US added 119,000 jobs in September in report delayed by federal shutdown

The US jobs market added 119,000 jobs in September, according to the latest monthly jobs report, which was delayed by six weeks due to the shutdown of the federal government.Amid heightened uncertainty surrounding the strength of the US economy, the much-anticipated reading was higher than the 51,000 jobs expected by analysts to be added in September.The unemployment rate, meanwhile, ticked up from 4.3% to 4.4%: its highest level since 2021

Hospitals and clinics are shutting down due to Trump’s healthcare cuts. Here’s where

Healthcare providers across the country have closed clinics and hospital wards in the four months since Donald Trump signed into law the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the landmark tax-and-spending legislation that will lead an estimated 10 million people to lose their health insurance.The law is expected to slash federal funding by hundreds of billions of dollars over the coming years, as part of Trump’s campaign pledge to shrink government spending. But it will do so in part by paring back eligibility for Medicaid, the US government’s health insurance program for low-income people; raising the cost of healthcare under the Affordable Care Act; and defunding some family planning providers who offer abortions.Rural hospitals and obstetric wards will be disproportionately battered, since they are typically expensive to run and serve high numbers of Medicaid beneficiaries. More than 300 rural hospitals are at risk of closure or cutting services, researchers from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill found

Nvidia earnings: Wall Street sighs with relief after AI wave doesn’t crash

Markets expectations around Wednesday’s quarterly earnings report by the most valuable publicly traded company in the world had risen to a fever pitch. Anxiety over billions in investment in artificial intelligence pervaded, in part because the US has been starved of reliable economic data by the recent government shutdown.Investors hoped that both questions would be in part answered by Nvidia’s earnings and by a jobs report due on Thursday morning.“This is a ‘So goes Nvidia, so goes the market’ kind of report,” Scott Martin, chief investment officer at Kingsview Wealth Management, told Bloomberg in a concise summary of market sentiment.The prospect of a market mood swing had built in advance of the earnings call, with options markets anticipating Nvidia’s shares could move 6%, or $280bn in value, up or down

Uber hit with legal demands to halt use of AI-driven pay systems

Uber has been hit with legal demands to stop using its artificial intelligence driven pay systems, which have been blamed for significantly reducing the incomes of the ride hailing app’s drivers.A letter before action – sent to the US company by the non-profit foundation, Worker Info Exchange (WIE), on Wednesday – is understood to allege that the ride hailing app has breached European data protection law by varying driver pay rates through its controversial algorithm.James Farrar, the director of WIE, said: “Uber has leveraged artificial intelligence and machine learning to implement deeply intrusive and exploitative pay-setting systems that have damaged the livelihoods of thousands of drivers.“Through this collective action, we intend to get a fairer deal for drivers and ensure Uber is held financially accountable for the harm caused by this unlawful use of AI.“This case is … about securing transparent, fair and safe working conditions for all platform workers

Silly point or square leg: how well do you know your way around a cricket field?

Cricket is full of jargon. Someone can be out for a duck, fooled by a doosra or fielding in the gully. If you are listening to a game on the radio, it can be hard to interpret the vocabulary – silly, short, square etc – used to identify the positions of the fielders.Test how well you know cricket positions with the quiz below.For each question, place the fielder on the oval

Ashes 2025-26: key battles that could decide the urn’s next destination

Before Bazball, there was Travis Head. He was the one playing on fast-forward during the 2021-22 Ashes, sprinting to 152 at the Gabba in a career-shifting innings. The southpaw has since slashed tons in two finals against India, excelled in challenging Australian conditions, and can break out of a lean patch with a chainsaw-wielding knock. Never mind his three consecutive single-figure scores during Australia’s 3-1 win over India a year ago. He’d already hit consecutive hundreds to turn the direction of the series