Scotland's highest court of appeal has ruled as unlawful the current suspension of Britain's parliament by Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his advice to Queen Elizabeth on the matter. A five-week suspension began at the end of Monday's session. It comes with only weeks to go before Britain is set to leave the European Union. Lorna Gordon outside the court in Edinburgh, outlines what the judge's statement said.
Although the advice to Her Majesty the Queen on the exercise of the royal prerogative on prorogating or suspending Parliament was not reviewable on the normal grounds of judicial review, it would nevertheless be unlawful if its purpose was to stymie parliamentary scrutiny of the executive which is a central pillar he says of the good governance principle enshrined in the constitution and that in essence is why these judges have ruled as unlawful. Second of those two judges, Lord Brodie said this is an egregious case of a clear failure to comply with generally accepted standards of behavior of public authority. The British government is appealing to the Supreme Court in London.
The US state of California has passed a bill known as Assembly Bill 5, which significantly expands the rights of so-called gig economy worker employed by ride-hailing apps such as Lyft and Uber. Dave Lee reports from San Francisco.
The business models of gig economy companies are already under great strain. Uber lost more than five billion dollars in the last quarter alone. Some estimates suggest there having to treat workers as employees rather than independent contractors could increase costs by as much as thirty percent. Uber and rival ride-sharing service Lyft joined forces, they suggested a guaranteed minimum wage of twenty-one dollars per hour instead of the sweeping changes the bill would bring. That pledge wasn't enough to sway California Senate, and the state's governor Gavin Newsom is expected to soon sign the bill into law.
Scientists have found the earliest direct evidence of milk consumption by prehistoric farmers from Britain. The research team identified milk protein within the dental plaque of teeth found at three Neolithic sites in England. It shows that humans were consuming dairy products as early as six thousand years ago, despite being lactose intolerant. Sophy Charlton is from the University of York and a co-author of the study.
We have lots of archaeological evidence from the period which suggests that people are processing milk mainly in the form of milk lipids or fats in pottery. And a lot of these show that they have been the milk has been heated, so we think that probably what's most likely is that people are processing milk to make it kind of more palatable or more easily digestible for them. And this is much earlier than we previously thought that perhaps people were doing this.
