Study shows female Euro players got 125 positive posts for each hate one – in contrast to abuse directed at England men
The vast majority of social media posts directed at England women’s triumphant Euro 2022 football players across a three-month period were positive, research has found.
The study of 78,141 posts on Twitter, Reddit and the imageboard website 4chan identified more than 50,000 positive posts – roughly one “hate” post for every 125 “hope” ones.
Continue reading...Campaigners hail landmark decision as a ‘huge paradigm shift’ in attitudes towards sexuality
Being gay, bisexual or transgender should not be considered an illness and cannot be treated, the Vietnam government has announced in “a huge paradigm shift” in LGBTQ+ rights in the country.
The Ministry of Health said medical professionals should treat LGBTQ+ people with respect and ensure they are not discriminated against.
Continue reading...Analysis: £15 an hour is ‘logical next step’ amid cost of living crisis but neither Labour or Tories likely to back campaign
• Minimum wage should be increased to £15 an hour as soon as possible, says TUC
The TUC has chosen its moment well. With Britain gripped by a cost of living crisis, the umbrella body for trade unions has called for the minimum wage to be raised from £9.50 to £15 an hour as soon as possible, and by 2030 at the latest.
It is an ambitious target, as the TUC openly accepts. The minimum wage is now 64% of median earnings. A £15-an-hour minimum wage by 2030 would be 75% of median earnings, the highest of any of the 38 members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development group of rich countries.
Continue reading...Move opens new policy gap between unions and Labour party, which is reluctant to commit to specific figure under Keir Starmer
The minimum wage should be increased to £15 an hour as soon as possible to help millions of low-paid workers struggling amid the cost of living crisis, the TUC has said.
In a move that opens a fresh policy gap between unions and Keir Starmer’s Labour party, the TUC has thrown its weight behind calls for a more ambitious legal floor on pay rates. The union body said the government needed to draw up plans to get wages rising as workers suffer the biggest hit to living standards on record.
Continue reading...Tributes were paid to council worker Ashley Dale, 28, who police believe was killed in a mistaken identity attack
Tributes have been paid to a 28-year-old woman who was shot dead in her home in Liverpool in the early hours of Sunday, seven years after her brother was also fatally shot.
Ashley Dale was shot in the back garden of her home in what is believed by police to have been a mistaken identity attack. Her younger brother, Lewis Dunne, was killed in 2015 at age 16 after a gang mistook him for a rival gang member. Their deaths are not believed to be connected.
Continue reading...The chances of breakdowns are mitigated with food, but increased with the addition of siblings
Long traffic jams, bickering siblings, extreme boredom – most parents will know the signs to look out for when trying to prevent a full-blown backseat temper tantrum on a family holiday.
Now a statistician has calculated the exact formula for predicting the chances, and timing, of children throwing a tantrum in the back of a car during a long journey.
Continue reading...Suggestion of activities to help improve mental and physical health part of wider movement of ‘social prescribing’
GPs around England are to prescribe patients activities such as walking or cycling in a bid to ease the burden on the NHS by improving mental and physical health.
The £12.7m trial, which was announced by the Department for Transport and will begin this year, is part of a wider movement of “social prescribing”, an approach already used in the NHS, in which patients are referred for non-medical activities.
Continue reading...Urgent action needed to avert further disaster in war-torn country as funding ‘fast running out’
Nearly one in three children under five in the Ethiopian region of Tigray are malnourished and the UN said urgent action is needed to prevent them from dying.
According to a new emergency assessment carried out by the World Food Programme (WFP), 29% of very young children are suffering from global acute malnutrition (GAM). More than half of pregnant or breastfeeding woman are also malnourished.
Continue reading...Intervention expanded to include financial decisions and governance after report calls for urgent reform
The government’s intervention in the running of Liverpool city council is to be expanded to include governance and financial decision-making.
It comes after the publication of another critical report on the local authority by four commissioners appointed last year to work with the council staff in key areas after an inspection.
Exclusive: Earnings of lowest paid could rise by £832; lower rates for 18- to 22-year-olds to be scrapped
Labour has drawn up plans to put hundreds of pounds into the pockets of the lowest paid by instructing the Low Pay Commission to factor in living costs when it sets the minimum wage.
They also want to scrap the lower pay categories for workers aged between 18 and 22, so they would all be paid at the higher rate.
Continue reading...Reports of rise in social anxiety among overly cautious 11- to 25-year-olds who often interact online
They have been deemed “generation sensible” for their focus on social issues, healthy living and drinking less alcohol. But therapists say generation Z could miss out on a wealth of life experience due to their overly cautious attitude to taking risks.
Many young people increasingly choose to stay within a comfort zone of a small network of like-minded friends in which much of their social activity is virtual, according to mental health experts.
Continue reading...MPs from Les Républicains party had submitted bill to ‘combat fraud’ on back-to-school grants to low-income households
Rightwing opposition MPs in France have been accused of stigmatising poorer people by suggesting low-income families are fraudulently using an allowance for school supplies.
The government spokesperson Olivier Véran said claims some families spent the money on televisions and alcohol were “discrimination” and “an old chestnut”. He rejected suggestions parents should be given basic supplies or vouchers for specific shops to reduce the possibility of fraud.
Continue reading...Estimated 45m people will struggle to pay energy bills this winter with predicted rises in price cap
Two-thirds of all UK households will be trapped in fuel poverty by January with planned government support leaving even middle-income households struggling to pay their bills, according to research.
It shows 18 million families, the equivalent of 45 million people, will be left trying to make ends meet after further predicted rises in the energy price cap in October and January.
Continue reading...Contest asks young adults for ideas to revitalise popularity of alcoholic drinks after big fall in tax revenues
The Japanese government has launched a nationwide competition calling for ideas to encourage people to drink more alcohol after a change in attitudes among the young resulted in a slide in tax revenues.
The Sake Viva! campaign, which is being run by the National Tax Agency (NTA), asks 20- to 39-year-olds to come up with proposals to help revitalise the popularity of alcoholic drinks, which have fallen out of favour because of lifestyle changes during the coronavirus pandemic and among young people.
Continue reading...Bookings to be judged by factors such as reviews and length of trips, after Australia pilot
Airbnb says it will deploy “anti-party technology” in an effort to crack down on guests who trash houses they have booked with massive bashes.
The technology, which has been trialled in Australia, will look at “factors like history of positive reviews (or lack of positive reviews), length of time the guest has been on Airbnb, length of the trip, distance to the listing, weekend vs weekday, among many others” to determine whether a particular booking was likely to be intended for hosting a party, the company said. It will initially be used in the US and Canada, and will continue to operate in Australia.
Continue reading...Ministers accepted urgency of need of those infected in 1970s and 1980s, who are dying at the rate of one every four days
Survivors of the contaminated blood scandal have been awarded interim government payments after a 40-year battle, but thousands of parents and children of the victims have still received nothing.
Ministers have accepted the urgency of the need to make the £100,000 payments to about 3,000 surviving victims, after being warned that those mistakenly infected with HIV and hepatitis C were dying at the rate of one every four days.
Continue reading...Official data shows 125 women murdered, with the vast majority killed within a family context
The number of femicides in Italy has risen by almost 16% over the past year, with the vast majority taking place in a family context.
Data published by the interior ministry on Monday showed 125 femicides between 1 August 2021 and 31 July 2022, compared with 108 during the same period in the previous year.
Continue reading...Families who fled Taliban rule say they are grateful for the help they have received but long for a home where they can settle
The west London hotel where Fawzia Amini, a senior Afghan judge, her husband and their four daughters have lived for the last nine months has comfortable sofas in the foyer, a restaurant serving tasty meals on the first floor, and friendly reception staff – but it isn’t home.
After the turmoil and danger of fleeing their spacious home in Kabul when the Taliban seized control of the Afghan capital, the family say that while they are grateful for everything the UK government has done for them, they long to be in a place of their own where they can cook their own food, work, study, and entertain relatives and friends.
Continue reading...Those without a male relative to act as a mahram are in legal limbo and unable to travel long distances
Hasina* cannot send her two daughters to school, because they are teenagers and high school is banned for girls in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan.
But she cannot take them out of the country to finish their education because she is a divorced single mother, and women are barred from long-distance travel without a male “guardian” to escort them.
Continue reading...TUC calls on Department for Work and Pensions to make move to help workers access key benefits
Ministers should urgently classify Covid-19 as an occupational disease to prompt employers to reduce the risk of exposure and help workers access key benefits, the TUC has said.
The UK is out of step with other major countries that have recognised Covid as a disease that people can get in the course of their work, especially in certain sectors, it says.
Continue reading...