The regulator has said that water companies are again planning to raise household prices.David Black, head of water services regulation authority Ofwat, suggested suppliers wanted bills to rise to fund infrastructure investment.This is despite the sector being scrutinised over financial uncertainty, dividend payouts and environmental failures.Black told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Wednesday:...
More than 10 million people have signed up to Twitter rival Threads in its first few hours, Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg has claimed.Threads, a “text-based conversation app”, is linked to Meta-owned Instagram and went live at midnight on Thursday.Posting on the app under the username Zuck and using a mind-blown emoji, Zuckerberg said: “10 million sign up in seven hours...
The new social media app set to be launched by Facebook’s owner Meta as the “first credible threat” to Twitter is not yet appearing in some app stores in Europe.Threads, described as a “text-based conversation app”, will be linked to Meta-owned Instagram and go live on Thursday.Users in the US and UK have already been offered a preorder option, but some app stores in...
According to a new study, having a high proportion of ultra-processed foods can lead to highly variable blood pressure between day and night.People whose diet included more unprocessed or less processed food had fewer blood pressure fluctuations between day and night.Ultra-processed foods include ice cream, spaghetti hoops, ham, sausages, crisps and breakfast cereals.High blood coercion rarely...
The five people who died on the Titanic submersible spent their final moments in the darkness listening to music; it has been revealed.Christine Dawood, whose husband and son died in the expedition, described the hours leading up to the fateful voyage in an interview with the New York Times published on Sunday.British businessman Shahzada Dawood, 48, and his son, Suleman, 19, were among the five...
A new prison designed to help cut crime, rehabilitate offenders and boost the local economy has officially opened in Leicester.Category C prison HMP Fosse Way will house 1,715 prisoners, including innovations to bolster security and state-of-the-art workshops to help prisoners find work.The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) has billed it as the greenest prison ever constructed in the UK, thanks to...
The boss of the NHS was today unable to say what a four-year-old boy with a potential 70-week wait for treatment should do.Amanda Pritchard, chief executive of NHS England, appeared on the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme and was told about a viewer, Stephen from Harrow, whose son is on a waiting list between 50 and 70 weeks long.His only alternative for quicker treatment is to...
The Oscar-winning actor Kevin Spacey was a “sexual bully” who abused the power and influence that his reputation and fame gave him to assault four men, a court has heard.Spacey is accused of getting a sexual thrill out of his predatory and aggressive behaviour towards the men, who had the “misfortune” of attracting his attention, the court was told. He allegedly performed...
As Rishi Sunak knows, a ministerial resignation can be highly damaging to a prime minister.Sunak resigned as chancellor a year ago, which marked the dawn of the end of Boris Johnson’s premiership.Today the tables turned as Lord (Zac) Goldsmith resigned in anger from Sunak’s government. While Lord Goldsmith attacked Sunak for apparently lacking interest in green issues, it is...
A Labour MP has criticised ITV over a news item on Thames Water that featured a transgender woman talking about how higher bills affected her as a mother.The segment, shared on Twitter, featured Mika Minio-Paluello discussing how the price hikes on water bills affected her and her family.Minio-Paluelle says: “The idea that we’re going to have even greater water bills at a time of...