A blind worker for the National Federation of the Blind said Sonos had a reputation for making products usable for people with disabilities, but that "Overnight they broke that trust," according to the Washington Post. They're not the only angry customers about the latest update to Sonos's wireless speaker system. The newspaper notes that nonprofit worker Charles Knight is "among the Sonos die-hards who are furious at the new app that crippled their options to stream music, listen to an album all the way through or set a morning alarm clock." After Sonos updated its app last week, Knight could no longer set or change his wake-up music alarm. Timers to turn off music were also missing. "Something as basic as an alarm is part of the feature set that users have had for 15 years," said Knight, who has spent thousands of dollars on six Sonos speakers for his bedroom, home office and kitchen. "It was just really badly thought out from start to finish." Some people who are blind also complained that the app omitted voice-control features they need. What's happening to Sonos speaker owners is a cautionary tale. As more of your possessions rely on software — including your car, phone, TV, home thermostat or tractor — the manufacturer can ruin them with one shoddy update... Sonos now says it's fixing problems and adding back missing features within days or weeks. Sonos CEO Patrick Spence acknowledged the company made some mistakes and said Sonos plans to earn back people's trust. "There are clearly people who are having an experience that is subpar," Spence said. "I would ask them to give us a chance to deliver the actions to address the concerns they've raised." Spence said that for years, customers' top complaint was the Sonos app was clunky and slow to connect to their speakers. Spence said the new app is zippier and easier for Sonos to update. (Some customers disputed that the new app is faster.) He said some problems like Knight's missing alarms were flaws that Sonos found only once the app was about to roll out. (Sonos updated the alarm feature this week.) Sonos did remove but planned to add back some lesser-used features. Spence said the company should have told people upfront about the planned timeline to return any missing functions. In a blog post Sonos thanked customers for "valuable feedback," saying they're "working to address them as quickly as possible" and promising to reintroduce features, fix bugs, and address performance issues. ("Adding and editing alarms" is available now, as well as VoiceOver fixes for the home screen on iOS.) The Washington Post adds that Sonos "said it initially missed some software flaws and will restore more voice-reader functions next week."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Patrick Grant says rise of low-cost retailers means new clothes ‘haven’t got cheaper, they’ve just got worse’

While filming The Great British Sewing Bee, the presenter and clothing entrepreneur Patrick Grant found himself in need of a pair of black socks.

The production team bought a pair from the Marks & Spencer shop close to where the popular BBC show was being filmed. Grant said: “They went to everybody’s favourite high street store, that used to sell on the basis of quality and value, and they bought me their Autograph socks, which are supposed to be their best socks.

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© Photograph: James Stack/BBC/Love Productions

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© Photograph: James Stack/BBC/Love Productions

Previous £25,000 maximum no longer enough to fund some home improvements, says building society

Nationwide building society has doubled the maximum personal loan it will offer borrowers to £50,000, citing the continued increase in building costs as the reason for the change.

The society previously offered up to £25,000 for qualifying customers but said this was no longer enough to fund some home improvement projects.

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© Photograph: Reeldeal Images/Alamy

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© Photograph: Reeldeal Images/Alamy

Emilia David reports via The Verge: OpenAI has signed a deal for access to real-time content from Reddit's data API, which means it can surface discussions from the site within ChatGPT and other new products. It's an agreement similar to the one Reddit signed with Google earlier this year that was reportedly worth $60 million. The deal will also "enable Reddit to bring new AI-powered features to Redditors and mods" and use OpenAI's large language models to build applications. OpenAI has also signed up to become an advertising partner on Reddit. No financial terms were revealed in the blog post announcing the arrangement, and neither company mentioned training data, either. That last detail is different from the deal with Google, where Reddit explicitly stated it would give Google "more efficient ways to train models." There is, however, a disclosure mentioning that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is also a shareholder in Reddit but that "This partnership was led by OpenAI's COO and approved by its independent Board of Directors." "Reddit has become one of the internet's largest open archives of authentic, relevant, and always up-to-date human conversations about anything and everything. Including it in ChatGPT upholds our belief in a connected internet, helps people find more of what they're looking for, and helps new audiences find community on Reddit," Reddit CEO Steve Huffman says. Reddit stock has jumped on news of the deal, rising 13% on Friday to $63.64. As Reuters notes, it's "within striking distance of the record closing price of $65.11 hit in late-March, putting the company on track to add $1.2 billion to its market capitalization."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A cold, damp spring depressed plant sales in the UK, but help is at hand from the ‘Glastonbury festival of the gardening world’

The sixth-wettest April on record has not been kind to Britain’s gardens or its 1,600 garden centres.

So far this year, with most of the key selling season over, garden centre sales are up just 2% on last year and down 11% on 2022, after the sodden spring depressed sales of shrubs, trees, bedding plants and seeds.

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© Photograph: Jordan Pettitt/PA

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© Photograph: Jordan Pettitt/PA

Two university students discovered a security flaw in over a million internet-connected laundry machines operated by CSC ServiceWorks, allowing users to avoid payment and add unlimited funds to their accounts. The students, Alexander Sherbrooke and Iakov Taranenko from UC Santa Cruz, reported the vulnerability to the company, a major laundry service provider, in January but claim it remains unpatched. TechCrunch adds: Sherbrooke said he was sitting on the floor of his basement laundry room in the early hours one January morning with his laptop in hand, and "suddenly having an 'oh s-' moment." From his laptop, Sherbrooke ran a script of code with instructions telling the machine in front of him to start a cycle despite having $0 in his laundry account. The machine immediately woke up with a loud beep and flashed "PUSH START" on its display, indicating the machine was ready to wash a free load of laundry. In another case, the students added an ostensible balance of several million dollars into one of their laundry accounts, which reflected in their CSC Go mobile app as though it were an entirely normal amount of money for a student to spend on laundry.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Patients are already dying as wonder drugs lose their effectiveness. International action is urgently needed

As apocalyptic horror stories go, it’s up there with the scariest. Yet it’s not fiction writers but top scientists who are warning of how the world could look once superbugs develop resistance to the remaining drugs against them in our hospital pharmacies. Patients will die who can currently be cured; routine surgery will become dangerous or impossible. Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) – it happens not only with bacteria but also viruses, fungi and parasites – is one of the top global public health threats facing humanity, says the World Health Organization (WHO). It kills 1.3 million people and contributes to 5 million deaths every year, predicted to be 10 million by 2050. In addition to the appalling human toll, it will increase the strain on and costs of health services. But is it high enough up the agenda? Covid-19 knocked it off, and the climate crisis gets more attention. AMR does not so often get top billing.

This week efforts have been made to change that, with talks at the UN triggering wider coverage chronicling the sorry plight we are in. From the pharmaceutical industry to the WHO to NHS England, the same tune is being played: we are not doing enough to avert disaster.

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© Photograph: Julien Behal/PA

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© Photograph: Julien Behal/PA

Writedown by Canadian pension fund Omers highlights growing financial crisis at utilities firm

Thames Water’s biggest investor has slashed the value of its stake in the company to zero in the latest sign of an escalating financial crisis for Britain’s biggest water supplier.

The Canadian pension fund Omers issued a “full writedown” of its 31.7% stake in Thames’s troubled parent company in its annual report published on Friday, signalling that it believes its share is worth nothing.

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© Photograph: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

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© Photograph: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

FirstGroup submits application for alternative route between capital and Rochdale

Plans for an alternative direct train service between Greater Manchester and London have been launched, promising competitive fares, by the transport group that already runs the main Avanti service linking the cities.

Trains straight from London Euston to Rochdale will run from 2027, if approved, under FirstGroup’s Lumo brand, calling first at Warrington and going via Manchester Victoria.

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© Photograph: David Parry/PA

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© Photograph: David Parry/PA

Finance chief gives evidence on Paula Vennells and says company looked like ‘corporate bullies’ in how it dealt with branch operators

The former Post Office chief executive Paula Vennells did not believe there had been miscarriages of justice, the Horizon inquiry has heard, as the current finance boss said the company looked like “corporate bullies” in the way it dealt with branch operators.

Alisdair Cameron, the Post Office chief financial officer who joined the board in 2015, told the inquiry on Friday that Vennells had been “clear in her conviction” that nothing had gone wrong with Horizon.

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© Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images

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© Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images

Jeremy Hunt indicates ministers not opposed to offer from Czech billionaire in principle

• Business live – latest updates

The chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, has said the UK will look at the national security implications of a bid for Royal Mail by the Czech billionaire Daniel Křetínský, but indicated ministers were not opposed to the takeover in principle.

Royal Mail’s owner, the London-listed International Distributions Services (IDS), on Wednesday backed a £3.5bn bid by Křetínský’s EP Group, after initially rejecting a £3.2bn offer.

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© Photograph: Rui Vieira/PA

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© Photograph: Rui Vieira/PA

Barclays’ analysis may be slightly off the mark, but the megastar is tapping into a new trend in spending

Taylor Swift has long been credited with an outsized influence on music, celebrity culture – even politics. But reviving the UK’s flagging economy may be too much to ask, even of the sequinned megastar.

Research published this week by analysts from Barclays pointed to the extraordinary spending surge that ensues when Swift touches down, and suggested she could bring a £1bn boost to the UK.

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© Photograph: Kevin Mazur/TAS24/Getty Images for TAS Rights Management

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© Photograph: Kevin Mazur/TAS24/Getty Images for TAS Rights Management

School must-have is setting pressured parents back £30 but could help keep kids off sugary drinks

From loom bands to fidget spinners, playground crazes are usually cheap and cheerful, but the latest must-have is an expensive drinks bottle that comes with scent pods that trick your brain into thinking water is cola or fruit juice.

The growing popularity of Air Up, with the cheapest bottles starting at about £30, is a dilemma for parents.

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© Photograph: Stephen R Johnson/Alamy

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© Photograph: Stephen R Johnson/Alamy

Local authorities will be allowed to turn unsold homes from developers into affordable housing

China will cut mortgage rates and allow local authorities to turn unsold homes from developers into affordable housing, in a series of drastic measures by Beijing aimed at propping up the country’s faltering property market.

The People’s Bank of China said it would scrap the minimum rate of interest and reduce down-payment ratios to 15% for first-time buyers and 25% for second homes. It will also create a 300bn yuan (£32.8bn) facility to support local state-owned companies to buy homes at reasonable prices, it said in a series of statements on Friday.

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© Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

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© Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

Hong Kong employee was duped into sending cash to criminals by AI-generated video call

• Business live – latest updates

The British engineering company Arup has confirmed it was the victim of a deepfake fraud after an employee was duped into sending HK$200m (£20m) to criminals by an artificial intelligence-generated video call.

Hong Kong police said in February that a worker at a then-unnamed company had been tricked into transferring vast sums by people on a hoax call “posing as senior officers of the company”.

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© Photograph: Andrew Brookes/Getty Images/Image Source

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© Photograph: Andrew Brookes/Getty Images/Image Source

One in 10 officials to be based in city within three years and 70-strong team will increase to 500

The Bank of England governor, Andrew Bailey, has announced a big expansion of its operations in Leeds, with one in 10 officials to be based in the West Yorkshire city within three years.

Bailey said the 70-strong team at the central bank’s northern hub would swell sevenfold to 500 by 2027 through a combination of voluntary relocation and local recruitment.

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© Photograph: Teamjackson/Getty Images/iStockphoto

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© Photograph: Teamjackson/Getty Images/iStockphoto

Tesla’s chair discusses upcoming shareholder votes on relocating to Texas and Elon Musk’s $56bn pay deal

• Rishi Sunak and Akshata Murty rise up rich list as fortune increases by £120m
• British asylum housing tycoon breaks into Sunday Times rich list

The Sunday Times also reports that the biggest risers on this year’s list are:

Barnaby and Merlin Swire and family, the family’s two-century-old business owns a significant stake in Cathay Pacific and has extensive interests in Hong Kong (£8.82bn)

Idan Ofer, is the son of Sammy Ofer, who built a shipping empire after serving in the Royal Navy during the Second World War (£6.96bn)

John Frederiksen and family, Fredriksen, a Norway-born Cypriot oil and tanker tycoon, has twin daughters who stand to inherit his empire. He owns a Chelsea mansion with a ballroom (£4.556bn)

“We need an economy that rewards work not just wealth.

“But as millions of families struggle to cover even the basics, the super-rich are amassing even greater fortunes.

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© Photograph: Andy Rain/EPA

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© Photograph: Andy Rain/EPA

Graham King, whose firm is paid £3.5m a day to accommodate arrivals in the UK, listed among country’s 350 richest people

An Essex businessman who won government contracts paying his company £3.5m a day for transporting and accommodating asylum seekers has been named among the 350 richest people in the UK.

Graham King, the founder and majority owner of a business empire that includes Clearsprings Ready Homes, which won a 10-year Home Office contract for housing thousands of asylum seekers, was on Friday named alongside King Charles III, the prime minister and Sir Paul McCartney on the Sunday Times rich list of the wealthiest people.

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© Photograph: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

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© Photograph: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

Campaigners say move to use the arts to reinforce economic ties with Riyadh may help to launder Gulf state’s human rights record

It was an unusual gig for YolanDa Brown, the saxophonist and composer who this week performed high above the clouds for a UK delegation on a private British Airways plane bound for Saudi Arabia.

The flight was part of a trade offensive for British businesses and institutions in Riyadh, with Brown’s performance part of a new focus for Saudi-UK relations – international arts.

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© Photograph: Cabinet Office/Twitter

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© Photograph: Cabinet Office/Twitter

Thirty-three constituencies, including two in London, will not have a single bank branch by the end of the year, says Which?

The number of UK bank branches that have shut their doors for good over the last nine years will pass 6,000 on Friday, and by the end of the year the pace of closures may leave 33 parliamentary constituencies – including two in London – without a single branch.

The tally is being published by the consumer group Which? as it seeks to make the “avalanche” of closures and the “disastrous” impact they can have on local communities an election battleground.

Barnsley East (estimated population: 94,000)

Bolton West (98,000)

Bradford South (106,000)

Bury South (103,000)

Central Suffolk and North Ipswich (102,000)

Chatham and Aylesford (103,000)

Clwyd South (70,000)

Colne Valley (112,000)

Dagenham and Rainham (117,000)

Denton and Reddish (88,000)

Don Valley (99,000)

East Worthing and Shoreham (99,000)

Erith and Thamesmead (117,000)

Glasgow North East (88,000)

Liverpool, West Derby (94,000)

Mid Bedfordshire (121,000)

Mid Derbyshire (83,000)

Newport East (84,000)

North East Derbyshire (92,000)

Nottingham East (98,000)

Penistone and Stocksbridge (89,000)

Plymouth Moor View (94,000)

Reading West (112,000)

Rhondda (68,000)

Sedgefield (85,000)

Sheffield Hallam (85,000)

St Helens North (100,000)

Stone (86,000)

Swansea East (81,000)

Warrington North (95,000)

Wentworth and Dearne (100,000)

Wirral West (68,000)

York Outer (92,000)

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© Photograph: Matt Crossick/PA

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© Photograph: Matt Crossick/PA

Unite launches bid to persuade Keir Starmer to invest more in north-east Scotland

The UK’s oil and gas workers risk becoming “the coal miners of our generation,” Unite’s general secretary, Sharon Graham, has warned, urging Labour not to ban new North Sea licences without a clear plan to safeguard jobs.

Unite is launching a billboard campaign in six Scottish constituencies aimed at persuading Keir Starmer to commit more investment to north-east Scotland, the centre of the offshore oil and gas industry.

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© Photograph: Reuters

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© Photograph: Reuters

Last week, General Motors announced that it would end production of the Chevrolet Malibu, which the company first introduced in 1964. Although not exactly a head turner (the Malibu was "so uncool, it was cool," declared the New York Times), the sedan has become an American fixture, even an icon [...] Over the past 60 years, GM produced some 10 million of them. With a price starting at a (relatively) affordable $25,100, Malibu sales exceeded 130,000 vehicles last year, a 13% annual increase and enough to rank as the #3 Chevy model [...] Still, that wasn't enough to keep the car off GM's chopping block. [...] In that regard, it will have plenty of company. Ford stopped producing sedans for the U.S. market in 2018. And it was Sergio Marchionne, the former head of Stellantis, who triggered the headlong retreat in 2016 when he declared that Dodge and Chrysler would stop making sedans. [...] As recently as 2009, U.S. passenger cars [...] outsold light trucks (SUVs, pickups, and minivans), but today they're less then 20% of new car purchases. The death of the Malibu is confirmation, if anyone still needs it, that the Big Three are done building sedans. That decision is bad news for road users, the environment, and budget-conscious consumers—and it may ultimately come around to bite Detroit.

Detroit Killed the Sedan. We May All Live to Regret It [Fast Company]

Palo Alto Networks is acquiring IBM's QRadar cloud software and migrating customers to its Cortex Xsiam platform as part of a broader partnership aimed at expanding its consulting capabilities and customer base. The sum of the deal was not disclosed. CNBC reports: The move normally takes one to three months, Nikesh Arora, Palo Alto's CEO, told CNBC. Also, IBM will train more than 1,000 of its consulting employees on Palo Alto's products. [...] For IBM, a more robust lineup of contemporary security tools for consulting might help the company deliver on its stated goal of revenue growth in the mid-single digits for 2024. In the first quarter, revenue increased 3%, with a 2% bump in the consulting segment. Palo Alto is growing much faster than IBM. In the January quarter, revenue jumped 19%. The company will report results for the latest quarter on Monday. Palo Alto more than doubled in value last year and its stock is up 6% year to date, lifting the company's market cap past $100 billion. The stock rose more than 1% in extended trading. IBM is up close to 5% this year and is now valued at $154 billion. The companies said the transaction should close by the end of September, subject to regulatory approval and other conditions. [...] IBM will continue to sell its QRadar software for use in on-premises data centers. At the same time, IBM will suggest that clients using it consider switching to Palo Alto's Cortex Xsiam.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

US company denies decision is linked to UK’s 35% windfall tax on North Sea producers

Chevron is preparing to call time on more than five decades in the North Sea with a plan to sell its remaining oil and gas fields in the ageing oil basin.

The US oil company said on Thursday that it will launch a sale of its North Sea interests, including a 19.4% stake in the giant Claire oilfield in the West of Shetland region, which could raise up to $1bn.

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© Photograph: Mike Blake/Reuters

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© Photograph: Mike Blake/Reuters

The Treasury has been quietly selling off the government’s stake at ever-higher prices on a rising market. Why mess with that?

The government’s plan to sell shares in NatWest to the general public is so advanced that the odds on the chancellor pulling the plug on a pet project are slim. Investment bankers from Barclays and Goldman Sachs are doing their well-remunerated stuff, and M&C Saatchi is knocking up some adverts. The go-ahead for a rah-rah pre-election retail share offer is expected any week now.

In a rational world, though, Jeremy Hunt would call the whole thing off. He already has a tried-and-tested method for disposing of the state’s NatWest shares and – this is the point – it is working splendidly.

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© Photograph: Andy Rain/EPA

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© Photograph: Andy Rain/EPA

Japan's Toshiba said on Thursday it will cut up to 4,000 jobs domestically as the industrial conglomerate accelerates restructuring under new ownership. From a report: Toshiba delisted in December due to a $13 billion takeover by a consortium led by private equity firm Japan Industrial Partners, capping a decade of scandal and upheaval. The consortium's efforts to engineer a turnaround at Toshiba are seen as a test for private equity in Japan, which used to be seen as "hagetaka" or vultures due to its rapacious reputation. The restructuring amounts to up to 6% of Toshiba's domestic workforce. The company also said it would relocate office functions from central Tokyo to Kawasaki, west of the capital, and target an operating profit margin of 10% in three years.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Lesley Sewell said departed CEO had called for help ‘plugging gaps in her memory’ before select committee appearance

A former Post Office executive has told the inquiry into the Horizon scandal that she blocked Paula Vennells’s phone number after the company’s ex-CEO contacted her asking for help to “plug memory gaps” and to “avoid an independent inquiry”.

Lesley Sewell, who was chief information officer at the Post Office until she left in 2015, said that she had subsequently been contacted by her former boss four times in 2020 and 2021.

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© Photograph: Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry/PA

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© Photograph: Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry/PA

Barclays Bank, HSBC and TSB reveal reductions, reversing some of price rises seen in recent weeks

Three UK banks have announced cuts to the cost of fixed-rate mortgages, reversing some of the price rises seen in recent weeks.

Barclays Bank has announced it will reduce the price of five-year fixed-rate deals for new borrowers and remortgagors by up to 0.45 percentage points from Friday. Its five-year fixed-rate for borrowers with a 40% deposit is decreasing from 4.47% to 4.34%.

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© Photograph: Yui Mok/PA

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© Photograph: Yui Mok/PA

GMB says historic shipyard’s workers are concerned by reports that chancellor could withhold vital export credit guarantee

A union representing workers at the historic Harland & Wolff shipyard in Belfast has written to the chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, warning that doubts over financial support for the company are putting jobs in jeopardy.

The GMB said workers were concerned by claims that a £200m export guarantee could be blocked by the Treasury, despite having the backing of the ministries for defence, business and trade, and Northern Ireland.

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© Photograph: Paul Faith/AFP/Getty Images

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© Photograph: Paul Faith/AFP/Getty Images

Near-10% dividend increase follows allegation that water company failed to prevent illegal pollution for 10 hours in February

• Business live – latest updates

One of Britain’s most polluting water companies has increased its payouts to shareholders by nearly 10% in the same week that it emerged it had pumped raw sewage into Windermere in the Lake District for 10 hours.

United Utilities will pay its investors – which include some of the world’s biggest asset managers – £339m in dividends for this year, up from £310m for 2023, after it reported higher operating profits thanks to a rise in customer bills.

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© Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian

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© Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian

Sisters of Notre-Dame-des-Neiges started enterprise to cover soaring electricity costs

The sisters of Notre-Dame-des-Neiges in south-east France are prepared to move more than heaven and earth to save their mountain abbey and pay soaring electricity bills.

A dozen Cistercian order nuns are making ends meet by selling cleaning products made from their own spring water and essential oils on the internet and in local shops.

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© Photograph: notredamedesneiges

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© Photograph: notredamedesneiges

An NHS trust’s attempts to bring a crucial drug to market itself is hopeful news for patients

• Dr Catriona Crombie is the head of rare disease at medical charity LifeArc

Healthcare should make people’s lives better. That fact can hardly be contested. Yet for some patients with rare diseases, commercial interests are dictating who gets to access life-saving treatment and who doesn’t. Pharmaceutical companies have long been driven by global demand and the potential for the highest profits. In the past two decades, the market has exploded: pharma revenues worldwide have exceeded $1tn. For patients with common conditions, this investment in healthcare can only be good news. But the narrow focus of this strategy means that, in the UK, the one in 17 of us who will at some point be affected by a rare condition risk being forgotten.

That is until now. Healthcare providers, driven by a desire to make life-saving treatments more widely available, are increasingly finding new ways of getting them to patients for whom they would have previously been out of reach. Great Ormond Street hospital (Gosh) recently announced that it was taking the unprecedented step of attempting to obtain the licence itself for a rare gene therapy on a non-profit basis, after the pharmaceutical company that planned to bring it to market dropped out. If successful, it will be the first time that an NHS trust has the authorisation to market a drug for this kind of treatment. The move could act as a proof of concept for bringing drugs to UK patients that pharmaceutical companies aren’t willing to risk their profits on.

Dr Catriona Crombie is the head of rare disease at medical charity LifeArc

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© Photograph: Kristen Prahl/Getty Images/iStockphoto

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© Photograph: Kristen Prahl/Getty Images/iStockphoto

Japan’s economy contracts in Q1, leaving UK as fastest-growing G7 member, while ECB warns policy uncertainty is high

A group of business leaders have warned Rishi Sunak that the government’s migration policies risk weakening the UK university sector, the Financial Times reports, undermining a key reason for companies to invest in the country.

The FT explains:

In a letter to Rishi Sunak, bosses at groups including miners Anglo American and Rio Tinto and industrial conglomerate Siemens, said they were “deeply concerned” by widening funding gaps and declining international student applications that were “a result of government policy”.

They said this risked “undermining the positive impact that international students have on our skills base, future workforce, and international influence”, as well as reducing the funding available for research and industry collaboration.

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© Photograph: Kazuhiro Nogi/AFP/Getty Images

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© Photograph: Kazuhiro Nogi/AFP/Getty Images

Company’s social media platforms, which also include Instagram, may have addictive effects, says European Commission

• Business live – latest updates

The European Commission has opened an investigation into the owner of Facebook and Instagram over concerns that the platforms are creating addictive behaviour among children and damaging mental health.

The EU executive said Meta may have breached the Digital Services Act (DSA), a landmark law passed by the bloc last summer that makes digital companies large and small liable for disinformation, shopping scams, child abuse and other online harms.

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© Photograph: Chesnot/Getty

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© Photograph: Chesnot/Getty

Ex-president at Mar-a-Lago last month hosted more than 20 executives, including from Chevron, Exxon and Occidental

A “deal” allegedly offered by Donald Trump to big-oil executives as he sought $1bn in campaign donations could save the industry $110bn in tax breaks if he returns to the White House, an analysis suggests.

The fundraising dinner held last month at Mar-a-Lago with more than 20 executives, including from Chevron, Exxon and Occidental Petroleum, reportedly involved Trump asking for large campaign contributions and promising, if elected, to remove barriers to drilling, scrap a pause on gas exports, and reverse new rules aimed at cutting car pollution.

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© Photograph: Jon Cherry/Getty Images

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© Photograph: Jon Cherry/Getty Images

Jobs reduction target unchanged but full-year divided raised on drop in pre-tax earnings to £1.1bn

BT has disclosed a further £3bn of cost-cutting measure as the telecoms group signalled it had passed peak investment in the rollout of its UK full-fibre broadband network and raised its dividend.

Allison Kirkby, who took over as chief executive this year, said the company had reached an “inflection point” in its strategy, as she faces pressure to revive the flagging group.

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© Photograph: Tommy/Tommy Johansson

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© Photograph: Tommy/Tommy Johansson

Restrictions on collective power led to decades of exploitation and stagnant pay for workers. Why not try another way?

Profiteering is nothing new. Stanley Baldwin had a pithy description for the new intake of Conservative MPs at the 1918 general election, noting that they were “a lot of hard-faced men who look as if they had done very well out of the war”. The future Tory prime minister was right. Many companies had found a war economy greatly to their liking, securing lucrative government contracts and making a mint in the process. Profiteering was rampant.

Sharon Graham, the general secretary of the Unite union, says something similar has been happening since the war on Covid began in 2020. A study of the reports and accounts of almost 17,000 firms – big and small – showed that pre-tax profit margins were, on average, 30% higher in 2022 than they were in the years immediately before the pandemic began.

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© Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

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© Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

CEO will be replaced by chief financial officer Kenton Jarvis, who like Lundgren joined from Tui

EasyJet’s chief executive, Johan Lundgren, will step down at the beginning of next year after seven years at the helm of the budget airline.

The carrier is promoting its chief financial officer, Kenton Jarvis, to take his place, with Lundgren to hand over the reins on 1 January 2025. The outgoing boss will stay with the business until mid-May as part of the airline’s “orderly succession plan”.

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© Photograph: Peter Cziborra/Reuters

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© Photograph: Peter Cziborra/Reuters

Cold and wet weather also thought to have led to more lambs dying in early season, as Morrison drops 100% British lamb pledge

The price of British lamb has hit an all-time high as cold weather and disease in the UK and difficulties with imports have combined with a surge in demand.

Wholesale prices have soared by more than 40% year-on-year to more than £8.50 a kg , while the amount of lamb expected to be produced in the UK this year is forecast to shrink by 1.4%, according to the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB).

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© Photograph: Maureen McLean/Alamy

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© Photograph: Maureen McLean/Alamy

Sometimes it’s fruity, sometimes it’s syrupy. It’s usually very sweet. And it’s always full of … tapioca. How did Taiwan’s ‘boba tea’ become such a hit everywhere from Cardiff to Glasgow?

On a sunny Thursday afternoon, the Covent Garden branch of Gong cha is doing a roaring trade. Staff behind the counter are busy preparing drinks for a string of customers, all ordering from an electronic pad in the corner. One leaves with a purple concoction flavoured with the root vegetable taro; another sips on a milky tea laced with brown sugar “pearls”. A third grabs a bright drink tasting of passion fruit and adorned with floating coconut jelly.

It’s a scene being played out more and more as bubble tea shops like Gong cha pop up around the UK. Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, has just got its first (called Just Poppin); in Canterbury, Kent, there are six shops to choose from; and a new branch of American bubble tea brand CoCo recently had dozens of people queueing down Glasgow’s Bath Street.

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© Photograph: OKrasyuk/Getty Images

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© Photograph: OKrasyuk/Getty Images

Polytag system prints invisible tag on to containers, which can be picked up by readers located at recycling centres

Marks & Spencer is teaming up with a recycling technology group to enable the retailer to trace what happens to its drinks bottles, cartons and other plastic packaging.

The Polytag system prints an invisible tag on to containers, which can be picked up by electronic readers located at recycling centres.

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© Photograph: Marks and Spencer/PA

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© Photograph: Marks and Spencer/PA

With Amazon on its heels, the nation's biggest company by revenue is hunting for ways to continue growing. From a report: For a decade, Walmart has reigned as the nation's biggest company by revenue. Its sales last year added up to $648 billion -- more than $1.2 million a minute. That status comes with benefits. It gives Walmart power in negotiations with product manufacturers and in dealing with government officials over policy issues. It's also a point of pride: Job postings often tout working at the "Fortune 1" company as a perk. Its reign is looking shaky lately [non-paywalled link]. If current sales trends persist, Amazon is likely to overtake Walmart soon. Amazon reported $575 billion in total revenue last year, up 12% from the previous year, compared with Walmart's revenue growth of 6%. Walmart's behemoth size means that to meet its own sales target of around 4% growth each year, the company has to find an additional $26 billion in sales this year. That's no easy task. About 90% of Americans already shop at the retailer. The pandemic and rising inflation boosted Walmart's revenue by $100 billion since 2019. It faces continued uncertainty in consumer confidence and while it's spending in some areas, it's pulling back in others. Earlier this week, Walmart told workers it would cut hundreds of corporate jobs and ask most remote workers to move to offices. While Amazon's and Walmart's businesses compete head on, there are big differences. Amazon earns much of its profit from non-retail operations such as cloud computing and advertising, while grabbing retail market share with fast shipping. Walmart gets the bulk of its sales and profits from U.S. stores, while growing side businesses like advertising and digital sales. Walmart executives are most wary of Amazon's ability to keep increasing profits through its non-retail business, while eating more of the retail landscape with ever-faster shipping and a bigger product selection, people familiar with the company said. Internally some executives are highlighting Walmart's role as a good corporate citizen and emphasizing that it's important to be the best at serving customers and workers, not just the biggest, say some of those people. Its scale can also have downsides, say some, like outsize attention on every misstep.

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RedBird IMI deal effectively killed by new legislation blocking foreign states from owning UK newspapers

The former CNN executive who fronted a failed bid for the Telegraph newspaper by a UAE-backed consortium has suggested the government was not willing to listen to assurances about editorial neutrality.

Jeff Zucker said there were figures in the UK who were “scared” of the £600m deal, which would have seen the Abu Dhabi-backed consortium, RedBird IMI, take control of the Telegraph and Spectator.

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© Photograph: Andy Rain/EPA

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© Photograph: Andy Rain/EPA

Tories and Labour can no longer afford to be noncommittal. Daniel Křetínský’s offer needs maximum scrutiny

• Royal Mail owner backs £3.5bn takeover offer by Czech billionaire

Almost every aspect of Daniel Křetínský’s fresh offer for the owner of the Royal Mail is unsatisfactory: the price, the identity of the bidder and the sketchy “undertakings” to protect the UK postal service.

First, the terms – 370p a share, or £3.5bn – only look attractive if you think the government, or the next one, will maintain the current blinkered stance of refusing to reform Royal Mail’s six-day-a-week delivery obligations.

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© Photograph: Milan Kammermayer/Reuters

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© Photograph: Milan Kammermayer/Reuters

Speaking at Cannes, the actor said that before more women got greenlight jobs in Hollywood, executives had struggled to see themselves in female roles

The cruel and unwelcoming fashion magazine editor at the icy heart of 2006 comedy hit The Devil Wears Prada may not strike many viewers as Meryl Streep’s most relatable role.

But in a stage interview at the Cannes film festival the veteran film actor revealed that her turn as Miranda Priestly, the boss from hell, was the first role she played that caused men to come up to her afterwards and say they knew exactly how she felt.

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© Photograph: Getty Images

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© Photograph: Getty Images

New Křetínský bid creates headache for UK government amid growing scrutiny on foreign takeovers of critical infrastructure

• Nils Pratley: Czech tycoon’s bid is problematic from every angle

The owner of Royal Mail has backed a £3.5bn offer for the postal company from a Czech billionaire after he sweetened the value of his planned takeover, creating a political headache for the government.

Last month, Royal Mail’s parent company, International Distributions Services (IDS), rejected a preliminary offer worth 320p a share, or £3.1bn, from Daniel Křetínský, the part-owner of West Ham United whose company, EP Group, is the postal service’s shareholder.

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© Photograph: John Sibley/Reuters

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© Photograph: John Sibley/Reuters

schwit1 shares a report: Fake studies have flooded the publishers of top scientific journals, leading to thousands of retractions and millions of dollars in lost revenue. The biggest hit has come to Wiley, a 217-year-old publisher based in Hoboken, N.J., which Tuesday announced that it was closing 19 journals, some of which were infected by large-scale research fraud. In the past two years, Wiley has retracted more than 11,300 papers that appeared compromised, according to a spokesperson, and closed four journals. It isn't alone: At least two other publishers have retracted hundreds of suspect papers each. Several others have pulled smaller clusters of bad papers. Although this large-scale fraud represents a small percentage of submissions to journals, it threatens the legitimacy of the nearly $30 billion academic publishing industry and the credibility of science as a whole. The discovery of nearly 900 fraudulent papers in 2022 at IOP Publishing, a physical sciences publisher, was a turning point for the nonprofit. "That really crystallized for us, everybody internally, everybody involved with the business," said Kim Eggleton, head of peer review and research integrity at the publisher. "This is a real threat." The sources of the fake science are "paper mills" -- businesses or individuals that, for a price, will list a scientist as an author of a wholly or partially fabricated paper. The mill then submits the work, generally avoiding the most prestigious journals in favor of publications such as one-off special editions that might not undergo as thorough a review and where they have a better chance of getting bogus work published.

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Company’s cheap, simple-to-use durable minicomputer has proved a hit all over the world

• Tech firm Raspberry Pi readies for London float

Raspberry Pi, whose popular minicomputers are sold around the world, has come a long way since its co-founder Jack Lang had to store some of the first batch of single-board devices in his garage more than a decade ago.

What started out as a project to reverse the decline in computer science applications at Cambridge University went on to inspire a generation of child programmers by offering them an affordable $35 (£28) minicomputer. Now the company is preparing to list on the London Stock Exchange.

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© Photograph: Mark Hawkins/Alamy

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© Photograph: Mark Hawkins/Alamy

Cross-party group of 50 calls on prime minister to appoint climate envoy and back Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance

A cross-party group of MPs and peers has urged Rishi Sunak to make a U-turn on his oil and gas extraction plans as part of a broader plea to increase efforts to address the climate crisis.

The 50 politicians, including three Conservatives, wrote to the prime minister calling for the UK to regain its international leadership on the crisis by ending the licensing of new oil and gas fields, appointing a climate envoy, and backing the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance.

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© Photograph: Andy Buchanan/AFP/Getty Images

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© Photograph: Andy Buchanan/AFP/Getty Images