Author: LoveWorld UK

Households in Northern Ireland will begin to receive support with energy bills in the form of a single payment of £600 from as soon as January 2023, according to the UK Government. In a statement, the government said the move was to ensure “the full benefit of the scheme is felt as soon as possible”. Direct debit customers will receive the payment of £600 automatically into their bank account. Other customers will receive a voucher worth £600 which they can redeem, with the government adding that “further details of how they will work and what ID will be required set…

Bus fares in many places across England will be capped at £2 for the winter under a government-backed campaign to encourage people back on to public transport. Single fares on most major operators’ services will be limited from January until March under the scheme. The Department for Transport said its £60m subsidy would save almost a third of the ticket price for the average journey and cut emissions and congestion by taking an estimated 2m cars off the roads. Campaigners welcomed the move, although it falls short of radical moves across Europe to slash fares and reinvigorate public transport use after the pandemic. More…

It was a consecration, the spiritual overtones entirely appropriate. Lionel Messi not only emulated the deity of Argentinian football, Diego Maradona, by leading the nation to World Cup glory; he finally plugged the burning gap on his CV, winning the one title that has eluded him – at the fifth time of asking, surely the last time. In the process he gilded his claim to being recognised as the greatest player of them all. Argentina had to win this final three times, France refusing to accept it was Messi’s destiny to get his hands on the iconic gold trophy, that it was…

Independent journalist Matt Taibbi published a supplemental thread to Part 6 of the “Twitter Files” on Sunday, bringing to light documented exchanges between the FBI and Twitter’s executive discussing the topic of state actors on the social media platform. In July 2020, an FBI agent with the San Francisco office told the head of Twitter’s disbanded global trust and safety council Yoel Roth that the company could expect questioning from the Foreign Influence Task Force (FITF), an inter-agency group that deals with cyber threats. According to Taibbi, who has been given access to Twitter’s internal communications by the company’s new CEO Elon Musk for…

A National Guard serviceman was given a COVID-19 jab instead of a flu shot while in the process of applying for a religious exemption to the COVID-19 vaccine mandate. In November 2021, Matthew Bouchard, a specialist in Maine’s National Guard, who was planning to leave the military a few months later, asked his chain of command whether he would be required to take a yearly influenza shot. He was told that he had to take a flu shot and at the same time he could fill out a COVID-19 vaccine refusal form since he was seeking a religious exemption from the COVID-19 vaccination mandate, Bouchard said in…

Train services around Britain will be severely disrupted once more as national strikes resume on Friday, despite another union accepting Network Rail’s pay deal. Passengers have been advised to only attempt to travel by train if necessary as this week’s second 48-hour strike by members of the RMT union begins, with three more weeks of disruption to follow. Train operators said passengers should plan ahead and check with operators for the latest information, with about 20% of normal services running between 7.30am and 6.30pm on both Friday and Saturday. Motorists in parts of England could also potentially face worsened disruption, with the…

Chelsea are poised to sign the striker David Datro Fofana from Molde in January for more than €10m (£8.7m). The Ivory Coast international, who will be 20 next week, has been with the Norwegian club since last year. An agreement is in place for the transfer and it is due to be sealed once personal terms have been settled with Fofana, who has scored 17 goals and provided six assists in 29 matches for Molde this season. Fofana was a target for several clubs, prompting Chelsea to move swiftly. It continues their policy of signing young talent, as seen with summer moves for Carney Chukwuemeka,…

New documents reveal how the United States government used a secret Twitter portal to censor COVID-19 content that contradicted the government’s narrative. In its ongoing probe into Twitter’s censorship practices, America First Legal has obtained a fourth set of documents (pdf) exposing a secret Twitter portal, which U.S. government officials used to censor dissenting COVID-19 views in violation of the First Amendment. It’s a revelation Elon Musk described as “extremely concerning.” The documents reveal that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) was collaborating with UNICEF, the World Health Organization, and Mafindo to mitigate “disinformation.” Mafindo is a Facebook third-party fact-checking partner based in Indonesia that is funded…

Elon Musk’s Twitter suspended the accounts of multiple journalists, including from The New York Times, The Washington Post, and CNN, on Thursday after they allegedly violated the platform’s terms of service. The accounts that were suspended belonged to CNN’s politics and tech correspondent Donie O’Sullivan, The New York Times’ technology reporter Ryan Mac, The Washington Post’s technology reporter Drew Harwell, Mashable’s tech reporter Matt Binder, The Intercept tech reporter Micah Lee, Voice of America’s chief national correspondent Steve Herman, journalist Aaron Rupar, and sports and political commentator Keith Olbermann. The suspended accounts now read: “Twitter suspends accounts that violate the Twitter Rules.” All the journalists have extensively covered Musk, who wrote on Twitter that…

The Bank of England has raised interest rates by 0.5 percentage points to 3.5% in an effort to combat double-digit inflation that has caused a widespread cost of living crisis. Members of the central bank’s monetary policy committee voted to increase the cost of borrowing after the consumer prices index (CPI) in November showed annual inflation of 10.7%. The move takes UK rates to the highest level since October 2008, and comes despite expectations that the UK is falling into a long recession. However, it marked a slowdown in the pace of rate rises, after the MPC increased borrowing costs…