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‘If it’s cold, they stop mating’: New York City rat population may be on the decline

‘If it’s cold, they stop mating’: New York City rat population may be on the decline

As a result of New York’s most severe winter in years, the city may see a drop from it’s estimated 3 million rats Since arriving from Europe in the 1600s, New York City’s rats have survived hurricanes, floods, terrorist attacks, riots, fires, a pandemic (they actually thrived during that), the Dutch and Crocodile Dundee II . But as a result of New York’s most severe winter in years, when the city saw snow, then a historic deep freeze, then even more snow, the rat population might now be about to decline. For a bit. Continue reading...

It’s been decreed: something must be done about student loans in England

It’s been decreed: something must be done about student loans in England

The education secretary wants a fairer system and the Tories have leapt in with their own plan – but why now? For anyone who attended university in England in the last 15 or so years, the idea of student loans feeling like some sort of debt trap is hardly news. But three weeks ago, when the journalist Oli Dugmore discussed this on the BBC’s Question Time , it felt like a moment. It was less the size of the initial debt, he explained, than the way above-inflation interest rates meant the interest charged alone was now almost as much as the original sum. “So was it mis-sold to me?” he asked, rhetorically. “Yes, I’d say so.” Continue reading...