news_db/bbc news.csv

title,url,timestamp,content,source
Bahrain takes full control of supercar brand McLaren,https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68639320,2024-03-22T15:58:09.000Z,"Bahrain's sovereign wealth fund has taken full ownership of the McLaren Group, which builds high-end sportscars and owns a majority stake in the McLaren F1 team. The Bahraini fund, Mumtalakat, was already McLaren's biggest shareholder. The deal follows a period of deep financial uncertainty for the British company, which has been making heavy losses. McLaren hailed it as a ""major milestone"". The company is now understood to be looking at technical partnerships with other businesses, to help it develop electric vehicle technology.  ""We are delighted at Mumtalakat's continued commitment to McLaren through this deal,"" McLaren Group's executive chairman Paul Walsh said in a statement. ""This will further enable us to focus on delivering our long-term business plan, including investment in new products and technologies, while continuing to explore potential technical partnerships with industry partners."" The McLaren Group has its headquarters in the Surrey town of Woking. It owns McLaren Automotive, which over the past 14 years has become a major player in the market for prestige sportscars. Its products compete with models from the likes of Ferrari and Porsche. The group also has a majority stake in McLaren Racing, which owns the McLaren Formula 1 team, and also competes in the US IndyCar series, and the electric series Formula E and Extreme E. The business has been under financial strain since the Covid pandemic, which initially forced it to suspend production of cars, and also led to the cancellation of racing activities around the world. It underwent a major restructuring in 2020, which included the loss of more than 1,000 jobs. It was then affected by the widespread disruption to supply chains that occurred as economies got back into gear following the pandemic, in particular a shortage of computer chips. There were also problems with its new Artura hybrid sportscar, which caused it to suspend production, and led to delays in deliveries. In the first nine months of last year - the most recent period for which figures are available - it made a pre-tax loss of �276m. Mumtalakat has been an investor in McLaren Group since 2007, when it bought a 30% stake from founding shareholders Ron Dennis and Mansour Ojjeh. Over time it increased that stake to 60%, while injecting hundreds of millions of pounds into the business. Its decision to take full control, which was initially agreed last year, bolsters McLaren's finances in the short term.  Also, sources within the group say that getting rid of what was seen as an overly complex shareholder structure will make future partnerships easier.  McLaren is known to be looking for new technical link-ups to help it expand its range and in particular work on developing electric vehicles. The BBC understands the Swedish firm Polestar, owned by the Chinese group Geely, is among those to have held talks with McLaren. According to the Financial Times, discussions have also been held with Hyundai, BMW and Californian electric brand Lucid Motors. Any deal could involve Mumtalakat selling a minority stake in McLaren group to its chosen partner. ",BBC
Woman found with �2bn in Bitcoin convicted of money laundering arrangement offence,https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-68620253,2024-03-20T17:50:49.000Z,"A former takeaway worker found with Bitcoin worth more than �2bn has been convicted at Southwark Crown Court of a crime linked to money laundering. Jian Wen, 42, from Hendon in north London, was involved in converting the currency into assets including multi-million-pound houses and jewellery. On Monday she was convicted of entering into or becoming concerned in a money laundering arrangement. The Met said the seizure is the largest of its kind in the UK. Although Wen was living in a flat above a Chinese restaurant in Leeds when she became involved in the criminal activity, her new lifestyle saw her move into a six-bedroom house in north London in 2017 which was rented for more than �17,000 per month. She posed as an employee of an international jewellery business and moved her son to the UK to attend private school, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said. That same year, Wen tried to buy a string of expensive houses in London, but struggled to pass money-laundering checks and her claims she had earned millions legitimately mining Bitcoin were not believed. She later travelled abroad, buying jewellery worth tens of thousands of pounds in Zurich, and purchasing properties in Dubai in 2019. Another suspect is thought to be behind the fraud but they remain at large. The Met said it carried out a large scale investigation as part of the case - searching several addresses, reviewing 48 electronic devices, and examining thousands of digital files including many which were translated from Mandarin. Det Ch Supt Jason Prins, whose team led the investigation, said the ""sheer scale"" of the operation ""demonstrates how international criminals seek to exploit cryptocurrency for illegal purposes"". ""This verdict and lengthy five-year investigation demonstrates that we'll leave no stone unturned in our pursuit to catch criminals who look to enjoy the proceeds of illicit funds - no matter how complex the case,"" he said. The CPS has obtained a freezing order from the High Court, while it carries out a civil recovery investigation that could lead to the forfeiture of the Bitcoin. The value of the Bitcoin was worth around �2bn at the time of initial estimates - but due to the fluctuation in the currency's value, it has since increased to around �3.4bn. CPS chief crown prosecutor Andrew Penhale said Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies ""are increasingly being used by organised criminals to disguise and transfer assets, so that fraudsters may enjoy the benefits of their criminal conduct"". He added this case ""illustrates the scale of criminal proceeds available to those fraudsters"". Wen is due to be sentenced on 10 May. Listen to the best of BBC Radio London on Sounds and follow BBC London on Facebook, X and Instagram. Send your story ideas to hellobbclondon@bbc.co.uk ",BBC
Buying yon bonnie banks,https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-business-68628838,2024-03-21T21:21:20.000Z,"While branches close by the hundred and your money is now handled through chat bots and contact centres, Scotland is also suffering from the loss of bank headquarters.  And the consequences of increasingly rootless and distant banks could be serious for the wider economy. On Thursday, the directors of Virgin Money UK plc announced they have agreed to recommend to shareholders that they vote to accept a �2.9bn takeover offer by Nationwide building society. Virgin Money operates under the licence for Clydesdale Bank, which took it over in 2018 and adopted its brand, saying farewell to the older brand's presence in Glasgow since 1838 while, for no obvious reason, continuing to print Clydesdale bank notes. That commitment to the deal also comes from the holding company owned by Virgin Group founder Sir Richard Branson, which has a 14.6% stake.  In addition to trousering more than �400m from the sale, his group gets �20m for each of the six years while Nationwide continues to use the Virgin brand. At a 40% premium to the recent share price, it's not hard to see why directors have agreed. Such ""challenger banks"" have begun to look more of a challenge to themselves than to their bigger rivals. The prospects of Virgin Money growing from sixth largest bank in Britain to rival the established giants were not good. Regulatory costs weigh heavily on smaller banks, and upstarts with whizzy apps, without the legacy and focused on the relatively easy, lower-risk stuff - Monzo, Starling and Revolut, for instance - attract customers by the million.  So under Nationwide, Virgin Money and Clydesdale, along with the former Yorkshire Bank, become part of a building society. As things stand, the combination is set to have total assets of �366bn and total lending and advances of around �283bn, representing the second largest provider of mortgages and savings in the UK.  Nationwide gets Virgin Money's strengths in business lending, while extending the customer orientation of a mutual. Some HQ jobs in Glasgow may be lost where they overlap with those at Nationwide's head office in Swindon. That includes David Duffy, chief executive since 2015, who will leave by the end of the year when the takeover should be complete. The new owners are committed to the workforce of more than 7,000 people, mostly in Glasgow and Newcastle, and to branches. But that's only in ""the medium term"", which looks like 2028 for branches at least.  The demise of branch banking is being driven hard by banks themselves: coincidentally, I went into a Virgin Money branch this week with a friend who is a customer there, who wanted to open a cash ISA but didn't want to do it online. There was a blank look, and after 10 minutes in the back office, a gormless answer: ""you could make an appointment with someone who can help, but there's a long wait, and appointments are made at another branch - before then, we might find someone who could show you how to do it online"". By 2028, the new bosses will have decided if they want to run the operations separately or gain from synergy and cost-cutting. Though Nationwide is not accountable to shareholders, the cost-cutting option looks more likely - if it can't be as nimble as the app competitors, it makes sense to use its scale. Dial back a few years, and you would hear questions of whether Scottish banks and their canny reputation could survive the ignominious near-collapse of the Royal Bank of Scotland and Halifax Bank of Scotland, both headquartered in Edinburgh. The capital recovered from the blow better than many expected. But under Lloyds Banking Group, HBOS quickly lost executive power from its HQ on the Mound. It returns to Scotland each year for its annual general meeting, but there's no pretence that it is based north of the border. Under government ownership, Royal Bank of Scotland continued to pay homage to its Scottish roots. It spent years eating humble pie, and it had to make use of its colossal headquarters campus at Gogarburn, near Edinburgh Airport.  But now with minority state ownership and rebranded to NatWest, its London-based executive team pay less and less attention to those roots. Royal Bank of Scotland is only retained as a brand in Scotland, and with more staff working from home, Gogarburn is operating far below capacity. Clydesdale Bank was a distant third among Scottish banks. It had also taken big risks on lending. Its parent company, National Australia Bank, despaired of it and the huge costs of redress for mis-selling financial products. It struggled to offload it, eventually spinning it off in a stock exchange float. Such new ""challenger banks"" were encouraged by government and by regulators with relaxed capital rules, and a share of funds which Royal Bank of Scotland had to pay as compensation for the state aid it received. Scotland's two main cities did exceptionally well at attracting them. Virgin Money put its HQ into Edinburgh, and bought the less toxic remnants of Northern Rock, an important part of the economy in north-east England. TSB, spun off by Lloyds, retained its historic HQ on Edinburgh's George Street, but was taken over by Sabadell of Spain and ran into expensive problems in updating its IT systems. Two new banks, the financial arms of Sainsbury's and Tesco supermarket chains, put their headquarters in Edinburgh, and Tesco followed up by locating its main processing and contact centre in Glasgow. Now, however, banks look much less attractive for big brand expansion. Government and regulators look less favourably on challenger banks. And as they retreat, that means less competition in the bank market, and risks higher costs for customers. Tesco's is being sold to Barclays, and Sainsbury's has failed to find a buyer, so it is winding down its bank.  For Scotland, that is a lot of bank headquarters to lose in only 15 years. Does that matter? According to Ian Fraser, an author and commentator on banking, it is a ""bit of a disaster"" for the Scottish economy more widely. ""It's very serious,"" he says. ""People in business were used to being able to walk a few hundred metres from their office to the bank. They got to know the managers there, who understood the needs of the business, and that included the people right at the top. ""Therefore, the bankers had a very good knowledge of the needs of the industrial base of the companies located here. That was a huge advantage for Scotland. But now the people who make the ultimate decisions on finance are based elsewhere."" ""It's the branch economy syndrome,"" he adds. Decisions made elsewhere. And that applies not only to finance, but also to businesses in other sectors being bought over and losing HQ functions to other parts of the world. Scotland continues to do well at attracting jobs through inward investment in back office technology, processing and risk functions, and there is a lively financial technology sector, clustered around universities. These are skilled staff who can make banking more efficient. Big data gives bankers ever more detailed read-outs of customer behaviour, both retail and business. But it is at the cost of more physical distant from customers, and over time, lending decisions will be handled more often by machine. In lacking the key figures at the top of banking, Scotland is far from alone. And similar smaller countries lack such easy access to the financial powerhouse and capital markets of London. But Scots have seen an unusually sharp decline in a feature of the economy they have long taken for granted. ",BBC
Row erupts over German football team switching supplier from Adidas to Nike,https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68634777,2024-03-22T13:28:48.000Z,"The German Football Association's (DFB) decision to switch the supplier of the national team's kit away from Adidas has been blasted by politicians. The contract will pass from the German company to US firm Nike from 2027. Economy Minister Robert Habeck said he would have ""liked a bit more local patriotism"", while Health Minister Karl Lauterbach called the decision ""wrong"". The DFB said the deal made financial sense and would support grassroots German football. Adidas has supplied the kit for the German national football team for more than 70 years. However, according to reports in the German press, Nike agreed to pay about �100m (�86m; $108m) per year to supply the kit, doubling Adidas's payment of �50m. The deal, announced on Thursday, was greeted with dismay by German politicians on the left and right. ""I can hardly imagine the German jersey without the three stripes,"" Mr Habeck said. ""For me, Adidas and black-red-gold always belonged together. A piece of German identity."" Mr Lauterbach said on X, formerly Twitter, it was ""a wrong decision where commerce destroys a tradition and a piece of home"". And Bavarian premier Markus Soeder said the national team always plays in the three stripes of Adidas. ""That was as clear as the fact that the ball is round and a game lasts 90 minutes,"" he said. ""The success story began in 1954 with the unforgettable World Cup victory, which gave our country self-confidence again. That's why it's wrong, a shame and also incomprehensible that this story should end now."" He said German football should not be ""a pawn in international corporate battles"" and that ""commerce isn't everything"". The DFB said on X that it understood the emotional reaction to its decision, saying switching supplier after 70 years was a ""drastic event"" that ""doesn't leave us cold"".  However, it said the grassroots of German football, with ""more than 24,000 football clubs, 2.2 million active players, the numerous volunteers and almost 55,000 referees"", is financed by the DFB. ""Against this background, the DFB has to make economic decisions,"" it said. ""Nike made by far the best financial offer in the transparent and non-discriminatory tender process."" ""The future partnership with Nike ensures that we can continue to carry out our central tasks for football in the coming decade,"" it added. The announcement of the Nike deal comes just months ahead of Euro 2024. Germany's men's team is using Adidas's headquarters in Herzogenaurach, near Nuremberg, as its base for the tournament, which Germany is hosting. Adidas said it would not comment on contractual details. The row over the German kit comes as politicians in England criticise a Nike design for the England team kit. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said the St George's Cross should not be ""messed with"" after Nike used different colours, adding navy, light blue and purple to the traditional red. The FA has defended the design, saying ""it is not the first time"" different colours have been used. ",BBC
Apple lawsuit: US accuses tech giant of monopolising smartphone market,https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-68628989,2024-03-21T14:41:20.000Z,"The US has filed a landmark lawsuit against Apple, accusing the tech giant of monopolising the smartphone market and crushing competition. In the legal action, the justice department alleges the company abused its control of the iPhone app store to ""lock in"" customers and developers.  It accuses the firm of taking illegal steps to thwart apps seen as a threat and make rival products less appealing. Apple has vowed to ""vigorously"" fight the lawsuit and denies the claims. The sprawling complaint, filed at a federal court in New Jersey along with the attorneys general of 16 states, marks one of the biggest challenges to date for Apple, which has been fending off mounting complaints about its practices in recent years.  It alleges that Apple used ""a series of shapeshifting rules"" and restricted access to its hardware and software, in a bid to boost its own profits while raising costs for customers and stifling innovation. ""Apple has maintained monopoly power in the smartphone market not simply by staying ahead of the competition on the merits but by violating federal anti-trust law,"" Attorney General Merrick Garland said at a press conference announcing the suit.  ""Customers should not have to pay higher prices because companies break the law."" The 88-page complaint focuses on five areas where Apple allegedly abused its power.  For example, the US alleges that Apple used its app review process to thwart development of so-called super apps and streaming apps, because it was worried such apps would provide less incentive for customers to stick with iPhones.  It also says Apple has made it difficult to connect iPhones to smart watches made by rivals and blocked banks and other financial firms from accessing its tap-to-pay technology, allowing Apple to earn billions in fees from processing Apple Pay transactions.   The complaint also focuses on the way Apple treats messages sent from rival phones, distinguishing them with green bubbles and limiting videos and other features. It says Apple's moves have created ""social stigma"" that has helped the tech giant maintain its grip on the market.  Apple said customers were loyal because they were happy and that under US law it was free to choose its business partners. It has pointed to privacy and security concerns to justify its rules.  The company said it would ask the court to dismiss the lawsuit, which it predicted would fail.  ""We believe this lawsuit is wrong on the facts and the law, and we will vigorously defend against it,"" the company said.  The case will hinge on the question of motivation, said Bill Baer, a visiting fellow at Brookings who was an anti-trust official under the Obama administration. ""Anti-trust laws and the courts' interpretation of them suggest that once you're a monopolist,"" he said, ""if you do engage in behaviours that have no legitimate business justification other than to limit competition and cement your monopoly, then that is problematic."" It is the third legal action Apple has faced from the US government since 2009 and the first anti-trust challenge filed against the company under President Joe Biden's administration. If the government wins its case, it could force Apple to overhaul its current contracts and practices - or even lead to a break-up of the company.  Shares in Apple fell more than 4% as investors digested the implications of the legal battle. Any potential changes would take years to materialise as the case makes its way through the courts.  Vanderbilt University professor Rebecca Allensworth called the case ""a blockbuster"", following other lawsuits the justice department has brought against the major tech giants. Google, Meta and Amazon all face similar lawsuits.  She said at its core, it was about increasing functionality between smartphones and making the technology and software more accessible to consumers and other businesses. ""It's not about breaking up Apple into small units or spinning off divisions,"" she said.  Apple has faced a growing legal backlash over its iOS ecosystem and business practices.  It is engaged in a lengthy legal battle with Epic Games, which makes Fortnite.  Last month, it was fined �1.8bn (�1.5bn) by the EU for breaking competition laws over music streaming. The firm had prevented streaming services from informing users of payment options outside the Apple app store, the European Commission said. Competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager said Apple had abused its dominant position in the market for a decade, and ordered the tech giant to remove all of the restrictions. Apple said it would appeal against the decision. Anat Alon-Beck, a business law professor at Case Western Reserve University in Ohio, said the justice department's new lawsuit was ""far more extensive"" than its previous legal challenges in the EU.  ""It's not just about the 30% app store fee, but about the core unfair practices of Apple,"" she said, adding that it was ""about time"" that the DOJ took action.  ""Apple systematically excludes rivals from the Apple ecosystem. By doing that, Apple is hurting so many startup businesses, stakeholders, customers and, in my opinion, its shareholders,"" she said.  According to the justice department, Apple's share of the US smartphone market exceeds 70%, and its share of the broader smartphone market exceeds 65%.  ",BBC
When wind turbine blades get old what's next?,https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68225891,2024-03-12T00:01:23.000Z,"The cranes moved in last year at Hagshaw Hill, Scotland's oldest commercial wind farm. They were there to continue the dismantling of wind turbines that had been generating electricity for the last 28 years. A similar scene can be witnessed across the world as the first wave of wind turbines built in the late 1990s and early 2000s are decommissioned. In the case of Hagshaw Hill, the existing turbines will be replaced with taller and more efficient ones that can generate up to 10 times more electricity. But working out what to do with the old turbines is challenging. Between 85 and 95% of a turbine's materials, such as steel, aluminium, and copper, can be easily recycled, but the blades are a different matter. Made of fibreglass they are covered with a tough epoxy resin, designed to withstand years of hammering by the elements. These durable qualities make breaking down the blades for recycling a tricky process. Traditional solutions include using pieces of decommissioned blades in cement kilns to manufacture cement, though this can be an energy intensive process. Blades are also commonly disposed of in landfill sites, but this option is becoming increasingly less feasible with a number of countries, notably Germany and the Netherlands, banning the practice. Innovative solutions such as repurposing blades into playgrounds or bike sheds have been shown to be effective at a local level but, with some experts predicting up to 43 million tonnes of wind turbine blade waste by 2050, there is a pressing need for a system that will work on a bigger scale. Scientists and start-ups are working on the problem, with many focusing on tackling the challenge of breaking down the materials used in the blades.  ""At the end of life, if we're going to get any value out of the materials, we need to be able to separate the fibres from the resin in some way or another,"" Dr Claire Barlow, a sustainability and materials engineer, from the University of Cambridge tells me. More technology of business One approach showing promise uses a technique developed by the University of Strathclyde. It involves breaking the blades down into small pieces and feeding them into a very hot air stream. The process separates the glass fibre from the resin. The glass fibre can then be collected, treated and reused, explains Malcolm Forsyth who leads Project PRoGrESS, which aims to commercialise the technology. The project, which kicked off in 2022, is working on a pilot plant that's due to be operational in the first half of this year - though it's hit some difficulties.  ""The major challenge for the project team has been the rapid escalation of material costs partly due to the Russia and Ukraine war, as well as global inflation,"" according to Mr Forsyth.  Similar solutions are being tested elsewhere that use different methodologies but have the same overarching goal of breaking down the materials used in wind turbine blades. Danish company Vestas, the largest wind turbine producer in Europe, announced last year an approach that uses a liquid chemical solution to break down the blades into materials which can then potentially be used to make new blades. A major advantage of this approach, according to Vestas, is that it uses widely available chemicals, though details haven't been disclosed. The process has the added benefit of not requiring energy-intensive high temperatures.  Both of these traits hint at potential scalability, with the company claiming to have recycled 475 end-of-life blades in 2022. If technologies such as these succeed ""then not only can we solve the problem of new waste coming through, but we can also actually tackle historic waste,"" according to Dr Barlow. Historic blade waste currently in landfill could be recycled, as could waste which has been placed in storage awaiting a solution. At Hagshaw Hill a number of wind turbines have been kept in storage while ScottishPower Renewables decides what to do with them. Perhaps the future will be to make turbine blades that are easier to break down.  A number of companies are working on building blades made out of materials less reliant on the difficult to recycle fibreglass and epoxy resin. However at this stage, the vast majority of blades continue to be made of these traditional materials. The next few years will determine whether the recycling technology under development can be scaled-up to a useful size, without harming the environment. As Dr Barlow puts it ""that really is the silver bullet."" ",BBC
Dragon Ball: First theme park to be built in Saudi Arabia,https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68653311,2024-03-25T03:25:33.000Z,"Saudi Arabia has announced it will build a theme park based on the famed Japanese animated series Dragon Ball, sparking mixed reactions from fans. It will feature a 70m (229.6ft) dragon at its centre and at least 30 rides, the firm behind the project says. The park would be the world's first such attraction based on the popular media franchise. The announcement was met with some criticism from fans, citing Saudi Arabia's human rights record. The park will cover more than half a million square metres, according to Qiddiya Investment Company (QIC) which is wholly owned by the Saudi Arabian government's investment fund. The plans are part of ""a long-term strategic partnership"" between the QIC and Toei Animation, the Japanese producer of Dragon Ball. According to the official Dragon Ball website, the park will include a roller coaster inside the dragon modelled after Shenron, a wish-giving dragon that features in the franchise. Qiddiya is a major entertainment and tourism project being built near Saudi Arabia's capital Riyadh. It is part of the energy-rich nation's plans to diversify its economy away from fossil fuels. While some Dragon Ball fans have welcomed the plans for the theme park, others on social media have questioned the decision to locate the attraction in Saudi Arabia. The country has been criticised for its human rights record and lack of recognition of LGBTQ+ rights. The announcement comes just weeks after the death of Dragon Ball's creator, Akira Toriyama. Toriyama died on 1 March, aged 68. Only his family and very few friends attended his funeral, according to a statement on the Dragon Ball website. Fans around the world paid tribute to Toriyama for creating characters that have become a part of their lives. The Dragon Ball comic series debuted in 1984. It follows a boy named Son Goku in his quest to collect magical dragon balls that can give him super powers. It is one of the most influential and best-selling Japanese comics of all time. ",BBC
What's behind Rishi Sunak's surprising optimism?,https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68634968,2024-03-22T22:02:52.000Z,"As I arrived in Downing Street to interview the prime minister earlier this week, his aides were whispering about some mysterious last minute ""artwork"" that was yet to appear. When Rishi Sunak walked into the room, a hitherto blank screen flashed with a multi-coloured line chart pointing downwards with the words ""Inflation. Halved"". Mr Sunak and his team are going to great effort to project a turnaround in the UK economy. In a wide-ranging interview on the economy, he spoke of turning points and bounceback, and insisted  it's ""not just me"" who saw green shoots of recovery up and down the country. ""Wages are up. Energy bills are falling. Pensions are going up. Tax cuts are now already happening and benefiting people. That all just gives me the confidence that the future is brighter,"" he said. ""2024 will prove to be a bounce back year for the UK economy.""  While his political position means the PM has no other choice than to say he expects a thumping economic recovery, I was somewhat taken aback by the extent of his sunny optimism. This buoyancy comes against a backdrop of consistently dire opinion polls for both Mr Sunak and the Conservative party, and the rapidly approaching local elections in England on 2 May. But the prime minister's eyes are focused on three other dates that month.  On the 10 May, the recession could be officially declared over, when GDP figures for January to March are expected to show that the economy is growing again.  On 22 May, we will get inflation figures for April, with the headline rate forecast to be below the Bank of England's 2% target for the first time in three years. But it is the next interest rate decision on 9 May that may explain Mr Sunak's sanguineness.  Up until this week, the expectation has been that an interest rate cut would come in the summer or later, when the Bank was absolutely sure that the inflation shock had been defeated.   But Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey went further in his interview with me on behalf of UK broadcasters on Thursday after rates were left unchanged at 5.25%, their highest for 16 years. When I asked him whey he had not cut rates yet, he replied: ""We're on the way."" He said that the Bank did not have to wait until after inflation was below 2% to cut. He also said that market predictions of two or three cuts were ""reasonable"". So a cut is now in play for May. Both the PM and the chancellor have been at pains not to actually tell the independent Bank of England what to do. That said, one can only imagine the rain dances being done in Downing Street for a series of rate cuts before a general election.  Yet when I was near Crewe earlier this week and asked I asked businesses and families whether they were seeing a turnaround or even stabilisation in the cost of living crisis, I got a uniformly negative response. Shaine Ashley Tench, who runs A Star Taxis, said a recent quote to insure his fleet was in the tens of thousands. ""We can't just put that onto the customers' price, because we need to be an affordable, reliable taxi company in this area,"" he said.  A second-hand car salesman told me some customers were telling him they could afford a car but were put off buying because of insurance costs. At the Wheelock Hall farm shop, a man told me the standing charge on his energy bills had gone up and his car insurance had doubled. ""It's getting worse,"" he said.  A nurse conceded that her gas and electric prices had stopped rising, but said: ""It's not getting better, it's just stopped getting worse."" She then listed all the other bills that will go up in April - mobile phone, broadband, water and council tax. The psychology of personal finances is very interesting. Can people really feel a declining inflation rate as good news or is that outweighed by prices being much higher than they were? And would a household feel it more if they had smaller bills but with above-inflation price rises, or if they saw a fall in their large energy bill? In Downing Street, they point out that members of the public on radio phone-ins or TV are bound to find some areas where they feel personal finance pain.  But the way this has been measured across the economy for decades has been by consumer confidence numbers. The GfK measure of overall consumer confidence is still in clear negative territory, but in new numbers for March, people's perceptions of their own personal finances over the next 12 months went positive for the first time since January 2022.  It is a chart being followed very carefully by the prime minister. For the Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves, the situation is clear. The economic situation is grim in absolute and relative terms, and whoever wins the upcoming election will inherit the worst overall set of circumstances since World War Two. In a lecture this week, she firmly committed to get debt falling in five years' time, taking on the same self imposed straitjacket that currently constrains the Conservative government.  Much was made of her comment about a 1979 moment, suggesting Thatcherite reforms. This reference, she told me, was about cutting red tape on planning to allow more new homes. But in the absence of huge government investments, the heavy lifting that would need to be done by planning reform would be huge. Each of my questions about what this might mean for public spending or tax cuts was met with an answer about the need to get growth.  The opposition remains very cautious on policy details, wary of doing anything risky to endanger the precious poll lead in the months before the election.  Could that really be sustained if there is a widely felt turnaround, a series of interest rate cuts and the end of the UK recession? Back in Downing Street I put to the PM that even if there was a turnaround his problem was that the mini-budget with �45bn of unfunded tax cuts had trashed the economic credibility of his party in the eyes of key swathes of the electorate, especially those who had taken on mortgages in the near-zero rate era.  He replied that the economy was dealing with ""lots of different challenges"" and pointed to his pandemic furlough scheme as evidence he ""knows how to run the economy"". I also asked him if he was infuriated that plotting in his party aimed at removing him from office was coming from some of the same people who backed the mini-budget. He didn't dispute the premise of the question, laughing: ""These things don't infuriate me, because fundamentally I'm just not interested in Westminster gossip."" When I asked him if he would still be PM after the local elections in May, he laughed and said yes. He has lasted longer than the last person I asked that question, then Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng who was fired a day later. So the recession over, inflation below target, the first of two or three interest rate cuts over summer, helping consumers over summer and offering space for pre-election tax cuts in September. The more hazily optimistic Conservative strategists might throw in Harry Kane lifting the Euros in Berlin in July. The reality is that a window for some sort of change in the economic weather does appear to be opening up. But the real question is whether it happens quickly and visibly enough to shift the dial with the electorate.  ",BBC
�I want to help people fly � and keep them safe�,https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68489226,2024-03-22T00:15:02.000Z,"Student Pooja Umashankar clearly remembers when she first felt the roar of an aircraft taking off. She was 10 years old and travelling from Sri Lanka to the UK with her family. Through the window near her seat, she could see hundreds of tiny lights on the ground below.  ""It's just a piece of metal,"" she remembers marvelling, ""And it's flying now."" Today, a decade and a half later, Miss Umashankar has returned from Sri Lanka to study aircraft maintenance engineering at the University of South Wales. ""I knew that I wanted to do something that nobody had ever done in my town,"" she says. The aviation industry can't find enough people like Miss Umashankar. For years, airlines and engineering firms have struggled to hire maintenance engineers, and there is now a global shortage numbering in the tens of thousands.  This is a huge problem not least because aviation is expected to balloon in the coming decades. Industry estimates suggest that roughly 700,000 engineers will have to enter the profession between now and 2040 in order to satisfy demand.  Plus, after Boeing's recent 737 Max 9 door blowout - currently the subject of an investigation - engineers have been in especially high demand to perform increased checks on 737 Max aircraft of various models.  And trade association ADS says there are 10,000 vacancies in total across the UK's aerospace, defence, security and space industries. Miss Umashankar, who is now nearing the end of her three-year degree, says she wants to be a part of the solution. ""What motivates me is to� help people travel,"" she says. ""I want to help them fly - while being safe."" She says she has especially enjoyed working with electronics during her course but was not able to find an on-the-job training placement. However, Miss Umashankar has now started applying for full-time positions. She hopes to work for an employer that will treat her with respect and provide further training.  Not many of her colleagues will be women, she knows. But that does not deter her: ""There's such a shortage of female engineers in this field, I just feel that maybe I should be one of them."" Redressing the severe gender imbalance in the industry could help tackle the shortage, some observers say. In the UK, fewer than 10% of aerospace and aviation engineers are women. The numbers are even worse across the Atlantic, says Gail Rouscher, a former aircraft maintenance engineer now at Western Michigan University. Only 2.8% of US aircraft technicians are women. ""I don't think that there are enough women that are involved in the industry to act as mentors,"" she says. Multiple engineering firms contacted by the BBC declined to specify whether they were short of aviation technicians at present, or to what extent. AAR Corporation, however, says it has raised salaries and launched a programme to help US military veterans join the workforce. More than 60 such candidates have been hired since 2019, the firm notes. ST Engineering has started a mentorship programme in Singapore and is in talks to set up a training academy in the US. Meanwhile, Lufthansa Technik is working to attract more women into the industry. ""Large-scale recruitment of apprentices is still ongoing,"" a spokeswoman adds. The current focus on training is significant, says Daniel Olufisan, training director and principal consultant at Wing Engineering, which works in the aviation industry. It is partly down to the fact that fewer aircraft engineers these days are ex-military and, therefore, not as many people with hands-on experience are entering maintenance roles, he suggests. Another key reason for the shortage is that a high number of engineers in their 60s are now retiring from the profession. Aircraft maintenance is not as glamorous as it once was, suggests Robert Mann, an industry analyst and consultant at RW Mann & Company: ""Some of the benefits that then came with working for an airline, flying on staff passes for example, just aren't there anymore."" He stresses that a dearth of engineers is no excuse to cut corners on safety. ""This is not a test flying business, this is a consumer service,"" he says. Last year, manufacturer Airbus set a target of hiring 13,000 new employees, many of whom were engineers, though in Airbus's case most were destined to work on new aircraft designs rather than maintenance. A spokeswoman confirms that the company exceeded its target and also succeeded in hiring a large proportion of engineers (25% of the total). ""It does become harder and harder to source talented professional engineers,"" acknowledges Mark Crompton, global head of employment marketing. He adds that outreach to children of school age could help encourage them to consider the career. More technology of business Airbus, like many firms, is increasing apprenticeship and internship positions to help, too. The number of such posts at Airbus climbed by 25% in 2023. But the industry as a whole is having to face up to the impact aviation is having on climate change and even more engineers are needed to develop cleaner aircraft, explains Mr Crompton. Nadeem Bandali is an aircraft maintenance engineer at Gatwick Airport. He says that when young people ask him about his job, he shows them videos of the kind of work he does to illustrate how practical it is. ""It's purely mechanical, fixing aircraft, troubleshooting aircraft systems,"" he explains.  As an example, just a few weeks ago, he and his colleagues were tasked with locating a fault in a long sensor wire that runs through the fuselage and wings of an A320. It took a few hours, but they found it and fixed it.  He is aware of the engineer shortage but says, ""I don't think safety is an issue at the moment."" Keeping planes in the air, without incident, is a worthwhile endeavour for Miss Umashankar. ""Aircraft,"" she says, ""connect the whole world into one."" ",BBC
MacKenzie Scott donates $640m to US non-profits,https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-68609687,2024-03-20T14:44:24.000Z,"Billionaire philanthropist MacKenzie Scott is giving $640m (�504m) to non-profit organisations, more than double her previously planned donations for the year.  Ms Scott announced this week she would give the money to 361 small groups, out of the more than 6,000 organisations that applied for funding.  She had initially planned to make 250 awards of $1m each this year. She has given away $16.5bn since her 2019 divorce from Amazon's Jeff Bezos. Ms Scott has a net worth of $37.5bn, according to Forbes, which rates her as the fourth richest woman in the world, and has pledged to give away half of her wealth over the course of her life. Most of the money comes from a 4% stake in Amazon that was included in her divorce settlement from Mr Bezos, the company founder. Some of the recipients include the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Alabama, Justice for Migrant Women, the Sacramento LGBT Community Center and Mental Health Advocacy Services.  Ms Scott posted on social media that the money had been given to groups ""for their outstanding work advancing the voices and opportunities of individuals and families of meager or modest means, and groups who have met with discrimination and other systemic obstacles"".  This year, Ms Scott broke with her past approach of finding organisations and then contacting them secretly to offer massive, unrestricted gifts. After a panel reviewed all of the applications, she gave 279 non-profits $2m a piece, while 82 groups were given $1m each.  The ""incredible work"" of many applicants led the team overseeing the donations to increase the number and amount of awards, according to Lever for Change, the group managing the applications. ",BBC
Fed holds interest rates steady but signals cuts ahead,https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68619144,2024-03-20T18:12:55.000Z,"The US central bank has left its key interest rate unchanged again, while it looks for more evidence that inflation is coming under control.  The decision kept the target range for the Federal Reserve's influential rate in the range of 5.25%-5.5%, the highest in more than two decades. The Fed is debating whether higher borrowing costs have done enough to ease the pressures pushing up prices. Officials said they still expected to cut rates by the end of the year. But after raising borrowing costs aggressively in response to soaring prices in 2022, the bank is proceeding cautiously.  ""We want to be careful and fortunately with the economy growing, the labour market strong and inflation coming down, we can"" be, Fed chairman Jerome Powell said at a press conference after the Fed's meeting.  The Fed's move comes a day before the Bank of England will announce its own interest rate decision. It is also expected to hold UK interest rates where they are, at 5.25%, a 15-year high.  Higher interest rates in theory work to cool inflation by make borrowing more expensive, slowing the economy and easing the pressures pushing up prices. But if left in place for too long, they risk triggering a harsh economic slowdown. The moves in the US are being closely watched, as countries around the world face similar trade-offs. For now, the world's largest economy has held up surprisingly well, despite the higher interest rates. Forecasts released after the meeting showed that officials expect the economy to grow 2.1% this year, a significantly more rosy outlook than the 1.4% they projected in December. The forecasts also showed officials expect inflation to fall to 2.4% by the end of the year, approaching the 2% rate the bank wants to see.   Mr Powell said officials were not overly concerned by some recent data, which has suggested that progress might be stalling.  The inflation rate was 3.2% in the US last month and 3.1% in January. ""We're not going to overreact to these two months of data, nor are we going to ignore them,"" he said.  The forecasts showed higher rates next year than officials had previously forecast. But overall the outlook suggested that the bank's confidence that it can rein in inflation without knocking the economy off course is growing.  Charles Mangin, head of foreign exchange at UK-based Crown Agents Bank, which specialises in emerging markets, said the growth in the US was ""quite impressive"". But he warned that if strong growth leads the US to keep interest rates higher for longer than expected, it could lead to economic pain in other countries. Emerging markets have seen foreign investment slow sharply, as investors shift money to more established economies like the US in response to higher rates. Central banks in countries such as Egypt and Nigeria have already raised their own interest rates aggressively to try to compete, a path others may have to follow if they hope to bring investors back, he said.  But those moves - which sent rates to more than 20% in Egypt and Nigeria- will not come without local costs, he warned. ""The premium [to which] these guys will have to push their rates ... will put stress on the economies,"" he said. ""If now we're in the scenario where the US are going to keep rates higher for longer, it's going to be a challenge for quite a few of the emerging markets countries."" ",BBC
Trump poised for billions as stock market deal passes,https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68609007,2024-03-22T02:51:02.000Z,"Donald Trump appears to be scrambling for funds to pay a $464m (�365m) fraud fine. Could the stock market ride to his rescue?  Trump Media, which runs the social media platform Truth Social, is poised to become a publicly listed company, after a majority of shareholders of Digital World Acquisition Corp voted on Friday to acquire it.  Mr Trump is due to have a stake of at least 58% in the merged company, worth nearly $3bn at Digital World's current share prices.  It's an astonishing potential windfall for Mr Trump in exchange for a business whose own auditor warned last year it was at risk of failure.   Never mind the many red flags associated with the deal, including unresolved lawsuits from former business partners. There's also an $18m settlement that Digital World agreed to pay last year to resolve fraud charges over how the merger plan came together.  Shares in Digital World dropped more than 13% on Friday after the approval, ending the day at $36.94. Backers of Digital World - the vast majority of whom are individual investors instead of Wall Street firms, many apparently Trump loyalists - seemed unfazed.  ""This is just the start,"" Chad Nedohin, a deal supporter, said on his show DWAC Live on the video platform Rumble after the approval was announced.  ""There's no reason to freak out."" Digital World, or DWAC (pronounced D-whack), is what is known as a SPAC, or a shell business created expressly to buy another firm and take it public. The company will now be renamed Trump Media & Technology Group and could start trading on the Nasdaq stock exchange under the ticker DJT as soon as next week. The deal is unlikely to immediately resolve Mr Trump's most pressing financial issues, such as his New York fraud penalty.  The former president is barred from selling or transferring his shares for at least six months - though the new company could grant him an exemption.  Mr Trump could also try to get a loan, backed by the value of the shares. But in this case, analysts said a bank would probably lend him significantly less than the shares are worth on paper, given the potential risks of the business. That hasn't stopped some of his supporters hoping their backing will help.  Mr Nedohin, who describes himself on his website as a Canadian ""worship leader"" and goes by Captain DWAC on Truth Social, declined to be interviewed.  But on his show this week he urged investors to approve the deal, speculating it could help the former president in his legal battles.  ""If the merger is complete Friday at 10am and Trump all of a sudden has... shares of DJT that's worth three, four, five $10bn, who knows? He could easily leverage that to get a loan,"" he said.  He added: ""This is putting your money where your mouth is for free speech, to save your country, potentially losing it all."" The risk that Digital World shareholders will lose money on their investment is significant, according to analysts. Share prices are down from the highs they reached after plans to purchase Trump Media were announced in 2021.  But even after Friday's slide, they still imply Trump Media has a value of almost $5bn, which is a lot given it brought in just $3.3m in revenue in the first nine months of last year and lost nearly $50m.  The merger will provide an influx of more than $200m in cash to Trump Media, which it could use for growth and expansion. But for now Truth Social, which launched to the general public in 2022, branding itself as an alternative to major social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook, remains small.  It claims about 8.9 million sign-ups and in regulatory filings Trump Media warns prospective investors that it does not track metrics like user growth or engagement that could give them a sense of its operations. And it says it has little intention of doing so.  Outside firms estimate Truth Social received about five million visits in February. By comparison, Elon Musk's X, formerly Twitter, and recently valued by one investor at about $14bn, received more than 100 million visits.   Analysts said Digital World was a prime example of a ""meme stock"", in which the share price is divorced from a company's fundamentals - and near-destined to fall, eventually. ""With Trump Media, I expect that it will collapse but whether it's going to occur a week from now or two years from now and how rapidly... those things are really difficult to predict,"" said University of Florida finance professor Jay Ritter, who tracks public listings.  Marco Iachini, senior vice-president of research at Vanda Securities, said individual investors piled into Digital World stock after the Trump deal was announced, and again in January, after he won the Iowa primary.  Ahead of the vote this week, he said there had been less activity, a sign that professional firms might be the ones driving the trading.  Whatever is motivating buyers, Mr Trump, whose main contributions to Trump Media have been his name and posts on the platform, appears poised to be the top beneficiary.  ""It's an enormous transfer of value from [investors]... to Trump, which stands to be extremely lucrative for him,"" says Michael Ohlrogge, a law professor at New York University who has studied listings of companies such as Trump Media.   ",BBC
Judge rules computer scientist not Bitcoin inventor,https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-68567320,2024-03-14T14:23:10.000Z,"The judge overseeing a legal battle about who invented Bitcoin has ruled that it is not Australian computer scientist Craig Wright. The question had been examined in a five week trial at the High Court. The judge, Mr Justice Mellor, made his ruling as soon as the proceedings had concluded. He had been expected to retire to consider the case but said he was able to reach a decision so quickly because the ""evidence was overwhelming"". Bitcoin is the world's best known cryptocurrency - and has recently captured the headlines after surging to a new record high valuation. But the identity of the person or people who invented it has always been unknown, other than they go by the name of Satoshi Nakamoto. Dr Wright, who is from Australia, has claimed to be Satoshi since 2016 - but his claims and evidence to back them up have long been questioned by cryptocurrency experts. He has been in and out of court for years in legal battles with individuals who challenged his story. This case, heard at the Intellectual Property Court, a division of London's High Court, was brought by a group of Bitcoin companies. The Crypto Open Patent Alliance (COPA) - whose members include Twitter founder Jack Dorsey's payments firm, Block - accused Dr Wright of creating a chilling effect on the development of the cryptocurrency because of his aggressive legal cases. During the hearing, COPA's legal team said Dr Wright had carried out a ""a massive campaign of dishonesty and forgery"". It even accused him of forging fresh documents while the proceedings were ongoing. COPA's lawyer, Jonathan Hough, said elements of Dr Wight's conduct ""stray into farce"" - but he told the court it also had ""deadly serious"" consequences. ""On the basis of his dishonest claim to be Satoshi, he has pursued claims he puts at hundreds of billions of dollars, including against numerous private individuals,"" he told the trial. Throughout the trial Dr Wright's legal team argued that if he was not the inventor then the real Satoshi Nakamoto would have come forward to discredit him. Mr Justice Mellor agreed that Dr Wright was not who he said he was. ""Dr Wright is not the person who adopted or operated under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto"", he told the court. ""Dr Wright is not the person who created the Bitcoin system."" He said he would give a full written judgement in due course. ",BBC
Gucci sales to fall by 20% due to Asia slowdown,https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68613144,2024-03-20T04:42:43.000Z,"Sales at Gucci are expected to fall by 20% in the first quarter due to a slowdown in Asia, according to its Paris-based owner Kering. The warning contrasts with rivals LVMH and Herm�s whose sales have remained resilient. The luxury market has grown in the past decade but sales have not been as impressive in recent years. Gucci is estimated to get more than a third of its sales from China, whose economy has been struggling. Kering said in a statement that the profit warning ""reflects a steeper sales drop at Gucci, notably in the Asia-Pacific region"". The firm is scheduled to report its financial results on 23 April. Gucci accounted for two-thirds of group operating income last year. Kering's other brands include Yves Saint Laurent, Balenciaga and Bottega Veneta. Last month, Kering reported that its net profit last year fell by 17%. Its shares have fallen by more than 23% over the past year. In comparison, its bigger rival LVMH, which owns Louis Vuitton, Mo�t & Chandon and Hennessy, posted higher-than-expected sales for 2023. Hermes also celebrated its record annual sales last year with plans to reward all employees worldwide with a bonus. While their results showed resilience in the luxury market, Gucci is known to target younger, aspirational shoppers who are more vulnerable to economic pressures. Last year, Kering changed Gucci's top management by appointing Jean-Fran�ois Palus as its chief executive officer and Sabato De Sarno as its creative director. The first items of his Ancora collection were made available in mid-February. The collection has been met with a ""highly favourable reception,"" Kering's statement said. ",BBC
UK interest rates: Bank boss says cuts 'on the way',https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68618436,2024-03-21T00:06:15.000Z,"The Bank of England boss has said ""we are on the way"" to interest rate cuts after they were left unchanged at 5.25%, their highest for 16 years. The Bank still needed to see inflation fall further, but last month's drop to 3.4% was ""very encouraging and good news,"" governor Andrew Bailey said. But he said rate cuts could come before inflation hits its 2% target. It leaves open the option that the Bank could cut interest rates as early as May, sooner than had been expected. Mr Bailey sounded far more optimistic on rate cuts than the official statement accompanying the Bank's decision to leave the cost of borrowing unchanged for the fifth time in a row. Most economists had predicted interest rates would start to drop in the summer, especially after inflation fell to its lowest level in two and a half years in February. ""We don't have to actually get inflation all the way back to target� to cut rates for instance, what we have to do is be convinced that it is going there,"" Mr Bailey told the BBC's economics editor Faisal Islam who was interviewing him on behalf of UK broadcasters.  ""We should act ahead of time in that sense because we have to be forward looking."" He said it was ""reasonable"" that financial markets were pricing in two or three rate cuts this year, but warned he would not ""endorse"" that view. ""That's not a prediction from me as to what's going to happen, either on timing or amount, but I am encouraged,"" he added.  ""We do need to see further progress, but I do want to give this message very strongly we have had very encouraging and good news, so I think you know we can say - we are on the way."" The Bank has kept interest rates high in a bid to slow the pace at which consumer prices have been rising. But eight of the nine Bank rate setters voted to leave rates unchanged in March, with only one voting in favour of a cut. Thursday marked the first time since September 2021 that no one on the Bank's committee which decides rates voted for an increase. The Bank said it expected inflation to fall slightly below 2% by the summer, but warned that the conflict in the Middle East and disruption to one of the world's busiest shipping lanes in the Red Sea posed ""material risks"" to prices surging again. It added its contacts had said the Red Sea situation had delayed shipments by two to three weeks from Asia to Europe and that container costs had risen. ""The goods that are impacted are typically bulky items and components, electrical, clothing and DIY,"" it said. The Bank's base rate informs the rates set by High Street banks and lenders. The higher level has meant people are paying more to borrow money for things such as mortgages and credit cards, but savers have also received better returns. While it is independent from the government, the institution is charged with keeping price growth at, or close to, a target of 2%. It either raises, holds or lowers rates to try to achieve that. The theory behind increasing rates to tackle inflation is that by making borrowing more expensive, more people will cut back on spending and that leads to demand for goods falling and price rises easing. But it is a balancing act as high interest rates can harm the economy as businesses hold off on investing in production and jobs. Following the interest rate increases in 2022, Dharmesh Patadia, a homeowner in Hitchin, has had to deal with a substantial increase in his variable rate mortgage payments. He is now paying more than three times what he was before the rate rises, an increase of hundreds of pounds. Mr Patadia says he's looking to fix his mortgage rate early once rates begin to fall, despite knowing that rates are likely to drop further and he could potentially get a better deal if he waited, saying that the security of set monthly outgoings is the most important thing for him. ""I just want to have comfort and knowledge that I have a fixed cost and it's done."" The UK fell into economic recession at the end of last year when the economy shrank for two consecutive three-month periods, but in their report on Thursday, policymakers suggested the downturn might already be over.  Mr Bailey said there were reasons to believe the UK was ""now seeing an end"" to the recession. The Bank said supermarkets had reported growing volumes of sales, consumers were seeking fewer bargains, and seemed ""a little more willing to treat themselves, suggesting confidence is improving"". The government's policies in the Spring Budget were likely to grow the economy by a 0.25% over the ""coming years"", its report added. Following Mr Bailey's comments on rate cuts, the UK's top stock market index soared to its highest level in nearly 11 months. The FTSE 100 jumped by about 2% on Thursday afternoon, its best performance in about six months. The health of the UK economy is in the spotlight with the general election set to be called in the coming months and both major political parties pledging to boost growth. On Wednesday, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak told the BBC that 2024 would ""prove to be the year that the economy bounces back"". 1. Make overpayments. If you still have some time on a low fixed-rate deal, you might be able to pay more now to save later. 2. Move to an interest-only mortgage. It can keep your monthly payments affordable although you won't be paying off the debt accrued when purchasing your house.  3. Extend the life of your mortgage. The typical mortgage term is 25 years, but 30 and even 40-year terms are now available. Read more here ",BBC
Wetherspoon profits jump as Covid recovery continues,https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68636250,2024-03-22T12:20:39.000Z,"Pub chain Wetherspoon has reported an eightfold jump in profits, saying its recovery from the Covid pandemic is continuing.    Pre-tax profits leapt from �4.6m to �36m in the first six months of the financial year, as more people visited the group's pubs.  Wetherspoon's boss said overall sales had continued to increase despite a reduction in the number of pubs. Bar sales saw the biggest increase, up 12% over the year.   The biggest sellers for the chain, which has 814 pubs, were coffee and Pepsi. Foods sales and slot machine sales also rose.  Sales were continuing to improve into the new financial year, but at a slower rate. Shares in the company dropped 6% as a result.  Wetherspoon founder Tim Martin told BBC Radio 4's Today programme the latest financial results were ""good"" albeit not ""sensational"". He described the recovery from the pandemic as a ""slow three-year slog"". As a result, Wetherspoon's profit margins for the six months stood at 6.8%, still below the company's pre-pandemic margins of 7.1%. Derren Nathan, head of equity research at Hargreaves Lansdown, said the results told a story of ""an impressive recovery"". But he said the profits growth was in comparison with a low base. ""Margins are still pretty thin and there was little in the statement to help see where an improvement might come from,"" he said. Wetherspoon has cut its number of pubs from 955 a few years ago, since when sales per pub have increased by about 50%. It said there was the potential in the UK for about 1,000 outlets. Mr Martin also highlighted the fact that the tax burden on pubs and restaurants is much higher in the UK than it is on supermarkets. He called for tax equality to revitalise High Streets and town centres, pointing towards other European countries where the VAT rate on restaurant and food sales is far lower, typically at 5-10%.  Mr Martin called for a similar approach in the UK, advocating for a VAT rate ""less draconian"" than the current 20%. ",BBC
Sick people leaving workforce at record highs,https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68639144,2024-03-23T02:54:36.000Z,"The number of people leaving the workforce due to long term sickness is at its highest since the 1990s, a report suggests. Adults economically inactive due to ill-health rose from 2.1m in July 2019 to a peak of 2.8m in October 2023, said the Resolution Foundation. It is the ""longest sustained rise"" since 1994-1998, when records began. The government said its recent Budget measures are estimated to boost the labour force by 300,000 workers.  The Foundation's report comes after the ONS said more than a fifth of UK adults were not looking for work. People at either end of the age spectrum had the highest proportion of those out-of-work due to ongoing illness, the Foundation's report said. ""Younger and older people together account for nine-tenths of the rise in overall economic inactivity, which could have serious effects both on individual's living standards and career paths,"" said Louise Murphy, senior economist at the Foundation. The rise in long-term sickness leaves the UK as the only G7 economy not to have returned to its pre-pandemic employment rate, according to the Foundation. However, it did add that inactivity figures fell slightly to 2.7 million in December 2023. It said the upward trend in long-term sickness actually started before the pandemic in the summer of 2019, and has lasted for 54 months. The longest previous period of increasing economic inactivity due to ill-health was for 55 months, between 1994 and 1998, it added. As well as looking at ONS figures, the Foundation pointed to Department of Work and Pension (DWP) figures showing claims for disability benefits. It said the rise in claims for PIP, the non-means tested benefit for those with health issues, were ""most striking"", with claims rising 68% from 2020 to 2024.  In the 16-17 age range, new PIP claims had increased by 138%. The Foundation said it would lead to ""wider strains on the NHS and welfare spending if we fail to improve the nation's health and reduce economic inactivity"". It also examined the DWP's data on medical conditions recorded on Work Capability Assessments and highlighted the fact that many benefit claimants cited mental health problems and musculoskeletal problems. It said 69% claimed for mental health disorders, and 48% had problems with connective or musculoskeletal pain. A spokesperson for the DWP said: ""Our plan for the economy is working. Inflation [the rate at which prices rise] is down to 3.4%, employment is up, the number of people on payrolls is at a record high, and inactivity is falling.  ""We've reduced the number of workless households by one million since 2010. Our �2.5 billion Back to Work plan will help break down barriers to work for over a million more people and our recent Budget measures are estimated to boost the labour force by an extra 300,000 workers."" In order to deal with long-term economic inactivity, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt said in November that reforms including stricter fit-to-work tests and jobseeker support would get 200,000 more people into work. Under those plans, the government also wants to scrap the controversial Work Capability Assessment. ""We will reform the work capability assessment to reflect greater flexibility and availability of home working after the pandemic,"" Mr Hunt said in November. ""And we will spend �1.3bn over the next five years to help nearly 700,000 people with health conditions find jobs."" The Foundation's latest report comes after it said in February that people in their early 20s are more likely to be not working due to ill health than those in their early 40s. Responding to the report, Shazia Ejaz at the Recruitment and Employment Federation (REC), which represents the recruitment industry, said long NHS waiting lists ""are a big factor for why not enough people are well enough to work"". She added: ""Better infrastructure around transport, childcare and social care will all help tackle the inactivity challenge the UK faces"".  ",BBC
Your personal data all over the web - is there a better way?,https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68286395,2024-03-08T00:08:42.000Z,"""From the beginning, I always meant for the web to be a platform for creativity and collaboration,"" says Sir Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the world wide web. ""The first decade of the web lived up to that promise, but that's not what we've seen in the last 20 years or so."" Sir Tim says a particular problem is the way personal data is handled. When you log in and store data in a website, it can only be used within that website.  But an open source software project, called Solid, is designed to reverse that situation. The idea of Solid is that people have a private data store, and they get to choose which organisations can access it, for what purpose, and for how long.  Called a Personal Online Data Store, or Pod, it gives users control over their data, and the freedom to combine it or share it between applications. Sir Tim is co-founder of Inrupt, a company that provides Solid-based technologies. He says using the technology would mean that data storage would be ""centred around people, instead of around apps"".  Other companies providing Solid-based solutions include Graphmetrix and Digita. In Flanders, Belgium, Athumi is working on several projects using Solid.  The company was set up by the Flemish government to help re-launch the economy after the Covid-19 emergency. The company acts as a neutral intermediary, connecting businesses in different sectors and enabling them to access sensitive company and citizen data.  Athumi's first Solid project launched last year in collaboration with recruitment company Randstad, prior to a rollout with other recruitment firms. During 2024, Athumi plans to scale this application to 30,000 users.  The application solves a common problem for job applicants in Belgium. They often have to submit copies of their diplomas, typically as photocopies by mail. Sometimes people struggle to find their certificates and getting replacements causes delay and costs money. ""We made the process very easy,"" says Bj�rn De Vidts, chief executive of Athumi.  ""The first step is to activate your pod. That is legally required because we cannot deliver services for a person who hasn't given us the authority to activate their pod. The second step is that you give permission to load your diploma into the pod. The third step is giving access to Randstad for a certain period of time to use the diploma in your pod for the specific job application."" Citizens access and manage their pods through a web browser. For some roles, the recruiter needs to verify that the claimed qualification is genuine.  This can be time-consuming when dealing with paperwork. In the Solid application, the diploma has a token that guarantees the data is authentic and hasn't been changed. More technology of business The tech is also being piloted in healthcare.  Starting this year, five Belgian hospitals will store information about hospital visits in patients' Solid pods. The idea is that it will make it easier for patients to share their medical data. For example, they could share proof of a recent medical examination when applying for a job, so they don't need to have another one. Athumi is also working with several media companies to create shared user profiles that span streaming services, so viewers can get better personalised services. The pods store data in standard formats, so that it can be reused in multiple contexts. ""What I call the real fun stuff of the data economy is when we will be able to combine these different data elements,"" says Mr De Vidts. ""That will generate use cases that we cannot even predict today. When you have enough interesting data points, application builders will, we believe, come to the pod to build new applications.""  Research commissioned by the Flemish government indicates that citizens would be willing to use the pods if they save time or money, or they help them to improve their health. The Flemish pods are hosted using Enterprise Solid Server, provided by Inrupt. John Bruce, Inrupt's co-founder and CEO, says you could have multiple pods hosted for you by companies such as internet service providers or travel firms you use frequently. All the pods can be accessed through one login. Pods could potentially make life harder for hackers.  Even though pods may share a server, each one has its own access controls, set by the user. By contrast, a company database has one set of access controls that grants access to all customer records. ""Today you exist in big databases,"" says Mr Bruce. ""Your credit card is in there with 10 million others. ""That database is a high value target. [Hackers] will put months of work in to get that database. When the data value exists only in your pod, it is like the difference in the kind of attack one would get on a bank versus you getting mugged on the street. You're not going to get a team of people following you around for three months to nick your wallet,"" he says. Amanda Finch, CEO of The Chartered Institute of Information Security, says Athumi's plan to create a centralised data platform will have benefits. As well as easing the flow of data through the economy it could boost security.  ""From a security standpoint, it should help to create a safer environment. With fewer platforms to secure, and responsibility lying with one, overarching party, you'd expect fewer vulnerabilities compared to multiple different solutions."" She adds a note of caution, though, as the new architecture means citizens take responsibility for more sensitive data than they might previously have held. ""Putting security into the hands of users and citizens is a risk when you consider how many breaches have a human element,"" she says. ""If someone is duped into sharing their pod with a fraudster, then that's it - they've potentially lost everything. Users need to make their own conscious decisions on whether they share data. But this can only happen if citizens are educated on how they can reduce risk by instilling security best practices such as strong passwords or multi-factor authentication."" Would all those companies used to hoarding data give it up easily? ""Companies don't want it,"" says Mr Bruce. ""If they could live in a world where they don't have to be responsible for your data, but they can have access to it, they'd take that in a heartbeat."" Back at Athumi, Mr De Vidts thinks Solid could be the start of a data revolution.  ""I've been working 25 years in B2B data collaboration, and this is the first time I've seen a data sharing technology that has this kind of potential to disrupt existing business models,"" he says. ""A citizen can decide what data goes to which consuming application. The data subject becomes the data controller."" ",BBC
Can Sweden keep its edge in the music industry?,https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68499740,2024-03-15T00:17:40.000Z,"From Abba to Spotify, Avicii to Soundcloud, Stockholm has spawned both some of the world's most successful musicians and music tech companies. Sweden has won the Eurovision Song Contest a record seven times, a gong it holds jointly with Ireland - and Malm� will host this year's competition. That legacy is evident moments after stepping off the underground at Stockholm's central station. Sergels torg, the capital's main square paved in black and white triangles, is home to the Avicii Experience, an interactive museum celebrating the late Tim Bergling. He grew up here and became one of the world's bestselling DJs under his artist name Avicii. On the fifteenth floor sits Per Sundin, chief executive of Pophouse Entertainment which runs the museum. The company is focussed on creating the ""next generation"" of high-tech entertainment experiences, with a portfolio that also includes the Abba Voyage stage show in London, performed by avatar versions of Sweden's biggest supergroup. It is developing plans for a new show in 2027 involving digital versions of the US rock band Kiss, after testing the technology at the band's final real-life gig last year. ""What's the similarity between Kiss and Abba?,"" asks Mr Sundin rhetorically from his private office with floor-to-ceiling windows. ""They really have super fans, both artists, and they have a wide catalogue, and they have global presence all over the world."" Despite selling more than two million tickets for Abba Voyage since May 2022, he says Pophouse Entertainment still hasn't broken even on its investments, which include the technology (created in collaboration with US filmmaker George Lucas's visual effects company Industrial Light and Magic), and the event's bespoke east London arena. But Mr Sundin - a former Universal Music executive - says he has faith in the concept, and hopes it can be adapted for a handful of other big-name legacy artists in future.  ""This is for those who can't tour anymore, can't really make themselves as good [as they were]... or [want to] do different kinds of things with their music legacy,"" says Mr Sundin.  Pophouse's innovations follow a string of other music tech success stories emerging from Stockholm, a capital with a population of just one million. Daniel Ek's Spotify launched here in 2008, while Soundcloud was founded a year earlier by two students from Stockholm School of Economics, Alex Ljung and Eric Wahlforss, who later relocated the business to Berlin. Other companies who've made a global impact include Soundtrack Your Brand, which provides a subscription service enabling businesses to play commercial music without licensing issues, and Epidemic Sound, a platform for rights-free music for content creators, recently valued at 12.5bn kronor (�950m; $1.2bn), according to Swedish business news site Dagens Industri.  ""We all know there must be something in the water,"" laughs Sarah Herlin, co-founder of Stockholm Music City, an organisation that encourages collaboration between the capital's music and tech sectors, and provides support to start-ups. On a more serious note, she argues that there are several key ingredients in Stockholm's recipe for music tech success. These include Sweden's historically strong music scene, with artists like Roxette, The Cardigans and legendary pop producer/songwriter Max Martin cementing the reputation set by Abba, and giving credibility to Swedish tech companies with a music-related focus. Plus, the country has long had a tech-savvy population, with many of today's entrepreneurs growing up in the 1990s when there were tax cuts on home hardware in Sweden, followed by an early adoption of broadband. The business culture in Sweden, which tends to promote collaboration over competition has also created a supportive ecosystem, argues Herlin. ""If you realise someone else is doing the same thing, you contact each other and see how can we do this together,"" she says. ""That often means that they all succeed instead of nobody succeeding."" More technology of business One recent example is Elk, a company that provides a remote, collaborative recording platform for artists, which was founded after two local businesses figured out they were developing similar software tools. Ms Herlin has just finished a meeting at The Node, a physical recording studio hub which opened last year on the same square as the Avicii museum, and includes some of the late DJ's equipment. ""Where you have producers, you will have music tech start-ups, and you will have investors coming to check it out,"" she says. Late on a Monday afternoon the neon-pink lit cafe area is largely empty, save for several nonchalant staff. But Ms Herlin says the space is creating a global buzz. ""We've noticed already people pop up here from New York and from London to check it out."" Seedtable, a platform that tracks the fastest growing companies in Europe lists 69 music and and audio start-ups to watch and work for in 2024, with 13 of them based in Stockholm, more than any other city in relation to population size. A few blocks away from The Node, one of them, Snafu Records, is based at a shared office space with a parquet floor and a cocktail bar. Described by its co-founder and chief executive Ankit Desai as ""the first AI enabled music label in the world"", the start-up has developed an algorithm which trawls the internet to pinpoint new artists it believes can make an impact. ""We try to find those diamonds in the rough� those undervalued artists and give them a platform to shine,"" says Mr Desai.  Since launching in 2019, the company has signed more than 150 artists. Snafu Records takes a 50% cut of all its artists earnings, although Desai says most traditional labels take up to 80%. The start-up's investors include Agnetha F�ltskog (Agnetha from Abba), Finnish gaming entrepreneur Mikko Kodisoja, and Pophouse Entertainment, and it raised $7m (�5.5m) in its second funding round in late 2023. But Mr Desai admits that raising capital was ""a lot harder"" than when the label first launched in 2019, and the company is yet to turn a profit.  Emil Widhagen, a journalist for Swedish tech and start-up news site Breakit, argues many of Stockholm's music tech start-ups are facing similar challenges to Snafu Records, as a result of global economic jitters. ""People tend to move towards more safe investments in more difficult times, and music tech companies in general aren't producing profits, not even Spotify."" Indeed, Spotify - the world's biggest subscription audio streaming site - reported a loss of around �75m (�64m; $82m) in the final quarter of 2023, despite cutting around 1,500 jobs. But the company still saw a 4% increase in subscribers despite putting its prices up. Some music tech entrepreneurs argue the speed at which AI tools are growing globally is also putting pressure on Stockholm's well-oiled music tech ecosystem. ""One of the biggest challenges is to keep up with everything,"" says Emelie Olsson, chief operating officer and co-founder at Corite, a music tech start-up which uses crowdfunding to help artists gain financial backing from fans (and rewards fans if artists score a hit). ""It's really a race, I would say, with a lot of companies doing a lot of cool things at the same time."" Corite has also struggled to turn a profit, and is pinning its hopes on a new tool for artists and other content creators which is launching later this year.  ""We are about to raise money again and we are definitely humble,"" says Ms Olsson. ""I think, companies have a bit more to prove a bit earlier than they had before."" ",BBC
"Triple lock for pensions to be in Tory manifesto, Jeremy Hunt says",https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68649894,2024-03-24T10:09:26.000Z,"Jeremy Hunt has said the Conservatives will keep the triple lock system to decide rises in the state pension if they win the election. The chancellor confirmed the policy pledge, which means the increase in the state pension is the highest of average earnings growth, inflation or 2.5%. He told Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg he was confident the ""expensive"" promise would be paid by growing the economy. Labour said it was ""committed to retaining"" the triple lock. However the party is yet to confirm if the pledge will feature in its election manifesto. ""We will set out those plans for our manifesto in detail,"" Labour party chair Anneliese Dodds told the BBC programme.  The state pension is to rise by 8.5% in April. Mr Hunt confirmed the current triple lock system to decide how much the payments rise each year would ""absolutely"" remain if the Conservatives win the general election, which must be held by 28 January 2025, for the whole of the next parliament. ""When we came to office in 2010, pensioners were more likely to be in poverty than other income groups, now because of the triple lock that we introduced they are less likely to be in poverty,"" he told the BBC. ""I think that is a very important social change because unlike adults of working age, pensioners can't work, they have retired and so we need to respect that."" Mr Hunt said he realised continuing the policy would be an ""expensive commitment"", but added: ""You can only make that commitment if you're confident that you're going to deliver the economic growth that is going to pay for it."" In response to Mr Hunt's confirmation, Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesperson Sarah Olney said the pledge was a ""shameless election trick by the Conservatives"" and claimed Mr Hunt was ""yet again taking pensioners for granted"". Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer declined to say if the triple lock would be in his party's manifesto when asked by The Sun newspaper last week. ""We will have to see what the state of the economy is as we go into the election. We will publish all of our plans as we go in and answer that question, but I believe in the triple lock."" The state pension is a payment made every four weeks by the government to people who have reached the qualifying age and have paid enough National Insurance contributions. More than 12 million people in the UK receive it. Currently, the pension is worth �203.85 a week for the full, new flat-rate (for those who reached state pension age after April 2016), and �156.20 a week for the full, old basic state pension (for those who reached state pension age before April 2016). In April, the two payments will rise to �221.20 and �169.50 per week respectively, taking the annual totals to �11,502 and �8,814. Next month's increase is set to be the second significant rise in the state pension in two years, after a 10.1% increase in April 2023. The triple lock is designed to ensure pensioners, especially if they rely solely on the state pension, are able to afford rising prices, or keep pace with the increases in the working population's wages. It was introduced by the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government in 2010, but there has been debate over whether it can continue in the long-term future due to its costs. The state pension cost �110.5bn in 2022-2023, just under half the total amount the government spends on benefits, and the government's official forecaster, the Office for Budget Responsibility, estimated the level would grow to �124bn in 2023-2024. Paul Johnson, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies economic think tank, told the BBC he was not surprised by Mr Hunt's pledge to keep the policy in place due to pensioners being an important voting demographic to the Conservative party.   But he warned: ""It can't go on forever and they need to give an indication to when they want it to stop."" The rate of price rises in the UK - inflation - has been high in recent years, putting pensioners, as well as working families under financial pressure.  Inflation has fallen sharply from a 40-year high and figures last week showed the rate was 3.4% in February - the lowest level in almost two-and-a-half years. But interest rates are still at a 16-year high after being raised by the Bank of England in recent times to try to slow the pace of consumer prices rising. It has made borrowing money on things such as credit cards and mortgages much more expensive for households, but has boosted returns for savers. Mr Hunt said the UK was ""not there yet"" when asked whether the cost-of-living crisis had ended, but added that a fall in interest rates would ""make the biggest difference for families up and down the country"". The Bank of England, which sets rates independently from the government, has held rates at 5.25% five times in a row, but signalled last week cuts are to be made this year, possibly as soon as May. ",BBC
Shohei Ohtani's interpreter fired after reports of theft,https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68622772,2024-03-21T04:23:43.000Z,"Baseball sensation Shohei Ohtani's long-time interpreter, Ippei Mizuhara, has been fired by the Los Angeles Dodgers after allegations of theft connected to illegal gambling. According to ESPN, at least $4.5m (�3.5m) was transferred from Ohtani's bank account to a bookmaker. Ohtani is not accused of wrongdoing. Mr Mizuhara spoke to the sports network about his gambling debts on Tuesday. The news comes as Ohtani made his regular season debut with the Dodgers. The team's senior communications director has told the BBC that they are gathering information and that they ""can confirm that interpreter Ippei Mizuhara has been terminated"". ESPN has said it reviewed bank information showing Ohtani's name on two $500,000 payments, one sent in September and the other in October, to a bookmaking operation run by Mathew Bowyer. According to the Los Angeles Times, Mr Bowyer was investigated by a prosecution team targeting a multimillion-dollar illegal sports betting scheme but was not charged with a crime. Sports betting is legal in 38 states in America but it remains illegal in California.  Major League Baseball has its own policy that bans ""any player, umpire, or Club or League official or employee"" from betting on any baseball game and placing bets with illegal bookmakers. It is not known whether any of Mr Mizuhara's sports gambling involved baseball games. No one has alleged that Ohtani placed any bets.  Mr Mizuhara reportedly said in his interview with ESPN that he had asked the baseball star for help with his gambling debts. ""Obviously, [Ohtani] wasn't happy about it and said he would help me out to make sure I never do this again,"" Mr Mizuhara reportedly said. ""I want everyone to know Shohei had zero involvement in betting. I want people to know I did not know this was illegal. I learned my lesson the hard way. I will never do sports betting ever again."" A spokesman for Ohtani initially told ESPN that the former Los Angeles Angels star had transferred funds to cover his interpreter's gambling debts but he has since recanted this account.  Mr Mizuhara himself has reportedly changed his story, now saying that Ohtani did not know about the gambling debts and did not transfer the money. The LA Times has reported that Ohtani's attorneys have since accused his interpreter of ""massive theft"". ""In the course of responding to recent media inquiries, we discovered that Shohei has been the victim of a massive theft, and we are turning the matter over to the authorities,"" a statement to the newspaper from West Hollywood law firm Berk Brettler read.  The BBC has contacted the law firm for confirmation.  The news comes as Ohtani played in the Los Angeles Dodgers' season opener in Seoul. Mr Mizuhara had been with him this week in South Korea for the series against the San Diego Padres, which has drawn legions of fans.  Ahead of the second game in the series on Thursday, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts repeatedly declined to comment on the issues between Mr Mizuhara and Ohtani. He only said that his star player would take the field as normal. ""Shohei's ready - ready to go for tonight's game,"" he said.  Ohtani signed a record 10-year, $700m contract with the Dodgers before this season, becoming the face of the sports franchise. He had just won his second unanimous American League MVP award. His stint in the US started in 2018, and Mr Mizuhara has been a constant companion. He and his wife were recently seen in a picture that revealed Mr Ohtani's wife, Mamiko Tanaka, after weeks of speculation. Mr Mizuhara's ability to interpret Ohtani's comments into colloquial English has been widely praised in Japan. Additional reporting by Mattea Bubalo ",BBC
Reddit: Social media firm's shares jump in stock market debut,https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68610711,2024-03-21T01:01:32.000Z,"Social media site Reddit's shares have closed 48% higher on the company's first day of trading on the New York Stock Exchange. On Wednesday, Reddit revealed that it had priced its shares at $34 each, near the top of a marketed range. By the close of trade on Thursday its shares stood at $50.44, valuing the firm at more than $9bn (�7.1bn). It was one of the biggest ever initial public offerings (IPO) by a social media platform. It put 22 million of its shares up for sale and, in an unusual move, offered some of the shares to the platform's users, although it has not been disclosed how many took up the offer. Reddit was founded almost 20 years ago and has become one of the most popular websites in the world. It is an online forum where users can discuss topics that interest them. As of the end of December 2023 it had more than 73 million users, according to the company. But the filing brings to the forefront a question that has been bubbling for years behind the scenes - how can a business make money from what is, essentially, random conversations. People do not pay to use Reddit - the website is completely free for people to browse, post and comment. For 20 years it couldn't turn a profit, and some might ask why Reddit is worth billions if it has not ever made money. It has tried a few things, and a significant visual change in 2017 made the website more friendly to advertisers. But it seems Reddit's road to profitability has an end in sight, built around AI models. That is because companies like OpenAI, the developer of ChatGPT, will pay for data of those random conversations. Google is believed to have paid Reddit $60m for the right to scan almost two decades of discussions to make its AI more human-like - and Reddit has said it has agreed licensing deals worth more than $200m over the next two to three years. In February, Reddit said it lost $90.8m in 2023, so the money from artificial intelligence (AI) firms could make the platform profitable. But there are also plenty of concerns on Reddit's horizon too. For one thing, the social media platform is facing increased scrutiny from regulators.  The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is already looking into how Reddit licences its data for AI models - generally speaking, regulators don't like it when big technology firms sell data generated by users. While the platform may have seen that coming, it may have been blindsided by a challenge from mobile phone firm Nokia, which is accusing it of infringing on its patents.   ""We will evaluate their claims,"" Reddit said, adding that it's faced similar accusations in the past. Perhaps most significant of all is that Reddit's filing with the US financial markets regulator, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), notes its users as a potential risk that comes with owning shares in the company. ""If we fail to increase or retain our user base or if user engagement declines, our business... and prospects will be harmed,"" it said in the filing. ""If Redditors do not continue to contribute content or their contributions are not valuable or appealing to other Redditors, we may experience a decline in the number of Redditors accessing our products and services... which could result in the loss of advertisers."" Reddit's user base has been known to react with frustration to changes made on the platform. Such is their distaste for changes made in recent years, a search on the platform for chief executive Steve Huffman - username u/spez - shows that when Redditors mention him the comments are usually preceded by foul language. Despite growing discontent, threats to leave the platform - such as the blackout that rendered much of Reddit unusable in 2023 - have often proved short-lived. And although there have been efforts to create an alternative platform, one of Reddit's biggest pluses is something it does not have - a significant rival. While there may be concerns from Redditors, the social media platform seems to be on relatively safe ground when it ties its stock market value to its users, so long as there is nowhere else for them to go. ",BBC
Easter eggs costs rise as climate change hits crops,https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-68619912,2024-03-21T06:00:00.000Z,"You may have noticed that Easter eggs are more expensive this year. But did you know that climate change is one of the reasons? Most chocolate is made from cocoa grown in West Africa, but a humid heatwave has blasted the crops and massively cut yields. Experts say that human-induced climate change has made the extreme heat 10 times more likely. Which? found some popular eggs have risen in price by 50% or more. The shortage of cocoa resulting from the heatwave has seen prices soar to almost $8,500 (�6,700) a tonne this week. Cocoa trees are particularly vulnerable to changes in the climate. They only grow in a narrow band of about 20 degrees latitude around the Equator. Most global production is concentrated in West Africa. In 2023, 58m kilogrammes of cocoa beans worth �127m were imported to the UK from Ivory Coast and Ghana with 85% of the UK's cocoa beans sourced from Ivory Coast. However, severe drought conditions have hit the West Africa region since February this year. This has been caused by temperatures that soared above 40C, breaking records in countries including the Ivory Coast and Ghana. It was these exceptionally high temperatures that the World Weather Attribution group, based at Imperial College London, found were made 10 times more likely by human-caused greenhouse gas emissions. Their study found that unless the world quickly reduces fossil fuel use, West Africa will experience similar heatwaves about every two years. ""There were reports from farmers in Ivory Coast that the heat weakened the cocoa crop,"" according to one of the authors of the study, Izadine Pinto, from the University of Cape Town.   He said the high temperatures increased the rate of evaporation, leaving the crops without sufficient moisture. Another factor impacting the crops was El Ni�o. This is a recurring, natural fluctuation in weather patterns in the tropical Pacific that drives up global temperatures and can lead to extreme weather in some places. A strong El Ni�o has been active since last June. El Ni�o years often present challenges for farmers, but global warming is exacerbating those changes, says Ben Clarke, an expert on extreme weather at the Grantham Institute at Imperial College. ""Increasingly, climate change driven by fossil fuel use is multiplying this natural challenge in many regions. It fuels more extreme conditions, devastates harvests, and makes food costs higher for all,"" Mr Clarke said. Drought is not the only factor affecting cocoa growers. Both Ivory Coast and Ghana have been hit with an extreme weather double whammy. In December last year, both countries experienced intense rains. Total precipitation in West Africa was more than double the 30-year average for the time of year. The wet and humid conditions allowed a fungal infection called black pod disease to flourish, rotting cocoa beans on the trees. The result of these different extreme events has been the same - the price of cocoa has more than trebled since this time last year and doubled in just the last three months. Chocolate makers typically buy beans months ahead of time but soaring prices are now beginning to affect prices in the shops. ""Lots of players who have already announced price increases. We are also part of that group,"" Martin Hug, of chocolate maker Lindt & Spruengli told city analysts earlier this month.  In February, Mondelez, the company that owns the Cadbury brand, and the American chocolate maker Hershey were already warning rising cocoa prices could drive up the price of chocolate. Feeling the brunt of these price fluctuations are the farmers who grow the cocoa crops.   There are estimated to be some two million smallholder farmers in the West African cocoa belt who rely on this labour-intensive crop for most of their income. Amber Sawyer, an analyst at the climate think-tank the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit, said wealthy countries like the UK can provide financial and technical support to developing countries to help their farmers better cope with extreme weather. But she warned that, ""as climate change worsens, more support will undoubtedly be needed to protect their livelihoods and keep the flow of cocoa beans coming into the UK."" ",BBC
"Hull funeral home inquiry: 'I spent �2,700 on a fake funeral policy'",https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-humber-68636654,2024-03-22T15:26:00.000Z,"Buyers of funeral plans from a Hull funeral home already at the centre of a police inquiry said they have been told their policies are non-existent. Rita Goldspink and Kevin Newton paid about �2,500 each for plans bought from Legacy Independent Funeral Directors in 2018 and 2012 respectively. Each has been told separately that there is no trace of their policy on the third-party insurer's database. Legacy funeral home has been contacted for comment. Two people have been bailed in a police investigation of Legacy Independent Funeral Directors that began on 6 March, following a report of ""concern for care of the deceased"". Rachel Marshall, from Hull, said the pre-paid funeral plan for her mother, Rita Goldspink, 76, had cost �2,700 in April 2018, six months after Legacy had organised her father's funeral. After news emerged of the Humberside Police investigation, Ms Marshall said she contacted the insurer and discovered they could not find ""my mum's name on their database"". She said she was later told by the insurer that she should have received a welcome pack containing details of the plan shortly after purchase. ""My mum was absolutely devastated and I was in total shock,"" said Ms Marshall.  ""All that money is gone. ""I'm gutted and have started to realise through conversations [with others that] there are more of us with these fake policies."" Kevin Newton, 69, also from Hull, said he was ""mortified"" to learn that his pre-paid funeral plan, which had cost him �2,239, was similarly untraceable. He said when he bought the third-party policy in 2012, he had received written confirmation and a receipt from Legacy.  Shortly afterwards a pack had arrived in the post, which he had believed contained official documents about his policy. However, after his family raised concerns with him last week, Mr Newton said he had phoned the third-party insurer and was told there was no trace of the policy. His daughter Kerry, 35, said: ""It's absolutely shocking because it's a lot of money for my dad to fork out and it's not like he can [afford it] again. ""I know my dad's done it so me and my brother don't have to worry about him when the time comes. It's just devastating. ""It's unforgiveable."" Another woman from Hull, who wishes to remain anonymous, said she ""can't get [her] head round"" being told there was no record of her �2,500 pre-paid funeral plan, bought from Legacy in 2016. She said she had bought the plan after using the company to arrange the funerals of both her parents, who had died three weeks apart. She too had believed a pack she received was evidence of the third-party policy. But she discovered last week the policy did not exist, the woman said. ""Initially... all I was concerned about was my mum and dad. They're supposed to be buried together in the same grave. I hope they are but I just don't know now. I'm thinking: are they there?  ""But now - finding this policy is worthless - it's just a cherry on the icing, really. I'm completely shocked. ""I mean, I'm still more troubled about mum and dad at the moment. But I know I'll never get any answers on that."" The BBC has seen documents given to all three families who bought the plans from Legacy. It is unclear whether Legacy submitted the filled-in application forms to the insurer. In a statement, the third-party insurer, Ecclesiastical Planning Services, said: ""This is a deeply distressing incident for the families affected.  ""We are unable to comment on individual cases but we are working with families who contact us to establish if they have a plan with us."" All three families said they had ""lost trust"" in the financial sector, particularly in the funeral industry, and have called for tighter regulations. The woman said: ""I think anyone setting up a funeral business should have some sort of qualification or have been trained. And there has to be regular inspections."" Ms Marshall urged anyone who had bought a pre-paid funeral plan to ""check your policy"". ""More or less everything goes on trust,"" she said. Few details about the police investigation have been revealed but a quantity of ashes and 35 bodies were recovered from Legacy's Hessle Road premises and taken to another mortuary. The families involved have been contacted, Humberside Police have said. A 46-year-old man and a 23-year-old woman were arrested on suspicion of prevention of a lawful and decent burial, fraud by false representation and fraud by abuse of position. They have since been released on bail while police inquiries continue. The force said its dedicated helpline numbers remain open. Follow BBC East Yorkshire and Lincolnshire on Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), and Instagram. Send your story ideas to eastyorkslincs.news@bbc.co.uk Are you affected by the issues raised in this story? Share your experiences by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk Please include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways: If you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk Please include your name, age and location with any submission.  ",BBC
Neuralink: Musk's firm says first brain-chip patient plays online chess,https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68622781,2024-03-21T05:59:28.000Z,"Elon Musk's brain-chip company Neuralink has shown its first patient moving a cursor on a computer using an implanted device. In a nine-minute livestream on X, formerly Twitter, Noland Arbaugh uses the cursor to play chess online. Mr Arbaugh was paralysed below the shoulders after a diving accident and received the chip implant in January. The company's goal is to connect human brains to computers to help tackle complex neurological conditions. ""The surgery was super easy,"" Mr Arbaugh said during the presentation. Mr Arbaugh also said that he had used the brain implant to play the video game Civilization VI. Neuralink gave him ""the ability to do that again and played for eight hours straight"", he said. However, Mr Arbaugh said the new technology was not perfect and they ""have run into some issues"". Neuralink's device, which is about the size of a one pound coin, is inserted into the skull, with microscopic wires which can read neuron activity and beam back a wireless signal to a receiving unit. The company has also run trials in pigs and claimed that monkeys can play a basic version of the video game Pong. Neuralink was given permission to test the chip on humans by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in May 2023. Neuralink is one of a growing number of companies and university departments attempting to refine and ultimately commercialise this technology. For example, the �cole Polytechnique F�d�rale in Lausanne in Switzerland has successfully enabled Gert-Jan Oskam, who is paralysed, to walk just by thinking about the movements involved. That was achieved by putting electronic implants on Mr Oskam's brain and spine, which wirelessly communicate thoughts to his legs and feet. Details of the breakthrough were published in the peer-reviewed journal Nature last year. The human brain is home to around 86 billion neurons, nerve cells connected to one another by synapses.  Every time we want to move, feel or think, a tiny electrical impulse is generated and sent incredibly quickly from one neuron to another. Scientists have developed devices which can detect some of those signals - either using a non-invasive cap placed on the head or wires implanted into the brain itself. The technology - known as a brain-computer interface (BCI) - is where many millions of dollars of research funding appears to be heading at the moment. ",BBC
How Temu is shaking up the world of online shopping,https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68563339,2024-03-19T00:09:28.000Z,"A record 123 million Americans tuned into this year's Super Bowl.  But as well as getting the nation's biggest sporting event, a blockbuster halftime performance and several camera cutaways of Taylor Swift in the crowd, they also got six 30-second commercials for Temu - a Chinese-owned e-commerce company. The shopping giant has been criticised by politicians in the UK and US - a US government investigation finding an ""extremely high risk"" that products sold on Temu could have been made with forced labour. Temu says it ""strictly prohibits"" the use of forced, penal, or child labour by all its merchants. The company, which sells everything from clothes to electronics and furniture, first launched in the US in 2022 and later in the UK and the rest of the world. Since then, it has consistently topped global app download charts, with just under 152 million Americans using it every month, according to data gathered by analyst SimilarWeb. It's ""Amazon on steroids,"" says retail analyst Neil Saunders, and with the tagline ""shop like a billionaire"" it has exploded in popularity, shipping to around 50 countries worldwide. A typical 30-second Super Bowl commercial costs around $7m (�5.5m), during this year's event Temu had six of them.  ""It's a lot of money for a very, short commercial,"" Mr Saunders says.  ""But it is seen by an enormous number of people and we know that after that commercial Temu's downloads spiked,"" he adds.  SimilarWeb data suggests individual visitors to the platform worldwide were up by nearly a quarter on the day of the Super Bowl compared with the previous Sunday, with 8.2 million people browsing the website and app. In the same period, Amazon and Ebay's visitors were down by 5% and 2% respectively.  ""They've also spent a lot of money on micro-marketing, persuading influencers to push products and to suggest buying things on the platform via social channels like TikTok and YouTube,"" says Mr Saunders.  These influencers typically have fewer than 10,000 followers according to Ines Durand, an e-commerce expert at SimilarWeb. ""Micro-influencers have strong communities, so their endorsement means a strong trust towards these products,"" she explains. Temu is owned by Chinese giant PDD Holdings - ""a monster in Chinese e-commerce,"" according to Shaun Rein, founder of the China Market Research Group.  ""Throughout China, everyone buys products on Pinduoduo, from speakers to t-shirts or socks,"" he says.  More technology of business The company consistently trades places with rival Alibaba for the top spot of most valuable Chinese firm listed on a US stock exchange. Its current worth sits at just under $150bn (�117bn). With the Chinese consumer market under its spell, PDD Holdings expanded overseas with Temu, using the same model that had ensured its previous success. According to Mr Rein, who is based in Shanghai, the firm has become a great source of pride and patriotism. ""They're proud that Chinese companies can slay the e-commerce dragons from the United States like Amazon,"" he adds.  A quick scroll through the Temu app or website will bring up anything from steel-toecap trainers to a device designed to help the elderly and pregnant women put on socks. A menagerie of manufactured goods, almost entirely produced in factories in China, Mr Rein explains. ""Temu use an amazing, system that relies on, heavy data collection at scale,"" says Ines Durand. ""They collect data on consumer trends, the most searched and clicked products, which they give to individual manufacturers."" Ms Durand says that while Amazon sells this data to manufacturers at a premium, Temu gives it to producers free of charge - information they use to ""test the market"" with a relatively small number of products.  A third of parcels that came into the US last year under a shipping loophole known as the de minimis threshold were from Temu and competitor Shein, according to a report from US Congress. Many countries - including the UK and USA have a de minimis threshold, designed to help citizens to import goods. So as Temu's goods are shipped directly from the factory floors, cutting out the middlemen, they become essentially duty-free. More regulation may be on the horizon to close up shipping loopholes, however, according to Mickey Diaz, chief operating officer at global freight company Unique Logistics.  ""The UK has already started to look at Temu with some scrutiny, including the sale of weapons that are otherwise not allowed into the UK, which were being imported because of these loopholes,"" she explains. Temu has been criticised for its supply chains too, with UK and US politicians accusing the e-commerce giant of allowing goods produced with forced labour to be sold on its site.  Last year, Alicia Kearns MP, head of the foreign affairs select committee, told the BBC she wanted greater scrutiny of the online marketplace to make sure ""consumers are not inadvertently contributing to the Uyghur genocide"". Temu says it ""strictly prohibits"" the use of forced, penal, or child labour by all its merchants.  It told the BBC anyone doing business with it must ""comply with all regulatory standards and compliance requirements"". ""Temu's merchants, suppliers, and other third parties must pay their employees and contractors on time and comply with all applicable local wage and hours laws. ""Our current standards and practices are no different from other major e-commerce platforms trusted by consumers, and allegations in this regard are completely ungrounded,"" a spokesperson added.  Despite the controversy, analysts expect further expansion for Temu. ""We'll probably see teams start to round out its offer more, perhaps pushing into some slightly higher priced products"" predicts retail analyst Neil Saunders. According to Shaun Reid, the focus will be on grabbing an even bigger slice of the market. ""For the next two to three years, their strategy is just to grow brand awareness and market share. They don't care about profits.  ""That's exactly what happened with Pinduoduo when it launched in China. They were giving incredibly cheap deals just to grab market share."" ",BBC
Leo Varadkar: Five key moments for the Brexit Taoiseach,https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c6pj0j3le6no,2024-03-21T07:27:53.936Z,"Leo Varadkar was taoiseach during the most intense phase of Brexit, when the Irish border was central to negotiations. In January 2017, the then UK Prime Minister Theresa May said Brexit would mean the UK leaving the single market and the customs union. That had immediate implications for Ireland, raising the prospect that it would have to harden its border with Northern Ireland. The Irish government quickly decided that would be a bad idea for economic, political and security reasons. Its Brexit bottom line was that there could be no hard border and Ireland�s place in the EU should be undisturbed. It fell to Leo Varadkar to pursue that policy.  There is a perception among some Brexit supporters that Ireland�s approach hardened when Mr Varadkar became taoiseach and that his predecessor Enda Kenny would have been a friendlier, more accommodating partner for the UK. However Ireland�s key Brexit policy had been set months before Mr Varadkar took the top job. The EU�s negotiating guidelines of April 2017 had the avoidance of a hard border in Ireland as one of its three priorities. There was certainly a stylistic contrast between Mr Kenny and Mr Varadkar. The new taoiseach could be brusque, even blunt. A month after becoming taoiseach he made clear his exasperation with some of the ideas for the border coming from Brexit supporters. ""What we�re not going to do is to design a border for the Brexiteers because they�re the ones who want a border,"" he said. ""It�s up to them to say what it is, say how it would work and first of all convince their own people, their own voters that this is actually a good idea. ""As far as this government is concerned there shouldn�t be an economic border. We don�t want one."" This robust defence of Ireland�s interest set the tone for his approach over the next few years. Throughout the second half of 2017 EU and UK negotiators laboured to find a way to square Theresa May�s hard Brexit with a soft Irish border. An interim agreement called the Joint Report saw the UK implicitly concede that an Irish Sea border, between NI and GB, could be a solution. The Joint Report laid out three possibilities: � The border issue could be solved in the context of an overall trade deal � There could be technological and administrative solutions � Northern Ireland could continue to follow some rules of the EU internal market and the customs union - this was known as the backstop For Mr Varadkar this was effectively mission accomplished with the UK signing up to a text which ruled out a hard border. �We have achieved all we set out to achieve in phase one of these negotiations,� he said. �We have the assurances and guarantees we need from the United Kingdom and support for them from the European Union.� He went on to paraphrase Winston Churchill describing the agreement as �not the end, but it is the end of the beginning.� Mr Varadkar was right to suggest that the Brexit negotiations would not be concluded quickly. Throughout 2018 it became clear that Theresa May had signed up to a deal that would not win majority support in the House of Commons. Most importantly the DUP, which was keeping her party in power, was opposed to the backstop. There was an interminable series of summits and negotiations in an attempt to finesse the deal. At a meeting of EU leaders in October 2018 Mr Varadkar sought to impress on his peers just how important it was to stand firm on the border issue. He showed them a story from that day�s Irish Times about the IRA bombing of a customs post in 1972 in which nine people were killed. This provoked outrage among unionists who suggested he was using the threat of violence to advance his political agenda. Mr Varadkar said this was never his intention later explaining: �I have never used a threat of violence in politics. �What I did was express concerns at the time that were held by the Chief Constable and the Garda Commissioner, that the reestablishment of border posts between north and south could lead to violence. ""But there�s a very big difference I think, between warning or expressing concern about violence, and threatening it, and I certainly didn�t do that.� But this episode became emblematic of the low opinion many unionists had of his approach to Brexit. Mr Varadkar had a new UK counterpart in July 2019 when Boris Johnson replaced Theresa May. He promised to ditch the backstop but by October, he was proposing an ""all-island regulatory zone"" which would effectively keep Northern Ireland in the EU's single market for agriculture, food and all manufactured goods. However, the Irish government and the EU were not convinced as the plan would have potentially meant a new customs border in Ireland. They were also concerned an up-front veto for the DUP could prevent the ""all-island regulatory zone"" from ever materialising. But then came a decisive meeting with Mr Varadkar at Thornton Manor on Merseyside. This would prove to be the engagement which unlocked a deal that would finally be approved by the UK Parliament. Mr Johnson accepted that there would be a border in the Irish Sea while Mr Varadkar conceded that Stormont would need to have some democratic oversight. A joint statement said: ""Both continue to believe that a deal is in everybody�s interest. They agreed that they could see a pathway to a possible deal."" Just a week later, the UK and EU had agreed the Northern Ireland protocol.  An amended version of the protocol, the Windsor Framework, now governs NI�s post-Brexit trading arrangements. As Mr Varadkar announced his resignation on Wednesday he counted his approach to Brexit among his key achievements. He referenced Ireland�s original objectives saying: ""We prevented a hard border between North and South and protected our place in Europe."" He also suggested that with the DUP�s return to government a period of difficult relations, east-west as well as north-south, was now beginning to heal. ""The institutions of the Good Friday Agreement are working again, and our trading relationship with the United Kingdom, in the post-Brexit era, is settled and stable,"" he concluded. ",BBC
Avanti to pay train drivers �600 a shift for overtime,https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68650114,2024-03-24T17:43:24.000Z,"Train drivers at Avanti West Coast will see their fee for an overtime shift increase to �600 following a deal between the company and union Aslef.  Avanti said it hoped offering more attractive terms to its drivers to work extra shifts would make its services ""more reliable and resilient"". The company has faced criticism over cancellations, delays and poor service. The new rest day working agreement, up from �125, is in addition to a driver's salary.    The deal was struck on Thursday and will come into force on 29 March, remaining in place for 12 months, the BBC has been told.  The Sunday Times, which first reported the story, suggested some drivers could enjoy a salary of up to �100,000 a year, but neither Aslef nor Avanti were able to confirm these figures.  Last year Avanti was offered a new contract for the West Coast Main Line, which runs between London Euston and Glasgow Central, with branches to Birmingham, North Wales, Liverpool, Manchester and Edinburgh. A spokesperson for Avanti said the deal would ""help ensure our services are more reliable and resilient over time for our customers, while ensuring we continue training our drivers on our brand-new trains"". But the company has faced criticism over its performance, with calls for its contract to be scrapped last week. Aslef general secretary Mick Whelan said Avanti did not employ enough drivers to offer the service it advertises.  ""The company approached us with an offer and we accepted,"" he added. In parliament last week, rail minister Huw Merriman said the government would not scrap Avanti's contract to run the West Coast Main Line. ""There are issues that will remain regardless of who the operator is, and it is essential to get underneath the bonnet, look at the issues and fix those rather than what's on the side of the car,"" he said. The settlement is separate to the wider dispute between Aslef and most of England's rail companies over train drivers' pay and working conditions. Some 14 one-day strikes have been called during the 20-month dispute and members at 16 operators will stage further rolling one-day walk outs between 5 and 8 April, along with a six-day overtime ban. In 2021, the median salary for train drivers was �59,189 per year. ",BBC
Shoppers snap up summer clothes as food sales fall,https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68634774,2024-03-22T07:24:06.000Z,"Shop sales saw zero growth in February as wet weather and cost-of-living pressures kept people at home. While clothing sales increased, this was offset by falling food and fuel sales, according to official figures. February's flat sales came after a lacklustre December followed by a strong bounce back in January.  Although food price rises eased in February, people remained under pressure as a result of housing costs and fuel prices. Economists had predicted that sales volumes would fall slightly in February. However, clothing sales increased as did sales in department stores because shoppers splashed out on the new season's collections. This boost helped to offset a drop in food sales as shoppers stayed away due to poor weather. On the flipside, the weather benefitted online retailers, in particular those selling clothing. February was the fourth wettest on record in England, and it was the warmest weather on record for England and Wales, Met Office figures show. In southern England, it was the wettest February on record. Climate change means the UK weather is on average getting wetter in the winter and drier in the summer, according to the Met Office, and heavy rainfall could get more frequent and longer if greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise. Andrew Opie, director of food and sustainability at industry group the British Retail Consortium, said that retailers are increasingly having to manage the effects of climate change, which has created more variability in the weather. ""Without action, there is a real risk of food insecurity due to falling global farm yields and increased threats to global supply chains,"" he said. Along with the weather, the economic climate also contributed to a drop in footfall in food shops. Sales in household goods stores also fell, according to the Office for National Statistics. Households have been squeezed by a cost-of-living crisis, and economic growth has been sluggish, with the UK in a shallow recession at the end of last year. However, the pace of general price rises has been slowing, and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has said the UK economy will ""bounce back"" in 2024. Economic research firm Pantheon Macroeconomics predicted that retail sales would ""drag the economy out of recession"" in the first three months of the year. February's flat retail sales contrasted with December's drop of 3.2%, and then a strong bounce back in January. The ONS has now revised January's sales figures up from a 3.4% to a 3.6% rise. Danni Hewson, head of financial analysis at AJ Bell, said it was not a surprise that February's downpours ""kept people off High Streets and tucked up in their dry living rooms"". ""After a few tricky months clothing retailers needed a win and those that have toiled to create must-have pieces at a price point that works for their buyer will be feeling a kind of fuzzy relief."" ",BBC