Police in Edinburgh are appealing for the assistance of the public in tracing a 28-year-old Alathea Byrne – known as Alice – who is missing from her home in Portobello.
Alice was last seen by her family at her home around 2am on Saturday, 1 January. She met friends in Marlborough Street and left a flat there around 10am on Saturday.
She is described as white, around 5ft 6ins in height and of medium build with short black hair. When she was last seen she was wearing an orange jacket, black top, black jeans and white trainers. She was carrying a black rucksack.
Inspector Keith Scott said: “It is out of character for Alice not to keep in contact with her family and friends. We are becoming increasingly concerned for her wellbeing and we are working to trace her as soon as possible to ensure that she is safe and well.
“Searches and enquiries have been ongoing since she was reported missing, and we are now asking the public for any assistance they can provide.
“I would urge anyone who has seen Alice since Saturday morning, or anyone with information on her whereabouts to contact us as soon as possible.
“I would appeal to Alice herself to contact us if she sees this appeal. Contact 101 quoting reference 0647 of 2 January.”
Scotland’s Councils are being given an extra £16 million to help tackle homelessness by moving people swiftly from temporary accommodation into settled homes.
The funding, to be awarded over the next two financial years, takes the total investment in rapid rehousing to £53.5 million. Rapid rehousing aims to ensure people spend the shortest amount of time possible in temporary accommodation, giving them a settled place to live as soon as appropriate.
The package includes an investment of £6.5 million in the Housing First pathfinder to support people with multiple and complex needs.
Housing Secretary Shona Robison said: “Tackling homelessness is about much more than just providing a bed for the night. Temporary accommodation is an important safety net, but most people need a settled place to stay where they can rebuild their lives.
“Rapid rehousing is based around the idea that most people need a settled home, and this new funding will help councils progress their Rapid Rehousing Transition Plans to move people as quickly as possible into appropriate, settled accommodation.
“The best way to reduce the number of households in temporary accommodation is to prevent homelessness from happening in the first place, and today’s announcement follows the recent publication of our consultation on plans for new legal duties on public bodies, highlighting the shared public responsibility to prevent homelessness in Scotland.”
Rapid Rehousing Transition Plans cover an initial period of five years from 2019. The new funding comprises £8 million in 2022/23 and £8 million in 2023/24.
BBC History has launched three new online collections looking at the broadcaster’s most iconic objects, people and contributors over the last century
The work sits on a BBC 100 website which also features an interactive year-by-year timeline covering key moments in the BBC’s first 100 years.
BBC History will also be working with a range of cultural and academic partners to mark the centenary throughout the year.
The new collections – 100 Objects, 100 Faces and 100 Voices – will evolve and be added to throughout the centenary year of 2022:
100 Objects features some of the BBC’s most iconic items, including technology, props, documents, artwork and buildings – such as the classic BBC microphone; Mr Darcy’s shirt from Pride & Prejudice; the mirror globe used as an early TV ident; and Roy Plomley’s proposal letter for Desert Island Discs – which help tell the quintessential story of the BBC. The objects are curated in partnership with a selected museums, including the Science Museum Group
100 Faces is a new collection of 100 iconic photos from the BBC photographic archive. From correspondents in the field, actors on set, or monarchs speaking to the nation, this is a collection of well-loved BBC personalities and contributors that unpacks the magic and mystery of broadcasting through the years. It is devised with the Radio Times
The 100 Voices oral history collection reveals stories of the men and women who worked at the BBC and created its unique culture. It covers News and Elections; The Birth of TV; Radio Reinvented; People, Nation, Empire; Pioneering Women; Entertaining the Nation; and Planning the Future. This collection is curated in partnership with the University of Sussex, under Professor David Hendy
Robert Seatter, BBC’s Head of History, says: “The BBC has an amazing history which belongs to us all. As we mark 100 years of our BBC, these new digital resources, partner exhibitions, research and publications give a unique insight into the history of the Corporation and provide something to intrigue audiences of all ages.”
In addition to the BBC 100 website, BBC History has worked with a range of cultural and academic partners around the BBC’s centenary. These include various projects with the BFI, one of which, ‘BFI’s 100 BBC Gamechangers’, will chronologically list the 100 BBC TV programmes that changed the landscape of British TV. The list, which will be announced in Spring 2022, is compiled by the television curators and historians at the BFI and led by Lisa Kerrigan, the BFI’s Senior Curator of Television.
Meanwhile, the Science Museum Group, will digitise 1,000 BBC objects for the first time and launch a major exhibition and events programme across the UK. Other regional museum partners will also mark the centenary through collections and displays.
Sir Ian Blatchford, Director and Chief Executive of the Science Museum Group says: “We are delighted to be part of 2022’s BBC 100 celebrations and to be telling the story of a century of broadcasting, as well as looking at the exciting possibilities of broadcast technologies in the future through our Broadcast 100 programme across the Science Museum Group and specifically in our Switched On exhibition at the National Science and Media Museum in Bradford.”
BBC History has also worked with the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), part of UK Research and Innovation, to create a series of new research opportunities and a new BBC Engagement Fellowship. BBC History will also be an active partner in the Being Human Festival, run by the Council in collaboration with the British Academy, in November 2022.
This year also sees the publication of The BBC: A People’s History by Professor David Hendy, the only BBC authorised centenary history book. It traces the BBC from its beginnings through war, the creation of television, changing public tastes, and massive cultural change. It is based on unique access to the BBC’s rich and comprehensive archives and will be published on 27 January 2022.
A year ago today, the UK became the first country in the world to administer the Oxford University/AstraZeneca vaccine
Vaccination programme has been a phenomenal success, saving countless lives and reducing pressure on NHS
One year ago today [Tuesday 4 January 2021] the UK became the first country in the world to administer the Oxford University/AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine.
Brian Pinker, 82, (above) was the first person to receive the life-saving vaccine outside of clinical trials at Oxford University Hospital at 7.30am.
Since then, around 50 million AstraZeneca vaccines have been administered in the UK, saving countless lives, keeping people out of hospital and reducing the pressure on the NHS.
To mark the anniversary, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Sajid Javid, will visit a vaccination centre in London to thank hard-working NHS staff and volunteers delivering jabs.
Health and Social Care Secretary Sajid Javid said: “Backed by government funding, the UK-made Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine has played an absolutely crucial role in our fight against COVID-19, saving countless lives in the UK and around the world.
“I’m extremely proud of our world-leading researchers and scientists who are responsible for developing some of the most effective vaccines and treatments during the pandemic and the NHS for the incredible roll out.
“The UK’s vaccination and booster programme is world leading but with the rapid spread of the Omicron variant, it is more important than ever that people come forward for their vaccines and booster to top up your immunity this winter and protect the progress we have made.”
The government invested early in Oxford University’s team, supporting their vaccine technology since 2016 and their COVID-19 jabs since March 2020 with more than £88 million to help research, develop and manufacture the vaccine.
The National Institute for Health Research’s (NIHR) helped recruit thousands of volunteers from across the UK for the phase 3 clinical trials and supported the researchers, which paved the way for approval by the independent Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA).
Around 2.5 billion doses have been distributed at-cost to more than 170 countries. Almost two-thirds of these have gone to low and lower-middle-income countries, including more than 30 million doses donated by the UK through COVAX or bilaterally.
The UK will donate a further 20 million AstraZeneca doses to countries in need this year as part of the government’s commitment to donate 100 million doses overall.
Vaccines Minister Maggie Throup said: “The Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine is a UK success story and demonstrates what can be achieved when researchers, scientists and the government work together.
“The at-cost vaccine has given billions of people around the world a way to fight back against this virus. Please get your vaccines and booster to protect yourself and your families this winter.”
The COVID-19 vaccination programme is the largest in British history and was established at unprecedented speed, with thousands of vaccine centres set up rapidly in England, meaning around 98% of people live within 10 miles of a vaccination clinic.
The government’s Vaccine Taskforce secured early access to almost 340 million doses of the most promising vaccine candidates in advance for the entire UK, Crown Dependencies and Overseas Territories, enabling a rapid deployment once approved by the medicines regulator.
NHS National Medical Director Professor Stephen Powis said: “Thanks to the extraordinary efforts of scientists and doctors, the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine was developed in just a matter of months instead of years, with NHS staff working tirelessly to roll the jabs out to millions across the country.
“The Oxford Astra Zeneca vaccine has played a crucial role in the biggest and most successful immunisation programme in NHS history, and I’d like to take this opportunity to remind people again that there are still hundreds of thousands of appointments available for first, second and booster jabs so please come forward and get jabbed.”
The UK led the world on vaccine research, providing results for three of the successful vaccine candidates through huge phase 3 trials for Oxford AstraZeneca, Janssen and Novavax vaccines. The Novavax trial is the largest ever double blind placebo controlled trial in the UK, recruiting 15,000 participants from 35 research sites in just over two months.
More than 133 million COVID-19 vaccinations have been administered in the UK in just over a year, including around 34 million boosters and third doses, securing vital protection against Omicron.
Scotland’s teachers have faced soaring levels of workload throughout the pandemic, and at a time when they are being offered a significant real-terms cut in their level of pay by COSLA and the Scottish Government.
The EIS conducted an online survey in November, and more than 16,000 teachers across Scotland took part. Amongst the key workload-related findings in the EIS survey are:
88% of teachers indicated that their workload burden has increased during the pandemic.
61% of teachers report that workload levels have increased “significantly” during this period.
80% of Secondary teachers reported significantly increased workload related to SQA qualifications.
The vast majority of teachers (93%) work above their contracted hours each week.
45% of full-time teachers work more than 8 extra hours every week – equivalent to over one extra full day of work each week, over and above contractual commitments.
EIS General Secretary Larry Flanagan said, “Teachers have continued to face a rising tide of workload throughout the pandemic, for a wide range of reasons. Clearly, changes brought about in response to the pandemic have had an impact on teacher workload with additional tasks requiring to be undertaken on a daily basis to help keep classrooms safe.
“The increased emphasis on digital learning – be that in the classroom or remotely from home – has created challenges for teachers, often associated with a lack of suitable equipment and resources. Teachers are also reporting a significant amount of time dealing with pupil behaviour as many young people continue the struggle to overcome the negative impact of the pandemic on their lives.”
Mr Flanagan continued: “The survey also identifies a substantial increase in the workload associated with supporting pupils with Additional Support Needs. 61% of all teachers identified meeting the Additional Support Needs, including the mental health support needs, of pupils as a significant driver of workload increases over the past year – with the figure even higher (66%) within the primary sector.
“This is a vital area of work, but the level of demand is increasing and this is clearly placing additional strain on already hard-worked teachers.”
Mr Flanagan added, “In addition to the challenges of keeping up to date with government Covid safety protocols, which affect all teachers, teachers in Secondary schools face additional difficulties with SQA-related workload.
“The challenges brought about by short-notice changes to the qualifications system have been a major driver in additional workload over the past two years for Secondary teachers. Meaningful reform of the examinations system is now required to ease the workload burden of teachers and students alike.”
Details of a financial package worth £65 million for culture and major events have been confirmed by the Culture Secretary Angus Robertson.
The split of the funding is as follows:
for cultural businesses, organisations, venues and independent cinema support and grassroots venues – £31.5 million
National Performing Companies (for Christmas losses and touring fund re-purposing) – £2 million
Freelancers – £10 million
Events sector – £19.8 million
Museums, galleries and heritage – £1.7 million
Culture Secretary Angus Robertson said: “The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic is once again causing disruption and uncertainty in the culture and events sector, who have already been hit so hard by its impact.
“We have been engaging with the sector about the impact of the Omicron variant and we are fully committed to supporting culture and events while they recover from the impact of the COVID – and we are aware of just how important they are to Scotland, and indeed the wider recovery from this pandemic.
“These additional funds will help protect the livelihoods of the people working in the sector – and allow us to give further support to freelancers, culture organisations, venues and our national performing companies.”
Creative Scotland’s Cancellation Fund for Creative Freelancers opens for applications this Thursday at 2pm.
Creative Scotland’s Chief Executive Iain Munro said: “We are very grateful for this significant increase in emergency funding from the Scottish Government which reflects the severity of the challenges being faced by Scotland’s culture sector.
“Our Cancellation Fund for Creative Freelancers is live, with applications open from 6 January, and more information on support for organisations and venues will follow as soon as possible.”
VisitScotland Director of Events Paul Bush said: “The Scottish Government’s commitment of £19.8 million for Scotland’s events sector is welcome news as the industry continues to deal with the latest challenges presented by the pandemic and the Omicron variant.
“EventScotland is currently working with the Scottish Government and the Event Industry Advisory Group (EIAG) to determine the best way of distributing the funding to ensure we get support to those in need across the sector, and details on this will be shared shortly.”
Teaching union the NASUWT is calling on governments across the UK to take urgent measures to protect schools from the Omicron variant of Covid-19.
In England the Union has released a joint statement with the five other trade unions representing the majority of education staff prior to the return of schools and colleges for the spring term.
And in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland the NASUWT has called for urgent action from the Scottsh Government, the Welsh Government and the Northern Ireland Executive to protect schools now.
Dr Patrick Roach, NASUWT General Secretary said: “Teachers have been on the frontline throughout the pandemic to support pupils and students and provide them with the best education possible.
“However, the rising number of cases of the Omicron variant could cause significant disruption in the next academic term with many teachers being forced to self-isolate.
“We must see immediate action to ensure that schools can continue to operate safely and provide high quality education.”
The statement below is from NASUWT, ASCL, GMB, NAHT, NEU and UNISON:
“There has been much speculation about the possibility of more disruption to education over the next academic term as a result of the Omicron variant of Covid-19.
“As trade unions representing the vast majority of education staff, we wish to emphasise that teachers, leaders and support staff desperately want to be able to conduct face-to-face teaching for all children and young people on a consistent basis and without further interruption caused by the pandemic.
“Education staff have moved heaven and earth to support pupils and students throughout the course of the crisis and they remain committed to providing the best possible support for all children and young people.
“They are acutely conscious that this is essential particularly in supporting disadvantaged and vulnerable children and young people who have often been most badly affected by the pandemic both educationally and in terms of their wellbeing.
“But last term education staff were more likely than other workers to test positive and therefore to have to self-isolate, inevitably leading to disruption of education.
“Schools and colleges cannot on their own reduce the threat posed by the virus and they need from the Westminster government more than rhetoric about the importance of education.
“We need the minimum amount of educational disruption this term in order to avoid a third successive year where GCSEs, A-levels and other exams have to be cancelled, and thereby removing the uncertainty and additional workload for students and teachers.
“It is essential therefore that the government takes immediate and urgent steps to mitigate the risk of Covid transmission and that it provides more support to minimise disruption in schools and colleges by such steps as:
Providing government-funded air cleaning units to every school and college classroom that needs these devices. While we welcome the provision of a small number of these units to special educational needs and alternative provision settings, the government’s decision to signpost all other schools and colleges to purchase this equipment from an ‘online marketplace’ is simply not good enough. We also question why the Westminster government takes such a different line on face coverings in secondary schools to Scotland and Wales when they use the same evidence.
Committing to providing schools with more resources in the event that on-site Covid testing is again required. Secondary schools have once again been left in the lurch at the beginning of the spring term by being asked to set up and staff testing stations with little support from the government.
Providing improved financial support to schools and colleges for the costs of supply staff to cover for Covid-related absence. The current government scheme contains so many complex conditions that it is inaccessible in many circumstances.
Making it clear that all schools or colleges due for an Ofsted inspection this term can request that the inspection is deferred, and that their request will be automatically granted. This will enable teachers and leaders to focus on the immediate and urgent task in hand – that of supporting their pupils and students – and remove the unnecessary pressure and distraction of unhelpful inspections at this time.
“As a new year begins, we urge the government to work more collaboratively and constructively with education workforce representatives to keep schools and colleges open. By working side by side, we can remove unnecessary burdens and find solutions with government in the interests of all children and young people.”
Officers are appealing for information following an attempted robbery that happened around 7.40pm last night in the Trinity area.
Two boys, both aged 13, had walked along Ferry Road and turned onto South Trinity Road when they were approached by a group of male youths aged between 14 and 16-years-old.
One of the boys was pushed and asked to hand over money. When he tried to run off he was assaulted.
Officers are keen to speak to the group of youths. There were around 12 of them and they were wearing dark-coloured tracksuits, facemasks and balaclavas.
One of them is described as of Asian appearance, around 5ft. He was wearing a distinctive pink headband and black gloves
Detective Constable Will Doughty said: “Fortunately the boy assaulted did not require medical treatment but was left frightened by what happened. We have a description of one of the assailants and we would like to speak to all of those involved as part of our enquiries to establish the full circumstances.
“If you can assist then please contact us on 101, quoting incident number 2640 of Sunday, 2 January, 2022, or make a call anonymously to the charity Crimestoppers on 0800-555-111.”
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon last week announced how £107 million is being allocated to support businesses impacted by the spread of the Omicron variant.
The funding, which follows an initial £100 million lifeline package, means the Scottish Government has now allocated £207 million of the £375 million committed to business support. Following discussions with stakeholders, this latest package is targeted at some of the hardest hit sectors and payments will start in the new year.
Business support is being provided to mitigate the impact of public health measures introduced to limit the rapid spread of the Omicron variant. Proportionate restrictions have been implemented for at least three weeks to allow immunity from the accelerated booster vaccination programme to take effect.
Decisions on the allocation of the remaining £168 million will be confirmed following consultation with affected sectors on how it can best be targeted
The latest £107 million support package is broken down into:
£32 million more for hospitality and leisure businesses
£10 million targeting parts of the hospitality industry most severely affected by requirement for table service
£5 million targeted support for nightclubs now required to close
£27 million for culture, due to impact of physical distancing and caps on attendance
£17 million for events, due to impact of physical distancing and caps on attendance
£16 million for existing public transport COVID-19 support schemes to recognise the impact on fare revenue
Final details of the funding available for each sector is being determined in discussion with business and sector organisations and will be published as soon as possible.
Hospitality businesses will be contacted by their local authority to access top up funding through the December and January Business Top Up.
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said: “We recognise that the public health measures necessary to limit the spread of Omicron have had a severe economic impact, especially for sectors like hospitality and culture which would normally be experiencing their busiest trading period.
“We will be providing a total of £375 million for affected businesses and continue to press the UK Government for more comprehensive support, akin to what was provided earlier in the pandemic. We know this funding won’t cover all losses but it is to compensate for cancellations and ensure businesses can survive the winter period and be ready to trade fully in the new year.
“The best way to support business sustainably is get the virus back under control. Please get your boosters and stay at home as much as possible just now.”
