Author: LoveWorld UK

British lenders approved the highest number of mortgages since September 2007 last month, unexpectedly extending a post-lockdown surge, but there was a record drop in unsecured lending to consumers, Bank of England data showed on Thursday. Mortgage approvals for house purchase jumped to 91,454 in September from August’s already-high reading of 85,530, exceeding all forecasts in a Reuters poll of economists that had instead pointed to a decline. Activity in Britain’s housing market has rebounded sharply since the end of lockdown restrictions and was further fuelled when finance minister Rishi Sunak temporarily suspended property purchase taxes in July. Earlier this…

 Prices in British shops fell more slowly this month than in September, reflecting the smallest discounting for non-food items since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, figures from the British Retail Consortium showed on Wednesday. The BRC said its shop price index showed a 1.2% annual fall in prices in October compared with a 1.6% drop in September Food prices rose by an annual 1.2% in both months, but the fall in non-food prices slowed to 2.7% from September’s 3.2%. Official data showed purchases of non-food items exceed pre-pandemic levels last month, but BRC chief executive Helen Dickinson said she…

Lloyds Banking Group LLOY.L posted forecast-beating third quarter profit on Thursday, cashing in on a coronavirus-driven boom in demand for mortgages as it lowered its provisions for expected bad loans due to the pandemic. Britain’s biggest domestic lender reported pre-tax profits of 1 billion pounds for the July-September period, well ahead of the 588 million pounds average of analysts’ forecasts. It booked new mortgage lending of 3.5 billion pounds after receiving the biggest surge in quarterly applications since 2008 – equal to 22% of the UK market share for approvals – as a cut in property transaction taxes and pent-up demand boosted…

A knife-wielding attacker shouting “Allahu Akbar” beheaded a woman and killed two other people in a suspected terrorist attack at a church in the French city of Nice on Thursday, police and officials said. Nice’s mayor, Christian Estrosi, who described the attack as terrorism, said on Twitter it had happened in or near the city’s Notre Dame church and that police had detained the attacker. Estrosi said the attacker had shouted the phrase “Allahu Akbar”, or God is greatest. One of the people killed inside the church was believed to be the church warden, Estrosi said. The attacker kept shouting…

A councillor who claims that Covid-19 is a ‘fake virus’ which does not exist has compared life under lockdown to ‘living in North Korea’. Irene Hewitson, an Independent member of Great Aycliffe Town Council in Co Durham, said she will believe that coronavirus exists ‘when my neighbours, relatives, friends and work people are dying around me’. Speaking at an anti-lockdown rally in Durham city centre, the outspoken councillor compared the virus to the flu and suggested the pandemic would be over ‘if people turned their TVs off and just took their masks off’. ‘We’re being locked down over a fake virus. I don’t believe the…

Liverpool laboured to a 2-0 win over Denmark’s Midtjylland on Tuesday as a goal from Diogo Jota and a Mohamed Salah penalty secured a hard-fought Champions League Group D victory at Anfield. The win came at a cost, however, as Liverpool manager Juergen Klopp suffered another defensive blow with Brazilian Fabinho limping off in the first half with what appeared to be a hamstring injury. Fabinho had been deputising for central defender Virgil van Dijk, who is out with a long-term knee injury, and he was replaced by 19-year-old Rhys Williams. “It is exactly the last thing we needed,” said…

The chief executives of three large tech companies will defend a law protecting internet companies before a Senate panel on Wednesday – a topic that has split U.S. lawmakers on ways to hold Big Tech accountable for how they moderate content on their platforms. Facebook Inc’s FB.O Mark Zuckerberg, Twitter Inc’s TWTR.N Jack Dorsey and Google’s GOOGL.O Sundar Pichai will tell the committee chaired by Republican Senator Roger Wicker that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act – which protects companies from liability over content posted by users – is crucial to free expression on the internet. Twitter’s Dorsey will warn the committee that eroding the…

The Russian parliament approved a bill on Wednesday that would give national legislation precedence over international treaties and rulings from international bodies in cases when they conflict with Russia’s constitution. The bill’s approval is likely to spark concern among rights advocates in Russia. Every year hundreds of Russians appeal to the European Court of Human Rights seeking justice that they say they have been denied at home. The State Duma, Russia’s lower house of parliament, said in a statement that lawmakers had voted to approve the bill, originally proposed by President Vladimir Putin, in a third reading. It said the…

Watch the latest video at foxnews.com Hoover Institution senior fellow Victor Davis Hanson condemned New Zealand’s institution of coronavirus quarantine “camps” on “The Ingraham Angle” Tuesday. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, of the center-left New Zealand Labour Party, announced in a video that if people sent to the camp refuse to be tested, they will be required to remain another two weeks after their initial two-week stay. Ardern called the warning a “pretty good incentive” to get tested for COVID-19. “You either get your test done and make sure you are cleared, or we will keep you in a facility longer,” she said. “So I think most…

BP BP.L swung back to a small profit in the third quarter but warned the pace of recovery from the pandemic remains uncertain and continued to weigh on fuel demand and refining profits. The London-based company said that while fuel demand in Asia, particularly in China, was recovering, global consumption remained weak so far in the fourth quarter. BP’s shares are down more than 50% this year and remain near 25-year lows, battered by weak oil prices and investor concerns about BP’s ability to successfully shift to renewable energy from fossil fuels. The coronavirus crisis will however not slow BP’s transition plans,…