This woodworker perfected her craft during a summer of racial justice protest

Tonda Thompson got her start repairing her own furniture, and now she’s got a waitlist six months longIf it weren’t for Mickey Mouse, Tonda Thompson might never have become a carpenter. During the early weeks of the pandemic, the videographer and infant mortality activist’s then two-year-old son was performing Mickey’s hotdog dance on the living room coffee table, which broke under the weight of his enthusiastic rendition. Thompson was about to head to Target when she realized that another flimsy table would be doomed to fall apart. Inspired by a friend’s newfound woodworking skills, she secured some two-by-fours from Home Depot and got to work with her lumber. After sourcing plans from the internet and watching an instructional videos on YouTube, she set out to build a coffee table from scratch in her basement

Paul Johnson to leave influential IFS economics thinktank

The longstanding head of Britain’s most influential economics thinktank and one of the most influential figures in Westminster politics, Paul Johnson, will stand down next year.The director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) said he would step down from the position in the summer of 2025 to take up the role as the provost of Queen’s College, Oxford.One of the leading authorities on tax and spending policy in Britain, Johnson is regarded as a significant figure in shaping policy, with the ear of the chancellor and MPs from across the political spectrum.Having led the IFS since January 2011, he holds significant influence in economic policymaking, with the thinktank occupying a pivotal role as an arbiter on government budgets and other tax and spending decisions.However, the thinktank, which was founded in 1969, has also faced criticism for reinforcing orthodox approaches to economic policymaking, and for focusing heavily on tax and spending issues at the expense of wider social considerations

US group Advent International ‘preparing bid for Tate & Lyle’

Tate & Lyle could become the next UK company to fall to an overseas takeover offer, after reports that the US private equity firm Advent International is preparing a bid for the group.Shares in Tate & Lyle, which makes ingredients such as artificial sweeteners, jumped by as much as 13% on Wednesday after the Financial Times reported that Advent was in the early stages of preparing an offer.If a bid comes, it would value the London-headquartered Tate & Lyle above its market value of £2.8bn before Advent’s interest emerged, the FT said. The company was valued at more than £3bn after Wednesday’s share price surge

‘Shop like our nan!’ Call for supermarket ban on plastic packaging for fresh goods

Supermarkets should be banned from selling fresh produce such as bananas, apples and potatoes in plastic packaging so we can go back to shopping “like our nan”, according to the influential anti-waste charity Wrap.It is calling for the government to ban packaging on 21 fruit and vegetables sold in supermarkets, including salad tomatoes, carrots and avocados, by 2030.After weighing up the other options – including new taxes or subsidies – Wrap said a government ban would be the most effective way to break a cycle that contributes to UK households throwing away nearly 100bn pieces of plastic packaging a year and results in huge amounts of food waste.Faced with the same plastic problem, other countries such as France have already passed laws banning packaging on many fresh products.Harriet Lamb, Wrap’s chief executive, conceded “this will be hard” for British shoppers schooled to buy fruit and veg in packets, adding that any ban would be “one of the biggest changes in the retail landscape in a while”

Here’s a rabbit for the chancellor’s hat: scrap stamp duty on shares | Nils Pratley

Rachel Reeves is looking for taxes to raise, rather than ones to abolish. Never mind: here is a tax that ought to be scrapped by a government that calls itself pro-growth, pro-business and pro-investment, which was the pitch at this week’s big summit. What’s more, the enticing claim from abolitionists is that getting rid of the tax could – with a few qualifications – pay for itself over time because other Treasury receipts would rise.The tax is stamp duty on shares – or, in full, stamp duty reserve tax, or SDRT. It is the 0

Strong Australian jobs figures lower expectations of pre-Christmas interest rate cut

Australia’s economy added far more jobs than expected last month, making it less likely the Reserve Bank of Australia will be opting for an interest rate cut this side of Christmas.The gains lifted the number of extra jobs since the Albanese government took office to more than 1 million, the treasurer, Jim Chalmers, said.The unemployment rate in September was 4.1%, the Australian Bureau of Statistics reported on Thursday. Economists had predicted the rate would remain at the 4