Many married women cannot prove settled status to employers and councils because of a mix-up
Women who applied for EU settled status in the UK under their married names may struggle to access jobs and housing because of a government computer anomaly, it has emerged.
Many have been left unable to prove their status to councils and employers because they have been wrongly registered to the EU settlement scheme (EUSS) in their birth names.
Continue reading...They were sold as gadgets that meant you would never miss a delivery. But now doorbell cameras – from Amazon’s Ring to Google’s Nest – are recording our every move
I have got a new doorbell. It’s brilliant. It should be; it cost £89. It’s a Ring video doorbell; you’ll have seen them around. There are others available, made by other companies, with other four-letter names such as Nest and Arlo. When someone rings my doorbell, I’m alerted on my smartphone. I can see who is there, and speak to them.
My phone is ringing! C major first inversion chord, arpeggiated, repeated, for the musically trained – you’ll recognise it if you’ve heard it. It’s a delivery. Amazon, as it happens; Amazon acquired Ring in 2018, reportedly for more than $1bn.
Continue reading...Combine the pandemic with rising raw material costs, stir in a labour shortage, a twist of Brexit, add a pinch of poor weather and voila …
Tinned tomatoes are a taken-for-granted store cupboard staple, relied upon by Britons to whip up home cooked favourites such as spaghetti bolognese. But the price could soon make you take notice, amid warnings of higher shopping bills, set against a backdrop of soaring global food prices.
From the packaging to the transportation and the energy used in manufacturing, nearly all aspects of the production of this popular ingredient now cost more. The crushed tomatoes alone are 30% dearer than a year ago, at €0.48 per kilo. The same pressures are driving the prices of many foods higher, meaning Britons will probably face bigger bills for groceries or meals out this autumn.
Continue reading...Amid bemusement from scientists at the deluge of often undeserved criticism, the Guardian pieces together the story behind the vaccine’s successes and failures
In January 2020, when most of the world slept soundly in ignorance of the pandemic coming its way, a group of scientists at Oxford University got to work on a vaccine to save the planet. They wanted it to be highly effective, cheap, and easy to use in even the poorest countries.
Prof Sarah Gilbert, Prof Andrew Pollard and others pulled it off. With speed crucial, they designed it and launched into trials before bringing in a business partner. The giant Anglo-Swedish pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca would manufacture it, license it around the world – and not make a profit until the pandemic was over.
Continue reading...Actor addresses pressures facing men and women in entertainment industry in Guardian podcast
The actor Rafe Spall has spoken candidly about his struggles with his weight throughout his acting career, and the pressures of losing weight to look like a “normal guy”.
Speaking on the Guardian podcast Comfort Eating with Grace Dent, the actor, who has appeared in films including Men in Black: International and Just Mercy, spoke about a recent “big-profile” job he did for television where his weight became a concern for production staff.
Continue reading...Dance music acts along with anti-lockdown, anti-austerity and climate activists will all converge on capital
Some of the UK’s leading dance music acts are expected to join a protest march in London calling for the government to scrap Covid restrictions on nightclubs, as the capital gears up for a weekend of mass demonstrations.
Anti-lockdown protesters, anti-austerity campaigners and environmentalists will also stage protests in London on Saturday and Sunday, and the Metropolitan police said they were preparing for “a busy weekend”.
Continue reading...Court to press for earliest possible trial date for four men accused over shooting of BLM activist
Four men charged over the shooting of the Black Lives Matter activist Sasha Johnson at a birthday party in south London have indicated not guilty pleas.
Johnson was left in a critical condition in hospital after being shot in the head during a silent disco in the garden of a house on Consort Road in Peckham just before 3am on Sunday 23 May.
Continue reading...Loss of 100,000 hauliers due to Covid and Brexit will cause food ‘rolling power cuts’, experts warn
The country is facing a summer of food shortages likened to a series of “rolling power cuts” because of a loss of 100,000 lorry drivers due to Covid and Brexit, industry chiefs have warned.
In a letter to Boris Johnson they have called for an urgent intervention to allow eastern European drivers back into the country on special visas, similar to those issued to farm pickers, warning that there is a “crisis” in the supply chain.
Continue reading...Regional government welcomes green list status but calls for Spain to set ‘strict and safe’ entry rules
Authorities in the Balearic Islands – the only Spanish region to be added to the UK’s green list for quarantine-free travel – are calling on the central government to tighten controls for holidaymakers arriving from the UK.
Last month Spain began allowing in British travellers without the need to provide a negative Covid test. The move, aimed at wooing back some of the more than 18 million British tourists who visited in the years prior to the pandemic, contrasts with the growing push for tighter restrictions on UK tourists in the EU in light of the rapid spread of the Delta variant.
Continue reading...The most commercialised show on British television has signed up nine official partners
Love Island has netted ITV more than £12m in revenues even before the first episode of the new series of the hit reality show airs on Monday, as sponsors and advertisers rush to attach themselves to the most commercialised show on British television.
With uncertainty over Covid restrictions scuppering holidays abroad for a second successive year, the arrival of the feelgood summer juggernaut could not be more perfectly timed to tap into a viewer and advertising boom.
Continue reading...I’m as wearied by the pandemic as the next person, but anti-maskers don’t know what they’re missing
Now that he has left the tender embrace of the select committee, Dominic Cummings has taken to – is the word explaining? – himself to paying subscribers via Substack. In the unlikely event that you are not prepared to part with cash to hear what the hobgoblin of chaos is currently divulging, here is the gist:
Continue reading...Diagnostic tool being piloted by NHS England shows ‘impressive results’ in spotting tumours in early stages
A simple blood test that can detect more than 50 types of cancer before any clinical signs or symptoms of the disease emerge in a person is accurate enough to be rolled out as a screening test, according to scientists.
The test, which is also being piloted by NHS England in the autumn, is aimed at people at higher risk of the disease including patients aged 50 or older.
Continue reading...Latest updates: territories are added to UK’s green list or green watchlist, while more countries added to red list
Rory Boland, travel editor for consumer group Which?, said travellers still needed to be “extremely cautious” about booking trips abroad.
He said: “Countries can be downgraded quickly and with little warning, as we saw with Portugal, while several European countries have introduced quarantine requirements for UK residents. “Restrictions around international travel are changing regularly and when they do, the cost to holidaymakers is significant. “Most providers will not pay refunds if a country is moved from green to amber, and ‘free’ amendments are often anything but, with many companies requiring significant notice of any changes and bookings for new dates usually costing hundreds of pounds. Travel insurance is also unlikely to pay out in these circumstances. “It is only advisable to book if you are able to do 14 days’ quarantine, can be flexible about destination and dates, and book with a provider that guarantees refunds in the event of traffic light changes or quarantine requirements.”
Eluned Morgan MS, minister for health and social services in Wales, said: “International travel is resuming but the pandemic is not over and protecting people’s health remains our main priority.
“Our strong advice continues to be not to travel overseas unless it is essential because of the risk of contracting coronavirus, especially new and emerging variants of concern.
Continue reading...Public inquiry into June 2017 disaster hears that Robert Black failed to mention numerous risks and problems following review
The former boss of Grenfell Tower’s management body repeatedly failed to alert residents and councillors overseeing its work to serious fire safety issues and has admitted to “keeping the board in the dark”.
Robert Black, who was chief executive of the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation (KCTMO) at the time of the fire, did not tell boards at the council and the arm’s-length management body about problems with smoke extractors at Grenfell, a deficiency notice issued by London fire brigade on the tower, or problems with fire doors at another block that suffered a fire.
Continue reading...Kremlin summons UK ambassador as Boris Johnson says HMS Defender’s deployment ‘wholly appropriate’
British officials acknowledged they were taken by surprise by the speed of the Russian reaction to HMS Defender’s 36-minute passage through Crimean waters on Wednesday as the British ambassador to Moscow was summoned to the Kremlin.
Although a Russian response to the Royal Navy warship’s passage within the 12-mile territorial limit was anticipated, the UK Ministry of Defence did not expect the Kremlin to speedily declare that warning shots had been fired.
Continue reading...Nurses, teachers and shopworkers who have lost their health and their jobs talk about their struggle for support
Working seven days a week as a nurse and a fitness instructor, while bringing up two young daughters, Rebecca Logan led an extremely active life – until she contracted Covid-19 while working in the emergency department of a hospital in Northern Ireland.
Over a year after first falling ill, the 40-year-old is still suffering from long Covid. For Logan, that means she can only walk for five minutes before needing to rest, and there is a constant ringing in her ears. Her husband has had to pick up the slack at home, alongside his job as a school principal.
Continue reading...Why have some brilliant innovations – from rolling luggage to electric cars – taken so long to come to market? Macho culture has a lot to answer for
In 1972 an American luggage executive unscrewed four castors from a wardrobe and fixed them to a suitcase. Then he put a strap on his contraption and trotted it gleefully around his house.
This was how Bernard Sadow invented the world’s first rolling suitcase. It happened roughly 5,000 years after the invention of the wheel and barely one year after Nasa managed to put two men on the surface of the moon using the largest rocket ever built. We had driven an electric rover with wheels on a foreign heavenly body and even invented the hamster wheel. So why did it take us so long to put wheels on suitcases? This has become something of a classic mystery of innovation.
Continue reading...Analysis: Royal Navy ship sailing near Crimea may also be test of Beijing reaction to territorial reach
British ministers will have been under no illusions that the decision to sail HMS Defender into disputed waters off the coast of Russian-annexed Crimea would provoke a reaction from the Kremlin.
A dispute about whether warning shots were fired or not is beside the point – although if they were, they were miles out of range. Because even if the west considers Crimea, annexed by Moscow in 2014, to be still part of Ukraine, the Russians do not and will act accordingly.
Continue reading...MoD and Moscow disagree over whether shots were fired at destroyer near disputed territory
Britain was unexpectedly embroiled in a diplomatic and military dispute with Russia on Wednesday after Royal Navy destroyer HMS Defender briefly sailed through territorial waters off the coast of the disputed territory of Crimea.
The warship sailed for about an hour in the morning within the 12-mile limit off Cape Fiolent on a direct route between the Ukrainian port of Odesa and Georgia, prompting Russian complaints and a disagreement about whether warning shots were fired.
Continue reading...German leader’s comments come as disease control agency says Delta variant will account for 90% of EU cases by end of August
Angela Merkel has said travellers from the UK should be quarantined wherever they arrive in the EU, as the union’s agency for disease control forecast that the Delta variant of Covid will account for 90% of cases in member states by the end of August.
Ahead of Thursday’s summit with fellow EU leaders, the German chancellor said she wanted better coordination to fight the spread of the highly transmissible variant that has surfaced strongly in the UK and is now bedding down in the bloc.
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