Millions of people in the UK will see a rise in their benefits in just over a month

Politics

From loyalty cards, to restaurant meal deals or simply parking your car – it is harder and harder to get by without signing up to a multitude of appsHow to navigate apps: from checking safety to recalling passwordsUK-wide parking app may be out of road after funding withdrawnMichael is in his late 50s and is among the millions of people in the UK who cannot or do not want to use mobile apps, and feels he is being penalised for his choice.He does own a smartphone – an Apple iPhone he bought secondhand about three years ago – but says: “I don’t use apps at all. I don’t download them for security reasons.” Continue reading...

Politics

Deaths on the road costs countries up to 5% of GDP. Centring transport around people, not cars, can propel developmentIf you had to guess the leading cause of death for children and young people around the world, what would you say? Malaria perhaps? Pneumonia? Suicide? They’re all high up there, but no, it’s road accidents.Cars have been around for more than 120 years, and we know how to prevent these tragedies. Yet road crashes still claim more than two lives every minute – killing nearly 1.2 million people every year. Continue reading...

Events

Millions of people in the UK will see a rise in their benefits in the coming weeks

Politics

We would like to hear how you have found them useful and if you have any concernsThe AI chatbot market has grown exponentially in recent years, with more than 1.4 billion people worldwide estimated to be using them.While tools such as ChatGPT and customer service assistants are most prevalent, millions of people are turning to personified AI chatbots, such as Replika and My AI (Snapchat), which look to imitate human interactions. Some are using these personified chatbots for platonic or romantic companionship, while others are using them for support with managing their wellbeing and mental health. Continue reading...

Politics

An estimated 453,000 pensioners will not receive the annual uprating in April.

Economics

Millions of people could benefit from the new service

Economics

A wide-ranging and thoroughly entertaining portrait not just of Queen Elizabeth II but of the psyche of her subjectsThe funeral of Queen Elizabeth II in 2022 was watched by around 28 million people in the UK alone. In her lifetime, she was one of the most photographed and scrutinised figures in the world. Yet few could say they knew the late monarch since, says biographer Craig Brown, she kept “her interior world screened from public view” and was “a human looking-glass: the light cast by fame bounced off her, and back on to those she faced”.Little wonder, then, that A Voyage Around the Queen does not follow the usual conventions of a biography. Instead of a chronological account of its subject, it is a patchwork of news reports, letters, diary entries, secondhand anecdotes, tweets and even dreams. The result is a wide-ranging and thoroughly entertaining portrait not just of the woman but the psyche of her subjects. You don’t have to be a royalist to enjoy such titbits as Kingsley A...

Politics

More than 18 million people currently have a cash Isa - but Chancellor Rachel Reeves is reportedly under pressure to axe or reduce the tax-free allowance

Economics

Citizens Advice Scotland estimates around two million people will be affected by the rise in Council Tax.

Economics

PIP is the main disability benefit in the UK, and the payments help with the extra costs of having a disability or medical condition. It is not an out of work benefit, and you can receive the payments whether you have a job or not

Economics

From the Trump administration’s latest moves abroad and in the US – here are the key US politics stories from Thursday at a glanceThursday saw a judge rule that the Trump administration can continue the mass firing of US federal workers, rejecting a bid by labor unions to stop the US president dramatically cutting the jobs of many of the 2.3 million people employed by the government. The IRS began laying off roughly 7,000 workers on Thursday.In his 16-page order, US district judge Christopher Cooper started by saying that Trump’s executive actions had “caused, some say by design, disruption and even chaos in widespread quarters of American society”. Continue reading...

Events

A local authority ‘should intervene’ if a provider seeks to make ‘consumables’ a mandatory condition of taking up a funded place, guidance says.

Society

Sam Balto took the idea from a local school to the White House and beyond, inspiring a global movement in which children feel the benefits of cycling together“It’s a movement, not a moment.” That’s the mantra from Sam “Coach” Balto, a former school teacher from Portland, Oregon who quit his day job to stoke a revolution called the “bike bus” – groups of kids and families cycling to school together.How did one person in a mid-sized American city turn a weekly bike ride into something of a phenomenon? He leaned on the power of social media. In the past two years his videos have been viewed by hundreds of millions of people. Continue reading...

Transport

Former Spandau Ballet star Martin has his traumatic health scare in the 1990s left him with a disability he shares with millions of people across the UK

Science

Around 48 million people in the UK now rely on glasses or contact lenses - with millions of motorists juggling both spectacles and driving. But there's a crucial safety message to heed

Events

Elon Musk says it’s a “HUGE” problem. Is it?

Events

More people have been pushed over their personal savings allowance due to huge improvements in rates over the past few years, with more than two million people expected to pay tax on their hard-earned cash

Economics

The new head of the Social Security Administration says deceased centenarians are “not necessarily receiving benefits."

Events

Changes are being made within weeks that will affect millions of people as new Department for Work and Pensions payments take effect

Politics