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UK Stock Markets Plunge In Biggest Daily Fall Amid Trump Tariff

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Major UK firms bore the brunt, with Rolls-Royce shedding over 10% and miners like Antofagasta, Glencore, Fresnillo, and Anglo American down more than 8%. Banks also slid, with Barclays and NatWest both falling around 8%.

Markets across Europe and Asia also slumped for a second day. France’s CAC 40 dropped 0.92%, Germany’s DAX 0.74%, while Japan’s Nikkei 225 fell 4.3%. In the US, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq dropped over 4% and 5% respectively, wiping out £1.5 trillion in value.

Trump’s announcement of 10% tariffs on most US imports — and 25% on cars — has rattled investors.

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Trump has detonated the most aggressive trade shock the market has seen in decades,” said Stephen Innes of SPI Asset Management.

READ ALSO: Trump Slams Putin’s Zelensky Remarks, Threatens Oil Tariffs

Olu Sonola of Fitch Ratings warned: “Many countries will likely end up in a recession.”

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Despite market chaos, Trump remained bullish: “The markets are going to boom.” He also claimed UK Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer was “very happy” with the tariffs.

But Starmer responded: “Last night the President of the United States acted for his country, and that is his mandate. Today, I will act in Britain’s interests with mine.”

READ ALSO: BREAKING: China Announces 34% Retaliatory Tariffs On US Imports

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The UK government has set a May 1 deadline for public consultation on retaliatory tariffs and published a list of potential US goods to be targeted. Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds said: “We do reserve the right to take any action we deem necessary if a deal is not secured.”

China has responded to the US move with 34% tariffs on American goods from April 10 and new export controls on rare-earth metals. Its Commerce Ministry said the goal is “to better safeguard national security and interests.”

The global sell-off reflects deepening fears of a full-blown trade war — and thousands of UK jobs, especially in the car industry, are believed to be at risk.

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King Charles To Pray With Pope Leo In Historic Vatican Visit

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King Charles III will on Thursday meet Pope Leo XIV at the Vatican and make history as the first head of the Church of England to pray publicly with the pontiff for five centuries.

The 76-year-old monarch, who is the supreme governor of the Church of England, arrived in Rome on Wednesday evening with his wife, Queen Camilla, for what Buckingham Palace described as a “historic” state visit.

It will be Charles’s first meeting with Leo since the US-born pope took over as head of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics in May, following the death of Pope Francis.

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The royals will arrive at the Apostolic Palace at 10.45am (0845 GMT) for private talks with the pope.

READ ALSO:King Charles III To Visit Vatican Next Week

The king and queen will then join an ecumenical service at midday (1000 GMT) in the Sistine Chapel led by Pope Leo and the archbishop of York, Stephen Cottrell, currently the senior cleric of the Church of England.

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Broadcast live by Vatican media, it will be the first time a reigning English or British monarch has prayed publicly with a pope since English king Henry VIII broke with Rome in 1534.

Triggered by the pope’s refusal to annul the king’s marriage so he could marry another woman, the schism made the monarch head of the separate Church of England.

Thursday’s service, held beneath Michelangelo’s spectacular ceiling frescoes, will be centred on conservation and protecting the environment, a cause championed by Charles.

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READ ALSO:King Charles To Knight David Beckham For Football, Charity Work

It will bring together Catholic and Anglican traditions, with the choir from the Sistine Chapel joined by that from Saint George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, one of the king’s residences.

– Schism –

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The religious break between London and Rome remains, even if there has been a significant rapprochement in recent decades.

In 1961, the late Queen Elizabeth II, Charles’s mother, became the first British monarch to visit the Holy See since the split.

The law was changed in 2013 so that marrying a Catholic would no longer disqualify someone from becoming monarch — although they still have to be a Protestant themselves.

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The rapprochement is important because “Anglicanism was born in reaction to the Catholic Church, and therefore in opposition,” said Hyacinthe Destivelle, a French priest and member of the Vatican’s dicastery (department) for promoting Christian unity.

READ ALSO:King Charles III To Visit Vatican Next Week

This is no longer the case, despite “theological differences in recent decades”, he told AFP.

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Unlike the Roman Catholic Church, the Church of England — the mother church of the world’s 85-million-strong Anglican community — ordains women and allows priests to marry.

Sarah Mullally was recently named the first female archbishop of Canterbury, the Church’s top cleric, although she has yet to officially take up her post.

– Royal Confrater –

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Charles and Queen Camilla are also set to take part in a service at the Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls in Rome, one of four major papal basilicas, which has historic links with the English crown.

READ ALSO:Police Bust Child Trafficking Syndicate In Rivers, Rescue Babies

The king will be made a “Royal Confrater” of the basilica and presented with a specially designed seat for use by him and future British monarchs.

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Charles has visited the Vatican several times and met privately with Pope Francis on April 9, just days before the pontiff’s death.

The king sent his son and heir, William, to the funeral and his brother, Prince Edward, the Duke of Edinburgh, to Leo’s inauguration mass.

The visit comes as the Catholic Church celebrates the Jubilee, a year-long event held every 25 years, which has drawn millions of pilgrims to the Vatican.

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It also comes at a delicate time for Charles, following new revelations about his brother Prince Andrew, who is mired in a scandal surrounding late US sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Andrew announced on Friday that he would relinquish his title as Duke of York, reportedly under pressure from Charles. He had already stepped back from royal duties in 2019.

AFP

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One Dies As Woman Trying To Kill Cockroach Sets House On Fire

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South Korean police have stated that a woman in her 20s set her apartment building on fire while trying to kill a cockroach with an improvised flamethrower.

Local media reports that the woman attempted to burn the insect using a lighter and a flammable spray, saying she had used the same method before. However, items in her home caught fire on Monday, spreading to other parts of the building.

Police in the northern city of Osan said they will seek an arrest warrant for the woman, who could be charged with accidentally starting a fire and causing death by negligence.

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READ ALSO:Lagos Fire Service Rescues Woman From 60-foot Well In Ikorodu

According to the BBC, one of the woman’s neighbours, a Chinese national in her 30s, died while trying to escape the blaze. The victim lived on the fifth floor of the building with her husband and their two-month-old baby.

When the fire broke out, the couple opened their window and called for help. They handed their baby to a neighbour on the adjacent block before attempting to escape. The husband managed to climb over, but the woman fell from the window. She was taken to the hospital and pronounced dead hours later.

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Police said they believed the couple tried escaping through the window because thick smoke from the fire had blocked the stairway.

READ ALSO:Senate Approves Life Imprisonment For Child Defilement Convicts

The building houses commercial shops on the first floor and 32 residential units from the second to fifth floors. Eight other residents also suffered from smoke inhalation.

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Using blowtorches or homemade flamethrowers to kill cockroaches has become a trend on social media. In 2018, an Australian man set fire to his kitchen while attempting to exterminate cockroaches with a similar device.

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ChatGpt Launches New Web Browser To Challenge Google’s Dominance

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ChatGPT maker OpenAI has introduced a new artificial intelligence-powered web browser designed to rival Google Chrome, the world’s most widely used browser.

The new browser, named ChatGPT Atlas, removes the traditional address bar, a key element of internet search.

OpenAI CEO, Sam Altman, said Atlas was “built around ChatGPT” as the company launched the browser on Apple’s macOS on Tuesday.

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The release marks OpenAI’s latest step in finding new ways to generate revenue from its growing AI ecosystem.

READ ALSO:Google Faces Court Battle Over Breakup Of Ad Tech Business

According to the company, Atlas includes a paid agent mode that allows ChatGPT to search and browse automatically for users. The feature is limited to paid ChatGPT subscribers and is designed to make browsing “faster and more useful by working with your browsing context.”

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OpenAI has also been expanding its online ecosystem through partnerships with Etsy, Shopify, Expedia, and Booking.com, integrating its chatbot with popular e-commerce and travel platforms.

At the company’s recent DevDay event, Mr Altman announced that ChatGPT had reached 800 million weekly active users, doubling from 400 million in February, according to Demandsage.

I believe that early adopters will kick the tyres on the new OpenAI browser,” said Pat Moorhead, CEO and chief analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy. However, he expressed doubt that Atlas would significantly challenge Chrome or Microsoft Edge, saying that “more mainstream, beginners, and corporate users will just wait for their favourite browsers to offer this capability.”

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READ ALSO:Perplexity AI Makes $34.5bn Surprise Bid For Google’s Chrome Browser

Mr Moorhead added that Microsoft Edge already offers similar features.

The launch comes a year after Google was found to hold an illegal monopoly in online search. Although the US Justice Department sought to have Chrome spun off, the court did not order such a move.

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Meanwhile, more internet users are turning to large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT for answers and recommendations. According to research firm Datos, as of July, 5.99% of desktop searches were made through LLMs more than double last year’s figure.

Google has also increased its investment in AI and now prioritises AI-generated responses in its search results.

(BBC)

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