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The Oklahoma City-based company helped turn the US into a global energy powerhouse but ran up huge debts in the process Chesapeake Energy, the shale gas drilling pioneer that helped to turn the United States into a global energy powerhouse, has filed for bankruptcy protection. The Oklahoma City-based company said on Sunday that it had been forced to enter chapter 11 protection because its debts of $9bn were unmanageable. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/3871PnB

Misinformation ‘pandemic’ erodes trust in politics and institutions, warns Lords committee Ministers are being urged to toughen up the regulation of digital and social media because “a pandemic of misinformation and disinformation” is eroding trust in politics and public institutions. A House of Lords committee on democracy and digital technologies, chaired by the film producer and Labour peer David Puttnam, has called on ministers to push ahead with the long-mooted online harms bill and to overhaul rules for online political advertising. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2VrsiHr

Avon and Somerset police say they have no choice but try to trace individuals due to criminal damage Detectives have released images of 15 people they want to trace over the Black Lives Matter protest in Bristol in which the statue of the slave trader Edward Colston was toppled and thrown into the harbour. Avon and Somerset police published the images of the men and women, arguing that in law, a crime – criminal damage – had been committed and it had no choice but to investigate. The force also said it had consulted with the Crown Prosecution Service about its investigation. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/31ry5jU

Resolution Foundation calls for job protection to last until end of 2021 amid coronavirus crisis The biggest job creation package in peacetime is needed to prevent the worst unemployment crisis in Britain for a generation, a leading thinktank has warned. Sounding the alarm as job losses mount , the Resolution Foundation called on the government to continue subsidising the wages of workers in the sectors of the economy hardest hit by the Covid-19 crisis until at least the end of next year. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/3gagL7k

California governor closes bars in several counties ; half a million confined in Beijing ; cases worldwide top 10m; Follow the latest updates Global deaths pass 500,000 Global report: Covid-19 cases exceed 10m US health secretary says ‘window is closing’ to stop virus New Zealand’s isolation facilities under ‘extreme stress’ See all our coronavirus coverage 12.49am BST California Governor Gavin Newsom has ordered bars that have opened in seven counties to immediately close. Newsom is urging bars in eight other counties to do the same, saying the coronavirus is rapidly spreading in some parts of the state. The counties under the mandatory bar closure order include Los Angeles, Fresno, San Joaquin, Kings, Kern, Imperial and Tulare counties. State officials asked eight other counties to issue local health orders closing bars include Contra Costa, Santa Clara, Sacramento, Riverside, San Bernardino, Ventura, Santa Barbara and Stanislaus. 12.35am BST Brazil recorded 30,476 n...

Macmillan Cancer Support found 270,000 have had panic or anxiety attacks due to Covid-19 Coronavirus – latest updates See all our coronavirus coverage More than quarter of a million cancer sufferers have been struggling with panic and anxiety attacks during lockdown and are now facing new fears about the loosening of restrictions , research has revealed. The study, by Macmillan Cancer Support, found fear levels among UK cancer sufferers have been so high that 270,0000 people have experienced panic or anxiety attacks or even suicidal thoughts because of coronavirus. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2YHLFO8

Photographer Benjamin Wild has documented his family’s property during the harshest times – and then the relief of the rains Somewhere in Benjamin Wild’s photographs of Gradgery Cemetery, there’s a metaphor of loss, despair and then hope that’s bursting to escape. Wild, 40, is the youngest of four to have grown up on the farm that’s been in the family for six generations and which sits across the road from those gravestones. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2Bf7KL5