What happened
Up to 50 per cent of jobs within NHS England and local integrated care boards are set to be removed next year as part of plans to phase out the body and bring services under the Department of Health and Social Care, according to information shared with staff and reported by The Independent. A staff briefing yesterday outlined the reduction target, with voluntary redundancy being the primary route. NHS England currently employs more than 15,000 people and has operated as the organisation overseeing health since its creation in 2013.

Who said what
Earlier this year Keir Starmer said decisions over the NHS budget should not be taken by a separate “arms-length” organisation, arguing that bringing NHS England under direct departmental control would improve service delivery.

NHS England staff “have faced limbo”, said Rebecca Thomas in The Independent, given there has been no confirmation that the redundancies will be funded by the Treasury.

What next?
Staff were informed that applications for voluntary redundancy would be accepted from 1 to 14 December, with final approval decisions due on 18 January. About 3,000 employees have reportedly already expressed interest in taking a redundancy.

What happened
A High Court decision has overturned Epping Forest District Council’s injunction against the owners of The Bell Hotel, meaning that asylum seekers can continue to be housed there. The council had been granted a temporary injunction after the hotel “became the site of a series of protests over the summer” following the arrest of a resident for sexual assault, said The Independent.

Who said what
High Court judge Mr Justice Mould found that “there is no evidential basis” that asylum seekers “have a greater propensity” to commit crime than locals, and that hotels are an “important element of the supply of contingency accommodation to house asylum seekers”.

Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp said on X that the decision was a “slap in the face to the people of Epping” and accused Labour of putting “the rights of illegal immigrants above the rights of British citizens”.

What next?
The council still has “the option of going back to the much slower process of taking enforcement action by serving notice of a breach of planning controls”, said The Guardian.

Decades of mismanagement and environmental exploitation – coupled with an unprecedented drought – have left Iran teetering on the edge of a water crisis.

The reservoirs are nearly empty following record low rainfall and officials are “pleading with citizens to conserve water”, said the BBC. The 10 million inhabitants of Tehran are “facing the real possibility of their taps running dry”. Authorities warned this week that the five main dams supplying the capital were at “critical levels”.

With no rain on the horizon, the Iranian president has warned that citizens might have to start rationing water. “If rationing doesn’t work,” said Masoud Pezeshkian, “we may have to evacuate Tehran.”

Water scarcity is “a major issue throughout Iran”, said Al Jazeera. Authorities blame shortages on “mismanagement and overexploitation of underground resources”, which have been exacerbated by the climate crisis. The situation reached its current breaking point after the worst drought in decades. Tehran has had no significant rain since May, a situation one official said was “nearly without precedent for a century”.

The crisis is also fuelling conspiracy theories: some Iranians are claiming on social media that neighbouring countries are “stealing” their rain clouds, said Forbes. Authorities have made similar assertions, accusing Turkey, the UAE and Saudi Arabia of “diverting clouds away from Iran to their own skies”. Iran’s Meteorological Organisation and other entities have had to clarify that “stealing clouds and snow” isn’t possible.

Studies point to “decades of mismanagement, including excessive dam construction, illegal well drilling and unsustainable agriculture”, said The New York Times. The country’s Ministry of Energy recently announced the practice of “cloud seeding”, which involves “dispersing particles like silver iodide into existing clouds to encourage rainfall”. But clouds need to contain at least 50% moisture in order for it to work. “With no relief in sight, some officials have called on the population to pray for rain.”