Exclusive: Report for Aberlour children’s charity reveals scale of school meal debt for first time
More than £1m is owed by families across Scotland who are unable to pay for their children’s school meals, new research has found.
The report for the Aberlour children’s charity, seen exclusively by the Guardian, reveals the scale of school meal debt for the first time, and details an “alarming” rise in hidden hunger among Scotland’s school pupils.
Continue reading...Force claimed it approached groups before launch of Project Alpha which scours social media sites
Youth violence experts have said they had no involvement with a police scheme that collects children’s personal data, despite the Met claiming to have consulted them.
Project Alpha, involving more than 30 staff and launched in 2019 with Home Office funding, scours social media sites looking at drill music videos and other content. It has prompted concerns about racial profiling and potential privacy violations.
Continue reading...Author cites Brexit and the climate crisis as examples of previous generations ‘breaking’ their future
The author Elif Shafak has said she thinks “there’s a scream building up” inside many young people, because they feel their future “is being shaped by older generations”.
“It’s difficult to be young, in this age in particular,” the Turkish-British novelist told the Hay festival. “It’s their future that’s been broken by previous generations,” she said, citing Brexit and the climate emergency.
Continue reading...Campaigner says death is ‘life’s last taboo’ and that she hopes talking about may bring comfort to others
Deborah James has said she is angry at the fact she is terminally ill, and scared of dying.
The campaigner, 40, who was diagnosed with bowel cancer in 2016 and has documented her experiences since on social media, revealed that in the weeks since moving to end-of-life care she keeps “shouting at people and pushing them away”.
Continue reading...Calls grow for repeal of statute of limitations and widening of definition of rape after former model makes allegations on TikTok
A young woman’s account on TikTok of being drugged, raped and then blackmailed by a beauty pageant organiser when she was 16 years old has provoked outrage in Nepal and prompted calls to reform the country’s “grossly inadequate” rape laws.
In one of a series of videos, which together have been viewed millions of times, the former model and child actor broke down in tears as she talked about Nepal’s statute of limitations that dictates survivors must report cases of rape within one year of the offence being committed.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Gender bias means debilitating gynaecological conditions are played down, says RCOG president
Doctors’ routine dismissal of women’s debilitating health problems as “benign” has contributed to gynaecology waiting lists soaring by 60% to more than half a million patients, a senior health leader has said.
The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) president, Dr Edward Morris, told the Guardian that waiting lists for conditions such as endometriosis, prolapse and heavy bleeding had increased by a bigger proportion than any other area of medicine in the past two years.
Continue reading...Chances of homeownership and higher incomes undermined by pandemic and cost of living crisis
The postwar dream of doing better in life than your parents has faded, with the UK now a country where opportunities for upward social mobility and economic advancement are increasingly limited, research has claimed.
It contrasts with the golden age of social mobility enjoyed by the UK in the early years of the Queen’s reign when an expanding economy allowed a generation to take professional jobs and own their own homes.
Continue reading...Doctors say violence now commonplace as surgeries struggle to cope with ‘unmanageable levels of demand’
Criminal acts of violence at GP surgeries across the UK have almost doubled in five years, new figures reveal, as doctors’ leaders warn of a perfect storm of soaring demand and staff shortages.
Police are now recording an average of three violent incidents at general practices every day. Staff are facing unprecedented assaults, abuse and aggression by patients, with surgeries struggling to cope with “unmanageable levels of demand” after years of failure to recruit or retain sufficient numbers of family doctors.
Continue reading...Number of doses, not vaccine combinations, key to boosting immunity, according to largest study of its kind
Three doses of the same Covid-19 vaccine or a combination of jabs work equally well in preventing infections, according to the largest study of its kind.
While the effectiveness of individual coronavirus vaccines is well known, the evidence around combinations of jabs has been less clear, especially for particular groups such as older people and those who are immunocompromised.
Continue reading...Judge says James MacDougall, 37, was not upfront about fragile-X syndrome and should not meet some of those he fathered
A man with an incurable genetic condition who advertised his sperm to lesbians on social media has been banned from contacting some of the children he fathered as a result.
A family court judge took the unusual step of naming James MacDougall after finding he “took advantage of these young women’s vulnerability and their strong desire to have children”.
Continue reading...Delay in approving pill, and the possible $780 cost, reflect priorities of male-dominated parliament, say critics
Women in Japan could be forced to seek their partner’s consent before being prescribed the abortion pill, which will reportedly be approved late this year – three decades after it was made available to women in the UK.
Under Japan’s 1948 Maternal Protection Law, consent is already required for surgical abortions – with very few exceptions – a policy that campaigners say tramples over women’s reproductive rights.
Continue reading...Winner of the inaugural Amal Clooney Women’s Empowerment award says she saw mainstream culture did not represent her, so she created her own space
Tanzila Khan does not like people feeling too sorry for themselves – or for her.
“I don’t like sob stories or tragedies,” said Khan, who is a disability and women’s rights campaigner in Pakistan. “I’m not saying they don’t exist – we can all face adversity – but I think we need a more positive approach to solving problems. I wanted to present people with disabilities in a more positive way.
Continue reading...Pete Lewin’s Newfoundlands also provide emotional therapy for veterans and young people with disabilities
“All you can hear is the water and the dogs paddling. That’s it, there’s nothing else,” said student paramedic Abigail Walker after emerging from Stanton lakes in Leicestershire, where she had been swimming with three Newfoundland dogs. “Until you’ve done it, I don’t think you realise how calming it is.”
It was her first time trying a type of emotional therapy pioneered by Pete Lewin, a paramedic who travels the country helping emergency services staff deal with trauma with the help of his pack of canines.
Continue reading...As support among some European allies appears to waver, Kyiv calls for advanced rocket systems to hit Russia’s supply lines
Ukraine is in a race against time to save the eastern Donbas region as relentless Russian artillery and air strikes threaten to turn the tide of the war, and support for Kyiv’s continued defiance among some west European allies appears to be slipping.
Ukrainian officials say they urgently need advanced US-made mobile multiple launch rocket systems (MLRS) to halt Russian advances in Luhansk and Donetsk. The rockets would be capable of striking Russian firing positions, military bases, air strips and supply lines at a range of up to 300km (185 miles).
Continue reading...The Canvas’s founder says takings were so low as cost of living crisis bites she thought tills were broken
The founder of a London social enterprise that gives free meals to refugees and the homeless has said it is at risk of closure because the cost of living crisis has led to a collapse in sales and donations.
Ruth Rogers, the founder of The Canvas in the East End of London, said there had been a dramatic collapse in trade in its cafe in recent weeks, with takings so low that one day she thought its tills were broken.
Continue reading...As thousands flee the latest fighting in DRC to join 1.5m already in Uganda, the UN’s food aid agency is stretched as never before
The rain will determine what time Uwimana Nsengiyuava gets on the truck to Nyakabande transit centre, where Uganda is hosting 20,000 refugees who, like her, have fled fresh fighting in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
Since March, up to 500 refugees a day have been silently streaming into the east African country via Kisoro, a picturesque district in south-west Uganda dotted with endless hills, streams and a lake.
Continue reading...Timothy Tymoshenko was sent to Poland because of his distress but does not qualify for Homes for Ukraine scheme
A British man who has turned his Polish castle into a makeshift hotel for Ukrainian refugees has accused the UK government of showing “no humanity whatsoever” for not allowing a severely autistic teenager to come to live with an approved foster carer in Lancashire.
Pleas are mounting for compassion to be shown to Timothy Tymoshenko, 16, who fled the war in Ukraine without his parents. He is living with his 17-year-old brother, Yurii, in what was once a private palace for the prince-bishop of Wrocław in Piotrowice Nyskie, a tiny Polish village near the Czech border.
Continue reading...Medical charity’s president calls publication of controversial photographs ‘a mistake’ and says guidelines will be tightened
The international president of Médecins Sans Frontières has apologised for publishing photographs of a teenage rape survivor from the Democratic Republic of the Congo on its website, following criticism that the images were unethical and racist.
Dr Christos Christou also announced that the medical charity had tightened its guidelines on photographing vulnerable minors, such as survivors of sexual abuse, requiring that they should not be identified visually or by name.
Continue reading...Vera Baird calls for therapy notes to be excluded from criminal trials, as they are in Australia
New guidance designed to give rape victims confidence to get therapy before their trial “makes things worse” for survivors and lessened their protections, according to the victims’ commissioner, Vera Baird.
The guidance issued by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) aims to “alleviate victim concerns that accessing counselling could damage the prosecution case,” but Baird echoed concerns from campaign groups that they, in fact, reduce protections and called for therapy notes to be excluded from criminal trials, as they are in Australia.
In the UK, Rape Crisis offers support for rape and sexual abuse on 0808 802 9999 in England and Wales, 0808 801 0302 in Scotland, or 0800 0246 991 in Northern Ireland. In the US, Rainn offers support on 800-656-4673. In Australia, support is available at 1800Respect (1800 737 732). Other international helplines can be found at ibiblio.org/rcip/internl.html
Continue reading...The ultra-Christian, anti-abortion and far-right network is allegedly seeking to replicate anti-choice efforts in the US
A network of ultra-Christian, anti-abortion and far-right organisations is building momentum in its quest to influence abortion policy in Europe as the US supreme court considers striking down Roe v Wade, the 1973 ruling that legalised the procedure in America.
Elements of the network originally came together under the name Agenda Europe, holding yearly summits across the continent between 2013 until at least 2018, by which time it had grown to comprise 300 participants, including politicians and Vatican diplomats.
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