Latest news with #Britis
Straits Times
15-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Straits Times
British woman awarded $50,000 after being dubbed ‘Darth Vader' in office quiz
Ms Lorna Rooke, who was publicly compared to Star Wars villain Darth Vader during a workplace quiz, had testified that the incident exacerbated her stress and anxiety at work. PHOTO ILLUSTRATION: PIXABAY A team bonding activity meant to build camaraderie veered into the dark side and ended in a lawsuit after a supervisor was publicly compared to Star Wars villain Darth Vader during a workplace quiz. Ms Lorna Rooke, a former training supervisor at NHS Blood and Transplant, a Britis h organisation that manages blood donations, was awarded £28,989.61 (S$50,060) by an employment tribunal, which found that the incident amounted to workplace ' detriment '. Ms Rooke had joined the NHS Blood and Transplant servic e in 2003 , taking on the role of a training and practice supervisor. According to a May 7 report by British daily The Guardian, the episode took place in August 2021 during a team-bonding session featuring a Star Wars-themed personality test. Ms Rooke had stepped away to take a personal phone call, and in her absence, a colleague completed the quiz on her behalf. Upon returning, she was told - in front of the entire team - that her result was Darth Vader. While that might sound like a badge of cool in a sci-fi fan club, the tribunal did not see it that way. Darth Vader, for the uninitiated, is the helmeted villain from the Star Wars movie franchise - a feared enforcer known for his cruelty and tendency to choke those who disagree with him with the power of 'the force'. The quiz description painted Vader as 'a very focused individual who brings the team together', but e mployment judge Kathryn Ramsden found the comparison 'insulting '. She noted that making the announcement in a group setting only amplified its impact, saying it was 'li ttle wonde r' that Ms Rooke felt upset. Ms Rooke testified that the incident contributed to feelings of being 'unpopular' and exacerbated her stress and anxiety at work. She resigned the following month, bringing an end to about 18 years with the organisation. While the tribunal hearing in London stopped short of linking the quiz directly to her resignation, it concluded that the episode was harmful enough to warrant compensation under British employment law. The tribunal also remarked that the quiz - described as 'a Myers-Brig gs questionnaire with a Star Wars theme' - reflected the colleague's own views of Ms Rooke, rather than any legitimate assessment. The Myers-Briggs quiz, a po pular personality test that categorises people into psychological types, was later clarified by the Myers-Briggs Company as not being an official assessment . Ms R ooke's additiona l claims of unfair dismissal and disability discrimination were dismissed. Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
Yahoo
31-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Can Donald Trump run for a third term? President said he's 'not joking' about another run. What to know
President Donald Trump told reporters Sunday, March 30, that he's "not joking" about running for a third term in the oval office. Trump commented on a third term during a telephone interview with NBC news, saying "there are methods" for how he could stay in power. However, a run for a third presidential term is unconstitutional. The 22nd Amendment, ratified in 1951, puts a term limit on presidential power in the U.S. But that doesn't seem to be stopping Trump. He has made several comments about a third term during his first few months back at the white house. In February, the official White House social media platforms portrayed Trump as a monarch. "Long live the king," the post declared. Just one day after the post, Trump asked supporters at a White House reception, "Should I run again?" 'A lot of people want me to do it,' Trump said in a phone interview. "But, I mean, I basically tell them we have a long way to go, you know, it's very early in the administration." The simple answer: No. Under the current constitutional safeguards, Trump cannot seek a third presidential term. Trump could try to pass a new constitutional amendment. This would require a two-thirds majority vote in both the House and Senate, or two-thirds of state legislatures can call a constitutional convention. Then, three-fourths of the state legislatures would have to ratify the amendment. It's an intentionally difficult process that was last done in 1992 when the 27th Amendment was enacted. Asked by NBC whether he has been shown plans that would allow him to seek a third term, Trump said: "There are methods which you could do it," including Vice President JD Vance running for president and then giving the role to Trump, according to USA TODAY reporting. Yes, it is clearly outlined in the 22nd Amendment that a person serving as president can only hold the office twice. Here's what it says: "No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once." The 22nd Amendment was ratified in 1951, according to the National Constitution Center. The idea of term limits came about from Republicans after President Franklin D. Roosevelt won four consecutive elections. His presidency started in 1933 during the Great Depression and spanned over 12 years until his death on April 12, 1945, during his fourth term. It took nearly four years for the amendment to be ratified though. Not in writing. America's first president, George Washington, set an unofficial precedent when the first elections in the United States were happening. Washington only served as president twice, declining multiple times to serve a third term. In later years, Washington's decision to not seek a third term was seen as a safeguard against the type of tyrannical power wielded by the British monarchy during the Colonial era. According to the National Constitution Center, the concept of term limits was discussed at the Constitutional Convention when America was first founded but not added to the Constitution at that time. Only a handful of people have sought a third term as president before the 22nd Amendment was ratified. Ulysses S. Grant tried for a third term in 1880, but he lost the Republican Party nomination to James Garfield Grover Cleveland lacked party support for a third term Woodrow Wilson hoped a deadlocked 1920 convention would turn to him for a third term Theodore Roosevelt originally passed on running for a third term in 1908, but would later run as third-party candidate in 1912 after a fallout with then-President William Howard Taft. Roosevelt beat Taft, but both lost to Woodrow Wilson. Former President Franklin D. Roosevelt famously won not three, but four presidential elections, breaking the long-held tradition of two terms. While several predecessors had sought a third term, FRD was the only person to win four consecutive elections. FDR served as president from March 4, 1933, until his death on April 12, 1945. He led the country through the Great Depression and World War II. As a result of FDR's unprecedented four terms, the 22nd Amendment was ratified, which limited all future presidents to two elected terms, according to the National Archives. USA TODAY reporter Riley Beggin contributed to this report. This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Could Trump run again? President says it's no joke. What to know
Yahoo
25-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
North Sea could power Britain for decades if Miliband's shutdown reversed
The North Sea could meet almost half of Britain's oil and gas needs for the next 25 years if Ed Miliband scrapped his ban on new drilling, a report has claimed. Forecasts from Offshore Energies UK (OEUK), a trade body, have said that a reversal of the Energy Secretary's policy could unlock at least an extra 3bn barrels of oil from UK waters. Crucially, this would boost overall North Sea supplies to 7bn, meaning they account for nearly half of the 15bn barrels of oil and gas needed to power the UK between now and 2050. David Whitehouse, chief executive at OEUK, said Mr Milliband's ban on new drilling was putting Britain at the mercy of foreign importers, including those in the US. He said: 'Energy security is national security. In an increasingly volatile world the widening gap between the energy we produce and what we import matters.' 'We are on a journey to net zero but we will need oil and gas for decades to come. It makes sense for the UK to produce as much as it can itself.' As well as drawing supplies from the North Sea, the UK also relies on vast imports from both Norway and the United States. This has sparked concerns given the erratic policies of Donald Trump, who has called on the UK and Europe to buy more oil and gas from the US to avoid tariffs. It also comes just months after Mr Miliband officially announced his ban on all new drilling in the North Sea, which forms part of his bid to help Britain hit net zero by 2050. He has sought to justify his policy by claiming that oil and gas are largely to blame for higher energy bills. He told The Guardian last week: 'The worst impact on living standards we have seen for generations was as a result of our exposure to fossil fuels and fossil-fuel markets controlled by petrostates and dictators when Russia invaded Ukraine.' However, Robin Allan of Brindex, which represents smaller oil and gas across Britain, said: 'LNG imported from the US and Qatar doesn't provide UK jobs or taxes or cut carbon emissions. 'Locking the UK into reliance on imported gas from around the world makes no sense when we have the gas on our doorstep.' Following OEUK's latest report, a spokesman for Mr Miliband's Energy Department said: 'Oil and gas production will continue to play an important role for decades to come, with the majority of future production in the North Sea expected to come from producing fields or fields already being developed on existing licences. 'New licences awarded in the last decade have made only a marginal difference to overall oil and gas production.' Tessa Khan, executive director of environmental NGO Uplift, added: 'The oil and gas industry is peddling a fantasy. The North Sea is an ageing basin with declining reserves that are now very expensive to extract. This is a matter of geology. 'Most of what is left in the North Sea is oil not gas, 80pc of which the UK exports. The UK has burned most of its gas, a fact that new licencing won't change.' Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
BBC News
19-02-2025
- Politics
- BBC News
Andrew Tate: US must not interfere in case, say alleged victims
Four women who allege they were sexually abused by the social media influencer Andrew Tate have urged the US not to interfere in his case in women said they were "extremely concerned" by reports that US officials had asked Romania to relax travel restrictions against Tate and his brother, Tristan Tate, who have dual UK-US Matthew Jury, who is representing the four alleged victims, told the BBC they were "absolutely bewildered why the Trump administration has decided to interfere in this way".Tate, 38, and his brother were arrested in Romania three years ago and face trial on allegations of rape, trafficking minors and money laundering, all of which they deny. Separately, the brothers are wanted by police in the UK over allegations of rape and human trafficking, which they also deny. Their extradition to the UK will be dealt with once the Romania case Financial Times newspaper first reported that US officials had brought up the case with the Romanian government last week, and it was then followed up by Trump's envoy Richard Grenell at the source told the paper that a request had been made by the US to return the brothers' passports to them so they could travel while waiting for the criminal case against them to Tate brothers are currently banned from leaving Romania, although are no longer under house Foreign Minister Emil Hurezeanu confirmed to Euronews that Grenell had raised Tate's case with him, and that Grenell had said he was "interested in the fate of the Tate brothers". The minister denied this amounted to pressure from Americans.A spokesperson for Mr Hurezeanu told the Financial Times: "Romanian courts are independent and operate based on the law, there is due process."According to the newspaper, Grenell said he had no "substantive conversation" with Hurezeanu, but added: "I support the Tate brothers as evident by my publicly available tweets." 'Gaslighting' The Tate brothers have wide support on right-wing social media, and supported Trump during the US election Mr Jury said: "It's very clear from members of the Trump administration's social media posts and public statements that there is a great deal of support for Tate."Either they don't know or they don't care about the nature of the allegations and how serious they are," he told BBC said the women he represented were "absolutely distraught"."To see the most powerful man in the world support their alleged abuser, is incredibly traumatising... it's gaslighting of a sort."And he called the reported US actions a "gross interference in my clients' right to a fair trial and due process". Mr Jury is representing the four women in a civil case against Tate at the High Court in the UK, after the Crown Prosecution Service decided not to prosecute their case. The Tate brothers deny the civil case is separate to the criminal allegations currently being investigated by British police. In their statement, the four women added: "We hope that the Romanian and the UK authorities will be left alone to do their jobs." Shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick also warned the US not to interfere, saying the Tate brothers "must face our justice system"."No obstacles should be placed in the way of UK authorities. The government must make that clear to US counterparts."Tate is a self-described misogynist and has previously been banned from social media platforms for expressing those views.A former kickboxer, he has gained millions of followers online and has lived in Romania for a number of years, having previously been based in the UK.
Telegraph
16-02-2025
- Business
- Telegraph
Heat pumps will never be cheaper than gas boilers, expert warns
Heat pumps will never be cheaper than gas boilers, the boss of a company selling the technology has admitted. The Government wants the majority of homes to switch to heat pumps to meet its net zero goals by 2050. However, it has said it will not set a deadline to end the sale of gas boilers until heat pumps are cheaper for households. Heat pump installation costs are currently around £12,000 without subsidies, compared to around £2,000 for a gas boiler. Subsidies provide households with £7,500 towards the cost of installation, but the budget covers less than 40,000 heat pumps a year and is set to end in 2027. 'I don't think you will ever see heat pumps priced on parity with gas boilers, because it's like comparing a bicycle to a car,' said Daniel Särefjord, the UK CEO of heat pump installation company Aira. 'A heat pump is a more complex device,' said Mr Särefjord. 'A gas boiler is an 800 degree flame that hits water. It's an incredibly simple - but also incredibly inefficient - device.' Heat pumps work similarly to a fridge in reverse, taking energy from the air or the ground and compressing it to heat water for radiators and taps, or the air inside your home. Concerns over cost are seen as one of the major factors holding back take up of the technology. Studies have suggested that cost reductions of 25 per cent are possible by 2030. But experts agree that savings on installations compared to gas boilers are unlikely in the long run. Installation costs have actually risen in the last five years, essentially flatlining when accounting for inflation. If subsidies were to remain in place in the UK, meeting the Government's rising targets for heat pump installations would cost taxpayers £2.4 billion a year by 2028 to pay for the grants, even if the amount handed out to each household comes down, according to think tank Nesta. One reason that the price is stubbornly high is that heat pumps are a well established technology, reducing the scope for the kind of innovation that has brought down the costs of electric vehicles. British manufacturers also compete for parts and capacity on the global market, where demand is rising and expected to increase further as other countries try to hit their own green targets. 'Realistically, I don't think that suddenly, the UK's rising demand is going to have a significant impact on that global supply chain where we're quite a small piece of the overall market,' said Joanna O'Loan from the Energy Saving Trust. 'We're probably not looking at getting a heat pump for £1,000 pounds. That's probably not a reality that exists.' 'Whether there's a point in time that it actually is cheaper than a gas boiler to install, I think that that's quite an uncertainty. I don't think I would be gambling that that would happen anytime soon.' Even in Sweden, one of the most developed markets for heat pumps, an air source heat pump will cost between £4,200 to £9,200. Adding to the costs are the changes that need to be made to most British homes to fit a heat pump for the first time. These can include bigger radiators, underfloor heating, new wiring, drilling holes in the wall, making space for a hot water heater and switching out a gas hob. 'If you look at the total cost of getting a heat pump installed, less than half of that cost is related to the product, a lot of it is actually the labour and the materials that you need to convert the house from a gas or oil house to a heat pump house,' said Mr Särefjord. Aira provides heat pumps on a subscription model, and Mr Särefjord said they can work out cheaper than gas boilers over the course of their lifetime. The company was launched in Sweden in 2022, and has said it will invest £300 million in the UK as part of plans to target a million British households to take up its service over the next decade. The Government is also relying on the lifetime cost, meaning energy bills, maintenance and installation, coming down below that of a gas boiler. However, it is unclear when this might happen without significant Government subsidies, even if upfront costs come down, two recent studies from green think tanks have found. A study released this month by the Regulatory Assistance Project (RAP), a global NGO focused on decarbonisation, looked at the likely impact if heat pump installation costs were to drop 25 per cent and electricity became cheaper. It found that even with the reduction in costs, removing subsidies from heat pumps would still leave them more expensive over their lifetime than a gas boiler. Another study from Nesta, a charity that works to help homes go green, found that once subsidies are removed, gas boilers would still be cheaper overall compared to heat pumps in 2035. A proposed 2035 deadline to ban gas boilers is intended to ensure the UK hits its goal to be net zero, meaning carbon neutral, by 2050, as the lifetime of a gas boiler is 15 years on average. Jan Rosenow, who led the study for RAP, said subsidies 'remain a vital policy' for the heat pump market. 'Heat pump retrofit costs often include 'making good' existing systems, meaning that upfront costs for heat pumps will typically be higher than gas boilers.' Heat pump advocates argue that they can have cheaper running costs than a gas boiler, because they are around three times more efficient, and simpler to maintain. But because electricity is more than four times as expensive per unit of energy compared to gas, running a heat pump often increases overall heating bills. Green campaigners have called for reforms to urgently reduce the price of electricity by removing levies that account for 17 per cent of the bill, but the Government has yet to commit to this. Depending on where this rebalancing falls, it could mean that taxes would have to increase or gas bills rise, making heat pumps the more attractive option, but putting fuel poor gas households at risk. But the studies from Nesta and RAP found that even when levies were removed or rebalanced, heat pumps without subsidies were still more expensive overall than gas boilers. Both bodies told The Telegraph that they had found in their research that there are routes to making heat pumps a cheaper option than gas boilers. Mr Rosenow said: 'Heat pumps can be cheaper than gas boilers but, as shown by our research, this is not always the case and policy reforms can and should significantly enhance their economics.' These include efficiency improvements in the technology, heat pumps having a longer lifespan than gas boilers, and cheaper electricity tariffs for heat pump households. Nesta found that by 2035 costs could come down to £200 if the Government implements its policy suggestions, which include zero interest loans for households. But some experts are sceptical about whether a few hundred pounds a year will be enough to persuade households to take up heat pumps, given the lack of familiarity with the technology and the inconveniences of installation. 'There's a huge hassle factor,' said Ms O'Loan. 'There are people that are being offered heat pumps for free under fuel poverty schemes, and still rejecting them.' A Government spokesman said: 'We want to help people get a heat pump as they are three times more efficient than gas boilers, enabling families to save around £100 a year by using a smart tariff effectively. 'We are making them more affordable by providing £7,500 towards the cost and are considering how we can ensure people are aware of the benefits of heat pumps – improving families' access to clean, affordable, secure power. 'We're also making them cheaper in the long term by investing in research and development to support innovation and improve their performance and efficiency.'
