Scottish Widows is planning to ‘supercharge’ pension engagement as it launches a revamped app and TikTok channel in a bid to drive young people to take notice of their pensions.

The life insurance and pensions firm said it is investing £100million to improve its digital offering, including launching its TikTok channel ahead of ‘pension engagement season,’ This is Money can reveal. 

As many as one in four people in their 20s aren’t saving anything for retirement, according to data from Scottish Widows, with 38 per cent of people not on track to save for their minimum lifestyle requirements.

Scottish Widows has rebranded its app platform, investing £100m to boost digital engagement

Jackie Leiper, managing director at Scottish Widows, told This is Money: ‘People are on their internet banking accounts almost every single day. 

‘We know that pensions and investments get nowhere near that level of interaction and engagement from people.

‘The investment we’re making is to create a digital ecosystem and experience that allows people not only to look at their products with us, but actually to connect the accounts with other providers as well.’

Scottish Widows hopes by launching a TikTok channel, it can tap into viewers, especially younger people, who are interested in improving their pension and before it is too late to make a real difference.

Leiper added: ‘If you’re in your 20s, you’re not really thinking about retiring, are you? But actually, we know that people in their 20s and 30s can make the biggest difference by small steps that they take.’

Generally, people don’t really start to take notice of their pensions until they are in their 40s, Leiper said, ‘by which point they’ve got quite a short window to really make some real difference or take some real action’.

Working with TikTok, Scottish Widows found that searches for ‘#retirementplanning’ had increased 300 per cent in the first quarter of 2024 compared with a year ago, while ‘#retirement’ had increased 60 per cent.

Meanwhile, 81 per cent of TikTok users said they want to know more about personal finance, with a third actively searching for this content on the platform. 

The ‘#retirementplanning’ tag had more than 10 million views in the first quarter of 2024.

Scottish Widows: Leiper says most people won’t expect a traditional firm to be at the cutting edge of digital engagement

Scottish Widows said young people could gain the most by engaging with their pensions early in life, arguing that if the auto-enrolment age threshold was lowered to 18 and the lower earnings limit was reduced, savers could add an extra £46,000 to the average future pension pot, an increase of 45 per cent.

‘This generation of people in the 20s and 30s aren’t going to have any of the gold-plated pension schemes that perhaps my generation have had, so the steps they can take now could really make a huge difference for them,’ Leiper said.

‘The TikTok channel is quite experimental, but it is showing that there is a demand there and that if we can go where the people go then that’s probably our best opportunity to make the biggest difference.’

On top of the TikTok channel, Scottish Widows is also updating its brand and app, including introducing gamification features which it hopes will help to easily explain difficult concepts to users.

Having launched just weeks ago, the firm’s compound interest in-app game has already seen 53,000 visitors, or one in five app visitors.

Leiper said its ‘beat the gap’ and ‘pension mirror’ games, meanwhile, have ‘had amazing engagement and really helped to simplify down the messages and help people make decisions more easily.’

‘The gamification team are miles ahead of our competitors and nobody else is doing this in the pensions and investment space, certainly in the UK,’ Leiper added, ‘most people wouldn’t expect to see it from quite a traditional company like ours.’

Scottish Widows is currently recruiting a full gamification team, with the aim of creating standalone games for everyone to use., as well as expanding its features to other aspects of its business.

‘Ultimately what we would be hoping that people do is actually start taking steps to close the gap they’ve got, so that they have what they need for retirement,’ Leiper said.

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Are we in the golden age of sea travel? Or have we left it behind? 

These fascinating vintage photographs will no doubt suggest to some that today’s ‘floating city’ cruise ships don’t have the romance or glamour of the passenger ships of yesteryear. The archive photographs show life on board the Conte Rosso and Conte Verde, Italian transatlantic liners built in Scotland in the early 1920s and designed to transport passengers from Europe to North and South America. 

The Conte Verde was 180m/590ft long, less than half the length of the world’s biggest cruise ship in 2024, Royal Caribbean’s Icon of the Seas (364m/1194ft), yet it still had room for more than 2,400 passengers across 10 decks and was considered the height of luxury.

Those in first class luxuriated amid interiors built by craftsmen and artists brought over to shipyards in Scotland from Florence. And even those in third class had use of an outdoor pool.

Launched in 1922, the Conte Verde took many memorable trips across the ocean, including transporting European football teams to the first-ever World Cup in Uruguay in 1930.

Scroll down to see what life was like on these grand vessels…

The Conte Verde launched in 1922 from Genoa in Italy on its maiden voyage to Buenos Aires, Argentina. The ship is pictured here departing on a later voyage from Genoa in 1936. Many passengers used the ship to emigrate and may have been permanently bidding farewell to Europe and their families

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Pictured is the dining room onboard the Conte Verde in the 1930s. A Times article, written when the ship launched in 1923, said the ‘wealth of artistic detail everywhere (onboard the ship) recalls the old-time splendour of an Italian palace’. The writing above the door at the back of the room, ‘A Tavola Non S’Invecchia’, means ‘At the table, one does not grow old’ and reflects Italy’s joyful approach to dining

This image shows a Thanksgiving buffet for the ship’s first-class passengers in 1930. What might they have been treated to? A first-class Conte Verde menu card dating back to 1939 advertises the ‘New Moon cocktail’, which was made with dry Gordon gin, sherry, French vermouth, angostura bitters, absinthe and a squeeze of lemon peel. The Conte Verde could transport 450 first-class passengers

Pictured is the first-class dining room onboard the Conte Rosso transatlantic liner, the sister ship to the Conte Verde. It was also renowned for its ornate interior furnishings and launched in 1921

Chefs are pictured in the second-class kitchen on the Conte Verde in 1930. Second class was the smallest class onboard, with room for 200 passengers

Passengers are shown here in the ship’s third-class dining room in 1930. The Conte Verde had space for more than 1,700 third-class passengers and the majority of these were people emigrating overseas to start a new life

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This photo, which dates back to 1930, shows passengers playing games and relaxing on the Conte Verde’s deck. A first-class brochure from 1939 advertises clay pigeon shooting on the ship’s second-class deck

This picture depicts the Conte Verde’s third-class swimming pool in 1930. Other activities for passengers included ball games, evening concerts and dancing

Passengers are pictured praying on the deck of the Conte Verde in 1930. The journey from Europe to the Americas on an ocean liner took around a fortnight

Pictured is the surgery onboard the Conte Verde in 1930. Unlike a cruise ship, ocean liners wouldn’t make stops along the route, so sick passengers wouldn’t have had the chance to get off

This is the gym onboard the Conte Verde’s sister ship, the Conte Rosso, in the 1930s. The Conte Rosso was notable for its outdoor dining areas – unusual for the time

This image depicts the French national football team aboard the Conte Verde on their way to participate in the first World Cup in Uruguay in 1930. According to The Guardian, Lucien Laurent, a French footballer onboard, said: ‘There was no talk of tactics or anything like that, no coaching. It was just running about the boat on the deck. Running, running all the time. Down below we would do exercise – stretching, jumping, running up stairs, lifting weights’. The Conte Verde transported several other teams to the tournament, including Romania, Brazil and Belgium. England did not participate in the event

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Pictured is Amedeo Pinceti, the captain of the Conte Verde in 1930. The ship had around 400 crew members

This photo depicts people watching the departure of the Conte Verde from New York in the 1930s. Later in the 1930s, the ship was used to travel between Italy and Shanghai. Many Jewish refugees escaped Europe on the Conte Verde until the route was closed in 1940 when Italy joined the war. The ship was bombed and sunk in the 1940s in Asia and was eventually scrapped in 1949. After WWII, the use of ocean liners dramatically dropped due to the launch of speedier long-distance flights. Cunard’s Queen Mary 2 is now the only ocean liner still in service

By Xantha Leatham, Deputy Science Editor

Published: 23:59 BST, 8 September 2024 | Updated: 00:47 BST, 9 September 2024

Night owls have a higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes because their body clock is out of sync with society, experts have warned.

It is already known that those who stay up late and are more active at night are more likely to smoke, eat unhealthy food and have a higher body mass index, which are all linked to the condition.

However, the increased diabetes risk may not be down to lifestyle alone, researchers said.

Instead, they suggest the link could also be because a night owl’s body clock may be out of sync with the rest of society.

A team from Leiden University Medical Centre in the Netherlands analysed sleep timing, waist circumference and the BMI of more than 5,000 people.

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Night owls have a higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes because their body clock is out of sync with society, experts have warned. Pictured: Stock image of security guard

Researchers suggest the link could also be because a night owl’s body clock may be out of sync with the rest of society (stock image)

Of the group, 1,576 had MRI scans to measure visceral and liver fat, while electronic health records were used to check how many people had type 2 diabetes.

Patients were categorised into three groups, or ‘chronotypes’, based on their sleep timing – late, early and intermediate.

Dr Jeroen van der Velde, lead researcher, said: ‘Previous studies have indicated that a late chronotype – preferring to go to bed late and wake up later – is associated with an unhealthy lifestyle.

‘Late chronotypes are more likely to smoke or have an unhealthy diet, for example, and it has been suggested this is why they are at higher risk of obesity and metabolic disorders including type 2 diabetes.’

The group was followed up for an average of 6.6 years, during which 225 patients were diagnosed with type 2 diabetes.

When taking into account age, sex, total body fat and lifestyle factors such as exercise, diet and smoking, the study found people who preferred to stay up late still had a 46 per cent higher risk of type 2 diabetes than people in the intermediate group.

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Dr van der Velde suggested there could be ‘other mechanisms also at play’ outside of lifestyle.

Researchers also found night owls tended to have a higher BMI, a larger waist circumference, more visceral fat and higher liver fat content (stock image)

‘A likely explanation is that the circadian rhythm or body clock in late chronotypes is out of sync with the work and social schedules followed by society,’ he said.

‘This can lead to circadian misalignment, which we know can lead to metabolic disturbances and ultimately type 2 diabetes.’

Researchers also found night owls tended to have a higher BMI, a larger waist circumference, more visceral fat and higher liver fat content.

Dr van der Velde added: ‘People with a late chronotype are probably more likely to eat until later in the evening.

‘While we did not measure this in our study, there is growing evidence that time-restricted eating, not eating anything after a certain time, such as 6pm, may lead to metabolic benefits.

‘Night owls who are concerned about the increased risk of type 2 diabetes might want to try this or, at least, try to refrain from eating late in the evening.

‘The evidence isn’t there yet but, in time, we aim to provide specific advice regarding the timing of lifestyle behaviour.’

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The study will be presented at the annual meeting of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes in Madrid.

• Morgan Rogers has caught the eye since signing for Aston Villa in January
• He says he time he spent with Lincoln, Bournemouth and Blackpool shaped him 
• LISTEN NOW: It’s All Kicking Off!, available wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Monday and Thursday

By Jack Gaughan

Published: 20:31 BST, 8 September 2024 | Updated: 01:52 BST, 9 September 2024

Morgan Rogers admitted that loneliness during loan spells made him reevaluate his attitude as he embarks on a Champions League campaign just three years after playing in League One.

The Aston Villa forward has shone since joining Unai Emery’s side from Middlesbrough in January and will be integral when Villa meet the likes of Bayern Munich and Juventus.

Emery has been so taken by Rogers’ performance that he questioned the FA’s wisdom in picking him for the England Under 21s, who face Austria in a friendly on Monday night.

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The Manchester City academy product has earned rave reviews so far this term, particularly against Arsenal, and believes time spent away at Lincoln City, Bournemouth and Blackpool shaped him.

‘I struggled to get into the team at Bournemouth,’ Rogers said of a six-month spell consisting of just one Championship start. ‘I was far away from home. There were different challenges there where I probably grew up the most.

Morgan Rogers admitted that loneliness during loan spells made him reevaluate his attitude

‘I was focusing on myself more rather than blaming other things. Bournemouth helped me to become more open to getting better regardless of what people think of you.

‘There was no reward of playing at the end of a week so how do you assess how you’re doing? Ultimately if you look at the bigger picture you want to be the best version of yourself in your prime.

‘It was about stepping stones. Days moaning and wasting away training, with disappointment, isn’t going to get it done. It’s about still coming in every day regardless of what people think because you don’t want to waste a day getting to that end goal.’

Rogers – who was living alone on the south coast – credits a friendship with Bournemouth defender Chris Mepham with making sure he buckled down.

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‘When I was younger I wasn’t coasting but without being funny I was the best in certain teams,’ he added. ‘I didn’t have to have that mentality to be the best on the pitch and to challenge myself.

‘When I went on these loans you find out that there are levels above and that is where I found that out, needing to come with the same work rate, desire and attitude to be the best version of myself.

‘There were times where I didn’t because I thought I didn’t need to but looking back at it I know now what needs to be done to get to that level.’

A California State Senator has been accused of keeping her married male chief of staff as a sex slave and injuring his back while ‘forcing’ him to perform oral sex.

Republican California State Sen. Marie Alvarado-Gil, 50, was hit with the accusations Thursday by former chief of staff and father-of-three Chad Condit, the 57-year-old son of former congressman Gary Condit.

Condit claims the married mother-of-six frequently demanded oral sex – including in the car which caused him to suffer a back injury, in the civil lawsuit filed in Sacramento Superior Court.

Condit claims that the relationship was one of ‘sex-based quid pro quo’ that he characterized as being punctuated by ‘unwelcome advances and sexual behaviors coupled with punishment and flexing of power.’ 

Alvarado-Gil was elected in 2022 and hired Condit as chief of staff. She fired him in December 2023 and vehemently denies the allegations, branding him a ‘disgruntled former employee’ who has ‘fabricated an outlandish story … to get a payday.’

Condit claims that Alvarado-Gil had a proclivity for oral sex and that she treated it as a perk of power.

California State Sen. Marie Alvarado-Gil, 50, (left) was hit with the accusations Thursday by former chief of staff and father-of-three Chad Condit (right), the 57-year-old son of former congressman Gary Condit

California State Senator Marie Alvarado Gil

‘They were driving together and they pulled over to go to the restroom,’ the lawsuit recounts of one alleged incident during a trip to Inyo County.

‘When he came back to the car, she had her pants pulled down and said, “I want you to kiss it and prove your loyalty.”

‘She had her legs spread and turned towards him exposing her vagina. Her direction was for him to submit to her demand and to orally pleasure her vagina.’

The lawsuit claims that he ‘was numbed and acted without thinking’ after months of alleged abuse by Alvarado-Gil.

On the final occasion that she demanded oral sex, Condit says he suffered a grievous injury due to the confined space of the car they were sharing.

Condit claims that he performed the act ‘in a car seat with his body having to twist and contort in the confined space of the car.’

As a result, the chief of staff suffered three herniated discs in his back and a collapsed hip, according to the suit. 

He says that he began to push back against her sexual demands following the injury and that this ‘made her unhappy with him.’ 

Condit’s father, former Democratic Congressman Condit, has also been accused of affairs – including with missing intern Chandra Levy who was found murdered a year after her 2001 disappearance. Condit’s father was never named a suspect.

Speculation around whether the politician committed the murder, however, allegedly prompted Alvarado-Gil – who went on to fire Condit this past December – to allegedly ask her then-staffer if he ‘would be like his father,’ the suit claimed.

It also claimed the alleged inappropriate comments intensified over time, including in March 2023 when the politician allegedly asked him about his feelings on ‘throuples’ – a term that refers to a consensual relationship between three people.

Alvarado-Gil asked ‘whether (he) thought his wife would be into that,’ the suit claimed – with attorneys for Condit also writing how Alvarado-Gil would allegedly share her sexual fantasies with him and other staff members for all to hear.

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State Senator Marie Alvarado-Gil, D-Jackson, at the Capitol in Sacramento, Calif., Monday, July 10, 2023

For one, the Senate District 4 representative allegedly told him ‘that she prefers short black men and old white guys like (Condit),’ and that if ‘if [Republican state Sen. Roger Niello] was younger and I was single, I would jump bones.’

By August 23, 2023, the son of the former California Rep. said he made it clear the then-Democrat’s advances were not welcome, leading to him being met with threats to his job.

He also said he began to reject Alvardo-Gil’s demands for oral sex, using his back injury as an excuse. 

Among them was Alvardo-Gil allegedly issuing him a ‘bogus disciplinary letter with accusations of inappropriate behavior made by Alvarado-Gil against him’, and visiting his home to accuse him of seeing someone to his wife.

The month before, Alvarado-Gil, who suddenly switched her party affiliation from Democrat to Republican this past August, wished Condit a very public Happy Birthday, writing, ‘Thank you for all you do.’

In October, Condit underwent back surgery for his alleged injuries, the lawsuit said – before Alvarado-Gil fired him at the end of the year.

Condit claimed that prior to being fired, Alvardo-Gil threatened to hire his wife Helen, with whom he has three kids. 

Alvardo-Gil, meanwhile, is married as well, with six children. In the suit, Condit claimed her boss had a ‘lifetime free pass’ to cheat on her husband, who cheated on her as well.

The California State Senate is also named in the lawsuit, as Condit claimed staffers there allowed the alleged harassment, which he said never included sexual intercourse.

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Chad Condit is the son of former US Congressman Gary Condit (pictured leaving his DC apartment in 2001)

Condit’s father, former Democratic Congressman Condit, has also been accused of affairs – including with missing intern Chandra Levy (pictured) who was found murdered a year after her 2001 disappearance. Condit’s father was never named a suspect

‘The Secretary of the Senate blindly accepted Alvarado-Gil’s retaliatory actions and ratified her abuse of him,’ the lawsuit read.

Secretary of the Senate Erika Contreras said Friday in response: ‘The Senate has not been served in this matter, but we are in discussions with counsel to assess next steps.

‘The Senate takes all complaints incredibly seriously but is unable to comment on matters involving pending litigation.’

Ognian Gavrilov, an attorney for Alvardo-Gil, added: ‘A disgruntled former employee has fabricated an outlandish story, presented without evidence, to get a payday.

‘We expect that the Senator will be fully cleared of any wrongdoing of these bogus, financially motivated claims.’

Condit and Alvarado-Gil, meanwhile, have feuded publicly in the past, with the latter filing an ethics complaint with Attorney General Rob Bonta in May, requesting an investigation into how Condit pursued funds for certain infrastructure improvements.

A few months later, Alvarado-Gil made headlines for switching party affiliation from Democrat to Republican, citing frustration with the majority party’s crime policies. 

She was first elected to represent her district, which is mostly Republican, in 2022. Condit was part of her campaign.

Summer in the UK might have been cold and rainy.

But globally, this summer was the hottest on record, according to new data from the Copernicus Climate Change Service (CS3).

The average global temperature across June, July, and August was 0.69°C above average – surpassing the previous record set last year.

‘During the past three months of 2024, the globe has experienced the hottest June and August, the hottest day on record, and the hottest boreal summer on record,’ said Samantha Burgess, Deputy Director of C3S.

‘This string of record temperatures is increasing the likelihood of 2024 being the hottest year on record.’

Summer in the UK might have been cold and rainy. But globally, this summer was the hottest on record, according to new data from the Copernicus Climate Change Service (CS3)

The average global temperature across June, July, and August was 0.69°C above average – surpassing the previous record set last year. Pictured: Valencia on 11 August

CS3 regularly publishes data on the global climate, based on billions of measurements taken from satellites, ships, aircraft and weather stations around the word. 

Its latest data shows that August 2024 was the joint-warmest August globally, together with August 2023. 

The average global temperature was 16.82°C, which is 0.71°C above the 1991-2020 average for August.

Looking at summer as a whole (June – August), the average temperature was the highest on record at 0.69°C above the 1991-2020 average, surpassing the previous record from June–August 2023 (0.66°C).

Overall, this means 2024 is on track to be the hottest year on record. 

‘The year-to-date (January–August 2024) global-average temperature anomaly is 0.70°C above the 1991-2020 average, which is the highest on record for this period and 0.23°C warmer than the same period in 2023,’ CS3 explained. 

Looking at summer as a whole (June – August), the average temperature was the highest on record at 0.69°C above the 1991-2020 average, surpassing the previous record from June–August 2023 (0.66°C)

Several countries across the Americas, Africa, Europe and Asia have faced record heat this year. Pictured: Oroville, California on July 2

‘The average anomaly for the remaining months of this year would need to drop by at least 0.30°C for 2024 not to be warmer than 2023. 

‘This has never happened in the entire ERA5 dataset, making it increasingly likely that 2024 is going to be the warmest year on record.’

Several countries across the Americas, Africa, Europe and Asia have faced record heat this year. 

Writing for The Conversation, Proefssor Mathew Barlow and Professor Jeffrey Basara, climate scientists from UMass Lowell, highlighted just a few of the devastating cases we’ve seen this year. 

‘In Mexico and Central America, weeks of persistent heat starting in spring 2024 combined with prolonged drought led to severe water shortages and dozens of deaths,’ they wrote. 

Overall, this means 2024 is on track to be the hottest year on record, according to the researchers from Copernicus Climate Change Service

‘Extreme heat turned into tragedy in Saudi Arabia, as over 1,000 people on the Hajj, a Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca, collapsed and died. Temperatures reached 125 F (51.8 C) at the Grand Mosque in Mecca on June 17.

‘Hospitals in Karachi, Pakistan, were overwhelmed amid weeks of high heat, frequent power outages, and water shortages in some areas. 

‘Neighboring India faced temperatures around 120 F (48.9 C) for several days in April and May that affected millions of people, many of them without air conditioning.

‘Japan issued heatstroke alerts in Tokyo and more than half of its prefectures as temperatures rose to record highs in early July.

‘Large parts of Europe were suffering through a long-running heat wave as the 2024 Summer Olympics prepared to open in Paris in late July.’

According to Ms Burgess, climate change is partly to blame for this record heat – and things are only set to get worse. 

‘The temperature-related extreme events witnessed this summer will only become more intense, with more devastating consequences for people and the planet unless we take urgent action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions,’ she warned.