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Tough competition for sixth-formers as universities try to avoid overcrowding – and next year may be no better
For the first time in years, sixth-formers who don’t get the A-level grades they need in August are unlikely to be able to talk their way into top universities, experts are warning. They say elite institutions are facing unprecedented demand on space and a new era of much tougher competition for places is dawning, with fewer opportunities through clearing.
Many leading universities were forced to take thousands more students than they expected to last year after the government’s U-turn on A-level grades. This year, with grade inflation anticipated again, some top universities have made fewer offers. Experts say that when results come out on 10 August, admissions officers at the most prestigious universities will stick rigidly to offer grades so that resources including libraries, halls of residence and labs are not overwhelmed.
Continue reading...Nigerian sprinter Blessing Okagbare is out of the Tokyo Olympics after being handed a provisional doping ban on the day of her 100 metres semi-final.
The Athletics Integrity Unit announced that Okagbare had “tested positive for human growth hormone” in an out-of-competition test on 19 July.
Continue reading...American BMX racer Connor Fields suffered a brain bleed during a horror crash in Friday’s Olympic event but has been moved out of intensive care, his team confirmed on Saturday.
Fields went down hard in a first-corner crash during the semi-final runs and was treated by the side of the circuit before being rushed to Tokyo’s St Luke’s International Hospital.
Continue reading...Australia will have to vaccinate 80% of its adults against Covid-19 before it can consider reopening its borders, the country’s prime minister, Scott Morrison, has said.
Announcing a four-stage plan for the lifting of coronavirus restrictions, Morrison expressed confidence that phase B - having 70% of the population fully vaccinated - could be reached by the end of the year.
The European Championship 2020 final between England and Italy earlier this month helped to “supercharge” coronavirus infections in north-east England, according to a senior public health official in the region.
Middlesbrough currently has the highest rate of new cases in England - although it is down sharply week-on-week from 1,421.5 cases per 100,000 people to 695.8. The biggest fall was recorded by Redcar and Cleveland, which is down from 1,520.2 to 668.6.
The rates tended to kick off just after the Euros football final - our three highest days were three-to-five days after that final, so I think our momentum was kind of picking up then and that event just supercharged it up to the unfortunate position we found ourselves in.
But what we have seen over the last week is our rates have more than halved, and so even though everyone else’s rates are coming down as well, our rates seem to be coming down very quickly.
Continue reading...Every month in the UK, hundreds of homes are visited by police officers dropping a bombshell: someone has been viewing images of child abuse. What happens to the families left behind?
It was an ordinary summer evening in 2016 for Emma when her ex-husband, Ben, dropped their young children back after a weekend visit at his place. The couple had been divorced for less than a year. Their split had brought with it the usual pain and sadness that comes when a long relationship ends, but things were amicable. He lived nearby in the town they had grown up in and saw the children almost daily.Emma was running a bath for the kids when she heard a knock on the door: “I thought he had forgotten something.” Instead, she was confronted by a female police officer, behind whom was her ex-husband, standing by his car, surrounded by plainclothes police.
“I immediately thought someone was dead,” Emma says. “The policewoman told me to settle the children in front of the TV and before she even had time to tell me what had happened, the senior officer came in, looked me in the eye and said: ‘I’m so sorry, life is never going to be the same again. The next few months are going to be hell.’ And then they told me they were arresting Ben for accessing indecent images of children. I felt like the world dropped away.”
Continue reading...From a play in a car park to an online event from a shed, this year’s festival is finding new ways to entertain
The Edinburgh festival fringe, at its height, was a magnificent monster. The largest arts festival in the world, it was exhilaratingly, dizzyingly, dauntingly huge and – like a city-consuming ooze from a 1950s B-movie – it kept growing, year after year. In 2019, the fringe featured more than 3,500 shows in over 300 venues. And that’s without taking into account its less chaotic sibling, the Edinburgh international festival.
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Continue reading...President Pedro Castillo completes his cabinet after causing shockwaves with appointment of controversial Guido Bellido as prime minister
After 24 hours of uncertainty and the worst Friday in years on the stock exchange, Peru’s new president, Pedro Castillo, has completed his cabinet, swearing in the moderate leftist economist Pedro Francke as finance minister, and in the process calming jittery investors and anxious Peruvians alike.
Aníbal Torres was also sworn in, as justice minister, on Friday, filling the remaining empty cabinet posts. The rest were sworn in late on Thursday, amid deep unease over Castillo’s choice of prime minister, Guido Bellido, who is under investigation for allegedly defending the Shining Path, a Maoist rebel group that killed tens of thousands of Peruvians in the 1980s and 1990s, and is also accused of making homophobic remarks.
Continue reading...Emma Wilson sealed a windsurfing bronze medal for Great Britain in Enoshima on Saturday, a quarter of a century after her mother came up agonisingly short in her final Olympic regatta.
Related: Team GB win triathlon relay as Jonny Brownlee ends jinx and finally gets gold
Continue reading...The skateboarding phenomenon has bounced back from a horrendous fall and is set to be the star of the show in Tokyo
In May last year, Sky Brown, the young skateboarding phenom, almost died when she fell 15ft onto her head while transitioning between vert ramps at a skate park in California. The horrifying impact fractured the 12-year-old’s skull, broke her wrist and hand, and left her unconscious as she was airlifted to hospital.
Footage of the accident was uploaded to Brown’s popular YouTube channel and viewed millions of times. Lesser skaters would feel deeply uneasy about returning to the sport and repeating such tricks, but not Brown: she’s famed for being fearless.
Related: Skateboarder Sky Brown to become youngest British summer Olympian
Continue reading...Tabletop gaming, based on a mix of science fiction and fantasy worlds, has seen sales surge during lockdown
It started in a small flat in west London, with three friends selling board games and a fanzine via mail order; now Games Workshop is worth more than Marks & Spencer and Asos and is more profitable than Google.
This week the Nottingham-based company, which produces the Warhammer fantasy role-playing brand, announced all of its workers would get a £5,000 bonus after sales and profits surged during the pandemic.
Continue reading...Walkers are Welcome is a network of towns and villages that make excellent holiday hubs. Winchcombe, with ‘an appealing amount of Cotswoldiness’ is a perfect example
On a sunny day, on a hike in the Cotswold foothills, we stumble upon walking royalty. In the graveyard of Dumbleton’s Norman church, there he is: Patrick Leigh Fermor. A man who, in the 1930s, strode from Holland to the Bosphorus. Scanning his headstone’s Greek inscription in the oh-so-English countryside, we’re awed, humbled, envious. Though also aware that you don’t have to trek quite that far for a satisfying journey.
On our own five-day, car-free trip to Gloucestershire, my partner and I have walked almost 100 miles – and gotten nowhere. But we’ve found, among other things, a neolithic tomb, a wife of Henry VIII, a lot of birds and, now, a travel writing legend.
Continue reading...Labour leader calls for date on which fully vaccinated in England can avoid self-isolation to match that of Wales
Keir Starmer has challenged Downing Street to bring forward the date on which fully vaccinated people in England can avoid coronavirus isolation if they have been in contact with a person who has tested positive, in a move that would match a date of 7 August in Wales.
The call from the Labour leader – which adds to pressure from Conservative MPs – comes after the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, insisted on Thursday that the public had to “stick with” the 16 August date.
Continue reading...Majority taxpayer-owned lender plans fresh round of dividends and share buybacks
NatWest Group has returned to profit and announced plans for a fresh round of dividends and share buybacks that will result in a payout of at least £190m for the Treasury.
The majority taxpayer-owned lender – formerly known as Royal Bank of Scotland – said it planned to pay investors dividends worth £347m at 3p per share after swinging to a £2.5bn profit in the first half of the year as the British economy recovers from Covid-19.
Continue reading...Bryony Page claimed her second Olympic medal on the bounce with bronze in the women’s trampoline event at the Ariake Arena.
The Crewe-born 30-year-old, who won a surprise silver in Rio in 2016, scored 55.735 to finish behind the Chinese pair Zhu Xueying and Liu Lingling.
Continue reading...The Korean marksman Jin Jong-oh has criticised the International Olympic Committee for allowing a member of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to compete and win a gold medal in the 10-metre air pistol event, saying: “How can a terrorist win first place? That’s the most absurd and ridiculous thing.”
In comments reported by the Korea Times, the six-times Olympic medallist added it was “pure nonsense” to allow Javad Foroughi to compete in the Tokyo Games given his membership in a militia of the IRGC, which was labelled a terrorist organisation by the US in 2019.
Continue reading...The turbocharged twist on rockabilly enraptured 80s punks and rock’n’rollers – and alienated plenty more – with its food fights, ferocious club nights and phantasmagoria
If you wanted to date the moment one of the biggest youth subcultures of 80s Britain arrived, you could pick 40 years ago this month, on 4 July 1981. That night, at the Marquee club in Soho, a few hundred kids gathered to watch a band who were almost singlehandedly kickstarting a new wave of alternative music. Waiting for them to come on, those fans launched into the song that served as their heroes’ unofficial theme, from David Lynch’s Eraserhead. “In heaven, everything is fine,” they sang. “You’ve got your good things, and I’ve got mine.” A few months later, that chorus opened, and gave its name to, the first LP by the Meteors. And as their frontman would later claim, “Only the Meteors are pure psychobilly.”
In time, psychobilly – a turbocharged twist on rockabilly, the country-enhanced variant on R&B that prefigured the classic rock’n’roll of the late 50s – would become codified. “My take on it would be a much more aggressive, loud approach to rockabilly that must include a double bass, modern lyrics – no cars, pinups or bubble gum – lots of graveyards, vampires, zombies, horror flick and death-influenced lyrics,” says Mark Harman of Restless, who came through the psychobilly scene in the early 80s. “Anything goes, really. Overdriven guitars and full rock drum kits, big quiffs, weird and wild clothing, makeup and props – blood and skeletons welcome. It should be fast and loud, exciting and fun.”
Continue reading...A history of theatre’s most controversial moments, from Jerry Springer: The Opera to Sarah Kane’s ‘unrelenting’ Blasted
Sensationally vulgar, this musical take on the TV host was taken to court for blasphemy. Featuring tap-dancing members of the Ku Klux Klan and Jesus dressed as a baby, it was designed to distress. “For all its shock and schlock tactics,” wrote Michael Billington at the time, “the show implies that TV has a moral responsibility.” The BBC received 63,000 complaints after airing the musical in 2005.
Continue reading...Plans are part of £338m package to create ‘road user hierarchy’ and boost cycling and walking across Britain
Changes to the Highway Code, including putting pedestrians at the top of a new “road user hierarchy”, have been announced by the UK transport secretary.
The proposed changes, which are due to receive parliamentary approval in the autumn, will also give pedestrians priority at junctions as well as raising further awareness about the dangers of speeding.
Continue reading...Simone Biles cheers on the 18-year-old daughter of refugees who fled Laos for US at end of Vietnam war
This was supposed to be the night that Simone Biles added yet another star-spangled page to the history books, by becoming the first gymnast to defend an women’s Olympic all-around title for more than 50 years. Instead a new American talent emerged from the shadow of greatness.
While Biles watched and whooped from the stands, 18-year-old Sunisa Lee held her nerve in an epic four-way tussle for gold. She had already made waves by becoming the first Hmong American to compete for Team US – and then again during a nerveless performance in Tuesday night’s team competition after Biles withdrew citing anxiety concerns. This, though, was a performance bursting with energy, boldness and power.
Continue reading...Manager Hege Riise has sought to instil resilience while also looking after players’ wellbeing at the Olympics
Hege Riise spoke of the importance of managing the mental toll tournament football can take on players and described her whirlwind management of Team GB as a “privilege” as she readied her squad to face Australia in the quarter-finals of the Olympics.
The former Norway midfielder – who won Olympic gold in 2000, the World Cup in 1995 and the Euros in 1993 and was an assistant coach with the US women’s national team from 2009 to 2012 – joined the England setup as a temporary assistant coach alongside the Canada international Rhian Wilkinson in January. With Phil Neville parting ways with the Football Association to become manager of Inter Miami shortly afterwards, Riise stepped up as interim England manager and then the FA turned to her to lead Team GB in Japan with Wilkinson as her No 2.
Continue reading...Marketa Vondrousova and Belinda Bencic will face each other in the women’s tennis singles gold medal match. Vondrousova, who toppled the second seed, Naomi Osaka, in the third round, continued to back up that big win by outplaying Elina Svitolina, the fourth seed, 6-3, 6-1.
Related: Sunisa Lee steps up in Biles’s absence to win Olympic women’s gymnastics all-around
Continue reading...Karapiru Awá Guajá, among the last of the hunter-gatherer Awá tribe, survived a massacre and a decade alone in the forest, inspiring others with his resilience and ‘extraordinary warmth’
He survived a massacre that killed most of his family in the Brazilian Amazon and lived for 10 years alone in the forest, but Karapiru Awá Guajá could not escape the pandemic.
Karapiru, one of the last of the hunter-gatherer nomadic Awá of Maranhão state, died of Covid-19 earlier this month. With only 300 Awá thought to remain, they have been called the “earth’s most threatened tribe”.
Continue reading...Hot favourite Jess Fox finally won the Olympic gold she craved after a thrilling final run in the canoe slalom.
The Australian, widely considered the best individual female paddler in history surged down the course to put clear water between herself and Britain’s Mallory Franklin in the silver-medal position by more than three seconds.
Continue reading...The German Cycling Federation’s sporting director has been sent home from the Tokyo Olympics after a microphone caught him shouting a racial slur during the men’s time trial on Wednesday.
Patrick Moster was heard telling his rider Nikias Arndt: “Get the camel riders! Get the camel riders! Come on!” as he tried to catch rival cyclists from Algeria and Eritrea.
Continue reading...In the last month, devastating weather extremes have hit regions across the world. From flash floods in Belgium to deadly temperatures in the US, from wildfires in Siberia to landslides in India, it has been an unprecedented period of chaotic weather. Climate scientists have long predicted that human-caused climate disruption would lead to more flooding, heatwaves, droughts, storms and other forms of extreme weather, but even they have been shocked by the scale of these scenes
Narrating the hit dating show sent Stirling’s career into overdrive, but in his new comedy, Buffering, the standup returns to his kids’ TV roots
When Iain Stirling was working as a CBBC presenter in his 20s, he broke up with his long-term girlfriend. Unfortunately, the split occurred just hours before he was contractually obliged to go on a two-day trip to Bristol with the chronically cheerful pop duo Jedward. Later, mordantly recollecting the story in his standup – his original career before children’s TV got in the way – someone from his management team told him: “Your life would be a funny sitcom.”
Related: The Guide: Staying In – sign up for our home entertainment tips
Continue reading...Caeleb Dressel tossed his medal to a teammate after winning the 4x100m freestyle relay earlier in the week. He’ll want to hold on to this one.
The figurehead of US men’s swimming won the first individual Olympic gold of his career in Tokyo on Thursday, setting a new Olympic record in the 100m freestyle.
Continue reading...Former Olympian’s calm presence and expertise wins praise from viewers of BBC’s Tokyo 2020 coverage
The BBC has faced a lot of criticism over its Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games coverage, but one element that seems to have only attracted praise has been the reassuring and calm presence of Lutalo Muhammad giving his expertise during the taekwondo events.
As well as his soothing voice, Muhammad has been happy to demonstrate some of his moves in the BBC’s virtual studio, while also noting that he’d have to be careful not to split his trousers while executing the high kicks, much to the amusement of his co-presenters.
Continue reading...Photographer Maroussia Mbaye spoke to women who said crushing social stigma, poverty and lack of traditional support systems had left them with no choice but to commit infanticide
Mbeubeuss is one of the biggest rubbish tips in Africa and Senegal’s largest open cemetery for murdered children. In the past three years, the bodies of 32 infants have been recovered from the site by the waste-pickers who work there.
Looking at the high rate of infanticide in Senegal, it seems the main reasons for it are shame about pregnancy outside marriage and a loss of traditional support for young women.
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