UK adventurer forced to apologise after Inuit ‘ignorance’ backlash
British adventurer Camilla Hempleman-Adams has apologised after falsely claiming to be the first woman to solo traverse Canada’s largest island.
The 32-year-old battled temperatures as low as -40C and winds of 47mph during the two-week expedition across Baffin Island, covering 150 miles on foot and by ski while pulling a sledge. She completed the journey from Qikiqtarjuaq to Pangnirtung, through Auyuittuq National Park, in 13 days.
However, members of the native Inuit population criticised her claim, stating that they have travelled the same route for generations. Hempleman-Adams has since apologised for her “ignorance”.
Writing on Instagram, Gayle Uyagaqi Kabloona, an Inuit artist based in Ottawa, said: “If you look deeper you’ll see a larger problem: erasure of Inuit on our own lands.
“In news coverage, Baffin Island is said to be uninhabited, with not much life.
“There is no way in hell a British coloniser is coming to Inuit Nunaat in 2025 and claiming any firsts.
“My gramma walked hundreds of kilometres yearly, often pregnant, to spring fishing and winter caribou hunting grounds because that was life.
“Every inch of this continent has indigenous history and stories like this. Help me call out this ignorant and racist behaviour.”
Following the criticism, Ms Hempleman-Adams said: “I want to express my apologies for any offence caused by recent articles regarding my solo winter traverse from Qikiqtarjuaq to Pangnirtung through the Akshayuk Pass.
“It was never my intention to misrepresent any historical achievements or cause distress to local communities.
“Before undertaking the expedition, I researched and verified the accuracy of my claim with Parks Canada and local outfitters in both towns who confirmed that there was no known female solo winter crossing from Qikiqtarjuaq to Pangnirtung.
“However, if this information is incorrect, I apologise unreservedly for making an incorrect claim and for causing offence.
“I have deep respect for the land, its people, and their history.
“I have travelled in this region multiple times and hold immense admiration for its nature, culture and traditions.
“I am truly saddened that the coverage of my journey may have caused concern or upset, and I remain committed to learning from this experience and engaging with the community with the utmost respect.”
Ms Hempleman-Adams, a producer living in London, previously became the youngest British female to ski to the North Pole at the age of just 15.
She hoped the Baffin Island challenge would inspire women to break boundaries, as well as highlight the impact of climate change on the region and its Inuit communities.
The attempt was supported by Torabhaig Distillery, a whisky maker on the Isle of Skye.
Martin Lewis issues warning over state pension top up after HMRC error
Money expert Martin Lewis has shared how people can still get a state pension top-up if they were one of thousands that were locked out of securing their entitlement due to a HMRC error.
Most people under 73 had until 5 April to boost their state pension amounts for retirement in just a few straightforward steps. This was the deadline to ‘buy back’ any missing national insurance years from 2006 to 2018 – a crucial element in securing the most out of the state pension.
The government put the deadline in place to ensure that those who could be affected by the new state pension transitional arrangements have time to secure the full amount. It covers the years between 6 April 2006 and 5 April 2018, while people can continue to always fill in gaps over the last six years.
The final deadline for this was 5 April a 11:59am. However, thousands of users reported finding that the HMRC’s online service was not working for them, meaning they were unable to meet the deadline.
It is understood that this is because the form was mistakenly taken offline a day early, affecting 21,000 eligible people who tried to log in on Saturday.
A HMRC spokesperson said: “We’re sorry that customers were unable to use our online service on Saturday to top up National Insurance contributions for years prior to 2021. We will contact anyone affected directly about the payments they wanted to make to ensure they don’t miss out.”
But Mr Lewis’ Money Saving Expert website has also advised those affected: “it’s worth hanging onto any proof you took of the problems, such as screenshots. And if you don’t hear anything, you can try to contact HMRC yourself via its various NI channels.”
The issue should not affect those who requested a call back from the DWP before the deadline, with this service being unaffected by the issues.
In March, Mr Lewis issued a deadline warning to anyone who thought they might be eligible to top up their state pensions.
Unfortunately, anyone who had not begun their application by 5 April has now missed out on the chance to top up their national insurance contributions from 2006. However, the service allowing savers top top up for the past six years always remains live, currently going back to 2019/20.
NHS to be given own postage class in bid to stop missed appointments
The NHS will soon have its own dedicated postage class, a move the Health Secretary says will prevent patients from “missing appointments” due to delayed mail.
Wes Streeting, the Health Secretary, announced an agreement between Royal Mail and the NHS to introduce a new barcode system designed specifically for processing NHS letters. This initiative aims to “ensure patients get their appointment information when they need it,” Streeting stated.
A letter to Ofcom, seen by the Telegraph, and co-signed both NHS and Royal Mail leaders, stated that the two organisations had “mutually agreed to the introduction of a new Royal Mail NHS-specific barcode” and outlined how this barcode will separate medical or appointment letters and prioritise them to be dispatched quickly.
The paper reported that this will happen even during periods of national disruption such as strikes, when Royal Mail deliveries are unable to hit their usual standards.
Mr Streeting said: “Too many patients have experienced the frustration of missing appointments because NHS letters arrive too late in the post.
“As we modernise the NHS and upgrade the NHS App, I’m aware that some patients will always prefer letters.
“The important thing is that people have a genuine choice. This agreement will help ensure patients get their appointment information when they need it, however they choose to receive it.”
Professor Sir Stephen Powis, the NHS medical director, said the changes would “help ensure that patients always receive the vital information necessary for them to access NHS services they need, as quickly as possible and even in times of disruption”.
Birmingham residents urged to watch for ‘bin raiders’ as strikes spark fraud warning
Experts have warned that Birmingham residents could be at risk of fraud as the ongoing bin strikes show no sign of ending.
Bin bags continue to pile up in the city as its council negotiates an end to strike action by refuse collectors over pay and jobs. The strikes began on 11 March and the city council declared a major incident on 31 March, citing public health concerns.
A waste management expert at BusinessWaste.co.uk has now warned that citizens are not only at risk from the environmental hazard but also from financial harm, as the piles of trash might attract bin raiders.
Bin raiders are people who look through rubbish that doesn’t belong to them in order to find anything of value. This can be physical items, such as old credit cards, but they can often look for any documents with identifying details that can help them carry out financial scams.
Mark Hall, the company’s Birmingham waste management expert, said: “Bin raiding is a common practice, and while many who do it are looking for unwanted valuable items to take, others are criminals hoping to find personal documents.
“Birmingham council has revealed they believe there are 17,000 tonnes of waste on the streets, meaning there’s ample opportunity for fraudsters. Shredding personal mail and other items containing your details is something we’d recommend as standard anyway, but it’s now vital for Birmingham residents given the ongoing situation.”
Information such as a name, address, contact information or financial details can allow people to commit fraud, blackmail or identity theft.
The company urged that while strike action is ongoing, it’s more important than ever to shred any materials that include personal details to prevent sensitive information from getting into the hands of criminals.
While a shredder is the easiest way to obscure private details, documents can also be torn up by hand or using scissors. The company said that shredded paper is often too small to be recycled, so it should be added to general waste or a compost pile.
The company added residents should ensure their social media profiles and online presence are well protected, as these profiles can allow scammers to piece together any information to access accounts or retrieve any details they are missing in order to commit fraud.
As well as checking social media, the experts recommended people keep a close eye on their bank accounts and emails to spot any suspicious activity early on and report it.
Since strike action began last month, residents say they have spotted rats the size of cats scurrying through the streets in broad daylight, and have complained of an overwhelming stench as black bin bags pour onto the street.
Locals claimed they have had to pay hundreds of pounds for private waste collectors to get their rubbish removed as the strike continues.
Following the latest round of talks with the union Unite on Tuesday, a Birmingham City Council spokesperson said: “The talks with Unite were productive, but there are still a number of issues to resolve. We are looking forward to continuing with negotiations.”
A Unite spokesperson said: “Unite is continuing to engage in intensive talks with the council on behalf of our members in the refuse service. No resolution has yet been reached, but Unite has put forward a range of fair and reasonable solutions to bring this dispute to an end.”
Mapped: Worst areas for GP appointment waits revealed
Patients are facing a “postcode lottery” for GP appointments with one in 10 people waiting more than a month to be seen in some areas, new research shows.
The number of month-long waits hit a record high last year and in almost 95 per cent of areas there was an increase in people waiting 28 days or more.
The figures, compiled by the House of Commons Library, demonstrate the uphill battle facing Labour as it ramps up recruitment of family doctors in a bid to cut waiting times and ease pressure on the NHS.
Health Secretary Wes Streeting announced on Tuesday that an extra 1,503 GPs have been recruited since October, with the health secretary prioritising services closer to patients’ homes.
But the number of general practitioners per patient has fallen drastically in the past decade, leaving the system under significant strain.
Below, The Independent has mapped the regions where most patients are facing waits of a month or more for appointments:
The House of Commons Library research showed that 100 out of 106 sub-Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) saw the number of 28-day or longer waits for GP appointments jump in 2024 compared with a year earlier.
The starkest rise was in Sunderland, where there was a 51 per cent increase in month-long waits, followed by North East Lincolnshire with a 46 per cent jump and North Cumbria which saw a 38 per cent spike.
The research, commissioned by the Liberal Democrats, found Kent and Medway was the area with the most month-long waits in the country, with 781,000, rising by more than a fifth from 2023’s level.
Derby and Derbyshire had the second highest number of month-long waits, with 722,000, up 14 per cent from a year earlier.
Meanwhile, more than one in 10 patients was forced to wait more than a month to see a GP in areas including Gloucestershire, Chorley and South Ribble, Derby and Derbyshire and Dorset last year.
Regionally, the south west had the highest portion of patients waiting 28 days or more for an appointment, with 7.7 per cent. Second worst was the north east and Yorkshire, followed by the east of England and the south east.
The Liberal Democrats said the figures revealed a “reveal a stark postcode lottery that is leaving people in vast swathes of the country without the care they deserve”. They called for patients to have a legal right to see their GP within seven days or 24 hours if in urgent need.
The party said this could be done by recruiting 8,000 additional GPs.
The party’s health and social care spokesman Helen Morgan said: “Many already in pain are being forced into anxiety-inducing waits that only add to their suffering and leave them at risk of not getting the treatment they need in time.”
Ms Morgan attacked the Conservatives over “broken promises” on the health service, accusing the Tories of “running our local health services into the ground”.
But she said: “It is now the Labour government not showing nearly enough ambition to break this cycle of misery.
“If we are going to give communities the local health care that they need, we have to go further and faster.
“That means giving patients a legal right to see their GP within a week by ensuring there are 8,000 more GPs. Only then will we be able to rebuild our NHS and get patients the care they deserve.”
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “This data does not show waiting times for GP appointments – it shows the length of time between appointments being booked and taking place.
“This government inherited GP services buckling after years of neglect but we have already taken urgent action to to fix the front door of the NHS.
“By cutting red tape and boosting funding, we have already put an extra 1,503 GPs into general practice to deliver more appointments. The extra investment and reforms we have made will allow patients to book appointments more easily, help bring back the family doctor and end the 8am scramble.”
The global event bringing fresh energy to planet-positive solutions
As we navigate significant environmental and social challenges, the return of ChangeNOW, the world’s biggest expo of solutions for the planet, is much needed to reinvigorate climate action. The 2025 edition, which will take place from April 24th to 26th, will host 140 countries, 40,000 attendees, 10,000 companies and 1,200 investors.
Visionary leaders, established businesses and start-ups alike will gather to showcase over 1,000 sustainable solutions and groundbreaking innovations in key sectors such as clean energy, biodiversity, sustainable cities and the circular economy.
The ChangeNOW 2025 summit will be held at the iconic Grand Palais in Paris, a nod to the 10th anniversary of the Paris Agreement. Reuniting for the occasion will be guest speakers Mary Robinson, the former (and first female) president of Ireland, Laurent Fabius, former French prime minister, Patricia Espinosa, former UN climate chief and diplomat and Diána Ürge-Vorsatz, leading climate scientist and professor – all of whom were in the French capital a decade earlier to help shape the Paris Agreement at COP21.
There may have been obvious setbacks to environmental policy around the world of late, the United States’ recent withdrawal from the Paris Agreement being a notable one. However ChangeNOW 2025 intends to reaffirm the spirit of Paris, while serving as a catalyst for progress ahead of COP30 and the United Nations Ocean Conference (UNOC). “Ten years after COP21, ChangeNOW is where leaders and changemakers converge to accelerate the ecological and social transition,” states Santiago Lefebvre, founder and president of ChangeNOW. “Thousands of solutions will be showcased demonstrating that meaningful progress is within reach.”
His message of positive climate action will be supported by a multitude of world famous faces who will be in attendance at the auspicious event. Natalie Portman, Academy award-winning actress, director, author, activist, and producer; Captain Paul Watson, Founder of Sea Shepherd and Ocean Conservationist; Hannah Jones, CEO of The Earthshot Prize and Olympic champion boxer and gender equality advocate Imane Khelif are just a few of the names set to appear at ChangeNOW 2025.
With over 500 speakers and 250 conference sessions exploring climate action, biodiversity protection, resource management, and social inclusion, ChangeNOW 2025 will also hear the insights of acclaimed corporate leaders from Accor, Bouygues, Henkel, Lidl, Nexans, and Saint-Gobain, who will explain how businesses can be the ones to drive real change.
And the event will not only be an opportunity for global policymakers to discuss next steps in climate action, it will also be a platform for nations to showcase local innovations through their country pavilions. Expect impactful solutions from countries including South Africa, The Netherlands, and Ukraine – demonstrating international collaboration on the topic of climate.
In addition to the packed program of speakers, workshops, exhibits and networking opportunities, ChangeNOW 2025 will host the Impact Job Fair on Saturday, 26 April, with over 150 recruiters and training organisations offering in excess of 600 roles. Dedicated to the public and young professionals, the interactive workshops, educational activities, and career opportunities in sustainable sectors on offer aim to inspire the next generation of changemakers.
The summit will also present the annual Women for Change conference and the accompanying portrait exhibition, which showcases 25 women who are set to have a significant positive impact on their communities, countries or on a global scale over the next 10 years. Created in 2021, the Women for Change initiative aims to platform and provide opportunities for women who are leading change around the world but require further recognition or investment to continue their work. The annual flagship event, which takes place on the afternoon of April 24th, offers women the chance to discuss new ideas, network with likeminded people, and also acquire funding to help solidify their leadership, and amplify their impact.
Step outside the Grand Palais and take a few steps to the Port des Champs Elysées, on the bank of the Seine, where the The Water Odyssey village awaits. One of the event’s standout features, the immersive 1,000 m² exhibition is open to the public and highlights solutions to maritime and river sustainability challenges – offering a mix of conferences, interactive displays, and sensory experiences to engage all ages.
For three days, ChangeNOW will transform Paris into the global capital of impact, bringing together policymakers, entrepreneurs, investors, and the public in the pursuit of sustainable progress.
Book your ChangeNOW 2025 ticket here
Trump has made China appear a beacon of free trade
The Chinese Communist Party, apostle of free trade. In a strange new world, that was the strangest thing, as shares crashed in reaction to President Donald Trump’s opening salvo of tariffs in a global trade war.
“The market has spoken,” said the foreign ministry spokesperson, Guo Jiakun, writing in English on Facebook – which is, by the way, banned in China. No double standards there, then. Beijing can always keep a straight face when it matters.
Politically, the Chinese government can scarcely believe its luck. It has stepped forward as a voice of reason and stability in a chorus of discord to promote the false narrative that it has been a model of good behaviour since it joined the World Trade Organisation (WTO) on 11 December 2001, a date that seems destined to live in the textbooks as the peak of globalisation.
The Trump tariffs “are a typical act of unilateral bullying”, complained a spokesperson for China’s Commerce Ministry.
“This approach disregards the balance of interests achieved through years of multilateral trade negotiations and ignores the fact that the US has long gained substantial profits from international trade,” the spokesperson added.
The official news agency, Xinhua, said the tariffs were “a weapon to suppress China’s economy and trade” and told the United States to stop undermining “the legitimate development rights of the Chinese people”.
It would be a mistake to write off Chinese rhetoric. The regime of Xi Jinping is serious and its actions speak louder than words.
Clue: China has listed “legitimate development rights” as one of its “red lines” in dealing with the US. The term is code for the export-led economic model which has propelled the country to the rank of second largest economy on earth since it joined the WTO.
Understand that and you understand that for China this is existential. There could be no greater contrast to the whirlwind in Washington than the disciplined, efficiently executed responses announced by Beijing in nine statements outlining reprisals that went beyond mere numbers.
Xi himself did not deign to speak publicly, let alone do anything as vulgar as posting on social media in capital letters. The Chinese public would have thought it beneath his dignity.
Untroubled by such niceties, Trump swiftly posted to his followers online that “CHINA PLAYED IT WRONG, THEY PANICKED.”
With all due respect to the American president, that is exactly what they did not do. The Xi hit list is ominous because it is well-planned and researched. The “Red Emperor” rules a mandarin class of sophisticated operators who do nothing else but study China’s opponents using every intelligence tool at their disposal.
The easy part for China was to impose reciprocal 34 per cent tariffs on all American imports from 10 April. It also suspended six American firms from exporting to China, launched anti-dumping actions in the medical sector and targeted the US giant DuPont with a probe into potential monopoly practices.
The hard part showed just how thoroughly the Chinese had done their work. No penguin islands or weird mathematics here. They banned the export of “dual use” items, which could have military or civilian applications, to 16 US firms, all in the technology sector.
Their key move was to put export controls on seven rare earth elements “to safeguard national security”. It’s on the public record that some of these are vital to US weapons systems.
The list of rare earths included terbium, which is used to enhance the properties of specialised magnets used in guidance systems, satellites and radar. The magnets are integral to the state-of-the-art F-35 fighter, Predator drones, cruise missiles and nuclear submarines.
Then there’s dysprosium, a rare-earth element of which China controls nearly all the world’s supply. It is used to make high-grade magnets that work in super-heated conditions and is found in the newest semiconductors. Other rare earths on the list are vital to jet engine turbine blades. All will now require special export licences.
China and America are thus in a new kind of war over technology and artificial intelligence. Both Joe Biden and Trump tried to choke the supply of advanced semiconductors to Chinese manufacturers, while China is seeking to choke the supply of raw materials to America’s tech champions.
It’s not hard to see how dangerous this could get. The founder of free-trading modern Singapore, the late Lee Kuan Yew, once told me in an interview that “World War Two was caused because of empires and protectionism”.
He recalled that in the 1940s an oil embargo on Imperial Japan pushed its military leaders into war and he warned that if the West tried to isolate China economically “that is bound to lead to conflict”.
Lee was talking in the 1990s, when China stood on the threshold of globalisation. It joined the WTO only after hard-fought talks. But Charlene Barshevsky, who sealed the deal for the United States, later lamented that the Americans failed to use the WTO to punish Beijing when it broke the rules.
That created the belief that appeasement and elite inertia condemned the American working class to decline, the foundation story of Trump’s movement to Make America Great Again. So it is some irony that the Chinese have just filed a formal complaint about Trump’s tariffs – with the World Trade Organisation.
Michael Sheridan, longtime foreign correspondent and diplomatic editor of The Independent, is the author of The Red Emperor published by Headline Press at £25
The US president must stop his ‘Trump Slump’ becoming a global one
Most shocks in capital markets are, by definition, unexpected. They sometimes derive purely from some almost random-seeming shift in market sentiment, albeit with more deep-set fundamental factors at work. The Great Crash of 1929 and the stock market crash of October 1987 – Black Monday – fall neatly into that category.
Others are more clearly understood in real time, but still a shock: the global financial crisis of 2008 is comprehensible from a distance, albeit famously seen as a “black swan” event. Still others are more purely external – Arab nations imposing an oil curfew after the Yom Kippur war in 1973; or whatever bat, pangolin or Chinese lab assistant was responsible for the coronavirus getting loose.
The Trump tariff crash of 2025 is an altogether unusual affair – one of the few such catastrophes to befall the savings and livelihoods of millions of people caused by the stubbornness of one man.
Because it is Donald Trump – and he alone – who is responsible not only for the substance of his reckless shutdown of US trade with the rest of the world, but the deeply flawed design of the tariff schedules, the practically unprecedented suddenness of their introduction, and the incomprehensible rationale for the policy. Certainly, Mr Trump made no secret of his love for – “the most beautiful word” – tariffs.
But the scale and incompetence that has been attached to his attack on trade has stunned and appalled the world. Worse even than that, it has left people confused.
At one point over the weekend, serious analysts were suggesting that Mr Trump actually intended for the markets to crash. In most cases, this was not a product of the over-conspiratorial minds of the Trump cultists, but because the president himself had reposted a story on social media suggesting that he was “Purposely CRASHING The Market”. A White House spokesperson had to state that the president did not, in fact, deliberately wipe some $8 trillion off the world’s stock markets – another unwelcome precedent set by this president.
The question then arises: “What does Mr Trump think he is doing?” The answer is that no one knows, not even the president.
Some, including the president himself in his unorthodox Rose Garden presentation and his secretary for commerce, Howard Lutnick, suggest that it is all about reindustrialising the United States and generating “trillions” of long-term tax revenues. In his address to workers at Jaguar Land Rover on Monday, Sir Keir Starmer admitted that tariffs are “a huge challenge for our future, and the global economic consequences could be profound”.
Less than comfortingly, Mr Trump compares what he’s putting the previously healthy American economy through to a patient undergoing an operation. Others, occasionally also including the president himself, suggest it is merely another of his brilliant negotiating tactics, and point excitedly to the response of nations such as Vietnam, Israel and Argentina offering zero-tariff deals with America – but which would therefore yield zero returns for the proposed new US “External Revenue Service”.
Put simply, it is a matter of “Tariffs bad – uncertainty even worse”. Businesses and households cannot plan in such an environment, and that means that investment will be frozen for weeks, if not months, and a recession becomes ever more likely.
That is one imminent danger. Another is the way that the market contagion has spread from industrial and resources stocks to the banks, with the obvious worry that the trade recession will soon be joined by its evil twin, a credit crunch. As confidence drains from the world economy, companies are nervous about investing, banks are reluctant to lend, and savers will turn to safer havens than equities. Historically, such security was offered by the United States dollar; now, perhaps, not so much.
One of the great ironies in Mr Trump’s plan to boost the American economy is that, within a fairly short time, he will have plunged it into such a slump that he will need to take emergency measures to rescue it – tax cuts, and increasing the US budget deficit to pay for it. The Federal Reserve may find it has no alternative but to cut interest rates – usually a welcome move, but in this case merely proof of the disaster the Trump administration is inflicting on its people.
The net result may be stagflation: above-target increases while economic activity stagnates. It is analogous to what a combination of the Brexit shock and the reckless Truss experiment that crashed the UK economy in 2022 would do. It is that bad.
What can the authorities, including in the United States, do to prevent a slump? Unlike in 2008 and 2020, for example, in most Western economies, there is far less scope for borrowing at sustainable interest rates to support the economy.
In 2008, when Gordon Brown was prime minister and had to nationalise most of the British banking sector, the UK national debt-to-GDP ratio stood at about 36 per cent. By the time Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak were faced with closing down the economy in 2020, it was 85 per cent. It now stands at 95 per cent, and trending higher.
If the present chancellor, Rachel Reeves, has barely enough fiscal headroom to keep to her fiscal rules, she will have to find some convincing explanations about the much more onerous costs of nursing Britain through what we may soon be calling “the Trump Slump”. That, of course, is not even accounting for the real cost of deterring Vladimir Putin and helping to defend Europe (that being another direct consequence of Mr Trump’s election).
Much the best move, and one still hoped for, is that Mr Trump accepts the manifold and genuine offers of constructive negotiations he’s had from world leaders, declares an early “victory” for his tactics, and announces a 90-day moratorium during which new, freer trade deals can be reached across the world.
It would be good news for all. The markets would calm, American voters would no longer fear opening their pension fund statements, and Mr Trump might turn his mess into a miracle of trade liberalisation.
The dangers if President Trump does press on with his mercantilist “medicine” for America are too gruesome to contemplate. At times such as this, what else is there other than optimism?