Maimouna Jawo launches online campaign from UK after Gambian move to rescind female circumcision ban

A woman who stood up against her community and refused to be a female genital mutilation “cutter” is launching a campaign to protect tens of thousands of girls who are at renewed risk of female circumcision in her home country, the Gambia.

Maimouna Jawo, 50, who was herself subjected to FGM, has recently been granted leave to remain in the UK by the Home Office after more than a decade of waiting.

Exclusive: Multi-dose vials could push up charge per patient, while experts warn high cost could widen inequalities

Cheaper private Covid jabs could end up being just as expensive as their pricier alternative because the vaccine must be given in groups of five, experts have warned.

Boots and pharmacies that partner with the company Pharmadoctor are offering Pfizer/BioNTech jabs to those not eligible for a free vaccination through the NHS, with the former charging almost £100 a shot. The latter is also offering the latest Novavax jab, a protein-based vaccine, at a cost of about £50.

When desperate measures to persuade women to have children fail, it’s time to think differently about demographics

• Devi Sridhar is chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh

For the past 75 years in global public health, one of the major priorities has been exponential population growth and Malthusian concerns that the supply of food on the planet won’t be able to keep up. In 1951, the world’s population was 2.5 billion, which increased to 4 billion by 1975, 6.1 billion by 2000, and 8 billion by 2023. Governments in the two most populous countries, India and China, even implemented, respectively, draconian policies such as forced sterilisation and a one-child restriction.

It now seems that many nations have switched to worrying about the opposite problem. Findings published last month from the Global Burden of Disease study, which examines epidemiological trends across the world, notes that fertility rates are falling in most countries. This can be seen as a public health success: lower fertility rates tend to reflect fewer children dying in the first 10 years of life, and an environment that protects women’s bodily autonomy and access to birth control, as well as girls’ education. Having mainly planned pregnancies is seen as societal progress.

Prof Devi Sridhar is chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh

Four years ago, about 11.7 million UK employees were furloughed, their jobs and wages protected by a government scheme. Those who had just changed job were left out – and that hardship still affects them today

In March 2020, Mark Edwards was excited to start a new job running a venue that hosted weddings and hospitality events. Before that, the 47-year-old had been working as a general manager at an independent group of hotels for the past nine years. He was living with his partner and dog in Norwich. “My life was on track. I felt everything was in my hands, but that flipped on its head,” he says.

Just as he started his new job, Covid-19 swept across the country. As the country went into lockdown – almost exactly four years ago – and the hospitality industry shut down, Edwards’ new employer sent everyone home. Most people in this situation were able to claim furlough, but Edwards was one of 300,000 “ new starters ” – workers who had started a job in February or March 2020, but weren’t on their company’s payroll in time to make the furlough scheme’s cut-off date. He ended up being out of work for a whole year, with a mortgage to pay and only six months of jobseeker’s allowance available. He spent £25,000 trying to support his household and keep up with mortgage payments. “It changed everything,” he says. “My entire life plan changed … I’ve recovered in terms of jobs but not recovered from losing 25k. I’ve not got it back.”

LGA makes call in run-up to English local elections amid concerns about rising intimidation and abuse

Ministers are being urged to amend a law requiring councillors to publish their home addresses amid rising concerns about the scale of intimidation and abuse in local government, and the impact it is having on women in particular.

Ahead of elections to councils across England on 2 May, the Local Government Association (LGA) has argued that a 1972 law setting out that addresses are given by default is out of date, and has left councillors feeling under threat.

Tech firms can do more, but it’s the government’s job to ensure children have safe places to play – and it’s not doing it

Three-quarters of children want to spend more time in nature. Having spent the Easter weekend trying to force four resistant teenagers off their phones and out for a nice walk over the Yorkshire Dales, admittedly I’ll have to take the National Trust’s word for this. But that’s what its survey of children aged between seven and 14 finds, anyway.

Kids don’t necessarily want to spend every waking minute hunched over a screen, however strongly they give that impression; even though retreating online satisfies the developmentally important desire to escape their annoying parents, even teenagers still want to run wild in the real world occasionally. Their relationship with phones is complex and maddening, but not a million miles off adults’ own love-hate relationship with social media; a greasy sugar-rush we crave but rarely feel better for indulging. Yet lately, longstanding parental unease over children’s screen habits has been hardening into something more like revolt.

Gaby Hinsliff is a Guardian columnist

Ambition once came with a promise: a home, a salary, progress and fulfilment. What happens when that promise is broken? Meet the women who are turning their backs on consumerism, materialism and burnout

Rose Gardner did everything right. Straight As at school and college, a first-class degree from a top university, a master’s. She got a job in publishing and rose through the ranks of some of the industry’s most prestigious companies before getting a job with a media organisation. Eventually, she bought her own flat in London.

But each time she reached a new milestone, she didn’t feel any real joy.

Exclusive: Refusal to approve antibiotic prophylaxis for those at risk of infective endocarditis may have increased deaths

• How infective endocarditis deaths among UK dental patients can be avoided

Patients are dying needlessly every year due to vulnerable Britons with heart problems not being given antibiotics when they visit the dentist, doctors have said.

Almost 400,000 people in the UK are at high risk of developing life-threatening infective endocarditis any time they have dental treatment, the medics say. The condition kills 30% of sufferers within a year.

Rishi Sunak promised speedier care, but specialists believe long waits for hospital beds are costing thousands of lives

On one half of Rishi Sunak’s NHS pledge to voters, there has been some modest progress in recent months. Waiting lists for pre-planned hospital treatment and outpatient appointments in England fell from 7.8m to 7.6m between September and December last year. Given the intense pressures on the health system from multiple directions, this improvement is a remarkable achievement by the trusts that brought it about – even while the overall situation remains dire, with waiting lists predicted to remain longer than before the pandemic until 2030 at the earliest.

But the prime minister’s commitment was not limited to waiting lists. The pledge he made in January last year, as one of five priorities on which he said voters should judge him, was that “NHS waiting lists will fall and people will get the care they need more quickly”. New calculations by the Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM) show that, with regard to the broader aim of delivering speedier treatment, his government is falling shockingly short .