People most vulnerable to Omicron would reportedly be offered experimental pill within 48 hours of testing positive
The first at-home treatment for Covid-19 could reportedly be offered to UK patients before Christmas as an attempt to protect the most vulnerable from the Omicron variant.
The Sunday Telegraph reported that Sajid Javid is set to launch a national pilot of the Molnupiravir antiviral pill, marketed as Lagevrio.
Continue reading...Sir Jeremy Farrar, director of Wellcome Trust, suggests emergence of Omicron variant means pandemic is far from over
The emergence of the Omicron variant shows that the world is “closer to the start of the pandemic than the end”, one of Britain’s most senior scientific figures has warned, as he lamented a lack of political leadership over Covid.
Sir Jeremy Farrar, the director of the Wellcome Trust who stepped down as a government scientific adviser last month, said the progress in combatting Covid-19 since its emergence was “being squandered”.
Continue reading...CNN has fired the primetime anchor Chris Cuomo for trying to help his brother, the former New York governor Andrew Cuomo, fight accusations of sexual misconduct which resulted in his resignation.
Announcing the firing on Saturday, CNN said “additional information” had come to light.
Continue reading...Iran walked back all compromises made in previous talks on reviving the 2015 nuclear deal, pocketed compromises made by others and asked for more in its latest proposals, a senior US state department official told reporters on Saturday.
Iran continues to accelerate its nuclear program in pretty provocative ways and China and Russia were taken aback at how far Iran had walked back its proposals in talks in Vienna, the official told reporters, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Continue reading...Vehicle travelling to wedding keels over and sinks in fast-flowing waters in Kitui County
More than 20 people drowned on Saturday when a bus travelling to a wedding in Kenya was swept away by fast-flowing waters as it tried to cross a flooded river.
Onlookers screamed as the yellow school bus hired to take a church choir and other revellers to the ceremony in Kitui County keeled over and sank as the driver tried to navigate the surging waters.
Continue reading...A sudden eruption from the highest volcano on Indonesia’s most densely populated island of Java left several villages blanketed with falling ash.
The eruption was accompanied by a thunderstorm that spread lava and smouldering debris, which formed thick mud. The event triggered panic among locals and caused one death
Continue reading...Follow all the day’s coronavirus news from around the world as it happens
UK government officials and scientific advisers believe that the danger posed by the Omicron variant may not be clear until January, potentially allowing weeks of intense mixing while the variant spreads.
Across Westminster, invitations to Christmas drinks are landing in embossed envelopes or on WhatsApp groups. Departmental staff parties are set to take place, as well as a reception for journalists with Rishi Sunak at No 11. Even Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves are hosting a joint bash.
Continue reading...Dozens more were injured when the highest volcano on densely populated Java island spewed a huge cloud of ash into the air
The death toll from the eruption of the Semeru volcano on Indonesia’s Java island has risen to 13, with nearly 100 others injured, the country’s disaster mitigation agency has said.
Mount Semeru, the highest volcano on Indonesia’s most densely populated island of Java, spewed thick columns of ash more than 12,000 meters into the sky on Saturday, with searing gas and lava flowing down its slopes and triggering panic among people living nearby.
Continue reading...Maximiliano Contenti’s horror flick attempts to unpick voyeurism but lacks the sophistication of others in the genre
Nostalgia for idiosyncratic analogue film style is the simplest explanation for the recent giallo revival – but maybe there’s more to it than that. This most stylised of horror modes is perfect for our over-aestheticised age, so the newcomers – such as Berberian Sound Studio, Censor and Sound of Violence – make artists and viewers accessories to violence, often unleashed through that giallo mainstay, the power of the gaze. Set almost entirely in a tatty Montevideo rep cinema, Uruguayan slasher The Last Matinee joins this voyeuristic club, even if it ends up more in the raw than the refined camp.
On a rainswept night in 1993, engineering student Ana (Luciana Grasso) insists on taking over projectionist duties for a screening of Frankenstein: Day of the Beast (an in-joke – it was released in 2011 and was directed by Ricardo Islas, who plays the killer here). She shuts herself in the booth, trying to ignore the inane banter of usher Mauricio (Pedro Duarte) – but neither have noticed a heavy-set trenchcoated bogeyman enter the auditorium to size up that night’s film faithful: three teenagers, an awkward couple on a first date, a flat-capped pensioner and a underage kid stowaway (Franco Durán).
Continue reading...British authorities accused of interrogating parents who came seeking help when their daughters went missing
Details of how police attempted to criminalise British families whose children were trafficked to Islamic State (IS) in Syria are revealed in a series of testimonies that show how grieving parents were initially treated as suspects and then abandoned by the authorities.
One described being “treated like a criminal” and later realising that police were only interested in acquiring intelligence on IS instead of trying to help find their loved one. Another told how their home had been raided after they approached police for help to track down a missing relative.
Continue reading...In this quasi-religious programme, ‘working the steps’ is the remedy for any problem, but for me the cracks soon started to show
Eight of us sat together in a circle in a wooden shed, an outbuilding at a large country house, somewhere in the south of England. The door was ajar, and spring light flooded the room. “Can anyone name any treatment methods for addiction, other than the 12 steps?” asked a counsellor.
“Cognitive behavioural therapy?” offered a patient.
Continue reading...People give their views on compulsory jabs and restrictions on those have not been vaccinated
The German government has announced a lockdown for the unvaccinated and is considering making Covid vaccines mandatory, after weeks of record infections in the country and much of German-speaking Europe.
In Austria, thousands of people have taken to the streets in recent weeks to protest against a string of measures: from February, the government will be introducing compulsory vaccines for all, with exemption for those unable to receive a jab on medical grounds.
Continue reading...Going vegan has never been more popular – but some people who try it and then decide to reintroduce animal products face shocking treatment
In 2015, Freya Robinson decided to go vegan. For more than a year, the 28-year-old from East Sussex did not consume a single animal product. Then, in 2016, on a family holiday in Bulgaria, she passed a steak restaurant and something inside her switched. “I walked in and ordered the biggest steak I could have and completely inhaled it,” she says. After finishing it, she ordered another.
For the previous year, Robinson had been suffering from various health problems – low energy levels, brain fog, painful periods and dull skin – which she now believes were the result of her diet. She says her decline was gradual and almost went unnoticed. “Because it’s not an instant depletion, you don’t suddenly feel bad the next day, it’s months down the line. It’s very, very slow.” In just over a year, the balanced plant-based food she cooked daily from scratch, using organic vegetables from the farm she works on, and legumes and nuts vital for protein, had, she felt, taken a toll on her body.
Continue reading...A roundup of the struggle for human rights and freedoms, from Mexico to Manila
Continue reading...Despite a review finding one in three parliamentary staffers have been sexually harassed, behaviour inside the building shows no sign of improvement
Allegations of abuse and accusations of widespread sexism. Bullying and harassment particularly of women. A cabinet minister stood aside pending an investigation into claims by a former staffer that their relationship was at times “abusive”. Even by the low standards of the Australian parliament, it was a week of horror in Canberra.
The final sitting week of parliament for the year began with a long-awaited report on sexual harassment and cultural issues within the parliament, which found one in three parliamentary staffers “have experienced some form of sexual harassment while working there”.
Continue reading...Prosecution and defense argue about several photographs that might be presented at sex-trafficking trial in New York
Ghislaine Maxwell’s child-sex trafficking trial took a shocking turn Friday when prosecutors brought one of Jeffrey Epstein’s infamous massage tables into the courtroom.
By bringing this green, folding table into the courtroom, and then expanding it, prosecutors are working to bolster allegations that Epstein and Maxwell sexually abused teen girls under the pretext of giving him a massage.
Continue reading...The US president, Joe Biden, has said his coughing during a speech addressing the November jobs report on Friday is due to a cold.
'What I have is a one-and-a-half-year-old grandson who had a cold who likes to kiss his pop,' Biden said, responding to a question from a reporter after the speech
Continue reading...The parents of a boy who is accused of killing four students at Oxford high school are missing and being searched for by law enforcement after the pair were also charged as part of the investigation into the mass shooting in Michigan.
Jennifer and James Crumbley were charged with four counts of involuntary manslaughter.
Continue reading...Human rights groups criticise French president’s planned meeting with crown prince in Saudi Arabia
Human rights groups have criticised Emmanuel Macron’s planned meeting with Mohammed bin Salman in Saudi Arabia on Saturday, which will mark the first one-on-one public meeting of a major western leader with the crown prince since the state-sponsored assassination of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
For three years since the 2018 murder, western heads of state have avoided direct one-on-one meetings with the crown prince in the kingdom. The US president, Joe Biden, has even avoided speaking to the future king in what has widely been seen as an attempt to avoid conferring legitimacy on the de facto ruler.
But Macron’s move suggests at least one major western leader is ready to formally re-establish ties to the crown prince directly, less than a year after US intelligence agencies released a report stating they believed that Prince Mohammed had approved the murder of Khashoggi.
Continue reading...A prosecutor in Michigan filed involuntary manslaughter charges on Friday against the parents of a boy who is accused of killing four students at Oxford high school. 'Gun ownership is a right but with that right comes great responsibility,' Karen McDonald said at a press conference on Friday morning.
The parents were summoned to the school a few hours before the shooting occurred after a teacher found a drawing of a gun, a person bleeding and the words 'help me', McDonald revealed