News

Now that Sir David is gradually drawing his career to a close with the latest BBC documentary A Perfect Planet, the question appears more topical than ever. But still nobody has emerged to replace him at the top of the food chain. The short answer is that no one can...

Be prepared for any weather with our daily forecast in the UK.

Regular flights will now take place between the two destinations, but not all flights will be quarantine-free.

If you live in the northern part of Sydney’s Northern Beaches, the epicentre of one of two current COVID outbreaks in New South Wales, you can’t currently cross any state borders. Instead, you’re confined to the local area for all but essential reasons.

Road-user charges on electric vehicles based on distance driven were announced in November 2020 by the governments of South Australia and Victoria, while New South Wales ministers have differing views. These charges are justified on several grounds, including the costs of road use and congestion.

Be prepared for any weather with our daily forecast for Australia.

Bitcoin continues to trade close to its all-time high reached this month. Its price is now around US $34,000 — up about 77% over the past month and 305% over the past year.

But this year will be different because a small group of President Donald Trump’s surrogates in the House and Senate have indicated they will challenge the certification and votes of the electors in what will be a futile attempt to delay the announcement of Democrat Joe Biden’s victory.

Personnel are to enter Australia as part of training activities with the Defence College, but will have their own quarantine arrangements.

Trump lost Georgia by 11,779 votes. To pressure this state official to do his bidding, Trump brandished the threat of criminal prosecution. He claimed – falsely, baselessly and ridiculously – that Georgia’s ballots were corrupt even as he was trying to corrupt them himself.

Be prepared for any weather with our daily forecast in the UK.

Senior managers at the company which supplied deadly cladding for the Grenfell Tower block are said to be hiding behind an obscure French law.

Streaming now accounts for more than half of recorded music revenue. Spotify has about a third of the subscribers paying for music streaming. Playlists overtook albums as the preferred way of listening to sequences of songs about five years ago.

The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are a great start that should be celebrated, but they rely on a complicated supply chain of freezers and temperature-controlled shipping methods called the “cold chain.” That reliance on the cold chain raises equity and social justice concerns, since many parts of the world cannot...

Be prepared for any weather with our daily forecast for Australia.

Although the Breakthrough Listen team are still working on the data, we know that the radio signal was detected by the Parkes telescope in Australia while it was pointing at Proxima Centauri, which is thought to be orbited by at least one habitable planet.

When UK District Judge Vanessa Baraitser declared she was rejecting the US request to extradite Julian Assange, his partner Stella Moris wept with relief. In an emotional speech outside the court, Moris described the ruling as “the first step towards justice”, and called on President Donald Trump to halt further...

Around 1,300 international transplant athletes and thousands of supporters will visit WA in a celebration of life after a major health challenge.

For most people, infection with SARS-CoV-2 – the virus that causes COVID-19 – leads to mild, short-term symptoms, acute respiratory illness, or possibly no symptoms at all. But some people have long-lasting symptoms after their infection – this has been dubbed “long COVID”.

Be prepared for any weather with our daily forecast in the UK.

As work-from-home arrangements make it easier for people to be further away from their workplace, many are seizing the opportunity.

In November, news outlets reported the puzzling appearance of several peculiar, highly polished metal monoliths in remote landscapes around the world.

In Australia, New Zealand and around the world, COVID has turned luxury and semi-luxury hotels into quarantine facilities.

Be prepared for any weather with our daily forecast for Australia.

Over the weekend, Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, claimed Israeli agents were planning to attack US forces in Iraq to provide US President Donald Trump with a pretext for striking Iran.

Great power competition in the Asia-Pacific region has been building for years. But COVID-19 has turbo-charged the shifts taking place and China is finishing 2020 in a significantly stronger position compared with the US than when the year started.

Health minister announces immediate funding for clinical trials from the government’s Medical Research Future Fund.

Aotearoa New Zealand likes to think it punches above its weight internationally, but there is one area where we are conspicuously falling behind — the number of sites recognised by the UNESCO World Heritage Convention.

Be prepared for any weather with our daily forecast in the UK.

Retail research body says more than 170,000 high street jobs went last year and warns that even more could go in 2021.

Australia built a number of coastal defences to help protect the country from any enemy attack during the second world war. Now, almost 80 years later, some of the physical remnants of those historic facilities lie forgotten and decaying.

The notes you record will expand humanity’s scientific knowledge of the natural world, and the specimens of plants and animals you collect are destined to be used for centuries to describe past and present biodiversity and make new discoveries in biomedicine and beyond.

Be prepared for any weather with our daily forecast for Australia.

Maths anxiety is the feeling of tension and fear that many people experience when called on to work out a sum. For children, it can lead to behavioural problems in class, as well as physical symptoms such as butterflies in the stomach and a racing heart.

Boeing P-8A Poseidon surveillance and response fleet is to be increased by two more aircraft. Total fleet size will be raised to 14.

Dickens thanked the doctor for alerting him to an outbreak of diphtheria in Boulogne-sur-Mer on the coast of northern France while he was on holiday there. Three of the writer’s sons were actually in school there at the time and were getting ready for the new term.

Be prepared for any weather with our daily forecast in the UK.

State’s correctional services minister says security breach was “completely and utterly unacceptable” and being taken “very, very seriously”.

Space exploration achieved several notable firsts in 2020 despite the COVID-19 pandemic, including commercial human spaceflight and returning samples of an asteroid to Earth.

South Georgia saw around 3,000 blue whales killed each year at the hunt’s peak in the early 20th century. The waters surrounding the island are rich in the krill these whales eat, and scientists believe their return heralds a “rediscovery” of this oceanic larder by new generations.

Be prepared for any weather with our daily forecast for Australia.

The Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine has been authorised for use in the UK, meaning that millions more vaccine doses can now be delivered in the country. This will speed up progress towards achieving widespread immunity to the coronavirus.

This plodding time course seems to be an innate human defect that existed long before the current-day pandemic mask and social distancing conundrums. Historically, people aren’t fond of being told what to do.

New and simplified debt restructuring process allows struggling businesses to restructure their existing debts while remaining in control.

Recent research has revealed a number of expressions that have entered everyday use since Brexit started. Terms like “Article 50”, “no deal”, “hard border” may now seem just part of life but they were seldom, if ever, used before Brexit.

Be prepared for any weather with our daily forecast in the UK.

Two people ran away from authorised officers when they were told they had to quarantine for 14 days and escaped in a waiting vehicle.

A pandemic planning committee had been scrapped six months before coronavirus hit the UK – despite the fact that the threat from a pandemic had been known for some time. Similarly, an early warning programme to alert the government in the United States to pandemics was ended three months before...

There’s no doubt that 2020 was difficult for everyone and tragic for many. But now vaccines against COVID-19 are finally being administered – giving a much needed hope of a return to normality and a happy 2021.

Be prepared for any weather with our daily forecast for Australia.