Rare diseases affect approximately 3.5 million people in the UK – with 1 in 17 impacted by one of the 10,000 known rare conditions at some point in their lives – a collective prevalence similar to cancer.^1,2 However, with each rare disease affecting so few people, these conditions are often overlooked.

Many rare conditions are life-limiting or life-threatening, making access to a timely diagnosis, expert care and effective treatment critically important. In healthcare systems geared towards more common diseases, it can be difficult for people with rare diseases to navigate and access the specialist services they need.³ This results in poor health outcomes and experiences of care – challenges that have been reflected in the UK Rare Disease Framework since 2021, with work underway to measure its impact.⁴

In late 2025, health ministers from all four nations agreed to extend the UK Rare Diseases Framework by one year through to February 2027.⁵ Over the next 12 months, it is critical that this time is used to determine the long-term priorities for the rare disease community, those specific areas where national policy and coordination can make the most meaningful impact, and how best to track progress.

Every year, Rare Disease Day takes place on 28th February – or 29th February in leap years to coincide with the rarest of days – to raise awareness of all rare conditions. Work by patient organisations underlines how low awareness of rare conditions makes it harder for others to relate to their experiences. As a result, empathy, understanding and support can be harder to find.⁶

For Rare Disease Day 2026, Alexion, AstraZeneca Rare Disease and the Wolves Foundation have partnered to raise the visibility of rare diseases and support the foundation’s disability football programme and the Wolves Wishes initiative.

Wolves Wishes organises memorable club-related experiences for fans facing health challenges. The Premier League fixture between Wolverhampton Wanderers and Aston Villa, which took place on 27th February, featured the disability teams playing at half-time to mark Rare Disease Day. 

The team wore a kit they had designed themselves, reflecting the diverse and unique nature of rare conditions. They showed their skills and beat the Aston Villa team 1-0, with both home and away fans united in their support for these important players and cause. 

Through the partnership, Alexion is supporting the foundation’s eight disability teams by providing new kit for the players and backing the Wolves Wishes project.

“This partnership reflects our shared values of equity and inclusion, while raising awareness of rare diseases with a broad audience,” said Deborah Richards, Managing Director of Alexion, AstraZeneca Rare Disease UK. “Rare diseases often bring challenges that aren’t always visible, but they have a clear impact on those they affect and their families. Through this partnership, we can help make rare disease more visible and build greater understanding within the football community and beyond.”

“Our disability football and Wolves Wishes programmes are built on years of evidence showing how sport and local communities can transform lives,” said Kieron Ansell, Head of Business Development at the Wolves Foundation. “Through our partnership with Alexion, AstraZeneca Rare Disease UK, we can continue this important work while also shining a light on rare disease awareness. It shows that local children and families are seen and valued, and that their health challenges are recognised beyond the medical world, which can make a real difference, particularly for those at the beginning of their diagnostic journey.”

To find out more about the Wolves Foundation visit, https://foundation.wolves.co.uk/. To find out more about Alexion, AstraZeneca Rare Disease UK, visit https://alexion.com/worldwide/UK.

This article was developed and funded by Alexion, AstraZeneca Rare Disease.

M/UK/NP/0191 | March 2026

References

1. https://geneticalliance.org.uk/news/rare-conditions-the-stories-behind-the-stats/

2. https://www.macmillan.org.uk/about-us/what-we-do/research/cancer-prevalence

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3. https://shca.info/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/SHCA-Health-Inequalities-Report.pdf

4. https://geneticalliance.org.uk/news/rare-conditions-the-stories-behind-the-stats/

5. https://geneticalliance.org.uk/our-campaign-for-a-new-uk-rare-diseases-framework/

6. https://shca.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/‘Are-you-okay-Rare-diseases-and-mental-health-–-A-case-study-report.pdf

World leaders’ relentless focus on economic growth is a key driver of social inequality and extreme poverty. That same centering of profit at all costs is fuelling the climate crisis and hastening the death of our planet.

But then, the Canary would say that, wouldn’t we? We’re a bunch of rabid leftists who probably read Marx on the shitter before wiping with recycled toilet paper.

Except it’s not us that said it — it’s the UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, Professor Olivier De Schutter. In April, he will present his findings to the UN and advocate for a global shift toward a ‘Beyond Growth’ approach.

New economies for eradicating poverty

De Schutter leads a team entitled ‘New Economies for Eradicating Poverty,’ or ‘NEEP’. At the heart of what they do is the Roadmap for Eradicating Poverty Beyond Growth, a blue print for:

expand[ing] the range of policy options available in the fight against poverty, beyond those that rely on economic growth.

Once finished, the Roadmap will offer a catalogue of concrete policy measures that governments, international agencies, and other stakeholders can implement that place human rights, care, and well-being at the centre of the economy, while respecting planetary boundaries.

The roadmap will set out policies for both richer and poorer countries, having suffered under the pursuit of endless growth. De Schutter stated that, in the case of poorer nations:

Although these countries still need to create resources to invest in hospitals, schools, infrastructure and so on, the growth that they are forced to pursue, particularly to reimburse their foreign debt … means they must export, and in order to export, they must produce not for their own population and not based on ecological considerations, but based solely on what the big buyers in global supply chains demand.

Likewise, for richer countries, the roadmap will suggest that:

 instead of public revenue being raised by taxing income from labour or economic activity, we should ensure that public revenue is raised by taxing wealth, financial assets, immovable property, financial transactions, and all the ills of the economy, including from the extractive industry and especially of fossil energy.

Beyond growth

The special rapporteur argues that politicians must set aside the growth mindset focusing on the profits and the:

frivolous and destructive demands of the ultra-rich

In its place, world leaders must adopt a new mindset to fight ecological collapse, inequality and the far-right. De Schutter states:

The scarce resources we have should be used to prioritise the basic needs of people in poverty and to create what is of societal value rather than serve the frivolous desires of the ultra-rich.

As such, the roadmap argues for policies including debt cancellation, universal basic income, job guarantees, and an extreme wealth tax. De Schutter also took care to distinguish the movement beyond growth from uncontrolled economic collapse:

We should avoid the confusion between recession or stagnation of the kind we saw after 2008 or 1929 and the carefully planned and democratically controlled transition to something else.

This shift in mindset would involve a re-ordering of the way we conceptualise the global economy. Only yesterday, UK chancellor Rachel Reeves gave her spring statement on the country’s finances, with that fictional holy grail of growth front-and-center.

Beyond GDP, beyond inequality

As such, one might assume that an anti-growth stance is a fringe idea within the UN. However, De Schutter argues that an increasing number of individuals within the organisation have believed in the “imperative of moving beyond growth” for years. However, their:

existing mandate does not always allow them to say this politically at the highest level, and there is a taboo still about questioning growth.

As such, the special rapporteur’s findings could provide a crucial mandate for ‘beyond growth’ arguments within the UN.

Towards this end, De Schutter is advocating to establish a UN body to ensure that:

the economy is redistributive and sustainable by design rather than encouraging destructive growth and then trying to make up for the mess that creates.

This new body, he argues, could follow the pattern of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

This goal is also backed up by the timing of the report. Its April release will coincide with two similar initiatives, as reported in the Guardian:

one instigated by the UN secretary general, António Guterres, which looks at replacing GDP as the key measure of economic success, and a second report by a G20 panel of independent experts on global inequality led by the renowned economist Joseph Stiglitz.

De Schutter argues that this moment in time offers:

a realistic opportunity to shape the post-2030 agenda with a viable alternative that will reconcile planetary boundaries with social justice and the fight against poverty and inequalities. That’s the challenge and the opportunity.

Now, this article should of course come with hefty caveats. This is the UN we’re talking about — a world body famed for a focus on talk over action. After all, the IPCC has warned and warned of imminent planetary destruction, but we’re still sleepwalking towards annihilation.

We can criticise the proposed roadmap for failing to go far enough, for coming too late, for revolving around the presumption of a money-based economy. The idea of a wealth tax is a curb on extreme wealth, but it doesn’t eliminate inequality altogether.

All of these things should be said. However, the news of NEEP’s work is notable still — even the fucking UN is cottoning on to the simple fact that we must abandon the pursuit of economic growth in order to survive.

Endless growth is a fiction; it is not economically, socially or ecologically possible. Rather, its pursuit is a cancer on our societies and our world.

Featured image via the Canary

US President Donald Trump’s war may be costing Americans $1bn a day. As the US switches from ‘smart’ bombs to ‘gravity’ bombs there are questions about where this runaway conflict is going. And now an esteemed air power scholar has warned the Americans are stuck in a strategic trap.

The US and Israel attacked Iran first on 28 February without provocation. Iran was offering unprecedented concessions in negotiations at the time. The Pentagon has since stated there was no imminent threat from Iran. And the UN’s atomic watchdog, the IAEA, has said there is no evidence Iran was developing a nuclear weapon.

Atlantic reporter Nancy Youssef posted on X on 4 March:

The preliminary Pentagon cost estimate of the war in Iran is $1 billion a day, a congressional official told me.

— Nancy Youssef, نانسي يوسف (@nancyayoussef) March 4, 2026

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An anonymous official’s comment must be taken with a pinch of salt. But the debate about the cost and nature of this attack is urgent. And let’s be clear, this war isn’t ending anytime soon.

On 4 March, US Congress turned their backs on peace and left Trump unchecked:

US Senate Republicans backed President Trump’s military campaign against Iran, voting to block a bipartisan resolution aiming to stop the air war ​and require that any hostilities against Iran be authorized by Congress https://t.co/1KivKwJfyS pic.twitter.com/9KbMnsvVoP

— Reuters (@Reuters) March 5, 2026

Not that the Iranians – who say they were stabbed in the back when the 28 February attack came amid fruitful talks – are in the mood to get back around the table:

Iran says it did not request negotiations with US https://t.co/Rf4aoDkMQO https://t.co/Rf4aoDkMQO

— Reuters (@Reuters) January 28, 2026

Iranian deputy foreign minister Esmail Baghaei explained the Iranian position at length on 4 March:

Trump in over his head

The Costs of War Project have been trying to estimate what the attack will cost the US taxpayer:

Operations against Iran’s nuclear facilities last year cost $2-2.25 billion.

This war will likely cost far more. https://t.co/QTfp0EGDEn pic.twitter.com/B8tdSjoIHA

— The Costs of War Project (@CostsOfWar) March 4, 2026

It’s much easier to say who the beneficiaries of the US-Iran war are going to be: arms firms.

Northrop Grumman’s share price rose 6% yesterday, increasing its market value by billions of dollars in just one day of trading. https://t.co/CqiF6rP2Wx

— The Costs of War Project (@CostsOfWar) March 4, 2026

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The war is changing character, possibly due to depletion of ammunition stocks. US Democrats raised concerns on 4 March that:

 the US has been burning through interceptors to defend against ballistic missiles launched by Iran.

Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Caine acknowledged:

that concern, a person familiar with the matter said, even as he expressed confidence in stockpile levels in public.

US defence secretary Pete Hegseth said the US was moving away from ‘stand-off’ weapons towards gravity-based bombs:

The Hill reported:

Hegseth noted that the U.S. had largely been using standoff munitions — such as cruise missiles and short-range ballistic missiles fired from ships or ground positions — in the campaign so far.

Hegseth said:

More bombers, fighters are arriving just today. And now with complete control of the skies, we will be using 500-pound, 1000-pound and 2000-pound GPS-and-laser-guided precision gravity bombs, which we have a nearly unlimited stockpile.

Gravity bombs are a more conventional form of munition which is dropped from an aircraft rather than fired. B-2’s will arrive at a UK airbase within days on their way to Iran. The UK’s role deepens by the day.

This never works

Professor Robert Pape, a highly-regarded American expert on air warfare, posted on X:

THE SMART BOMB TRAP IS BECOMING A DUMB BOMB

The war is widening.
Not rhetorically.
Operationally.

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And the reason is technical — but the consequences are strategic.

— Robert A. Pape (@ProfessorPape) March 4, 2026

Pape told Time magazine on 3 March:

In announcing the goal of regime change through air power alone, President Trump is up against the weight of history. Not just Iran, but the weight of history. For over a century, states—including the United States, European states, Russia, and Israel—have tried to topple regimes with air power alone. It has never—and I’m choosing my words carefully—it has never worked.

You can read his Substack or listen to more of his analysis here:

As this domestically unpopular war expands rapidly without a plan, the costs in lives and dollars will expand too. Experts insist Trump has chosen the wrong tactic in using air power. A shift to old-fashioned bombs hints at depletion of stock. Meanwhile, the Iranians understandably say they consider this an existential war.

Featured image via the Canary

What is the phone calendar scam?

How can I spot an iPhone calendar scam?

How can I get rid of scam calendar invites?

What percentage of each generation said women should always obey their husbands?

This trend held true throughout the results

This is “deeply concerning”

Ali Ahmadi, Catherine Barnard and Fiona Costello look at the implications of the Labour governmen’s promise to close all asylum hotels.

The UK government has committed itself to closing all asylum hotels by the end of this Parliament. It aims to discontinue the use of contingency hotels and rely instead on other asylum accommodation such as Houses of Multiple Occupation (HMOs) and family houses, as well as investigating the further use of ‘large sites’ such as ‘modular buildings’  and former military bases like Wethersfield in Essex and Cameron Barracks in Inverness. This policy is intended to save taxpayer money and improve the suitability of accommodation. But what does this transition mean in practice given the housing shortage in England? And what are the implications for local authorities, support organisations, local communities, and asylum seekers themselves?

Under the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999, the Home Office is responsible for housing destitute asylum seekers. Between 2012 and 2019, this was delivered through six regional contracts known as COMPASS. In 2019, COMPASS was replaced with seven similar arrangements, the Asylum Accommodation and Support Contracts (AASCs). These contracts were awarded to three providers: Clearsprings Ready Homes, Mears Group, and Serco. Under these contracts, asylum seekers are dispersed on a ‘no-choice’ basis to areas where accommodation is cheap and available which has meant that dispersals have been concentrated in deprived (and thus low-cost) areas.

For instance, the Guardian’s analysis of Home Office data in 2016 showed that 57% of asylum seekers were housed in the poorest third of the country while the richest third housed only 10% of asylum seekers. The distribution has also been uneven across local authorities, with some accommodating none (e.g. Lincoln, Cambridge, North Norfolk, Great Yarmouth, West Suffolk) and some having more than one asylum seeker per 200 local residents (e.g. Hounslow, Halton, Belfast, Coventry), exceeding the limit set by the original dispersal policy.

In 2022, the Home Office announced the policy of ‘Full Dispersal’, distributing asylum seekers more equitably across all local authorities, requiring the providers to use an indexing tool to procure accommodation, taking into account factors beyond population size such as market availability, homelessness rate, and level of hate crimes. This has had some success. For instance, in 2014, 75% of local authorities (285 out of 375) hosted no asylum seekers while in March 2025 just 16% (59 out of 361) hosted none.

However, significant disparities remain, with asylum seekers clustered in certain deprived areas such as Glasgow in Scotland and Halton in the North-West. A Parliamentary inquiry found that providers intentionally avoid procuring dispersal housing in more expensive urban areas to maximise profit. These local authorities face significant pressure on services like schools, healthcare, and homelessness support. The Home Office provides an ‘asylum dispersal grant’ to local authorities (currently £1,200 per asylum seeker per year) but this is not sufficient to meet the full costs.

While the Home Office tried to use local housing in the dispersal areas, it was not able to provide enough such housing and so it increasingly turned to using contingency hotels, especially at the time of the pandemic and now due to asylum backlogs. At the end of March 2020, only 5% of asylum seekers were staying in contingency accommodation (mostly hotels), but by 31 March 2025, this figure rose to 35% (over 32,000 people). Asylum hotels are significantly more costly than other forms of dispersal accommodation. In 2024-25, they accounted for more than half of asylum support cost (£2.1 billion out of £4 billion). Despite the high costs, hotels are reported to be in poor condition. Asylum hotels have also been the subject of community tensions, most notably in Epping in Essex and Norwich in Norfolk. For these reasons, the government plans to end their use.

For asylum seekers, hotel closure means moving to dispersal accommodation or ‘large sites’, often in rural areas far from urban centres. This often means they lose access to support services. For example, third sector organisations that provide legal assistance, mental health and integration support are primarily based in urban areas. They may not have the resources to reach asylum seekers who are located in rural areas. One refugee support organisation in the East of England talked of the difficulty of reaching asylum seekers in rural dispersal accommodation: “[From] Lowestoft to Haverhill, opposite corners of the county, is about 75 miles apart, which with a small team is quite a challenge.”

They also said that availability of services, support, and public transport (in rural dispersal areas) is not a factor in the Home Office’s dispersal index/formula: “….if you’re lucky, the village will have one bus a day that goes to a nearby town…. Some may not have that. So, no, Serco don’t take any of that into account. You know, local school places… don’t take into account if it’s families. Provision of service and culturally appropriate services, not at all.” This affects the lives of the individuals: there are multiple reports of serious mental health crises at Weathersfield. In the first three months of 2024, there were 30 recorded occurrences of men self-harming, attempting suicide, or at serious risk of doing so, and over 160 safeguarding referrals made regarding suicide and self-harm.

It is also not clear whether the government will make any cost saving. Evidence suggests that the use of large sites may, in fact, be more expensive than hotels. The Home Office estimates that Wethersfield costs around £132 per person per night compared to hotels at £144.98. However, these estimates exclude the £105 million in acquisition, lease, and setup costs. A Parliamentary inquiry found that ‘large sites’ attract considerably more public attention, complaints, and media coverage than smaller sites. There are also added policing costs.

To conclude, closing asylum hotels may redistribute costs and pressures rather than reducing them, let alone eliminating them. Local authorities, voluntary organisations, and asylum seekers themselves are likely to bear much of the burden. Dispersal accommodation and ‘large sites’ can work only if they are accompanied by sustained investment in local services, support, and community engagement. There is currently little evidence of this.

By Ali Ahmadi, Research Associate, University of Cambridge and PhD student at Anglia Ruskin University, Catherine Barnard, Senior Fellow, UK in a Changing Europe & Professor of EU Law and Employment Law, University of Cambridge and Fiona Costello, Assistant Professor, University of Birmingham.