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Thursday newspaper round-up: ONS, Saba Capital, Telegraph

(Sharecast News) - The government's statistics agency is spending £8m to hire an army of low-paid temporary workers amid efforts to fix its "virtually unusable" data on unemployment and wages in Britain. Under pressure over the quality of its data, the Office for National Statistics last month agreed the multimillion-pound deal with the employment agency Randstad to recruit interviewers to help increase the reliability of its labour force survey (LFS). - Guardian Campaigners will be blocked from "excessive" legal challenges to planning decisions for major infrastructure projects including airports, railways and nuclear power stations as part of the government's drive for economic growth. High court judges will be given the power to rule that judicial reviews on nationally significant projects that they regard as "totally without merit" - and which can currently be brought to the courts three times - will be unable to go to appeal. - Guardian

Sweden is urging Britain to club together with Northern European neighbours to purchase a fleet of mini-nuclear power plants. Ebba Busch, the Swedish deputy prime minister, said her country wanted to band together with allies to jointly order at least "10 to 15" small modular reactors (SMRs) in a bid to cut costs and share expertise. - Telegraph

Lisa Nandy, Culture Secretary, must set a deadline for a sale of The Telegraph by an Abu Dhabi fund after it made a "very concerning" call for budget cuts, Sir Ed Davey has demanded. Sir Ed, the Liberal Democrat leader, was responding to news that RedBird IMI, which was blocked from completing its attempted takeover last year, had urged Telegraph executives to make one in 10 staff redundant and abandon planned editorial investments. - Telegraph

Saba Capital's plan to take control of seven UK investment trusts has suffered a blow as the first group of shareholders to vote on its plans "almost unanimously'' rejected them. Herald Investment Trust said the proportion of shareholders who voted against resolutions put forward by Saba, a US hedge fund, represented a "damning indictment" of Saba's proposals to remove the trust's board and appoint its own choice of directors. - The Times

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(Sharecast News) - The UK government will "wait and see" whether tariffs announced by Donald Trump "actually come to pass", a senior minister said. The US president announced what he called "reciprocal tariffs" on all other countries on Thursday evening, claiming it was "fair to all". But it was unclear how this would apply to the UK, especially as Trump suggested his policy regarded VAT as a tariff. - Guardian
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(Sharecast News) - California's home-insurance safety net does not have enough money to pay all of the claims from damage caused by the Los Angeles wildfires and has asked private insurers to contribute $1bn toward those claims. All private insurers operating in California are required to contribute to the Fair plan, a plan of last resort established so all Californians would have access to fire insurance. More than 450,000 California homeowners got their insurance through the Fair plan in 2024 - more than double the number in 2020. As of 4 February, the plan had received more than 4,700 claims from the Palisades and Eaton fires, almost half of which were for "total losses". - Guardian
Wednesday newspaper round-up: British economy, Heathrow, FOS
(Sharecast News) - The British economy is on course to expand by 1.5% this year after the budget gave a boost to public spending but could be blown off course if Donald Trump goes ahead with threatened tariffs, a leading economic thinktank has warned. In a boost to Rachel Reeves after a bruising month of negative economic figures, the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) upped its annual growth prediction from 1.2% to 1.5%. - Guardian
Tuesday newspaper round-up: OpenAI, EVs, gas prices
(Sharecast News) - Elon Musk escalated his feud with OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman on Monday. The billionaire is leading a consortium of investors that announced it had submitted a bid of $97.4bn for "all assets" of the artificial intelligence company to OpenAI's board of directors. The startup, which operates ChatGPT, has been working to restructure itself away from its original non-profit status. OpenAI also operates a for-profit subsidiary, and Musk's unsolicited offer could complicate the company's plans. The Wall Street Journal first reported the proposed bid. - Guardian

Important information: This information is not a personal recommendation for any particular investment. If you are unsure about the suitability of an investment you should speak to one of Fidelity’s advisers or an authorised financial adviser of your choice. When you are thinking about investing in shares, it’s generally a good idea to consider holding them alongside other investments in a diversified portfolio of assets. Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future returns.

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