Senior doctors offer volunteer cover so juniors can protest – live

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Medics prepare to fill central London streets as Jeremy Hunt reiterates accusation that union is misleading members

2.01pm BST

The march is set to start in a few minutes at Waterloo Place, here’s a map of the route.

Map of the Junior Doctors London Protest – 17/10/15 @ 2pm #ourliveyourhands #juniorcontract http://bitly.com/1ROiAVq http://pic.twitter.com/kBd0hFCzm0

1.29pm BST

The Guardian’s health policy editor puzzles over the Health Secretary’s true agenda in pushing the junior contract:

What does Jeremy Hunt think he’s doing here? What’s his strategy for dealing with something when even the Daily Telegraph is warning that Conservative activists don’t understand why it’s become such a problem?

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Gloria Steinem: ‘If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament’

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She’s been at the forefront of the feminist movement since the 60s. What’s changed? Gloria Steinem talks about Sheryl Sandberg, Hillary Clinton – and the new threats to women’s rights

The pope is in town the morning I visit Gloria Steinem, staying a few blocks from her on the east side of Manhattan, a fact that tickles the 81-year-old activist. She is, needless to say, unimpressed by the pontiff’s liberal window-dressing. “I’m very glad that he cares about the environment,” she says drily. “And poverty. And dogs.” He has also relaxed the language around abortion, urging “forgiveness”, as opposed to damnation. Steinem, who is the nearest thing we have to a grande dame of feminism – a mantle she abhors – laughs. “Excuse me? Are you kidding me? Forgiveness?”

It is not easy to be an old hand in a political movement the very nature of which is, to some extent, to interrogate and reject the assumptions of what came before. When Steinem came of political age, in the late 1960s and early 70s, Betty Friedan ruled the roost, urging women to shuck off their domestic duties and grab the economic reins of power, something her feminist descendants praised even while deposing her for the reactionary scope of her interests. (As Bella Abzug said at the time, Friedan’s proposals were in danger of replacing “a white, male, middle-class elite with a white, female, middle-class elite”, a caution Steinem echoed: “We wanted to transform the system, not imitate it,” she says.)

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Half of Britons believe weekend hospital admissions ‘more dangerous’

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Amid junior doctor contract row, Observer/Opinium poll shows 35% of adults have delayed seeking medical help at weekend

Half of British adults believe they would be in greater danger if they were admitted to hospital at the weekend, new research suggests.

The Observer/Opinium poll, which found significant numbers of patients had delayed trips to the doctors on a Saturday and Sunday, was published on Saturday as thousands of junior doctors protested against government proposals to reform weekend working.

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We’re Under Water: Germany Shows Signs of Strain from Mass of Refugees

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50% plus of refugees from Syria are in Turkey and Lebanon. Spin and Right-wing field day in Germany and Hungary. Brown shirts flying off shelves in stores?

The unceasing influx of refugees is creating tremendous uncertainty in Germany. Many towns and cities are calling for help and the government appears to be rudderless. Pressure is mounting for Chancellor Angela Merkel to act. iBy SPIEGEL Staff/idiv style=”clear: both;”/divtable class=”tbl enclosures_tbl” id=”enclosures_tbl_6394241294″tbodytr class=”graylink”tdOriginal enclosures:/td/tr trtda class=”bluelink underlink” href=”http://www.spiegel.de/images/image-910129-thumbsmall-ttgk.jpg” target=”_blank”image-910129-thumbsmall-ttgk.jpg/a/td/tr/tbody/table

Source: Were Under Water: Germany Shows Signs of Strain from Mass of Refugees