UK parents fear young will be worse off for first time in a century, ex-minister warns
Posted on Thursday February 26, 2026

Alan Milburn says people feel ‘social contract is being broken’ as number of Neets climbs to 957,000The number of young people in the UK not working or in education has risen closer to a million, figures show, as a government adviser warned that for the first time in a century parents do not think their children will have a better life than them.The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said the number of people aged 16 to 24 who were not in education, employment or training (Neet) rose to 957,000 in the final three months of last year, equating to 12.8% of this age group. Continue reading...

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Boss of World Economic Forum quits after links to Epstein revealed
Posted on Thursday February 26, 2026

Børge Brende admitted dining with the convicted sex offender on three occasions between 2018 and 2019The boss of the World Economic Forum (WEF) has quit following criticism of his connections to the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.Børge Brende said he will step down as president and chief executive after more than eight years leading the body, which is best known for its annual meeting held each January in the Swiss mountain resort of Davos. Continue reading...

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Ocado failing to deliver on its potential as one of UK’s great technology hopes
Posted on Thursday February 26, 2026

Firm’s automated warehouses are struggling to compete against swift deliveries from stores by bike ridersOcado to cut 1,000 jobs in £150m cost-saving driveOnly six years ago, the boss of Ocado Group was writing the obituary for supermarkets as he predicted that a surge in online grocery shopping during the pandemic had brought forward the hi-tech future.“Not every store will disappear, but there will be a dramatic shift,” Tim Steiner said at the height of the Covid pandemic, when shopping from the sofa became the only option for many. Continue reading...

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Leave big tech behind! How to replace Amazon, Google, X, Meta, Apple – and more
Posted on Thursday February 26, 2026

A handful of companies monopolise the web, with unprecedented access to our data. But there are many more ethical – and often distinctively European – alternativesThere’s not much to love about big tech these days. So many ills can be laid at its door: social media harms, misinformation, polarisation, mining and misuse of personal data, environmental negligence, tax avoidance, the list goes on. Added to which, Silicon Valley’s leaders seem all too keen to cosy up to the Trump administration, to shower the president with bribes – sorry, gifts – and remain silent about his worsening political overreach. And that’s before we get to the rampant “enshittification”, as the tech writer Cory Doctorow describes it, which means that by design many big tech products have become less useful and more extractive than they were when we originally signed up to them.We’ve entered into a Faustian pact with these companies: “While it’s brilliant to have access to high-quality products and software, very often for ‘free’, it’s important to remember that there is a trade-off involved – often of our personal data and privacy,” says Lisa Barber, tech editor at Which? We give these companies our attention and our information, which they then turn into big bucks and apparently unassailable monopolies. Continue reading...

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Keen bosses, strange mistakes and a looming threat: workers on training AI to do their jobs
Posted on Thursday February 26, 2026

Some say the technology is devaluing their work, while others reckon it is not yet – and might never be – good enough to replace them entirelyWorkers grappling with the rapid growth of artificial intelligence have said they feel “devalued” by the technology and warned of a downward trajectory in the quality of work.Recent analysis by the International Monetary Fund found AI would affect about 40% of jobs around the world. Its head, Kristalina Georgieva, has said: “This is like a tsunami hitting the labour market.” Continue reading...

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Nottingham Forest v Fenerbahce: Europa League knockout round playoff, second leg – live
Posted on Thursday February 26, 2026

⚽ Europa League updates from the 8pm GMT kick-off⚽ Live scores | Read today’s Football Daily | Mail DanielOn the telly, they’ve just been discussing James McAtee, and I’m looking forward to seeing how he does tonight. City are now in that spot United were under Alex Ferguson, where clubs buy their players because they know the standard can be too high for good ones to make it and respect the managers who keep them around. He’s got a lovely touch and decent vision, but does he have the ability to impose that? We don’t yet know.Forest actually did pretty well to keep as many players as they did after last season – and getting £52m+£3m for Anthony Elanga was a remarkable piece of business. I’m not sure Anderson will still be around after the summer, whereas Gibbs-White has a contract – but there surely comes a point at which players don’t trust Marinakis with their careers and just want to up sticks from the upheaval. Continue reading...

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Chelsea made English record £355m loss in 2024-25 season, Uefa data reveals
Posted on Thursday February 26, 2026

Deficit is the highest ever recorded by an English clubBlueCo partner Strasbourg also lost £69m in same periodChelsea made a financial loss of £355m in the 2024-25 season, according to new data released by Uefa, the biggest deficit ever recorded by an English football club.According to Uefa, Chelsea’s losses were more than double the ­second-worst in Europe, the £171m posted by Lyon. The figures are also about £260m worse than those posted by the Blues in 2023-24. Continue reading...

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