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Distraught couples face prospect of cutting guest lists from more than 600 people down to just 20 after coronavirus variant took hold

Police thank public for help in finding 18-year-old last seen at Windsor nightclub at 2am on SundayA woman who went missing after last being seen in a Windsor nightclub has been found “safe and well”, police have said.Marnie Clayton, 18, was found in Basingstoke, Hampshire, on Monday afternoon after she was last seen at Atik nightclub in William Street, Windsor at about 2am on Sunday, Thames Valley police said. Continue reading...

Continuing disarray on the left ahead of the presidential election is a sorry spectacleIn better times, the French left used to draw inspiration from the old Popular Front phrase, “les lendemains qui chantent” (the tomorrows that sing). These days that kind of optimism – along with any sense of unity among progressives – is just a poignant memory.With less than 100 days to go before the first round of the French presidential election, the jockeying for position among the flatlining candidates of the left has become a fractious sideshow, as the campaign continues to be dominated by the right. At the weekend, the Socialist former justice minister, Christiane Taubira, became the latest hopeful to formally throw her hat into the ring. She joins the mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo – also a Socialist – France Unbowed’s veteran hard-left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the Green candidate, Yannick Jadot, and an assortment of fringe figures. None of the candidates has managed to break through the 10% barrier in polls and none has a chance of making it through to the second round of voting; yet all remain in the race, vying to take votes from each other. “Singing tomorrows” have given way to a cacophonous clashing of stubborn egos. The result is that the 30% or so of voters who identify as being on the broad left are being effectively disfranchised. Continue reading...

Move likely to stoke invasion fears as war games also planned near borders of Nato members Poland and LithuaniaRussia has begun moving troops to Ukraine’s northern neighbour Belarus for joint military exercises, in a move likely to increase fears in the west that Moscow is preparing for an invasion.The joint military exercises, named United Resolve, are to take place as Russia also musters forces along Ukraine’s eastern border, threatening a potential invasion that could unleash the largest conflict in Europe for decades. Continue reading...

Ireland’s minister for justice promises new strategy by March and a zero-tolerance approachCampaigners have called for the end of the “scattered” approach to gender-based violence in Ireland after the murder of 23-year-old Ashling Murphy.Irish police are still hunting for the killer of the primary school teacher, who was strangled on a canal path near the town of Tullamore while out jogging on Wednesday afternoon. Continue reading...

As the €866m Elbphilharmonie celebrates its fifth anniversary, what could have been a costly mistake has become a symbol of the German city. London, take noteFive years ago the world felt a very different place. Pandemics belonged to disaster movies; the UK was reeling from the divisive Brexit vote but, with Theresa May newly installed as prime minister, the hope was that she might succeed in a soft Brexit and, in London; Simon Rattle’s imminent arrival as the London Symphony Orchestra’s chief conductor was eagerly anticipated and along with it the city’s transformative new Centre for Music.Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie opened in January 2017 with a glittering gala attended by celebrities and dignitaries. The spectacular concert hall was praised for its bold design, its superb acoustics and its “exceptionally exceptional exceptionalness”. But in London the hope – back then – was that the city’s own new concert hall would one day also be a world-leading arts venue to compete with Hamburg’s. Continue reading...

Military preparing options for No 10 but use of warships to turn back refugees seen as disproportionate

Yemen’s Houthi forces claim strikes, which follow pressure on Iran to kickstart nuclear talks with USHouthi forces in Yemen have claimed responsibility for an apparent drone attack in Abu Dhabi that killed three people and is likely to raise regional tensions as a crucial phase nears in nuclear discussions with Iran.The strikes, which also injured six people, left flames billowing from an oil storage site near the airport of the United Arab Emirates’ capital. A separate explosion, which is also thought to have been caused by a drone, caused minor damage. Two Indian nationals and one Pakistani were killed amid the fireballs. All the wounded were reported to be lightly hurt. Continue reading...

Survey finds widespread discontent as MPs inundated with emails about Downing Street parties scandalThere is “massive anger” among grassroots Conservative party supporters over the Downing Street parties scandal, the head of a leading group has said as its survey found 40% thought Boris Johnson should resign.Ed Costelloe, chairman of Grassroots Conservatives, said it had been years since the group last polled its supporters and followers but it felt compelled by the “unique” nature of the public mood. Continue reading...

Éric Zemmour drew widespread outrage in September 2020 after a tirade against child migrantsA French court has found the far-right presidential candidate Éric Zemmour guilty of racist hate speech for a tirade against unaccompanied child migrants.Zemmour drew widespread outrage in September 2020 when he told the CNews channel that child migrants were “thieves, killers, they’re rapists. That’s all they are. We should send them back.” Continue reading...

Australia and New Zealand have sent surveillance flights to Tonga after the eruption of an underwater volcano that triggered a tsunami. In dramatic footage, the Hunga-Tonga-Hunga-Ha'apai volcano could be seen erupting a day before, sending thick plumes of ash and smoke into the sky

Remaining heirs and publishing company Primary Wave settle case with US tax agency, with estate valued at twice original appraisalThe estate of the late pop singer Prince, including his catalogue of songs, has been valued at $156.4m (£114m), nearly twice an earlier appraisal.The estate’s administrator, Comerica Bank, agreed on the figure with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the heirs to Prince’s estate. The singer died in 2016 without a will, and his estate will pass to three of his siblings as well as the publishing company Primary Wave, who in August 2021 bought out rights to the Prince catalogue from another three heirs, two of them deceased. Continue reading...

As she prepares to star in the new ‘American Downton’, the 69-year-old actor talks about her blue-collar roots, her friendship with Stephen Sondheim — and the pleasures of late-career fame

21 January 1922: It is hard to enjoy ‘the most healthy of British sports’ when it means so many men, horses, and dogs pitted against one smaller creaturePerhaps a country diarist may be allowed to comment on the correspondence about foxhunting, especially as one advocate of thesport signs himself “Nature Lover.” He affirms that the fox “expects to be hunted,” but do we know that animals really expect anything? All we feel sure about is that they have good memories of past experiences, and instinctively or consciously try to avoid danger; personally I do not believe that they look ahead, and therefore do not fear the future however much they suffer from fear in the present. Further, this writer argues that a ballot of foxes on an alternative issue of extinction or a hunted life would give a majority for the latter. To this I agree, for we can only judge from a human standpoint; how many of us would prefer extinction? We should greatly prefer a life free from peril; so surely would the fox.Years ago, when crossing a Cheshire park, I heard the approaching pack and saw the hunted fox within a few yards of where I was standing. Panting, bedraggled, dead-beat, a picture of abject misery, it could hardly drag itself along, and the hounds were close behind. Suddenly it turned, doubling round a bush, and, dodging with marvellous skill, passed safely through the heavier hounds, and reached a withy bed. But it was its last effort, and to my sorrow they killed it there. Ever since then all my sympathy has been for the fox, and I could never enjoy “the greatest, most manly, natural, and healthy of British sports,” when it means so many men, horses, and dogs pitted against one smaller and weaker creature. “Put yourself in the animal’s place,” says another correspondent; we should hardly then claim that the fox enjoys the hunt. Continue reading...

Switch to drinking at home rather than in pubs during Covid pandemic partly to blameMillions of Britons are causing themselves “silent harm” through hazardous drinking at home, experts have warned, as figures reveal levels of “higher risk” alcohol consumption have soared during the pandemic.While the new figures concern England only, the phenomenon has been seen in all parts of the UK. Continue reading...

Communications blackout from undersea cable’s apparent damage prompts some to turn to Facebook livestreams from outside Tonga for updatesSince the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha‘apai volcano erupted on Saturday, Seini Taumoepeau has barely slept.“I would say I’ve had four hours [of sleep each night] at the most,” says Taumoepeau, a Tongan-Australian artist and activist based in Sydney. Continue reading...

Blanket of ash hinders communications from towns believed to have been inundated by waves as first surveillance flights departsNew Zealand and Australia have sent planes to assess the damage from a huge undersea volcanic eruption and tsunami that hit the Pacific nation of Tonga on Saturday.The eruption sent a thick blanket of ash into the sky, contaminating water supplies, cutting off communications and initially preventing surveillance flights assessing the extent of damage. Continue reading...

Omicron is now the dominant variant of Covid-19 in Australia and since its emergence late last year scientists and governments have been racing to learn more about it. So what do we know about how Omicron impacts the human body? And how effective are public health measures like masks, testing and vaccines against it?

Waves rush over island country while tidal surges are felt by small Pacific neighbours plus New Zealand, Australia, US and JapanTsunami waves caused by an undersea volcano have flooded the Pacific Island country of Tonga, where entire towns have been inundated with water and scientists warn the main island could be blanketed in volcanic ash.Videos shared on social media after the eruption showed people running for higher ground as the one metre high floods hit coastal areas and made their way farther inland while the sky darkened with ash. Continue reading...

Freight train marks first time during pandemic that North Korea is known to have opened land borderA North Korean cargo train has reportedly pulled into a Chinese border town in what would be the first confirmed crossing since its anti-coronavirus border lockdowns began.North Korea has not officially reported any Covid-19 cases and has imposed strict anti-virus measures, including border closures and domestic travel curbs since the pandemic began in early 2020. Continue reading...

Prosecutor says dead include security forces and ‘armed bandits’, with toll dramatically increased from previous figuresThe violent unrest in Kazakhstan that began with peaceful protests in early January has left 225 people dead, authorities have said in a dramatic increase on previous tolls.“During the state of emergency, the bodies of 225 people were delivered to morgues, of which 19 were law enforcement officers and military personnel,” Serik Shalabayev, the head of criminal prosecution at the prosecutor’s office, told a briefing on Saturday. Continue reading...

Acclaimed novelist reveals she became almost silent as a child due to stressNovelist Deborah Levy first discovered writing as a kind of therapy when her voice disappeared as a child, she has revealed.Appearing on BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs, the popular British writer, acclaimed for her Booker Prize-shortlisted novels Swimming Home and Hot Milk, said her voice gradually got quieter during her schooldays in South Africa. Continue reading...

Food relief organisations say they are helping more people than ever before. But this is not a good news story. Head of news, Mike Ticher, introduces an investigation into underlying inequality in Australia that predates the Covid crisisYou can read the original article here: ‘We need to be alarmed’: food banks in overdrive as politicians allow Australians to go hungry Continue reading...

Activists are gaining support for move to hold popular vote to decide who stands in presidential electionA group of political activists will make one desperate last attempt this month to save the bitterly divided French left from an electoral catastrophe in the presidential election with a “people’s primary” to designate a single candidate.The Primaire Populaire was initiated by young people dismayed by the fractures that could mean no leftwing or socialist figure will reach the second round of the election in April. Continue reading...

Veterans say ‘arbitrary’ powers contained in proposals going before the Lords would have silenced their pensions campaignGurkha activists have launched a scathing attack on Priti Patel’s controversial policing bill, describing it as “highly dangerous” and warning that it would criminalise their future campaigning work.Gurkha groups, who recently protested outside parliament for equal military pensions with the British soldiers they served alongside, say the bill would crush similar campaigns because of its intention to restrict the right to protest. Continue reading...

Capitalism’s great trick is to make us long for the useless and unnecessary. Under the bright lights, I felt that itch starting upAll I can say is that I should have known better. No, my decision to visit the branch of Amazon Fresh that has just opened near where I live was not at all a good match for the sweeping month-long programme of mindfulness and joy-sparking I tentatively set in motion for myself on 1 January. But there I was all the same, curiosity having got the better of me. And yes, the result was predictably awful. As any wellness guru worth the name could doubtless have told me, this way lay simmering despair and an almost overwhelming desire to buy a packet of Jacob’s Mini Cheddars.I still have no idea how Amazon got the go-ahead to set up a branch of the grocery wing of its rampaging empire in the grade-II listed building it now inhabits: an old tram depot that when I first came to this part of London was the home of lots of little antique shops (RIP). There was, I seem to remember, a bit of a kerfuffle over its alcohol licence, but in the end it got the green light, in spite of the fact that there are already three large supermarkets mere metres away. Now it stands there rather mournfully, its lurid sign seemingly aiming to attract either those who simply cannot be bothered to cross the road, or those who prefer to keep on their headphones as they shop. (Amazon Fresh’s USP is that it has no tills, so customers need not speak to a single soul.) This, I have read, is one of 10 branches in the capital so far; by 2025, the company hopes to have 260 across the UK. Continue reading...

Kyiv’s middle-class professionals ready to take up arms againThe mood last week in Ukraine was eerily calm, despite talk of war. The first winter snow blanketed Kyiv. Many were still celebrating Orthodox Christmas – which falls on 7 January – or had left town for the holidays. Bars and restaurants rang out with Dean Martin’s Let It Snow!, while the fir trees in Independence Square looked like a mini-Narnia.Sure, Russia might invade at any moment. But, as Ukrainians wearily point out, the country has already been at war for eight long years, ever since Vladimir Putin annexed Crimea and kickstarted a brutish conflict in the east of the country, which has claimed nearly 14,000 lives. Friday’s dawn cyber-attack on government websites was merely the latest in a series of hostile acts. Continue reading...

Ben Wallace issues second warning this week as Liz Truss accuses Moscow of waging ‘disinformation campaign’An incursion by Russia into Ukraine would violate the “most basic freedoms and sovereignty”, the defence secretary has said following a visit to Scandinavia.Issuing a second warning in a week to Moscow, Ben Wallace said there would be “consequences” of any Russian aggression towards Ukraine. Continue reading...

Dr Susan Hopkins says numbers flattening in London, south-east and east of England – and hospital admissions rate starting to slow

The Harry Potter actor on a play about teen depression, his George Harrison fix, and the Lin-Manuel Miranda film he’s obsessed withBorn in Surrey in 1987, actor Tom Felton rose to fame playing Draco Malfoy in the Harry Potter films. His other film roles include Anna and the King, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, and Amma Asante’s Belle and A United Kingdom. He is also a musician, and is one of the founders of Six String Productions, a recording company devoted to signing young musical artists. He stars opposite Samantha Morton in Sky original Save the Cinema, about a Welsh community’s battle to save their local theatre from demolition. Continue reading...

The footballer, 40, on playing for Dulwich Hamlet, worrying about dementia, fans teasing him for being so tall and writing poems for his wifeMy first love was Italian football. It was so flamboyant. Gianluca Vialli was my idol; he had this effortless style. I was also transfixed by the Football Italia show on Channel 4, James Richardson sitting by a swimming pool with his pink Gazzetta dello Sport and his tiny little cup. I said to Dad, “Why is his cup so small?” He had to explain it was an espresso, not a tiny cup of bog-standard tea.I can be romantic. When I proposed to Ab [Abbey Clancy, Crouch’s wife] in a villa in Ibiza I set up candles all the way downstairs so she could follow them to me. I once whisked her away for a weekend in Paris and surprised her with a new outfit each night. Not all of it was perfect, but I tried my best. When I played football I used to write little poems for her and leave them around the house. I should still do that really. Continue reading...

Lawyers for Duke of York argue Virginia Giuffre ‘may suffer from false memories’, court documents showLawyers for the Duke of York want to question his accuser’s husband and her psychologist as part of his civil sexual abuse case, after arguing that she “may suffer from false memories”.Witness accounts are being sought from Virginia Giuffre’s partner, Robert Giuffre, and Dr Judith Lightfoot, according to court documents. Continue reading...

Vigils continue to be held for 23-year-old teacher murdered while on a run in Tullamore, Country OffalyRunners across the island of Ireland paused in memory of 23-year-old Ashling Murphy on Saturday, with further vigils organised following the murder of the teacher.Irish police are continuing to hunt for the killer of Murphy, who was found dead after going for a run on the banks of the Grand Canal in Tullamore, County Offaly. Continue reading...

A women’s yoga and fell walking break in the Welsh borders leaves our writer with aching muscles but a heart full of joyBruce Chatwin was 15 when he first cycled through the Vale of Ewyas, a place he would later refer to as “one of the emotional centres of his life”. Wordsworth and Turner also loved this rough knuckle of mountains abutting the England-Wales border. I was 20 when I first visited, and was so smitten by the swooping hills that I leapt out of the car and ran barefoot up Hay Bluff, seized by a reckless delirium.Two decades later I’m on a new yoga and fell walking weekend here, with Chatwin’s beloved valley unfurling below. The packing list had included sun cream – but this is Wales, in winter, and the weather isn’t playing ball. Rain pitter-patters on still-green leaves. Boots squelch in oily mud. Mist shrouds a seam of oaks. Continue reading...

Streets and buildings flooded in Pacific nation’s main island following latest eruption of Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apaiPeople have been forced to flee their homes, and streets and buildings have flooded, as tsunami waves crashed into Tonga’s main island of Tongatapu, following a huge underwater volcano explosion.The eruption at 0410 GMT on Friday of the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai underwater volcano, located about 65km (40 miles) north of Tonga’s capital, Nuku’alofa, caused a 1.2-metre tsunami, Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology said. Continue reading...

People in two tiny West Africa towns are stunned by the deaths of sisters, nephews and mothers in a tight-knit immigrant communityEarly on Sunday morning, Ebrima Dukureh, 60, answered a phone call at his home in the Gambian town of Allunhari.It was his nephew, Haji Dukureh, 49, calling from New York City, to check in – as he often did. The two men caught up on news, asked after each other’s families and exchanged blessings. Continue reading...

The Handmaid’s Tale actor on her crush on Clint Eastwood and selling frozen food over the phoneBorn in Massachusetts, Ann Dowd, 65, appeared in the films Lorenzo’s Oil and Philadelphia, and had various roles in the TV series Law & Order. She received award nominations for her performances in the 2012 film Compliance and the HBO series The Leftovers. Since 2017, she has played Aunt Lydia in the drama series The Handmaid’s Tale, winning an Emmy. Her more recent movies include Hereditary and Rebecca; her latest, Mass, is in cinemas and on Sky Cinema from January 20. She is married to actor Lawrence Arancio; they have three children and live in New York City.Aside from a property, what’s the most expensive thing you’ve bought?

This year’s rally once again returned to Saudi Arabia where 750 competitors in 430 vehicles traversed more than 8,000km over 12 stages. The rally started and ended in Jeddah, going through canyons and cliffs in the Neom region, passing by the Red Sea coastline, into stretches of dunes surrounding the capital Riyadh.Click here to check out images of the rally from yesteryearFrom Jeddah to Riyadh and everywhere in between, this has been a visually spectacular year at the Dakar Rally in Saudi Arabia. Fourteen days of dunes, fast straight tracks, rocky sections, and cliff backdrops. Titles have been contested and first-time entrants have been broken in. All of the contestants were hoping for glory in the vast desert landscape where mistakes are rarely forgiven, but few claimed it.The dust settles on the world’s toughest rallying event and a variety of stories emerge from the Saudi desert. Nani Roma, the seasoned veteran who has won the Dakar on both a motorbike and in a car, showed us how far biofuels have come in recent years.Bahrain Raid Extreme driver Nani Roma and co-driver Alex Haro Bravo drive their Prodrive Hunter T1 on Stage 7 from Riyadh to Al Dawadimi. Photograph: Marian Chytka Continue reading...

Line of Duty has made her primetime royalty and one of the UK’s most watched actors. Now Vicky McClure is paying it forward to a new generation of working-class talentVicky McClure has just made me a cup of tea and now we’re on to the important business of weighing up just how famous she has become. The Line of Duty and This Is England star reckons she’s a long way from being an A-lister, insisting her fame is “a bit more like a household-ey name? Maybe in the same vein as a soap?” It’s the kind of take you might expect from the grounded Midlander who, despite starring in the most-watched BBC drama since records began, keeps things very real. And she also makes a great cup of tea.We’re talking in the unflashy front room of her cosy house in Nottingham. An ordinary house on an ordinary suburban street; no thick electronic gate, no hovering publicist or personal assistant. Our only (unseen) company is McClure’s fiance, fellow actor Jonny Owen, who’s pottering around upstairs. Oh, and the builder who knocks on the front door – they’re having work done. Continue reading...

The fifth instalment of the knowing slasher franchise brings back the old but focuses on the new. Is it a return to form?

Lacey Haynes and Flynn Talbot want to improve the world’s love life – starting by doing it live on air in every episodeLacey Haynes is a women’s “intuitive healer”, and guides couples in yoga-informed “elevated sex”. When she opens her front door, the first thing I notice about the Canadian podcaster is her fashionable faux fur slippers and chic blunt fringe. Where is the western wellness guru uniform of linen tunic, elephant-print trousers and culturally inappropriate head jewellery, I wonder?Inside the living room, I spot the hot-pink sofa that Haynes’ Australian husband, Flynn Talbot, a men’s life coach and fellow elevated sex practitioner, calls “love island”. Fans of their podcast – Lacey and Flynn Have Sex – will know it as one of many locations around their house where they take the title literally, recording themselves having sex in the bedroom, on the kitchen barstool, and beyond. Continue reading...

Tennis star’s lawyers call immigration minister’s view that he could excite anti-vaccination sentiment ‘irrational’; NSW reports 20 deaths and 48,768 cases, Victoria 23 deaths and 25,526 positive cases, Qld six deaths and about 20,000 cases and SA four deaths and 4,349 cases. This blog is now closed

The acclaimed journalist talks about life before Watergate, as portrayed in his new book Chasing History, and life after TrumpCarl Bernstein is crying. He slips an index finger behind his spectacles to push away a tear. He repeats the action to wipe his other eye.Nearly six decades have passed since Bernstein, a young newsman in a hurry, was told by a colleague that President John F Kennedy was dead. But the gut punch of that moment surfaces as if it were yesterday. “I still have trouble with it,” Bernstein admits, quickly regaining his composure. “It’s very strange.” Continue reading...

Thousands of people still in jail after protests while behind-the-scenes power struggle continuesKazakhstan’s president, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, who at the height of unrest last week said he had ordered troops to shoot to kill without warning, has spent this week taking a softer line and promising genuine reform.However, with thousands of people still in detention and a behind-the-scenes power struggle still not fully resolved, many have expressed scepticism. Continue reading...

Hawke says tennis champion is ‘perceived by some as a talisman of a community of anti-vaccine sentiment’

Two tactical guided missiles hit their target, state media said, hours after Pyongyang accused US of ‘provocation’North Korea’s third weapons test this month involved the firing drill of a railway-borne missile, state media KCNA has said.South Korea’s joint chiefs of staff said it had detected what it presumed were two short-range ballistic missiles launched eastward on Friday from North Pyongan province on the north-west coast of North Korea. Continue reading...

More than two thirds of Poland’s Covid-19 medical advisory body resigns; restrictions in the Netherlands will be eased from Saturday

Thousands have gathered in towns and cities across Ireland after the 'senseless' killing of the 23-year-old teacher, with echoes of the national reckoning that was sparked in the UK last year by the murder of Sarah Everard. Murphy was killed on Wednesday afternoon while going for a run along the banks of the Grand Canal in Tullamore in County Offaly

Killing of 23-year-old in County Offaly has provoked outpouring of grief and anger in Ireland and beyondThousands have gathered in the town of Tullamore in Ireland as a vigil was held for Ashling Murphy.Other memorials were also held across Ireland after the “senseless” killing of the 23-year-old teacher, with echoes of the national reckoning that was sparked in the UK last year by the murder of Sarah Everard. Continue reading...