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Europe
The Guardian

How do you actually shop local in New York City?

‘Shopping local, shopping independent, is a way to ensure a future for our culture, our communities.’ Illustration: Olivia Heller/The GuardianView image in fullscreen‘Shopping local, shopping independent, is a way to ensure a future for our culture, our communities.’ Illustration: Olivia Heller/The GuardianNew YorkHow do you actually shop local in New York City?Shopping local ensures a future for cultures and communities, says Caroline Weaver, creator of the Locavore Guide digital directory When I signed the lease for my new apartment in Brooklyn, the relief of having survived the brutal New York City real estate market was short-lived when my next task became clear: I needed to furnish the place. My first instinct was to check everything off my list by shopping online. But the thought of waiting for deliveries and unboxing an endless mountain of packages seemed exhausting. And, I was moving to New York, where the streets are lined with a seemingly infinite number of stores. The task was daunting. I knew where to shop for shoes or buy a nice candle for someone’s birthday, but I didn’t know where to find a set of drinking glasses, or Tupperware, or even an air conditioner without starting online at Target or Home Depot. So I enlisted the help of Caroline Weaver, a shop owner in Manhattan who has spent the last decade convincing people like me that shopping locally isn’t hard – and it can actually be extremely fulfilling. Weaver has been operating local stores in the city since 2014 – her first, CW Pencil Enterprise, sold writing utensils and stationery. Weaver created the Locavore Guide in 2023, a digital directory that helps New Yorkers shop locally, meet their neighbors and explore the city. And through her online video series, Caroline Finds It, she takes on challenges to find everything from nylon kites and hourglass timers at local stores. The Locavore Variety Store, which she opened in 2024, is also stocked with products from independent sellers manufactured in and around New York. This article includes content provided by Instagram. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. To view this content, click 'Allow and continue'. Weaver started the Locavore Guide because, in running her own small businesses, she found that her customers wanted to shop local but didn’t know where to start. TikTok also had a tendency to regurgitate the same 20 or so recommendations, she added, and she wanted to give New Yorkers a wider, unbiased range of stores they could frequent. “A lot of people treat shops … as something nice to walk past, somewhere you go when you have to buy a gift,” Weaver said. “But really, those shops can’t exist if we’re not patronizing them and supporting them as neighbors and New Yorkers.” On a perfectly temperate afternoon in early June, Weaver took me around downtown Manhattan to help me find a few essentials: dinnerware, cutlery, a kitchen prep table and an air conditioning unit that I ideally would not have to lug back myself. We first met up on the Upper East Side’s S Feldman Housewares, a store that’s been in operation since 1929. The store has everything needed to service one of New York City’s most posh neighborhoods (they sold chandelier cleaner and silver polish), but they also have everyday items like food storage containers, cleaning supplies and drinking glasses. They even had a replacement bird-shaped whistle for a tea kettle Weaver had been looking for. View image in fullscreenThe CW Pencil Enterprise store in New York. Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty ImagesSome of the prices were slightly higher than what I saw online, but Weaver said that “it all evens out”, as other products are less expensive in person. She also pointed out that unlike Amazon, local stores don’t constantly adjust prices according to algorithms.

How do you actually shop local in New York City?
Europe
BBC Business

SpaceX share price drops below stock market debut

SpaceX's share price has dropped below its stock market debut just over a month ago, falling sharply from a post-float peak. The price for a single share in Elon Musk's rocket, satellite and artificial intelligence (AI) company fell to $132.62 (£98.24) on Wednesday, below its initial listing of $135 in June. SpaceX's initial public offering (IPO) made Musk the world's first trillionaire. Compared to its on-the-day high so far, the stock price is now down 41%. If the price holds, or falls further, it will mean that those who purchased stock around the time of its flotation will stand to lose money on their investment. Even amid a tumultuous few weeks for tech stocks, SpaceX has taken a particular hit. Compared to a 0.2% fall on the wider Nasdaq index, where SpaceX's shares are listed, the company's stock price fell more than 2% on Wednesday. SpaceX stock has been volatile since it began trading on the public stock market a little over one month ago. After an initial investor frenzy that saw the company valued at more than Amazon and Microsoft, the price of its shares has drifted downward. Earlier this year, SpaceX acquired Musk's AI start-up xAI, recently renamed SpaceXAI, marking it's first foray into an AI-focused business. XAI is best known for the controversial chatbot Grok, but through that acquisition, SpaceX now leases data centre capacity to other tech companies. The company's main business is the manufacture and launch of rockets and telecommunications satellites called Starlink. When Starlink said it was cutting prices in the Memphis, Tennessee area amid local concerns over a massive data centre project, SpaceX shares fell by 8%.

SpaceX share price drops below stock market debut
Europe
The Guardian

Kalshi to offer betting on drug trial results and FDA regulatory decisions

An advertisement for prediction market platform Kalshi in Washington DC. Photograph: Allison Robbert/APView image in fullscreenAn advertisement for prediction market platform Kalshi in Washington DC. Photograph: Allison Robbert/APTechnologyKalshi to offer betting on drug trial results and FDA regulatory decisionsMove comes as prediction platforms rapidly gain popularity and offer opportunities to bet on virtually anything Kalshi is expanding its wagers to include bets on drug trial results, an expansion into new predictions territory as platforms continue to rapidly gain popularity and offer opportunities to bet on virtually anything. The betting platform said the expansion into clinical trials and FDA regulatory decisions would help surface information on drug trials that otherwise go unreported. A publicly listed contract on a drug trial would produce a “continuously updated, public probability that reflects the weight of the evidence, rather than the preferred message of the trial sponsor”, the company said. “Drug development is one of the most important and most information-constrained industries on earth,” Kalshi’s CEO, Tarek Mansour, said in a statement. “The data that determines which drugs advance and which don’t is largely locked away from the people who need it most. Surfacing information is what Kalshi is for, and we are committed to doing it right: compliance-first, carefully scoped, and built for the long term.” The launch is described as a pilot program, and was announced as a partnership with the artificial intelligence firm AppliedXL. Critics have said prediction platforms such as Kalshi are at risk of market manipulation and insider trading. Federal regulators told CBS News on Friday that Donald Trump’s longtime teleprompter operator made tens of thousands of dollars on bets around the president’s speeches. Last month, the Department of Justice launched an investigation into George Santos, the former Republican congressman from New York, over whether he engaged in insider trading by betting on his own attendance at the State of the Union address. And in April, several congressional candidates were fined for betting on the outcomes of their own races. As a safeguard, Kalshi said it would require employment verification to prevent insider trading, as it does with its other markets. It also said it will only list contracts after enrollment in a drug trial closes, to avoid interfering with recruitment or physician referrals. Kalshi also released a 44-page white paper on the “state and future” of drug development prediction markets, which included quotes from several leaders of healthcare companies, including the founder of 23andMe, Anne Wojcicki, who wrote that the clinical trial process was opaque and difficult to understand for most people. “Most patients don’t know about the choices available in clinical trials or which programs are most promising,” Wojcicki wrote. “The opportunity to have an open, transparent dataset about trial probabilities is extremely promising and empowering for people.” Earlier this week, filings with the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission revealed Kalshi was also making plans to offer contracts to users who wanted to bet on flight cancellations – the percentage of flights cancelled at a specific airport over a given timeframe. The contracts would be based on data from FlightAware, a flight tracking company, with information from the US Department of Transportation as a backup, Kalshi said in the filing.

Kalshi to offer betting on drug trial results and FDA regulatory decisions
Europe
BBC Business

Burnham's 'Manchesterism' got him to No 10 - but will it work for the UK?

ByFaisal IslamEconomics editorIt was just five months ago when Andy Burnham retreated to his mayor's office in Manchester, having been blocked by Labour's ruling executive from standing for parliament. When I met him there a few weeks later, he told me he planned to deal with his disappointment with some ambitious plans for his city region. Burnham told me he wanted to appeal directly to Fifa to host the final of the women's football World Cup in 2035 Manchester instead of Wembley. "Imagine how electrifying that is for any girl growing up in the north of England," he said. He said he was also joining forces with other mayors for a "Great Northern" Olympic bid across the north of England, and a plan was also afoot to host the Ryder Cup in Bolton. Sports bodies needed "re-educating" about the rest of the country, he said. Manchester has already poached the Brit Awards from London after half a century in the capital. Big, bold gestures like these tell part of the story of what has happened in the city. Burnham's civic ambition is a byproduct of Manchester's status as the fastest-growing city economy in the country. As Burnham prepares to become prime minister, will he be able to apply the same model to the whole of the nation? Even before Burnham returned to parliament in June, there has been talk of Manchesterism as a political-economic philosophy that offers a programme for national transformation, rooted in a critique of a currently unresponsive, over-centralised British state. The city has a long history of blending the freest of free markets with a strong social spirit. Manchester's cotton traders championed free trade and liberal economics, at the same time as the emergence of the co-operative movement, the trade unions and the Suffragettes. Even the Manchester Ship Canal, the emblem of monopoly-breaking free trade, required local government intervention backed by the workers. But for an understanding of contemporary Manchester, you need to go back to the summer of 1996. Andy Burnham had left the north-west of England by then. He told me how when he first looked for a local media job after graduating in the early 1990s, all he could get was a role as an unpaid reporter on the Middleton Guardian. "I had to do what so many people of my generation, born in the 60s or 70s in the north-west of England had to do to get on in life," he said. "We had to go south." By 1996, Burnham was an MP's researcher. That year, back in Manchester, the IRA detonated the largest bomb in the UK since World War Two, devastating the city centre,

Burnham's 'Manchesterism' got him to No 10 - but will it work for the UK?
Europe
BBC Business

Investigation into parking tickets for drivers queuing at petrol stations

Image source, Getty ImagesByKaty Austin, Transport correspondent and Rachel Clun, Business reporterPublished16 July 2026, 11:49 BSTUpdated 32 minutes agoOne of the UK's largest private parking providers is being investigated by the competition regulator over whether parking tickets for drivers queuing at petrol forecourts are fair. Euro Car Parks' broader appeals process relating to petrol stations and car parks is also being looked into, to determine if it breaches consumer protection law. The investigation forms part of a wider crackdown by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) into potentially unfair practices by private parking operators. Research by the RAC has suggested the number of tickets issued in places like gyms, supermarkets, restaurants and retail parks more than doubled in six years, to 14.4 million. Motorists have complained about these parking issues, the CMA said, highlighting problems including unclear signage, faulty apps and broken ticket machines. The regulator said it wanted to make sure drivers are being treated fairly following complaints from motorists who feel they've been unjustly issued with parking tickets. The CMA says it has its own concerns about the way some operators are handling appeals, or attempting to make motorists pay additional fees on top of parking charges. It has written to the sector as a whole, and issued warnings to some individual operators about their practices. The CMA's executive director of consumer protection Emma Cochrane said receiving a parking ticket could be a stressful experience. "Costs are high and often unexpected which is difficult when people are budgeting carefully," she said. "Parking companies must treat motorists fairly at all stages – and a clear and consistent appeals process must be at the heart of this. "It's time for all private parking operators to comply with consumer law or risk action from the CMA."

Investigation into parking tickets for drivers queuing at petrol stations
Europe
BBC Business

China hits out at British Steel nationalisation

Image source, Getty ImagesByPeter HoskinsBusiness reporterPublished1 hour agoChina has hit out at the nationalisation of British Steel, saying it "firmly opposes and is strongly dissatisfied with the British government's decision". On Thursday, the UK government said that taking the loss-making firm into public hands would protect jobs and safeguard a "vital national capability". The UK took control of British Steel's operations in Scunthorpe last year, though it was still owned by China's Jingye Group, limiting the government's ability to steer its future. China's commerce ministry said on Friday that the moves "seriously infringed upon Jingye's legitimate rights and interests and severely undermined the confidence of Chinese companies investing in the UK". It also called on Britain to "faithfully fulfil" its obligations under the China–UK Bilateral Investment Treaty. "Disregarding Jingye's significant contribution to the UK economy and society, the British side forcibly took control of the company in the name of national security," the ministry said. The statement added that Beijing would monitor developments closely and support Chinese firms to protect their rights, but did not specify what protecting Chinese companies' rights might involve. The decision to nationalise British Steel threatens to strain the relationship between London and Beijing just as Andy Burnham is set to become the prime minister on Monday. The incoming PM will have to weigh his approach to the issue with the economic benefits of ties with the world's second largest economy. The nationalisation came after Parliament on Wednesday passed legislation allowing the government to bring the steel industry into public ownership under circumstances where it met a public interest test. Jingye is seeking compensation, having previously said the business was losing £700,000 a day. The BBC has been unable to get a response from Jingye itself to Thursday's announcement. By taking British Steel into public ownership the government now has the power and freedom to decide on the future of the plant, while keeping the blast furnaces going.

China hits out at British Steel nationalisation
Europe
BBC Business

I wouldn't marry him until he paid off his debt, now I'm in charge of our money

When Sarah Reeve got engaged she gave fiance Lee an ultimatum: he had to pay off his debt before she would marry him. "I was paying my mortgage and bills whereas he was giving his mum some rent," Sarah says of their situations when they met in their early 20s. So they set a wedding date for two years ahead which gave Lee the time to pay off the £2,000 bank loan - £4,000 in today's money, external - he had taken out to buy a car. Once Lee's debt was cleared, the couple paid everything into a joint account and Sarah took charge of bills, saving and budgeting. "He said 'you can sort it all out and take charge with money because I'm rubbish with it,'" she says. Sarah's experience reflects a wider trend of more than four fifths of women being actively involved in managing daily finances like day-to-day spending and household budgeting, according to St James's Place's Women and Wealth Report. Sarah earns £24,000 working part-time in insurance and Lee worked in maintenance at the same factory for 27 years, earning about £26,000, before being made redundant four years ago. The couple, who have been together for 25 years and have two daughters, aged 19 and 21, have always thought of money as shared. "It's very much our money rather than mine or yours which is really nice especially as I took four years off work when we had children," says Sarah. After getting out of debt, Sarah says she and Lee have never overstretched themselves and have made regular overpayments on their mortgage. "That really helps as if we've had a bad month, at least you know and can find the reason." Family Action, a charity that offers financial support to families, says that when money is tight the first step "is getting a clear picture of what's going on as this helps you understand your current position so you can make the best decisions possible together going forward".

I wouldn't marry him until he paid off his debt, now I'm in charge of our money
Europe
The Guardian

Is Donald Trump winning his war against the media?

Donald Trump speaks to the media on the South Lawn of the White House in April. Photograph: Andrew Harnik/Getty ImagesView image in fullscreenDonald Trump speaks to the media on the South Lawn of the White House in April. Photograph: Andrew Harnik/Getty ImagesMediaIs Donald Trump winning his war against the media?President and allies have sued, cut access and issued subpoenas, but experts say media still producing strong work Donald Trump has ramped up his attacks on the media to a level without precedent in American history in the first 17 months of his second presidency. But have Trump and his allies won their war against the media – or at least put the industry on a weaker footing than in the past? The answer isn’t so straightforward. Trump and his associates have launched numerous lawsuits against disfavored media companies; networks that have produced critical coverage of Trump’s actions, including ABC, have been the target of regulatory pressure from the once-independent Federal Communications Commission; press access has been either cut off or significantly curtailed at both the White House and Pentagon; the administration has utilized labor law to put pressure on the New York Times via an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission lawsuit that was decried by the newspaper as “politically motivated”; and perhaps most alarmingly for first amendment advocates, the federal government has both raided a Washington Post journalist’s home and reportedly issued subpoenas – later withdrawn – to Post and Wall Street Journal reporters over their coverage of “national security matters”. In perhaps the most significant escalation yet of Trump’s battle against the press, on Friday the Times reported that five of its reporters received subpoenas forcing them to testify this week in front of a grand jury in New York. “This brazen act should be seen as nothing more than an attempt to prevent the public from knowing what is happening in their country by intimidating journalists from doing their jobs,” Times lawyer David McCraw said in response. Chuck Todd, the former anchor of Meet the Press on NBC, said the Trump administration had “successfully infiltrated the press corps” by increasing the ranks – and prominence – of conservative influencers who are reflexively favorable to the president. “They’ve diluted the press corps so that there are essentially fan journalists there, pro-Trump influencers, or whatever you want to call them, who are participating in the pool,” he told the Guardian. “In that sense, I feel like they’ve done a good job of diluting the impact of accountability journalists.” While networks like CBS News continue to do high-quality reporting on the Trump administration, that coverage is still looked at with skepticism by some because of the close ties between the company’s top brass and the Trump administration – and because of concessions that its then-ownership made to win approval from the FCC to complete a merger in the summer of 2025. Those Trump-aligned owners – David Ellison and his father, the Oracle billionaire Larry Ellison – have already received permission from the Department of Justice to take over the president’s most-hated cable network, CNN, leading to concerns that its coverage of the administration could be defanged to appease him. View image in fullscreenTrump speaks to the media onboard Air Force One after returning from the Nato summit in Ankara. Photograph: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty ImagesWhile it’s undeniable that media companies are operating with a level of instability and uncertainty that would ordinarily be expected to dampen the reporting they produce, some media industry leaders say the work is strong despite the circumstances. “I think the greatest evidence that the media continues to do its job in holding the government accountable is the fact that this administration is completely obsessed by leaks,” Marty Baron, the former executive editor of the Washington Post, said in an interview. “There’s been a tremendous amount of really good work even by media institutions that have been portrayed as having yielded to Trump. Every day, there’s another story coming out about what’s happening in this administration and something that seems to outrage the administration, and they crank up their efforts to stop leaks [in response], going to an extreme that we haven’t seen before.” The FBI, after all, raided Post reporter Hannah Natanson’s home in January after the newspaper published critical reporting about US involvement in Venezuela, before and after the then Venezuelan leader, Nicolás Maduro, was captured. (Natanson’s work computer remains in the possession of the federal government while a magistrate judge searches her files for classified information allegedly leaked by a federal contractor facing trial in Maryland.) Trump also threatened to sue the Times and CNN – though he did not follow through – for reporting on a leaked preliminary intelligence report that raised questions about the effectiveness of a June 2025 bombing mission in Iran. In early April, he threatened to jail an unnamed reporter for not revealing the source of information that a second US airman was still missing after being shot down by Iran. When assessing the media’s performance, Baron noted that it was impossible to determine “the chilling effect” of Trump’s actions and words.

Is Donald Trump winning his war against the media?
Europe
BBC Business

UK economy returns to growth in May

Image source, Getty ImagesByNick EdserBusiness reporterPublished16 July 2026, 07:17 BSTUpdated 5 hours agoThe UK's economy returned to growth in May, but the expansion was modest as businesses were affected by the impact of the Iran war. The economy grew by 0.1%, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said, driven by expansion in the UK's service sector, although this was offset by falls in the production and construction sectors. May's growth comes after a slight contraction in April, and analysts said the latest figures suggested the economy had weathered the rise in energy prices caused by the conflict in the Middle East better than expected. However, others noted the UK economy remained "fragile" and incoming Prime Minister Andy Burnham faced a challenge to boost growth. Over the three months to May, the ONS said the economy grew by 0.7%, external compared with the previous three-month period. "The economy recorded robust growth in the three months to May, though the pace eased slightly as the latest two months showed a weaker picture," said Liz McKeown, director of economic statistics at the ONS. "Computer programming and advertising led the way, while the often-volatile pharmaceutical industry also performed well," she added. The economy saw a strong start to the year, but growth has faltered in recent months with the conflict in the Middle East having affected some businesses. The Iran war has pushed up oil and fuel prices, and also disrupted supply chains. The ONS said firms in a number of sectors had flagged the conflict as affecting activity, including some manufacturing industries, hospitality firms, travel agencies and entertainment companies. Since hostilities resumed between the US and Iran last week, the price of oil has risen from about $72 a barrel to $84, although it remains well below the peak of around $120 seen earlier this year. "Today's data confirm that growth remains fragile," said Fergus Jimenez-England, associate economist at the National Institute of Economic and Social Research.

UK economy returns to growth in May