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Young apprentices should have part of their wages paid by taxpayers, according to Reform UK plans, external aimed at delivering a “skills revolution”.The party’s education spokeswoman Suella Braverman said a Reform government would introduce an “apprenticeship wage credit” offering small and medium-sized businesses a 30% rebate on the wages of apprentices they take on aged 16 to 18.She also advised students receiving their GCSE exam results on Thursday “not to get ripped off by the great university scam” and to learn a trade instead.Prime Minister Andy Burnham has said he wants teenagers to have technical routes into careers that could…

The number of job vacancies has fallen to its lowest level in more than five years as smaller businesses cut back on recruitment, official figures indicate.Vacancy numbers fell over the May-to-July period to 707,000, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), which said small firms were citing labour and operating costs as reasons for scaling back hiring.Energy costs have risen since the Iran war began, and companies have also said that increases in National Insurance and the minimum wage have made it more expensive to employ staff.Earnings growth picked up slightly, although private sector wages grew at their slowest…

India’s beauty brands have been drawing a lot of interest from global capital recently. Earlier this year in March, American luxury cosmetics maker Estée Lauder fully acquired, external the homegrown ayurvedic company Forest Essentials. France’s L’Oréal Group followed in June, picking up a majority stake in digital personal care brand Innovist, external. And Unilever has made at least four beauty investments in the country through its venture capital arm in the last couple of years.Founded at the turn of the millennium in a garage in the Himalayan foothills by entrepreneur Mira Kulkarni – a single mother of two – Forest…

President Donald Trump has said the US will inflict “TREMENDOUS Economic Consequences” on any country that helps or does business with Iran.He wrote in all capital letters on Truth Social that he was launching “the most crushing economic operation ever taken against any country!” He gave no further details, and did not name any other nation. It comes after a 60-day ceasefire with Iran expired on Monday, with no sign of a diplomatic or military off-ramp to the conflict that the US and Israel began at the end of February.Trump’s latest move appears to extend the pressure campaign of Operation…

The decision by Wetherspoons follows a stricter, longstanding policy from rival pub chain Sam Smiths, which has a ban against phone or tech use of any kind, in addition to a ban on swearing.Mark Evans manages the Black Horse Inn, a Sam Smiths pub in Bradford, and tells the BBC says it offers a “digital detox” because of the ban. “Even strangers in for the first time, within 10 or 15 minutes, they’re joining in a conversation with other people,” he says.”You do get occasional negative reaction where they’ll just turn around and walk out, which is fair enough.””We do…

Inflation soared in 2022 because oil and gas were in greater demand after the Covid pandemic, and energy prices surged again when Russia invaded Ukraine.Before the war in the Middle East broke out, UK inflation had been expected to be at or around the target level of 2% over the next five years, according to the official forecasts published in March 2026.But in April, the Bank of England warned that disruption to global energy markets could push UK inflation as high as 6% in the worst-case scenario.When the latest ceasefire took effect, analysts said it could limit further inflation hikes.…

The US, meanwhile, has been asking for a number of concessions from Canada, including removing its remaining retaliatory tariffs on American autos and adjusting its dairy quotas to allow greater access for US cheese producers.It has also asked for the ban on US alcohol sales, imposed last year by most Canadian provinces in retaliation to Trump’s tariffs, be removed.Asked on Wednesday if the latest deal will include significant concessions on dairy, Minister LeBlanc said that Canada’s dairy supply management programme – which sees production quotas, set pricing, and import quotas on dairy, eggs, and poultry – will remain “entirely intact”.Polls…

Long-term borrowing costs in the US eased on Wednesday after the Treasury department announced it would buy back more debt.The move came after the interest rate on 30-year bonds, which are a type of debt used to raise funds from investors, hit 5.34% on Tuesday – the highest level in almost 20 years.The high rates, known as yields, affect the rate the US government and major corporations can borrow money at, but also impact borrowing costs consumers pay on the likes of mortgages, car loans and credit cards.The recent surge in bond yields has been driven by rising oil prices…

HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) sent more than 81,000 letters warning cryptocurrency holders they may owe capital gains tax in the past year.A Freedom of Information (FOI) request seen by the BBC showed the number of letters sent by the tax authority had almost tripled since 2024.Investors could face fines or prosecution if they fail to declare profits they made from selling, even if they exchange one cryptocurrency for another.New powers due to be given to HMRC next year will make it easier to target wealthy crypto investors, with one analyst saying investigations will be like “shooting fish in a…

OpenAI says it has slowed down training some of its most advanced AI models to improve security.In a blog post, external, the ChatGPT-maker said it was introducing new measures after its AI agents autonomously bypassed safeguards and hacked the tech start-up Hugging Face.It said training would be slowed for two weeks while it puts the upgrades in place.”The capabilities of frontier models are rapidly accelerating,” the company said. “Our ability to understand…and secure them must stay ahead.”Claude-maker Anthropic and Facebook-owner Meta reported similar kinds of hacks by their AI in the weeks following the initial announcement by OpenAI that some…