Real World News

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-38077409 Image copyrightSTURTI Ambulance services are struggling to reach seriously ill and injured patients quickly enough after rising demand has left the system at breaking point, a BBC investigation has found. Patients with life-threatening conditions - like cardiac arrests - are meant to be reached in eight minutes. But only one of the UK's 13 ambulance services is currently meeting its target. Ambulance bosses are blaming rising demand and pressure in the system. Freedom of information requests by the BBC to ambulance trusts showed over 500,000 hours of ambulance crews' time in England, Wales and…

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-38143777 It is one of the most dragged-out divorces in corporate history but it seems that BT and Openreach will definitely go their separate ways. Talks between BT and regulator Ofcom to find a voluntary solution to the problem seem to have broken down. Ofcom has now begun the formal process of forcing a legal split. The big question is what will it all mean for consumers. Why do the two need to split? Image copyright PA The argument for separation centres around whether the firm that provides the vast majority of the UK's broadband infrastructure (Openreach) should be part of the same parent gro…

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-38151180 Image copyright Thinkstock Sleep-deprived workers are costing the UK economy £40bn a year and face a higher risk of death, says a new study. The calculation is based on tired employees being less productive or absent from work altogether. Research firm Rand Europe, which used data from 62,000 people, said the loss equated to 1.86% of economic growth. The biggest impact was on health, with those sleeping less than six hours a night 13% more likely to die than those sleeping between seven and nine hours. The study evaluated the economic cost of insufficient sleep in the UK, US, Canada, German…

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-38152297 Image copyright Philip Morris Image caption PMI boss Andre Calantzopoulos says he would like to work with governments towards the "phase-out" of conventional cigarettes Philip Morris has launched a new, less harmful cigarette in the UK which it says could mean it stops selling conventional cigarettes altogether. The so called iQOS product heats tobacco rather than burning it. The tobacco giant claims this means smokers get the same nicotine hit, but 90% less of the nasty toxins that come with cigarette smoke. It says trials - not yet externally verified - found the new cigarette had the same i…

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-38149577 Image copyright PA British roads are the most congested in Europe, a study of traffic in more than 100 EU cities suggests. Data company Inrix monitored traffic on every road in 123 cities, including London, Cardiff, Paris and Hamburg. It found more than 20,300 so-called "traffic hotspots" in UK cities - well over double the number in Germany and twice that of France. The government recently pledged to spend an extra £1.3bn on targeting congestion on roads. In Inrix's analysis, a road becomes a "traffic hotspot" once congestion forces drivers to drop their speed by 65% for at least two minutes. …

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-38150313 Image copyright Science Photo Library Four men have killed themselves in the UK in the last year after becoming victims of sextortion, police say. The number of people reporting financially-motivated webcam blackmails has more than doubled from 385 in 2015 to 864 up to November 2016. The National Crime Agency (NCA) said it believed it was also significantly under-reported and actual numbers of victims were likely much higher. The National Police Chiefs' Council said the rise in cases was "worrying". Sextortion is a form of blackmail where criminals use fake identities to befriend victims online b…

I could have had a van full at the remembrance parades I ended up policing last year, struggle to believe everybody that lives in my local area was a Para, Royal Marine or in the SAS somehow. A few of my colleagues had their medal ribbons on and one chap with a chest full of medals singled me out and told me I was letting the side down. When I pointed out that all the medals he was wearing were commemorative medals he had bought he promptly shot off! My Grandfather used to collect medals as a hobby and research the history behind recipients etc so I've not got a bad eye for recognising them. Not sure about this proposal in all honesty, the original…