Wednesday newspaper round-up: Retailers, Facebook, Google, Vodafone
Britain’s retailers suffered the sharpest drop in business in more than two decades last month as bad weather, the squeeze on household budgets and the timing of Easter led to a hefty cut in consumer spending. In the latest evidence of the slowdown in the economy since the turn of the year, the latest health check from the British Retail Consortium (BRC) and KPMG found that sales were down by 3.1% in April, the biggest decline since the survey was launched in 1995. - Guardian
Green energy would be boosted if excess electricity from wind and solar farms was used to produce hydrogen for use in heating and other parts of the energy system, according to engineers. Renewables were the UK’s second biggest source of electricity in the last three months of 2017, and now provide about a third of the country’s power at certain times of day. National Grid has warned that at times this summer there will be more electricity being generated than needed; when demand is low, solar output is high and some inflexible power stations are hard to turn off. – Guardian
Facebook is appointing new leaders to its main divisions, in the most substantial reshuffle in its history and in a move which reveals its blockchain ambitions. As part of the overhaul, Facebook has reorganised its operations into three units: 'Family of apps', new platforms and infrastructure, which includes virtual reality and artificial intelligence technology, and central product services, which comprises features used across products such as adverts and security. – Telegraph
Google will set time limits on apps and make smartphones easier to ignore in response to fears that they are becoming too addictive. A software update to Android, the company’s smartphone operating system, is designed to make it easier to ignore mobile phones. – Telegraph
Vodafone was on the brink last night of announcing a €19 billion (£16.7 billion) deal to buy a significant part of Liberty Global’s European cable business, as it seeks to become the continent’s leading telecommunications provider across television, broadband, mobile and landline telephones. Sources said that Liberty, the American owner of Virgin Media, is to give up its cable operations in Germany, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Romania, markets where Vodafone already has a foothold. – The Times
The Bank of England should raise interest rates tomorrow despite weak economic data recently, according to The Times’ shadow policy committee. Six of the panel’s nine members called for an immediate quarter-point rate rise to 0.75 per cent and two said that the Bank should start winding down quantitative easing. – The Times