News

Monday was the saddest day ever measured on Twitter, according to Hedonometer. News of Las Vegas shootings combined with political turbulence in Europe, protests in Britain and natural events meant that sentiment dropped to an all-time low at the start of the week. The reading was lower than the terrorist attack in Orlando last year and the bombing of Boston marathon, along with several high profile deaths. Interestingly people were sadder about Donald Trump becoming president than Michael Jackson dying....

This week’s 24 hour walk out by tube train drivers has been suspended after talks between union Aslef and London Underground. The strike would have caused disruption to the capital, especially with the England v Slovenia World Cup qualifier football match at Wembley on Thursday evening. The dispute centres on broken agreements underground staff say they had with tube bosses over the shifts they work since the Night Tube made sections of the London underground run 24 hours. London Underground...

The giant panda's future is being threatened by hungry horses and cows, reveals new research. More than a third of the panda's habitat in China's Wanglang National Nature Reserve has been damaged by grazing livestock, suggests the study. The destruction of the habitat coincides with a nine-fold increase in livestock numbers within the park over the past 15 years, according top findings by Chinese and American scientists. Study leader Doctor Binbin Li, assistant professor at Duke Kunshan University's Environmental Research...

More beavers are set to be released into the wild in Scotland in an attempt to give the current small population a better chance of survival. A small number of Norwegian beavers were introduced to a mid-Argyll forest in 2009 to ensure their progress could be monitored through the Scottish Beaver Trial. But now up to 28 additional Eurasian beavers will be released in Knapdale Forest over the next three years thanks to a new licence granted by Scottish Natural...

Adventurer Bear Grylls has faced a social media backlash following his decision to appear at the Conservative Party Conference. Britain's Chief Scout appeared at the conference in an appeal to the Conservatives to back the organisation for a "relatively small investment" of £50 million. Thousands of new volunteers are needed to enable the 55,000 children waiting to join a group - the largest waiting list the Scouts Association has ever had. But while some people admired the TV star's cause,...

NB: UPDATE: The London Underground Strike has been suspended, but South Western trains set to have a walk out. MORE FOLLOWS. READ UPDATE. If there is no breakthrough in talks between London Underground and Aslef the union representing most tube drivers, Londoners are looking at a walkout by underground staff from the early hours of Thursday morning. Any breakthrough is beginning to look less likely this afternoon. The dispute centres on broken agreements underground staff say they had with tube...

A post on Australian gun control is going viral following the tragic shootings in Las Vegas. The Facebook picture refers to a mass shooting in 1996 which prompted politicians to introduce sweeping gun control measures. The government bought back and destroyed over 1 million guns and put in controls over who can purchase firearms, which has eradicated mass shootings in the country. It has also barely inflicted its citizen's rights to own arms. Only full and semi automatic guns are...

Instead of wasting money creating Uber for the NHS, why doesn’t the health secretary give all NHS staff the pay rise they desperately need? GMB, the union for public sector workers, says a new healthcare workforce app unveiled by Jeremy Hunt will bring the gig economy to the NHS. In a speech to the Conservative Party Conference today, the Health Secretary announced plans to introduce an app-based work system to 12 NHS trusts. Jeremy Hunt said:“They need to be able...

By Benjamin Jenkins Jeremy Hunt has been called out for trying to rewrite history at the Conservative Party Conference after he claimed that the Tories were responsible for the creation of the National Health Service. The Secretary of State for Health played a clip from 1944 when the NHS was founded, insinuating that it was the Conservatives that had created it. But the Tories fought it "tooth and nail" all the way through Parliament on a three line whip and voted against...