Britain's payments regulator on Tuesday fined five payments companies including Mastercard a total of 33 million pounds ($45.01 million) for cartel behaviour involving prepaid cards issued to vulnerable people on welfare benefits.

A boom in plant-based diets means next year’s Veganuary will attract more uptake than ever

A British company has moved to a four-day work week for all of its employees. Atom Bank, which is a digital only bank founded in 2014, has now allowed all of its 430 workers to enjoy more time off without cutting their pay. It's the latest in a handful of businesses joining the trend of shorter working hours to see if it improves productivity.

PhD students in the United Kingdom are more likely than other educated members of the general public to report symptoms of depression or anxiety, according to a survey. The researchers used common clinical screening questionnaires to measure signs of emotional distress in 3,352 self-selected PhD students and 1,256 working professionals; these all had undergraduate degrees and were similar in age to the students. The results were published on 9 December in Humanities & Social Sciences Communications.

British antitrust regulators are opening an investigation into Microsoft’s $16 billion acquisition of speech recognition company Nuance in the latest sign they’re tightening scrutiny of big technology deals.

Octopuses, crabs, and lobsters will be recognized as sentient beings under UK animal welfare laws after a review concluded there is strong evidence they are capable of feelings.

With 96% of UK adults now owning a mobile phone, and mobile signal improving significantly in recent years, the way people make calls is changing.

The government has announced plans to boost the UK's annual exports to £1 trillion by the end of the decade. The Made in the UK, Sold To The World plan is intended to help firms seize new opportunities in global markets. Last year, the UK exported about £600bn in goods and services. But only one in 10 British firms trades overseas.

Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O) said on Wednesday it would stop accepting Visa Inc (V.N) credit cards issued in the United Kingdom from next year due to the high fees charged by the payment processor for transactions.

Sharks, seahorses, eels and seals have been found living in the River Thames, a study has found. The State of the Thames Report, led by the Zoological Society of London (ZSL), highlights changes since the river was declared "biologically dead" in 1957. The river has seen an increase in its range of birds, marine mammals and natural habitats since the 1990s.

The pictures included recreations of Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa and Vincent van Gogh’s The Starry Night.

The UK must stump up £1.9bn a year more to pay its “fair share” in helping poor countries meet the climate emergency and lags behind 6 other leading nations, a new analysis says. Boris Johnson has made “climate finance” – to ensure “guilty” industrialised nations aid developing ones in adapting to the devastating effects of historic carbon emissions – a key issue for the Cop26 summit.

Only ecodesign stoves can be legally sold from 2022 – but experts say the standard is shockingly weak

Rising energy bills, higher prices and a critical shortage of workers leading to food and fuel supply constraints are threatening to stall Britain's recovery from the pandemic.

Uber is to pay out millions of pounds in missed pension payments to UK drivers dating back as far as 2017 under a deal with the retirement savings watchdog. The ride hailing company was forced to guarantee its 70,000 UK drivers a minimum hourly wage, holiday pay and pensions in March this year after a landmark supreme court ruling over their employment status. Couriers for the group’s UberEats food delivery service are not included in the deal.

As a new report claims dilapidated housing is "killing some of the most vulnerable people", a 22-year-old student has become an unlikely champion for social housing tenants, shaming Clarion, Europe's biggest housing association, into action. "I can't let people live in squalor," says Kwajo Tweneboa, burning passion in his voice, as he details some of the appalling living conditions he has uncovered in the past four months.

As of next week, Britain’s state-owned postal service will help anyone to buy cryptocurrency through its identify verification app. The move comes after the Post Office signed a deal with decentralized exchange (DEX) Swarm Markets. The deal enables verified users of the Post Office’s app, EasyID, to click through to Swarm’s website, where they can purchase vouchers that can be redeemed for cryptocurrencies.

Authorities are investigating after a map claiming to show the addresses of thousands of firearms owners in the UK was published online. Gun-selling site Guntrader announced a data breach affecting more than 100,000 customers in July. This week, reports emerged that an animal rights activist blog had published the information.

The government has announced plans to ban single-use plastic cutlery, plates and polystyrene cups in England as part of what it calls a "war on plastic". Ministers said the move would help to reduce litter and cut the amount of plastic waste in oceans. A consultation on the policy will launch in the autumn - although the government has not ruled out including other items in the ban.

McDonald's has been forced to stop selling milkshakes and bottled drinks at nearly 1,300 restaurants in the United Kingdom as Brexit-related staff shortages and supply chain delays caused by the pandemic continue to slam companies.