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Tackle workplace sickness to unlock hidden growth, former John Lewis boss says

Image source, Getty ImagesByMitchell LabiakBusiness reporterPublished2 hours agoTackling unemployment linked to long-term illness will unlock economic growth that's "hiding in plain sight", former John Lewis chair Sir Charlie Mayfield has said. More than 250 of the UK's biggest employers, including British Airways, Tesco, Royal Mail, and several government departments, have signed up to his Get Britain Working taskforce. The group aims to prevent people dropping out of work due to ill-health and encourage those signed off to come back, with official figures showing the issue costs the UK £212bn a year. However, some employers have said previously that tax rises mean many firms cannot afford to invest, while others have warned against pushing ill people into work. The companies signed up will track sickness absence, return-to-work outcomes, and disability participation, which the government said would make workplace health performance visible for the first time. Many big UK businesses, including Sainsbury's, EDF Energy, and Currys, as well as 10 mayoral authorities, including London and Manchester, have agreed to take part. Sir Charlie told the BBC: "I can't tell you how many people I've met who said: 'I was signed off work for three months, or six months, and I never had any contact with my employer at all.' "That's not because the employer is a bad person. It's because we've got a situation at the minute where people don't talk to each other when they really need to." Sir Charlie's comments come as pressure grows on Andy Burnham, who is widely expected to take over as prime minister later this month, to reduce the UK's welfare bill to free up money elsewhere. According to government figures, total welfare spending in Great Britain is forecast to be 23.6% of the total amount the government spends in the 2025 to 2026 financial year. "Fixing these problems at the fundamental level, could make a really big contribution to getting this economy working better — for employers, for employees, for the taxpayer, for all of us." He added: "This is not a zero-sum game. It's not a question of employers win and employees lose and vice versa. Everybody can win."

Tackle workplace sickness to unlock hidden growth, former John Lewis boss says
North America
CNBC Finance

Eli Lilly, Regeneron among first companies selected for FDA initiative to speed review of new manufacturing facilities

Eli Lilly and Regeneron are among the first seven companies the U.S. Food and Drug Administration selected for a pilot program designed to accelerate reviews of new domestic pharmaceutical manufacturing facilities, CNBC has learned. Lilly, Regeneron, Amneal, Cellares, Fujifilm Biotechnologies, Kriya Therapeutics and Kyowa Kirin are the first companies that will participate in the FDA's PreCheck pilot program, according to FDA spokesperson Benjamin Nichols. The initiative will allow regulators to start reviewing new manufacturing facilities while they're under construction to catch and correct any issues, which the FDA estimates could save companies up to 14 months. Producing more drugs domestically has been a priority for the Trump administration. The initial recipients range from the most valuable healthcare company in the world to closely held biotechs developing gene therapies. The majority of them plan to make biologic drugs or genetic medicines, which involve more complex manufacturing. To be eligible for the PreCheck program, companies needed to build a new manufacturing facility capable of making drugs that would address a market supply gap or improve access to therapies for unmet medical needs. Only drugs that rely on the facility will be covered by the program. For example, the FDA selected Lilly's Lebanon, Indiana, facility that will make the main ingredients of GLP-1 pills and shots. Lilly said it's "evaluating how PreCheck and related regulatory improvements may impact the facility's timeline and will continue to work closely with FDA to support the program's success." The $2 billion Saratoga Springs, New York, site that Regeneron announced last fall was also chosen. In a statement, Regeneron CEO Leonard Schleifer said Regeneron has invested in U.S. biologics manufacturing and advocated for increased focus on domestic production of medicines. "We're pleased to see programs like the FDA's PreCheck Pilot Program that encourage collaboration between innovators and regulators to build next generation manufacturing capabilities and strengthen America's biopharmaceutical industry," he said. Another recipient is Fujfilm Biotechnologies' new facility in Holly Springs, North Carolina. The contract manufacturer opened the site last year. It's already making monoclonal antibodies for customers Regeneron and Johnson & Johnson, and will produce them for other customers as more parts of the site open in 2027 and 2028. The PreCheck program includes two components: facility readiness, where the FDA gives the companies technical guidance before the site opens, and application submission, where participants can get more hands-on feedback from the FDA and expedited inspections and facility evaluation. Fujifilm said it expects the operational readiness review before the end of the year thanks to the expedited process. And it expects the program will allow its customers to explore faster approval pathways with the FDA. Get this delivered to your inbox, and more info about our products and services. Data is a real-time snapshot *Data is delayed at least 15 minutes. Global Business and Financial News, Stock Quotes, and Market Data and Analysis.

Eli Lilly, Regeneron among first companies selected for FDA initiative to speed review of new manufacturing facilities
North America
CNBC Finance

Comcast's NBCUniversal spinoff raises hope for more deals. There may not be good options

Analysts think Comcast is priming for deals. Comcast leadership says they're wrong. The company announced Monday it plans to separate its two primary businesses — cable broadband and the media units of NBCUniversal and Sky. It's the second major structural change for the decades-old company in recent months, and it's raising questions of potential future deals for either half of the company. "Absolutely not," Comcast co-CEO Brian Roberts said Monday, when asked if investors should view the separation as a potential setup for future deals. Roberts, son of founder Ralph Roberts and Comcast's controlling shareholder, won't be CEO of either company after the separation but will continue to be "actively involved" in the leadership of both companies, Comcast said. "This is the right move to put each company in the strongest position to create value, fully monetize its assets, and aggressively pursue its own organic growth strategies," Roberts said. A reason Comcast is squashing deal speculation? There may not be many good ones left. Wall Street and industry onlookers have called for a split of Comcast for years, motivated by the rise of streaming and severe competition in the media industry. While company leaders have discussed a separation at various points since at least 2019, executives have never seriously considered it until now, according to a person close to the situation who asked not to be named because the discussions are private. When Comcast decided to siphon off its cable TV networks into a separate publicly traded company less than two years ago — the spinoff that would ultimately become CNBC-parent Versant Media Group — the prospect of carving out NBCUniversal as a whole never came up, the person said. Instead, the move to sever NBCUniversal and Sky from the Xfinity cable business came together rather quickly in recent months, the person said. Wall Street just witnessed a large media deal following an announced spin, noted Mike Proulx, research director at Forrester. Before Warner Bros. Discovery launched a sale process that resulted in dueling bids from Netflix and Paramount Skydance, WBD said it planned to separate its assets into two companies. "Comcast is following a playbook we have already seen. Warner Bros. Discovery split itself apart as it moved into a deal with Paramount. Now Comcast is doing the same with NBCUniversal. History matters here because Peacock increases NBCUniversal's acquisition potential," Proulx said.

Comcast's NBCUniversal spinoff raises hope for more deals. There may not be good options
North America
Yahoo Finance

ServiceNow jumps 4% as Guggenheim flips from Neutral to Buy

Investing.com -- ServiceNow (NYSE:NOW) shares caught a 4% lift on Wednesday after Guggenheim analyst John DiFucci upgraded the software giant from Neutral to Buy, slapping on a $125 price target. After closing at $99.28 on Tuesday, DiFucci’s new target values the company at 7.5x EV/NTM Recurring Revenue—a premium compared to its SaaS peers, but a price Guggenheim argues is worth paying. "We believe current levels present an attractive opportunity for investors to purchase a comfortably profitabl

ServiceNow jumps 4% as Guggenheim flips from Neutral to Buy
Europe
BBC Business

'Start work at 11' - but will other bosses be as flexible over England's 1am match?

As World Cup fever builds ahead of Monday's middle-of-the-night match, businesses are scrambling to work out how they handle the day after. Employees who are hoping to stay up late for England's clash with Mexico - which is due to kick off at 01:00 BST - will want to know what their options are. While some industries such as manufacturing and retail will be less able to provide flexibility, others are offering bleary-eyed fans later starts so they can catch up on sleep. Joshua Elash, who runs London-based firm MT Finance Group, is allowing his staff to start work at 11:00. "It wasn't a dilemma at all. This was as close to a no-brainer as a business can get," he says. "Everybody at this company works in the office. We don't actually have a work from home policy here. "We're a finance company, so we think it's important and critical that everybody is in and communicating and working together in real time. "So yeah, under normal circumstances, all 125 of them would be here in the office at 08:45 or 09:00 Monday morning. But that certainly won't be the case this Monday." Joshua says he and other senior managers will be staying up to watch the game, and says if he fancies a lie-in it's only fair to extend that to the rest of the team. "It's good for morale," he says, adding it will be worth it even if Monday isn't a particularly productive day overall. On Thursday the government said pubs would be able to stay open until 05:00 on Monday. Employers are being urged to use their "common sense and understanding" and allow flexible working requests where they can.

'Start work at 11' - but will other bosses be as flexible over England's 1am match?
Europe
BBC Business

AI is 'not smart' so what's next in artificial intelligence?

"We don't have robots that are nearly as good at understanding the physical world as a rat," says Yann LeCun, one of the leading figures in the world of artificial intelligence. He worked at Facebook-owner, Meta, for a decade, where he was chief AI scientist, but left in 2025 and founded Advanced Machine Intelligence Labs (AMI Labs). His goal is to move AI beyond current systems like ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini. They have their uses, he says, but will never be able to tackle complicated situations in the real world, like getting a robot to do household chores. "They're not a path towards human level or human-like intelligence, or even animal-like intelligence, because they cannot deal with real world data, they just are not built for that," he tells me on the sidelines of VivaTech, France's leading technology conference. So, Paris-based AMI Labs is busy developing a new type of artificial intelligence not based on the tech behind ChatGPT and its rivals. Investors think it has potential. Earlier this year AMI Labs announced that it had raised more than $1bn (£760m), with investors including US computer chip giant Nvidia and the fund that manages the private wealth of Amazon-founder Jeff Bezos. That so-called seed funding round - the earliest round of start-up fundraising - was one of the biggest of its kind in Europe. Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT are extremely good at some things like coding, mathematical problems and generating text, LeCun says. "They [LLMs] basically just accumulate knowledge... They can regurgitate something, you train them to regurgitate, but they're not particularly smart. They don't have an underlying understanding," he says. In the real world there is a bewildering array of outcomes to any action, which requires a more flexible type of artificial intelligence. LeCun holds a pen upright on its tip. What happens when you let go, he asks? Even a toddler would know that the pen would topple over. But no human would bother to guess in which direction the pen might fall, there's no way to tell. But an LLM might try to generate a single prediction about the pen's next move based on statistical patterns from its training data.

AI is 'not smart' so what's next in artificial intelligence?
Europe
BBC Business

Pubs allowed to stay open until 5am for England Mexico match

Image source, Carl Recine / Getty ImagesImage caption, Fans celebrate England's Euro 2025 victory. The government allowed extended licensing hours last year for the semi-final and final of the tournament. Pubs in England and Wales will now be allowed to stay open until 05:00 on Monday, allowing football fans to watch the Three Lions' World Cup clash with Mexico to the final whistle. The government had initially said it would not relax licensing laws further than they already have been for the World Cup. But in a U-turn later on Thursday, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said pubs could stay open until the final whistle. "Football might be coming home but we're making sure fans don't have to," he said on Thursday afternoon. Publicans and businesses welcomed the change. Emma McClarkin, chief executive of the British Beer and Pub Association, said: "We all know the best place to watch the match is down the local." Michael Kill, chief executive of the Night Time Industries Association, said it was "fantastic news" that would be "hugely welcomed by operators". Greene King pubs said more than 600 of its venues across England would stay open for the game, including in Birmingham, Bristol, London, Carlisle, Liverpool and Folkestone. Licensing hours had already been extended for the World Cup from 23:00 to 01:00 for games with kick-offs from 17:00 up to 21:00 and up until 02:00 for kick-offs between 21:00 and 22:00. The original opening hour extensions followed a six-week public consultation which opened in December. Individual pubs normally have to apply to their local council for extended opening hours, at least five working days in advance. Earlier on Thursday, business minister Kate Dearden said pub opening hours would not be extended further for Monday's 0100 kick off.

Pubs allowed to stay open until 5am for England Mexico match
Europe
BBC Business

Goat and skin in millions of 'lamb' kebabs compared to horsemeat lasagne scandal

Millions of people are likely to have eaten takeaway kebabs made with goat, skin and fat when they thought they were buying lamb meat, in a fraud that investigators have compared to the 2013 horsemeat lasagne scandal. BBC News has been told the kebabs from Kismet Kebabs, which describes itself as one of the UK's largest doner kebab makers, were sold to fast food outlets across the country for years. The firm was fined £500,000 after pleading guilty in court to a fraud that dates back to 2021. Kismet Kebabs, which is estimated to have made £6m from the fraud, said it related to "historical events that occurred over five years ago" and when they "operated under a different leadership structure". Kismet Kebabs advertised and labelled its lamb doner kebabs as being made with up to 87% lamb – depending on the kebab. But concerns were raised when trading standards officers in Swansea began to randomly DNA test doner meat from takeaways in the city in 2020 and 2021. Kebabs that were meant to be "70% lamb" came back as showing "less than 10% sheep". "I think some customers won't be surprised there's a lot of skin and fat in these products - but I don't think many people will be expecting goat," said Swansea trading standards officer Rhys Harries. "A consumer buying a kebab knows it's probably not the best quality ingredients, but it's still got to be what it says it is," said Harries. "It's almost the same as the horsemeat scandal, because of the volume of product that was going out of this factory." The 2013 horsemeat scandal is one of the most high-profile food fraud crises in recent history, when DNA testing revealed horsemeat in beef products and led to a range of processed foods being withdrawn from sale across Europe. Investigators raided the Kismet factory in Essex in May 2021 to find out what was in the kebabs, as takeaways thought they were buying lamb as advertised on the package.

Goat and skin in millions of 'lamb' kebabs compared to horsemeat lasagne scandal
North America
Yahoo Finance

2 Financials Stocks to Target This Week and 1 We Ignore

Financial providers use their expertise in capital allocation and risk assessment to help facilitate economic growth while offering consumers and businesses essential financial services. Still, investors are uneasy as companies face challenges from an unpredictable interest rate and inflation environment. These doubts have caused the industry to lag recently as financials stocks have collectively shed 2.4% over the past six months. This performance was disappointing since the S&P 500 climbed 6.1

2 Financials Stocks to Target This Week and 1 We Ignore