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5 Things You Need To Know, Today, on Friday 10th December 2021
5. Sales of the canned cooked meat Spam have hit a record high for the seventh year in a row, despite pandemic-related challenges.
That helped Hormel, the company that makes the iconic brand, deliver record sales of $3.5bn (£2.65bn) in the three months to the end of October.
4. A crisis at the world's most indebted company has worsened after news it had missed a crucial repayment deadline.
Chinese property giant Evergrande, whose liabilities exceed $300bn (£228bn), failed to meet interest payments to international investors, which prompted rating agency Fitch to declare the company in default.
3. HS2 has signed a £2bn contract with Hitachi and Alstom to build Europe’s fastest operational train, capable of operating at maximum speeds of 225mph.
The deal to make 54 trains for the controversial high-speed network will support or create 2,500 jobs in the UK.
2. The government has announced it is boosting the number of places available on its skills scheme to try to address a chronic shortage of lorry drivers.
It has increased funding for its HGV Skills Bootcamps from £17m to £34m, allowing them to offer 11,000 places instead of 5,000.
1. British households ate out less and spent more on goods as the Omicron coronavirus variant spread last week, that could mean inflation stays high for longer if it marks a return to behaviour seen earlier in the pandemic.
Bank of England policymakers had been counting on a drop-off in demand for consumer goods - which soared during the pandemic and have been beset by supply-chain difficulties - to pull down rapidly rising inflation, now on course to hit 5%.
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