Around four in ten families with disabled children said they had fallen behind with heating bills, council tax and mortgage payments. Photograph: Graham Turner for the Guardian Almost a third of families with disabled children have taken out loans in the past year to help them afford basic everyday essentials such as food and heating, research has revealed.For those families where parents are in work, one in six say they cannot afford to heat their homes. For those families where parents are not working because of their caring responsibilities, almost a third (32%) have difficulty paying heating bills and almost a quarter (24%) told the survey that the extra costs of bringing up a disabled child meant they occasionally went without food.The survey of 2,300 ... Continue reading →
Foreclosure: how have you coped, and how has the financial stress affected your family and friends? Photograph: Joe Raedle/Getty Images Norman Rousseau battled the wrongful foreclosure of his home for several tortured years. In May, he killed himself. His widow, Oriane, says that Norman "saw no way out." Sheila Ramos, a small business owner from Florida, now lives with her grandchildren in a tent in Hawaii. "In America the foreclosure crisis roils on, devastating lives via a banking industry marked by such fraud and incompetence that five major banks – including Wells Fargo – earlier this year agreed a $25bn compensation settlement. The numbers tell a story of ongoing pain. In the first quarter of 2012 the foreclosure rate jumped in 26 out of the ... Continue reading →
NEWS FLASH POLL: Marriage Equality Support ‘Stronger’ Than Ever, Including Among African-Americans | A new ABC News/Washington Post poll finds marriage equality support remaining consistent at 53 percent, but notably, those who “strongly” support it (39 percent) outweigh those who “strongly” oppose it (32 percent) for the first time. About 71 percent of Americans say they personally know someone who’s gay, which makes them 20 percent more likely to support the freedom to marry. Among African-Americans, 59 percent said they want to legalize same-sex marriage, with a solid 65 percent saying they support President Obama’s recent “evolution” on the issue, results that seem to nullify the notion that people of color are uniquely anti-gay. By Zack Ford on May 23, 2012 at 9:00 am Continue reading →
Jim Wilson/The New York Times Native Americans are particularly vulnerable to sexual assault in remote Alaskan villages like Emmonak, women’s advocates say. More Photos » EMMONAK, Alaska — She was 19, a young Alaska Native woman in this icebound fishing village of 800 in the Yukon River delta, when an intruder broke into her home and raped her. The man left. Shaking, the woman called the tribal police, a force of three. It was late at night. No one answered. She left a message on the department’s voice mail system. Her call was never returned. She was left to recover on her own. “I drank a lot,” she said this spring, three years later. “You get to a certain point, it hits a wall.” One ... Continue reading →
Joplin tornado, one year on: how residents are rebuilding their homes – and lives On 22 May last year, Joplin, Missouri was struck by a mile-wide tornado, the deadliest to hit the US since records began. One hundred and sixty-one people died, and more than eight thousand homes were destroyed. Scroll over the pictures to see the damage the tornado wrought – and how the process of rebuilding the Missouri town has taken shape Continue reading →
Further education colleges have been awarded over half the extra student places allotted by the Higher Education Funding Council for England. How have the places been shared out, and between which institutions? Continue reading →
