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The US will block some exports from China’s Xinjiang region, over alleged human rights abuses against the mostly Muslim Uighur minority. It says “forced labour” was used to make the products, including at a “vocational” centre it called a “concentration camp”.The export ban includes garments, cotton, computer parts and hair products from five entities in Xinjiang as well as Anhui province. It stops short of a wider regional ban.”These extraordinary human rights violations demand an extraordinary response,” Kenneth Cuccinelli, the Department of Homeland Security’s acting secretary told reporters. “This is modern-day slavery.”The move is the latest by the Trump administration to put pressure on China over the situation in Xinjiang. Beijing is believed to have detained more than one million people from Xinjiang in recent years, citing security risks.China maintains the internment sites provide job training and education and are necessary to combat terrorist and separatist threats.Thousands of children have been separated from their parents and, recent research shows, women have been forcibly subjected to methods of birth control.The orders on Monday “send a clear message to the international community that we will not tolerate the illicit, inhumane, and exploitative practices of forced labour in US supply chains,” Mark A. Morgan, acting commissioner of US Customers and Border Protection agency, said. “Forced labour is an atrocious human rights abuse that is completely against the values that we all share.””The Trump administration will not stand idly by and allow foreign companies to subject vulnerable workers to forced labour while harming American businesses that respect human rights and the rule of law,” Mr Morgan said.
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The orders announced on Monday target four companies and one manufacturing site. They fall short of the region-wide ban that it had considered. Officials said, however, they were still exploring that possibility.”Because of its unique nature, being, applying to a region as opposed to a company or a facility, we are giving that more legal analysis,” Mr Cuccinelli explained.”We want to make sure that once we proceed that it will stick, so to speak.”China produces about 20% of the world’s cotton with most of it coming from Xinjiang. The region is also a major source of petrochemicals and other goods that feed into Chinese factories. This month, US entertainment giant Disney came under fire for shooting parts of its new Mulan film in Xinjiang. Other firms have faced calls for consumer boycotts due to alleged ties to the region.

YouTube has announced it will test a beta version of its new TikTok rival in India. YouTube Shorts will limit videos to 15 seconds, and the platform will feature creator tools that are similar to Chinese-owned TikTok’s.India banned TikTok and 58 other Chinese apps in June as border tensions rose between the two countries. At the time, India was TikTok’s biggest foreign market, with an estimated 120 million users. YouTube will also be in competition with a number of local competitors who have rushed in to fill the void after TikTok’s ban in India. How did TikTok grow to 800 million users?In a blog post, YouTube’s vice president of product management Chris Jaffe said Shorts is “for creators and artists who want to shoot short, catchy videos using nothing but their mobile phones”.The new platform features a multi-segment camera to string multiple video clips together, speed controls, and a timer and countdown to record hands-free. Shorts also gives users the option to record using music as well as access to a library of songs. TikTok: Oracle confirms being picked by Bytedance to be app’s partner
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Mr Jaffe said Shorts would be expanded to other markets as the product becomes more refined and new features were added. YouTube’s latest product release comes as the US tech firm Oracle confirmed that TikTok’s owner ByteDance had formally proposed becoming a “trusted technology partner” in the US. The aim of the deal is to avoid President Donald Trump’s threat to shut down the app in the US over national security concerns.Mr Trump has suggested users’ data could be accessed by the Chinese government under current arrangements.India’s government cited similar concerns when it banned the app in June. India’s ban was announced following clashes at the Galwan Valley on the India-China border in the Himalayas.

“There is something you can’t replace with an LED,” says Eileen Peters. But she’s not talking about the ambience in her home. Mrs Peters is referring to the 176-year-old St John’s Point lighthouse on the County Down coast in Northern Ireland – which is earmarked to have its old filament light source replaced with a more modern LED. She and fellow filament enthusiasts argue that, however subtle, any change to the light is an unacceptable assault on heritage.In recent years, lighthouse authorities in the UK and Ireland have been gradually upgrading the technology installed in lighthouses. Part of this work has involved switching filaments over to industrial-sized LEDs, which engineers say use less energy and are easier to maintain. In most cases, hardly anyone has noticed the change. But in County Down, a battle has been brewing for five years. One set of proposals for changes to St John’s Point has already been vetoed by the local council, following protests by campaigners.”We just want to preserve a thing of beauty,” says Mrs Peters, who refers to the fishermen and boat owners who sail from the nearby village harbours of Ardglass and Killough. “They actually love that light. I’m not exaggerating – they feel very strongly about it.”Out of 65 lighthouses around the island of Ireland, there are just a handful left that have not been switched over to LEDs. One is St John’s Point. The lighthouse authority responsible for St John’s Point is the Commissioners of Irish Lights (CIL).Around the rest of the British Isles the two other main lighthouse authorities, Trinity House and the Northern Lighthouse Board, have also been carrying out upgrades. More Technology of BusinessSome 125 lighthouses and other structures in Scotland and the Isle of Man, out of a total of more than 350, have had LEDs fitted by the Northern Lighthouse Board.And about 20 out of 66 lighthouses around England, Wales, the Channel Islands and Gibraltar managed by Trinity House have been modernised so far, according to a spokesman. Two or three are completed every year, on average. Engineers have tried to appeal to traditionalists to some degree.”I relate to the locals who say that they want to make sure that the new solution looks and feels like their one,” says Esko Sorva, product manager at Finnish firm Sabik Marine, one of a few companies that manufacture LEDs for lighthouses and similar structures.”There’s something magical and emotional about old lighthouses,” he adds.A research team working for Trinity House and two other lighthouse authorities developed a special LED unit for lighthouses, which is designed to slot into the old Fresnel lens enclosure, a 19th Century invention that creates a far-reaching beam. The system is intended to replicate as closely as possible the colour and character of the old filament-based light source.The LED unit has huge fins to disperse heat from the high-powered LEDs at the centre of the structure and costs around €20,000 (£18,000; $24,000), depending on configuration, according to Sabik, one of two companies licensed to make and sell the LED units.The firm recently installed one of these devices in a traditional lighthouse in Helsinki.”The locals didn’t notice any difference,” says Mr Sorva.The CIL’s latest proposals for St John’s Point, shortly to be filed, seek to retain the existing sweeping beam emitted by the lighthouse, says Robert McCabe, the authority’s director of operations and navigational services. The LED – like the one offered by Sabik – is now to be incorporated into a new rotating mechanism, preserving the beam, he says.Alas, for some campaigners, any alteration is anathema. They say the beam will not project as far out to sea and it will also probably have a slightly different colour and character in various weather conditions.”It is a challenge still to convince those people,” admits Capt McCabe.One reason for the LED installations is that the old filament light sources are becoming harder to repair and replace. But some lighthouse authorities are also seeking to rely more heavily on renewables, says Capt McCabe. The more efficient LEDs can be powered via solar panels, for instance, and use batteries, rather than diesel generators, as back-up power sources.But could the old technology not be kept in place at one or two lighthouses for the sake of local communities who want to preserve the light the way it is?”The small things do make a difference,” insists Capt McCabe. “Having our aids to navigation powered by renewable energy sources is a really strong message and we’d be really committed to it for that reason.”Another key benefit of the new LED units is their length of service, says Paul Briggs, programme manager at Trinity House. From 1,000 hours of operational use with an incandescent light, LEDs offer 50-100,000 hours instead, he explains.If and when LEDs are installed, Mr Briggs and his colleagues will also carry out a wider modernisation programme at the lighthouse in question – from improving power systems, installing solar panels or servicing mechanical structures in the building. “It is true that sometimes we’ll upgrade a lighthouse and the characteristic of the light may change,” he says.However, the history of Trinity House stretches back more than half a millennium. For Mr Briggs, changes to lighthouses have come and gone as the tides – if not quite as frequently.”You go back to when lighthouses were first thought of and you had a bonfire essentially on a stick and that was your light.”LED technology is the next step, if you like, to providing what we think is the very best service… in terms of an aid to navigation for the mariner.”Those opposed to the changes suggested by the CIL in County Down don’t have any intention of backing down, however. Mrs Peters says she and her companions are keen to keep pressure on the local council in order to ensure St John’s Point is left exactly as it is, without an LED in sight. “We’re determined to win,” she says.

David Richards was mocked when he chose Sheffield as the European headquarters for his computer firm.He says that explains a lot about the lack of social mobility in the UK.”Most of my friends in London thought it was some kind of staged joke,” he says.Raised in what he calls a “lower middle class” home, David emigrated from Sheffield to Silicon Valley in the US aged 23 to work in IT.The company he went on to found, Wandisco, is now worth £400m and employs 300 people.When he wanted to bring the firm home, he chose Sheffield, where he sponsors a course at Sheffield College, which trains students for careers in computing.But as a new report is published showing sharp differences in life chances for less well-off children around England, he says private companies must shoulder some of the blame.”The private sector in particular needs to recognise you can’t just create companies solely in London,” he says. “You just cannot do that.”‘Disappointing’ progress on social mobility in England
‘Where you can afford to move decides job chances’
The way firms cluster in the South East might explain part of the problem – but the Social Mobility Commission says it is complicated. Life chances for many in the south are poor too.Children from less well-off families are likely to end up in low-paid jobs no matter how well they do at school in some parts of England, its report says.Those in the areas where social mobility is easiest earn twice as much as those where it was most difficult.The commission says persistent poverty means some families risk being “locked into disadvantage” for generations. It is demanding the government does more to boost social mobility.Children who went on to the lowest salaries were raised in places that were typically more deprived, had fewer good jobs and fewer outstanding schools, according to its report.Much of this is obvious to less well-off young people living in Sheffield.”In my school, teachers didn’t really motivate you. Their way of motivating was kind of like: ‘You’re not going to pass’,” says 17-year-old student Jamanuel.16-year-old Jasmine adds: “My school did not have work experience, so if I got to look for a job now, I have no idea what I’m doing… We didn’t have that support at school, so I do think the city is divided.”The father of one of Sheffield College’s current star students stacks shelves in a supermarket for a living, David Richards says, but builds computers in his spare time.”Opportunity is not spread evenly in the UK,” he says.”If he was living in Silicon Valley… he’d be working at one of the big tech companies.”The Social Mobility Commission report – drawn up with the Institute for Fiscal Studies – compares how much people who received free school meals as children earned at the age of 28 in different parts of England.Their median wages in the best performing areas were more than £20,000. In the poorest performing, that figure was less than £10,000.A government spokesperson said: “Now more than ever, our focus is on levelling up the opportunities available to every young person in this country and we will do everything possible to make sure no-one is left behind as a result of the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.”According to the commission’s report, life chances were best for disadvantaged children in places including East Hertfordshire and Wokingham in Berkshire. Bradford and Hartlepool were among the worst performing towns. So too were West Devon, and the Chilterns.Researchers only examined the earnings of men, the commission says, because data for female earnings would not have been comparable.

Unlike the UK, the Germans didn’t have to invent a job support programme from scratch when the pandemic struck: they already had one oven-ready.While British companies were getting to grips with the novelty of furloughing workers at the government’s expense, their German counterparts simply fell back on a tried and tested scheme.Now, while UK Chancellor Rishi Sunak is insisting that the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme will not continue past October, Germany is extending its Kurzarbeit job subsidy measures until the end of 2021.At the same time, France is following Germany’s example and expects to be doing so for a couple of years.In the UK, influential figures including former prime minister Gordon Brown are urging the government to bring in a German or French-style system after October.So what are the German and French schemes and how do they work?Germany’s Kurzarbeit”I’m very glad we have this system,” says Dr Volker Verch, director of the Central Westphalian employers’ federation. “We would have lost many more jobs, in my region and across the country, if we didn’t have this Kurzarbeit,” he told the BBC.”Obviously it all has to be paid for, but it’s worth it in terms of social harmony.”When the British scheme began, it was based on paying workers to stay at home and do nothing. It was not until July that furloughed employees were able to go back to work part-time.However, the German system was always about short-time working – allowing employers to reduce employees’ hours while keeping them in a job. The government pays workers a percentage of the money they would have got for working those lost hours.According to the Munich-based Ifo Institute for Economic Research, at the height of the pandemic, half of all German firms had at least some of their staff on the scheme.That includes Rolls-Royce Power Systems, a German engineering company owned by Rolls-Royce Holdings and specialising in power generation and propulsion systems. It employs 9,000 people worldwide, 5,500 of them in Germany.Chief executive Andreas Schell told the BBC that the company came relatively late to the Kurzarbeit scheme.”When the crisis came, we were sitting on a good order book,” he says. “But we anticipated a reduction in orders, and we had less to do in the third quarter, so we had to adjust our capacity.”In June, the firm put 1,000 of its German employees on “short-time working”. That rose to 1,800 in July, before falling back in August and September as workers went on holiday instead.”It’s a really good programme of support by the German government,” says Mr Schell. “Otherwise we would have suffered economically. But it also helps to mitigate the economic consequences for our employees. It offers flexibility to us as a company and that’s a good thing.”Kurzarbeit has a long pedigree, going back to the early 20th Century. However, it came to prominence during the global financial crisis of 2008-09, when it is thought to have saved up to half a million jobs. Even in normal times, it can be used by companies undergoing restructuring or suffering from seasonal fluctuations in their business.But normally it lasts for only six months. During the pandemic, that has been increased to a maximum of 21 months, while the criteria have been changed to include more firms and workers. The percentage of lost wages paid by the government will also go up in stages, from the usual 60% to 80% after the first six months.In comparison with the UK’s furlough scheme, the cost of Kurzarbeit seems relatively modest, perhaps reflecting its more limited scope.Berlin ploughed €23.5bn into bolstering the scheme at the start of the pandemic, then expanded it again in August, at an estimated cost of €10bn more, to run for all of next year.By contrast, the Office for Budget Responsibility has estimated that the UK’s furlough scheme will have cost £60bn, about twice as much as the Germans are spending, by the time it ends in October.France’s ‘chômage partiel’The French scheme, known as “partial unemployment” or “partial activity”, also pre-dates the coronavirus pandemic.It too is designed to subsidise the jobs of people on reduced working hours – and it’s also intended for the long haul.Under the French scheme, firms are allowed to cut employees’ hours by up to 40% for up to three years. Employees still receive nearly all their normal salary, with the government paying a percentage of the cost.The scheme is subject to all kinds of French bureaucracy, requiring firms to come to an agreement with unions and offer formal guarantees of job security, but the principle is the same as in Germany.Olivier Six is chief executive of two very different firms, both based in the Grenoble area.The bigger of the two, CIC Orio, is a metallurgy company that employs 150 people making industrial boilers and other specialised equipment. The other, G-Tech Guidetti, specialises in making hiking accessories.”When the crisis began, there was a loss of confidence,” he told the BBC. “Firms were sitting on their funds, nobody was paying anybody.”G-Tech Guidetti, as a consumer-facing firm, was immediately hit by the lockdown, because all its stockists had to close, so all its 15 employees went on the partial activity scheme.”But after confinement ended, there was a pick-up in consumption and the recovery was very strong,” he says.CIC Orio, however, is still making use of the scheme. Its employees are currently working four days out of five, with the government compensating them for the lost day’s earnings.”It’s fortunate that we have this scheme, because we’re afraid that the crisis will come back again,” he says. “This will last a long time. There will probably be another year of very weak economic activity.”The French government describes its scheme as a “bouclier anti-licenciements” – that is, an anti-redundancy shield.For now, it appears to be working. But with cases of coronavirus on the rise again in France, it’s anyone’s guess how long it might be needed.

Mum, dad and daughter left jobless in pandemic. Video, 00:02:25Mum, dad and daughter left jobless in pandemic

The coronavirus pandemic has hit businesses hard, leading to sweeping numbers of redundancies and millions of workers being furloughed.Despite the downturn, some people have decided to take the brave step of starting a business.We spoke to four women about why they did it and how their ideas are progressing.’I started it on a whim but it’s become like my child’Natalie James, 30, from Wanstead in East London works in fashion PR. Although she continued working through lockdown from home, she didn’t like the fact that she wasn’t able to pamper herself with her favourite beauty products as all the shops were shut.Realising “a lot of other people felt the same”, she decided to start a £10-a-month subscription box service called Tingle, which offers a curated selection of beauty, makeup and skincare products sent to your door.”I started to get cabin fever and hated that the only place I could go to was the supermarket,” Natalie adds about her decision to open a business.She invested £300 in building her own website on Wix and designing the packaging for the box. She also approached beauty brands and managed to get most products gifted, while others were bought at cost price. The companies that partner with Tingle get to include information about their brand in each box, along with discount coupons for further purchases.Natalie says she has had 400 orders to date and made £5,000 in sales, but it has been hard work.”I do literally everything – I’m staying up until 3am on some nights, but it’s worth it.”‘I needed something to keep me going through lockdown’Student Mya Leonie Wander, 20, had always fancied starting her own business and is a “big foodie”. So in June she decided to start MJ Eats, a part-time Caribbean “soul food” takeaway service, cooking from home two or three days a week.Mya, who advertises on Instagram, has so far had around 20 orders a week and made £500 in sales. She also says she broke even after just two months.”I started my business because I needed something to keep me going through lockdown,” she tells the BBC. She had been a competitive athlete most of her life, but not being able to do sport or find work “took its toll”.Mya plans to continue running her business part-time and studying for her degree when the new academic year starts in October.’I finally had the time to commit to launching a business’Caroline Haegeman, 25, is studying for a PhD in oncology at Imperial College London. Part of her work requires her to carry out experiments in the laboratory at university, but her course was put on hold for three months during lockdown and she had to stay at home.Spending so much time indoors with her partner made her realise that even if they couldn’t go out, the couple needed to have “fun date nights” for the health of their relationship, but there weren’t many activities to do.So she set up subscription box service Box42 “to bring back the romance”. Each one-off box retails for £33, or £29 for a monthly subscription, and comes with two fun activities following a theme, as well as snacks, non-alcoholic drinks, curated playlists and “mood setters” like candles. “I started the company during lockdown because that’s when I started really seeing a gap in the market,” says Caroline, who partnered with independent food and drink companies and negotiated wholesale prices on the items. “Previously, although I’d had different ideas, I’d never had enough time to commit to launching a business.”Caroline has so far invested £1,100 in the business and her sales total £950. She hopes to break even soon.’It started as a necessity and then I decided it was brilliant’Charlie Pears-Wallace, 34, from Newcastle had come from a sales and marketing background and quit her job just before the coronavirus crisis. She had hoped to change careers and get a new job that allowed her to use her French, but the pandemic made this very difficult. But during lockdown she began helping small businesses with their social media strategies and marketing, thanks to word-of-mouth recommendations.She now works as a marketing and PR consultant under the brand Charliecomms, and says she has brought in enough revenue to break even, pay her bills and put some money aside.”I guess it started as a necessity and then I decided it was actually brilliant,” she says.”I think if this year has taught me anything, it’s that you never know what might happen. But I like to think that I’ve safeguarded myself in a way, as I’m not a full-time wage to anyone.”

The government should guarantee that care workers are paid fairly, the UK’s largest union has demanded.Unison’s statement comes on the heels of a legal victory it helped win for homecare workers in north London.General secretary Dave Prentis said: “It’s time the skills and experience of care staff were respected instead of them being underpaid and undervalued.”A government spokesperson said it was “clear” that care workers must be paid at least the national minimum wage.Companies contracted by Haringey Council were found to have breached wage rules after some carers were paid less than £4 per hour.A court awarded the carers more than £100,000 in backdated earnings following an employment tribunal ruling.Care service companies, Kaamil Education Limited, Diligent Care Services Limited and Premier Carewaiting Limited say they inherited the case when they took over the work contract from care provider, Sevacare.The court found that when the employees were working with Sevacare, they should have been paid for travel time spent moving between patient visits during their working day.The firms who took over the contracts were ordered to pay the claimants.When travel time was not paid, some carers worked up to 14 hours a day, but the average hourly pay recorded on their payslips was well below the legal minimum hourly rate.The 10 claimants will receive an average settlement of £10,000 each, after a four-year legal battle. The judgement said that travelling and waiting time of up to an hour between appointments should be compensated as working time.Mr Prentis said: “This is a major victory for these dedicated workers who dared take on their employers.”These are the very same care staff who were applauded during the lockdown. They shouldn’t have to work in a system that breeds such awful treatment,” he added.’We work so hard’Jess (not her real name) also heralded the victory as “great news and a big win”.She still works for one of the firms and told the BBC that the outcome offered every key worker a voice. She hopes that the precedent set by the union’s case would help others like her.However, she says that she still struggles on low wages.”They were all clapping for us, but now it’s all gone back to normal. And I think that is very bad. We work so hard,” she says.”It is difficult to make ends meet”, Jess adds. Any unexpected expenses push her over the edge and it takes longer to recover financially. A £4bn funding gapTogether with others who were fighting the court case, she had gone to Parliament to testify about their working conditions and was told she was doing a “fantastic job”. Jess says that politicians “only tell you what you want to hear”. She adds: “I’ve been here for ten years and it’s not easy.”A Local Government Association spokesperson told the BBC: “We will consider this ruling carefully to assess any implications for local authorities”.They added: “Before the pandemic, adult social care services faced a funding gap of almost £4bn by 2025. “Social care needs parity of esteem with the NHS, backed up by a genuine, long-term and sustainable funding settlement, which councils have been calling for long before the current crisis.”‘Pay us proper wages’More than one million people work in social care and the majority, 83% are female, according to figures from the Resolution Foundation.A study the think tank did in April 2020 found that more than half of workers are paid less than the voluntary living wage and were five times more likely to be on a zero-hours contract.Jess will remain in her job, but hopes things will change. “Some of us, we can do more than key worker work, but we are doing it for a purpose. To give back. Some of my patients were key workers themselves.”She says it is time for the government to show care workers their support. “Pay us some proper wages, so that we can feed our kids and pay our bills,” says Jess.A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “We are very clear that social care workers must be paid at least the national minimum wage, with those over 25 earning at least the national living wage, and they should be paid for the time spent caring for clients, travelling to appointments and waiting for them to start.”We know there is a need for a long-term solution for social care and are looking at a range of proposals as part of our commitment to bringing forward a plan that puts the sector on a sustainable footing for the future.”

Sir Keir Starmer will call on the government to replace the furlough scheme and outlaw “firing and re-hiring” methods to avoid the “scarring effect” of “mass unemployment”.Almost 10 million workers have been furloughed since March but the scheme is set to end on 31 October.The Labour leader will address the TUC, proposing targeted support for badly-hit sectors.The government said it was already implementing a plan to protect jobs. Speaking to the Trades Union Congress’ annual conference, Sir Keir will make the case for replacing the job retention scheme – also known as the furlough scheme – which was introduced to support employers and staff during the coronavirus lockdown. Under it, employees placed on leave due to virus restrictions have received 80% of their pay up to a maximum of £2,500 a month.Since September, firms have had to start making a contribution to wages as part of the scheme winding down.The government has been reluctant to extend the furlough scheme beyond October with Mr Johnson arguing that it would only keep people “in suspended animation”.However, Sir Keir is expected to argue that “with a bit of imagination and acting in the national interest, a better approach is possible”.HIs alternative proposals include expanding part-time working and rewarding employers who give people hours rather than cut jobs; providing training and support for those who can’t come back full-time, and targeting sectors most in need such as retail, aviation and those hit by local lockdowns.”Imagine how powerful it would be if we could form a genuine national plan to protect jobs, create new ones and investing in skills and training,” he is due to say.”I’m making an open offer to the prime minister: Work with us to keep millions of people in work, work with the trade unions and work with businesses, do everything possible to protect jobs and to deliver for working people.”The Labour leader will also praise trade unions as “unsung heroes” saying: “Without you there would have been no furlough scheme, no life raft for seven million people.”Addressing the conference on Monday, TUC leader Frances O’Grady said: “If the government doesn’t act, we face a tsunami of job losses.”During his speech, Sir Keir will also urge the government to outlaw “fire and re-hire” practices whereby companies sack employees but then hire them back on worst pay and conditions. He is expected to say: “These tactics punish good employers, hit working people hard and harm our economy.”A Treasury spokesman said: “We already have a national plan to not only protect jobs, but to create new ones – and we are implementing it right now.”Thousands of young people will take their first steps into work through our £2bn Kickstart scheme this autumn and our up to £9bn Job Retention Bonus will help companies bring those on furlough back to work.”

German carmaker Daimler, which owns Mercedes-Benz, has agreed to pay $1.5bn (£1.2bn) to resolve US government claims that it designed its diesel vehicles to cheat air pollution tests.The firm was investigated for installing software to evade emissions laws in 250,000 Mercedes cars and vans.US officials said they hoped the fine would deter future misbehaviour.Daimler called the deal an “important step” towards resolving diesel proceedings but denied the claims.”By resolving these proceedings, Daimler avoids lengthy court actions with respective legal and financial risks,” the company said.In addition to the $1.5bn settlement with US authorities, Daimler said it had agreed to pay $700m to settle a class action lawsuit brought by owners. It also disclosed “further expenses of a mid three-digit-million EUR amount to fulfil requirements of the settlements.”Clean Air ActThe deals, which Daimler had said it was nearing last month, conclude an investigation that the US started in 2016, after “defeat devices” were discovered through testing. Officials said that an $875m fine included in the $1.5bn settlement with authorities is the second-largest civil penalty the US has ever imposed under its Clear Air Act and the largest if measured on a per-vehicle basis. Daimler has also agreed to fix the affected cars, which were sold between 2009 and 2016, at no cost to their owners. US officials said that commitment was worth about $400m.At a press conference on Monday, Andrew Wheeler, the head of the US Environmental Protection Agency, said: “The message we are sending today is clear: We will enforce the law.”If you try to cheat the system and mislead the public, you will be caught. Those who violate public trust in pursuit of profits will forfeit both.”Bigger emissions scandal The penalties are the latest in a wide-ranging scandal that has cast a cloud over the motor industry since 2015, when Volkswagen admitted to installing secret software on vehicles sold in the US. The system allowed the cars to emit up to 40 times legally permitted emissions and evade detection during tests.Volkswagen later admitted the devices affected more than 11 million vehicles globally. The company more than $20bn to resolve claims in the US alone.But investigations soon widened to other companies, including Ford, Mitsubishi, and Nissan. In 2018, Daimler recalled more than 700,000 vehicles in Europe that had “defeat devices” installed. BMW and Porsche have also recalled cars over the issue.Fiat Chrysler in Europe were raided this summer over the matter. The firm agreed to an estimated $800m settlement to resolve civil claims in the US in January.Daimler said the US settlement concerned vehicles that were not sold in the same configurations in Europe.