UK house prices fall in March amid uncertain impact of Middle East conflict

UK house prices fell in March, as the housing market lost momentum amid uncertainty over the conflict in the Middle East and the impact on the economy and interest rates.Figures from Halifax, which is part of Lloyds – Britain’s biggest mortgage lender – showed property prices dipped by 0.5% in March compared with a month earlier. As a result, the average price of a home slipped back below £300,000, to £299,677, after first crossing the milestone in January.The pace of annual property price growth also eased to 0

Oil prices plunge 15% to below $100, stocks surge and dollar slumps after Trump announces US-Iran ceasefire – business live

European gas prices have fallen 20% since the ceasefire was announced, after nearly six weeks of war.The European bellwether front-month gas contract on the Dutch TTF hub initially dropped to €42.50 per megawatt hour this morning, its lowest since 2 March, before rising slightly to €43.46 per megawatt hour.Iran has agreed to reopen the strait of Hormuz, through which around a fifth of the world’s gas and oil passed prior to the war, assuming there are no more strikes from the US and Israel

The life-changing magic of wearing smartglasses | Letters

I read with sympathy the concerns of Elle Hunt in relation to privacy issues around Meta smartglasses (I wore Meta’s smartglasses for a month – and it left me feeling like a creep, 1 April). Clearly there needs to be ongoing development of technology and protocols that protect the public from ill-intentioned users. As the chief executive of a charity supporting people with a visual impairment, however, I would like to emphasise the point touched upon in your article: how transformative this technology is already proving for blind people.We are seeing significant numbers of our visually impaired staff and clients using Meta glasses in conjunction with their mobile phones to improve their ability to perform ordinary functions that most of us take for granted. A visual impairment can be disempowering and isolating

Tell us: do you use AI chatbots to make decisions for you?

AI chatbots like ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude are now a part of everyday life.More and more people are using them to help make decisions in their lives, like sending text messages, deciding what to cook, or navigating relationships.We want to hear about your experiences of using chatbots. Are you addicted to them? And what type of decisions are you using them for?You can tell us your experiences of using chatbots using this form.Please include as much detail as possible

From the Pocket: Music works for a showman like Charlie Cameron but fans need space between the notes

The quote “music is the space between the notes” is usually attributed to the French composer Claude Debussy. Or maybe it was Richard Strauss. Hell, maybe it was Richard Champion. Whoever it was, they were talking about savouring silence, about embracing emptiness, about avoiding anything that insists itself upon you.You don’t get a lot of Debussy at football games

Bryson DeChambeau making his own golf clubs in quest for Masters title

Bryson DeChambeau has revealed the latest strand to his career: golf club manufacturing. The two-time major winner used pre-tournament media duties at the Masters to explain he is making his own clubs, in what marks a stark departure from elite golfers working in tandem with equipment companies.“I think it’s the willingness to always try to improve,” DeChambeau said. “There’s this nature that I have about myself where innovation is a habit of mine and I really find and take pride in that ability to learn, even through failure, even through making a bad decision or a good decision.“South Africa [at the recent LIV event] I was trying wedges