During my 43-year adventure I saw pubs close, standing on terraces return and big flags fly all over the country By When Saturday Comes It was bound to end like this: a long and arduous odyssey that started in 1982 on a crumbling terrace culminated on a grey, drizzly afternoon in December watching my team get hammered 3-0 in a brand spanking new stadium named in conjunction with an international c...
During my 43-year adventure I saw pubs close, standing on terraces return and big flags fly all over the country By When Saturday Comes It was bound to end like this: a long and arduous odyssey that started in 1982 on a crumbling terrace culminated on a grey, drizzly afternoon in December watching my team get hammered 3-0 in a brand spanking new stadium named in conjunction with an international commercial law firm. A glorious away win thanks to a last-minute winner would have been somehow too poetic. This was how it was meant to be, when I finally completed the 92. As with that game at Everton, most games were as an away Nottingham Forest fan; others as a neutral. There is much I witnessed and learned from this ludicrous yet wholly fulfilling enterprise and the many miles travelled. For one thing, it used to be that one displayed allegiances by carefully trapping a scarf in the window, so it fluttered outside all the way. This has been replaced by the executive car sticker or personalised number plate and our society is much the worse for it. Continue reading...
Everyone has a part to play in reducing our reliance on imported foods, but ministers must provide incentives Tim Lang is professor emeritus of food policy at the Centre for Food Policy, City St George’s, University of London The British state has form on food security. It ignores it until there’s a crisis – and then it’s forced to do rapidly what could have been done better, if only food had been...
Everyone has a part to play in reducing our reliance on imported foods, but ministers must provide incentives Tim Lang is professor emeritus of food policy at the Centre for Food Policy, City St George’s, University of London The British state has form on food security. It ignores it until there’s a crisis – and then it’s forced to do rapidly what could have been done better, if only food had been taken more seriously in the first place. We’re revisiting this truth today as the food system’s oil dependency is revealed by the US-Israel war on Iran. Oil transports the food from farm to fork. It’s turned into the fertilisers that have allowed food production to rise since the second world war. It takes us to the shops (unless we walk or cycle). This dependency was also revealed when Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, and when oil hit $100 a barrel in 2008, and in the 1970s oil shock. When the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, and the environment secretary, Emma Reynolds, called the big food retailers in last week , it showed they were aware of this impact but weren’t prepared for what to do. Tim Lang is professor emeritus of food policy at the Centre for Food Policy, City St George’s, University of London Continue reading...
Medical coercion is alive and well in the US healthcare system – especially if you’re a Black patient giving birth A harrowing recent ProPublica report tells the stories of two Black women in Florida who were forced to have cesarean sections despite clearly stating they didn’t want them – a reminder that medical coercion is alive and well in the American healthcare system. In the case of Cherise D...
Medical coercion is alive and well in the US healthcare system – especially if you’re a Black patient giving birth A harrowing recent ProPublica report tells the stories of two Black women in Florida who were forced to have cesarean sections despite clearly stating they didn’t want them – a reminder that medical coercion is alive and well in the American healthcare system. In the case of Cherise Doyley, the state had filed an emergency petition. The state and hospital wanted to force Doyley to undergo a C-section “in the interest of her unborn child”, ProPublica reported. Doyley, who worked as a birthing doula, had been clear that she didn’t want a C-section unless there was an emergency. At an hours-long online court hearing conducted from her hospital bedside – while she was in labor – a judge ruled she could continue to labor, but if there were an emergency, the hospital could operate whether she wanted it or not. Hours later, she woke up to find herself being wheeled into surgery – doctors said the baby’s heart rate had dropped for seven minutes overnight – and she gave birth via C-section. Continue reading...
Malicious and hateful online attacks on China’s diving queen Quan Hongchan, including one which likened her to a “pig”, will form part of a major investigation into an organised cyberbullying campaign against the Olympic athlete. Other hurtful attacks said the gold medal winner “looks like a man” and even questioned her right to be a champion, saying she only won because “the judges were biased”. ...
Malicious and hateful online attacks on China’s diving queen Quan Hongchan, including one which likened her to a “pig”, will form part of a major investigation into an organised cyberbullying campaign against the Olympic athlete. Other hurtful attacks said the gold medal winner “looks like a man” and even questioned her right to be a champion, saying she only won because “the judges were biased”. Another online bully said Quan looked “countrified” while others called on her to “retire...
The software problem roiling private markets is about to face a big new test. A wall of debt maturities is looming for the industry just as artificial intelligence threatens to upend entire businesses in what’s been dubbed the SaaSpocalypse. More than $330 billion of high yield, leveraged loan and business development company-linked software and technology debt is coming due for repayment through ...
The software problem roiling private markets is about to face a big new test. A wall of debt maturities is looming for the industry just as artificial intelligence threatens to upend entire businesses in what’s been dubbed the SaaSpocalypse. More than $330 billion of high yield, leveraged loan and business development company-linked software and technology debt is coming due for repayment through 2028, a chunk of it tied to firms owned by private markets. As companies look to refinance in the coming months, they face numerous headwinds, from fears about AI devaluing or replacing their products to the risk of higher borrowing costs spurred by the war in the Middle East. Some private credit funds are turning away software borrowers outright as they seek to shrink their exposure to the sector, according to people with knowledge of the matter. And a number of software company sales planned by private equity have already stalled. “Software borrowers from private-credit funds are more highly leveraged and more dependent on future growth expectations than borrowers in other industries, making them more sensitive to adverse shocks,” according to researchers at MSCI Inc. The following charts highlight the stress facing private equity and credit markets as their big bet on software sours. Private market managers allocated hundreds of billions of dollars to software over the last 15 years, betting that software-as-a-service (SaaS) business models would generate high growth and reliable cashflows. That focus became increasingly concentrated during the period, with software and technology services accounting for about half of all private equity deals in recent years, far surpassing any other industry. For almost two decades that concentration risk was justified by market-beating returns for funds that marketed themselves as investing in technology among other industries. In recent years, however, the premium has been shrinking as more and more funds piled into the industry. Priv...
Strategy demonstrates unwavering corporate conviction by resuming its aggressive acquisition of digital assets as global markets prepare for supply changes.
Strategy demonstrates unwavering corporate conviction by resuming its aggressive acquisition of digital assets as global markets prepare for supply changes.
Scott Olson/Getty Images News OpenAI ( OPENAI ) expects to generate about $2.5B in advertising revenue this year, with projections rising to as much as $100B annually by 2030, Axios reported, citing a source familiar with recent presentations to investors. An early ad pilot has already generated roughly $100M in annual recurring revenue in under two months, underscoring strong initial traction. Op...
Scott Olson/Getty Images News OpenAI ( OPENAI ) expects to generate about $2.5B in advertising revenue this year, with projections rising to as much as $100B annually by 2030, Axios reported, citing a source familiar with recent presentations to investors. An early ad pilot has already generated roughly $100M in annual recurring revenue in under two months, underscoring strong initial traction. OpenAI has told investors it expects ad revenue to scale rapidly, reaching $11B in 2027, $25B in 2028, and $53B by 2029, according to the report. The projections assume OpenAI’s products expand to about 2.75B weekly users by the end of the decade, allowing the company to capture share in a global advertising market currently dominated by Google, Meta Platforms, Amazon, and TikTok. The advertising push is also part of OpenAI’s broader effort to convince investors it has multiple scalable revenue streams ahead of a potential initial public offering. More on OpenAI Nadella's Flip-Flop OpenAI's Dilemma Wall Street Lunch: ChatGPT Tops 800M Weekly Active Users OpenAI plans staggered rollout of new model over cybersecurity risk: report OpenAI plans retail IPO share allocation, CFO says