Resident doctors’ strikes risk derailing Labour’s NHS recovery plan

Patients left in pain and discomfort. Thousands of appointments and operations cancelled. Much of the reaction to the decision of resident (formerly junior) doctors in England to stage their third six-month series of strikes over pay in just 16 months has focused on the disruption to NHS services.But their stoppages also threaten to pose serious problems – political, economic and reputational – for the government. For Keir Starmer, Wes Streeting and inescapably Rachel Reeves, too, this is a situation replete with risk but without an obvious solution

Benefit cuts will hit severely disabled people despite ministers’ claims, say charities

“Huge swathes” of severely disabled people will be hit by the planned universal credit cuts, contrary to government claims that they will be protected, charities say.Organisations including Scope, Z2K and the MS Society say the legislation, which is due to be voted on again by MPs on Wednesday, fails to account for disabilities if they are progressive or fluctuating.The clause in the bill said to shield the most severely disabled and ill people from reassessment and the new lower benefit rate – known as the severe conditions criteria (SCC) – will only do so if a claimant meets a number of strict requirements, including that a health condition must be constant.It means people with severe illnesses that vary with symptoms day to day, such as Parkinson’s, bipolar and multiple sclerosis, could be put on to the reduced universal credit rate despite being too ill to seek employment.“Contrary to government claims, we have real fears that many disabled people with lifelong conditions that severely impact their daily lives will not in fact be protected from the cuts,” said Ayla Ozmen, the director of policy and campaigns at the anti-poverty charity Z2K

UK to test nationwide emergency alert system for second time

The UK will hold a further test of its emergency alert system on 7 September this year – and putting your mobile phone on silent will not mute the alarm.The government system is designed to warn if there is danger to life nearby, including severe weather threats. It also allows for the sending of vital information and advice.Mobile phones will vibrate and make a siren sound for about 10 seconds, and display a message confirming that the handset takeover is just a test. There are about 87m mobile phones in the UK

The life swap dream – or a marketing gimmick? The Italian towns selling houses for €1

If you could move anywhere, where would it be? This used to be a question I’d ask myself or others at dinner parties, but two years ago, as new parents facing the unsustainable costs of Bay Area life and the looming threat of middle-age atrophy, my husband, Ben, and I took to the internet in earnest with the notion of reinventing our lives somewhere new.We were, of course, part of a widespread trend: seeking adventure and greener pastures elsewhere in the era of globalisation. Even so, the notion felt thrilling. Where would we go? Our search had some parameters: affordability, a natural landscape (I dreamed of cicadas, cypress trees), a place with a language we either already spoke or could learn easily enough so that we could contribute to the community. We’d spent our careers working in schools and nonprofits with young immigrants, and, however different it might look in a new country, we had no intention of leaving a life of service behind

Children in England ‘living in almost Dickensian levels of poverty’

Children in England are living in “almost Dickensian levels of poverty” where deprivation has become normalised, the children’s commissioner has said, as she insisted the two-child benefit limit must be scrapped.Young people said they had experienced not having enough water to shower, rats biting through their walls, and mouldy bedrooms, among a number of examples in a report on the “crisis of hardship” gripping the country.Dame Rachel de Souza said she had noticed a significant shift in how young people talked about their lives since she became children’s commissioner four years ago, and that “issues that were traditionally seen as ‘adult’ concerns are now keenly felt by children”.“Children shared harrowing accounts of hardship, with some in almost Dickensian levels of poverty,” she said. “They don’t talk about ‘poverty’ as an abstract concept but about not having the things that most people would consider basic: a safe home that isn’t mouldy or full or rats, with a bed big enough to stretch out in, ‘luxury’ food like bacon, a place to do homework, heating, privacy in the bathroom and being able to wash, having their friends over, and not having to travel hours to school

Drugs smuggled by drone undermining rehabilitation in prisons, watchdog warns

The volume of drugs being delivered by drones into prisons is severely undermining hopes of rehabilitation among inmates, a watchdog has warned.Criminal gangs are smuggling contraband to bored and vulnerable inmates who are locked up for most of the day in filthy cells with little activity, the chief inspector of prisons’ annual report said.Charlie Taylor previously warned that drones dropping drugs at high-security jails HMP Manchester and HMP Long Lartin was a “threat to national security”, and he repeated calls for the threat to be taken seriously “at the highest levels of government”.The watchdog chief said: “This has been another very difficult year for prisons in England and Wales with the ingress of contraband delivered by drones severely impacting the essential work that many have been able to do with prisoners.“The challenge for the prison service must be to work in conjunction with the police and security services to manage prisoners associated with organised crime