Category: 3. Business

Exposure to pornography has increased since the introduction of UK rules to protect the public online, with children as young as six seeing it by accident, research by the children’s commissioner for England has found.

Dame Rachel de Souza said a survey found that more young people said they had been exposed to pornography before the age of 18 than in 2023, when the Online Safety Act became law.

More than a quarter (27%) now said they had seen porn online by 11, with some saying they were “aged six or younger” when asked about their first exposure.

The findings follow on from a similar survey carried out by the children’s commissioner in 2023, and de Souza said they showed that little had improved despite the new law and promises from ministers and tech firms.

She said: “Violent pornography is easily accessible to children, exposure is often accidental and often via the most common social media sites, and it is impacting children’s behaviours and beliefs in deeply concerning ways.

“This report must be a line in the sand. New protections introduced in July by Ofcom, part of the Online Safety Act, provide a real opportunity to make children’s safety online a non-negotiable priority for everyone: policymakers, big tech giants and smaller tech developers.”

The findings are from a nationally representative survey of 1,010 children and young people aged 16-21 carried out in May, shortly before the introduction of Ofcom’s children’s codes in July.

The rules introduced by Ofcom have introduced significant changes to make it tougher for under-18-year-olds to access porn websites. Using the same methodology and questions as the 2023 survey to ensure consistency, it found:

• More young people said they had seen porn before the age of 18 in 2025 (70%) compared with 2023 (64%).

• More than a quarter (27%) said they had seen porn online by 11. The average age a child first sees pornography remained 13.

• More vulnerable children had seen pornography earlier. Children who received free school meals, those with a social worker, those with special educational needs and those with disabilities – both physical and mental – were more likely to have seen online porn by 11 than their peers.

• Nearly half of respondents (44%) agreed with the statement “Girls may say no at first but then can be persuaded to have sex”. Further analysis showed that 54% of girls and 41% of boys who had seen porn online agreed with the statement, compared with 46% of girls and 30% of boys who had not seen porn – indicating a link between porn exposure and attitudes.

• More respondents said they had seen pornography online by accident (59%) than said they had deliberately sought it out (35%). The proportion of children accidentally seeing porn was 21 points higher than in 2023 (59% v 38%).

• Networking and social media sites accounted for 80% of the main sources by which children accessed porn. X was the most common source of pornography for children, outstripping dedicated porn sites.

• The gap between the number of children seeing pornography on X and those seeing it on dedicated porn sites has widened (45% v 35% in 2025, compared with 41% v 37% in 2023).

• Most respondents had seen depictions of acts that are illegal under existing pornography laws or will become illegal through the crime and policing bill.

• More than half (58%) had seen porn depicting strangulation, 44% reported having seen depictions of sex while asleep, and 36% had seen someone not consenting to or refusing a sex act, before they turned 18.

• Further analysis found low numbers of children sought out violent or extreme content, meaning it was being served up to children, not that they were actively seeking it out.

The report expresses concern that even under the new rules, children will be able to circumvent restrictions by downloading a virtual private network (VPN), which remains legal software in the UK.

The report recommends that online pornography should meet the same requirements as offline pornography; that the depiction of non-fatal strangulation should be outlawed; and that the Department for Education should provide schools with the support needed to implement the new relationships, health and sex education curriculum.

It emerged last week that the number of people in the UK visiting the most popular pornography sites had decreased sharply since enhanced age verification rules came into force. The data analytics firm Similarweb said the leading adult site Pornhub lost more than 1 million visitors in just two weeks.

Pornhub and other major adult websites introduced advanced age checks on 25 July after the Online Safety Act said sites must make it harder for under-18s to see explicit material.

Similarweb compared the daily average user figures of popular pornography sites from 1 to 9 August with the daily average figures for July. Pornhub is the UK’s most visited website for adult content and it had a 47% decrease in traffic in the country between 24 July, one day before the new rules came into place, and 8 August, according to Similarweb’s data.

A government spokesperson said: “Children have been left to grow up in a lawless online world for too long, bombarded with pornography and harmful content that can scar them for life. The Online Safety Act is changing that.

“Let’s be clear: VPNs are legal tools for adults and there are no plans to ban them. But if platforms deliberately push workarounds like VPNs to children, they face tough enforcement and heavy fines. We will not allow corporate interests to come before child safety. This is about drawing a line – no more excuses, no more loopholes. Protecting children online must come first.”

By Dean Seal

  The founder of Palo Alto Networks is retiring from the C-suite as the cybersecurity company gears up to deliver another year of projected revenue and profit gains. 

  The Santa Clara, Calif., company said Monday that Nir Zuk has left the board and retired as chief technology officer. 

  "It is impossible to overstate his impact," Chief Executive Nikesh Arora said on a call with analysts. "He didn't just start a company, he started a revolution with the next generation firewall, forever changing the security landscape." 

  Zuk said he founded Palo Alto Networks about 20 years ago to challenge a stagnant cybersecurity industry, and that the company's recent deal to acquire CyberArk is a testament to that ambition. 

  "This has been an incredible journey, and I leave with deep satisfaction, knowing the company we built together is stronger than ever," Zuk said in a statement. 

  Succeeding Zuk as CTO is Chief Product Officer Lee Klarich, who has also been added to the board. Klarich joined the company in 2006, a year after Zuk founded it, and became chief product officer in 2017. 

  Palo Alto Networks announced Zuk's departure on the same day it laid out guidance for fiscal 2026, which started this month. It expects to post annual revenue of about $10.5 billion, give or take $25 million. That would be up from $9.22 billion last fiscal year, and above current analyst estimates for $10.42 billion, according to FactSet. 

  The company is forecasting adjusted earnings of $3.75 to $3.85 a share. Analysts polled by FactSet expect $3.67 a share. 

  Chief Financial Officer Dipak Golechha said the company is carrying strong momentum from the prior fiscal year into the new one. 

  For the fiscal fourth quarter that ended July 31, it posted a profit of $253.8 million, or 36 cents a share, down from $357.7 million, or 51 cents a share, in the year-earlier quarter. 

  Stripping out acquisition-related costs, litigation expenses and other one-time items, adjusted earnings were 95 cents a share. Analysts had been expecting 89 cents a share, according to FactSet. 

  Revenue climbed 16% to $2.54 billion, ahead of analyst estimates for $2.5 billion, driven by growth in its subscription and support business along with higher product sales. 

  Shares rose 4.4% to $184.90 after hours. 

  Write to Dean Seal at dean.seal@wsj.com 

  (END) Dow Jones Newswires

  August 18, 2025 17:48 ET (21:48 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.

(Refiles to correct spelling of Macron’s first name in paragraph 12)

By Jamie McGeever

ORLANDO, Florida (Reuters) -TRADING DAY

Making sense of the forces driving global markets

By Jamie McGeever, Markets Columnist

Many world markets took a breather on Monday as investors awaited the outcome of U.S. President Donald Trump’s extraordinary meetings with Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskiy and many European leaders, and looked ahead to Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s keynote speech in Jackson Hole later in the week.

More on that below. In my column today I ask whether U.S. consumer spending can be sustained, which would keep the economy growing and steer it away from recession. Much will depend on how the rich feel about their finances.

If you have more time to read, here are a few articles I recommend to help you make sense of what happened in markets today.

1. Powell has used Jackson Hole to battle inflation andbuoy jobs; he’s now caught between both 2. What US stagflation risks mean for world markets 3. Eerily calm credit markets face pockets of concern: MikeDolan 4. Japan says US is not pressuring BOJ for rate hikes,markets not so sure 5. China’s half-cooked growth plan is going cold

Today’s Key Market Moves

* STOCKS: Australian stocks hit new highs and Chinesestocks hit 10-year peaks, but otherwise it’s quiet. WallStreet’s big three indices close essentially flat. * SHARES/SECTORS: HR management software firm Dayforcejumps 26% on news it is the subject of a private equity bid.Intel down 3.7% on a report the Trump administration is in talksto take a 10% stake in it. * FX: Very quiet in G10 FX, with the yen the biggestdecliner. Beijing fixes the yuan at 7.1322/$, its strongestsince Nov. 6. Brazil’s real is among the worst-performingcurrencies in the world, down 0.6%. * BONDS: 30-year yields rise around the world – US 2-weekhigh, Japan 3-week high, Germany 14-year high. Meanwhile, allseems calm in U.S. credit – corporate bond spreads tightestsince 1988. * COMMODITIES: Oil prices rise around 1%. Brent crudefutures settle at $66.60/bbl, WTI crude at $63.42/bbl.

Today’s Talking Points:

* Europe goes to Washington. U.S. President Donald Trump’s intense, hastily-arranged summitry continued on Monday as he welcomed Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to the White House to discuss how to end the Ukraine-Russia war. This follows Trump’s meeting with Vladimir Putin in Alaska on Friday, which was a success for the Russian president but yielded little for Trump.

And that meant little for Ukraine or Europe, which explains the extraordinary sight of Zelenskiy being backed in Washington on Monday by many of Europe’s most powerful leaders, including Germany’s Friedrich Merz, France’s Emmanuel Macron, Britain’s Keir Starmer and NATO’s Mark Rutte.

Trump’s appearance with Zelenskiy before the cameras was cordial and even friendly, in stark contrast to their acrimonious meeting in February. Trump said the U.S. would help Europe in providing security for Ukraine as part of any deal, but also suggested to reporters that he no longer believed a ceasefire was a necessary prerequisite for striking a peace agreement.

* Jackson Hole. Attention is now turning to the annual Kansas City Fed’s symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, which gathers Fed officials, central bankers and leading economists from around the world to discuss the challenges facing the global economy. Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s speech on Friday is the keynote event.

Leaving aside any possible long-term policy steers, such as changes to QT or tolerating slightly higher inflation, the main focus is whether he leans toward a rate cut in September or not.

Rates traders still think he will, but their conviction is ebbing by the day. They are now attaching an 82% probability of a quarter-point cut next month, the lowest likelihood since the unexpectedly weak employment data on August 1.

* Long-end bond blues. Yields on 30-year sovereign bonds in major countries around the world continue to rise. In some cases, like that of Germany, they are now the highest in many years as investors begin to fret again about inflation and fiscal spending plans.

Many investors are also questioning the wisdom of the Fed resuming its easing cycle next month, which is what’s currently priced into rates futures markets, with inflation above target, unemployment at a historical low, stocks at record highs and financial conditions the loosest in years.

Even the long end of China’s bond market is feeling the squeeze. The 30-year yield spiked 8 basis points to 2.12% on Monday, the highest in five months and biggest one-day rise since October. And this is in China, where the deflationary pressures of the last few years are showing no sign of lifting.

Can the rich continue to prop up US consumer spending?

U.S. consumer spending’s surprising resilience is the main reason the economy has not only avoided recession, but continued to grow at a solid clip. The big question now is whether American households can keep that going, especially with higher, tariff-fueled prices coming down the pike.

In the U.S., “the consumer” is king. Consumer spending accounts for around 70% of total economic output, so changes in people’s propensity to spend have a direct, outsized influence on the health of the economy.

But “the consumer” is, of course, actually millions of people. And when you split them into groups based on income and wealth, it becomes clear that total spending disproportionately comes from the rich.

Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, said earlier this year that the richest 10% of Americans, those earning at least $250,000 a year, now account for half of all consumer spending. That’s a record. Thirty years ago, the richest 10% accounted for 36% of all consumer spending.

A Boston Fed paper last week backed up Zandi’s findings, concluding that the strength of aggregate consumer spending in the last three years is due to high-income earners. But the authors suggest high-income consumers have a reasonable cushion because they haven’t maxed out their credit cards.

While the lower-income and middle-income cohorts both saw their credit card debt soar past pre-pandemic totals in the last few years, wealthier Americans’ credit card debt remains below the 2019 high and well below the level implied by the pre-pandemic trend. So, if necessary, they still have room to borrow to fund their spending.

EARNING POWER

Spending across the income deciles could also be supported by enhanced earning power.

While some indicators show that the U.S. labor market may be softening, annual average earnings growth still rose in July to 3.9%, meaning real wage growth is running at a 1.3% annual pace, depending on what slice of inflation you use. Real annual wage growth has been between 1.0% and 1.8% for over two years, above the average for the decade leading into the COVID-19 health crisis.

And overall workers’ income may be growing at an even faster rate, according to economists at Bank of America. They calculate that aggregate labor income – number of jobs multiplied by wages multiplied by number of hours worked – increased 5.5% in July on a six-month annualized basis. Most of that growth was driven by higher wages.

With household delinquency rates, excluding student loans, cooling off this year, strength in labor income should continue to support consumer spending, they argue. This, in turn, should help the U.S. avoid the recessionary spiral of lower spending begetting layoffs, begetting even lower spending, begetting more job cuts.

This is one of the reasons BofA economists retain their out-of-consensus call that the Federal Reserve won’t cut interest rates at all this year.

FLASHING AMBER?

Others are less confident.

Zandi at Moody’s Analytics warns that a correction on Wall Street would hit the rich hard via the negative wealth effects, “and, given how weak the economy is, push it into recession.”

The concentration of equity ownership at the top of the U.S. wealth ladder is extreme – the richest 1% in the country owns 50% of stock market assets and the top 10% holds around 90%.

Some measures of household spending are already flashing amber. Inflation-adjusted spending as measured by personal consumption expenditures flat lined in the first half of this year.

Yet figures on Friday showed that retail sales rose 0.5% in July after an upwardly revised 0.9% gain in June.

But then there are tariffs. Companies, not consumers, have borne the brunt of these levies so far. Economists at Goldman Sachs estimate that consumers absorbed only 22% of tariff costs through June, but they reckon that figure could rise to 67% in the months ahead if the Trump administration’s expected tariffs are implemented.

So there are grounds for both caution and optimism. Much will depend on whether the rich draw in their horns.

What could move markets tomorrow?

* Australia consumer sentiment (August) * Euro zone current account (June) * Canada inflation (July) * Federal Reserve Vice Chair for Supervision Michelle Bowmanspeaks * U.S. earnings – Home Depot, Palo Alto Networks

Want to receive Trading Day in your inbox every weekday morning? Sign up for my newsletter here.

Opinions expressed are those of the author. They do not reflect the views of Reuters News, which, under the Trust Principles, is committed to integrity, independence, and freedom from bias.

(By Jamie McGeever; Editing by Deepa Babington)

The lifestyle of the global middle class is destroying the Earth’s environment, warned Indian historian Professor Dipesh Chakrabarty in an online address from Chicago on Monday. He was speaking at the National Academy of Performing Arts (NAPA) during the launch of the “Imagining Life” project, organised by the Climate Action Centre. The session also featured a discussion on the Urdu translation of his book The Climate of History in a Planetary Age.

Prof Chakrabarty said that until the start of the 21st century, climate change was not a central theme in major intellectual or academic debates, even though measures to counter it had already been initiated a decade earlier. Citing an example, he noted that a prominent Harvard professor had written an entire book on the 20th century without any mention of the climate crisis.

He recalled that by 2003, scientists began to realise that the destructive force of human technological progress was comparable to the asteroid strike that wiped out the dinosaurs. Reflecting on his own academic journey, he said that during his student days in India, the focus was entirely on industrial growth and every parent wanted their children to become engineers. He himself studied physics, later completed a master’s degree in management sciences.

Highlighting population growth as a key driver of the crisis, the professor noted that the world’s population increased from 1.5 billion in the early 20th century to six billion by 2000, and has now reached nearly eight billion. This surge, he said, pushed demand for food and resources, compelling reliance on industrial methods, which became the main cause of today’s environmental crisis.

The boss of Chevron, one of the world’s biggest oil and gas companies that reported earnings of $9bn in the last six months, has had a few gripes about Australia that he wanted to get off his chest.

In an “exclusive” interview with The Australian this weekend, the company’s chief executive Mike Wirth argued he wanted Australia to be more like the US and the Middle East – and, if it was, then it would be in a better position to compete for fossil fuel investment dollars.

Wirth revealed he had come from a private meeting with the deputy prime minister, Richard Marles, where he reportedly laid out why he thought Australia should be more like the US or the Middle East.

The page one lead story came with a picture of Wirth perched on a leather couch and staring imperiously down the lens.

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When readers got to the bottom of the story that continued on page two, there was a disclosure that reporter, Perry Williams, The Australian’s chief business correspondent, had “travelled to Melbourne as a guest of Chevron”.

There were no other voices canvassed in the 950-word story, no mention of the climate crisis or the company’s record on greenhouse emissions.

Trump’s America

Perhaps it could be said in one sentence – such as this one – why Australia might not want to have aspirations to be one of the Middle East’s authoritarian petrostates?

But why might the US be a better place for the company to drill for oil and gas than Australia? What is it, exactly, that Australia should be aspiring to?

Under President Trump, the Environmental Protection Agency has been making life easier for companies like Chevron by cutting regulation.

This is how the EPA’s administrator, Lee Zeldin, described the “greatest day of deregulation our nation has seen” when some of the changes were outlined in March.

“We are driving a dagger straight into the heart of the climate change religion to drive down cost of living for American families, unleash American energy, bring auto jobs back to the US and more,” Zeldin said.

There are some very strong Tony Abbott-era climate science denial vibes right there.

Trump has previously described global heating as a hoax and is pulling the US out of the landmark Paris climate agreement. His administration also wants to rescind the so-called “endangerment finding” – an Obama-era ruling that gives the US government authority to limit greenhouse gas emissions because of the climate crisis.

An online portal that held two decades of climate assessments has also been yanked by the Trump administration.

To try to justify all these rollbacks, the US Department of Energy last week released a report it had commissioned from a set of scientists known for their contrarian views on climate change.

Climate scientists have counted what they say are more than 100 false or misleading claims in the report.

So, apparently Australia should aspire to be more like a country that is in the process of cleansing itself of any scientific facts its president doesn’t like.

Rising costs?

Wirth reportedly complained the company’s costs had gone up in Australia because of legal challenges to projects from environment groups, rules that mean contractors have to be paid the same as employees if they are doing the same job and changes to the Petroleum Resource Rent Tax.

Chevron has never paid PRRT, but will be liable for payments this year, the company has said, after changes brought in by Labor.

It might be worth mentioning that when Chevron spoke to a Senate inquiry last year about changes to the PRRT, the company said: “Our view on the proposed changes, as outlined in the bill, is that they are proportionate and will not curtail future investment.”

Alex Hillman, lead analyst at the Australasian Centre for Corporate Responsibility, said Chevron’s problems were not that Australia was “uncompetitive” but that its business model was facing “increasing headwinds”.

“The biggest obstacle for fossil fuel companies like Chevron is not government regulation, but that renewables are increasingly out-competing LNG on cost and offering real energy security for emerging markets,” he said.

As well as getting the page one treatment, and an endorsement in the paper’s editorial, Chevron also got to defend its failing Gorgon carbon capture project in a lead story in the paper’s business section on Monday.

That story also came with the disclosure that the reporter had “travelled to Melbourne as a guest of Chevron”.

Carbon majors

What is there to say about Chevron’s climate record that didn’t make it into The Australian’s reporting?

In Australia, Chevron’s LNG plant at Gorgon in Western Australia is the biggest emitting project in the country, and has received the equivalent of millions of dollars in tradable carbon credits under the government’s safeguard mechanism.

Chevron is known as a “carbon major” because of the greenhouse gas emissions that come from its current and historical operations.

According to a database of historical emissions, Chevron has been responsible for the release of more greenhouse gases than any other independently owned entity (there are three entities that have emitted more than Chevron since the 1850s – Saudi Aramco, China and the former Soviet Union).

Chevron has targets to lower the emissions intensity of its oil and gas – that is, reducing the amount of CO2 and methane released during extraction and refining.

But a fossil fuel company can still meet an emissions intensity target (for which it could claim, as Chevron does, that it is producing “lower carbon” energy) while its overall emissions from the extraction, transport, refinement and ultimate burning of its products are going up.

Groups advocating for climate action have consistently criticised Chevron for its climate targets and its stated goal to “grow our oil and gas business”.

A report from Oil Change International said Chevron was “dangerously out of step with climate goals”.

The company itself claims its future business strategy can still exist in a future where demand for fossil fuels declines and governments try to reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

Graham Readfearn is Guardian Australia’s environment and climate correspondent

KARACHI (APP) – The Governor State Bank of Pakistan (SBP), Jameel Ahmad, Monday, underscored the importance of well-developed, deep and diversified capital markets to complement the banking sector and support long-term, sustainable economic growth.

He, while speaking at the conference titled ‘Unlocking the Capital Markets Potential for Banks’, emphasized on coordinated efforts by all relevant stakeholders for promoting financial literacy, expanding participation, and building a transparent, innovation-friendly market ecosystem.

The Federal Minister for Finance and Revenue, Muhammad Aurangzeb, Chairperson PSX Dr. Shamshad Akhtar, Chairman SECP Akif Saeed, CEO OSX Farrukh Sabzwari, Presidents, CEOs of banks and other stakeholders attended the conference, said in a statement issued here.

The governor pointed out the persistent structural challenge of low domestic savings despite improved macroeconomic conditions with inflation falling and growth gradually recovering. “With a savings rate of just 7.4% of GDP, compared to 27% in South Asia, the country remains overly reliant on external financing, contributing to recurring external account pressures and boom-bust cycles,” he stated.

Emphasizing the importance of robust capital markets in channeling domestic savings into productive sectors, the Governor noted that well-developed, deep and diversified capital markets- complemented by a resilient banking system- are needed to support sustainable economic development of the economy.

The Governor outlined recent SBP reforms aimed at broadening participation in the country’s bond market, including the inclusion of non-bank institutions as Special Purpose Primary Dealers and expansion of Investor Portfolio Securities (IPS) accounts to microfinance banks, the Central Depository Company (CDC) and, the National Clearing Company of Pakistan Limited (NCCPL). These reforms open new investment avenues to millions of digital banking users and lay the foundation for broader market development, he noted.

Despite progress in the government bond market, a limited development witnessed in corporate debt and equity markets, Jameel Ahmed observed and added, “Outstanding corporate bonds account for less than one percent of GDP, with limited secondary market activity and low participation from non-financial sectors. Similarly, equity market penetration remains modest, with investor accounts and market capitalization lagging behind peer economies.”

The Governor concluded by calling for coordinated efforts among regulators, financial organizations, government institutions and investors to promote financial literacy, expand participation, and build a transparent, innovation-friendly market ecosystem. 

Governor State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) Jameel Ahmad has stressed the need for well-developed, deep and diversified capital markets to complement the banking sector and support long-term, sustainable economic growth.

According to a statement released on Monday, Ahmad was speaking at the conference “Unlocking the Capital Markets Potential for Banks” held in Karachi.

In his address, the SBP governor said macroeconomic conditions have improved with inflation falling and growth gradually recovering, but structural challenges such as low domestic savings persist. With a savings rate of just 7.4% of GDP compared to 27% in South Asia, Pakistan remains heavily reliant on external financing, contributing to recurring external account pressures and boom-bust cycles, he noted. Ahmad emphasised the role of robust capital markets in channelling domestic savings into productive sectors, saying they must be supported by a resilient banking system.

The governor highlighted recent SBP reforms aimed at broadening participation in the bond market. These include allowing non-bank institutions to act as Special Purpose Primary Dealers and expanding Investor Portfolio Securities (IPS) accounts to microfinance banks, the Central Depository Company (CDC) and the National Clearing Company of Pakistan Limited (NCCPL). He said the reforms will open new investment avenues to millions of digital banking users and lay the foundation for broader market development.

Despite progress in the government bond market, Ahmad expressed concern over the limited development of corporate debt and equity markets. Outstanding corporate bonds account for less than one percent of GDP, with little secondary market activity and low participation from non-financial sectors. Similarly, equity market penetration remains modest, with investor accounts and market capitalisation lagging behind peer economies.

The governor concluded by urging coordinated efforts among regulators, financial institutions, government bodies and investors to promote financial literacy, expand participation, and build a transparent, innovation-friendly market ecosystem.