New method reported to cut number of false positives by 87% has been registered with regulator for approval
A new swab test could help hundreds of thousands of women a year in the UK who may have womb cancer avoid having an often painful invasive procedure to detect the disease.
About 800,000 women annually go to see a GP because they are suffering from abnormal bleeding from their uterus and then undergo uncomfortable and stressful investigations to identify the cause.
Continue reading...Parents banned from school sites after leaders spat at and trolled, poll finds
Four in five school leaders in England, Wales and Northern Ireland say they have suffered abuse from pupils’ parents in the past year, according to a poll that found they had been spat at, trolled on social media and even physically attacked.
The problem has become so serious that more than two out of five (42%) of those who took part in the survey said they had been forced to ban parents from the school site in the last year. Nearly a third (32%) have reported parents to the police and almost three-quarters (72%) have issued a warning letter or email.
Continue reading...UCL team is inviting parents to share their experiences, as age at which children in west acquire the skill rises
Storybooks about potties, underpants featuring superheroes, rewards for doing a wee: toilet training is a rite of passage for any child. But with the average age of toilet training steadily creeping upwards, scientists are now hoping to crack the question of which methods are most effective.
A team at University College London is inviting people from across the world to share their experiences and techniques as part of the Big Toilet Project. The ultimate aim is to uncover evidence that could help parents toilet train children earlier and reduce the massive contribution that disposable nappies make to landfill waste.
Continue reading...Monarch keen to put his soft power to use amid Trump’s incendiary rhetoric on Canada and tension over Ukraine
King Charles is “very conscious” of his global responsibility and unique diplomatic role, and is determined to put that to use, a royal source said, after his meeting with the Canadian prime minister on Monday.
Charles met Justin Trudeau at his Sandringham estate in Norfolk, a day after he received the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Continue reading...Keir Starmer won praise for taking the UK ‘back to the heart of Europe’ at the weekend, but will it be a long-term move?
Britain is back. That was the concise verdict of Eléonore Caroit, the vice-chair of the French national assembly’s foreign affairs committee. And the optics of Sunday’s crisis talks on Ukraine bore this out, with Keir Starmer at the very centre of the leaders’ joint photo.
“You are back on the scene, of the leadership in Europe,” Caroit told the BBC on Monday morning. James MacClearly, the Liberal Democrat MP who speaks for the party on Europe, was equally adamant, praising the prime minister for taking this chance “to bring us back to the heart of Europe where we belong”.
Continue reading...Prime minister says UK must strengthen relationship with US for security
As Jakub Krupa and Martin Belam report on our Europe live blog, Emmanuel Macron, the French president, is floating proposals for a month-long ceasefire in Ukraine covering air, sea and attacks on critical infrastructure.
In interviews this morning, Luke Pollard, the defence minister, played down reports that this is a plan that Britain is formally backing. Asked about French government claims to this effect, he replied:
No agreement has been made on what a truce looks like, and so I don’t recognise the precise part you mentioned there. But we are working together with France and our European allies to look at what is the path to how … we create a lasting and durable peace in Ukraine.
You wouldn’t expect me to get into the details of what that plan looks like, because at the moment, the only person that would benefit from those details being put in the public domain before any plan is agreed would be President Putin.
Continue reading...Lord Hendy says important changes are happening but they follow ‘six years of torpor’
Passengers may lose patience with the government before it can make the changes needed to fix the railway, the rail minister, Lord Hendy, admitted, as he promised that action was coming after “years of torpor”.
The government is midway through a consultation on plans for a reformed, integrated Great British Railways (GBR), with legislation to enact it coming later in 2025, Hendy said.
Continue reading...The Cranston inquiry has begun hearing evidence into the biggest ever loss of life in a Channel migrant crossing
An inquiry into the biggest ever loss of life in a migrant dinghy in the Channel has heard that it was ‘entirely predictable’ that a catastrophic event involving mass casualties would occur.
On Monday the Cranston inquiry began hearing evidence into the drownings of at least 27 people on 24 November 2021 in the narrow stretch of water separating the UK from France.
Continue reading...Reform leader accused of ‘equivocating over Russia’s illegal war’ after criticising Volodymyr Zelenskyy
The Conservatives have compared Nigel Farage to Jeremy Corbyn after the Reform UK leader said Volodymyr Zelenskyy had been “rude” to Donald Trump, as well as criticising the Ukrainian president for not wearing a suit to the Oval Office.
The Liberal Democrats accused Farage of parroting White House talking points after Farage denied that Elon Musk and Steve Bannon had given Nazi salutes, saying their gestures were “out to the side and not in front”.
Continue reading...The Brutalist composer Daniel Blumberg mentioned the experimental music space in his acceptance speech
The co-owner of a cafe in east London that doubles up as a venue for creative new music in the evenings said he was stunned that an Oscar winner mentioned it during his acceptance speech.
Hamish Dunbar, of Cafe Oto in Dalston, woke up on Monday to find the 150-capacity venue had received the shoutout at the Oscars from Daniel Blumberg, the composer of The Brutalist score.
Continue reading...Guardian analysis lays bare a neglected system that is ruinously expensive, and often fails children and parents
The alarming details of the special educational needs financial crisis in English local authorities are buried deep in internal council papers but the reality of the situation is crystal-clear to those close to it. “It’s a ticking timebomb,” one town hall boss told the Guardian. “It’s what keeps me awake at night.”
Budget reports, schools forum minutes and financial planning documents help tell a story of a system woefully unprepared for the explosion in numbers of children with special educational needs and disabilities (Send) in recent years, chronically underfunded to meet the growing demand, and now struggling to keep afloat.
Continue reading...UN-commissioned study in UK, US, Ireland, Australia, Canada and New Zealand finds satisfaction rises with age
For more than half a century, the midlife crisis has been a feature of western society. Fast cars, impulsive decisions, and peak misery between the age of 40 and 50. But all that is changing, according to experts.
In a new paper commissioned by the UN, the leading academics Jean Twenge and David Blanchflower warn that a burgeoning youth mental health crisis in six English-speaking countries worldwide is upending the traditional pattern of happiness across our lifetimes.
Continue reading...Workers earning under £123 a week to get 80% of salary in sick pay, keeping more people off benefits
More than 1 million of the lowest-paid UK workers are to be guaranteed sick pay worth up to 80% of their weekly salary from the first day of sickness, under changes intended to boost living standards.
The UK has one of the stingiest rates of statutory sick pay in the developed world, according to the Resolution Foundation, with those earning less than £123 a week not entitled to anything. For the rest, the rate is set at just £116.75 a week at present, rising to £118.75 – or £3 an hour – for full-time workers from April, but that only kicks in after three days of sickness.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Medics more sleep deprived now than during Covid crisis amid staff shortages and surging demand
One in three doctors in the NHS are so tired that their ability to treat patients is impaired, according to a report that reveals medics are more sleep deprived now than during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Longer hours, staff shortages and soaring demand for care on top of the backlog that worsened during the Covid crisis are causing extreme tiredness among doctors, leading to memory blanks, problems concentrating and patient harm.
Continue reading...Sole previous scoring credit on a full-length film for the singer, guitar player and visual artist is The World to Come
The young British composer Daniel Blumberg has won his first Oscar for his second-ever musical score for a feature film, for Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist.
Blumberg, 34, won the Bafta award last month for the score, which has met with considerable praise and which plays a prominent role in the film. The Brutalist is the story of a fictitious Hungarian architect, László Tóth, who moves to the US after surviving the Holocaust.
Anora takes home best picture Oscar
Adrien Brody and Mikey Madison win best acting prizes
Kieran Culkin and Zoe Saldaña win supporting awards
Anora’s Sean Baker wins for directing, editing and screenplay
Continue reading...Scottish Wildlife Trust plans to create rainforest, restore peatland and end deer stalking on Highland sporting estate
Scottish conservationists hope to convert a Highland sporting estate into a rewilding showcase after a mystery benefactor gave them more than £17.5m to buy it.
The Scottish Wildlife Trust (SWT), best known for its small nature reserves, has bought Inverbroom estate near Ullapool in north-west Scotland, complete with an 11-bedroom lodge that boasts an indoor swimming pool.
Continue reading...‘Sluggish’ pace in tackling gender pay gap and worsening employment levels push UK back to 18th in PwC index of OECD countries
Women’s worsening unemployment and participation in the workforce has pulled the UK behind Canada to its lowest ranking for workplace equality among large economies in a decade.
The “sluggish” pace of change on women’s earnings relative to men’s – which means closing the gender pay gap could take more than 30 years at the current pace – has knocked the UK back one place to 18th in the Women in Work Index produced by advisory firm PwC.
Continue reading...Committee says firms should be required to say how they will tackle modern slavery in supply chains
The government must close loopholes that enable firms exploiting workers to undercut British businesses or risk the UK becoming a “dumping ground” for goods made in poor conditions, MPs have said.
In a report published on Monday, the business and trade select committee calls on the government to make it mandatory for companies to say how they will tackle modern slavery in their supply chain and to introduce bigger penalties for firms that do not comply, including “naming and shaming” businesses.
Continue reading...The continent’s role in any ceasefire will be limited unless countries commit more to Kiev and the Zelenskyy-Trump relationship is repaired
Europe and the UK are hoping they are on the brink of assembling a credible military coalition that Donald Trump can only refuse to support at risk of appearing openly to ally with Vladimir Putin – an alliance many grassroots Republicans reject.
The plan is a long shot since it requires enough countries inside Nato to offer practical support to such a coalition of the willing, and also needs Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian president, to patch up his relations with Donald Trump following Friday’s Oval Office meeting.
Continue reading...One HSBC banker was paid up to £16.6m in 2024 while figure at Barclays was £14.8m after loosening of pay rules
The demise of the UK banker bonus cap has sent pay soaring at Barclays and HSBC where the highest paid bankers have received their biggest payouts since at least 2014.
Analysis of pay documents released this month shows payouts for their most expensive staff surged more than 50% to nearly €20m (£16.6m) last year, after the banks took advantage of looser pay rules and allowed staff to be paid bonuses worth 10 times their salary.
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