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Alexander Spatari | Moment | Getty ImagesLONDON — The U.K. economy grew 0.2% in August on a month-on-month basis, flash figures published by the Office for National Statistics showed Friday.Gross domestic product (GDP) came in line with the expectations of economists polled by Reuters, who had forecast growth of 0.2%.Britain's economic growth was up 0.2% in the three months to August, compared with the 0.5% recorded in the three months to July.The U.K.'s dominant services sector showed slight growth of 0.1% in the month to August, while production and construction output rose by 0.5% and 0.4%, respectively.The country's economy flatlined in June and July, after previously recording modest but steady expansion in almost every month this year. Britain emerged from a shallow recession at the ...

Tesla unveils its "Cybercab" on October 10, 2024 in Burbank, California.After a decade of unfulfilled promises about driverless vehicles, Tesla CEO Elon Musk hyped the company's Cybercab concept on Thursday night, showing off a low, silver two-seater with no steering wheels or pedals.Rolling up to the stage in a Cybercab almost an hour after the company's "We, Robot" event was supposed to begin, Musk said the company had 21 of these vehicles, and a total of 50 "autonomous" cars on-location at the Warner Bros. studio in Burbank, California where Tesla hosted its invitation-only event.Musk offered no details about exactly where Tesla plans to produce the cars, but said consumers would be able to buy a Tesla Cybercab for below $30,000. He said the company hopes to be producing the Cybercab be...

Multi-strategy hedge fund D.E. Shaw revealed on Thursday it had amassed a roughly $1 billion stake in industrial gas giant Air Products and Chemicals, the second activist stake at the $71 billion company.D.E. Shaw, one of the largest hedge funds in the world by assets, said in letters made public Thursday that its efforts to engage privately with the company had been largely rebuffed and marked by "an apparent lack of urgency."The investor plans to nominate three directors to the company's board, people familiar with the matter told said. The potential challenge would come alongside another activist fund, Paul Hilal's Mantle Ridge. Mantle Ridge has a similarly sized stake and, like D.E. Shaw, is seeking a clear succession plan for Air Product's CEO, 80-year-old Seifi Ghasemi.Scott Sutton, ...

David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty ImagesInflation fell in September as lower gasoline prices combined with other waning price pressures in areas such as housing to bring relief to consumers' wallets, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The consumer price index, a key inflation gauge, was up 2.4% last month from September 2023, the bureau said.That figure is a decline from 2.5% in August, meaning price growth slowed. It's also the smallest annual reading since February 2021.The September CPI figure was slightly higher than economists predicted, however.There were some trouble spots, such as an uptick in categories including clothing, car insurance and groceries. Most appear to be "one-off" increases, though, said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's."The trend on inflati...

Microsoft on Thursday announced new health-care data and artificial intelligence tools, including a collection of medical imaging models, a health-care agent service and an automated documentation solution for nurses. The tools aim to help health-care organizations build AI applications quicker and save clinicians time on administrative tasks, a major cause of industry burnout. Nurses spend as much as 41% of their time on documentation, according to a report from the Office of the Surgeon General. "By integrating AI into health care, our goal is to reduce the strain on medical staff, foster the collective health team collaboration, enhance the overall efficiency of healthcare systems across the country," Mary Varghese Presti, vice president of portfolio evolution and incubation at Microsof...