Corporation moves to ensure cover is on standby for key programmes during Friday’s planned 24-hour walkout The BBC is making preparations to try and avoid a blackout of news programmes during Friday’s planned 24-hour walkout by journalists. Negotiations with the National Union of Journalists over compulsory redundancies at BBC World Service and BBC Monitoring are going down to the wire, with news staff due to take industrial action from midnight on Thursday. The last time BBC News was hit by a strike in November 2010, stand-ins including former GMTV presenter Emma Crosby and the BBC’s own director of news Helen Boaden were drafted in to help keep shows on air. But, in what could be seen as a sign that the corporation does not intend to back down, preparations are under way to ensure cover is on standby for key programmes such as BBC Radio 4′s Today on Friday. Meanwhile, the NUJ has sent a memo to staff outlining why it is striking following a ballot over compulsory redundancies, and how it thinks the BBC could halt the walkout. “One of our members in the BBC World Service has already been dismissed. Two NUJ members at Monitoring, including our NUJ rep, will be forced to leave their jobs next week and the week after,” the union said. “One other member in Monitoring will be made compulsorily redundant in August, together with several others in the World Service and others to come in the weeks and months to follow. The BBC has mishandled these cases and has not shown the will to sort them out.” The NUJ memo added that the union believes there are five ways the BBC can stop the strike. “Extend the leaving dates of those immediately at risk to allow for further talks; Agree to release volunteers; Cut the red tape when it comes to redeployment and make it happen; Use vacant posts to offset the costs of employing those at risk; Apply fairness across the BBC and treat people the same –wherever they work.” However, the BBC business operations director, Lucy Adams, told staff in a recent internal email: “Our financial position means that we are unable to agree to the NUJ’s demands for no compulsory redundancies and delaying taking action now means that we will be required to find even more money in the future, potentially affecting more jobs.” A further 24-hour strike is due to take place on 29 July. The NUJ declined to comment. The BBC said it remained in “continuous talks” with the NUJ. • To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email editor@mediaguardian.co.uk or phone 020 3353 3857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 3353 2000. If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly “for publication”. • To get the latest media news to your desktop or mobile, follow MediaGuardian on Twitter and Facebook . BBC Media unions National Union of Journalists Television industry Radio industry Tara Conlan guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …A Minnesota man has been sentenced to 18 years for hacking into his neighbors’ wireless account to send child pornography and threats against Vice President Joe Biden and other officials. Barry Ardolf aimed to “ruin” his neighbors’ “reputation and livelihood,” said an FBI spokesman. The two-year attack was motivated by…
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New figures from the Office for National Statistics show a 2.4% increase in live births in the last year alone More midwives are urgently required as the birth rate reached a 40-year high, the Royal College of Midwives has said. New figures published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show a 2.4% increase in live births in the last year alone. There were 723,165 live births in England and Wales in 2010, compared with 706,248 in 2009, making it the highest figure in almost 40 years. In 1972, the birth rate was 725,440. The number of children women are having also increased between 2009 and 2010, with the total fertility rate (TFR) rising to 2.0 children per woman in 2010 from 1.96 in 2009. Nearly 4,700 more midwives are now needed to handle the increase, according to the Royal College of Midwives (RCM). Cathy Warwick, general secretary of the RCM, said: “The government has committed to protecting student midwife training places, but this is only for one year and does little good if there are not jobs for those midwives to go to. “Without central direction it is simply too easy for hard-pressed NHS organisations to save money by cutting midwifery jobs. This is a false economy and government backing is needed to ensure this does not happen. “All the reports on maternity services show that there is a direct link with midwifery staffing levels and the safety of services. Late last year I said I have real fears that the safety of maternity services was being compromised by the shortfall in midwife numbers; these new figures add even greater weight to that fear. “Midwives are working harder and doing more with less and maternity services and the quality of care is suffering. I appeal to David Cameron to accept what the figures are telling him and to honour his promise. Failing to do so is a disservice to midwives and, more importantly, a disservice to the women and babies those midwives care for.” The ONS figures also show a decrease in stillbirths between 2009 and 2010. In 2010, there were 5.1 per thousand live and stillbirths, down from 5.2 in 2009. There was, however, an increase in all deaths in England and Wales between 2009 and 2010, rising from 491,348 in 2009 to 493,243 in 2010, an increase of 0.4%. There were 3,140 infant deaths under one year of age registered in England and Wales, giving an infant mortality rate of 4.3 deaths per thousand live births, the lowest rate ever recorded. Midwifery Health NHS Childbirth Health & wellbeing Social trends guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …If journalists working for Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation hacked the phones of any Americans, “the consequences will be severe,” warns the chair of the Senate Commerce Committee. Sen. Jay Rockefeller, who says he’s concerned that the hacking “may have extended to 9/11 victims or other Americans,” has called for US…
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• Hit refresh or the auto-update button for the latest posts • Send your thoughts to paul.doyle@guardian.co.uk 6 min: Wambach meets an American corner at the back post but, under pressure from two defenders, can’t get proper contact on it and her awkward header poses no threat. 5 min: It’s been a promising start by France, who seems determind to carry on their enterprising style. They’ve been the more lively and inventive so far but the Americans are tough and well-organised and keeping chances to a minimum. Or zero, to be exact. 3 min: The crowd is big but quiet so far – which means we can hear the players’ calls and yelps. Let’s hope that doesn’t give rise to lots of boring complaints like the ones that proliferate around Wimbledon. 1 min: France get the game under way. It doesn’t take the US long to win the ball off them, but they make poor use of it, hoofing long to the French keeper. 4:58pm: It looks like a bumper crowd in Monchengladbach and face-paint vendors appear to have been doing a roaring trade. Preamble Break out those liberty fries, folks, burn them baguettes and bury your berets – yes, we know you have berets – because it’s the United States against France for a shot at world domination. You must be either with one or against one. No, wait, that’s not right – there is a third way: you can tune in just to enjoy a high-quality, high-stakes game of football. Spoilsport. Americans love an underdog, it’s said, so everyone stateside will presumably be supporting the French, who have none of the US’s pedigree in this tournament nor their No1 world ranking and, as their manager Bruno Bini, pointed out yesterday, have far fewer players to call on than their counterparts (“we have 60,000 registered female players, they have 2.5 million so there is a better chance of them finding 21 good players than we do,” he explained, moments after barfing . Coincidentally, most people in France will also be supporting France – and we really mean most people: the hitherto neglected national women’s team has caught the public’s imagination because, according to the Le Parisien, perhaps making an implicit comparison to the country’s men’s team, “they don’t cheat, they play; they don’t take themselves for stars and they have a charismatic coach” (whose pre-match pep-talks, incidentally, often include him reciting poetry or breaking into song). Both sides came through taut thrillers in the last round. Who will prevail today? Teams France: Sapowicz, Georges, Meilleroux, Soubeyrang, Bompastor, Abily, Lepailleur, Necib, Bussaglia, Thiney, Delie Subs: Deville, Renard, Boulleau, Franco, Le Sommer, Thomis, Pizzala, Bretigny, Viguier, Phillipe USA: Solo, Rampone, Sauerbrunn, Lepeilbet, Boxx, Rodriguez, O’Reilly, Lloyd, Krieger, Cheney, Wambach Subs: Mitts, O’Hara, Morgan, Cox, Rapinoe, Lindsey, Heath. Barnhart, Loyden, Buehler. Ref: K Heikkinen (Finland, which reminds me of this magnificent opus Women’s World Cup 2011 Women’s football Paul Doyle guardian.co.uk
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Cryptic wood white revealed as annual Big Butterfly Count is launched A new species of butterfly previously unknown to science has been discovered flying in Northern Ireland. The cryptic wood white looks exactly the same as both the Réals wood white and the wood white, a delicate and increasingly rare insect found in English woodlands in summer. But scientists have discovered it is in fact a unique species that has far more chromosomes, different DNA and genetically is 70,000 years old – far older than the two other species. “It’s a very exciting discovery. We are going to have to rewrite the butterfly books,” said Martin Warren, chief executive of Butterfly Conservation . The discovery comes as the charity launches the world’s largest count of butterflies, the Big Butterfly Count, encouraging everyone to spend 15 minutes on a sunny day between 16 July and 31 July recording all the butterflies they spot in their garden, park or nearby countryside. Last year 10,000 people in the UK downloaded free identification guides and submitted sightings of 189,000 butterflies online at www.bigbutterflycount.org . Sir David Attenborough , the president of Butterfly Conservation, said butterflies rarely visited his suburban garden any more and the count was crucial to understand how and why butterflies were in decline. “I saw one peacock in my garden last year and that was a big day for me. I’ve even got to the stage where I welcome cabbage whites. They lift the heart but they are also crucial to the survival of British wildlife – for the birds that feed on their caterpillars and for pollinating flowers. If my heart is not going to be lifted by a butterfly because they’ve gone, my life is going to be much the poorer.” The count is being funded by Marks & Spencer with the retailer filling the breach left by an 85% cut in Butterfly Conservation’s funding from Natural England , the government’s conservation body, which is shedding 800 staff in the public sector cuts. As well as providing crucial information on common butterflies suffering steep declines, including the small tortoiseshell and the meadow brown, the information submitted by butterfly lovers could help solve other mysteries in the butterfly world – and find more cryptic species, which are so called because they are identical to existing species and therefore hidden within them. The cryptic wood white, which has the scientific name of Leptidea juvernica, was discovered by Spanish and Russian scientists who identified the new species across a swath of central Europe, including Germany, Romania and Northern Ireland. Mysteriously, it does not occur in Great Britain, where the wood white is one of our most endangered species. For the last 10 years in Northern Ireland the cryptic wood white was believed to be the Réal’s wood white, another so-called cryptic species which was only discovered in Europe in 1988. The cryptic wood white and Real’s wood white differ from the wood white found in Britain in one important aspect: the males have much larger genitalia, leading to the nickname “long-willied wood white” in Northern Ireland. Richard Fox of Butterfly Conservation said the discovery was important because it helped conservationists understand the distribution of rare insects and which species should be a conservation priority. “The fact that there have been two species hiding within the wood white is exciting,” said Fox. “It also begs the question of what else is out there?” Butterflies Wildlife Insects Northern Ireland Patrick Barkham guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Jared Lee Loughner’s right to refuse antipsychotic medication trumps the federal government’s interest in making him sane enough to stand trial for the Tucson shootings in which Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was injured, an appeals court has decided. The court ruled that its injunction against forcibly medicating Loughner should stay in…
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US president’s 2012 bid sails past $60m target for last quarter, easily eclipsing the efforts of Republican contenders Barack Obama’s re-election campaign has exceeded its $60m fundraising target for the past three months, bringing in $86m from April to June and eclipsing his Republican contenders. Officials for Obama’s 2012 presidential campaign said it had received funds from more than 552,000 people, representing “more grassroots support at this point in the process than any campaign in political history”. In keeping with the president’s 2008 winning strategy of targeting small donations, 98% of contributions in the second quarter of this year were $250 (£157) or less, with an average donation of around $69, campaign manager Jim Messina said in a video to supporters. The figures confirm that Obama, who raised a record $745m during his 2008 bid, has started the 2012 race as the cash leader despite criticism from some Democrats that he has tilted to the right in US debt talks and worries about the economy. The Republican frontrunner Mitt Romney raised $18.25m from April to June, and most of his party’s hopefuls for the White House raised between $4m and $4.5m during the same period. Romney’s rival Michele Bachmann is due to announce her fundraising total for last quarter this week. Of the total raised for Obama during that period, more than $47m went to the Obama for America fund and more than $38m to the Democratic National Committee. US elections 2012 Barack Obama Democrats Michele Bachmann Mitt Romney Republicans United States US politics US elections 2008 guardian.co.uk
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Schools have put in place plans to restrict pupils’ GCSE choices as a direct result of the introduction of the new benchmark, a seminar has heard Teenagers are being given limited GCSE options and forced to switch courses midway as schools try to boost their scores in the new English baccalaureate (Ebacc), it has been claimed. In some cases, youngsters are being asked to change a year or less before they are due to sit exams, it was suggested. And almost half of schools have put in place plans to restrict pupils’ GCSE choices as a direct result of the Ebacc’s introduction. The education secretary, Michael Gove, introduced the Ebacc at the end of last year, and the measure is now included in league tables – allowing schools to be rated on the proportion of their pupils achieving the benchmark. To achieve the Ebacc, pupils must score at least a C grade in English, maths, science, a foreign language and either history or geography. But a seminar on the Ebacc and the national curriculum has heard that other subjects such as art, drama, music and religious education are being squeezed out, with more pressure being put on pupils to take those that are included. David Peck, director of the Curriculum Foundation, said that while some schools have opted to stick with their curriculum, others are changing it to fit with the Ebacc. “Some will change GCSEs mid-year. That’s certainly happening in a number of schools,” he said. He added that choices for pupils year 10 (the first year of GCSE study) are changing “very late”, while the options available for those starting GCSE courses this year have also altered. Speaking after the seminar, Peck added: “Some of the current year 11s [second year of GCSE study] have had to switch GCSE courses in some schools, that’s true.” In many cases, pupils have been asked to change so that they can take a language. Asked how long these pupils then have to study the course, Peck said: “A year or less in many cases.” Other schools are laying on “twilight” courses after school. Shadow schools secretary Andy Burnham, who arranged the seminar, said afterwards: “The danger is it puts the interests of the school above the interests of the individual.” In a survey of more than 2,400 teachers, conducted by the NASUWT teaching union, 43% say their school had planned to restrict the degree of choice 14-year-olds have over their GCSE options as a direct result of the Ebacc being introduced. NASUWT spokesman Chris Weavers told the seminar that those questioned had at the same time seen reductions in time spent on subjects not included in the Ebacc. In design and technology 17% had seen a reduction, 15% in information and computer technology, 13% each in art, music and drama, 12% in citizenship, 11% in personal, social, health and economic education, and 10% in religious education. “Schools are either stopping subjects or reducing curriculum time,” Weavers said. “There’s very clear evidence that it’s distorting the offer.” Rabbi Dr Jonathan Romain, chair of the Accord Coalition, said: “We have got a policy of freedom of choice, but in reality it’s a diminution of choice.” Peter Hall Jones, chief executive of the Curriculum Foundation, said: “It’s a bad Bacc.” Brian Lightman, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said the union had heard of pupils being asked to switch courses. “We are extremely concerned about it, ” he said. “It’s an inevitable consequence of creating a new performance indicator and judging schools against it. “What schools should be doing is considering what’s the most appropriate curriculum for their pupils. But, unfortunately, the nature of the high stakes accountability culture that we have at the moment is putting schools under enormous pressure to meet targets.” Lightman added: “There seems to be a worrying trend towards removing choice from young people at 14. I think that’s very dangerous in terms of motivating young people to choose subjects that play to their own strengths.” According to official figures, 15.6% of pupils in England, around one in six, achieved the Ebacc last summer. GCSEs English baccalaureate Schools guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …An Army Ranger from New Mexico who lost his right hand saving the lives of two comrades in Afghanistan has become only the second living recipient of the Medal of Honor since the Vietnam War. Sgt. First Class Leroy Petry had already been shot in both legs during a firefight…
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