Hundreds of fathers protest with children to call for two weeks’ statutory paternity leave to be increased
Hundreds of fathers took to the streets of London and Edinburgh on Wednesday to demand better paternity leave, in a protest that was billed as the world’s first dad strike.
They came with babies in papooses and pushchairs, as they brandished placards and dad jokes to call for an overhaul of the meanest paternity leave system in Europe.
Continue reading...Andrew Gwynne and Paul Foster express concerns about safeguards as growing number of MPs change stance on bill
Two more Labour MPs have expressed significant doubts about the assisted dying bill, suggesting they would now oppose the legislation.
The former health minister Andrew Gwynne, who previously abstained, wrote to his constituents in Gorton and Denton to say: “To date I don’t think that the bill has been strengthened enough and that safeguards should go much further.”
Continue reading...UK company offers alternative to land-based burials after success of memorials in Bali made from remains of pets
Death is killing our planet. That is the stark assessment of a new business offering an innovative alternative: having your loved one’s ashes made into a reef and anchored to the British seabed.
There are increasing concerns about the environmental cost of traditional funerals: a single burial generates 833kg of CO2, while a typical cremation has a footprint of about 400kg of CO2. In the US alone, 1.6m tonnes of concrete and 14,000 tonnes of steel is used each year for building graves. Chemicals from embalming processes seep into the soil.
Continue reading...Campaign pushes to change law that could lead to survivors living in UK being disqualified from means-tested benefits
Survivors of Ireland’s mother and baby homes are being “retraumatised” by the prospect of losing benefits in the UK if they accept compensation from the Irish state, Westminster has been told.
The warning comes amid a campaign backed by representatives of almost every political party in the UK and figures including Steve Coogan, who starred in Philomena, a film about the mother and baby homes scandal.
Continue reading...About 150,000 under-16s will benefit across West of England combined authority and North Somerset
Children under the age of 16 will be able to travel for free on buses in the west of England during the school summer holidays in a move benefiting about 150,000 young people.
The West of England combined authority (Weca) – covering Bath and North East Somerset, Bristol and South Gloucestershire – plus North Somerset will allow children aged from five to 15 to travel for free with no bus pass or registration required.
Continue reading...Ontario’s chief medical officer of health says infections could have been prevented through routine vaccination
Six babies with unvaccinated mothers have been born with congenital measles in the Canadian province of Ontario since the start of the largest outbreak of the disease in the western hemisphere late last year.
Ontario’s chief medical officer of health, Kieran Moore, said the infants, who were infected with measles in the womb, had all recovered. He said the infections could have been prevented through routine vaccination.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Scientists also say any reduction in Foreign Office funding for vaccine alliance Gavi would harm UK’s soft power
Any cut in UK funding to a global vaccination group would damage soft power and could make British less resilient to infectious diseases, as well as causing avoidable deaths among children, leading vaccine and aid experts have warned.
Scientists including Sir Andrew Pollard, who led the development of the Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid vaccine, said a major cut in money for the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (Gavi) could also make the UK less able to respond to a future pandemic.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Letter from six top figures says more walkouts by junior colleagues would help those who oppose the NHS
Six senior figures in England’s medical profession have criticised potential strikes by resident doctors as “a futile gesture” that will harm patients and help those who oppose the NHS.
The move is the first public evidence of the significant unease many senior doctors feel about the possibility of their junior colleagues staging a new campaign of industrial action in England.
Continue reading...Mayors welcome £500m set aside for regional authorities to target investment locally
New drug treatments, longer-lasting batteries and developing artificial intelligence are among research projects that will receive funding as part of an £86bn government investment into science and technology.
Ministers have announced a £22.5bn a year commitment in research and development (R&D) over the next four years, including up to £500m for regional authorities to target the investment locally.
Continue reading...Move is part of £450m Wes Streeting plan to tackle long delays and end hospital overcrowding
Hundreds of thousands of patients needing urgent medical help will be treated in settings other than A&E as part of a drive to cut “corridor care” and avoid another NHS winter crisis.
The move is a central plank of a government plan to improve urgent and emergency care in England, tackle the long delays many patients face in A&E and banish overcrowding in hospitals.
Continue reading...Akua Reindorf said law never permitted self-ID, but trans campaigners call remarks ‘profoundly unhelpful’
Transgender people must accept a reduction in their rights after the supreme court decision on gender because they “have been lied to over many years” about what their rights actually were, one of the commissioners drawing up the official post-ruling guidance has said.
Speaking at a debate about the repercussions of April’s ruling that “woman” in the Equality Act refers only to a biological woman, Akua Reindorf said trans people had been misled about their rights and there “has to be a period of correction”.
Continue reading...Infant had ‘contracted the virus before birth from their mother’, while the country has recorded 2,755 measles cases
A Canadian infant who was born prematurely and had measles has died, officials said on Thursday without confirming a cause of death, raising heightened concern about the virus’s resurgence.
Canada has recorded 2,755 measles cases – including 2,429 confirmed and 326 probable – according to federal health data updated on 2 June.
Continue reading...Scheme aims to exploit ‘teachable moment’, when someone is wavering between criminality and turning their back on violence
A scheme aiming to turn children arrested for violence away from crime has claimed staggering success, with up to nine out of 10 diverted from further offending, according to a report.
Under the scheme, which is funded by London’s Violence Reduction Unit (VRU), special youth workers are placed in police custody centres across the capital.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Government-ordered review concludes term in NHS should be changed because of risks to patients’ safety
Physician associates in the NHS will be renamed to stop patients mistaking them for doctors after a review found that their title caused widespread confusion.
Thousands of physician associates who work in hospitals and GP surgeries across the UK take medical histories, examine patients and diagnose illnesses but are not doctors.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Cost-saving for 2024-25 follows pledge by Wes Streeting to cut the amount going to agencies by 30%
Spending on agency staff across the NHS in England dropped by almost £1bn in the last financial year, ministers have said, after a pledge by Wes Streeting to cut the amount going to agencies by 30%.
According to the Department of Health and Social Care, the total spent by trusts on agency staff during 2024-25 was nearly £1bn lower than the previous year.
Continue reading...Sadiq Khan seeking ‘urgent review’ of decision to ban adverts from British Pregnancy Advisory Service
The mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has stepped in to reverse a ban on adverts on the London transport network calling for abortion to be decriminalised.
It is understood that the mayor is seeking an “urgent review” of a Transport for London (TfL) decision to ban the adverts from the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (Bpas) charity on the grounds they may bring the Metropolitan police into disrepute.
Continue reading...Milla Magee, the reigning Miss England, left over claims she had been used as window dressing
Their mantra is “beauty with a purpose”. But the organisers of the Miss World pageant have been accused of something altogether uglier: being “vindictive and very bitter” towards a contestant who left over claims she had been used as window dressing.
The reigning Miss England, Milla Magee, said she agreed to take part in the 2025 Miss World pageant because she believed it would be a platform to promote her campaign to have CPR included in the school curriculum. But she said the reality was very different.
Continue reading...Pen Green, a model for Labour’s Sure Start, could face closure if Reform-led North Northamptonshire council fails to act
A world-renowned children’s centre that provided the model for Sure Start is on the brink of collapse, with its future in the hands of the newly elected Reform UK leadership of its local council.
The Pen Green Centre, which pioneered wrap-around care and learning for preschool children in one of the most deprived areas of the UK, was the blueprint for Labour’s totemic early years Sure Start programme in the late 1990s.
Continue reading...Larry Hoover, 74, ex-chief of Gangster Disciples in Chicago, had been serving multiple life sentences for over 50 years
Donald Trump has commuted the sentence of Larry Hoover, a former Chicago gang leader, who had been serving multiple life sentences for more than five decades.
Hoover, 74, is the co-founder of Gangster Disciples, a gang described in court documents as “large and vicious” that sold “great quantities of cocaine, heroin, and other drugs in Chicago”.
Continue reading...European Commission alleges age verification systems are ineffective in preventing under-18s from watching
The EU executive has launched an investigation into four pornographic websites over alleged failure to prevent children from seeing adult content.
After analysis of company policies, the European Commission accused Pornhub, Stripchat, XNXX and XVideos of failing to have effective age verification measures to stop minors accessing their content.
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