Author: BBC

Mortgage costs are still the biggest challenge facing homebuyers and those coming to the end of fixed-term deals, the UK’s biggest mortgage lender has said.However, the squeeze caused by higher interest rates is likely to ease gradually as incomes rise and house price growth remains subdued, said Amanda Bryden, the head of mortgages at Halifax.According to the lender’s latest figures, the average UK house price was relatively flat in June, falling by 0.2% from the previous month.The average house price in the UK stood at £288,455 last month, the Halifax said, edging down from £288,931 in May.Prices were up 1.6%…

Other EU leaders have expressed concern over media reports that Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban may be meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Friday.Mr Orban – whose country now holds the EU rotating presidency – is the bloc’s only head of national government to have kept close ties to the Kremlin following its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.European Council President Charles Michel said Mr Orban had “no mandate to engage with Russia on behalf of the EU”, while Polish PM Donald Tusk asked for clarification.Several media outlets reported about Mr Orban’s apparent forthcoming visit, quoting their sources.The…

Coastguards in Mauritania have recovered 89 bodies of migrants from a boat that capsized in the Atlantic Ocean on Monday. Nine people – including a five-year-old girl – were rescued, but dozens more are missing. Survivors say the vessel – a traditional fishing boat – set sail last week from the Senegalese-Gambian border area with 170 people on board. It capsized off Mauritania’s south-western coast.Mauritania is a key transit point for migrants trying to reach Europe from West Africa, with thousands of boats departing from the country last year.The most common destination on the perilous route is Spain’s Canary Islands.…

Samsung Electronics expects its profits for the three months to June 2024 to jump 15-fold compared to the same period last year.An artificial intelligence (AI) boom has lifted the prices of advanced chips, driving up the firm’s forecast for the second quarter. The South Korean tech giant is the world’s largest maker of memory chips, smartphones and televisions.The announcement pushed Samsung shares up more than 2% during early trading hours in Seoul.The firm also reported a more than 10-fold jump in its profits for the first three months of this year. In this quarter, it said it is expecting its…

President Joe Biden is facing pressure from some major Democratic donors as he faces a critical few days in his campaign for re-election. A number of donors are publicly warning they will withhold funds unless Mr Biden is replaced as the party’s candidate following his disastrous debate performance last week. They include Abigail Disney, an heiress to the Disney family fortune, Hollywood producer Damon Lindelof, Hollywood agent Ari Emanuel, and philanthropist and entrepreneur Gideon Stein. Mr Biden is seeking to shore up his candidacy this weekend, including with a rare primetime TV interview on Friday and a rally in Wisconsin.…

30 minutes agoBy Sam Granville and Christal Hayes, BBC News, Los Angeles EPAExperts say arresting or fining people sleeping outdoors will deepen the problem by making it harder for these individuals to get out homelessness. “I still have 20 more minutes before I have to move,” Anthony yelled from his green tent on a Hollywood sidewalk as he heard footsteps approaching.Officials in Los Angeles had come by earlier to warn him that he could face arrest if he didn’t move his belongings.They told him about the recent Supreme Court opinion that opened the door for cities and states across the US to…

52 minutes agoShareA selection of the week’s best photos from across the African continent:JOHN WESSELS/AFPOn the eve of Mauritania’s presidential election, a man arrives at the Grand Mosque in Nouakchott for Friday prayers… JOHN WESSELS/AFPDays later supporters of the incumbent president celebrate his re-election. The runner-up, an anti-slavery campaigner, alleges that the vote was stolen.LEON NEAL/GETTY IMAGESOn Saturday, Ayra Starr becomes the first Afrobeats artist to perform on the Pyramid stage at the UK’s Glastonbury Festival…OLI SCARFF/AFPFollowed the next day by fellow Nigerian star Burna Boy.GILBERT FLORES/GETTY IMAGESAlso on Sunday, South African singer Tyla appears at the BET awards in…

53 minutes agoBy Michael Dempsey, Technology ReporterAerolaneDubbed the “flying piano”, Aerolane’s test aircraft is surfing air currentsUS start-up Aerolane is seeking the secret to airborne surfing.Geese already know how to do it. When you see them flying in a v-formation, they are surfing on the air currents created by formation members ahead and around them.At an airfield in Texas, Todd Graetz is hoping to use that concept to disrupt the market for air cargo.Aerolane has been mimicking the tricks used by migrating birds, aided by modified planes towed into the air by another aircraft.Smoke released from the leading plane allowed cameras installed…

35 minutes agoBy Tom Singleton, Technology reporterGetty ImagesThree decades on from the day it began, it is hard to get your head around the scale of Amazon.Consider its vast warehouse in Dartford, on the outskirts of London. It has millions of stock items, with hundreds of thousands of them bought every day – and it takes two hours from the moment something is ordered, the company says, for it to be picked, packed and sent on its way.Now, picture that scene and multiply it by 175. That’s the number of “fulfilment centres”, as Amazon likes to call them, that it has around…

A US citizen has been sentenced to 12.5 years at a maximum security penal colony by a Russian court after being convicted on drugs charges. Robert Woodland, 32, was detained in Moscow in January and accused by prosecutors of seeking to sell a large quantity of methadone. His lawyer told the Reuters news agency that he had partially confessed to the charges.Mr Woodland, who was born in Russia and adopted when he was two, had travelled to the country in 2020 to find his birth mother. His journey was documented by a Russian reality TV programme.He is the latest US…