to his ex—wife — princess haya ofjordan. and: a text back in time — the first ever text message has just been sold for $120,000. we start with the one issue that is on the minds of so many around the world at the moment — how to deal with the rapid spread of the 0micron variant. we still don't really know if the rise in cases seen in the uk, us and other countries will translate to a similar rise in deaths or severe illness. and that makes it difficult for governments to settle on a common response. on monday more countries announced their own measures in an attempt to keep case numbers manageable, while still allowing society to continue. in the us, president biden has announced a major increase in testing capacity, with half a billion rapid tests to be made available for free. israel has become the first country in the world to offer a fourth vaccine dose. it will be given first to the over—60s and to medical workers. and in england, people who test positive will be able to reduce their isolation period from ten days to just seven. we've got more on all of the those stories — first here's gary 0'donoghue with the latest from washington. more than two million people a day are travelling home for christmas through america's airports, and many of them are worried. the way i look at it is as long as we've been fully vaccinated and we're always masked up, we should be ok. but it's quite dangerous still. i don't think anything's100% safe unless you stay in your house the entire time, so, yeah. 0micron has exploded in the united states. in the space of two weeks, it's gone from less than i% of new cases to almost three quarters. so, for a second time in less than a month, president biden has announced more measures, extra vaccine sites and, in a change of direction, free home testing kits. i'm announcing today the federal government will purchase one half billion — that's not million, billion with a b — additional at—home rapid tests with delivery starting in january. we'll be getting these tests to americans for free. those free at—home tests won't be available until next month, so testing sites like this recreation centre are opening up all over the country. and 1,000 military, nurses and doctors are being readied in case the hospitals get overwhelmed. while cases have been rising sharply, one encouraging sign is that hospitalisations haven't gone up anything like as much as they did earlier in the pandemic. but infections amongst the unvaccinated could change all that. we've first got to get the 50 million or so people who are eligible to be vaccinated who've not gotten vaccinated. that is critical. if you want to keep the level of spread in the country as low as possible, which would get us back to some degree of normality, you've got to get those unvaccinated people vaccinated. in new york, they've seen record numbers of cases in the past few days, leading the mayor to offer a $100 incentive to those getting a boosterjab. it will not be a normal christmas once again. i've been discussing president biden plans to distribute 500 million coronavirus testing kits with dr craig spencer. he's the director of global health in emergency medicine at columbia university medical center. mueller at�*s certainly a positive step. everyone they know has been looking for tests over the past few weeks and really months. it has been incredibly difficult for us to buy test, it is incredibly expensive. i took to people here and let them know that in the uk you can walk into a pharmacy and get them and order them online. in the us you're talking ten, 15, $25 a test sometimes. that's if you can find them on the shelves. this makes it really difficult for people to stay safe when they do indoor gatherings and i'm particularly concerned about the upcoming holidays. so 500 million test is great but that's about 1.5 tests for every single american and those aren't going to start being rolled out until next month. i'm sure the first supply is going to be immediately gone and by then we're going to have hundreds of thousands more cases. do you think it is inevitable to keep those tests being provided at no cost? this is something that was unfortunately mocked just a few weeks ago by the white house press secretary, when pushed, public health experts like myself have been saying for a long time we need access to more testing and the white house responded, what we can do, give a test to everyone and then what? well now they are going to give a test and a half to everyone, and it's better than nothing and it will help expand through the defence protection act, because right now if you look online or you try to go into a pharmacy to get test, the great likelihood in the majority of the country is you are not going to find them. i can feel the frustration and your voice. stay with us because i want to refer to what is going on in israel. that has become the first country in the world to make a fourth dose of the coronavirus vaccine widely available. it is ahead of the rest of the field, if you like. 0ffered first of all to be below the age of 60 and medical workers. the country's minister naftali bennett welcomes the news and said the measure would help get through the omicron wave that engulfing the world. well, i want to ask you about this, craig. every country has a duty to look after its own, i guess. would you be supportive of a fourth vaccination at this stage when let's be honest, there are large swathes of our earth who are seeing little or no vaccination opportunities. israel has been a testing ground for boosters throughout this pandemic. i look forward to reading the signs and seeing how they justify this but this is a zero—sum game. three quarters of all vaccine doses have gone to wealthy countries. less than 1% of them have gone to low income countries. yesterday i was talking to a friend of mine working in east africa who taking care of covid patients doesn't have enough ppe. he was trying to go to the capital to see if they had any vaccines but he thought that was unlikely. yes, we all have response ability to take care of our own but we saw what happened with a crime. it came from a population in southern africa and spread worldwide —— what happened with 0micron. the best way to prevent it is to get the well vaccinated. we have been calling for the world to do this for over the past year, part1.5 years, and although there has been some mmp although there has been some ramp up in really the motivation to do so, it is still not enough. we need to get more done much quicker otherwise we're going to be in the scenario again. we're not going to boost our way out this pandemic. if you want to find out more about why boosters work against the 0micron variant, certainly better than two doses, our health correspondent james gallagher has written about it in detail on our website. there's lots more too about what we do and don't know about the 0micron variant. find it all on the bbc news app or on our website at bbc.com/news. one other line to bring you from here in england — new isolation guidelines have been announced, which will allow people who have tested positive for covid—19 to reduce their self—isolation from ten days to seven. here's the uk health secretary sajid javid. we want to reduce the disruption to people's everyday lives caused by the pandemic, so today we will be cutting the self isolation period from ten days to seven days for those people that take a lateral flow test on day six and day seven and the result of both those tests are negative. this decision has been informed by the advice from our clinicians at the uk health security agency who have looked at this very carefully and they are very comfortable, that the protection that is provided by making this change so that people can leave isolation after day seven as long as they have taken these two lateral flow tests and the results are negative, that the protection it provides is very similar to ten days of isolation without test. germany has become the latest european country to tighten its coronavirus restrictions — although the new measures won't come into force until after christmas. private gatherings will be limited to ten people from the 28th of december, nightclubs will be closed, and large organised events, including the bundesliga football matches, will take place behind closed doors. let's get some of the day's other news. michael flynn — a longtime adviser to former us president donald trump — is suing the congressional committee investigating the deadly january 6 attack on the us capitol. mr flynn's lawsuit alleges that a subpoena issued to him was too broad in scope, and punishes him for constitutionally protected speech he engaged in as a private citizen. the worst flooding malaysia has seen in decades has left at least 17 dead — with fears that number will rise. three days of torrential rain has partially submerged entire towns and villages, forcing 60,000 people from their homes. government agencies have been accused of failing to issue storm warnings or send enough support. parliament in ghana has been suspended untiljanuary following monday's session in which mps traded punches in a late night vote on a new electronics transaction tax. the proposal — which would include taxes on mobile money payments — has divided the house for months. denmark's former immigration minister inger stojberg, who ordered the separation of under—age couples seeking asylum in 2016, has been voted out of parliament. stojberg was handed a 60—day prison sentence last week by an impeachment court. mark lobel reports. measures to discourage migrant arrivals to europe over the past few years have often seemed controversial. in denmark in particular, they've tried to pull up the drawbridge. they've confiscated valuables from arriving refugees, created a three—year wait until relatives can join and at one point separated young, married refugees. measures prompted by the 2015 refugee crisis when over1 million entered europe via greece and italy, with many seeking asylum further north including in denmark. inger stojberg was immigration minister at the time. over the past two years she has been investigated over the legality of her 2016 decision to separate 23 married refugees under 18 years old from their spouses. she said it was to combat child marriages but her separation policy led some migrants to reportedly feel suicidal, living apart for months. bell rings. last week, she was convicted in an impeachment court and sentenced to 60 days' detention for failing to adhere to danish and human rights law, that each case must be assessed individually. fellow parliamentarians decided on monday that enough was enough. translation: it is incompatible with the office as a member- of parliament to have received an unconditional prison sentence. a majority voted to remove the independent mp but she remains defiant. translation: i actually believe | that one has a moral obligation| to protect child brides when they come here. once i have served my sentence i can return, it could also be here. some commentators believe monday's verdict may galvanise her supporters on the right wing of politics but this rare case also underlines the consequences for ministers who do not comply with the law. mark lobel, bbc news. stay with us on bbc news, still to come: we'll tell you why the national hockey league looks poised to pull out of february's winter olympics in beijing. the world of music has been paying tribute to george michael, who's died from suspected heart failure at the age of 53. he sold well over 100 million albums in a career spanning more than three decades. the united states' troops have been trying to overthrow the dictatorship of general manuel noriega. the pentagon said that it's failed in its principle objective to capture noriega and take him to the united states to face drugs charges. the hammer and sickle| was hastily taken away. m its place. — the russian flag was hoisted over what is now— no longer the soviet union, but the commonwealth of independent states. | day broke slowly over lockerbie, over the cockpit of pan am's maid of the seas, nosedown in the soft earth. you could see what happens when a plane eight storeys high, a football pitch wide falls from 30,000 feet. christmas has returned to albania after a communist ban lasting more than 20 years. thousands went to midnight mass in the town of shkoder, where there were anti—communist riots ten days ago. this is bbc news. the latest headlines: president biden announces new measures to tackle the omicron variant, promising free testing and 10,000 new vaccination sites. israel becomes the first country in the world to make a fourth dose of the coronavirus vaccine available. what's thought to be the largest divorce settlement in british legal history has been agreed. a high courtjudge has awarded around $725 million to princess haya ofjordan, in a long—running dispute with herformer husband, sheikh mohammed, the ruler of dubai. our security correspondent frank gardner has more on an extraordinary case. this is pretty much the culmination of a very long—running court battle between one of the world's richest men, sheikh mohammed bin rashid al maktoum, who is a huge figure in the horse racing world. he is also the ruler of dubai, and the youngest of his six wives, now ex—wife, princess haya ofjordan, daughter of king hussein ofjordan. as you said earlier, she fled to britain in early 2019 with her two children, saying she was terrified. a gun was placed in her room with a bullet in it. a helicopter landed on the lawn of her palace with somebody saying that he had orders to take her out to a prison in the middle the desert. all because she said she discovered what had happened to other daughters of the ruler of dubai who had been abducted. he has denied this, but the high court here in britain stood this up. it didn't probably help her case that she had an affair with her bodyguard, and when that was discovered, he was understandably very angry, wrote a poem that went public called you lived, you died, and she interpreted that as a death threat. she fled to britain where she continued to get threats from anonymous people saying we can reach you wherever. she took the case to court to try to safeguard, to put in place, which she has now got today, a huge financial settlement to safeguard her security and that of her two children, because she worries that harm will come to her and that they will be abducted. he has issued a statement saying he has only ever wished to provide the best for his children and he has nothing more to say about this case. the national hockey league looks poised to pull out of the winter olympics which get under way in beijing in february. the move would see the omission of some of the world's top ice hockey players from the competition, as concerns surrounding covid—19 and the impacts on the remainder of the nhl season increase. greg wyshynski is the senior nhl writer at espn. hejoined me to explain what's behind the move. they have never been big fans of the olympics interrupting their season and they see no benefit for the game. they cannot even put an nhl logo on the ice anywhere. but in this case it has to do with the material interruption of the nhl season due to covid—19. players and owners collectively bargain to allow players to return to the olympics for the first time since 2014 in the beijing games of 2022 and then again in 2026. the problem is that the nhl also said, look, as long as our regular season can be played through without any problem we will let you go. right now the nhl has postponed 50 games so far of the regular season and they say that that is enough to have to use the olympic break to make up some of those games, play some games and make sure that they can play a full schedule. i see the challenge. it is interesting because we think of the north american league so the canadians and americans will be affected but it is much wider than that, isn't it? this is the epicentre of the best players in the world. players represent the countries when they are allowed to in the olympics. sweden, most of their roster are nhl players. same for the finnish. the same for russia. players right across the men's ice hockey tournament. so the national hockey league pulling its star players out of the beijing games not only impacts the quality of play but it will also impact the amount of interest this tournament gets. first hand i can tell you here in north america the men's international tournament in the olympics where there is russia and germany in the final, you couldn't find a person that cared about that final here in north america. that is just the nature of the beast, isn't it? what about the players? do they feel robbed? how do they feel about it? they are massively disappointed. they entered into the agreement knowing that there was a chance the covid—19 would interrupt the season and that they may lose a chance to play in the olympics. but it is a huge disappointment. you have star players in the league who have not gotten the chance to represent their country in the olympics, star players like alex who is chasing wayne gretzky�*s all—time goal record, who has been chasing a gold medalfor his entire careerfor russia. there are young players who feel they could get another shot at this in 2026 but one who is expected to be the starting centre for the united states said, look, i might not necessarily still be the starter for my nation in four years' time. so across the board there is disappointment and regret that covid—19 has caused this kind of interruption. the largest us exhibition by the artist laurie anderson is under way at the hirshhorn museum in washington dc. in this immersive art experience, she blends both avant garde and popular culture and guides her visitors through performance art and multimedia projects. she spoke to the bbc�*s bill mckenna about the exhibition and herfive decade long career. and a warning that this report does contain some flashing images. this exhibition is called the weather and is dedicated to john cage because he saw a life more like weather than objects and i do as well. so it is always changing, it surrounds you, it is never boring. my name is laurie anderson and i am an artist. i make a lot of different kinds of things. mostly they come from stories, sometimes paintings, sometimes they look like films, sometimes they are books. and sometimes they are electronic experiments. you can create these songs out of the raw materials of sounds and words. some of those things in the show are little and some are very big. you have to be there to see that. the show begins with a dance about a drum machine, becoming a drum machine, hitting the body and making sounds of a drum which is something i was trying to fix. i am just a dabbler and a tinkerer so when things break i wonder what it could do now, something different. at the end of the show there is a tableaux which you listen to through bone conduction so music comes through your bones. my motivations for doing work are many, sometimes sometimes it isjust to make something so heartbreakingly beautiful and not translatable. and other times i have other motives which is my own idea ofjustice. it's political, of course, but i do not claim to be a political artist. it is very difficult to change people's minds. you have to be much sneakier than that if you are going to work with political ideas. each track of the record is a sustained note. there were also several fits. where you can do a little scratching of the theme as well. for me, painting is exactly like playing a violin. is it too loud, is it to beautiful? is it not sharp enough? all of the things you ask yourself about a piece of music i asked myself when i do the painting. it is a very physical thing as well. i don't really see the difference, for me as an artist in making these things. they are very much the same. they may seem a little old—fashioned these days but when they first pinged onto our phones, text messages were the last word in cool. now the first text ever sent has been sold, for more than $120,000. it was auctioned in paris as a non—fungible token. nina nanji reports. text messaging, it's hard to imagine a world without it, but do you know when people first started texting each other? it was almost 30 years ago, in december1992. and that first message simply said, "merry christmas." translation: engineering teams were working in the 1990s - to develop the technology to transmit sms messages, and on december 3, 1992, neil papworth, who was part of this engineering team, seen from his computer the sms "merry christmas" to a vodafone manager in the united kingdom. now that piece of digital history has gone under the hammer. it was sold by vodafone for $120,600 in the form of a non—fungible token, or nft. nfts are a type of digital asset that has surged in popularity this year, with nft artwork selling for millions of dollars. the buyer, whose identity was not disclosed, will receive the replica of the original communication protocol that transmitted the sms. vodafone says it plans to donate its proceeds from the sale to the united nations refugee agency. nina nanji, bbc news. that is bbc news. you can reach me on twitter — i'm @ bbc david eades hello again. well, we're going to see some changes in our weather pattern through wednesday as this area of cloud that's just out in the atlantic starts to encroach. that will eventually bring some rain, particularly into western areas, with milder southerly winds spreading in as well. before we get there, though, it's a chilly start to the day with some patches of frost for central and eastern areas of the country. in some of the deeper valleys in scotland, we're seeing temperatures of, what, —9, —10 degrees, so a very cold start here. now, through wednesday, as i say, this area of rain is on the way, and it's going to be arriving pretty quickly in northern ireland accompanied by those strengthening southerly winds. so, it will be turning progressively milder here pretty quickly through the day. elsewhere, a few brighter spells across central and eastern england, perhaps for northern scotland, too, but generally a lot of cloud further west with that rain continuing to push its way northwards and eastwards through the day. top temperatures around about 4—7 for many, but as that rain bumps into that colder air, well, some of those valleys could still have temperatures below freezing. so, there is a risk, and quite a significant risk i think, of seeing icy conditions out on the roads through wednesday evening, either due to freezing rain or rain falling on frozen surfaces. now, for thursday, we've got another weather front that's set to move its way in. now, i think it may well start off with rather murky conditions across much of the country, a few mist and fog patches over the hills, and rain. well, that rain's going to be heavier, particularly swinging across northern ireland, northern england, into parts of scotland as well. very mild in the south, 13 degrees, but we're starting to get some colder air spreading into the far north of the uk. and for christmas eve, we'll continue to have those kind of temperature contrasts. another weather front, this one concentrating rain across northern ireland, wales and the south—west of england, still with mild air here. further north, we've got those chillier conditions with wintry showers beginning to spread in across the northern isles. and for saturday, which of course is christmas day, we're going to have this battle zone somewhere across the uk. now, this is not set in stone. it could move a little bit further southwards perhaps over the next few days. for the north of the uk, we may well see a few snow showers, that is a possibility. the south—west more likely to see cloudy skies, grey conditions, rain and mild weather. and there's a small chance we could see something a little bit more disruptive, but itjust depends where this boundary ends up being. at the moment, it's here. cold air to the north, milder in the south west, but watch this space. this is bbc news, the headlines: president biden has announced new measures to tackle the omicron variant, which is sweeping across the united states. mr biden is promising free testing and 10,000 new vaccination sites. he's also urged the public to get vaccinated as soon as possible. israel has become the first country in the world to make a fourth dose of the coronavirus vaccine available. it will be offered first to people over the age of sixty and medical workers. the country's prime minister, naftali bennett, says the measure will help get through the omicron wave. new covid guidance has come into force across england with infected people now having to self—isolate for 7 days — rather than 10. the health secretary said it was based on advice from health experts. scotland, wales, and northern ireland have yet to decide whether they will follow suit.