Space to dream

Richard Branson’s dream of commercial space flights has suffered a setback after a prototype craft crashed. But others are still offering opportunities for adventure…
— Golden Spike is an American company planning to send a couple of passengers to the Moon from 2020 onwards. Each will pay an estimated return fare of $700 million.
— Inspiration Mars Foundation plan to take advantage of a rare alignment of planets in 2018 to send a male/female couple on a ‘quick’ 501-day flypast of Mars. As yet, it hasn’t announced whether or not they will have to pay for the privilege.
— Mars One, a Dutch company, plans to start a colony of four humans on Mars by 2023. If they survive, another four will join at two-year intervals up to a maximum of 20. None will return. The company says it has received 200,000 applications.

Teenage prisoners

A boy of 16 was given a 20–year minimum sentence for killing teacher Ann Maguire when he was 15. How many 15– to 17–year–olds were in prison on 30 June this year?

Source: Home Office

Paying in sweat

Women working at the factory in Mauritius where the Fawcett Society’s ‘This is what a feminist looks like’ T-shirts are made were said to be earning 65p an hour, meaning they would have to work for 69 hours to afford one. What else could they save up for from online feminist gift shops?
1.5 hours Postcard with the slogan ‘Billions of men, why animal-test?’
4.5 hours Greetings card with the slogan ‘Let’s smash the patriarchs together’
6 hours 20 bright yellow stickers reading ‘This degrades women’
22 hours ‘Male tears’ coffee mug

Break clause

An Employment Appeal Tribunal ruled that workers’ holiday pay should take into account voluntary overtime. How many days’ paid holiday (including public holidays) do workers have a right to?

Source: Center for Economic and Policy Research