That's it for the Business Live page for today. Join us again tomorrow from 06:00 for more business news.

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Amazon boss Jeff Bezos has said that Donald Trump is eroding US democracy by trying to stifle the media, the Guardian reports, external.

US stocks ended a choppy session down slightlyas investors digested the latest round of earnings, while a sharp drop in telecoms offset gains in healthcare. 

The Dow Jones industrial average fell 40.27 points, or 0.22%, to 18,162.35, the S&P 500 lost 3.45 points, or 0.16%, to 2,140.84 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 4.58 points, or 0.09%, to 5,241.83. 

The US government is to prosecute a former National Security Agency contractor accused of stealing classified information under the US Espionage Act.

Prosecutors allege that Harold Thomas Martin spent more than two decades taking classified information from a number of government agencies.

The amount of stolen data is alleged to be at least fifty terabytes, enough to fill dozens of hard drives, prosecutors said.

Among the material allegedly stolen by Martin included a top secret document that contained "specific operational plans against a known enemy of the United States and its allies," the prosecutors added.

Mr Martin was employed with Booz Allen Hamilton, the same consulting firm that employed whistleblower Edward Snowden.

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After repeating his warnings that the US election would be rigged, Donald Trump found time to unveil a new trade policy on Thursday.

According to Politico, external, the presidential candidate said he wanted to consolidate all the agencies and departments that handle trade policy into one department called the "American Desk".

“American trade policy is currently mismanaged by dozens of competing bureaucracies, spread across the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Labour, State, Treasury - all of these departments. So many departments,” Trump said.

There wasn't much more detail than that, although he did say the new agency's mission would be "to protect the economic interest of the American worker and the national interest of the United States”.

But are they just words?

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Brazilian prosecutors have charged 26 people, 21 of them for murder, for their roles in the collapse of a tailings dam at the Samarco iron ore mine.

The disaster last November killed 19 people.

Executives of the company, owned by Vale SA and BHP Billiton, had clear awareness that the dam could fail but put profit over safety, prosecutors told a press conference.

A suspect device found on a London Underground train was destroyed in a controlled explosion.

The device was discovered on an eastbound Jubilee Line train at North Greenwich in south-east London at about 11:00 BST.

North Greenwich station, which serves the O2 Arena, was evacuated but reopened at about 18:50 BST.

The Metropolitan Police Counter Terrorism Command is leading the investigation.

The Met said Tube travellers should check with TfL to see if their journey could be disrupted.

Read more here.

Dunkin' Donuts and Baskin-Robbins owner Dunkin' is planning to become a more "beverage focused brand" to try to boost growth, the FT reports, external.

It especially wants to push its Cold Brewed iced coffee. This being a bit of an exotic beast for the Live page, we thought we'd look up how to make it.

According to WikiHow, external, you have to leave coffee grounds in cold water for at least 12 hours before straining the concoction and serving with ice and milk. And perhaps sugar. So there you go.

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Switzerland is the latest European country to court international banks concerned about Brexit, Bloomberg reports, external.

In a report published on Thursday, the Swiss government claimed the country was already mainland Europe's largest financial centre, being home to more than 250 banks.

In addition, while Swiss banks do not enjoy "passporting rights" in the way UK (or German) ones do, Switzerland does have a series of bilateral trade deals in place with the EU which it wants to strengthen.

“Although the financial centres of Switzerland and the UK are closely linked, they also compete against each other,” the report said. 

“While asset management and investment banking are well-established strengths of London’s financial centre and are likely to remain so, Switzerland can build on its strong position in the area of cross-border asset management.”

Adam Parsons
Presenter, Wake up to Money

Sir Philip Green's knighthood now dangles by a thread, but his reputation has already been very publicly trashed.

This wasn't so much a debate as a shooting gallery. MPs took it in turn to lambast Sir Philip Green. Not one came to his defence, with the amendment carried unanimously. If Sir Philip does have his friends in the House of Commons, they are not doing him much good.

This vote isn't binding - but the Honours Forfeiture Committee will be under pressure to meet soon, and to listen to the opinion of the House. This is the first time MPs have voted to take away a knighthood – can the committee really turn that down?

The question is whether this vote will spur Sir Philip into a last-minute deal to cover the shortfall in the BHS pension fund, or will he think that he’s been backed into a corner and pull out of negotiations? The clock is ticking - one senior MP told me he would now press for the knighthood to be annulled by Christmas. 

In an interesting blog, external, ex-banker and pundit David Buik MBE has questioned whether MPs approval of a motion to strip Sir Philip Green of his knighthood earlier will backfire. "I fear that the threat of the loss of his gong will not in any way encourage the Monaco-based tycoon to step up to the plate and make a meaningful contribution to the pension hole," he says.

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The US owner of Boots has seen quarterly profits surge as a cost-cutting programme yielded benefits.

Walgreens Boots Alliance - which is also the biggest drugstore operator by store count in the US - reported net earnings of $1bn in the three months to August, its fourth quarter, up from just $26m a year earlier. 

Full year net earnings slipped 1.1% to $4.2bn while sales climbed 13.4% to $117.4bn.

The company is the midst of a major restructuring drive which should save it $1.5bn a year by the end of 2017, it said. Over the past 12 months it has laid off 1,350 workers in the UK where it employs about 60,000 people in total.

Looking to protect its access to skilled workers post Brexit, the City has proposed the idea of "regional visas" as a possible solution.

According to a report from The City of London Corporation - which governs the Square Mile - these would allow banks, agriculture and healthcare to hire foreign staff in places where there are skills shortages. 

It said the visas could be governed jointly by local authorities and business, or by a UK government agency.

"If the current visa system were extended to EU migrants, research suggests that three quarters of the UK's EU workforce would not meet these requirements," it added. 

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Hard Brexit could lead to queues of Guinness lorries either side of a hard Irish border, Diageo Ireland country director Oliver Loomes tells the Guardian, external.

"An impact on the border will be an impact on the heartbeat of the economy," he says.

He says there are around 13,000 border crossings per year by Diageo trucks. A delay of 30 minutes on each journey would add up to a €1.3m cost.

As the Guardian points out, very much a case of good things not coming to those who wait.

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Prime Minister Theresa May, at a summit in Brussels, will say that Brexit means Brexit, but that the UK still wants to be close partner to the EU.

Mrs May said: "This is my first European Council and I'm here with a very clear message, which is the UK is leaving the EU, but will continue to play a full role until we leave and will be a strong, independent partner after we have left.

"It's in the interests of both the UK and the EU that we continue to work closely together."

The PM has indicated that her priority for a post-Brexit deal is control over immigration, which, if everyone sticks to their guns, will force the UK out of the single market. 

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The UK faces "hard" negotiations over quitting the European Union if it wants a hard Brexit, French president Francois Hollande has said at a Brussels summit.

Arriving, he said: "Theresa May is coming today as a member of the European Council. She has not yet activated Article 50 so she is part of all the discussions about Europe.

"As long as the United Kingdom has not left, the United Kingdom is part of the EU. I say very firmly, [if] Mrs May wants a hard Brexit, the negotiations will be hard."

House of Commons
Parliament

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Oil and gas should be "top and centre" of the UK's industrial strategy, says the SNP's Kirsty Blackman.

"This industry is not having the best of times at the moment," she says, "which is why it's important that the government commits" to it.

Kirsty Blackman is the MP for Aberdeen North, where much of the UK's oil and gas industry is based. 

Last month, Oil and Gas UK figures showed that 120,000 jobs had been lost in the industry since 2014. Oil prices in 2016 have been a third of the level they were two years ago.

The FTSE 100 share index has closed down 0.07%, or 5 points lower, at 7016.92.

Shares in advertising giant WPP fell more than 3% after French peer Publicis Groupe said third-quarter sales grew by just 0.2%.

Concern about advertising revenues hit ITV as well, with shares down more than 3% after broker Liberum cut its target price for the stock.

"We reflect the latest comments from media buyers into our forecasts, which suggest a weaker advertising momentum into Q4," Liberum said, lowering its net advertising estimate for 2016.

Douglas Fraser
Scotland business & economy editor