Does cutting back on booze really benefit our health in the long term? Many years ago, I gave up drinking alcohol for a month, and was so impressed with myself, I felt I’d cracked the Da Vinci Code. Of course, once the arbitrary 30 days were up, I returned immediately to my normal drinking pattern of “most nights”. I didn’t think about it again until five years ago, when a combination of nagging headaches and peri-menopausal facial flushing drove me to give up. I’ve barely had a drink since. According to Alcohol Change UK, 24 per cent of adults in England and…
Author: Alade Adisa
US stock futures drop and oil prices rally as president says measures could cause ‘pain’ Donald Trump’s tariffs shook markets on Monday, with the dollar surging and global equity markets sliding as investors rush to assess how the levies will affect the US and its biggest trading partners. The US dollar surged as much as 1.4 per cent against a basket of currencies before trimming its gains to 1.3 per cent. The Canadian dollar hit its lowest level since 2003, Mexico’s currency tumbled by almost 3 per cent and the euro slid 1.3 per cent. Asian stocks dropped while US…
Rand falls after president singles out Brics nation over expropriation of properties Donald Trump has vowed to halt all future US assistance to South Africa over its land expropriation policies, triggering a fall in the rand. The US president claimed recent measures enabled the government to confiscate property unfairly and accused South African authorities of treating “certain classes of people VERY BADLY”. He added: “I will be cutting off all future funding to South Africa until a full investigation of this situation has been completed!” Trump’s comments, made on Truth Social, sparked a 1.6 per cent fall in the South…
Some 60 per cent of Britons are getting no more than six hours of sleep a night, despite NHS guidelines suggesting that a healthy adult usually needs between seven and nine hours, a survey suggests. More than four fifths of people (83%) say that getting a regular, good night’s sleep is the most important factor in their general wellbeing, the poll for wool bedding firm Woolroom found. Two fifths of those polled (40%) reported heightened stress levels after a bad night’s sleep and 36% said they felt anxious, with 40% saying they felt this way one to two times a week and…
Nigel Farage’s Reform UK could take upwards of 60 seats from Labour if a general election was held now, alarming polling has found. A survey of over 17,000 voters, commissioned by Hope Not Hate, suggested the hard-right party would win 76 seats – and the number could be far higher. The campaign group said the findings must be viewed as a “wake-up call”. Projections released by Hope Not Hate found Mr Farage’s party could take 60 seats from Labour, 10 from the Tories and one from the Lib Dems. Since the General Election polling has suggested Reform has overt taken the Tories and is closing…
System disperses trillions of dollars in US government spending each year, including social security Elon Musk has vowed to unilaterally cancel hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of government grants after apparently gaining access to review the US Treasury’s vast payments system, a move that prompted the sudden resignation of one of the department’s most senior officials. The world’s richest man, who bankrolled Donald Trump’s re-election campaign and was tasked by the president with running the cost-cutting Department of Government Efficiency, boasted on his social media site X that he was “rapidly shutting down . . . illegal payments” after a list of grants…
Bloc warns of ‘unnecessary economic disruption’ after US president hits China, Canada and Mexico with trade measures Trump sparked a global trade war this weekend in announcing the measures against three of the US’s largest trading partners after the EU, which has the largest trade deficit with Washington. The Trump administration has so far refrained from imposing tariffs on the EU despite the US president saying on Friday that he would “absolutely” do so. A spokesperson for the EU’s executive said that the bloc’s trade and investment relationship with the US was the biggest in the world, adding: “There is…
China’s movie box office took in record revenue during the Lunar New Year holiday, as sequels to popular Chinese hits drew theatregoers at a time when other types of spending have suffered during a period of relatively sluggish economic growth. Box office revenue for the four days of the week-long holiday starting Jan. 29 topped 5.74 billion yuan ($791.65 million), exceeding the previous high of 5.73 billion yuan in 2021, showed data from box office tracker Beacon. Part of the boom was driven by government handouts as part of an economic stimulus package. Local governments in Beijing, Jiangsu, Hubei, Guangdong…
A study found that burning wood in our homes is one of the most dangerous types of air pollution. Here’s what you need to know Wood burning stoves have become a classic British middle class status symbol. Despite the fact that they cost around £3,000 to buy and install, 1.9 million people in Britain now have one in their homes. In fact, we’re so fond of their glowing embers that an episode of a virtual fireplace was Netflix’s most-watched Christmas show in 2024. But recently a report by the Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS) found that burning wood in our homes is…
Beijing attacks ‘arbitrary’ moves and says it will file WTO lawsuit Beijing has hit out at new 10 per cent tariffs imposed by the US on Chinese exports, saying it will “take necessary countermeasures to defend its rights and interests” as trade tensions between the two powers enter a new phase. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Sunday that China opposed the tariffs, which it said were introduced “under the pretext of the fentanyl issue”. “The US needs to view and solve its own fentanyl issue in an objective and rational way instead of threatening other countries with arbitrary…
