Thursday newspaper round-up: Retailers, Tesla, Rachel Reeves
By Michele Maatouk
Date: Thursday 19 Feb 2026
(Sharecast News) - UK retailers are planning to cut staff hours and jobs amid rising employment costs and pessimism about the economy. Almost two-thirds (61%) of finance bosses at retail companies said they planned to reduce working hours or cut overtime, according to the latest survey from the British Retail Consortium (BRC), the trade body that represents most big retailers. More than half (55%) said they would cut head office jobs and 42% said they would reduce jobs in stores. - Guardian
Tesla will avoid a 30-day suspension of its dealer and manufacturer licenses in California, its biggest market, after the US electric vehicle maker stopped using the term "autopilot" in the marketing of its vehicles in the state. Tesla now uses the term "supervised" in references to its full self-driving technology and has stopped using "autopilot" entirely in its marketing in the state. State regulators said Tuesday that Tesla had stopped misleading drivers about the safety of its cars, and so the state will not suspend its state sales license for 30 days, as had been threatened. - Guardian
Rachel Reeves is opposing virtually all demands for changes to tax and spending in her upcoming Spring Statement in an attempt to restore confidence. The Treasury is determined to belatedly deliver on Labour's manifesto pledge that there would be only one major fiscal event per year, according to Whitehall sources. - Telegraph
A British artificial intelligence (AI) researcher is in talks to raise $1bn (£740m) for his three-month-old start-up in what would be one of the biggest ever venture funding rounds in Europe. Prof David Silver, a former scientist at Google's DeepMind lab, is close to raising hundreds of millions of pounds for his new business, Ineffable Intelligence, from investors including Silicon Valley fund Sequoia. - Telegraph
A leading London law firm is using a chatbot for first-round interviews with potential recruits in a landmark advance of artificial intelligence in legal practice. Partners at Mishcon de Reya have confirmed that graduates applying to the firm this year will face a virtual interview with an AI chatbot in the first instance. - The Times
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