UK food inflation: why your barbecue meat is becoming more expensive

The weather is not the only thing putting a dampener on impromptu barbecues as consumers balk at the soaring cost of burgers, sausages and chicken to put on the grill.At nearly £4, a four-pack of supermarket own-label beef quarter-pounders costs 53%, or £1.37, more than this time last year, according to the price analysts Assosia. With steak and kebabs also off the menu because they are too pricey, Britons are switching to poultry.However, this extra demand is pushing up the price of chicken

Openreach engineers trial panic alarms as incidents of abuse and assault soar

From scissors being brandished as weapons to verbal abuse and being trapped during a home visit, the number of reported incidents of abuse and assault on telecoms engineers is on the rise.Openreach, the BT subsidiary that maintains the vast majority of the broadband network serving UK homes and businesses, recorded 450 reports of abuse and assault in the year to the end of March.The number of incidents involving Openreach employees was up 8% year-on-year, a 40% increase on 2022-23 and seven times the volume reported almost a decade ago.Abuse and assault has for the first time become the largest cause of injury to Openreach office staff and its 22,000 field engineers. Managers believe the number of incidents is even higher, as many cases are not reported by staff

Trump steps up attacks on Fed’s independence amid interest rates row

Donald Trump called on top Federal Reserve officials to seize control from its chair, Jerome Powell, if he fails to cut interest rates, stepping up his extraordinary attacks on the central bank’s independence.The US president called Powell “a stubborn MORON” in a series of critical social media posts on Friday, days after the Fed held rates steady for the fifth consecutive time.It comes as Trump faces heightened questions over the impact of his aggressive economic policy, and the White House presses forward with plans for a fresh wave of tariffs next week.Hours before the federal government released data which underlined a significant deterioration in the jobs market, Trump again broke with precedent to pin blame on the Fed – and urge it to change course.“Jerome ‘Too Late’ Powell, a stubborn MORON, must substantially lower interest rates, NOW,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, his social network

Barclays follows HSBC in exit from banking industry’s net zero alliance

Barclays has become the second UK bank to withdraw from a UN-backed net zero target-setting group, claiming that a wave of defections by international lenders meant it was no longer fit for purpose.It marks a fresh blow for the Net-Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA), after HSBC left in early July. It came months after a wave of exits by US banks, which departed in the run-up to Donald Trump’s inauguration in January.Lenders and other finance firms have come under fresh pressure over their green commitments as a result of Trump’s return to the White House, which caused a climate backlash as he pushed for higher production of oil and gas.The UN environment programme’s finance initiative, which is led by banks, required members to ensure their lending, investment and capital markets activities would lead them to hitting net zero emissions targets by 2050 or earlier

Labour MPs urge Thames Water to recover £2.5m paid to executives in April

Thames Water should claw back £2.5m in bonuses that were paid to executives in April, 27 Labour MPs representing constituencies served by the utility have urged.The MPs said it was “disgusting” that the company was hiking water bills “to pay for executives’ failings when those same executives were receiving multimillion-pound bonuses”.In a letter to Thames Water’s director of corporate finance, Fred Maroudas, they called for the company to scrap its next planned round of bonuses in September and reinvest the money into water infrastructure.The letter from 27 Labour MPs in areas served by Thames Water, coordinated by Yuan Yang, the MP for Earley and Woodley, set out demands for the company, including resolving the most severe cases of pollution and failure highlighted by their constituents

US adds just 73,000 jobs in July amid pressure from Trump’s trade war

The US economy added 73,000 jobs in July, far lower than expected, amid ongoing concerns with Donald Trump’s escalating trade war.Forecasters surveyed by Bloomberg had predicted the July jobs report would show a drop in added jobs to about 109,000. The unemployment rate rose to 4.2% from 4.1% in June