7 h. ago ‘Something has gone very wrong’: how the carers scandal was exposed

A Guardian investigation revealed how hundreds of thousands of people were plunged into debt – and some criminalised – for looking after their loved onesOne February afternoon in 2016, Sir Robert Devereux, at the time the most powerful official in the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), was stopped by a junior colleague as he walked through the car park of a civil service office in Preston, Lancashire. Was he aware, the worker asked, about the problems with carer’s allowance?Devereux, on a flying visit to the DWP outpost, asked for details and promised to look into it. A few days later, Devereux’s office received a long and detailed note, complete with 80 anonymised case studies, setting out how years of shortcomings in the administration of the carer’s allowance benefit had wasted millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money and inflicted untold hardship and misery on thousands of unpaid carers. Continue reading...

Politics

19 h. ago Military intervention must be used to stop the genocide in Gaza | Ahmed Ibsais

In Kosovo, Nato intervened in 1999 after mass killings and the threat of further ethnic cleansing. Why aren’t Gazans being protected in the same way?On 20 May, the secretary-general for humanitarian affairs at the United Nations stated that 14,000 babies would be dead unless the blockade was lifted immediately. The day before, the former Knesset member Moshe Feiglin said: “Every child in Gaza is the enemy.” And now, world leaders in the UK and France threaten vague “concrete actions” if Israel “does not cease the renewed military offensive and lift its restrictions on humanitarian aid”. But undefined “concrete actions” are woefully insufficient. To those leaders I say: Gaza’s children cannot eat statements.Bezalel Smotrich, the Israeli finance minister, declared last week: “We are destroying everything in Gaza, the world isn’t stopping us.” So let’s say what must be said, without apology: military intervention to defend Gaza is not only justified – it is required. It is humanitarian...

Events

55 h. ago Call for 'crisis plan' as hundreds of thousands face disruption on July 1

392,000 households are currently in the line of fire

Events

57 h. ago Israeli politician critiques the Gaza war's toll on Palestinians and sparks an outcry

An Israeli center-left opposition party leader and former general sparked an outcry this week when he made rare criticism of the toll of the war on Palestinian civilians in Gaza

Politics

2 d. ago Woman buys 'retired' Jellycat in unexpected place for fraction of price

A Jellycat can be sold for hundreds, sometimes even thousands, of pounds, so when the woman found a rare 'retired' plushie, she couldn't believe how cheap it was

Economics

3 d. ago Bhutanese Nepalis fled ethnic cleansing for the US. Trump is returning them to the refugee camps

They lost their Nepalese citizenship years ago and are now living in a ‘stateless limbo’ amid Trump’s deportationsAasis Subedi, a Bhutanese Nepali refugee, finds himself back in the same Nepal refugee camp he spent part of his youth, once again stateless.Last month, Subedi and two dozen community members from across the US were deported by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) officers to Bhutan, the tiny Himalayan country where they had never previously set foot. At least four, including Subedi, were immediately rejected by Bhutanese authorities and then expelled to India, where they fled to a refugee camp in Nepal. Continue reading...

Politics

3 d. ago Israel latest: UN says Gaza aid blocked after Netanyahu accused of ‘killing babies as a hobby’

Israeli opposition leader's comments represent some of the strongest criticism from within the country since start of Gaza offensive

Events

3 d. ago Israel still blocking aid for Gaza despite promise to lift siege, says UN

Continued restrictions come as opposition leader says Israel is becoming pariah nation that ‘kills babies as a hobby’Middle East crisis – live updatesTwo days after Benjamin Netanyahu announced he was lifting the siege of Gaza, Israel is still blocking food from reaching starving Palestinians, the UN has said, as the leader of the country’s centre-left Democrats party said his country was becoming a pariah nation that “kills babies as a hobby”.Only five trucks of aid had reached Gaza by Tuesday afternoon and aid workers had not been given permission to distribute even that token shipment, Jens Laerke, spokesperson for the UN humanitarian office (OCHA) told a Geneva press briefing. Continue reading...

Politics

3 d. ago Trump eyes foreign aid funds to remove migrants including Ukrainians who came to the U.S. from war zones: report

Hundreds of thousands of migrants, including those from Ukraine and Haiti, are reportedly being considered in the plans

Events

3 d. ago Trump the AI salesman makes deals in the Gulf – and rich men benefit

The president sold the US model of the industry that made it: enormous power concentrated in the hands of a few menHello, and welcome to TechScape. This week in tech: Donald Trump the AI salesman visits the Middle East; 23andMe gets bought, mostly for its data; and Elon Musk’s bot hallucinates an offensively incorrect historical record – twice.Legal aid hack: data from hundreds of thousands of people accessed, says MoJHow to protect your data after a cyber-attackScattered Spider hackers in UK are ‘facilitating’ cyber-attacks, says GoogleLargest US crypto exchange says cost of recent cyber-attack could reach $400m Continue reading...

Economics

4 d. ago Hundreds of thousands of pensioners are hit with unexpected tax bills after threshold freeze as Labour clobbers older Britons even more with winter fuel allowance

HMRC issued some 1.32million 'simple assessments' to pensioners in the 2023/24 tax year, dragging more into taxable thresholds in a case of 'fiscal drag'.

Economics

4 d. ago Hundreds of thousands of pensioners are hit with unexpected HMRC tax bills because of threshold freeze

HMRC issued some 1.32million 'simple assessments' to pensioners in the 2023/24 tax year, up 74 per cent from the year before.

Economics

4 d. ago Gaza, Israel and the world are crying out for opposition to Netanyahu – now there are rays of hope | Aluf Benn

For years Netanyahu has divided and disrupted his opponents. But new leaders are beginning to organise• Aluf Benn is the editor-in-chief of HaaretzIn his successful quest to become Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu has leveraged his most valuable asset: the country’s ineffective opposition. He has been playing his opponents off against each other, staying afloat while they are left powerless and irrelevant.Netanyahu has survived multiple corruption cases, an ongoing criminal trial and recurring elections. Even after Hamas invaded Israel by surprise, on 7 October, 2023, leading to the longest, deadliest and most ruinous war in the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict, the opposition failed to pose a political threat to Netanyahu. This week, Israel continues its expanded offensive across Gaza alongside a deadly bombing campaign. Rather than bearing the responsibility for the unparalleled tragedy and being kicked out of office in disgrace, the prime minister h...

Politics

4 d. ago Balearics hit back at ‘selfie tourism’ as sites become overwhelmed

Tourist authority backtracks on use of influencers after one tiny cove is swamped by 4,000 visitors a dayThe authorities in Spain’s Balearic Islands have said they will stop using social media influencers to promote popular destinations, saying “selfie tourism” is damaging some of its most beautiful locations.In an attempt to quell the effects of overtourism, the Balearics had hoped that influencers, many of whom have hundreds of thousands of followers, might relieve the strain on some better-known sites by directing visitors elsewhere. Continue reading...

Events

5 d. ago ‘I will never stop’: Tom Cruise wants to make movies into his 100s. Why not his 1000s? | Stuart Heritage

Cinema’s sprightliest senior citizen is not one to give in to obstacles easily and looks set to outpace time’s wingèd chariot for a good while yetMuch of the discourse around Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning revolves around that penultimate word. This, we’re told, is it. This is the last time that Tom Cruise will leap out of various modes of high-speed transport in pursuit of some nebulously defined MacGuffin. The last time he’ll grit his teeth and run across a major global landmark. The last time he’ll give Simon Pegg work. This is it.Except, not to spoil anything, but it probably isn’t. After years of avoiding the press and letting his work do the talking, Tom Cruise is actively promoting Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning. He’s doing junkets. He’s giving red-carpet interviews. He’s giving talks at the BFI. For those of us who enjoy Tom Cruise, this is a rare gift. But over the course of these appearances, a message has started to form. That message is: Tom Cruise ...

Politics

5 d. ago Hundreds of thousands protest in London to oppose Israel’s ethnic cleansing in Gaza

Hundreds of thousands protest in London to oppose Israel’s ethnic cleansing in Gaza  World Socialist Web Site

Politics

6 d. ago What the last Trump presidency can teach us about fighting back | Kenneth Roth

History shows that if western governments mount a defense, the human rights movement will survive this rough patchAs Donald Trump abandons any pretense of promoting human rights abroad, he has sparked concern about the future of the human rights movement. The US government has never been a consistent promoter of human rights, but when it applied itself, it was certainly the most powerful. Yet this is not the first time that the human rights movement has faced a hostile administration in Washington. A collective defense by other governments has been the key to survival in the past. That remains true today.Trump no doubt poses a serious threat. He is enamored of autocrats who rule without the checks and balances on executive power that he would shirk. He has stopped participating in the UN human rights council and censored the US state department’s annual human rights report. He has summarily sent immigrants to El Salvador’s nightmarish mega-prison, proposed the mass ethnic cleansing ...

Politics

7 d. ago I spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on luxury hotels every year

Tom Cahalan has a taste for the finer things in life. The globetrotter admits to spending hundreds of thousands of dollars a year on five-star hotels.

Politics

7 d. ago Poundland to be sold off for £1 as budget business struggles to stay afloat

Thousands of jobs and hundreds of stores are at risk as bidders finalise takeover proposals for the iconic bargain brand, which has made a name for selling goods at rock-bottom prices

Economics

7 d. ago Israeli strikes kill dozens in Gaza overnight as UN human rights chief warns of ‘ethnic cleansing’ – Middle East crisis live

UN high commissioner for human rights Volker Türk says ‘we must stop the clock on this madness’Israel launches major offensive in GazaAn Iraqi political official, speaking to the Associated Press (AP) on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to comment, said that Iran’s al-Quds force commander Esmail Ghaani had paid a visit to Baghdad prior to the Arab League summit and “conveyed messages of support for the Iranian-American negotiations” for a nuclear deal and a demand for the lifting of crippling sanctions on Iran.The Arab League is meeting in Baghdad on Saturday to discuss Gaza and other regional crises, but some leaders are expected to miss the talks that come straight after US president Donald Trump’s Gulf tour. Continue reading...

Events