All posts tagged: doubts

Blind date in Sydney: ‘Tall, good-looking, shirt decidedly unbuttoned – my doubts vanished’ | Relationships

Blind date in Sydney: ‘Tall, good-looking, shirt decidedly unbuttoned – my doubts vanished’ | Relationships

Harry on Jack What were you hoping for?To meet someone interesting without having to endure the trials and tribulations of online dating. First impressions?I turned up early, so I was very glad he was on time. What did you talk about?Only Connect and the rise of Connections. Climbing. Fleabag and how Claire is the best character. A lucrative concept for a blind dates app. Most awkward moment?Jack said his favourite cocktail was a bellini, which I misheard as a blini. Rest assured, he did not order a glass of tiny pancakes. Good table manners?Very good. A substantial crisis was avoided when he offered me one of his lactose pills (I forgot mine). Best thing about Jack?Easy to talk to, and a strong sense of self. Would you introduce Jack to your friends?Yes, I think they’d get along. Almost all of our social hobbies overlapped. Describe Jack in three words.Bright, genuine, friendly. What do you think Jack made of you?I think he was surprised at the number of shared interests we had. Q&A Fancy a blind date? …

Liz Truss Doubts Slowing Down Would Have Saved Her From “Establishment Forces”

Liz Truss Doubts Slowing Down Would Have Saved Her From “Establishment Forces”

Liz Truss has rejected criticism of her short-lived time as Prime Minister saying she would pursue the same policies again (Alamy) 5 min read30 min Former prime minister Liz Truss has been left wondering whether she should have bothered enacting her radical economic reforms, because she believes that even if she had taken more time over it, the “fundamental forces” of the establishment would have found a way of derailing her. When she succeeded Boris Johnson as Conservative leader in 2022, Truss became the UK’s shortest serving prime minister, lasting just 49 days before being forced to resign over the impact of her economic policy. The controversial “mini-budget” which she devised with Kwasi Kwarteng caused major fluctuations in the value of the pound, and a significant drop in the value of UK government bonds. The Bank of England was forced to make several major interventions to shore up pension funds. Truss recounts those days in a new book published this week, 10 Years To Save The West, where she recalls the Queen telling her to “pace yourself” …

NATO ministers’ doubts, fears and eye-rolls over €100B Ukraine plan – POLITICO

NATO ministers’ doubts, fears and eye-rolls over €100B Ukraine plan – POLITICO

Hadja Lahbib, Belgium’s foreign minister, warned: “It is dangerous to make promises that we cannot keep.” Some West European countries worry that giving NATO that much money and power would undermine efforts for the European Union to play a larger role in defense. The NATO proposal also threw up a lot of questions on the details. A key issue is whether the financial target consists of fresh money, or is merely made up of existing programs that allies are sending individually to Ukraine. Jens Stoltenberg argued that creating more certainty with how Ukraine is armed and financed will also send a clear message to the Kremlin. | Adrian Dennis/AFP via Getty Images Diplomats cautioned that the discussion on financing remains at a very early stage, pointing to Stoltenberg’s refusal to publicly acknowledge the amount involved in his proposal.  Jan Lipavský, the Czech foreign minister, said: “We do welcome the initiative and we need to see practicalities and the details.” Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares said: “We need to calculate how much Ukraine needs to …

Can a Garrick member chair an inquiry into police sexism fairly? I have my doubts | Alison

Can a Garrick member chair an inquiry into police sexism fairly? I have my doubts | Alison

Those of us involved in the so-called spy cops scandal have followed with interest the recent media coverage of the men-only Garrick Club and its membership list of high-profile individuals. It is not news to us that senior judges and powerful men in the security services have been members. Included among the elite was the chair of the public inquiry into undercover policing, John Mitting. Since his appointment as inquiry chair in 2017 we have been calling this out, as we believe it is an obvious conflict of interest – yet our concerns have predictably been ignored. The inquiry had been established two years earlier by the then prime minister, Theresa May, as a direct result of investigations by women like me into the disappearances of our ex-partners, and the subsequent revelations of their true identities as Metropolitan police undercover officers. The abuse of women, and institutional sexism in the police, are fundamental to understanding the significance of this inquiry. Aware of Mitting’s membership of the Garrick Club from the outset, we made repeated requests …

At Least One ‘Euphoria’ Actor Doubts Season 3 Will Be Made at All

At Least One ‘Euphoria’ Actor Doubts Season 3 Will Be Made at All

Not everyone is so convinced that there’s more Euphoria in store. While HBO released a statement this week claiming that the network is committed to producing a third installment of Sam Levinson’s hit teen drama, at least one cast member has their doubts. According to the Daily Beast, an actor on the show told the outlet that they don’t believe a third season is really in the cards: “I just don’t think it will happen.” The cast member, who wished to remain anonymous, allegedly exchanged direct messages with the Daily Beast and described their frustration with the prolonged wait between season two of Euphoria, which premiered over two years ago, and the still-unscheduled season three. “Since January of 2022, we have had a start date of March that turned into June, that turned into January,” said the anonymous actor. “And then they kept pushing every month from then on. It was two full years of HBO telling all the actors we were going back soon, so we couldn’t take some jobs.” Earlier this week, HBO …

MPs’ Committee Doubts Government Plan To Manage “Phenomenal” National Debt

MPs’ Committee Doubts Government Plan To Manage “Phenomenal” National Debt

Bringing down national debt is one of Rishi Sunak’s five pledges (Alamy) 5 min read2 hr A new report by the influential Public Accounts Committee has questioned whether ministers have clear measures in place to assess the value for money of the “phenomenal” £2.6 trillion of Government borrowing. The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) published a report on Tuesday warning that the government has not adequately learned lessons from the financial crisis and pandemic, with huge gaps remaining in how the Treasury and the Debt Management Office (DMO) track and measure government borrowing. Reducing national debt was one of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s five key pledges at the start of 2023. However, government borrowing has ballooned from around £300bn in 2003 to £2.6 trillion by the end of 2023. The new PAC report found that the Treasury has no directly measurable success criteria to meet its own objectives and assess whether it is securing value for money from its approach to managing this debt. The report urged the Treasury to set out …

California single-payer healthcare faces doubts from Democratic leader

California single-payer healthcare faces doubts from Democratic leader

SACRAMENTO —  California Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas cast doubt on the latest proposal to create a state-run single-payer healthcare system, saying he likes the idea but isn’t convinced the state can afford it in the face of a budget shortfall of at least $38 billion. “The concept of single-payer and expanding access and affordability are good ideas,” Rivas, a Democrat from Hollister, told reporters at the state Capitol on Tuesday. “I say this with great respect to stakeholders and advocates: We need to see how this is funded. It’s a good idea but it’s a tough, tough sell, especially in a budget climate that we are experiencing now.” Assembly Bill 2200, called Guaranteed Health Care for All — or CalCare — would set up a universal single-payer healthcare system for all residents of California. The bill by Assemblyman Ash Kalra (D-San José) is based on his prior single-payer legislation, which failed to get enough votes to move forward in January 2022. A legislative analysis of that bill pegged the cost between $314 billion and $391 billion …

Doubts abound about a new Alzheimer’s blood test

Doubts abound about a new Alzheimer’s blood test

For the first time, people worried about their risk of Alzheimer’s disease can go online, order a blood test, and receive results in the privacy of their homes. This might seem appealing on the surface, but the development has Alzheimer’s researchers and clinicians up in arms. The Quest Diagnostics blood test, AD-Detect, measures elevated levels of amyloid-beta proteins, a signature characteristic of Alzheimer’s. Introduced in late July, the test is targeted primarily at people 50 and older who suspect their memory and thinking might be impaired and people with a family history of Alzheimer’s or genetic risks for the condition. Given Alzheimer’s is among the most feared of all medical conditions, along with cancer, this could be a sizable market, indeed. Nearly 7 million older adults in the U.S. have Alzheimer’s, and that number is expected to double by 2060 if medical breakthroughs don’t occur. But Alzheimer’s researchers and clinicians aren’t convinced the Quest test is backed by sound scientific research. The possibility of false-positive results is high, as is the likelihood that older adults …

Biden faces serious doubts about his health nine months before presidential election

Biden faces serious doubts about his health nine months before presidential election

US President Joe Biden at a press conference from the White House, Washington, February 8, 2024. EVAN VUCCI / AP The sentence was terrible. It robbed Joe Biden of any sense of relief upon reading the report by Special Prosecutor Robert Hur, published on Thursday, February 8. The judge investigated classified documents held without authorization by the Democrat prior to his election. Hur concluded that he did not have enough evidence for an indictment, even if these files had been wrongly retained. In his lengthy report, the prosecutor wrote the following, in support of his decision: “We have also considered that, at trial, Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.” More a matter of speculative comment than legal assessment, Hur’s sentence resembles a discharged grenade. “If you’re too senile to stand trial, then you’re too senile to be president,” was the immediate reaction of Alex Pfeiffer, one of Donald Trump’s advisors. The numerous references in the report to Joe Biden’s …

Trump Unleashes His Doubts On NATO: ‘We Don’t Get So Much Out Of It’

Trump Unleashes His Doubts On NATO: ‘We Don’t Get So Much Out Of It’

Donald Trump declared that he doesn’t believe NATO would “be there” for the U.S. if the country were to be attacked. The former president, at a Las Vegas rally on Saturday, knocked Joe Biden’s push for a bipartisan Senate deal on border security that’s linked to Ukraine aid, claiming that it’s designed to “continue the invasion of America while sending billions of dollars” to other countries. He went on to claim that the U.S. has provided ”$200 billion-plus” to Ukraine while European nations “are in for $20 billion,” disregarding the facts on aid to Ukraine since Russia invaded the country in Feb. 2022. “We’re spending – we’re paying for NATO and we don’t get so much out of it,” said the GOP front-runner, who once called NATO “obsolete” and has campaigned on finishing “the process” of re-evaluating the purpose and mission of NATO. “And you know, I hate to tell you this about NATO – if we ever needed their help, let’s say we were attacked, I don’t believe they’d be there. I don’t believe. …