UK grocery price inflation slows as retailers launch pre-Christmas promotions

The pace of grocery inflation in Britain slowed last month as retailers ramped up promotions before Christmas, providing a little relief for consumers bracing for further tax rises in this month’s budget.Grocery inflation stood at 4.7% in the four weeks to 2 November, easing from 5.2% in the previous four weeks, according to figures from Worldpanel by Numerator, formerly known as Kantar.Official data published last month showed overall UK inflation held steady at 3

UK unemployment rises to 5%, the highest level in four years

The UK unemployment rate has risen by more than expected to reach its highest level in four years, fuelling expectations of a Bank of England interest rate cut after Rachel Reeves’s budget.With under three weeks to go before the chancellor’s tax and spending statement, figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show the headline unemployment rate rose to 5.0% in the three months to the end of September, up from 4.8% in the previous quarter.City economists had forecast an increase to 4

ChatGPT violated copyright law by ‘learning’ from song lyrics, German court rules

A court in Munich has ruled that OpenAI’s chatbot ChatGPT violated German copyright laws by using hits from top-selling musicians to train its language models in what creative industry advocates described as a landmark European ruling.The Munich regional court sided in favour of Germany’s music rights society GEMA, which said ChatGPT had harvested protected lyrics by popular artists to “learn” from them.The collecting society GEMA, which manages the rights of composers, lyricists and music publishers and has approximately 100,000 members, filed the case against OpenAI in November 2024.The lawsuit was seen as a key European test case in a campaign to stop AI scraping of creative output. OpenAI can appeal against the decision

The race begins to make the world’s best self-driving cars

Hello, and welcome to TechScape. I’m your host, Blake Montgomery, writing to you from Barcelona, where my diet has transformed at least half my body into ham.We are on the verge of the global arrival of self-driving cars. Next year, major firms from both the US and China will deploy their robotaxis to metropolises around the world, in major expansions of their existing operations. These companies are posturing in the press like male birds fighting for the same mate; the dance sets the stage for the global competition to come

England play Generation Game against All Blacks with overhaul of traditional order of selection

Selecting your best XV to start a big rugby match feels increasingly quaint these days, as redolent of a different era as the Generation Game or Starsky & Hutch. To the point where you half expect to find the home team sheet to face New Zealand this weekend has D-N-A-L-G-N-E printed at the top of it. Even with the All Blacks in town, the traditional order of selection no longer applies.Instead it is all about the endgame. On this occasion Steve Borthwick has picked six British & Irish Lions on his bench compared with only four in his starting lineup

Steve Borthwick warns England to prepare for pain in All Blacks clash

Steve Borthwick has called on his side to prepare for “pain and suf­fering” if they are to end their losing run against the All Blacks, demanding the most selfless England team in history in the showdown on Saturday.Predicting an aerial bombardment from New Zealand, Borthwick has recalled George Ford, ­insisting his fly‑half general “will be an ­England coach in the future”, and again loaded his bench with the “Pom Squad”, including six British & Irish Lions among his replacements.Freddie Steward returns at full‑back and Borthwick has stacked his bench with Ellis Genge – who was captain last week – Luke Cowan‑Dickie, Will Stuart, Tom Curry, Henry Pollock and ­Marcus Smith – all of whom toured Australia with the Lions during the summer.England have not beaten New Zealand since the 2019 World Cup semi-final and lost three narrow encounters against them last year. The All Blacks are unbeaten in five Twickenham games, a run dating back to 2012