Dr Arnold Monto says he watched as a vaccine was developed both faster and more effectively than any dared to hope – but says it’s unlikely to give ‘permanent protection’It is very likely that in the “Before Times,” few Americans knew that independent experts advised the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on the safety and efficacy of vaccines, and that the FDA usually took their advice.Less than a year into the Covid-19 pandemic, that quickly changed. Continue reading...
People still missing despite major rescue effort as smugglers switch to more perilous route from TurkeyAt least 16 people have died after a migrant boat capsized in the Aegean Sea late Friday, bringing to at least 30 the combined death toll from three accidents in as many days involving migrant boats in Greek waters.The sinkings came as smugglers increasingly favour a perilous route from Turkey to Italy, which avoids Greece’s heavily patrolled eastern Aegean islands that for years were at the forefront of the country’s migration crisis. Continue reading...
My snowy getaway with a new boyfriend was full of promise – until we arrived at a place unencumbered with luxuries such as heat, lighting or a chemical toiletThe first weekend away. An auspicious landmark in any relationship, but especially with the new boyfriend still living at home with his parents and me 200 miles away in thin-walled student digs with seven sharp-eared housemates. Such was the allure of privacy, I didn’t ask any questions. “My mate’s got a place in north Wales we can have for the weekend,” he said. “No one will bother us.” I thought it sweet and funny to call him Danno, and told him to book it.It was February 1988. Our relationship was just days old. In the sharp slant of a winter setting sun, we headed off in my Mini, him (6ft 3in) in concertina folds. We were too young, too hooked up on the promise of adventure and what I will euphemistically call romance to bother with boring old weather forecasts. Continue reading...
Residents are banned from leaving the city and non-essential workers can only leave home to buy foodThe Chinese city of Xian has reported an increase in daily Covid-19 infections and local companies have curtailed activity as the country’s latest hotspot entered its third day of lockdown.Xian, home to 13 million people, detected 75 domestically transmitted cases with confirmed symptoms on Friday, its highest daily count of the year and reversing the previous day’s decline, official data showed on Saturday. Continue reading...
Concerns a tropical low will strengthen as it moves south towards the west of DarwinThere is concern a tropical low brewing off northern Australia may reach cyclone intensity west of Darwin on Boxing Day.A severe weather warning was issued for parts of the Northern Territory’s Arnhem district early on Christmas morning. Continue reading...
Passengers returning home for festive season face worldwide disruption as Omicron leaves airlines short-staffedPassengers travelling over the Christmas holiday have been hit with disruption worldwide after airline companies cancelled more than 4,500 flights, according to a flight tracking website.A surge of cancellations on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day came as the rapidly spreading Omicron coronavirus variant meant carriers were unable to staff their flights. Continue reading...
Three-week operation by troops from Niger and Nigeria targeted area that has become a bolthole for Boko Haram and Isis-linked militantsSix soldiers and at least 22 jihadists have died in fighting in the Lake Chad region of central AfricA, a joint force deployed to the area said on Friday.The force described the operation, conducted by troops from Niger and Nigeria backed by fighter planes, as a “success” and said it had benefited from “decisive support by American partners”. Continue reading...
by Justin McCurry in Tokyo and agencies on (#5TB52)
Moon Jae-in, her successor, has freed Park from 22-year sentence three months ahead of presidential electionSouth Korea’s disgraced former president Park Geun-hye has been pardoned by her successor, Moon Jae-in, in a special amnesty that could influence voters in a presidential election that is just three months away.Park has been serving a 22-year sentence following her impeachment in 2017 and conviction for corruption and abuse of power, after a scandal that exposed webs of double-dealing between political leaders and conglomerates. Continue reading...
Daily hospitalisations in England up by more than 40% in a week at same time as more staff on sick leaveNHS leaders have voiced alarm at a major rise in the number of hospitalisations due to Covid-19 after 1,171 people with the disease across the UK were admitted in a 24-hour period that set another record number of daily cases.The latest government figures showed 122,186 cases of coronavirus had been recorded as of 9am on Friday. Another 137 people died within 28 days of testing positive. Continue reading...
Merseyside police took 54-year-old into custody after £70,000 theft from Alder HeyA man has been arrested on suspicion of burglary after 100 iPads worth £70,000 were stolen from a children’s hospital.Police were called after a report that the devices were taken from an outdoor container at Alder Hey children’s hospital in West Derby, Liverpool, on 19 November. Continue reading...
Some of Australia’s most prominent researchers nominate the most surprising, important and inspiring scientific developments of the past 12 monthsWith all of the worrying news emerging from the fields of health and science this year, some of the incredible advances that occurred may have been overlooked. But there have been many weird and wonderful feats in the world of research.Life-saving tests, treatments and vaccines were developed and rolled-out – including those led by Australian doctors – and a world-first malaria vaccine for children was endorsed by the World Health Organization. A new species of dinosaur was discovered in south-west Queensland, adding to our understanding about how they evolved. We learned from Nasa that the much-feared asteroid, Apophis, won’t hit Earth for at least 100 years, so that’s a relief.The development and the success of RNA-based vaccines has had enormous global impact during the past year. There’s enormous short-term success but it also opens up a lot of potential long-term opportunities in delivering RNA as a vaccine for emerging diseases and also as a means of developing new therapeutics to treat a whole range of disorders.To get a new type of vaccine out there requires very big clinical trials because a crucial thing with a vaccine, of course, is safety.Antarctica is a bellwether for climate change impacts, with recent evidence of ecosystem collapse and that a major ice shelf in west Antarctica may fail within the decade.So for me, this year’s most exciting advance is not a discovery but solid investment in future Antarctic science, heralded by the arrival of Australia’s new icebreaker, RSV Nuyina, the most advanced polar research vessel in the world, and the initiation of not one, but three new university-based Antarctic research initiatives.”From my point of view, the origins of Sars-CoV-2 has been the big story.Knowing from where viruses and pandemics start is crucial to understanding the interactions between humans and animals, and how this is influenced by human behaviour, industrialisation, and climate change.In both my personal and professional roles, it’s incredibly difficult to look past the incredibly rapid development of effective Covid-19 vaccines in terms of amazing scientific advances over the last couple of years.But, in my other life I’m a wannabe astronaut, and I am completely astonished by Nasa’s Ingenuity helicopter, which has made 18 successful flights on a whole other planet in 2021!I think the most important finding that came out in 2021 is a study relating to ocean conditions around the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS), which locks up in total about seven metres of global sea level. Lose the WAIS and hundreds of millions of people worldwide would be displaced. The WAIS is known to be the most vulnerable component of the Antarctic ice sheet system and uncertainty about future melt rates is one of the biggest unanswered questions in polar climate science.The published ocean measurements were taken adjacent to Thwaites Glacier, which is the most rapidly changing outlet of the WAIS. Using an autonomous underwater vehicle, the study documents the first ever temperature, salinity and oxygen measurements at the Thwaites ice shelf front. The measurements revealed warm water impinging from all sides on what are known as ‘pinning points’ of the glacier – these are critical to ice-shelf stability. Continue reading...
Mirabella was editor of the magazine from 1971 to 1988 and was a non-nonsense champion of practical fashionGrace Mirabella, the editor of American Vogue throughout the 1970s and much of the 1980s, has died aged 92.Mirabella was a non-nonsense champion of practical fashion. She succeed the more whimsical and bohemian Diana Vreeland as editor in 1971 and remained in the role until 1988. Continue reading...
The American author was not only brilliant but also generous and kind to younger writers, writes Emma BrockesThere is that famous photo of Joan Didion, taken in Malibu in 1976, in which she leans on a deck overlooking the beach, cigarette in hand, scotch glass at her elbow, and regards her family – John Dunne, her husband, and their then 10-year-old daughter, Quintana – through lowered, side-long eyes. Like other iconic photos of Didion from the period, she is at one remove from the group, off to the side and in this case, looking not at the camera but at her family as they look at the camera. It’s the pose Didion perfected, in life as in art, and when news of her death at the age of 87 broke on Thursday, it was a shock to see another frame from that sequence surface online. In it, Didion, eyes fixed forward, smiles broadly at the camera in the conventional style – a rare glimpse behind the persona.The paradox of Didion was not unusual among writers, whose confidence is often born of a million anxieties. But her ability to operate outside herself – to measure the gap between inside and out and slyly mock any effort to conceal it – was unparalleled. She was, famously and by her own account, diffident, brittle, runtish, prone to migraines, afraid of the telephone, and as she wrote in the preface to her 1968 collection Slouching Towards Bethlehem, “bad at interviewing people”, apparent deficits that, in Didion’s hands, were of course precisely what permitted her entry to places her rivals – particularly the blow-hard men of 1960s journalism – couldn’t reach. Continue reading...
New Zealand’s booming dairy industry has polluted 95% of rivers in pastoral land – now Māori are taking the government to courtOn the eve of their tribe’s settlement with the crown, Gabrielle Huria and Te Maire Tau walked out on to the cracked, dry earth of Tūtaepatu lagoon’s bed.The lagoon’s edges, once thick with flax, had been choked by imported weed, spiralling blackberry and English willow. The streams that fed it had been giving up their waters to irrigate the surrounding dairy farms and having them returned in a swill of effluent. Finally, they had run dry. On the far shoreline was the place where the tribe used to give up their dead to the mud, lowering them into its dark, hidden reaches along the waterline. Now the mud had baked to concrete, cracked and cratered like a desert. On its surface, thousands of tuna, the native eels so valued by the tribe, lay dead or dying in the sun, their smell mingling with that of the drying silt. Above them, birds were circling – so large that Tau thought for a moment he was seeing eagles. But they were only hawks, fat from so much carrion. Continue reading...
Despite a string of measures intended to cut numbers, more than 27,000 crossed the Channel in small boats this yearThe home secretary, Priti Patel, has repeatedly promised to curb the number of people arriving on UK shores in small boats by making this route “unviable” but more than 27,000 refugees have crossed the Channel this way, up from 8,500 in 2020.The Home Office is now planning to introduce a tagging scheme for asylum seekers after a reportedly “exasperated” Boris Johnson ordered a review. It is the latest proposal in a string of ideas aimed at clamping down on small boat arrivals, none of which have been successful at curbing numbers so far. Continue reading...
Incident described by Moscow as terrorism and Ukrainian officials as hooliganism comes as tensions soarThe Russian foreign ministry said on Friday that a molotov cocktail had been thrown at the the country’s consulate in the Ukrainian city of Lviv and that it had formally protested about the attack, which it described as an act of terrorism.The ministry summoned a Ukrainian official and demanded apologies from his country’s authorities. Continue reading...
Met Office says temperatures set to plunge to -2C in parts of the UK, with warnings for snow and strong windsA white Christmas may be on the way for the uplands of north Wales and northern England, while festive flurries and bracing temperatures will set in on Boxing Day, with the Met Office issuing warnings for snow and strong winds across the north of England and central Scotland from the early hours of Sunday.Snow is predicted to fall in Snowdonia and the Pennines on Christmas Day, with more expected from the early hours of Boxing Day across the north of England and southern Scotland. Continue reading...
by Interview by Lucy Clark with Kathryn Heyman. Produ on (#5TBJD)
In this episode of our new podcast Book It In, features editor Lucy Clark talks to Kathryn Heyman about the indignities that women endure throughout their lives and the craft of writing a memoir
Jarosław Kaczyński’s remarks in far-right newspaper are latest episode in Poland’s lengthy standoff with EUThe head of Poland’s ruling party, Jarosław Kaczyński, has said Germany is trying to turn the EU into a federal “German fourth reich”.Speaking to the far-right Polish newspaper GPC, the head of the Law and Justice party (PiS) said some countries “are not enthusiastic at the prospect of a German fourth reich being built on the basis of the EU”. Continue reading...
Police appeal for witnesses and dashcam footage after vehicle hits fence and rolls over in Yardley area of cityA three-year-old girl has died in hospital after she was seriously injured when a car crashed into a fence and rolled over.Police said the girl died on Thursday, a day after being taken to Birmingham Children’s hospital in a critical condition. Continue reading...
In Nora from Queens, Awkwafina’s adorable loser alter ego was inspiring. Faced with constant failure, she kept going, with wit and warmthDuring the past 20 months I’ve become addicted to TV shows about women trying and failing to make it. Broad City, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, 2 Broke Girls: it’s like looking in a mirror, if I could be bothered to do even that. But the absolute fabulous queen loser of all is Awkwafina, in her self-created show Nora from Queens.Awkwafina plays a bizarro-reverse-mirror version of herself as a nearly thirtysomething bum, living in her childhood home with her grandmother and her widowed father. It’s pure lockdown comfort TV, with every petty slight and worldly favour soothed away by familial love. Nothing Nora from Queens does ever works out, and yet it’s always fine in the end. Attempted jobs, moneymaking schemes, love interests and opportunities for growth come and go, with all the wit and humour being incidental. The laughs come from off-the-cuff comments, the quickest physical reactions and scathing jibes, but the emotion is gooey and true. And that’s how I live now – with Nora from Queens as my more adorable, charismatic, sexy, funny, hipster-chic proxy. I actually have the same sloppy tracksuit bottoms, oversized T-shirts, thick dorky glasses and button-down overshirts that Nora wears in the show. If she gets up at noon every day in TV fantasyland, heck, I do it every day in reality. And if she fails at everything while refusing to leave her childhood home or embrace adulthood, well, me too – and I’m 10 years older than Awkwafina herself and 15 older than the show’s character. Continue reading...
At least 39 people have been killed and 70 injured after a fire ripped through a crowded river ferry in Bangladesh.The blaze began in the engine room of the ferry in the early hours of Friday morning, officials said, but the cause was not immediately clear. It took 15 fire engines two hours to get it under control.People were forced to jump from the vessel, which was carrying about 800 passengers, into the freezing river water to escape
Photograph of TV address released by palace shows Queen sitting next to a portrait of her and Prince PhilipThe Queen’s Christmas Day message is expected to be a particularly personal one this year, her first since the death of the Duke of Edinburgh.A photograph, which was released by Buckingham Palace ahead of her televised address, shows the Queen sitting behind a desk in the White Drawing Room at Windsor Castle, accompanied by a single, framed picture of the couple taken in 2007 at Broadlands country house, Hampshire, to mark their diamond wedding anniversary. Continue reading...
Grant Bailey was working as security consultant in Kabul where he liaised with US state departmentA British man is missing in Afghanistan after a report he has been detained by the Taliban. Grant Bailey was arrested in the Afghan capital, Kabul, where he has been working as a security consultant.The arrest came during a Taliban security clampdown, according to the Daily Mirror. Continue reading...
Single father of five who 'would give any dog a chance of life’ was kennel of choice for policeA kennel owner who died in a dog attack was a passionate animal welfare campaigner who worked tirelessly to give abused dogs another chance in life, his friends and colleagues have said.Adam Watts was killed at the Juniper kennels and cattery he ran in Kirkton of Auchterhouse, near Dundee, on Wednesday, by a dog it is understood police had previously seized and brought to him for rehabilitation. Continue reading...
Moscow ruling is first revenue-based fine of its kind in Russia and comes amid fears of internet crackdownA Moscow court has said it is fining Alphabet’s Google 7.2bn roubles (£73m) for what it says is a repeated failure to delete content Russia deems illegal, the first revenue-based fine of its kind in Russia.Moscow has increased pressure on big tech this year in a campaign that critics characterise as an attempt by Russian authorities to exert tighter control over the internet, something they say threatens individual and corporate freedom. Continue reading...
Passengers jumped off vessel carrying 800 passengers and tried to swim ashore, officials sayA massive fire has swept through a crowded river ferry in Bangladesh, leaving at least 39 people dead and 70 injured, officials have said.Many passengers leaped from the vessel into cold waters to escape the fire. It took 15 fire engines two hours to control the blaze and another eight to cool down the vessel, according to Kamal Uddin Bhuiyan, the fire officer who led the rescue operation. Continue reading...
Lawyers describe Spencer Elden’s claim of child exploitation as ‘not serious’ and says it fails to meet statute of limitationsLawyers working on behalf of Nirvana have filed to dismiss a lawsuit made against the band by Spencer Elden, who appeared as a baby on the cover of their album Nevermind.In the lawsuit filed in August, Elden claimed he was the victim of child sexual exploitation and that the cover artwork was a child sexual abuse image. “Defendants knowingly produced, possessed and advertised commercial child pornography depicting Spencer,” the lawsuit read. Continue reading...
Founder Aryan Pasha wants La Beauté & Style to be an inclusive and comfortable space, as well as tackle prejudice and provide employmentThe beauty treatments listed at the new La Beauté & Style salon are much the same as those offered by the dozen or so other parlours that dot the traffic-heavy Dilshad Extension area of Ghaziabad, 17 miles (28km) east of Delhi. But that is where the similarity ends.The wall behind the reception desk is painted in rainbow colours; a mural of a trans man with flowing multicoloured locks decorates another wall; a woman wearing a sari is having her eyebrows plucked next to a trans man who is telling a stylist how he would like his hair cut. Continue reading...
Suspect wanted in connection with racially aggravated assault outside West Hampstead overground stationA man was injured in an antisemitic attack in London during Hanukah, the Metropolitan police have said.The force is searching for a man wanted in connection with the racially aggravated assault, which happened outside West Hampstead overground station in north London on Thursday 2 December. Continue reading...
by Michael McGowan (now) and Cait Kelly and Caitlin C on (#5TB15)
Labor MP Jim Chalmers was up and about on breakfast television earlier today, expressing shock at NSW premier Dominic Perrottet’s slow limp to reintroducing mask mandates.He said mask mandates were just “common sense” right now:It’s a bit strange frankly that they held out for so long and in that period we probably lost a bit of ground when it came to tracing and tracking outbreaks of the virus, particularly the new strain.It’s an interesting thought but it’s not a thought which I think should turn into practice. We have a universal health system ... we care for people who need that care. We should encourage people to get vaccinated, it’s the best thing we can do to protect our health, but I don’t think our health system should discriminate. Continue reading...
In Kyiv and beyond, people carry on with the festive season despite rhetoric about imminent conflictRussia is threatening war on Ukraine, but in Kyiv the city council is putting up Christmas trees rather than bomb shelter notices, and organising concerts rather than army recruitment drives.Amid a Russian military buildup on Ukraine’s eastern border and in annexed Crimea, hostile rhetoric between Russia and the US and its allies is edging towards a cold war high, with Ukraine the battlefield for any actual fighting. Ukrainians, however, just emerging from Covid quarantine, are enjoying ice rinks and markets put up for the holiday season and would rather think about how to celebrate the coming new year. Continue reading...
The creator of the hit BBC romcom talks about having less than a day to enjoy its triumph – and how extreme nerd-dom got her through 2021Rose Matafeo is arguably the breakout star of 2021. Her BBC Three sitcom Starstruck became the channel’s best-performing comedy within weeks of launch, racking up 3m views and earning a second series before it even premiered. The impact was so huge and immediate that you could be forgiven for thinking she had dropped from the sky fully formed.
Every year this hilltop community becomes Christmas Village, a rustic, artisanal festive wonderland attracting visitors from far and wideJosé Galvão does not look much like an elf. At 79, he has the weather-burned face and strong labourer’s hands of a man born in the mountains of central Portugal. Yet, for months he’s been beavering away behind the scenes to bring to life what must be one of the world’s friendliest and least showy Christmas celebrations.
by Jessica Murray Midlands correspondent on (#5TB80)
Oscott Gardens will provide temporary accommodation for up to 300 families as council faces soaring demand for housingThe sprawling 419-bed Oscott Gardens in north Birmingham was once home to hundreds of first-year university students. From January, however, in a first-of-its-kind project for the city, the student halls will become temporary accommodation for homeless families as the council buckles under the strain of a national housing crisis.“We’re seeing around 300 families a month present to us as homeless, enough to fill a whole tower block,” said Sharon Thompson, Birmingham city council’s cabinet member for vulnerable children, families and homelessness. “Having been a councillor since 2014, I’ve never seen local communities hit in the way they are at the moment.” Continue reading...
by Lorenzo Tondo in Hajnowka and Narewka; photographs on (#5TB82)
As thousands attempt to cross the Belarus-Poland border seeking asylum in Europe, local activists are trying to helpIn the attic of a cottage in the woods near the Polish village of Narewka, a young Iraqi Kurd crouches, trembling with cold and fear. Through the skylight, the blue lights of police vans flash on the walls of his hiding place. Outside, dozens of border guards are searching for people like him in the snowstorm. Downstairs, the owner of the house sits in silence with his terrified wife and children.The young Kurd is one of thousands of asylum seekers who entered Poland across the border with Belarus, where countless others have become trapped on their way to Europe. The Polish family have offered him shelter. But if the Polish police find him, he risks being sent back across the frontier into the sub-zero forests of Belarus, while his protectors risk being charged for aiding illegal immigration. Continue reading...
The prime minister, Scott Morrison, has thanked the 'many selfless Australians' who are caring for others this Christmas. The opposition leader, Anthony Albanese, delivered his Christmas message with the help of his dog, Toto, saying 'after such a tough couple of years, we all deserve a happy Christmas'.
Ten years after my dad died, I felt rudderless – a manchild still making sense of life. But suddenly, surprisingly, I met someone with whom I had an immediate bondFor most of the winter of 2011-12, I was a slightly reluctant member of the Guardian’sspin-off dating site, Guardian Soulmates. I was still in my 20s, just about, and pouring the energy and naivety of youth into a busy social life, a career as a writer of newsprint ephemera and a room in a shared flat. I think I was also a bit lonely and rudderless – a manchild still making sense of life 10 years after the sudden death of my dad. Whatever it was, something was missing.By late February, I had been on half a dozen first dates – and no second dates. I was getting tired of the whole thing. It was all so procedural. But I’d agreed to meet a girl called Jess, whose profile handle – “good_grammar_is_hot” – had somehow not entirely put me off. Continue reading...
Pacific Island nation to host six Chinese officers as well as receiving shields, helmets and batons, says governmentChina will send police officers to the Solomon Islands to help train its police force, the Pacific island nation says, after rioting last month sparked by the country’s 2019 switch of diplomatic relations to Beijing from Taiwan.The unrest, in which dozens of buildings were burnt down, arose after the decision by prime minister Manasseh Sogavare to launch relations with China fuelled a dispute between the national government and the most populous province, Malaita. Other domestic issues also stirred the discontent. Continue reading...
Despite the turnaround, campaigners say the Santos’ case illustrates wider problems with NZ’s treatment of migrantsA Philippine family set to be deported from New Zealand on Christmas Day after the father used a false address to claim food vouchers out of desperation has been granted a last-minute reprieve in what they described as the “best present”.Jeffrey Santos had used a false address to claim $1,600 in vouchers because he lost his job when the Covid lockdown struck in March 2020 and was ineligible for New Zealand’s income relief payment, which wasn’t available to migrant workers. As a result, Jeffrey, his wife, Marjorie, and 8-year-old son James were to be deported back to the Philippines on Christmas Day. Continue reading...
CUHK’s Goddess of Democracy and a sculpture at Lingnan University were removed overnight as authorities move to erase memorials to the massacreTwo more Hong Kong universities have removed works of art marking Beijing’s deadly 1989 crackdown on Tiananmen Square democracy protesters, as authorities move to erase memorials to the event.The removals come a day after Hong Kong’s oldest university took down a statue named the Pillar of Shame, commemorating the events of 1989, sparking outcry by activists and dissident artists in the city and abroad. Continue reading...
US would set up bases from a Japanese island to Taiwan and deploy troops, with Japan providing logistical support, Kyodo reportsJapanese and US armed forces have drawn up a draft plan for a joint operation for a possible Taiwan emergency, Japan’s Kyodo news agency has reported, amid increased tensions between the island and China.Under the plan, the US marine corps would set up temporary bases on the Nansei island chain stretching from Kyushu – one of the four main islands of Japan – to Taiwan at the initial stage of a Taiwan emergency and would deploy troops, Kyodo said on Thursday, citing unnamed Japanese government sources. Continue reading...
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