4 2GM Tuesday April 5 2022 | the times
News
Eye in the sky This drone image of the Menai Strait in north Wales by Matt Hoyland was selected by NATS, the air traffice control service, for display in their centres
Boost for bus services
Thirty-one areas in England have
been selected for government
funding to boost bus services.
Brighton and Hove, Cornwall,
Manchester, Liverpool, Norfolk,
Portsmouth, York and the West
Midlands are among the areas
that will have cheaper, more
frequent services with greener
vehicles, the Department for
Transport said.Cannabis sweet death
A 23-year-old woman has died
from a suspected cannabis sweet
delivered via an app to her door.
The woman and a 21-year-old
friend were taken to hospital in
Ilford, east London, on March 29,
but the 23-year-old died on April- Her friend was discharged.
Leon Brown, 37, has been charged
with intent to supply a Class B
synthetic cannabinoid.
Young carers’ burden
A European survey among people
aged 15-17 who are carers found
that twice as many from Britain
had thought of harming themself
or someone else. The Me-We
Young Carers project also found
that more than a third had been
bullied at school because they
looked after someone. The study
is published in the International
Journal of Care and Caring.Higher bills in country
Poorly insulated properties and
soaring oil prices mean rural
households may face higher
energy bills than those in cities,
Labour claims. The party said the
lack of energy-efficient homes in
the countryside was down to “
years of Tory failure”, citing data
that rural households pay a third
more on average to heat their
homes. With those living rurally
more likely to rely on oil, which is
not covered by Ofgem’s price cap,
to heat their properties, Labour
said non-urban communities are
more likely to feel the pinch.ACCDEEEF
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letter underneath once only1 Tempest (5)2 Oxford college (5)3 Surgical knife (6)4 Gallic (6)5 Peruse without buying (6-4)Quintagram® No 1281
Solutions MindGames in Times
Cryptic clues Page 10 of TimesTransgender women can be legally
excluded from women’s lavatories,
changing rooms and other single-sex
spaces, the equalities watchdog has said.
The Equality and Human Rights
Commission, which is responsible for
enforcing the Equality Act 2010, has
issued new guidance in an attempt to
clarify the law.
The guidance will be welcomed by
some women’s rights campaigners who
have argued that transgender people
who were born men should not be
allowed to use places designed to pro-
tect women, such as rape and domestic
abuse shelters.
The watchdog believes that under
the Equality Act, such exclusions apply
to those who are born male and self-
identify as female, and to trans women
who have obtained gender recognition
certificates.
The commission said that under the
present law, businesses and other
bodies that exclude trans women from
certain services must demonstrate
a “legitimate aim” for doing so. Its
Scientists have discovered 42 new
genes associated with Alzheimer’s dis-
ease in research that promises to reveal
new ways of tackling the condition.
The findings of the study, involving
over 100,000 people with Alzheimer’s,
more than double the number of genes
known to be linked to the disease, and
also provides evidence for the pro-
cesses that might cause and prevent it.
Researchers find 42 genes with links to Alzheimer’s
Tom Whipple Science Editor Dr Rebecca Sims, from Cardiff Uni-
versity, said the work was about “trying
to unpick a very complex disease”, in
which simple theories about its mecha-
nism had so far failed to yield treat-
ments. “Alzheimer’s is not as straight-
forward as many people had hoped and
thought for a very long time. It’s com-
plicated and very multifactorial, and
this is about understanding what each
of those factors do.”
The study, published in Nature
Genetics, involved comparing the
genomes of the Alzheimer’s patients to
more than 600,000 healthy controls,
and seeing how they differed. Using the
new findings allowed researchers to
improve the accuracy with which they
can predict someone’s likelihood of
developing dementia.
Those in the top 10 per cent for risky
genes were 1.9 times as likely to get it as
those in the bottom 10 per cent, even
after excluding a particular gene vari-ant called apoE4 that is very strongly
linked to the condition.
Professor Bart De Strooper, director
of the UK Dementia Research Insti-
tute, said: “Ambitious studies like this
are the fuel for the breakthroughs we
need in dementia research. They show
us that there is still much to learn about
neurodegeneration, and continued in-
vestment in fundamental, discovery
science is key to unlocking the secrets
of Alzheimer’s and other dementias.”MATT HOYLANDstories of our times
Listen at thetimes.co.uk/
storiesofourtimesThe podcast goes back
inside GCHQ as Matthew
Syed talks to the people at
the sharp end about the
importance of diversityTrans women can be barred from
same-sex spaces, watchdog decides
guidance sets out several examples,
such as for privacy, decency and “to
prevent trauma or to ensure health and
safety”.
“There are circumstances where a
lawfully established separate or single-
sex service provider can prevent, limit
or modify trans people’s access to the
service,” the commission said in a sum-
mary.
However, it warned that “limiting or
modifying access to, or excluding a
trans person from, the separate or
single-sex service of the gender in
which they present might be unlawful if
you cannot show such action is a pro-
portionate means of achieving a legiti-
mate aim”.
The guidance highlights instances in
which transgender women could be
barred, including separate or single-sex
lavatories, domestic violence refuges,
separate or single-sex changing rooms
and hospital wards. The commission
said the list was not exhaustive.
It said businesses and service provid-
ers should consider developing their
own policies on transgender access but
there was no legal obligation to doso. Publishing the guidance, Baroness
Falkner of Margravine, chairwoman of
the commission, said there was “no
place for discrimination against anyone
based on their sex or gender reassign-
ment”. However, she added that “where
rights between groups compete, our
duty as an independent regulator is to
help providers of services and others to
balance the needs of different users in
line with the law”.
Falkner said that “organisations are
legally allowed to restrict services to a
single sex in some circumstances. But
they need help to navigate this sensitive
area. That is why we have published this
guidance — to clarify the law and
uphold everyone’s rights.”
The campaign group Stonewall
launched a petition this year stating
that the commission was “not fit for
purpose”. The petition argued that
“recent devastating public statements
from the [commission] are not just a
betrayal of LGBTQ+ people and a
specific attack on trans people. They
fundamentally undermine their core
purpose of regulating, promoting and
upholding human rights.”Jonathan Ames Legal Editor
Conversion
therapy row
More than 100 organisations have
quit Boris Johnson’s LGBT
conference this summer in the
backlash against dropping a ban
on trans conversion therapy (Chris
Smyth writes). No 10 said it was
shelving the ban for fear of
criminalising therapists reluctant
to provide hormone treatment to
children, but religious leaders were
among those saying there was “no
justification” for the move.
The government U-turned twice
last week, initially dropping a ban
on LGBT conversion therapy
before saying the ban would go
ahead for gay conversion therapy.
Yesterday, No 10 confirmed that
trans conversion therapy would
not be included in the ban for fear
of “unintended consequences”.