UK unemployment rate hits five-year high of 5.2% as wage growth cools
Posted on Tuesday February 17, 2026

ONS figures raise the prospect of a further interest rate cut by Bank of England in the springGloom for UK workers as incomes flatline and jobs market faltersBusiness live – latest updatesUnemployment in the UK has risen to 5.2%, the highest level in nearly five years, while wage growth continues to slow, raising the prospect of another cut to interest rates in the spring.The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said the rate of unemployment was 5.2% in the three months to the end of December, the highest rate since the quarter to January 2021. This was in line with what economists had been expecting and was up from 5.1% in the three months to November. Continue reading...

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Goldman Sachs to drop race, gender and LGBTQ+ criteria from board evaluations
Posted on Tuesday February 17, 2026

The move follows pressure from an activist shareholder group seeking end to DEI requirementsGoldman Sachs is removing race, gender and other diversity-related considerations when evaluating prospective candidates for its executive board after pressure from an activist shareholder group to remove the criteria.The National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC), a small Goldman shareholder, quietly submitted a request to the company last September asking the bank to eliminate its diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) board criteria. Continue reading...

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‘It’s soul-crushing’: young people battle to find any work in bleak jobs market
Posted on Tuesday February 17, 2026

Chair of UK government review says dramatic changes in labour market risks putting ‘a generation on the scrapheap’ On any given day, Poppy Blackman is engaged in the “soul-crushing” process of applying for a new job, and rarely ever hearing anything back.The 22-year-old has been unemployed since January 2025 and says she applies to an average of 50 roles a month, using one of four different CVs she has written for different types of jobs and sectors. Continue reading...

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Claims that AI can help fix climate dismissed as greenwashing
Posted on Tuesday February 17, 2026

Industry using ‘diversionary’ tactics, says analyst, as energy-hungry complex functions such as video generation and deep research proliferateTech companies are conflating traditional artificial intelligence with generative AI when claiming the energy-hungry technology could help avert climate breakdown, according to a report.Most claims that AI can help avert climate breakdown refer to machine learning and not the energy-hungry chatbots and image generation tools driving the sector’s explosive growth of gas-guzzling datacentres, the analysis of 154 statements found. Continue reading...

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12-hour days, no weekends: the anxiety driving AI’s brutal work culture is a warning for all of us
Posted on Tuesday February 17, 2026

San Francisco’s AI startups are pushing workers to grind endlessly, hinting at pressures soon hitting other sectorsNot long after the terms “996” and “grindcore” entered the popular lexicon, people started telling me stories about what was happening at startups in San Francisco, ground zero for the artificial intelligence economy. There was the one about the founder who hadn’t taken a weekend off in more than six months. The woman who joked that she’d given up her social life to work at a prestigious AI company. Or the employees who had started taking their shoes off in the office because, well, if you were going to be there for at least 12 hours a day, six days a week, wouldn’t you rather be wearing slippers?“If you go to a cafe on a Sunday, everyone is working,” says Sanju Lokuhitige, the co-founder of Mythril, a pre-seed-stage AI startup, who moved to San Francisco in November to be closer to the action. Lokuhitige says he works seven days a week, 12 hours a day, minus a few carefully selected social events each week where he can network with other people at startups. “Sometimes I’m coding the whole day,” he says. “I do not have work-life balance.” Continue reading...

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Winter Olympics 2026: women’s figure skating, GB lose crunch men’s curling match, and more – live
Posted on Tuesday February 17, 2026

Medal table | Live scores and schedule | Results | BriefingFollow us over on Bluesky | Get in touch: email GeoffHeinis of France is in the air, it feels hein just looking at him, and he jumps 129, giving him 133.8 points; he moves above Karhumaa and into the lead.I’ve also got the curling on and, if you’ll excuse my parochialism, I’m not watching pool leaders Switzerland monstering defending champions Sweden, rather USA v China, for reasons of relevance to GB. The Americans now lead 2-1 playing the fifth. Continue reading...

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Benfica v Real Madrid, Monaco v PSG, and more: Champions League – live
Posted on Tuesday February 17, 2026

⚽ Champions League updates from the first-leg matches⚽ Live scores | Follow us over on Bluesky | And email ScottThe free kick is just to the right of the Juve box. Gabriel Sara whips it in viciously. All Davinson Sánchez has to do is tickle the ball with his eyebrow to send it across Michele Di Gregorio and into the top left. He couldn’t miss! Sara put that on a plate, a world-class delivery. And the hosts respond to Juve’s turnaround with one of their own. What a match this is!Galatasaray 2-2 Juventus. Juan Cabal brings down Barış Alper Yılmaz, flying down the right, just to the side of the box. Cabal goes into the book, and nearly earns a second booking by pawing at the referee’s arm, Danny Makkelie telling him to get his hands off in angry fashion. And from the resulting free kick … Continue reading...

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