thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-11-04--Joe Biden Has Won The Most Votes Of Any Candidate In US History

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Joe Biden has won the most votes of any presidential candidate in US election history, surpassing the total Barack Obama achieved in 2008.
As of Thursday morning, and with a number of states still to call, Biden has a running total of 72,131,882, according to the Associated Press.
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President Obama won in 2008 with 69,498,516, which was the highest ever recorded.
Late night counts in Michigan and Wisconsin has given Biden projected victories in those two states.
Hundreds of thousands of votes are also outstanding in Pennsylvania.
Opinion polls had given Biden a strong lead nationwide for months, but they had shown closer races in battleground states, and the vote did not produce the stinging verdict against the Republican president that the Biden camp had hoped for.
Biden, 77, said in the early hours he was nonetheless confident of winning once the votes are counted, and urged patience.
We feel good about where we are. We believe we are on track to win this election. — Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) November 4, 2020
Trump, 74, appeared at the White House soon after to declare victory.
“We were getting ready to win this election. Frankly, we did win this election,” he said, before launching an extraordinary attack on the electoral process by a sitting president.
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“This is a major fraud on our nation. We want the law to be used in a proper manner. So we’ll be going to the US Supreme Court. We want all voting to stop.”
Trump provided no evidence to back up his claim of fraud and did not explain how he would fight the results at the Supreme Court, which does not hear direct challenges.
In a tweet, Trump also claimed it was “VERY STRANGE” that later vote counts were skewing towards Biden despite it being well-known for months that this would be the case due to Democrats being less willing to risk visiting crowded polling locations during the coronavirus pandemic.
Last night I was leading, often solidly, in many key States, in almost all instances Democrat run & controlled. Then, one by one, they started to magically disappear as surprise ballot dumps were counted. VERY STRANGE, and the “pollsters” got it completely & historically wrong! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 4, 2020
Voting concluded as scheduled on Tuesday night, but many states routinely take days to finish counting ballots.
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thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-11-06--Trump Jr. Mocked For Urging Dad To Declare 'Total War' Over Election

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The best thing for America’s future is for @realDonaldTrump to go to total war over this election to expose all of the fraud, cheating, dead/no longer in state voters, that has been going on for far too long.
It’s time to clean up this mess & stop looking like a banana republic!


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-11-06--Donald Trump Lies – Again – About Winning US Election In Rambling Address

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Donald Trump faced an instant backlash after delivering a rambling address at the White House littered with lies about election fraud and winning the vote.
Using the pomp of the White House briefing room as his backdrop, the US president made a series of statements – sometimes incomprehensible – as his chances of re-election were in peril.
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“If you count the legal votes, I easily win,” Trump falsely claimed, adding without evidence that there had been “historical interference from big media, big money and big tech”.
Some major TV networks in the US immediately cut their coverage as Trump raised non-specific issues with postal voting. He referred to “a pipe burst”, “people are using binoculars” and “paper on all of the windows”.
Condemnation came immediately. CNN’s Anderson Cooper likened Trump to “an obese turtle on his back flailing in the hot sun”.
On the same channel, Rick Santorum, a Republican who once stood to be president, said the statement was “not factual” and “not something any elected official should say”.
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He said: “Democrats voted by mail, that’s why (Trump’s) lead went away… it’s very disappointing, shocking at times, to hear the president say the things he’s said.”
So now MSNBC, CNN, NBC and ABC have stopped broadcasting Trump now — Lauren Wolfe (@Wolfe321) November 5, 2020
MSNBC immediately cuts off Trump when he moves to undermine the integrity of US election system.
"Here we are again in the unusual position of not only interrupting the President of the United States but correcting the President of the United States..." pic.twitter.com/IwVshBmosK — Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) November 5, 2020
Referring to legally permissible observers, the US president claimed that when observers arrived, they were told to be “100 feet away” from the count.
“When the observers got there, they wanted them 60, 70 feet away, 80 feet, 100 feet away, or outside the building, to observe people inside the building”, he told reporters.
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On the postal vote system, Trump added: “I’ve been talking about mail-in voting for a long time. It’s really destroyed our system, it’s a corrupt system.”
The press conference was the first for Trump since early Wednesday, when he addressed the media as the first wave of election results was being reported. Trump at the time baselessly declared victory and falsely claimed he’d already won several states in which a clear winner had yet to be determined. He also, without evidence, suggested that the ongoing counting of votes amounted to “fraud” and should be halted.
Since then, the Trump campaign has filed lawsuits in several states to halt vote counting and disqualify ballots. Judges in at least two states have ruled against his campaign. Other Republicans swiftly moved to distance themselves from their president.
Mitt Romney, who lost to Barack Obama in the 2012 race, said: “Counting every vote is at the heart of democracy. That process is often long and, for those running, frustrating.
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“The votes will be counted. If there are irregularities alleged, they will be investigated and ultimately resolved in the courts.
“Have faith in democracy, in our Constitution, and in the American people.”
The presidential election remains too close to call after polls closed on Tuesday, but former vice-president Mr Biden remains the favourite after winning three key battleground states.
Pennsylvania was expecting to announce its result by the end of the day. If it goes to Mr Biden, so would the White House.
The @AP has not declared a winner in the presidential race, with several states still too early to call.
But President Trump is renewing unfounded claims that Democrats are trying to “steal” the election. He did not back up his claim with any evidence.https://t.co/LTUEBPnbNV — The Associated Press (@AP) November 6, 2020
The President of the United States just embarrassed his entire country in front of the world. — Sunny Hundal (@sunny_hundal) November 6, 2020
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C uz
O only
V ery
F ragile
E gos
F ear
E lections#TrumpMeltdown — Alyssa Klein (@dj_diabeatic) November 6, 2020
Biden, the former vice president, was chipping away at the Republican incumbent’s leads in Pennsylvania and Georgia even as he maintained narrow advantages in Nevada and Arizona, moving closer to securing the 270 votes in the state-by-state Electoral College that determines the winner.
In three of the four states, the margins between the two men had tightened since Wednesday, as results from counting centers trickled in and anxious Americans waited for clarity after an exhausting and deeply vitriolic election.
In Pennsylvania, Trump’s lead had shrunk from 319,000 on Wednesday afternoon to 74,000 a day later, while his margin in Georgia fell from 68,000 to fewer than 4,000. Those numbers were expected to continue to move in Biden’s favor, with many of the outstanding ballots from areas that typically vote Democratic, including the cities of Philadelphia and Atlanta.
Biden, meanwhile, saw his lead in Arizona contract from 93,000 to 65,000; he was ahead in Nevada by only 11,000 votes.
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Most major television networks gave Biden a 253 to 214 lead in Electoral College votes, which are largely determined by state population, after he captured the crucial battleground states of Wisconsin and Michigan on Wednesday.


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-11-05--Why Boris Johnson And Rishi Sunak Are Running A LastMinute.Com Government

Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak. PA
You’re reading The Waugh Zone, our daily politics briefing. Sign up now to get it by email in the evening.
Nearly a year ago, as he launched the Tory manifesto that paved the way for his general election triumph, Boris Johnson was on typically alliterative form. Condemning parliament’s inability to sort Brexit, he launched a withering attack on its record of “prevarication, procrastination, dither and delay”.
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Fast forward to today and yet another whopping U-turn, this time on extending furlough, and it’s Johnson and Rishi Sunak who seem exposed as the master prevaricators. Despite being warned through the late summer of the need for action, it took until November 5 for the PM and his chancellor to light a bonfire of the vanities entailed in that “dither and delay” jibe.
While their defenders will say “better late than never”, their critics will say it’s all “too little, too late”. There is no shame of course in executing U-turns (the public quite like them, if handled well and speedily), there is plenty of political damage in doing them only at the very, very last minute. Johnson’s lockdown looks like it was forced by a tsunami of new Covid hospitalisations, while Sunak’s extended furlough looks like a sudden panic about mass winter unemployment.
The best U-turns have a blink-and-you-miss-it quality, a swift admission you got it wrong and the caravan moves on. The worst policy reverses are dragged out of a government, leaving it and its MPs to endure all the pain of not budging, only to shift so late that scarring is inevitable. It may be hard to quantify, but that damage for this administration will come in the form of extra deaths and redundancies that could have been avoided.
For Johnson, some of this seems hardwired into his political persona. His fear of being disliked, a self-intoxicating optimism (you could call it light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel-vision) plus an innate love of “winging it”, make for a lethal cocktail. David Cameron was famously called an “essay crisis prime minister”, but at least the essay was delivered on deadline. With Johnson, the delays (never forget that “girly swot” jab at his predecessor) have more of a dog-ate-my-homework justification.
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The PM said in July that he “won’t hesitate” to reverse relaxations of lockdown measures, but hesitate is exactly what he did for months. Now, it seems that he’s decided that one of the chief drivers of that unlockdown, his own chancellor, should carry the can as much as himself. Perhaps that’s why Sunak was given the job of eating the humiliation of his own U-turn in the Commons, without any of the glory of the upside in a No.10 press conference.
Dishy Rishi became rattled Rishi as he faced repeated accusations of incompetence and last-minute switches to match the PM’s uncomical chaos. The charge stung all the more because while prime ministers are given licence to be flighty, the Treasury is supposed to be a model of calm if boring reassurance. Sunak sounded the most defensive and most irritable he’s been since taking over the job.
On the one hand, the TUC and CBI and many others (including the hard hit theatre industry) gave a huge welcome to the extension of furlough to March. But on the other, Sunak has shredded his own ‘Winter Economic Plan’ quicker than any of his opponents could have done. Shadow chancellor Anneliese Dodds (in her best performance to date) was merciless as she charted the zig-zagging clown car pathway that is the Treasury’s record in recent weeks.
First furlough was on Saturday extended for a month, just five hours before it was due to end. Two days later, there was a last-minute change to the self-employment scheme that seemed to have been forgotten. Today, we had the fourth change in six weeks on the whole package. “The Chancellor can change his mind at the last minute, but businesses cannot,” was Dodds’ most damaging line.
And for many people laid off over the past week, that will ring true. Although some firms will get state cash to reverse redundancies, many may think their restructuring is done and dusted and the hassle of going back is not worth it.
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Sunak’s defence was that being “agile” was a strength not a weakness. But so many shifts in policy leave the impression of chaos rather than competence, of panic rather than prudence. The IFS was scathing about the fact that the well-known holes in the furlough scheme had not been fixed over the past few months and it was simply being rehashed with no lessons learned on waste or targeting.
More importantly, Sunak’s always arbitrary date for ending furlough by November now seems just that, driven more by his own “live without fear” lockdown scepticism and desire to curb spending. He even appeared to try to shift the blame in the Commons, saying his “belief was that we would be able to stay ahead of the virus” was based on increased capacity in the NHS and test and trace.


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-11-05--Greta Thunberg Throws Trump's Insult Back At Him In Scalding Tweet

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It’s a truth universally acknowledged that your bad old tweets can and will come back to haunt you.
This is true for everybody, but it’s especially pertinent if you’re a world leader who tweets constantly, and has no issue publicly berating a child.
On Thursday, as pollsters in Nevada, Pennsylvania and a few other swing states scrambled to count all of the ballots and finally call the American election, President Donald Trump tweeted an all-caps plea to stop the democratic process from taking place.
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STOP THE COUNT! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 5, 2020
Many Twitter users joked that he might as well be talking about Count von Count from Sesame Street.
But climate activist Greta Thunberg took a different approach, drawing on an insult Trump had previously used about her.
“So ridiculous,” she wrote. “Donald must work on his Anger Management problem, then go to a good old fashioned movie with a friend! Chill Donald, Chill!”
So ridiculous. Donald must work on his Anger Management problem, then go to a good old fashioned movie with a friend! Chill Donald, Chill! https://t.co/4RNVBqRYBA — Greta Thunberg (@GretaThunberg) November 5, 2020
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The message, of course, was a word-for-word, random-capitalisation-for-random-capitalisation take on Trump’s response when Thunberg was named Time’s Person of the Year in December.
So ridiculous. Greta must work on her Anger Management problem, then go to a good old fashioned movie with a friend! Chill Greta, Chill! https://t.co/M8ZtS8okzE — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 12, 2019
At the time, Thunberg had another smart Twitter comeback: she changed her bio to include his taunts.
Pres. Trump tweets that teen climate activist Greta Thunberg, who yesterday was named TIME magazine's 2019 person of the year, should "work on her Anger Management problem."
Seemingly in response, Thunberg changed her Twitter bio. https://t.co/dSEBVRcNEK pic.twitter.com/6DNp4qXXtS — ABC News (@ABC) December 12, 2019
Somehow, that wasn’t the American president’s first Twitter attack on the youth environmental activist. After she gave her famous “How dare you” speech to the UN last September, Trump sarcastically wrote that “she seems like a very happy young girl looking forward to a bright and wonderful future.”
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She seems like a very happy young girl looking forward to a bright and wonderful future. So nice to see! https://t.co/1tQG6QcVKO — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 24, 2019
That one, too, made it into her Twitter bio.
Greta claps back – subtly, of course – in her Twitter bio pic.twitter.com/VrR6kvvzeV — Lauren Gambino (@laurenegambino) September 24, 2019


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-11-05--Here's What We Know About Covid-19 And Tinnitus

Animaflora via Getty Images
Covid-19 is having a life-changing impact on some people’s hearing.
The first case of permanent hearing loss linked to the virus in the UK was revealed in October – a 45-year-old man experienced sudden hearing loss in one ear after being treated for the virus, and doctors couldn’t find another cause.
Another study, led by The University of Manchester, reviewed the clinical history and outcomes of 121 people hospitalised with Covid-19, and found 16 (13.2%) patients reported a change in hearing and/or tinnitus since having Covid-19.
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Tinnitus describes a sensation of hearing a sound such as ringing, humming or buzzing, but in the absence of any actual sound.
The virus appears to not only be prompting new tinnitus in some people, but also exacerbating the issue among those with existing tinnitus, according to a new study led by Anglia Ruskin University (ARU), with support from the British Tinnitus Association and the American Tinnitus Association.
About 30% of people will experience tinnitus at some point in their lives, according to the British Tinnitus Association, and the number of people who live with persistent tinnitus is approximately 13% (around one in eight people).
The new study involved 3,103 people with tinnitus from 48 countries – although the vast majority came from the UK and the US.
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Published in the journal Frontiers in Public Health, it found 40% of those displaying symptoms of Covid-19 simultaneously experienced a worsening of their tinnitus.
Although the study focused on people with pre-existing tinnitus, a small number of participants also reported that their condition was initially triggered by developing Covid-19 symptoms, suggesting that tinnitus could be a ‘long Covid’ symptom in some cases. People with long Covid have previously described tinnitus as a symptom they’ve experienced after having the virus to HuffPost UK.
A large proportion of people believe their tinnitus is being made worse by social distancing measures, which have led to significant changes to work and lifestyle routines, introduced to help control the spread of the virus.
UK respondents reported this to be a greater issue compared to people from other countries, with 46% saying that lifestyle changes had negatively impacted their tinnitus compared to 29% in North America.
Internal worries such as fear of catching Covid-19, financial concerns, loneliness and trouble sleeping have contributed to making tinnitus more bothersome for 32% of people overall, according to the study. And external factors, such as more video calls, noisier home environments, home schooling and increased coffee and alcohol consumption, were also cited by respondents.
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The study noted that as well as increasing the severity of tinnitus symptoms, the Covid-19 pandemic has made it more difficult for people to access healthcare support for the condition. This could further increase emotional distress and worsen tinnitus symptoms, creating a vicious cycle, researchers said.
Lead author Dr Eldre Beukes, a research fellow at Anglia Ruskin University (ARU) and Lamar University in Texas, said: “Some of the changes brought about by Covid-19 appear to have had a negative impact on the lives of people with tinnitus and participants in this study reported Covid-19 symptoms are worsening or even initiating tinnitus and hearing loss. This is something that needs to be closely examined by both clinical and support services.”
Nodding towards the second lockdown, David Stockdale, chief executive of the British Tinnitus Association and a co-author of the study, said “it’s vital that we don’t see the same mistakes as before when it comes to community health provision for people with tinnitus”.
“Poor treatment of tinnitus in the early stages often leads to much worse cases and severe tinnitus can have a huge impact on mental health,” he said.
While we don’t know how Covid-19 is causing hearing issues, we do know that viruses such as measles and mumps can damage the ear – either the cochlea with the delicate sensory cells or the hearing nerve. It may be that Covid is doing something similar.
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thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-11-05--'Stay Calm': Joe Biden Says He Has 'No Doubt' He Will Defeat Donald Trump

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Joe Biden has said he had no doubt he would defeat Donald Trump to win the US presidency as he asked everyone to stay calm as votes were counted.
The Democrat nominee said on Thursday: “We continue to feel very good about where things stand. And we have no doubt that when the count is finished, Senator Harris and I will be the winners. So, I ask people to stay calm.”
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He added “democracy is sometimes messy” and “sometimes requires some patience too”.
Bidden’s brief remarks came as he crept nearer to victory over Donald Trump on Thursday in a close US election that hinged on razor-thin margins in a handful of states.
Democracy is sometimes messy, so sometimes it requires a little patience.
But that patience has been rewarded now for more than 240 years with a system of governance that has been the envy of the world. — Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) November 5, 2020
Meanwhile, the Republican president escalated his legal efforts to influence vote counting and made fresh unsubstantiated claims of voting fraud.
Biden, the former U.S. vice president, was chipping away at Trump’s leads in Pennsylvania and Georgia while retaining slim margins in Nevada and Arizona.
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Ballot tabulation dragged on in those battleground states two days after polls closed, while protesters from both sides staged demonstrations in major cities over the vote counting.
After an acrimonious campaign waged during the coronavirus pandemic, the election appeared to be moving toward a nail-biting conclusion in the coming hours and perhaps days.
There is still a narrow path for Trump to win if he holds on in Georgia, where he leads by 12,800 votes, and Pennsylvania, where he is ahead by 108,600 votes, and overtakes Biden in Arizona, where he trails by 68,100 votes, or Nevada, where he is 11,400 votes behind.
Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden speaks as Kamala Harris looks on in Wilmington, Delaware. JIM WATSON via Getty Images
Trump has already filed legal action in several states to try to stop vote counting and repeatedly attempted to question the legitimacy of the process.
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In characteristic Twitter messages he said “STOP THE COUNT” adding “ANY VOTE THAT CAME IN AFTER ELECTION DAY WILL NOT BE COUNTED” – a message which carried a warning from the social media firm about content which is “disputed and might be misleading”.
Trump said all of the recent “Biden claimed states” will be legally challenged for “voter fraud and state election fraud”, although he did not expand on his evidence for those claims.
“WE WILL WIN,” he added “America First!”.
Biden’s campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon said the president “knows he is losing” and had chosen to “push a flailing strategy, designed to prevent people’s votes from being counted”.


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-11-05--Donald Trump's Adult Sons Spreading Election Disinformation To Discredit Vote

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As the Trump campaign launches a feverish attempt to contest election results in key states where President Donald Trump’s lead either doesn’t exist or is slipping away, the president’s two adult sons are using their million-follower social media accounts to spread misinformation and promote conspiracy theories about the voting process.
Eric and Donald Trump Jr. have become two of the president’s most important proxies in priming supporters to refuse to accept an outcome in which their father loses the presidency.
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Since election day, Eric and Trump Jr. have put out a nearly nonstop stream of falsehoods taken from far-right conspiracy theorists and media activists. Many of the hoaxes and conspiracies target swing states including Arizona, Michigan and Pennsylvania, which are key to Trump’s reelection and where final vote totals are still being counted.
One of the many false allegations, which Eric Trump shared on Twitter, claimed to show a man burning 80 “stolen Trump ballots” while saying “fuck Trump.” The video is a hoax and the ballots are not real – Virginia officials stated the footage shows sample ballots, and police are now investigating the deception. The Twitter account Eric Trump took the video from was suspended. Yet before it was taken down, it had been viewed at least 1.2 million times.
Some of the other baseless claims included misrepresenting a screenshot of vote totals in Michigan as proof of election fraud, falsely claiming that Wisconsin’s voter turnout was mathematically impossible, promoting the conspiracy that election officials were illegally creating ballots to support Democrats and groundlessly suggesting that dead people had cast in-person votes for Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden.
Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump look on as their father, President Donald Trump, prepares to deliver his acceptance speech for the Republican presidential nomination. Alex Wong via Getty Images
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Many of the Trump brothers’ posts since election day have been flagged for misinformation on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, but the president’s sons continue to churn out disinformation and spread a dangerous message that the vote is somehow illegitimate.
“Democrats Are Trying To Steal The Election In Michigan, Wisconsin, And Pennsylvania,” Eric Trump tweeted on Thursday, linking to an article from the right-wing publication The Federalist that contained misleading information about the vote. Twitter labeled the tweet for containing misinformation about the election soon after.
Some of the Trumps’ content first appeared on far-right conspiracy sites such as Gateway Pundit, a notorious source of pro-Trump disinformation. The discredited video Eric Trump shared of ballots being burned originated from a QAnon conspiracy account, while false claims about voting in Wisconsin came from political consultant Harlan Hill, who was cut loose from Fox News earlier this year after he called Democratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris a “lying bitch.”
The Trump family’s social media posts have amplified the baseless narrative of pro-Trump media influencers and the president that falsely claims Democrats are attempting to steal the election through widespread voter fraud. As Trump’s path to potential victory narrowed after Biden was projected to win several Midwestern states and as mail-in ballots were counted, Trump officials and MAGA activists have sought to undermine trust in the election process.
Pro-Trump media has fixated on the message that the vote is being stolen and that ballots must be invalidated, or that counting ballots must halt pending review, providing no evidence for these claims apart from widely debunked videos or misleading images. Some outlets and activists, such as far-right conspiracy network One America News, have outright declared Trump’s victory.
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Several of these conspiracies pushed by the Trump family or its allies have gained traction among the president’s supporters despite news organisations debunking the claims and social media platforms flagging posts for misinformation.
Pro-Trump protesters in Arizona on Wednesday night brought up the debunked “Sharpiegate” conspiracy, which falsely alleges that Democrats invalidated ballots by giving Trump supporters felt Sharpie pens to fill out ballots. (Election officials stated that use of Sharpies does not invalidate votes, and there are additional backup measures to confirm ballots are accurately tabulated.)
In addition to promoting conspiracy theorists and sharing content from far-right outlets, Trump’s adult sons have directly involved themselves in the legal effort to disrupt the election. Eric Trump held a press conference on Wednesday with his father’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, in which the two announced plans to take legal action targeting vote counts in several states and then proceeded to make a number of false claims about voter fraud.
“We are going to win Pennsylvania, but they are trying to cheat us out of it,” Eric Trump said without evidence.
On Instagram, where Trump Jr. dubs himself “General in the Meme Wars,” the 42-year-old shared with his 4 million followers a fear-mongering video of himself on election day claiming Biden “could be bought and sold and paid for by every corrupt regime in the history of the world.”
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“Just think of what’s at stake right now. You could have Joe Biden, the most corrupted candidate in the history of the US presidency, where you have social media, Big Tech, mainstream media covering for that kind of corruption,” he said. “You see all the games that the Democrats are playing. You see that they’re trying to cheat.”
Before rattling off a string of debunked claims – including that his father “created the strongest economy we’ve ever known” – Trump Jr. also baselessly suggested mainstream news outlets could be engaged in voter suppression.
“Don’t assume that the mainstream media is being honest to you. They may say, ‘Oh, the Republicans got this,’ just trying to drive down the voting and suppress that.”
Donald Trump’s Instagram video has been viewed more than 1 million times.
Instagram applied a fact-check label to one of his Instagram Stories on Wednesday, which falsely suggested “political cheating” in Michigan was behind a sudden increase in votes for Biden. In fact, a quickly corrected data input error sparked the conspiracy theory, which the president later amplified on his Twitter account.
Trump Jr. posted another story one day later, this time repeating the already debunked claim from a QAnon supporter that someone had burned his father’s ballots.


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-11-05--Charities And Unions Urge Gavin Williamson To Fund Free School Meals Over Christmas

The Rt Hon Gavin Williamson CBE MP
Secretary of State for Education
The Rt Hon Vicky Ford MP
Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Children and Families
Further to our letter dated 16 October 2020, we write to you once more regarding the ongoing provision of healthy food to vulnerable children from households experiencing low and unpredictable incomes, including those whose situation has worsened as a result of the ongoing Covid-19 emergency.
On Wednesday 21 October, the motion to continue directly funding provision of free school meals over the school holidays until Easter 2021 to prevent over a million children going hungry during this crisis was defeated. Even when the national voucher scheme was in place this summer, 18% of 8-17 year olds (1.4 million children) reported experiences of food insecurity during the school holidays, and 11% (850,000 children) reported that either they or their family had visited a food bank.
Despite clear evidence of need, families received no support from government during autumn half term.
The decision by government not to respond to genuine need resulted in an overwhelming show of support from local authorities, community groups, restaurants, schools and parents who stepped in to fill the gap left, to ensure that no children went hungry during half term. Indeed, as we write, over one million people have signed a parliament petition to permanently address child food poverty.
We support the National Food Strategy’s recommendation for funding to be extended to support vulnerable children during school holidays, which we hope will be reflected in the forthcoming Comprehensive Spending Review. But right now, families are facing the grim reality of a two-week Christmas break without access to free school meals and the indignity of having to rely on food banks or face a postcode lottery, dependant on whether community initiatives are available to help feed their children.
We salute the community response over autumn half term but there is a better way to support families; a coordinated approach centred around child welfare.
We recommend that a top-up grant be distributed via local authorities (or directly to schools and academy trusts) to cover the Christmas holiday period and beyond to Easter 2021, if England is to follow the lead of the devolved nations. This grant would be allocated according to free school meal registration and the funds could then be converted into food hampers, supermarket vouchers or cash support payments for families.
Will this Government commit to funding benefits-related free school meals during the Christmas holiday period and through to Easter 2021, including children from households with no recourse to public funds?
We urge you to commit now in order to provide local authorities and schools with time to plan their provision in consultation with their existing caterers, local partners and eligible families. We cannot rely on civil society to fill the hunger gap as too many children will miss out on the nutrition they need to thrive.
Please reply to this urgent request as soon as possible.
Yours sincerely
Stephanie Slater, Founder/CEO, School Food Matters and co-Chair School Food Plan Alliance
Barbara Crowther, Coordinator, Children’s Food Campaign
Anna Taylor OBE, Executive Director, Food Foundation
Naomi Duncan, Chief Executive, Chefs in Schools
James Toop, CEO, BiteBack2030
Rob Percival, Head of Policy, Soil Association’s Food for Life
Lindsay Boswell, CEO, FareShare
Dr Maria Bryant, Reader in Public Health Nutrition, Department of Health Sciences and the Hull York Medical School and ASO Chair of the Board of Trustees
Dr Debbie Weekes-Bernard, Deputy Mayor for Social Integration, Social Mobility and
Community Engagement, Greater London Authority
Alex Cunningham, CEO, Magic Breakfast
Kath Dalmeny, CEO of Sustain
Mark Game, CEO, The Bread and Butter Thing
Andy Burman, Chief Executive, The British Dietetic Association
Melissa Green, General Secretary of The Women’s Institute (The WI)
Cllr Judith Blake, LGA Labour Group, and Chair of LGA Children and Young People’s board
Clara Widdison, Head of Social Inclusion, Mayor’s Fund for London
Matthew Philpott, Executive Director, Food Active
Paul Wright, Founding Member, Children’s First Alliance
Eddie Crouch, Chair, British Dental Association
Sarah Hickey, Director of the Childhood Obesity Programme, Guy’s and St Thomas’ Charity
Graham MacGregor, Chair of Action on Sugar and Action on Salt
Peter McGrath, Operational Director, Meals and More
Mary McGrath, CEO, FoodCycle
Dr Helen Crawley, Director, First Steps Nutrition Trust
Alison Stiby Harris, Head of Public Affairs, Save the Children
Lucy Nethsingha, Lib Dem Spokesperson for CYP Board, LGA
Sabine Goodwin, Coordinator, Independent Food Aid Network
Jon Richards, Head of Education, UNISON
Professor of Public Health Nutrition, Teesside University and Associate Director of Fuse, The Centre for Translational Research in Public Health
Kevin Courtney and Dr. Mary Bousted, NEU Joint General Secretaries


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-11-05--Naked Attraction Host Anna Richardson Teases Show's First Ever Walk-Off Ahead Of New Series

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Naked Attraction presenter Anna Richardson has revealed the show had its first ever walk-off during the filming for its upcoming new series, after one contestant got a little overwhelmed by the sight of six naked women.
The first episode in the new series of Naked Attraction – which launches on Tuesday night on Channel 4 – introduces viewers to 23-year-old Brian.
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Brian, it soon emerges, is a virgin, and when those infamous screens are first raised, revealing his fellow contestants’ naked bodies, he needs a second to gather himself.
Anna Richardson on the set of Naked Attraction Channel 4
“A young chap called Brian who is a virgin, a lovely guy, wine connoisseur and proficient musician, felt really faint when he was faced with six naked girls,” Anna told the Daily Mail. “[He] needed to be escorted off set and consoled by producers.”
She added: “He was a good lad, he came back on and faced the rest of the show.”
Brian will appear in the new series of Naked Attraction, which airs next week Channel 4
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A clip for the episode sees Anna telling the young hopeful that he “looks like he’s going to faint”, before he leaves the set momentarily as he “needs a moment”.
Upon returning, he tells Anna: “It’s overwhelming, I mean, you know in a good way, perhaps I needed this. But I just need to let it sink in just a bit.”
Meanwhile, a synopsis for the episode has teased: “A 23-year-old virgin from Kent picks a partner from six nude candidates – but this proves a nerve-racking experience, since he has never seen a naked woman in his life.”
Naked Attraction was one of the first TV shows reported to have been given the go-ahead to resume filming over the summer, with most of the show’s format already adhering to social distancing guidelines.


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-11-05--5 Fibs You Were Told About The Election, Mostly By Eric Trump

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Oh apologies, we were just smashing our head on the desk as we await the result of one of the most gruelling elections of modern times.
Yup, the results still aren’t in and seemingly in a quest to make political observers around the world consider taking up careers in absolutely anything else, the Trump team has been absolutely on one.
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All these people have made false claims in recent days that range from barely comprehensible to outright dangerous. Here’s what they said – and what was wrong with it.
Trump and his supporters
Nothing sums up the utter shambles that is Donald Trump’s approach to democracy than the contrast between his supporters in different states.
As Trump threatened to sue over what he alleged was a “stolen” election (fib 1 – there’s no evidence of this), having baselessly declared victory even though the count was nowhere near over (fib 2), his supporters in some states gathered to demand counts be stopped – while in others they insisted ballots be, er, counted, which is obviously what was already happening.
After the president claimed, without evidence, that mail-in ballots in states such as Michigan had fraudulently favoured opponent Joe Biden (fib 3 – again, no evidence of fraud), fans of the president appeared at the TCF Centre in Detroit shouting “let us in” and “stop the count”.
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Trump supporters outside the TCF Center in Detroit chanting “stop the count.” They’re displaying an open desire to see voter suppression. #CountEveryVote #ElectionResults2020 pic.twitter.com/HfatX5MscK — Resist Programming 🛰 (@RzstProgramming) November 4, 2020
Local media reported raucous scenes as Republican counters attempted to enter the building, alleging they were being unfairly kept out – a claim denied by local Democrats also kept outside. (This might be fib 3 but in fairness it’s their word against the other lot.)
In stark contrast, pro-Trump demonstrators showed up at counts in Nevada and Arizona demanding that all votes be counted.
Outside the counting centre in Maricopa County, Phoenix, a crowd of Republican supporters, some armed, gathered shouting “count the votes” and “Fox News sucks”, after the right-wing TV network earlier called Arizona in Biden’s favour.
Incredible scenes outside the Maricopa County Elections Dept in Arizona pic.twitter.com/cUcboOxnYS — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) November 5, 2020
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To cap it all off, on Thursday Trump himself weighed in and tweeted “STOP THE COUNT!” which we can only assume means Trump’s supporters who were saying “count the votes” were in fact lying about what they wanted.
STOP THE COUNT! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 5, 2020
Really Mr President? Cuz if you did, you would lose...
If you stop the count, right now, Biden wins with 270 electoral votes--with leads in AZ/NV, plus the states where he's already the projected winner.https://t.co/o3V53MqBsb — Nate Cohn (@Nate_Cohn) November 5, 2020
Eric Trump
One of the more informative aspects of election day was confirmation that Eric Trump is in fact not a vampire, as he appeared outside in actual daylight to defend his father and throw around all sorts of rubbish.
Eric Trump: not a vampire ASSOCIATED PRESS
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He said: “We’re going to win Pennsylvania, but they’re trying to cheat us out of it because they know it’s their only path to victory. We are going to file a suit in Pennsylvania. It is the last thing that we wanted to do. It’s the last thing my father wanted to do.
“But this is rampant corruption. It can’t happen. It’s not fair.”
“This isn’t democracy.”
Aaaaaand we’ll stop you there, Eric, but this absolutely is democracy, right in front of your eyes functioning exactly as it should.
We were going to show you a clip of his speech but instead we found this version by Scottish comedian Jane Godley which is far more entertaining.
“Am really upset and now I’ll need to work in a Pizza Hut - I will offer Hunter Biden a Square go” #janeygodleyvoiceover pic.twitter.com/x9lp9uXX3l — Janey Godley (@JaneyGodley) November 5, 2020
Eric Trump again
Last night Eric Trump tweeted: “We have won Pennsylvania!”
We have won Pennsylvania! — Eric Trump (@EricTrump) November 4, 2020
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We’re not even going to honour this with a third sentence as it is a total fib and the votes are still being counted.
Oh, look who it is – Eric Trump
This fib was so fibticious, Eric was reprimanded by an actual city.
On Wednesday, he retweeted a video that purported to show a man torching 80 ballots for Trump in Virginia Beach, Virginia.
Burning 80 Trump Ballots https://t.co/NGC2naMHhR — Eric Trump (@EricTrump) November 4, 2020
Unsurprisingly, it was no such thing and the actual City of Virginia Beach, debunked his post.
“Those were sample ballots,” the actual city managed to tweet despite not having hands, fingers or a mobile phone that HuffPost is aware of.
Those were sample ballots. Addressed this yesterday. https://t.co/yprxQ7Icqn. — Virginia Beach (@CityofVaBeach) November 4, 2020
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In a statement on its website, city officials said: “A concerned citizen shared a video with us that ostensibly shows someone burning ballots. They are NOT official ballots, they are sample ballots.”
Officials noted “the absence of the bar code markings that are on all official ballots” in a screenshot from said video.
“The ballots in the video were sample ballots. Fire investigators are looking into the illegal burning,” they added.
The account that originally posted the clip has now been suspended. Due to fibbing, obviously.
Paula White
You may not be aware of Paula White. She is an evangelical Christian and spiritual adviser to the least evangelical Christian and spiritual president in US history.
She’s been very busy this week. As the ballot counting continues in battleground states, White has been leading a marathon prayer service at the New Christian Destiny Centre near Orlando.
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Presidential spiritual adviser Paula White is currently leading an impassioned prayer service in an effort to secure Trump's reelection. pic.twitter.com/hCSRh84d6g — Right Wing Watch (@RightWingWatch) November 5, 2020
Here’s a transcript of the 105-second segment doing the rounds on social media and we promise you, these are not typos. At one point White appears to begin speaking in tongues, a common part of Christian worship in some denominations, though not typically used to summon angels to affect the outcome of an election.
”... and strike, and strike, and strike, and strike, and strike, and strike, and strike, and strike, and strike, and strike, and strike until you have victory.
“For every enemy that is aligned against you, let there be, that we would strike the ground. You will give us victory. I hear a sound of an abundance of rain. I hear a sound of victory. I hear a sound of shouting and singing. I hear a sound of victory. I hear a sound of an abundance of rain. I hear a sound of victory. I hear a sound of an abundance of rain. I hear a sound of victory
“The Lord says it is done. The Lord says it is done. The Lord says it is done. For I hear victory, victory, victory, victory. In the corners of heaven. In the corners of heaven. Victory, victory, victory, victory, victory, victory.
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“For angels are being released right now. Angels are being dispatched right now.
“Amunda, acka, atta, racka, dayda, packa, sanda, atta, amba, orsa, katta, reekay, panda, atta, reekay, deedy, asha, tar.
“For angels have even dissphur... dispatched from Africa right now, Africa right now, Africa right now. From Africa right now.
“They’re coming here. They’re coming here. In the name of Jesus. From South America, they’re coming here, they’re coming here, they’re coming here, they’re coming here, they’re coming here.
“From Africa. From South America. Angelic forces. Angelic reinforcement. Angelic reinforcement. Angelic reinforcement. Angelic reinforcement.
“Theeka, hacka, anda, atta. Rura, batta, atta, acha, acha, manda, rassa, taa. For I hear the sound of victory. I hear the sound of victory.
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“I hear the sound of victory. I hear the sound of victory. I hear the sound of victory. I hear the sound of victory. I hear the sound of victory. I hear the sound of victory. I hear the sound of victory.”
Yet at the time of writing this is all a giant fib as no angels from Africa, South America or any other continent have been seen anywhere which is a bit shoddy tbh. Also we're not sure she could hear any rain because she was indoors at t
Here’s a version with added beats and a cat.
You have to live Twitter - cats against fascism strike back ;) pic.twitter.com/1Kau0QazBI — asad rehman (@chilledasad100) November 5, 2020


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-11-05--You Are Twice As Likely To Die From Covid If You Also Have Flu, NHS England Boss Warns

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You are twice as likely to die from coronavirus if you have the infection at the same time as flu, the boss of NHS England has warned.
Sir Simon Stevens said the health service was doing “very well” at expanding uptake of the flu vaccine, hailing the “brilliant work” of GPs.
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But he stressed that uptake of the vaccine was “so important given that if you have flu and coronavirus at the same time you are twice as likely to die from coronavirus than you otherwise would”.
Addressing a No.10 Covid briefing, Stevens also warned lockdown sceptics that the the second wave was “fact not speculation” with more than 11,000 patients currently in hospital with the virus.
That would be enough to fill 22 of England’s hospitals, “indisputably” illustrating the challenges facing the health service as England re-enters lockdown.
Covid-19 hospital inpatients in England UK government
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“Those are facts – those are not projections, forecasts, speculation, those are patients in hospital today,” he told a No.10 press briefing.
“11,000 coronavirus patients that we have got in hospital compares with 3,000 patients that we would typically have in hospital on any one day during a very bad winter flu season, for flu.
“It compares with about 7,000 patients who’d be in hospital today being looked after for cancer.”
Stevens warned that the number of patients in hospital was likely to surge with more than 25,000 new cases recorded on Wednesday, explaining that there is a lag between people getting infected and developing symptoms that lasts around five days.
Following this, two to five more days pass before someone is hospitalised, and then it takes between nine and 19 days before that patient is either discharged or dies.
“Today’s infection is the intensive care order book for a fortnight’s time,” Stevens warned.
There are currently around 30,000 staff in the health service either off with coronavirus or having to self-isolate which “has an impact” on care, Stevens said as he stressed the importance of lockdown.
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“Our success in controlling community transmission of coronavirus also is a force multiplier, to what the NHS itself can then provide in the way of care,” he said.
Boris Johnson meanwhile told the briefing the objective of the lockdown was to “have as normal a Christmas as possible”.
The prime minister said that while many people were “anxious, weary and fed up” the measures were strictly time-limited.
“The advice I have received suggests that four weeks is enough for these measures to make a real impact,” he said.
“These rules will expire and on December 2 we plan to move back to a tiered approach. There is light at the end of the tunnel.
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thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-11-05--Stephen Colbert Has Some Blunt Words For Texas And Florida After They Voted For Trump

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US talk show host Stephen Colbert had a few thoughts about how some of the states voted this year, starting with Michigan, which flipped from Donald Trump in 2016 to Democratic candidate Joe Biden this year.
He used the state’s famous “hand map” to give Trump a message from the voters:
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Colbert had some less fond words for two other states: Texas and Florida, both of which were expected to be competitive, yet went for Trump.
“Florida’s officially America’s cheating boyfriend,” Colbert said. “Why do we always think we can change him?”
Colbert then laid into Texas for voting for Trump despite his bungling of the coronavirus pandemic.
“Texas may remember the Alamo,” he said. “But apparently, they have forgotten the 230,000.”


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-11-05--Will Donald Trump Go Gently Into The Political Night?

Will Donald Trump Go Gently Into The Political Night?
Lockdown life returns to the UK but for the moment the country is gripped with the fiercely contested US presidential election. Joe Biden looks on course for victory and if he wins, will Donald Trump go quietly? And which outcome works in Britain’s favour?


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-11-05--You Can Now Be Fined £6,400 For Going On Holiday In Lockdown

The full list of travel corridor countries can be found here.
The news comes as the whole of England has been put under strict lockdown restrictions once again, amid a sharp increase in Covid-19 cases, hospitalisations and deaths.
Figures released by the government on Wednesday show almost 500 Covid-19 deaths were registered in just one day, the first time since May 19 that the daily death toll has exceeded 450.


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-11-05--UK Stats Watchdog Criticises Government For Hiding Covid Data – Again

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England’s chief scientific adviser has been warned by the UK’s statistics watchdog that the way the government is using data to justify coronavirus restrictions lacks transparency and risks undermining public confidence.
Sir Patrick Vallance was warned by the UK Statistics Authority (UKSA) that a failure to provide data underlying slides shown in Downing Street briefings “in a timely manner” has “the potential to confuse the public”.
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In a blog post, UKSA said the government was right to publish the data underlying the slides used in the press conference but pointedly noted that this came three days later.
It also criticised the government’s failure to provide the data and assumptions underlying the prime minister’s claim that “the virus is spreading even faster than the reasonable worst case scenario of our scientific advisers”.
The UKSA also criticised Johnson for seeking to justify the lockdown by warning that the NHS could be overrun with Covid patients, while the government fails to routinely publish statistics on hospital capacity in England, as happens in Wales and Northern Ireland.
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In an accompanying letter to Vallance, UKSA director general for regulation Ed Humpherson said: “The use of data has not always been supported by transparent information being provided in a timely manner.
“As a result, there is potential to confuse the public and undermine confidence in the statistics.”
Johnson, centre, stands with chief medical officer Professor Chris Whitty, right, and chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance at a press conference in 10 Downing Street on Saturday ASSOCIATED PRESS
Humpherson also urged the government to publish the data that underlie slides used in press briefings at the same time as the slides are shown.
Where models are used to justify policy, the outputs, methodologies and key assumptions should also be published at the same time, he said.
When key decisions are justified by a reference to statistics, the underlying data should be made available, Humpherson added.
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“I know that you take these principles very seriously and welcome your support in encouraging adherence to them,” Humpherson told Vallance.
In the blog post, the watchdog also criticised Welsh first minister Mark Drakeford for publishing slides shown in his October 23 press conference, where he announced a so-called “firebreak” lockdown, while failing to give the public easy access to the underlying data.
Responding, Johnson defended the government’s use of data.
He told the Downing Street press conference: “We try to make things as clear as we possibly can.”
Johnson acknowledged that the “projections vary widely” and there was also a “political judgement” to be made, taking into account the economic consequences.
“It’s very, very tough to make exactly the right call,” he said.
Johnson said some of the facts were “irrefutable”, such as the number of deaths and people in hospital.
“I can’t quarrel with those data, we have to act on those data and collectively, that’s what we’re going to do,” he said.


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-11-05--Manchester University Sparks Panic After Students 'Fenced In' For Covid Security

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Students at Manchester University had the unsettling experience of realising they are being literally fenced in, as workers began erecting barriers around their halls.
One first year law student noticed the construction around the Fallowfield Campus on Thursday afternoon and was left to make her own inquiries as to what was going on.
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The 19-year-old was brought to tears when she was informed by workers that they had been instructed by the university to erect fences as part of security measures to halt the spread of Covid-19.
HuffPost UK has had confirmation from the university about the measures – an official communication our source still hasn’t had herself.
A University of Manchester spokesperson has apologised, stating: “Regrettably, the fencing began to be installed ahead of the message being received by halls students.
“We apologise for any worry that this has caused and would like to reiterate that all students who live on site can continue to come and go freely.”
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Barriers are being put up around Fallowfield Halls at the University of Manchester Twitter
Our source said: “It’s really eerie, it does feel a bit like a prison. Apparently there will be gates and we will be given wristbands to come in and out. We’ve heard nothing and we’ve been crying and it’s just adding to the stress.
“We’ve had no emails from them at all. The only email we’ve had today is about a cocktail masterclass which is obviously the least relevant thing right now, we’d rather have heard about this.”
In a statement, a University of Manchester spokesperson said: “In response to the national four-week lockdown we are introducing new security measures at key entrance points to our campus, accommodation and main pedestrian routes to help keep our students, our staff and our community safe.
“A security presence will be increased in these areas and fencing displaying important Covid-19 health messages will be installed. This fencing is designed to help highlight main entrance areas, where security staff will ensure that only students who live in that accommodation can access safely and help avoid the mixing of households.
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Fences have been put up overnight around manchester university’s Fallowfield campus. No word to the students as to why, whether we will be able to leave, whether people will be able to access their cars etc... @Telegraph @DailyMailUK @guardian @TheSun pic.twitter.com/YMobFbNY1D — izzy (@izzy_b32) November 5, 2020
“We understand these are challenging times, and we are extremely grateful to all of our students who are following the guidelines and making adjustments to their lives to help keep our community safe.
“If our students need support at any time they can contact their ResLife team for assistance and advice, or their Duty ResLife Advisor can also be contacted for any emergencies out of ours. For general Covid-19 support and enquiries they should email coronavirus-isolation-support@manchester.ac.uk.”
The student, who asked to remain anonymous and is away from home for the first time, added: “We should have had prior communication before they started doing it so we’d know what was going on.
After absolutely no communication from the university we’re being fenced in by the University of Manchester. After asking the workers we were told it won’t be the whole way round but we have heard nothing from the uni and they’ve offered no support. #uom #universityofmanchester pic.twitter.com/94byg4PlBb — Katie (@KatieAnneYT) November 5, 2020
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“I think it’s excessive. The way they’ve done it is appalling, not telling us at all.
“There’s a lot of people saying they want to go home. They just don’t want to be on campuses anymore and international students can’t go home and see their families so it’s quite distressing for a lot of people.
“Right now there are a lot of people who are meant to be in lectures and they’ve left their lectures to come and see what’s going on.”
The student, who tested positive for coronavirus during the first wave, is fearful about what will happen next, claiming that under the previous lockdown she did not receive food deliveries during time spent in isolation, but received three days of fresh food immediately after she was no longer isolating.
She added: “We had no freezer space to freeze it and couldn’t donate it due to us testing positive for coronavirus so we had to throw away so many meals. We’re not sure what’s going to happen this time.”
Last month students at the university – as well as others from Bristol – organised rent strikes to protest their treatment while in isolation.
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Many complained of being sent unsuitable food boxes, either with not enough food, food that does not match their dietary requirements or female students not being given sanitary products.
Around 40,000 students attend Manchester University, which has a staff of around 12,500.


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-11-05--Rihanna Has A Simple But Meaningful Message As World Waits For US Election Result

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Rihanna has shared a short but meaningful message with her fans as the US awaits the results of the presidential election.
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Since then, in a series of tweets flagged as “suspicious” by Twitter, Trump wrote that it was “very strange” that “surprise ballot dumps” had eroded his overnight lead in key states.
“How come every time they count mail-in ballot dumps they are so devastating in their percentage and power of destruction?” he tweeted.
On Wednesday night, Rihanna insisted that every vote should be counted, regardless of how long it takes before the victor in the election is discovered.
Rihanna on stage at the NAACP Image Awards earlier this year Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP
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The Grammy-winning star shared a string of posts on her Instagram feed, spelling out the message: “Count every vote, we’ll wait.”
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Rihanna has been publicly critical of Trump throughout his presidency, recently sharing a message of her spray-painting the message “Fuck Trump” on Instagram.
In 2018, she also sent a cease-and-desist letter after learning that her song Don’t Stop The Music was being played a pro-Trump rally.
After hearing that the song was being used at one such event, Rihanna tweeted political journalist Philip Rucker to say: “Not for much longer… me nor my people would ever be at or around one of those tragic rallies, so thanks for the heads up Philip.”
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Not for much longer...me nor my people would ever be at or around one of those tragic rallies, so thanks for the heads up philip! https://t.co/dRgRi06GrJ — Rihanna (@rihanna) November 5, 2018
Trump, on the other hand, has seemingly found celebrity endorsements a little harder to come by, but did recently receive a show of support from Lil Wayne.


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-11-05--BBC Breakfast's Dan Walker Points Out Major Flaw In Piers Morgan's Latest Ratings Brag

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Anyone who follows daytime presenters Dan Walker and Piers Morgan on Twitter will know the two have a (mostly friendly) rivalry, which largely revolves around the ratings for their respective shows, BBC Breakfast and Good Morning Britain.
This reared its head once again on Thursday, as Dan was forced to point out an unfortunate mistake in Piers’ latest brag about GMB’s viewing figures.
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After initially urging the BBC Breakfast team to “hide your eyes”, Piers tweeted: “So, @GMB averaged 1.16m viewers & 27% audience share pts yesterday. That’s UP by 20% & 58% on the 2016 US election.
“But.. @BBCBreakfast was DOWN by 852k viewers (34%) & 8 share pts (20%) on 2016.”
Dan Walker and Piers Morgan Mike Lawn/ITV/Shutterstock
“Well done,” his BBC counterpart wrote back shortly afterwards. “But we weren’t actually on yesterday.”
BREAKING:
So, @GMB averaged 1.16m viewers & 27% audience share pts yesterday. That's UP by 20% & 58% on the 2016 US election.
But.. @BBCBreakfast was DOWN by 852k viewers (34%) & 8 share pts (20%) on 2016.
Thanks for watching! pic.twitter.com/jul7MLQRIe — Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) November 5, 2020
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Well done... but we weren’t actually on yesterday 👍🏻😂 https://t.co/ufGKdTwQH0 — Dan Walker (@mrdanwalker) November 5, 2020
Indeed, instead of their usual daytime offerings, the BBC showed rolling news coverage all morning on Thursday.
This didn’t deter Piers’ argument, though, with the divisive presenter firing back: “Could have sworn the BBC was on air yesterday morning? Did you air the Test Card or something? (Might have got more viewers..)”
After someone else pointed out Piers’ mistake, he also responded: “Mate, if my show got bounced by the news division because it’s not deemed strong enough to cover a big event like the US Election, I’d be too embarrassed to admit it let alone play Billy Big Balls.”
Could have sworn the BBC was on air yesterday morning? Did you air the Test Card or something?
(Might have got more viewers..) https://t.co/gh8MnZLZ6c — Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) November 5, 2020
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Mate, if my show got bounced by the news division because it’s not deemed strong enough to cover a big event like the US Election, I’d be too embarrassed to admit it let alone play Billy Big Balls. https://t.co/VQ9UdNAwxk — Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) November 5, 2020


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-11-06--Geoffrey Palmer, As Time Goes By Actor, Dies Aged 93

Actor Geoffrey Palmer has died at the age of 93, it has been announced.
He was best known for appearing in BBC sitcom As Time Goes By opposite Judi Dench.
Geoffrey Palmer has died at the age of 93 PA
On Friday, Geoffrey’s agent told the BBC that he had died peacefully at home the previous day. His cause of death has not been confirmed.
Prior to his role in As Time Goes By, Geoffrey had appeared in sitcom The Fall And Rise Of Reginald Perrin from 1976 to 1979 in the role of Jimmy Anderson.
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He also played Ben Parkinson in comedy Butterflies from 1978 to 1983, as well as having smaller guest roles in the likes of The Avengers, Doctor Who, The Sweeney, Fawlty Towers and Blackadder Goes Fourth.
However, Geoffrey was known to millions as Lionel Hardcastle in As Time Goes By – a sitcom about two former lovers who meet unexpectedly years later and go on to marry.
With Judi Dench as his on-screen partner Jean, the pair starred in nine series of the show between 1992 and 2005.
Geoffrey starred alongside Judi Dench in As Time Goes By PA
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The pair also appeared together in the 1997 film Mrs Brown, in which she played Queen Victoria and he appeared as Henry Ponsonby.
In 2004, Geoffrey was awarded an OBE for his services to drama.
Geoffrey’s last credited TV role aired in 2012, when he appeared in BBC mini series Parade’s End as a Bishop.
According to IMDB, he had also filmed scenes for upcoming drama An Unquiet Life – a story about children’s author Roald Dahl’s first wife Patricia Neal – prior to his death.
In 2014, he also voiced the Head Geographer in the film Paddington.
Geoffrey is survived by his wife Sally Green, with whom he had a daughter and a son.


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-11-06--John Boyega Calls For Film Studios To Do More To Protect Stars In Major Franchises From  Racist Abus

John Boyega Calls For Film Studios To Do More To Protect Stars In Major Franchises From  Racist Abuse

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John Boyega has called on film studios to offer more support to actors in major franchises who suffer racist abuse from fans.
The former Star Wars actor – who spoke earlier this year about the racist abuse he faced from certain fans of the sci-fi saga – has said he believes studios should “lend their voice” to help actors who endure this type of prejudice.
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He told Variety: “When one of your actors, especially an actor that’s so prominent in the story, is announced as part of your franchise and then it has a big racial backlash and receives abuse online and that starts to form a shadow on what is supposed to be an amazing gift, it is important for the studios to definitely lend their voice, lend their support to that and to have a sense of solidarity.”
“Not just in the public eye, but on the ground on set,” John added.
John Boyega David M. Benett via Getty Images
In a candid interview with GQ published in September, the Small Axe actor recalled how racist abuse from Star Wars fans had tainted his experience of being part of the franchise.
“Nobody else in the cast had people saying they were going to boycott the movie because [they were in it],” he explained.
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“Nobody else had the uproar and death threats sent to their Instagram DMs and social media, saying, ‘Black this and Black that and you shouldn’t be a Stormtrooper.’ Nobody else had that experience. But yet people are surprised that I’m this way. That’s my frustration.”
John in character as Finn in Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker J Olley/Lucasfilm/Disney/Kobal/Shutterstock
He also spoke about how he felt his character was “pushed to the side” by Disney after The Force Awakens, stating: “What I would say to Disney is do not bring out a Black character, market them to be much more important in the franchise than they are and then have them pushed to the side. It’s not good. I’ll say it straight up.
“You guys knew what to do with Daisy Ridley, you knew what to do with Adam Driver. You knew what to do with these other people, but when it came to Kelly Marie Tran, when it came to John Boyega, you know fuck all.
“So what do you want me to say? What they want you to say is, ‘I enjoyed being a part of it. It was a great experience...’ Nah, nah, nah. I’ll take that deal when it’s a great experience.”
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His comments come as Lashana Lynch – who is set to join the James Bond franchise in the upcoming film No Time To Die – has revealed she has already been targeted by fans of the spy series because of her race.
Lashana Lynch Taylor Hill via Getty Images
“I am one Black woman – if it were another Black woman cast in the role, it would have been the same conversation, she would have got the same attacks, the same abuse,” she told Harper’s Bazaar.
“I just have to remind myself that the conversation is happening and that I’m a part of something that will be very, very revolutionary.”
Lashana plays Nomi in No Time To Die, a new secret agent who takes over from James Bond as 007.


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-11-06--Returning To Tiered Covid Restrictions After Lockdown ‘Not Sensible’

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Boris Johnson’s plan to return to his three-tier local lockdown plan is “not very sensible” because areas with lower restrictions “inevitably” end up with with stricter measures, an infectious diseases expert has said.
John Edmunds, who sits on the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), said the tiered system leads to high numbers of coronavirus cases in all areas as tiers 1 and 2 fail to slow the epidemic down.
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Those areas then inevitably end up on a conveyor belt to tier 3 toughest restrictions, including pub closures, but with high rates of infection that take longer to bring down.
The prime minister said this week he plans to place all areas in England back into the tiered system when the current nationwide lockdown ends on December 2.
“It’s not a very sensible way of doing things”
Discussing the current lockdown, Johnson told the Commons: “As I have already told the House, they (the restrictions) will end on December 2.
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“The House has the right to decide, and will vote on whatever measures it chooses to bring in, but we will then go back to the tiered system based on the data as it presents itself.”
Edmunds told an Institute for Government event that tier 3, which was imposed on places like Manchester and Liverpool, did slow the epidemic and “may have reduced the reproduction number to somewhere close to 1”.
But he went on: “The problem with the tiered system is the other tiers don’t slow the epidemic very much and so places that are in the lower tiers inevitably end up in the higher tiers.
“Then we can slow the epidemic down at the higher level.
“But that’s not a very good outcome because then everyone ends up with high incidence so it’s not a very sensible way of doing things.”
Edmunds, of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said lockdown would “probably work” in reducing the incidence of coronavirus across England but warned that restrictions would need to continue until around spring.
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And he warned against a return to the summer-style easing up of measures that included chancellor Rishi Sunak’s Eat Out To Help Out scheme, which Edmunds suggested lacked any kind of support from disease experts.
″ I can’t imagine any epidemiologists suggesting that that was a good idea,” he said.
“After we release from the lockdown we will still have to have restrictions in place to stop it coming back.
“The idea is to bring the incidence down and then hold it at that lower level rather than at the level where it is now.
“So we’re not going to be just returning to Eat Out To Help Out, I really hope we don’t come December because that would be really unwise.”
Edmunds did however sound a message of hope, predicting vaccines will begin to be administered from early 2021 which “does allow us then to start relaxing a little bit more”.
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thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-11-06--Stephen Colbert Ditches Jokes To Call Out Every Republican Standing With Trump

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US talk show host Stephen Colbert delivered a largely joke-free first half of his monologue on Thursday night to call out Republicans in the wake of President Donald Trump’s outrageous speech.
The president attacked the democratic process and declared, without evidence, that he won the election, despite the fact that votes were still being counted across multiple states.
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But Colbert said he wouldn’t be showing any clips of the speech during his show.
“We’re not going to show you a second of what that sad, frightened fraud said tonight,” Colbert told viewers. “Because it’s poison, and I like you. He can suck silence.”
Stephen Colbert CBS
Colbert then challenged Republican lawmakers who were standing by Trump and those who have remained silent:
“Donald Trump is a fascist ― and when it comes to democracy versus fascism, I’m sorry, there are not fine people on both sides. So you need to choose: Donald Trump or the American people. This is the time to get off the Trump train because he just told you where the train is going, and it’s not a passenger train. He’ll load you on it someday, too.”
Colbert said it was not just votes being counted. Americans were also keeping score.
“They’re going to count who was willing to speak up against Donald Trump trying to kill democracy,” Colbert said.
“And they’ll count who will stay silent in the face of this desperate attack on the bedrock institution of this truly great nation.”


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-11-06--Trump Could Be Banned From Twitter If He Loses The Election

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Donald Trump’s Twitter account will stop receiving special treatment if he loses the presidential election, the social media giant has confirmed.
Bloomberg has reported a confirmation from Twitter that Trump will fall into the category of “former world leader” if he loses the presidency, and therefore will not be subject to the same protections his account gets currently.
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Unlike other Twitter users, Trump and other world leaders are able to post content that violates the company’s rules around offensive or misleading content.
While ordinary users would see their tweets forcibly deleted, or even their accounts suspended on a temporary permanent basis, leaders like Trump are allowed to keep their content up – although they can be marked with warnings.
Trump has brazenly lied in two speeches since election night, sharing baseless conspiracy theories about electoral fraud and alleging wrongdoing at polling stations in key states.
Some major US television networks cut him off mid-speech on Thursday evening to correct misinformation, and Twitter has marked a number of his tweets with a warning that reads: “Some or all of the content shared in this Tweet is disputed and might be misleading about an election or other civic process.”
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I easily WIN the Presidency of the United States with LEGAL VOTES CAST. The OBSERVERS were not allowed, in any way, shape, or form, to do their job and therefore, votes accepted during this period must be determined to be ILLEGAL VOTES. U.S. Supreme Court should decide! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 6, 2020
Tweets with a content warning can’t be liked or retweeted without comment, in a bid to stop engagements with the post from spreading it further between social media users.
Referred to by Twitter as public interest interstitials, the warnings are intended to allow the post to remain on the public record.
They were announced in June 2019, but weren’t used on Trump until May 2020 when he posted “when the looting starts, the shooting starts” during the racial justice protests in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd.
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The Bloomberg report explains that Twitter’s approach to Trump’s tweets is based in their platform-wide policy, which insists users should be able to read tweets from world leaders – even when they’re controversial – “because their messages are inherently newsworthy”.
This same approach doesn’t apply to former leaders, who are treated like ordinary people once they leave office.
If Trump were to lose the election it means from January 21 – the day after what could be Joe Biden’s inauguration – his account would be subject to the same rules as everyone else.
Posts that include hate speech, certain misinformation such as false public health information, or glorification of violence could be removed. Multiple violations could see his account suspended, or even permanently deleted.
One of Trump’s closest former advisers Steve Bannon was removed permanently from Twitter on Friday after suggesting on a podcast episode that he’d like to see America’s top medical adviser Dr Anthony Fauci beheaded.
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During an episode of his podcast War Room: Pandemic, Bannon discussed the imagined beheadings of Fauci and FBI director Christopher Wray, saying he would like to put their “heads on pikes” outside the White House as a “warning”.
Twitter has also removed the accounts of a number of high-profile UK-based accounts during 2020 after they were found to violate the platform’s rules.


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-11-06--‘She Never Held Her Baby’: Why We Need To Protect Working Pregnant Women

Ernest Boateng via PA Ernest Boateng and his late wife, Mary Agyeiwaa Agyapong
Mary Agyeiwaa Agyapong, a 28-year-old nurse from Bedfordshire, worked throughout the first lockdown before she tested positive for Covid-19. She was 35 weeks pregnant.
She had an emergency C-section to deliver her daughter and died shortly afterwards. Now, with the UK in a second national lockdown, her husband is pleading for the government to better protect vulnerable pregnant women.
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Ernest Boateng is calling on the government to make it a legal requirement that all pregnant women who are 20 weeks gestation or greater are entitled to either work from home, or are suspended on full pay.
“She was never able to hold her baby daughter,” Boateng has written in an open letter to Boris Johnson. “My wife has been taken from me and my family and I do not want her death to be in vain.”
Boateng’s letter quotes research from French hospitals, which suggests those in the second half of pregnancy – from 20 weeks – are five times more likely to be admitted to ICU than those in the first half of pregnancy, and that maternal Covid-19 is associated with a three times greater risk of premature birth.
“The guidance for pregnant women has been confusing throughout this pandemic,” Boateng’s letter continues. “The current guidance continues to list pregnant women as vulnerable and says if they cannot work from home, they should stay socially distanced from others. We know that this is not happening.”
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His call for change comes as new research from campaign group Pregnant Then Screwed shows 57% of pregnant women in work do not feel safe.
Just over half (53%) of pregnant women who work outside of the home said they have had a risk assessment done. Of those, only three quarters (73%) said they believe their employers are following it.
The new survey of more than 5,000 pregnant women shows just 1% of those who work outside the home have been suspended from work on safety grounds because of their pregnancy. The group has described this as “an unthinkable drop” from April, when this figure stood at 76%.
The study also reported that a huge 54% of pregnant women who do not feel safe at work have admitted to not understanding their legal rights.
“The data shows that pregnant women simply do not know which way to turn,” says Joeli Brearley, CEO and founder of Pregnant Then Screwed.
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“Employers need to look after the safety of their pregnant staff, particularly those in the later stages of pregnancy and Black, Asian and ethnically diverse pregnant women.
“Mary died because she was at work when she shouldn’t have been, she was not safe, we need to act now to ensure that other women do not suffer this same fate.”
HuffPost UK contacted the government for a response to Ernest Boateng’s letter. A spokesperson said all employers have a responsibility to carry out a risk assessment and any expectant mothers who are worried about their working environment should get in touch with The Health and Safety Executive.


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-11-06--Why Is The US Election Taking So Long?

Why Is The US Election Taking So Long?

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It’s days since the polls closed but it feels like we’re no closer to knowing who will be the US president – so what’s taking so long?
Well since you asked, it’s a perfect storm of an underperforming postal service, false allegations of voter fraud, different closing dates, burst water mains and in an exceptionally basic turn of events, printers running out of ink.
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It’s not unusual for many states to take days to finish counting ballots – after all, every vote must be counted and it’s vital that incomplete or misleading results are not announced prematurely.
This is because the presidential election is really 50 different statewide elections, each of them governed by state laws which say different things about how the vote should be counted. Federal law requires all votes to be tabulated by mid-December.
Voters cast their ballots at the old Stone School, used as a polling station, on election day in Hillsboro, Virginia. ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS via Getty Images
Covid-19, which has killed more than 230,000 people in the US, also means that huge numbers of people avoided casting their votes in person and instead voted by mail, elongating the time taken to process, count and tally said votes.
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Blame it on the post
There has been an unprecedented wave of early voting, with Reuters reporting more than 100 million ballots were cast before election day, a new record.
Sounds encouraging. But in a court filing on Friday, the United States Postal Service (USPS) said 1,076 ballots had been found at the USPS Philadelphia Processing and Distribution Centre. About 300 were found at the Pittsburgh processing centre, 266 at a Lehigh Valley facility and others found at other Pennsylvania processing centres. Nevada voters have more time to return their ballots, which are not due until November 10 if postmarked by Election Day.
There are roughly 20 states that allow postal votes that arrive after November 3 to be accepted, as long as they were postmarked on or before election day.
We cut live to a Pennsylvanian polling station to check up on postal vote fraud allegations pic.twitter.com/jtVdf0Uus2 — Dogknob1 (@MotoNutJob) November 4, 2020
Nevada counting ballots pic.twitter.com/GC85ZFZdMd — Liz Jenkins (@ej11lizzie) November 5, 2020
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But many of the legal challenges centre on whether these ballots that arrive in the days after polls close should be counted.
The Supreme Court upheld a decision to allow postal votes that arrive up to three days after the election to be counted in Pennsylvania.
However, the ruling, which was a result of a 4-4 tie, came prior to Trump’s appointment of justice Amy Coney Barrett and left open the possibility of revisiting the decision.
State governor Tom Wolf said on Wednesday morning that Pennsylvania had more than one million postal ballots still to count.
Whether postal votes in North Carolina that arrive after election day should be counted was also subject to a challenge in the Supreme Court and ultimately allowed by the justices.
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trump: tells people not to vote with postal votes
biden: starts to win with postal votes
trump: pic.twitter.com/7AbzvoqGTf — lucy ✨ (@getweirdlwt) November 4, 2020
As postal votes have largely favoured Biden across the US, these votes could help him win the state and its 15 Electoral College votes.
But in Wisconsin, postal votes must have arrived by November 3 to be counted following a decision by the Supreme Court.
Minnesota, which has already declared a victory and 10 Electoral College seats for Biden, will segregate late-arriving ballots due to ongoing proceedings.
Last month, the discovery of four dozen mail-in ballots found undelivered at a post office in Florida, prompted an investigation, with election officials variously processing those votes or contacting the voters in question to ensure they were able to access replacement ballots.
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This explains #Nevada’s vote count delays. Please check again next week for #Elections2020 ‘s results. pic.twitter.com/tbb9Q4sOdy — Javier (@javierisaai) November 5, 2020
Throughout autumn as ballots moved through the postal system, the USPS has consistently missed its goal to have more than 95% of first-class mail delivered within five days. In the week that ended October 16, the most recently available weekly figures, the postal service reported a national on-time delivery rate of 85.5%. Postal districts in many presidential battleground states failed to reach even that mark.
@realDonaldTrump Completely incomprehensible that people are surprised that the counts take so long this time !? Because of the pandemic, many citizens voted by postal vote and there are countries in which polling letters are only opened and counted on election day. pic.twitter.com/TioLMNogvl — Retired Colonel (@UncleTom1954) November 5, 2020
More random glitches
In Fulton County, Georgia, at the State Farm Arena polling centre in downtown Atlanta, a burst water pipe delayed the vote count by at least two hours.
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Wisconsin’s Green Bay district say the counting of absentee ballots delayed as the vote-counting machine ran out of ink – prompting an election official to rush to the nearest office supplies shop to for replenishments.


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-11-06--Exclusive: Minister's Local Tory Party Got £10k Covid Bailout For Constituency Office

The Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority guidance issued to MPs
The local authority has contacted us about receiving a small business grant of £10,000. What should we do?
Local authorities have written to companies and organisations who are eligible to receive a small business grant, as part of relief measures put in place by the Government to help businesses deal with the coronavirus pandemic. This scheme is being administered differently by each of the devolved nations.
We would advise MPs to decline the grant. IPSA is continuing to pay salaries to MPs and their staff, as well as reimbursing MPs and staff members for coronavirus-related costs and other staffing and office costs throughout this period. Therefore MPs and their staff members are not facing any loss of income as a result of the coronavirus pandemic in the way that some businesses are.
If you have already claimed for your 2020-21 business rates bill and subsequently receive a partial refund from your local authority, this amount must be returned to IPSA.


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-11-06--Nicola Adams Reveals Why She Finally Said Yes To Strictly, After Turning Them Down For Years Before

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Nicola Adams has revealed she turned down Strictly Come Dancing numerous times in past years, before finally signing up in 2020.
The Olympic gold medalist is currently one of 11 celebrities still in this year’s competition, making history as one half of the show’s first ever same-sex partnership.
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“I’ve been asked every year, but I always had training commitments,” Nicola told Graham Norton in an interview set to air on Friday night, before adding: “This is the first time I [was available].”
Nicola Adams on The Graham Norton Show BBC
Nicola also revealed the two conditions she gave the BBC before joining this year’s line-up.
The first was that she wanted to dance with a female professional. The other?
“I wasn’t going to wear a dress,” she revealed.
The boxer has been partnered with former Strictly champion Katya Jones on this year’s series, and last week the two won praise for their Couple’s Choice routine, set to the Years & Years track Shine.
Nicola Adams and Katya Jones on the Strictly dance floor last week BBC
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On Saturday night, the two will be performing a Jive to Greased Lightnin’, as part of Strictly’s annual Movie Week special.
Speaking ahead of her Strictly debut, Nicola admitted she didn’t think it was a “big deal” that she’d be performing with a woman, insisting: “I didn’t see what the big deal would be with pairing with another female.
“You go to nightclubs and girls dance with girls all the time, professional dancers dance with girls all the time, so I don’t think it’s a big deal.”


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-11-06--The Witches Star Anne Hathaway Apologises After Her Character Faces Backlash Over Depiction Of Limb

The Witches Star Anne Hathaway Apologises After Her Character Faces Backlash Over Depiction Of Limb Difference

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Anne Hathaway has apologised after her character in the new film adaptation of The Witches was criticised for its depiction of limb difference.
The Oscar-winning star plays the Grand High Witch in the new version of Roald Dahl’s children’s book, which adds a new detail not featured in the original story, in which the character is revealed to have only three fingers on each hand.
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Following the film’s debut, many disabled public figures voiced their disapproval of this decision, suggesting it perpetuates stigma around disability.
The film’s production company, Warner Bros, later issued an apology, with Anne now also speaking out.
Anne Hathaway at the Critics' Choice Awards earlier this year Kevin Mazur via Getty Images
“I have recently learned that many people with limb differences, especially children, are in pain because of the portrayal of the Grand High Witch in The Witches,” she wrote.
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“Let me begin by saying I do my best to be sensitive to the feelings and experiences of others not out of some scrambling PC fear, but because not hurting others seems like a basic level of decency we should all be striving for.
“As someone who really believes in inclusivity and really, really detests cruelty, I owe you all an apology for the pain caused. I am sorry. I did not connect limb difference with the GHW when the look of the character was brought to me; if I had, I assure you this never would have happened.”
Anne in character as the Grand High Witch Warner Bros
She added: “I particularly want to say I’m sorry to kids with limb differences: now that I know better I promise I’ll do better. And I owe a special apology to everyone who loves you as fiercely as I love my own kids: I’m sorry I let your family down.”
This was accompanied by a video made by the Lucky Fin Project, an organisation supporting children with limb differences.
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Paralympian Amy Marren was among those who raised concerns about the film, tweeting earlier this week: “Was there much thought given as to how this representation of limb differences would effect the limb difference community?!” questioned , who said: “It’s upsetting to [see] something that makes a person different being represented as something scary.
“This opens up all new difficult conversations for those with limb differences and sets back what we are trying to achieve which is to celebrate who you are.”
After many people with disabilities shared photos of themselves on social media with the hashtag #NotAWitch, Warner Bros spokesperson said they were “deeply saddened to learn that our depiction of the fictional characters in The Witches could upset people with disabilities, and regret any offence caused”.
“In adapting the original story, we worked with designers and artists to come up with a new interpretation of the cat-like claws that are described in the book,” they said. “It was never the intention for viewers to feel that the fantastical, non-human creatures were meant to represent them.”
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thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-11-06--Llamas Could Save Us From Covid-19. Hear Us Out

Sonya Paske, Capralogics Ltd. Wally the llama
Never did we imagine that llamas could become humankind’s saviour, but it turns out they might hold the key to some promising ways to stop the virus behind Covid-19 – known as SARS-CoV-2 – in its tracks.
And it’s all in the llama antibodies. Or nanobodies, to be precise.
Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine have managed to extract tiny but extremely powerful antibody fragments from llamas, which could be fashioned into inhalable therapeutics with the potential to prevent and treat Covid-19.
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These special llama antibodies, called nanobodies, are much smaller than human antibodies and many times more effective at neutralising the SARS-CoV-2 virus, researchers found. They’re also much more stable.
“Nature is our best inventor,” said senior author Yi Shi, assistant professor of cell biology at the University of Pittsburgh. “The technology we developed surveys SARS-CoV-2 neutralising nanobodies at an unprecedented scale, which allowed us to quickly discover thousands of nanobodies with unrivalled affinity and specificity.”
To generate these nanobodies, Shi turned to a black llama named Wally. Researchers immunised Wally with a piece of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein and, after about two months, the animal’s immune system produced mature nanobodies against the virus.
Using a fancy technique that Shi has been perfecting for the past three years, lead author Yufei Xiang, a research assistant in Shi’s lab, identified the nanobodies in Wally’s blood that bind to SARS-CoV-2 most strongly.
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Then, the scientists exposed the nanobodies to live SARS-CoV-2 virus and found that they could neutralise enough virus to spare a million cells from being infected.
The nanobodies can sit at room temperature for six weeks and tolerate being fashioned into an inhalable mist to deliver antiviral therapy directly into the lungs where they’re most needed.
Since SARS-CoV-2 is a respiratory virus, the nanobodies could find and latch onto it in the respiratory system, before it even has a chance to do damage, researchers suggest.
In contrast, traditional SARS-CoV-2 antibodies require an IV, which dilutes the product throughout the body, necessitating a much larger dose and costing more.
“Nanobodies could potentially cost much less,” said Shi. “They’re ideal for addressing the urgency and magnitude of the current crisis.”
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Nanobodies use a variety of mechanisms to block SARS-CoV-2 infection, which makes them “ripe” for bioengineering, said researchers.
For instance, nanobodies that bind to different regions on the SARS-CoV-2 virus can be linked together, like a Swiss army knife, in case one part of the virus mutates and becomes drug-resistant.
Study co-author, Paul Duprex, said: “As a virologist, it’s incredible to see how harnessing the quirkiness of llama antibody generation can be translated into the creation of a potent nanoweapon against clinical isolates of SARS-CoV-2.”
So what does a UK-based expert make of it all? Professor Daniel Altmann, from the Department of Immunology and Inflammation at Imperial College London, tells HuffPost UK: “While this sounds like an off the wall idea, it’s an approach that has a track record at least in research settings, for very logical reasons.
“We’ve all heard about the early hopes of using various monoclonal antibody cocktails as a therapeutic for blocking the virus. The ones in trial come mainly from human cells, or in one case, mouse cells.
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“The approach under discussion here simply makes use of the fact that some species, such as llamas, make a slightly different, smaller antibody.


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-11-06--'You Could Be President': Kamala Harris Tells Her Great-Niece In Viral Video

'You Could Be President': Kamala Harris Tells Her Great-Niece In Viral Video
In a short exchange posted on social media by Sen. Kamala Harris’ niece, Meena Harris, the senator tells Meena’s 4-year-old daughter, Amara Ajagu, “You could be president.”


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-11-06--Kylie Minogue Reveals The Reason Why She Won't Be Signing Up For Strictly Come Dancing In A Hurry

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Kylie Minogue may be the reigning queen of disco thanks to the release of her latest album, but it seems she hasn’t got any ambitions on taking to the dance floor herself.
The singer has ruled out ever appearing on Strictly Come Dancing as she says she doesn’t have much confidence in her dance ability.
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Kylie Minogue BBC Radio 2/Sarah Jeynes
During an appearance on Zoe Ball’s Radio 2 Breakfast Show on Friday, she said: “Oh my gosh, I think I would be dreadful! I’m a huge fan of the show and I absolutely love watching it but no.”
Kylie, who has appeared as a musical guest on Strictly on a number of occasions in the past, added: “I think I’ll let my past videos be the pinnacle of my dance achievements!”
The star released her 15th studio album, DISCO, on Friday, which has been met with a warm reception by critics.
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Kylie Minogue's DISCO BMG
HuffPost UK’s Matt Bagwell said that after a difficult 2020 for us all, Kylie has “read the room and delivered” an album that’s “concerned with having as much fun as possible”.
He added: “It’s an homage to disco – a celebration of the genre, but brought bang up to date.”
Meanwhile, the current series of Strictly Come Dancing continues this weekend, with its annual Movie Week special, which will also mark the first time there has not been a studio audience in Strictly’s 16-year history.


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-11-06--Joy Westmore, Prisoner Cell Block H And Neighbours Star, Dies Aged 88

Australian actor Joy Westmore has died at the age of 88.
Joy – who was known for her roles in Neighbours and Prisoner Cell Block H – had had been diagnosed with dementia some time ago, according to an announcement on the Australian daytime show The Morning Show on Friday.
She was most well-known for her role as Officer Joyce Barry in the soap opera Prisoner – known outside Australia as Prisoner Cell Block H.
Joy Westmore as Officer Barry in Prisoner Cell Block H Ten
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Officer Barry was famously a lot more friendly and less tough than most of her fellow prison guards, which often led to her being exploited and taken advantage of by some of the inmates.
The character was initially only a small role, but as time went on, she was brought more into the foreground, and involved in some memorable scenes, most notably being kidnapped by one of the prisoners.
Joy played the guard for seven years, until the show eventually came to an end in 1986.
After Prisoner Cell Block H, Joy appeared as Mrs White in a TV game show based on the board game Cluedo, and played two different characters in Neighbours.
She first appeared in the soap in 1991, returning more than a decade later as Nancy Bliss, the grandmother of Dee Bliss, played by Madeleine West.
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Joy Westmore on the set of Neighbours in 2003 Fremantle Media/Shutterstock
More recently she had several roles in the Australian police drama Blue Heelers and appeared in an episode of the anthology series It’s A Date.
Joy was married to her late husband, Brian William Westmore, from 1960 until his death in January of this year.
Together, the couple had four children, Adam, Harriet, Lucy and Emily.