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The cliffside village of Atrani at sunset along the Amalfi Coast, Campania, southern Italy.© Marco Bottigelli | Moment | Getty ImagesFall is the new peak season for luxury travel, as the wealthy continue to shift their holidays to September and October to avoid the summer crowds, according to a new study.Fall bookings for luxury travel and experiences are up 59% compared with last year, while sales surged 69%, according to Virtuoso, the global luxury travel network. September is now a peak month, with sales up 77%. October and November sales are up 54% and 71%, respectively.Virtuoso calls it the “fallcation,”…

When clothes designer Jeff Banks reported on the Manchester fashion scene, he had to check out Affleck’s Palace. The indoor emporium of independent traders opened in 1982, fast becoming a regular shopping haunt for generations of studentsClip taken from The Clothes Show, originally broadcast on BBC One, 17 November 1986.Explore more and follow BBC Archive.

I’m reading a great little book called The Practice Of Not Reacting: Zen Wisdom For A Happy Life by Ryushun Kusanagi. The publisher is Portfolio Penguin, the same publisher for my 2027 book, Your Children Will Be OK. One of the core concepts is that all of us want to be recognized for our contributions. At work, at home, at school, by our own parents. When the recognition doesn’t come, we feel disappointed and bitter. But Buddhism believes that desire itself is the source of all suffering, and the desire to be recognized is just one form of it. Let go of the…

Xbox is introducing strict monthly time limits for Game Pass subscribers who stream games online through its cloud gaming service.The changes, which come into effect in November, will see a subscriber to the £16.99 Ultimate monthly plan able to stream games for up to 15 hours a month – before having to purchase additional cloud play time.Xbox said the limits were due to the rising cost of cloud gaming, and they would allow the firm to “continue to invest” in the service’s “reliability and performance”. While some questioned, external whether the service was used by many to begin with, others…

While petrol has hit its highest price since the Iran war began, according to the RAC, diesel remains below the peak of 191.54p a litre it reached on 15 April.In early July, the RAC said the average price of petrol sank to a low of 150.59p per litre and 164.52p per litre for diesel.Since then the prices have risen, with petrol now at 163.6p a litre while diesel costs 184.99p a litre.RAC’s head of policy Simon Williams said that, with oil prices remaining elevated, drivers will “almost certainly start paying noticeably more at the pumps in the coming weeks”. Despite…

A boost in hospitality and education employment drove the US economy to create tens of thousands more jobs than expected last month, latest figures suggest.The number of roles added to the world’s biggest economy increased by 162,000 in August, almost triple the 56,000 forecast by analysts.An increase in employment during the final month of the summer in restaurants and bars, as well as in local government education ahead of the new school year, was behind the rebound.The stronger jobs figures are likely to add to growing expectations that the Federal Reserve will increase interest rates later this month.Last week, Kevin…

Households should stock up on food to prepare for extreme weather as the strongest El Niño event in a generation develops over the Pacific Ocean, a government minister has warned.Environment Secretary Dame Angela Eagle told the Guardian the powerful natural climate phenomenon will lead to “more extreme storms in this country”.Her comments came as the National Audit Office (NAO) warned Britain’s food supply chain is at risk given the growing threat of cyber-attacks and the climate crisis.The NAO said the government was too reliant on the private sector to deal with food supply disruption. The government is due to unveil…

Drivers in the US are paying more than ever for diesel at the pump as the US-Israel war with Iran continues to hit Americans’ wallets.In the US, diesel is mostly used by commercial vehicles, such as trucks, trains, boats, buses, farming vehicles and construction vehicles.The average price for one gallon of diesel in the US has hit $5.85, compared to an average of $3.71 a year ago and above the previous high following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, according to the American Automobile Association (AAA).Fuel prices have soared since the Iran conflict began at the end of February, reflecting the…

Firmus Energy has announced an 8.98% price increase for customers in the Ten Towns area and 12.5% for Greater Belfast.The Ten Towns new tariff will be effective from 1 October and equates to an extra £7 per month on the average bill for customers.In greater Belfast, around 54,000 customers’ new tariffs will be effective from 8 October and equates to an extra £12 per month.They said the increase was “due to the increased cost of gas on the global energy markets caused by the prolonged conflict in the Middle East”.Around 77,000 households and small businesses are in the the Ten…

In the mid-1970s, Jack Bogle’s experiment with low-cost index funds at an asset manager owned by its investors ushered in what came to be known as The Vanguard Effect, a low-cost investing environment that reshaped the industry.That bet paid off in spades. Vanguard, which celebrated the 50th anniversary of the first index fund launch this week, became the pioneer of index investing and a titan in mutual funds and, later, in ETFs. Today, on any given day, it jockeys with BlackRock for the title of largest U.S. ETF manager with $4.7 trillion in assets (a distinction BlackRock previously held for…