“It ensures that work provides not just a pay packet, but a decent standard of living,” says Faith Lydiard of the Living Wage Foundation

A group of businesses, charities and public sector organisations in Sunderland has launched a multi-year plan to boost the number of real Living Wage employers in the city.

The Making Sunderland a Living Wage City Action Group includes Sunderland City Council, housing association Gentoo Group, technology firm Apexon, digital marketing executive Phonetic Digital, Sunderland Voluntary Sector Alliance, communications consultancy Creo Comms, community interest company Active Families NE, community advice organisation ShARP and children’s charity Love, Amelia. Together they have devised a three-year plan to increase the number of accredited real Living Wage Employers on their doorsteps.

There are currently 62 real Living Wage accredited employers in the city, an increase of 42 since Sunderland earned Living Wage City recognition in 2022. The group says that means more than 2,000 workers have received a pay rise that meets real Living Wage level.

That level is an independently calculated hourly rate of pay for those aged 18 and above, based on living costs including rent, bills, food and other things. It is around £13.45 in most of the country, but £14.80 in London.

The action group is also looking to broaden accreditations to include Living Hours and Living Pension and to embed the Living Wage across funding, commissioning and procurement.

Faith Lydiard, North East programme manager at Living Wage Foundation, said: “Paying the Real Living Wage is one of the most effective ways employers can demonstrate a genuine commitment to their people and their communities. It ensures that work provides not just a pay packet, but a decent standard of living, helping individuals and families meet everyday costs with dignity and security.

“We consistently see that businesses who adopt the real Living Wage benefit too. They experience higher staff retention, improved morale, and increased productivity, alongside a stronger reputation as responsible employers. In a competitive labour market, it is a clear signal that an organisation values its workforce.”

She added: “At a time when the cost of living remains a real challenge for many, we encourage more employers to step forward and join the growing movement. Paying the real Living Wage is not just the right thing to do — it is a smart, sustainable choice that delivers long-term value for both people and business.”

The group says it’s not just businesses who are making the case for paying a real living wage. Jess works as a digital marketing executive at Sunderland based Phonetic Digital, a B-Corp based in Mackies’ Corner that provides a spectrum of digital services to enhance the digital presence and operational efficiency of its clients across the UK.

She said: “Being paid the real Living Wage means I can say yes to social engagements which makes the difference between having a routine and having a life.”

The chain is planning to invest further in Padel

Health club and hotel operator Bannatyne Group has hailed record revenue and profits in the face of economic headwinds.

The County Durham-based spa chain headed by former BBC Dragon Duncan Bannatyne says it is poised to make further investments in padel courts throughout this year. In 2025 results seen by BusinessLive ahead of their publication at Companies House, the firm showed it had grown revenue to nearly £158m from £149.6m the year before.

Operating profits were up from £25.8m to £27.2m as Ebitda edged up slightly from £43.6m to £43.7m. Meanwhile pre-tax profits rose from £14.4m to £15.7m. The positive numbers came as memberships also climbed from 219,500 to 219,743.

Founder and executive chairman, Duncan Bannatyne said: “The business has delivered impressive results against difficult economic headwinds brought about by Government policy from April 2025. Nearly 3,000 staff throughout the UK have worked together to maintain a growing business, delivering popular services to a large cohort of loyal members.

“The company has been an active investor in the market. It has closed underperforming clubs in some areas and opened new clubs in areas where demand was stronger. It has also invested substantial sums in new products, including advanced, all weather padel courts, which are also available to non-members.

“We will be announcing further investments in padel throughout 2026 in Norwich, Livingston, Basingstoke, Chafford Hundred, Stratford on Avon, Colchester and Grove Park. The success has been achieved in the face of an increase in the rate of employer’s National Insurance, which added £2m to the company’s costs. Meanwhile, the Government’s energy policies have failed to deliver any control on spiralling business energy tariffs at a time when energy represents 11% of the cost base of Bannatyne Group.”

Bannatyne Group now operates from 70 locations including five in the North East: Darlington, Ingleby Barwick, Coulby Newham, Durham and Chester le Street. Its portfolio includes 67 health clubs, 45 spas and three hotels.

Last year it acquired the former Beechdown Leisure Club, a premium health and wellbeing facility in Basingstoke, opened its first padel courts in Ingleby Barwick, and progressed several planning applications for 20 additional courts across its estate, and closed a site at Whitworth Street, Manchester.

Mr Bannatyne also added: “Our investment in people has been focused on a sector leading apprenticeship programme, which facilitates progression within peoples’ roles. A long-term career is achievable at Bannatyne Group. Our business is led by people who have real expertise in the field of health and fitness and have introduced some ground-breaking programmes, which are popular with members.”

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EQB Inc. (EQB:CA) Shareholder/Analyst Call April 8, 2026 10:00 AM EDT

Company Participants

Lemar Persaud – VP & Head of Investor Relations
Naveen Natarajan
Vincenza Sera
Michael Mignardi – Senior VP, General Counsel & Corporate Secretary
Chadwick Westlake

Conference Call Participants

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Imaad Khatri
Rashmi Ashok
David Lee
Deep Shah

Presentation

Lemar Persaud
VP & Head of Investor Relations

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Good morning. EQB’s Annual Meeting of Shareholders is about to begin. Please note that this meeting is being recorded on April 8, 2026. During the meeting, you can submit questions or comments at any time by clicking on the message icon. We now turn the proceedings over to EQB.

Naveen Natarajan

Good morning. My name is Naveen Natarajan, and I’m Director, Credit Risk Management at Equitable Bank. Before we begin today, I make the following statement on behalf of all of us. We acknowledge that EQB occupies offices on Turtle Island, a name that multiple Indigenous nations gave to the place more widely known as North America. We gathered together today on land that is steeped in rich Indigenous history, recognizing the enduring presence of First Nations, Inuit, and Métis peoples. I further acknowledge that all settlers who came willingly to the stolen land are accountable for furthering truth and reconciliation. It’s now my pleasure to turn the meeting over to Vincenza Sera, Chair of the Board of EQB.

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Vincenza Sera

Thank you, Naveen. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our Annual Meeting of Shareholders, which I now call to order. Joining me speaking to you today is Chadwick Westlake, President and Chief Executive Officer. And in the audience, we have other members of our Board and dedicated executive leadership team. Shareholder engagement is of utmost important to us. And for that reason, we are hosting this meeting in-person and online to enable broad participation. We’re very excited to begin a new era of service, growth, and performance at EQB under

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Meta Platforms on Wednesday unveiled Muse Spark, the first artificial intelligence model from a ​costly team it assembled last year to ​catch up with rivals in the AI race.

Shares of the company extended ​gains to trade up nearly 7%.

U.S. tech giants are under pressure to prove their massive AI outlays will pay off. The stakes are especially high for Meta after it hired Scale AI CEO Alex Wang last ‌year under a $14.3 ⁠billion ⁠deal and offered some engineers pay packages of hundreds of millions of dollars to staff a new superintelligence team.

Superintelligence ​refers to AI machines that could outthink humans. Muse Spark is the first in a new series of ​models from that team, and is part of a family of models known internally as Avocado.

The model will initially be available only on the lightly-used Meta AI app and website, and ​in the coming weeks, replace the existing Llama models powering ⁠chatbots on ‌WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook and Meta’s collection of smart glasses.

“This initial model is ​small and ​fast by design, yet capable enough to reason through complex questions in ⁠science, math, and health. It is a powerful foundation, and the ​next generation is already in development,” the company said in a ​blog post.
It did not disclose the model’s size, a key measure typically used to compare an AI system’s computing power with rivals. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg had tempered expectations for performance, telling investors in January that he thought the team’s first models “will be good but, more importantly, will show the rapid trajectory that we’re on.”

“I expect us to steadily push the frontier ‌over the course of the year as we continue to release new models,” he had said.

FOCUS ON EVERYDAY TASKS

Muse Spark can help users with tasks ​such as estimating ​the calories in a meal ⁠from a photo or superimposing an image of a mug on a shelf to see how it looks.

Meta also released Contemplating mode, which runs multiple AI agents in parallel to boost ​reasoning power, allowing Muse Spark to take on the extended thinking modes of Google’s Gemini Deep Think and OpenAI’s GPT Pro.

The company is betting that applying superintelligence to everyday personal tasks will help it tap its more than 3.5 billion users across its social media platforms, potentially giving it an edge over rivals with a smaller reach.

This article was written by

Analyst’s Disclosure: I/we have a beneficial long position in the shares of NVDA, AMD either through stock ownership, options, or other derivatives. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.

Seeking Alpha’s Disclosure: Past performance is no guarantee of future results. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. Any views or opinions expressed above may not reflect those of Seeking Alpha as a whole. Seeking Alpha is not a licensed securities dealer, broker or US investment adviser or investment bank. Our analysts are third party authors that include both professional investors and individual investors who may not be licensed or certified by any institute or regulatory body.

A growing group of Federal Reserve policymakers felt last month ​that interest rate hikes might be needed to counter inflation that continued to exceed the central bank’s 2% target, particularly given the inflationary impact of the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran, according to the minutes of their March 17-18 meeting. “Some participants judged that there was a strong case for a two-sided description ‌of the (Federal Open ⁠Market) Committee’s future ⁠interest rate decisions in the post-meeting statement, reflecting the possibility that upwards adjustments to the target range for the federal funds rate could be appropriate if inflation were ​to remain at above-target levels,” the minutes said.

At the January meeting a smaller group of “several” officials were willing to open the door to ​possible rate hikes, but by March and the outbreak of the war “many participants pointed to the risk of inflation remaining elevated for longer than expected amid a persistent increase in oil prices.”

Stocks appeared unfazed by the minutes’ hawkish tone, with major indexes higher on ​hopes of a lasting settlement of the Iran war. Interest rate futures traders slightly ⁠pared earlier bets ‌on the Fed easing later this year, though bets on any Fed rate hike remained negligible. The ​Fed in March held ​its benchmark overnight interest rate steady in the 3.50%-3.75% range while nodding to the fresh uncertainty the ⁠war had introduced to the economic outlook.

Despite the inflation risks, however, “many participants” still ​saw rate cuts as part of their baseline outlook, with “most participants” judging that an ​extended conflict in the Middle East would do enough damage to economic growth that even more cuts would be warranted.

“Most participants raised the concern that a protracted conflict in the Middle East could lead to a further softening in labor market conditions, which could warrant additional rate cuts, as substantially higher oil prices could reduce households’ purchasing power, tighten financial conditions, and reduce growth abroad,” the minutes said.

WAR DISRUPTED OUTLOOK The minutes were released on Wednesday, a day after the U.S. and Iran agreed to a two-week ceasefire. ‌The news caused oil prices to drop more than 15% to around $92 a barrel. The back-and-forth among policymakers at the meeting last month highlighted how the conflict in the Middle East, which disrupted global shipping and ​caused the price of ​oil to jump more than 50%, ⁠was pulling the Fed in conflicting directions, threatening both its inflation goal and full employment mandate.
At the meeting, the Fed signaled it was unlikely to change its policy rate until it was clearer whether the impact on inflation or the job market seemed ​to be the greater risk. In new economic projections issued alongside its policy statement, officials penciled in higher inflation for the year, but little change in the unemployment rate.In presentations at the meeting, Fed staff saw risks that economic and job growth would be weaker and inflation higher than expected in their January outlook, given “the potential economic effects of developments in the Middle East, government policy changes, and the adoption of AI.”

Given inflation above target since 2021, “a salient risk was that inflation could prove to be more persistent than the staff anticipated.”