Average house price tops £300,000 for first time, says Halifax

Abhishek Dey and Arunoday Mukharji in India and Jessica Parker in Brussels EPA/Shutterstock (From left) European Council President António Costa, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in Delhi on Tuesday The European Union and India have announced a landmark trade deal after nearly two decades of on-off talks,…

The Spanish government has fined property rentals giant Airbnb €64m (£56m) for advertising unlicensed apartments. It also said that some of the properties advertised in the popular tourist destination were banned from being rented. The fine means that Airbnb has to withdraw the adverts promoting unlicensed properties. Although the Consumer Affairs Ministry said the fine…

Faarea MasudBusiness reporter Getty Images ITV has said it is in “preliminary” discussions to sell its television business to Sky for £1.6bn. The talks focus on ITV’s Media and Entertainment division, which include its TV channels as well as its streaming service, ITV X. The discussions with Sky, which is owned by US-based Comcast, come…

Firstly, because some producers are heavily exposed to disruption in the Middle East. ExxonMobil, for instance, has operations at Qatar’s Ras Laffan industrial hub, where production has been shut down since early March, and which has now been hit by Iranian missile attacks, causing “extensive damage”.

Ofcom has made “urgent contact” with Elon Musk’s company xAI following reports its AI tool Grok can be used to make “sexualised images of children” and undress women. A spokesperson for the regulator said it was also investigating concerns Grok has been producing “undressed images” of people. The BBC has seen several examples on the…