The Fourcast

Many parents will be familiar with the headache of homeschooling. But what if you don’t have a computer, or enough money or heat and light your home, or feed your hungry kids? 

The pandemic has exposed growing inequalities in society, not least when it comes to our childrens’ education. Today, our Home Affairs Correspondent Darshna Soni asks whether those gaps can ever be closed again.

Sources: BBC News

In November, four states legalised recreational marijuana: Montana, South Dakota, New Jersey and Arizona.

And with Virginia's legislature voting to legalise too this February, that means there are now 16 states that have legalised recreational marijuana.

Kiran Moodley visits Montana to find out more about what's behind America's journey towards cannabis legalisation, and asks whether what's allowed in Montana, could soon be the law across all 50 states?

Sources: NBC News, CBS, CNN, ABC News

In the early weeks, we clapped for our carers, the doctors and nurses on the frontline who gave their all. With the second wave, the clapping stopped and the conspiracies started - and so did the hate. To some, our NHS was no longer full of heroes - but full of fakers. Our Home Affairs Correspondent, Andy Davies, has met the brave NHS staff speaking out about the online abuse and why they want big tech to do more to stop it.

There has always been a problem of racism in football. But the most recent incidents of online abuse show that despite the efforts the beautiful game is far from having defeated racism.

Instagram is banning people who send racist abuse in direct messages. The Premier League is launching a "No Room for Racism Action Plan", but is that enough?

Jordan Jarrett Bryan talks to Kiran Moodley about the need of a more radical approach to the issue. 

Sources: Sky

They come for the prestige of a British university experience and pay upwards of £10,000 for the privilege. But with no work, no access to benefits and little support from the universities, the Covid crisis has left some international students queueing for food banks and stuck in terrible accommodation.

Channel 4 News producer Shaheen Sattar has been following the plight of the students, and talks about her very personal reasons for investigating this story. 

Poem: Dreaming in Gujarati, Shailja Pate

Donald J Trump's latest impeachment trial begins tomorrow where he stands accused of something completely unique and unimaginable: that he incited an attack on the US Capitol, an impeachable offense of historic proportions. But what’s the point - given it seems apparent that - just like with the three previous trials - the Senate will not convict and Donald Trump will not be barred from holding office in the future.

Sources: ABC news, C-SPAN

What happens when people chatting on online forums sitting at home decide to take on the American financial establishment beasts and leave some of them with billions of dollars in losses?

It’s a war. A war on the value of an American videogame shop- GameStop.

Our Business and Global Trade Correspondent Paul McNamara explains for the financially illiterate how the keyboard warriors  shook Wall Street.

Sources: CNN, CNBC, Roaring Kitty, Robinhood

During a year of economic hardship for many, some have in fact taken advantage of the pandemic and got even richer.

The world's billionaires have grown their fortunes to a record high of $10.2 trillion during the pandemic.

Our economics correspondent Helia Ebrahimi has been looking at the reasons why the super-rich have come out on top and what this tells us about how our economy works.

Sources: CNN, Sky News, BBC, Fox News

We saw it coming, but had we learnt the lessons from the first wave of coronavirus? And will we see a third wave?

Our health and social care editor Victoria Macdonald has been on the frontline of Covid since the start of the pandemic. She tells us about her experiences over the past year and looks ahead to an uncertain future.

Israel, like us, is easing out of a third lockdown and like us, has ensured the most vulnerable are vaccinated. But Israel is also far ahead of us in its vaccination drive. Our foreign affairs correspondent, Jonathan Rugman, explains the bumps along Israel’s road, as it battles vaccine hesitancy amongst the young, the flouting of rules from religious groups and the lack of support towards the Palestinians.