Union analysis finds consumers lag behind international peers as some rate-setters remain anxious about inflation
The Trades Union Congress is urging the Bank of England to cut interest rates and rekindle economic growth, pointing to analysis showing that cash-strapped consumers are lagging their international peers.
The Bank’s monetary policy committee voted 5-4 to leave borrowing costs unchanged this month, after six cuts since mid-2024.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Figures said to reflect increased Russian military targeting of cities and infrastructure
Civilian casualties in Ukraine caused by bombing soared by 26% during 2025, reflecting increased Russian targeting of cities and infrastructure in the country, according a global conflict monitoring group.
Action on Armed Violence (AOAV) said 2,248 civilians were reported killed and 12,493 injured by explosive violence in Ukraine according to English-language reports – with the number of casualties an incident rising significantly.
Continue reading...The Shepherd and the Bear is part of a new breed of films with a sympathy for country matters that has moved on from othering folk-horror
One of the best horror scenes this year arrives in a documentary about French pastoralism. It’s pitch-black out on a Pyrenean mountainside. Wagnerian lightning illuminates the ridges and the rain sheeting down. Bells clank in darkness as the sheep flee en masse to the other side of the col. Yves, the shepherd in charge, faces down this bewilderment, trying to perceive the threat: “Are those eyes?”
The Shepherd and the Bear, directed by Max Keegan, is part of a new breed of films with a heightened sympathy for country matters. Surveying the wind-ruffled pastures, lingering in battered cabins, it’s a highly cinematic depiction of the conflict in the Pyrenees provoked by the reintroduction of the brown bear. Much past rural cinema made hay from insisting we beware of the locals: Deliverance’s vicious hicks, The Wicker Man’s wily pagans, Hot Fuzz’s Barbour-jacketed cabal for the “greater good”. But the new school rides with the locals like Keegan’s film taps their knowledge and tells us what they’ve known all along: that it’s nature that’s truly scary.
Continue reading...Who is his constituency now? Not the left or the right – and not the centre any more. That’s why there’s been a nosedive in the polls
After a tumultuous few weeks, we are once again in “reset” territory. Keir Starmer has bought some more time, there is a modest bounce in his polling, and he has had the well-timed fortune of the Munich security conference. His call there for the “remaking” of western alliances and taking the initiative on European defence cooperation has fumigated the air a little of the sense of imminent demise that has been swirling around him. But it will probably be a temporary hiatus. He is in a hole that is too deep to climb out of. The prime minister’s persistent unpopularity is best understood as the result of abundance: there is simply, in Starmer, something for everyone to deplore.
In policy, he has taken stances that have established him in the minds of many people as devoid of principle and compassion. On Gaza, Starmer got it wrong from the start. From his early assertion that Israel had the right to cut off water and power, to refusing calls for a ceasefire and then cracking down on protest (a move now judged as unlawful by the high court), the prime minister positioned himself against a huge domestic swell of distress. Add to that the cuts to disability benefits that made him appear callous after so many years of austerity, and what you have – whatever U-turns or watering down followed – is an impression of a politician whose instincts are those of a state apparatchik; someone whose default is enforcing pre-existing conventional wisdoms in foreign policy and economics, no matter how damaging or unpopular they are.
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Cisco is getting close to releasing its own hypervisor, as an alternative to VMware for users of its calling applications – software like the Unified Communications Manager it suggests as an alternative to PBXs and other telephony hardware.…
Het Japanse Ichikawa City Zoo ziet zich onverwacht geconfronteerd met een wereldwijde internethype rond het makaakje Punch, dat na verstoting door zijn moeder troost vindt bij een pluchen knuffel. Beelden van het zes maanden oude aapje dat zich stevig vastklampt aan een pluchen orang-oetan worden massaal gedeeld op onder meer X, Instagram en TikTok.
Punch werd in juli 2025 geboren en kort na de bevalling aan zijn lot overgelaten, waarna verzorgers het dier met de hand gingen grootbrengen en zijn ontwikkeling nauwlettend volgen. Omdat jonge makaken normaal voortdurend aan hun moeder hangen, kreeg het diertje dekentjes en speelgoed om stress te verminderen; Punch koos uiteindelijk een pluchen orang-oetan, die hij sindsdien overal mee naartoe neemt, ook tijdens contact met andere apen.
De eerste video’s waarin Punch slapend of zichtbaar gespannen aan zijn knuffel hangt, leverden in korte tijd miljoenen weergaven en duizenden reacties op, variërend van vertederde opmerkingen tot reflecties over het belang van sociale banden bij mens en dier. In reacties op X omschrijven gebruikers de knuffel als “de veiligste, warmste plek ter wereld” voor het diertje, terwijl anderen schrijven “geobsedeerd” te zijn door Punch omdat hij hun tijdlijn domineert.
Volgens het park is Punch in januari geleidelijk geĂŻntroduceerd bij een groep soortgenoten, maar blijft hij zijn knuffel nadrukkelijk opzoeken als houvast tijdens de overgang naar het groepsleven. Het Ichikawa City Zoo benadrukt dat de belangstelling voor Punch een kans biedt om aandacht te vragen voor bredere problemen bij primaten, zoals verstoring van familiegroepen en de impact van menselijk ingrijpen op het natuurlijke gedrag van apen.
