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Ever since the liberal Episcopal Church in America consecrated Canon Gene Robinson - a divorced man in a gay relationship - as bishop of New Hampshire in November 2003, sniping within the Communion has intensified.

"It would not be good if the Church is unable to set an example to the world of showing how we can love one another and disagree profoundly, because we are brought together by Jesus Christ, not by our own choice."

A split in the Anglican Church over the issue of homosexuality "would not be a disaster, but it would be a failure", the Archbishop of Canterbury has said.

Given the fractious Primates' meetings of the past, the Archbishop of Canterbury has done well simply in persuading all 38 to meet around one table, using much of the personal capital he built up during his visits to every single Anglican province around the globe.

The more liberal provinces that are open to changing Church doctrine on marriage in order to allow for same-sex unions include Brazil, Canada, New Zealand, Scotland, South India, South Africa, the US and Wales.

A spokesman for the archbishop added the meeting would be an opportunity for national churches to decide their approach to the next Lambeth Conference - the once-in-a-decade gathering of the worldwide Anglican bishops.

A letter sent recently by more than 100 senior Anglicans to the Archbishops of Canterbury and York urging them to ensure the Church repents for "discriminating" against lesbian and gay Christians will be discussed too. It called for the Church to acknowledge members around the world have been treated as "second-class citizens".

In 2001, it found, only 12 percent of English 16- and 17-year-olds considered themselves non-drinkers; in 2016, that was up to 35 percent.

“Alcohol doesn’t play as important a role in socializing as it did in the past,” Mr. Nicholls said. “Young people can now have an active social life without leaving their house.”

Alcohol has become more expensive in Britain over the last decade, driven in part by higher taxes, which may help dissuade young drinkers. Some young people guessed a reason for the decline is that their peers have become more likely to resort to drugs like marijuana and ecstasy, which are often more accessible to minors than alcohol.

“I suppose it was a combination of it being more cool and more enjoyable,” said James Samouel, a 19-year-old history student who grew up in south London, referring to marijuana use by peers. “A health thing as well — alcohol is so much worse for you.

But in fact, surveys show that drug use, while still common, has also become less prevalent among young people.

“It doesn’t seem that people are switching from drinking to drugs,” said Dr. Melissa Oldham, the lead author of the Sheffield University report. “It’s a move away from alcohol and drugs to other hobbies.”

After the conclusion of the Thirty Years War in 1648, conflict between France and Spain continued

Spain was in precipitous decline and France was Europe’s dominant military power under Louis XIV

For the next 200 years, Spain followed closely the French project of centralisation under an absolutist monarchy with the imposition of a centralised state model

in 1701, Spain’s weakness was starkly revealed by the War of the Spanish Succession, caused when the Spanish King Charles II died without an heir in 1700. Two of Europe’s leading monarchical powers, the House of Habsburg led by Austria, and the Bourbons led by France, fought to place their candidate on the Spanish throne, with the French candidate Philip V (the Duke of Anjou) crowned on 1 November 1700. The victory of the French Bourbon Dynasty represented a severe defeat for Catalonia, as well as the other territories of Aragon. It meant that Spain would henceforth follow the centralising French state tradition

No Spanish city experienced more political violence and the Spanish military and police stepped in to perform suppressive roles frequently between 1902 and 1923

In 1898 Spain suffered military defeats to the United States, losing its remaining overseas territories

The conflict over differing conceptions of Spain – and the role of national diversity within it – was brought to a head in 1936 with the outbreak of Civil War

the departure of Catalonia would be a disaster for Spain

after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of communism in 1989, the association of the independence movement with the revolutionary left waned. In the 1990s, the concept of independence increasingly entered mainstream political discourse

Today, the struggle for Catalan independence can be considered a middle class revolt.

The King also, in 1433, made his young half-brother, Edmund, earl of Richmond, and, two years later, arranged his momentous marriage with Lady Margaret Beaufort, daughter of the Duke of Somerset. About the same time he created Jasper earl of Pembroke. Naturally, when civil war broke out, their father supported his step-son, the King. But he was taken prisoner early in the war, at the disastrous battle of Mortimer’s Cross, and was executed at Hereford. He is said to have remarked ruefully as he placed his head on the block that it was “wont to lie on Queen Catherine’s lap.” His head was placed on the market cross, where a mad woman came and combed his hair and washed his face, and set it around with lighted candles. His body was buried in the chapel of the Grey Friars at Hereford

Even his cousin, Maredudd, the only surviving son of the rebel, Glyn Dwr, is known to have become “squire of the body” to King Henry V

It would be tempting to believe that he had taken the opposite side in the revolt; this would explain many things, but it is contradicted by the known fact that his possessions, like those of his brothers, were confiscated. And yet his son became a page in the household of King Henry V, the oppressor of the family. This son, whether he was bom in exile or not, bore the name of the rebel chieftain, Owain

It was in Jasper’s great castle of Pembroke that Edmund’s son, Henry Tudor, was born posthumously on January 28th, 1457. The child’s mother, the Lady Margaret, had not then yet reached the age of fourteen.

But the defeat of the Lancastrians at Tewkesbury in 1471, and the death of both King Henry VI and his heir, Prince Edward, led to a complete reversal of fortune

Prophecy in general terms had been easy enough, but the result of a specific event was not so easy to foretell. The bard, in a quandary, consulted his wife, who told him to prophesy victory, for if the prince were successful he might reward the prophet, but if he were unsuccessful he was not likely to return.

Henry promised to deliver the Welsh from “such miserable servitudes as they have pyteously longe stand in,” that is to say, from the penal laws of King Henry IV. This he did not do, for the laws remained on the statute book till the reign of James I

In his exile, Henry had fathered a son by a Breton lady. He was called Roland Velville, and his father knighted him when he ascended the throne and made him constable of Beaumaris Castle. Velville died in 1527, five years before the marriage of his daughter Jane to Tudur ap Robert Fychan, of Berain in modem Denbighshire

He was an associate of Sir Thomas Gresham, and had made much money in trade with the Netherlands. When he did die, Catherine did take Maurice Wynn as her third husband, thereby becoming step-mother to the writer Sir John Wynn of Gwydir

By that time the Tudors had been on the throne for a hundred years, and such Welsh sentiment as they had ever possessed was already worn thin.

The modern state of Albania came into being as a result of the Balkan Wars of 1912-13 after 500 years of Ottoman Turkish rule

A population of just under one million lived in a territory about half as big again as Wales

The Ottomans had never really mastered these people

Language did act as a unifying force

Nominally neutral during the First World War, and without a recognised government, the country was overrun by seven foreign armies

Like other Balkan states, it should repudiate the legacy of the Ottoman period and strive to catch up with the rest of Europe

He had first been fascinated by the story of Napoleon Bonaparte during his schooldays in Istanbul. King Ahmed sounded too exclusively Islamic, so the new monarch adopted his surname (which means ‘bird’)

According to Zogists, the Albanian throne had a 2,500-year history

In 1928, Zog purported to be filling Skanderbeg’s throne, left vacant for 450 years, and he claimed the medieval hero’s helmet and sword as regalia

Prince Xhelal, his half-brother, played no part in royal events, remaining largely forgotten in Mati

The day-to-day lifestyle of Zog did not seem so lavish to upper middle-class Western European diplomats

Albanians endured the poorest living conditions in Europe.

Zog did not dare to tax the rich and powerful for fear of provoking rebellion

Great Britain, France, and the US had greeted the kingdom with a modicum of politeness. They wanted to believe Zog when he assured them that monarchy would help promote peace and stability

Though Albania was legally a sovereign nation, it was wholly subordinate to Italy in all its foreign affairs

The Albanian monarchy reached the peak of its publicity in April 1938

Zog had always wanted a Christian queen, as a Westernising influence and a mark of approval for mixed marriages in general

Albanian resistance was minimal, King Zog fled abroad with a considerable fortune, and the monarchy stood revealed as a failure as great as most of his other modernising schemes

Had their King meant any more to them than the Ottoman Sultan before him

King Zog himself had sometimes observed that his homeland was ‘centuries behind the rest of Europe in civilisation’

The King, who died in France in 1961, never abandoned his claim to the throne

one of Oodi’s architects, has described the new library as “an indoor town square” – a far cry from the stereotypical view of libraries as stale and silent spaces. “[Oodi] has been designed to give citizens and visitors a free space to actively do what they want to do – not just be a consumer or a flâneur,”

Oodi – Ode in English – is more than a sober monument to civic pride. Commissioned as part of Finland’s celebration of a century of independence, the library is no mere book repository. “I think Finland could not have given a better gift to the people. It symbolises the significance of learning and education, which have been fundamental factors for Finland’s development and success,”

“There’s strong belief in education for all,” says Hanna Harris, director of Archinfo Finland and Mind-building’s commissioner. “There is an appreciation of active citizenship – the idea that it is something that everyone is entitled to. Libraries embody that strongly,” she adds.

Those feelings of pride in the equality of opportunity offered by the city’s new library are echoed by the site chosen for Oodi: directly opposite parliament. “I think there is no other actor that could stand in front of the grounds of democracy like the public library does,

“We want people to find and use the spaces and start to change them,” says Nousjoki. “Our aim was to make [Oodi] attractive so that everybody will use it – and play a role in making sure it is maintained.”

Perhaps a clue to the Finnish enthusiasm for libraries comes from the fact that they offer far more than books. While many libraries worldwide provide internet access and other services, libraries in cities and towns across Finland have expanded their brief to include lending e-publications, sports equipment, power tools and other “items of occasional use”. One library in Vantaa even offers karaoke.

These spaces are not designed to be dusty temples to literacy. They are vibrant, well-thought-out spaces actively trying to engage the urban communities who use them. The library in Maunula, a northern Helsinki suburb, has a doorway that leads directly to a supermarket – a striking and functional decision which, along with its adult education centre and youth services section, was partly down to the fact that it was designed with input from locals.

Oodi, however, will go even further: in addition to its core function as a library, it will boast a cafe, restaurant, public balcony, cinema, audiovisual recording studios and a makerspace with 3D printers

“Libraries must reach out to the new generations. The world is changing – so libraries are changing too. People need places to meet, to work, to develop their digital skills.”

“Töölö library is one of my favourites,” says Harris. “It’s set in a park and has a rooftop balcony. Recently my colleagues and I went down there and there was a queue outside the doors – on a regular weekday morning, there was a queue at 9am to get in.”

the most impressive thing about it is the lack of public opposition to such a costly project. “People are looking forward to Oodi. It’s not been contentious: people are excited about it across the board,” says Archinfo director Harris. “It will be important to daily life here in Helsinki.”

Instead, much of the credit for Britain’s modern constitutional monarchy rests with those who redefined the royal position between 1689 and 1707, and then made it work over the following half-century

The Hanoverian ambitions of both kings made their British ministries vulnerable to domestic criticism and Hanover itself to foreign attack, but they learned, however reluctantly, to accept the limitations of their position.

As the monarch remained the ultimate political authority, his court remained the political centre, since it provided access to him

While it is true that George II’s closet was not as powerful as Henry VIII’s privy chamber, the insignificance of the Hanoverian Court has been overdone.

George I and George II both detested the Tories as the party whose ministry had negotiated the Peace of Utrecht in 1713, which ended the War of the Spanish Succession (in which George II had fought), and abandoned Britain’s allies, including Hanover. George I and George II both suspected the Tories of Jacobite inclinations and were alienated by Tory opposition to their commitments to Continental power politics

This forced both kings to turn to the Whigs, limiting their ability to break away in the event of a dispute. The rulers had to make concessions in ministerial and policy choices. George I fell out with Walpole and his brother-in-law and political ally, Charles Viscount Townshend, in 1717 when the ministers opposed his Baltic policy and supported his son, George, Prince of Wales, in the first of those hardy perennials of Hanoverian royal politics, a clash between monarch and heir

Similarly, George II came to the throne in 1727 determined to part with Walpole, but he swiftly changed his mind when he realised that it was expedient to keep the minister if he wanted to enjoy parliamentary support, have the public finances satisfactorily managed, and retain the stability of Britain’s alliance system

After Walpole’s fall over his handling of the war with Spain in 1742, which George II had very much opposed, the King backed John, Lord Carteret only to be forced to part with him twice: in 1744 and 1746

Cumberland’s eventually successful generalship at Culloden serves as a reminder of the extent to which Britain had to be fought for from 1688, just as Continental dynasties such as the Bourbons in Spain in 1704-15 had to fight to establish themselves in succession wars

The role of the Crown was still central. However constrained and affected by political exigencies, monarchs chose ministers. General Thomas Erle, a long-standing MP, wrote in 1717, ‘The King is certainly master of choosing who he thinks fit to employ’.

Both rulers also sought to counter Hanoverian vulnerability to attack from France or Prussia.

Walpole was also expected to find money for George’s female German connections, and to spend time as a courtier, attending on the royal family, as on July 3rd, 1724, when he was present at George I’s review of the Foot Guards in Hyde Park. Similarly, Newcastle and even Pitt had, at least in part, to respond to George II’s interests and views

Both kings were pragmatists, who did not have an agenda for Britain, other than helping Hanover. In this they present a contrast with George III

Neither man sought governmental changes akin to those introduced by Peter the Great or by Frederick William I of Prussia. Neither George had pretensions to mimic the lifestyle of Louis XIV or the Emperor Charles VI. Instead, they presented themselves in a relatively modest fashion, although both men were quite prepared to be prodded into levées, ceremonies and other public appearances

George II had the Guards’ regimental reports and returns sent to him personally every week, and, when he reviewed his troops he did so with great attention to detail

Strong Lutherans, George I and George II were ready to conform to the Church of England. Although they sponsored a number of bishops whose beliefs were regarded as heterodox, they were not seen as threats to the Church of England as compared to that presented by the Catholic Stuarts

Neither George I nor his son did much to win popularity for the new order (certainly far less than George III was to do), but, far more crucially, the extent to which they actively sapped consent was limited. This was crucial when there was a rival dynasty in the shape of the Stuarts, with ‘James III’ a claimant throughout both reigns

Ultimately George I and George II survived because they displayed more stability, and less panic, in a crisis than James II and VII had shown in 1688

If monarchs needed to appoint and, if necessary, sustain a ministry that could get government business through Parliament, this was a shifting compromise, and one subject to contingency and the play of personality

Georges I and II benefited from the degree to which, while not popular, they were at least acceptable

By the close of George II’s reign, Britain had smashed the French navy and taken much of the French empire, becoming the dominant European power in South Asia and North America

International comparisons are helpful. In Sweden in 1772, Gustavus III brought to an end the ‘Age of Liberty’.

Hereditary monarchy placed less emphasis on individual ability than did its ‘meritocratic’ counterpart, whether electoral (kings of Poland) or dictatorial (Cromwell, Napoleon); but it had an important advantage in the form of greater continuity and therefore stability

his form was to prove a durable one, and it provided a means to choose, an agreed method of succession, and a way to produce individuals of apparent merit. This system, however, had only been  devised in response to the unwanted breakdown of rule by the British Crown. Within Britain no such expedient was necessary, nor appeared so. The world of Georges I and II was one in which republicanism found little favour in Britain

What Henry VII did have great expertise in also grew from the circumstances of his exile

Henry's power base of support did cut across existing and inherited allegiances. This was an advantage if it could be transformed into Tudor loyalty.

That Henry VIII became such a gross figure of monarchy must be due partly to the freedom given to ministers like Cardinal Wolsey and Thomas Cromwell to direct royal policy

Henry VII also began to free the crown from the direct influence of the aristocracy

Fifteenth-century kings, dukes and earls were royal cousins with a common descent from Edward III (1327-77). They held a shared elite outlook. Henry VII arrived from relative obscurity in 1485 and began to rule more like a landlord than the first among aristocratic equals.

Henry VII stayed closely involved in the daily tasks of ruling because he had a suspicious personality and was obsessed with the security of his Tudor dynasty

It removed the politically active gentry from the king's personal chambers, although over time figures such as the groom of the stool, Hugh Denys, became important because they had the ear of the king

Henry's permanent adult exile separated him entirely from England's ruling elite, both literally and in terms of his outlook and experiences. On the one hand, this gave Henry an opportunity to unlock the closed network of personal service that had surrounded medieval royal heirs as Princes of Wales or royal nobles. On the other, it created a great dependence upon the advice and skills of others. Some, like Sir Giles Daubeney and Sir Edward Poynings, had joined Henry after 1483 in opposition to Richard III. Others, like John de Vere, earl of Oxford, followed Henry because he was the only chance they had of recovering their lands and influence. Henry could not fully trust them to remain loyal if political circumstances changed again.

Henry VIII's early years, with a vibrant youthful court and military glory in France and Scotland, were certainly more like those of Edward IV's second reign (1471-83) than the more sombre final years of Henry VII's

To keep their status these men became agents of the Tudor crown

Henry pressed these prerogative rights to the very edge of the law, and many subjects complained of injustice. But the ability of the crown to intervene in their life became much more apparent

By regulating their roles as JPs, sheriffs, escheators and jury members, the Tudor crown further encroached upon the political and social freedoms of the ruling elite. Under weak leadership in Henry VI's reign (1422-61), they had been partly responsible for the descent into lawlessness and civil war. The Tudor king sought to remedy both deficiencies

Henry created few new nobles and was reluctant to promote or reward his servants excessively.

Henry also kept the personal estates of the crown (the demesne lands) in his own hands

The king's men soon learned that they could still wield great power: Sir Thomas Lovell's retinue, based on a number of scattered crown stewardships, was as large as any noble connection during this period. But Henry's knights were closely monitored. In another case, the king was willing to sacrifice Sir Richard Guildford's influence in Kent, when it became clear after 1504 that he could no longer represent the crown's interests effectively.

Towards the end of Henry VII's reign, members of the elite were competing for office and influence within a clearly defined structure of crown service. They were not challenging independently for resources of land and men that could threaten Tudor stability. Nobles could still be great landowners, courtiers or commissioners, like the restored earl of Surrey in the north before 1500

Henry VII's reliance on the policies of his Yorkist predecessors is well known

No historian has so far explained how Henry VII gained a foothold on power long enough to exploit the few advantages he held in 1485, or how he withstood the very serious early threats to his dynasty.

Henry VII began to use these tools on a large scale to enforce loyalty during the conspiracies of the first decade of Tudor rule. The backlash to the Tudor accession arose in the heartland of Richard III's support in Yorkshire

This was most obvious with the pretender Perkin Warbeck's call upon the loyalty of former servants of Edward V for most of the 1490s. Henry did try to heal the factionalism that had prevented a harmonious resolution of the civil wars in earlier reigns, and he did this by reshaping the political loyalties of the ruling classes

If the system worked as Henry VII intended it to, then little revenue would be generated from this source. The extent to which this aspect of the use of bonds was developed has been hidden from most Tudor historians

Henry VII's reign therefore remains an intriguing period to study. With several historians now working exclusively on Henry, we can expect a major growth in our level of understanding of the first Tudor reign in the near future

In 2015-16, 30% of the guns used in crime that the organisation recovered and tested were "obsolete calibre", meaning they were designed for ammunition no longer produced - in other words, antiques that have been repurposed to be used in crime. This represents a significant rise over the past five years.

Guns or parts of guns are also traded online. In 2015, NCA officers seized a gun that had been sent to a man in the UK in the post, concealed within a radio.

Handguns were the most common type of firearm used to commit offences last year, according to police records.

In England and Wales in 2016-17, there were 31 fatal shootings - or one for every 1.9 million people.

In the US, in contrast, there were 11,000 murders or manslaughters involving a firearm or one death for every 30,000 people.

Nine out of 10 children – some as young as 11 – said they worried about “adult” issues

Roughly half said they were anxious about poverty and homelessness, terrorism, inequality and the environment

about four in 10 worried about Brexit, sexism and racism.

“The country is sleepwalking into a crisis in childhood and, far from being carefree, our children are buckling under the weight of unprecedented social pressures, global turmoil and a void in government policy which should keep them well and safe.

Children from low income families were strikingly more pessimistic about their childhoods: 39% thought childhood was getting worse, compared to 25% from higher income backgrounds. Poorer children were significantly more likely to worry about not having enough money (44% to 18%)

By the same token, the poorest children had greater concerns about their mental health (31% compared to 20% of those from higher income families), and were also more likely to be worried about the mental and physical health of family and friends (34% to 24%)

Louise Baroy, 43, a single parent from Newcastle, said she felt her children worried more, and about more things, than she had when she was young. “They ask me things like: ‘Will the world still be here when I’m older?’ or: ‘Are we poor?’ I have to sit down and talk to them to put things in perspective. I say we’ll always be OK, because you have got me. We are poor but so are a lot of people, and it doesn’t matter.”

Jenrick said neither cases currently in the system nor any about to go into it could progress to the stage where someone could be evicted.

Shelter, the housing charity, said it would give “much-needed protection for renters at this critical time” and Jenrick “should take a lot of credit for having listened and taken further action – as a result many thousands of people can now stay safe in their homes”.

Critics also pointed out that the government’s emergency legislation only extended the notice required for possession from two months to three.

the seventh highest toll in the world behind Italy, Spain, China, Iran, France and the United States.

Frontline medical staff in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland are already being tested.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson became the first leader of a major power to announce a positive test result for coronavirus on Friday. He is self-isolating in Downing Street but still leading the UK response to the crisis.

“If it is less than 20,000... that would be a good result though every death is a tragedy, but we should not be complacent about that,”

The minister for Scotland, Alister Jack, said on Saturday he had developed a temperature and a cough in the past 24 hours and was now working from home in isolation. He has not been tested for coronavirus.

Efforts were under way to keep building up the NHS’s ability to cope.

“At the moment, I am confident the capacity is there,”

“We have not reached capacity.”

Health workers, who remain in their cars, are tested by nurses who carry out swabs in the nose and mouth through the windows.

“Obviously it’s an improvement, but I think that it is inadequate given the health care crisis that we’re in,” said Representative Ro Khanna, a progressive Democrat from California who favors the single-payer, government-run system called Medicare for All that has been embraced by Senator Bernie Sanders, independent of Vermont, and the Democratic left.

“We’re in a national health care crisis,” Mr. Khanna said. “Fifteen million people just lost private health insurance. This would be the time for the government to say, at the very least, for those 15 million that we ought to put them on Medicare.”

The stimulus bill would make upper-middle-income Americans newly eligible for financial help to buy plans on the federal marketplaces, and the premiums for those plans would cost no more than 8.5 percent of an individual’s modified adjusted gross income. It would also increase subsidies for lower-income enrollees.

Just when Mr. Biden or Democrats would put forth such a plan remains unclear, and passage in an evenly divided Senate would be an uphill struggle. White House officials have said Mr. Biden wants to get past the coronavirus relief bill before laying out a more comprehensive domestic policy agenda.

The Affordable Care Act is near and dear to Mr. Biden, who memorably used an expletive to describe it as a big deal when he was vice president and President Barack Obama signed it into law in 2010. It has expanded coverage to more than 20 million Americans, cutting the uninsured rate to 10.9 percent in 2019 from 17.8 percent in 2010.

Even so, some 30 million Americans were uninsured between January and June 2020, according to the latest figures available from the National Health Interview Survey. The problem has only grown worse during the coronavirus pandemic, when thousands if not millions of Americans lost insurance because they lost their jobs.

Mr. Biden made clear when he was running for the White House that he did not favor Medicare for All, but instead wanted to strengthen and expand the Affordable Care Act. The bill that is expected to reach his desk in time for a prime-time Oval Office address on Thursday night would do that. The changes to the health law would cover 1.3 million more Americans and cost about $34 billion, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Republicans have always said that their plan was to repeal and replace the health law, but after 10 years they have yet to come up with a replacement. Mr. Ayres said his firm is working on “coming up with some alternative health care message” that does not involve “simply throwing everybody into a government-run health care problem.”

Yet polls show that the idea of a government-run program is gaining traction with voters. In September, the Pew Research Center reported that over the previous year, there had been an increase, especially among Democrats, in the share of Americans who say health insurance should be provided by a single national program run by the government.

“I would argue there is more momentum for Medicare expansion given the pandemic and the experience people are having,” said Mr. Khanna, the California congressman. “They bought time, but I think at some point there will be a debate on a permanent fix.”

WASHINGTON — President Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill will fulfill one of his central campaign promises, to fill the holes in the Affordable Care Act and make health insurance affordable for more than a million middle-class Americans who could not afford insurance under the original law.

Under the changes, the signature domestic achievement of the Obama administration will reach middle-income families who have been discouraged from buying health plans on the federal marketplace because they come with high premiums and little or no help from the government.

“For people that are eligible but not buying insurance it’s a financial issue, and so upping the subsidies is going to make the price point come down,” said Ezekiel Emanuel, a health policy expert and professor at the University of Pennsylvania who advised Mr. Biden during his transition.

But because those provisions last only two years, the relief bill almost guarantees that health care will be front and center in the 2022 midterm elections, when Republicans will attack the measure as a wasteful expansion of a health law they have long hated. Meantime, some liberal Democrats may complain that the changes only prove that a patchwork approach to health care coverage will never work.

The Affordable Care Act is near and dear to Mr. Biden, who memorably used an expletive to describe it as a big deal when he was vice president and President Barack Obama signed it into law in 2010. It has expanded coverage to more than 20 million Americans, cutting the uninsured rate to 10.9 percent in 2019 from 17.8 percent in 2010.

The poll found that 36 percent of Americans, and 54 percent of Democrats, favored a single national program. When asked if the government had a responsibility to provide health insurance, either through a single national program or a mix of public and private programs, 63 percent of Americans and 88 percent of Democrats said yes.

Just when Mr. Biden or Democrats would put forth such a plan remains unclear, and passage in an evenly divided Senate would be an uphill struggle. White House officials have said Mr. Biden wants to get past the coronavirus relief bill before laying out a more comprehensive domestic policy agenda.

Republicans have always said that their plan was to repeal and replace the health law, but after 10 years they have yet to come up with a replacement. Mr. Ayres said his firm is working on “coming up with some alternative health care message” that does not involve “simply throwing everybody into a government-run health care problem.”

In January, he ordered the Affordable Care Act’s health insurance marketplaces reopened to give people throttled by the pandemic economy a new chance to obtain coverage.

Yet polls show that the idea of a government-run program is gaining traction with voters. In September, the Pew Research Center reported that over the previous year, there had been an increase, especially among Democrats, in the share of Americans who say health insurance should be provided by a single national program run by the government.

With its expanded subsidies for health plans under the Affordable Care Act, the coronavirus relief bill makes insurance more affordable, and puts health care on the ballot in 2022.

cludes rich new incentives to entice the few holdout states — including Texas, Georgia and Florida — to finally expand Medicaid to those with too much money to qualify for the federal health program for the poor, but too little to afford private covera

“Biden promised voters a public option, and it is a promise he has to keep,” said Waleed Shahid, a spokesman for Justice Democrats, the liberal group that helped elect Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other progressive Democrats. Of the stimulus bill, he said, “I don’t think anyone thinks this is Biden’s health care plan.”

“I think that argument has been fought and lost,” said Whit Ayres, a Republican pollster, conceding that the repeal efforts are over, at least for now, with Democrats in charge of the White House and both houses of Congress.

Policy experts say that reducing initial consumption of materials is essential

Build small, portable recycling factories.

researchers at the University of New South Wales in Sydney are exploring the possibility of “microfactories”: small, modular machines that can be used together in various combinations to create new materials.

Factories that reprocess materials like plastic, glass and paper are usually large, expensive operations that produce one or a few recycled products.

Although the heir to the throne will never match the popular appeal of his mother, I imagined that public sympathy for the personal loss that must precede his coronation would tide him over a reign that, at his age, would be transitional, an interlude before the ascendancy of a glossier generation.

The one-two punch of revelations about Prince Andrew's profound involvement with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and the fracturing of the idea that the royals would easily absorb Meghan Markle into their ranks further rewrote the narrative and highlighted, too, a new frailty to an institution that could neither effectively manage its media operations nor its problematic family members.

For the first time, I wonder if I will live to witness the end of the monarchy. On the other hand, if the past year has taught me anything, it is that lives are more fragile than institutions. The Queen's husband and mine are gone forever. They did once meet, at that state banquet. As Andy moved up the receiving line behind members of the Mexican delegation, Prince Philip spotted him and, noting his bleached hair, pale skin and green eyes, exclaimed "thank heavens, one of ours."

On Saturday, Professor John Edmunds, a member of Sage - the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies which advises the government - said the levels of coronavirus were still "very high", adding that it was a "political decision" to ease measures.

In Wales, people from two different households will be able to meet each other outdoors from Monday.

And Phil Anderson, head of policy at the MS Society, said people would "rightly want to hear a lot more about the scientific evidence showing this will be safe for them".

Widespread testing forms a central part of the government's strategy to control the virus, as it aims to ease blanket lockdown in favour of more targeted measures.

The UK's R value - the number of people each infected person passes the virus on to, on average - is currently between 0.7 and 0.9.