Food

The half-price meal offer appears to have benefited retailers, which have also been hit hard by the pandemic. The number of people visiting high streets and shopping malls surged last week, especially during the evenings, according to the retail analysts Springboard. … [Read more...] about Eat out to help out used 10.5m times in scheme’s first week

A government spokesperson said: “We have provided £9.3bn extra welfare support to help those most in need, including increasing universal credit by up to £20 a week, as well as introducing income protection schemes, mortgage holidays and additional support for renters. Meanwhile, since mid-March we’ve supported 3.9m claims to universal credit and made 1.3m advance payments to people who could not wait. … [Read more...] about Extreme poverty ‘will double by Christmas’ in UK because of Covid-19

The mother has long thin legs with dark knee joints, her rotund body a symmetry of brown white and black markings. She’s a mothercare spider, Theridion sisyphium, feeding her young on regurgitated food until they are large enough to share her meals. When she dies, they will eat her body before they venture out across my garden. Frost will pick out the shapes of the sea hollies, the wind will tatter them and in spring when I’m gardening I will find the lacy and beautiful skeletons of their bracts. … [Read more...] about Country diary: there’s new life in Miss Willmott’s Ghost

Coronavirus: Anger over lack of PPE for nurse Gareth Roberts Coronavirus: 75 care homes in Wales with cases of coronavirus Coronavirus: Minister calls review after Cardiff test centre closure What happened to the targets?There was a target of testing 5,000 people a day by mid-April, rising to between 8-10.000 by May. But that was clearly not deliverable and brought criticism of the Welsh Government. … [Read more...] about Coronavirus: Why is Wales not testing over 65s as in England?

We overload the land with nitrates and phosphates, overgraze it, burn it, overburden it with unsuitable varieties of crops, and spray it with pesticides so killing the soil invertebrates that bring it to life. Many soils are losing their topsoil and changing from rich ecosystems brimming with fungi, worms, specialist bacteria and a host of other microscopic organisms, into hard, sterile and empty ground. … [Read more...] about Boris Johnson’s fiancée Carrie Symonds says Sir David Attenborough’s show warning of mass extinction of wildlife left her in TEARS – as she pleads: ‘Everyone should watch this, it’s time to act’