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UK discount retailer Wilko has collapsed into administration, putting 12,000 jobs at risk after rescue talks with prospective suitors failed. Chief executive Mark Jackson said on Thursday that management and advisers had left “no stone unturned when it came to preserving this incredible business but must concede that with regret, we’ve no choice but to
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The UK Financial Conduct Authority has ordered asset managers to justify the fees charged on their funds, as firms come under mounting pressure from cheaper passive funds and new consumer protection regulation. The regulator on Thursday said a review of authorised fund managers showed that tensions between profitability concerns and assessments of funds’ value for
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This summer, Dylan, a 22-year-old trainee lawyer from the Jersey Shore, decided to come clean to his family and friends about a shameful secret: he had borrowed and gambled $50,000 in just over a year. His first bet was a promo deal on the betting app DraftKings on last year’s Super Bowl: bet $5 on
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Rishi Sunak is weighing whether to follow US president Joe Biden in restricting outbound investment into the Chinese tech sector, including artificial intelligence, chips and quantum computing. Biden announced the new security regime on Wednesday but the UK prime minister has been more circumspect. His government is consulting business and the financial sector before deciding
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Fernando Villavicencio, a presidential candidate in Ecuador, was shot dead on Wednesday evening as political violence continues to threaten the country’s upcoming election. Villavicencio, a former lawmaker and journalist was killed by gunmen during a campaign event at 6pm on Wednesday, local media first reported. Ecuador’s president Guillermo Lasso confirmed Villavicencio’s death on social media,
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The Biden administration will ban US investment into quantum computing, advanced chips and artificial intelligence sectors in China, as it ratchets up efforts to ensure the Chinese military does not benefit from American technology and capital. President Joe Biden on Wednesday issued an executive order establishing the prohibitions, which will largely affect private equity and
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China’s internet giants are rushing to acquire high-performance Nvidia chips vital for building generative artificial intelligence systems, making orders worth $5bn in a buying frenzy fuelled by fears the US will impose new export controls. Baidu, ByteDance, Tencent and Alibaba have made orders worth $1bn to acquire about 100,000 A800 processors from the US chipmaker
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Hello and welcome to Working It. The WiFi in our neighbourhood went off for two days this week 👿 (and before you ask, there’s only one “fast” broadband provider serving our area). It forced us to regress, or progress, to a pre-internet world. I finished a great novel* and started Right Kind of Wrong, Amy
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Why did Hillary Clinton lose the 2016 presidential election to Donald Trump? That is a question a few Democrats are still asking themselves seven years later, as the legacy of Trump’s victory casts its long shadow over the 2024 elections. All manner of explanations have been put forward, including Russian misinformation campaigns, rising racism, growing
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Four large UK lenders are cutting mortgage rates for the second time in three weeks, as competition in the home loan market intensifies on the back of better than expected inflation data. Nationwide, the second-largest mortgage lender, on Wednesday reduced prices on some fixed products by up to 0.55 percentage points. HSBC, the sixth-biggest provider,
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