Author: News Desk

Metro Bank agrees rescue deal with investors The Guardian says The embattled high street lender Metro Bank has agreed a rescue deal with investors to shore up its balance sheet after a weekend of negotiations. The bank announced late on Sunday that it had secured a £325m capital raise, including £150m of new equity from shareholders, and £600m of debt refinancing. The equity raise will be led by its largest shareholder, the Colombian billionaire Jaime Gilinski Bacal’s Spaldy Investments, which will contribute £102m. His stake will rise from 9% to 53%, making him the controlling shareholder. Metro is also in…

Hiring boom fading but three-quarters of UK firms still struggle to find staff The Guardian says Three-quarters of UK firms are still struggling to recruit staff, research has found, but the post-pandemic “jobs boom” appears to be in decline, with hiring intentions continuing to fall last month. A survey by the British Chambers of Commerce found that 73% of the almost 5,000 companies it polled had faced hiring difficulties in the July to September quarter – a nine percentage point drop from the record high of 82% in the final three months of 2022. The hospitality sector continues to suffer…

‘Customers are coming to us crying’: staff mourn as Wilko exits high street The Guardian says There was a mournful, empty feeling in the Wembley High Road branch of Wilko that closed its doors for the last time on Thursday. It was one of 68 stores that the hardware and homeware retailer shut last week, with the final 37 of what was until last month a 400-strong empire closing on Sunday. With prices cut throughout the day, from 40% to 90% reductions, by 3pm the Wembley shop looked like a homage to a Soviet-era supermarket, the shelves all but bare,…

Waitrose in talks with Amazon over online grocery deal, says report The Guardian says Waitrose is reportedly in talks with Amazon to sell groceries via the internet marketplace, in an attempt to lure in more shoppers and claw back market share. The Sunday Telegraph reported that the upmarket supermarket, part of the John Lewis Partnership, and Amazon were discussing a third-party deal, after the world’s biggest online retailer struck a similar agreement with the supermarket Iceland recently. Iceland launched on the Amazon website in mid-September, offering thousands of products to Prime subscribers that the US company delivers from Iceland stores.…

House of Kardashian review – this exhaustive show turns Kim and co’s circus into a meaningful story The Guardian says House of Kardashian is put together in such a way that it may well act as a Rorschach test. You might come away from this three-hour documentary series thinking that the Kardashian-Jenner family is a pioneering model of female-led entrepreneurship and empowerment – or that they are a late-stage capitalist nightmare, changing society for the worse, atop their gilded mountains of cash. At the end of each instalment, there is a note to say that the Kardashian-Jenners (and later, Kanye…

Smitten Harry Styles and Taylor Russell take their romance to the next level with very public outing The Metro says Harry Styles and Taylor Russell could not have looked more smitten with one another as he supported her at her theatre show this weekend. The Canadian actress, 29, did her final performance in The Effect in London on Saturday night (October 7) and, of course, rumoured boyfriend Harry, also 29, was there to cheer her on. This was far from the first time Harry has been in the audience supporting Taylor while she did her thing, as the One Direction…

David Walliams says he had ‘suicidal thoughts’ after Britain’s Got Talent exit over controversy The Metro says David Walliams has said that his exit from Britain’s Got Talent left him experiencing ‘suicidal thoughts’, it’s been reported. In 2022, it was revealed that the TV personality was leaving the talent competition after a decade – having been on the judging panel with Simon Cowell, Amanda Holden and Alesha Dixon – following the leak of an expletive rant that he made about a contestant. It was previously reported that Walliams was taking legal action over a data protection breach over the leaked…

Bobby Brazier’s rarely-seen brother Freddie bursts with pride as Strictly star impresses with energetic samba The Metro says Bobby Brazier’s younger brother Freddie has made a rare public appearance to support the actor on Strictly Come Dancing. The EastEnders actor and model, 20, is among the favourites to win the competition, and continued his successful run on the BBC dancing series with another solid performance this week. For Movies Week, Bobby and his professional partner Dianne Buswell, 34, danced a samba while dressed up as star-crossed lovers Romeo and Juliet.

Matty Healy has unusual way of transporting belongings as he moves in with girlfriend after one month The Metro says Matty Healy seems smitten with new girlfriend Gabbriette Bechtel as he moves into her home after making things public with a smooch a month ago. The 1975 frontman took a box of belongings and huge rucksack round to Gabbriette’s place in Los Angeles, showing things might be getting serious between the two. Keeping what appeared to be a move low-key, he opted to travel on an electric scooter as he arrived at her apartment, in new pictures provided exclusively to…

Cher, 77, stuns fans with dramatic hair transformation in Paris The Metro says Cher shocked fans after she was seen leaving her hotel in Paris with a head of blue hair in place of her previous platinum blonde locks. The 77-year-old singer beamed as she exited the building in the middle of the French capital and showed off her new look. She let her long wavy hair hang loose over her shoulders and rocked a new navy blue dye instead of the bright blonde she had been sporting days earlier. Keeping away the chillier temperatures, the star put on a…