UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson orders new national lockdown as Britain faces `critical moment' in coronavirus pandemic. The decision came on the same day as UK became the first country in the world to start using the COVID-19 vaccine developed by Oxford University and drugmaker AstraZeneca, with a dialysis patient named Brian Pinker the first to get the shot. Pinker says he was very pleased to get the vaccine, adding that he can now look forward to celebrating his 48th wedding anniversary with his wife Shirley later this year. Britain is in the midst of an acute outbreak, recording more than

A series of tremors have jolted central Croatia a day after a 6.3 magnitude earthquake killed at least seven people, injured dozens and left several towns and villages in ruins. Now officials warn of the coronavirus spread in crowded shelters. The strongest, 4.7 magnitude aftershock was recorded near the hardest-hit town of Petrinja, some 40 kilometres (25 miles) southeast of the Croatian capital, Zagreb. Many people spent the night in tents, their cars or military barracks. In the hard-hit village of Majske Poljane, where five people died a little boy could be seen sleeping inside a van, wea

Britain has authorized an easy-to-handle coronavirus vaccine and decided to stretch out the time between doses to allow more people to get some level of protection faster as infections surge.The first greenlight Wednesday for the shot dubbed the ``vaccine for the world'' brought a measure of hope that the pandemic could be brought under control.The vaccine developed by Oxford University and drugmaker AstraZeneca is expected to be relied on in many countries because of its low cost and the fact that it can be kept in refrigerators rather than at the ultra-cold or freezer temperatures some othe

The head of the World Health Organization says it's important to step up genomic sequencing to detect a COVID-19 variant worldwide that has cropped up in parts of Canada. New variants discovered this month appear to be more infectious and have triggered sweeping travel restrictions. WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus says the new variants are cause for concern. He says variants will only be found if countries are testing effectively. Canadian health officials report a more contagious new strain of the novel coronavirus virus was found in three parts of the country. The variant first seen i

The man who planted a bomb in Nashville on Christmas told a neighbour days earlier that, "Nashville and the world is never going to forget me." Now that investigators have identified Anthony Quinn Warner they are trying to learn his motive. David Rausch of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation says hundreds of tips have been submitted to law enforcement agencies in the past few days. Warner died in his own blast. The explosion injured three people and severely damaged dozens of downtown buildings.

Citizen journalist Zhang Zhan, who was detained in May for her live stream reporting from Wuhan over COVID-19, has been sentenced to four years of imprisonment on Monday, Hong Kong Free Press (HKFP) reported.She has been convicted of "picking quarrels and provoking trouble" for her reporting in the chaotic initial stages of the outbreak. Dozens of her supporters and diplomats gathered outside Shanghai Pudong New District People's Court on Monday morning before the trial began, according to HKFP. The police, however, pushed journalists and observers away from the entrance. The New York Times re

A huge study of the Novavax COVID-19 vaccine candidate is getting underway in the US today. This is the fifth drug to reach final-stage testing south of the border. About 30,000 volunteers are needed to prove if this vaccine, which is a different kind than its Pfizer and Moderna competitors, really works and is safe. "If you want to have enough vaccine to vaccinate all the people in the U.S. who you'd like to vaccinate, up to 85% or more of the population, you're going to need more than two companies,'' Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top U.S. infectious disease expert, told The Associated Press.The N

California eclipsed two-million COVID-19 cases today as the US heads into a holiday season of travel and family gatherings that threaten to fuel the pandemic. It took 292 days for California to get to one-million confirmed infections. The next million were reported over a period of 44 days. Despite warnings from public health experts to stay home, more than 1.19 million travellers passed through US airport security checkpoints yesterday. COVID-19 has killed more than 327,000 Americans, at a rate of 3,000 per day for the past two weeks.

The apparent drowning death of a prominent Pakistani dissident in Toronto is provoking suspicion. Police said they had found 37 year old Karima Mehrab dead yesterday. Mehrab, widely known as Karima Baloch, had been reported missing a day earlier. A close friend and fellow activist tells The Canadian Press that Mehrab had recently received death threats. Her body was pulled from waters near downtown Toronto. Police in Toronto say they are not treating the apparent drowning death of a prominent Pakistani dissident as suspicious. But Lateef Johar, a friend of Karima Mehrab, says the family fears