Parents of disabled children fear that the government’s reforms to special needs education in England could mean they lose vital support, according to a new survey that highlights the high stakes facing ministers.
The poll of 1,000 parents of children with multiple complex needs including deaf-blind, autism and physical impairment, carried out for the disability charity Sense, found that half of the parents surveyed “feel nervous” about the upcoming reforms, and 45% said they were “worried my child’s support will be taken away” in any changes.
After months of community resistance, the president backed down. Leadership from below succeeded when politics as usual failed
For most politicians and journalists, the answer to nearly every question is to look up. Not at the moon, the stars or even the chimney tops, but at their leaders: the people who sit atop institutions, wield power and set the line that others follow. The top of the totem pole is the sole focal point, and the stories that count usually come from the heights of power.
Bend your neck back far enough and Davos becomes not a talking shop in a Swiss ski resort, but a gathering of world leaders; Keir Starmer flying into Beijing is a summit of great powers; even who should be the MP for Gorton and Denton is really all about the Labour leadership. For this piece, the Guardian’s research librarians counted how many times the words “leader” or “leadership” appeared across the British press. Over the past week alone, the rough total stands at 2,000. A third of those stories concern one man: Donald Trump.
Light scattering creates the shade we see when we look skyward, and studies show the process varies around the world
On holiday the sky may look a deeper shade of blue than even the clearest summer day at home. Some places, including Cape Town in South Africa and Briançon in France, pride themselves on the blueness of their skies. But is there really any difference?
Exclusive: Union claims some offenders are deliberately breaking probation terms in order to deal drugs in jail
Record numbers of offenders are being recalled to prison in England and Wales with union officials claiming that some are deliberately breaking the terms of their probation in order to deal drugs in prison.
Prison sources said that after the implementation of early release schemes, as many as 5,000 men were recalled in December alone – more than a third of the total number released in the year to June 2025.
Parents, teachers and young people share their views on whether social media restrictions would work in the UK
Pressure is mounting on the UK government to introduce a ban on social media for under-16s, after a decisive vote in House of Lords in favour of Australian-style restrictions.
Peers backed a Tory-led amendment to the children’s wellbeing and schools bill by 261 votes to 150, despite the government opposing the move. Ministers are already considering a ban as part of a consultation due to report by the summer and so the Lords amendment is unlikely to pass in the Commons. Starmer is also understood to want to wait until evidence from Australia’s ban, which came into force in December, has been assessed, though the Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, has urged him to “just get on with it”.
This crisp and punchy salad is a tribute to the late veg specialist Charlie Hicks and a shared love of the versatile Italian chicory puntarelle
Like many, I remember Charlie Hicks from Veg Talk, a weekly show that ran on Radio 4 from 1998-2005. The show, according to Sheila Dillon, came into being after her interview with Charlie, a fourth-generation fruit and veg supplier at Covent Garden market, for an episode of The Food Programme exploring where chefs bought their produce. Sitting at the kitchen table with her husband the following evening, Sheila recounted her day and Charlie’s enormous knowledge, enthusiasm and ability to communicate both. A few days after that, a similar conversation took place with her colleagues at Radio 4, which resulted in Veg Talk – what’s in and what’s out in the world of fresh produce. As well as Charlie’s market report, each episode included a feature called “vegetable of the week” and the participation of studio guests – Angela Hartnett, Alastair Little, Rose Gray, Darina Allen and Mitch Tonks, to name just a few – and took calls from listeners.
The show had its critics – in a 2005 interview with the Independent, broadcaster Andy Kershaw is quoted as saying, “This show should have been strangled at birth” – but it also had legions of fans (myself included), who tuned in mostly for Charlie’s expertise accumulated over a lifetime of working the markets, cooking with his wife, Anna, talking to growers and reading, so it was both practical and scholarly. Add to this his sharp humour, easy bantering relationships and warm voice.
The small plane was carrying two crew members and 13 passengers, including Diógenes Quintero, 36, a member of the House of Representatives for Catatumbo, the airline said.
A driver was taken into custody after police say the individual intentionally and repeatedly rammed a vehicle into the Chabad Lubavitch World Headquarters in New York City.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer of Britain met with President Xi Jinping of China as he sought to promote business ties with the world’s second-largest economy.
Chinese leader Xi Jinping has said the UK’s relationship with his country had gone through “twists and turns” over the years but that a more “consistent” approach was in both their interests.
Ahead of talks with Keir Starmer during the first visit to China by a British prime minister in eight years, Xi said the two men would “stand the test of history” if they could “rise above differences”.
No one was injured when the motorist drove into a rear door of the building on Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn. The man was arrested; the police are investigating the incident as a hate crime.
After a motorist rammed his car into a side entrance of the global headquarters of the Chabad-Lubavitch Orthodox Jewish movement in Brooklyn, police officers swarmed the scene.
After the Tepes’ deaths, at least one witness told investigators that Monique had described moments when Michael McKee, 39, “forced unwanted sex,” strangled her, and threatened to “kill her at any time."
About two minutes of video, published on Wednesday by The News Movement, a digital news outlet, shows an incident on 13 January in Minneapolis in which officers appeared to grab Pretti and bring him to the ground during intense community protests against the federal crackdown in the city.
Dismissed as a lame duck, Emmanuel Macron has clawed back some influence after his defense of Greenland and Denmark. Will quieter domestic politics allow him to secure his legacy?
French President Emmanuel Macron meeting on Wednesday with Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, right, and Greenland Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen.
Holburne museum places renowned photographer’s pictures of ancient Roman statutes alongside his images of war and conflict
He is revered for his extraordinary black-and-white images documenting conflict, humanitarian crises and the tougher side of postwar Britain.
But an exhibition of work by photojournalist Sir Don McCullin opening this week at the Holburne museum in Bath focuses on a very different subject: Roman sculptures.
Mothers on social media are advocating a tough, no-nonsense approach to parenting. Does this teach children important lessons – or just make them feel isolated and ashamed?
A couple of weeks ago, a video posted on TikTok by Paige Carter, a mother in Florida, went viral. Carter explained that she had thrown her daughter’s iPad out of the window when she had been misbehaving on the way to school, and she films herself retrieving the tablet, now with a cracked screen. The video has been watched 4.9m times, and Carter was congratulated in the comments, with one person writing “Learning Fafo at an early age: top tier parenting.” Welcome to the parenting trend that doesn’t seem to be disappearing: “Fuck around and find out.”
In another video, when a small child announces he is going to leave home, his mother says “see ya”, shuts the front door behind him, and turns off the outside light – then opens the door to him screaming and pounding to be let back in (it has been liked 1.5m times). He had learned, said his mother, “the meaning of Fafo”.
Manners and respect are the norm for kids here. Treating them like a nuisance won’t do anything to help France’s declining birthrate
In French culture, seven is known as “l’âge de raison”, the age at which children know right from wrong and can take some moral responsibility. France’s national rail operator, it seems, puts the age at which a child can be trusted to behave in a non-annoying way onboard a train a bit higher.
In launching its new Optimum plus tariff earlier this month, offering spaces onboard its weekday TGV trains between Paris and Lyon with bigger, more comfortable seats, fancy food and no under-12s, SNCF was trying to appeal to the many business travellers who make that journey. But the move has sparked a backlash and a philosophical debate about the place of children in society, against the backdrop of a worrying decline in French birthrates. “We can’t on one hand say that we are not having enough children and on the other hand try to exclude them from everywhere,” argues Sarah El Haïry, France’s high commissioner for childhood.
Helen Massy-Beresford is a British journalist and editor who lives in Paris
Calls for independent external inquiry into brutal crackdown that some estimates suggest killed more than 30,000
A deep and painful inquest is under way inside Iran as politicians, academics and the security establishment try to come to terms with what has been described as a catastrophe after the violent protests and their even more violent suppression by the security forces.
The shape of the debate taking place in the heavily censored society is emerging, as selective newspapers and Telegram channels slowly open up to international audiences after the protests – which some estimates suggest could have left more than 30,000 dead – that have stunned many Iranians.
Decisions outsourced, chatbots for friends, the natural world an afterthought: Silicon Valley is giving us life void of connection. There is a way out – but it’s going to take collective effort
Summer after summer, I used to descend into a creek that had carved a deep bed shaded by trees and lined with blackberry bushes whose long thorny canes arced down from the banks, dripping with sprays of fruit. Down in that creek, I’d spend hours picking until I had a few gallons of berries, until my hands and wrists were covered in scratches from the thorns and stained purple from the juice, until the tranquillity of that place had soaked into me.
Connexion
