The great care home cash grab: how private equity turned vulnerable elderly people into human ATMs

When did care homes come to be seen as recession-proof investments? And who pays the price?On a spring morning in 1987, a 30-year-old man named Robert Kilgour pulled up beside a row of foamy cherry trees in the town of Kirkcaldy, on Scotland’s east coast, to visit an old hotel. The building was four storeys of blackened Victorian sandstone. Kilgour was a big man, a voluble Scot with a knack for storytelling. He already owned a hotel in Edinburgh but wanted to branch into property development and was planning to turn this old place, Station Court, into apartments. A few months after he completed the purchase, however, the Scottish government scrapped a grant for developers that he had been counting on

Conversations about infertility are hard, but essential | Letters

Perhaps one of the reasons that conversations about infertility are so difficult is that people are often encountering the experience for the first time without a shared language (Infertility: at a time when we need the right words, some are unable to find them, 21 March). In many ways, what people need is not just support, but a vocabulary for what they are going through. When someone loses a loved one, we have a go-to phrase: “I’m so sorry for your loss”. It’s not enough, but it’s something. With infertility, we don’t even have that

Polio virus detected in London days before ministers cut global eradication funding

The polio virus was detected in London sewage for the second time this year, days before ministers withdrew funding for global polio eradication efforts.Its detection reveals the spending cuts to be “shortsighted and self-defeating”, campaigners said. Polio is an extremely infectious viral disease, which typically affects young children under five. It can cause paralysis by damaging nerves in the spine and base of the brain, and can be life-threatening if it affects muscles used for breathing.UK health officials take weekly samples of wastewater from sewage plants around England to check for the presence of polio and will typically pick up a handful of cases a year

‘I decided not to jog here after dark’: new English council guidance prioritises women’s safety

Reetta Vaahtoranta used to go running in the evening along the Greenway, a four-mile (7km) pathway stretching across east London. But increasingly, she found herself receiving unwanted attention from lone male passersby. She switched her running clothes to baggier options, because “the less attractive and weirder you look, the less likely you are to get people following you”.“In the end, I just decided it was not worth it to come jogging here after dark,” she said. “If I know it can be a bit dodgy, then I just stop doing it

What does new guidance in the UK say about screen time for children?

The government has issued new guidance on how much time children below the age of five should spend on screens.Children’s relationships with screens have become one of the key struggles of 21st-century parenting, along with the impact of the content that appears on those devices. The guidance has been developed by a panel led by the children’s commissioner for England, Rachel de Souza, and children’s health expert Prof Russell Viner.Children below two years old should avoid screen time other than for shared activities that encourage interaction. For children between the ages of two and five, screen time should be kept to no more than one hour a day

Starmer vows to ‘fight’ social media firms to protect children from addiction

Keir Starmer has promised a “fight” with social media companies amid efforts to limit children’s use of mobile phones, tablets and TVs, as new official guidance recommends children under five spend no more than an hour a day on screens.The guidance, developed by a panel led by the children’s commissioner, Rachel de Souza and children’s health expert Prof Russell Viner, advises screen time for children under two should be avoided other than for shared activities.Ministers are also considering Australia-style measures to limit or ban social media for under-16s.Speaking at a school in south London about the new guidance, the prime minister said: “When there’s a lot going on, when children are having a tantrum, trying to find something to distract them is an obvious thing, and I don’t think parents and carers have had any guidance at all yet about what would be appropriate, what might be best.”The government is consulting on potential age restrictions on social media and other services, such as gaming sites and AI chatbots, as well as restrictions on addictive design features and risky functionalities, and better support for parents and families