Karen, 66, a self-described “Barnsley lass”, stands on the edge of the town’s Glass Works looking around in despair.
“It used to be right friendly, lovely town this, and now nobody talks, nobody’s bothered. It’s all gone,” she concludes, bemoaning the loss of both community and industry in the South Yorkshire town once famous for its coal mining and glass manufacturing.
“Look around,” Karen says. “I know what Barnsley was, and I see what it is now and it’s terrible,” she adds bluntly.
What we know about Christa Pike’s botched execution
Recordings of the calls made to emergency services after the failed execution of Christa Pike reveal confusion and delays to her care, as her lawyers fight to get her off death row.
Who is Christa Pike?
- The 50-year-old was given the death penalty for killing her 19-year-old classmate Colleen Slemmer in 1995.
- She was set to be the first woman executed in Tennesee for more than 200 years before the botched injection.
Pike’s lawyers are now arguing for her sentenced to be commuted to life without parole, arguing she cannot be subjected to the death penalty twice.
Help was delayed by half an hour
Ambulance workers were not cleared to enter Riverbend Prison in Tennessee until half an hour after the first call was made, recordings obtained by the reveal.
The initial call came at 8.40pm on 30 September, an hour after the two attempted lethal injections, and crews were let into the prison at 9.11pm.
4 min read
What did prison officials say?
The recording of the first call has not been released, but at 9.03pm, a dispatcher said it was a “false call” and there was “no medical assistance needed at Riverbend Prison”. At 9.07pm officials from the prison’s central control confirmed they “did not make” the initial call.
At the same time, a first responder said there was someone “outside the gate at the prison telling us that it’s real and demanding us to go in”, and asked for someone from the prison to come out to speak to them.
Pike taken to hospital
- Pike was taken to hospital at 9.34pm.
- She has now been discharged after 10 days.
4 min read
Tom Cruise film Digger forecast to lose $245m at box office
With ticket sales slumping in the film’s third week in cinemas, is set to lose its studio, Warner Bros, hundreds of millions as it fails to recoup its $280 (£211m) production and marketing costs.
On course to be a historic flop
Tom Cruise’s satirical comedy, in which he stars as oil tycoon Digger Rockwell, has taken just $35m at the box office so far, with ticket sales dropping by 60 per cent this weekend.
It is on track to take $50m according to , which would make it one of only a handful of films to lose a nine-figure sum.
3 min read
How bad is it?
- Critics say Cruise gives a poor performance and have labelled the film his “vanity project”.
- The secret twist is said to be too “meta” and the script not funny.
3 min read
Women’s autoimmune conditions more likely to be misdiagnosed
Women are up to 75 per cent more likely to have an autoimmune condition misdiagnosed as psychosomatic than men, and face longer waits for treatment, according to new research.
What did the study show?
A study of 6,607 patients found that
43%
of women reported their autoimmune symptoms had been misdiagnosed as psychiatric, compared to 33 per cent of men.
Women were overall 46 per cent more likely to receive a psychiatric misdiagnosis.
34%
of women received a psychosomatic (physical symptoms caused or worsened by psychological factors) misdiagnosis compared to 22 percent of men.
What is an autoimmune condition?
These occur when the body mistakenly attacks its own tissues, and many are more common in women. Diseases include multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis and lupus, and symptoms range from fatigue and low mood to pain and digestive issues.
Women reported a longer period between onset of these symptoms and diagnosis than men, with more appointments in between.
4 min read
Women struggle to be believed, says researcher
Although labels such as hysteria are outdated, and fortunately rarely used nowadays, as women we still often have a harder time having our symptoms believed and therefore addressed accurately
Shaista Tayabali, co-author and patient partner at the University of Cambridge and University of East Anglia
More health from The i Paper
Breaking Bad actor RJ Mitte dies aged 34
Who was RJ Mitte?
The American actor was cast as Bryan Cranston’s on-screen disabled son when he was 14, and drew on his experience of living with cerebral palsy for the role.
His disability is rarely mentioned in the show, which ran from 2008 to 2013, with Walter ‘Flynn’ White Junior defying his father and cracking jokes at his expense. He won a Screen Actor’s Guild award for his performance in the role in 2014.
What did he do after ?
Mitte continued acting with roles in Talking to Strangers and Switched at Birth. He also created The Mitte Foundation, a charity to support community initiatives, and was an ambassador for United Cerebral Palsy.
He died on Monday at what is believed to be his home in Brownsville, Texas, aged 34. No cause of death has been determined.
3 min read
I’m in deep despair as I write this tonight…That kid was still pretty raw when we started shooting the pilot in February 2007, but little by little we watched him grow into a real fine actor…All that promise and potential is now such a loss.
bryan cranston, Actor for Walter white in , on instagram
Watch more from The i Paper
Midwives win £750,000 over nitrous oxide exposure
More than 120 maternity staff at Basildon University Hospital have been awarded almost £750,000 after they were exposed to high levels of nitrous oxide, which is given to women during childbirth, at work.
How did midwives get exposed to the gas?
- Leaky pipes and poor ventilation caused exposure to the gas.
- Midwives reported fatigue, headaches, brain fog and anxiety.
6 min read
Who got the payout?
The payout was awarded to staff who worked at the hospital between 2021 and 2023, after the Royal College of Midwives (RCM) took legal action against the hospital.
Roughly 80 members of the RCM received compensation along with around 60 others.
The union said the hospital knew about the leaks in 2021 but staff were not warned about the risks until October 2022.
Watch more from The i Paper
The UK towns at risk of running out of water this winter
Five successive heatwaves and the warmest summer on record have left millions of Britons living in drought conditions, which experts believe could remain in place for the foreseeable future unless there is a “significant amount of rainfall” this winter.
Which regions are in drought?
- Yorkshire became the latest area to fall into drought last Friday.
- All of central, southern and eastern England are already in drought.
4 min read
Eight reservoirs ‘exceptionally low’
The i Paper understands the Environment Agency is concerned about the low levels at Wimbleball, Ardingly, Clatworthy, Colliford, Hanningfield and Abberton.
These are variously operated by South West Water, South East Water, Wessex Water and Essex and Suffolk Water.
England would need 120 per cent of typical rainfall over the next seven months just to be considered out of the drought status.
3 min read
2 min read
When will hosepipe bans be lifted?
No bans have ended in the past month, with restrictions on water usage still in place in most of southern and eastern England, affecting almost 30 million people.
- Professor Liz Bentley, chief executive of the Royal Meteorological Society, said the bans would stay in place for the forseeable future unless there is a “significant amount of rainfall” soon.
“A lot’s been bad for Barnsley,” she says, and now more than 10 years after the town voted overwhelmingly in favour of the UK leaving the European Union, she’s concluded that Brexit has been bad for her town too.
“I don’t think they should have given people that vote,” the retiree says, reflecting on the initial 2016 referendum for Britain to depart the European Union. “I think they were voting for something else.”
“They were voting for immigration,” Carol, 69, chimes in, finishing her friend’s thought. “I think we’re in a mess now, thanks to that vote,” Karen adds.
On Monday, Andy Burnham said he would push for new post-Brexit deals with the EU at a summit next month, outlining his intention for “deeper cooperation” with the bloc to help drive economic growth in the UK.
In a statement to MPs, Burnham warned the EU’s Made in Europe plans posed “a risk to UK manufacturing” and said he was in talks to get “an arrangement” that worked for the UK. The EU proposals aim to protect EU industry from Chinese competitors but could impact British industry and supply chains.
Karen welcomes the Prime Minister’s proposal, listing manufacturers and industry the town has lost in recent decades and which she says the promise of Brexit never restored.
She goes through the town’s past economic stalwarts one by one: SR Gents, which made clothes for Marks and Spencer, a smattering of once thriving but now depleted textile mills and the coal industry, now gone entirely.
‘Our industry has been decimated’
We are standing in the shadow of the Glass Works, part of a £200m makeover to bring people back to the town centre, and named after the bottle works that fed most of the town for decades.
This Glass Works offers a TK Maxx, a Nando’s, a 13-screen cinema, and a few dozen other shops that sell things made almost everywhere but here.
A mile and a half away at Monk Bretton, the real glassworks is still running. Its furnaces turn out bottles for Coca-Cola and Bombay Sapphire, though with a fraction of the workforce of its heyday.
Peter Pleasance, 64, stands on the other side of the Brexit debate, but agrees with his fellow Barnsleyan that industry in the town has been “decimated”.
“Every industry’s been wiped out,” he says. “There’s only two big glass works in a town that used to be known for glass. Now there’s nowt at all.”
“My grandson works in a warehouse; my granddaughter works in a pub. My two other granddaughters are at college and looking for work. There’s just nothing,” he adds. “There’s no proper jobs.”
Peter says he still backs his decision to vote leave but does not think Brexit has yet been “implemented properly”.
The ex-miner said he voted for Reform at the last general and council election and still “hopes” they can improve the town’s fortunes.
“I think we’ve just given them a chance,” he said, and “hopes” they can improve the life in Barnsley despite being “scared” of cutbacks they may make to public services.”
Kai Broadley, 19, has lived here all his life and was a child when the Brexit vote took place.
“We need something to help the younger generation put their mind to something,” he said. “A lot of them just sit outside the bus station and cause trouble.”
“More jobs, basically,” the car painter and detailer said.
A
More than 68 per cent of voters in Barnsley backed Brexit in 2016, but the jury still appears to be out on whether residents think they made the right decision.
Asked if he would support rejoining the EU, a Barnsley FC jacket-wearing man responded: “I’ll give you one word: yes,” before apologising and dashing inside Barnsley Markets.
Maureen, an 87-year-old pensioner, making her way out of the bus station, said she would “definitely” vote to rejoin after voting to remain in 2016.
Another group of four shoppers insisted they would not support rejoining. “We voted to stay out so we need to stay out,” one of the men, who chose not to give his name, added.
John Park, 75, a retiree, said he did not believe Brexit had been “a bad thing” for the town but felt his vote in favour of leave had not helped solve the issue of immigration.
He said he would be “pretty annoyed” if Brexit was reversed, but said he could see voting for Labour again if it was able to keep immigration “under control”.
Back outside the Glass Works, Karen says she’s lived in the same house for years, watching the profile of the town change rapidly around her.
“My next-door neighbour now is Lithuanian, the other is Romanian, and we use sign language with each other because she can’t speak English,” Karen explains. “Alright, I can’t speak her language, but she’s in England.”
“They’re smashing, I get on with them”, she says, “but it’d just be good if they learnt some English… to have a chat with them.”
They both say they voted to remain in the EU, and believe the decision has been detrimental to their town ever since.
The pair said they have “a little hope” that things will change with Burnham in Downing Street.
Cllr Luke Wheat, the Reform-majority council’s spokesperson for regeneration and assets, dismissed Burnham’s intention to revisit the UK’s relationship with the EU.
“We, Barnsley, voted a decisive 68 per cent in favour of leaving the EU – that is a democratic process in which we participated,” he insisted.
“Any attempt to reverse that decision without a general election fought on an explicit manifesto would be a direct rejection of democracy and an insult to the millions who voted to take back control.”
Stephen Bullock, an independent councillor, remained more open to the idea.
“The UK is stronger when we have good working relationships with our European neighbours,” he said.
“However, I also recognise that the people of Barnsley voted overwhelmingly to leave the European Union in 2016, and that democratic decision should be respected.”