#covid-pandemic

#covid-pandemic

A new video showing a party at the Conservative Party HQ shows staffers drinking and dancing during the Covid pandemic.One person is heard saying it is OK to film "as long as we don't stream that we're, like, bending the rules".The video, published by the Mirror, dates from December 2020 when London was in Tier 2 restrictions.

Rufus Norris is to step down as director of the National Theatre after steering the flagship arts institution through the challenges of the Covid pandemic and responding to the climate crisis and the Black Lives Matter movement.Norris, the NT's artistic director and chief executive, said that spring 2025, when he would have been in post for 10 years, was the absolutely natural point to move on.

The new boss of a PPE firm linked to Tory peer Baroness Mone was censured as part of a tax investigation last year.Arthur Lancaster's appointment as director raises fresh questions about the roles of Michelle Mone and her husband Doug Barrowman in PPE Medpro.The couple have denied involvement in the company winning government contracts during the Covid pandemic.

The government has absolutely nothing to hide from the Covid inquiry and intends to be absolutely transparent, a cabinet minister has said, after Rishi Sunak faced accusations of attempting to cover up the actions of senior MPs during the pandemic.The Covid inquiry, led by the retired judge Heather Hallett, has used its powers to request unredacted notebooks, diaries and WhatApp correspondence between Boris Johnson and 40 senior government figures.

Anna McCleary had her daughter in October 2019.McCleary, who works at a law firm in Chicago, had just returned from her maternity leave in early 2020 when the COVID pandemic hit.She and her husband found themselves working from home without access to day care or other help.We were just thrown into the middle of this sort of nightmare scenario of [having] all of your responsibilities, with none of the safety net that you expect when you have a kid, McCleary says.

UK government borrowing costs have risen above the levels hit during Liz Truss's disastrous premiership, after stronger than expected jobs and pay figures reinforced expectations that the Bank of England will raise interest rates next week.Andrew Bailey, the Bank's governor, said inflation was taking a lot longer than hoped to come down, telling the House of Lords economic affairs committee: As I'm afraid this morning's numbers illustrated, we've got a very tight labour market.

Dread of the financial markets is part of the Labour party's DNA.This primal fear has been passed down the generations.Ramsay MacDonald, Clement Attlee, Harold Wilson and James Callaghan were all battle-scarred from their vain attempts to defend the pound.Even though the signs point to a big Labour victory at the next election, the mood at the top of the party remains cautious.

Renting 'We had put it on the market at $2,450 ... and accepted an offer of $2,700 a month.'At a time when the demand for vacant apartments is high and supply is low, rents along the year-old Green Line Extension in Medford and Somerville are getting bid up, according to Multiple Listing Service records.

The man all but certain to be the next mayor of Rascafria, a small town in the green and mist-hugged mountains an hour north of Madrid, gives few clues about his political leanings as he lists his priorities for the coming months and years.As well as helping the hospitality and livestock sectors on which the local economy depends, Oscar Robles wants to improve the leisure and culture provision for Rascafria's ill-served young people and to reopen a social club for its older residents that has been shuttered since before the Covid pandemic.

Boris Johnson's head of communications joked about ordering a drone strike on Partygate investigator Sue Gray.Guto Harri said he made the comment in a bid to calm down the former prime minister who was hysterical the night before the former senior civil servant published her report into Downing Street gatherings that breached lockdown rules.

My first glimpse of Claire Denis is of a slight, elegant figure dressed in white slipping out of a black limousine that fills the narrow street outside the hotel where our rendezvous is scheduled.For an instant, I feel as if I have been sucked into the menacing world of her latest film.I have just travelled to Paris to interview her, and have arrived early because I am anxious not to waste a minute of the 45 I have been granted to investigate the extraordinary career of a French director idolised by peers such as Barry Jenkins, Charlotte Wells, Andrea Arnold and Pedro Almodovar and whose work is a fixture of critics' lists of the best movies ever made.

Suella Braverman has called for Britain to be less dependent on low-skilled foreign labour and claimed job shortages can be filled with domestic workers.The home secretary is among the right-wing Conservative MPs pressuring Rishi Sunak to drive down net migration after it soared to a record of more than 500,000 in the year to June.

Boris Johnson's camp is in panic mode over fresh claims of possible rule-breaking at Chequers during Covid, prompting the sacking of the ex-prime minister's lawyers and a public lambasting of Rishi Sunak's government.The latest furore centres on allegations that up to a dozen gatherings at Chequers and No 10 were held during lockdown after new details were referred to the police by the Cabinet Office.

Boris Johnson's camp is in panic mode over fresh claims of possible rule-breaking at Chequers during Covid, prompting the sacking of the ex-prime minister's lawyers and a public lambasting of Rishi Sunak's government.The latest furore centres on allegations that up to a dozen gatherings at Chequers and No 10 were held during lockdown after new details were referred to the police by the Cabinet Office.

Robyn Caplan understands the fragility of digital memories intimately.After tragically losing both of her parents during the covid pandemic, Caplan treasures the digital possessions she inherited.She cherishes her mom's iPad, access to her dad's email inbox, and message threads with both of them.It allows her to see the world through the eyes of her parents, she says.

London is home to five windmills - but only four are open to the public.Built in 1854, Shirley Windmill in Croydon went out of operation almost 40 years later, but will now be open to visitors once a month until October.It is the first time it has fully re-opened since it closed its doors due to the Covid pandemic.

An international five-yearly study published on Tuesday suggests that German schoolchildren's reading skills at the end of the fourth grade (when a typical child in the German education system would be 10 years old) have deteriorated in the past 20 years and are inferior to kids in many comparable countries.

Arch-Brexiteer Nigel Farage has admitted that leaving the EU has failed as he sought to blame the government for what he described as its inability to take advantage of being outside the trading bloc.The former Brexit and UKIP Party leader, who refused to rule out a political comeback, said the UK had not benefitted from Brexit economically, claiming that government policy had deterred businesses from investing in the UK.

If you live in South Florida, chances are higher that you will become an identity theft victim than if you lived in any other major U.S. metro region, according to a new report.That's not to say anywhere in the U.S. is safe.It's just worse here, the report by credit card aggregator Upgraded Points revealed this week.

Britain risks falling behind in a multibillion-pound global arms race of re-industrialisation without an urgent launch of a coherent plan for manufacturing, Andy Haldane has warned.The influential economist, who is on Jeremy Hunt's council of economic advisers, said the UK was not really in the race at any kind of scale as other countries steal a march in developing the green, hi-tech industries of the future.

An investigation into mental health apps has revealed that many of the most popular services are failing to protect the privacy and security of their users.Following up on a report from last year's Privacy Not Included guide, researchers at Mozilla found that apps designed for sensitive issues like therapy and mental health conditions are still collecting large amounts of personal data under questionable or deceptive privacy policies.