thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-02-06--Why Changing The Term ‘Painkiller’ To 'Pain Reliever' Is Unlikely To Make A Difference

panimoni via Getty Images
The term “painkiller” should be ditched to reframe the nation’s attitudes towards the drugs, a government adviser has suggested – but would it really make a difference?
Professor Jamie Coleman suggested “pain-reliever” would be a better option, reflecting the fact that strong painkillers, including opioids, are not always effective at treating chronic pain.
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The professor, who’s part of a working group reviewing opioid use for the government, called for greater awareness of the risks of addiction associated with these drugs.
“We need to educate people. For some, they [painkillers] will have very little impact [on pain],” he said, according to the BBC.
Opioid painkillers, which come from the same family as heroin, are prescribed for a variety of reasons, from pain relief after an operation to the management of severe period pain. Common opioid painkillers include codeine and tramadol.
While more potent opioids such as morphine and strong codeine are only available on prescription, lower strength opioids are available from pharmacies over-the-counter (for example, co-codamol, which contains lower strength codeine alongside paracetamol).
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But all opioid-based drugs can be addictive. Tolerance to the drugs can build up, meaning patients or recreational users may take higher doses to get the same effects or to avoid withdrawal symptoms, which can include nervous tremors, anxiety, sleep disorders, vomiting and diarrhoea.
The general rule of thumb from the Royal College of GPs is that opioid painkillers should be used in “the lowest possible dose to obtain pain relief and then for the shortest possible time”. However, more than half a million people in the UK have been taking prescribed opioid painkillers for three years or more, according to data released last year by Public Health England. Prescription rates were found to be higher in economically deprived areas of England.
Considering the complexity of the issue, Nuno Albuquerque, group treatment lead at addiction treatment provider UKAT, doesn’t believe a name change is the answer.
“Whilst it is encouraging that attention is being directed towards tackling this country’s dependency on prescribed medication, it feels like a ‘rebrand’ of the term painkiller to pain reliever is more a style over substance approach,” he told HuffPost UK.
Albuquerque said the scale of the problem is “too great” for this approach to be immediately helpful. “The focus should be on supporting GPs with better IT systems, resources and time allowed with each patient so they can educate them, whilst formulating tailored pain management programmes and therapies for those who have simply been on repeat prescriptions for years,” he said.
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People who regularly take opioid painkillers have also previously told HuffPost UK they’re aware of the risks and flaws of the drugs, but haven’t been able to find alternatives.
Dawn McGuigan, 37, from Houghton-le-Spring near Sunderland, relies on codeine to deal with the pain she suffers as a result of endometriosis.
“Some days my back pain is so bad during ovulation that I can’t stand or get off the sofa, so taking it helps me get to work,” she said. “It also helps me sleep as the dull aching pain usually keeps me awake into the early hours.”
Dee Montague, 36, from Newport, Wales, also takes the painkillers for endometriosis. She previously developed addiction to prescribed codeine. Despite getting help to wean herself off, she’s now cautiously taking co-codamol again because she can’t find another option.
“I try not to take it for more than three days or at the recommended dosage, but when my pain is very bad sometimes I’m left with little choice,” she said. “I wish there were better alternatives and that women were more listened to and helped when it comes to chronic pain.”
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Even Professor Coleman, who suggested the rebranding, acknowledged a “definite lack of alternatives for doctors”.


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-02-06--Theatre Closes Curtain On Madonna Mid-Performance As Madame X Show Runs Late

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Madonna is known for pulling out shocking stunts at her live shows, but during her London gig on Wednesday night, the Queen of Pop received a surprise of her own.
It’s pretty well-documented that Madge’s punctuality isn’t her strong point, with many shows on the US and European leg of her Madame X world tour kicking off long after the scheduled start time, and continuing until the wee small hours of the morning.
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Now in the middle of a string of shows at the London Palladium, Madonna discovered the hard way that the theatre isn’t playing around with their strict curfew.
Fans at the first few Palladium gigs revealed Madonna had joked about being threatened with the “iron curtain” if her show went on too late – and on Wednesday night, they reportedly made good on their promise.
Madonna performing at WorldPride last year Kevin Mazur via Getty Images
A number of fans in the audience reported that the curtain came down suddenly before Madonna had completed her final number. But undeterred, she came out and finished her final song, I Rise, acapella.
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One tweeted after the show ended: “The Palladium put the house lights up and pulled the curtain down on her. She had a big row with them then came back out and carried on with no microphone.”
Because of her infamous no-phones rule, there’s no footage of the moment in question, although one fan was able to somehow sneak some video of Madonna and her dancers singing I Rise in front of the Palladium’s curtain...
Amazing night @Madonna @madonnatribe They tried to cut her off but she didn’t stop & it was unique & beautiful #Madonna #MadameXTour pic.twitter.com/SWZpCvemyL — russell arathoon (@russellarathoon) February 6, 2020
Love that I got to witness Madonna at her most rebellious tonight. She overran so they closed the curtain on her TWICE. She just burst through and carried on regardless. — Daz (@dazgale) February 5, 2020
Madonna was amazing. The Palladium put the house lights up and pulled the curtain down on her. She had a big row with them then came back out and carried on with no microphone. Last seen in the stalls bellowing I Rise at people as they were gathering up their coats. — Paul Lang (@rudemrlang) February 5, 2020
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Yes @Madonna @LondonPalladium what a concert full set extras including Don’t cry for me... for @OfficialALW who was in superb production 2.5hrs of great music they even brought the curtain down on her last song curfew wasn’t stopping her came out performed it accapella #MadameX pic.twitter.com/hImWJaLojx — Tim Slater (@Timsy99) February 5, 2020
Madonna has since shared her side of the story on Instagram, writing: “It was five minutes past our curfew —we had one more song to do and The Palladium decided to censor us by pulling [down] the metal fire curtain that weighs 9 tons.
“Fortunately they stopped it half way and no one was hurt... many Thanks to the entire Audience who did not move and never left us.”
She also posted footage of the moment in question.
A spokesperson for LW Theatres told HuffPost UK: ”“Contrary to a number of reports, at no point during last night’s performance did staff at The London Palladium pull down, or attempt to pull down, the Iron Fire Curtain”
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HuffPost UK has also contacted Madonna’s representatives for comment.
The Madame X tour received rave reviews when it arrived in London at the end of last month, but the world jaunt has been a difficult one for the singer, who has had to cancel multiple shows due to an undisclosed injury, believed to be affecting her knee and hip.
The London Palladium on the opening night of Madonna's Madame X tour Victoria Jones - PA Images via Getty Images
When performing two nights in a row, Madonna has even begun performing an abridged version of the show, taking out some of the more difficultly-choreographed numbers, including album cuts Dark Ballet and God Control.
She wrote on Instagram last week: “You all know i have multiple injuries and have had to cancel shows to give myself time to recover. So as not to surprise you i want to let you know ahead of time that I will be cancelling 2 shows- on Feb 4 and Feb 11th at the Palladium in London... because doing 3 shows in a row is too much on my body and in fact my doctors insist i take a day off after every show but i believe can manage if i do 2 shows then I rest!”
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She continued: “Its a miracle i have gotten this far but a-lot has to do with the fact that i do 6 hours of re-hab every day. 3 hours before show and 3 after with multiple therapies.
“I have also switched to flat shoes and modified difficult parts of the show. This has helped enormously but i still need to be careful and of course rest is the best medicine.”
Madonna has six more shows scheduled at the London Palladium, ending on Sunday 16 February.


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-02-06--Reece Dempster Jailed For Life For Murder And Sexual Assault Of 89-Year-Old Widow

The victim’s sister, Lilian Richardson, described how she had been unable to walk past Woolmer’s home since the killing, adding: “This is the most horrific thing we have all had to go through.
“The fact that there is a person like him living and breathing the same air as Dot is unthinkable. He deserves to know how it has made us all feel.
“He deserves to spend the rest of his life locked away in a room … feeling powerless, like he made Dot feel that night. She was the best big sister anyone could have ever asked for.”
Detective Inspector Garry Moncrieff described the case as “one of the most disturbing I have ever encountered”.
He added: “Even the most experienced officers were shocked at the extent of the violence and the depth of the defendant’s depravity.
“To have her life ended by this man’s monstrous acts is beyond tragic.”


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-02-06--Life Sentence For Chef Who Fled UK After Murdering Wife And Daughters

Sentencing Shakur at the Old Bailey on Thursday, Judge Richard Marks QC said: “This was a wicked, vicious and sustained attack on two little girls, and on your wife, who, at 4ft 8ins, was a tiny woman.
“By contrast, at around 6ft tall and well built, you were no match for her whatsoever.
“It is difficult to imagine three more vulnerable and defenceless victims.
“You, to this day, have not shown one iota of remorse for what you did.”
He said: “The tenor of your defence is that these killings were not done by you – a defence the jury saw through.”
The judge sentenced him to a 40-year jail term, less the six years, six months and six days spent in custody in India and the UK.
The court heard Shakur had since “accepted” the jury’s findings. He showed little emotion as the judge returned his sentence.
Police went to the family home in East Ham, east London, on January 10, 2007, after concerns from Begum’s relatives.
Begum’s body was discovered under a bedcover with Anika laid across her and Thanha nearby. Begum had been asphyxiated while Thanha had suffered head trauma. Anika had been strangled with a ligature.
By the end of the week, Shakur had fled to Bangladesh telling associates his father was gravely ill, but was eventually arrested in India in May 2013 before being extradited in April 2019.
The couple had an arranged marriage in Bangladesh when Begum was 19, but Shakur had repeatedly been violent towards his wife and did not like their children much because they were not boys, the court was told.
Jurors were not told of Begum’s further claim that he had raped her three or four times around the end of 2000.
While working in an Indian restaurant in Frimley, Surrey, Shakur was paid cash in hand and was allowed to live above his work, jurors heard.
He sent money to his family in Bangladesh while Begum received child benefits, the court heard.
The couple had rowed over his immigration status and financial contribution to the household in the run-up to the massacre, jurors were told.
Junior prosecutor Kerry Broome broke down in tears during a previous hearing as she read out how the murder impacted the victims’ distraught family.
In her statement, Begum’s sister Sheli described how their mother, Karful Nessa, “would cry in the middle of the night” and was so depressed family members would have to sit with her.
Sheli said: “She [Nessa] suffered from depression and it affected her health.
“She used to cry all the time, she told me all the time she couldn’t concentrate and couldn’t sleep.
“She said she could hear Thanha and Anika crying out to her.”
Sheli added: “I see them in my mind.
“The only thing I can think of is them, not my husband or my own children.
“It has destroyed my life – I cannot watch the television or see a film without something triggering back to what happened.
“It will be with us for the rest of our lives.”


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-02-06--Yes, I Am Asian. No, I Don’t Have The Coronavirus

By now, Asians across the world will have their own story of discriminatory woe, journalist Vivian Song writes. Getty Editorial
The other night, at a posh theatre in the centre of Paris, I inadvertently perpetuated a tired old stereotype of the passive, submissive Asian when I failed to call out the French woman sat next to me, who spent the entire first act of the production with her turtleneck over her mouth.
The incident happened in increments. Sometime near the beginning of the first act, she had pulled up the top of her sweater to cover her mouth and nose. Progressively throughout the play, she began to lean further and further away from me until she was practically sitting in her boyfriend’s lap. Under the pretext of snuggling up to her partner, she had twisted her body into a knotty pretzel with one sole aim: to get as far away from me as possible.
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During intermission, the pair packed up their affairs and moved to an entirely new section, robbing me of the chance to call her out.
By now, more than a month into the coronavirus outbreak, many in the Asian diaspora around the world have their own tale of discriminatory woe – be they of Chinese, Filipino, Vietnamese, Japanese or, like me, Korean descent.
“Almost overnight, Britons of Chinese descent who were born and raised in the UK have suddenly all become tourists from China.”
If anything, the outbreak has exposed the astonishing level of ignorance around Asian ethnicities as we’re all lumped together. Just as all brown people are terrorists following a terror attack and all black people carriers of ebola, every Asian in the diaspora from the UK, to the US, Canada and Australia, has suddenly become a Chinese citizen from Wuhan and incubator of the coronavirus.
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And therein lies our complicated history.
In France where I currently live, fed-up Asians have adopted the Twitter hashtag #JeNeSuisPasUnVirus which means “I am not a virus.” First-generation Asians and expats like myself are uniting under the same banner regardless of our origins because, for the duration of the outbreak at least, we are all Chinese. And when you’re Chinese for even just a day, you get a small taste of just how deep anti-Chinese sentiment can run.
Have you been affected by racism in the UK in the wake of the recent Coronavirus outbreak? Get in touch with your story by contacting ramzy.alwakeel@huffpost.com
Which is why I am ashamed and saddened to see restaurateurs, businesses and shops in South Korea post signs banning Chinese customers. The same trend has been reported in Japan and Vietnam.
In continental Asia – the motherland for the diaspora – citizens are carrying out blanket discrimination against the Chinese in the same way we, the diaspora, are being targeted in our respective countries of residence.
In France (and I suspect this to be true in other parts of the world), the outbreak has exposed another uncomfortable truth: that within the model minority myth – a dangerous and misleading narrative that Asians are all hard workers, higher achievers and less likely to speak out compared to other minority groups – there exists another micro paradigm that stratifies Asian ethnicities into its own internal hierarchy.
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While the Japanese have their highest respect, the Chinese have their disdain.
Given the racist narrative that tries to trace the coronavirus to Chinese cuisine, let’s use that as an example of how Asian ethnicities are perceived.
After covering the world of haute gastronomy in France for nearly a decade at my day job, it has become clear that Japanese chefs and Japanese cuisine enjoy a special kind of preferential status among the gastronomic elite compared to other Asian cuisines. Just last week, the Michelin guide admitted the first Japanese chef in France to the exclusive three-starred club.
Anecdotally, I can’t tell you the number of times a French person has rhapsodised to me about Japan; how much they love the country; how much they love the culture and their cuisine.
To be clear, I have no qualms about that. I was a Francophile and loved everything French. That’s why I moved here from Canada 10 years ago.
But compare that to the jarringly racist language I’ve heard French people use towards the Chinese, incidentally one of their biggest tourism markets in terms of spending.
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It’s been more than five years now, but I will never forget the moment in the office kitchen when a former colleague used the word “dirty” while talking about the Chinese. She ostensibly thought I wouldn’t be offended as I’m Korean Canadian. But as the coronavirus outbreak has clearly shown, for many non-Asians, there’s little to separate a Korean person from a Chinese, and a Vietnamese person from a Filipino.
In such a short time, what remained of our status as integrated members of society has been wiped out. Almost overnight, Britons of Chinese descent who were born and raised in the UK and have never set foot in China; Canadians of Korean descent; and American citizens of Filipino descent have suddenly all become tourists from China.
I’ve lived through this before, in Toronto during the SARS epidemic in 2003. Then too, a group of teenagers boarded my subway car and coughed “SARS” in my direction. I called them out and managed to shame them into silence.
I couldn’t do the same this time round, to the lady who seemed by all outward appearances, reasonable and cultured. But then again, I too, may have been too quick to judge. So this essay is dedicated to you, French lady who sat near the aisle in row 17 of the section amphitheatre bas at the Théâtre du Châtelet last week. You know who you are.
Vivian Song is a lifestyle editor based in Paris.


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-02-06--Survivors Of Homophobic Violence Share Their Stories As Hate Crime Figures Rise

Loukas Prodromou aka Camilè Leon after being attacked last month. Loukas Prodromou/Facebook
“If it wasn’t going to happen to me that night, it was going to happen to someone else.”
This is how Loukas Prodromou talks of being punched in the face last month – as an act of violence inflicted not on a specific individual, but on whichever member of the LGBT community was unlucky enough to run into a small group of men riding around east London in a party limo that night.
The 28-year-old drag performer had nipped out from The Glory – the east London venue where he was appearing – to get some cash from a supermarket ATM.
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“There were three of them in there and they were like ‘ugh, what’s that?’,” he tells HuffPost UK.
“They started to film me on their phones, antagonising me and trying to be funny. I was walking back to the venue and he took me from a blind spot and just completely knocked me out.
“It was a fucking blow to the face.”
Police were called but, fearing retribution from his attackers, Loukas chose not to help prosecute them.
He will be one of an estimated 500 people taking to the streets of Hackney on Friday night as part of the newly-launched “Night Pride” – a protest “in response to the massive rise in hate crimes” in the UK.
And it’s not just anecdotal – official statistics released last year lay bare the shocking increase.
Police in England and Wales recorded 103,379 hate crimes in 2018/19 – 10% more than the previous year and more than double the 2012/13 figure of 42,255.
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While race remained the main trigger in the majority of reported offences there were also significant jumps in the number of transgender identity hate crimes – up by 37% in the last year from 1,703 to 2,333 – and a 25% hike in offences motivated by sexual orientation (14,491, up from 11,592).
Of all the hate crimes recorded by police, one third involved violence.
PA Media
The collective organisers of the march insist it is “not a demand for equality” nor “a demand for better policing” or “a demand for mere tolerance and acceptance”.
In a statement, they wrote: “We are revolting, and we will have true liberation! We will hold hands, share affection, kiss our friends and lovers wherever we want. We won’t be confined to the safety of our homes, clubs and community spaces.
“We will express our gender identity in any way we damn please. We are unapologetic and unashamed. We are authentic and real. We are many and we will no longer be attacked.”
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Another of those attending is Madeline Street, 23, from south London, who was assaulted and spat at while getting off the Tube with her girlfriend after Pride last year.
“I can speak for London because that’s where I live,” she said. “I feel like it’s got more volatile over the last few years and I truly believe there’s a sense of tension.
“And after the Brexit vote it almost created a divide in the country and I think people are now more willing to express hate to all areas of minorities, especially LGBT.”
The effects of hate crimes last long after they’re committed. A report by Stonewall last year that surveyed the LGBT community in Scotland found almost half had experienced depression.
More than half of trans people (52%) said they had thought of taking their own life in the last year, while two in five (37%) have avoided seeking healthcare for fear of discrimination.
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Three in five (60%) LGBT people reported experiencing anxiety in the last year, including nearly four in five (77%) trans people.
While Friday’s march will provide a visible display of unity and support for the LGBT community, both Street and Prodromou are clear about what the long-term solution is – education.
“If we start early and normalise something which is incredibly normal which is how people identify and their sexualities, then as people grow up they won’t necessarily have these prejudices,” says Madeline.
Speaking of the man who punched him, Loukas says: “I’d love to meet him.
“What he saw was the the front cover of the book but he doesn’t know any of the pages.”
Useful websites and helplines:


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-02-06--Diane Abbott's Dismissal Of Westminster Bullying Allegations Shows How Little Has Changed

We are now almost two years on from the publication of our initial report and another unfortunate pattern has been unfolding ever since: some MPs have used their public profiles to cast doubt over the credibility of some of those allegations, while investigations into the historic conduct of their parliamentary peers are yet to be concluded. Meanwhile, the House is yet to implement an independent sanctions process, which is free from the interference of MPs, and was one of the key recommendations of an inquiry led by former High Court judge Dame Laura Cox QC in the aftermath of our reporting.
And now Labour frontbencher Diane Abbott has become the latest MP to throw uncertainty over the credibility of allegations made against the former Speaker of the House, John Bercow. She stated it “unlikely” in a tweet – now deleted – that parliament’s former “black rod”, Sir David Leakey, who recently submitted an official complaint against Bercow, could have been bullied by him, because of his military background. Her intervention comes after the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, recently nominated Bercow for a peerage – to the outrage of many Commons staff.
To be clear, Mr Bercow was just one of the MPs whom we named when exposing the bullying and harassment culture that had flourished at the heart of our democracy for decades. Mr Bercow was named for two reasons: first, bullying allegations were made to Newsnight against him directly. He denies those allegations. Secondly, as chair of the House of Commons Commission, the Speaker, along with other MPs on the Commission, had a unique role in overseeing the outcome of such complaints. Staff reported to us that they had little faith that this system protected their interests.
MPs, such as Abbott, would do well to refrain from commenting on allegations that are yet to be independently investigated. Instead, they could refamiliarise themselves with the cultural issues that were exposed by Newsnight, and reiterated by the findings of Dame Laura Cox QC, who described a culture of “deference, subservience, acquiescence and silence” in parliament – then they might be less quick to conclude that such allegations are implausible. In the very worst cases, we found that the inadequate response to the staff who raised issues led to mental health issues and departures from the House. The “best case” scenarios saw people moved from jobs they enjoyed after they complained, forever fearing that they might encounter the person they had accused of being their bully or harasser in the next corridor. Ms Abbott might do well to pay attention to the serious bullying allegations made by Mr Bercow’s former private secretary, Angus Sinclair, a man with over 30 years’ worth of military experience in the Royal Navy.
It was the timing of our report that turned a story about a damaging and archaic culture into a political football. Its publication, ahead of the worst of the parliamentary stalemate over Brexit, saw allegations put on the backburner, with MPs, such as Margaret Beckett, stating publicly how Brexit “trumped bad behaviour”. It is now time for MPs to accept that their politicisation of, and pushback against, bullying and harassment complaints is as much a part of this story as the allegations themselves. If they are to draw conclusions publicly about serious allegations made against a minority of their peers before independent investigations have concluded, then they risk devaluing the entire process – and further alienating House of Commons staff.
Lucinda Day is an investigative journalist who worked on BBC’s Newsnight’s expose on harassment and bullying in Westminster in 2018.


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-02-06--You Can Now Get A Mini M&S 'Love Sausage' If Last Year's Was Too Big

HuffPost UK M&S
M&S is riding off the popularity of last year’s “Love Sausage” – aka its Valentine’s take on the festive pig in blanket – and introducing a newbie: the Little Love Sausage. Because last year’s might just have been too big...
The truffle-infused sausage is wrapped in bacon and folded into the shape – with suggestions that it’s great with a fried egg in the middle.
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“It’s back!” screamed the press release. “And it is joined by a new friend this year, the ‘Give a Little Love’ Sausage (because as we all know, love comes in all sized packages!).”
The twin pack is ideal for a loved-up breakfast, M&S, which offers a range of serving suggestions for the mini-whopper: on top of muffins, crumpets, or with an egg cracked in the middle of the heart.
HuffPost UK The new, smaller Love Sausages
Kirsty Rowley, Love Sausage product developer (what a job title, eh?) said: “Love Sausage mania swept the UK and beyond last year, and it was a huge hit with our customers. There may be some imitators this year (the sincerest form of flattery) but I am happy to say the original and best is back! And it is joined by the perfect package of the smaller Give a Little Love Sausage.”
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The twin pack of mini sausages is £5, and the big one is £6 – both available in stories from Friday 7 February (or if’s not quite your thing, check out our pick of these Valentine’s dine-in meals for two).
HuffPost UK The original Love Sausage
Don’t get what all the fuss is about? Here are a selection of people enjoying the #LoveSausage last year.


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-02-06--Ex-Obama Photographer Throws Shade At Trump's Handshake Snub

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Former White House photographer Pete Souza urged US leaders to show a little civility on Wednesday, after President Donald Trump snubbed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s handshake at his State of the Union address a day earlier.
“How hard is this?” Souza wrote on Instagram, alongside an image of then-President Barack Obama shaking hands with then-Speaker John Boehner ahead of the 2011 State of the Union address.
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Pelosi and Trump exchanged slights at Tuesday’s speech. After the president ignored her extended hand, Pelosi responded with a clipped introduction: “Members of Congress, the president of the United States.”
A speaker generally introduces a president about to address Congress by saying, “I have the high privilege and the distinct honour of presenting the president of the United States,” as Boehner did for each Obama address from 2011 to 2015, and as his successor, Paul Ryan, did for the final three addresses of the Obama presidency. The courtesy was extended even though Obama was a Democrat and Boehner and Ryan were both Republicans.
At the conclusion of Trump’s speech, Pelosi was seen tearing her copy of his speech in half.
Souza, a vocal critic of the current administration, often contrasts moments of the Trump presidency with images he took during Obama’s time in office.


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-02-06--Government Plans To Increase NHS Funding Are Missing The Point

Lord Philip Hunt on the great mis-selling that underpins the government’s plans to increase NHS funding Getty
November 2019 saw the worst four-hour wait performance in A&E since figures were first collected, back in 2010. This has been matched by failures on key targets for cancer, GP appointments and hospital treatment waits. At the same time, rationing of medicines is on the increase – with failings being increasingly revealed in ambulance services, mental health support, and for people with learning disabilities.
Given all of this, it’s a huge tribute to NHS staff that so much care remains of a very high quality. But the calamitous drop in performance over the past decade is having an impact on patient safety as well as leading to longer waits.
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Just before Christmas, the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital advised staff to make the “least unsafe decision”, following a huge rise in admissions. It was not an isolated incident. Indeed, 2020 has already seen the Royal Cornwall Hospital NHS Trust tell its staff to help reduce severe overcrowding by discharging patients – despite the obvious risks involved.
While many factors and pressures are at play, the alignment of austerity with workforce shortages, inadequacies of adult social care and a complete failure to factor in a growing older population, means it’s little surprise the NHS is reeling.
The lowest five-year period of funding growth occurred over the 2010/11 to 2014/15 period and the past five years have seen little improvement. Is it any wonder that the NHS is cash-strapped, in deficit and finding it very hard to invest the resources necessary to prevent hospital admissions? Latest estimates by the Health Foundation show a shortage of more than 100,000 staff, including 40,000 nurses.
All of this is happening when social care is in meltdown. By 2018, the House of Lords Economic Committee had reported that 1.4 million older people in England had an unmet care need. The number of older people and working-age adults requiring such care is increasing rapidly, yet public funding declined in real terms by 13% between 2009/10 and 2015/16.
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To date, the government’s response has been inadequate. A new five-year settlement of around 3.4% growth per annum is welcome. But that’s still less than the 4% most commentators think is required annually. And as NHS leaders have pointed out, it does not include areas of funding crucial to the well-trailed Conservative election promise that it would be provide more hospitals, nurses and GP appointments.
So, no additional money to cover investment in buildings and equipment – meaning little relief for crumbling infrastructure or the funding of new technology. No additional money to cover education and training budgets, to help tackle the NHS workforce crisis. And no additional money for public health and social care services, to help keep people healthy and independent. It’s tantamount to mis-selling.
On current financial and demographic projections, the gap between what is expected and what is delivered will widen. Only yesterday, a damning National Audit Report (NAO) concluded that while the NHS may be treating more patients, it has not yet achieved the fundamental transformation in services and finance regime to meet rising demand. In fact, short-term fixes have made some parts of our health service seriously unstable.
In a House of Lords debate today (Thursday), I will challenge Ministers to face up to the long-term funding challenge, to reform social care, improve recruitment, retention and training, and – most importantly – set the NHS on a secure path for the future.


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-02-06--Counting Calories Is Basically Pointless. So Why Are We Still Doing It?

Illustration: Damon Dahlen/HuffPost; Photos: Getty
From the time I was in high school up until last year, I counted calories in one form or another. It started with logging my daily Weight Watchers points, then switched to tracking calories in the Fitbit app to make sure I didn’t go too far over my daily target.
For years, I didn’t mind doing it. It felt good in a way, like I was in control. But over time it became exhausting. I couldn’t take more than a few bites of something without thinking about how I would quantify that later. All of the tedious recording and number-crunching started to suck the joy out of food.
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And I realised I hadn’t been listening to my body, either. Sometimes I’d have extra calories left over for the day, so I’d grab a snack (or two) while I was watching TV, even when I was full. Other times, when I was legitimately hungry after dinner, I’d try not to eat anything else to avoid going over my allotment.
It was while reading the book “Body Love” by holistic nutritionist Kelly LeVeque a few months ago that I realised I finally wanted to quit counting calories. After so many years of doing it, I was hesitant to stop. But overall, I was fed up.
We’ve long been taught that counting (and cutting) calories is necessary if we want to be healthy and lose weight. And yes, the amount of calories we eat does matter in a general sense. But obsessing over that number at the expense of more important factors is probably a waste of your time.
“It’s good to know relative calories: This food is high, this food is low, for example, especially if you eat out in restaurants often,” registered dietitian Abby Langer told HuffPost. “But there are a lot of flaws with calorie counting as we know it.”
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“And for some people, it works. But really, I don’t recommend it,” Langer continued. “We can get so involved in the numbers that we experience a disconnect between the food we eat and our hunger.”
When we’re so preoccupied with the quantity rather than the quality of the calories we consume, we miss the point. Not to mention that this seemingly “healthy” habit can take a toll on our mental health while doing little for our physical health in the long term.
HuffPost talked to registered dieticians, professors and other experts to figure out why we’re still so hung up on calories. Here’s what they want you to know.
Counting calories isn’t an exact science.
You’ve probably heard of the calories in/calories out model, which states that in order to lose weight, you must burn more calories than you consume. And while in theory that may be true, in reality, it’s overly simplistic.
For one, the model fails to take into account how the composition of those calories affects your body ― everything from your blood sugar levels to your insulin levels to your digestion, hunger hormones and future cravings.
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“In the end, calories matter, but the amount of calories we eat — and burn — are both influenced long-term by the types of food we eat,” said cardiologist Dariush Mozaffarian, dean of the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University. “Our bodies are complex, and different foods create complex interactions with our bodies that can help or hinder weight control.”
For example, two fun-size bags of M&Ms and two hard-boiled eggs both contain about 140 calories. But the eggs have protein and healthy fat that will keep you full and are packed with nutrients that will nourish your body. The M&Ms, on the other hand, are nutritionally void. Plus, they’re high in sugar, which means they’ll spike and crash your blood sugar, leaving you reaching for yet another snack soon after.
“We can get so involved in the numbers that we experience a disconnect between the food we eat and our hunger.” - Abby Langer, registered dietitian
What’s more, the tools we use to determine the number of calories we should eat to lose weight aren’t very precise. Many people rely on apps or widgets that ask you to plug in your age, gender, activity level, current weight and desired weight.
While these tools may give you a general ballpark figure, you’d need to know your resting metabolic rate (or “RMR,” the number of calories your body burns at rest) to get a more accurate number. And that would require doing a respiratory test called indirect calorimetry that’s not accessible to most people.
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Figuring out how many calories are in the foods we eat isn’t an exact science, either. In fact, the Food and Drug Administration allows calories on nutrition labels to have a large margin of error — up to 20%. So that means that a 500-calorie muffin you ate for breakfast could really have been anywhere between 400 and 600 calories. When it comes to cooking meals at home, you’d need to measure every tablespoon and weigh every ounce of your ingredients to obtain a somewhat accurate calorie count — and that’s just not worth the effort for many people.
Counting calories can be bad for your health.
SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY via Getty Images Here's why counting calories can be damaging to your mental and physical health.
Carefully tracking calories can be a time-consuming, draining and quite possibly a waste of your time, but those aren’t the only pitfalls, experts say. Here are a few ways calorie-counting can wreck your relationship with your body:
It puts us in a restrictive diet mentality.
Calorie restriction can fuel the guilt-deprivation cycle, said Alissa Rumsey, a registered dietitian and intuitive eating coach at Alissa Rumsey Nutrition and Wellness.
“Restriction leads to feelings of deprivation, which leads to feelings of desperation, which leads to binges or obsessive thoughts or cravings, which leads to feelings of guilt or shame, followed by more restriction and over and over,” she said. “This is completely normal and not caused by a lack of self-control or willpower — it’s because your body is sensing that restriction.”
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You lose touch with your hunger cues.
When you’re laser-focused on hitting an arbitrary calorie number, it detaches you from your body’s internal cues of hunger, fullness and satisfaction.
“Our bodies know how much we need to eat each day if we tune in and pay attention,” Rumsey said. “Trusting your body means you don’t need to micromanage your caloric intake. Some days you will naturally need more food than others.”
“If we were to get out of our head and listen and connect to our body, we’d eat a lot differently.” - Aaron Flores, registered dietitian
You might fixate on a number rather than on nutrition.
If you’re counting calories, you might end up excluding certain nutrient-dense foods from your diet just because they’re higher in calories: think avocados, salmon, olive oil, walnuts or chia seeds. Instead, you might go for something with less nutritional value ― like, say, an 100-calorie pack of crackers ― just because it will help you stay under your allotment for the day.
“From a health perspective, it is better to focus on the quality of the diet ― e.g. avoiding ultra-processed foods and eating adequate amounts of produce,” said Arya Sharma, professor of medicine at the University of Alberta and scientific director of Obesity Canada.
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You may develop an unhealthy preoccupation with food.
For some, counting calories (or any other eating plan that requires strict adherence) can lead to an obsession with food, which can result in disordered eating habits and increase anxiety and depression, Sharma said.
If you have a medical condition that requires a specific diet, it should be monitored by a health professional, such as a registered dietitian, he added.
You may be able to lose weight this way, but keeping it off will be a challenge.
Indeed, restricting calories may yield weight loss in the short term, but for many people, it’s not sustainable. In an analysis of 29 long-term weight loss studies, researchers found that more than 80% of lost weight was regained after five years. And it’s not because of a lack of effort or willpower.
“Eventually the body begins to fight back, activating multiple overlapping mechanisms for preventing weight loss that were developed in our evolutionary past when food was scarce,” Mozaffarian said.
Counting calories is a hard habit to break.
Caiaimage/Paul Bradbury via Getty Images Why are we still stuck in the diet mentality of calorie restriction?
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Even as health experts have begun promoting less restrictive food philosophies (like practicing intuitive eating or aiming for more nutrient-dense foods), many people are still hung up on counting calories. Why is it so hard to quit?
For one, counting calories gives us the illusion of control over one aspect of our lives ― our weight, Rumsey said. In reality, the fixation on calories ends up controlling us: our thoughts, our actions and emotions. And it’s worth noting that weight is also determined by factors that are outside of our control, such as genetics, certain health conditions or medication side effects.
“The only way to stop this cycle is by getting rid of all restrictions around food and to stop calorie counting,” she said. “Many people have a hard time doing this because it is completely counterintuitive to what diet culture and our society teaches us: That if we don’t ‘control’ what we eat, then we’ll go off the rails, when in fact the opposite is true.”
“Trusting your body means you don’t need to micromanage your caloric intake.” - Alissa Rumsey, registered dietitian and intuitive eating coach
Nutrition can be complicated, which leaves us desperate for easy answers and quick fixes. Diet culture takes advantage of this by oversimplifying the complexity of eating: It tells us this food group is bad, this food groups is good, eat this many calories and you’ll be thinner, happier and more worthy of love — and we internalise those messages. So when the diet fails, we end up blaming ourselves, said Aaron Flores, a registered dietitian and host of the “Dieticians Unplugged” podcast.
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“When we restrict to X calories a day, we are likely not getting enough [food],” he said. “When we struggle with that body feeling, we assume our body is broken ― that it needs too much because the book or the doctor or the dietitian told me I should only need X per day. We fear truly listening to our body, so we want someone else to tell us what to do and how much to eat.”
Here’s what to focus on instead.
Westend61 via Getty Images Intuitive eating practices can help you reconnect with your body.
Instead of adding up the number of calories (which, I’ll admit, I’m still tempted to do sometimes), I pay more attention to how balanced and nourishing my meals are. I aim for protein, healthy fat, fibre and greens/vegetables — or what LeVeque has dubbed the “Fab 4” at every meal. I gravitate toward foods that I know energise and satiate me.
Below, experts share some practical tips for healthier eating that you can incorporate into your own life:
Think about how what you eat makes you feel.
Is it satisfying? Enjoyable to eat? Does it keep you full until lunch or does it leave you wanting a snack after an hour?
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“For example, does the meal gives you sustained energy or do you have an energy crash?” Rumsey said.
Tune in to what your body actually wants.
Intuitive eating encourages us to get back in touch with our body’s own signals that tell us what to eat and when rather than relying on external cues like strict diet rules.
“Diet culture has disconnected us from our bodies and the wisdom that lies within it,” Flores said. “If we were to get out of our head, and listen and connect to our body, we’d eat a lot differently.”
Eat more plants and whole foods.
Fill up on foods containing fibre, healthy fats and phytonutrients “like fruits, nuts, beans, virgin plant oils, non-starchy veggies, minimally processed whole grains, and fish, as well as yogurt with live probiotics,” Mozaffarian said.
Cheese, eggs, poultry and unprocessed red meat can be eaten in moderation, he added.
Eat fewer processed foods.
It’s best to minimise your intake of ultra-processed foods such as chips, candy, soda and packaged snack cakes — basically anything containing ingredients like artificial flavours, hydrogenated oils and emulsifiers.
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“I recommend focusing on a few key healthy foods to add to your diet and a few unhealthy foods to drop, and building from there,” Mozaffarian said.
Cook at home more.
Take a break from those nightly takeout orders: Studies have shown that home cooking is linked with a healthier overall diet. Take-out and restaurant meals are often high in sugar, sodium and unhealthy fat — not to mention the portion sizes can be excessive. When you’re preparing your own food, however, you’re in charge of the ingredients that go into each meal to assure they align with your health goals.


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-02-06--There's Good News And Bad News For Zoe Ball As New BBC Radio Figures Are Revealed

New BBC Radio listening figures have been revealed, and there’s good news and bad news for Zoe Ball.
Zoe took over the Radio 2 breakfast show from Chris Evans at the beginning of 2019, after he took the much-publicised jump to Virgin Radio, where he continues to host the morning slot.
On Thursday, many outlets reported a decline in listening figures since Zoe began presenting the breakfast show on Radio 2, but that’s not actually the whole story.
Zoe Ball Mike Marsland via Getty Images
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Yes, the new data from the audience research body Rajar does show that listeners have dropped by almost a million in the space of 12 months, with 8.2 million tuning into Radio 2 in the morning in the last three months of 2019, compared to 9.1 million during Chris’ final quarter as host.
However, it’s not completely fair to say that Zoe is losing listeners, as she’s actually grown her audience compared to last quarter, when she was on 7.9 million.
This drop in listeners year-on-year has also affected Radio 1’s breakfast host Greg James, who was on 4.8 million at the end of 2019, compared to 5.1 million in the final quarter of the previous year.
Greg James Jeff Spicer via Getty Images
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Radio 1 also had its lowest figures since records began in the last quarter of 2019, dropping to 8.8 million weekly listeners, the first time this number has fallen below 9 million.
James Purnell, director of BBC radio and education, said: “The latest figures show some of the challenges we face across the radio industry with retaining a live listening habit amongst young people, whose audio consumption is rapidly changing.
“We are focused on keeping live listening strong and looking for new ways to do so, but we also want to ensure we offer more for our audiences however they want to listen.
“During this quarter alone, we saw more than 100 million on demand plays of our content on BBC Sounds, double the previous quarter, demonstrating the increasing popularity of our radio programmes outside of our linear schedules.”


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-02-06--Derek Mackay, Scotland’s Finance Secretary, Resigns Amid Claims Over Messages to 16-Year-Old

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Scottish Finance Secretary Derek Mackay has resigned after admitting he had “behaved foolishly”, following reports he sent hundreds of messages to a 16-year-old boy.
The father-of-two stepped down just hours before he was due to announce the Scottish Budget for 2020-21.
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The Scottish Sun reported Mackay befriended the teenager on Facebook and Instagram and sent him 270 messages.
In one message he is alleged to have asked “And our chats are between us?” and when the boy agreed, the minister told him: “Cool, then to be honest I think you are really cute.”
The newspaper alleges he contacted the teenager over a six-month period, and offered to take him to a rugby game and out to dinner.
First minister Nicola Sturgeon confirmed she has accepted Mr Mackay’s resignation, and said public finance minister Kate Forbes will now deliver the Budget statement instead.
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Mackay, who came out as gay in 2013, said: “I take full responsibility for my actions. I have behaved foolishly and I am truly sorry.
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“I apologise unreservedly to the individual involved and his family.
“I spoke last night with the First Minister and tendered my resignation with immediate effect.
“Serving in government has been a huge privilege and I am sorry to have let colleagues and supporters down.”
Sturgeon said: “Derek has taken full responsibility for his actions and apologises unreservedly for them to the individual involved and to those he has let down. He has submitted his resignation as a Government minister, which I have accepted.
“Derek has made a significant contribution to Government, however he recognises that his behaviour has failed to meet the standards required.
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thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-02-06--Jameela Jamil Comes Out As Queer Amid Backlash Over New Job As Voguing Show Judge

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Jameela Jamil has come out as queer amid backlash over the announcement that she would be appearing on an upcoming television show about voguing and ballroom competitions.
“Twitter is brutal,” the Good Star star wrote at the beginning of an impassioned note she shared on social media on Wednesday.
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Earlier this week, it was wrongly reported that Jameela would be the MC for the new HBO Max series Legendary and the response was “universal backlash,” as per Out magazine, who noted that she is “a woman who many do not know to be queer or trans, and who seemingly has no connection to ballroom”.
In response, Jameela’s note explained that she put a rainbow on her Twitter profile a few years ago to note that she identifies as queer.
Jameela Jamil Frazer Harrison via Getty Images
She said that when people asked what it signified, she would tell them, but that – up until now – she “kept it low” because she was “scared of the pain of being accused of performative bandwagon jumping”.
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Jameela went on to say that being queer was “something that caused me a lot of confusion, fear and turmoil” when she was a kid.
“I didn’t come from a family with *anyone* openly out. It’s also scary as an actor to openly admit your sexuality, especially when you’re already a brown female in your thirties,” she wrote, before adding that she’ll be taking a break from Twitter for a bit and that the note “is absolutely not how I wanted it to come out”.
Jameela also reiterated what her role on Legendary will entail, saying: “I’m not the MC. I’m not the main host. I’m just a lead judge due to my 11 years of hosting experience, being fully impartial, a newcomer to ballroom (like much of the audience will be) and therefore a window in for people who are just discovering it now, and being a long time ally of the LGBTQ community.”
She also noted that she understands her “being queer does not qualify me as ballroom” but she has “privilege and power and a large following to bring to this show”.
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“Sometimes it takes those with more power to help get a show off the ground so we can elevate marginalized stars that deserve the limelight and give them a chance,” Jameela wrote.
Running for nine episodes, Legendary will feature performers battling it out in “fashion and dance challenges” in their respective voguing houses in an effort to win a trophy and cash prize, according to an HBO press release.
The eight voguing houses will each have five performers and a house parent. Previously announced judges include rapper Megan Thee Stallion, stylist Law Roach and dancer Leiomy Maldonado. The release date for the show has not yet been announced.


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-02-06--Donald Trump Lashes Out After Mitt Romney Becomes Only Republican To Vote Against Him

Senator Mitt Romney was the only Republican to vote against Donald Trump in the Senate impeachment trial ASSOCIATED PRESS
Donald Trump has slammed US senator Mitt Romney as a “failed presidential candidate” after he became the sole Republican to vote to convict the president in the Senate impeachment trial over abuse of power.
Despite a majority of senators expressing unease with Trump’s pressure campaign on Ukraine, on Wednesday the president won impeachment acquittal.
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While two-thirds guilty votes were needed to convict the president – who was accused of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress’ investigation into his alleged dealings with Ukraine – and remove him from office, the final tallies fell far short.
The Senate, which is run by Trump’s Republican party, voted to acquit him 52-48 on abuse of power charges and 53-47 on obstruction of Congress.
But Romney – who was the Republican party’s 2012 presidential nominee – was the only Republican to vote to oust Trump from office.
In an emotional speech on the Senate floor, Romney said: “Corrupting an election to keep one’s self in office is perhaps the most abusive and destructive violation of one’s oath of office that I can imagine.”
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This is the moment Mitt Romney said he would vote to convict the president, becoming the only Republican to do so
Donald Trump was later cleared of impeachment charges by the Republican-majority Senate https://t.co/X9mWGyPZmy pic.twitter.com/STzPcl2IWN — BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) February 5, 2020
Announcing his decision, the senator said he believed Trump was guilty of “an appalling abuse of public trust” when he pressured Ukraine’s leaders to investigate political foe Joe Biden.
Romney said that, as a “profoundly religious” person, he was bound by the oath senators took to administer impartial justice. “My faith is at the heart of who I am,” he said.
However, he did not vote to convict Trump with the second charge of obstruction of Congress.
He is the first senator in US history to vote to convict a member of his own party in an impeachment trial. President Bill Clinton was acquitted in 1999 and Andrew Johnson in 1868.
Trump, unsurprisingly, did not take his vote lightly.
Had failed presidential candidate @MittRomney devoted the same energy and anger to defeating a faltering Barack Obama as he sanctimoniously does to me, he could have won the election. Read the Transcripts! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 6, 2020
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Reacting to the news Romney had voted against him, Trump tweeted: “Had failed presidential candidate @MittRomney devoted the same energy and anger to defeating a faltering Barack Obama as he sanctimoniously does to me, he could have won the election.
“Read the transcripts!” he added.
However, Romney won support from some Democrats.
While representative Ted Lieu called Romney’s vote “a profile in courage”, his Congress colleague Sylvia Garcia said he had demonstrated “great moral courage and conviction”.
This is what putting country before party looks like. Good for Mitt Romney.pic.twitter.com/Z7VmycrjwI — David Lammy (@DavidLammy) February 5, 2020


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-02-06--Donald Trump Impeachment: How A Broken System Acquitted The President

President Donald Trump was acquitted of impeachment charges on Wednesday. After Republican senators voted not to hear from a single witness ― the first time that’s happened in the impeachment trial of a US president, of which there have now been three — it was clear to everyone that acquittal was guaranteed. But really it was guaranteed all along.
The Trump administration engaged in unprecedented obstruction of Congress. The brazen nature of that cover-up was made possible by the extreme polarisation of our political system, which has rendered parts of our Constitution essentially unusable. And the Republican Party has shown it will take full advantage of that dysfunction in order to protect its president and maintain power as its base of support shrinks. The result is a presidency that quite literally can do no wrong. The conservative movement has finally destroyed the myth, rooted in the Watergate era, that the system can work to remove a corrupt president. And it has done so thanks to decades’ worth of efforts to loosen the reins placed on the executive branch.
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Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) walks to the Senate chamber before the start of the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump at the Capitol, Jan. 31, 2020. Steve Helber/ASSOCIATED PRESS
An Unprecedented Stonewall
In a stark break from the precedent of other presidential impeachments, Trump withheld all documents and forbade all witnesses from testifying ― which itself led to an article of impeachment on obstruction of Congress.
The Senate, for the first time in its history of holding impeachment trials for presidents, federal judges and Cabinet officials, did not call a single witness to testify, nor did it request or review any new documents.
The basic outline of Trump’s wrongdoing is as clear today as it will be in the history books. Trump withheld $391 million in congressionally approved aid from Ukraine, and a head-of-state White House visit, in order to get newly elected President Volodymyr Zelensky to announce an investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter. The president of the United States sought to coerce a foreign country to help him win reelection.
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Gordon Sondland, U.S. ambassador to the European Union and a key participant in the scheme, testified that he told the Ukrainian foreign minister that the country would have to announce an investigation into the Bidens in order to obtain the withheld aid money. He testified that he believed, and acted as though, there was a quid pro quo link between the military aid and White House visit and the announcement of an investigation into the Bidens.
While Trump insists the call where he asked Zelensky to “do us a favor” and investigate the Bidens was “perfect,” his defense lawyers offered a gamut of conflicting defenses, from claiming no quid pro quo existed to arguing that there was a quid pro quo but it was not impeachable.
In a dramatic speech, Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) said he believed Trump committed “an appalling abuse of the public trust,” and his oath to do impartial justice required him to vote to remove the president from office. But throughout the trial, it was made clear that most other Republican senators had already decided to acquit Trump and did not want to bother to inform the public of the facts of the case.
“Unless there’s a witness that’s going to change the outcome, I can’t imagine why we’d want to stretch this out for weeks and months,” Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) said.
“The authors of the impeachment clause of the Constitution did not anticipate senators who would act to protect their political party instead of their branch of government.”
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“There is no need for more evidence to prove something that has already been proven and that does not meet the United States Constitution’s high bar for an impeachable offense,” Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) said in a statement declaring he would vote against hearing from new witnesses, even though he believes Trump did everything he is accused of doing.
“New witnesses that would testify to the truth of the allegations are not needed for my threshold analysis, which already assumed that all the allegations made are true,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said in a statement where he said Trump committed an impeachable offense, but still should not be removed from office.
More information could only mean more problems for the rest of the Republicans. And so they dismissed the facts of the case, refused to hear any new evidence and, ultimately, accepted a sweeping argument of executive immunity stating that the position of the presidency confers immunity to commit corrupt acts.
Illustration: Rebecca Zisser/HuffPost; Photos: Getty
Firsthand witnesses to the president’s actions who’d refused to testify before the House’s impeachment inquiry were available. There were a lot of them, actually. The Senate could have brought in former national security adviser John Bolton, acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, former Secretary of Energy Rick Perry, former deputy national security adviser Charles Kupperman, State Department Councillor T. Ulrich Brechbuhl or acting budget chief Russ Vought. But they didn’t.
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Nor did they vote to obtain documents related to the Ukraine scheme that were withheld from Congress by the Office of Management and Budget, Department of State, Department of Defense and Department of Energy.
The Republicans who voted against hearing from firsthand witnesses to Trump’s actions, or seeing documents with relevant evidence, said they didn’t need to hear or see any more because the president’s acquittal was predetermined from the beginning.
“I’m not an impartial juror,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said before the trial began. And so he remained throughout.
How Did They Get Away With It?
Alan Dershowitz, an attorney for Trump, argued that the president can abuse the power of his office in order to get reelected because he is the president. ASSOCIATED PRESS
Republicans were able to conduct a sham impeachment trial because the authors of the impeachment clause of the Constitution did not anticipate senators who would act to protect their political party instead of their branch of government.
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The Constitution structures a balance of government branches to disperse power. It does not structure a balance of political parties. While early American politics had its factions and ideological partisans, it did not look at all like today’s hyper-polarised politics with two neatly cleaved parties.
The result is a political party arguing — not incorrectly — that simply nothing can be done if the president decides to abuse his power.
The president’s lawyers’ argument was that the president can only be impeached for breaking the law, and not for an abuse of power. Moreover, they said, the president can abuse his power if he wants, because he is the president.
These arguments range from the absurd to the dangerous. The first argument, that abuse of power is not an impeachable offense unless it includes some violation of the criminal code, does not bother to consider that the authors of the impeachment clause said the exact opposite.
The president may be impeached by committing “those offenses which proceed from the misconduct of public men,” or “the abuse or violation of some public trust,” Alexander Hamilton wrote in “Federalist No. 65.” These abuses of power, Hamilton wrote, “be denominated POLITICAL, as they relate chiefly to injuries done immediately to the society itself.”
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James Madison similarly argued before the Virginia state constitutional ratifying convention that the president could be impeached for offenses not included in the criminal code. Were the president to exclude most states when ratifying a treaty or constitutional amendment, Madison argued, “a majority of the states would be affected by his misdemeanor,” and he could be impeached. Similarly, Madison argued impeachment could be used “if the president be connected, in any suspicious manner, with any person, and there be grounds to believe that he will shelter him.”
“No previous statute is necessary to authorise an impeachment for any official misconduct,” Justice Joseph Story wrote in his “Commentaries.”
Trump’s lawyer Alan Dershowitz, a Harvard Law School professor, took this debunked argument to its most absurd length. He argued that the president is allowed to abuse his power in pursuit of reelection, so long as he doesn’t violate a specific criminal statute, because the national interest is vested in his person because he occupies the office of the presidency.
“If a president does something which he believes will help him get elected in the public interest, that cannot be the kind of quid pro quo that results in impeachment,” Dershowitz said in response to a question on Jan. 29.
And why is that? “Every public official that I know believes that his election is in the public interest,” Dershowitz said.
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Dershowitz’s argument reverses the constitutional structure of the presidency by vesting its power and authority not in the office itself, but in the individual who holds it.
It is an even more extreme version of Richard Nixon’s infamous quip to David Frost that “when the President does it, that means it is not illegal.”
The Visible Bridge
President Richard Nixon waves goodbye from the steps of his helicopter outside the White House after resigning from office for abusing his power. ASSOCIATED PRESS
There are some obvious parallels between Trump and Nixon, the only president to resign in disgrace. Roger Stone, Trump’s longtime political adviser, is a former Nixon aide with a tattoo of Nixon on his back. Both Trump and Nixon faced impeachment for corruptly abusing their office in pursuit of reelection.
But where the Watergate scandal and Nixon’s subsequent resignation in lieu of removal by impeachment have gone down in America’s national mythology as a moment where patriotism and the Constitution triumphed over venal partisanship, Trump’s impeachment trial represents the negation of that triumph.
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Nixon’s removal from office occurred at an odd time in American history, during a period of low partisan polarisation and in the middle of a recession. Still, Republicans would not have pushed Nixon to resign if not for the release of a White House tape revealing he personally suggested that the CIA pressure the FBI to shut down the investigation into the Watergate break-in.
Today’s politics are best characterised by both high polarisation and asymmetric polarisation. Both parties are sorting into ideological and geographically coherent blocs, but the Republican Party has moved farther to its ideological pole on the right as its share of voters shrinks. Ideological rigidity is increasingly necessary for Republican politicians as their base of support retreats into a smaller minority of the population. That retreat to minority status also necessitates rigid support for offices and governmental bodies that can be won and influenced with minority support ― like the presidency, the Senate and the Supreme Court.
In a speech to the Federalist Society, a conservative legal group, in November, Attorney General William Barr bemoaned the “steady grinding down of the executive branch’s authority that accelerated after Watergate.”
“It is critical to our nation’s future that we restore and preserve in full vigor our founding principles,” Barr said. “Not the least of these is the framers’ vision of a strong, independent executive, chosen by the country as a whole.”
The system failed. The president can abuse his office in pursuit of reelection. No need to worry about what the authors of the Constitution said. At least until a Democrat is elected.


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-02-06--Catherine Zeta Jones Leads Tributes To Father-In-Law Kirk Douglas, Following His Death At The Age Of

Catherine Zeta Jones Leads Tributes To Father-In-Law Kirk Douglas, Following His Death At The Age Of 103

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Some of Hollywood’s biggest names have paid their respects to Kirk Douglas following the legendary actor’s death.
He was best known for films including Spartacus and Ace In The Hole, and his explosive acting style and masculine persona established him as a leading man throughout the 1950s.
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His son, actor Michael Douglas, confirmed his father had died on Wednesday night.
“It is with tremendous sadness that my brothers and I announce that Kirk Douglas left us today at the age of 103,” Michael’s statement said.
“To the world he was a legend, an actor from the golden age of movies who lived well into his golden years, a humanitarian whose commitment to justice and the causes he believed in set a standard for all of us to aspire to.”
Michael’s wife, Catherine Zeta Jones led the tributes to her “darling” father-in-law on Instagram.
“To my darling Kirk,” the Chicago actress wrote. “I shall love you for the rest of my life. I miss you already. Sleep tight...”
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Elsewhere, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences led the tributes, tweeting a picture of the actor from his best-known film Spartacus alongside his quote: “I wanted to be an actor ever since I was a kid in the second grade. I did a play, and my mother made a black apron, and I played a shoemaker. After the performance, [my father] gave me my first Oscar: an ice cream cone.”
They followed up with the message: “Goodbye to a Hollywood legend.”
“I wanted to be an actor ever since I was a kid in the second grade. I did a play, and my mother made a black apron, and I played a shoemaker. After the performance, [my father] gave me my first Oscar: an ice cream cone.” -Kirk Douglas
Goodbye to a Hollywood legend. pic.twitter.com/vnu1Hkb2FA — The Academy (@TheAcademy) February 5, 2020
Other tributes quickly followed from some of Hollywood’s biggest names...
Kirk Douglas was one of the biggest stars of all time & a brilliant actor with an unforgettable, blazing charisma. He will also be remembered for putting his career on the line by defying the Hollywood Blacklist, hiring writer Dalton Trumbo for the classic Spartacus. #RIP 💔 pic.twitter.com/snzoHPMtDr — Mark Hamill (@HamillHimself) February 6, 2020
I bid a fond farewell to Kirk Douglas and send my love to Michael, Catherine, Cameron and the rest of his family. — Sharon Stone (@sharonstone) February 6, 2020
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Kirk Douglas. The inspirational Scalawag. 103 years on this earth. That’s got a nice ring to it! Great hanging with you man. — Danny DeVito (@DannyDeVito) February 6, 2020
Condolences to the family of Kirk Douglas. What an incredible icon he was in this industry! 😞 — William Shatner (@WilliamShatner) February 5, 2020
KIrk Douglas will always be an icon in the pantheon of Hollywood. He put himself on the line to break the blacklist. My love goes out to my friend Michael and the whole family. — Rob Reiner (@robreiner) February 5, 2020
Thinking about Kirk Douglas and his family tonight. Not only was he a towering presence in film history. He also risked his career and financial stability to do the right thing to help break the Blacklist. That kind of heroism makes all of us stand up and shout, I AM SPARTACUS pic.twitter.com/ujaMzeiN39 — Bryan Cranston (@BryanCranston) February 6, 2020
KIrk Douglas will always be an icon in the pantheon of Hollywood. He put himself on the line to break the blacklist. My love goes out to my friend Michael and the whole family. — Rob Reiner (@robreiner) February 5, 2020
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Bravo Kirk Douglas on an incredible life. Thank you for so generously sharing your amazing talent with all of us. The film we made together will always hold a special place in my heart. My love to Anne & your beautiful family. #KirkDouglas — Mitzi Gaynor (@TheMitziGaynor) February 5, 2020


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-02-06--Exclusive: Priti Patel Orders Officials To Explain Status Of Grooming Gang Review

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Home secretary Priti Patel has ordered officials to explain what has happened to a long-awaited review into the ethnicity of grooming gangs, HuffPost UK has learnt.
A frustrated Patel has been met with “obfuscation” from Home Office officials when asking about the probe, which campaigners believe is crucial in tackling child abuse and helping the fight against far-right racism.
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Her predecessor Sajid Javid ordered the review in July 2018 amid concerns about gangs of mainly Pakistani-heritage men carrying out child sexual exploitation (CSE). But the Home Office was later accused of holding up the work and faced criticism for insisting it would remain internal.
Patel assumed the review would be prioritised as Javid, whose parents were from Pakistan, gave several high profile interviews after ordering the probe in which he said the abuse made him “feel angry”, and that the men had “disgraced our heritage”.
A source in the Home Office suggested that Patel was being “given the run around by officials” who were “not being completely up front about this”, and stressed that the home secretary at least wants to see the results herself even if they are not eventually published.
“She’s not best pleased with the way it’s going,” they said.
Prime minister Boris Johnson, chancellor Sajid Javid and home secretary Priti Patel PA
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Nazir Afzal, the highly respected former chief crown prosecutor in the north-west of England who brought the Rochdale grooming gang to justice, told HuffPost UK the lack of research was being “exploited by the far-right”.
He said: “I have been calling for an evidence based review since I gave evidence in parliament in 2012, the promises have come to nothing.
“The vacuum is exploited by the far-right.
“We were promised a review of sorts by the then home secretary and then when it didn’t surface, we were told it was for internal use only.
“Now it seems nobody can find it.
“It’s victims that constantly get let down by the failures of those in authority.”
Javid initially promised the research in a letter to a cross-party group of 20 MPs led by Labour’s Sarah Champion, who has seen her attempts to get more information about the research repeatedly frustrated.
The MP, who has seen the fallout of the child sexual abuse scandal in her Rotherham constituency, said it felt like officials were deliberately ignoring ministers’ requests for grooming gang data.
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Champion told HuffPost UK: “I have no idea why, but it has consistently felt like Home Office officials deliberately avoid ministers clear instructions for research when it comes to grooming gangs.
“The Home Office ministers and the former home secretary (Javid) have all stated to me that the department will carry out research into perpetrators of gang related child sexual exploitation.
“Still we have nothing.
“It appears civil servants in the Home Office believe if they ignore requests into grooming gang data for long enough, ministers will just move on to a different topic.
“I think they might be shocked by the persistence of Priti Patel on this issue.
“The reason we need offender profiles is to allow the police to disrupt and prevent grooming gangs. We have this data on other forms of child abuse, why not this?”
READ MORE: Vulnerable Children Will Keep Falling Prey To Grooming Gangs Unless Government Gets Serious
In a December letter to Champion, the head of the Home Office’s unit for tackling exploitation and abuse, Christian Papaleontiou, strongly implied that the work had been finished.
Papaleontiou said officials had “completed” interviews with police officers on group-based offending, had “considered” external and academic research, and had “been working with the police and National Crime Agency” to improve data collection and analysis.


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-02-06--We Tested Common Happiness Advice. Here's What Actually Worked

For years, experts have been recommending the same healthy lifestyle habits to reduce stress and improve your mood. (In fact, we published a list of them recently.) The advice stands the test of time for a good reason: Studies show they work over and over again.
But we live in 2020, when our lives are directed by our phones, busy schedules, the news cycle and more. We’re so burned out at work that it’s become an official medical diagnosis. The pressure to have it all, and to balance it once you do, is immense.
All of this makes some of the most common happiness tips ― like meditating or setting aside 10 minutes of your day to go for a walk ― feel kind of... impossible?
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So, we decided to sort through a few of the suggestions and give you a list of which happiness habits are worth trying and which were a bit more difficult. Several people in the HuffPost newsroom volunteered to practice one habit for a month.
Here’s how it went:
What Definitely Worked
JGI/Jamie Grill via Getty Images Getting outdoors can really boost your mood.
Doing a quick daily meditation.
Research shows meditation can alleviate stress and increase your overall mood. One of our editorial directors committed to the practice this month by using the Headspace app and doing a three- to five-minute meditation each day. His conclusion? “I was surprised at how much it helped me.”
“The more I did it, the better I felt ― and not just when I was meditating,” he said. “By spending a little time each day trying to quiet ― or just slow down ― my mind, I began to try it when I wasn’t meditating. Like, if something was driving me crazy at work or I had a frustratingly slow commute, I’d stop, take a second, do some deep breathing and I was shocked at how much better I instantly felt.”
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Walking outside for 10 minutes a day.
Studies show that getting outside and around greenery, even if only briefly, can make you happier. But we often stay chained to our desks or get lost in our weekend tasks instead of taking a real break. A senior culture reporter on our team decided to take on the challenge of spending time outside as a way to give his mind a reprieve.
“Being a New York resident working in digital media, I’m aware I spend far too much of my time indoors ― my doctor tells me I have a Vitamin D deficiency, even ― and am completely reliant on screens,” he said.
But the habit worked ― and even provided an added benefit.
“To my surprise, I felt the biggest shift in management of my weekend time, and found my productivity went up substantially,” he said. “Given the mild weather we’ve experienced in the Northeast thus far this winter, I found it easy to [extend] my 10-minute outdoor commitments beyond that time frame. Often, I’d feel compelled to talk a longer walk, visit a new neighbourhood or run a much-overdue errand.”
Practising grounding exercises.
Similar to meditation, grounding exercises make you more mindful in the moment and help quell anxiety during stressful times. Experts recommend engaging your senses: Pick five things you see, four things you can physically feel, three different sounds you hear, two things you can smell and one thing you can taste.
A senior audience editor tried practicing this exercise over the past month. He squeezed it in whenever he had a few moments waiting in line or commuting.
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“The few times I did it on the subway was quite calming — I found myself noticing little things like conversations going on between old friends or couples in my car, the slight noise bleed from a podcast someone is listening to, even the clickety-clack of the wheel on the track,” he said. “It made me feel more connected to the city and reminded me to pay attention to things around me a bit more.”
The main problem he found was that a few minutes didn’t feel like enough, and that longer meditation sessions might be more useful. Still, not bad for a quick trick.
Reading before bed.
There are a host of happiness-related perks that come with reading a physical book ― especially before you go to bed, since it gets you away from sleep-destroying screens.
Our executive editor tried reading every night before bed to reap some of these benefits, because she felt she didn’t read enough last year (and because she wanted to increase her happiness, obviously). She succeeded.
“I read three books in January, which is more than the last six months of last year,” she said. “And I felt better about myself at bedtime because I wasn’t lamely clicking around Netflix, Hulu, Amazon or all three, in search of I don’t know what.”
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Practicing the habit didn’t come without its challenges, including a struggle to keep up with it consistently and the need to spend time processing a book (which is difficult right before you turn the lights out). That said, she’s excited to continue reading before getting that shut-eye. Win.
Finding a therapist.
Talking to a professional can do a great deal to improve your wellbeing. You don’t need to be dealing with a crisis or a severe mental health issue to go to therapy (but, of course, the process definitely helps with those things, and there’s nothing wrong with seeking assistance for them).
A senior reporter in the newsroom decided 2020 was going to be the year he tried therapy as a way to navigate some major stressors in his life. The result?
“It definitely, definitely helped me,” he said. “I think one of the biggest barriers to people getting therapy or other mental health help is how intimidating the process can feel.”
That said, not everyone can get access to therapy. (“One of the biggest limitations, of course, is cost and insurance. It can be a tricky thing to navigate,” the reporter said.) Programs like Talkspace and BetterHelp aim to alleviate some of those problems, and there are also other ways to make mental health help less expensive.
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What Was A Struggle
Marjan_Apostolovic via Getty Images Establishing a good sleep routine is important, but a challenge.
Establishing a solid sleep routine.
You’d be hard-pressed to find someone who has never been slangry (that is, angry from a lack of sleep). Sleep can alter our moods drastically. Experts stress that it’s vital to create a solid, consistent rest routine where you get six to eight hours of sleep each night. One of our front-page editors volunteered for this task.
“To do this, I tracked my sleep using a Fitbit Blaze,” she said. “That helped me to realise that I sleep so much better ― longer and more soundly ― on the weekends. During the week, I’m so stressed out by work and the news that I sleep less and wake up more often.”
Unfortunately, with major stories like the Australia wildfires, impeachment and the coronavirus ― just to name a few ― the news in January was hardly kind to our mental health. (Shout-out to the masses of people who are also too buzzed by the news to sleep: People in media feel your pain.) That made it difficult for our editor to get her sleep in check.
“By the end of the month, I was neither more rested nor happier. In fact, the opposite was true,” she said. “However, I was more educated about my sleep cycle. Since I could see the benefits, I am determined to keep trying.”
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Reading self-development books.
Reading a book by someone you admire or someone who overcame struggles can help you reframe your own perspective. An audience editor put this theory to the test by turning the pages of self-help books. It ultimately didn’t go so well.
“I learned that most self-development books aren’t totally my style,” she said. “I tried to read a few of the popular ones, like ‘The Four Agreements,’ but found the books to be a bit lofty.”
“However, I was able to find one that resonated, ‘Find Your Fuckyeah: Stop Censoring Who You Are and Discover What You Really Want’ by Alexis Rockley,” she continued. “I realise that this book probably said all of the same things as the other self-help books that I tossed, but it felt more grounded in science and facts, which I appreciated.”
Countering negative thoughts.
Many experts recommend pushing back against automatic negative thoughts to improve your happiness. You can do this by asking yourself a simple question in the moment: Does what I’m thinking accurately capture what’s really going on?
One of our audience editors said she often ruminates on worrisome thoughts and potentially catastrophic outcomes, which is why she was up for this particular challenge. And while it did work, it wasn’t necessarily the easiest habit to stick to.
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“It was exhausting at times to recognise and challenge every single negative thought throughout the day for a month, so there were times when I would just intentionally not practice the habit,” she said. “When I did recognise I was having a negative thought, sometimes I would beat myself up for thinking that way to begin with. Over the month, I tried to be more patient, consistent and accepting of the process.”
Overall, she’s hoping to be more vigilant about how she talks to herself, and she said the exercise did help with that. But as a general tip, it is a little lofty. Plus, some mental health experts say it’s important to let yourself feel all your feelings ― including the crappy ones. Pushing aside every single negative one might not be completely beneficial.


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-02-06--How Jo Pavey Learned To 'Enjoy' The Journey And Not Get Beaten By Results

Ian MacNicol / Getty Images / HuffPost UK Jo Pavey
Head In The Game sees athletes across a variety of disciplines speak candidly about their mental wellbeing – from occasional periods of poor mental health to ongoing, sometimes debilitating, struggles with mental illness. They also share coping mechanisms and the support they’ve turned to during their lowest points.
Jo Pavey jokes that she’s “famous for being old”. In 2014, at age 40, the runner became the oldest woman ever to claim gold at a European Championships. Now, she has her sights set on her sixth Olympic Games. If she competes in Tokyo this summer, she’ll be just shy of 47.
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“When I won at the European championships, I got a double-barrelled surname. I was referred to as ‘Jo Pavey-Forty’,” she laughs. “Then when I went to my fifth Olympics in Rio, people used to call me ‘Granny’ – I was so much older than my teammates, they were practically 20 years younger than me. I thought it was funny, really. It sounds cliche, but age is just a number.”
Laughing off the naysayers and running against the odds has been vital for maintaining a sense of identity and boosting her wellbeing, says Pavey, who’s mum to 10-year-old Jacob and six-year-old Emily.
“When I got to a certain age in my career and had kids, I thought maybe I wouldn’t have time to exercise and continue being an athlete, but keeping going has been brilliant for my mental health,” she says. “It makes me feel better about myself and more in control of other aspects of my life.”
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Reuters Staff / Reuters
Pavey is fully aware that her goal of competing in Tokyo is ambitious. Some might say brazen.
“I know it’s a big ask,” she says. “As I get older, it’s harder to hit the times and there’s a lot of talented girls in the UK that you have to compete against [to get a place]. But I feel like if I keep injury-free, it could be a realistic target.”
For Pavey, the key to staying positive when faced with such a daunting challenge is to focus on enjoying the journey – whatever the final outcome.
“As I get older, I enjoy the challenge of seeing how well I can still run. I know realistically I’m probably not in my prime, but I still enjoy the challenge of trying to achieve my goal,” she says.
“If I don’t make it, I want to look back and say, ‘Well, I’ve enjoyed carrying on with my running, I’ve enjoyed getting active with my family, I’ve enjoyed trying to achieve something.’”
Pavey does believe she has one clear advantage over her younger counterparts, however, and that’s the mental resilience you gain with age. Throughout her career, she’s learned not to be derailed by disappointments – and they’ve been plentiful. In 2004, she had high hopes for the Athens Olympics when she tore her calf muscle. Then, four years later, she says she was in “the form of my life” for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, only to be struck down with food poisoning the day before her race.
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“I felt really dizzy and sick. I felt so ill going to do the race – I completed it, but I was well down on the time that I was hoping for and didn’t run the way I had been in training,” she recalls.
“It was disappointing and in some ways you feel like you’ve let everyone down. Your family, your friends and everyone who’s supported you. It was bad, really tough.”
Phil Noble / Reuters Jo Pavey after winning the women's 10,000 metres race during the European Athletics Championships in 2014.
Pavey dealt with the disappointments by taking a step back and asking herself, “What can I learn from this?” Every injury has taught her something about training, she says, and the food poisoning taught her to be extra vigilant about what she eats before competing – even inside the supposedly sanitised walls of the Olympic Village where the athletes stay during the games.
“When I talk to young athletes now, I say there will be ups and downs. Part of a sporting career is that it won’t always be rosey and things won’t always go perfectly,” she says. “There will be times when things don’t go to plan and you have to rethink and focus on what you’ve learned from that.”
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Pressure on sports stars to perform comes from all angles – friends, family, coaches, fans and the media – she says, but none are felt more acutely than the pressure from sponsors.
“I’ve been really happy with sponsors I’ve had more recently, but in the past when I was a younger athlete I did have those pressures of hitting certain times and reaching certain standards in order to maintain a sponsorship contract,” she says. “Then there’s the issue of being pregnant, of course, and having those expectations with my previous sponsor.”
Pavey is referring to Nike, her former sponsor, which froze her contract when she became pregnant with Jacob and again with Emily. Last year, Pavey joined a chorus of sportswomen condemning Nike’s maternity policy. The company says it’s since changed its policies to ensure that “no female athlete is penalised financially for pregnancy”.
But the financial implications of underperforming “do play on your mind and can add stress”, says Pavey, adding that the support of her husband Gavin has helped her navigate sponsorship tension in the past. She’s also an advocate of social running, joining her local Parkrun regularly and not taking it too seriously.
“As far as running and mental health, it’s all about getting out in beautiful scenery and really taking in your environment,” she says. “The running community is a really positive thing to be part of. It’s not just about the fitness side of it, it’s the social side of getting out, being with other people and encouraging each other.
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“When you get back in, you feel good about yourself. You feel like you’re more able to get through life’s challenges.”
It’s that pure and simple love of running that started Pavey’s competing way back in secondary school, and as she eyes up her next target, she reminds us there’s been far more highs than lows.
“I’ve had times when, yes, it’s been stressful and there’s been disappointments,” she reflects. “But all in all, if I look back at what lifestyle sport has given me along the way, all the amazing people I’ve met and the experiences I’ve had, I feel extremely fortunate.”
Getty Images / HuffPost UK Head In The Game
Getty Images / HuffPost UK Head In The Game interviewees: (top, left to right) Frank Bruno, Jordanne Whiley, Becky Downie, Elise Christie, Andrew Strauss; (bottom, left to right) Rebecca Adlington, Liam Broady, Eniola Aluko, Marcus Trescothick, Jo Pavey.
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