Archive for March 2025

Under the proposed law, mentally competent, terminally ill adults in England and Wales with six months or less to live would be given the right to end their lives with medical help. Polls show that a majority of Britons back assisted dying and supporters say the law needs to catch up with public opinion.

Silas Xuereb: I characterize this process over the past forty to fifty years as neoliberalism. And this essentially means policy shifts that are motivated by the idea that free markets are the best way to organize everything — the provision of all sorts of goods, from natural resources to housing, health care, and transportation. In Canada, this shift has manifested itself specifically in terms of free-trade agreements that have prioritized protecting investors over supporting workers.

About one-quarter of Mipim attendees are from the UK, with every British banner and brochure focused on one thing: courting investors with the promise of growth. A billboard declares Manchester “The UK’s Growth Opportunity”. Another proclaims that in the Tees Valley, “Anything is Possible”. Newcastle’s CEO and director of investment and growth tell me how the city makes development “dead easy for investment”. But the question is: growth for whom?

Julie Jones, Senior Social Worker at Nightingale House Hospice, explained: “Our intention for the group is to allow carers a much-needed break whilst their loved ones are safely attending our wellbeing sessions here at the hospice.

Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) Secretary Rex Gatchalian commends the dedication and selfless acts of social workers to help families affected by disasters during the hybrid celebration of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Social Work Day at Novotel Araneta City in Cubao, Quezon City

The Department of Health and Human Services has abruptly canceled more than $12 billion in federal grants to states that were being used for tracking infectious diseases, mental health services, addiction treatment and other urgent health issues. The cuts are likely to further hamstring state health departments, which are already underfunded and struggling with competing demands from chronic diseases, resurgent infections like syphilis and emerging threats like bird flu. Above: An MMR vaccination clinic in Lubbock, Texas, last month amid a measles outbreak.

Scientists developed a compound that appeared to relieve pain in mice without adverse side effects. The finding could lead to more effective alternatives to opioids for chronic pain treatment.

The plan combines personnel cuts, centralization of functions, and consolidation of HHS divisions, including:
– The current 82,000 full-time employees will be reduced to 62,000
– 28 divisions will be consolidated to 15
– 10 regional offices will become 5
– Human Resources, Information Technology, Procurement, External Affairs, and Policy will be centralized.

The labeling of these gangs as “terrorists” — and the imprisonment of people they accuse, without any evidence, of being members in a prison designated for those who supposedly fall into this category — exemplifies crucial continuities. These can be traced through the guiding threads of the methodologies of state terror that characterized U.S. strategies and affinities during the Cold War, and which have persisted as the emphasis of U.S. hegemony has shifted to the so-called “drug war” and “anti-terror” paradigms. The elites who benefit and the victims continue to be essentially the same as they were in the 1980s. Above: Nayib Bukele during a visit at CECOT in 2023

The standards, proposed as part of a consultation launched this month, are designed for social workers in their first two years of practice after qualifying and are aligned with the statutory Children’s Social Care National Framework, published in December 2023. According to the consultation document, the post-qualifying standards (PQS) are designed to support social workers in developing confidence and capability in working with children and families.