel rises to £235m, government says

The cost of taking control of British Steel has risen to £235m, the UK government has said, as it acknowledged concern over the threat of EU tariffs that could significantly harm the business.The government passed emergency legislation in April to take control of British Steel amid fears that its Chinese owner, Jingye Steel, was planning to walk away from its Scunthorpe steelworks.The takeover preserved the jobs of 3,500 workers at British Steel but it has left the government footing the bill for the loss-making company. The industry minister, Chris McDonald, said the government had paid for “working capital, covering items such as raw materials, salaries, and addressing unpaid bills, including for SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises) in the supply chain”, in a written statement to parliament published this week.The latest costs add to the £604m spent on keeping the Scunthorpe plant going in 2019 and 2020, when it collapsed into insolvency under its previous owner, the private equity fund Greybull Capital

Nestlé to axe 16,000 jobs as new chief targets sales growth

Nestlé has said it will cut 16,000 jobs over the next two years as the owner of KitKat and Nescafé attempts to reduce costs and increase sales.The Swiss-headquartered multinational said the cuts would include 12,000 white-collar professionals and 4,000 in its manufacturing and supply chain, close to 6% of Nestlé’s global workforce.“The world is changing and Nestlé needs to change faster,” said Philipp Navratil, the new chief executive. “This will include making hard but necessary decisions to reduce headcount over the next two years. We will do this with respect and transparency

75% of Americans report soaring prices as Trump claims inflation ‘over’

Nine months after Donald Trump took office, promising to reduce prices on “day one”, a clear majority of Americans say their monthly costs have risen by between $100 and $749, according to an exclusive new poll conducted for the Guardian.The president has continued to insist that there is “virtually no inflation”. “Prices are ‘WAY DOWN’ in the USA,” Trump wrote on social media in late August.Yet according to a new Harris poll, Americans are still reporting soaring inflation and are increasingly pessimistic about the economy.When asked to estimate how much their regular monthly household costs have increased from last year, 74% of those surveyed said they had seen increases of at least $100, according to the poll

An unexpected unemployment rate rise puts the RBA odds-on to cut the cash rate – but it’s a headache for Jim Chalmers

Hear that? That’s the sound of the jobs market creaking, if not cracking.Australia’s unemployment rate unexpectedly jumped to a four-year high of 4.5% in September, up from 4.3% the month before.Jim Chalmers is in Washington DC attending a G20 summit, but still found time to put out a statement reminding us that the jobless measure is “still very low by historical standards”

Adani denies claims it sold ‘below-market coal’ leading to Queensland missing out on hundreds of millions in royalties

Adani has consistently sold coal from its Queensland mine far below market rates, according to claims made in new analysis, potentially reducing the royalties owed to the state government by hundreds of millions of dollars.The research director at the Australia Institute, Rod Campbell, calculated that Adani sold thermal coal from its Carmichael mine at an average of just over $A100 a tonne during the 2023 to 2025 financial years – its first three full years of operation.Sign up: AU Breaking News emailThe period saw huge coal price spikes after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, with Australian benchmark prices surging above $A600/t in late 2022, before moderating.Even allowing for discounted prices for Adani’s lower-quality coal, Campbell said the difference between the “realised price and expected market price is huge”.“This discrepancy means that royalty payments were far lower than might have been expected