Justice secretary says safeguarding concerns must be addressed, and criticises Human Rights Act
Granting Levi Bellfield’s request to get married in prison is “inconceivable” unless serious safeguarding concerns are addressed, Dominic Raab has said.
Bellfield, who murdered Marsha McDonnell, Amelie Delagrange and Milly Dowler, is engaged and has requested a prison wedding, the Ministry of Justice has confirmed.
Continue reading...Warning from reproductive rights advocate comes as US states pass or debate legislation that would give full rights to embryos
In vitro fertilization treatment is facing a “clear and present danger” and could be a “casualty” of some of the proposed anti-abortion laws that are emerging across the US, according to a key advocate of reproductive medicine.
The warning comes as US states, including Louisiana, have passed or are debating new proposed legislation that would give full rights to embryos, which in some cases means fertilized eggs, created in the process of IVF and not implanted in a woman, would have the same legal rights as children.
Continue reading...Mayor of London says panel of experts will consider effectiveness of UK policies on non-class A drugs
Sadiq Khan has announced a commission to examine the effectiveness of the UK’s drug laws, with a particular focus on those governing cannabis.
The London drugs commission, to be chaired by Lord Charlie Falconer QC, a former lord chancellor and justice secretary, was one of Khan’s manifesto pledges in his re-election bid last year.
Continue reading...Presenter of BBC podcast You, Me And The Big C said on social media she did not know ‘how long I’ve got left’
The podcaster Deborah James has said she “cannot thank people enough” as a fundraiser for cancer research raised over £2m since she announced she had been moved to hospice at home care.
In a post on Monday, James, who has terminal bowel cancer, told followers on social media that she did not know “how long I’ve got left”.
Continue reading...Analysis: the landmark McMurdo report was first described as ‘just another woke report’ by the police union president
The Queensland government will on Wednesday announce the terms of reference for a four-month commission of inquiry into how the Queensland police service handles domestic violence.
For leading academics, women’s advocates and domestic violence victims, the inquiry has been a long time coming.
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Continue reading...Anxiety and sleep disorders were some reasons given for prescriptions despite lack of evidence for cannabis treatment, researchers find
More than half of all prescriptions for medicinal cannabis in Australia are written by doctors in Queensland, with prescriptions often given for conditions there is little evidence medicinal cannabis can treat, new research reveals.
Medicinal cannabis products such as capsules, creams, oils, lozenges, sprays and granulated flowers were approved for prescription 159,665 times between the start of Australia’s medicinal cannabis program in February 2016 and September 2021, research led by the University of Sydney’s Lambert Initiative for Cannabinoid Therapeutics shows.
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Continue reading...Children and adults forced to live in agony because they are unable to register for NHS care in Somerset, charity says
Many patients in south-west England are being left in dental pain because they are unable to register for NHS care, with some so desperate that they are even resorting to DIY treatment, it has emerged.
The charity Healthwatch in Somerset has reported that it is almost impossible for a new patient to register for an NHS dentist in the county, which is leading to adults and children living in agony, self-treating, or travelling out of the area for help.
Continue reading...Most seriously ill inmates left to wait in cells often due to bed shortages at secure hospitals, data shows
Hundreds of severely mentally ill prisoners in urgent need of hospital treatment are being left in prison cells due to bed shortages in secure NHS psychiatric units, an investigation has discovered.
Freedom of information (FoI) responses from 22 NHS trusts reveal for the first time that just over half of the 5,403 prisoners in England assessed by prison-based psychiatrists to require hospitalisation were not transferred between 2016 and 2021 – an 81% increase on the number of prisoners denied a transfer in the previous five years.
Continue reading...Women say they fear going out in public despite Taliban vow to respect hard-won rights after 2021 takeover
Despite everything that has happened to her country since the Taliban seized power last August, 29-year old Nafisa still never believed there would come a day when she would be unable to feel the sun on her face as she walked the streets of Kabul.
Yet on Saturday, the Taliban’s sinisterly named ministry for the propagation of virtue ordered that Nafisa, along with millions of women across Afghanistan, should ideally not leave the house at all. If they do, they must be fully veiled and never show their faces in public.
Continue reading...Veteran activists say the overthrow of Roe v Wade would equate to murder, and should send warning signals around the world
It was over the Thanksgiving holiday, catching up with old high school friends, that Frances Beal heard that Cordelia had died. Like the now 82-year-old Black feminist and activist, her friend had left home to go to college, but she didn’t make it through her first year because, like anybody who wanted to terminate a pregnancy in America in 1958, she had been forced to undergo a backstreet abortion.
“She was dead because she’d had an illegal abortion. And it had gone bad. And if you take a look at the statistics, the number of woman that died from illegal abortions was tremendous,” Beal, who later joined the movement to legalise abortion, told the Observer.
Continue reading...Documents show gambling firms warned Treasury officials against tightening up industry laws
Some of Britain’s betting giants are revealed to have quietly lobbied Treasury officials against a proposed industry crackdown, claiming it will cost millions of pounds in lost tax receipts.
Executives representing Bet365, Paddy Power and Ladbrokes met officials from the Treasury and Revenue and Customs, warning a radical overhaul of the industry could drive gamblers to the black market. The meeting was with tax officials rather than ministers and was therefore not required to be automatically disclosed.
Continue reading...PM insists ‘mixed’ results also included some ‘remarkable gains’ for Conservatives; Labour, Lib Dems and Greens celebrate key wins
One of the trickiest contests for Labour is in Sunderland, where it risks losing control of the council for the first time since it was founded in 1974, says the Guardian’s North Of England correspondent Josh Halliday.
Labour has a majority of only six councillors on the 75-seat authority, meaning it could easily fall into no overall control when ballots are counted.
There are enough clues on the doorstep and judging by the scale of the postal vote, that’s gone extremely well and we’re getting a big turnout. That said, neither party can be overly confident about which way many seats will go.
Partygate doesn’t come up as much as you’d think and for those who have brought it up they’ve said things like ‘You’re all as bad as each other’ or ‘that’s politics’.
Continue reading...Workers at plant in Romont alert authorities to mysterious white powder found in sacks of coffee beans
Swiss police have seized more than 500kg of cocaine from a shipment of coffee beans delivered to a Nespresso plant.
Workers at the plant in Romont, in the western Swiss canton of Fribourg, alerted authorities to a mysterious white powder found in sacks of coffee beans, police said.
Continue reading...Tory candidates ask voters not to punish them for ‘mistakes’ in Westminster in wake of Partygate
Hundreds of Tories are distancing themselves from Boris Johnson by standing as “Local Conservatives” in Thursday’s council elections, with rebel MPs saying they will gauge support over the weekend for a move against the prime minister.
Election leaflets seen by the Guardian show local candidates across England playing down their Tory affiliations, eschewing pictures of Johnson and styling themselves as “Local Conservative” on voting ballot papers.
Continue reading...SNP urged to act by Scottish Labour and campaigners as fears grow threat to Roe v Wade in US could embolden anti-choice movement
The Scottish government is facing growing calls to impose buffer zones around abortion clinics amid fears that potential changes to abortion rights in the US are emboldening anti-choice protesters.
A leaked US draft supreme court ruling overturning Roe v Wade has sharpened anxieties over delays in implementing the SNP’s 2021 manifesto pledge to support local authorities to establish protest-free zones around clinics.
Continue reading...Angela Rayner says Tory candidates at the local elections ‘are trying to hide from their own government’s record’. This live blog is closed – please follow this one for updates on the war in Ukraine
Savanta ComRes has published some new polling on voting intention in Scottish parliaement elections. Here are the figures for the constituency section.
And here are the figures for the list section.
Continue reading...Davina McCall documentary highlights benefits and postcode lottery of previously rejected utrogestan
A sought-after hormone replacement therapy is being reassessed for use in Scotland after TV presenter and menopause campaigner Davina McCall revealed a postcode lottery in its prescription across the UK.
Amid an ongoing supply crisis of HRT products, McCall spoke to specialists about the benefits of utrogestan, a “body identical” micronised progesterone, which is derived from plants, in her Channel 4 documentary Sex, Mind and Menopause, broadcast on Monday.
Continue reading...Notre Dame Law School professor Richard W Garnett, a supreme court expert who clerked for the late chief justice William Rehnquist during the 1996-97 term, says the leaking of the draft document represents a “gross betrayal of trust”.
In a statement to the Guardian, Garnett said:
Most court-watchers have been expecting that, in the pending Dobbs case, a majority of the justices will vote to uphold Mississippi’s abortion regulation and to squarely overrule the earlier Roe and Casey decisions. And, it is unlikely that any observers or commentators familiar with the case are actually surprised by the possibility that Justice Alito has drafted a majority opinion stating that those decisions were ‘egregiously wrong’.
In any event, however, for an employee or member of the Court to intentionally leak a draft opinion would be a gross betrayal of trust, particularly if the leak were an effort to advance partisan aims or to undermine the Court’s work and legitimacy.
Continue reading...A leaked supreme court draft ruling shows the US is set to end 50 years of a woman’s right to choose. Elsewhere, the battle still rages
In 2022, abortion remains one of the most controversial and bitterly contested ethical and political battlegrounds. It is illegal for women to terminate their pregnancies in any circumstance in 24 countries, with a further 37 restricting access in any case except when the mother’s life is in danger.
As a leaked document signals that the US supreme court is poised to strike down the landmark 1973 ruling in Roe v Wade, millions of American women face losing their access to legal abortions, joining millions more living in those countries rejecting a woman’s right to choose.
Continue reading...Leaked initial draft majority opinion suggests court is poised to overturn ruling that legalised abortion across US
A leaked initial draft majority opinion suggests the US supreme court is poised to overturn the Roe v Wade decision that legalised abortion nationwide, Politico reported on Monday.
The unprecedented leak stunned Washington. It holds the potential to reshape the political landscape ahead of US midterm elections in November. Following is some reaction to the report:
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