Rayner: NHS has gone above and beyond call of duty

Deputy Labour Party leader Angela Rayner says NHS staff have gone "above and beyond the call of duty" throughout the Covid pandemic, as she called on the government to revise their salary.

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  • Prince Philip's great niece Princess Xenia of Hohenlohe-Langenburg: 'He was an idol to us'

    The historic family ties that prompted The Queen to invite German royalty Follow live updates from Prince Philip's funeral The Duke of Edinburgh's great niece, whose brother is in Windsor for his funeral on Saturday, has remembered Prince Philip as an "idol" for the younger generation of their family. Speaking from Munich, Princess Xenia of Hohenlohe-Langenburg said the Duke was a powerful role model to her and his "selflessness, lack of ego and sense of humour" will never be forgotten. Her tribute comes as the Queen prepares to say farewell to her husband of 73 years at Windsor Castle. "To all of us, he was an idol, he was somebody to look up to, we had enormous respect for him and it was always very exciting when he came to visit, and he came often," said Princess Xenia of Hohenlohe-Langenburg. "And this has become clear to me in the week since he's died - the way he lived his life, his motto, which was an unwritten motto for us, this discipline, this selflessness, this lack of ego, but also his sense of humour always underlying all of that.

  • US coronavirus cases rise 8% in two weeks as more states ease restrictions

    US coronavirus cases rise 8% in two weeks as more states ease restrictions. Michigan, which had some of the nation’s strongest health regulations, saw its second highest single-day case total on Friday

  • Disabled woman says Duke of Edinburgh’s Award transformed her life

    Myah Richards, who has cerebral palsy, said doing the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award increased her confidence and spurred her on to do new things.

  • Peaky Blinders star Andrew Koji's show Warrior renewed for season 3

    The show is moving over to HBO.

  • Liam Williams vs Demetrius Andrade ring walks: What time will fight start in the UK?

    Everything you need to know ahead of tonight’s WBO world title bout

  • Prince Philip funeral: Service to pay tribute to duke’s ‘unwavering loyalty’ to Queen

    There will be no sermon at duke’s request during 50-minute service

  • Paw Patrol: Feline drug smuggler caught on prison narcatics run

    It could have been the purrfect crime but an unlikely drug smuggler's journey was put on paws on Friday when it was intercepted by authorities in Panama. The fluffy white cat, concealing an assortment of drugs tied to its belly, was apprehended as it attempted to enter a prison. The feline felon was stopped outside the Nueva Esperanza jail, which houses more than 1,700 prisoners, north of Panama City. "The animal had a cloth tied around its neck" that contained wrapped packages of white powder, leaves and "vegetable matter", according to Andres Gutierrez, head of the Panama Penitentiary System. They were likely cocaine, crack and marijuana, according to another official.

  • Keir Starmer has proved he’s not Jeremy Corbyn – now he needs to show he’s not Ed Miliband

    Alastair Campbell’s diaries highlight things about Miliband’s leadership that are relevant to the current Labour leader

  • French medical academy wants to wait six months between Covid jabs

    France's Academy of Medicine has called for the delay between doses of the Covid-19 vaccine to be extended from six weeks to six months, in the case of the Pfizer and Moderna injections, in order to allow more people to get the first jab. Pushing the second injection back in the under-55 age bracket would "accelerate the vaccination campaign...and achieve herd immunity much faster with the same number of doses, while ensuring satisfactory individual protection", the National Academy of Medicine said in a statement on Thursday.The academy has no decision-making power in France, unlike the High Authority for Health (HAS), which can make such recommendations with the backing of the government. On Wednesday, the delay between the first two doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna vaccines, which use new messenger RNA technology, was extended from 4 to six weeks."This will allow us to speed up the vaccination campaign without compromising public protection," Health Minister Olivier Véran explained to French weekly Journal du Dimanche.High-risk professionsThe Academy of Medicine said that, based on recent studies in the United States and United Kingdom, a single dose of the mRNA vaccine had been shown to provide very high level of protection against the coronavirus. With the more contagious British variant now the dominant strain in France, the academy said it made sense to delay second injections for those aged under 55 years with no history of immune deficiency, to allow more people in high-risk professions, such as teachers, to receive their first dose.In France, the only under-55s currently eligible for the vaccination are frontline priority workers (health workers, home care workers, firefighters) or those with pre-existing health conditions.Some scientists are reluctant to extend the delay between doses, fearing incomplete protection provided by the first injection may favour the emergence of new variants.The academy also called for the first injection to be postponed in the case of patients who had tested positive for the coronavirus within the preceding six months.

  • Prince Philip’s funeral in pictures: Queen bids farewell to her husband of 73 years

    The Queen will say a final goodbye to Prince Philip, her husband of more than seven decades, at a funeral on Saturday.

  • My night out in New York took me across the latest Covid dividing line

    My night out in New York took me across the latest Covid dividing lineAs restrictions ease, tensions linger about what you should and shouldn’t do. So booking a babysitter felt outlandishly exciting ‘Stepping out of the cab was like being dropped into Ayia Napa after spending a year in a monastery.’ New Yorkers wander among reopened restaurants, March 2021. Photograph: Eduardo Muñoz/Reuters

  • In Pictures: Windsor remembers Duke of Edinburgh on day of his funeral

    Philip’s insignia, laid out on the altar of St George’ Chapel, provided a reminder of his family links and his many roles in the nation’s life.

  • Karlie Kloss reveals son’s name one month after giving birth

    She became a mother for the first time.

  • Will the Tokyo Olympics go ahead in 2021?

    2020 Games have already been postponed by a year due to the coronavirus pandemic

  • U.S. Sikh group demands probe of possible hate bias in deadly Indianapolis FedEx rampage

    Half of the eight workers shot to death at an Indianapolis FedEx facility by a former employee before he killed himself belonged to the Sikh religious community, leading an advocacy group to urge a probe of possible racial or ethnic hatred as a factor. Law enforcement officials said Friday they have yet to determine what motivated the gunman, 19-year-old Brandon Hole, who was white, to carry out Thursday night's rampage, at a FedEx operations center near Indianapolis International Airport. The attack in Indiana's state capital, the third most populous city in the Midwest, was the latest in a spate of at least seven deadly mass shootings in the United States over the past month.

  • Coronavirus in numbers: UK deaths rise by 35

    The Government said a further 35 people had died within 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19 as of Saturday, bringing the UK total to 127,260. Separate figures published by the UK’s statistics agencies show there have now been 151,000 deaths registered in the UK where Covid-19 was mentioned on the death certificate. The Government also said that, as of 9am on Saturday, there had been a further 2,206 lab-confirmed cases in the UK. It brings the total to 4,385,938.

  • ‘It’s about keeping safe’: Peak District welcomes visitors as Mansfield cases rise

    ‘It’s about keeping safe’: Peak District welcomes visitors as Mansfield cases riseAs Britain inches towards normality, school outbreaks reveal socially distanced caution still wiseCoronavirus – latest updatesSee all our coronavirus coverage View of All Saints Church in Bakewell in the Derbyshire Dales, England. Photograph: Alexey_Fedoren/Getty/iStockphoto

  • Land Rover driver at Prince Philip's funeral spent week ensuring he could drive at correct speed

    The servicemen in charge of the specially modified Land Rover carrying the body of the Duke of Edinburgh spent the past week making sure they could drive “at the correct speed”. And, no wonder, as leading the vehicle on its way to the steps of St George’s Chapel, Windsor, on foot were the most senior members of the Armed Forces and the Band of the Grenadier Guards. Corporal Louis Murray was behind the wheel, with Corporal Craig French, as Land Rover Commander for the Royal Hearse, both 29 years old, alongside him. The two staff instructors from the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers had been picked “on a coin-toss” from a group of four who had been training for the purpose and were described by officials as a “trusted pair of hands”. Cpl French said it was his job to “ensure that the driver puts the vehicle in the right place at the right time and whether to speed up or slow down.” “We have done a lot of practice over the last few days and you get to feel what the correct speed is, and we know what pace we have to be at. It’s now like second nature.

  • An independent Scotland could turn to Denmark for inspiration

    An independent Scotland could turn to Denmark for inspiration. Instead of looking south, campaigners are looking north, to the egalitarian models of small Nordic nations

  • COVID-19: Indian variant could 'scupper' easing of UK coronavirus lockdown rules, warns expert

    The Indian coronavirus mutation could "scupper" the UK's march to freedom, a leading scientist has warned. COVID-19 infections across the UK dropped to the lowest level since the autumn, according to the latest figures. Imperial College's Danny Altmann said the discovery of the Indian variant should warrant the country being placed on the UK's "red list" meaning incoming travellers arriving should be subject to a hotel quarantine.