Italians armed with fireworks celebrated the end of a tumultuous year that saw the country become Europe’s first epicenter of the coronavirus.
This footage, taken in Rome, shows fireworks exploding above rooftops in the Italian capital. Credit: Areeba Gul via Storyful
The surrogacy laws were reformed in 2019 to allow single people to become parents.
The Brussels-based International Union of Cinemas (UNIC), which represents European cinema’s main trade associations, is launching an appeal for more government support to face an estimated 70.6% drop in total 2020 box office grosses across Europe, which it says accounts for a loss of €6.2 billion ($7.5 billion) in theatrical revenues compared to 2019. “National […]
The World Health Organization (WHO) urged Tanzania on Thursday to follow science, a day after its president said COVID-19 vaccines were dangerous and unnecessary if people trusted God and used alternative remedies such as inhaling steam. President John Magufuli's contradiction of the global medical consensus and his government's failure to publish national coronavirus data since mid-2020 has exasperated health experts. "Urging #Tanzania to ramp up public health measures such as wearing masks to fight #COVID19," tweeted Matshidiso Moeti, Africa director for the WHO.
You can take those extra layers off now.
A Chinese-Canadian singer says a Chinese corruption charge against her mother, who has been held in custody for six years, has been withdrawn but she remains in detention. Wanting Qu, 36, who has lived in Canada since she was a teenager, shared a social media post by her aunt saying that prosecutors in Harbin had withdrawn the charge of embezzling $54 million (350 million yuan) in 2019, but that her mother has still not been released. A representative of Qu’s management company confirmed the post.
The Ministry of Transport forecast that about 1.7 billion people will be expected to travel during the new year holiday this year, a drop of more than 40% compared to 2019. On Tuesday (January 26), a snaking queue of residents was seen at a coronavirus test centre in Beijing, with many eager to get a clean bill of health before heading back to their hometowns. Millions of Chinese normally criss-cross the country to return home during the nation's biggest holiday, but authorities have rolled out stringent anti-virus measures in recent weeks after hundreds of new coronavirus cases were reported. Beijing authorities had issued a notice on Wednesday (January 27) that people who travel to and from Beijing will need to show a negative COVID-19 test result, and must monitor their health for signs of infection for 14 days, though they will be allowed to move freely.
China's northern provinces were disproportionately hit by the pandemic in 2020, with the region's heavy industries devastated by demand shocks and logistical nightmares, while the south got off comparatively lightly, cushioned by a large digital economy. China was the only major economy in the world to have reported growth in a year ravaged by COVID-19, but its rebound from a historic first-half slump was not geographically even. The north also accounted for around 34.5% of China's GDP last year in yuan terms, according to Reuters calculations based on official data.
Europe's fight to secure COVID-19 vaccine supplies sharpened on Thursday when Britain demanded that it receive all the shots it paid for after the European Union asked AstraZeneca to divert supplies from the UK. The EU, whose members are far behind Israel, the United Kingdom and the United States in rolling out vaccines, is scrambling to get supplies just as the West's biggest drugmakers slow deliveries to the bloc due to production problems.
Harry Maguire has called on Manchester United to "stand up and be counted" after their shock 2-1 defeat to Sheffield United hurt their Premier League title chances.
KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 28 ― Management boards or committees of apartments and condominiums are permitted to demand tenants to undergo Covid-19 swab tests and provide them with the result, before letting...
The world's largest land mammal tends to be no more than 10% fat.
The story behind the U.K.’s notorious phone hacking scandal is coming to the small screen. Director Saul Dibb and writer Luke Neal are developing a multi-part series entitled “Thank You & Goodbye,” which will detail the fall of the world’s oldest Sunday newspaper, Rupert Murdoch’s News of the World. Dibb is the BAFTA-nominated director of […]
A winter storm battering California triggered floods and mudslides in Monterey County on January 27, as heavy rain was dumped on areas previously hit by wildfires.This footage, by the Fremont Fire Department, shows flooding on River Road near Salinas.KION reported that 20 to 25 homes were damaged by mudslides. One woman was transported to hospital with injuries after becoming trapped in her home, they said.The National Weather Service for the Bay Area said there was more rain recorded in one day on January 27 than during the entire fall and winter season.Flood warnings for Monterey, San Benito, and portions of Santa Clara counties were extended until 2:30 am Friday. Credit: Fremont Fire Department via Storyful
While Michelle Cerfontyne was completing her medical training last year, the COVID-19 pandemic overwhelmed South Africa's understaffed public hospitals, so the young doctor thought she would get a job easily. Since then, a second wave of the coronavirus in Africa's most industrialised country has far outstripped the first, hitting 20,000 daily cases earlier this month and bringing hospitals closer to breaking point. Yet Cerfontyne's 10 job applications have all been rejected.
From unlimited paid time off to laptops for children, some of Britain's blue-chip employers are trying to persuade parent employees juggling jobs and childcare during the pandemic that they have their backs. Some banks, professional services firms, law firms and insurers are offering staff flexible working arrangements, reduced hours and increased emergency leave alongside benefits such as free counselling and parent buddy schemes. Law firm Hogan Lovells is offering employee carers an extra five days paid leave since Britain's third lockdown, alongside measures such as free counselling and virtual workstation assessments, put in place last year.
COVID-19 patient Joao Cordeiro has beaten the virus and is about to go home, and his children also made quick recoveries from the disease. Cordeiro's wife remains at the Cascais Hospital outside Lisbon, fighting for her life in the emergency unit a few floors below the room he was treated in. The Cordeiros are among the nearly 250,000 people infected with the coronavirus in Portugal so far this month, and the country has the world's highest seven-day average of daily cases and deaths per million.
A Lebanese man was killed in Tripoli on Thursday in clashes between security forces and protesters angry that a strict lockdown has left them with no means to survive the economy's collapse. Witnesses and local media said riot police fired live bullets as protesters tried to storm the northern city's government building. A 30-year-old man died overnight from his wounds after the clashes injured scores of people, residents and local media said.
As a lone worker in protective gear sprayed disinfectant outside Beijing Railway Station, a slow trickle of passengers wheeled suitcases into the entrance hall - marking the quietest start in recent times to China's Lunar New Year travel season. But with northern China fighting clusters of COVID-19 infections and several cities under lockdown, authorities - fearful of a super transmission event - are discouraging people from leaving town during the New Year season, which runs between Jan. 28 and March 8 this year. On Thursday, as of midday, 7,638 flights across China had been scrapped, or nearly 52% of all scheduled flights, according to aviation data provider Variflight.
According to one rumour circulating in the Philippines, the coronavirus vaccine will allow President Rodrigo Duterte to kill people at the push of a button. Elsewhere in the country of 108 million, memories of a dengue vaccine that has been banned locally are putting people off the idea of immunisation even before the campaign begins. "Many kids got sick after receiving that vaccine," 62-year-old Crisanta Alipio said of the ill-fated vaccine against dengue, a mosquito-borne disease that can be deadly.
Chris Wilder is wary of claiming "an incredible escape is on" after he became the first Sheffield United manager to taste victory at Manchester United for 48 years.
