Labour has no good options on prisons
Early release scheme comes with risks, but so does not imprisoning future offenders or releasing all women
Mike Ashley’s Frasers lifts stake in Hugo Boss to 48%
UK retail group pushes deeper into luxury sector
UK pay weakness allays fears of second-round inflation effects
Private sector regular pay continued to decline in ONS’s latest data
UK employers shed jobs as labour market weakens further
Official figures also show unemployment slightly higher than forecasts
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Geeky Friday
FirstFT: Asian doubts over US resolve
Also in today’s newsletter: TCI bets on Italian luxury hotels and Russia fires top economist
China’s 10-year bond yield falls to 13-month low
Weak economic growth pushes investors into sovereign debt
AI: like a debt machine
Credit (and rates) markets reel from rise and rise of hyperscaler issuance
FTAV’s further reading
Fluids; tokens; hotlines; Chelsea; political spam
Seoul rattled by Trump’s threat to drills at heart of US alliance
US president’s eleventh-hour demand to ‘reduce’ annual exercises and praise of Kim Jong Un unsettles ally
Mark Walter’s empire of assets and liabilities
A scandal engulfing the billionaire’s insurers has the private capital industry on alert
Transcript: Airlines in stand-off over cutting ticket prices
Sonja Hutson talks to Peter Campbell and Owen Walker
Trump’s cuts to South Korean drills stir doubts about US resolve in Asia
Decision comes as Pentagon pulls ships from Indo-Pacific to Middle East and Iran war depletes weapons stockpiles
UK examines economic hit from loss of access to frontier AI models
Urgent assessment comes after Donald Trump blocked foreign national access to Anthropic’s Fable 5
Burnham faces EU clash over youth scheme as summit looms
Ireland’s European affairs minister says ‘a lot of work still to do’
Top UK civil servant received record £500,000 payout after Starmer sacking
Sudden circumstances of Chris Wormald’s exit led to a much more generous settlement than initially thought
The difficult truth about Jason Arday
From the beginning, investigations were accompanied by a cloud of excessive references to his race
Burger King is taking a bite out of McDonald’s lunch
Fast food rival has invested roughly $2bn in its US business over the past four years
Why eyewear stores are taking over London’s high streets
Private equity-backed brands such as Cubitts, Ace & Tate and Jimmy Fairly compete for scale in financially alluring sector
Trump ballroom official held quiet Kremlin talks
Rodney Mims Cook Jr showed Russian officials pictures of his ‘dacha’ at Vladimir Putin’s flagship economic forum
Anthony Hopkins turns composer with the cinematic album Life Is a Dream
Gustavo Dudamel and the Philharmonia Orchestra accompany the actor on an atmospheric trip down memory lane
Can canned cocktails revive the booze business?
Young customers are flocking to ‘ready-to-drink’ beverages as other alcohol sales slump
AI hasn’t gone rogue. It’s worse than that
Recent cyber attacks reflect what the technology was trained to do but safeguards are falling short
Europe still needs forward guidance — but not as a straitjacket
It should be kept in the toolkit for times when monetary policy is constrained