The Fourcast

What does £20 mean to you? For some families, it’s the difference between the cupboards being full or empty. 

At the start of the pandemic, the government introduced the Universal Credit uplift, an extra £20 a week for the people who needed it most. From today, that benefit ends. 

In today’s episode, our Social Affairs Editor Jackie Long explains why the number of people receiving Universal Credit has doubled since the start of the pandemic, and asks what the ending of the uplift could mean, amidst rising costs of living and worries about a long winter ahead.

Can you remember the fear and confusion of January 2020? A mystery illness swept across the globe and governments scrambled to contain it.

Looking back, what did we get right and what did we get wrong?

Today, in his last appearance on The Fourcast, FactCheck guru Paddy Worrall will cut through 18 months of pandemic noise and lay out the truth.

What predictions were accurate and what early thinking was just plain wrong? And what has Covid has taught him about the world of vaccines and misinformation? Ultimately, are we wiser now than we were back then?

Sources: ITN, MSNBC

In its long history, there have been landmark, controversial Supreme Court decisions: Plessy v. Ferguson, Bush v. Gore, Shelby v. Holder.

Yet arguably none has divided Americans, defined the parties, and affected the lives of millions of women more than one particular ruling on the 22nd of January 1973: Roe v. Wade and the constitutional right for women to have an abortion.

Since then, those opposed to abortion have campaigned to chip away at that decision, in the hope that one day, when the conditions are right, they can knock down that ruling completely. Is that day almost upon us?

Today, Professor Mary Ziegler, the author of the book “Abortion and the law in America,” talks to me about the history of abortion in the United States, and about recent laws in Texas and Mississippi that could profoundly change the law of the land on this key issue for the first time in nearly 50 years.

Sources: CBS NEWS, MSNBC, ITN.

Panic buying at petrol stations has forced queues up and down the country and closed forecourts, with key workers struggling to make their shifts. The army is on standby to help out. And the trouble doesn’t stop there. There’s a global gas shortage that has forced prices up and caused UK energy companies to go bust.

In today’s podcast, we talk to Business and Global Trade correspondent Paul McNamara to explain what’s going on with fuel, gas and our cost of living. The government says this won’t be like the 1970s all over again, but will it?

Sources: ITN, BBC News, Al Jazeera

A few weeks back, the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation made their recommendation on whether healthy 12 to 15-year-olds should get the Covid vaccine.

Yet the chief medical officers of the four nations made their own assessment and said it was best to give a single dose of the Pfizer vaccine to that age group.

Now that may seem a bit confusing, so our FactCheck reporter Georgina Lee is going to explain it all: the benefits and risks of vaccinating both children and adults with the Pfizer jab. 

It’s been just over a month since the Taliban took Kabul. Some fled Afghanistan, not wanting to see what their new lives might look like. Others stayed out of choice or because there was no other option.

And there was talk of a new, reformed Taliban that's less strict and less restrictive of women's rights than the regime of the 1990s, but what is life like now in the new Afghanistan?

Kiran speaks to our international editor Lindsey Hilsum, who recently spent two weeks in the country to find out who makes up the new administration, what the future holds for women and girls and what life was really like in the last 20 years in the cities and countryside.   Sources: BBC News, The Guardian

The perilous nature of our planet, our future, is evident.

A recent UN report said that human activity is changing our climate in unprecedented and irreversible ways. 

So what can be done? Many catastrophes are here now. Others are already locked in.

This autumn is the United Nations Climate Change conference, when the countries of the world will gather in Glasgow to negotiate a way forward.

We talk to our climate journalist, Simon Roach, about whether this November really is the planet’s last best hope to stave off this crisis - and whether that hope will be met with real, concrete change.

Sources: CGTN, CNA, COP26, ITN

It was all going so well for the United States and Covid-19. Before the summer, vaccinations were rising and cases falling. It looked normal.

And then the Delta variant hit, cases rose, hospital wards began to fill again, and with all that, the death toll increased.

With vaccinations hitting a wall, with some governors refusing to impose new restrictions and fake news rife, President Biden introduced a vaccine mandate.

Our Washington correspondent, Siobhan Kennedy, looks at the summer of Delta in the US, the new policy from the Biden White House - and how this will play with a country where the party lines are even more rigid when it comes to the approach to Covid.

For more information on the Covid vaccine, read Factcheck.

Sources: CNN, NBC News, MSNBC, 11ALIVE, WPTZ. 

There’s the impossible and then there’s the completely unbelievable. This past week has been all about Emma Raducanu.

We talk to the sports journalist and commentator Anne-Marie Batson about the young powerhouse that is Emma Raducanu, what she means for the British game and the game in general, as well as why female tennis players are such huge superstars compared to those from other sports?   And whether Raducanu represents the young face of modern Britain - or whether that will add to the weight of pressure on someone who should be left alone to enjoy her career and her talent.

Sources: Prime Video, Channel 4, ITN, ABC.

With ever more devastating hurricanes and floods, Miami is set to be transformed if not submerged: sea levels could rise more than 30 inches by 2060, putting over 100,000 properties by the sea at risk.

And so, some are already moving to higher ground elsewhere in the city. And that has its own consequences.

Today, reporter Kate Fisher details climate gentrification, where the rich move to safer ground and force other communities to bear the brunt of the climate disaster.

Sources: CCN, NBC 6, ABC Local 10 News