
Fructose, glucose, sucrose. Lactose, maltose, dextrose. Treacle, molasses … honey! The sweet stuff is everywhere, in everything from colas and cakes to fruit and veg. Are some forms healthier than others? And what about artificial sweeteners?
Many people try not to eat too much sugar, yet it is added to so much food and drink, it is hard to avoid. It goes by more than 50 different names on labels, is present even in seemingly savoury products and the alternatives are confusing and controversial. So is the sweet stuff addictive – and should you cut it out completely?
Continue reading...Rochford LGBTQ+ community say Reform council’s ban on flying pride flags or holding events states they’re not welcome
Before Reform gained control of Essex county council in the May elections, Chris Taylor and members of the Rochford LGBTQ+ community already felt they were witnessing a growing tide of political rhetoric around identity.
But they were still shocked when the county’s new leadership moved to ban Pride events in 74 libraries, scaling back events of “any particular groups or themes”, a decision they said was “straight out of Trumpland”.
Continue reading...Touring this bitterly divided constituency, what strikes you most is people want something better. But what exactly?
Keir Starmer teeters. The defence secretary exits, and thereby seems to confirm the prime minister’s demise. Andy Burnham scents a final, belated breakthrough, while most of the national talk is of violence, a country in crisis and malaise. And in Platt Bridge, a neighbourhood at the heart of the constituency where the fates of the Labour party, the current government and the country are all about to be decided, life still seems to be locked into an endlessly familiar pattern.
Amid all the redbrick terrace houses, too many shops are shuttered and empty. The latest casualty was a proudly independent baker who had traded for 40 years, apparently to be replaced by another tanning lounge. The main roads are clogged with traffic, while other streets tend to be eerily quiet. People speak of closed-down pubs, impossible private rents, and that ubiquitous British complaint: “There’s nothing for the kids to do.”
Continue reading...Our favourite music, clothes and books used to be markers of individuality – but the algorithm has made us all sheep. Meet the style rebels fighting back
What are you into? What floats your boat? What music, films, clothes, art, books – anything, really – do you actually like? Do you find these questions more difficult to answer than you would have done 10 years ago? How about 20? You do? You’re not alone.
It has become impossible to ignore: personal taste has been seriously debased – if not completely destroyed – by technological advancement. We know the internet has radically altered the way we form our opinions and beliefs. Now we’re waking up to another sobering truth: it has wrecked our capacity to form our own preferences.
Continue reading...Rebalance Earth is investing in Broughton Sanctuary to generate financial, environmental and social returns
From a high point on the hill, the North Yorkshire landscape unrolls below. The moorland above gives way to grassland, trees and then pasture, divided by the region’s traditional dry stone walls.
The view may be idyllic, but it belies the condition of parts of this land, belonging to the sprawling 1,100 hectare (2,500-acre) Broughton Sanctuary estate, near Skipton.
Continue reading...Alarm over the judgment and behaviour of the world’s most powerful man, and the consequent risks to the world, can only get worse
The main Nuremberg trial ended, Winston Churchill warned of an iron curtain descending across Europe, It’s a Wonderful Life received its premiere and, at Jamaica hospital in the borough of Queens, New York, Donald John Trump was born.
It was 1946, also the birth year of George W Bush and Bill Clinton, but on Sunday the current US president celebrates his 80th birthday in a style uniquely his own. Trump will stage a night of cage fighting on the once-pristine White House south lawn as part of events marking the 250th anniversary of US independence.
Continue reading...The US president confirmed the agreement as Pakistan’s prime minister said the official signing will be in Geneva on 19 June
Full report: peace deal between US and Iran, Pakistan says, with strait of Hormuz to reopen
Iranian hardliners in vociferous push to reject US peace deal
Israel says it has struck Beirut’s south suburbs, with explosions heard in the city. The Israeli military claimed the attacks on the Lebanese capital were in response to Hezbollah firing into Israeli territory.
The military were reportedly targeting Hezbollah targets in Beirut’s southern suburbs, the group’s stronghold known as Dahiyeh, according to a joint statement by prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and defense minister Israel Katz.
Continue reading...Labour grandee was MP for Birmingham Sparkbrook from 1964 until his retirement from the Commons in 1997
Roy Hattersley, the former Labour deputy leader and author, has died at the age of 93.
Keir Starmer described Hattersley as a “giant of the labour movement”.
Continue reading...Dormition Cathedral of Kyiv Pechersk Lavra, one of Ukraine’s most significant religious sites, and residential buildings hit across capital
Ukraine has come under a massive Russian missile and drone attack with waves of explosions echoing through the capital, Kyiv, in the early hours of Monday morning as air raids killed at least five people across the country.
Among targets hit in the sustained wave of strikes were the city’s historic Dormition Cathedral within the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra, one of Ukraine’s most significant religious sites, as well as residential buildings across the city.
Continue reading...MP for Rochester and Strood to use private member’s bill to put issue before MPs again after it was blocked by the Lords
The assisted dying bill is set to return to the Commons after the Labour MP Lauren Edwards agreed to use her private member’s bill to put the issue before MPs again.
Edwards said she wanted to give the legislation another chance because it had been blocked by the House of Lords after being passed by MPs. The return of the bill would give supporters a chance to use the Parliament Acts to potentially bypass the Lords if it was blocked for a second time.
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