Your Local Information Microportal

1. How to stay focused when everything feels stressful and overwhelming. A pandemic, looming recession, rise in company layoffs, supply chain issues, pain at the pump, skyrocketing mortgage rates - the hits just keep on coming. When so much of the news is filled with doom and disruption, it is easy to get overwhelmed and distracted. So how do we not let life stressors get in the way of our productivity? READ MORE >> 

2. U-turn on tax cut for highest earners. Government has decided to scrap its plans to ditch the 45p. This is a massive and humiliating U-turn. It comes only a day after Prime Minister Liz Truss insisted she would not abandon the tax cut for the wealthiest. It would also seem to undermine her central argument that growth depends in large part on lower taxes to attract entrepreneurs. The government justified the U-turn by calling it a distraction from its wider growth plan. But maybe the damage is already done in terms of the Truss government’s standing with the voters and the markets. BBC

3. Labour surges to 33-point lead. Labour is enjoying its largest poll lead in nearly three decades after Liz Truss’s economic strategy caused mayhem on the markets. The YouGov study found that 54% of voters would back Labour in a snap general election with only 21% supporting the Tories – a lead of 33 points, higher than any time since the Tony Blair years. A separate poll, carried out by Survation, showed Labour had 49% of voters with the Tories on 28%. A third study, by Redfield & Wilton Strategies, noted a 19-point lead for Labour. The Times

4. Covid cases double in UK. Covid cases have doubled to 200,000-a-day and are expected to hit a new UK record around the end of the month. Daily symptomatic infections rose from 101,600 on August 27th to 202,738 on 30 September, according to the ZOE Health study. With a rise in hospital admissions of patients with Covid, the deputy chief medical officer for England, said that the developments are a “wake-up call”. Sarah Crofts, from the ONS Covid-19 infection survey, said “it is too early to identify whether this is the start of a new wave of infections”. “It’s clear we’re now seeing an autumn wave of Covid-19,” reported King’s College London. BBC

5. Is meeting culture out of control? Workers attending non-essential meetings are costing businesses about $100 million a year. A study across 20 industries uncovered that workers on average had 17.7 meetings a week and only declined 14% of invites despite not wanting to go to 31% of them. According to the survey, people said yes as they didn’t want to offend the organiser, chase up on updates later, or appear disengaged to their co-workers. Do you think you have too many work meetings? What steps could organisations take to fix meeting culture? Share your thoughts in our latest poll. VOTE HERE >>

6. Top three skills to land remote gig. Digital nomadism has been on the rise since the beginning of the pandemic. And although many companies are embracing hybrid arrangements, fully remote roles still exist. If you’re going after a “work-from-anywhere job,” make your application stand out by adding three skills to your resume: communication, software experience and time management. Communication is key to building trust, having experience with tech platforms will save time on training and good time management shows you can meet project deadlines. Editor

7. A ‘Hippocratic oath’ for builders. The United Nations will present a declaration with principles for sustainable and inclusive urban design for architects, engineers, developers, builders, city managers, politicians and other decision makers worldwide to sign. The "San Marino Declaration" is set to be ratified at the beginning of October during a meeting in the Mediterranean republic and will be presented by Norman Foster, according to Dezeen. The British star architect compared the set of standards to the Hippocratic oath historically adopted by the medical profession as a guide to conduct. Dezeen

8. Study finds Brits have health issues. A new study has concluded that British people eat less fruit and vegetables, get less sleep, do less sport and are fatter than people in other countries. The YouGov survey of a representative sample of 1,000 people in eight countries found that only 29% of Britons do sport at least twice a week, far less than the global average of 43%. On a more positive note, the researchers found that only 15% of Britons ever smoke compared with 48% of Turks and 36% of Italians. The Times

9. Elderly who pump iron live longer. Older people can live longer if they lift weights or do press-ups once a week, research shows. The study, published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, found that strength training in old age provides health benefits above and beyond simply doing cardiovascular exercise such as walking or swimming. Older adults who combined weekly weightlifting with aerobic exercise were about 47% less likely to die over a ten-year period than those who did not exercise. The Guardian

10. The bottom line. Non-doms in the UK are being legally allowed to avoid paying more than £3.2bn of tax on at least £10.9bn of offshore income a year, according to a report. The researchers at the University of Warwick and the London School of Economics and Political Science found that 26,000 people granted non-dom tax status by the taxman collect an average of £420,000 a year in unreported overseas income and capital gains. The Independent