Author: LoveWorld UK

Britain’s health minister on Wednesday hailed the use of a steroid called dexamethasone for treating coronavirus patients as the best news so far of the outbreak. Trial results announced on Tuesday showed dexamethasone, which is used to reduce inflammation in other diseases such as arthritis, reduced death rates by around a third among the most severely ill COVID-19 patients admitted to hospital. “It does increase your chances of survival quite significantly,” Health Secretary Matt Hancock told Sky News. “It is one of the best pieces of news we’ve had through this whole crisis.” He said that the R-rate was below…

HSBC is resuming plans to cut around 35,000 jobs which it put on ice after the coronavirus outbreak, as Europe’s biggest bank grapples with the impact on its already falling profits. It will also maintain a freeze on almost all external hiring, Chief Executive Noel Quinn said in a memo sent to HSBC’s 235,000 staff worldwide on Wednesday and seen by Reuters. “We could not pause the job losses indefinitely – it was always a question of ‘not if, but when’,” Quinn said, adding that the measures first announced in February were “even more necessary today”. An HSBC spokeswoman confirmed…

British inflation fell to its lowest since June 2016 last month as the coronavirus pandemic sucked demand from the global economy and oil prices tumbled, leaving the Bank of England free to ramp up its stimulus programme again. Consumer price inflation slowed to 0.5% from April’s 0.8%, the Office for National Statistics said, in line with the average forecast in a Reuters poll of economists. “There was a continued drop in prices at the pump in May, following the huge crude price falls seen in recent months,” ONS Deputy National Statistician Jonathan Athow said. Core inflation — which excludes typically…

Facebook Inc said on Tuesday it would affix labels to political ads shared by users on their own feeds, closing what critics have said for years was a glaring loophole in the company’s election transparency measures. The world’s biggest social network has attached a “paid for by” disclaimer to political ads since 2018, after facing a backlash for failing to stop Russia from using its platforms to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election. But the label disappeared once people shared the ads to their own feeds, which critics said undermined its utility and allowed misinformation to continue spreading unchecked. “Previously…

Most Americans do not trust social media companies to make the right decisions about what should be allowed on their platforms, but trust the government even less to make those choices, according to a poll released on Tuesday by Gallup and the Knight Foundation. The debate over online content moderation, already in the spotlight during the COVID-19 pandemic and run-up to the U.S. election, has intensified in recent weeks as Twitter Inc and Facebook Inc diverged on how to handle inflammatory posts by President Donald Trump. Here are some key poll findings: WHAT SHOULD BE ALLOWED? The new poll found…

British airline EasyJet (EZJ.L) said it had pushed back the delivery of 24 aircraft to between 2025 and 2027 and secured additional flexibility on orders from planemaker Airbus (AIR.PA) as part of its planning for a smaller travel market. EasyJet is not expecting travel demand to recover to its pre-coronavirus levels until 2023 and the airline has been under strain due to months without revenues during lockdown. It said in May it needed to cut 4,500 jobs, or 30% of its workforce. It had already said in April it would defer the 24 planes. Shares in the company traded up…

The number of people on British company payrolls fell by more than 600,000 in April and May as the coronavirus lockdown hit the labour market, and vacancies plunged by the most on record, official data showed on Tuesday. The jobless rate unexpectedly held at 3.9% over the three months to April – despite a record slump in overall economic output during that period – as firms turned to the government’s job retention scheme to keep employees on their books. Economists polled by Reuters had mostly expected a rise in the unemployment rate to 4.7%. “The furlough scheme continues to hold…

Long queues of shoppers snaked outside some stores in England from early in the morning on Monday, with discount fashion retailer Primark proving a big draw as non-essential shops reopened their doors after 83 days of lockdown. Queues formed outside several branches of Primark, which does not sell online so has not taken a penny in the country for weeks. In Birmingham, home to the world’s biggest Primark, the store opened early as hundreds of people lined up outside. Department stores, clothing retailers, electrical outlets and bookshops have been closed since March 23 when Prime Minister Boris Johnson imposed a…

British finance minister Rishi Sunak must extend the government’s already huge coronavirus income support measures to include over 1 million more workers who have missed out, lawmakers said on Monday. People who started jobs after a cut-off date in March for the state’s wage subsidy scheme or who set up a company in the last year should not be excluded, the lawmakers from parliament’s influential Treasury Committee said. Self-employed people who earn more than a threshold set by the government, freelancers in industries such as theatre and television and directors of companies who pay themselves in dividends should also be…

The crowded daily commute in London has long been a source of misery for millions. But getting to work will be even more of a challenge following Britain’s coronavirus lockdown. Capacity on the transport network in one of the world’s biggest financial hubs has been reduced by 85% to comply with social-distancing rules, protecting commuters by preventing them cramming into trains, the London Underground and buses. Everyone using public transport must also now wear a face covering. As the lockdown restrictions are gradually eased, many now face the quandary of how to reach the City of London, Canary Wharf and…