JP Morgan Chase to use computer estimates to monitor hours worked by junior bankers

JP Morgan Chase has started to compare the hours junior investment bankers claim to have worked against logs on its IT system.The US bank said it would begin issuing reports to junior bankers that compare computer-generated estimates of their work weeks against their self-reported time sheets as part of a pilot scheme.The company said it planned to roll out the programme more widely across its investment bank, with IT estimates based on employees’ weekly digital activities including video calls, desktop keystrokes and scheduled meetings.“Much like the weekly screen time summaries on a smartphone, this tool is about awareness, not enforcement,” JP Morgan said in a statement. “It’s designed to support transparency, wellbeing, and encourage open conversations about workload

Marmite maker Unilever in talks to merge food business with US-based McCormick

Unilever, the owner of Marmite, Dove and Hellmann’s mayonnaise, is in talks to combine its food business with the US-based spice and seasoning maker McCormick.The Anglo-Dutch food company – which last year spun off its ice-cream division, the home to Ben & Jerry’s, Magnum and Wall’s – has entered discussions over the future of the “highly attractive” business.Unilever is valued at almost £100bn, and its food unit, which includes brands such as Knorr, could be worth tens of billions of pounds.McCormick, which owns brands including French’s yellow mustard, Old Bay seasoning and Cholula hot sauce, is valued at about $15bn (£11bn).“Unilever confirms that it has received an inbound offer for its foods business and is in discussions with McCormick & Company,” the Marmite maker said in a statement

Meta AI agent’s instruction causes large sensitive data leak to employees

An AI agent instructed an engineer to take actions that exposed a large amount of Meta’s sensitive data to some of its employees, in the latest example of AI causing upheaval in a large tech company.The leak, which Meta confirmed, happened when an employee asked for guidance on an engineering problem on an internal forum. An AI agent responded with a solution, which the employee implemented – causing a large amount of sensitive user and company data to be exposed to its engineers for two hours.“No user data was mishandled,” a Meta spokesperson said, and they emphasised that a human could also give erroneous advice. The incident, first reported by The Information, triggered a major internal security alert inside Meta, which the company has said is an indication of how seriously it takes data protection

Why is the FBI buying people’s location data and how is it using the information?

Kash Patel’s disclosure Wednesday that the FBI has resumed buying location data on Americans has many people, including members of Congress, wondering: how does private information get into the hands of the US government in the first place – and how can federal law enforcement use that information to track peoples’ whereabouts?Federal law enforcement agencies generally must obtain a warrant, which requires establishing probable cause in the eyes of a judge, to gather historical or real-time cell phone location data. The US supreme court has ruled that the fourth amendment to the US constitution, which protects against “unreasonable search and seizure”, prohibits the warrantless collection of individuals’ location histories. Buying such information, usually en masse, can circumvent this requirement, leading many privacy advocates to label the practice unconstitutional.The FBI director’s admission came in response to a question from Ron Wyden, a Democratic senator of Oregon and a longtime opponent of the warrantless surveillance of Americans. Wyden told Patel that his predecessor, Christopher Wray, testified in 2023 that the FBI did not at that time purchase location data derived from internet advertising, although he acknowledged that it had done so in the past

Sixteen international games and a franchise overseas: is the NFL’s global ambition good or greed?

“Pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered. And they’re getting hoggy.” When Mark Cuban, then owner of the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks, fired that line at the NFL in 2014, he was partly goading and partly gloating.It felt directionally true. The NFL looked bloated, arrogant and vulnerable

Chess: Scotland’s Freddy Waldhausen Gordon, 15, routs the English in British Rapidplay

Freddy Waldhausen Gordon, a 15-year-old from George Heriot’s school, Edinburgh, came through with a stunning burst to capture the annual British Rapidplay championship in Peterborough with a score of 9.5/11, defeating the top-seeded GM, Gawain Maroroa Jones, in the final round in a must-win game by a checkmating attack where White’s queen and both rooks all invaded Black’s rear rank.Maroroa Jones was in trouble early in the decisive game, soon had to concede rook for knight, and a second loss of the exchange followed at move 32. At the end, 39 Rxg7+ and 40 Qg8 mate could only be delayed by Black giving up his queen.It was the 37th staging of the British Rapidplay, whose fast time limit of all the moves in 15 minutes for each player, plus a 10 seconds increment per move, makes it possible to hold an entire 11-round tournament in a single weekend