Police and officials maintain presence at mass trespass after bypass approved
More than 100 protesters have staged a trespass at Stonehenge to raise concerns over plans for a two-mile tunnel underneath the world heritage site.
Last month the transport secretary, Grant Shapps, approved the £1.7bn project, which will include eight miles of extended dual carriageway along the A303 in Wiltshire.
Continue reading...Online stores draw in shoppers but those with mental health issues are particularly susceptible
As a digital marketer, Emily Ware spends a lot of time online, yet this comes with a risk. Ware has borderline personality disorder, a mental health condition linked with impulsive behaviours. In her case, that’s spending money online.
“At the start of 2020 I was £4,250 in debt with nothing to show for it,” she says. “A good 95% of this was due to impulse spending, from clothes to pub trips to gig tickets. One of the worst was spending £300 on tickets to see Cher on a whim.”
Continue reading...Vaccine could be in use by 2024 if next year’s human trials are successful
The Oxford team that has produced a successful coronavirus vaccine is about to enter the final stage of human trials in its quest for an inoculation against malaria.
The Jenner Institute director, Prof Adrian Hill, said the malaria vaccine would be tested on 4,800 children in Africa next year after early trials yielded promising results.
Continue reading...David Fuller, 66, from East Sussex, will appear before Medway magistrates’ court on Saturday
A 66-year-old man has been charged with the murder of two women in Kent more than 30 years ago.
Police said David Fuller, from Heathfield, East Sussex, has been charged with two counts of murder in connection with the deaths of Wendy Knell and Caroline Pierce in 1987.
Continue reading...Taitusi Ratucaucau served 11 years in the Royal Logistics Corps, only for his contract to be terminated and his life left in limbo
Two decades ago, when Taitusi Ratucaucau signed his papers, there was such hope. A career in the British Army would bring security, adventure, a sense, too, of service.
In 2000, his homeland Fiji, roiled by a protracted and violent coup, held little hope. A career in the British military was Ratucaucau’s ticket to a wider world.
Continue reading...The regulatory fast-tracking of the Covid vaccine in Britain by MHRA has led some to question its methods
The Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Authority (MHRA) in the UK has not had a round of applause from anyone other than the UK’s politicians and the vaccine companies. It gave temporary authorisation to the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine on Wednesday and within hours, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) put out a stiff statement implying more work was needed than the UK regulator had done. Its own decision could come as late as 29 December. It may well have been needled by the crowing of the health secretary, Matt Hancock, who claimed the fast approval as a Brexit triumph. He had to backtrack. The MHRA’s chief executive, June Raine, pointed out that the agency had simply taken advantage of a provision that any country in Europe could use, to fast-track approval in a pandemic.
Continue reading...Biden will ask Americans to wear masks for his first 100 days in office; Cyprus announces new measure to ease travel; Iran’s cases top 1m
In the UK saliva tests for Covid-19, which are being introduced for NHS workers as part of the government’s mass testing programme, pick up only 13% of people with low levels of the virus and not 91%, as the official assessment has claimed, according to experts.
Two members of the Royal Statistical Society’s working group looking at the accuracy of Covid tests have questioned the results and the way they have been evaluated.
Related: Experts question claimed accuracy of Covid-19 saliva tests
Revelations of distorted corona virus tallies have caused growing controversy in Greece reports our correspondent Helena Smith in Athens.
Figures released by the government nightly have been slammed for not reflecting the truth after reports of mismanagement by the national public health organisation, EODY.
Continue reading...Conservation charity videos prompt speculation the brothers are engaged in publicity tug of war
It was a roster of “wonderful talent”, Prince William said earlier this week. And so it gave him great pleasure to honour the winners of the Tusk awards, organised by a conservation charity working in Africa of which he is patron, at an online ceremony.
“I hope their stories go far and wide,” the Duke of Cambridge continued, in a video call from one of his several drawing rooms. His hope, he said, was that “young people look to these role models and say: ‘I can do the same.’”
Continue reading...Study says poor equipment could be a reason for higher British fatality rate in Iraq and Afghanistan
British soldiers were 12% more likely to have been killed than their American counterparts during the “war on terror” in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to a study of casualty figures.
The research – intended as a lessons learned exercise – also concludes that UK forces were 26% more likely to have been killed by improvised explosives, validating longstanding complaints about the poorly armoured Snatch Land Rover.
Continue reading...Close ally of Macron says Paris may act unilaterally if terms not right as negotiations falter
Downing Street has warned that the Brexit negotiations have hit a “very difficult point”, as France threatened to wield its veto to kill a trade and security deal brought back from London by the EU’s chief negotiator.
With the negotiations hitting troubled waters at the 11th hour, Clément Beaune, France’s European affairs minister and a close ally of president Emmanuel Macron, said his country could act unilaterally if the terms were not right.
Continue reading...UK PM and European commission president to speak on Saturday after negotiators fail to reach agreement
The Brexit talks will enter their final act on Saturday with a shift to direct negotiations between Boris Johnson and the European commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, following the failure to find agreement in London.
In a joint statement, David Frost, the UK’s chief negotiator, and his EU counterpart, Michel Barnier, said they had not been able to come to terms on the final issues and that the historic trade and security negotiation would be paused.
Continue reading...Some evidence suggests falling oestrogen levels could make older women more vulnerable
A possible link between the menopause and Covid-19 needs to be investigated, researchers have said, with some evidence suggesting that falling oestrogen levels could leave older women at increased risk from the disease.
Men are at greater risk of severe Covid, and dying of the disease, than women but recent research has suggested that in women, infections and long-lasting symptoms might be more common among those who have gone through the menopause.
Continue reading...Life chances are in danger of being blighted by the pandemic. That’s why young people are at the heart of our charity appeal this year
In a year of blight, uncertainty and lives interrupted, 21-year-old Aadam Patel’s experience of the pandemic will resonate among many young people and their families: “I have pressed pause on my life,” he told the Guardian in October, “and although I’m dying to resume it, I don’t even know if there’s a play button there any more.”
Getting life back on track during Covid has proved hard for many of us; but for millions of young people it will be a very major challenge. Society’s odds were already stacked against youngsters from economically deprived communities and from Black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds; the pandemic has brought those stark inequalities into even sharper focus, whether it is in the job market, around holiday hunger, or access to online schooling.
Continue reading...After praise for Duchess of Sussex’s disclosure, readers say there has been a culture of silence around the subject
“I was at my 10-week scan and I just felt something wasn’t right. The doctor became very quiet and I instantly knew. Then I heard the words: ‘I’m sorry, there is no heartbeat,’” says Emma Redston, a 38-year-old primary school teacher who lives in Surrey. “I remember falling to my knees, feeling like the floor had been ripped from under me.”
It was 2016 and Redston had suffered a miscarriage after becoming pregnant quickly when she and her husband, Steve, tried for a baby. She was given medicine to induce the miscarriage, and after four hours of extreme bleeding and cramps she passed her baby in her bathroom.
Continue reading...Decision as part of plan to phase out fossil fuel extraction by 2050 will put pressure on UK
Denmark has brought an immediate end to new oil and gas exploration in the Danish North Sea as part of a plan to phase out fossil fuel extraction by 2050.
On Thursday night the Danish government voted in favour of the plans to cancel the country’s next North Sea oil and gas licensing round, 80 years after it first began exploring its hydrocarbon reserves.
Continue reading...Indonesian man impersonated film executives, including Rupert Murdoch’s former wife Wendi Deng, to swindle victims, FBI alleges
A suspected con artist who allegedly impersonated top female Hollywood executives to swindle wide-eyed aspiring stars out of hundreds of thousands of dollars has been arrested in Britain after a US extradition request, the FBI has said.
Dubbed the “Con Queen of Hollywood”, the suspect led investigators on a years-long, global manhunt so improbable it has even been optioned for a book deal.
Continue reading...Progress stalls as robust lobbying from France alleged and tussle ensues over UK subsidies regulator
Brexit negotiations took a sudden step backwards Thursday afternoon Downing Street said, after furious French lobbying pushed the EU to make late demands.
The apparent eleventh hour hardening of the EU position was said to have destabilised the troubled talks, peeling back progress made over the previous 24 hours.
Continue reading...Cressida Dick says stop and search has helped save young black lives
Britain’s top police officer has denied her force’s leadership were too slow to realise it had race a problem and said its controversial tactics have not oppressed young black men but saved scores from being stabbed.
Hitting back at months of revelations and criticism, Cressida Dick said the Metropolitan police, who police more than half of Britain’s black population, had a “strong record”.
Continue reading...Some criticise jingoistic tone of announcement and say longer process may prove preferable
Politicians, health professionals and commentators in Europe and the US have questioned Britain’s decision to fast-track approval of a coronavirus vaccine and criticised what some saw as the jingoistic tone of its announcement.
The UK on Wednesday became the first country in the world to approve a Covid-19 vaccine when the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Authority (MHRA) granted the Pfizer/BioNTech shot emergency authorisation for clinical use.
Continue reading...Sites such as Facebook will have to publicly disclose identity of people and entities funding such advertising
The “dirty methods” of the Brexit referendum have been cited as a reason for new EU laws aimed at tackling disinformation and forcing online platforms including Facebook to publicly disclose the identity of people and entities funding political adverts.
Věra Jourová, a vice president of the European commission, said the EU rule-book needed to be updated to deal with on-line political campaigning, as she unveiled draft legislation at a press conference in Brussels.
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