Author: LoveWorld UK

The Department of Defense has announced it is formally ending the COVID-19 vaccine mandate for the U.S. Military and the National Guard but did not provide any signal as to whether those discharged due to having refused the vaccine would have any chance of being re-enlisted. “No individuals currently serving in the Armed Forces shall be separated solely on the basis of their refusal to receive the COVID-19 vaccination if they sought an accommodation on religious, administrative, or medical grounds,” Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin wrote in a memorandum (pdf) dated Jan. 10. “The Military Departments will update the records of such individuals to…

Documents with classified markings were found inside an institution at which President Joe Biden worked before he took office, according to a lawyer for the president. The classified documents were discovered in a locked closet at the Penn Biden Center, Richard Sauber, the lawyer, told news outlets in a statement. The documents were discovered on Nov. 2, 2022, according to Sauber, days before the midterm election. Sauber did not disclose the finding until Jan. 9, 2023. White House lawyers alerted the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) on the day of the discovery and NARA took possession of the materials the following…

Peers and MPs should have to declare any links to firms they recommend for contracts even in an emergency such as the Covid pandemic, the head of the National Audit Office (NAO) has said, in the wake of the PPE controversies including the Michelle Mone scandal. Gareth Davies, the auditor and comptroller general at the NAO, said keeping on top of conflicts of interest was a “crucial part of public stewardship” that was not always followed during the VIP fast lane process. He said the government had given detailed responses on how it would improve its processes after reports from the NAO…

At the end, after Marcus Rashford scored goals 14 and 15 of a superb season so far, all was well for Manchester United, who had made this Carabao Cup quarter-final far more attritional than they might due to Erik ten Hag shuffling his team selection. Having an eye on Saturday’s 189th derby with Manchester City meant the manager sent out a weakened XI and he watched his side burn brightly in the first half before being pushed back by Charlton, who arrived as the hopefuls from two tiers below and ended threatening to take United to penalties. This was until Rashford’s…

As third-round ties go this went by the numbers. Oxford United gave Arsenal a game for an hour, without threatening to make things more interesting than that, and could draw on enough positives to hope for a bright end to their third-tier campaign. The Premier League leaders eventually bucked up and picked them off with three goals in 13 minutes, meaning this went down as a job well done and banishing the looming spectre of a replay. All three of Arsenal’s goals were created by Fábio Vieira, whose display epitomised that of the collective. Nothing went right before half-time for the Portuguese…

Ministers are to unveil controversial new legislation designed to curb the effectiveness of strike action as industrial disputes continue to paralyse services across the UK. The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy has previously said the bill will enforce a “basic” level of service from different sectors if workers choose to strike. Shapps said there was currently a “lottery” if workers chose to strike, alleging that nurses were willing to guarantee a national level of service during strikes but ambulance unions were not. “There was a sort of regional postcode lottery. That’s the thing we want to avoid,” he…

A Pfizer board member who used to head the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) lobbied Twitter to take action against a post accurately pointing out that natural immunity is superior to COVID-19 vaccination, according to an email released on Jan. 9. Dr. Scott Gottlieb wrote on Aug. 27, 2021, to Twitter executive Todd O’Boyle to request Twitter take action against a post from Dr. Brett Giroir, another former FDA commissioner. “This is the kind of stuff that’s corrosive. Here he draws a sweeping conclusion off a single retrospective study in Israel that hasn’t been peer reviewed. But this tweet will end up going…

The Conservatives’ former employment tsar has accused Rishi Sunak of abandoning the party’s commitment to improving workers’ rights after the business minister said many of the policies in the 2019 manifesto would not be implemented imminently. Matthew Taylor, who was recruited by Theresa May to conduct a wide-ranging review of Britain’s employment laws, said the government had delayed putting in place many of the measures he recommended in 2017. He was commenting after Kevin Hollinrake, the business minister, said in a series of written answers that the government had no immediate plans to implement several of the policy proposals that stemmed from…

The head of Qatar’s sporting investment group has held talks with Tottenham amid plans to significantly increase the gulf state’s sporting portfolio after the World Cup. Sources close to Nasser al-Khelaifi, the chairman of Qatar Sports Investments (QSI) and president of Paris Saint-Germain, have confirmed that he met Daniel Levy, the chairman of Tottenham, in London last week. However, reports also linking QSI with a potential move for Liverpool or Manchester United have been described as wide of the mark at this stage. European club football rules forbid teams with the same owner from taking part in the same competition…

WASHINGTON—E-commerce billionaire Jack Ma will give up control of Ant Group, the leading Chinese financial technology provider he founded. In a statement posted Friday, Ant Group said that after an ownership restructuring, “no shareholder, alone, or with other parties” will have “control over Ant Group.” The company is an affiliate of e-commerce giant Alibaba, which Ma also founded. The move follows other efforts over the years by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to rein in Ma and the country’s tech sector more broadly. Two years ago, the once high-profile Ma largely disappeared from view for 2.5 months after criticizing China’s regulators. The regime at the…