Feed aggregator

Anna Stevens reveals what she learned in the process of divorcing her husband of more than 19 years. British mother-of-two says divorces very often come with plot twists.

UK ministers have asked officials to prepare for the creation of quarantine hotels, where arrivals into the country would self-isolate before being allowed out in a bid to keep Brazilian Covid out.

Liz Hoggard who lives in London, admits she was ill-equipped on the domestic front when lockdown hit in March. She started making late night internet impulse buys for her kitchen.

Jo Hooper, 55, who lives in London with her husband, has three sons in their 20s. The founder of NRBY, reveals the importance of a budget day cream and Barrecore for staying youthful.

More than 25,000 patients have caught coronavirus in hospital since the second wave of the pandemic began in September, according to official figures.

An academic debate about Winston Churchill's views on empire and race is to be hosted at the Churchill College Cambridge. Controversial speakers are lined-up for the 'reassessment' event.

Nigel Colborn shares his advice for growing garlic, shallots and other piquant vegetables. The British gardening expert says varieties sold in supermarkets may not be suitable in our climate.

Nigel Colborn shares his advice for growing delicious vegetables and gorgeous flowers as spring approaches. British gardening expert explains how to sow tender ornamentals this month.

Elizabeth Emanuel, 67, is being sued by her ex-husband David, 68, after putting up for auction sketches of several of their designs for Diana, including the her wedding gown she wore in1981.

Desiree Henry, 25, who lives in London, won an Olympic Bronze in the 4 x 100m relay at the 2016 Rio Games. She reveals how failure helped her to improve the connection between mind and body.

Dating has become near impossible and at the height of the pandemic fertility clinics were closed. Four UK-based writers share their experience of a lost year of fertility.

Green's Arcadia collapsed in November after the pandemic hammered sales. It could fetch more than £200m, with administrators from Deloitte appointed to oversee the sale.

William Vereker said a return of business investment and consumers unleashing savings will drive growth. He expects a 'big uptick' in consumer spending and increased business investment.

The New York Times reports on an "exodus" of tech workers from the San Francisco Bay Area, where "Rent was astronomical. Taxes were high. Your neighbors didn't like you" — and your commute could be over an hour. The biggest tech companies aren't going anywhere, and tech stocks are still soaring... But the migration from the Bay Area appears real. Residential rents in San Francisco are down 27% from a year ago, and the office vacancy rate has spiked to 16.7%, a number not seen in a decade. Though prices had dropped only slightly, Zillow reported more homes for sale in San Francisco than a year ago. For more than a month last year, 90% of the searches involving San Francisco on moveBuddha were for people moving out... There are 33,000 members in the Facebook group Leaving California and 51,000 in its sister group, Life After California. People post pictures of moving trucks and links to Zillow listings in new cities. They've apparently scattered across the country — even to tropical islands like Puerto Rico and Costa Rica They fled to more affordable places like Georgia. They fled to states without income taxes like Texas and Florida... The No. 1 pick for people leaving San Francisco is Austin, Texas, with other winners including Seattle, New York and Chicago, according to moveBuddha, a site that compiles data on moving. Some cities have set up recruiting programs to lure them to new homes. The Times also notes "there is a very vocal Miami faction, led by a few venture capital influencers, trying to tweet the city's startup world into existence," as other cities begin to realize that "the talent and money of newly remote tech workers are up for grabs." Topeka, Kansas, started Choose Topeka, which will reimburse new workers $10,000 for the first year of rent or $15,000 if they buy a home. Tulsa, Oklahoma, will pay you $10,000 to move there. The nation of Estonia has a new residency program just for digital nomads. A program in Savannah, Georgia, will reimburse remote workers $2,000 for the move there, and the city has created various social activities to introduce the newcomers to one another and to locals... But the article also points out that "More money was made faster in the Bay Area by fewer people than at any other time in American history," and speculates on what long-time residents may be thinking: People who distrusted the young newcomers from the start will say this change is a good thing. Hasn't this steep growth in wealth and population in a tiny geography always seemed unsustainable? These tech workers came like a whirlwind. Virtually every community from San Jose in the south to Marin County in the north has fought the rise of new housing for the arrivals of the last decade. Maybe spreading the tech talent around America is smart. Locals have also seen this play before. Moving trucks come to take a generation of tech ambition away, and a few years later moving trucks return with new dreamers and new ambitions.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Ealing Police broke up a massive street fight involving 40 men brandishing swords and bottles in west London this morning and arrested two men in St John's Road, Southall after melee.

Nine days ago America set a record: nearly 290,000 new Covid-19 cases within 24 hours. according to figures from Johns Hopkins University. Four days later, anti-mask protesters in Oregon filmed their confrontation with employees at a Trader Joe's grocery store who wouldn't let them enter the store unless they were wearing a mask. Their 8-minute video has since been viewed over 325,000 times. The Oregonian newspaper reports: As other masked customers enter the store, the manager repeats that the protesters are welcome to shop too, as long as they wear masks. He says he is more than willing to talk to the group but isn't interested in debating policy. Trader Joe's nationwide policy requires customers to wear masks in stores. "We're not demonstrating, we're buying groceries," a protester says. "That's why I'm here." The manager says he is enforcing the store's mask mandate. "It's not a law. You cannot enforce non-law," a protester says. "You cannot deny somebody the right to commerce." The store manager appears to offer to shop for the protesters and bring out what they want. Amid growing shouting, a woman says: "I need to buy groceries. I don't know what I want until I go in and see it. The Civil Rights Act protects me to go in and shop like everybody else." Legal experts have told USA Today that the 1964 Civil Rights Act does not give people the right to shop without a mask. The manager patiently explains to the protesters that "The difference you guys are trying to make isn't going to made with us. It can made with your government." But soon one protester starts amplifying their voice with a bullhorn, while another continues filming the grocery store's employees — zooming in on their name tags — and threatening, "I'm sorry that you're not going to be able to let anyone else in, because we're standing here." Another protester says "Right, that's pretty much the only resolution. It's either we get to shop, like free American citizens, right? Without being forced into wearing this mask, right...?" They don't appear to follow through on their threat to blockade entry into the store, but the manager continues talking to them throughout the video. And at one point he says calmly that "It's disheartening that we can't have any conversations any more... It's really disheartening. "It's disheartening that people can't just talk to one another."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Officers in Romford fined 49 drivers after they were found breaching coronavirus restrictions during a car meet. Police reported those in attendance were not social distancing.

The number of players confined to their rooms on Sunday evening swelled to 72 after it emerged an infected passenger had arrived into a Qatar Airways flight from Doha on Saturday morning.

Trump is refusing to meet Biden before leaving the White House. Instead the incoming president will hold a memorial to the dead and go to mass before being sworn in.

"SpaceX's attempt to reduce the reflectivity of Starlink satellites is working, but not to the degree required by astronomers," reports Gizmodo: Starlink satellites with an anti-reflective coating are half as bright as the standard version, according to research published in The Astrophysical Journal. It's an improvement, but still not good enough, according to the team, led by astronomer Takashi Horiuchi from the National Astronomical Observatory in Japan. These "DarkSats," as they're called, also continue to cause problems at other wavelengths of light [and] were included in a batch of satellites launched by SpaceX on January 7, 2020. The new study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of that dark coating... The scientists found that the "albedo of DarkSat is about a half of that of STARLINK-1113," as they wrote in their paper. That's a decent improvement in the visual spectrum, but still not great. What's more, problems persist at other wavelengths. "The darkening paint on DarkSat certainly halves reflection of sunlight compared to the ordinary Starlink satellites, but [the constellation's] negative impact on astronomical observations still remains," Horiuchi told Physics World. He said the mitigating effect is "good in the UV/optical region" of the spectrum, but "the black coating raises the surface temperature of DarkSat and affects intermediate infrared observations." A third version of Starlink is supposed to be even dimmer. Called "VisorSats," they feature a sun visor that will "dim the satellites once they reach their operational altitude," according to Sky and Telescope. SpaceX launched some VisorSats last year, but the degree to which their albedo is lessened compared to the original version is still not known, or if these versions will exhibit elevated surface temperatures. Horiuchi told Physics World that SpaceX should seriously consider lifting the altitude of the Starlink constellation to further reduce the brightness of these objects. . The article ends with a quote from an astronomer at Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and an expert on satellites. He'd told Gizmodo's reporter back in January of 2020 that "SpaceX is making a good-faith effort to fix the problem," and that he believes the company "can get the satellites fainter than what the naked eye can see."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.