Laura Ashley bought by US owner of Ben Sherman

Laura Ashley has been acquired by New York-based Marquee Brands, the owner of 17 businesses including Ben Sherman and Martha Stewart.The clothing and home furnishings brand, best known for its floaty floral frocks, has been sold by Gordon Brothers.Gordon Brothers has owned Laura Ashley since 2020, when the US restructuring specialist bought the business out of administration after it became the first major retail casualty of the Covid pandemic.The company, which has no stores of its own, made a return to the high street the following year through a deal with Next.Laura Ashley also has deals in place with DFS and John Lewis in the UK, and is available in 150 shops globally via a network of overseas licensees

Profits at GB News owner Paul Marshall’s hedge fund plunge

Profits at the hedge fund co-founded by the GB News and Spectator owner Sir Paul Marshall plunged by almost two-thirds last year, resulting in significantly reduced payouts for its partners.Marshall Wace, one of London’s most successful hedge funds, has declared profits of £192m in the year to the end of February 2024, a sharp fall of 64% compared with the £538m the previous year.Marshall Wace was founded in 1997 by Marshall and Ian Wace and manages more than $71bn (£57.2bn) in funds, making it one of the largest of its kind in the world.Last year, Marshall sealed a £100m takeover of the Spectator magazine, adding to a media empire that includes backing the often controversial GB News TV channel and the UnHerd website

‘Godfather’ of artificial intelligence has a surprising blindspot | Letters

Prof Geoffrey Hinton, the “godfather  of artificial intelligence”, states that he struggles to find examples of “more intelligent thing[s] being controlled by … less intelligent thing[s]”; the mother-baby relationship is the only example he can cite (‘Godfather of AI’ shortens odds of the technology wiping out humanity over next 30 years, 27 December). This seems a strange outbreak of aspect blindness, especially given Hinton’s specialism.Many theorists (Graham Harman, Timothy Morton, Jane Bennett, Bruno Latour and others) offer persuasive arguments showing how (to borrow from Freud) “man is not master in his own house”: human behaviour is continually, at times conspicuously, regulated by non-human drivers, many of them seemingly pretty dumb. Coronaviruses offer a topical example. The present barely regulated rise of AI is unarguably scary, but dealing with it effectively will involve humans getting real about their non-mastery of all they survey and interrogating the ways that stuff (both smart and dumb) controls us, as well as vice-versa

Musk accused of ‘politicising’ rape of young girls in UK to attack Starmer

Elon Musk has “politicised” the rape of young girls in the UK in an attempt to attack Keir Starmer, a former health worker who exposed a major paedophile ring has told the Guardian.Sara Rowbotham, who gathered evidence that led to the imprisonment of nine men in Rochdale, said the tech billionaire had launched a “political swipe” at the prime minister that overlooked the plight of abuse survivors.The Tesla owner, who will have a key role in Donald Trump’s incoming administration, on Friday called on King Charles to step in and dissolve parliament after Labour rejected a call for a national inquiry into child grooming.Musk triggered the row on Thursday over Starmer’s handling of child abuse in Oldham after he suggested the prime minister had failed to bring “rape gangs” to justice when he was director of public prosecutions.Rowbotham, who made hundreds of referrals detailing the abuse and sexual grooming while working for the NHS in Rochdale between 2005 and 2011, said: “What is [Musk’s] motivation for interfering? It seems very political

Littler’s imperious PDC world title could be the start of darts domination

There was a final flick of the fingers, before the fists began to pump and soar, and the tears started to flow across 17-year-old Luke Littler’s face. No wonder. The most famous teenager in the country had just become the youngest world champion in darts history.Over the past 13 months, Littler has repeatedly defied the rules of sporting gravity, rising from an unknown 16-year-old ranked 164 to its star attraction. Now, incredibly, he is also the PDC world champion after a thumping 7-3 victory of the three-time former winner Michael Van Gerwen, which also earned him £500,000 cheque

Luke Littler beats Michael van Gerwen 7-3 to win PDC World Darts Championship final – as it happened

That’s it for our coverage of an historic night at Alexandra Palace, where Luke Littler confirmed the bleedin’ obvious: that he is a multi-generational talent who could become the greatest goat of all time. Oh, and that there has never been a worse time to be an aspiring male darts player.I’ll leave you with Jonathan Liew’s report from Ally Pally. Thanks as always for your company and emails. Goodnight!AveragesLittler 102