Category Archives: Society

Rising food prices hit every supermarket aisle putting pressure on low-income families

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Soaring cost of produce in Australia has ‘exacerbated health inequality’ and leads researchers to call for farmers to be subsidised

The price of food has continued to rise, with new data showing that every supermarket aisle has been hit by hikes, not just fruit and vegetables.

The soaring prices have led researchers to call on the federal government to help subsidise growers, amid concerns it’s costing some lower socioeconomic families 40% of their income to buy a week’s worth of healthy food.

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Bournemouth council accused of ‘casino capitalism’ over beach hut sale

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Holidaymakers are worried about plans by council bosses to cash in by selling the huts – to boost their budget with a £54m windfall

The multicoloured wooden beach huts lining the golden sands of Bournemouth and Poole were in full use once again this weekend as adults basked in deckchairs and children built sandcastles.

These simple structures on this famous stretch of the Dorset coastline are highly sought-after, with typical waiting times for a long-term rental ranging from five to 20 years. However, some users are now worried about plans by council bosses to cash in on the huts by selling them to a “special purpose vehicle” (SPV) to boost their budget with a £54m windfall.

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Joe Biden to sign executive order protecting access to abortion

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Move by president signals start of White House fightback after supreme court struck down Roe v Wade

Joe Biden is to sign an executive order offering protections to millions of American women denied the constitutional right to an abortion.

The move signals the start of a White House fightback after the supreme court last month struck down Roe v Wade, its landmark ruling that for half a century had legalised abortion nationwide.

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Cancer spending threatened if NHS staff given 3% pay rise without extra funds

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NHS England says Treasury must cover cost as health service faces first real-terms cut in funding ‘since possibly the mid-1950s’

The NHS will have to cut investment in cancer care if ministers award frontline staff a pay rise above 3% but refuse to provide extra money to cover it, health service bosses have warned.

The NHS England chief executive, Amanda Pritchard, and Julian Kelly, its chief financial officer, made clear their belief that soaring inflation means the service’s 1.3 million staff deserve a pay award of more than the 3% the government has already given the organisation funding to cover.

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Ex-Cheer star Jerry Harris sentenced to 12 years in prison for child sexual abuse images charges

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22-year-old breakout star on Netflix’s cheerleading show had pleaded guilty to crimes relating to child abuse images and soliciting sex from minors

Jerry Harris, the star of hit Netflix series Cheer, has been sentenced to 12 years behind bars in the US for crimes relating to child sexual abuse images and soliciting sex from minors.

Prosecutors had urged the lengthy sentence, saying that Harris’s status as a celebrity had enabled him to “persuade and entice” his young victims to engage in sexual conduct.

In the US, call or text the Childhelp abuse hotline on 800-422-4453. In the UK, the NSPCC offers support to children on 0800 1111, and adults concerned about a child on 0808 800 5000. The National Association for People Abused in Childhood (Napac) offers support for adult survivors on 0808 801 0331. In Australia, children, young adults, parents and teachers can contact the Kids Helpline on 1800 55 1800, or Bravehearts on 1800 272 831, and adult survivors can contact Blue Knot Foundation on 1300 657 380. Other sources of help can be found at Child Helplines International

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Juul can keep selling vaping products as it appeals ban, FDA says

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Regulators say ‘scientific issues’ warrant further review of its decision to bar products from sale in US

The Food and Drug Administration will continue to allow Juul to sell its products while the vaping company appeals a recent ban, the agency said on Tuesday.

The FDA wrote on Twitter that there were “scientific issues” warranting additional review of the agency’s ruling last month, which ordered the company to remove its e-cigarettes from the US marketplace.

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Famine: what is it, where will it strike and how should the world respond?

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A toxic combination of climate emergency, conflict and Covid is pushing some of the poorest countries into an acute hunger crisis

Global hunger toll soars by 150m as Covid and war make their mark

The world is in the grip of an unprecedented hunger crisis. A toxic combination of climate crisis, conflict and Covid had already placed some of the poorest countries under enormous strain, but Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has sent grain and fuel prices soaring.

“We thought it couldn’t get any worse,” said David Beasley, director of the UN World Food Programme (WFP), in June. “But this war has been devastating.”

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Sierra Leone backs bill to legalise abortion and end colonial-era law

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Country hails ‘monumental step’ towards expanding reproductive rights at a time when the US has overturned them

Ministers in Sierra Leone have taken a major step towards decriminalising abortion and overturning the country’s colonial-era law, in a move hailed by campaigners and women’s rights activists.

President Julius Maada Bio said his cabinet had unanimously backed a bill on risk-free motherhood, which would expand access to abortion in a country where terminations are only permitted when a mother’s life is at risk.

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Lean times for Ghana’s yam traders as cost of living crisis bites

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People are buying less, costs are up, and profits are dwindling for traders at Kaneshi market in Accra

On a quiet stretch amid the sprawling buzz of Kaneshie market in Accra, a group of traders sheltering under canopies from the blazing sun sell yams stacked along the roadside.

Rita Oboh, 32, has worked the spot, or one nearby, since she was six, following in the footsteps of her mother who also traded yams. “My mother lived good, really good,” Oboh says with pride. “She built houses, she looked after everybody, her family, people who relied on her. She was successful.”

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Hongkongers who fled to UK criticise lack of mental health support

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Advocacy groups and BNO passport holders say not enough is being done to help them after arriving in Britain

The UK is not doing enough to provide mental health support to thousands of Hongkongers who have fled China’s increasingly authoritarian grip, according to advocacy groups and those politically displaced.

Following China’s introduction of a sweeping national security law on Hong Kong and swift clampdown on dissent, tens of thousands of residents with British national (overseas) (BNO) passports and their dependants were granted the right to live and work in the UK in 2021.

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Neglect Africa now and we will face labour shortages globally, IMF warns

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West’s response to effects of Covid and Ukraine war condemned as shortsighted ‘collective failure’ to invest in future human capital

The international community would be “playing with fire” if it failed to help Africa recover from Covid and the impact of the Ukraine war, the International Monetary Fund’s director for the continent has said.

Failure to invest and support the continent was shortsighted and detrimental to the global economy, as half of the new entrants into the global workforce over the next decade would come from sub-Saharan Africa, Abebe Aemro Selassie, director of the IMF’s Africa department, told the Guardian.

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UK cinemas ban fans in suits from Minions: The Rise of Gru

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TikTok craze for dressing up linked to unruly behaviour among young people at screenings

Some UK cinemas have banned groups of young people wearing suits during screenings of Minions: The Rise of Gru.

The decision came after some young moviegoers were criticised for rowdy behaviour after a viral trend erupted on the social media app TikTok.

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Jess Phillips says allegations about MPs should be investigated without formal complaint

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Labour MP wants inquiries into potential sexual misconduct to be possible before a specific victim comes forward

Sexual misconduct allegations about MPs should be investigated without always needing a victim to formally come forward, Jess Phillips, the Labour MP and victims advocate, has said.

Phillips, a shadow Home Office minister, said it was not right that Boris Johnson used the lack of a formal complaint against Chris Pincher as an “excuse” for the Conservative party not to have looked into widespread rumours about his conduct.

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Labour to aim to launch national care service inspired by creation of NHS

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Exclusive: shadow health secretary says service in England would be brought in over several parliaments

Labour will aim to bring in a national care service in England with just as much ambition as the 1945 government that brought in the NHS, the shadow health secretary has said, launching a review of how it would work.

In an interview with the Guardian, Wes Streeting said he had asked the Fabian Society to look at how the service would be funded and structured, with a view to bringing it in over the course of several parliaments.

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Mob-style killings shock Netherlands into fighting descent into ‘narco state’

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Murders, corruption and ‘Mocro Maffia’ prompt Dutch to set up war chest to tackle wave of organised crime sweeping nation

Journalists and lawyers under protection or murdered on the streets, court hearings guarded by the army, witness statements anonymised, and billions in dirty drug money that leaches through society, corrupting as it goes.

This is the Netherlands, where these facts have now inspired a crackdown pitting some €500m a year against a level of organised crime that politicians fear is increasingly “undermining” public order.

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Labour accused of ‘silencing’ women in row over sex-based rights group

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Party denies ‘gender-critical’ group’s claims that refusal of a conference stand was a ‘political judgment’

A Labour frontbencher is among a group of MPs and peers calling on the party to reconsider its decision not to hand a presence at its conference to a group campaigning for sex-based rights.

A debate continues to rage within Labour over what approach the party should take on gender issues. Boris Johnson also sought to inflame the issue by suggesting that Labour leader Keir Starmer “struggled to define what a woman was”.

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Boris Johnson faces investigation into claims over 40 ‘new’ hospitals

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Trusts reveal only five wholly new hospitals planned, as Labour says the scheme ‘exists only in PM’s imagination’

The government’s official spending watchdog is to launch an inquiry into Boris Johnson’s claim that 40 new hospitals will be built by 2030, as concerns grow in Whitehall that the pledge is unaffordable and has been greatly oversold to the public.

In a move that could prove hugely embarrassing for the prime minister, the independent National Audit Office (NAO) has decided to conduct a “value for money review” into the entire scheme, which was a cornerstone of the Conservative party’s 2019 general election manifesto.

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End of special Covid leave for NHS staff in England branded ‘unacceptable’

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British Medical Association says move will put patients and healthcare workers in England at significant risk

Scrapping special Covid leave for NHS staff is “completely unacceptable” and will put patients and healthcare workers at significant risk, the British Medical Association has warned.

From 7 July the government plans to withdraw the special paid leave for Covid-related sickness and isolation for NHS staff in England, meaning they will revert to normal contractual sick pay arrangements.

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Texas supreme court blocks order that allowed abortions to resume

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New decision temporarily overturns stay issued by lower court last week, and illustrates legal chaos for US abortion providers

The Texas supreme court on Friday overturned a block on a state abortion ban linked to the recent US supreme court decision reversing Roe v Wade, the landmark 1973 ruling granting nationwide rights to abortion.

The order – an emergency motion for temporary relief – ordered parties on both sides of the abortion issue to submit briefings to the court by 7 July on a lawsuit seeking to delay implementation of so-called trigger bans, which would outlaw abortions in Texas in most circumstances.

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Deborah James legacy: huge rise in online checks for bowel cancer signs

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NHS chief says James’s last message to public to ‘check your poo’ is life-saving

There was a tenfold increase in people checking bowel cancer symptoms online immediately after the death of Dame Deborah James, the NHS has said.

More than 23,000 visits were paid to NHS websites for bowel cancer on Wednesday, compared with 2,000 the previous day.

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