thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-06-18--Donald Trump 'Wanted To Give Kim Jong Un A Copy Of Rocket Man'

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Donald Trump’s former national security advisor John Bolton has made a series of explosive allegations against the president in his new book, describing Trump as “stunningly uninformed”.
The US justice department has filed an emergency restraining order against Bolton in a bid to block the book, ‘The Room Where It Happened’, claiming it could cause “serious damage” to national security.
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But parts of the book have already been leaked to US newspapers, including the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post and the New York Times.
Former National Security Advisor John Bolton has written a book about Donald Trump Melissa Sue Gerrits via Getty Images
Among Bolton’s allegations is one that the president was unaware the UK was a nuclear power.
Here’s a round-up of the biggest claims from the book so far:
The president ‘didn’t know the UK was a nuclear power ’
Then-prime minister Theresa May with Donald Trump and Melania Trump during the commemorations for the 75th Anniversary of the D-Day landings at Southsea Common in Portsmouth. PA
The UK is supposed to be one of the USA’s closest allies – but Bolton claims Trump wasn’t even aware the nation is a nuclear power.
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According to the Washington Post, Bolton alleges that in a meeting with then-prime minister Theresa May in 2018, a British official referred to the UK as a “nuclear power”.
Trump then asked: “Oh, are you a nuclear power?” Bolton insists that the comment “was not intended as a joke”.
Trump thought Finland was part of Russia
Donald Trump, left, and Russia's president Vladimir Putin JIM WATSON via Getty Images
According to Bolton, geography isn’t the president’s strong suit either.
In the book, he reportedly alleges that Trump once asked whether Finland – which is home to around 5.5 million people – was part of Russia.
Trump asked China’s president for a favour to boost his reelection chances
Recent portraits of China's President Xi Jinping (R) and US President Donald Trump. JIM WATSON via Getty Images
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But it is not just Trump’s blunders that are chronicled in Bolton’s new book – there are some more serious allegations.
The former national security adviser claims that Trump asked Chinese president Xi Jinping to help him win reelection in 2020 by purchasing agricultural products from key US. states.
In an excerpt of his book published in The Wall Street Journal, Bolton wrote that the president was “pleading with Xi to ensure he’d win” during a summit meeting in Japan last summer.
Bolton wrote: “Trump commingled the personal and the national not just on trade questions but across the whole field of national security.
“I am hard-pressed to identify any significant Trump decision during my White House tenure that wasn’t driven by reelection calculations.”
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Trump praised China’s internment camps for Muslims
The alleged discussion about reelection is not the only interaction between Trump and Xi that Bolton describes in the book though.
The Associated Press reported that the book describes a White House Christmas dinner in 2018, during which Trump asked why the USA was sanctioning China over its treatment of Uighurs Muslims.
China suspects Uighurs, who are predominantly Muslim and culturally and ethnically distinct from the majority Han Chinese population, of harbouring separatist tendencies.
In recent years, China has dramatically escalated its campaign against them by detaining more than one million people in internment camps and prisons, which China calls vocational training centres, AP reported.
“At the opening dinner of the Osaka G20 meeting, with only interpreters present, Mr Xi explained to Mr Trump why he was basically building concentration camps in Xinjiang,” Bolton wrote.
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“According to our interpreter, Mr Trump said that Mr Xi should go ahead with building the camps, which he thought was exactly the right thing to do.”
Trump was desperate to give Kim Jong Un an Elton John CD
President Donald Trum meets with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at the North Korean side of the border (AP Photo/Susan Walsh) ASSOCIATED PRESS
According to Bolton, Trump was desperate to get a signed copy of Elton John’s ‘Rocket Man’ to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un following a visit to the country.
The president had used the term ‘little rocket man’ to criticise Kim, but had later tried to convince him it was a term of affection.
Trump wanted secretary of state Mike Pompeo to deliver the CD to Kim during a follow-up visit to the country.
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“Getting this CD to Kim remained a high priority for several months,” Bolton wrote, according to the Washington Post.
Trump threatened to pull the US out of Nato
Donald Trump with Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the NATO summit, with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in the background PETER NICHOLLS via Getty Images
Bolton also wrote that at a Nato summit in 2018, Trump had decided to tell allies the US would pull out of the group if other countries did not increase their defence spending.
Bolton claims the president told him: “We will walk out, and not defend those who have not (paid).”


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-06-18--Dame Barbara Windsor's Husband Reveals Fears She May Need To Move Into A Care Home

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Dame Barbara Windsor’s husband Scott Mitchell has shared his concerns that she may need to move into a care home as her Alzheimer’s has worsened.
The EastEnders legend went public with her condition in 2018, having been diagnosed four years earlier, and since then, Scott has been candid about how the disease has affected her.
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As part of a new documentary by Dame Barbara’s former on-screen son Ross Kemp, titled Living With Dementia, Scott revealed that a specialist had warned him that the actress could need to move to a care home in the future, which he said is “the thing I’ve always feared”.
Scott Mitchell and Dame Barbara Windsor in 2011 Doug Peters/EMPICS Entertainment
“He’s basically telling me I need to prepare myself that at some point it may not be sustainable to give her the kind of care she needs at the house,” Scott said.
“I’ve had some fairly dark moments since he said that because there’s a part of me that knows that most likely is the truth and that’s what needs to happen.”
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He added: “There’s another part of me which can’t imagine letting her go. I can’t imagine leaving that lady when she talks to me the way she does and putting her somewhere and her thinking, ‘Why has he done this to me?’.”
After filming his new documentary, Ross said that seeing “the deterioration” in his former co-star’s condition had been “shocking and, to those of us close to her, deeply upsetting”.
Ross Kemp with his former on-screen mum, Barbara Windsor Ian West - PA Images via Getty Images
In a first-person piece published last week, he said: “I’ve been in Barbara Windsor’s house for just a few minutes. I’m sitting down with a cup of tea and a biscuit with my friend of three decades. I’m taken aback, but I can’t show it.
“When I arrived, she greeted me with a hug, as one of her closest friends... But now she clearly has no idea who I am.”
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Scott Mitchell also said at the time: “It’s not the Barbara that I knew. It’s not my wife Barbara any more.
“I’m Barbara’s carer. I’m still her friend, you know, I still love the bones of the woman but it’s not the Barbara I knew… that I live with.”


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-06-18--My Pride Anthems: Crystal Methyd

My Pride Anthems: Crystal Methyd

The coronavirus pandemic has changed everything, and that includes how we’re all celebrating Pride in 2020.
With huge public gatherings out of the question, we’re asking a range of LGBTQ celebrities and allies for their personal Pride anthems, to help us all get into the Pride spirit from lockdown.
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The incomparable Crystal Methyd Santiago Felipe via Getty Images
Crystal made it all the way to the final of this year’s season of Drag Race, and is now at home in Misourri where she’s been, in her words, “busy as ever” and “trying to recover from my loss of $100,000″.
These are the song she’s picked as her must-listens for Pride month...
Ezra Furman – Maraschino-Red Dress $8.99 At Goodwill
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“Ezra Furman is one of my favourite artists. They’re just like an openly queer person with fun style, and an amazing stage presence. They came to [Springfield, Misourri] and I got to meet them, and I just fell in love.
“This song is just… it says it right in the title, a red dress that’s $8.99 at Goodwill, which is something I’m very passionate about. I love literally all of their music, I find myself performing a lot of Ezra Furman. But I thought this song would be good for people who haven’t heard of them before.”
Pabllo Vittar and Charli XCX – Flash Pose
“Pabllo Vitar is a Brazilian drag phenomenon. I think she’s totally stunning, she’s kind of what I think I look like when I’m in drag.
“And I think it’s kind of cool that this song is totally in English because she talked about how she was touring in the United States and Canada, and her fans were trying to learn Portuguese so they could tell her how much they loved her. So she did this song in English to just show her English-speaking fans she loves them back. And I think spreading love is what all artists want to do.”
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Of Montreal – It’s Different For Girls
“I don’t think that this song is necessarily a Pride anthem, and when it was written, it wasn’t really supposed to be a feminist anthem either. But this is one of the songs that I like to perform, maybe when we get on the road I’ll be able to do it on tour.
“I just think it’s a silly approach to how men see women, and even Kevin Barnes, who wrote it, he said he got negative feedback from his own family about this song. And I think if you’re not getting negative feedback then you’re doing something wrong. And that’s definitely the case for drag.”
Kiddy Smile – Let A B!tch Know
“This song is just about being queer and giving zero fucks. The video is so fun, too, it features a bunch of queer and trans people being sickening.
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“And a fun fact is that Kiddy Smile is friends with my season 12 sister Nicky Doll. Literally, when I found out she was his friend I was just like ‘oh my god I have his vinyl!’.”
El DeBarge – Rhythm Of The Night
“I had no idea who El DeBarge was before Drag Race. And I still probably don’t know as much as RuPaul would want me to. I think this is a song that’s going to follow me around now, and I’m OK with it. RuPaul giving you a theme song is the highest honour.
“And the first time I heard it played on the show, I was like ‘oh my god, they actually bought the rights to this song!’. I could not believe it.”
The Cast Of RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 12 – I Made It/Mirror Song/Losing Is The New Winning
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“This is seven minutes and 49 seconds of pure ecstasy, I would say. The lyrics really speak to me – I can relate to losing.
“The weird thing is, it was kind of hard for me to put together a list of songs because... I feel weird when I say this and sometimes people get angry at me, but I’m not like a music-listener. Growing up, I never really listened to music, my family… I don’t know, we just didn’t do that. So now, whenever I find something that really speaks to me, I’m like, oh yeah, this is it.
“I’m very visual, and so the music part, I sometimes need a little help with.”
Crystal Methyd will be touring the UK and Ireland throughout November. Her tour with Klub Kids begins in Edinburgh on 5 November.
We’ll be adding each celebrity’s song choices to our bumper My Pride Anthems playlist each day. Take a listen below:


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-06-18--Inside The Dangerous Online Fever Swamps Of American Police

Around the time news broke on Monday afternoon that the New York City Police Department would disband plainclothes anti-crime units that had been tied to several high-profile police shootings, someone calling themselves “ltdad613” started a thread on Thee Rant, a police message board that purports to host current and former NYPD employees. “I wouldn’t want to be a [Commanding Officer] for the next few compstats,” ltdad613 wrote. “This is right from [New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio]. I feel for anybody still on the job.”
Elsewhere, the posts on Thee Rant were much darker. In one Monday thread, “dominop” wrote that “A Firing squad would be a good cure for ANTIFA!!!” Other users chimed in to say snipers or napalm might be more fitting.
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Thee Rant is just one node in a wider web of right-wing police media. On similar message boards, in Facebook groups and on news sites such as Law Enforcement Today — a sort of Breitbart-like outlet written by and for police — there is a fervent narrative that police are under nonstop siege, and that antifa, in particular, is a constant threat.
This police media ecosystem is not necessarily a broad representation of what most cops believe. But inside this echo chamber, which has thousands of users and readers, extremist views dictate the narrative. Wild misinformation and bigotry are rampant, with people who claim to be current and former officers posting debunked falsehoods and racist stereotypes about protesters.
Intense public focus on police behaviour in recent weeks, following the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, has led to the termination of several law enforcement officers who posted conspiratorial or racist messages on their personal social media pages. When these posts are singled out for scrutiny and have a real officer’s name attached, opprobrium comes quickly, but most of those posts would be right at home in right-wing police media.
“What I think we have here is a market for this kind of racist and divisive garbage across the internet, and unfortunately police are participating in that wave that is witnessed across various professions,” said Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate & Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino. “It pains me as a former NYPD officer to see this,” he said. “These posts are devastating.”
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Levin doesn’t think people should assume that “cops en masse subscribe to this,” but he does see dangerous potential because online echo chambers tend to “self-accelerate” bigoted beliefs. For “police in particular, who so often have to hold their tongue and try to restrain themselves,” he said, “online it becomes even more [of an] accelerant.”
The Extreme Views Of ‘Law Enforcement Today’
Law Enforcement Today claims to be the largest law enforcement-owned and -operated media company in America. It has repeatedly promoted far-right conspiracy theorists and authoritarian policies, particularly during the recent mass demonstrations against police violence.
Founded by Robert Greenberg, a Florida police captain who has called his outlet “a platform for the voice of law enforcement,” LET has more than 800,000 followers on Facebook and runs a syndicated radio show. Much of its content is provided by former or current police officers, and it offers paid memberships of $75 a year to gain access to “the patriotic content that the social media giants don’t want you to see.”
The site’s articles often bear only a passing resemblance to reality. Earlier this month, Law Enforcement Today published an article calling for the arrest of Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, accusing him of aiding and abetting “antifa” terrorists. The post cited numerous far-right media activists, including anti-Muslim conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer, and suggested that Democratic officials including representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar are antifa sympathisers. It also baselessly attacked Tlaib and Omar, who are Muslim, as “arguably anti-Semites and ISIS supporters (if not in words, in actions).”
“Law Enforcement Today supports Laura [Loomer]’s demand that Dorsey be arrested and prosecuted for promoting an insurrection against the United States,” the article says. It also suggests that politicians such as Omar who have expressed support for the current protests against police brutality and systemic injustice should be arrested as well.
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The article is published under the pseudonym “Sgt. A. Merica” and claims to be “written by several staff writers, including retired and wounded law enforcement officers.” Law Enforcement Today says it verifies the identity and background of its authors before publishing.
When it isn’t stirring fear of antifa, much of the site’s coverage focuses on law enforcement officers who have been harmed in the line of duty. It also regularly criticizes elected officials who are seeking to curb police powers, part of what the site calls a “war on law enforcement.” The consistent message is that police are perpetually under attack, and that the government — with the exception of President Donald Trump — does not have their back.
In recent weeks, rumours of antifa reaching small towns have created a kind of moral panic in some communities, leading to armed groups patrolling the streets. Law Enforcement Today has eagerly trafficked in these conspiracy theories. One LET article quotes a source purporting to be an anonymous Connecticut state trooper, who warns that riots in rural areas would be reminiscent of guerrilla warfare in Afghanistan and Iraq, and that “once they start moving into rural America, there will be a LOT of bloodshed.”
Another one of Law Enforcement Today’s recent articles is a far-right screed that claims the Black Lives Matter movement and antifa are using protests to “destroy America from the inside.” The piece echoes common white nationalist talking points: It blames the “radical left” for attacking “our Judeo-Christian heritage,” and claims that Western society faces an existential threat in part from “mass immigration from sub-Saharan Africa and the middle east.” LET tagged the article as one of its “must-reads.”
The site also ran an article endorsing far-right congressional candidate Marjorie Greene, who in a campaign ad from early June warned “antifa terrorists” to stay out of her rural Georgia district ― while cocking a gun ― and who has spread a conspiracy theory that billionaire George Soros is funding protesters. Greene has also voiced support for the far-right QAnon conspiracy movement. Facebook removed Greene’s ad from its platform for inciting violence.
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Another Law Enforcement Today post promoted a Florida sheriff who responded to unfounded social media rumours of riots moving into small towns by encouraging homeowners to arm themselves and shoot people encroaching on their property. Multiple articles include tweets from QAnon conspiracy theorists.
False, incendiary claims about antifa have rocketed around the right-wing media ecosystem, from Twitter to Fox News and ultimately to the White House. Trump recently tweeted a baseless claim that Martin Gugino, a 75-year-old man who was seriously injured by police in Buffalo, New York, may have been an antifa instigator.
Greenberg, who founded Law Enforcement Today in 2007, is listed as a police captain with the Indian Creek Village Public Safety Department on its official website. It’s not exactly a rough-and-tumble job on the front lines of American policing. Indian Creek Village, Florida, is a tiny island enclave for the superrich that bills itself as “the world’s most exclusive municipality.” At the time of a Miami Herald report in 2014, it had only 86 residents, whose combined net worth exceeded $37 billion. Jay-Z and Beyoncé previously owned a home on the island. (Incidentally, Law Enforcement Today ran an article earlier this month opposing Apple Music’s support of Black Lives Matter and criticizing “cop-hater Beyoncé,” who was included in Apple’s playlist.)
The offices of the village public safety department and of its mayor did not respond to HuffPost’s requests for comment on whether they have any policy on conduct or work outside of the department, or about Greenberg’s current employment status. Law Enforcement Today did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
Old-School Message Boards Breed Hatred And Racism
Thee Rant, formerly NYPD Rant, bills itself as a salon of “New York City Cops speaking their minds,” though often the extremist rhetoric on the site more closely resembles 4chan. Edward Polstein, who was fired from the NYPD in 2004, created the site to give verified members of the force — both current and former — an outlet to anonymously vent about their jobs without fear of retribution.
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The message board is a cesspool of disinformation, bigoted memes and far-right propaganda, and regularly lights up with racist comments after publicized incidents of police brutality against people of colour. Lately, users have been targeting protesters participating in the nationwide Black Lives Matter marches sparked by Floyd’s killing.
Thee Rant posts in the past three weeks have described Floyd as a “mutt” and a “worthless thug,” Black people as “Negroids” and “ghetto rats,” and protesters as “scum.” Various posts call for violence against protesters and spread debunked conspiracy theories that are often sourced to far-right media outlets, including Breitbart, One America News Network and The Federalist.
One post, referring to the recent arrest of New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s mixed-race daughter, Chiara, is titled “DeBlasswhole’s Junkie Daughter Collared.” Another, “White Men Stand Up To Negroid Thugs And Looters In Philly,” cheered on a group of bat-wielding white men who reportedly intimidated protesters and assaulted a journalist in Philadelphia. A June 5 post called “BUFFALO PD KNOCKDOWN IS A HOAX” claimed that a video of police officers violently shoving Gugino to the ground, causing him to bleed from his ears, was staged to make cops look bad.
Many other posts on Thee Rant praise Trump and even entertain QAnon conspiracies.
For much of the forum’s decadeslong existence, members have only been able to sign up with valid NYPD IDs, meaning its content has come directly from New York law enforcement. HuffPost could not independently verify if this is still the case — a request to join the group has not been approved — but posters continue to demonstrate an intimate familiarity with the department, its operations and its officials.
Thee Rant has for years been a source of embarrassment to the NYPD, which has said it’s been unable to take action due to the users’ anonymity.
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“We see it. It’s a problem,” Stephen Davis, at the time the chief spokesperson for the NYPD, told ProPublica of the message board in 2015. But, he added, “there are privacy issues involved. We can’t go and peel back email names and tags and try to find out who these people are.”
Thee Rant posters “represent the worst elements of the department,” veteran police reporter Leonard Levitt, who died last month, said at the time. “I don’t think they speak for the average cop.”
Polstein has claimed he was terminated in retaliation for creating Thee Rant, which has long criticized the NYPD and city officials. The department’s given reason for his firing is that he reneged on a retirement deal. The dispute led to a bitter lawsuit, and in a 2008 deal that granted Polstein his pension, he agreed to rename the forum from NYPD Rant to Thee Rant.
“I haven’t been part of [Thee Rant] in over 10 years,” Polstein told HuffPost in an email. “I don’t know who runs it now.”
Thee Rant “is not affiliated with the New York City Police Department,” sergeant Mary Frances O’Donnell, a spokesperson for the NYPD’s deputy commissioner for public information, told HuffPost. She didn’t answer repeated questions about whether the NYPD has investigated the possibility of its officers using racist and extremist rhetoric on the site.
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On similar message boards that also claim to exist for police conversation, such as Law Enforcement Rant, posters suggest that the NYPD should “assign Police Officers by their ethnicity,” putting “Black Officers in black neighbourhoods.” They ridicule officers who’ve been photographed kneeling in solidarity with protesters and complain about citizens filming officers in public. Although some posts show self-described police officers grappling with questions of racism and brutality, the majority are hateful and angry.
“I know cops are beat up, tired, angry, and hurt. But every time we do something it will be recorded and will be used to play against us,” one Law Enforcement Rant poster lamented in a recent thread about the clip of cops assaulting Gugino.
“I recall being at many protests and we could use necessary force. But times have changed,” wrote another. “[The Buffalo video] looks terrible, especially a 75-year-old person that wasn’t actively resisting or has a weapon or was fighting us in any real way,” a third poster wrote. “Right now it’s all about optics and the PD is losing the propaganda battle.”
Facebook’s Cop Communities
Social media sites are another place where law enforcement officers can find each other and talk about modern policing — and, lately, post a torrent of false and unsubstantiated antifa-related information. In many large pro-cop groups and pages on Facebook, people have been gleefully exchanging videos of “antifa” protesters getting beaten, and threatening to publish the personal information of supposed antifa activists. Many such pages and groups claim to be operated by police, although it’s unclear how many members are actually law enforcement officers.
A search for the term “antifa” in Back The Blue, a Facebook group with more than 60,000 members, yields dozens of recent results, including a blog post baselessly accusing Gugino of being a “professional agitator and Antifa provocateur” — another early example of police media circulating a conspiracy theory that the president would later share on Twitter to swift condemnation.
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Posters in the Facebook group Law Enforcement Family, which claims to have been “developed by law enforcement officers” and has more than 53,000 members, perpetuate racist stereotypes about Black people and call cops who kneel with protesters “pussies.” Those in Brothers Before Others have been sharing entirely unsourced data about gang violence in Black communities and spreading debunked claims about antifa.
U.S. Law Enforcement, a page that claims to be run “by several current and retired US Law Enforcement Officers,” has also spread false information to its nearly 500,000 followers. It posted a screenshot of a tweet from what appeared to be an antifa account claiming that antifa would “move into the residential areas… the white hoods…. and we take what’s ours.” But as Twitter quickly noted, a white supremacist group posing as antifa activists was actually behind that account. The US Law Enforcement page has since acknowledged that the tweet was debunked, and suggested this happened because the Twitter account “may not have been ‘official.’” Yet it has not removed the false post from its page.
‘We Can’t Have That In Policing Today’
American police officers have already been tied to the spread of extremist content on social media. A Reveal News investigation last June found that hundreds of active-duty and retired officers, from every level of US law enforcement, had quietly joined private Confederate, anti-Islam, misogynistic or anti-government militia Facebook groups full of racist memes and conspiracy theories.
The investigation was a rare glimpse at the culture behind the blue wall. As Reveal News noted, disciplinary records and investigations into police misconduct “are kept secret in a majority of states, meaning most American cops enjoy a blanket of protection that can cover up biases.”
But the recent unrest has provoked some law enforcement officials to openly broadcast their tolerance for police misconduct online, outside of these closed or little-known groups. In a Facebook post earlier this month, the Brevard County, Florida, chapter of the Fraternal Order of Police offered to rehire police officers from other areas who are charged with using excessive force against protesters.
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“Lower taxes, no spineless leadership, or dumb mayors rambling on at press conferences,” promised the now-deleted Facebook post, for which Brevard County FOP President Bert Gamin has claimed responsibility. “Plus.... we got your back!”
Certainly not all police officers believe the wild stories pushed by Law Enforcement Today and circulated on pro-police social media groups. But right-wing media and many police labour leaders are heavily invested in the idea of presenting police as hard-right defenders of law and order.
Outlets such as Fox News and OAN often provide a safe space for former officers and labour officials to defend law enforcement’s conduct without challenge. One such voice has been police union leader Ed Mullins, head of the NYPD’s Sergeants Benevolent Association, who in February announced the NYPD was “declaring war” on de Blasio and accused the mayor of fomenting anti-cop sentiment. Mullins has recently appeared on Fox News hosts Laura Ingraham and Sean Hannity’s shows, as well as far-right outlets Newsmax and OAN, where he called for military support to quell the protests.
Levin, from the Center for the Study of Hate & Extremism, said police and city officials nationwide need to pay attention to what some cops are reading and writing online and get a handle on it.
“We can’t have that in policing today,” he said. “We’re now in an era where police are so detached from many segments of the community that they serve that we don’t have the luxury of having this kind of garbage being tolerated within departments.”


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-06-18--Trump Says Police Killing Of Rayshard Brooks ‘Terrible,’ But ‘You Can’t Resist’ Officers

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Donald Trump called last week’s police killing of Rayshard Brooks in Atlanta a “terrible situation” but added that officers around the country had not been “treated fairly” while casting some blame on the victim for resisting arrest.
“I thought it was a terrible situation, but you can’t resist a police officer,” Trump told Fox News host Sean Hannity on Wednesday. “If you have a disagreement, you have to take it up after the fact. It was a very sad — very, very sad — thing.”
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"You can't resist a police officer. If you have a disagreement, you have to take it up after the fact." -- Trump defends the Atlanta cop that shot and killed Rayshard Brooks pic.twitter.com/dbcJpWzdEr — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 18, 2020
Brooks, a 27-year-old Black man, was fatally shot after he was found sleeping in his car at a Wendy’s drive-thru in Atlanta last Friday. Body camera video showed officers confronting him during what’s been described as a “cordial” interaction. But when the officers began to arrest him after he failed a field sobriety test, Brooks resisted and wrestled with them. Video shows him grabbing a Taser from one of the officers before running away.
Officer Garrett Rolfe then shot Brooks twice in the back, killing him. Prosecutors later said the officer declared “I got him” after firing the shots.
Rolfe, who was fired Sunday, was charged with 11 counts on Wednesday, including felony murder. The other officer on the scene, Devin Brosnan, has been charged with three counts of aggravated assault and has agreed to cooperate with prosecutors.
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“Mr Brooks never presented himself as a threat,” Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard Jr said when announcing the charges. “His demeanour during this incident was almost jovial.”
Trump on Wednesday called for a fair investigation into the death but lambasted the treatment of officers during nationwide demonstrations that have called for an end to systemic racism and police brutality.
“I hope he gets a fair shake because police have not been treated fairly in our country,” the president said. “But again, you can’t resist a police officer like that, and they ended up in a very terrible disagreement, and look at the way it ended. Very bad.”


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-06-18--That '70s Show Actor Danny Masterson Charged With Raping 3 Women

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Actor and active Scientologist Danny Masterson has been charged with forcibly raping three women, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office announced on Wednesday.
Masterson, 44, faces charges on three separate incidents that occurred between 2001 and 2003. A news release from District Attorney Jackie Lacey’s office only stated that two of the women were 23, one was 28 and that he allegedly raped all three of them in his Hollywood Hills home.
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If found guilty, the That ’70s Show actor faces a possible maximum sentence of 45 years to life in state prison.
Danny Masterson Jonathan Alcorn / Reuters
The charges come after four women filed sexual assault allegations against Masterson in 2017, claiming he’d raped them years earlier. In 2019, four of those women sued Masterson, the Church of Scientology and church leader David Miscavige, accusing the organisation of stalking and intimidating them and attempting to obstruct justice as Los Angeles officials were investigating the claims.
The charges announced Wednesday are the first he’s faced since police began investigating the rape allegations.
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Masterson and the Church of Scientology, which is known to be fiercely protective of its members and defensive against any accusations, deny all of the claims.


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-06-18--Could A British Cruise Cure Your Lockdown Summer Holiday Craving?

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We’re here to guide you through the coronavirus pandemic. Sign up to the Life newsletter for daily tips, advice, how-tos and escapism.
Pelting rain, choppy grey seas and questionable views of Bognor Regis from the English Channel. It may not sound appealing, but trust the experts: 2020 may just be the year of the British cruise.
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It’s an idea that’s easy to mock. On the surface, a British cruise lacks the exotic lure of a more tropical destination. But get over the inclement weather and those early Coronavirus news stories about cruise ships, and experts insist there’s plenty about British cruises to get excited about.
One obvious benefit is proximity. They say the more you go away, the more you crave holidaying closer to home. While that’s a perspective of intense privilege, holidaying locally has obvious perks. Long flights and airport delays aren’t a stress, and anyway, lockdown means foreign travel may not happen at all in 2020, so like it or not, we may be forced to stay home(ish).
Given the right checks and balances are in place and the government lift on travel does happen, could a UK cruise cure our pangs for a summer break?
Christopher Ison Saga's British cruise ship, the Spirit of Discovery, sailing into Dover
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“I have been on a splendid cruise halfway around the British Isles, clockwise from Dover to Greenock, so I would like to complete the circuit,” travel expert Simon Calder tells HuffPost UK.
It needn’t matter where the boat is going, he adds. “Many of the people who constitute the conventional cruise market will be happy anywhere, and some spectacular coastal and island scenery will be an added bonus.”
The idea of sailing around the UK sounds novel, but cruise lovers will know the possibility of a British cruise has existed for decades – lockdown has simply prompted new interest in a niche but well established section of the industry.
“In the short term I would expect a spike in interest for round-Britain cruises,” says a spokesperson for Saga Cruises, which – alongside operators including Viking Cruises – has teased the potential of the domestic cruise as a means of escaping lockdown. “We are exploring a number of options for when the government lifts the restrictions which includes looking at cruising around Britain with and without ports of call, taking in sights such as the Jurassic coast line, the puffins on Staffa and Giants causeway,” says Saga.
Gregor Roach via Getty Images Greenock in Scotland.
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Sophie Griffiths, editor at trade publication TTG Media, confirms she’s seen a spike in interest around British cruises over the past couple of years, but that until now the industry was largely bankrolled by American visitors to the UK.
“New sailings dedicated to the British Isles could be a fab way of enabling Brits to still holiday this summer (and possibly introduce new-to-cruise people to try out cruising), especially if the government’s ludicrous quarantine measures remain in place,” she says.
Griffiths argues that the British cruise has practical benefits, too. “Parts of the UK that tend to prove popular for cruising are areas that are usually harder to reach, such as Cornwall for instance,” she says. “Sailing to Falmouth is much more preferable than spending hours queueing on the A30. Likewise calls at Dublin tend to be popular, as well as Scottish ports such as Rosyth for Edinburgh or Greenock for Glasgow.”
The UK coastline, with all its seals, decrepit tin mines, glorious castles and iconic white cliffs is often seen as day trip material – but piecing the patchwork of our coastline together from the perspective of the sea, and the comfort of a balcony, feels a bizarrely luxurious opportunity in access: offering new perspectives on something so familiar as our home turf.
geoffsp via Getty Images
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Yes, there are choppy waters and the obvious challenges of climate. British cruises may ordinarily sound like a laughable pursuit, but this is not an ordinary time – we’re all rethinking how we holiday, with pursuits like camping back on our agendas, why not cruises too?
So far, so exciting, but rather boringly, the same lockdown small print applies to cruises as any other potential holiday under lockdown. “The business principle of 100% occupancy on cruise ships looks to me fundamentally incompatible with social distancing. So they will need to recalibrate their commercial expectations at the same time as reconfiguring the ships,” says Calder.
And Griffiths agrees. “The challenge for cruise lines in the current climate will be in reassuring passengers who may be worried about cruising, having seen the negative headlines around cruise at the start of the Covid-19 crisis.”


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-06-18--11 Hygiene Tips And Tricks To Help You Stay Safe While Shopping

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Supermarkets and essential shops are still open for business – but that doesn’t mean we should be cutting corners when it comes to staying safe.
Social distancing, staying hygienic and following store guidelines are more important than ever with shopping back on the agenda – so, what easy adaptations can you make to reduce your risk of catching Covid-19?
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1. Wear a face covering
Unless you have a health exemption, you must wear a face mask or covering in all shops and supermarkets, shopping centres, post offices and banks (you can find the full list of public spaces covered by government guidance here). Chains including Morrisons and Sainsbury’s have announced they will bar any customers who aren’t wearing a mask and don’t have a reasonable exemption.
“Really we should be wearing masks in public places, particularly ones where we can’t social distance,” says Professor Sally Bloomfield, honorary professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
Make sure you wash your hands before you put your mask on, and once it’s on, leave it there – it should be covering your nose as well as your mouth. Avoid touching your face or pulling the mask off during your trip to the shops.
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2. Ditch the wallet.
To save you scrabbling about in your purse or wallet at the checkout, take your card out and pop it in your trouser pocket, or an inside pocket of your bag, so you can access it easily without touching everything else.
3. Sanitise on entering and exiting each shop.
If you’ve got your own sanitiser, brilliant – experts recommend carrying a bottle around with you and using it before you go in – and leave – a shop. If you haven’t got any, most shops and supermarkets now provide a sanitising station at the door. Just make sure you use it.
If there is no sanitiser, avoid touching your face – specifically your eyes, nose and mouth – until you can wash your hands.
4. Don’t touch what you don’t need.
Touching items unnecessarily is raising your risk of picking up, or passing around, the virus – so don’t do it. Studies found the virus can survive on cardboard for up to 24 hours, and up to two to three days on plastic and steel surfaces.
5. Don’t tap the card machine with your card.
Contactless cards can be hovered a few centimetres from the card machine and still work – it can be hard to break the habit of tapping the machine, but it’s worth doing. This way you’re less likely to pick up any unwanted virus on your payment card or hand.
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6. Use keys to punch in your pin number.
If you’re worried about touching the chip and pin machine and are spending more than the contactless card limit (£45), why not use your car or house keys, or a tissue over your finger you then throw away? Prof Bloomfield says she uses her car keys to punch in her pin so she doesn’t have to touch the machine.
If you don’t have any keys on you, use hand sanitiser before and after using the chip and pin machine, suggests Dr Lisa Ackerley, aka The Hygiene Doctor.
7. Using cash? Take it in an envelope.
If you’re using cash to pay, put it in an envelope so you can put the change in there and leave it for a few days after the shop, suggests Dr Ackerley. Some shops might ask you to use a self-checkout if you bring cash so their staff don’t have to handle it.
8. Bring wipes.
If you’ve managed to get hold of anti-bacterial wipes, take a pack in your bag and wipe down trolley or basket handles, and self checkout screens, before and after using them.
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9. Ask for an email receipt.
Prof Bloomfield will often refuse a printed receipt – if you’re buying clothes or more expensive items that might need to be returned at some point, ask for the receipt to be emailed. Or ask for the person serving you to put it in the bag.
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10. Behave like you have the virus.


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-06-18--How Shutting The Toilet Seat Could Reduce The Spread Of Covid-19

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We’re here to guide you through the coronavirus pandemic. Sign up to the Life newsletter for daily tips, advice, how-tos and escapism.
Next time you use the loo, be sure to put the seat down before flushing – especially if you’re using a public toilet or one within your social “bubble”.
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Keeping flushes contained could reduce the risk of Covid-19 spreading, a new study suggests. Researchers used a computer simulation to show how a flushing toilet can create a “cloud of virus-containing aerosol droplets”. They found the droplets are likely to be large and widespread, and last long enough that they could be breathed in by others.
Researchers from Yangzhou University in China wanted to investigate the potential impact of toilet flushes, because recent studies have shown coronavirus can survive in the human digestive tract and show up in faeces of those infected.
“Blocking the path of faecal–oral transmission, which occurs commonly in toilet usage, is of fundamental importance in suppressing the spread of viruses,” they said.
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Toilet flushing “creates a great deal of turbulence”, the researchers. The study used precise computer models to simulate water and air flows in a flushing toilet, then monitor the resulting droplet cloud.
The results, published in the journal Physics of Fluids, suggest droplets may be carried to a height of nearly three feet (0.9 metres) from the ground, where they might then be inhaled or settle on surfaces.
“One can foresee that the velocity will be even higher when a toilet is used frequently, such as in the case of a family toilet during a busy time or a public toilet serving a densely populated area,” said co-author Ji-Xiang Wang, of Yangzhou University.
The study didn’t show the likeliness of catching coronavirus in this way and the most common form of transmission is still known to be droplets from coughs and sneezes. It might also be impossible to close the lid in public toilets, where the loo may be lid-free.
Still, while in your home or someone else’s, it’s a good idea to put the lid down before you flush anyway. Just imagine the potential bacteria on your toothbrush if not.


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-06-18--Yes, I’m Still Pansexual Even Though I’m In A Long-Term ‘Straight’ Relationship

HuffPost UK Courtesy of the author
The road to accepting my sexuality has been rocky and filled with bear-traps.
When I first came out aged 12, I was met with only derision by my peers. School became a living nightmare, a constant hell of homophobic abuse and chewing gum being spat into my hair. My confidence was shattered, and I felt such crushing shame about myself and my sexuality that I began self-harming, and developed anorexia.
I kept my sexual identity a shameful secret for years, which had a hugely detrimental effect on my mental health. I felt confused and lonely – as though the romantic and sexual choices I wanted to make were problematic and would only result in more bullying and abuse. It was only at university that I felt able to come out for a second time, inspired by a friend whose own coming out was met with love and support.
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Sixteen years on from those first playground taunts – and after relationships with both men and women – I’m engaged to a wonderfully loving, supportive, funny person. They are perfect for me. They also happen to be male – and I’m finding being a pansexual woman in a heterosexual relationship is a strange experience.
Of course, there is privilege associated with being a queer woman in a straight relationship: no one shouts at me and my partner in the street; no one sneers when we kiss; no one inserts themselves into our conversations asking if we’d be ‘up for a threesome’. I am no longer subject to homophobic abuse, and I acknowledge the huge privilege I have in being able to navigate the world more safely.
“I feel an acute loss of identity – as though my lived experience as someone who isn’t straight is being slowly erased.”
On the other hand, I feel an acute loss of identity – as though my lived experience as someone who isn’t straight is being slowly erased. I love my partner with all my being, but this feeling of erasure has been difficult and painful. After all, my struggle coming out and the bullying I experienced when I did means my identity as a pansexual woman has been hard-won. I’m not ready to give it up.
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Pansexuality is defined as the attraction to people of all genders. It means that we don’t limit ourselves in sexual choice to people of a particular biological sex, gender or gender identity. The closest cousin of pansexuality is probably bisexuality – although they are not the same, they share traits, and they can both lead to questions from others about whether the bi or pan person in question has ‘picked a side’ when they choose to date someone of a particular gender.
However, whether you’re bi or pan, you are not defined by the gender of your partner. Your sexuality is still valid and real, whoever you decide to have a sexual or romantic relationship with.
Unfortunately, there is still stigma attached to being attracted to more than one gender. According to the Human Rights Campaign, bisexual individuals have higher risks of self-harm and suicide attempts than their heterosexual, gay and lesbian peers. Bisexuals experience higher rates of depression than our heterosexual counterparts, and bisexual women are more likely to develop mental health issues, like I did.
“There was an assumption among my peers that because I’d previously only had relationships with men, my time with my first ex-girlfriend was just a passing dalliance.”
There’s also the idea bi- or pansexuality is merely a period of ‘experimentation’, like our very real identities are mere ‘phases’. In my own life, there was an assumption among my peers that because I’d previously only had relationships with men, my time with my first ex-girlfriend was just a passing dalliance, and not an important relationship to be taken seriously, or even seen as valid. This kind of bi or pan-erasure is such an issue that some bi or pansexual folk don’t come out to those around them at all because they are worried their identity will be mocked or interrogated.
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Even within the LGBTQ community, biphobia and bi-erasure remains rampant. We are often dismissed as ‘greedy’ or ‘attention-seeking’. Bi and pansexual individuals are ignored and stigmatised, even despite society’s growing understanding around LGBTQ+ issues. Despite bisexuals making up 52% of the LGBTQ population, they are sometimes shut out of the narrative at Pride and other LGBTQ celebrations. It’s lonely and invalidating to be seen as ‘not gay enough’ to be included in LGBTQ spaces, and taps into the wider narrative that bisexual, pan, fluid and queer individuals are overlooked and invisible.
Unfortunately, we still largely have very rigid ideas about sexuality and what it means to identify as bi. I think perhaps bi and pansexuality are still so stigmatised because there isn’t a fixed, stereotypical idea of what bisexual – let alone pan or fluid men, women and non-binary people – look like. We cannot be so easily placed into the boxes we are societally so fond of.
“The truth is my relationship status does not, will never, ‘change’ my sexuality. I will always be a pansexual woman, no matter who I choose to date.”
I remember being called by an acquaintance after the relationship with an ex-girlfriend ending. I explained that I’d met someone new, and that they were male. “So, you’re not a lesbian anymore?” they sneered down the phone. I was taken aback, unable to articulate that I’d never been a lesbian and that my new relationship was in no way a ‘change’ in my sexual identity.
The truth is my relationship status does not, will never, ‘change’ my sexuality. I will always be a pansexual woman, no matter who I choose to date. We bi, pan, queer and fluid individuals should never feel as though our identity is invalid simply because we are attracted to a wider spectrum of genders.
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In the words of bi actor Evan Rachel Wood: “Bisexuality doesn’t mean halfway between gay or straight. It is its own identity.” So is pansexuality, and it always will be.
Harriet Williamson is a freelance journalist. Follow her on Twitter at @harriepw


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-06-18--I Started A Food Bank For Refugees Like Me Going Hungry In This Pandemic

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From childhood, I was taught that to love someone was to be there for them. My mother, a school headteacher, used to pay exam fees for the students who couldn’t, while my dad used to feed poor people in our community every week.
I first came to the UK as a student in 2009, before leaving in 2015. Unable to return to my homeland because my life would have been in danger, resettled in Europe, before unfortunately I was enslaved and trafficked back here to the UK.
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Enslaved and confined for six months before I was rescued, I sometimes forgot my own identity. But I never forgot that I live in the community, and I never forgot the care and refuge I got from my community.
When the coronavirus pandemic started and I found out people in my community were suffering in a lot of the ways I did, I thought of the asylum seekers who are living, like me, on £37 a week and knew I had to do something for them. I could not stay at home and do nothing.
“I knew how hard it was to live on £5 a day when shelves were full, let alone when nothing was on the shelves.”
The author, packing food parcels for his local community HuffPost UK
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I had no idea how to start, but I knew how hard it was to live on £5 a day when shelves were full, let alone when nothing was on the shelves at the start of the Covid-19 panic. I had some extra food and – taking advantage of the great organisations and people I know and volunteer with – asked others if they could donate too.
Taking all that, and some donations from local organisations, I started up Md’s Little Help Food Bank in mid-March. Since then, my food bank has been a ray of light of hope for so many vulnerable people in the community.
I started to deliver parcels on my bicycle to the various vulnerable people in the community. But my list kept growing: families both migrant and native, people with health conditions, the elderly, single mums, refugee families and asylum seekers.
Now, our little food bank has dropped off 470 essential food packs so far. Each individual food pack has got 14 essential items and the family food pack includes 21 essential items. They include all the essential items an individual or family might need at this time, from food to toiletries. This includes sanitary products for women, nappies and baby milk powder, hand sanitiser, toilet rolls, rice, pasta, potatoes, cooking oil and much more. I ensure all the foods are sanitised, adapting to what each person I’m delivering will need.
The author, delivering to nearby families HuffPost UK
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My food packs are mostly vegetarian and healthy – although I try to include a few sweets in the packs for those that have young children! A lot of families rely on ethnic food but saw prices rise as much as 30%, so we selected a very careful list which means we can offer cost effective food that can be used by everyone. I also introduced some cost-effective recipes into the food pack, helping families keep costs as low as £1.50 a day per person.I drop pretty much all my parcels off using my bicycle, but have a few friends I can call on to help for those deliveries that are very long distance and difficult to get to. People have been really kind, some have even written thank you cards.
Every week, I drop off a food pack to an elderly lady in her seventies, and I know I’m one of the only people she sees each day. When I last delivered her a food pack, she said she had put on a lovely summer dress and make up to say thank you and that she loved me for the help I’d been providing. This was very inspiring and a really wonderful gesture. “I love you too, granny,” I replied, and we both laughed.
“The hope of my life is that I can continue to be there from my people and my community.”
The main hope of my life is that I can continue to be there from my people and my community. In 2018, I was told by the Home Office that asylum seekers like me could not study in the UK. Challenging that decision through judicial review, we changed legislation to allow new asylum seekers in the UK access to higher education. I know that this will be a big change for all of us. That case has inspired me to be a barrister in future, and to work with the government to break the hostile barriers to asylum seekers like me. I want to leave behind a legacy of being there for people in the community as an example and for the future world.
Life is short, but there is no limit to the kindness and caring which we can spread in our time here.
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The author is founder of Md’s Little Help Food Bank. Follow him on Twitter at @abirhamid2017.


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-06-18--All The Interruptions I’ve Had From My Kids While Working From Home

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You’re reading Working It Out, our series exploring the future of work and wellbeing after coronavirus – from office life to working from home.
As I sit down to write this very piece, one of my feet is being carefully stuck down to the floor with electrical tape. Not, as you might think, a strange, new socially distanced pedicure – but because my three-year-old son says he wants to help me “stay there to do work”.
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He hasn’t given any explanation as to how playing a recorder very loudly into my right ear at the same time is helping me, or how his dad – ensconced in the other room, trying to do his own work – is meant to concentrate while being repeatedly beaten around the head with a toy crocodile.
My three-year-old also doesn’t have a very good excuse for interrupting his dad’s annual performance review with his boss on Zoom by opening the door and running full pelt towards him to give him a kiss. He was completely naked (my son, not his dad).
When I asked him why he did it, he just shrugged and said: “It was urgent.”
Planet Flem via Getty Images
There are countless interruptions affecting those trying to work from home with young kids. Mine are three and eight and in the past 24 hours I’ve been asked to: help them put on costumes (an Iron Man outfit, a police uniform, a Princess Elsa dress); build a den on the sofa; talk about whether men can physically give birth (and if not, why not) and fetch 126 different snacks, approximately.
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I’ve found myself leaving my computer to... help rescue a fly on the trampoline because “flies can’t bounce”; break up countless squabbles; follow the cat around to see if he’s speaking another language; and choreograph the dance moves to ‘You Got It (The Right Stuff)’ by New Kids on The Block (yes, the boy band from the late 1980s that my daughter has somehow just discovered).
I’ve also been called upon to... plug in a disco ball and host a kitchen disco; act like a waitress and take their lunch orders, then bring it to them on a tray; watch a puppet show; judge a gymnastics competition in the garden; tie a plastic slug to a piece of string; use the same string to allow myself to get tied up like I’m trapped in Spiderman’s web; and wipe noses and bottoms on demand.
All while trying to write to deadline.
This is what it’s really like for working parents, at the moment – and that’s not to say we’ve got it harder than anyone else, we all have different struggles.
Still, as we stare down the barrel of the long summer holidays – and as schools look increasingly unlikely to reopen for kids outside the key years – I can’t help wondering if I’ll make it through to September, unscathed.
There’s a more sobering tone to all of this, too: the difficulties of working from home while simultaneously wrangling children likely disproportionately affect women, who already make up 60% of unpaid domestic work at home.
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And considering many businesses have eased into remote working via Zoom and Skype – with some major employers discussing it as a permanent transition – this may be the way we live for the foreseeable future.
My son is in one of the specified years returning to school. He’s at nursery, so he’ll be going back for a couple of hours each afternoon next week. But my daughter, who’s in Year 3, has no planned return to formal education – we don’t even know for certain if her school in east London will reopen to all years in September. She’s missing her friends, her teachers and the daily routine, badly.
I worry about the strain this puts on all of us – as parents, as women, as human beings – if this is to be our ‘new normal’. But I don’t know the solution. Not yet.
As for now? Well, I’ve got to go. I need to build a 3D campsite out of an old cereal packet and also make “realistic grass”, because tissue paper isn’t realistic enough, apparently. And it can’t wait – it’s “urgent”.
Working It Out is a series exploring the future of work and wellbeing after coronavirus – from office life to working from home.
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thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-06-18--Here's Some Indoor Games To Play With Your Kids When They're Really, Really Bored

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We’re here to guide you through the coronavirus pandemic. Sign up to the Life newsletter for daily tips, advice, how-tos and escapism.
Lockdown has really highlighted the differences between households with kids in and households without. While non-parents are mastering new skills, writing novels and baking exquisitely (that’s what it looks like, anyway) those of us with kids are run ragged, resisting the urge to just have CBeebies on from dawn to dusk and hand parenting duties over to Bing, Duggee and Waffle The Wonder Dog.
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So if you’re looking for yet more ways to entertain your little ones, you’re in luck – because I wrote a book hundreds (literally, hundreds) of games to keep you all busy.
Open In Case Of Emergency: 501 Games to Entertain and Keep You and the Kids Sane was originally written with summer holidays in mind – and the inconceivable prospect of six whole weeks where the kids weren’t at school. They were different times!
A lot of the games are ones you already know, but haven’t necessarily thought about in years. There are card games, ball games, pencil-and-paper games, games that take a few seconds and games that may take up huge chunks of a day. There are games kids can sit and play quietly on their own, and big silly ones the whole family can play together and run their lockdown energy out.
The dream is for this book to end up sun-bleached and dog-eared, covered in scrawls where you’ve decided to add extra rules or tally marks from keeping scores. It also makes a pretty decent bat.
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Things might be a bit bleak at the moment, but that’s no reason not to at least try to have fun. Here are four games you can try – find out about the other 497 games in the book.
HuffPost UK
1. Beasts in the Tundra. (High energy)
Age: 4 and up
Players: 2 and up (dependent on freezer space)
What you need: One plastic box and one toy per player or team, a freezer
How to play: Freeze the toys in water in the plastic boxes the night before. Action figures or dinosaurs are ideal, and you can consider adding food colouring to the water to make it that bit wackier. Players then have to release their creatures from their frozen slumbers – just like Captain America – before their opponents. Breathing heavily onto the ice, rubbing it or wrapping it up might all work, or (with adult supervision) heat and gravity can work wonders.
2. Five Pence Hockey. (High energy)
Age: 7 and up
Players: 2
What you need: A table, tape, two 2p pieces, one 1p piece
How to play: Don’t play on a table that is likely to get scratched – that’ll make the game a lot more expensive. Use the tape to mark out equally sized goals. Then, stand one at either end and play hockey – slide your 2p around with your
middle finger, using the penny as a puck. First to ten goals wins.
3. Five by Five. (Low energy)
Age: 8 and up
Players: 2
What you need: Pencil and paper
How to play: Each player thinks of a five-letter word, and tells the other player the first letter of it. You then try to work out what the other player’s word is, writing each guess down and giving them the paper. They draw a circle around any letter in the right place, and underline any correct letters that are in the wrong place. For instance, if the word is CARDS, they’re told it’s C – – – –. If they guess CHATS, the C and S are circled and the A and R are underlined. Try to get each other’s words in five goes or less.
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4. Sixty Winks. (Low energy)
Age: 6 and up
Players: Any number
What you need: A timer, paper and pencil to keep score
How to play: One person is designated timekeeper. After they count down from five, all the players close their eyes for what they consider to be 1 minute. They can’t open their eyes or speak at all, and when they think exactly a minute has
passed, they open their eyes and signal to the timekeeper. Score 1 point for every second off 60 you are, whether too long or too short, and after five rounds, lowest scorer wins. Giggling or talking counts as opening your eyes.


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-06-18--Will NHS Test And Trace By Ready In Time For A Second Wave?

Baroness Dido Harding and Matt Hancock. ASSOCIATED PRESS
You’re reading The Waugh Zone, our daily politics briefing. Sign up now to get it by email in the evening.
Let em eat cake
Another day, another U-turn. Matt Hancock was characteristically, irrepressibly ebullient, despite having to confirm his long-cherished NHS England test and trace smartphone app was nowhere near ready. His favoured centralised version had proved incompatible with Apple’s iPhone security and a hybrid model would now have to be devised.
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Having already had to water down the status of this tech, from crucial baked-in ingredient to just the glace fruit on top, Hancock still promised Baroness Dido Harding all was not lost. “We will put that cherry on Dido’s cake,” he said, managing to combine his usual Accidental Partridge with a dash of Carry On Nurse.
Apple’s role in all this may be subject to some serious questions. I’m told that a global digital health roundtable, chaired by Australia and attended by 12 different health ministers, today saw several countries share their huge frustration with the tech giant’s stance. They wondered: does it want to help or hinder the fight against Covid?
But Hancock didn’t betray any sign of that. He was more focused on accentuating the positive and eliminating the negative. Adopting a TV gameshow host smile, he even at one point appeared to say “Appsolutely”, and jokingly referred to “Zoom...other products are available!” For him, the new focus was on getting the non-app version of NHS Test and Trace improved every week.
It’s true that many experts had warned for weeks that more traditional human-based test-and-trace techniques would be easier to set up and had a long track record. But as Channel 5 News’ Andy Bell rightly pointed out, the whole point of the app idea was that it could identify close contact with strangers on a train, not just friends and colleagues. That would be a hugely invaluable asset in the fight against the virus. “We are working on it, we are not going to put a date on it I’m afraid,” Hancock could only say.
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Perhaps more worrying was the fact that the new tracing system is still not reaching more than a quarter of people who test positive for coronavirus. The good news is that once people are found, then 90% of them offer up all their close contacts, who then self-isolate. But we still don’t know how many are being identified within 48 hours, and one in four of those testing positive are not being reached in the first place, there is plenty more work to do.
Given how important this all is to preventing a second spike, if that 25% figure isn’t reduced soon, it may be that Hancock switches to making this a mandatory system. But a carrot rather than a stick may be needed, in the form of cash payments to those worried about losing wages from self-isolation.
Sage itself warned on May 1: “Risks include individuals becoming less willing to comply… if they are impacted financially from being asked to isolate. An accessible offer of financial support to those in need could reduce the risk of non-adherence.” Yet there is still no special rate of sick pay for quarantined individuals, many of whom may be put off by the paltry £95 a week.
The other big worry about today’s stats is that they show that the number of average contacts of infected people had risen from 5.88 to 10.28, a near doubling in just a week. The easing of lockdown is certainly having an impact and ministers will be hoping that the number of cases of infection falls a bit quicker to ensure all this new social contact won’t spark fresh spikes.
One area where test and trace is at least more manageable is in schools. And ahead of Gavin Williamson’s big catch-up plan tomorrow, there were several glimmers of hope today that schools could accept all children from September. First, Tory backbencher Geoffrey Clifton-Brown said he was “quite certain” the 2m rule would have changed by then, linking the shift specifically to schools.
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Second, Northern Ireland actually declared today it was indeed cutting the 2m distance to 1m in its schools when they reopen after the summer break. Arlene Foster said that would allow class sizes to return to near normal levels. Handwashing, staggered arrivals, one-way systems and other measures will still be needed but the idea of full classrooms will cheer many parents.
Hancock himself hinted England could follow, saying “I get the interaction between the 2m rule and getting back to school”. If schools operate ‘bubbles’ of 30 children rather than 15, there will be some real issues of fairness for comprehensives. If you have to stay with the same group of pupils for all subjects, that will lead to rigid grammar school-style streaming. How would that work for a child who is in top set for English but third set for maths, for example?
Autumn will be a very nervous time for the government. As well as the end of its furlough schemes and possible unemployment rises, it looks ready to take the gamble on a new 1m rule in schools and other settings. If Hancock can somehow get his test and trace contact rate numbers up, and if Apple helps get that elusive app in place, he and Boris Johnson will be able to sleep a bit more easily. If not, we may all need to worry about the winter wave of Covid-19.
Quote Of The Day
“I’m from Newmarket, we backed both horses.”
Matt Hancock, who’s from Cheshire, explains his App philosophy
Thursday Cheat Sheet
Boris Johnson met French President Emmanuel Macron in Downing Street to mark the 80th anniversary of Charles de Gaulle’s famous wartime broadcast. They both watched a flypast of French jets and British Red Arrows.
The Bank of England announced it will pump an extra £100bn into the UK economy to help fight the “unprecedented” coronavirus-induced downturn.
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Matt Hancock revealed that the over-50s, people with heart or kidney disease, and possibly BAME Britons, could all get priority for a vaccine for Covid-19 when one is ready.
Dominic Raab had to rapidly educate himself after suggesting that the Black Lives Matter gesture of taking the knee felt like “a symbol of subjugation or subordination” derived from Game of Thrones.
Two separate post-mortems on Labour’s shattering 2019 election defeat appeared. Labour Together found that ‘toxic’ infighting, poor digital campaigns and Corbyn’s leadership were all to blame. Labour for a European Future found that the Tory pledge of 50,000 more nurses was more important to Labour Leave switchers than Brexit itself.
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Education select committee chair Rob Halfon is our podcast guest this week. Hear him chinwag with us about school reopening, fears for the economy and the parliamentary party’s current mood. There’s a lovely bit where he says the No.10 policy unit and Dominic Cummings’ Vote Leave crew see Tory MPs as ‘hobbits’ that can be ignored.
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thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-06-18--Starmer Has 'Mountain To Climb' In Wake Of 'Toxic' Corbyn Years, Report Into Election Defeat Finds

Jeremy Corbyn, former leader of the Labour Party, gives a thumbs up holding a copy of the 2019 manifesto. ASSOCIATED PRESS
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A major report into why Labour fell to its worst election defeat since 1935 found the Tories’ campaign dominated social media, despite Jeremy Corbyn’s party spending £1.4m on Facebook ads.
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The Labour Together review, led by key figures such as Ed Miliband, underlines how new leader Keir Starmer has a “mountain to climb” with voters, and places much blame on a “toxic culture” during Corbyn’s reign.
While Brexit, Corbyn and a poor digital campaign were criticised, the report also underlines how the party’s “terrible defeat” had “deep roots” and was partly the result of two decades of waning Labour support in working class communities.
“Labour’s electoral coalition had been fracturing for a long time and was broken in 2019. We were rejected by many of the communities we were founded to represent,” says the report. “We lost all types of voters everywhere compared with 2017, except in London.”
Full report below
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The report adds: “It would be a mistake to believe that a different leader, with Brexit no longer the defining issue, would in itself be sufficient to change Labour’s electoral fortunes. Our report lays bare that our defeat had deep roots. This loss is the story of more than one election—indeed it is a story that stretches back two decades.”
It found that while Labour spent £1.4m on Facebook in comparison to the £900,000 spent by the Tories, Boris Johnson’s party was “far more effective in this arena”, setting up a “war room”, testing out messages throughout summer 2019 which were then “laser-guided” during the campaign itself.
Johnson’s clear and effective “get Brexit done” message convinced two million people who previously did not vote, the report found.
Tory Facebook ads run during summer 2019 Tory Facebook ads run during summer 2019
Meanwhile, the manifesto, which included the nationalisation of rail, mail and water, and free broadband, was seen as “unrealistic, risky and unlikely to be delivered”, a Datapraxis analysis of YouGov data found.
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The report goes on to recommend that Starmer first task must be to rebuild “trust and credibility”.
The ground campaign run by Labour was also lambasted, with the report warning the party must modernise its structures.
The choice of target seats was deemed “unrealistic” and “not evidence-based”.
It adds: “Activists were misdirected and resources were limited and misallocated. Too much attention was paid to seats Labour was unlikely to win, and not enough to defending our vulnerable seats in our heartland areas of the UK including in Wales and Scotland.”
The report calls on activists not to view the report as “a counsel of gloom and despair for our party but a call for realism”, but cautions the next election is a difficult task, adding: “No major party has ever increased their number of MPs by over 60%, which is what Labour would need to do to win in 2024.”


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-06-18--No.10 Must Stop Treating Tory MPs Like 'Hobbits' To Be Ignored, Ex-Minister Says

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Downing Street needs to establish regular contact with Tory MPs instead of treating them like “annoying hobbits in the shire” who do what they are told, a senior party figure has said.
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Robert Halfon blamed mistakes like the failure to extend free school meals into summer – until footballer Marcus Rashford forced a U-turn – on No.10 failing to use its “political nous” and being unaware of pressure from MPs’ constituents.
He urged Downing Street to “dramatically transform” its political operation by holding regular forums with MPs who are “in touch” with constituents’ concerns and “really get” the issues they face, arguing it could help avoid errors in future.
It comes amid rising Tory discontent at No.10’s handling of coronavirus, the Dominic Cummings lockdown scandal, and repeated U-turns in recent weeks, and after officers of the powerful 1922 backbench MPs’ committee reportedly urged Boris Johnson to tear down the “iron curtain” surrounding the PM.
Halfon told HuffPost UK’s Commons People podcast: “I love Tolkien so I’ve been re-reading Lord of the Rings and Dominic Cummings seems to have taken on the mythical status of Wormtongue to King Theoden of Rohan, and of the villain that everybody loves to hate.
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“And MPs of course are considered by the No.10 policy unit as annoying hobbits in the shire [...] and we’ll just do what we’re told to do.
“So it has been difficult. I think sometimes they don’t understand the pressures from constituents.”
Prime minister Boris Johnson alongside newly elected Conservative MPs in December PA Wire/PA Images
Halfon, who chairs the Commons education committee, called on No.10 to establish “serious regular contact programmes” so they can understand what is going on in places like his Harlow constituency or “blue wall” ex-Labour seats in places like Stoke.
He said: “I don’t understand why there isn’t any radar system whereby No.10 – there are people in No.10 with enough political nous to know that issues like free school meals, for example, are going to be a mega hot potato and to prepare a battle plan and to talk to MPs.
“I think there are a lot of Vote Leave people at the heart of No.10 and they fell out with some of the MPs at the time, I think their view about MPs is coloured from that time – MPs are just annoying hobbits from the shire who have to be tolerated, in essence.”
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He added: “It needs to be dramatically transformed, it needs to be a much better political operation in No.10 where they bring MPs in to discuss these issues – have regular contact with MPs in marginal seats.”
The former minister also urged the prime minister to appoint a senior “bruiser” in the mould of John Hayes, who acted as the minister responsible for the Tory party under David Cameron, to act as a mediator between parliament and No.10.
“You need those people who are bruisers, who understand the party – it’s in their blood for 20 years, 30 years – who can speak to any MP, who can relate to any MP, who is a people person,” Halfon said.
“You need someone like that who can understand what is going on and not give the impression that we are just annoying legal necessities who just do what we’re told.”
Halfon added that it would be someone “who really knows the parliamentary party and can go to the prime minister and say ‘sort this out’.”
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thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-06-18--Comedian Ava Vidal Breaks Down 'Racist' Tropes In TV Comedies

Comedian Ava Vidal Breaks Down 'Racist' Tropes In TV Comedies
British comedies are coming under increased scrutiny for their portrayal of Black people. Little Britain, The Mighty Boosh and Bo’ Selecta! have been removed from streaming services. But this isn't the only trope that comedies in recent decades have used in their portrayal of Black and minority ethnic people. We spoke to comedian and journalist Ava Vidal about these recent events.


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-06-18--Black, Asian And Minority Ethnic Groups Could Be Among First To Get Coronavirus Vaccine

Executive chair of NHS Test and Trace, Dido Harding, left, and health secretary Matt Hancock ASSOCIATED PRESS
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Black, Asian and minority ethnic people could be among the first to get a coronavirus vaccine, health secretary Matt Hancock has said.
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Speaking at the Downing Street briefing, the minister confirmed two groups had been recommended for priority vaccinations when one is discovered and manufactured.
The joint committee on vaccination and immunisation has said frontline health and social care workers and those “at increased risk” of death or serious illness from Covid, including adults over 50 and those with heart or kidney disease.
But he added that BAME people could also be included in those to get the treatment first.
It comes after a Public Health England report found that the risk of dying among those diagnosed with Covid-19 was higher in BAME groups than in white ethnic groups.
Hancock said human trials of a potential vaccine were taking place at Imperial College London and that Astra Zeneca had struck a deal to manufacture a second possible vaccine being developed by Oxford University.
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“Just as we did for testing, we will be guided by the clinical science prioritising those in most need,” he said, adding those named by the joint committee would be among first.
He added the government would also consider BAME groups as a priority for a vaccine, saying: “As we learn more about the virus we will continue to take into account which groups may be particularly vulnerable – including, for example, those from ethnic minority backgrounds – so that we can protect the most at risk first, should a vaccine become available, and get this country back on our feet as soon as we possibly can.”
It came as the government confirmed it would ditch efforts to develop its own coronavirus contact-tracing app to focus on the model built by Apple and Google.
Figures published on Thursday also revealed the NHS Test and Trace programme has failed to contact a quarter of people who tested positive for coronavirus since it launched.
A total of 14,045 people who tested positive for Covid-19 in England had their case transferred to the system during the first two weeks of its operation.
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According the Department of Health and Social Care, of this total, 10,192 people (73%) were reached and asked to provide details of recent contacts.
The Apple-Google model is reported to have better privacy safeguards, but experts caution that scientists will have access to less data.
Hancock, who appeared alongside Dido Harding, the executive chair of NHS Test and Trace, said: “We have agreed to join forces with Google and Apple to bring the best bits of both systems together.
“We will share our algorithm and the work that we have done on distance calculation and combine that with their work to deliver a new solution.”
That would “bring together some of the best minds to find a solution to this global challenge”, he added.


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-06-18--Has The Government Taken Its Eye Off The Ball? With Robert Halfon MP

Has The Government Taken Its Eye Off The Ball? With Robert Halfon MP
Conservative MP Robert Halfon joins Arj Singh, Paul Waugh and Rachel Wearmouth to discuss whether the government needs to pay more attention to its own backbenchers instead of treating them as an inconvenience.


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-06-18--Angelina Jolie Says Systemic Racism Her Black Daughter Faces Is 'Intolerable'

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The Maleficent star and mum of six spoke up about issues close to her heart in a Q&A with the magazine: Domestic violence, refugees, girls and children’s rights. She also criticized systemic anti-Black racism in the U.S. at length, which directly affects her teen daughter Zahara Marley Jolie-Pitt.
As a white mother to a Black daughter, Jolie emphasised that she benefited from racial privilege her daughter does not have.
“A system that protects me but might not protect my daughter – or any other man, woman or child in our country based on skin colour – is intolerable,” she told Harper’s Bazaar. “We need to progress beyond sympathy and good intentions to laws and policies that actually address structural racism and impunity.”
To address the systemic racism that spurred unjust killings of Black people like George Floyd, Jolie donated $200,000 to NAACP Legal Fund on her birthday. People reported that Jolie’s family has been having “difficult and necessary conversations about race” in their Los Angeles home.
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Karwai Tang via Getty Images Born in Ethiopia, Zahara starred in the animated film Kung Fu Panda 3 with her mother.
Talking to kids about racism has been a hot topic, as white and non-Black parents struggle for guidance on discussing these painful issues. When asked what tips she would give parents, the 45-year-old actor framed her approach with one line: “To listen to those who are being oppressed and never assume to know.”
“A system that protects me but might not protect my daughter – or any other man, woman or child in our country based on skin colour – is intolerable.” - Angelina Jolie
Jolie’s certainly been doing just that, as she went on to share what she’s been watching during lockdown: The James Baldwin documentary I Am Not Your Negro and important work by activists taking part in the worldwide Black Lives Matter movement.
Supporting Black girls, particularly refugees, has kept Jolie busy at home. She reunited with Congolese refugee Chantale Zuzi last week, who is now attending high school in the US, over a touching Zoom call.
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“You are what builds a strong America, you, women like you, young girls like you,” she told Zuzi. “And our country was built by many people coming together from different parts of the world—that’s when we’re our best.”
Jolie adopted two bunnies during lockdown
Jolie and her kids have also gone through some changes at home, over the past few months. Pandemic-related anxiety was bubbling up in the household and the death of 11-year-old daughter Vivienne’s beloved bunny made it worse.
She told the magazine that staying calm and focusing on her kids’ needs helps eases worries. That, and the addition of two new family members: Jolie welcomed two “sweet little” bunnies to their home.
“They need to be in pairs. They are so gentle, and it has helped to focus on their care with her at this time,” she said, adding that the other family pets have been getting plenty of love too.


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-06-18--Amazing Cover Shot Challenges The Biggest Taboo For New Mums

Hannah Spencer Baby Archer has to be Canada's youngest cover model, at just minutes old, when this shot was taken.
Canadian magazine Today’s Parent just released its July cover and not only does it feature what must be the youngest cover model of all time, it shows the tender moment Archer’s mom, Siarre Massey, first nurses her newborn son.
Baby Archer is seen literally fresh from the birth canal.
The photo was taken by US birth photographer Hannah Spencer, who describes her aesthetic on her website as “real-shit birth imagery.”
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Today’s Parent editor-in-chief Kim Shiffman said of the raw and intimate image:
“This photograph powerfully tells a story of the beautiful, emotional moment when your baby latches on to the breast for the first time. I love the mother’s left hand, protectively cradling her baby, and her gaze, loving and observant as she assesses her baby’s latch. I love the baby’s wrinkly newborn skin and little tushy (how could you not?). I love that this photo celebrates a beautiful Black mother and her baby.”
In 2020, for such a sweet moment to be cover-worthy shouldn’t be such a big deal, and yet it is.
As recently as 2015, images of women breastfeeding were still banned from Facebook and Instagram. That same year, across North America, moms reported being kicked out of doctors’ offices, airplanes, locker rooms, restaurants, change rooms, churches, post offices and even an airplane bathroom, for daring to breastfeed their infants in these spaces.
Even though the right to nurse anywhere is protected by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, in a 2017 survey, 17 per cent of Canadian moms stated that they have still felt embarrassed while nursing in public. Meanwhile, in the US, some workers are still denied basic protections around the right to pump breastmilk at work.
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In 2020.
However a parent nourishes their baby, they should be supported and respected. Fed is best. Mainstream media images like the cover of Today’s Parent will go a long way to helping smash dated taboos around breastfeeding and celebrate the beauty of the bond it can help to forge.


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-06-18--Watch Live: Matt Hancock Leads Coronavirus Briefing After Tracing App U-Turn

Watch Live: Matt Hancock Leads Coronavirus Briefing After Tracing App U-Turn
Health secretary Matt Hancock leads the daily press briefing following the announcement that the NHSX coronavirus app has been dropped in favour of technology built by Apple and Google. He is expected to be joined by NHS Test and Trace chair Baroness Dido Harding.


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-06-18--Boris Johnson’s 50,000 Nurses Pledge More Crucial Than Brexit In ‘Red Wall’ Victory

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Boris Johnson’s promise to hire 50,000 more nurses was twice as important as Brexit in wooing former Labour voters in the so-called red wall seats, a new inquest into the party’s election defeat has found.
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The fresh study into why Jeremy Corbyn lost in 2019 found that - just like the 2016 referendum pledge of £350m a week for the NHS - Tory pledges on nurses and 50 new hospitals resonated with traditional working class voters in the north of England and midlands.
The analysis, by campaign group Labour for a European Future and shared exclusively with HuffPost UK, argues that Keir Starmer can only win the next election if he persuades the party’s former voters he has a stronger offer than Johnson on health, jobs and crime.
And with the Covid-19 crisis highlighting the importance of public health cuts, Labour has to come up with memorable and specific policies to show it has learned the lessons of the pandemic better than the Tories, it suggests.
The new ‘Lessons For Labour’ study makes clear that unhappiness with Corbyn’s leadership and his lack of credibility on policy was the main factor overall in Labour’s shattering defeat to a Tory majority of 80 last December.
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But it also singles out the NHS as a Tory secret weapon among ex-Labour voters, highlighting a YouGov finding that Johnson’s 50,000 more nurses promise was the most popular policy the firm had ever polled.
NHS twice as important as Brexit for Labour-Tory switchers HuffPost UK
The report picks up on a finding buried in a megapoll by Tory peer Lord Ashcroft, showing that Leave voters who had backed Labour in 2017 had very different motivations from Leave voters who backed the Tories.
A huge 68% of Labour Leavers said the NHS was the main driver for them voting Conservative in 2019, more than twice the number (29%) who said “getting Brexit done” was the biggest reason. In contrast, 76% of Tories gave Brexit as their prime motivator.
Report co-author Mike Buckley said: “It’s a mistake to think that thousands of people voted Conservative for the first time just to get Brexit done. Labour-Tory defectors were far more motivated by Johnson’s promises on nurses, police officers and hospitals.
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“Those policies were not plucked out of thin air - they were targeted at people who have seen public services decline for years and want better. For Labour to win voters back it needs a credible and specific offer on health and crime.”
The report itself states: “Labour Leave voters are not the same as Tory Leave voters. Their priorities are different. Had Labour offered Labour Leavers a policy programme more appealing to them, and leadership they could believe in, more could have been retained.”
Even though the 50,000 “new” nurses claim was heavily criticised for relying on retaining current staff, it was repeated so often that the Tory message got through, the report’s authors say.
Labour’s main NHS campaign issue in the election centred on disputed claims that the Tories would try to sell off the health service to America in a trade deal.
Its own shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth has since admitted there was not enough focus on policies to improve the NHS or attack Tory waiting lists and shortages.
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Jeremy Corbyn campaigning on claims the Tories would sell off the NHS to the US PA Wire/PA Images
“Labour must be specific about the NHS. ’24 hours to save the NHS’ leaflets don’t work because voters don’t believe it is in danger. We have to answer the question of how the NHS would be better under Labour,” the report says.
“Labour must make the case for public health. Post-virus it will be even more important. It has been underfunded by the Tories.”
More broadly, the report says that voters want credible policies combined with credible leadership.
“They will not turn out for socialist utopia, which has never been a preoccupation of the majority. They will turn out for things that they believe will make a real difference to their lives.
“Blair’s pledge card in 1997 promised real, measurable change to class sizes, NHS waiting times, getting young people into work, dealing with young offenders and a strong economy. Labour must speak to voters’ priorities, and not expect that they will come behind ours.”
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'Lessons for Labour' report HuffPost UK
The post-mortem does however stress that Labour lost as many Remain voters as Leave voters in 2019 - 1.1 million of each - and blames the party’s lack of clarity over a second referendum and whether it would campaign to stay in the EU.
It also says that no election can be won without an increase in Labour seats in Scotland, where close links with the EU are especially popular.
A new MRP poll for the Best for Britain campaign found that even in ‘Red Wall’ seats, 90% of voters felt that getting a trade deal with the EU was either “important” or “very important:” some 60% of Labour-to-Tory switchers worried that prices would rise without a deal.
Another survey by IpsosMORI found that 70% Leave voters aged under 48 think the UK should actually keep or increase EU regulations and standards.
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“Brexit is not done. Voters still care about our relationship with Europe – and will continue to do so. Labour needs to make the case for a close relationship with Europe as the best outcome for the NHS, jobs, wages and security,” the election report says.
“Labour cannot ignore the issue of Europe. It is deeply important to many people. Labour will need a clear position on our economic, trade and security links with the EU in 2024.”
The report is withering too about the repeated failure of the past three Labour leaders to connect with voters, ridiculing the claim from some Corbyn supporters that they “won the argument”


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-06-18--Former White House Ethics Chief Reveals 'Disturbing' Ivanka Trump Emails

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Ivanka Trump, president Donald Trump’s daughter and adviser, was conducting government business from a private email account before she was employed by the government, according to records getting new attention this week.
Walter Shaub, former head of the US Office of Government Ethics, highlighted two messages uncovered by the nonpartisan watchdog group American Oversight. He served in the ethics office for six months under then-President Barack Obama and resigned six months into the Trump presidency.
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One of the messages Shaub shared on Twitter appeared to show Ivanka Trump conducting business with Education Secretary Betsy DeVos almost a month before she had an official role:
Well now, this is disturbing. Ivanka Trump didn't become a government employee until March 29, 2017. This email is dated four weeks earlier than that. Why is she appearing to conduct government business in this email she sent while still a private citizen? https://t.co/D5a4sD0Jr8 pic.twitter.com/jhodKdySy7 — Walter Shaub (@waltshaub) June 17, 2020
Another, which was from several days earlier, referred to a government official as her “chief of staff.”
This one @weareoversight uncovered is even MORE disturbing. A MONTH before Ivanka Trump became a government official, she refers to a WHITE HOUSE OFFICIAL as her own "chief of staff." Wow! This is really crazy stuff. Good work, @weareoversight! https://t.co/FPKCVzdBwe pic.twitter.com/eUQOIlZvs0 — Walter Shaub (@waltshaub) June 17, 2020
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The organisation uncovered the messages in 2017 via a Freedom of Information Act request. But they’re receiving new attention in the wake of allegations in former national security advisor John Bolton’s upcoming book, which claims the president defended Saudi Arabia after the murder of Jamal Khashoggi to distract from the news that Ivanka Trump had been conducting government business via private email.
That behaviour was something the president railed against during the 2016 presidential campaign when the issue was Hillary Clinton’s private email server. The mere mention of the emails routinely led to “lock her up” chants at his rallies.


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-06-18--U-Turn As Ministers Ditch NHS Contact Tracing App For Apple-Google Model

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The government has performed another U-turn and ditched efforts to develop its own coronavirus contact-tracing app to focus on the model built by Apple and Google.
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Health secretary Matt Hancock confirmed the news on Thursday after earlier saying the NHS’s own app would form a central part of the Covid-19 exit strategy and ordered a pilot on the Isle of Wight.
The Apple-Google model is reported to have better privacy safeguards, but experts caution that scientists will have access to less data.
In a statement setting out the U-turn over the app’s design, NHS Test and Trace chief Baroness Harding and NHSX boss Matthew Gould said there had been “specific technical challenges”.
They said: “Our response to this virus has and will continue to be as part of an international effort.
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“That is why as part of a collaborative approach we have agreed to share our own innovative work on estimating distance between app users with Google and Apple, work that we hope will benefit others, while using their solution to address some of the specific technical challenges identified through our rigorous testing.
“We will also draw on the invaluable insight from all of those who trialled the app on the Isle of Wight – and the brilliant teams who have worked on it to date – to build an app that can form part of the end-to-end NHS Test and Trace service and this insight will be integral to the next phase of development.”
Hancock said: “Our approach to the virus, whether that’s on vaccines, testing, treatments or cures, has been that we are willing to back innovative solutions and to be ambitious.
British Health Secretary Matt Hancock arrives at 10 Downing Street, in Westminster, London. (Dominic Lipinski/PA via AP) ASSOCIATED PRESS
“We knew from the start that we would need to test and learn as we developed this new technology. The NHS Covid-19 app has undergone some of the most rigorous testing in the world – utilising a real world trial on the Isle of Wight pilot and in a series of field tests – and I want to thank all of those involved.”
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Shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth said that pursuing the NHSX app saw “precious time and money wasted” as the UK still does not have the technology in place.
He said: “For months tech experts warned ministers about the flaws in their app which is why we wrote to Matt Hancock encouraging the government to consider digital alternatives back in May.