House of Commons business and trade committee calls for changes after series of scandals in sectorThe UK government needs to eradicate “unsustainable” gaps in the policing of franchise businesses after a series of scandals to hit the sector, a parliamentary committee has found.The conclusion forms part of the business and trade committee’s small business strategy report and follows a Guardian investigation in December which revealed claims that Adrian Howe, a former Vodafone employee who had agreed to become a franchisee in 2018, drowned after becoming convinced his deal with the multinational company would prove financially disastrous. Continue reading...

11 Feb 2026 00:01 ✍️ RSS THE GUARDIAN

Clients of Global Counsel, co-founded by Mandelson, included OpenAI and Palantir, which have both signed deals with governmentA lobbying firm co-owned by Peter Mandelson worked for OpenAI before the US tech company signed a wide-ranging agreement with the UK government to explore deploying AI in Britain’s justice, security and education systems.In 2024, the $500bn-valued maker of ChatGPT was a client of Global Counsel, which Mandelson co-founded and part-owned. Keir Starmer subsequently appointed Mandelson as ambassador to Washington. Continue reading...

10 Feb 2026 19:14 ✍️ RSS THE GUARDIAN

As AI job losses rise in the professional sector, many are switching to more traditional trades. But how do they feel about accepting lower pay – and, in some cases, giving up their vocation?California-based Jacqueline Bowman had been dead set on becoming a writer since she was a child. At 14 she got her first internship at her local newspaper, and later she studied journalism at university. Though she hadn’t been able to make a full-time living from her favourite pastime – fiction writing – post-university, she consistently got writing work (mostly content marketing, some journalism) and went freelance full-time when she was 26. Sure, content marketing wasn’t exactly the dream, but she was writing every day, and it was paying the bills – she was happy enough.“But something really switched in 2024,” Bowman, now 30, says. Layoffs and publication closures meant that much of her work “kind of dried up. I started to get clients coming to me and talking about AI,” she says – some even brazen enough to tell her how “great” it was “that we don’t need writers any more”. She was offered work as an editor – checking and altering work produced by artificial intelligence. The idea was that polishing up already-written content would take less time than writing it from scratch, so Bowman’s fee was reduced to about half of what it had been when she was writing for the same content marketing agency – but, in reality, it ended up taking double the time. Continue reading...

11 Feb 2026 05:00 ✍️ RSS THE GUARDIAN

Elon Musk’s younger brother and the woman were involved for about six months between 2012 and 2013Jeffrey Epstein engineered an intimate relationship between a woman in his network and Kimbal Musk, who is the brother of Elon Musk and on the board of directors at Tesla, according to emails from the Department of Justice’s recent release of documents involving the convicted sex offender. The younger Musk and the woman were involved for around six months between 2012 and 2013, with Kimbal Musk describing them as “dating”.In the lead-up to Musk and the woman’s first meeting, Epstein and his longtime associate Boris Nikolic labored to set them up and bring her to a birthday party Musk was throwing – with Nikolic telling Epstein: “please prepare [the woman] —;)” Continue reading...

10 Feb 2026 21:57 ✍️ RSS THE GUARDIAN

Ashwin Prasad says far fewer people in work than there could be with ministers just ‘tinkering at the edges’ of problemThe UK is “sleepwalking into a quiet epidemic” of joblessness with millions of people out of work and on benefits, the boss of the nation’s biggest supermarket chain has warned.Ashwin Prasad, who runs the UK arm of Tesco, said he believed far fewer people were in work than should be and that taxpayers were spending “an ever increasing proportion of our national income on out-of-work benefits”. Continue reading...

10 Feb 2026 16:21 ✍️ RSS THE GUARDIAN

Music publisher Primary Wave said to have bought rights to pop star’s music, including Toxic and Baby One More TimeBritney Spears has sold the rights to her music catalog, which includes hits such as Toxic, Baby One More Time and Gimme More, according to media reports.The music publisher Primary Wave is said to have purchased the pop star’s music rights on 30 December, TMZ reported on Tuesday, citing legal documents. An unnamed source “familiar with the deal” confirmed the sale to the New York Times. Continue reading...

11 Feb 2026 00:33 ✍️ RSS THE GUARDIAN

Teenagers routinely see content promoting weight-loss drugs, steroids and skin-whitening creams, research finds Children are being “bombarded” with harmful products online, including weight-loss drugs, steroids and skin-whitening chemicals, a study has found.Research conducted for the children’s commissioner for England found that teenagers were routinely exposed to harmful products on social media, video games and apps. Continue reading...

10 Feb 2026 20:00 ✍️ RSS THE GUARDIAN