Exclusive: mother of Emily Whelan hopes tests that helped prove Stewart was murdered may shed light on daughter’s death
The mother of a woman with epilepsy who died in 2016 hopes the high-profile murder of Diane Stewart could hold the key to establishing her daughter’s cause of death.
Emily Whelan, 25, was found unresponsive in her bedroom in Leeds on 7 November 2016 and pronounced dead the next day at Leeds general infirmary.
Continue reading...Nice approves Keytruda, which with chemotherapy can lengthen survival of women with triple negative breast cancer
Women with advanced breast cancer in England will be able to benefit from a new type of immunotherapy on the NHS after a U-turn by the medicines watchdog.
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) has overturned its draft rejection of Keytruda (pembrolizumab) and said women in England can take the drug in combination with chemotherapy.
Continue reading...Time is running out to save 58 resident species, Butterfly Conservation warns
Half of Britain’s butterfly species are now listed as threatened with extinction after five more joined the new “red list” of endangered butterflies.
The increase in the number of species listed as “vulnerable” from nine in 2011 to 16 today is a warning that time is running out to save the 58 resident species, according to Butterfly Conservation, which compiled the red list from scientific monitoring data according to the criteria set out by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
Continue reading...Exclusive: panel says organisers have failed to engage city’s diverse groups in a meaningful way
Organisers of the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham have left diverse communities feeling “largely ignored” and have failed to engage them in a meaningful way, according to a report.
The Birmingham Race Impact Group (BRIG) commissioned a panel of race equality practitioners and consultants to assess the Games in a number of areas including legacy, community engagement and procurement.
Continue reading...After an error on a visa application form, Sarah slipped into immigration limbo
Six years ago, when she was 24, Sarah received an unexpected letter from the Home Office telling her she faced arrest and removal from the UK within seven days. She was so terrified that she climbed out of the back window of the house where she was living, taking her seven-year-old son with her, and they became homeless.
Sarah, who asked for her real name not to be published, had been in the UK since she arrived in 1994 as a two-year-old refugee from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. She had attended primary and secondary school in the UK and was working and paying taxes in London, but her uncertain immigration status had not been resolved when she was a child. As an adult she was required every three years to pay fees of about £1,000 to apply for visas that would allow her to remain. An error on her 2016 application form meant the visa was refused, but the fees were not refunded and she could not afford to reapply, and she slipped into immigration limbo. Even now, 28 years after arriving in the UK, she is still battling to get British citizenship.
Continue reading...Firm aims to apply ‘equity lens’ across clinical tests to ensure diverse population groups take part
The pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca is conducting a major review of diversity across its trials in an attempt to ensure its medicines work for all population groups, although it has admitted that including pregnant women is a particular challenge.
The head of oncology at Britain’s biggest drugmaker, David Fredrickson told the Guardian that the firm was among those leading efforts to improve participation of people of colour and other under-represented groups in clinical trials.
Continue reading...People in the UK and Poland rated their governments worst on matters of trust and legitimacy in an EU-funded study
People in the UK are more likely than those in other European countries to say that their government ignores rules, according to a large six-state survey, with ‘Partygate’ probably to blame.
The EU-funded study found that 62% of people in the UK think their government ignores rules and procedures, compared with an average of 44% and well above the next highest, Poland (50%), where the administration has been accused of authoritarianism.
Continue reading...Fawzia Amini advocates for rights of Afghan women and girls from London hotel room she’s been stuck in for nine months
One of Afghanistan’s top female judges has been honoured with an international human rights award while she continues her work to advocate for her country’s women and girls from a London hotel.
Fawzia Amini, 48, fled Afghanistan last summer after the Taliban takeover of the country. She had been one of Afghanistan’s leading female judges, former head of the legal department at the Ministry of Women, senior judge in the supreme court, and head of the violence against women court.
Continue reading...Pre-action letter questions Home Office claims that east African country is ‘generally safe’
Priti Patel’s plan to send refugees on a one-way ticket to Rwanda is being legally challenged over the government’s alleged failure to identify risks facing vulnerable groups such as LGBTQ+ people.
A pre-action letter sent to the Home Office on behalf of the pressure group Freedom from Torture questions government claims that the east African state is “generally a safe country” for refugees.
The government’s claim that Rwanda is “generally” a “safe third country” is irrational.
It relies upon apparent pre-determination or bias.
The home secretary has breached her duty not to induce breaches of the European convention on human rights by her agents.
Removing asylum seekers to Rwanda is beyond Patel’s legal authority because it is contrary to the refugee convention.
Continue reading...Latest updates: Grant Shapps, transport secretary, does not deny Times report as row grows over further Partygate photos
At cabinet this morning Boris Johnson praised Thérèse Coffey, the work and pensions secretary, for helping people get back into work. Johnson believes work is the best route out of poverty and, with unemployment at its lowest level for almost 50 years, he is using this as part of his attempt to show there is a Tory response to the cost of living crisis.
According to PA Media, Johnson opened cabinet by saying:
I want to give a special shout out to Thérèse Coffey, the secretary of state for DWP, because under her plans, the Way To Work scheme, since we launched it this year it has got 380,000 people off welfare and into work. That’s the way forward.
I want to see people not on benefits, I want to see them in work - that’s the Conservative answer and that is the answer we are offering to the people of this country.
Continue reading...Nine in 10 people say they are worried about the rising price of their shop, Kantar survey finds
More than a fifth of households in Great Britain say they are struggling to make ends meet as the price of the weekly grocery shop rises 7%, the highest level of inflation in 13 years.
Nine in 10 people say they are worried about the rising price of groceries, according to the market research group Kantar, putting the issue in second place behind concerns about energy bills as the cost of living crisis hits families hard.
Continue reading...Team admit Gillyflower is not the first but hope it encourages a more sustainable approach to golfing
The views are spectacular, taking in a lovely Cornish river, a ruined castle and the rooftops of an ancient town while the golf is pleasantly challenging, with tight fairways and undulating greens.
But what makes Gillyflower golf course in Lostwithiel different is that every square metre of non-playing surface will be used to grow fruit and vegetables or encourage flora and fauna.
Continue reading...Levy could be extended beyond oil and gas producers to help households in cost of living crisis
Rishi Sunak is reportedly considering imposing a wider windfall tax on electricity generators, as well as on oil and gas producers, that could bring in billions of pounds to help households struggling with soaring food and energy costs.
The chancellor has instructed Treasury officials to work on plans for a potential tax on more than £10bn of excess profits made by electricity generators, including windfarm operators, according to sources cited by the Financial Times.
Continue reading...Report claims public money from countries around the world is funding growth of tech company
Amazon has reaped a total of £425m in UK government contracts in the past two years, it has emerged in a report, prompting fresh criticism that the tech giant is failing to pay a fair share of tax in the country.
The report, by the Centre for International Corporate Tax Accountability and Research (CICTAR) with assistance from investigative thinktank Taxwatch, finds Amazon’s highly profitable cloud computing business is increasingly being indirectly supported by taxpayers through hundreds of billions of dollars in government contracts around the world.
Continue reading...Prime minister met Gray in run-up to long-awaited report into lockdown-breaking parties in Downing Street
Boris Johnson is under increasing pressure to explain a meeting with Sue Gray before her report into lockdown breaches in Downing Street, after a cabinet minister declined to deny he had queried whether it should be published.
The report, which is expected to be handed to No 10 on Wednesday, is said by sources to be deeply critical of the prime minister and senior civil service leadership over the culture that developed in No 10 and eventually led the Metropolitan police to issue 126 fines.
Continue reading...Sir Philip Barton castigated along with Dominic Raab in damning report by MPs into UK’s chaotic exit
The senior civil servant in charge of the Foreign Office should consider his position after presiding over a disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan that betrayed UK allies, put lives in danger, showed a total absence of planning and was chaotically managed, MPs have concluded in a damning report.
The report from the foreign affairs select committee said the absence of leadership – both ministerial and official, including the permanent secretary, Sir Philip Barton – when Kabul fell was inexcusable and a grave indictment on those supposedly in charge. It added that Barton failed to give candid evidence to the committee, and says as a result it had lost confidence in him. The committee also accused him of covering up political interference in the fast-tracking of some individuals out of Afghanistan.
Continue reading...Former MP was expelled from Tory party after being convicted of groping teenager at a party in 2008
The former Conservative MP Imran Ahmad Khan has been sentenced to 18 months in jail for sexually assaulting a 15-year-old boy after plying him with gin at a party in 2008.
The 48-year-old was expelled from the Conservative party and later resigned from the Commons, triggering a byelection in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, after he was convicted last month following a trial at Southwark crown court.
Continue reading...Exclusive: health leaders call for uplift for lowest-paid staff, to prevent ‘mass exodus’ to pubs and supermarkets
The NHS faces a “mass exodus” of thousands of staff to better-paid jobs in pubs, shops and supermarkets as a result of the cost of living crisis, ministers have been warned.
Health leaders fear significant numbers of lower-paid workers will leave for higher wages in the private sector amid rising food and heating bills and soaring inflation. The NHS already has 110,000 vacancies, and there are fears that a further deepening of the workforce crisis will “jeopardise” the ability of hospitals to tackle record-high waiting lists.
Continue reading...Latest updates: PM’s spokesperson clears up that No 10 requested meeting after Simon Clarke suggests it was the other way round
The Downing Street lobby briefing has just finished, and the PM’s spokesperson told journalists that Boris Johnson has still not received the Sue Gray report into Partygate. The spokesperson did not say when it would be arriving, but it is not expected to be published today.
Boris Johnson has recorded a clip for broadcasters during a visit to a school in south-east London. PA Media has written up the key lines.
I’m not attracted, intrinsically, to new taxes. But as I have said throughout, we have got to do what we can - and we will - to look after people through the aftershocks of Covid, through the current pressures on energy prices that we are seeing post-Covid and with what’s going on in Russia and we are going to put our arms round people, just as we did during the pandemic.
Of course, but on the process you are just going to have to hold your horses a little bit longer. I don’t believe it will be too much longer and then I will be able to say a bit more.
It’s basically very rare disease, and so far the consequences don’t seem to be very serious but it’s important that we keep an eye on it and that’s exactly what the the new UK Health Security Agency is doing.
As things stand the judgment is that it’s rare. I think we’re looking very carefully at the circumstances of transmission.
It hasn’t yet proved, fatal in any case that we know of, certainly not in this country.
Continue reading...Analysis: Key questions answered about report into Downing Street lockdown breach claims
The full Sue Gray report into lockdown-breaching gatherings in and around Downing Street could be published as early as Tuesday. Here is what we know about its likely contents – and their impact.
Continue reading...