Former first lady Michelle Obama closed out a star-studded “Celebrate Georgia!” drive-in concert event on Sunday by delivering an impassioned plea by video to help Democrats retake control of the U.S. Senate by winning two runoff elections on Jan. 5.
‘There was a protocol breach when the front doors were not held open’
Professor Susan Michie said current lockdown measures are ‘the problem’ and not people who aren’t sticking to the rules.
AstraZeneca is to cut deliveries of its Covid-19 vaccine to the European Union by 60 per cent in the first quarter of the year due to production problems, in a blow to the bloc’s efforts to push back against the virus. The British firm was expected to deliver about 80 million doses to the 27 EU countries by the end of March, but now only 31 million will be delivered. The decrease will further hamper Europe's Covid-19 vaccination drive after Pfizer and partner BioNTech slowed supplies of their vaccine this week, saying the move was needed because of work to ramp up production. The UK will not be affected by the shortfall, insiders stressed, because the majority of doses, produced in conjunction with the University of Oxford, are manufactured in this country. A spokesman for AstraZeneca, said: “While there is no scheduled delay to the start of shipments of our vaccine should we receive approval in Europe, initial volumes will be lower than originally anticipated due to reduced yields at a manufacturing site within our European supply chain. “We will be supplying tens of millions of doses in February and March to the European Union, as we continue to ramp up production volumes.”
British ministers are to discuss on Monday further tightening travel restrictions, the BBC reported on Saturday, adding that people arriving in the country could be required to quarantine in hotels. Prime Minister Boris Johnson told a news conference on Friday that the UK may need to implement further measures to protect its borders from new variants of COVID-19. Britain's current restrictions ban most international travel while new rules introduced earlier in January require a negative coronavirus test before departure for most people arriving, as well as a period of quarantine.
‘This is all I’ve been waiting for,’ one viewer said
‘Did we predict the future again?’ asks animator David Silverman
Knowsley, Slough and Sandwell continue to record the highest rates.
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They call him the "Yorkshire Maharajah", the king of all he surveys. And certainly, for a Chancellor in a Government presiding over the deepest recession in three centuries, Rishi Sunak is a remarkably popular politician. The cynical explanation is that he is spending money like nobody before him. After all, the forecasts suggest he will soon become the first Chancellor to spend a trillion pounds in a single year. Yet the truth is something different. "He has something lacking in other politicians," says James Johnson, a pollster. "If I had to make a comparison, it would be with Tony Blair. Sunak has an extraordinary ability to connect with people." Conservative MPs are already speculating that Mr Sunak, still only 40 and Chancellor for less than a year, will become Britain's first Asian prime minister. "The relationship between Rishi and Boris is very good,” says an MP. "There's no question of a saga between them. But when Boris moves on, Rishi will become leader. The party will demand it." First impressions and first Budget On March 11, just 27 days after he became Chancellor, Mr Sunak rose to deliver his first Budget. It was to be one of the most remarkable fiscal statements made by a Chancellor in decades. Mr Sunak was already the fastest minister to reach a great office of state since the war. He was the first politician from a minority background to deliver a Budget. He would announce a fiscal expansion to meet the Prime Minister's promises. He would make an open-ended commitment to do "whatever it takes" to get the economy and NHS through the pandemic. And he would, in effect, rewrite the whole package just days later.
The people smuggling kingpin behind the deaths of 39 Vietnamese migrants, remains at large, a judge has said, as police warned traffickers who trade in human misery “we will find you and we will stop you”. Four men were jailed at the Old Bailey on Friday for between 13-years and four months and 27-years after being convicted of the manslaughter of the migrants who suffocated in the back of a lorry in October 2019. But the judge in the case, Mr Justice Sweeney, said there was a mysterious Vietnamese mastermind by the name of Phong, who was at the very top of the conspiracy. Phong, who emerged as the mystery kingpin during the trial, took payments and organised safehouses across Europe for desperate migrants on their way to the UK. He is thought to have been operating out of a flat in south London and is still at large despite a major manhunt to track him down. The victims, Vietnamese men, women and children, had hoped for a better life in Britain when they agreed to pay up to £13,000 a head for a "VIP" smuggling service. On October 22 2019, they were crammed into a lorry container to be shipped from Zeebrugge to Purfleet in Essex in pitch black and sweltering conditions. But unable to raise the alarm they ran out of air before reaching British shores and suffered “excruciating deaths from asphyxia, carbon dioxide, poisoning” the judge said.
Mandatory credit: UFC Conor McGregor and Dustin Poirier weigh in ahead of their UFC rematch fight, after McGregor renounced his retirement for the third time in 2020.
Melania Trump's photo snub prompts speculation over post-White House path. Former first lady walks off after touching down at Palm Beach airport this week, leaving husband to relish the spotlight alone
After a deep clean, filming on Emmerdale is set to resume next week. On Coronation Street, changes to storylines in the wake of the pandemic mean the team have decided to take a two week break to re-write storylines and work on improving safety and protocols for staff.
Up to half a million fewer doses of Covid vaccine will be supplied to the NHS next week as Whitehall sources admitted the target of vaccinating priority groups by mid-February was increasingly “tight”. Deliveries of the Pfizer vaccine will be cut by between 15 and 20 per cent next week after the US firm announced delays in shipments because of work to increase capacity at its Belgian processing plant, sources said. Boris Johnson announced on Friday that more than 400,000 people in the UK were vaccinated on Thursday in another record day for the national rollout. "Our immunisation programme continues at an unprecedented rate," the Prime Minister told a Downing Street press conference. "5.4 million people across the UK have now received their first dose of the vaccine and over the last 24 hours we can report a record 400,000 vaccinations. "In England, one in 10 of all adults have received their first dose, including 71 per cent of over-80s and two-thirds of elderly care home residents."
When news emerged last month of a new, far more contagious mutation of coronavirus spreading across Britain there was only one positive straw at which to clutch. There was no evidence, said scientists, that the “Kent” variant was more deadly than the original strain. On Thursday morning, the Prime Minister was shown a paper by the Government’s Nervtag [New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Group] which appeared to destroy even that shred of hope. It considered three studies, which suggest that as well as being remarkably contagious, it is also significantly more fatal - between 30 and 90 per cent more so. Scientists don’t know why. But they think it may be that some of the behaviours which make the variant more easy to transmit, may also make it more lethal. Key among them is the stickiness of the mutation, and the way it gets into cells, and replicates.
Jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny said on Friday he wanted it known that he had no plans to commit suicide in prison, as he issued a message of support to his followers on the eve of protests the authorities say are illegal. Navalny was detained on Sunday after flying home for the first time since being poisoned with what the West says was a military-grade nerve agent that Navalny says was applied to his underpants by state security agents. The 44-year-old lawyer, in a Moscow prison pending the outcome of four legal matters he describes as trumped up, accuses President Vladimir Putin of ordering his attempted murder.
Mr Johnson said Democrats have to choose between 'being vindictive or staffing administration to keep nation safe’
Two serving police constables have died after testing positive for Covid-19, as the Police Federation pleads for officers to be vaccinated. Pc Michael Warren, a 37-year-old father-of-two who joined the Met in 2005, was classed as “vulnerable” and had been shielding at home, working remotely to help his team. He died on Tuesday after a positive Covid-19 test. Police Constable Abbasuddin Ahmed, 40, joined Greater Manchester Police in March 2017 and leaves behind his wife and two young children who are receiving Force support. PC Ahmed, who passed away on Thursday, has been described by his colleagues on the Stretford Response Team as 'the greatest brother in and out of work' and 'such a lovely man who was never seen without a smile on his face.' Officers also paid tribute to Abs' 'pride of being a police officer' adding: "Abs lived up his name meaning 'lion' - brave, loyal, a fighter, protective, and completely fearless. Abs will live in our hearts forever."
River levels still ‘exceptionally high' across North, Midlands and Wales, says Environment Agency
Vallance, Chris Whitty and Boris Johnson painted a sober picture of the weeks and months to come.
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