The digital age may have increased competition between news outlets as the online fight for clicks and eyeballs becomes ever more fierce, but this week goes to show that digital journalism also enables partnerships that once would have seemed unlikely. Before the weekend comes around, The Guardian will feature two digital collaborations with smaller, local news outlets: The last of a four-part collaborative project with The Texas Observer about the US immigration crisis and the deaths of undocumented immigrants in Texas went online yesterday.

The 73 UK regional daily and Sunday newspapers listed by ABC in its data lost sales by an average of 13.5 per cent year on year in the first half of 2014. The biggest faller was a Newsquest title for the third period in a row. This time the title losing sales at the fastest rate was the South Wales Argus, down 33.2 per cent year on year to an average of 13,197 sales a day.

In the last few years, some German firms such as BMW, Volkswagen and Deutsche Telekom have banned after-hours call and emails to workers - the point being to actually let people take time off in the evening, rather than effectively being half-working all the time. Now a ban on office communications in the evening and during vacation time could even become law.

PressReader has released an updated version of its iOS and Android app, a digital news reader serving readers around the world with access to thousands of newspapers and magazines. Readers looking for top quality news on their mobile devices can now find the full content of their favourite news sources more easily with the release of a new version of the digital news reader, PressReader, says the company.

Feargal Dalton, who represents PartickWest, told the Glasgow Herald: "I received racial abuse on social media and brought it to the attention of my bosses in the city council. They contacted the police who took a statement from me. The police subsequently contacted me to say they could not proceed with the case because Twitter will not disclose who owns the social media account in question."

Twitch reported 55 million unique visitors in July, who watched 15 billion minutes of streaming content generated by one million unique streamers. The site is responsible for roughly two percent of peak US Internet traffic, according to a DeepField analysis, just ahead of heavyweights like Hulu, Facebook, and Valve. Last year's League of Legends finals drew 32 million total viewers on Twitch, and 8.5 million concurrent watchers at the same time, rivaling viewership for major sporting events like the NBA finals.

To the surprise of Times journalists, a tall speaker on a stand has been erected in the newsroom to pump out typewriter sounds, to increase energy levels and help reporters to hit deadlines. The audio begins with the gentle patter of a single typewriter and slowly builds to a crescendo, with the keys of ranks of machines hammering down as the paper's print edition is due to go to press.

Mail Online claims to have recorded 50m video views in July, up 75 per cent year on year and 36 per cent month on month. The website announced the figures as July's online ABCs showed it recorded 11,039,330 average daily users in the month, up 1 per cent year on year.

Former Sun reporter Ben Ashford was cleared by a jury earlier this month after standing trial accused of possessing criminal property under the Proceeds of Crime Act and breaching the Computer Misuse Act. It can now be revealed that a separate civil claim brought by the woman has been settled on a confidential basis.

Americans have been self-censoring their discussions about state surveillance in the wake of Edward Snowden's revelations in 2013, researchers have found. Approximately 86% of adults were "very" or "somewhat" willing to discuss the findings in person with family, friends or work colleagues or at public meetings, yet only 43% said they would discuss the issues on Facebook.