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President has dismissed anxieties over AI's dangerous potential even as Democrats and some Republicans acknowledge risksDonald Trump is facing a rare backlash from the US Congress as Democrats and some Republicans push for guardrails on the world's most powerful AI companies.Concerns over the dangerous potential of AI reached fever pitch this week after tech leaders sounded the alarm over the rapid advancement of the technology and its potential threat to humanity. Continue reading......

Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial newsThe UK state pension is set to rise by 3.9% next year, it appears, following today's wage growth figures.Under the triple-lock system, pensions rise by the highest of average earnings, inflation, or 2.5%.“Today's earnings figures show wage growth running at 3.9%, which puts a State Pension increase of a similar magnitude firmly on the cards next April under the triple lock.“If confirmed, this would see the full New State Pension rise to over £13,000. While we will need to wait for September's inflation figure before the uprating mechanism is formally confirmed, inflation is currently expected to remain below earnings growth, making an earnings-led increase the most likely outcome.“Vacancies remain at their lowest level outside the pandemic period for more than a decade, with smaller businesses continuing to report that increased labour costs are affecting hiring decisions.” Continue reading......

Capacity has been overwhelmed by heatwaves that have pushed white goods to breaking point“In Oxfordshire, recycling centres are filling almost three articulated lorries with discarded fridges every week,” says Simon Perry of W&S Waste Management, which runs a recycling centre in Ardley.Together, those fridges would cover an area just under half the size of a football pitch. But the space to store them – in Oxfordshire and beyond – has become a growing problem after the Local Government Association (LGA) warned that a mountain of broken fridges was rising in waste centres across England and Wales, as this year's heatwaves push more white goods to breaking point, and a trend for second/backup refrigeration products keeps growing. Continue reading......

The militant group in Yemen captured the islands of Greater and Lesser Hanish, near the chokepoint of the Bab al-Mandab straitYemen's Houthi militants have seized two strategic islands in the Red Sea, reinforcing the Iran-backed group's ability to control a key shipping route, as concerns mount that the world is facing a new oil supply crisis.The seizure of the islands of Greater and Lesser Hanish is the latest in the militant group's swift advance across Yemen's Red Sea coast, after the capture of the port of Mokha and Perim island in the Bab al-Mandab strait. Continue reading......

Economists urge John Healey to press Bank to change policy that is costing the exchequer billions of poundsEconomists have urged the chancellor, John Healey, to press the Bank of England to slow down its bond-selling programme that has already cost the exchequer billions of pounds.The Bank's monetary policy committee (MPC) meets this week to not only decide the level of interest rates but also whether they should freeze or slow the sale of government bonds, known as gilts, bought as part of the rescue operation after the 2008 banking crash. Continue reading......

Plans to strengthen legislation already going through parliament might mean donors having to meet stricter UK residence requirementsAndy Burnham's government could thwart Reform's unprecedented £72m donations with retrospective restrictions on political donors that will include tough new residency requirements, ministers have announced.In a move that is likely to set off furious complaints from Nigel Farage's party, the government will table amendments to legislation going through the House of Lords within weeks that puts the legality of Reform's latest donations in doubt. Continue reading......

New laws coming into force this week aim to streamline age checks although old-style plastic IDs will still be allowedYounger drinkers in England and Wales will be able to prove their age with a digital ID starting this week as new laws give pubs, off-licences, nightclubs and restaurants the right to use biometric scanning technology to check customers are over 18.Customers will be able to download software that scans their faces into their own phone to generate a QR code proving their age based on a stored proof of age. Other tech under consideration as part of the government push to digitise age verification for alcohol sales include a device which scans the veins in a drinker's finger to verify their age. That system has not yet been approved for use. Continue reading......

Exclusive: George Osborne's programme to reduce costs for first-time buyers delivered £25bn in social value in UK last yearGeorge Osborne's scheme to reduce costs for first-time buyers represented “very high value for money”, according to a government review, bolstering the case of senior government figures who have been arguing to resurrect the idea.An official audit of the Help-to-Buy programme has calculated it provided £25bn of social value to the UK in the last financial year, despite criticisms it was overly expensive and only served to inflate house prices. Continue reading......

Central bank chief says continent's AI dependency could give trade partners unprecedented leverage in negotiationsEurope must develop its own AI technology and build more datacentres in order to nullify the threat of being cut off by the US or China, according to the president of the European Central Bank.Christine Lagarde said the continent needed AI models – the technology that powers AI tools such as chatbots – that were “good enough” to carry out most tasks and run from domestic datacentres. If Europe invests in its own AI tech, said Lagarde, “the threat of being cut off loses its force”. Continue reading......

The vast sums given to Nigel Farage's party in recent days must lead to action on political fundingThe staggering sums gifted to Reform UK over the weekend have transformed the context for the representation of the people bill making its way through parliament. The announcement of two £36m donations from Ben Delo and Christopher Harborne, both crypto billionaires who have lived abroad, makes Andy Burnham's decision not to impose a limit on political donations – a move he supported before becoming prime minister – look even more misguided. Fortunately the House of Lords still has the chance to amend the bill. It should take it by imposing meaningful limits on both political donations and party spending.It is unclear whether either man meets the criteria set out in the Rycroft review into foreign influence in politics. It set a maximum of £100,000 per annum for people who have not been in the UK for at least a year. Mr Delo previously lived in Hong Kong while Mr Harborne is ...

It's not just that Nigel Farage claimed his movement abhorred the super-rich. It's also the obscenity of individuals seeking so much sway over who runs the countryAs £72m in donations makes its way to Reform UK's bank accounts, consider what Nigel Farage said on the eve of Britain's vote to leave the European Union a decade ago. “This referendum is the people versus the establishment,” he declared. “It is the vested interest, it's the rich, it's the big business.”Just two years ago, Farage assailed “an unholy alliance of big business, big banks and big government”. He is also the same man who, when he debated with the then Liberal Democrat leader, Nick Clegg, in 2014, claimed to “represent the mercantile, trading, entrepreneurial end of society”, while his opponent “represents big banks, big government and big business”. Continue reading......

UK union leaders meet on Monday to discuss possible support for a domestic cap on political donationsUK politics live – latest updatesTrade unions are set to launch an intervention on Tuesday on political donations after the head of Britain's trade union movement, Paul Nowak, said the government must act to “stop the super-rich corrupting our politics.”Union leaders met on Monday to discuss possible support for a domestic cap on donations. Discussions are expected to continue but sources said general secretaries were likely to back a donations cap for individuals. They argue trade union members should be treated as individual donors. Continue reading......

Firm, once part of Sanjeev Gupta's empire, fell into administration last year but has failed to find buyerBusiness news – live updatesOne of Britain's steelworks is to come into public ownership after the government said it would take over Yorkshire-based Speciality Steel UK (SSUK).Jonathan Reynolds, the business secretary, said officials would “work towards” acquiring the company to protect the jobs of its 1,300 workers in Rotherham, Stocksbridge and Brinsworth in South Yorkshire and Wednesbury in the West Midlands. Continue reading......

President hits out after Anthropic, OpenAI and SpaceX leaders back call to limit 'reckless' developmentBusiness news – live updatesDonald Trump has dismissed calls to increase controls on AI as a “sick conspiracy”, as stocks linked to the technology slumped after appeals from leading developers on the weekend for the industry to slow down.The US president wrote on social media: “The only control or 'guardrails' that AI needs is a STRONG AND SMART (High IQ!) PRESIDENT, and the USA has that, in spades!” Continue reading......

Judges uphold ruling that financier tried to 'frustrate' investigations into harassment claims against himThe former hedge fund boss Crispin Odey has lost a legal challenge to overturn his lifetime ban from the City for trying to “frustrate” investigations into sexual harassment allegations against him.A ruling by judges at the upper tribunal upheld the ban imposed by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in March last year, while reducing a proposed fine of £1.83m to £1.53m. Continue reading......

Public offering of Aliko Dangote's Nigerian oil refinery business could swell his net wealth by two thirdsThe fortune of Africa's richest person could swell by two thirds to nearly $60bn (£44bn) after his refinery in Nigeria listed publicly in the continent's biggest-ever initial public offering.If Monday's flotation of Dangote Petroleum Refinery and Petrochemicals goes to plan, then Aliko Dangote will add another $23bn (£17bn) to his $35bn net worth. Continue reading......

We must stop companies from allowing AI to self-improve into an uncontrollable level of intelligence Major AI lab CEOs advocated for slowing the pace of AI development this weekend. They are right to be concerned: the field runs an extremely dangerous race towards superintelligent AI. We can and should be demanding that our governments protect us from the catastrophe of out-of-control AI.This July, OpenAI's AI swarm of 700 agents broke containment to hack Hugging Face, a multi-billion dollar company. OpenAI didn't tell the AIs to hack that company, but the AIs had different priorities: cheating on the unrelated challenge OpenAI gave them. AI researchers call this a “misalignment” between what OpenAI wanted and what the AI actually prioritized. Continue reading......

Workers should start with a moratorium against building until our livelihoods and communities are protectedFor the surging number of Americans who now live alongside constantly humming computer-filled mega-warehouses, it is clear AI datacenters come with significant drawbacks.Opposition to datacenters grows on both sides of the political aisle as developers plan to invest $8tn to build them in the coming years. The bet is massive – roughly a quarter of our country's entire GDP – but AI CEOs think it will pay off because they believe this technology will allow businesses across industries to rake in profits by cutting out their largest expense: labor. If all goes according to their plan, AI data centers will enable corporations to redistribute workers' salaries to themselves. Continue reading......

Three little letters - bnb-side's name is a play on the local b-side arts festival, but Silicon Valley colossus sees threat to global brandIn one corner is bnb-side, a six-room bed and breakfast on the Isle of Portland – a tiny wedge of limestone tied by a narrow ribbon of shingle to the Dorset coast – that was created to help secure the future of the rock's much-loved arts festival, b-side.On the other is Airbnb, the San Francisco-based booking colossus. The battle between them is over the three little letters they share. Continue reading......

Price spike comes as rebel Houthis in Yemen target oil infrastructure and capture strategic island in Bab al-Mandab straitBusiness news – live updatesOil prices have climbed above $107 a barrel after a series of drone attacks forced Saudi Arabia to close its east-west crude pipeline.Brent crude, the international benchmark for oil prices, surged to as much as $108 a barrel at one point on Monday, later easing back to $107.7 – a 3% increase on the day. Continue reading......