- Trump makes first public remarks since weekend election loss
- Seemed to be on verge of acknowledging Biden’s victory
Donald Trump has come closer than ever to admitting that he lost the US presidential election, suggesting “time will tell” but stopping short of a formal concession to president-elect Joe Biden.
Related: Joe Biden ignores Trump obstruction to press ahead with cabinet selection
Continue reading...from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2Iyees3
Out goes centralised power and hostility to the press; in comes meaningful contact with MPs
Out will go open hostility towards journalists, centralised power around Boris Johnson’s office and the ruthless dispatch of those who oppose the prime minister.
In, or so it is suggested, will come an attempt to win over the media, a collegiate approach to government and meaningful contact with the parliamentary party.
Continue reading...from The Guardian https://ift.tt/32IHH9F
Covid edition of annual TV advert focuses on kindness rather than gift-giving
A hedgehog who hopes to fly, a group of hip-hop pigeons and lots of love hearts are the stars of this year’s pandemic edition of the John Lewis Christmas TV adverts.
Over the past decade the retailer’s festive ad has become a big annual TV moment that kicks off the Christmas shopping season.
Continue reading...from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2UnvaEk
Proportion higher in north, with 82% of north-east care staff on less than £9.50 per hour
Almost three-quarters of frontline care workers in England are earning below the “real” living wage, which experts say is the bare minimum to allow families basics such as a secondhand car and a week’s annual UK self-catering holiday, research has revealed.
The proportion of care workers below the threshold is even higher in northern areas, where care homes have been hit hardest by Covid-19. In the north-east, 82% of care staff earned less than the England-wide real living wage of £9.50 per hour, while the proportion was 78% in the north-west. One care worker in Lancashire earning £8.72 per hour who recently had her pay cut told the Guardian some colleagues have been using food banks.
Continue reading...from The Guardian https://ift.tt/3pqFHwL
Leaders say service needs cash to tackle surgery backlog and mental health demand
NHS leaders are urging Rishi Sunak to fulfil his pledge to give the service “whatever it needs” to respond to the coronavirus crisis, by boosting its budget by £4bn next year.
NHS services need the money to tackle the huge backlog of patients waiting for surgery and the sharp increase in people needing mental health care as a direct result of the pandemic.
Continue reading...from The Guardian https://ift.tt/38Beotp
UK students could receive degree course offers based on exam results from 2023
Vice-chancellors have given their backing to a radical overhaul of higher education admissions, which would mean UK students will only be offered places at university once they have their A-level results.
The long-awaited policy change is intended to make the system fairer by eliminating the use of predicted grades, which are often unreliable, and will bring the UK into line with other countries. Universities said it could be introduced as early as 2023/4.
Continue reading...from The Guardian https://ift.tt/3lt5otY
France’s lockdown extended by two weeks; German infection surge may be easing; Russia says its Sputnik-V vaccine is 92% effective
- Scientist behind BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine says it can end pandemic
- Billionaire Trump donors contract Covid after playing down risks
- Covid infections in Sweden surge, dashing hopes of herd immunity
- French professor faces disciplinary case over hydroxychloroquine claims
As the US confirms 143,231 coronavirus cases in 24 hours, Dr. Anthony Fauci says he doesn’t believe the United States will need to go into lockdown to fight the coronavirus if people double down on wearing masks and social distancing.
The nation’s top infectious disease expert says “the cavalry is coming” in the form of vaccines. He says, “Help is really on the way.”
Fauci told ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Thursday that vaccines being developed “are going to have a major positive impact” if they prove to be safe and effective. He says they may be deployed in December and early into next year. He says he hopes by April, May and June “the ordinary citizen should be able to get” a vaccine.
In the meantime, Fauci says there are fundamental things Americans can do to stem the spread of the deadly virus. They include “universal” wearing of masks, avoiding crowds, keeping social distance and washing hands. He says that sounds simple against a very difficult challenge but “it really does make a difference.”
Fauci’s message echoes that of President-elect Joe Biden, who this week signaled strongly that fighting the raging pandemic will be the immediate priority of his new administration.
The US leads the world with more than 241,000 deaths and 10 million coronavirus cases.
Hello and welcome to today’s live coverage of the coronavirus pandemic with me, Helen Sullivan.
As the world confirmed a record 666,053 new coronavirus cases in 24 hours, according to Johns Hopkins University, the French prime minister, Jean Castex, said there would be no easing of a second Covid-19 lockdown in France for at least two weeks, with the number of people in hospital infected by the coronavirus now higher than at the peak of the first wave.
Continue reading...from The Guardian https://ift.tt/36z5OJd
Italy passes 1m cases while Spain says it will demand negative test for all visitors; Greece extends curfew. Follow updates live
- Italy passes 1m Covid cases as calls for national lockdown grow
- US records more than 1m new cases in 10 days
- European commission seeks greater public health powers
- Delhi Covid crisis made worse by soaring air pollution
Denis Campbell and Lisa O’Carroll report:
Thousands of hospital staff will join the drive to vaccinate all adults in England against coronavirus and will be deployed at mass vaccination centres to give the jab to up to 5,000 people a day, NHS officials involved in the plans said.
Related: NHS to vaccinate up to 5,000 people a day in Covid immunisation drive
Hello and welcome to today’s live coverage of the coronavirus pandemic.
My name is Helen Sullivan, you can get in touch with me here, and I’ll be bringing you the latest for the next while.
Continue reading...from The Guardian https://ift.tt/3pkfHCW
UK reports highest deaths since May; Brazil cases pass 5.7m; three US states re-introduce Covid curbs
- Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine poses huge global logistics challenge
- Six key questions about Pfizer/BioNtech vaccine
- Jair Bolsonaro claims ‘victory’ after Chinese vaccine trial suspended
- Denmark’s mass mink cull illegal, PM admits
Hello and welcome to today’s live coverage of the coronavirus pandemic.
My name is Helen Sullivan and I’m typing these words from the Guardian offices in Sydney for the first time in months! This is the first exclamation point I have ever used in this blog.
Continue reading...from The Guardian https://ift.tt/3eYmPAt
PM risks major confrontation with Joe Biden by persevering with internal market bill
Boris Johnson has put himself on a collision course with the Joe Biden administration in the US after Downing Street said it would press ahead with legislation designed to override the Brexit deal on Northern Ireland.
Peers inflicted a huge defeat on the government after voting overwhelmingly to remove measures that seek to “disapply” parts of the Northern Ireland protocol – measures that Biden has said would put the Good Friday agreement at risk.
Continue reading...from The Guardian https://ift.tt/32sTNDE
Foreign and defence secretaries Dominic Raab and Ben Wallace accuse President Lukashenko of trying to hide his repression
The UK’s foreign and defence secretaries have reacted angrily to the expulsion of two British diplomats from strife-torn Belarus.
The eastern European nation has experienced mass protests since Alexander Lukashenko declared himself the winner of elections that have been widely disputed.
Continue reading...from The Guardian https://ift.tt/38tHn2y
US passes 10m cases; Italy extends restrictions in five regions; Biden announces Covid-19 advisory board
- Scientists react to vaccine news
- Covid-19 vaccine candidate is 90% effective, says manufacturer
- What has Pfizer’s vaccine trial found and is this a breakthrough?
- New Covid lockdown in Hungary as Belgium passes second peak
- Italy ‘faces 10,000 Covid deaths in a month’ with no lockdown
- Follow all our coronavirus coverage
Scientists have reacted positively to the announcement by Pfizer/BioNTech that their vaccine has been 90% successful in the vital large-scale trials:
Peter Horby, a professor of emerging infectious diseases and global health in the Nuffield Department of Medicine, University of Oxford, said:
This news made me smile from ear to ear. It is a relief to see such positive results on this vaccine and bodes well for Covid-19 vaccines in general. Of course we need to see more detail and await the final results, and there is a long long way to go before vaccines will start to make a real difference, but this feels to me like a watershed moment.
It is difficult to fully evaluate the interim data without more information but it appears that the vaccine is able to protect against Covid-19 disease. The big question is whether the vaccine can block virus infection and subsequent transmission.
Hello and welcome to today’s live pandemic blog.
I’ll be bringing you the latest from around the world for the next while.
Continue reading...from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2IkGuhX
US currently has 9.49m confirmed Covid cases; October was worst month for pandemic; economic fallout makes prospect of third world war ‘a risk’. Follow the latest updates
- US confirms more than 126,000 Covid cases in new record
- Global coronavirus cases pass 50m with US worst affected country
- UK test and trace needs radical reform, experts say
- Could a Covid vaccine bring back normality?
- Follow all our coronavirus coverage
A Reuters tally has calculated that October was the worst month of the coronavirus pandemic so far, with its second wave in the past 30 days accounting for a quarter of all cases.
The last month saw the spread of the virus accelerate at a rapid pace: while it took 32 days for cases to rise from 30 million to 40 million, it only took 21 days to add another 10 million.
Related: Global coronavirus cases pass 50m with US worst affected country
Here is more on a third world war being a ‘risk’ in the wake of the pandemic.
The economic fallout during the coronavirus pandemic has made the prospect of a third world war “a risk”, the UK’s most senior military commander has said.
Continue reading...from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2JErL1x
Global study on data of children from 193 countries shows lack of access to nutritious food among reasons for divergences
Poor access to nutritious food for UK schoolchildren and adolescents is the reason they are falling behind in healthy development compared with their counterparts in other wealthy nations, public health experts have said.
A global analysis of height and weight records of children aged five to 19 years old found that the UK’s standing slipped between 1985 and 2019, with 19-year-old men falling from 28th to 39th tallest, and women falling from 42nd to 49th.
Continue reading...from The Guardian https://ift.tt/3oY8wQO
‘I was worthy of suspicion because of the colour of my skin,’ says victim Dafonte Miller
A Toronto police officer has been sentenced to nine months in jail for his assault conviction in the beating of a young black man who lost an eye when he was arrested in 2016.
Prosecutors alleged constable Michael Theriault, who was off duty at the time, and his brother Christian chased Dafonte Miller in the early hours of the morning on 28 December 2016, cornering the then 19-year-old between two homes in Whitby, Ontario, and beating him so badly with a pipe that his left eye burst.
Continue reading...from The Guardian https://ift.tt/38aJRma
- World champion claims Allen was walking in his eyeline
- Allen goes on to win quarter-final 6-3
Ronnie O’Sullivan was involved in a bizarre exchange with Mark Allen in the final frame of their Champion of Champions quarter-final match.
Allen went on to beat the reigning world champion 6-3 but O’Sullivan appeared to be irked by the Northern Irishman’s movements during the clash in Milton Keynes. O’Sullivan was warned by the referee, Marcel Eckardt, on numerous occasions as he went over to confront Allen, who sat in his chair throughout. “Can you sit still? You’re standing up and walking in my eyeline. You are. Come on,” O’Sullivan said.
Continue reading...from The Guardian https://ift.tt/38hH8Ye
11,447 deaths recorded globally in 24 hours; global total cases rise by record of nearly 700,000; US added 102,000 cases on Wednesday, according to Johns Hopkins
- UK chancellor extends furlough scheme until early 2021
- Exclusive: UK rapid mass tests miss over 50% of cases in pilot
- See all our coronavirus coverage
Hello and welcome to today’s live coverage of the coronavirus pandemic.
My name is Helen Sullivan and if you’re looking for Covid-19 news as it happens, you’re in the right place.
Continue reading...from The Guardian https://ift.tt/34YGU65
Concern for NHS cancer patients after record numbers miss treatment due to pandemic
Delaying cancer treatment by just four weeks increases the risk of death by up to 10%, according to new research that shows the devastating impact of missed NHS treatment targets due to Covid.
Earlier this year, Dr Ajay Aggarwal at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine estimated that diagnostic delays caused by lockdown measures and changes to patient behaviour as a result of Covid-19 would result in 3,500 avoidable deaths from breast, lung, oesophageal or bowel cancer in England over the next five years. However, the impact of delaying treatment for patients with an existing cancer diagnosis was unclear.
Continue reading...from The Guardian https://ift.tt/38aYvd9
Latvia and Estonia also confirm record one-day infections; Cyprus introduces night-time curfew; England’s lockdown begins.
- Rich states’ Covid deals ‘may deprive poor of vaccine for years’
- Turkey resists calls for tougher measures to tackle case surge
- Denmark plans to cull 15m mink over Covid mutation fears
- Jordan suffers Covid surge after early success against virus
- UK Covid death toll rises by nearly 400 in a day
As of 00:01 GMT England has entered its second national lockdown, placing 56 million people under new coronavirus restrictions for at least the next four weeks.
As of 00:01 GMT England will have entered its second national lockdown, placing 56 million people under new coronavirus restrictions for at least the next four weeks.
Despite a bruising vote in which the prime minister Boris Johnson’s strategy was rejected by dozens of his own MPs, the stay-at-home order was approved in parliament on Wednesday by 516 votes to 38.
Continue reading...from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2TRCdEX
A political analysis report says that Democrats expect to gain between 10 and 15 seats in the 435-member House
Democrats are expected to expand their majority in the House of Representatives by winning several election races on Tuesday night, an expansion that would build on Democrats’ impressive wins in the 2018 midterm elections, when they gained 41 House seats.
The Cook Political Report, which provides non-partisan election and political analysis, predicted on Monday that Democrats will gain between 10 and 15 seats in the House, which has 435 members. “A combination of President Trump’s unpopularity in the suburbs, a fundraising disadvantage, and 32 open seats for the GOP to defend (to Democrats’ dozen) has weighed down Republicans’ prospects,” said David Wasserman, of Cook Political Report.
Continue reading...from The Guardian https://ift.tt/35WRp9k
