Medical professionals and women who had bad experiences themselves respond to the findings of the birth trauma report

The maternity trauma report is deja vu all over again (Women having ‘harrowing’ births as hospitals hide failures, says MPs’ report, 13 May). I cannot read about it because it makes me want to scream.

I was around for the Shrewsbury and Telford hospital trust report a couple of years ago. All those dead babies, all those mothers and parents talking about not being listened to or respected. All that handwringing from service providers, all those promises from politicians. The recommendations were set up to prevent the experiences we heard about this week (‘I was left lying on the ground in pain’: shocking stories from UK birth trauma inquiry, 13 May). For instance, continuity of midwifery care through the maternal pathway prevents so much of the stuff we read about now.

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© Photograph: Science Photo Library/IAN HOOTON/Getty Images

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© Photograph: Science Photo Library/IAN HOOTON/Getty Images

Little change at top between 2021 and 2022 but European names such as Nova beginning to gain favour

New entries to the list of top 100 baby names in England and Wales for 2022 suggest European names are gradually gaining favour, data from the Office for National Statistics shows.

While girls’ names remained largely unchanged from 2021, with Olivia top (most popular with mothers aged 25 and older), followed by Amelia (most popular with mothers aged under 25), Isla and Ava, more unusual names are creeping in.

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© Photograph: JGI/Jamie Grill/Getty Images/Tetra images RF

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© Photograph: JGI/Jamie Grill/Getty Images/Tetra images RF

It was like I was trapped in a movie – with a hideous plot twist

I met Eric on a dating app in early 2018 when I was living in New York. He was handsome, talkative and interesting. I was falling for him – but there was something he needed to know. In 2015, I’d been in love with a guy called Mike. On my 30th birthday, my parents threw me a party at their house. Everyone was having a great time until I heard my brother scream Mike’s name. As I ran towards the noise, I saw Mike on the ground by my parents’ pool. He’d slipped into the water and wasn’t breathing. I frantically tried to do CPR on him, but he remained unconscious.

At the hospital, I was told that Mike wouldn’t ever wake up. No one knows how he got hurt. He broke some bones in his back, and had a brain injury, but we don’t know how that happened.

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© Photograph: Ben Zucker/The Guardian

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© Photograph: Ben Zucker/The Guardian

Abbie says the minor collision was a one-off, but her mum Jane says she should now save up to buy her own car. You decide whose argument should be bumped
Find out how to get a disagreement settled or become a juror

Everyone make mistakes – even Mum – and she knows I can’t afford my own car and road tax

The dent proved that Abbie has some growing up to do. She should save up for her own car

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© Illustration: Igor Bastidas/The Guardian

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© Illustration: Igor Bastidas/The Guardian

You can’t cordon off every weird dynamic on the big day, writes advice columnist Eleanor Gordon-Smith. But you can be clear you won’t accept trespasses without consequence

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I am getting married next year. For various reasons, including his treatment of me and my siblings, I do not want my father at my wedding. If he is there he will ruin the day by shouting at me for some perceived transgression. He holds grudges like no one else I’ve ever met and he doesn’t accept who I am. He refuses to acknowledge I am disabled and thinks I’m making it all up for attention. He has not met my fiance and I have no intention of introducing them.

The difficulty is that my mother and brother live with him. I’m very close to my brother and I desperately want both of them to attend. I worry my father will either invite himself or create such a row that neither feels able to come. They both know I’m getting married but my father does not. I have no idea what I can do to make sure my wedding isn’t ruined.

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© Photograph: Universal Images Group North America LLC/Alamy

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© Photograph: Universal Images Group North America LLC/Alamy

Leaky Old Trafford roof was almost a too perfect sign of neglect by owners who love the money but don’t seem to like the club

In February, the NFL players’ union carried out its second annual survey of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and let’s just say it wasn’t pleasant reading. Tampa Bay players reported that the changing room was “not clean, constantly smelly and has a persistent bug issue”. The sauna was described as “dirty and/or mouldy”. This barely a decade after an MRSA outbreak infected three Buccaneers players, two of whom never competed again.

In addition, players complained about being forced to pay $90 (£72) for childcare on match days (most teams offer this for free), being charged $1,750 a season for the privilege of having their own hotel room on away trips and being made to sit at the back of the plane while club staff travelled first class. Most of the blame for this state of affairs was laid squarely at the team’s ownership, whom the survey ranked 29th out of the 32 NFL franchise owners, and who go by the name of the Glazer family.

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© Photograph: Marc Atkins/Getty Images

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© Photograph: Marc Atkins/Getty Images

All these right-wing thinkers are much more comfortable thinking about the blurred lines between sexual and economic politics than many thinkers on the left. And they understand that Keynesianism rests on a certain kind of sexual contract. Any challenge to this order—whether it be an escalation of wage or benefit claims, or the flight from sexual normativity, or unmarried women claiming welfare benefits—disrupts the fiscal and monetary calculus on which Keynesianism rests. Public spending becomes profligate, debt burdens become intolerable, inflation spirals out of control. All of which is to say that the state is subsidizing marginal lives more than it is subsidizing capital. from Extravagances of Neoliberalism, a conversation with Melinda Cooper [The Baffler; ungated]

Waluigi sings "Rainbow Connection." It'll consume two minutes and 44 seconds of your day, but no more than that. That's all. That's enough.

From Matthew Taranto, who made the Brawl in the Family webcomic some years back.

Millions in Sackler donations sat dormant, rising in value as the opioid epidemic raged and as other institutions distanced themselves from the makers of a notorious painkiller.

© Shuran Huang for The New York Times