Business

Image copyright Getty Images Struggling retailer Laura Ashley has secured a loan to fund its day-to-day operations following speculation about its survival. The fashion and home store had been in talks US bank Wells Fargo about terms for drawing on a £20m loan facility. Shares in Laura Ashley surged 45% on the news, rebounding from […]

Image copyright PA Media The claim: Staff shortages can be dealt with by training the 8.5 million people who are economically inactive. Reality Check verdict: Many of those people are students, carers, sick or retired – and fewer than two million of them say they would actually like to have a job. Home Secretary Priti

Image copyright WHS_Carpet / Twitter Image caption The Daily Telegraph newspaper placed with business and computing magazines in a WH Smith store Retailer WH Smith has removed the Daily Telegraph newspaper from its shelves in UK railway station outlets in a dispute over pricing. The move comes after the Telegraph raised prices on its daily

Image copyright UK Parliament Andrew Stephenson has been appointed minister for HS2 – the high-speed rail link connecting London with Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds. He was already the rail minister with responsibility for the Transpennine and Northern Powerhouse Rail routes. Earlier this month Boris Johnson said he would appoint a minister to “restore discipline” to

The North-South divide in house price growth saw property values climb more than three times as much in Yorkshire and Humber as in south-east England. Land Registry figures for December also revealed a post-election boost, with London prices rising 1.6%. The end-of-year surge meant all regions saw a positive annual growth rate for the first

Image copyright Getty Images UK inflation in January rose to a six-month high as the cost of petrol and house prices rose, official figures show. The Consumer Prices Index (CPI) stood at 1.8% last month, up from 1.3% in December, the Office for National Statistics said. “The rise in inflation is largely the result of

Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Facebook has said the move by the government was “disproportionate” Facebook has expressed concern after it was ordered by Singapore to block access to a news site’s page. Singapore said the fringe site States Times Review had broken a newly introduced “fake news” law and repeatedly conveyed “falsehoods”. Facebook

Image copyright Getty Images Uber has closed a customer support office in downtown Los Angeles, laying off around 80 workers. Some of the roles are expected to be moved to the company’s operation in Manila in the Philippines. Most of the staff affected worked on liaising with drivers, processing documents and dealing with account issues.

Image copyright Automata Image caption Welcome to the future of the workplace – this is robot EVA at work You hear EVA before you see it. A whirring and whizzing noise greets you as you enter the offices of Automata, a start-up robotics company based in London. To one side a robotic arm is going

Image copyright Getty Images Boeing’s crisis-hit 737 Max jetliner faces a new potential safety issue as debris has been found in the fuel tanks of several of the planes. The head of Boeing’s 737 programme has told employees that the discovery was “absolutely unacceptable”. A Boeing spokesman said the company did not see the issue