Marcus Perkins, who owns a hair and beauty salon in Brierley Hill, says he is scared for the future.
Salon owners urge Budget VAT cut as staffing pressures grow
Source: BBC Business
Original reporting
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CNBC
Neocloud stocks fall as Elon Musk says more than 200 of them face 'guppy-level death'
Investors are already questioning the debt-fueled expansion of neoclouds and whether the large AI infrastructure build-out will generate long-term returns.
The Guardian
AI cloud computing firms face ‘guppy-level death’, Elon Musk warns; French bonds rally after avoiding downgrade – business live
Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news Elon Musk’s warning that AI cloud funding could dry up is a reminder that companies may not provide the revenues that hyperscalers and neoclouds are relying on. Steve Daheb , Head of AI GTM Strategy at enterprise software firm Flexera , explains: “We have spent the past few years debating whether AI will replace people. But the more immediate question for many businesses is whether AI could end up costing more than the people and processes it replaces. “Businesses need to remember every decision an AI makes and every action an agent takes has a price tag. The AI people see and the prompt they enter is only part of the story. AI doesn’t just answer questions: it reasons, retries, checks and refines its response, drawing on models, enterprises data and computing power just to complete a single task. That iterative process and respo
CNBC2 outlets
Brazil's Lula wins historic presidential election; Bolsonaro reportedly refuses to concede
Leftist president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva defeated the far-right senator and was elected president of Brazil for a fourth non-consecutive term Full report: Lula wins fourth term as Brazil’s president over Flávio Bolsonaro Live second round results The local electoral court ordered the immediate restoration of 100% of the bus fleet and ordered the arrest of the municipal transport secretary, Pablo Souza, on suspicion of an electoral offence and disobeying court orders. The arrest warrant could not be carried out, however, because he is in Paris on what the city government described as an “official mission”, and is not expected to return to Brazil until Monday. Late in the afternoon, Flávio Bolsonaro also filed requests for voting to be extended by two hours in cities in the states of São Paulo, Paraná and Santa Catarina, but because of heavy rain that he said had prevented voters from t
The Guardian
How will pedestrianisation of UK’s most famous shopping street work in practice?
A stretch of London’s Oxford Street is to be vehicle-free as part of £150m government-backed scheme Much of Britain’s most famous shopping street will be closed to traffic from Monday as the long-awaited pedestrianisation of London’s Oxford Street begins. About half of the 1.2 mile street will initially be vehicle-free, after decades of planning and dispute over how to best use the street, an important transport thoroughfare and the home for flagship stores for big shopping chains. Continue reading...
The Guardian
Almost a quarter of European airline pilots fly when too fatigued to work
Pilots report pressure to extend working hours and fears of penalties for declaring themselves unfit to fly Three in four European airline pilots have taken microsleeps in the cockpit, while almost a quarter routinely fly despite being too fatigued to work, according to a report. The findings, based on a survey of almost 7,200 captains and first officers by the European Cockpit Association (ECA), include pilots reporting insufficient rest, pressure to extend working hours and fears of being penalised for declaring themselves unfit to fly. Continue reading...
The Guardian2 outlets
We’ve made Oxford Street traffic-free – and that’s just the start. Soon there’ll be green spaces for arts and music too | Sadiq Khan
We’ll revive the in-person shopping experience with a transformation of the area, inspired by the John Lewis and Selfridges founders who first set up there Sadiq Khan is the mayor of London At around 8pm on Sunday evening the last car made its way down Oxford Street, marking the start of a momentous new era for our nation’s high street. Today, after decades of discussions and deliberations, the action we’ve taken means almost one kilometre of Oxford Street is now officially traffic-free – just in time for Christmas. But this is only the start of a much bigger transformation, and the first step towards a bright new future for this historic thoroughfare. Walk down Oxford Street, and you’re passing through hundreds of years of British history and culture. In 1864, an ambitious young draper called John Lewis opened his first shop on the street. Forty-five years later, the American entreprene