Meteorologists Sound Alarm Over El Nino Plume Racing Across Pacific Like "Freight Train"

'Digital ID Checks For All': Ofcom's Plan For UK's Under-16 Social Media Ban Puts Adults In The Age-Check Line Too Privacy campaigners have argued for months that this is where an age ban ends up. In March, Big Brother Watch titled a post "A social media ban for under-16s = digital ID checks for all" and argued that because the alternatives are intrusive and unreliable, ID would be required in many millions of cases. "All of the online age verification options are highly invasive and the biometric and behavioural profiling...

UBS Warns America's Restaurants Locked In "Difficult Cycle" As Tax-Refund Sugar-High Fades There is certainly a growing consensus on Wall Street that the tax-refund sugar high is fading just as consumers' financial profiles deteriorate. The latest read-through comes from UBS analyst Dennis Geiger, the bank's U.S. restaurants equity research analyst, who warns that a toxic cocktail of macro pressures is likely to crimp restaurant spending in the second half of the year. Geiger warned in a note that elevated gas prices at the pump appear to be offsetting tax-rebate benefits, while...

Americans' Savings-Rate Slumps In April As Fed's Favorite Inflation Signal Soars After accelerating significantly in March, The Fed's favorite inflation indicator - Core PCE (a measure of price changes in consumer goods and services that excludes volatile food and energy costs) - rose 0.2% MoM in April (less than expected +0.3% MoM), but pulled up the YoY measure to +3.3% (as expected) - its highest since Nov 2023. The rise in Services costs (headlined by Housing & Utilities, Financial Services, and Healthcare) dominated the increase in Core PCE YoY... The headline PCE...