Members of two unions have backed walkouts across England and Wales as the NHS pay dispute deepens.
Ambulance staff in England vote for strike action
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Here’s How Much Your Food Bill Has Gone Up (Again)
The price of your average grocery bill has increased again – this time to a new high of 12.4% just ahead of Christmas.
The price of food has been one of the primary drivers of the cost of living crisis, along with the soaring energy bills.
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Now, new data from the British Retail Consortium (BRC) shows that food inflation has increased from 11.6% last month to 12.4% for November – a new record since the stats started being collected back in 2005.
The current rate of food inflation is 7.4% higher than this time last year, too.
The BRC-Nielsen IQ Shop Price Index has also revealed that fresh food has climbed in price by the largest amount – last month, it was 13.3% inflation, now it is at 14.3%.
Eggs, dairy and meat have been some of the largest drivers of the increase in cost. Coffee prices have climbed too, due to high input costs.
The BRC also predicted that winter will look “increasingly bleak as pressures on prices continue unabated”, even though the Bank of England has predicted that they may start to fall again in 2023.
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According to PA news agency, Mike Watkins, the head of retailer and business insight at NielsenIQ said: “WIth prices still rising, the cost of Christmas will be higher this year and shoppers will be managing their budgets more closely than at any time since the start of the cost of living crisis.
“Retailers are now responding by offering seasonal savings and price cuts and will be hopeful of an uptick in shopper spend as we move into December.”
This news comes as the UK is now in recession – according to chancellor Jeremy Hunt – while Europe’s energy crisis continues to hang over the general public as temperatures drop this winter.
The governor of the Bank of England, Andrew Bailey, also warned in August that people were going to see an “apocalyptic” rise in prices.
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According to market research company Kantar, the average household was already facing a £643 climb in their annual grocery bill to £5,625 if they were to carry on buying the same items last month.
These new stats show food inflation is actually higher than the average inflation rate right now, as this stands at 11.1%.
The chair of Marks & Spencer, Archie Norman, said back in May that one of the reasons food prices are rising so much is because of the supply chain issues and surging energy costs triggered by the Ukraine war.
“What’s happening is global prices are rising, it’s not to do with UK food so much as the effect of freight costs, wheat prices, oil and energy prices knocking onto almost everything,” Norman explained.
“As a consequence, all food retailers in the UK are – because we operate on very thin margins – going to have to reluctantly allow some food price inflation to run through the system.”
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Meghan Markle Faced ‘Very Real’ Threats To Her Life, Ex-Counter Terrorism Head Says
Britain’s ex-head of counter terrorism has revealed that police investigated multiple “disgusting and very real” threats against Meghan Markle.
The outgoing Metropolitan Police assistant commissioner, Neil Basu, said the danger posed to the Duchess of Sussex would have left her feeling “under threat all of the time”.
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Basu confirmed the threats came from the far right and they had led to prosecutions.
The comments throw new light on Prince Harry’s frustration over a decision not to allow him to pay for police protection for himself and his family when in the UK.
The Duke of Sussex, who quit as a senior working royal in 2020, won the right to challenge the Home Office in the High Court after being told he would no longer be given the “same degree” of personal protective security when visiting.
In an interview with Channel 4 News, Basu characterised the threats the couple faced as “disgusting and very real”.
He continued: “I’ve talked publicly for many years about the threat of extreme right-wing terrorism in this country.”
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Asked if there were serious and credible threats from the far right directed at Meghan, he replied: “Absolutely. If you’d seen the stuff that was written and you were receiving it, the kind of rhetoric that’s online, if you don’t know what I know, you would feel under threat all of the time.”
Asked if there had been genuine threats to Meghan’s life, he replied: “Absolutely. We had teams investigating it. People have been prosecuted for those threats.”
The Sussexes personally fund a private protection team in the US for their family.
Harry told Oprah Winfrey the couple have signed multimillion-pound deals with Netflix and Spotify to pay for the security.
But he and Meghan lost their taxpayer-funded police protection in the UK in the aftermath of quitting as senior working royals.
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Speaking to Winfrey during the couple’s sit-down interview in 2021, Harry said he was told that “due to our change of status – we would no longer be ‘official’ members of the royal family”.
He said he had been shocked by this and “pushed back” on the issue, arguing that there had been no change of threat or risk to the couple.
Meghan, during the same interview, told how she had written to her husband’s family urging them not to “pull his security”, but had been told “it’s just not possible”.
The couple have offered to pay for police protection in the UK themselves, rather than ask taxpayers to foot the bill, his legal representative has said.
In September 2021, he filed a claim for a judicial review against the Home Office decision not to allow him to personally pay for police protection for himself and his family while in the UK.
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A government spokesperson said at the time: “The UK government’s protective security system is rigorous and proportionate. It is our long-standing policy not to provide detailed information on those arrangements. To do so could compromise their integrity and affect individuals’ security.
“It would also not be appropriate to comment on the detail of any legal proceedings.”
Chesney Hawkes Playing During The England And Wales World Cup Game Confuses Everyone
The crunch England against Wales match in the World Cup was dubbed the Battle of Britain. But fans across the divide were united in their bafflement as they were treated to an unlikely performance from musician Chesney Hawkes.
Hawkes, known almost exclusively for his 1991smash hit I Am the One and Only, started to trend on social media as his name was mentioned during the BBC coverage at the end of the first-half of the game.
Yes, the 51-year-old had been booked by the Qataris as the half-time entertainment, and given the dour 0-0 scoreline, those in the stadium appeared grateful for something – anything – as a distraction.
The one-hit wonder blasted out his one hit, and the pictures suggest Hawkes himself was enjoying himself.
Then a funny thing happened.
Within minutes of the second half commencing, England scored two quickfire goals through Marcus Rashford and Phil Foden, and looked set fare for the last-16 of the tournament.
Jokers on Twitter were crediting the guitar-slinger for the turnaround.
Strongest Arctic cyclone on record led to surprising loss of sea ice
A warming climate is causing a decline in sea ice in the Arctic Ocean, where loss of sea ice has important ecological, economic and climate impacts. On top of this long-term shift due to climate change are weather events that affect the sea ice from week to week.
The strongest Arctic cyclone ever observed poleward of 70 degrees north latitude struck in January 2022 northeast of Greenland. A new analysis led by the University of Washington shows that while weather forecasts accurately predicted the storm, ice models seriously underestimated its impact on the region’s sea ice.
The study, published in October in the Journal of Geophysical Research-Atmospheres, suggests that existing models underestimate the impact of big waves on ice floes in the Arctic Ocean.
“The loss of sea ice in six days was the biggest change we could find in the historical observations since 1979, and the area of ice lost was 30% greater than the previous record,” said lead author Ed Blanchard-Wrigglesworth, a research assistant professor of atmospheric sciences at the UW. “The ice models did predict some loss, but only about half of what we saw in the real world.”
Accurate sea ice forecasts are important safety tools for Northern communities, mariners and others operating in Arctic waters. The accuracy of forecasts in the Arctic Ocean also has broader effects.
“The skill of a weather forecast in the Arctic affects the skill of weather forecasts in other places,” Blanchard-Wrigglesworth said.
The January 2022 cyclone had the lowest pressure center estimated since satellite records began in 1979 above 70 degrees north. It was an extreme version of a typical winter storm. Climate change doesn’t appear responsible for the cyclone: The researchers didn’t find a trend in the strength of intense Arctic cyclones since 1979, and sea ice area was close to the historical normal for that region before the storm hit.
During the storm, record winds howled over the Arctic Ocean. The waves grew to 8 meters (26 feet) tall in open water and remained surprisingly strong as they traveled through the sea ice. The ice heaved 2 meters (6 feet) up and down near the edge of the pack, and NASA’s ICESat-2 satellite shows that the waves reached as far as 100 kilometers (60 miles) toward the center of the ice pack.
Six days after the storm struck, the sea ice had thinned significantly in the affected waters north of Norway and Russia, in places losing more than half a meter (about 1.5 feet) of thickness.
“It was a monster storm, and the sea ice got pummeled. And the sea ice models didn’t predict that loss, which suggests there are ways we could improve the model physics,” said second author Melinda Webster, a research assistant professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. She begins a research position in the new year at the UW Applied Physics Laboratory.
The new analysis shows that the atmospheric heat from the storm had a small effect, meaning some other mechanism was to blame for the ice loss. Possibilities, Blanchard-Wrigglesworth suggests, include sea ice that was thinner before the storm hit than models had estimated; that the storm’s waves broke up ice floes more forcefully than models predicted as they penetrated deep into the ice pack; or that waves churned up deeper, warmer water and brought it into contact with the sea ice, melting the ice from below.
The unexpected ice loss, despite an accurate storm forecast, suggests that this is an area where models could improve. The researchers hope to monitor future storms to pinpoint exactly what led to the dramatic sea ice loss, potentially by placing sensors in the path of a future approaching storm.
While this storm doesn’t appear to be linked to climate change, an increasing amount of open water as sea ice melts is allowing for larger waves that are eroding Arctic coastlines. Those waves, researchers said, could also affect the remaining sea ice pack.
“Going into the future, this is something to keep in mind, that these extreme events might produce these episodes of huge sea ice loss,” Blanchard-Wrigglesworth said.
Other co-authors are Linette Boisvert at NASA, Chelsea Parker at NASA and the University of Maryland and Christopher Horvat at the University of Auckland and Brown University. The research was funded by NASA, the U.S. Navy’s Office of Naval Research and Schmidt Futures.
Video: https://youtu.be/p44XJ6rAP08
Story Source:
Materials provided by University of Washington. Original written by Hannah Hickey. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.
Top hospitals targeted by nurse strikes
Cancer centres and children’s hospitals among services affected by 15 and 20 December walkouts.
