Online gambling firm’s service ‘issues’ left bettors apparently unable to ‘cash out’ on busy night in European football
The online gambling company Bet365 has been flooded with complaints after it suffered an outage during one of the busiest nights of European football this season.
Customers claimed to have lost out on thousands of pounds owing to what the company called “issues with our service” during the second half of Wednesday night’s 18 Champions League games.
Continue reading...Reported move would make Japanese group largest financial backer of US startup behind ChatGPT
The Japanese investment group SoftBank is reportedly in talks to invest up to $25bn (£20bn) in OpenAI in a deal that would make it the biggest financial backer of the startup behind ChatGPT.
The lender is considering putting a sum of between $15bn and $25bn into the San Francisco-based company, according to the Financial Times.
Continue reading...Court says UK government green light for Rosebank and Jackdaw permits does not take into account CO2 emissions
The decision to greenlight a giant new oilfield off Shetland has been ruled unlawful by the courts in a major win for environmental campaigners.
The proposed Rosebank development – the UK’s biggest untapped oilfield – had been given the go-ahead in 2023 under the previous government.
Continue reading...President has made clear he wants rates to fall as benchmark interest rate now sits at a range of 4.25% to 4.5%
Federal Reserve officials decided on Wednesday to hold interest rates steady as uncertainty over Donald Trump’s impact on the US economy looms and inflation remains above the central bank’s target levels.
This is the first time Fed policymakers have met since the president, who has made clear he wants rates to fall, returned to the White House. The benchmark interest rate now sits at a range of 4.25% to 4.5%.
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Reeves says the supply side of the economy has been held back.
Politicians have lacked the courage to confront the factors holding back growth.
They have accepted the status quo. They have been the barrier, not the enablers, of change.
Without economic growth, we cannot improve the living standards of ordinary working people, because growth isn’t simply about lines on a graph. It’s about the pounds in people’s pockets, the vibrancy of our high streets and the thriving businesses that create wealth, jobs and new opportunities for us, for our children and grandchildren.
We will have succeeded in our mission when working people are better off.
Continue reading...Ursula von der Leyen announces plans to cut red tape and boost innovation in second term as head of European Commission
The EU executive has announced “an unprecedented simplification effort” to cut regulations and boost innovation in an attempt to reverse Europe’s economic decline and better compete with China and the US.
In her first major policy announcement since starting a second term as the European Commission president last month, Ursula von der Leyen outlined policy proposals intended to boost Europe’s flagging economy.
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Labor adds homelessness focus to disability strategy
Australians with disabilities experiencing homelessness will be prioritised as the government commits to disability reforms, months after a scathing royal commission into the sector, AAP reports.
For the first time, they also include a number of national actions that all governments will work on together, with the disability community, to ensure people with disability right across Australia experience the benefits.
Some students, especially those in our cities, can see a career in agriculture as something that’s only for those who live in the regions or for those whose family own land that can be used to operate an agribusiness.
AgConnections aims to break down these misconceptions and build on the diversity of the industry, by highlighting and encouraging women and Indigenous Australians wanting to pursue a career in agriculture.
Continue reading...Company apologises over disclosure of information and collection of debts from vulnerable people
Human error has been blamed after a major energy retailer shared family violence victims’ private details without their consent and for chasing other survivors for unpaid power bills.
Origin Energy has coughed up $1.6m after it was served penalty notices by Victoria’s Essential Services Commission for breaching rules designed to protect the vulnerable cohort.
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Continue reading...Levies threaten exporters to US market, while scrapping of subsidies will hit EV sales – and Tesla could gain
The internal combustion engine appears to hold a special place in Donald Trump’s psyche. During his inauguration speech last week, he made a “sacred pledge” to raise US car production to “a rate that nobody could have dreamt possible just a few years ago”.
Car making and the oil industry – not AI, computer chips, or even cryptocurrencies – were the only two industries the new US president highlighted as he promised to make America a “manufacturing nation once again”.
Continue reading...The networking and events business struggled with ‘rising rents’ and the aftermath of the pandemic
AllBright, the women-only members’ club with a five-storey townhouse in Mayfair, London, has entered administration, the Guardian can reveal.
The networking and events business – which was co-founded by the Telegraph Media Group’s chief executive, Anna Jones, and the co-chair of the Invest in Women Taskforce, Debbie Wosskow – emailed members last week to say it was closing the doors of its building just off Regent Street.
Continue reading...Tentative rise comes after emergence of cheaper Chinese rival wiped $1tn off the value of leading US tech companies
US tech stocks tentatively recovered on Tuesday after Donald Trump described the launch of a chatbot by China’s DeepSeek as a “wake-up call” for Silicon Valley in the global race to dominate artificial intelligence.
The emergence of DeepSeek, which has built its R1 model chatbot at a fraction of the cost of competitors such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini, wiped $1tn (£800bn) in value from the leading US tech index on Monday.
Continue reading...Donald Trump says China’s DeepSeek is a ‘wake-up call’ for American AI firms
Donald Trump has suggested that Microsoft is in talks to acquire TikTok and that he would like to see a bidding war over the app.
When asked if Microsoft was in talks to buy the app, the US president said “I would say yes”, adding “A lot of interest in TikTok. There’s great interest in TikTok.”
Continue reading...Doug Gurr will lead board as watchdog rules on Microsoft and Amazon’s dominance of cloud computing market
The new chair of the UK competition watchdog will have to assess whether to curb the position of his former employer, Amazon, after an independent inquiry found that a lack of competition in the £9bn cloud computing market could mean British businesses are overpaying for services.
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), which last week announced the surprise appointment of former Amazon UK boss Doug Gurr as its interim chair, said that Microsoft and Amazon’s dominance of the cloud computing market could mean that British businesses are paying as much as £430m more annually for services than in a “well-functioning market”.
Continue reading...Much loved for its screenings of hard-to-find films, the venue claims its landlord wants to alter lease, leaving it able to shut down the business
The Prince Charles cinema in central London, long a site of pilgrimage for those interested in cult and hard-to-find films, has launched a petition saying its existence is under threat from its property developer landlords.
In a statement on petitions website 38degrees.org.uk, the cinema says that Zedwell LSQ Ltd (who are owned by developers Criterion Capital) are demanding a “break clause” in the building’s lease, which is currently being negotiated as the current lease ends in September. The cinema says this means they would be on six months’ notice to leave if Zedwell decides to redevelop the site.
Continue reading...Businesses should avoid panic amid fears US will attempt to repatriate jobs and taxes, says Danny McCoy
Donald Trump will not be a knockout “meteor” to Ireland’s economy despite its heavy reliance on US multinationals, the head of the country’s business trade organisation has said.
While the US president told world leaders gathered at Davos last week that “Europe treats us very, very unfairly” there is a heightened sense of nervousness in Ireland that this could translate to an attempt to repatriate jobs and taxes from the 950 US companies there.
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AFP warns parents over rise in AI-generated child abuse material
There has been an increase in the use of AI-generated child abuse material in the past year, including students creating material like deepfakes to harass or embarrass classmates, the Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation has said.
Children and young people are curious by nature, however, anything that depicts the abuse of someone under the age of 18 – whether that’s videos, images, drawings or stories – is child abuse material, irrespective of whether it is ‘real’ or not.
The AFP encourages all parents and guardians to have open and honest conversations with their child on this topic, particularly as AI technology continues to become increasingly accessible and integrated into platforms and products.
As a society, I think that it demonstrates the need for us to place a high value collectively on a civil political discourse, rather than an extreme one.
I wasn’t surprised to learn that of the 16 arrests, only one person was from South Australia and the rest were scattered from all over the country and for whatever reason, decided to convene in Adelaide.
Continue reading...Researchers say companies have prolonged injustice and exaggerated cost of solving infrastructure problems
Water companies are adopting disinformation tactics similar to those used by the fossil fuel and tobacco industries with the widespread use of greenwashing to downplay the environmental harm they cause, a study says.
Environmental scientists analysed the communications of the nine main water and sewerage companies in England, and compared them with a framework of 28 greenwashing tactics employed, researchers say, by the tobacco, alcohol, fossil fuels and chemical industries.
Continue reading...Elon Musk’s company still imports large number of cars into Europe from its Shanghai factory
Tesla has filed a complaint against the European Commission after the imposition of tariffs by the bloc on its Chinese-made electric vehicles.
The EU announced its decision to impose tariffs on all imports of Chinese electric cars in June, alleging that the Chinese government had provided unfair state subsidies to manufacturers in order to win a dominant position in the emerging industry. EU leaders approved the tariffs in October.
Continue reading...Esyasoft to acquire UK company, which supplies renewable power to about 245,000 households and businesses
A British green electricity supplier, Good Energy, has agreed a near-£100m takeover by a company controlled by a member of Abu Dhabi’s ruling family.
The retail energy company said on Monday it had agreed a deal with the Dubai-headquartered Esyasoft for a cash offer of £4.90 a share, valuing it at £99.4m.
Continue reading...CBI says businesses plan to cut jobs and raise prices while debt charity says millions are ‘facing worries’
The government is under growing pressure to get momentum back into the economy amid warnings that businesses plan to cut jobs and raise prices, while millions of families believe their finances will worsen this year.
Before a major speech this week by the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, designed to restate Labour’s commitment to improving the economy, the CBI said private sector firms were urgently assessing their budgets to offset measures announced in last October’s budget.
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