John Sommer and Dr Ginevra Read on the declining standard of food in schools Regarding your article on school dinners ( School dinners in England dominated by grab-and-go foods such as pizza and sausage rolls, 27 March ), the declining standard of school meals has a lot to do with the way that secondary schools organise lunchtimes. There has been a tendency to shorten lunchtimes, often to deal wit...
John Sommer and Dr Ginevra Read on the declining standard of food in schools Regarding your article on school dinners ( School dinners in England dominated by grab-and-go foods such as pizza and sausage rolls, 27 March ), the declining standard of school meals has a lot to do with the way that secondary schools organise lunchtimes. There has been a tendency to shorten lunchtimes, often to deal with behavioural issues, but also to reduce the cost of supervision. This can be shortsighted as the rush for lunch becomes more intense, adding to tensions rather than reducing them. The system encourages the grab-and-go mentality. Perhaps in addition to minimum nutrition standards, government guidance on the organisation of lunchtimes would make delivery of good school lunches a reality. John Sommer Bristol Continue reading...
The Bank of England has got an opportunity to bring these vital species into the spotlight, says Nicola Hutchinson Your article on the Bank of England’s plans to feature nature on future banknotes ( ‘A toad is a perfect tenner’: experts recommend wild candidates for new banknotes, 21 March ) underlines how deeply the natural world shapes our national identity. Yet it was striking that in the sugge...
The Bank of England has got an opportunity to bring these vital species into the spotlight, says Nicola Hutchinson Your article on the Bank of England’s plans to feature nature on future banknotes ( ‘A toad is a perfect tenner’: experts recommend wild candidates for new banknotes, 21 March ) underlines how deeply the natural world shapes our national identity. Yet it was striking that in the suggested wild candidates for the notes, one of nature’s most fundamental elements was overlooked. If this exercise is truly about “representing the underdog”, then plants and fungi are the most obvious omission. They underpin all life but continue to be sidelined – a reminder of how easily we ignore the very foundations of the natural world. Continue reading...
Derick Hudson Meta Platforms ( META ) is facing mounting technical and fundamental pressure at the start of the trading week, even as shares posted a modest 1.7% gain on Monday. The recent uptick does little to offset a broader downtrend that has pushed the stock to some of its weakest levels in nearly a year. The social media giant is now trading well below its 200-day moving average, marking its...
Derick Hudson Meta Platforms ( META ) is facing mounting technical and fundamental pressure at the start of the trading week, even as shares posted a modest 1.7% gain on Monday. The recent uptick does little to offset a broader downtrend that has pushed the stock to some of its weakest levels in nearly a year. The social media giant is now trading well below its 200-day moving average, marking its widest deviation from this key technical benchmark since 2022. Momentum indicators further highlight the stock’s fragile positioning. Meta’s relative strength index has also dropped to 26.71, firmly placing it in oversold territory. This marks the lowest RSI reading since late November, signaling that selling pressure has intensified significantly in recent sessions. The pullback has been steep. Shares have declined roughly 11% over the past five trading days alone, with prices falling to levels last seen in late April of 2025. From its all-time high of $796.25, reached on August 15, the stock is now down just over 32%. Recent courtroom setbacks have added to investor concerns, exacerbating the downward momentum. While short-term rebounds remain possible given oversold conditions, Meta’s current trajectory underscores a period of heightened volatility and weakening sentiment surrounding the stock. ETFs with the largest exposure to META: ( FBL ), ( VOX ), ( FCOM ), ( GXPC ), ( METW ), ( XLC ), ( AIUP ), ( IXP ), ( METU ), and ( LTL ). More on Meta Meta: A Deeper Look At Its Capex Burdens Meta: I'm More Than Willing To Catch The Falling Knife Now Meta Hit With Legal Challenges, Potentially Contradicting Section 230 Protections
It is frontline staff who promote change in everyday interactions and set positive goals to help reduce reoffending, says Natasha Porter The role played by prison officers is so often overlooked and misunderstood, and your editorial ( 22 March ) is right to highlight staff when addressing some of the issues facing prisons. Those on the frontline are uniquely placed to drive change across the syste...
It is frontline staff who promote change in everyday interactions and set positive goals to help reduce reoffending, says Natasha Porter The role played by prison officers is so often overlooked and misunderstood, and your editorial ( 22 March ) is right to highlight staff when addressing some of the issues facing prisons. Those on the frontline are uniquely placed to drive change across the system, and good prison officers can radically improve outcomes for those in their care. To build a prison system that promotes rehabilitation, staff must be at the heart of these efforts and we need to be recruiting, training and developing outstanding frontline leaders. The challenges in prisons are well documented and reoffending rates remain stubbornly high, costing the taxpayer billions every year. With so many prisoners spending more than 22 hours in their cells every day, the officers on the landings are the most influential members of staff in a prison. Only they can reach all prisoners, even those who refuse to engage with the rest of the system. The success of efforts to reform the system – including many of those introduced by the new Sentencing Act – requires transformative leaders on the frontline. Continue reading...
Welcome to the Mideast Money newsletter, I’m Adveith Nair . Join us each week as my team and I chronicle the intersection of money and power in a region that’s become one of the most influential in global finance. You can sign up here . This week: UAE developers rush to reassure investors ; hedge funds shed their usual reticence to vouch for Dubai and Abu Dhabi ; and Gulf stocks diverge . But firs...
Welcome to the Mideast Money newsletter, I’m Adveith Nair . Join us each week as my team and I chronicle the intersection of money and power in a region that’s become one of the most influential in global finance. You can sign up here . This week: UAE developers rush to reassure investors ; hedge funds shed their usual reticence to vouch for Dubai and Abu Dhabi ; and Gulf stocks diverge . But first , the latest on the Iran war that’s now in its second month. US President Donald Trump threatened to destroy the Islamic Republic’s energy infrastructure if no deal is reached, while also hailing talks as productive. Globally, the conflict is threatening severe economic damage, with the closure of the critical Hormuz waterway choking supplies of energy, fertilizer and other key commodities. Brent crude, on track for a record monthly increase , surged 2.5% to about $115 a barrel. Regionally, the conflict is testing the United Arab Emirates’ record-breaking property boom and the country’s rapid rise as a hedge fund hub. After years of record-breaking sales, developers in the UAE are now focused on reassuring investors about liquidity . In recent days, companies including Binghatti and Omniyat held investor calls after their bonds slipped into distressed territory . Emaar Properties , builder of Dubai’s Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest tower, and Aldar Properties , Abu Dhabi’s largest developer, have also reached out to shareholders as their shares dropped. “There still is liquidity in the market,” Katralnada Binghatti , chief executive and managing director of Binghatti, told Bloomberg TV’s Joumanna Bercetche . “The market behavior still seems relatively stable.” She said the firm is prioritizing projects slated for completion this year, which are on average about 90% sold. Meanwhile, ultra-luxury developer Omniyat said in a statement its fully funded $11.7 billion portfolio is progressing on schedule. In a report earlier this month, S&P Global said the market is under a “...
Mastercard's strategic shift from infrastructure to high-growth AI and data services suggests a deliberate focus on a more profitable, technology-driven future.
Mastercard's strategic shift from infrastructure to high-growth AI and data services suggests a deliberate focus on a more profitable, technology-driven future.
Getty Images The market is asking the wrong question. The debate over whether a war-driven oil spike counts as “true inflation” or merely a temporary supply shock is too narrow to be useful. It is academically neat and strategically incomplete. What matters is not the label. What matters is how far the shock travels once it hits a system that had grown accustomed to cheap energy, cheap money, and ...
Getty Images The market is asking the wrong question. The debate over whether a war-driven oil spike counts as “true inflation” or merely a temporary supply shock is too narrow to be useful. It is academically neat and strategically incomplete. What matters is not the label. What matters is how far the shock travels once it hits a system that had grown accustomed to cheap energy, cheap money, and easy assumptions about liquidity. That distinction matters because markets do not price textbook categories. They price transmission. A supply shock may not qualify as inflation in the strict monetary sense, but it can still reprice inflation expectations, alter central bank reaction functions, compress real incomes, tighten financial conditions, and weaken growth before demand has any chance to adjust. The argument, then, should not be framed as inflation versus supply shock. The more relevant question is whether the shock changes the operating conditions of the economy. And in this case, it does. Energy is not just an input. It is the economy’s conversion layer The reason is simple. Energy is not just another input in the system. It is the systems conversion layer. It is what allows labor, logistics, fertilizer, transport, cooling, manufacturing, and computation to become output. A persistent energy shock, therefore, does more than lift a few line items in the inflation basket. It raises the real cost of moving the entire economy. In that sense, it functions less like a headline CPI event and more like a tax on productivity. That is the deeper point. When energy becomes scarcer or more expensive for long enough, the same workforce, the same factories, the same trucks, the same farms, and the same data centers produce less real surplus. More of society's resources must be devoted simply to keeping the machine running. Households are left with less discretionary purchasing power. Firms discover that what looked like healthy margns in a benign cost environment were often jus...
Football federation president on the run with wife and son Conviction in absentia of wide-ranging corruption charges Authorities in Congo-Brazzaville have applied to Interpol for an international arrest warrant against Jean-Guy Blaise Mayolas, the president of the country’s football federation, Fecofoot, after he was convicted of embezzling $1.1m (£830,600) in Fifa funds. Mayolas is on the run wit...
Football federation president on the run with wife and son Conviction in absentia of wide-ranging corruption charges Authorities in Congo-Brazzaville have applied to Interpol for an international arrest warrant against Jean-Guy Blaise Mayolas, the president of the country’s football federation, Fecofoot, after he was convicted of embezzling $1.1m (£830,600) in Fifa funds. Mayolas is on the run with his wife and son after they were all sentenced to life imprisonment this month for embezzling funds provided by world football’s governing body as part of its Covid-19 relief plan in February 2021. As the Guardian revealed in an investigation last year, that included almost $500,000 earmarked for the Congo women’s team. Continue reading...