Allegra Stratton has stepped down as the government?€?s spokesperson for the Cop26 climate summit after footage of her emerged joking about a party at Downing Street during the peak of lockdown rules in December last year.
At the time the video was shot, Stratton was Boris Johnson?€?s press secretary. The exchanges about the party with other No 10 officials were filmed as part of rehearsals for a proposed daily televised Downing Street press briefing, which she was going to host.
Kremlin leaves door open for further talks but estimated 100,000 Russian troops remain within striking distance
The Kremlin has said it is expecting to begin a ?€?discussion of strategic security on the continent?€? with the US after high-stakes talks between Vladimir Putin and Joe Biden.
The Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, told reporters on Wednesday that the two leaders had agreed to appoint representatives ?€?who will rapidly begin a discussion of this complex, confrontational situation?€?.
Former Hamburg mayor secures 395 of 736 delegates?€? ballots in parliamentary vote
Olaf Scholz will succeed Angela Merkel as Germany?€?s new chancellor after securing a majority of 395 of 736 delegates?€? ballots in a parliamentary vote on Wednesday morning.
Scholz will oversee a liberal-left ?€?traffic light?€? coalition government between his Social Democratic party (SPD), the Greens and the liberal Free Democratic party (FDP), the first power-sharing agreement of such a kind in Germany, and the first governing alliance with three parties since 1957.
Restoration uncovers Dutch master?€?s original vision for 1642 painting for the first time
A hidden sketch by Rembrandt has been discovered beneath the thick paint of the Dutch master?€?s most famous work, The Night Watch, revealing for the first time the artist?€?s original vision for the vast canvas.
The preparatory drawing, made with beige paint with a high chalk content, was found as a result of a two-and-a-half-year investigation by restorers, data experts and art historians at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.
Ahead of hearing, platform said it will be stricter about the type of content it recommends to teens
The head of Instagram will testify before US lawmakers on Wednesday about protecting kids online, in the latest congressional hearing scrutinizing the social media platform?€?s impact on young users.
Instagram and its parent company, Meta Platforms (formerly Facebook), have been facing global criticism over the ways their services affect the mental health, body image and online safety of younger users.
Officials say Saudi national has ?€?nothing to do with the case?€? and arrest was a case of mistaken identity
A Saudi man arrested at a French airport on suspicion of involvement in the murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi has been released, after the Paris prosecutor concluded it was a case of mistaken identity.
?€?Extensive checks on the identity of this person have allowed us to establish that the warrant did not apply to him,?€? read a statement from the prosecutor general, Rémy Heitz. ?€?He has been released.?€?
Boris Johnson says decision is ?€?effectively a diplomatic boycott?€?
Prime minister does not think sporting boycotts are ?€?sensible?€?
Boris Johnson has said there will ?€?effectively be a diplomatic boycott?€? of the Winter Olympics in Beijing given that no UK ministers or officials will be attending.
The former Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith begged the prime minister to ensure the UK follows the lead of the United States by having a full diplomatic boycott of the Games in February.
Castrillo Mota de Judíos?€? Sephardic centre was among four locations defaced in the ?€?cowardly?€? attack
The mayor of a Spanish village whose former name was an ugly reminder of the country?€?s medieval persecution of its Jewish population has vowed to carry on with plans for a Sephardic memory centre despite an antisemitic graffiti attack this week.
Dozens of animals disqualified after owners manipulate their looks with hormones, fillers and facelifts
Saudi authorities have carried out their biggest crackdown on camel beauty contestants, disqualifying more than 40 ?€?enhanced?€? camels from the annual pageant, according to the state-run Saudi Press Agency.
The camels disqualified in the competition, at the King Abdulaziz camel festival, were judged to have received Botox injections and other artificial touch-ups.
Vishal Garg admits he failed to show adequate ?€?respect and appreciation?€? for employees he sacked
The chief executive of a US mortgage company who fired 900 employees on a Zoom call has apologised for failing to show ?€?respect and appreciation?€? for the staff he sacked.
Germany reported 69,601 cases of Covid-19 and 527 deaths in the past 24 hours, according to the Robert Koch Institute, taking the total cases in the country to 6,291,621. There have been 104,047 deaths.
South Korean authorities are urging people to get vaccinated as case rise in the east Asian nation generally regarded as having dealth with the pandemic well.
At 1.20am on 18 December last year, Jackie Green got a call from the hospital where her 86-year-old mother, Beryl Harris, had contracted Covid on the ward. ?€?And they were calling to tell me she had passed away,?€? Green said, her voice breaking as she spoke. ?€?When I put the phone down I just sat and howled. The pain was just incredible. Mum was my only relative.?€?
After the call ended, she said, ?€?I just sat there. I couldn?€?t move for probably two hours.?€? Friends called but ?€?nobody can say anything or do anything to make it feel any better. Her death just seemed so unnecessary, and pointless.?€? Green, who lives on her own, spent the evening of the 18th - and Christmas - alone at home.
The spread of the Omicron variant of coronavirus appears to be doubling every two to three days, Prof Neil Ferguson has said, adding that it could be necessary to impose new lockdowns as a result.
Ferguson, a member of the UK government?€?s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) and head of the disease outbreak modelling group at Imperial College London, told BBC Radio 4?€?s Today programme on Wednesday that Omicron was likely to be the dominant strain in the UK before Christmas.
South Korea has reported a record daily total of 7,175 new Covid cases as officials urged people to complete their vaccinations.
The prime minister, Kim Boo-kyum, warned that hospitals were coming under intense pressure amid a rise in serious cases, days after the government announced a return to stricter restrictions on social gatherings.
Will your Christmas gifts arrive in time? We track the shortages and supply chain blockages that will affect the festive season this year
This year, as children around the world write their Christmas lists, Santa has more to consider than whether they have been naughty or nice. Some of the season?€?s most popular items, from bikes to the Nintendo Switch, are in short supply across the UK, Europe and US.
To see what?€?s going on, we follow an imaginary toy from factory to Christmas tree to illustrate the pinch points in the manufacture and supply chain that will affect presents this year.
Aaron Sorkin?€?s Oscar-tipped drama shows behind the scenes of the much-loved sitcom I Love Lucy. Here those who knew her look back on her unusual career
?€?She was very complicated, she was very loving and she was very mercurial. She was very generous but she came from the Depression and she was very guarded about money. She was a conundrum. She was a paradox of things. But she made me feel like I was the only person in the room, even in a crowd, and she made me feel authentic.?€?
Lee Tannen, author and playwright, is in full flow as he reminisces about his intense decade-long friendship with Lucille Ball, once the funniest and most famous woman in America. Her 1950s sitcom, I Love Lucy, pulled in 60m viewers and became part of the country?€?s cultural DNA.
?€?He had been used for logging on the Andaman Islands. When I found him, he was 60, living in retirement - and loving his swims?€?
I lived at sea for 10 years. I co-owned and ran a global kiteboarding expedition business. We?€?d sail around the world on a 60-foot catamaran, following the trade winds, kiteboarding, surfing and paragliding in remote locations. One night, I watched a Hollywood movie called The Fall, which had a section where an elephant was swimming in tropical blue water. I didn?€?t know if it was real or a fake Hollywood thing. But I thought: ?€?Man, if that does exist, I?€?d love to photograph it.?€?
I searched the internet and found the elephant from the film was living in the Andaman Islands, an Indian territory in the Bay of Bengal. When we sailed into the capital, Port Blair, a few months later in 2010, I decided to hop off and try to find this elephant. I found Rajan on Havelock (now Swaraj) Island and spent two weeks with him, learning about his incredible story.
John le Carré?€?s final novel, the race to make a vaccine and the conclusion of the groundbreaking Noughts and Crosses series?€? Guardian critics pick the year?€?s best fiction, politics, science, children?€?s books and more. Let us know in the comments what your favourite books have been.
Sally Rooney?€?s much-anticipated third novel, Damon Galgut?€?s Booker-winning family saga and Kazuo Ishiguro?€?s take on AI - Justine Jordan chooses the best novels of the year.
They do what they want, all the time - and can teach us a lot about how to live in the present, be content and learn from our experience
I wanted to know the exact amount of time I spend ruminating on the inner lives of my cats, so I did what most people do in times of doubt, and consulted Google. According to my search history, in the two years since I became a cat owner I have Googled variations of ?€?cat love me - how do I tell??€? and ?€?is my cat happy?€? 17 times. I have also inadvertently subscribed to cat-related updates from the knowledge website Quora, which emails me a daily digest. (Sample: Can Cats Be Angry or Disappointed With Their Owner?)
How do I love my cats? Let me count the ways. The clean snap of three-year-old Larry?€?s jaw as he contemplates me with detached curiosity is my favourite sound in the world. I love the tenor and cadence of my six-month-old kitten Kedi?€?s miaows as he follows me around the house. (High-pitched indignant squeaks means he wants food; lower-pitched chirrups suggest he would like to play.) I love the weight of Larry on my feet at night and the scratchy caress of Kedi?€?s tongue on my eyelid in the morning.
Kinky feet, armpit licking and credit card dramas abound in this funny, charming Channel 4 documentary about the adult streaming site. Plus, Alex Sim-Wise is the fairy godmother of fetish
The problem with Channel 4 documentaries is, done right, they can be so utterly convincing they lead you to consider a fairly drastic lifestyle change. This is how I almost became a paedophile hunter in 2014, for instance. The long week in 2013 when I got on to the dogging forums. So it is fair to say I went into How to Make It on OnlyFans, the new documentary about the boom in British creators making their livelihoods with sex work online, with a healthy amount of trepidation. Who would I be at the end of this hour-long? Or rather: what fruit would I be mashing with my feet for a paying audience?
Do I need to explain what OnlyFans is and what people do on it to you? Do we need to do this dance? Fine, fine: OnlyFans is a content subscription service where you can pay for premium access to certain creators. There might be a golf coach you follow, for instance, who offers putting tips. Perhaps a musical artist you like will give previews of upcoming work. But, realistically, 90% of the platform is sex workers selling nudes. Yes, you could follow the golf coach. Or you could follow the lad who does the piss content you like and takes custom requests. Right, I think we all get the concept now.
F1 sponsorship with insulation maker Kingspan terminated after one race amid widespread criticism
The Mercedes Formula One team and a firm that made combustible insulation used on Grenfell Tower have ended their sponsorship deal after outrage from bereaved friends and relatives, the survivors and the UK government.
The team, whose main driver is the current champion, Lewis Hamilton, confirmed the short-lived partnership with Kingspan was terminated after just one race in which the logo of the firm that made some of the foam boards used on the tower was emblazoned on the nose cone of cars driven by Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas.
After demonstrations see police use teargas and the death of one man, work begins to clear waste in Sfax after decision to move site
Work has begun to clear 30,000 tonnes of household rubbish from the streets of Tunisia?€?s ?€?second city?€? of Sfax after the government backed down in a long-running dispute over a landfill site.
Residents and activists in Agareb, where the current dump is located, said the site, opened in 2008 near the El Gonna national park, was a risk to human health. In recent weeks, unrest in the region has escalated, with access to the site blocked and police using teargas against demonstrators from the town. One man, Abderrazek Lacheb, has allegedly died after being caught up in the demonstrations, although the police have denied his death was due to teargas.
The Guardian?€?s Martin Pengelly and David Smith report:
Mark Meadows?€? attorney, George Terwilliger, wrote in a letter on Tuesday that a deposition would be ?€?untenable?€? because the 6 January select committee ?€?has no intention of respecting boundaries?€? concerning questions that Donald Trump has claimed are off-limits because of executive privilege.
Vote seen as a blow to conservative presidential candidate José Antonio Kast, who led in November?€?s first election round
A historic vote granting equal marriage rights to same-sex couples in Chile has been heralded by activists as a triumph and a blow to the conservative agenda of presidential candidate José Antonio Kast.
A Pacific labour scheme has been transformative for Kiribati families but the loss of nurses has hit the country?€?s hospitals hard
Every night, sitting in her room in the remote Queensland town of Doomadgee, Bwerere Sandy Tebau calls her husband and daughter 4,300km away in Tarawa, the capital of Kiribati.
?€?There is no sea!?€? Sandy says, when asked about the difference between her new home in the red desert of Australia and her island home in the central Pacific. ?€?There is just a lake and in the lake are crocodiles!?€?
The south-east region of New South Wales could receive up to 200mm of rain before the end of the week, adding to already soaked catchments and high rivers that have flooded across the state.
The heavy falls could deliver some areas their total monthly average. A broader trend will see rain across all of eastern NSW for the rest of this week.
The asylum seekers on the Poland-Belarus border are not aggressors: they are desperate pawns in a disgusting political struggle
One thought is a constant in my head: ?€?I have kids at home, I cannot go to jail, I cannot go to jail.?€? The politics are beyond my reach or that of the victims on the Poland-Belarus border. It involves outgoing German chancellor, Angela Merkel, getting through to Alexander Lukashenko, president of Belarus. It?€?s ironic that this border has more than 50 media crews gathered, yet Poland is the only place in the EU where journalists cannot freely report.
Meanwhile, the harsh north European winter is closing in and my fingers are freezing in the dark snowy nights.
40,000 people in one of the largest slums in the Kenyan capital have had their homes demolished to make way for works for a Chinese-backed toll road, with some asking: ?€?this is development for who??€?
About 40,000 people have been made homeless by demolition works for a major Chinese-backed toll road in Kenya?€?s capital, Nairobi.
Amnesty International Kenya says it believes the roadworks have created a humanitarian crisis, as schools, businesses and 13,000 homes spread across nearly 40 hectares (100 acres) of the Mukuru Kwa Njenga slum have been demolished since October, clearing land for a link to the Nairobi expressway.
A girl stands among the rubble of Mukuru Kwa Njenga slum, Nairobi, where 13,000 homes were razed to the ground
After 30 years in exile, it?€?s easy to doubt that it will ever be safe to live and work in Sudan. But the action being taken by young people shows democracy will rise again
?€?All the goodness and the heroisms will rise up again, then be cut down again and rise up,?€? John Steinbeck wrote to a friend in 1941, just before the US entered the second world war. ?€?It isn?€?t that the evil thing wins - it never will - but that it doesn?€?t die.?€?
Growing up, I was always interested in politics, politics was the reason I had to leave Sudan at the age of 11. At school, we weren?€?t allowed to study or discuss it, and it was the same at home.For years, I lay in bed and listened to my father and his friends as they argued about politics and sang traditional songs during their weekend whisky rituals. They watched a new Arabic news channel, Al Jazeera, which aired from Qatar. All the journalism my father consumed about Sudan was from the London-based weekly opposition newspaper, Al Khartoum. The only time he turned on our dial-up internet was to visit Sudanese Online.
UN agency says world must support urgent rollout of new vaccine as it reveals new figures for malaria deaths
The World Health Organization has called for a ?€?massive, urgent?€? effort to get the new malaria vaccine into the arms of African children, as it warned that about 180,000 more people were dying annually from the disease than had previously been thought.
Dr Pedro Alonso, director of the WHO?€?s global malaria programme, said the RTS,S vaccine, recommended for widespread rollout in October, represented a historic opportunity to save tens of thousands of lives, mostly those of under-fives in sub-Saharan Africa.
The recent coup dashed hopes raised by the end of the military regime but newly liberated artists refuse to submit quietly
In the new dawn of a heady post-revolutionary era, Suzannah Mirghani returned in 2019 to the country of her birth for the first time in years. Her mission was to shoot a short film on Sudanese soil. It proved unexpectedly straightforward.
?€?When the revolution happened, there was this exuberance,?€? she says, from her Qatari home. ?€?When we came to make our film, we were given the green light. We were told: ?€?Anything you want?€?.
While Merkel has said she has no particular plans, doing nothing doesn?€?t seem a realistic prospect for the outgoing chancellor
After 16 years of gruelling European summits, late-light coalition negotiations and back-to-back conference calls with heads of state, Angela Merkel has vowed to spend the foreseeable future kicking back her flat black shoes and reading a few good books.
But newly emerged details of a new office in central Berlin and veiled hints in interviews suggests the world may not have seen the last of Germany?€?s outgoing chancellor yet.
Analysis: After two decades of major financial aid, Beijing is rethinking its strategy on continent amid Covid crisis and fierce competition for power, analysts say
As debt concerns rise and a new coronavirus variant emerges, China appears to be adjusting its approach to Africa: cutting finance pledges while doubling down on vaccine diplomacy.
On Monday last week, China?€?s leader, Xi Jinping, opened a China-Africa forum with a pledge to supply 1bn vaccine doses to Africa, amid global concern over the emergence of the Omicron variant of Covid-19. He also pledged $40bn to the continent, ranging from credit lines to investments - a significant cut from the $60bn promised at the previous two summits.
Boris Johnson denies staff gatherings took place or rules were broken during last year?€?s lockdown
Downing Street is facing renewed pressure after TV footage emerged showing senior No 10 officials joking about a Christmas party during lockdown last December.
In the leaked video, obtained by ITV, an adviser to Johnson is seen joking with Allegra Stratton, the prime minister?€?s then press secretary, about ?€?a Downing Street Christmas party on Friday night?€?.
Analysis: Russian president believes it his 'duty?€? to reverse Kyiv?€?s path towards west
Even as Vladimir Putin has built up an invasion force on his borders, he has repeated a refrain that Russians and Ukrainians are one people, bemoaning a ?€?fraternal?€? conflict that he himself has provoked.
As Putin speaks on Tuesday with Joe Biden, western analysts have likened his focus on Kyiv to an ?€?obsession?€? while Russians have said Putin believes it his ?€?duty?€? to reverse Ukraine?€?s path towards the west.
Drone footage has captured some of the devastation following the eruption of Mount Semeru on the Indonesian island of Java. Dozens of people have been killed and thousands remain displaced. The volcano continues to spew hot gas and ash, hampering rescue efforts
The head of the Foreign Office has been accused of covering up the prime minister?€?s involvement in the decision to evacuate pets from Kabul at a select committee hearing.
Labour MP Chris Bryant made the accusation to Sir Philip Barton and read out a leaked letter from Boris Johnson?€?s parliamentary private secretary which he said implied Johnson?€?s 'fingers' were 'all over' the controversial decision.
Barton did not accept the charge and, in a separate interview, Johnson dismissed the accusation that he was involved as 'complete nonsense'
The chief executive of a US mortgage company has drawn criticism after he reportedly fired 900 employees on a Zoom call. 'I come to you with not great news,' Vishal Garg, CEO of Better.com, is heard saying at the beginning of the video call made on Wednesday. Footage of the call was widely circulated on social media
The health secretary has updated the Commons on the latest numbers of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus virus, as well as new travel restrictions for those arriving in the UK
Amelie Osborn-Smith said she felt 'very lucky' to be alive and was not going to be held back, after a crocodile mauled her during a white water rafting trip along the Zambezi in Zambia.
Osborne-Smith, 18, thought she would lose her foot after the attack and said she was very 'relieved' when doctors told her they had managed to save it
Bob Dole, the long-time Kansas senator who was the Republican nominee for president in 1996, has died at the age of 98. Born in Russell, Kansas in 1923, Dole served in the US infantry in the second world war, suffering serious wounds in Italy and winning a medal for bravery.
In 1976 he was the Republican nominee for vice-president to Gerald Ford, in an election the sitting president lost to Jimmy Carter. Two decades later, aged 73, Dole won the nomination to take on Bill Clinton, to whom he lost.
A 'formal party' in Downing Street in December 2020 would have been contrary to guidance, the justice secretary has admitted, saying it would have been 'the wrong thing to do'. Dominic Raab told BBC One?€?s The Andrew Marr Show, however, that Boris Johnson had assured him no rules had been broken, despite reports from various sources in several newspapers
Large number of US citizens demonstrated against the war in Iraq (and the possible war in Iran) during this October weekend. Massive turnout in Boston and San Fransisco, and also in Chicago, LA and DC people took to the streets. The message was: NO more war in Iraq! NO to a war with Iran!
