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Holiday home owners’ banking details to be handed over to taxmanHMRC will use international rules to investigate people with holiday lets and ‘side hustle’ businessesHoliday home owners will have their bank account details scraped by HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) as part of a global tax crackdown. From January 2024, rental platforms, food delivery apps, freelance websites and others facilitating various “side hustles” will be ordered to share users’ details – including bank account information – with HMRC as the taxman clamps down on people failing to declare extra income.Up to five million businesses and holiday let owners are expected to be impacted, according to the taxman’s estimates.
Apple Maps Expands to Denmark and Greece, Enhances User Experience Before experiencing the improved Apple Maps, users may have found it somewhat lacking in certain features that are crucial for navigation. However, Apple has responded by introducing enhancements to the app, including custom-designed 3D models of landmarks and more detailed directions.One notable update is the implementation of augmented reality in turn-by-turn walking directions, which resembles Google's Street View. This marks the 20th expansion of Apple's meticulously built mapping data.According to Apple, these updates make trip planning and navigation more enjoyable, thanks to increased accuracy, comprehensive bicycle directions, detailed views of roads, buildings, parks, and airports, as well as three-dimensional landmarks.
Microsoft: October Windows 10 security updates fail to installMicrosoft says Windows 10 security updates released during this month's Patch Tuesday may fail to install with 0x8007000d errors, although initially displaying progress.Microsoft encouraged users facing this problem to file a report through the company's Feedback Hub.Additionally, the company advised affected customers to consult this support page, offering supplementary guidance on resolving issues related to updating Windows.
‘I won’t pay for them to pollute my river’: why a UK water bills boycott is growingAngler Mike Deacon is among a growing number of customers refusing to pay water companies as they protest against sewage spillages and contaminationFor 13 years, Mike Deacon monitored pollution levels in the river Ouse in Sussex, gathering data as a volunteer to help the Environment Agency take action. As a lifelong angler who grew up close to the river, its waters were precious to him.Now he is taking Southern Water to court, counter-suing the company for “loss of amenity” after it began legal action over his unpaid bills. Since 2021 Deacon has refused to pay more than £1 a month because he blames Southern Water for river pollution.Deacon is one of a number of customers withholding money from their water bills, with others joining a bills boycott and refusing to pay the wastewater element of their bills in protest at river and sea pollution.“So, on the one hand, I’m having to pay for them to pollute my river,” Deacon said. “And on the other, I’m having to pay for their fines, and put money into the pockets of their shareholders. I’m not doing it.”
Drought conditions in the Mediterranean set to soarGreece is among five countries that will be affected by drought in the Mediterranean region due to climate change, according to scientific forecasts published by the European Commission based on the European Drought Risk Atlas which assess the consequences of water scarcity under the three scenarios of a 1.5, 2 or 3 degree Celsius rise in temperature over the coming decades.The risk concerns agricultural production, availability of drinking water, the state of lakes and rivers, and the possibility of producing electricity from hydroelectric power stations.
Anthropologists Reconstruct Face of Homo heidelbergensisAnthropologists in Greece have used facial reconstruction techniques to show how Homo heidelbergensis, a poorly understood relative of Neanderthals that lived between 700,000 to 200,000 years ago, might have once looked.
‘They don’t go for jewellery any more’: Olive oil theft on the rise in GreeceAs poor harvests send prices soaring, one raid mounted on a quiet rural grower netted an illicit haul worth €300,000he Polygyros olive oil cooperative does not seem a likely target for a heist. If anything, its setting, at the foot of the Holomontas mountain in Halkidiki, evokes the bucolic innocence of rural Greece.Certainly its breezeblock warehouses bear little resemblance to the modern premises that house the Mitseas olive mills in southern Messinia. But in recent weeks both have been targeted by thieves, who gained entry through a battered iron door in Polygyros and a hi-tech security portal in Messinia. “The oil has gone,” said Yannis Keliafanos, a farmer at the cooperative. “There is very little of it left.”
Rylan Clark to host new dating series Hot Mess SummerRylan Clark is set to host a new dating reality series called Hot Mess Summer which will be released on Amazon Prime Video.Eight party-loving Britons will be challenged to spend the summer running a bar in one of Zante’s busiest party spots.In the six-part series, the participants think they will be arriving for a summer of fun when they have actually been nominated by their friends, who are sick of their antics on a night out, to successfully run a bar at the height of holiday season where they will be tasked with mixing cocktails and cleaning toilets.
Ionian Islands Region Requests for Corfu to be Included in Guinness Book of RecordsThe Region of Ionian Islands recently submitted a request to the Guinness Book of Records seeking for Corfu’s recognition as the island with the most musicians and philharmonic bands per capita.
An app shows how ancient Greek sites looked thousands of years ago. It’s a glimpse of future techTourists at the Acropolis this holiday season can witness the resolution of one of the world’s most heated debates on cultural heritage.All they need is a smartphone.Visitors can now pinch and zoom their way around the ancient Greek site, with a digital overlay showing how it once looked. That includes a collection of marble sculptures removed from the Parthenon more than 200 years ago that are now on display at the British Museum in London. Greece has demanded they be returned.For now, an app supported by Greece’s Culture Ministry allows visitors to point their phones at the Parthenon temple, and the sculptures housed in London appear back on the monument as archaeologists believe they looked 2,500 years ago.