More than 650 businesses, including B&Q, Five Guys and Serco, have been named by the government for failing to pay some of their employees the minimum wage. The 658 employers on the list have repaid a total of about £4m to more than 27,000 workers.

The Department for Business & Trade published the list on 3 September and said the repayments followed “robust” enforcement action. Ministers said penalties totalling £7m had been issued to employers found not to be paying the legal minimum.

Jonathan Reynolds, the business secretary, said: “Short-changing your staff isn’t a shortcut to success and we are determined to stamp it out.”

Kate Dearden, minister for the future of work, said: “Underpaying your staff is illegal, and we will not let workers foot the bill for their boss failing to follow the rules.”

The government said it was committed to publishing naming lists more regularly so that employers were swiftly held to account and made improvements as quickly as possible. A previous naming round covered 239 employers who underpaid 22,400 workers a total of £1.44m.

B&Q tops the list

B&Q, the DIY retailer, was at the top of the list after failing to pay 4,530 workers correctly, owing them a total of £456,934. The company said the shortfalls in payments were “unintentional” and “related to calculations involving geographical allowances which are paid in addition to minimum hourly rates”. The affected employees were paid in full in July 2025, the company said.

Elysium Healthcare Holdings 3 Limited was second on the government’s list, owing £330,048 to 1,095 workers. St George’s, Epsom and St Helier Hospital Group owed £123,331 to 75 workers, while Support Staff Services Limited owed £119,715 to 323 workers and Forest Holidays owed £100,308 to 598 workers.

Five Guys, the burger chain, was named for underpaying almost 3,700 of its workers a total of £54,642. “Following an HMRC review, technical differences in how payroll regulations were applied affected our national minimum wage calculations, resulting in a shortfall of approximately £55,000 across a payroll of more than £330 million,” the company said. It added that it had paid all current and former staff affected.

Serco underpaid 374 staff a total of £36,303. A spokesman for the outsourcer, which provides services to asylum hotels, defence programmes, hospitals, schools, offices and prisons, said the shortfall came from a technical error that affected one contract more than two years ago and related to salary sacrifice schemes. “It was quickly rectified once identified and all employees were reimbursed in full,” Serco said.

Whitbread, the owner of the Premier Inn hotel chain, appeared on the list after failing to pay 342 employees a total of £4,193. The FTSE 100 company said the shortfall was caused by an administrative error which has since been rectified.

Rates rose in April

The minimum wage, known as the national living wage for those aged 21 and over, was introduced more than 20 years ago. The rate for over-21s rose to £12.71 an hour on 1 April 2026, with the rate for 18 to 20-year-olds increasing to £10.85 and the rate for under-18s and apprentices set at £8.00. The rates change on 1 April every year, according to the government.

---

Travis Kelce shared new details about his July wedding to Taylor Swift during the Season 5 premiere of his podcast, offering fans their most extensive look yet at the private, star-studded celebration and gushing over comedian Adam Sandler’s decision to officiate the ceremony.

Kelce, the Kansas City Chiefs tight end, discussed the wedding at length on the Sept. 2 episode of “New Heights,” the podcast he co-hosts with his older brother and retired NFL star, Jason Kelce. Swift and Kelce married on July 3 at Madison Square Garden in New York City in a ceremony attended by roughly 1,000 guests, following a wedding-planning process that had been kept largely under wraps despite intense public interest.

“It’s a night out we’ll never forget,” Travis said of the celebration.

Describing the event further, Travis called it “a magical, magical night,” reflecting on how quickly the evening seemed to pass despite the months of anticipation surrounding it.

“It was insane. It’s a night we’ll never forget,” Travis said. “Me and Taylor are so thankful for everyone that showed up, from the vows to just seeing everyone to how much fun we had throughout the entire evening and hearing that be relayed through everybody’s stories of the night. It was just so magical, man, and I wish that it could have lasted even longer than it did. It felt like it just happened in the blink of an eye.”

Much of Travis’s discussion centered on Sandler, who officiated the ceremony after getting ordained specifically for the occasion, a choice Travis said was something he and Swift had wanted from the outset.

“He has been just the f—ing best person on this planet,” Travis said of Sandler on the podcast.

Sandler’s role as officiant surprised many observers when it was first confirmed in a press release issued the night of the wedding, which noted that the couple did not have traditional bridesmaids or groomsmen. Instead, Swift’s brother, Austin Swift, served as her Man of Honor, while Jason Kelce served as Travis’s Best Man, with the ceremony officiated by the couple’s friend, Adam Sandler.

Sandler’s connection to the couple dates back several years. He worked directly with Travis on the set of “Happy Gilmore 2,” the Netflix sequel released last year, in which Travis had a cameo appearance as a waiter. Following the film’s release, Travis publicly thanked Sandler on Instagram, writing that the opportunity still felt surreal and expressing gratitude toward him. Sandler, for his part, has spoken warmly about Travis in multiple interviews since then, telling Entertainment Tonight that Travis reminded him of friends he grew up with and describing him as “a great actor and a great human.”

Sandler has also expressed admiration for Swift specifically. Appearing on “New Heights” in August 2024, Sandler told Kelce directly how much he admired Swift’s music and the broader impact of her career.

“She means so much to our house,” Sandler said at the time. “I love listening to her in the car. I love what she has to say, every message, every melody. The production. How cool she was. What she meant to young girls. What she means to women. What she means to guys doing the right thing in life.”

Sandler also described a moment of foreshadowing from months before the couple’s engagement, recalling a conversation about writing Travis into a role resembling family.

“I was thinking, we were talking about you playing my son while we were writing it literally like six months ago,” Sandler said. “We were like, ‘Imagine if Travis was my first baby, how funny that would be.’”

Kansas City Chiefs head coach Andy Reid, who attended the wedding as one of the roughly 1,000 guests, later offered his own account of Sandler’s performance as officiant in an interview with CNN, describing the speech as striking a careful balance between humor and sincerity.

“Adam Sandler did a phenomenal job with the ceremony,” Reid said, adding that Sandler brought “a little bit of humor and a bit of sensitivity to what was going on. There was a lot of people from different worlds, and he brought them all together.”

Reid also revealed some of the specific advice Sandler offered the newlyweds during the ceremony.

“Kiss every chance you have. Every day. Whether you’re going to bed or going to work. Whenever, go ahead and kiss her,” Sandler told the couple, according to Reid’s account.

The guest list for the wedding reportedly included a wide range of prominent figures from music, film and sports, including Selena Gomez, Lena Dunham, Zoë Kravitz, Karlie Kloss, Gigi Hadid, Ed Sheeran, the Haim sisters, country stars Brad Paisley and Miranda Lambert, along with numerous NFL figures connected to Travis’s football career.

Details about the wedding’s specific theme and catering have gradually emerged in the weeks since the ceremony, with reports indicating the celebration featured an enchanted-garden theme alongside arcade-style catering options for guests. Swift’s publicist previously confirmed that both Swift and Travis wore custom Christian Dior outfits for the occasion, paired with Christian Louboutin shoes and Cartier jewelry for Swift, though Swift herself has not yet publicly commented on the wedding or released official images from the event.

Travis had previously described the wedding as “the best night of my life” during an Aug. 12 Chiefs press conference, thanking everyone who attended and celebrated with the couple. His latest podcast comments build further on that sentiment, offering fans additional insight into both the emotional significance of the night and the close friendship between the newlyweds and Sandler that ultimately led to his role at the center of the ceremony.

Swift and Travis announced their engagement on Aug. 26 of the prior year, following roughly two years of dating that had drawn significant public and media attention, given Swift’s global music career and Travis’s prominence as a star tight end for the Chiefs. Their subsequent wedding, held nearly a year after the engagement announcement, capped what became one of the most closely followed celebrity relationships of recent years, culminating in a ceremony that combined figures from Swift’s music and entertainment circles with Travis’s football and broader sports world connections.

John Lewis is launching an online chatshow and a social media studio to make the department store chain and its products more visible to chatbots and more prominent in AI search results.

The Gift List “vodcast”, hosted by the television presenter Angela Scanlon (pictured), will air on YouTube, with clips distributed through other social media channels. The format follows the success of Dish, the podcast run by sister chain Waitrose.

Guests will discuss the good and bad presents they have given and received. The broadcaster Louis Theroux will appear on the first show. Six episodes are planned in the run-up to Christmas, with more to follow if the series takes off.

Shift in how customers find products

Peter Ruis, the outgoing managing director of John Lewis, said that a year ago 0.3 per cent of its customers were searching for products through AI large language models such as ChatGPT. That figure has since risen to 2.5 per cent, he said, with usage growing exponentially across all age groups.

Shoppers are increasingly influenced by tools such as ChatGPT and Gemini to find and recommend products, as well as by content on Instagram and TikTok. The large language models tend to prioritise third-party advice and live content when compiling their answers, which is pushing retailers to rethink how they get discovered online and to change their marketing plans.

For John Lewis, the ability to respond quickly to trends with clips of influencers or experts filmed for social media has become as important as its Christmas television advert or its “never knowingly undersold” price pledge. Examples include the opening of the British Museum’s Bayeux Tapestry exhibition, which is expected to spur interest in cross stitch, and the launch of the Harry Potter television series before Christmas.

Budget and business rates

Ruis, who leaves John Lewis on 6 September after almost three years as managing director, said the chain had to move with the times as it faced an economy that was “a bit swirly”.

He said the chancellor’s budget in October would come at a “critical period” for retailers, and that he wanted to see more help on business rates, an issue on which high street firms have been pressing for a cut in their bills.

Ruis said strong trading in the first week of September, together with recent changes including modernised cafes and sports departments, the social media push and a “toy boom”, made him optimistic about the run-up to Christmas.

John Lewis was due to publish its half-year figures in the week beginning 7 September. Ruis said it had been a “summer of winners and losers” but indicated there was now “decent momentum” as shoppers still had money to spend. The partnership reinstated its staff bonus earlier in 2026 after sales and underlying profits rose over its last financial year.

The chain recorded its highest ever sales of garden furniture, fans and air conditioning over the summer, but Ruis said it was not yet clear whether the “Burnham bounce” over the summer would last. “People are not going to splurge when you have got inflation swirling,” he said.

Departure

Ruis announced his departure in August, saying he intended to “pursue new projects”. He gave no further indication of his plans on 3 September but said there was “no misalignment” on strategy with the partnership’s relatively new chair, Jason Tarry.

“We are getting things done at pace,” Ruis said. He added that there was “never a good time” to leave but that it was “far better to leave a winning team at the top of its game and all that excitement with events next year to unveil, rather than finishing bottom of the league and running out of the door”.

Ruis said his departure did not mean he had lost confidence in the future of John Lewis. He said it was not a traditional department store reliant on fashion and beauty in the mould of Harvey Nichols, which was bought out of administration in August by Frasers Group, the retailer founded by Mike Ashley.

John Lewis sells a third of all prams and pushchairs bought in the UK, along with garden furniture and the latest technology, Ruis said, adding: “This is not stuff Harvey Nichols can sell.”

---

Mumbai: Overseas investors extended their buying streak in Indian equities for a fifth consecutive fortnight in the second half of August, with consumer services, financials and healthcare emerging as the biggest beneficiaries of foreign inflows. Foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) pumped ₹13,010 crore into Indian equities during August 16-31, after investing ₹16,609 crore in the first half of the month, according to NSDL data.

“A major part of the foreign portfolio investors’ participation has come from secondary market block deals and offer for sale,” said Sriram Velayudhan, senior vice-president, IIFL Capital Services. “Their focus has been on growth-oriented sectors like consumer services, new-age financial services and healthcare.”

Consumer services attracted the highest inflows during the fortnight at ₹5,019 crore, extending a sectoral buying trend that has gathered momentum in recent months. Financial services saw inflows of ₹3,959 crore, while healthcare attracted ₹3,021 crore.

Read more: Nominal GDP growth set to surge to 12%. Why the stock market may still struggle to rally

“Within consumer services businesses, there has been an inclination towards platform businesses like Nykaa, Eternal, Lenskart and Meesho, where profitability visibility has improved significantly, or hotel businesses like Indian Hotels, which is heading towards seasonally stronger quarters,” said Sunny Agrawal, head of fundamental equity research at SBI Securities.

Capital goods returned to favour in the second half of August after witnessing outflows in July and in the first half of August, while healthcare attracted more than ₹5,900 crore of FPI inflows during August. “The financial services industry is likely to report robust earnings growth for the residual FY27 and hence institutional interest is likely to be favourable, underpinned by comfortable valuations,” Agrawal said. “The healthcare sector also has structural tailwinds across sub-sectors like hospitals, diagnostics and CDMO, which would have led to FII buying momentum in the sector.”
Oil, gas and consumable fuels witnessed the highest outflows at ₹2,251 crore during the second half of August.

QuickBooks Online users began reporting access problems Thursday morning, with outage-tracking site Downdetector logging a spike in complaints starting around 9:45 a.m. EDT, adding to a bumpy stretch of reliability issues affecting Intuit’s cloud-based accounting platform this week.

The outage tracker’s official account flagged the surge in a post shortly after the reports began, asking affected users how the disruption was impacting them and directing people to its live outage dashboard for updates. The hashtag “QuickbooksOnlineDown” began circulating on social media as small-business owners and accountants compared notes on the disruption.

Thursday’s reports follow a pattern of intermittent trouble that has affected Intuit’s QuickBooks services over the past several days. According to independent status-tracking service EagleStatus, QuickBooks Online experienced multiple flagged incidents in both the United States and Canada earlier this week, including reported issues on Sept. 1 at both 8:56 p.m. and 9:15 p.m., following an earlier disruption on Aug. 31.

Intuit’s own official status page confirmed a login-related issue affecting QuickBooks Online on Sept. 1, describing the problem in a posted update before marking it resolved.

“Some users may encounter issues when trying to Login to QuickBooks Online,” the status update read, before Intuit later confirmed the issue had been fixed. “The issue has been fixed and we confirm the system recovery across all regions. We apologize for the inconvenience this caused and thank you for your patience.”

That login disruption came just a day after a more significant outage affected Intuit’s developer-facing services. According to Intuit’s Developer Group status page, a major outage beginning the afternoon of Sept. 1 caused intermittent QuickBooks Online API timeout errors, sandbox company loading issues within the Developer Portal, and OAuth connection failures affecting third-party applications integrated with QuickBooks.

Intuit’s engineering team posted a series of updates throughout that incident as they worked to identify and resolve the underlying cause.

“We’re currently seeing a widespread issue affecting sandbox company loading in the Developer Portal, app connection (OAuth) failures, and QuickBooks Online API timeout errors,” the company said in one update during the Sept. 1 incident, later confirming that “the QuickBooks Online APIs are returning intermittent 503 timeout errors due to an internal incident.” The issue was formally marked resolved later that evening, at 8:45 p.m. Pacific time.

QuickBooks Online is cloud-based accounting software widely used by small and midsize businesses to manage day-to-day finances, including tracking income and expenses, generating invoices, processing payroll, and syncing bank transactions. The platform integrates with more than 750 third-party applications, meaning disruptions affecting its core services or underlying APIs can ripple outward to a wide range of connected business tools beyond the QuickBooks interface itself.

Because so many small businesses depend on QuickBooks Online for time-sensitive financial tasks, including processing payroll, sending invoices and reconciling bank transactions, even relatively brief service disruptions can create meaningful downstream frustration for business owners who rely on the platform as a core part of their daily operations. Historical data on the service’s reliability, compiled by independent outage-tracking site Outage.Report, shows QuickBooks Online has recorded relatively limited total downtime over the trailing 12 months, with the platform’s most recent previously tracked incident occurring roughly 258 days prior to this week’s disruptions and lasting about one hour and 14 minutes on average.

Thursday’s disruption is not the first time QuickBooks has experienced a significant, widely felt outage. In one previous incident affecting Intuit’s broader suite of products, a major outage beginning late one evening took down not only QuickBooks but also the company’s Intuit.com website along with associated products including Quicken, TurboTax and Quickbase, affecting hundreds of thousands of customers who relied on Intuit’s online services at the time. Intuit later attributed that earlier, more sweeping outage to an error that occurred during a routine overnight maintenance procedure.

Intuit maintains a dedicated QuickBooks status page where customers can check for known outages or scheduled maintenance windows affecting the platform, along with an option to subscribe to notifications whenever a service goes down, undergoes maintenance, or is restored to normal operation. The company has also directed customers to its QuickBooks Community forum, where members of Intuit’s support team post regular updates during active incidents and customers can check whether others are experiencing similar issues in real time.

As of Thursday morning, Intuit’s official status page had not yet posted a specific update addressing the reports beginning around 9:45 a.m. EDT, leaving affected users largely reliant on crowdsourced outage trackers like Downdetector for early indications of the scope and likely cause of the disruption. Independent monitoring services that check QuickBooks Online’s availability on a rolling basis had not, as of the time reports began circulating, posted a formal confirmation of a new incident tied specifically to Thursday’s spike in user complaints.

QuickBooks Online’s recent stretch of reliability issues, spanning a login disruption, a developer-facing API outage, and now Thursday’s fresh wave of user reports within the span of just a few days, comes during a period when many small businesses are actively processing routine financial tasks tied to the start of a new month, a time when disruptions to core accounting software can carry outsized practical consequences for business owners managing payroll, invoicing and bookkeeping deadlines.

As of Thursday late morning, it remained unclear how long the latest round of QuickBooks Online access issues would persist or whether the disruption was connected to the same underlying systems affected by earlier incidents this week. Affected users were advised to monitor Intuit’s official QuickBooks status page, along with the QuickBooks Community forum and independent outage trackers, for the most current information as the company worked to address the reported issues.

Costco Next, an online marketplace Costco members often regarded as one of the retailer’s most coveted hidden perks, has quietly disappeared from the company’s website. 

The service gave members up to 40% off on certain products not offered at its warehouses. The program featured items from a specific list of vendor partners, ranging from home goods and luggage to electronics.

Shoppers visiting the Costco Next online page are now met with a message: “Access to Costco Next storefronts is no longer available.” 

Costco said shoppers seeking to return items previously purchased through the program should contact the vendors directly. 

COSTCO’S LESSER-KNOWN MEMBERSHIP BENEFITS, EXPLAINED

“Please refer to the list below for contact information for vendors with active return policies. For eligible returns and warranty inquiries, contact the vendor directly,” the retail giant said. 

The program previously featured about 80 vendors, including Anker Electronics, Caraway, Travelpro and Priority Bicycles. In the program, shoppers who selected an offer through Costco’s website were redirected to a custom storefront on the vendor’s website, where they completed the purchase directly with the brand. 

Ticker	Security	Last	Change	Change %
COST	COSTCO WHOLESALE CORP.	925.41	-3.07	-0.33%

Some shoppers said they noticed the closure on Sept. 1, with the move apparently coming without warning. 

“A real bummer for the deals,” one Reddit user said. 

COSTCO BRINGS BACK FAN-FAVORITE KIRKLAND TREAT AFTER TWO-YEAR ABSENCE

The decision came as the platform appeared to be gaining momentum.

During the company’s third-quarter 2025 earnings call on May 29, 2025, Costco Next’s quarterly sales equaled the platform’s total sales for the entire 2022 fiscal year. 

Nino Garcia, assistant general merchandise manager at Costco Next, previously said the concept was born in 2016 and took several years to fully materialize as the retailer refined the program. 

CLICK HERE TO GET FOX BUSINESS ON THE GO

“The Costco Next idea was born in 2016 but did not fully materialize until a few years later,” Garcia said. 

“There was a real learning curve as we developed the program, and there were a lot of refinements, from site improvements and product selection, to ensuring that every supplier understood the concept. In the end, Costco’s goal will always be the same: offering our members quality goods at a great value.” 

FOX Business reached out to Costco for more information.