British employers offered staff pay rises averaging 2.5% as part of wage settlements in the three months to April, industry data showed on Thursday, matching the trend seen earlier in 2019.
Human resources data firm XpertHR said pay settlements had hovered around the same for the past four months, despite a small pick-up in inflation.
“Many of the current pay awards are lower than employees received in 2018, suggesting that there is little scope for higher rises this year,” XpertHR analyst Sheila Attwood said.
After years of real-terms falls in pay, Britain’s workers have had some of the biggest pay rises in a decade in recent months due to a tight labour market, though they are modest compared to pre-financial crisis rates of pay growth.
The risk of a disruptive Brexit has made some employers keener to hire new staff, who can be sacked if the economy sours, than to make long-term labour-saving investments.
Pay settlement data is typically lower than the headline measure of wage growth, as it does not include pay increases gained through changing jobs or promotions.
Official data last week showed average annual wage growth was 3.2% in the first quarter of 2019, down from a 10-year high of 3.5% earlier in the year.
The Bank of England forecast this month that pay growth would ease to 3% this year. Nonetheless, the central bank is concerned inflation will stick above its 2% target unless it raises interest rates slightly over the next couple of years.
A three-year PSPO would give police officers powers to disperse individuals and groups and issue fines.
The council said complaints over crime and anti-social behaviour had increased "significantly" over the last 12 months.
But Jo Shemmans, from Birmingham Unite Community, said: "Sleeping in a doorway is not a crime if you don't have a home, asking for a few pence for a cup of tea is not a crime if you don't have recourse to public funds.
"We accept that Birmingham City Council want to keep our streets safe, but we don't feel that homeless people should bare the brunt," she told 50 people outside the council offices at a protest in Victoria Square on Tuesday.
Councillor Majid Mahmood is one of a group of members who oppose the plan.
He said: "The council should focus on finding ways to help the most vulnerable. It should not criminalise them and slap them with fines they can't possibly pay."
Birmingham City Council said the PSPO was "not designed to target homelessness or rough sleeping".
"This proposal has been made following a significant increase in incidents, public complaints and intelligence reports that have been received by the council over the past 12 months regarding crime and anti-social behaviour and the increase in youth violence in the city," a statement said.
"Having this PSPO in place will help us to protect the public, which includes the homeless community."
The area covered by the order would extend across the city centre from the Jewellery Quarter to Digbeth.
A man has been charged with the murder of his 73-year-old father who was found fatally wounded at a house in Dorset.
Robert Hodgson suffered a head injury at the property in Ridgeway, Sherborne, on Tuesday. He was airlifted to hospital but later died.
Dominic Hodgson, 36, who is from Sherborne, is due before Weymouth magistrates on Friday.
A cordon remains in place around the property and police are continuing to conduct house-to-house inquiries.
Police were called to Ridgeway at 17:11 BST on Tuesday to reports of a serious assault.
A post-mortem examination on Wednesday concluded Mr Hodgson died as a result of a head injury, Dorset Police said.
Det Insp Simon Huxter said: "Family liaison officers have updated Robert's family with this development and our thoughts are with them all at this extremely difficult time."
A man in his 40s has been arrested on suspicion of murder after a couple were found dead at their north Kensington home.
Police were called at 06:40 BST to a flat in Adair Tower, Appleford Road, where the bodies of a man and a woman in their late 60s were discovered.
Officers were alerted to the address by Surrey police, who were contacted by a man known to both victims, police said.
The Met Police force is now trying to trace relatives of the couple.
A crime scene remains in place at Adair Tower.
Det Ch Insp Rob Pack said: "This is an awful case where an elderly couple have been found dead in their home.
"My team are busy carrying out a number of inquiries including local CCTV footage review, house-to-house inquiries and forensic work but need to hear from those who have information."
A man who admitted battering his girlfriend to death with a crowbar has been jailed for life.
Benjamin Topping, 25, beat Rosie Darbyshire, 27, "beyond recognition" with 50 blows in Pope Lane, Preston, in February, police said.
They said it was seen by two witnesses who were then chased by Topping as he wielded the crowbar, before he threw the weapon at a third person.
Topping, of Preston, was ordered to serve a minimum of 20 years.
Police said Ms Darbyshire was found on a pavement in the early hours of 7 February "beaten beyond recognition".
She suffered severe head and facial injuries from at least 50 separate blows, said police. She also had injuries to her arms and hands from trying to defend herself.
Det Ch Insp Geoff Hurst from Lancashire Police said: "This was a senseless murder where a talented, defenceless young lady needlessly lost her life in the most appalling way.
"Ben Topping is a dangerous individual who attacked Rosie with such savagery, she was unrecognisable and died almost straight away.
"He has left a nine-year-old boy without a mother and a family who will never be the same again."
Ms Darbyshire's family said after sentencing they were "relieved" Topping pleaded guilty earlier at Preston Crown Court.
"No sentence will ever feel enough to show the value of Rosie's life and the loss we feel," they said in a statement.
"We want to thank the police involved in Rosie's case and the prosecutor. They have treated the case, us as a family and Rosie's memory with invaluable respect and dignity.
"Now we are no longer stuck in limbo we will try to live our new reality and ensure that Rosie's son lives a happy life and will always share memories of his beautiful mum."
The case has been referred to the Independent Office of Police Conduct (IOPC) as "standard practice" because Lancashire Constabulary had been in contact with Ms Darbyshire prior to her death.
Facebook has published its latest "enforcement report", which details how many posts and accounts it took action on between October 2018 and March 2019.
During that six-month period, Facebook removed more than three billion fake accounts - more than ever before.
More than seven million "hate speech" posts were removed, also a record high.
For the first time, Facebook also reported how many deleted posts were appealed, and how many were put back online after review.
In a call with reporters on Thursday, chief executive Mark Zuckerberg hit back against numerous calls to break up Facebook, arguing its size made it possible to defend against the network's problems.
"I don't think that the remedy of breaking up the company is going to address [the problem]," he said.
"The success of the company has allowed us to fund these efforts at a massive level. I think the amount of our budget that goes toward our safety systems... I believe is greater than Twitter's whole revenue this year."
Fake accounts
Facebook said the rise in the number of deleted fake accounts was because "bad actors" were using automated methods to create large numbers of them.
But it said it spotted and deleted a majority of them within minutes, before they had any opportunity to "cause harm".
The social network will now also report how many posts were removed for selling "regulated goods" such as drugs and guns.
It said it took action on more than one million posts selling guns in the six-month period covered by the report.
Prevalence
For some types of content, such as child sex abuse imagery, violence and terrorist propaganda, the report estimates how often such content was actually seen by people on Facebook.
The report said that out of every 10,000 pieces of content viewed on Facebook:
fewer than 14 people saw nudity
about 25 people saw violence or graphic content
fewer than three people saw child abuse imagery or terrorist propaganda
Overall, about 5% of the monthly active users on Facebook were fake accounts.
Appeals
For the first time, the report reveals that between January and March 2019 more than one million appeals were made after posts were deleted for "hate speech".
About 150,000 posts that were found not to have broken the hate speech policy were restored during that period.
Facebook said the report highlighted "areas where we could be more open in order to build more accountability and responsiveness to the people who use our platform".
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has thanked the people of India for giving him a "historic mandate" of five more years in office, after a landslide victory in the general election.
"We all want a new India. I want to bow down my head and say thank you," he said in a victory address to supporters of his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
The BJP is projected to get about 300 of the 543 seats in parliament.
It is likely to take a larger share of the vote than in the 2014 elections.
The main opposition alliance, which is headed by Rahul Gandhi's Congress party, has admitted defeat.
The general election was widely viewed as a referendum on the prime minister's Hindu nationalist politics, and the victory was won despite growing unemployment, fears of a recession and a slump in industrial production.
What are the results so far?
Partial and declared results show Mr Modi's BJP is projected to win 300 seats on its own, and combined with the party's allies, this number reaches nearly 350.
The main opposition Congress party is expected to win fewer than 60.
A party or coalition needs at least 272 seats to secure a majority in the 543-member lower house of parliament, or Lok Sabha.
In 2014, the BJP won 282 seats - the biggest victory by any party in 30 years - and with its allies it secured 336 seats in that parliament.
The Congress, which won just 44, suffered its worst defeat in 2014 and with its allies took up just 60 seats in the lower house.
More than 600 million people voted in a marathon six-week process, which involved seven rounds of voting.
What did Modi say?
The 68-year-old prime minister was showered with rose petals by thousands of supporters as he arrived at the BJP headquarters on Thursday evening.
"This election was fought not by politicians but the people of this country - but it's the people of this country who have emerged victorious," Mr Modi told supporters in Delhi.
"We will never give up our ideals, our humility and our culture," he added.
He said the victory was for the whole of the country, and vowed to build a "strong and inclusive India".
Party members cheered, banged drums and set off fireworks when the results started to emerge.
Narendra Modi made this an election all about himself.
He should have faced some anti-incumbent feeling. Joblessness has risen to a record high, farm incomes have plummeted and industrial production has slumped.
Many Indians were hit hard by the currency ban (also known as demonetisation), which was designed to flush out undeclared wealth, and there were complaints about what critics said was a poorly designed and complicated uniform sales tax.
The results prove that people are not yet blaming Mr Modi for this.
A combination of nationalist rhetoric, subtle religious polarisation and a slew of welfare programmes helped Mr Modi to coast to a second successive win. He also mined national security as a vote-getter in a manner never seen in a general election in recent history.
"It is all right if there's little development, but Modi is keeping the nation secure and keeping India's head high," a voter in the eastern city of Kolkata told me.
Mr Modi is a strongman, and people possibly love him for that.
What reaction has there been?
At a press conference in Delhi, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi conceded the general election as well as his Amethi seat in Uttar Pradesh, which he had held since 2004 and his family had held for decades.
But he will still be in parliament as he contested and won another seat - Wayanad in Kerala.
The BBC's Zubair Ahmed in Delhi says Congress Party staff, who had been hoping for a much improved performance, looked lost for words.
Messages of congratulation have been sent from a number of world leaders, including US President Donald Trump, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan and China's President Xi Jinping.
Where were the key contests?
The BJP alliance has been projected to win more than 50% of the vote in the huge northern state of Uttar Pradesh, which sends more MPs to parliament than any other state (80).
This took election observers by surprise as the party was expected to be seriously challenged by a tie-up between two powerful regional parties, the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and Samajwadi Party (SP), which had previously been bitter rivals.
The BJP is doing better than expected in West Bengal, where it is projected to take 17 parliamentary seats - up from two in the last polls.
Four of India's five southern states - Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Tamil Nadu and Kerala - have long eluded the BJP and appear to have done so again in this election. They look set to take just three of the 91 seats up for grabs.
What challenges does Modi face?
In his victory speech, Mr Modi said there were only two castes in India now. "The poor and those who want to work to bring them out of poverty. We need to empower both."
Growing unemployment and fears of a recession will see Mr Modi face demands to provide jobs for the millions of young people entering the labour market in coming months.
Under his first term, India's economy - the world's sixth largest - lost some of its momentum. A leaked government report this year put the unemployment rate at the highest it's been since the 1970s.
Farmers in India will also be hoping he will prioritise the agricultural industry, after a crop glut and declining commodity prices saw their incomes stagnate.
Many saw this election as a battle for India's identity and the protection of minorities.
A strident - and at times violent - Hindu nationalism has become mainstream in the past five years, with increased attacks against minorities, including the lynching of dozens of Muslims accused of smuggling cows.
And national security was put into the spotlight after a suicide attack by a Pakistan-based militant group killed at least 40 paramilitary police in Indian-administered Kashmir in February.
India then launched unprecedented air strikes in Pakistan, prompting it to respond in kind and bringing the two countries to the brink of conflict.
