Category Archives: Society

Severely obese people in middle age 50% more likely to die early, study finds

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High blood pressure and type 2 diabetes among the risks, according to analysis of data on 2.8 million NHS patients

People who are severely obese in middle age are 50% more likely to die early than those of a healthy weight, according to a large study of UK data.

The research shows people with the highest levels of obesity are running a high risk of a range of serious illnesses and premature death, with 12 times the risk of type 2 diabetes, 22 times the risk of sleep apnoea and nearly four times the risk of heart failure compared to those who are of normal weight.

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Rabbi wounded in synagogue shooting says ‘senseless hate’ killings must stop

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A defiant Yisroel Goldstein, who was shot at point blank range in California attack, says ‘we are being mown down like animals’

The rabbi wounded in the shooting at his synagogue in California has said it was a miracle he was not dead and that “senseless hate” killings based on religion must stop.

“We are being mown down like animals,” said Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein, lost both his index fingers when he held up his hands in defense as the gunman shot him.

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Technology cuts children off from adults, warns expert

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UCL professor says digital world disrupts family life, risking mental health of youngsters

One of the world’s foremost authorities on child mental health today warns that technology is threatening child development by disrupting the crucial learning relationship between adults and children.

Peter Fonagy, professor of Contemporary Psychoanalysis and Developmental Science at UCL, who has published more than 500 scientific papers and 19 books, warns that the digital world is reducing contact time between the generations – a development with potentially damaging consequences.

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A love song for Europe: the couple who drove 20,000 miles to record 731 tunes

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They put a recording studio in a rickety motorhome and crossed 33 countries – asking strangers to knock out a tearjerker

‘People asked us, ‘Are you crackers?’” says Gemma Paintin. She can see why. Along with fellow Bristol artist James Stenhouse, Paintin spent half of 2018 travelling around Europe in an old motorhome, recording love songs. Their epic trek took in almost 20,000 miles, 33 countries, 46 languages and 731 songs – each sung in their battered mobile studio, mostly by random strangers.

These ranged from a seven-year-old Greek boy singing the Kiss song I Was Made for Lovin’ You (“even the guitar parts”) to MEP Peter Simon, who laid down a German folksong. There was a singing security guard in Madrid and some lads in Leeds who bawled through Robbie Williams’s Angels. This, says Paintin, was “exactly how you’d expect a lad version of Angels to sound”.

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Tories and Labour accused of racial discrimination in Portsmouth

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Conservatives have launched inquiry into alleged racist incidents in local party

Portsmouth’s major political parties are struggling to contain claims they have racially discriminated against local minority ethnic council candidates.

The Conservatives have launched an inquiry into alleged racist incidents in the local party. A leaked letter shows a former council candidate for the party has claimed he was marginalised, bullied and racially abused.

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Hand dryers v paper towels: the surprisingly dirty fight for the right to dry your hands

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For a century, the humble paper towel has dominated public toilets. But a new generation of hand dryers has sparked a war for loo supremacy.

By Samanth Subramanian

In the summer of 2005, a Chicago marketing consultant named George Campbell received a tantalising call from a headhunter. Was he open to an interview at Dyson? The company was secretively preparing to launch a new appliance, and it needed a sales strategy for the US: that was all the headhunter would divulge. Campbell was excited; he saw Dyson as “a company with the iconic quality of Apple, and an ability to take a basic product like a vacuum cleaner and make an 80% margin on it”.

He went along to Dyson’s office, a factory-like space with lofty ceilings and timber beams next to the Chicago river. In his first few conversations, he recalled, they wouldn’t even reveal what the product was. Finally, Campbell was told in strict confidence: it was a hand dryer. And he’d thought he was joining Dyson for the glamour. “My heart dropped to my stomach.”

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Council takes 10 years to not make a decision on village green status

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Ombudsman orders Cornwall to pay compensation over locals’ plan for land near Saltash

Cornwall council has been strongly criticised by an ombudsman for taking more than a decade to examine an application to turn a riverside beauty spot into a village green.

The local government and social care ombudsman expressed concern that the council had still not made a decision on the land at Forder, near Saltash, and said it had taken so long that some of those who had backed the application had died.

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Nearly 170m under-10s unvaccinated against measles worldwide

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Figure includes half a million in UK, as Unicef warns the disease could ‘spread like wildfire’

Nearly 170 million children in the world under the age of 10, including half a million in the UK and 2.5 million in the US, are unprotected from measles in the face of growing outbreaks of the disease, Unicef is warning.

More than 21 million children a year are not vaccinated against one of the most infectious organisms in existence, says the UN body. Between 2010 and 2017, an estimated 169 million children missed the first of the recommended two-dose regime.

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Campaigners fight to lift ban on morning-after pill in Honduras

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Law against emergency contraception leaves desperate women, including rape victims, forced to buy medication on black market

A pioneering grassroots campaign to legalise emergency contraception is launched in Honduras this week amid ongoing false claims by church leaders, senior doctors and conservative politicians that the medication causes abortions, infertility and cancer.

Honduras is the only country in Latin America where emergency contraception is banned, forcing desperate women, including rape victims, to buy expensive and unregulated contraband pills on the black market.

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‘Stigma does not go away’: Mumbai’s dedicated LGBT health clinic | Payal Mohta

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After reports of transgender people being refused treatment, a new centre offers specialised services – and respite from discrimination

Vivek Sharma has travelled 20km from his home to the congested eastern suburb of Mumbai for his HIV treatment. But the journey is no hardship for the 23-year-old student.

“My file was shifted to this clinic. I am so happy that this has finally happened.”

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Hong Kong real estate now more expensive for the dead than the living

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A tiny nook for an urn can cost up to £180,000. With 200,000 sets of ashes waiting for a resting place, the city is running out of options

“Per square foot, it has become more expensive to house the dead than the living,” says Kwok Hoi Pong, chairman of the Hong Kong Funeral Business Association. “A niche for an urn in a private columbarium in the best position can cost up to HK$1.8m. This is the phenomenon in Hong Kong.”

A ground burial plot can cost anywhere between HK$3m (£300,000) and HK$5m, but in the city’s congested cemeteries, vacancies rarely become available. Land is so scarce that 90% of the 48,000 people a year who die in Hong Kong are cremated. But increasingly finding the space even to store ashes is becoming nigh on impossible.

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Kalashnikovs and no-go zones: east Burkina Faso falls to militants

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Locals say they live in fear of violence and face harsh punishment for breaking rules

When a stranger arrives in Bartiébougou, the Kalashnikov-wielding men in charge check his ID. But first they check his forehead. They are looking for the indent left by a beret – an instant indication he is a soldier and therefore an enemy spy.

Like much of eastern Burkina Faso, the government has no control over what happens in Bartiébougou; local militants, backed by west African extremist groups, do.

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Exercise helped with my anxiety – but I became obsessed. Therapy was the answer

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It wasn’t until I had a back injury that I realised how extreme my gym habit had become – and admitted that I needed help

The first time I went for a run as an adult, I was at university and had been deeply depressed for several months. I managed a minute before I had to walk, but, I told myself, a minute was a start. I went every day and, as the weeks passed, I ran further, for longer. The impact was immediate – even after that first jog I felt a rush of achievement, of hope. And it was cumulative: every run that followed made me feel stronger, physically and emotionally. Then, one day, many months later, I realised I was not depressed any more.

As the years passed, I gradually branched out from short jogs into runs of more than two hours. I went to circuit classes and step classes, interval training and personal training, core sessions and legs, bums and tums sessions. I dropped two dress sizes and developed stomach muscles.

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Mentally ill prisoners face months-long waits for hospital transfer

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Exclusive: Prisoners are being left awaiting adequate treatment for up to half a year

Prisoners with severe mental health problems are waiting up to six months to be transferred to hospital to get treatment, a Guardian investigation has found.

Government guidelines in England and Wales stipulate that prisoners who are acutely mentally ill should be transferred to a hospital within 14 days of the first medical recommendation. But according to an analysis of Ministry of Justice data, hundreds of prisoners a year are being left awaiting adequate treatment.

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Beyoncé rocks, but so did Woodstock | Brief letters

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Roger Waters | Rock concerts | Use-by dates | Exercise | Smartphones

Regarding Jeremy Beecham’s thoughts on Roger Waters (Letters, 19 April), I think we can take it as read Waters would not encourage Madonna to support the Assad regime by playing Damascus.
John Warburton
Edinburgh

• You failed to mention the two most important filmed rock concerts (Homecoming review – Beyoncé documentary is a triumphant celebration, 19 April): Monterey Pop and Woodstock. To write about seminal filmed rock gigs without mentioning them is like writing about influential 60s groups without mentioning the Beatles or the Stones.
Jon Ingram
Ilkley, West Yorkshire

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Tony Blair: migrants should be forced to integrate more to combat far right

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Former PM claims that ‘failure’ of multiculturalism has led to rise in bigotry

Migrant communities must be compelled to do more to integrate to help combat the rise of “far-right bigotry”, Tony Blair has warned.

The former prime minister said that successive governments had “failed to find the right balance between diversity and integration”, while the concept of multiculturalism has been misused as a way to justify a “refusal to integrate”.

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The dad who gave birth: ‘Being pregnant doesn’t change me being a trans man’

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Transitioning meant that Freddy McConnell finally felt comfortable in his skin. Then he began a quest to conceive and carry his own child

Freddy McConnell takes out his phone and shows me a film of his baby snoring contentedly. Jack is gorgeous, with blond hair, blue eyes and heavy eyelids, and McConnell is the classic doting dad – albeit more hands-on than most. It’s a year since he gave birth to Jack, an experience he describes as life-changing. He has also made an intimate and moving film about that experience, from the decision to have a baby, through pregnancy and the delivery. Everything is documented in close-up, including Jack’s arrival in a hospital birthing pool.

You might expect McConnell to be an extrovert; an exhibitionist, even. In fact, the Guardian multimedia journalist is reserved and private in a rather old-fashioned, stiff-upper-lip English way. So why on earth would he want to expose himself like this?

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Housework could keep brain young, research suggests

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Even light exertions can slow down ageing of the brain, activity-tracker data indicates

Even light activity such as household chores might help to keep the brain young, researchers say, adding to a growing body of evidence that, when it comes to exercise, every little helps.

The findings mirror upcoming guidance from the UK chief medical officers, and existing US guidelines, which say light activity or very short bouts of exercise are beneficial to health – even if it is just a minute or two at a time – countering the previous view that there was a threshold that must be reached before there were significant benefits.

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‘I don’t know how my children will survive’: Zimbabwe in crisis | Nyasha Chingono

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Cyclone Idai washed away the crops that survived a savage drought, leaving 70% of the population in dire need of food

Mutemarare, 61, walks through his corn field, desperately looking for remnants of maize.

He’s not expecting to find any, as most of his crop wilted before reaching maturity, the result of the devastating drought that has hit Zimbabwe.

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Yorkshire tourism chief set to quit after criticism of expenses scandal response

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Ron McMillan has come under fire over handling of former chief executive’s departure

The chair of Yorkshire’s tourism body is expected to resign after an expenses scandal surrounding its former chief executive Sir Gary Verity.

Welcome to Yorkshire’s Ron McMillan will reportedly tender his resignation at a board meeting on Friday.

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