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Ruling is blow to Trump's bold assertions of authority and topples key pillar of aggressive economic agendaUS politics live – latest updatesThe US supreme court declared many of Donald Trump's tariffs illegal on Friday, in a sharp rebuke that topples a key pillar of the president's aggressive economic agenda.In a 6-3 ruling, the court decided that a 1977 law designed to address national emergencies did not provide the legal justification for most of the Trump administration's tariffs on countries across the world. It is the first time the court has overruled one of Trump's second-term policies. Continue reading......

Record public finances accompany stronger retail sales and business activity but some analysts express cautionThe economic backdrop to Rachel Reeves's upcoming spring statement appeared to brighten on Friday after a trio of reports painted a better-than-expected picture of the UK economy.Record monthly public finances, a surge in retail spending and accelerating business activity offered the most coherent picture of recovery since last autumn, economists said, and provided the chancellor with a more positive narrative ahead of her 3 March statement. Continue reading......

Sale to Lord Rothermere, Daily Mail owner, referred to regulators on media plurality and competition groundsMedia company Axel Springer, the owner of Politico and Business Insider, has joined a rival bid for the Telegraph, as a proposed £500m sale to the owner of the Daily Mail enters months of scrutiny from regulators.Axel Springer, which also owns Europe's largest-circulation newspaper, Bild, has joined a consortium headed by Dovid Efune, the British owner of the New York Sun who has been pursuing the Telegraph titles for well over a year. Continue reading......

German Doner Kebab aims to open at 25 new sites this year with self-service screens and healthy options aimed at gen Z They are already packing our groceries and delivering shopping. Now robots are coming to the kebab shop, alongside self-service screens and loyalty apps, as takeaways look for ways to tackle rising costs.German Doner Kebab (GDK), a perhaps surprisingly British-owned chain that has been springing up across the country, has turned to technology to keep its fast food business buzzing in the face of rising costs and tough times on the high street. Continue reading......

Reported issues at Amazon Web Services raise questions about firm's use of artificial intelligence as it cuts staffBusiness live – latest updatesAmazon's huge cloud computing arm reportedly experienced at least two outages caused by its own artificial intelligence tools, raising questions about the company's embrace of AI as it lays off human employees.A 13-hour interruption to Amazon Web Services' (AWS) operations in December was caused by an AI agent autonomously choosing to “delete and then recreate” a part of its environment, the Financial Times reported. Continue reading......

Head of statistics agency tells BBC that depiction risks undermining 'delicate relationship' with publicBusiness live – latest updatesIt is best known for depicting City traders as drug-addled, sex-crazed adrenaline addicts, but it is the portrayal of doorstep data collectors that has unexpectedly caused trouble for the BBC's hit TV series Industry.The head of the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has written to the BBC criticising Industry for a recent episode in which its characters falsely impersonate ONS employees on someone's doorstep. Continue reading......

Largest January total since records began in 1993 is sharp reversal from December's £11.6bn deficitBusiness live – latest updatesThe UK government has posted the biggest ever budget surplus, official figures show, after a large increase in self-assessment and capital gains tax receipts.In a boost for the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, in the run-up to her spring statement next month, public sector finances recorded a surplus of £30.4bn in January, according to the Office for National Statistics. This was double the surplus recorded in January 2025. Continue reading......

Conservative justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Brett Kavanaugh dissented in the 6-3 rulingAccording to reporters at the supreme court, one box of opinions has been brought out.Typically, this means we can expect two decisions from the court. Continue reading......

Software companies are facing major disruption from AI and investors are pulling back, wiping off billions in value – but does it spell the end for software-as-a-service?Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastAfter years of questioning whether artificial intelligence was creating a speculative market bubble, investors are now grappling with a new question: what if its hype is real?The “SaaS-pocalypse”, a trending term to describe the recent and dramatic sell-off in global software-as-a-service (SaaS) shares, is based on the idea that AI becomes so advanced that software becomes redundant. Continue reading......

AI has convinced computer science students to shift majors and white-collar workers to change careers, while some are embracing itMatthew Ramirez started at Western Governors University as a computer science major in 2025, drawn by the promise of a high-paying, flexible career as a programmer. But as headlines mounted about tech layoffs and AI's potential to replace entry-level coders, he began to question whether that path would actually lead to a job.When the 20-year-old interviewed for a datacenter technician role that June and never heard back, his doubts deepened. In December, Ramirez decided on what he thought was a safer bet: turning away from computer science entirely. He dropped his planned major to instead apply to nursing school. He comes from a family of nurses, and sees the field as more stable and harder to automate than coding. Continue reading......

Global Counsel stops trading after clients cut ties over former ambassador's relationship with Jeffrey EpsteinBusiness live – latest updatesThe consultancy co-founded by Peter Mandelson has collapsed into administration, after a number of clients cut ties with the company over the former ambassador's relationship with the convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.Global Counsel, which Mandelson co-founded in 2010, said on Friday that it had stopped trading and its staff in the UK were being made redundant. Continue reading......

In a university ecosystem that breeds hunger for status, Epstein made scholars feel like celebritiesThe Jeffrey Epstein story is often told as the intersection of two obsessions: sexual abuse and money. The recently released emails certainly contain significant evidence of both. But after more than two decades as a professor at Harvard, Cornell, and Cambridge, I am most struck by the limitation of that frame – in part because it fails to explain why academics show up so consistently in these files.Certainly, money played a role in Epstein's university connections. A rich man using donations and access to burnish his ego and legitimacy is a well-worn script, from Andrew Carnegie's libraries more than a century ago to Bill Gates's more recent global health philanthropy. As a college drop-out, Epstein clearly craved “respect” from high-profile academics. Universities, meanwhile, are perpetually fundraising and institutions that rely on donations often avoid asking hard questions about where the mone...

Mayor says Japanese city will respect donor's specification that £2.7m gift must be used to repair dilapidated systemOsaka has received a hefty gift of gold bars worth 560m yen (£2.7m) from an anonymous donor and a request for its specific use: to fix the Japanese city's dilapidated water pipes.The gold bars, weighing a total of 21kg (46lb), were given to the Osaka City Waterworks Bureau in November by the donor who wants to help improve ageing water pipes, the mayor, Hideyuki Yokoyama, told reporters on Thursday. Continue reading......

Do satellite channels have a future? Is free-to-air as important as it was? Will Netflix and Prime make moves?By No Helmets RequiredWhat were once a DVD postal service, an online bookstore and an American cable channel renowned for showing B movies in motel rooms are now heavyweights in the sports broadcasting market. Netflix and Amazon have changed the global landscape, leaving TNT Sports under pressure to hold on to its subscribers.I spent the last Super League off-season living in a stable (true story) with no access to satellite or cable, but still got my sports fix via free-to-air networks and subscriptions to Premier Sports, Prime Video and Netflix. I was fully sated on a diet of live rugby union, football, cricket, NFL and NBA – all for less than a Sky Sports or TNT subscription. So how will the increased competition between broadcasters affect league and union viewers? Continue reading......

Chip manufacturer to invest in return for stock after previous 'circular' $100bn deal dissolved earlier this monthNvidia, the world's most valuable company, is reportedly planning to invest $30bn (£22bn) in OpenAI's next funding round, after a $100bn deal between the two dissolved earlier this month.The maker of ChatGPT is expected to be valued at $730bn in the funding round, nearly twice the valuation of Anthropic, one of its main rivals, which raised $30bn earlier this month. Continue reading......

Struggling British carmaker says earnings for 2025 will be worse than City forecasts as US tariffs hit salesAston Martin has again warned its profits will be lower than expected and sold its permanent naming rights to its Formula One team, as the struggling British carmaker battles to stabilise its finances.The luxury carmaker, majority owned by the Canadian billionaire Lawrence Stroll, said its earnings for 2025 would be worse than City forecasts, its fifth profit warning since September 2024. Continue reading......

French utility company EDF says operations in Somerset will start a year later as delay costs firm €2.5bnBritain's first new nuclear plant in a generation at the Hinkley Point C site will face further delay, at a cost of €2.5bn to the French utility company EDF.EDF said the first reactor at the site in Somerset will begin operations a year later than planned in 2030 – almost 13 years after construction work began – after a series of delays to the project. Continue reading......

We would like to hear your story of serving a nightmare patronA diner in a Sydney restaurant has been caught on CCTV sprinkling armpit hair into their food “in attempt to get a free meal”. After confronting the head chef, the man allegedly then left without paying, having ordered the most expensive items on the menu.With this delightful story in mind, do you have a story of dealing with a rude or generally bad customer while working in hospitality? Continue reading......

Police in Pattaya say autopsy on body of British retail entrepreneur Quentin Griffiths showed no signs of foul play Quentin Griffiths, the co-founder of the online fashion retailer Asos, has died after falling from an apartment building in the Thai resort city of Pattaya.An unnamed police investigator told the BBC that officers were called on 9 February after a man was found dead, having fallen from an 18-storey condominium in Pattaya, on Thailand's eastern Gulf coast. Continue reading......

Trump has attacked judges and weakened global safeguards. Someone needs to stand up to the US and stop the erosion of democracyIn an era of overlapping crises, corruption is no longer a side issue – it is a structural threat to achievinginternational equality and even freedom itself. Each year, Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index, a league table of 182 countries, is greeted with predictable theatrics: praise where it flatters power, condemnation where it can be weaponised, and hollow promises of reform that quietly expire once attention moves on. Instead of a moment of reckoning, it is ignored by those with the power to act.As this newspaper reported, last week's table showed a “worrying trend” of backsliding and a picture of “democratic institutions being eroded by political donations, cash for access and state targeting of campaigners and journalists”. Continue reading......