Closing summary
US consumer price inflation held at 2.7% in July, unchanged from the month before, confounding expectations of an uptick. However, a core measure that strips out volatile food and energy costs was higher than expected at 3.1%.
Economists are still expecting the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates at its meeting in September.
Wall Street stocks rose after the data, with the Dow Jones 0.55% ahead, while the FTSE 100 index in London was flat.
UK ministers have appointed insolvency advisers to make contingency plans for the potential collapse of Thames Water.
The company, which supplies 16 million customers, has been racing to pull together a deal to avoid financial collapse.
Employers in the UK have cut annual pay increases and pared back hiring in recent months as the economic slowdown took its toll on the jobs market.
Data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), released on Tuesday, showed that UK unemployment edged higher in the three months to June but the official jobless rate was unchanged at 4.7%, a four-year high.
Pay growth including bonuses dropped from 5% to 4.6% over the same period. However, stripping out one-off awards, pay growth remained at 5%, suggesting employers had cut back on incentives.
Giving a strong indication of employers’ reluctance to hire new staff, the vacancy rate fell by 44,000. The drop of more than 5% in the three months to June on the previous quarter was the 37th consecutive fall in vacancies and took the total to well below pre-pandemic levels at 718,000.
Markets breathed a sigh of relief after Donald Trump once again delayed implementing sweeping tariffs on China, announcing another 90-day pause just hours before the last agreement between the world’s two largest economies was due to expire.
On Monday, the US president signed an executive order extending the deadline for higher tariffs on China until 10 November.
Thank you for reading. We’ll be back tomorrow. Take care – JK
Paloma Faith and Robert Smith among 100 musicians urging Starmer to stop Rosebank oil field
Artists including Paloma Faith, Lola Young and The Cure’s lead singer Robert Smith have urged the prime minister to reject future drilling at Rosebank in the North Sea.
In a letter addressed to Sir Keir Starmer and Energy Secretary Ed Miliband, the musicians argued that further development of the oil field north west of Shetland would undermine the UK’s climate commitments and the sustainability of the cultural sector. Estimated to contain up to 300m barrels of oil, Rosebank is the UK’s largest untapped oil field.
The Labour manifesto rules out granting new licences for new fields, but ministers say that does not apply to Rosebank and Shell’s Jackdaw, which already have their licences and are now awaiting environmental consent to begin drilling.
🚨 BREAKING: @thecure's @RobertSmith, @MassiveAttackUK, @lolayounggg, @Palomafaith, @brianeno and over 100 other musicians have added their voice urging Prime Minister @Keir_Starmer to stop the huge Rosebank oil field. pic.twitter.com/9OF2ELKpeW
— #StopRosebank (@StopCambo) August 12, 2025
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