Friday newspaper round-up: Brexit, Superdry, Disney, Uber

Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn agreed last night to press on with Brexit talks as the prime minister spelt out a new route to reaching a deal in the Commons. The party leaders held a short meeting in parliament after Mrs May updated MPs on the latest Brexit delay. In notably warmer exchanges she suggested that the two sides were closer than many realised on the key issue of the customs union while Mr Corbyn did not repeat a previous claim that she was refusing to move from her “red lines”. - The Times

DUP chiefs have held private talks with Boris Johnson and his Tory leadership campaign team as Theresa May faces repeated challenges to her dwindling authority. The prime minister brushed aside calls by Tory Brexiteers yesterday for her resignation but was put on notice by her supposed allies in the Democratic Unionist Party that the clock was running down on the deal under which they prop up her government. - The Times

The government has stood down an army of 6,000 civil servants who had been preparing for a no-deal Brexit, at an estimated cost of £1.5bn. The civil servants who had been seconded from elsewhere will now return to their normal duties, but there is no clear role for an estimated 4,500 new recruits after article 50 was extended until Halloween. - Guardian

Superdry is being targeted by the activist investor that stirred up the maker of Oxo cubes and Mr Kipling cakes. Oasis Management Company, a Hong Kong-based fund, has built a 3.3 per cent stake in the fashion chain, whose entire board resigned this month after a putsch by its founder. - The Times

Disney is launching its own streaming service to compete with Netflix and Amazon Prime Video. The service, called Disney Plus, which will only be available in the US initially, was unveiled at an investor day presentation at Disney Studio in Los Angeles. - Telegraph

Piano maker Casio broke the law by preventing online retailers from offering discounts on its products, the competition watchdog has alleged. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) provisionally found that Casio restricted competition over a five year period by imposing minimum prices below which retailers were prohibited from selling its digital pianos and keyboards. - Telegraph

A French appeals court has said US chemicals giant Monsanto was guilty of poisoning a farmer who said he suffered neurological damage after accidentally inhaling fumes from a weedkiller made by the company. Paul François, a cereal farmer, had already won previous lawsuits against Monsanto, which was bought by Germany’s Bayer last year, in 2012 and 2015. - Guardian

Uber warned last night that it may never achieve profitability and had more to do to restore its battered reputation as it fired the starting gun on one of the largest stock market floats of all time. The world’s largest taxi-hailing company revealed that it made a $3 billion operating loss last year as it published the prospectus for its initial public offering. - The Times

Amazon will suffer “multibillion-dollar failures” as it experiments with new products and services, Jeff Bezos, its founder, said yesterday. In his annual letter to shareholders, he said Amazon’s size meant it had to take larger risks, but he also assured investors that “a single big winning bet can more than cover the cost of many losers”. - The Times

Netflix is considering launching its own print magazine and buying a historic Los Angeles cinema to showcase its productions as part of its continuing attempts to be fully accepted by the US film industry – and win more awards in the process. The streaming service is reportedly looking to launch a quarterly publication to promote its own shows and their stars, tentatively named Wide, which would feature programmes that could have been overlooked. - Guardian

China needs to clean up its lending to the world’s poorest countries or it will bury them under a mountain of unsustainable debt, the heads of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have warned. David Malpass, who took over as president of the World Bank three days ago, and Christine Lagarde, the IMF managing director, called on Beijing to comply with global rules on debt transparency to prevent emerging markets tumbling into another crisis. - The Times

Rupert Murdoch has been told he must overhaul independent oversight of The Times and The Sunday Times to win government approval for newsroom cuts. Jeremy Wright, the Culture Secretary, said he was “minded to” approve an application from News UK, the media mogul's British operation, to lift a ban on staff journalists working across both titles. - Telegraph

A university shake-up ordered by Theresa May could lead to a two-tier system in which the rich buy places on degree courses, a former minister has warned. Students with poor A level grades, such as three Ds or below, could be banned from applying for loans in an attempt to raise degree standards. - The Times

Labour is to consider adopting automatic voter registration as a policy if it came into power in order to increase election turnout. The party, which timed its announcement on Friday to coincide with the last day that people can register to vote in local elections on 2 May, said it would examine different options used internationally, including where automatic voter registration had successfully increased overall registration levels. - Guardian

Nicola Sturgeon has created further confusion over her position on a new independence referendum by saying she said will spell out her views after Easter, while at the same time demanding a second vote on Brexit. In a letter to Theresa May she said the extension to Brexit must be used constructively and called on the Prime Minister to drop her “red lines" and stage a so-called People’s Vote. - Telegraph

Europe can expect even greater migratory pressure from Africa unless action is taken to prevent global warming, Sir David Attenborough has said in a strongly worded warning to policymakers that time is running out to save the natural world from extinction. Speaking at the spring meeting of the International Monetary Fund in Washington DC, the broadcaster and environmentalist said that on current trends parts of the world would soon become uninhabitable and populations would be be forced to move. - Guardian