Searching...

Pat McGrath becomes first makeup artist to receive damehood from the Queen

The groundbreaking British artist honoured for services to fashion, beauty and diversity

British makeup artist Pat McGrath has been awarded a damehood in the Queen’s New Year 2021 honours list, becoming the first makeup artist ever to do so.

Related: Beauty queen: how Pat McGrath revolutionised makeup

Continue reading...

from The Guardian https://ift.tt/3rK7ucI

Minneapolis police release body-cam video of first killing since George Floyd

Shooting, which took place less than a mile from where Floyd died, has stirred anxiety about renewed protests in the city

Police in Minneapolis have released body-camera footage from a traffic stop that ended with a man shot and killed, the city’s first such death since George Floyd’s killing in May.

The quick move was aimed at stemming public anger over the killing, which has stirred anxiety about renewed protests seven months after the widespread unrest that followed Floyd’s death at the hands of police.

Related: Minneapolis switches $8m from police budget to violence prevention

Continue reading...

from The Guardian https://ift.tt/34ZONYN

'Keep the light on': joy for some, regret for others at Brexit endgame

Nicola Sturgeon says Scotland will be back soon, while Nigel Farage hails exit from EU

Some politicians in Britain and the EU have expressed triumph while others voiced bitter regret after the UK’s Brexit transition period ended on Thursday night.

Britain left the European bloc’s vast single market for goods, services and the movement of people at 11pm GMT on New Year’s Eve – midnight in Brussels – completing the biggest single economic change the country has experienced since the second world war.

For some, including the prime minister, it was moment of pride. Boris Johnson said the UK was now “free to do trade deals around the world, and free to turbocharge our ambition to be a science superpower”.

Continue reading...

from The Guardian https://ift.tt/381zCQr

Doctors in England despair over disregard for Covid restrictions

Hospital staff express frustration as they tell of reckless behaviour by some members of the public

“If people clapped for us now, excuse my language but I would probably just tell them to fuck off,” said the exhausted junior doctor facing January in Britain on an overcrowded intensive care unit. “The majority of people, even people I know who are supposed to be sensible, are all doing things they shouldn’t be and still bubbling with their 80-year-old mother. It feels like almost everyone is breaking the rules in a dangerous way.”

The doctor, who asked not to be named, was training in a hospital in the West Midlands. Like many medics she said she felt increasingly frustrated at the behaviour of people who might have applauded the NHS on their doorsteps in the spring. It had been a hard year watching patients struggle for breath and, ultimately, life.

Continue reading...

from The Guardian https://ift.tt/3o4CH89

New year, new uncertainty: the big events due in 2021

Joe Biden becomes US president, Britain fully leaves the EU and China will land a probe on Mars

It can’t be as bad as 2020, can it? A new year brings fresh promise and fresh uncertainty. Here are some of the principal events expected in 2021.

Continue reading...

from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2L7Jlfk

UK high street lost 177,000 jobs in 2020, study finds

Job losses expected to continue in new year with further 200,000 cuts

The high street shed 177,000 jobs in 2020 according to a study that predicts an even more devastating toll on retail jobs this year, with a further 200,000 expected to be lost.

The job losses in what is the UK’s biggest private employment sector – with particular importance for women – illustrate the dramatic and permanent impact the pandemic will have on the shopping landscape.

Continue reading...

from The Guardian https://ift.tt/3rGDVbL

Boris Johnson's post-Brexit trade deal passes into UK law

Prime minister thanks MPs and peers after Queen gives royal assent to bill redrawing ties with EU

  • How did your MP vote?
  • Labour frontbenchers quit after defying Starmer on deal
  • Boris Johnson’s post-Brexit trade deal with Brussels has passed into law following a whirlwind 14-hour parliamentary process that has radically redrawn the UK’s ties with Europe.

    The prime minister thanked MPs and peers for passing the European Union (future relationship) bill in one day, in a statement urging the nation to “seize” the moment when the transition period with the bloc ends at 11pm on Thursday.

    Continue reading...

    from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2MnqaP9

    Record number of Britons to take part in dry January

    Sales of no and low alcohol alternatives rise during lockdown year

    A record number of Britons are planning to forego booze during so-called dry January, after re-evaluating their home drinking habits during lockdown and as sales of “no and low” alcohol alternatives soar.

    The charity Alcohol Change UK said its polling shows more than 6.5 million adults intend to participate in dry January – up from 3.9 million last year. That is the equivalent of one in five of people who drink alcohol.

    Continue reading...

    from The Guardian https://ift.tt/3n86GLe

    Home Grown Hotels one of 138 ‘rogue employers’ fined over minimum wage

    Hotel group controlled by multi-billionaire tax exile Sir James Ratcliffe joins Tesco and Pizza Hut on low-payer list

    A hotel group controlled by the multi-billionaire tax exile Sir James Ratcliffe has been fined by the government along with 138 other “rogue employers” who failed to pay their staff the national minimum wage.

    Ratcliffe, who has an estimated £12bn fortune, owns 55% of Home Grown Hotels, a boutique group he co-founded with Robin Hutson, a hotelier who built and sold the Hotel du Vin chain and is a former chairman of the members’ club Soho House.

    Continue reading...

    from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2KRupCb

    Multiple cases raise fears UK variant is already widespread in US

    Cases in Colorado and California raise questions about how mutation entered the country and whether its too late to stop it

    The US has now reported multiple cases of the new and apparently more contagious variant of the coronavirus first detected in the UK, triggering concerns about how long the mutant version has been here and how widely it has spread.

    The first known case was reported in Colorado on Tuesday. The person infected was later identified as a National Guardsman who had been sent to help out at a nursing home struggling with an outbreak. Health officials have said a second Guard member may also have it.

    Continue reading...

    from The Guardian https://ift.tt/382pzdS

    Britain’s independent shops buck Covid sales slump in 2020

    Travel curbs and homeworking prompt people to shop locally instead of in city centres

    Britain’s independent shops had a sales boost in 2020 despite an overall drop in retail spending, as Covid travel restrictions and working from home prompted consumers to shop on local high streets instead of city centres.

    Data from Barclaycard shows spending at independent food and drink shops, including off-licences, butchers and bakeries, jumped 28.6% in 2020 compared with a year earlier.

    Continue reading...

    from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2Mg8PYd

    Rory Bremner prank may have averted Tory party revolt

    TV impressionist pretended to be John Major in call to Eurosceptic rebel MP, National Archives show

    The TV impressionist Rory Bremner may have inadvertently saved John Major’s bacon and averted a Conservative party revolt after he prank-called a rebel MP pretending to be the prime minister, records released by the National Archives show.

    Sir Richard Body, the MP for Holland with Boston, and one of the Eurosceptic Maastricht rebels Major nicknamed the “bastards”, was utterly convinced the then prime minister had rung him asking for his support in October 1993.

    Continue reading...

    from The Guardian https://ift.tt/3hqrY5k