World must be more wary than ever of China’s growing economic power | Phillip Inman

China is pulling every lever at its disposal to counter Donald Trump’s economic blockade, and it’s working.Trade is recovering after the massive hit from Washington’s wide-ranging tariffs on Beijing’s exports.According to data provider Macrobond and Beijing-based consultancy Gavekal Dragonomics, exports to the US were down by about $15bn (£11bn) in May, but up by half that figure to other countries that trade with the US. Exports to African countries have also risen sharply.Meanwhile, Chinese officials are poised to strike deals to deepen economic cooperation with countries ranging from Brazil and South Africa to Australia and the UK

‘The Co-op won’t defeat me’: Brighton shop owners fight against eviction

For Louise Oliver, it is the work of Charles Dickens that best describes her current predicament. “It’s a tale of a woman who has her lovely old shop taken over by a nasty piece of work,” she said, evoking Dickens’s The Old Curiosity Shop.In this instance, the identity of this “nasty piece of work” may come as a surprise. In 1844, three years after Dickens published the tragic tale of Little Nell, the world’s first successful cooperative shop opened in Rochdale. It put power into the hands of the community, who were sick of being fleeced by the powers above

Teach First job applicants will get in-person interviews after more apply using AI

One of the UK’s biggest recruiters is accelerating a plan to switch towards more frequent face-to-face assessments as university graduates become increasingly reliant on using artificial intelligence to apply for jobs.Teach First, a charity which fast-tracks graduates into teaching jobs, said it planned to bring forward a move away from predominantly written assignments – where AI could give applicants hidden help – to setting more assessments where candidates carry out tasks such as giving “micro lessons” to assessors.The move comes as the number of people using AI for job applications has risen from 38% last year, to 50% this year, according to a study by the graduate employment specialist Bright Network.Patrick Dempsey, the executive director for programme talent at Teach First, said there had been a near-30% increase in applications so far this year on the same period last year, with AI playing a significant role.Dempsey said the surge in demand for jobs was partly due to a softening in the labour market, but the use of automation for applications was allowing graduates to more easily apply for multiple jobs simultaneously

‘Workforce crisis’: key takeaways for graduates battling AI in the jobs market

ChatGPT can certainly write your university essay – but will it take your job soon after? Rapid advances in artificial intelligence have given rise to fears that the technology will make swathes of the workforce redundant.Graduates are seen as particularly vulnerable because entry-level jobs such as form-filling and basic data entry are strongly associated with the “drudge work” that AI systems – which perform tasks that typically have required human intelligence – could do instead.Over the past two and a half years the availability of such positions has dropped by a third, and last month it was reported that graduates are facing the toughest UK job market since 2018.The Guardian spoke to some of the UK’s biggest recruitment agencies and employment experts for their views on the impact of AI on current and future opportunities for those entering the jobs market. Here are six key takeaways from what they said:A shifting graduate labour market is not unusual, said Kirsten Barnes, head of digital platform at Bright Network, which connects graduates and young professionals to employers

Tour de France 2025: Tim Merlier wins stage nine as Van der Poel break falls short – as it happened

Tour de France 2025 stage nine race report:Thank you for following the blog and getting in touch. It ended up being quite an exciting day! After a breakaway by Alpecin-Deceuninck’s Mathieu Van der Poel and Jonas Rickaert, where the duo stayed away for the majority of today’s stage, the peloton caught the attackers and the day ended in a bunch sprint. Tim Merlier of Soudal Quick-Step took his second stage win of this year’s Tour, but Van der Poel and Rickaert were successful in getting the latter on to the podium with a most combative award.Elsewhere, Elisa Longo Borghini has retained her Giro d’Italia Women title, holding on to the pink jersey she claimed on Saturday’s queen stage as the race concluded at Imola. You can read the full race report here:A race report of today’s Tour de France stage will be posted here shortly

Fremantle are easy targets but deserve respect for hitting back | Jonathan Horn

With blood still spurting out of his head, and resembling John Rambo under Soviet interrogation, Andrew Brayshaw still managed a semblance of humility, of calm and of coherence in an on-field interview on Saturday night. Brayshaw is that kind of player and it had been that kind of game. It had been an intense, occasionally spiteful contest, the sort of game Fremantle have coughed up too many times under coach Justin Longmuir. But they were the more composed and tougher side against the highly-rated Hawthorn. The Dockers laid more than 100 tackles, 14 of them coming from Brayshaw