Promised provision, particularly for autistic children, was announced a year ago but few schools will open on time
Plans to deliver thousands of new special school places by 2026 are falling seriously behind, with experts branding the building programme “a mess”, the Observer can reveal.
The news calls into question the only announcement on schools the chancellor made in last week’s budget – a commitment of £105m towards 15 additional special schools.
Continue reading...Campaigners say health service cannot provide care quickly because of underinvestment, which is allowing firms to ‘make a killing’
Private hospitals are doing one in 10 of all planned NHS operations amid patients’ frustration at long delays in NHS care and political pressure to cut waiting times.
New figures seen by the Guardian prompted campaigners to warn that the NHS is “allowing the private sector to make a killing” and is seeing more and more of its services “cannibalised” because years of underinvestment mean it can no longer provide care quickly.
Continue reading...Sector’s boom times look here to stay as desperate patients seek care and more people take medical insurance
It is boom time in private healthcare. It has never been, or needed to be, a big provider of diagnostics and treatment in the UK before. The NHS’s provision of care to everyone, free at the point of delivery, has seen to that. That also explains why take-up of private medical insurance has remained stuck at about 10% of the population. The health service’s mere existence left little room for the private sector to expand.
However, the NHS’s fragile state – it still gives people mostly high-quality care, it just cannot do that quickly any more – is a historic opportunity for the private sector to go from small to significant. It could become what one expert calls “a new normal” – a not unusual place where people get treated.
Continue reading...Progress to prevent female genital mutilation needs to be ‘27 times faster’, says UN
The number of girls and women who have undergone female genital mutilation (FGM) has increased by 15% in the past eight years according to new data.
Figures released by the UN children’s agency, Unicef, show that more than 230 million girls and women alive today have undergone FGM, compared with 200 million in 2016. The trend is towards girls being cut at a younger age, said Unicef executive director Catherine Russell.
Continue reading...Xavier Becerra says US must provide federal protections for reproductive rights if it hopes to avoid further restrictions
The health and human services secretary, Xavier Becerra, said the US must provide federal protections for reproductive rights if Americans hope to avoid further restrictions on in vitro fertilization, contraception and abortion in an exclusive interview with the Guardian.
Becerra’s comments come in the wake of an Alabama supreme court decision that gave embryos the rights of “extrauterine children” and forced three of the state’s largest fertility clinics to stop services for fear of litigation and prosecution. The fallout from the decision prompted the Alabama legislature to hastily sign new legislation that will give IVF providers with immunity from civil and criminal suits, which the governor signed into law on Wednesday night.
Continue reading...The Pritzker prize has been won by the 78-year-old Japanese master whose whose work ranges from an open-access Hiroshima fire station to a building seemingly made of books
From rows of public housing connected by elevated walkways and shared terraces, to sleek glass university buildings designed for maximum transparency between departments, the architecture of Riken Yamamoto has always been about seeing and being seen. Now it’s his turn to be put in the spotlight, as the 78-year-old Japanese architect has been named the 2024 recipient of the Pritzker prize, architecture’s highest honour.
It’s a surprising choice. Yamamoto has never been part of the fashionable avant garde, of the “starchitect” kind that the Pritzker has often honoured in the past. Nor is he from an overlooked or undervalued region, as the prize has looked to highlight in some recent years. Instead, during a career spanning the last five decades, he has produced a consistent body of work in a neutral, modernist style, creating cubic, gridded forms in steel, concrete and glass, which might be hard to get excited about at first glance.
Continue reading...Inspector says he was ‘deeply shocked’ by incidents with no female officer present at young offender institution
An “incredibly vulnerable” girl held in a young offender institution was pinned down and stripped by an all-male group of officers on at least two occasions, a watchdog has discovered.
Charities have called for all female offenders to be removed from YOI Wetherby in West Yorkshire after the damning disclosure by the chief inspector of prisons.
In the UK, the youth suicide charity Papyrus can be contacted on 0800 068 4141 or email pat@papyrus-uk.org, and in the UK and Ireland Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is at 988 or chat for support. You can also text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis text line counselor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org
Continue reading...Food Standards Agency advises consumers with dairy and fish allergies to check labels carefully
People with dairy and fish allergies are being advised not to buy vegan products without checking the label carefully as they may contain animal products due to cross-contamination.
The Food Standards Agency (FSA) has launched a campaign to make consumers aware of the dangers after research released by the regulatory body showed 62% of people in England, Wales and Northern Ireland who have allergic reactions to animal-based products, or who buy for others who do, are confident that vegan products are always safe to eat.
Continue reading...Greatest increase in non-cigarette tobacco in past decade was among young adults, researchers say
The number of people smoking pipes, shisha and cigars in the UK has risen fivefold over a decade, and experts say this could lead to a rise in smoking-related cancers such as mouth and lung cancer.
Last year there were about 772,800 exclusive non-cigarette tobacco users, compared with 151,200 in 2013, according to a study published in the journal Nicotine and Tobacco Research.
Continue reading...Eiffel Tower lit up to mark change, seen as way of protecting law that decriminalised abortion in 1975
The French parliament has enshrined abortion as a constitutional right at a historic joint session at the Palace of Versailles.
Out of 925 MPs and senators eligible to vote, 780 supported the amendment, which will give women the “guaranteed freedom” to choose an abortion.
Continue reading...Majority think Britain is a good place for opportunities and freedom to practise their faith, poll finds
Most British Muslims believe more should be done to improve relations between the UK’s different religious communities, according to a research forum on faith.
The Institute for the Impact of Faith in Life (IIFL) looked at the attitudes and social contributions of British Muslims living in the UK. The survey found 71% of British Muslim respondents believed more work should be done to improve relations between different faith groups, and just 22% believed the right amount was being done.
Continue reading...Move by Spanish regional government to tackle period poverty will benefit about 2.5m people
The Catalonia region in Spain has begun providing free reusable menstrual cups, period underwear and cloth pads at pharmacies, in one of the first initiatives of its kind in the world.
The programme is part of a drive by the regional government to reduce period poverty after a survey found 44% of women using menstruation products in Catalonia could not afford their first-choice product and 23% said they had to reuse items designed for single use.
Continue reading...Force was previously unable to locate sim belonging to Mia Janin, 14, after investigation into her death in 2021
Scotland Yard will return the lost sim card and phone of a bullied schoolgirl who killed herself, after the items were found months after her family requested their return.
Mia Janin, a 14-year-old pupil at Jewish free school (JFS) in Kenton, north-west London, died on 12 March 2021. Police admitted losing evidence it had gathered following her death last year – including the teenager’s main phone, second phone and sim card – but have since recovered them.
In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on 988lifeline.org, or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counsellor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org
Continue reading...A local authority leader claims private equity groups are exploiting vulnerable youngsters in care homes in the pursuit of profit
Care companies are insisting on unnecessary and expensive support packages for vulnerable children to boost their profits, a council leader has claimed.
Barry Lewis, the Tory leader of Derbyshire county council, said that former family-run businesses acquired by private equity groups were trying to get “as much cash as possible” out of local authorities.
Continue reading...From the Tate Britain to New York’s Met, some of the world’s mightiest galleries have signed up for my audio guides, which shift the spotlight onto female artists like Rosa Bonheur – who required a permit to wear trousers
‘Do women have to be naked to get into the Met Museum?” asked a 1989 artwork by the Guerrilla Girls, the all-female-identifying activist artist collective. A valid question considering, as the work went on to point out: “Less than 5% of the artists in the Modern Art sections are women, but 85% of the nudes are female.” When the Guerrilla Girls went to revisit these statistics in 2012, they found that little had changed: “Less than 4% of the artists in the Modern Art sections are women, but 76% of the nudes are female.”
So what about today? In 2023, Marina Abramović made headlines, not for her performance art but, shockingly, as the first female artist to have a solo exhibition in all the main galleries of the Royal Academy in London. The same institution, founded 256 years ago, today opens its first ever solo exhibition dedicated to a female artist working prior to the 19th century: Angelica Kauffman.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Guardian investigation for podcast series Black Box reveals names connected to app that generated nonconsensual images of underage girls around the world
The first Miriam al-Adib learned of the pictures was when she returned home from a business trip. “Mum,” said her daughter. “I want to show you something.”
The girl, 14, opened her phone to show an explicit image of herself. “It’s a shock when you see it,” said Adib, a gynaecologist in the southern Spanish town of Almendralejo and a mother of four daughters. “The image is completely realistic … If I didn’t know my daughter’s body, I would have thought that image was real.”
Continue reading...Inquiry chair says there is ‘nothing to stop another Couzens operating in plain sight’ and radical overhaul is needed
Sarah Everard’s “devastating” murder was “entirely preventable”, campaigners have said, as they called for urgent reform of policing to restore women’s trust.
The Angiolini inquiry found that Wayne Couzens should never have been given a job as a police officer and that chances to stop him were repeatedly ignored and missed.
Continue reading...About 500 council and private properties in Balnagask were identified as having Raac panels in an inspection in 2023
Hundreds of people are being moved out of their homes in Aberdeen after the discovery of potentially collapse-risk concrete.
Panels made from reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (Raac) were found in about 500 homes in the Balnagask area of Aberdeen, including 364 council properties, in 2023.
Continue reading...Actor’s landmark address comes amid claims arts sector has shrugged off sexual abuse for decades
The actor Judith Godrèche has denounced France’s “incestuous” film industry and called for the establishment of a commission of inquiry into sexual violence in the sector as she spoke in front of senators in the upper house of parliament.
The landmark hearing – the first time an artist has spoken to the senate about sexual and gender-based violence in the French film industry – comes amid claims that the world of arts has shrugged off sexism and sexual abuse for decades.
Continue reading...Parliamentary inquiry highlights likelihood of Scotland, Jersey or Isle of Man passing new laws
Laws to allow assisted dying may pass in Scotland, Jersey and the Isle of Man in the next few years, leading to a divergence between different parts of the UK and British Isles, MPs have warned.
The government must consider the repercussions of this, a parliamentary inquiry into assisted dying has said.
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