UN reiterates need to protect journalists to ensure democracy

Denise van Outen has finally conquered a health condition she has been battling amid her split with ex Eddie Boxshall. The Celebrity Gogglebox star, who regularly appears on Channel 4's Steph's Packed Lunch, revealed all in an Instagram snap today. Denise revealed: "I have had eczema for as long as I can remember.

HARRISBURG, Pa. - The fired head of Lancaster County's drug task force was charged Tuesday with stealing more than $200,000 in money seized or forfeited by court orders during drug investigations over a six-year period.State prosecutors filed charges against John E. Burkhart, 56, of theft and tampering with evidence and government records, as a grand jury alleged he had been "secretly pocketing money and diverting it to his own use."He was arraigned before a district judge in Lancaster on Tuesday afternoon, with bail set at $25,000, unsecured.

Aaron Judge of the New York Yankees during the AL Wild Card game against the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park on Oct. 6, 2021, in Boston, Massachusetts.

SPANAWAY, Wash. - The Pierce County Sheriff's Department said two deputies were shot in Spanaway on Tuesday and rushed to a nearby hospital.Deputies said on Twitter just after 12:00 p.m. that the public should avoid the area of Pacific Ave. S.

COVID-19 has died as health officials report a slight drop in the number people hospitalized with the virus.The latest death, reported on the province’s online COVID-19 dashboard, brings Manitoba’s COVID-19 death toll to 1,717. Manitoba goes mask-free, many businesses, people remain cautious Meanwhile Manitoba’s COVID-19 hospitalization and ICU numbers are falling to levels not seen in several months.As of Tuesday, 18 people are in ICU with the virus, down two from Monday.

Good evening and welcome to today's Daily Record's headline briefing.

A healthcare worker prepares the Pfizer-BioNTech (Comirnaty) COVID-19 vaccine. (Pongmanat Tasiri/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images) WASHINGTON - Drugmaker Pfizer is expected to request authorization this week for an additional COVID-19 booster dose for seniors, according to a person familiar with the matter.It would add a fourth dose to the regimen, which currently consists of a primary series of two shots, followed months later by a booster dose, in an effort to provide maximum protection to the over-65 population that has been hit hardest by the pandemic.RELATED: Pfizer CEO: 4th shot of vaccine 'necessary'The Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control must approve the request.

Ontario government plans to provide $673 million to long-term care homes this year to help “hire and retain staff” across the province.The government issued a press release on Tuesday, saying the money would help to hire and retain up to 10,000 staff members across the province and will lead to “more direct care for residents.”“This is part of the province’s $4.9 billion commitment to hire more than 27,000 long-term care staff over four years and ensure that residents receive on average four hours of direct care per day by 2024-25.” Many Ontario long-term care homes keeping COVID vaccine mandates as province lifts policy According to the release, before the provincial investments, residents were receiving “an average of only two hours and 45 minutes of direct care from nurses and personal support workers.”The government says the next funding increase will push the daily average in the province to three hours and 15 minutes per resident, every day by the end of the 2022-23 fiscal year.Included in the funding is also $106.76 million for homes to increase the direct care provided by allied health care professionals who the government says are “key to ensuring quality care for residents (such as physiotherapists and social workers) by 10 per cent by the end of the fiscal year.”The provincial government said the $4.9 billion will be delivered over four years:According to the release, the province’s plan to provide residents with four hours of direct care will be enshrined into law via the Fixing Long Term Care Act 2021, which received royal assent in Dec. 2021.

The United States must shore up medical product supply chains before the next pandemic or other natural disaster, warns a new National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM) expert panel report.

More than a third of new mothers early in the COVID-19 pandemic had symptoms of postpartum (after-birth) depression—nearly triple pre-pandemic levels—and one in five had major depressive symptoms, with symptoms for both disorders higher in women who fed their babies formula, according to a study yesterday in BMC Research Notes.Researchers from the University of Michigan (U-M) School of

MUMBAI :

WASHINGTON - President Joe Biden will travel to Europe next week for face-to-face talks with European leaders about the Russian invasion of Ukraine, White House press secretary Jen Psaki announced Tuesday.Biden will meet with NATO and European leaders at a summit in Brussels on March 24. He will also attend a scheduled European Council summit, where efforts to impose sanctions and further humanitarian efforts are underway."While he’s there, his goal is to meet in person face-to-face with his European counterparts and talk about, assess where we are at this point in the conflict in the invasion of Ukraine by Russia.

SEATTLE - Starbucks lovers may soon see less of an iconic symbol: the white Starbucks paper cup.The Seattle-based coffee chained announced it will phase out its single-use cups bearing the company's logo and other plastics in an effort to reduce landfill waste. While the products may not go away completely, the company plans to make them less attractive and promote reusable mugs. "We set a bold aspiration to become a resource positive company – to store more carbon than we emit, to eliminate waste and to conserve and replenish more freshwater than we use," Michael Kobori, Starbucks chief sustainability officer, said on the company’s website.

Corbevax for 12-18 years. It is the second vaccine for children after Bharat Biotech's Covaxin. However, the government has not yet decided on vaccination for less than 15 years. The Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI)'s approval comes after the Subject Expert Committee on COVID-19 of the CDSCO on February 14 recommended granting restricted EUA to Corbevax for the 12 to 18 years age group after deliberating on Biological E's application.

Many residents of Ottawa are breathing a sigh of relief tonight after three weeks about complaints of harassment, noise and unease during the demonstration. Sean O’Shea joins us from inside the security zone.

Canadian police are making possibly the final push to clear the capital city of demonstrators who have paralysed it by parking and camping on the streets for more than three weeks to protest against Covid pandemic restrictions.

One of Canada’s busiest commercial truck border crossings was closed again Saturday as anti-mandate protesters swarmed the route leading to the Pacific Highway crossing in Surrey. Kamil Karamali reports.

A protest that closed the main crossing between Alberta and the United States may have ended this week, but there’s some concern it has created a different kind of division in the border community caught in the middle of the dispute.

COVID-19 public health measures descended on Quebec City on Saturday for the second weekend this month.Inspired by the so-called Freedom Convoy protest in Ottawa, horns could be heard as several dozen vehicles, including trucks and tractors, arrived outside the provincial legislature late Saturday morning.It was a mostly festive atmosphere, as some people were dressed up in cartoon character costumes, stuffed animals were handed out to children and music played.It was the second large demonstration against public health measures in the province in two weeks.Since the last one in early February, the Quebec government announced it is phasing out its vaccine passport system and intends to get rid of most COVID-19 health measures by March 14.But protest organizers, addressing the crowd outside the legislature, said they wanted more concessions from the provincial government.Organizer Bernard Gauthier called the tone of the protest “peaceful,” adding he hoped the provincial government would return the favour without specifying any demands.Meanwhile, others called for an end to the provincially-declared health emergency and mandatory masks for school-aged children.Demonstrator Christian Martel said he wanted to see an end to mandatory masking in classrooms.“The pandemic is over, we have to end everything. We’re tired, it’s enough,” said Martel.Some demonstrators said they would also like assurance that the vaccine passport system would not return.Last week, Quebec announced it would be phasing out vaccine passports, but Health Minister Christian Dubé warned it would reimpose the passport system if it’s needed during a new wave of COVID-19.

World Health Organisation (WHO) pointed out. “You need to know where the virus is. You need to know how the virus is changing so that the interventions can be adapted and tailored to where they are needed most," WHO's Maria Van Kerkhove said. This comes at a time when WHO officials have notified that testing rates have fallen sharply across the globe. 

Police in Ottawa have begun the task of ending a protest that began just over three weeks ago. Officers are methodically moving in on demonstrators and trucks, making arrests and towing vehicles.

Police officers have started to make arrests in the capital as the trucker convoy marks its third week in Ottawa. Kyle Benning has more on the standoff between police and protesters and the latest from the liberal government.

Canadian police lastnight began arresting leaders of the trucker-led protest that has choked the capital's streets for three weeks and provoked the government into calling on rarely used emergency powers.

There has been a change in plans for the COVID-19 vaccination policies for the upcoming 2022 Oscars ceremony, which will take place in Hollywood on March 27.

Ottawa‘s interim police chief says officers will clear the streets of people who oppose the government and COVID-19 restrictions in the next few days, warning they are ready to use methods people are not used to seeing in the capital.

KYIV, Ukraine - NATO allies accused Russia of misleading the world and disseminating "disinformation" by saying it was returning some troops to bases, charging that Moscow has instead added as many as 7,000 more troops near its tense border with Ukraine.With Western fears high that Russia is planning to invade, tensions also spiked Thursday along the line that separates Ukrainian forces from Russia-backed separatists in the country's east, with the parties accusing each other of intensive shelling.After a handful of positive signals from Russia that lowered the temperature in the crisis earlier in the week, the pendulum appeared to be swinging in the opposite direction again. With an estimated 150,000-plus troops massed near Ukraine, the Kremlin offered to keep pursuing diplomatic solutions — an overture the NATO chief welcomed, even as he and others warned that the U.S.-led alliance has still seen no sign of the military withdrawal that Moscow announced."We have seen the opposite of some of the statements.

ongoing convoy protests a “threat” to Canadian democracy in a letter justifying emergency powers to the country’s premiers.The letter, released by the federal government late Wednesday night, said fatigue and frustration with COVID-19 public health measures and vaccine mandates are “no longer the motivation of many of the (protest) participants and organizers.” Ottawa police issue new warning amid convoy blockade: ‘leave the area now’ “We are seeing activity that is a threat to our democracy and that is undermining the public’s trust in our institutions,” Trudeau wrote.“The Government of Canada believes firmly in the right to peaceful protest. But as we discussed, the activities taking place across the country have gone well beyond peaceful protest.”Trudeau declared a public order emergency on Monday, giving federal authorities exceptional powers aimed at bringing the convoy protests to an end after almost three weeks of unrest.

The firing of a senior staff member in the Solicitor-General’s office over an apparent donation to the ‘Freedom Convoy’ has opposition members demanding more answers from the Ford Government. Matthew Bingley reports.

Ford government to provide more details after the leak of donations made to the so-called “Freedom Convoy” GiveSendGo campaign cost a senior staff member her job.The solicitor-general’s now-former director of communications, Marion Isabeau-Ringuette, reportedly donated $100 to the online fundraising platform on Feb. 5.First reported by QP Briefing, the alleged donation came a day after GoFundMe suspended another fundraising campaign over concerns the protest in Ottawa had become an occupation, and just ahead of blockades at the Ambassador Bridge.Ontario’s attorney general eventually stepped in to seek an injunction, freezing the funds for the GiveSendGo campaign several days later.

Quebec health experts stress COVID-19 booster shot still necessary despite vaccine passport removal The other puts in place a ban on outdoor cooking and consuming alcohol in parks and in public spaces that Marchand says will be revisited this summer.Quebec City police issued 170 tickets and made three arrests during protests in front of the legislature during the first weekend in February. 

ATLANTA - COVID-19 vaccination during pregnancy is already recommended to prevent severe illness and death in pregnant women, but a new study shows the vaccine may also protect a mother’s newborn baby. According to the study, published Tuesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, completion of a two-dose COVID-19 vaccination series during pregnancy may help prevent hospitalization from the virus among infants who are less than six months old.A group of researchers at the Overcoming COVID-19 network conducted the study at 20 pediatric hospitals in 17 states between July 1, 2021 and Jan. 17, 2022. Among 176 hospitalized infants with COVID-19 aged less than six months, 84% were born to mothers who were not vaccinated during pregnancy. A pregnant woman holds her belly on September 27, 2016 in Cardiff, United Kingdom.

PHILADELPHIA - Philadelphia health officials on Wednesday announced new COVID-19 response levels that will now tie the city’s mask and vaccine mandates to specific metrics. Under the new multi-tiered systems, city and health officials say they will stop enforcing certain mandates as COVID-19 metrics improve. Should the numbers worsen, officials say they will use the same system to determine when those mandates should be enforced again. Based on current metrics, officials announced on Wednesday that Philadelphia had reached a Masks Precautions Only level - meaning that the requirement to show proof of vaccination at indoor dining establishments that serve food for onsite consumption was dropped, effective immediately. Philadelphia’s Department of Public Health will focus on four key metrics to guide decisions on mandates and restrictions. The metrics include average new cases per day, number of hospitalizations, percent of tests reported as positive, and the rate of change of new cases. City officials say tying their response to these metrics will help the public understand why the city is enforcing specific mandates, as well as what needs to happen in order the enforcement to stop. Philadelphia’s COVID-19 website will be updated to included detailed breakdowns of the four key metrics.On Wednesday, Philadelphia health Commissioner Dr.

MOSCOW - Russia said Wednesday it was returning more troops and weapons to bases, but NATO declared it saw no sign of a drawdown as fears that Moscow could invade Ukraine soon persisted.Russia has massed about 150,000 troops east, north and south of Ukraine, sparking Western concerns it was planning an attack. Moscow denies it has any such plans and this week said it was pulling back some forces and weapons, though it gave few details.

schools which have been conducting online classes, too, shifted to the physical mode today. "Making them adapt to a new atmosphere which is different from the familiar comforts of their homes will be our primary task. 

After 18 days of disrupting a Canada-U.S. border crossing, anti-COVID mandate protesters have dispersed their blockade near Coutts, Alberta.

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COVID-19 measures that are being held across the country.The Canadian Civil Liberties Association says it does not believe the “high and clear” threshold needed to invoke the act has been met, noting the law states it can only be used when a situation cannot be dealt with using any other law in the country.Executive director Noa Mendelsohn Aviv warns that normalizing emergency legislation “threatens our democracy and our civil liberties.”This is the first time the Emergencies Act has been invoked since it came into force in 1988, and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said yesterday it is necessary to protect critical infrastructure such as borders and airports from the blockades, and create time-limited powers that do not already exist.

Some people in Edmonton are angry with the way police handled the other side of the trucker convoy response on the weekend. While many drivers got away with blaring their horns and making noise in violation of a noise injunction, a large group of Edmonton Police Service officers showed up to threaten counter-protests with arrests and fines.

COVID-19 measures and vaccination mandates have mostly been peaceful.“I think we don’t need it,” he said. “So far with the Sûreté du Québec, we were able to keep control.“I think at this moment it would not help the social climate.

Why did USFDA postpone its decision?

Several ​Edmontonians are not happy about the level of enforcement by police in Saturday’s trucker convoy. While many people are disappointed by the noise amid an injunction to stop it, it was how police handled a counter protest that pushed some people to their tipping point.

Purported veterans and supporters of the so-called “Freedom convoy” removed fencing protecting the National War Memorial in Ottawa on Saturday. A police officer can be seen telling the demonstrators they would be responsible for taking care of the memorial, according to Global News’ Abigail Bimman, who was on the ground at the time.

“Freedom Convoy” originally meant to protest COVID-19 vaccine mandates and quarantine rules for cross-border truck drivers has entered its 16th day on Saturday.Police in Windsor, Ont. say they’ve begun enforcement actions against protesters who blocked access to the Ambassador Bridge for days.They say they’ve told protesters at the scene to head home, and several have begun packing up tents.

KABUL, Afghanistan - Demonstrators in Afghanistan’s capital Saturday condemned President Joe Biden’s order freeing up $3.5 billion in Afghan assets held in the U.S. for families of America’s 9/11 victims — saying the money belongs to Afghans.Protesters who gathered outside Kabul's grand Eid Gah mosque asked America for financial compensation for the tens of thousands of Afghans killed during the last 20 years of war in Afghanistan.Biden's order, signed Friday, allocates another $3.5 billion in Afghan assets for humanitarian aid to a trust fund to be managed by the U.N.

After two weeks of the protest convoy occupying Ottawa, questions are rising over whether a better security response could have averted all the disruption sooner.

As protesters remain at the Ambassador Bridge, the blockade disrupting the busiest border crossing between Canada and the U.S. is taking a toll on economies on both sides.

TORONTO - Canadian authorities Friday turned up the legal and public pressure on protesters to lift their blockades in Ottawa and at the U.S. border, with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau warning: "This unlawful activity has to end and it will end."Federal, provincial and local officials moved simultaneously on different fronts to break the standoff, which began with truckers and others angry over the country's COVID-19 restrictions and has morphed into a broader attack from the right on Trudeau and his Liberal government, cheered on by conservatives in the U.S."We heard you.

DETROIT - The truck blockade by Canadians protesting the country’s COVID-19 restrictions is tightening the screws on the auto industry, forcing Ford, Toyota and General Motors to shut down plants or otherwise curtail production on both sides of the U.S.-Canada border.The bumper-to-bumper demonstration entered its fourth day Thursday at the Ambassador Bridge connecting Windsor, Ontario, to Detroit, disrupting the flow of auto parts and other products back and forth across the border.The bridge is the busiest U.S.-Canadian border crossing, carrying 25% of all trade between the two countries.RELATED: 'I understand why, but it makes it harder on us': Canadian trucker talks lost time, moneyFord said its Windsor, Ontario, engine plant reopened Thursday after being shut down on Wednesday because of a lack of parts. But the factory and the company’s assembly plant in Oakville, Ontario, near Toronto, are operating at reduced capacity, the automaker said."This interruption on the Detroit-Windsor bridge hurts customers, auto workers, suppliers, communities and companies on both sides of the border," Ford said in a statement.