Source of 1,600 Victorian healthcare Covid-19 infections still unknown despite premier's claims

Source of 1,600 Victorian healthcare Covid-19 infections still unknown despite premier's claims. Exclusive: email sent to health workers by Safer Care Victoria says 1,835 healthcare workers had been infected with the virus as of 8 August

Covid vaccine tracker: when will we have a coronavirus vaccine?

Covid vaccine tracker: when will we have a coronavirus vaccine?More than 170 teams of researchers are racing to develop a safe and effective vaccine. Here is their progress

If teachers die from coronavirus when schools reopen, the government will again have blood on its hands

One can only hope that Gavin Williamson is watching very carefully as Scottish school pupils return to full-time education. Nicola Sturgeon is under incredible pressure following the exam results “moderation” fiasco and she is reopening schools on the back of a low R number.It is well understood that the risks to the pupils are low, this is not so clear for the teaching staff or what effect this will have for the wider community infection rate. The current situation (as in England) is politically motivated, a necessary precursor to allow the economy to ramp up.

‘Whining is what Trump does best’: Biden says president has a problem with ‘strong women’ and slams his coronavirus response

Joe Biden hit out at Donald Trump as he introduced senator Kamala Harris as his running mate, saying the president’s biggest skill is “whining” and slamming what the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee said has been “no help” for his countrymen to combat the coronavirus.“It’s no surprise, because whining is what Donald Trump does best, better than any president in ... history,” Mr Biden said, adding the president has a problem with “strong women”.

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  When Kamala Harris faced political heat, Joe Biden's son Beau had her back

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  Fox News cuts away from subdued and repetitive Trump for Biden and Harris joint appearance

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22 Bestselling Makeup Picks From Sephora That Stay On in the Heat and Stay Off Your Mask

While switching up your beauty routine for summer is totally normal, that's probably the only normal thing about this summer. After all, extra sweat and humidity are common warm-weather concerns, but now it's not just about keeping makeup on your face but off your protective masks, too. To help you find the perfection solutions to the bevy of newfound concerns, we took a peek at the bestselling items at Sephora recently and found quite a few options that hold up amid heat (and mask-wearing), plus plenty of products to play up the features that aren't now covered every time you leave the house. And since protective masks are here to stay (at least for a while), you can rest assured these long-lasting summer goodies will also play up your eyes, cheeks, and brows in the fall and keep foundation and lip products off your masks for the foreseeable future. Ahead, check out 22 bestselling Sephora makeup products to add to your beauty bag now.

France ‘on brink of joining travel quarantine red list’ as coronavirus cases double in three weeks

Ministers will discuss today whether holidaymakers returning to the UK from France should have to go into 14-day quarantine as the country suffers a spike in coronavirus cases.Downing Street will debate adding France to its “red list” of higher-risk destinations after it recorded 10,800 new Covid-19 infections in the past week.

Wetherspoon boss Tim Martin demands scientist publishes evidence of link between pubs and coronavirus cases

J.D Wetherspoon boss Tim Martin has demanded a top scientist publish evidence of the link between indoor drinking in pubs and coronavirus cases.Mr Martin's comments came after Aberdeen University Bacteriology Professor Hugh Pennington said that the recent Aberdeenshire outbreak was linked to drinking in pubs.

New Zealand considers freight as possible source of new coronavirus cluster

New Zealand officials are investigating the possibility that its first COVID-19 cases in more than three months were imported by freight, as the country's biggest city plunged back into lockdown on Wednesday. The discovery of four infected family members in Auckland led Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern to swiftly reimpose tight restrictions in the city and social distancing measures across the entire country. The source of the outbreak has baffled health officials, who said they were confident there was no local transmission of the virus in New Zealand for 102 days.

UK weather forecast: Brits brace for six days of thunderstorms amid historic heatwave

Britons are braced for a week of thunderstorms, flash flooding and heavy rain as the UK faces a sixth day of sweltering temperatures during a historic heatwave.A yellow storm warning has been issued for the whole of England, Wales and areas in Scotland by the Met Office, meaning those regions could see flooding and power cuts from Wednesday afternoon until the end of the week.

Trump mourns the alleged deaths of ‘all the birds’ from wind turbines while failing to mention the 160,000 Americans dead from coronavirus

Donald Trump again mourned the deaths of “all the birds” that are allegedly killed by wind turbines each year, but failed to mention the 160,000 people who’ve died from Covid-19.The president focused on wind power when speaking to Sean Hannity on Fox News Tuesday evening following the announcement that presumptive Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden selected Kamala Harris as his running mate.

9 Emmerdale spoilers for next week

What's next in the village?

Almost 10 per cent of coronavirus deaths were not related to Covid-19, PHE admits

Nearly 10 per cent of coronavirus deaths reported by Public Health England (PHE) were not related to Covid-19, the body has admitted. The Department of Health has been urgently reviewing the way in which it records deaths after Oxford University noticed in July that former coronavirus patients were being included in mortality figures even if they had recovered and then died of something else. On Wednesday, the true extent of the problem emerged when PHE published a report showing that 3,664 people who had been included in 40,160 English coronavirus deaths did not have Covid-19 on their death certificate. It is also now clear that England's death rate has been diminishing far faster than official figures showed. Since the middle of June, at least half the reported deaths have not been due to coronavirus and have now been excluded from official figures. Experts said the figures explained why the daily death toll for England remained stubbornly high throughout June and July, in contrast to the other devolved nations and despite the Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures showing that deaths were rapidly falling. The numbers have now been adjusted, and it now appears that England may have had its first Covid-19 death-free day on August 6.

I was warned not to holiday in Greece because of coronavirus – but I felt safer there than at home in Manchester

For millennia, the Greeks have aced hospitality. In fact the ancients had a word for it – Xenia – which rendered sacred the imperative to show a warm welcome to those visiting far from home. But flying into Crete the other week, it was clear transformative tweaks had been made to the historic Hellenic reception.The habitually cheery “kalimera” had been supplanted by a crisp demand to see papers allowing us access to the country. Meanwhile random travellers were tersely pulled over (“you, please, to the right”) for a swab-and-go Covid test. Slightly bewildering for my husband and daughter since I was arbitrarily plucked from the line.

Trini Lopez, US singer and star of The Dirty Dozen, dies aged 83 from Covid-19

Trini Lopez, US singer and star of The Dirty Dozen, dies aged 83 from Covid-19Mexican-American was signed by Frank Sinatra, designed guitars for Gibson and had global hit in 1963 with If I Had a Hammer

A top former Saudi spy files suit, spills the beans at an awkward time for Trump

A former senior Saudi intelligence officer in exile filed a lawsuit in a US court last week accusing Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of plotting to kill him. The allegations, including using children as bargaining chips, have sparked calls for President Donald Trump, in the thick of a difficult campaign season, to intervene on moral grounds.In September 2017, a former top Saudi intelligence officer living in exile was desperately trying to get his two children safely out of the Gulf kingdom. Picking up his iPhone, Saad Aljabri got on WhatsApp and contacted the most powerful man in his homeland, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.The WhatsApp communication between Aljabri and MBS – as the Saudi crown prince is widely known – is detailed in a lawsuit filed last week in a US court.While the allegations have not yet been verified in court, the lawsuit makes for a jaw-dropping and yet disconcertingly familiar read.“Tell me what you want in person,” texted MBS, according to the lawsuit, which includes a screen shot of the exchange in Arabic with an English translation.“I hope that you will consider what I have already sent you, because this issue regarding the children is very important to me,” replied Aljabri.Two minutes later, Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler once again urged the former intelligence official in exile to return home. “I definitely need you here,” said bin Salman.Before Aljabri could reply, the crown prince added a terse, “24 hours!”A crown prince falls, a crackdown beginsFour months earlier, Aljabri, a close advisor to bin Salman’s arch rival, Prince Muhammad bin Nayef, had fled Saudi Arabia for Turkey. He was still in Turkey in June 2017, when his ex-boss, bin Nayef – a longtime former Saudi interior minister – was stripped of his latest post as the kingdom’s crown prince and replaced by MBS. In his new position as crown prince, the brash, young MBS had begun a crackdown against his rivals and opponents in the kingdom. As a right-hand man of Saudi Arabia’s former interior minister, Aljabri was a key link between Saudi and Western intelligence services and privy to highly sensitive information on the kingdom’s rulers.Bin Salman wanted him back in Saudi Arabia “where he could be killed”, the lawsuit alleges.Days after the Whatsapp exchange with MBS granting him "24 hours", Aljabri left Turkey for Canada. But two of his eight children, Omar and Sarah, were trapped in Saudi Arabia and are still being used as “human bait” to lure their father home, according to the lawsuit.The Saudi strategy failed to entice Aljabri back. Instead it caught the attention of US lawmakers who called on President Donald Trump to act.US senators remind Trump of a ‘moral obligation’Last month, four US senators on both sides of the aisle urged Trump to help secure the release of Omar, 21, and Sarah, 20, calling it a “moral obligation” to help the former Saudi intelligence official in exile.In a letter to the White House, Republican Senator Marco Rubio and Democratic senators, Patrick Leahy, Tim Kaine and Chris Van Hollen, described Aljabri as a “highly valued partner” of US intelligence and State Department agencies “who has been credited by former CIA officials for saving thousands of American lives by discovering and preventing terrorist plots”.The children’s fate also pushed their father, a 62-year-old former government official with nearly four decades of experience in the secretive world of national security and counterterrorism, to take the unusually public step of filing a civil lawsuit in a US court.‘Tiger Squad’ on a campaign to killThe lawsuit filed last week at US District Court for the District of Columbia alleges that bin Salman launched a state campaign to kill Aljabri that “has worked to achieve that objective over the past three years”.Aljabri bases his claim on two US laws: the Torture Victim Protection Act, which bans extrajudicial killing; and the Alien Tort Statute, which allows victims – including non-US citizens or residents – of such illegal operations to sue in US courts.The 170-page document details chilling but as yet unverified plots to target Aljabri. They include the arrival at a Canadian airport of a Saudi “Tiger Squad” hit team – similar to the one used to kill journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Turkey – to target Aljabri.The complaint also sheds light on the moves by global intelligence and law enforcement agencies to contain some of bin Salman’s human rights excesses on foreign soil. In October 2018, for instance, just weeks after Khashoggi’s brutal killing, vigilant Canadian authorities stopped and questioned Tiger Squad members who arrived separately at Ontario airport, the lawsuit claims. Most of the team were sent back home to Saudi Arabia.Interpol snags ‘politically motivated’ warrant requestMBS, the lawsuit alleges, had warned Aljabri that he would use “legal measures as well as other measures that would be harmful to you”.But the Saudi crown prince’s attempts to use "legal measures" were stymied at Interpol, the global law enforcement agency based in the French city of Lyon, the US court document reveals.In a July 4, 2018 decision taken months before Khashoggi’s killing sparked an international furor, the Commission for the Control of Interpol’s Files (CCF) found Saudi Arabia’s arrest and extradition request for Aljabri was “politically motivated rather then strictly juridical”. While any person has the right to request Interpol data about them, the CCF decision on the Aljabri case was not publicly known before the lawsuit was filed last week.‘In the business of assassinating people’The Aljabri case once again casts a spotlight on Saudi Arabia’s human rights violations at home and against its citizens abroad.“It’s a lawsuit containing accusations that are not yet proved, but these are serious accusations against the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, which is a very powerful country. If the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is in the business of assassinating people, it’s very important,” said Rami Khoury, a journalism professor at the American University of Beirut (AUB) and senior fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School, in an interview with FRANCE 24.The crown prince's role in Khashoggi’s assassination has been a public relations nightmare for the oil-rich Gulf kingdom. While MBS has acknowledged that men working for him killed the Washington Post columnist inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, he denies involvement in the murder.His denials are widely disbelieved. In June 2019, an investigation into Khashoggi’s killing by UN Human Rights Special Rapporteur Agnès  Callamard found “credible evidence, warranting further criminal investigation”, of the involvement of top Saudi officials, including bin Salman.The latest Aljabri allegations – which names bin Salman and several Saudi officials implicated in Khashoggi’s murder, such as Saud “Mr. Hashtag” al-Qahtani, as defendants – are strikingly similar to the slain journalist’s case.But the Khashoggi investigations so far have been impeded by political and diplomatic challenges.As a UN special rapporteur, Callamard works as a volunteer, not UN staffer, and her office is independent of UN institutions. The fiery French human rights lawyer has publicly criticised UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres for failing to act on her investigation findings to set up a panel of criminal experts.Meanwhile the Trump administration has been stonewalling Congressional attempts to enforce accountability for Khashoggi’s murder while a Turkish trial on the case lacks international credibility, given the weaknesses of the Turkish justice system.‘Lost in the world of the rule of law’Aljabri’s extraordinary recourse in a US court of law opens the gates to a level of transparency that could, depending on the court proceedings, be damning for the crown prince, some experts believe.“The accusations against Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman will be adjudicated in a US court using the instruments of the rule of law,” said Khoury. “This is being put into the public light. If a crown prince or ruler of a country is convicted as a criminal, that’s very important.”Khoury, like every Saudi expert, does not expect the crown prince to appear before a US court. Unlike criminal cases, civil suits pursue compensations, not prison sentences. On Friday, August 7, the US district court issued summons, or an official notice of a lawsuit given to defendants being sued. Saudi authorities have not responded so far to media organisations about the case.It’s an unfamiliar terrain for Saudi authorities accustomed to petrodollar diplomacy, including the use of top lobby groups during crises. “The Saudis aren’t used to it, they’re totally lost in the world of the rule of law. They operate on personal relations and don’t know how to deal with this shift into the chambers of Congress and into the chambers of courts,” explained Khoury.Kushner-Saudi way of doing businessThe Saudi way of doing diplomatic business found a perfect partner in Trump and his son-in-law Jared Kushner, who developed a personal relationship with MBS.“Trump and Kushner, both used to shady real estate deals, adapted quickly to Saudi Arabia’s system of patronage and clientelism: unwavering support from the Trump administration for the promise of weapons sales and other business deals,” noted Mohamad Bazzi, a New York University journalism professor, in a Guardian column.But the Saudis are keenly aware that in the US – unlike in their conservative country of glacial or paternalistic reforms – the winds of change can swerve abruptly.The Aljabri case filing comes barely three months before the November US presidential election, with the Saudis bracing for a potential change in the White House. Historically, a confluence of oil and business interests makes a Republican US president a better fit for Saudi interests.Joe Biden, the centrist, septuagenarian Democratic presidential candidate, is not expected to bring radical change if he wins the November 3 election. But unlike Trump, who protected MBS in the fallout of Khashoggi’s killing, Biden is unlikely to give the crown prince’s human rights violations a pass. “Joe Biden is more inclined to obey international law and follow public opinion and pressure from senators,” noted Khoury.The pressure is expected to mount as Aljabri's unusual lawsuit winds its way through US court proceedings before and after the 2020 presidential election.

Agnes Chow: the Hong Kong activist who gave up UK citizenship to fight for democracy

Agnes Chow: the Hong Kong activist who gave up UK citizenship to fight for democracy. Demosisto co-founder and 23-year-old protest veteran faces an uncertain future after being arrested under new security laws

Coronavirus: does the common cold protect you from COVID?

Some people who have never had COVID-19 have the antibodies to fight it – possibly from an earlier infection with a different coronavirus.

Anthony Joshua ‘scared’ to fight outside of London and is delaying rescheduled fight, says Kubrat Pulev

World heavyweight challenger Kubrat Pulev believes his title fight against Anthony Joshua will take place in London because he is “scared” to box elsewhere, and has called on him to hurry up and set a date following the return of boxing.Joshua was due to defend the IBF, WBA and WBO heavyweight title against the Bulgarin on 20 June, before the fight was first postponed until July before being delayed indefinitely.

UK coronavirus LIVE: Death toll in hospitals jumps by 77 as Rishi Sunak warns of 'hard times ahead' after country plunges into recession

Rishi Sunak today warned of "hard times ahead" as the UK was officially declared to be recession after the coronavirus pandemic sent the economy plunging by 20.4 per cent between April and June.The Office for National Statistics (ONS) confirmed the UK’s nosedive into recession for the first time since the financial crisis after the record-breaking contraction in the second quarter, which follows a 2.2 per cent fall in the previous three months .

Majority of Scots support independence from UK - YouGov poll

A majority of Scots support independence from the United Kingdom, a YouGov poll found on Wednesday, with support for nationalists bolstered by a much more positive view of how they have responded to COVID-19 compared with London. The poll for the Times newspaper found that 53% of people would vote for Scottish independence in a referendum, up 2 percentage points from January and the highest level of support for independence recorded by YouGov. It is the latest poll to suggest rising support for Scottish independence and could strengthen calls for another vote on the matter, after Scots rejected it in a 2014 referendum by 55%-45%.

Germany defies threat of US sanctions over controversial pipeline

The German government has dismissed renewed threats of US sanctions and vowed to complete a controversial gas pipeline with Russia. “No country has the right to dictate energy policy to the European Union. And it will not work,” Heiko Maas, the German foreign minister said. “Sanctions are definitely not the right way to go between partners.” “We are incensed at these blackmail threats from the US,” Manuela Schwesig, the regional prime minister of Mecklenburg-West Pomerania, said in the most outspoken response yet by a senior German official. “This is not how friendly countries treat each other.” The US is attempting to block the planned Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which will allow Russian gas to be pumped directly to Germany, and has threatened to impose sanctions on any business that takes part in the project.

Tanker that caused Mauritius oil spill splits in two – sending more fuel into Indian Ocean

The Japanese-owned MV Wakashio struck a coral reef on 25 July.

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  Most oil on damaged ship off Mauritius removed, owner says

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  Oil Spill Spreads to the Mahebourg Waterfront in Riviere des Creoles, Mauritius

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Call Your Stylist: These Are the Biggest Haircut Trends to Try in 2020

Of all the things you might "cut" from your life this year - certain foods, old mindsets, that god-awful ex - your hair often feels like the least dramatic, perhaps most cathartic clean break you can make. (Unless, of course, your ex happened to be awful and clingy, in which case: snip snip.) In truth, there's nothing like stepping into the decade with a fresh new haircut that makes extreme temperatures and overcrowded yoga classes seem somewhat more bearable. The good news about trends in 2020 is that there's plenty of room for personalization. "These days, haircuts are becoming more and more tailored to your face shape, natural texture, and lifestyle," said David Lopez, celebrity hairstylist to the likes of Ashley Graham and Hailey Baldwin. "Overall, people are wanting styles that are easy to wear and also make their hair look thick. And because we've seen so many people experiment with vibrant hair colors, it's inspired a slew of people to become more experimental and adventurous with their haircuts." If that doesn't already sound like the "you do you" mantra you'd like to cling to in 2020, allow Lopez to break down the biggest haircut trends you're about to see blow up your Instagram feed this year ahead. You won't want to shed these ones, we promise.