Education secretary ‘puzzled’ by reports government will start charging for tests in England in few weeks
Ministers are “absolutely not” planning to scrap free rapid Covid tests, amid reports the government will start charging for them in England in the next few weeks.
The Sunday Times reported free lateral flow tests (LFTs) could be limited to high-risk settings – such as care homes, hospitals and schools – and to people with symptoms.
Continue reading...Young developers on the platform used by many millions of children claim they have been financially exploited, threatened with dismissal and sexually harassed
Anna* was 10 when she built her first video game on Roblox, a digital platform where young people can make, share and play games together. She used Roblox much like a child from a previous generation might have used cardboard boxes, marker pens and stuffed toys to build a castle or a spaceship and fill it with characters and story. There was one alluring difference: Roblox hosted Anna’s tiny world online, enabling children she had never met and who maybe lived thousands of miles away from her home in Utah to visit and play. Using Roblox’s in-built tools – child-friendly versions of professional software – Anna began to learn the rudiments of music composition, computer programming and 3D modelling. Game-making became an obsession. When she wasn’t at school Anna was rarely off her computer.
As she became more proficient, Anna’s work caught the attention of some experienced users on Roblox, game-makers in their 20s who messaged her with a proposition to collaborate on a more ambitious project. Flattered by their interest, Anna became the fifth member of the nascent team, contributing art, design and programming to the game. She did not sign up to make money, but during a Skype call the game-makers offered the teenager 10% of any profits the game made in the future. It turned out to be a generous offer. Within a few months, the game had become one of the most played on Roblox. For Anna, success had an unfathomable, life-changing impact. At 16 her monthly income somehow exceeded her parents’ combined salaries. She calculated that she was on course to earn $300,000 in a year, a salary equivalent to that of a highly experienced Google programmer. Anna cancelled her plans to go to college.
Continue reading...New DNA research by London-based scientists hopes to find cure for rapidly spreading conditions
More and more people around the world are suffering because their immune systems can no longer tell the difference between healthy cells and invading micro-organisms. Disease defences that once protected them are instead attacking their tissue and organs.
Major international research efforts are being made to fight this trend – including an initiative at London’s Francis Crick Institute, where two world experts, James Lee and Carola Vinuesa, have set up separate research groups to help pinpoint the precise causes of autoimmune disease, as these conditions are known.
Continue reading...Latest developments as Philippines reports record 26,458 cases and scientist says Omicron variant could become endemic in UK
The north-east and north-west of England are seeing “concerning” rates of the Omicron variant, an expert has said.
Figures showed that three of the five UK areas with the biggest week-on-week rises in Covid case rates are Middlesbrough (748.8 to 2,651.4), Copeland (1,731.3 to 3,525.8) and Redcar & Cleveland (846.8 to 2,564.3).
Continue reading...A roundup of the coverage of the struggle for human rights and freedoms, from Mexico to Hong Kong
Continue reading...The actor knew her father had served in the merchant navy, but it wasn’t until she read about Britain’s mistreatment of Chinese seamen in the 40s that she understood just how much his experiences had shaped her family
“Take the rest of the noodles and the pak choi and you can have it for your lunch tomorrow.” My dad pushed the takeaway containers and their remaining contents across the table towards me.
“I’ve got loads of food at mine, why don’t you and Mum keep it?” I protested. I knew he’d insist I take the leftovers with me. This routine would always play out at the end of family dinners once I’d left home and, this time around, it felt both familiar and oddly comforting – because it had been a while since our last dinner.
Continue reading...It’s good for mental health, a study found, but what’s it like being an older person at the skatepark?
Skateboarding in middle age can help people feel empowered and reduce the chance of mental health issues such as depression, according to a study.
Dr Paul O’Connor, 46, who published the research and is a lecturer in sociology at the University of Exeter, said he wanted to look at the phenomenon of ageing within a subculture.
Continue reading...Sarah Atkinson, professor of screen media, on whether the trend for big, epic films is leading to big, epic runtimes
Zack Snyder’s Justice League: 4hrs 2mins. The Irishman: 3hrs 29mins. The latest James Bond, the longest ever: 2hrs 43mins. Some of the most hyped films of the past few years have been as known for their length as their plot. So is this the new normal – are films getting longer? I asked Sarah Atkinson, professor of screen media at King’s College London.
I loved Tenet, but I remember craving an interval and an ice-cream. Am I the only one feeling films are longer?
Cinema is a bit of a machine, and is surrounded by marketing, so what we hear is often what we remember. These days, there’s a lot of talk about long running times. It’s all part of incentivising people to go out and pay for a ticket, which they won’t do unless it’s for something special – a big, epic film. Just look at the Marvel franchise: almost every one is well over two hours.
Support, which includes 40 army doctors, shows ministers can no longer ignore scale of understaffing, union leaders say
The armed forces are being deployed to help hospitals in London deal with a surge in Covid patients because the Omicron variant is leaving so many staff sick and unable to work.
Of the 200 military personnel involved, 40 are doctors who will help NHS staff look after patients. The other 160 personnel, who have no medical training, will check in patients, ensure stocks are maintained and would also be “conducting basic checks”, the Ministry of Defence said.
Continue reading...High court to review government’s decision to include subsidiary of Malaysia’s Supermax in £6bn ‘framework’ deal for buying gloves
The UK government is facing legal action over its decision to keep using a Malaysian company accused of using forced labour as a supplier of personal protective equipment (PPE) to the NHS.
Lawyers at the London-based law firm Wilson Solicitors have filed for a judicial review of the government’s decision to name the UK subsidiary of the Malaysian company Supermax as one of the approved suppliers in a new £6bn contract for disposable gloves for NHS workers.
Continue reading...Bill to restrict restaurant, theatre and other access to vaccinated follows Macron’s pledge to ‘piss off’ those without jabs
French MPs have passed the government’s controversial vaccine pass bill after three days of an angry stop-start debate.
The legislation, which requires people to be fully vaccinated to enjoy social, sporting and cultural activities, was approved by a large majority in the assemblée nationale in the early hours of Thursday morning.
Continue reading...With 80% of pandemic funds misused and widespread vaccine myths, citizens have had to step up where government has failed
In January 2021, the Malawian rights activist Paul Msoma wrote that he was in Kamuzu central hospital, struggling to breathe. The hospital had oxygen cylinders but no flowmeters – the necessary instrument to connect him to them. I was left wondering where the funds that had been released for the country’s Covid-19 response were going. “My situation is getting bad and l desperately need oxygen,” Msoma wrote on Facebook. “Anyone who can urgently help out there please help by donating this very gadget.”
Kamuzu central hospital is one of the biggest referral hospitals in Malawi and it did not seem right for such a big hospital not to have oxygen flowmeters, which are very basic medical equipment costing around £18 a piece. This was at a time when the government had released more than £5.6m for the Covid-19 response effort.
Madalitso Wills Kateta is a freelance journalist based in Lilongwe, Malawi
Continue reading...NRC, which was accused of spreading ‘misinformation’, says it will struggle to reach those in need as Tigray conflict enters third year
Ethiopia has lifted a five-month suspension of the Norwegian Refugee Council’s aid work after it cleared the organisation of allegations of spreading “misinformation”.
The government ordered the NRC, along with Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), to stop work for three months in July, including operations in the Tigray conflict zone. Both organisations were ordered to stop their humanitarian work in July but while MSF’s suspension was lifted in October, the NRC’s was extended.
Continue reading...The swapping, collating and posting of nude images of women without their consent is on the rise. But unlike revenge porn, it is not a crime. Now survivors are demanding a change in the law
Ruby will never forget the first time she clicked on the database AnonIB. It is a so-called “revenge porn” site and in January 2020, a friend had texted her for help. Ruby is a secondary school teacher, used to supporting teenagers, and her friend turned to her for advice when she discovered her images were on the site.
“She didn’t send the thread that she was on,” says Ruby, 29. “She was embarrassed, so she sent a general link to the site itself.” When Ruby opened it, “I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I couldn’t believe that such an infrastructure existed: something so well organised, so systematic, fed by the people who lived around us.”
Continue reading...Pontiff laments ‘denied parenthood’ and people who ‘substitute cats and dogs for children’
In a move likely to raise the hackles of millions of cats, dogs and their human cohabitees, Pope Francis has suggested that couples who prefer pets to children are selfish.
Wading into a debate noted for its toxic tone on social media, the leader of the world’s 1.3 billion Catholics said substituting pets for children “takes away our humanity”.
Continue reading...‘It was clear that these two had each other in their lives, and that was pretty much it’
In the 1970s I lived in SoHo in New York, which is not far from the Bowery, but the two districts were like separate universes. SoHo was full of artists and creative types but the Bowery was known as the place where you ended up when you were at the bottom of the barrel. There were a lot of flophouses and a lot of alcoholism and drug use. It was the darkest place in New York City for a long time.
The Bowery Mission is a Christian rescue centre for homeless people. Only men are allowed to stay overnight but it feeds anybody. I used to go there around Thanksgiving and Christmas time to help serve dinner. The face-to-face contact and interactions I had with people meant that I always felt a real connection with them, and it also made me grateful for what I had in my own life.
Continue reading...He experienced horrendous abuse in foster care, then suffered terribly years later when the case came to court. Now a police officer, he is determined to change how the system treats survivors
Jon Needham looks like a copper. Tall, broad and imposing, he works in a lifetime offender management unit, where he deals with serious and organised criminals. So when he speaks, his gentleness comes as a surprise. “I joined the police because I was passionate about helping people,” he says. “It sounds like a cliche to say you want to make a real difference, but I genuinely mean it.”
Needham gets paid for working with “nominals” – people who are on the police database (“That’s what the police call them, I call them people,” he says). But he is also transforming how his colleagues deal with victims of rape and sexual assault.
Continue reading...At least six trusts in have issued alerts as fears grow vital care will be compromised by workforce absence
Multiple NHS trusts across England have declared “critical incidents” amid soaring staff absences caused by Covid-19, with health leaders saying many parts of the service are now “in a state of crisis”.
Boris Johnson on Monday ruled out the introduction of new curbs “for now” but said he recognised that the pressure on the NHS and its hospitals, was “going to be considerable in the course of the next couple of weeks, and maybe more”.
Continue reading...Request for problem to be taken more seriously comes as data shows sixfold rise in visits to incel forums
The man who gunned down seven people, killing five, in a rampage in Plymouth is being lionised by an online “incel” community, with some ironically venerating him as a “saint” and celebrating the attack as an aid to their recruitment drive.
Jake Davison, 22, killed his mother, Maxine, 51, after a row before going on to fatally shoot four others and then himself in August last year. Before his death, he expressed misogynistic and homophobic tendencies, as well as angrily lamenting his failure to find a girlfriend.
Continue reading...Brigitte Baptiste has a high profile as a transgender Colombian woman and an ecologist – in a country where both are targeted
When Brigitte Baptiste walks on to the 10th floor of Bogotá’s Ean University at 9.45am in a plunging dress, knee-high cheetah-print boots and a silvery wig, the office comes to life. She examines some flowers sent by the Colombian radio station Caracol to thank her for taking part in a forum, her co-worker compliments her on her lipstick, and she settles in for a day of back-to-back meetings, followed by a private virtual conversation with the UN secretary general, António Guterres. Later that evening, she flies to Cartagena for a conference on natural gas.
The 58-year-old ecologist is one of Colombia’s foremost environmental experts, and one of its most visible transgender people, challenging scientific and social conventions alike. An ecology professor at the Jesuit-run Javeriana University for 20 years, she has written 15 books, countless newspaper columns, and won international prizes for her work. Most recently, she was appointed chancellor of Ean University, a business school, as part of its push for greater sustainability.
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