Sandwell Council says there are currently 220 households living in temporary accommodation.

Lee Rider betrayed his victim's trust in "the worst possible way", police say.

Three mainstream schools in Herefordshire will benefit from the grant and a SEND school will be built.

106 year old Dorothy Young remembers her life in Ireby, Blennerhasset, and Torpenhow.

Workington Town Council raises concerns about the impact on nearby Hall Park.

Micky Beckett charged £10 a ticket in the raffle for the ILCA 7 dinghy he used to compete.

Dorset-based sailor Pip Hare says she now knows what it takes and how to prepare herself mentally for the iconic Vendee Globe.

Wimborne Town centre-back Scott Arnold amassed the last of his 618 appearances against Weymouth.

2028年之前，中國地方政府需要消化的隱性債務總額有望從14.3萬億元大幅下降至2.3萬億元，大大減輕債務壓力。

Peterborough United, Swindon Town and Cheltenham Town all win in the EFL Trophy to seal their places in the last 16 of the competition.

Wiltshire Wildlife Trust wants to help bats with improved habitats on six of its reserves.

The historic Manor House will host a town council after being initially found in a "rundown" state.

The cladding is on a building which will house SEND students, Warwickshire County Council says.

Money saved after placing service commitments on hold has helped cut the expected deficit to £9.5m.

Ryan Ward, 31, is wanted in connection with incidents of assault and criminal damage.

The six-figure salary hires come as the council is facing a budget gap of about £10m this year.

中国人非常关注美国大选，BBC在北京采访民众，了解他们对这次选举的想法。

The iPhone could finally show you how long it’ll take to finish charging. Code spotted in the second iOS 18.2 beta by 9to5Mac shows a new “BatteryIntelligence” feature that will let you […]

The post Apple to roll out ‘Battery Intelligence’ for iPhone, Amazon slashes price of 43inch Hisense smart TV to £228 appeared first on Tech Digest.

Roblox is introducing new safety features for children under the age of 13, following criticism of how it protects younger users. The free online gaming platform, which has around 70 million […]

The post Roblox introduces new safety features, Australia bans Under 16s from social media appeared first on Tech Digest.

  Kia’s compact electric SUV, the Kia EV3, has arrived in Europe with a range of up to 375 miles on a single charge and an interior design that the […]

The post Kia EV3 now available across Europe from £33,000 appeared first on Tech Digest.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is changing how user experience design is handled across various industries by playing a vital role in developing tailored and seamless experiences for users. Starting from app […]

The post How AI is Transforming User Experience (UX)  appeared first on Tech Digest.

Mare’s Hair | Avidly "Here’s an important and (as far as I can yet tell) unaddressed question for Mare of Easttown criticism: when, exactly, did Mare Sheehan stop dying her hair blond? This question may seem trivial compared to more pressing Mare of Easttown questions, such as “was that ending good?” and “is this copaganda?” […]

Since Microsoft first introduced Office for the iPad last March, it’s been downloaded some 40 million times, even with the restrictions of needing an Office 365 subscription to use it. Today, Microsoft announced that Office will soon be coming to …

I’ve been researching the distributor space lately and watching with interest as more pop up and margins get squeezed. It’s got to a place now where you can actually distribute music for free. But what else should you be looking for other than a pipeline? I’ve spoken to a lot of artists and record labels...

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Today our comment and review media lurch from Hot Takes to History without pausing for a moment to get a sense of what actually happened. The concept of the One Year Later Review was that we might be able to get a better understanding of what mattered and what effects it had with a little […]

Bristol City midfielder George Earthy called up to the England Under-21 squad for the first time after a series of withdrawals due to either injury or transitions into the senior squad.

The Bristol Downs League has been going for almost 120 years but how can they solidify its future?

Well, the Oscars happened last night, and for the first time in 21 years I didn’t bother to watch. Pretty ironic given how many of these movies I ended up seeing and loving, but that’s neither here nor there. I did watch the video of Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper musically fucking on stage while […]

The post A Mediocre Rundown of the 2019 Oscars appeared first on HecklerSpray.

Not an artisan sourdough loaf in sight.

The Lord Mayor's Show, firework displays and brand new exhibitions.

Things to do for a fiver or less.

A (hopefully not) cracking attraction.

All our best articles from the past week.

A cheese market, new illuminations and a literature festival.

Things to do for a fiver or less.

  Halloween may be the time for frightful fun and eerie excitement, but the costs of costumes, decorations, and sweets can quickly turn from treat to trick. Thankfully, celebrating the […]

The post 6 tips to help you save big for Halloween appeared first on ShinyShiny.

The UK new car market fell for the second time this year, down by -6.0% in October to 144,288 new registrations, according to the latest figures from the Society of […]

The post UK’s EV sales up thanks to discounting, Elon Musk wealth leaps $15 billion following Trump win appeared first on ShinyShiny.

It's a well-known rule in journalism that if the headline asks a question, the answer is invariably "no". So to see the question above on this blog will probably not surprise you.

What might surprise you is to learn it was also the headline of a prominently-featured article on the BBC website yesterday. Of course, as is the current fad, when they say "prostitutes" they mean "trafficking", and vice-versa.

It's been long known that there is no connection between major international sporting events such as the Olympics, the World Cup, and sex trafficking. But don't take my word for it. Take the word of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, who hosted a meeting on this very topic earlier this year. Take the word of the Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women, who produced a must-read report (pdf) on the actual effects of sports events on human trafficking. Go check out Laura Agustin's excellent summary too.

The facts:

• 2010 World Cup, South Africa: the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development did not find a single case of trafficking over the Olympics time period.

• 2010 Olympics, Canada: no evidence of trafficking and sex workers reported a fall in business.

• 2006 World Cup, Germany: 33 cases were referred to the police for further investigation, out of which 5 cases were confirmed to be trafficking (4 women and 1 man). No other cases were found, despite the fact that the police conducted 71 brothel raids (these raids did not identify the 5 confirmed trafficking cases, but did lead to 10 deportations).

• 2004 Olympics, Greece: When trafficking statistics were compared for all of 2004 with all of 2003, there was an increase of 181 trafficking cases (which is a 90% increase). According to both the police and the International Organization for Migration, none of these cases were linked to the Olympics.

• Super Bowls in the USA in 2008-2011: Although law enforcement increased, they made no additional arrests for sex work-related offences during this time.

You might be wondering, and it is a good question, why there isn't sex trafficking during these events. The answer is simple. Criminals may be criminals, but organised crime does not exist for the purpose of being evil. It exists to make loads of tax-free dosh. Does it make financial sense for sex trafficking to occur at these events? With London rents skyrocketing around the venues, with the Home Office plans to tighten border security, with the police already well misinformed about the magnitude of the trafficking problem, you'd have to be mad to pursue this as a business plan.

There was perhaps a time, back in the 90s, when sex trafficking in some parts of Eastern Europe might have netted you some cash if you already had the distribution network, but it's not the case now. Add to that a large native population willing and legally able to exchange money for sex and you'd be laughed out of Dragon's Den for even suggesting it as a goer. I've met a lot of dodgy characters in my day - drug dealers and worse besides - and to a person they were not in it to lose money. In many cases the black marketeers I know were actually better businesspeople than anyone in legit trading.

In spite of all this, we are still treated - almost daily now in the run-up to London 2012 - with the same old guff such as stories that sex trafficking 'almost doubled' during the Athens Olympics.

In this particular case, 'almost doubled' means that the number of reported incidents was 181, a 90% increase over the previous year. So yes, they did 'almost double'.

However if you too are underwhelmed by that number, it's with good reason. Applying all the usual disclaimers - any instance of forced sex trafficking is abhorrent and should be prosecuted vigorously, this is an argument about best use of police time, tax money and other resources - what does the reported change from just-shy-of-100 people to 181 actually represent?

Prostitution is legal and regulated in Greece, however, not everyone works legally and not everyone registers, because hello, do you want your name on the Greek government's hooker list? Probably not. Anyway, estimates put the number at about 1,000 legal prostitutes and 20,000 illegal ones. Given that these numbers are the ones put about by the US State Department which does not have a great track record on accuracy, it's a little suspect. But let's say for the sake of saying that represents some kind of starting ballpark figure and probably even an overestimate. The 21,000 total gives us about 1 in every 250 women in Greece working as a prostitute - actually a realistic enough proportion for Europe.

In the year before the Athens Olympics, the reports of sex trafficking at 95 represented 0.45% of all prostitution in Greece. And after the Olympics? 0.86%. Less than 1% of prostitutes in Greece were trafficked both before and after the Olympics.

There is no particular evidence, statistical or otherwise, to suggest that the fluctuation in this rather small number was due to the Olympics per se. In fact it is certainly within the bounds of what we call the 'law of small numbers' which dictates that they can and do fluctuate in a way that represents a high percentage of the values themselves, but given the rarity of the events involved, this is expected and not necessarily significant.

Here's an example. Let's say in the year 2008, there was 1 death in all of Scotland from a vending machine falling on someone. Then let's say a year later, in 2009, there were 2 such deaths. While it would be technically true to say that the number of vending machine accidental deaths 'doubled', is this a fair representation of the data? Is this a significant trend that is likely to continue? (Which would mean that by 2032, there would be 8.38 million such deaths in Scotland, or approximately... er, 150% of the population). No, obviously not. The change from 1 to 2 in a given year seems clearly attributable to chance. You'd be silly to conclude the change from one small number to another "means" very much without a lot of additional evidence.

If you've read my paper on the effects of lap dancing on sexual violence in London, you'll already be aware of how over time these small numbers fluctuate wildly. For context, the UNHCR gives the number of trafficked persons for Greece as 137 in 2005, 83 in 2006, 100 in 2007, 162 in 2008, 125 in 2009, 92 in 2010.

Now if these things had no knock-on effect, and if police resources and tax money were infinite, then sure, why not go after human trafficking even if it's only a very tiny proportion of all sex work in Greece - or in the more immediate case, London? But alas, it is not a matter of infinite police time and tax money. And it is definitely not a matter of no knock-on effects.

According to the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, "Police crackdowns and brothel closures tend to displace sex workers from flats and saunas to less safe work venues, including the street, and make them wary of all authorities so they are less likely to access services or to report episodes of violence or crime to the police."

Given that the anti-sex lobby are so dead keen to keep claiming that all sex workers are inevitably the victims of violent and sex crimes, that seems like it's going to affect a hell of a lot more than a couple hundred people, no? Why does a small number of people matter to them more than a potentially far larger pool of people? Is it because that's where the grant money and column inches are at?

Not only is this increased danger the outcome in previous incidents of trafficking panic, it's happening right now in London. The Moratorium 2012 campaign, organised by x:talk, confirms:

Stop the Arrests Campaign is aware of ‘clean up efforts’ already underway in London, particularly east London, in the run-up to the Olympics ... Last December in Barking and Dagenham a violent gang carried out a series of robberies on brothels at knife point. Sex workers were deterred from pursuing the attacks after police threatened them with prosecution. Thus many more were attacked and one woman was raped.

Got that? Send the police after non-existent sex trafficking, and they end up cracking down on non-trafficked sex workers. When that happens, people in sex work are put in more danger. No one is made safer by doing this. No one is saved. Moratorium 2012 is calling on an end to the pointless and dangerous harassment. Please, sign the petition.

Listen to this week's podcast (October 29, 2011) (23:05 minutes) I'm trying a little something different this week. I hope you guys like pictures. :) Brenden Eich + "I Like Ike" mashup by @lonnen 140 byte synthesizer A while back Jed Schmidt created a simple little project on GitHub called 140 bytes ...

Listen to the podcast for November 11, 2011 insertAdjacentHTML Mozilla has a nice overview of insertAdjacentHTML, a DOM function that's intended to supplement innerHTML. It's a bit less destructive and plays nicely with content that's already in the DOM. For instance, whereas innerHTML completely blows away whatever is inside the ...

From pre-race confusion to post-race joy, from 17th on the grid to a stunning win, here's how Max Verstappen's Brazilian Grand Prix unfolded on his radio.

Formula 1 drivers urged the operators of the Interlagos circuit to improve the new surface they laid ahead of this year's event.

The controversy which surrounded Red Bull team principal Christian Horner earlier this year "had an impact" on their staff, according to a long-serving ex-F1 engineer.

In the round-up: F1 hopes for South Americans "getting better" • Verschoor back to MP for fifth F2 season • Verstappen races in charity event

McLaren could be set to win their first constructors' title for 25 years this season. Here is how close they've come over that time.

Max Verstappen is poised to clinch the 2024 drivers' championship if he finishes ahead of Lando Norris one more time. Here's how he can seal a fourth title at the next race.

Mercedes have put the car from Lewis Hamilton's controversial 2021 championship defeat on display in the lobby at their factory.

Gabriel Bortoleto said he was determined not to sit out a year of racing in 2025 after Sauber confirmed he will make his debut for them in Formula 1 next year.

Liam Lawson is unhappy the British national anthem is played when McLaren win. But would the New Zealand anthem really be more correct?

Alpine have officially announced they will use Mercedes power units when Formula 1 introduces its new engine regulations in 2026.