Developers will only bring us more car-dependent sprawl | Letters

It is disappointing to see the huge urban sprawl at Gilston, north of Harlow, described as rejecting “car‑centric models” (A new town for the 21st century?, 9 February).Big, ultra-low-density developments like this, far from rail-transit networks, are inevitably car-dependent, despite claims by their promoters. It takes more than building the primary schools necessitated by such schemes to get people out of their cars, especially as walks to school are extended by the very low densities secured by huge consumption of productive farmland.Nor should the developers be given credit for “mixed tenure” housing. They managed to get East Herts council’s aspirations for 40% “affordable” housing reduced to 23%, using cynical “viability” provisions in planning guidance that enable developers to demand high rates of return and so reduce their obligations to provide affordable housing

Health support needed to tackle joblessness | Letter

The alarming rise in economic inactivity highlighted in your report (UK sleepwalking into joblessness epidemic, Tesco boss warns, 10 February) underlines a public health issue as much as an economic one. It is increasingly clear that millions of working-age people are drifting out of the labour market not through choice but because of long-term health problems and inadequate support systems around them.Tackling worklessness requires proactive, health-centred approaches that help individuals stay in or return to work. We also know that time out of work is corrosive. Good-quality work improves physical and mental wellbeing, providing income, social connection and purpose, and protects against social exclusion

Gen Z in the US: how are you feeling about your finances?

The US economy has been in a tailspin, from rising prices, changing trade policies and the impact of artificial intelligence on the labor market. Polls show many Americans believe their financial security is getting worse and it’s harder to afford major life goals.Young Americans are no exception. If you are aged 18-29 and live in the US, we’d like to hear from you about the state of your finances and your biggest money concerns.You can tell us about your money situation and concerns using this form

We joke that to afford a home in Australia we must wait for our parents to die. It feels like a deal with the devil | Fiona Wright

For years, whenever my friends and I have despaired of the housing market and our precarious place within it, we have eventually landed on the same dark joke: there’s nothing any of us can do until our parents drop off the perch.The median rent in Sydney – the city where I live, largely by dint of being born here – has just hit $800 a week, a sum that represents more than half of a median income, and well beyond what is defined as affordable. This is the system that we are living with, one in which housing is a commodity, an investment, a means to accrue and hold wealth, rather than a basic need and human right.In the past five years house prices have risen by nearly 50%, from what was already a record high. In the past month three of my closest friends – including one who lives alone – have been hit with rental increases of more than $100 a week

‘The kids don’t get days off. Nor should you’: my secret life as a paedophile hunter on the dark web

US undercover investigator Greg Squire can spend 18 hours a day befriending child sex abusers, to try to identify them and get justice for victims. He reveals the toll the work has taken on him Greg Squire can never forget the video that opened his eyes to what child sexual abuse could mean. It was a Sunday and he was at his home in New Hampshire, sitting out on his deck, his two young children running around, playing. This was 2008, about a year into Squire’s career as an agent for Homeland Security – he’d been a postman before this – and he reached for his laptop, checked his inbox and saw that the results of an email search warrant for a suspect had come in.He clicked on a video

Police ‘determined’ to target abusers who drive women to suicide but say they lack resources

Police are “determined to do more” to hold to account domestic abusers who drive victims to kill themselves, the National Police Chiefs’ Council has said.Assistant Commissioner Louisa Rolfe, the NPCC lead for domestic abuse, has said that “more posthumous investigations are taking place”, but that officers struggle with a lack of resources, adding that 20% of all crime relates to domestic abuse in most forces.National guidance had been changed, she said, with the NPCC’s research team going into forces to look at how it was being applied. That guidance, she said, had been adapted based on feedback from families, who had consistently raised concerns about police response.This included, Rolfe said, “officers too quick to assume, ‘well, it’s a suicide and therefore a case for the coroner, not an investigation to be had by policing’, too often assuming that the domestic abuse perpetrator was the primary next of kin, and therefore risking evidence being lost by, for example, returning personal property like phones to those individuals