us lawmakers wrap up a face—to—face meeting, with no signs of being any closer to breaking a deadlock on the debt ceiling. goldman sachs agrees to pay more than $200 million to settle sex discrimination claims with thousands of women. hello. hello and welcome to asia business report. i'm karishma vaswani. "good news and bad news" — that was the verdict chuck schumer, the democratic leader of the senate, gave to a meeting which has wrapped up a short while ago. top us lawmakers met for about an hour in the oval office, trying to find a way out of a potential debt default.

but no agreement was reached. here's what the leaders of both sides had to say following that high—stakes meeting. we agreed to continue our discussions and we will meet again on friday. in the meantime, our staff will meet today and daily between now and then, and everyone in the meeting understood the risk of default. our economy would fall into a significant recession and it would devastate retirement accounts, increase borrowing costs, according to moody's nearly 8 million americans would lose theirjobs. everyone in this meeting reiterated the positions they were at. i did not see new movement. the president said staff would get back together, i was clear to the president. we have two weeks ago. president biden also said that it was possible he might call off his trip to asia if there is no breakthrough on the debt.

ryan sweet is the chief us economist at oxford economics — i spoke to him a little earlier and he says he's not surprised no deal was reached. this is going to be a game of political chicken. they'll see which side bends first because both the republicans and democrats recognise that breaching the debt ceiling for this sustained basis is economically catastrophic and would be politically very damaging. when you talk about how damaging it is both for the economy and politics, it begs the question what will it take to get to a deal? is there any sense of how we might get to one in the next few weeks? so, as an economist, incentives matter. one incentive is if you start to see more of a reaction in financial markets, not only in the us but globally. i have been surprised we haven't seen more of a reaction in the us equity markets, but playing out a script, we have seen treasury

bill rates that mature right around the drop—dead date of the debt ceiling have risen. corporate bonds spread wider. equity markets selling off. we see signs of concern in financial markets and that would like if they are under the republicans and democrats to come to agreement and if the debt ceiling. we have seen this movie before. it's a bad movie and we know how it ends and ultimately they raise or suspend the debt ceiling, most likely at the 11th hour. i like the movie analogy so i'll take it further. we know how the movie ends and when we get it and there's a bit of fatigue that fills in. how much of an impact does it have a longer term on the us economy and us companies in terms of confidence around the world 7 personally, i think the debt ceiling is futile. it doesn't really serve a purpose.

it is more of a political football that they pass back and forth to try and push one party or the other towards an agreement on spending cuts or other policy or legislation changes that they want. from an economic perspective it does not rein in government spending. think of it as a credit card. this is just the government's credit card limit and they need to raise it to pay or surpass government spending. this is not about future government spending. the simulations that have been done with the oxford economic model, there are large—scale government spending cuts if there are any which the republican propose, it will do economic damage. it was shave points off gdp and economy would suffer at a time when it is vulnerable to anything else that goes wrong. ryan sweet from oxford economics.

goldman sachs has agreed to pay $215 million to settle claims that it discriminated against women — by offering female staff lower pay and fewer opportunities. the agreement comes a month before the long—running class—action lawsuit was due to come to trial. it resolves claims from almost 3,000 female staff. this deal draws a line under a class action lawsuit that accused the bank of discriminating against female employees for over a decade in areas of pay, promotion and performance evaluation. the trial was due to begin next month. goldman sachs said after more than a decade of vigorous litigation, both parties have agreed to resolve this matter. in a statement, plaintiff allison gamba said, i am proud that the result we achieved here will advance gender equity. now the $215 million settlement will be divided among roughly 2,800 women employed in various divisions of goldman sachs.

breaking the numbers down, once you strip out the legal fees, it comes to less than $50,000 per plaintiff. now, on top of the cash that goldman sachs is paying, the bank will work with outside experts to analyze its pay patterns and methods of promotions. this is the latest effort by wall street to address unequal and unfair treatment of female workers. back in 2007, morgan stanley settled a lawsuit for $46 million in which 2,700 female employees accused it of discrimination over pay and promotion. that was michelle fleury. taiwanese electronics company and one of the major manufacturers and suppliers of iphones, foxconn, has bought a massive piece of land on the outskirts of india's it hub of bengaluru. it is part of the companies big investment plans in india. the bbc�*s arunoday mukharji has more from delhi. this piece of land measures around 1.2 million square

metres and is worth $37 million. these details were revealed in a regulatory filing by the company at the london stock exchange. and this is part of the company's larger diversification plans as it attempts to move away its production lines from china. and india has been on the radar for the company. we have reported in the past on foxconn's larger plans in the country to invest nearly $700 million on a new plant to boost production. the investment is believed to create around 100,000 jobs in the state of karnataka, and that's where the it city of bengaluru is located. the chairman of foxconn was in india in march this year and held several meetings with leaders, including prime minister narendra modi. india has been doling out incentives too for big companies to try and turn itself into a manufacturing hub and compete with china. foxconn has been making phones in india since 2019 at its big

plant in the southern indian state of tamil nadu. and in fact, apple and foxconn both have been looking to ramp up production in the country and try and capitalize and tap into the potential in india, which is home to around 800 million smartphone users. arunoday mukharji there. the australia government has announced a surplus. it set aside almost $10 billion over a four—year period to help ease the pressure of rising prices. the government had to walk the narrow path between rising inflation and interest rates. at the same time not putting too much money in, to spark more inflation that was see the central bank increase rates further.

it was a balancing act and i think they largely got it right. in terms of the key priorities, it's obvious from the budget that ensuring household budgets stay intact and spending on key issues as well, like unemployment for instance. has that been a big focus in australia? it has recently. we have very ungenerous unemployment benefits and they have been increased slightly. it still leaves those on those benefits well below the poverty line, but with the reserve bank increasing or the central bank increasing interest rates, they're predicting unemployment will rise. we are expecting another 140,000 unemployed people because of those higher interest rates. so, i think they had to do something around unemployment benefits. particularly at a time when they are trying to grow the unemployed to slow inflation down. what do you make of the foreign

policy aspects of the budget? more engagements and more investment with pacific nations? australia, over the last five to ten years, has disengaged somewhat from the pacific and this is a time when china has grown in influence, but it's notjust about china. they're trying to re—engage with the pacific around peace building, infrastructure building, so it's good to see we are getting back into the region and helping our closest neighbours in order to meet them stable, healthy democracies. in part as a hedge against china. that was matt grudnoff from the australia institute think tank speaking to me earlier. shares in airbnb fell 10% despite the company earning $117 million in the first quarter. the recovery in travel, and a trend of more people working remotely.

3am on the central line, and this team is cleaning a mix of human hair, skin and metal that comes from the brakes and the tracks. it's everywhere. they use magnetic ones to lift the waste into bags and take away tonnes every night. it's hard, hot work. tonnes every night. it's hard, hot work-— hot work. these teams work throu . h hot work. these teams work through the night, _ hot work. these teams work through the night, they - hot work. these teams work through the night, they are l through the night, they are trying to clean up all of this debris, so it doesn't create tube dust, which people breathe in. this section of track was cleared just a month ago, two

teams managed to cover 40% of the network a year. teams managed to cover 4096 of the network a year.— the network a year. dust has alwa s the network a year. dust has always been _ the network a year. dust has always been a _ the network a year. dust has always been a problem - the network a year. dust has always been a problem on i the network a year. dust has| always been a problem on the underground. once they clean the tracks, the debris is also a fire hazards. the dusty —ish lines, the central and the bakerloo. research is being done into the health impacts. the levels of iron oxide or within current health limits and their quality on the tube isn't harmful. tfl says results from research will be known sometime this year. it also wants to use new technology to clean the tube's air. at the moment, it says these track cleaners will help keep dust levels down. lip filler�*s gone wrong, mortgages for young people and

cows on the loose. we probably all know someone who has had their lips done, but there were calls from experts to tighten regulation on lip fillers after treatments have gone wrong. they have grown increasingly popular but many people have been left in pain and embarrassed by their appearance. harriet had hers done and three months later her lips were so bloated she couldn't close her mouth properly. a bbc investigation has found a number of tenants in the west midlands being given no—fault evictions is at the highest level for five years. this type of eviction allows landlords to get rid of tenants with no reason. a27—year—old in birmingham told us she was issued a no sold eviction a few weeks after complaining about mould in the house. there is a bbc documentary on bbc iplayer at the moment called evicted which explains in more depth. a deposit free mortgage scheme aimed at young people currently

renting has been launched by uk building society skipton. it means you could get a deposit just by proving you have paid your rent on time for 12 months. so basically it doesn't require an actual deposit to secure a property. time to leave you with ten seconds of some cow madness. yes, a herd of cows escaped in marlow, and took a mini tour of the town centre over the bank holiday weekend. imagine that, you've got a bank holiday hangover, your head is a bit sore, and there are 35 cows chilling outside your bedroom window. have a good night.

hello. manchester's main man with a touch of magic in madrid. de bruyne grabs a draw for city in the champions league semi—final first leg with real. a huge moment in athletics, as the first man is charged with supplying performance enhancing drugs to athletes, including the banned nigerian sprinter blessing okagbare. and controversy at the madrid open — allegations of sexist ball girl outfits and the silencing of women's finalists.