Official UK figures show 33% jump in deaths from alcohol-specific causes from 2019 – the highest since records began in 2001 Alcohol killed a record number of people in 2022 as heavier drinking in the Covid pandemic took its toll in the UK, official figures have revealed. Nearly 2,500 more people died from drinking than in 2019 (7,565 deaths), the year before the virus hit and caused already heavy drinkers to increase their intake, the Office for National Statistics said ..read more

Committee says full-blown inquiry with investigative powers should take a particularly close look at lockdown, quarantine and vaccine policies Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates Get our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcast The Senate committee that has been examining Australia’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic has recommended the establishment of a royal commission, arguing the case for a full-blown inquiry with investigative powers is “overwhelming”. In a report tabled out of parliamentary session on Friday, the Senate’s legal and constitut ..read more

This blog is now closed. Anthony Albanese criticises X’s ‘extraordinary’ fight against removal of church stabbing posts Queensland police fatally shoot man at rest area south of Gladstone Get our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcast The Matildas’ route to potential Asian Cup success is a step closer to being finalised, AAP reports, after Football Australia revealed the host states for matches at the 2026 edition of the tournament. FA confirmed on Monday that NSW, Queensland and Western Australia had been nominated as the preferred locations for the continental co ..read more

Data reveals at peak of pandemic in 2020, people in prisons died almost three and a half times more frequently than those outside When the Covid-19 pandemic began, it wasn’t hard to predict that incarcerated people would be at higher risk. Many prisons and jails are crowded, dirty places with inconsistent access to healthcare – breeding grounds for the highly infectious virus. But the job of documenting the deaths has fallen to a patchwork of research groups and reporters. Now, a national study from one of these collaborations, between the University of California, Irvine and Brigham and Women ..read more

Many low-income nations are having to spend more on interest payments than vital sustainability goals. That needs to change Blighted by the effects of global heating, beset by food insecurity and rising poverty, and hobbled by dollar-denominated debt that leaves no fiscal room for manoeuvre, some of the world’s poorest nations are enduring a perfect storm. In the wake of Covid and then the war in Ukraine, inflation and high interest rates have tipped many over the edge: between 2020 and 2023 there were 18 sovereign defaults in 10 developing countries – more than in the previous two decades. Ot ..read more

Four years on from the start of the pandemic, the drama may have subsided but the lingering effects go on. Are we suffering from political long Covid? By David Runciman ..read more

Expert says immunity from vaccines and Omicron infections have combined to reduce severe disease Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates Get our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcast Australia has recorded its lowest Covid death rate for more than two years, according to federal health department data that dates back to January 2022. The latest data on the National Notifiable Diseases Surveillance System shows that between Thursday 29 February and Saturday 2 March, and on 5 and 6 March, the seven-day rolling average for Covid deaths was zero. One de ..read more

Exclusive: Extensive polling ordered by the then chancellor, documents reveal, but scientific advisers not consulted Rishi Sunak ordered multiple taxpayer-funded focus groups and polls to craft the messaging of his planned “eat out to help out” campaign in July 2020, despite keeping the UK’s top medical and scientific advisers in the dark about the scheme. The Treasury negotiated five public opinion contracts worth more than £2m from June 2020 throughout the pandemic, while Sunak was chancellor, including those to establish how best to “sell” the hospitality scheme to voters ..read more

Former PM tells podcast he got vaccinated so as not to give anyone ‘an excuse for keeping us locked up any longer than was absolutely necessary’ Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates Get our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcast The former prime minister Tony Abbott has described the Morrison government’s Covid response as a “grotesque overreaction” to a “relatively mild pandemic”, adding he reluctantly got vaccinated because he “didn’t want anyone to have an excuse for keeping us locked up any longer than was absolutely necessary”. Abbott, who al ..read more

Remember the good old days when you could get on a train or go to a party without wondering if it was worth the risk? It’s time for a revival In a series of deft manoeuvres that remain fascinating to me, my 16-year-old son managed to barter me down from a four-day trip to Devon to 13 hours in Broadstairs on the Kent coast, during which every train, meeting and arrangement was a white-knuckle ride, as to miss one would render the entire thing, plus the weeks either side of it, some variation of pointless. But we caught every train, we made every meeting, and he watched Match of the Day with his ..read more