42 h. ago Voices: Is the UK doing enough to prepare for more frequent droughts and extreme weather? Join The Independent Debate

The UK is facing worsening droughts and extreme weather, prompting debate over whether we’re doing enough to prepare for the growing threat

Politics

3 d. ago CDC union says vaccine misinformation put staff at risk after Atlanta shooting

Deadly violence not random as staff have endured ‘months of mistreatment, neglect and vilification’, says unionA union representing US Centers for Disease Control employees has demanded that the federal government condemn vaccine misinformation after a man who evidently blamed the Covid-19 vaccination for making him depressed and suicidal aimed gunfire Friday at the CDC’s headquarters in Atlanta.The 30-year-old shooting suspect, who killed a police officer and died during the attack, had also tried to get into the CDC’s headquarters – but he was stopped by guards before driving to a pharmacy across the street and opening fire, a law enforcement official told the Associated Press on Saturday. Continue reading...

Events

3 d. ago Brit mum's 'unimaginable' rabies death after holiday has life

The bravery of a family who told of their 'unimaginable loss' after a mum died of rabies has helped boost Brits having vaccines against the devastating disease

Events

4 d. ago FBI and NSPCC alarmed at ‘shocking’ rise in online sextortion of children

Snapchat logged about 20,000 cases last year of adults grooming children online, more than other social media platforms combinedTech companies including Snapchat and Facebook reported more than 9,600 cases of adults grooming children online in the UK in just six months last year – the equivalent of about 400 a week.Law enforcement agencies, including the FBI and the UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA), have grown increasingly alarmed about the growing threat from sextortion and other crimes targeting teenagers. Continue reading...

Events

6 d. ago I changed my mind on banning the bomb, but the threat of nuclear war is growing – and so is complacency | Polly Toynbee

Though the weapons I campaigned against remain terrifying, I doubt we can disarm unilaterally. That should be the stuff of vital debate: right now, it isn’t This week marks 80 years since the horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as the few remaining witnesses tell of incinerated, melted and obliterated families. Soon there will be none left to remember. Survivors’ graphic accounts of “the noiseless flash” were captured by John Hersey in his book Hiroshima, read by my generation with shock and fear. Nevil Shute’s On the Beach taught us every gut-wrenching detail of the radiation sickness I fully expected to die of. Civil defence leaflets told families how to hide under the stairs with a radio and torch.I grew up expecting early death by nuclear war. My father was a 1957 founder of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament who didn’t expect us to survive inevitable nuclear holocaust. He carried a large bottle of suicide pills, enough to kill us all when the bomb fell, to save us from slowly ...

Events

9 d. ago ‘Grave, growing, and underrecognized danger:’ New report sheds light on plastic pollution

The plastic pollution crisis is costing the U.S. some $1.5 trillion in health-related costs every year – and the threat is only expected to grow

Politics

9 d. ago Edinburgh firm guarding against AI threat on growth path with £5 million investment

“As the threat landscape continues to evolve, developers and enterprises alike are recognising that mobile app security cannot be an afterthought” – Ted Miracco, CEO

Economics

3 w. ago Lord Lebedev holds Lords debate on how freedom of speech at risk in UK

Peers highlight growing threat to free speech in the UK at specially-convened debate

Events

3 w. ago Sudan’s children face growing threat of deadly infectious diseases as vaccination rates halve

The country, beset by war, has the world’s lowest rates of vaccination, says the World Health Organization, as global immunisation drive also stallsChildren in Sudan, caught up in what aid organisations have called the world’s largest humanitarian crisis and threatened by rising levels of violence, are increasingly vulnerable to deadly infectious diseases as vaccinations in the country plummet.In 2022, more than 90% of young children in Sudan received their routine vaccinations. But that figure has nearly halved to 48%, the lowest in the world, according to the World Health Organization. Continue reading...

Events

4 w. ago Food safety chiefs issue warning on tomatoes as salad favourite is linked to deadly infection that left more than a dozen hospitalised

The cases, also believed to have caused by the fruit, were not confined to a specific area of the UK, instead reported across the country.

Events