the headlines: russia s supreme court is set to rule on the fate of a second human rights organisation a day after banning one of the country s oldest for breaking the law on foreign agents. there have been protests outside the court while us secretary of state antony blinken has called it an affront to human rights. there s been a record number of covid infections in the us and a number of european countries as omicron continues to drive a huge surge in cases. the us recorded more than 440,000 cases on tuesday. france recorded almost 180,000. china says its astronauts are being put in danger of collision with satellites launched by elon musk. the spacex founder is facing a social media backlash in china after beijing claimed its space station had two near misses this year.
this is bbc news. i m david eades. our top stories: russia s supreme court bans one of the country smost renowned human rights organisations, sparking protests in moscow. the us records its highest daily numbers of covid cases since the start of the pandemic. china says its astronauts are being put in danger of a collision with satellites launched by elon musk. and once upon a time it was like that. but can broadway survive the closures this festive season, as covid wrecks the shows?
even if they aren t necessarily translating into rising hospitalisations yet. if this different approach in england pays off, borisjohnson could have that news welcomed, particularly by his own mps, who will welcome keeping the economy open. if it doesn t pay off and admissions continue to rise in the new year or staff shortages risk overwhelming the nhs, he could face being accused of putting politics above public health by some of his critics. russia s supreme court has ruled that the country s best known human rights group, memorial, must be disbanded for breaking the law on foreign agents. the organisation was founded in 1989 by soviet dissidents including nobel peace prize laureate andrei sakharov. it s the latest move against critics of the kremlin. our moscow correspondent steve rosenberg explained. you mentioned the foreign
and there is a court case indeed in a matter of a few hours, in fact, a supreme court looking at the validity of keeping that going. the assumption would be it will follow suit, it will be told to liquidate as well, and that s the point you make about chronicling current issues? absolutely. i mean, if you were a betting person, i think you could bet that the so called independent court in russia will find that memorial sister organisation, the human rights centre, is also as putin himself has described them an extremist organisation that supports terrorism simply by publishing a list of political prisoners in russia. so again, this is very bad, very bad for civil society in russia. simon adams there. as countries around the world struggle to contain the omicron variant, france has set europe s highest ever number of new daily covid i9 cases. here in the uk there has been another record number of infections for a single day, more than 129,000 cases reported in the last 2a hours.
this is bbc news. the headlines: russia s supreme court is set to rule on the fate of a second human rights organisation a day after banning one of the country s oldest for breaking the law on foreign agents. there have been protests outside the court while us secretary of state antony blinken has called it an affront to human rights. there s been a record number of covid infections in the us and a number of european countries as 0micron continues to drive a huge surge in cases. the us recorded more than 440,000 cases on tuesday. france recorded almost 180,000. china says its astronauts are being put in danger of collision with satellites launched by elon musk. the spacex founder is facing a social media backlash in china after beijing claimed its space station had two near misses this year.