Halsey thankful for fan support after adopting 'she/they' pronouns

Halsey's social media profiles have quietly been updated to reflect the pregnant singer's decision to adopt the pronouns "she" and "they".

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  • Medical examiner who led George Floyd’s autopsy says police restraints were ‘more than he could take’

    Assessing George Floyd’s cause of death is one of the main questions in this landmark policing case

  • What the papers say – April 10

    Philip’s death features on many Saturday front pages.

  • Coronavirus latest news: Johnson & Johnson blood clots 'extraordinarily rare', says Government adviser

    More than half of people in England in areas with almost no new cases Two-thirds of pubs lack outdoor space to open on Monday Majority of private Covid tests found insufficient Ben Marlow: Monday's grand reopening is a moment of truth Subscribe to The Telegraph for a month-long free trial Blood clots associated with the Johnson & Johnson vaccine are "extraordinarily rare", a scientist advising the Government on its coronavirus response has said. The UK has ordered 30 million doses of the vaccine, which is also known as Janssen, although it is yet to be approved for use by regulators. "We still don't know whether they are directly related and caused by the vaccine but it seems possible that they could be," Professor Peter Openshaw, a member of the Covid-19 clinical information network, told the Today programme. "It wouldn't be surprising to find the Janssen vaccine also causes rare blood clots because it's based on an adenovirus technology which is not that far away from the technology being used in the AstraZeneca vaccine." Prof Openshaw said any blood clots were "extraordinarily rare events" and likened the risk level to "if you [were to] get into a car and drive 250 miles". It comes a day after the European Medicines Agency said that it has started a review to assess blood clots in people who have been given the Johnson & Johnson jab. Follow the latest updates below.

  • Debenhams is soon to shut up shop for good: Here’s what to buy in the department store’s closing-down sale

    Bag a bargain across skincare, make-up, fashion, electricals and kitchen appliances while you still can

  • White House says China's moves around Taiwan 'potentially destabilizing'

    The White House on Friday said it was keeping a close watch on increased Chinese military activities in the Taiwan Strait, and called Beijing's recent actions potentially destabilizing. "We have ... clearly - publicly, privately - expressed our concerns, our growing concerns, about China's aggression toward Taiwan," White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters. "We've seen a concerning increase in PRC military activity in the Taiwan Strait, which we believe is potentially destabilizing," she said, when asked if Washington was concerned about a possible Chinese invasion.

  • Russian space programme facing existential crisis as Elon Musk helps US relaunch Nasa ambitions

    It took four international crews and almost a year before anyone onboard the International Space Station could locate the air leak, untraceable by equipment at hand, which had been driving the cosmonauts insane. One evening last October, Russian cosmonaut Ivan Vagner in a desperate attempt to find that tiny hole sucking up precious air ripped up a tea bag inside one of the station’s segments, sending the tea leaves flying into weightlessness. A day later, he saw the tea leaves cluster around a tiny scratch that had been leaking air all along. Mr Vagner’s ingenuity won him plaudits back home but the incident at the 22-year-old core segment of the station has laid bare Russia’s withering space dream as the country is nearing the 60th anniversary of the first human space flight. By the end of February, the Russian space agency reported six scratches on the Zvezda module which were leaking air. Yuri Gagarin took off for his maiden flight 60 years ago on Monday - 12 April, 1961 - in a triumph of Soviet science in its rivalry with the United States. Now Russia’s landmark space programme is facing an existential crisis due to mismanagement and a lack of vision as the United States and China have left Russia far behind in the space race.

  • How will the Queen – and the monarchy – cope with the loss of Prince Philip?

    Over the next few months and years, the Queen will – as she has already – come to rely increasingly on Prince Charles for advice and guidance about the future of The Firm

  • Pub-goers ‘will be forced to wear masks in beer gardens’ by ‘overzealous’ councils

    Pub-goers will be forced to wear masks in beer gardens in some parts of England as further lockdown restrictions are eased. From April 12, outdoor restaurants, non-essential shops and pub gardens will be allowed to open to the public. The rule is being enforced by some “overzealous councils” who have set up enforcement teams to monitor beer gardens, the Telegraph reports.

  • Wellwishers continue to leave flowers for duke despite Covid concerns

    At Buckingham Palace a steady stream of people arrived to lay bouquets at the front gates.

  • ‘I Can’t Breathe’: Police Release Footage Showing Officer Repeatedly Shoving Snow in Man’s Face

    A police officer resigned amid an internal use-of-force investigation, after he was shown to have repeatedly shoved snow in the face of a man during a domestic violence arrest in Akron, Ohio, on February 7.In video footage released by the City of Akron, an officer can be seen repeatedly placing snow on a man’s face as other officers handcuff him. The man can be heard saying that he “can’t breathe.”The incident happened after a woman called 911 to report that a man, named as Charles Hicks, had “threatened her with a knife and that she was scared for the safety of her children”, according to local reports.During a news conference on Thursday, Acting Chief Mike Caprez said the “tactic” used by the officer was “not supported by the circumstances” or trained by the department. Officer John Turnure voluntarily resigned effective March 31, local media reported. Credit: City of Akron via Storyful

  • Exclusive: More than half of people in England living in areas with almost no new Covid cases

    Over half of people in England now live in an area in which new cases of Covid have all but vanished, with some places not reporting a case in public data for more than a month. Infections have been so low in areas with a total population of 34.5 million that Public Health England has redacted their latest weekly case tallies in order to protect the privacy of those – if any – who test positive. These 4,307 areas could have had at most two new cases but potentially zero in the seven days to April 4 – and 1,091, home to 8.2 million people, have had their data suppressed every week since the end of February. News that Covid infections are fading in parts of England comes in the week that Boris Johnson confirmed that the lifting of lockdown would continue as planned with the outdoor reopening of pubs and restaurants, as well as non-essential shops, on Monday. Underpinning the Government's green light are four tests which, apart from the continued success of the UK's vaccine drive, include infections remaining low enough to avoid a surge in hospitalisations that could overwhelm the NHS after unlocking.

  • It's all in the telling: Why Europe's approach to the AstraZeneca jab differs from ours

    We humans like nothing better than storytelling - and the more familiar the book the better. It’s why the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet has been told a thousand times. Explaining things via common narrative is one of our many tricks for making sense of the world quickly. The oldest story of them all is the clash of nations and it’s through this prism the story of the AstraZeneca jab in Europe is oft told. How else to explain why the European Union began by limiting the vaccine's use in the old only to reverse ferret, prioritise the elderly and then restrict its use in the young? The truth, of course, is more complicated. The bumpy ride the AstraZeneca vaccine has had in Europe (and North America) has much more to do with the different ways in which regulators approach evidence and judge risk than politics. Differing circumstances have also played an important role. The initial decision of some countries, France and Germany included, to restrict the use of the vaccine to younger age groups stems from the fact the vaccine was not well tested among older cohorts in the original trials, where only 13 per cent of participants were age 65 and older. Add to this the fact that the tolerance and effectiveness of many vaccines falls away in older age groups and the argument for prudence becomes apparent - even though it was never clear cut. As The Telegraph reported at the time, the European Centre For Disease Control (ECDC) was making this point long before any vaccines had been licenced. In a paper published on October 26 it said: “Before pursuing this [age-based] approach, acceptable levels of vaccine safety and efficacy need to be demonstrated among older adults. At this stage, this information is not known”. Instead, the ECDC recommended an “adaptive” approach - one which would flex as more was learnt about the jabs. With a glut of AstraZeneca vaccine coming our way and a second wave of the virus brewing, the UK authorities emphasised the other side of the risk-reward equation. Yes, there was a lack of evidence for the vaccine in older groups, but there was plenty of data to show Covid-19 kills older people at a much higher rate. The risk of death from Covid for during a surge in the virus is 1-in-1,848 for a healthy 70 year old man, according to Oxford's QCovid calculator. This compares to 1-in-250,000 for a 30 healthy year old - a 135-fold difference. With hindsight, the UK authorities made the right call. The AstraZeneca jab and others have turned out to be extremely effective in older groups and the decision to prioritise them is estimated to have saved about 10,000 lives in the UK to date. Following its “adaptive” strategy, Europe has rightly followed suit. But what of the decision in parts of Europe and Canada to now restrict the vaccine to older groups - those above 55 or 60. How to make sense of that? The same culture of caution - shaped by differing circumstances - may again help explain it. Europe was hit disproportionately hard by scandal following the 2009 swine flu pandemic when the Pandemrix vaccine, widely distributed to health care workers, was linked with rare cases of narcolepsy. Some 1,300 people have been affected among the roughly 30 million vaccinated across Europe, but with only around 100 in the UK. Scientists in Germany and Scandinavia, in particular, have become black-belts in pharmacovigilance in the wake of the scandal; few if any are as good at analysing the thousands of adverse reaction reports that flow in when a new drug is launched. They are expert at sifting the early signals of a problem from the mountains of incoming chaff. It was Norwegian and German regulators who first spotted the rare blot clogging issue now linked to the AstraZeneca jab. The UK authorities last week said they have since identified 79 cases here, putting the estimated incidence risk at about 1-in-250,000. The reported rate “varies very much with how good the reporting system in a member state is and how good cases are being identified”, said a spokesman for the EMA last week. “In Germany, a lot of work has been done and I think there is a reporting rate of 1-in-100,000. “We know that in the UK the reporting rate is much lower, so that can have many many causes, but for the moment I think it's safe to assume that the reporting rate is around 1-in-100,000.” In the UK, we have now followed suit and offered a choice of vaccines to those under the age of 30. But in other countries the cut off is higher - 55 in Canada, for instance. It is important to note that these decisions are not (for the moment at least) driven by the incidence of clots being higher in the young. There is as yet no firm data to show the risk varies with age, or indeed sex. Instead, the decision to restrict the use of the vaccine in the young comes from the other side of the equation - the much lower Covid risk in younger cohorts. Why the difference in ages? Again that has more to do with circumstance than politics. In Europe, they currently have more of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccine and so can offer more choice. In the UK, we are more reliant on AstraZeneca - for the moment at least. Protect yourself and your family by learning more about Global Health Security

  • The World War II hero: How Prince Philip's quick thinking saved his ship from German bombers off Sicily

    Quick thinking and no small measure of bravery by Prince Philip saved dozens of lives during the Second World War, earning him a lifelong debt of gratitude from his comrades at arms. During the 1943 Allied invasion of Sicily, the 22-year-old, then a first lieutenant in the Royal Navy, foiled a Luftwaffe bomber that looked almost certain to destroy his ship. But the story of how the Duke of Edinburgh saved the ship only emerged in recent years when veterans began to talk publicly about the incident. He was second-in-command of the destroyer HMS Wallace during the Allied landings in Sicily in July 1943 when the ship came under repeated attack. Undaunted, he quickly devised a plan to throw a smoking wooden raft overboard to create the illusion of debris on fire in the water as a decoy, successfully distracting the enemy. Harry Hargreaves, a yeoman on board the ship, revealed the story in 2003 during an online BBC event capturing people's stories of the war. The veteran recalled how the crew had only 20 minutes before the next bombing run to come up with an idea.

  • Murder arrest as man, 20, dies ‘after being run over’ in Halfords car park

    The victim died at the scene after suffering serious head injuries.

  • Eamonn Holmes says dislocated pelvis started his pain battle

    The presenter has been documenting his struggle with pain on social media.

  • ‘Seatgate’ diplomatic row grows as Italy calls Erdogan a ‘dictator’

    The Italian prime minister Mario Draghi called Mr Erdogan a ‘dictator’

  • A&E ‘swamped’ with patients seeking help for mild Covid jab side-effects

    A&E ‘swamped’ with patients seeking help for mild Covid jab side-effects. Emergency departments report surge in cases of headaches linked to AstraZeneca jab amid concerns of blood clots

  • Prince Philip death: BBC and ITV viewing figures plummet amid wall-to-wall royal coverage

    BBC One, BBC Two and ITV experienced dramatic exodus of viewers after pulling their regular schedules

  • Latest weekly Covid-19 rates for local authority areas in England

    One in 20 local areas have recorded a week-on-week rise in rates.

  • Myanmar security forces with rifle grenades kill over 80 protesters - monitoring group

    Details of the death toll in the town of Bago, 90 km (55 miles) northeast of Yangon, were not initially available because security forces piled up bodies in the Zeyar Muni pagoda compound and cordoned off the area, according to witnesses and domestic media outlets. The AAPP and Myanmar Now news outlet said on Saturday that 82 people were killed during the protest against the Feb. 1 military coup in the country.