The Latest Breaking News from Covid-19

Shop theft has been building for years – here's how to tackle retail crime and keep workers safe

Retail giants like Boots, Tesco and Primark are pushing for Home Office action after violent incidents and abuse against shop staff almost doubled since the COVID pandemic. Retail crime cost UK shops £1.76 billion in the year to April 2023, according to the British Retail Consortium.

The Conversation · Oct 3, 2023

Families who lost loved ones in pandemic ‘will not be ignored’ – inquiry chair

The second stage of the inquiry is set to examine key decision-making in Westminster between January 2020 and February 2022.

The Independent UK · Oct 3, 2023

Sunak ‘not sharing’ Covid WhatsApp texts ‘a disgrace straight from Boris playbook’

The criticism came after Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said he could not provide his WhatsApp messages from the pandemic because he failed to back them up

The Independent UK · Oct 3, 2023

Voice support up in Essential poll, but it is still behind

The referendum on the Indigenous Voice to parliament will be held on October 14. A national Essential poll, conducted September 27 to October 1 from a sample of 1,125, gave “no” to the Voice a 49–43 lead, a narrowing from a 51–41 “no” lead a fortnight ago.

The Conversation · Oct 3, 2023

Covid-19 Inquiry to examine lockdown decisions

The next module will examine ‘core UK decision-making and political governance’

The Independent UK · Oct 3, 2023

Tenacious curiosity in the lab can lead to a Nobel Prize – mRNA research exemplifies the unpredictable value of basic scientific research

The 2023 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine will go to Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman for their discovery that modifying mRNA – a form of genetic material your body uses to produce proteins – could reduce unwanted inflammatory responses and allow it to be delivered into cells. While the…

The Conversation · Oct 3, 2023

Rising Black suicide rate demands attention

African Americans are the only racial or ethnic group in Cook County whose suicide rates are now higher than they were at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Chicago Sun-Times · Oct 2, 2023

Sunak fails to hand over pandemic WhatsApp messages to Covid inquiry – reports

The Prime Minister said that he does ‘not have access’ to the messages as he changed his phone several times, The Guardian has reported.

The Independent UK · Oct 2, 2023

COVID-struck Hipkins not throwing in NZ election towel

Chris Hipkins will try to resume election campaign duties virtually, as the NZ Labour leader struggles with COVID-19.

AAP · Oct 2, 2023

The scientist whose research was key to developing the COVID vaccines was demoted, had her salary cut, and threatened with deportation. Today, she won the Nobel Prize

Katalin Karikó, now a vice-president at BioNTech, saw her research undermined for years before the 2005 breakthrough that led to the COVID-19 vaccine.

Fortune · Oct 2, 2023