this is the business briefing. i'm sally bundock. it's official. after having started 42 years ago in a garage, apple is now the world's first public company to be worth a trillion dollars. and, how high can you fly? the owner of british airways, iberia and aer lingus reports are revealing its latest results. on the markets, asian stocks are following wall street's lead this friday. tech stocks have moved things forward but investors are still worried about the trade spat between beijing and washington. apple is now the world's most valuable publicly—listed company. shares in the iphone maker closed at a new record high of $207.39 thursday,

allowing the company to beat silicon valley rivals amazon and microsoft to be the first us company worth $1 trillion. it is now worth more than exxon mobile, procter &gamble and at&t put together! apple shares have been rising since tuesday when it reported better than expected results for the three months tojune. but its rivals are hot on its heels. here are the five most valuable us companies by market capitalisation and you notice that they are all tech or internet companies. and apart from apple and microsoft none of them existed 25 years ago. our north america technology correspondent dave lee has more from san fransisco. some people are writing of this milestone as being nothing more than a nice round number, but the significance is important.

it shows a company that has had blistering growth over the last decade or so since it launched the iphone. they passed the milestone, over $1 trillion, on thursday morning's trading in new york, and the way they did it was by selling iphones at a higher cost. last year the company released its more expensive iphone x at $999 or £999 in the uk. it meant the average selling price of the iphone has gone up dramatically, even though the company is selling fewer of the devices overall. also, apple has managed to diversify the kind of products it offers. it's now doing music streaming, cloud services, and apple pay. those services divisions now amount to around $10 billion every single quarter in revenue and that is what's giving investors hope that, even once the smartphone era does moves on, apple still has something else to offer. it might not be plain sailing for the rest of apple's history, up ahead could be an emerging threat from china, where cheaper device makers could eat

into their bottom line. and also more broadly, i've been speaking to analysts here and they say apple's nextjob is to simply predict the future. they may have been the king of the smartphone era, with the iphone, but the jury is still out on what the next big computing platform may be. whether it's wearable technologies, artificial intelligence or something similar. apple wil need to both figure that out and also try to lead the pack again if it is to continue seeing the kind of valuation it's enjoying today. british airways parent company international airlines group will have results out in the next few hours and there are a number of issues that could weigh on profits. the rising cost of fuel has had a dampening effect on most airlines' profits in the last few months — and the owner of ba, aer lingus, iberia and vwelling isn't like to be any different. wille walsh warned earlier in the year of the impact that air traffic controller strikes are having on the group, especially in france.

a number of airlines — including aig — have taken the matter to the european commission and are looking for a legal solution. and then there's the question of norwegian. iag has had two bids rejected by the lowcost carrier — so will the group look to make a third attempt orjust leave it there? peter morris, chief economist, flight global joins me now. he can answer all the questions for us he can answer all the questions for us to be firstly, what are we expecting from the result? fuel prices have been rising and there have been a air—traffic control strikes. how susceptible is british airways and its parent company to those facts? the fuel - is a big deal, tracking about 50% higher than was this time last year and that is a major cost for airlines. it does have an effect but like thatjoke about running from a bear, or you

need to do is run faster than the other person. because of the diversification of the iag portfolio, they have a mix of different kinds and different business models and they can optimise reasonably well within europe. you talk about europe and we are coming up to brexit to become much of an impact will that have on this company? i cannot believe the level of reassurance that people are giving each other that things will carry on as before because from april the european commission mentioned we will be a third country as of march next year unless something happens. the logical thing from a business point of view is that something happened that the default is that it does not. and that leaves iag in a difficult position compared to european competitors. have they addressed this? there must be a lot happening behind the scenes because very little is happening in front of the scenes. again there is a level of

reassurance that everything from shareownership within iag and the kind of connecting traffic that british airways in the uk operating licence brings to the is very significant. it is not something you canjust significant. it is not something you can just sweep under the carpet because you are talking about a0 yea rs of progress because you are talking about a0 years of progress that the presence of companies like iag across europe symbolises. how about norwegian? two bids have been rejected from iag. why is it so eager to purchase norwegian? it is an interesting play and one could represented as everything from an exploitation of the market that they are not in to ta ke the market that they are not in to take out strategy. if you look at the roots that norwegians fly from gatwick, what some fly head—to—head one way 01’ gatwick, what some fly head—to—head one way or the other. that is what business is like. there is a point at which you don't want the other

quy at which you don't want the other guy to be taking your lunch. there may be an element of that, of developing the business model at the same time because you have initiatives like level being built out of austria. and so i think it is trying different strategies and seeing how to become bigger than the quy seeing how to become bigger than the guy who is also being pursued by the bear, be that fuel pricing or competition. turning to the us economy where we'll be getting julyjobs figures on friday. they are expected to show the country remains at levels considered to be at full employment. with fewer workers looking forjobs, businesses are turning to teenagers as young as 16 to fill open positions. for the first time in nearly three decades the number of teenagers in the us workforce is growing as young people choose work, over pricey university education. joe miller sent this report. if you have taken a flight recently, there is every chance danny moore has played a part in your landing. at 19, he is moulding widgets

for the brake systems. it's a job that has helped his career take off. ijoined the military, the marines, that wasn't working out for me. i had no idea what i was doing. i was lost. i really do enjoy working with my hands, working with stuff and fixing things. before i was broke and i am now making money. demand for components is heating up in the factory, it has to operate around the clock to fill orders from the likes of bmw. wherever possible, robots are enlisted to help. but much of the intricate work has to be done by hand and in an area with few jobseekers, findings staff is hard. retaining them is even harder. they can walk down street and there are nine other signs looking for hiring. that hurts us a little bit, but those that stick have opportunity for a rewarding career. with the exception of hawaii, new hampshire has the lowest unemployment rate in north america and one of its three residents

are approaching retirement age, the state desperately needs young people to enter the workforce, which is why politicians want to allow teenagers as young as 16 to work as much as a0 hours a week, even during term time. critics say this will distract from schoolwork and could weaken child labour protections. at many teams are often to stay in employment, rather than accumulate student debt. the man who sponsored the legislation thinks they should be encouraged. we have employers who say i have got these kids, great workers, show up on time and do a wonderfuljob, but they are limited by how many hours they can work. there are still plenty of kids in our state that say "i am not sure i plan to go to college, i like making money, i want to be independent." danny says he's looking forward getting off nightshifts and for the first time in at least a generation, it is teenagers like him that get to dictate the terms.

a quick look at how the markets have been faring around the world. technology stocks are on the up. the main problem here are worries about trade warfare between the united states and china. and also looking ahead tojobs states and china. and also looking ahead to jobs figures. that's it for the business briefing this hour. experts say regular exposure to even low levels of air pollution may cause changes which are similar to the early stages

of heart failure. a study of a,000 people in the uk has found those who live by loud, busy roads had larger hearts than those in less polluted areas. researchers say the government should reduce air pollution more quickly. 0ur correspondent, jon donnison reports. it is estimated that air pollution isa it is estimated that air pollution is a contributing factor in the death of around a0,000 people each year. this study looks at how the quality of the air we breathe affects our heart. queen mary university looked at data from a000 people. worst of them lived outside big cities and in areas where their pollution was below uk government guidelines. still, it found those who live near busy roads tended to have a slightly bigger heart, offered an early sign of heart disease. the heart tends to get larger when it undergoes stressful situations. we see that in people

who develop heart failure. the individuals in the study, they are healthy people so it is a normal heart function but we start to see early signs of heart enlargement. research comes with a government's consultation period on its draft clea n consultation period on its draft clean air policy due to end later this month. the strategy aims to reduce pollution and halve the number of people living in areas that exceed w h 0 guidelines by 2025. a foodbank charity says it needs extra donations — to help kids missing out on free school meals over the holidays. the trussell trust says there's higher demand for emergency food, as poorerfamilies struggle to feed their children. the government says it's already promised millions of pounds to help families during the holidays. this is abc news. this is the briefing from bbc news.

the latest headlines: emmerson mnangagwa of zimbabwe's governing zanu—pf party wins the presidential election. the opposition rejects the result. europe basks in another heatwave — with the all—time record temperature set to be broken. russia remains a threat to american democracy — the stark message from president trump's national security team. now it's time to look at the stories that are making the headlines in the media across the world. we begin with the financial times, and no surprise its uk front page features the first interest rate rise here in a decade. we'll look at what that means for the economy. let's move on to vox. it explains how pope francis has made the rare move of updating catholic teaching, it now calls the death penalty inadmissible. to the south china morning post now and the paper leads with a study carried out on the hong kong metro which shows how germs spread

across the network and how they vary depending on the time of day. british tabloid the daily mirror claims an exclusive. it says amazon has declared its lowest corporation tax in five years in the uk — despite soaring sales. and we'll explain their other main story — how a scottish couple had their winning lottery ticket ripped up in front of them. and finally, the sun — appropriately named there — looks at the heatwave hitting europe. so let's begin. stephanie hare's back with me to look through those stories. uk interest rates. you had been expecting them. why are they doing this and what it tells us about the economy? it is interesting. what we

are looking at here is a battle to chain inflation. we wanted easy money after the financial global crisis and the question was how to stimulate growth. unemployment remains at low in a lot of countries so they can tighten interest rates. this is a potentially risky strategy. a lot of people are underemployed, working part—time, maybe not making enough money, there isa maybe not making enough money, there is a steel wage depression. in the uk where have the political risk of brexit and if we go through with it next year, i think