Top stories
Lead: A group of clinicians and scientists has urged the World Health Organization to recommend respirator-grade masks for all patient-facing clinical encounters, arguing that surgical masks offer insufficient protection against flu-like and Covid-style airborne infections. The appeal, sent to WHO director-general Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and published 9 January 2026, says respirators such as FFP2/FFP3 … Read more
Lead: On Friday a powerful Atlantic low named Storm Goretti swept across southwestern Britain and northwestern France, bringing extreme winds, heavy rain and snow that cut power to hundreds of thousands and disrupted travel across multiple countries. The system lashed the Isles of Scilly with gusts up to 99 mph (159 kph) and produced a … Read more
Amazon announced on Friday that its digital pharmacy will begin offering Novo Nordisk’s newly launched oral version of Wegovy in the United States, joining more than 70,000 retail pharmacies and several telehealth providers. Novo Nordisk began rolling out the pill in the U.S. earlier in the week, with a cash starting dose of $149 per … Read more
As technology shares climbed in early 2026, many founders and senior executives with concentrated holdings sought ways to reduce single‑stock risk without triggering large capital gains. Financial advisers and wealth managers say exchange funds — pooled vehicles that swap concentrated positions for a pro rata interest in a diversified partnership — are an increasingly popular … Read more
Lead: Elon Musk’s AI company xAI announced on January 8, 2026, that it will invest $20 billion to build a data center called MACROHARDRR in Southaven, DeSoto County, Mississippi, near Memphis. The governor of Mississippi described the project as the largest private investment in state history and said operations are expected to begin next month. … Read more
January 9, 2026 — Satellite and crewed-space imagery show iceberg A23a, once about 4,000 square kilometers and at times twice the size of Rhode Island, now drenched in blue meltwater and deteriorating rapidly as it drifts in the South Atlantic off the eastern tip of South America. NASA reported images taken on Dec. 26 and … Read more
Lead Pope Leo XIV, the first United States–born pope, delivered a high-profile address to the international diplomatic corps at the Vatican on January 9, 2026, warning that the post–World War II prohibition on cross‑border force has been eroded. Speaking in his native English before ambassadors gathered in the Apostolic Palace, he highlighted rising tensions in … Read more
Lead U.S. health authorities are assembling evidence to show recent measles outbreaks, including those in South Carolina and along the Arizona–Utah border, are separate importations and not continuations of a major Texas outbreak that began in January 2025. The determination matters because the United States has held World Health Organization measles elimination status since 2000 … Read more
On her 44th birthday, the Princess of Wales released the final short film in a four-part video series reflecting on nature’s restorative effects. The footage, shot around the UK, pairs winter landscapes with her personal reflections as she continues recovering after cancer treatment. In the clip she frames the natural world as a quiet teacher … Read more
Researchers at University College London say new Alzheimer’s treatments should focus on two risk-raising variants of the APOE gene, arguing that neutralising their harmful effects could prevent the majority of cases. The claim follows the arrival of drugs that remove toxic brain proteins but deliver only modest clinical benefit and have been rejected for broad … Read more
Three years after his death in 2023 at age 73, Tom Verlaine’s creative estate — packed in 35 cardboard boxes from a modest Manhattan apartment — has been acquired by the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. The collection, transferred by Jutta Koether, Verlaine’s longtime partner and executor, includes 145 notebooks, lyric drafts, … Read more
Lead Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, signaled on Friday that security forces would move against nationwide demonstrators, accusing them of damaging public property to curry favor with U.S. President Donald Trump. The comments came as Iran’s judiciary chief, Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei, vowed strict, uncompromising punishment for participants. Despite a near-total communications blackout, activists shared short … Read more
Lead: A nationwide NPR/Ipsos poll conducted in December finds a large majority of Americans—61%—believe the United States should be the world’s moral leader, yet only 39% say it presently fills that role. That 39% mark is down sharply from 60% in a comparable 2017 survey. The poll, fielded ahead of the Jan. 3, 2026 U.S. … Read more
Lead: The UK government on Friday condemned X’s decision to restrict Grok’s image-editing features to paying subscribers after widespread complaints that the AI produced sexualised, non-consensual images. Officials and survivors’ groups said the move — announced amid reports of images generated or altered without consent — risks treating a public-harm problem as a premium feature. … Read more
Researchers warn that, in a worst-case emergency such as an extreme solar storm, satellites circling Earth could begin colliding in under three days — a dramatic reduction from seven years ago that shortens response windows for operators worldwide. A newly proposed metric, the Collision Realization And Significant Harm (CRASH) Clock, estimates how long it would … Read more
