A new anti-dumping measure ranging from 33.03% to 83.5% could benefit UK excavator producers by up to £3.4 million per year, the TRA has found.

For the majority of artists, making music is financially unsustainable. According to a census conducted by the Musicians’ Union, nearly half of working musicians in the UK earn less than £14,000 a year from their craft, while a further half have to sustain their careers with other forms of income. It’s easy to imagine that these are the aspiring performers making tunes in their bedrooms and moonlighting as bartenders, but even household names are turning to alternative income streams.

British singer Kate Nash announced on Thursday that she would start posting pictures of her bottom on adult website OnlyFans to raise money for her tour. The Foundations singer has nearly a million monthly listeners on Spotify, and is playing all across the UK, including a sold out gig in London, but says that touring is a loss making exercise.

She started her “Butts 4 Tour Buses” page in order to ensure “good wages and safe means of travel for my band and crew”. Nash would rather you gawk at her gluteus maximus than listen to Foundations on Spotify. "No need to stream my music, I’m good for the 0.003 of a penny per stream thanks," she told her followers on Instagram.

For an independent solo artist to make the UK living wage they would need 9 million streams a year. But most artists need far more as revenue is split between bands, with record labels often taking a hefty cut.

While Spotify can provide a reliable if paltry source of income, touring is only profitable for musicians playing big venues to sold out crowds. A survey conducted by rehearsal space network Pirate Studios found that only 29% of artists make a profit from tours. Rising costs and a flailing economy have exacerbated this, and a government report earlier this year found that artists are facing a “cost-of-touring” crisis, with travel, accommodation and food prices all higher than ever.

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With her backside hustle, Nash follows in the footsteps of Lily Allen, who started selling pictures of her feet on OnlyFans over summer. She had the idea after seeing that her feet had a perfect five star rating on WikiFeet, a photo-sharing foot fetish website. Subscribers pay £8 a month to access her posts. In October, Allen claimed that shots of her well-pedicured trotters were earning her more money than Spotify streams – and that’s saying something, considering Allen has over 7 million monthly listeners and more than a billion streams on her top three songs.

• Largest UK package of sanctions against the shadow fleet targets 30 ships
• Insurance companies enabling the fleet are also sanctioned, ratcheting up pressure on Russia
• Comes after the world marked 1000 days since the Kremlin’s egregious full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces arrest if he travels to the UK, after an international arrest warrant was issued for him, Downing Street has indicated.

A No 10 spokesman refused to comment on the specific case but said the government would fulfil its "legal obligations".

On Thursday the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu, along with Israel's former defence minister Yoav Gallant, over alleged war crimes in Gaza.

The court's member countries, including the UK, have signed a treaty that obliges them to act on arrest warrants.

A number of unidentified drones have been spotted over three airbases in Britain, the United States Air Force (USAF) has confirmed.

The incidents, which occurred between November 20 and 22, saw “small unmanned aerial systems” spotted over RAF Lakenheath and RAF Mildenhall, in Suffolk, and RAF Feltwell, in Norfolk.

The USAF, which uses the bases, said it was unclear at this stage whether the drones were considered hostile.

It also declined to comment on whether any defence mechanisms were used but said it retains “the right to protect” installations.

Russia is ready to carry out cyber attacks on the United Kingdom and other allies in a bid to weaken support for Ukraine, a senior minister will warn later.

Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster Pat McFadden, whose role includes responsibility for national security, is set to tell a Nato meeting that the Kremlin could target British businesses and leave millions without power. It is the latest in a series of warnings about the cyber-warfare capabilities of Russia, which McFadden is to call a "hidden war" being waged against Ukraine.

He is also expected to single-out Russia's Unit 29155, which the government says has carried out a number of attacks in the UK and Europe.

[...]

The mobile browser market in the UK is not working well for businesses and consumers and Apple and Google should be investigated further by the competition watchdog, an initial inquiry has said.

The Competition and Markets Authority’s (CMA) independent inquiry group carried out an in-depth assessment of the mobile browser markets, and has raised concerns about how Apple controls how mobile web browsers work on its devices.

The CMA opened its investigation after its own market study, published in 2021, found Apple and Google have an effective duopoly on mobile ecosystems, across operating systems, app stores and web browsers on mobile devices, which it said meant the two companies were in a position to effectively set the rules on how mobile browsers work on their respective devices.

The independent inquiry group’s initial inquiry found that Apple’s rules in this area restrict competitors from being able to deliver new and innovative features to consumers.

It said concerns had been raised by other browser providers, who said that they are unable to offer a full range of features because of how Apple’s iOS and App Store operate.

In addition, it said Apple and Google can manipulate how users are presented with choices about which web browser to use on their devices to make their own browsers the clearest or easiest option.

As a result, the group has recommended that the CMA prioritises investigating Apple and Google’s activities in mobile ecosystems under new digital markets competition rules coming into force next year.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/4989993

A British man admitted on Friday that he carried out an arson attack on a London commercial property linked to Ukraine, and that he had accepted pay from a foreign intelligence agency, in a case prosecutors have linked to Russia.

Jake Reeves, 22, pleaded guilty at London's Woolwich Crown Court to charges of aggravated arson on the premises belonging to a "Mr X" on an industrial estate in east London in March.

He also admitted a charge under Britain's new National Security Act (NSA) of obtaining a material benefit from a foreign intelligence service.

He denied a further charge under the NSA of engaging in preparations for an act endangering the life of a person or creating serious risk to the health or safety of the public, and prosecutors said they would not pursue that charge.

Last month another man, Dylan Earl, 20, also admitted carrying out the arson attack. He pleaded guilty to a preparatory act under the NSA, which was brought in last year to crack down on hostile activity by foreign states.

Policing often harms sex workers. That’s not up for debate – copious academic research and sex worker-led advocacy and research demonstrate that. But we’re not actually sure why law enforcement behaves the way it does. Few researchers have seriously studied the motivations and justifications for police action when it comes to sex work, or asked what lies behind the police’s continued reliance on methods that hurt the people they claim to help.

Sir Keir Starmer has been criticised for meeting China’s president Xi Jinping just hours before 45 Hong Kong pro-democracy activists were sentenced for attempting to field opposition candidates in an election.

Among those sentenced were Benny Tai, who was jailed for 10 years and Joshua Wong, sentenced to four years, for “subversion” after being involved in the “Hong Kong 47” group of activists and lawmakers.

The imprisonments were the largest use of the authoritarian National Security Law brought in to clamp down on democracy in Hong Kong in 2019.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, former chair of the Democratic Party in Hong Kong, Emily Lau, suggested Sir Keir’s meeting with Xi at the G20 a mere hours before the sentencing meant the UK’s agreements with China over the governance of the territory before its handover in 1997 were “evaporating”.

[...]

Turnout at the 2024 general election was just 60% – one of the lowest in modern history. This is not an isolated phenomenon: there was a decline in turnout for the 2024 local elections, and the byelections held during the 2019-2024 parliament had the lowest recorded average turnout since 1945.

Findings by an independent inquiry group suggest Apple’s policies are holding back innovation in the browsers we use to access the web on mobile phones.

• report provisionally recommends that the CMA board consider investigating Apple and Google’s mobile ecosystem activities using new digital markets powers
• proposes that no further action to be taken on cloud gaming given primary concerns have been addressed

A surprise amount of Brits say they would take anti-obesity drugs if they were given to them for free on the NHS.

Glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) agonist are a family of medications that help manage blood sugar in patients with type 2 diabetes, but have also been found to help obese people lose weight.

The drugs include Mounjaro, also known as tirzepatide, and semaglutide, which is sold under the brand names Wegovy, Ozempic and Rybelsus.

The survey of 1,078 adults, carried out by Ipsos, found 24% of people would use weight-loss jabs if they were provided for free by the health service.

When asked about their own body image, four in 10 told the survey they think they are overweight or obese.