Relatives recount distress and loneliness their loved ones went through in pandemic as a result of isolation policy

“At the time it felt like a devil’s bargain – it was horrible, but it was what [we thought] we had to do to keep people safe,” says Amy of the “devastating” and “terrifying” restrictions that led to her maternal grandparents being locked down in separate care homes during the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Eva and Eric had been married for more than 60 years when her dementia and his increased frailty meant they needed separate residential support. When the first lockdown was announced in March 2020, however, it in effect cut them off from each other and their granddaughter, to whom they had been especially close after the early death of Amy’s mother.

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© Photograph: Matt Crossick/PA

© Photograph: Matt Crossick/PA

© Photograph: Matt Crossick/PA

"Sally Rooney is a writer, not a terrorist," said an open letter signed by the Hollywood stars, alongside Jessie Buckley, Susan Sarandon, Tilda Swinton, Alison Oliver, Jonathan Glazer and Armando Iannucci.

A decade ago, I made a decision about my daughter’s education that I hoped would challenge New York City’s separate and unequal school system. Now 16, she thinks I made the wrong choice.

© Wayne Lawrence for The New York Times

UK defence secretary had been due to unveil proposals on Thursday until concerns were raised at 11th hour

Wes Streeting has been forced to delay the publication of a plan to get more young people into defence industry jobs after pushback from trade unions, the Guardian understands.

The defence secretary had been due to announce the proposals on Thursday, but some unions in the sector are understood to have reacted angrily to the plans, accusing the government of bypassing their members and minimising their roles in job creation.

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© Photograph: Wiktor Szymanowicz/Future Publishing/Getty Images

© Photograph: Wiktor Szymanowicz/Future Publishing/Getty Images

© Photograph: Wiktor Szymanowicz/Future Publishing/Getty Images

Jon Savage (Londres, 73 años) es un referente musical absoluto. Este periodista, crítico y escritor es una figura clave en la historia del punk británico (y global) como demuestra su libro England´s Dreaming, sobre los Sex Pistols, pioneros de ese sonido. Savage también es gay. Y en su último e imponente libro, El público secreto. Cómo los artistas LGTBQ dieron forma a la cultura popular (1955-1979), traducido al español por Tito Pintado para la editorial Liburuak, ha ensamblado su conocimiento musical con su propia identidad, con la realidad LGTBIQ+, con la lucha por los derechos. “Este libro lleva rondando mi cabeza décadas”, afirma el autor en una conversación por videoconferencia, “pero cuando uno envejece, quiere dejar cosas hechas”.

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© Jeff Cottenden

Her death at 42 adds to generations of premature losses and once again evokes the "Kennedy curse"

Inquiry chair says failure to advise care homes to isolate people discharged from hospital was ‘significant oversight’

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The care sector was “an afterthought” during the Covid-19 pandemic, and government failures caused the virus to spread “like wildfire” among vulnerable and elderly people, a public inquiry has found.

Heather Hallett, who is leading the Covid-19 inquiry, said it was a “significant omission” that the government did not advise that patients discharged from hospitals into care homes should be isolated, causing the virus to spread rapidly among residents and staff.

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© Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA

© Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA

© Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA

​After a protest clip went viral, a teenager’s life was torn apart by threats that sent her and her family into hiding. Plus, a book on citizen journalism

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Before 24 July, a person I will call R was preoccupied with the ordinary routines of teenage life: experimenting with makeup, grumbling over mathematics homework and hanging out with friends at a tea stall.

That month, as the fever of student protests spread across the country, the 15-year-old watched on her phone as young people poured into Jantar Mantar, the designated protest site in Delhi, demanding education reform. She went too. But an 11-second video clip from the protest site, in which she made crude and profane remarks about the prime minister, Narendra Modi, upended her life.

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© Photograph: Sajjad Hussain/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Sajjad Hussain/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Sajjad Hussain/AFP/Getty Images

The scenes of social unrest and violence at the weekend are an ominous portent, ahead of elections which may deliver a far-right presidency

In Emmanuel Macron’s book Revolution, published ahead of the 2017 presidential election that he went on to win, he promised to restore hope to a country that was losing faith in its future. As Mr Macron’s lame-duck second term enters its last phase against a quasi-insurrectionary backdrop of torched public buildings and looted shops, the failure of that political project appears total.

The worst scenes of urban violence for years overshadowed a weekend of protest that gravely undermined what is left of the French president’s authority. As police lost control of the streets, more than 2,000 shops were ransacked. Far-left groups targeted town halls and local buildings, and engaged in pitched battles with the police, whose disastrously heavy-handed response to last week’s high school protests has succeeded only in escalating tensions.

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© Photograph: Thibault Camus/AP

© Photograph: Thibault Camus/AP

© Photograph: Thibault Camus/AP

The Black unemployment rate climbed a percentage point to 7 percent in September, almost double the rate for white workers.

© Karsten Moran for The New York Times

Andy Burnham has announced "big changes" to welfare to get one million NEETs back into work – but only once he's "rebuilt the education system". Sounds expensive, says Mary Gilleece. It’s clearly never going to happen.

The post Andy Burnham Will Never Cut Welfare appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

Downing Street delivered a rare rebuke to a senior member of Donald Trump’s administration

Asked why the Lib Dems were opposed to a third runway at Heathrow when they professed to be in favour of growth, Cooper said she did not accept that a third runway would produce all the benefits its supporters claimed.

She explained:

On Heathrow, it is clear from looking at all of the economic analysis of airport growth over the last few years that many of the promises made by all sorts of different airport companies simply haven’t come to bear.

The promise of higher wage jobs hasn’t been substantiated. Often it’s lower paid jobs, and often not as many as they’ve claimed.

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© Photograph: Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP

© Photograph: Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP

© Photograph: Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP

During his long PCA career, Smartt served as a pastor and later held roles with Mission to the World and Mission to North America. He also became a catalyst for a unique evangelistic strategy that was replicated by a number of other denominations and ministries.   PCA founding father Kennedy Smartt died on Thursday, October... Continue Reading

The evangelical Bishop of Ebbsfleet, Rob Munro, has defended remaining within the Church of England…Meanwhile, William Taylor, Rector of St Helen’s Bishopsgate, has questioned whether evangelicals should be associated with CofE bishops that he regards as false teachers. Preaching a sermon from Titus 3, Taylor asked, ‘How can you possibly be allowing somebody who is... Continue Reading

Lo ricordano i fondatori di Magazzino Italian Art Nancy Olnick e Giorgio Spanu

Exclusive: Former health secretary says upfront investment in support is needed ‘if we are going to end the Neet crisis’

Ministers should cut welfare spending to fund more employment support if it wants to end the youth Neet crisis, the author of a government-led review has said.

Alan Milburn, the Tony Blair-era health secretary, told the Guardian he believed ministers should reduce benefits payments to help pay for more employment support, opening a potentially contentious debate within the Labour party over welfare cuts.

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© Photograph: Jeff Moore/PA

© Photograph: Jeff Moore/PA

© Photograph: Jeff Moore/PA

It’s a perfect storm of protesters with heartfelt grievances and others set on conflict. The key here is the sense of betrayal that united them on the streets

The first thing I learned on the streets of Paris this weekend is that there is no arguing with teargas. I arrived at Place de la République just after 1pm yesterday. The mood was festive until police started firing volleys of teargas into the square from Rue du Faubourg-du-Temple.

I didn’t see the inciting incident – if there even was one – and tried walking into the cloud of CS gas hanging in the air. It was impossible. The gas clings to your nose and burns your eyes, and you quickly start struggling to breathe. I retreated towards the Boulevard de Magenta, blinking furiously to stop the stinging.

Oliver Haynes is a journalist and co-host of Sacré Bleu: the French presidential election podcast

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© Photograph: Abitbol Shana/ABACA/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Abitbol Shana/ABACA/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Abitbol Shana/ABACA/Shutterstock

Meet some of the elderly residents of Bolotana, in line to be the world’s sixth ‘blue zone’ for its high number of female centenarians

When Giovanna Marras opens the door to her home in Bolotana, a mountain village in central Sardinia, her eyes are bright with curiosity as she sizes up her visitors. Her sister, Mariangela, peeks out too, soon ushering her guests inside and handing out dishes of ice-cream. The sisters are full of life, talking animatedly. Giovanna is 101 and Mariangela is 99.

Sitting in their living room, Giovanna swiftly recaps her life story: she excelled at school before moving to Cagliari, the capital of the Italian island, at 18 to train as a seamstress. The sisters went on to run a successful tailoring business in Bolotana before travelling the world after retirement. Neither married.

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© Photograph: Victor Sokolowicz/The Guardian

© Photograph: Victor Sokolowicz/The Guardian

© Photograph: Victor Sokolowicz/The Guardian

Meet some of the elderly residents of Bolotana, in line to be the world’s sixth ‘blue zone’ for its high number of female centenarians

When Giovanna Marras opens the door to her home in Bolotana, a mountain village in central Sardinia, her eyes are bright with curiosity as she sizes up her visitors. Her sister, Mariangela, peeks out too, soon ushering her guests inside and handing out dishes of ice-cream. The sisters are full of life, talking animatedly. Giovanna is 101 and Mariangela is 99.

Sitting in their living room, Giovanna swiftly recaps her life story: she excelled at school before moving to Cagliari, the capital of the Italian island, at 18 to train as a seamstress. The sisters went on to run a successful tailoring business in Bolotana before travelling the world after retirement. Neither married.

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© Photograph: Victor Sokolowicz/The Guardian

© Photograph: Victor Sokolowicz/The Guardian

© Photograph: Victor Sokolowicz/The Guardian

Doctors clear the pontiff to return to the Vatican after final medical tests