Innholdsfortegnelse for 7/18/2022 i The Big Issue

BIG PICTURE Looking like glittering mountains, this image is the most detailed picture ever captured of the star nurseries in the Carina Nebula. It’s one of a series of images revealed by NASA last week – the first released from their new flagship mission in astrophysics, the James Webb Space Telescope. We’ve seen the Carina Nebula before. First catalogued in 1826, it is one of the brightest in the night sky, appearing as a fuzzy patch even to the naked eye (albeit when looking from the Southern Hemisphere). The Hubble Space Telescope – previously the most powerful instrument we had – celebrated its 20th anniversary with a beautiful image of the nebula’s star-forming ‘Cosmic Cliffs’ back in 2010. But so much of it was still hidden. Until now. Using infrared…

Germany 1 After vendor Michael Hermann (pictured) spent over two decades on the streets, Düsseldorf street paper fiftyfifty bought him a place to live in 2017 — not just a bed in a shelter, but a brand-new studio apartment. And it was all thanks to a glamorous blonde photographed in black and white by the late Peter Lindbergh. Celebrity photographer Lindbergh donated 14 pictures to the Düsseldorf gallery operated by fiftyfifty. Each print was auctioned for 4,200 euros. From these proceeds, fiftyfifty purchased Hermann’s apartment for 64,700 euros, including the cost for renovations. “This is basically the amount two years of care for him would have cost anyway. So we might as well get him a permanent home for that,” says Hermann’s social worker, Oliver Ongaro. Hermann left his…

INTERVIEW Watergate farce shows how far politics has fallen Willa Fitzgerald stars in 18½, a movie about a political scandal from a more innocent age The Watergate break-ins took place in June 1972. In retrospect, the prototype of political scandals now seems pretty tame 50 years on. Outrageous, shameful behaviour from our leaders became routine. That was just how President Trump, and his British tribute act Boris Johnson, did business. The president complicit in orchestrating a break-in to a rival’s HQ to wiretap their phones? That would be one of the least serious offences Trump committed during his time in office. Compared to inciting a mob to riot through the offices of government, what’s the big deal? “I know, and that’s the shocking thing,” says US actress Willa Fitzgerald, best…

HOUSING At least 30,000 people have waited 10 years for social housing The Big Issue can reveal that across England, over 30,000 people have been on a social housing waiting list for 10 years or more. In a stark illustration of the UK’s growing housing crisis, data shows that waits of two years or longer are now commonplace, while one in five people have waited 10 years or more for a home in at least three areas. The Big Issue sent Freedom of Information requests to the 10 councils in England with the highest demand for council homes as of 2021 – Liverpool, Wakefield, Brent, Newham, Sheffield, Leeds, Birmingham, Greenwich, Tower Hamlets and Lambeth. Nine out of 10 authorities responded, with Wakefield Council rejecting the request saying its social housing…

With soaring temperatures and cancelled flights, the staycation is here to stay in the UK. The British seaside holiday underwent a revival during the pandemic and that has sustained as Covid restrictions have disappeared. But it’s bad news for renters living in coastal towns and resorts. The rise of Airbnb and the influx of holiday lets has pushed renters out with hundreds of holiday lets for every rental home. The Big Issue’s analysis of exclusive data from sector analysts AirDNA and listings on property site Rightmove shows the unregulated holiday-let market is dwarfing rentals across almost 100 of the UK’s holiday hot spots according to the most recent figures. In Cornwall there are just 166 properties currently available to rent on Rightmove, while there were more than 19,500 holiday-let listings…

An exhibition of artwork by under-18s in secure settings or under supervision in the community, The Future is Never too Big is a collaboration between the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom and prison arts charity Koestler Arts. It showcases artworks by young entrants to the 2022 Koestler Awards for arts in criminal justice. Free to view until October at the Supreme Court in Parliament Square, London, it features 29 pieces including poems and visual artworks made in a wide variety of media such as spray painting, collage, woodwork, and photography. The artwork pictured was submitted from within the Greenwich Youth Offending Service and is titled Light Within Dark. It won an Under-18s Highly Commended Award. Many of the artworks on display are available to purchase via the Koestler Arts…

Crossword CRYPTIC CLUES Across 1. Where one might carry one’s burden (8)6. Gospel writer’s symbol (4)8. Framework includes two-thirds of the broken girder (4)9. She is a devoted adherent but a bother to savers (8)10. Not a squatter in rented accommodation (7,6)11. Notice it is an opening into a mine (4)13. Fruity appointment? (4)17. He does not go out with his fellow workers (13)20. Handyman, fellow to perform outside with hesitation (8)21. Vehicle for catching a speeding motorist? (4)22. Look both ways (4)23. Remove from the highest seat in the land (8) Down 2. Channel island, it is for a recluse (6)3. Modernised a loft together that is old-fashioned (7)4. Died alongside terrible king’s resting place (5)5. Rodney went round the gallery, went round and round (7)6. After a short…

EBIKES Five months in, show your love for Big Issue eBikes Big Issue eBikes have been going since February, helping people in Bristol get around in a healthy and environmentally friendly way – but now we need to ask for help. Bristol was the first British city to be named European Green Capital, and the uptake for the eBikes has shown this spirit lives on. The fleet of bikes are projected to prevent around 1,900 car journeys every day. The eBikes are available 24/7. Those supporting the project are also helping create opportunities for marginalised people. The eBikes scheme recruits previously unemployed people, trains them up, and gets them back into work to keep things running smoothly. But vandalism is putting the scheme at risk. It’s not believed to be…

BIRD FLU In 1993, when Helen Moncrieff was a young schoolgirl in Shetland, an oil tanker ran aground and spilled 85,000 tonnes of crude oil onto Quendale Bay. Moncrieff, now the Shetland Islands manager for the RSPB, spent days picking up the carcasses of birds, and remembers the feeling of “total helplessness” that overwhelmed her as she did it. In recent weeks that feeling has crept back again only this time, she says, it’s much worse. Over the last few months, across Scotland’s islands and coastlines, seabirds have been washing up dead on beaches in their hundreds for a very different reason. A vicious strain of avian influenza – or bird flu – has been ripping through bird colonies and devastating their numbers. Things are now so bad that, according…

ELECTRIC CARS How the race to go green will drive the decade Electric vehicles are becoming an increasingly common sight on the streets of London and other big cities. The number of EVs in the UK recently passed the half a million mark, from basically zero just 10 years ago. Everybody knows of Elon Musk and the story of Tesla, which is now the world’s most valuable automaker. But who does the world’s richest man depend on to produce his vehicles? And how are electric vehicles really changing the world? I wrote a book to find out, and uncovered a hidden supply chain made up of secretive billionaires that is to a large extent controlled by China. Materials that end up in your electric vehicle have been on a journey…