Since the outset of the coronavirus pandemic, the potential role of animals in catching and spreading the disease has been closely examined by scientists. This is because the virus that causes Covid-19 belongs to the family of coronaviruses that cause disease in a variety of [...]

Two days later, and we are still counting the dead, accounting for the living and digging for the buried [...]

Russia’s apparent test-firing of an anti-satellite weapon in outer space on 15 July, as alleged by the US and Britain, could be dismissed as another of Vladimir Putin’s annoying provocations. That would be a mistake. The alleged new space weapon should be seen in the broader context of a rapidly evolving, hi-tech, [...]

I suppose now it’s become so normal for the police to stop black people – in London one in four young black men are affected – that it should be no surprise victims include gold medal-winning athletes and government [...]

In late 2013, in the village of Meliandou in rural Guinea, a group of children playing near a hollow tree disturbed a small colony of bats hiding inside. Scientists think that Emile Ouamouno, who later became the first tragic “index” case in the west African Ebola outbreak, was likely exposed to bat faeces while [...]

Leaders in China and the US seem nostalgic for the worst aspects of the 20th century. Following recent revelations about forced labour, family separation and the repression of Uighur births, there should be no doubt that the policies inflicted by the Chinese Communist party (CCP) on the indigenous central Asians it [...]

During the early years of the eurozone crisis, I remember gauging its depths by the rapidly diminishing half-life of the celebrations that followed every European Union summit. Premature proclamations that the crisis was over inspired hope, which caused the money markets to rebound. But then, at some point, gloom [...]

n Saturday, gyms in England will throw open their doors for the first time in four months. For people up and down the country who have been grieving the tangy smell of the weight-room floor, the involuntary grunts of their fellow gym-goers and the basement car park lighting, the wait is over. That boring guy from [...]

During Boris Johnson’s leadership campaign last summer, the health secretary, Matt Hancock, told us Johnson would “show some love” to public sector workers by giving them a proper pay [...]

On 24 July it becomes compulsory to wear face masks in shops and supermarkets in England. What determines how we can expect such measures to play out? Largely, three things: how confident we can be in the available evidence, the size of the estimated effect among a compliant population, and the degree of [...]