Author: LoveWorld UK

UK house prices hit a record of £282,753 in March but are likely to ease over the next year as homebuyers face higher interest rates and the cost of living squeeze, Halifax has said. The average cost of a home rose by 1.4% on February, according to Halifax’s monthly property index, and is 11% higher than a year ago, about the largest annual increase since the 2007 financial crisis. The new record is about £28,113 higher than a year ago, not far off the average UK earnings over the same period of £28,860. March was also the ninth consecutive month…

An Israeli study found that a fourth dose of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine doesn’t offer long-lived protection against the Omicron variant of the CCP virus. Using Ministry of Health data on more than 1.2 million people, researchers found that a second booster dose of the BioNTech-Pfizer vaccine offered protection against significant COVID-19 infections for six weeks. But protection against all virus infections started to drop quickly after four weeks and nearly disappeared after eight weeks, according to the study, which was published in the New England Journal of Medicine. The researchers, however, said that there appears to be some benefit conferred by a second booster, or fourth…

Rishi Sunak’s multi-millionaire wife claims non-domicile status, it has emerged, which allows her to save millions of pounds in tax on dividends collected from her family’s IT business empire. Akshata Murthy, who receives about £11.5m in annual dividends from her stake in the Indian IT services company Infosys, declares non-dom status, a scheme that allows people to avoid tax on foreign earnings. Murthy, the daughter of Infosys’s billionaire founder, owns a 0.93% stake in the tech firm worth approximately £690m. The company’s most recent accounts suggest that Murthy’s stake would have yielded her £11.6m in dividend payments in the last…

Sometimes the old ones are the best. Written off as too slow to handle the pace of modern football, this was Real Madrid turning back the clock and reminding the rest of Europe that there will always be a place in the game for midfielders as smart as Luka Modric and strikers as deadly as Karim Benzema. It did not matter that Modric is 36 or that Benzema, who has scored consecutive hat-tricks in the Champions League, is 34. By the end the notion that Chelsea would run through Madrid felt preposterous. Carlo Ancelotti, a veteran of these encounters, had outwitted Thomas Tuchel.…

A director of the PPE firm which is under investigation over its links to Tory peer and lingerie tycoon Michelle Mone has suddenly left the company. Voirrey Coole, 40, had been an officer with PPE Medpro since it was formed on May 12, 2020. That same month Lady Mone – who has strenuously denied any association with the company – recommended it to the Cabinet Office as a potential supplier. The firm went on to win contracts worth £203million to supply the NHS with face masks and surgical gowns. In January Labour peer George Foulkes referred Lady Mone – who is married to Isle…

The UK government is set to order more drilling for oil and gas in the North Sea in defiance of its own net zero targets, while neglecting alternative measures that experts say would provide much quicker relief from high energy bills and reduce greenhouse gas emissions instead of raising them. The energy security strategy to be unveiled on Thursday will acknowledge the need to move away from fossil fuels, the Guardian understands, but still allow for licences to explore new oil and gas fields to be expedited and more production from existing North Sea fields. Ministers are expected to say the UK needs more…

A former P&O Ferries chef is reportedly suing the company for unfair dismissal, racial discrimination and harassment. John Lansdown has filed a tribunal claim against the company and its chief executive, and is seeking financial compensation and exemplary damages of up to £76m, according to the BBC. P&O Ferries said its job cuts were “categorically not based on race or the nationality of the staff involved”, in a statement carried by the broadcaster. Lansdown said the action was about the “bigger picture”, telling the BBC: “This is not just about me. Seven hundred and ninety-nine of my seafaring family have…

U.S. counties with the highest rates of vaccination against COVID-19 are currently experiencing more cases than those with the lowest vaccination rates, according to data collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The 500 counties where 62 to 95 percent of the population has been vaccinated detected more than 75 cases per 100,000 residents on average in the past week. Meanwhile, the 500 counties where 11 to 40 percent of the population has been vaccinated averaged about 58 cases per 100,000 residents. The data is skewed by the fact that the CDC suppresses figures for counties with very low numbers of detected…

Manchester City were not the smooth operators they so often are but this slender victory may prove invaluable when the tie is decided in next week’s return at Wanda Metropolitano. For this they can thank Phil Foden and his schemer’s eye, the youngster threading the decisive pass that released Kevin De Bruyne who, on his 50th Champions League appearance for City, made no mistake for a winner that was his 11th goal in the competition for the club. It means Pep Guardiola’s side travel to Spain content yet wary as Atlético Madrid are the definition of a streetwise outfit who know when to punish,…

Hospital inspectors have uncovered repeated maternity failings and expressed serious concern about the safety of mothers and babies in Sheffield just days after a damning report warned there had been hundreds of avoidable baby deaths in Shrewsbury. The Care Quality Commission (CQC) found Sheffield teaching hospitals NHS foundation trust, one of the largest NHS trusts in England, had failed to make the required improvements to services when it visited in October and November, despite receiving previous warnings from the watchdog. As well as concerns across the wider trust, a focused inspection on maternity raised significant issues about the way its service is run. When…