Friday newspaper round-up: Rail disruption, gambling firms, Twitter

(Sharecast News) - Another nine days of disruption for rail passengers has begun as train drivers in the Aslef union start an overtime ban and a series of rolling strikes halting services across Britain, in a long-running dispute over pay. Drivers will be taking industrial action at train operating companies (Tocs) contracted to the Department for Transport, striking for 24 hours at each one on different dates between Saturday 2 December and Friday 8 December. The strikes will stop most or all trains at the affected operators in England and also hit some cross-border services to Scotland and Wales. - Guardian Gambling firms are raking in more money than ever from UK punters, fuelled by a surge in the use of online slot machines, which the government is considering curbing due to their association with heavy losses and addiction. The betting and gaming industry's revenues reached £15.1bn in the year to March 2023, or £10.95bn excluding the National Lottery, figures from the Gambling Commission released on Thursday show. - Guardian

With Twitter losing advertisers left and right because of Elon Musk's tweets, contrition from the billionaire would have been expected. Yet on stage at an event in New York this week, he was anything but. Musk had a blunt three word missive for companies that had stopped advertising with his social network: "Go f- yourself." - Telegraph

Matthew Moulding has taken a stake in the activist investor targeting his beauty business in a move that harks back to the so-called "Pac-Man defence" strategy occasionally employed to counter potential hostile takeovers. Moulding, the founder of THG, has taken a 3.2 per cent stake in Kelso Group after the activist called for a break-up of his listed beauty empire. - The Times

Microsoft will invest £2.5 billion in Britain over the next three years to double its data centre capacity and provide computing power to help to drive the expansion of artificial intelligence. Microsoft will invest £2.5 billion in Britain over the next three years to double its data centre capacity and provide computing power to help to drive the expansion of artificial intelligence. The investment has been hailed by Rishi Sunak as "a turning point for the future of AI infrastructure and development in the UK". - The Times