Author: LoveWorld UK

THE skipper of the British fishing trawler detained by French authorities, amid a row between London and Paris over post-Brexit fishing licences, will face a court hearing next year, French authorities have said. Meanwhlle a UK-based industry leader has said France’s reaction was “extraordinarily over the top”. Cyrille Fournier, who represents the prosecutor’s office for the French port of Le Havre where the boat was seized, said in a statement that the captain of the Cornelis Gert Jan boat had been asked to appear in court on August 11, 2022. He added that the trawler did not have the required…

NatWest Group tripled its profits in the third quarter to a better than expected £1.1bn thanks to a jump in mortgage lending and a recovery in the economy despite setting aside cash to cover fines linked to money-laundering charges. The bank, which is majority-owned by the taxpayer, said the stronger economic position had allowed it to release £242m worth of provisions in the three months to 30 September, which it had made to cover a potential rise in defaults because of the coronavirus pandemic. That compares with the £254m it put aside during the same period last year. Analysts had…

Rishi Sunak is facing a budget backlash from traditional Tories, with five former cabinet ministers warning the scale of spending and taxes would stifle growth. The chancellor received a lukewarm reception from a string of Conservative grandees after his budget on Wednesday. They put him on notice that they would not put up with a “big state, high tax” situation for long. Sunak has always pitched himself as a fiscally hawkish Tory whose role model is the Thatcherite chancellor Nigel Lawson. He used the second half of his speech to promise backbenchers: “My goal is to reduce taxes.” But despite this…

The Delta COVID-19 variant can easily transmit from vaccinated people to their household members, said a recent UK study, although its researchers concluded that vaccinations and boosters are the way forward. A year-long study from the Imperial College London published in The Lancet on Thursday found that the Delta variant is still highly transmissible within a vaccinated population. “By carrying out repeated and frequent sampling from contacts of COVID-19 cases, we found that vaccinated people can contract and pass on infection within households, including to vaccinated household members,” Dr. Anika Singanayagam, co-lead author of the study, said in a statement. The findings, Singanayagam added, provide some insight…

Britain is planning to remove restrictions such as the travel ‘red list’ of seven countries and hotel quarantine due to a declining COVID-19 threat from abroad, according to reports. UK ministers will meet on Thursday to consider removing the final seven countries, including Colombia and Venezuela, from the red list, The Daily Telegraph reported. The potential move – which is understood to be backed by the Department of Health – would effectively end the need for hotel quarantine due to the measure only applying to travellers arriving to the UK from counties on the red list. As of Wednesday, there were only seven…

Boris Johnson’s government has set a course for a “high-tax, big-state economy” with a budget that will raise household tax bills by £3,000 on average by 2027, according to an analysis by an independent thinktank. The Resolution Foundation said that despite a spending spree, real wages would fall again next year. The UK is “still in the midst of its weakest decade for pay growth since the 1930s,” it said. Sunak portrayed the budget as preparing the “high-wage” economy for the “post-Covid” era, as stronger economic forecasts gave him room to increase spending on government departments by £150bn. However, the Resolution Foundation said real…

The governor of Texas on Monday signed a law that bars student athletes from playing on sports teams that do not match the sex listed on their birth certificate. The bill is aimed at restoring rights granted to women under Title IX, its authors say. Texas House Bill 25 (pdf) requires most interscholastic athletic teams from letting students compete in competitions “that is designated for the biological sex opposite to the student ’s biological sex as correctly stated on” their official birth certificate. The bill “protects girls’ safety and their right to equal access to athletic opportunities,” state Rep. Valoree Swanson, one…

Ronald Koeman’s underwhelming spell as the Barcelona manager came to an abrupt end on Wednesday night after he was sacked following a 1-0 defeat at Rayo Vallecano. His departure ends an unhappy chapter for the former player who won them their first European Cup in 1992 and leaves the club in turmoil on and off the field. The defeat left Barcelona ninth in La Liga on 15 points, six behind a quartet of clubs led by Real Madrid. Barça are third in their Champions League group having lost their opening two matches in Group E 3-0, at home to Bayern Munich and…

Items from popular fast-food chains contain small amounts of certain chemicals in plastics that are believed to disrupt human hormones and possibly cause other serious health problems, a new study suggests. Researchers from George Washington University purchased 64 fast food items from outlets including McDonald’s, Burger King, Pizza Hut, Domino’s, Taco Bell, and Chipotle, and found 10 of 11 potentially harmful chemicals in the samples, including phthalates, and other plasticizers. Phthalates make plastics like polyvinyl chloride (PVC) more flexible and are used in vinyl flooring, adhesives, detergents, lubricating oils, and automotive plastics. People can be exposed by eating and drinking foods and beverages that have been in contact with plastic containers,…

The US communications regulator has voted to revoke China Telecom’s licence in America over national security concerns in the latest pushback by Washington against what it deems possible infiltration of key networks by Chinese companies. The decision by the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) means China Telecom Americas must now discontinue US services within 60 days. China Telecom, the largest Chinese telecommunications company, has had authorisation to provide telecommunications services for nearly 20 years in the United States. The news sent stocks in US-listed Chinese tech firms down sharply and their stocks in Hong Kong also suffered hefty selling, pulling the Hang…