Mutual reports half-year pre-tax profit of £58m despite soaring wage bill and rising cost of theft at retail stores
The Co-operative Group has laid bare the impact of shoplifting as it said the cost of crime in its stores soared by almost 20% to £40m in the first half of the year.
The member-owned mutual has spent £18m so far this year on measures to protect staff in its food business, including rolling out body-worn cameras and fortified kiosks.
Continue reading...Labour leader says there should be more support to help people back into jobs, vowing to do ‘everything we can to tackle worklessness’
People who have been on long-term sickness leave and claiming benefits will need get back into the workplace “where they can”, Keir Starmer has said.
The prime minister said he wants more schemes across the country that support people back into work from long-term sickness because he believes in the “basic proposition that you should look for work”.
Continue reading...Shanel Tofaeono tied up store employee whose hands were ‘shaking so much due to fear’, judge says
A man who pretended to rob a luxury jewellery store and tied up a terrified employee as part of an alleged $2.8m insurance fraud plot has been jailed for his crime.
Shanel Tofaeono, 39, was part of a wider scheme allegedly headed up by jeweller Michel Germani to stage a robbery of his Hilton hotel store in Sydney’s CBD in January 2022.
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Plibersek approves three coalmine expansions
We have more on environment minister Tanya Plibersek’s approval of three coalmine expansions on Tuesday from Graham Readfearn here.
There’s a range of everyday common health conditions that are unnecessarily blocking up our emergency departments and contributing to those wait times to see our precious general practitioners.
We would love to see more GPs. Who doesn’t love their local family doctor? My wife and I and our children certainly do. But we all know how difficult it is to not only find one, find one that bulk-bills, but find one that hasn’t closed their books and can take an appointment. That’s not just in the bush, that’s in our major capital cities as well, whether it’s after 6pm or on a weekend, when your local pharmacy is open.
Continue reading...Former ITV presenter will appear in Channel 5’s Cast Away, which follows a celebrity stranded off Madagascar
Phillip Schofield is returning to television 16 months after quitting This Morning over what he called an “unwise, but not illegal” affair.
The 62-year-old, who stepped down from presenting the ITV daytime show in May 2023 after 21 years, will appear in a Channel 5 special called Cast Away, which follows a celebrity stranded on an island off the coast of Madagascar for nearly two weeks.
Continue reading...Australian company says it is frustrated that UK property website has refused to engage over £6.1bn offer
Rightmove has rejected a third bid from Rupert Murdoch’s REA Group and said the offer was “unattractive” and undervalues the UK’s largest online property portal.
On Wednesday Rightmove confirmed that its board had “unanimously rejected” the non-binding cash-and-shares offer put forward on Monday, which valued the company at £6.1bn.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Legalise Cannabis party MP calls on government to recognise that powerful synthetic opioids ‘aren’t just another drug’
The New South Wales government will be asked to formally recognise the powerful synthetic opioids called nitazenes as a “growing threat” as it faces calls to introduce drug-checking services.
The Legalise Cannabis party MP, Jeremy Buckingham, will move a motion in state parliament on Wednesday night to acknowledge that nitazenes are an emerging problem, including for people who don’t typically take opioids.
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Continue reading...As the budget looms, where the party stands on investment in the UK economy, workers’ rights and more
For a second year running, corporate Britain descended on Liverpool for Labour’s annual conference, in an event so packed with executives that some insiders joke the socialist gathering has developed into a full-blown “Davos on the Mersey”.
Like last year, the exhibition and conference fringe had sponsored events, lounge areas and advertising from exhibitors including Gatwick, National Grid, Ikea and Specsavers. This year, however, business leaders were looking for clues about how Labour will govern after July’s election landslide.
Continue reading...Orthopaedic surgeon Elie Khoury performed the operations which have a usual mortality risk from 0.1% to 0.8%
Three per cent of an orthopaedic surgeon’s patients who underwent bilateral knee replacement surgery at Albury Wodonga private hospital died, a New South Wales coroner has heard.
Kenneth Toll, 62, died on 20 July 2019 three days after undergoing the elective surgery at the hospital. The inquest, which began on Monday, is examining the medical care and treatment provided to Toll in the lead-up to his death.
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Continue reading...PM hopes to meet both candidates on US trip but attempt to see Trump undermined by Home Office minister saying he had emboldened racists in UK
Keir Starmer has said he wants to meet Kamala Harris and Donald Trump before the US election, as he declined to back one of his ministers who said the Republican candidate had contributed to racist rhetoric in the UK.
The prime minister said he was hoping to find time with both candidates as he travelled to New York for the United Nations general assembly – his third trip to the US since taking office.
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