She earned $20 doing laundry for a friend. Now this entrepreneur washes 7,000lb a month

The first time Hyacinth Tucker did someone else’s laundry, she earned $20. “I didn’t think of it as a business. This was just another side hustle,” she said. It was 2022 and the Maryland-based army veteran needed money.She was going through a divorce, and Covid had staunched the flow of income from the event facilities she owned, so she had taken to driving for Uber and pet-sitting

King Charles’s wealth swells to match Rishi Sunak and Akshata Murty on UK rich list

King Charles’s personal fortune increased to £640m in the past year, making him as wealthy as the former prime minister Rishi Sunak and his wife, Akshata Murty, according to the Sunday Times rich list.The 76-year-old monarch, who acceded to the throne in 2022, recorded a £30m increase in wealth and ranks joint 238th on the list of the UK’s wealthiest people and families.The estimate of the king’s wealth is based on personal assets, including the investment portfolio he inherited from his late mother and private estates at Sandringham and Balmoral, and does not include the crown estate.Charles is now estimated to be worth considerably more than the late Queen Elizabeth II, whose wealth was put at £370m in 2022.However, an investigation by the Guardian in 2023 estimated that King Charles’s fortune could be almost £2bn

Foreign states should not be co-owners of UK newspapers | Nils Pratley

‘We are fully upholding the need to safeguard our news media from foreign state control while recognising that news organisations must be able to raise vital funding,” said Lisa Nandy, the culture secretary, alighting on 15% as the limit for foreign state ownership of a UK newspaper company.She is obviously right that it is harder for companies to raise money if a pool of potential capital – state-controlled sovereign wealth funds and their like – are off-limits. No wonder some media owners lobbied for a percentage higher than the 5% that was being considered by the previous government as a tweak to last year’s legislation that set the cap at zero.But she is naive if she thinks 15% will ensure “minimal risk” of foreign state influence. That is not how the world works: 15% is a hefty foot in the door

Wealthy Britons avoiding more tax than previously thought, spending watchdog says

Wealthy individuals in Britain could be avoiding more tax than had been thought, the government’s spending watchdog has said, after a dramatic fall in the number of penalties being issued to the super-rich.In a report urging ministers to redouble their efforts to secure more of the money owed by wealthy people to the exchequer, the National Audit Office (NAO) said billions of pounds was going unpaid each year.It said that HMRC had greatly increased the additional tax revenue it was collecting from wealthy individuals by tackling non-compliance, but that additional steps were required to ensure rich people paid their fair share.It comes as Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, faces renewed pressure to find extra money for public services and defence, amid warnings that she could be forced to raise taxes in the autumn budget.Nick Williams, an ex-No 10 senior economic adviser, who left his post last month, said on Thursday Reeves’s spending plans were “not credible” and needed to be reassessed

Ministers to block Thames Water paying bosses bonuses out of emergency loan

Ministers plan to use new powers to block bosses from Thames Water taking bonuses worth hundreds of thousands of pounds as the company fights for survival, the Guardian can reveal.Britain’s biggest water company admitted this week that senior managers are in line for “substantial” bonuses linked to an emergency £3bn loan.Thames claimed the payouts were vital to retain staff and prevent rival companies from “picking off” its best employees. But the disclosure provoked fury as the company has said its finances are “hair raising” and that it had come “very close to running out of money entirely” last year.Thames is in a desperate race to raise funds and persuade the water regulator to let it off hundreds of millions of pounds of fines or risk being renationalised

Is Burberry’s job-slashing shake-up enough to save the troubled brand?

This week’s news that Burberry is cutting 1,700 jobs after a 117% fall in profits is, of course, terrible for affected employees around the world – including 170 at its West Yorkshire trenchcoat factory – but did not come as a surprise within the fashion world.Although a slowdown across luxury goods is partly to blame, some of this is Burberry specific – the buzz around the brand has been waning, and disquiet has led to this action plan. Those watching the company clearly approve – its shares rose 17% after the news on Wednesday.However, many may be confused as to why one particular job is safe in the shake-up – that of Daniel Lee, the brand’s chief creative officer. “Daniel and I are committed together to moving Burberry forward,” the chief executive, Joshua Schulman, told Women’s Wear Daily