Wage growth hits lowest level since November 2020; unemployment rate unexpectedly falls - business live
Posted on Tuesday April 21, 2026

Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news

Turning back to the latest batch of UK labour market figures, which showed an unexpected fall in the unemployment rate – Pat McFadden, secretary of state for work and pensions, said:

These figures show that there was an improvement in the labour market at the beginning of the year with unemployment falling below 5%, and 332,000 more people in work than a year ago.

But we cannot escape the effects of the war in the Middle East which are likely to feed through to prices and employment in the coming months. We will do everything we can to support the country through this period, including by slashing energy bills by up to 25% for 10,000 manufacturers.

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Primark to split from food business despite warning of Iran war impact
Posted on Tuesday April 21, 2026

ABF, which owns Kingsmill, Twinings and Patak’s, to demerge fashion chain to maximise shareholder returns

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Primark is to break free from its sister food company, which owns Twinings, Kingsmill and Patak’s, next year despite warning that the conflict in the Middle East is likely to hit consumer spending.

The fashion chain’s owner, Associated British Foods (ABF), confirmed the plan to split off Primark from the rest of the group, first mooted last year.

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Tim Cook to step down as Apple chief as John Ternus named replacement
Posted on Monday April 20, 2026

Cook, who will stay on as executive chair, praises head of hardware engineering, who will take over on 1 September

Apple announced on Monday that it had named a replacement for Tim Cook as CEO after nearly 15 years, with head of hardware engineering John Ternus succeeding him on 1 September. Cook will stay at the company in the role of executive chair.

“It has been the greatest privilege of my life to be the CEO of Apple and to have been trusted to lead such an extraordinary company. I love Apple with all of my being,” Cook said in a press release.

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Tube strikes: how disruptive will action by London Underground drivers be?
Posted on Monday April 20, 2026

RMT has called action in two 24-hour tranches this week over opposition to four-day working pattern

A strike by London Underground drivers will severely disrupt transport in the capital over the next four days.

The RMT union and Transport for London (TfL) said that the strike would go ahead from midday on Tuesday 21 April, with no last-minute talks planned on Monday.

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Tim Cook to step down as Apple chief as John Ternus named replacement
Posted on Monday April 20, 2026

Cook, who will stay on as executive chair, praises head of hardware engineering, who will take over on 1 September

Apple announced on Monday that it had named a replacement for Tim Cook as CEO after nearly 15 years, with head of hardware engineering John Ternus succeeding him on 1 September. Cook will stay at the company in the role of executive chair.

“It has been the greatest privilege of my life to be the CEO of Apple and to have been trusted to lead such an extraordinary company. I love Apple with all of my being,” Cook said in a press release.

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Elon Musk snubs Paris legal summons over alleged child abuse images on X
Posted on Monday April 20, 2026

Billionaire owner elects not to attend voluntary interview as part of investigation by French cybercrime unit

Elon Musk did not appear on Monday for a voluntary interview with lawyers in Paris, who had summoned the American tech billionaire over an investigation into his social media platform X and AI chatbot Grok.

The prosecutors told AFP that they had “taken note of the absence of the first people summoned”, without mentioning Musk’s name. The billionaire called the French authorities involved “retards” weeks earlier in a French-language post on X.

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‘I’m not the boss’: Lando Norris is articulate, open and intelligent – when he’s allowed to be
Posted on Tuesday April 21, 2026

F1’s latest world champion speaks with deep candour about overcoming his insecurities but questions about Max Verstappen and regulations? Off limits

There are always complications and difficulties in Formula One, as there are in life and even in this interview. On a beautiful evening at a lavish golf club in Surrey, Lando Norris and I are tucked away in an anonymous yet brightly-lit room crammed with a television crew and representatives from his management team and Laureus, the global organisation driven by a belief that “sport has the power to change the world”.

At first Norris talks thoughtfully and honestly about his struggles with profound insecurity before becoming world champion last year. But we reach a low point when a young man from his management company feels sufficiently empowered to answer questions on the 26-year-old’s behalf, as a way of controlling our interview.

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Vibrating crotches, anal beads and suspicious minds: the long, strange history of chess cheats | Sean Ingle
Posted on Tuesday April 21, 2026

The journey from the Von Neumann to the Niemann affair has much to teach us about the changed landscape of the sport

There really is, it turns out, a true story involving cheating in chess and a vibrating crotch. Only this one is a whodunnit that dates back more than 30 years and was only solved last week.

Imagine the scene at the World Open in Philadelphia in 1993 when a mysterious unrated player with fake dreadlocks and headphones, and with a bulge that vibrates in his trousers, shows up. Now multiply it 100-fold when this unknown amateur, who calls himself John von Neumann after the founder of game theory, draws with a grandmaster, Helgi Ólafsson, in round two.

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