Download the app and get the day’s most important stories.
Download the app and get the day’s most important stories.
US President-elect Joe Biden has said he will ask Americans to wear masks for his first 100 days in office to curtail the spread of coronavirus. He told CNN he believed there would be a “significant reduction” in Covid-19 cases if every American wore a face covering. Mr Biden also said he would order masks to be worn in all government buildings.
Denmark has decided to end to all oil and gas offshore activities in the North Sea by 2050 and has canceled its latest licensing round, saying the country is “now putting an end to the fossil fuel era.” The Danish Parliament voted late Thursday to end the offshore gas and oil extraction that started in 1972 and has made it the largest producer in the European Union. Non EU-members Norway and Britain are larger producers.
Dr. Anthony Fauci has apologized after appearing to criticize the U.K.’s process for approving a Covid-19 vaccine, comments that ruffled British feathers in a week marked by displays of nationalistic excitement at being the first Western country to approve the rollout of a vaccine. In a series of interviews, Fauci questioned the level of scrutiny the British regulators had given the authorization process of the Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine.
Bangladesh naval vessels carried about 1,600 Rohingya refugees to a remote island in the Bay of Bengal on Friday despite complaints by refugees and rights groups that some were being coerced. Bangladesh says it is only transferring people who are willing to go and the move will ease chronic overcrowding in camps that are home to more than 1 million Rohingya, members of a Muslim minority who have fled neighboring Myanmar.
A 15-year-old scientist and inventor has been named as Time magazine’s first “kid of the year”. Gitanjali Rao, from Denver, Colorado, has invented new technologies across a range of fields, including a device that can identify lead in drinking water, and an app and Chrome extension that uses artificial intelligence to detect cyberbullying. Gitanjali was chosen from a field of 5,000 US-based nominees.