Archive for September 2017

Tesco climbing back to profit after scandal

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Tesco climbing back to profit after scandal


Tesco is set to say on Monday that its recovery is gathering pace, and is expected to unveil an interim net profit for the first time since its 2014 accounting scandal.

Source: Daily Express :: Finance Feed http://ift.tt/2yfqd7m

Another job opening in the Trump administration

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Another job opening in the Trump administration

WHEN President Donald Trump gathered his cabinet secretaries around a table and invited them to sing his praises, his administration was compared to an early scene in "King Lear". Four months later, it is looking more like the last act of "Hamlet", such is the rising body count. On September 29th Tom Price was pushed out as secretary of health and human services, following a series of revelations about his penchant for taking private jets at public expense. This made him at least the ninth senior member of the administration to have been purged in the eight months of its existence.

For a president sworn to “drain the swamp”—that is, to attack the culture of insiderism, back-scratching and special favours that prevails in Washington, DC, Mr Price’s travel tastes were embarrassing. Investigations by Politico revealed that the former Republican congressman had spent over half a million dollars of public money on 27 private-jet flights since early May, including several for trips that appeared to mix business with...Continue reading

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A school in Louisiana bans protests during the national anthem

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A school in Louisiana bans protests during the national anthem

ON SEPTEMBER 29th, at 7pm, when the Parkway Panthers face the Airline Vikings in a high-school football clash in Bossier City, Louisiana, the drama will begin before the first snap. The previous day, the principal of Parkway High School sent a letter to student athletes warning them not to mimic the widespread protests that took place over the weekend at National Football League (NFL) games. Parkway players attending “any sporting event in which their team is participating”, wrote Waylon Bates, the principal, must “stand in a respectful way throughout the National Anthem”. Anyone who kneels, sits or makes any sign of disrespect will risk being benched, or, with “continued failure to comply”, subjected to “removal from the team”.

With its legalistic language, this pre-emptive strike against student protestors is different in tone to President Donald Trump’s jeering call for NFL team owners on September 23rd to fire any “son of a bitch” who “disrespects our flag”. But the demand, like Mr Trump’s call, brooks...Continue reading

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Beachcomber: 100 years old and still a skilled negotiator

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Beachcomber: 100 years old and still a skilled negotiator


A SENSATIONAL breakthrough has been made in the Brexit negotiations following the PM’s recent speech in Florence in which she proposed a “double lock” on arrangements for Britain leaving the EU.

Source: Daily Express :: Comment Feed http://ift.tt/2xR8Fxv

We must fight to defend the power of free markets, says ROSS CLARK

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We must fight to defend the power of free markets, says ROSS CLARK


FOR most of us on the wrong side of 50 Theresa May’s speech yesterday will have come across as a case of stating the bleedin’ obvious. Yes, of course a free market economy is “the greatest agent of collective human progress ever created”.

Source: Daily Express :: Comment Feed http://ift.tt/2wZDi4s

Tiny robots will inspect and fix jet engines from the inside

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Tiny robots will inspect and fix jet engines from the inside

IF YOU are reading this while sitting in an aircraft and are of a nervous disposition, do not be alarmed, but the temperature inside the jet engines keeping you aloft probably exceeds the melting point of the materials that those engines are made from. That they do not consequently turn into a molten mess is a feat of modern engineering. It involves a combination of tough alloys and advanced production techniques, such as 3D printing, which allow components to be made with tiny channels through which cooling air circulates. Parts exposed to the most extreme temperatures, which can reach more than 1,300°C, are given additional protection with a coating of special heat-resisting ceramics.

New jet engines are designed to run hot because that results in a more complete combustion, which lowers fuel consumption and cuts emissions. Hot engines, though, need nurturing. Nowadays the three big aircraft-engine makers, General Electric (GE), Rolls-Royce and Pratt & Whitney, usually include...Continue reading

Source: Science and technology http://ift.tt/2x0cmN8

North Korea has brought America and China closer

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North Korea has brought America and China closer

MURDEROUS, thin-skinned and in possession of nuclear weapons, the North Korean dictator, Kim Jong Un, has one good deed to his name: he has united America and China. Max Baucus, America’s ambassador to Beijing until January 2017, recalls the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, privately expressing “disgust” at Mr Kim’s reckless pursuit of nukes and missiles to carry them to other continents. Mr Xi’s frustration with North Korea’s hereditary despot stands out as “the strongest statement that I have ever heard Xi make”, says Mr Baucus. China has never sounded as closely aligned with America when it comes to using sanctions and diplomatic pressure, in a last-ditch bid to change how Mr Kim calculates his regime’s interests.

Breaking a long-standing taboo about imagining the Kim regime’s collapse, a well-connected Chinese academic, Jia Qingguo, was allowed to publish an essay in September suggesting that China, America and South Korea should discuss such contingencies as refugee...Continue reading

Source: United States http://ift.tt/2yJgTFP

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