Three US-based professors, including two UK-born academics, have been awarded this year’s Nobel prize in economics, for showing how the political and economic systems introduced by colonisers can determine whether a country is rich or poor today. The explanation put forward by Turkish-American Daron Acemoğlu, Sheffield-born Simon Johnson and Briton James A Robinson, suggests that…

The New York Sun owner, Dovid Efune, has begun exclusive talks to buy the Daily and Sunday Telegraph for £550m, the Guardian understands . Efune, a former editor of the New York-based Jewish publication, the Algemeiner Journal, made the highest bid to buy the newspapers last month and has beaten three rivals to become the…

Don’t worry about Labour’s workers’ rights bill, Starmer tells investors Keir Starmer then tells international investors they shouldn’t be worried about Labour’s employment rights bill, introduced last week. Let me be clear, they are “pro-growth”, Starmer insists. Workers with more security at work, with higher wages, is a better growth model for this country, he…

Uber and Uber Eats debited seven unauthorised payments, totalling more than £100, from my debit card. I have a business account with it but had made no bookings or received notifications. My bank told me to get email confirmation from it so the payment could be swiftly reversed. I phoned Uber’s business accounts line and…

The former Tory chancellor George Osborne has thrown his weight behind a proposal nicknamed “HS2 light” that would deliver new high-speed train links between Manchester and Birmingham. Osborne said the worst thing Rishi Sunak did as prime minister was cancelling the northern arm of HS2. “It was an act of infrastructure vandalism,” he said. More…

Delta Air Lines planes are seen parked at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport on June 19, 2024 in Seattle, Washington. Kent Nishimura | Getty Images Delta Air Lines had to suspend hot meal service on more than 200 flights out of its Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport hub over the past several days because of a “food…

Earlier this year, a French experiment offered a startling glimpse of what progressive green policymaking can achieve. In an effort to boost demand, Emmanuel Macron’s government introduced a social leasing scheme allowing less well-off commuters to pay an affordable monthly rate for a new electric vehicle (EV). Within a month, demand boomed to the extent that…

The owner of the Mulberry fashion brand has rejected an increased £111m bid from Mike Ashley’s Frasers Group to buy the British luxury handbag maker, saying it has “no interest” in selling its shares. Challice, a group controlled by Singaporean entrepreneur Christina Ong and her husband, Ong Beng Seng, which owns 56% of Mulberry –…

Spanish shipbuilding firm Navantia is in exclusive negotiations to buy Harland & Wolff, the owner of the Belfast shipyard that built the Titanic, in a deal that could rescue up to 1,000 jobs. It is understood the group could take control of the group’s four yards – in Belfast; Appledore, Devon; Arnish on the Isle…

Sky is likely to appeal against a planning decision blocking the expansion of its film studios, amid signs that the Labour government is willing to allow building on the green belt to prioritise economic growth. Sky Studios Elstree already has a new state-of-the art film and TV studio in Hertfordshire with 12 sound stages across…